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sun-spark · 5 years ago

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Shadow's of the Past Haunt and Creative Monsters Hide

In celebration of a new Sander Sides Episode, I finally finished editing the 36 page fic that has been completed since March of 2018. Yes, 2 years. No, don’t ask and take it up with my depression.

Summary:

Directly 'After Can Lying Be Good?' Thomas and the sides make an effort to accept Deceit as part of their famILY and see past his function to his personality, much like they did with Virgil, not wanting to have a repeat of when the anxious trait had disappeared with Deceit. As the half-snake gets more comfortable with them Thomas starts to notice that he is always tense, waiting for something, and he intends to find out what it is. Before he can ask carefully the thing Deceit was afraid of comes back from eh past to haunt them all.

The mysterious thing from Deceit and Virgil's isn't the only thing to return, as Roman loses control and is forced to deal with his other half, long hidden and unknown to the others...well most of them.

Warnings: Reference/Past Abuse (Verbal, Physical, Emotional) - This is stated not described.

Tags: Sympathetic Deceit, Protective Thomas, Protective Virgil, Protective Roman, Protective Logan, Caring Patton, Hurt Deceit, Hurt Roman, Hurt Virgil, Hidden Side, Hurt/Comfort, FamILY, Healing, Trauma, Trauma Recovery, Angst.

Ao3 Link: Here

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

It was hardly easy, but Thomas had been making an effort to make Deceit feel like part of the family, as had the others, not wishing to repeat what had happened with Virgil. True, none of them were particularly fond of what he represented, but they attempted to set aside his function and focus on the person behind it, and they had to admit that sometimes his function was self-preservation for Thomas’ sake rather than a source of darkness. It was a rocky journey to be sure, unlearning stiff morals they’d had ingrained from childhood. It had taken some time for Deceit to drop his walls and let them in, to stop snarling and spitting lies dripping with cruelty every time they addressed him.

Things were better, though still tense. Patton took to it the best, practically shoveling food at his new ‘snakey-kiddo’ when he realized how thin he was, and layering blankets on top of him at every random interval. The abrupt and energetic affection made Deceit jumpy and elicited many hisses out of him, but he soon learned to just accept it, startling a bit and settling with an eye-roll as Patton bumbled around him affectionately.

Logan had “seen the logic in treating the other as a member of the group rather than ostracizing him, after all his function is not to harm you or us, Thomas” and had, as such, made an effort to converse with the lying trait whenever possible. It had been frustrating for both of them, Deceit not used to calm conversation that didn’t hide danger, and Logan annoyed at having to flip all of Deceit’s words around to mean the opposite. It didn’t help when Patton laughed gleefully and said he was “proud of his kiddos for playing opposites!”

Virgil, oddly, had been both the worst and the best of them. He knew what it was like to be shunned and hated for a nature he couldn’t change, but Deceit’s very nature made him uneasy. Their attempts at cohabitation had been halting and tense at first, but eventually they settled into a truce on the common ground of them both acting to keep Thomas safe above all else, even if neither of them liked how the other went about it. These two could often be found silently curled up near each other, sharing the silence as they read or scrolled through their phones. To the others, it seemed tense, but Deceit and Virgil both appreciated the calm nature of their time together.

Thomas had shocked all of them when he had not only been the first one to suggest they include Deceit, but when he had gone the extra length of summoning the half-snake for the sole purpose of keeping him company. All of them, especially Deceit, had expected their host to be hostile towards the manifestation of his deception, but apparently the young man’s kindness had won over his apprehension.

Deceit spent nearly a month waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for Patton to disown him, which had admittedly come to a few close calls with the strict-moral compass the side had. Waiting for Logan to snap and yell at him in anger, shunning him permanently and attacking his core with cold facts. Waiting for Virgil to finally bare his teeth and tear at him with claws and teeth alike. Waiting for Thomas to either admit it was helpless or drop the charade of pretending he didn’t despise everything Deceit was. But it never happened, none of it, and, albeit haltingly, Deceit started to hope that maybe he was truly welcome.

The only problem was Roman, and Thomas became aware of this as Deceit began popping up more and more often, unbidden and uncalled. He didn’t really mind, the half-snake wasn’t obtrusive, and he seemed kind of lonely when he first showed up, though he denied that relentlessly. At first, he thought his Deceitful side was just more comfortable with him, that he was beginning to feel more included, and that had made him happy, but then little things had started to catch his notice. Deceit still startled when Patton popped up, but he began looking around with wide eyes, every muscles tense, as if waiting for an attack, even though Patton wanted nothing more than to wrap him in blankets, knowing the half-snake ran cold. He tensed when Logan rose up to speak with him, eyes darting to the corner nervously as he carried on the conversation, and Thomas watched, noting how he seemed ready to bolt. When Virgil appeared and flopped on the couch next to him, Deceit jumped before settling, but his eyes stayed on the tv, though nothing played on its black surface. Thomas hung back and observed, frowning as the progress they had made seemed to be erasing itself, replaced with an ever-growing fear.

He had pulled Virgil aside briefly and asked him about it, but the dark trait had only shrugged. “He’s worried about somethin’. Darn near terrified, but I dunno what.”

That hadn’t been the answer he wanted, but it was the only one Virgil had to give, so Thomas resigned himself to watching and taking note of Deceit’s reactions to, and interactions with, the others. He watched for nearly another month after the first, silently taking it all in to examine later. More than one night found him without sleep as the niggling pit of worry in his stomach kept his focus. As he stared at his ceiling late in the night, he would examined Deceit’s reactions to each side in turn, and how their interactions had changed. Thing was, at nearly three months since they had accepted him as part of the family, they hadn’t changed in any massive way. He still quietly submitted to Patton’s excessive affection with eye-rolls and snarky comments. He still sat in companionable silence with Virgil with occasional conversation and sibling-esq bickering. He still debated with Logan, and while that had not become less tense, it also had not become more so. He and Roman…Thomas sat up wide-eyed with realization.

Three months and he had never seen Deceit interact with Roman outside of a few videos. Indeed, the snake-like side had always managed to disappear when the fanciful side showed up to talk with Thomas or one of the others when they were manifested. He would go silent and slip away as quietly as he could, while Roman held the attention of everyone else, not to reappear until Roman was gone once again. He thought about it for a moment, a sick feeling twisting in his gut. When one side showed up Deceit would scan the area where the others normally stood, as well as the rest of the room, before turning his attention to his companion, panic lessening only when his scan was complete. His eyes were always drawn to the corner, to the tv, whether it played something or not...where Roman usually stood. Thomas had seen that mentions of Disney or theatre, or any point that usually sparked an argument with the creative trait elicited muted panic from Deceit. He just hadn’t made the connection, assuming that Deceit either didn’t enjoy Disney films or loud conflict.

Thomas frowned as he lay back down. Was Roman acting toward Deceit as he once had Virgil? He had hoped that Roman had learned better than that by now. Or perhaps things were merely tense between them because of Deceit’s manipulation of the creative trait months ago? He wanted an answer to these questions, but…. he sighed, he wasn’t going to summon them and risk accidentally cornering Deceit and making him panic with his queries. Or getting Roman defensive and hostile. He would wait, he wasn’t sure for how long, but he needed a better plan than that.

***

As fate would have it, finicky mistress with a twisted sense of humor that she was, he never got to make a better plan, though he did get the answers to his questions, just not how he would have liked.

Very rarely did all the sides, or even more than one or two of them, gather in Thomas’s physical living room if they were not filming a video or if he wasn’t having a crisis, but today was different. Thomas was relaxing on the couch, Logan was reading a novel in the armchair, Patton was ‘doing’ a puzzle on the floor, meaning he was haphazardly putting the pieces together, Virgil was curled up on the other couch on his phone, and Deceit was contentedly curled up under Thomas’s arm like an adorable puppy, half asleep. He’d figured out rather quickly after Deceit had started to trust them that the half-snake trait got cold very easily and would take almost any excuse to leech body heat from someone else, not that Thomas or Virgil, his usual ‘victims’, minded. The only one missing from their gathering was Roman. That was soon to change as the Prince rose in his regular spot, boisterous voice filling the room without warning.

“Thomas! About the next video, I was just thinking, and we should totally-“ he stopped as his eyes fell on Deceit, who had gone tense and wide-eyed but was unable to sink out, held as he was to Thomas’s side. Roman crossed his arms over his chest, both eyes and tone falling flat and cold. “What is he doing here?”

Thomas’s brow tic’ed up as he looked at Roman, his own voice betraying nothing of his sudden annoyance. “He spends quite a bit of time here, Roman, which you’d know if you spent any time with him.” It was a mild reproach for not making an effort, and he certainly wasn’t expecting the response he got as the prince’s eyes quite literally flashed an amber color in anger before returning to brown.

“Spend time with him?” Ah, well, storms were so often calm before they roared. “Why the hell would I want to spend time with that vermin?!” The prince spat. Deceit curled into Thomas’s side as Virgil grit his teeth, unconsciously settling into a tense posture, fight or flight gearing up. To his side, Logan set his book down, cold steel in calm eyes as he gazed between Roman and Deceit. Patton went still, trembling as if sadness and anger and shock were warring inside him and he couldn’t decide which to settle on. Thomas leveled a glare at roman.

“What. Was. That?” Virgil flinched minutely, having never heard such an icy hard tone from the normally joyful man, but Thomas paid him no mind as his attention remained on a now agog Roman. The fanciful side recovered from his shock quickly, red flushing his features with anger, venom rivaling any snake’s lacing his words. “You heard me, Thomas.” He scoffed “I have no wish to consort with the likes of that snake. I fail to see why you would!”

Thomas tightened his arm around Deceit ever so slightly, stopping the increasingly nervous side from leaving. “I wish to spend time with Deceit because he is a part of me. Part of me that I care about. And he is far more than his job Roman, which you would know if you made any effort to know him.”

Roman scoffed, a hand waving through the air dismissively. “Oh please, Thomas! He is a villain. There is not a single good thing he can do. All he does is lie and hurt us, and you, and your friends when he influences you! He is a dark side!”

No one noticed Virgil flinch a second time, wounded eyes glaring at Roman. Deceit couldn’t take anymore, he had had enough. He lurched off the couch, tearing himself from Thomas’s grip, teeth bared and eyes glaring furiously as he stood before Roman, the several feet between them irrelevant as he spat. “And you most certainly aren’t one yourself, Pride!”

Deceit went still, his eyes going wide as the blood drained from his face. He clapped a hand over his own mouth, terror at his own words clear as he began shaking. Logan stared at him, emotionless and evaluating, while Patton was momentarily jolted out of his inner conflict for sorrow or rage by shock. Virgil jolted into a standing position, fight or flight thrown into overdrive to the point of short-circuiting, eyes widening to show more white than color as his gaze locked onto Roman, seeing him in a way he hadn’t before. Roman, for his part, had gone still, ice creeping in where a moment ago there had been fire. Everything remained still a moment, a single long echoing click sounding through the room as the clock’s hand moved, before the tense silence was broken as Roman audibly snarled. He lunged forward and grasped the sides of Deceit’s collar, lips pulled back in a snarl. “You take that back you foul creature! I am not like you!”

Thomas stood quickly, Roman’s name catching on his tongue, as Virgil made a jerky movement forward and halted again, fight to flight unsure how to handle the current situation as memories of another royal side flooded his memory, blocking his desperate wish to protect Deceit. Patton stood with a cry of “Roman-!” but stumbled and Logan gripped the sides of his chair with white knuckles, eyes fastened unblinkingly on the dispute before him, ready to move should he need to, but unwilling to act before he understood what the hell was going on.

Deceit, despite his trembling, bit back his fear, figuring the only way to handle this was to face the monster he had just unchained, though his anger may have fueled that particular, ill-advised, plan. He pulled his lips back in a snarl of his own, glaring furiously at the other. “What? Don’t want everyone else to see you for who you aren’t?” He got his footing, regaining his balance despite Roman’s hold on him. “Or don’t you want to not look at yourself?” His tone turned mocking, despite the hatred in his sneer and the fear in his chest. “Pity, you used to ~love~ nothing more, what with all those mirrors you didn’t used to have in your room, Pride.”

Roman’s eyes flashed in pure rage, a snarling growl wrenching out of his throat as he pulled Deceit closer to him roughly, one hand raised into a fist as if to strike the smaller side. “That is not my name!” He roared furiously.

Deceit looked up into no longer brown eyes, seeing the chains falling away and the creature so long caged inside coming out. He began to shake in earnest, mindless terror wiping any trace of bravery from his being.

Thomas moved, quickly grabbing hold of Deceit’s shoulders and pulling him back sharply, resulting in the smaller stumbling back and landing against their host’s chest. Thomas’s arms encircled him protectively as he stared at the enraged side before him, shock, but not quite fear lancing through his tone. “Roman! That is enough!”

The side in questions growled, stalking forward a step, his eyes only for Deceit. Patton’s eyes caught on Roman’s chest and he stumbled up from the floor, a cry on his lips as worry won out over rage and sorrow both. “Roman, stop it!” He made to grab the other, but Logan stood swiftly, an arm outstretched to stop the movement. Patton stopped and stared at him wide-eyed, Logan only shook his head silently. The moral side swallowed thickly and nodded, holding still. Thomas bared his teeth. “Princey, I’m warning you, enough already!”

The royal trait paid him no mind, gaze locked on the half-snake trait who was pressing back against Thomas fearfully, yet meeting his eyes defiantly. He’d be damned if he was going to go out sniveling. Virgil’s fight-or-flight response finally pulled out of its spiraling nose dive and he jolted forward through the step he had frozen halfway through. He stared at Roman, eyes wide with fright, chest beginning to heave in preparation to hyperventilate, still, he kept his tone even, dripping in panic though it was. “Roman.” The other didn’t acknowledge him. ‘Damn it. He can’t be! Please, he can’t!! …but his eyes…’ he took a shaky breath and stalled his mounting panic.

“Roman. Your eyes are red.” Red. Orange. Gold. Amber. Colored like fire and shifting wildly in rage.

Roman jerked back as if physically struck, eyes breaking away from Deceit and flying to Virgil in near panic. “No.” His voice was tight, fear coating it, freezing the flames of his rage. ‘nononononono!!! Not again! No! This can’t be happening….this is just a nightmare! Not real, notrealnotrealnotrealnonononono!’ he stumbled back, hands tangling in his own hair as his breaths began to come in short bursts, half the words in his head, the other mumbled frantically.

Patton’s timid voice filtered through his racing thoughts from where the father figure was protectively held behind Logan’s side. “Ro…what’s wrong with your chest?”

Roman’s eyes flew to his chest, wide and panicked, and took in a sight he’d hoped never to see again. An inky blackness was seeping through his pristine white clothes, a pinprick starting over his heart, spreading out like an oil spill. It clung to him and stretched, arching away from his body like a living darkness. He stumbled back another step, panic clear in every line of his body as his hands frantically clawed at the darkness, trying desperately to tear it away from himself. “N-no! I-I” His eyes flew to Thomas and back to his chest. “I-I have to go!”

He popped out of existence in the manner Virgil and Deceit did, not risking the time it would have taken to sink out, ignoring frantic twin calls of his name from Patton and Thomas. He reappeared in his theatre, center stage under blinding spotlights, the world around him a haze of yellow light and the blurred shapes of the darkened auditorium.

He looked down at his chest and his thought were overrun by panic.

‘No, not again!’

Inky blackness, living darkness.

‘I threw you out! Not again!’

Rising from his breast, from his heart.

‘I can’t!’

It arches around him, living, breathing,

‘I banished you!’

It slid over his skin, caressing him, surrounding him, he tore at it, felt it choking him.

Y-you can’t have me, not again!’

Like the greeting of a lover,

‘D-don't! Stop!’

It covered him, suffocated him, he couldn’t claw it off,

‘Leave me alone!’

It seeped into his skin, slid down his throat, choking him, poisoning him as it filled his being.

‘I don’t want this, not again!’

It swirled around him in a vortex of darkness, sinking into him and changing him, warping him into something else. When all stood still, silence reigned.

‘Well hello there~.’

Where Roman had stood was a slightly taller man, dressed in black robes not unlike those the creative side normally wore, intricate golden buttons and cords decorating the fabric, and a crimson cape draped around his shoulders in place of the scarlet sash the prince was known for, falling to brush the heels of polished black boots trimmed with delicate golden chains. The spotlights fell on him, their light striking perfect skin and sharper features, pale pink lips curled in a sharp smile. He stood tall, chin held high, power radiating from his posture. A crown of silver and black rested on his head, impossibly deep, blood-red jewels set around its circumference, sucking in all the light that hit them.

“Roman. Roman!”

The figure cocked his head to the side jerkily. He hadn’t been able to hear the calls during his transformation, but now that he looked, he could see the others and their host standing on the side of the stage, watching him in varying degrees of shock, curiosity and horror. His moves were lithe and graceful as he turned dark flame-red eyes on them.

“Well, well, what have we here?” He purred in a voice deep and soft like velvet, it felt like ice sliding down Virgil’s spine, clawed poison stealing his breath away while it snapped his spine. The man grinned as he stepped toward them, swaying with easy poise, presence filling the room in a manner that the great actors could only dream of achieving, and he purred, “Come to watch the show~?”

He stepped closer to them but did not leave the circle of light radiating from the spotlights, still standing center stage. His red gaze fell on Deceit and he sneered, voice cold and arrogant. “I suppose I ought to thank you for releasing me,” he sniffed turning his head away dismissively, “but I don’t make a habit of showing such kindnesses to lowly creatures such as you.”

Deceit, hiding behind Thomas, shrank back with a whimper, stumbling into the curtain as his body shook violently. Virgil’s protective instincts kicked in, overruling the dire need to run as far away from this thing as he could, and he stepped in front of the other, arms raised protectively as he stared wide-eyed at what had been Roman, panic racing in his veins. They both remembered quite well what this creature had considered ‘kindness’ to ‘lesser’ creatures, and the memories paralyzed them.

Thomas’s eyes flicked back to them in concern but wisely focused back on center stage. Perhaps not as wisely, he stepped forward and cleared his throat before meeting the stranger’s eyes. “What is going on?”

The figure smiled brightly, “Oh just a show, that’s all!” He said it almost jovially as he turned toward the front of the stage, half facing them, flicking a hand dismissively. “Any great actor must master the art of transformation, as you’ve just witnessed. Sadly,” he sighed forlornly, but the smirk on his face was smug “few ever manage it~.”

Thomas frowned and went to speak but a second whimper cut him off, louder and more pitiful than terrified as Deceit’s had been. It emanated from a distraught Patton who was being held back once again by Logan’s outstretched arm. “Roman? Kiddo?”

The figure sneered disdainfully, and Virgil spoke up, the words he’d been trying to form finally spilling from his lips, squeezing their way through a panic choked throat. “Th-that’s not Roman Patt, tha-that’s-” he choked off, breathes coming too quick and short to speak as flaring red eyes gazed coldly into his own. Deceit’s shaky voice sounded from behind him, filled with more terror than either logic or morality had ever thought possible, a whisper, a whimper, and a scream crushed together in his vocal cords to create this single syllable. “Pride.”

With all eyes back on him in varying degrees of concern, alarm, and fear, what once was Roman rolled his eyes. “Well!” He huffed “That introduction was just dismal!” He smiled wide and turned back to face Thomas, grace and arrogance dripping from his every pore as he raised a hand in a graceful arc so like the prince’s normal gestures but so much more sinister. “But indeed, I am ~Pride~.” He finished with a flare, and one might think he would have bowed dramatically with a sweeping gesture, but this man did not bow to anyone, not even his host.

Thomas glanced at the sides behind him, worry for their safety overtaking his penchant for resolving things with humor. He took a deep breath to steady himself and forced his eyes to meet those of Pride. “Roman? What is going on?”

The figure sneered. “‘Roman’?” He scoffed and waved a hand as if batting the offending name from the air. “What a pathetic name.” He drawled, “No, I am Romulus.” He finished dramatically, holding himself up like a king over his subjects.

Logan stood in preemptive protection before Patton, hummed as he often did before providing information. “‘Romulus’. Founder and first king of Rome. Considered in Roman myth to be among the most powerful and impressive men to ever live. Blessed by the divine and raised by wolves. Stronger and more accomplished than any general who followed after him. Killer of his own brother and descendant of the Roman gods and both Latin and Greek nobility.” Romulus smirked, but Logan continued, voice sharp. “Also one of the most highly conceited and foolish men to ever exist, if indeed he ever did.” The dark man sneered and looked as if he might leave his precious circle of light, if only long enough to strike Logan.

Thomas side-stepped ever so slightly and placed himself in front of the others as if to block them from Pride’s gaze. He pressed his lips together unhappily, keeping his tone even. “Where is Roman?”

A scoff preceded his answer. “I am Roman. Or rather, he is me, I came first after all.”

“Then why are you…. this version of you…here now?

The other hummed, tilting his head and swaying side to side as if bored with the whole conversation. “I simply saw no reason to continue as I was. Denying myself was quite…detrimental…” he frowned at speaking negatively of himself. “to my success. Honestly, why I ever bothered subduing myself so others would feel less inferior,” He broke off with a scoff and a shake of his head, burning red eyes glaring at Virgil and Deceit. “I’ll never know.” He waved a hand dismissively as he turned away, moving as if half remembering a dance. “But no need to worry Thomas! The work you share with the world will be beyond adequate, rather, it will be quite spectacular now that I no longer see a need to play nice.”

Thomas frowned but attempted the gentler approach he normally took when one of his traits was acting out. “Wha- hey now, no need for that. I’m sure we can all get along just fine without anyone feeling inferior.”

Pride rolled his eyes while Virgil grit his teeth, forcing out words past his chocking panic. “Thomas.” Brown eyes focused on the anxious trait curiously, and worriedly at the strangled sound. “He…he won’t listen… he’s Pride!” He said the name almost frantically, as if trying to convey the sheer depths of his terror through that one word alone. “He thrives off feeling superior…I…. we…” his voice broke and he stopped to take a breath. “Pride doesn’t play well with others Thomas, he can’t, not knowing he can never be good at their roles.” He had intended to say more but a vicious snarl cut him off and he flinched back violently, lowering into a crouch and pressing back against Deceit, who clung to him from behind, eyes flying to where Pride stood, fist curled at his side, looking for all the world like he might just cross the stage and attack Virgil.

“I thought I taught you manners brat.” He spat the cruel nickname, “or do you need to be taught again? You and your” he adopted a high, squeaky, mocking voice, as he tilted his head condescendingly, “precious little snake~?”

“Now that is enough!” Pride’s eyes tracked to Patton, the fatherly figure having stepped out from behind Logan just a bit, fists balled at his sides and anger in his eyes as his whole body trembled from the force of it. “You have no right to come here and threaten our family. Even Roman wouldn’t cross that line!”

Pride smiled, mocking and sickeningly sweet, bouncing once on the balls of his feet and clapping three times in mock excitement - a mockery of Patton’s usual gestures. “Oh Morality, so you finally grew a spine, hmm? Shame it doesn’t make an appearance when your lungs are being crushed by depression, eh?” His smile grew wider, sharper, as Patton flinched back. “How dismal a job you do Morality, too bloody broken and malfunctioning under your own emotions to even work properly.” His eyes and voice took on a hard glint. “If you can’t stand up straight and do your job, maybe we should remove that spine of yours and let someone else do it, hmm?”

Patton shrunk back with a whimper and Logan stepped in front of him with a frown. “Surely your functions do not require harming the other facets of Thomas’s personality? What purpose could this possibly serve?”

Pride paused, tilting his head to the side in contemplation, a neutral expression sliding over his face. “Logic. Perhaps the only one I have no issue with. You work well, and you take great pleasure in your work, carrying it out efficiently and with dignity. Tsk.” He clicked his tongue, eyes narrowing as he shook his head in disappointment. “But you can’t even make yourself heard without someone else to silence the drivel. Shame really, that you conflict with my goals. You’ll learn to be silent, even if I have to remove your vocal cords.” He smiled sweetly, saying it like a child who just told their mom they just saw the most amazing thing. Thomas’s back straightened and he lifted his chin, fear-driven defiance taking root, but he was stopped before he could speak as Pride let out a series of high, childlike laughs.

“Oh, don’t worry yourself, Thomas!” He shot a look at Virgil and smiled sickeningly sweet and cruel, making the other cower. “There won’t be any reason to soon enough~.” He laughed then pouted playfully. “It really is all for the best, you just don’t take any real Pride in your function or your work.” He smiled, wide and sharp and deadly, playfulness gone and replaced with cold cruelty, voice falling to a deep and melodic tenor, hypnotizing. “We’ll fix that.”

He took a step forward, towards the group.

‘NO!’

He stumbled as the shout both sounded through his mind and echoed through the theater, resonating through every cell of his being.

‘No! You can’t!’

His form began to blur and he clutched at his own chest. “What the hell?!”

‘I won’t let you’

As the others watched, the dark kingly form began to pull away, separating from the prince beneath like a specter.

‘You do enough damage in me! You don’t get to come out and do more!’

A violent gust of wind nearly blew them back, forcing them to close their eyes as dust flew up from the stage. When they looked again four gasps and a fifth grunt of surprise sounded, echoing through the empty room.

Roman was kneeling center stage, slumped over and panting, face turned up to stare brokenly at the dark form of pride, hovering in the air above him like smoke, form flickering and almost transparent. Only his top half was manifested, while what should have been his bottom half turned into inky darkness at his waist, curling elegantly down like smoke and toward the other, connecting him to Roman in slimy tendrils that stabbed their way through his black shirt, into his chest.

It appeared very much like a broken man facing a spirit that had been possessing him, now forced partially from his body. Distantly Virgil’s snark informed him that Hamlet would be proud.

Pride scowled down at Roman, seemingly more annoyed than bothered. Roman panted and grit his teeth, voice a whisper, rough as sandpaper. “No.”

Pride scoffed, his voice sounding musical even in that harsh sound, while Roman sounded as if he had been screaming a thousand years without reprieve. “‘No’? Whatever do you mean by that~? Not ready for the performance to end?” He smirked, voice turning sickly sweet and cruel. “Don’t worry~…. There’ll be plenty more~”

Roman’s eyes flashed, the golden orange of a sunrise instead of bloody red. “No!” He clutched his side and coughed, red speckling the ground before him. He paid it no mind as he glared up at Pride, snarling. “You do enough damage without a physical form! You’ll not take one and harm them!”

Pride snarled, leaning down inches from Roman’s face. “You can’t even move, and you think you have any say in this?” He hissed furiously, then straightened back up, pouting like a disappointed teacher. “Tsk. How unsightly, arguing with yourself!”

Roman flinched but continued to glare, unfalteringly, up at the other, coughing up more red. “We are not the same.” The specks of red began to pool into small drops on the floor.

His counterpart laughed, a magical sound like a hundred musical bells in a summer breeze. “Oh Roman, Roman, Roman!” He leaned down, grasping the prince’s chin harshly, tilting his head back painfully, and looking him in the eye. “I. Am. You.” He tilted his head to the side, smiling in a manner that might have been kind, as one might smile at a child they found endearing, but its sharp edges spoke of nothing but malice. “Good thing too~ lucky little prince you are.” He released Roman’s chin with a snap of his wrist, nearly giving the man whiplash, standing back up with a click of his tongue. “Could you imagine any of them being a king?” He scoffed “No. They are far too flawed to hold such an honor.”

Roman stared down at the floor with a broken expression on his face, small trails of blood dripping from his lips. “You couldn’t handle being imperfect, could you?” He whispered. Pride just hummed and turned away from him as far as he could while they were connected, flipping a hand dismissively. “Why should I? There is not an imperfect thing about me. Something you should be grateful for, seeing as I am quite literally, you. I don’t know why you bother to hide it. You’re a subpar actor Roman, hardly a creator at all, simply stunted while you deny your nature.” He hummed as if in thought. Logan wondered if this is what it was like to stare up at a madman before they dissected you. “We’ll have to fix that as well.”

Roman looked up at him, gazing past him with hazy vision to see his family cowering. Logan holding onto a crying Patton, Virgil crouched protectively in front of a terrified Deceit, the both of them shaking in fear, all of them cowering behind Thomas…Thomas…his host was staring at him, not at Pride, but at him. He stood straight, almost relaxed, staring and somber. Roman couldn’t read his expression, and that alone stabbed pain into his gut. He looked back at Pride, expression withdrawn and resigned. “A King?” He whispered, a small sound, so much like an unsure child.

Pride smirked, not turning back to him. “Yes. The little prince could be a king again, perfect and powerful.” he said in a sing-song manner before his voice started dripping honey “Wouldn’t you like that Roman?”

Roman raised a shaky hand, grasping the crown on his head and bringing it down to chest level. He held it there between shaking palms as he stared at it. Perhaps it was his imagination, too many hours spent in the theatre, but the weight of his family and host’s stares seemed so heavy they might crush his lungs, their fear so thick in the air it was stifling. He gripped the crown tightly and twisted, muscles straining and protesting, ignoring the blood that spilled as his fingers slid over the sharpened edges of the steel spires. The metal creaked and Roman strained. The crown snapped in half, the metallic ‘schlink’ echoing through the auditorium, seemingly endless. He gripped the halves in shaking hands as Pride spun around to face him, surprise etched on his face. He let them fall, the two halves falling with his blood, the hollow ‘thunk’ as it hit the wood of the stage marking the moment he met Pride’s eyes. “Some princes don’t become kings.” He meant to spit it vehemently, but it came out surreally calm and hoarse.

Pride stared, then he laughed. “You think breaking your crown makes you any less a king?!” He laughed again “You were never a prince, Roman! You only pretended to be, dressed in white, no crown on your head. Another part executed nearly perfectly.” He leaned over and picked up the edge of roman’s cloak, holding it up. “But your true colors shine through, don’t they, majesty?” The last word was taunting as he stood again, letting the edge of the cape fall, lazily through the air, settling over Roman’s bloodied hands.

Roman stared at it, watching his blood seep into the fabric, barely darkening the crimson cloak. His eyes fell to his own chest, to the black fabric there, taunting him with its symbolism. His hands lifted of their own accord, before the thought was finished, and fisted in the fabric. He pulled, the cloth tearing under the force, and he tossed it away, shirt and cloak landing a few feet away. He sat there, bare-chested, and met pride’s eyes again, expecting anger, but the other merely clicked his tongue and shook his head, seemingly amused with this all.

“Such a petulant child! Clothes don’t make the king, Roman. They aren’t part of you, they simply hide you from prying eyes, an indication of status.” He chuckled, light and airy as it was dark and terrifying. “Honestly, if perfection was always on display, lesser creatures would never get anything done!” He scoffed then, staring down his nose at Roman with disdain. “Stop being such a child.”

Roman dropped his hand to his knee, palm up and open, summing an ornate dagger to his hand. A gleaming silver blade the length of his hand melted into a golden handle, carved in intricate designs and inlaid with shining jewels. He held it up at chest level, slowly twirling it around in his hand, examining it without expression. Inwardly he snorted, ‘So dramatic. Even now.’

Pride raised a brow at him, sneering at him from where he hovered, hands folded behind his back in an almost military style. “And what are you going to do with that? Stab me? You’ll just harm yourself you fool.”

Roman pulled his lips back in a snarl, the first expression he’d shown since his outburst. “No.” He raised the blade to the side of his face, laying its side against his temple. He held the other’s gaze, tone mocking. “But then, you can’t stand imperfection, can you?” He brought the blade down swiftly, cutting a gash that ran from his forehead to his chin, cutting over the corner of his eye but barely missing the eye itself. He cried out and dropped the blade, pressing his hands to his face and curling into himself in pain as blood flowed from the wound.

Pride screeched in rage, all pretenses of grace or elegance cast aside, lunging forward with hands reaching out toward Roman in claws. “Damn you!” He broke apart as he fell, fracturing into smoke that settled over Roman’s back, seeping into him and settling under his skin.

Roman sat where he was, curled tightly into himself, shoulders shaking in quiet sobs.

It took a moment for the others to react, for them to comprehend what they had just witnessed and for them to process it. Deceit slowly uncurled himself, clutching to the back of Virgil’s hoodie as he whispered, “Is he not gone?” Virgil nodded softly, trying to calm his frantic heartbeat, “Yeah, I think he is.” The two slowly uncurled themselves from their defensive positions, adrenaline still coursing through their veins in anticipation.

Patton unlatched himself from Logan’s side and tried to run forward, but he stumbled for the tears in his eyes. Logan caught him round the waist and the moral trait held onto him, eyes not leaving Roman’s figure as he cried. “Is he alright?!”

“I believe he will be Patton, but I cannot know that without examining him.”

Patton made to move again but fear held him back and he froze with a whimper, “Is…is Pride…?”

Logan nodded curtly. “I don’t believe he will return any time soon, but I cannot be sure.”

Thomas remained silent in all of this, though it was only a mere few seconds, watching everything happen. He released the breath he was holding quietly and walked forward when the others could not on their own, luckily, he wasn’t any of them, he was all of them. He sank to his knees next to Roman softly, not wishing to startle the distraught side, and gently laid a hand on the other’s back. “Roman?”

The side in question flinched at the touch, whimpering pitifully and curling into himself more tightly.

“Roman, it’s ok.” He rubbed his thumb over Roman’s shoulder comfortingly. “Whatever just happened, we’ll figure it out, ok? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that all of that wasn’t in your control. It’s gonna be alright.”

A whimper and a choked sob were his answer. He sighed, not wanting to push the issue, but he could see crimson blood slowly spreading over the floor and he knew he couldn’t leave this until Roman was ready, the wound couldn’t wait that long. He gently grasped Roman’s chin and lifted his face, meeting his utterly destroyed expression with one of near serenity and concern. “Roman. You have to look at me. We have to take care of that cut.”

Roman’s eyes met his briefly, but the creative side flinched, and they jerked away to land, unseeingly out at the rows of seats. Thomas didn’t sigh, he didn’t reprimand him, he didn’t react in any negative way, merely tilted his head a bit to the side, kept his eyes on Roman’s looking away from him, and spoke softly, more breathing the word than speaking it. “Ro.”

Roman whimpered quietly, eyes falling shut as he twitched, body seeming to want to fold in on itself but frozen in place under his host’s gaze. The nickname had broken something in him though, the need to hide overcome by a wish to do what was asked of him. He opened his mouth but only a choked sound came from his throat, prompting new tears. He squeezed his eyes shut in a futile attempt to stop them from falling and gritted his teeth, nodding once tersely.

Thomas sighed lightly through his nose and sat back a bit, turning his gaze to the others, taking note of each of them in turn as he curled his hand over the back of Roman’s neck, comforting and firm, grounding.

Logan’s eyes were cold as he stood at near military attention, but not emotionless. Thomas knew this was Logan’s care for the others manifesting in a protective need to understand everything, so he could defend them from harm, logic cold and unbending as steel. But where there was wariness, there was no anger.

Behind him was Patton, hunched in on himself and pressed to Logan’s shoulder, hands fisted in the polo always pristine, now rumpled under the fatherly trait’s hands. Logan’s arm was still outstretched protectively, to keep Patton back and to place himself as a barrier between the other and any potential harm, it wasn’t straight through, it was curled backward, nearly wrapped around Patton. Morality’s eyes gazed out from behind thick glasses, worry and sorrowful pain mixed with a bit of hurt shone through unshed tears, as his teeth worried his lower lip. Thomas’s gaze moved on.

Deceit’s mismatched eyes laid on Roman, clear fear overpowering everything else, though concern peaked through at the edges. While Patton was barely hidden behind Logan, Deceit was barely visible from where he hid himself at Virgil’s back, hands fisted in the other’s jacket just under his shoulder blades, his nose tucked behind Virgil’s shoulder to reveal only the top of his head and those piercing eyes. He was scared, but Thomas could see he didn’t want to abandon the others, or, he suspected, Roman. Lastly, his gaze shifted to Virgil and he almost wanted to chuckle at the dual nature of everything about the side. He stood nearly as tense as Logan, arms at his sides and hands fisted, lips pulling back ever so slightly at the corners as if he wanted to snarl, his fight reflexes more than ready to tear any threat apart. Yet he pressed back against Deceit, as if he wanted to both shield the other and curl back into his chest, his shoulders were hunched ever so slightly inward with his chin tucking towards his chest, his legs too were tense, but they were angled as if to run away, so his flight reflexes too were overwhelmed. His eyes though were the oddest bit. Fear lit their edges, but the centers focused on Roman with such intensity that, if not for Thomas’s understanding of the anxious side’s nature, he wouldn’t have known if that gaze wanted to tear roman apart or mend him.

Thomas himself was more somber than normal, a rare jaded maturity replacing his playfulness. He wasn’t angry, in fact at the moment he wasn’t even upset, rather, it was as if an unearthly calm had settled over him. A need to protect those that felt more like family than mere aspects of his personality clashing with a need to mend and heal that one that was injured, spinning round and round until they merged. He released a second deep breath and turned his gaze back to Roman for a moment.

Roman was…scared. No…he was terrified and in pain, every line of his figure screamed it. Thomas shook his head minutely and let his eyes slip shut, centering himself silently he exercised a power he knew he had but didn’t fully understand. The world seemed to tilt slowly on its axis before righting itself upside down. When he opened his eyes again they were back in his living room. The others were all standing by the stairs while he and Roman found themselves kneeling in the center of the living room.

He breathed deeply, quietly, and centered himself. Gently he grasped Roman’s shoulders and made to lift him just a bit. “Roman.” He kept his voice soft, but the other flinched all the same “Roman, Let’s get you on the couch, ok?”

Roman didn’t answer, but he did get his feet under himself and try to stand. His legs were weak, and he stumbled immediately. Thomas had anticipated this and practically picked the other up, using the prince’s momentum to set him on the couch. Roman hunched into himself once again as soon as he was seated, legs curling close to his chest and shoulders hunching as his eyes pressed shut. Thomas knelt on the floor beside him, a hand on his shoulder, and paused a moment to send a searching glance over the others. From the corner of his eye he could see Logan standing close to his normal spot, merely further forward and closer to Virgil’s, turning himself ever so slightly to let Patton lean against the wall and still remain curled into the logical man’s side. Virgil was in his normal space, and he had herded Deceit to sit on one of the steps, the lying trait having done so but remained pressed forward, every line of his body making it clear he wanted to press himself into Virgil’s side and stay there. Virgil likely would have let him, but his protective instincts and fight or flight reflexes had him half knelt half crouched in front of the stairs, easily ready to spring up and run or come up swinging if needed, so he settled with reaching back to place a hand on Deceit’s arm in comfort. One of Deceit’s hands was nearly crushing Virgil’s. Both kept their eyes on Roman and Thomas, one fearful the other tense.

Thomas looked away from them all and closed his eyes again, breathing steadily, pushing down the sudden swell of sadness in his chest. The sides were something between imagination and reality, everything about them one step from nothingness and an equal step from solid form, Thomas knew this. He understood it on a base level and knew that it was the reason he could interact with them as he did. He also understood that the games the sides played, making sweaters and sheet music and rubiks cubes appear out of thin air was a similar concept. It didn’t come as easily to him as it did to them, but he could use that ability. After a few moments, he felt a weight settled in his empty hand resting against his leg and opened his eyes to find a first aid kit in his grasp. He didn’t question it, understanding that focusing too hard on the fact that this thing was only half real would make it fade. Instead, he turned his gaze and attention back to the creative trait.

“Roman.” He sounded as if he were talking to a frightened animal, intentionally gentle and conveying steady strength, but sure enough Roman flinched inward regardless. “I need to treat that cut. I need you to move your hand and let me clean it.”

Roman’s whimper was the quietest in existence, Thomas was sure. But he remained calm, no frustration in his tone, or even his mood. “Roman, you need to move your hand.” He let his hand trail slowly down Roman’s arm from his shoulder, then up to his wrist. There he gently curled his fingers around the other’s hand and applied a gentle yet firm pressure to pull the limb away. Roman was tense, but he didn’t fight him as Thomas pressed the hand against Roman’s leg, silently nudging the other to drop his legs as well.

Thomas scanned the wound with his eyes and frowned. Starting at the inside of Roman’s temple it dangerously skirted over the outer corner of his eye, bowed outward slightly on his cheek, and fell in a sharp line down past his chin. He was lucky the momentum hadn’t made the blade hit his throat. It wasn’t deep enough to be deadly, barely going beneath the layers of skin to the muscle beneath, but it was deep enough to worry the man, and certainly deep enough to scar. Gently squeezing Roman’s hand on the prince’s lap, both for reassurance and to make sure he kept it there, he opened the medical kit and retrieved the disinfectant and a few cloths.

Gently grasping the other’s chin, he tilted his head to give himself more room to work. He kept his hand there afterward to ensure Roman wouldn’t move. Silently he started at Roman’s temple and began cleaning the cut, taking great care around his eye. For a time, they sat in silence, the others slowly relaxing the tiniest amount, but not fully, where Thomas kept an eye on them in his peripheral vision. Roman sat still and tense, silent tears slipping from his closed eyes, his lower lip no longer trembling but nearly white from the pressure where it was trapped between his teeth. Thomas worked silently and carefully. For a time, the silence reigned, but once Thomas had reached Roman’s cheek he broke it, tone even and calm.

“So that was Pride. I know who, what he is…in theory…but who is he to you, Roman?”

Roman’s eyes flew open as he flinched and tried to look away, his whole body trying to recoil but he didn’t move far before Thomas’s grip stilled him. “He…I….” He closed his eyes again, voice choking with tears. “I was him… to start with…when you were younger, still a child.”

Thomas frowned as he continued to clean the cut, wincing as Roman flinched in pain. “Then why are there two of you? You’re my creativity, aren’t you? How can you be both?”

Roman’s eyes opened halfway, focusing on the floor before him without truly seeing it. The prince smiled, but there was no humor in it, just tired weariness. “None of us have only one function. I was…him…when you were a child, before your imagination grew, back when your fantasies and dreams were fueled by the creativity of your parents. Eventually, as all children do, you began to imagine on your own, without their stories….and you were so…proud” his voice hitched in pain, “of what you created, that eventually, I became creativity too.”

The host furrowed his brows as he began closing the wound and securing it with steri-strips. “Then why are you separate now?”

A small sound of sorrow and pain broke out of roman’s throat, tears brimming at his eyes that he held back. “I am your ego, Thomas, that hasn’t changed…. but as time went by things…changed. You…you began to love Disney, and it fueled the majority of your imagination, of my new role… you loved the princes and, as a child, loathed the villains…..” His quieted with sadness. “even as I was then, it did not take long to realize that I was the opposite of what you wished to be, despite now embodying your hopes and dreams, that I was, in fact, what you despised…. I did not wish to be that way. I…. I locked it away, that part of me, buried it beneath everything you ever wished to be, the traits of every prince you admired…”

He sighed and stopped talking as Thomas started bandaging his jaw. Perhaps sensing that Roman wasn’t finished, Thomas didn’t ask anything else yet. When he was finished he sat back and waited. Roman didn’t meet his eyes, choosing instead to stare at the floor and fidget, drawing his legs back up to his chest and hugging them tightly.

“I buried him so far that it ceased to be an act, that we truly became two halves of one being…. I…I despised him. I despised how he made me think and feel, how he pushed me to act…so I pushed him as far away as I could. It was never enough though, and you’ve seen him affect me, the days when ego and harshness overcome the rest of my being…” he sighed and tightened the death grip on his legs, hugging himself. “I don’t understand it completely myself, Thomas, hell, the day I appeared in the ‘light side’ of your mind was a shock. Somehow, through mutual loathing, we became separate enough that I was no longer Pride, but merely Creativity, that he was a separate entity that only affected you subconsciously…. not entirely separate though, as you did correctly deem me to also be your ego.”

Thomas stayed silent for a moment, gaze falling to the black mark over Roman’s heart. He frowned and pulled roman’s leg down, so he could run his fingers over it. Roman flinched and chuckled dryly, without humor. “We all have our dark marks…that…he, is mine.”

Thomas lifted his gaze to Roman’s, gaze narrowed in wariness and curiosity, but not hostility. “Why is it there?” Roman barked a humorless laugh. “Over my heart you mean?” Thomas’s silence was answer enough. Roman sighed and let his eyes fall shut again, pinching the bridge of his nose as his head hung forward. His voice the clearest it had been since this began, but quiet with weariness.

“You call Patton your heart, and you are not entirely wrong. Morality and ethos are matters that deal with the soul and empathy of a person, and the heart is indeed the metaphorical seat of both soul and emotion.” He let his hand fall without care and let his gaze rest on Patton where he stood tucked into Logan’s side, for the moment the prince was nearly emotionless save for sorrow and pain. “but he is not all of your heart, that is merely where he ‘lives’, if you will.” His eyes slipped shut as he sighed heavily. “Pride is against morality, it must be.”

His gaze dropped, and he looked toward Thomas but did not yet meet his gaze, instead staring just past his shoulder. “Pride earned is one thing, but arrogance is quite another. It poisons logic into believing you can do anything you damn well please and that you can rationalize anything. It silences caution and abuses deceit, turning you against yourself until you think you are invincible.” He winced minutely but ignored the twin flinches that came from Virgil and Deceit at the rather literal explanation of what Pride had done to them. His gaze fell back on Patton, voice bitter and sad. “And once it’s done that, it destroys your morality.” Patton shuddered and shrunk back. “You think you are invincible. You lie to yourself without knowing it. You believe you can rationalize anything into being right. You believe you are right, that you know best and that only you know best. You believe that anything you do is perfect and any criticism is beneath you.” He paused and sighed deeply. “And then…then you don’t care anymore.” His gaze slid down to the floor, blurring as his voice became thick with tears again. “You don’t care about the emotions of others, nor their well-being. Your ethics disintegrate, your empathy evaporates, and your morality is gone, replaced with something…something exactly its opposite.”

Roman’s voice had already been sorrowful and oddly resigned, but it took on a bitter tone that made Thomas realize the prince wasn’t just describing what pride could do to him, the host. But what it had been doing to Roman, even from the shadows. He set his gaze back on the mark above Roman’s heart, not liking the dark blood smeared around it. Silently, he set to cleaning it off the unmarked skin. “It only covers half your heart…” Roman hummed but it sounded choked. “Yeah, well, it covers enough of it.”

Thomas looked up at him, a brief glance before returning to his task. “He never stopped affecting you, did he?” He asked it lightly, but Roman still flinched. “N..no…. he didn’t…” Roman sighed. “Is that why you acted the way you did, before…?” Roman winced and hunched forward as far as he could while Thomas was cleaning the blood from his chest, head hung low. “Yes….” He sighed and opened his eyes to set his weary gaze on the floor, the patterning of the carpet swirling hazily in his vision.

“Morality…he could tolerate…begrudgingly…didn’t find much need to worry about him” Roman snorted softly. “Too arrogant to acknowledge how bloody scary Patton can be…Logic…he could live with, not concern himself with...” He pressed his eyes shut tight, voice catching. “but Anxiety and Deceit-“ his voice choked off and pressed a hand to his mouth to muffle the sob. It passed and he rubbed at his eyes. “he could not tolerate them. Their presence, their jobs, their very existence…. they were the two most dangerous to him…to his plans…..” A shudder wracked through Roman but he kept the sob back, voice going tight. “He couldn’t kill them either…. not for lack of trying…” at that a single sob did break free, but he immediately cut it off and took in a strangled breath, then cleared his throat.

He dropped his hand and once again stared blankly at the ground. “After we separated, well, as separated as we could be, he was content enough to be silent…even if he did do his best to put me intentionally at odds with Patton and Logan. But when Virgil –“ his voice broke. “when Virgil showed up…I couldn’t stop his influence anymore…I barely kept him from becoming dominant between us again.” His voice had trailed off into a broken whimper, so he stopped to steady himself. Thomas and the others let him.

Roman raised his head and looked toward Thomas, but did not let his gaze go past the man’s neck to his face, much less his eyes. “It took more strength than I possess, and more help than I would have liked, to treat Virgil even amicably. To my shame, I could do no more, but when Deceit…” he took a deep breath, eyes staring upward, ignoring the clear tears that flowed over their edges. “when Deceit came, I couldn’t…there was nothing I could do to keep him at bay anymore…my own anger at Deceit for his tricks did not help matters…so I hid. I avoided him…” he smiled wryly, a sick twist of his lips as his gaze fell again. “But anger left unfaced festers, and when I did finally see Deceit face to face again, my anger was enough that I wasn’t even conscious of how much P-pride was affecting me.” His gaze dropped in shame to the ground. “Deceit’s charge broke what little control I had left over him….” Roman swallowed thickly and looked away, staring unseeingly at the wall, away from everyone else. “it…it wasn’t their fault…they ne-never did anything… but they were the c-catalyst that let him out…and I couldn’t stop- couldn’t stop it…” the prince’s voice broke, fully this time, and he just barely held back sobs with a hand over his own mouth.

Thomas said nothing, nor did the others, though while they were in various stages of shock, Thomas was turning everything over in his head, considering and calculating everything. Absentmindedly he stroked his thumb over the inside of Roman’s wrist where his hand still rested around the other’s arm. His brows furrowed after a minute had passed.

“Roman, you separated from him, for lack of a better term, you locked him away. Why didn’t you separate completely?” Though there was no malice in the words, the oddly cool and neutral tone made Roman shudder. He shook his head minutely. “I do not even know if we could have, completely. We started as one being…I do not know how separate we are even now. But it was not for lack of trying.” He took a shaky breath, eyes fixed on his lap now. “It was not for lack of trying that we are still connected…. Years I spent trying to tear the anchor of him out of me…but I cannot… pain notwithstanding, I am not strong enough. Regardless, I eventually came to the conclusion how…foolish it would have been if I ever succeeded.”

Thomas’s eyebrow rose, the only change in expression, indeed in demeanor at all. “How’s that?”

Roman laughed, head tilted back, twisted lips pulled back over fractured teeth. It was a broken sound filled with shattered glass that made Patton wince and caused Virgil to shrink back ever so slightly into Deceit. Roman was broken. And as they watched where they stood, though they said nothing, each and every one of the four sides hanging back in caution, came to the same conclusion: they might not be able to fix him.

For the first time Roman’s gaze strayed closer to Thomas’s, but still could not quite meet it. “You’ve seen how much damage he did to me, Thomas, what he’s done as a whisper in your subconscious.” The second laugh sounded more like that of a mad man. “What the hell do you think he’d have done on his own?!” The laughter died and Roman hunched in on himself again, shaking his head as a man resigned to hang at the gallows. “No. Better he stay trapped within me. Better he hurt me, and only me, rather than have a manifested form of his own to hurt you.”

Roman was hunched in on himself, the hand not caught in Thomas’s grip rubbing absently at his ribs, a haunted and faraway look in his eyes. As Virgil watched from the sidelines pieces started to fall into place like a long-forgotten jigsaw puzzle scattered throughout the dusty corners of an attic. He stiffened, eyes going wide, and as Deceit gasped quietly behind him, he knew his old friend had followed the same train of thought to the same conclusion. Logan looked back at them curiously, having missed the signs he wouldn’t know to look for. Virgil swallowed thickly, voice trembling but strong as he called out to his longtime nemesis. “We’re not the only ones he hurt, are we Roman?”

Roman’s flinch and quick movement to curl himself into a tight ball, arms grasping his own chest as if in protection - even at the cost of ripping his hand out of Thomas’s, to the other’s great surprise - were the only answer the anxious trait needed. Deceit whimpered and it trailed off into a hiss of unhappiness and anger. Virgil was inclined to agree with that sentiment, but his normal reactions of growling or hissing wouldn’t achieve anything right now. Eyes even wider than they were before, he swallowed past the sudden feeling of crushed glass in his throat and asked a rather insensitive question in his shock. “H-how?! He…you…you share a body. How…?”

Roman shook almost violently but barked another laugh, even more broken than the previous two, this one filled only with pain, a deep and cutting pain that made one think of the wailing of an injured dog when heard. Thomas winced just as Patton did.

“The imagination can be such a wonderful thing… it’s where I go to battle beasts to find inspiration and create ideas…I can create anything there…escape there…hide there…” his voice became strained. “A place where anything can take shape isn’t always so wonderous….”

Logan’s eyes went wide, lips parting silently in an almost gasp. Patton did gasp, but it turned into a wretched sob as the two realized just what it was Virgil and Deceit had picked up on. Those two, for their part, looked at Roman in a new light. Not as the host to their abuser - though he had certainly been that - but as a victim the same as them. Thomas caught up with the four of them pretty quickly, in truth he had already known, but he hadn’t wanted to put the pieces together into such a gruesome picture. For the first time, his expression and tone showed emotion other than neutrality, softening and straining with grief. “So every time you went into the imagination to create things and come up with ideas…?” He trailed off, and Roman nodded brokenly. “N…not every time…. there are certain areas…and I avoid them unless I have to follow a creature there…. but he doesn’t always stay in their bounds…”

He trailed off helplessly and the other five absorbed this information. That meant that every time Roman did his job - every time Thomas daydreamed, every time he created something, every time they needed a new script, every time he dreamed, every time he fantasized – Roman had walked into hell, and more often than not he had met the devil wearing his own face.

Patton clamped a hand over his mouth harshly to quiet the sobs tearing out of his throat, Logan, uncharacteristically, tried to reach back to steady and comfort him, but he barely kept his balance as this information set itself in his brain, as every possible meaning, every possible variable, and every possible outcome to the dataset played itself out for him to see. He swayed dangerously, nausea suddenly threatening to knock him over, it would have if it weren’t for the presence of Patton leaned against his back.

Deceit had pressed himself to Virgil’s side by this point, and the two of them were holding onto to each other with an arm around the other, old memories, living nightmares from the past playing through their minds, merging with the knowledge that Roman had faced the same…possibly worse, and for much longer than they had.

Thomas took all of this in without thinking about it, after all, anything and everything his sides knew or realized, he knew too, should he actually think about it. He bit back the wish to scream, or sob, or cry, or tear apart the thing that had hurt his Roman so badly, knowing it would do no good. Instead, he did the only thing he could think of and lifted himself onto the couch to sit by the creative trait, and wrapped his arms around him, drawing Roman to his chest and holding him close as the prince finally broke and began to sob.

His cries were a broken and pathetic thing, the wretchedness sounding from them cutting them all to the bone in a manner none of them- not even Logan with his literal dictionary of a mind – could describe in words. Through his sobs, they heard occasional words and sentences, broken up as they were gasped out roughly.

‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I tried.’ ‘I didn’t mean to.’ ‘my fault.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘shouldn’t have let him.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ’I’m sorry.’ ‘I’m sorry.’

Virgil and Deceit both jerked forward instinctively, a desperate wish to comfort Roman as they had once comforted each other cutting through them, but they each halted equally as instinctively, for they neither one had any idea what to do. So they held each other, taking what comfort they could from whom they had thought was the only other person in the mindscape who could understand, until now.

Patton tried to move forward as well, a sob finally breaking out of his throat, but the weight of the shock and grief he was under drove him to the ground. Logan’s stunted but still quick reflexes were the only thing that kept the man from falling completely as his friend caught him. All the same, the end result found Patton on his knees, Logan knelt beside him on one knee, arms wrapped around Patton from having caught him. The logical trait was staring, unblinking and wide-eyed at Roman, a sickness choking his throat and cutting off his usually bountiful speech.

Thomas felt all of this, but he didn’t acknowledge it. He felt it hit him like a punch to the chest, and his breath hitched in response, but he ignored it. There would be time for his own sorrow and shock, and theirs, later, for now, he took a deep breath and focused on holding the man in his arms whose whole world, and indeed being, was finally tearing apart for the first time after 29 years of being precariously stitched together.

Roman’s tears, it seemed, had no end to them. Thomas continued to hold him, a silent and steadying presence of strength and comfort. After a time, Roman’s tears did begin to dry up, even if his sorrow and pain did not, but he had exhausted himself too much to move, and so stayed where he was, curled mostly in a ball and burrowed into Thomas’s chest, head resting very nearly over the other’s heart. As the energy to cry faded he allowed the steady thrumming under his ear to lull him into a calmer state. He opened his eyes now, but rather unseeingly as his gaze did not go past Thomas’s chest and upper arm. Thomas, for his part, just kept his arms wrapped securely around the creative trait, one hand lightly running over Roman’s arm and shoulder. As he felt Roman’s breathing even out and his body start to go lax he chanced splitting his attention away from Roman to check on the others.

As he has already been aware, the other four had moved closer but had not interfered. Logan sat on the arm of the couch, his normally smooth expression roughened by furrowed brows and the slightest of frowns fueled by concern as he watched Roman. His posture too was less rigid than normal, as he was hunched forward a bit to reach out one hand to Patton’s shoulder. Patton had also moved close and had taken the open side of the couch. He had curled himself into a ball, pulling his legs up to his chest hugging himself. Though he was pressing back into Logan’s touch, he was leaned forward and edged as close to Roman as he could be without touching him. That being said, it wasn’t lost on Thomas that the fatherly trait’s arms kept twitching as he stopped himself from reaching out and pulling Roman to him. Thomas tried to ignore the twinge of hurt he felt at seeing the sad frown set in Patton’s expression, instead he looked away from them and toward the floor in front of him.

Virgil and Deceit were there. At first, they had stood before the couch awkwardly, not sure where to fit into the picture, wanting to care for Roman, but both still a little afraid and knowing from harsh experience with each other that sometimes you just had to wait for things to pass before you could approach the broken and try to mend them. They had hovered for a moment before understanding that this was not going to be a quick process, and had settled on the floor. Virgil, particularly, had sat on one of his legs, pulling the other up and hugging it to his chest. He wasn’t completely settled though and was pitched forward the same as Patton, a hair-trigger away from propelling himself up and forward to Roman. Deceit kept the same overly attentive and concerned gaze on Roman that Virgil did, and he was only minorly less tense, but he sat completely, legs hugged to his chest, curled into Virgil’s side.

The lot of them sat in silence for a time longer, but once Roman had calmed completely and was resting in a near-sleep state, they could wait no longer. Patton was the one who reached out, a hand pressed gently to Roman’s shoulder, accompanied by a soft call of the other’s name, “Ro?”

The effect was immediate, and unfortunate, as the side in question immediately tensed and his breath hitched. Virgil was up in an instant, kneeling in front of Roman and ducking to get in his field of vision, though the prince didn’t seem to see him at all.

“Princey.” Virgil was conscious not to touch the other and to keep his tone low and even. “It’s alright. You’re safe.” Roman flinched and Virgil frowned, understanding quite immediately. “And so are we, Princey. Just focus on me, ok? On my voice. Ok?” Roman didn’t move, but his breathing was labored once again. “Easy Roman. Focus on your breathing. In 4 seconds, hold 7, out 8. Alright? Again. In 4, hold 7, out 8.” This process repeated for some time, and the others did not protest letting anxiety calm Roman from the beginnings of a panic attack.

When Roman’s breathing was once again steady, though heavy and wet, Virgil risked slowly raising a hand, well within Roman’s vision, and pressing it to his thigh. Roman twitched slightly but did not panic or shy away, but he kept his gaze fixed unseeingly ahead at Thomas’s arm where it curled around him. Deceit, unsure what to do but remembering plenty of times when all he had been able to do was sit close, moved closer and sat down, leaning against the couch. One of his hands instinctively reached out and fisted in Virgil’s jacket, the anxious trait easily reaching out to settle his free hand on Deceit’s knee. Deceit pressed close to Thomas’s legs and laid his head down on the couch, looking up at Roman who met his gaze.

Roman’s face crumpled, and he whimpered tearfully but did not cry as he had no tears left. “I’m sorry.” His voice broke in a dry sob and he closed his eyes, unable to turn his head away. “I’m so fucking sorry…”

Thomas knew this wasn’t the time for all problems to be resolved, indeed it would be sometime before that point came. But he did know that right now they needed to take care of Roman. He tightened his arms around the distraught trait and ran one hand through his hair, an old trick that had calmed him as a child and had the same effect on the creative side now. “Roman.” It was a whisper, soft and strong. “It’s alright.”

Roman shook his head immediately, almost violently, but could do no more as he found himself held closer still. Left with no other choice he stilled and listened to the calm and steady voice above him. “It will be alright Roman.” The hand carded through his hair again. “We will figure this out, and it will be ok.”

He wanted to disagree, he wanted to apologize, but he knew that there was no use arguing. He took a shaky breath and nodded. His eyes though, they left no doubt that he didn’t believe it. Thomas smiled, a sad curl of his lips at the corner into the smallest grin, colored over with grief and love. “It will be aright Roman, and we will fix this, I promise.”

Roman didn’t respond, but he relaxed again. His eyes felt heavy, but he lifted his gaze to find Deceit and Virgil, a desperate need driving the action. When he found no malice or betrayal nor accusation in their eyes, but only concern and care, he finally allowed himself to stop. It wasn’t solved, not by any means, but he was so tired, had been for years, but was beyond exhaustion now. His eyes slipped shut and he allowed the comforting presence of the others around him, the surety of Thomas’s promise, and the steady beating of a heart left unstained beating under his ear lull him into the first restful sleep he’d had since he had become a separate entity. Maybe, maybe he was wrong.

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noobsomeexagerjunk · 4 years ago

Text

Left Undone

Ted didn’t want to babysit Bill’s daughter. He didn’t like Bill, and Bill didn’t like him. Why did he have to be the only one in the office who was free for the weekend? Alice didn’t exactly want to be babysat either. She’s too old for that!

Little did Ted and Alice know how much fun they were going to have.

(AU wherein Alice has not dated Deb yet, Bill hasn’t divorced yet either; MASSIVE SPOILERS for BoJack Horseman Season 3 and Moulin Rouge! are discussed)

Friday Prologue | Saturday Chapter | Sunday Chapter | Monday Epilogue

Alice woke up fairly well-rested Saturday morning, forgetting for a second that she wasn’t in her own house.

Ted Spankoffski’s house had 3 bedrooms. One was a master bedroom where Ted slept and also did any other non-CCRP related work. Another was a room where Ted’s nerdy brother stayed for the Summer; ever since Ted got himself a house, his younger brother would stay over at his place during holidays and academic breaks.

Then there was the spare guest bedroom Alice was in where Ted had to set up for her the previous evening. It was very plain.

She went downstairs, explored a little, then found no one. She went back up, knocking on Ted’s bedroom door. No response.

Alice then decided to wash up instead, to feel fresh in the morning. She did all the work in the downstairs bathroom (Ted specifically told her to use that particular bathroom), leaving it as neat as it was before she came to the house.

She tried to knock on the door again, the increased strength of her rapping revealing to her that the room had not been locked, or closed properly for that matter.

She peeked in to find Ted who was still asleep, clutching a laptop like a stuffed toy. His shirt, boxers, and socks tied together with his slumped figure, which also seemed intertwined with the bedsheets. There were used tissues all over the bed, some on the floor making a trail to a semi-used paper towel roll. There were an empty bowl and two empty beer bottles on the bedside table. It reeked of Corona and clearly imported Honey Butter Chips.

Alice stepped in to try to wake Ted up, but the floor creaking below her was enough to make him jolt awake.

“Who the fu-“ Ted calmed down from the shock of waking up so suddenly, “A-Alice?! Shit, I forgot you’re here,”

“I-Is there anything I can eat?”

Ted rose from his position, sitting upward on his bed, “...are you allergic to eggs? Milk?”

“No, I’m not allergic to either.”

“Good,” Ted yawned, getting up and stretching, “because my fridge is fucking empty.”

“I noticed.”

That was hyperbole...sort of. The only breakfast that could be made from Ted’s pantry was egg toast and cereal. There was enough for both of them to finish all of said egg toast and cereal.

“What were you watching last night?” Alice asked Ted, playing with her fruit loops a little.

“Hm?” He swallowed the last bite of his toast with instant coffee.

“You were crying for about thirty minutes; I couldn't sleep-”

“I-It was a sad episode, alright?!” Ted was slightly embarrassed, hesitating to take another sip of coffee, “That fucking baby seahorse will never know...”

Alice raised a brow, unaware of the reference. She ate some more cereal.

“Don’t give me that look, Alice!” That was Bill’s glare, alright, “BoJack Horseman is a very good show!”

“And you binged the whole thing last night?”

“It’s the new season. I’ve got two episodes left before I finish.” Ted then proceeded to chug down what was left of his coffee.

“My laptop died during my binge but it was late and I was just,” He blew a raspberry, “...I needed to sleep.”

“I’ve done that before, not gonna lie,” Alice place down the spoon, done with her breakfast, “Though, the show I watched was kinda...yeah, it was kinda shitty,”

“Let me guess: you’ve watched it because someone hot’s in it,”

Alice blushed, “I-It’s not just that!”

“Hey hey hey,” Ted chuckled, “I’m guilty of that, I ain’t judging.”

Alice hmphed, “Should I watch that—what’s that show?”

“BoJack Horseman?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm,” Ted then began cleaning up by taking Alice’s utensils, stacking them with his, “it starts weak but gets so much better, like real fucking better. Dunno if you’re old enough to watch it though,”

“I’ve seen some pretty adult stuff! Mom makes me watch Tarantino movies with her, at least whenever Dad's not around sometimes,"

Ted nodded at Alice’s mother’s taste in film, “Aight, but that show just...it just hits somewhere really hard when you’re in your early thirties full of regret and with no discernible life direction but, hey! If you can take it, I’d be impressed.”

Alice blinked, “What? Is it like, psychological horror? The kind rooted in some comedically timed socio-political commentary?”

“Well, arguably.” Ted then got up to bring the dishes in his hands into the kitchen.

“...where can I find it?” She asked with mild interest.

“Netflix,” The sound of dishes landing in a sink was heard from Alice’s seat, “It’s a cartoon too, and like, about a bunch of animals, if those kinds of things float your boat.”

Alice never made it past Episode 1 when she tried to watch it herself, convinced Ted’s taste was shit. Personally, she will regret that.

The rest of that morning left Alice and Ted to their own individual devices. Alice typed away some interesting plots and ideas on her phone. Ted went to finish the last episodes of that sad horse show.

An hour before the time Alice would usually eat lunch, she had been cycling around various plotlines for a potential...well, something. Alice knew she just had to write something.

She was in the living area of the house when she heard Ted sloppily walk down the stairs. His eyes were teary.

"Are you alright, Mr. Spankoffski?" She looked at him with concern.

Ted shakily neared her, hesitating to sit on the couch next to her. He instead placed a languid hand on one of the couch's armrests.

"Please don't die on me, Alice, oh my God..."

He broke into sobs. Alice could only stare at this behavior in confusion.

"Did something bad happen in the show, or...?"

"Fuck, it got worse!" He sniffled, "A-And not, like, n-not in a bad writing context--that show's writing is the shit, Alice! But fuck! F-Fuck!"

Sarah Lynn was not supposed to die, but she did die and the fact left Ted devastated. A part of him knew it was gonna happen as he saw the old man, er, horse, and the poor girl in the motel, missing the Oscars. (Then again, that show had a penchant for hollowing, tragic endings per episode.)

Even in entertainment, in his favorite shows to watch, Ted Spankoffski knew better than to hope. It was more realistic for him.

"You can sit down," Alice moved aside to give Ted space to sit.

Ted cried as he sat next to her, "God, I'm sorry y-you had to see me like this,"

"I've...I-I've had worse breakdowns over a show. I-It's all good."

TV and Movie homophobia still haunted the teenage girl.

It's things like that, whether extravagant or subtle in delivery, that prompted her to write and clarify in any way that she could if only to fight. Alice Woodward was the kind of girl who refused to despair.

"Yeah, A-Alice?"

"Mhm," She nodded, quickly writing "character gets sucked into a tv show???" in her phone's Notes app.

"What if we watched something less depressing instead? You can watch it with me, Alice!" Ted breathed, "You're not bored, are you?"

She added "literally? figuratively? ehhh let the watchers decide??? kshfukdhivg" then kept her phone.

"No! N-No, I know how to keep myself, um, b-busy," Alice then shifted herself into a more comfortable position, "What movies do you have?"

Ted paused before answering, realizing he was hungry.

“You pick,” He said, getting up, “You want pizza with that?”

Alice nodded eagerly, watching Ted head for his phone.

“Wait, what am I supposed to pick?”

“There’s a bunch of CD cases in the drawer under the center table—it’s right in front of you!” Ted's voice decrescendoed as he headed upstairs.

“Drawer?” Alice wondered to herself, bending down to inspect the described center table. There was in fact a drawer.

She pulled it open to find bunches of CD cases, charging wires, and what clearly seemed to be unusable gadgets or “e-junk” as her father would, in a terribly corny way, put it.

Alice noticed a notable amount of movie musicals in one bundle of CD cases. The one that got her attention was Moulin Rouge!, unfamiliar with the title and very taken by the red-haired beauty printed on the cover. There was Jesus Christ Superstar, West Side Story, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a bunch of Disney Princess movies. Upon further inspection of the non-musical movies, Ted had a diverse taste in film, though it was primarily pretty basic in Alice's opinion, minus a few exceptions.

She closed the drawer, further inspecting the Moulin Rouge CD cover by reading the synopsis on the back. An aspiring writer falls in love with a courtesan but other things get in the way? Alice could not blame the writer, in fact, she was quick to identify with him, even if she had not seen the movie yet.

“Alice?” Ted called from upstairs, “Are you allergic to anything I should know?”

“No,” She called back, playing with the CD cover.

“Good! I’m getting us a Bacon Surprise,”

“Alright,” Apparently Ted chose to order from that Witchwood Ovens Shop downtown.

“What movie do you wanna watch?” Ted asked as he went back down. Alice showed him the CD cover.

“Moulin Rouge?” He mispronounced, “I actually have that in there?”

Alice handed the cover to Ted as he approached her, “I don’t think I’ve seen this one,”

“No shit, Alice. This movie’s got prostitution; if I know your Dad enough,” He stared at the cover, trying to remember when he got it, "he would make sure you'd never see it. God, I remember seeing this in the theater, like, when I was about your—h-how old are you again?"

"Fifteen, but I'll be sixteen later this year,"

"Eh, close enough," Ted then placed the CD cover down, ready to set up the television set in the living room.

"Nicole Kidman, man..." Ted dusted the CD player, plugging the TV into it, "She was the fucking best in that thing."

"Do you even know what happens in it?" Alice asked as she watched Ted at work, "Or were you just hoping Nicole Kidman would step on you?"

"Don't you fucking shame me, Alice!" Ted gasped back as he blushed, "If you had any taste in women, you'd want the same Goddamn thing."

Ted guessed correctly, keeping the girl from returning his snark.

It was around the Elephant Love Medley when the pizza arrived. Ted was kind enough to pause for Alice as he went to get the pizza. Alice was still recovering from the exhilaration of the past few songs, overwhelmed with the crowd-like effect of the cheesy-Jukebox mashups that introduced Christian to that infamous dancehall, the gratuitous use of slow-mo effects, and the ridiculous use of that Can-Can. It was "Spectacular Spectacular" indeed!

Alice almost choked on her pizza during the Like A Virgin scene. It was also very clear to her, as they watched, that Ted must've forgotten a lot of what had happened in the film given some of his reactions. Ted cursed The Duke repeatedly, particularly at that scene when he found out about the true nature of Christian's play.

Ted believed that he should've seen Satine dying coming. He saw this movie before. The movie literally said so right at the start!

Why, as he watched, did he want that happy ending when the opposite was inevitably going to happen?!

Something about Satine charmed Ted, in a particularly nightmarish way. The idea of further thinking about it was repressed repeatedly, refusing to confront the roots of it all. Surely it was just him being a horny bastard, right? Right?

This totally had nothing to do with the fact that Satine had vibrant red hair, cerulean eyes, polished milky skin, and a beautiful figure.

This totally had nothing to do with how familiar this fictional character seemed to be, resembling someone Ted remembered with intense, bittersweet longing.

This totally had nothing to do with the sight of Satine breathing her last breath on a bed of roses reminding Ted of a memory that he swore hadn't happened yet.

Or it did happen?

Why debate when it happened when it shouldn't have happened at all? It wasn't supposed to happen, whatever that thing was that Ted didn't need to remember at the moment. And yet...

She didn't make a sound. Heartbreak was never so loud.

Alice's sniffling brought Ted back to reality. Ted put a hand on her shoulder.

"God, I-I look so stupid," Alice chuckled out from her tears, rubbing her teary eyes, "they literally say it in the beginning, ugh!"

Ted coddled her closer to him so he could hug her but Alice recoiled back.

"T-Thanks, but we both smell like pizza," Ted nodded back in response.

As he cleaned up the living area, he asked Alice, "How was the movie?"

"It was pretty cheesy," She pulled out her phone again, inspired to write, "but kinda fun? Like, you don't get fun movies with this much energy, at least, when I try to compare, well. You know what I mean."

"Yeah," Ted replied absent-mindedly, "It certainly brings back memories of, well, certain times."

"I think it kinda comes off as an epic-like piece,"

"No need to wax academic, Alice,"

"You asked for it!"

"I asked about how it was, not for an essay about its themes and shit!" Ted straightened himself up with a chuckle, "It's just a movie, after all."

"It hits different though," She spat back, focused now on her phone.

Witchwood Oven Shop pizzas were notably heavier on the stomach compared to their competitors. Any leftover pizza the two had for lunch that day, Ted proceeded to reheat for dinner. He scavenged his refrigerator for any packs of instant lemonade, which were thankfully there, and prepared two glasses for the two of them.

It was a shitty excuse for dinner, but Alice didn't seem to mind. She was very concentrated on her phone.

"What'cha writing about?"

Alice tilted her phone as to hide it, "It's not really much yet. It's all a bunch of prompts so far."

"You can pitch me stuff," He swallowed a bite, "Which ones really get to you?"

"Well," She hesitated.

"Well?"

"I-I've got a traveling adventure in a fancy, cultured but mysterious new town..."

"Anything else?"

"Still deciding whether I should make it a horror or a comedy. Besides that, it's all gonna rest on a foundation of romance between our main character, and, well..."

"Who?"

"I don't know! It's all I got so far!"

"Hey, it's not bad," Ted sipped his lemonade, "You know, I bet with enough time, it can become something really fucking great. I'd be invested if this was a movie or a staged production of sorts, I don't know,"

"Y-You think it's good, Mr. Spankoffski?"

"Oh hell yeah," He placed the glass down, "Not to be cheesy, but romance really gets me."

"Yeah, same."

"Have you considered making it some sort of horror-comedy romance? I would love it if you could pull it off."

#eternal reverie #left undone #kim whalen would make such a great satine #starkid #team starkid #starkid fanfic #starkid au #nightmare time spoilers #ted spankoffski #alice woodward

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potahun · 4 years ago

Text

Some more Qin Shen Shen moment translations (part 5/?)

Link to other translations so far

-Pretty much all the cuts in Ep. 10 (including some non-QSS because Ep. 10 is funny in general)

a. The order of performances for ep.10 was decided via Kart race + DDR. I.e. the team with the highest compiled scored at kart racing + DDR get to choose in which order they want to perform first, and so on. The MC explains that some tried kart racing for the very 1st time (Zhou Shen), and some tried DDR for the 1st time (Fei Yuqing).

MC: Even though it was Xiao Ge’s first time at DDR, he made a new record that is likely to be unbroken from now on. Indeed, Xiao Ge’s score at DDR was 1600. (the crowd cheers) Right, that is a big number, huh? Because...normally, when ordinary people play, their score is around 8000. (FYQ: ;;;;;;;;;)

b. During the “flashback” to the kart racing: Zhou Shen represents Qin Shen Shen, and is racing against Zhou Hua Jian, Liu Yuning, Ayanga and Xiao Zhan. The scene speaks for itself but basically Zhou Shen’s “speed” is such that he gets his own personalised BGM.

LKQ, watching from afar with the rest of the cast: This, Zhou Shen can keep driving leisurely like that, it’ll be fine. Huh. (i.e. he has zero expectations, just wants ZS to drive safely)

(Later, when Zhou Shen finishes 1 loop at last) LKQ, happily: Hey! Zhou Shen finally completed one loop!

c. When it is revealed that Fei Yuqing and Ayanga are singing 2nd.

AYG: The two of us actually ranked 5th (for kart racing + DDR). Normally, we wouldn’t even have to think about it, huh? (FYQ: Right) We should have been the ones performing first (because no one wants to perform first usually).

MC: Hold, hold, hold, hold on. You two ranked 5th?

AYG: We ranked 5th honorably. (FYQ: Mm)

MC: I think, Xiao Ge playing DDR for the first time, we can totally understand (that he’d rank last), but is there any problem with you and kart racing?

AYG, smiling and pointing around him: But really. There were strong people. (ZHJ: No, no, no) Really, big brother Hua Jian was too strong. Zhan Zhan? Too strong. Yuning...I couldn’t even see those 3 people at the front, and I was already driving fast enough.

MC: Eh? Wait a second. Zhou Shen is the only one you haven’t mentioned.

AYG: Shen Shen was in the same lane as me. He was following me.

ZS: He’s being polite, I was playing in a completely different playground from them.

ZHJ, who can’t keep it in: Can I say this?

AYG: Yes? (ZS: H-h-huh?)

ZHJ (to the MC): Zhou Shen started to drive in the wrong direction. (MC: Hah?? AYG: Right, right!)

The flashback shows Zhou Shen during the practice race, driving onto the grass and then going the wrong way until he’s driving in the opposite direction from everyone else.

LYN and ZHJ, when ZS crosses them and wheezes past: ??????

The Karting staff, when ZS gets stuck on the side of the road: Don’t drive in the opposite direction! It’s dangerous!

ZS: I don’t know how...! I don’t know....

Later, when they’re at the starting line, ZS (to LYN): What’s the course like? *draws with his finger* Like this?

LYN: Yeah! (...) There’s only one way!

ZS, confused: There’s only one?

LYN: Just don’t go where there’s grass and it’ll be fine. There’s just one road.

ZS, shouting: Everyone please be careful! If you see me, please make way! *laughs*

Back to the “present”, Ayanga explains that you’d sometimes see a car seemingly driving without a driver, and Zhou Shen rectifies “You’d sometimes see just a helmet”.

LKQ (to ZS): Hey, in the future, better not drive onto the road, huh?

ZS: I definitely won’t. I definitely won’t drive. *laughs*

d. When Fei Yuqing and Ayanga set up their stage, and Ren Xianqi notices that there is a Gu Qin (an instrument) onstage. Zhou Shen and Liu Yuning comment on how the stage visual looks like going to be big.

ZS (to LYN): We have nothing.

LKQ: I have dry ice.

LYN, smiling: Dry ice will already be dazzling.

e. After Xiao Zhan and Angela Chang finished their performance of “Shout” (3rd performance). The MC asks why Zhou Shen was singing along:

ZS, trying not to make AC seem old: This song is also one I listened to a lot when I was somewhat more...uh...

AC: Just say it, you! (XZ, helping ZS: Teens. In your teens)

ZS: Right, in my teens. So I was immediately brought back to that environment. Moreover, these 3 first songs, after hearing them, I feel like this stage is becoming increasingly more serious. And the scent of competition is getting increasingly thicker.

LKQ: Yeah, seeing that the first 3 groups are all so good...There are a few lyrics in this song that fit pretty closely with my current feeling, and those are “My heart is very dark”. (ZS loses it)

f. After the 4th performance, by Ren Xianqi and Liu Yuning.

MC: Teacher Keqin, after hearing them sing, did your heart light up?

Li Keqin shakes his head, looks down, and Zhou Shen picks up the mic after laughing silently at him:

ZS, singing about LKQ: “His heart is the color black~” (T/N: the melody and lyrics are derived from one of the songs they sang in the past)

Zhou Hua Jian loses it.

ZS, still singing while LKQ hides his face: “Today it’s finally my turn to pull the ladder under his feet~”

Someone in the audience shouts for Li Keqin to respond to Zhou Shen, but Li Keqin is too busy laughing and hiding his face.

g. Announcing Li Keqin and Zhou Shen’s turn to perform.

MC: Everyone knows it already. There’s nothing more to wait for *designates LKQ and ZS, who starts stretching*

LKQ: To be honest, after having seen the 4 groups before us, I’m feeling a little scared..... Because aside from the fact that they’re all really skilled, really good at singing...the packaging was also ... (ZS, completing for him: Impressive. Beautiful) Even the dancer at the front (during the previous performance) was really pretty. (RXQ cracks up)

MC: You’re not telling me that you weren’t listening to them singing and were just looking at that dancer, are you?

LKQ: No, no, no, no! I’m just looking at everything in detail.......Our song....aside from dry ice, will have nothing. (ZS laughs silently next to him) *holds ZS’s arm* But we have chosen a very good song. *lets ZS speak*

ZS: Right, actually it’s me who’s been pleading for this song since Episode 1. I’ve said “I really love this song”.

MC: But I think you guys really have some guts. (ZS laughs) Because half of the original singers of this song is currently sitting in this room.

ZS: He’s not only the original singer. He is also the one who (LKQ finishes with him: composed it.)

MC: Yeah...aren’t you guys really too gutsy?

(...)

h. Preparation of Lovers in the World. Li Keqin and Zhou Shen sitting next to each other in the backstage room.

ZS, fist against palm (to LKQ): Thank you so much to teacher Keqin!

LKQ, looking away: It’s nothing~OK lah~ OK lah~

ZS: Because, I think this song actually doesn’t have that many advantages in a competition. It’s not the kind of song that goes “aaaaaa” *mimics high notes with hand movements* That kind...

LKQ: It does! You have the parts that go *mimics ZS’s ‘aaaah’ parts in Lovers in the World, but very exaggeratedly*

ZS: I think our high notes in this song are all for the purpose of the mood, though...So I think this song is not that competitive.

LKQ: Actually, it’s pretty difficult. Because it’s got harmonisation from beginning to the end. (ZS: Yes, and all the lyrics are very crisp *makes a guilty face, likely because he knows it’s hard for LKQ to pronounce*) And also, for other songs, they don’t take too long to remember. This one, for someone who speaks Cantonese, it’s pretty.........hard. (ZS laughs silently while looking at him) It requires that both people have good chemistry.

ZS: Right.

LKQ: And after that, we’ll.....do our best *looks at ZS, while ZS makes another guilty face*

(the next part I’ve already translated. Basically, ZS praises LKQ who says no need for praise since he’s already agreed to sing this song with him)

ZS, very loudly: Right, so let everyone have a good listen at our teacher Keqin’s Mandarin, it’s first class level of awesome! *both thumbs up* (LKQ: ......;;; Ok)

i. After they finished performing “Lovers in the World”.

LKQ doing a playful salute: Teacher Hua Jian. (since it’s ZHJ’s song) (...)

MC: Elder brother Keqin, are you still nervous?

LKQ: Uhhh...*huffs* I’ve let... let out a breath. Right. Mm. *looks at ZS* Are you satisfied? You’ve always been hoping to sing this song.

ZS: I’m really happy I could sing this song. But what I didn’t expect is that while singing this song, we’d have teacher Hua Jian present. I think that’s an unexpected gift. Thank you, thank you.

(...)

RXQ, commenting on the performance: I keep thinking that, in my heart, Zhou Shen is like Peter Pan.

LKQ: Is it his outer appearance that’s like Peter Pan? (ZS laughs)

RXQ: No, no, I’m just saying, it’s because he has a pure heart towards music, like a child. (LKQ happily pats ZS on the back) There’s a positive energy in his voice. And their two voices, when they’re together, it’s just....It’s still that phrase for me: a Match Made in Heaven. So great. (LKQ is busy happily and playfully kicking ZS)

ZS: Thank you Xiao Qi Ge, thank you.

j. Easter Egg: DDR cut. One person per team, with Li Keqin representing Qin Shen Shen. Fei Yuqing and Angela went first, then Ren Xianqi and Yi Qiao, and Li Keqin went last, so he’s spent each of the other turns learning and practicing the steps.

ZS, teasingly, when RXQ and YQ are done: Teacher Keqin, it’s up to you!

Staff: Is there anyone who wants to do it together with Teacher Keqin? (since there are 2 spots on the machine)

LYN: Zhou Shen, go, Zhou Shen!

ZS: ???

LYN: Go, it’s time to show your strong suit!

AYG (to ZS): You just ranked 5th (in kart racing), you have to pull out some of your self-respect.

ZS, asking for cheers: What did I rank?

AYG: ......First! First.

ZS, turning to LKQ now that they’re both on the machine: Teacher Keqin. Now that you’ve already learned it twice.....

LKQ:

LYN (to LKQ and ZS): You have to remember you’re people who have danced to “Ye Lang Disco”.

ZS: Will we turn out to be the two with the highest scores out of everyone? *laughs cheekily*

(Half way through their DDR run, Zhou Shen starts holding Li Keqin’s hand and shouting directions like “Jump!” “Up! Right! Left!” until eventually Li Keqin gets distracted and messes up)

LKQ, protesting: HEY.

ZHJ and LYN, laughing at them: He’s distracting him.

AYG: Let me tell you, if you give Zhou Shen two more inches of legs, he won’t miss a single one. (ZS laughs)

In the end, Li Keqin gets a really high score, even higher than Zhou Shen.

ZS, happily staring at LKQ who has his hands in the air: Whoa! You scored higher than me!! (the two continue to stare at each other before eventually going for a celebratory hug)

#qin shen shen #li keqin #zhou shen #hacken lee #wo men de ge #our song #qss trans #the part where they announce the results is already translated so I won't put it in this part #I think its in part 2 or 3 #anyways the DDR and karting parts are still so good

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andersunmenschlich · 4 years ago

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Episode 13: Alone

All right! Finally I've managed to make time for another episode.

The title is promising. But... uh. We're getting another person talking now. Yeah, I'm not entirely comfortable with this. Bad enough there were all those background characters hanging around the archive, now we're hearing other people direct? And on an episode with a title like this, too!

I'm annoyed. This isn't what I was looking forward to. And Naomi Herne doesn't strike me as particularly polite, either. What, may I ask, is wrong with tape recorders? I quite liked recording things on tape when I was growing up.

...Ooh, interesting.

Looks like they started off trying to do the recording on something a bit more up to date than a tape recorder, and it didn't work.

I like that. I like that very much.

And it's fascinating that the head archivist is taking her statement himself! "I can have it transcribed later"? How very odd. Why not just have her write it down? Isn't that what they've been doing for decades? And even now: the statement-givers write things down, the assistants research and verify, the archivist makes an audio recording and files everything neatly. At least, I got the impression that that's how it's supposed to be done. So what is this? Surely nothing could possibly have been confirmed yet—the statement hasn't even been given!

It's untidy. I don't like it. Naomi Herne shouldn't be talking to Jonathan Sims, it doesn't make sense. Shouldn't she be talking to the receptionist, what's the name... Rosie? Isn't Rosie the one who takes the statements in usually?

I feel like we're missing a buffer, and it's both unsettling and extremely interesting.

So.

Naomi Herne is here to tell the Magnus Institute about something that happened after her husband's funeral. And aha! Finally!

It's about time we learned when this podcast is happening. That's been niggling at me for twelve whole episodes now. "The date is the thirteenth of January, 2016." Awesome. So the first statement was transferred to tape at the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016. I wonder how many they do a day, and whether they work weekends. It'd be pleasantly tidy if they recorded one statement to tape a day, every day. I'd like that.

Naomi Herne says the thing that happened was weird and inexplicable given her current knowledge of the world she lives in, and that she probably imagined the whole thing. Somehow I suspect she doesn't believe that at all, but would like to make herself believe it if she can.

...And Mr. Sims interrupts.

You know, I really don't like having more than one person here. It's an innovation I’m not particularly enjoying.

In any case, Jonathan Sims tries to leave, Naomi Herne wants him to stay... I don't understand either person here. Is there really a point to giving someone privacy while they make a statement that's going to be listened to and copied down and researched and so on by a whole team of people? What's the reasoning behind that thought? And, on the other hand, why would you not want to be alone?

Maybe it's growing up in a house with thirteen other people (nine siblings, two parents, two grandparents), but it seems to me that being alone is a rare and wonderful thing. You know I didn't even have my own bedroom until my late teens?

If someone is willing to leave you alone, in my opinion, you should be delighted.

Jonathan agrees to stay while Naomi gives her statement. Hopefully this won't lead to more conversation. I suppose we'll see.

Apparently Naomi Herne, like me, works at being a bit of a blender. Average, unnoticeable, overlooked—like the paint on a wall, something nobody really looks at or thinks about. A good choice if you want to get things done without being constantly interrupted by people wanting to chat or hang out or party or know what you're doing in a restricted area or who knows what all else.

Unlike me, however, she says she "did get a bit lonely sometimes," which I can't say I ever have. While it might seem useful to have friends as a sort of social camouflage, they're such a demanding form of camouflage that in practice it isn't actually worth it.

She says a Pastor David seemed worried about her comfort with her own company. Well, at least he was the only one.

Honestly, who worries about a thing like that?

[sarcastically] Ooh, it's not natural for people to live in isolation, humans are creatures of community by nature. Next I'll be hearing how I'm not human and don't really count as a person (again). Perhaps the definition of "human" ought to be expanded, hmm? Include some of those sentient, human-shaped beings who aren't, by nature, what people like Pastor David insist all humans are.

Well. Pastor David, according to Naomi Herne, was worried she might "get lost," whatever that means. Naomi says she thinks she knows what he meant by it—but for some reason she doesn't tell us! Inconsiderate. Eh, perhaps she'll do it later.

Naomi graduated from Leeds in 2013 with the highest possible honors degree in Chemistry.

I like chemistry. Seems like the closest you can get to alchemy in real life.

Anyway, she got a job as a science technician in Woking, near London, which is where she was applying for a better job—lab assistant in a biochemistry department at University College London—when she met someone named Evan, who was also applying for that job. Apparently she clicked with him. Got along with him so well, in fact, that she was happy to see him waiting for her outside the building after their interviews.

Of course, it couldn't stay this good. No. They had to start dating, and then living together, and then they got married, because everyone knows that's the natural progression when you actually get along with someone. No other flavors of relationship are valid (maybe not even possible).

Annoyance aside, Naomi Herne doesn't usually do relationships of this type. She says her past boyfriends left when they realized she wasn't all that thrilled about having them around, which seems like the polite thing to do, really.

This Evan, though, is basically her soulmate.

Despite the fact that he has a battalion of friends, and this ends up pulling her into having "what could perhaps be called a social life."

Doesn't sound particularly pleasant, but she says she didn't hate it, which I suppose I can almost see; it is easier to be around people when you have a trusted human buffer. And after Evan dies from a congenital heart problem, she stops hanging out with his friends and goes back to comfortably familiar solitude, which makes sense to me.

She did attend the funeral, though. It seems Evans had a very rich family, with their own personal mausoleum out at their mansion, Moorland House.

It was a very quiet funeral, and not a particularly friendly one.

Naomi says everyone there was wearing the same expression. Even the corpse. She doesn't say what expression specifically, though—just that it's hard and possibly angry. Oh, and finally we get a last name for her husband: he's Evan Lucas.

Huh.

They send her away to do the burial. That doesn't seem usual.

So she drives off in the pouring rain in the middle of a storm, which doesn't seem safe, and naturally enough she crashes.

It's not a melodramatic crash, though. She just plows off the road into a field and then sits there with her engine smoking and definitely not running, and realizes it's been five hours since she arrived at the Lucas place... oh, and she has no cell service (or GPS functionality) out there.

This means she has to walk. In the storm.

She gets so wet it wrecks her phone, which she finds infuriating, so she throws the useless thing onto the ground, where it breaks further, then bounces off the road and buries itself completely in the mud. She walks and walks and walks, crying and soaked through and very cold, until finally she collapses, at which point she notices that the rain has stopped and now she's surrounded by fog.

...Fog that seems to be following her. And gives her the feeling that it's malicious. And wants something from her. Well, now. That's interesting.

Uh.

And then she makes a point of saying there's no presence to it. Yeah, that makes no sense at all. Malice and desire aren't properties of nothingness! There has to be something present in order for it to want something from you.

"It made me feel utterly forsaken," she says, and in my experience it's always people who do that.

In any case, she gets up and starts to run down the road, hoping to reach the end. Instead she loses the path. It takes her a little while to notice that she's running on dirt and grass instead of tarmac. Once she does, she tries to backtrack, but can't find the road at all. So for some reason she decides to kneel down and check out the dirt, which is mist-damp but not rain-wet.

Ahaha, she went sideways, didn't she? This is delightful.

Whatever new dimension she's found herself in, it sounds most agreeable to me. No stars, no moon, no artificial lights, a night so dark you shouldn't be able to see—but you can. A shifting, slate-grey fog, skeletal trees, grass, dirt, old, abandoned gravestones....

If there were a sign saying "Stay, Wander Awhile," it couldn't be more welcoming than this.

In the center of the graveyard is a small chapel. According to Naomi Herne's description, "The top of its steeple was lost in the gloom and the windows were dark. There was stained glass in the windows, but without any light from inside I couldn't make out the design. Wrapped around the handles of the entrance was a sturdy iron chain."

At this point, for some reason, she starts shouting and screaming for help. I was prepared to be annoyed by this, but (wonder of wonders!) it's a sound-muffling fog. Oh, I like this place so much.

Naomi Herne, on the other hand....

This obnoxious individual continues yelling even after it's clear no one can hear her but herself, just to hear the noise. And then she goes looking for something to break a church window with because, inexplicably, she's decided being inside the church will keep the fog away from her. "Anything to get out of the fog"? Pardon me, Ms. Herne, but you're breaking a window, correct? It's just going to follow you in!

She also says "I was sure that eventually someone would find me," which isn't at all the impression I'm receiving from this dimension a step or two sideways from our own. Surely a place like this would keep you safe from everyone forever?

Whatever the case, she goes for a piece of stone that's fallen from one of the grave markers.

As she bends over to pick it up, though, she notices that the grave is empty.

"The hole was neat, square and deep, as though ready for a burial. At the bottom was a coffin. It was open, and there was nothing inside. I backed away and almost fell into another open grave behind me. I started to look around the cemetery with increasing panic. Every grave was open, and they were all empty."

Ha. Well, it looks like someone missed the Rapture.

You know, if it weren't for the danger of being buried by sliding earth, I'd be tempted to climb into one of those empty coffins and take a bit of a nap.

—Oh. How prescient of me.

The fog starts pulling Naomi Herne, our statement giver, into that first grave. She says it began to weigh her down: "It coiled about me, its formless damp clung to me and began to drag me gently, slowly, towards the waiting pit."

Backing away, she slips on the damp ground and falls. Sliding towards the grave, she uses that heavy piece of stone as an anchor to keep herself out.

Hey, and she gets away! Well done, Naomi Herne.

Struggling to her feet, she suddenly notices that the chapel's doors are open now. The chain's just lying on the steps. Huh. Well, who or what did that? Hmm. Whatever the case, this looks like an invitation to me. But how inviting is the inside of this church? I practically grew up in churches, so they're as familiar to me as libraries (oh, all right: even more so). In my opinion, the least inviting church tends to be the one with the most worshipers in it.

Oh, but this church is very welcoming! It looks as though she's being invited to go deeper, further sideways, farther away from the world we know.

"Through that door, where the inside of the chapel should be, was a field. It was bathed in sickly moonlight, and the fog rolled close to the ground. It seemed to stretch for miles, and I knew that I could wander there for years, and never meet another."

Ahh, that's beautiful.

This is the kind of thing I take my midnight walks for. Hours alone in the mountains under the moon, while the wolves howl in the distance and the lights of the city fade....

Naomi Herne, however, doesn't seem drawn to it.

She turns away from the door—and nearly cries when she sees that beyond the graveyard's edge is that same field. You know, some people have all the luck and just don't appreciate it at all. Of course, I could be mistaken about this place. But I have the feeling a person wouldn't need to eat or sleep here; that physical needs would be optional. I could use that. I'm always acting as though I think they are, and then my body stops working properly. It's annoying.

Anyway, our statement-giver runs away from the field beyond the door and into the field beyond the cemetery.

It beats me why she's running.

Apparently this place doesn't see why she should run, either. "The fog seemed to be getting thicker, and moving through it was getting harder. It was like I was running against the wind, except the air was completely still. I could hardly breathe as I inhaled it."

Yes; that's because you're running. Slow down and everything should be perfectly fine.

Oh. How unexpected.

As Naomi Herne is running through this endless field in a world two steps to the side of our own, her dead husband's voice calls to her. "Turn left," he says. And she does.

Turning sharply to the left, she keeps on running. She runs out into the middle of a road in our world, and wham! gets hit by a car. "I remember a second of headlights, and then nothing until I woke up in the hospital."

...Wait. "I would suggest you leave the stone with us so we can study it"?

What stone?

Don't tell me she was running around carrying that heavy piece of headstone? Surely not. And then, what, whoever hit her decided to take the rock to the hospital as well? That doesn't make a great deal of sense. But I'm pretty sure that's the only stone that's been mentioned this entire statement which she could possibly have brought to the institute, so....

Mr. Sims suggests that Ms. Herne see a psychologist. Ms. Herne is offended. The tape recorder gets turned off.

See? There's a definite click when that happens. We'd know if Mr. Sims took a break to do research. ...Not that I've ever heard him recite any incantations either, though. Maybe it's his research assistants who can do the beholding spell.

They certainly seem uncannily good at getting their hands on information.

Whatever the case, Mr. Sims says research was done while the tape recorder was stopped. Evan Lucas died from heart failure 3-22-15 and his family handled the burial.

"All requests to the Lucas family for information or interviews have been very firmly rebuffed," which is impressive given how much data these archival assistants have been able to dig out of everybody else in the past twelve episodes. It's rare for people to refuse to talk to them, which I could put down to the use of some sort of magic—but won't, because I'm fairly certain I'm not magical and yet people are always telling me things about themselves even when I didn't ask.

Not that I'm not interested!

I'm always interested when a stranger comes up to me and strikes up a somewhat one-sided conversation which evolves into them telling me about their childhood, or fear of Alzheimer's so desperate they'd rather die than have their mind slip away from them, or why they decided to become whatever they are, or some such thing.

If I have to interact with people, well—I think listening to their deeply personal information is one of the best flavors of human interaction.

...Though I will admit that having people talk to me like this all the time has kind of confused my understanding of what things are supposed to be private.

In any case.

Naomi Herne got hit by a car at about one am March 31. The funeral was a week after the death, so that means Ms. Herne slipped sideways on the 29th, which means she was in that otherworld for a full day and change?

The person who hit her was named Michael Getty, and the place was "Wormshill in the Kent Downs," wherever that is. Her car was in a field five miles away.

She was concussed and dehydrated, but there's no mention of her having not eaten for a full day and then some, so either they're ignoring that or food really isn't necessary in fairyland. Though apparently liquids are, which is strange since she was surrounded by fog the whole time! Hmm. You don't think the moisture was coming from her own body, do you? Amplified, yes, enhanced somehow, but... the non-presence in the fog... it could have been her.

That would make a kind of sense.

You can't have things like malice or desire without something present to be malicious or desirous, yet she said "it wasn't as though there was another person there...." Yes, yes, that makes sense!

I hypothesize that, somehow, the part of Naomi Herne that likes being alone manifested semi-separately from the rest of her, sucking moisture from her body to surround her as a thick fog and guide her off at an other-dimensional angle into a world where she could be alone forever. The part of her that doesn't want to be alone was terrified by this, and that's why she ran.

That doesn't explain her dead husband's voice, though. What kind of solitary fairyland has the ghosts of other people in it?

Also, her husband had plenty of friends and was apparently just fine with people—I somehow doubt his heaven would look like that. So what the hey. I can't make sense of that at all.

Well. Back to Jonathan Sims.

Mr. Sims would like to dismiss the whole thing as a hallucination, but unfortunately for him, Naomi Herne was clutching a chunk of carved granite when Michael Getty hit her, and the unfortunate near-perpetrator of vehicular manslaughter apparently decided the woman and the rock were a set, so she was able to bring it to the Magnus Institute and show it to him.

It's got an engraved cross design, looks like it came off a headstone, and has one word on it that's probably from the marker: "Forgotten."

Jonathan Sims says it's going to artifact storage. You know, the Magnus Institute's artifact storage must be an interesting place full of some very weird things. I wouldn't half mind taking a look.

And the recording ends.

This is probably the last episode I'll be listening to for a while, since once I've got this piece of commentary saved in my Tumblr queue I'll need to box my laptop up and ship it across the country to myself. I've never moved my entire life quite this far before. It's proving to be a bit of an undertaking. Once I'm settled in, though, I want to come back to this.

The Magnus Archives is an excellent podcast. I very much want to hear more.

#The Magnus Archives #episode 13 #commentary #late to the party #5-28-20

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teachingmycattoread · 4 years ago

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Things We’ve Yelled About This Episode #10.5

Part II of Things We’ve Yelled About This Episode: Small Gods Edition

“And it all meant this: that there are hardly any excess of the most crazed psychopath that cannot be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who comes in to work every day and has a job to do.

Vorbis loved knowing that. A man who knew that knew everything he needed to know about people.”

***

“And a minute later the tortoise finds the world dropping away from it. And it sees the world for the first time, no longer one inch from the ground but five hundred feet above it, and it thinks: what a great friend I have in the eagle.

And then the eagle lets go.”

***

“ “He said that you spoke unto him from out of a pillar of flame,” said Brutha.

“Oh, that Ossory,” said the tortoise. “Pillar of flame. Yes.”

“And you dictated to him the Book of Ossory,” said Brutha. “Which contains the Directions, the Gateways, the Abjurations and the Precepts. One hundred and ninety-three chapters.”

“I don’t think I did all that,” said Om, doubtfully. “I’m sure I would have remembered one hundred and ninety-three chapters.”

“What did you say to him, then?”

“As far as I can remember it was “Hey, see what I can do!”” said the tortoise.

Brutha stared at it, It looked embarrassed, insofar as that’s possible for a tortoise.

“Even gods like to relax,” it said.””

***

“No matter what your skills, there was a place for you in the Citadel.

And if your skill lay in asking the wrong kinds of questions, or losing the righteous kind of wars, the place might just be the furnaces of purity, or the Quisition’s pits of justice.

A place for everyone. And everyone in their place.”

***

“Mind like a steel ball, Om had said. Nothing got in or out. So all Vorbis could hear were the distant echoes of his own soul.”

***

““But do you know what’s special [about Vorbis]? Do you know what it is?”

“Of course,” said Simony, “It’s what he’s doing to-”

“It’s what he’s done to you.”

“What?”

“He turns other people into copies of himself.””

***

“People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh?

And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn’t in fact made it. If he had made it would, being Supreme, have made a much better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker.”

***

“The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different.

For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”

***

“ “So we rush them, then?” said Simony. “I’m sure of – maybe four hundred on our side. So I give the signal and a few hundred of us attack thousands of them? And he dies anyway and we die too? What difference does that make?”

Urn’s face was grey with horror now.

“You mean you don’t know?” he said.

Some of the crowd looked round curiously at him.

“You don’t know?”

***

““I’m sorry to say that beating young Brutha is like trying to flog a mattress,” said Nhumrod. “He says “ow!” but I think it’s only because he wants to show willing.””

***

“ “Is there a watchman?”

“Not now. Come help me with the bolts.”

A small wicket gate was set into the main gate. Brutha, his mind numb with hatred, shoved the bolts aside with the heel of his hand.”

***

“The memory stole over him: a desert is what you think it is. And now, you can think clearly…

There were no lies here. All fancies fled away. That’s what happened in all deserts. It was just you, and what you believed.

What have I always believed?

That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.

You couldn’t get that on a banner. But the desert looked better already.

Fri’it set out.”

***

“ “It takes a long time for people like Vorbis to die. They leave echoes in history.””

***

“The philosophers looked very embarrassed. Then Ibid said, “Foorgol the God of Avalanches? Where’s the snowline?”

“Tow hundred miles away,” said someone.

They waited. Nothing happened.

“Relic of an outmoded belief system,” said Xeno.

A wall of freezing white death did not appear anywhere in Ephebe.

“Mere unthinking personification of a natural force,” said one of the philosophers, in a louder voice. They all seemed to feel a lot better about this.

“Primitive nature worship.”

“Wouldn’t give you tuppence for him.”

“Simple rationalisation of the unknown.”

“Hah! A clever fiction, a bogey to frighten the weak and stupid.”

The words rose up in Brutha. He couldn’t stop himself.

“Is it always this cold?” he said. “It seemed very chilly on my way here.”

The philosophers all moved away from Xeno.”

***

“Om rubbed his forehead. I spent too long down here, he thought. I can’t stop thinking at ground level.

“I think,” he said, “I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.”

***

“The shepherd had a hundred sheep, and it might have been surprising that he was prepared to spend days searching for one sheep; in fact, it was because he was the kind of man prepared to spend days looking for a lost sheep that he had a hundred sheep.”

***

“Om was in the throng, standing right behind the Tsortean God of Thunder with a faraway expression on his face. It was noticeable, if only to Brutha, that the Thunder God’s right arm disappeared up behind his own back in a way that, if such a thing could be imagined, would suggest that someone was twisting it to the edge of pain.”

***

“He tapped the Solar God on the shoulder. “Hey, sunshine?”

When the God looked around, Om broke the cornucopia over his head.”

***

“ [The eagle] wheeled, only a few feet above the ground, and perched on the statue of Great Om trampling the Infidel [...]

“It’s a sign?” said an old man with a wooden leg.

“Yes! A sign!” said a young woman next to him.

“A sign!”

They gathered around the statue.

“It’s a bugger,” said a small and totally unheard voice from somewhere around their feet.”

#tmctr #teaching my cat to read #small gods #we were just really into quoting things this episode #idk what to tell you

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tangledinart · 5 years ago

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I think I've heard this before and I'm not sold on this at all but I'll share my thoughts on this anyway cuz eh why not? (Also i told discord friends I would since we talked about this)

I am really looking forward to the Saporia Plot next season! And that we also are going back to Corona, and that we will see the characters like Rapunzel's parents and the guard, and Varian and Xavier again. I sorta have a thought concerning the Sepratists of Saporia and Varian's potential connection to them. Aside from that, I have really thought about Saporia and Varian lately since Saporia is taking over Corona and Varian also shares a hatred for Corona which i doubt has changed over the year and especially with the assumption Quirin is still encased. This could lead to Varian either being an ally to Saporia or him being an enemy or prisoner to them. I think both are plausible.

What do we know about Saporia? (Cut me slack if i get stuff wrong its been a good few months since I've seen Under Raps)

Centuries before Rapunzels time, Corona and Saporia were rival kingdoms that were at war with one another. Eventually the kindoms unitied into Corona when Herz De Sonne married General Shampanier.

When the kingdoms were united several Saporians felt betrayed and separated and swore to one day get vengence and take over Corona when the time was right. Which it seems like they will have succeeded in the next episode

They do or at least some of them do both alchemy and magic according to the books and carts in Rapunzel Day One.

So what does this have to do with Varian? Nothing honestly. Varian is an alchemist in old Corona who's father Quirin was a knight in the Dark Kingdom and is now encased in amber. Varian and Quirin themselves seem to have nothing related to Saporia about them. But I was looking at the portrait of Varian's mother the other day and got some Saporian vibes.

His mother seems like a simple sweet woman, and she very well could be dead. But I think she may have either been a Separatist of Saporia or maybe a Coronan lady who is a decendent of the Saporians. Now this seemed odd to me, because Quirin has lived in Corona for at least 18 years since he warned Frederic about the sundrop flower and Quirin seems to be loyal to Corona, so it would only make sense his wife is too. But that doesn't mean she wasn't. Like I said she could be of Saporian descent but not a separatist and could be loyal to Corona. Or there is the possibility she was a Sepratist spy who gave it up once she married Quirin and was happy with her new life. Why did I even get this idea? (I've always been so curious about Varians mom and hated we never got an explanation about her though I understand it hasn't been relevant, and i really hope she is brought up cause this show has very little focus on mothers and I REALLY want an explanation though if we never get one we can know she is dead.).. but anyway Look at her design in the picture above, then look at the pictures below.

She wears the EXACT colors of the Saporian emblem. Red and White. Could that be a coincidence? Yes. It very well could. But this show is HUGE on foreshadowing and i wouldn't be suprised if this was a foreshadowing.

Look at Varian's moms hair then General Shampanier's. Its very similar to General Shampanier's which could be hinting that Varian's mom was Saporian. Once again its probably a coincidence but I find it curious all Saporian characters we have met in the show have their hair pulled up in a bun. Tho I guess it's not weird, Shampanier was in battle who wants hair in their face while sword fighting? XD And the manbun just seems like Andrews thing. I DOUBT wearing a bun is a Saporian thing but I think it could be a visual forshadowing maybe if Varians mom is Saporian. Like I said, the two Saporian characters we've seen have worn their hair up.

And like I said earlier Saporians have exposure to alchemy and magic. And you know its a bit odd Varian is into alchemy when being raised in a farmer village. Varian could of easily learned it from his mother. Possibly she could of taught him as a young kid, or he could of seen his mom doing it as a young kid and took interest in it when Varian is older since its one of the few things about his mom he remembers. We don't know when Varians mom died or disappeared. And yes its possible Varian could of just found alchemy on his own and he needed to be an alchemist for S1's plot to work (tho heck is he was gonna just be an apple picker originally.) So yeah this could just be me overanalyzing. But! Its also possible Varian learned alchemy because of his Saporian descent.

Do I think Varian's mom is alive? Maybe. Us seing a picture of her and her not being present and never mentioned in the rest of the show is enough to tell us she is dead. But the show isn't over yet. If she is alive and is Saporian, she could of left Quirin and Varian, which I would hate cause if we were going to get another tangledmom I want it to be a good one and heck Varian needs a good mom desperately if he were to get one. What I like better is that she was a Separatist spy that gave up her ill intentions to Corona when she meets and marries Quirin and shortly is taken against her will by the Separatist of Saporia back to um wherever the Separatist are after Varian is born. And is she is alive maybe she will be present in the series somewhere. But tbh the most likely route is that she is dead. I hope, if she is dead we get some good mother representation in this show somewhere! (QUEEN ARIANNA ATTENTION WOULD BE GREAT, shout out to Arianna appreciation week!)

Ok so thats my two cents about Varians mom. Thats not all I've got with this overall thought.

So I think Saporian and Varian both doing alchemy will either bring them together as allies or tear them as enemies.

This is how I could see Varian agreeing to team up with them if the first option happens (not involving anything i said about his mom cuz even if she was alive i doubt she is present in the take over.)

They both hate Corona, that alone seems to be enough to convince Varian to join them to me. I could even see Saporians manipulating Varian by offering them to help free Quirin with their alchemy/magic or by luring Rapunzel into Corona with the take over.... How would the Saporians even know about Varians issue? Xavier said the Saporians were waiting for the perfect time to strike, so I bet they have spies throughout Corona. And they knew Corona was weak because Varian took over so they probably know exactly who Varian is! But I don't know about this one, Varians redemption would be difficult with this route.

Other scenario. Varian is imprisoned and under Saporians rule just like the rest of Corona. (Or even more so then the rest of Corona since he single handedly nearly had taken over Corona before and they could see him see him as a threat.) This would make it easier for him to be redeemed by Rapunzel by a rescue and I think and is more plausible than the first option.

Eh this is mostly me rambling thoughts that I dont even buy completely, I never make huge legitimate theories or get attached to them XD And I think there are several other characters connection possibilities to Saporia, like Cass! But whatever happens I'm so excited for everything about S3 and especially Saporia! (Let Andrew and Varian despise each other I want to see Tom and Kaits story board fights become reality😂)

#ramblings #Separatists of Saporia #Saporia #Varian #Varian's mom #Andrew #tts #tangled the series #rta #rapunzel's tangled adventure

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mashitandsmashit · 4 years ago

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America’s Got Talent: Season 15 - Auditions 3

10: David Rush. Well this was a real RUSH to beat the clock, huh? ...Eh? ...Eh? Well, I can't exactly say it made for the best show, but if he's promising to do all of those crazy things for future performances...Huh? What's that? He didn't go through because apparently Howie and Sofia aren't interested in seeing those things? Well then, I guess this was a complete waste of time...Congratulations on the record though...Let's get to the REAL passing acts...

9: Amanda LaCount. It seems almost cruel that supermodel Heidi of all people buzzed this girl. I guess it was nothing great, but I've seen weaker overweight dancers, so I'm willing to let her have her moment for now...

8: Celina. I'm not QUITE as desensitized towards singers as FrankDoc is, but I am definitely getting there...At this point I'm just desperately grasping for ANY kind of uniqueness in this ever-expanding category of talent...I'm just looking to get some kind of new experience...But as we go on, it's just getting harder and harder to care anymore...It's all the same kinda fluff by now...How was this lady? ...Good...I might have appreciated her more a few years ago...The tragedy is that singing makes up about half the talent that competes on this show, and there always should have been significantly less! Maybe then I would actually still have a level of appreciation for a good voice...

7: Daneliya Tuleshova. I wasn't super-impressed by this performance either, but I put her over Celina because I actually see some nice potential (and apparently, so do her fans from “The Voice Kids”). The song choice wasn't the best display of her abilities, but I could still see them. Overall, this was the most memorable American performance from a Kazakh since Borat sang the national anthem! (And I promise that I will end the Borat jokes there! ...Not! ...Nah, seriously, that's as far as I'll go...)

6: Marty Ross. I'll admit, during that first minute, seeing what little enthusiasm everyone was showing, I was afraid for this guy...And then he got into the kinds of dirty jokes you expect from elder comedians like him by now, and he settled comfortably into likably amusing territory...It is all becoming gimmicky in that all of these comedians keep having to joke about “first impressions”, like “Yeah, I'm X, but I'm funny because Y!” That said, I'll give him a chance and see how he develops in the coming rounds...But so far, the guy from last week has the most potential as this year's comedian to not quite get that win...

5: The Demented Brothers. It seems that an increasing number of magicians know that they'll never reach Shin Lim's level, so they just goof around and perform what I can only describe as “mock magic” (see Lioz Shem Tov from Season 13). I ALMOST considered giving these two the top spot on the list as sort of a poetic “Take that!” to this episode for its heavy focus on sentimental singing acts, but like Lioz before them, the comedy never quite reached true brilliance...Perhaps they will have a chance to do that for future rounds, but Simon's gonna make that difficult for them...It sucks being the funny guy in a room full of sad people, doesn't it?

4: Resound. I think I would say that these people are EXACTLY EQUALLY talented as Voices of Service...at least based on what we've seen so far...That's a good thing, but it is hard to get super-invested in them when they feel like such a similar act to one we've seen the previous year...Sometimes I just want to see something different...I think I've been saying that for a while now...

3: Cristina Rae. Aaaannnnd, we're back to the predictable formula...Not just the Golden Buzzer being saved for the very end of the show, but also Simon stopping a singer and letting them pick a second song...Which is a pity, because by that point we ALL knew she was going to get it anyway (not to mention how much of her we saw in the promos), so the commercial break did nothing but try my patience...All I gotta say is, this lady's lucky that her second song was so much better than her first! So is THIS the Golden Buzzer that will win this season? Well, let's compare her with last week's selection...Roberta's definitely the more typical candidate, because as I usually point out, adults tend to be favored over kids in the MALE singer category, whereas kids almost ALWAYS outperform adults in the FEMALE singer category...That being said, Roberta still lacks that unique aspect to her that other winners had in the past, whereas we surprisingly haven't had any soul singers win the show yet, albeit one that sings rock songs (though Cristina certainly isn't the first). And of course, I'm still waiting to see an adult woman win this show after seeing several young girls (and plenty of adult men) pull it off...So I would definitely say I'm rooting for Cristina more...But Roberta has better odds going for her...Though at the end of the day, I'd probably say that it will be neither of them...And NEXT week (I was wrong before, but it is DEFINITELY next week), Simon will be giving out HIS Golden Buzzer! Naturally, we should wait and see who it will be, but I have no doubt that the man won't rest until at least one GB of his finally wins...

2: Shakir & Rihan. It's official: V.Unbeatable has paved the way for Indian acrobatic dancers! Not sure if they stack up with BAD Salsa, but I do see a LOT of promise so far! Lord knows, India doesn't have ENOUGH of a problem with youths tossing young boys in the air...

1: Emerald Gordon Wulf. I've been debating with myself all night who should get the top spot in this list, and I ultimately picked this kid, because aside from some impressive contortions (a step or two past what we've seen from girl contortionists in the past), she put on a show! What's more, she didn't have to rely on making it intense like Sofie Dossi, or shocking like Frenchie Babyy (though I hear she was on “Toddlers & Tiaras”, so I guess that's a little shocking...) All she needed to do was entertain with a creative set and an equally creative entrance (a nice logical step forward after that guy in the suitcase last year). I look forward to seeing what she brings for later rounds!

I will admit, my hunger for unique, new talent that we haven't seen on this show before is getting the best of me...Does anyone else like to make up fantasy acts in their head? I've done it since I started watching this show, and sadly, a lot of them are far more interesting than a lot of the acts we've gotten this season so far...I guess there were one or two acts this season that I might consider “Golden Buzzer worthy”, and I might even end up giving my imagined Golden Buzzer for the season to one of them...But otherwise, nobody's really blowing me away so far...I hope that changes soon, but it gets harder the longer I watch this show...

Anyway, I already talked about the Golden Buzzer for next week, so I guess I'll just leave it there for now...Stay safe and stay healthy!

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meimi-haneoka · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on Clear Card chapter 37

Missed last chapter because of vacations (to sum it up in few words: WHAT THE HELL (supposedly) AKIHO’S MOM AND NADESHIKO MET IN THE PAST?? AND WERE FRIENDS? HOLY SHIT!), but September has come and with it a new chapter of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card is here! The story has reached a point in which the capture of the cards is definitely pushed aside, to make room for some revelations and new events!! Yes, because when we thought that we eventually could start heading towards the climax, new stuff is revealed and new stuff happens! CLAMP certainly want to impress us every month! Let’s see what made the whole fandom scream “OMG Tsubasa!!” this month (too). Under the cut!

Oh, I cannot really start without mentioning the GORGEOUS double color page that opens this chapter. Nadeshiko and Akiho’s mom, in their angel form! And look what’s in Nadeshiko’s hands? This color illustration not only confirms the colors of the clock necklace, but also the color of the hair of Akiho’s mom, and the fact that she’s dead, very very dead. Those wings don’t lie! I kinda always knew (in the manga CLAMP were very vague before, saying Akiho’s parents ‘aren’t here anymore’, which could mean many things) that she was dead, because I thought “Hell, only death could prevent a mother from saving her child from such a shitty family”. I’m really, really curious to know what those two are up to, both when they were still alive and now that they’re angels.

OH COME ON NOT AGAIN

Eeeeeehhhhh.... So we left the kids last chapter with Syaoran badly hurt from a spark that was ignited when he touched Sakura. Long story short, they find out it’s only happening with Syaoran, Tomoyo (+ Kero and Suppy, later) are absolutely “allowed” to touch Sakura, while Syaoran is fried alive every time he even tries to. Sakura doesn’t get hurt, so it apparently seems something specifically meant to keep Syaoran away from her and hurt him. He even tries to check if it’s a spell, using one of his magic tricks, but it doesn’t work. Still fried. OF COURSE the first thing he thought is that “ano hito” (Kaito) was the culprit for this situation, but after checking better, he says he can indeed feel the aura of a magic spell, but it’s not from that person. And it can’t be turned into a card, so he assumes it’s not Sakura’s power going haywire again. So he poses the major question that will torture us for the next months: WHO THE HELL IS IT, THEN? Do CLAMP want to introduce new characters at this point of the story? OR WE GONNA FIND OUT WE’LL HAVE TO HAVE THAT GRILLED CALAMARI FEST SOONER THAN EXPECTED? Cause if they have something to do with it....eh......get the pyre ready! Now. I know, ever since spoilers were circulating around, the fandom has mentioned “Tsubasa!!!!111!!” again, because of the direct consequence of this: if they don’t want to lose the little wolf prematurely (and I can assure you those shocks hurt badly, there’s even smoke/steam coming from his arm!! wtf!!), they’ll absolutely have to abstain from touching one another. Like, I know CLAMP considered holding hands a taboo, but holy shit! This is taking it a step further XD gotta keep the lovebirds separated! Anyway, the situation in which they can’t touch is sadly well known from the Tsubasa fans, because it’s the key factor that sparked all the events in TRC: Syaoran didn’t dare touching Sakura because of her ritual, and so in the crucial moment he didn’t take her hand, causing her to be engraved with the Seal of Death that eventually led him to wish to rewind time. A situation like this repeating in CCSakura means TRC post traumatic syndrome for sure, for some of us! Another detail that set off the TRC alarms is this stuff here:

Syaoran activates a spell to check if he can touch Sakura with it on. It’s probably a shielding spell. Many people were reminded of the way the spells around Real!Syaoran looked like while he was trapped, or the magic that both Fai and Clone!Syaoran used in the manga, but the truth is that this same style of spells was already used by CLAMP in CCS in the 90s, and now they’re just being compliant with that:

This is purely how Syaoran’s magic spells look like. So calm down people (this) is not a reference!

This panel here kinda squeezed my heart in pain. Cause she comes back home, she forces a smile in front of her father but you can see that it’s not her usual smile (it’s weaker), then she goes to her room and warns Kero to not touch her, even though he was already reaching out to her to greet his master with affection. Without even saying it aloud, you can already feel in Sakura’s gestures that she’s blaming herself for what is happening. “You must stay away from me, or I’ll end up hurting you too”. This panel, added to this one here

where she withdraws her hand abruptly after realizing she hurt Syaoran twice, they really make me feel sorry for Sakura.

OH COME ON NOT AGAIN PT. 2

Eh. After finding out that Kero and Suppi are totally fine with touching her and the only one having problems is the young heir of the Li family, the first thing that comes to Sakura’s mind is this. The Evil!Syaoran from her dream. Remember last time we saw him? It was in chapter 26, 11 chapters and almost one year ago. After all this time he’s still relevant, so this must mean something. It will certainly bring up some mess, whether it’s a true dream or not it doesn’t matter, the mere thought is enough to let us realize that Sakura hasn’t forgotten and it’s still in the back of her mind. Ready to cause a disaster, should her psychological state get worse. Sakura reminds herself firmly that that was just a dream....but is it?

THUMBELINA SAKURA

And when we thought it couldn’t get worse than this, Sakura shrinks in the middle of a conversation with Akiho, the gust of wind was the only thing that didn’t allow Akiho to see what happened!!! The situation is indeed pretty hilarious especially when Syaoran finds her and uses Mirror to replace her temporarily, but thinking better about it we can all realize this is gonna be a mess, because Syaoran can’t touch her. And who knows where the gust of wind took her!! We get one of the 32874 cliffhangers in which Syaoran shouts “Sakura!!!11!!1!ONE!!” cause if we don’t, it’s not a proper Clear Card chapter. XD

We need to wait for October to find out what will happen and whether this is indeed a Clear Card at work, or it’s Kaito or whatever else, but let me briefly dwell on this stuff of “not touching”. If you follow my comments and analysis (and asks) from long time, you know I’ve mentioned often that Syaoran and Sakura’s relationship has long entered a comfortable “zone” in which they hug eachother in times of desperation, and all the hugs are initiated by Syaoran. When he feels like he’s losing her, when he feels like he’s not protecting her enough, he looks to hold her in his arms. They both need eachother’s touch (remember episode 14 of the anime? Sakura could only calm down because of Syaoran’s hug). But now? Syaoran won’t even be able to touch her with one finger. What is gonna happen if Sakura will find herself in a situation in which she has a panic attack? Syaoran will probably die inside knowing that he can’t do anything for her. He can’t tell her about Kaito, he can’t even touch her now. I am fearing for his mental state too. If CLAMP want to drive Syaoran crazy, in my opinion this is the right way. He would probably suffer an eletrical shock on his whole body if that meant he could hold her, but he knows better, he knows that Sakura would be devastated by that. I am concerned.

#cardcaptor sakura #Card Captor Sakura #clear card arc #clear card #ccs spoilers #chapter 37

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skaylanphear · 6 years ago

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I guess I’m not surprised? Voltron thoughts and spoilers.

Review for season 7: Eh?

Honestly, I don’t understand how Voltron can be so well-written one season and so poorly written the next. I think season 7 was worse than season 4. I haven’t yet watched a season where I was concocting my review before I was finished watching, but I was honestly waiting for it to end by the time I was halfway through.

I didn’t know I could be bored through an entire season.

Like, I was literally just waiting for the end, hoping for something amazing to happen. I was literally like “wow, maybe all the paladins will die and then they won’t have to be subjected to poor writing like this anymore.”

I just... I don’t get it. Season’s 5 and 6 were great. So what is this pile of shit?

The first half is basically filler episodes full of stupid idiotic antics and literal fun-poking at Lance that is never addressed. I mean, he was literally called dumb over and over and over again and it was never addressed again. I mean, he was hardly in the season, frankly.

Keith was... Keith was an asshole. I mean, Lance is generally annoying, but this hit whole new levels of annoying, and Keith was an asshole to him the whole time even when Lance was being nice to him and trying his best.

Hunk’s arc... wasn’t an arc at all. They gave us a snippet of character recognition in the beginning and then a start to some kind of arc that was eventually not realized for Hunk on a personal level because it was taken over by these overly elaborate battles that I couldn’t even tell you about despite the fact that I just watched it.

Pidge was... there. Though her father got the most airtime out of everyone.

Allura was also around, but her character got nothing aside from some shoehorned in crush she now has on Lance? Despite the fact that he’s been basically useless the entire season and done nothing to change her opinion of him? Despite the fact that Allura is just as exasperated as Keith is with Lance most of the time?

I mean, I love Lance. I love how he started and I love what he could be, but he’s annoying as fuck due to lack of development and it makes no sense that Allura would have feelings for him now. I’m down for some Allurance if it’s written well, but this was exactly what I was afraid of--Allurance being poorly written, Allura magically developing feelings for Lance, and Lance being the “nice guy” who somehow gets the girl despite that making no logical sense.

And I am still baffled over why Keith was such an asshole to Lance the whole time. That bullshit about how Lance better not miss his shots, as if Keith and Lance didn’t fight back to back through season three. It’s bullshit and an insult to both their characters.

And don’t even get me started on the Adam and Shiro thing. We didn’t even get to meet Adam before he fucking died, so thank you Voltron for doing as all media does and killing off your LGBT rep, and in record time too, btw. Instead of getting, at the very least, half an episode dedicated to their story, we got a whole bunch of Shallura stuff that doesn’t even make any sense because Allura likes Lance now? For some reason?

The only moment that stands out to me was when Hunk and Keith had their little heart to heart, but even that seemed forced because it was like the writers were just “oh, Hunk needs a moment because we don’t know how to write his character so we’ll just shove this stuff in here about his parents despite the fact that it’ll never go anywhere.”

Oh yeah, and the other moment I remember--when the Atlas somehow magically turned into a giant fucking robot. Because I literally said, out loud, “well that’s fucking stupid.” The hell? Humans aren’t alteans. The Atlas was inspired by altean tech, but it was not made using alchemy. It was created by humans, who have no magical inklings. Are you telling me the power of Shiro and the castle-ship crystal just... transformed it? Because, again, that’s fucking stupid. Also, the Atlas’ design is... not good. And it looks really, really dumb as a robot.

But moving on. What the hell was up with Acxa? So she... changed sides, alright, and has a crush on Keith? I still don’t think that’s the case since she showed up at his Dad’s grave at the end, but it’s still poorly put together.

A lot of which just comes down to how poorly written this season was. I mean... the writers literally did... just about everything you’re NOT supposed to do.

There was no emotional weight because none of the characters interacted in a personal manner, aside from Keith and Hunk for two seconds and then Keith being an asshole, again, when they were stranded in space. We see Lance’s family, but we don’t meet them. The only one we do meet is Veronica and since we didn’t learn anything about her and Lance’s relationship or history, I literally couldn’t care less about her. Keith’s mom fucking leaves, which she said she would never do, which undos that nice little character bit. Hunk never actually rescues his family, they’re just... free as a result of... fighting? Pidge is just there, whatever, we hardly see her interact with her mom. Allura and Coran do basically nothing. There’s no one there to welcome Shiro back. Shiro, who got to fight Sendak and, yet again, take spotlight from what could have been an epic moment for another character before, again, being rescued by Keith.

And then, we get half a season introducing us to characters we don’t know, doing stuff we don’t care about, making plots and battle plans far more complicated than they have to be just to show off these character that I don’t care about. The only new character I cared about seeing--because he had a personal connection to one of the main characters--died two minutes after being introduced in a fight that meant nothing. RIP Adam.

I literally don’t care about any of the new pilots and they took up, like, a third of the season. They were cool at first until their pointless airtime quickly came to overlap that which could have been used to develop the characters we already love.

The entire season was plot driven instead if character driven, because the main characters hardly felt like they were in it. Much like when the paladins were piloting the lions while being held prisoner, their minds and bodies felt like they were separated. We watched their bodies, but we didn’t get a whole lot else.

AND THEN the end was filled with fucking mcguffins that were downright laughable. Sendak is killed by Keith, because apparently Keith and Shiro get to do everything cool, and then some random-ass robot with no ties to the season shows up. Oh, it’a Haggar? Okay. But we don’t know anything about it? Alright. More powerful than anything yet faced despite the fact that the battle against Lotor’s giant robot was way more intense? Sure thing. So now we’ve got two giant robots, again. Only for some stupid-ass third one to show up that is so huge you can’t take it seriously. It comes in and basically does nothing, before our paladins make a sacrifice that, really, doesn’t even matter because there’s no emotional investment in what they’re doing. They might die? Well maybe that would be more exciting than the last bore-fest I just spent 6 hours watching.

It’s like they don’t know how to develop their characters, so they’ve just decided to stop and instead shove as many giant robots into our faces as possible. And try and distract us with love stories that have no weight because they have no development, rhyme, or reason.

It’s the worst season I’ve watched yet. I was ready to go back to bed halfway through. I kept waiting for something, anything, character-wise to happen and instead all we got were a bunch of dumb robot fights that didn’t mean anything.

The reason the fight with Lotor was so weighted was because of his and Allura’s background and his past. The reason the fight between Shiro and Keith was so weighted was because of their history.

We got none of that. Veronica almost died, like, twice and I was like “whatever” because I know nothing about her and I’ve barely seen Lance around anyway.

And I still do not understand why Keith was such a fucking asshole? It’s so out of character! I don’t... Ugh!

And all the queerbaiting from all the different sources from creators to Netflix, only to leave us high and dry on everything. If someone were watching this show without the assistance of things the creators have said, no one would realize Adam and Shiro were an item. It wasn’t explicit. They could have been best friends or brothers or literally anything.

I just... I don’t understand how it could be so poorly executed. No wonder they want to finish Voltron this year--get it over with if this is what we have to look forward to. Lance and Allura can get married despite having little to nothing in common and having no development within their relationship. Throw Keith and Acxa together because that’s even better than Lance and Allura. The most they have in common is a knack for saving one another, let alone any personal interests.

And don’t even bother with Lance’s family. We don’t know them, so they might as well not exist. Let’s make Commander Holt and Pidge’s family the main characters--they’re clearly the most important family unit aside from Keith and Shiro. Keith and Shiro, who do the same thing every single season. If I was a Sheith shipper, I’d be pretty bored at this point, personally. They have as little development as everyone else.

Literally everything about it was either underdeveloped, boring, filler, mcguffin, or other characters that literally no one cares about. The high ranked lady dies? I don’t care, she was annoying the whole time, why are we dedicating so much time to her death?

And why the hell was the entire season based around defending Earth? The paladins defend planets all the fucking time. I get that it’s Earth and we’re supposed to feel personally connected, but I didn’t see settings that would illicit an emotional response. We hardly saw any of the humans that were captured. It might as well have been another planet. Yeah, I wanted Earth to be attacked, but I didn’t want the entire season to be focused on defending it. That’s just...

It’s everything I’ve said above, that’s what it is.

They said a lot of people would be leaving the show after this season, as if something huge would happen that would make the fandom angry and cause people to leave.

But that’s not why people will leave the show. They’ll leave it because it was poorly written, made promises it couldn’t keep, and kept the characters going in circles or even going out of character for no defensible reason.

And that’s not something to be toting around as though to be proud of it. As if you made some hard decision that was going to anger your fans. You think ships are going to break up your fanbase? If you wrote them well, that wouldn’t happen. If you wrote a good story, people would stick around for that no matter the ships. Ships aren’t the problem here and they’re definitely not what’s going to have people leaving the show.

What’s going to have people leaving the show is that this whole season was horrible on every level, ships aside.

What a waste.

#me stuff #ugh #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #spoilers #vld spoilers #voltron spoilers #allurance #review #analysis #voltron analysis #shadam #I'm angry so I'm delving into all the tags #cuz even the allurance shippers got shafted #what shitty storytelling #what a waste of time #adashi

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everlarkficexchange · 6 years ago

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You Are my Sunshine

Writer: @wingletblackbird

Prompt 20: Gale returns and he and Katniss patch things up. Peeta seems to feel he’s lost her to Gale even after they healed together. Katniss won’t stands for this, and explains that no matter what, they would have happened anyways. “I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality. I’d find you and choose you.” [submitted by @albinokittens300]

A/N: I wrote this up in about an hour; it is utterly unbetaed, and I hope you like it. I’m afraid I had to rush my last few EFE fics as life came in and ripped up my writing schedule with a series of Lab reports, finals, magnificent colds, and emergency hospital visits that wound up being nothing anyway. *sigh*

Rating: Eh, PG I guess.

Warnings: References to graphic sights involving children, and subsequent trauma.

You are my Sunshine

Peeta and I toasted in the summer. Some people thought it was too fast, others thought it was a long time coming. I didn’t really care what they thought. It needed to happen.

We didn’t get married legally. Maybe we will eventually, probably in fact, but it’s the Toasting that matters in Twelve. There were a hundred and one reasons you might never want to go to the Justice Building. Instead we had the Toasting; we never held with the Capitol’s rules. Of course, things are supposed to be different now, but the cameras all in our faces certainly haven’t changed. Not worth the risk. Neither Peeta nor I are ready to handle that.

There are a lot of things we really aren’t handling. It took me forever to get used to the idea that he’s really here. Peeta still struggles to sort Real from Not Real. I struggle to get up and face a world, live in a world, where toddlers are blown to bits by mines. (An arm here, a leg there, a baby finger crunched under someone’s boots.) A world where all goodness is killed, including my beloved sister.

But that’s not true, because there is Peeta. Peeta who came back to me. Who has always returned to me. Who reminds me that it wasn’t pointless, doesn’t have to be pointless, who rises from the ash, and paints the suffering with hope, and lays it as the foundation to build on, and paints the bleak grey with colour. I need him.

This is why I toasted with him. It was hard to believe he came back; when I looked at him I felt like I was gazing at the sun which would blind me, and then blind me worse when my eyes started to adjust and I was thrown into the blackness of the abyss. But he stayed. He stayed and he was here, and I knew now no amount of distance, or pretense, or excuses would prevent my heart from ripping out of me if I lost him. There was nothing to gain in hiding. It would only hurt him. Impossibly he needed me to, and I would never let him live again without knowing I was his. I needed him to be mine.

It’s not a conventional marriage by any means. The wedding night aside, sex is something we don’t have often yet. Not because we don’t want to, (we really, really want to), but because…kids. I can’t have kids, and even Peeta agrees now is not the time. We aren’t ready. Peeta still has violent episodes, second guesses himself, and I am fighting everyday, but I can’t count on enough victories to throw children into the mix. Birth control doesn’t always work, and worse still makes you more depressed. My moods are bad enough as it is. I don’t need anything to drag me down to where I was before. The medication I take already has side effects. I don’t feel up to adding anymore. And Peeta agrees. I had the most awkward conversation of my life with Momma who assured me there were natural ways that she and my father used to wait years after marriage before having me. It’s just as good as any stupid Capitol-grade drug. (It’ll be a long time before I trust anything from the Capitol.) But, just to be safe, Peeta and I have decided to wait a year before taking risks with our potential kid’s lives. I must love him a lot to ever agree to anything that would even hint at “potential”. But the idea doesn’t terrify me; just the idea of losing them that makes me so sick I once vomited. I’ll never forget the dream I had in the Quell, even if I’m not ready to face it yet.

So it’s no surprise how I reacted when the unexpected came knocking one crisp, fall afternoon. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t to see Gale’s face when I opened the door.

“Agh!” I screamed and slammed it in his face, running upstairs to cry and shake in my bed.

All I saw when I looked at Gale was dead children, dead sister, toddler blood spewing out of ruptured arteries, dead eyes gaping out of pudgy heads.

Peeta finds me like that. I haltingly sputter words out as he holds me.

The next day Peeta calmly explains that Gale is here as a part of a Peacekeeping force to help rebuild, and protect Twelve from any possible retaliation by people who want the Games back. Three days later, he slowly convinces me to talk to Gale.

“I know you care about him, Katniss.” He points out. “We’ve already lost enough. Don’t you think?”

I huff and roll my eyes, knowing I’ll do exactly what he suggests. Why does he have to be so…Peeta?

It’s awkward. It’s hard not to look at him and see despair. He says he’s sorry about Prim, and I am nasty enough to point out it wasn’t only Prim who died, and throw out an “I told you so.” Hadn’t I told him that justifications like his would lead to the Hunger Games? Didn’t we almost have another one? Did the other kids not matter because they were from the Capitol? He who would have killed all of them? I am raging and seething and months and years of pain are pouring out in my words like a lanced boil. If words were physical I would be vomiting blood all over him, but I stop. I stop because I see the agony in his eyes, and a slump in his shoulders I have never seen before.

I have never seen Gale look humble.

And I remember Gale was supposed to be in District 2. District 2 had been slaughtered under his plan, and would have been worse without my interference, without Peeta’s admonishment which had always succeeded in inspiring. They must have hated him there. I hug him quickly and whisper sorry before heading home.

It takes time.

One month.

Two.

Gale is my hunting partner again. We work well in the woods. We always have, but now that it is not the only thing I can cling to that’s tangible, I see so clearly what I have known for ages. Gale and I would never work outside the woods. We feel the woods, and we like to rage at things together in them. We listen to the other vent, but I have no interest in his ambitions, nor he in mine. Gale and I are both fighters for reasons that don’t line up. We look the same to the uninitiated, with our bows and arrows in hand, but take a closer look and our colours are different. It’s nice to have each other’s back again.

It takes me weeks more to realise the gossip that surrounds us. I am so used to being talked about, I don’t notice the comments about “Everdeen and Hawthorne” until Haymitch laughs when I tell him I think Peeta’s been avoiding me. I am annoyed. I thought Peeta and I had made more progress then this.

“Boy’s gone home. His old one. Think something about seeing you and tall, dark, and surly walk by the bakery together brought up some uncomfortable memories, Sweetheart.”

I don’t even hear what the old drunk says afterwards as I run to the house Peeta was given when he became a Victor. He hasn’t been here since we married.

“Peeta!” I shout, but hear no answer. I run from room to room frantically. My heart racing in a terror that feels all too familiar. I should have been more careful. I should have been paying more attention. I should have… I should have… I war with myself not to think of bombs and cannons and things wrapping around my neck.

“Peeta!”

He shoots up, and reaches for his leg before he realises it’s me.

“Katniss?” He mumbles groggily. “What’re you doing here?”

“I couldn’t find you. Every time I’ve gone to the bakery, you’re not there, and you’ve seemed distant, so I finally got mad.”

“Sorry,” he says, and I ignore it, because sometimes with Peeta “sorry” is a reflex that means nothing.

“Did you have a flashback?”

“Kind of.” He says as he sits up, and seething though I am, I crawl into the bed next to him.

“You saw me walking home with Gale?” I prompt.

“Same as always. It was like the Games never happened. And I was just watching you walk right past me with him.”

“Peeta…”

“No,” he raises a hand to shush me. “I know without the Games, you might never have given me the time of day. You never wanted marriage or kids. And what would you have wanted with me when I finally worked up the nerve to talk to you?”

“Peeta….”

“And after the war, you couldn’t bear to look at Gale. And Prim lay between you, but now…” He shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. “You don’t have to…I was the one who…Everything’s better now. You don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want. You don’t have to settle.”

“I’m not settling!”

“Katniss…”

“I’m not!”

“Peeta, listen to me.” I grab his hands and hold them in mine. “I’ve told you. It was never Gale. We’re friends; we’ve had each other’s backs, but he’s never made me want to get up in the morning just to see his face, and he’s never made me feel like however miserable it is, the world can be good only because he’s still in it. I need that. I’ve always needed that. And I’m not with you because you came back first, and I was grieving, or because we were Reaped together, because I knew who you were years before that, and I watched you, and worried for you, and hoped again. Stood up again. And… and..” I take a deep breath, “I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and choose you.”

“Really?”

“Really.” When I can tell it’s sunk in, I add what I have to say, “And I’m deeply, deeply offended that you think I’d have married you, and been with you, and be able to walk away from you.” It’s true. I may be a master at avoidance, but once I commit, I commit. Period. End of story. I am just a little hurt, or I would be if I didn’t know the demons my boy wrestles with.

Peeta laughs, but I see exhaustion in his eyes, so I sidle up closer, and put a hand on his chest to make him lie down. Cradling him I tell to go to sleep and I’ll even sing him a song, a special one, just for him. I’ve never sung it to anyone else. It has a different name, but I call it Peeta’s song. Heaven knows I never understood it until I met him.

You are my sunshine my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are grey

You’ll never know dear how much I love you

So please don’t take my sunshine away

#Springtime Edition 2019 #submission #wingletblackbird #albinokittens300 #prompt 20

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keelywolfe · 6 years ago

Text

FIC: One Hand Behind Your Back (baon)

Summary: Playing stupid games, winning stupid prizes.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, References to Illness, Kustard

part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Stretch didn’t have much in the way of an internal clock, but all it took was a quick glance at his phone confirm it was early enough that Edge probably hadn’t gone to work yet.

He rolled over in the bed to debate internally about that, trying to decide if it was worth waiting to get up to play at avoidance, but it didn’t really matter, did it? Edge would come up to kiss him goodbye before he left and besides, the siren smell of fresh brewed coffee was wafting into their bedroom.

In the end, he got up and pulled on his robe. Whatever would be, would be, and at least he’d have caffeine.

As suspected, Edge was sitting at the kitchen table, newspaper spread out in front of him as he sipped what was probably the third cup into his second pot of coffee. Honestly, Stretch loved him a cuppa, too, but Edge’s magic should be flowing in a dark roast by now.

“What are you doing up?” Edge asked, looking up with a frown. His pen, which had been in the process of circling any information in the paper that was worth passing on, hesitated, the tip trailing against the newsprint.

“don’t sound so happy to see me,” Stretch yawned, making his way to the coffee pot. “people’ll think we’re in love.”

Edge rolled his eye lights and went back to the paper. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but seeing you this early throws me off.”

Stretch poured a healthy, or well, probably not healthy at all measure of sugar into his cup, topping it with cream and then taking a deep, contented drink of the muddy results. That finished the pot, but he flicked the burner off instead of making a fresh one. If Edge wanted to up his daily jitter ratio, he could make another.

He leaned against the counter, taking a moment to admire the view. Edge was in one of his ‘I mean business’ work suits and there was something about seeing him all classy, in a dark crimson shirt and a black tie that had some seizure-inducing swirly pattern on it. Except he had his sleeves rolled up, jacket tossed over the back of a chair and Stretch would bet his lesser-used femur that no one at the Embassy got to see him like that. Classy, yeah, but ever so slightly taken apart, almost an invitation to disassemble him a little more.

It was like a sexy disguise, really, only much better than anything Batman had.

Any other day, Stretch would probably straddle Edge’s lap and make a good attempt at pushing his luck. Today he only wandered close enough to drape himself over the back of Edge’s chair.

“sorry i wrecked your groove. hmmm, you ever notice you call me sweetheart when you’re being a dick?” He grinned to take the sting out of it, nuzzling a smacking, wet kiss against the top of Edge’s skull.

Edge didn’t quite jerk away, but he did twitch and gave Stretch a look.

Actually, it was more like a Look, but that was okay. Stretch only smiled sweetly and leaned down, giving him a real kiss because those tended to soothe all looks and Looks when it came to his honey.

As per, Edge hummed appreciatively, kissing back for a long, toe-curling moment before pulling away and going back to his paper. “I’ll take your word on that, considering you’re the runner-up for the championship.”

“runner-up!”

Exchanging a Look for a smirk, oh, his baby was in fine form this morning. “Apologies, sweetheart, but my brother will always be better at being a dick than you.”

“eh, yeah, there’s an argument i can’t win.” But Stretch couldn’t help smiling because damn, he loved this asshole. He loved him so, so much…and he kinda needed him to leave. He plunked down into one of the chairs, picking at one of the half-eaten muffins Edge had on his plate. Long moments ticked by of Edge picking his dinosaur way through the paper, and yeah, he was going to have to move this along.

Nonchalantly, Stretch pulled out his phone and made a show of absently scrolling through it. “ooh, babe, you’re gonna be late.”

It worked. Edge looked at his own phone and made a disgruntled sound, folding up the newspaper and tossing it into his briefcase. He was only halfway into his jacket when he leaned down to steal another kiss and Stretch sighed into it, wishing he could share his affections as easily as he could his mouth, wishing he could damn well beam his love into Edge like Star Trek, one of the good episodes.

Meh, it wasn’t like Edge didn’t know. He hoped.

He waited until the front door closed and he heard the car start, pulling out of the garage and then down the road. Then he dropped his head down to rest it on his folded arms, breathing in slowly, letting it out.

Five minutes was all he allowed himself and then Stretch stood up. Time to get this over with.

Outside, there was a thin, fresh layer of snow on the ground, putting a lie to the idea that spring had sprung. It suited his mood and Stretch only zipped his jacket and burrowed deeper into his coat. It wasn’t like he was walking far anyway, not when a couple shortcuts would do.

~~*~~

All the windows were dark, and the glaring light on the front porch was less invitation than it was warning. Stretch ignored that, shortcutting up to the stairs.

Deliberately, he stepped on the pressure plate that he knew was concealed beneath the welcome mat. It set off a buzzer inside the house and he may as well annoy while he had the chance.

The front door remained closed, which meant either no one was home or no one cared he was here, and Stretch had pretty good odds on the latter. He knocked firmly. And again. Again, finally pounding on the door.

It swung open mid-pound and Stretch nearly fell forward on top of Red. Probably good that he didn’t; from the glare Red was sending up at him, he probably would have gotten shivved before they hit the ground.

“stretch, this better be good,” he growled. One of his eye lights was flickering, on the verge of going out.

Oooh, scary, especially with the way his shirt was on backwards.

“don’t even start with me, captain cockblock.” Stretch didn’t bother trying to shove Red aside to get in, sparing himself a possible stabbing by shortcutting into the front room. The strain of so many cuts in a brief time was starting to ache a little in his chest so he was either walking most of the way home or hanging out with the strangler here for a while. “i can’t even count how many times you’ve kept me from getting laid and i can recite pi for an hour. i need to talk to sans.”

From the shifty look Red was giving him, he was working up an excuse. Stretch deliberately toed at one of the shoes laying on its side on the mat, a shoe that decidedly did not belong to a Red and unless someone else in New New home was working lazyass chic, he knew who they belonged to.

Fuck it, they all knew who those shoes belonged to; these two could be dicks about it all they wanted, but no one except them was that stupid. Even Papyrus had more or less started discreetly leaving the cushion on the sofa next to Sans empty on movie nights, on the strict, unspoken understanding that whenever Red bothered to show up, if he showed up, that was where his ass belonged.

“for fuck’s sake, he knows i’m here,” came floating down the stairs. Proof that Sans at least had his head on in the general direction of straight. He appeared with a pop of teleportation directly on the sofa, still pulling a shirt over his head. “i’m not crouching in the closet with my pants halfway up waiting for you to get rid of him. hey, stretch, what’s up?”

Red was sputtering next to him like a cat in a swimming pool, but Stretch couldn’t pay attention to that. Now that he was in front of Sans, fear was choking him again, rising up thick and tight, clenching his soul. “check me.”

Uncomfortable prickles skittering over his bones, too much for one check, but he didn’t bother glaring at Red. Wasn’t like he didn’t know, or he wouldn’t very quickly find out. From their expressions, they were discovering the same thing he had the night before when he'd absently checked himself before bed.

Yeah, that had sucked a little.

Standing there in the bathroom, his toothbrush still in hand and foam dripping from his mouth. He hadn’t even really thought much about it for couple days, until he’d Checked. Not a minute later Edge walked in to go through his nighttime routine and all he could do was rinse his mouth and go to bed. Laying there in the darkness in Edge’s arms, listening to his even breathing, and waiting until morning when he could come here.

“the infusion didn’t work?” Sans said. His face reflected his dismay, and he was already on his feet, moving faster than most would give him credit for. “i thought-“

“no, it did work, it worked for most of the week.” Sans tugged demandingly on his sweatshirt and Stretch obediently crouched, shivering as another Check washed over him. “i noticed it dropped again last night.”

“is it still dropping?” Red asked sharply. Any irritation or sardonic humor vanished, he was all business in a blink, hovering back while Sans inspected him like a prospector in search of gold.

“don’t think so. it’s been holding steady all night. seems like my base hp just dropped to 4.”

“okay,” Red nodded slowly. He turned away and Stretch couldn’t see his face when he added, “you think if you use more of that infusion, it’ll help?”

“woah, wait a sec,” Sans straightened, letting go of Stretch’s sweatshirt so abruptly that he wobbled on his heels and fell back on his coccyx. “we’re scientists, and phd’s aside, we ain’t doctors. even if we were, we’re out of infused oil.”

“but you can make more, can’t you?” Not really a question. Red’s fingers tapped a rhythm against his femur, a thoughtful little tic.

Sans hesitated, then shook his head. “…yeah, we can, but. look, edge needs to know about this. i don’t play keep-away with this shit.”

“yeah?” Red turned back and favored them with a sharp-toothed smile. “and how’s he gonna react?”

Sans looked away. They both looked tired, Stretch realized, dark shadows under their sockets that didn’t look like they came from fun times. But Sans had very kindly invited him to stay out of it, so he wasn’t gonna ask. Not today, anyway.

Red only nodded as if Sans’s silence spoke a wiki's worth of confirmation. “fucking exactly. he’ll freak his shit and we just got him back on an even keel. fucked up shit at the embassy, fucked up shit with his…” Red bit off whatever he was going to say. “plus, we get the added bonus of paps and blue freaking their shit, and suddenly we got a shitshow on pay-per-view. is it really worth all that? say we tell him and it goes away in a week or two?”

“say we don’t tell him,” Sans countered, “and in a week or two his hp drops to three, only we didn’t tell him and he sees it on his own!”

Yeah, Stretch was about done watching these two arguing about his life. “i’ve had lower hp before, we all have. he could see it now, if he checked me. i’m not trying to hide it.”

“see?” Red wasn’t even bothering to hide his triumph. “not even a lie, only a little discreet ‘not sayin anything’.”

Years of dealing with his own crap had probably made Sans immune to anyone else’s. “yeah, it’s not me you’d have to convince of that, and you’ve got zero guesses on whether or not edge would buy stock in that line of bullshit.”

Not that he was wrong, but still—

“sans. two weeks. please,” Stretch pleaded. “i’ll go to the therapist, i’ll even see alphys if you want but…please.”

That was a carrot on a stick, a pretty fucking tasty one, and he knew it. They all hated doctors, but Stretch was usually the worst about it. Sans was visibly wavering, looking from Red to Stretch. Then he sank back with a shrug, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“you’ll go see alphys?” Sans asked, low.

“i promise.” Stretch made an ‘x’ over his soul and for good measure, held out a pinkie.

Sans hooked it with his own and sighed loudly. “okay. okay. you two are fucking me over a barrel, here, you know that.”

“that’s a new one,” Red leered. “better mark it down on our list. your magic-sucking machine still in the lab?”

Just the mention of the lab made Stretch swallow hard and that was on top of the nausea that watching Red flirting induced, “yeah, but—“

Sans must’ve still been feeling a little kindly towards him, because he didn’t force Stretch to finish. “don’t even worry about that, kiddo, the jack-off here can babysit me.”

“nah, i don’t think so,” Red said, “not my style. you can take the magic from me. specially if you’re gonna jack me off.��

“great, so stretch can grease himself up with your juicy jizz?” Sans’s grin was less forced even as Stretch made a gagging sound.

Red gave them a broad wink. “why should you have all the fun?”

“dunno if the ‘coconut cabana’ scent is gonna be enough to cover that up,” Sans said thoughtfully. “might have to take it all the way up to ‘moonlight lovebeam’ or whatever it’s called.”

“enough, i’m begging you both, stop before i barf on everyone’s shoes.” Stretch covered his mouth with one hand and crossed his eye lights in puke-pantomime. ”can we go back to pretending that i don’t know you two are screwing? it was a simpler, happier time for me.”

“you came into my house.” Red grinned. “play stupid games, win fucked up prizes. welp, i could eat right about now, not anything either of you can cook, and since we’re trying to keep pretty boy here alive, we probably shouldn’t risk mine.”

“edge made a strawberry cheese danish last night.” The least Stretch could do was offer them food, especially since he hadn’t made it.

“that’s what i like to hear!” Red slapped Stretch on the back as high as he could reach, which was still uncomfortably close to his tailbone. “let’s head back to your place, honey bun, and kill some of my bro's cooking, make some plans, yeah? get this done before himself gets home.”

“yeah, okay. can one of you…?” A faint sense of unreality washed over him, a push through the void that he never felt when he shortcutted himself. When it eased, they were standing in front of his house on the porch.”

“couldn’t put us in the living room?” Sans said disapprovingly. He grimaced as he trudged through the thin snow in his slippers.

“trust me, my bro would notice if we leave a smudge on the carpet. kick your shoes off at the door, sansy-sweet, and let’s try to be discreet?”

“you sure you wanna start playing pet names with me?” Sans asked. His tone was lazy, his eye lights anything but, “‘cause between shakespeare and the urban dictionary, think i can play to win.”

“that a promise? inquiring minds wanna know.”

Stretch trailed behind them, ignoring their squabbling. The fear that was making a home in his soul was muted, eased, a little. Not gone, no, but there was a plan now, and that was more than he usually managed.

Besides, Red knew Edge better than anyone, even him. He knew exactly how his brother would react to all this. It had to be better to try and figure it out before worrying him, see if it was an easy problem to solve, and it wasn’t like it was only the three of them, he was going to see Alphys, too.

It was a work in progress, was all, and not worth worrying him yet.

He couldn’t help playing with his wedding band while the three of them razed through the remains of the strawberry danish. The smooth metal was body-warm against his fingertips and the promises embedded into it were not ones he planned on breaking.

He’d talk to Edge if he had to, he would, tell him everything no matter how upset it would make him.

Just not yet.

-finis-

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #underfell sans #sans #kustard #by any other name

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