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undermine-the-instinct · 1 year ago

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Flies in Honey

Mahito/Reader/Yuji Word count 3K

Warnings: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT, EXTREME NONCON, mIndbreak, character death (reader insert)/ You’re already dead prior to this fic, Mahito uses your body, Mahito is his own warning, humiliation, victim blaming, profanity.

Aged up characters. Spoilers for jjk S2. Consider this an Au where Todo dies and Yuji loses against Mahito.

Yuji doesn’t know how he got here.

It's dark, and damp, wherever he is. It soaks into the rags of his clothes and his exposed skin, gravel tearing at his back. He hardly feels it.

The cracks on the ceiling fissure and twist together, but he’d rather look at them. It's better to look above him than what lies before him.

He’s wearing your face.

Above him, you sigh, breathy and high pitched, Your hips roll into his, and Yuji bites back a hiss. His hands lay limp at his sides.

“Why aren't you saying anything? I thought you would like this.” Your voice is wrong, you’re talking with his voice and Yuji feels the bile rise in his throat.

You switch rhythm, and Yuji chokes on his spit as you bounce up and down his cock. His hands spasm into claws, but no, he doesn't touch you. He won't, he won't.

You laugh. It's so fucked up but he sounds like you.

“You like this better, right?“

“Fuck you–” It was a bad idea to talk. Your– Mahito's hand shoots out and he sticks three fingers into his open mouth to gag him. Two on his tongue, the other on the roof of his mouth, keeping his mouth open. He chokes, but Mahito presses down on his tongue.

He’s going to come again. What number was this? He lost count around the fourth. All he could focus on was the hot coil in his belly, the tightening of his balls and that horrible fucking sound of your warped laughter when he spills, again.

It shouldn’t feel this good. He wants to tear his fucking skin off. He wants to bite down on the fingers in his mouth, he wants to curl into a ball and never wake up.

He's not going to admit to himself he's enjoying this, that he's missed this. It's not you. You're dead. You died, and it's Yuji's fault. All of it is. He got to you, and now he's wearing your likeness like it's a new coat, the bitch.

But damn, it really looks like you.

“I memorized everything about her, you know.” Your fingers leave his mouth, punched out gasps leave his chest while hands drag down his skin, drawing red lines.

“She was fun to play with. Stubborn too. Kept fighting even when I made her unable to,” he giggles.

“But she made the prettiest sounds when she finally broke. Prettier when we slept together too. She was just like you–Human. Always trying to deny yourselves at your most desperate, out of some half formed sense of dignity. See?” He presses down with your body, chest to chest while your walls flutter around him. Yuji’s eyes roll back, his hands leave bloody gorges in the ground.

“But human dignity is just the same as human depravity; you can't hide your baser instincts even in the worst circumstances, huh?”

Yuji would fight back, but his head is swimming, and his bones feel like they’re replaced with jello. There is a rage that simmers as he talks though, and Yuji bites his tongue until he tastes iron. It drips through the hole in his cheek. Mahito sees this and sighs.

"Your base instinct is to kill me. My base instinct is to murder your soul. That's what this is." He gestures between the two of them, not breaking pace. His hand drifts down, and he wipes away at the blood on his face, though he only succeeds in smudging it more.

“I did the same thing to her. Took your face and made her tell me how to do it right.”

“You’re sick–”

“I consider myself considerate. It's why you’re here and not dead.” He stops moving, tilts his head and meets Yuji's eyes in an eerie stare you've never given him. “Did you know that was my first time? I liked it.” You, fuck, he tilts your head, eyes pointed up in thought.

“Well, I'm a ‘human curse’ so I guess of course I would.”

“You fucking–” This time Yuji tries to buck him off, get some room in between them to get a hit in, but all he accomplishes is Mahito pushing him down and pinning his hands, going back to his earlier motions. Yuji's weaker now. Maybe its because its your face. He could never fight against you, even while sparring.

“That's how–I was able to memorize it too. All her faces, her sounds, what she likes. I wanted to understand you, through her. And now," a sound, high pitched and miserable leaves Yuji's throat.

"You like it too, right? A perfect replica, right? Wanna keep going?” Yuji just shakes his head, and tries to fight off his grip. But Mahito has more hands, and he remains pinned. He can't help the slight bucking of his hips, and when he notices, Mahito grins, a ruddy flush spreading across your face in a bald faced insult.

He can't breathe. He needs to vomit.

You had gone missing weeks ago, called on a mission to deal with a second grade level curse. Nothing too hard for you, it was a quick job and everyone had thought that you’d be in and out.

But cursed spirits have been acting strange lately, and everyone simply thought that it was due to the encroaching Halloween date. Due to various thoughts and practices towards the day, this was normal. But you had gone missing and the only sign of your whereabouts came from another encounter with the patchwork curse.

He went down to the sewers with Mr.Nanami, following the smallest clues they had towards your disappearance, where they met Patchwork. He had been vague and leering and lewd, and it was the first time Yuji saw Mr. Nanami’s face twist into such visceral rage. He mirrored the feeling, but Mahito had escaped, along with any other clues to where you were.

He had tossed a lump of...something to Yuji with a mocking grin, spongy and pale. They took it back to Miss Shoko, and it was confirmed to be a piece of your brain matter. Your death was confirmed.

Hope had dragged him along, weary and spitting blood, but losing you…was too much. Shibuya. Nanami, Kugisaki, Todo, you… His mind broke. He could feel the cracks. They fought, Mahito had knocked him unconscious, and dragged him to god knows where, and now he’s here.

And now he was faced with this horrible caricature of you, with too wide eyes and a leering grin that reminded him exactly of who was wearing your face.

Mahito didn't even seem that interested in the sex, too busy staring at the way Yuji reacted. His muscle spasms, the way he would jerk away from his touch or forward when he couldn't help it, the blank look on his face that sometimes twisted into an expression of such utter loathing– Or lust, and then his face would twist with such despair, a broken sob dragged from behind his clenched teeth, wrangled and bloody. Mahito felt the dark glee drip honey sweet through his soul, like the slick that ran down his thighs.

You really were a fun experiment. He knew how much you meant to Yuji, and initially just wanted to use you to damage his soul further. But where was the fun with that? You were something special. Yuji Itadori had plenty of friends and mentors, and killing any random person in front of him would always garner the same effect. But there was only one you. He wanted to understand you, and the exact place you held in Itadori’s life.

What made you special? What made you stand out to the one person, his natural enemy? Humans and their romantic relationships always seemed like a Greek tragedy to Mahito; Of course the person you let know all your weaknesses would be the one to destroy you in the end. Love always gave rise to hatred. It gave rise to a particular brand of hatred that made up Mahito, and if he was anything, he was always curious to know the full substance of his soul. That's where you came in.

“We would talk, and I'd have her tell me all about you–” Mahito drawled. “I had to pry out all the other stuff but she eventually spilled. I wanted to know everything you see,” he punctuates his words by slowly pulling himself off of Yuji's cock, before dropping down with a slap of flesh. He watches in fascination as Yuji’s lower belly flutters.

“We made deals the other half of the time. A few less experiments if she talked, or let me touch her.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you–”

“I got bored eventually, after she told me everything, and I took everything I could... I don't even remember what I did to her in the end."

Mahito wondered, if love gave rise to hatred, would you hate your lover for not rescuing you? Or for being the true target of Mahito's morbid intrigue? He never got his answer, you never voiced any thoughts like that, and strangely, he sensed no hatred at all when you died. Not for Yuji, or even for himself. You were probably too broken.

Mahito shrugged. “Oh well. She’s dead now anyways.” An ugly, violent sound tears through Yuji’s throat, and finally his hands reach out to grab at his–your waist with a bruising grip. He shoots up and doesn't let Mahito move, and Mahito is curious about this reaction, so he waits while Yuji catches his breath.

“You…how can you…just do that to people? She never did–she never did anything wrong–” His head comes to rest on your collarbone, and Mahito watches this all play out with an intense curiosity, and a growing glee.

Yuji continues to break down, tears slipping from his eyes down to the soft flesh of your breast.

“What the fuck did you do to her…why the fuck did you take her…" Mahito sighs, lets the familiar timber of your voice take over, and drags a hand through Yuji’s hair. Not as gentle a touch as he made you demonstrate on him, but Yuji shudders, and burrows further into the mimicry.

“Yuji.” At the sound of our voice, your true voice, Yuji's shoulders shake horribly.

So this is grief? Or despair? Mahito remarks. What's the difference? He watches Yuji as he shatters. Yuji sobs, ugly and loud off the sewer walls when Mahito starts moving again, but his hips thrust shallowly into your slick cunt.

Mahito wondered, had wondered, if love gave rise to hatred, then you just needed to love him, right? If he wanted to understand your place in his enemy's life, your place as his 'lover', than you just had to love him, right? And lovers do things together, they talk about their vulnerabilities, they watch and learn their tics and preferences and dislikes and habits. They stick through the good and bad. And Mahito was….bad.

Yuji continues to sob, but he tilts his head back and starts fucking him back, soft whimpers slipping past his bitten lips.

“I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry, ah–! Fuck, I'm sorry, I wasn't there, I let him get to you, fuck I’m sorry I let him hurt you–”

This isn’t even about the sex. But Mahito is a disaster curse–he was born from hate. And hate has flavors. Rage, vindictiveness, envy, glee; he’s all of them. And the hatred rising from Yuji Itadori is so potent and despair riddled that Mahito sighs, and in an act unbidden comes with a choked out gasp.

Its sudden. Mahito hasn't orgasmed once this entire ordeal before, but as soon as he does, Yuji groans, deep and guttural. His head flops back to the hard ground, and immediately his gasps turn shallow and fast before he pulls your hips down and comes in thick, hot ropes.

Is it because Mahito is wearing your face, or did he always hold on this tightly to you? Mahito is sure he’ll see dark purple bruises on your skin when he lets go, and Mahito decides he’ll keep them. He’s never fixed you, after all, so bruises were a common sight. He just wonders how it’ll look as it ‘heals’. Maybe Yuji could give him some pointers on the visual front.

Yuji lays there, and cries. The tears cut clean streaks through the blood and dirt and grime, and Mahito stares, and he stares. His pink hair is flat, and stringy with dried blood.

"Why are you pretending you don't like this?"

"What...?"

he tilts your head. "Its sex. Even if you're not one for carnal pleasure I still look like her. I still feel like her. Don't you love her?"

"No...I--"

"You dont?"

"I do, you're just--! Fuck, get off of me--" Mahito swats his hands away, almost halfheartedly, clicks his tongue.

"If you did 'love her' than wouldn't you stop me already? I read a plot like this in a book once... Shouldn't you kill me for 'defiling her memory' or something? You're enjoying this."

"I'm not--"

"You are."

"I'm--"

"You are. Stop denying it. I'm not going to stop if that's what you're scared of." Mahito chuckles.

“What the fuck…is your problem, what do you want?” Yuji gasps out. His breaths are shallow and his voice is high patched, chest rising up and down, up and down, too fast. He runs his thumb over his collarbone if only to feel the rabbit-fast pulse.

“What do I want...?”

“Why me? Why do you want to break me? ‘Natural enemy?' I don't even know what that means...” Mahito is silent for a moment longer, enjoying the moment, before he leans over. With the use of Idle transfiguration, your mangled face takes up Yuji’s vision, and he feels the breath die in his throat.

“You are my natural enemy Yuji Itadori. But I can't kill you. Physically, that is. So this is the next best thing.”

“You, I–”

“Don't take my words too seriously, I am a curse after all,” Mahito brushes your hair out his face and leers.

“But you seem to think that this is a punishment. This is a reward, Itadori.”

“‘Reward’?” He hiccups.

Mahito nods.

“Without you, I would have never gotten to understand my soul on such an intimate level. I know the essence of my soul because of you.” He leans closer, breath full of mirth and rot.

“And I thought, surely you missed your little girlfriend. And isn't intercourse the most sacred act between two lovers?” Mahito shrugs.

“An experiment for me on whether this would fully break you or not. You can consider it a gift though.”

“You think…you think I want to see her like this?”

“Yes?”

“No!”

“Then would you like to see what's left of her?” Mahito points back to the mouth of the sewer. Tortured, anguish moans rise from there, and Yuji can already guess what was there. Despair grips his heart and rips it out.

“Don't worry, I didn't tranfigure her, actually. I bet I can find the parts of her around somewhere …but only if you ask nicely.” Again, he thrashes, but from battle, or loss, he’s weak.

No, Yuji knows why. He could never raise a hand against that face. Even now, seeing dark purple bruises on a body that even resembles yours makes guilt curl in his chest.

“Get off of me."

“What was that? You're talking so low I can't hear you.”

“Get off of me!” Mahito drawls out a low note, but surprisingly, he does as he’s told. Yuji hisses as he slides off his dick, letting him feel the drag of your walls and how they flutter. It's familiar, and Yuji wants to kill something when he thinks of how this curse must have learnt that from you.

He wants to kill himself when his breath hitches at the feeling.

Mahito gets off, but does not release his hands. The image of an extra pair of hands holding him down creates enough clarity for him to differentiate between the two of you, and Itadori growls under his breath.

Your face smiles down at him, and Itadori tries not to stare back. Just like that, the anger is gone. He’s missed you, after all.

“...You know I'm getting out of here, right?”

“And you’ll try killing me. I know. That's if you don't come back for this, though.” He gestures with a stitched hand the bare curves of your body.

“You’ve killed my puppets, transfigured humans, even the kid ones! Shibuya didn't break you, killing Mister 7:3 didn't break you, or that Gorilla, that hammer woman’s death almost did… but something tells me…”

He slithers up and slots himself against Yuji’s side, and it's an ingrained habit to hold you. He jolts back quickly enough in horror, but Mahito grabs his arms, and keeps them on him.

“Killing me while wearing this face would really shatter you, hm? it's why you didn't stop me when I dragged you here and did what I did. You let me. You let this happen." He shakes his head even before you, fuck, it's done. He denies it, because what else could he do?

Mahito moves to hiss in his ear.

"Is it because of guilt? You're so human, Itadori Yuji.” And his eyes switch to that familiar silver and blue.

“Even if it's self loathing, I can still sense it. That hatred. You’ll come back, and I'll break your soul down some more each time. Little by little…until eventually, one of us kills the other. That's how this is going to go.” He rests your head on his shoulder, listening to the dull drag of his heart. The movement is so familiar that Yuji could cry again, but he holds it back.

“....So that's how it is.”

“Yup. Oh, and I'm still waiting for my thank you.”

“....”

He sits up, and laughs at the way Yuji’s eyes go pinprick small, copying your laughter down to a terrifying degree. Yuji doesn't know how, he’s sure you never laughed in a place like this.

“Hate me all you want, it only makes me stronger. But, even if it's unconventional, I still let you see her, feel her. I want a thank you for that.”

And Yuji must truly be broken because what if I really never see her again? What if I never hear her voice or touch her? This here, horrible as it was, was both knife and balm, like peroxide on an open wound. Cleansing and burning.

“....”

“Well?”

If…he just pretends it was you, if he just watches your mouth and imagines….

He used to thank you after sex in the beginning, before you told him to stop thanking you like you were being paid to sleep with him. Of course, this led to the private joke, where you would demand your payment–anytime, anywhere, and he would smother you in kisses. Fushiguro, Kugisaki and even Gojo-san would roll their eyes or tease or gag, but he loved it. He knew you did too, with how often you used the joke.

“...Thank you.”

Fuck, he misses you.

“Nuh uh uh! Not like that!” Mahito shoots up, hovering your face over his again, noses touching. He switches his eyes back for yours, extra arms gone.

“Thank her. Like you used to. Go on.” He's broken. Yuji is broken.

He reaches a hand and cups the side of your face like he used to. You cant into it like a cat, and a fondness rises in his chest, just to be awashed by despair. He has to clear his throat, and still his voice breaks.

“Th-Thank you...” And because he can't help the fact that it's you, it looks just like you, he pulls you down for a kiss. It's so familiar, down to the way you would tilt your head to the side, and your tongue would swipe over the bottom of his lip. But Mahito bites down, reopening a wound from when he bit his tongue earlier. Blood fills his mouth, but Mahito laps it up. His tongue pokes at the hole in his cheek.

He pulls away, and his eyes are still yours, warm and loving, red smeared at the corner of your mouth. He smiles your smile. He speaks in your voice. Soft, so soft it kills him.

“You’re welcome, Yuji.”

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thatbendyfan · 1 year ago

Text

A GUIDE TO THE PLAYGROUND WARRIOR CATS RP THAT IS CJRP

hello! if you’re here, that means you’re confused about cjrp (let’s be real who wouldn’t be), and i’m here to help you!

this will NOT be a guide to the lore, just an explanation on what cjrp is and a little timeline. if i were to make a lore guide, i’d have to constantly update it and keep up with every single anons lore, which is… more than a difficult task. sorry- maybe you can ask the blog owners to make a lore post for their anons?

THE ORIGINS

cjrp stared with @/plussheep (aka ruler, owner of @/thrulerofeverything) @/gaignunkukai (aka feenie, owner of @/nothings-wholey) @/demo-3 (aka simon, owner of @/egoistic-queer) and yours truly (aka bendy/apollo, former owner of @/not-the-organ)! it began mostly with small lore chunks that were similar to an arg- lots of ciphers, hints and clues. eventually, though, something happened that completely changed the course of cjrp.

THE ANON WAR

taking place on soul’s blog, the anon war was… well, a war where all the anons with signoffs came to fight. allies were made, enemies were made, but above all… blogs were made. anons began creating blogs as to fight in the war easier and not clog up soul’s inbox. however, this very, very quickly escalated. if you want to see the anon war, it’s on @/egoistic-queer’s blog under #anon war

THE ANON BLOGS

there are so… SO MANY anon blogs. i’m dreading to compile a list of them later on in a reblog of this post (/hj, im also pretty excited to see how many there are). the anons are ocs created by “narrators”, which are the people describing the actions of a blog. for example:

some anons tend to get creative with this, such as @/fluffy-creechur! a few characters, such as the cjrpcraft characters don’t have narrators at all.

FAQ

can i make an anon blog?

of course! anyone is free to make a blog and join cjrp (however i warn you, the nameless anons do tend to bite ;))

are there any requirements to join cjrp? rules i should be careful not to break?

not really! i think as long as you’re not promoting any controversial topics or making anyone uncomfortable, you’re free to join in!

is shipping okay?

absolutely! if you’re going to ship your anon with someone else’s, you should ask first, but there’s tons of established relationships! yellow and des, copycat and agod, the list goes on!

how am i ever supposed to remember all this lore?! there’s so much going on!! SOMEONE DIED YESTERDAY?! HUH?!

here’s the thing!! you’re not! so much happens every single day in cjrp that it’s impossible to keep track! so stop worrying about keeping up to date with every single blog- that’s not to mean ignore what’s happening if you see it (we all love attention here after all), but there’s no pressure to know everything :)

do i really need to follow every single one of these blogs?

you don’t need to, but it’d make a lot of us happy :) if you see a blog that hasn’t been updated in a while, i’d say more than two weeks, i think it’s safe to not follow if you don’t want to crowd your following page

am i allowed to use sensitive topics in my blog?

most of that stuff is okay! just remember that a very large amount of cjrpers are minors, so you’ll probably get a less than great reaction if you try to post nsfw. gore is usually okay, though! just make sure you tag anything potentially triggering :)

what’s a [insert word that cjrpers use a lot]

narrator: person who describes the environment the anon is in, sometimes a character as well. generally used with anons who break the fourth wall

named anon (referred to mostly as just anons): an anon/character with a blog

nameless: an actual anon, someone who sends an ask to a blog anonymously

anon village/headspace: the place in which the anons reside within whole’s psyche

titan blood: originating from the owl house, titan blood transforms anyone who drinks it into a half-titan. this usually results in creature-like appendages such as wings (birdlike or otherwise), tails, antlers, etc.

#bendy and the post machine #cjrp #cjrp guide post

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zorlok-if · 1 year ago

Note

if the zorlok cast were bg3 characters, what would they be and what kind of decisions would they make?

I'm assuming you mean who they would be in BG3 and not what kind of characters they would play. Also, hmm, don't want to give away spoilers here, so if you look below the cut you can see what I think they'd be up to (just beware of spoilers).

Tommy: Human, Level 9 Warlock (Fiend + Chain) / Level 3 Bard (Valour)

Dev: Wood Elf, Level 11 Rogue (Thief) / Level 1 Warlock (Archfey)

EJ: Human, Level 12 Sorcerer (Wild Magic)

Adam/Eve: High Elf, Level 7 Cleric (War) / Level 5 Paladin (Vengeance)

Lucía: Half-Elf (Wood), Level 7 Ranger (Gloomstalker) / Level 5 Rogue (Assassin)

Ciel: Lightfoot Halfling, Level 6 Barbarian (Wildheart) / Level 6 Druid (Moon)

Danny: Drow (Seldarine), Level 9 Paladin (Oathbreaker) / Level 3 Warlock (Fiend + Blade)

The Celestial: Aasimar Forest Gnome, Level 10 Wizard (Transmutation) / Level 2 Cleric (Knowledge)

Rose: Human, Level 12 Bard (Lore)

[Beware of Spoilers Below!]

Tommy

Not romancing anyone (obviously, he's 15)

Best friends with Wyll, Karlach, and Gale. Shadowheart is too cool for him, he's way too intimidated by her. Lets Astarion do whatever the hell he wants. Lae'zel scares the shit out of him. Adopted by Halsin the moment he meets him.

Just wants to hang out with the cool tiefling kids

Very easily persuaded by Raphael. Wyll and Karlach are constantly trying to talk some sense into him.

Aylin is the coolest person he's ever met

Sobbing his way through the horrors of Faerûn—I can see him in a little crumple at Withers feet, blowing his nose on Withers' decaying robes as bone daddy breaks the fourth wall and stares into the camera miserably

Eventually hardens into a truly terrifying force to be reckoned with (Karlach is very proud)

Tommy has two hands, one for Scratch and one for the owlbear

Dev

Romancing non-Ascended Astarion and fucking Halsin occasionally, Lae'zel and Shadowheart are xyr besties (xe forces them to get along), Gale amuses the hell out of xem, Wyll and Dev are constantly trying to one up each other's stories

It's either Ethel or Volo, whoever xe comes across first, but that eye's out of xyr head comically fast

Just wants to talk shit with Withers all day, hates that he never has much to say to xem

Wants to kick the shit out of Rolan but keeps saving his life somehow

Always covered in blood. Like it doesn't make sense half the time. How did that much blood splatter on xem? Why is it still on xem?

Absolutely head over heels in love with Gale, friends with and trying to fix everyone, Astarion terrifies them but they won't give up on him, they know there's a good person hiding beneath that veneer

Panicked and accidentally yeeted a gnome

Tried a tadpole once, wasn't for them

Holding Gale's hand and squinting through every dark space

Sleeps cuddling the owlbear and is always covered in feathers

Adam/Eve

In a relationship with Lae'zel, didn't get along at first but Laez grew to respect A/E and A/E was charmed by Lae'zel's... strengths. Shadowheart is their sister, hates it when the girls are fighting. Friends with Gale and Karlach. Doesn't trust Wyll fully. Never let Astarion join them. Immediately enamored with Halsin but Lae'zel is... stronger.

Normally out of spell slots cause they're terrified of long resting

Loves potions and alchemy, will stop every 30 meters to pick yet another sprig of balsam

Doesn't make deals with villainous beings. Doesn't trust any voices in their head. Doesn't respect any gods they come across.

Loviatar loves them

Lucía

In a relationship with Karlach, best friends with her and Wyll, had a crush on Shadowheart before meeting Karlach, never liked/trusted Astarion and staked him the minute he tried to put his fangs on her throat, Jaheira is her idol, probably left Lae'zel to die (cause she didn't want to upset Shadowheart)

Speaks to every single animal, picks every single lock, looks in every single barrel, fails almost every charisma check

Scratch is always by her side

Will go to Hell for her besties 😉🥲

Ciel

Dating Shadowheart, really close with Astarion and Minthara... But, seriously, they have a big redemption arc. They grow and change alongside Shadowheart, both goth edgelords are completely changed by the end

Starts the game eating every tadpole (like the Guardian barely has to suggest the idea, it's already in their mouth) but goes one step too far and suddenly becomes terrified of what it means to be monstrous(/illithid)

Diplomacy? Ha. Sorry, that's not for them. They only like talking to animals and corpses.

Loves permanently seeing invisibility...

A loot goblin, their high strength score is great for fighting and jumping and shit, but mostly for the increased carrying capacity

Mol is their idol

Danny

I'm honestly not sure who they'd be in a relationship with, I think they'd be close with everyone but I don't think they'd be in a headspace for anything more than friendship over the course of the game, maybe after the fact they'd grow closer with Shadowheart but that would just be my headcanon, they wouldn't romance anyone (no matter how much Withers mocks them for it)

They are doing everything they think is right in the moment, though they'd regret rash actions later

They empathize greatly with the undead and hate people like Balthazar who twist them to their will

No one threatens a child in their presence. Well, no one who's still alive.

They cannot pretend to be under the Absolute's thumb, they are going in swinging every time, no chance for diplomacy or manipulation

They pick up a teddy bear early on and it never leaves their inventory

The Celestial

In a physical relationship with Halsin, slept with Astarion but now they're just very good friends, sees Karlach, Wyll, and Shadowheart as eir children, loves and is very intrigued by Lae'zel, doesn't like Gale at all (cannot and will not trust a wizard like him)

Always has the Disguise Self spell going, and it's always a different disguise

Eir traveler's chest is filled with the weirdest collection of random shit you've ever seen: noble portraits, rotten eggs, gold chalices, a couple goblin corpses, poutine, 30 mindflayer tadpoles, etc.

Chats with every corpse, even the ones ey killed

Lorroakan can (and does) eat shit

Despises everything about Orin, zero redeemable qualities—even her shapeshifting, eugh, it's so... crude, no grace or skill

The moment the Celestial learns Otto's Irresistible Dance is the last moment Faerûn knows peace

Rose

In a passionate romance with Wyll but he's very good friends with everyone (they are all his children)

Does everything within his power to avoid violence. Will charm, sing, and sneak his way across Faerûn

Adopts every child and animal he comes across

The hardest thing he has to do is tell people to stay in camp. Why can't everyone always be in his party? They all make him feel so bad...

Always taking long rests (doesn't want people being tired or hurt) and spends an hour cooking a delightful meal with Gale every night

#yes i'm a habitual multiclasser #if you can't tell #thanks for the ask!#asks #bg3 #cast #tommy #dev #ej #a/e #adam/eve #lucía #ciel #danny #the celestial #rose #dnd

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aquilacalvitium · 2 months ago

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A bunch of thoughts that are incomprehensible to people who aren't Cirque Du Soleil fans

Target and Nico have the same energy and would almost definitely be friends

Someone please introduce Aviator from Quidam and Aviator from Kurios to each other, they'd be besties

Klara moves like a clockwork doll and it's mesmerising to watch

You can see Time Master's effects on the flow of time by watching Klara and Microcosmos in the background

This meme I made

I think Gongli (chair balancer from Koozã) would be Carlos' (chair balancer from Kurios) plus one at Klara's dinner parties

Volta's ending is a tad abrupt methinks

Ela is just awesome, everything about her is awesome, I want to be friends with her

Is that other person with blue feathers in Volta another character? Or is he still Waz? It's a bit ambiguous and I'm not good at subtext

Quidam (the character) somehow manages to be somewhat intimidating while also having very strong "safe person" energy

The Seeker suddenly gains two assistants in Creature De Siam that have not existed at all up to this point

They always turn even the singers into characters in the shows and I love that so much

They always manage to do something with the stage itself, from traps doors to a revolving platform to prop tracks and sometimes more than one of the above

I tried learning French so I can understand the characters but it is an evil language and putting myself through that would count as self-torture /j

The wiki refers to the train at the beginning of Kurios as Mister Microcosmos' outfit but he is standing elsewhere on stage when the train comes in so I actually have no idea who that is

Time Master doesn't get enough appreciation, I get that he isn't as merchandise-able as Klara and Nico and Mister Microcosmos but his act, aside from Chaos Troupe 1900, is definitely my favourite

Also the track for his act is not on the ost and that is a crime

Neither is the track that plays between 11h11 and Bella Donna Twist or the track that pays right before Hypnotique

And for some reason Departure is half of the track for Hand Theatre and then suddenly goes into the track before Dangerous Flight? I'm a bit confused there

I've started assigning names to character who don't have names or who's names I can't find anywhere

I refer to them by their actor's names like Carlos and Gongli

If they're a group or I can't find the actor's names I make something up I.e. I refer to the banquine performers in Kurios as The Beachgoers because I mean look at them it's a fitting name

WHY DID THEY RETIRE MICHAEL FROM KOOZÄ HE'S MY FAVOURITE CLOWN IN THE SHOW I WILL FOREVER BE UPSET ABOUT THIS

Also I can't find a single good quality picture of Michael in his grotesque-whiteface-esque costume that he wears for the whole show apart from during his pickpocket routine which is weird

I kinda can't stop staring at Klara or Nico any time they're on stage because their individual styles of body language are just fascinating

How does Quidam (the show) have such specific energy? I can't think of a better word than ethereal. Like it's unsettling but also feels safe and familiar somehow? Idk but I love it

WHY isn't Bella Donna present for the finale? That woman carried so much of Bella Donna Twist and then dips??? Give that woman the standing ovation she deserves!!!

The Quid Pro Quo/Mr Wow Show scene has probably more dialogue than the entirety of most of Cirque Du Soleil shows I've seen

Waz's outfit on Quid Pro Quo is. Something. I really want to know how that was made and what materials were used - this is coming from a guy with ZERO interest in textiles

Actually all of the outfits in Volta are crazy, even the Grays have interesting stuff going on, major props to the costume department

The fourth wall may or may not exist at any given point in time and it's fun to look for it

Especially when there are characters who thrive of off breaking the fourth wall (all clowns) vs characters who never once break the fourth wall (I.e. The Innocent or Ela or the Curios)

I DID NOT MEAN TO HIT POST THAT WAS AN ACCIDENT

I guess if I have any more thoughts I'll just come back and edit this post

#cirque du soleil #aquila thinks #aquila infodumps #cirque du soleil kurios #cirque du soleil quidam #cirque du soleil kooza #cirque du soleil volta #aquila's special interests

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sillystorieswithmushy · 9 months ago

Text

Story 1:

Youre funny! bust a move!!

Red: Character 1

Orange: Character 2

Green: Character 3

Blah blah you know the rest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the castle...

Ghoul pumkin: "I'M BORED."

Wellbread: "Well, I have something for you!"

Ghoul pumkin: "What..!? Is it a plan to basically eradicate half of the universe, with bugs, and slimy insects? I'll pass."

Wellbread: "No, I'll call a familiar friend to, give this castle some....pazazz."

Ghoul pumkin thinks, and he finally gets an idea..

Ghoul pumkin: "I got an idea, why don't we decorate this house with stuff, and the partylings will come!"

Wellbread: "That's half of what I said."

What they meant:

Ghoul pumkin calls, landworm, sliffy, and Gerald, to the castle.

Ghoul pumkin: "Would you like to join our party, it would be accepted, if you did."

Tip: Dark purple means both(or more) characters, speaking in unison.

All 3 of them: "Yeah, I guess."

Landworm: "Wait, didn't this guy nuke half of where we live?"

Sliffy: "C-California? Cause that's where we first lived, before we migrated all the way to here, on foot. We're in Montana."

Landworm: "No, he nuked half of Europe, and when we were walking back from our long trip to Germany, we got exposed to the radiation, and now I'm convinced that the world is gonna die, due to a party, hosted by our frenemy."

Sliffy: " DANG IT, thought he would nuke California! Btw, I hated California."

Gerald: "Uhh guys, we're getting off topic, aaaaandd....he hung up, he said something about the party starting at 9:00."

Casually changes it to nighttime

Sliffy: "Aw cupcakes, and everlasting magic."

Lazily places them at the party, filled with dancing people, and partylings

Sliffy: "Uhh, what just happened?"

Landworm: "Don't. Break. The. Fourth. Wall."

Gerald: "Uhh...guys, I feel weird. I'm gonna..."

Casually makes Gerald the cat explode, cause he was a good character, and because im lazy.

Sliffy: "..........AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

Everyone stares at sliffy

Everyone didn't know, so they did dance or imprison, a casual game they host.

Sliffy had to dance before the cage slowly imprisoned him.

Example:

He danced, and danced, until he had an idea. He could transform, and so he did.

He grew wings, and transformed, into a beast.

Part 2, soon.

Last updated: march 13, 2024

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saturnaous · 4 months ago

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okay haiii haiiii sorry I was doing things haiiii haiii

okay I'm gonna talk about Becket because I really really miss him like really really bad I'm noty going to lie I was genuinely crying earlier and bugging scotch and my other friend about it because. I miss him a lot. my husband off at war. okay anyways.

okay Becket is GENUINELY one of my very favorite characters ever. I've been reading his comic, The Weekly Roll(on webtoon and CME_T's instagram), for roughly ? Four years now? I can't make an exact number due to (vaugely gestures) but I have been following for a very long time now and love them so very much. The Weekly Roll boils down to a hilarious dungeons and dragons found paneled comic in monochrome. Honestly it's absolutely WONDERFUL. There have been SO many time I've burst out laughing/giggling because of this comic, and even rereads make me laugh like I'm deranged, I LOVE it extremely. It's better on every reread and there are so many little details and continutity things that just make me go "woahh." It's so good. Anyways, there's A little over 150 chapters, but since they're each just four panels, it's about three hours to read the whole thing in one sitting(I have timed it before.) I reread it every now and then, if you break it up you can span it over a little while actually, but it's SO GOOD.

okay sorry about the actual comic. I love this comic. it's so ososososososo good. anyways. BECKET. Becket my beloved. Sir Becket is the human paladin of a Murder Hobo party; the Straight man, basically. WHICH IS ALSO FUNNY because he is CANONICALLY M-spec which I LOVE SO MUCH. ermmmm ermmmm. becket. anyways. he's literally so awesome and someone I haven't actually got to ramble about before. I don't want to ruin the magic. anyways. can I just preface how fucking great this comic is again. it's so good pleaasseeeeee pleaseeeeee you should read it. you should read it btw. you should read it. it's such an easy read and the characters are so wonderful and the storylines are so good PLEASEE you should read it. cough. anways. uhmmm. So he's the straight man Paladin of an adventuring party that later gets named The Bucket Brigade. The other members, Trevor, Grogna, Torvold, and later Klara, are absolutely WONDERFUL. Trevor is a wild sorcerer gnome, a pyromaniac and likes to eat shrooms and break the fourth wall. He;s a chaotic mess and I LOVE HIM. Grogna, is the silent half orc fighter who really like blood and stabbing. She's actually Trevor's girlfriend as well which is so neat. they are so neat. Grogna is so neat. Anyways. Torvold, is the dwarf necromancer! He's frankly just a menace. I love that guy. would you believe me if I said he had a wife and kids. anyways. Klara, is the Teifling warlock that we don't really know much about! Despite being a warlock, she's actually Beckets second half when it comes to keeping the party not killing all over the place! (EXPLODES INTO EXCITMENT AND ANGUISH CLUTCHES MY HEAD AND SCREAMS) okya where were we. uhmmmm.

god there is so much I want to say but ermmm I also really really really want you to read the comic because it's so good and I really love the pacing and just everything about it. uhmmmm but I can't force that so since you most likely? won't read it it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to spoil. but I do I am staring at you with THE GREATEST BIGGEST EYES. you should read the comic tbh. methinks. erm . anyways

have some things teehee

#sorry I kept getting reallyexcited sometimes and hjave to like stop and become deranged. ermmmm ermmmm ermmmm #BECKETTTT FALLS TO THE FLOOR STARTS FROTHING AT THE MOUTH #becketttt beckkettttt #I miss him a lot #ermmmm the reason I miss him. the comic hasn't ended #I'm going ot be pissing myself when that day comes #but ermmm #basically sometimes CME_T(the cvreator) goes on break sometimes and I get really. (vaugely gestures) about it and them.#it's horrible. I miss them for so long for so many months #last break I got SO DERANGED about it was so bad for my friend actually. uhmmmm OH YEAGH THO #he's not on a full break. but CME_T is working on a new comic and stuff and has a lot on his plate #so he's on a small break for that and just to do whatever #THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BACK THOUGHHHH WAILS AND SCREAMS AND CRIES #I realllyyyy hope they come back thursday this week bc they were supposed to come back last week or this week and it's tuesday. when he was #originally updating on thursdays but then it shifted suddenly to tuesdays and the last update was the weekbefore last.#SORRY I"M GOING DERANGED. I'm becoming deranged. I love these guys a lot I miss them. I love them I miss them. wails

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driftward · 2 years ago

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Title: A Knight's Duty Characters: Zoissette Vauban, Ement Vauban, Guillerme, Lady Vauban Rating: Teen Summary: The story of how Zoissette learned what makes a knight Notes: The First Duty is, of course, from Star Trek: TNG, repurposed for my usage here. Failure is not an Option is from Schlock Mercenary, modified here (original here)

This is the masterpost for A Knight's Duty. If you'd prefer to read chapter by chapter, check the tag: A Knight's Duty

"What makes a knight?"

Ement was still breathing hard from a session with the training dummy machine, and was only half paying attention to the Hyur currently lecturing him as he took a swig from his water skin. It wasn't that his training wasn't important to him, it was, it was just hard to pay attention to Guillerme after the mechanical menace had gotten near to tanning his hide.

Guillerme continued. "Is it their sword, their shield? The armor that they wear? The oaths that they swear? Holiness before the Holy See? Dedication? Service? Power? Birth? Of course, a knight is many things, but it's important that you know what a knight is to you, little lordling."

Ement allowed himself to be distracted further by listening to the count of bells in the distance. At the fourth of what would be five of them, Ement heard the door to the training room being opened and then closed again. He glanced over to see his little sister, Zoissette, enter the room and sit at her customary table.

She took a book out, and set her logbook next to it, as she always did. And then, blank faced, she stared at the wall.

That was weird. Normally she'd either get right into reading, or would be watching for a moment to babble about her day.

Guillerme noticed Ement's gaze, looked over, grunted, and looked back to Ement. Ement shrugged at him. "What's the matter, boy?" asked Guillerme. "Couldn't find a girl at the Scholasticate to come moon over your martial prowess?"

"Couldn't I?" asked Ement, looking up at the ceiling. "I wasn't aware I was supposed to go looking for one there, but I suppose they have a few. I hear they've allowed them for generations now." He looked back down at Guillerme. "...I think something's worrying her."

Guillerme sighed. "I suppose a knight must show fealty to family. Take a break, go, tend to your sister, if you must."

Ement nodded, putting his wooden practice sword and shield aside before making his way to Zoissette's table and sitting across from her.

She can be such a brat, he thought. Nowadays she tended to the younger twins when she had to, trailed after her brother when she could, and escaped to her books when she couldn't.

Regardless, he sat down across from her, and immediately felt awkward about it. Nobody'd taught him how to be an older brother. He only knew he wasn't going to be like their mother, and he knew a little bit about how to be like their father. The good parts. The parts that had sage wisdom and kindness and an always open ear.

Not the parts that were absent for large parts of the year tending to the spiritual needs of a congregation.

Too much thinking. He shook his head.

"What's got my sister grumpy, I wonder?" said Ement, lightly, cheerfully.

"Something went wrong today," said Zoissette quietly.

Ement nodded and took a swig of his water skin. He knew she wouldn't be able to hold it in for long, whatever it was. And sure enough, her eyes were already starting to do that thing where they wandered around the room a bit as she gathered her thoughts.

Some kind of mental thinking... thing. He didn't pretend to understand. She was just a little weird like that.

"It was while I was running luncheon errands during school hours. There is a new kid in our class. I don't know them. But I guess the others did. I was going back to school when I came across them in the street. The others were making fun of the new kid. They called them a bastard and a heretic. They - I think they were trying to get back to school. But the others, they wouldn't let them pass. They shoved them to the ground at one point. They - they let me by, though. I didn't stop. I think-

"I think they were throwing stones by the time I'd left."

She fell silent.

"Hells, that's rough," said Ement quietly. "Stones?"

Zoissette nodded.

"Probably was a bastard."

"That shouldn't matter!" yelled Zoissette, standing up. Ement held his hands up and tried to wave her down.

"Easy, easy. Not saying that makes it right, but that's probably what it was."

Zoissette glared before sitting back down just as abruptly as she had stood up, deflating as her anger fled her as fast as it'd arrived.

"...it shouldn't have mattered."

"No, it shouldn't have," said Ement agreeably. "We're all told to be kind to the Greystones, or at least as kind to them as we are to everyone else, but nobody is, and that's just the way things are."

"It shouldn't be."

"You're right. It shouldn't be."

Zoissette went still, seeming to have run out of energy, and Ement considered the matter closed.

"Hey. Hey, look. I'll talk to father, he'll talk to the headmistress, and they'll get it all sorted, alright? It's good that you told someone. I'll take care of it from here."

Zoissette just nodded, and Ement slapped the top of the table as he stood up.

"Alright. Go ahead and get started studying, I need to finish my training," he said, walking over to Guillerme.

Guillerme studied Zoissette for a long moment before turning his attention to Ement.

"So tell me, young Ement," said Guillerme, getting right back to it. "What makes a knight?"

Ement looked to Zoissette and waited until she noticed, and he gave her his best reassuring smile.

"Being brave and defending the smallfolk, of course," he said. Guillerme rolled his eyes and cuffed him on the side of the head. Ement tried to duck, and failed, but laughed even as the hit landed.

"Take this -seriously-, lad. Dragon's not gonna give you a break so you can strut around preening your feathers. If you're gonna show off, wait until you're off my time," Guillerme groused. "A round of calisthenics oughta get somma that cheek outta you."

The training continued for the day, in a somewhat more physical vein, until Ement was exhausted. He glanced over at Zoissette a few times and noticed that she was paying rather more attention to the proceedings than usual.

Well, no matter. She'd had a bad day, and she'd be back to her usual self on the morrow, he mused.

---

"The new kid wasn't at school today," said Zoissette almost immediately after she'd taken her seat at her table.

Ement was busy loading up the training dummy machine with weights, and only responded with a grunt. Guillerme crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

"And what of it, girl?" said Guillerme.

"They were pulled out by their parents. Going to one of the settlements, the headmistress said. She said they'd be a better fit there," said Zoissette. "She didn't mention anything about what happened earlier this sennight."

"Well, father said he'd talk to her," said Ement, loading up another weight. "Guess that must've happened."

Zoissette looked down at the table. "They'd been hurt real bad. I saw them the day after. They were blue and purple and holding their arm, and they... nobody could get near them. They'd keep moving away. I wanted to... I wanted to talk to them, but they were avoiding everyone.

"It's not fair."

Guillerme laughed. "Life is not fair, girl," he said. "Just be glad your little friend is probably safer now."

"They weren't a friend," said Zoissette. "I certainly was no friend to them," she paused, and mumbled, "Might've been easier to do something if they were a friend."

Gullerme snorted, and Ement stepped back from the training dummy. "It's wound up and ready to go," said Ement. "...I think, anyway. Might need to ask mother or father if we can spare the coin for another one. This one's gone all stiff. I'm surprised it still moves."

"Still hits hard enough for me," said Guillerme, as he inspected Ement's work. "It's noisy and it's bothersome but it gets the job done, now don't it? Alright. Your block game is weak. Grab a shield."

Ement groaned and rolled his eyes as he grabbed the wooden training shield off the wall.

"None of that. You think a dragon'll maybe stick to what you like if you grump at it hard enough? Stand up straight, boy. Look it in the eyes. A knight does not shy away from what must needs be done."

Ement rolled his shoulders, shook out his arms, and nodded his head, and looked into the training dummy machine's 'eyes', which were really just two spots painted on the top most rotating section.

"I want to be a knight."

Ement and Guillerme looked over at Zoissette.

"Come again?" asked Guillerme.

"I want to be a knight," said Zoissette, standing next to her table, her head up and fists balled at her sides.

"Fine, you're a knight," said Ement, looking back to the training dummy.

"You're not taking me seriously," said Zoissette.

Ement groaned. "Fine. Let's talk about it. A knight?" he asked, lightly. He gestured with his shield at Guillerme. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but being a knight means training, and that means Guillerme here gets another victim."

Guillerme snorted as Ement continued. "It means more than just reading rules. It means quite a lot of getting turned into meal by this bloody grindstone over here."

Zoissette stuck her nose up in the air. "I know what it means. It means being brave and strong and standing up for the smallfolk and doing the right thing."

Guillerme held out a hand towards Ement, and Ement nodded, falling silent.

"What do you mean by brave, girl."

Zoissette looked at Guillerme, and her eyes danced around the room a bit.

"...it means not being afraid."

"That's what you think, is it? Let me tell you a thing or two. Dragons don't care if you're afraid or not, and if you're not afraid of a dragon, you are a fool."

Zoissette shifted back and forth on her feet, but her gaze drifted to Guillerme, and then it stayed there.

"A knight would face a dragon anyway."

"Hells, true. But not because they're a knight. You don't get brave being a knight. You are brave, and that's what lets you be a knight. You want to be a knight? You do the right thing first. You want to be brave? You gotta figure out what it is first, girl, but I'll give you that one for free. It's when you're scared so bad you've messed your pants, but you do what needs to be done anyway.

"Figure that out. Maybe then we can talk about what it is to be a knight."

Guillerme turned from Zoissette and gestured at Ement. "And I hope you were paying attention. Get to your drills."

Ement nodded, and he set the mechanical training dummy to running. The next time he was able to spare a glance for Zoissette, she had sat back down at her table, but she wasn't studying her books.

---

"What's all the training for," asked Zoissette, without preamble. "You said a knight doesn't train to be brave, but you have to be brave to be a knight, so that's not what the training is for. Is it all entirely just to fight dragons?"

It had been a quiet day in the training room. Ement had been repairing the straps on the training shield while Guillerme inspected the room's armaments. The two stopped now.

"Not... entirely," said Guillerme, rolling his words around in his mouth a bit as he thought. "Tell me about the other day. About your not-a -friend. What do you wish you had done?"

Zoissette frowned, and swallowed, and when she spoke next her voice had a subtle shake to it. "I should have said something. I should have told the others to leave them alone. I should have done anything except - except I kept walking and- and- and I pretended I didn't see anything."

"And then what, girl?" Asked Guillerme, his voice gentle.

"And then what?" asked Zoissette, looking at him.

"And then what. You talk to them. You think that would have, what? Stopped them? You think your words alone would scare them off? Perhaps you think they would have said, ah, well, yes. This girl has the right of it. We should listen to her?"

Zoissette looked down at the table. "I don't know."

"One of the things a knight must needs consider is the consequences of their actions. Not just for good, but also for ill. Maybe your words would have been enough. Maybe it would've staved them off. But maybe it would've just turned their ire to you. And when there's anger in their bellies and stones in their hands, what then, girl?"

Zoissette looked to the training dummy. "...I'd tell the kid they were hurting to run. And... I'd stay, I guess. Get between them and the others. And... and fight."

"And fight. Violence is persuasion through other means, girl, and a knight is ready to use it when needed. We hope it doesn't come to it, oh how we hope, but hope bleeds eternal and it don't keep the smallfolk safe. You'll do well to remember that."

Zoissette nodded, and at last fell quiet. Ement turned his attention to the shield he was repairing.

Guillerme looked thoughtful for a long bit.

"Don't forget to review your Squire's Primer, lad," he said, distracted.

Ement frowned at him, confused. That was from his early days. "Yes, Master Guillerme," he said anyway.

---

The next few days were blessedly simple for Ement. The training dummy machine still tended to make an unholy screeching racket, and Ement wasn't sure it would last much longer, but that was a problem he was well familiar with.

As for the problems of his little sister, it seemed she had finally drifted on from this most recent interest of hers and returned to her usual studies. She had her books, and her reading didn't require him or Guillerme to try to field any more of life's deeply complex questions.

At least, that's what he thought, until she walked up to Guillerme one day, her face serious.

"I want to receive a knight's training," she said.

"Not this again," groaned Ement, but Guillerme waved a hand at him, and he fell silent.

"You've been reading," said Guillerme.

Zoissette nodded.

"Why," said Guillerme, slowly, "Should I train you."

Zoissette looked crestfallen for a moment, then frowned, balled up her hands, and looked Guillerme in the face. Ement imagine it might've been intimidating if she wasn't a third his size.

"...I- I did the wrong thing. I shouldn't have been afraid. I should've stood up for them. And if I'm going to stand up for people, I need to be ready for what that means. Ready to defend."

"Standing up for certain people is a good way to make enemies, girl."

"I shouldn't be afraid to make enemies."

"You shouldn't try to find enemies, either."

"I shouldn't be afraid to make enemies if... if it means doing the right thing."

"You kept your head down. You stayed safe."

"And that didn't keep them safe. I - I want to keep people safe."

"And how'll you do that?"

Zoissette took a deep breath in. "Use words, if I can. Diplomacy, if I'm able. Violence as a last resort, but an available one. A knight defends."

"And when you fail?"

Zoissette looked down at the ground. "I already did. Because I didn't do anything in the first place."

Guillerme rubbed his chin, considering the little Elezen. Ement wanted to say something reassuring, but nothing was coming to mind that didn't sound incredibly lame. He tried anyway.

"It's not so bad, Zoissette."

Zoissette looked up at him and so did Guillerme, and Guillerme nodded, slowly. "Aye. He's got the right of it, lass."

"I do?" Asked Ement, bewildered.

Guillerme snorted, then got down on one knee, to look Zoissette in the eye.

"Failure is not an option, lass. Failure is -mandatory-. The option... the option is in how you face it."

Zoissette stared at him for a long moment before nodding slowly.

"I want to - I want to face it again. I want to be better. I want to do better," she said. "Please teach me."

Guillerme rubbed his chin more, standing back up. "You seem willing to learn, lass. And I can tell you've done some thinking about what we've talked about. I can appreciate that. Better than some of my priors, anyroad. You certainly seem determined enough. If only you'd shown that mettle before, but I can work with what you're bringing. Well. I suppose I can handle another noble brat... as an apprentice. What say you, lad?"

Zoissette lit up. Ement groaned.

"Fine. I guess we'll ask mother," said Ement.

---

It was late in the day. Dinner was done, the twins had been put to bed, and Ement had waited until everyone was present in the hearth room before getting into the matter.

It'd been a bit of a tactical decision on his part. The twins being in bed would ensure their presence did not serve as a distraction. Father, who was already settling in with a holy book into his favorite chair, would hopefully serve as a mitigating force against mother. And lastly, Zoissette would help him make his case.

Ement put on his best blankly pleasant face. "Mother, Zoissette has taken an interest in my training sessions as of late."

The Lady Vauban had not made her way to a chair yet, and did not now. Instead she stood, tall and imposing and regal, and crossed her arms as she turned her attention to Zoissette. "Is that so?" she asked, seemingly mildly. Seemingly, for Ement often had a hard time getting a handle on where her mood was at when she wasn't upset.

"I want to train to be a knight," said Zoissette, sitting up straight and looking their mother in the eye.

"And you hope to achieve this by watching your brother? I do hope you're not neglecting your duties to your siblings."

"She's not," cut in Ement before Zoissette had a chance to speak. "She's been attending my sessions for near on a moon now, and I've been keeping an eye out. She uses the time to study, but I think she's also learning from me and Guillerme."

"Guillerme and I," corrected his mother.

"Right, of course, Guillerme and I. Anyroad, Guillerme has said he's willing to train both of us," said Ement.

Lady Vauban studied him for a long moment.

"Absolutely not," she said, finally.

"Dear, perhaps we should hear the boy out," said their father, not looking up from his reading.

"It seems like it would be a better use of her time than just watching me," said Ement, breezily with a shrug, hoping he came off as only lightly invested.

"I've learned a lot from just watching him," said Zoissette, and she looked like she was about to say more when her mother cut her off.

"No, and that is final. Ement, you will be needed to take over my duties at the fort one day, and you will not be shirking this responsibility onto your little sister. As for you, Zoissette, your responsibilities are here, to our house. The twins need looked after. You need to maintain your studies. And the house must be kept in order, and I expect you to do it whenever I or your father are away. I will not waste coin we do not have on a foolish child's whimsy, nor shall I risk you wasting time that can be better spent otherwise. We each have our duties, and you each shall tend to them. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, mother"

"...yes, mother."

Zoissette looked crestfallen, and Ement sighed. Well. There was no point to arguing with mother when she had made up her mind, and so he let the matter drop.

---

If there were further troubles with the other kids at school, or elsewhere, Ement did not hear about it. His training continued under Guillerme's watchful eye, and Zoissette continued to arrive at just around five bells to watch.

She would frequently come in with a book or two to read, but she seemed quieter somehow. And she now watched his training with a sharp focus she did not have before.

He expected that, like many of her interests, that this would pass, given time. One sennight became two became many, and still, she came in, to watch him carefully. He noticed that the training machine began to improve in operation as well, a fact he was glad of. Its terrible screeching had begun to worry him, but now, it seemed that it had worked some of its rust loose, and its movements were quieter, smoother.

It was about a moon into this new pattern when he thought he began to notice Zoissette's attention waning during the sessions, which he assumed, at first, was an early sign of her beginning to lose interest. However, he noticed that her attention was not so much waning as vanishing altogether, as she was beginning to fall asleep during his training sessions.

He was not the only one who noticed. He was fighting the training dummy one day when he heard a rather loud crack noise reverberate through the room, coming from Zoissette's table. He quickly disengaged from his fight with the machine only to see Zoissette sitting bolt upright in her chair, and one of the heavier weights for the machine leaning sideways on the table's surface.

"A knight," said Guillerme, "remains vigilant. Do you think the dragons will be kind enough to ring a bell for you before ravaging your comrades?"

"No, Master Guillerme," she said, still dazed. Guillerme snorted and turned his attention back to Ement. "And you! Do you think a dragon will let you walk away just because you got startled? Get back in there!"

Ement nodded, feeling the adrenaline in his veins fade away, and he got back to his drills. After that, he noticed Zoissette showed up to training sessions with a tea kettle and some cups to keep her company. She stopped falling asleep during his training.

It was some more sennights passed when he noticed Zoissette seemed to have picked up a limp. He thought to ask about it, but Guillerme spoke to it first.

"A knight," said Guillerme, "Looks after their health. I trust you are taking your ease with that limp, girl."

Zoissette frowned at him, but nodded. She was more alert for the rest of the sennight, and the limp went away, and Ement simply never got around to asking about it. But after that, shortly after she was walking normally again, she returned to needing the tea to stay alert.

He found himself wondering when he'd started paying so much attention to his sister's eccentricities, and resolved to go back to ignoring her. For the most part.

---

One night, Ement found himself awake at three bells in the morning, according to the bedside chronometer. Finding himself unable to return to sleep, he slipped out of bed and into the hallways of the manor.

It was quiet throughout the house of Vauban. The servants would all be long asleep, as would his family. There would be a single sentry outside maintaining a vigilant watch, and Ement was not about to bother them. He went to the kitchens first, making himself a simple sandwich, before taking to simply wandering the halls aimlessly.

His path took him past the training room, and he almost walked past it for how dark it was. He wondered briefly who had put out the torch in the hallway, but then turned his thoughts to considering the benefits of exercise in alleviating his sudden bout of insomnia. He put his hand on the doorknob, and as he twisted it, he remembered that he had not brought the key with him.

That, apparently, did not matter. The door opened smoothly. He just shook his head. Mother would be upset if she knew he'd left the door unlocked. He failed to notice how the hinges on the door no longer squeaked like they had, well, his whole life, if he'd stopped and thought about it.

The room was dimly lit already. A single torch on the corner furthest from the door had been lit. Near it was the training dummy, and near that was Zoissette.

Ement stood in the doorway, dumbfounded, as he watched Zoissette carefully getting up on the tips of her toes to place the weights on the training dummy. Before she had a chance to turn around, he had the presence of mind to back out of the room, and mostly close the door, leaving himself a tiny crack to watch through.

She glanced over in his direction periodically, but the hallway and training room both were very dark, save for the single light source that she must've lit. He realized belatedly that she must have been responsible for the light in the hallway being out as well.

As he watched, she managed to get all the weights placed onto the training dummy's various cables. She then grabbed a long-nosed thing that looked to Ement to be some kind of watering can. She pushed its nose into various joints on the training dummy, and then would tilt her head or duck down to inspect something or another before moving on. She moved quickly, and it was not long until the can had been set aside, and she was winding the training dummy.

Once it was fully wound and set, she went to the wall with the training gear, and awkwardly put on a training gambeson. Ement recognized it as the set that was sized for a tallish Hyur. Considering she had not yet hit her growth, that sort of made sense, but even then, the build of an Elezen was different from that of a Hyur, and she looked very awkward in the outfit. Then she grabbed one of the training shields, and a training sword, and then, standing close to the training dummy, she reached up, and set it into motion.

She stepped back and waited, watching as it spun up, same as he had to do every time he set it to motion. Once it was whirring along merrily, however, she hovered around its periphery, and then dove into the mess of swinging armatures and counter balances. She ducked in and out of its reach, attempting to block with her shield, and occasionally making indelicate strikes with her wooden sword.

Ement winced as she took a hit to the back, and stumbled forward in time to meet a strike to her helmet. Apparently rattled, she turned around, and another armature slammed into the back of her legs. She sprawled to the ground and quickly rolled away from the machine, underneath where its arms were swinging, and came to sit with her back against a wall, panting.

Ement wondered if he should be concerned at how many hits she had failed to block. He resolved instead to watch as she pulled a small basket close to her. A sandwich, and a water skin. Healthy food for a healthy knight, he supposed. For a healthy night. He groaned inwardly at himself for that one. It was far too late an hour to be awake. Or too early. Or something.

Ement pulled back from the doorway, closing the door quietly before sitting down against the wall in the hallway, leaning back and closing his eyes. He wasn't sure what to make of this just yet.

But it was three bells in the morning, almost four now. And there was nothing to be done that he could think of. So he made his way back to his own bed.

---

Ement continued his training. If Zoissette had realized he had been there that night, she had given no indication of it, and she continued to show up to his training sessions. Guillerme, of course, continued to train Ement directly, and Zoissette in his weird roundabout way. Ement could only guess at the man's motivations. Perhaps he felt it would be craven to ask for more coin. Or perhaps he enjoyed it as a little game. Maybe he was just fond of the girl. In any case, Zoissette continued to pay rapt attention, and Ement started to pay closer attention in turn.

Not to his own training, of course. That, he had always taken seriously. But he began to ask after his sisters' other activities when she was not watching him train. The maids reported that Zoissette was continuing to do her duty of looking after the twins. Her teachers noted that her work had shown some sign of slippage, but it was not alarming, and anyway, at least she was not showing the signs of rebellion that were so typical of her age. The church, in turn, reported that she was attentive enough to sermons.

An acolyte at the church had noticed that Zoissette's reading appetite, already voracious, had expanded greatly in breadth. Ement asked if he could see what she had been checking out, and the young woman had been happy to oblige him.

What he found was not terribly surprising, considering all that he knew now. He saw some of what he would have considered typical. Holy texts for study, drill guides for reading and writing, and her appetite for Shieldmaiden story tales had not seemed to slacken despite her age. Among her more recent reading materials were ones he could have guessed at. The Squire's Primer. A guide to modern sword and shield play, with illustrations. The Precepts of the Upright Soldier. However, he also found some interesting entries in the checkout log that he would never have guessed at.

Such as multiple requests - all fulfilled - to borrow some books from the Skysteel Manufactory. Guides to the assembly, construction, and maintenance of mechanical devices.

Such as the mechanical training dummy. And, if he had to guess, lock smithery was probably covered somewhere as well.

He thanked the acolyte, and headed home, unsure what to do with this information. On the one hand, it was not as though she was getting into any trouble. Indeed, for as annoying as she could be, Zoissette was, well, in his mother's words, a dutiful daughter; well behaved and well mannered. That she was well read as well was no surprise. It was either let her read or put up with her finding her way into the rafters or onto the roof, and the family had made their decisions on that long ago.

He wondered idly if perhaps she had simply gotten sneakier about her mischief.

And as he set his alarum for two bells, he decided that that was what was bothering him. The secrecy. That, and if either of their parents found out, well. He was not sure what rule she had broken, but he was also certain it wouldn't much matter.

And so it was in his own best interest, as well as hers, to try to curtail this disaster before it unfolded. He settled into bed, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

---

The chiming of his alarum awoke him at two bells. Ement ground his teeth, slapped the top of the chronometer to silence it, and climbed out of bed.

He had not thought to prepare, and so it took him some time to get himself together. He wanted to be dressed, for one. On his last excursion he'd been prepared for the possibility of one of the house servants seeing him in his smalls, but the idea of his sister seeing him as such was out of the question. He also took some time to find a torch, and then even longer to light it. He had intended to catch her before she had made her way to the training room, but it was nearly a full bell later by the time he had fully sorted himself out and made his way there.

The torch in the hallway had been put out again. He lit it as he passed by.

He tested the door to the training room, and found it unlocked once more. He quietly opened it a little bit, and could hear the soft whirring of the training dummy, and the rather less soft sound of wooden armatures as they made their impacts. He let himself in, and went to sit at Zoissette's table.

There was a tool roll on top of it, and several books. He unrolled the tool roll, finding several pieces of bent metal he did not recognize in there. He looked to the books, and recognized them as being on the list the acolyte had provided them. A book on the maintenance of simple machines. A book full of pictures of various attacks and defenses a knight might use against a variety of opponents. A book on lock smithing. He decided to open the book on the workings of mechanical training dummies.

He leafed through it, looking at diagrams and glancing over mechanical descriptions. He paused with a frown on the section about counterweights. He looked up to look over at the machine, and was startled to see Zoissette standing a scant few yalms away, her arms crossed, and a scowl on her face.

"You shouldn't be here," she said matter-of-fact as she moved to roll the tools back up. "Why are you here?"

"Uhm, well, you know how it is," he said, beginning one of his easy explanations, before stopping himself. "Wait. What am I doing here, what are you doing here?"

"I'm training," Zoissette said.

"I can see that," he said, getting up and walking over to the machine. "At three bells in the dark," he added, as he looked at the book once more, and compared what was written to what he saw.

"When else would I do it?" she asked. Ement didn't answer, as he examined the weights on the machine, and read the book one more time to verify what he'd seen.

"You're using the weights that I use," he said quietly. "You are supposed to alter them for the person using them. These are far too heavy for you - that means..." he looked through the book some more. He wasn't actually sure what that meant.

"It means it hits harder and swings faster," said Zoissette.

"Fury, Zoissette. You're a third my weight."

"More than that. And if you can do it, I can do it."

"This thing might kill you!"

"Hasn't yet. And besides, dragon's not going to ask me how much I -weigh-," she said, mimicking the form of one of Guillerme's turns of phrase.

Ement rubbed his face. He'd learned how to deal with mother seasons ago. Bratty little sisters were beginning to prove somewhat more difficult.

Especially at three bells in the hells-forsaken morning.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," he said, switching tacks.

"So are you."

"I'm only awake because you are."

"Well, then go back to sleep," and she looked up at him with a big warm smile on her lips and a gleam in her eyes. He rubbed his face again.

"Look. You can't keep doing this" he said, gently. "You need sleep, same as everyone else."

"...I know."

"And where'd you get a lock smithing set, anyway?"

"Skysteel Manufactory. I asked nicely," she said.

Ement closed his eyes tightly, and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

"Alright. You're going to return the tools and the books," he said.

"But-"

"Let me finish. I'll let you have the key to lock up when I'm done training for the day. That way you can let yourself in. Alright?"

"...you'll let me keep training then? You won't tell mother?"

Ement looked around the room, and sighed.

"I'm -pretty- sure you'd just find some other way to be a brat," he said. "This way, I get to set conditions. A knight's word is their bond. Is yours as good?"

Zoissette nodded.

"Good. Then here's my conditions. Do this closer to bedtime. I can't -believe- you picked between two and three bells to get started."

"I thought I'd be less likely to be caught."

"Yes, well, you're also destroying both of our sleeps. Both of ours? Whatever. Second, less weight."

She jutted her chin out at him. "I was handling it okay."

"Wait. Is that why you were limping a while back?"

Zoissette suddenly found the floor very interesting.

"Sette."

"Maybe."

"Halone preserve. Less weight. Okay?"

"...okay."

"Alright. Alright," said Ement. "Fine. This is fine. Help me clean this place up, and let's go to bed already."

---

Once they were done cleaning up, they didn't get very far past the door.

Standing in the hallway, her arms crossed, as tall and as regal and as angry as ever, was the Lady Vauban.

"Did you think," she began slowly, "That I was ignorant of the going ons of my own house?"

That's exactly what Ement thought, now that it'd been brought to his attention, but what he said was, "Oh, was I supposed to?"

His mother's expression darkened, and in turn, Ement's expression brightened, as he shifted to an easy, lazy play of calm ignorance.

"You know full well that neither of you should be awake at this hour. And certainly not fooling around in the training room."

Ement switched to looking confused, frowning as he tapped a finger against his lips. "I don't remember there being any rules about when we should be awake."

"Do not play games with me, boy."

"I would never dream of it. Though I should get back to dreaming. But first, surely you've noticed how quiet the doors are in the manor as of late? Dutiful Zoissette here has taken on the burden of maintenance in our home."

His mother frowned. "What are you on about."

"Well, she didn't want to bother anybody. So of course, when she wakes up to check on the twins, she's also come by the rooms to, uhm... what is it you did again, Zoissette?"

Zoissette had been standing next to him the whole time. To her credit, she did not attempt to flee or to hide, but instead, had stood her ground alongside him. She stood straighter and taller, now, as she answered.

"The training armature requires oiling at regular intervals if it is to maintain efficacy without damaging itself. The self same oil serves similar needs in door hinges. I have taken care of both."

Ement was silently grateful that, for once, she did not seem to find it necessary to explain every detail of her activities, even though he wished she hadn't mentioned the training machine.

Their mother glared at the both of them, her mouth pressed into a thin line, and her eyes slowly narrowing.

"To bed with both of you. We shall speak more on this on the morrow."

"Right, right, of course, mother. Come on, Zoissette," said Ement, turning down the hallway. Zoissette was quick to catch up to him.

"There is no -way- we're going to get away with this," she muttered to him.

"Oh absolutely not," he agreed. "But now we've got time to make our excuses. And more importantly, get some sleep. Was it -really- necessary to do this at three bells in the morning?"

"Two and a half. I already -told- you why I picked this time."

Ement groaned.

"...thank you," she said. Ever polite.

"Oh, don't thank me yet," he said breezily. "She's still going to be cross on the morrow."

---

Ement stood nervously. He kept glancing over at Guillerme nearby, who was leaning against the wall, seemingly unperturbed.

He was not sure he had ever been so aware of every ilm of his being. He tried and failed to resist the urge to swallow again. He could feel his fingers as they played along the hilt of his practice sword, each one uncurling and tightening in turn. He strained his ears to listen to the tolling of the five afternoon bells, and heard them begin to ring out.

He turned his gaze to the door of the training room as it opened, and Zoissette walked in backwards, keeping an eye out on the hallway as she came in. She closed the door gently and turned around.

Ement could not see Lady Vauban's expression from where he was standing, but he saw Zoissette's response to it as she startled. She started to cringe, collapsing inward, but then something shifted in her. She looked up at their mother, her eyes suddenly bright, and she stepped forward, carrying herself with the same regality their mother often affected.

"Mother," said Zoissette. Defiant. With some kind of fire in her. Ement just hoped she wasn't about to get them both burned.

He considered a possible future as some kind of Chocobo waste handler.

"Zoissette. Care to explain yourself?"

"...and rather better than you lot did last night," said Guillerme. The man seemed to not care whether he was here or not, and his tone was much the same as he might've used to discuss the weather. "A knight does not prevaricate."

Zoissette glanced at Guillerme, and then looked at Ement. Ement nodded his head, once. In for a Gil, in for the whole bag, he figured.

"I was training," said Zoissette. "I wish to learn to fight. To defend."

"Did your brother put you up to that?"

"No. I'm choosing to do it. For myself."

"For yourself. And what of your other duties? Your other responsibilities? I hear tell your grades have been slipping, young lady. And who's looking after the twins?"

"I am. And my grades are still good. They'd be better if I didn't have to sneak out at night."

Ement suppressed a groan.That's probably just going to make her madder, he thought.

"You would not be sneaking out if you -obeyed-," said the Lady Vauban, her voice ice. Ement disliked that he was right. "I am very disappointed in you, daughter."

"Why? I would think you'd be proud! Two fighters in the family, and I can still look after the house! You fight, why can't I learn to?"

"Enough. This is not a discussion. This is an edict. You will no longer sneak out at night to the training room. Do I make myself clear?"

Zoissette frowned at the floor.

"Lady Vauban, if I may?" Said Guillerme.

"You may."

"The girl's grades are suffering because of terrible sleep, aye, but look at what she's accomplishing despite that. And the boy's training has come far enough along. I think he'll make as good a squire as any, a good knight, even. So I think we should push him. Let me teach him summore, and in turn, let him teach the girl. Think of it as good leadership training for the lad. I believe that if you can't teach what you know, you don't really know it. And I think he does, well enough. And since I wouldn't be training the girl directly, I wouldn't see any reason to charge your house any coin for the privilege."

The Lady Vauban turned and looked cooly at Guillerme. He shrugged at her in response.

"You know my reputation. You know I'm good for it. And if this does turn out to be some flight of fancy of hers, like you said to me this morning, well that's fine too. Then your son will learn how to deal with a less than stellar soldier. Both roads, he gets experience, good experience that'll serve him well. If she sticks to it, your house'll gain another sword arm when she's of age, like she just said. If not, well, keeps her out of trouble, right? I'm practically watching her anyroad."

Ement fidgeted, unhappily watching the drama play out.

Lady Vauban held her gaze on Guillerme for what felt like several minutes.

"...perhaps I have been too harsh," she conceded at last. She turned to Zoissette. "It is important that you understand, dear daughter, just how difficult it is to balance my responsibilities between home and the front. I know I am absent often, and I am able to do so, because you have ever been a dutiful daughter.

"But if this is truly the path you wish to pursue... then I suppose I shall stand in its way no longer. But you will deal honestly with me in the future. And if you neglect any of your duties in any fashion, this will be the first one to go. Do I make myself clear?"

Zoissette stood up, glancing over at Ement, and then mimicking his posture of being at attention, chin thrust into the air to look up at the Lady Vauban. "Yes, mother."

"And you, Ement. It sounds as though... you have promise. Keep to your work, then. Make me proud."

"Yes, mother," he heard himself say. It came out as a croak. Was his throat so dry?

"Master Guillerme," said Lady Vauban. "Pray continue your work as discussed."

"Of course, Lady Vauban," said Guillerme, pushing off the wall and giving the Lady Vauban a salute. After a moment's hesitation, she returned it, before turning to glide out of the room.

Ement let out a deep sigh and rubbed his chest. He hadn't been fully aware of just how stiffly he had been standing. He looked over at Zoissette, and found her expression unreadable, but he gave her a thumbs up and a grin anyway.

"Well, that could've gone worse," he said.

Guillerme grunted. "Go clean yourself up, lad, I can smell the stress stink on you from over here. Both of you, get out of here. We'll start the work on the morrow at five bells. And Zoissette?"

Zoissette looked to him.

"Get some bloody practice gear that fits, I don't care how."

Zoissette nodded, and practically ran out of the room in eagerness. Ement chuckled, despite himself.

"Oh, she doesn't know what she's getting into," he said. And then winced as Guillerme cuffed him along the ear.

"Neither do you, sprat. I'm going to drive you harder now. Let's see what we can't make out of a pair of spoiled noble brats."

---

It took a few days for her to get armor that fit, and a few more for them to really get into a rhythm. As promised, Guillerme taught Ement, and Ement in turned trained Zoissette. Lecture mostly consisted of Guillerme gently correcting Ement while Ement tried to pass on what he'd learned. Practice had Ement going up against the training machine first while Guillerme watched, and then Zoissette trying to mimic what Ement had done while Ement pointed out flaws in her form or room for improvement.

Ement wondered how long it'd be before they were beyond what Guillerme considered the fundamentals and he'd start in on the tangents he was prone to. After all, he hadn't heard Guillerme tell him what a dragon wouldn't let him do in a while. And for that matter, he'd seemed to have temporarily dropped asking open questions about what made a knight.

(Pain and tired muscles and too much thinking, thought Ement.)

He didn't have to wait for too many days.

"So tell me, lass," said Guillerme as Zoissette and Ement were pulling on their practice armor. "Why do you wanna be a knight so bad? You think there's glory in it?"

"Ser?" Asked Zoissette as she pulled one of the straps tight.

She winced, and Ement shook his head, walking over to help her. "You don't have to overcompensate for wearing oversized gear anymore," he muttered to her. She just stood still and nodded.

"You heard me, lass. What are you hoping to get outta this."

"Well, not glory, ser," said Zoissette, nodding at Ement as he helped. She mouthed 'thank you' at him before she continued. "I - I don't think there's going to be much glory just in helping defend someone. Which is what I want to learn to do."

"Defend, huh? More to a knight than defending the weak and downtrodden, but let's stick to that for now. Why?"

"That seems... reason enough to me, ser. Because - because it's the right thing to do? The, uhm, honorable thing to do?"

"Right? Who said it was right?"

"Uhm," said Zoissette, biting her lip. "I - uhm. I guess ... me? Well, I mean... father. And mother both. They tell us to help others out. And - and well, I want to. I, uhm, I didn't really think about it."

"Acting without thinkin'? Some might call that foolish."

Zoissette frowned and crossed her arms, looking at the ground.

"You think on that. You also said it was the honorable thing to do. Ement, what've I said about that?"

"You once told me that honor is vainglory that gets knights killed, ser." Said Ement. He remembered that from an early lesson.

"Can be. Can be."

"But ser!" protested Zoissette. "That's - that's what a knight does. They are supposed to be honorable."

"Surely are. I find the word a bit overstuffed. Said too often. A knight goes out to die, we say it's the honorable thing to do. A knight challenges someone to a duel, it's for honor. We defend the honor of our fair maidens and the honor of our fair names and before you know it we've spilt more blood than truth and where's honor then. It's a bit like the word love. Everyone uses it, nobody understands it, and it's worn so thin as to be almost meaningless."

"I think the word love should mean something," said Zoissette quietly.

"Maybe it does to those precious few who say it and -mean- it every time. Otherwise, what's the point? Though you're onto something lass. These words we use should have the power we afford them. They should mean something. Maybe we start from scratch on 'em. Can't help you with love, Fury knows it's lost on me, but maybe we can salvage honor. Go fetch your primer, lass, tell me what it says about honor."

Zoissette nodded, as she went to her little table, and looked through the books there.

"I'm not sure I understand, ser. What are you getting at?" Asked Ement, feeling a bit annoyed. He'd given the answer he'd been taught, and hadn't really expected it to change.

"Nothin'. Maybe nothin'. Somethin' more than when we started, though. You should think on it too. Have to start sometime."

"Do I?" Asked Ement, peevishly, and Guillerme crossed the room to give him a cuff upside the ear. Ement laughed as it landed, though, feeling his tension let go a bit.

"Honor," said Zoissette, "According to the Primer, is adherence to what is right, or to a conventional standard of conduct." She shifted her weight on her feet. "...that's the second definition anyway. I think it's the more correct one."

"Hnh," said Guillerme. "What was the other definition?"

"Great respect or great esteem, Master Guillerme."

"Why not go with that one?"

"It... it's not what I want, not really, I don't think."

"No? Respect can be a powerful ally. Tells you who your friends are. Can also fetch you friends. Friends who share your ideals."

"I suppose. But... but it can't be the only reason to do something. Right? Otherwise, you're just... doing it for selfish reasons, really. I think. And, I mean, there's respect, like... being treated okay, but then there's respect, you know, like being treated as superior.

"I'm not, though. I'm not better than anybody else."

Ement nodded sagely. It was a lesson from their father he had been careful to instill in his children. "That's what father tells us," he said to Guillerme. "We may be noble, but that just means responsibilities. It's easy for us to pretend we're better, but really, we should be servants. And our first duty is to Ishgard, above all."

"Your first duty?" Said Guillerme.

"...yes ser." said Ement.

"Hmn. Yes. I suppose," said Guillerme.

He said nothing more on the matter that day.

---

"Your training is coming along well. I look forward to one day calling you as one of our own, as ser Vauban," said Guillerme.

Zoissette spoke up. "Shouldn't he be ser Ement?" she asked.

"Guillerme here prefers the older style of address," Ement said.

"Indeed I do. Indeed, I do," said Guillerme, crossing his arms. He got that distant look in his eyes he often did when he was talking about days long past, and Ement decided to take a moment to settle in, leaning against the wall. "I suppose it is well that many houses have done so well as to be able to spare multiple sons and daughters to the work of knighthood. That it's just easier to refer to them by their first names. And I understand the desire to mark them as individuals, to say, look, this one, this person, it is them who has the blessing of the Archbishop. But the old way of address... it had its charm, its purpose, you must understand. It said the opposite. It told us that this person was someone who swore fealty to their family. The first step in many of a path to higher devotion, higher calling. For by this, a knight would show they serve their family. And their family, well, they served the Holy See, and the Holy See served all of Ishgard. At least once upon a time, anyway-"

"Guillerme!" said Ement, alarmed.

"Forget that last. Anyway, all the way up, you see, until the knight serves Halone herself. And to serve Halone is the highest purpose of a knight, to serve Her is to serve the very star itself, do you see?"

Ement looked over to see his sister slowly nodding. "So you prefer to call a knight by their family name. Ser Vauban, of Ishgard, of Halone... of the star," she said.

"Just so," said Guillerme.

"Mother prefers that also, and I prefer not getting into arguments with mother, so it's what our family will use," said Ement, pushing off the wall. "But I'm no ser, Vauban or otherwise, just yet. I still need to go through squirehood."

"And to get that far, you still need to finish the preliminaries," said Guillerme. "But I have high hopes. High hopes indeed. Not much longer now, son. Don't disappoint."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Mother would never let me hear the end of it," said Ement.

---

Ement, not having the responsibilities of having to take care of the twins, was often the first one to show up to the training room. Having a question for Guillerme, he made certain to show up particularly early one day. Guillerme was waiting, of course. He often was there a half bell before he had to be, checking the training equipment and going over his notes.

"Master Guillerme?" asked Ement. "I've been meaning to ask. What do you get out of this?"

"Whatever do you mean, lad?"

"I mean... you training me and Zoissette. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful, but - ser, I know your history. You've trained members of the Temple Ward. You could practically write your own Gil balance. But instead you're here, working for, well. I'm not sure how much, but Sette tends the books sometimes. She's shown me the ledgers. We can't afford you."

Guillerme laughed. "Clearly you can, lad, for here I am."

"Right, sure, but... why?"

"Hnfh. Why indeed."

Guillerme crossed his arms behind his back, and paced a bit.

"... I trained Temple Knights, it's true. Used to be, someone had a promising young lad or lass, they'd send them to me, I'd show them the lashes. Put 'em through their paces. Some of Ishgard's finest fighters have gone by me, they say.

"But that's the problem, lad. Our finest -fighters-. Not our finest knights. I used to think that all I had to do was teach 'em to hold a shield and wield a sword, and the rest would work itself out. Good breeding, I thought, would make good men and women. And the church would help 'em stick to Halone's breast. Halonic men and women, doing Holy work, defending the realm.

"It took me too long to realize how wrong I was, lad. And the damage is done now. I've raised a few good knights, but also too many ... well. Scoundrels. Highwaymen with holy shields. Thugs that go down to the Brume or the low city and kick smallfolk for fun."

Guillerme stopped pacing, and looked at Ement. Ement thought he looked suddenly older, somehow. The lines in his face ran deeper. He noticed Guillerme had stooped a bit, his shoulders slumped down low, and Ement bowed his head, to look away. He felt afraid he'd asked the wrong question.

"I'm - I'm sorry, ser. I meant no disrespect."

"The disrespect's warranted, lad. Don't be sorry. Stand up straight. Like I trained you. Look at me square."

Ement swallowed and did as he was told, looking into Guillerme's eyes, and sensed a depth in them he hadn't noticed before.

"I'm trying to make up for that mistake, lad. Better knights for a better Ishgard. The current generation's a loss, but the next, well. Had to find stock first, though. I looked among the Brume, but I'm not of them. Couldn't connect with them. They saw a threat, thinking me either fit to take advantage of them, or someone who was just there to remind 'em of how they were lesser. And also, a knight - a proper knight - they need support. Armor and weapons and someone to take care of all that. Nobody in the Brume has that. So then I tried the minor houses. Your mother - well, she's got a reputation. Good soldier, does well by hers. Good teacher, so I hear. I thought, well, maybe some of that would've rubbed off on her sprats. So here I am. Yours is a minor house. High enough up that you can maybe afford a knight or two. Low enough to not be spoiled by the indulgences Ishgard allows her high houses.

"And I found you two. Well, just you at first, lad, and while you were a good study with the sword, I found I was struggling to really say what I wanted to say, to try to teach you what good really was. But then your sister showed up, with her heart too big and her head too smart, and, well."

Guillerme laughed, a dry, brittle thing, but a laugh nonetheless. Ement smiled nervously, unsure how to respond.

"The questions I've been asking aren't just for you and her, lad. They're for me. Maybe they're for every knight. I told you, if you can't teach it, you don't know it, but that's a small lie. In the teaching is also the learning, and, well. I'm not learned yet. But trust me, lad, I'm earning exactly what I want here."

Ement heard the bells ringing in the distance as the door to the training room opened, and Zoissette at last made an appearance. Ement glanced between her and Guillerme.

"...thank you, ser." said Ement, quietly.

"Aye, lad. Let's just get on with it, shall we? I get any more morose and I'll need to turn to my cups."

Guillerme began the day's instructions, but Ement found himself distracted, trying to figure out the riddle of the man's words.

---

Sennights turned to moons and they all passed in much the same way as they had. Zoissette no longer fell half asleep during training sessions, but she did start to stay in the training room after them. Early on her studies had been more general, but they had become specific, as she turned her attentions to astrology and arcanistry. She was staying up late in order to keep up with said studies, but despite that, did not neglect her knight's training, taking it as seriously as she ever had. Guillerme, true to his word, drove Ement harder, and Ement in turn did what he could to teach Zoissette. It was slower going, but both Elezen grew into it.

One day, Zoissette came into the training room, and looked as though she was on the verge of crying, but was keeping it in. She walked over to where Ement and Guillerme were standing. The room fell quiet.

"...something on your mind, girl?" prompted Guillerme gently.

"It happened again," said Zoissette. "Not a new kid this time. One of the one's that's been there a while. Not... not a friend. But... the rumors are, his mother left his father to go join the heretics."

"Any truth to the rumors?" asked Ement. Zoissette shook her head.

"Bet she just -left- the bastard, then," said Ement. "If it was heretic business, the whole family'd be ousted."

"That doesn't matter," said Zoissette.

"Rather does to the Inquisition, I might think," replied Ement.

"Let her finish," said Guillerme, and Ement fell quiet. "So what'd you do about it, girl?"

"I told them to stop. To leave him alone."

"Oh, and that was it, then?" asked Guillerme.

Zoissette took a deep breath in. "...no. They started to call me names. They told me I must be a heretic too, or a dragon swiver-"

"Language," said Ement, almost automatically. He immediately planted his face in his palm.

Guillerme looked at him and chuckled. "You so old as to forget three summers past, son? She knows what a swivin' is, and probably much more colorful language aside."

"Halone preserve, forget I said anything. Go on, Sette," said Ement.

"...anyroad, there was yelling, and... one of them picked up a stone and threw it at me."

"Well then. What happened then?" prompted Guillerme.

"They missed, and I... I looped my arm through my carrying bag's loops and used it as a shield. The rest of them got started, trying to hit both of us. I got in front. I mostly didn't get hit. He got knocked down, though. And... that's when I charged them. Knocked one of them over, got him on the ground, hit him a few times.

"One of them pulled me up, and I hit them, knocked them over too. Dropped two more... the rest of them ran. I... I stayed behind, to try to help the other one up. The one who was being made fun of. The one I was trying to defend."

Zoissette took another deep breath, and steadied herself. "He shoved me away when he got up. He yelled at me. Told me he didn't need help. Then... he ran away too."

She looked down at the ground, clenching and unclenching her fists. "I thought I was doing the right thing."

"Well, maybe you were, and maybe you weren't, lass," said Guillerme. "Did you stop to ask if he needed help?"

Zoissette looked up at him with a frown. "No? I mean - no, of course not. He obviously did."

"And yet he didn't appreciate it much when you gave it to him."

"I don't understand."

"Think about it some. In the meanwhile, dress out. We've still got training."

Zoissette nodded, and moved over to retrieve her training gear. Guillerme rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

It was an hour later, both Elezen panting and exhausted, when Zoissette spoke up again.

"Retribution."

"What?" asked Ement.

"Retribution. They might go back for him later, when I'm not around. Or... or he thought he'd just take the hits, and hoped they'd leave him alone in the future," said Zoissette.

"Maybe... maybe. Things to consider. And what about you, lass?" asked Guillerme.

Zoissette looked confused. "Aren't we talking about me? What about me?"

"Why'd you wade into a mess what weren't yours, lass?"

"That's... that's why I'm doing this at all. That's why I'm learning this. To defend people. To keep people from being hurt. Because I can. Because that's... that's what I want to do. To do the right thing."

"And what made it right, lass? Just because you felt it so?"

"Well... yes."

"Hmn. Good knights trust their instincts, I suppose," said Guillerme. He turned away and clasped his hands behind his back. "But far too many of the knights that I have trained have claimed to be acting in the name of the Holy See and its edicts on their way to bash some poor otherwise-innocent bugger's head in. Certainly, they feel right to do as they do."

"It's not the same," said Zoissette.

"No?" said Guillerme. "Don't get me wrong, lass, I agree, but why is it not the same?"

"Well, they're - they're imposing their will on others just because they can. They're not trying to help!"

"And you're tryin' to help, you say, but it wasn't wanted. Aren't you also just imposing your will?"

Zoissette frowned, and Ement could see her shoulders tense, her fingers working her shield-strap as she thought.

Ement thought to ease the tension he felt in the room, and cleared his throat. "Well, I'd say the difference is that Zoissette's man is free to think his thoughts afterwards, with his head rather unabashed, wouldn't you say?"

Zoissette and Guillerme both turned to look at him, Zoissette still frowning, Guillerme's expression unreadable, damn the man. But that was fine. Ement grinned, and spread his arms out wide, and offered a small bow. The tension was thinning, he was certain.

"...you're right," said Zoissette.

"I mean, maybe," said Ement, lightly.

"No, you're - I think I understand the difference. Those other knights, they claim to know and do the right thing, but - but they're not acting on behalf of Ishgard or her people. Not really. I - I was. My intervention may not have been wanted, but what I did, I didn't do it for me. I did it for them. I did - I did what I thought they might've wanted me to do, if they'd had the power to ask for it."

Guillerme nodded, slowly. "And what then if they still don't want it, lass? I would prefer not to train another would-be tyrant, claimin' just as you claim, that they're doing right on behalf of the people for the people, in the people's name, whatever."

Zoissette swallowed. "...then it's important what Ement said. That... that they're alive and healthy and well and capable of being mad about what I've done after."

Ement crossed his arms. He hadn't really meant to have a point, but apparently his little sister had found one.

"...but it's not enough, is it?" Finished Zoissette, suddenly timid.

"Hmm?"

"It's... it's not enough just to... to feel like I'm doing the right thing, is it? I mean, I'm still pretty sure I did. He - he can be mad at me, but like Ement said, at least he isn't hurt, but maybe I'm still not thinking this all the way through. Not as far as I should."

Zoissette's voice trailed off. "Who determines what's right? I'm - I'm still not sure."

"... I did say a good knight trusts their instincts. A great knight, though, a great knight thinks about them. It's a struggle, lass, make no mistake.

"And the best of us," said Guillerme quietly, "Weighs their soul against the very star itself."

Ement watched as Zoissette swallowed nervously. She looked down at the ground, then back up at Guillerme's back.

"I'm... I'm not sure I'm good enough for that, ser," she said.

"Well. Maybe, maybe not, Maybe not yet. But keep it in mind, lass. I'm glad you're thinking about it at all. Keep that up. Maybe you'll learn one day."

"I'll - I'll do my best, ser."

"I hope so," said Guillerme, still quiet.

---

Guillerme paced slowly in front of the two, his hands clasped behind his back, seemingly deep in thought.

"What makes a knight?" he asked. He seemed to be asking himself as much as anyone.

Ement glanced sideways at his sister. She looked back at him.

"I'm not sure anymore, ser," Ement admitted. "I thought it was things like duty. Honor. The ability to fight when needed. I think... ser, I'm sorry. I'll just be happy to serve in my own way. To fight for Ishgard. I intend to be a good soldier."

"And that'll be enough, lad, that'll be enough. I think your heart's true enough. Truer than some of my priors. Aye, I'll take it. Tell me, though. What do you think duty and honor mean? Maybe we can get something outta this yet."

Ement took a deep breath in before answering. "Duty is what we're supposed to do. Defend people. Fight Ishgard's enemies. Uphold our responsibilities. Honor is... I think the book's right. Adherence to what's right. I think that's what the two definitions it had were for, actually. You do the right thing, and then you can be respected."

"Good lad. Zoissette?"

Zoissette was tapping her lips with a finger, looking thoughtful. "I'm still stuck on... who determines what's right and what's wrong?"

Guillerme stopped and looked up at the ceiling.

"Yer onto something, lass. Keep going."

"Well, it's like Ement said. Duty is what we are supposed to do, and honor is adherence to what is right. I thought I was doing my duty when I tried to stop the other students from hurting that boy. I thought I was behaving in an honorable fashion. And I still think I'm right. But you were right, too. I should have thought about it more. Why was it right? I think it was right, the boy I tried to help didn't. We can't both be right. I mean, I guess we could both be wrong, but... who's choosing what's right and what isn't?

"Halone, maybe, but all we have from her is what I can read. She's not telling me anything directly. So... I guess I have to figure it out myself. Same thing for duty. Who tells me what I'm supposed to do? I ... I would've guessed the Holy See, but - but you've made it sound like maybe that's not for the best, if they're just bullies too."

"Sette," said Ement, looking sideways at her.

Zoissette rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about me, big brother, it's just us. I know better than to go yelling that from the rooftops."

Ement shook his head. Guillerme nodded a bit, and resumed his pacing.

"...maybe that's it," he said.

"Ser?" asked Zoissette.

"We've been dancing around it, haven't we. What makes a knight? Well. An adherence to duty. Honor to duty. But what duty? What is our duty? Something fundamental."

Guillerme paused his pacing again, and rocked back and forth on his feet.

"Your first duty," he said, slowly, "It's not to Ishgard. It can't be. Ishgard isn't there in the dirt with you. It must be to yourself. And anyone can claim they're actin' on behalf of the people but not mean it. But perhaps we can rely on something deeper than just that. Not to what you feel, not just what you think. To your own ideals. To ... something true. Something deep, something you build. Something you challenge yourself to. Something you know. Something you are. Everything and more."

"... to a personal truth," said Zoissette.

"To a personal truth," said Guillerme. He looked thoughtful. "Aye, lass. Because when you're on the field, or bleedin' in the ditch, there's no book you can look to, no pretty words from a comrade. You're gonna have to trust yourself to do the right thing. And that means you're going to have to know what the right thing is.

"A challenge, then, to each of you. You'll go on to be a fine knight, lad. I know it, and I'm proud of what we've made here. And to you, lass, even if you never pick up the sword and shield again, you've still acquitted yourself well. And taught me a thing or two, if I want to be honest. So, the same challenge to you. To the first duty. To the truth. Your personal truth, that will forever guide you both, and if you build it right, will guide you true. Can you do that?"

"Yes, ser," said Ement.

Zoissette looked thoughtful for a moment, and Ement watched her eyes wander, as she slowly nodded to herself.

"To the first duty. To a personal truth. To serve my house. To serve Ishgard. To serve the realm. To serve Halone. That I might serve the star.

"...does that sound right?"

Guillerme nodded. "Aye, lass. I think we've found it. It sounds right enough."

Zoissette stood up straight, arms back, head high.

"I can do that, ser."

"...very good. Ement, you'll get yours when your squirehood's done. Zoissette, hand me your sword."

Zoissette looked at Guillerme questioningly, but handed over her practice sword without comment.

"Kneel, lady," said Guillerme gently.

Zoissette looked between Ement and Guillerme, and then slowly knelt down on one knee.

"And bow your head."

She did.

"By the power invested in me - which is none; under the authority granted through the Holy See, which it hasn't been - and under Halone's watchful gaze, may she ever watch over you - I hereby declare you to be ser Vauban, Lady Zoissette of the house Vauban, a knight, even if only in heart, and not yet in name or in deed. But yer a good enough of a knight for me, lady. No matter what you do, I believe you will serve well. Rise, and take up your weapon."

Guillerme tapped Zoissette one one shoulder, and then the other. Zoissette curled up a hand in front of her face, as she appeared to pray for a moment before looking up at Guillerme. Guillerme flipped the practice sword around, and held it out to her, hilt first.

Before taking the sword, Zoissette looked to where her practice shield was laying, and picked it up, strapping it onto her arm. She then stood up slowly, and took the practice sword from Guillerme, and sheathed it, and stood tall once more.

"If you ever decide to fully commit to following in your brother's footsteps, lady," said Guillerme, "I am certain you will be among the best of us."

He looked to Ement.

"I think my lessons have come to an end, young lad. I have nothing more to teach you, and I think I'm as learned as I'm like to get."

Ement nodded to Guillerme, and after a moment of consideration, he saluted. Zoissette did likewise.

"May Halone watch over you both," he said. "I'll speak with your mother later, Ement, and we'll get you set up with a squireship. In the meanwhile, keep to your drills, both of you. Even if you don't plan on fightin', lady, it's a good foundation. It'll keep you healthy and your mind sharp. And never stop asking questions. Even if you have to ask 'em of the Holy See itself."

"Aye, ser," Ement said at the same time as his sister, and he looked over and gave her a grin. She seemed to be paying more attention to some distance only she could see, though. Ement shrugged.

"Will you still be around, Master Guillerme?" asked Ement.

"Aye, lad. I'll help you with your drills until you actually get that squireship, don't you worry. And your sister too, if she wants to stick with it, but I don't think there's much left for you here, is there?"

Zoissette shuffled her feet a bit. "I... I guess not. I'll keep up with the drills though, if you don't mind. But... you're right. I think I'll be spending more time with my books. But - but thank you, Master Guillerme. I'll - I'll try to live up to your ideals."

Guillerme snorted. "Yours as much as mine, Lady. But I'll hold you to that. For now though, we're done for the day. Go ahead and get the place cleaned up, and I'll be back on the morrow. No more lessons. Just training, lad. Enough to keep that sword sharp, 'til you're a proper squire, alright?"

"Yes ser."

"Good lad," said Guillerme.

And then he was gone.

"Well, what do you think of that, ser Vauban? Looks like you got your knighthood before me. Gotta say, I'm jealous," said Ement, grinning at Zoissette.

She was still just standing there, though, a faraway look in her eyes.

"...to the star," she said. She looked down at her sword, and then to her shield, and at last, to her brother.

"You think too much," he said.

"Maybe," she said quietly.

But then she gave him a big smile, all brightness and light.

"But I think I can do it," she said.

Ement had to admit to himself, he wasn't quite sure what she meant. But he believed her.

"For the first duty," she said.

"The first duty," he echoed.

#final fantasy xiv #zoissette vauban #ement vauban #guillerme #lady vauban #one knight's journey #a knight's duty #202207-18 #biot writes

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salty-dracon · 1 year ago

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Tokiko Shigure propaganda:

Implied to have manufactured an entire ARG (HiddenBats) to get people to play an entire game (AI The Somnium Files Nirvana Initiative) to [major spoilers]

Knows the player exists from the moment you first meet her and has several scenes in AINI where she explicitly addresses you, the player

Spends a good amount of AINI jumpscaring the hell out of people and has some really scary sprites when she does so

She's like 50. With skin like that. And a total MILF.

For how much people meme on her and her fourth wall breaking tendencies (which I promise are less cringe and more scary) she's a surprisingly deep character. She's very intelligent and knowledgeable, even if it comes off as more nerdy and cherry-picking than actually intellectual. She's also experienced a lot of hardship and tries to rationalize it all away through simulation theory, even thinking of it as charity when she tries to simulation-theory-therapy away the pain that other characters are experiencing. Though she's objectively a villain she's surprisingly deep.

At the same time there's a feature in that game where you can read people's minds and her mind read is just her staring at you. the player

I don't even think she cares that she's mentally throwing a little rich boy policeman through a washing machine for half of the game

Vote Tokiko if you support women's wrongs

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blzzrdstryr · 4 years ago

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Reveries of changes

Yandere!Childe x Fatui!gn!reader

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CW: Dissociation, mentions of rape, violence, unhealthy relationship, abuse of power.

Sometimes you find yourself asking what ifs. What if the Event never happened and you never received the vision? What if Ajax never developed his obsession with you? What if you treated him a little bit warmer? Would he be more tolerable? There are thousands of possible scenarios buzzing in your head, sometimes diverging just by words left unsaid or an outstretched hand being shaked. You know it’s a futile thing, thinking about the future and the present that you will never have, but you can’t stop, thoughts spiraling further and further.

This morning starts with the similar what if. What if I agreed to start again? The brief conversation from yesterday is still on your mind - you dread it’s another of the turning points in your relationship, just like the rejected handshake or the hospitalized recruit were. A moment after which there’ll be changes, changes that you won’t have time to prepare for. Speaking from the experience alone, Childe, like the rotten bastard he is, will act even worse from now on. It all started from teen Ajax following you and offering his friendship at every turn and somehow ended in him personally asking Tsaritsa to assign you to him, reducing you from a highly respectable Fatui agent skilled both in stealth and subterfuge to a glorified escort and a secretary.

One day he’ll just get tired from all of this and will forcefully bend me over in some dark murky corner, you darkly conclude, the remnants of the sleep leaving your body entirely at the grim thought. Or maybe he will break his promise not to cheat and will order me to do it.

Unwilling to think about the Ninth Wave of your unwanted relationships, you quickly stand up from the bed and start preparing for the day. Dressing and freshening up from the sleep you still mentally return to the darker place, cautious of what Tartaglia will pull out this time. Finally, you exit the door fully ready and lock the room, hiding the key under the clothes after, and make way to the fourth floor of the bank.

Here lies Childe’s working space and personal quarters , and if the former can be easily seen and entered just by walking up the stairs, the latter is hidden from view by the wall and massive door. There is a wide work desk and two armchairs placed too close for your comfort. You peek into the interior window, only to find it veiled by a thick curtain from the other side, so you decide to broaden the space between the chairs.

Satisfied with distance now, you sit at your place, taking a sheet out of the pile of documents, mostly consisting of reports of credits approved and money returned, unusually mundane yet highly classified information. Aside from accompanying Childe when he needs to beat and threaten the debts out of deadbeats, you also have to track the transactions the bank makes, a routine job consuming most of your daytime.

At the sixth or seventh fiscal account, you hear door opening and mentally brace for Ajax’s presence. Harbinger doesn’t smile, looking serious instead. You hope it has nothing to do with you, as it’s too early in the day for you to already deal with his usual mess.

“[First]”, you look up, staring at the bizarrely humorless Ajax looming over your sitting form. He clears his throat, as if he feels awkward right now, “Are you sure you won’t have one of your episodes?”

Your mind blanks for a second and then there’s a mix of shame and anger flooding your being and making you see red. Over the last months you spent working with him, he was the sole trigger of your affliction and now there are considerable gaps in your memory, in which you have absolutely no clue what happened to you. You had an inkling that Childe is aware that you are not always completely here, but a slap in the face with such casual mention is enough to render you wordless for a good minute.

“I... It happens only under certain circumstances”, you find your voice wavering and his face darkens, as he quickly catches unsaid ‘because of you’. Fortunately, he decides not to press it.

“There’s a problem at hands, one that needs your skills". These words make you do a double take - Ajax doesn't look like he's lying, speech lacking usual grandiose and bravado, yet you still can't believe he lets you return to your former work. You make a quick guess.

“Qixing?”

“Qixing” he nods,"their spies must have learned something about the sigils. It's a minor issue now, but if Tianquan or Yuheng will learn about it…"

"A diplomatic disaster and a permanent loss of Geo Archon's gnosis" you continue for him, “Fatui would be banned or seriously limited in Liyue and most of trade routes will be cut off, Ningguang can easily press sanctions against most of Snezhnayan import”. You frown at the thought, no matter what Fatui would do in such situations there's too much to lose and almost nothing to gain, even if you start destroying the investigation and replication of sigils right now, it will be a waste of possible weapons against Rex Lapis.

Then, there's one painless exit from the complicated mess: destruction of all meager material evidence and clues they somehow scraped together. Despite finally having a glimpse of a freedom, you don’t feel any excitement, but doubt instead - just a year ago, such operation would be another routine task for you, but now, having wasted months because of Childe's possessiveness, you can't help but feel incompetent.

You contemplate, glancing at him: on one hand, Tartaglia can easily send any other agents, but on the other hand, none of said agents possess a vision, a vision that you specifically molded to be a perfect tool for stealth and assassinations. He tilts his head, a hand impatiently drumming against the desk, waiting for your answer - you can infer his inner monologue - Tartaglia, just like you, is torn between his loyalty to Tsaritsa and his own feelings on the matter and this is what finally cements your decision.

You can almost see how much he itches to forbid you from taking the mission, but stops himself out of his sense of duty to Snezhnaya, and this knowledge fills you with darker type of satisfaction to the very brim: You lean back, pretending to still ponder over his words, enjoying the view of apprehensive Childe for once.

“I think, I can’t...” you start, your voice deliberately small and hesitant, watching how Ajax smiles again, convinced that you no longer have any confidence in your abilities, “let Snezhnaya be compromised in any way”.

He doesn’t let any of the anger and frustration show on his face, yet the drumming ceases, leaving you two in the silence, save for the sounds of the street coming out of the window.

You know you’re poking at the sleeping tiger, letting a childish impulses to guide your words, but the opportunity to upset Harbinger are much harder to come by these days: he took away your job, your delusion and your freedom, the least he can do to compensate is suffer in return.

“Alright”, he finally says and fails to hold back disappointed sigh “agent [Last]. Your delusion is in Ekaterina’s possession, just as the rest of the equipment. You will start tonight, information is in the upper left drawer. You have no right to fail, if you do I will write a complaint to Tsaritsa against you and personally oversee that you will be discharged”.

It’s a gambling game then, and terribly unfair at that - even if you win it won’t set you free or relocate under someone easier to handle and Tartaglia loses virtually nothing by allowing you to roam out of his sight for one night only, and by failing you will literally had your life into Childe’s eager hands.

You won’t let the bastard triumph.

***

After getting your gear and delusion back, you spend the rest of the day reading the data and mentally preparing for what is about to come. The qixing base you're to infiltrate is located awfully near the current place of sigil research, as if Ningguang or whoever planted it here already suspected Fatui from the start. The base itself is disguised as an ancient Liyuen ruin with a couple of deactivated ruin hunters placed nearby to scare off the adventurers who no doubt will try to explore it.

You are almost panting when you finally reach it - turns out that despite being easily visible from afar, the base is surrounded by the tall and steep cliffs from all sides, with the only passage bound to be guarded. Invoking to the power of your vision, you effortlessly become invisible to the eye, enter the building and almost rush back the same second - there’s a millelith passing nearby in whom you almost bumped in.

Heart racing you enter the building again, walking on half bent legs to minimize the sounds, and avoid milleliths on your way. They feel a sudden rush of frosty air, but seeing no one nearby, just write it off as a sudden midnight chill. You continue to make your way, peeking into each room, forcing yourself to remain in this form longer and longer, body aching and freezing from the overuse. Finally you see it - a stack of documents placed on the bamboo table near the oil lamp in a conveniently empty room.

Your hand is already extended to push the lamp and fake an accidental fire, when you decide to investigate the papers - it’s better to learn what qixing already knows. Your eyes quickly peruse a liyuen script, characters upon other characters - a report about suspicious activities, a detailed intelligence of Northland’s spendings and thankfully, not a word of sigils, except the note stating that Fatuis are buying a considerable amount of paper and ink.

Having memorized each of the documents, you throw the lamp now, a flame quickly spreading to the documents and soon consuming a whole table. Someone in the corridor screams about fire, four milleliths rushing in the room and you use this distraction to sneak out. Having escaped the borders of the faux ruin you quickly run, still maintaining invisibility, and only when you reach the cliffs again do you allow yourself to rest.

After climbing over the rocks, the rest of the trail is spent between jogging and walking, frost from the vision still residing inside. Bitter chill slows down your movements and you can’t help, but shiver from time to time, arms and legs aching and burning from it. You eye the pyro delusion and consider using it - unlike a cryo vision that you sculpted for secrecy and agility, the delusion is more battle-focused, able to produce quick bursts of fire in the rare occasions you get into a brawl.

Suddenly, a ball of flames explodes near you - a whopperflower bursts out of the ground, sensing you in proximity. You dodge another fireball, instinctively flinching at the sudden flash of light and send an ice blade it's way. It slightly grazes the creature's skin, yet a mimetic plant rushes back under the ground as you summon another icicle and swiftly stab it in the "head" the second it emerges again.

The plant dies in convulsion, it’s reddish walls contracting around the blade, a fast stream of boiling hot energy nectar shooting from the wound the moment you pull away the weapon. You curse, as some of the liquid hits you on the leg, burning a part of your pants and scorching the flesh underneath. Hissing and gritting teeth, you use your vision again, now to soothe a throbbing pain.

Well, at least I am not freezing anymore.

You return at the first rays of dawn, dull pain still lingering in the lower body, pulsating and echoing every step. Slightly drowsy Nadia at the entrance nods at you, her gaze at your wound obvious even with a mask on, and you nod back, a wordless exchange providing a slight reprieve, before you have to deal with Childe again.

“Hard day?”, she asks right before you enter, a pale shadow of concern in her voice. You frown, confused by the sudden disquiet.

“Something happened?”

“Uhm”, a small pause, “the boss. He was restless tonight, very restless”.

Ah, shit.

“Well, that is unpleasant” you deadpan, any remaining desire to go inside the bank vanishing the same second: “Thank you anyways” and then you step in.

Harbinger waits right there in an absolutely empty lobby - it seems that Ekaterina’s shift hasn't started yet. He’s leaning on the wall, head turning to you as you enter and immediately noticing the state of your leg. His expression grows darker, when you thought he would lighten up at your perceived failure instead.

"Who did this to you?" he asks, hints of steel appearing in his voice. You lift your eyebrows - no teasing, starters or bravado. Maybe he's so impatient to hear about your failure that he forgot to keep up the act?

You swat away his question, deciding to report on your mission instead - documents were destroyed by a set up accident, none of the qixing and milleliths saw you; he doesn’t seem to listen though, eyes still glued to the burn and then he repeats his question, voice taking the dangerous tone.

“No one, no one did it. It was an accident on the way back”, he isn’t convinced judging by the way he grabs your arm, his monstrous strength evident in the steel trap grip. “Damn” you cuss, trying to free your hand - if Tartaglia learns that you let the whopperflower of all things injure you, he won’t let you live it down and will weaponise it, to point out your so-called incompetence over and over again.

“Let me go” you tug harder, a vision coming back to life from the distress. You pull away your wrist from him again and again and then you hear it first and feel it second - a small cracking sound and a sharp pain, shooting up your arm - you broke a bone. It’s too sudden for you to realize what happened or even properly sense the shock of ache.

He lets go of you in the same second, eyes looking blankly at the injured hand. His lips thin and he exhales, in a long and strangely controlled manner - seeing Childe act and look so emotionless is sure bizarre. He hauls you up bridal carry style, ripping out a low hiss of pain as his clothes rub against the burn, and directs himself to the stairs. You're too busy gritting your teeth and trying not to cry in front of Childe to notice him climbing past the third floor and only when he opens the door to his room with a kick do you finally snap back to reality.

Despite working for him for months now, you enter his quarters for the first time. It's a spacious place, with a wide bed and writing desk located near the window. There are different weapons decorating the walls - swords, claymores, spears - all with the traces of use, and a small pile of trinkets and children's toys on the desk, placed right near the started letter, some of them already half wrapped - must be a gift for someone, then.

He sets you down on the bed and turns to the wall, taking a dagger from its place and some small container. A part of you gets scared all of the sudden - you remember your morning thoughts and all those instances when his eyes focused on your body for far too long to be innocent or comfortable. Is this it? Did he get so fed up with you that he decided to drop any pretense and abandon the cat-and-mouse game you two seemed to have?

Ignoring the pain in both limbs you jolt for the exit - there’s no meaning in fighting him, yet you can still flee, lock in your room and then plan what to do. “Stop it” he says, a warning clear in his voice, and to your frustration it’s enough to glue you in place. You look at him, heart booming in your chest, barely suppressing a flinch at every step he’s taking. He leads you back to the bed, as you feel the world warping around you again and the worst part is that you can’t stop it - It’s unfair, I can’t leave, not yet, I will hate myself for the rest of my life if it happens.

He kneels down, blade slicing through the pants as you forget how to breath. His figure deforms, a dark blue sea leaking out of the dead fish eyes and you see great leviathans lurking underneath the surface. Childe is the ocean, in a sense that he contains horrors beyond the human imagination. He is the great sleeping kraken that will swallow the world and you are his first victim.

His hand takes something out of the container and you expect it to burn and to hurt you, but instead there’s a muffled soothing feeling that comes, an unintentional “ah” coming out of your mouth. He doesn’t force himself and patches you up on the contrary.

You come back to yourself little by little, when he almost finishes with ministrations, leg and wrist looking like two casts. It feels bizarre to come back to your body halfway, to see Ajax kneeling in front of you, head hung low and it’s even weirder to hear his voice, hurt and utterly defeated: “So that’s what you think of me”.

He helps you come back to your room, as you still feel dazed. You pinch yourself a couple of times, still unable to believe that any of these happenings are real, they are.

A turning point, you conclude, there’s no way anything will stay the same after this.

You both dread and anticipate the changes.

#yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin x reader #yandere childe x reader #yandere childe #yandere tartaglia #yandere genshin impact x reader #Reader is unreliable narrator #It's not super obvious here #But it will be evident later #yandere #childe #tartaglia #yandere x reader #my writing

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nothing-but-dreamy · 3 years ago

Text

ON THE EDGE ~ Pt. 1

Summary: YN is a Detective and the partner of Gavin Reed, number one douchebag of the Detroit City Police Department. After a forced break, she comes back. She’s looking forward to working with her partner again and to getting back into her ‘normal’ life between case files and criminals. But, of course, it doesn’t stay boring for too long: Gavin seemed to be more on the edge than usual, a Red Ice dealer might be a good lead to something bigger and then, there is Connor, the friendly, handsome android and Hank’s new partner.

Added to the fact that yn has to deal with the criminal world again, she also discovers feelings she hasn’t noticed before triggered by a person she hasn’t expected.

Her life always resembled a ride on a rollercoaster.

But now, it’s a whole damn circus parade.

Characters: Gavin Reed, YN (FEMALE!Reader), Hank Anderson, Connor

Words: 2.472

Warnings: signs of PTSD (flashbacks in italics), cursing (a lot), mention of blood

"He's totally crazy. He shoots at everything that moves. It's impossible to get close to him.", yn stated. "But we have to stop him somehow."

"Stay here. I have an idea. Over there, the left spot is free. He will barely notice me.", Gavin said and pointed in the direction.

"Gavin, no!", Yn cursed as he slipped through her grip, "Gavin!", she tried again to call him back but her partner was already too far away, "Fuck!"

Gavin ran to the left side like mentioned. Yn stayed behind the hide and watched the scene concerned. She was trying to cover Gavin whenever needed. What Gavin couldn't notice was that the crazy guy had seen him.

Even if she tried everything to get the guy's attention, Yn watched in horror how the suspect aimed at Gavin who sneaked through the room completely unaware that he was the target in the line of fire.

The suspect aimed his gun into Gavin's direction and waited til he would appear on the other side of the pillar where Gavin tried to hide.

There was no way that yn would be able to stop the guy. He was too far away and behind a half broken wall. But she was convinced that she could help Gavin. That was what she did without thinking twice: she ran towards Gavin. As she reached him to push him out of the way, the suspect fired his gun two times.

Of course Gavin was cursing as he hit the ground unexpectedly, not knowing what had pushed him. He hurried to get back on his feet and as he saw that the suspect's gun had been running out of bullets, Gavin shot to stop him.

Gavin made sure that the suspect was no threat anymore. Officers were running into the room to arrest the shooter. And only then, Gavin noticed yn lying on the ground and all the blood pouring from her body...

Gasping for air, Gavin started up from his sleep and sat straight in his bed, "Fuck...", he cursed breathlessly. He was dripping with sweat, his hair clutching to his face. Three o'clock in the morning. Just two hours of sleep but still more than the night before...or all the other nights during the past weeks.

Gavin pushed his blanket away, sat on the edge of his bed and rested his face in his hands to calm down himself. His fingers were digging into his hair violently as he desperately tried to get the memories out of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut until stars were dancing in front of his inner eyes.

A shudder was shaking him. Goosebumps were spreading over his naked chest. To sit around like this, covered in sweat, wouldn't do anything good. And because he was already awake, Gavin stood up, took his boxing gloves and started to train until the pictures in his head would disappear.

He knew this would never happen.

He should have been better.

He had failed yn.

To stay in front of this certain building after all these long weeks felt like coming home. At least, for yn. She was nervous but in a good way that shot adrenaline through her body. It was like the first day at school after the summer break. She didn't have to fear anything. Everyone would be happy to see her again. And yet, she extended the moment to go in. It was not an official visit. She just wanted to come back because...she feared to miss too many things.

Yn had heard the rumors of Hank's new partner. An android. Then, there were the happenings that got called 'War of Detroit', the successful android revolution. So many things had changed and yet, yn knew that there was still this one, certain absolute term. Her own rock in this ocean of craziness she could always depend on: Gavin Reed, her partner.

Yn was looking forward to seeing all the familiar faces again and without waiting any longer, she entered the DPD finally.

Gavin stood in the kitchen of the DPD at one of the tables, his back facing the office so he hadn't to see anyone. The last thing he wanted was to talk with someone. A cup of coffee stood in front of him. He watched the foam floating around on the dark liquid. It was his third cup. And it wouldn't be the last.

"Good morning, Detective Reed."

Gavin nodded without looking up. Even if Gavin had made his peace with Connor, the nice android from the neighborhood, he was still getting on his nerves from time to time. This morning was such a 'time'. His thoughts always drifted back to his recurring dreams of yn…

"Reed.", Hank greeted Gavin, who nodded quickly. Without asking, Hank and Connor joined Gavin at the table. An own cup of coffee in front of Hank. He sugared it and stirred the liquid that would start his day.

Connor was about to say something, maybe to light up the mood of these two grumpy guys, but Hank stopped him, "Shit! Look who's there.", he said and looked at someone behind Gavin's back.

Gavin looked up and saw Hank and Connor staring at the same spot so, he turned around, "No fucking way!", Gavin called out surprised and approached yn quickly who stood in the passage of the kitchen. A smirk was spreading on his lips as he saw her in the familiar environment.

Yn smiled and waved but as she saw Gavin's predatory glance and the smirk, she stepped back and raised her hands to stop him, "Gavin, no. Stop! Gavin!" The impact of her partner knocked all the air out of her lungs.

He snaked his arms around her waist and scooped her up, "I have missed you, shorty!", he cheered.

Yn chuckled until she got put back down on her feet a moment later, "I have missed you, too, idiot!", she said. Together, Gavin and yn went back to the table to Hank and Connor, "I'm- what? Away for six weeks and everything went south? Detroit fights a civil war against androids who started a revolution? Everything's a warzone, suddenly and I'm not a part of that? Boys, I thought you could handle it better without me.", she said smirking and crossed her arms.

"We did what we could but there were just too many of these things.", Gavin said serious.

As yn looked at Gavin with an amused expression, her eyes fell on the fourth person at the table, "Oh, and who are you?"

"My name is Connor.", the android answered.

"My new partner.", Hank added.

"Your new- bloody hell! I already heard the rumors but- Nice to meet you. I'm yn. Whenever you need help with the old man, come to me.", yn said with a wink.

"Very funny!" Hank grunted but yn saw the grin on his face.

As Gavin saw the glances between Connor and yn, he stepped between them. Gavin wasn't fond of the way the android looked at her.

"So, you're 'back' back?", Gavin asked hopefully.

"I'm still not fully recovered. I have to attend a few dates with the psycho-doc AND I have to pass the shooting test. Then I will be back. I guess one more week. I just have missed all this so much, I had to come over.", yn said grinning.

"I guess, there will be no problem for you to pass everything, kiddo.", Hank said encouragingly.

"Thanks Hank-"

"Of course, she will pass all this bullshit! And then, she will be back. The precinct was way too boring without you!", Gavin said excitedly.

Yn saw his eyes sparkling and the familiar grin. She considered saying something nice but she always loved to tease this douchebag. It was their thing, "No new recruits to torture, huh?"

Gavin's smile faltered and he squinted his eyes as he saw her smirking, "I never-"

Yn nodded understandingly, "Ohh...I see... No women to hunt either? You poor thing!", she patted his cheek to act playfully caring.

Gavin couldn't do anything else than just to laugh before he brought her into a bear hug, completely enveloping her, "Oh, how much I have missed you!", Gavin stepped back, ruffled her hair, and laid his arm around her shoulders before they walked to his desk.

Connor watched after them. Overwhelmed by her entrance, the way she was handling Gavin and how different the Detective was around her, "Where was she?", he asked Hank finally.

Confused, Hank looked at his partner, "What?"

"Where was yn? She said she was gone for several weeks. Where had she been? Vacation?"

"Oh .. uhmm, no. She... During their last case, she got injured. She had to recover. It's good that she will be back soon, tho.", Hank explained, smiling about the fact yn was coming home.

"Detective Reed seems different around her.", Connor stated, still confused about all the smiles and laughter coming from Reed.

"I guess it's her magical power. She's able to handle him where anyone else failed a long time ago."

Connor looked at her once again. Yn stood with Gavin, Chris and some other cops at the desk, talking and laughing. She was truly magical. Nice, funny, cheeky, beautiful. He was looking forward to working with her. Then, she came back to them.

"Hey, I got appetite for the best burger in town. Wanna join?", she called over to Hank who nodded with a grin. Gavin rolled his eyes but she just nudged him in his side. Connor got dragged out of his thoughts and followed his three colleagues. Yn already waited for him to join. Much to Gavin's dismay she linked her arm with the android's one but he swallowed down his annoyance for the greater good.

They drove to the Chicken Feed truck. The best burger in town, how Hank had titled them. While the three made their orders, Connor organized a table. All three went to the table with burgers and drinks. Simultaneously, they bit into their burgers.

"You know, this meal contains 1.4 times the recommended daily intake of calories. You shouldn't eat-"

"Shut up!", Gavin and Hank yelled at the same time. Connor silenced instantly.

Yn looked alternating at Hank and Gavin before she stopped at Connor, "Connor, honey, very important rule: don't fuck the boys up when it comes to their food. It's not a good idea."

"But it's unhealthy.", Connor argued innocently.

Yn nodded slowly, knowing what he meant before she looked at her burger closely, "Well, I’m spotting salad, tomato and even pickles on our burgers. These are three different types of vegetables. It's more healthier than everything else we're used to consuming. Don't forget that we usually got fueled by coffee and donuts. Only."

Connor nodded and let them eat. He had learnt that humans knew how to live the best way but some of them didn't just want to do it right. Maybe it wasn’t for him to change their behaviour.

"Hey, sweety. Want some bread?”, Yn asked and threw a small piece of bread on the ground.

Hank followed the way of her attention and rolled annoyed with his eyes, "Oh, these disgusting creatures!", Hank muttered. Yn looked questioningly up to Connor.

"Lieutenant Anderson doesn't like pigeons.", Connor explained.

"That sounds like a story. I wanna know it!", yn said amused with a big grin, waiting for Hank to speak up.

Hank grinned but shook his head, "Someday, I will tell you what I had to endure with this guy but not now.", Hank said and he and Connor said goodbye. Hank hugged yn before they left her and Gavin alone.

Gavin and yn started to walk around a bit, enjoying the sunny winter day, "You look tired. Have you been very busy the last few weeks?", yn asked.

"No, it was okay. Nothing much. The typical stuff, you know.", Gavin said, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket, playing with some coins.

"Oh, yeah... So, you just didn't want to see me then?", she asked, looking at him from the corner of her eyes, watching his reaction.

Gavin avoided her eyes, looking at the ground, "Yn…", he sighed, "I…", but he stopped. Unsure what he should say.

Yn nudged him with her shoulder, a soft smile on her lips as she saw his pained expression, "It's okay. I'm not mad. I was just… it was boring, you know. If you would have visited more often, maybe it would have been more fun to recover.", she said jokingly but it wasn't working, the painful expression stayed in his face.

"I really doubt that.", Gavin said low, still not able to look at her.

"What?", Yn asked surprised and stopped.

Gavin stopped as well, facing her with his back, "I- I… forget it.", Gavin said and was about to go but yn stopped him with her hand holding his arm and turning him around.

"Gavin, what is it?"

Gavin needed a moment before he looked at yn, as he did, it was with a serious expression, "It's my fault that you got injured in the first place."

Slightly taken aback that it was this topic that still bothered him, yn frowned and looked at him with big eyes and shaking her head, "No. It was the fault of this fucker-"

"No! You wouldn't have been shot if I hadn't been so stupid! I have failed you as a partner and as a friend!", Gavin called out angrily, torturing himself.

Yn intervened right away, "Stop that, Gavin! It's not your fault, okay? Your idea was good. This guy was simply just too crazy."

Gavin dropped his gaze, not able to look into her eyes any longer. For him it didn’t feel right to get forgiveness from her, "I should have been in your place instead. Two more scars on my body wouldn't make any difference to all the others I already have."

Yn stepped forward to search his glance, "You feel guilty, I get that. But ... you don't have to, okay? And beside, I know you and your luck. You would have been killed instead of just being injured.", a smirk playing on her lips.

Finally, Gavin looked at her again. He chuckled low by the face she made: a too overexcited grin to cheer him up. No matter how down he felt, yn was able to let him feel better. Always. Even just for a moment. He stepped forward and brought her into a bone crushing embrace, "It's so good to have you back.", he said softly into her hair.

Yn was surprised about the sudden outburst of emotions but she hugged him back, enjoying this moment to the fullest, "Yeah. And you know what? I can't wait to kick some asses with you again."

#gavin reed x reader #gavin x reader #gavin reed #dbh #dbh gavin #detroit become human #dbh connor #hank anderson #reader #fanfiction #detroit become human connor

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miceenscene · 4 years ago

Text

'tis the damn season

frankie/reader | childhood friends to lovers | pre-canon

wc: 1.8k/2.5k

summary: At one point in your lives, you knew Frankie better than anyone else on earth. When did that change?

warnings: none

an: don't let anyone tell you that second person doesn't work from another character's perspective, least of all yourself while editing

Masterpost | ao3

Chapter 2: Who am I Related to?

December 8, 2012 18:57

Hudson’s was a shitty bar just up highway 210 outside of Fort Bragg, the nearest watering hole to the base as the crow flies.

As a result, it served pretty damn near exclusively military personnel. When it changed ownership about four years back, the new management decided to reflect that and so the place looked like the Fourth of July and Top Gun had thrown up on it. Never mind that Fort Bragg was an Army base. Still, they had cheap booze and greasy food that was far better than the commissary, so it was always busy.

Pope had texted the usual suspects a few hours ago that he was heading to Hudson’s that evening, making Frankie immediately ditch his plans of drinking alone for drinking with Pope and whoever else showed up. Most likely just Benny and Ironhead now that Redfly had semi-retired down to Florida. It was a short drive to the bar from the dorms on base, but it was enough to make Frankie groan and press hands to his lower back as he got out of his car and made his way inside.

Pope was sitting at the bar and didn’t look up from texting on his phone as Frankie gingerly eased into the stool next to him.

“Hey, Fish,” Pope said, rereading the email.

“Hey.” At the bartender’s attention, Frankie pointed to Pope’s beer before daring a slight back stretch.

Pope sent his email and then looked over. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just finished PT.”

He chuckled once. “Back still fucked?”

“More tired than fucked anymore,” Frankie managed, shaking his head and wincing. The bartender delivered his beer, and Frankie took a swig. “When did we get old?”

“¿De qué estás hablando ‘nosotros’, viejo?”

Frankie jabbed an elbow and grinned slightly down at his next swig. “Culero.”

“Hey, before everyone gets here–” Pope looked at him, an oddly serious expression on his face for their usual bar. “I found out today you haven’t re-enlisted yet.”

Frankie immediately dropped his gaze to the suddenly very interesting glass in his hand. “Ah, no. No, I haven’t.”

“I’m trying to pull strings to get Benny into our unit full-time. I think he’d fit well with the team. Then Simmons tells me you haven’t signed your new papers yet. So what’s up?”

Frankie glanced over to see Pope still focused on him. “Nothing, nothing. I… I’m still thinking about it.”

He chuckled. “What’s there to think about?”

“We all want out someday, right? If we’re lucky enough to choose when we leave.”

“Yeah, but there’s thinking and thinking.” Pope smacked his shoulder. “What – are you gonna become a real estate agent like Redfly?”

No. Definitely not. Even just the idea of shilling condos was enough to make Frankie’s eyes glaze over. But still–

“Real estate agents make more money than we do.”

Pope made a considering face for a moment then brushed it off. “Yeah, but you’d miss it. You’re like me. We like the rush.”

Frankie nodded slightly. This is why he was still just thinking about it. It wasn’t a small thing to walk away from fourteen years with the Army. Especially since everyone knew the retirement benefits were absolute shit until you hit twenty. But he could already tell, he didn’t have another six years in him. He wasn’t even sure he had another deployment.

“You know the deadline’s New Year’s, right?” Pope said, cutting through his thoughts.

“Yeah, I know. I have some leave I have to take before the year’s out anyway.”

Pope nodded. “Good. Clear your head, get some perspective. See how fucking boring civvy life is, and then come back Jan 2 and join my team.”

Frankie smiled wryly; Pope always could make anything sound easy. “Something like that.”

“You have holiday plans then?” he asked, leaning an elbow on the bar.

Frankie sucked in breath. “I guess I’ll go back to my parents’. My mom’s been wanting me to visit for a while now.”

“How long’s it been?”

“I saw them in DC last summer, but I haven’t been back home… since I joined Delta.”

“Remind me where they’re at.”

“Up north. Little town in the middle of nowhere. Still in the same house I grew up in.” He could picture the wreath on the door, the twinkling lights his dad always strung across the front fence every December. A matching set used to be hung on the fence exactly opposite across the street. Who lived there now, he wondered. Would they put the tree in the front window too?

“Soldier coming home for Christmas. Sounds like a Hallmark movie.”

“Fuck you,” Frankie replied as the others finally arrived.

Frankie got his answer as he ducked out the front door of his parent’s house about a week later. His breath immediately fogged as he sucked in a few calming breaths of night air, the pressure in his head slowly levelling. Out in the still darkness, the noise level coming from the living room was finally manageable. Inside, with all of his cousins and his aunts and uncles and the music and everyone talking over each other and the heater set far too high for the number of people inside– he… he just needed a break.

Seven hours was a decent stint for his first day. He’d be around longer tomorrow. Wading in. That was the key. Because he was now the kind of person that had to treat time with his family like running a marathon. Apparently.

He walked down to the twinkling front fence, making a mental note to shovel the front walk tomorrow, and stopped. The house across the street – your house, as it would forever be in his mind – was completely dark. A small sign posted in the front yard announced some sort of home refurbishment company was going to be arriving soon. No doubt they would come in, strip away wallpaper and old tile and heart to paint it all beige and granite for the quick resell.

He hadn’t had the heart to ask his mother yet how long the house hadn’t belonged to your family. No need for another reminder of how much time had passed, how much he’d missed. He had more than enough already.

The front door opened behind him, casting a temporary warm glow across the dark snow, and his dad stepped out, pipe in hand. He meandered down the front steps to join Frankie at the gate, puffing a few times before speaking.

He shook his head. “It’d break his heart to see it so empty, but I understand why she sold,” he said, looking at the forlorn house with him.

“How long ago?” Frankie asked.

“Few months. Not too long after the funeral.” Dad looked his way for a moment. “I’ll give it ten minutes before I tell your mother you left.”

“I… thanks,” he replied weakly.

“Will you be back tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back.”

Dad nodded slowly, leaving just the pipe smoke wafting between them for a minute. “Take it slow, no need to rush.”

“Thanks.” He stepped through the gate, fishing in his pocket for his car keys.

“Francisco,” he said, making Frankie stop and look at him. “We’re glad you’re back.”

Frankie just nodded and went to his car. Even though he couldn’t bear another minute in the noisy press of his loved ones, the idea of going back to his lonely hotel room was truly abysmal. So after some finagling with the ignition, he started the engine and headed to the one bar he’d ever been to in his hometown.

There were Christmas lights in the window and a dancing Santa on the bar as Frankie walked in. Some sort of forcibly cheery holiday classic played over the speakers tucked between quirky memorabilia that hung over every square inch of wall space. And even though public smoking had been outlawed by the state well over a decade ago, cigarette stench had sunk into the very foundation of the place.

It was nothing like Frankie remembered. But it would do.

Eyes automatically sweeping across the moderately busy room for a Thursday night, he headed for a stool at the far end of the bar, ordering a beer when the bartender came by. It was just one step up from swill, but comfortably numbing in its mediocrity. He looked across the room again, checking for familiar faces this time and finding none. No surprise there. A decade was a long time, and really he hadn’t been around too much for the years before that too.

There were couples on dates here, friend groups, some sort of girls’ night happening in the corner, a few loners like him hovering at the bar. Most everyone was smiling, talking, laughing so hard their whole bodies shook. A whole world of Normal. And Frankie was a tourist.

Pope was right. He couldn’t go back to this. He couldn’t make it through one whole day with blood relatives anymore. What was he thinking? That he could just settle into a normal life like the last decade of his work was nothing? Get a 9-to-5 and a mortgage and a girl – not that he’d ever had too much luck in that department. Especially when there was one girl that eclipsed all others, and he didn’t even know her phone number any more.

The door opened, making the Santa on the bar dance, and every thought in Frankie’s head immediately stopped. His eyes drew wide as he stared, jaw barely restrained from slapping against his chest. Was it really – course it was, there wasn’t anyone else it could be. A whole century could pass, and he’d still know that face.

It was you.

Live, in the flesh you. Cheeks pinked from the wind, haloed by the street lights outside, wrapped in a truly astonishing number of woolen layers. Not a half-remembered fantasy, but Real and breathing and even more beautiful than his memory had claimed.

He watched you shake a few flurries out of your hair and stomp the excess snow off your boots, shutting the door behind you as you waved to the bartender. Your gaze swung across the bar, completely skimming past him, and landed on the girls’ night in the corner. You smiled. He stared.

You began to head over to the people you were obviously here to meet. On nothing but pure instinct, he immediately got out of his stool and followed you. Falling into step behind you, he stretched a hand forward to hook a few fingers inside your elbow.

You looked back at him, and for a heart-breaking breath there was no recognition in your eyes.

Till he gave you a half-smile and said, “Hey Bo.”

You blinked, mouth dropping open. “Frankie?” you asked.

He nodded.

Your astonishment ballooned so wide it froze your whole face solid for a moment. Then you laughed, out of far more shock than amusement, and gave him a smile all his own. “Oh my god!! You’re here!”

You immediately wrapped him in a hug. And though it took him a moment to return it, for the first time in ten whole years, he was home.

Chapter 3: Not my Homeland Anymore

taglist: @kelenloth ; @darnitdraco ; @gracie7209 ; @616wilsons ; @icanbeyourjedi ; @astroboots ;

#frankie morales #frankie morales x female reader #frankie morales x you #pedro pascal #pedro pascal character fic #triple frontier #frankie morales x reader #my writing #ttds

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roger-that-cap · 4 years ago

Text

jack pendleton

summary: moving into an apartment to get away from your last relationship was fun all fun and games until you met your extremely attractive across-the-hall neighbor, who makes awesome cookies and even better novels.

author!bucky x reader

warnings: no legitimate warnings besides swearing, it kind of moves just a weensie bit fast but i think it’s cute, minimal angst, I WROTE THIS IN ONE DAY and that is a warning tbh so expect mistakes in this hunk a junk-

word count: 6.2k!

Searching for your new apartment was a terribly long and boring process, but even you couldn’t deny that finally moving in was heavenly.

It was the first thing that you did by yourself after having a mutual break up with your boyfriend, and you would be damned if it felt anything but good. He confessed to you that he had fallen in love with a man that he met online. Not only that, but an Italian man that he was teaching English to over a website. He was brave enough to tell you as soon as he realized that he loved the man, so the heartbreak was minimal.

You never told him, but honestly, you sort of respected him for that. So, with your hidden respect and gratitude, you wished him well and knew that you were going to be the one to find a new place.

So there you stood, right in front of your new place with a singular box in your arms, all the others in the smallest U-Haul available to rent that you drove there. You stared at your door for a moment, which read an embroidered C7, and then you fiddled with your keys to unlock it.

You had a lot of work to do.

§§§

By the end of the fourth day, mostly all of your things were put away. You didn’t think you had much to begin with, but unpacking made you realize that you had more than you thought. So with your ambitious mind, you got everything done on your own, even the decorations that you had at your last appointment were on the walls.

By the seventh day, it was starting to feel like home again. And that called for a celebration. You got your purse and your car keys, your mind already in the shopping mall.

As you stepped out of your door, the door directly across from yours opened too. You didn’t pay them much mind besides flashing a smile and turning around to lock your own door, not even looking at whoever it was properly enough to see them. But when you did, you definitely did.

A man with long, brown hair and clear blue eyes was staring at you like a deer in the headlights, and you would have thought that he mistook you for a celebrity if it weren’t for the wrinkle of confusion on his forehead. The first thought that came to your mind was that he was as stiff as a board, and that it was almost comical. The second thought that came to your mind was that this man was very handsome, despite the way that he was looking at you like you had just said the dumbest thing known to man.

“Um, hello,” you said, not even having to be loud because you were just a few feet apart. You were tempted to be a smartass and say something rude about his incessant staring, but instead, you reminded yourself that you were going to have to deal with the consequences of your smart remark later on. Humiliation and awkwardness every time you saw him was not what you wanted. “Have a good day.”

You turned to your left and walked down the stairs, thankful that you lived on the edge of the hall and could just run down some steps to get away from whatever that “encounter” was.

§§§

The mall was utterly packed, but that didn’t matter to you at all. You were there to browse for something that was going to make you even happier after your move, and a few people in line weren’t going to bother you. You went in and out of clothing stores, buying a few things here and there, and then on your way out, you passed by a bookstore.

You liked books, you really did. But you were avoiding that store like the plague. For you to go into a bookstore with so many options available, you knew that the safest route for your budget was to know what you were getting from the second you walked in. You stood in front of it for a second, debating on going in without looking online beforehand or just coming back another day. Your own feet answered the question for you, and then you were entering the huge book store.

The shelves were high and wide and sturdy, dark brown and creating isles. Fantasy, Young Adult, Spiritual, Languages. The genres went as far as you could see. And that meant that if you weren’t wise, you could be buying a book from every aisle.

You counted the number of shelves, seeing that there were almost thirty as far as you knew, and then took out the two dice that you took with you everywhere, for reasons like this. You were indecisive, and two little cubes with black dots on them were as sure as it could get. They were your Decision Dice. They had never steered you wrong before, and today wouldn’t be the day. You were going to roll twice, and if the sum was a number less than ten, then you would multiply it by two, which was your lucky number. You liked to make things difficult.

You saw a woman staring at you with cautious eyes as you bent down and shook your closed hand, and you heard her chuckle when she saw the two little cubes roll out of your palm.

“Four,” you murmured once you saw three dots on one and one on the other. You picked them up and shook your hand again. “Three. That makes seven, and seven times two makes aisle fourteen.” You picked up the dice (that you would never admit came from your grandpa’s set of Yahtzee) and walked past the still laughing woman in the science fiction aisle.

Of course, aisle fourteen was the aisle that you probably had the least business in. Romance. You almost walked away and went for the fifteenth instead, but then what would the point in rolling be? What would stop you from denying the Decision Dice in later situations? You sighed for a second after your own dramatics and looked the shelves up and down, trying to find a title that grabbed you.

You walked up and down the aisle, slowly combing through until you saw a book on the bottom shelf by some Jack Pendleton. You frowned. It wasn’t often that you saw men’s names in the romance section, and when you did, you hardly liked what they wrote. The love interest was always flat or too out there to be believable. The female love interest in men’s books always had to be “not like other girls”, and it was worn out. For some reason, you reached down for it anyway, ready to see what you had already seen a million times before.

What you really ended up seeing shocked you.

It was about a man who served in the army oversees and came back an amputee, and became locked in a love triangle between his physical therapist and his best friend, all the while dealing with his sexuality.

That was a lot of man versus self. You wanted it.

You stood up and without second thought walked to the counter, handing the cashier the book and getting out your credit card.

§§§

You cracked open the book the second you threw your fast food trash away in your trash can. You made yourself comfortable on your little couch and put some light music on in the background, just so that it wouldn’t be completely silent. You didn’t do well with silence at all.

It took all of four pages for Jack Pendleton to surprise you again. His writing style was gorgeous and smooth, and you cold tell that he meant every word that was printed on the pages. His diction was brilliant, his descriptions even better. He didn’t give too much or too little, and you were already falling in love with it.

The main character, Elijah, was likeable but flawed. Within the first thirty pages, you could already sense that he was gaining feelings that he didn’t even know about for his best friend, Will, who wasn’t named until about forty pages at Elijah’ first physical therapy appointment. Will hadn’t even shown up yet.

You had blown through nearly half the book when you realized that it was eleven at night, and that you had work the next morning. You swore to yourself and put a smaller piece of paper in your book this time, looking at it longingly and patting it on the spine before leaving it on the small coffee table.

§§§

Work was horrible. It was boring, and you spent the whole first part of your day with a man who was mad at you specifically because you ran out of a special type of shoe that he needed to wear the next day. The store that you worked at wasn’t even really a shoe store. Then, he asked to see the manager. You were the shift manager. He got so pissed that he threw a hanger at you and stormed out, and all you could do was laugh.

You were so tired of retail, it wasn’t even funny.

You were a little more than a hundred and twenty pages in when there was a knock on your door, and it came right as you were about t flip the page. You resisted the urge to scream, completely and utterly fed up with the public for the day. There was no use in trying to ignore the knocking that already yanked your mind out of the fictional world, and so you left the book on your couch, sticking a piece of paper in it quickly to save your page.

You swung the door open, expecting to find someone who wanted you to fill out a survey or maybe even someone from maintenance making sure that everything was okay with your apartment. You certainly didn’t expect to see your beautiful neighbor with a pie in his gloved hands and a pink flush on his face.

He spoke first. “Hi, I live across the floor,” he pointed towards the door that you knew he lived behind. “I was just coming to bring you a welcoming gift.”

You were stunned. The man who stared you down and didn’t even say a word to you was at your door with what looked like a homemade pie, and wow, was that a turn of events. It was something straight out of that cheesy romance section that you were in at the bookstore. “Wow, thank you. You made that?”

The pink on his cheeks graduated to scarlet. “I-yeah, I did.”

You couldn’t contain the grin that stretched onto your face. “That’s really kind of you, thank you. I’m sure I’ll love it.” You gently took it from his hands and smiled up at him.

“It’s also an apology, for staring at you like that when you were leaving.” You noticed his subtle accent and fought the urge to swoon. He was so adorably shy. “No one’s lived in this one for years, and I didn’t notice you moving in. Kinda scared me.”

“You didn’t see the moving truck?” You asked teasingly.

You saw the small grimace on his face, and your smile faltered. “I don’t really go outside much,” he said vaguely, and you felt that you hit a nerve.

You shrugged with the pie still in your hands, lips turning upwards at him. “It’s okay, I don’t, either.”

You were both smiling now.

“Well, um,” he started to say, and you nodded your head at him, already knowing that he was about to go. “I have to finish something. I’ll see you later?”

“There’s a pretty good chance that you will,” you said, and he gave an awkward wave before turning around and walking away, right into his apartment without another look back. You cursed softly when he shut his door, and you looked down at the pie.

You didn’t even get his name.

§§§

You realized after five days of nothing (and cleaning out the pan of delicious pie by yourself) that you weren’t going to see your neighbor by chance. You hoped that you would, more than you hoped for anything else before. But he was right. He didn’t go outside much. The doors in the building were all so loud that it was nearly impossible not to hear them opening or shutting, and you never heard his once.

You had to do it yourself. Somehow, you needed to figure out how to see him again without it being incredibly weird, but you had a plan. In your eyes, it was pretty foolproof. Your mom’s chicken parmesan could never go wrong, and everyone liked to eat. You went to the grocery store without even having to roll the Decision Dice and got started on it the second you got home.

***

When it was done, there was a thin line of sweat on your forehead. You put a note to yourself in your head that the kitchen got insanely hot when you cooked, and you vowed to remember it next time. You took off your fancy apron and the chef’s hat that you wore for fun when you cooked and set it on the countertop. Now, the hard part came.

How were you supposed to get brave enough to bring a plate over to his place? Were you supposed to hope that he hadn’t eaten yet? Or, were you supposed to let him in to eat? Shit, that sounded too much like a date.

With all those thoughts in mind, you walked up to his door, C6, and knocked on it. You realized last minute that you forgot the plate on the table, so dinner was over at your apartment by default unless you did an awkward dash across the hall. The sound of boots coming towards the door were loud and clear, and then the door opened, barely giving you enough time to swallow your anxieties. You got a panging irrational fear that he wouldn’t remember you, but were relieved when he smiled down at you.

“Hi,” you said, sounding more like a telemarketer than a neighbor. “I made chicken parmesan.” It was silent for a few seconds as you both tried to make sense of what was happening, and you kicked yourself on the inside. “I made a plate for you because um, I wanted to thank you for the pie. It was really good.”

His face lit up, and it was like you were given a new burst of life and hope simultaneously. “Oh, thank you! That’s really sweet, thank you,” he repeated, his words getting slightly jumbled up the more and more he spoke. He was so cute.

You realized that the both of you were just staring at each other, standing with smiles that were increasingly leaning towards more than polite by the second. “I can, uh, bring it to your door if you want.”

“I can come over, if that makes it easier.” Both sentences were spoken at the same time, and it caused you both to apologize once again at the same time. “No, no, I’ll come back with you,” he said when you two finally spoke your own sentences.

You tilted your head. You were sure that he was shy, you could have bet money on him wanting to eat alone. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” he gave you a small smile and stepped out of his apartment, and suddenly, you were aware of how he smelled like a bakery. Flower, sugar, apples, cinnamon, the whole nine. Your eyes widened when you smelled more of it when he shut his door. It smelled amazing. You didn’t want to be greedy, but whatever he had in there, you wanted a slice.

Your apartment smelled good, but in the opposite way. It smelled like sauce and spices and chicken, like a good kitchen. You almost laughed when you saw his eyes widen after he caught a whiff. His eyes scanned the table that was already set up for one, and he saw all the food in the middle and only grew more surprised.

“You did all of this yourself?”

You didn’t think it was a big deal. You knew how to plate food and you knew how to cook it fine, but it wasn’t too special, in your opinion. It was second nature because of your mother, but you could always go for a nice compliment. “Yeah, I have fun cooking.”

“It looks amazing,” he said softly, and you smiled at him.

“Let’s hope it tastes as good.”

It felt oddly domestic. You got his plate for him and watched him make his first because he was the guest, and you warned him about touching the hot pan, even though he didn’t seem worried about it with his gloves on. You asked him if he wanted wine, water, or soda, and he got his own glass of water after saying that he felt bad making you do it. By the time you sat down and started twirling your fork in your spaghetti, you were starving.

You heard him take his first bite more than you saw him do it. “Holy-” he put his hand in front of his mouth. “You made this here?”

You laughed. “Mhm.”

“Are you a chef, or something?”

You were flattered. “No, but my mother is,” and man, was she a cook. She could cook anything and make it taste good if you gave her a flame. Always, she had pressured you into knowing how to make a meal, because making a meal meant providing for yourself and everyone else in your family. You watched him cut into a piece of chicken and put it in his mouth, smiling when he gave you the “food look”. “She taught me everything I know.”

“Well, I’m about to call her and thank her,” he joked, and you giggled, twirling your own fork and getting some spaghetti in your mouth. You tilted your head. It was pretty good.

“And what about you? You can bake,” and there he was, all shy again, and you loved it. “Where did you learn?”

“My father’s a baker,” he said, and a slow smile spread across your face.

“Well, would you look at that,” you said, nodding your head in thought. He smiled back.

“Would you look at that.”

For a second, just like the two of you had done many times before, you were stuck in a world where there wasn’t anything else, not even the food. It was just his smile and yours, and the fact that somehow both of you knew that the moment was genuine.

“I’m so sorry, what’s your name?” He blurted, and you frowned.

“My name?” A flame of embarrassment and shame shot through you. You were fawning over a man that you didn’t even know the name of yet. You sister would be disgusted with you. “Oh, have we really not said our names yet?”

“I guess not...” he said, voice trailing off at the end.

“Well, good thing names aren’t that important.”

He gave you an intrigued look. “Names aren’t important?”

“They can be, but sometimes they don’t mean a thing. You can learn so much about someone before learning their name, and when you do, nothing changes what you already know. I cook and I like spending money in book stores, and you bake and stay inside. That doesn’t change after we learn names.”

He looked like he had just reached cloud nine. “You like books?”

“Of course I do,” you said, and your eyes trailed over to the book that was sitting on your couch. “I actually took that little name bit from what I learned from a book, so I won’t take credit for that.”

“What book was so in depth and interested with names?”

“I don’t even think that the main focus was the name, I think it was the opposite. His name didn’t matter because all that mattered were the emotions that came with him.” You took a second to think. “And I also think that saying his name made it real for the main character, so the dude’s name didn’t come up until he was in mid conversation.”

At first, you were worried that you lost him. But you hadn’t. “He was in love with this person?”

“Madly. But he was his best friend.” You were so excited. You were really talking to a man who liked to read? And one who liked to analyze what he read? This must have been heaven. “For a while, all we hear about is how amazing the person is that he fell in love with and about how he struggled with loving him because he was a man. We knew everything about him before his name was even said and before he was even present, and that’s probably what I like most so far about the book.”

Through your rambling, you failed to notice that he was looking more and more panicked. “Um, what’s the book called?”

“Here, I’ll just go get it,” you said, standing up and walking over to your couch, pulling it off and walking over to him. You set the book down, and watched his eyes grow so wide that he looked cartoonish. “Have you read it?”

He blinked at the cover. “Y-yeah, I’ve read it.” He looked at his watch, swore so emptily that you swore it was acting, and then gave you an apologetic look. “Um, I have to go. I’m sorry.”

So, you did scare him off. You hid your frown with a polite smile, and tried to remind yourself that even though it felt like one, it wasn’t a date. It was you paying him back for making you something in his own kitchen. “Oh, alright. I hope you liked it.”

Maybe he heard something in your voice that you didn’t, because he stopped frantically putting his jacket on to look you in the eyes. “It was amazing, I mean that. And it was very sweet, thank you.”

This is crashing and burning. What the hell happened? It was going so well! “Well, I’ll see you later,” you called out, and you watched him wash his own plate with a shocked look on your face. “Thanks,” you whispered, and he nodded at you, a tight smile on his face as he wrapped a gloved hand around the doorknob and left.

***

Maybe you hadn’t scared him away, after all.

You had full intentions of leaving him alone until he came to you, if it was ever even going to happen. You only left for work and debated on finding something simple to bake for him to extend another olive branch, but then you decided that you would let the universe control what happened, if anything was even meant to happen in the first place. There was a knock on your door, and there he was, with a pan of cupcakes that had blue icing perfectly swirled on top.

Alright, so you hadn’t.

He gave you the cutest smile, and you couldn’t help but to give one back. “Hi, I’m Bucky.” You gave him your name, too.

From then on, you two were practically attached at the hip. If you weren’t at work, he was over with you, watching a movie and talking about foreshadowing or how good the book version would have been if it came first. He was also one of the only people you knew who had actually read Tarzan, and you got a kick out of it. You got so close that you even met his little quartet of friends, Steve, Natasha, and Sam, who all liked you after the first meeting. You fit in with them like a glove.

Speaking of... “Why do you wear gloves?” You had asked him one day, and he stiffened up like a board.

“I get cold easily on my hands,” he explained coolly, and you let it go.

There were little things about him that you questioned every time after he went back home. You questioned how he never left his apartment but made enough money to keep it. You asked yourself how he was so busy in there, and what exactly he did. You wondered why he got so funny when you mentioned the book, and how nervous he was to talk about it when you finally finished it. All of those things slightly worried you, but they had nothing on the one, huge thought that loomed over all the others.

You were falling hard and fast for Bucky Barnes. A part of you could admit that you were already on the ground.

If started off slowly. You admired his mind and his smile and the way that his eyes shined when he taught you how to bake a perfect cake without all the fancy, expensive supplies. You loved the way that his cheeks glowed when you complimented him or touched his hair or his nose. You loved that he started calling you “darling” and the way that his Brooklyn accent left out the last letter. You loved the way that things with him already felt so natural, like you cooking dinner and him helping you wash and dry dishes after. You were in for the long haul before you could even reach for the door handle of the speeding car, and you didn’t really want to.

There was a knock on your door out of courtesy, and you called out for him to let himself in. You were way past knocking, but he was polite. You were tapping away at the keys on your laptop, humming to yourself as you looked into Jack Pendleton.

“Watcha doin’, darlin’?” He set down the items you two needed for homemade lasagna and his father’s recipe for some simple pumpkin bread on the counter.

“I’m trying to find more books by Jack Pendleton,” you muttered, sighing when nothing else came up. “I can’t find anything.”

“Why do you like that book so much, anyway?” You were far too into your laptop to hear the tremor in his voice.

“Because it was raw, and real, and it hurt my feelings.”

Oh, and it had. Bucky witnessed the result of you finishing the book first hand. He walked in right as you got the first sob out and looked like he wanted to sink into the floor, but he came to you anyway. How were you supposed to know that the therapist, an equally important person in the main character’s life, was going to pass away not even days after he and Will got their happiness?

You remembered how he held you the whole time, and that for some reason, he whispered a very heartfelt, “I’m sorry.”

“If it hurt you so much, why would you want to read something by him again?”

“It was brilliant, that’s why, cowboy.” You said, looking up and pointing at him with your fancy little stylus. He broke out into a smile at the name, like he always did. You called him that one time because you caught him watching The Longest Ride, and it stuck.

There was a stretched, tense moment as the sound of your typing filled the room. “I don’t think he has anything else out right now, darlin’.”

“And how would you know, rancher?”

He gave you that same deer in headlights stare that he gave you when he first saw you in the hall, only less confused. Then he sighed. “What’s in a name, anyway?”

You rolled your eyes, but you both knew that you were on the edge of laughing. You could never be serious with him. He was just so full of light. “You’re not going to get me quoting Shakespeare right now, I just asked you a dire question.”

He inhaled deeply, his face already boasting a rich scarlet. “How would you feel if I told you that I wrote that book?”

Your world crumbled beneath your feet. You knew he wasn’t lying, because you knew that he had no reason to lie. His aversion to talking about Jack Pendleton and everything surrounding it made you believe what he told you right as you heard it. You gasped, and then saw him grimace. “Bucky, Jack stole your work?”

His face fell. “What?”

“Have you taken legal action yet?”

“No,” he said slowly, and then he took in another deep breath, preparing from something. “I don’t need to, because I am Jack.” He said slowly, a small and guarded smile resting on his face. You noticed that he looked the least comfortable you had ever seen him. “It’s a pen name.”

Different kinds of humiliation were coming in large, mean waves, and you bit your lip to prevent from talking. You had really gushed over a book right in front of the author the whole time? It was so horrible and embarrassing that you couldn’t even stop thinking about it. You felt like an idiot. “Why didn’t you tell me to stop talking?”

There was a quick, hesitant intake of breath between the both of you. “Because I don’t want anyone that I know in real life to know about that.”

You froze. There was no way that he was implying that what was in the book actually happened, right?

He took off both of his gloves, and beneath one of them was a silver appendage, very clearly a prosthetic. He was breathing heavily, like he had just lifted a weight off of his chest that was double his own size. You looked at it with a wild expression of your own, trying to make sense of what was happening.

“Almost everything in that book really happened.” You closed your mouth. “Some things are exaggerated, but nearly everything happened. Elijah is based off of me.”

Oh, fuck. That meant that he was actually bisexual, that he actually fell in love with his best friend, that he actually got his arm amputated after getting a grenade launched at him. His therapist actually died. You had no idea what to say. “I’m so sorry.”

“The main thing that didn’t really happen was the semi-happy ending for Elijah and Will. He and I broke up years ago. This all happened years ago.” Your heart broke again for him. “I put it under a fake name because it’s something very personal to me, but I felt like it should have been shared. Thought that it would maybe help some other kid who was going through it.”

You knew exactly what it was. You had gone through it yourself. If you had read the book when you were much younger, you were sure that you would have been able to find some sort of peace in the turmoil that you caused yourself. Now, you were much better, and you loved the fact that you were part of the LGBT community, but that didn’t mean that the book didn’t mean something to you.

The book was so raw that you should have known that it was real. There wasn’t a word that didn’t mean something, not a sentence that wasn’t thought out. It was such heavy material with realistic ups and down that you caught yourself relating with Elijah, not knowing that the real “Elijah” was right in front of you the whole time.

“But, um, I write science fiction under my real name, though.” You were too busy thinking about how you gushed about someone’s actual life story, and how that someone just so happened to be your super cute neighbor that you fell in love with. You gushed about his terribly sad life story right in front of him. “That’s why I’m always inside. I’m a hermit writer.”

You didn’t even get into the science fiction aspect of the conversation. “I would have never read it in front of you or talked about it in front of you if I knew that, I swear.”

“I know.” He slowly took his jacket off, and then you were seeing his arms in all their glory. It truly was a beautiful prosthetic, and from how much he used his hands, you knew that it was reliable and practical. “I just needed to tell you that.”

You could sense his unease, and it made you feel wrong. It felt like you were taking steps back. “If this is about you being bisexual, I don’t care about that. That would never bother me.”

For the first time since his confession, there was a ghost of a smile on his face. “I know. And I know you are, too.”

“Really?”

“I’ve seen the bookshelf in your room. No straight person reads that many books written by and for the community. And you cuff some of your jeans.” You shrugged, a small smirk on your face. He got you there. “I need to tell you something else.”

You didn’t know if you were ready for it, but if he was, then there was no way that you were going to stop him. “Of course, go ahead.”

“First, I should start off with telling you again that all of that,” he pointed towards her computer, “was about eleven years ago. I’m not healing, not recovering, none of that. Yeah, I’m sad about my therapist every once in a while, but I don’t feel anything for the man that Will is based off of anymore. That’s all gone.”

You swore at yourself for feeling butterflies of hope. You squashed them all down and made yourself pay full attention to Bucky, even though your mind was starting to have stupid little fantasies about picnic and stargazing with him. This is what you got for reading romance novels. “Okay, Buck.”

“I’m telling you all of this because I’m pretty sure that I’m in love with you.” Your mouth hung open, and before you could even get a word out, he was all over it again. “I have been for a while now, and I think now is the best time to tell you.” There was a pause for you to cut in, but you couldn’t form a word. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way or if you’re weirded out by my story-”

“I love you too.” You blurted, watching his face become shocked. “I’ve been dying to tell you that, you know?”

He sputtered, trying his hardest to form a coherent sentence. “Now I know.”

You felt a smile slide onto your face as both of your racing hearts stilled to a normal, content rate. In that moment, you swore that if someone came and checked, that your heartbeats were alternating, taking energy from each other to make one long beat. You just, clicked.

“It- none of that bothers you at all?”

“If anything, I feel bad. I feel like I intruded.”

He scoffed. “You didn’t intrude, Y/N, I’m the one who published it.”

“I’m going to hug you now,” you warned, and then you two met each other half way. Your face was in his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. You smiled when you felt him gently brush your forehead with his lips, and all felt right.

You stood there together for what felt like forever but two seconds all the same, swaying a bit subconsciously. “Are you- are you sure about being okay with all of this? I know it’s a lot. And I just kind of sprung it on you.”

There he was. The shy Bucky. You knew that he could be insecure, and you knew that he was insecure about being that way. But luckily, you felt for him so much that you could assure him for the rest of both of your days with no complaints. If it took a thousand times a day for Bucky Barnes to know that you loved him and Jack Pendleton and Elijah Harris, you would do it two thousand times.

“Out of all the books in the store, I unknowingly chose yours.” Your voice was shaky, but you meant every word you said and were about to say. “And out of all the people in the world, I intentionally, without doubt choose you.”

***

If someone had asked you three years ago where you thought you were going to be in life in the same amount of time, you would have told them that you were probably still going to be working in retail. That wasn’t the case at all.

Your mother gave you a loan when Bucky persuaded you to take your talent and passion for cooking and turn it into a business. You had a medium sized restaurant that you let your mother in on, and you cooked side by side often times. It felt just like it did when you were back in the kitchen of your childhood home, but now you were getting paid for it, quite a bit.

Across the street from your restaurant was a bookstore that held a number of books that were written by Bucky yourself, but your favorite by far was the cook book that was technically a baking book, full of all of the recipes that he felt like giving away.

You didn’t expect any of that to happen within three years, at all. But what you hoped to happen most of all did, and it was proven by the simple diamond on your finger that Bucky had given you. You wanted him to think that you were surprised when he popped the question, but you weren’t.

After all, you could see the outline of the box that he carried for three weeks straight.

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