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bracketsoffear · 22 days ago

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End Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the End Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Anderson, Jodi Lynn: May Bird Andreyev, Leonid: Lazarus

Basye, Dale E.: Precocia Bierce, Ambrose: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Bunin, Ivan: The Gentleman from San Francisco

Christie, Agatha: And Then There Were None Christie, Agatha: Curtain Cook, Eliza: Song of the Worm

Enriquez, Mariana: Alguien camina sobre tu tumba (someone walks over your grave)

Gaiman, Neil: The Graveyard Book Godwin, Tom: The Cold Equations

Hill, Joe: The Black Phone (from the book 20th Century Ghosts) Hurley, Tonya: Ghostgirl Huxley, Aldous: After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

Ibbotson, Eva: Dial-a-Ghost

Kedzie, Robert: Shadows from the Wall of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers King, Stephen: Pet Sematary Klune, T.J.: Under the Whispering Door Kraus, Daniel: The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Alchemist Lovecraft, H.P.: Cool Air Lumley, Brian: Necroscope

Márquez, Gabriel García: Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a death foretold) Maugham, Somerset: An Appointment in Samarra McGovern, Kate: Fear of Missing Out Moore, Christopher: A Dirty Job Moreno, Gus: This Thing Between Us Morris, Jonathan: Festival of Death

Ohland, Emma K.: Funeral Girl

Piven, Joshua & David Borgenicht: The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook Poe, Edgar Allan: Annabel Lee Poe, Edgar Allan: The Raven Pratchett, Terry: Mort Pratchett, Terry: Pyramids Pushkin, Alexander: The Queen of Spades

Sebold, Alice: The Lovely Bones Shusterman, Neal: Antsy Does Time Shusterman, Neal: Scythe Spark, Muriel: Memento Mori Stine, R.L.: Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel Stone, Jon: The Monster at the End of this Book Stoppard, Tom: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Stroud, Jonathan: Lockwood and Co. series

von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang: Erlkönig Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse-Five

Webb, Catherine: Mirror Dreams Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray Wolff, Tobias: Bullet in the Brain

Zusak, Markus: The Book Thief

Anderson, Jodi Lynn: May Bird

"Shy, precocious May Bird wants nothing more than to be accepted. One day she falls through a lake into the Ever After, a world of ghosts. As she journeys through fantastic lands, she gathers an unusual group of new friends who join together to overcome the chillingly evil Bo Cleevil and find their way home."

Andreyev, Leonid: Lazarus

The story picks up where the biblical story leaves off-- what happens to Lazarus after he is brought back to life? There's no attempt at a description that's gonna give the story justice, it is something you need to experience for yourself. Link: https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Laza841.shtml

Basye, Dale E.: Precocia

"Dale E. Basye sends Milton and Marlo to Precocia, the circle reserved for kids who grow up too fast, for their latest hilarious escapade in Heck.

When Bea "Elsa" Bubb, the Principal of Darkness, tells Milton and Marlo Fauster they've gotten too big for their britches, she sends them to Precocia, the circle of Heck for smartypants kids who grow up too fast. There, the children learn adult jobs. William the Kid teaches bill collection. Mozart teaches commercial jingles. And all the students are forced to act, dress, and talk like little adults. Soon, the Fausters realize that Precocia's vice principals Napoleon and Cleopatra want more than to hasten adulthood--they seem to want to eliminate childhood altogether. Can Milton and Marlo figure out their plan in time to stop it?"

Includes depictions of a horrifying alternate reality where people want to age and wither as fast as possible!

Bierce, Ambrose: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

We learn that a man is about to be hanged by a Union captain in the middle of a bridge over raging water in Northern Alabama. After learning how he ended up there, the man is awakened by the cold current of the river, having lost consciousness after the noose broke and he fell from the bridge. His executioners are firing at him from the bridge, he suffers a gunshot wound, comes up for air, dives back under, only to see a cannonball land within two yards. He thinks he's doomed, but then seems to be ejected from the river onto a bank, out of sight and firing range. But then he hears gunshots, escapes through the forest, taking backroads to return to his home. He seems to greet his wife, but then feels a sharp blow on his neck, sees a blinking white light, and all falls to silence and darkness. The end of the story reveals that Farquhar's broken body is still swinging from the side of Owl Creek Bridge, where he died, after all.

Bunin, Ivan: The Gentleman from San Francisco

A 58-year-old American from San Francisco, having acquired a great fortune, sets off with his wife and daughter on a world tour. After a luxurious cruise, they arrive in Naples, where he is dismayed by the unusually bad winter weather and finds that the city does not meet his expectations. They then go to Capri, where he abruptly dies in the lobby of his fancy hotel, causing a stir among the rich clientele. The second half of the story is concerned with the change in the once-deferential staff's attitude towards the gentleman, and in the dehumanizing way in which his body is treated as it makes its journey out of Italy.

The Gentleman From San Francisco is a great reminder that death can come anytime, anyplace. The Gentleman could be anyone, which is why I believe the character remains unnamed throughout the story.

Christie, Agatha: And Then There Were None

Undoubtedly Christie's scariest mystery, the novel represents a countdown for ten murderers on an island, as one by one they all die according to the dictates of a creepy nursery rhyme.

Christie, Agatha: Curtain

"Arthritic and immobilized, Poirot calls on his old friend Captain Hastings to join him at Styles to be the eyes and ears that will feed observations to Poirot's still razor sharp mind. Though aware of the criminal's identity, Poirot will not reveal it to the frustrated Hastings, and dubs the nameless personage 'X'. Already responsible for several murders, X, Poirot warns, is ready to strike again, and the partners must work swiftly to prevent imminent murder."

It's a book that was meant to be published posthumously whats more End-like than that?

Spoilers: The main villain tricks and manipulates people into killing each other(An End avatar, perhaps?). 'X' is so good that he almost makes Hastings into a murderer and makes Poirot into one. Poirot also dies in this one.

Cook, Eliza: Song of the Worm

Banger worm poem. https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/song-worm

Enriquez, Mariana: Alguien camina sobre tu tumba (someone walks over your grave)

This book brings together a series of very particular travel chronicles around the world. The author travels countries and continents to visit something very specific and perhaps unusual: cemeteries. Famous and history-laden cemeteries such as Montparnasse in Paris, Highgate in London or the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and other hidden, decrepit, remote or secretly beautiful graves of famous people -Elvis' in Memphis, Marx in London- extravagant epitaphs, mourning sculptures, sensual angels and an inexhaustible string of legends and stories.

Gaiman, Neil: The Graveyard Book

It tells the story of the boy Nobody "Bod" Owens, who is adopted and reared by the supernatural occupants of a graveyard after his family is brutally murdered.

***

The boy gets raised by ghosts.

Godwin, Tom: The Cold Equations

The story of a pilot who finds a girl stowed away on his spaceship, which is delivering lifesaving medicine to a distant frontier world. The fuel had been carefully measured out, the weight precisely calculated -- and none of it accounted for the stowaway.

Hill, Joe: The Black Phone (from the book 20th Century Ghosts)

Thirteen-year-old Finney is kidnapped by a man named The Grabber. Trapped in a basement room, the boy's only hope may lie in a mysterious disconnected black phone hanging on the basement wall. The phone rings at night with the whispers of the kidnapper's previous (and now dead) victims.

Hurley, Tonya: Ghostgirl

The book is about high school senior Charlotte Usher, a young teenager who dreams of becoming popular in school, but before she gets the chance of that or asking her crush Damen out, she dies from choking on a gummy bear. What follows is a Tim Burton-esque story in which Charlotte is admitted to Dead Ed (a special education class for newly dead teens who have unresolved issues they must confront before they can move on), befriends a goth girl who can see ghosts, Scarlet, and comes to terms with her own death.

Huxley, Aldous: After Many a Summer Dies the Swan A Hollywood millionaire with a terror of death, whose personal physician happens to be working on a theory of longevity - these are the elements of Aldous Huxley's caustic and entertaining satire on man's desire to live indefinitely. With his customary wit and intellectual sophistication, Huxley pursues his characters in their quest for the eternal, finishing on a note of horror.

Ibbotson, Eva: Dial-a-Ghost

The Dial-a-Ghost Agency finds good homes for ghosts. And Fulton and Frieda Snodde-Brittle are looking for a few frightening ghosts to "accidentally" scare their young cousin and heir, Oliver, to death. The ladies at the Dial-a-Ghost Agency have the perfect match: the Shriekers, two bloodstained and bickering horrors. But thanks to a mix-up at the agency, the Wilkinsons, a kind family of ghosts, arrive instead. Can they put a stop to the Snodde-Brittles' schemes before it's too late?

Kedzie, Robert: Shadows from the Wall of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers

The book warns of the dangers of once-commonly used arsenic-pigmented wallpaper. The book also contains 86 samples of said wallpaper. Due to the dangerous amount of arsenic in the work, only five of the original 100 copies have survived. Most copies were destroyed by the recipient libraries. Doesn't even need to be a Leitner to kill you.

King, Stephen: Pet Sematary

Louis Creed, a doctor from Chicago, moves to a house near the small town of Ludlow, Maine along with his wife Rachel, their two young children, Ellie and Gage, and Ellie's cat, Winston Churchill ("Church"). Their neighbor, an elderly man named Jud Crandall, warns Louis and Rachel about the highway that runs past their house; it's used by trucks from a nearby chemical plant that often pass by at high speeds. A few weeks after the Creeds move in, Jud takes the family on a walk in the woods behind their home. There, a well-tended path leads to a pet cemetery (misspelled "sematary") where the town's children bury their deceased animals.

After Church is run over while the kids are visiting their grandparents with Rachel for Thanksgiving, Jud leads Louis beyond the deadfall to an ancient burial ground that was once used by the Mi'kmaqs, a Native American tribe. Following Jud's instructions, Louis buries the cat and constructs a cairn. The following afternoon, the cat returns home. However, while he used to be vibrant and lively, he now acts ornery and "a little dead", in Louis's words.

Before long, the Creed family suffers an unfathomable tragedy, and Louis is forced to confront the enormity of his grief and ask himself just how far he's willing to go to make his family whole again. In that quest, Louis will discover the truth of Judd's chilling advice: "Sometimes, dead is better."

***

The premise of this book is that there is a place out in the woods that if you bury a dead animal, it will come back to life - but it comes back Wrong. And if you were to do it to a person, something else would come back, in their body, in their place; something eldritch and evil. I'm sure someone else has already done a better submission of it with a more fleshed out synopsis but I actually want to nominate it because of this thing Stephen King does where he makes your blood run cold by dropping, in the middle of a completely innocent paragraph, "And now Gage, who had less than two months to live, laughed shrilly and joyously." It's chilling and inevitable and you don't have any way to stop it.

This book deals with death in a lot of ways, some of them positive and healthy but most of them /definitively not/. It's very Leitner because of how it makes you think about death conceptually from a lot of different angles, but in the end appreciate its finality. Because the alternative is worse.

***

When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son-and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all...right down to the friendly car. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth-more terrifying than death itself-and hideously more powerful. The Creeds are going to learn that sometimes dead is better.

Klune, T.J.: Under the Whispering Door

Welcome to Charon's Crossing. The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.

Kraus, Daniel: The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch

Synopsis: May 7, 1896. Dusk. A swaggering seventeen-year-old gangster named Zebulon Finch is gunned down on the shores of Lake Michigan. But after mere minutes in the void, he is mysteriously resurrected.

His second life will be nothing like his first.

Zebulon’s new existence begins as a sideshow attraction in a traveling medicine show. From there, he will be poked and prodded by a scientist obsessed with mastering the secrets of death. He will fight in the trenches of World War I. He will run from his nightmares—and from poverty—in Depression-era New York City. And he will become the companion of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.

Love, hate, hope, and horror—Zebulon finds them. But will he ever find redemption?

Propaganda: As stated in the synopsis, Zebulon is killed and, for no apparent reason, comes back to life. It is more like in death, though; he is essentially a very-slowly-rotting corpse who walks. He discovers that he has the power to look at people in the eyes and show them their last moments, which traumatizes them. Finally, in both books Zebulon is surrounded by and responsible for many deaths.

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Alchemist

The story is recounted by the protagonist, Count Antoine de C, in the first person. Hundreds of years ago, Antoine's noble ancestor was responsible for the death of a dark wizard, Michel Mauvais. The wizard's son, Charles le Sorcier, swore revenge on not only him but all his descendants, cursing them to die on reaching the age of 32.

The protagonist recounts how his ancestors all died in some mysterious way around the age of 32. The line has dwindled and the castle has been left to fall into disrepair, tower by tower. Finally, Antoine is the only one left, with one poor servant, Pierre, who raised him, and a tiny section of the castle with a single tower is still usable. Antoine has reached adulthood, and his 32nd year is approaching.

His servant eventually dies, leaving him completely alone, and he begins exploring the ruined parts of the castle. He finds a trapdoor in one of the oldest parts. Below, he discovers a passage with a locked door at the end. Just as he turns to leave, he hears a noise behind him and sees that the door is open and someone is standing in it. The man attempts to kill him but Antoine kills him first. His dying words reveal that he is none other than Charles, who actually managed to successfully fabricate the elixir of life, enabling him to personally fulfill the curse generation after generation.

Lovecraft, H.P.: Cool Air

The short story revolves around an unnamed writer who moves into a dodgy apartment building in New York. Over time, he befriends his mysterious upstairs tenant, an old, reclusive physician who never leaves his room, which he keeps at a perpetual 55-56°. In spite of this newfound friendship, the narrator nevertheless finds something unsettling about the peculiar old man, who has a rather disconcerting obsession with the subject of death...

To say much more would spoil the plot twist. The story can be read online here: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/ca.aspx

Lumley, Brian: Necroscope

“DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES…

Except to Harry Keogh, Necroscope. And what they tell him is horrifying.

In the Balkan mountains of Rumania, a terrible evil is growing. Long buried in hallowed ground, bound by earth and silver, the master vampire schemes and plots. Trapped in unlife, neither dead nor living, Thibor Ferenczy hungers for freedom and revenge.

The vampire's human tool is Boris Dragosani, part of a super-secret Soviet spy agency. Dragosani is an avid pupil, eager to plumb the depthless evil of the vampire's mind. Ferenczy teaches Dragosani the awful skills of the necromancer, gives him the ability to rip secrets from the mind and bodies of the dead.

Dragosani works not for Ferenczy's freedom but world domination. He will rule the world with knowledge taken from the dead.

His only opponent: Harry Koegh, champion of the dead and the living.

To protect Harry, the dead will do anything--even rise from their graves!"

Main character power is communicating with the dead very End-coded

Márquez, Gabriel García: Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a death foretold)

A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister. Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion.

Maugham, Somerset: An Appointment in Samarra

It's literally only a paragraph long, just read it

McGovern, Kate: Fear of Missing Out

Everyone has a fear of missing out on something―a party, a basketball game, a hangout after school. But what if it’s life that you’ll be missing out on?

When Astrid learns that her cancer has returned, she hears about a radical technology called cryopreservation that may allow her to have her body frozen until a future time when―and if―a cure is available. With her boyfriend, Mohit, and her best friend, Chloe, Astrid goes on a road trip in search of that possibility. To see if it’s real. To see if it’s worth it. For fear of missing out on everything.

Moore, Christopher: A Dirty Job

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.

It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's got to do it.

Moreno, Gus: This Thing Between Us

It was Vera's idea to buy the Itza. The "world's most advanced smart speaker!" didn't interest Thiago, but Vera thought it would be a bit of fun for them amidst all the strange occurrences happening in the condo. It made things worse. The cold spots and scratching in the walls were weird enough, but peculiar packages started showing up at the house—who ordered industrial lye? Then there was the eerie music at odd hours, Thiago waking up to Itza projecting light shows in an empty room.

It was funny and strange right up until Vera was killed, and Thiago's world became unbearable. Pundits and politicians all looking to turn his wife's death into a symbol for their own agendas. A barrage of texts from her well-meaning friends about letting go and moving on. Waking to the sound of Itza talking softly to someone in the living room…

The only thing left to do was get far away from Chicago. Away from everything and everyone. A secluded cabin in Colorado seemed like the perfect place to hole up with his crushing grief. But soon Thiago realizes there is no escape—not from his guilt, not from his simmering rage, and not from the evil hunting him, feeding on his grief, determined to make its way into this world.

Morris, Jonathan: Festival of Death

Synopsis: "The Beautiful Death. The ultimate theme-park ride. For twenty galactic credits, you can find out what it's like to be dead.

But something has gone wrong. Visitors expecting a sightseeing tour of the afterlife have been transformed into mindless zombies, set on a killing rampage.

The TARDIS arrives in the aftermath of the disaster and, to the Doctor's baffled delight, he is immediately congratulated for saving the population from certain and terrible destruction. The only problem is, he hasn't actually done it yet.

Aided and abetted by a drug-addled hippie lizard, a hard-hitting investigative reporter and a suicidal ship's computer, the Doctor has no choice but to travel back in time and discover exactly how he became a hero.

And then he finds out. He did it by sacrificing his life."

Why it's End: A theme park ride that simulates the experience of being dead. Wow. And something went wrong? Crazy. But yeah, there's a lot to do with death and fate in here -- the Doctor is apparently fated to die at the end of his adventure, the crew of the ship being fated to die

Ohland, Emma K.: Funeral Girl

Sixteen-year-old Georgia Richter feels conflicted about the funeral home her parents run--especially because she has the ability to summon ghosts. With one touch of any body that passes through Richter Funeral Home, she can awaken the spirit of the departed. With one more touch, she makes the spirit disappear, to a fate that remains mysterious to Georgia. To cope with her deep anxiety about death, she does her best to fulfill the final wishes of the deceased whose ghosts she briefly revives.

Then her classmate Milo's body arrives at Richter--and his spirit wants help with unfinished business, forcing Georgia to reckon with her relationship to grief and mortality.

Piven, Joshua & David Borgenicht: The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook

A handy little manual that shows all the ways that you can survive the worst possible situations. And now that you have the Leitner edition, you'll be putting those skills to good use almost constantly, as every deadly thing described in those pages begins to manifest in your life.

Poe, Edgar Allan: Annabel Lee

Like a lot of the Edgar Allan Poems, this is heavily concerned with the death of young love, and a desire to be reunited in the tomb. Link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44885/annabel-lee

Poe, Edgar Allan: The Raven

"The Raven" A narrative poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Published originally in January 1845, the poem has a musical quality with stylized language and a supernatural atmosphere. It speaks of a mysterious talking raven's visit to a distraught lover, depicting the man's slow fall into madness. The lover is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of "Pallas", the raven seems to have a purpose of further instigating his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". This poem makes good use of a number of folk and classical references.

Pratchett, Terry: Mort

"‘YOU CANNOT INTERFERE WITH FATE. WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE WHO SHOULD LIVE AND WHO SHOULD DIE?’

Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job.

Death is the Grim Reaper of the Discworld, a black-robed skeleton with a scythe who ushers souls into the next world. He is also fond of cats and endlessly baffled by humanity. Soon Death is yearning to experience what humanity really has to offer, but to do that, he’ll need to hire some help.

It’s an offer Mort can’t refuse. As Death’s apprentice he’ll have free board, use of the company horse – and being dead isn’t compulsory. It’s a dream job – until Mort falls in love with Death’s daughter, Ysabell, and discovers that your boss can be a killer on your love life . . ."

Pratchett, Terry: Pyramids

"Being trained by the Assassin's Guild in Ankh-Morpork did not fit Teppic for the task assigned to him by fate. He inherited the throne of the desert kingdom of Djelibeybi rather earlier than he expected (his father wasn’t too happy about it either), but that was only the beginning of his problems..."

A prince taught in the school of assassins goes to claim the throne of Djelibeybi. A country that is extremely End-coded culturally, and in reality ruled not by its kings but by Dios who is an End avatar if there ever was one.

Pushkin, Alexander: The Queen of Spades

Hermann, an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, constantly watches the other officers gamble, but never plays himself. One night a friend tells him a story about how his grandmother, a countess, lost a fortune at faro, and then won it back with the secret of the three winning cards. Hermann becomes obsessed with obtaining the secret.

Herman gains access to the countess' (now 87 years old) home through an acquaintance, Lizaveta, and there Hermann accosts the countess, demanding the secret. She tells him that story was a joke, but Hermann persists and threatens her with a pistol. She dies of fright. Lizaveta helps him flee the crime scene.

At the countess' funeral Hermann is terrified to see the countess open her eyes in the coffin and look at him. Later that night, her ghost appears to him and names the secret three cards (three, seven, and ace). It tells him he must play just once each night and then orders him to marry Lizaveta. Hermann takes his entire savings to gamble at faro for high stakes. On the first night, he bets it all on the three and wins. On the second night, he wins on the seven. On the third night, he bets on the ace—but when the cards are shown, he finds he has bet on the Queen of Spades, not the ace, and he loses everything. When the Queen appears to wink at him, he is astonished by her remarkable resemblance to the old countess, and flees in terror.

In the end Hermann goes mad and is committed to an asylum. He answers no questions, but merely mutters with unusual rapidity: "Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!"

This story has the end's favoured motifs: gambling, death, dreams, ghosts. Hermann tried to cheat fate but failed.

Rulfo, Juan: Pedro Páramo

A masterpiece of the surreal, this stunning novel from Mexico depicts a man’s strange quest for his heritage. Beseeched by his dying mother to locate his father, Pedro Páramo, whom they fled from years ago, Juan Preciado sets out for Comala. Comala is a town alive with whispers and shadows—a place seemingly populated only by memory and hallucinations. Built on the tyranny of the Páramo family, its barren and broken-down streets echo the voices of tormented spirits sharing the secrets of the past.

Sebold, Alice: The Lovely Bones

It tells the story of a young girl named Susie Salmon who is brutally murdered. From her unique perspective in the afterlife, Susie watches as her family and friends struggle to cope with her death and unravel the mystery surrounding it.

Shusterman, Neal: Antsy Does Time

Fueled by friendship and sympathy, Antsy Bonano signs a month of his life over to his dying classmate Gunnar Umlaut. Soon everyone at school follows suit, giving new meaning to the idea of living on borrowed time. But does Gunnar really have six months to live, or is news of his imminent death greatly exaggerated? When a family member suffers a heart attack after donating two years to Gunnar, Antsy wonders if he has tempted fate by playing God...

Shusterman, Neal: Scythe

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a Scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

Spark, Muriel: Memento Mori

In late 1950s London, something uncanny besets a group of elderly friends: an insinuating voice on the telephone reminds each: "Remember you must die." Their geriatric feathers are soon thoroughly ruffled, and many an old unsavory secret is dusted off.

Stine, R.L.: Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel

Choose Your Own Adventure books are inherently End-coded; your choices drive your fate along, and no matter what you choose, you will eventually reach an ending. I think that goes double for a CYOA book about murderous ghosts.

Stone, Jon: The Monster at the End of this Book

Grover spends the story dreading what lurks at the end of the book, much like many of us spend our life dreading its end. Grover tries in vain to stop us from bringing him closer to the book's conclusion, but for him the pages pass as inevitably as time does for us. At the end of the actual book the monster turns out to be Grover all along, but in the Leitner version Grover's fear would turn out to be justified.

Stoppard, Tom: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

"Hamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a tragic but inevitable end."

Two guys hanging around till the only relevant thing about them, their death, happens. And they will keep dying forever.

Stroud, Jonathan: Lockwood and Co. series

Death permeates the alternate British society of the Lockwood and Co. series. Beginning five decades before the events of the first book, the existence of ghosts became undeniable as an epidemic of deadly hauntings began. Dubbed “The Problem”, it has only gotten worse with time, with the number, strength and range of the hauntings continuing to escalate. Only children are able to detect these dangerous visitors from the other side, who can kill with a single touch. This psychic Talent fades to nothing as they age, leaving adults basically helpless when it comes to detecting and avoiding ghosts until it's too late. As adults hide inside during the night curfew, children as young as 8 are forced to act as Night Watch or as Agents who risk their lives to fight off ghosts. Mortality rates are high and those who do survive often go on to become supervisors of younger Agents, forced into the position of sending children into mortal danger and being powerless to help them. This is a society dealing with basically the aftermath of an End Ritual and/or being in an End Domain, where death and the fear of death is the major driving force for most people. This fixation on death isn’t just only fear for some; there is also a thriving black market for Sources - objects (usually human remains) that a ghost is tied to and allows them passage into the living world from the Other Side.

MASSIVE spoilers for the final book. Seriously, don’t look if you plan on reading this series (which you absolutely should and also check out the incredibly well done TV adaptation):

*Turns out that the origin of this ghost epidemic was caused by the actions of the supposed “Hero” of The Problem, Marissa Fittes, who was the first one to figure out and codify (and profit from) most defences against ghosts. Her expeditions to the Other Side caused the dead to stir and make their way to the land of the living. She was obsessed with the potential properties of ectoplasm, the substance that ghosts are made of and what makes them so deadly, including immortality. Her frequent incursions into the Other Side to harvest and utilise ectoplasm, continued to greatly escalate The Problem, which only served to increase her wealth and fame as the head of the prestigious Fittes Agency. Despite these constant trips to the realm of the dead rapidly ageing her, her experiments with ectoplasm allowed her spirit to possess the body of her granddaughter on her so-called deathbed. Now posing as her granddaughter, she continues her quest for immortality, escalating The Problem even further, which only increases her fame, fortune and power, giving her more resources to exploit both the dead and the living for her personal gain.

von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang: Erlkönig

A haunting poem about an anxious young boy who is being carried at night by his father on horseback. To where is not spelled out; the German word Hof has a rather broad meaning of "yard", "courtyard", "farm", or (royal) "court". The opening line tells that the time is late and that it is windy.

As the poem unfolds, the son claims to see and hear the "Erlkönig" (Erl-King, lit. 'alder-king'). His father claims to not see or hear the creature, and he attempts to comfort his son, asserting natural explanations for what the child sees – a wisp of fog, rustling leaves, shimmering willows.

The Erl-King attempts to lure the child into joining him, promising amusement, rich clothes, and the attentions of his daughters. Finally, the Erl-King declares that he will take the child by force. The boy shrieks that he has been attacked, spurring the father to ride faster to the Hof. Upon reaching the destination, the child is already dead.

Vonnegut, Kurt: Slaughterhouse-Five

Mostly it's about the non-linearity and the time-fuckery, especially experiencing death well before it actually happens.

Webb, Catherine: Mirror Dreams

"Every dream you've ever had, and every dream yet to come, exists in the Kingdoms of the Void. Every nightmare, too. Because there has to be balance; it's the rules. But the Lords of Nightkeep aren't big on rules; only Conquest, Fear, and Eternal Darkness for All. It takes a powerful wizard like Laenan Kite to keep them in check. But Kite has other worries, and Nightkeep is growing strong. Its Lords hunger for power. And they've turned their gaze towards earth."

Dreams are extremely End-coded and this book takes place in the dreamland. Also certain revelations about one of the characters make this even more End related.

Spoilers: Renna a dreamer turns out to be in a coma in the real world facing the very real possibility that she will get taken off life support.

Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Upon seeing his own striking portrait Dorian Gray is bewitched and offers his soul if only the painting will age while he remains eternally youthful. Believing himself incorruptible, Dorian indulges in a life of pleasure and excess. But what has become of his portrait?

Wolff, Tobias: Bullet in the Brain

The story is about an angry and bitter book critic trapped at a bank during a robbery; when he ridicules the robbers, they shoot him fatally in the head. The rest of the story takes in place in the last few moments before he dies.

Zusak, Markus: The Book Thief

This book is narrated by death. Not a god of death, not some kind of herald of it, the abstract concept of death itself. And death permeates the entire story. The book begins with our protagonist, a young girl living smack-dab in the middle of Nazi Germany name Leisel Meminger watching her younger brother Werner die on their way to their new foster home, and it only gets worse from there. Leisel continually strives to save herself and others from the inevitable destruction and end that awaits them, predominantly, of course, by stealing books, but also eventually by harboring a Jewish man named Max Vandenburg, and it is consistently not enough. I'll spare you most of the details in the hopes of you reading it yourself, but the book ends with our protagonist's home being bombed and the deaths of her foster parents and the boy she loves. Leisel herself dies of old age decades later, and death's final words to her (and arguably to the readers themselves) are "I am haunted by humans".

#leitner tournament #reading list #end poll

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deada55 · 2 years ago

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His Life Will Find A Purpose (When the River Meets the Sea) - Chapter 5

crossposting: ao3

work summary: A nine-year old in Tomahawk, WI gets glaucoma surgery over Christmas break.

chapter summary: An aside about Pickles' third grade teacher, Mrs. Wallace.

tws: Vomit, lots of physical hurt descriptors, animal death, mild gore, referenced corporal punishment

Mrs. Wallace, his teacher, was an older woman who wore her hair short like Liza Minnelli and had a hairy-looking sweater for every season, but her smile was wise and knowing. She gave it to kids who really deserved it, like the whole front row that got As on their spelling tests and finished more than two of their multiplication tables within the span of five minutes. Kids like that. Tim got one, too, when he gave his report on the fish living in Lake Allice. It was a good report: he wrote a whole field-guide, and drew the fish out, with accurate colors and all. Even though the fish weren’t perfect, the general shape of them was uncanny to what they were, and she smiled so richly you’d think it was her birthday.

She was a nice person, he just knew it, but he didn’t trust her. She called the principal on him at the drop of a hat, and it was a miracle he didn’t get a talking-to in the nurses’ office. Mr. Coakley, the principal, walked the halls and said hello to the kids he knew like he didn’t glow a more furious red than his parents, like he couldn’t shout so loud that the veins in his temples pulsed like a monster, like he wouldn’t keep bellowing “Look at me!” while tearful snot ran over your clenched lips. His only redeeming quality were the dry letters he sent home after those horrible encounters that didn’t tattle on Pickles any further than the bare facts of what happened. His parents didn’t have to know how terrible Mr. Coakley could be. They didn’t have to know how he’d rather die than look Mr. Coakley in his mismatched eyes.

On his worst day, a couple months ago, after waking up late, after his diorama broke when Dad hit a cat driving them to school, after forgetting what the book was about and spending his presentation staring at the blood on his shoes, after getting out in kickball and sitting under one of the big beech trees to spend the rest of recess putting on what Mom called a “better face,” here came Mr. Coakley down the hill to the playground with Mrs. Wallace watching from the teachers’ bench, hands folded like a Soviet chess coach. A walk to the gallows would have been more cheerful than his hike through the Red Sea of the other children playing, sojourning to the schoolhouse and then to the office, clenching his teeth

Something else caught Mr. Coakley’s attention, so the secretary had Pickles contained to the itchy yellow bench in the little hall that led to the administrative offices. He waited in front of a white wall with a stuck analog clock and a black scuff at the height of someone’s handbag for what felt like too long and not long enough.

They’d tell him what he did, right? If he had to guess, this was either about his project or about what he said about Gabriel Cash having girly fingernails, even if they had blood under them since he was a nosepicker in a dry-air world.

The anticipation was heavy enough to kill him, and the more he searched for a reason why Mrs. Wallace sic’d the principal on him, the clearer he could imagine the dread of his face looming closer and closer until the smell of mustardy breath and cologne filled the office.

Already, his chest was tightening, and he covered his eyes and cheeks with his hands so the ladies at the front desk couldn’t see him facing his punishment with such indignity. Since the morning had started off so poorly, there was no way his parents would let a referral like this slide. How would he get through the rest of the day without catching another one, for fighting back when he got teased or not listening in class? Everyone on the playground knew he got called into the office… what would he tell them, with a tear-streaked face? They’d all call him a baby, word would get to Seth before the day was done, and he might tell their parents before Pickles could hand them the letter, and then they’d call him a liar as if he’d hidden it from them.

Miss Owens popped her head around the corner and asked if he wanted his inhaler, but the labor it took him to breathe without choking felt like what he deserved. If it took Mr. Coakley this long to gather his evidence, he must be in for it big time. Everyone in the office seemed like they’d rather him not exist; when he lifted his head to respond to Miss Owens, both secretaries and someone’s waiting mother were staring at him.

Her carefully lined lips made an apology knock at the back of his throat like vomit. Ashamed, all he could do was shake his head.

“Are you sure?”

A cough forced its way through, but he smiled at her and found that it helped his eyes dry up a little more.

“Do you want some water, Pickles?”

“No,” Coughing a little harder took the sticky shit out of the back of his throat so he could talk without sounding like he were drowning. “It’s fine.”

“Please tell Mrs. Ferris if you change your mind, ok? Please?”

He nodded, and she left him alone, even though it got harder and harder not to slip into a coughing fit. Just when it felt like there wasn’t room between the hurt in his chest and impending destruction from Mr. Coakley, the events from the morning started to flash over the darkness in his hands. The bloody, hairy smear on the road and his father beating the steering wheel blue were his creation: he woke up ten minutes too late. He broke his own diorama instead of holding his body back when the car lurched. He forgot his presentation. He left the protection of the kickball game and deserted himself like a baby bird on the sidewalk. He made it so easy to get snapped up… maybe he’d die.

Sitting outside the principal's office, that’s all he wanted. He ruined his own life and the good times of everyone around him, and it hurt to disappoint himself. The other kids in his class were sitting around doing what they ought to do at school and here he was on death row, listening to the low sounds of Mr. Coakley on the phone and the open-shut of file cabinets. Even Seth could do that. He glanced up again and saw the same thing: he was a spectacle, an eyesore, a fuckup on a bench.

If God was real, maybe he’d drop dead. If he kept his eyes covered, maybe it’d happen and he’d never open them again. He’d probably go to hell, and no one would care, but at least something would change. It’d either stop hurting or hurt even worse, and the latter option sounded more like the kind of thing that he was in for. Good people didn’t do this. Good people didn’t end up here.

Mr. Coakley popped his head out of the office and Pickles immediately sat himself up correctly. Instead of ushering him into the yellow plastic chair in front of that grand wooden desk, Mr. Coakley looked towards his secretary.

“Did the school board office’s phone codes change?”

“No, sir.” Mrs. Ferris peered over the desk.

“Huh.” He ducked back in and almost had the door closed again-

“Do you still want Pickles?”

“Oh.” He finally gave Pickles a look-over, not with the green eye or the brown eye alone, but with both of ‘em. “Yes, just a minute-” The second hand on the clock flicked like the tongue of a snake. The sound of the door closing right in front of him called back all the tears he’d worked so hard to squash, but when they fell, he knew it was imperative to cover his mouth instead of his eyes if he wanted to do the bare minimum for everyone else in the room.

He was shaking by the time Mrs. Ferris called him up to the desk, and he squeezed his fingers to keep his face plain.

“What happened?”

Oh, dammit… Just when his cheeks had dried, more tears started to fall and a sigh rushed out of him, not an answer.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t want to tell me?”

“I don’t know what I did, honest.”

Mrs. Ferris heard his voice crumble and she held a box of tissues out to him.

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

“Take one just to have, ok? Do it for me.”

He followed instructions just fine.

“He’ll come get you in a little bit, I promise. Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

He shook his head and dabbed at his wet jawline, sucking up a river of mucus.

“No?”

No. He didn’t deserve it.

“Do you want to go sit back down?”

“Yeah.” It hurt to talk and it hurt to be quiet. That was probably the point.

“Go ahead, it’s alright.” She kept her eyes on him in case he keeled over or broke into a run. Mrs. Ferris had worked too long to underestimate the kind of torment waiting for punishment could be for a young heart, not that her pursed lips or her empathy-induced indigestion did Pickles any good.

A horrible, tantruming want to be held burst through Pickles. His own voice kept volleying through his mind, calling for his mom despite how the image of her open arms was always accompanied by a sickened, rancid expression. It never stopped him from wanting her hands, from listening to the sound of her voice when she was on the phone, from smelling her night cream on her pillowcase and wanting his casket to smell the exact same way. He wanted her so bad…

The guilt was the left hook that tortured his cheeks with more salt. No way she would want to see him as much as he wanted to see her. It wasn’t fair how he wanted her when he was at his worst… Down in his heart, he knew she would’ve been happier without him. Just as his cheeks deserved to itch, he deserved the aching emptiness that came with living when he shouldn’t have been born.

Let me die, please let me die, please let me die, please… but it never happened.

“Pickles,” Mr. Coakley opened the door and ushered him in. The sound of his voice was so aversive that Pickles wished he didn’t have a name at all, not even the other one.

Mr. Coakley’s office was different from how he remembered it. With all the paperwork properly stored, a green monogrammed desk pad was visible, and the black leather-bound annual calendar right beside it. A small brown teddy bear sat on the top right corner of the desk, looking towards Mr. Coakley’s creaky yellow swivel chair. Where was the paddle, the one with the holes in it? Pickles couldn’t even find an empty nail on the wall in the split-second he had to look around. Did he forget—

Mr. Coakley had slipped in front of him and sat at the desk, but he left his long legs cartoonishly extended to the side. The bottom of his shoes the wall. Just when Pickles was going to strategically stand by the visitor’s chair, so the effort it took to keep good posture could distract him from Mr. Coakley’s impending transformation, a calm, quiet voice asked him to come forward.

His hand made looping gestures towards the space in front of him. On the way, Pickles stubbed his toe twice: once on the visitor’s chair and again on the desk, but he dared not stumble. The entire world stalled like God himself had dropped a down comforter of snow over the roads, and he couldn’t exhale from his nose any longer. To stay silent, he breathed only as far as he could feel it in back of his mouth, just enough to keep him from getting too lightheaded too quickly.

Pickles’ right thumbnail was longer than the other one, so he jammed it under his left thumbnail now that squeezing and pinching his fingers wasn’t enough to give him some distance from Mr. Coakley’s eyes carefully looking him over with a serious, soft expression. Oh, was he a sadist! He made him wait so long, just to trick him into telling on himself in front of his “nice”, “caring” princi-PAL.

Looking dead into his ugly face, Mr. Coakley teased Pickles’ hands apart and held them in his own, fingers curled around fingers. The only pressure came from the weight of Mr. Coakley’s thumb skating across his knuckles. For Pickles, felt like the split second an animal’s body gets sucked underneath a tire, like the moment his leg breaks and running from the accident stops being an option. It felt like his hair and freckles were getting snatched up in the links of a snow chain and the bluish sidewalk salt in the gutter was embedded into his stripped, skinless flesh. And his green eye would look upward at the sky, empty and made object, pointed upward past who dared to look down at him, whoever was still sporting a smear of wet paste and glitter on his shirt, whoever could suddenly smell it as something thick and wet ran over his upper lip and into his mouth.

Mr. Coakley kept his voice soft as Pickles shifted from red to white like a sea creature’s camoflaging. “Pickles, are you alright?”

He was trying so hard not to wail through his open lips. He breathed through the scant allowance his left nostril could allow now that it’d involuntarily relieved itself, but his teeth were still a hair’s distance away from clattering against each other (since his hands were occupied, the energy had to go somewhere or he’d burst.)

The teddy bear on the desk kept stealing his eyes away, but the shades of his fur left his face a blurry, uncertain spot. Yet it looked and it had some kind of expression on its face; it had to. Without being able to see it, something in Pickles knew it was looking, and every organ in his chest curdled like cottage cheese. It just kept happening, everything went worse and worse…

“Is there something you’d like to talk about?”

At least he got a breath in, one shaky breath that stuttered into him in stages but was quiet enough not to mortify him. This was the hard part. This was the moment Mr. Coakley would change into a monster and cut a hole in Pickles’ head just big enough to suck his brains out with a gigantic butterfly’s tongue. This was the question he didn’t know the answer to. This was the trap.

He didn’t have anything to say but “No.”

Instead of jumping in with what he’d done, Mr. Coakley looked off to the side and changed his gentle hold on Pickles’ fingers, even though they were slightly tacky with kickball dirt and wet-tissue residue.

Pickles looked at the teddy bear again and started to rehearse how he’d keep from screaming if Mr. Coakley bent back and broke his fingers all at once.

The very second he felt too helpless not to cry out, Mr. Coakley made another offering. “Do you need to go to the nurse?”

“No, sir.” Gravelly, choked, and sour, the sound of his voice said the opposite, but an inhaler couldn’t save him now. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding and fluttering this whole time, and it didn’t need to get worse. But his whole chest was on fire… how many people had offered it to him today?

The principal searched for anything but terror in Pickles’ face and came up with nothing. He pressed his lips and slowly dropped his hands, which Pickles wiped against his pants like his legs were vanishing.

“Alright, Pickles, you’re alright… Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

“No.” Getting out from in front of the principal sounded great.

“Well, you can go back to class. Miss Owens’ office is open if you want to, uh, to clean yourself up. Goodbye, Pickles.”

Pickles left the office feeling like he’d escaped Alcatraz only to be at the mercy of the cold San Francisco Bay. The class would all know he’d been crying, without question. In the reflection of the trophy case, he looked like a stuffed up baby doll head sporting a patchy coat of red spray paint.

He came back to the room and slipped into his seat with his head low. Mrs. Wallace did a double-take, but let her look! She called Mr. Coakley to the playground. She knew what she was doing.

There were only thirty minutes before they went home, so Mrs. Wallace passed out some popsicle sticks and lengths of yarn and helped them make spiderweb God’s eye things by lashing the popsicle sticks together and tying knots on the sticks to weave a web for a plastic spider. He finished early and laid his head down to hide his face. Everyone was looking now that they we just crafting, and if they weren’t tying the spiders to strings and flinging them at each other, they were staring at him.

He heard Mrs. Wallace’s footsteps behind him and brought his arms in tighter, but all she did was offer him a lingering pat on the back.

December brought with it a Christmas letter-writing project; Mrs. Wallace loved little seasonal activities. Their letters were proofread and made to be correct as part of their Language Arts grade, but after she’d approved their final draft, they got to decorate the letters with stickers and markers. Pickles tried to keep his letter tasteful, and used a couple stickers of holly bundles around the P.S. and the signature, and in the top-left corner like printed stationery. Hopefully, it actually made it to Santa like Mrs. Wallace said. Handing it over to her felt like throwing it in the trash.

Hopefully, Santa would get ‘em. Mrs. Wallace took them to send off. If it was just his in her hands, he’d know it wouldn’t get anywhere. She probably hated him by now, after throwing up in her class. He didn’t look at her face, but it was probably the same one she had when Tim put a clementine-sized ball of chewed gum in the palm of her lotiony hand. But she asked for it, and she should’ve been honored: Tim made the biggest gum balls in school. It probably would’ve beaten last year’s if she hadn’t thrown it away. It was the size of a multicolored clementine after only a month!

She’d treat his letter just the same as that wad of gum if it weren’t in the same stack as the rest of the class.

Santa usually stopped in Merrill’s new department store built on the site of an old paper plant. It wasn’t a big, real Macy’s or anything, and it wasn’t the real Santa either. It couldn’t be: there’s just too many Macy’s and Sears’ of the world to stop anywhere north of Milwaukee. One of the kids at school made a really good point a couple years ago that maybe the Santas in shopping centers were spies. After all, Santa probably didn’t have a good phone line up in the North Pole, and little kids couldn’t really write letters like older ones did. Mrs. Wallace had them write their letters in class this year, with a proper “Dear Santa,” and an official salutation, a return address, the right grammar…

Letters were his only shot at Santa. When he was two, he screamed so loudly at Santa that the whole family got dismissed from his sight. Although he didn’t remember it, his mother was convinced he hated him, so he never went with Seth to see Santa. Every year, he ended up waiting outside, or in the lobby, or around the corner up against a wall.

A well written letter to Santa was the secret to getting much of anything, but on top of choosing such a delicate format, he had no idea what he wanted. He’d taken a big gamble, but he didn’t know what else to ask for other than a puppy. It was a desperate, halfbrained move he’d made after drinking a whole bottle of Almond extract he snuck into his backpack in the two minutes between the science lesson and recess. It was a terrible choice, but he felt obligated to himself to carry it out. He wrote that letter not just for Santa, but for himself. He had to do what he could, or he’d kick himself when Santa left him behind.

He’d need to be on his best behavior or he’d lose what little luck he could get out of Santa as it was. Seth always had it better on Christmas morning, but he was also the one who went for a personal audience. That’s what adults did, wasn’t it? You just gotta get “in” with the right people to get anywhere.

And he was out. The letter was his best shot.

#my writing #metalocalypse #metalocalypse fanfic #pickles the drummer #preklok

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rviner · 1 year ago

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Name: Theodora 'Teddy' Prescott

Age & Birthday: 22 years old, Sept 2nd 2001

Gender/Pronouns: Cis Woman She/Her

Birthplace: In a camper somewhere in New Mexico

Time in Hollow Cove: Traveling there

Species: Werewolf - Jones Pack

Role: tbd.

Positive personality traits: direct, passionate, confident

Negative personality traits: intense, stubborn, guarded

ABOUT

Teddy came into the world like a firework and remained like a spark for rest of the years that followed. She was a sudden arrival that took both her mother and father by surprise, so much of a shock that it's still not certain where exactly she was born, Teddy hearing the story every year on her birthday how her dad had to pull their busted up camper to the side of the road in New Mexico because they both thought Phoebe was going to die.

For the first two years of Teddy's life, it was just the three of them and her parents had trouble finding a pack that would take them in until eventually they learned about the Jones' in Georgia. Most of Teddy's memories consist of Blue River Ranch, and she sees every Jones member as family. Her personality became a decent mix of all of the ones around her. Her father's passionate and dedicated ways, her mothers stubbornness and the Jones' sparkiness.

She wasn't the worst or most troublesome kid in the world but Teddy, more often than not, had her parents coming down to the principals office to talk through a few issues. It was usually her mouth that got her into trouble, always speaking a bit too directly- and mostly saying things that she considered true but other people didn't like hearing.

The world was going to be her oyster, because thanks to the abundance of confidence instilled in her from Phoebe and Luke since she was young, Teddy was ready to grab life by the horns. Engineering was her calling, but before she could even begin to build a future the whole world as she knew it changed. The death of her father still weighs heavy on her shoulders, almost unable to grieve properly before being captured and separated from the rest of the Jones pack with her mother. The previous three years have hardened Teddy, almost put out the spark that always made her her. Being liberated four months ago and traveling to Canada in hopes of reuniting with the rest of the pack is hopeful but hasn't done much to lighten Teddy's newfound constantly bitter and somber moods. She's grateful for Taliah and Gabriel, knowing that sticking with them was the best decision but she just wants to go home. She's still not ready to accept that she's lost her father and home doesn't really exist for anybody anymore.

#intro.teddy

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chronicallylatetotheparty · 3 years ago

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Float Like A Butterfly... Ch.6 ...Sting Like A Bee

Summary: An unexpected ally appears before Marinette. The only problem is, he's stumbled onto something he shouldn't have. And she needs it back.

---------------------------------

Marinette was having a terrible day.

First she shows up late with the principal accessory of the Gabriel line's Fashion Week showing. Fashion Week! Marinette was looking forward to it all month!

Next Audrey Bourgeois, Style Queen herself, treats the hat Marinette worked so hard on like gum on the bottom of her shoe. Sure Adrien had been super encouraging but he hadn't seen the look of utter contempt on Audrey Bourgeois face. No one could look that disgusted all the time!

Speaking of Adrien, he didn't make getting over him any easier by being so kind.

And if that wasn't enough Marinette's brain insisted on using Chat Noir's Miraculous to fight the akumatized villain. Again! She didn't want to think about Chat Noir right now because... Because... Marinette blinked rapidly. Deep breath... Because thinking about Chat Noir was painful.

But that wasn't even the worst part.

"Don't worry, Tikki. We'll get the box right after the show," Marinette stage whispered so as to not alert her parents. Who walked not even a meter away.

Tikki let out a concerned whine. Oh, this was a bad idea. She could feel it. Marinette was right that they couldn't get away from her parents beforehand. But that only made Tikki even more anxious to get searching. And Marinette really didn't need something else to worry about on top of... everything else.

She hoped no one found it.

----------------

Chloe's day was ridiculous. Utterly, ridiculous!

She sat next to her mother as Adrien walked down the runway. Lingering dread squashed and thrown into the very back of her mental walk-in closet where she kept unimportant things. Like shoes she never wore anymore, problematic outfits and lingering guilt that totally wasn't her's. Adrien wasn't slowly disintegrating anymore so why dwell on the past?

Adrien's performance was flawless and Chloe was absolutely certain she appreciated his efforts more than anyone else... Even if Alya Cesaire was livestreaming.

The show went off without a hitch. Adrien seemed fine but then he was almost as good at pretending as she was. Chloe eyed him as Gabriel's lackey, um, assistant pulled him along. Not physically, of course. It was more of a metaphorical pulling.

Ugh, Gabriel Agreste started talking with Chloe's mother through his assistant's tablet. Like, yeah, apologizing to the Queen of Style was a no brainer. But he could have at least come in person! Not like Gabriel was doing anything important besides being the world's richest hermit.

... And Dupain-Cheng was there too. Of course she was. At least her mother would put Dupain-Cheng in her place. Chloe felt herself smirk at the thought.

Adrien raised an eyebrow. As though reading her mind.

Chloe pretended not to notice. No petty satisfactions here! No, sir! But it wasn't like the Queen of Style was going to say anything about Dupain-Cheng's hat except-

"It's the most exceptional thing I've ever seen!" Audrey Bourgeois announced.

Exact- Wait, what!?

"You're a visionary, Marinette! Glitter's had its day..."

Chloe's ears rang, drowning out her mother's voice. Exceptional? Her? Over a- a- a hat!? A vice squeezed Chloe's chest with cruel precision. When her own present was rejected without even unwrapping it!? Chloe's fists shook as she bit her tongue.

"Isn't that nice for your friend, Chloe dearest?" Andre Bourgeois asked.

"It's ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!" Chloe whirled on her mother. "I've never been to New York with you and you're taking Marinette Dupain-Cheng!?" She spat.

"I'm afraid I have a last minute meeting to attend, my dear Audrey," Gabriel announced from the tablet. "Nathalie, bring Adrien home immediately."

Adrien's attention snapped from Chloe to Gabriel. "But, Father, I-"

"Do not embarrass me in front of the Bourgeois," Gabriel snapped, ending the call.

Jaw clenching shut, Adrien stared at nothing with stormy eyes as Nathalie led him away.

"I'm taking her because she's exceptional, Claudette. Uh- Chloe," Audrey stated matter-of-factly, the Agrestes already forgotten.

"I'm exceptional too!" Chloe shot back.

Audrey inspected her white gloves, bored of this exchange. "The only exceptional thing about you, my dear-" Audrey deigned to glance at her daughter. "-is your mother."

Chloe's blood boiled as she shook off Andre's hands on her shoulders, standing straighter. "I'll show you how exceptional I can be!" she promised.

Just as an akuma entered Chloe's present.

---------------

Alya was having an amazing day!

Her livestreams hadn't gotten this many new views since she almost got sacrificed by Pharaoh. The Ladyblog's activity was up. And Ladybug chose her as the Black Cat!

Sure it was weird that Ladybug didn't want to talk about it. But still! Black Cat! Alya tried to contain her grin as she thought about being Ladybug's partner for a day...

Her pace on the sidewalk slowed, enthusiasm dampening a little... Setting her face in determination Alya skipped into gear. All the more reason to piece together what happened! And she'd start with-

A burst of yellow light shot forth from the Grand Palais. Jolting Alya out of her thoughts as the newest akuma victim gave their villain speech from the roof.

"I am Queen Glitter! And from now on the only exceptional person in Paris will be me!"

Alya ran... straight for the villain who was obviously Chloe as she summoned a cloud of glitter and shapped it into a collection of accessories. The constructs restricting the movement of whoever they landed on. Scarves wrapping people's legs together or tying them to lampposts. Hats covering people's eyes as they tried to yank them off. There was even someone with his hands stuck in high heels. Queen Glitter made a giant floating scarf to stand on and took off in a random direction; leaving a trail of gaudy accessories in her wake.

Great. It was going to take forever to catch up to her now! Taking cover in an alleyway so Queen Glitter's sparkly formal wear wouldn't notice her, Alya scanned the street. Mentally kicking herself for not having recorded the villain speech for the Ladyblog.

"Looks like you're raring to go," Ladybug observed as she landed next to Alya. A familiar box in her hand.

"Ladybug! Didn't think I'd be helping out again so soon!" Alya held out her palm and Ladybug placed the Black Cat Miraculous in her hands again.

"Y'know the drill, right?" Ladybug's eyes wandered to the people in various states of running-for-their-lives.

"Give it back when we're done and don't take it personally," Alya paraphrased as Plagg emerged in a ball of light when she placed the ring on her finger.

"Ladyblog girl again?” Plagg gave her a once over. Ears flat against his head but swishing tail betraying his apprehension. "Well, at least Alya's not blue boy."

“He wasn’t that-“ Ladybug shook her head. “Y’know what, never mind.”

Glancing between them Alya filed that tidbit away for later. "C'mon, Plagg. We did great together!"

"You were okay," Plagg acknowledged. "Could've used more cat puns."

Alya chuckled. Of course he'd like those. With a -slightly forced- encouraging smile from Ladybug, Alya called out: “Plagg, transforme-moi!”

Green lightning traveled from Chat Noir’s ring across both arms and down her torso. A green sash wrapping around her waist and trailing into a tail. Running her clawed gloves through her hair as cat ears materialized. Said hair puffing up into an afro. Armor padding her shoulders and torso. Alya flexed her fingers to get used to the feeling. Chat Ombre's suit still felt strange on her skin compared to Rena Rouge.

Ladybug leapt onto the rooftops and Chat Ombre followed her lead. Racing towards the villain while avoiding her glitter. "So what's the plan?"

"Queen Glitter is basically a reskin of Style Queen," Ladybug thought aloud.

"But without that annoying habit of turning into a cloud!" Chat Ombre supplied.

Ladybug launched her yo-yo at a pedestrian and yanked him away from Queen Glitter's constructs as they passed by. "But she can spread her power over a wider area."

"Don't worry, Ladybug. We'll be- Look out!" Alya tackled Ladybug out of the way as a trio of glittery top hats zoomed past.

"Your reign is over Ladybug and wannabe Chat Noir!" Queen Glitter announced as she floated over them. Her appearance was similar to Style Queen except her crown was even bigger and gaudier. A foux glitter scarf around her shoulders. "I don't even care if you don't give me your Miraculous! I'll simply immobilize you and take them by force!"

They evaded a flurry of coats by jumping down to the street. "Really?" Chat Ombre called out. "That all you can throw at us? A tacky outfit?"

"Wouldn't be the first time!" Ladybug agreed.

"No one ever appreciates my gifts!" Queen Glitter stomped her foot. "Fine then. Why don't we try something more expensive!" Raising her hands she lifted two cars wrapped with giant bows into the air.

Alya's eyes widened. "Oh, shi-" Chat Ombre evaded Chloe's attacks as the villain played wack-a-chat. Glitter accessories flying in and attempting to restrict their movements as well.

Ladybug wrapped one of the vehicles with her yo-yo and spun it back at Queen Glitter.

The bright red sports car hurled towards her and- She stopped it with the palm of her hand. "You'll have to do better than that if- Where'd you go!?" Queen Glitter scanned the empty street, rising higher for a better vantage point.

Chat Ombre locked eyes with her for a second before a chimney obscured her line of sight. "Somehow I don't think that bought us much time." Alya voiced as a wave of clothing rose over the city.

Ladybug spotted a strip of blue between the rooftops. Thinking quickly, Marinette grabbed Alya's hand and turned them towards the Seine. Diving into its waters with a torrent of glitter in their wake.

Queen Glitter's constructs crashed into the river and washed away with the current.

Chat Ombre made for the surface once it was clear but Ladybug pulled her back. Chat's staff in her hand and yo-yo on her face. Pointing towards the magic tool Ladybug offered it to Alya.

Nodding, Alya quickly pressed it to her lips and took a deep breath, sweet oxygen filling her lungs. Giving Ladybug a thumbs up once she didn't feel like her chest was on fire.

Grabbing her hand Ladybug led Alya further upstream until they found a boat.

Gasping the (relatively) fresh air Alya examined Chat's staff. "I didn't know it could do that."

"Yeah, the Miraculous are full of surprises. And we'll need one of our own to beat Queen Glitter. Lucky Charm!"

A spotted snorkel fell into Ladybug's hands.

"Don't we already have one of those?" Chat Ombre asked.

Ladybug's brow furrowed as she stared at it. "Yeah... Wait, Queen Glitter's powers don't work underwater!"

"So, all we need to do is get her there!"

Ladybug glanced at a pair of recycling bins. "And I know just how to sneak up on her."

Chat Ombre grinned. She liked this plan.

---------------

Chat Ombre hated this plan!

It had all gone smoothly. The glitter constructs ignoring the recycling bins they used as disguises. Snake style. Chloe was dumbfounded when she saw them. Enough to let them take the elevator up to the Grand Paris' rooftop where Queen Glitter set up her makeshift throne. Giving them the opportunity to tackle her towards the Seine.

Unfortunately, Queen Glitter could make constructs of any size. Like, for example, a wide brimmed hat big enough to stretch from either bank of the Seine.

"You were going to make me wear this?" Queen Glitter held up the Lucky Charm- "No thanks!" -and struck it across her knee.

Alya winced as the villain broke Ladybug's insta-win button in half. "Please, tell me you have a plan?" Chat Ombre glanced at the spotted hero currently wrapped up in an extra long scarf just like she was. The floating constructs squeezing just a little bit more as Ladybug struggled against them. Alya tried bending her wrist to Cataclysm her restraints but her right hand was held away from the rest of her body.

"No planning! Not that it'll do you any good. I've already won! Me! Queen Glitter! MWAHAHAHAH- Do you mind? I'm trying to savour the moment!" Chloe snapped as Papillon's emblem glowed over her face.

Alya's head turned from an increasingly frantic Ladybug to the annoyed villain.

"Of course I'm going to take their Miraculous! Why wouldn't I take their Miraculous?"

"An excellent question, your Highness!"

Three pairs of eyes snapped towards the source of the unexpected voice.

"... Who the heck are you supposed to be?" Queen Glitter demanded.

"Aristos! At your service!" He bowed with a flourish, giving Alya a good look at the bee shaped comb at the base of his ponytail. Blond hair highlighted with black stripes. Goggles obscuring his face, making his green eyes hard to read despite the grin on his lips. Suit mostly yellow with black, V-shaped stripes on his torso, forearms and lower legs. Three hexagons on his chest giving the impression of honeycombs.

"No no no no no no." Ladybug stared at Aristos, not realizing that she was speaking aloud.

...Well, that can't be good, Alya thought.

"Ha! Did you really think more insects would help, Ladybug?" The villain mocked. Her constructs closing in on the interloper.

Aristos' smile took on a darker edge. "I'm not with her, your Majesty. I'm here to pledge myself to the most exceptional Queen I've ever seen! Really, where does Papillon get off talking to such a glittery figure as your Highness like that?"

Alya blinked. Really? Even Chloe wouldn't fall for-

Raising her hand the villain halted her constructs' advance. "Hmm, well at least you know how to treat royalty." Queen Glitter offered her bejeweled fingers. "I guess you can be my underling."

Ah. Right. Never underestimate the power of Chloe's ego.

The Bee, Alya was ninety-nine percent sure he was the Bee, took Chloe's offered hand and leaned down. Lips hovering over the back of her hand. "Oh! That reminds me your Highness, I have a gift for you."

Queen Glitter's eyes shone. "A present? For me? It better be the latest- Ow! I'm getting to that!" She snapped at Papillon, looking away from the Bee to glare at the absent supervillain.

Aristos removed the striped top Alya recognized as his Miraculous tool from around his waist.

"You didn't beat them! I did!"

Casually, carefully, Aristos placed his top on Queen Glitter's hand. Point against her glittering skin.

"You couldn't do it yourself so you sent me!"

"Venom," the Bee breathed.

"What was-"

Queen Glitter froze as Aristos' top glowed; his power paralyzing her. The constructs bursting into clouds of glitter. Chat Ombre landed in a crouch as her restraints vanished.

"It worked." Aristos sounded as surprised as Alya felt. "It worked! Yes! Nailed it!" He pumped his fist as relief overflowed and- Was he crying?. "Independent hero debut successful!"

"What?" Ladybug was staring at the Bee apprehensively and that didn't help Alya's nerves.

Aristos' mood instantly became more subdued. Blinking rapidly to get the water out of his eyes. "Oh, right. You're still here."

Chat Ombre tried not to take that personally. He did just save them, after all.

Ladybug stepped forward. Voice even, diplomatic. Never mind that she seemed this close to freaking out. "Listen, Aristos was it? I don't know how you found that Miraculous but you have to give it back."

His face was disturbingly neutral. "...Don't I get a 'thank you' for saving the day?"

The tension in Ladybug's shoulders wouldn't budge. "Thank you, but I really need that Miraculous back." She held out her hand.

Aristos stared at Ladybug's hand like it was something alien. Cracks appearing in his facade. "Yeah, pass." Walking backwards, away from Ladybug and Chat Ombre, he kept them in his field of vision.

"Wh- The- Y-you can't just decide that!" Ladybug sputtered, stepping forward.

"Just did! How do I even know this Miraculous is even yours?" Aristos asked, increasing the distance between them.

Alya got the distinct impression that he was bullshitting them.

"I'm the one who lost it!"

Alya's eyes widened. "You lost a Miraculous?"

"Not helping, Chat!"

Aristos' features twitched, eyes narrowing. "Sure you say it's yours but how do I know that?"

Chat Ombre bristled at the implication. "Ladybug is the Hero of Paris!"

Aristos gave her a once-over, his expression inscrutable, but said nothing.

Wow. Rude.

"That Miraculous belongs to the G- to me."

"That's interesting because I say it belongs to me." Aristos laid a hand on his chest. "Looks like it's your word against mine. Guess which one I'm choosing?"

Ladybug's yo-yo was suddenly spinning in her hand. "I swear, I'm not gonna lose another-"

An insistent beeping from Ladybug's earrings interrupted her.

"Welp! Love to stay and dance but it looks like you two need to buzz off before your precious identities are exposed to little old me."

Why did he sound bitter? Everything about him made Alya's head spin with questions. Not least of which being how the heck someone holding the Bee Miraculous showed up in the first place.

Taking his top, Aristos hopped onto the edge of the Grand Paris' roof. "Might want to deal with her before that happens."

Alya looked to where he was pointing to see Queen Glitter still paralyzed. When she glanced back at the Bee he was gone.

---------------

Adrien's day sucked.

Paris Fashion Week was always a chore but this year was even worse. Despite having friends around he felt lonelier than ever. Getting to talk to Marinette only helped so much. Adrien was still expected to plaster on a smile and represent 'the brand'.

And that was before he got turned into a freaking statue!

At least it's better than mind control.

Shut up!

He did not want to see Ladybug or her new partner up close and personal! Thank you, very much! But like always what Adrien wanted didn't matter.

Imagine his surprise when a Miraculous practically falls into his lap. A familiar glow blooming in his chest against all reason as Adrien opens the box.

"Hello, my King," the unknown, bee-like kwami greets formally.

There's a turning in his stomach that Adrien tries his best to calm it. "H-hi! I'm Adrien. What's your name?"

"I am Pollen," she bowed. "Kwami of Subjection. An honor to meet you. It has been a long time since I've had a king."

"Just Adrien is fine." Taking the Miraculous, a comb of all things, out of it's box Adrien stares at it. It's disguise all black and only vaguely shaped like a bee compared to the details he glimpsed before Pollen came out.

"Of course, my King."

Adrien sighed. Pollen was nothing like Plagg. Then again, Adrien wasn't sure the world could survive two of him. The lazy little jerk was enough to drive any Guardian mad all by himself... God, he missed Plagg.

"Um, anyway, how does your power work?"

Pollen clapped her small appendages together. "It's very straightforward, my King. You simply call out 'Venom' and your top will activate. Then strike your opponent with the point and they'll be paralyzed for however long you desire." She whooshed toward him for emphasis.

"Paralyze..." That was certainly more straightforward than using Cataclysm.

'Cause you sucked at that, didn't you?

Shut up. This was... What was he doing? When Adrien held the Bee in his hands he felt... Alive. Like a promise that things could be better this time around.

Adrien jumped as insistent knocking on his changing room door startled him out of his thoughts.

"M. Agreste? Mme. Sancoeur says we're back on in five."

"Be right out!" Brushing the Miraculous with his thumb to make sure it was really there Adrien placed it in his pocket. Hesitating for a moment he offered his jacket to Pollen.

Nodding, she zoomed into Plagg's old hiding place.

Taking a deep breath, Adrien opened the door. "Let's get this over with."

---------------

Adrien ran off as soon as Papillon's mark appeared on Chloe's face. Catching Marinette doing the same from the corner of his eye. Glass raining down as Queen Glitter broke through the Grand Palais' roof.

Pollen zipping out as he tied his hair into a makeshift ponytail. Holding it in place with the Bee Miraculous.

"Quickly, my King! Say 'Pollen, transforme-moi'!"

Adrien stared at her. He could hear screaming as people ran.

"My King!"

His oldest friend just got akumatized for the second time.

"My King!"

All he had to do was speak!

"Adrien!"

His knees shook as his back hit the wall behind him for support. "But... I wasn't chosen."

Pollen floated higher as her eyes widened in surprise. "Weren't you given my Miraculous?"

Adrien shook his head. "I f-found it... After giving up the Black Cat."

This time Pollen dipped as she nearly fell out of the air. "Chat Noir."

Adrien shook his head even more emphatically. Hands going up to cover his face. "N-no! Not him! Can't be him!" he choked.

Pollen laid her hand on his and Adrien tensed at the touch. "My King."

Something in her voice made Adrien look at her.

"You wish to help, do you not?"

"... Yes."

Pollen's eyes softened. "Then help."

Adrien stared at her. So sure that she'd want nothing to do with him once she knew what a failure he was... But that wasn't the case.

Rising shakily to his feet Adrien gave Pollen a grateful smile. "Pollen, transforme-moi'."

----------------

Aristos panted as he glanced up from the alleyway. Spotting no pursuers. "Pollen, detransforme-moi."

Landing on Adrien's outstretched palms, Pollen beamed tiredly at him. "Excellent work, my King."

Adrien smiled back. "Oh! What do you eat? Plagg loves Camembert but..."

"That would be fine. However, I prefer something sweeter."

"Yeah..." A weight settled on his chest. "Let's see what we can find..."

Pollen frowned. "Is something wrong, my King?"

Adrien avoided her gaze. What was he supposed to say? That disobeying Ladybug felt wrong? That he almost let his guilt and resentment make him say cruel things to his replacement? That his heart wouldn't stop pounding? "It's just... Do you want to go back?"

Pollen blinked.

"You're supposed to listen to the Guardian, right?" Adrien bit his lip as his heart tried jumping up his throat. "It's not fair of me to keep you if you want to go back."

Pollen sat up on his palms. "I have been in the Miracle Box for a long time, my King. I can think of worse things than spending what time I have outside it with you."

Adrien's eyes burned as he wiped away tears. "Thanks, Pollen."

Ladybugs swirled in the sky as they repaired the city.

"Of course, my King," Pollen smiled.

"Call me Adrien."

"Yes, my King."

Adrien sighed. A smile coming to his lips. Looks like Aristos was sticking around for a while.

-----------------------------

Retroactively giving Black Cat Alya an afro.

#bee!adrien #bee miraculous #adrien agreste #canon divergence #canon divergent au #ml au #ml fanfic #queen wasp #kinda #ml #miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #chloe bourgeois #alya cesaire

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mayonnaisetoffees · 3 years ago

Text

Mayo's Fic Recs

List of my favourite fics below the cut; this list is a WIP and completely personal taste; a mix of fandom classics and lesser knowns

Please remember to leave comments and kudos for the authors and podficcers!

*shows particular favourites

Fandoms currently included: Spn, Merlin, Les Mis, BatFam

Fics That Changed Me Fundamentally

Loaded March*** by Footloose. Merlin | E | 1.26M(Series)/ 35k (First part) | 188k hits (First part)

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can’t keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn’t good enough, either. Except he is.

You can read all about my thoughts on Loaded March here, here, and here. Basically this fic series is beautifully written, has absolutely delicious UST, has found family, magic, and high stakes. It’s been part of my life for almost a decade now, I made friends through LM that I still have to this day, and it genuinely changed me as a person. Plus there are 78k of Extras to itch that I Finished Now What scratch. Parts 1-5 have been podficced and you can find them in works inspired by this one in each part.

Down to Agincourt*** by Seperis. Supernatural | E | 1.12M(Series)/ 154k (First part) | 73k hits (First part)

The world’s already over and they’re already dead. All they’re doing now is marking time until the end.

S7!Dean is transported back to the aftermath of where 5x04 The End left off. Much like LM, DtA was one that I avoided for a while. I didn’t think it would be my thing. I’m not usually into End!verse, it sounded so bleak from the summary, and it sounded so long for something I wasn’t sure about. If you’re reading this and nodding along? You are as much a fool as I was. Yes, it’s the end of the world. But it’s not over yet. This is a beautiful journey in what it means to be yourself, how to survive the end of the world, a How-To for Coups, and a study in food as a love language. I only read this fic this year, but like LM, it has genuinely changed me. Map of the World has been podficced.

Supernatural

Let’s start with the current hyperfixation. All of these are at least passively Dean/Cas unless otherwise stated. I've split into ones from my first time around in the SPN fandom and more recent ones because the vibes are actually really different and it took me some time to adjust (Not in a bad way! In a time has passed they have grown as characters way)

Old-School SPN (AKA the Classics my first time around)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Home in Motion* by nomdeplume13 M | 232k | 48k hits

Castiel swore he was done with spur of the moment decisions that permanently changed Dean Winchester's life. A year after the angel's most disastrous, his newest may present the largest challenge of dean's life: Fatherhood.

Did someone say kid!fic in canonverse? This is perfect. Canon divergence from the end of S6. Cas saves a baby from a neglectful mother and gives him to Dean to raise. They all move in with Bobby. Great OCs. Bobby considers Cas his son. Listen everything I say here will not be able to begin to encompass how much I love this fic. Just trust me on this one.

Named* by RC_McLachlan M | 95k | 95k hits

Jesus Christ is dead. Somehow, that isn't the worst part of Dean's week.

With a summary like that, need I say more? No but I'm gonna. This is one of the funniest fics I've ever read, but it doesn't take any emotion from the serious moments, if anything it heightens them. There are so many quotes from this I think about all the time. It was written in 2010 and so there's a bit of misogyny/character assassination of Anna in places.

Second Childhood by CloudyJenn (read by exmanhater) G | 16k (1h30) | 10k hits

"Dude, I can't do this whole thing by myself," Dean said with far more desperation leaking into his tone than he liked. It would just be too much to make it through hell and death and Lucifer only to have Castiel bail on him because of a frigging baby.

They beat the Apocalypse (OG-S5) and then Sam gets de-aged by a spell. I've listened to this so many times I know it by heart, it's an ultimate comfort fic to me.

Defy Any and All Expectation* by Tenoko1 (read by Tenoko1) M | 138k (14hrs) | 37k hits

Chuck's newly released books tell of another war between Heaven and Hell. Team Free Will sets out to try to defy prophecy, only to realize there is a lot more at stake and amiss than the not-quite-accurate words of one Prophet of the Lord. Along the way, Dean and Cas' relationship continues to evolve into something neither expected or were prepared for, all of their lives transforming in ways no one could have expected. But with no shortage of cases, monsters, and mayhem, it's going to require the help of new friends and old enemies if they're to have a hope of saving the world one more time. Alternate Season Six.

So this is a re-written version of Tenoko1's The Path We Choose which I don't think is around anymore. By the time I was reading the re-write as each chapter came out, I knew every single line of TPWC and it wasn't all that much shorter. It's such a perfect canon divergence because they are all 100% in-character. If you're into podfic, you already know what an absolute gift 14 hours is, but if you have never tried podfic before, Tenoko1 is a fantastic place to start. Her voice is soothing and energetic and her Cas sometimes comes to mind when I'm reading fic in Misha's place (sorry Misha)

His Fucking Kids 'Verse by 8sword M | 96k(Series)/ 3k (first part) | 26k hits (first part)

Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, “Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters,” because Dean’s getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.

Emma survives and Dean and Cas are raising her and Claire. This fic series will make you laugh, make you cry, and (nowadays) make you wish Emma had survived to be a part of Wayward Sisters.

One Species Too Many by wallmakerrelict E | 22k | 37k hits

While Dean is laid up for a month after breaking his leg on a hunt, Cas decides that it's a perfect time to adopt a litter of kittens. But even though he's gotten better since Purgatory, Cas still isn't quite the same as he was before fixing Sam's head, and being trapped in a cabin with him for weeks on end is making that all the more obvious to Dean. When Sam takes off on a hunt, Dean has to figure out on his own how to navigate his new relationship with Cas while also helping to raise a bunch of fuzzballs that aren't even cute. Not even a little bit. (Well, maybe a little bit.)

Dean breaks his legs, and honey!Cas brings home some kittens to foster. It's achingly sweet and also painful because you know Dean wants to fix Cas but there's nothing to fix. It is tagged for ableism for this.

Tripping* by Hatteress E | 49k | 78k hits

That time the universe decided Dean belonged with Cas and wasn't afraid to pull out the big guns to make it so. Big guns in this case being obsessive fangirls, archangels turned tricksters and overly enthusiastic cupids. Welcome to Dean's life.

Alt!S5 and it is beautiful. Also any fic with Missouri is an automatic win.

Broadway Musical by Grifitings M | 12k | 79k hits

This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle. The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at. Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

Jimmy deserves a sainthood and frankly I don't even want to hear about crack if it's not on the level of the Host yelling at Cas not to touch the butt.

Classic AUs (AKA AUs from my first time around)

Try Something Tuesday by almaasi E | 48k | 144k hits

Dean Winchester teaches a third-grade class. He's new to this whole ‘bisexual’ thing - but by pure happenstance, he meets Castiel: a particularly dapper male librarian who moonlights as a substitute teacher. Dean's curious and Castiel is willing, so why the hell not? Except, fate never intended it to be one-time-only...

This was one of the first spn fics to really really stay with me and it never really left.

Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar by ChasingRabbits E | 127k(Series)/ 8k (Part1) | 29k hits (Part1)

Ellen and Jo Harvelle run Harvelle's Roadhouse, a bar that unintentionally becomes a beacon for wayward queer souls. Her employees: Dean, the smartass runaway with a big heart and bigger mouth; Castiel, the college drop-out turned hippie; his (surprisingly heterosexual) trouble-making brother Gabriel; and Charlie, who has been told several times that the back room is not to be used for after-hours Dungeons & Dragons games. But there's a lot of love in this place, and a new family for anyone who may otherwise be without.

This series. If you've ever felt unsure or out of place or anxious or just really felt like no-one understood you, this fic is for you. I first found this series when I was coming to terms with my queerness and I genuinely think it was invaluable. Also I am a sucker for the go for a dinner at Cas's family and end up storming out trope.

Play It All Night Long by janie_tangerine (read by Tenoko1) NC17 | 43k (4hrs)

The rom-com-ish one where Dean hosts a late night radio show, Castiel is a regular listener of his who starts calling one day and ends up calling more often than not and Dean finds himself liking it. This, until one day Castiel calls for not exactly petty reasons (just before Dean's brother Sam is visiting with his girlfriend for spring break) and things get very, very crowdy at his place. He also doesn't know it's just the beginning of it. Also features Gabriel, Chuck, Andy, the Roadhouse crew and a huge amount of music quoted. Especially Bob Dylan.

Again, this podfic has got me through many a night of insomnia. Cas calls in after a particularly shitty day and it all goes from there.

New-School SPN (AKA post-2014)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Tall Grass by aeli_kindara E | 57k | 28k hits

“I think we should have a garden,” Cas says. Dean looks up from his beer. He hasn’t had that much to drink, but Cas still has a vague look of unreality about him, a splash of living color that doesn’t fit in the bunker’s echoing stillness. Dean didn’t hear him coming. A lot of the time, Cas is so unobtrusive it feels like Dean has the bunker to himself, with Sam away. Dean shakes his head to clear it. “A — garden?” he repeats.

There is a reason you will see this recced time and time again. It healed parts of me I didn't know needed healing.

So Says the Sword* by komodobits E | 85k | 73k hits

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’ Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected

I saw ssts mentioned in like every single If you're getting back into the fandom READ THIS rec list. For good reason. It's described as "canon-adjacent in that seasons one to three happened exactly the same, but when Dean goes to Hell, he is not raised by Castiel". It's one of the most interesting concepts I've read and it's one of those fics where the writing style will stick with you. Castiel POV in a way you've never read before.

Aching in the Absence of You* by sobsicles E | 95k | 9k hits (in 5 days)

Brittle and battle-worn, Cas looks at him over coffee one morning and says, "I need to go," and Dean instantly knows that he's not coming back. He's not really sure how he knows it, but he does. It settles into the pit of his stomach, curling hot and tight like something he instinctively wants to tear out with his bare hands. He takes a breath, and it gets stuck in his throat, hitching there. It hurts, hurts, hurts when he finally exhales. "Yeah," Dean says, "of course you do," and he nods jerkily as he looks down at his phone. He doesn't say goodbye. He doesn't look up from the screen when Cas gets up and leaves the room. He doesn't finish his coffee, or move for a long time. By nightfall, Cas is gone.

If you don't already know sobsicles, I am delighted to introduce you to the person who will smash you to pieces with a hammer to put you back together Kintsugi-style. This one is post-finale but without 15x18 (it'll make sense as it goes). Cas says he's going to leave again and again Dean doesn't ask him to stay. Full of lines so beautiful they'd make Shakespeare weep, Sobsicles has this way of writing that is so evocative and paints such a clear picture. Fair warning, if you're Dean-coded, this might be A Lot.

dumbassery, denial, doing (the three d's to the destination)** by sobsicles E | 108k | 25k hits

Freedom is just one adjustment after the next. ~~~ Cas hums again. "I think you already have. It's been months since everything settled. All that's left to do is...get used to it, and perhaps—" His voice stalls out, uncharacteristically, and his gaze roams Dean's face with intensity. When he speaks next, his tone is a little raw. "Perhaps what one does with peace is...whatever they want." "What if I don't even know what that is?" Dean grumbles, arching an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I know damn well you don't just mean good food and a good bed and time in Baby, not simple wants like that. You mean—ya know, the big things, the wants we didn't get to have before." "Yes," Cas agrees. "If you're not sure, figure it out." "Easier said than done."

Yes, two sobsicles recs back to back. This one I read first and it still holds such a special place in my heart. A sign of a good fic is being able to picture it perfectly. The sign of an amazing fic is that when reading this I was so in Dean's shoes I could feel a pool cue between my hands and Baby behind my back. And I sobbed like a baby in this. It has probably my favourite ending ever. It's genuinely beautiful. If you don't read another on this list, read this one.

Teaching Poetry to Fish by aeli_kindara M | 52k | 14k hits

In which Castiel teaches poetry to fish. Also, himself. Also, eventually, Dean. (A series-long story, diverging slightly from canon after S14.)

The ultimate Cas character study and interwoven with poetry.

So There It Is, I've Said It All by PorcupineGirl (read by Ceewelsh) G | 4k | 13k hits

"Why, do you have something you need to say to me that you don't think I'll like?" I think I'm in love with you. "Yeah. I guess so."

Dean figures out he's in love with Cas then can't stop thinking it. This is genuinely beautiful and if you've ever had trouble actually saying the thing you're thinking, you'll relate to Dean here. I recently did the podfic for this.

you won't find this place alone by amidsizedfrog G | 9.5k |

When Claire said she was dropping out of college to pursue hunting full time, Dean said, “right,” and left the room. Or, the cross-generation conversation about formal education, choosing your own path and figuring out what it looks like to find a family. Or, in other words: "But what I do have is a GED and a give-'em-hell-attitude, and I'll figure it out." - Dean Winchester

This is a beautiful look at education in the hunter world, and I love anything that looks at Dean and Bobby's relationship and this does it perfectly. Also best cameo ever.

Seek to Know You Better by ahurston E | 33k | 23k hits

Dean and Cas, a long stretch of highway, and 36 questions empirically designed to make two people fall in love. As if they weren't already.

This is perfect. It has a lovely slow pace like it has the vibes of an indie film if that makes sense? Like it's two guys going from place to place talking. It was an instant favourite.

Newer AUs (AKA more recent AUs)

And This, Your Living Kiss* by opal_bullets M | 57k | 69k hits

Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen. Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen.

When I asked which fics were absolute must-reads for someone who'd been out of the fandom a few years, this was said repeatedly. But what really got me to read it was everyone actually told me more about what it meant to them than just the summary. It's a study in poetry, a study in learning who you are and who you used to be, and a reminder that it's never too late.

The Graveyard Shift* by riseofthefallenone, PurgatoryJar E | 620k | 175k hits

Dean’s favourite coffee shop, The Graveyard Shift, is only open after the sun goes down. Which is perfect for him, because that’s exactly when he craves coffee the most while doing the overnight at the fire hall. The coffee shop’s owner is pretty perfect too, but it’s kind of a bummer that Dean never gets to see Cas during the day. In a world where the supernatural live more or less in peace with the rest of humanity, it’s a little impolite to ask Cas just what he really is - or what his dark past entails.

A fantastic magical realism fic - magical creatures live and work with humans. Gabe and Cas run a coffee shop, Dean is a fireman, and the burn is slow and delicious and the intrigue kept me reading for like a week every single spare minute.

Painted Angels by WinJennster E | 106k | 162k hits

Author Castiel Novak has finally hit the big time, with a book based on his failed college relationship with a brilliant painter. He's put all his pain behind him, but at a book signing, he comes face to face with Dean Winchester for the first time in twelve years, and the reunion doesn't go like Cas hoped. Dean's a broken man, with a lot of scars and secrets, shoulders weighed down by his demons and self loathing. Cas sees a second chance with the man he's never stopped loving, but Dean's moved on, and is about to get married. Sam launches a "brilliant" plan to reunite his brother and his best friend, but Cas is worried it will all blow up in their faces, and he'll go through the agony of losing Dean a second time.

The first part of this I actually saved back when I was first in the fandom but I never got around to reading it (I had a To Read folder of 100+ fics that I absolutely dove into when I got back into spn) and the rest of the series finished in 2016 so I'm counting it in this section not the other. On the one hand, I wish I'd read this when it first came out. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, and so visual. On the other hand, I think I appreciated it a lot more now than I would have seven years ago. The parallel of me coming back to the old fandom that I loved dearly with Cas coming back to see someone and places he loved so much really hit. (Although coming back to the spn fandom was much easier and much less heartbreak!)

Finale Fix-Its (yeah fuck you Dabb that this has to be a whole category)

The Goldenrod Revisions by aethylas M | 66k | 15k hits

A rewrite of Supernatural’s final two episodes, expanded into a five episode arc - in which Chuck needs to be defeated, Castiel deserves to be saved, and the characters in this story get a very different ending.

Script format re-write of 15x19 and 15x20 into a 5-episode finale fix-it. As far as I'm concerned, this and chocolatecakecas's American Pie fanvid are the Supernatural finale.

break the skin (to break the barriers)* by sobsicles M | 30k | 9k hits

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment. ~~~ Dean is silent for a long, tense moment, then he gruffly says, "It's not for banishing the angels. It's to summon them. So, it doesn't—it's not to get rid of 'em, but to draw 'em in." Mitzi can't help but glance up at him at that. His voice is so heavy with so much unexplained pain, and she doesn't understand why, or what angels have to do with it. She knows religion can impact people. She's very aware that it can get complicated, and that it can be a huge source of pain for someone, but Dean sounds grievously wronged, somehow, as if it's a truly personal thing. She pushes through, focusing back on her job, clearing her throat before murmuring, "Well, I guess we all want angels to visit us sometimes." "Just the one," Dean mumbles. "Your guardian angel?" Mitzi asks. Dean breathes out, "Something like that. As close to one as an angel will ever get."

Therapy through getting tattoos and telling your life story to someone who obviously doesn't think it's real. Outsider!POV not just done well, but done literally the best.

Kingdom Come by ahurston E | 17k | 10k hits

Cas wakes up on the coast of Maine. He makes his way home.

I don't know if this counts as finale fix-it as it's more fuck the finale we're ignoring that. There's just so much love and care in this fic.

The Family Business by chai_lattes M | 16k | 5.5k hits

It's all over. It's been weeks since Chuck's defeat and Cas' return from the Empty. There are no threats on the horizon, no apocalypses to stop, but there's something that keeps the Winchesters from being happy. Something that's maybe always been there. On their way back from a hunt, they find John Winchester, back from the dead.

If you're anything like me, you start rubbing your grubby little hands together at the tag John Winchester's A+ Parenting like yes let's address this! This is one of the best examples of John coming back and how it jars with the life that they have built. Also Claire and Jack getting to share screentime!

Merlin

If I have a forever fandom, it's Merlin. I've always kept one foot in this fandom, and it introduced me to fandom, and most importantly to podfic which kinda had an impact. All Merthur unless stated.

Canon-Verse

Seven Magpies by syllic (read by lunchee) E | 33k (3hr15) | 58k hits

Arthur opened his eyes a minute later to the sight of seven magpies streaking across the top of the clearing, their shapes dark against the white clouds and the muted grey of the sky. He tried to remember what it was that seven magpies meant—he'd had a nurse who had sung the rhyme to him as a child—but couldn't. Arthur wakes up somewhere he doesn't recognise, but where he clearly belongs.

Okay so this is an AU but it's Canon-AU so it's going here. Fantastic role reversal fic that you will be thinking about for weeks.

and from your grace, i fell by TheDragon (read by Ceewelsh) T | 4.6k (41mins) | 13k hits

“Where’s Merlin?” he asks the maid. “Where’s that idiot of a Court Sorcerer?!” “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty. I thought you knew,” the maid replies, not daring to look him in the eyes. “He’s taken ill.” “And he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself that he would be unable to attend today’s council meeting?” Arthur questions, voice full of acid. “He hasn’t woken since he collapsed two days ago, Sire,” the maidservant says, blissfully unaware that what she’s saying the power to stop Arthur’s heart in its tracks.

When I first read this, it had me completely transfixed. I could not stop reading. It was so raw and so full of emotion. I was then lucky enough to get TheDragon in our exchange, so I did a podfic for it and it's probably the most proud I've been of one.

Modern AU

The Student Prince* by FayJay (read by FayJay) M | 145k (15hrs) | 696k hits

A Modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love...

A classic is a classic for a reason. I'm also pretty sure this introduced me to podfics so like special place in my heart x2. Did you know if you filter AO3 by hits on Merlin, this has 426k more hits than the second result? Now that is a Fandom Classic.

Drastically Redefining Protocol* by rageprufrock (read by lunchee) E | 46k (5hr30) | 269k hits

In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose.

As I always say, if this can happen to me and I still love the fic, nothing is going to change that. Arthur hides from his duties in a cupboard and gets stuck in there with a chainsmoking med student.

Fundamental Imperfections by Starlingthefool (read by bravenclawsome) M | 12k (1hr35) | 123k hits

In which an argument about Dickens leads to a Twitter scandal, broken bones, midnight conversations, and transatlantic longing. (Or, an AU with Arthur and Merlin as moderately famous authors.)

This fic has everything: Charles Dickens, long distance texting, Morgana choking a Sherlock cosplayer with his own scarf. This is the ultimate comfort fic and I compare all fics to this even when they're incomparable. I never read the sequel because it was WIP and I was waiting for it to complete, it hasn't been updated since 2015 and apparently ends on an unhappy note, so if you're going to read the sequel you have been warned.

Les Mis

Modern!AU

Overzealous Oddities by YassHomo e/R, Courf/Cosette/Marius, Comb/Ép | G | 6.4k | 4k hits

Courfeyrac: Remember when I smashed our tv and we laughed about it? Enjolras: No. Courfeyrac: Let me rephrase Courfeyrac: I've smashed our tv, lets laugh about it.

I love me a text fic and this is in my opinion the best one around. Just look at that summary. I have quoted that so many times.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young* by GingerNinjaAbi E/R, Courf/Jehan | M | 99k | 42k hits

Perhaps somewhere in between all the cups of coffee, shots of tequila, sunny March days, terrible lumpy jumpers, love, cigarettes, drunken nights and the desire to change the world they'll all leave Paris with a degree in something. Or not. Grantaire's money is on no. But he's a pessimist who's hopelessly in love, so perhaps his opinion shouldn't count.

The ULTIMATE modern!AU tbh.

Tagged by Salomonderiel E/R, Courf/Jehan | E | 155k | 28k hits

So there's this artist. He could probably be compared to Banksy, but he's a lot more... cynical. He shares rooms with a poet who braids his hair with flowers, in a flat near Covent Garden they rent from a short-tempered shop keeper with a penchant for fans and who'd do anything if you mentioned Poland. Sometimes, the three of them will go and deface public buildings in London whilst completely smashed off their heads. And then there's this, shall we say, 'revolutionary'. He has a band of other revolutionaries, who all meet at this cafe by Borough Market. He shares rooms with his best mate, a philosophy student, spends too much time with a flirty guy who has a thing for poets, goes boxing with a guy in a red vest, wants to punch the wet sop who drools on the blonde waitress and is getting tired of this guy who keep breaking his laptops through sheer dumb luck. Thank god the hypochondriac's there to keep an (slightly too) attentive eye on their stress levels. The revolutionary thinks the graffiti artist's work is a waste of space. The artist thinks the revolutionary's campaigns are a waste of time. And all the while, the poet and the flirt drool over each other in the background...

This is perfect and it's funny and it's beautiful and it rips my heart out multiple times.

Canon

To Be Free by kjack89 (read by Ceewelsh) Gen, Cosette/Marius | T | 3.8k (32mins) | 375 hits

Three blows from a bayonet had transfixed Combeferre’s breast, followed by a fall from the barricade as he rapidly lost first blood and then consciousness. But neither of these, it seemed, was enough to kill him, as much as later he might perhaps wish that they were.

I read this because it was on a list kjack89 did of their favourite fics which don't necessarily have the same hits traffic. It's nothing I would have usually read (canon era, not e/R, MCD) but I am so glad I gave it a go. It's a study on what if Combeferre had survived the barricades too and the guilt. This stayed with me for days afterwards until I eventually messaged kjack89 to get permission to podfic it.

BatFam

Canonish (I don't know differences between canons but these are all they're superheros fics)

Robins United by laceymcbain (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | T | 49k (6h15)/ 19k (2h25) (First part) | 103k hits

Bullets, knives, a three story fall, even a fucking crowbar hadn't managed to keep Jason down permanently, but Dick Grayson (and the rest of his "family") was going to kill him with kindness.

The ultimate batbros series. Also if you haven't heard reena_jenkins' podfics before, you are welcome. Pre-pandemic I took a lot of public transport and reena_jenkins kept me sane.

batcoons by drakefeathers (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | G | 6k (49mins) | 14k hits

Jason and raccoons have a lot in common. (Additionally: his so-called family are much bigger pests than the stray animals hanging around his safehouse.)

This is funny, it's heartwarming, and it's a really good character study.

Here Comes the Sun by batsy_rocks Clark/Bruce | T | 19k | 20k hits

Clark Kent is a kind-hearted reporter working in the big city. Bruce Wayne is a stressed dad of four with no idea of what he's doing. Then they meet.

Bruce Wayne is a Tired Single Dad™. It's genuinely such a sweet fic.

#fic rec #spn fic rec #merlin fic rec #les mis fic rec

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nobodyfamousposts · 4 years ago

Text

Welcome the Demon School, Marinette!

Because I’m bored and you’re here. Presenting a Miraculous take on Iruma-kun.

_____________________

It was shaping up to be the worst day of Marinette's life.

She woke up late. Again.

This only happened because her alarm didn’t go off. Which was because said alarm was in her phone, and the battery had died. And she had no time to charge it.

The small lizard that she had been taking care of the past couple weeks had disappeared that morning with no sign of where it had gone. She was worried her parents may have found it or that it could have gotten lost somewhere.

She got to school just on time, only to be tripped and have her belongings scattered across the floor (much to the snickers and commentary of certain observers who of course did nothing to help), forcing her to take time to collect them all and resulting in her actually being late to class.

Lila was regaling the class with some new and most likely completely made up story as everyone seemed to gather around her and stare at her in wonder like she had hung the stars (and given their gullibility, Marinette couldn't put it past them to not fall for that if Lila HAD claimed it). Marinette quietly shuffled past them and slipped into her seat in the back, feeling the weight of their cruel glares and mocking smirks. All in all, an indicator that Lila's takeover of the class and even the school was still in effect. The only thing that saved her from any biting or passive aggressive comment was the teacher starting the lesson.

Except then she learned that her homework had been one of the things to fall out of her bag, but one of the items she had failed to recollect afterwards. The fact that Lila presented a project that just "happened" to look exactly like hers and even had the name smudged out and replaced with her own clearly meant nothing as far as the teacher was concerned.

This resulted in a failing grade for Marinette, and any attempt that she made to argue were quickly shot down as Lila pretended to cry at the "horrible accusation" and the teacher proceeded to lecture Marinette in front of the class for trying to steal credit for another student's work. Marinette's evidence (which included pictures and video of herself making the project at multiple stages of the process, pointing out the smudged name, or her own scraped knees from when she fell earlier and the project went missing from her bag) meant nothing and was disregarded as the teacher forced Marinette to apologize for something she hadn't done before sending her off to the principal's office.

Which resulted in her being suspended for "continued bullying" and sent home to her no doubt ready to be disappointed parents, who seemed all too willing to believe the worst in their daughter based off a liar they barely knew. Not that Marinette was bitter about that or anything. (Lie. She totally was.)

She trudged home in dismay. And as she made the walk of shame from her school to her home, much to the snickers and cruel comments of her former friends, the upturned noses of her teachers who once believed in her, and Lila's own smirk at yet again getting another win over the poor girl, Marinette could only ask herself:

"Can my life get any worse?"

Which clearly turned out to be the exact wrong thing to say, because yes, in fact, it could.

As Marinette soon discovered when she was kidnapped by a demon.

"Wait—WHAT?!"

Introducing one Jagged Stone. A Demon Lord of the Demon Realm. Well known for his wild appearance and unusual style, even among demons. He was popular. He was eccentric.

And he was apparently Marinette’s new guardian as of today.

“Wait, wait! I’m sorry—WHAT?!”

“Just call me Dad. Or Uncle Jagged! Oo, I like the sound of that. Uncle Jagged! Yeah, call me that!” He told her, not really seeming concerned with why she would have reservations about this entire thing, how sudden it was, or the fact that she was a human who was not only being faced with the prospect that demons exist, but that one had officially claimed her as a ward.

“No wait, can we back up to the part where I’m adopted now?” Marinette questioned, confused and frustrated and just shy of freaking out.

“I thought that was rather clear.” Jagged stated, grinning widely and outright spinning with glee. “I’ve always wanted a kid! And now I have one! Thank you, Fang!” He turned to the crocodile-looking creature hovering nearby.

“Of course.” It replied—and okay, the thing could talk.

Jagged stared at it teary-eyed before hugging it—him? “You’re the best familiar, Fang. Finding me the perfect child to spoil and eventually become my heir.”

O…kay…

“But…I have parents?” She tried to interject weakly, still confused about all of this.

“Oh, we’ve taken care of that.” Jagged explained vaguely, waving it off.

Marinette’s eye twitched. “Meaning…?”

Please don’t say they’re dead. Please don’t say they’re dead. They may not have trusted her and she may be unhappy that they believed Lila over her, but she didn’t want them hurt. His other demonic assistant, apparently named Penny, answered. “You are now officially the ward of Jagged Stone.”

“Isn’t it great?” Jagged grinned.

Well, that was…not completely horrible, at least.

Still, it begged a question.

“I’m a ward of a demon? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”

“Well, if you remember…” Fang started.

Marinette sighed pitifully as she stared out a window.

“Oh, how my life is horrible and filled with pain and sadness! If only there was a magical demon familiar to rescue me and take me somewhere rock and roll.”

With a poof, a much bigger and scarier looking Fang appeared and grinned down at her.

“How fortunate for you, for I happen to be a magical demon familiar!”

“Le gasp!” Marinette exclaimed in shock.

“And as I am very grateful to you for taking care of me, I shall happily take you with me to a better place and destroy your enemies. Not necessarily in that order.”

Marinette clapped gleefully.

“Yay! Do that! Blow up that evil institute of learning and fry everyone inside! And then eat my parents because they're jerks who tried to smack you with a broom and flush you down a sewer drain.”

Fang smirked.

“Certainly!”

And thus Fang flew off to destroy the school and devour everyone inside—

“Okay, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it happened.” Marinette exclaimed dryly, interrupting the amusing and clearly wish-fulfilling fantasy.

“Well, it could.” Fang replied. “If you want me to, I can.”

“NO THANK YOU.” She exclaimed with a shriek before getting her emotions under control. “Just…why? Why me?”

The demonic crocodile-like familiar floated in a circle around her. “Well, it made sense. Jagged wished for a child to become his heir. You wished for an escape from your life. And you were quite helpful to me when I had been injured, proving yourself to be a human of kindness and honor. If anyone was to be worthy of being taken in as my master’s fledgling, you seemed most deserving.”

Well, that made her blush.

Wait…

“The lizard that I’d been caring for? That was you?”

Fang smiled and nodded.

Jagged rested a hand on the creature’s head and smiled at Marinette. “I have to thank you for looking out for my little Fangy. Who knows what could have happened to him all alone in the human world. Isn’t that right?” He spoke to Fang directly in a rather baby-ish voice as he nuzzled the creature.

Fang nuzzled Jagged back. And…okay, this was kind of cute—crazy situation aside.

“I’m…honored.” Because she was, strangely enough. Craziness and kidnapping aside. “But I already have parents. And a life.”

“Not a good one.” Fang growled out in irritation.

Jagged nodded solemnly. “Right. Fang told me all about it. Your school sucks. Your classmates suck. Your parents…” Seeing her unhappy expression, he coughed. “Well, they’re taking a liar’s word over yours. All in all, it’s been incredibly un-rock and roll. You definitely deserve better.”

“Well…” She trailed off because yeah, they weren’t wrong.

The demon smiled. “Which is why we’ve erased their memories.”

“WHAT?”

“This way, no one will question your disappearance!”

“WHAT?!”

“So this way you can stay here without having to worry about anyone trying to find you! Isn’t it great?”

…

“WHAT?!”

______________

Things that would follow may include but are in no way limited to:

Demon Miracuclass. (Meaning Alya, Nino, all of them are demons in the demon world Marinette will be befriending and not Marinette’s former human friends whom shall remain nameless extras).

Otaku Adrien (aka: a secret human fanboy because of course he would be).

Flower demon Rose.

Mermaid Juleka.

Siren Luka.

Kwamis as teachers.

Plagg as Fluff Fluff. And abusing it to get out of work. (Tikki: DAMMIT PLAGG!)

Gabriel still being horrible.

Lila exiting the story after chapter 1.

And more!

#ml plot bunny #ml fic #marinette dupain cheng #demon class #jagged stone #fang #penny rolling #demon school

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p-artsypants · 4 years ago

Text

Integrity- Chapter 8

Ao3 | FF.net

Monday morning rolled around with a cool, all encasing fog. The gray mist that settled in between buildings, blotting out sunlight, and casting a refreshing coolness on everything blanketed underneath it.

It was glum.

Ladybug had escorted Gabriel to the police last night, as they had planned. Though he was drunk, Gabriel was well behaved. This allowed Ladybug to convince the Police to stay quiet about his arrest. Of course, it was inevitable that the media would catch wind of it, and it would be all over the news.

But she just wanted to have a few days to prepare to announce it herself, and to give Adrien some time with his mother.

He hadn’t come home last night, not that she expected him too. He may be gone for the rest of the week. Maybe longer. She couldn’t blame him for staying away.

She just missed him already.

“Hey Marinette,” Alya greeted warmly. “Where’s Sunshine? He’s gotta get rid of this fog!”

“Yeah dude, where’s my dawg?” Said Nino.

Marinette smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. How much truth could she spare? This was Rena Rouge and Carapace after all. Surely they were trustworthy. Would Adrien mind?

“Um…he’s with his mother.”

Nino and Alya just stared at her, dawning horror creeping on their faces.

“He’s dead?”

“No!” Marinette scrambled to explain. “No, no…We found his mother yesterday. Well, he found her a few days ago, but we couldn’t do anything about it until last night.”

Alya blinked a few times. “Okay girl, you lost me. You often lose me, but this is like—a whole other dimension. Can ya back up a touch?”

“I’ll tell you guys everything after school, but you have to promise me not to tell anyone.” She leaned closer. “This is just as secret, or even more so, as your secret identities.”

Alya rapidly blinked again. “Wh-what?! What are you—how do you—What!?”

“That’s all I’m saying for now.”

“You can’t just leave us there!”

“That’s all that’s safe to say here. Just...just trust me. Okay?”

Alya took a long breath. They’d been through this before. Her trust was constantly being tested by Marinette. The absences, the tardiness, the forgetful ‘oh I have to go water my hamster’ ness. “Girl...I did trust you. But...are you going to finally explain what’s going on?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you everything. If you’ll just be patient with me.”

Alya exhaled, her shoulders relaxing. “Okay. I think that’s worth it.”

They travelled together upstairs and into the classroom, where several other students milled about quietly. It seemed they hadn’t recovered from the turmoil from last week.

Faces turned to her, weak smiles in place. Sincere enough, but lacking luster. She didn’t really blame them. She felt like that too.

After some time, Miss Bustier arrived, and settled everyone in their seats.

And then there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

Miss Bustier invited in the devil, and the mother of the devil.

Lila. Lila was here.

“Hello, Madam Rossi, are you vouching for Lila’s tardiness?”

“On the contrary,” the woman said coldly. “Lila won’t be attending your class anymore, or this school, for that matter. But before we leave, I wanted to make sure she apologized to those she wronged.”

My my, what an interesting turn of fate. Lila stood in front, arms crossed, and full of spite.

“Where’s Mr. Agreste?” Madam Rossi asked.

“He’s not here,” Marinette supplied. “He’s visiting family.”

“Ha!” Said Lila. “That proves it! If he wasn’t guilty, he’d be here!”

“Hush, Lila. I’ve heard enough from you.” Her mother spat. “You, what’s your name?” He looked at Marinette.

“Uh, Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”

“Marinette—first of all, I want to apologize to you and your mother. She called me with concerns and I blew her off. In fact, I didn’t know there were any problems until I received a court summons at my workplace. Not only was my daughter lying to me about her after school activities, but she lied about the school being closed to take an extended vacation!”

There were scoffs of disgust from around the room.

“Mama...” Lila whined.

“I said be quiet, child. Your lying has gotten too far out of control and I’ve had enough of it. It’s time your friends knew the truth. And you’re going to tell them. Now.”

Lila swallowed. “Um...I didn’t actually go with my mother abroad for several months. I was at home. I told her the principal was akumatized and the school was closed.”

“Now, about Marinette?”

Lila groaned. “Marinette was right. I didn’t bully her at all. I made all that stuff up...”

“And regarding Adrien Agreste?”

“Adrien...never touched me. I lied. I was mad because I was fired from Gabriel for harassing Adrien.”

“Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a shame.” Madam Rossi huffed. “What do you have to say to Marinette?”

“...I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For lying.”

“Not good enough, Lila. Try again.”

Lila hissed, like apologizing was actually, physically painful. “I’m sorry for tattling on you to your mom. And I’m sorry for trying to get you expelled.”

Marinette pushed her luck. “...and for turning my friends against me?”

“AND for turning your friends against you.”

Eh. Good enough.

“Now, Marinette,” said Madam Rossi. “Lila must apologize to Adrien, but she’s being sent back to Italy right away. Will you record it and make sure he sees it?”

“Of course, ma’am.” Marinette took out her phone and turned on the camera. “Ready when you are.”

Madam Rossi nudged her daughter in the ribs.

“Adrien...I’m sorry I lied about you touching me. I’m sorry I lied to get into modeling with you. And I’m sorry I kissed your cheek without permission...and I'm sorry I spied on you.” With a little shrug, that’s where she ended it.

Marinette stopped recording and leveled a glare at Lila. “You’re not really sorry, are you? You wouldn’t think anything was wrong if your mom wasn’t here making you apologize.”

Lila didn’t answer, but her dead-eyed glare spoke volumes.

“You’re a psychopath.”

“Oh you think you’re so smug! Just because my lies caught up to me first! But you’re just as much as a liar as I am, aren’t you, little miss goody goody?”

Maybe she was being petty. Maybe it was adrenaline. Or maybe she really didn’t like being called a liar.

Either way, she held back just long enough to look in her purse.

Tikki gave her a firm nod.

Time to be selfish.

“Tikki, Spots on.”

In a whirl of pink, Ladybug sat in Marinette’s seat and the room went dead silent.

Except for Alya, who was making some choked wheezing sounds.

“Happy now, Lila?” Ladybug said calmly. “Yes, I lied, and flaked, and ditched my friends. I hated every minute of it, but I knew fighting akumas came first, and everything else came second. I couldn’t tell a single soul until Hawkmoth was defeated. Not even my partner.” She leveled her gaze on Lila. “But you? You just lie because you can. You have no plans, you just lie and then lie again when someone calls you out on them. You don’t care. You never cared. All you care about is yourself. That’s the reason you got caught. I chose to reveal my secret because it’s safe now.”

“Shut up!” Lila barked. Then she actually threw a punch at the hero of Paris.

Naturally, Ladybug dodged it like she had been moving in slow motion.

“You’re the worst! This whole time I thought there were two stuck up, nosy, holier-than-thou bitches in Paris. But now I see it’s only one. You don’t deserve your fame or your powers! I could have had everything! Popularity! Friends! Adrien! Fame! Even powers like Hawkmoth promised me! But you had to ruin it for me! You always ruin everything! I hate you! I hate you!!”

“Alright, we’re done.” Said Madam Rossi. She wrapped her arms around Lila, as she continued to wriggle and scream. “I see now that Italy isn’t going to be a good idea either. We’ll find a nice, quiet...resort for you for a little while.”

But Lila just continued her screaming and kicking. Her mother had to forcibly pull her from the room.

The door shut with a slam, Lila’s tantrum muffled down the hall.

And then, Ladybug stood there, keenly aware of the actions she had just made in front of all her classmates. Even Miss Bustier was slack jawed.

“I expect all of you can keep a secret of this magnitude. It would be best if you never even saw me transform.”

Still silence. But Marinette dropped her transformation and sat down.

Alya was the only one able to find a voice. “Why now? What changed?”

“It’s safe now.” Marinette explained. “Relatively speaking. I’m certain that there’s people out there who still want to hurt me. But if we all keep this to ourselves, I see no harm.”

“What about Lila?” Asked Alya.

“Well, she does have a track record for faultless honesty. Who wouldn’t believe her?” Marinette said sarcastically.

“Safe?” Nino asked, finding his voice. “Safe how?”

It was the sweetest truth in the world. “Chat Noir and I defeated Hawkmoth.”

The sentence was like electricity, jolting the room with excitement, cheers, and hugs. Students scrambled to hug her in gratitude.

“How?! When?!” Barked Alya. “There was no akuma! How did this happen!?”

Miss Bustier sat at the edge of her desk, resigned that there would be no learning today, but she really didn’t mind.

“Espionage.” Marinette said, matter-of-factly. “And to be honest, it was mostly Chat. We just officially arrested him last night.”

“Who was he? How did it happen?! I need details!” Alya nearly screamed and grabbed her by the collar and shook.

“Alya, calm down.” Marinette laughed. “I’d love to tell you all the details, but…I haven’t told anyone else yet. I have to address the public and write a speech…but I don’t even know where to start…”

Miss Bustier clapped. “Marinette! I have an idea!”

She looked to her teacher, skeptical. “Yes?”

“A writing assignment for the class. You give us the details, everyone will take notes, and we’ll help you write the speech! It would be an excellent exercise for writing from an interview.”

Marinette paused, crossing her arms and looking forward towards Adrien’s seat.

Again, the news about Gabriel was going to be public at some point. If she could get it out quickly before the other media beat her to it, she might be able to manipulate the story in her favor. As angry as she was with Gabriel, his motive was fine, and he showed…remorse? Maybe he could be redeemed and maybe Adrien could have his family back one day.

“As long as everyone promises to not talk about it to anyone, I don’t mind sharing the details.”

There was another cheer around the class as everyone gathered their phones and notebooks to take notes.

Miss Bustier clarified for everyone, “If you’re recording Marinette, the video promptly gets deleted after the assignment is over. It does not get posted on any social media, or get sent to anyone. This is for Marinette’s safety, do you all understand?”

“Yes, Miss Bustier!” Called the class, unanimously. After the dreadful behavior with Lila, no one was eager to get on Marinette’s bad side again.

Marinette stood at the front of the room, recounting what had happened, with the smallest twist of having Chat Noir as a separate character. If someone did blab, Adrien’s identity would be safe.

“Adrien’s the hero of our story.” She began. “Gabriel Agreste was arrested last night at 10:30, coming peacefully and quietly. On Thursday night, he confided in his son, that he was in fact, Hawkmoth, and that his assistant was Mayura. He disclosed his purpose was to save the life of his wife Emilie, who had fallen mysteriously ill. He was under the assumption that the only cure was using Chat’s and my Miraculous. It is unknown where he got this idea from. Adrien was skeptical enough to flag down Chat Noir as he was doing a late night patrol. He explained the situation to my partner. From there, they waited until Monsieur Agreste went to sleep, before stealing the Miraculous off of him. Chat then delivered the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous to me, and further explained the situation. After consulting my resources, we visited M. Agreste and told him it was likely we could still save his wife without the need for our Miraculous. He then willingly gave himself up and apologized. He has been taken into police custody.”

“Excuse me, Ladybug,” Alya called out, just like in a real press conference. “What happened to Mayura? Is she in police custody as well?”

“I don’t know about that. The police are aware of her involvement, but she was fired by Gabriel earlier this week. She wasn’t with him when he was arrested.”

“Are you going to go after her?”

“No. She no longer has a Miraculous. This is not a job for us anymore.”

Someone else raised their hand, Nathaniel. “How much do you want us to elaborate on Adrien’s involvement?”

“I only have Adrien’s best interest at heart. While I know he’d rather not be mentioned at all, I think it’s extremely important for the media to know that he was not complicit in his father’s actions.”

“Where is Adrien now?” Asked Chloe, more out of concern than for the assignment.

“He is with his mother while she gets treated. I won’t disclose that information to the public.” Then she added as a side note, “but if you want to know, ask me later, Chloe.”

Chloe just took a relieved sigh and nodded to her. It seemed all the previous animosity between her and Ladybug, or even Marinette, had faded with all this new information.

“Where are the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous now?” Asked Kim.

“Someplace safe.” Marinette smiled. “There’s no fear of someone else getting a hold of them.”

“Are Ladybug and Chat Noir retiring now?” Asked Rose, full of emotion.

“Ladybug will continue her patrols, and try to help around the city. I haven’t talked with Chat about what he wants to do.”

Alya raised her hand again, her eyes shining with excitement. “Any chance of auxiliary heroes getting to join you every once in a while?”

Marinette shrugged. “Perhaps.” There was no reason for them to, but with Gabriel behind bars, there was no reason for them not to. “Any other questions?”

The class was frantically scribbling down notes, but there were no more raised hands.

“I have plenty of off the record questions!” Alya called.

“I’ll answer those later,” Marinette asked.

“Alright,” began Miss Bustier. “These speeches will be due…Wednesday? Does that work for you, Marinette?”

“That should be perfect.”

“Wonderful. Then I won’t be giving anymore literature homework until then, because I want everyone to focus on this. Please write at least one page, double spaced. But more is fine. Ladybug has the right to edit whichever one she picks.” She glanced at the clock. “Goodness, that was almost the whole hour! I’ll give you the rest of the hour to talk among yourselves.”

—

While stories don’t typically have a happy ending in real life, Marinette was happy to note that things were working out nicely. The fog remained the rest of the week as Adrien stayed away from Paris. Juleka, of all people, ended up writing the most articulate, emotional, and accurate speech out of the bunch, and Ladybug presented it at a press conference with the Mayor.

Stories of all sorts of accuracies came out of it from the media, but conspiracies were loudly silenced, as Ladybug’s speech in full was available to everyone. Gabriel had yet to make any statements of his own, but his lack of urgency only lended itself to the official story.

It was over.

Gabriel’s trial would come in time, and Ladybug and Chat Noir would both be expected to testify, but the fight against Hawkmoth was over.

Despite revealing herself to her family and classmates, Marinette felt light. Unburdened, and guiltless. The raised grades were a bonus.

There was just one thing missing.

Adrien.

It had been a week since he stepped into that portal with his mother. He hadn’t taken his phone with him, but she never received a message from his baton. Not even a confirmation that he made it safely.

After several days of solid dependence and partnership, she missed him terribly.

Then finally, late one night, she awoke to a flash of light on her balcony. She was instantly awake, throwing open the door to investigate.

Belle Noir stood there, alone, and looking exhausted.

“Adrien?” She asked softly.

“Miss me, My Lady?”

“Unbelievably.”

Adrien dismissed his transformation and dragged himself over to her room.

“So what happened? How is she?”

“Still asleep.” He landed on her bed, and took off his shoes. “Not likely to wake up for a while still…but she looks better. They told me to go home, since being around her and watching was making me ill.”

“Are you alright?”

“Just need a shower and a good night’s rest. Can I sleep next to you? I really missed you.”

“I wouldn’t want you anywhere else.”

After showering and shaving, a nice clean Adrien flopped onto Marinette’s bed. He inhaled deeply. “Hmm, I missed this smell.”

“Weirdo.”

“Smells like bread and cinnamon and pretty girl.”

“Do you want to hear about all the trouble I got into while you were gone?”

“All of it…if I can stay awake.”

So Marinette told it all, starting on Monday morning with Lila, and leading all the way up to the speech, which she showed him on her phone.

“You just transformed? In front of everyone?”

She shrugged. “Not my brightest move, but Lila was accusing me of lying too…I just wanted to get it out in the air. I don’t regret it.”

“Did you tell anyone who I am?”

“Nope. I thought about telling Alya and Nino, but your identity is yours to tell. Or to keep a secret. It’s totally up to you.”

Adrien had his eyes half closed, the comfort of the bed and the warmth from his girlfriend relaxing him to sleep. “I have some ideas.”

“Care to share?”

“No. Too tired.”

“Okay kitty.” She giggled. Then she shuffled down to lay beside him, before he latched on and nuzzled her. “Hmmmmm My Lady.”

“Goodnight Kitty Cat.”

“Night. I love…”

“I love too.”

—

In the morning, Marinette woke up to an empty bed. For a moment, she worried that Adrien coming back last night had been a dream. But his suitcase was open and rifled through.

Confused, she got up and got dressed, and then came down for breakfast.

“Morning Miss Hero.” Sabine said fondly.

“Morning mama…did you see Adrien this morning?”

“I didn’t, but your father did. Said he got up really early to take care of some stuff.

“‘Stuff’ huh? Sounds vague.”

“I don’t know. But he said he’ll meet you at school. So instead of interrogating me, you can go to class and find out for yourself.”

“Oh I suppose!” Marinette said, dramatically. Then she took a seat at the table and started pouring herself some breakfast.

“They’re talking about the Hawkmoth story again.” Sabine gestured to the muted TV. “Some people are calling for a reinstatement of the guillotine.”

Marinette scoffed. “Yeah, maybe if there had been any lasting damage, maybe. But as it stands, no one died, no collateral damage…maybe some trauma I guess.”

“You’re being awfully defensive of the man you’ve been fighting the last year.”

Marinette shrugged. “I just…want Adrien to have his family back. I know Gabriel has to face punishment, and jail might even soften him up to be a better dad when he gets out. I just want him to be able to have his dad in his life…even if it’s just a little bit.”

“Even after all this, he doesn’t hate his father?”

“I couldn’t say.”

—

The fog had lifted. The morning sunlight was warm and bright, the birds chirped, the flowers bloomed. Adrien was back in Paris, somewhere, and all was right with the word.

Marinette almost skipped to school.

Half of her class awaited her by the steps, and when she came into view, they all started calling for her. “Marinette! Marinette!”

“Carry your bag to class?”

“Carry you to class?”

“Guys guys,” she laughed. “I’m flattered, but you don’t need to keep pampering me. It was fun last week, but we’re cool now, okay?”

“We just wanted to let you know that we were sorry and we appreciate you!” Said Rose, enthusiastically.

“I understand. And I forgive you. The cards, and the back rubs, and the foot rubs, and the manicures…I got it. But I don’t want our friendship to revolve around you guys just worshipping me. And I especially don’t want to be treated like this because of who I am. Let’s just…all go for ice cream this weekend?”

“Fine, but I’m paying for your ice cream!”

“No! I want to pay!”

Marinette chuckled to herself and led the throng of followers into the school. Maybe…one more week of being spoiled wouldn’t hurt. Right?

“Have you heard anything from Adrien?” Nino asked, as he asked everyday.

“Actually, I did! I’m fairly certain he’ll be in class today too!”

Nino pumped his fist.

“What should we do to make him feel welcome?” Asked Rose. “We were pretty crappy to him last time we saw him. After all he’s been through…”

Marinette looked over the remorseful faces staring at her. They wanted to make things right.

“I think apologies, hugs, and just being there for him will be enough. I think he’d appreciate affection, but not being treated like he’s fragile. He’s incredibly strong, you know.”

They all nodded, but she could hear them conspiring with each other about cards and a cake. She wasn’t going to fight them on this. Adrien needed his friends, and sincere ones at that.

Walking into the classroom, Marinette’s eye immediately fell on the very expensive handbag on her desk. Chloe sat at her own desk, admiring her nails.

“Is that—?”

“A Hermes Birkin Togo Handbag with gold Hardware? Why yes, it is.”

“Why is it on my desk?”

Chloe shrugged. “what, that old thing? I got it, but it doesn’t match my wardrobe, so I figured you would appreciate it.”

“But…this is new this season! It hasn’t even been released yet!”

“Well, it’s old to me. Give it to your mom if you don’t want it. It’s no skin off my nose!”

Marinette gave her a genuine smile. “Thank you Chloe, this means a lot to me. Especially after all that happened.”

“Are you talking about my silly little tantrum? Puh-lease. Even I’m not immune to the allure of pretty jewelry. But it won’t happen again, I’m over combs.”

“Well, I’m crazy about this bag, so thank you.”

Chloe’s mouth twitched before she said, “you’re welcome.”

Alya and Marinette spent the rest of the morning gushing over the bag, because regardless of who it came from, it was a nice bag. Miss Bustier came in and started the lesson.

It was then that Marinette realized Adrien still hadn’t shown up.

“I thought you said he was coming today?” Whispered Nino.

“I thought he was. He doesn’t have his phone on him anymore either.”

A few minutes passed before a black blur whizzed by the window. It back tracked and Chat Noir landed on the ledge, knocking on the window.

“Chat Noir?” Miss Bustier asked as Kim opened the window.

“So sorry I’m late! I was packing up some of my mother’s belongings to take to her later.” He stalked across the room, with Adrien’s bag draped over his shoulder. Then he stopped at Marinette’s desk, before stooping to kiss her on the lips. “Good morning, My Lady. Sorry I left without saying anything. I woke up early and I didn’t want to bother you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Claws in.”

And then it all clicked. The class went ballistic. There was screaming, hugs, well-intended punches, and overall excitement.

Miss Bustier rolled her eyes fondly. “Guess I’ll have to remove your absences too, to be fair.”

“Oh, sorry. When Marinette told me she revealed her identity to the class, I knew I had to too, and even more dramatically.”

“You’re such a goober.” Marinette teased fondly.

“But I’m your goober!”

#miraculous ladybug #ladybug #ladynoir #chat noir #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrienette #fanfiction #identity reveal #integrity

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itsclydebitches · 5 years ago

Text

Imagine an AU where:

It’s post-Armawasn’t, Crowley and Aziraphale are bopping around London when they both suddenly feel a surge of demonic and angelic energy. For a few minutes they’re legit fearing for their lives until they round a corner to find Gabriel and Beelzebub messily* sucking face

*They haven’t quite figured out how everything works with these squishy bodies yet

Cue absolute rage on Crowley’s part. Armageddon aside, everyone knows damn well they were targeted for being friends and now here their bosses are, climbing each other like forbidden apple trees and moaning loud enough to scare off alley cats. They tried to burn Aziraphale and now here they are acting like a couple of love-sick mortal teens? The absolute HYPOCRISY

Crowley’s about to go in swinging with a bat he conjured up when Aziraphale beats him to it. He calmly---but with an air that makes both lord and archangel still---approaches and announces that yes, they saw them. Yes, Aziraphale has photographic proof (he shakes the ancient Nokia that he’d used slyly on the fly and Crowley is suitably impressed). From here on out if you ever approach us with anything other than an apology we will send these to both God and Satan themselves

Zira-Just-Enough-Of-A-Bastard-To-Be-Worth-Knowing-Fell just accomplished his first blackmail and Crowley has never been more turned on in his life

(Aziraphale also has a sneaking suspicion that God would enjoy this development immensely, but Satan is a legitimate threat. He just lost his son to a human father. Learning that one of his primary lords is snogging an archangel on Earth would not go over well)

There’s a moment where Beelzebub and Gabriel just plan to finally kill them, but Crowley comes up behind Aziraphale with some not-so-subtle hints about his past. You’re gonna fight me? A former Seraphim? The demon who stopped time while Satan himself was crawling out of the crust of the Earth? You’re gonna take me on AND this pissed-off Principality?

(Aziraphale doesn’t look very pissed off, but somehow his politely folded hands are a lot scarier than the bat Crowley’s still holding)

So they back off, agreeing to leave their friendship be if Crowley and Aziraphale keep their own secret. Everyone parts ways wary

Except that Earth is the only safe-ish place for an angel and demon to consort and for SOME REASON these two idiots refuse to go anywhere except London. Specifically Soho. So Aziraphale and Crowley keep running into them in the worst ways possible

And after a while they realize that this is... not good. Because they’ve had thousands of years to both learn secrecy (badly implemented though it was) and develop a respectful relationship. Gabriel and Beelzebub have none of that. They’re either going to get themselves caught in a record amount of time or break things off because neither of them have been respectful in their goddamn lives. Crowley definitely spotted them man-handling each other one afternoon and not in the ‘Ooh kinky’ kind of way. Getting caught will make things worse for everyone involved. Breaking up means loss of their blackmail material

Cue a repeat of the drunk scene where Crowley and Aziraphale get absolutely wasted in an effort to come up with a solution (they do their best thinking while drunk). Crowley has been binging Disney films the last few days and with mind swimming in alcohol he hits on the answer: fairy godmothers. We need to teach these idiots how to date properly---Wait. Do we know how to date?---and set up situations where good romantic shit happens, like the godmother did for Cinderella

Thus Operation Devil’s & Angel’s Food Cake commences (Aziraphale came up with the name). They shake on it

For the next couple of months Crowley and Aziraphale go out of their way to keep these two fools together by whatever means necessary. Crowley takes Beelzebub shopping to impress Gabriel with their new fashion sense. Aziraphale tells Gabriel that he’s heard some human societies eat flies, which Beelzebub will either view as a delicacy or horrifying cannibalism---a win-win either way. Both of them are dropping miracles left and right that they hope their respective offices don’t look too closely at. There are long powerpoints about consent and agency and Only Being a Dick in a Fun Way. Somewhere along the line they actually get their apology and it’s suitably awkward

Of course, neither of them actually know what the hell they’re doing

What they do know is that they’re fighting for their friendship... while also each desperately wanting more. Each time they pull off a semi-successful date there’s a pang of, “I wish I could do this with Crowley/Aziraphale”... but the other wouldn’t want that. Certainly not. It’s been 6,000 years! You think I don’t know what they’re interested in at this point? It’s impossible and I won’t think about it a moment longer...

Halfway through they explain everything to Anathema, Newt, and the Them. “I’m sorry, your plan is what exactly?” “Well, dear, it’s admittedly all a bit complicated. Rather hard to explain, really. Why it’s almost---” “Angel if you end that sentence with ‘ineffable’ you’re dead to me.” What she finally manages to get out of all this is that they’re two love-sick idiots trying to help two other love-sick idiots and honestly there isn’t enough alcohol in the world to help her through this

Oddly enough though, it all manages to work out :)

#good omens #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #air conditioning #gabriel/beelzebub #good omens fics #things I don't have time to write so you all get bullet points instead #sailoryue #thanks for the ship name info!

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miraculouscontent · 5 years ago

Photo

*rubs hands together*

I will say this before I start: there are a lot of good shots and musical cues in this episode. I mean, that doesn’t make it a good episode, but I do recall being on edge when Hawk Moth started enacting his plan with Catalyst.

...Granted, all of that completely died when one of the akuma touched Marinette’s purse, but ehhhhhhh, we’ll get there.

Duusu is also really adorable (even if the “romantic” line was rather forced and painful) and I’m glad we FINALLY have confirmation on the whole Emilie thing even if we could’ve already guessed it.

[Dire Liar]

First things first, I don’t know why Bustier felt the need to call Marinette forward in front of the whole class? And I mean that in a character sense.

Back in “Zombizou,” Bustier escorted Marinette outside to talk to her about setting a good example for Chloe. It’s even set up in a way that makes Marinette feel like she’s the one in trouble (especially since Bustier doesn’t talk to Chloe about it).

Now, the reason why it’s different here is obvious: Lila had to be there so Marinette could call her out and they could both be sent to the principal’s office together, and also because the class wouldn’t be able to defend Marinette had Bustier talked to Marinette about it in private.

The problem is that it makes Bustier look like a terrible teacher for not dealing with this properly. Had she just escorted Marinette out of the class, Marinette still might’ve accused Lila, but it wouldn’t have been so bad and also not involved BUSTIER LITERALLY CALLING OUT LILA’S BAD GRADES IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CLASS.

(which is honestly stupid regardless; if Marinette is right and Lila framed her, Bustier literally points out the reason why it would be Lila as if that proves the contrary, since Lila got the worst grade on her test which is absolutely what someone trying to frame someone else would do to try and keep themselves from getting caught??)

Speaking of which, I’m glad this confirms that Marinette is smart enough to ace her tests (since Alya points out that Marinette always scores highly on tests), but my question then becomes how Lila knew that Marinette would. It’s not as if Marinette comes off as the type of person who’d ace every test, and while Lila recognizes that Marinette is smart enough to know that she’s a liar, that doesn’t mean that she’s better at doing tests than, say, Max.

I’d also like to point out that, if Marinette did cheat on the test (as Bustier seems to believe), there’d be no reason for Marinette to keep the answer sheet afterward, so it doesn’t make sense for her to keep it in her backpack. If Lila had managed to find the answer sheet before the test started, give Bustier the anonymous note, and then Bustier asks to see Marinette’s backpack (in private) right before the test began, that’d be different. It would also be different if Lila had made sure that Marinette had ace’d the test perfectly, but we don’t see that.

(willing to excuse the injury since I imagine that Lila kept insisting that she was in pain regardless of the nurse not finding anything wrong)

In addition, let me just say that it’s bizarre to see Bustier tell Marinette that she can’t accuse Lila without proof, only to then send them both to the principal’s office. It’s not quite on the level of not talking to Chloe in “Zombizou,” but it’s still pretty bad. If the note hadn’t been anonymous, then Lila could’ve just gone with Marinette because she’s “the one who saw it happen" even if Bustier wouldn’t explicitly say that. Lila is trying to cover her tracks, but at the same time, she couldn’t have guaranteed that she would be sent to the principal’s office to enact the next part of her plan, which is my issue.

There’s also the fact that this episode continuously goes out of its way to not involve Lila’s mother, especially in the scene where Lila talks about her “disease,” because the writers know that everything’s going to unravel if Lila’s mother is told about any of those lies.

And it’s not as if Lila’s the only factor here.

[Over the Head]

The other thing about this episode is that it’s trying to follow up on the character’s actions in “Chameleon” without actually following up. It features Lila, flashes back to “Chameleon,” and has Lila going through on her threat to turn Marinette’s friends against her.

But it doesn’t feel like a proper follow-up because it doesn’t properly follow up since nothing happens. No one else is given concern about Lila, Adrien continues “supporting Marinette” only in the background (basically “Oni-Chan” Part 2, except it’s Marinette instead of Nathalie, Gorilla, and Ladybug), Alya still believes that Lila is a good person, and Marinette’s expulsion is forgotten about so I guess the class (presumably) just goes right back to trusting her. It’s as if the episode was trying to compensate for all the salt that happened in “Chameleon” but simultaneously couldn’t let things resolve in any way.

It’s a case of “too little, too late,” essentially.

I mean, just for starters is Alya herself. While it’s totally great that she wants to do detective work and that she believes Marinette’s innocence, it doesn’t absolve her from the fact that she can’t have Marinette and Lila’s side at the same time. Like, she literally can’t.

The fact is that Lila is the one who accused Marinette of both pushing her down the stairs and stealing her pendant, yet Alya is convinced that someone who is not Lila is the one who framed Marinette. The pendant is one thing because all Alya knows is that the pendant was in Marinette’s locker--she didn’t know the details of Lila’s accusations--but Lila accused Marinette of pushing her down the stairs. If Alya is supposedly such a great reporter, as she claims to be, then she should know who the one that accused Marinette of doing these things is because that’s the first thing she should go after.

This isn’t even mentioning the fact that Alya later got interviews during her investigation and Lila was one of the people she interviewed.

And let’s be real about this, because I’m sure we can all agree that Lila would not be soft about whether Marinette did these things or not. When Lila goes in on something, she goes all in, and if Alya tried to absolve Marinette of blame for the stair incident by asking (for example) if there was anyone else around at the time, Lila wouldn’t hesitate to confirm that there was no one else. If Lila’s plan is to get everyone to turn on Marinette, then Alya is a prime target, so Lila would put up the vulnerable act and say, “I know that it’s so unlike her, but I’m sure she was the one who did it! I’m sorry, I didn’t want to say anything, because I know you two were close, but it’s the truth.”

Point being, even if Alya didn’t know that it was Lila making those accusations at the time, she would later on, and at that point, she can’t continue being on Lila’s side if she wants to prove Marinette’s innocence.

Alya doesn’t even have any other leads for who might’ve done it, which is ridiculous because CHLOE EXISTS. If Alya is trying to figure out suspects, then Chloe would be the one to target because Chloe has a long-standing history of hating Marinette, yet Alya doesn’t even have a list of potential people who have a grudge against Marinette (which could’ve been hilarious, by the way; Alya trying her absolute hardest to keep Lila out of her suspects, so she starts suspecting people for dumb things like, “Marinette gently bumped into them in the hall once”; WASTED POTENTIAL).

It’s just... dumb that Alya tries to say that Marinette has a motive without thinking about the motives that other people might have for framing Marinette. It felt like they only had her mention motives to rub salt in the wound of anyone who remembers Alya’s jealousy comments from “Chameleon” and “Catalyst.”

AND ANOTHER THING...

Tikki states after the scarlet akuma attack that Alya didn’t get akumatized and that it somehow means that Alya still trusts Marinette.

I...

I have questions.

Like, first of all, Tikki’s comments only make sense when taken into context with Hawk Moth’s plan to use the classmates feeling betrayed by Marinette to akumatize them, which is something that Tikki obviously wouldn’t be aware of.

Secondly, Alya not getting akumatized doesn’t mean anything about how Alya felt during the matter because--I mean--wouldn’t Alya knowing that Marinette is innocent make her more likely to be akumatized? I understand that getting akumatized for the sake of someone else is a rare occurrence in the show, but Alya’s best friend just got expelled and Alya truly believes that she’d been framed, yet she doesn’t get akumatized over it?

Yeah, no. I don’t buy that.

Then, there’s Adrien. Just like with Alya, yes, it’s great that he’s actually doing something for Marinette, but it ultimately means little in the grand scheme of things. While I appreciate that he did try to intervene before Mr. Damocles cut him off and that he tried to put his foot down on Lila’s behavior, here are the facts:

Fact number one is that Marinette had to prompt Adrien before Adrien intervened. Yes, he defended her in class, but when he sees the pendant fall from Marinette’s locker, Marinette has to call out to him directly before Adrien tries to say anything. I honestly can’t blame Mr. Damocles for cutting Adrien off in that moment, because Adrien not stepping forward before Marinette’s prompting would just make Mr. Damocles think that Adrien is only sticking up for Marinette because she’s begging him to.

Fact number two is that Adrien rewarded Lila for her behavior in the end. Regardless of how he spoke to her or how upset he was, Lila is still “friends” with him “officially” and even gets a bonus in that she’s now known to the world as “Gabriel’s muse.”

To some degree, I get what Adrien is doing, but it’s not obvious enough, and this happened all the way back in “Chameleon” too.

Back then, people speculated that Adrien told Marinette not to out Lila because he knew that Lila would just lie her way around it. However, Adrien didn’t say that and thus made it look more like he was just trying to protect Lila’s feelings.

If Adrien was using that logic here, then it seems like he’s using his friendship/status as a bargaining chip, believing that he has no evidence against her (which isn’t true; he knows that Lila isn’t friends with Ladybug and another voice against Lila is more powerful than just Marinette by herself since she “has a motive”) and thus resorting to threatening her with their friendship to get her to do what he wants.

Yet, by standing by Lila’s side and refusing to do anything, Adrien caused a lot of akumatizations, almost causing Marinette’s in particular (twice). Lila was the one who started it, but Adrien is the one refusing to stop her for good.

So yeah. I gave Adrien slack in “Desperada,” but I will not give him any slack here. This is an entirely different game he’s playing and I’m not a fan.

And here’s the thing: I would like to see the conflict on both Adrien and Alya’s ends. It’d be interesting to see Adrien be hurt by Marinette’s situation, but being afraid of speaking out because he doesn’t know what kind of power Lila has to ruin his reputation (which his father would not be happy about). It’d be interesting to see Alya continuously see Lila as a suspect, but trying so hard not to believe it because she’s constantly accused Marinette of just being jealous and doesn’t know how to handle the fact that Marinette has been right all along and Alya favored Lila over her best friend.

But without those pieces there, those conflicts can only be speculated on; not confirmed.

One more note about Adrien since Chat does a thing here as well: this is like the second time that Chat has been fooled by a Ladybug copy (”The Puppeteer 2″ being the first), and what gets me is that it’s never the behavior that throws him off; it’s always something else (like him smelling the wax or the real Ladybug showing up to intervene). He also has to be told again by Ladybug that she loves someone else (when he tries to kiss her) even though she already stated as much when she broke apart Chat and Sentibug.

And BY THE WAY, “I’m in love with someone else,” is not a reason for Chat not to kiss her. Whether Ladybug loves someone else or not is beside the point and implies that it’d be fine if she didn’t love someone else. No, the point is that Chat shouldn’t kiss her because she’s not in love with him and has already said so multiple times.

I dunno, the fact that Ladybug being in love with someone else was brought up three times in this episode makes me wonder if they’re planning something for the finale. It’s just a lot of mentions for one episode.

I would also just like to point out how depressing it is to know that neither Tom and Sabine knew anything about Lila. Marinette apparently never confided in them about her and, even if her parents do believe that Lila’s disease is at fault for what happened, they apparently hold no animosity towards her whatsoever for getting their daughter expelled (they can still feel at least a twinge of anger about Lila even if they believe she’s genuine; it’s called being human).

I mean, granted, I’m not surprised. Tom goes on to talk about how much he knew his daughter was innocent, but I simply do not believe that. They wouldn’t have had their daughter working in their bakery after the shock of getting expelled from a school where she had so many friends if they didn’t believe she did it. Her life was just thrown for a loop and they’re trying to keep her busy with stuff that she clearly doesn’t want to do, so no, I don’t believe for a second that they thought she was innocent. Even with Hawk Moth’s line about revealing the truth when he was akumatizing Sabine, that was directed at Marinette as well, so he naturally would’ve had to swing it as something deeper going on or Marinette wouldn’t have been on board.

OH AND SPEAKING OF MARINETTE--

[why]

I was willing to set aside the lack of focus on Marinette’s conflict in “Queen Wasp” because I both knew it wasn’t going anywhere and knew that it was at least not something affecting Marinette in a severely negative way...

but I will not let up here because oh my god.

Marinette got expelled in this episode, and it’s brushed off at the end like it’s not even a big deal. Everything is just reset to square one, and there are no apologies to Marinette, no “sorry for getting akumatized because I thought you betrayed us,” and Marinette had to call Alya to have someone check up on her because no one checked up on her after all that.

Also, regardless of how negative Marinette must’ve felt after being expelled, it is such a massive disservice to have her not even fight back against the akuma when Chloe rejected her akuma in “Miraculer.” “Chameleon” was a shining moment when Marinette repelled the akuma all by herself, but once it actually touches her and gets inside her head, she doesn’t even resist?

And it’s just a matter of raising the episode’s stakes and showing that Marinette would immediately remove her earrings if she were akumatized in civilian form. Her expulsion isn’t for her character; it’s for the plot.

Heck, and if that’s the case (just needed Marinette to be expelled to turn the class against her), than Mayura’s sentimonster could’ve just been Sentinette instead if Sentibug, with Sentinette going and doing actually bad things or Mayura literally just appearing in front of Lila and putting a Marinette sentimonster under Lila’s control (Lila already accepted an akuma so why not?), then Nathalie keeping Marinette occupied with doing other tasks and claiming that she’s “already told the school” about it (since we’ve seen from “Simon Says” that Gabriel doesn’t need to be Hawk Moth to keep his champions active, so we can presume that it’s the same for sentimonsters) while Sentinette wreaks havoc. Hawk Moth can still just akumatize Nathalie afterward and the results would be the same except Marinette doesn’t have to be involved since the plot isn’t going to touch on her pain anyway. I mean, if Lila ends up having Sentinette as her sentimonster anyway, then that could even give Nathalie the idea of Sentibug later on.

Regardless of how much I care about Gabriel and Nathalie’s plot (which is a mixed bag; cool to see Nathalie doing things on her own but I still don’t know how/why she got feelings for Gabriel), that doesn’t mean that Marinette’s plot has to be sacrificed for it. All of the realistic feelings that Marinette should have are just brushed aside because things are happening and there’s no time for it.

And that’s not even taking into account all the other things that happen in the episode. Not only is Marinette expelled (which Tkki doesn’t comfort her on and just focuses on how she almost gave up the earrings; I’m not saying it’s not important to discuss that part but UGH), but Alya discouraged her from claiming that Lila did anything when Marinette knows it was Lila (again, going back to this “being human” thing; even if Marinette knows that Alya doesn’t have all the information, she has a right to feel hurt), her parents kept her busy with baking instead of letting her breathe or even giving her a day to allow the situation to sink in, and she had to just watch in shock while her own superhero partner believed a sentimonster over herself.

(By the way, unrelated, but while I’m not denying that it was sad to see Sentibug “die,” there is virtually no evidence about Sentibug being a “pure” as Chat claims until Ladybug gives Sentibug the object; like, Chat is literally talking about how there’s nothing evil about her while Sentibug is standing alongside Mayura and glaring at him. There’s simply no time to get to know Sentibug before she inevitably falls.)

There’s also the fact that Marinette, y’know, had to deal with all these terrible emotions on a day where she also had to fight Hawk Moth, so that was great for her, I’m sure.

Not helped by the self-deprecating comment she makes about not being anywhere near as perfect as Sentibug, which tore my heart out in case you’re curious.

I don’t know. This show has a weird habit of involving Marinette with the plot while simultaneously having no idea what to do with her. They have her around to react so that things can happen, but they don’t want to go into the details of how that interaction will affect her on a deep, personal level. It would make sense if that was how Marinette perceived things--that she wasn’t allowed to feel or else risk being akumatized--but the show treats it as if that’s how it should actually work, and then wrap it all up by having Marinette see Lila being called Gabriel’s muse on TV after Marinette herself did literally nothing wrong and everything wrong was being done to her instead.

Thus, it’s just... sad.

#category: critique #episode: Ladybug #other: ask and answer #category: long post #word count: over 3000

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kathyprior4200 · 4 years ago

Text

Hazbinphobia: Arrival of Adina

Adina fan art collage

Adina artists: (PLEASE GO SUPPORT)

Vivziepop

Hele-nae https://www.deviantart.com/hele-nae/art/Adina-and-Fitch-594650932

Buhitter https://buhitter.com/search?q=zoophobia

https://buhitter.com/author/AngelOfTheCode

MatrixArt28 https://www.deviantart.com/matrixart28/art/Adina-VivziePop-600498071

http://www.tjhongshengyuan.com/video/av33912053/?spm_id_from=333.788.videocard.5

SLoad666 https://aminoapps.com/c/hazbin_zoophobia/page/blog/a-d-i-n-a-fan-art/eYJp_lgQt3uEb4KZR62402Lp0ZnDe7DgDz6

“Here There Be Dragons”

“In the very beginning, a primordial force (known as Mother V by mortals), existed in the dark antimatter in space. The force caused a major explosion, one that mortals call the Big Bang. After stars and galaxies were formed, planets soon followed. Crafted from that very explosion was an all-powerful being: God. He was everywhere, where there was light, He existed within it. With a flick of His finger, He created the sun, moon, stars and the planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. Then, three main dimensions were formed: Heaven, Earth, and Hell.”

“The first one was Heaven, His residence. It was a marvelous place, with buildings made of gold, sitting on top of fluffy white clouds. The sky was endlessly blue, the environment a paradise. Angels were formed, divided into nine hierarchies: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Powers, Principalities, Dominions, Virtues, Archangels and Angels. Jesus was the son of God who was killed on Earth, then reborn. God soon created His Archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Azrael (black haired Angel of Death), among many others. His favorite one, however, was Lucifer, the Light Bearer. Lucifer was the embodiment of pride and perfection. The Rings of Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Fixed Stars and Primum Mobile were formed, God existing in the last one. (Also called the Rings of Faith, Hope, Love, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence, and Wisdom). C.H.E.R.U.B. was an organization that saved lives on Earth, traveling to the living world via the Bible. It consisted of sheep cherubs and a cherub boy.”

“The denizens of Heaven were animal-like (like those in Hell), and were ignorant to those suffering in Hell. They took on traits of flowers, harps, doves, dogs, cats, swans and other things considered “holy” or “pleasing” (unlike the spiders, and mythical monsters in Hell). Heaven, too, consisted of councils and Overlords who ruled certain Rings of Heaven, though they were far more just than the ones in Hell. Like in Hell, there were those born in Heaven (the Heaven Born) and do-gooders (the opposite of sinners). Like those born in Hell, the Heaven-Born had more power and a higher status than the do-gooders who had formerly been human. In God’s garden stood the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

“For many years, all was well.”

“Then one day, God decided to create new beings in His image, who could reproduce and unite with Him after death. They were called humans. The prideful Lucifer did not like the thought of God favoring man over angels. To Lucifer, he and the other angels were superior to humans and mostly immortal…why would God favor man instead?”

“Flooded with pride and anger over God’s strict rules, Lucifer ignited a rebellion against Him. Using his Morning Star sword, Lucifer fought Michael and Gabriel, leading other angels who followed him. God told Lucifer to submit and to end the madness, but the light-bearer refused. Michael defeated Lucifer and soon enough…Lucifer and the angels on his side were banished from Heaven.”

“The second world was Earth, consisting of oceans, land, animals, plants and humans. It was a neutral world between Heaven and Hell. Mortals there could be good or evil or many shades in between. The majority of them were flawed in God’s eyes, so only those worthy enough could go to Heaven. This often translated to straight, white, faithful men getting first pick. Humanity evolved from cavemen to farmers, to townsfolk and city-goers. Wars were fought, inventions were made, and lives were lost and gained. For the most part, humans were concerned with themselves, for better or worse.”

“Lucifer roamed the Earth for a thousand years before being sent to Hell, the fiery third world. There, he became king, while Lilith became queen after her banishment. Together, they created Hell and Pentagram City as a place where fallen angels and sinners could freely express themselves and take whatever risks they wanted. Drugs, murder, rape, and thievery were rampant. Overlords were placed into positions of power, ruling territories and districts. The Rings of Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery were formed, Satan being trapped in ice in the last one. The Immediate Murder Professionals consisted of imps who would travel to Earth to kill humans upon the requests of their demon clients. Lucifer and Lilith raised their princess daughter, Charlie, who always saw the good in everyone. Charlie would later form the Hazbin Hotel to try and redeem sinners so they could potentially go to Heaven, in order to stop the yearly purges.”

“Parallel to the Hazbin world was the world of Zoophobia. It was a world where humans, animals and anthromorphic beings (bi pedal animals with human traits) coexisted. Bi-pedal animals took refuge in Safe Haven to escape the humans who despised their differences. Safe Haven was one of the districts where Xirxine Labs and Phoenix Academy resided. A human named Cameron was sent to the academy by a mischievous goddess, knowing she had an extreme fear of animals. She eventually got to know the staff and students there, working as a therapist to help the teens. A Heaven and Hell also existed in the Zoophobia world. In Hell, there lived mythical monsters, Lucifer, his fox wife and trouble-making son Damion. Up in Heaven were angels, the same God as before and an angel named Adina.”

“Who is Adina? She is a white, centuries-old angel with glowing teal eyes, long lashes and long white hair. She has large white feathery wings extending from her back. She wears a white dress and robe, bordered by dark teal trim with little white Christian crosses along it. Adina is the mother of dragons in Zoophobia and spiritual consort to God. She was created by God to “save” some people while torturing others. In this way, she performs many tasks: 1. Instilling fear in sinners 2. Encouraging more people to worship the Heavenly Father 3. Gathering information and allies to use against Hell 4. Caring for her sons, whom she created. Adina is also the head of the Exorcists or Exterminators who purge demons in the Hazbin Hell every year.”

“Like Samael and the Exterminators, Adina enjoys torturing demons and sinners, often creating illusions of their worst fears. Her methods and the annual exterminations are ways of keeping demons in line, for them to know their fate and to not rebel against God and Heaven, like Lucifer did. She also has the ability to possesses others and convince them to take her side. Those influenced by her will have teal glowing eyes. (Take Mirage, the killer demon who possessed a brown-haired young woman. She caused havoc until Adina took control of both of their souls, creating a formidable ally.) Chainsaw, a white being with a chainsaw weapon with a cross on it, is Adina’s merciless ally.”

“However, Adina’s closest allies in the fight against sinners are us dragons.”

“Oh? Allow me to introduce myself…”

Surrounded by a teal aura, a humanoid silently walks forward. He is slender with a pointed dark teal tail, black pants and a green vest with white sleeves. He has a white face, a pointed chin and nose and rectangular glasses. His analytical eyes are light green sclera and glowing teal irises, like Adina’s teal eyes. His hair is dark green with two tall furry tufts with light teal tips atop his head.

“I am Fitch, dragon shapeshifter and oldest son of Adina. My large dragon form is in various shades of green: light green stripped underbelly, dark green tail and wings, spikes going along my back. My tail, claws and horns form my head all have teal tips, followed by forest green colorations. My mouth looks beak-like when it’s closed, but my teeth are sharp as ever.”

“I am a demon hunter along with my mother. From a very young age, I have learned to wield a variety of weapons to use against the demons of both Hells. (I’ve only been to the Hazbin world once, and I barely remember). One of my signature weapons is a staff with several spinning blades on it. Many people think I’m heartless, a merciless killing machine, but like Azrael, I’m merely doing my job. My mother enjoys manipulating people and killing demons…it’s just the way she is. My mother also supports Xirxine Labs, the facility where scientists perform experiments on Zoophobia denizens. They may be unethical, but sacrifices must be made in the phases of progress.”

As for me? I feel no remorse nor joy in particular. Demons are like rabid animals wrecking havoc across the realms…someone has to interrogate them and take necessary means.”

“I have three younger brothers.”

Another dragon walks forward, surrounded by dark purple and yellow. He wears thin yellow shoes and long black pants with yellow ends. His curvy black tail is decorated with several dark bows shaped like butterflies. His undershirt is yellow and his tailcoat is the same color as his pants, complete with buttons and a black bow tie under his neck. His face is pale, his eyes have lavender sclera and yellow irises. Finally, his hair is dark black, almost purple, with yellow bangs and tips on his two tufts.

In his dragon form, his skin is thick and purple. He has the black bow tie and buttons along his back, spines down his back, large wings and two sharp horns.

“Marx is a film producer and believed to be a former stage actor. He considers himself a victim of circumstance and is often very grumpy and bad-tempered. Marx and I are no longer in contact, due to disagreeing with certain life choices we have made. He makes me sick. Seriously, he goes around trying to impress others with his so called theater performances instead of doing more important work. Not to mention, joining the mafia, no less! You, know, the shady flirtatious black and yellow Castello, his brother Ribbon who does his dirty work and Salem, part of his black cat army. That mafia is almost as bad as that Italian Hazbin one with Henroin, Angel Dust, Arackniss, and Molly.”

“Safe Haven is supposed to be a secure place where the bi-pedal animals don’t have to worry about paranoid humans hunting them down. But the mafia and the monsters who keep entering the world thanks to that troublesome goddess makes things difficult. At least Lesson, the white cat, helps encourage people to seek the right path and convert to Christianity, like my mother wants. In fact, he works for her and Heaven (Though, his too-wide smile and eagerness gives me the creeps.)”

“Gustav, that German self-centered snake student teacher is Marx’s adopted son. He only likes students with talent; I heard he was very mean to a shy girl on stage.”

Fitch sighs deeply.

“Marx going against our mother’s wishes is seriously going to get him into major trouble. Thanks to Adina, my place in Heaven is already guaranteed. (And yes, “thou shall not kill” is in the Commandments but sometimes killing evil is necessary).”

“Alright, enough about him.”

Another dragon enters. He has a large goofy grin, a green shirt and a pale green face. His eyes are cloudy white, indicating blindness. His hair is jet black, black bangs going sideways and black tufts. In his dragon form, he is slender with light green and dark green colors blending into each other.

“Malcom…I rarely think about, actually. He is a blind dragon teacher at Phoenix Academy. Apparently, he’s friends with another teacher named Perci. His blindness helps heighten his other senses. He’s passionate about learning and helping others. Meh. I consider him a coward, as he’s not willing to kill off any demons. At least he’s not like Marx.”

“And finally…”

The last dragon emerges, surrounded by orange and red. He wears black and white shoes, long red pants, and a black tank top. A spiked collar is around his neck, giving him a gothic look. His claws are black and his skin is white with an array of lines and symbols on it like tattoos. His sclera are orange, his irises red. His hair is a fiery bold orange, as are his two ear tufts. In his dragon form, he is white with black spikes down his back, tattered wings with the black designs, and a tail with sharp orange spikes at the end. His clawed feet are red-orange.

“Hatchet and I see each other often. He is a handful, but admittedly, my closest family. Hatchet can create things with his fire and loves eating rabbits. His acid is acidic, so others would best steer clear. When he’s not eating rabbits or goofing off, he does pyrotechnic tricks, such as twirling flaming batons around. Perhaps he grew attached to me back when I would take care of him when we were younger. He was often the wild one, always getting into mischief. We all live distant lives now. Like Malcom, Hatchet always tries to get along with all of us. Though Malcom and Marx are perhaps closer to each other, like Hatchet is with me. Heh. Strange how two dragons with opposite personalities could get along so well. Adina likes all four of us, but she and I are closest.”

“Yes, that’s about it. Adina and I have been through a lot.”

“I remember those moments when Adina would coax people, like the green haired Iggly student into her wings, getting him to tell her everything. I’ll never get over that terrified look on his face.”

“Or when Adina tortured a white spider demon with his worst fears and said, ‘There is no mercy for the damned.’”

“She once saved this pink bi-pedal animal, embracing her and saying, “Let me save you, my little creature.” My mother always tries to do what is best, even though other people seem to be afraid of her.”

“One other time, I fought and interrogated an uncooperative demon with red eyes. Adina hovered by my side as I raised my teal weapon over his head. She declared, ‘Such is the will of the Lord, so shall it be…’ Later I accidentally killed a delicate white butterfly creature in my hands. I’ve been mocked over my love of butterflies by my brothers, my father, and by many in Zoophobia.”

“Whenever I would get tired or hesitant about my job, my mother would give me a warm smile and say in her soothing voice, “Just remember, it’s for the greater good.” Those words have stayed with me since. It always hurts when Adina says she’s disappointed in me after I fail a task, which is rare, thankfully. But I do what I do for her…it’s my one purpose in this life.”

“I know that those demonic beasts have a safe haven in the Hazbin world like the demons do in Zoophobia’s Hell. Maybe once mother and I find it, we can stop those scum from spreading and planning devious things. Of course, we would need to take out the powerful ones when we can. Everyone knows that angelic blades can instantly kill demons. That’s why I carry mine wherever I go.”

“Adina has summoned all four of us to go on a mission. Not like the interrogation or cleansing missions in Zoophobia Hell. No. This mission was very special. The four of us were to accompany her to the Hazbin Hell world, and find out more information about the princess and her hotel. Some say that the princess wants to unite Heaven and Hell’s denizens of the Hazbin world to create a larger diverse culture full of music, laughter and dancing creatures. Preposterous.”

“God had heard about the program from a distance. Rumor was, if demons were to be redeemed, Heaven would get overcrowded and chaos would ensue. The unwanted guests would disrupt the entire Heavenly system, possibly creating an apocalyptic war as deadly as the one where Lucifer tried to fight God. God only allows those with no flaws or sins to enter Heaven; it’s been that way for centuries. Adina, God, the angels and exorcists all agree that those in Hell are dangerous and should not be allowed into paradise.”

“Hatchet and I remain loyal to mother, though for Hatchet, it’s mostly because he cares for me and doesn’t want to let me down. Marx is grumpy and reluctant as usual. Perhaps he’s upset over a broken relationship or a show or something, not that I care. I briefly saw him drinking at a bar one time. Malcom, blind as he is, looks concerned. He obviously doesn’t want to leave his students and partake in this mission. Alas, Adina is a powerful being, perhaps second to God, so no one dare disobey her if they want to live a pain-free existence. Being dragon-shapeshifters, we can easily fight when needed. And in our bi-pedal forms, we can easily spy and blend in with Hell’s inhabitants.”

“Adina brings out a special device, shaped like a music box. It is golden and pink in color, nearly indestructible. After typing in a code (A24, 921028, VVZPP), the music box slowly opens with a faint whirl, revealing a figure of a fluffy cat. The cat slowly turns around on the stand as cheery music begins to play from the box. The cat stops and from its eyes, flashes a black outline of a portal in the air.”

“The portal lights up in neon pink, revealing elaborate symbols and one spot shaped like a horse named Spindle.”

“There was only one other device in the Hazbin world that could open a portal to Zoophobia, Heaven and perhaps Earth (along with open any door in the Hazbin Hotel), it was another music box with a black winged Sinner’s Key. All that was needed was the key or a grimoire) and a powerful demon or angel who could open portals.”

“A golden Do-Gooder’s Key (The kind used in Heaven) is revealed from an outward moving slot from inside the box. Adina picks it up with her delicate white fingers and places it through a glowing key hole in the portal. After she turns and releases it…”

“Vivienne, Vivienne, Aperiam in porta!”

“Adina chants the phrase to open the glowing portal in front of us. It is the only known gateway to the Hazbin world. The fabric of Zoophobia fades in front of us, revealing a hole to a crimson sky world.”

“We all get ready to go through...set to fulfil our destinies…”

“But let’s go back to the past a bit…”

“The Dragon’s Keep”

Many years ago, my brothers and I were born from special eggs in the Zoophobia world. Adina became lonely over the centuries. Although she had lots of power, it was tiring to travel to different worlds and interrogate denizens all the time. She eventually wanted someone to help her out in her work. Although she was ruthless to demons, she did care deeply for those in Zoophobia and Heaven. She felt like she was part of something bigger; she was doing part of His work, after all.

“Oh what a marvelous place Heaven is,” she sighed to herself. “But the days drag on. I feel my legacy will eventually go unnoticed. If only there was a way I could pass down my values to a new generation.”

Then, it came to her: she wanted children of her own.

But in Heaven, casual sex was seen as one of the many sins not allowed. Plus, angels and demons were creatures that could not reproduce, unlike humans.

Adina soon went to God for advice, bowing respectfully when she saw Him. She stood on a light blue rug that led to a set of marble steps. Golden pillars reached up into the sky, hovering on clouds that appeared on both sides of the open space hall. Two guards dressed in white stood hovering on either side, with flames for faces and six red wings flapping softly from their backs. Above Adina were the fixed stars and galaxies, shining brightly overhead, in contrast to the sky on the sides. Not too far away, angels were darting around large white roses, spreading songs and feelings of joy to other beings born within the petals. She was briefly reminded of her own birth, her name meaning “gentle” and “mild.”

“Your Heavenly Grace,” Adina said, soon standing up, folding her white wings behind her. God appeared as a large golden eye surrounded by golden wheels with eyes covering them and small angel wings spread out from them. The wheels and wings were moving, but God as the eye stared unblinkingly at her. A white marble throne stood behind Him.

“My lovely consort,” he replied, kindness in his voice. “So wonderful to see you again. What is it that you seek?”

“I grow ever lonesome, and feel that what I do isn’t quite enough.”

“My dear, your work is more than enough. I chose you to be the angel of Divine Retribution. You have organized and led countless Exorcists to Hell and back. Not to mention you saved so many souls who almost lost their way. Are you not happy?”

“I truly am, my Lord. It’s just…I want someone who can help carry out my work. One who could work with me, but also be cared for by me. I’d like to have children of my own.”

“Ah,” said God. “A beautiful wish. Alas, you know that angels cannot procreate.”

“I do know. That’s why I came to you for help.”

“Well, there is a way,” He said. “You remember you were created from holy starlight and dragon’s blood, right?”

She nodded.

“You have the ability to give birth to offspring. Dragon shapeshifters, and powerful ones. Here’s what you will do.”

Adina listened intently.

God had sent her on a journey across the world of Zoophobia. She was to retrieve four special items and bring them to a nest in a vast cavern. She remembered the instructions she was given:

“Find the fur of a polecat on a rock during the full moon.

Find a gold frowning theater mask in the camp of rule breakers by the river.

Find the hatchet that lies within a volcano, where fire roars to life.

Find a religious text in the hands of St. Columba where the wind blows high.”

Earth, water, fire and air.

Finding the polecat pelt was easy; she traveled to the forest and there it was, illuminated and clean in the moonlight.

Getting the mask was harder. She had to ward off several shady looking creatures, and a few monsters as well.

After grabbing the ax from the volcano and nearly plunging into lava, she had to use lots of holy water to heal her singed skin and wings.

Finally, she found the leather bound book in the hands of a St. Columba statue, high up in the mountains.

“Head to the largest habitable cavern. Create a large secure nest and place the objects inside.”

At last, she traveled to the cavern, created a large nest of sticks and twigs, and gently placed the objects inside. Her glowing eyes allowed her to see in the dark. Toward the back of the cave was a pile of gold coins and a few precious gems scattered around.

“A decent lair for dragons. They will reside here before being introduced to the rest of the city.”

“Recite this spell to begin the transformation and birthing process.”

Adina hovered her hands over the objects and chanted in Latin. The objects lit up in flaming spheres of light, transforming into speckled oval-shaped white eggs.

The effort of doing the spell made Adina fall unconscious for several days.

Adina stirred awake, her eyes fluttering open. She could hear some movement coming from the eggs. She stood up from the atone floor and let out a soft gasp.

Her children were about to hatch!

She carefully took the nest, flapped her wings forward, and placed it in a secure spot on top of a high cliff near the cave. She made sure that it lay within the sunlight and not too close to the edge.

The eggs then gradually turned different colors. The one from the polecat pelt turned dark green and teal. The one from the mask became yellow and black. The one from the hatchet was red and orange. Finally, the egg from the book was light green and black.

The green and teal egg wobbled first. A dark crack snaked slowly over the surface. More cracks began to appear, creating intricate designs. Ever so carefully, bits of shell fell off from different spots. A beck poked through, and the rest of the shells fell away.

There I was, small with a dark green body, wings and a pointed tail. My new green-teal eyes scanned the area, curiously. It was love at first sight when I saw my mother’s smiling face. Adina stroked my head and back lovingly with her fingers, me letting out a pleased sound. I nudged my face repeatedly into her hand, a musical chuckle coming from Adina.

“You are going to do great things, my little Fitch.”

Around thirty minutes later, two eggs began to stir. The fiery colored one and the yellow-black one. The eggs bonked into each other several times, and chirping could be heard from inside.

“Oh? Who’s coming next?” she asked.

Adina soon had her answer. A part of the yellow and black shell was shoved off, landing onto the nest like a door breaking down. A dark purple and yellow dragon did a little pose before stumbling out of the shell remains. He shook off the embryonic fluids from his scales, showing a grin of small teeth just beginning to form. Moments later, the fiery egg beside him exploded, sending shells and sparks everywhere. I jumped into mother’s hands, terrified, while the purple dragon covered his little head with his arms. A slender white dragon appeared, shaking away bits of shell from his small horns. (This was before he got all his tattoos). His red-orange eyes darted around excitedly, spotting the purple dragon.

“Hatchet!” Adina scolded as the white dragon began to play-wrestle his brother with loud croaks. “Leave Marx alone!”

But little Marx soon joined in the fun, pushing his brother back with his little feet. Hatchet’s small spiked tail smacked Marx in the face and the dragon squeaked in brief pain. Little me jumped from mother’s hands, biting Marx’s tail.

For several minutes, the three of us rough-housed in the nest, testing out our new senses and bodies.

Adina soon grew concerned. “What about the last egg?”

Indeed, the last egg had remained as still as ever. Adina shooed Hatchet away when he tried to knock on the hard light green shell.

“Oh dear,” she sighed. Was it a stillborn? She couldn’t bear that. Minutes became hours. The egg still hadn’t hatched by the morning.

Finally, in the evening, after Adina had almost given up hope, a small chirp was heard. The other dragons peered to get a closer look. Cracks snaked along the egg shell in multiple directions. At long last, holes appeared in the egg, before a closed eye was revealed through one hole. The egg split open and a light green and darker green dragon was revealed. He was slender, with thin see-through wings and a thin pointed face. He sniffed and slowly opened his eyes.

“Malcom,” Adina exclaimed, overjoyed to see her youngest son. Malcom took several shaking steps forward, and bumped right into Marx. Marx growled in protest. Malcom’s eyes were cloudy white.

“He’s blind,” Adina realized.

Malcom’s ears picked up the sounds of bats fluttering from above the cave. He jumped into the air, but fell flat on his back. I helped him up and licked his face.

“You guys will need flying lessons one day,” Adina said.

For several days, Adina brought in meat, game and other foods for us. Hatchet, in particular, loved to eat rabbits. The four of us were much closer back then, than we are now. Eventually, we would learn to breathe fire, fly, talk and hunt for ourselves. We were to go to school and learn to live a more civilized life when we turned one year old, (equates to five human years). Adina had given us brief glimpses of the city and some tidbits.

“Bi-pedal animals wear clothes,” she said. “But full animals don’t have to. Eating humans or other creatures is forbidden.”

“Awww man,” Hatchet groaned.

“Shut up and go chase a rabbit,” Marx muttered to him.

“Rabbit? Where?”

Marx rolled his eyes as Adina continued.

“Do not go outside the Safe Haven border without permission. There are dangerous humans out there with weapons that can kill you.”

“But we’re dragons,” Hatchet mentioned in his child-like bi-pedal form. “We live longer than them and are more powerful. Can’t we just burn down their cities and stuff?”

“Did you not hear what mother just said?” I chided him. “They have weapons that can pierce through dragon scales. Interacting with them would only put the districts in danger and confusion. Idiot, I swear.”

“Swearing’s not very nice,” Malcom added. “I heard one guy say something really bad to another, he was like, ‘oh no you didn’t,’ the other was like, ‘yeah huh, I just did,’ and then…”

“You talk too much,” I deadpanned.

“You didn’t even let me finish.”

“Pay attention, my sons,” Adina said, before continuing her lecture.

A week after we were born, we had gotten the hang of hunting for ourselves. Me and Hatchet, in particular were the better hunters among the group. Hatchet would eat rabbits whenever he could. (To this day, I don’t understand his obsession with them). We steered clear of bears or black horned monsters who could overpower us or swipe us down with their paws.

Adina taught us how to speak, read, write, and, of course, how to fly.

“Feel the direction the wind is blowing,” she said. “Flapping your wings propels you forward but don’t overdo it. Deep breaths and remaining calm are key. Try and land straight on your feet…”

She said this just before Malcom came in for a faulty landing. He bashed into a rock face, tumbling down onto the ground in a heap. Marx tripped on his tail and almost fell, but managed to straighten himself up. Hatchet laughing whenever I fumbled only encouraged me to work harder. Hatchet was doing pretty well, if you didn’t count the time his white wings got torn up a bit from flying through tree branches.

It took a few years for us to fully master our flying and shapeshifting abilities. But I grew fast and learned fast.

I led my brothers when we practiced diving off a cliff. Taking a deep breath, I jumped off the cliff, morphed into my dragon form and spread out my wings gracefully. Adina’s face blended into the clouds; she looked proud. Hatchet was up next.

“Whoo-hoo!” he roared, as he morphed into his white dragon form and took off. A gust of yellow fire shot from his mouth, creating a ring for him to fly through. I smiled a bit and rolled my eyes at him. We weren’t at full size yet, but we weren’t too far off.

“Isn’t this amazing, Fitch?” Hatchet called as he flew beside me. We stared at the canyons and rocky ground below us. “Rawr!” he called, pleased to hear his voice echo through the air.

“Focus, please,” I said. “Mother’s looking for grace and agility, not loudness.”

“Fitchy…am I being too quiet?!”

His loud voice and laughter rang in my ears.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over your need to shut up,” I retorted.

Hatchet scoffed. “You’re always so…erm…stuffy. I’d say almost as grumpy as Marx back there.”

Marx was pacing back and forth back on the cliff in his bi-pedal form. We all wore white loincloths over our waists that would appear even after we had transformed from our dragon forms. Our chests had thin fur that matched our hair colors.

He appeared to be talking to himself, as if planning some kind of imaginary show.

“Jerry the knight gallops through the woods, only to tremble in fear at the four mighty brothers. Then the camera…one of the objects from the city that Adina told us about…pins up and down as we stomp toward our victim. He runs and runs, the scene going by in a blur…”

“Are you going or what?” Malcom asked.

“Right!” Marx called, raising a fist and standing straight. “Life is but the next grand adventure. We now roll too…”

He spread his wings…

“Marx of Karl, taking off!”

He jumped into the air. Malcom misjudged his next step and plummeted rapidly to the ground with a shocked yelp.

Hatchet and I turned around. “Malcom!” Hatchet cried in fear.

Malcom was briefly scared, but soon got over it. With a new happy look on his face, he spread out his green wings and swirled toward us. “Speak up so I can hear you!” he called out.

“We’re going this way!” I said as I led the group once again.

“What the…” Marx began, looking at Malcom. “You’re not scared.”

“No. Not really.”

“This is only your third time in the air. And you can’t see anything!”

“I can hear, smell and feel where things are. It’s easier on the ground but I’m just happy to be with my dragon bros!”

“Bros?” Marx raised an eyebrow.

“Hey look, I’m not even in my full dragon form! You should totally try it!”

The three of us morphed into our bi-pedal forms, while still retaining our wings. We huddled close to support ourselves.

“W-w-w-whoa this feeling sure is new,” Hatchet muttered, trying not to look down. I, too, was feeling vulnerable, flying for the first time in this form.

“Don’t look down,” I suggested.

But of course, he didn’t listen.

“Oh, no, Fitch, I’m looking down! Yaahhhh!”

“Get off me!” I said, pushing him off when he grabbed my back. He clawed at the air in desperation.

“You’re not drowning, Hatch,” Marx sighed.

Marx muttered some prayers as he grabbed hold of Hatchet to steady him. Hatchet took some deep breaths, settling down.

“Hahahaha!” Malcom laughed in bliss. “You’ll get used to it eventually!”

“How long is eventually?” Hatchet asked.

“How should I know?”

The four of us landed haphazardly into a nearby lake after a wind knocked us slightly off course. Water splashed everywhere after we landed. Hatchet shook off water droplets from his scales and wings.

“Bleh! I hate baths!”

“I’ll say you needed one, Hatch,” Malcom said with a grin.

A deep growl rumbled in Hatchet’s throat. “Wanna see what it’s like to drown? Oh wait, you can’t.”

“At least I don’t have to lay my eyes on your monstrosity of a form.”

“What was that?!”

“Heheheh. You heard me, Hatch.”

“Empty threats and callous fighting, per usual,” Marx remarked, crossing his arms as his brothers landed some kicks and punches in the water. I stood up and narrowed my eyes. I had trouble seeing things off in the distance. Those things Adina called glasses would be very helpful.

“That’s quite enough, both of you!” I commanded, a burst of teal fire escaping my mouth. It was enough to make Hatchet and Malcom pay attention. Good.

“Anyone up for a swim?” Malcom asked.

“Absolutely not,” Marx replied.

“For once, I agree. I say we find ourselves some food and get out of here,” I advised.

“Alright,” Hatchet agreed, separating from Malcom with a grin. “What are we waiting for? Food would be great right now.”

“When are you not hungry?” Marx asked Hatchet.

“Let me think…Never!”

Turning back into our dragon forms, we hunted for food before heading back home. Hatchet had a knack for finding rabbits almost anywhere…and wouldn’t share with us.

“That’s my rabbit!” Hatchet declared.

Marx tried to grab the small dead carcass from his brother’s hands.

“For Viv’s sake!” cried Marx. “You’ve had enough of them already! It’s my turn.”

“Let go!”

“You let go!”

The boys struggled for a bit until Hatchet accidentally ripped off Marx’s loincloth.

Marx turned red and angry in the face as Hatchet stuck out his tongue and laughed.

“You’re such a filthy hothead!” Marx spat as he picked up the cloth and tied it back around his waist.

We found a river of fresh water for us to drink. In our dragon forms, we spit water at each other playfully and had a contest to see who could spit the farthest. It came as a tie between me and Hatchet. Hatchet, being the most athletically inclined, won intense races we had, both on the ground and in the air. A black creature with horns chased after us and nearly devoured poor Malcom, but thankfully, several hard punches from me and the others caused the beast to flee. In celebration, Hatchet juggled fireballs in his hands before catching them all in his mouth.

“That beast will be “dragon” himself to oblivion! Haha! Get it?” Hatchet chuckled at his joke. Malcom giggled while Marx and I groaned in annoyance.

Once we all got back, we turned into our bi-pedal forms once more. Adina said that those would be our default forms most of the time, so she encouraged us to get used to them.

As we reached the mouth of the cave, Hatchet stuffed a severed brown rabbit’s head into his mouth with a greedy look on his face.

“You know that is considered bad manners, don’t you?” I asked, referring back to mother’s lecture. Hatchet wiped off some blood from his pointed face with his arm.

Hatchet scoffed. “Who cares? We aren’t going to the city for…another month, at least.”

“It’ll be here faster than you know it, Hatch. It’d be best if we all prepare ourselves soon.”

“Whatever you say, Fitchy.”

“Stop calling me that. It’s Fitch.”

“Same thing.”

Our steps echoed as we arrived back into the cave at dusk. Hatchet shot a jet of fire up toward hanging bats, who screeched in protest, flapping their wings.

One scorched bat fell down and landed right into Malcom’s mouth as he yawned. After a look of surprise, he happily chewed up the creature and swallowed.

“I guess food can fall from the sky,” he said, licking his lips.

“Jeez Malc, you’re even blinder than the bats,” Marx mentioned.

“Technically, bats use echolocation to track down their food and figure out their surroundings. They aren’t as blind as you think.”

“Hmpth. Know-it all.”

We curled up in our bed nests that were spread out among the cave. They were nests with a few pillows and some blankets inside them. Malcom was the only one who hadn’t outgrown being tucked in. Since mother was busy, Marx came over and helped relax his brother. Malcom’s nest was by a chest of gold coins and some fancy books. They were some of many treasures that Adina magically provided for us. (She had a knack for spoiling us when she wasn’t stern.)

Marx sighed and hopped into his nest by a pile of royal robes nearby. Hatchet slept near, well, a hatchet, along with a few golden goblets and gems. I soon curled up in my nest, the one nearest to some discarded swords, and bladed silver weapons. Apparently, Adina said she would teach me how to use them later on.

“If you want to protect yourself and your brothers,” she had said, “You’ll need to learn how to defend yourself.”

Of course, she hadn’t told me anything about hunting demons until I was older, but I was still eager to learn, nonetheless. The full moon and stars shone through a hole in the cave, a beautiful sight. Before long, the four of us were snoozing peacefully away.

The assassin, the actor, the punk, and the nerd. A very unique dragon family indeed.

#adina #zoophobia #fitch #heaven #fanart #hazbin hotel theory

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29-pieces · 5 years ago

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Singularity - Good Omens fanfiction

~*~

Crowley is captured by the angels. No one seems eager to speak up against the torture happening right there in Heaven. No one but Aziraphale. But who's going to listen to a mere principality? Pre-Apocalypse

Warnings for non-graphic torture (the worst of it is offscreen), verbal abuse, and bullying, but there's healing and comfort in the end 😁

~*~

Part 1

~*~

There was no single part of Crowley’s body that wasn’t on fire. Not like Hellfire—that would actually have been preferable, seeing as he was a demon, one who’d spent a bit of time in Hell, and wasn’t much affected by those flames.

No, this was just good, old-fashioned, agonizing pain.

Sandalphon was good at that, the old-fashioned pain. Gabriel wasn’t so bad at it himself. But where Crowley had learned Gabriel liked to keep his hands clean, Sandalphon seemed to conversely relish finding himself hands-deep in blood.

Crowley’s blood.

“Let’s go over this again, ‘kay, sunshine?” Gabriel’s deceptively cheerful voice said from somewhere up above him as Crowley curled in on himself. A hand gripped his hair, pulling his head up to look into a menacing purple gaze. “I ask the questions, you give the answers. Even a demon like you shouldn’t find this too complicated.”

“Piss off,” Crowley growled. He lowered his eyes though, unwilling to see the disgust and disdain in the group of angels who had gathered around to watch. He wished he still had his dark glasses, the armor he donned when facing the world, his protection against the loathing, fear, and ridicule of anyone who might see his true nature in the snake-ish eyes.

They’d taken those from him, of course. The ripple of hateful murmurs and scathing titters from the audience had filled him with shame.

A fist found its way into his cheek, shattering bone, adding another damp streak of blood across his face.

~*~

[Part 2]

Going to post a little piece every day - at the end, the full work will be posted to fanfic.net and AO3 😊

#good omens #captured crowley #fanfiction #singularity #a story told in snippets #gabriel is a bully #good omens fanfic

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years ago

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A Blessed Fall (Rated NC17)

Watching Aziraphale fall breaks Crowley’s heart. For Aziraphale, however, it’s a beautiful experience - birth and death, transformation, and a new beginning all wrapped up in one.

Because he’s not alone. (1819 words)

Crowley gazes lovingly at his angel’s naked body – a glorious sight he thought he might never see. He leans in to kiss the back of his neck, sending shivers down his spine. The smile he wears as he watches Aziraphale’s breathing slow, his breathing settle, is genuine, but bittersweet in nature. He’s proud of his angel. Proud of how he’s chosen to handle things. Proud to be with him.

He just wishes things could have turned out another way.

Aziraphale looks different now. So terribly different. His curly white locks have become silver-grey. A dashing silver-grey, Crowley feels. They lend color to his face, make him appear less pale, less ethereal.

Less untouchable.

That naïve blush of rose in his lips and cheeks has blossomed into a fiery stain, washing away any hint of innocence that once existed before. But the most obvious change has been his angel’s eyes. They’ve gone black from the whites straight through the blues. A shiny, silky black, like an oil slick.

It’s not unattractive. It’s just going to take some getting used to.

“How do you feel, angel?” Crowley whispers. His word usage may seem unusual, all things considered, but he refuses to stop calling Aziraphale angel. When he started, it wasn’t so much a nickname but an indicator of what Aziraphale was, the boundary that existed ever between them.

6000 years later, it means so much more.

“I feel … sleepy … sore,” Aziraphale teases, hugging his pillow beneath him and giggling like a fool.

At least he’s a happy fool, Crowley thinks, his smile trembling at the corners.

“I should imagine so. That happens the first time, or so I’ve been told.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley’s smile trembles a little more. Aziraphale may not look as innocent as he did, but it’s still there, buried deep inside.

“I don’t. This was a first for both of us,” Crowley reassures him. He runs his nails lightly down Aziraphale’s back, skirting his shoulders, avoiding the shattered nubs of broken wings. He closes his eyes and pictures Aziraphale’s wings as they were – strong, graceful arches of pristine white feathers towering over his head, shielding him from the rain.

His wings will grow back, albeit a different color.

Unfortunately, them coming in will hurt twice as much as him losing them.

He told Aziraphale that. Warned him. He didn’t want to. He wanted to put it off, give Aziraphale time to adjust before he came at him with more bad news. But Aziraphale asked him, begged him not to lie to him even for his sake. So Crowley told him, explained it in detail the way he remembered it, Aziraphale looking at him the entire time with sadness creasing his brow. Crowley thought Aziraphale had been devastated by his description, maybe frightened by the thought of more pain. But Aziraphale put a hand to his demon’s cheek and said, “Oh, you poor dear.”

“Wha-what? What are you talking about?”

“So alone. So scared. So full of doubt. That wasn’t right. Wasn’t right at all.” Aziraphale smiled. “At least I’ll have you here beside me. I wish I could have been there for you.”

Then Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s hand and kissed it to keep from losing the last bit of strength he had left.

Crowley didn’t particularly want to be reminded of falling, but it wasn’t the kind of thing he could forget. He didn’t need Aziraphale falling to trigger it. It would be easy to distance himself from Aziraphale now. Maybe that was what the Almighty was counting on when She pulled this little trick.

Finally separating them for good.

That’s what started this anyhow.

The worst part is Aziraphale would understand.

He’d forgive him.

But Crowley couldn’t do that to Aziraphale. No matter what happened between them, he could never abandon Aziraphale. Not when his angel truly needed him. Crowley may be many things. He’s vain beyond belief. He may even be a coward on occasion. But he loved Aziraphale more than he loved himself.

He couldn’t leave him.

Crowley fell from Grace because he’d asked questions. Too many questions. He was a menace with questions.

Aziraphale didn’t fall because they’d made love to one another. That actually came after. A celebration of sorts.

Aziraphale fell because he said no to God.

He’d received an express post envelope that morning from Gabriel – one of the Archangel’s long-winded letters pretentiously printed in gold ink on white parchment. It read, “Principality Aziraphale: It has come to the Almighty’s attention that you have been conspiring with a demon of Hell (because, of course, there are demons of other places, Aziraphale had joked to himself, such as Waitrose and the laundromat) by the name of Crawly for the entirety of your assigned years on Earth. After lengthy consideration by a congregation of your superiors, this has been deemed fraternizing with the enemy, a crime that carries with it a substantial penalty. It is therefore required by the home office that you cease all communication with said demon immediately or suffer the consequences.

Sincerely;

Gabriel

Archangel”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes as he snapped his fingers and sent back a message of his own that read, “Dear Archangel Gabriel: I apologize but I find I must decline your recent request on the grounds that it is wholly unreasonable and unnecessary. Nothing with regard to my relationship with the demon Anthony J Crowley makes me unfit or incapable of doing my job on Earth as outlined in its description. Neither has it for the past six plus millennia, as evidenced by my list of accomplishments (see attached). Therefore I see no reason to terminate said relationship as a requirement for me to continue my duties. Thank you, however, for your concern. It is duly noted. If there is a fine that I must pay for my perceived insubordination, please let me know what it is so that I may appeal it expeditiously through the appropriate channels.

Sincerely;

Aziraphale

Principality”

Aziraphale felt no fear nor hesitation in sending that message off, even with the knowledge that it could be forwarded to God Herself. He’d done nothing wrong. He had no intention of shirking his angelic duties. He never had. But he also had no intention of giving up the one thing on Earth that was his and his alone - his lifelong friendship with Crowley. Being friends with a demon didn’t make him a lesser angel, and as such, he didn’t feel he should be forced to make a choice.

Aziraphale waited for a response, but when he received none, he put the matter out of his mind.

Later that evening, while drinking with Crowley in his bookshop, he felt an odd pain in his chest. It hit him hard like a hammer straight to the ribcage, radiating to his shoulders and down his torso, filling every limb with white hot pain. Were he mortal, he might have thought he were having a heart attack. He’d never experienced anything like it before. It felt like a fork digging through his insides, trying to tear him apart.

Crowley seemed to know it for what it was just by looking at him. He ran to the angel’s side and took his hand as Aziraphale slid off the sofa and fell to the floor, writhing in agony. Crowley caught his gaze and locked on to it, determined not to let go, even when the fire beneath Aziraphale’s flesh began to burn him as well.

“Stay with me,” Crowley whispered. “It’s going to be all right. I promise. But whatever you do, don’t give in to it. Don’t let it destroy you.”

“I … I won’t …” Aziraphale said, anchoring his gaze to the serpent eyes in front of him, using them to keep him grounded.

Then the world went black and all he could feel was pain.

Pain and Crowley’s hand holding his.

But now, lying beside Crowley on his enormous mattress, Aziraphale doesn’t feel any different - apart from the throbbing in his back where his wings have been singed off. Which is to say he doesn’t feel Evil. Ironically, he feels that his capacity for love, for compassion, may have even grown somewhat. If that’s a side-effect, if it’s temporary, only time will tell. But he should find a way to use that for as long as it lasts.

Crowley had said that a demon could get in real trouble for doing the right thing, but he’s been performing blessings for thousands of years. Aziraphale needs to find out how Crowley has been able to manage it without getting caught. He definitely sees the opportunity to exploit a few loopholes.

He finds himself getting excited just thinking about it.

The act of falling, the physical manifestation of it, is what he’d always imagined birth and dying feeling like, only in reverse. There are things he’ll miss about being an angel. Absolutely there are things he’ll miss. But he’s choosing not to think of those right now. He’s gone through a transformation, a new stage in his existence. He’s metamorphosed, become a dark butterfly. And at the other end of his fall was Crowley, kissing his forehead, murmuring words of encouragement …

… even praying for his safe return.

Before he’d opened his eyes, he heard Crowley say that he’d love him forever. He’d take care of him, stand beside him no matter what he turned into, and Aziraphale couldn’t help grinning.

It sounded like a wedding vow.

But the oddest thing of all is the thing he’d feared the most – he doesn’t feel God’s love any less than he had before. He thought for sure it had been torn from him in the process of falling and that there’d be a void, but it was still there. He may be mistaken, but it feels that way.

Maybe because he has Crowley with him, loving him enough for both God and himself.

All in all, along with making love to his demon, falling has actually been a beautiful experience.

Fancy.

“Are you … are you scared?” Crowley asks.

“No,” Aziraphale says without pausing to think, wiping at the worry on Crowley’s face with a kiss on the lips. “Not a whit.”

“How …?” Crowley shakes his head, his voice dissolving with every word “… how can you say that? Everything you had, the life you knew … it’s all over.”

“It’s not all over. Stop being such an alarmist.” Aziraphale rests his forehead against Crowley’s and scrunches his nose, trying to lure a smile from his demon. “Listen - are you willing to stay with me, dear boy?”

“Every minute.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” Crowley sniffs. “I … I swear.”

“Then I choose not to see this as an ending” - Aziraphale pulls Crowley down beside him and wraps his arms around him - “but the beginning of a great adventure.”

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #frankie writes

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i-llbedammned · 5 years ago

Text

Title: Aziraphale’s Perspective

Word Count: 3399

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20273104/chapters/57178519

Summary: An account of Aziraphale’s mindset and actions after Crowley rescued him and his books during WWII

Text: It was a foolish notion that compelled Aziraphale the streets at night. He should just go back to his bookshop and have a calming cuppa, reflect upon what just happened by reading a lovely story –perhaps Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories as he had just gotten a first edition copy of that. He should make sure all the books were perfectly intact- though he strangely did not doubt Crowley’s assertion that they were. He just wouldn’t lie about something so important. Yes, that would be the wisest choice, surely a choice that would smiled upon by all the angels in Heaven and God herself. Yet, being a flawed servant of perfection he didn’t do any of that. Instead he found himself in the war torn streets, staring at the frightened faces of all the mortals who had just seen him crawl out from the fiery wreckage left behind by the attempted Nazi assassination.

The knowledge that he had almost been so easily discorporated shook him. It wasn’t that a body was exactly hard to get, papers and all that were not impossible to do even if they were tedious. But this body was special. This body was the one he had spent so many thousands of years on this plane with, the body that Crowley recognized as being his and that he had lovingly grow and stretched into a pleasantly soft shape. The new form they would give him – well it wouldn’t be him. It would be like how he was guarding Eden, all tall and muscular with nary a comforting bit of fat on him. No doubt he would be built like a soldier despite his desire to have a bit of cushioning. Even though Gabriel shamed him about it, he liked it because it was his own and Crowley had once said that the belly suited him so… There he was thinking about that blasted demon again. He had not the foggiest clue of why he continually came back to that tempter. Up until a few moments ago he was sure that the demon hated him, he certainly hadn’t made any attempt to contact him after the holy water incident and no doubt was gallivanting around causing all sorts of trouble. Not that, Aziraphale admitted to himself, he had not cause a small amount of trouble himself in those years. One simply had to cause some or else it got terribly boring on this plane. Then even after barely talking to him and saving his life and his books he just danced off. That devilish red-head had just danced off with barely a “bye” or an explanation! It was infuriating. Not that the angel even cared about such things from his mortal enemy, but it was more the principal of it! Despite his small annoyance, he found his heart softening. Why would he do such a thing, the poor soul? Why would someone who had avoided him for hundreds of years now come back just to save him and his books? Aziraphale knew that just walking past the fonts of holy water was dangerous enough for a demon let alone treading upon hallowed ground. The poor dear was probably feeling it a bit after that show of heroism.

That show of heroism that he had made for the angel’s sake and no one else’s.

It was probably nothing, probably just in his mind. The bastard was probably laughing it up back at his flat. All the same, Aziraphale felt like he should check up on him. You know, just to make sure everything was alright. Surely, Heaven could see no harm in simply a show of compassion even towards the damned.

So, after dropping his book bag off at the shop, he made his way towards the flat that he knew the dreaded demon Crowley was making residence in. The building loomed like a gargoyle over the city, flashing in the travelling storm clouds. As he entered into the lobby, the angel’s silver eyes caught upon a bit of wetness glimmering in the lamp light and he bent down to get a better look. Sweet sanguine savior! That was blood! Not just any blood either, judging by how thick and black it was. That was demon’s blood, no doubt in his mind!

Crowley! Despite his better instincts his heart pinged with a deep seated desire to run up the stairs, knock in the door, and run to him. Tell him he was an idiot for putting himself at risk like that all for an angel who didn’t even like him and who he was sworn to defeat! It had to have cut very deep to make that much blood, enough to leak through the wooden sole of the shoe. They probably ached something terrible and pained him a good deal.

With urgency, Aziraphale took off up the stone steps because Heaven knew that the lift never worked properly around here, using his wings to boost him up a few steps at a time when he was sure that the mortals weren’t looking out on the landing. What if he was desperately wounded? What if holy made wounds never fully stopped bleeding on a demon?

As he reached the hallway the angel slowed down his pace. It wouldn’t do to seem like he wanted to be there or that he was in a rush. There was a storm coming and Aziraphale was just passing through and noted that there was a shelter here. Pure coincidence lead him up the steps and to this apartment, not design. Certainly not a concern. He straightened his jacket and tie, trying his best to make himself look presentable as he made his way down the green papered hallway.

The black door was slightly ajar as he approached and gently Aziraphale extended his hand to push it open fully. Any thoughts of trying to seem proper vanished promptly out of his mind upon seeing the fully extent of the damages laid out before him, damages that would not exist if it weren’t for his own foolhardy plan and lack of perception about mortal motivations. “Oh dear, that looks even worse than I thought it would,” the words practically tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them.

With an inward wince he noticed the way that Crowley’s muscles all tensed upon hearing his voice. Even after all these years, it still was like being plunged into cold water just to hear his voice unexpectedly – he noted with a touch of sadness. Despite the circumstances, the angel wished for it to be a truly happy greeting.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley cried sitting up and trying to sling one arm casually over the back of his couch, as if the smell of blood wouldn’t have been enough to alert him that something was wrong. “What are you doing here?”

“I, well,” Aziraphale looked away, unable to bear the terrible guilt that he felt upon seeing the wounds that only existed because of him and this damned ineffable war that he was forced to take part in, “I happened to be in the area and I wanted to check in on you after the whole ruckus at the church. “

It was far more honest than he wanted to be, but then again when talking to Crowley he was always far more honest than he wanted to be. No matter how much planning he did, how much he coached himself on the stories he would tell this demon somehow when he saw the angular face with the jaw made tight by pain the truth just flowed out. Cautiously he took a seat upon the leather chair next to the wounded demon, remembering that the last time he saw so much demonic blood there was a great and terrible fall from grace. The smell of blood still haunted his dreams some nights as well as the screams. Honestly he was surprised that Crawley wasn’t screaming now. Instinctively his eyes began to well up with guilt-ridden tears and the angel tried his best to cover them up with a motion like he was scratching his face.

“Well no need to check up on me, I’m fine.” The words came out cold, but you didn’t spend so many centuries near a being to not be able to tell when they were lying. The avoidance, the casual cold tone of his voice, everything about the demon was dismissive right when things were the worst. The hiss only confirmed that which he already knew to be true, that which he could see in the dark red ebb of pain in a corona radiata around him in the type of sight that only angels of a certain circle could have when they focused.

“You most certainly are not fine.” Aziraphale got to his feet, sounding indignant and pointing at the stain on the demon’s grey shirt, unmistakably dark. It wasn’t like he could gesture to an aura, but stains were physical enough that even a half-blind demon could see it. “I can see the blood!”

“Oh that,” Crowley gave a shrug, “Blood’s in fashion now. War and all that.”

The flippant way that he took a drink from a mysterious wine glass just added to the message. He didn’t need help, from Aziraphale or anybody. Heaven forbid that he be allowed to feel the touch of someone who wanted nothing more than to take away his pain.

Well, Heaven might forbid it but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

“Let me see the wounds, I can help.” It wasn’t a request, not really. The angel was going to help him. There was no rightness in a world that would let someone suffer so dearly for another without respite. No one deserved such pain, especially not Crowley who had gotten it taking out Nazis and saving knowledge and a life. Saving Aziraphale’s knowledge and life specifically.

“No, you don’t need to. I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” The casual tone was almost enough to make Aziraphale scream “I can see in your damn aura that you are certainly not fine, you old menace” which of course he didn’t because a proper angel would never do such a thing but the impulse was still there because he was an imperfect angel.

Making his voice gentle he knelt down, supplication in his silver eyes, “You are exasperating. Listen,” The angel knelt down by Crowley’s feet and gently tugged the blanket off, making him hiss. But his feet stayed where they were. They didn’t shift into another form, they weren’t illusioned away to look healthy all of a sudden. That was a degree of trust, the knowledge that he wouldn’t be smote immediately. Progress. “You got these wounds helping me. At least I can help make them better as payment.”

Payment was a system a demon could understand, or at least he assumed that they would. Instead he exploded like a tinder keg being lit up, “Payment?” You don’t owe me payment for anything!” Bright lines of anger lanced through the aura, making Aziraphale’s eyes sting with their intensity.

Instead of looking away, he maintained eye contact lest it be seen as a lack of trust on his part. “Then as a favor to you then.” That was surely the problem, the fact that Aziraphale would have the upper hand in the scales. Leave it to a demon to always be conscious of who had the upper hand, at least that is the speeches they always gave in Heaven about what demons wanted. Truthfully Aziraphale just wanted to give him an out that wouldn’t disgrace him in front of either of their superiors.

“Oh? An angel would owe a demon a favor?” There it was, the smirk that said that everything was okay between them again and that nothing had changed in the centuries of absence. A palpable feeling of relief flooded through Aziraphale despite the circumstances as he let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

But what if Gabriel found out he was showing such kindness towards Crowley. The lining of Aziraphale’s stomach tried to turn itself inside out at the thought of the flames of Heaven trying to burn him alive. “One angel, specifically me, would owe one demon, specifically you, a favor. Yes.”

“Right. Get on with it then.” He barked, which was as kind of a permission as a demon could give.

Using the kindest touch he could, Aziraphale practically peeled the remaining shoe of his companion’s foot. Bits of blood and burst blisters, tendons sticking through the bottom of the soles of his foot – it was all far more messy and grotesque than he had first assumed it would be. It was a bit of a surprise the shoes held it in as well as they did.

”Oh dear,” he mumumured, mostly to himself. Any thought of keeping his suit pristine and white vanished as Aziraphale tried to draw off bits of pain, but there was too much for a simple touch and Heaven would not allow wounds to be made by consecrated ground to be healed with a miracle. “You really burned yourself badly.” Tears welled up in the angel’s eyes, as he thought of how many years he had gone hating the poor creature who had just put himself through so much pain for his sake “I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve these. Not for-“ With a watery grin, Aziraphale broke off. No, no sense in making all the pain worse by projecting his own guilt onto Crowley. That was the last thing the demon needed at the moment.

It wouldn’t do to let such a selfless act go punished. “Be back in a tick.” He assured his hellish companion, trying not to let his gaze linger upon the look of pain etched in every line on the face. Frustrated, he turned off the aura gaze lest it become a distraction.

Heaven had said no miracles, but they didn’t expressly forbid him from making a salve that could take away any pain. In fact they had ruled neither positively or negatively about any alchemical processes.

How convenient.

Drawers were opened, but of course Crowley had next to nothing kept in there that was useful. It wasn’t like he actually used the kitchen in his apartment after all, it was mostly there for show. At least he had the good sense to keep the fridge stocked, even though Aziraphale knew that he didn’t actually consume the food kept there. Some herbs there, some water inscribed with sigils that had been lost three hundred years ago to most men, boil the freshly grown herbs with some fat and speed up time just a touch so that everything could be done quickly. It was a risky move, speeding everything up, and certainly not something that could be done on a large scale but getting the soap to cool was at least a simple, untraceable task.

Bandages came out of the bathroom, kept there for Heaven only knew what foul purpose, and the whole pot of water was brought over as well just for sanitation, with a charm on it so that it would refresh itself without him having to get up and change it.

Thinking of nothing else but wanting to heal the wounds, Aziraphale cast aside the hat and jacket and got to work. Healing was a delicate art, one that needed time and patience of which he had plenty to spare. If anything was done improperly the foot might heal crooked or stay bubbled forever, both of which were intolerable to think of.

It wasn’t til he heard smothered whimpers of pain that it occurred to him that the whole process might still hurt even given the precautions. “It’s alright if you need to cry out, my dear. I won’t judge you. What you are going through is tremendous. I can’t imagine how much it must hurt.” Permission. Sometimes that’s what he thought either of them needed just to break through this awful shell both of them had around each other. Permission to be themselves, unabashedly.

“No. This is fine. Feels like puppies.” Another bluffed lie, but an allowable one. Sometimes a being in pain, even an immortal being such as Crowley, didn’t need their entire worldview stripped away all at once. Sometimes a mask allowed them to be able to be vulnerable even around someone who was supposed to be their mortal enemy.

Heaven protect him and his silly mask of being strong. Aziraphale would take care of the rest.

With a slow, methodical hand the wounds were cleaned ‘til the water ran clear and the flesh was already beginning to reform thanks to the alchemy ingrained within the soap. Bandages were placed over it so that there would be no visible proof of what he had done. When Crowley saw that he was more healed than he should be in the morning it would just be another one of Heaven’s silly little miracles come to roost.

His gaze travelled upwards after the work was done, a tired but satisfied smile upon his face. There he saw Crowley gazing back at him. The angular face seemed placid and a crooked smile danced across his face as he rested one hand on his cheek and the other splayed across the back of the couch. His shirt hung open with a few buttons undone that made him look rakish even despite the full suit and for a brief moment Aziraphale wondered what he would look like with the shirt all the way undone. Why in this light he looked positively enchanting, calm and strong. In this moment Aziraphale saw the mercy in the angel that Crowley used to be.

Neither looked away and for a second it almost seemed like permission. Like he was being the go ahead to make a move, to run his hands through that red hair and place a gentle kiss upon that brown that would show the demon that all had been forgiven and that he could stop suffering because his guardian angel was finally here. To hold him close and let that frail body for once be able to relax rather than constantly be on patrol for the next threat or person to tempt, to be able to collapse and ramble about life, the universe and everything to someone who could actually understand him. The only other immortal being who had been on this rock as long as he had been.

But no. Heaven would not allow such a thing. Sadness tinged his eyes as he remembered how much was at stake and how Gabriel would flay him alive for even such kindness as he already had given. With an effort, Aziraphale looked away from the golden fire burning within Crowley’s eyes. “Good night, my dear.” One last gesture of kindness, a soft kiss above each ankle was all he would allow himself. A selfish gesture of a world and an affection that should not be, but one he had no regrets about acting upon nonetheless. “Get some rest. I’ll check on you some time soon.” “You don’t have to leave, you know. I could get wine and-“ Rushed words and desperation to cling towards a bit of kindness. It broke his heart to leave, but if he stayed Aziraphale knew he would do something stupid and lovely.

“Another time. There’s a war and I have to go put away my books. But I will see you again. I assure you.” Maybe next time he would bring some wine. Crowley seemed to like wine and it wasn’t like either of them couldn’t get drunk without being able to reverse it. People had cordial drinks with mortal enemies all the time, right?

But it wasn’t thoughts of war that he carried with him through the lightly raining streets of London. It was the look of utter peace and fulfillment upon Crowley’s face that shone like a beacon upon him. Trust and vulnerability, something that was rarely seen in anyone’s face. It was like a weight he had been carrying for centuries learning the gavotte was suddenly lifted and forgiveness was right in front of him.

It was hope. Hope for something more, something brighter.

#Aziraphale #crowley #hurt/comfort #good omens #Ineffable Husbands #missing scene #complete fic

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