#have been an exception to blinded by his rage to remember that humans are not a monolithe and his declaration being what prevents his people

[charafansmile]

That's what's so tragic about him, he HAD proof in chara that humanity could be good! Honestly I think he and toriel had to be aware at least a little bit of what charas surface life was like, to at least explain why he was so angry. Not only did they hurt his adopted child before he even got to meet them, but then they went and killed his son as well!

Transcript: Asgore did not have a point and was in the wrong, not for wanting to free his kind, but for wanting to wipe out humanity despite knowing there was good in them

[dragonridernoobie]

Okay, This is kinda in the realm of angst and horror since I live that kind of thing so since Raf have a large family, imagine he have an older sister who is the black sheep of the family but look out for him even support him with his love fr science as she gifted him the best text book she can afford for him but one day she just left home leaving his final gift and note saying she is sorry and couldn't take it anymore as all the fight she have with their parents is not good for her mind and don't blame their parents as she explain that she have her own demons and hopefully one-day he'll understand why she leaves

She left and joined the military, but something happened on a mission that went wrong that she had been tested by MECH with dark energon, and basically she a corrupted human with ability that similar to Unicron then rescue by the Autobot when she mids of a vengeful rampage then in a middle of a mental break down

( I'm not good at explaining things )

Be emotional when both siblings reunited, but she sees her nothing but a monster, telling Raf to stay away from her as she didn't want to hurt him but he just hugs her they both reunited and is very emotional to see

Hmmm, I've done horror and angst before, but never like this. I tried my best since there was part you dident say that I kinda just took over. For example, you never said this was an autobot request or a raph reqest so, I'm going raph to make it more emotional. I really hope you like it, and I might have a tad bit of fun making this XD

TFP Raphael X Mutated Sister

9 years...it's been 9 years since Raphaels sister left. Raphael misses them so much. They always remember his birthday. He still got the last gift he got from them. A textbook about coding. He loved it since it tought him everything he knows now.

Though, after they left, he hated how his family reacted. They acted so happy and actally forgot about (Y/N). He hated his family except his mother. They still remmber his sister and misses them to.

All he knows about them from searching online is that they went into the army. He dosent believe they died since his mother would have been told if they did die.

All he can hope is that they did not die and aren't suffering. If they where here now, he would show them Bumblebee, the autobots, and his new friends.

He knew, he just knew that they would have stars in their eyes from how awsome it would be to see living alien robots.

For now though, he had to wait for them to show themselves.

Currently, he was with Bumblebee and the team. Everyone has been on edge and there has been no action from the decpticons or MECH.

So, they decided to go to a forest in the amazon where a gaint Lake was. The autobots would be able to transform without being seen, and kids could play in the water.

It was going well for a few hours intel there was an explosion near by. The autobots obviously go check out what it was and they find MECH.

Well, it's more of a destroyed MECH building. There were MECH gaurds shooting at a human who was throwing MECH vehicles at them.

Raphael noticed who it was right away. It was (Y/N)!!!

But they looked diffrent...they looked more angry, sad, in pain, and diffrent.

They had purple vains across their arms, legs, and face. They clearly had super strength to. They where destroying and killing MECH guards.

The autobots jump in and take out the rest of the MECH gaurds. When done, they try to help (Y/N) but they attack them to.

It takes ratchet, bulkhead, and optimus to hold them down. Ratchrt scanned them and announced that they are filled with Dark energon.

They immediately take (Y/N) back to base to help them. No matter what. Especially now they know this is Raphaels' lost sister.

Raphael watches them put his sister in a container.

He sees how she is in pain to.

She was crying purple tears from the pain she was in but was such in blind rage that she couldn't tell that he was standing right in front of her.

Ratchet comes up with a plan to heal (Y/N), but the success rate is extremely low since this was just theory but the best they got.

So Raphael watches them start the plan and hook the canister that (Y/N) is in, ontop a machine.

He watches them start it up and inject clean energon into it.

(Y/N)'s screams echos through the base.

They beg, cry, and scream for it to stop but they have to keep going.

Eventually, when all the dark energon is gone from their body, they turn it off.

They open the canister and get (Y/N) out.

There, lays an unconscious (Y/N)

Ratchet scans them and says they are alive but need to go to the hospital since their body won't be able to survive without assistance from machines.

So, the next 4 months is Raphael sitting next to (Y/N)'s bed in the hospital, reading them books, talking to them, and telling them about the adventures they went on.

(Y/N) would eventually wake up and welcome Raphael to a hug.

Once they where healthy enough to leave the hospital, off to the autobot base.

Raphael was right.

They did get star eyes from meeting them.

He doesn't want to lose his sister again.

I hope you enjoyed this! I tried by best with one hand so I hope you like it!!!!

[residentrookie]

10/4 scream @jegulus-microfic; wc: 683; Death comes for james potter

There is no bright light. They believe that theory is the humans’ most common misconception of passing on. That in those last precious seconds, an overhead light invisible to everyone else appears above you, and you with eyes that track that light like a moth is enamored by the flame, find yourself pulled to it helplessly, watching it grow brighter and brighter until there is nothing else, until there is only blinding brilliance everywhere you look. This is not so, but They can’t exactly describe what happens either. They, Death, never quite look the same to everyone, like fingerprints and snowflakes. 

Some people struggle against Them, screaming and raging. Others go with Them willingly, as easily as sighing. Some see whatever they want to see. Others see blackness and are grateful. 

They’ve been doing this job for a long time. Since the Dawn of Time and maybe even before that. No rest, no breaks. Everyone must die. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Today is no exception. They swoop down low, counting, weighing their options, charting the easiest path across. It’s not Their job to know what’s next for the dead, only how to get them there. 

A man lies on the ground, limbs splayed. His heartbeat is quiet and growing slower, the final coda in the last seconds of his lifesong. Sometimes Death must be patient. Sometimes people are not ready for him. But this man, unlike so many others, looks ready. Not only is he ready but he’s looking. Looking Death right in the eyes. 

“You came,” he whispers, voice low and croaking. 

I did, Death thinks. 

“You came back to me.” 

Death pauses, trying to remember. This face is unfamiliar to Them. There are close calls, times when They believe Their services are required, but Life persists. He does not remember this man, not his brown eyes or shaggy black hair or the way his laugh lines settle on his resting face, clear signs of a happy, joyous life. 

“Regulus,” the man sighs, and Death feels something in Them twist sharply. The sensation is alarming; never in Their existence have they experienced something like this, like something, someone, is within them, tugging, grappling, clawing its way out. 

Death, the master of the Final Pathway, has carried many souls across the threshold of existence. In a way, the essence of these souls stay with them, like the faint traces of a favorite perfume, grasping the fabric of Their cloak. 

Regulus… yes, the name is familiar. The Heart of the Lion, long dead now, but with an echo still bright enough to glimpse in the sky. Regulus the Star, he knows. But this man spoke the name like a prayer that might save him. 

Regulus, Death tries to remember. Regulus, Regulus, Regulus. With every utterance of the name comes that tidal wave within Them, breaking through the walls of Their ancient mind, flooding Their thoughts with a tsunami of memories. 

Regulus Black. Second son. Noble family. A brother, wild and scared (He did not go with Death gently. He raged against Them. They remember it well.) A mother and father, angry and bitter. Gray and green, stone walls, and bright bursts of light. A boy with a bright smile. James. Notes passed back and forth on crinkled paper. Now a man with the same smile, glasses, hair. A first kiss, flawless. Love that is simple. Love that overflows, love that is right and easy. Limbs tangled in darkness, heat pressed against heat. Children with bright laughs like bells. Aging. Gray hairs and wrinkles. Pain. Joints that don’t bend the way they used to. Still so, so much love. An eternity’s worth. (When you die, that love does not disappear. Love and matter follow the same laws.) 

James, Death realizes, looking at the man. You are James. 

Death knows now what James sees when he looks at Them.

“I love you,” is all James says. His eyes close. 

There is no bright light. But for James there is Regulus, a brilliant, burning star blotting out the dark, welcoming him into the gentle night.

[demolitonlover]

‘I’m Crying for All the Victims That Are Going to Suffer’

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Tel Aviv

Oct. 25, 2023

No one understands terrorism more viscerally than Maoz Inon: His 78-year-old father and 75-year-old mother were among those massacred by Hamas this month in southern Israel.

He mourns his parents, and he despairs for old friends who have been kidnapped by Hamas. Yet he also fears that the unbearable losses his family endured are now being used to justify an impending ground invasion in Gaza.

“I don’t stop crying,” he told me in the hostel he runs here in Tel Aviv. “I’m crying for my parents. I’m crying for my friends. I’m crying for those who are kidnapped. I’m crying for the victims on the Palestinian side. And I’m crying for all the victims that are going to suffer.”

“We don’t sleep at night, we don’t eat, we are under emotional trauma,” he said. “We are just broken. But from these traumatized days, we must learn the lessons from history.” And foremost among them, he said, is the need to break the pattern of escalating violence that feeds hatred, creates orphans and self-replicates indefinitely.

Inon is an outlier, but he’s not alone, and I’ve been speaking with several of those here in Israel who lost loved ones to the terror attacks yet argue that the next step should not be further destruction heaped on Gaza, even in the name of destroying Hamas.

These are Israelis in anguish at their own losses and also fearful that their suffering is being used to justify bombardments and a ground invasion of Gaza, killing innocents there and perpetuating bloodshed. I can’t emphasize enough that this attitude is the exception, but perhaps that’s why I find it so majestic.

I’ve been following the Middle East conflict for most of my life, and I can’t remember a time of such despair, trauma and mutual mistrust. It’s heartbreaking to see the collapse of all hope, and this month may be the nadir: the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and a devastating air assault and siege of Gaza that has claimed even more lives there.

In this grim context, people like Inon remind me of the human capacity for empathy and wisdom — two qualities desperately needed across the region. I told him he was out of step with the public mood, for most people have drawn a different lesson from history: that it is important to wipe out enemies who want to kill you.

“We have been doing exactly that,” he said, referring to reliance on military solutions, yet noted that that approach failed to keep his parents alive. “What I’m saying is we have to stop doing what we were doing before. We need a new policy.”

“Someone needs to be brave enough to stop the cycle of blood, dislike and violence that has been going on for a century,” he said.

This may require Gandhian levels of inner fortitude.

“I’m full of rage,” said David Zonsheine, whose uncle was murdered in the Hamas attacks. “But rage is one thing, and policy and plan are another.”

Zonsheine’s fear is that blind fury will propel Israel into a ground invasion of Gaza without any plan for what comes next. Even if it were possible to remove Hamas, he said, something worse may follow — just as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 helped spawn its great enemy to the north, Hezbollah.

A cousin of Zonsheine, a nurse, went missing in the attacks and presumably was kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Zonsheine worries that an invasion would lead to the deaths of hostages like her, and also of countless innocent Palestinians.

“Civilians there are being killed in massive numbers,” he said. “And they are not being killed by Hamas. They are being killed by us.”

That’s a triumph of compassion, at a time of personal and national trauma, that Zonsheine knows will leave him accused of naïveté or worse. But those favoring a more surgical response insist that they are the ones who are being tough-minded, for decades of occupation and military strikes have culminated not in peace but in the worst massacre of Jews in Israeli history.

Yonatan Zeigen, whose mother, Vivian Silver, is believed to be a hostage in Gaza, makes the same point. “Mother always said we have to shift the paradigm,” he said. “We won’t have safety in a state of war. It can’t be done.”

Silver, 74, is a peace activist who spent decades volunteering to help people from Gaza. Zeigen and his brother, Chen Zeigen, told me they talk constantly about what their mother must be thinking now. Chen is not entirely sure, for their mother’s beloved kibbutz was destroyed, her family home burned to the ground and her friends murdered. But Yonatan believes she would be appalled by the relentless bombing of Gaza and preparations for a prolonged ground invasion: “She would have been, I think, mortified by the destruction in Gaza, and collective punishment and vengeance.”

That’s where Yonatan comes down as well. He is shaken by the savagery of the Hamas attacks, and understands why so many are determined to invade and bomb Gaza to try to destroy the terrorists forever, even at the price of many civilian casualties.

Vivian Silver lived at Kibbutz Be’eri, which was attacked by Hamas.

“I just don’t think it will bring us any closer to a better position,” he said. “Vengeance is not something to build foundations on. It is not a strategy. How many dead Palestinians will be enough for us to feel safe? I don’t think there’s any number. And it’s just the wrong thing to do.”

If even people like him, personally shattered by a barbaric terror attack, can muster the clarity to understand that relentless bombardment and a ground invasion may not help, perhaps there’s hope for the rest of us. May we learn from their wisdom and humanity.

Nicholas Kristof joined The New York Times in 1984 and has been a columnist since 2001. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of China and of the genocide in Darfur. You can follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Threads. His forthcoming memoir is “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.”

[shebeafancyflapjack]

A Slip Through Worlds (Part 14)

The Showdown. Based on @idiotwithanipad 's Gore AU.

-

"ROBIN!"

Stompy shouts his name as his own hand, yet not connected to his arm, grabs his hair and slams his head down to the ground. He groans in pain, his ears ringing terribly. It's been decades - no, centuries - since anyone has had the strength to inflict actual harm on him.

Thunder crashes as the wall splinters and breaks like cracks in glass spreading outward from a single dent. The heavens rage in response, the boring grey clouds turning dark in response to the order of two universes being disturbed.

A growl rumbles above. He opens his eyes and sees himself...except not quite, prowling beside him. Bared teeth snarling in warning to Stay Down.

"You....You me?" He feels the horror twist in his gut.

For thousands of years, other humans had accused him of being a beast, an animal. Ape, bear, dog. One time, one very dark time, someone had gone to the extreme of 'convincing' Robin to believe he wasn't human, just a filthy creature to be tamed.

Was this what he'd looked like after years of the Roman soldier's abuse and conditioning? Was this the monster that Elysabeth had chosen to befriend and help after decades living among wolves?

A chill ran through him as he met those feral eyes glaring down at him. Is this what he would still be, if not for his friends?

Other him turned away, his focus shifting to where Amy and Other Silver stood.

It let out a growl and moved towards them.

"Fizzy, who is it? What's happening? Is Robin okay?" Other Moonah Girl tugged Stompy's hoodie.

Stompy seemed as shocked at the sight of Other Robin as he was.

So this was why Other Silver had said there was no 'Robin' in her world. She knew 'Robin' by his voice, how he'd been comforting and playing and reassuring here these past few days. She knew him by how 'sweet' he was. Robin clenched his jaw. He remembered now how she'd talked about her fluffy friend who was grumpy and often mean, not even sure he was human.

That Moonah Girl only knew the worst version of himself. And he was heading towards her now like a furious sheepdog sent to fetch a stray from the herd.

Robin pushed himself up and leapt forward, grabbing his other self around the neck and tossing him around, before positioning himself in front of the girls as a shield.

"WHERE OUR MOONAH GIRL?!" He demanded.

The other Robin simply growled back at him once he'd righted himself into a crouched position, seemingly unable to stand fully erect. Like a man.

"What? You too dumb to speak?" He taunted, "You nothing but stupid animal, huh!?"

His scarred doppelganger gnashed his teeth, claws flexing as he slowly squared up to him.

"Might not be the best time to wind yourself up, dude." Stompy warned.

Robin put a hand back behind him, telling Amy to keep herself and Other Silver a safe distance back.

"No our Moonah Girl, no yours! That simple 'nuff for you?!" He declared, loud and clear.

If his other self wanted to try to take her, without a fair trade, then he'd have to go through Robin.

Another crash of thunder came, followed by a tornado of smoke and embers.

Behind the other Robin, appeared the magnificent and terrifying wraith from their nightmares. Along with what remained of the burned scraps of yellow and blue linen, the black whisps formed something akin to a great cloak covering the being that approached, the bottom half of a grotesquely burned skull beneath the hood.

Robin gulped, staring at her.

"Mary..." How could it be her? In any world, how could funny and sweet Mary ever become something that...radiated so much....evil?

Behind him, other Moonah Girl squealed.

"Mummy! Mummy, is that you, hehehe?" The blind girl jumped in excitement; "I can smell you, Mummy!"

The wraith lowered her hood, revealing the full horror of her face. A smile was barely visible. She raised one bony hand.

"I is here, darling girl. Come to Mummy." A raspy voice called.

Robin looked over his shoulder as Other Silver attempted to run, only to be grabbed by Amy.

"No! Remember the plan!" She snapped to the girl, who seemed forgetful. Stompy faced the witch; "Where is our Silver?!"

His other self growled, threatening. Embers crackled around the witch, her eyes glowing at Amy.

"T'is unwise to come between a mother and her babe, young'un." Other Mary hissed.

"Well I was never known much for my wisdom." The teen snarked; "But you're not getting your Silver back until we get ours. I know you have her, I saw it."

"The Silver Ravenstar who came from this world doth not wish to return." Other Mary informed them; "She hath chosen to remain in my lands and in my care. I thank you for returning my darling girl to me, but you needs not be troubled by thoughts of thy Silver anymore."

Robin frowned. Moonah Girl...doesn't want to come home?

Stompy immediately scoffed; "Bullshit! She sent a message to me! Why the fuck would she want to stay with you, you....cheap Halloween Babadook?!"

He threw the girl a look, to which she shrugged. Even she knew it wasn't one of her better insults.

"I cans give her that which she has lost. New friends, better friends, all that her creative mind desires...and, most of all, a mother's undying love." The witch told them; "What hath she to return to in thy world? Where everyone she loved either abandoned or betrayed her."

Robin felt the emotional stab to his chest. That must have been directed at him, for what he did to her. Amy, also, seemed to wince at the accusation.

"We didn't abandon her. We had no choice, me and our Mary." She defended.

"There be always a choice, girl. Like the one before ye now. Let my little'en return to mine arms, let the one you call a friend be happy in her new world and withs her new family....Or face the consequences."

The embers grew stronger, heating the air around them, until fire itself lit up in the witch's palms. Before her, like a true Hell Hound, the other Robin grizzled in a final warning.

Other Silver giggled, though quieter than usual.

"M-maybe it's best to let me go, hehe. No one has to get hurt. If other Silver wants to stay with me and Mummy, then I promise to look after her, hehehe." Other Moonah Girl offered, sweet as always but clearly nervous.

The witch's eyes softened; "She's ever so excited to meet you, darling girl. You two are going to have such fun playing together."

Robin stood firm.

"Then where is she?"

The witch tilted her head; "Excuse me?"

"Why Moonah Girl not here to tell us goodbye herself?" He challenged.

There was a pause.

"My sweet new girl coulds not bear it herself. She be resting. Safe and sound."

"Lying bitch!" Amy shouted; "Even if what you said was true, there's no way Silver wouldn't tell us herself!"

Those demon eyes flared again upon Stompy; "You needs to watch your mouth, girl, or else-."

"Or else what, huh? You don't scare me!"

"Then thou ist a far greater fool than the Amy of my world." The witch sneered; "I shall tell thee one last time. Give me back my daughter."

Stompy kept her hand clenched tight around the quiet and confused Other Silver's wrist.

"Not till you give back ours." Robin stated.

Those were the terms. They would accept no other. Moonah Girl for Moonah Girl.

The witch raised her chin up.

Another smile twitched on what little remained of her mouth.

"Dearest ally." She said, clicking her fingers.

Robin watched his other self raise his hackles.

"Retreive your Cub. Tear apart any obstacle in thy path." Other Mary demands, a righteous and offended Queen; "Show no mercy."

His bestial double snarled and began to prowl towards them.

"Stompy! Get back!"

After giving the order, he charged forward, letting out a war cry of his own. That's what he needed to think of this as. Not himself. Rival tribe. Enemy caveman. One on one. Superior in strength and ruthlessness, maybe, but not in wit and strategy.

As he and the other came head to head, his double swung a punch, which he dodged and ducked before slamming his fist into his other self's gut. Robin threw his arms around his opponent while he was winded, hurling him to the ground.

Teeth sunk deep into his shoulder as the other Robin curled and bit him deep. Fuck! He growled and swiped back at him, missing and then struck by a blow to his own face.

Rusty. It's been so long since he's fought anyone like this.

As he staggered to his feet, he growled as he caught the other Robin's fist before it could bash his nose. Face to face with his even more ugly opponent, he read the words unspoken in those bloodthirsty eyes as the beast grunted.

Weak. Pathetic. Let self go.

Robin growled back; "I smarter. Stronger in mind and heart. You weak. You stay same all these years. No. Worse. You more animal than man we were."

His double roared and cuffed him in the temple. The Void around them shook from the confrontation of two very old souls.

The other Robin thumped at his chest.

Me remain true warrior. Protector. Guardian. Loyal!

Robin laughed back, "Loyal like little doggie. No love in heart. No thought in head. Just do as Scary Lady say, yes?"

His opposite roared, insulted.

MISTRESS. GOD.

Robin had no time to react before his other self hurled himself forward, throwing his whole weight onto Robin and pushing him onto his back, then holding him down with one firm paw before the other struck his skull. Over and over.

And over. And over.

-

Amy's heart plummeted as the other Robin, the far less rational and human Robin, seemed to get the upper hand.

"Get up! Robin, get the fuck up!" She screamed.

The other Silver was clinging to her arm like a much younger girl.

"I-is he okay? What's hurting him? Hehehe, Fizzy, what's going on?" She asked, trembling.

It took everything for Amy not to shake her off. She kept reminding herself that this Silver was far more impaired and dependent than her own. She wanted rid of her, along with her fucked up 'family', to get the friend she knew back, but being cruel to the kid helped nothing.

"Just stay close to me. Don't let go unless I say. Please." She whispered to the girl.

"Ignore her, little'en. That not be the Amy you can trust. She be the devil's minion, sent to deceive thee."

The witch began to move towards them.

"Mummy...I know this isn't my Amy. But I trust her. She's my friend too, hehe." The other Silver said and Amy had to bite her tongue. 'Friend' was pushing it; "Mummy....I want to go home now."

"We will, my darling. I promise. All your friend need do is release you to me." The witch held out her hand.

"Fat sodding chance." Amy sneered; "You want your Silver? Call off your dog, give me back my friend, then you can have her."

"You dare to think ye can barter with me?! For mine own child?!" She began to rage; "I do not enjoy harming little'ens....but if my hand be forced-!"

The witch raised her arms up, black tentacles of smoke curling into shape and rising up, like some ethereal octopus. Flames raged in her irises as she prepared to set them loose on Amy.

Swallowing down all her fear and pumped by seven cans of Monster, the teen smirked.

"Gotta catch us first, cow."

The girl's form shifted into shadow and vanished from sight, taking the other Silver with her.

A pause of shock, then the witch screamed.

-

Robin's neck snapped to the side as the other him pounded his jaw with his fist again.

He stared up, defiant.

"There no God but Moonah! You turn on Her!?"

Paws shook him by the scruff.

Moonah abandon us! Moonah watch and do nothing! Mistress save! Mistress take pain away! You show respect!!

He swiped at Robin once more, claws tearing into his cheek.

Robin looked up at him, aghast at himself. In all his years of misery and madness, Moonah had been his one constant friend. There had never been a single impulse in him to lose faith in her.

"Why you do this?! This not us!"

With a fierce kick, Robin managed to throw the other him off. His rival growled back.

You forget who us be! You forget pain! Forget tribe!

He shook his head; "Never forget pain. Never forget...family." He wiped the blood from his mouth; "Just don't let it grind down. No let it rule heart. Turn pain...into good. Lose family...Miss family...But find new family."

The other took offence to that, aiming a swipe at his arm which Robin had to weave away from.

Insult family to forget! Replace with other! Like new spear replace broken one!

"No..." He panted; "Family....love us. Family no want us to suffer. Family want us to be loved again. To love new people...You no love your Silver?"

His other self flinched.

She belong to Mistress. I protect. Make sure no one hurt or steal!

"But you steal mine? Like enemy tribe steal babies." He told him, trying his best to appeal to the mind beneath the monster.

All it did was enrage him further.

NO! It not same!!

Lightning crashed nearby as the chaos seemed to swirl, the area around them becoming more unstable and unpredictable.

The tree like scar on his other self's body seemed to redden.

"My Moonah Girl...She choose to stay?" He asked, meeting himself eye to eye.

An impatient rumble.

She safe.

"That not what ask." He growled.

Other Robin simply stared back. No confirmation or denial.

Mistress...know....best.

That was all Robin needed to hear. Stompy seemed to be able to tell it was a lie straight away, but given how he and Moonah Girl had left things...he couldn't pretend it wasn't likely she'd choose to get away from their world. Away from him.

Except that wasn't the case. They were keeping her. Against her will.

He roared, louder than ever before.

Calling down the sky itself, lightning struck him as he charged at the other Robin again, coursing through him from his head to his toes, then released in a blow of blinding hot power that knocked the other him off his feet.

His other self groaned in pain and then frowned, confused. Rivets of electricity shot through his hair.

Robin chuckled, darkly.

This other one, this animal, had clearly stuck to the woods for all those centuries. No domestication. Never went inside. Never truly mastered a connection with electricity. Score one for the indoor caveman.

Refusing to relent, other Robin got back to his feet and ran at him again. Laughing, he stomped his boot, calling down another strike that hit his double in the leg, causing him to stumble forward.

There was a...strange satisfaction in seeing this lower, savage version of himself falter. A surprising boost to his ego.

"Who the daddy?! Ey?! I'm daddy!" He chanted, getting ready to charge up his fist and summon one more strike.

Third time a charm. Take the bastard down for good.

His other self reared his head, growled, then stood and sunk his teeth into Robin's ankle.

Voltage surged through his blood, into his bones, his nervous system, until it reached his spine. He released a single cry of pain before crumbling to the ground, twitching as the electricity burned beneath his skin and he could only lay there, paralysed.

-

"Fizzy Girl. What happened?" She asked, clinging to the meaner version of her friend.

"Shhh. I tucked us into a...pocket. A pocket of shadows." Amy whispered to her, squeezing her hand. "It's less complicated than it sounds."

"Hehehe, sounds clever!" She grinned; "Why are we here? Are we hiding from Mummy?"

"Something like that. You know Hide and Seek?" The teen explained.

"Yeah! Me and Mr Floof play it all the time and I always win when I hide." Silver grinned.

"Well it's that. If we win then you get to go home and we get our Silver back. Sound good?"

She supposed so.

But there was still angry noises outside. Crashing and smashing. It scared her. Even dragons didn't sound this mad when they fought.

"I think we should help Sweet Robin, Ames."

"I would if I could. Sadly, I'm on babysitting duty." She muttered to herself. "C'mon, Robin, get the fuck up and kick his arse."

"None of this makes sense. Why is Mummy so angry?" Silver asked, fiddling with her pentacle; "I...I thought she'd be happy to see me."

Amy scoffed; "I'm sure she is. But love makes us crazy, or so I hear. Or crazy people crazier."

She didn't like that word, but she knew what the other Fizzy Girl was trying to say. Mummy can't be in her right mind at the moment. She must have been so upset, worrying where her daughter was, and maybe it felt longer for her than it did for Silver.

"If I just spoke to Mummy, maybe I can calm her down...." She said, wishing she was more confident.

"Think you'd have better luck reasoning with a volcano." Amy tightened her grip; "Sorry, other Silv, but I can't let you go until I get my friend back. Once I find her, you can run along back to your mum, you have my word."

"Oh! You just want your Silver?"

"Yes!" Fizzy snapped at her again, as if she'd already said this a hundred times.

Maybe she had. Memory wasn't her best friend.

She giggled; "That's good then, she's right there!"

A beat.

"Where?!"

Silver pointed to her right.

"What the fuck are you pointing at?! There's nothing there!" Amy asked, growing ever more frustrated.

"Hehehe, can't you see her? You're the one with eyes!" Silver keeps pointing; "She's right there. I can...I can sense her, hehe. Like she's connected to me. She's...she's inside something. Like a big floating crystal, hehehe."

"What?! I can't...Fuck, your mum hid her, like I'm hiding you."

"Maybe, hehehe. This such a fun game, isn't it! Like a treasure hunt combined with hide and seek."

"Is my Silver okay?!" Amy asked, gritting her teeth.

"I...I dunno. I can't hear her, hehe. I can only sense her energy...but maybe if I let myself 'see' a little then I'll be able to get a better picture in my head." Silver reasoned.

"See? How..." Amy took in a breath and then tried to reach forward; "No, don't-!"

Silver let out a giggle. Loud and shrill. She felt the sound waves burst from her mouth and ripple outward. Her mind's eye formed what few physical images surrounded them.

Two figures scrapping on the floor nearby, like a couple of wolves or small bears, both refusing to quit as they clawed and beat at each other.

And just overhead, she 'saw' her double. Upright and weakly tapping the surface of her tiny prison. Her mouth formed three words on repeat.

It's a trap.

Black smoky tentacles coiled around both girls chests and ripped them out of the shadows.

"Found you, little'ens!"

[adragonsfriend]

Wonder Woman and Letting Go

I rewatched Wonder Woman recently, and first of all, it's such an excellent movie, and I appreciated it even more on my second watch. This time I watched it while also thinking about star wars, because I am always thinking about star wars right now, and I had some new thoughts.

Steve

After he finds Diana when she believes she's just killed Ares, Steve clearly wants to stay, sit down and argue with/explain to Diana so they can go do things together, and so she won't see him as one of the corrupted people, but he lets go of both of those desires, so that he can go and have a chance to stop the gas from being deployed.

He doesn't stop caring about her or believing in her in the least, but he's able to function despite his disappointment and hurt, not letting them rule him.

Ares

Ares sees humanity's imperfection, and he cannot accept it. He cannot prioritize anything except his mission to destroy them, even for a minute. He feels betrayed by his father's attentions to humans and the way his world changes when they inhabit it, and he seeks vengeance, unable to even decide to avoid/ignore humans or try to find any good in them. He kills his whole family in his bitterness and anger, and then spends presumably centuries on Earth, among the humans, and he is still utterly unable to look past his feelings to find anything good in them. Even faced with Steve, a human selflessly trying to do good, nothing like the awful politicians he spends most days with, he is unable to see that good as anything other than a tool to manipulate Steve and Diana with. He tells Diana that Steve is weak and cruel for dying and leaving her in pain, while she is able to see his choice as incredible strength and true selflessness.

Diana

After she sees the plane blow up with Steve on it, Diana is overwhelmed by rage, and for a minute, it seems to empower her, helping her fight. But very quickly, it becomes evident that Ares is controlling every aspect of the fight. She loses ground every second she stays in that state. She very nearly does decide on destruction, because of how overwhelmed she is by grief. It's only after she figures out what steve was saying to her that she finds the strength to appreciate the purpose of his sacrifice, over her pain at losing him. She repeats his words, "It's not about deserving, it's about what you believe," taking the best of what he gave her, and honoring both his wish that she save the world and her own desire to help people. She can only do that by letting go of her pain.

Diana still mourns, still remembers him. Her love for him still exists, it's a part of what inspires her to do good in the world. It isn't the pain of losing him, or a desperation to avoid more loss that drives her, those things would make her destructive to herself and others, or unable to act at all. It's the light she saw in him, and her own moral backbone that have her helping people, forever. Pain may have been a part of that journey, but it's not what helps her honor Steve or herself, or humanity, so she lets it go. If you understand why she chose not to hulk smash Dr. Maru (Dr. Poison), then you understand letting go of pain and vengence.

In a more general sense, she does what Ares refuses to, and she lets go of her desire for perfection. When she does, she doesn't lose her outrage at their cruelty, but she is no longer tortured by it, no longer trapped in inaction or driven toward destruction. In letting go, she's able to see clearly where her naive faith blinded her before. If she'd still been clinging to that, then after she actually killed Ares, she would've still been hoping everything was suddenly fixed--but she doesn't. What she does do, what the camara tells us the audience to do, is open our eyes to the simple camraderie of the flawed people around her, and its worth.

In conclusion

This has been a spot of character analysis through the lens of jedi philosophy (i'm not saying it's the only lens to look at these characters with, but it is a powerful one). Letting go of pain, anger, grief, people and things we cannot get back, are things every human has to do at some point. The Jedi practice doing this before they actually lose the thing, so that unlike with the situation Diana ends up forced into, it's not a toss up of whether they'll be able to do it in the moment. Like Diana, they hold great power, power they can't give up because it's in their blood, and like Diana, they learn to manage their emotions and personal desires so that they don't hurt people they don't have to. It doesn't mean they don't feel emotions or have people they care about, it means they don't allow these things to control them.

"It's not about deserving," or what you feel you and others deserve, "It's about what you believe."

Or, to take a page out of Spiderman's book, "with great power comes great responsibility."

[drippingheart]

HEAVEN , ALL HIS.

He liked this — even in limbo, in this purgatory which kept him in the womb of stasis where god or men decided his ultimate fate — it was a far better outcome than his life on Earth. He had been alone in a world surrounded by millions of souls, walking in circles. His life had been dictated by anyone except himself. In retrospect, even after he navigated down a different path with hands and feet bloodied, it was the rule of man and that of curses which drove every single one of his actions. It took the manifestation of his abilities, the abandonment of his family, the self deprecation of foul abilities taking their toll, and abandonment again for Getō Suguru to find his daughters.

All in all, the suffering had been worth it to find them, and he would have his guts dredged out by innate ability and beaten down like a vermin to find Mimiko and Nanako time, and time again. There was never a second he regretted putting an entire village to slaughter nor turning his back on a society and friends which, frankly, turned their back on him long before. He did not regret letting his rage consume his mind like a parasite nor the failed tactics leading to his death. Had life been genuinely kind and not a nightmare of forced existence, Suguru would repeat every action until he reached his daughters, and then . . then he would do everything in his power to keep the smiles on their faces until wrinkles formed on his face and his body became one with the earth.

GetōSuguru's only regret. The three of them could have gone to any other country, perhaps where the climate was always warm and tropical fruits gifted each tree. Away from the curses and the source of his madness. Ah. Although purgatory left the sorcerer plenty of time to think, feel, and regret, he did not succumb to his grief and regret for he had known love and happiness; very few people, even non-sorcerers, were fortunate to hold love in their hands. It was warm here. Warm in the sense he did not feel the air, ground, nor his physical body.

A nervous system floating on clouds . . . and then, he was not. The transition should have shocking, but Suguru was in a realm that was not of Earth and did not abide by anything human logic could explain. He had his body as he had remembered it, and while the sensation of being whole and live was returned, he was still surrounded by a cloudy warmth. The sensation of peacefully drifting from slumber to sleep, the barest luminescence of sunshine cradling face. He walked down an impossibly long corridor, past door after door. Conscious was there . . somewhat. Enough to realize what was he was doing but not enough to question his actions.

That's how it worked.

That was how heaven worked.

It just was, and creatures who crossed onto the other side moved and flowed. It could have been the last ivory door at the end of the corridor; it was for him at least. Heaven's instrument guiding him to the door where cries were heard albeit muffled from the other side. He touched the knob, turned in, and what he could only describe as life rushed into him. Colour, the five senses, emotion, and thought. The ivory door turned rich blue in hue when finger tips broke contact, and it closed behind him without a sound whereupon the seams and handle dissolved, blending into the sky. It was dark inside. Outside.

He smelled what was innately nature without a doubt; the nature anyone pent up in a smog consumed city would crave. Perfect. Untouched. The sniffling was loud then, no longer dampened by walls or dimensions of separation. Neither light nor nature emanated from the two huddled bodies as if the children were blind to the beauty around them. Chained down by their own grief. Suguru wondered how long they had been there crying . . how long his daughters had been dead. Oh, how he failed them. He should have been furious and distraught, but no such emotion quaked his heart. They were dead, yes, but they were here.

Finally, they were here with him. A smile of the purest adoration and compassion decorated his lips, and Suguru was no longer the monster people remembered him as, not even as the carefree teenager. He was radiant. A soul at peace. A soul which was utterly whole and loved. They did not hear his approach, however at his approach, a simple three metres away, the gloom surrounding them began dissolving. Light penetrated their depression, and all the flowers in the world bloomed when the crying Mimiko and Nanako raised their heads in tandem to look at their father.

── ❛ Oh, how I missed you two. ❜

Suguru's eyes formed crescents by way the power of his smile manipulated the musculature of his face. And his children bawled. They lunged forward as their father bent over to meet them half way, and the tears of overwhelming elation nurtured the blooming flowers and the malnourished deserts of the world. Papa! Otō-san! Daddy! I love you.

I love you.

I love you!

No longer was there any rage. I'm sorry I left you. No longer was there any sorrow. How they rejoiced in their love as the greenest of grasses formed beneath their feet and the sky was unmarred, streaked with the most beautiful hues of blue, pink, and orange. This was his heaven just as it was that of his daughters. No one could compare, and there was no one else he would spent eternity with.

── ❛ We're finally home. ❜

[theundertalenebulartheory]

A really thoughtful and compelling look into Baggs’ mind and how his perceived level of authority really affects his demeanor!!!

This definitely played a big part into how I formulated the first couple of chapters in Rubble & Ramparts, where Alexis’ base status *starts* at “volunteer coworker.” Baggs doesn’t … get a lot of people who come into his space willingly anymore. Even in his home AU, with so much of his Underground under his Thrall, I imagine that the poor guys has gotten fewer and fewer visitors and volunteers that show up under their own power. Sure he has Thralled informants and there’s General, he has interns and Alphys, but the guy is just ominous. He spoopy.

He wasn’t always, though. He’s a Sans. He’s an extrovert. He, at his core, loves people and loves making people laugh and he loves positive social interactions. He may be a bit of a gremlin but he’s a smooth little gremlin. I think being Royal Scientist is just…

lonely.

It’s his duty. He won’t (he can’t) fail. He takes it seriously. Too seriously. But the guy’s lonely af these days. Mr. Life Of The Party is stuck in a dark lab at a single computer terminal that he refuses to leave and he knows nobody is coming for him either. Except maybe his brother, if he works for too long. But even that’s only out of duty as well. Duty of Care.

The guy needs help, honestly. But he can’t ask for it. Even if he brings someone in and wipes their memories afterwards, a Thrall is no better than a second pair of robotic hands, and he can build himself a set of those if the need was dire. Alphys is probably his most competent help he has available to him, but he had to bully and coerce her ((if I’m remembering the canon lore correctly ;;>_>)) onto his side so… she’s not exactly looking for opportunities to put herself in his presence if she can help it.

So then… there’s a human. Killer’s brought him help. A subordinate, obviously, but help nonetheless. And, in an unusual turn of events, they actually help. On their own. Willingly. A lot. Like… to the point that they take on a rage-blind torpedo of claws and teeth for him. And it’s … weird. But a nice weird? They have enough sense to be wary of him (they aren’t stupid or naïve, at least, which would have meant they’d have been treated with a lot less respect and a lot more condescension), just like he’s wary of them. They know their place and they’re clever and maybe a little bit puzzling but… they do work well together. And it’s nice to be able to work well with someone that can (and does) think on their feet and keep him on his toes and cares (whyyyy do they care???? That bugs him a little, honestly, for reasons he’d rather not dwell on)

So… maybe they’re alright for a human. He’s still not totally sure about them. But they’re alright. They seem, so far, to be good people. Damaged as hell. But good. And he can work with that.

The ask from a week ago about how Baggs would have settled in if there was no human around is making me think. What if instead Baggs had simply joined and settled in the ranks *before* Ren was captured? How would their little meet go?

Not as smoothly.

With seeing them less as a potential patient, and more as a means to an end, that... would have gone very poorly for Ren. He might well have been the first one down there instead of Axe, and any and all dodginess from Ren would have resulted in immediate retaliation with his magic. He'd be on interrogation duty, and making sure that they tell the entire truth and don't lie is vital to that one. He'd come in to make sure that they aren't hurt too badly, and to patch up scrapes and make sure nothing's infected while asking questions, and the first time they told him 'none of your business' or stonewalled him any other way would be the last.

But, as a perk of handling their soul, he'd see the damage and recognize what was going on wayyyy before anyone else did, and might have just... subtly made them not think about home as often... or even at all, so the boys and Nightmare had time to plan without the risk of their captive potentially dying from being out of their AU for so long.

The downside to this is that Ren would be more scared of him than they were of Dust, which is saying a lot. Baggs would have to work very hard to regain their trust once it was decided they'd be staying. Fortunately, he's pretty candid with his teammates and once Ren was initiated into the ranks, he'd be much more chill with them.

True acceptance would have to come after a fairly lengthy chat in his office about how he knows he frightened them, but their dynamic was different while Ren was incarcerated. They're coworkers now, and Ren doesn't have to worry about him randomly seizing control of them out of the blue. He's an ally, and here to help them, not to continue to traumatize them. In fact, he'd very much like to work towards remedying the trauma he created.

It'd be slow going, but they'd eventually work up to the casual rapport they have in R&R where they can playfully push him around and not worry about the consequences.

They'd always be a little jumpy around his powers, though, so he'd have to go about using them (and asking to use them) very carefully. It would take a very long time (possibly beyond the reach of the story's main plot) for them to be completely okay with him offering.

Almost dying is one thing. An invasion of the mind and forcibly prying information from them is entirely another.

[bthump]

Ayo, I could be mixing you up with someone else, but what gives you the impression Guts has any romantic feelings for Griffith post-eclipse. Golden age griffguts is valid and all, and still having some sexual attraction is possible, but how the heck could Guts still have any romantic feelings for a guy who condemned all his comrades to a horrible death, the sole exceptions being Guts, who was maimed, and Casca, who was horribly violated and tortured until her mind broke. In addition, Guts also knows all his comrades literally went to hell, so just... where do the romantic feelings come from? I assume it makes sense, I just don't see it.

lol idk if you're confusing me with someone but I definitely do think Guts' post-eclipse feelings are still romantic to an extent, so I'm happy to get into it.

Also just disclaimer, I’m saying these feelings are romantic because there’s a ton of homoeroticism involved in their portrayal, but yk, the point is that Guts still has intense positive feelings for Griffith based on their past relationship when they were both human, and if you see that as super intense friendship all these points still hold true.

Narratively here's a brief explanation of why I think Guts still has romantic feelings for Griffith, in the form of a small selection of blatantly homoerotic post-eclipse panels:

(link to some relevant translation notes of the beast of darkness nightmare scene)

(more posts on why this scene is so suggestive)

Like, the short answer is because Miura wrote those feelings into the story. Whether they’re reasonable or not is neither here nor there, whether it’s fair to Casca doesn’t matter, whether it’s logical is irrelevant. Regardless, Guts’ feelings are canonically mixed, and often blatantly homoerotic.

However, I don’t think it’s implausible. Griffith has undergone two magical transformations. Guts was obsessed with human Griffith, solely motivated by wanting to grow closer to him, and his obsession post-Eclipse is still there, it’s just taken a darker turn. He still wants Griffith/Femto to look at him, he still wants to be his equal, he still craves his attention, and I would argue that that’s Guts’ biggest motivator post-Eclipse.

His romantic feelings haven’t disappeared, they’ve just been combined with rage and betrayal.

And this is also perfectly in character for Guts - he never fully hated Gambino, he cried over him nearly a decade after killing him and still felt guilty, and he always remembered Gambino’s good aspects along with the bad. And Gambino was just some asshole with relatively few good qualities, who abused Guts and personally had him raped. Griffith was a genuinely good guy with a mutually loving relationship with Guts (which Guts recognized before the Eclipse happened) until he literally underwent a magical, personality-altering transformation into a demon - which, btw, Guts also partially blames himself for. Why wouldn’t his feelings be mixed? Who on earth would feel nothing but straightforward blind hatred? That would be unrealistic, imo.

Also a few points worth noting:

Guts differentiates between Femto and OG Griffith (”That’s not... the Griffith you know anymore.“) so that also contributes to his mixed feelings. He doesn’t hate original Griffith, and that residual love flavours his feelings towards Femto/NGriff.

His love for original Griffith is what inspires him to rescue Casca in chapter 130 - his regret over abandoning Griffith in the snow makes him resolve to fix his mistake of abandoning Casca too before it’s too late.

Guts’ temptation to become a monster has been framed as a way to get closer to Griffith (not literally but emotionally, btw) and be more like that “friend” (eg chapter 118, 187).

And narratively it’s a much much weaker story if Guts’ Golden Age feelings for Griffith have been entirely subsumed by hatred and are now irrelevant. That’s just bad, shallow, pointless writing. If those feelings, which were the core of the Golden Age, essentially the sole reason the Golden Age exists as part of the story, are irrelevant, then Miura fucked up by making the story revolve around them lol.

Like, the fact is that the story of Berserk is about Guts and Griffith’s relationship, it’s the central theme of the story. Cold facts, this is straightforward analysis. Guts and Casca’s relationship, among all the other relationships in Berserk, is a side thing which serves the main theme of Guts and Griffith’s relationship, sometimes by contrasting it, sometimes by paralleling it, sometimes by being thrown under the bus to emphasize it lol. Every significant narrative decision Guts has made has literally been predicated on his feelings for Griffith and Griffith’s for him: choosing to stay with the Hawks in chapter 16 and chapter 7 after moments of bonding; choosing to leave the Hawks after Promrose Hall to get closer to him; choosing to stay again when he realizes Griffith cared for him all along (chapter 72), his war declaration in response to Femto’s spiteful hatred and betrayal, abandoning Casca in a cave also in response to that, choosing to save Casca in chapter 130 to make up for abandoning Griffith; choosing to ignore Casca being burnt at the stake while trying to confront Griffith at the end of the Conviction arc while Isidro saves her, choosing to stay with Casca and try to get over his obsession when NeoGriffith announces he’s over him and “deserts” him in chapter 182. Hell, even choosing to invite people along with him because his feelings for Griffith inspired him to sexually assault Casca.

The story is introduced to us as a story about the intense, fucked up relationship between two dudes in the Black Swordsman arc, and even when Guts and Griffith are separated and trying to get over each other, that holds true.

So yeah, that’s my take on that. Sorry for all the links lol, I feel like this response stands on its own, but those are there in case you want more thorough explanations for some of these points.

Anyway thanks for the ask! Hope this illuminated my opinion at least.

[pastelwitchling]

Your writing is fantastic and always brightens my day to see a new fic! Thank you for all the wonderful stories you have written and continue to write! If you're still taking prompts could you write something where Alex has to take care of Michael because he is somehow sick or injured and Kyle comes by to reassure Alex that everything will be okay.

***

Michael should’ve been annoyed. Max and Isobel had insisted on him staying in bed after the battle against Tezca, with Kyle Valenti looking after him, no less. He should’ve been frustrated and roughly pulling off the bandages that wrapped around his waist. He should’ve dismissed the doctor’s orders the second he got them.

Except he couldn’t, because Alex agreed with Kyle. Michael needed to stay in bed, he needed to be looked after, and apparently, as his boyfriend, it meant that Alex was the one to do it.

So no, Michael couldn’t be angry. He couldn’t roll his eyes or scoff or get the least bit exasperated. Not when Alex was changing his bandages and washing his hair for him and making him meals and – best of all – holding his hand as they lay in bed all day, just for Michael to fall asleep curled up against him.

“You feel so good,” Michael moaned one afternoon as he woke from a nap to Alex’s soft humming in his ear, his hand running down the length of Alex’s body. His boyfriend’s chest rumbled as he chuckled under his breath.

“You feeling any better?” Alex asked, and Michael lost all sense of coherent thought as Alex’s fingers raked back his curls and tugged ever so slightly on his roots, as if he couldn’t help but do it, even now.

He groaned, pulling Alex in tighter against him, which should’ve been impossible since Michael was already lying halfway on top of him. “I told you I’ve been feeling better since last week.”

“Yeah?” Alex sounded like he was about to laugh. “You want me to stop then?”

Without opening his eyes, Michael buried his face in Alex’s chest. “Screw you, you bastard, you know I don’t.”

Alex actually did laugh this time. “Well, I’m going to have to.”

And very suddenly, Alex wrapped an arm around Michael’s shoulders, the other around his hip, and turned them over.

“Damn,” Michael breathed, instinctively wrapping his legs around Alex’s waist. “They teach you that in the military?”

Alex tilted his head at him. “Do you really want to know where I learned to do that?”

Michael tightened his legs around him, slipping a hand into his hair and gripping. “That’s not funny, Manes.”

Alex grinned and kissed Michael’s lips, the jealousy burning away just as Alex pulled back and patted his hip. “’Kay, you’re really going to have to let me go now.”

“What for?” Michael demanded.

“I have to make dinner, remember?”

“I don’t want dinner,” Michael said, slipping his hands under Alex’s shirt. “I want you.”

Alex bit his lower lip and his eyes darkened, and he leaned in until their brows were pressed together. Michael whispered his name as he tilted his chin up, eager to catch Alex’s lips in another kiss. But then Alex groaned and pushed himself up, unhooking Michael’s legs from around him and kissing his calf.

“You’re still recovering,” Alex told him. “You need to eat.”

“Alex,” Michael sat up, taking Alex’s face in his hands. “I’m fine, I don’t heal as slowly as humans do, remember?” As he spoke, his thumb brushed the cut on Alex’s lower lip that Tezca had left. Michael had been nearly blinded by rage then, only Alex’s voice and arms around him enough to keep him from killing the woman. Even now, the memory brought his powers to just below the surface. The nightstand and lampshade and even the glass on the windows rattled.

Alex’s expression was wary as he looked around, but then his jaw clenched in determination and understanding. He moved to straddle Michael’s legs, put Michael’s hands on his waist, held Michael’s face in his hands, and locked their gazes.

“Breathe, baby,” he said softly, and pressed a gentle kiss to Michael’s lips. “I’m right here.”

He kissed Michael again, even as Michael clawed down his waist and hips, needing to make sure that Alex was actually here and safe. Another kiss. Then another. Alex kept kissing him until he was able to unclench his jaw, the memory and anger along with it melting away until there was only Alex.

The kisses turned rougher. Michael groaned, tilting his head to slot their mouths together and deepen the kiss. He pulled Alex in closer by his hips and moaned into his mouth. That seemed to be the thing to wake Alex up.

“No no no,” he pulled back with a breath, turning his head away so that Michael was kissing his jaw instead. He didn’t care.

He didn’t stop.

At least, he didn’t want to. But Alex had his hands on Michael’s shoulders and was pushing him away, gently but firmly.

“You’re – you’re hurt,” he shook his head, moving off Michael’s lap. “You’re hurt, we should – we can’t – not until you’re healed.”

“I am healed,” Michael told him, wrapping an arm around his waist and trying to pull him back onto his thighs. “I was healed an hour after the attack. C’mon,” he encouraged, cupping Alex’s jaw, “come on, baby, kiss me.”

Alex swallowed as he started to nod, his eyes all but glazed over as they fell to Michael’s mouth. But he stopped, visibly shaking himself out of his daze, and pushed himself off the bed completely, despite Michael’s groans.

“Oh, Alex, come on –”

“No, Guerin,” Alex said shakily, nudging Michael back until he was rested against the pillows, thoroughly put out. “I’m not risking anything until those bandages come off – the right way,” he added pointedly as Michael reached for the end of the bandages to rip them off himself.

He watched with a heavy sigh as Alex kissed his forehead instead and went to make dinner. He sat there a moment, shaking his head, his patience serving him for about ten seconds before he gave in. And he did something he hadn’t thought he would or could ever do. He called Kyle.

 Kyle was late. He only showed up just as Alex was taking his and Michael’s bowls to the sink, his medical bag slung over his shoulder.

“I was doing my shifts,” he panted, hurrying into the kitchen. “I just got your text, what happened?”

“Once again,” Michael said with a humorless smile at Alex. “So glad you gave him a key.”

“Yeah,” Alex raised a brow as he wiped his hands on a rag. “For emergencies.”

Kyle looked accusingly at Michael, his shoulders slumped as he seemed to realize that no one else was panicking. “Guerin told me it was a matter of life or death!”

“It is,” Michael said tightly, and held up his shirt to reveal the thick bandages. “Take these off please.”

Alex stared. “Are you kidding me?”

“You said someone could die!”

“And yet you still showed up an entire hour late,” Michael shrugged a shoulder. “Who’s the real disappointment here?”

“Guerin,” Kyle said through gritted teeth, “I swear to God –”

“Alex has been playing nurse since you put these damn things on me,” Michael said, and Kyle faltered. “He’s barely been sleeping or eating – yeah, don’t think I haven’t noticed,” he told Alex at the slight surprise on his face. Had he honestly not thought that Michael was always looking after him, too?

“So,” he went on to a stunned Kyle, “me wanting to screw Alex’s brains out aside –”

“This can’t be what my Friday nights look like now,” Kyle muttered, shaking his head.

“—Alex won’t stop worrying until the bandages comes off,” Michael finished. “And when Alex worries, I worry.” He shrugged. “I can take them off myself, but he wants a professional to do it. For him – and believe me, it’s only for him – I called you. Whenever you’re ready, doc.”

Kyle looked to Alex who was staring at Michael with pursed his lips, and he sighed, setting his medical bag down. “Fine. For Alex. Next time you bring me over for false pretenses, Guerin, I’ll stab you myself on my way out.”

Michael smirked as Kyle rolled up his sleeves. “I’d expect nothing less.”

                 Kyle finished with a sigh barely five minutes later, Alex watching with knit brows as he leaned against the kitchen doorframe, his arms crossed.

               “There,” he huffed, washing his hands. “All done.”

               “And he’s really healed?”

               “Looks like the acetone worked,” he said, tossing the towel aside and picking up his bag. “The scar should be gone in a few weeks. Perks of alien healing powers, I guess.”

               “Told you,” Michael said, smiling when Alex’s shoulders finally dropped, his relief palpable, even as he was unwilling to show too much of it.

               “Okay?” Kyle said sarcastically to Michael. “Am I done? Can I go now?”

               “Thank you, Kyle,” Alex said, and Kyle’s expression softened.

               “You got it, buddy,” he said, patting Alex’s shoulder on his way past him. They heard the front door close, and Michael raised a brow.

               “You believe me now?”

               Alex wasn’t smiling or laughing or kissing Michael senseless with relief, or doing any of the things Michael hoped he’d do. He faltered, pushing himself off the stool.

               “You okay?”

               Alex looked down, and Michael only now noticed his nails were digging into his arms.

               “Alex,” he wanted to reach out, but didn’t know if his touch would be welcome.

               Alex caught the hesitance, and the corner of his lips rose in half a sad smile. “I’m kind of used to crying where no one would see me,” he confessed quietly, and Michael stilled. It was only for a second before his need took over, and he closed the distance between them, taking hold of Alex’s elbows.

               “Didn’t you think I’d notice?” he demanded in a whisper, because he had to know.

               Alex seemed to think about that for a second, then, as if just realizing it himself, he said, “No one else ever has before.”

               Michael exhaled shakily, and pulled Alex in, hugging his waist tight enough that it hurt. “That freaks me out, Alex. Don’t . . . don’t ever talk like that. Like it’s okay that nobody notices. I notice. I always notice.”

               Alex huffed a soft chuckle, barely a breath, and not until he wrapped his arms tightly around Michael’s shoulders was Michael able to breathe again. He buried his face in the crook of Alex’s neck, and Alex pressed his lips to the shell of his ear.

               “I love you,” he murmured, and gently kissed Michael’s ear. Michael instinctively squeezed his waist, and it made him laugh. He groaned into Alex’s neck. What he would do to bottle that sound and keep it with him forever.

               “I love you more,” he promised in a whisper.

               Alex’s hold on him tightened with need and desire and desperation and love all at once.

               “Okay,” he said slowly, dragging his hands down Alex’s waist, his hips, and pulling him in closer. “I’m healed, I’m good to go, are you?”

               Alex bit his lower lip as his grin widened, dragging his hands up from Michael’s shoulders, his neck, to cup his jaw, leaving Michael’s mouth hanging open. Alex leaned in, and as he whispered, his lips brushed Michael’s in an almost-kiss. A taste of what was to come.

               “Kyle’s been gone for two whole minutes,” he said. “I’m kind of shocked you restrained yourself this long.”

               Michael groaned. “Can we not talk about him while my hand’s up your shirt?”

               Alex grinned. “Jealous?”

               Michael clawed down Alex’s back, making him gasp, his body instinctively pressing against Michael’s own. His promise for what was to come. “Yes, Private. I’m jealous.”

               Alex moaned, his mouth hanging open against Michael’s, his grip finally hard enough to bruise after a week of careful distance. Michael was going to die at the rough touch, and was happy for it.

               Then Alex smiled. “Good.”

[retro-memo]

Mortal Flaw and Fatal Sin

Chapter Three: It All Came Down

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warning: Swearing and threats

Word Count: 2.4k

Chapters: 1, 2, 4, 5 — Ao3 link

St*rkers DNI

Tony Stark knew his name.

Peter couldn't breathe. 

Tony Stark knew he was Spider-Man.

It felt as though the world was cracking at the edges around him, crashing down way too fast for him to catch the jagged pieces that threatened to slice through everything because that was Iron Man.

Tony Stark knew where to find him.

Iron Man, who was standing a few feet away from him, his posture relaxed and silver armor glimmering in the pale moonlight while he wore a grin that revealed all those perfect white teeth. It warped the man’s face into something that wasn’t human, rather twisting it into something that belonged to an unhinged monster conjured up inside the darkest depths of a nightmare.

Except, this monster was different, not one that could be quickly swept away by reality by a blink of an eye. No, it wasn’t a figment of imagination. This monster was real, looking exactly the way that Peter remembered seeing from the dingy television in their old apartment; eyes that were cold enough to freeze the surface of a dwarf star, yet still glowing with a fiery violent desire to take and destroy everything in sight.

One that had announced the outlaw of soulmate with no real explanation and flipped the world on its axis. Who slaughtered and arrested hundreds of thousands.  

As if they were nothing more but mere inconveniences for him; insects to be squashed under the weight of his iron thumb. 

Something deep and livid started to swell inside of Peter. It was something distant, feral almost, bubbling from the pit in his stomach to the tightness in his chest that made it impossible to breathe, like a pot of hot water left on a stove for too long.  

And seeing the face of his uncle's murderer made it reach its boiling point. 

— a bright blue light, glass shattering, screaming, the air swimming with blood, empty eyes, May grabbing him away from Ben's body and —

“You—!” A roar ripped itself from Peter’s throat as he lunged for Stark, as if his terrified soul had unleashed a demon. A demon where anger, pain and vengeance were all intertwined together.

It blinded Peter, adding fuel to the already burning rage and what was already an uncontrollable fire, ignited outwards in a blazing explosion. 

Peter imagined ripping into Stark’s exposed neck then and there, tearing it to shreds. He pictured the man crumbling to the ground and desperately fighting for his last breaths while whatever life he had slowly drained from his eyes. 

The same way that it had from Ben. 

Ben who didn't deserve to die.

Peter didn't get far. Maybe it was from not sleeping properly that things ended up going so terribly wrong. It could've even been from the lack of eating or the intense non-stop labor and abuse he'd been putting his own body through.

Or Iron Man was faster.

Peter was easily side-stepped. He didn’t have the chance to catch himself when suddenly, the back of his hoodie seized. It happened so fast. One moment he'd been trying to catch his footing – and in the next he knew his feet were no longer touching the ground. 

He yelled, arms flailing as he tried to catch something or anything as he struggled against the hold against him. Peter kicked his legs and threw clumsy punches in every possible direction he could as a desperate last ditch to get free. 

A small part of Peter knew it was useless, that he should give up now while he was ahead because even if he did manage to break free, he was already several hundred feet in the air.

If he fell from this height, he'd be nothing more than a messy pile of bones and meat on the street. He could only watch as the apartment's roof was getting smaller and smaller, along with any hope of surviving with it. 

Everything stopped as quickly as it started and Peter let out a small cry with whatever remaining breath he had as he was jerked to an abrupt halt. The sloppy stitches that he’d sown together from the day before ripped themselves through his skin and Peter choked on the searing white-hot pain that tore across his stomach.

That didn’t stop his hands flying to the front of his hoodie, grabbing at it and trying to pull it away from his neck, taking in as much air as he could past the suffocating pressure around his throat. 

"Now, now, now." The man only cooed at Peter’s struggles, as if he was soothing a misbehaving kitten dangling in front of his face, not someone he'd caused unimaginable pain and suffering to. "There's no need to fight like that, I'm not going to hurt you."

Peter shivered from the man’s deep rumbling voice, his whole body trembling with it as he was forced to stare into the pair of steel and pale eyes that hardly showed any emotions. Not a single glimmer of anything natural. 

There was only some sick kind of satisfaction from seeing Peter fight for his life. 

It made Peter feel incredibly small, exposed in a way that made him wanting nothing more than to become as small as possible so he could disappear into his hoodie. Instead, he fought against the urge to curl up into himself and glared into Stark's eyes. 

He swallowed the whimper that clawed at his throat and croaked out. “What do you want from me?” 

"I don't want anything from you." Iron Man tilted his head a little, his eyes glowing brighter. "Well, maybe except for one thing but first things first, take off that ridiculous mask. I can't take you seriously."

Peter didn't get the chance to protest when cold metallic fingers suddenly curled under his chin and yanked upwards. 

The chilling air immediately assaulted Peter's exposed face and he groaned, his eyes squeezing shut as they stung from the sudden onslaught of what felt like hundreds of tiny knives made of ice digging his skin. 

"There." Iron Man was either unaware or just uncaring of his discomfort because his manic grin only grew, his eyes glowing more wilder than they had before. "Now, we can get down to business."

"And what would that be, Tin Man?” Peter grunted, and a small part of him told himself it wasn't the best idea to probably insult someone, quite literally, was holding his life in their hands. “Your next tooth whitener appointment?” 

Especially if they happened to be the same someone that had carelessly torn apart Peter's life without so much as lifting a finger.

Instead of dropping him, or bashing his head in like Peter expected, Iron Man snorted. As if Peter told some sort of funny joke instead of insulting him straight to his face.

"I see you're living up to your reputation of having a motormouth but no, that's not why I brought you here to talk." Stark shook his head and gave Peter a slight smirk. "Now, don't get me wrong, kid. I'm all for the cosplay you have going with playing hero for the little guy and I'm willingly let you keep going for my own amusement —" 

The man paused, his face contouring into a fowl scowl as his eyes bored into Peter’s with such intensity it made the hair on the back of his neck stand completely on end. “But when you started interfering with me? With the law?” 

The grip around Peter's hoodie slowly became tighter the more Stark spoke, taking up even more room that was hardly even there to begin with and at this point he could only take small, thin rasps of breath. “I knew I couldn’t let this charade of yours continue.” 

“But I'm a fair man, kid.” Stark shrugged. “I’ll let you walk away from this and you can go crawl back to whatever web you call home, but only one condition.”

A metal-encased fingertip was inches away from poking Peter's nose and he would’ve recoiled away from the touch if he could. 

Instead, he kept dangling there, trying to breathe like a beached whale out of water that was hopelessly trying to haul in something that wasn’t there. "I want you to stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong and leave my bots alone to do their work. If you don’t, well…”

It happened so fast, one minute Peter couldn’t breathe and in the next, the weight around his neck completely vanished. He gasped, his chest expanding as his burning lungs greedily sucked in the air they’d been desperately craving. However, whatever bit of warm relief came with being able to breathe again, froze over with a chilling fear.  

Peter barely had the chance to cry out before the suffocating grip around his neck returned at full force, stopping him from even falling a few inches. 

"I think you get the picture, kid." An iron-clad hand grabbed Peter's chin, forcing his head up so he was once again looking back into the vivid void that were Tony Stark's eyes. "And if you don't, I could easily show you a live demonstration with that aunt of yours." 

"No." Peter croaked, heart hammering and starting to kick again with a new vigor because Stark knew about May. He knew she was alive. "Ho - how -" 

"It's not that hard to figure out, kid." Stark smirked. "I mean, it's practically a bread trial. Your uncle was registered as a soulmate when they brought in his body but funny enough, they didn't have a match for who his other half was. Since you didn't set off my bots' sensors, and your last remaining family member hasn't been seen in years, I can only guess she's hiding somewhere outside the city limits with all those other escaped critters."

Peter's heart stuttered but he didn't dare to breathe wrong because Stark thought May was outside of the city limits, safe with all the other soulmates that somehow escaped during the first day of Iron Man's rule. 

He didn't know that May was probably still sleeping peacefully in her room, blissfully unaware of her nephew being dangled several hundred feet in the air above their apartment's roof. 

He didn't know. It was such a simple notion but Peter pushed down whatever trickle of relief swelled inside. If he gave anything away, even the smallest hint to Stark that he was wrong, it could be delivering May to her funeral. 

Peter couldn't do that. He couldn't lose May, no matter the cost. Not after losing everyone else in his life.

So, Peter took a deep breath, gathering together the shaking strings that were barely holding him together at this point before looking up, glaring Stark straight in the eye. "You won't find her." 

"Oh trust me, kid. I can and will." Stark laughed, raising his hand but the metal around it melted away, almost sinking into his flesh. "But that's a discussion for another day, how about we do a handshake and go our separate ways, eh? I'll let you keep doing whatever Spider-business you need to do and you leave my bots in turn, sounds like a good deal to me." 

Stark offered his bare hand to Peter. "As a bonus, I'll also make sure your aunt stays all wrapped up and toasty from whatever hole she's hiding in and makes sure none of the authorities even get a whiff of her. What do you say, kid? Deal?" 

Peter wanted to say no more than anything. He wanted to tell Stark exactly where he could shove the deal, except he didn't. 

He stared at the bare hand, thinking. Calculating. It was all he could do because technically, Stark didn't actually know where May was. 

He couldn't protect her like his 'deal' promised but if - when - Peter's body ever gave up on him and May was found, maybe he could use Stark to his advantage. 

Maybe he could use him to protect May. 

It was a long shot, and Peter knew even if something like that happened, Stark wouldn't keep up his end of the deal. He'd let May rot in jail while either sending Peter into foster care or a group home. 

Yet, a small part of him swelled at the thought of May being safe. Of his last family member at least having some sort of protection against the soulmate law. 

Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all. 

Peter swallowed, raising his own hand and trying to ignore the way it trembled. 

Was it worth it? To keep May safe? To disregard all the other lives out there just for her? 

A selfish part of Peter screamed yes because May was all he had left of a shattered world. If he lost her, Peter would crumble and whatever left of him would leave with her because he wouldn't cope. 

Yet, another part said no because he remembered what Ben told him once, many years ago, when a much younger Peter asked why he was a police officer, why he chose the job he did. He recalled the way Ben smiled and the soft look in his eyes as he ruffled his hair giving him an answer that would resonate with Peter for the rest of his life. 

With great power, comes great responsibility, Pete. Always remember that. 

Ben risked his life for others because he had the power, and now it was Peter’s turn to use what he had. 

Peter closed his eyes, silently begging May that she’d forgive him because he knew he wasn’t going to walk away from this alive. That Spider-Man’s body was going to be found in a boney heap on a pavement somewhere. Yet, he couldn't stand by when others suffered. Not when he had the power, not when it was his responsibility. Even if it meant losing the one thing that would change everything. 

I'm sorry, May. 

However, before Peter could pull his hand back and tell Stark exactly where he could shove it, fleshy fingers wrapped around his own and the world exploded. 

Peter choked as pain like nothing he ever felt before engulfed him in a fiery inferno, traveling all the way up to his head and to the bottom of his toes. It felt as if he was being turned from the inside out, every cell in his body getting cooked alive while his vision whitened out. 

It all ended as quickly as it started, and Peter blinked at black spots still darting across his eyes. For a brief moment he could see, and he wished he hadn’t. 

Stark was no longer in front of him, rather several feet back in the air, eyes blown wide and staring down at his left hand as if it held all the answers to the universe. 

Peter's mouth dried as he looked down, his stomach bottoming out as he realized that nothing was holding him anymore.

He was suspended for a brief second, before gravity took hold and without warning, Peter was falling.

[stupendousconnoisseurpuppy]

Dear neighbour... Rengoku x reader

(Written mainly for comedic purposes... with a hint of spice (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)

Enjoy!

(Warning : there are exactly two swear words d(-_☆))

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

Your neighbour was a murderer.

Weapon of choice? Devilish good looks. Yes, you were absolutely convinced he was trying to destroy the female populace… and you had evidence; every woman that had the ultimate misfortune of laying eyes upon the man had their brain short circuit and soul separated from their body - if their unsightly drooling was anything to go by. He was indiscriminate, as not even the withering old ladies that inhabited the apartment complex were spared from his wrath.

You were the only exception, humanity’s last hope… at least, that’s what you liked to tell yourself.

But not even the hair that fluttered like raging fires in the wind, nor the clear, sun-like laugh that seemed to miraculously add years onto your lifespan could excuse his crimes. No, not even a form-fitting t-shirt that exposed the beginnings of a well-endowed abdomen would do the trick. For it was because of the fact that your lodgings were situated directly next to the lair of this evil mastermind, that meant you were poised to deal with the worst his cult - like following had to offer.

You could sympathise with them… up to a certain point. You’d have to have been a blind person, in the dark, with a blindfold on not to see that Rengoku Kyojuro was probably the finest specimen you would ever catch sight of. But you had well and truly passed that point, and their constant pleas to switch apartments, outright blackmail, and creepy notes trying to get you to divulge information you didn’t have, had brutally singed the last remaining hairs of your patience.

The worst of it was you couldn’t even tell the source of your frustrations to call off his pack of ravenous wolves as the fault belonged to the handsome son-of-a-gun for being so completely unaware.

Well, you’d had enough. In a fit of rage, you stormed towards his apartment and knocked upon the door. His reign of terror was to be vanquished… your crusade had started, and blood would be spilt.

Indeed… you had chosen the path of violence.

“Ah! Y/N – San! To what do I owe the pleasure?” He beamed, the warmth of his tone complimenting the equally as warm and depthless orbs that scanned you in innocent curiosity.

Violence? Never heard of the b*tch.

I mean, what were you going to say when he opened the door? Catch some self-awareness? How dare you not realise how drop-dead gorgeous you are? Of course not! Best to retreat and reconvene when you had a more viable battle plan… yes…

Satisfied with the excuse you’d concocted to appease the disgust at your own flimsy determination, you turned to the man in front of you.

“Nothing much, Rengoku – San…” You desperately scoured the depths of your consciousness and prayed that he’d buy your impromptu absurdity… “It’s just that… I… er… saw the crate of your sweet potatoes at the front entrance and wanted to remind you to pick them up!” It was a triumph that you’d remembered his monthly subscription of sweet potatoes - that came in offensively obnoxious crates - had been left downstairs (in the foyer) and cleverly used it as a scapegoat.

“It seems you’re mistaken, dear Y/N.” You almost grinned at the term of endearment, but realised you were currently in the middle of trying to exit the hole you’d dug for yourself... “One of the lovely ladies from upstairs delivered it to my door almost four hours ago!”

Well, Shit.

“So…” He gave you a once over “Want to tell me why you’re really here, dear Y/N?”

It was at that moment he’d simultaneously managed to end your [social] career, catch you red-handed, with your trousers down, and – with that same red hand – in the cookie jar.

The only way you saw fit to respond was with a colourful array of expletives followed by heartfelt (and slightly overexaggerated) explanations of the trauma caused through your dealings with his “fangirls”.

He too responded, this time with a hearty laugh.

“It seems I shall have to make it up to you, no?”

“Yea–” WAIT… what?

There was a slow creak of the floorboards when he leaned forward. The smoky sandalwood and citrus undertones of his cologne floated gracefully in the air, a heavenly melody that consisted of his baritone, silky-smooth voice kissed your senses as hot breath tickled the shell of your ear.

“Why don’t we talk about this inside?”

[wolfstar-in-color]

July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that. 

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him. 

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things. 

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation. 

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit. 

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do). 

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster. 

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

[downwiththemutantnjnjaturtles]

May I request something where Leonardo and reader are really good friends and reader gets kidnapped and turned into a mutant. Leo blames himself, but reader reassures him it’s not his fault and they end up kissing. 💙💙

I'm To Blame [Leo x Mutated!reader]

Being turned into a mutant becomes the least of your problems when your closest friend believes it to be his fault. No one could have predicted what was going to happen; no one can control everything in their life. If only Leonardo would have realized that.

It started as leverage-abduction. The Turtles confront them, or you be pumped full of mutagen. Or worse.

The bait had been set, and the boys had no choice but to take it. Hook, line, sinker. You were held in a Foot-controlled lab, bound next to a glass canister of the ooze, a line in your arm and only the clan scientist in control of the drip standing between you and a possibly grotesque fate. You struggled and squirmed, but it was no use; there was no escape on your own.

There was a crash outside the lab doors, men shouting, guns firing, but bursting through the doors were your four saviors. Your friends, allies, and family. Leo fought his way to the front, a new kind of urgency consuming him as the gravity of the situation hit him. Any closer, and you would be mutated.

"Halt!" a soldier shouted over the clamor, a team of heavily armed men forming a semicircle around you and the scientist.

A hand grabbed hold of the back of your neck, yanking you toward him. He forcefully stretched your arm out and displayed the tube, making a note of their predicament, and the boys grimaced. Raph growled that deep, rage-fuelled rumble, while Donnie felt a shudder run up his spine seeing the canister of mutagen. What DNA the concoction was infused with, they had no idea of. There could have been anything in there. If the dosage wasn't carefully monitored, she could be killed!

"Weapons down, turtles, or this girl will be transformed right in front of you," the scientist said coolly. Leo stepped forward, blade drawn and teeth bared, but a warning shot was fired into the wall next to them. Mikey yelped and ducked into Raph, who blocked him partially with his huge frame. The scientist leaned down and inspected the canister, humming, "It seems like this batch is highly unstable. Is this a game you want to play, mutants?"

"You're bluffin'," snarled Raph, and his hands gripped his sais impossibly tighter.

The scientist raised his brows, his free hand wandering to the activator to the mutagen. One tap of a button, and your humanity would be ripped away. "Perhaps. But can you really be sure?" he inquired almost casually. "Only one flex of my finger, and we'll see."

Clenching his jaw, Raph shifted, lowering his weapons a little.

Leo mentally gauged the man power that was currently present. They could take them, he knew they could!

But Leo couldn't trifle with the canister currently attached to you. Breathing heavily, he dropped his swords, which clanged loudly on the floor. His eyes met yours, solemn, and you broke into a violent fit.

"Leo!" you cried out, lunging forward as he told his brothers to stand down. "Don't do this! Please, please, get out of here!"

He only shut his eyes, and with a wave of his hand, they all let go of their weapons in succession.

"We're not going to leave you!" Donnie yelled in return, his voice shaky.

There was a deafening silence in which it felt like a standoff, the boys panting, trying to formulate a battle plan in their heads. Leo stared at the scientist with one of the most hate-filled gazes you'd ever witnessed.

One of the soldiers in the back turned halfway around and whispered something into his earpiece.

The hefty metal doors right behind them flung open, a line of large men clad in black carrying what looked like modified cattle prods. The rods popped with electric currents as they closed in on the boys, who were only able to whirl around quick enough to meet the electrified weapons, and were instantly stunned. Currents no human could withstand brought them to their knees, Mikey shouting shrilly as he fell forward.

Groaning, Leo kneeled. He turned to the scientist at your side, his eyes darting between you and him. "You got us. Now let her go," he said. His voice was low and raspy.

Hand hovering over the button, the scientist spoke while he looked you in the eye, "You know, we were short of a healthy test subject."

Mikey gasped and planted his palms on the floor, "You can't do that, man!"

The scientist sighed and looked down at you, who was wildly struggling against your restraints. He muttered in a matter-of-fact tone, "But I can." It seemed that after a moment of contemplation, eyes going out of focus as they fell on your face and the tears running down it, he let out a reluctant groan, and motioned to one of the men behind him. "Take her elsewhere. We'll figure out what to do with her once we get these," he glanced back at the turtles, "squared away. Clear?"

"That wasn't the deal!" roared Leo, rapidly surging toward the scientist. Another electric shock was sent through him, but he kept on, and the brothers all followed suit.

You winced as the clamor rose and all hell broke loose, the boys ripping their weapons away from the men, guns being fired—your ears rang and a bullet even whizzed by your head.

Leo came at the scientist with his blade, the cowardly man trying to duck away in time. Two soldiers came up on their flank, one with a semi-automatic, and the other brandishing the electric rod. Except before they could get close to even shock him, Mikey's nunchucks landed a heavy blow on one of their heads, causing him to stumble toward you.

And fell right onto the button.

"No!" you heard both Donnie and Leo scream as the drip was activated, Mutagen flowing through the tube and into your body.

Everything became a blur. Within minutes you mutated, firstly writhing on the floor in agony as the burning liquid coarsest through you. Bones shifted, tissue changed, muscles spasmed. Your senses were temporarily blinded.

"Idiots!" snarled the scientist, backing away from you as you transformed. Raph was occupied holding off the soldiers. Mikey couldn't bear to watch. Donnie didn't know what to do, and Leo was...devastated.

Your strength grew. You broke free from your restraints. The firefight continued, this time aimed at you rather than just the Turtles. But the boys wouldn't let them hurt you. In your panic, you'd almost attacked them—your family. Leo hollered at Donnie and Mikey to get you out of there while they covered you, and seconds later, you were all barrelling out of the facility, alarms blaring, guns sounding, men shouting.

Yes, the Mutagen was highly unstable. You couldn't control yourself. And your body, it wasn't done reacting to the ooze.

You didn't know what happened next. You fell unconscious just after escaping. The last thing you can remember is Leo catching you in his arms. Him helping to carry you back home, to the lair. Your new home. You were one of them, now.

Breathing labored, you sat up on the metal table you had been laid on by Donnie. He'd checked your vitals already. Needless to say, so early in your mutation, things were not looking the best. But you would pull through; he was sure of it.

The first face you sas upon waking up was Leo's, worried. His eyes flitted all over you. You hadn't yet seen yourself.

"Y/N," he whispered, hands bracing against the edge of the table. "This...this is my fault," he said.

Donnie scuttled by holding a light and examined your eyes, then asked you to move a bit to see if there were any anomalies such as paralysis. You had some trouble adjusting to your new form, but so far, it wasn't dire.

Everyone came and went, hugging you, saying their piece about how happy they were that you were okay—as okay as you could have been—until Splinter noticed Leo's distress. He told the boys to let you two have a minute alone. Splinter left himself, as well.

The two of you now alone, Leo had a hard time speaking. He couldn't quite find the words to say how sorry he was.

"This isn't your fault," you drawled, still feeling a little loopy from the whole ordeal.

He leaned in, as you couldn't do much beside sit up. "If you hadn't ever gotten involved with us, this would have never happened," he said, lowering his head. "And now you're…"

He paused, and you finished for him, "I'm what? A mutant?" you asked softly. "Leo, I am so lucky to be alive. And it's all thanks to you." He sighed, not believing your words. "They would have killed me, Leo," you added, and took his hands in yours. He looked up at you, blue eyes meeting your own. Had your eye color changed?

"You didn't deserve this," he swallowed.

"Does anyone?"

He stood up. "This happened because I failed, y/n! As a leader, as a friend—"

Not caring about your current state, you slid off the table, landing on your feet with a thud. Your body ached, but you payed it no mind. Leo went rigid as you closed the gap between you two.

Still holding his hands, you told him slowly, "It is not your fault."

Your faces were only a few inches from each other. Unknowing, he gripped your hands. You swore that you could almost hear his heartbeat picking up as you leaned in, lips hovering over his. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but you stopped that thought. "You understand? Not...your...fault…"

His breath hitched when you gently pressed your mouth to his, at first going completely still. But then he closed his eyes, and his arms found their ways around your torso. The kiss was short and gentle, but he was stricken—only when you parted did he whisper a moment later, a new kind of hope inside, "You can live here, with us. You don't have to worry. You shouldn't ever have to worry, y/n."

"I won't worry, Leo," you muttered, letting your head rest on his chest. "Not when you're here with me."

He held you until eventually, everyone filed back in, Splinter smiling warmly at the sight.

[sinshckled]

━━ ╴-   AGUST D,  D-2   [ 2020 ]                                     ⤷  LYRICAL STARTERS. 

collection of various sentence starters from AGUST D’s second mixtape. -  translations were taken from doolsetbangtan, w/ occasional help from genius ; -  minor edits were made as to accomodate roleplay needs ; -  feel free to change pronouns or wording as to best fit your muse !

cw:   angst, depression, mentions of violence, alcohol, lots and lots of SWEARING !

━━━━━━━

TRACK ONE. — 저 달 ( Moonlight )

❝ Fuck, I’m just doing it. ❞

❝ In my head, the reality fights with the ideal tirelessly. ❞

❝ My biggest enemy is the anger inside me. ���

❝ Sometimes I resent god, asking why he made me live a life like this. ❞

❝ Sometimes I ask myself again, ‘if it was possible to go back, would you ?’ Well, I’ll have to think more about that. ❞

❝ One moment I feel like I’ve easily earned what I have, and the next moment I’m compensated for the fucking hard work I’ve done. ❞

❝ But I’m still hungry, would this be karma ? ❞

❝ That moonlight that shines on me at dawn, it’s still the same as then. A lot changed in my life, but that moonlight is still the same. ❞

❝ Sometimes I feel like I’m a genius. Sometimes I feel like I have no talent. ❞

❝ There would be no eternity for anything. ❞

❝ Being called immortal is fucking overwhelming. ❞

❝ But the adjectives they attach to my name feel too much sometimes. ❞

❝ What can I do, I should just keep running. ❞

❝ What can I do, I should just keep hold of things that I’m grasping. ❞

❝ What can I do, I should just pay back what I’ve received. ❞

❝ If you think you’re gonna crash, accelerate even harder, you idiot ! ❞

    TRACK TWO. — 대취타 ( Daechwita )

❝ Don’t forget the old days. ❞

❝ Born a slave, risen to a king. ❞

❝ Rags to riches, that’s exactly the way I live. ❞

❝ I’m sorry, but don’t worry about me ; I have lots to lose. ❞

❝ I'm about to dine on what I know is mine. ❞

❝ Not gonna lie, what a shitshow. ❞

❝ I’ve got no pretensions, just kill ’em all.  ❞

❝ No exceptions, I watch you fall. ❞

❝ Who’s the king ? Who’s the boss ? ❞

❝ Everyone knows my name. ❞

❝ All shit-talk, they’ve got no game. ❞

❝ Off with their heads, ah ! ❞

❝ This country's too small to hold me in yet. ❞

❝ Who said time is money ? My time is worth more than that. ❞

❝ I'm so thankful that I'm a genius.  ❞

❝ If that’s your reason for using drugs, cry me a river — you’ve just got no skills. ❞

❝ I got everything I wanted, I wonder what else I should have to feel satisfied. ❞

❝ Yeah, what's next ? ❞

❝ Here comes my reality check. ❞

❝ I only looked up ; now I want to look down and put my feet on the ground. ❞

❝ Remember my name. ❞   

━━━  MORE UNDER THE CUT !

   TRACK THREE. — 어떻게 생각해? ( What do you think? )

❝ What do you think ? ❞

❝ Whatever you think, I’m sorry but I don’t fucking care at all. ❞

❝ I’m sorry but I don’t care at all about how mediocre your life is, or about the fact that you can’t escape the shithole after failing. ❞

❝ Thinking that my success has anything to do with your failure… you’re fucking great at being delusional. ❞

❝ Your sense of humor is so so. ❞

❝ The fact that you're fucked is your fault, no-no? ❞

❝ We conquer it all, one by one, like we’ve been doing all this time. ❞

❝ All of you go fuck yourself, huh ! ❞

❝ The brats that boast about their money, you have to wonder how much they could've actually earnt on their own. ❞

❝ Bragging about money looks cute now. ❞

❝ We’ll go serve in the military when the time comes. ❞

❝ I hope all those bastards who tried to get a free ride by selling our names shut their mouths up. ❞

❝ At this point, I don’t have to know. ❞

❝ I don’t fucking care. ❞

❝ While this will be my last gift, this as well is luxury for you. ❞

    TRACK FOUR. — 이상하지 않은가 ( Strange ) ft. RM 

❝ Everything in dust, do you see ? ❞

❝ Well well well…❞

❝ Everything in lust. ❞

❝ Someone please tell me if life is pain. ❞

❝ If there’s a god, please tell me if life is happiness. ❞

❝ A big system that’s called the world ; They insert conflicts, wars, or survivals. ❞

❝ Capital injects morphine called hope with dream as collateral. ❞

❝ Wealth creates wealth and tests our greed. ❞

❝ In the world, it’s only the two, black and white, that exist. ❞

❝ In the endless zero-sum game, the end is entertaining to watch. ❞

❝ Polarization... the ugliest flower in the world. ❞

❝ It’s been a long while since truth got eaten away by lies. ❞

❝ Who would it be that benefits the most? Who would it be that gets harmed the most ? ❞

❝ The one who isn’t sick in the world that is sick gets treated as a mutant, isn’t it strange ? ❞

❝ The one who has his eyes open in the world that has its eyes closed — now they make him out to be blind, isn’t it strange ? ❞

❝ The one who wants peace, the one who wants a fight — each taking each end of the ideology, isn’t it strange ? ❞

❝ There’s no correct answer, isn’t it strange ? ❞

❝ You think you’ve got taste? Oh, baby, how do you know? ❞

❝ For god’s sake, everything's under control ! ❞

❝ However much money one has, everyone is a slave of this system. ❞

❝ At this point, even you wouldn’t know. ❞

❝ Oh baby, what’s your name? ❞

❝ But still, life goes on, somehow, just like this. ❞

❝ Everyone, in their own chicken coop, says they’re okay. ❞

❝ In the world where a dream has become an option… there’s no correct answer, that’s the answer. ❞

   TRACK FIVE. — 점점 어른이 되나봐 ( 28 ), ft. NiiHWA

❝ And yet, would it have been better to not know the world? ❞

❝ Perhaps I’m gradually becoming an adult. ❞

❝ I can’t remember what were the things that I hoped for. ❞

❝ Now I’m scared. ❞

❝ Where did the fragments of my dream go ? ❞

❝ Though I’m breathing, it feels like my heart has broken down. ❞

❝ Yeah, to talk about now, it’s about becoming an adult who finds it only overwhelming to grasp onto a dream. ❞

❝ I thought I’d change when I turned twenty ; I thought I’d change when I graduated. ❞

❝ Sometimes, tears suddenly pour down with no reason. ❞

❝ Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter anymore. ❞

❝ Living, for just one day, without any concerns... for just one day, without any worries. ❞

    TRACK SIX. — Burn it, ft. MAX

❝ I see the ashes falling out your window. ❞

❝ There’s someone in the mirror that you don’t know. ❞

❝ And everything was all wrong ; so burn it till it’s all gone. ❞

❝ Let’s go back to the past days, to the times that destroyed me. ❞

❝ After having a taste of success, how am I different from the me of back then ? ❞

❝ Let the old me burn. ❞

❝ I wonder what would remain in the end ? ❞

❝ The weakness, hatred, loathing, and even rage — Them, too, are rather futile. ❞

❝ Be careful of the word ‘beginner’s mindset’, don’t be afraid. ❞

❝ Whether it would become a blazing sun or the ashes left behind after being burnt — always, the choice and decision is yours to make. ❞

❝ I hope you don’t forget that giving up decisively also counts as courage. ❞

    TRACK SEVEN. — 사람 (People)

❝ What kind of person am I ? ❞

❝ Am I a good person ? Or a bad person ? ❞

❝ I’m just a person, too. ❞

❝ Everyone would fade away and be forgotten. ❞

❝ People change — like I have. ❞

❝ There’s nothing that lasts forever. ❞

❝ Everything is just a happening passing through.❞

❝ Mm… why so serious ? ❞

❝ If you get hurt, what about it ? ❞

❝ Flow along the way the water flows ; maybe there’s something at the end. ❞

❝ A special life, an ordinary life, each of them on their own. ❞

❝ It’s all good, it’s all good. ❞

❝ Things don’t always go as intended ; Discomfort is something everyone has to withstand. ❞

❝ The repetition of dramatic situations sometimes makes life tiring. ❞

❝ People are like that. ❞

❝ When it’s not there, you wish it was ; when it’s there, you wish it wasn’t. ❞

❝ Who said that humans are the animals of wisdom ? To my eyes, it’s obvious that they are animals of regret. ❞

    TRACK EIGHT. — 혼술 ( Honsool )

❝ It’s time that I fully face myself. ❞

❝ After finishing a shower, I detoxify myself with alcohol. ❞

❝ Perhaps it’s the alcohol that puts a period at the end of the day that is blurry in my memory. ❞

❝ I’ll just worry about tomorrow’s work tomorrow, fuck I don’t care. ❞

❝ I don’t really reach for snacks because I feel like I’d throw up if I did. ❞

❝ Since it’s getting to my head, let’s be honest about my life. ❞

❝ Oh yeah, money, fame, wealth, trophies and stadiums — sometimes I’d get scared of them. ❞

❝ I thought I’d party every day when I become a superstar, but the ideal is slapping the reality in the back of its head. ❞

❝ Well, it doesn’t matter anyway ; Tomorrow will come and go again. ❞

❝ I, who’s like this, and you, who’s like that… we just endure through the day, I guess. ❞

    TRACK NINE. — Interlude : Set me free

❝ Set me free, knowing that it won’t go the way I want. ❞

❝ Set me free, knowing that it’s not what I want. ❞

❝ Set me free, I’m floating freely in the void. ❞

❝ Set me free, these days, I feel melancholy for no obvious reason. ❞

❝ One day, I crawl on the floor ; On another day, I fly high in the sky. ❞

    TRACK TEN. — 어땠을까 ( Dear my friend ), ft. JW of NELL

❝ Still, as ever, I miss you, and I miss you. ❞

❝ Still, as ever, the memories of us together circle around me. ❞

❝ Maybe, if I had held you back then… no, if I had stopped you back then… ❞

❝ Would we have remained friends ? What would have it been like ? ❞

❝ Dear my friend, how are you doing ? ❞

❝ I, well, am doing well, as you probably know, yeah. ❞

❝ Dear my friend, I’ll be honest. I still fucking hate you. ❞

❝ I still remember the old days, when we were together. ❞

❝ “With the two of us, even the world is nothing to be afraid of” ; We used to say that, and now we walk on completely different paths, damn. ❞

❝ We, who had big dreams, were young, we were only twenty. ❞

❝ Would it be that you’ve changed, or was it me ? ❞

❝ I hate this flowing time, I guess it’s us who’ ve changed. ❞

❝ Hey, I hate you. Hey, I don't like you — Hey, even as I say these words, I miss you. ❞

❝ When I saw you for the first time in a while, you had become a completely different person. ❞

❝ There was no way to bring you back, and you became a monster.❞

❝ The you I used to know is gone, and the me you used to know is gone. ❞

❝ I know that it’s not just because of time that we’ve changed. ❞

[tanzen-neko]

Only in Dreams (Mammon x MC)

Only in Dreams (Mammon x MC)

Obey Me!

Warnings: graphic nightmare with mentions of harm and blood, smut that turns into fluff, Sad Mammon.

Takes place during MC’s return to the Devildom (I am the queen of procrastination)

It seemed to all be happening in slow motion: the unfurling of Levi’s wings, his rage so palpable it hung in the air, you turning to him arm outstretched with his name on your lips, and his slipping. His damn slipping. Except this time, Lucifer didn’t make it to you. At least, not before Levi did. The snarl on his face before he grabbed you seared itself in his mind’s eye. The floor dissolved and you all fell into the endless black…

He landed hard on the floor and was instantly assaulted with the coppery smell of blood. Yours. So much of it as Belphie threw you against the wall, his claws deep in your throat until you stopped screaming. He dropped you unceremoniously as his insane laughter rang out through the hall. He ran to your side, and it was so hard to move. Why was it so hard to just save you? Snatching you up in his arms, he rocked back and forth, unsure of where to stop the bleeding first. Your neck? Your stomach? The gash across your forehead? There was so much blood, he couldn’t breathe. Was choking on it. Your eyes were closed, but it was ok because you would come back. You came back right? Unbeknownst to himself, he was whispering “please, please, please” under his breath like a mantra. Like a spell that would bring you back. One that would just open those eyes of yours again. He didn’t care if you chose another of his brothers, or berated him. Because then at least you would be alive. Belphie’s laughter faded, and he looked up. The hallway was smoldering clouds of black nothingness, the pain in his heart hurting more than when he was cast down from his first home. He would take the Fall a thousand times if you would just smile. But you didn’t. Instead when he glanced back down at you, your eyes were full of rage and betrayal. “You!!” you ground out in a harsh voice. You sat up, neck at an unnatural angle, and Mammon scrambled backwards in fear as you stood up. You walked towards him, an unnatural, shuffling due to your broken foot. 

“You did this Mammon. You were supposed to watch me, protect me. But you didn’t. Twice you let me get hurt. Twice!!! Useless, dirty, greedy scumbag. You only care about money. You’re nothing, and now I’m dead. I hate you. Hate, Hate, Hate!!” All he could do was shake his head no. He would take the blame if you lived. But not like this. Not this angry ghoulish thing who screamed the word hate at him. He balled into himself, rocking back in forth….

Mammon woke up with a gasp, tangled in his sweat soaked sheets. He panicked in the darkness of his room, his demon form demanding to be let out. “There’s a threat. Eliminate the threat, eliminate the threat!” He forced himself to calm down, to breathe, and get his bearings .It was so hard when he could have sworn he could still smell her blood in the air. As his head cleared, he recalled his surroundings. He was in his bedroom. He had gone to bed in fit shortly after dinner due to his brothers monopolizing his human after her surprise return to the Devildom.  His human!! His heart leaped up as he remembered his dream. He panicked again, falling out of his bed. Barely registering the sharp pain to his wrist, he jumped up, and stumbled to his door before realizing he was naked. For the first time ever, he cursed himself for sleeping without clothes on. He promised himself never again unless it was with her clasped in his arms. He flipped on his light and searched frantically for any type of bottoms. He finally grabbed a crumpled pair of sweatpants with his school crest blazoned bright and bold on the pockets. He wrenched his door open, almost taking it off the hinge in the process. Not bothering to close it, he raced down the hallway, his fear choking him to the point where his feet barely touched the ground, the halls a blur of color and indistinguishable shapes.

The annoying pounding wouldn’t stop no matter how many times she slammed down on her alarm clock. Finally pulling the blanket that was covering her head off in a huff, she sat up and switched on the bedside table light. The bright, aggressive light on her clock revealed it was only 1 in the morning. 

“Oi! Are ya awake? Can I come in? Please, please let me come in. Wake up, human! I just need to see ya!!”

Mammon. With an aggravated sigh, she reluctantly crawled out of the comforting sanctity of her bed to make her way to the door before he could wake his brothers up with his incessant pounding. Wrenching it open, she could barely get the angry “what?!” out of her mouth before the demon moved with almost blinding speed into her room, the door closing behind him before he buried his face into the corner of her neck. He enveloped her in his arms, and lifted her off her feet in a crushing hug.

“Mammon! Too tight!” she managed to squeak out. He barely eased off, but he did lower her back to the ground. She tried in vain to work her hands between them in order to push him off, but he wasn’t relenting. Instead, she shuffled herself backwards step by step until they hit her bed and she could sit down. Belatedly, she realized Mammon was crying into her neck, deep shuddering sobs that seemed to cause his body to shake. She made soothing noises as she rubbed his lower back, confused and distressed to see him like this. Mammon was hardly serious, let alone this upset. 

“Mammon, hey. Tell me what happened.” He gave one last shudder before he raised his head. His tear streaked face was red, and his beautiful blue and yellow eyes seemed dulled and frantic. Strands of his silvery white hair clung to his face, soaked in sweat. 

“I couldn’t…” He hiccuped, interrupting his sentence. “I couldn’t save you. I wanted to, I did. But I couldn’t. Two times. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He started crying again, his hands dropping to his lap. He couldn’t seem to stop the tears, nor could he bring himself to look her in the eyes. He had never felt more ashamed in his life; ashamed at failing her, and even more ashamed at waking her up over his silly nightmare. She could tell that he was waiting for her to fuss at him for waking her up, but she no longer felt any anger. Instead, she felt her heart ache at seeing him let this. 

“Hey, hey look at me. I’m ok, see? It’s ok Mammon.” She cupped his flushed cheeks with her hands, making soothing noises as she brushed his tears away. She pulled him in close, dotting his cheeks with gentle kisses in order to calm him down. He kept letting out little hiccups, but slowly his tears subsided. To be honest, she wasn’t sure who kissed who first. All she knew is that one moment she was still kissing his wet cheeks as he clung to her, and the next his nose was bumping against hers and then their lips came together. It must have shocked him too, because he jolted before pulling back. But when he looked up at her with heavy lidded eyes, it was her choice to close the distance. His lips were gentle as they slowly devoured her, and she could taste the sour bite of sleep when his tongue entered her mouth to wrap around hers. She could hear a constant stream of whimpering over the roaring in her head. She wasn’t sure if it was coming from herself or him. All she knew was that his kisses felt so damn good. He pulled her onto his lap and she locked her arms around his neck. She was sure she was practically strangling him with how close she was holding him to her body, but Mammon didn't seem to care. If anything, the way his fingers were digging into her sides let her know that he was feeling it as much as she was. They broke the kiss for a brief second, but only so they could struggle to remove the tank top from her body. As the cool air hit her skin, Mammon’s roaming hands seemed to restart the burning heat throughout her body. He ran his hands over her chest, stopping to pinch her nipples through her sports bra before dragging them up and down her sides. He gently brushed the back of her neck, sending a scatter of shivers down her spine. All the while maintaining the tight seal of his mouth against hers. As their kisses grew more feverish, she had no choice but to  break apart for a moment to gulp in air. Not one to lose an opportunity, Mammon’s mouth attacked the front of her neck, and he nibbled along her collarbone. Leaning her back a bit, he sucked hard at her nipple through her bra. She let out a strange noise, but she was too busy pulling his head closer to her chest to feel self conscious about it. After he gave her a gentle bite, she grinded against the hard length of him, threading her fingers through his hair in order to wrench his mouth back up to her lonely one. He kissed her in such a desperate manner that she felt her heart clench in her chest. Her spinning head still hadn’t seemed to catch up to the current events. Yes, she had been aware of the sexual tension between her and Mammon; he was her “first” after all. But she hadn’t ever thought that they would ever end up like this. In fact, she had made it a point to not even allow herself to fantasize about it. And yet, here they were grabbing at each other like two inexperienced teenagers. As if he read her thoughts, Mammon pulled back again. 

“Oi, oi, hold on human”, he managed to gasp out. 

Fighting back the childish urge to whine, she just dropped her head on top of his as they both tried to get their breath back. Wiggling his head underneath hers, she let out a chuckle as his soft hair tickled her face.

“Did, did ya’ just do this cuz I was cryin’?” His question came to her muffled against her chest. She tried to pull his head up to meet his gaze, but he stubbornly refused.

“I don’t want your pity, ya’ know. Besides, I’m the Great Mammon! I don’t need anyone’s pity.” Despite his boisterous words, his voice still held a trace of uncertainty and even confusion. She let out a soft sigh as she stroked the top of his head. Now that both of them had cooled down, she felt a bit of embarrassment creeping upon her. She hadn’t meant for things to go that far, especially since they had never even confessed to each other. Did she want to try it with him? Nodding her head to herself, she made up her mind. 

“Hey Mammon, look at me.” He resisted at first, but she was finally able to force his eyes to meet hers. He tried to avert his eyes from her, but his blushing face was still a give away to his embarrassment. 

“Seriously, when did he get so adorable?!” she thought to herself as she squeezed his head. He struggled halfheartedly to pull away again, but his pout didn't really reach his eyes. 

“Listen Mr. Mammon. I think you’re oh so cute, and sweet. And if you don’t mind, I would very much like to take you out sometime.”

“Like, like a date?”

“Yep.”

“Like, like a real couple? Not like when ya’ go out with my brothers?”

“Yep. Like a real couple. A couple that holds hands, and hugs, and touches…” She whispered the last bit in his ear before giving it a playful nip. Mammon squirmed a little, his hands wrapping back around her waist. 

 “Well, I’ll have to check my schedule, ya’ know! The Great Mammon just isn’t free all the time. But if it’s for my human, I guess I could move some things around. But don’t go expectin’ this special treatment all the time.”

“Oh I wouldn’t dare.” She held back the smile that threatened to break out as she went along with his bluff. Mammon pursed his lips at her for a kiss, and she happily obliged. Breaking away, he rubbed his nose against hers.

“We should probably go to bed. I mean to sleep!! Just to sleep! Nothin’ else. I’m not tryin’ to put the moves on ya’ or nothin’! I mean, I would if ya’ want me to!”

She cut off Mammon’s rambling by placing a hand over his mouth. 

“I gotcha’. So how about you just stay here the night, and I’ll hold you tight to keep all the nightmares away, yeah?”

The two of them smiled goofily at each other before climbing under her sheets. Mammon’s body heat was already making her hot, but she wouldn’t have pushed his clinging form away for anything in the world. She stroked his hair, and soon her room was filled with the soft sound of his snores. Not too far behind him, she drifted off, giving the top of his head one last kiss before slipping into a wonderful dreamless slumber.