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finnritter · 2 years ago

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Okay let me go off about them Nolofinwean siblings because it took me a while to learn how to love them (as opposed to the Feanorians whose raging dumpster fire of insanely codependent sibling dynamics set me ablaze on basically day 1) but it's so worth the effort to think a bit about them.

This is laced through with headcanons/personal interpretations that you can feel free to ignore, this is meant to be inspiring, not informative.

A/N from after I finished… whatever this is and noticed how long this got: Sorry op! Honestly, I meant to give you like three headcanons in a trenchcoat to light the spark for a little Nolofinwean love, but instead I wrote this, couldn’t stop and somehow created a weird clusterfuck of character-study-ish, essay-ish ranting about a bunch of dead elves. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Ok here we go:

The Nolofinweans are united by stubbornness, contradiction, and a slumbering potential to defy God and/or themselves.

The first point is basically their family trademark trait, because as we all know, every one of the Big Three Noldorin families needs one (think the Feanorian Intensity™, and the Arafinwean “Way of making you feel just slightly unsettled for some reason”).

Fights between Fingon and Turgon are a prime example of “unstoppable force vs. immovable object”. Fingon cannot be swayed, Turgon cannot be convinced. They need to agree to disagree because otherwise, they will not reach a conclusion, ever. They are very good at agreeing to disagree, mainly since Fingon has better things to do than fight and Turgon is very much in need of harmony because he is actually pretty easily upset. This does not make any of them back up from their point, ever, though.

Aredhel, unlike her brothers, has no problem with pointless arguments, but the more people tell her what to do, the more she does the opposite, less out of spite and more to prove her independence. Usually when someone tells her No she just asks her favourite cousin who is very good at enabling her. Not that she isn’t perfectly capable of enabling herself, mind you.

Argon makes stubbornness look cool and charming, mainly by having a cute, disarming smile and being the baby of the family. His supreme discipline is being stubbornly nice to the point where it really throws people off balance. He gets it from his dad who has been doing this to Feanor since he was the elven equivalent of a brooding teenager.

This makes it no surprise that lucky harp boy gets his heart broken by his best friend, right after breaking the hearts of his other best friends solely for him (Fingon and his relationship to Angrod and Aegnor after Alqualonde is honestly so juicy. More people need to write about it, but I recommend @actual-bill-potts stunning short fic to exactly this topic)

Anyway, Fingon proceeds to cross the Frozen Ice Hell burning so brightly with rage and disappointment that he probably barely feels the cold. He manages to transform all that anger into devotion to his father, though, who has been betrayed in a very similar way. Fingon understands him so well, maybe better than everyone else, and he really grows into his fathers right hand man, here. It’s also a good way of escaping his guilty conscience about his cousins’ quiet grief, and later his own brother’s devastation that he can’t allow to stir himself from his path.

Then they arrive with gritted teeth and even more reasons for anger than before, and neither Feanor nor Maedhros are even there to punch in the face. Fingolfin reverts to his carefully crafted shell of diplomacy (which will much later shatter in the most epic way possible, rip Morgoth’s ego that remains forever wrecked after that). But Fingon can’t just stand still, and so he sets out to retrieve his dimwit of a former best friend who managed to doom the two of them. And who now couldn’t even wait with being captured by the Enemy for after Fingon had very intently told him where to stick all the years he spent reassuring him that their friendship would hold despite their Finwean-exclusive family drama. When he finally finds out that Maedhros didn’t burn the ships, at least, he is actually a little deflated. Where to go with all that spite, now?

But it works out for him because Fingon might be an adrenaline junky and valiant-tm and tough as nails, but he also needs someone to have his back, if he is being honest. His father has him to do this, and he gladly does, but with his baby brother slaughtered and his other brother and sister gone, and his other former best friends, who have at least somewhat forgiven him, roaming the lands because they don’t need to run a crumbling kingdom, he has no one to stand in the wind for him. Until Maedhros, with all the white fire burning within him and his new-found gallows-humoured grit, does it for him.

So hell yeah, Fingon can kill dragons and plan battles and squeeze some time in to race his horse over the plains of Beleriand fast enough that the lashing wind in his face can make him forget how much he would like his sister to be next to him. Forget how left alone he feels, with his father being more his king than his father and his siblings gone, and he knows he can’t blame them because they’re not the Feanorians, they don’t work like that, they don’t need to constantly keep meddling with each others’ affairs to prove they still care for each other. Right? So, no hard feelings, he can do this on his own.

But Maedhros, who he liked to fluster in their youth because it was so easy while nowadays even coaxing one genuine emotion out of him is a skill he had to learn how to master first, Maedhros has his back. And it makes him brave enough to go on and laugh in the face of danger. It even makes him brave enough to take his father’s crown and clench his jaw and be a King, even though he doesn’t know what to do most of the time. He’s a good leader, but he does not enjoy being king and he honestly just wants his dad, both his parents, actually, but hey, he’s a hardened war criminal and there are still enough people around him to be strong for, so he is. Oh and he also plans a battle of the ages because he’s Fingon and Maedhros has his back and he thinks they can do this. They have braved everything life has thrown at them, so far, despite being doomed from the start, and Fingon has no time for apathy, so let’s do it. After all, what could go wrong?

While his older brother proceeds to flirt with danger, Turgon finds out the hard way that being a single dad in a wild country full of orcs and political turmoil is Not Easy and hey, he knows himself, he never really got the “home is not a place, it’s where the people you love are”-crap. Home is very much a place and it is one they will never see again so guess what, let’s build a new one. Are you sure, Aredhel, that you want to come? I know you need a front yard the size of two countries to keep you happy and I really can’t afford that much real estate. Still want to come? Okay then, I know better than to tell you No.

Here’s the thing, Turgon has definitely always been the sensitive child of this family. The one who had to leave the room when he saw his mother cry, once, as a child, the one that always valued peace and harmony more than freedom and adventure. Most people didn’t know this, though, because he was also stubborn to a fault, as mentioned above, and therefore very skilled at bottling up his emotions.

He definitely still is this child, only that swallowing his hurt over being called a killjoy by the big brother he always admired or hiding his fear over learning to ride a horse because what if he falls down and breaks his neck and through a cruel trick of fate never manages to come back from the halls? sure it’s unlikely, but WHAT IF?? (yes, he was an anxious child.)- Well, bottling up those childhood hurts is nothing against bottling up the loss of one of the two people who are known for actually being able to make him open up more, for once (the other one is Finrod - and I’m not going to spend another three pages screaming about how Turgon and Finrod are the perfect best friends because this is long enough as is - but shout at me if you want me to because it’s apparently very easy to egg me on.) Anyway, Elenwe is dead, and Argon is dead and he lives in constant fear of the rest of his family sharing this fate. But his father is the king and Fingon is unstoppable and he is under no illusion that he will ever be able to successfully protect Aredhel from herself, so leaving at least shuts the fear out, a little, because if the inevitable happens, we at least won’t be so close.

So he builds stone walls in a hidden valley, and hey, there is a very obvious metaphor here (one that I keep overusing, actually), about the walls he builds within himself as well, and so he leaves and works hard on not letting more fear in, and not letting any of the ever-present fear out.

It finds him anyway. Aredhel dies in front of him and he can’t even tell her I told you so, because a) she’s dead and b) he could never have foretold how she would sacrifice not only her life but her freedom and her independence, the two things she treasured the most, for one person like this. He could never have predicted Maeglin, and hey, he can’t predict him in the end, either. Fun parallels. Maybe. (Again, I’m not talking about Turgon and Maeglin at length here, and neither about Turgon and Idril because once I start, I will not stop. Just know that there are a lot of complex, loving and oh so painful family relations here.)

Then his father gets dumped dead onto his doorstep and while Fingon curses the audacity that the body hasn’t even been brought back to him after he was forced to take on his legacy, Turgon feels almost like he’s being made fun of. “Hey, look what you’re missing in the Outside World you so arrogantly turned your back on. Mind to come back someday? You know you still have a daredevil big brother out there. Or do you want to wait for his duty-free delivery as well?”

And yet, the moment the host of Gondolin leaves its protective walls is the moment that Turgon decides he will not let his fear rule him any longer. He has tried to crack and break his own walls down for once. Maybe it was after two mortals entered his city, and his heart, unexpectedly and those years between them leaving and the Nirnaeth have been used quite effectively to hype himself up. “You can do it. It's only a step out of your comfort zone. You haven’t learned to ride a horse by never getting into the saddle.”

So he finally does, and, well, it famously does not go well for him. His cries for help to the Valar also don’t go well. Oh, also his best friend has been brutally murdered and he feels guilty mourning more than strictly necessary about it because. He wasn’t there. It’s not like he has a right to play the dead best friend-card, here.

And then there’s the fun time at the end of his life where he has mostly given up, but he also somehow adopted another human. He ignores his warnings, sure, but not out of hard feelings towards him, only out of hard feelings about everything else. The adopted human also becomes a beloved son-in-law, which are great news and he’s ignoring that this will eventually break his daughter's heart. He also gets to meet his grandson, which are equally great news and he’s ignoring how that tiny little infant with the weirdly small ears is destined to carry the whole fate of elfdom on his shoulders.

I would love to give you more Turgon feels that aren’t so sad, op, because there are some, but they are very neatly burrowed under despair and fear and pride, and you need to ram through an iron will and claw through so much deep-rooted grief first to get to it, and I don’t have the time today.

So let’s proceed with mean girlboss instead. Aredhel is brave and she is reckless, but not in the effortlessly heroic way Figon is. She knows very well how to only endanger herself, and so she does, constantly. It’s been joyful and bold in her youth, and now, on this new continent that finally seems to be able to stand up to her defiance, it’s gritty and a bit ugly, honestly. But she can’t help feeling like the ground will break open under her feet if she stands still on it for too long. She can’t help feeling betrayed because she didn’t leave home and her mother for a world that seems to make everyone so miserable all the time.

And yes, honestly, she went with Turgon mostly because everyone around her thought it was a bad idea. But she knows it wasn’t. Not for the first 200 years at least. And then she convinces him that letting her leave isn’t a bad idea, either. And it isn’t. At first.

When she is bewitched, in one way or another, by the dark elf looming in the creepy forest - the first person, by the way, who seems to care Not At All for all the drama going on in the rest of the world, which, if anything, is a bonus point in her book - she feels the same way she does when climbing a steep cliff edge without safeguarding. It’s still fun and games, she thinks, if I am allowing myself to be lured in by him. He has no power over me, at least not more than I let him have. Oh, and Turgon would be so furious if he saw my playing with fire like this, because he still doesn’t trust me.

She loves Eöl the same way she loves every reckless action she makes to sunder herself from the prospect of seeing herself out of other people’s eyes. She does love him. At first.

When his love grows from the captivating possessiveness she liked to play with originally, to a stifling force that tries to constrain her, she laughs in his face. This has never worked before, not even people that had her well-being in mind have managed to hold her back. But Eöl is a master of his craft and there is one little thing that tips the scale in his favour. Aredhel would never have anticipated how all-encompassing the love for her own child would be.

Oh, she thinks as the father of said child begins to tie them tighter to his realm every day, I might have miscalculated.

Because while her claims to be with him out of her free will might not have been as true as she had tried to tell herself all this time, she could have run as soon as she noticed the trap shutting close. She might have made it out by screaming and biting and kicking as usual, and put this twisted marriage in her scrapbook of “whoops that was a close call”-scenarios. But she can’t do that, for Lómion’s sake.

So she’s patient. She can be patient. You have to be patient if you want to be a good hunter, and she is a great one. She takes him and runs when there is an opportunity. She doesn’t stop to fight as she would have if Lómion wasn’t there, and wasn’t terrified, and wouldn’t, in a forced, painful way, still love the man who had begotten him and who proves a threat to them now.

She brings Lómion back to Gondolin because all the “I told you so”-s won’t embarrass her more than she wants her child to be safe. She would love to just take him and live with him in the wilderness, she has survived the Grinding Ice, she would make it as a nomad in Beleriand. Lómion would make it, too, because he is clever and resilient and stubborn in a way only a Nolofinwean could be.

But she notices, and this is strange to her at first, that she won’t risk it. Not his life, not his future. Not without any kind of safety net. Because her love for him is unconditional and yet tied to a responsibility she has never known before.

Is this, she asks herself, how her parents feel about her? How Turgon, who always thinks thrice about everything he does, felt when he didn’t even hesitate before jumping after his daughter into the icy water all those years ago? How did they learn to let go? Did they ever?

She will never know because she dies before ever seeing her son fully grow up. It’s worth it, in the end, her life is just one more thing she gladly gives up for Lómion, along with her freedom. It’s worth it also for the knowledge that Eöl has to live with the fact that he killed what he - sickly and possessively - loved most. Even though she hopes that he won’t stay alive very long afterwards. She would have liked to do it herself, if Lómion wasn’t there to see, but in this case she just hopes for fate, or her brother, to do her one last favour. No one, after all, can force her to do anything without regretting it.

And lastly, Argon’s part in his family’s tale is short but no less important. His older siblings have a story, a character arc to conclude, which they handle more or less gracefully. Argon is a means to an end.

Argon is, kind of, what makes his family pursue the Ice without losing their sense of what it means to be a family.

Argon is the one who goes to find Fingon after Alqualonde, and makes sure he sees a healer because while he understands that guilt and angst and existential dread easily drown out something minor like this, he also finds it advisable for his brother to have the bleeding gash in his shoulder treated.

He is the one who always makes sure to greet Aredhel with dry new gloves or a strip of meat jerky or at least some carefree chatting whenever she comes back from a scouting trip.

He is the one who takes care to slip through to the front of their trek once in a while to see how Fingon and his father are doing and brings them news from the others.

He is the only one who occasionally brings up their mother, usually out of the blue and in a sad but lighthearted way. “oh man mum would definitely hate how i just wiped the blood from that stringy half-cooked piece of meat from my mouth with my sleeve. sorry mum! we miss you.” (he maybe misses her most, out of his siblings. but his siblings don’t cry, so he doesn’t either, not when anyone sees.)

He is the one who carries little Idril on his shoulders or pulls her on a sleigh when she gets tired, always with a bright smile and a joke, because, as her youngest, fun-est uncle he has a task to fulfil that he takes seriously.

He is also the one who holds Turgon back when he tries to jump back in after Elenwe once again, even though they all know she must be lost by now. He holds his brother, who was already an adult when he was just born, and strokes his back and kisses his hair until the rest of his family is there.

Argon is the one who jumps into that first battle because he is euphoric to have made it so far, and because he is young and stupid and owns a sword that he hasn’t used for something else than splitting wood before. And he fights like only someone not yet weary of war can, and then he dies before that sentiment can ever change. Is this a blessing or a curse? His siblings are never quite sure, but they miss him like hell. And while his presence was what had held them together until now, his death breaks them apart with nothing to putty the cracks.

So yeah, Argon’s death is the first and it’s quick and brutal and the only one out of his siblings (very character-defining) deaths that feels horrendously, horrifyingly unfair. “Look at this”, their Doom seems to say. “You braved the Ice, and for what? This is what will happen to all of you. In case you had forgotten.”

But while his death was a nudge from the narrative to let go of all hopes that this might not turn out to be a tragedy, his siblings' ends are, while comparably tragic, the perfect ways for each to end their character arcs.

Fingon dies in the first battle he knows he has lost, and he looks death in the eye and probably grins. They can’t wipe this last spiteful grin off his face even as they stomp him into the ground.

Turgon dies after screaming about a victory he long stopped believing in. He gets buried in the rubble of the place he built to ground himself, and honestly, there could not be a better grave for him.

Aredhel dies by the hands of her biggest miscalculation. She would have preferred it to be a feral boar or a rapid stream, but honestly, looking into the eyes of the first person she truly loved unconditionally and knowing that she has saved him is not a bad way to go either.

…

Tl;dr: The Nolofinweans are cool and sad and tragic and I hope that you have some more feelings for them now, op. But if you don’t, don’t sweat it, they’ll sneak up on you some day and start growing on you like a festering parasite until you, seemingly out of nowhere, adore them. Or well, at least that’s what it was like for me.

Heyyyy in the most genuine way possible what’s so great about the nolofinweans? Like clearly they are great, lots of y’all love them but I look at lucky harp man, mean girlboss, turgon and the other one and I get no feelings. Where are the feelings, y’all are having fun with the feelings and I want some

#i have no idea how this happened #i need like... weeks for a short fic sometimes and this just bubbled out of me in a couple of hours #it's probably still full of typos or weird grammar sorry about that!#and I honestly hope it's not overwhelming especially for op!!#this was really just meant as a: hey come hop into the Nolofinwean boat we might sink but we do it with style #the funny thing is i still have the feeling that I majorly underexplained 90% of the points I was making #i'm terrible let's just send this on its way before i add 100000 things #silmarillion #nolofinweans #fingon #turgon #aredhel #argon #fingolfin #silm meta #character and relationship studies

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gallavictorious · 3 years ago

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Gallavich Week Day 2: Fantasy AU

Summary: Prince Ian is offered up as a sacrifice to appease one of the dragons that haunt his father’s kingdom. Rather than being burned alive or eaten he is inexplicably left to wander the dragon’s lair in peace, as long as he never tries to leave and never enters the mysterious tower chamber. Then he meets fellow prisoner Mikhailo and starts to wonder if maybe this whole sacrificial gig isn’t such a bad deal after all.

Or, Ian Gallagher tells a bedtime story, and Mickey Milkovich is himself.

Fair Warning 1: There’s some Mickey-typical homophobic language in this one.

Fair Warning 2: I wrote all ridiculous 5K of this today (work? what work?) and it’s a little bit of a curious mess. Like, the sort of curious mess you get if you take Lip’s Hall of Shame, @gardenerian’s lovely bedtime stories, the novel “Dealing with Dragons” by Patricia Wrede, the Swedish picture book “Bröllop i Marsipanien” by Lena Karlin, the Greek myth of Andromeda, a bunch of folk tales about shapeshifting lovers, and the questionable old practice of MSTing fics, and then you stuff them all into a Kee and shake her around for a bit and then you pour it out into the shape of a 12 hour long and highly inadvisable speedwriting session.

Read it at your own risk, below or on AO3.

Very Important Note: I make fun of fic writing in this fic. Please note that I’m only making fun of myself and general tropes; any and all allusions to actual fic in the fandom is entirely coincidental.

---

Lest They Say, Here Be Dragons

Hush now, child; settle down. Close your eyes – yes, just like that – and listen:

Once upon a time and elsewhere, there was a kingdom. The people there were no happier than people anywhere else, and poorer than most, but they made do and lived and danced and grieved and died as people have always done.

Jesus, that’s gay.

That is, until the dragons came.

Okay, now you’re talking.

Like a plague they swept the land, winged beasts with fire for breath and ice in their hearts. Every night the fields burned, and the villages burned, and the cattle burned and was eaten. Many a brave people took up arms and went to confront the monsters, and then they burned too.

Heart-broken and terrified, the people went to the king to plead for aid. “Send an emissary to the dragons,” they said. “Reason with them and strike a bargain, or else we are sure to perish.”

What a bunch of pussies. What they should do is, they should use a bunch a cow shit to build a bomb and nuke the hell out of those dragons. Problem fucking solved.

Now, this king was a scoundrel and a drunk and the queen had an unfortunate habit of turning herself into a bird and flying off to more interesting lands whenever the mood took her. They had six children but rarely paid them any mind and fair Princess Fiona, eldest of the six, was left to raise her younger siblings as best she could. False King Francis would have been perfectly content to turn his desperate subjects away if it weren’t for the fact the dragons unchecked rampage threatened the production of the spirits the king so enjoyed. So, donning a mask of compassionate concern, for he was a skilled liar, he promised the people that he would help them. But as soon as they had left, comforted, he turned the task over to his children.

The second oldest child, foxy Prince Philip—

Foxy Prince Philip?

Yeah, you know. Foxy. Like clever.

Why not just say clever then?

‘Cause it’s not alliterative.

Alliter—

Starts with the same sound. Foxy – Philip. Fair – Fiona.

Oh, I get it. Like, Ian – idiot. Ow!

Foxy Prince Philip was known far and wide for being the cleverest in all the land, and by using all his cunning he managed to strike a deal with the leader of the dragons.

“By using all his cunning.” Skimming over the details a bit there, huh?

You really want me to turn this into a Prince Philip story? Hear me go on and on about what a genius he is?

…

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

It was agreed that the dragons would spread out over the kingdom, each one building their own place to live near a village, and that the villagers would bring them food and drink. In turn, the dragons would refrain from casual pyromancy and protect the villagers from harm.

Protection racket, huh. Classic. Starting to like these dragons, man.

In addition, the cruel leader of the dragons demanded that each dragon be offered a child of the land in sacrifice. No matter how Prince Philip bargained he could not change the dragon’s cold heart on this—

Guess he wasn’t so clever after all.

—and so, with heavy hearts and much lamenting, each village drew lots to determine which poor child would be sent as an offering to their new resident dragon. However, in the village nearest to the castle the people grew angry when the beloved blacksmith’s only child, a small girl of just four, was selected, and they went to the king and they said:

“It isn’t fair that some people are asked to give up their only child to appease the dragons while you, who have six children, are exempt from the lottery.”

King Francis, fearing an uprising as much as he feared the dragons (since each was as likely as the other to leave him without a drink), quickly nodded.

“That’s true,” he said. “And fairness must ever be the true monarchs first and most important concern. Though it breaks my heart, I can’t in good conscience watch my people sacrifice their own children without offering up my own. You may take Prince Ian and give him to the dragon.”

At this, the other princes and princesses raised their voices in furious protest, for they loved their brother even if their father did not. But industrious Prince Ian—

Industrious? That really the best you can come up with?

—stepped forward and declared that he’d be happy to give up his life, so that the child of the blacksmith might be spared. And so, as the sunt set, he was taken away to the lair of the dragon that had made its home near the castle.

So let me get this straight… The king is happy to toss Prince Ian to the wolves ‘cause he hates him, and his siblings are all sad and shit but they still let him go off to get fucking eaten by dragons?

Yes.

Uh-huh.

What?

…

Oh, fuck you. It’s just a story.

Totally.

Stepping into the lair, with heart a-hammering but on stubbornly steady legs, Prince Ian set eyes upon the beast that was to be his destiny. He was momentarily relieved to see it was not the terrible leader of the dragons, as he had feared, but a smaller monster he did not recognize. Black was its hide, its eyes a cold sparkling blue—

Gallagher, I swear to god, if you turn me into some lame ass henchman dragon—

Keep interrupting, asshole, and it’ll be a pink fucking unicorn. And hang on, you’ll show up in a little bit.

Setting his jaw, Prince Ian prepared to die a heroic death—

‘Course he did, the stupid motherfucker. Hey, if Prince Philip was so fucking smart, and if he gave a shit about his brother, shouldn’t he have given him, I dunno, a knife or something?

Prince Ian prepared to die a heroic death, because unlike some other people he was not a selfish prick and he actually cared about the people of the kingdom, but much to his surprise the dragon did not burn him. Instead, it just stared at him for a good long while, until suddenly it declared:

“You must never leave the lair, and you must never set foot inside the tower chamber. Abide by these rules and you may live. Break these rules and I’ll rip your heart out and eat it while you watch, and then I’ll burn the castle down with your beloved siblings inside.”

You tell him, dragon.

With that the dragon took flight and disappeared, leaving Prince Ian to stand alone in the great hall of the lair, confused but alive. The young prince remained where he was for a few minutes, thinking that the dragon might come back, but when it did not he set out to explore his new home. It was big, with endless rooms and nooks and crannies, but it was badly kept, with strange bits and pieces cluttering up the hallways and chambers. Prince Ian found some old blankets and he used those to set up a pallet in one of the nicer rooms, one that had a view over a small, overgrown garden. And then, because it was very late and he was not dead, he went to sleep.

The next day he continued his explorations and managed to find the kitchen. It was full with the meat that the villagers brought the dragon once a month, and remembering that the beast had only forbidden him from leaving the lair and going into the tower chamber, Prince Ian helped himself to a piece of pork that he cooked over a small fire.

Hang on, was there a fridge in the kitchen?

No. This was the olden days.

But the villagers came once a month with the meat? How did the dragon keep from rotting?

That’s not really—

Was it dried? Like a Slim Jim?

… sure. It was dried.

As he was eating, Prince Ian heard a sudden scraping noise behind him.

The hell did he cook it over a fire for then, if it was dried?

He looked up and spied another young man standing in the doorway.

I’m just saying, it doesn’t make any fucking sense, man. Wait, is this me?

Prince Ian frowned. “Who are you?” he asked. “Are you a prisoner of the dragon too?”

The boy shrugged. “Uh, yeah. I guess. I mean, I do some work around here. Clean up and shit, in exchange for not getting eaten. Name’s Mikhailo.”

About fucking time. Only, how is it fair that you get to be prince and I’m a fucking cleaner?

Prince Ian tactfully did not mention how the lair was impressively dirty for a place with a fulltime cleaner but invited Mikhailo to share his meal. As they ate, Prince Ian studied his new acquaintance. He was the same age as but shorter than the prince, with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.

Hair as black as— The hell was that?

Nothing.

Yeah, okay, then why are you smiling? Eh, fuck you. Prince Ian’s fucking thirsty for Mikhailo, I get it.

Though his manner was somewhat brusque and uncouth, Prince Ian could not help but feel himself drawn to Mikhailo. The boy was funny and easy to talk to, even if he seemed reluctant to say too much about himself or where he came from. Prince Ian tried asking him about the dragon, but despite apparently having lived there ever since the dragon moved in, Mikhailo couldn’t tell him much.

“Hardly ever even see it, man. At dusk and dawn mostly, so I guess it spends the night flying around with the other dragons, terrorizing the peasants or whatever. During the day it holes up in the tower chamber. Guess dragons must sleep too, huh? Don’t fucking go up there,” he added sternly. “It ain’t fucking kidding about killing you if you do.”

Having found a friend, Prince Ian found that life at the dragon’s lair wasn’t all that bad. He missed his siblings and being outdoors and practicing with the soldiers at the castle, and he resented the loss of his freedom, but he enjoyed the peace and quiet, and enjoyed spending time with Mikhailo. However, one thing he soon grew very tired of was eating nothing but meat. The dragon didn’t seem to require anything else, for it was the only thing the villagers ever delivered, and Mikhailo – whose tasks included receiving the monthly tribute – just gave Prince Ian a weird look when Ian suggested he ask the people to bring some vegetables next month.

“That ain’t the deal they’ve got with the dragon,” he told Ian. “Ain’t nobody gonna listen to me if I go trying to change it.”

Yeah, real Prince Charming there, wanting Mikhailo to risk his life so Ian can stuff his face with fucking cucumber.

Undeterred by Mikhailo’s lack of enthusiasm and courage—

Fuck you.

—Prince Ian decided to take it up with the dragon himself. In the weeks since he arrived at the lair, he hadn’t met the creature again, not even once; he’d just heard the powerful swoosh of its wings when it came and went at dusk and dawn. Now he went up the stairs to the tower chamber and there he waited until night had fallen and he noted the scraping of claws against stone inside the room. Then he knocked at the door.

There was a long silence. Then the door slammed open with enough force to nearly undo it from its hinges.

“What are you doing here?!” the dragon roared, terrible in its fury. “I’ve told you to never come here!”

“You’ve told me to never set foot inside the room,” Ian reasoned, fighting to keep his voice calm. “And I’m not. I just wanted to ask if I may have the use of the small garden just outside the lair. I miss being outdoors and I could grow vegetables for Mikhailo and me.”

Jesus Christ, man, again with gardening? Thought you were over it.

“You may never leave the lair,” the dragon, a garden-hating meanie, snarled, and then he closed the door in Prince Ian’s face.

As he fucking should.

“Probably worried one of the villagers will spot you and, I dunno, mount a rescue,” Mikhailo said shortly the next morning when Prince Ian told him of his failed attempt. “Anyway, you’re a fucking idiot for going up there like that. You get it won’t hesitate to kill you, right?”

“Right,” Ian agreed. “But,” he added with a frown, “why hasn’t it yet?”

“You fucking complaining?” Mikhailo snapped, and then he stalked away, and Ian didn’t see him again for three days.

Listen, you get that I get that Mikhailo is the dragon, right? You’re not fooling anyone, Gallagher.

Then, one day, fed up with the dragon being a really annoying prick, Prince Ian grabbed a huge sword he conveniently found lying around in a cupboard, because the lair was a fucking pigsty, suitable for a pig like the dragon, and he went up the stairs and kicked in the door and he cut the dragon’s throat while it slept, and then he went off and found himself a nice prince to marry.

…

That’s not how the story ends.

…

Hey, where are you going? Come back- Jesus, I’m sorry, okay? Gallagher, I’m sorry. Just come back here. Tell me what really happened.

Prince Ian woke with a start on his pallet in the lair. He’d had the most vivid dream about killing the dragon—

A dream? That’s the lamest fucking— Ah, fuck. Sorry.

—but for some reason it hadn’t felt as satisfying as he had thought it would. For all that Prince Ian often fantasized about strangling the beast, it seemed he didn’t actually wish to see it dead. With that disconcerting realization in mind, Prince Ian went to break his fast, resigned to doing so on meat and yet more meat. But in the kitchen he found Mikhailo, and on the table in front of him was a pile of cabbage and carrots and onions.

“Guess the dragon must have talked to the villagers after all,” Mikhailo muttered, refusing to look at the prince. “And, uh, there was this thing I wanted to show you.”

Without waiting for a response, he spun around on his heel and walked out the door. Curious, Prince Ian followed, through doors and up and down stairs he never knew existed. Eventually, he found himself standing in what appeared to be an inner courtyard. It was small and the walls surrounding it very high, but up above the sky was blue. Prince Ian turned his face towards it and for the first time since he came to live at the dragon’s lair he felt sunlight on his face.

“It’s a shithole,” Mikhailo said. For some reason he sounded a little nervous. “But if you wanna go outside, you can come here. And there’s dirt in those bins, so I guess you could grow stuff in them? Just gotta wear this hat. Anyone sees you, they’ll just think it’s me.”

Privately, Prince Ian wondered who’d ever be able to see him behind walls that high, but he wasn’t going to argue. Wearing an ugly had was a small price to pay for being able to go outside, and to have a garden.

He gave Mikhailo a small smile; Mikhailo smiled back.

“Mikhailo smiled back.” Yeah, you bet he was laughing his ass off, ‘cause he thought Prince Ian was a huge fucking dork.

Things were good for a long while after that. Prince Ian spent his days in the garden and in Mikhailo’s company, and though he still resented being locked away from the world it was easy to ignore that when he had something to do and when his plants started to grow and when he was with Mikhailo. The two young men became closer and closer with each passing week, and soon it seemed to Prince Ian as if they had always known each other. He could no longer imagine a life without his friend.

He suspected that Mikhailo felt the same. It was there in the way he laughed at Prince Ian’s jokes; the way he sought him out to do nothing but talk; the way his gaze sometimes lingered on the prince, the look in his eyes unreadable.

Prince Ian suspected that Mikhailo too wondered what it would be like to press their lips together and hold each other tight. Sleep together; map every inch of each other’s bodies.

Hang on a minute, you’re telling me they haven’t fucked yet? The hell they’ve been doing?

I told you. Hanging out. Talking. Laughing.

Jesus Christ, that’s so fucking gay.

Two men not fucking each other is gay? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One day we really need to talk about all your internalized homophobia.

My interna-what? Ah, shut the fuck up. Continue with the story. All these interruptions ain’t doing much for the flow, you know.

Really? I hadn’t noticed.

Prince Ian became determined to find out if Mikhailo felt the same way as he did. He realized that he needed to be careful, however, and not push too hard, lest he spook the other boy. Even though he was almost sure he could see longing in Mikhailo’s eyes, there seemed to be some invisible hand holding him back. Every time Prince Ian was convinced they were finally getting somewhere, Mikhailo would suddenly pull back, as if stung.

Or as if remembering something. Himself, maybe.

Bu then came a cold, clear autumn day almost exactly one year after Prince Ian had been taken to the dragon’s lair.

Whoa, wait, now you’re telling me they’ve been hanging out for one fucking year and they still haven’t banged?

What can I say? Mikhailo’s a pussy.

Whatever. This story is unrealistic as fuck.

Prince Ian and Mikhailo had spent the afternoon together in the garden, as they almost always did whenever Mikhailo wasn’t busy with any of his mysterious chores (which he still refused to tell Prince Ian much about, but which sometimes took him away from the lair for days at a time). Once it started getting dark they went inside and dined on chicken and potatoes from Prince Ian’s patch, and as so often happened they started bickering and play fighting.

If that’s something that happens a lot you might have mentioned it earlier. Established it or whatever. Those mysterious chores too. What’s that all about?

Oh, my bad. Maybe I should start over? Once upon and time—

Nah, man, you’re good. Just a suggestion for next time.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

They were chasing each other around the kitchen when Mikhailo tripped over the muddy shoes he’d lazily left there the night before and fell to the floor.

You know these meaningful little comments ain’t actually clever, right? They don’t actually add anything to the story.

I like them.

Prince Ian, ever chivalrous, grabbed hold of his friend’s arm to break his fall, but ended up going down with him instead, pinning Mikhailo to the floor with his big, strong body.

Fucking finally.

Their eyes met and Prince Ian felt his heart starting to beat faster. He could see a faint blush spreading over Mikhailo’s face. Neither of them spoke; neither of them moved. Then, slowly, slowly, Prince Ian leaned in to brush his lips over Mikhailo’s. Mikhailo lifted his head to meet him in a kiss to end all other kisses, a kiss to inspire a thousand love songs.

Uh-huh, and then…

And then they went to Prince Ian’s room and had sex all night long. But when Prince Ian woke the next morning—

Wait, wait, what? That’s it? “They had sex all night long.” How about some fucking detail, man?

Fine.

After having great sex using lots of good lube all night long, Prince Ian woke up alone in his bed.

I hate you.

He went in search of Mikhailo but couldn’t find his friend anywhere. He looked in the garden and in the kitchen and he went to the sad little cellar chamber Mikhailo called his room even though Prince Ian had never actually seen him sleep there.

Because he’s the dragon and sleeps in the tower chamber. Great hint, Gallagher. Real subtle.

Fuck off.

A week passed and Prince Ian was starting to suspect that Mikhailo was gone for good this time. Perhaps the dragon had found out about their tryst and had sent him away? Or maybe Mikhailo was disgusted with what had happened and wanted nothing more to do with the prince? Prince Ian wondered and worried and feared, and when finally Mikhailo returned, stepping into the kitchen like nothing had happened, Prince Ian was so exhausted with terror and regret that his relief immediately transformed into fury.

He yelled at Mikhailo, called him names and demanded to know where he’d been. He named him a coward and—

…

Hey, what’s the matter? You okay?

Yeah. Yeah, man, I’m fine.

You don’t look— Listen, Prince Ian’s just being an asshole, okay? He saying a bunch of stupid shit ‘cause he’s sick and tired of not knowing if he means as much to Mikhailo as Mickhailo means to him. He doesn’t mean it.

…

Mick?

I mean… He probably means it a little. He’s not wrong.

No, he’s— Fine. He means it a little right then. But he is wrong, okay? He doesn’t really understand what’s going on with Mikhailo, but he’ll get it later. He’ll know he wasn’t being really fair.

… yeah?

Yeah. Okay?

Okay.

Great. Maybe we should speed this bit up a little—

Once Prince Ian had finished shouting, Mikhailo just stared at him for a long moment.

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” he spat, and then he spun around and disappeared through the door.

Prince Ian was immediately overcome with regret, yet he was still too angry and hurt and stubborn to run after the other. He went about his day in a very foul mood and when he went to bed that night Mikhailo was still gone. Prince Ian slept fitfully and in the middle of the night he woke to a loud crash, soon followed by several more. He realized it must have come form the tower chamber and after a moment of hesitation he grabbed his nightgown and rushed up the stairs.

So, he brought a nightgown with him when he thought the dragon was going to kill him?

Of course not. He found it in one of the rooms.

Yeah, okay, but why are there so many rooms in this fucking lair anyway? What’s with all the old stuff there? Didn’t the dragon build the place to live in like right before Prince Ian was sent there?

Mickey. It’s getting late and I’d really love to wrap this up and go to bed. It doesn’t really matter about the rooms. Can I just continue with the story?

Whatever, man. Just thought you should know there’s a bunch of plot holes in your little fairy tale.

Once he reached the door to the forbidden room, the crashing noises had stopped. Instead, Prince Ian heard whimpers and moaning, as if from someone in great pain. It could only be the dragon – something must be wrong with it.

Yeah, ya think, Sherlock?

Prince Ian knocked on the door. There was no reply, other than more whimpers and moans. Steeling himself, he tried the handle. The door was unlocked.

That’s awfully convenient.

Stepping inside, Prince Ian found the dragon on the floor. It was clearly hurt, for there was dark blood pooling underneath it. As Prince Ian entered, the great beast lifted its head but said nothing and made no move to attack him. It seemed it was too badly hurt to pose any threat.

It occurred to Prince Ian that he could kill the dragon. He could go down to the kitchen and fetch the biggest knife there and then he’d be free and he could go back to the castle and his siblings and—

The dragon made a low, pained sound and let its head fall back to the floor, closing its eyes.

Prince Ian went down the stairs, but he didn’t fetch a knife, he fetched bandages instead. Though part of him cursed himself for a fool, he knew he couldn’t bring himself to kill the dragon, monster or not, and couldn’t bring himself to let it bleed to death either.

That’s a huge fucking mistake. Maybe the dragon never hurt him but it still kept him imprisoned. Prince Ian should be getting the hell out of there when he has the chance.

Hmm, yeah. Choosing to be locked up just to be the person you love does sound like a pretty insane thing to do.

Oh, fuck off. That’s totally different.

Sure, Mick.

By the time Prince Ian returned to the tower the dragon had lost consciousness. The prince set to cleaning and bandaging his wounds, having learned the art of it while training with a medical witch who lived at the castle. It took a great long while; the dragon was large and heavy and the cuts in its side long, if shallow. But Prince Ian was nothing if not determined and eventually he had the beast wrapped up.

As Ian moved to rise, the dragon stirred.

“The hell are you doing?” it muttered, blinking up at Ian. Then it spotted the bandages, and the ice blue eyes widened. “What the— Are you fucking insane? This is a... is a… real bad fucking idea… ”

It sounded… strange, and not just from the pain and blood loss, Prince Ian thought. Sounded not just slurred but softer somehow, in spite of the uncharacteristic cursing; sounded almost familiar; sounded like—

“Mikhailo,” Prince Ian whispered.

Ooooh, big surprise! I’m so shocked right now!

You know there are other uses for plot twists than to shock the reader, right? Or actually, I guess you don’t know, but if you picked up a book once in a while—

Yeah, yeah, whatever. What happened after this great and totally unexpected reveal?

The dragon lost consciousness again so Prince Ian went to bed and slept soundly and when he woke the next day he spotted Mikhailo leaning against the wall of his room, looking tired ad unhappy. He was even paler than usually and there was a stiffness to his posture that suggested quite a bit of pain, but other than that he seemed well enough.

“So,” Prince Ian said, trying for casualness as he sat up on his pallet. “You’re a dragon.”

Mikhailo shrugged. “Seems like it.”

“But only by night.”

“Yeah… We turn when the sun sets, and turn back again when it rises.”

“I didn’t know that about dragons.”

“No one around here fucking does. People realize how helpless we are during the day, they’d kill us in a heartbeat. My dad says— “

“Your dad?”

“The leader of the dragons. The really big, white one? This whole terror and extortion thing was his idea, once he realized that no one in this kingdom has a clue about dragons.”

“Oh.”

“He hates humans. Thinks they’re useless and weak. If he knew I kept you around instead of killing you, he’d have murdered us both.”

Jesus fucking Christ, laying it on a bit thick with the metaphysical shit there, don’t ya think?

You mean metaphorical?

I mean it’s fucking stupid, that’s what I mean.

Might be closer to allegory anyway.

Uh-huh. Nobody fucking cares, Shakespeare.

“So, anyway,” Mikhailo continued, “you should probably try to go as far away from here as possible. Find a ship and go across the sea or something.”

Prince Ian blinked. “What?”

“Yeah, man, you won’t be able to go back to your castle. No way to stay hidden there. I know this guy up in Dikno, he might—”

He fell silent as Prince Ian jumped up from the bed and crossed the space between them in two long strides, and then he gasped loudly as the prince’s lips found his.

It was another one to inspire love songs.

“You idiot,” Prince Ian said fondly when eventually they broke apart. “Of course I’m not going anywhere. Unless,” he added, suddenly shy, “you want me to.”

Mikhailo made a face. “No, you fucking moron, I don’t want you to go,” he finally said. “But my dad—”

“We’ll find a way to deal with him. We’ll figure out how to sort it out and set things right between humans and dragons. We’ll find a way, together. Okay?”

And Mikhailo the dragon looked at his prince for a long moment and then he smiled. “Okay.”

At his prince, huh. Surprised you got room for all those big words in your head when your ego’s taking up so much space. All right, then what happened?

They organized a rebellion against the leader of the dragons, I guess. I don’t really know. That’s another story.

What do you mean, another story? Is this it? You spend all that time setting it up but when you get to the good part with the fighting you just stop?

Yeah, it’s getting really late. Kid’s asleep anyway.

Kid’s been out cold since, like, before the dragons even showed up, man, don’t fucking pretend this story was for her. … you really not gonna continue?

Nah, I’ll continue. But for the next scene I figured we might try a little show, don’t tell…

Oh, really? What’s the next scene?

Make-up sex. Prince Ian fucking Mikhailo’s brains out. And hey, spoiler alert: Mikhailo comes four times.

Four times, huh.

Yeah. So… wanna know how it happens?

Okay.

Okay. It starts like this—

---

So, yeah. There we have it. The things we write for Gallavich Week… XD

I am halfway outraged that this is the longest fic I’ve ever written for Gallavich, but I’m rather pleased I managed to write something for this theme! Guess I’ll go to bed both proud and embarrassed and dead tired tonight. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Where I am, we’re half an hour past midnight, but seeing as it’s still Monday somewhere, I have decided that I’m posting on time. Yay me! @gallavichthings

#gallavich #gallavich week 2021 #gw2021 #fic #what have i done #my stuff

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oracleoutlook · 7 months ago

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>I suppose the deeper principle is that individualism’s evil lies in its allowance for the individual to decide what is good and evil

I think this is where our experiences diverge. Usually I see Catholics worry that individualism contains the assumption that a person comes into the world without obligations and is free to form contracts without taking into consideration their existing relationships to God, their parents, and their neighbor. There are different ways those obligations may play out in the grand scheme of "right" and "wrong," but to deny the existence of these obligations at all seems incorrect.

Maybe this quote from another article Marc Barnes wrote can help elucidate:

Rousseau posits that man, in his original state, was an individual, a silliness that necessitates that he imagine babies as proto-individuals, kept for self-interested reasons and then abandoned: The mother gave suck to her children at first for her own sake; and afterwards, when habit had made them dear, for theirs: but as soon as they were strong enough to go in search of their own food, they forsook her of their own accord; and, as they had hardly any other method of not losing one another than that of remaining continually within sight, they soon became quite incapable of recognising one another when they happened to meet again. Now, Rousseau gave all five of his kids up to an orphanage, so I concede that some may be nearer to his “state of nature” than others. But, for babies, it is quite literally a joke. Losing the mother is a game they love to play, precisely because it affirms the non-individual status of both: “peek-a-boo” makes known, by way of contrast, that the two belong to each other; that they are members of one body; that the mother is made mother by the child even as the child is made child by the mother, and that this is an enduring metaphysical relationship and a social reality; that, in short, they cannot lose each other, even if, God forbid, they do. Imagining this social reality as actually being a mere individual contract—that the mother might walk away, that she might disappear, that she might hide her face, that the so-called bond is just her choice—all of this is hilarious to the kiddos.

While all deliberate sin is a choice to elevate a lesser good over the will of God, I don't really see Individualism blamed for this. Sins that are directly downstream of neglecting our responsibilities to current and future generations might get blamed on Individualism. But people obviously sinned before Hobbes and Rousseau. Sins happen without a political philosophy (but once a political philosophy gets involved, I will admit sins can become atrocities uncomfortably quickly.)

Catholics believe in the primacy of conscience, or that we must follow our conscience even if it contradicts the Church (with the caveat that if our consciences were perfectly formed they would agree with dogmatic moral teachings.)

Catholics when someone suggests people are "individuals"

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prettyyyboyluke · 4 years ago

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Umm I was wondering if you could maybe do an imagine where cal is like her brothers bad boy friend and the reader is innocent ... or that's what everyone thinks...umm idk if you're taking requests but if you could do this I would really appreciate it🥺

y/n’s brother’s a sophomore in college, and once he graduated high school, he had moved out and gotten his own apartment. one with two bedrooms so she could have a place to stay when going to visit him. granted, he was only two hours away, but it was still nice since she didn’t have her parents helicoptering her. y/n was lucky to have a brother like tyler, the two were very close and were open about lots of things. so of course, he didn’t mind her and a few of her friends joining him and his friends for movie nights or small kickbacks.

that’s exactly what tonight was, a kickback. y/n was more than excited because tyler invites his best friend over each time, and he’s the hottest guy y/n’s ever seen, at least that’s what she thinks. curly black hair with blonde streaks, tall and muscular, tattoos dispersed all over his body, she practically drools every time she sees him. she thinks there are no flaws for him, except he’s that “i don’t date,” type of guy, which leaves lots of girls heartbroken.

y/n always arrives early to help tyler set up since he’s very unorganized and needs help setting out snacks for their friends. of course, y/n is on aux because she swears by her spotify being better than her brothers, but no one has ever complained about the music.

“god tyler, how did you ever survive your semesters without me here.” she laughs.

“oh, shut up. i’m perfectly fine, just not as organized as you.” he jabs back.

their friends pile into the apartment, chatting amongst themselves about their last week of school. y/n’s about to pour herself a drink when calum walks through the front door. she stares longingly, her eyes following up his body and his movements as he says hello to everyone there. her friend nova gives her a hard jab in her side, emphasizing the fact that she is practically drooling over the new quarter zip-up sweatshirt she just purchased. she straightens up, pushing out her chest. calum looks her way, smiling at her and making his way over.

“didn’t know tyler suddenly had a bad girl of a sister.” he smiles at her smugly, and if y/n didn’t know any better, she’d say he was speaking in a malicious tone, but she knows him better than that.

she rolls her eyes at him, “shut up!” she swats at his bicep. “tyler told you about my car, huh?”

“yeah,” he laughs, “said that your whole bumper came off. i’m surprised they let you out of the house tonight, you know since you’re a little girl.”

y/n’s cheeks start to heat up, her body temperature rising as their conversation continues. “i am not a little girl, calum. just because you’re a few years older than me doesn’t mean anything!” she crosses her arms, looking playfully furious and calum wants to run his thumb across the pout on her lips.

“sure, pretty girl.” he takes her drink and takes a sip. he hums at the liquor that hits his taste buds, “i’ll be taking this,” he says, shaking her drink in front of her eyes.

when he’s a few feet away, her friends chime in. “god, he’s so hot.”

“you just know he’s packing.”

“hey!” y/n screeches softly, “he’s mine! find your own college boy to drool over.”

she makes her self another drink, thanks to calum, and joins everyone by the couch. she walks around to the end of the couch where calum is sat at, ready to sit on the love seat next to nova, but calum catches her wrist and pulls her into his lap. her cheeks heat up, again, relieved when tyler is preoccupied with the game they’re about to play.

“what’re you doing?” she hisses into his ear. “my brother’s right there.”

“and? amaya is practically sitting on top of him.” he points to the two in the small chair. she shivers and shakes her head. “see? so it’s perfectly fine if we sit together.” he moves over a bit, giving her room to sit next to him but still somewhat on his thigh, and she looks at him while she positions herself. “everything alright here, pretty girl?”

“yup! yup, everything’s fine.” she looks at the way their legs are tangled together. she cracks her knuckles, trying to calm some of her nerves. calum slings an arm around her side of the couch, making her lean subconsciously into him. she knows what he’s doing... and she loves it.

they’re about two and a half rounds into picolo, their favorite drinking game. and everyone has a very nice buzz going on. they’re on the caliente version now, so this round should be spicy.

“alright, alright!” tyler laughs, “if calum and y/n kiss, each of you can give out 2 sips. if not, you each have to drink 2 times.” tyler finishes.

her eyes widen. she had no idea what tyler was thinking at this point, the alcohol in his system streaming through everything. nova gives her that look of well! get on with it! she turns to calum, “we don’t have to, we can just drink.” she says, reaching for her cup, but calum stops her.

calum doesn’t say anything but puts his hand on y/n’s cheek, bringing her closer in. her chest is heaving, eyes flickering between his lips and his eyes. he finally closes the gap between the two, lips connecting and light smacking happening.

“it’s about damn time!” luke exclaims. the rest of the group also cheers and laughs. the kiss definitely lasts longer than it’s supposed to, but neither her nor calum mind. calum pulls away but returns for one more peck.

y/n takes her bottom lip between her teeth, racking her brain at the fact that that just happened. calum then gives her temple a kiss and returns his attention back to the game. the game continues giving everyone dares like y/n’s and calum’s, some a little riskier than others, but no one seemed to mind.

“alright alright, how about we change the game to ‘never have i ever’?” ashton suggests. the group agrees. y/n gets up to go grab a bottle of hard liquor and the small shot glasses she bought. she thinks they’re cute, they’re not the red ones like the solo cups, they’re the neon-colored ones. calum follows her to the kitchen.

he wraps one hand around one side of her waist, pulling her close to his front side. she jumps the slightest bit when his hand goes under her sweatshirt and rests for a moment before giving it a squeeze. “how was that kiss?” he whispered in her ear.

she swallowed before answering, “i-i liked it.” she said, her voice very small.

calum turns her around, “i knew you would. you think i don’t notice how you look at me?” lord, y/n thinks she’s about to fucking pass out when he traces the outline of her running shorts.

they walk back, calum’s hand low on her back. as always, she sets everything up, being a little soberer than everyone else. this time, calum sets her right on top of his thigh. she lets a small gasp leave her lips when he moves his lap up for a second. calum sits up, wrapping an arm around her stomach, making her move yet again. the material of her shorts is very thin and with calum knowingly moving his thigh against her core, he could feel what he’s doing to her.

“okay, never have i ever been so crossed i threw up in the basement of the Alpha Phi house,” michael says, clearly taking a hit at someone. y/n sees calum reach for one of the neon cups and takes a shot.

“that was dirty, i’ll get you back.” calum snarls. y/n turns around to calum, raising her brow. “it was freshman year, and those girls have still never let me back in.”

“i’ll go!” nova shouts, “never have i ever had a crush on my brother’s best friend,” she says, looking right at y/n. y/n doesn’t want to reach for a shot and take it, but she also knows that if she doesn’t nova will call her bluff. despite fighting her conscience, she sucks it up and takes a shot. she gives nova daggers while she racks her brain to think of something to get her back.

the kickback ended around an hour ago, most of y/n and tyler’s friends had left, and calum had asked tyler if he could sleep on the couch. y/n was still awake, cleaning up everything so her brother wouldn’t have to deal with such a mess in the morning. calum’s been helping y/n clean up, mostly just so he can flirt with her more.

“you know, i never really got a proper kiss from you tonight.” calum says, taking a pile of trash into the bag. y/n stands up, looking at calum.

“what do you mean? we kissed during picolo, how was that not a proper kiss?” she asks, clearly not getting what he’s hinting at.

calum takes her wrist, bringing her over to the kitchen, and sets her on top of the counter. “a proper kiss doesn’t involve all of our friends staring at us and cheering. it’s more like this,” he stops his sentence and goes in for the kiss he’s been talking about.

y/n’s caught off guard for a moment before she relaxes into calum. their lips move rhythmically against each other, their tongues going to explore the mouth of the other. calum places a hand on her thigh while the other is holding her cheek. both of y/n’s arms are around calum’s shoulders, moving closer and making his hand move up higher on her thigh.

they both pull away for a second, calum looks down at where his hand is and looks back up at y/n. she nods her head and brings his lips back down to hers. calum’s fingers make their way into her shorts, just petting over her clit while y/n rotates her hips against his fingers.

“i think we should move to your room, just in case someone decides to come out.” calum whispers.

and y/n can’t wait to see where this takes her.

#yo i really like this #👀👀#i could continue this if y'all want #neyahood #calum hood smut #calum hood imagine #calum hood preference #calum hood #calum #ch #let's gossip !!

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andersunmenschlich · 3 years ago

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Numbers 31

I remember asking my father about this when I was a kid.

The Israelites have just murdered the heck out of the Midianites, right, in the sense that they’ve killed all the adult males. Moses is furious because they haven’t murdered the women and children. So he tells them to kill all the male children, and every female who’s had PIV sex—but keep all the female virgins, and I quote, “for yourselves.”

Now, I wasn’t a super moral kid. I’d learned my Bible lessons too well for that, and the concept of mass murder didn’t bother me at all: I wanted to be on the killing side myself, frankly.

Even the idea of sexual slavery made sense to me, seemed perfectly moral, even likely to lead to strong and loving marriages in societies that embraced it. Look at Seven Brides For Seven Brothers! Would my cousin enjoy that movie so much if she didn’t have a God-given desire to be kidnapped and, uh, seduced? Of course not, I thought. And to back this up I had Judges 21, where the Israelites murder every Israelite in Jabesh-gilead (since they didn’t come to church that one time) except for the virgin females, and give them to the Benjamites as sex slaves. Right?

I mean, sure, they called them wives. But you know those wives had to serve their husbands in every way and couldn’t leave, right? I was a logical child. I knew ‘wife’ meant ‘slave’ and I didn’t see any problem with it. After all, we’re all slaves! I could even sing the song. So wives are a subset of the group ‘slave’—what else is new? Knowing your place and staying in it is a moral good, and it’s good for you.

And then when even that wasn’t enough women, the leaders of the church told the Benjamites to just go to Shiloh where there was about to be a holiday celebration and kidnap women doing the annual Dance of the Virgins or whatever. So… no big deal.

But.

Child rape?

Even if they didn’t start on the female children until they were eighteen (unlikely!) that still struck me, even with my Bible-seared, God-twisted conscience, as awful.

My father agreed. The Israelites, he explained, were saving the female children as daughters! They wanted more daughters, see? I was unconvinced. “Why didn’t they want more sons?” I wanted to know. “Why only the girls? Why kill all the boys? Why couldn’t they adopt them, too?”

Well.

Because boys are naturally violent and vengeful.

Girls are weak. They can be contained, controlled. And they’re not just weak physically, no! They can’t resist indoctrination the way boys can. A boy would never accept the people who murdered his parents as family. A girl would. Girls are weak-willed, easily swayed, gentle of spirit, ready to love and accept the people who murdered their families once they’ve, you know, mourned their families. Girls are easily brought into the Lord’s flock. Boys—even baby boys, children not even old enough to walk or talk or understand what’s happening around them—they would never forgive.

So they had to be killed.

Makes sense, right?

“No!”

Well, you’re just not old enough yet. When you get a little older, you’ll understand that babies with penises are simply too strong-willed to be adopted and converted, while adults with vaginas are so weak-willed that they can be raped into loving their abductors.

Well. I’m thirty-two years old now, Dad, and not only do I still not understand, I’m actually further from understanding than I was at eleven.

At eleven, I understood the bit about grown women. It made sense to me.

Now… now… I—dear god in heaven! You lied to me! And such a lie! Why did you teach me these things? Because you believed them? How could you believe these things? You have a wife! You know a grown woman! Do you really think that, if she’d been born in Jabesh-gilead, or Shiloh, or Midian, that it would’ve been okay for you to murder her parents and force her to live with you? As your wife? Do you really believe that this would have been a moral good? That she would have loved you? Converted to your religion? That it would have been easier to make her do this than to make a baby boy love you and believe what you believe? Really?

How can you believe this? How could you teach this to me? You had to have known it was a lie, how could you possibly not have known?

A grown woman can be kidnapped and brainwashed, but not a literal baby?

The Israelites killed all those tiny Midianite boys because there was no way they could have adopted them and raised them as their own?

They adopted all those tiny Midianite girls and raised them as their own because baby girls are easier to brainwash than baby boys? Because even adult women are easier to brainwash than baby boys?

Dear god!

Just admit it! They killed the males because inheritance in Israelite culture was through the male line! They kept the females because females aren’t a threat to inheritance—they’re breeding stock and nothing else! They kidnapped those women and girls to have sex with them! You want to claim it’s not bad because they definitely waited until the kids were capable of breeding before sticking their dicks in them? Even if you could prove that they waited, which you can’t, so what? So fucking what? It doesn’t change what they were kidnapped for!

But my father couldn’t do it. No. He preferred to teach me, a literal child, that having a penis confers super powers. A child with a dick will eventually realize that they’re different, racially, from their adopted family, and turn on them. A child with a cunt won’t notice, or won’t care.

Not because they’ve been raised to love their adopted family, but because they don’t have the sensational schlong of self-determination. They lack the willy-power, if you will.

And I believed it!

“Oh, I have a penis, so I’m a man, so I have an ability to decide my own life and the lives of others that people without penises just don’t have! Look at me, I’m so special! God made me to lead and make decisions for women even if it means killing their whole family and forcibly marrying them! I have a magical power that means all my decisions will always be, if not perfect, at least better than theirs! For everybody! Yay!”

Jesus Christ, no wonder it’s called being a dick. .

TL;DR

If you think the Israelites killed all the Midianite males—adult and child—while leaving alive only the Midianite females unlikely to give them STIs (age irrelevant) because they wanted daughters, you’re a willfully ignorant cretin.

And if you think the Israelites killed the male children because boys are intrinsically harder to reshape than girls, you’re a malicious dick-head.

#Isaiah rants #Bible study #Numbers 31 #ex christian #childhood indoctrination #foul language #foul ideas #tw: rape #tw: gender essentialism #tw: male supremacy #tw: the literal Bible #the results of faith #on attitudes toward women

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mittensmorgul · 3 years ago

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I was having a conversation with someone about spn recently. I was saying how it was compelling to me how Cas was basically the only one to embrace free will and escape the narrative, and he did this because he loved Dean. And because of that, Cas invented free will. His choosing Dean over heaven is the variable that made this reality different from every other reality, right?

The person I was talking to agreed that Cas embraced free will, but she also argued that Sam and Dean also embraced free will because they refused to kill each other the way other versions of themselves did.

So my point is that: Only Cas's love for Dean invented free will, and that's what allowed Sam and Dean to break free of the narrative.

Her point was: Sam, Dean, and Cas all simultaneously embraced free will, and thus broke free of the narrative together.

I prefer my interpretation because of Destiel/queer-love-defying-god-and-saving-the-universe reasons (my god why does this stupid show have to be so compelling???). But I'm also wondering what you think. I'm kind of looking for textual validation for MY interpretation, and I'm curious if you know of any off that top of your head.

No worries if not, I was just curious about it. You're my fav meta writer, and thanks for all you do ☺️

Hi there! I'm flattered that you've enjoyed anything I've written here! I appreciate that! But unfortunately I agree with your friend. Or... mostly...

The show has been about free will for years. Cas's arc in it was his personal coming to truly understand and embrace free will for himself. To understand all the lessons about free will that he literally learned from Dean.

"Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean you can do whatever you want," and all that.

Other angels did start down that road. Anna, specifically, chose to be born human to experience humanity and free will for herself, and then was dragged back. Balthazar took the whole free will thing to the sorts of extremes that Cas did in s6 (doing whatever he wanted, because nothing mattered in the end). It was the same sort of nihilism that plagued AU!Michael after "following all God's orders perfectly" and bringing about their apocalypse as ordered/destined by God, and then didn't come with the expected "reward" of God's return to their world.

This was Cas's primary struggle in s4, where he fought against his own essential programming, and against the belief that he was effectively created to follow God's orders, to obey Heaven's commands. We know he had crises of conscience before, in the past, thanks to Naomi's confirmation that Cas was present at other objectionable events carried out by angels in the past (killing the firstborns of Egypt, for example) that were wiped from his memory because they were leading him to question authority or doubt their orders. The difference in *THIS* universe, though, was that *this* Cas had Dean.

Dean didn't exist in the Apocalypse AU. That Cas may have had some similar objections, and from his behavior (the eye twitch, etc.) there is definitely a potential read there that Cas himself had tried to object enough, and had been "reprogrammed" enough to have finally completely broken him.

I've written about how some angels are "specialists," a term first used to describe Uriel and his city-leveling abilities. We know Zachariah (even the AU version of him) had the special power to implant visions directly into people's brains. And that Cas's "special power" was that he could "strip memories" out of people's minds. What a HORRIBLE power. But also, very much what Naomi's brain reprogramming torture hat was supposed to do, yes?

Ironic that Cas was the one that reprogramming hat didn't completely work on.

But the difference for Cas wasn't that he "escaped the narrative," because in the end he did not at all. In the end because of the love for Dean that he understood through his own free will, he chose to die so that Dean could live. Which... is effectively exactly what Chuck wanted for Cas in the narrative. He wanted him gone. Cas ultimately gave in to Chuck's narrative first of TFW.

He made the choice for himself, but Chuck's narrative was always one step ahead of all of them right to the end. It was a choice he should never have had to make. "Either we both die right here and Chuck wins, or I save Dean by sacrificing myself so he can go on without me to stop Chuck." That was what his final act boiled down to.

Once Chuck was defeated, this was obviously the very first act we all assumed Jack would undertake to undo that sacrifice. Which makes me believe that Chuck actually won... but that's a rant for another post (and a goodly number of posts I've already made lol).

But humanity was created WITH FREE WILL! Angels were not. So... I'd offer that Cas was the first angel to successfully understand free will and apply it to himself. He was also the first angel to inhabit his own body (not a vessel after 5.01), the first to have been made human within that body, and the first to experience life as a human while retaining all his memories of his entire existence before becoming human. He fully understood humanity, and said "yeah I like this better."

All these themes of humanity, love, and free will were wrapped up in his entire story arc, and I personally feel like it takes something important away from his story to suggest that he was the ONLY character with free will, when he only learned free will for himself BECAUSE of Dean and his love for Dean. Which is what Cas actually said in his confession.

"You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell, knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack. I cared about the whole world because of you. You changed me, Dean.

I refuse to take that away from them.

#spn 15.18 #that's what free will is #castiel winchester #destiel #there's probably a lot more on this topic in my free will tag up there... but also in my cas vs humanity tag which is #you learned it from the goats

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ave-immaculata · 1 year ago

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It's tricky! I think if in good conscience you're affirming that Jesus is fully God and that the Blessed Virgin is indeed His mother, than the main concern about terminology is greatly lessened, although I hesitate to say it's dismissed since the Council of Ephesus was so specific that she is not the Christ-bearer but God-bearer as @peartreetheft said. There are, for better or worse, many aspects of the Christian life that may require some minor clarification because, though true in one sense, they could be interpreted to mean other things which are not true. For example, Numbers 23:19 says that God is not a man, and this is true in the sense that He is not only a Man, that, at the time of writing, the Word had not yet become incarnate and that it is using that language to describe God's character, but it is not true in the sense that Jesus is not God but only Man. While a doctrine or part of the faith might be confusing or even potentially misleading, it doesn't mean that it isn't worth clinging to.

Often, Scripture and other sources use the term God to refer to a single Person of the Trinity, only, yet it is perfectly right to do so. Jesus often used the term God to refer to His Father specifically!

The reason the term Christ-bearer/Christokos/Mother of Jesus is insufficient is because Nestorius of Constantinople was using the title to specifically restrict her role to the mother only of Christ's Humanity rather than also including His Divinity. The rejection of the term Theotokos in history is one of dividing the Person of Jesus, which you've clarified is certainly not your intention.

Although capitalization may have been odd, the logical proof presented still seems to stand.

Mary's title as Queen of Heaven and Earth is, in fairness, directly tied to her title as Mother of God; the former focuses on the structure of Davidic Kingdoms, wherein the Queen is the Kingmother rather than the King's wife, Obviously, if Christ is King of Heaven and Earth, it would follow that only His Mother could be the Queen (if there is one). I think both titles can be fully accepted and affirmed even within Sola Scriptura.

Regarding the Scripture commentary, you're absolutely correct that Jael and Judith are both called most blessed among women, and all three women bring about the salvation of Israel by their cooperation with God. There ought to be a special awe for the way God chose to incorporate these holy women in His redemptive plan.

Another typology for Mary is as the Ark of the New Covenant, since the Glory of the Lord overshadowed her and she carried the Word of God Himself. The Ark of each Covenant was the place where the Lord dwelled. There's a lot more justification for this comparison that I can get into if you like (2 Samuel 6:9 with Luke 1:43 for example), but for now, we see throughout Scripture God commanding veneration and reverence be shown to it, such as 1 Chronicles 16:1-4. We also see veneration of holy people like David in Daniel 2:46-48.

For what it's worth, I'm absolutely happy to agree to disagree but I did want the opportunity to respond to what you said. The sinlessness of Mary is a lot more typing for a brief comment, but again, I'm always happy to dialogue about it. God bless!

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cherienymphe · 3 years ago

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i found myself grieving so honestly with reader on her relationship with peter- before the abuse and everything of course. im mean she really did lose the person who knew her most, and in the worst way possible, that sense of loss cannot be denied. i understand her innier conflict with trying to reconcile that the peter who was sweet and the peter that brutally attacks her. i mean hell as a reader i have that same problem. you just write out everything so perfectly and so easy to sympatize and rationalize- gah! u just have all my adoration!

and god i completely understand where steve is from, even tho its overbearing and god it just seems so personal to him? the reader said he acts like a father and i completely agree in the way that its like he takes everything that happened as a personal affront and i know we dont know too much about steves past or relationship wit the reader in the story but it makes me wonder... did she miss signs with steve the same way she missed them with peter? signs as in not steve being a abusive maniac but idk maybe... a hint of over protectiveness? i mean we have seen how he reacts but i wonder if reader ever say the signs of his escalating behaviour over the years.

and awe bucky. sweet, soft, tender bucky. god he just makes me melt. can someone take care of him? 🥺 maybe reader and bucky can have a heart to heart about their abuse and lead the reader to a little healing. he could be her rock and steve could be the agrressive mfing tide that just throws hands at everything lmaaooooo

OUUUU dont even make me with tony!!! was he tryna manipulate her by the way? like he knew that shes not mentally thr yet to insist on repercussions for peter but tony trues to be like 'oh no i cant in good conscience but you shouldve done more to help H I M' like ok guilt trip? ok mr. mind games. i see what youre doing. im lowkey falling for it too but i SEE U.

god i hope peters beat to hell. which wink wink u totally hinted at and i love u for it. like i want him to live but i know hes a shit head and will make a comeback for reader which makes me want him fo die, but also the duds spiderman like? idk the world needs him? but i also kno if he does 'leave' reader alone he cud pick up another person and lock her up and no one would ever know. rehab seems iffy- that shit rarely sticks innit? and like how is reader ever gon face him again if theyre the a v e n g e r s? i mean sending either of them off to different teams kinda seems like a bad solution to a bad situation.

im personally rooting for a semi-recovered reader with soft!steve and bucky, just as friends that are a little too protective but its sweet. i wouldn't sneeze if things became more but honestly i think a friendship would be just right.

also holy fuck youre amazing and jeez u deserve fucking everything

I love all of this! Thank you 😭 I try to make it as realistic as possible so I wanted to focus on the plot of 'hey Peter was not always like this and even now he's still not always like this. He still has his moments and days where he's the Peter she fell in love with and it convinces her that things will get better because it's not all bad all the time'

#asks

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lovelyirony · 4 years ago

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Maybe 60 and 46, Pepper / Natasha? (Based off our conversation from the other day :P )

“Dance with me.”/“You look like you could use a hug.” introducing: evil businesswoman pepper and her lovely assistant, natasha

Pepper didn’t like dealing with other businesses early in the morning. In fact, she usually didn’t. She did her worst in the mornings, and it was clear to see.

There was a man still lying in his chair when she comes out of the meeting room, and asks for a clean-up crew.

She hates tech start-ups.

Her assistant didn’t last. They never did, although this one had shown promise: he was with the company for five months.

She was sad to see him go, in shock at another mess she had made.

“Maybe you could stop killing other businesses,” Tony tells her while they’re eating lunch. It’s a nice place, where they’re at. They have a good balsamic vinaigrette.

“I could, but then where would the company be?” Pepper asks. “They need to know that I like to be impressed. I want success. That’s how you get what you want.”

Tony makes a face.

He wants to say something, but he can’t. Not when he signed the company over to her, and she’s improved it, been allowed to make her own choices, bring everything up to her standards. She’s put everyone at her heel, and by god has it been satisfying.

But she still needs a new assistant.

Natasha Romanoff is not liking the current assignment. Then again, she doesn’t like a lot of SHIELD’s assignments.

She likes the company, really. They’re altruistic as hell and like going through the proper channels to get the proper work done.

But she misses the feeling of getting yourself immersed, getting your hands stained beyond belief.

An assistant.

They want her to be a damned assistant for Stark Industries. Investigate the CEO, figure out what kind of dirt they can dig up and get out.

It’s insufferable. She should be doing high-speed car chases and seducing oil barons to make sure their finances get drained.

She shouldn’t be asking what kind of creamer goes in coffee and what kind of pens they want to be ordered.

But here she is for the interview process, and she’s wearing her best office dress, which is still a bit risky for what an office job is, but she pays everyone else no mind. She taps her heel on the floor.

Pepper hates interviewing candidates. But she has to observe who is going to be working with her, who can handle what they’re going to throw at her.

There’s a woman in the middle of it: Natalie Rushman.

She’s been abroad with various companies, used to do some amateur modeling, and is wearing a dress that would probably get her in trouble with HR if Pepper didn’t appreciate it so damn much.

She’s interesting.

Her eyes flash when Pepper asks her how comfortable she is in slightly dangerous situations.

“What, like copy paper being out?” she asks. Pepper laughs.

“Something a touch more dangerous than that, Miss Rushman.”

The interview ends.

Pepper thinks about her through the whole thing.

Natasha is excited.

Finally a job where she can use her skills. Where she can do what she needs to do, and it will be wonderful.

Natasha shouldn’t be excited.

But she can’t help herself as she buys four new pairs of shoes and debates on a skirt that she should bring.

After all, she will be getting the job if Ms. Potts’ posture gave any indication.

Miss Rushman starts officially on a Wednesday after two days of training. Usually it would take anywhere from one to two weeks. But she’s scarily efficient and has apparently worked with the same kind of things.

Pepper finds that she’s the best assistant she’s ever had. She’s already taken notes on what Pepper does throughout the day, knows when she needs to take a break for a headache, and also knows the extremely specific coffee creamer that she uses.

It would almost terrify her, if she could still get terrified at the mundane details that people could know about you.

But Miss Rushman makes it seem easy, and so she lets it slide. After all, it’s not like Natalie can just leave. She’s signed four different sets of paperwork that basically say if she so much as breathes wrong, Stark Industries gets her soul for eternity.

She’ll be trapped.

Natasha finds that aspect exciting.

She shouldn’t find the act of Pepper Potts holding a letter-opener to a business associate’s neck hot.

It shouldn’t be.

But Pepper got a lovely crimson-red manicure, and she’s smiling so sweetly as she discusses what they agreed upon versus what’s happening.

It takes Natalie Rushman a moment to process.

“Miss Potts?” she interrupts.

Pepper’s head slowly turns. Her strawberry-blonde hair moves smoothly over the letter-opener, over the hand clutched, trying to hold onto a way to live.

“Yes, Miss Rushman?”

“I have some paperwork for you to sign. Regarding the new hospital tech installment.”

“Set them on my right. I’m finishing up some...loose ends.”

Natalie doesn’t react to the loud noise other than a displeased hum and asking the other members in the room if they want lemon-water.

It’s refreshing in the afternoon, and she needs to clean the cabinet behind them anyways.

Pepper gets adjusted to her assistant. And Natalie gets adjusted to her life.

She’s comfortable with it. It’s easy, to lean on who she had to be.

It’s a rude wake-up call when she gets lunch with Clint, and he asks how the mission is going.

“You any closer to taking her down?”

She blinks for a moment. Pokes at her cake.

“Nat, come on. You know she can’t keep getting away with this, right?”

“Why does the world need more businessmen?” Natasha murmurs.

Clint stares at her.

“Come on. You told me when I brought you over here that you didn’t want to turn into who they made you into again. Just because it’s easier doesn’t mean it’s worth it.”

He’s right.

Of course he is. Clint usually is about this type of thing.

Pepper Potts is...well. Natasha can admire the dedication she takes with her success.

But usual bosses don’t really kill the competition.

Literally.

Pepper’s noticed a change in Natalie Rushman.

She doesn’t like it.

She doesn’t watch for as long, doesn’t talk as easily with her anymore.

Tony says maybe all of this terrible shit is catching up with her, her conscience finally clueing her in on the situation.

No, that’s not it. That can’t be it. Not after how she stared at Pepper, not after her smile, not after those nights where they stayed late and both gazed but never said anything.

Natalie is in the breakroom, staring into a coffee mug that has nothing in it.

“You look like you could use a hug,” Pepper says dryly, sidling up to her. She takes a step away.

Hm.

“I’m fine, just a busy day,” Natalie says.

God, she’s not even trying to lie. That’s infuriating.

“Your days are about to get a little bit busier,” she starts in. “I’ve decided to host a little celebration for all of the companies we’ve worked with over this past year. We’re going to have a real ball of a time, and I want you to help plan it. And attend.”

Natasha looks at her. Really looks at her.

Shit.

Pepper’s onto her. She knows something is different, something is off.

And if Natasha’s to get away, she’s still going to have fun toying with her. She’s going to make life hell.

The saying goes that if you can’t handle the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.

Natasha’s been cooking for a much longer time than Pepper, and she’s known her way around more kitchens than most.

Bring it.

Putting together an honest-to-god ball for an eccentric, threatening CEO is fun. It shouldn’t be fun, but it is.

The caterers are scared into arriving early, the invitations are embossed with actual gold, and the music costs way more than it should.

Natasha is having so much fun with it that she completely forgets about her dress.

She’s cursing as she’s tearing through her closet, looking for something that would be remotely appropriate for a ball for a sadistic CEO that she kind of has a crush on.)

There’s a knock at the door.

She rips it open, expecting it to be Clint or Maria to make fun of her, but it’s not.

“Um. Delivery for Miss Rushman?”

Oh.

It’s a midnight blue ballgown, long-sleeved. She never would have chosen it for herself.

The notecard attached said:

Wear this one. I know you best. -Potts

A shiver runs up her spine.

She’s not sure for what reason she’ll assign it to.

But she puts it on, and it fits perfectly. She doesn’t want to think about how much it will cost.

Pepper, of course, looks like a dream. Or a nightmare. A terrifyingly beautiful nightmare.

Her dress is burgundy, her lipstick matches. Her hair is loose, not kept in the high ponytail that is customary.

Her eyes are a brilliant blue. They see right through her.

“You look gorgeous, Miss Rushman,” she says, looking her up and down. “As to be expected, of course.”

“Of course,” Natasha murmurs.

The night will be long.

They mingle. Natasha dutifully informs Pepper of who the lesser players on the field are, and fetches drinks.

It’s...odd.

It feels like something big is going to happen. And maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

“Dance with me,” Pepper asks her. “Please.”

She’s adding the last part in so that it sounds nice. But it’s a demand all the same.

Natasha takes her hand, and maybe she should be more reserved about it, but she can’t help it.

It’s captivating. It’s dangerous. But she accepts all the same.

“You look beautiful tonight,” Pepper murmurs. “You far outshine every other woman here.”

“Even you?” Natasha asks.

Pepper rolls her eyes, but smiles.

“Obviously, Natasha. Who else would?”

She doesn’t notice that slip-up. Maybe it’s because she’s blown away at their close proximity, maybe it’s because Miss Potts’ perfume is absolutely intoxicating. But she doesn’t notice.

They dance and they talk.

“I’m happy you wore the dress.”

“It’s not like I had anything like it in my closet,” Natasha says as Pepper smiles.

“I figured. Not many host balls anymore.”

“You’re a different sort.”

“I am, aren’t I? But I think you and I are one and the same.”

They’re isolated.

And Natasha realizes it too late. She was a fool.

“You haven’t quit after a year, after everything we’ve been through. Everything that I put you through. A regular person couldn’t do that, could they?”

“You’d be surprised at what people can handle,” Natasha says.

Pepper smiles.

“You and I both know you’re far from an average person...Romanoff.”

She tenses.

“You knew?”

“It’s a relativity new tidbit of knowledge, but having a tech genius as a colleague is...nice.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“Reveal you,” Pepper says. “You’re a spy. You make your bread and butter off the fact that no one knows you for very long. And me? Well, you can’t kill me. The only thing that could possibly have an effect on me is if you killed the business. Which you don’t have the infrastructure for.”

“And if I don’t want that? What do I have to do?” Natasha asks.

Secrecy is her safe spot. It’s the only place where she’s ever been secure.

“Stay. Leave that Strategic-Homeland-Whatever, and come with me. Stay with me.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Natasha says. “Your life and mine are too similar for that.”

“But think of all we could do together,” she says. She brushes a hair back from Natasha’s cheek.

It’s unbearable, that feeling. It’s a feeling that Natasha will spend all her life denying that she’ll chase.

“I can’t.”

Pepper looks at her. It’s a look that’s chilling.

“Very well, Miss Romanoff. Then that will be all.”

Pepper won’t fight her physically. She would lose that way, especially with how well-tailored the dress is on her body.

But she has other ways of fighting.

And god help Natasha, she knows she’s doomed.

The worst part?

She doesn’t exactly mind.

#lovelyirony writes #blackpepper #natpepper #peppernat #black widow #natasha romanoff #pepper potts #alternate universe: villain #villain au

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saksukei · 4 years ago

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jeonghan + assassin au (mentions of killing, suicide, drinking, its completely fictional so please)

I read this prompt on one of those writing prompt accounts and like last night jeonghan came into my mind with it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is hella long too so bare with me pls

life really hadn't been going well for you

ever since your parents died in that car accident, your only support system your best friend had moved away as well. You just felt nothing could make you want to live

Even though, you didn't have any financial struggles and you were independent, living in an upstate area

You hated everything and considering how things were going, as days passed by

you came to the conclusion that you didn't want to live anymore

but you were scared to do it on your own

Had you ever had that much courage, you would have done it long ago

so the only way out could be through

murder?

If someone murdered you, you'd be getting what you wanted but who?

You couldn't ask anyone you knew to do it because they'd suffer from a guilty conscience and then eventually admit to everyone

unless that person killed on a daily basis

You started doing some research and somehow ended up on the other side of the internet

basically, the dark web

you were sure you could hire plenty of people just to put a bullet in your head for a good price

you eventually came across someone named ‘SYJ95’ who apparently said they were a trained assassin, who could kill you in no less than 700$

which was pricey, but the person said it wouldn't be painful and that they'd also paint it as a suicide

so you agreed!

You paid ‘him’ $700 and told him he had three weeks to do it and you even gave him the necessary details that he needed to find you and do the deed

I'm sorry but how dumb are you lmao

excited, you shut your laptop

You were finally going to get what you wanted and your life was finally going to be good aside from the fact you were finally going to die

You woke up, got ready and headed off to work, in an unusually chirpy mood which even your colleagues were surprised to see

your boss then called a meeting

“alright is everybody here?” your boss asked and you nodded.

“we have a new employee,” he informed the others. “everyone please welcome yoon jeonghan!”

everyone applauded and

your boss moved to the side and in came the guy named ‘yoon jeonghan’

wHAT THE FUCK

he had long black hair, wavy from the front, parted in the middle. He was wearing a navy blue colored suit, with a white inner shirt

and you swore you could hear the ovaries of the female workers bURSTING

BECAUSE HES SO GOOD LOOKIN?

His skin tone was complimented by the navy blue colored suit, alongside his perfectly structured greek god face, those soft red lips and a very prominent Adam's apple with those brown eyes that you could stare into for all eternity

YOU WERE SOLD SJXHSNJXJ

“hello?” you heard someone say. “earth to y/n–”

You broke out of your stance, to find your boss waving at you

“did you hear a single word I said?” he questioned

and you smiled sheepishly

Your boss sighed, “like I was saying, jeonghan has recently shifted from another department and he's here for a trial period and I want one of you to show him around–” he told the entire staff.

“sir–” jeonghan spoke out

aND OH MY GOD HIS VOICE IS EXACTLY LIKE YOY EXPECTED IT TO BE HECK ITS EVEN BETTER

his voice sounds as sweet as honey, there's something so very captivating about it

“yes jeonghan?” your boss turned towards him

“since y/n has been staring at me for the past twenty minutes, shouldn't she show me around?” he grinned

aND YOUR STARED AT HIM WITH YOUR MOUTH HUNG OPEN

“i wasn't um– staring at you– I was staring ,,,,, at the wall?” you stuttered, making it come out as a question

“alright– y/n can show you around, that is if she can stop staring,” your boss remarked, causing everyone else to snicker.

“alright– everyone's dismissed,” your boss announced, leaving you and jeonghan alone

“hi–” you whispered

“hey,” he whispered back, a teasing tone in his voice

“i am sorry about the staring thing,” you told him, honestly.

“its okay– I couldn't stop staring at you either.”

yOUR HEART WENT BADHDMDJXJSJ

“so um– um, let me show you around!” you smiled, shyly

jeonghan was following you around as you showed him the office

Your boss said that now you were responsible for jeonghan and that his cubicle was right across yours

one week had passed by and you were kinda falling for him

You told yourself that it was just because of his looks and nothing else

BUT HE WASNT MAKING IT EASIER BEC HE WAS JUST FLIRTING W YOU

“hey how does this work?” jeonghan asked you as he came close to your desk

“just compile those numbers and run them by the boss–” you answered.

“thank you, beautiful,” he had that usual smirk, plastered on his face as he headed back to his desk

and so every day jeonghan just flirted with you, on purpose

LIKE HE WOULD BREATHE ON YOUR NECK AND TUG AT HIS TIE AND SMIRK SHXHHSHZ PLS MANS KNEW HIS POWER

aND HE JUST FOLDED HIS SLEEVES RIGHT INFRONT OF YOU

like ,,,,, he knew the effect he had on you

he even made you choke on air when he walked into the office with his hair slicked back and in that goddamn r e d suit truLY THE DEVIL™

and you remembered that your ‘death’ was edging closer and closer

so when your colleagues invited you out for dinner, normally you'd refuse but your three weeks were coming to an end, so you agreed

and since you agreed, jeonghan did as well

the entire group headed out to this restaurant close by

jeonghan sat next to you and he kept on flirting rIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE AND YOU WERE JUST BLUSHING WITH EVERYONE TEASING Y'ALL

by the end of the night you ended up drinking so much ,,,,,

everybody gave jeonghan the responsibility to send you home and he agreed

you told him your address and he took you there

and just as he set you down on the couch

You wrapped your arms around him and refused to let go

“let me go” he instructed, his voice stern. It was no longer like honey, heck, he seemed awfully intimidating with this dark aura surrounding him

but since you were drunk ,,,,,

“HANNIE YOU'RE SO MEAN–” you whined, not letting him go.

“let go–”

“NO” you refused. “i hate you–” you admitted, startling him.

“what do you mean?” he asked, as he finally sat down on the couch, since you weren't letting go

“you know up until a few days ago I was so ready to die– heck I even hired some idiot to put a bullet in my head but you,” you felt tears slide down your eyes. “you make me want to live again.”

“what are you talking about?”

“i know you flirt on purpose– you seem like the ‘wake up with new people every day kind of person’ but I just, really like you. You make me want to try to live again....”

“you like me?”

“in all these years, I never thought someone could make my heart jump but you–” you cried out. “you make me want to try again but-” you stopped. “but I'm going to be dying soon. My three weeks are over and he will be coming to kill me.”

Jeonghan sighed

“and my last words are to you–” you slurred. “yoon jeonghan I love you– and I would ask you out too, if I was going to die,” you giggled and then passed out

and jeonghan just sat there, confused

you woke up in the morning, your head spinning and vision blurry as you tried to remember what happened last night

the only thing you did remember was jeonghan bringing you home and that's it

you sighed as you got changed and had some orange juice to help with the headache

you checked your phone and there was a text from a random number

UNKNOWN:

your previously signed

contract with ‘SYJ95’

has been denied as

SYJ95 refuses to do

the task. you can find

another person suitable

for the task. Your money

has been transferred

back into your bank

account.

You read the text anD OMG

you weren't going to die anymore??

which meant that you could actually pursue yoon jeonghan?? FCU K YES

you were smiling so hard as you walked into work

and then you saw jeonghan

AND YOU WAVED AT HIM

“why are you in such a happy mood?” he asked

“nothing I just– might have a chance to get back at life for making me suffer.”

“how so?”

“its complicated–” you answered.

“more complicated than hiring someone to kill you?” he asked, causing you to stop dead in your tracks

“w-what are you talking about?” you asked

“when I was dropping you home you started rambling on about this person you hired to kill you– so I was just worried,” he told you.

smooth move jeonghan

“that was just a joke like drunk people say crazy shit so you shouldn't believe it,” you smiled.

“alright but drunk you also told me that you loved me– but since it's a lie I guess I'll go ask out–”

“NO!”

Jeonghan smirked “why not?” he questioned

“b-because– I am in love with you....”

“oh good to know” he inched closer, “cause you kinda owe me $700 and a date, beautiful.”

#yoon jeonghan #jeonghan imagines #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen headcanons #seventeen oneshot #seventeen yoon jeonghan #yoon jeonghan scenarios #seventeen x y/n #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you

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