#his head exploded and is pulling in all light towards the black hole that resides in the pieced together remains of his skull. sad!

[foster-the-moths]

wanted to try and make my own design for an alternate of mark

[thebigqueer]

Solangelo - "Lethal Enemies" - One-Shot

Summary: Nico and Will are venturing through Tartarus, and there they meet a familar god: Eros.

Word Count: 2905

SPOILERS: Tower of Nero, Burning Maze; TW: Homophobia/Internalized Homophobia, some violence (and blood but it's not too descriptive), outing mentions

Read on AO3

Heat pulses in the air, scorching Nico’s skin as he and Will stumble through the darkness. He isn’t sure how long they’ve been down here, but his body is already aching and screaming from all the effort of fighting monsters and trying to survive.

Will’s arm brushes against Nico’s, and the child of Hades almost jumps back at the touch. His skin feels feverishly hot, bursting with unnatural heat. When Nico looks up at him, he realizes that Will’s face is severed with scratches, gashes, sweat, and an overall pale wash. Small holes smoke in his CHB T-shirt, and his jeans are ripped at the sides from where a monster clawed him.

At the sight of him, Nico’s chest constricts with sympathy and guilt. As much as he loves Will for coming with him, he knows the kind of pressures that would put on both of them. Will looks so out of place in such a dark, gloomy world, where only terror and misery reside.

To Nico, Will is the complete opposite of terror and misery. He’s the sunshine after a terrible rain storm; he’s the sweetness after the sourness. But here, in the raging darkness, Will looks washed out. He doesn’t belong here.

Tartarus is Nico’s terrifying, unspeakable past; Will is his bright future. The two should not be clashing.

This hell was made to ruin. And it seems like it’s doing its job on Will, too.

Nico slips his fingers into the blond’s and squeezes, pushing his own feverish warmth into his boyfriend. Will turns his face to Nico’s and, for the first time, Nico sees a crack in his eyes - usually so sky blue, they’ve turned almost gray with fear. He’s breaking.

Nico leans into Will’s side, trying to find solace in the overbearing darkness. “It’s only going to get worse,” he mutters.

“Then I’m glad I’m not doing it alone.”

Nico offers a wavering smile, and they continue walking. For the most part, it seems like they’re safe from any monsters, but Nico knows from past experience that he can never be too careful. His eyes swerve all around them, watching out for any new monsters, and his Stygian sword pulses in the darkness.

After a few moments, there’s a shift in the air. It’s still warm and unbearable, but there’s a new scent - like a faint waft of the outside world, the breath of a fresh summer day. It smells almost like Will.

The blood in Nico’s veins buzzes and he stops immediately. Fear courses through his body. Will staggers as the child of Hades grips his wrist and pulls him back. At the sight of Nico’s ashen face, Will leans in. “Everything good?” he asks.

“That smell,” he whispers. “What does it smell like to you?”

“Well,” Will says, eyebrows knitting together as he thinks, “it kind of smells like you, weirdly? Like, the earth after a rainy day.”

That’s all Nico needs to know before panic settles in his chest. His mind crawls with memories and the pain of humiliation he faced just a year ago. Jason, Croatia, Diocletian’s spectre.

“No,” he mutters. “Will, we need to leave.”

Without waiting for a response, Nico tightens his fingers over Will’s wrist and starts to pull him away. But a voice murmurs, “Oh, leaving so soon, child of Hades?” and Nico knows right then and there that he and Will are trapped.

The voice pours over the heat like melted chocolate, smooth and deep, but a dagger of betrayal resides in it. Nico’s heart thuds on overtime and his nerves flair with anxiety, but he knows he can’t go anywhere. This meeting was bound to happen.

“Eros,” Nico hisses.

“Ah,” the voice murmurs. “So you recognize me.”

The god isn’t visible, but Nico can feel his cold presence anyway. “Who would forget such a jackass?”

A low, rumbling laugh echoes around them. Will’s hand releases its hold on Nico’s and lingers over the gun at his side. Nico raises his sword.

“Well, well, well,” the god says, “it looks like you’ve got a new friend here with you. How sweet.”

“Show yourself,” Will demands. “Face us like the hot-headed deity you are.”

Though he can’t see it, Nico still senses the raised eyebrow over the god’s eye. “Oh, he’s feisty, too. You sure have won with him.”

“Stop talking about him like he’s some kind of object,” says Nico. “You heard him. Show yourself.”

The same laughter crashes over them, and after another moment, a being appears. His long, black hair gleams despite the absence of light, and his red eyes glimmer maliciously in the darkness. They stare right through Nico, stabbing him in the face, and suddenly Nico’s hurtling to the past, to the misery. He scowls at the god.

Eros’ wings spread around him, the feathers fluttering a little as he shifts. He crosses his arms and offers a sharp smirk to Will and Nico. “Aw, look at you two,” he purrs. “So young and in love. Ready to fight together in Tartarus.”

“What do you want?” Nico asks, brandishing his sword. “Why are you bothering us?”

Eros’ shoulders rise and fall gracefully in an innocent shrug. “Oh, nothing, really. I was really just hoping to see how you were. I heard you were traveling down here, and I thought I would check on your progress.”

“Well, great. You’ve checked. You can leave.”

He laughs again, a low, tumbling laugh that heightens Nico’s rage. “Ever the sarcastic, child of Hades. No, listen. I can help you.”

“And how will you do that?” Will asks, raising an eyebrow. “You’re nothing more than a love god.”

“Have the Aphrodite children taught you nothing, pitiful child?” Eros hisses. “Love plays an important role in life.”

“I don’t see how love is helpful here,” Nico says, spreading his arms to gesture to the rest of Tartarus. “All I see is pain and misery. You can leave.”

“Oh, but I see where love can become important.” Eros raises a brow and tips his head to the boys. “Are you two not in love?”

Nico blushes. “That is not of your concern.”

“I can influence a lot,” he promises. “Especially the way you two act together. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase - the two you were oh-so-jealous of only some time ago - came here together. They got away safely. I can influence a lot between you and Will Solace.” He steps forward, and against his lips, a dagger-like smile beams at Nico.

The son of Hades crosses his arms. “I happen to remember that I got through here on my own. Love does not solve all problems.”

Eros raises an eyebrow. “Does it not?” He begins to circle around Will and Nico, glaring at them with his ruby-red eyes. “Tell me, Nico, does Will not make you feel special? Does he not help you feel better?”

Rage billows up in Nico’s chest, pushing against his sternum. “I am happy with Will. But he does not solve my problems, just the way I do not solve his.”

“But you are happier with him, is that right?” Another smile flashes across his mouth. “And who are you to thank for him, hmm? If it were not for me, you would not be here today with him. You would not be happy accepting who you are.”

Nico’s anger rises up to this throat, hot waves of rage crashing against the back of his neck. He surges forward, but Will pulls him back. “No,” he whispers. “He’s a god, Nico. Don’t try.”

Nico glares at Will, but deep down, he knows Will is right. So he sighs and stands still.

“I would not be happy?” he growls. Nico's muscles tighten with rage. “You humiliated me. I wasn’t ready to admit who I was; I wasn’t ready for any of that.” This time, despite Will’s insistence, Nico rushes forward, his anger pulling him toward the god. “It was my choice, and you stole it from me! And you’re congratulating yourself?”

“It’s not like there were many people there,” the god scoffs. “Only Grace.” He pouts. “I heard about the demigod’s untimely death, however. Terribly sorry.”

Nico shakes his head. He knows Eros is just trying to get under his skin by mentioning Jason. He can’t let himself get distracted.

“Your outing of me was not something to celebrate,” hisses Nico. “I spent so much time hating myself, hating Percy because of who I was. When you forced me to blatantly admit that I was gay” - a burst of confidence blooms in Nico’s chest as he says the last word - “I had never felt so violated. I only hated myself more, because I was terrified of who I was. The entire experience was humiliating. You ruined me.”

“Did I?” Eros asks. “The first step in accepting yourself was to admit you were gay in the first place. I pushed you to accept yourself.” He gestures to Will. “Now look where you are! Happy and in love with a boyfriend! Is there anything better?”

Nico’s chest heaves as another wave of rage suffocates him. His body shakes with anger. He feels like a detonating bomb; in just a few seconds, he will explode and destroy everything in the area.

“You only made things worse,” mutters Nico. “I spent days worrying about who was watching me, worrying about how much people knew. I hated myself every moment, every second afterwards, even more so than before you forced me to admit that I was gay.” Nico takes a deep breath, his chest expanding as he does so. “Maybe you’re right - maybe I did need to admit to myself who I was. But it should have been on my own terms. You did not help me accept myself; all you did was make me tell myself what I already knew. You made the entire process of accepting myself more difficult than it needed to be. When I spat out that I liked Percy, I felt… I felt violated. I felt like someone had stabbed me right through the back. I… I hated myself more than I ever did at that moment. I thought it was the end; I thought right then and there, I would die. Not from embarrassment, but from someone else’s hands. My own hands. I thought there was nothing more humiliating than to be forced to tell someone I didn’t know that I was some kind of disgusting creature. I felt so dehumanized.” Nico glares at Eros. “Don’t feel happy that you did that. You did not improve my life; only I did that. Not Will, not you, not any of my friends. Me. Do not take credit for my accomplishments.” Hot fury seethes in Nico’s core, washes up over his chest, crashes against his throat, trickles down his arms and legs. His lungs expand and exhale as he breathes hard, each breath like acid burning down his sinuses. “My work has been looked over too much, ever since I first learned of demigods. Do not take the credit for my self-improvement, because you are one of the many reasons I was destroyed in the first place.”

For a moment, no one speaks. An eerie silence lingers in the air, holding Nico in a chokehold. Eros simply watches him, his eyebrows lowered and a fierce, judgmental, angry look glowing in his red eyes. Will tilts his head at Nico and offers the ghost of a smile. I'm proud of you, he seems to be saying.

Nico doesn’t return it, but even then, a little flower of confidence blooms in his chest.

Eros crosses his arms once more, airing his defiance out into the open. Arrogance sparks along his wings. He raises a brow at Nico. “You have become more bold in yourself. Self-assured.” A sharp smile grates against his mouth. “And that would not have happened had you not admitted you were gay at all. I may have humiliated you, but in the end, you have become stronger through your pain. You have become sturdy, grounded into the world. I have led you to your happiness.” He offers a secretive smile to Will. “And your happiness is your boyfriend. You’re welcome.”

Nico watches Eros, glaring at his over-confident face, at his casual posture, at the pride in his eyes. He is too assured in himself, too hot-headed.

The sword in Nico’s hand grows heavier, a hum buzzing through the metal. Irritation and anger swirl in his chest, creating a tornado in his body, and he’s drowning, drowning in his rage, in his memories, in his untamed emotions.

He knows what he has to do.

Nico raises his sword, and, without even thinking, he slashes the god’s shoulder.

“Nico!” Will cries, but it’s too late. Eros cries out and hisses through his teeth, holding his arm in his hand. His angry red eyes gleam right at the child of Hades, projecting all his rage and pain right to Nico’s core. The demigod merely stands still, waiting for the god’s next move.

“Oh, you arrogant hero!” Eros cries. Golden ichor slips past his fingers, dripping onto the ground, and for a strange, fleeting moment, Nico finds that it looks beautiful in the darkness, sparkling where it should not be.

Only pain belongs in Tartarus. Nico wants to hurt Eros the way he hurt him.

Nico knows the act was stupid, but he can’t help the grin that takes over his face. Laughter bubbles out of his chest, sprinkled with something maniacal, something angry. “What’s wrong, my lord?” Nico purrs, leaning against his sword. “You said love fixes pain. Can it fix you?”

Eros snarls at Nico, but the son of Hades doesn’t care. Nothing beats the thrill that thrums in his body at the sight of the god being so frustrated.

Eros pants through the pain, his face turning red. “You think you are something special, don’t you, child?”

Nico laughs, the sound of it ironic in such a painful place. The laugh overflows with repressed pain, with hot anger.

That laugh belongs here in Tartarus, with its madness and rage.

“Oh, Eros,” Nico mutters. “I spent so long thinking I deserved nothing. I spent so long thinking everywhere I went, misery followed me. I have never felt special.” He glances up and down at the god. “You asked me if even Will makes me feel special. Well, no. He makes me… feel good. But you know what makes me feel actually special?”

Despite his rage, curiosity strangles Eros’ eyes. He waits for a response, hissing as more ichor spills out of his godly being.

“What makes me feel good, what makes me feel like I have a worth in this world,” Nico says as a smile creeps over his face, offering him a maniacal glow, “is when I provide justice to those who have done wrong. Originally I always believed Death has no mercy, only justice.” He slashes again at Eros, who cries louder and falls to his knees. He pants through the pain. “Well, I suppose there are other ways to provide justice.”

Nico runs his finger through the golden ichor that gleams over his sword. Touching it, Nico’s finger tingles with power. He looks at Eros again. “What makes me feel special is when I defeat entitled assholes like you, my lord.”

“You have not defeated me,” the god growls.

“No, not physically,” Nico agrees. “But I have defeated the pain you have caused me.” He touches the tip to Eros’ chin, balancing it mere millimeters from his skin. The point gleams red as it reflects the glow of Eros’ eyes. “Begone, you pitiful asshole.”

Eros snarls and throws Nico’s sword away, but the demigod only smiles. This is exactly the reaction he wanted.

“You cannot kill me, arrogant hero,” Eros reminds him.

“No, but I can scare you.” Raising an eyebrow at him, Nico says, “Many have been scared of me. I am a child of Hades. You may be a god, but you have no idea of what I am capable of.”

Eros regards Nico with a sharp glare, but the sight of it no longer grates against Nico’s conscience. He’s only bursting with energy, with confidence. He hasn’t felt so alive in years. Power hums in his core, billows over his chest, courses through his veins. He feels almost invincible.

“You have made an enemy, Nico di Angelo,” Eros promises. “And love is no enemy you want. Especially not with someone in your situation.”

Nico falters. What does Eros mean? Does he mean his being gay? Does he mean with society in general? Then Nico turns to his boyfriend, who’s shivering with fear and adrenaline at his side, and it clicks. He means Will.

Nico scowls at Eros. “You say I have made an enemy, Eros, but the truth of the matter is that you made me an enemy long ago. When you first stabbed me in the shoulder with your weapon.” Nico glances at the wound on Eros’ left arm and shakes his head. “You made a mistake long ago. You are only now realizing it.”

Silence lingers around them, floating tensely in the hot air. Then Eros says, “I can influence a lot.” A glimmer of confidence returns in his eyes. “Be warned, child of Hades.”

With that, Eros disappears. And Will and Nico are left alone once more, staring ahead to whatever terrors lie ahead.

[gendercraft]

Outlast: Revisited [Chapter Seven: Miles]

Read on ao3

Synopsis: I’m rewriting Outlast where the first game and Whistleblower are combined, Miles and Waylon are more connected, and also they kiss

Trigger warnings: Sexual assault plus everything already in the game; eye gore; the gore actually gets kinda intense here; let me know if i missed anything

Miles’ shoulders nearly popped out of their sockets as he gripped the ledge. 

He thanked God for his sudden interest in mountain climbing, awakened by his urban exploring as a teenager, as he swung his body to the slide, carefully scaling the ledge. If he fell, he’d break his leg, at best. His muscles screamed as he moved. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to continue until he made it to the next open window. He listened carefully. 

Dead silence. 

There was nowhere else to go. If the twins were still there, they would kill him. He grinded his teeth and forced through the strain in his muscles to swing himself over the ledge. 

The twins were gone. 

Breathing heavily, Miles allowed himself a moment of rest. 

There was a broken window next to him that led into a security room. He glanced at the sheet of paper on the counter. 

 MURKOFF CORP. P.G. MAINTENANCE MEMO 

 Proper Purge Gate maintenance is crucial to PROJECT WALRIDER security. Please refer to Murkoff Corp. Maintenance Manual MMPSMM180286 or seek guidance from a supervisor with the proper security clearance. 

 Miles scoffed and tossed it aside. Hopping back into the hall, the blood led him to a locked door labelled SHOWERS. He’d have to find the keycard. 

The decontamination chamber was broken, jerking a few inches closed then back open, the lights all off. Miles brought up his nightvision, coating his world in green, and stepped through into the equally dark hallway. The hall led to a walkway around another cellblock, blocked off by a railing and a grated screen. 

“NO!” Someone below yelled. “ARGH!” 

Miles shut off his night vision and pointed his camera to the lit cell block, where Chris Walker held a Variant up by their neck. He pulled, slowly, his muscles straining, until the skin around the man’s neck tore and blood spurt everywhere. Walker held the head up high as the body slumped to the ground. 

With shaking hands, Miles pulled out his notebook. 

 I can’t shake Chris Walker, the big ugly fucker who likes ripping off people’s heads. I hear him muttering about security protocols, containment. What if he’s not the problem? What if he’s trying to fix it? 

 At the end of the hall, he found the keycard on a dead security guard. He snatched it without touching the body and hurried back to the showers, where the reader beeped and let him inside. He brought up his night vision again and crept through. He wasn’t in the showers quite yet, instead an L-shaped hallway where lockers at the base of the L. As he moved towards the stem, open windows let in the thundering rain on the right side, on his left another grated wall. He got about halfway down the stem when one of the twins stepped through the darkness into the night vision. His machete glinted in the moonlight. 

Miles stopped. He took a few steps backwards. 

Thunk. Thunk. 

Footsteps. Behind him. 

Whoosh! He leapt out of the way just as the machete jabbed where his torso had been. Cornered between the twins, his heart slammed against his chest, his breathing coming out in huffs. 

Motherfucker. The only way was… 

Somehow, he found himself jumping out of another window to escape these… monsters. He caught himself on the ledge and nearly slipped on the rainwater, gasping and dangling his legs. 

Bracing his feet against the brick wall, he got a hold of himself. 

“My god. He vanished.” Leftie’s dry purr sounded through the window. 

“Vanished without a trace.” 

“I detect sarcasm.” 

“It was my intention.” 

Miles strafed across the ledge, trying not to look down. Not that he could see in the darkness. The only sense he managed was the cold rain against his back. 

“He thinks we’re assholes.” 

Yeah. 

Miles scaled the side of the building. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. His hand slipped against the rain, he hung by the fingers on his right hand. 

“Or stupid.” 

He groaned through his teeth as he slung his arm back over to grip the edge. Sweat and rain mixed. He made it to the next open window, and he just had to pray they wouldn’t see him swing inside. 

“Let’s pull him in and slit his belly open.” 

Miles gripped the ledge of the window. It took all his strength not to groan out as he dragged himself inside. He fell to the ground with a soft thump. 

“Wait. Just a moment.” 

Get up. Get up, Miles. Get up. 

He couldn’t move his arms. 

Come on Miles, get up. Before they see you. 

“What is it?” 

“I heard something.” 

He couldn’t get up. He flipped onto his back and pushed himself with his feet. If they saw him, maybe he’d get a few seconds headstart while they laughed. 

He made it to the end of the hall, which turned left, and flipped onto all fours, starting the run from below and slowly straightening up as he gained momentum. He used his wet keycard to get himself into the next hallway, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t feel safe stopping. Through another grated gate, he found a room with large tiled flooring and two large cells. 

And a chair in the centre. A chair with arm and leg restraints, a hole in the centre of the seat, and straps to the back. The wood was polished with blood. 

On the table, there was a piece of paper—a death certificate. 

 Please find attached a copy of the DEATH CERTIFICATE for RUDOLF G. WERNICKE, Murkoff Psychiatric Systems subcontractor no. 148616. No surviving family. 

 Length of residence in city or town where death occured: 0 years, 7 months 

How long in U.S., if of foreign birth: 55 years 

... 

Birthplace: Germany 

Date of Death: February 28th, 2009 

I hereby certify: 

that I attended deceased from June 4, 2003, to February 28, 2009 

that I saw him alive on February 27, 2009, that death occurred on the date stated above at 4:11 AM. 

 So despite being unequivocally dead, he still had a large enough effect on this place to bring it down from the inside. Was it just his research, his experiments? Were they that ‘good’ that they couldn’t die with him? 

Miles couldn’t help but believe the whistleblower would have more information. They had to meet. They had to put the story together, together. 

How could he find them? 

The patients. Someone would have to know. They could point Miles in the right direction. 

The patients that weren’t trying to kill him, at least. 

He left the room and continued carefully through the halls until he found another security room. About three quarters to the back of the room, there was a desk below an open air vent. Slamming the button to open the decontamination chamber, he was barely paying attention. Then the grunts came. 

Chris Walker stepped into the chamber, green gas surrounding him like whispering snakes. He pounded on the glass, once, twice, CRACK! Miles gasped and whipped around. He sprinted to the closed door, only to yank at the handle uselessly. Blood roared in his ears. It locked behind him?! 

He checked the other door, behind the desk, as the glass shattered. Locked as well. “FUCK!” He kicked it as hard as he could, not that that did anything besides maybe break one of his toes, and turned around. 

Walker climbed through the empty frame, broken glass digging into his skin and sticking there, huffing and snorting like a bull. He stood like one too, arms ready to catch Miles if he tried racing past, sat in a horse stance. Miles couldn’t get to that window. He couldn’t open the doors. 

He was trapped. 

Walker charged him. His footsteps thunked, shook the ceiling, slow and deliberate. Miles leapt out of the way as Walker swung his arms out. Miles looped around the desk, ran for the window, only for Walker to grab him by the back of his shirt. Miles choked against the neck, flailing and thrashing uselessly. 

Walker held him in the air by his throat. One hand gripped his hip. He was being pulled apart, skin stretching, straining, his vision turning black, his eyes watering. He flailed and kicked and thrashed and flailed until—SMACK! Walker dropped Miles and held his now-bleeding nose. It reawakened the pain in Miles’ toe, but he ignored it in favour of leaping onto the desk and into the air vent. It led him back into the hallway. Walker slammed on the door, and it was ready to come off its hinges. 

He made a dash for the decontamination chamber. It was close, he could make it. 

Swinging the grated door open, he charged through. Fire erupted from the chamber. Miles’ eyebrows furrowed, but he couldn’t stop moving, not with Walker right behind him. Maybe he could avoid the flames. Maybe he could— 

“FUCK!” 

Just as he reached it, it exploded, sending him flying through the nearby window and plummeting to the ground in the cell blocks. When he hit, it knocked all the wind out of him, nothing but strangled screams tearing from his throat. 

Something had broken his fall. Something had saved his life. 

With a choked sob, he looked down at the pile of mutilated body parts he’d landed on top of.

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Code: Light

Part of my Series based on the in game dungeons lol. Just for fun.

In fact… there was a boy who lived here… 20 years ago…

The words echoed in Lu Mingfei’s mind as he looked over the rundown landscape in front of him. He was sitting on a dirty pillow on a broken, rotted out porch, rain pouring down on his head through the holes in the overhang. Spiders skittered about and made him pull his feet in. In front of him was a table of rice, vegetables and tea. Outside the porch was a small garden with a pond, green and overgrown with algae. It was pouring down rain as it had been all day. The pond was at capacity and it would soon overflow its banks. From the gloomy surroundings, frogs creeled out a constant serenade.

He was led there by a woman, an elder in that particular village, who had first reported what turned out to be dragon activity in this small town. Lu Mingfei, Chu Zihang, and Caesar Gattuso were called to investigate. According to the report on the dossier, a young child in a red coat, carrying a red balloon could be seen standing at the edge of the village. His face was impossible to make out. Japanese towns could be full of local ghost tales, but this one occurred with disturbing regularity. EVA, the Cassell Supercomputer then detected an elemental anomaly. Plants seemed to be growing at such an incredible rate, that the rain clouds over this small area of Japan never seemed to stop. The rain would fall, the plants would soak it up and transpire the water again. It was as if the Amazon Rainforest took up residence in the far East.

After explaining about the child, the old woman took them out to that ramshackle ruin of a place. “If it’s that boy you’re seeking, why not try making him something to eat?”

Then she left.

“Guys I’m so over this ghost hunt. This is so creepy and the lower the sun gets the more I want to leave.” He said. He was wearing his usual combat suit, that skin tight but extremely durable wear that was close enough to the body to avoid catching on anything, but strong enough to withstand the cut of a knife. But was it ghost proof? Who was to say they wouldn’t get eaten by this ghost and the rice be left cold and moldy with no sign of them?

“Are you excited to be on an actual ghost hunt? It’s a shame that the ghost is a boy though.” Caesar sat smoking his cigar and looking out over the grey sheet of rain in front of him. He was dressed similarly, with his Desert Eagles at his side. Of course, he made a much more handsome figure in the muscle-hugging suit.

Lu Mingfei wanted to pull his hair out. “You’re engaged! Don’t lust after the dead you freak!”

Chu Zihang slid his sword part way out of his sheath to check his equipment. “There’s no such thing as the dead coming back to life, unless it’s a dragon. And dragons don’t really die. They just sleep until they can be reborn. What we’re looking for is not a real ghost… but something that has the properties of a dragon.”

“Ghost… dragon… whatever. Do we even know if it’s attracted to rice?”

“It’s not about the rice, Lu Mingfei, it’s the routine. If the boy had a family or cared for anyone at all, wouldn’t it miss sitting at a table with a family meal?” Caesar bit his cigar, 

“And we’re supposed to be its family huh? Who are you? The mom?” Mingfei shot back.

“Well…” Caesar looked down at the food. “I cooked it.”

Lu Mingfei opened his mouth to say something else but Zihang suddenly tensed. His golden eyes stared into another pair of golden eyes. A boy in a red raincoat, stood at the edge of the mossy pond. He was holding a red balloon. Only those glowing eyes were visible under the red hood. It didn’t seem to have a face.

Lu Mingfei’s face went white and then grey with terror. He shook so hard his teeth chattered “G-ghost!”

A small child’s voice echoed clear despite the pounding rain. “Outsiders. I need your help. Come with me.”

The rain suddenly stopped but the sky grew darker, like a great shadow from something large coming over head. The air suddenly cooled. They were still in front of the table but the garden was replaced by sand. The sand was grooved in artistic circles, like an elegant Japanese rock garden. Looking around, they seemed to be in a ruined ancient village. The piece of land they were standing on was floating in mid air, like it had been torn from the earth. There was no sun. The way was lit by ominous paper lanterns that floated in place, painted with a red swirl pattern. In the distance an ancient Japanese castle tower rose out of the misty horizon.

Torii gates were seen floating in the grey, foggy surroundings. Most were shattered. They seemed frozen in the middle of being demolished, their broken pieces spraying at odd angles, their elegant cross bars tilted, but they never collapsed. 

What was most noticeable about this place however, was the sudden sense of crushing sorrow. The feeling one got when they received some sort of horrible news. Like a loved one had just died. It hit Mingfei in the chest and took his breath away.  “Guys. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to …” Mingfei eyes filled with tears. “What’s happening. I’m so scared.” He hugged his own arms and tried to stop the tears from falling. “We’ve got to get out!” 

He turned to Chu Zihang who always knew what to do in times like this. But the man was frozen, his jaw tense and locked, staring at the ground in a trance, trying to control his out of control emotions. He was breathing fast and trying to swallow the lump in his throat.

Apparently, sorrow drove Caesar Gattuso to action. He drew Dictator and pointed it up towards some broken stairs framed by a bright red Torii gate. Caesar suddenly roared. “This place sucks! Let’s get out of here as soon as we can. The only way out is up!”

His sudden yell seemed to break whatever emotional spell had been cast on the other two teammates. Lu Mingfei wiped his face. “What was that all about?”

“I’m not sure. Likely the owner of this place had a terrible life.” Chu Zihang said gravely. “I’ve heard of Longwei, the natural fear that dragons give off to other creatures, but I’ve never heard of a Dragon’s sorrow being projected like this.”

The stairs were floating over empty air, made of uneven, ancient grey limestone. There were dozens of stairs leading up into the ominous grey sky with broken Torii gates at intervals every twenty steps. Chu Zihang held up his hand to catch what appeared to be snow flying in the air. He sniffed at it. “Ash. Like something is burning. This must be some sort of Nibelungen. But I’ve never seen anything like it.” Chu Zihang said. “We should watch out. Where there’s a Nibelungen, there’s always…”

A sudden loud screeching interrupted him. A flock of bats the size of geese suddenly dislodged from under the stairs.  A whole flock of them swept forward in a single black cloud mass. Lu Mingfei ducked his head as the claws and teeth scraped at him. “I hate this place already!”

Caesar drew his pistols and fired. The bats were flapping and tilting and whirling, but he just needed to aim for just a moment before shooting one out of the air without missing. Likewise, Chu Zihang quickly slashed once and twice, neatly severing their bodies in two without trouble.

“Bats are better than snakes!” Caesar yelled, reloading his Desert Eagles.

“At least Snakes don’t fly!” Lu Mingfei yelled.

 As they climbed the stairs, they stayed back to the back, firing and slicing through the endless swarm of screaming bats. The sound of it was like a constant siren. Mingfei held his hands to his ears and allowed himself to be shielded by his two older students. He could hardly see anything between the endless assault of black bodies.

Caesar’s eyes glowed yellow. “There’s something big at the top of the stairs. That’s where they’re coming from!” He had sent out his Scythe Itachi and they returned with a huge heartbeat up ahead. “Chu Zihang, get rid of these things!”

“Get down.”  Chu Zihang closed his eyes for just a moment and then an evil snarl emanated from his throat. Black waves of heat drove back the bats and then exploded outward into violent flames. The bats were instantly set alight and hundreds of burning bodies folded their wings and fell into the endless pit below. Lu Mingfei didn’t even want to think of what it meant to fall down into that grey void. Would he just continue to fall forever?

“Eugh…” Caesar pinched his nose to escape the smell of burning flesh and hair.  “Good.” He said, reaching down at pulling Mingfei to his feet.

A loud roar shook the stairs and cracked them.  Then the stairs started to crumble, starting from the bottom. If they didn’t hurry, they would be the ones falling. “Run! Run!” Caesar yelled. 

Ahead of them was a large gap. The stairs were falling apart around them, coming to pieces, like the mortar that held them together suddenly lost all its strength. “We’ll have to jump it!”

It looked to be ten feet across over the nothingness. They’d never make a jump that far. But it was either try to jump or fall to their deaths anyway. Chu Zihang suddenly grabbed Lu Mingfei’s arm and without explanation took a leap and dragged him with him. For a moment, there was nothing but empty air under him. And then a sudden blast of heat and a loud boom! Chu Zihang used Royal Fire to blast himself over the gap, dragging the terrified Lu Mingfei the extra few feet needed. They landed and Lu Mingfei collapsed on shaky legs. “Are you out of your mind? You could have at least told me!” He gasped.

Chu Zihang looked at him with no expression. “You would have hesitated.”

Lu Mingfei froze. “I- n.- No…” Lu Mingfei looked away and then looked around. “Where’s Caesar?”

Caesar pulled himself up onto his arms. He was hanging from the ledge, having barely made the jump himself. He looked at Chu Zihang, annoyed. “Sure. Don’t mind me. I’ll just help myself up.”

His eyes suddenly widened at something behind Chu Zihang and Lu Mingfei. They turned around and saw a looming snake with a thick human-like torso and bulging human arms. It glared at them with yellow eyes shining from the skull of an ancient predator it wore as a mask. It brandished a spear as long as a car with a sharp bone tip.

[moonlightjeno]

𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 :: mark x reader

𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚 :: angst, fluff if you look close enough. fantasy au!

𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩 :: 4.5k this is so short im sorry

𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 :: life had never been easy. especially when you’re an outcasted demon endured to slavery under the false gods. so when he finds an innocent human who seems to be in a very condition than him, well what else can he do but try to get them to change places with you? he is branded by the sin of envy after-all.

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 :: cursing, anti-gods movement of sorts, false gods, death. i’ll add more once, the world being cold.

Demonic hell. A sort of hell that isn’t conjured of demons that crawled around, poisonous slime trailing behind them as they screech. The demonic hell that mark resides in consists of everything but demonic slimes and brain dead zombies that the world had taught humans to think off. The place was lonely, it’s only company dry air and a lick of water, a speck of gold, and his own reflection in the cracked mirror that would appear everywhere he went. 

Golden hell. That’s what Mark called the place he was placed in, where the false gods who had accused him of being overly jealous of the world around him and too willing to trade and sacrifice the gods and their “high” and “mighty” morals all for a lick of freedom. It was when mark, eyes dazed with wonder and with the yearning to learn more about the world that he would so often see through the cracked walls of the overly bright and heavenly place that he was caught in the act of wishing to trade places with one of the humans. And there’s this thing about the gods, that the world, teachers all preach about. They tell you about how wonderful and forgiving they are, they tell the children who sit cross-legged with no better understanding of the world around, eyes open wide, mouths agape and open hands grasping onto anything around them as the adults spew on lies and more lies about the gods and their perfection. The thing about gods is that they aren’t gods at all. The gods are false, and Mark found out quickly when he was cast out for not wanting to become one of the false gods. Cast into the barren land in which he stood now. 

The realm in which mortals come through when their souls have left their bodies, and it is up to Mark to tell them that they haven’t been sent to heaven no matter how small of a crime they have committed. It is mark’s job to look at the soulless bodies and tell them about the world that they have entered. The world that greets them, the world that envelops Mark in its dark claws buried them deep into him, a permanent brand on his collarbone of the outlines of a serpent to represent his sin. 

Souls come into a barren desert. There isn’t fire being sprung from crevices in the ground, no castle made out of ebony and skulls from those who have tried to come to save their loved ones, something that mark had never understood. Instead, when the souls enter the realm of envy, they are met with barren and dry air, something that would suffocate you and make your throat run dry to the point where you want to claw at it just to get some sort of air in. The realm of marks sin, which has condoned him to a life of hell and biding, everyday greeting and every day guiding the souls to the torture chambers that is the realm itself make him want to rip his skin out, claw his way out of the sand that surrounds every crevice every hole around him. If he thought about it, as he often had all those years ago when he had been first sent into the golden hell it was genius. The perfect hell for one who wants to take from others, for the boy who just wanted a lick of freedom, a taste to the outside world from which he had grown up and taken and become everyone else around him. The generosity behind his personal hell was that there was no one to compare himself too. No one to take and bargain an offer so that he could have their lives. That is until the golden specks on the shattered mirror began to part, and slowly did the gold and slithering snakes that hung at his sides begin to show him a shape. A new realm. 

Earth. Or the human realm as he had heard the beings around him call it, seemed to be dusted in gold. The world that he would look at through a cracked mirror, dust adorning it’s every crook and crevice conveyed what Mark hadn’t seen in the many years he’d been stuck down where he was. Well where part of his body was, always tied to the demonic and infernal hell that would like the dust that covered the broken images that flitted anywhere gold touched the light.

The light that adorned the realm before him was nothing like the golden hell he was trapped in. or had been stuck in, until the mirror has finally fully cracked and had opened. The swirl of dust and sand, a never-ending whirlpool that had pulled at him until he wasn’t touching the sand, and his boots weren’t on the uneven floors. Serpents didn’t adorn his arms, their slithering bodies no longer crawling up his body, instead, they were replaced by the branded golden tattoo that flashed on his neck. 

The world had seemed to stop and spin around at him. It seemed as if every particle of light that would hit the windows around him would hit just to bounce off and reflect on the world around him. It made his head spin, eyes shifting from one street to the next. Sirens and yells could be heard from the different sections of the avenue, and Mark laughed. A laugh that ripped from his throat and carried to the rest of the world, it didn’t stop. He laughed, eyes trained on the golden specks around him, the snake at his neck moving with his movements and those around him ignored him. It was just another day in the world they called earth. 

Your day like every other day had started with the yelling of the landlord. A screeching yell that wouldn’t leave your head until you were on the street and the bustling of the street, car engines revving and conversations between friends, strangers, and the occasional biker that would yell at a car because they weren’t stopping. 

Earth. The only place you had ever known, and would ever know. With the amount of money you owed the landlord and government, your family's debts a never-ending pressure and shadow at your side that no matter how many shifts, how many hours you worked until your hands would bleed, raw from washing too hard, and your legs would give out halfway up the stairs back to your apartment. It seemed to be that the world was covered in various hues of gray. A series of repeated schemes that would remain the same no matter how much a car would honk it’s honk, because at the end of the day no matter how hard you tried the debts were never-ending. 

It was in the little things that you found comfort, that the greys would shift and become a different variant of color. Times like when the dog you walked by every morning would now come up to you, tongue out ready to lick your hands, and the sight never failed to make you smile. At times it was the way the sun would rise, just at the same time as you did and the purple and orange hues would mix together casting the painting of a lifetime in front of you as it rose and rose towards the sky. Wanting to escape from the life it had beneath the earth’s ground, reaching to somewhere else. It was something you were too familiar with, yet all you had wanted was to give back to your dead parents, be happy with what you had. 

Grey. that’s the world you lived in, grey until you walk down the same street, the cobblestones on the floor are almost too familiar to you. That if you closed your eyes you would know where every crevice and dig would be, just like the church that would ring it’s bells at the exact same time every morning. It was only a matter of seconds before you heard the shrill, 3...2...1… and the bells aren’t heard. Instead, the squeal of laughter disrupts your thoughts, and the world explodes in gold.  

It’s an explosion of dust that seems to cling to the boy in front of you, hair covering his eyes as he clenches onto his stomach laughter, a sort of squeal and giggles, and you can catch the way the tourists eye him. tourist... you think, eyes rolling, they’ll never understand the normality of chaos. You should’ve looked away the moment you saw him, you'd have continued your walk to the next house that had demanded. hands of burning just by thinking of the bleach they’d have to endure from cleaning. But instead, it seems like the hues of grey have been canceled all to be replaced by gold. Gold dust, golden hair, golden skin, everything that surrounds the boy who is now a mere foot in front of you screams color. And you can’t help just reach for a second to see if he’s real if the grey that blurs everything around him, making him the only shape image in your vision. It’s all gold until the tears that seemed to flow from his eyes catch the light and you feel empty as if the world has been yanked from your feet and his eyes meet yours and you’re stuck.

Hell. That's what his eyes remind you of. Not that you had ever been to hell or that you believed in the false ideas that the priests would preach to you every day as you passed the looming church. But his eyes, a never-ending pit of black so dark that you weren’t even sure where the iris was, that held pain and tolerance for something you couldn’t quite place are what you would imagine hell to look like. You seem to be in a trance by him until the laughter stops and it’s replaced by a smirk that adorns his features, it’s childish and you can’t help but smile back. 

“Do you need any help?” the question leaves your mouth softly, and you check the time on your watch. The watch should have stopped working long ago, but somehow it still managed to tick day after day. The boy in front of you chuckles again, his dark eyes absorbing the light around him.

“Uh…” the sound is questioning, and he tilts his head to the side, golden hair shifting, the sun shines behind him almost illuminating him. When he laughs again, you catch the flash in his neck, the golden snake that seems to move him. “Yeah. Do you know where this building” he hands you a piece of paper, slim finger pointing at the image of an old building that you recognized from passing it regularly on your way to the daily houses, ‘is?”

A light nod of your head and he’s smiling again. The type of smile that is contagious and makes everyone around him want to laugh along. 

“Great! Lead the way” 

“Yeah I have work” and with that, you check your watch, five minutes before your shift starts, and commence your walk again, quick movement of feet, head down counting the cracks on the cobblestone. You get exactly thirty seconds, you know, because that is the amount of time it takes you to cross the street and turn to the block where the house is before your peace is disrupted. The hand on your arm makes you jump backward, and you’re ready to hit whoever is holding onto you, only to find black eyes meeting yours, and the hand that’s been hanging onto you’re an arm to flash gold before retreating. 

“Well then, after work?”

“No” you continue to walk, and tap on your shoulder reminds you of the boy behind you. 

“I just really need to get here” his voice is slightly pleading, but his tone shifts slightly at the end and his fingers are no longer on your clothed shoulder, and you shake your head again. 

“Come onnnn” his constant whining makes you speed up your pace, the time slowly ticking down until you are at the door of the humongous house that makes you question why people would want things this big when they wouldn’t take care of them.

“Okay, okay” he stands in front of you now, the sun is no longer shining behind him, but in front and his frame seems to be coated in golden light. Dark eyes squinted to attempt from stopping the uv rays from stopping his vision, a small smile gracing his features. A small grunt escapes your lips, followed by a “what?”

“Let me help you?” he asks the question as if it was obvious, and a worker could let a stranger in to help them with their day. If he knew how if the owners or the landlord found out that you had let in someone else into the house the beating you would get. The thought itself made you laugh, a dry and humorless laugh, “no’.

“Can you say anything more than ‘no’?” the words are teasing, his smile never fading, and you check your watch again, thirty seconds before your shift begins and you try to walk around him. The smile that escapes your lips is more like a grin and you repeat the words again, before entering the household. 

The apartment smells like bleach and rubbing alcohol. It’s cold, the a/c always running making the house dry and arid compared to the streets. You hate almost everything about the too-big house. From the too tall ceilings, that make your back hurt every time you have to clean the ceilings and windows that stretch across the walls. 

It was the flashes of gold around the house, that made the world around them look deflated. Chandeliers hanging from one ceiling dropping low and clinging every time the windows would be open and the wind would blow-by. You made your way to the storage closet, even though it was too big, it seemed as if they just would give and give money but never for the right reasons. Never to help the poor children that you would pass when you would walk back at night, as they held out their hands asking for anything to get by. The money went all away, washed down the diamond-encrusted watches and gold washed lamps and pots. It disgusted you, but it was either this or out on the street debts till dragging you down black and blue bruises covering your body. 

So you stood up, and began to clean, forcing yourself to not break the vase to your right, or accidentally spill too much bleach onto the silk sheets. 

Mark was about to quit. He hadn’t thought that gaining someone’s confidence would be this hard, especially someone who seemed to be struggling to keep food in their stomach. It was as if you didn’t even think the word help would be relevant to you, as you strutted around the house concentrating on the task at hand. Thought he could hear the mumbles and curses that would slip through your lips as you took in the surroundings around you. 

It was the way you were so determined to get whatever you needed to get done even in the situation you were in that made mark pause for a second. He looked down at the golden brand that adorned his wrist, he was almost sure you had seen it but prayed to the last false gods that might look out for him, though he really didn’t know why they would, that you hadn’t seen the tattoo. The gold flashed in the bright white light of the house that seemed to push at him, and he decided that he would not take no for an answer. 

He wasn’t sure if it was the blasting a/c that made the house temperature drop below normal, his breath almost visible in the room, or the memories of the demonic hell he would be sent back to if he didn’t get someone to switch places with him. He wanted everything that humans had, the capability to take and take without ever double questioning it, the freedom that came with being human was something the angels never understood. Never bothered to understand, and the brand on his wrist and serpent that would ever so hiss at his ear with too sudden movements were reminders of that. 

Your hands were brushing up against the window sills, no gloves to cover your hands making them raw and vulnerable to the bleached water and multiple products that were displayed out before you. Mark was almost too stunned by the constant hum that left your lips, completely indifferent to the tinted red that had begun to mark your hands until he tripped and the sound that left him forced you to swirl around frown on your face. 

“No” the word left your mouth again, and mark grinned. If there was something he was good at was being persistent and he would get you to come with him to the old abandoned house, and if that meant exposing the tattoo and telling half-truths then it would be okay. 

“yes” was his reply, simple and accentuated. Mark has already leaned down, the first brush he’s found was now in his hands as he dusted off the overly exaggerated vases that he had awed at when first walking in and now wanted to shove off their pristine stand. 

You huffed in annoyance, the thought about hitting him or splashing him with some of the bleach crossed your mind. 

“Look sir, dude, idiot” the words left your mouth with a tinge of poison and disinterest, “i really, truly don’t care what you want. But if my boss comes in here and finds you doing whatever the fuck it is you are doing-” mark scoffed and then grinned it was nice to hear more than a straight no from your mouth. “I will lose my job, which i need. And will have a hell of an afternoon, so for the love of god leave” 

If you had been looking closely, and not as focused on the way mark’s hair fell around his face framing a delicate frame, the way the light refracted on the glass walls the bubbles creating small mocking rainbows in front of you as you scrubbed the debris, you would have seen him flinch at the word god. The word caused a shiver down his spine out of fear and disgust. Never would he be able to curse the gods, unless he wanted to lose the little entertainment that remained in hell. To curse the gods freely, what a liberty he couldn’t wait to have. 

The snap of fingers before him zoomed him back to focus on you, lips pressed together in thought and annoyance. 

“I would, but i can’t” lies, he chided himself but it was the only way to freedom to be human again. You looked at him stunned, and your fists clenched ready to physically kick the man out of your house so mark spoke again, this time his voice was softer and the serpent seemed to hiss louder at his ear. Threatening him, reminding him that he needed this work. And in desperation he let the words that he spoke go into you, let them wave into your mind and get them to do what he wanted. 

Black eyes capture your attention from the moment the first word leaves his mouth and it’s as if you’ve forgotten what you were doing. In a trance-like state that has you feeling for the golden-haired boy in front of you until time has passed and the sun is beginning it’s descendent into the cold and cruel earth. The work for the day, finished in the passing time between you got to the house sun still flaming hot and bright at its peak to where it’s flames had begun to die down. You refuse to think or let the boy in front of you charm you into helping you with work, but much to your dismay it’s only when the day is over that you realize the effect and toll his words had on you. 

It was dizzying, the feeling of the world slowly tipping to the side. Swaying to the mark of the golden haired boys words. Side to side. Mark grinned, the flash of white teeth against the darkening sky shocking you for only a slight second. The moment the smile leaves and his mouth is no longer conveying words the world seems to stop spinning and you shake your head. Focusing on the topic at hand, finishing work. You spin around looking for the materials and tools you need to finish the perfection of the house only to find the windows and surfaces gleaming. The tabletops and walls seemed to shine with a shine you couldn’t quite place but would reflect a yellow hue. The gasp that escapes your lips makes mark’s grin broaden, teeth showing. 

“What did you do” the words aren’t a question but an accusation, a statement to the boy and his grin falters slightly. 

“Helped?” his voice is small, and questionable as if he himself isn’t sure what he did exactly but one look, the blackness dragging you back in, and your anger seems to fade out, replaced by the need to take and replace form someone. It’s as if the mentality from the demon would be switched into yours, envy a haze in your thoughts while mark became more stubborn and the word goddam seemed to frighten him less and less. 

The sun had extinguished it’s flames, and the purple hues of the bruised sky the only thing that helps the two of you walk towards the old abandoned house. A house which was on your way back to the apartment, which shouldn’t make you late before curfew, which in theory was harmless. The moment you had agreed to take him to the house mark’s whole face lit. and you noticed that his pitch black eyes weren’t really black, but a darker brown that grew lighter the more you talked. Or maybe that was just a trick by the light, whatever it was it made you agree to his words. That was no longer demanding or whining but seemed to be freer, much like his movements. 

It isn’t until the two of you reach the abandoned house, and for some reason you can’t place you feel the pull to walk inside. The stars and cracked lamppost the only thing to guide you in the dark as the two of you enter. You can barely make out the floorplan, the windows are mostly broken in the little light that shines through casting shadows across the floor that creaks with every movement you make. You don’t feel, don’t understand why suddenly the world seems to feel heavier around you, as you turn to look at mark who’s gaze seems to look around the house, eyes no wear near the black you’d seen when you’d first met him. 

The house begins to feel too warm and stuffy, and you want out. Mark’s presence behind you is ghost-like as he fidgets with his hands moving them from side to side, or a constant thrum against his arm. Slowly you begin to walk backwards, until you feel an arm wrap around your waist holding you in place. You shift, trying to break free from his grasp, and mark shakes his head, the golden hair that falls into his eyes grazes your neck, sending shivers down your spine. And it’s in that moment, when mark whispers in your ear two words, and the snake by his neck hisses that you realize who he is, but before a scream is ripped from your throat the world turns black. 

The moment your figure becomes grainy, and the dull yellow hue of the sand slides through his fingertips where the warmth of your arm used to be, the world around mark becomes alive. It becomes alive in every way that he dreaded to live, the guilt that gnaws at him from no longer just wanting pulls at him, the memories of the past day a relay of emotions through his mind, almost suffocating. He doesn’t realize when he falls to the creaking floor, knees thudding against the wooden slabs. He doesn’t realize the way the moon now shines in through the windows, of how the serpent at his neck is no longer hissing at him. Doesn’t focus on the world around him, because you are no longer next to him. The warmth seems to have slipped away from him the moment you went to the other world, from the way you would snap at him and scrunch your eyebrows. Small things he had noticed, small things that had made him want to stay on this planet longer, with you longer and it wasn’t until the eclipsed moon passed by the abandoned cabin. Not until sand slipped through his fingers that he realized the feeling he had felt on the walk to the warehouse, the way his hands felt clammy and his eyes would look anywhere but at yours. Yours that had darkened and darkened the more you looked, the more you talked to mark. 

It’s when the guilt weighs him down, when the world has turned to bleak and he no longer feels free as he curses out the gods that he realizes that all this time he’s wanted to get rid of his sin. A sin he never deserved, a sin that was placed on him for choosing differently than what had been appointed. It’s in that moment, that you slip away from him, smile and have a determined gaze on your eyes, that he wishes he was you, that he wants to take it all back. Because he is the sin of envy, the one that wants everything they can’t have and when they get what they want, well then, they don’t want it anymore, because all Mark wanted was you back. But you were never coming back, you would be surrounded by serpents and golden sand dunes with nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait. Envy, how much he wishes he didn’t have it.

𝙢𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙨

[heyyy-hey-babyyy]

They’re All Wax. Everyone.

Summary: Dean and Y/N investigate the disappearance of some college kids in the small town of Ambrose, only for Y/N to be captured and hurt. Dean looks for her and finds unimaginable horrors.

Pairing: Dean X reader

WARNINGS: Canon-typical violence, horror movie scenes

House of Wax (2005) Fusion with Supernatural

1938 words.

Notes: Please note that I changed the plot a bit, because some of it would not make sense if the main character was Dean Winchester. Just saying…Also this isn’t the whole movie. 

Do you want a part II? Let me know!

Spoilers for House of Wax (2005) below

Dean was just getting into town as the sun was making its descent. The little town was surrounded by rough terrain and flooded gullies, forcing Dean to park the Impala and walk his way toward town, noting that your Dodge Charger was also parked near the faded ‘Welcome’ sign, the lettering cracked and nonexistent.

You hadn’t been answering your phone and Dean began to get worried, as you had split up to investigate the disappearance of some people in town. A couple of college kids were heading up toward the small town of Ambrose, Louisiana, where people were mysteriously vanishing and you figured you'd try to warn them before something bad happened. You were better with people than Dean and it was decided that you would traverse into town and interview the residents about the disappearances. It was rumored that these kids were camping a few miles south of town, so Dean headed in that direction, where he ran into a beat-up pickup truck parked near a pile of rotted animal corpses, the smell overpowering his senses.

Dean, of course, got stuck talking to the hick in the shitty pickup truck who apparently only chucked dead animal carcasses from the side of the road, and dribbled chew down his face. The hick had nothing interesting to say and when Dean left the guy to his dirty work, he realized he hadn’t heard from you in a few hours.

“Son of a bitch.” He muttered glancing down at his phone and seeing no missed calls or texts, before clicking on your name and listening to the phone ring. The call was quickly forwarded to your answering machine, your bright voice instructing the caller to call Dean or “Sammy.” He huffed out a sigh and hurried back to the car, slamming the door and speeding toward the town.

______________________

Dean required hourly check-ins when he was working a case with you without Sam, and you not following his rule made him anxious. He knew he was being overbearing, but he was really just being cautious. You were a good hunter, great even, but you weren’t his brother and he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if you got hurt while you were with him. Truth was, he felt more responsible for you than you knew, and the fact that he wasn’t with you right now was driving him crazy.

He shook the thoughts roughly from his mind and kept walking, his boot thuds echoing off of the vacant store fronts. None of the stores had lights on and there was one lone streetlight shining brightly onto the wet pavement. The entire scene made Dean uneasy and he walked a little faster toward the only store that looked open.

The service station at least had its lights on, and the sign advertised gas for a $1.19, which was comical, and showed the true colors of the ancient town. As Dean kept approaching the station, he began to hear footsteps behind him, trying their best to stay quiet. He gripped his gun tightly and spun around pointing the barrel right between the eyes of the guy who was sneaking up on him.

“Woah, woah woah!” He yelled raising his hands, clearly not expecting Dean to be carrying a weapon. The guy was dressed modernly in a hoodie and loose fitted jeans and stood out against the ancient store fronts.

“Hey man,” the guy continued raising his hands a little higher. “I’m just looking for my sister and her boyfriend.” Dean raised his eyebrows, but kept his gun raised, pointing instead at the guy’s chest.

“And?” Dean asked gruffly, making sure the kid knew he wasn’t about to back down without some more information.

“And my name’s Nick. My sister Carley and her boyfriend Wade came up here a couple hours ago and I haven’t been able to reach them on their cells.” Dean nodded at him once, sticking his gun back into his belt, recognizing the names from the information he knew already.

“Dean.” He stated nodding over his shoulder so Nick would follow. “I had a friend come up here a few hours ago as well, and I haven’t heard from her.” The two continued to walk toward the service station, when a guy dressed all in black, a cap hanging low over his eyes, walked out of the front entrance and locked the door behind him.

“Hey!” Dean called, glancing at Nick and approaching the guy slowly. The guy turned, shocked, before quickly turning his face into a smirk.

“We’re looking for some people. A young couple and a woman. You seen ‘em around?” The guy turned to walk away stating, “I don’t think I’ve seen ‘em.”

“Well, you don’t even know who they are or what they look like.” Dean wasn’t taking that for an answer, and he walked to stand in the guy’s way when Nick spoke up.

“This is the only gas station in town, right?”

The guy stopped briefly, heading to the open garage door. “That’s right.” He closed the door with a click, leaning on it and putting his hand on his hip, glancing up the street.

Dean sighed, annoyed. “Look man, they were here somewhere. Why don’t you just help us out and make this easy.” Dean was getting agitated by the way the guy was acting and didn’t trust him or his dingy hat as far as he could throw them.

“Like I said. I haven’t seen ‘em. Sorry. Can’t help ya.” The guy lumbered over to us staring down Nick as he walked, before turning around sharply to tie his shoe.

He pointed up the road. “You know what. My brother Vincent was down here a bit ago. He might’ve seen ‘em. He’ll be up at the house.” Dean turned to look where he was pointing, up the dark street. When he turned back around the guy was upright again looking smug.

“Wanna head up to the house?”

"Dean weighed his options before speaking, but Nick beat him to it. “Yeah. Whatever.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, looking at Nick, before stating gruffly, “lead the way.”

__________________________

You groaned, picking your head up slowly from the ground, the world quickly coming into focus making your head spin. You gripped it with one hand and pushed yourself to a sitting position with the other, hissing when your weight pressed down on your wrist, which was clearly sprained.

You hadn’t been in the town for more than a few minutes when something heavy hit you in the back of the head and you blacked out falling face first into the dirt.

You moved to open your mouth to take a deep breath and felt your lips resist. It felt like they had been glued shut and moving your finger to try to wrench your mouth open caused your body to shoot with pain. You groaned again and looked around, suddenly meeting the eye of a young girl climbing on top of a chair toward a closed grate in the ceiling.

She looked at you, eyes wide, and you nodded your head encouragingly, standing on wobbly legs, your head pounding. She reached as far as she could, sticking a finger through one of the holes waving at what you realized were muffled voices from outside.

You approached her slowly, when suddenly she wrenched her hand back toward her, blood spurting out wildly from a missing finger on her left hand. Her screams were muffled from her trapped lips, and you rushed toward her helping her stop the bleeding with one hand, while pulling your lips apart roughly with the other, feeling them split and the blood trickle down your lips. You finished tearing your mouth open when you heard a familiar gruff voice.

“Dean!” You screamed as loud as your lungs would allow. “I’m down here!”

_______________________________

Dean spun around wildly, hearing his name called from below. He reached into the back of his pants for his gun but when he turned back the guy had disappeared down the dark street. Dean swore under his breath focusing on the task at hand and headed toward the unlocked garage door, wrenching it open loudly. The wooden door to the room downstairs was locked, but Dean kicked it in easily, seeing Y/N covered in blood holding a young woman as she sobbed quietly. Both women’s faces were bleeding, and Dean rushed forward grabbing Y/N by the shoulders looking into her exploded pupils.

“Are you okay?” He asked gruffly, looking her over. She nodded, gasping quietly, and pointed at the young girl, who Nick was checking over. Dean watched them rip her lips open and he winced seeing them tear to match Y/N’s. Looking around the room quickly, it looked like the guy had super glued their mouths shut before heading upstairs. Dean grabbed Y/N’s hand glancing at her and pulled her up the stairs, Nick and Carley following slowly, Nick bearing much of Carley’s weight.

“The Impala is parked next to your car, let’s get back over there quickly.” Dean stated, hating the idea of leaving that man alive, but recognizing the tell-tale signs of blood loss, as Carley wrapped her missing finger in the torn bottom of the shirt she was wearing. Y/N was staring blankly forward, clearly concussed, and was having trouble standing on her own. Dean inched his arm over her shoulders and held her to him protectively.

“What about the other kids?” Y/N asked weakly, trying not to move her mouth much.

“What about Wade?” Carley suddenly yelled. “What if he turns him to wax?!”

Dean stopped in his tracks looking back at Carley, his arm still gripping around Y/N’s shoulders tightly.

“What do you mean wax?” He asked, furrowing his brow.

“You don’t get it!” She shouted back. “They’re all wax! Everyone.”

She turned roughly and stared out the window.

“No. Wait.” Suddenly she was out the door and down the street, Dean, Y/N, and Nick following her close.

“There was a woman in here,” she stated quietly, checking left and right down the street, before running up to the faded picket fence in front of the dilapidated house. Dean gripped Y/N’s shoulders as she approached, her legs still wobbly from not being used. We approached the picket fence and Nick jumped over it to get close to the curtained windows peering in, the buzz of a TV the only sound heard.

“She pulled back the curtain,” Carley stated, standing back with Dean and you. Nick looked in closely, jumping back startled when a woman suddenly pulled back the curtain. She had white hair pulled up into curlers and her dead eyes stared unseeing out into the distance. Even from this far back Dean could tell the woman wasn’t alive from the unnatural tinge of her skin.

“The whole town is rigged.” Carley said hopelessly.

“That’s impossible.” Nick stated, staring at the woman as she exited view slowly, the curtain falling back into place, dust whispering against the glass. Minutes later, the woman appeared again, gears grinding harshly on the mechanism that pushed her toward the window.

Nick peeked into the house again. “You’re saying that’s a real person…underneath?”

“Yes,” Carley responded anxiously. “At the church they were all like that. 20 people at least.”

Y/N suddenly wobbled under her own weight, her knees giving out. Dean gripped her shoulders harder, yanking her to a standing position.

“Guys,” He started, glancing at Nick and Carley. “We need to get out of here.” Y/N’s eyes started to droop, and Dean looked at her quickly.

“Now.”

Read Part II Here

[annelixa]

Trust Chapter 18

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Can also be read on AO3

Summary: Cassandra seeks Varian shortly after she stole the Moonstone so that she can use his intellectual gifts. Lucky for her, no one seems to be telling him what happened at the Dark Kingdom and he still sees her as the wise and trusted person he always knew. Utilizing that image of herself, she takes him for herself while under the guise of protection.

Fandom: Tangled the Series

The visit to the tower had only increased Rapunzel’s worry for her young friend. It had shown her that he really was trapped with her ex-best friend and the lengths she was willing to go to keep him doing what she wanted. From what she had seen, he hadn’t been injured but he had also been rather far away from her, any injuries could have been simply overlooked from the distance. And even if he wasn’t hurt then, days had passed and he could have gotten hurt since she left. Quirin had demanded to know what had happened upon her return to the castle without his son. It had been difficult to tell him that she had needed to leave him for his own safety and that, from what she had seen, he was alright. He had stomped out of the room to control his anger lest it get the better of him.

Unfortunately Eugene hadn’t been quite so eager to leave her alone with her thoughts. The man had followed her back to her room and let her vent her frustration to him. Of course he was upset as well but he had to contain it for her sake. Currently, he was speaking with the guards about the upcoming attack that Varian had written of and letting her rest in the garden. A familiar scratching sound reached her ears and she turned to see Ruddiger scrambling over the garden wall.

“Ruddiger!” she cried happily, hurrying over to him. She noticed another letter tied to his neck. “Varian!”

The animal leapt into her arms and she dropped on the spot to remove the message that she knew the alchemist had risked his safety to send her. That was the most important thing at the moment. As she read, she slipped Ruddiger some treats from her purse. She now knew how far he had traveled to help his boy and wanted him to regain his strength. However, this time she wasn’t going to send him back and would keep him in the castle. The last time she had sent a reply it had ended badly for Varian and she didn’t want anything else to happen to him.

“What the…?” She read the words that had been hastily added to the end of the letter. “Another incantation?” Standing quickly, Ruddiger slipped from her lap. “Stay here, Ruddiger. I’m going to get Varian back. Go find Eugene and wait for us to return.”

The raccoon seemed to understand and ran for the castle. It might have been a good idea to tell someone where she was going but she couldn’t wait any longer. If she didn’t return by nightfall she knew that Eugene would come after her and Ruddiger would be able to lead him to her.

The trip flew by as she pushed Max to run as fast as he could. Only a few hours later she was standing at the base of the black tower again.

“Cass!” she yelled. “Come out here! I need to talk to you!” The tower remained sealed while she tapped her foot impatiently. “Come on, Cass! Don’t leave me out here!”

Some of the rocks disappeared before her eyes.

“Ugh, fine,” Cass muttered as she stepped out, the entrance sealing again behind her. Glaring, she crossed her arms. “What do you want?”

Once again Rapunzel was shocked by the cold attitude her old friend was giving her.

“Cass, please listen to me,” she begged. “You need to let Varian go. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s just a kid. He shouldn’t be in the middle of a fight you have with me.”

Across from her, the warrior rolled her eyes.

“Is that the only reason you came back?”

Nodding, Rapunzel replied, “Yes, Cass. I failed him last time but I won’t this time. I’m willing to fight to take him home.”

Sounds from outside his window drew Varian’s attention. Sticking his head out the window, he looked down to see both Cassandra and Rapunzel yelling at each other. Both were darting around the grove, using their own powers to try and destroy the other. Suddenly the blonde stopped and while Varian could see her mouth moving, he couldn’t hear any words. A brilliant yellow light exploded out of the princess, knocking Cassandra away. Varian had to throw an arm up to cover his eyes and when he lowered it, he gasped. The front of the tower was in ruins while Cassandra was laying on the ground, yards from where she had been standing.

“Cass!” he called, worried for her.

Hearing his voice, Rapunzel looked up at him and smiled.

“Varian!” She moved closer. “Don’t worry! I’m taking you home!”

Hope rose in his chest and he rushed to his desk, starting to pack all his belongings into his bag. He carefully placed the remains of his prized possessions on the top and fastened the clasps.

Below him, at the base of the tower, Cassandra was pushing herself to her feet.

“You are not taking him away from me!” she screamed, furious. “He belongs with me!”

Rapunzel approached her.

“Listen to yourself, Cass. This isn’t healthy. You need to let him go. Stop the war you’re planning and join us. I can help you both.” She gestured toward the window Varian had been watching from. “If you won’t listen to me, please listen to him.” A pleading look crossed her face. “How many times has he asked you to stop? How many time has he asked you to go home? How many times have you ignored his pleas?” She extended her hand to the woman she used to call her best friend. “Come back to Corona with me. We can fix all of this. Please, Cass.”

Unbeknownst to the pair, a small girl was observing them closer. She was curious what Cassandra would say. There was no way she would agree to that, not with all her whispering in Cassandra’s ear.

The woman in question appeared to be hesitating. She kept glancing between the princess in front of her and the window she knew her boy was behind. Slowly, she reached out and took the blonde’s hand.

“Alright. Just give us a day? I need to dismantle everything Varian made before we can join you. Meet me back here tomorrow night with the guards and I’ll come with you. I’ll even turn in the Saporians.”

Smiling, Rapunzel pulled the warrior close and hugged her tightly.

“Thank you, Cass! I knew you would do the right thing!”

The girl’s face turned dark, seeing her pawn straying from the path she had laid down for her. How dare she just decide to go back on everything they had been working toward? Slipping back into the tower, she glanced at the sealed entrance to the alchemist’s room. At least with a slight adjustment, things could continue. She waited for the warrior to return, hiding in the shadows to attempt to still appear ghostly.

The warrior passed her, slipping into the boy’s room. The bits and pieces she could hear told her that she was explaining the new plan to him. How they would return to Corona the following evening after destroying all the dangerous equipment he had constructed and repackaging the safe concoctions. The boy sounded pleased and she heard a quiet oof as the breath left her lungs as he hugged her tightly in his excitement. When she left the room, she didn’t bother to close the room again as he was no longer her prisoner. Thinking of everything she needed to get done the next day and knowing it would be an early morning, Cassandra retired to her own chambers.

The girl waited almost an hour for both residents of the tower to be asleep then slipped down to the chambers the Saporians had been residing in. The damage the tower had sustained had blown a large hole into the wall of their chambers and she easily climbed inside.

“Courageous Saporians,” she called, gaining their attention. “I regretfully inform you that Cassandra has turned against you. She has decided to rejoin the crown and has vowed to return you all to prison tomorrow evening. If you do not wish for this to happen, listen closely. We can still conquer Corona without her, using this.” Out of her pocket she pulled a large, blue stone that she had taken from Cassandra’s chambers. “Once we leave, I will explain what it is and how to use its power.” Hungry eyes watched her slip it back into her pocket. “We also require the help of the alchemist sleeping at the top of this tower. One of you will need to get him without waking Cassandra while the rest come with me to prepare our attack.”

Without any prompting, Andrew hurried out of the room. He grinned when he noticed the wall to the boy’s room was missing. Stepping inside, he noticed that the boy was, in fact, asleep with a packed bag on the floor beside him. Carefully walking around it, he scooped the boy up and rushed out of the tower. As he descended the tower, the boy curled into him, oblivious as he slept. He glared at the boy, his movement was pulling on the new wounds Cassandra had given him. His back was burning where the stitching was trying to split and his hand was agony from where his fingers were missing. However he endured the pain, dreaming of how he would pay the boy back.

The girl and the other Saporians were waiting at the shed that housed all of the weapons Varian had created for Cassandra. They were already packaged for the siege so there was little preparation they would actually need to do.

“Bring him here,” the girl called from beside the largest automaton. Following her orders, he carried the alchemist over to her. She looked down at his sleeping face and ran her finger along his cheek. “I can see why Cassandra was so fond of him. He’s quite adorable when he’s asleep, isn’t he?” The Saporians murmured around her, most sounding unsure about her comments but other agreeing. “Well, load him in with the rest and I will take care of things from there.” With a short nod, Andrew stepped into the large machine. “We depart at daybreak,” the girl declared, grinning triumphantly.

[lanamemories2]

blurring the lines | self (past)

Lana had done a lot of reading, in the run up to the trial, trying to work out what to wear.

It probably wasn’t supposed to be this important, but it felt easier to pretend that it was – to pretend the clothes on her back were the most daunting thing, and not the set of eyes that would be blinking at her from across the courtroom.

Mothers were encouraged to wear sweater sets, thick knit and in a primary colour, because apparently that made a person seem warm. It made a jury think of juice boxes and bake sale cookies, double checking children’s seat belts and turning up early to PTA meetings.

Those accused of a robbery were discouraged from wearing flashy jewellery, anything glitzy, because it it wreaked of coveting material worth. They were meant to go plain and simple – something cream, and palatable.

Nowhere had any advice on what you were supposed to wear when you’d witnessed an aggravated assault. When you’d been knelt in front of all that blood.

She’d whirled over discussion boards, scrollbar endlessly tapped until the words all bled into a blur, and found nothing.

In the end, she settled on a short black skirt, a white shirt that was big enough to look like a men’s size, and a clip in her hair with a cartoon strawberry clasp.

Her lawyer pursed his lips at it as soon as she entered the building.

“Jesus Christ, Lana. What the hell is that?”

He reached out to poke at it, but she intercepted before he could make contact. With a notably unsteady hand, she could barely settle fingers on it long enough to adjust it’s position.

“It’s a strawberry.”

“Christ. Jesus Christ,” Vincent muttered, wiping down his face with his hand and muffling a soft scoff against the heel of his palm. “That’s… Right. Alright, Lana. That’s fine.”

It didn’t seem fine, and suddenly Lana was pushing up onto the toes of her feet, ignoring Vincent as he stooped to collect his briefcase.

“Is, um… Is Zeke here, yet? I want to see him. I want to see Zeke and Leo.”

She’d insisted on staying at Noland the night before, since she had a class the same afternoon and “it only made sense to be closer”, frantically clinging to any scrap of normalcy by the fingernails, but now she felt like a horse without hooves expected to race in the Grand National. It was only a few hours of sleep that she’d managed to scrape together, on her own. She’d almost rang Benji five separate times, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear his voice without her own wobbling, and if she started crying she probably wouldn’t stop.

“He’s in prep, I believe. We should start heading through, actually,” Vincent realised, smoothing over his belt buckle as if it was silk fabric, able to be rumpled by a crease. He was always fawning over his things like it was the be all and end all, to look presentable. Sometimes Lana pictured him as a Ken doll wrinkled by a dozen spins in the microwave. She was always having to contain the urge to reach out and press a finger to his forehead, test if the skin strung away with it in a warm gloop of plastic. “We can sit and have something to drink, before you’re called. You know, water or whatever. A coffee. They don’t take them Irish, here, though. Shame, if you ask me. Would make the whole thing a lot more exciting.”

He looked at the courthouse like it was nothing, something he’d done a thousand times before and would inevitably do a thousand times again, and maybe that was meant to soothe her, but it didn’t. In fact, it somehow managed to do exactly the opposite.

She didn’t want to be the only one that was scared.

“Vincent?” she called out after he’d walked a few steps, swallowing when he turned back to offer a rather bewildered lift of the eyebrows. When she didn’t continue, he closed their distance and bowed his head, listening like she was about to divulge a secret.

Her eyes dropped to the floor, and there was a strained laugh on the tip of her tongue before she’d even managed to ask it. She leaned in by an inch, voice timid and foreign to her own ears.

It was ridiculous.

She knew it was ridiculous.

“Can you, um… Can you hold my hand?”

Ten seconds of stunned silence passed before he cleared his throat. Leaned back, and itched his nose.

“No, Lana,” Vincent exhaled, lips tense like they’d been moulded that way and set in clay, “no, I can’t hold your hand. That wouldn’t… be appropriate, what’re you–… No. I can’t.”

“Okay,” she nodded. Then again. And a third time, for good measure. The cherry on top of the cake that made it pretty enough to sit out on a bakery shelf.  “Okay, cool. Yeah, that’s… Yeah, cool. I was just… I was kidding, so.” She flashed a smile like a Monopoly get-out-of-jail card – ironic, really, considering the situation they were in. “I was totally kidding. Yanking your chain, or whatever. Yankety-yank-yank.”

Eyeing her for a painfully long moment, her face might as well have exploded like a watermelon hurled at the windshield of a moving car, for all of the red that flushed it. She wanted something to beam her up, or swallow her whole. To have her knees braced still by a set of hands she trusted, thumbs soothing the bruises she’d knelt in over the previous week. She wanted something, but she had no more voice brave enough to request it. No ears that wanted to listen.

“Right…” Vincent trailed off, offering an awkward smile. He checked his watch, mentally calculated whether he’d be able to fit in a stop at the gas station to pick up flowers for his date later. “Well, erm…” His wrist went slack, and he gave a vague gesture of his briefcase. “Shall we, then?”

“Right, yeah.” Pressing her lips together, Lana forced as convincing a smile as possible. Her cheeks ached. “Yeah, let’s go.”

                                                     ___________

The lights in the courtroom felt like an interrogation torch shone through a pitch black room, even though, rationally, Lana knew it was just inside her head.

For some reason, she’d pictured being stood during her witness statement, so lowering onto the chair gave a flip in her stomach when it creaked, feeling like she’d unknowingly gained company in the boxed off confines.

So far, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at him.

With her chin tucked down and her hands in her lap, she resisted the urge to rock.

“Will the witness please stand to be sworn in by the bailiff?”

Shakily, Lana rose to her feet.

“Please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

She could hear the blood gushing in her ears like a reckless tide, lapping up any grooves in the sand. Erasing everything.

“I do.”

“You may take a seat.”

It felt like being a monkey dangling from an artificial tree trunk in a zoo enclosure, with all of the jury’s eyes on her. A blink towards the first row saw several expectant expressions, all lit with varying shades of scepticism and curiosity. She resisted the urge to fiddle with the clasp of her strawberry clip, aware that one in particular was gawking like she had a live wasp on her scalp, stinger at the ready.

“Miss Jameson, is it correct that you were with Mr. Daniel Nielsen on the evening of July 21st?”

“Yeah.” Lana blinked, then re-phased as she did her best to keep her eyes on the prosecution. “Yes.”

“He picked you up from your dormitory residence at around eight P.M., is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you were under the impression that you were going to a party?”

“No. Um,” she stalled when there was a murmur from the jury, prompting her to shift slightly in her seat. “He told me we were going to a bar, to meet his friends. I thought we were going for drinks.”

“That wasn’t the case?”

“No.”

“When did you realise that you were going elsewhere?”

“We… He pulled up, and I–… I thought it would take longer to get there, so I asked him why we stopped. I thought maybe he needed to text someone, or something. He didn’t say anything, he just… He just kind of gestured, at the window, so I turned around. That’s when I saw it.”

“Can you please clarify what it was that you saw?”

She made the mistake, then, of catching eyes with him from across the room. He had his fingers threaded together like they’d been stitched that way, meticulously interwoven, and his suit fit him obnoxiously well, pale blue of his tie oddly complimentary to a set of high cheekbones.

Anyone would think he was a model citizen.

She could feel thumbs on the insides of her thighs.

“Miss Jameson?”

Opening her mouth, newly dry, she wrenched her eyes back to the prosecution.

“Sorry, um… Sorry, could you–… Please can you repeat the question?”

A pause.

“Can you please clarify what it was that you saw, when you turned to look out of the window?”

“Yeah. Yes, sorry. It… We were parked outside of The Van Doren hotel. Zeke’s hotel. Ezekiel.”

“You’d been there before, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You and Mr. Van Doren engaged in a consensual sexual encounter, there, previously. Is that the only instance in which you had been there?”

“Yes.”

“And what was your reaction, to being there?”

“I was…” Heart in her ears. Throat tight. Stomach dropped so severely that she could feel it in her toes. “I wanted to go home.”

“Did you tell Mr. Nielsen that?”

“Yeah. I told him I wanted to go home.”

“He didn’t listen?”

“No, he told me to–…” trailed off, eyes flitting to find Danny’s. They were stuck on her with such intensity that she swore she could feel a target sizzling into her forehead, holes burning through – eyes, mouth, everywhere. She swallowed, and forced her stare down at her hands. They’d subconsciously bunched around the fabric of her skirt. “He told me he didn’t feel like going home, and he told me to text him. To text Zeke, saying I was outside.”

“And you did it?”

There was slight judgement, in that, and Lana was sure the entire courtroom could hear it. She probably would have sounded the same, if she was the one asking the question. It might as well have been re-phrased as something more direct.

How could you be so stupid?

“I told him I didn’t want to, but–… But Danny doesn’t like ‘no’.”

Her lipstick smudged around Trent’s mouth. Naked, except for her shoes on. The blink of a VHS camera with the screen flipped out at the side.

“So, to clarify, you text Mr. Van Doren to meet you downstairs?”

“Yes. I did.”

“And what happened, then?”

“I… Danny made me get in the back. I was there, when Zeke came out.”

“And just to clarify, Miss Jameson, was there any coercion involved, in this? Physically?”

“No, he didn’t–… He didn’t touch me.” She didn’t have to glance Danny’s way to know that her saying so would be satisfying. Instead of looking to confirm, she glanced at Zeke, instead. Tried to imagine that he was holding her hand. “But he didn’t… need to. I’m–… I was… scared of him.”

“And where did this fear stem from?”

“Um…” faded with hesitance, eyes dropping from Zeke’s like she was embarrassed of something. “I’m not sure.”

The prosecution pressed their lips together, apparently reluctant, but not enough to refrain  from doing what was necessary.

“In your character account of Mr. Daniel Nielsen, is it not true that you said that he once… And I quote, “bit my nipple so hard, during [sex], that it bled”? Despite the fact that you asked him not to?”

She clutched her skirt so adamantly that anyone would think she thought the pleats were human fingers. Half of her expected them to evaporate into red mist, at any second, forming a cloud that Tommy’s voice could float out from. Or maybe expected wasn’t the right word. Hoped.

“Miss Jameson? Would you like me to repeat the question?”

“No, that’s–… Yes,” she corrected, wetting her lips as she blinked up to meet their gaze, eyes feeling like two microwaved grapes shoved inside her skull, waiting to burst. “Sorry. Yes, that’s true.”

“Is it fair to assume that you didn’t need physical coercion, because you were already scared enough to comply to his demands?”

From the defence bench, Danny’s lawyer lifted to his feet after a murmur into his ear. “Objection, your honour. This is conjecture.”

“Overruled on the grounds of a reasonable conclusion.”

With a tense sigh, he sank back into his seat. Lana felt like her entire head was slowly catching fire, toasting over a hob turned up past a hundred degrees.

“Miss Jameson? Is it fair to assume that you didn’t need any coercion, because you were so scared of him that you’d do whatever he asked?”

Rather shakily, she reached for her glass of water, prompting three of the jury to gasp in surprise when it went toppling out of her grasp, onto the floor in a bang.

The judge called for a recess, when Lana started hyperventilating.

                                                    ___________

Only allowed a short period of time in which to compose herself, Vincent muttering useless commentary as he fiddled with his wristwatch while Lana sat between Zeke and Leo in complete silence, she’d slipped into an eerie sense of calm by the time she re-entered the witness stand.

Running through the rest of the recount was stumbling blind, being lead by the arm through a pitch black cavern, voice strained enough that it was fairly obvious she was trying to swallow tears whenever mentions of Zeke’s injuries came to light, but she managed it.

It felt like running a marathon, every inch of her limbs begging to collapse against a mattress, and she almost shakily pushed to her feet to leave until she realised this was only the halfway point.

By all objective accounts, the easy part was over.

Danny’s defence reared from his seat, buttoning the front of his jacket as he side-stepped to enter the floor.

“Miss Jameson,” he began, eyes glinting as they settled on hers. He looked like the kind of hotshot that had connections on Wall Street – inevitable, really, considering the profession of Danny’s father. “Before I question you about these events that you claim to have witnessed, I’d like to clear something else up, first. Would that be alright with you?”

“Um… Yeah. Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Splendid.” He launched right in. “What was the nature of your relationship with Mr. Nielsen?”

It was a simple question that was expected to have a simple answer, but Lana couldn’t provide one. She was sure he knew that.

“We… We were seeing each other, for a while, on-and-off. We made it official, on July 15th, but–,”

“The date isn’t necessary, Miss Jameson,” he assured, casting a sideways glance towards the jury. It was almost as if he was trying to make her responses seem memorised. Lacking authenticity.

Lana clutched her hands tighter.

“Were you faithful to Mr. Nielsen, during your relationship?”

“That’s–… Technically it wasn’t–,”

“Please may you provide a yes or no answer, Miss Jameson?”

Blinking, Lana swallowed to garner some composure. She felt a little like an animal backed up against a brick wall, snout stuck against the cold of a rifle’s barrel.

“No, technically, but Danny and I – Daniel and I – we never… I didn’t think he cared, when I slept with other people.”

“And you would be unfaithful, often?” he replied, spinning her answer in an entirely different direction. It was like he hadn’t even heard her, except for the first word.

“No, that’s… I’d sleep with other people, but it–… Most of the time, he wanted me to. I don’t–… I don’t really know how this is relevant,” she suggested, eyes moving to locate the judge.

Danny’s lawyer held up a hand, shaking his head once.

“Forgive me, Miss Jameson, but it is. Am I correct that you’re implying Mr. Nielsen wanted his girlfriend to be unfaithful? Aspired to it, even? Does that not sound a little strange?”

From his seat at the defence bench, Danny lifted his eyebrows like he was simply inquisitive – even went so far as to tilt his head, like he was trying to gauge what direction she was going in with the fabricated story. Some acting.

“It… Yeah, it does, but it’s what… It’s what he was like,” she attempted to stick to her guns, shifting so that she could sit straighter. After swallowing, she found the nerve to elaborate. “At parties, he’d tell me his friend thought I looked… He said they had a crush on me. He made it sound fun, so I… So I’d have fun. Sometimes, he’d be there – in the room, and–,”

“And?”

“And… He seemed like he enjoyed it. Like he liked, um… watching me do things, that he’d asked me to. And I did, too, I think. At first, I did. Or maybe... Maybe I just… wanted to.” She swallowed. Ignored the smile Danny was inevitably holding at bay. “I wanted to like it.”

Buttoning his lips together after he eyed the jury’s reaction, Danny’s lawyer rerouted the conversation. Yanked on the clutch, and reversed away from a brick wall.

“Trent Radley is one of these friends that Mr. Nielsen supposedly arranged you to engage in one of these encounters with, is he not?”

“Yes.”

“And what is your response to the statement, in his character account – sworn under oath, might I add – that no such encounter ever took place? That none of them did, in fact?”

Parting her lips, Lana simply blinked.

“He’s lying.”

“Lying under oath is a serious offence, Miss Jameson. Punishable by law. Mr. Radley is aware of that. Are you?”

“Objection. This is needlessly antagonistic,” the prosecution perked up, to which the judge nodded.

“Sustained.”

“My apologies,” the defence relented, thumbing over his mouth as if to conceal something. Regardless of his tactic being nipped in the bud, the jury seemed to have taken something from it, and Lana had to resist the urge to shoot to her feet and demand another recess.

After a short few steps, barely enough to count as a pace, he turned back to study her.

“Would you say that you’re a woman who likes attention, Miss Jameson?”

Eyebrows pinching, she traded a glance towards the prosecution.

“I… I don’t know, doesn’t everyone?”

“Would you say that you go out of your way, sometimes, to get attention? For example… by wearing bright things,” he provided, hand gesturing vaguely like he wasn’t making specific reference to the clip in her hair, “and provoking jealous competition between suitors, perhaps?”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

His jaw tensed, before he leapt right back in.

“Is it not true that you provided Mr. Nielsen with Ezekiel Van Doren’s name, prior to the events of the 21st, Miss Jameson?”

Her face must have visibly paled.

“Please could you answer the question, Miss Jameson?”

“Yes.”

“And why did you do that?”

“Because… Because he saw me kissing someone, outside of a bar, and he wanted to know who it was. He wouldn’t let it go.”

“And was it Mr. Van Doren, that he saw you with?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

Lana swallowed.

“Who was it, Miss Jameson?”

“It was Benj–… Benjamin… Gates. It wasn’t Zeke.”

“Why did you give Mr. Van Doren’s name, and not this Mr. Gates? Did you have some kind of vendetta against Mr. Van Doren, and you were trying to antagonise Mr. Nielsen into doing your dirty work?”

“No, that–… That isn’t true. I didn’t want Zeke to get hurt, I just… I don’t know,” she stalled, opening her mouth when she realised he was about to interject. “I didn’t want to tell him about Benji. Because it–… Because Benji’s different, and I barely knew Zeke at the time, and–,”

“And you knew Mr. Nielsen would be driven into a heartbroken rage? An unfit mental state? You were aware of his fragility, and you wanted to spare Mr. Gates?”

“No, I–…” Wetting her lips, she blinked in the face of the thousand questions. The courtroom was eerily quiet. “I’m not sure why I did it. I just… I’d fu–… Sorry. I had, um… relations, with Zeke, the same week, so I just… I just said his name. I just… I didn’t want Danny to be mad at me, any more. He said he’d drop it if I gave him a name, and was honest. He said he’d let it go, and leave it alone. That he just… That he wanted closure, and–…”

Gaze shifting to linger on Danny, he stared at her unblinking. By the look on his face, anyone would think the entire discussion was shredding him into bits, twisting organs until they popped. He played victim well.

“So you gave him Mr. Van Doren’s name, despite apparently being scared of Mr. Nielsen? Despite apparently being so scared, you weren’t in control of your own actions, according to the claims in your earlier statement? You gave Mr. Van Doren’s name to a supposed monster?”

“No, I didn’t think he’d do anyth–,”

“So you weren’t scared of Mr. Nielsen, like you stated earlier? You don’t think he’s a monster?”

“That’s not–… No, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m–,”

“So, either you gave Mr. Van Doren’s name willingly, acting as an accomplice and even instigator to these events, or you don’t believe Mr. Nielsen is the kind of person that could commit them? Which one is it, Miss Jameson?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled,” the judge answered, eyes flitting to investigate Lana on the stand. “Miss Jameson, I’d like to hear the answer to the question.”

Her eyes felt hot. Wet, too. She knew Danny was probably getting some sick kind of satisfaction, out of that, and the knowledge only frustrated her further. But she didn’t want to fold. She knew that’s what they were trying to drive her to, shoe firm on her neck as it attempted to press her cheek into the soil, but she refused to choke on dirt. If only for Zeke’s sake, she wouldn’t.

“I was… stupid, to give him the name. I’m… People are stupid, all the time. I thought…” trailed off, humiliated breath parting her lips. “I thought Danny cared about me. I thought he… I thought maybe he finally cared about me, the way I wanted, and I thought, like… being honest would mean… something different. But I wasn’t ready to–… I wasn’t ready to say Benji’s name, because I–… Because he knows me, and he’s nice to me, and that’s not–… I don’t get that, a lot.”

“Miss Jameson, you aren–,”

“Please, can I just finish?”

Pressing his lips into a line, you could see the contempt simmering in his expression, bubbling beneath the surface.

Lana cleared her throat, and glanced towards the jury.

Looking at them was less daunting, with Danny’s silhouette becoming hazier in the corner of her eye-line.

“I shouldn’t have. And I wish… I wish I hadn’t all the time. I wish I’d just let him stay mad at me, and not even… But I can’t… take it back, and that’s… That’s something I have to live with, or whatever. It’s always there, now, and it never… goes away.” Lana swallowed around the tremble in her voice. “But I didn’t want–… I tried to stop him. He locked me in the car, and… And he did it. He nearly… killed him. I gave… Zeke’s name, and I’m really shit and, like… and spineless, for that, but Danny hurt him. I think he would have done more, if I didn’t–…”

Pouncing upon the delayed pause in which she attempted to muster the courage to continue, Danny’s defence leapt back in.

“I think we’ve heard enough of this rather muddled account. Miss Jameson, thank-you for answering my questions. By all means, you’ve been very… convincing. I can see the kind of effect that you have on people, when you’re putting your mind to it.”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. You’re going to need to reign it in.”

“Apologies, of course. I think we’ve all heard the truth, if we’ve been listening hard enough,” he dismissed, turning his back on Lana and beginning in his tread towards the bench of defence. ”No further questions.”

[thecleverdame]

Sleepy Hollow - Chapter Nine

Series Master List

Pairings: Sam x Reader, mentions of Dean x Jo

Summary: In 1799, specialized police constables Sam and Dean Winchester are sent from New York City to a small town called Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders. Approached by the town’s council, the Winchesters discover the local residents believe that the murders are the work of a deadly Hessian horseman whose head has been mysteriously chopped off. With help from the beautiful Y/N Van Tassel, Sam Winchester’s investigation takes him further through the dark wood where more murders have been occurring. What Sam does not realize is that the mysterious Horseman is being controlled by someone in a sinister plot to kill the most suitable men in the village.

Warnings: Canon-level violence, murder, smut, horror, gore and a little fluff for good measure.

Words: 40k

Beta:  ilikaicalie

This series is completed. You can read it on my Patreon for a monthly pledge of 2.50. This pledge includes early access to all my stories and Patreon exclusive content.  >> CLICK HERE <<

-

The Forest Brom, Theodore, and Glen are on patrol. Brom is particularly proud with his new rifle. They can hear a horse crashing invisibly through branches, the sound of hooves, but can't tell what direction the sound is coming from. “Split up!” Brom shouts, “He won't get away.” The three of them gallop off in three directions. They hear the sound of deep rumbling, the same sound heard before Jonathan Masbath was murdered.

Killian’s Home

Killian, Thomas, and Beth, Killian's wife, have finished supper in their small kitchen. Beth is clearing plates as Killian picks his teeth with a knife. There’s a faint sound in the distance. The glasses on the table shiver audibly. Killian notices, watching but the phenomenon promptly stops.

Thomas gets down from his chair. He goes to the fireplace to light a tallow wick, which he takes to the next room. Thomas plops on the floor and lights his magic lantern: a lantern with an outer sleeve of glass painted with silhouettes of lions and monsters. He turns the lantern, watching the wall where the shadows are cast. He roars for them, imagining them real and having a grand time. Beth comes back to the dining table for the last of the dishes. “Don't pick your teeth. You teach Thomas bad habits,” she quips. Killian pulls her to him playfully. “I am a bad habit. There's nothing for it.” “Oh isn’t there.” She smiles, kissing her husband. -

In the forest a mighty Brom rides his black horse, hooves pounding the ground. There is thunder in the distance and the horse stops and Brom looks skyward. All around the wind halts. A dead silence falls. Distant hoofbeats can be heard in the silence. Brom takes his rifle from his shoulder and rides toward them. - Behind where Killian sits the mantelpiece stones pulse, breathing. Demonic faces form, then disappear as the wind screams like an angry beast. Thomas continues his fun, shadow animals circling him as his mother enters his room to join him. The magic lantern suddenly stops spinning. Shadow creatures freeze. Beth looks up, noticing the ferocity of the wind as the smile leaves her face. The entire house creaks and groans. Killian stands, looking up. The house groans again, then suddenly the wind ceases and there is nothing. “Beth…” He calls a warning. Beth picks up Thomas. The magic lantern shadow creatures begin spinning anew, quickly, around and around. With a roar, the fire flares. Killian looks, and in the leaping flames, he seems to see the illusion of a face molded out of flames. Behind Killian, the door splinters inward. The Horseman steps in, a battle ax in each hand as the wind blasts behind him. The door to the other room slams. Killian grabs a chair and hurls it but the horseman swings, smashing it aside. “Beth, run!” he screams.

Beth holds Thomas as she backs away from the closed door as they listen to Killian yelling from the kitchen, get out! Killian grabs an iron poker from the fireplace, swinging it to fend off a blow from the Horseman. The Horseman swings the other ax and Killian ducks as the ax cracks fireplace stone, throwing sparks. Killian lunges, jamming the skewer into the Horseman cutting clean through the Horseman's back. The Horseman swipes with the flat of one ax, pounding Killian aside. Killian hits the wall, bashing his head and wilts to the floor. The Horseman pulls the skewer out of his body and throws it aside. He lifts Killian by the hair with one hand, brings back the ax in the other hand.

Beth kicks a carpet of Thomas’s room aside to reveal a trap door, lowering Thomas to small stairs leading to a crawl space under the gapped floorboards. Thomas is crying loudly and Beth puts a finger to her lips. “Hush, hush, my love. Quiet as a mouse, now.” “Mother.” He cries, small and trembling. “You must hide,” she shushes him one last time closing the trap door, frantically replacing the carpet. The room's door flies open. The Horseman strides in, carrying Killian's severed head and Beth shrieks. Beth's screams end quickly. Her body is heard hitting the floor above. Thomas sees the shadow of Beth's head rolling across the gaps in the floorboards above him, coming to rest with her hair showing, hanging down in the gap as the Horseman walks the length of the room. The Horseman places the heads in a sack, cinching the it shut. Then stands, long, silent. Thomas cowers, trembling and quiet as the Horseman falls to his knees. He starts to chop at the floor with both axes. Chopping, chopping, chopping, making quick work of it. A hole appears as debris falls. Thomas looks up, screaming as he tries to crawl away. The Horseman's arm shoves through from above, grabbing Thomas and yanking him up through the hole.

Killian’s Farm - Outskirts Brom rides from the forest. Ahead, at Killian's house, among scattered homes on the outskirts of town, an evil steed steps up as the Headless Horseman walks out with his sack of heads. The Horseman ties the sack to his saddle and leaps up. The Horseman ignores Brom. But sadly, Brom refuses to be ignored. He puts his reins in his mouth, aims his rifle, firing at the horseman with a might crack! Boom, the slug blows the Horseman off his stallion, exploding. The Horseman's smoldering body is left face down. Brom halts his horse, climbing down, pleased with himself Until the Horseman moves. Brom backs away, satisfaction diminishing and the Horseman rises to his knees. Brom falls to one knee, begins reloading. He fills the gun from his powder horn. The Horseman stands, unsheathes his sword and turns. The blast has exposed rotten flesh and maggot-infested muscle. Brom readies his ramrod, but there's no time. He rises, hefting his rifle, straight at the Horseman with a yell. The Horseman is on him but Brom swings the rifle, blocking. The battle is on, with Brom fending off the Horseman's sword with the rifle - CLANK - CLANK - CLANK Across the field, Sam and Dean arrive upon the scene of the fight. Gunpowder rears back knocking Dean to the ground as Sam charges toward the action. The Horseman makes a backhanded swing, knocking Brom's rifle away, sending Brom to the ground. The Horseman walks away from Brom who pulls a knife and throws it. The knife blade goes through the Horseman from back to front, like a spear thrust through a smoldering sack of rotten flesh. The Horseman pulls Brom's knife, blade first, from his chest and turns upon Brom. Brom scrambles up, fleeing, running toward Killian's. The Horseman throws the knife with precision and it embeds in Brom's thigh as he strides closer. Sam closes in, pulling an unlit lantern off his saddle. The Horseman changes his sword grip, blade open, plants one foot on Brom's back, raising his sword to skewer. Sam arrives at full gallop, smashing the lantern into the Horseman, effectively knocking him off of Brom. In the distance, Theodore and Glen arrive on horseback. They halt where they are, watching in amazement. Brom runs, limping to Killian's house, a goal in sight, there are farm implements propped there. Brom grabs scythes with long curved blades, one in each hand. The Horseman rises up, on a mission.

Sam leaps off his horse, running to Brom's side. Once more, the Horseman turns away. “I'll get him!” Brom yells, grabbing for Sam’s pistol. “Wait! Don't you see? He's not after us!” Sam shouts, grabbing for his gun back. Brom shakes himself free and fires. The bullet rips through the horseman’s stomach to reveal putrid innards. The horseman turns back, locked onto Brom. “He’s not after us!” Sam shouts, grabbing Brom and trying to pull him along. Brom throws the pistol at the Horseman.

Across the way, Theodore looks to Glenn, turns his horse and flees. Glenn follows Theodore away as Dean rides closer, praying he arrives in time. Brom steps up, scythes ready. He and the Horseman go at it. Brom blocks the ax and sword, deflecting blows. Sam grabs a long-handled sickle, circles them, swinging the sickle as the Horseman blocks his efforts. The Horseman battles both men at once, catching blows, countering every strike, the sounds ringing out into the night. Sam's sickle is knocked out of his hand. Brom catches the Horseman's sword in one scythe, catches the ax handle in the other scythe, but the Horseman flatfoot kicks Brom, sending him down. Brom picks up Sam's sickle and swings it, the blade embedding in the Horseman down to the hilt. “Now you've pissed him off,” Sam yells, but Brom will not listen. The Horseman drops his ax, grasps the sickle handle. The handle slams Sam away, hitting the ground. Sam crawls, shaking off the blow. The Horseman staggers, trying to pull the blade from his body. “We cannot win this.” Sam pleads for Brom to have some sense. Brom yanks Sam to his feet and grabs his scythes. As they flee, Sam grabs a wood-splitting ax from the stump where it's embedded. Behind, the Horseman manages to extract the sickle, drops it. Brom and Sam head toward the covered bridge that leads across to the town square. The Horseman strides after, retrieving his ax on the way.

Brom and Sam start across. Sam must help support Brom as he limps beside him. Behind them, the Horseman picks up the pace, closing in fast. Inside the bridge, Sam and Brom are halfway across. Footsteps pounding behind them. Sam glances back and to his surprise, the Horseman is not behind them. Sam and Brom look up. The pounding feet are on the roof, passing over. Ahead, at the mouth of the covered bridge, the Horseman leaps down, spinning in midair, lands, crouched. Sam and Brom halt as The Horseman rises. Sam releases Brom and moves forward, gripping his wood ax in both hands, swinging the ax downward... The Horseman swings his own ax, splintering Sam's ax handle. The Horseman, ax in one hand, sword in the other, turns upon Brom, and in pulling Brom aside out of the path of the sword, Sam receives a sword-thrust in the shoulder, which makes him scream in agony. The Horseman lifts his sword arm, throwing Sam and withdrawing the sword in one motion as Sam tumbles to the ground.

“Dean!” Sam yells, clutching his shoulder, blood running from between his fingers. Brom moves forward with the scythes. The Horseman sets upon him with incredible ferocity, battling Brom back, striking so hard and fast it's hard for Brom to keep blocking. Sam tries to get up, but falls knowing he’s of no help now. He watches as the horseman knocks one of Brom’s scythes away, taking another swing, sending Brom spinning in a spray of blood. The Horseman stands over Brom's body, chopping with his sword.

Sam’s vision begins to blur as the horseman approaches, now at the specters mercy. He’s ready for a final blow but it never comes as the horseman strides past him. “Sam!” He hears only his brothers voice, and a hand pressing over his wound as he loses consciousness.

[19umbrellas]

Villain I appear to be || Vanya Hargreeves x Reader

Description: You were the eighth member of the infamous Umbrella Academy. Your adopted father, Reginald Hargreeves, had raised you and your seven other siblings to fight crime and stop evil, however, as you grew older you found yourself straining farther and farther away from the life of a hero your father always wanted you to be.

This will be a One-shot series or something? I don’t really know what it’s called. It’s like, same title and concept but different stories and pairings per chapter. If that makes sense. ùwú

Pairing: Vanya x Reader

Word Count: 2194

ONE-SHOT

Vanya unlocked her apartment door with an audible sigh. Her violin was strapped uncomfortably around her left shoulder along with several grocery bags hanging from her fingers. She walked into her comfortable little apartment before shutting the door behind her. Vanya's lids hooded over her tired eyes as she trotted over to her dining table and practically threw three plastic bags on it's surface while she gently propped the violin bag on the chair. As she took off her coat, a loud meow suddenly came from the couch. She looked over to the cushions and saw a cat.

"Mr. Puddles." She was exasperated. "You scared me. Why do you keep coming here? I don't have any food for you." She went over to the feline and hoisted him up on her shoulder, however, as she moved towards the door the weight of the cat on her arms and chest suddenly doubled, alarming the rather petite woman. Before she could let go of Mr. Puddles the cat quickly morphed into a bigger entity with human limbs that wrapped around her body. "(y/n)?" she said, realizing what was happening before you could even shift back to your original form.

"Hey, Vanya." You said pulling away from her as you looked at her with Mr. Puddles' eyes before you blinked and they  returned back to your normal orbs of (e/c). "What's up?" Vanya sighed. "Can't you just knock or something. I would've let you in anyway." You laughed. "That's too... Ordinary for my taste." you joked but Vanya only gave you an impatient look. "Yeesh, tough crowd." you scoffed as you jumped on the couch and plopped your bum on its soft cushions. You crossed your legs and turned your head to her. "Getting a bit feisty with me, aren't you, Vanya?" You smirked. "Finally found the courage to actually fight for yourself? I'm impressed." Vanya huffed "What are you even doing here, (y/n)?"

"Can't I visit my favorite sister whenever I so please?" you asked, your smirk showed no sign of disappearing. Vanya shook her head "Last time you came here I caught you stealing my groceries. Not to mention you pawned my favorite white violin. I had to borrow money from Allison just to get it back." You shrugged. "That was a long time ago Vanya. I'm a changed..." you morphed into a small girl, then a fox, then a teenaged boy, before morphing back to yourself "... Whatever I am. Besides, the pay for a world class thief is getting higher by the day. You will not believe how many zeros are in my bank account." You laughed but Vanya's expression showed no amusement. She sighed again, shook her head and walked to her newly bought groceries and started to put them away.

"Hey, Vanya. Think you can fix me up a drink?" You said from the couch. Vanya felt her eyebrows twitch but she complied anyways. She grabbed a glass from her cupboard and poured some gin in it. She gave it to you and you said, "Thanks.". She didn't reply. She went back to cleaning her dining area but not before taking her pills. She put the orange cylinder back in her pocket and proceeded to grab some fresh grapes and placed them in the fridge.

You just watched her silently, the cocky look on your face was gone as you firmly grasped on your red stained left hip. You tried not to groan from the pain but you eventually started to let out quiet heavy breathes. You pulled your hand up and cringed at the amount of blood that was coating it. Not wanting to stain Vanya's couch you stood up and just leaned against the wall.

"You know, you should really get locks for your windows." you suddenly said, breaking the silence. Vanya looked at you and your smirk crawled back to your lips. "I'm just saying, a lot of people could break in and steal something. Exhibit A." you gestured to yourself. Vanya's patience was stretched thin at this point. Her brows furrowed as she turned to you. Her expression made her look like she was going to explode and it took you by surprise. "(y/n) can you please just...." she closed her eyes, turning her head has she breathed deeply.

You looked at her with a raised eye brow. You've never seen Vanya look this frustrated before and it kind of made you feel bad. "...Just.... Go.... I'm pretty sure you already got whatever it is you came for so please just leave me alone." she turned around a perched herself on the counter as she got her pills from her pocket and drank a tablet or two.

You said nothing, not wanting to inconvenience her any longer so you did what you were told. Vanya heard the click on her window and turned around to find no one else there. "Why can't you ever use the door..." she sighed before grabbing her violin case.

A black cat stalked quietly on top of the roof before stopping at the edge. The cat's yellow eyes peered down the dark alleyway before it jumped down the fire escape and slowly made its way down a large garbage bin. You morphed back into your original form and huffed at the pain on your sides. You opened up the garbage bin and threw out a man clad in all black and a bloody face. He groaned as he hit the ground and turned to look at your glowing feline yellow eyes. "... You're a demon..." he sputtered out and you tilted your head as you walked over to him and stepped on his chest making him scream in agony. "I could be worst." you put more pressure on your leg and the man whimpered. "Listen to me you disgusting bag of human flesh. If I ever catch you going inside that apartment again..." your eyes flashed red "I'll make you eat dirt. You catch my drift?" The thief nodded as he stared into your ruby orbs before they went back to yellow. You lifted your foot from his body but before he could sigh in relief you stomped on his nether regions. "That's for ruining my favorite shirt." you said, motioning to your red stained hip. The bloody criminal laid helpless and whining in pain on the cold cement as you walked away from him, eyes shifting back to their normal (f/c) hue.

Sirens and red and blue flashes suddenly came closer to you and you turned yourself back into a cat before scampering away.

Weeks have passed since the incident in Vanya's neighborhood. Apparently a notorious burglar had been found half dead at the side of her apartment building. Police are unsure how that man got his wounds  and when asked about it he refused to mention a name. Detectives conducted a door to door interview with the residents near the area including Vanya but they didn't get anything useful. After his recovery he was sent to jail for theft.

One night, as a sleeping Vanya was warmly snuggled inside her blanket a loud crash could be heard from her living room. She instantly became conscious and grabbed her phone. She called 911 as she got out of her bed slowly approached the door. She told the operator about her situation and told them her address. The lady on the other line told her to stay calm and wait for a few minutes as they police were already on their way. Vanya thanked them and hung up as she pressed her body on the door. She listened for a bit but heard complete silence for half a minute. She furrowed her eyebrows as she wrapped her pale fingers on the doorknob she slowly turned it and peaked through the small crack on her door.

There was a large hole on her window, wind blew through the curtains but other than that there was no other movement inside the room. A sudden meow broke the silence as a shadow of a cat jumped on the head of the couch. "(y/n)?" Vanya asked with an 'are you kidding me' tone. She turned on the light switch next to her door frame but she screamed as soon as she saw you. Your fur was coated in thick red liquid and one of your eyes had been scratched and bloodied. You let out one last weak meow before falling onto the couch. Vanya was about to run to the your side but you quickly turned back into a human and told her to stay where she was. Vanya was already next to you and her eyes grew wide when she saw another man laying on the other side of the room with scratch marks all over his body.

"Go back to your room Vanya. He's not completely down yet." You said as best as you could as you looked at her with your one good eye. "I can't just leave you out here." she said. The intruder suddenly twitched making Vanya flinched away when her eyes caught the movement. "Vanya. I'll be fine. I can't exactly stay here when the cops show up." the man started groaning. "I'm not going anywhere without you." she said sternly. You looked into Vanya's eyes and realized there was nothing that could change her mind. You sighed as the man slowly started to get up. "Fine." You turned into a fox and ran into the room with Vanya close behind you before locking the door.

It didn't take long for the police to arrive and luckily the thief wasn't able to get away fast enough so the cops were able to apprehend him as well as his partner that was thrown out the window. You were also arrested on the spot even though Vanya told the police that you had nothing to do with the break in. Sadly, your one good deed wasn't enough to excuse you from the hundreds of sins that you have committed. You plead guilty in the court of law and judge reduces 2 years off of your sentence.

As soon as you were thrown in prison Vanya was the first to visit you. The both of you sat in front of each other, a glass wall dividing you with only a phone to connect with each other. She greeted you and asked how you were doing. You responded with laugh and told her not to worry about it. Vanya kept glancing at your now scarred face but her eyes lingered longer at your sliced eyeball. "Why didn't you get a prosthetic?" she asked. "With all those zeros in your bank account, I would've thought you'd have enough money for glass eyeball.".

You chuckled as you gave her a shrug. "Every cent under my name is dirty money Van. Don't want the coppers sniffing around for all that dough, I'll get bankrupt. Besides, I've grown quite the... Er... attachment to my original eye." it was Vanya's turn to laugh. You smiled, feeling a bit proud to have made her this happy at such an odd time.

"10 years of jail time..." she sighed and shook her head. "You think you can handle it?" your smirk grew wider. "You underestimate me number 7.". Vanya glanced at the calender behind you. "I would never." she said. "Want to watch a movie at my place this tomorrow?" she asked and you shot her a wink. "I don't know, I'm a little busy but I'll try to make it." You both laughed. For the rest of the visit you and Vanya joked around with each other until it was time for her to leave.

The next night, sirens echoed around the prison as armed men frantically ran around as soon as a guard reported the absence of Inmate 19. A reporter stood in front of the prison not an hour later and broadcasted the breaking news all over the city. "(y/n) Hargreeves, a world renown thief has escaped city prison and is on the loose. Police are now on the look out for a (h/c-"

The TV switched to another chanel and Vanya placed the remote back on her coffee table. A Black cat had jumped next to her rubbed itself on her arm. She smiled as she petted the cat between it's ears. "Did you hear that? A big bad criminal is running around the streets. We should be more careful when we go outside." Vanya cooed jokingly. You meowed in return and laid down on her lap. Vanya giggled as she felt you purr and continued to rub your head.

"Maybe you aren't so bad after all."

AN:

I wrote this after apocalypse suite and I may have portrayed Vanya as herself in the comics rather than her Netflix counterpart.

[lanamemories]

blurring the lines | self

Lana had done a lot of reading, in the run up to the trial, trying to work out what to wear. 

It probably wasn’t supposed to be this important, but it felt easier to pretend that it was -- to pretend the clothes on her back were the most daunting thing, and not the set of eyes that would be blinking at her from across the courtroom. 

Mothers were encouraged to wear sweater sets, thick knit and in a primary colour, because apparently that made a person seem warm. It made a jury think of juice boxes and bake sale cookies, double checking children’s seat belts and turning up early to PTA meetings.

Those accused of a robbery were discouraged from wearing flashy jewellery, anything glitzy, because it it wreaked of coveting material worth. They were meant to go plain and simple -- something cream, and palatable. 

Nowhere had any advice on what you were supposed to wear when you’d witnessed an aggravated assault. When you’d been knelt in front of all that blood.

She’d whirled over discussion boards, scrollbar endlessly tapped until the words all bled into a blur, and found nothing.

In the end, she settled on a short black skirt, a white shirt that was big enough to look like a men’s size, and a clip in her hair with a cartoon strawberry clasp.

Her lawyer pursed his lips at it as soon as she entered the building.

“Jesus Christ, Lana. What the hell is that?”

He reached out to poke at it, but she intercepted before he could make contact. With a notably unsteady hand, she could barely settle fingers on it long enough to adjust it’s position.

“It’s a strawberry.”

“Christ. Jesus Christ,” Vincent muttered, wiping down his face with his hand and muffling a soft scoff against the heel of his palm. “That’s... Right. Alright, Lana. That’s fine.”

It didn’t seem fine, and suddenly Lana was pushing up onto the toes of her feet, ignoring Vincent as he stooped to collect his briefcase. 

“Is, um... Is Zeke here, yet? I want to see him. I want to see Zeke and Leo.”

She’d insisted on staying at Alpha Nu, the night before, since she had a class the same afternoon and “it only made sense to be closer”, frantically clinging to any scrap of normalcy by the fingernails, but now she felt like a horse without hooves expected to race in the Grand National. It was only a few hours of sleep that she’d managed to scrape together, on her own. She’d almost rang Benji five separate times, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear his voice without her own wobbling, and if she started crying she probably wouldn’t stop. 

“He’s in prep, I believe. We should start heading through, actually,” Vincent realised, smoothing over his belt buckle as if it was silk fabric, able to be rumpled by a crease. He was always fawning over his things like it was the be all and end all, to look presentable. Sometimes Lana pictured him as a Ken doll wrinkled by a dozen spins in the microwave. She was always having to contain the urge to reach out and press a finger to his forehead, test if the skin strung away with it in a warm gloop of plastic. “We can sit and have something to drink, before you’re called. You know, water or whatever. A coffee. They don’t take them Irish, here, though. Shame, if you ask me. Would make the whole thing a lot more exciting.”

He looked at the courthouse like it was nothing, something he’d done a thousand times before and would inevitably do a thousand times again, and maybe that was meant to soothe her, but it didn’t. In fact, it somehow managed to do exactly the opposite. 

She didn’t want to be the only one that was scared.

“Vincent?” she called out after he’d walked a few steps, swallowing when he turned back to offer a rather bewildered lift of the eyebrows. When she didn’t continue, he closed their distance and bowed his head, listening like she was about to divulge a secret.

Her eyes dropped to the floor, and there was a strained laugh on the tip of her tongue before she’d even managed to ask it. She leaned in by an inch, voice timid and foreign to her own ears.

It was ridiculous.

She knew it was ridiculous.

“Can you, um... Can you hold my hand?”

Ten seconds of stunned silence passed before he cleared his throat. Leaned back, and itched his nose. 

“No, Lana,” Vincent exhaled, lips tense like they’d been moulded that way and set in clay, “no, I can’t hold your hand. That wouldn’t... be appropriate, what’re you--... No. I can’t.”

“Okay,” she nodded. Then again. And a third time, for good measure. The cherry on top of the cake that made it pretty enough to sit out on a bakery shelf.  “Okay, cool. Yeah, that’s... Yeah, cool. I was just... I was kidding, so.” She flashed a smile like a Monopoly get-out-of-jail card -- ironic, really, considering the situation they were in. “I was totally kidding. Yanking your chain, or whatever. Yankety-yank-yank.”

Eyeing her for a painfully long moment, her face might as well have exploded like a watermelon hurled at the windshield of a moving car, for all of the red that flushed it. She wanted something to beam her up, or swallow her whole. To have her knees braced still by a set of hands she trusted, thumbs soothing the bruises she’d knelt in over the previous week. She wanted something, but she had no more voice brave enough to request it. No ears that wanted to listen.

“Right...” Vincent trailed off, offering an awkward smile. He checked his watch, and mentally calculated whether he’d be able to fit in a stop at the gas station to pick up flowers for his date later. “Well, erm...” His wrist went slack, and he gave a vague gesture of his briefcase. “Shall we, then?”

“Right, yeah.” Pressing her lips together, Lana forced as convincing a smile as possible. Her cheeks ached. “Yeah, let’s go.”

                                                      ___________ 

The lights in the courtroom felt like an interrogation torch shone through a pitch black room, even though, rationally, Lana knew it was just inside her head.

For some reason, she’d pictured being stood during her witness statement, so lowering onto the chair gave a flip in her stomach when it creaked, feeling like she’d unknowingly gained company in the boxed off confines.

So far, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at him.

With her chin tucked down and her hands in her lap, she resisted the urge to rock.

“Will the witness please stand to be sworn in by the bailiff?”

Shakily, Lana rose to her feet.

“Please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

She could hear the blood gushing in her ears like a reckless tide, lapping up any grooves in the sand. Erasing everything.

“I do.”

“You may take a seat.”

It felt like being a monkey dangling from an artificial tree trunk, in a zoo enclosure, with all of the jury’s eyes on her. A blink towards the first row saw several expectant expressions, all lit with varying shades of scepticism and curiosity. She resisted the urge to fiddle with the clasp of her strawberry clip, aware that one in particular was gawking like she had a live wasp on her scalp, stinger at the ready.

“Miss Jameson, is it correct that you were with Mr. Daniel Nielsen on the evening of July 21st?”

“Yeah.” Lana blinked, then re-phased as she did her best to keep her eyes on the prosecution. “Yes.”

“He picked you up from your sorority’s residence at around eight P.M., is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you were under the impression that you were going to a party?”

“No. Um,” she stalled when there was a murmur from the jury, prompting her to shift slightly in her seat. “He told me we were going to a bar, to meet his friends. I thought we were going for drinks.”

“That wasn’t the case?”

“No.”

“When did you realise that you were going elsewhere?”

“We... He pulled up, and I--... I thought it would take longer to get there, so I asked him why we stopped. I thought maybe he needed to text someone, or something. He didn’t say anything, he just... He just kind of gestured, at the window, so I turned around. That’s when I saw it.”

“Can you please clarify what it was that you saw?”

She made the mistake, then, of catching eyes with him from across the room. He had his fingers threaded together like they’d been stitched that way, meticulously interwoven, and his suit fit him obnoxiously well, pale blue of his tie oddly complimentary to a set of high cheekbones.

Anyone would think he was a model citizen.

She could feel thumbs on the insides of her thighs.

“Miss Jameson?”

Opening her mouth, newly dry, she wrenched her eyes back to the prosecution.

“Sorry, um... Sorry, could you--... Please can you repeat the question?”

A pause.

“Can you please clarify what it was that you saw, when you turned to look out of the window?”

“Yeah. Yes, sorry. It... We were parked outside of The Van Doren hotel. Zeke’s hotel.”

“You’d been there before, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You and Mr. Van Doren engaged in a consensual sexual encounter, there, previously. Is that the only instance in which you had been there?”

“Yes.”

“And what was your reaction, to being there?”

“I was...” Heart in her ears. Throat tight. Stomach dropped so severely that she could feel it in her toes. “I wanted to go home.”

“Did you tell Mr. Nielsen that?”

“Yeah. I told him I wanted to go home.”

“He didn’t listen?”

“No, he told me to--...” trailed off, eyes flitting to find Danny’s. They were stuck on her with such intensity that she swore she could feel a target sizzling into her forehead, holes burning through -- eyes, mouth, everywhere. She swallowed, and forced her stare down at her hands. They’d subconsciously bunched around the fabric of her skirt. “He told me he didn’t feel like going home, and he told me to text him. To text Zeke, saying I was outside.”

“And you did it?”

There was slight judgement, in that, and Lana was sure the entire courtroom could hear it. She probably would have sounded the same, if she was the one asking the question. It might as well have been re-phrased as something more direct. 

How could you be so stupid?

“I told him I didn’t want to, but--... But Danny doesn’t like ‘no’.”

Her lipstick smudged around Trent’s mouth. Naked, except for her shoes on. The blink of a VHS camera with the screen flipped out at the side.

“So, to clarify, you text Mr. Van Doren to meet you downstairs?”

“Yes. I did.”

“And what happened, then?”

“I... Danny made me get in the back. I was there, when Zeke came out.”

“And just to clarify, Miss Jameson, was there any coercion involved, in this? Physically?”

“No, he didn’t--... He didn’t touch me.” She didn’t have to glance Danny’s way to know that her saying so would be satisfying. Instead of looking to confirm, she glanced at Zeke, instead. Tried to imagine that he was holding her hand. “But he didn’t... need to. I’m--... I was... scared of him.”

“And where did this fear stem from?”

“Um...” faded with hesitance, eyes dropping from Zeke’s like she was embarrassed of something. “I’m not sure.”

The prosecution pressed their lips together, apparently reluctant, but not enough to refrain  from doing what was necessary.

“In your character account of Mr. Daniel Nielsen, is it not true that you said that he once... And I quote, “bit my nipple so hard, during [sex], that it bled”? Despite the fact that you asked him not to?” 

She clutched her skirt so adamantly that anyone would think she thought the pleats were human fingers. Half of her expected them to evaporate into red mist, at any second, forming a cloud that Tommy’s voice could float out from. Or maybe expected wasn’t the right word. Hoped probably made more sense.

“Miss Jameson? Would you like me to repeat the question?”

“No, that’s--... Yes,” she corrected, wetting her lips as she blinked up to meet their gaze, eyes feeling like two microwaved grapes shoved inside her skull and waiting to burst. “Sorry. Yes, that’s true.”

“Is it fair to assume that you didn’t need physical coercion, because you were already scared enough to comply to his demands?”

From the defence bench, Danny’s lawyer lifted to his feet after a murmur into his ear. “Objection, your honour. This is conjecture.”

“Overruled on the grounds of a reasonable conclusion.”

With a tense sigh, he sank back into his seat. Lana felt like her entire head was slowly catching fire, toasting over a hob turned up past a hundred degrees.

“Miss Jameson? Is it fair to assume that you didn’t need any coercion, because you were so scared of him that you’d do whatever he asked?”

Rather shakily, she reached for her glass of water, prompting three of the jury to gasp in surprise when it went toppling out of her grasp and onto the floor with a bang.

The judge called for a recess, when Lana almost started hyperventilating.

                                                     ___________

Only allowed a short period of time in which to compose herself, Vincent muttering useless commentary as he fiddled with his wristwatch while Lana sat between Zeke and Leo in complete silence, she’d slipped into an eerie sense of calm by the time she re-entered the witness stand.

Running through the rest of the recount was stumbling blind, being lead by the arm through a pitch black cavern, voice strained enough that it was fairly obvious she was trying to swallow tears whenever mentions of Zeke’s injuries came to light, but she managed it.

It felt like running a marathon, every inch of her limbs begging to collapse against a mattress, and she almost shakily pushed to her feet to leave until she realised this was only the halfway point.

By all objective accounts, the easy part was over.

Danny’s defence reared from his seat, buttoning the front of his jacket as he side-stepped to enter the floor.

“Miss Jameson,” he began, eyes glinting as they settled on hers. He looked like the kind of hotshot that had connections on Wall Street -- inevitable, really, considering the profession of Danny’s father. “Before I question you about these events that you claim to have witnessed, I’d like to clear something else up, first. Would that be alright with you?”

“Um... Yeah. Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Splendid.” He launched right in. “What was the nature of your relationship with Mr. Nielsen?”

It was a simple question that was expected to have a simple answer, but Lana couldn’t provide one. She was sure he knew that.

“We... We were seeing each other, for a while, on-and-off. We made it official, on July 15th, but--,”

“The date isn’t necessary, Miss Jameson,” he assured, casting a sideways glance towards the jury. It was almost as if he was trying to make her responses seem memorised. Lacking authenticity.

Lana clutched her hands tighter.

“Were you faithful to Mr. Nielsen, during your relationship?”

“That’s--... Technically it wasn’t--,”

“Please may you provide a yes or no answer, Miss Jameson?”

Blinking, Lana swallowed to garner some composure. She felt a little like an animal backed up against a brick wall, snout stuck against the cold of a rifle’s barrel.

“No, technically, but Danny and I -- Daniel and I -- we never... I didn’t think he cared, when I slept with other people.”

“And you would be unfaithful, often?” he replied, spinning her answer in an entirely different direction. It was like he hadn’t even heard her, except for the first word.

“No, that’s... I’d sleep with other people, but it--... Most of the time, he wanted me to. I don’t--... I don’t really know how this is relevant,” she suggested, eyes moving to locate the judge.

Danny’s lawyer held up a hand, shaking his head once.

“Forgive me, Miss Jameson, but it is. Am I correct that you’re implying Mr. Nielsen wanted his girlfriend to be unfaithful? Aspired to it, even? Does that not sound a little strange?”

From his seat at the defence bench, Danny lifted his eyebrows like he was simply inquisitive -- even went so far as to tilt his head, like he was trying to gauge what direction she was going in with the fabricated story. Some acting.

“It... Yeah, it does, but it’s what... It’s what he was like,” she attempted to stick to her guns, shifting so that she could sit straighter. After swallowing, she found the nerve to elaborate. “At parties, he’d tell me his friend thought I looked... He said they had a crush on me. He made it sound fun, so I... So I’d have fun. Sometimes, he’d be there -- in the room, and--,”

“And?”

“And... He seemed like he enjoyed it. Like he liked, um... watching me do things, that he’d asked me to. And I did, too, I think. At first, I did. Or maybe.... Maybe I just... wanted to.” She swallowed. Ignored the smile Danny was inevitably holding at bay. “I wanted to like it.”

Buttoning his lips together, after he eyed the jury’s reaction, Danny’s lawyer rerouted the conversation. Yanked on the clutch, and reversed away from a brick wall.

“Trent Radley is one of these friends that Mr. Nielsen supposedly arranged you to engage in one of these encounters with, is he not?”

“Yes.”

“And what is your response to the statement, in his character account -- sworn under oath, might I add -- that no such encounter ever took place? That none of them did, in fact?”

Parting her lips, Lana simply blinked.

“He’s lying.”

“Lying under oath is a serious offence, Miss Jameson. Punishable by law. Mr. Radley is aware of that. Are you?”

“Objection, your honour. This is needlessly antagonistic,” the prosecution perked up, to which the judge nodded.

“Sustained.”

“My apologies,” the defence relented, thumbing over his mouth as if to conceal something. Regardless of his tactic being nipped in the bud, the jury seemed to have taken something from it, and Lana had to resist the urge to shoot to her feet and demand another recess.

After a short few steps, barely enough to count as a pace, he turned back to study her.

“Would you say that you’re a woman who likes attention, Miss Jameson?”

Eyebrows pinching, she traded a glance towards the prosecution.

“I... I don’t know, doesn’t everyone?”

“Would you say that you go out of your way, sometimes, to get attention? For example... by wearing bright things,” he provided, hand gesturing vaguely like he wasn’t making specific reference to the clip in her hair, “and provoking jealous competition between suitors, perhaps?”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

His jaw tensed, before he leapt right back in.

“Is it not true that you provided Mr. Nielsen with Zeke Van Doren’s name, prior to the events of the 21st, Miss Jameson?”

Her face must have visibly paled.

“Please could you answer the question, Miss Jameson?”

“Yes.”

“And why did you do that?”

“Because... Because he saw me kissing someone, outside of a bar, and he wanted to know who it was. He wouldn’t let it go.”

“And was it Mr. Van Doren, that he saw you with?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

Lana swallowed.

“Who was it, Miss Jameson?”

“It was Benj--... Benjamin... Gates. It wasn’t Zeke.”

“Why did you give Mr. Van Doren’s name, and not this Mr. Gates? Did you have some kind of vendetta against Mr. Van Doren, and you were trying to antagonise Mr. Nielsen into doing your dirty work?”

“No, that--... That isn’t true. I didn’t want Zeke to get hurt, I just... I don’t know,” she stalled, opening her mouth when she realised he was about to interject. “I didn’t want to tell him about Benji. Because it--... Because Benji’s different, and I barely knew Zeke at the time, and--,”

“And you knew Mr. Nielsen would be driven into a heartbroken rage? An unfit mental state? You were aware of his fragility, and you wanted to spare Mr. Gates?”

“No, I--...” Wetting her lips, she blinked in the face of the thousand questions. The courtroom was eerily quiet. “I’m not sure, why I did it. I just... I’d fu--... Sorry. I had, um... relations, with Zeke, the same week, so I just... I just said his name. I just... I didn’t want Danny to be mad at me, any more. He said he’d drop it if I gave him a name, and was honest. He said he’d let it go, and leave it alone. That he just... That he wanted closure, and--...”

Gaze shifting to linger on Danny, he stared at her unblinking. By the look on his face, anyone would think the entire discussion was shredding him into bits, twisting organs until they popped. He played victim well.

“So you gave him Mr. Van Doren’s name, despite apparently being scared of Mr. Nielsen? Despite apparently being so scared, you weren’t in control of your own actions, according to the claims in your earlier statement? You gave Mr. Van Doren’s name to a supposed monster?”

“No, I didn’t think he’d do anyth--,”

“So you weren’t scared of Mr. Nielsen, like you stated earlier? You don’t think he’s a monster?”

“That’s not--... No, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m--,”

“So, either you gave Mr. Van Doren’s name willingly, acting as an accomplice and even instigator to these events, or you don’t believe Mr. Nielsen is the kind of person that could commit them? Which one is it, Miss Jameson?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled,” the judge answered, eyes flitting to investigate Lana on the stand. “Miss Jameson, I’d like to hear the answer to the question.”

Her eyes felt hot. Wet, too. She knew Danny was probably getting some sick kind of satisfaction, out of that, and the knowledge only frustrated her further. But she didn’t want to fold. She knew that’s what they were trying to drive her to, shoe firm on her neck as it attempted to press her cheek into the soil, but she refused to choke on dirt. If only for Zeke’s sake, she wouldn’t.

“I was... stupid, to give him the name. I’m... People are stupid, all the time. I thought...” trailed off, humiliated breath parting her lips. “I thought Danny cared about me. I thought he... I thought maybe he finally cared about me, the way I wanted, and I thought, like... being honest would mean... something different. But I wasn’t ready to--... I wasn’t ready to say Benji’s name, because I--... Because he knows me, and he's nice to me, and that’s not--... I don’t get that, a lot.”

“Miss Jameson, you aren--,”

“Please, can I just finish?”

Pressing his lips into a line, you could see the contempt simmering in his expression, bubbling beneath the surface.

Lana cleared her throat, and glanced towards the jury.

Looking at them was less daunting, with Danny’s silhouette becoming hazier in the corner of her eye-line.

“I shouldn’t have. And I wish... I wish I hadn’t, all the time. I wish I’d just let him stay mad at me, and not even... But I can’t... take it back, and that’s... That’s something I have to live with, or whatever. It’s always there, now, and it never... goes away.” Lana swallowed around the tremble in her voice. “But I didn’t want--... I tried to stop him. He locked me in the car, and... And he did it. He nearly... killed him. I gave... Zeke’s name, and I’m really shit and, like... and spineless, for that, but Danny hurt him. I think he would have done more, if I didn’t--...”

Pouncing upon the delayed pause in which she attempted to muster the courage to continue, Danny’s defence leapt back in.

“I think we’ve heard enough of this rather muddled account. Miss Jameson, thank-you for answering my questions. By all means, you’ve been very... convincing. I can see the kind of effect that you have on people, when you’re putting your mind to it.”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. You’re going to need to reign it in.”

“Apologies, your honour. I think we’ve all heard the truth, if we’ve been listening hard enough,” he dismissed, turning his back on Lana and beginning in his tread towards the bench of defence. ”No further questions.”

[filmfanatic82]

AO3 Link (HERE)

Chapter 8: Lexa (II)

“Lexa… Lexa… Lexa…” Clarke chants Lexa’s name, like the holiest of prayers, each time with a bit more conviction than the last. She grinds down, riding Lexa’s fingers in a rapid rhythmic pattern that signifies one thing and one thing only. Clarke’s teetering on the edge.

Beautiful.

The lone word explodes within the dark recesses of Lexa’s mind, leaving no room for any other thoughts. It rapidly grows, filling every inch of available space until it’s all Lexa can seem to concentrate on.

Clarke is beautiful.

This isn’t a new revelation. No. Lexa has known this from the very first moment she laid eyes on the blond, back in 6th-grade biology class. Clarke possesses a rare type of beauty that merely isn’t contained to just physical features alone. It’s a beauty that transcends. It radiates from every inch of her very being, almost blinding in nature.

It’s warmth. Plain and simple. The kind that invades the soul, leaving everlasting imprints on all that it touches.

It’s a beauty that Lexa can’t fathom living without and yet…

And yet, that’s the very crux of the problem she’s facing. Head versus heart. Love versus academic opportunities… Opportunities that could set Lexa up on the career path of her dreams.

Love is weakness.

The words of her father suddenly invade her thoughts, drowning everything else out. It’s an all too familiar phrase, one that has been verbally beaten into Lexa throughout the years along with a steady diatribe of the importance of perfection.

Being good, just is not enough. Not when one has the potential of being the best. And to be the best, one must be willing to sacrifice.

Happiness is a luxury, not a necessity.

Lexa can feel the every-constant mass of anxiety start to swirl once again in the pit of her stomach as she falls further down the rabbit hole of her father’s words.

“Fuuuuck,” Clarke moans in unbridle ecstasy, snapping Lexa back out of her thoughts and back into the sheer beauty of the here and now.

“Shhh… They’re gonna to hear us,” Lexa says punctuating her point with a series of bruising kisses along the slope of Clarke’s neck.

“Oh… It’s… Too… Late… For… That…” Clarke replies. She grinds harder down into Lexa’s palm and runs her free hand through her wild mane of hair.

“Clarke…”

“Lexa…” Clarke leans in and delivers a searing kiss, taking Lexa’s bottom lip in between her teeth. She tugs against the fleshy pulp, not quite hard enough to cause real pain, but just enough to send an aftershock of pleasure rolling over the length of Lexa’s body. It’s a signature move. One that Lexa has become addicted to. Just like everything else about Clarke.

Lexa lets out a long moan, momentarily forgetting that they aren’t alone in the house.

They had snuck away, under the guise of needing to “get ready” for the night, but of course, it was the farthest thing from the truth. As soon as Clarke had stripped out of her vee-neck shirt, exposing the baby blue bra that she had fondly dubbed the panty dropper, all bets were off.

All it took was a few simple touches and the next thing Lexa knew, they were stumbling towards the bed, clothes flying in every which direction. Their moves were feverish and frantic. Nails digging into flesh and teeth nipping at key pleasure points. All signs that where they were heading wasn’t in the realms of what Lexa would classify as “make love.”

“Harder, baby,” Clarke breathes out into Lexa’s ear, voice dripping with undiluted lust. “I’m so close.”

And that’s all Lexa needs to hear. Her hands grip tighter around the voluptuous blonde before her as she throws every ounce of energy towards pushing them both over the edge. A few additional thrusts of her fingers and a well-timed swipe of her thumb against Clarke’s engorged clit and suddenly, Lexa feels them skyrocket into the atmosphere, fueled by adrenaline-laced passion. Raw and almost animalistic in nature.

It’s beautiful.

So, so beautiful.

Lexa lets the beauty of the moment thoroughly wash over her as she slows down her pace, gently easing Clarke down from her high. She locks eyes with the two crystal blue orbs in front of her causing a sly smile to crawl across her face.

“I love you.” The words tumble freely from Lexa’s lips, breaking the silence between them.

It isn't the first time the words have been uttered between them. No. Lexa has been freely saying these words to Clarke and vise verse on a daily basis for almost the entire time they’ve been together.

But this time, it feels different.

The words feel heavy, bogged down with a hidden meaning that only Lexa knows. As if there’s only so many more times these words will be said between each other. A visible limit, making each utterance matter that much more.

“I love you too,” Clarke replies with a post-sex raspiness. She shifts her body, possessively wrapping her limbs around Lexa and nuzzles her head into the crux between Lexa’s collarbone and neck.

“No. I really mean it… I love you, Clarke.”

“Yeah, I know.” Clarke lets out a light laugh as her fingers playfully twirl a loosen strand of Lexa’s chestnut mane. “Everything okay, baby?”

No.

That’s the answer that Lexa so desperately wants to give. To just rip the bandaid off and exposure the gory truth that lies beneath. But she can’t seem to find the right words. The ones that will adequately explain without inflicting any lasting damage to the woman she loves the most.

“More than okay, my love,” Lexa replies with a light but a reassuring kiss to Clarke's forehead.

“Good.” Clarke returns the gesture, with a kiss of her own. But unlike Lexa’s, it’s filled with the underlying desire for another round.

“Clarke… We don’t have time,” Lexa whines as Clarke pulls out of the kiss.

“I know. Just wanted to leave you with a reminder of what’s to come later tonight.” Clarke plants one more peck on Lexa’s lips, before slipping out of bed. She starts to move around the room, haphazardly collecting her clothes piece by piece. “You think they heard us?”

Lexa goes to open her mouth, but before she can utter a single word--

“Yeah, we did! Now hurry the hell up, or we’re gonna be late,” Raven calls out from the other side of the bedroom door.

“Fuuuck,” Lexa sighs dropping her head back against the pillow with a noticeable thud. She shuts her eyes as she can feel the familiar flush of embarrassment spread across her cheeks.

“C’mon,” Clarke says, reaching out and grabbing hold of Lexa’s hand. She lovingly entwines her fingers with Lexa’s and giving a light squeeze in the process. It’s a simple gesture, but meaningful nonetheless. A wordless promise that Lexa isn’t alone in this world. Not by far. “It won’t be as bad as you think.”

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

Surreal.

That’s the only word that comes to mind as Lexa stands within the desolated corridor, listening to the ruggedly handsome young resident standing before her rattle through a bunch of medical jargon that is all but indecipherable.

Anya is alive.

That much Lexa has been able to grasp onto. But as for the rest of the details… They are merely lost, buried within a minefield of complex terminology that is utterly foreign to her in every sense of the word.

Clavicle fracture… Blunt force trauma… 3rd-degree lacerations… Partial compression of the C5 vertebrae…

Each phrase builds upon the next, feeding the ever-growing mass of anxiety and fear churning within the confines of Lexa’s stomach.

Anya’s alive, but…

But in what state?

“Is there someone else we can call or--”

“No. Just me. My parents moved to New York two years ago. I’ll let them know, but…” Lexa trails off, not quite sure how to finish her sentence. An awkward silence falls between them as the young resident continues to stare at her with sympathetic eyes. Lexa forces a hint of a smile in return. It’s a feeble attempt at some sort of normalcy, but it’s all she can manage to do at the moment.

“Alright. Well, the police are going to stop by probably in the next 20 minutes or so to take her statement, but otherwise, she’s all clear for visitors… Do you have any questions?”

Lexa shakes her head, still holding onto the smile for dead life. It’s a lie. She has a million and one questions racing through her mind, all dying to be asked. But Lexa’s voice is nowhere to be found.

So instead, she smiles and like clockwork, the young resident smiles back with the false reassurance that she’s indeed okay.

“Hang in there, okay?” The young resident caps his sentence with a light pat on Lexa’s shoulder and then takes off down the corridor, leaving her alone with nothing but the chilling stillness of the hospital.

Lexa lets out a long sigh and runs her hands through her mane of loose curls. Her eyes drift back towards the doorway of Anya’s hospital room, staring into the dark abyss. She wants to move. To race right in there and fling herself into the comfort of her older sister’s arms, like she used to back when they were kids, and their parents would engage in their late night verbal sparring matches. Lexa so desperately wants to…

But she’s frozen.

Fear, mixed the unknown of what lurks just beyond that doorway, is in control now, leaving Lexa virtually incapacitated.

“What did they say?” Clarke asks as she approaches with a matching set of coffees in her hands.

“Huh?”

“The doctor. He was just here, right? What did he say? How’s Anya doing?”

Lexa gives a slight shrug of her shoulders glancing back once again at the door. “She’s clear for visitors.”

“Good,” Clarke hands Lexa one of the coffee with a warm smile. “Figured you could use this. You still take it black, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Glad to know some things haven’t changed,” Clarke replies before taking a long sip of her own coffee. She follows Lexa’s eyes towards the doorway as a sudden realization falls upon her face. “You haven’t gone in there yet, have you?”

But Lexa doesn’t respond. She just doesn’t know how to. Traces of tears begin to pool up in the corners of Lexa’s eyes. She blinks… and then again… and again… Anything to stop them from falling.

A momentary silence settles between the two of them as Lexa continues to furiously blink back her ever-growing emotions and then--

“C’mon,” Clarke says with a sudden new-found resolution to her voice. She gently reaches out and without any hesitation whatsoever, takes hold of Lexa’s hand, entwining their fingers together in the process. “We’ll do it together.”

Lexa looks down at their hands in sheer disbelief as an oddly foreign yet familiar sensation floods every inch of her being. One that up until this moment she had sworn she would never feel again in her lifetime.

It’s love.

“Okay, Clarke,” Lexa whispers back, voice cracking on the end of Clarke’s name.

Clarke gives Lexa a reassuring squeeze in return and then starts to guide them towards the doorway. “It won’t be as bad as you think.”

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

The Thief and the Samurai Episode List + Summaries

So I got carried away with this fictional show I made up to save some of my OCs, and decided to type out a full episode list with brief summaries.

SEASON 1 – THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

Beginnings, Part 1 - Sakura’s early life and origins are shown.

Beginnings, Part 2 – Sakura’s time training under Master Ishida is shown.

Beginnings, Part 3 – With her training complete, Sakura goes off into the world to begin her goal of protecting the innocent. Soon enough, she meets the wily thief Michelle Kitt, and the two decide to travel together.

A Helping Hand – Sakura wishes to help a village being tormented by bandits to prove herself; Michelle on the other hand just wants to get paid for ridding the town of its problem.

Without a Paddle – Michelle and Sakura decide to take a river boat to their next destination; unfortunately, they get mixed up in a smuggling attempt and must face off with dangerous criminals.

Darke Rising – After yet another misadventure, the two girls run in to Freya Darke, a cyborg who seeks vengeance against Michelle in the name of her master.

Blackmore – Horatio Blackmore makes his grand debut, attempting to pull off a complicated plan to kill Michelle and Sakura.

Framed – Blackmore frames Michelle for the theft of a precious jewel, leading to her and Sakura having to evade the law while trying to get the jewel back.

The Triad – Sakura and Michelle encounter Serenity, Hope, and Faith as they seek out the jewel to clear Michelle’s name.

With Catlike Tread - The two must sneak through Blackmore’s mountain factory, all the while being pursued by the Triad.

Afraid of the Darke – Freya appears once again, this time accompanied by a cyborg attack wolf named Echidna, a prototype of a line Blackmore wishes to mass produce. Jewel in hand, Michelle and Sakura must escape the factory with these two pursuing them now as well.

Hanging Judge – Upon returning the jewel, the two find that none other than Blackmore himself was the owner of the jewel, having lent it to the museum it was stolen from for the sole purpose of framing Michelle. Michelle is then put on trial.

Objection – Ridiculous courtroom antics are brought to a halt when the Triad attacks the courtroom. Sakura and Michelle escape; now fugitives, the two argue, with Sakura very upset about the path her life has gone since meeting Michelle, and Michelle irritated with Sakura and her attitude. The two bitterly part ways at episode’s end, which is all observed by the mysterious Man in Black.

Stop and Stay a While – With the authorities after her, Michelle holes up in an old, out-of-the-way inn. Unfortunately, the inn turns out to be run by cannibals, and she is forced to fight her way out of a deadly situation. Ultimately she decides not to rob the folks but instead turn them over to the proper authorities, noting that maybe Sakura was a bit of a good influence on her after all.

Seeing Green – Sakura encounters a rude, snobby upper class young man who enlists her aid in acting as his bodyguard for an event at his university; he soon reveals himself to be a hypocrite, a liar, and a thoroughly unpleasant individual who abuses others. Sakura determines that he needs to be taken down a notch, and shames him in front of his peers before robbing him blind. She notes, amused, that perhaps Michelle did have the right idea sometimes.

The Man in Black – Michelle ends up chased by the Triad, who nearly kill her in battle. She ends up having a meeting with the Man in Black, who claims she has cheated him and that he has come to collect his due, describing the Triad as his personal band of debt collectors. Before Michelle can find out what exactly it is she did to him, he is fought off by Sakura.

Memories – As Sakura nurses Michelle back to health, she opens up about her past, telling of her life before becoming a thief and the death of her family at t he hands of a twisted serial killer who had the power to turn his blood vessels into barbed wire and attack with them.

The Canyon – Pursued into a canyon, the two decide now is the time to make a final stand. However, not confident in their ability to take them out, Blackmore uses his airship to fire on the authorities, killing them to frame Sakura and Michelle. Freya is noticeably disturbed by this.

The Hounds – Using the supposed terrorist actions of Sakura and Michelle as a bargaining chip, Blackmore gets funding to begin the mass production of his cyborg hounds. Soon amassing an army, he overthrows the queen of England and begins to rule London with an iron fist.

Dirty Work – Sakura and Michelle sneak through old sewer tunnels in an effort to get into Blackmore’s London factory and shut it down. There they encounter the Rat King, a man hired by Blackmore to guard the sewers with the ability to control and mutate rats.

London Calling – After their battle in the sewers, the two emerge into the city proper and begin to fight their way to the factory.

Devil Factory – The true extent of Blackmore’s wicked technology is shown in his factory and the torturous cyborgification process. The two must face the deadly assassin Kirk the Killer here, who may or may not be as competent as he seems...

Fight or Flight, Part 1 – Blackmore attempts to escape on his ship, his factory destroyed and his cyborgs falling to the combined forces of Sakura, Michelle, and the authorities. Sakura and Michelle pursue, and are aided by the Triad.

Fight or Flight, Part 2 – Blackmore finally confronts the two head-on. In a battle of wits, cunning, guns and swords, Blackmore almost emerges victorious, until Freya turns on him and attempts to toss him off the airship. However, prepared for this event, he activates the self destruct and flies off on a jetpack. The ship veers off course, crashes, and explodes; however, Freya, Sakura, and Michelle escape.

Heroes – Returning to London, Michelle and Sakura are praised as heroes and given a full pardon, as well as a large sum of treasure. The two spend much of their time unwinding and figuring out what they’re going to do next, and if the two should part ways. Michelle lets slip that she actually had sold what she stole from Blackmore to a mysterious individual, and Sakura, determining it to be too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands, decides they must find this man. Michelle agrees; however, before the two can venture off, they are confronted yet again by the Triad.

No Escape – After a brutal fight with the Triad, the two women are faced yet again by the Man in Black. He reveals that he is actually Death, and the Triad are his personal angelic entourage who help him hunt down those who cheat him in the game of chess he offers to those who cling desperately to life one way or another. However, after talking with Michelle it soon comes to light that she never actually cheated, and that whoever attempted to kill her had a powerful dark aura to him to muddle Death’s perception so much. He apologized for the miscommunication and considers all debts balanced, before saying they will likely cross paths again. After he leaves, Michelle sighs, wondering who or what her killer actually was. Sakura promises that whatever else, she will help find the killer of Michelle’s family and bring them to justice. Their friendship solidified, the two venture off on their next journey.

SEASON 2A – STRANGE EONS

With Strange Eons – After searching in vain for who Michelle sold Blackmore’s plans to for months, the two come across an ad for the Strange Eons Science Expo in Strange Eons, Maine in three days. Seeing one of  the guests pictured on the poster makes Michelle realize he was the one who bought Blackmore’s work off of her, and so the two decide to head to Maine. The two get aboard a ship, but on their way the ship is attacked by what appears to be a zombie sea serpent. The two end up shipwrecked in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

The Beast in the Bay – The two are begged by the residents to defeat the creature somehow, as it has been attacking ships for well over a year. The two decide it’s the right thing to do, and find a way to end its life. After killing it, they discover that someone had experimented on it to bring it back to life. The residents speak of a scientist there who had shown up to conduct strange experiments before vanishing. Showing off the brochure, they find that the man they are looking for is the man from the rumors.

Clowning Around – As the two travel through New England towards the science fair, they are waylaid by a clown with the power to use their fears against them so that he can siphon their energy. Neither Michelle nor Sakura takes him seriously, much to his chagrin.

Asylum – The two are asked to rescue teenagers trapped in an abandoned asylum; while there they discover the place is overrun with reanimated corpses.

No Fair – Arriving in the town of Strange Eons, they make a shocking discovery: the town is already overrun with zombies. They soon discover the reason: Hojo Doboro, a mad scientist who performed experiments to reanimate the dead. He sics a giant zombie on the two and makes his escape.

Life and Limb – The two slice their way through the town and find their way to the university. There, the faculty and students holed up in there shed some light on Doboro: he was once a teacher there who was kicked out for sneaking in to steal cadavers for experiments. He vanished for years, recently returning with an army of the undead he created with his own experiments as well as the item stolen from Blackmore. Said item is revealed to be an item known as a Keystone, which is described in ancient death cult texts as being able to call forth beings known as Old Ones from a world beyond to do their bidding. If all five were gathered, then the summoner could command the Old Ones to do anything they pleased. Realizing the danger such a power would pose, Michelle and Sakura use the notes they found to locate the other four Keystones before Doboro can get them. However, after finding the notes and attempting to leave, they are attacked by Gemini.

Lost and Found – The girls find the first Keystone in an old burial ground’s secret crypt; however, Gemini arrives and uses Doboro’s re-animation gel to resurrect the bones in the burial ground into a giant bone monster that Michelle and Sakura face down.

The Lighthouse – The third keystone is tracked down to an old lighthouse; however, this time Gemini takes the keystone.

Road to Ruin – The girls try and make haste to the next keystone. Meanwhile, Doboro is preparing his army, and Gemini is beginning to feel uneasy about all of this.

Two of Hearts – The episode focuses on Gemini and her origin, as well as her successful capture of the fourth Keystone. In this episode she begins to waver in her support of Doboro, even if he did create her.

The Gathering – The girls manage to get the final keystone, and then make haste to the old mansion Doboro has holed up in to steal back the others.

Arisen – The girls confront Doboro, only to discover he was counting on them coming all along; the stones needed to only be in the general vicinity of one another. With them all together, Doboro uses the power to call forth an Old One; however, Gemini knocks the Keystones out of balance and thus the summoning is botched, instead merely summoning a powerful demon for a moment before the ritual is shut down. Enraged, Doboro unleashes his ultimate weapon: Viscera, the reanimated amalgamation.

Even Death May Die – After Sakura, Michelle, and Gemini deal with Viscera, Gemini catches up to the fleeing Doboro and injects him with his own reanimation fluid before kicking him down into the cellar and locking him up. Gemini says she will stay behind to try and clean up the mess made, and helps the girls destroy the Keystones so that they cannot be used for evil ever again. Satisfied, the girls head home, unaware that the demon whose summoning they interrupted, Camazotz, is now plotting vengeance against them.

SEASON 2B – WRATH OF THE DEMON KING

Camazotz – The episode focuses mainly on the demon king forming his plan, as well as Sakura and Michelle’s trip home. When they arrive in London, they have a feeling they are being stalked.

The Terror – While making their way through town, they are attacked by a large, lizard-like demon who proclaims he will destroy them in the name of Camazotz. After winning the ensuing battle, the two decide to figure out who Camazotz is just in case this was more than just a fluke.

Lunacy – After entering the countryside, the girls find their way to a strange church run by a man named Brother Moon, who may or may not be an alien. He offers advice on how to deal with demons as well as an old tome that details who Camazotz is. He offers the girls the chance to stay the night. However, an unwelcome guest sneaks in to their room...

Incubus – The Incubus Thot sneaks in to the girls’ room and, rather than do what is expected of him, instead causes general mischief and just acts like a real jackass.

Hell House – The girls must exorcise a possessed demonic house with the help of Brother Moon.

Sleepless Nights – The demon Hypnox attempts to kill the girls in their dreams.

The Evil Within – Kirk the Killer returns, this time getting possessed by the demon Akuba. The girls must find a way to remove the demon from his constantly regenerating body. They get help from a new ally: Lady Kali.

Lady Kali – Lady Kali assists Michelle and Sakura in fighting off a horde of shadow demons that are attacking a village on the moors.

When We Were Young – A demon transforms Michelle, Kali, and Sakura into children; overwhelmed by being able to see again, Sakura is taken out of commission for the e pisode, leaving Michelle and dKali to fight the demon. However, in their exhaustion they end up being caught by Thot after defeatting the other demon.

Prisoners of Love – Sakura and Brother Moon work together to rescue Lady Kali and Michelle from Thot. After Thot is defeated, he comes to realize he is absolutely smitten with Michelle and vows to win her heart. Michelle is absolutely not impressed.

It Lives! - Doboro returns, this time as a hulking reanimated monster, warped by his reanimating solution. Having found out who is after the girls, he uses black magic to summon Camazotz into the material world.

The Wrath of the Demon King – Camazotz appears to finish what he has started, and he along with Doboro attempt to kill the group. Gemini, Kali, Michelle, and Sakura distract them long enough for Brother Moon to cast them back into hell. However, at the last second Doboro attempts to drag Brother Moon into hell with him; Gemini ultimately sacrifices herself and falls into hell with her creator. In the aftermath, the group mourns the loss of Gemini, Kali returns home, Brother Moon returns to his church to recover, and Michelle determines they need a vacation. Sakura decides they should perhaps visit her father in Japan.

SEASON 3 – SAKURA AND MICHELLE’S WORLD TOUR

Cherry Blossoms – Sakura, Rhiannon, and Michelle arrive in Japan and reunite with Sakura’s father, Hiro. Hiro shows them around and shows how much things have changed in the time since Sakura set out on her journey. The episode is a simple yet pleasant intro that hints at what’s to come, with Orochi Overlong appearing in the final minutes and realizing Sakura and Michelle are likely a threat.

Overlong – Orochi Overlong reveals himself, saying he has heard of Michelle and Sakura’s exploits. After a battle showcasing his sorcerous abilities, he teleports the two across the ocean to America and makes the oceans utterly impassable. He then gives them an ultimatum: defeat his agents that he has scattered throughout the world within 44 days, or Rhiannon and Hiro will die. Having supplied them with a map of where his henchmen reside but no other details, the two set out across Aamerica to begin their quest.

A True American, Part 1 – The two arrive in a midwestern town, stopping for rest at the tavern of Kurtwood Armstrong, a man with fists who hit like iron and who is loud and patriotic. He bemoans the relentless cruelty of the preacher Cyrus Lovelace, who rolled into town recently and began stirring people up into a bigoted fervor. Sensing that this man might be one of the first of Overlong’s minions, they team up with Armstrong to fight him; however, they soon find the whole town has been whipped into a bigoted frenzy by Lovelace’s own power, and so they must proceed with caution, as they do not wish to hurt the innocent people.

A True American, Part 2 – The team confronts Lovelace and ultimately defeats him.

The Hunger, Part 1 – Taking a detour to Mexico, the two are met by Ernesto Banderas, a man with the power to amplify sound into powerful concussive blasts; naturally, he is a guitar player.  He asks the two if they are here to stop Elvis Chavez, a would-be dictator who rolled into town and has begun wasting all the resources.

The Hunger, Part 2 – The group confronts Elvis, who is a massive mountain of a man with the ability to consume anything safely. Determining him to be Overlong’s minion, they attack him. After his defeat, the girls part ways with Ernesto, but not before he has a bit of a romantic moment with Michelle.

Clowning Around, Again – The girls pass through New England and find the evil clown, this time working for Overlong. Yet again, the two absolutely refuse to take the clown seriously.

Falling Down, Part 1 – Returning yet again to London, the girls try to find Overlong’s minion, and instead run afoul of Freya, who decides now is a great time to start a fight with the two. Their battle is interrupted by an attack on the London bridge.

Falling Down, Part 2 – Going to the bridge expecting to find Overlong’s latest assailant, they instead find the minion apparently already dead – Blackmore killed him to lure the two for his revenge. Michelle and Sakura do battle with him, but ultimately he escapes, taunting them that he has wasted their time and that the real minion is still out there, and he only wished to divert their attention so that they would lose precious time in the quest to save Rhiannon and Hiro. Now having fled the city, the girls are at a loss for what to do, but Freya decides to help them track down the minion.

Horse on the Moor – The group confronts the minion on the moors, a man known only as The Rider, who can conjure up a spectral horse made of psychic energy to ride upon. After his defeat, Freya parts ways with the two.

Erin go Bragh, Part 1 – The two venture to Ireland, where they meet Rick and Bailey O’Brien, twins with electrically charged speed that increases the closer the two are to each other. The two say there have been strange disappearences in their town lately, and so Sakura and Michelle help investigate.

Erin go Bragh, Part 2 – As it turns out, the disappearances were caused by Overlong’s minion, a man with dwarfism who dressed like a leprechaun to lure unfortunate souls into his grasp. With his power to turn everything he touches to gold, he attempts to kill the group; however, they manage to defeat him and free his gilded victims. It is believed these two episodes are what got the series banned entirely in Britain.

It’s Personal, Part 1 – The girls head to Italy next, where they meet the irritable dwarf Vinny, who is out for revenge against his family’s killers. Sensing something of a kindred spirit, Michelle asks Sakura if they can help him; reluctantly, Sakura agrees, and they seek out the trio of killers.

It’s Personal, Part 2 – Finally confronting the killers, they discover that they are in fact minions of Overlong.

Heart of Darkness, Part 1 – The two travel to Africa, where they find the woman Lesedi already tracking down a cannibal witch who has been a legend among her people for years. Sensing this may have something to do with Overlong, they offer their help.

Heart of Darkness, Part 2 – The group confronts the evil cannibal witch Morrigan Maro. The witch is soon defeated, and the two move on to Egypt, where they meet the local girl Talia Ishtar, who is looking to plunder a tomb. Ecstatic at the opportunity to do what she does best, Michelle volunteers her help and Sakura goes along with it.

Pyramid Scheme – As it turns out, one of Overlong’s minions had been in the tomb as well. After defeating him they discover hieroglyphics apparently depicting Overlong in ancient times. Not yet knowing what this means, they bid Talia farewell and continue on their journey.

The Perilous Pass, Part 1 – Returning to Europe, the two make their way through Germany. There, they meet Kristopher Cross, who needs help getting through a dangerous mountain pass so that he can retrieve medicinal herbs for his sick boyfriend. Sakura, unwilling to allow someone to suffer if she can help, offers to escort him through the pass. As it turns out, though, the pass has another of Overlong’s minions waiting to ambush them.

The Perilous Pass, Part 2 – The minion, Shepard Starbuck, has the power to easily climb the steepest and most dangerous cliffsides, and tries to split up the group with rock slides. It is revealed here that Cross has magnetic powers, but has been too afraid to use them since he accidentally was responsible for his boyfriend’s current condition. With a little motivation, he manages to control his powers and help defeat Starbuck, and get Sakura and Michelle through the pass. He parts ways with them and returns to his boyfriend through the pass, much more confident and brave than before.

Bloody Tears – Entering Romania, the girls are confronted by an exhausted, miserable Kirk the Killer. He mentions that his country has been taken over by one of Overlong’s minions, and that he will be grateful if they could help him. Reluctantly, they do so. The group confronts the minion, a man who can generate spikes from his body, in a dark old castle. Said man lets slip that Overlong is not just biding his time to kill Sakura’s parents; rather, he is trying to regenerate his body, as he is Yamata no Orochi of legend. Horrified, Sakura determines they must move ever quicker if they are to stop Overlong.

Holy Protector, Part 1 – Arriving in India, the two meet up again with Lady Kali, who is having trouble driving demons out of her homeland. Apparently the reason so many demons aare appearing is because of a man named Raktabija, who can conjure up hell portals.

Holy Protector, Part 2 – Raktabija fights the heroes, but is ultimately defeated when one of his Hell portals frees a familiar face: Gemini. Lady Kali ultimately tosses the man through one of his own hell portals, and after a reunion Gemini joins Michelle and Sakura to take down Overlong.

The Serpent Reborn– Arriving in China to fight the last of the minions, the three soon discover a horrifying truth: Overlong was counting on them defeating each of his minions so that he could harvest their powerful spiritual energy upon defeat so he could obtain his true form. Overlong appears before them to taunt them about this fact before assuming his true form.

Orochi, Part 1 – The girls take their fight to Japan, where they begin the final confrontation with Orochi.

Orochi, Part 2 – The fight against Orochi seems hopeless, and the three are seemingly done for. However, as it turned out the Man in Black decided to step in, as much like him Orochi was a supernatural being of great power. He could not directly help, as that was not his right, but he did aid by calling forth all the friends Sakura and Michelle had made along the way so they could lend their power, as well as allowing the Triad to fight. With the combined might of all their friends from round the world, Sakura was able to land the killing blow and defeat Orochi, killing him and saving her parents. Sakura decides at the end she wishes to return to her master and inform him of her adventures, and Michelle and Gemini decide to go along with her, while the rest of her friends return home, determined to keep in touch somehow.

SEASON 4A – GHOSTS OF THE PAST

Master Ishida – The girls arrive at the mountain school where Master Ishida teaches his students. Happy to see Sakura, he decides to allow her to instruct a new class. She also fills her master in on all of her adventures so far. Things seem well until episode’s end, when two men walk into the hall: Jet and Chicken Wire.

Jet – Sakura is shocked at Jet’s return. He reveals that the fall that supposedly killed him nearly did so, but he was saved by a witch… a witch who then cursed him and took something from him. Bitter, angry, and miserable, he had been taken in by a teacher named Black Phoenix who helped him hone his rage so he could get vengeance. Chicken Wire, whose mouth was wired shut, was someone he had found along the way and who his master had taken in as well. Jet declares that unless Master Ishida surrenders the temple, there will be dire consequences. Obviously refusing, Jet leaves, and Sakura and friends begin to formulate a plan to protect the temple.

Berserker – The next day, the consequences come to light: Rika Ainia, another student of the Black Phoenix who also became cursed, attacks the school, wounding several in her attempt to get to Ishida. After a hard-fought battle, she is apparently taken down.

The Next Day – The group helps repair the school and tend to the wounded, while Sakura tries to find out more bout the Black Phoenix; Master Ishida refuses to speak of it, as it is his greatest shame. Just when Sakura thinks she may get some answers, an attack is launched… from Rika Ainia, who had been killed the day prior. Shocked, they once again fight her, but this time she successfully kills a student in the crossfire of the battle. Coming out of her rage and in a state of shock, she has a complete breakdown. In the chaos, Master Ishida is captured.

Cursed – Rika is interrogated, and a lot of details about her life come to light. She says she was sent as a distraction so that Chicken Wire and Jet could kidnap Master Ishida. Taking her as a hostage, they journey off to find Jet.

Legend of the Black Phoenix – While passing through a mountain village, they try and find more info about the Black Phoenix. However, most of what they find is merely urban legends and rumor, and nothing totally concrete.

Chicken Wire – Chicken Wire tries, and fails, to lure the group into multiple traps as they work there way ever closer to where Jet has Master Ishida.

The Escape – Rika breaks free and runs off, with the group giving chase.

Crossed Wire – The group splits up to try and find Rika, Jet, or Ishida; Gemini finds herself victim of Chicken Wire’s tricks and traps, though eventually she does defeat him and begin tailing him back to his hideout.

Cursed – Michelle finds her way into a shack in the mountains that contains a variety of odd objects, including a large mass of spiky wires, a broken staff, and more. She soon discovers it is the home of a witch, and makes her escape to tell the others.

Reunion – Sakura and Jet meet face to face; Sakura tries to appeal to the good in him and tries to get the boy she once loved to return, but instead the two fight, leading to him being wounded. Michelle and Gemini catch back up, and they track Jet to his hideout via a trail of blood.

The Cave – The group finds the cave where Jet has been hiding, and tracks him deep inside to where he has kept Master Ishida imprisoned.

Phoenix Rising – After finding Master Ishida, he finally explains the truth: That the Black Phoenix was a student of his who he had expelled for violent tendencies ages ago, and who had gained reputation since then as powerful evil. He had no idea that he had been training his own set of students for years. Before they can escape, they are confronted by the Black Phoenix himself.

SEASON 4B – HER MASTER’S KEEPER

The Black Phoenix – Akuma Kokuho introduces himself, and says that he is not going to kill Master Ishida yet; he wishes to humiliate and demoralize him first by proving to him that he is a far greater teacher. To this effect, he has decided to put forth a set of combat challenges to see if Ishida’s students can best his own.

The Challenges – Kokuho’s students and Ishida’s students begin battling and competing in deadly challenges, with Ishida’s students ending up dead. Jet begins to grow ever more disturbed, while Rika grimly accepts all the brutality fate throws at her. Jet’s resolve sways even further when he watches  Chicken Wire get brutally beaten down to the point of near death before intervening.

Disgrace – Disgusted by Jet’s weakness, Kokuho determines the only solution is to put him into combat against Ishida’s greatest student: Sakura. The fight is to the death, and if Jet refuses to fight, Kokuho will kill her himself. The two fight, but seem at a stalemate; Sakura does not want to kill Jet, and Jet does not want to kill her while at the same time he must put forth effort to seem as if he is not throwing the match. The match ends when Sakura, sensing the problem, impales herself with her own blade.

Betrayal – Having angled the sword in such a way it did not harm any of her organs, Sakura is injured but otherwise okay. Irritated, Kokuho demands that she be prepared to fight again the next day; disgusted, Gemini and Michelle go off to spy on him. They catch him abusing Jet and, strangest of all, they find him sneaking off to the hut of the witch Michelle previously visited. It turns out the witch is Kokuho’s daughter, and she curses people by taking away things precious to them so that they have no choice but to turn to Kokuho so that they can find any semblance of peace. They try to escape and bring this information back, but they are caught by Kokuho.

To the Pain – Rika, sensing something is amiss, wanders off into the woods, finding herself at the shack. There, she witnesses Kokuho fighting Michelle and Gemini, and though they fight valiantly, Kokuho bests them. Before his daughter can curse them, Rika leaps in and maims the daughter, only to be beaten to a pulp by Kokuho. This does, however, give Michelle and Gemini time to escape.

The Hero Within – Gemini and Michelle return, and try and warn all of Kokuho’s students of his treachery, but only Jet and Chicken Wire seem very interested in the truth, with the rest threatening them. When Kokuho makes his way back, Jet stands up to him and fights him to a standstill, injuring him and stealing medicine to heal Sakura.

Rage of the Phoenix – Kokuho attempts to kill Sakura and friends, but a now fully healed Sakura fights him off. The group manages to beat a hasty retreat so that they can form a concrete plan on how to stop Kokuho and his witch daughter.

End of an Era – After attempting to retreat to Ishida’s school, the school is destroyed by Kokuho.

Her Master’s Keeper – Ishida, worn out and tired from the running and his failure, decides to stand up to Kokuho. He fights valiantly, and though Sakura leaps in to protect him, he is ultimately slain, but not before passing on his greatest secret to her.

The Secret Technique – Sakura and Kokuho do battle once again, though this time she uses the secret technique that Ishida taught her: the Strike of Ages. This allows her to astral project into Kokuho’s mind and sift through the evil to defeat his innate dark spirit.

  The Fog of Ages – Sifting through his memories, Sakura learns about Kokuho’s past. Eventually, she duels him in the center of his mind, defeating him and rendering him comatose.

Phoenix Down – The group manages to find their way to Kokuho’s daughter, who puts up a great fight but is ultimately defeated. Upon her death, the cursed objects all disappear, returning what they stole to their owners. All seems well, with Rika promising to find a way to atone for her sins, perhaps by remaking the school and leading Kokuho’s students to a peaceful way, and with Jet determining he wants to confess his love to Sakura. However, Chicken Wire too is freed from his curse, and with his barbed veins and muscle mass restored and his mouth free once again, he kills Jet and reveals himself to the group. In a shocking cliffhanger twist, it is revealed to Michelle’s horror that Chicken Wire had been her family’s killer.

[xxkellsvixen19xx]

Notice Chapter 4 Michael x Reader

Requested by @shado-cat

Warnings: BDSM dark theme

Y/N woke up to her phone buzzing it was a message from Michael.

Michael: meet me tonight at my private residence on the property, west end you will find my quarters behind a red door. 8pm on the dot and not a second later.

Y/N: yes Master Langdon

Michael: see you tonight love

***************************************

I arrived at the appointed time. His directions were precise, "Enter the side gate. Follow the brick path around the back deck. Take the cement stairs down to the red door."

I knocked, 'tap-tap-tap, tap-tap,' and looked into the glass circle peep hole so he  would know it was me.

The door opened. I entered. Before I looked fully on his face, I removed my shoes and socks as though I were approaching holy ground.

I stood and turned toward him. He's tall. His eyes were about the same level as mine and they shone like two cystal blues set above soft lips-all on a cream-colored satin pillow. He was long and slim; elegantly dressed in a black attire.

He invited me to sit on a settee across from his. He wanted to read my face. I scanned the room. Thick red drapes hung from ceiling to floor on every side. The room exuded old world stateliness. The mood was enhanced by eighteenth-century classical music flowing from speakers placed throughout.

He guided the conversation through my history. What kinds of experiences I'd had and where. What I had learned. What I liked. How Her found me. What I sought. Our eyes were intently fixed on each other's. Trust was building as he drew me into his world.

He excused me to the bathroom, instructing me to meet him naked in the middle of the room.

He was standing there checking me out as I returned. I was again struck by his beauty. He seemed taller now. He placed his  hands on my shoulders and turned me toward a curtained hallway that led to the playroom.

The playroom walls were lined with shelves filled with dozens and dozens of pairs of black boots. He had a pair for every mood, every occasion. I also noticed mannequin heads with masks and other paraphernalia. At the far side of the room was the largest mirror I've seen outside a bar. I could see the top of his head over mine in the reflection as we approached it. He stopped me a few steps short of the wall and turned me back toward him and told me to stay there.

He went to the corner and rolled a massage table to the middle of the room. He patted and said, "Lie here on your back."

I lay as instructed. He moved around the room gathering items for our session. I took in the new view while He worked. Directly above me in the ceiling was a stout eyebolt with three heavy-duty screwgate locking carabineers. He  grasped my right wrist and buckled on a wide leather cuff. He went counter clockwise around the table cuffing my ankles and other wrist. I was owned.

He took ropes and affixed my wrists to some supports beneath the table. I felt the downward tug first on my right wrist, then on the left. He placed a two-foot wide spreader bar on my ankles. The bar had three eyes, one on either end and one on the middle. He took his time securing the eyes in the ankle cuffs to those on the spreader, using a separate rope for each. He added a third rope for the center eye then he tied the spreader below the table. A final tug and all my extremities were firmly secured. Although I could still lift and rotate my head, I wasn't going anywhere.

"That's good," he said, "now to add some mystery." He slipped a mask over my head leaving my eyes in total darkness. I heard the rattle of a lightweight chain and felt him pinching my right nipple with his thumb and forefinger, getting it taut enough to receive the clamp. He repeated on the left. He tested the grip by pulling up, away from my torso. Satisfied, he playfully tugged in other directions and observed my reactions. He gave a little chuckle when he pulled down and saw my pussy get wet as though connected to my nipples by some internal cord.

He purred and hmmm'd as he explored my body with a variety of teasing light touches interspersed with light slaps and pulls on my chained nipples.

I felt a tickle at the top of my right inner thigh. It traveled down and took a left at the back of my scrotum and continued up along the crease of my left thigh before completing the loop. When he pulled the ends of the lasso closed.

He let go of the string and let his fingertips press in behind my ass crack wiggling in to get my pussy wet their inner nest. When he teased them out far enough he guided the cord back behind with one hand and pulled the loose ends up my belly snug enough to prevent me from moving. I lost track of how many turns he wrapped before tying off the package.

"I think you need some pizzazz. Do you know what that is?" I couldn't even guess. He continued his patter, "It's a good thing you shaved," he said as she applied adhesive contacts on the inside of my thighs just above my vagina. "Do you know what these are?" She applied another adhesive pad below my hips and a fourth on my lower belly just above the top of my vagina as well. "Can you guess what's next?" He said as she clipped on the electrodes. I replied, "I imagine something to do with electricity."

"That's right!" I heard the click on the TENS controller and winced at the charge exciting the most sensitive nerves in my body. "Mmmm. Pizzazz. Do you like that?"

It took a few seconds for me to process the initial, literal shock. I don't think I answered. I do remember consciously slowing my breathing. A stress management trick I first learned in therapy when I was 14.

Apparently, the adhesive pads and wires don't affect access to everything he wanted to do. He fingered me a bit then flicked open some lubricant and poured it down my crack. He rubbed in and out a few times pressing and softening the opening before inserting a finger in my ass. I gasped at the first foray. He withdrew, added more lube and pressed in further, finding my pleasure spot.

He put both hands to work: one massaging my G-spot the other fingering with various grips and pressure. He brought me to the edge several times before deciding to click up the TENS again.

"Poor love. You need a reward." I heard him moving off to my right. My reward arrived with sense of smell and touch simultaneously as his briefs landed on my face.

I inhaled deeply letting his manly  scent fill my awareness. I mmmm'd my approval and sensed my pussy get wet in appreciation. He noticed. "Good girl." He said and patted my abdomen.

She moved down the table again. I felt tugging at my feet. He undid the ropes and pushed my feet up toward my butt. He climbed up onto the foot of the table. He threaded the center rope through one of the carabineers and pulled, raising the spreader with my feet off the table. He patted my perineum then continued tying ropes and testing access. Finally satisfied, he said, "That's better."

He lubed a toy and eased it in. Pushing, relaxing, speaking encouragement, "There we go. How are you feeling?"

"That's a lot thicker than your fingers," I replied.

"Uh-huh." he continued pushing until the thickest part cleared the sphincter. With the plug settled, he could concentrate both hands on teasing my pussy, knowing a constant pressure on my ass was enhancing every touch.

He worked on my pussy while she slowly built up the excitement toward orgasm. Stroke upon stroke, squeeze upon squeeze of my pussy and my ass raised the tension coursing through my body. "Red. Red red red," I said trembling. She stopped and held me while my pussy creamed. I expelled a sigh and my whole body shook.

"Ooooh nice. You just had an internal orgasm."

"Ughhhhh," was all I could say. My whole body was engaged in processing the unfamiliar release of tension. He held on through my return to more normal breathing.

He eased herself off the table and eased out the plug. He  gave me a few minutes of respite. He kept my attention by softly touching my legs and arms and torso.

I heard the lube again and felt another insertion. "That's a different toy, isn't it?" I said.

"Yes. I like this one because I can rock it while I play." He demonstrated, sending a new sensation to my ass. "You'll like it." He slowly slid his open hand up the inside my pussy fingertips to the heel of his hand while he wiggled the toy on my G-spot. He curled his  hand around my pussy and stroked slowly, building intensity. I moaned.

"Good. Don't cum yet. Tell me when you're close." The dual stimulation continued. I felt the orgasm rising. "Stop. I mean, red." He stopped ever so briefly. He sucked in a great breath between his teeth showing his satisfaction. Then he was right back at it. Not close enough to the edge according to her expert eyes.

"Red. Red, red, red," I was desperately close. My pussy was tightening. I was about to explode when he suddenly let go of my pussy. Cum dribbled out. My pussy strained to force out the built up load. No. Ruined.

"Ohhhh. Poor love." He said chuckling as the ooze played itself out. "Ready for more?" She resumed pressing the probe and stroking. Lather, repeat. Ruined again.

He gave me a longer rest after the second interrupted emission. "Let me give you a real orgasm." He stroked my pussy vigorously.

Tied as I was, he would do what he wanted. Nevertheless, I craved it. But I was overstimulated. My pussy was waning and our time was winding down. "It's just not going to happen," I said.

"Too bad," he said as she hopped of the table. he wiped the goo from my belly and removed the TENS leads and patches. He released the nipple clamps and I gasped.

As he was preparing to undo my bindings, I asked, "would you take off the blindfold so I can see how you tied me?"

[veryangryhedgehog]

“A Long Time Ago, In a Far Away Place”, an Ede Valley story by Hedgehog.

Gil was not Gil Trenton, though that was the mask he wore. He found it was easier that way. But he never lied to anyone, they just automatically thought that he was eccentric, or mad. It was probably for the best. It made it easier for him to do what he had to do. Better the loony bastard who thinks he’s a wizard than the weapon of mass-destruction that needs to be locked up.

And not, he’s not mad. That’s just what he wants you to think.

Gil Trenton was a fairly ordinary boy as far as boys are concerned. He liked to play and get dirty, his mum always fussed about taking a bath. He had an active imagination, always coming up with stories about wizards going on fantastic adventures and the like.

And then he died.

Well, maybe died wasn’t the right word exactly, subsumed was more accurate. It was painless, swift. The lad didn’t even know what was happening. He was still there somewhere, at least, little bits and pieces of him, in the back of Gil’s mind.

It had happened seven years ago. Gil Trenton’s father was an archaeologist, and with a team made up of five doctors from all different countries, he had unearthed something hitherto unheard of in antiquity. In fact, it was still unheard of because the archaeologists had sworn each other to secrecy until they could be sure of exactly “it” was.

That, of course, didn’t stop them from celebrating the find. They had commissioned a yacht on the coast near Blackpool for them and their families. And so, Gil’s mother and father and Gil had packed a bag each for the weekend and headed down to the coast.

They wouldn’t depart from the docks until sunset, and so the families were left to mingle for most of the day. Gil liked the family from Africa. They were very nice and smiled easily. But the Russians scared him. Or at least, the extended family. There seemed to be a large contingency of stern men in black suits. One of the children, a blond, smarmy-looking kid with a pinched face saw Gil staring and stuck out his tongue.

“Nikolai!” called a stern voice then, and the blond boy frowned and turned away.

“Don’t mind him,” came a heavily-accented voice from behind him. “Niko is pain in pants.”

Gil Trenton turned, and blinked once or twice. The girl before him looked like a fairy princess. She had long, blonde hair that flowed in the breeze, with blue eyes that mirrored the ocean in their depth.

“He is cousin,” she explained in broken english as Gil Trenton kept staring at her like a loon. “I am Sonia.”

“Sonia?” he repeated lamely.

“Da!” she nodded. “Sonia Borozovna. Father is arc... ar...”

“Archaeologist?” he finished for her. She nodded, and they both turned towards the Russians. In the middle, Gil Trenton’s father was laughing with a short, thin man with glasses.

Sonia turned back to him. “Your father?”

“Da, uh yes.”

“Is boring, the talking,” she pouted. Then, her eyes lit up. “Go looking?” Sonia pointed down the coast.

“You want yo-you want t-to-to go.... exploring? W-with me?”

She looked confused. “Ex... plore?”

“Um...” he tried to think of how to explain. “Um, fi-find-finding things, looking ar-looking around... uh, I g-guess.”

“Ex...plor...ing,” Sonia played with the word. “Da! We go!”

She took off down the docks, heading for the sandy beach that hugged the shore. “Wait!” Gil called, and had to run to keep up with her. He could barely string two words together he was so tongue-tied. Not that he could usually string two words together anyway.

After a minute he caught up with her, wheezing slightly, and pulled his inhaler out of his pocket. He sighed, taking a breath through it. Well, if Sonia had any doubt that he was a total dork, that would be thrown right out the window.

“Trouble breathing?” she asked, pantomime wheezing, to which he flushed and nodded. “Is bad,” she made a face.

“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “The s-s-sand doesn’t re-doesn’t really help.”

“We keep going?” she seemed concerned.

“Yeah,” he said. “I-I-I’m alright.”

They walked down the bank for a while in silence. It was peaceful here. The sand felt warm on his sandaled feet, and the waves rolled onto the beach lethargically. After a minute, Gil Trenton turned and saw that the people on the dock were now little more than specks on the horizon.

“M-maybe we sh-we should h-head back,” he managed to spit out.

“Soon,” she said. “Look first.” She smiled at him with that sun-shiny glow, then pointed a little ahead of them to a cave cut into the cliff-face. “We go in?”

He wanted to say that they should go back instead. There could be anything in that cave. It could be flooded, or collapse, or any number of things. But as he glanced at her face, Gil Trenton knew that he would not be able to say no. She seemed so excited and curious, and he didn’t want to see that glow leave her face.

“A-al... alright,” he sighed. “L-let’s g-let’s go s-see.”

Sonia laughed and ran a little ahead, before waiting for him to catch up. The mouth of the cave sat in front of them, smug like some beast who knows a mean is about to walk right in its mouth. Gil Trenton hesitated for a second. He had this strange feeling that he couldn’t quite place his finger on, like walking over his own grave.

But he followed Sonia into the cool and dark, and jumped at the plops of water from the ceiling. Sonia walked a little ways ahead of him, into the dark.

“W-wait!” he said. “We don-ww-we don’t have an-any light.”

“Light is ahead,” Sonia said. “Hurry up, silly.”

He hurried, finally catching up with her. Bus just as he did, there was a rumble above him. Gil Trenton nearly squeaked, and grabbed Sonia’s arm. “We sho-should, we should g-gggo back.”

“Oh, we will be okay,” Sonia waved him off.

“No-no really,” Gil said. “This cou-could be, this could be da-dangerous.”

At that moment, the whole cave began to rumble; small rocks fell on their heads. In a panic, Sonia ran one way, and Gil Trenton ran the other. He was knocked to the ground as a huge wall of stone fell between.

He couldn’t breathe. He wheezed, scrambling for his inhaler. After a puff or two he was able to sit up and call. “S-S-Sonia? Are you-are you alright?”

There was a brief moment of silence in which Gil Trenton feared the worst, but then there was a cough. “Am okay. You... you are stuck though.”

Looking around, it was true. Sonia was on the side that they had come, and he was where they had been going. Surprisingly enough, he felt calm. Eerily calm. “You said the-there was, there was light up a-ahead?”

“Da!”

“Stay there!” he called. “I-I’m gonna see if I-if I can find the-the-the way out.”

“You be okay?” she asked.

“I-I-I’ll be fine, I, uh, I think.”

He took another puff from the inhaler, and began walking. The cave seemed a lot bigger now that he was alone. But as he squinted in the darkness, he realized that Sonia was right, there was light up ahead. He began to run, despite his slight wheezing.

Then he entered a wide chamber and realized that the light was simply a hole in the ceiling, far too high to ever reach. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he almost turned around. But then his eyes fell to the middle of the chamber, and there, lodged firmly in the rock on the floor, was a sword.

Maybe it was his active imagination, maybe it was sheer curiosity. Whatever it was, Gil Trenton found himself pulled to that sword. He approached it warily, wondering just how it’d gotten there. It was large, and oddly black, it didn’t even shine in the light. His hand hovered an inch away, but he pulled it back as he heard something. Whispering. Was someone else here? He glanced back and forth, but there was no one there.

Yet he could only hesitate for a split second, because then his hand was drawn to the hilt of that blade like a magnet. Gil Trenton struggled with himself for a moment, only a moment, before his hand made contact.

There was a bright, blue light, and Gil was blown almost clear across the chamber.

He lay there, wheezing. His mind moved at a million miles a minute. He remembered. He remembered the darkness, the never-ending oblivion, there in the pitch black with Muirne and it. He remembered walking through a cave with a blonde girl. His sister begged him not to kill her, he reached for his inhaler.

Who was he?

Gil. 

Trenton?

The All-Knowing?

He clawed at the burning in his right eye as his mind nearly exploded.

And then, Gil Trenton dissolved. Gilveidan was stronger by far. There were still little bits of him left. Memories and thoughts crackles across the edge of him mind, leftover static. He shook his head, trying to clear it. It helped a little, but not entirely. Maybe it would never completely go away.

Gilveidan sat up, a little too quickly. What had happened? He’d been there, in the darkness, fighting for his sanity against the ultimate madness of the Truth, for so, so long. And then he’d seen something, a boy reaching out his hand, and he’d teared through the blackness, grabbed the hand and pulled.

And now he was here. He looked down at his hands. Those were not his hands. They were small, and young. The boy’s hands. Gil Trenton, his name had been Gil Trenton.

But wait a moment. He stood up, wheezing a little. This body was weak, so fragile. That didn’t matter. Where was Muirne? If he had escaped, then she should be here as well.

“Gil?” asked a voice from behind him. “What was noise?” That’s right, the Russian girl, Sonia. He was surprised to find himself aware of what a Russian was, though he’d never heard of such a thing before.

As if in response to her voice, a bluish mist began to rise from the sword. Muirne. Gilveidan nodded. As this boy, this Gil Trenton could act as a vessel in which he could reside, so too was that girl for Muirne. He needed to get to her, and quickly, for behind the blue mist something darker was rising, something was coming.

Gilveidan began to run back down the tunnel, hoping to lead Muirne back to the girl before the Truth overtook him. But this body was sickly, and small. Given time, he could probably cure the deficiency in its lungs, but time was a thing he didn’t currently possess. One question remained that could make or break his escape: could this body use magic?

He closed his eyes, focusing on the fallen wall of rock that was fast approaching in his mind, staring through it to the other side.

Move.

Sonia gasped as he appeared beside her, and grabbed her hand. Above them the blue mist had seeped through the cracks in the rock, but something was wrong. It hovered around the girl’s head, yet it couldn’t seem to find a way in.

Looking confused, Sonia didn’t seem to notice it. She was too busy staring at him. “I do not understand. You suddenly... uh.... poof? And your eye...”

It was true, his right eye was pounding, as if he'd just been punched. But that didn’t matter right now. The Truth was snaking through the rocks directly above their heads.

“We need to run,” he pulled on her hand, and together they ran, scrambling over rocks and edges. It was difficult to adjust to this body. Its legs were too short, its muscles weak. But he kept running. There, up ahead: light, the end of the cave. Maybe it would just keep chasing them, but maybe... just maybe...

They burst from the mouth of the cave, and ran a short way down the beach. Gil turned, calling fire to his hand. But the Truth did not follow. It tentatively stretched towards the light and squeaked, shrinking away. It too had been weakened by its imprisonment.

“Wha—” Sonia began, staring into the darkened maw. For a second she blinked, not quite able to believe what she was seeing, before she turned back to Gil and nearly screamed. “Fire! Fire!”

“Oh,” he put out the flames. “My apologies for frightening you.”

She didn’t say anything for a minute, just stared at him oddly. “Who are you?” she asked.

“What are you talking about?” Gil tried to keep his face impassive.

“You are... different.” It wasn’t a question. “Eye is yellow,” she pointed to his right eye. “Um...” she narrowed her eyes, trying to think of the word, then gestured instead by straightening her back.

“My posture?” he asked, and she nodded.

“And no, uh, -n-n-no, n-“

“Stuttering?”

“Da! What happened?”

“In the cave?”

She nodded. “What was black, uh, poof?”

How could he possibly explain all this to a ten-year-old girl, one with limited knowledge of english to boot? To be fair, he had Gil Trenton’s dissolving conscious to thank for that particular language, for otherwise he’d be even more lost than she was. “I... I don’t know.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He had no idea how he’d come to possess the body of a sickly British boy.

Sonia clearly didn’t believe him, but Gil didn’t really care, because he couldn’t help but notice at that moment the small, pale blue cloud that now swirled around her, as if trying to find a way in. It was Muirne. He could hear her. This girl was meant to be a vessel for her, but for some reason, she couldn’t get in as he had.

“What?” Sonia asked, noticing that he was staring at her. Clearly she didn’t know what had happened.

Gil opened his mouth to address Muirne, in case she could hear him, but the two children then glanced down the beach as two adults called to them in both English and Russian.

“Gil!” Gil Trenton’s mother called. “We’re about to set off!”

Sonia looked concerned, but they ran back along the beach towards the dock, upon which a large yacht waited, bobbing slightly in the waves. Gil pushed a piece of hair over his right eye, hoping it would cover the yellow. The two were briefly separated by their parental units as the whole group prepared to embark, but Gil still looked over to Sonia, and the blue glow that surrounded her, the one that it seemed no one else could see.

“Were you playing with that little Russian girl?” Gil Trenton’s mother asked. Uh oh, this wasn’t good. Through the shattered thoughts still surfacing in his mind, he understood how Gil Trenton had talked. To what extent he could replicate it though, he wasn’t sure.

All he could do was talk as little as possible and try to muddle through. So he nodded.

“She’s cute.”

“M-mum!” he tried at a word, and she didn’t seem to see anything amiss, just laughed and hugged him. If he was stuck here, in this body, for the foreseeable future, he’d have to figure something out. For now though, all he focused on was getting through the night.

After the party had been herded onto the yacht, the engine came to life with a gentle purr, and they glided off into the water. It was terribly noisy, with lots of itty-bits of bite-sized hors d’oeuvres and a near endless supply of champagne to keep the adults talking. Gil didn’t like it. Noise had always overwhelmed him.

So he tried to focus on the sunset dipping over the water instead, and thought. Why was he here? At this time, at this place? Others had touched the sword since their souls had been sealed inside it, so why had this particular boy been able to free him?

And this brought a terrible thought to his mind. If he as free, then the Truth was as well. It might be stuck in that cave for now, but sooner or later someone was going to come along and let it out, worst case scenario: on purpose.

But he couldn’t stand against the Truth on his own. He was too akin to it, he needed a light to keep it from spreading. He needed Muirne. There was no way they would be able to return to the sword in one piece, not with the bodies of children anyway, now without an immense amount of power. But he had never heard of something like this before, ever. He didn’t know the rules. He needed to do research. But here he was on a yacht in the ocean.

Gil, for the first time in his life, was at an utter loss of what to do.

“Ocean is pretty, da?” Sonia poked him on the shoulder, and Gil jumped.

“Ah, yes,” he nodded, then opened and closed his mouth several times as he tried to figure out what to say. “Sonia,” he began finally. “Back there, in the cave, did you feel anything... strange?”

She tilted her head. “Strange? Hmm...”

Gil waited with baited breath.

“For just one second,” she said, “something was in corner of eye. Something blue.”

Heart jumping, Gil’s eyes widened. “Something blue? Like a mist? Or a shape?”

“Was probably just imagination.”

“No, no, I don’t think it—” But he stopped as Sonia’s eyes widened and she pointed out to the ocean. There was something in her eyes then. Something that reminded him so drastically of her.

By now the sun had dipped below the water, which until a second ago had stretched black and empty forever. But now, as he followed her gaze, Gil saw light under the surface, green and blue, and purple. They were unmistakable: the lights of Atlantis.

So it had sank, the while continent was gone. All the knowledge, all the magic, gone. No wonder his power felt weak. They had done this, it wasn’t narcissism, he was just somehow sure. It was all gone. All that was left was himself, and Muirne.

He would get her back, no matter how long it took, no matter if he killed himself in the attempt. He needed her to seal the Truth, but not just that, he realized with a start, glancing over at Sonia. He needed her.

He loved her.

[writevswrong]

Eris Fanfic * When The Last Ember Falls * Chapter Five

When The Last Ember Falls by L.J. LaFleur

Cindra:

This was it, the last challenger of the day.

The last ember to fade.

I glanced at Mikayl before entering the ring, he stood with his metallic arms crossed against his chest. A cocky smirk grew into a shining grin as he noticed me staring. Mikayl’s golden complexion had increased in brightness, glowing brighter than the sun—men—how typical.

Releasing my held breath, I entered the circle where Laryd and my stepmother stood waiting. Palms sweaty, heart racing—I would not fail. I couldn’t.  

The general raised her hands, silencing the bloodthirsty crowd. “Opponents,” my stepmother’s shrill voice echoed against the stone walls, “engage!”

Eris:    

I waited for Bronwynn to escort himself out of the throne room before I turned to my mother. I needed to know, no matter how devastating the truth could be. “Is there anything you need to tell me?” I asked, feeling my throat go dry as I thought of what lies possibly remained.  

She fixated on the jeweled leaf ceiling, “we must get to the tournament, my son.”

“Whatever it is, Bronwynn will use it against me,” my brows drew together, nostrils flaring as I tried to contain the flames that wanted to explode from my fists. She was lying to me—she couldn’t even look me in the eyes as the truth was mangled from her lips.  

Why? Why was she lying to me? What did she have to hide now that father was dead?

“He knows nothing,” she answered, putting an end to my interrogation. Mother held out her petite hand, awaiting my grasp.

I shook my head, lowering my voice, “go on without me.” I needed a moment to compose myself. I felt out of control. I’ve become a snarling beast—barking orders and risking what remained of mine and mother’s relationship. She fucking flinched at the sight of me. Was that not enough of a clue?

The sudden realization that I might possibly remind her of father stole the air from my lungs.

A shiver tore through me as I thought of him. I didn’t miss him. I loathed my father. And my brothers? Aedin deserved his fate, I only wish I had done it myself. Inhaling the lingering rage, I felt myself give in to the darkness. Only needing to think of my destination, I winnowed.

Eris…

Whispers sung my name, pulling me off my path to the training hall.

I stumbled in the darkness, attempting to find my balance again. The voices bounced through the shadow world as if they were all around me. No ending, no beginning.

High Lord of the Autumn Court, a singular voice laughed, how rich.  

“Brilliant,” sarcasm escaped me, “is this how you scare people? Hide in the shadows then sing until their ears bleed?”  

What sounded like a thousand whispers fading into one voice, his voice, rang through the land of shadows.

The truth will unveil

A light will fade

So, little ember, who will you save?

My spine stiffened, turning my head to avoid the collision of his words. “You’re the monster from the cauldron,” I growled, flames flickering off my fingertips. The firelight unearthed the creature Nesta had cowered in fear from.

Pale as Kallias, hair as dark as night…

“—am I?” Ronan whispered, taunting me with a single look. Onyx shadows caressed his shoulders. His two different colored eyes stared at me so intensely that they nearly burned holes through my flesh.

Orange and red flames climbed up my covered arms, my emotions barely contained in my chest. “If you’ll excuse me,” I sneered, stepping back onto the glittering path.  

“We haven’t gone over what I want from you.”

Ronan dragged me from my original route. He didn’t touch me, nor look in my direction but I felt the collar of my tunic tug me back. It was as if I was dangling from the jaws of a hidden beast.

A growl escaped me, the veins of magma rising up my neck, “I’m late.”

“The girl’s losing. The man has been cheating his entire way through the tournament. I personally wouldn’t choose him,” Ronan rubbed his hands together as if he were cold, “he dies a horrendous death.” He flicked a brow up, blowing into the shadows that faintly sung on his fingers, “best not to die with him, eh?”  

I didn’t bother asking him how he knew, obviously he was not a resident of the Autumn Court. I wasn’t even sure if he was from Prythian.  

Ronan snapped his fingers, a crown of iron and red stones appeared on the top of his head. “A future, a past have been woven into one. There—”

“—spit it out, Ronan.”

“Not one for riddles, I see. You’re no fun.” Ronan paused, the muscles in his cheeks flickered, his violent eyes glossing over, “Nesta will die, Eris.”

The flames on my hands flared; it took all of my willpower to not attack. “We all die,” I countered, still unable to follow him. The dull throbbing in my knee, the memories that consumed me, it only reminded me of how painful her death would be.

And it would be endless.

Ronan thoughtfully rubbed his lower lip with his thumb, “protect her.”

For cauldron sake. “Cassian will protect her, he’s the best warrior in all of Prythian—her mate,” I emphasized for the enigmatic bastard to get through his thick skull.  

Ronan chuckled, a songful laugh, “now, whether you choose to bury the knowledge, my confirmation, that’s up to you.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I cursed, shooting a burst of fire into his chest.

With the snap of his fingers, I fell to the misty black ground. Ronan’s hold, whatever the hell it was, had released me.

The whispers returned, his voice fading, such a perfect pair.

A crude finger raised, I waited until he left before I continued my journey. Ballsy move, indeed. Thinking about the exchange a moment later it dawned on me, I still had no idea who the hell Ronan is…or, what he is.

Emerging from the shadows to sit on the empty dais, my fire extinguished at the thought of losing Nesta. Cassian would protect her, at all costs, I reminded myself. As would the rest of the Night Court. I struggled to push out our last meeting in the Court of Nightmares. Their aggravated faces as I blamed them for not protecting her—failing her.  

I sunk into the copper chair, tapping my finger on the chunk of sunstone at the edge of the arm rest. They would not lose her again, not when they all were given a second chance. I focused on the opponents battling in front of me and as much as I hated to admit it, Ronan was right.

The bruised girl crawled her way towards the edge of the ring before a large brute dragged her by the ankles. She blocked several moves before he pulled her braided hair, laughing as she writhed against him.

The soldier raised her to her feet, squeezing her neck as he laughed. My stomach churned at the flashes of memory I wished to forget. The moment I slapped Nesta, even if it was for her survival, it broke me. Guilt clawed me apart from within; I hadn’t realized I stood to my feet.

“Release her,” I ordered, the crowd halting as I repeated myself.

The brute stared in bewilderment, swiftly freeing her. The warrior’s body crashed to the ground, her moan barely loud enough for me to hear.  

I glared at the soldier, at the man who had never gained my respect and who never will. White light flooded my vision. I could feel the heat race from my bone marrow to my skin, “you are dismissed from the tournament.”

Not a single protest from the crowd.

“Traditions are our foundation. Perhaps that is why we have fallen. Or maybe, it’s the lack of honor and conviction that has corrupted us.” The room stayed silent as I continued, “she is the victor of the guardian tournament. If anyone would like to dispute my decision, by all means,” I raised a flaming hand towards the ring.

All but one soldier stepped back. Scowling at my competitor, I dropped my arm. A sun-fae drew closer, kneeling beside the girl. His ear listening to her uneven breath, “she needs to be sent to medical.”  

I nodded, responding evenly, “take her. Clean her up and give her the guardian’s armor.”        

“What have you done?” My mother mumbled beside me, her sharp features only enhanced as she glared at the members of our court, daring them to speak.  

The fire sunk back into my bones, the white light from my eyes disappeared, “he cheated.”

Mother leaned back in her chair, her body language shifting, “and how do you know that? You only just appeared.”

“The truth always has a way of finding me.”

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