#even after he’s no longer literal dirt just figurative dirt

[theaxolotlkween]

Silly little comic I made.

[writingroom21]

Hey boo boo bear imagine this kook rafe x shy pouge reader get stuck in a room together…… they have sex. I don't know how to plot this😭

Rafe only tolerates reader in his sister group since reader is shy and quiet and because she's a good baker and cooker since he eats the food reader makes for Sarah (the reader doesn't know obviously)❤️❤️❤️ plz make it super smutty

Escape Room

Warnings: 18+, smut, oral (f receiving), spanking, spitting, use of belt, unprotected sex (wrap it up y'all), choking, (let me know if I missed any)

Wc: 2.9K

A/N: This was just a great idea and I literally loved writing it.

“He said he would be there in fifteen minutes to pick up the brownies. Thank you again so much.” Sarah rushes out her words feeling bad that Rafe was already late. “It’s okay not like my job is super demanding anyway. I just sit here and watch the cameras. Plus it’s slow and no one has reservations.” Working at an escape room has its perks. You get to sit back and relax, watching as people try to figure out the puzzles. 

“Okay. Again I’m so sorry he’s late. Let me know if he was a dick after he leaves.” Sarah says before hanging up the call. Rafe was supposed to be here two hours ago and he is still not here. Sarah had asked you to make her brownies from the pool party she was having when she invited you. Sadly you had work but still had agreed to make them.

You’ve been making desserts and dinners for her since middle school. It started when you made some pasta dishes with your mom. You had brought some extra to school the next day and she had tried it at lunch. She fell in love with it and promised you to always save her extra when you cook. Even when you too went to different High schools she didn’t let that stop her.

She would ride her bike to your house all the way in the cut after school to try some new dishes. It was a little routine the two of you enjoyed. Then you started to make extra of every dish and dessert to bring to Tanny Hill. Everyone in the house loved your cooking and baking. Even the eldest Cameron sibling couldn’t find himself to hate it. No matter how hard his brain told him not to eat your dirt pogue food he still does.

He guesses over time his disdain for pogues dissipated only for you. He found himself excited to try a new dish or eat your famous cookies when Sarah brought them home. When Sarah had asked him to pick up at first he was really willing to get them. Accepting the chance to get close to you without having her around. Then he realized he would actually have to be around you without a buffer.

Rafe decided that the longer he waits to pick up the brownies then maybe the less time you have to take to him. That’s why he told Sarah he would be there in fifteen all while he was still on the course playing golf with Topper and Kelce. 

Another forty minutes pass and he is still not here. The last group of people leave the alien invasion room. Sighing you get up and start to clean up the room. This is the one downside of everything, you have to clean the whole things up. Resetting every clue is a hassle in itself, not to mention people make messes on purpose. You were so busy trying to put one of the clues together that you didn’t hear someone calling out for you.

Rafe walks around calling out your name to find you. “Where are you? I just need the brownies and then I’ll be gone.” He sees one of the doors open and a figure lurking around. Getting closer he can see that it’s you so he walks into the doorway. “Hey! Can I get them now?” You turn around to see Rafe, clutching your chest at the scare that he gave you.

He goes to walk further into the room and bumps into the door holder making it fly out of place. “Don’t let the-” The door slams shut due to the weight of it, it’s slam echoing in the room. “Door close.” Rafe turns around to open it. “God, it's not a huge deal.” The door handle shakes but it doesn’t budge.

“Why isn’t it opening?” There’s a twinge of irritation in his voice. Whipping around to look at you he finds you sitting down on one of the seats. Like clock work the automatic voice booms through the speakers. 

“Welcome brave fighters. The Aliens have attacked and you are our only hope of fighting them. In exactly one hour they will take over the world and destroy it. This bunker contains the key to saving the world. Find it before time runs out or we are all doomed. Good luck.”

Just like that the clock above the door turns on and the seconds start to count down. “What the fuck is happening?” Rafe is rattling the door trying to pry it off the hinges. “It’s an automatic system. Once the door closes the game starts and you can’t get out.” You are willing to let the time run out already texting your boss to tell them you got locked in a room.

This wouldn’t be the first time this has happened. At least those times weren’t you and there was someone else to open the door. It’s just your luck that today of all days you are the only one working. Your boss texts you back without being any help.

Well I’m on vacation right now. I’ll text the group chat to see who can come get you out. You might just have to solve it or wait it out.

“Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?” You laugh at him and go over to the first clue, solving it and getting the key out of the box. “It’s an escape room dumbass. It’s kinda the whole point. Plus everyone here knows not to close the door, that’s why the block was there.” Rafe closes his eyes as he realizes the thing his foot accidently hit was the only thing holding the door back.

“I didn’t know sorry.” Your back is turned to you as you are finding the keyhole on the table that opens it. Rafe watches in awe as the table top clicks open and you lock it into place. Sarah has always said that they should all come here to try one out and he brushed it off when they actually made plans. He thought these types of things were stupid but now that he’s seeing you do it just makes him think it’s him who's stupid. 

There would be no way that he would figure any of this out. He knows that you know how to do all of the clues due to having to set them up. But damn how would anyone be able to figure that out? Walking closer he can see that the table opens up into a map of the world and each country is out of order. You just set each one perfectly in place and a trap door opens on the far side of the wall.

“Didn’t realize you were so smart for a pogue?” You roll your eyes at him and push past him to go to the other room. “How long will it take you to figure this all out? I don’t have all day.” It is funny that he would say that considering he made you wait on him for most of the day. “That’s rich coming from you.” You get into the room and look at the fake control panel that’s in it. This is the one part of this room you take forever to fix. 

You can’t remember which switches control which thing. They all work in some way but only four of them cause the map to light up for the next clue. “What upset that I have a life and you don’t? I had shit to do, you aren’t important.” The laugh you let out is like you are mocking him and he hates it. “I could give two shits that you were late. Wouldn’t expect anything less from you. All you care about is yourself.”

“That’s not true.” If he thought that other laugh was annoying this one makes his blood boil. “You are literally the most selfish person I know. You’re rude, arrogant, and honestly a disgusting person. I would rather be stuck in a room with a million spiders then feel you breathing down my neck.” You didn’t realize how close you had gotten to him. All up close and personal to him. 

“I’m literally trying to figure all of this out so we can get out of her and you didn't even offer to help. All you can do is sit there on you ass like a fucking child.” Rafe’s anger gets the best of him and he wraps a hand around your neck. “Careful there. Don’t get on my bad side. You’re lucky I even tolerate you.” His fingers tighten a little bit, the blood flow slowing slightly. “If this is you tolerating me then maybe you should get fucking checked. There is obviously something wrong with you.”

The room gets quiet and all that can be heard is his heavy breathing. His chest is brushing against yours with each breath. Your eyes flicker back and forth looking into the blue eyes you’ve known for years. Without a second thought his lips are crashing onto yours. You meet his enthusiasm, kiss him just as hard. 

His other hand wraps around your hair tugging it to manipulate your head to deepen the kiss. Walking backwards you bump into the counsel, buttons digging into you as he lifts you to sit on it. “So much tough talk and look at you now.” The way he looks at you is belittling as if you aren’t a real person.

“Do you always have to be so annoying?” He smiles at you and dives back in to kiss you. Hands roam your body and squeeze the flesh under his palms. The kiss gets more intense as he nips at your lips. You let out a wince pulling back. Lifting a hand to touch your lip and feel the warmth seeping from the cut. “Are you serious?” Rafe smiles all cocky at you, feeling good that you were in pain. 

The smirk didn’t last because you delivered a smack across his face. He slowly turns his head back, shocked by the action. “Oh you’re going to regret that.” He kisses you again, ignoring your wince of pain and biting your lip even harder. The hands roaming your body move in between the two of you so he can unbutton your pants. Your fingers dig into his shoulder as you lift yourself up, helping him take your pants off.

His right thumb starts to stroke you over your panties, feeling how wet you are. “Look at how wet you are. Shy little girl who’s actually just a slut in disguise.” You moan at the words and the feeling of his thumb rubbing you just right. The fabric makes it feel even better. Your hands reach towards his belt and unbuckles it. His pants and boxers are shoved down his legs.

“Can you just shut up and fuck me already. Starting to think that you keep talking just to stall.” Your hand wraps around his dick and starts stroking. The tilt of your head does him in. He grabs your face and pinches your cheeks together. “Don’t worry baby, just giving you some more time with your thoughts before I scramble them.” Without warning he pushes your panties to the side and thrusts into you.

The moan you let out is like a taste of heaven. The sweetest sound that he’s ever heard. His pace is brutal, not giving you any time to adjust to his size. In his head he’s thought about this before. This exact moment has played out in different ways in his dreams. In those he takes his time with you, stretching you out with his fingers and eating you out until his face is covered in you. That was always a part of his vision yet here he is skipping all of it.

It’s like there is something about you that clouds his thoughts and sense of morality. He can’t seem to keep his cool around you or to stop himself from being him. His grip on your cheeks get tighter, his hips snapping into you. He keeps watching your face as your eyes roll back.

If he wasn’t holding your face then you would have fallen backwards. As if he heard your thoughts he pushes you backwards, your back hurts from the keys. You know that tomorrow there will be marks left from them. His other arm wraps around your back lifting your hips in the air. From this angle he’s hitting deeper and getting your g-spot in the best way.

He’s holding you in a position to give himself the best form of pleasure and yet you are getting it too. At first he really didn’t care if you enjoyed it, only wanting to teach you a lesson. That mindset faded away just by looking at you. This was better than what he had imagined and he couldn’t be happier. He lifts you back up and pulls out, flipping you to lay over the counsel.

Lights flicker as some buttons are pushed from your hands slamming down to catch yourself. Rafe kneels down behind you and attaches his lips to your clit. Your head drops down to rest on your forearm. “Oh fuck that feels good.” Rafe hums at the taste of you, shaking his head slightly side to side. He stays there for a few minutes bringing you to the very edge of your orgasm before stopping.

Pulling back his hands play with your ass, his eyes catching the glint from his belt buckle. An idea pops into his head. Picking up the belt he folds it in half, dragging it up your leg as he stands up. “What are you doing?” You turn your head to look at him and see him smirking down at you. Without saying anything to you he lifts up the belt and smacks your ass with it. You let out a yelp from the stinging sensation.

He does it once again, your yelps morphing into moans. The pain is dull or maybe you are just too focused on the way he’s kissing up your spine. His other hand grips  himself, lining his dick back up to your entrance. Teeth dig into the side of your neck as he sinks into your soaked pussy. Your eyes pinch shut, mouth wide open as he keeps thrusting in.

You are enveloped in pleasure, so much so that all of your senses seem to disappear. Your ears are ringing, eyes watering from pleasure, all you can feel is him all around you and something cool around your neck. Opening your eyes was like a wake up call. You can feel the smooth leather moving around your skin as he loops it through the buckle. Lifting a hand to touch your neck confirms it all. 

He put the belt around your neck.

Rafe wraps his hand with the excess leather, keeping a tight grip on it. He yanks a little on it to tighten it. Not enough to fully choke you but enough to make it pleasurable. He gives it another tug when he realizes you like it, causing your back to arch. Your head is practically touching his shoulder now. He moves a hand up your body to grab your face, turning it to look at him.

Once your eyes are staring back at it he speaks. “Open your mouth.” You don’t know why he even told you anything, he used his grip to pry it open anyway. Rafe spits into your open mouth, kissing you immediately after. His thrusts are increasing in pace, slamming into your hips. The familiar feeling of your orgasm washes over you, making your body convulse. Your moans are loud, tearing through your throat.

Rafe helps you through your orgasm before pulling out and stroking himself, cumming all over your ass. “Oh fuck. You look so pretty like this, covered in my cum. All fucked out because of me.” He’s mesmerized as he plays with his cum, scooping it with his fingers he brings it to your mouth. On instinct you lick them clean, moaning at the taste of him.

The sounds of a buzzing noise scares the two of you away from the moment. “The aliens have succeeded in their plan to overrun the world. Better luck next time.” The two of you stare at each other for a moment and mutually decide to just get dressed. Rafe’s eyes move to your neck as you remove the belt. It’s a bit red but he’s mostly focused on the teeth indents left. 

He has a smug look on his face as you both get dressed that continues once you give him the brownies. Thank god no one was in the lobby waiting to do a room because you don’t know what you would have done if there was. You couldn’t even look Rafe in the eyes after what just happened. If he thought you were shy before then this was a new level. 

Just as he was about to leave he turned back around. You are staring at the floor watching his feet to see when it’s safe to look back up. When they don’t move you reluctantly look up at him. “I might have to come back here. Never knew being locked in a room could be so fun.” With that he walks out leaving you there shell shocked.

He’s right, being locked in a room could be fun.

[sunsetsimon]

i have a secret. (request)

simon 'ghost' riley x reader

mentions of the club, cheating, angsty with happy ending

okay so this is way longer than a drabble but i just sat down and this came out so who's complaining???? also im so proud i literally wrote this in less than an hour and a half omg - sun

─────── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───────

he arrives in your town late at night. his mission had ended earlier than expected and he decided to come surprise you with a visit, knowing you’d have no clue. it's past one in the morning, the lights off in your house. simon figures you're asleep as you stopped replying to his texts a few hours prior. he pulls the spare key out from the flower pot near your front door, digging it from the 2 inches of dirt you made sure to cover it with.

unlocking the door, it's eerily quiet, something in simon's gut telling him to be on alert. reaching under his hoodie, he unholsters his gun tucked into his pants, gripping it tight in his hands as he surveys the house. the small dim light on the stove illuminates the kitchen, and he sets his bag on the table.

his steps are silent as he checks every room, coming to the realization that no one was there, even you. simon was confused, wondering where you'd be this late without letting him know your plans. anxiety pools in his stomach, wondering if you were doing something you would keep from him.

you're just finishing up your shift, collecting all of your belongings and changing into your normal sweats and sweatshirt. security escorts you to your car, just as a safety measure. bidding your goodbye's, you shut the door and start your car. your phone vibrates, a text from simon:

"what are you up to, love?" - simon, 1:32am

feeling guilty, you toss your phone onto the passenger seat, choosing to respond once you get home. your relationship with simon had only been official for a few months and he'd been out of the country for most of the time. it didn't feel right to keep things from him, but you worried that telling the truth about your night job would push him away.

once you arrive home, you sit in your car for a minute before replying to simon:

"sorry si, i fell asleep on the couch again. going to bed now, text you when i'm up xx" - you, 1:45am

heading inside, you drop your bags on the couch, slipping off your shoes and heading to get ready for your shower. you push open the cracked bedroom door, turning on the light as you walk inside. you jump with a yelp when you see simon seated in the chair in the corner, his head resting on his propped up arm, phone in his other hand.

"fell asleep on the couch, huh?" he asks, voice low, laced with something like anger.

"when did you get here?" you ask, extremely confused on what he's doing in the corner of your room at 2 in the morning.

his blond eyebrows furrow, face twisting in displeasure at your obvious deflection, "i asked you a question." simon leans forward, body seeming to grow with intimidation, making you feel small and cornered. the words slip from your tongue, a proper sentence failing to form and explain your whereabouts.

"were you out with someone?" he asks, noting your eye makeup and styled hair. simon can feel his heart breaking in his chest with your silence, trying to come up with an answer. he shakes his head, clearing his throat as he walks past you, grabbing his bag from the kitchen table.

"wait!" you cry, running after him and grabbing onto his arm but he snatches it away. "simon, listen i can explain."

though he wants to run, leave you here and never speak to you again, he stays. his chest burns, squeezing tight with hurt, never imagining you'd do anything to hurt him. simon wasn't one to catch feelings or have a committed relationship.

"i have a night job at the club, jimmy's. i didn't want to tell you because i wasn't sure how you'd take it," you explain, holding onto his wrist as if that'd stop him from moving.

"you're a bartender?"

"a dancer. a stripper..." you trail off, cheeks burning with shame. you're met with silence, his brown eyes distant as he stares at the ground, brain failing to process what you just confessed. an erotic dancer? that was definitely not on the list of things simon guessed you were doing.

"and you've been at this for how long..? as work?"

"i started a little after we started dating, when you were gone for those three weeks. it's good money, and i'm good at it-" you explain, grabbing your bag from the couch to reveal it to him. unzipping it, the bag is filled with all different bills, "i made this tonight."

"dunno what t'say," simon finally says, shaking his head in disbelief.

"are you mad at me?"

"not that you dance. but you still lied to me, i wouldn't do that to you. we're partners, y'can tell me anything."

"i'm sorry si," you say. he reaches for you, pulling you into his embrace.

his body is warm and he smells like a new cologne, holding you against his chest before pulling back, his large hands cupping your face, "don't lie t'me again, got it?"

and you nod eagerly, "i promise."

"now why don't you show me some of these dances you've been keeping from me," simon offers, kissing your puffy lips from his hands squishing your face. you huff against him and he chuckles, giving you one last wet kiss, just to tease you even more.

[milkywaydrabbles]

Flufftober 35 with Alucard? Maybe a chubby reader, everyone likes a soft pillow :3

A/N: This was nice to write, I appreciate this type of ask ;A; I try to keep it neutral when describing reader normally (outside of the fact they're AFAB and fem!bodied) but I love reading/writing about a chubby girlie!! I hope you enjoy it!

"You're my new pillow" x Alucard

It didn’t take long for you and Alucard to become an item. He really couldn’t keep his eyes off of you for longer than two minutes whenever you were around (and that already was pushing it. Trevor would know, he actively counted so he can prove a point.) He tried to stay ‘mysterious’ and ‘alluring’ – but that was hard to do when all he wanted to do was talk to you about anything and everything that came to mind. Whatever would occupy you enough to not leave, to stay with him. It was embarrassing–Or so he would have thought if he wasn’t too enamored with looking at you and your soft figure. It was a breath of fresh air, he thinks, seeing your curves soft and round, fats of your hips squishing from the edges of your pants. He wonders if you realize you would be revered as a goddess in ancient Rome and Greece–he hopes you do. He’d even dare say that the goddesses don’t hold a candle to you, round face with cheeks that squish up when you smile at him so sweetly, chubby fingers that fiddle with the edge of your skirt when you’re picking dirt off it after dragging too close to the muck. His hands itched to simply hoist you up himself so you didn’t have to walk around the mud. Whatever to make your life easier.

Trevor and Sypha were starting to feel bad for him–it was so obvious that he had fallen so deeply in love with you over the last few weeks and yet wouldn’t do anything about it (something about being a gentleman, whatever.) So without his knowledge, Sypha started having ‘girl time’ with you, trying to push you into asking him, even if just out to dinner. Literally anything to get you alone with him. You were terrified really, but decided to take the jump and ask Alucard out on a date, just a simple dinner at your place–you promised you cooked well (and you made well on that promise! He thought it was delicious!)

Alucard asked for your hand in courtship that night.

And here you both are, however many years later in the castle you’ve come to know as your home, cuddling on the love seat in the study that you begged him to bring in, you wanted to press yourself up close to him as he read (of course the big sap did exactly that). And Alucard still looked at you with the same adoration as he did the first time he laid eyes on you–with hearts in his eyes, hands squeezing the chub of your hips and roaming your soft belly–he wouldn’t have you any other way. He decided he wanted to get more comfortable after feeling your soft and warm skin–

“Adrian, what are you doing?” You couldn’t help but giggle, hands moving away from your lap to give the grown man more space (his legs were hanging off the loveseat) before running your chubby fingers through his blonde curls. The dhampir simply smiled, fangs poking out the sides of his mouth as he closed his eyes. “You’re more comfortable than the seat–so I’ve decided you’re my new pillow.” You laughed again, rolling your eyes playfully at your loving husband. There were days that you couldn’t look at yourself, wishing you’d be able to lose the extra fluff that you had–thinking that Alucard deserved someone more...fit. Skinnier. Prettier. But he always made such an effort so that you’d understand he’d never leave you for anyone else, that he loved you so much for who you are, and that the extra fat was just more for him to love. He reminded you every day in different ways of that. And you figured that right now, might be one of those ways. You did love seeing him so comfortable in your lap... “Hmm..” You hummed, looking over to the crackling fire in the hearth scratching at his scalp. “You seem a bit too long for my lap, dear.” He cracked an eye to look at you, knowing you were already poking fun. And he loved the apples of your cheeks rounding up on your face with your smile.

“But I’d rather be nowhere else, my love.”

[mymarifae]

jade did nothing wrong

oh yeah she only put aventurine in a new, fancier form of slavery, reducing him to a tool. an asset. a pretty little thing to make her richer that she'll cast aside the moment he's no longer useful to her.

and don't give me any crap about how aventurine "wanted" this - he was literally a slave?? his options at this point in his life were EXTREMELY limited and just killing his "master" wouldn't have been enough to secure his freedom. as we saw in this very cutscene, he was about to go on trial for murder. the ipc didn't give a damn that the man he killed was a fucking slave owner; they were still going to punish him to the full extent of the law, so he would have been going to prison for a VERY long time (or for life), or he'd be sentenced to death. playing off the murder in a way that caught their attention and made them consider his... "worth as an asset", so to speak, was his best bet. he'd be freed from his (literal, at least) chains, and he would have the opportunity to earn money and thus survive in this capitalistic intergalactic hellscape the ipc has been building up for centuries.

ah, and while we're here, should we talk about how she tells him here that his birth name is "destined to be buried in the dirt?" after seeing her interactions with topaz, this isn't a stonehearts thing. they don't HAVE to cast off their birth names and embrace the identity of their cornerstone.

i suppose it's only a coincidence that topaz's name is of slavic and greek origin while aventurine's is romani, and this totally doesn't play further into the (not-exactly-the-most-subtle-anymore) subtext of the ipc's chokehold on the entire universe being an allegory for the racist, white supremacist capitalistic systems plaguing the real world today. which, for the record, is an idea that has existed throughout the game's duration thus far and was articulated a little more loudly in the 2.1 update, with the deep dives into aventurine's past and all, and then was really hammered in with boothill's backstory.

(let's set aside the very valid complaints about hoyoverse's allergy to melanin for a moment - we know aventurine and boothill are not white, and the way their home planets were treated in comparison to, say, topaz's, means something.)

and even if you don't want to connect these two very obvious dots and want to pretend the ipc is more of a neutral force (????), let me just point out how fucked it is for jade to sever aventurine's connection to his birth name. one of his last ties to his culture. topaz gets to keep hers, gets to claim both her past and her cornerstone as integral parts of her identity - but aventurine only gets his cornerstone. the ipc encompasses every part of who he is now. i suppose this qualifies as doing nothing wrong too and not as an act of manipulation and cruelty?

(digressing for a moment to point out a positive because honestly this is a heartbreaking thing to say. aventurine's future self calling him Kakavasha suggests that he didn't truly give in to this treatment and instead fiercely clung to every scrap of his past he had left.)

and just. before i move on from aventurine and topaz completely, i guess we can ignore how inappropriately she touched topaz?

"they're both adults" yeah! thank fucking god! but topaz is said over and over to be Very Young for the position she holds. she, much like aventurine, has been working for the ipc since her late teen years. neither of them were promoted to stonehearts - a position that typically requires a loooooooooot of experience over SEVERAL years with the company - right away, remember that. backtracking to this for a moment:

jade is very much a Grown Ass Woman here. while aventurine is probably like, freshly 18. he and topaz are similar in age. jade is definitely more than one decade older than both of them. maybe you don't care about that; maybe you don't care about a senior boss figure taking advantage of what appears to be a puppy crush born from starry-eyed admiration (which is in turn born from topaz literally being indoctrinated when her home planet was "integrated" into the ipc's system) to make topaz more agreeable to whatever she's told to do. and notice how jade dangles the promise of a promotion right after overhearing how difficult topaz's recent demotion has made her life...?

also if you want to argue about me referring to jade as a senior figure that's quite literally what topaz says about her, so...:

but whatever, right? not a thing done wrong here. Nope.

and we can definitely overlook the way she runs bonajade exchange, right? surely it's of no significant note that she shows no mercy in the contracts she writes up. people come in, trade away their most valuable possessions, and almost immediately find themselves in a hard place with no options... except for another visit to bonajade exchange. consequences of their own greed, sure, but i really want to point out how she doesn't try to help. she doesn't try to include a clause or two that may work in their favor if they're clever. she doesn't leave any loopholes. she forces them to be completely dependent on her, and takes, and takes, and takes... to what end? i don't know, and i'm scared to find out.

i'm not saying she has to or should show mercy to the people that visit her pawnshop. i'm fine with a character who just does evil things, and some of her customers probably deserve whatever end waits for them in the jaws of the snake. but if they were going to show that she has a softness about her, a hint of good intentions... this is where they would have done it. the fact that this is completely absent says an awful fucking lot about the kind of person she is, yeah?

and on that note, i'm guessing you want to just ignore how numby is TERRIFIED of her?

because yeah i'm sure that has nothing to do with the very common trope of animals being able to tell when a person is actively malicious and dangerous. everything is fine, isn't it?

[myymi]

If you had asked Sonic how he felt about being alone four years ago, he would've told you it was the most freeing feeling in the world.

It's not that he disliked people or didn't want to be around anyone. He had plenty of friends.

But there was something special about being able to run away from everyone and everything. He loved being able to disappear in the blink of an eye without worrying about someone trying to keep up with him.

He got to live his life the way he wanted. It was his favorite thing.

And then he met Tails.

He's always thought he wasn't fit to be part of a family. He had never been able to find someone who could even remotely keep up with him, so he didn't bother trying to find a family.

But Tails was able to keep up. And he did so without ever asking Sonic to slow down so he could. He was fine running on the hedgehog’s time, no matter how tired it made him.

And now, as he watched the red echidna bury the small coffin that held his little brother, he couldn't help but hate how alone he was now.

The guardian had been the one to offer a place on Angel Island for him. A small, secluded area that he had previously decorated for when the kid decided to come visit.

Of course he wasn't literally alone. Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, and the rest of their friends were all there to say their final goodbyes to the little fox. But that didn't change the fact that it felt like a part of himself died.

He didn't know it when he first met the fox, but it truly felt like Tails filled in a hole in his heart that he hadn't known was missing. But now that the piece was ripped out of him, it was easy to notice.

He wasn't sure how much longer he'd last without that fox. Everyone knew it, there was no Sonic without Tails. They were inseparable.

But they had been ripped apart. Whatever tether that held their unbreakable bond had been snapped, forcing them to go their separate ways.

He just wishes it was him who was forced to lay in a grave too soon rather than his baby brother.

Tails didn't deserve it. The poor kid had been fighting every sort of battle imaginable since the moment he was born and he was only eight.

The universe had no right to take him now. Not when he fought so hard to survive. Not when he gave every last piece of himself to protect it.

He could still feel the phantom traces of his brother's blood soaking into his fingertips. He could still see the way the life inside his big, blue eyes faded.

He could still feel the way the little strength that Tails held left his body, forcing him to let go of the person who promised to keep him safe as he bled out in his arms.

This was Sonic's fault.

—

Sonic wasn't sure why he ran.

To be perfectly honest, he hadn't even known he ran until he nearly greeted the Tornado with a very aggressive accidental kiss.

He wasn't sure what to do with her now. He could never be able to take care of the Tornado half as well as Tails did. And while he wasn't a bad pilot by any means, he knew he wasn't the best either. (That title went to the fox that now slept in the ground, his cold body protected by the dirt surrounding his coffin.)

He'd need to figure out what to do with the Cyclone as well. He didn't have a clue on how to pilot that one, it was quite a bit more complex than the Tornado.

After he was done sadly staring at the red biplane, Sonic hopped into the cockpit.

The lingering smell of mint is what finally broke him.

One of the few ways he could tell his brother was sneaking up on him was the way he smelled. It was always a migraine-inducing minty aroma, the scent of his favorite candy clinging to the fox's fur.

As strong as the smell was, it was comforting. It was how he reminded himself of the day he'd finally got that kid to believe he wasn't going to hurt him.

The first time that Tails ever had mint candy. Or, well, candy in general.

Sonic will never forget the way his eyes lit up, shining practically as bright as stars do when he put that first piece of candy in his mouth. And even though he was offered sweeter candies that kids his age normally enjoyed, he was firm in only eating the mint ones.

It was strange, but it was such a small thing then that it didn't really matter to Sonic. He didn't care what the kid liked to eat as long as he ate something. Even if it did have a painfully strong smell.

Sonic didn't bother with trying to wipe away his tears. Why should he, anyways? It was his brother's funeral for Chaos’ sake. He should be allowed to cry. (That didn't erase how pathetic and disgusted he felt. Did he really deserve to mourn his brother when he's the reason there's a funeral in the first place?)

He didn't get long to ponder it when something gently touched him.

It admittedly scared the shit out of him, but he knew exactly who it was before even looking towards them.

“I don't mean to interrupt your grieving,” Knuckles said guilty, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I wanted to let you know that you're welcome to stay on Angel Island with him.”

Sonic's not really sure if ‘staying with him’ is the right way to word this situation, but he's also not sure what the correct wording is so he decides to settle on a numb nod. He doesn't trust his voice to carry any sort of conversation right now.

Knuckles didn't say anything after that, but he also didn't move from where he was crouched atop the Tornado’s wing. The silence wasn't necessarily awkward, but it kept Sonic on edge.

“I know I'm not the best to talk to about emotions,” The echidna mumbled, running a paw through his quills as he spoke, “but I know what it's like to lose family. If you need help with grieving, you can ask.”

Despite the situation, Sonic managed to smile at the older mobian. He appreciated the offer a lot, and he knew he'd probably take him up on it whether he actually wanted to or not.

“I'll leave you be now.” The guardian said quietly before jumping off of the biplane’s wings. “If you wish to be alone from everyone, you can go into my cave.”

Sending the echidna a thumbs up made Sonic want to die. He was assaulted by the memories of when he and Tails first met the echidna. Back when he was unable to verbally speak, forced to hold conversations through expressions alone.

He wanted to scream, but his throat was throbbing from all the crying. He knows he should at least go see his friends, but he can't bring himself to look at any of them right now.

He decides to leave for Knuckles’ house when he feels his communicator buzz.

He gets to the cave on muscle memory alone, his mind occupied by playing the past four years on a sped up loop.

He felt insane. He would tell someone without a doubt that he's known Tails for forever, but it had only been four years since they met.

It wasn't until he collapsed on Knuckles’ bed that Sonic decided to check the message he received, not surprised to see it from Amy.

He didn't have it in him to fully read through the heartfelt message, but it was easy to understand from just skimming through it.

He figured responding to her message was the least he could do to keep her and the other from worrying about him right now.

He wasn't fine, and everyone knew that, but being around his closest friends and family wouldn't help right now.

The only thing that could help him was his little brother, but that wasn't in the cards for him. Not anymore. It's warm in the small cave, but Sonic still shivers as he curls into a ball.

He doesn't think he'll ever be warm again. Not when he felt his baby brother's body slowly grow cold.

[bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue]

Beboptober 2024 Day 2: Crash

Thanks to @bebopcrew for the prompt list! This one takes place about ten years before the events of the series, and slightly before Spike joined the Syndicate—I used this timeline from The Cowboy Bebop Attic, which places Spike’s Syndicate years at about 2061-62 to 2068. This fic turned out WAY longer than I planned, and I stayed up WAY later to write it than I'd hoped, so apologies if some of it makes no sense at all, but I had fun with it!

Okay, so technically speaking, Spike didn’t have a real spaceship’s license yet. And technically speaking, this wasn’t even his ship. One could even say he’d stolen it. But did it really count when it was from the garage of one of those crazy Martian billionaires who probably had fifty identical, sleek and newly-purchased ships in their garage? They wouldn’t notice this one was missing at all.

Spike had engaged in petty thievery before, sure, but this was different. This was the big leagues. A ship of his very own—now that he’d wiped the tracking and identification as best he could with his shoddy, hodgepodge tech skills—opened up whole new worlds to him, literally. After seventeen years of being stuck on Mars, hopping ineffectually from city to city whenever he could hitch a ride, he’d crossed a Hyperspace Gate for the very first time and, after some annoying waiting, was by a whole new planet in a matter of minutes.

Once he arrived, it was an adventure in itself to try and navigate the overlarge ship past all the debris and space junk that circled Earth, almost like an old video game. And then he could see it, the pockmarked blue marble floating in space. A whole new planet. Although he was alone, he couldn’t help but give a low whistle at the sight. He wasn’t given to poetry, but he had to admit a sight like this would be breathtaking to anyone.

And the flying itself! Okay, so technically he’d never been in a ship’s cockpit before, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out the controls. He’d driven a car, and the mechanics of this weren’t too different. But flying? It was light-years away from driving.

He loved everything about it: the way the stars raced past him in the cockpit window, the whooshing sensation of freefall in his stomach as he dipped and glided and spun just for the hell of it, the way the ship responded beautifully to his every little touch to propel him faster and faster into the darkness as he whooped in delight. The way no one could find him or catch him way out here. It was freedom, so much more than he’d thought he’d had before on the streets, so much more than he’d even thought possible. It awakened dormant parts of him he didn’t even know existed.

It was bliss.

That is, until he pushed too hard and too fast—or maybe the dumb ship’s controls responded too well—and found he’d somehow fucked up. The ship was rapidly losing power and altitude, careening down towards Earth.

Shit, shit, shit! Spike wrenched at the controls and pushed frantically at all the buttons he could reach, pretty much at random, trying desperately to silence the beeping warnings that flashed all around him in the cockpit. And maybe it slowed down his entry speed a little. But it didn’t stop the warning signs from flashing faster and faster and more urgently, and for Earth’s surface to grow larger and larger below him. And eventually all Spike could do was curl up in the cushy pilot’s seat and brace for impact as best he could.

The ship crash-landed at what had to be a horrific angle, leaving a trail of cratered dirt and debris up until its final resting point. Rocks and detritus rained down, marring the ship’s perfect surface and adding another strain to the deafening noise. Airbags deployed all around Spike, burning against his skin. For the first few minutes, Spike wasn’t entirely certain he’d survived.

Figures. My first-ever real taste of freedom, and I almost die not even twenty-four hours in.

Well, if he really was dead, at least they couldn’t catch him for stealing that ship.

~~~~~

Of course, after a while Spike had to realize that he was, in fact, alive, and unfurl himself from the ruined cockpit to clean up his mess.

The trip had been pretty impulsive, and he didn’t know what, exactly, he’d been expecting to find on Earth, but he had expected to return to his home planet eventually. He knew that owning a spaceship of his own could open up a lot more opportunities to get money and power and a bit of food in his stomach. It could even make him look more attractive to some of the bigger crime syndicates on Mars, even if he still had to start out as a grub doing all the grunt work. At least they’d consider him.

But for that, his spaceship had to be working. And as he surveyed the ship, having extricated himself from the wreckage and now looking up at it with arms akimbo, he figured that his hodgepodge tech skills wouldn’t be of much help here at all.

At least it wasn’t on fire. Maybe a better mechanic could somehow revive it, even if they had to replace all its parts one by one, like that old Earth story about the wooden boat. It would be better than no ship at all, especially if it made him harder to catch by the guy he’d stolen the ship from.

He should be as destroyed as the ship, he thought. He really shouldn’t have survived that crash. Maybe he had a lucky star up there, somewhere, watching out for him.

Somehow, he doubted that.

There was only one thing he could do. He hated feeling dependent like this, and if it didn’t work pretty soon, he may as well pack up and set out on his own—find some decent food and shelter, try his luck on Earth, maybe eventually find a way back home, such as that home was. But for now, he let out a defeated sigh, leaned against the ship’s ruins, and held up one thumb.

He saw rockets taking off in the distance; he heard the distant purr of cars’ engines. There had to be someone willing to pick him up eventually and take him to a place where his ship could maybe get fixed. If his lucky star was still watching out for him. If it even existed at all.

~~~~~

“This isn’t getting fixed today, kid.”

“Whaddya mean?” Spike scowled at the mechanic—Doohan, according to his assistant who’d driven Spike here—an old, cantankerous-looking guy with goggles perched on top of his wild gray hair. Every part of his clothing was either singed or actively smoking. He’d thought a guy like this could bring his ship back to life right away, as if by magic.

Doohan was still peering around the ship with an appraising eye, examining the mangled remains of its dashboard, the hunks of metal that used to be its hull. “I can keep it here and modify it. Or, if it turns out to be truly useless, save it for scrap. But if you were planning to be out of here in an hour and race home on this pretty little number, that’s not happening.”

“But—but the person who drove me here, your assistant—Jimmy or something—he said you were the best mechanic this side of the planet. He said you could work miracles.”

The man snorted and turned away. “Flattery like that is exactly why he won’t last around here.”

Even though the news was a disappointment, Spike honestly kind of appreciated that Doohan wasn’t bullshitting him. And obviously, the guy knew ships. As Spike gazed around the hangar, he saw several ships of all sorts—some that must have been historical artifacts from the early days of hyperspace gates, some brand-new ones like the one Spike had just crashed—in varying states of repair. One, a half-finished model with a slender red body and a long nose, particularly caught his attention. Surprisingly, some sort of looked like what he had originally expected: old relics, nursed back to health. He wondered how many of those could actually fly. He wondered what it would feel like. Already, his hands itched for the controls of a spaceship again, any spaceship.

“It’s been through quite a crash,” Doohan said, squinting up at Spike from the other side of the ship. “Where’d you get a ship like this? Only to junk it up right away?”

Spike had long since learned that the best response to questions like this was to stay silent, so that’s what he did.

“Rather not say? Okay. What’d you do to crash it?”

Simple as possible. “I went too fast.”

Doohan grunted. “Seen that before. Teenage boys who think they know everything. They always think they’re invincible.”

Something about that smarted. It hit Spike in the chest, white-hot on his already-frayed nerves.

Doohan turned back to the wreckage. “They always eventually get cut down to size.”

Spike felt his hands involuntarily balling into fists.

“You think I’m some privileged little rich boy?” he said, and it came out as an unexpected growl. “I sure as hell know I’m not invincible. I’m from Mars, I just got here. I’ve got no family. I’ve been cut down to size plenty of times in my life.” His voice was getting louder, more insistent. “I need a ship, any ship. I can work off whatever debt I owe to you. But don’t go thinking I did this just for the hell of it!” His last words were a yell, echoing in the silence.

Doohan just grunted again, not looking up. Silence fell once again for a while as he fiddled with the inside of the ship, tinkering with his tools. Spike’s breaths came out shuddery, but slowing.

“I think something was fucked up with the accelerator,” Spike said, quieter this time. “It was my first time piloting a ship and I went through a Gate no problem, I could do loop-de-loops and shit, and I guess I went a little overboard. But I barely touched that pedal thing and next thing I knew I was crashing here. I think I could do better with another craft.” He looked up at Doohan, choosing his next words with caution. “Or if I could find out how this one worked. How ships work. And how to fly them for real.”

Doohan inspected a panel of metal sheetwork on the side of the ship, his face inscrutable.

“That was you,” he finally said. “Doing the loop-de-loops in the sky. That was you.”

“Uh, yeah.” Damn. Spike hadn’t been as surreptitious with that stolen craft as he thought.

“And you say that was your first time ever piloting a ship?”

“Yeah,” Spike said again.

Doohan made eye contact with Spike for the first time. “How’d you feel when you were up there?”

“Uhhh…good? Happy?” Dammit, Spike wasn’t good with talking about feelings or whatever, and Doohan looked thoroughly unimpressed with his attempts. He didn’t even really know why Doohan was asking about it, but he could tell there had been something different, something distinctive, about that feeling. He racked his brain for the right word to describe how it had felt, soaring through the stars.

“Free,” he finally said. “I felt free.” He cupped his hands as if around the controls in a ship’s cockpit, and he felt his eyes narrowing in determination. “I wanna feel that way again.”

Doohan nodded slowly, then put his hand on what used to be the hull of the ship. “New ships like this, they tend to be trigger-happy. They advertise responsiveness, they say they’re user-friendly, and then they go way too far with it.” Spike nodded. Reminded him of some people he knew back on Mars. “You’ve got some natural talent,” Doohan continued. “But if you want to learn how to fly a ship right, you have to know how it works. You either work for the machine, or it works for you.”

Spike nodded again, at first slowly, but then with more determination. He could do that. In fact, the thought excited him. Something to fill his days that wasn’t petty crime and rooting around for his next meal. Something that actually felt purposeful. Like he was born for it.

Doohan looked over the ships in the hangar, appearing contemplative. “Been working on fixing up that old MONO racer for a while now,” he finally said, gesturing to the red ship that had caught Spike’s attention earlier. “Now, get me a 3/8 gauge from the toolbox in my office.” He turned to the assistant, who’d been leaning against the car he’d driven Spike in and watching the conversation with interest. “Jimmy, you’re fired.”

“Aw, man,” the assistant said, staring down at his sneakers. “Mom’s gonna kill me.”

~~~~~

Spike had worked for Doohan for a few months now, learning the ins and outs of amateur spaceship repair, not to mention how to actually pilot different types of crafts so they wouldn’t crash. Over the course of weeks, they’d watched ships transform from beaten-up hunks of junk, or broken-down relics that belonged to a museum, to actually usable, sometimes even restored to their former glory. It was a hell of a hobby, but no one could say Doohan wasn’t passionate about it. He worked from sunup to long past sundown, through mealtimes and rock showers and explosions that signed off his eyebrows. And, Spike had to admit, it was gratifying seeing their progress every day and week, bit by bit.

Spike had memorized every tool Doohan owned, where to get or borrow the ones he didn’t, and which ones just flat-out didn’t exist. He was used to getting barked at by his boss, sent on so many impossible tasks and wild-goose chases that he could no longer count them, sometimes having sharp implements thrown at him. (He’d learned to only piss Doohan off when he was holding something soft like a newspaper.) But he’d managed to avoid getting unceremoniously fired, like poor Jimmy. Or quitting, like a lot of assistants in Doohan’s past apparently had.

It wasn’t like Spike wasn’t used to rebukes or harshness. In fact, he kind of appreciated that Doohan didn’t baby him. And he thought maybe Doohan respected that he didn’t crumple under the pressure—although that may just have been wishful thinking on his part.

Still, after a few months of practice, even Doohan couldn’t find fault with the way he flew. (Or at least not very much fault.) The controls felt natural in Spike’s hands, like an extension of himself. He could effortlessly swoop and dive through the sky, at least in Earth’s atmosphere, as easily as moving his own body. And no matter how often he set off from the hangar with a whoosh, or how often he practiced all the proper measurements and calculations to land the way Doohan had showed him, it still felt just as freeing as it did the first time. It gave him a strange, bright sense that maybe he could do more when he got back to Mars. Maybe he could have an actual future.

But it still caught him completely off-guard when Doohan took a satisfied look at the newly-refurbished MONO racer—the Swordfish II, he’d called it (Spike decided not to ask what had happened to the Swordfish I)—and declared, “It’s yours now.”

“M-mine?” Spike babbled, like some sort of idiot.

Doohan nodded quite sensibly, as if this were the only logical option and any idiot would understand that. “You’ve done enough work on it to have earned it fair and square. You know it inside and out. And besides, it’s sturdy enough that it should survive a crash or two.” And for the first time, he flashed a smile at Spike, a knowing gleam in his eye.

Spike smiled back. The ship really was beautiful, lithe and maneuverable but still tough. Not some delicate thing that would crash and burn at the slightest provocation. It had been through some shit, just like he had. And it had come out alive. Maybe it was an old model, but it was his.

The words Thank you felt awkward on his tongue, tripping it up. But he hoped his face would show his gratitude.

Doohan patted the ship’s hull in satisfaction. And okay, technically speaking, Spike knew it wasn’t meant for him, not really—but it felt almost like a pat on the back.

“Why don’t you take it for a spin?”

[corvusalbus93]

Unrest

Author's Note: A short, taking place near the end of the Nephilim crusades. It’s basically about how the Horsemen (or two of them anyway) found together, before offering their services to the Council. Here, Death learns Strife no longer supports their campaign of conquests, as the two talk, after the Nephilim take another world. Strife POV.)

+++

It had been some hours since nightfall, yet it was far from dark. Fires still burned all over town, some eating away at the ruins, while around others the celebrating Nephilim had gathered, to drink and feast. Their howls and laughter echoed through the otherwise lifeless streets to be heard far and wide. Strife tried to pay them no mind. Until recently he would have happily participated, but tonight he had snuck away and returned to the ruins.

It had taken him some time to find the house he’d been looking for. He remembered kicking down the door earlier that day, when the Nephilim army had taken the town. He remembered raising his guns only to find himself staring at helpless civilians. Two parents huddling in a corner, their small child between them, shielded by their arms. The look of horror in their eyes.

Strife tensed at that memory.

He’d stood there, fingers on the triggers, and for the first time in his life, been unable to pull them. And so he’d remained frozen in place, until one of his brethren had stormed in, pushed him aside and done what he could not. He had not fired a single shot today.

Now he’d come back, using the curved shard of some pot to dig up the little garden beside the house. Usually, he didn’t like getting his gear dirty, but currently he couldn’t care less that he was kneeling in the dirt. By the time he'd dug out a shallow hole, Strife heard footsteps approaching him. He didn’t turn around, as out of the corner of his eye he could see a figure emerging from the shadows, one of the Firstborn. 

“Is it not a little late for looting?”

Strife’s eyes narrowed and he turned his gaze back to the hole. “Maybe I like the ambiance.”

“Careful. Remember who you are speaking to.” Strife was about to make some snide remark, but for once in his life managed to hold his tongue. That guy wouldn’t get it; after all, what could he expect from one, whose name literally meant ‘Death’. Still, the older Nephilim stepped closer, perhaps only now making sense of the hole’s shape. “A grave? I’m unaware of any losses.”

“It’s not for one of us, okay?”

“A native?”

“...a family.”

There was an uncomfortably long pause, before the Firstborn spoke again, the faintest hint of curiosity lingering in his voice. “Why would you care about them?”

Strife stopped digging. “Why?”

“That’s what I asked.”

“No. Why did we take this realm?” Strife got up to his feet and turned to Death, tossing his improvised shovel aside. “We defeated what few warriors they could muster, when we first arrived, but today was senseless slaughter. So, before I answer you, I want to know why.” This was bold, even for him. However, a growing number of nagging questions were keeping him up each night now. And his last job...no, he didn’t want to think about that right now.

The older Nephilim frowned. “It’s but another world along our path. We take what we need, what we want and move on, as we always have.”

“But what’s the fucking point?!” Strife snapped. “World after world put to the torch and for what?!”

He had seen them, realms and civilizations before the invasion, when he went on jobs between conquests. He’d seen thriving cultures, walked across the lush fields, been on words teeming with life. Until the Nephilim came to burn it all down and replace it with nothing. Nothing but ash and rubble.

It had taken him way too long to start asking why, and it troubled him that he had found no good answer.

“Are we just gonna keep doing this until there is nothing left?! Until all of creation is destroyed?!” It was the first time he uttered such questions out loud, and briefly he wondered, if shouting them into a Firstborn’s face was going to be his last mistake. It didn’t matter. Strife gestured to the house behind him. “These were civilians, parents, children...we had no reason to slaughter them!”

Death, if anything, seemed unimpressed. “You never cared before. And now you are trying to do right by them, pay your last respect to this family?” He sighed. “That won’t change a thing.”

“It’s something.”

“It’s meaningless,” the older Nephilim insisted. “Their souls are in the Kingdom of the Dead and won’t know about this. You did this to ease your own mind.”

“So it’s selfish. Is that what you are saying? That is still something.” Strife clenched his fists. “Now what? I’m gonna get punished?”

For a moment it seemed as if Death was sizing him up. “Tell me; what if there was an alternative to our crusades, another path our people could take?”

“I think it depends on what that entails. Are there new plans?”

“Considerations. What do you know of the Balance?”

Strife shrugged. “Not much. Know about the war between Heaven and Hell, laying waste to realms before some council stepped in.”

“Yes; before they could destroy all of creation.”

“Yeah, something like that." He put on a bitter smile. "Why? Are they pissed we’re now doing such a great job at continuing that legacy?”

The Firstborn folded his arms. “We’ve fought forces of both Heaven and Hell before. It’s only a matter of time before we demand their full attention. And that of the Charred Council.”

"That can’t end well for us. So what? We’re gonna make peace, settle down?” He had trouble picturing Death using his scythe on crops rather than people. He had trouble picturing what he himself would do. Strife was a killer, through and through. While his views on their crusades had changed, the urge to fight and kill was still there, probably always would be. Death seemed to think much the same.

“I doubt peace would agree with us. But you are right in one respect; as it is now, we’re just blindly destroying everything in our path. That needs to change.”

Strife recalled hearing him argue with others of the Firstborn weeks ago, though hadn’t caught enough to know about what. Was Death of all people, honestly sharing his doubts? And agreeing with him? It was nice and all, but it wouldn’t matter much, unless...

“Does Absalom see it the same way?”

Death’s eyes twitched ever so slightly, but the younger Nephilim caught it, nonetheless. “Not yet. He’s as stubborn as the rest of us. At least you and I aren’t the only ones, who are...dissatisfied.”

There were others? Somehow this revelation made Strife feel a little lighter. It wasn’t just him going crazy, or maybe there were others just as crazy as him. He was happy with either. “So, what now?”

“I’m looking into a few options. Ways we might end this.” Death looked over his shoulders to the fires, around which their brethren were still feasting, before he gave Strife a nod. “I’ll be in touch.”

With that he departed, disappearing back into the shadows. For a while Strife looked after him, listening, until he could no longer hear any footsteps. What options was he talking about? Strife somehow doubted Absalom would want to end their crusades any time soon, no matter what arguments the Firstborn had. The original Nephilim feared neither Heaven nor Hell, and probably not some council, no matter their authority.

In that case, how far would Death go? A coup? If he found enough supporters, it was certainly an option, though it would mean Nephilim fighting Nephilim.

Strife walked into the house. The bodies were still how he’d left them, huddled together in the corner, though the blood had long dried. He began to untangle them, carefully so, as if trying not to cause further harm.

How far was he himself willing to go?

Frankly, he wasn’t sure, but their campaign of conquest had to end, or countless more worlds would burn like this one. Or the Nephilim would eventually meet their match. Heaven, Hell, Makers; if they could make treaties, how long until they decided to put their differences aside just long enough to deal with them? Even if they didn’t, Absalom would eventually try to conquer the two kingdoms, of that he had no doubt. And that was a fight Strife was not sure they could win.

Whatever Death was planning, perhaps it was the better alternative. The smaller evil in the long run.

Finally, he’d untangled the bodies from one another, and one by one he carried them to the shallow grave. The parents were first, placed so they would be facing each other. The child was last. As he walked outside, Strife looked at the small bundle in his arms.

He had no trouble fighting and killing demons, angels, beasts, creatures of the void or any other warrior standing in his way; he enjoyed it, the bloodshed, the thrill. But not this. He’d found his line. Or maybe he had just finally realized that there had to be a line. It made him sick to his stomach to think how often he’d already crossed it, and before he knew it, he was cradling the bundle, as he stepped into the garden.

Gently, as if afraid to hurt it, he placed the child in between the other two bodies, before putting one arm of each parent around it, mimicking their final embrace as best he could. Nephilim didn’t really have funeral rites, not beyond just burning the bodies, which was the most common practice, since everything tended to be already on fire when they were done. But something about burying them this way felt right. The first thing to feel right in some time.

+++

This had been meant to serve as a flashback in my discontinued Darksiders Pariahs-story, but I thought it works as a standalone too. Hope you enjoyed.

[gingerwerk]

happy thursday/friday. heres (perhaps? the first bit i've ever posted on here?) an excerpt from my upcoming hbo war vietnam era/post vietnam au series

i literally laid down on my bed and whipped this up in less than an hour and i fuck with it and im in a giving mood so please enjoy :)

_-_-_-_-_-_

Cradling the cool, hard plastic of the payphone in between his cheek and his shoulder, Eugene pulled a few loose coins from his pants pocket and slipped them into the lot on the machine. It was getting late here but over on the West coast it was just around dinner time and hopefully he could catch him at home. He easily recalled the number and after only two rings, the line clicked.

“Hello?” the familiar, soft voice came through the phone line. 

“Jay, it’s Eugene,” he said, as a faint smile naturally appeared on his face.

“Gene, hey!” Jay responded, voice sounding more excited now that he knew it wasn’t some prank call or a wrong number. “What’s going on?”

What was going on? Eugene couldn’t help but wonder as he glanced around at the brightly lit up truck stop, everything slightly out of focus due to the combination of wear and dirt on the phone booth glass. 

He glanced at the gas station parking lot and still saw Snafu’s rusting blue pickup with the giant chrome Airstream attached. He didn’t seriously think Snafu would leave him in the middle of nowhere but Eugene couldn’t help the small bout of anxiety he got when he went too long without seeing Snafu or his- their -temporary home. All of a sudden he felt like he might as well have been five instead of twenty-five and he just lost sight of his mother at the market in town.  

“So, funny story…” Eugene started slowly, still processing how he would explain the situation he had willingly walked himself into.

“An actually funny story or funny like you need bail money- I assume not for you though, because this call isn’t coming from a police station,” Jay asked easily, tone even like he really wouldn’t have minded either scenario.

“Funny like Snafu showed up at my door Wednesday night,” Eugene stated, deciding to simply bite the bullet. “And I am calling you from a payphone outside Dayton, Ohio because he asked me to go on a road trip to the Grand Canyon and for some crazy reason I said yes. And I figured someone besides Bill and Faye should know so, yeah. That’s what’s going on with me right now.” 

For a long moment all Eugene could hear was the slight crackle of Jay’s breath as he slowly processed the news. While he waited, Eugene glanced over his shoulder again; still no sign of Snafu but the truck was still there. 

“That is a pretty funny situation you’ve got yourself in,” Jay decided after a long moment. “Now, I know you said you agreed to go with him but did you? Is this a willing trip or are you actually kidnapped and you’re calling for help. Cough twice if you’re in danger.”

“Jay,” Eugene sighed exasperatedly. “I’m really okay. I promise.”

“You sure?” his friend asked, the dry, sarcastic tone from before gone now and in its place was something more genuine, more concerned. 

Eugene frowned as he fidgeted with the phone cord for a moment. He had wanted to call Jay for several reasons. Firstly, he and Jay regularly communicated, via letters and occasional phone calls, if they wanted to swing the long-distance fee for something that couldn’t be held up by the U.S. postal service, and Eugene didn’t want to be thought of as rude if a letter went unanswered for longer than usual. He also wanted to let Jay know that Snafu was not only alive but seemingly okay, as he was one of approximately four people who would like to know that information. Lastly, however, Eugene wanted to call Jay because he was the only person alive who knew what the fuck had actually gone on between the two of them while in Vietnam. Perhaps Eugene should have called him back when he was weighing the pros and cons of traveling across the country with the man and none of his friends seemed to understand why he was so hesitant to go along with the man who, to the rest of the world, was just one of his closest war buddies, but that ship had long since sailed. At the very least he could let someone know his situation in case things blew up later and he needed an ally to help pick up his pieces. 

“I’m sure,” Eugene said definitively. “I promise.”

As Eugene picked his head up, he watched as Snafu exited the gas station with a mildly irritated expression on his face and a paper bag in hand. He watched for a long moment as Snafu’s eyes scanned the parking lot before they finally landed on him in the booth. Ignoring how his stomach lurched in a not-totally-uncomfortable way as Snafu put him in his sights, Eugene simply raised his hand to let the man know he saw him before Eugene turned his back to him so he could finish his phone call.

“If you’re sure, Eugene,” Jay decided quietly. “You say you’re gonna see the Canyon?”

“Yeah, finally,” Eugene huffed with a small, sad smile.

“Well, make sure you take some good pictures to send to me,” Jay responded, the slightly stilted tone in his voice let Eugene know Jay remembered what the Grand Canyon really meant to him.

“I will. Faye let me borrow her camera.” 

Faye’s beloved Kodak was currently nestled away in a storage compartment in Snafu’s Airstream. Eugene didn’t want to risk damaging or even losing such a beloved possession on the trip but Faye would not hear of it. She not only wanted pictures of the Grand Canyon but also told Eugene to take as many pictures as he could to remember the trip. 

“Hey, so, I gotta run, Snafu’s looking at me all pissed from across the parking lot and I think he’s beginning to scare off the patrons of the gas station,” Eugene said as he looked over his shoulder and watched for a moment as Snafu lit himself a new cigarette before he began to shuffle back to his truck. 

“Thanks for calling and letting me know,” Jay said. “Feel free to call again when you can or if Snafu wants, you can give him my information. It’d be nice to hear from him.”

“Be careful, he might show up at your door next and ask to go on a trip to Canada.”

“Can’t say I’ve been up north before so I might go if he asked,” Jay said easily. “But I’ll let you go.”

“Bye, Jay.”

“Bye, Gene.”

Hanging the phone back on its cradle, Eugene pushed out of the slightly claustrophobic booth and quickly crossed the parking lot until he reached where Snafu was casually leaning against the side of his truck, his cigarette half smoked as it hung out of the corner of his mouth. Once Snafu’s pale eyes landed on him, he pushed off the side of the truck and climbed back into the cab of his truck.

“Who’d you call?” he grunted as Eugene climbed into the passengers side of the cab.

“Jay,” Eugene answered, deciding to go for the truth.

“De L’Eau?” Snafu asked, a hint of surprise in his voice as he started up the truck and slowly pulled out of the parking lot, the large airstream towed behind them making it a bigger production than usual..

“You know any other Jays?”

“Damn, there anybody from over there who you haven’t kept in touch with?” 

“Yeah, you,” Eugene responded shortly as he continued to stare straight ahead through the windshield. 

Instead responding, Snafu simply flipped on the car radio and let the twangy tones of Creedence Clearwater Revival fill up the space of the cab as they drove down the dark, semi-deserted road in search of somewhere out of the way to park the Airstream for the night.

[timelostobserver]

The Reapers' Fall

[ A drabble containing the events of Azrael/Hades' Fall. Something I've wanted to write for a while now~ ]

Glimmering, golden blood was splattered upon the pristine white marble ground. A struggle had taken place here.

The normally quiet 'Halls of Mourning' where the dead were brought before the Angel of Death was now filled with terrifying tension. Four blackened, raven like wings, cast aside upon the ground, blood oozing from their base while their owner was held above the ground, blood dripping from their back and their remaining two wings.

Azrael, the archangel who presided over the dead was a mess. His robes stained in golden blood, the corners of his mouth leaking the self-same fluid, though that was not his own. And a clenched, tightened hand firmly holding his scarf and him aloft.

Rage boiled in the archangels eyes, what had been simmering below the surface for so long had finally broken free. What had started as an overstepping of the Seraphim, had led into the constant overruling of the Judge's jurisdiction.

All until he finally only saw red, and snapped.

Sera stood near by, nursing a terrifying gash in her hand, Adam standing to the side after having watched the entire fiasco throw down.. While Azrael was being held aloft by the one who he held far too much ire for.

Lute.

She was smiling.

All the while, he held his beloved grimoire and scales in his arms. A literal death grip upon the two treasures he'd been created alongside of. They were his, he refused to hand them over.

How had it all come to this? For the youngest of the Archangels to erupt into a fit of Wrath at not just the Seraphim, but the First Man and the angel closest to him. It was a long brewing tension, one wrought of lost purpose, bullying, and neglect.

'Anything left to say?' Lute was enjoying this all too well. Sera refused to even look at Azrael as tears continued to drip from the corners of his eyes. His glasses broken, scattered across the ground. Shards lost among the neigh scattered carpet of black raven feathers.

The office itself was in complete shambles. The desk overturned, bookshelves knocked over...

And Sera just looked on, in disappointment.

"Lucifer was right, he was right to turn Heaven upside down that day!" Azrael barely managed to choke out.

"You're nothing but liars, power-hungry liars who don't give a shit about humanity! You only want what's best for yourselves, not creation itself!" He grimaced as the grip on his scarf was tightened.

'A little late to be so defiant. Want me to rip out the last set of wings?' Lute looked smug, she was enjoying seeing the archangel squirm. But his only response to her-

"Fuck you." A spit to her face, spitting out the blood in his mouth. Blood that came from Sera's open gash. That, certainly got her angry...

A crash as a window was shattered, Azrael's torn body was thrown out the stained glass window that filtered in Heaven's light to his office. But the light that followed him was not of gentle sunlight, but of flames as the archangels body erupted at the call of the Seraphim. Flames that would burn away the feathers that remained, that would char his skin and hair as he plummeted through the clouds and into the wastes below.

Even as he burned, not once did Azrael's grip relinquish from his precious treasures. And his only cry was one in apology to his eldest brother. To Michael, that he couldn't keep his promise of waiting for him to come home.

A quiet cry of forgiveness as Heaven soon fell out of sight, and Azrael collided with the unforgiving, hard ground of Hell.

. . . . . . .

The site of the crash was terrifying. The force of the impact uprooting the stone, dirt and ice that coated the outer edge of the Pride Ring of Hell. Flames produced from the impact crackled as the dust itself settled around the small, broken figure at the center of it all.

Azrael felt nothing but searing pain, both all over his body and in his heart. He refused to be pushed around by Sera any longer, refused to alow her to constantly dictate how the process of judgment was to be done for each human soul.

Refused to be a puppet...

As he lay there, he thought of that moment where he began to truly question the Seraphim and the Council themselves. To question his purpose.. Poor Abel. The poor boy murdered at the hands of his own brother. To bear the blunt of the first murder, to witness and take on the fear of that young man as he asked so many questions...

To see how the council handled his decision. The scales had weighed him in favor of Heaven, he was an innocent human. But they didn't think so. They tried to rule that certainly he must have done SOMETHING to cause Cain to act in such a way.

Azrael fought tooth and nail to ensure he could reside in Heaven. And when the time had come for Cain's judgement? Azrael had ruled his judgement to be Hell, and once more they tried to overrule his judgement. The same.. damn.. excuse.

As he lay upon the cold ground, tears dripping from his face to the ground as his gold blood stained the stones of Hell. The first time he'd ever raised his voice at the Council...

How taken aback they had all been.

That had been the beginning of the end. Each time he pushed back, Sera grew more cross with him. Lute grew more aggressive. Their efforts to bully him into a corner, into a puppet they could control failed to bear fruit. Until he finally just... Snapped.

He'd lunged at Sera as she tried to touch his beloved scales. He tore into her hand like a feral animal trying to protect what it saw as precious. And it all spiraled from there...

As he lamented on what happened, he could not hear the quiet footsteps that would soon approach him. A tall, avian creature in regal robes. Red eyes looking down to the now fallen Archangel.

Paimon moved forward, and carefully took the broken angel into his arms.

'How far Heaven has truly fallen, if Death itself has now joined our ranks.'

[mouthsfullofsharpteeth]

alex and tim hatefuck a lot but during one of the times they are getting rough with each other one of them actually gets hurt.

ohhhh my gosh. its late season three, tim is sooo exhausted. constantly having to join jay on all these stupid outings into the woods because hes worried jay will just die if tim doesnt go, meanwhile he knows alex has killed people, has done horrible horrible things. but.

(read more bc it got very long)

but.

they have kinda been having sex for a little while...

tim is pretty sure its an unspoken agreement too. no cameras. no tapes. no telling anyone. and they can be as rough as they want, because who even fucking cares anymore? the first time was in the woods, on the leaves and dirt in the middle of the night. then alex figured out which hotel tim was at, and they did it there. third time, alexs car. and then this time was back to basics, just tim roughing alex up at the doorway of his hotel room, making Sure that the camera was shut off and in the closet, joining tim's. they both bring the cameras every time. probably just habit to carry it around. and at first, they start right up against the door.... then the floor... then the bed and then back to the floor. theres a lot happening. but this is normal for them. its scratching and biting and hissing curses in between messy kisses. and it seems literally like any other time theyve done their little routine, up until the end.

tim is starting to get his shower ready while alex puts his clothes back on and promptly fucks off like usual, except this time he doesnt fuck off, hes kinda just sitting at the little desk in his underwear, squinting down at the shirt he shown up in. tim gives him a very unsubtle side eye. he doesnt want this prick here any longer than necessary. so he snaps something like, what is it. whats taking so long. and alex looks up at him, chest littered in bites bruises, and he mutters that its nothing, but its clearly not nothing, so tim has to sigh and walk over and see what his problem is. and when he gets closer, he notices that alex is looking kinda pale. the bruises showing up more starkly reddish purple against sort of greened, sickly skin. whats with you, he asks again. alex doesnt answer, until tim lightly swats the side of his head and asks again. alex grumbles that he just feels a little....dizzy. at first time is like, oh wow i fucked you so good that youre straight up like sick now? is that it? and alex is all NO >:-( but then it starts becoming clear he really does not feel well, and tim is kind of frustrated because he does still want to shower, and jay is probably going to want to go out looking around the hospital again tomorrow, but tim is a nice guy. he prides himself on still being kind despite the situation hes in. and he does have a little experience with sickly guys who feel like crap and dont know why, so he runs down the usual questions that he asks jay. when did you last sleep? i dont know, yesterday or the day before. have you eaten today? no- wait yes. well what was it? like a protein bar or something i dont know why does it matter??? then, does anything hurt? i dont know, my head i guess. mainly the back of it. and tim thinks back to earlier, and how he had, albeit a bit forcefully, slammed alex into the wall in order to bite the shit out of his neck. and he wonders... hm. could alex...... have hit his head? well, its likely.

so begrudgingly, tim drags alex to the shitty hotel bed, makes him drink a room temperature bottled water, and after wards alex has his head to his knees, empty stomach and pounding head not agreeing with all the water he'd just downed. and as tim rifles through the food he has on him, he wonders, not really for the first time, why they only have ever met at the places tim's staying before. of course, there was alex's car, but that's not really a place to STAY. he tosses some snack stuff to alex, sits on the bed, and asks him, hey, where are you staying these days anyway? alex snatches the food, tearing open one of the packages, and scowls at him. why do you care???? he looks starving. tim gets a scowl on his face too. well, doesnt It fucking like you or whatever? you seem to be its favorite after all, so i dont think it would really let you just sleep on the side of the road. alex sneers, clearly unamused, and keeps eating through a bag of pretzels. of course i have a place to stay, he snaps, and then doesnt elaborate. they sit in silence with that for a little while, tim more uncomfortably than alex. then he stands up and looks for his clothes and says hes gonna go to the ice machine. when he comes back, maybe he had also bought a few more snacks from the vending machine in the lobby. and maybe its a little gentle when he situates a makeshift icepack under alex's head. they dont do any of this after care shit usually, but tim wonders if maybe. well. maybe if theyre gonna keep doing this, then perhaps they should.

[translations-by-aiimee]

Mistakenly Saving the Villain - Chapter 12

Original Title: 论救错反派的下场

Genres: Drama, Romance, Xianxia, Yaoi

This translation is the product of my limited knowledge of Chinese characters as I attempt to learn the language. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 12 - Acupuncture Treatment

Having a good memory is not a good thing.

It meant that he could clearly remember every injury, every nightmare, and use it to torture himself over and over again.

At night, the soul incense couldn't suppress the pain in his heart. In his dream, he returned to Golden Phoenix Manor, trapped back in that golden birdcage.

The Acacia Seal on his back was faintly burning, and he couldn't move his body. He was forced to sit on the ground, watching teenagers accompanying the guests, act after act of absurd drama.

In this filthy world, even the air was too dirty to breathe. . .

Desire meant being forced to be provoked and wantonly played with.

So dirty, so disgusting.

Yue Wuhuan curled up in despair, trying to avoid the hands that reached out one after another, trying to cut off every inch of skin that had been touched. He was filthy and wretched. He couldn't breathe, dying again and again. Every time he woke up, he was still in the cage, living the same nightmare again until he lost his sanity, gave up struggling, and allowed his body to be completely destroyed.

Suddenly, the blazing red lotus inferno burned down the cage, and the clear medicinal fragrance washed away the foul odour.

He realized that the noises surrounding him had disappeared. He cautiously opened his eyes and what appeared before him was a young man in snowy clothes.

There was no dirty smell coming from the young man's body. There was no filthy desire in his eyes. He stretched out his hands from overlapping cuffs, and even his fingertips had a scent as clean as snow.

Yue Wuhuan thought for a long time before realizing that this hand was extended to him.

With a trace of longing, he wanted to touch the cleanest existence in the world. Just as he raised his hand, the red marks on his wrist and the little dirt on his palm came into view. He quickly withdrew his dirty hand and wanted to hide it behind him. He saw the traces on his body that appeared after accompanying guests. There wasn't a clean spot all over his body.

"Don't touch me, it'll get your hands dirty. . ."

"Don't look at me, it'll dirty your eyes. . ."

"Don't save me, just kill me. . ."

He was terrified, and kept backing away until he hid in the darkness and could no longer see his body.

The young man approached stubbornly, reaching out his hand until he stepped into the darkness, forcing him to retreat. In the end, the young man took off his clean snowy clothes, draped them over him, and embraced him, as if he was treating one of his most precious treasures. He removed each of his shackles and wiped away the stains on his body.

Serious eyes fully took in his figure, the clear scent twisted at the tip of his nose, and his soft fingers were like a spark, stirring up the fire of his desire. His heart was sinking, his reason was failing, and he had turned into a terrifying monster, wanting to possess him, tear him apart and devour him, staying by his side forever.

He madly wanted to dirty his body. . .

He wanted to greedily desecrate this cleanliness. . .

He wanted to bite the hand that fed him*. . .

*(T/N: It's written as the idiom in Mandarin but I'm pretty sure it's meant both figuratively and literally)

Yue Wuhuan gasped and violently pushed away the young man's tenderness, knowing he could not get any closer.

The young man noticed his body's animalistic reaction. He thought for a moment and put red divine prayer beads into his palm.

The divine prayer beads emitted a scorching sensation, following the impulses of the divine mind, working according to one's heart.

Yue Wuhuan felt that the Acacia Seal on his back was quickly dissipating, and the shackles on his body were completely unlocked, but the desire was spreading wildly.

Following his desire, the young man slowly took off his unlined clothes, untied his white jade hair ornament and let loose his fine and soft long hair. A bright and enchanting red mark quickly appeared on his fair skin, and his cold breath was invaded by desire. Like a holy god who walked into the altar of hell and fell into the arms of the devil, he said in the clearest voice, word for word, what he wanted to hear:

"You can dirty me."

"You can do anything to me."

"I will give you everything you want."

"Including me."

". . ."

All the delusions in his mind turned into reality.

The devil could no longer maintain his sanity. He possessed every inch of territory bit by bit and violated every bit of breath little by little.

It was blasphemous.

. . .

Yue Wuhuan panted and opened his eyes. The smell of sweetness and herbs still remained in his nose. He suddenly realized something, turned his head slowly, and saw Song Qingshi lying at his bedside, holding a lamp made of divine beads in his hand. The eyes that were illuminated by the beads were staring back at themselves, seemingly in great excitement and anticipation of something.

He stared blankly for a long time, then slowly closed his eyes, doubting that he was still awake.

"Don't sleep!" Song Qingshi stopped his thoughts, "Wake up!"

Yue Wuhuan finally came to his senses. With a hoarse voice, he mutely asked: "Master, why are you here?"

"Wuhuan, listen to me!" Song Qingshi happily announced the good news. "I finally found a way to reduce the side effects of the Six Meridian Rejuvenation Medicated Bath! That's why I came here early in the morning to wake you up! Let's go do the treatment!"

Yue Wuhuan blankly glanced out the window at the pale sky that had just been revealed.

It should be five o'clock now, right?

Song Qingshi solved a difficult problem that had troubled him for many days. He was so happy and exhilarated that he felt like a fan whose team has won the World Cup. His head was feverish and he wanted to talk to everyone he saw. In the entirety of Medicine King's Valley, the person who could best understand his thinking and source of happiness was Yue Wuhuan, so he had a hard time holding back until morning to come get him: "Hurry up, hurry up!"

"Okay," Yue Wuhuan smiled. Suddenly, he realized something and stopped lifting the blanket. He said in a low voice: "Master, you go first and wait, I'll get changed before I come out."

Song Qingshi finally realized that he was not doing very well. In the past, many experiments in the research institute required round-the-clock monitoring. He and his brothers and sisters would be on duty in shifts. It was common for him to go to the dormitory in the middle of the night to wake people up. He forgot that although the shou protagonist was a man, his sexual preference was also likely to be men, so they should avoid suspicion. He casually ran to someone's bedside, which seemed a bit like a night raid.

Yue Wuhuan has psychological problems. If he was misunderstood, he would be finished. . .

Song Qingshi thought about this and immediately corrected his words and behaviour. In order to show the perfect demeanor of a gentleman, he turned around and left.

Yue Wuhuan heaved a long sigh of relief. He lifted the blanket, disgusted to see the traces of desire released, but the beautiful scenery in his dream appeared in front of his eyes. Thinking of the young man who let him get what he wanted, he couldn't help but arch his back again, desperately restraining himself from unpleasant thoughts, lest he tarnish the white sheets.

He was so filthy. . .

. . .

Song Qingshi waited anxiously outside the door for a long time and finally waited until Yue Wuhuan finished washing up and came out neatly dressed. He made sure that the other person's expression was normal. He didn't seem to be angry at his recklessness, so he immediately let go of his worries, and dragged him happily to the treatment room.

In the treatment room, there were two boxes full of gold needles for acupuncture.

There are acupuncture and anesthesia treatment methods in traditional Chinese medicine, but only local anesthesia could be used. The effect varies from person to person, and the painkiller wasn't complete. It was far less convenient and effective than Western medicine anesthesia and not accepted by patients so it was generally used only in very special cases.

Song Qing Shi suddenly realized from his original body's memory that this world had special meridians and qi regions that enhanced the effect of acupuncture by several times, and could also input spiritual power into the acupuncture points while the golden needles were stabbed into them, achieving fine control of local anesthesia.

He opened the door to the new world in an instant, and after several experiments with his own body, he was sure that he could use acupuncture to minimize the extent of anesthesia of the blockage in Yue Wuhuan's meridians and reduce the pain by 50% without affecting the healing effect and control the pain caused by the Six Meridian Rejuvenation Medicated Bath to a tolerable range for the human body.

Song Qingshi stumbled and talked for a long time, and finally clarified the truth to Yue Wuhuan: "I'll pierce your whole body with more than two hundred golden needles. Don't worry, it won't hurt. It'll just feel a little numb and itchy, and then you'll take a medicinal bath. When the meridians are successfully opened, I'll remove the needles and use medicine to reshape your spiritual core."

Yue Wuhuan looked at him and was silent for a long time.

"Although you need to take off your clothes for an injection, and there may be touching, I'm a doctor. In a doctor's eyes, there is no gender, only patients!" Song Qingshi thought for a while and felt that the other party had some concern, and swore, "You don't need to be on guard. I promise I won't think or do strange things to you!"

But he had strange thoughts. . .

Yue Wuhuan froze looking at those pale pink lips, remembering the scene from his dream, his throat a little tight. He took a breath and forced down those unbearable thoughts. He slowly loosened his belt, lowered his head and said softly: "If it's you. . . you can touch. . ."

There were only faint scars left from the wound on his shoulder. The honey-coloured warm jade-like skin carried a faintly sweet fragrance. His shoulder blades spread out like a butterfly, the Acacia Seal had turned into vivid lines like on a butterfly's wings and his thin waist carries a line of strength. This body was so perfect that it could arouse people's desire at any time.

Song Qingshi thought about it and felt that it was better not to overestimate the resistance of human beings to beautiful things, so he found a bath towel to wrap around him and then calmed his thoughts. He used his spiritual sense to determine the location of the needle and inserted it.

"Do you feel anything?"

"Yes."

"What does it feel like?"

"Sore, swollen, itchy. . ."

Song Qingshi confirmed that the needle was correct, so he relaxed and continued to prick each needle.

When he reached his back, he suddenly found a red birthmark on Yue Wuhuan's shoulder blade, shaped like a small phoenix. Because it was covered by the Acacia Seal and they blended together, it wasn't very visible.

He stopped the needle and observed for a while. He couldn't help saying: "You have a very beautiful birthmark."

"It was passed down to me by my mother," said Yue Wuhuan, who was reminded of his childhood memories, and his nervousness eased a lot. "She was a dancer in the palace. She came from overseas. She had red hair and golden eyes and was crowned a concubine after my father took a fancy to her. I take after her in many aspects of my appearance."

"Mixed race? Your mother must be very beautiful." Song Qingshi felt his relaxation and tried to continue the conversation. "Black and curly hair are both dominant genes. Black eyes are not pure black, but the dark genetic proportion is higher, that's why they become a dark golden colour like amber. Your eyes have an alias called angel pupils*. . ."

*(T/N: I could not find the English translation to this but this is what he's talking about. It's like a pale sheen across the colour in the eyes)

Yue Wuhuan couldn't understand what he said next: "My mother. . . was really beautiful. . ."

"What kind of person was she?"

"A very gentle person. Everyone in the palace liked her."

"Do you want to go back to see her?" Song Qingshi felt that seeing his family again would help his mental recovery. "I can send you back."

Yue Wuhuan's voice suddenly stopped, and after a long time, he said with difficulty: "No need, she has already passed away."

Song Qingshi's hand holding the needle stopped in mid-air, and he realized that he had ruined all of his progress.

"They... heard that my mother looked similar to me, and they thought about taking her as a slave," Yue Wuhuan's voice lost all emotion. He was used to being in this much pain and became numb. "In order to save my mother, I compromised on a lot of things I didn't want to do to them, but. . . they still went. Fortunately, my country was destroyed a few years ago. My father and brother died in battle, and my mother accompanied the empress to commit suicide on the Phoenix Terrace. They all died. I'm so happy that they all died cleanly, without being humiliated, without having to see me turn into something like this. . ."

Song Qingshi's heart was about to melt. He couldn't comfort such pain but he just wanted to give the person in front of him a hug.

He just stretched out his hand, thought about it, and just as his fingertips touched his shoulder, he withdrew it again, because he remembered that the other side was extremely averse to touching and would be upset.

He lowered his head, picked up the golden needle again, and told himself that everything would be fine.

Noticing the movement behind him, Yue Wuhuan turned his head and suddenly saw a half-red mark on Song Qing Shi's collarbone that was inadvertently revealed.

He opened his eyes wide in disbelief. He thought of something he shouldn't have thought of, stretched out his hand without thinking, and roughly ripped open his collar.

Under the snow-coloured robe, around the collarbone, there were several spots of dark red, reflected against the white jade-like skin. They were particularly blinding, gradually overlapping with the crazy and unbearable dreams of last night.

The young man did not struggle, sitting obediently in place, looking at him with dumbfounded eyes, seemingly not understanding why he was excited.

He began to breathe heavily, somewhat unable to suppress his dirty longing.

"What is this?"

The author has something to say: Song Qingshi's analysis: Yue Wuhuan is a patient. I'm not interested in these things, so it is very safe for us to live together!

Yue Wuhuan hiding his big bad wolf tail and smiling: You're right about everything.

[themculibrary]

Ghosts Masterlist 3

Links Last Checked: May 13th, 2024

part one, part two

ain't afraid of no ghost! (ao3) - deniigiq N/R, 6k

Summary: Peter thought about Mr. Stark telling him to be responsible with his powers. Then he thought about Wade recruiting Double D to time how long it took his hand to heal after he stabbed it with a knife. And then he remembered Double D agreeing to it even though he couldn’t read the stopwatch.

Stupider things had been done, he decided, and it’s not like a little ghost hunting was going to hurt anyone.

“Sure,” he told Ned with a grin, “Let’s go catch a ghost.”

(The Spiderman trio and the Daredevil trio meet up to go ghost-hunting, it goes about as well as you'd expect.)

All-American Afterlife (ao3) - Zekkass G, 4k

Summary: Bucky's been haunting Steve since he fell off the train.

All Hallows' Eve (ao3) - The_Winter_Writer bucky/steve/tony N/R, 3k

Summary: Tony hated haunted houses. When he escaped this nightmare he was going to kill Natasha.

Beyond The Wooden Fence (ao3) - Ashleyparker2815 N/R, 33k

Summary: In the house next door to Peter’s and Tony’s new house, there is a mom and dad who lost their eleven year old son.

Now, those parents find out Peter moved in next door and they try to get their ghost son to kill Peter so the spirit of the little boy can take his body.

Will Tony be able to save his kid?

Dancing in the Dark (ao3) - Neotorious steve/bucky G, 5k

Summary: Most things happen in the dark, and from the things that you could see to the people that you could meet in the dead of night something just might surprise you. And maybe, just maybe, they could even change your world. For better or worse? Well.. Who's to really say?

Sometimes it all starts with meeting a stranger during the witching hour. The night doesn't always have malice.

Darker Than Black (ao3) - trucizna steve/bucky T, 3k

Summary: Bucky has a monster living under his bed. Now he also has a friend.

Haunted Vacation (ao3) - pinkhairnoshoes steve/tony, ben/may T, 31k

Summary: Tony and Steve invite Ben and May on a vacation to a cottage upstate. It's a good chance to disconnect from technology and enjoy the summer out in the country. The house seems normal enough until Peter starts having nightmares and seeing ghosts. Unexplained things are starting to happen. Steve and Tony are getting increasingly frustrated waking up to things being out of place or damaged. Peter is getting increasingly worried when he wakes up with dirt and grass on his feet but no memory of leaving his bed. The adults assume Peter is acting out for attention. They don't see the ghosts or notice that the house is having an effect on them too.

Hopeless Wanderer (ao3) - Eternal_Peace_is_Overrated bucky/tony N/R, 6k

Summary: James Buchanan Barnes died when he fell from that train in the mountains; not in the literal sense, but very much in the figurative. He’d been molded into the Winter Soldier, the perfect assassin, by Hydra. But Bucky? He was still very much alive, trapped in his new Winter Soldier body, watching as this new him kills and hurts and demolishes. He doesn’t know what he would call himself- a ghost, maybe, a spirit. A soul? This goes on for seventy years, until one Tony Stark comes along and completely fucks up the life he’s trapped in. He watched the man struggle and hurt, seen him at his best and at his worst and somewhere along the way, Bucky fell in love with the self-made genius. And then. Then Tony almost dies, and suddenly, he can see Bucky- the ghost Bucky, who has been tied to him since he met him years ago, no longer stuck to the Winter Soldier. Its been one helluva ride, and Bucky’s new goal? Get his body back so he can kiss Tony senseless. Easy, right?

it slips between my fingers now (ao3) - Lise T, 3k

Summary: After Thanos is defeated, Thor goes (flees) into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy. It's going...fine.

Until he starts seeing his brother's ghost.

Possibly, Maybe (ao3) - castiowl steve/bucky T, 5k

Summary: Bucky is apartment-sitting for Natasha when he meets Steve. They spend the next four weeks embarrassing themselves.

Take Flight (ao3) - blackchaps clint/phil E, 50k

Summary: Werewolves kill Barney, sending Clint's life spiraling downwards. Clint avenges his brother, setting off a sequence of events that ends up with Clint losing his job at the circus and on the run from what feels like every werewolf in the United States. They want him dead. Good luck with that, furballs.

The Afterlife of The Party (ao3) - neversaydie steve/bucky, natasha/sam M, 8k

Summary" [in which Dead Dorks in Love, awkward ghost sex, and a whole lot of accidental feelings happen]

the dangers in the anger (and the hanging onto it) (ao3) - Katbelle T, 19k

Summary: There is a ghost haunting Matt Murdock's apartment. It's not the ghost you think of.

They that Fade and Stay (ao3) - 27dragons bucky/tony T, 3k

Summary: Bucky could only stare for a moment, and then he called, “Steve! I think we’ve got a ghost!”

“Wait, you can see me like this?” the ghost said, suddenly looking out of the TV at Bucky.

“God damn it,” Steve growled from his bedroom, where he had insisted on trying to put his bed together immediately instead of putting it off for a day or three like a normal person. As if either of them had seen any action recently enough to need a bed. “The bastard had better be friendly; we can’t afford to bring the ghostbusters in.”

Whatever here that's left of me is yours (ao3) - rainbow_nerds steve/bucky M, 41k

Summary: Steve thought he had finally found the perfect place to live. It was bright, airy, and miraculously free from mold and other unwelcome infestations.

Well, for the most part.

He hadn't signed on for a roommate, especially not one who'd been dead for eighty-odd years.

[tinyowlthoughts]

"Sup, G?"

The Grim Reaper grips his scythe ever-so-slightly tighter, but after a few millennia of bumping into each other like this, you've picked up on his little tells.

"I have told you before, that is not my name."

"I can go back to calling you Grimey."

The sound of his teeth grinding together is music to your ears.

Finally, after a moment of grip-tightening and dental damage, he heaves a great sigh (impressive, for a literal skeleton who lacks both lungs and a nose to blow it out of) and shifts his stance, rolling his weight back to the center so he is appears proper and in control.

(It's adorable, that he thinks he has any control over you.)

"I have come to offer you a deal," he intones in a deep, gravely voice that makes you think of tolling church bells and shovels sliding through dirt and worms overturning desecrated soil. In the beginning it had set your nerves alight, had triggered your fight-or-flight and led you to fawn, had left you with a hollow pit as you refused to eat for days (because being immortal didn't mean your body stopped running - it just made it run for longer, for eternity). Now, it was a comforting scrape against your mind - a reassurance that despite humanity changing, shifting from the pastoral, king-ruled fields of London to the bustling streets of Chicago, some things never changed.

"Is your name Jake?"

"It is - what?"

"Jake? Like, from State Farm. You said you want to offer me a deal - are you secretly Jake from State Farm?"

"I - who? What is a state farm?"

"That would make sense, you're name starts with a J, not a G. No wonder you were annoyed."

You can pinpoint the second he realizes you're fucking with him, and the bony fingers tighten hard enough around the staff of his reaping weapon that the wood splinters.

Wisely, he decides to ignore your witty banter and forge ahead. It only took him five-odd centuries to figure that trick out.

"I have come to offer you a chance to regain your mortality." His voice is less church-bells and more annoyed-Walmart-manager-on-Black-Friday now. "You have long walked this world, and the time has come to move on."

You frown, shifting a bit on the bed. "Wait, what? You said if I too the deal I'd never die-"

"Yes. Yes I did say that. But it has been a millennia, and surely you have seen everything there is to see? Your family is waiting for you on the other side-"

"Which one?"

"What?"

"Which family? I've been married seven times - who's waiting for me?"

The Grim Reaper fumbles for a moment, his jaw clacking as he opens and closes his mouth (a poor substitute for flapping lips, but you give him credit for trying). "All of them." He finally decides.

"Wow. Even my bitch ex? The one who kicked our dog?"

"Er..."

"I thought Heaven was supposed to be nice."

The reaper pinches his zygomatic arch (which you'd learned in a failed attempt to get a doctorate and practice medicine) and sighs again. You swear he mutters something along the lines of 'who said you're going to heaven?' but don't get a chance to call him out on it.

"Do you want to move on or not?" He snaps, all spooky, other-worldly pretense dropped.

"Nah, I'm good, J." You relax back into your chair, resting one hand behind your head, the other being occupied.

"This is a one-time offer, human. If you refuse you will never get another opportunity to recant and move on."

"Eh, I figure the heat-death of the universe will sort me out in the end. Can't exist if there's no atoms, right?"

"Look, you should really consider this - how much more can humanity do that you haven't seen?"

"We're getting closer to Mars every day - oh shit, there's an idea! I should be an astronaut! The whole immortality thing would be perfect for long space missions."

"You aren't listening-"

"Dude I gotta call NASA, they're gonna flip-"

"HUMAN!"

The shout is like shattered stained glass, a tree struck by lightning and falling, the keening last cry of a bird as it falls from the sky. You freeze, a little, tiny, itty-bitty bit of that ancient 'fight or flight' coming back to kick your unused self-preservation into gear. You stare at the skeleton.

"You cannot continue to live." He declares, voice back to its theatric deep timbre.

"Yes I can."

"No, you can't."

"Why not?"

The Reaper lets out an exasperated huff and motions to the needle in your arm. "You are sharing your immortality with the world!" He huffs, watching as the blood bag connected to the needle continues to slowly fill with your strange, silver-gold blood. "That was not the intent-"

"It wasn't forbidden in the contract." You have to wiggle, lifting your butt of the seat to grab your wallet, but after a moment you have it and are pulling out the wallet-sized laminated copy of the contract you had signed a thousand years ago. "There is nothing in here about not sharing my blood, or forbidding blood transfusions."

"That is because they did not exist-"

"There's also nothing about updating the contract." You had flunked out of medical school, but law school had been your jam. You'd been a damn good lawyer for a while too, until DC started giving you the ick and you retired. "This contract stands - you cannot amend it, not without the consent of both parties. And I don't consent." You shove your wallet into your front pocket with a shrug. "I don't make the rules."

The reaper hisses through his teeth, a sound like a sad black balloon at a 50th birthday party slowly giving a death cry. "You are upsetting the balance of the cosmos-"

"Not my problem."

"-and the scales of eternity-"

"Still not my problem."

"-and Anubis is on my ass about fixing it! So please, please, either allow yourself to pass on, or stop donating blood!"

You grin - it's all teeth, more than the Reaper himself usually shows, and squeeze the heart-shaped stress ball in your hand. More of your blood - silvery-gold, carrying the cursed gift given to you so long ago - slips down the line and into the bag, which is almost full. As soon as its gone, your body replaces it - a perk of the curse, the blessing, the whatever-it-is. You can stay hooked up all day and never run dry.

The infusions and transfusions don't make anybody truly immortal like yourself, but it's done wonders for cancer treatment and longevity. The work scientist have done in the past few decades, since you outed yourself to the government, has been incredible. People are living far past their predicted time, and the average life span is ticking upwards every year.

"I'm gonna have to go with no." You shrug, and the machine weighing the blood-bag beeps. The Reaper groans, running a hand down his skull. "Hey, you remember what you said when we struck this deal?"

"What?" He snaps, prickly as a hedgehog in a porcupine convention.

You grin. "You told me it would be waste to make me live forever - what could a road bandit with blood on their hands do to help humanity?" You shrug again. "It took me a while, but I figured it out." There are footsteps outside the room, and your smile widens. "Uh-oh, J. Better skedaddle if you don't want to be seen. I know how shy you are." A quick wink in his direction and the scythe haft shatters, sprinkling the room with splinters of bone. With a snarl and a dramatic swirl of black robes, the Grim Reaper vanishes, leaving you to your blood draw in peace.

Cackling, you lean back, hand back behind your head, refocusing on the news playing on the TV above. A story is running - the new average human lifespan is 350 and steadily climbing, and deaths from diseases are at an all time low. With a lowered birth rate, humanity has never had such low death rates, across the world as a whole.

Sure, maybe they're not living forever like you, but being a living blood bag for a few days every week is worth it, just for the stress and havoc it's causing J.

You were given immortality to atone for your horrific crimes against humanity. You wander the earth for millennium. Finally, you are given the option to revoke your immortality and end your suffering. You deny it.

[justjessame]

Silence: Chapter 18

Preparation for Halloween seemed a little crazy, in my opinion, given the current world events. Yet a carnival of sorts was planned, along with Pam’s asinine masquerade shindig, which I was looking forward to with the same excitement a visit to have a root canal without anesthesia might warrant.

Bowing out of the unofficial festivities while also giving the staff at the library a chance to partake in them, I opted to keep the library open. The staff was so efficient, now that they had a clear path forward, that I mostly sat behind the circulation desk reading the most interesting book I could find - “What To Expect When You’re Expecting.”

The first people that chose the library over the celebratory events occurring beyond the front door weren’t much of a surprise to me - I had begun to expect the check-ins from the former inhabitants of Alexandria. Carol knew I’d had a checkup with Tomi, so of course she wanted to know if everything was running according to plan - I wondered if she always spoke as if preparing for battle, but I didn’t want to ruin this newfound comradery that I found comforting. Hormones, I figured, yet it didn’t make me enjoy the interactions any less. Daryl was with her, along with Judith and RJ - both of whom I knew were chomping at the bit to go see what a holiday carnival looked like.

I didn’t force them to linger too long, Daryl looked as if he might want to hang out in the quiet longer - like a good uncle he allowed himself to be tugged outside, but warned his two charges that he wouldn’t be running around too long. Carol concurred, since she was pressed to serve food during the carnival. Daryl would be on duty later, during the masquerade, and I smiled and shooed them out, reminding all of them that there was more fun to be had in the sunshine than among the stacks keeping me company. I heard Carol greeting someone as they left, but turned back to my book, certain that whomever she was speaking to would be heading toward the entertainment outside, not in.

Kelly, who I recalled slightly from my time in Daryl and Carol’s old digs, was smiling beside another woman - Connie, I was told and realized that she’d been missing during my stay in a slowly dying community. Deaf and ambitious, she was working for the Commonwealth newspaper and wanted they wanted to interview me -

“As the head of the library and school or -” their smiles didn’t falter, but they did grow taunt. “I see.”

“Your roles are interesting within the walls,” Kelly offered, then dove right in with the reminder of just who I was in the grand scheme of things. “You never told us that your grandfather was -”

Holding back a sigh was harder than it sounds, but I managed. “I wonder why I didn’t?” it was clearly hypothetical and I was gratified to see they both understood it, even as Connie’s hand worked to take notes. “The truth is,” what was the truth, actually? “Outside these walls, and even inside them, I don’t honestly see why it would matter.” Close enough. “My grandfather was a former President, but that was ages ago, literally.” I sat my book down, having closed it, but keeping it in my lap just in case the visit was short. “The fact that my aunt utilizes the family name and continues to govern as though it were a right of birth is her thing, not mine.” Disbelief met this, and I couldn’t hold the sigh back any longer. “I took the positions I have because they were most suited to my former experience and that seems to be what the Commonwealth is all about, right?”

Not entirely convinced, but they backed off a bit. The questions turned to the changes I’d made at the school - the ideas for teaching the next generation's preparation for the “what if” scenarios that my aunt seemed incapable to appreciate, even if I didn’t say precisely that. Whether the library had more members after the grand opening, and fluffy questions that made it seem as if they weren’t looking for dirt on Pam and her leadership.

After they assured me they would give me an advance read of Connie’s article, not that I asked, they left and I went back to my blissfully quiet day.

If only I could have parlayed my quiet day into an equally quiet evening, but that wouldn’t do with Auntie Pam’s party that I was reminded I’d be required to attend - a letter delivered to the library just before I locked the doors telling me where I could stand or sit that wouldn’t have a hint of a whiff of anything sugary. My darling aunt’s handwriting also offered that she hoped I found the gown she’d found for me not only acceptable, but as lovely as she’d found it. Rolling my eyes, since my guards were a few steps behind, I realized she expected gratitude for the “gift”. Dear God.

Inside my cozy abode, I let loose another sigh and instead of taking a long hot bath, eating whatever I chose to make for my dinner, and settling in for more reading and relaxing, I had to prepare for an event I’d rather ignore.

I did get the long hot bath - my tiny terrors insisted on something relaxing lest they toss my proverbial cookies all over everything and while the idea of calling in sick, with my luck Pam would simply send Sebastian out to poke and prod me until I was forced to attend regardless. I’d seen members of our family try to use real illness to get out of a family obligation before, and that’s usually - with different members enacting different roles - how things would go.

Once I was soothed, or at least the babies were, I stood glaring down at the dress and wondered if she was pulling some elaborate prank on me. Why else would she choose something so white and somewhat indecent? Was that it? Was I both a Madonna and whore? Satin with tucks and pulls to showcase my ever growing bump, the neckline was such a deep v that I had to either thank the pregnancy gods for my bounteous bust or curse them - I chose the latter, but the cursing was directed at a much closer target. There was a demi-mask tucked into the box along with a tiny piece of jewelry that made me almost certain that this entire thing was a joke, but the card accompanying it in the square velvet box corrected me. It was simply to keep those pesky commoner tongues from wagging - not an exact quote, but I could read between the lines.

“If you wear this, even after tonight, perhaps awkward questions will stop about your condition -

PM”

I wondered who was asking awkward questions and if they made her squirm? I hoped so. Yet I couldn’t deny the ring was - wait, I turned the tiny circle over in my palm and squinted at the inner band and there it was, my grandparents’ initials and a date that I knew must have been their wedding day. It wasn’t a simple gold or silver band, nothing was ever simple in the Milton family - no it was an eternity band, triple rows of diamonds circling to form a band that might (dare I pray) not fit my not really swollen finger. Sliding it on my left ring finger felt wrong, but it was a family heirloom after all, and eerily it fit. Perfectly. I turned the card over, wondering if Pam had concocted an entire background for this missing baby daddy of mine, but it was blank. Damn, and she prided herself on thinking of everything.

Dressed, sans mask because it felt like it was smothering me - even if it was made of something lacy, with shoes to match (one day I might fully appreciate the closet I was gifted with, but not at the moment) I opened the front door and told the guards I was as ready as I could get.

The streets were still crowded and as I neared the source of my discomfort I realized this was our new world’s version of a red carpet event. Shit. People were in a crush, watching who came and entered, and I was gently pushed along getting inside without any interaction with the gawkers and lurkers. Inside wasn’t much better, but I found the corner that was reserved for me and my sweet hating offspring, sitting up a very embarrassed version of court - or so it seemed as people came to me, to meet an mingle - and at least one was someone I didn’t feel completely browbeat to greet.

“Tomi,” I had managed a sip of cool water before he was standing in front of me, a lovely woman beside him. “I’m glad you came.” And I was, my doctor close at hand might give me a slight chance of begging off early - doctor’s orders and all that.

His smile was bright and his face flushed. “Elara,” he was always welcoming, but now he sounded a little cozier than usual - the glass in his hand, barely a sip left, let me know that my doctor was well on the way to becoming sloshed. “Allow me to introduce my sister, Yumiko.” She looked less than excited, and a little less formal and more professionally dressed.

We chatted, and I learned that Yumiko was a lawyer, that she was clearly worried about Tomi’s condition and seeing him flag down and drink two more glasses while our short chat progressed, I had to agree with her.

Mercer, the formidable guard who always wore reddish orange to distinguish him from the others, looked almost unrecognizable in a tailored suit and the young woman beside him looked fit to burst to be next to him - or at the party - it was hard to tell.

I watched and listened, trying to keep myself occupied while waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It came when Pam arrived and took the stage, so to speak, feigning she couldn’t find me in the crowd, she requested my presence at her side - teasing that she promised nothing with a hint of sugar was near her. A smattering of quiet laughter met her joke and I felt myself yearning for any excuse to bow out, but sadly a guard was at my side helping me make my way through the guests to my aunt’s side. Sebastian was invisible to me, but then again he had always been an irritating child, I could only imagine his personality now that he was an adult.

I didn’t listen as she prattled on and on, or if it was a short speech, I was ready to leave - if I’d ever been truly ready to come. Then there it was, the portrait of President Milton - I couldn’t say Grandfather or even think it because he looked only like the figure, not the man I had known during the specks of memories I had of him.

Chaos struck, a waiter armed with a knife had Max tight against him, the knifepoint close enough to make me feel a different type of sick. He was throwing accusations at Pamela. Dark and terrible, how he’d lost everything due to a mistake and how everyone like him meant nothing to her - that she was a liar. Max showed far more patience and calm than I thought possible, soothing the man’s frayed nerves and then he was gone, or going.

It shouldn’t have shocked me that the party continued, that a few titterings and then as if we’d all dreamt it - nothing.

Suddenly my errant cousin was there, hostage taking waiter in hand. Standing close to Pam, I listened as he raved, or rebelled - “RESIST THE COMMONWEALTH! VISIBILITY FOR WORKERS! EQUALITY FOR ALL!” warning that he was one of thousands -

My aunt either thought I was out of earshot or that I was loyal to blood above all, told her minion Hornsby to investigate and I felt like the evening had to be over.

[erabundus]

@stellarhistoria &&. said... 💭 + how does ren feel about fate / breaking fate?

ren  has  a  very  strange  relationship  with  fate.  it's  definitely  something  he  BELIEVES  IN  (  "fate  can  be  truly  arbitrary"  and  all  that  )  but  i  think  the  way  he  interprets  it  is  a  little  more  complex  than  the  norm.  ren  thinks  of  fate  not  necessarily  as  a  predestined  path  one  is  meant  to  take  in  life  —  but  rather  a  manifestation  of  the  world  forcing  its  will  on  those  it  keeps  prisoner,  for  better  or  for  worse.  in  general,  he  tends  to  personify  the  world  quite  often  in  his  own  narration  —  setting  it  up  as  a fickle,  oftentimes antagonistic  force.  (  he  calls  it  cruel,  repulsive,  dishonest  and  so  on.  )  his  own  personal  villain,  in  a  sense.  ren  is  the  sort  of  person  who  can't  just  accept  misfortune as an explanation in its own right  —  he  can't  look  at  the  travesty  that  his  life  has  become,  the  horrible  (  senseless  )  fates  he's  seen  befall  the  people  around  him  and  believe  that  suffering on such a scale can come as a natural consequence of random chance.  there  has  to  be  a  reason  for  it,  whether  it  be  his  own  fault,  or  someone  else's  —  or  even  that  these tragedies are  a  calculated  choice  on  behalf  of  some  sadistic  higher  power.

bad  things  happen,  but  they  happen  specifically  because  this  world  is  an  unfair,  imperfect  place  that  allows  them  to  happen  —  and  the  distribution  of  misery  is  inherently  UNEQUAL.  it's  one  of  the  things  scaramouche  sought  to  fix  after  ascending  to  divinity;  he  wanted  to  rebalance  the  world  (  assert  his  control  over  fate  itself  )  so  everyone  experienced  equal  joy  and  hardship.  no  longer  would  the  few  stand  atop  the  backs  of  the  many;  you're  all  human  and  you  all  deserve  to  writhe  together  in  the  dirt  like  the  worms  you  are.

it's  basically  a  coping  mechanism,  in  the  same  way  he  clings  to  the  idea  of  having  a  PURPOSE  as  a  coping  mechanism  to  continue  living.

he's  spoken  about  it  here  and  there,  but  he  also  thinks  the  world  has  a  tendency  to  move  in  a  series  of  cycles  —  whether  on  a  larger  scale  or  a  much  more  personal  one.  UNSURPRISINGLY;  ren  has  suffered  the  same  traumas  (  "betrayals"  )  over  and  over  and  over  again,  so  of  course  he  tries  to  rationalize  it  by  incorporating  it  into  his  personal  system  of  beliefs.  he's  considerably  less  overtly mouthy  when  it  comes  to  whether  he  thinks  fate  is  something  that  can  actually  be  successfully  rallied  against  —  emphasis  on  successfully,  because  he's  certainly  tried  to  break  away  from  his  own  endless  cycle  of  misery  in  the  past ...  only  to  come  crashing  back  down  to  reality  twice  as  hard.  (  both  figuratively  and  literally.  )  however,  the  fact  that  even  now  he  continues  to  inch  towards  a  brighter  future  than  the  past  he's  left  behind  him  indicates  he  doesn't  think  it's  an  entirely  FUTILE  effort.  

SEND    💭    AND    A    TOPIC    FOR    A    HEADCANON    .