#erosion of family

[dosesofcommonsense]

[wlwanakin]

SEPARATION CAN BE A TERRIFYING THING.

sabédala + dead ringers

queen’s peril by ek johnston / cronenberg on cronenberg by david cronenberg and chris rodley / the phantom menace (1999) dir. george lucas / dead ringers (1988) dir. david cronenberg / queen’s shadow by ek johnston / dead ringers screenplay by norman snider and david cronenberg / queen’s hope by ek johnston

[squoobest]

mama’s boy

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Forty - Still Here

“Why should I trust anything you say?” I asked. “Because I’m the only one willing to be honest with you.”

10.7k words | 40 min/1 hour read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Canon typical violence, canon typical bad trip, death mention, unreality, hallucinations, fucky wucky stuff.

⚠ AUTHOR'S NOTE: A year. This person has been so patient that they have been waiting a year for this, while everything around me sorta fell apart. And I hope I did his character justice, because @neverdewitt created such an amazing, intriguing character that I couldn't resist fitting them into my fic the moment I knew about them. Originally, Garrett was the only OC that was going to be in Erosion, long before anyone else was due to join—because of course I needed a cryptic little shit stirrer, and who better than from one of the most creative writers I know? Doot, thank you for letting me steal your baby and for waiting for so long for this moment, I don't know where I'd be without your aid throughout the last year on the bits of fic I could do. Your patience is admirable, your creativity is absolutely transcendent beyond anything I could ever hope to make, and I'm glad I finally made something I feel can actually stand in the shadow of your character and not flinch in shame.

Also, thanks @conduiitz for the picture! I gave her a 500 word sneak peak and she made this pic in like, 47 mins lol. Maybe...you should keep your eyes out too...

The world swam. Sound dilated and then became this obnoxious ringing, my vision sorta blurred until it was nothing but blue-white hot, and for three seconds I felt like I was going to explode.

My stomach lurched, and I felt like I was falling in the same way I would when I was on the verge of sleep. That weird, heart stuttering sensation of being fully on the ground and yet feeling like it would open up from under me. I stumbled with it, falling backwards, trying to catch myself and instead feeling like my hands were weighed down with lead.

My head snapped back and hit hard flooring, sending stars into my vision that I struggled to blink away. “What the hell,” I groaned, flinching; the bright, fluorescent lights overhead did nothing for the concussion I’m sure was settling into my mind, making my vision pulse. I moved to block my face and instead nearly hit myself with that leaded feeling that hadn’t faded away—and felt way too real in my hands to just be residual of...whatever happened to me. I blinked the blurriness out of my eyes to see what the hell was caught on my hands, blood running cold when I saw what it was.

Cuffs. Big, gaudy yellow cuffs, nearly the size of my head and six times as heavy. They encased my entire hand and went well past my wrists, leaving me to struggle to pull them away without being able to bend them as I stared at my hands.

My first question, of course, was why my cast was gone—and why did my arm not hurt in its absence? But that curiosity left the moment I realized I knew the symbol on the cuffs as my vision cleared: Department of Unified Protection.

“What?” I breathed. I ignored the hammering in my head to get to my knees, blinking hard to force my eyes to focus past the pulsing in my vision’s edges. For a second, all I could see was steel, and I had that fleeting hope that there was just some weird shit going on and Brent was right there—but as my vision became clearer, I could see the cracks and pores in the wall. That wasn’t metal. That was rock.

That was concrete.

I tried turning into humidity. Tried rushing away on a pulse of water and maybe, hopefully, the cuffs would fall off—but no; they stayed on tight, and I stayed normal. I couldn’t use my powers at all. No, no—this couldn’t be right! The DUP fell years ago, what the hell was I doing in a cell?

I looked around, beginning to hyperventilate. Okay, okay. This had to be something else, right? I just needed to get it together. I tried steadying my breathing as I took in my surroundings fully; four walls, all glass, tinted to the point where I saw my reflection looking around wildly instead of anything beyond them. A platform bed and a shitty sheet, a singular pillow. There was a desk, a couple papers on them with scribbles of owls and doves and…and the Archangel symbol?

I stepped closer to the desk, tentatively, like I was scared the drawing made with a golf pencil was going to jump out of the paper and choke me to death. It was different compared to the one on Augustine’s little tracker; this one was lined and curved like the Vitruvian Man, but it was, without a doubt, the Archangel symbol. Still holding that same dodecahedron, the shine in its center now reminding me far too much of the Ray Sphere.

How…how was this here? How was I here? I felt like some animal in a cage at a zoo, left out to be ogled at from the other side of a glass I couldn’t see through. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. This couldn’t be the tar again, right? Was I having another weird hallucination? Wolfe’s notes said something about the Vermaak going insane. God, that was it, wasn’t it? I was going insane—

“Augustine escaped?”

I froze, all panic leaving with the cold rush, head on a swivel as I looked around. I was…I was the only one in the cell, so where the hell was that voice coming from? “Hello?” I tried to ask, the sound coming out like a mouse squeak. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Who’s there?”

“Augustine.” The voice said, more serious this time. It floated, had this sorta airiness to it that would have calmed me in literally any other situation—but here, it was just freaking me out more. “You said she injured you. Did she escape?”

I caught a flash of something I shouldn’t have—pink. There, in the reflection of the tinted glass, was a long streak of pink…something.

Oh god. Not again. “Mom?”

I stepped closer to the glass, the image—what should have been my reflection—doing so in turn. Only it wasn’t my reflection. That wasn’t me at all. It was too tall, too fair and skinny to be me. There was no orange jumpsuit, but a cream knit cardigan over a plain green silky shirt, bright and plush long pink hair pulled up into a ponytail. I squinted, trying to make out features, and it wasn’t till I stepped closer that their face came into full view.

The pink hair was different, but that face, the sharp features and those eyes, were the same. “Y-you’re—” How was this possible? It was them. Younger, actually cognitive, but them. “You’re t-that person in the bed, back in the hospital room. Garrett.”

They didn’t respond, their eyes instead looking around the cell. “Sorry for the mess,” they said. “I don’t have much….control over any of this anymore. Not since my condition has gotten worse.”

They acted like this was a living room with old pizza boxes stacked to the roof, not…this. Whatever this was. But one thing was for sure; they were doing this. “How are you doing th—”

“You never answered my question.”

I blinked. “I—she did. Or, well, someone broke her out but we’re…we don’t know who.”

A thousand emotions crossed their face; regret, fear, some sort of dejection. “What happened to her?”

I hesitated; what do you say to someone who spent who knows how long trapped by Augustine? “She’s gone.” I decided to say, reassuring them. “My d—, Delsin Rowe and Eugene Sims dealt with her, after she—.”

“Attacked Salmon Bay again.” Their eyes fell, head slightly nodding as they swallowed whatever distaste that statement left in their mouth. They…I thought letting them know she was gone would comfort them—so why did they look so sad?

“You…” I drew off, concerned. “You heard?”

“I saw it.”

I thought they meant television. Logically, how would someone see Augustine’s assault in Washington from the other side of the country? But there was a familiar sound behind me, that grand roar of rushing water, and I turned in time to see the glass of the opposite wall shift.

The reflected imagery moved, the dark tint of the glass bubbling up until it looked like an angry sea, something far beyond the glass churning. It took me far too long to realize that I was looking at the whirlpool, my whirlpool, that I made to fight Augustine from the marina in Seattle. God, was it really that big?

“She’s going to come out,” Garrett’s voice rang. I looked back to glance at them, only to see them staring at the ground, mouth shut. The room echoed with their pained gasps of a past statement. “Augustine, she’s…I saw her free. Out in the world, a whirlpool behind her.”

“When?” Another voice, lower and more scratchy, asked.

“I don’t know,”

“I knew it would happen one day. I just…I never would have thought it would be you, Regina.”

The hairs on my neck stood up on end, and I slowly turned to look at Garrett. “How do you know my name?” I didn’t use my full name when I introduced myself to them. I never do.

Garrett inhaled deeply before looking up, blinking back tears and deciding now was the perfect time to ignore my question. “She called me Dream Eater, when she placed me here,” they said, looking through the reflection and around the cell I was in with a disgusted look on their face. “This…terrarium of a cell. One always names their favorite pets, and I wasn’t exempt from that rule.”

My brow furrowed. “This was…your cell?” I asked, looking around the bleak room. A bed, a desk, and tinted glass you could barely see through. This was it?

I knew Curdun was a prison, but jeez.

"In the end." Garrett confirmed. "She couldn't bear looking at me for what she'd done, but couldn't cut me loose. We were stuck with each other with no way out."

“Do…you mean the implant?” I asked cautiously, looking back at Garrett. I hated how much that haunted stare seemed to follow anyone I met, echoes of trauma that hovered on the crows feet of their eyes.

“In part,” Garrett confirmed. “Though there’s more, much more, to the story than what you know.”

Well, good, because I didn’t know a thing. 

But they mentioned it—the implant. Dr. Hutch was able to confirm that was the cause of all these issues. “Whatever she did to you, she did to me,” I said, taking a step closer to the glass. Garrett’s form didn’t get closer in time with my steps; did it mean they were here, with me? Or was all of this an illusion? “I—I can’t heal anymore. The tar—”

“Tar?” Garrett questioned, brow furrowing.

“She was using concrete and tar,” I continued. The words meant something to them, I had to keep pushing. “We don’t know where she got the power from, she…she was working with this new group, Archangel.” I moved over to the desk, using the heavy cuffs to stab at the chest of their symbol. “These guys. The tar made me sick, and the doctor confirmed it made you sick too. There has to be something you know about them, right?”

Garrett’s eyes met mine, the lingering wet in them making their blue glisten until it reminded me of the sea. They held my gaze for a long time, seeming to weigh my begging against some sort of hesitance in their mind as they thought deeply. “You said she was collaborating with someone?”

“They’re called Archangel.” I informed them. “We know…well, nothing about them. Nothing beyond the fact that they want D—, Delsin Rowe. What’s wrong with me? It was meant for him. Augustine was sent to find him.” Garrett’s eyes fell and they sighed deeply, and I begged once more. “You’ve gotta know something. Anything.” I pleaded.

“I don’t—”

“Please.”

Garrett closed their eyes, forcing a deep breath. Something in their resolve seemed to break, and when their head raised, they seemed weighed down by everything, like their secrets were physically pulling their shoulders till they slouched. “There’s too much you don’t know,” They repeated, stressed the fact as something in them came to a resolve. “And we don’t have very long before I lose control again. You’d make a better witness than a listener.”

A better witness? What did that mean?

I didn’t get to ask them. The fluorescent lights above flickered, and in the millisecond of dark that washed over us Garrett vanished, leaving me to stare at my wide-eyed expression.

“Wh—” my heart dropped as I sputtered, looking around. Trying to catch a glimpse of them in the reflections. “Hello?”

They were nowhere.

And I was still somehow in a Curdun Cay cell.

“No,” I choked out, stepping close enough to the glass that my breath fogged it. “No, come on! You can’t just leave me here!”

Well, it seemed they could—and did,­ as they didn’t reappear despite my begging. I waited, called out their name a few times, pleaded to be released from whatever hell this was before tears bubbled up with the frustration in my chest and I raised my cuffs to bang against the glass. “Don’t leave me here!” I screeched, hitting it again. And again. And again.

With the third hit came a subtle, sharp crunch, a crack appearing where the cuffs landed. I stared at the little chip in the tint; it…it couldn’t be that easy, right? This was a cell, one that held back a lot more powerful Conduits than me.

But it was a better alternative to staying here and crying.

“Okay,” I muttered to myself, nodding slowly. I flexed my arms—I wasn’t Brent, but maybe I didn’t need super strength. Just good aim and a decent hit. Let’s hope those 12 years of gymnastics actually paid off.

I brought my cuffed hands around like an axe to a tree, hitting the crack and cringing as the glass and metal on my hands collided, screaming their protests at the impact. But that wasn’t important. What did matter was the crack deepened, chipped away glass falling to my feet as fissures spread like spider webs.

I brought my arms back and swung again, less hesitation in the hit as I watched the cracks spread further. It was working! I kept hitting the wall with resolve, putting all my strength into every swing. The fissures grew, becoming clefts, cracks, then gaps as I slammed my hands against the glass with everything I had, the wall becoming a reflective mosaic.

I put everything, everything, into my last swing and the glass exploded, giving away into a brilliant crystalline rain. My cuffs kept their momentum and I flew forward with them, losing my balance and tumbling.

There was this weird…pull in the back of my head, like those strains I’d get during migraines when I moved wrong, and suddenly my hands were flying forward to catch me—uncuffed—landing in the shattered glass of the cell wall. I winced as it dug into my palms—my exposed palms, the right still missing its cast—before remembering I should be on high alert. I just broke out of a Curdun Cay cell. I knew nothing about the DUP save for the fact that I wasn’t really interested in confronting them. So I ignored the pain, rushing to stand and faltering once I looked around.

This…this wasn’t Curdun. It definitely tried to look like it, with concrete crawling up the walls like vines and a long DUP banner over a widely spread security system made of what had to be 18 different monitors. I would have been inclined to call it Curdun if the colorful tile I was standing on wasn’t laid in a way to say Sea 6 News, the familiar banner of the news site a large testament to the area.

How did I get here?

“I think, in her own, convoluted way,” Garrett’s voice rang out, “Augustine was truly convinced everything she did was for the greater good.” The center console of the multi-television security set-up flickered, going from DUP orange to static before Garrett formed in the pixelation, looking at me from across the room. “Despite everything, she wanted safety for Conduits. To save them from being pinned as the monsters the world claimed they were.”

I had to resist rolling my eyes. Augustine? Being benevolent? “She…she tortured Eugene Sims. She tried to wipe out the Akomish, twice. She broke your power. I don’t think that’s saving anyone,” I eventually said.

“No, it isn’t.” Garrett agreed. “But that didn’t make her conviction any less sure.”

It came in like a haze, the dim light above bending and refracting on the tile. The pulsing rose, the air shifting like it would with Dr. Sims’ video powers only somehow more…ethereal. Pristine. Like magic only a god could perform. The shimmering took shape, settling into wrinkled clothing and pained expressions until they were mere feet away from me, laying on the ground and gasping like they both just had the wind knocked out of them. “Seven years, I’ve kept them safe. Me!” Augustine gasped, “I won’t let anyone undo that. Not the government���” she winced, “Not the Army. Not you.”

This was the woman I was familiar with from the history books and old articles; a long overcoat with that emblem pasted on her arm, leathery boots to match. There were a few hairs knocked loose from her immaculate bun, but not a frayed white one was in sight. She was orderly, commanding—none of what I met in Salmon Bay.

They both fought to move from their place, him being the first to rise to an elbow. Dad. Delsin Rowe. It was him in his youth, his prime, his legacy, the white hoodie stained at the cuffs with blood that definitely wasn’t his, beanie askew. His expression…god, I haven’t seen fury like that from him before. Deep bags under his eyes, face barely flinching despite the obvious pain he was in as he tried to shift. “Seven years, all you’ve done is keep them locked up.” He growled with bared teeth like a wolf, breathing hard. “You just took away their freedom.”

Augustine managed to prop herself up and began pushing back towards a slab of concrete on the ground, leaning against it. “So tell me,” she hummed, “What would you do? Just throw open the gates at Curdun Cay station? Set them all free?”

“Is this…” I drew off, voice barely above a whisper. There was no way. “Is this what happened?” This had to be an illusion. It couldn’t be anything else. “How are you doing this?”

“You bet your ass I would,” Dad hissed, moving to his knees and trying to stand, immediately losing his balance.

“Consciousness.” Garrett responded to me, like that answered my question. But then they caught my confused glance, and elaborated. “Thought, dream, memory—that’s my power. Anything that falls between the folds of your mind is mine to play with, and I’ve kept every memory I’ve gained from those who used my power. That’s what you’re seeing here.”

A memory.

“The world hasn’t changed in the past seven years,” Augustine retorted, using the concrete to pull herself up. “Inside, the Conduits are safe. They’re alive.” She gasped out in pain, rising to her feet and staggering back a step before forcing herself to stand tall. “You turn them out, they’d all be dead inside a week.”

Dad fell again, face screwed up in pain and fury as he grit his teeth so hard it looked like they’d shatter under the bite force. That pain looked real, so intense that it somehow made me flinch, the twinge crawling around my jaw and to the back of my head, forcing me to screw my eyes shut. My head throbbed with each beat of my heart and I raised my hands to press against my temples in an effort to ward off the pain—but when I moved my hand, it was laden down with…well, something. There was a small jingle that sang in my ear and I forced my eyes open, blinking in shock when I saw…a chain?

I was suddenly there, lying on the ground just a mere yard in front of Augustine, in the place Dad was years ago as Augustine glared down at him. “So tell me,” she demanded, authority leaking back into her voice. “Who’s the savior, and who’s the monster?”

She backed away slowly as I tried to stand, feeling every ounce of whatever was trying to drag Dad down originally. Was I in his body? Or simply standing where he did?

I felt like shit. My head was throbbing, my stomach threatened to flip on itself. Bile crept up my esophagus and burned the back of my throat. What was worse was the muscle weakness—every joint in my body screamed as I tried to pull myself up. Last time I felt this ill…Dad had taken my power.

Garrett’s voice rang out again, face slowly coming into view the further away Augustine moved. “At every turn, Augustine was handed impossible choices and was expected to make the most diplomatic decision as if she wasn’t toeing the line between satan and savior.”

My knees nearly gave out under me and I forced them to straighten, breathing hard like I had jogged the stairwell all the way here instead of magically appearing on the top floor of a tower that had been torn down years ago. Garrett’s television stayed strong, the only one that illuminated the back of Augustine until she disappeared into the shadows, arms wide in challenge.

“She—” I cut off, stumbling forward slightly when my ankle refused to cooperate. I fixed myself, straightening and meeting Garrett's nonplussed gaze once more. “She wanted to keep the Conduits locked up. She was mad at D-Delsin for wanting to release them all from prison.” I looked at them vehemently. “To release you from prison. I don't see how keeping everyone locked up was an impossible decision.”

Garrett kept their mild, annoyingly all-knowing gaze on me. “It was diplomacy,” Garrett said. “The only way to make sure every Conduit in the country wouldn't be hunted for sport was to hide them away. Out of sight, out of mind—and out of reach. Somewhere the world could forget about them, and she could protect them from their wrath.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the stomach flips, the fact that I was somehow standing in as Dad, or that I was plain exhausted with life up to that point—but I refused to accept that.

“She staged everything to keep Conduits under her control.” I said, shaking my head. “The breakout on Akomish land? Using my mom’s trauma to use her for her narrative and scare the country into thinking they needed her? She scared the world into thinking Conduits were monsters and she was the only one that could save them.”

“She tried her best, with what tools were provided to her,” Garrett stressed, a bit of tension in their voice. Augustine’s silhouette disappeared into the shadows, leaving a clear line of vision between Garrett and I. “After the Beast, the only tools at her disposal to protect both sides was to play into the fear of one.”

“And jail the other?” I demanded. Sorry, I know that they were trying to give me answers—but this wasn’t the sort of answer I was looking for. I wasn’t interested in hearing about how Augustine cared about others oh so much, not when my family was full of scars from her doing. I wasn’t convinced. “Torture them? Experiment on them?”

“Don’t speak on things you don’t understand—“

“Implant stuff in them to stop their powers?” I continued, stressing the point as I looked directly at Garrett. “She cared about no one! Not the public, not the Conduits—I don’t understand why you’d think she’d feel any differently o-or defend her. She didn’t care about the Conduits. Not Fetch Walker, not Delsin Rowe. Not you, or any of the others—“

“Enough.”

My words seemed to strike a nerve with Garrett as they barked out. The demand was simple, but their voice reverberated through the room loudly, a commanding tone that made me press my hands to my ears at their decibel. Ahead, on the television screen, Garrett inhaled deeply, before saying, “Augustine was always a complicated woman, and there were many times throughout my life I never understood why she did what she did. But she wasn’t a monster.”

I slowly lowered my hands, looking up at the screen as Garrett’s eyes closed and they tried to repress the pain of their thoughts. Throughout my life. “You…” I drew off, trying to do the math; if they were in their late thirties or forties now, and knew Dad, there was a chance they spent 7 years in Curdun. 7 unknown years, where I already knew could’ve been spent either experimenting on them...or training them. “You worked for her, didn’t you? That’s why you act like you know her so well.”

Garrett hesitated, eyes opening—and even then, their eyes didn’t meet mine. “I did more than work for her,” they said.

I opened my mouth to ask what they meant when the screen holding their face glitched out, the corrupted pixelation growing to the corners of the center monitor and spreading beyond, shifting the screen of each surrounding monitor until they all warped like there were magnets pressed against their screens. The corruption reached to the end of the edges of the monitor setup, the clouded colors not fully reaching the plastic of the monitors themselves and instead looking like a portal to another dimension as the hues within its window began to warp.

Outlines. Distorted sounds that slowly lost its electronic fry as the picture deepened. The crisp laughter of children, the harsh ring of carnival music. The woosh of the pendulum ride they passed as their features focused, features illuminated by the lights of the rides around them.

There was a man turned away from the screen, the ends of his slightly grayed hair scuffing against the collar of his jean jacket, and I nearly called out to him, expecting Dad. Wanting it to be Dad. But it wasn’t, not my Dad at least; the man turned, moving to grab the hand of someone else and pull them forward, a child that barely reached his chest’s height. Their auburn-brown hair bounced as the duo rushed towards a funhouse, their little legs easily keeping up with the slight catch in the man’s gait as the camera moved forward with them, watching the duo escape into the mirror maze of the funhouse before following.

The camera turned the corner to see the young child and their father playing in front of those warped mirrors that made them wrinkle in on themselves, both laughing. “How do we go back to that, Garrett?” a voice, a very familiar voice that was uncomfortably soft, asked over the low hum of the carnival and the laughter. The kid looked over at the camera and held out a hand, beckoning them closer, mirth lighting up their silvery blue eyes as a larger, older hand came to grasp theirs and allowed themselves to be pulled forward in front of the mirror. “We were closer then than we are now.”

The mother, Augustine, laughed as she looked at her distorted form before taking the child close into a hug, looking down at them. “There is no going back,” Garrett’s voice said, melancholic and yet tense. The father joined the trio, raising a handheld camera to take a picture. “That died with Dad.”

The camera flashed, light overtaking the glimpse at the memory until the white imprinted on every terminal and made them all flash before they turned dark, plunging the room into darkness save for what bleed in through the broken skylight. Realization overtook me, and I suddenly felt really unsafe.

“The world isn’t black and white. It’s a technicolor of hypocrisy, and I think you’d find our stories to be more similar than they are different.” Their voice rang from the shadows. “I am not innocent.” The televisions suddenly sputtered on, all of them, the sudden brightness from their feed blinding me. I blinked a few times, raising my hand and trying to look past the brightness to their screens, heart stopping when I did; everything, every screen, was about the flood in Seattle. The deaths, the loss, the bodies and fear. Kids being pulled out of water, thousands stranded on the open air top floor of a parking garage, floating corpses. Below the screens Augustine stood, back so illuminated I couldn’t see her front as she approached, just the outlined silhouette. “You will not be,” Garrett continued, the voice sounding…closer?

I lowered my hand, moving to a defensive stance as Augustine closed the gap; I wasn’t gonna be caught off guard. Not here, not now. But as she got closer, I realized that something was…off. She was definitely shorter than I remembered, and her gait was less ‘commandeering’ than before. Each step brought her closer to the light the hole in the skylight cast on us and once she crossed it, I saw why it didn’t seem like her. It wasn’t her.

Garrett stood across from me, Augustine’s uniform perfectly tailored to fit them, pink hair up in a tight bun. “A life is made of wrongs we inherit.”

I stood where Dad had years ago, across from the heir to the wrongs Augustine wrought. “You’re her child,” I breathed, sure they could hear my voice despite how low it was. “Augustine. You’re her kid.”

Here I was, caught in some insane memory-mind palace with the child of the woman who my father had just finished dealing with for the second time. Completely at their mercy. But they had also been at Augustine’s mercy, and she left them with scars that left them crippled back outside of their mind and within it.

“By blood.” Garrett confirmed, moving around me like they were sizing me up, now that we were meeting in person—or whatever this version of in person was. “Though not by much else. The daughter she never got, the son she never wanted. The child she didn’t need.”

They stopped somewhere behind me, and I resisted the urge to spin on my heel and keep them in my vision. Here I was at the mercy of Augustine’s hidden child, standing in the same place where my father took down their mother—and they very well could settle some scores if they wanted.

But this also didn’t feel like that. It felt less like a cat cornering a mouse and more like a bird leading another to shelter under a palm leaf during a storm. My eyes fell as I processed that, blinking hard when I noticed I was not only standing in Dad’s place, but an exact mirror of him; that jean vest, the hoodie. The blood on my hands. My fist tensed around the end of the chain it held, the press of its cool metal prompting me to ask, “Why should I trust anything you say?” I asked.

“Because I’m the only one willing to be honest with you.” Garrett stressed behind me, their voice seeming to carry off the cool rush of the A/C vents. “Unabashedly. No more half-truths. No more having to wonder what’s been kept from you.” Their steps echoed, and I turned my head to look at them the moment they appeared in my peripheral as they rounded, only pausing when they were directly ahead. Garrett’s head tilted ever so slightly, and they asked, “Aren’t you tired of being lied to?”

God, I was. I absolutely was; with everything that’s happened in the last month, I felt like I was drowning. Everything was either some new revelation that made me feel stupid for the fact that I hadn’t realized it before, or was something that was the fallout of a fact that happened years ago that I didn’t have all the facts to.

But I didn’t say anything; I kept my eyes on Garrett’s, refusing to back down. A part of me, the logical part, told me this was all some sort of trap that’d earn me more ice picks in my back, if not worse.

But then again, I was already trapped in some manipulated echo of a memory, so logic wasn’t the strongest suitor in the room, right now.

I looked at Garrett—at their uniform. The same DUP emblem on the cuffs I had on just moments ago sat proudly on their shoulder instead of shackling them like they had at some point. And yet after everything, they insisted Augustine—their mother—was trying her best to save Conduits. “Why do you vouch for her?” I finally asked. “After everything she did to Conduits, to you, why…”

Garrett shrugged simply, eyebrow cocking a bit. “I figured you’d understand, considering who you inherited your sins from. Tell me—is Delsin still running away from the truth?”

I immediately bristled. How could they even pretend that my dad and Augustine were the same? He ran away to protect Brent and I. “That’s different,” I insisted, voice cold.

“Is it?”

My mouth opened, but I struggled to find a good retort. There were definitely a lot of people that thought Dad was some sort of demon for doing what he did, releasing the Conduits. And Mom...well, her body count was higher than mine.

Garrett’s face stayed stoic, and in the stare, I saw Augustine in the contours of their shape, echoes of their mother in their features; but beyond it, I saw melancholy. Grief. They seemed to struggle to find what to say for a moment before closing their eyes, inhaling deeply. “You want to know why I thought Augustine cared about Conduits?” They finally asked, opening their eyes and meeting mine, stare unblinking. I snapped my mouth shut and nodded silently. Better not to piss off someone who could hold the secret to your rare cancer in their memory bank. “I watched her make sure the mistakes that nearly killed us all would never end up in the hands of someone who could repeat the process. She loved order, and the world the RFI left behind was lawless.”

My brow furrowed. “So you know about the RFI?” I thought Dad and Zeke said the RFI was something kept quiet so no one would try to make another Conduit Delete button.

“She destroyed anything about it after the RFI was analyzed by the DUP’s science division.” Garrett responded with assurance, “She vowed our extinction wouldn’t happen twice.”

What? Augustine…deleted info about a weapon that strong? “You say that like you’re sure,” I drew off.

Garrett’s chin came up a bit. “I am. I was there.”

The security monitors behind Garrett suddenly booted up, stark white and emitting a horrible mic callback sound that made my hands shoot to my ears to block out the terrible grating noise, unable to keep it from vibrating my skull. I cringed with the noise, eyelids pink as they screwed shut to protect me from the sudden onslaught of light and I tried to push against the way it all made my head pound. I felt like a migraine was coming on.

But then it all stopped. That screech faltered, the pink left my vision for a more muted white, and my head found relief as I tentatively opened my eyes.

There were still security screens in front of me, but that was about as far as the similarities lied; there were less of them, the feed no longer showing off corners of Seattle’s downtown but dark crevices of what almost looked like a cave, if there weren’t vents and weird heaters and more concrete. The wall they were pinned to was this sleek darkened stone, wires running from the monitors down to their supply feeds below in zipping, jagged lines that reminded me way too much of how some cheesy Hollywood villain would decorate their lair.

Unfortunately, though, I wasn’t too far off.

I backed up, trying to put every screen in my vision to puzzle piece whatever concrete maze was in front of me when my knees hit the edge of something, and I nearly fell backwards. I turned, my hands shooting out in front of me and looking for purchase to balance—

And instead I pushed myself backwards as I saw who was standing in front of me.

She looked even younger than before, uniform gone and instead replaced with army fatigues with a leaf at her shoulders, a rank higher than anything I knew from the military segment of my APUSH class. Didn’t the DUP start as an army thing before becoming its own branch? This must have been Augustine when she was Lieutenant Colonel, not Director. Augustine’s eyes fell and my blood ran cold as I thought she zeroed in on me and was going to make it my problem—but she instead reached forward, hands coming around something and bringing it up to eye level.

It was broken, the top panel of the device blown clean off and revealing the veins of wires underneath its metal welding. The center of it was glass but unclean, grime and dirt and what looked like blood dried on it and taking away its transparency. There was this branching darkness on the metal, burns singed into it like veins, the edges of every panel rusted over and smelling like the blood of the deaths it caused.

“Is that it?” Someone else in the room asked. I pushed myself up from my place on the ground, shifting to my knees and peeking over the edge of the table like some strange sort of meerkat trying not to get caught by the adder outside of its hole in an effort to see who was talking to Augustine.

They were young—looked younger than me, which was saying a lot—their hair shaggy and close cropped, a brighter auburn than it was in the hospital room back in reality. Their eyes were dim against the bright yellow shirt I’d yet to see on any Curdun prisoner before—the same uniform I realized I was wearing to match.

Garrett. Child Garrett. Were they really in Curdun before they were even an adult?

“The Ray Field Inhibitor,” Augustine confirmed, turning with the device in hand. She held it less like the nuke it was and more like a scythe. “Every life lost…every city decimated…and their best solution was to wipe us off of the face of the earth.”

She looked down at the RFI as if it were vermin, disgust and anger and hatred in her face as she stared at its broken metal top. Augustine turned, showing it to Garrett. I came around the table on my hands and knees, peeking around the leg of the desk—I wasn’t sure yet if Augustine could see me, if this was a memory, or what. And quite honestly, I was very interested in not being in the crosshairs of her vision regardless of what sort of reality I was existing in. Augustine held the device close to Garrett, allowing them to reach out and take it in their own hands.

The moment it passed to Garrett’s hands, some slinking and terrible feeling crawled its way up my spine on a thousand stabbing legs, taking hold of my throat and squeezing like it was trying to choke life out of me. That soreness that seemed to make itself at home in between my shoulder blades burned, a pain that immediately made me flinch as if I could get away from it.

Garrett and I both choked out a gasp at the same time, and they dropped the RFI on the ground like it had stung them, the device clattering to the ground and losing another small metal panel in its fall. The moment it left their hand, all that pain stopped, seeped away like muck down the drain. The RFI rolled away from Garrett and towards me, stopped only in place by a jagged spike of concrete that pierced its shell, making me jump back, falling from my knees to my ass.

“Careful!” Augustine demanded, and for a moment, I got to see the mother within her. She immediately stepped forward and let her hands cup Garrett’s cheeks, examining their face as if the RFI had slashed claws over it and she needed to assess the wounds. “What happened?”

Garrett stared down at the RFI, trying to catch their breath. “I felt it,” they eventually stammered out. “That pain.” Their vision came to rest on me, making my pant die off as I stopped trying to catch whatever breath the RFI’s hold took from me. “The same pain I felt when it tried to kill me,” they said.

When it tried to kill me.

I wasn’t sure of Garrett’s true age, but I didn’t need to be—they were alive for the Blast. The RFI’s detonation. They were one of the millions that should have died that day, and one of the thousands that somehow didn’t. I hadn’t stopped to consider that any Conduit born before 2011 felt that same searing pain—and was probably left with a thousand questions…and no answers.

But it seemed not everyone was as ignorant. 

Augustine’s eyes left Garrett’s face to look down at the RFI now, hands falling from their face as she stepped forward, waving away the concrete spear that stopped it. The slab slunk back into the floor, RFI teetering just slightly at its release before it was scooped up by Augustine.

She turned it in her hands. Inspected the mess of wires on one end and the now-gaping hole in the other. The center that seemed to catch blue in the light—at least, the parts of it that weren’t covered in muck.

“It was a miracle we were given a second chance,” Augustine said, voice low and carrying pain, more than I ever knew she was capable of having. There was something in her stare that looked far past the device in her hands as she considered it, trapped in the echoes of something in the past. That pain compounded in her eyes into indignation, anger, and then a steely resolve as she shook her head, tone asserting as she vowed, “And I am not going to let something like that ever happen again.”

It was interesting watching her use concrete; while Dad’s always hovered and swirled, hers simply appeared exactly where she wanted it to be, no directing needed. Concrete wrapped around the RFI like a bandage, encasing the item fully in Augustine’s hands before it began to hug closer and closer to the metal.

Every lurch forward came with a crunching sound as the concrete crushed the RFI, compacting it into a ball of nothingness that she threw against the wall beside me with rage, the sphere shattering into a million pieces. I flinched, covering my face as the shards of concrete flew everywhere, stabbing at my forearms and hitting my drawn-up knees until everything stilled.

When I pulled my arms away from my eyes, Garrett and Augustine were no longer in front of me; they had somehow moved across the room without making a sound, standing in front of the monitors. Augustine clicked the keyboard on the long table in front of the feed with the finality of a typed phrase I somehow missed, and every screen began to blip out, their feed of the concrete caves being replaced with a scroll of photo scanned documents. The first documents that appeared had the Armed Forces stamp in the top right, the star surrounded by a laurel; a breakdown of the RFI, an autopsy report of Cole MacGrath with the outlined body marked and lit up like a Christmas tree. Radiation readings with notes about how there was a lack of any, mission objectives coupled with inventory catalogs of what all was taken from the First Sons’ New Marais base.

But the star shifted, losing its laurel and gaining weirder symbology; an hourglass and a half-filled circle, the Roman numeral I. An eyeball blinked into the center of the star and stared forward, stare so strong it drew me from my spot on the floor and pulled me forward, close enough that I could see how Augustine glared back at it.

I’d seen that logo before, a mile under New Marais.

The First Sons.

The files that started appearing were decorated in blueprints and formulas, schematics for the first of the Ray sphere and those pods the Vermaak were held in. Augustine looked at it all in disgust, shaking her head as Garrett watched from the sidelines. “Decades of effort went into creating a world the First Sons couldn’t handle.” She growled low, voice still managing to project around the room, like the concrete was grabbing it and passing her words along. “All of this—and for what? They failed to even confront the Beast in the end, the one thing they were preparing against. The only way MacGrath was able to stop its destruction was to sacrifice us all.”

“Was it the only way to stop the Beast?” Garrett asked, eyes still glued to the monitors as they watched the schematics for the Ray Sphere’s cradle scroll past. They missed how she glanced at them with anger in her eyes, indignant at the question.

But her voice betrayed none of that emotion as she said, “It was the only solution anyone bothered looking for,” before looking back at the screens ahead. “A trade of a thousand lives to absolve a thousand sins.”

She stared at the screens for a few moments before her jaw set and she slowly shook her head. “Never again,” she decided with a voice more firm than the concrete she’d laid down in her office sometime before. There was a fire in her eyes, an indignation kindled by the pain of whatever hurt her in the past. “We won’t be punished for what we are ever again.”

She leaned forward, hunched over as her fingers flew over the keyboard with the efficiency of someone who’d become very familiar with the keys from thousands of reports as she pulled up a command prompt and began inputting commands that were well beyond the one semester of foundations of computer science class I took and nearly failed. I looked around, trying to understand what she was doing and failing until Garrett asked, “You’re deleting these things from the database?”

“This is classified information few know,” Augustine said, turning to Garrett. “And even fewer need access to. Could you imagine what could happen if the wrong person knew exactly how to get rid of us? If they had a device that was even a fraction as powerful as the Beast?” Her head only shook once, and she returned to the computer. “No. I’ll make sure those that do know about these things will know exactly what will happen to them if they were to spread rumors.” She paused her typing, looking down thoughtfully at her hands as the word echoed back to the large windows. “Rumors. That’s what we will call it. And with the Department of Unified Protection soon becoming its own branch, there will be no one else to answer to but me.”

She straightened, the resolve in her eyes as she glared at the screens strong enough to burn a hole through them. “And I will not leave room for debate.”

She moved whatever the sphere that acted as a tract pad was around, and all the files were highlighted and fiddled with for a moment before a prompt came up and she confirmed it, the command center promptly informing her of it starting a complete wipe of those files from the database.

But, considering it was Augustine, it should've been obvious that she wasn't doing this out of the good of her heart.

A new window opened, and every file she had highlighted was now also being transferred somewhere else—a USB flash drive that Augustine pulled out of the back of a monitor and held up like a prized kill for Garrett to see. “Fate will be left in our hands. This...power, this ability to wipe us off the Earth will not be given to a government that wishes to rid themselves of their latest problem. This will not happen twice.”

Velcro ripped and Augustine tucked the memory stick in her breast pocket, keeping her cards close to her chest—literally. Files of the bomb that created Conduits, and the explosion that nearly made them extinct, all on a small device only in her hands.

She wielded the power, now.

Garrett watched the flash drive disappear before turning their attention back to the terminal, watching the bar on the D E L E T I N G F I L E S popup steadily grow. “How did we do it?” They asked, looking up at their mother as she stepped closer. “How did...how did we survive when so many others died?”

Augustine's eyes traveled from Garrett's face, to the ground, to somewhere far away before she turned back to the monitors and dismissed the deletion popup in favor of a new tab, typing away and opening up a video. “When the RFI was detonated, Homeland Security's radionuclide detectors went haywire. They read the sudden depletion of multiple forms of radiation that they now attribute to RFE. But—” she played the video, where a heat map of the United States grew a vivid red-hot just above New Marais, then began to seep to cool blue as the radiation disappeared, the hue spreading from the south upwards. It climbed up the Mississippi River, around the Rockies and up the burning vein of radiation the Beast laid in its wake, towards New England and the sound Empire City once rested in.

But as it traveled west, something happened.

Purples and reds burst from the Northwest, an explosion that mixed magenta in places as it pushed against the blue trying to overtake it. The two battled for space on the rest of the world map, flicks of bright red lashing out like lashes from a whip onto the blue as that cold blue stretched into the magenta like Lichtenberg figures, veins of death against whatever was trying to fight against it.

“Something countered the strength of the RFI,” Augustine said, watching the show of auroras and lightning strikes on the monitor before it all stilled, the calm map not at all reflecting the chaos that the Ray Field Inhibitor left in its wake. “Not enough to prevent it, but just enough to allow some of us to live.”

“A Ray Sphere?” Garrett asked curiously. I had to agree with them; it seemed the most possible answer, right? Maybe the First Sons had one ready to detonate in an event like this so that Conduits would never truly die.

But Augustine shook her head. “I was shown the readings of the Ray Sphere before being deployed to Empire City,” She told Garrett. “This was different. More resilient. Where the RFI would have easily consumed any power from a Ray Sphere, this was able to survive against the leech of RFE. It was able to reach out, prevent a full genocide of our people.“

Augustine pressed a button and the video rewound, the strikes of red reaching across the states, the Pacific, lashing out from the Northwest in pulses. “Every outreach was a life saved,” Augustine said, watching more bolts of power release across the map.

I watched the red snake out, reaching Russia and somewhere in South America in turn. So those random strikes of energy on the board were Conduits saved from the RFI? Augustine seemed so sure it wasn't the First Sons that caused this.

So if it wasn't...who did?

Garrett seemed to come to the same conclusion I did, asking Augustine, ”What was it, then, if not a Ray Sphere?“

Augustine's head finally turned to regard Garrett fully. “I'm not sure,” she admitted. She glanced back at the screen, hazel eyes coming to focus so hard on those flashes of red I could see the shade reflected in her iris. ”But I intend to find out. Why those that survived did, how they did. What saved us. And until then...“

She drew off, turning around to look towards the opposite wall; where the one behind her was stone, this one was pure glass, the panes so thick I could see their layers as I approached it in pace with Augustine.

It was as if the scene outside of Augustine's office knew she was approaching and wished to look down at her masterpiece; offensively bright florescent lights flashed on overhead in sectors, revealing spires of concrete shaped into levels and pillars.

The Arena.

I heard about it the first time articles were published to COLE, interviews from Curdun Cay survivors. Large arenas were littered all throughout Curdun, where Conduits would be pit against each other gladiator style while Augustine watched from above.

This was that above.

I could see power sources littered about, small enough for a Conduit to drain but not large enough for them to gain considerable power. Smoke billowed from false chimneys, light sources lined the lips of concrete. There were small bits of steel rebar poking out in some places, and I could even see puddles just under sprinklers installed on the undersides of concrete cliffs.

This was how she trained them. Weeded out Conduits one by one until she decided the victors that would take on the Pacific Northwest in search of answers. Dr. Sims. Daughtery.

Mom.

I hadn't realized everything around me disappeared until Garrett's reflection—the older Garrett—stood beside mine, looking down at the arena with their hands resting on an ornate Cedar cane I hadn't seen before. “She was a victim in her own right,” they said. “We all were, those of us that survived.”

Garrett's reflection met my eyes. “Do you believe me now, when I say she wanted to make sure we survived?”

I wanted to say I did. Hell, a part of me could even rationalize it, if I sat on the idea long enough; separating yourself from those that wanted to kill you by any means necessary was one of the few ways you could be sure you'd live.

But I didn't see benevolence in what Augustine did, then or now. “Everything she did…” I drew off, trying to find the words. “It just made things worse.”

Garrett sighed, seemingly very tired of trying to get me to see things their way. “She did what she thought would protect us—”

“No,” I cut off the reflection, refusing to accept this stupid idea. Augustine did nothing for Conduits, nothing I could spare my empathy on. “All I saw her do was delete evidence of everything that happened so she was the only one that knew the truth, and spin it all so she’d stay in charge. The only reason Conduits are even out of Curdun is because she couldn’t let that power go—”

“Would you rather the world know of the RFI?” Garrett challenged. “She was doing what she thought was best. Even if misguided.”

“By making Conduits the enemy?” I asked, motioning off to a poster on the wall to the right of me. It was a mockup to what I knew would eventually become a reporting poster, juvenile in its display: 'See Something, Say Something - Protect the Country from BIO-TERRORISM'. “Who coined that word?” I demanded of Garrett, who tore their eyes from mine to stare at the ground, taking a deep breath as if they were trying to calm themselves. “She created a problem and made herself the answer.”

Garrett grit their teeth. “She was trying to ensure—”

“Nothing else happened?” I finished their sentence for them. “How did any of her lies help?”

“Because sometimes, lies are necessary,” Garrett bit back in retort, eyes rising and their stare becoming a glare when I scoffed. I highly doubted everything that happened was because it was necessary. “Did your father not think the same, keeping the truth from you?”

I could feel my nostrils flare in anger. “That’s not the same.” I growled. Dad was nothing like Augustine; even in his lies, he did everything to try to help Conduits, in spite of it all. “My dad never meant to hurt anyone.”

Garrett’s eyebrow arched up further still as something rumbled around me; the concrete on the wall began to crawl forward, past the window’s trim and around the terminals behind me, closing in. The glass shattered, combust in a shower that sent me sprawling back as the ground on the other side of the bare window raised. I hit concrete, air sprawling from my lungs as the earthquake shuddered around me. The concrete ground against itself, a loud and painful reverberation that made me cover my ears, trying to stop the ear-splitting onslaught.

In one of the glass pieces on the ground, I caught a glimpse of Garrett’s ice blue eye still staring at me, unconvinced. “Your father hasn’t been transparent with you since the beginning,” Garrett’s voice echoed in my head in spite of it all. The fluorescent lights above cut out as they too were swallowed by the rock.

“How can you be so sure he’s a good man?”

Everything around me stilled and I forced myself to my elbows, looking around; gone was the neat observation room, the desks and monitors that allowed Augustine to peer into the maze below that made up the arena. Instead, as emergency lights flickered on, lining the rock where wall met floor, I realized I was in it.  

And something that cracked in the shadows behind me suggested I wasn’t alone.

I whipped around, trying to peer past the bad lighting to see who was there. “Garrett?” I called out tentatively. Something crunched, shifted the glass that blew back when the windows burst under the pressure of the concrete, the scrapes echoing down the corridor I stood in.

And from deep within the shadows, two glowing yellow eyes met mine, followed by the sound of something rushing towards me.

I stumbled back before turning and running for my goddamn life, heart hammering in my chest. This is what I get for talking shit about Augustine, isn’t it? I told Garrett their mother was shit, and now I’m stuck in Augustine’s Fun House with whatever the hell that was behind me as punishment.

My feet pound against the ground, veering off left the moment I found an opening to. I could still hear it behind me, hunting me, and put more into my steps, trying to outrun the predator. I skidded into my next turn and hit the wall, the impact of sharp rock on my arm feeling very real. If that felt real, would any other pain? Would I be safe from death here, or were we working on an A Nightmare On Elm Street ideology where anything that happened in this illusion happened outside of it?

I wasn’t sure, but it definitely encouraged me to continue running from my pursuer just in case it was someone—or something—that could rip me apart.

The concrete ground under my feet, pebbles of it left behind from its shifting formations that dug into the plain white and laceless tennis shoes and nearly sent me sprawling more than once as they caught in the grooves of the soles. There was a puddle of water just ahead and my calls to drain it were useless; the only time the water moved was when I ran through it, water soaking the ends of my DUP-issued pants. I was only a good three yards away from it by the time the puddle splashed again—whatever was chasing me was close.

But up ahead, there was a reprieve; a light in the dark alcove, warm amber and natural and inviting where the maze opened up. There had to be some way out of here, and even if not, the light would make it easier to see what the hell was behind me—so I ran. I put as much power into my feet as I could and ignored the burn of my lungs as I ran.

The unstable lights lining the floor flickered once, twice, three times the closer I got to the opening, my eyes struggling to adjust to see and plunging me in total darkness just before I breached the opening, forcing me to accept its burn into my retinas and the pain behind my eyes it gave me.

But when the scenery around solidified, I realized everything changed again, skidding to a stop and falling to my ass when gravel caught under my shoes as I looked around the rooftop I materialized on.

The Space Needle was dark—no colored lights strobing. No lights at all, which wasn’t normal. In fact, the entire city seemed muted like it was trying to curl in on itself. Shops I knew were usually open 24 hours were closed, neon signs were off. The city didn’t seem dead—it looked like it was hiding.

It was so quiet that I could have heard the lullaby of the Sound’s ebbs if it wasn’t for the sudden barrage of gunfire from somewhere ahead.

They were short bursts and followed by something…familiar? I’ve heard that whooshing sound before. Where have I heard it before? I shifted to my knees and got to a crouch, staying low as possible as I moved back to the ledge and peeked over it.

There, standing on the embankment that separated them from the dark waters, a fully armored DUP soldier and a Conduit detainee were exchanging fire. Figuratively and literally. The DUP soldier let off bursts that lit up the end of his rifle, the Conduit returning in kind with the same sort of flash, a pooling brightness swirling around his hand before he shot bullets of ember and smoke. The marina was littered in smoldering piles of ash, and it wasn’t until I saw the remains of a helmet in one that I realized it wasn’t the wood of the embankment that was lit on fire, but the opposition that once stood there.

Something shifted in the air around me and my hair raised with the static, a shimmer of pixelated blue wings passing directly over me before following the arch of its climb and stopping at its peak. The blue and white pixels snapped together and Dad formed from the cloud, pulling every pixel back towards his body as he dropped from the sky, fist held ready.

He became a meteor of ice blue, ripples of tech waves trailing behind him as he aimed his fist for the DUP soldier and took him out in a pulse of a bright summoning circle. The soldier dropped like a ragdoll, still and silent and dead, while the detainee stumbled back in shock before moving to run away.

Dad drew up his hand and shot without hesitation, the pixelated sword landing right in between the detainee’s shoulder blades and sending him sprawling to the ground, dazed and winded. Dad stalked towards him like a predator on prey as the detainee fought through his pain to scoot back, yanking him up from his place and pressing him against the guard rail of the marina.

The wind and the roar of the multiple APCs stole their words away, but there was no mistaking the rage leaking from Dad; despite not using powers, the video never left him, rippling against the bends of his joints like it was itching to be used again. Dad held the man by the collar of his uniform, fists to his throat—but was too busy hissing at the man to feel the hand on his stomach until he was blasted back in a cloud of smoke, slamming to the ground.

Smoke. We were in Seattle. Was that the guy Dad got smoke powers from?

The man stumbled forward, the only thing keeping him upright Dad, apparently, collapsing onto the wood of the marina. And then…both men turned out towards the water. I followed their eyes to a small, barely-anything boat bobbing in the water, slowly floating away into the Sound.

The detainee began crawling on his hands and knees towards the guard rail, Dad scrambling to his feet and letting the chain fall from his wrists, unspooling just enough to wrap the metal links around the man’s throat. I felt something swell up in my own as I watched Delsin, my father, begin to choke out this man.

But then…he hesitated. I could see it in his shoulders, the way his elbows slacked just a bit as he looked back out to the water and the boat. He was moving with the detainee’s struggles too much. And I found myself whispering, “Let him go,” again and again.

Dad leaned down, whispering something in the man’s ear.

And my blood ran cold when he stood back up and planted a foot on the man’s lower back, pushing him into the chain and choking the life out of him.

Want more from Doot? Go read more about how he tortures Garrett in All's Well That Ends:

Follow the tumultuous life of Garrett Jorrer, a Curdun Cay enforcer, experiment victim...and child of Brooke Augustine.

Told through memories of what was and wishes of what could have been, read through the out-of-order retelling of Garrett's experiences and how life led to this moment...and how it ends. All in amazing prose that utilizes 2nd person in a brilliant and artistic way! I fucking love second person, and Doot is the person for that POV if you're looking for writing that not only will blow you away, but show you how it's properly done.

[paperbag1999]

i’m someone who sees things in like constant shades of grey and i quite often try to see the light side of things and i think i’m constantly reminded of all the great stuff i have in my life. also i am full of gratitude all the time and also every time something bad happens to me i’m like yknow what this makes sense🫶 all these bad things suck but they lead to so many amazing things i’m hyper aware of the butterfly effect. so uhm i’m a pretty resilient person if i do say so myself. so today when i came to the realization of OH. i’m having a BAD YEAR!

[notachair]

OMG I FOUND IT (as in a picture and a name)!

I had the "Creative ZEN Stone Plus" one in pink. And I know it's not technically an "ipod" by virtue of not being owned by apple, but it was what I referred to it as, and what I understood my friend's similar mp3s as (some actually being ipods)

Willdddddd

i have 3 moods:

skips every song on my ipod

lets the music play without interruption

plays the same song on repeat for days

[teg-report]

Transhumanism and Control: The NWO Agenda

Introduction Throughout history, those in power have cleverly used entertainment to control and distract the masses. The techniques may have evolved from ancient spectacles to today’s digital distractions, but the game remains the same. The New World Order (NWO) has honed this strategy into an art form. They use entertainment to shape public perception and dismantle societal norms. This keeps us…

[tsukimirecs]

nanami kento // fic recommendations

note: remember to read the tags! + i do not own any of these works

i'll pretend you'll stay forever

blind date

it's always six o'clock somewhere

math help

oneirodynia

desperation

my valentine

after last night

photo albums

the curse of optimism

cloud 9

sweeter

appreciation

romantic dreams

inevitability

afternoon naps

this charming man

piece of cake

and they were roommates!

drinks with a friend

chocolate chip pancakes

return the favour

us together for a while

what about me and you

exactly my type

during work hours

when you say my name, nothing's changed

it's the thought that counts

cause my love is mine, all mine

naturally

erosion

steadfast lover

between friends

family ties

[dosesofcommonsense]

Not that #Disney needs anymore bad ideas…

[ekkkkey]

vestal (chapter I)

summary: Livia, a young Vestal Virgin, is bound to Vesta’s eternal flame and the vow of sacred duty. In Rome, it’s common knowledge; touch a Vestal, and the wrath of the gods will descend upon you. But what if someone dares to defy that rule?

warnings: 18+ minors dni, dubcon, violence, blood

tags: caracalla is a freak, darkfic, no softboys here

word count: ~3k

"No vow of chastity or sacred duty could restrain him who deemed himself a god, for he believed himself above the laws that bind mere mortals."

-Decimus Rufus, Gods Among Men: The Erosion of Roman Law.

ৡ ৡ ৡ

"This is wrong!" Livia protested, though her outrage came more from personal feeling than from a desire to argue with her mentor. "There are countless priests for that!"

Caesonia, her sworn sister, was ten years older, but always so gentle and easy to talk to that Livia could be honest with her. As long as no one else found out.

"You know how things are," Caesonia said, her voice flat with boredom as she absentmindedly smoothed an invisible wrinkle on her snow-white tunic, making it clear that the matter was settled. "The emperors want to win back the people’s love, and what does the crowd love more than the games?"

"Let them win it without us! Only love for the immortal gods and my homeland make me happy, not mortals who crave power over everything!" She didn’t even understand why she was so passionately opposed, but she couldn’t hold back her fiery outburst.

"Careful, sister," Caesonia warned, her brow furrowing. "You speak of sacred love, but the fathers of Rome are sacred too. Besides, love comes in many forms. Doesn’t love for your family, your loved ones, mean anything to you?"

Livia flinched, her gray eyes drifting into the distance, her lips trembling.

"I don’t know that kind of love," she replied quietly. "I loved my father, my sisters, but that love doesn’t compare to what I feel for the great teachings of Vesta. My father, my mother, my sister—they’re all gone, gone forever, and the gods are eternal. Immortal."

Caesonia sighed deeply, rising from her seat. She tucked her chestnut curls behind her ears and walked over to Livia, gently taking her hands and looking straight into her eyes.

"You didn’t grieve properly, I understand…"

"I don’t need grief," Livia cut in quickly, though her voice trembled. The older Vestal always said Livia was too emotional and fiery. "I only need repentance and service."

"Then serve! The Emperor is the embodiment of Jupiter, Rome itself. And now we have two of them—twice the work, right?" she giggled. Livia, giving in, smiled in response. "Or should I say, the embodiment of Romulus and Remus?"

They were alike in one thing only—both greedy children, far from the greatness of their famed ancestors. And yet, they’re emperors, which makes them the fathers of all living in Rome.

Livia didn’t love the world of mortals, didn’t like leaving the villa or the temple, just as she didn’t enjoy being in large crowds. Until now, the emperors had cared little for the Vestals. They had always dealt with uprisings and discontent with bloodshed, needing no help from them. But now… everything had changed.

The famous and beloved Lucilla, daughter of the late Emperor Marcus Aurelius, had adopted the current emperors, showing her favor. Why and for what, no one knew, and even if they did, they wouldn’t say, knowing how the emperors dealt with loose tongues.

Lucilla was now their mother, General Acacius was replaced by Fulvius Plautianus, who had served under Septimius Severus and was known for his brutal temper, and the Senate was filled with all kinds of scoundrels and sycophants. Livia, like the other Vestals, did not involve herself in politics, but she knew a lot, listening to the gossip of the wives of high-ranking officials who came to make offerings.

"Offer a prayer to Vesta, to Jupiter, anoint yourself with sacred blood, and the priest will tell them what they so desperately want to hear," Caesonia continued. "Then the games will pass, and we’ll return to the temple. It’s an honor, Livia, not a punishment. You’re young, not even fully trained, and yet you drew the lot!"

She really had drawn the short straw when it came time for her and the other sisters to decide who would make a sacrifice to the gods.

"Rituals should remain sacred," Livia replied, less confidently now, not really expecting an answer.

ৡ ৡ ৡ

The first day of the games marked the start of autumn, right in the midst of the festival season, and the city hummed with excitement. The last games had been only recently, but after a string of executions, deaths, and tortures, people were desperate for something lighter. And really, what’s more entertaining than watching someone else die?

Draped in a flowing, snow-white tunic, Livia walked alongside the other Vestals, surrounded by stern-faced Praetorian guards, as they arrived at the Colosseum just as the sun hit its peak, bathing everything in blinding white light.

The crowd showered them with lilies and narcissus, desperate for a glimpse of the sacred priestesses. There were five of them—the sixth had stayed behind to tend the sacred fire. Usually, that was Livia’s role, but today, her duty was different.

She couldn’t hide her awe at the sight before her—flowers scattered everywhere, a roaring sea of people, thousands of voices merging into one. As they passed through the gates and reached the stands, she noticed the shift. These weren’t the same poor and desperate souls who had thrown flowers at her feet. Here, the crowd was wealthier, brighter, draped in a riot of colors and excessive finery.

To her displeasure, Livia understood that in this sea of bright hues and mixed fashions, there was a lack of respect for Roman customs, a disregard encouraged by the emperors, who, by all accounts, dressed quite unusually themselves.

"Over here, Livia," a priest, old and dry as parchment, took her hand, gently pulling her away from the others as they hurried to their designated seats. She turned her head, watching them go.

From a distance, their small platform gleamed—four pristine white figures, dazzling against the chaos of color. It made her smile.

The priest’s grip was light, his skin thin and fragile. He was the only man allowed to touch the Vestals, for he himself was not a man in the eyes of the people, but a vessel of the divine.

When they led her onto the arena floor, the sun blinded her. A thin white veil covered her face, a flower crown resting on her head, and beyond the sheer fabric, the world was hazy. She barely saw the thousands of faces watching her, barely heard the deafening roar of the crowd. Only the scorching heat of the sand beneath her bare feet felt real.

The drums beat. The noise swelled. The herald called out—she didn’t hear what he said. Instead, she lifted her face toward the sun, whispering a prayer under her breath, over and over.

"It is time, child," the priest said, removing her crown and veil. Her dark hair tumbled down over her shoulders, but her gaze remained fixed on the sky. That’s where her true audience watched.

A primal, animalistic scream made her flinch. She finally lowered her face and looked around. Through the central gates leading to the arena, they brought in a massive white bull. The beast was so enormous that six burly men, their faces hidden behind golden masks, struggled to hold it.

The majestic creature tossed its horned head and bellowed loudly, frightened by the crowd. She was scared too, but she didn’t move. Instead, she took the crown from the priest’s hands, waiting as they led the bull closer.

"Behold our sacrifice, Jupiter!" the priest calls loudly, not in the voice of an old man, raising his hands to the sky. Several young boys are gathered nearby, holding a cup and a crooked bronze dagger.

They lead the bull to the center of the arena, forcing it to bow its head, tightening the thick cords around its neck. The animal freezes. Livia does, too, staring directly into its frightened black eyes. Its horns are coated in gold to honor the gods, so with each turn of its neck, they gleam and shimmer.

Slowly, she takes a few steps forward, and the stands fall silent, the rumble quiets, and the drums cease.

Such beauty, such strength—all for the glory of the gods. They love beauty, and they love when the blood of such magnificent creatures is spilled in their name. Back when human sacrifices were still allowed, beautiful, innocent youths and maidens were offered to the gods. Livia only tilted her head in sympathy, silently thanking the animal.

"In ancient times, I could have been in your place."

Her hands tremble slightly, but not from fear; it’s the solemnity of the moment. She was wrong to resist, wrong to argue with her mentor, because now she is living the best moment of her young life.

The black eyes meet hers, gray, and she could swear that these are not the eyes of an animal, but of a human! The bull no longer struggles; on the contrary, it stands still, bowing its head. Solemnly, she places the crown between its golden horns, kneels before it, bending her hands in prayer and closing her eyes.

The beginning of the ritual is marked by the continuous beat of the drums and the priest’s loud prayer. The emperors want to wage war again, to enslave more and more countries and peoples, and now, armed with a fearsome general, they await the gods’ blessing. That’s why she is here, and that’s why blood will be spilled today.

"What do you ask of the gods, amata?" the priest calls out, raising his hands to the sky.

Not opening her eyes or lowering her hands, she shouts as loud as she can in response:

"For blessing, for victory, for the greatness of Rome!"

The drums pounded like a storm, the bull let out a mournful cry, and she kept whispering her prayer, even as her heart pounded harder, even as a terrible unease settled in her stomach.

A moment. A sound—low and guttural.

And then, warmth. Hot liquid splashed over her, soaking her from head to toe. She knew what it was. This was why she knelt—to be anointed, to receive the gods’ answer, to be purified.

The thick, metallic scent filled her nose. Blood stung her eyes, slid down her face, dripped from her lips. It filled her mouth with every breath, stuck in her throat like a swallowed scream. But she didn’t stop. She whispered through bloodied lips, through the deafening drumbeats, until the very last word of her prayer left her tongue.

A bright flash illuminated her, though her eyes were closed, and she saw light—brilliant, beckoning. A good omen. The gods had accepted the sacrifice.

The priest leans down to her, and she whispers the good news to him, and he hoarsely repeats it to the entire Colosseum. The crowd, frozen in eager anticipation, bursts into cheers.

Livia rises to her feet, wiping her face. The blood has already begun to dry, pulling at her skin uncomfortably. The bull lies lifeless at her feet, its black eyes frozen forever. Part of it will be burned as an offering to the gods, and part will be cooked and eaten at the feast after the games. The thought of how it had looked at her with such intelligent eyes makes her sick. She quickly turns away, facing the imperial box, adorned with vines, flowers, and purple banners.

Both emperors raise their right hands in greeting, and the crowd erupts in cheers. How fickle people are! Not long ago, they wanted to tear their rulers apart, and now they celebrate them like divine saviors.

As she leaves the arena, the last thing she sees is the bull’s body being dragged through the opposite gates, a trail of blood smearing across the burning sand. A strange, uneasy feeling grips her, but she pushes it down, too shaken to dwell on it.

ৡ ৡ ৡ

They let her wash her hands and face, change into a clean tunic, but her dark curls, now stiff and heavy with dried blood, still reek of iron and death. She tucks them beneath her veil and hurries back to her place among the other Vestals.

The row where the Vestals sit stands out as a white line among the dressed-up guests. Their platform is on the left side of the imperial box. Livia sits to the right of the senior vestal and keeps her eyes fixed on the imperial box, even though the first fight has already begun. How could she not stare? She’s never been so close to those who rule the world.

Both of her sisters were married to senators, and she doesn’t know either of their husbands. But the Senate was one thing. This was something else entirely.

The emperors are strikingly young. Livia leaned forward slightly, eager to get a better look. The one sitting closest to her taps nervously on the golden armrest with his thin white fingers. Red-haired and pale, he doesn’t give off an impression of greatness or awe. Painted like a maiden, dressed the same. Livia doesn’t accept long garments on men; she sees it as a sign of effeminacy and a betrayal of traditions. A toga would have been more fitting for a man in her view, but then again, these are not just men.

He sat in profile, so no matter how much Livia strained her neck, she couldn’t make out his face. In another fit of curiosity, she rose slightly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ruler’s face, but immediately found herself facing the mocking gaze of blue eyes. From behind his brother’s shoulder, the second emperor looked at her, leaning in and smiling shamelessly.

Embarrassment floods her, and Livia sits up straight, closes her eyes, cursing herself for her tactlessness and curiosity. She rarely takes an interest in other people, even less often men, so the very fact that she got caught staring, right after having just shown all of Rome the will of the gods, stings her deeply. She liked that the people treated the Vestals with awe and reverence, but in the emperor’s smile, she saw neither respect nor awe, only mockery.

"I’ll introduce you to the emperors later, behave properly," the senior vestal instructs her sternly, and Livia lowers her head in shame.

Today, there weren’t many killings; the festival shouldn’t be tarnished by too many deaths, so the games ended quickly. They were escorted into the halls inside the Colosseum, and as they walked slowly, still surrounded by the Praetorian guards, the crowd parted before them, eyeing them and whispering. The last time the Vestals had appeared at the games was under Marcus Aurelius, so their appearance was truly a momentous event for all of Rome.

"Raise your head, child, here are our rulers," her mentor commanded, and Livia obediently looked ahead.

Their arrival was met with a swell of voices, loud exclamations ringing through the air.

The first of the two, the one she had noticed in the stands, was tall and stately, but no warrior. His features were fine and well-defined, his dark eyes sharp with intelligence, but the set of his full lips betrayed a restless, nervous nature. A golden laurel nestled in the soft waves of his reddish curls, and his slender frame was draped in a black trabea trimmed with deep purple. Beneath it, a long tunic of the same black, embroidered with gold, shimmered in the light. He looked more like an eastern king than a Roman emperor. She didn’t like him.

While she was studying one of the emperors, the other had already been studying her. She could feel his gaze like a touch, sharp and deliberate. Quickly, she turned to face him.

Oh, he was nothing like his brother.

Shorter, narrower in the shoulders, he moved with a slow, fluid grace, completely at ease. Livia tilted her head slightly, and he mirrored the gesture with an amused glint in his eye. Was he teasing her?

Livia knew that fashion required women to whiten their faces and paint their eyelids, and appearing without blush was considered bad taste—but she had never seen a painted man before. The first emperor’s lids were dusted with a soft, ashy gray, subtle but noticeable. The second’s bright blue eyes were rimmed with warm peach, a color so vivid against his pale skin that it caught her off guard. A shade she had never seen on a man.

He wore a short-sleeved tunic of rich purple, cinched at the waist with a wide golden belt. Her gaze caught on the huge gold medallion hanging from his white neck down to his chest. The sign of Fortuna, the goddess of luck. Did he even understand its meaning? Judging by the many rings and bracelets that gleamed along his fingers and wrists, she doubted it.

Finally, the Praetorians parted, and they, along with the other Vestals, stood face to face with the emperors. The tall one bent slightly and extended his hand, as if expecting the senior Vestal to offer her hand for a kiss. Livia couldn’t help but smirk. Vestals were forbidden to be touched by men, even by the emperor himself. Didn’t he know this?

The awkward moment was broken by the mocking laughter of the second emperor. His brother straightened up, pressed his lips together in irritation, and cast a glance first at his brother, then at them.

"We are glad that you honored us with your presence," he said loudly. His voice was deep and low, yet there were still nervous notes, as if he were anxious.

"And we are grateful for the invitation, Emperor Geta," her mentor replied with a respectful nod.

Geta.

Livia turned her gaze back to the other brother. So this was Caracalla.

"This is Livia," the senior Vestal introduced her. Livia stepped forward, her back straight as a blade, chin raised. "She brought good news to the arena today."

"I see," Caracalla finally spoke. His voice was hoarse, starkly contrasting the softness of his features.

Standing beside him, Livia noticed that the powdered skin, which had appeared so flawless from a distance, was marred by tiny wounds, some of which hadn’t healed and were hidden under layers of rouge. The emperor, sensing her gaze, immediately furrowed his pale brows and lifted his chin, wounded by the thought that she had seen his imperfections. It must be difficult to consider oneself a god when one’s earthly vessel is so far from perfect.

"Oh, that was quite a sight," Geta continued warmly, looking directly at her. His hand twitched forward as if he wanted to take her hand, but she immediately pulled away, causing another burst of laughter from Caracalla.

"You’re too kind, Caesar," she answered with measured dignity. "The scale of the spectacle was truly impressive."

"There will be a feast this evening," Geta said, nodding to her and her sisters. "Join us."

"I’m afraid we must serve at the temple, Emperor."

"What is allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to the bull," Geta quoted, hinting that, with their status, they could do much more than the common citizens of Rome.

"What is allowed to the bull, is not allowed to Jupiter," she replied, and his smile faltered. "Had he not turned into an bull, he would never have approached a defenseless maiden, would he?"

Once again, the young emperor looked wounded, unsure of what to say, helplessly turning to his smiling brother. Livia realized who he reminded her of—the sacrificial bull in the arena today. He had the same dark eyes, vivid and strangely sorrowful, but no trace of wisdom, no matter how hard she tried to look. Geta noticed she was studying him and fluttered his long eyelashes in confusion, then smiled again.

"You’re wise, though young," he tried to compliment her, smoothing over the awkward conversation.

To some, he might have seemed charming. Handsome, even. To someone who hadn’t devoted her life to the glory of Vesta.

"Thank you, Caesar."

The little show ends, and the eldest priestess steps up, leading them away with the emperors.

"They’re quite charming, aren’t they?" Caesonia says quietly, glancing at her with a smile.

Livia tensed. Curious gazes followed them from all sides, high-ranking guests watching their every move. A strange feeling crept over her—guilt. As if she had thought too harshly of her emperors. As if she had been unfair.

"Dignified and charming, yes," she answers calmly, suppressing her negative thoughts.

Order in the mind—order in the heart, and that’s how one must serve the gods. She ran her fingers under the veil, letting her dark curls slip through, trying to focus. Her hair was still soaked in blood, dry and tangled. She stared at her hand, pink from the blood stains, the smell of iron in the air.

"I mean them as men, child," the elder priestess smiles slyly.

Livia paled, a crease appeared between her brows, and her lips tightened into a line.

"You know your vows better than I do, sister," her voice rang with tension.

"Look, don’t touch, darling," the elder priestess continued, her tone unchanged. "We can admire them like beautiful trinkets. You wouldn’t scold me if I were to admire an intricately carved box, or…"

"I need to wash my hands," Livia interrupts her, causing Caesonia to laugh.

They weren’t stone, they had feelings, emotions, struggles. And desires too. Other Vestals sometimes spoke of men, but Livia had never joined in those conversations. And she wouldn’t now. Her training was ongoing, and the last thing she wanted to think about was worldly, base desires.

A bowl of water stood by one of the columns, meant for purification. Livia walked toward it, the crowd parting before her, holding their breath. She was flattered by this. Now, surrounded by gazes brimming with admiration, adoration, and quiet awe, she couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride. Later, she would ask the Goddess for forgiveness for her vanity, but for now, the young Vestal basked in the attention.

She dipped her hands into the cool water, and it immediately bloomed with pink.

"Smells like blood," a voice said behind her.

A strange sense of anxiety gripped her, and her heart began pounding so strongly that it made breathing hard. On the outside, she tried to remain calm, as always. After finishing washing her hands, she turned toward the speaker.

Emperor Caracalla was grinning wide, showing a gold tooth. It seemed the young ruler was in a great mood.

"It is blood, my Caesar."

"Watching you there, kneeling on the arena’s sand, bathed in blood, was the greatest pleasure of the day. I fear even tonight’s feast will not bring me such…delight," his voice was soft, smooth, flowing like honey, and his eyes gleamed with slyness. He was teasing her in a bold, shameless way!

When she was very young, living with her father and sisters, Cassandra and Claudia used to tease her, taking advantage of the fact that they were older. But in the emperor’s words, there was something different. Caracalla didn’t say anything outright offensive, but something about it felt improper. Was it the way he smiled, the way he stood, nonchalantly leaning his shoulder against a column?

In every movement, she sensed how utterly unserious he was—how he tilted his chin, half-closed his eyes, and stretched his painted lips into a lazy smirk.

He reminded her of a cat. The one that lived in the gardens of the Temple of Vesta, rolling from side to side, stretching out its fluffy body under the sun. That one was ginger too.

"It’s an honor to serve Rome, to serve you," he grinned wider, "And your brother," his smile immediately faded, and Livia was stunned at how quickly his expression changed.

For the first time, she was looked at with such disdain. She blinked, trying to convince herself she hadn’t imagined it. No, Caesar still stood there with a deep furrow between his brows, his nostrils flaring. Livia stepped back, unsure what had triggered his anger.

Almost as if seeking support or comfort, she turned, only to meet the black eyes of Emperor Geta. He stood at a distance, surrounded by a crowd. A beautiful copper-haired girl was speaking to him, but his gaze was fixed elsewhere, cutting through the sea of people—on her.

She faltered, then suddenly realized—this had nothing to do with her. The emperors were watching each other.

She mentally pictured herself from the outside: innocent, chaste, in white garments, she should remain dignified and focused. Livia was a priestess of Vesta, not a cunning and ambitious matron, so the emperors’ quarrels didn’t interest her.

Leaving Caracalla behind, she hurried toward the other Vestals, but was suddenly, shamelessly grabbed by the arms and pulled into an embrace. If this had been a man, they’d have been crucified in the Forum by morning, but…

"Livia, my dear!" she hardly recognizes the face of the girl in front of her.

"Claudia!" The calm mask slips from her face for a moment, and she smiles at her sister, whom she hasn’t seen in ages.

"You’ve grown so much! A real beauty! And you look just like Cassandra! Your nose, your lips, your cheekbones," Claudia’s finger traced her face, and Livia shuddered at the unfamiliar sensation of someone else’s touch. "But your eyes… they’re from our father. Ah, our dear sister was so gentle…" Her voice wavered, and her hand dropped.

A man’s arms wrap around her shoulders, and only now does Livia notice the rounded belly of Claudia, the gaunt look on her face, and how feverishly her cheeks shone.

"Congratulations!" she quickly changes the subject, not wanting to speak of Cassandra.

"Yes, yes, this is my husband, Senator Appius, I don’t think you’ve met him, have you?" Claudia’s smile suddenly fades, but her husband grins broadly.

The exchange of pleasantries drags on for too long, and then her mentor arrives.

"It was good to see you, Livia," her sister whispers one last time. "We live at the palace now, visit me, I get so lonely sometimes…"

Livia nods sincerely, promising to visit, and hurries to join the other Vestals. The grip of her mentor on her arm is tight, and her gaze is nervous.

"What did you do to anger the emperors?"

"Me?" her voice sounds genuinely surprised, but then she remembers Caracalla’s hateful gaze, and she too asks herself the same question. "I don’t know, I’m sorry."

Suddenly, the crowd around her—the murmuring guests, the admiring stares—became unbearable. What had once flattered her now felt suffocating. Hundreds of eyes watched her with reverence, with curiosity, yet only one pair—bright, piercing, burning with something close to fury—ruined her mood completely. She didn’t belong here.

Still, before she could leave the Colosseum and return to the Vestal House, she would have to face them once again.

Caesonia noticed her growing unease and linked arms with her, trying to comfort her.

"Once again, we thank you for the honor you have shown us and hope to see you again," Geta began, locking his hands together.

"We are pleased that the bond between our temple and the emperors has been restored," the senior Vestal responded politely.

"Oh, and one more thing," Geta said, theatrically raising his hands, "Our mother wished to visit your temple…"

"Yes, mother," Caracalla mockingly drawled, cutting off his brother. There was something in his tone that Livia didn’t like again. That’s not how you speak about your parents, even if they’re not by blood. "She can get so lonely, and we’re not always around to entertain her properly."

Her cheeks flushed, and Livia didn’t understand why, but Caracalla noticed her brief pause and grinned, his mouth opening slightly, pleased that he had provoked some emotion from her. She lifted her chin, refusing to seem vulnerable, even though inside she was embarrassed.

The moment of farewell came. She longed to return home as quickly as possible, to forget all these strange glances and words. There, among the other Vestals, she would be safe, and no troubling thoughts would haunt her.

"Until we meet again," Geta said politely, licking his upper lip and adding, "Amata, I hope next time we can do without the bloodshed."

Amata. Beloved.

She only nodded, unwilling to show how much she disliked being addressed that way by a stranger.

Caracalla didn’t say a word, looking away as if he didn’t even notice her.

And just as she exhaled, walking past him, quietly relieved by the absence of his attention, she felt it.

A touch.

A featherlight, teasing touch traced from the tip of her pinky, gliding up the soft curve of her hand—barely noticeable, yet it burned like fire.

She stopped, glancing back over her shoulder, but the emperor wasn’t looking at her; on the contrary, he was leaning toward his brother, speaking to him.

It felt as though she’d been struck. The heat spread across her cheeks, sank lower into her chest, then froze in her stomach. How dare he?! No one had the right to touch them. Neither mortal nor immortal man would ever dare touch a Vestal Virgin. But he… He turned away, pretending nothing had happened, though that single gesture had shaken everything she had believed in for so long.

Trying to suppress her anger and confusion, she hurried toward her sisters, unaware that both emperors were watching her leave.

Without realizing it, Livia had started a new game.

ৡ ৡ ৡ

note: this story is directly connected to there will be games! Livia is the sister of Cassandra, the protagonist of that story. It’s been about two months since the events of the finale and what Geta did.

[xheartpages]

@towercursed​ asked: Things have been tricky with Xiao - not that she blames him, but they’ve hit a few bumps on the way to a solid relationship. Xiao seems to be opening up or at least accepting her, with the way they happily painted little Xingqiu’s room. Even if things are starting to go the right way, she can’t falter in her patience. She has to make sure Xiao knows that she’s not going to change.

She picks a time when he’s content, and brings him some light almond tofu, tie-dyed with pale purple and light green, and a cup of water with ice. He seems to be fond of ice and snow, so she’s hoping her peace offering will soften him up a little when she sits next to him. Not too close so she doesn’t make him panic, but not too far that there’s too much distance ; she hands him the treat with a warm smile, holding his water herself.

“ Can I ask you something? I want to know what your mommy was like. ” Maybe a risky subject, but that’s what the tofu is for. She still stays soft and gentle, ready to retreat if he refuses. “ She must have been so wonderful to have a son like you, and she must love you so much. ”

Xiao was still a bit closed off from Rapunzel, but ever since that afternoon where he had bashfully asked if he could help paint Xingqiu’s future room, he had seemed ... less skittish. Oh, he still watched her from a distance, especially when his father wasn’t home, but there were more times where he didn’t immediately run away when she came into the room too close. More instances where she could come in the room to do something and Xiao would stay put as he continued whatever it was he was doing.

He supposed that was progress.

The child’s wide amber eyes flickered almost suspiciously from the woman’s gentle expression to the treats she was holding; shifting so that he was sitting up as he peered at them. There wasn’t a lot that he could eat without pain, but almond tofu was easily his favorite. And the cold water made him hum as he drank a large gulp of it; both hands holding it as he tilted his head back, drinking half of the cup in one sip before offering it back to her. ( It was just as cold as snow ... and he loved putting handfuls of snow in his mouth whenever his father wasn’t looking and couldn’t gently scold him. )

Legs cross as the plate of almond tofu balanced easily on his knees, a tiny smile pulling across his features before eyes flickered up towards Rapunzel as she spoke; the smile dropping almost immediately -- although his expression doesn’t curl in anger or anguish. Instead it was a neutral almost blank look, fingers holding chopsticks freezing for a moment before he’s looking back down to his colored treat slightly, letting colored hair flutter into his face.

“... I can’t talk about mommy...” His voice was low; so low that one could easily miss it as he puts all of his focus into slicing his treat just so, so he could put the  piece in his mouth and chew thoughtfully. Xiao remembered her perfectly ... his mother, so kind and always gentle, always bubbly and tinkering with things and plants; so loving to him, his father, and his siblings. Before they all ---

He doesn’t look to Rapunzel again for a long moment, moving the tofu around the plate gently. “... It makes daddy sad. So I can’t.”

[4linos]

the ghost of what was.

bang chan x fem!reader

synopsis: a relationship ends not with a fight, but with a quiet, devastating sentence. chan walks away without explanation, leaving behind confusion, silence, and heartbreak.

warnings: angst, emotional heartbreak/breakup, mutual pining, love triangle (but not really), unrequited love.

wc: 4268

You never thought it would end like that, with no storm, no explosion, not even the slow erosion of time. Just a conversation that came out of nowhere, the kind that shifts the ground beneath your feet in a way that’s almost too subtle to notice until you’re already falling.

Chan sat across from you on the edge of the bed, his shoulders tense like he was bracing for impact. But the look in his eyes wasn’t cruel, or angry. It was… tired. Resigned. You remember staring at him, waiting for the punchline because surely this wasn’t real. Not him. Not you.

He didn’t cry. You did.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he said, and the words felt like they were rehearsed, like he’d said them to himself in the mirror over and over until they sounded detached enough to pass for truth.

You didn’t believe it. Not really. Because just a week before, he’d been tracing constellations on your back with his fingertips, whispering sleepy little nothings about your future. He’d kissed your forehead with the kind of tenderness that only comes from certainty. He talked about names for the kids you'd maybe have one day, about places you still wanted to go, about which of you would go gray first.

And now he was saying it was over.

No explanation. No confession. Just vague words that didn’t match the way he used to look at you, like you were the safest place he’d ever known.

You didn’t ask questions at first. You didn’t have the strength. But you stayed up that night, alone in a home that suddenly felt foreign, staring at the ceiling and playing every moment of your relationship backwards in your head, trying to find the part where it all went wrong. You didn’t find it. Because it wasn’t there.

That was the worst part.

It wasn’t a bad relationship. It was perfect. Not in some storybook sense, but in the quiet, stable way that mattered. You talked through your arguments. You knew how to calm each other down. You had little rituals, the way you always kissed twice before he left the room, how he made you coffee in the morning even though he didn’t drink it himself. It was real. It was solid.

So how could it just… vanish?

-

After the breakup, the days bled into each other.

You stopped measuring time in weeks or hours and instead in how long you could go without crying, without thinking about him, without reaching for your phone and remembering he wasn’t going to text. You told yourself to be strong. You told yourself if you could just hold out, if you could get through the silence, he’d come back with a real reason. Something you could fight for. Something that made sense.

But all you got was quiet.

And then, one day, Hyunjin showed up at your door.

You weren’t surprised, not really. He and Chan were close, part of the same tightly wound fabric of people who had always been around each other, who blurred the line between friends and family. You’d known Hyunjin almost as long as you’d known Chan. He had always been the light to Chan’s quiet warmth, brighter, more expressive, a little unpredictable in the way artists always are. You liked him. Trusted him. And that familiarity is probably why you let him in.

At first, it was casual.

He brought you soup. A coffee. A playlist you never asked for. He didn’t pry, and for that, you were grateful. He didn’t talk about Chan, not at first just offered a quiet presence when everything else felt like it was closing in. He made you laugh when your chest still felt too tight to breathe, and for a moment you thought maybe he was just being a good friend. Someone filling the space Chan had left behind.

But then, little things began to shift.

He texted more. He stayed longer. Sometimes he would just… linger. Watching you. You tried not to notice the way his fingers brushed yours when he handed you a cup of tea. The way he smiled a little softer than he used to. The way he looked at you, not like someone who was checking in, but like someone who was waiting. Hoping.

You told yourself you were imagining it.

That maybe you were just sensitive, raw from the breakup, reading too much into kindness because it had become so rare. But deep down, part of you already knew. Part of you had always known.

There was a moment that tipped it. A small, quiet evening, rain on the windows, a movie playing that neither of you were really watching. You had made some offhand comment about how Chan used to quote that exact line, and the silence that followed felt heavy in the room, as if your words had shifted the air. You glanced over, and Hyunjin was staring at you. Not upset. Not annoyed. Just aching. Like hearing his name in your mouth still hurt.

And then, a few days later, he confessed.

He came over late, like he’d done a dozen times before, but there was something different in the way he sat, nervous, hands clenched, gaze flicking between you and the floor. You offered him tea. He declined.

Then, quietly, without buildup, he said, “I need to tell you something.”

You felt the stillness that followed, the way your heart skipped, not out of excitement, but dread. You already knew. Even before he said it.

“I’m in love with you.”

The words were simple. They didn’t crash into the room or burst out in desperation. They were soft. Careful. Like he didn’t want to scare you.

“I have been,” he added, his voice trembling just slightly. “For a long time. Before the breakup. Before you even noticed.”

You didn’t say anything at first.

Because all you could hear in your head was Chan must’ve known.

You could see it now, the dots connecting. The strange way Chan pulled away toward the end. The sudden coldness. The vague excuses. He must’ve known. And if he knew, and still walked away, this was why. He’d left to spare someone else. Or maybe, to spare himself from watching it happen anyway.

You stared at Hyunjin, heart thudding, the weight of too many emotions crashing down at once, shock, betrayal, confusion, guilt. But the loudest thing in the room wasn’t his confession.

It was your answer.

“No.”

It came out before you could think. Before you could soften it. Before you could pretend you needed time to think about it.

“No,” you repeated, quieter this time. “I can’t.”

His face fell, just slightly. Like he’d expected it but hoped he was wrong.

“I’m not angry,” you said, your voice low, barely steady. “I’m not blaming you. But I’m still in love with Chan. I didn’t move on. I haven’t even started.”

He didn’t argue. He didn’t push. He just nodded, swallowing whatever heartbreak was blooming behind his eyes. And maybe, in that moment, you both understood that this wasn’t just bad timing, it was impossible timing. Because you weren’t just rejecting him, you were rejecting the very idea that love could simply transfer from one person to another like nothing had been lost.

You were still tangled up in the ghost of a relationship that never got to die properly.

Hyunjin left that night without saying much else, and you haven’t seen him since. But you think about that conversation more than you want to admit. Not because you regret saying no, but because part of you resents that the whole thing ever happened. That your heartbreak became an opportunity for someone else. That instead of answers, you were handed more questions, more silence.

And Chan… he still hasn’t come back.

Not physically. Not in words.

But he lingers everywhere, in the songs you can’t skip, in the way you always sleep facing the same side of the bed, in the ache that shows up at 2 AM when your guard is down and your chest is hollow.

You're still trying to understand it. Still trying to forgive him for walking away without giving you the truth. But some nights, when the world is too quiet and your head won’t stop spinning, you wonder if the truth was never his to say.

Maybe it was Hyunjin’s all along.

And maybe that’s what hurts most of all.

- flashback -

It was late, so late that the hallways of the building were quiet, the kind of stillness that only existed after the world had gone to sleep. Chan was exhausted. His shoulders ached from sitting in the studio too long, hunched over mixes he couldn’t seem to finish. But he didn’t want to go home yet. Home meant you. Meant facing the soft warmth of your smile, your sleepy voice asking if he’d eaten, your arms pulling him into bed like he belonged there.

And the truth was… he didn’t feel like he deserved any of it.

He wandered through the halls, earbuds in, music turned down low. That’s when he heard it, voices, two of them, coming from behind the partially open door to the smaller studio room.

Minho and Hyunjin.

He wasn’t trying to listen. He was about to keep walking, give them privacy, not eavesdrop on whatever venting session was happening. But then he heard Y/N.

And he stopped.

Hyunjin’s voice was quieter than usual, subdued, like it was heavy with something that had been sitting in his chest for far too long.

“I can’t keep pretending anymore, hyung. Every time I see them together, it’s like I’m being stabbed in the same place, over and over.”

There was a pause. Minho didn’t interrupt, he just let him speak. Chan’s feet stayed frozen to the floor, his whole body going cold.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t want it to happen. But I love her. I’ve loved her for a while now. And I know it’s wrong. I know I don’t have the right. But I can’t turn it off.”

Chan couldn’t breathe.

Hyunjin’s voice broke around the edges.

“She makes him so happy. And that’s the worst part. I feel like the villain. Like I’m waiting for something I’m not supposed to want.”

Chan’s stomach twisted so hard he thought he might be sick. He backed away from the door like it had burned him, heart thudding in his ears.

He walked back to the studio in a daze, hands shaking, every breath ragged with something too complicated to name. Betrayal? No. Not quite. Hyunjin hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t tried to take you. He hadn’t even told you. But the weight of those words, of knowing that one of the people closest to him was in love with the person he loved most in the world, crushed him.

At first, he told himself it didn’t matter.

You loved him. You chose him. Everything you and Chan had built together was real. Solid. Safe. He told himself to focus on that, to hold onto it. But the thought kept creeping back in, the idea that Hyunjin was quietly hurting every time he saw you together. That behind every smile, every joke, there was a fracture. A wound.

Chan carried that with him for days, then weeks. It festered in the quiet moments. When you kissed him and told him you loved him, a voice in his head whispered, Hyunjin would give anything for this. When you talked about the future, he imagined Hyunjin hearing it, watching it happen from a distance, bleeding in silence.

He tried to shake it off. But the guilt sank deeper than he expected.

And then came the self-doubt.

What if Hyunjin was better for you? What if Chan, with his sleepless nights and constant pressure and insecurities he could never quite silence, wasn’t the right choice after all? What if you were only with him because he got there first?

He didn’t know when exactly it shifted from guilt to resolve, but one night, alone in the studio, a beat looping endlessly in the background, he made the decision.

He would let you go.

He would break your heart so Hyunjin wouldn’t have to keep breaking his own. He would lie to you. Pretend it had been fading for him. That you’d outgrown each other. That it wasn’t love anymore. Because as long as he told you something final, something sharp, you wouldn’t question it. You wouldn’t wait for him. You’d move on.

And maybe, maybe, Hyunjin would finally let himself try.

It was the hardest thing Chan had ever done.

When he sat you down and told you it was over, everything inside him screamed to take it back. To pull you into his arms and tell you none of it was true. That he still wanted all of it, the house, the wedding, the kids, the future. You. But he didn’t. He made his voice flat. He didn’t look you in the eye. He played the role. He became the bad guy in his own story, because someone had to be.

And then he left.

He didn’t know how he made it out of the building. How he made it to the dorm. How he didn’t break down in the hallway. But he remembers one thing clearly: the moment the door closed behind him, he dropped to the floor and cried like he hadn’t since he was a kid.

And ever since then, he’s lived in that silence.

He hasn’t spoken to you. He hasn’t told Hyunjin what he heard. He hasn’t told anyone.

Because if he did… it would make it real. It would unravel everything.

And maybe, deep down, he knows that someday the truth will come out.

But he also knows it won’t fix what he broke. Because when you walked into his life, you became his home, and he’s the one who burned it down.

Chan had always thought he was good at pretending.

It came with the job, smiling when he was tired, joking when he felt like breaking down, carrying the weight of other people’s expectations without letting his knees buckle. And for the most part, he could manage it. He could look into a camera, sit through interviews, perform like nothing inside him was unraveling. But after the breakup, something changed.

It wasn’t the pain, he expected that. What surprised him was the heaviness.

It sat in his chest like a stone. Not sharp, not unbearable, but constant. Like an ache you forget how to live without. He would wake up, go to schedules, check in with the guys, show up to the studio like always. But everything felt slower. Duller. Muted. Like he was watching life happen from the wrong side of the glass.

The dorm was quiet more often now. Or maybe he was. He barely left his room unless he had to. Hyunjin had stopped looking at him so directly. Members stopped asking questions. Everyone could tell something wasn’t right, but no one pressed. Chan was too good at shutting doors without slamming them.

Still, the nights were the worst.

That was when the silence got loud. When the guilt and the grief curled around him in the dark, whispering all the things he didn’t let himself say in the daylight. He missed you so much it physically hurt. He missed your voice, your hands in his hair, the way you used to hum under your breath when you were focused. The little things. The things no one else saw. The life you’d quietly built around each other, piece by piece, until it felt like home.

And he’d burned it down.

He told himself he did the right thing. That he left to protect you. To give Hyunjin space to breathe, to feel, to maybe try. But it didn’t bring him peace. All it did was leave him alone with the knowledge that he’d given up the one thing he truly wanted.

You.

He hadn’t seen you in almost a month.

And even though he told himself not to check your social media, he did. Of course he did. He scrolled through old photos, read old texts, listened to voice messages until they felt like echoes in his head. But you hadn’t posted much. You’d gone quiet too. And part of him hated that because it meant you were hurting, and he couldn’t fix it.

He had no right to fix it.

But that night, that night was unbearable.

He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t think. The weight in his chest was suffocating, pressing down until he could barely breathe. His fingers trembled as he gripped his phone, staring at your contact name for what felt like the hundredth time that week. He nearly called. Nearly texted. But what could he say?

I lied to you. I still love you. I never stopped.

Instead, he jumped out of bed, barefoot, hoodie half-zipped, phone in hand. He didn’t think. Just moved.

He was halfway to the front door of the dorm, chest heaving, heart pounding like it was trying to force its way out of him, when he froze.

You were standing there.

Your hand was raised, just about to knock, but you paused when you saw him. And for a moment just a breathless, suspended second, you both stared at each other, as if neither of you could believe the other was real.

You looked tired. Pale. Worn down in that specific, quiet way that only heartbreak leaves behind. Your eyes were red, like you’d been crying. Maybe for a while.

And then you broke.

You didn’t say anything. You didn’t need to. You just dropped your hand, stepped forward, and wrapped your arms around him with a kind of desperation that shattered every wall he’d built over the last four weeks. Your face buried in his chest, your shoulders shaking, your sobs muffled by the hoodie he didn’t even remember putting on.

And Chan, Chan, he didn’t hesitate.

He pulled you into him like his life depended on it, like he needed to hold you just to stay standing. His arms locked around your back, one hand cradling your head like he was afraid you might disappear again. He felt your tears soaking through the fabric, felt your fingers twist into the material like you were trying to anchor yourself to him.

He didn’t speak. Couldn’t. His throat burned. His eyes stung. He held you tighter.

He hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed to feel you again, how empty he’d become without you. You weren’t just someone he missed. You were someone he ached for. Someone who lived in every part of him, even the ones he tried to close off.

And you were here.

He didn’t know how long you stayed like that, wrapped in each other at the threshold of the dorm, hearts racing, breaths shaking. The world didn’t exist in that moment. Just you. Just him. And the relief, the overwhelming relief of finally touching the person he never wanted to let go of in the first place.

When you finally looked up at him, eyes swollen, voice raw, you whispered, “Why did you leave?”

And he broke again.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Just the guilt. The regret. The love. All of it written across his face, pouring from his eyes. You didn’t need him to say it. Not yet.

Chan didn’t let go of you, not even for a second as he gently pulled you inside the dorm, quietly shutting the door behind you. His arm stayed wrapped around your waist, like he was afraid you’d vanish again if there was even a moment of space between you.

Neither of you said anything as he led you down the hall to his room.The dorm was hushed and dark, lit only by the soft glow from the streetlights outside the windows. It felt strange to be here again, after nearly over a month away. But being beside him… it felt like breathing after drowning.

His door clicked shut behind you, and only then did his grip loosen, just enough to guide you to sit down on the edge of his bed. But you didn’t sit. You stayed glued to him, your arms still around his torso, face still buried in the fabric of his hoodie. His scent, faint cologne and warmth hit you like a wave, and your chest ached all over again. You never thought you’d be here again, holding him like this.

“I wanna see your face,” he said quietly, brushing his fingers gently through your hair.

You shook your head without lifting it. “I probably look disgusting. I’ve been crying since… I don’t even know when.”

A soft laugh escaped him. Tired. Breathless. Real.

And something about the sound, that warm, familiar laugh that you hadn’t heard in weeks broke through the wall of shame and sadness wrapped around you. You pulled back just enough to look up at him, eyes still puffy, nose a little red, and gave him a half-hearted smack on the chest.

“Don’t laugh at me,” you whispered, but your lips were twitching like they wanted to smile.

“There you are,” he said softly, cupping your cheek. “God, I missed your face.”

Your throat tightened, and your smile faded. He saw it. Felt the shift. And his hand moved from your cheek to hold yours, threading your fingers together with a kind of reverence that made your chest ache.

And then… the silence shifted.

You could feel it before he spoke. The heaviness in his breath. The way he didn’t meet your eyes right away.

“I owe you an explanation,” he murmured. “A real one. Not that… bullshit I gave you before.”

You nodded slowly, your voice barely audible. “I needed one.”

He let out a shaky exhale. “I know.”

There was a long pause, like he was trying to find the right way to say something that could never be said right. But eventually, he just let it out.

“I overheard Hyunjin… telling Minho that he was in love with you.”

The words landed like a slow, sinking weight in the pit of your stomach.

“I wasn’t supposed to hear it,” he continued. “It was late. I was walking past one of the practice rooms. The door was cracked open. And then… I heard your name.”

You felt your heart pounding in your ears.

“He said he didn’t want to feel that way. That he hated himself for it. But he said he loved you. And I—I couldn’t un-hear it. I tried to pretend like it didn’t matter, like it didn’t change anything, but…”

“But it did,” you whispered.

Chan nodded, his jaw tight. “Yeah. It did. I started seeing it everywhere after that. The way he looked at you. The way he lingered. I don't even think he realized it half the time. And I hated it, hated that it made me doubt everything we had.”

He looked down at your joined hands, his thumb brushing against your knuckles.

“I thought… maybe he was better for you. I mean, I’m always busy. I’m tired all the time. I get stuck in my own head. You deserve someone who can give you everything without the weight. Someone who doesn’t drag you through their own mess.”

You stared at him, stunned. “Chan…”

“I didn’t break up with you because I stopped loving you,” he said, finally meeting your eyes. “I left because I thought I was protecting you. From tension between the three of us. From the guilt. From seeing Hyunjin hurting every time we were in the same room.”

Your breath caught. “You gave me up for him?”

“I gave you up for both of you,” he admitted, voice cracking. “I thought it was the selfless thing to do. I thought… I thought I could live with it, if it meant you could be happy.”

You were quiet for a long moment. The room felt impossibly still.

Then, slowly, you whispered, “I didn’t want anyone else.”

Chan closed his eyes, like the words hurt. “I know. And I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I just ended up hurting you. And myself. And probably him too.”

You reached up, touching his face gently. “You idiot.”

He opened his eyes again, surprised.

“You’re my person, Chan. I didn’t want better. I wanted you. I waited every day, thinking maybe you’d come back. Wondering what I did wrong. And the whole time, you were just… what? Sacrificing us for something I never even wanted?”

His voice cracked as he whispered, “I know. I know. I messed up. I should’ve talked to you. I should’ve trusted you with the truth instead of making the choice for you.”

Tears welled in your eyes again, but this time, they weren’t born of heartbreak. This time, they came from the overwhelming relief of finally being seen, being heard, being held by the person who had never really stopped loving you.

You leaned in, pressing your forehead to his.

“I never stopped loving you,” you whispered.

“I never even tried to,” he whispered back.

He pulled you into him again, this time slower, gentler, like he was holding something sacred. His arms wrapped around you, and your fingers curled into his hoodie again, your face pressed to his chest. And you stayed there, for a long time. Quiet. Close. Healing, slowly, in the shared silence of two people who had been broken apart, only to find each other again in the wreckage.

And for the first time in weeks, Chan’s chest didn’t feel heavy.

It felt whole.

//

masterlist.

❌proofread

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Yandere Streamer Boyfriend//////

Rules | Kofi | Masterlist

Streamer boyfriend who on the first date is really upfront about what he does. What seemed like a preview of transparency turns out to be a warning for the erosion of your privacy. As you begin to spend more time with your Streamer Boyfriend you’ll find just how much it’s beginning to bother you.

“Chat you guys are so mean! Their bathroom is a little messy but it’s not a red flag!”

Off-screen and whispering you ask, “Why are you filming in my bathroom?”

“Because chat wanted to take a look at your place? Why what’s the matter?”

“I don’t want these random people knowing the layout of my house!”

“Oh….well you can stay at mine if you want...for safety!”

If it weren’t for his impossibly good looks and otherwise male wife behavior you would have left him then and organizing your schedules so that you’re not forced to be a part of his vlogging. It’s a little tiring because sometimes he ‘forgets’ or ‘slips up’ putting more of yourself on the internet than you were ever okay with doing. 

“Everyone be sure to tune in four hours by then I’ll have eaten, slept, and finally get to tear up that cute jumper my baby’s got on.”

“Wrath!?”

“Sorry guys signing off! See y’all later!”

You give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s his livelihood, his business, his community, his hobby—you wouldn’t want to take that away just cause it occasionally makes you uncomfortable. So you excuse them all. His mistakes, his overreaching. It doesn’t really hit you in the face until something terrible has happened.

“Are you (Y/n) (L/n)?”

“Is there a problem officer?”

“I’ve been told to inform you…about your cousin's passing.”

“Oh my gosh!? No!”

“We’d also like to know when’s the last time you spoke to them…we suspect this is likely a homicide.”

Your poor cousin who you recently reconnected with has violently perished. Unfortunately because the majority of your family is out of the country or otherwise indisposed, it’s up to you to handle most of their investigation. Identifying her mutilated body and telling the detectives what you knew about each of their friends. For a while, the investigating officers are relieved to know you have a loving boyfriend to support you during this rough time only for that relief to turn into disgust when your boyfriend whips his phone out in the morgue….

“I’m going back to mine. I’ll have my friends come pick anything else I need.”

“B-but babe weren’t you worried about your place getting exposed? I-I’m okay if we take the break at mine��”

“No. I’ll be staying with a friend.”

 “Who?”

“None of your business. Thanks for the…memories.”

It's a shame you are no longer dating the infamous WrathWarrior according to your more distant friends who ignore the reason you left in the first place. Thankfully a few good friends are all you need, you take on the funeral preparations, and the rest of the homicide investigation smoothly. When you aren’t crying your eyes out, brainstorming with a detective, or crying in your bed you occasionally venture to your ex-streamer boyfriend’s stream. 

“Hey everyone it is Day 11 of being without the love of my life….Let’s have fun, with this game today.”

There he is still smiling and streaming as if he didn’t do this to himself.  You figure it’s better off this way. If he had the camera in your face during moments of crisis, he may have never come to respect your desire for privacy and would one day cross a line that would change everything forever. It really was better off this way.

‘Go back to him. You don’t want anyone else to die.’

The cryptic message on your social media came a month after your breakup. Still recovering from your loss and suffering the sting of an unsolved investigation, you are puzzled over the message from what looks like a newly created account. Knowing better than to click on some scammer's link, you blocked the message, thinking that would be the end of whatever weird new scam this was. But alas, a newer account sent the same thing on everything, including your direct messages.

“See detective? Isn’t this weird? It wouldn’t let me take a screenshot but it’s in every app!”

SNAP

“Well, we’ve got a record of it now. Don’t click the link until I can get the team to hook up to this. Go home stay safe.”

Doing as you're told, you return to your temporary home. Waiting for your friend to return you end up looking at the message again, filling the hours with your theorizing at the mysterious link and the ominous tone of the words itself. Narrowing down who it could be there’s only one man you can think of needing to ‘go back to’ is none other than Wrath. When you think about it that way this makes sense that it’s some dedicated and deluded fan probably some mining link to get more of your private info. You sighed exiting the app and attempting to relax again while waiting for your friend to return…they should of got off work hours ago…

Ring. Ding. 

Your phone rings with a new message and reading it makes your blood run cold.

‘You need to see this. It’s about your friend.’

It feels voyeuristic that this unknown person would have the answers to your creeping anxiety. The urgency of the message makes it that much easier to ignore the detective’s warnings, finally clicking on the link. Expecting to see your phone flash with a threat for your information you aren’t prepared for the video that loads. Seeing a blurry video of some incredibly familiar pixels squirming in a chair slowly becoming clearer.

“This is Day 34 of being without the love of my life and we’re getting ready for a very special night where we break-in some of our new arrivals. Especially this one.” 

It’s Wrath unmasked and pulling at the hair of what is definitely your friend crying behind a ball of cloth. It’s horrifying and you almost don’t believe what your seeing is even real. The continued ramblings of Wrath fogging your brain as you try and piece everything together. The controls to interact were darker than the streams you’d looked at before, the url for the website was different, and most glaringly different was the oddly opulent room with furniture restraining your friend. 

“On top of this thing,” he poked at them aggressively–no doubt puncturing with his nail.”We’ve also got an entire group. Silly little investigators looks like they’ve never heard of Wrath’s Colloseum! Guess we’ll have to show all of them what kind of fun we get down to chat!”

The familiar officers and the detective being wheeled in on chairs matching that of your friend’s. It looked like a row of electric chairs attached to one another, wood and dotted with the blood of what you guess must be from past ‘guests’.

Your phone rings again. It’s the anonymous user.

‘It’s up to you. If they live.’

The message was your last wake-up call. Wrath had pulled out a tray of tools, showing them off to the camera as he spoke about what gruesome bloody acts he could do. He kept turning back to your friend who wiggled in protest everytime, he decided to model what the tool would do. It’s then that you were finally able to do something about this. 

RING–

“Hello?”

“...Hey, I really missed you and I was wondering if you could come over. Like right now.”

You tried to silence your trembling breath. Watching the man on his stream kick his foot up. 

“Awww so cute! Are you drunk calling me? Ugh you’re just as precious as before!” You let out a relieved sigh, thankfully you could save your friend and the investigators tied on screen. “But Daddy’s got a wrap something up so I’m going to make it as soon as I get finished okay?”

No that was not okay! If he finished what he wanted to you wouldn’t have a friend or any local police dedicated to solving your case. So with bated breath you reveal your only card.

“Wait! Please don’t kill them! I’ll get back with you! I’ll do anything just don’t hurt them!”

You watched the wistful kicking from your streamer boyfriend stop slowly turning to the camera. Completely unmasked and wearing a leaver trenchcoat stained with dried crimson spots, he saunters over to the camera lens. Staring into your soul through the lens he smiles. Just like he used to when you’d chat from your alt account, or when you agreed to hold the camera for a cooking stream or when you told him you loved him even though he was a streamer. But it turns out that was the least of your worries when it came to your exboyfriend. In truth, your ex-boyfriend was the worst kind of monster–an untouchable one. A monster that can abduct and torture people without needing to cover his face. An entertainer who was so coonsumed by his career that he had no problem letting the talons of his lifestyle suffocate anyone who tried to impede it. 

“So your watching, huh?”

The voice echoes from your phone and the stream playing on your computer. You barely have half a mind to see what the chat says firing off so incredibly fast. 

‘Is that them?’

‘ is honey bun back’

‘KILL THEM ALREADY’

‘aw is this the end of the series’

Your exboyfriend giggles at chat’s messages, turning to look over his shoulder openly sneering at all of his victims. He quickly snaps back

“Alright sweetie, I’ll save one just for you. Even better I’ll give them the antidote to a little concoction of mine if you come and join us on stream!”

“But I don’t know where you are and–”

“I’ll come pick you up in a bit, after chat votes on what we’ll be doing to the unclaimed meat. Like that chat? A big bang to wrap up the worst series of my life? I think that sounds like a great idea, chat!”

[riboism]

warm on a cold night

》 pairing: aged up professor! c.jh x fem student reader

》 plot: Choi Jongho, a middle-aged professor struggling with a midlife crisis and an unfulfilling marriage, seeks a brief escape through an affair with a bright young student he meets at a bar during a faculty Christmas party. What begins as a distraction soon forces him to confront deeper guilt and dissatisfaction, leading him to question his choices and the life he's built.

》 content: aged up and married jongho (40s), college student reader, mentions of OC, emma (jongho’s wife), cheating, alcohol, FAT COCK JONGHO AGENDA, manhandling, spanking, creampie, blowjob, face-fucking, stand and carry position, smut with some angst

》 wc: 4.7k

》 a/n: all credits for this idea goes to @yun-fangz

🎧 warm on a cold night- honne

Jongho leaned against the wall, his whiskey swirling lazily in hand as he watched his colleagues laugh and chat over the hum of soft holiday jazz. The semester had finally ended, and a handful of faculty members had chosen to unwind at a cozy bar just a few blocks from campus.

The place was charmingly festive, adorned with twinkling fairy lights, cranberry-decorated wreaths, bright red ribbons, and polished wood paneling that radiated warmth. Inside, the air was thick with the cheer of the season, a stark contrast to the biting cold winds just beyond the frosted windows. Yet, no matter how long he lingered near the fireplace, or how many shots burned in his chest, the chill from outside seemed to cling to him, refusing to melt away in the glow of the celebration.

Jongho lingered in the corner, isolating himself from the rest of the group. He watched the other professors mingle, their laughter bubbling over clinking glasses. The sight stirred a mix of envy and disdain. Their holiday cheer felt hollow, a performance, and yet he resented how effortlessly they seemed to pull it off.

He’d considered skipping the party altogether but couldn’t bear the thought of going home tonight. Not yet.

He shouldn’t be drinking—not this much, anyway—but he kept ordering pint after pint, convincing himself that each one would drown his thoughts a little more. And for a while, it worked. Until it didn’t. Now, his thoughts swirled darker, heavier, impossible to ignore.

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” or so the song went. Jongho begged to differ. The Christmas trees, the holiday sales, the relentless jingles—it all made him tense. He was sick of it. Sick of forcing smiles through strained dinners. Sick of walking on eggshells at home. Sick of pretending that everything was fine, that he was still happily married, that he still wanted this. And the thought of hosting Emma’s family for Christmas dinner this year made his stomach churn. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up the facade.

What gnawed at him most was that he couldn’t point to any one thing to explain his unhappiness. There’d been no affair, no fights, no children to argue over. Just a slow, relentless erosion of something he couldn’t name. He had simply checked out, growing numb.

Emma, once a beacon of warmth and brilliance, now felt dimmed to him, like a candle flickering from a draft. He thought back to their early years—the long dinners spent debating poetry, the late nights whispering sweet nothings in the dark, tangling into each other over white satin sheets, her longing for him even when he was only a few feet away. Now, their evenings were quiet, their conversations perfunctory. They ate in near silence, their words dried up like an old well. Nights in bed were worse: two bodies lying back-to-back, the weight of unspoken things pressing down on the space between them, the burning desire for each other now snuffed out like a dying flame.

It wasn’t her fault, not really. And yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was suffocating.

Unlike the rest of the faculty, Jongho wasn’t looking forward to the long winter break. While his colleagues spoke eagerly of trips, family gatherings, and restful days at home, he found himself filled with a quiet, gnawing dread. Work had become his refuge—long hours at the office, stacks of papers to grade, and the pretense of ‘office hours’ no one ever attended. It was all a convenient shield. The thought of being home with Emma, with no deadlines or lectures to hide behind, felt almost unbearable.

He’d toyed with the idea of seeing a lawyer. The thought of ending it all—cleanly, definitively—had crossed his mind more times than he cared to admit. But every time, the guilt stopped him. How could he serve her divorce papers without a clear reason? No betrayal, no dramatic blowout, just the suffocating weight of his own unhappiness. It felt cruel, cowardly.

So, instead, he stayed. He let his depression settle in, heavy and inescapable, like an unwelcome guest. His wedding ring sat on his finger like a shackle, not a symbol of love but an anchor pulling him further into the depths of his discontent. Some days, he wondered what it would feel like to let it drag him all the way down to the bottom of the sea.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath, staring down at the empty glass in his hand. The amber traces of his last drink clung stubbornly to the bottom, mocking him. With a groan, he pushed himself off the wall and stumbled back to the bar, his movements heavy and unsteady. He leaned over the polished counter, shaking his glass slightly to catch the bartender's attention. Without a word, the bartender nodded and began pouring another whiskey neat, the amber liquid glinting under the soft, golden lights.

As Jongho waited, his gaze drifted. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her—a familiar girl, laughing softly among two friends at a table on the far side of the bar. Her hair fell loosely over her shoulders, and her giggles carried just enough to reach him, rising above the hum of the crowd and the muted jazz playing overhead. For a moment, he squinted, trying to place her. Then it clicked.

Y/N. His student.

He remembered your paper on Keats’ Ode on Melancholy. It was rare for him to recall specific assignments, let alone be impressed by them. Most of his students treated his class like an obligation, churning out rushed, half-hearted essays that betrayed their indifference to literature. But your work had stood out—not just for its clarity and depth, but for the way it annoyed him.

You’d written with optimism, arguing that Keats saw melancholy as a companion to joy, as something that heightened the beauty of life rather than drowning it. Jongho had scoffed at your words as he read them, unable to reconcile your argument with his own misery. To him, melancholy wasn’t some poetic counterpoint to happiness—it was a relentless weight, suffocating and inescapable. Still, he couldn’t deny the paper’s quality or the sincerity behind it. 

The bartender slid his whiskey across the counter, snapping Jongho out of his thoughts. He picked it up, taking a long, deliberate sip before glancing back at you. Your friends had gotten up and were weaving through the crowd toward the exit, leaving you alone at the table. You didn’t seem to notice right away, your attention fixed on your phone, but when you looked up, a flicker of disappointment crossed your face.

Jongho hesitated. He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. But the whiskey burned warm in his chest, loosening his inhibitions and drowning out the voice of reason. Before he could think better of it, he picked up his glass and made his way toward you.

“Y/N?” he said, his voice low and slightly unsteady.

You looked up, startled, your eyes widening in recognition. “Professor Choi?”

He gave you a faint smile, gesturing toward the empty chair next to you. “Mind if I join you?”

You hesitated, glancing toward the door your friends had disappeared through. Then, with a small shrug and a curious smile, you gestured for him to sit.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, your tone light but your eyes searching his face.

“Same thing as everyone else, I suppose,” he replied, settling into the chair. “Avoiding reality.”

Your lips curved into a half-smile. “That’s not how you struck me in class.”

He raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. “How did I strike you, then?”

You hesitated again, as if weighing your words, before saying, “Like someone who sees too much reality to avoid it.”

The comment caught him off guard, and for the first time that night, Jongho felt seen. Vulnerable, but in a way he didn’t mind. He took another sip of his whiskey, the silence between you stretching just long enough to feel charged.

“So,” he said, setting his glass down. “Do you always come to bars like this, or is tonight special?”

You laughed softly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “My friends dragged me here. They’ve abandoned me for some frat party, so… I guess that’s my answer.”

Jongho nodded, leaning back slightly. “Their loss.”

Your cheeks flushed faintly at the comment, and for the first time, he noticed how young you seemed outside the context of his lectures. Yet, your presence held a gravity that felt far beyond your years.

And as the conversation unfolded, Jongho couldn’t quite shake the thought: he shouldn’t be here, saying these things, feeling this pull. But he stayed anyway. “Can I ask you something?” 

You paused, your fingers brushing the rim of your shot glass. You shared the same thought he had: maybe you shouldn’t be here, talking to him, sharing drinks, lingering longer than politeness demanded. But there was something about him tonight—a quiet vulnerability that mirrored your own. You could see it in his slightly hunched posture, in the way his eyes didn’t quite meet yours until they did, holding just a second too long.

And maybe, you admitted to herself, you felt a pull too. You were lonely. It was clear he was, too, and that unspoken connection put you at ease in a way you hadn’t expected.

“Sure,” you said softly.

Jongho leaned in, his voice dropping, as though he were about to share a secret. “Why Keats? Why not something easy, like Poe? Do you know how many essays I’ve graded on The Tell-Tale Heart or The Raven? Yours was the only outlier.”

You tilted her head, a small, thoughtful smile playing on your lips. You rubbed your fingers absentmindedly against the glass, the tequila inside still untouched. “I don’t know,” you said with a shrug, though your tone suggested otherwise. “I guess it’s just… comforting, you know?”

“Comforting?” He blinked, genuinely puzzled. “You think melancholy is comforting?”

You nodded, meeting his eyes directly. “Yeah. It’s like... it’s always there. Inevitable. You can’t escape it, but once you stop trying to, it feels less heavy. More like... a part of you. It’s something to be embraced, something to be experienced. It’s human. I think Keats got that.”

For a moment, Jongho didn’t respond. Your words hung in the air, resonating with something buried deep within him. He swirled the whiskey in his glass, his thoughts turning over themselves. “Most people run from it,” he said finally, his voice quieter now. “They see it as a weakness. Something to be fixed.”

“Maybe it is,” you admitted, your gaze dropping to your drink. “But it’s also honest. Keats thought melancholy was the start of a new transition in life. Drowning it out by distracting yourself with alcohol or drugs would just ruin it.”

Jongho looked down at his drink. Your words struck a chord he hadn’t felt in years. This was the kind of conversation he used to have with Emma, back when they stayed up late talking about literature and life before the silence crept in. He felt the faintest spark—a flicker of something he couldn’t name. Connection, maybe.

“You think there’s harm in a little distraction?” he asked, his tone casual but his eyes anything but. His gaze lingered on your face, studying every detail as though seeing you for the first time.

Maybe it was the whiskey or the fact that there was no desk separating you this time, but he realized how different you looked up close. Your eyes were wide, filled with a youthful energy that seemed so foreign to him. They practically radiated life, a stark contrast to the weight he carried in his own. The soft glow of the red Christmas lights hanging above reflected off your skin, casting a warm, rosy hue across your cheeks. He hadn’t noticed before—maybe he hadn’t let himself—but you were pretty.

You tilted your head slightly, your lips curling up in a shy smile as you considered his words. “I guess it depends on the distraction,” you said, your voice light, but there was a hint of curiosity there.

He took a slow sip of the dark liquid, his gaze never leaving yours. “Some distractions are good,” he said, his tone low and measured. “When you’re feeling stuck. Or....”

“Lonely?” you suggested, your voice soft and careful.

His expression shifted, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t his usual polite, practiced smile; it was something quieter, more real. Like you’d hit on something he wasn’t ready to say out loud.

For a moment, you allowed yourself to really look at him. The crinkles around his eyes and the subtle greys in his hair hinted at his age, but there was a boyish charm in the way his lips curved into that sly, gummy smile. It made you wonder what he looked like a decade ago, though you suspected he’d been just as magnetic.

Professor Choi was handsome—you’d known that since the first lecture. Most of the students had agreed on it, passing whispered comments and exchanging sly glances whenever he turned to write on the board. You’d harbored your own quiet crush on him, but it had been harmless, distant, academic.

This, however, was different.

Here, in this dimly lit bar, with his shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal a sliver of his collarbone, his salt-and-pepper hair slightly tousled, and the way his eyes lingered on you—longer than they should—you felt something shift. A warmth spread through you, pooling in your stomach, forcing you to press your thighs together under the table. 

You traced the rim of your glass with your finger, the smooth rhythm giving you a moment to collect your thoughts. His gaze followed the movement of your hand, his whiskey glass forgotten for the moment.

“And what kind of distraction are you looking for, Professor?” you asked finally, your voice low, testing.

His eyes flicked back to yours, and for a second, he seemed to hesitate. His smile faded into something more serious, almost contemplative. “The kind that makes you feel something…something different,” he said, his voice barely above a murmur.

There was a rawness in his words that made your breath hitch. You liked it. He wasn’t like most of the boys you talked to. Of course, he wasn’t just any boy; he was almost twenty years your senior, and with that came maturity and experience. It was different—refreshing, in a way.

You hadn’t realized how close you were to him until now. Your knees brushed under the table, a subtle contact that sent an electric spark up your spine, though neither of you acknowledged it. The scent of his cologne—a mix of mint and sandalwood—filled your nostrils, making it harder to focus. His presence was all around you now, and you couldn’t pull away.

Your gaze drifted down to his hand, still holding his drink, and there, gleaming under the bar’s soft lights, was a shiny gold band on his finger. The sight of it made something inside you tighten, and your shoulders sagged with sudden disillusionment.

“And what if you’re not sure if it’s just a harmless distraction or a momentary lapse in judgment?” you asked.

He caught your glance at his ring, and the weight of it hit him, harder than he expected. Part of him recoiled, disgusted with himself for letting things get this far. Shame settled over him like a cloak. But another part, the part that had been suffocating for so long, felt a strange relief. He was tired—tired of thinking, tired of fighting. For once, he just wanted to feel something. He twisted his wedding ring around his finger, lost in thought, before looking back at you.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

—

Jongho hissed as he watched you part your lips over his throbbing tip. You were kneeling in front of him, your knees cushioned by the fluffy pink rug that lay before your bed. You two had stumbled into your apartment not too long ago, kissing and tugging at each other’s clothes, until the desire within you grew too strong to resist, and you began palming his crotch crazily until you felt him harden in your hand. 

You guided him into your mouth, your skilled tongue swirling around his girth with delight. His cock was so hard and heavy on your tongue that you couldn’t help but bring your fingers down to your clothed heat, rubbing yourself desperately as you imagined how good he’d feel when he’s buried deep inside you. You held onto his cock with your other hand, giving it a few lazy pumps as you sucked and slurped him.

“Feels so good baby,” he panted, his gaze fixated on you. Jongho refused to blink, stuck in a trance in which he couldn’t escape. You looked so sweet with your mouth stuffed full of him, your reddened, puffy lips and teary wet eyes enticing him even further. He felt himself melting into you, his core tightening in anticipation, but he held himself off, just enough to keep enjoying your warmth. 

Jongho grabbed a fistful of your hair, pulling it up into a makeshift ponytail so he could have better control. “All the way princess,”  he coached, pushing you down his length until your nose was pressed against his pelvic bone. “Just like that, good girl,” he hummed, proud to see you take all of him so easily. You gagged around him, tears blurring your vision as he guided your head up and down, his sweet, honey-like moans making your core throb. 

Your eyes fluttered up to meet him, watching intently as he tilted his head back, his brows knitting together and his mouth falling open. Each breath he took grew shakier, more unsteady, and you knew he was close. Despite his efforts, Jongho couldn’t hold it in anymore, and he reached his peak somewhat prematurely. He pushed your head down firmly, his hips stilling as he flooded into you. The taste of his salty, thick cum overpowered you, and you moaned in satisfaction over the crown of his cock, forcing him to grasp onto your hair even tighter.

“Swallow,” he rasped, fucking the last bit of cum he had left into your pretty mouth, “all of it sweetheart, don’t waste a drop.” 

You gulped his creamy white just as he demanded, the bitterness on your tongue and his desperate whines making your head spin. You came off him with a plop, licking your lips to prove you listened to his directions well. 

“Good girl,” he smiled down at you, wiping away a tear from your warm, red cheeks. His thumb lingered over your skin as he watched you lick him clean, your soft kisses on his tender head making his gut tighten in overstimulation.  

You then wrapped your fingers around him tightly, his pretty cock standing tall in your small grasp. You lined his veiny length with wet, messy kisses, grinning to yourself each time he jolted and gasped in response to your touch. When you finally pulled back to look up at him, you were met with the sight of his flushed face, his chest rising and falling heavily. A light sheen of sweat clung to his brow, and he looked utterly spent— as if he might collapse into a long slumber at any moment. 

"What's the matter, Professor?" you teased, your voice low and taunting, "Can't keep up like you used to, huh?"

Jongho chucked at your little jab. He leaned down, cupping your face tightly with his hand. “Oh, don’t worry darling, I’m just getting started.” 

—

“F-fuck!” You wailed for the nth time as you fucked yourself over his hard cock, grasping onto your headboard to keep you steady. Your thighs burned with exhaustion, each movement growing heavier and more difficult. Your pace slowed significantly, despite your determination to keep going. Each time you lost your rhythm, Jongho would send a harsh smack on your ass, warning you to keep going. 

He sat against the headboard, nipping and sucking at your tender nipples as you rode him, his big hands grasping at your rear to keep you in place. He loved how you felt in his hands, your skin so soft and malleable, a complete contrast to your wet and tight cunt. 

Smack. 

The sting ignited a fiery pleasure on your skin, but the overwhelming exhaustion had you teetering on the edge of collapse.“Please, Professor,” You begged with tears streaming down your cheeks, “just wanna cum…wanna cum on your fat cock.” 

Jongho finally gave your swollen breasts a much-needed break, plopping off your flesh and sinking back against the headboard. He looked up at you in pure fascination, completely mesmerized by your messy hair and fucked-out expression. “Then cum baby…” He cooed, “What, do you need my permission?” 

Your pace faltered once again, the little bit of strength you had left in your legs finally giving out. You yelped as he brought down yet another hard smack to your already red, sensitive skin. “Please...need help.” 

Jongho understood now. He repositioned his hands onto your hips, grasping them tightly as he took over and jerked his hips up. He pounded into you so rapidly, the sounds of your frenzied moans and smacking flesh filling up the room. 

“Almost there…” He huffed, his eyes locked onto your core, “cum baby, cum all over my dick, need to feel it.” 

Following his words, your walls tightened around him, and before you knew it, your knees buckled in and a wave of relief took over you. You fell over into his chest, crying out as he pumped himself into you slowly now, your slick gushing all over him. 

“That’s it,” He purred into your ear, your chests heaving against each other, “that’s a good girl. Made such a mess, didn’t you?” 

The way he talked to you made you dizzy, and if it was possible to cum from just being called his good girl, you most definitely would. His movements paused, giving you a chance to catch your breath. Your lips lightly traveled over his shoulder, to his neck, until you finally met his plush lips. You felt his big hands caressing your bare back as he kissed you hungrily, his lips tasting of hard whiskey and sweat. He was still inside of you, and the excitement from your moany, wet lips made him stiffen up again. 

Suddenly, he flipped you over on your back, your head falling onto your stack of pillows. You let out a soft groan as his lips pulled away from yours, longing for the kiss to linger just a moment longer. You ran your fingers through his soft, dark strands as he traced his lips over the swells of your breast, making his way down to your wet heat. You gasped loudly as he pecked your skin, his practiced tongue parting your folds until finally reached your aching clit. 

“Taste so sweet,” he moaned into you, the vibration from his deep voice making goosebumps prickle all over your skin. You were so sensitive now, each swirl of his tongue making you melt further into the mattress. 

You lost yourself in his warm mouth, arching your back and writhing in pleasure over your messed up sheets. But then, the warmth slipped away, replaced by a sudden, isolating chill. 

Jongho stood at the edge of the bed now, pulling you closer to him before abruptly lifting you up. You gasped at the sudden move, your arms and legs wrapping around him almost instantly. 

“What are you doing?” You asked, still feeling hazy and confused from the interruption until you felt him tap his cockhead on your dripping cunt. 

You had never been in this position before. It felt all too new, too risky, and you worried if he’d be able to support you all the way. “Professor, I don’t know…” you hesitated, a look of anxiety washing over your soft features. 

Jongho’s lips curled up in that same boyish grin of his. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Afraid you can’t keep up with me?” 

Your nerves disappeared and gave way to determination. "No," you scoffed, a playful glint in your eye. "I’m just worried about your back. Wouldn’t want you to pull something.” 

Jongho smirked. He liked how quick you were with your jabs. “How considerate.” 

He pointed his cockhead towards your cunt, leveling you down just enough so he could slip inside of you. You screamed out as he pulled you up and down his length, working you open like the pocket pussy he keeps locked away in his office. His unrelenting tempo forced you to hold onto his broad shoulders for dear life. 

Jongho was strong. He held you up with ease, supporting you with a tight and secure grasp under your thighs. The sounds of your broken sobs and wet skin smacking against his made your cheeks flame red, which Jongho noticed immediately. He loved seeing you so bashful. 

“Fuck, you’re gonna make me cum if you keep screaming like that, sweetie,” He said against your ear. Your pussy was so open, and each pump over his cock felt raw and hard. There was a mix of pain and pleasure; the sweet feeling of his cock massaging your walls, and the pain of him jutting into you so deep with precision. You swore you were starting to see stars.

He slowed down, and you expected to feel his cum rush inside you, but when you looked up at him, his expression softened with worry evident in his eyes. 

“Oh, you're crying baby,” He soothed as he gently placed you back on the bed. You hadn’t realized the stream of tears running down your cheeks, your mind too preoccupied with being split open over his thick cock. He quickly leaned over you, his lips brushing against your salty tears, his hands gliding soothingly along your sides. “Want me to stop?” 

Your fingers tangled in his hair once more, threading through the soft strands as he trailed kisses across your face. A soft giggle escaped you, charmed by his sudden tenderness and care. 

“I want you to cum inside me,” You whispered, your voice tinged with a burning need. 

Without haste, he slipped into you once again, this time slow and steady, his face just millimeters away from yours. He thrust into you in languid strokes, leaving soft touches all over your skin like you were a fragile vase he didn’t want to tip over. 

“You feel so good,” He praised, sucking in the soft bit of flesh at your neck, “you’re doing so well for me.” 

His pace quickened again, he was just seconds away from reaching his climax. His breath felt hot against your skin, his dark brown eyes glinting with a fiery desire. “Kiss me,” he whispered, his voice thick with need, “kiss me when I cum inside you.” 

It wasn’t an odd request, but the way he said it—so desperate, so filled with need—you felt you had no other choice but to oblige. You pulled him in closer, your lips finding his once more. You both moved with equal fervor, your hands cradling onto his strong jaw as his cock twitched inside of you. Jongho groaned, his hips going still as he spilled into you, his warm seed filling you up. You laid like that for a while, your lips continuing to move in sync as his pearly white cum leaked out of you. 

—

Later that night, you rested against his chest, your breathing steady as he ran his fingers through your hair. You were deep asleep now, but Jongho remained wide awake, his gaze fixed on the wedding band he'd placed on your nightstand. A wave of guilt slowly crept in, sinking its teeth into him. He wondered what Emma might be doing at this very moment. Losing his phone at the bar meant she most likely bombarded him with calls and texts, desperate for answers—wondering where he was, if he was okay, when he was coming home. He relished his time with you, the feeling of experiencing something new, something that made him feel alive. But your words haunted him. "What if you're not sure if it's just a harmless distraction or a momentary lapse in judgment?"

He thought it over, turning it in his mind like a puzzle he couldn’t solve. This wasn’t just about one night. It wasn’t about the alcohol, or the thrill of doing something he thought would give him a sense of control. He’d replaced drink with sex, thinking it would numb the ache, solve his midlife crisis, fill the emptiness. But it didn’t. It just made everything more complicated.

He felt even less of a man now. The feeling of power that once came with teaching, with being wanted, had faded. In the wake of it all, he felt small, insignificant. What was the point of it all? What was he really searching for? The guilt had been creeping in, but now it was fully consuming him.

This wasn’t just about breaking away from his marriage; it was about breaking down the man he thought he was. And as he lay there, staring at the ceiling, it became painfully clear: this wasn’t a solution. It was a reminder of everything he had lost and could never reclaim.

The warmth of your body against his and your hair's softness felt like a fleeting comfort. It made him feel seen in a way he hadn’t in years, but it didn’t fix the hole inside him. And no matter how much he wanted to ignore it, the truth remained: he was still trapped in a life he didn’t know how to leave behind.

a/n: feedback is appreciated

[grandwitchbird]

Dragon Age has been doing a really clever thing with its protagonists and the heroic power fantasy that only fully comes together when you look at the series as a whole, so let’s do another ramble. Under a cut to save your dash.

Origins is a traditional RPG power fantasy. It likes to tell you that it’s not by gesturing at Loghain and alluding to unreliable narratives, but what it shows is the power fantasy. No matter what your warden does, they’re the hero. Are you a casual genocide enthusiast? No problem you can still ride off into the sunset looking for a cure. Also hey you have a critical weakness/flaw (the calling) that kind of dooms you or gives you cause to vaguely ride of into the sunset. Very heroic indeed. There’s a layer of textual interest added by the presence of unreliable narratives, but ultimately it’s the hero’s choices that shape and determine the world and story, right down to very gamified relationships. The origins system itself, the fact that your warden could have been anyone, is the actual textual proof that this isn’t all that’s going on. It just only really gets paid off by later games, and that’s pretty important given where this franchise ended up.

—

Enter DA2. Hawke is a champion, not a hero. Hawke fights for those who can’t fight themselves. Hawke can’t save the world. They can’t even save their family or city. It’s a battle of attrition that sees them somehow worse off no matter what. The still-gamified but now more nuanced and challenging relationships become the focus because they’re really all Hawke has. Now the power fantasy is still lurking around the edges. It’s just challenged at every turn. You can free Kirkwall, but Anders is always going to blow up a church.

—

Which brings us to Inquisition. Somehow, you’re both as much of a nobody as Hawke and you’re responsible for more than the Warden. And it’s miserable. The power fantasy is constantly undermined. No matter who your inquisitor was, by the end of the game they’ve been completely subsumed by their role: turns out power has teeth.

In a move that delivers on the unreliable narrative throughline that Origins established and DA2 strengthened, the Inquisitor must play the hero and save the world. It doesn’t matter if your Inquisitor is a kind person doing their best or a racist power-hungry asshole, and that is now a systemic issue within the world itself. The erosion of your character’s personhood is explicit within the text as characters struggle to see you as more than your role and you’re asked to shape the faith of an entire world even if you don’t share that faith. The cost of this erosion is made incredibly literal with Ameridan’s story and then in Trespasser, where the anchor, both cause and symbol of the Inquisitor’s role and power, is killing them. Relationships become somewhat less gamified but more importantly, you’re given an explicit textual mirror in Solas. He’s there to reflect your behavior but also your loss of personhood to a role. It’s essential that he’s the one to save your life at the end of Trespasser. Even if you’ve never shown him a moment’s grace, here is your mirror to see you as a person one last time.

—

And then there’s Rook. Now we play a mirror to Solas, a character who has been the hero, Mythal’s champion, and a man subsumed by his role/s. He’s really the narrative gift that keeps giving.

We walk the dreadwolf’s path this time, and the dreadwolf is a classic tragic hero. He’s stuck in a story where he must save the world and where a critical flaw will always be his downfall. We’re Varric’s second who must step up to champion his cause after the events of the introduction. And we’re barely keeping ourselves together under the burden of leadership. And here is where Veilguard finally delivers everything this franchise ever promised. Because under all that we’re truly just some guy. Just like Solas is just a guy who got stuck in situations he never wanted. His response was to become the hero or play the villain (depending on the story) because that’s easier. But if Rook can truly choose the ‘hard truth’ that the world is never going to “stay fixed” (oh hi Inquisitor… and Hawke… and Warden) and that other people can have better ideas and make hard calls and their own choices? If we don’t have to ‘win’? Rook can reconcile the inevitable tragedies of this kind of story with their very human needs and escape the story altogether. The cost, of course, is the power fantasy.