#i am crying emotionally but physically i am blank staring

[autistic-daydreamer]

When I say I'm crying I am not actually physically crying, just emotionally crying

[redeyerhaenyra]

Hi, it's your worst enemy, Ominoose.

Im ordering some Blue. Club Blue. He gets angry at reader, says something he regrets then has to make up for it? Some hurt/comfort?

For what it's worth

Summary: Blue shoots a guy in front of you, but he makes it up to you.

Warnings: Angst, but then fluff! Hurt/comfort, a guy gets shot, reader is mentioned being covered in blood, Blue is emotionally constipated, let me know if I missed anything!

Notes: Oh god, not YOU again- jk ilysm xx also I HATE the way this turned out it feels so rushed I'm sorry 😭

The dressing room was quiet, apart from the gentle sound of your crying.

Your hands cupped your face- God, you were torn.

On one hand, it was all your fault, you knew the rules and you broke them, how could you be so stupid??

On the other, fuck the rules! They were stupid, you didn't do anything wrong, didn't invite the patrons attention- you were only serving drinks that night anyway! It wasn't your fault.

The guy hadn't even touched you, he just wouldn't stop talking to you. Even after Blue had made it clear that you weren't for sale, he would not listen.

Tried to barter, and bargain his way into your bed with Blue- but, fuck, it was only when you spoke up, trying to affirm Blue's point, did he snap at you to "shut the fuck up."

The guy once trying to buy sex from you, was now defending your honour from your own damn lover, whilst you stared, gobsmacked that Blue would say that to you when you were on his side!

Your "valiant hero" reached to grab your hand, as if to comfort you.

Rookie mistake.

Blue was quicker, he always was, and shot the guy point blank before he could so much as feel your skin.

The club sprang with panic at the gunshot. You stood there dumbfounded, covered in blood spray.

"What the fuck are you standing there for-?! Get inside-" Blue's voice was muffled to you, but you heeded his command, running off into the dressing room whilst Blue and the other girls calmed the crowd.

Which lead you here. Covered in some poor guys blood, sobbing and still coming out of shock.

You felt sick. Was Blue really that shortsighted? To resort to violence so quickly? And.. and leave you drenched in blood???

You didn't know what to do with yourself. Half of you was disgusted with Blue and the other half sought the comfort his presence brought you.

And so, you sat here. Shivering, staring forlornly into the mess of your reflection.

After a while, the door clicked open. You didn't have the strength to look at him, gaze fixed now on the floor as you felt Blue approach you.

...A beat of silence passed.

".....Baby-" His hand, which only a few minutes ago had held the gun responsible for a man's death, tenderly brushed your shoulder. Such a juxtaposition.

You shuddered, and brushed him off you.

"Baby, look at me."

You voice was timid. "..I can't."

"Why not?" "Because if I do I'll just forgive you instantly and.. I.... can't, forgive for that! Blue! Jesus, fuck."

You physically turned away from him, swivelling yourself around in your chair. You heard him sigh, and then felt him lean down to kiss your shoulder. At least this time you didn't spurn his affections.

"You know why I had to do it." "I really don't." "He wouldn't take no for an answer sweetheart, the fuck am I meant to do?" "Not fucking shoot him? I'm.. I'm covered in blood, Blue!"

You had tried hard, and now failed not to cry in front of him, Blue kissed your head, and you let him wrap his arms around your shoulders as you sobbed into your hands again.

He gulped. It was like his tongue had turned to stone. You weren't suprised- apologises weren't in Blue's vocabulary.

He wanted to, oh how he so desperately wanted to comfort you. It was like admitting he was at fault was something he was simply unable to do.

For now, Blue settled on holding you till you tears dried out.

"...I'll get the girls to get ya started a nice bath, huh? With the bubbles? And.. I'll get some of that fancy wine I only use for special occasions.."

You shook your head. "...I don't want any of that, Blue." "What do you want?? Please, doll, baby, sweetheart, how do I make it better? Please baby, please-"

You'd never heard him so desperate before, and so finally you turned to look at him;

Only to discover him kneeling before you, like a Knight before his Queen, his big eyes round and wet, begging your forgiveness.

You had no words for him, only a sad glance at the floor.

He moved to cradle your hands in his own, turning them over and kissing each of your knuckles, whispering into them;

"Baby, please, I'll do anything, please doll, please."

Silence passed between you both, Blue now lay his head face down in your lap, nuzzled agasint your thighs.

Then, a sound. A small one, but definite.

"I'm sorry..."

The all but pathetic man before you whined as he spoke, as if the words on his tongue caused him physical pain.

They were enough for you, though. They were all you wanted.

Your hands caressing his slicked-back hair were proof of your acceptance enough, Blue brought himself up to really, really kiss you. He was better at apologising that way anyhow.

You both parted for breath- "I won't do it again baby, I won't, I'll never do that to you ever again, yeah? I'll never ever say those things to do ever again, I promise baby, I love you so much-" It was short lived, as he was kissing you again soon after.

Eventually you parted for the second time, and allowed him to hold you close, squeezing you like one might tightly hug a fluffy toy for comfort.

"...I should really get you cleaned up baby.. not good to be covered in blood all the time, even if it does make you look.." Blue bit his lip, and laughed as your hand flew to cover his mouth.

"Well, I'll take the bath you promised, if you're still offering." "Absolutely baby! Let me go-" he moved to get up, but you pulled him back, "-On one condition."

Blue turned back to you, his gorgeous eyes wide and bright.

"You join me in it."

Blue grinned, and kissed your forehead.

"Doll, I wouldn't have it any other way."

[moroser]

[incoming long and personal and dark post]

it dawned on me that it’s april and that means it’s been 6 years since i stopped doing drugs. big achievement. i did weed the whole time, thinking i needed it to keep away from the worse stuff, but i stopped that too, almost 2 months ago now. everything i’m about to talk about i did without anyone in my life (offline) noticing and all by myself.

my entire life has been unstable and so difficult. and i mean difficult and sad. i used to drink pretty heavily, but i stopped when i found pills. i was taking pretty much any opioid i could find, i even stole them. i was text book addict with pills. i had every excuse to keep going with it, it made sense to me at the time. i was in so much pain mentally, emotionally, and eventually, physically. taking them was reprieve. 

eventually, i was taking so many a day, quite honestly i should have died. my brain was blank, i lost my creativity and i stopped drawing, which is the one thing i love the most to do. create. even though i did not stop, the fact i felt nothing in that realm anymore was heartbreaking. i’d spent several nights staring at the ceiling practically waiting to die. i had one dream that i can remember while on drugs and it was of me staring at myself opened-eyed and dead on my bed. it shook me.

the drugs affected my ability to think, cry and feel, then one day on my way to work, after taking so many, i got so sick on the side of the road on the freeway several times. eventually i pulled off into a town i didn’t know and passed out in the parking lot of a gas station for who knows how long. i woke up dazed with the taste of puke in my mouth, and totally dehydrated. i missed work, i was embarrassed with myself. i have no idea how long i sat there for before getting out of the car to walk around. eventually i made it home but i felt like i wasn’t the same after that. 

decided to detox (after trying before, and failing), which was the worst events i’ve been through in my life. took days, nearly a week to get over the worst of the symptoms. i don’t think i slept at all. i was so sick, shakes and chills, vomiting, etc. i let spongebob play for the entire time, that sponge grounded me lol. i’d made it through that time. and i stuck too it, using my desire to feel my creativity again and wanting to be better to my body to stay away from relapse. 

2017 i cleared my system of alcohol, pills, energy drinks, pop, and the only thing i’d let myself use was weed because i felt it would stop me from everything else. and technically, it did. it aided me for a long time. but the passed ~3 years i’ve been so ill with stomach issues and nausea and throwing up that i decided to stop that too. 

so now i’ve been completely sober for 1 month and 21 days. for the first time since high school i have nothing in my system that is altering me the way substance abuse has. it’s been a major adjustment. my focus is shit, my sleeping is difficult and my dreams are insanity. it literally feels like i’m sleeping just to wake up somewhere else because my dreams are so vivid and clear. i wake up every four hours having to adjust and remember i actually live here, not in dreamland. i didn’t dream at all while on drugs or weed, so in a way, i welcome the vibrancy of them. 

looking back, none of those things helped me. they only broke and shrouded my spirit with a darkness i don’t want to feel ever again. i want to be healthy and i want to give my body the chances that it deserves. i want to heal properly. i want to live so much. i want to find someone to be with that will understand me and accept me even with my flaws and history. i feel better already, but i know there’s still a long journey ahead and i can only hope it gets better. i deserve better. i know i’m a good person. i know i have so much creative potential in me and it’s what i want to give my energy and soul to.  

thanks for listening, if you read this. i am proud of myself for getting as far as i have but the support from my friends and strangers online has been a colossal sense of communal help i’ve never had offline. sharing my art has been a big help and just people enjoying it means so much to me. thank you.  

[mikauzoran]

Lukadrien: Your Hands Hold Home: Chapter Nineteen

@lukadrien-june

Read it on AO3: Your Hands Hold Home: Chapter Nineteen: Patrol

It was well past one in the morning when Adrien got back from patrol the following evening, so he was surprised to find Luka still awake, sitting on the couch in the main cabin, playing a mournful-sounding song on the violin.

“Please tell me you’re not waiting up for me. I’ll feel super guilty if you are,” Adrien groaned theatrically.

Luka chuckled, shaking his head and setting the violin aside.

“No need to feel bad,” he assured as Adrien took a seat on the couch beside him. “I’m just an insomniac. …How did patrol go?”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he’d rather get it over with sooner rather than later.

“It went really well, actually,” Adrien answered with a happy little bounce.

“Good. That’s good,” Luka replied, hoping that he sounded more sincere than he felt.

It was so difficult to push his own feelings aside to just be happy for Adrien. It was hard to smile when it felt like his heart was breaking.

“We talked about all kinds of things,” Adrien continued enthusiastically, missing Luka’s misery. “She told me all about her Guardian training, even the stuff that’s supposed to be secret.”

“That’s good,” Luka repeated, internally cringing at how much he sounded like a skipping record. “I’m glad she’s keeping you informed.”

Adrien nodded. “She wants me to start coming over more often so I can get to know the other kwamis and so she can train me as Assistant Guardian. Isn’t that awesome?!” he prompted.

A genuine smile finally came to Luka’s face as he patted Adrien on the back. “That is awesome. I’m glad she’s finally saying ‘screw those monks and their rules’ and letting you in on the Guardian side of her duties. I know her mentor after Fu was really strict about keeping you at arms’ length, and I know that was always a point of contention between you two with you never feeling like you were on equal footing, so I’m glad she’s standing up to them.”

A warm smile slowly spread over Adrien’s lips like cupcake frosting. “Yeah. It really means a lot to me.”

“Is she going to be okay, though?” Luka asked uncertainly. “They’re not going to take the Guardianship away from her and wipe her memories for breaking the rules, are they? That’s what her mentor always threatened when she stepped out of line before, right?”

Adrien grimaced, shifting uncomfortably. “Right. Marinette said she doesn’t think they will. She’s started to doubt that they actually can, but…I guess we’ll see. Either way, she was really adamant about not cutting me out anymore no matter what they said.”

“I’m really glad to hear that,” Luka was able to say truthfully. “I know her being the Guardian has been like a huge wedge between you this whole time.”

“Yeah,” Adrien sighed, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. “It’s a big relief to have that tension gone between us. We talked a lot about it—our partnership, the ways we felt like it was kind of broken. We both said sorry for a lot of things and talked about how we wanted to fix it.”

Adrien looked up, pride shining on his face. “I used a lot of the techniques you and Doctor Katsuragi have been working with me on about how to talk about my feelings and have healthy discussions about conflict.”

“Oh, yeah?” Luka chuckled, heart swelling. “I take it it went well?”

Adrien nodded energetically. “Really, really well. I mean, it was hard, and there was a lot of crying, but I feel really good about it. Marinette and I were long overdue for a talk like that. We needed that, so it was good to get it all out there and figure it out together. We still have a lot of work to do, but I think we’re going to be so much stronger going forward.”

“That’s really good, Adrien,” Luka replied, losing some of his enthusiasm as a chill set back in.

He could almost feel himself losing them both to one another, leaving him behind.

“Yeah. It was really good,” Adrien echoed less warmly, starting to get nervous.

He bit the inside of his cheek and shifted on the couch. “We got a lot of things sorted out…” He pointedly avoided Luka’s gaze. “…like our romantic feelings for one another.”

The bottom dropped out of Luka’s stomach, and he fought the urge to be sick as he carefully schooled his face into a neutral expression. “Oh, yeah? So…you two are dating now?”

Adrien rubbed at the back of his neck. “Uh…no, actually.”

Luka blinked as he tipped his head to the side. “No?”

He couldn’t have heard right.

Adrien shook his head. “No. We’re not dating.”

Luka frowned. “But…you love her, and she loves you. I thought…”

Adrien blew out a long sigh and leaned back into the couch cushions. “Yeah. No, we do. It’s just…complicated.”

“Complicated,” Luka repeated, trying to wrap his head around it all.

Adrien nodded. “She needs some time and some space. Now that being Ladybug and fighting to save Paris on a regular basis have calmed down, she needs some time for herself. She’s put a lot of things on the backburner these past few years so that she could focus on being a hero and the Guardian,” he explained, “so, now, she needs to prioritize herself and get some things figured out. It’s not really a good time for her to date at the moment.”

Luka slowly began to nod as he thought he understood the situation. “I’m glad she’s realized that she’s been neglecting things. It’s good that she’s working to try to restore balance. …So…are you two going to wait and try dating a little later?”

Adrien bit his lip and averted his gaze again. “I don’t know, but it won’t be anytime soon. Things aren’t exactly good for me right now either. I mean, I have a whole life to rebuild, so I don’t think starting a relationship is necessarily what I need to be doing either,” he rushed to get out.

“I mean, I guess I could, but it would have to be with someone I really trust and am already close to because I’m kind of a wreck right now, but it’s not like I’m totally against dating at the moment. It would just have to be, you know, the right person, so…”

Internally, Adrien groaned as his words came out in a muddled mess. He could only hope that Luka understood what Adrien really meant.

Judging by the look of confusion on Luka’s face, he either didn’t realize that Adrien meant Luka or he did understand what Adrien meant and was confused at the idea of a romantic relationship between himself and Adrien.

“So…you two have agreed to wait a year or so, or…?” Luka struggled to determine how long his suffering would be prolonged.

Adrien took a deep breath and looked Luka in the eye as he tried again to explain. “Actually, we might never date. We’re not waiting for each other or anything.”

Luka’s eyes flew wide. “What? Really?”

Adrien nodded. “We talked for a long time, and we decided that we always want to be close. We’ll always love one another, and we’ll always have a special bond as partners. We’re an important part of each other’s lives, but dating might not necessarily be in the cards for us. We each have other things we need to prioritize right now, so we agreed that, if it happens, it happens, but we’re just going to let things play out naturally.”

“Oh.” Luka swallowed. “Wow. That’s…”

“Besides, there’s someone else,” Adrien abruptly announced, practically stringing the words together as he turned his face away in an attempt to hide the fiery blush raging on his cheeks.

Luka stared, brain struggling to piece everything together.

He wondered if Adrien meant that Marinette had her eye on someone else or if he’d been speaking of his own feelings for a third party.

“…Well…I’m glad you guys talked and figured things out. That’s really good. I’m happy for you, Adrien,” Luka attempted to praise even though he still felt off kilter.

Adrien slowly turned his head to study Luka’s expression for any sign that Luka had understood what Adrien was trying to convey.

Luka’s face was carefully blank, devoid of any clues.

Adrien deflated, too afraid to press any further.

It was late, and he was physically and emotionally worn out.

Maybe Luka had understood but was politely pretending not to so as to save Adrien the pain of rejection.

Adrien didn’t have the courage to try again, so he forced a smile, replying, “Yeah. I’m glad I talked things out with Marinette too. It was good to get closure on some of that stuff.”

Luka nodded, not sure what to say in response besides some rehashing of the same things he’d been saying throughout the conversation.

For once, the silence between them was awkward and uncomfortable.

Unable to stand the tension, Adrien got to his feet, keeping the cheery expression pasted to his face. “Well, I’m off to bed. Good night.”

“Night,” Luka echoed.

Adrien started to turn to go but then thought better of it.

Summoning all of his courage, he leaned in and pressed a solid, unambiguous kiss to Luka’s cheek.

“Sweet dreams, Middle C,” he whispered.

A shiver ran down Luka’s spine as Adrien’s breath caressed his skin.

“Go to sleep already,” Adrien chuckled, pleased with the rosy blush and warm grin spreading across Luka’s face.

He winked and turned to go.

Luka almost choked on his own saliva and died.

He was very proud of himself when he managed to respond, “Thanks, but I don’t sleep, Perfect Fifth.”

Once Adrien had gone, Luka picked up his violin again and, with a besotted grin, began to play what he could remember of Uchiage Hanabi from the movie he’d watched with Adrien the other night.

[petri808]

Halloween games prompt chosen by @dragonlovesstars for @thenaluarchive Falling for You event. Focusing on Nalu only in this story. I had an idea going in, sorry but yeah... the characters totally hijacked this story and idk what happened 😅

Most of the Fairytail guild celebrated Halloween like they did most holidays... or really most normal days, by drinking and partying. But that never stopped Mira from setting up games just in case some of the members were willing to play. The boozers got a game of Trick or Treat where they had to pick from shot concoctions that could be a nice treat or a yucky trick. Younger members were off playing spooky themed charades, and surprisingly a few chose trivia.

As for Natsu and gang, they signed up for a special game called Scary Treasure Hunt which Mira promised would garner them the best treasure prize in all of Fiore! She paired them in twos, and sent them off into Magnolia to search for this mysterious treasure with only a clue to the first location. All in all, five teams were playing for the ‘prize,’ and not so surprisingly, they were paired in couples. With any type of challenge, Natsu was pumped up and ready to play! So, as soon as Mira said ‘go,’ he was dragging Lucy out the door because there was no way Gray was winning the prize before him!

“Slow down Natsu!” Lucy jerks her partner to a halt. “We haven’t even read the clue yet!”

“Oh, right!” He laughs. “So what does it say?”

Lucy holds out the card and reads out loud. “Instructions. Follow the clues to each location where you’ll be given a riddle and a clue to the next destination. I glide over water and rock to and fro. The canals I may travel, but the docks are my home.”

“What?” Natsu questions. “A boat? That’s not a destination.”

“The answer is right in the clue Natsu,” Lucy rolls her eyes. “The first location is the docks where they tie up the boats.”

“Ohhhh!” He grabs her hand, “well let’s go! Time’s ticking!”

When they reach the tiny Magnolia harbor, the pair search around at each boat looking for their next clue. There were only a few, and most were the smaller boats used to navigate the water channels. Of course, when they did find it, Lucy had to climb aboard to grab the scroll.

“Read it, read it!” Natsu bounces excitedly.

“First your riddle. Salamander, Salamander! The crowd chants with spellbound delight. You’ve come to a crossroad, do you choose left or right?”

“I— don’t get it,” Natsu scratches his head. “Is it talking about me? What the hell is the crossroads?”

“Huh?” Lucy frowns too. “I don’t get it either.”

“Is that all?”

“No, um,” she reads further. “Over the hill and through the lane, to strawberry street we go. Reach for the stars. Hmm, maybe my apartment is the next step?”

“Or the roof?”

“Could be? I guess it’s worth a shot.”

At Lucy’s apartment building, they took the access stairs to the rooftop, but at first, they don’t see anything at all. It wasn’t exactly a big roof to search, yet they saw no scroll. Frustrated, Lucy walked over to the edge facing the street below and rests her arms. Where else on Strawberry street would Mira have sent them if not her apartment? Though, so far, none of this made much sense to her. She looked down at the ground when something stuck to the wall grabbed her attention. “Found it! But I can’t reach it.”

Natsu looks over the edge and realizes he couldn’t reach the scroll either. So, he hopped off the roof, grabbing it as he falls, and landed on the street below. Lucy raced down to meet him.

“Good catch!” She congratulated him. He handed her the scroll and she reads it. “First your riddle. Through a leap, you know no bounds, nor fright of night, just solid ground. Okay this is seriously confusing,” Lucy grumbled, but continued on. “The dead slumber in their beds. We find solace in their peace.”

“I’m gonna guess the cemetery.” Natsu states.

“I agree.”

This really was turning into a hunt, though Lucy was starting to wonder what it meant. All of these locations and clues seemed tied together somewhat, revolving around their lives. Did Mira make it that way so it would be easier? By the time they reached the cemetery, she was no closer to figuring anything out. Lucy shivered at the idea of walking around a cemetery at night. It was eerie, maneuvering around the grave stones, searching aimlessly through the rows for the next scroll. This graveyard had no ties to either of them personally, but just being here made Lucy think about her parents.

After several minutes of searching, they finally found the scroll that was left on top of a headstone. Lucy wrapped her arms around herself tightly, a bit chilled both physically and emotionally.

Natsu comes up from behind Lucy and reaches around to rub her arms to warm her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, must be the wind,” she blamed, but his added heat helped to send those chills away. Lucy opened the scroll. “First your riddle. In the dark, we seek the light, and when we find it, we hold on tight for it will always guide the way home. That’s it,” Lucy turns it over and back, “there isn’t a clue.”

“Could ‘home’ be the clue?” Natsu asks.

“Yeah, but which home? Mine? Yours? Fairytail?”

“Well, she sent us to yours once already, and she probably wouldn’t have us go back to the guild unless we found the treasure, so I’m gonna guess my house.”

Lucy giggles. “That’s pretty smart thinking.”

“I have my moments.” He shrugs.

As they walk back to Natsu’s cottage, it was becoming clear to both of them that this wasn’t really a scary treasure hunt, unless you count putting a scroll in a boat for a slayer or being sent to a creepy cemetery. No, Mira designed this specifically for them to figure out something, but what that was still eluded them.

Once they arrive at Natsu’s cottage, they go inside and start looking around. Again, just like on Lucy’s rooftop, it wasn’t quickly noticed. They search the place from top to bottom and still nothing. Where was it?! Natsu grabs a blanket off the couch to check under it, but drops it again when nothing is found. “Okay,” he laments, “maybe I was wrong and she meant the guildhall.”

“Maybe not...”

He looked in Lucy’s direction, who was staring at his wall of mementoes. And there, pinned up, is the unrolled scroll. “What does it say?” He questioned.

“Your final riddle. They are the ones we run to. Hold us close when we are afraid, soothe us in our melancholy. Laugh with us, cry with us. Protect, nurture, and push us to be better. They are our greatest treasure yet our most feared acceptance. What am I?”

“That’s not a riddle.”

“Well, not exactly... but it has an answer.” Lucy turned around to face him. “It was all about our journey here,” she smiled with moisture building in her eyes. “The day we met, the choice to go with you. That leap of faith cause I knew you’d catch me. You being there for me over and over again. It’s saying you are my greatest treasure.”

“I can understand that cause I always thought you were a treasure. But I don’t understand m the fear part or the ‘what am I’ question.”

“Oh,” Lucy blushed. “I-It’s describing a soulmate because it could be scary to realize when you’ve found yours.” It sure as hell was for her.

Silence gripped the room as Natsu’s face registered a blank stare. Lucy couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and frankly the longer he stayed that way, the more nervous she became. Was he not understanding her? What if he did understand her?! This is exactly the fear factor she had long tried to avoid! “Are you still confused?” She asked hesitantly.

“So... the answer is you’re my soulmate?”

“I guess, yeah you could say that.” Again he just stares and she could almost see the gears turning in his head as he processed her words. “Natsu?”

“Like Lucy and Natsu in Edolas? Or Nack and Lucia in Giltina?”

“Yeah...”

His brows furrowed, then suddenly a grin bursts free. “I got it! Making an egg is our greatest treasure!”

Lucy slaps her forehead. “Oh my Mavis! For the last time, humans don’t come from eggs, and even if we did, y-you don’t even know what it takes to make one.”

“Macao and Gildarts already told me what to do, but I’m still confused. Maybe you could show me?”

“W-what?!” She crisscrossed her arms over her chest.

“But the treasure?!”

“Natsu I’m not having sex with you to win a challenge!”

He walked over unphased and put his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t care about a challenge. I want our treasure.” He smiled wide. “Wouldn’t that be the best Halloween treat ever? I know you don’t think I understand, and I don’t about some of this, but what I do know, is after seeing Nasha, I just thought it would be great to have one of our own.”

“Natsu,” Lucy sighed, “its not right to have kids unless we both love each other.”

“You don’t love me?”

“I-I didn’t say that...”

“Then we agree!” He grins, “please Lucy, let’s make our own hoard of treasures!”

“Whoa! Whoa! Slow down Natsu! W-we just established how we feel but it’s another thing t-to jump into t-that, and we haven’t even kissed yet!”

“Pfft, well that’s easy enough,” he swooped in and placed a rough, sloppy kiss on her lips. “We’re at the crossroads Lucy. Is it trick or treat?”

Lucy was done, her mind was fried and her heart was beating so hard she felt woozy. None of this was how she’d dreamed it would happen, but then again just like their counterparts, maybe the spur of the moment was more their style anyway.

Lucy takes a deep breath. “Treat.”

[shipersanonymous]

One Hit West

Chapter 7

Author’s Note

Ok so like its late (I’m sorry) but its here, I pray its not underwhelming. Its quite a nasty cliffhanger so I’m sorry about that.  And now I’ll leave you to it.

xoxo

…………………...

“Welcome home honey.” Barry says as he looks at her over his shoulder. She smiles sweetly, relieved to be back home. Where she belongs.

She walks over to Barry who tilts his head up to give her full access to his waiting lips. She leans over and pecks him, her high pony falling to the side. On his lap, Nora closes her eyes behind her toddler fingers and chuckles as she says:

“Ewwwww.”

The two can’t help but laugh and turn their attention onto her with mischievous (yet loved filled – always love filled) eyes.

“What’s so funny little missy?” Iris asks and Nora shyly replies:

“Noooottthhhiiinnnggg?”

“Mm I don’t know mama bear. I don’t think this cute little cub is telling the truth.” Barry plays along.

“I think you’re right papa bear. What should we do with her?”

Barry pretends to think really hard then answers:

“I think… we should… TICKLE IT OUT OF HER!”

“Daddy no!” Nora yells in-between laughs as both her parents attack her with tickles, filling the house with their favourite sound, the sound of her laughter.

That’s the scene Iris has dreamed about for years. Coming home to Barry and Nora, hearing her baby laugh, hearing her call him “daddy”, parenting with the man she loves.

“Mommy, you’re home!” Nora yells excitedly and the look of dissapointment in Barry’s eyes slams Iris right back into her reality. The two people looking back at her have no idea of the secret she carries.

And she plans to keep it that way.

At least until she’s sure she can trust him.

Barry stands, carrying Nora in his arms and Iris’s heart skips a beat when Nora leans her head into his shoulder and smiles.

“Thank you mommy.” She says and Iris smiles, trying to hide the hurricane of emotions rattling through her.

Confusion.

Relief.

Anxiety.

Happiness.

All of them rambling into each other inside her like waves during a storm.

“Thank you for what baby?” she asks.

“For my birthday present! I get to call Barry Allen, uncle Barry!”

Barry chuckles.

“Am I the best birthday present ever?” he asks her with squinted eyes and she nods with a bright smile on her face.

“Prove it,” he challenges.

“How?” she asks, her little eyes widening behind her glasses.

“Mmmm…give me a kiss.” Barry answers, turning his cheek towards her. Nora pecks her father without hesitation and Barry closes his eyes dramatically.

“You know what?”

“What?”

“That was the best kiss I’ve ever gotten.” He says and she chuckles.

“What you don’t believe me? I’ll prove it.” he says and plants a kiss on her cheek.

“Do you believe me now?” he asks and plants one on her other cheek.

“How bout now?” this one is on her forehead.

Each kiss sparks another round of laughter from the little girl and Iris’s heart warms up, it’s been a while since she last saw her daughter this happy and care free. For a moment, a split second, Iris considers giving in. She considers telling him the truth. She considers apologising and making her family work.

Then flashes of her baby boy’s innocent little face breeze through her mind and her broken heart cries louder.

She can’t give in.

“Alright baby, come on. Time to go home.” She says with a smile.

“Awwww. But you just got here. Plus, uncle Barry and I…” Nora stops mid sentence and the blank look in her eyes sends Iris into autopilot.

“Barry, lay her down. Keep her head raised.”

No sooner had she finished giving the instruction, Nora’s eyes rolled back and she began to convulse. To Iris’s surprise Barry was calm in that moment he laid Nora down on her side and kept her head up.

“Aren’t you gonna call 911?” he asks when he notices that she’s simply still, looking down as their daughter seizes. Iris doesn’t answer, she simply kneels down in front of him and watches.

Her heart constricts and her eyes fill with tears that she struggles with all her might to hold back. She can’t call the hospital, not without risking exposing her daughter. All she can do is watch and helplessly wait for Nora’s fit to end.

In these moments, she feels like a complete failure. A mother powerless to help her child. Without the ability to take her baby’s pain away. It shatters her, and still all she can do is watch.

[Barry]

He’s never seen her look so defeated.

As he leans against the wall next to Nora’s bedroom door, Barry can’t shake the depression he saw in her eyes. He’s never seen her stare look so hopeless.

The ruffling of sheets sparks his attention and he stands back up and peers into the room. Iris leans in and gives their daughter a kiss on the head. After the seizure, Nora passed out and Iris, almost as if possessed, picked her up out of Barry’s arms and took her to her bedroom. She’s been in there for almost half an hour and every so often a sigh of exhaustion echo’s from inside the dark room.

Barry’s heart hurts. This seems almost routine. How long has it been going on for? Has she had to endure all this on her own?

As unbelievable as it may be, a wave of guilt flows through him. He should have been there to help her in moments like these. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so tired. Maybe the pained look of helplessness wouldn’t have tainted her eyes like it had just a few moments ago. If only he’d been there to bare the load with her.

If only he knew.

Iris walks out of the room looking as lifeless as she had when she walked in with their daughter in her arms. She’s about to walk past him without so much as nod in his direction when Barry holds onto her upper arm, stopping her in her tracks.

“Can we talk?” he asks, concerned about her state of mind.

“She’s not yours Barry.” She says simply, like a sleepwalker trapped in a dream.

He stops short, her denial only conforming his suspicions. He let’s out an incredulous breath.

“That just told me that she is.”

Iris turns to him annoyed, her exhaustion clear in her sigh.

“Barry, just stop…”

“No Iris. You stop it. Stop lying to me. You know how you gave yourself away? When I said let’s talk, I wanted to know if you’re OK cause our daughter just had a seizure and you looked like someone hit you in the gut with car. Your automatic assumption that I’d want to confront you about whether or not she’s mine, tells me that you’re trying to keep up a lie.”

Iris looks up at him startled, like a deer caught in headlights and Barry feels his heart beat out a painful note. It is true.

Nora is his daughter.

She has to be.

He decides to push his luck in hopes that she’ll break and tell him the truth.

“After the day I spent with her, I wouldn’t even need a DNA test to know that I’m her father Iris. She’s an exact replica of the both of us. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I saw you in her smile, her kindness, her sense of humour. I saw me in her eyes, her mind, her incredible ability to dream. I felt a connection with her Iris, something I can’t explain. So you can lie to me all you want. I know she’s mine.”

“She’s…not,” Iris persists with her lie, swallowing down the tears he can see in her eyes. Barry struggles to hold back his own tears as he whispers:

“Then why did you name her Nora?”

Iris’s eyes widen and for the second time in the span of five minutes she looks like someone who’s been caught red handed.

“Why Iris? Why did you name your daughter after my mother if she’s not mine? The math adds up, her features and personality are like neon signs and she has my mother’s name, do you really expect me to believe she’s not my daughter? Our daughter? After all that?”

Her eyes meet his with a plea and he softens his attack.

“I’m sorry I…”

Before he can finish talking she turns around and speed walks into her room, slamming the door behind her. Barry stares at the empty hallway uncertain how to feel. Iris’s behaviour seemed to have given him the confirmation he wanted.

She’s mine.

She has to be mine.

So why does he feel so broken?

[Iris]

She flops onto her bed expressionless and a split second later, tears stream down her face. It’s been a while since her last cry but she can’t help it.

He knows. He can’t know!

She feels like a double failure. First she couldn’t help her daughter with her seizure and now she can’t protect her either. She feels a scream bubbling up the back of her throat and hides her face in a pillow to let it out. She wants to choke on the sound. She wants the pillow to strangle the air out of her and just take her away.

Nora.

Her baby’s name pops into her head and suddenly she remembers what’s kept her going all these years. Despite the trauma and the heartache and the difficulties. Her baby’s smile, her laugh, the warmth of her hug. All that and more are like fuel to Iris. They keep her going further.

So the thought of having her baby snatched away from her….

The tears stream down her cheeks with increased vigour and the sobs that shake through her become more violent. She clutches at her heart as the familiar sting of loss pierces through her. Iris drops onto her side and curls into the fetal position.

Can I please just wake up from this nightmare.

She begs in her mind as her cries lull her to sleep. Exhausted, her eyes droop closed and she drifts off, hiccupping silently…

The alarm rang and she opened her sleep heavy eyes, blinking away the slight sting of exhaustion. As her body slowly woke up, the aches and pains worked their way through her limbs. The creaky old couch she’d been using as a bed squealed in protest as she got up and tried to work some of the stiffness from her neck.

Then the nausea hit.

Her eyes shot open and Iris ran to the bathroom with her hand firmly pressed over her mouth.

Morning sickness was a bitch.

Out of breath and partially shaky, she flushed out last nights dinner and made her way back to the staff break room (that she’s been using as a bedroom) to get her tooth brush from her suitcase. She was only on her second month and not really sure how much more of this morning routine she could handle. Sleeping on an old couch was miserable enough without the sudden sprints to the bathroom at six in the morning.

With her teeth brushed, she then used a face towel and a small bucket of lukewarm water to freshen up as best as she could before heading out to open the café. As she made herself busy, cleaning out the coffee machine, the bell above the door rang and she turned around, expecting to see her colleagues but was met instead with the suspicious sight of four men in suits and sunglasses.

Being the daughter of a (then) cop, being skilled at detecting danger was basically a calling and all her inner buzzers were going off.

“I’m sorry gentleman but we’re not open yet.” She explains but that bit of information is received as invalid.

Three of the men formed a straight line and the fourth, supposedly the leader, stepped forward.

“Iris West?” he asked and for a minute she was hesitant to answer but saw no way out so decided to buy herself some time.

“Who’s asking?” she tried on her bravest tone, praying to God that someone would walk in and interrupt this unwanted meeting. In her mind all she can think about is keeping her babies safe.

“You need to come with us.” He says taking a step forward and she takes a step back, despite the counter between them.

“And why is that?”

“That’s classified information.”

She let’s out a nervous chuckle.

“Considering you want me to leave my work place during my shift with four complete strangers, I think the least you can do is tell me why.”

“I’m sorry Ms West but my orders were clear. Now you can cooperate or we can force you to cooperate. Either way, you’re leaving with us.”

The men began to approach and she held out her hands to halt them.

“OK, OK. I’ll go. Just let me get my stuff ready.” She succumbed and they stopped in their tracks and gave her room to walk and get to her room in the back. Surprisingly enough, neither of them followed her in.

Idiots.

She thought as she made her way to the bathroom and forced the miniscule window opened. It was wide enough for her to slip out of so she used all her strength to climb out of it into freedom.

She landed in an empty alley behind the building with a soft thump and bent knees. A quick glance around told her she was clear and that’s when she made a break for it, running as fast her legs would let her.

But she didn’t make it very far.

Strong hands pulled her into stronger arms just as she stepped out of the alley into the street. Her mouth and nose were covered before she could scream and she felt a sting on her neck just before she slipped out of consciousness.

Needles.

IV drips.

Chemicals.

Pain.

Needles.

IV drips.

Chemicals.

Pain.

Needles.

IV….

A familiar face.

She screams.

[Barry]

He stands frozen in the hallway for what feels like an eternity and as reality begins to sink in he turns his head towards Nora’s bedroom.

He’s a father. He’s been a father for the past five years and he didn’t know it.

The shame, the betrayal, the fear of what his little girl might think about him all cut through him like a knife. Who does she think he is? What does she think happened? What does she think is the reason why he hasn’t been with her and her mother all this time?

He takes shaky breaths as he walks towards her room. Slow steps that contrast against his rapid beating heart. At the door, he hesitates. Going in feels like crossing a life changing barrier into a whole new world of experiences.

Barry wants to go in but something holds him back. Doubt. He can feel it in his heart and in his mind he knows that she is his daughter. Yet he can’t trust his own instincts because the last time he was led by intuition he got his heart broken. The memory of that pain, of losing the woman he loved (loves), plants a seedling of fear in his confident heart.

He could never survive losing Nora. Not after forming a bond with her and seeing her as a daughter. That’s a pain that might destroy him once and for all.

Despite the uncertainty and the possibility of heartbreak, his hand still itches to caress her to sleep. His arms still want to hold her and protect her. His heart still wants to hear her call him “dad”.

Deciding to take that leap, he pushes his fears aside and decides to take that leap. Even if she turns out not to be his, even if he loses more than he gains, even if he’ll never see her again after this, he wants to at least try.

He wants to believe for five minutes that the incredible little girl he spent the day with is half of him and half of his soul mate. Even if it only lasts a second, he wants to look at her with a father’s eyes and claim responsibility for her existence.

He wants a taste of paternal pride, no matter how selfish that wish may be.

As he’s about to take that leap, his heart stops, his hairs stand on end, his eyes widen, his blood freezes and his breath gets caught in his throat.

[brideofcthulhu10]

I promised you guys I'd whittle something out before the end of the day! (Currently its 11:30 here, so I made my deadline lol) So here's a bit of drama and fluff. Every couple fights, even vampires, but the most important thing is to take responsibility for your actions and communicate. With that in mind, I give you: 

Lost Boys Make Their Fem!S/O Cry During a Fight

CONTENT WARNING: Sexual Themes, Possible Triggers, Topics of Physical and Verbal Anger

David

David is not known to mince words in any scenario, so you can bet that means he chooses an s/o who can handle his bluntness. The same could be said for your fights. Unlike Dwayne and Paul, David rarely yells anymore. Instead he's harsh, cold, and what he says often hits very hard. He doesn't tip toe around when he's calm, you can damn well bet he isn't going to be considerate when you tick him off. He can be quite jealous at times, but often it doesn't lead to a fight. Admittedly he can be a tad petty as well, but getting genuinely enraged towards you is not as common. A spat is one thing, but a serious fight can get ugly fast. He is almost jolted when he hears a sharp breath muffled under your hand. Hell he's only ever heard you make that sound during sex, and this was definitely no time to be turned on. He'll turn around and see you with your hand over your mouth trying to hide your shame and feel ungodly levels of guilt. 

David's words are harsh, and when you turn out of the room he's still sitting there utterly flabbergasted that you had such a tearful expression. After all, you had to know he didn't mean it..right?

David will definitely sulk, he hates admitting he was wrong. Not necessarily because he thinks he's in the right for being cruel, but rather he's sure you just need space and then things will get better. He'll expect you back any day... So when you don't, he kind of goes into denial and will wait, and wait… and wait... 

The guys stopped asking about you because every time he hears your name mentioned he grows more pissed off. Eventually he explodes in a rage, which is extremely rare for David.

"So uh.. about Y/N-"

"Why isn't she back yet?! This is stupid, she should know that I don't mean it!"

"Hey, David, man why don't you go talk to Y/N? I sure if you-"

"No! If she wants to stay away, fucking fine! Good riddance!"

Truthfully he's upset. Beyond that, really. He feels awful for making you cry, he's afraid you might hate him now, but he doesn't know how to approach the situation. Apologizing is difficult, to David it's a form of defeat and a part of him doesn't want to face that it's his fault you're gone. 

Eventually he caves in after a week and a half. He misses you like crazy! The guilt gnaw at him to the point that he can't sleep, he can't think straight. Even blood begins to have a bitter taste to it. 

It'll be a late night, closer to 3 am when he just silently appears in your room. If you're asleep he'll just stand there and watch you for a moment. Mostly trying to build up enough willpower to do what he's about to. 

Expect his apology to be kind of crappy. At least, at first. It'll come off as angry, even a bit misguided just because he really hates admitting he fucked up. But when he does, it's the most sincere, heartbreaking moment of your relationship. He may have to turn away from you and shut his eyes before any tears tempt his cheeks. You can't see him like that. Tears means he's getting emotional, that means he's growing attached, and attachment… it's a weakness. When he's weak and attached, people die. 

He lost a love before because he couldn't protect her, he's lost his brothers once because he got careless and underestimated his enemy, he can't lose more. 

Once he apologizes and you come back to him, he's a bit more attached to you physically. He'll hold you from behind with his chin on your shoulder while sitting on his bike, have you sit on his lap at the hotel, even on the boardwalk he's become more open by holding your hand. He isn't ready to say the big "L" word just yet, so this is the most he can muster. Whenever he's too harsh now he'll apologize by hugging you to him. David is still scared of getting close, but he's more afraid of pushing you away from his lack of filter.

Dwayne

It takes a lot to ruffle Dwayne's feathers, so already he's not one to be careless with his words. Unfortunately once he's pushed to that point all bets are off. This usually dismissive vampire of little words becomes an eruption of rage. A lot of it is physical. He'll throw a table or punch a hole in a cement wall. He doesn't mean to scare you. When he gets that worked up he becomes unbelievably tense, almost his body's way of warning you not to push him. With fangs out, standing in the wreckage of his rage he'll pause to see you failing to hold back a mess of tears and immediately stops.

At that point he's exhausted. Rage takes a lot out of him, in the end he just feels flustered and a bit ashamed for losing his cool. The longest a fight lasts is maybe a day or two, usually you give each other space but once he's made you cry that's a different story.

Even if you started the fight he recognizes he shouldn't have done what he did. Temper or not, that's not an excuse to blow up at you. He'll be frustrated with himself for losing grasp of his emotions, and he'll probably take some time to think over his words before trying to solve the issue. It's hard to look at someone else's point of view when you're pissed off at them, he knows that better than anyone. Especially since he grew up with siblings before becoming a vampire. When he's got a good grasp on himself he'll probably try to settle things with you so that you two can get things back to normal.

"Y/N… come here, please," he'll say softly, patting the seat next to him on the couch. As soon as you do, he slings his arm around your shoulder and yanks you into his chest. He doesn't look down at you or say a word, he'll rest his chin on his fist looking straight ahead searching for the right words. If it was a mutual argument he'll explain his own point of view after apologizing for losing his temper, and when it's your turn he'll listen quietly. If it was on him, he's even more remorseful. He's reaching almost a hundred years old by now, he should know better. Truthfully he had the same issue when he was alive, but he never meant to drive you to tears. You'll both sit quietly together on the couch, Dwayne rubbing your back until you've calmed down. After all is said and done he'll tell you how much he loves you, he doesn't want to leave any negative feelings still in your heart. Relationships are a pain, he knows that, but he cares about you more than his own life. 

Paul

Oh when you two go at it the gloves are off! Paul is the most emotional of the group, so when he gets mad all he sees is red. There will be a massive amount of yelling, he may even be fighting back some tears himself. He'll get physically frustrated, punching walls, throwing furniture, kicking things over. Yes, he might get in your face, and you can definitely expect him to bare his teeth at you. Especially if you're in his face too. By now it's not scary, just even more infuriating that he's trying to make to back out using intimidation. 

When you cry it can go one of two ways. It really depends on the context of the fight.

If you started it, or it was a mutual argument he may storm off somewhere in the cave. To him crying can be a cheap tactic to make him feel guilty, so if you've done it when you've done something wrong it upsets him… even more so because he feels like crap! He hates fighting with you! You're his kitten, his babe, regardless whether or not you started the fight he feels terrible seeing you like that. He's just so damn frustrated! After mellowing out with a thick ol' stick of the devil's lettuce he'll sulk out with his hands in his pockets. If you're still there he'll plop next to you and explain why he was so ticked off. Granted, it isn't exactly eloquent the way he puts it. After all emotions are tricky, he doesn't always know how to express himself verbally. If you've already left and it's still night, he'll fly over to your place and try to settle things with you. He doesn't want to go to bed angry at you, and he definitely doesn't want you going to bed upset with him.

If the fight was started by him, or if you're genuinely upset he'll stop. Especially if your tears are from him hurting you. Then it's all love. He sets aside his temper, and pulls you into his arms. It'll take a moment for him to calm down, but it's just a plethora of tender apologies while he holds you.

"I'm sorry kitty-cat," he coaxes you, holding your head to his chest. "Don't cry, okay? I hate it when you cry." 

If you aren't emotionally drained there'll probably be a lot of make-up sex in either situation. Once you two have made up, he wants to do everything he can to be close to you. Plus, he needs a release as well. Afterwards, he'll snuggle up to you still wearily mumbling apologies under his breath. 

Marko

Anger isn't a common emotion for Marko. Well, unchecked rage that is. He can get a little irritated, but it really takes a lot for him to lose his temper. Even still it's closer to David's methods than Paul. Again it's the context. If you've done something wrong or started the fight he'll be more prone to outbursts. 

While you're screaming at him, in his face he'll just watch you silently with a blank stare. On the surface he's calm. There's not a lot of yelling, but there can be some physical rage if you really push him. Marko would punch the wall and leave a crumbling chasm in his path, reminding you what happens when he's pushed too far. Truthfully he'd never put you in harm's way, but when he gets like this it's hard for him to stifle his predatorial rage that tends to poke through the cracks. 

If he's the one who's upset with you, even if it's on him, he probably won't let on at first. While not petty, he'll seem distant from you. In public he'll yank you to him like a wolf warning others to stay away from his mate, but alone in private won't touch you as much. You may try to ace your hand on his shoulder and he'd immediately excuse himself from the room to sulk. If you really get clingy he grows even more agitated and will have very rough angry sex with you, his fangs may even come out in the process. Especially if he's jealous.

 When you cry, it sucks. During a fight, after jealous defiling, when he intimidates you, it just sucks. If you step away from him he knows he's messed up. 

Part of him doesn't want to cave in so easily to your displays of emotion, but if you're legitimately hurt by his actions he'll just let out an exasperated sigh. He may excuse himself verbally for a moment to try and gather his thoughts, or he'll sit you down and try to explain his reasons for being so enraged. If it's on him he'll carry you to the couch and hold you to him. 

"*sigh* Look.. I'm sorry for going overboard the way I did, baby girl. I shouldn't have done that…"

If you cry after sex he'll feel like an utter asshole and hold you tight to him. He'll pet your hair, rub your back, even offer to let you smack him for being such a jerk. He may try to nibble your neck over kiss you until you start to giggle then give you his signature smile.

"There she is. I'm sorry I made you so sad, baby girl."

In all honesty this isn't a common occurrence. Marko still rarely ever gets mad at you, most of the time he's very laid back. So losing his temper is a bit jarring for him as well. He's never sure what will come out when he loses his temper, which is a huge reason why he does everything he can to keep himself in check. You may be a pain in the butt sometimes, but so can he. And above all, you're his pain in the butt. He still loves you more than anything at the end of the day. 

[molzies-fanfics]

Around you

A/N: This can be seen as angsty I guess, anyway hope you guys enjoy!

Bold text is text messages

Hey

Hey

Is it okay if I come over?

Sure...but why? What's going on? Has there been another foot attack?

No, nothing like that...I just wanna talk. If that's alright?

Oh. of course that's okay...I just, thought you'd talk to April about stuff more rather than me

Yeah, well...this one thing I need to get off my chest doesn't really involve April.

…

You might be better off coming round to my window rather than the main one then. April has a big meeting tomorrow and I don't want to wake her up.

Ok. Be there in 5

 See you then

Your heart was thundering away in your chest, Raph wanted to talk to you, alone. It set your nerves on edge, especially considering your huge crush on the burly terrapin. Hopefully he didn’t want to talk about anything too serious, you just wanted to have a chill night with him. Well, you were supposed to be asleep right now since you had school in the morning but you were willing to throw that out the window if Raph needed to talk. God, you had it bad.

 Hearing the familiar thud on the fire escape, you opened your window, revealing the teenage turtle in all his ninja glory. “Hey there.” You mumbled breathlessly. “Hey tiger.” He smiled fondly. “Want to go up to the roof?” there was a small silence before you replied “Sure.”

 “So…what do you want to talk about?” You sat down on the edge of the roof as you watched Raph starting to pace around on the gravel, clearly he was more wound up than he was letting on.

“I’ve had a surreal realization tonight.” He gestured towards you with one hand on his hip before pacing again. “Did you and Leo argue again?” you couldn’t help asking. “No! …well, yeah but that’s not the point. This happened during meditation.” Raph watched your face as you blanched. “Oh well that’s…unusual, for you I mean.” You recovered quickly.

 “Yeah, so…have you ever been so emotionally conflicted that it makes you want to fight people for like…days, but other times it makes you want to lie down like you’ve drank eight cans of orange crush in a row?” Raphael questioned hurriedly, you took a moment to piece together what he had said, thinking that he might be slightly hyperactive…maybe he had drank all of that orange crush?

 “That was…weirdly specific but sure, everybody gets like that sometimes I guess.” You answered finally, staying perfectly still as he ceased his pacing. “Right, but I narrowed this down to two specific scenarios.” He mentioned, although he looked worried when telling you this. Was everything okay? You thought to yourself. “Ok…what scenarios?” If something was wrong, you were kinda glad he came to you to talk through it rather than beat the crap out of some punching bag back at the lair.

 “I only feel like that when, 1: any of the people I’m really close to are in immediate danger…” he trailed off, somehow leading you to think he wanted you to piece together the puzzle. “That’s normal though…” you reassured him, talking calmly and slowly. “Yeah especially for me…but it’s the second scenario that really throws me off.” This was when the mood shifted, it had gone from fast paced and panicky to serene and sincere.

 “Okay? What’s the second one?”

 “…whenever I’m around you.”

 Your whole mind went blank, wondering if this was some elaborate prank or a mind trick set up by any of the turtles countless enemies. “Wha-What?” you gasped.

 Raph’s expression shifted from serious to…well, scared. “Look, I know we’re good friends and everything but…I wanna be more than that. I know that its scary, believe me I know, I’ve been debating this for so long. But something snapped in me today and I just felt like I had to tell you…even if it didn’t end very well. I just want you to know how I feel.”

 Giving yourself another moment to process what he was saying, that was when it hit you, Raph…he felt the same way about you, at least you think he did. “When you say, ‘how you feel’” you hopped off the ledge, approaching Raph slowly. “What exactly do you mean?”

 He physically gulped, as if he was intimidated by you, but you knew how intimidating feelings could be. “Raphael?” you prompted, blinking up at him when you came to a stop. Right in front of him. “I- I…I really like you…as in, more than friends.” He hung his head, staring at his feet. Getting closer, you found yourself raising your hand to rest on his cheek, guiding his gaze to meet yours.

 “I really like you too…for a long time actually.” You smiled, hoping he would take the next step. “You do?” he questioned, his brows furrowed, clearly surprised. It made your heart ache to know he was expecting rejection. “Of course I do. You’re Raph, the one who’s been there for me whenever I needed you, making me laugh when I wanted to cry, caring about me when I thought nobody else did…the one I’m falling in love with.” His face brightened at that. “You…you’re falling in love with me? Of all people?” he gave you that lady killing smile, the one you knew was going to take you out one day.

 “Yeah.” You mumbled, dropping your hand from his face to his neck. Raph let out a laugh before picking you up and twirling you around. “Raphie!” you squealed. “Sorry, I just- I’m really happy. The girl I like, likes me back.” He chuckled before placing you down. That was when something came back into your mind.

 “Wait, before you said ‘something snapped in you today’, what was that?” you queried. Raph’s expression darkened for a moment before staring into your eyes. “I…I saw you with that guy today.” You flinched at that. “Wha- Cody? But-”

 “Look I talked with the guys and they all said it was very unlikely for you to be dating someone since they were pretty sure you liked me. Of course I said you couldn’t wait around forever if that was the case, I never shoot my shot or shot my shoot, whatever the hell it is Mikey says. I just…I didn’t want to admit to the guys that I was…that I am…” he sighed roughly

 “Jealous?” you finished, genuinely shocked.

 ���…yeah.” He admitted, albeit sheepishly.

 “Um…Raph, I hate to break it to you although knowing you were jealous is touching, in a way, but Cody is my cousin.”

 “Wait…what?” Raphael blanked. “We went to get coffee, ironically he was telling me how he was planning on proposing to his boyfriend.” You finished explaining, although it wasn’t like you needed to explain yourself in the first place, your feelings for Raph were so strong you didn’t think you could just…go on a date with someone else.

 “…oh.”

 “You okay there?” you laughed to yourself, wondering how he was gonna recover from this one. Then an idea started to form in your mind. “Hey Raph?” you nudged him, wondering if he was still responding to his surroundings. “Yeah?” he let out.

 Slowly wrapping your arms around his neck, you went on your tippy toes to place a kiss on the corner of his mouth. His face whipped around to look at you as you pulled away, tilting your head innocently. “What was that for?” he whispered. “Nothing. I just thought since I like you and you like me…that this was okay. It is okay isn’t it?” you bit your lip, causing Raph’s golden eyes to glance at your mouth before meeting your eyes again. “More than okay.” Was all he said before leaning forward, his lips melding into yours.

 It was everything you had dreamed of and more.

[iceshard1011]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Sanders Sides (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton Characters: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Morality | Patton Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Additional Tags: Eventual Romance, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Non-Human Humanoid Society, (said society is The Worst), Sympathetic Sides (Sanders Sides), Mild Language, Discrimination, Flirting, Polyamory, Asexual Character, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Picnics, Angst with a Happy Ending, Play Fighting, Fallen Angels, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Teasing, Blood and Injury, Violence, Grief/Mourning, Protective Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Aftermath of Violence, Kissing, Threats of Violence, Deceit | Janus Sanders Needs a Hug, mentions of (heavily) implied transphobia, extra warnings in the end notes, please read them if you're uncertain or uncomfortable, Logic | Logan Sanders Angst, Morality | Patton Sanders Angst Summary:

“You are a demon,” he realised.

Patton tilted his head, and it reminded Virgil of a wild animal.

“Yes,” he agreed, “and you are an angel without a halo, in a world looking to destroy your wings.”

19k fic below the cut, too :)

please mind the trigger warnins in the tags here on tumblr, and in the end note on ao3.

note: the italics don’t carry through copy and paste, so if i have missed some on this tumblr post i apologise. in that regard, the story may be more accurate on ao3.

Janus and Virgil had been fighting.

Unfortunately, these current days, this was not an uncommon occurrence. It was not a physical battle, as that was forbidden within the city, and most other parts of the Angelic Kingdom, but any angel in the general radius of the pairs’ shouting matches knew to subtly evacuate as quickly and quietly as they could. Neither brother was pleasant to be around when agitated, and it seemed recently that they only frustrated each other.

After all, no other angel was going to pick a fight with the lead Angel of Diligence.

Remus yawned, leaning back to admire the drawing he had completed. He almost wished he could add some details, like a ruffle to the wings of the angel, or a scar or two along their skin. The sketch for the to-be mural just seemed so… bland. (At least he did not have to write, like Virgil did. The kid had a real knack for story-telling, but some of the things he was required to write for the ‘good of the reputation of the Angelic Kingdom’ was so boring and so much wasted potential that Remus had considered using the scrolls as snacks, if angels ate snacks — which they did not.)

He supposed that was what he signed up for, when becoming an artist. No single hair out of place. No negative interpretations. No misrepresentation of the angels in any way.

It was not too much of a loss. Nobody knew about his secret stash of personal sketches, decidedly not positive interpretations, in his room.

Remus, an Angel of Liberality, was one of the very few individuals who had the… Remus would think balls, Remus would say ‘bravery’ to be around Janus and Virgil during one of their fights.

Not much scared him. (Anymore, at least. He had faced the worst of his nightmares and come out simply fine. Not that he would voluntarily tell anyone this, though.)

Even when the walls shuddered with Janus’ bellow of, “ENOUGH!”

Remus strained his ears but did not hear Virgil reply. He put his scroll and quill down and ventured into the common area. Both Janus and Virgil’s faces were flushed red, their shoulders heaving.

After a moment, Janus visibly composed himself. He set his shoulders and folded his hands behind his back. He lifted his chin and did not meet Virgil’s eyes when he said, “You are dismissed.”

“Dismissed?” seethed Virgil. “This is my home—”

“It is ours, if not mine,” spat Janus, and Virgil recoiled, not looking any less angry. “You will not disrespect me.”

Virgil opened his mouth.

“I am older than you,” said Janus, because angels did not growl, even though Remus was quite sure that was almost a snarl. “You will follow my orders. You may leave.”

Virgil stared at him, his fingers twitching. Remus wondered if he was itching for a scroll. That usually happened to him when he wanted to sketch something down. Then he whirled around, his face twisted hatefully. He froze when he spotted Remus in the hallway, watching with rapt interest, but then squeezed passed him to the open archway of the house and shot into the sunlight.

Remus looked over at Janus. “What was that?”

Janus looked exhausted as he rubbed his eyes. “A mild disagreement about robes.”

Remus tilted his head. “These?” he asked, lifting a handful of the white robe he was wearing. Janus sighed.

“Yes.”

Remus waited for him to elaborate, but he did not. Remus shrugged. “They are a little gaudy.” Janus shot him a warning glare, but Remus was not fazed. He never was. “He will come around. He always does.”

“I do not know,” Janus said softly, because angels did not mutter. He sat at the table and heaved a quiet breath, leaning against the back of the chair, because angels did not slouch, even if they were emotionally drained. “It seems we will fight about anything, these days.”

Remus shrugged again. He did that a lot. He did not have an answer for the Angel of Diligence, so he moved to sit across from him. He did not know how to help; dinner was not for a few hours yet, and angels did not eat out of time.

“Sorry, Remus,” Janus said quietly, which was surprising, because angels did not apologise unless it was only very extremely necessary. Janus’ eyes were far away. “I doubt either of us mean to make you upset.”

“I am not upset,” Remus said, because angels did not lie. “I find it funny how you forget that the entire city can probably hear your little spats.” Janus did not even send a disapproving look in his direction, though Remus did not use the most... approximate angelic language. “You brought me in here. The least I can do is tolerate your dynamic.”

“This is not our dynamic,” Janus disagreed. “At least... it should not be our dynamic.”

Remus thought about that. “I am not the cause of your fighting, am I?”

“Certainly not,” Janus said vehemently. “Virgil is... tolerant of you, but not fond. He is not, however, jealous, nor unhappy with your presence.”

“Then why are you fighting so much?” Remus asked. He was aware his questions could start to become exhausting, but Janus did not seem to be getting tired of him.

“I do not know,” said Janus, and his voice was... strangely unstable. Like the verbal version of a wooden board wobbling. “I do not know, Remus.”

The two sat like that until it became time for dinner to be made, faces neutral and eyes blank.

Angels did not cry, no matter how much they might want to.

Virgil was not returning to the house.

He did not care what Janus thought, or what Janus wanted, or whatever the hell the Ancient Laws instructed angels to do. He was fairly sure angels were not supposed to yell, and yet his throat was strangely raw.

Angels also were not supposed to curse, but Virgil had already decided: fuck his brother, and those pretentious assholes who wanted to keep him stuck to a strict, pointless schedule for the rest of his life.

Virgil could not care less about speeches and presentation and perfection — he was not perfect. No one up there was, and the sooner they realised that the sooner he would find it in himself to return and maybe apologise.

But in the meantime, he was not going to sit around and be scolded for wearing ‘the wrong kind’ of clothes around his own house.

Maybe he was not supposed to be an angel. Maybe somehow, somewhere, the universe had fucked up and given him feathers and a bracelet instead of a tail and a pair of horns.

Branches whipped at his face, and he stumbled. He had gotten to the In Between faster than he thought he would. Maybe he had been flying faster than he realised.

He looked around at the strange, warped world, and swallowed the lump in his throat. Nothing lived here. Nothing could live here. A long time ago, the angels had chosen what gorgeous, superior beings they wanted to gift access into their kingdom, and the demons had been left with all the other unwanted creatures. The world In Between the two kingdoms was desolate, and empty, and still just as dangerous as a demonic fire ring with prancing hyenas.

Because any being, holy or not, sentient or not, spending too much time between worlds, without the source of either kingdoms’ power, would waste away until they were nothing but the still air.

Virgil wondered if that was what he wanted. If he wanted to cease to exist. If the kingdom was better off without him. It certainly did not seem like he was making much of a difference.

He did not growl, because angels did not growl (but was he even an angel anymore—?), but he made some sort of noise as he ripped his halo from its position as a bracelet on his wrist.

It dissolved when he threw it to the ground, but he did not feel any different. He wondered if he was supposed to, or if he really was as defective as he thought he was, no matter what Janus had ever tried to argue otherwise.

He sunk to the ground and found that he did not actually care if he was snuffed from existence.

“Oh, goodness!”

Virgil’s eyes snapped open.

“What in Lucifer’s name are you doing here—?”

Something touched his shoulder, and Virgil’s veins were shot through with panic.

Virgil reared back, shooting to his feet, and flaring his wings.

“No, no, hey, I’m sorry!” the voice yelped, and from where he was struggling to stay aloft in the air, Virgil stared at the speaker. They were small, at least smaller than Virgil, and he was considered short by angel standards. They held themselves oddly, like they were ready to bolt at any second, despite looking very intrigued with Virgil. Their sandy hair was either so curly that it covered the sides of their head completely, or they had no ears, which was too odd of an option, really. At least, it would have been if... Their... well, their  legs  were normal enough, apart from the strange elongation of their foot, and the fact that they had no toes, and only the hoof of a deer, or maybe pig.

“Calm down, kiddo,” they were saying, holding their petite hands up. “Just breathe. I’m sorry for startling you.”

Virgil scowled but dropped to the ground, finding it too hard to remain suspended in air. He eyed the newcomer dubiously.

“My name’s Patton,” they said, and Virgil felt his lip curling into what would have been a grimace — if angels grimaced, which they did not.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

The stranger looked surprised. “I just saw you curled on the ground. I was worried.”

Virgil stared at him, bewildered. Patton, it seemed, was undeterred, and smiled brightly.

“What’s your name, kiddo?”

“Virgil.” The correct answer was,  I am Virgil, as angels were instructed to respond, but... Virgil was not feeling like much of an angel at this moment.

Patton practically swooned. “That’s such a nice name!”

Virgil stared at him, baffled. What sort of answer was that? He did not have a nice name. He just had... a name. Like everyone else. It was neither nice nor not nice. Some names held more power than others, but his name was bland. Bland and boring and useless.

“You are very weird,” he decided.

Patton thought about that. “Um... Thanks!”

Virgil was getting more and more confused. “That was not a compliment.”

Patton frowned, and for a moment he almost thought that Patton may have been a big brother, because it was almost identical to the little pinch that Janus got between his eyebrows. “Virgil, buddy, that’s rude.”

It was then that Virgil noticed that the lack of normal looking ears was because of the pair of pale, flopping ears on either side of Patton’s head through his curls, and Virgil blanched.

“You are a demon,” he realised.

Patton tilted his head, and it reminded Virgil of a wild animal.

“Yes,” he agreed, “and you are an angel without a halo, in a world looking to destroy your wings.”

For a moment, Virgil was confused, but then he glanced back and saw a handful of white feathers fluttering to the ground. The In Between was taking its toll on him faster than he thought it would.

He shuddered, and more feathers floated down.

“Come with me,” Patton said, and Virgil’s head snapped around to glare at him. The demon smiled carefully. “It’s alright. My home isn’t far, it’s on the edges of the kingdom. You’ll be safe there.”

“I am an angel,” Virgil pointed out. He shifted uncomfortably. “I do not belong with demons.”

“What are your other options?” Patton asked. If Janus had said it, it would have been rhetorical; sarcastic, scathing. A tactic to make Virgil consider how stupid he was being. When Patton spoke, it sounded like a real question, like he genuinely wanted to know what else Virgil could do.

Virgil looked away and did not answer.

“Come with me,” Patton said again, beseechingly. “I promise, it’ll be alright.”

Virgil’s gaze darted around the landscape, then down to his shedded feathers. “Very well,” he muttered, because he did not feel like following angelic rules.

Patton beamed, turning. “Great! Follow me.”

Virgil followed him through the strange rock and twisting not-quite trees. The uneven ground bit at Virgil’s bare feet, who was used to gentle, cloudy floors. The world around them got darker, but Virgil was not sure how. It all became muddled, cloudy, but more like a night thunderstorm than tufts on a sunshine-lit day.

When Virgil squinted, he realised it was because the grey sky had morphed into a cloudy night sky. The underside of the clouds had a red hue, like reflecting a sunset, but Virgil could not see the light of a sun anywhere. There was a strange haze around the area, like the smoke of a fire. It was nothing blinding, but enough that Virgil had to squint to see anything in the far distance. Craggy mountain tops lunged for the dark, velvet sky, not anything more than dark silhouettes in the gloom. The ground was littered with natural rubbish, in the sense that it was far more cluttered than the In Between, where while the ground may have been uneven, it had no loose materials adding to its character. And of course, the Angelic Kingdom never had anything out of place on its perfect pathways. This place looked like it was constantly ravaged with tremors.

Virgil wanted to ask where they were, but he had a feeling that he already knew.

He followed Patton over the strewn ground, picking his way over the loose rocks and barbed shrubbery. There was a dark river cutting through the ground along the path they were walking, but Virgil did not want to look too closely. He could not tell if it was water or not, and whatever it was, was certainly not holy.

After too-long of Virgil trying desperately not to trip, a house of sorts cut through the odorless smog.

It looked ordinary, the closer they got. If Virgil was going to go for brutal honesty, he would call it closer to a hut than a house. Maybe a mound of somewhat sturdy dried mud and twigs pressed up against the base of a cliff. Or maybe those walls were just incredibly old, dirty bricks. He could not tell.

He wrinkled his nose. Was he going to be expected to say here?

An image flashed through his mind, of a haughty group of pompous angels frowning down at him from their palace in the white clouds, and Virgil decided he was happy with anything this strange little demon was going to offer.

“Is... this your home?” he asked, as politely as he could.

“It is!” Patton said.

Virgil looked between the demon and his home. “It is... nice.”

He obviously didn’t sound as convinced as he wanted to because Patton giggled, and said, “What? Did you think we all lived in gory, dark caves and castles?”

Virgil’s cheeks heated against his will. “I did not exactly... learn much about you.”

Patton’s gaze softened with sympathy. “Well,” he said, moved up to the blocked off entrance of the house in that odd, animalistic gait of his, “let’s try and change that, shall we?”

He opened the wall of the house and darted in. Virgil followed, having to duck slightly in the entranceway.

“I’m home!” Patton called out. Virgil looked around. It was... extremely cluttered, in the house. There was a hollow shelf, holding scrolls, like it was a very, exceedingly small library. There was a table with a thick, open tome with unintelligible scribbles across it, a small black stick resting beside it on the wood. A fireplace was positioned off to the side, with gathered crockery, looking as if they were washed with black water. Virgil thought about the river outside and wondered if that was not far from the truth.

“You’ve returned earlier than usual,” a new voice said, and a demon with dark, sharp lines staining the corner of his eyes  materialised from the side wall. Wait, no, he had just done the same thing that Patton had done to get in... What were those strange, moving wall-parts? (And was he wearing eyeliner? Or was that natural?)

“Is everything— Oh.” The demon’s dark, gorgeous eyes found Virgil, and the angel suddenly felt very scrutinised. “Patton, this is an angel.”

“This is  Virgil,”  Patton corrected, and Virgil felt something in his chest react. “And he’s going to be staying for a long as he would like.”

The other demon blinked, and Patton turned to Virgil. “Virgil, this is Logan.”

The demon dipped his dark head, and Virgil wondered if all demons had strange skin colours like Patton’s dusty brown and Logan’s dark navy.

“Welcome,” Logan said, albeit a little stiffly. “I would say that I hope your stay hospital, but I have reasons to believe that this place is already... less than stellar compared to what you are used to.”

What Virgil was used to? Virgil was used to being judged. He was used to being yelled at. He was used to always being in the wrong, to being scolded for not being presentable enough, for being stared at and murmured about when he was thought to be out of earshot. He was used to not belonging — and while he had never felt more out of place than in this wrecked land of fire and brimstone and dark atmosphere, these demons were looking at him expectantly, like they cared about his opinion, like they cared about what he was going to say next.

His lips hedged on the beginnings of a smile.

“It is appreciated,” Virgil told Logan, and the unfairly pretty demon looked like he was preening. Something shifted behind him, and with a jolt, Virgil realised with a start that the long tailfeathers of a peacock were protruding from beneath his clothes.

Patton giggled and thumped Virgil’s hip with his own. The angel stumbled, and looked at Patton, perplexed. Was that some sort of greeting, in demonic language?

Patton did not notice his confusion, though, and looked around the house. “Where’s Roman?”

Virgil swallowed. How many demons lived here?

“Last I saw him, he was upstairs,” Logan said, moving to the table to peer down at the open book. “He was taking a break from writing.”

“Oh.” Patton’s odd ears dropped sympathetically. “Poor kiddo. He works so hard.”

“I doubt that anyone in the city will be even remotely interested in this novel, either,” Logan muttered, sounding mutinous. “No one cares for a grounded demon’s talent.”

“Grounded demon?” Virgil asked before he could stop him. The other two looked over at him.

“That’s what we are,” Patton said. “I’m sure you’ve always thought of demons with whipped tails and big bat wings, huh?” Virgil nodded. “Not all demons are like that. You angels have categories, right?”

Virgil stared at him blankly.

“The Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Heavenly Virtues,” Logan elaborated. “Humility, pride. Kindness, envy.”

“Oh.” Virgil’s wings shuffled with his shrug. “Yes. We called them Traits.”

“Well, some demons, like ones of pride and anger, tend to be more high ranking. They live in the centre of the kingdom, where most of the rich demons reside. They... uh...”

“Have superiority complexes,” a third voice said, and Virgil whirled around to see a demon descending the stairs that he had not previously realised were there. Where were those stairs on the outside of the house? Where was the second floor?

The third demon blinked sleepily at Virgil before yawning. “You’re new,” he said mildly.

“I am visiting,” Virgil said. The demon bobbed his head.

“You’re cute. You can stay.” He brushed past Virgil and headed over to the fireplace.

“Roman,” Patton said in a scolding voice. “No hitting on the guest.”

Roman shook himself, his wild hair flinging in all directions. From a distance, Virgil peered curiously at the little horns poking up through his wavy locks. Did all demons have animalistic features?

“As long as the guest doesn’t ask for it,” Roman said without looking back.

“I would not want to find endearment with a demon,” Virgil snapped. Roman glanced over his shoulder, and Virgil realised that his pupils were horizontal. The demon smirked, and it could have been hot, if Virgil was not already deeply unimpressed by his behaviour.

“You’re talking to a Demon of Lust, darling,” he said. “You don’t know  what  you want.”

“Roman,” Patton said in a warning voice, and Roman sighed heavily. Virgil had not realised his eyes had been glowing red until they dimmed to normal.

“Fine, fine, whatever,” he grumbled, and the silk in his silky voice switched out for a grumble. “Food, anyone?”

“Oooh, I’m hungry,” Patton said, bounding over. Virgil felt utterly lost. He looked over to Logan for help.

“Patton is a Demon of Gluttony,” Logan explained quietly, which was not really what Virgil had been silently asking. They both watched Roman and Patton rummage around in the fireplace. Virgil wondered if it was the demonic equivalent to a kitchen. “He often can’t help when he feels hungry, which is one hundred percent of the time. Indulging him is the best course of action.”

Virgil nodded carefully, considering that. “How are you… categorised?”

Logan kept his eyes on his demon friends. “I’m a Demon of Pride.”

“Should you not then be in the heart of the kingdom?” Virgil asked.

“I was born without wings,” Logan said plainly. “It happens, in some family lines. Genetic mishaps, mutations, so on and so forth. I did my best to live up to the standards of being a Demon of Pride, but quickly found it illogical to attempt to be someone I physically could not be.”

Virgil ducked his head. “I know the feeling,” he did not actually say.

“I am an Angel of Patience,” he murmured softly instead. Logan looked over at him, and nodded, once.

“Thank you for trusting me with that,” Logan said. Virgil shrugged. He did not know why he had. For all he knew, these demons were going to sacrifice him to their gods and eat his flesh and bone. Maybe Virgil was so apathetic at this point that he did not care what these demons wanted from him.

He pulled away from Logan’s side, looking around the room. His gaze landed on the desk and book. “You were saying that Roman... writes?”

“As a pastime,” said Logan. “His tales are slightly too romanticised, and gaudy, but I can appreciate the artistry to them. He... has yet to achieve the same praise from anyone outside of me and Patton, however.”

“May I ask...” Virgil trailed off, but Logan waited patiently. Virgil pointed at the long black stick. “What is that?”

“Charcoal,” Logan said. He crossed to Virgil and picked it up. He pushed it to the corner of the page, and it left a blackened, dusty spot behind. When Logan put it back down, his hands were tinted that same dark colour. “It’s what we write with. Do you not?”

“Quills,” Virgil answered faintly. “The end of cleaned feathers and pots of ink.”

“Ah.” Logan shook his head. “I can’t say that we are as... sophisticated.”

“You don’t have feathers to use as quills,” Virgil reasoned.

“Quite right.”

“Virgil!” Patton bounded over. “Do you eat?”

“Of course he eats,” Roman said, prowling over with him, licking his lips. For a moment, Virgil thought he was being suggestive again, but then he realised he was eating... some clump of fur and meat in his hands. Virgil looked away before he could be sick. “Angels are notorious for being fed purely on bullshit and assholiness.”

“Roman!” Patton snapped.

“Just as demons are grovelling, snarling creatures of grime and spit,” Virgil retorted, lifting his chin to frown down at Roman.

For a moment, the Demon of Lust looked mildly surprised, and maybe impressed. Then he frowned, looking confused. “For an Angel of Patience, you’re not the nicest individual I’ve ever come across.”

“Roman!” Patton chided again, but Virgil was already feeling the fight leaving him, making way for the resigned depression.

“Perhaps some of us just do not belong where Fate claims they do,” he muttered.

Roman perked up at that, looking excited. “Ooo, bad-mouthing Fate?  That’ll get you somewhere where you don’t want to be.”

Patton planted himself between the two of them. “Roman, that’s enough.”

Roman grumbled but subsided obediently.

“How did you hear me?” Virgil asked, changing the topic. “About my Trait.”

“Heightened hearing,” Patton answered with a sunny smile that looked a bit too forced. “Goats and pigs have it. Peacocks, too.”

“Goats and pigs?” Virgil echoed.

“The animals representing lust and gluttony?” Roman said from where he was now sitting at the desk. “Do you not know anything about culture?”

“Not yours,” Virgil said, and he did not mean for it to be an insult.

“Well, anyway,” Patton not-so-subtly interjected, “I got you something to drink. I hope it’s okay.” He handed a mug that did not have a handle over to Virgil, who took it and sniffed the warm contents inside. It smelt like chocolate, with hazelnut, and maybe milk. But the mug itself was so dark. Virgil wondered if it had even been washed.

“What do you wash the bowls with?” he blurted before he could stop himself.

Patton looked slightly confused as he answered slowly, “We wash them with water, kiddo.”

Virgil looked at the mug in his hands dubiously. “They are black.”

“Oh, that’s just made of obsidian,” Patton answered. Virgil had no idea what he was talking about.

“It’s a type of stone you can get from volcanoes,” Logan explained, like he was explaining the existence of demons and angels to a human.

Virgil whirled on him. “There’s volcanoes out here?” he demanded.

Roman tilted his head. “Did you not see the huge mountain right next to our home?”

“Your home is built on a volcano?” Virgil cried.

“Beside,”  correct Logan, “not on.” (Virgil was not reassured.)

He looked between the three demons and took a sip of the drink. It was sweet, almost syrupy as it went down. He waited for the burning, or the pain. For his airways to close and his brain to shut down and the demons to laugh as his vision faded.

“Is it good?” Patton asked expectantly.

“I like it,” Virgil answered honestly. Patton smiled.

“You let me know if you want any refills,” he said. “Would you like to eat anything?”

Virgil glanced over at where Roman was licking the blood his snack had left on his fingers. He froze when he found Virgil’s gaze locked onto him, and almost  apologetically,  said, “We have more than raw possum, if you wanted.”

Virgil was not sure what his face was doing, but it got a smile from Patton before the gluttonous demon darted back to the fireplace.

“Don’t you think you could have eaten that with slightly less mess?” Logan asked Roman.

“Hey, a demon’s got to do what a demon’s got to do. I’m hungry; I eat.”

“Yes, but you’re not exactly setting a great first impression to our guest,” Logan said, as if Virgil was not standing right beside them.

“Oh.” Roman looked over at Virgil. “My apologies, Patient Angel.”

It sounded more like a mockery of a nickname, and Virgil wrinkled his nose, but he had something else on his mind.

“You all speak strange,” he said honestly.

Roman’s eyebrows arched.  “We’re  the ones who talk strangely?”

“Roman.” Logan frowned at him.

Virgil thought about how to word what he was thinking. “Angels do not… shorten words, like you all do.”

Logan and Roman stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“You guys don’t speak in apostrophes?” Roman asked.

Virgil frowned. “Apostrophes?”

“Lucifer’s pitchfork...” Roman muttered under his breath with a shake of his head.

Patton arrived back with them, pushing a slate of what looked maybe like cream or yogurt into Virgil’s hands. “It’s got blueberries in it,” he said, also handing him a small, bent spoon.

Virgil looked at the little tub, to Patton, and back. Cautiously, he ate a spoonful. It tasted just as good as the drink, and did not kill him. He nodded approvingly. Patton beamed, and moved to hand Logan a platter of an assortment of foods that Virgil could not identify. The Demon of Gluttony darted back to the fireplace and returned with a bowl of what looked like crushed dragon fruit and maybe dried bread, but truly, Virgil did not have much clue as to what the food really was. He was about to ask when Patton and Logan both promptly sat on the ground.

The angel paused, startled. He looked around for a chair, but besides the one Roman was sitting in (backwards, now, as to see the others) at the desk, there were not any chairs. Slowly, Virgil lowered himself to the ground with them. He slowly ate through the meal Patton had provided him.

“Do you not have a schedule of meals?” Virgil asked finally.

Patton tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Angels cannot eat outside of the times on their schedules,” Virgil explained, and Patton looked horrified.

“We have no such rules,” Logan said. “No one moderates what we eat.”

“Bleh.” Roman made a face. “Imagine eating at the same time as everyone else. Gross.”

“Yes, the whole demonic kingdom would be covered in bloodied fur and splattered organs,” Virgil agreed sagely, and Patton burst into giggles. Even Logan looked like he was hiding a smile. Roman fumed in his seat.

“You’ll regret that, angel,” he growled, crouching on the seat.

For a terrifying moment, the demon launched from the chair, and Virgil waited for his throat to be ripped out.

But then Patton collided with Roman and the two thumped heavily to the floor, growling and snarling.

Virgil shot to his feet with a yelp, spilling the cream from his bowl. “Patton!” he shrieked, waiting for hot blood to spray onto the floor and Roman to go for Logan next.

But Roman only twisted, rolling Patton onto his back, and pinning him to the ground with a triumphant but breathy, “Ha!”

“Oh, very good,” Patton said, sounding frustrated and proud at the same time. “I could never beat you, anyway.”

“You certainly can’t,” Roman agreed. “You’re only small, Pattycakes. And you never had littermates to practice on.”

“Fair enough.” Patton sighed defeatedly. “You can’t always fight fire with fire.”

“Right.” Roman tossed his head importantly, so he missed the sly smirk creeping onto Patton’s face moments before his arms shot up to dig his hands into Roman’s sides.

The lustful demon shrieked, twisting to roll off Patton, who pounced on his friend, tickling him into the ground.

Still screaming and laughing, Roman hooking his arms over Patton’s waisted and dragging him down to be flush against his own body, preventing him from having the height advantage. Virgil was wondering if this was a common occurrence when Logan stepped in.

“Alright, alright.” The prideful demon moved towards them, his meal carefully placed to the side. Virgil glanced guiltily down at his spilled snack with a twist in his stomach. “That’s enough. We—”

Roman and Patton both lunged for Logan at the same time, dragging him to the ground into their cuddle pile.

Virgil tilted his head, almost trying to study them.

“Are you siblings?” he asked abruptly, and attention turned to him. For a moment, he felt guilty for interrupting their moment and cutting off their laughter, but then Roman’s returned, tenfold, and Virgil was pretty sure the only reason the demon had not curled into a ball yet was because of Patton and Logan’s weights pinning him flat to the ground.

“He thinks we’re littermates!” the Demon of Lust howled, tears forming at the edges of his eyes. Patton giggled with him. Logan did not laugh, but he did smile. Virgil was feeling far too out of place.

“No, we are not related,” Logan said to Virgil.

Virgil thought about Patton putting his hand on Virgil’s shoulder the moment he met him, and bumping their hips, and his spat with Roman, and now looked to where Logan was trying to explain further but was being distracted by the other two, and how he looked pretty far from professional from where he was squeezed into the snuggle pile.

“But you are so... touchy.”

Finally, the laughter died down again.

“I think demons are just like that,” Patton said, then drooped. “But... yeah, even for demon standards, I’ve been told I’m a bit much.”

“Not for us,” Roman said fiercely.

“You also live together,” Virgil went on. “Yet you are not related?”

“Is that an angelic rule?” Patton asked. His voice was gentle. Virgil nodded.

“As far as I am concerned, it is very common here for demons to live in family groups, but it is not a rule.” Logan pulled himself from the demons, despite Roman’s unhappy scowl. “It is, however, quite uncommon to contact and reside with demons outside of one’s category. Our group is... a bit of an anomaly.”

“I don’t know what that means but I bet it’s something super!” Patton chirped. He wiggled off Roman, who was looking more and more put-off with his cuddle buddies leaving him. “So... you’ve never been hugged, Virgil? Or touched, or anything?”

“I mean... sometimes,” Virgil mumbled. “When it was... really important.”

“Hugs  are really important!” Patton said. “Would you like one right now?”

Virgil shuffled. “No, thank you.” He looked forlornly down at where he tipped over his food and guilt curled around him again. “I ruined your floor.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Patton said, waving his hands like he was waving away the issue.

Roman looked between the two of them, inquisitive, then yawned. “I’m tired.”

“You had a nap,” Logan said.

“I want another one,” Roman snapped. “Anyone care to join me?”

Virgil blanched, but the others did not react badly.

“Not tonight, kiddo,” Patton said. “We need to get Virgil sorted for where he’s going to stay. Wouldn’t want him to feel left out, now, would we?”

Roman grumbled under his breath and shot Virgil a dirty look, as if it was all his fault (and maybe it was) before stalking up the stairs like a prowling cat more than a grumpy goat.

“If you’re not siblings, are you partners?” Virgil asked. Patton and Logan shared a glance.

“It’s complicated,” Patton said carefully. “For... different reasons.”

“For starters, Roman is asexual,” Logan said, and Patton yelped and slapped him across the side of the head. The prideful demon instantly realised his mistake and ducked his head.

Virgil stared at him, trying to pick that apart. “An asexual Demon of Lust?”

Patton’s expression turned into something slightly more guarded and careful and utterly alien on that friendly face.

“It’s not unheard of,” he said, like he had to defend Roman.

“It’s possibly partly the reason he doesn’t belong anywhere but on the outskirts of the kingdom,” Logan said, and Virgil wondered if he had any tact.

Patton hissed at Logan, and he ducked his head, effectively ridiculed.

“I’m sorry, Virge,” the gluttonous demon said. “It wasn’t our place to tell you.”

“Roman has always been open about this,” Logan pointed out, and Patton frowned at him.

“That’s not quite the point, sugar,” murmured Patton, and Virgil tried not to wrinkle his noise.  ‘Sugar’?

“Is everything okay?” Logan asked, and Virgil realised he’d been staring at the ground.

He looked up. “Is... is that normal, here?”

“Is what normal, kiddo?” Patton tilted his head.

Virgil did not know how to explain his question.

“There was... an angel I knew,” he started, slowly. “And... they did not like it when angels called them... a girl.” Patton’s eyes flooded with understanding, though Virgil was not sure how because he had not yet finished the story. “But... being who you are is something gifted to angels by Fate. It is a crime to think about changing it, and for anyone to agree. For that reason, angels are not to have makeup, or jewellery, unless it is for something like a theatre performance. So... this angel wanting to be called... ‘they’... was... shamed, and ignored, and eventually they just ran away, and they— she— ugh.”

Virgil made a very unlike angel noise and buried his face in his hands. He did not know why he was saying this, why he was asking these questions. Perhaps he had nothing left to lose. Maye he was just too tired to care anymore. Regardless of the reason, he was exposing himself to these demons — his kind’s sworn enemy — and he could not find it in himself to feel scared.

“It is hard to wrap my head around. Does that— Am I bad?”

“No.”

Surprisingly, the fierce answer came from Logan. Virgil looked up. The Demon of Pride was frowning, a flame in his eyes, but Virgil instinctively knew he was not the one in trouble.

“It is not your fault for being ignorant in a kingdom of arrogance,” Logan said firmly. “You are trying. You’re not ignoring us, like those other angels. Nor did you ignore that angel, just now, like anyone else did. That’s commendable.”

Virgil shook his head in disagreement but did not verbally protest.

“Did you ever hear from that angel again?” Patton asked with round eyes.

“No. Everyone thinks they just wasted away in the In Between. Their sister didn’t even care. She boasted that she was glad they were gone. My... my brother...”

Truth be told, Janus had followed along with just about everything the other angels had said. He had nodded along to their angry rants, and scowled in disgust, and tutted disapprovingly, all at the right points.

But when Virgil had stopped and looked, really looked, he had seen the tightness in Janus’ jaw. The tortured look in the back of his eyes. The way he would walk away from the conversation with clenched fists and tense shoulders.

He had not agreed with what the kingdom had been saying, but he had not had the bravery to say otherwise. Virgil was not much better; he was just as much of a coward.

“Angels have always been... close minded.” Logan spoke carefully, like he was stepping on glass.

“Not all of them.” Patton said with a smile in Virgil's direction, and if he was not so emotionally drained, Virgil may have blushed. Logan hummed in agreement, and then disappeared upstairs.

Patton led Virgil upstairs to a room at the end of a hallway. It was scattered with mink blankets and camel skins. The bed was long and low to the ground. The only light source was the hazy light from outside, hovering into the room through a window to cast the room in a red glow. It was a strange bedroom, far more different than Virgil’s back in the Angelic Kingdom.

“Was this... a spare room?” Virgil asked.

“What? No, silly, it’s my room!” Patton said brightly. Virgil blanched.

“I’m— I’m not staying in your room,” he said.

“Of course you are!”

“No!” Virgil cried. “I could not do that! It’s your bed!”

“Oh, I’ll just sleep on the floor downstairs.”

“No!” Virgil cried again, feeling more and more distressed. Who did he think he was? Invading the demons’ home like this, eating their food, ruining their carpet? Stealing Patton’s bed?

“No, no, it’s okay,” Patton was saying, rubbing his hands up and down Virgil’s bare arms. His skin burned under the demon’s touch. “It’s alright, sweetheart, breathe.”

“I do not want to steal your bed,” Virgil said through weird pants that were ravaging his body. “I do not... I...”

“Alright, honey. Okay.” Patton’s breath warmed Virgil’s cheek, and Virgil wondered distantly if Patton was standing on the tips of his toes to reach him. “No bed-stealing here. Okay?” Virgil nodded. “Okay. Come on, then.” He started to pull Virgil towards the bed.

“Hey, hey, no,” Patton said when Virgil jerked away from him. “It’s okay. You’re not kicking me out.”

“I can sleep on the floor,” Virgil offered. “I can leave—”

“No, no,” Patton insisted softly, crawling backwards into the bed, and gently pulling Virgil in with him. “Relax, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

“We—” Virgil swallowed. “We are sharing the bed?”

“I will not have a guest of mine sleep on the floor,” Patton said vehemently. Virgil tried to hide his smile. “And I don’t want to freak you out, so... this is a compromise?”

Virgil looked around the dim room, and then down at the demon, curled beside him, looking worried. He did not hide his smile that time.

“It is a good compromise,” he decided, and when Patton smiled that smile of his, Virgil found himself falling asleep easily.

Virgil awoke to the sounds of chatter and the smell of cooking meat. 

He sat up, first confused at his unfamiliar surroundings, before remembering Janus, and the In Between, and Patton... And he was out of bed in quite a hurry.

He looked down at his wrinkled tunic. He thought about the near-rags the demons had worn yesterday, and how different their society was to angels, and wondered if they would care for his... unimpressive appearance.

He descended the stairs, found the three demons sprawled out around the floor, and decided they really would not.

“Good morning,” he said quietly, and Roman jumped three feet in the air. Virgil was seriously starting to doubt he was not a cat.

“Oh. You weren’t a fever dream,” he said blandly.

Logan sighed pointedly. Roman ducked his head but did not apologise.

“Good morning, Virgil,” Logan returned with a nod.

“‘Morning!” Patton chirped. “Here, we tried cooking some food for once. Um. I hope it’s okay.” He scampered over to pass him a plate of something that was almost burnt.

“Thank you,” Virgil said. He peered closely at it. “Angels do not have... whatever this is.” Roman gave an indignant squawk. “What is it?”

“Meat,” offered Patton.

“Food,” grumbled Roman.

“It is crocodile,” answered Logan.

Virgil almost dropped the plate. “What?”

Patton’s shoulders drooped. “It was the freshest meat we could get. Only a little bit! And we skinned it, don’t worry!”

Virgil wondered if he was turning green. “I-I do not think that I am very hungry.”

Patton’s face fell. “Oh.”

Something inside Virgil twisted at his crestfallen expression. “Uh—” he stuttered, which was odd because angels did not stutter. “Do you have cutlery?”

Patton instantly brightened and darted away to bring back a single fork. He moved around a lot, Virgil thought.

He held up the fork. “What... I...”

“You eat with it,” Patton said.

Virgil resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I am to pick up this entire slice with a fork and... what, eat it in one gulp?”

“Do it, coward,” egged Roman. Patton and Virgil whirled to glare at him, but as Patton opened his mouth to scowl him, Virgil took the challenge head on and shoved what he could of the meat into his mouth.

It was chewy, and embarrassingly too much, and Virgil made a mess, but he managed to chew and swallow the whole piece in one go, and the demons looked thoroughly impressed.

“I rescind my ‘coward’ comment,” Roman said faintly, and Virgil would have smiled triumphantly if he was not so busy trying desperately to wipe his mouth clean. Patton giggled, and a moment later he was in front of Virgil, wiping his lips with the end of his torn sleeve.

Virgil blinked down at those sparkling blue eyes, so bright compared to his dark skin. If all demons were this gorgeous (which Roman and Logan were not, but they were still close) Virgil figured he would struggle to stay here much longer.

He ducked away before anyone of them could see the heat rising in his cheeks.

“Well, that was disappointedly uneventful.” Roman stood up and stretched. “I’m going to head out for the day.”

“Whatever for?” Logan asked. “You were out all of yesterday.”

“Inspiration, Bird Brain!” Roman said brightly. “There’s bound to be inspiration somewhere out there, and I just have to find it!” He padded over to the blocked entrance way and promptly... unblocked it.

“May I ask something?” Virgil blurted, and the demons looked back at him, surprised.

Patton inclined his head. “Something on your mind, kiddo?”

Virgil moved from Patton’s side to Roman’s and stared at the strange entranceway. He pointed at it. “What... what is this?”

“A... door?” Patton asked slowly.

Virgil looked between the demons and the door. “Angels do not have doors.”

“Satan, are there anything that angels  do have?” Roman muttered.

“A good sense of who is an unnecessary dick,” Virgil said imperiously. Roman gaped at him. Virgil was not sure if he was more offended or impressed.

“Why don’t we all go out for the day?” Patton suggested abruptly. “We can help Roman look for something to write about and have a picnic at the same time!”

“Demons have picnics?” Virgil asked.

“I’m sure it’s not nearly as appealing as your sunlit, wind-filled ventures,” Roman sniped with a vicious smile, “but I’m sure we can find some place that will be just as dazzling.” Virgil wrinkled his nose sceptically. Roman grinned merrily over his shoulder. “Come on, then!” He disappeared out the door.

Logan rolled his eyes. “He’s damn hopeless,” he muttered, moving after him regardless. “Are you two coming?”

Virgil followed the trio of ambling demons out into the wasted landscape of red rock and hazy smoke. He eyed the burned-up shrubbery and shallow craters dubiously. Did Roman really think he could find a place that could rival a picnic area like those they had in the Angelic Kingdom, with a gentle breeze and clear air and brilliant sun? Maybe the real reason he could not write something good enough for the city’s attention was that he was just delusional.

After almost tripping over multiple loose rocks, having his robes caught on several spiked, burnt shrubbery and having a particularly scary, too-close encounter with a suddenly bursting geyser, Virgil was ready to end the adventure and drag the demons back to the house — or at the very least, trudge back on his own.

It was entirely unfair that the demons seemed to move much easier than him.

Roman, at the front of the group, had a pounce in his step. He leapt over boulders with ease and almost  pinged off the ground each time he moved. Logan stepped lightly, delicately, but still with so much more grace than Virgil could manage. Even Patton, who supposedly was a Demon of Gluttony, totted pleasantly along, having no trouble with the difficult terrain.

It was an obvious given, but Virgil was not built for this hellbent place.

“Ready, you angelic pain?” Roman called, bringing Virgil from his thoughts. He looked up to see that they were approaching a strange wall of thorned bushes. Virgil was not sure there were even any flowers or leaves on the branches. He scowled.

“Ready to walk back to the house accompanied with thorn-sized divots covering my body? It’s a hard pass from me.”

Roman threw his head back and laughed. Without another word, he reached forward and brushed a portion of the branches aside, the thorns scraping harmlessly against his rough, dark skin, and Logan ducked through the created entrance.

Patton wiggled with delight and bounded right after, but Virgil hesitated. He could not see what was beyond the thorn wall. He glanced between Roman and where the other two had disappeared.

The Demon of Lust only smiled toothily. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.”

Virgil scowled again and brushed passed him, carefully avoiding stray branches.

Now, Virgil grew up — literally — in the light. He was used to bright days and no cloud cover. Houses were always lit with sunlight and extra candles and orbs of brightness. Even nighttime had sparkled with stars and the overhead moon.

Fair to say, Virgil’s eyes were used to intense, beaming displays.

Virgil was not prepared for the blazing light that assaulted him the moment he crossed through the thorn bush wall.

He might have actually staggered (which angels were not supposed to do under any circumstance) because he felt far too unsteady on his feet until a warm hand pressed to his back. His hands had risen automatically to shield his face, and he squinted desperately to see through his fingers at the blinding light.

“Oh, bad luck!” Roman’s voice said, just behind him. “Don’t worry, it just pulses sometimes. The blindness will recede eventually.”

“Eventually?” Patton squawked, somewhere at Virgil’s side. Virgil could just about  hear Roman rolling his eyes.

“Fine, fine! Here, keep your eyes closed.” A pair of warm fingers pushed down on Virgil’s eyelids, and he fought against the urge to pull away. The hands were gentle and careful, and it almost felt like they were rubbing the light from behind his eyes.

After a moment, Roman retracted his hands, and Virgil’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked, then blinked again, trying to find something to focus on.

Patton’s bright blue eyes and curious expression and careful smile, it seemed, were mighty fine things to look at.

“Are you okay?” the gluttonous demon asked.

“He’s  fiiiiine,”  groaned Roman. “Come on, come on! I want to show you around!”

Virgil shook his head to clear it, took a step back, and gaped at their surroundings.

There were in a crater, but one that must have been thousands of years old, because the ground was regrowing its strange plant life, with some new additions including startling coloured blooming flowers and huge leaves. There was no life within the crater, as much as Virgil could tell, but the plants themselves looked like they were sentient lifeforms, waving in a non-existent wind and snapping at air.

Above them, the cloudy haze had lifted, at least a small bit, to reveal an obsidian sky above, so much darker than Virgil was used to. There was no moon, and no visible stars.

In the centre of it all, most likely the thing that had caused the crater to begin with, was an enormous, glimmering rock.

Virgil felt, frankly, quite faint.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Roman boasted. “I tried jumping on it, but it was way bigger than I anticipated. And I did NOT fall on my ass, before any of you say anything, because you can’t prove it!” No one was paying attention to him, though.

“A dying star,” Logan breathed, somewhere off to Virgil’s side. Virgil turned on him, startled.

“What?” He glanced back at the glowing stone. “That doesn’t make any sense! It’s solid, it’s not gas — that’s not possible— and there’s no stars around here anyway! What— i-it’s glowing, it’s—  what?”

Silence followed him, and he looked around at the others.

“That’s the nerdiest thing I’ve experienced since Logan,” Roman said, flabbergasted.

Virgil ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “It just... took me off-guard.”

Patton giggled. “It’s okay.” He touched Virgil’s arm, only lightly, so Virgil would later wonder why it felt as if little pricks of lightning were shooting through his nerves. “It was cute.”

“Oh my GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD,” Roman complained. “I’m going down to find a spot to sit before you guys make me sick.”

Before Virgil could pick that comment apart in his confusion, Logan said, “You knew this was here,” in an astounded voice.

Roman threw a grin over his shoulder. “Yep.”

Logan sighed, raising his eyes to the starless sky above. “Unbelievable.”

It was only after the four of them settled onto a smooth section of rock, away from any hungry-looking plants, that Virgil realised they had not grabbed any food for the ‘demon picnic’. He must have had a look that spoke his confusion as much, because Patton tilted his head in his direction.

“What’re you thinking about, kiddo?” he prompted.

“When... what do you do on picnics?” Virgil asked. “There’s no... wine, or cheese, or... anything.”

“I thought angels didn’t eat out of time,” Roman said, only a little snidely.

Virgil met his eyes with a challenge. “Angels have designated picnic schedules.”

Roman’s eyebrows rose. He rubbed his face. “When do they make these rules?” he muttered. “Before or during your stages as a minor?”

Virgil lifted his chin, ready to reply... but why was he defending that kingdom? What did he care what these demons, who demonstrated more care and welcome than an entire lifetime of being with the angels had provided?

He lost his assertive posture. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, some of the rules are pretty dumb.”

Roman laughed, but there was something, deep in his eyes, that looked pained, and forced. “They certainly are.” He stood. “Better go find something to eat. Any requests?”

Strange tradition aside, Virgil offered, “Not crocodile.” Roman laughed again, and this time Virgil’s lips twitched in amusement. The sound was contagious.

“Very well,” the Demon of Lust said. “I will endeavour to find the best but crocodile for our angelic guest.”

It was after he left back through the thorn barrier that Virgil said, “For a lustful demon, he is very... enthusiastic about things that don’t involve... romance.”

“He’s showing off,” Logan said.

“He’s always been like that,” said Patton at the same time. The two glanced at each other. “It’s a bit of both,” Patton continued after a moment. “He insists on doing the hard work, like fetching water and food and anything else hands-on for us. It’s sweet.”

Virgil frowned. “Why?”

Patton ducked his head.

“It could be to do with the derivative views of Demons of Lust,” Logan explained slowly. “They usually aren’t the most... proper of demons. They live in the heart of the city, but from their nature you can guess what majority of their occupations entail.” Virgil grimaced and Logan nodded empathetically. “Demons of Lust tend to be... uh.” He cleared his throat.  “Good with their hands,  and Roman intends to prove that he can be useful in other ways.”

Virgil gaze down at the smooth ground beneath his legs. 

“He's been through a lot,” Patton said, his shoulders drooping. Virgil wanted to wipe that sad look off his face, but he did not even know what to say, let alone how to act.

Logan hummed in agreement. “Yes, especially—”

Patton’s head shot up to give him a dark look, and he promptly stopped talking. Virgil looked between the two of them. “What?”

“Nothing,” Logan said, too quickly. He eyed Patton uncertainly before lowering his gaze. “It’s... nothing.”

“I have food!” Roman’s voice sang, and a moment later he was bouncing back through the bush towards them, in that cheerful gait of his. He trotted over to dump the gathered food before them. A group of collected berries, some weird, thick leaf-things, and a carcass of a dead animal about the length of Virgil’s arm.

“Why didn’t you just bring food with you when we left the house?” Virgil’s wings fluttered as he picked up a dark berry and squinted at it.

“Food doesn’t keep. Well, meat doesn’t,” Roman said, and Virgil had a hard time listening to anything he said when he talked as if he knew how food in the Angelic Kingdom kept. “Got to eat while it’s fresh!”

Virgil politely declined the meat, and focused on the variety of berries, and a couple of the strange leaves. They were filled with a weird substance, almost tasting like mince of sorts, and if Virgil was not sure weirded out by them, he probably would have eaten far more.

As it was, he had never had much of a big appetite, and he sat back after only a few minutes of eating.

It gave him a chance to study the others while they were distracted. They ate like ravenous wolves, and Virgil was half glad he had finished, because he probably would have lost his appetite even quicker.

Patton ate like he had not been fed in years, and Virgil’s eye roamed over his lean figure and exposed ribs and wondered distantly if he was constantly starving. Roman ate with all the grace and poise that Virgil expected from a Demon of Lust, and that was the same amount as any other demon — that is to say, little to none at all. He had gone quarters with the other two with the meat, and was tearing into it, muck and blood splattering from his lips and staining his knuckles. Logan focused more on the neater foods, but even he managed to look like he was fighting the food more than eating it.

Needless to say, it was a strange, mildly frightening experience.

Once they were finished, though, and had wiped the evidence from their lips and hands, the trio were back to their normal, grinning states. Virgil wondered if all demons went feral over meals and would not have been surprised by a positive answer.

“You didn’t eat much,” Patton said, almost mournfully. Virgil shrugged, and gifted him a hint of a smile.

“I could not have let you guys go hungry,” he said with a glimpse of mirth in his eyes. Patton clearly saw it and beamed back. God, that was almost as blinding as the dying star. He glanced back at it. “How did you find this? What science could possibly be behind it? You will have to explain it to me.”

Roman fell onto his back. “Oh, great,” he bemoaned. “Now we’re going to have to listen to Tail Feathers preen and gush about the stupid science behind a fallen, dying star. What’s so interesting about the logic of it? It’s a giant jewel from the sky! Cool enough as it is.”

Patton lightly whacked his knee. “Hush. You like listening to him.”

So the pair of them — and Roman, though it was obvious he tuned in and out — listened as Logan talked about the Demonic Kingdom and it’s landscape and surrounding atmosphere, how it tied into the world and kingdoms around it, and why it was so special that a dying star landed there of all places.

Logan talked quite a bit, Virgil quickly found, as he was still babbling even as they began to leave the crater. Virgil was not getting bored of listening to him, however, and was not about to complain. Roman obviously did not have the same opinion.

“OKAY WE GET IT,” Roman hollered after Logan had gone off on a tangent about the nonexistence of a sun and moon in the Demonic Kingdom. Virgil was unable to smother a snort of amusement, and Logan shot him a sly smirk. Virgil hoped Logan had kept talking just to bother Roman. “YOU’RE SMART AND ALL OF YOUR SMART, SCIENTIFIC WORDS ARE GOING OVER OUR HEADS, LET’S TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE NOW.”

“Actually, ‘nerdjacking’ is neither a smart nor scientific word,” Logan correctly mildly. Roman stared uncomprehendingly at him. Logan’s lips twitched. “It’s made up.”

Roman shrieked furiously, and Virgil burst out laughing as he lunged for Logan and widely missed, causing him to tumble across the dusty ground.

“Wow, able to catch crocodiles but not peacocks?” Logan said, mock-curiously. “You have an interesting skill set, Roman.”

“YOU FIEND!” the lustful demon screeched, and the pair darted off in the direction of the house, leaving Virgil and Patton a giggling mess in their dust.

Well, Virgil was giggling, and at first, he thought Patton was too, until he realised the demon was staring at him with a blank expression and wide, round eyes. Laughter died on his lips. “Is everything okay? Did I do something?”

Then Patton’s face split with that incredible smile again, and his eyes may have honestly started watering.

“Your laugh is... is...”

“Oh.” Virgil ducked his head, feeling his face heat up. He smiled, a little. “Yeah. I... I haven’t laughed like that in... a long time.”

A pair of hands cupped his cheeks and brought his gaze to meet Patton’s. “I hope we can keep that,” he said, voice quiet and lips soft and do not think about it, Virgil, stay strong. “I really, really hope we can keep you laughing like that.”

“What?” Virgil straightened, becoming too tall for Patton to reach, and smirked. “Does it fuel your ever-constant hunger for angel blood?”

Patton giggled and shook his head. “No. It just... makes me happy.”

Something in Virgil’s heart shifted and oh, that was not fair.

“Should we try and catch up?” he said, nodding to where Logan and Roman had disappeared off to. “Just to make sure Logan hasn’t actually been eaten or something by Roman.”

Patton chuckled. “Or that Roman hasn’t broken anything with his misplaced attack attempts.”

In agreement, the pair walked hand-in-hand after the other two, and Virgil prayed Patton wouldn’t look up and see the blush on his face.

It must have been a week, or maybe two, when Virgil woke up and his daily routine was interrupted by a particularly disturbing new variable.

Virgil often slept in far longer than the demons. He had come to find that this was because demons slept twice, throughout night and day, preferring to have two long naps that broke up their day instead of sleeping all in one period. It was strange, but Virgil learned to adjust (especially after he realised that they had been neglecting their second nap during the first few days to accommodate for him.) He’d gotten used to their routine, like how Roman was the one who often got food but Patton was the one who dished it out, or how Logan often zoned out when he read, or Patton’s daily wandering walks out of the house, which Virgil had learnt was how he had been found by the demon in the first place.

So, Virgil often woke up from his shared bed with Patton alone, and could go about getting ready by himself. His robes now were dirtied and torn from the toll adventuring would take on his outfit. At first, he was concerned that they would see him as improper, and dirty, and hate him and order him to leave, but they had barely batted an eye. They didn’t care for his tattered clothes, and frankly if they didn’t, neither did he.

He could merely dress, splash his face with fresh, warm basin water, and would go downstairs. He could resort to combing his hands through with his fingers. The demons didn’t use hairbrushes. Virgil could get used to all of this.

Except as he moved his hands through his hair, he brushed against something — a pair of soft, fuzzy somethings that moved with his touch — and he shrieked.

Virgil staggered downstairs at the same time as the demons lunged up to him, worrying over him, demanding to know what happened, why he screamed.

Babbling uncontrollably, Virgil grabbed Logan’s wrists and shoved his hands in the direction of the weird new appendages growing from his head.

Logan’s fingers gently glossed over them, and he relaxed.

“Ah,” he said, as if everything made sense. “Don’t panic, Virgil. They are simply ears.”

“I have a pair of perfectly good ears on the sides of my head!” Virgil cried. “Why do I have these?” He yanked at the fuzzy ears and ignored the pain that shot up his skull. Patton yelped.

“No, no, don’t do that!” He darted forward to try and ease Virgil’s hands from his head. “Don’t pull on them, honey, it’ll just hurt.”

“Easy, city slicker.” Roman grinned. “That’s normal. See, check these out.” He bent his neck at an awkward angle to expose his goat horns, and Patton gently moved Virgil’s hands to feel them cautiously. “Everyone has animal traits.”

“Demons  have animal traits,” Virgil corrected.

The three demons glanced at each other.

“Yes,” Logan responded slowly, “and so can Turned Angels.”

Virgil blanched. “W-what? Angels can... can turn into demons?”

Logan glanced at the other two, who weren’t giving him any help. He nodded almost uncertainly, like he didn’t want to say the wrong thing to set anyone off. “It’s... possible.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Virgil cried, and the three of them recoiled from him as he began to pace. His wings flared open and shut, agitated. “There’s no— that—  Really?”

Roman, suddenly snappish, growled, “Are you going to take our word for it or are you just going to keep blabbering all day?” Virgil paused, and waited for Patton or Logan’s reprimand. It didn’t come.

He turned away, hugging himself.

“Oh, baby.” Patton’s soft voice and warm breath reached his arm as the demon wrapped his arms around his torso. “It’s scary, I know. If you returned to the Angelic Kingdom now, your demonic traits wouldn’t be permanent. You could go back and return to normal if you’d like.”

And somehow that was even more horrifying than the idea that he was turning into a demon.

Virgil suddenly realised how silent it was around him, like the others were too scared to even breathe in his presence.

“No.” He let out a long breath. “No, it’s okay. Well. It’s not okay, but it will be. I will be okay.” He turned in Patton’s arms and pulled the little demon to his chest. He looked over Patton’s head to Logan and Roman. “I’m sorry for scaring all of you.”

“Oh, nonsense!” Patton said. “You could never!”

Logan and Roman didn’t interject, but Logan inclined his head in mute acceptance and forgiveness. Roman didn’t meet anyone’s gazes.

“I’m going to look for inspiration,” he muttered finally, and pushed past Virgil and Patton to disappear out the door. Patton half reached for him, protests dying on his lips. He drooped, defeated, in Virgil’s grip.

“Sorry,” Virgil said again.

“It was not entirely your fault,” Logan assured him. “Roman...”

“He’s not sensitive,” Patton defended quickly.

“I wasn’t going to say he was,” Logan assured him. “It’s a bit of a sore topic for him.”

Virgil fidgeted with his hands. Patton stilled them when he clasped their fingers together. “I feel like there’s more to him than you guys are ever going to tell me.”

“He has a brother,” Logan said, and wasn’t that just a proving point to Virgil’s statement? “He doesn’t live with him because it is forbidden.”

“I thought demons could live with whoever they like,” Virgil said.

“Demons can,” Logan confirmed.

“Angels can’t,” Patton said softly.

When the reality of what he’d just been told, Virgil stumbled back. He sat on the ground, staring at the carpet. There was a dark stain there, made by a spilled tub of blueberry yogurt.

“He’s an angel,” he said faintly. The demons’ silence answered his unasked question. “He’s an angel.”

“He was,” Patton corrected, moving to sit before him. “He’s a demon now, kiddo.”

Virgil shook his head. “But— he was so confused! About angel rules, and me, a-and...”

“He left a long time ago,” Logan said. “Times change.”

Virgil rubbed his hands over his face, his mind racing.  Lust,  his mind said, quietening the other thoughts, and he looked up, realising he had said that aloud. “Chastity. He was an Angel of Chastity.”

“Indeed.” Logan dipped his head.

It explained a few things, at least. Roman’s mutinous comments about angels, his lack of sexual preference, why he liked exploring the demonic world.

“Why did he leave?” Virgil asked. “Was he sick of the pretentious rules, too? But... he had a brother. Why would he leave his brother?”

Patton and Logan exchanged looks.

“That’s not our place,” Patton said softly. “We’ve already been telling you far too much.”

“You know he wouldn’t mind.” Logan moved to massage his nimble fingers into Patton’s tense shoulders. Virgil felt a spike of jealousy curl in his gut. Why didn’t he think to do that for Patton?

“Should I go after him?”

“Why don’t we draw something?” Patton suggested, glancing up to Logan. “Roman got those new blank scrolls the other day.”

Logan smiled. “Good idea.” He moved the bookcase and brought back a thick, empty scroll that he laid out in the middle of their small circle. He set the charcoal pencil beside it.

“I’m not very good at drawing,” Virgil admitted quietly.

“That’s no issue.” Logan waved a hand, like he was physically dismissing the apology.

Patton smiled, and shuffled over to lean into Virgil’s side. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he murmured, and pressed a chaste kiss to Virgil’s cheekbone. “I’m not great at it either.”

Virgil’s mind was so busy malfunctioning that he completely missed the first half of the demons’ drawing game. When he eventually tuned back in, face still aflame and heart still thumping madly, he found that Patton and Logan were taking turns in drawing on the scroll’s canvas. So far, they had created a flat landscape with a single silhouette of a tree positioned on the side.

“Ready to play?” Patton asked with a sly look in his direction. If he had been in his right mind, Virgil would have cursed him. As it was, he could barely reply with a ‘thank you’ as Patton passed him the charcoal piece. He looked uncertainly down at the half-drawing and tried to think about anything but the way his cheek was still on fire. The charcoal rubbed against his pale skin.

Slowly he leaned forward, picked a spot where he wanted to draw, and carefully, he began to sketch.

It was sloppy, and too bulky, and not the right shape, but once Virgil pulled back from his attempt at a moon, both Patton and Logan seemed floored.

“That’s gorgeous, Virgil!” Patton said. Virgil shrugged.

“It’s...” He was aiming to say ‘nothing,’ but he found he couldn’t push down Patton’s praise as easily after that kiss. “Thanks.”

Patton grinned and leaned against him, resting his head on the edge of his shoulder. Virgil didn’t tense like he wanted to, but fire still ran up the skin where Patton touched him. He wondered if that was normal but didn’t want to interrupt Logan as he frowned and drew what looked like cloud cover over Virgil’s moon.

It was beginning to look like a beautiful landscape (with a far-off ocean, a setting sun blanketing the surrounding area in rimmed darkness, an overhead moon peeking through some clouds with its star brothers and sisters) when Roman arrived back.

“Got dinner,” he mumbled, and dropped a sack of grain, meat, and salt rocks next to the fireplace.

“Oh, thank—!”

Roman slammed the front door closed when he left again before Patton could finish.

For a moment, the three of them glanced between each other.

Then Virgil sighed quietly and stood. “I’m going to go talk to him.” Logan nodded, once, and Patton attempted to smile but Virgil could see the force behind it. He turned quickly so Patton wouldn’t have to keep up the act and moved to the door.

He knocked on it experimentally, but got no reply, so he opened it and slipped outside.

Roman was sitting to the side, leaning against the house. He didn’t look mad, or even sad. His eyes were worryingly blank.

“Sorry for snapping, earlier,” he said dully.

“It’s alright,” Virgil said, almost instantaneously. He sat down beside Roman, mirroring his position. “I... must have done something wrong, so—”

“No.” Virgil swallowed, glancing at the demon, who was slowly shaking his head. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

The pair sat in silence. Roman still looked slightly dazed. Virgil fidgeted with his hands.

“So...” he said after a minute, “you have a brother?”

Immediately he wanted to screw his jaw closed, but Roman didn’t react badly.

“I do,” he simply confirmed. Virgil took it Roman also understood that he now knew his past of an ex-Angel of Chastity.

“Did you leave because... you weren’t happy with having a brother?” Virgil asked softly, that mystery still unsolved.

Roman shook his head. “I was fine with it.” He didn’t offer anything else. Virgil felt a little out of his depth, to be the one trying to keep conversation with the usually loud, energetic demon.

“Was your brother not happy with it?” he asked instead.

“He was also fine with having a brother,” Roman said, and Virgil was at a loss. Roman finally raised his head, but instead of looking at Virgil, stared off into the distance. His eyes were the same discoloured red as the bricks behind them, as opposed to the bright blood that had locked onto Virgil the first time he stepped into the house. “It was... the Ancient Angels who had issues.”

Virgil’s eyebrows twitched. “That’s odd,” he mused thoughtfully. Had he ever experienced something like that? Had he ever even heard of something like that? “You can’t help who you are related to.”

Roman’s voice was quiet when he responded, “That’s not entirely the point, Virge.”

Virgil’s shoulders drooped. He was still confused. “Oh.”

Roman looked over at him from the corner of his eye, and when Virgil glanced over at them, there were hints of mirth returning to his gaze, his lips curling the tiniest bit upwards.

“You know, if you’re going to be sticking around, I think I need to think of some new nicknames.”

Virgil scoffed and rolled his eyes. “What, names like Angel Ass and Featherbrain weren’t good enough for you?”

“To be fair, Featherbrain is Logan. He’s the peacock.”

“And what do you think I am?” Virgil challenged.

Roman shrugged. “Who knows? With these little suckers.” He reached up and tugged — gently — on Virgil’s ears, and he laughed and batted him away. “How does a hyena sound?”

“A hyena?” Virgil squawked.

“You laugh like one,” Roman said with a grin. “And you are quite greedy when it comes to Patton’s attention.”

“Hey!” Virgil shrieked. “No! I am not!”

Roman hooted with a laugh, scrambling away as Virgil lunged for him. 

“Maybe you're a pig, like him!” he guffawed. “And you just need to wait it out until they grow more! It’s simply meant to be!”

“Shut up!” Virgil was laughing too hard to make an effective opponent, and Roman kept scampering out of the way of his grabs. It took a minute for Virgil to realise that Patton and Logan must have heard their ruckus and emerged from the house to watch the two of them scuffle.

Roman noticed them, lit up, and was bowled over when Virgil finally managed to catch him off-guard.

“Ha-ha!” He grinned down at Roman. “I win.” Roman pouted for a moment before smirking.

When his fingers tug into Virgil’s side, the angel merely raised an eyebrow. Roman’s face fell.

“Wait, what? Why aren’t you— That’s supposed to work!”

“I’m not ticklish,” Virgil announced with an air of victory. Roman groaned and squirmed indignantly.

“Damn it,” he muttered, and Virgil grinned toothily.

Roman startled, then, and peered closely at him. He reached up and his fingers just barely brushed against Virgil’s bottom lip. He jerked back, startled, and Roman, bashed, blushed.

“Sorry. Just, uh... pointy.”

Virgil frowned. “What?”

Roman pointed at his mouth, and Virgil ran his tongue over his teeth to find that, horrifyingly, there were indeed pointed.

“Everything okay?” Patton had moved up beside them, and Virgil shuffled off Roman. He swallowed.

“I really am turning into a demon, aren’t I?” he said quietly.

Patton’s eyes flooded with sympathy.

“You don’t have to,” Roman said, sitting up, before Patton could speak. “You could leave.” It wasn’t the same snappish tone he had used before fleeing the house. It wasn’t even remotely annoyed. Roman looked at him patiently. Empathetically. “It would fix everything. You wouldn't have to live like this.”

“Whatever you do,” Logan added, moving to Virgil’s other side to squeeze his arm, “we will help you.”

“Yes,” Patton agreed, though his voice was subdued and mournful. Virgil looked down at the small demon and his forlorn features. He glanced at the pain flickering in Roman’s eyes. He saw the tension coiling in Logan’s muscles.

He huffed and stood up. “I... have to think about it.”

“I’d love to tell you to take your time,” Logan said, rising with him. “But there’s an uncertainty around how much time you have before the power of the Demonic Kingdom take over your angelic senses.”

Virgil swallowed. “Can you give me an estimate?”

Logan glanced at Patton and Roman. “A day,” he choked out finally. Virgil’s heart dropped.

��Oh,” he said faintly.

“I’m sorry,” Logan said, and his voice trembled. “Maybe if I could have found out sooner, I would have been able to tell or, or fix it, or—”

“Hey, Big Bird, calm down.” Roman stood to press against Logan’s side. “Breathe.”

“It’s okay, L.” Virgil gave him a small smile. Patton bustled up to hold his hand, and he squeezed reassuringly. “We’ll work it out.”

Logan sighed dejectedly but didn’t protest or argue any further.

“I wonder if I’ll still have my wings,” Virgil mused, but then caught himself with a brief glance in Roman’s direction and his very obvious bare back, void of wings despite being an ex-angel. “Oh— sorry.”

Roman blinked before laughing. “Oh, don’t be sorry!” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe you will! I didn’t lose my wings to demon transformation.”

Virgil caught himself. “You... didn’t?”

“No.” Roman went sombre. “When I ran, I was unlucky enough to be intercepted by a patrol.” He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck nonchalantly, but Virgil felt sick.

“They...?”

Roman nodded. “Made sure I couldn’t change my mind once I left.”

Virgil’s gut twisted and he looked away. “God, what’s wrong with my people?”

“They’re not your people,” Patton injected softly. His hands were warm against Virgil’s palm. “You’re not like them.”

“What good am I doing down here?” Virgil whispered. “Running away from my problems, thinking I’m the only one with issues?”

“You didn’t know what else to do,” Patton reasoned. “From what you’ve told us, you couldn’t have known there were others like you.” In the corner of his eye, Virgil watched Roman tilt his head inquisitively at that, but Patton elaborated, “Oppressed and outcasted by those stupid rules,” and the lustful demon seemingly lost interest. Virgil tried not to squint at him. Curious.

Virgil shook himself, and Patton dropped his arm. That was enough niceties. Virgil could get ill with all the affection.

He nodded to the house. “Well, we don’t want to let dinner go off.”

“A man after my own heart!” Roman sang, already jumping forward.

“Wait.” Logan’s voice was firm, but deadly still. The others paused too, glancing back at them. His gorgeous eyes were narrowed at the ground as he concentrated, troubled. He looked up at them and asked, “Does anybody else hear that?”

Both Roman and Patton immediately stiffened. Virgil opened his mouth to ask what they were talking about.

“Patton look out!” cried Roman, lunging from the shelter of the house doorway to collide with the other demon.

Then two angelic sentries landed and slit Logan’s throat.

Roman’s bellow may as well have made the ground shake. Virgil would have almost believed that he was a cat instead of a goat, but then the second angel grabbed him by his horns and shoved him face first into the ground and held him there.

Patton was crying, huddling backwards, and quivering against the ground. His eyes were as wide as dying stars, flickering between his family.

“LOGAN!” Roman roared against the dirt smudging against his beautiful face. He struggled against the angel but couldn’t budge. It didn’t look like Logan had heard him, anyway; his eyes — those striking, dark eyes — were already glassy. Blood the colour of amethysts was pooling around his head as it flooded from his neck. His stained lips might have been twitching, trying to move, but all that came from his mouth was a trickle of that violet blood.

Virgil’s head spun.

He should be doing something. He should be moving. He should be screaming or crying or defending his friends or something, but he was standing there uselessly, and Logan was dying— Logan was  dead— Why? What did the angels want? They couldn’t be here for him. He was a nobody. He didn’t matter.

Don’t tell me they killed Logan for me. Please, please, don’t tell me this is my fault. Logan can’t be dead because of me.

A third angel landed, glorious wings extended to their full length, glittering golden eyes narrowed, smile sharp as he straightened and readjusted his spotless suit.

“Hello, Virgil,” said Janus. “I thought I had told you not to mess with demons.”

Virgil had to throw up. He was going to throw up.

He couldn’t speak. He wanted to say Janus’ name, to curse him, to demand he leave, to help Logan,  anything…

He couldn’t speak.

Beneath the feet of the second demon, Roman was cursing up a storm, expletives spitting from his snarled lips as he—  glare  wasn’t even the right word — as he  blazed at Janus. Virgil's brother ignored him in favour of approaching Virgil, who quailed back. Roman snarled viciously, struggling to stand, making the angelic guard buck, unbalanced.

Janus paused and sighed. He didn’t even look in over his shoulder, but it must have been enough incentive for the angel because they drove their sword through the Demon of Lust’s back.

Virgil’s breath rushed out of him. He heard Patton screaming.

The angel stepped aside, taking their sword with them.

Patton shot forward, and a cry tore itself from Virgil’s throat.

“Go away!” Patton wailed, stumbling to Roman’s side, and pushing his hands to where the blue blood was soaking through his back. “Get away, you horrible, horrible, winged monsters! Leave us alone!”

Roman groaned, and Patton’s voice broke and he stopped shouting. He started talking quietly to Roman, who responded dazedly, but Virgil couldn’t hear either of their voices, even as he stared at them from his frozen position.

“Virgil.” Janus sounded tired. He was standing in front of him. Virgil could see him in the corner of his eye. He kept his gaze focused on Patton and Roman. “Oh, dear, you are trembling.” A hand gripped his elbow. It was cool, and smooth, and his brother’s, and not a demon’s.

“Don’t touch me.” Virgil ripped from Janus, skittering back to stare furiously at Janus. “What are you doing here?”

Janus blinked, and Virgil wondered where the hell he got the audacity to look shocked.

“I am taking you back,” he said slowly, as if he were explaining angels and demons to a youngster. As if he were explaining why angels were good, and holy and perfect, and demons were feral, disgusting scum not worth wasting time on.

“You are not coming anywhere near me,” Virgil snarled. Janus looked at him like he’d grown a tail and started talking in tongues.

“I understand we have had our disagreements,” Janus said slowly, holding up his hands. Patton was bent down to Roman, now, pressing their foreheads together. “But that is no reason to pick a fight with demons to air your frustrations. They could have killed you.”

Virgil gaped at him. He glanced over at Logan’s corpse, and Roman’s blue-soaked body and the tears rolling down Patton’s cheeks.

“Pathetic creatures, really,” Janus mused sadly. “It is almost a shame that they had to die because of you.”

Virgil choked on his curse, unable to get anything past his clogged throat.

Janus sighed again. “Come, Virgil. We are going home. Now.”

He turned and flared his wings. After a moment, he glanced back and found that Virgil hadn’t moved an inch.

Virgil glowered dangerously at him. His voice was steel. “I am home.”

Janus started.

Patton lunged.

Virgil jolted, as shocked as Janus while Patton clawed and bit and scratched and growled and cried and whimpered and sobbed.

The world swam around Virgil when he looked over to find Roman’s eyes dull and colourless. They didn’t even reflect off the shimmering pool of cobalt surrounding him. Virgil distantly wondered if the lump in his throat was not anxiety or emotion, and just his heart, trying to push its way out of his body, knowing that would be far less of a painful fate than what was happening around him.

Janus hissed, twisting away from his attacker, but the little demon only launched a second time, fastening the bone of Janus’ wing in his jaw and crunching it between his teeth.

Janus’ shriek spurred the other two angels into motion, and they darted forward.

Virgil got there first.

He lashed with his wing, the sharp ends of his feathers striking through both eyes of the first angel. She reared back with a shriek, clawing at her own face. He ignored Janus’ stunned cry of “Virgil!” and threw himself at the second angel, bowling them over and crunching their leg beneath his weight. He blocked out the screams as he dug his fingers — and sharpened nails, when had they grown so long? — into their thigh, digging and clawing until white blood was gushing from the gaping wound.

Firm hands dug into his shoulders and tore him from the angels, whirling him around and throwing him into the side of the house.

“What are you doing?” Janus’ eyes were wild, his hair crazed. His suit was flecked with small spots of white blood. Yet his voice was terrifyingly quiet, barely disturbing the electrified air. Virgil bared his teeth, and Janus paled. “You...”

Patton tackled Janus again, but the angel was ready for him this time, and the little demon was thrown to the ground with a brutal  thump.  Janus turned on him, his fingers twitching, like he was planning on twisting Patton’s neck in his grip.

And Virgil wasn’t going to have that.

He snarled and met Janus with a fire in his eyes and blood on his hands.

Janus ate dust when he crashed to the ground, metres from where he had been standing.

“DON’T TOUCH HIM,” Virgil ordered, his voice unnaturally deepened with fury.

Janus flipped to his feet. “Virgil—”

Virgil bared his fangs. “No.”

Janus’ eyes narrowed. “You are being reckless and—”

“No.”

Janus sighed. “I do not want to fight you, Soft Wings.” His voice was soft, and for a minute it seemed like the ever-present-since-childhood nickname would break through to Virgil. He hesitated. He looked at his brother and thought about what he was planning to do.

And then he caught a side of the blue and purple blood, sinking into the ground.

Soft Wings.

Kiddo.

Patient Angel.

Honey. Sweetheart.

Coward. City slicker.

Kiddo.

Angel of Practice.

Kiddo, kiddo, kiddo.

“Don’t worry, boss.” The first angel’s voice cut through Virgil’s inner mantra. He looked over to see her stagger, hand still covering her face, her lip twisted hatefully. “While you take care of your wayward brother, we will deal with the final demon.”

Virgil erupted with anger.

Literally.

At first, Virgil didn’t know what was happening, or where the blinding light, bright enough to rival a dying star, was coming from.

Then he felt something tugging at his skull, and his teeth and nails groaning in protest, spiking pain itching up through his spine.

When the light died down, Virgil raised his head to glower at Janus with elongated pupils.

His brother was frozen in place, like all the breath had been squeezed from him. The other angel had been knocked onto her back, and now one of her wings was twisted at an awkward, unnatural angle.

“Virgil.” Janus held out his hands beseechingly. Virgil fought the instinct that told him to bite off his fingers one by one. “What can I do?”

“What, still want me around?” Virgil snarled around his new fangs. “Want a demon for a brother?”

“I want you,” Janus breathed. “How do I get you back?”

Virgil raised his chin, power thrumming through his still-present wings. His long tail lashed. “You can’t.”

He knew he shouldn’t have been hurt at the heartbroken expression that flickered across Janus’ face. He had chosen this when he had ignored Virgil, when he had ridiculed him, when he had arrived at his new home where he was safe and happy and protected and slain his friends in front of him.

Janus smiling proudly down at him. Janus straightening their halos before leaving the house, his smooth hands making sure his bracelet wasn’t crooked. Janus laughing as his young little brother tried to do the same for his anklet, and only fumbled with it until he tripped. Janus introducing him to an angel with bright green eyes and toothy grin, announcing that he was their new roommate. Janus gently explaining that Remus had no family anymore, and the Ancient Angels had allowed him to live with them. Janus nodding approvingly when Virgil offered his hand to Remus, out of politeness and not joy.

“But.” Virgil spoke before he realised he had. Janus looked up, and Virgil suddenly saw how ragged his brother was. His feathers were matted from the blood that Patton had spilled, but they had been ruffled before he had even landed. His eyes were haunted, and tired, shallow shadows hugging the bags of his cheeks. He was tired, and stressed, and now gutted.

“But,” he said again, his voice more level. “If you can prove that you can fix your mistakes — if you find angels that are being outcasted, help them, give them a home and a safe place and somewhere where they aren’t suffering purely from the rules of the Ancient Angels. If you fight for angels who can’t fight for themselves. If you fight against injustice. If you make sure angels like him   never find the same fate...” He pointed to Roman’s limp body and tried not to burst into tears. “Then maybe then, and only then... will I consider forgiving you.”

Janus visibly swallowed. “And then—”

“And then,” snarled Virgil, and Janus fell silent, “you will see how merciful I’m feeling.”

Janus clasped his hands behind his back, and Virgil saw how badly he was shaking. “It would have been more effective if you didn’t speak in apostrophes,” he said in a weak voice.

With a roar, Virgil striked forward, dark claws slashing along Janus’ face.

His brother staggered back, but he didn’t look betrayed or hurt. It was almost pitiful, how he looked like he understood Virgil’s behaviour.

“If you leave now, maybe I’ll let your little soldiers live,” he hissed. The other two angels were quaking as they stared at him. Janus, keeping his gaze locked with Virgil, waved at them with one wing, and they scrambled into the air, beating their wings furiously.

Janus opened his mouth. Virgil stared him down and he slowly shut it again. He didn’t say anything, only dipped his head — in understanding? Acceptance? Fear? — and turned, following the soldiers in a much more graceful manner.

Virgil watched with sharp eyes until they disappeared through the oppressive cloud cover above.

“Virgil?” a painfully quiet voice whispered. Patton slipped his hands into Virgil’s, and he promptly broke down. “Virgil!” Patton, alarmed, followed him to the ground, wrapping a warm arm around his back.

“I’m sorry,” rasped Virgil, his voice fading to barely above a hoarse whisper. “I’m so sorry, Pat, I...” In the corner of his eye, he saw Logan’s vacant gaze and Roman’s blue blood, and he broke off with a shuddering sob, his shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry.”

He heard Patton audibly gulp and wondered if his senses had been heightened or Patton was just remarkably close.

“It’s alright,” he murmured, warm lips pressing to Virgil’s temple. “It’s not your fault, honey.” Virgil choked, turning to bury his face in Patton’s shoulder. “They’ll be okay.”

Virgil didn’t protest. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. He wasn’t in the mood for empty reassurance, or blind faith or hopeless dreams or misguided illusions. He’d had enough of lies.

He didn’t voice any of this. All that came from him when he opened his mouth was more sobs.

Patton continued to rub his back and press warmly at his side and gently hush him, which was all ridiculous because Patton was the one who was supposed to be sobbing and ripping up the ground and yelling at the sky.

Virgil trembled in Patton’s arms as the demon — though they were both demons, now, weren’t they? — stood them up and guided him — not towards the house, but to Virgil’s horror, Logan’s cooling body.

“I need you to help me get him inside,” Patton said softly. “Can you carry him?”

Virgil stared down at the blurry image of his friend through his tears. God, those beautiful eyes were not supposed to be that lifeless.

“Yeah,” he croaked finally. “Yes.”

Patton nodded, and for a brief moment, pressed his head to Virgil’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Virgil,” he promised emptily before pulling away and creeping over to Roman’s body like he was a startled animal and not a dead demon bleeding the colour of the Angelic Kingdom sky.

Virgil, after steeling himself, sunk to his knees and worked his arms under Logan’s body. He tried not to think about the warmth seeping out of his skin, and the wetness of his blood, and the way his chest wasn’t moving and eyes weren’t sparkling and mouth wasn’t moving in some random ramble about some vague scientific fact.

He swallowed another sob and stood, lifting the other demon easily in his arms. He wondered if he had always been so strong. (He doubted it.)

Something lashed behind him, and when he glanced down, he saw the tail — his tail — whipping back and forth for balance.

With another swallow, Virgil ignored it and moved to the house. He prompted the door open with his hip and Patton bustled passed him, walking awkwardly with Roman’s weight. Virgil averted his eyes and stared at the ground as he followed Patton up the stairs.

“Logan’s room is that door further down, just next to Roman’s,” Patton said, his voice still low. Virgil glanced over at him helplessly. Patton looked like he didn’t have the energy to even fake a smile. “Just put him in bed, kiddo. I’ll come and help when I can.”

Virgil tried not to frown in confusion. He wasn’t one to question demonic rituals, or ceremonial acts of a culture different to the one he was used to.

My culture now too, I suppose,  he thought glumly. He trudged into Logan’s bedroom and looked around. It was far barer than Patton’s, or maybe just neater. Interesting looking scrolls were stacked in a corner. A map of what was presumably the Demonic Kingdom was hanging on the wall.

Virgil moved to the simplistic-looking bed and gently lay the prideful demon on the sheets. He was glad they were black, and the blood that would stain them wouldn’t be very visible. He wondered if demons didn’t bury their dead, but he couldn’t remain on that train of thought for too long because the idea of keeping Logan and Roman’s still, blood-soaked bodies in the house, just rooms from where Virgil slept, made him feel very, very ill.

Shuddering, he turned from the room and crept out. He peered into Roman’s room, where Patton was laying a red blanket over the lustful demon’s body, talking softly to him. Virgil remained silent as Patton sniffed and sat on the bed, almost curling up next to the body.

When Patton looked up without looking surprised, Virgil realised with a jolt that he had sensitive hearing.

“Sorry,” he murmured. Patton finally smiled, then, but it was small and still seemed a little forced. “I just, uh...” He growled under his breath, annoyed at how clumped his throat felt. Patton’s expression went impossibly soft and he stood, moving over to wrap his arms around Virgil’s ribs.

“It’s okay to feel things, sweetie.”

“I should have done something,” Virgil cried. “Logan even heard them coming — you all did! I could have stopped all of this if I had just—”

“Just what, love?” Patton interjected. “Taken the hit for yourself? Tried to explain to a trio of furious angels why they shouldn’t attack a group of scary-looking demons?”

“You’re not scary.” Virgil’s voice hitched. “None of you are.”

Patton’s smile widened, only slightly. Virgil rested his chin on Patton’s hair. “I’m glad you think so.”

They stayed like that for a while, leaning against each other, Virgil trying to calm himself and Patton trying to keep them both grounded.

“Well, I suppose we should get things ready,” Patton said finally, pulling away. “Once we’ve fetched some water, could you go and look over Logan? I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

Virgil stared down at him, all bloodshot eyes and tear stained cheeks and clogged nose and throat.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, exhausted. “Patton, they’re—”

“Oh!” Patton cried, hands flying to his mouth, and Virgil sighed, waiting for the demon to delve further into his denial. “Virge, I— I’m so sorry!”

Virgil frowned.

“We’re demons,” Patton said, as is that explained every question in the universe. “We can’t die.”

Virgil suppressed a groan. “Patton—”

Patton waved his hands, shaking his head furiously. “No, no! Really! We regenerate, it just takes longer depending on the injuries.”

Virgil blinked, then blinked again.

“Logan and Roman will be fine, really! Their bodies just need time to heal themselves!”

Virgil’s breath vanished from his lungs.

“It’s okay, Virge,” said Patton. “They really will be alright.”

Sudden heat flooded back into Virgil’s eyes. “Oh,” he said in a small voice, then again, breathlessly,  “Oh.”

Patton smiled, laughing quietly. “It’s okay, Virge,” he said again. “I’m sorry, I should have told you, or explained it, I just forgot that there’s some not-very-common knowledge between our kingdoms and I—”

“But— but you were so upset!” Virgil gripped the sides of his head. “You went ballistic!”

Patton winced, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you try watching your family die in front of you and see if you act so chivalrous.”

Virgil let out a final, whooshing breath and fell forward, pulling Patton and crushing him to his chest.

“God fucking damnit, Pat,” he said with a wet laugh, then quietened, pulling back to stare at Patton in the eyes. “This is the truth, right? You’re not in denial or going delusional from grief?”

“No,” Patton promised. “I’m telling you the truth.”

Virgil nodded several times, processing the information. “Okay.” He narrowed his eyes. “What do we need to do?”

Over the course of the next day and night, Virgil wiped the blood from Logan’s skin, finding it already knitting itself back together as time went on. He wrapped bandages around Logan’s neck (and then was able to remove them not a few hours later, the blood having stopped flowing) and washed the bed sheets until the water no longer ran purple.

Patton did the same, although multiple times Virgil caught him having another breakdown while he tried to help Roman. Virgil (privately, of course) cursed Fate for making him fall for such an emotional demon. On several of these occasions Virgil’s mind started to race, telling him that something had gone wrong, or Patton had broken from his illusion of a happy ending, or Roman’s wound had been too great for his body to recover from.

But then Patton would smile and reassure him that it just got a bit much sometimes, and Virgil would sigh, return his smile, and send him downstairs to take a break while he took over.

Most of the night was filled with this sleepless routine.

At one point, they managed to catch some quiet time together in Patton’s  (their,  Patton would correct him) bed.

Patton reached up to run careful fingers through Virgil’s hair and finger at his new ears, giggling when they flicked under his touch. Virgil allowed him to run his new tail through his hands, too, watching with amusement as the gluttonous demon beamed at this new development.

“A tiger,” he whispered, and Virgil’s eyebrows arched.

“What?”

“You’re a tiger,” Patton repeated, looking up. “Your eyes— your reaction when it all happened... and of course! The opposite of patience: you’re a Demon of Wrath.”

Virgil fumbled, a little, at this revelation.

“I don’t feel angry,” he mumbled. Patton smiled.

“Does Roman always seem to feel lustful, to you?”

“He did try and hit on me the first few minutes I walked through the door,” Virgil pointed out. Patton rolled his eyes with a laugh.

“That’s just Roman,” he said. “But it’s because you’re not a pureblood. You are a formed demon, not a birthed one. There’s nothing wrong with that. In our house, at least,” he added with a sly wink.

Virgil flushed. He blew a raspberry at Patton, who giggled and wiggled up to cuddle him.

“You’re gorgeous,” he said quietly. “A very pretty tiger.”

“I think sleep deprivation is getting to you,” said Virgil gently, guiding Patton’s head down to rest on his collarbone. “Try and get some rest. I’ll look after the menaces.”

“Alright, kitto,” Patton murmured sleepily and closed his eyes. Virgil didn’t have the heart to wake him up to demand what sort of pun that was.

That next morning, Virgil walked into Logan’s room to find the Demon of Pride trying to stand from his bed.

“Hey!” he barked, darting forward to grab Logan’s shoulders and shove him back onto the bed. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Logan had the audacity to give him an incredulous look. “Standing up?”

“After taking that sort of damage, fat chance,” Virgil snarled at him. “Lie back down.”

Logan blinked, then squinted. Virgil paused, feeling vulnerable under the scrutiny.

Though, then he suddenly realised his tail was flicking with anticipation and his ears had folded backwards in confusion, and he realised.

“I’m uh... I suppose I ran out of time,” he said, only a little sheepishly. “I’m a demon, now.”

“I can see that,” Logan said mildly, but Virgil could tell he was pleased. “I can’t exactly stay in bed all day, Virgil. Can you help me up?”

Virgil scowled down at him. “Do you promise to take everything slow and easy for the day?”

Logan sighed. “If that’s what it takes.”

Virgil thought for a minute, but seemingly satisfied, Vigil gripped his (now warm again) hand and helped him stand. To Logan’s complete credit, he barely even swayed. Still, Virgil couldn’t force himself to relax. He kept his grip firm but gentle on Logan’s arm and circled him. Logan stood still, looking mildly amused, and let Virgil finish his examination.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Virgil asked, leaning forward to squint at Logan’s face, thoroughly inspecting his smooth throat and bright eyes.

So when their lips knocked together, at first Virgil assumed it had been his fault, but then Logan’s expression morphed from dazed to horrified, and he took a step back.

“Apologies,” he said quickly. “I— that’s—”

Virgil didn’t know what his face was doing until his cheeks started to ache, and he realised he was smiling so wide his dimples were probably on full display (ugh).

He reached forward, sharp fingers lightly trailing the edges of Logan’s lips, which had previously just been pressed into a thin line.

“Feeling okay?” Virgil asked. Logan visibly swallowed, then nodded. Virgil pulled his hand back and Logan adjusted his shirt primly.

“Quite.”

Virgil grinned, and the tip of his tail twitched happily.

“Again, Virgil, my apologies, I—”

“Hey,” Virgil, fixing him with a patient look. “Do I look mad?”

“But— you and Patton—”

“Eh.” Virgil shrugged. “You’re all pretty likeable, for demons.” He shared a grin with Logan, who finally relaxed.

They both heard the thumping on carpet and the excited babbling long before Roman careened into Logan’s open doorway and stared, gaping, at Virgil.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said, and Virgil was almost confused before Patton came up behind Roman. “Oh my god, you really weren’t kidding.”

“I told you I wasn’t!” Patton laughed.

“Unholy SHIT,” Roman cried. He shot forward and circled Virgil, who glared at him challengingly and dared him to say something. He paused in front of Virgil and bit his lip, looking abashed. “Can... Can I...?” He gestured to the top of Virgil’s head.

Virgil relaxed and ducked his head compliantly. Roman attentively brushed over his ears. 

“How does it feel?” Logan asked curiously. Roman pulled back and Virgil straightened. “Being a demon?”

“Yeah,” scoffed Roman, not unkindly, “you’re not the superior being anymore. How does it feel to be longer above us? I have to know, it’s for science.”

Logan shot him a bemused look. “How on earth does that have anything remotely to do with—”

“SILENCE, GUINEA-FOUL,” Roman interrupted. “Let the Siberian Forest Cat talk.”

Patton frowned disapprovingly. “Ro—”

He was cut off by a chortling snort, and with a surprise, they turned to see Virgil covered his face with his hands, laughing into his palms.

“S-sorry,” he gasped out, waving his hand, and shaking his head. After a moment he composed himself and smiled down at Roman. “That was terrible.”

It seemed it was a day of unusual behaviour: Roman didn’t act offended at this. He only grinned brightly.

Then his face dropped into a scowl and he crossed his arms.

“God, that’s so unfair,” he muttered. “You got to be a tiger. I’m just a goat.”

Virgil tilted his head, thinking about his previously private conversation with Logan. A smirk creeping along his face, Virgil decided: fuck it.

He leaned down and planted his lips firmly on Roman’s.

“I don’t know,” he said as he pulled back, grinning smugly at Roman’s stupefied face. “I think they’re pretty great.”

Roman’s breath shuddered as he inhaled. His smile was a little star-struck when he said, “R-right.”

Patton giggled and looped his elbows through both Roman and Virgil’s arms.

“I have to admit I am curious as well,” Logan said slowly, and Virgil wondered if they just weren’t going to talk about any of… ‘it’. “About your certainty of your decision — staying here, beneath the rest of your people?”

“They’re not my people,” Virgil said, and it sounded familiar to something he’d already heard. He shook his head. “They’re not even my family.” Patton looked horrified at this, but Virgil grinned and wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him into a side hug. “You guys are.”

Patton and Logan smiled. Roman made a face. “That was cheesier than Patton’s puns.”

“Or sappier than your nicknames,” Logan countered, and Virgil sighed. Sentimental moment over, he supposed, as Roman bleated in outrage.

“Hey!”

Six months later

Virgil, realistically, wanted to ask for a single day of normality.

A relaxed day, maybe an uneventful one. Maybe where he could take a nap without the anxiety of the house falling to pieces without him around to keep the order. (Honestly, how had these morons survived this long without him?) A day of bliss.

Not one where Roman wanted to try cooking for a change and forgot about it, causing the fireplace to explode and almost burn down the house, or where Patton tried to cheer Logan up after his feathers were burnt from Roman’s food mishap with an endless stream of puns and bad dad jokes that made even Virgil groan.

So of course, it was on this particular disastrous day that Fate decided to mess with Virgil personally some more.

He was reading over Roman’s most recent work, having successfully achieved attention from some in-city demons after some of Virgil’s tweaks to his work. (When Roman had found that the potential publishers had disregarded their groundedness because of how much the work had improved, he had hugged Virgil so hard he was fairly sure at least two ribs had popped out of place.) The story wasn’t bad; Roman was obviously trying some new avenues, now that he was more confident that demons would consider looking at what he made.

He was just circling a word and suggesting a better alternative when he heard it: the flapping, signifying approaching wings, too large to be an animal, yet not big enough to warrant panic. Although, the fluttering around the edges of the sound, indicating wings made of feathers made a small pit of anxiety grow in Virgil’s gut.

The others heard it too, but Virgil was already standing and making for the door before they could say anything. Patton tried to call for him to stop, but he exploded out of the house just as Janus landed.

He looked as formidably professional as ever, not a strand of hair out of place, his wings perfectly folded at his back. Face an expressionless mask. Eyes carefully blank and unreadable.

The only thing different this time around, was the gashed scars slicing down the side of his face, trailing over his eye running down the side of his cheek to reach the edge of his lip.

Virgil glowered at him, hunching his shoulders. He unfurled his wings, the feathers unkempt and so dirty the white was almost black, now, but still as glorious and empowering as ever. He blocked the entrance of the house with them, keeping both his possessions in, and Janus out. (He could hear impatient bustling as Roman paced at his back, wanting to get past.)

“What do you want?” Virgil demanded. He heard shuffling behind him, and the sound of Logan’s tailfeathers brushing in alarm. Distantly, he remembered that he and Roman hadn’t heard his tempest tongue before.

Janus visibly composed himself. “You told me that once I had done as you required, I would-”

“I told you I would consider forgiving you,” Virgil spat. “Not that you could return here.”

Janus seemed to be at a bit of a loss at this, closing his mouth and blinking.

“Ah,” he said finally. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. “Should I... I suppose... I’ll... be leaving, then.”

“Good.” Virgil snarled, baring his teeth for good measure.

“Wait!” a little voice cried, and Patton burst between the doorframe and Virgil’s wing. The Angel of Anger gave him a chagrined look. “Wait, maybe�� maybe we can hear him out.”

“Sure.” Roman scrambled out behind Patton, and Virgil sighed, exasperated. What was the point in trying to protect them if they didn’t get the hint? “Right after I dig something sharp into  his back.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Patton, distressed, grabbed Roman’s arms.

“Let’s see how he likes it!” Roman snarled. “What if we slit his throat as well, while we’re at it?”

“Perhaps we should think this through,” Logan piped up. At least  he  was being sensible and staying behind Virgil, where it was  safe.  “I doubt he came here for a fight.”

“No,” said Roman fiercely, and he almost shaking, “but we can sure give him one.”

“Stop it,” Virgil growled, his voice losing its unnatural tone. Silence fell and he tried to swallow guilt. “Go inside.”

“What?” Roman demanded, whirling on him. “But he—!”

“Roman.” Virgil stared him down, unwaveringly. Roman growled.

“We’re not helpless, Virgil,” he said.

Virgil sighed and moved from the doorway, cupping Roman’s face in his hands. “This is less of me being worried about what he’ll do to you, and more of me being worried about what  you  will do to  him.  You are quite a formidable foe when you want to be.”

Roman squinted suspiciously. “Flattery isn’t going to get me to relax.”

“But it’ll make you listen,” Virgil countered smoothly, and Roman finally relented. He shuffled back, but Patton slipped his hand into Virgil’s and peered up at him.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked in a whisper. Virgil smiled down at him.

“I’ve got it,” he reassured him. Patton nodded and stepped back. Virgil’s palm burned as he strode forward.

It was strange. They were... together, now, all four of them. Apparently, the trio of demons had been before Virgil had even arrived, but despite Virgil having been head over heels for Patton first, the pair of them still hadn’t exactly... made moves. Virgil wasn’t sure why. He hoped it wasn’t something he’d done to make Patton second guess anything.

He shook those thoughts from his head. That wasn’t what he needed to focus on.

The glare he fixed on Janus made him blurt, without pause, “I came to see you.”

Virgil’s eyebrows arched. His blackened wings twitched. His tail swished warningly behind him.

Janus looked like he understood the unspoken message clearly:  you see me, and I am a demon.

“I... wanted to inform you that—” Janus’ voice became a little uneven, and he cleared his throat and straightened himself — “that I did as you asked.”

Virgil glowered.

“Started to do as you asked,” Janus corrected himself. “It’s... a work in progress?”

Virgil tried not to let his surprise show on his face. Janus was smug, and cunning, and insufferable, and he didn’t ever show any sign of weakness, and he certainly didn’t act so unsure of himself.

“I approached... many other angels, and... the majority of the Ancient Angels have been confronted about the community’s... opinions.”

Virgil’s lip twitched in disgust and Janus winced. “They... have considered my suggestions of changing a select number of rules. I... have the heads of Humility and Abstinence aiding me. And Remus, too, of course. I think I can sway Head of Kindness with a little more time, too. Emile does not like me very much.”

Virgil realised with an inward jolt that his face had gone slack from his tight scowl.

He resisted the urge to clear his throat. There were countless things he could say. He could growl a deep, “Good.” He could bare his teeth and snap a sharp,  “Get out.”  He could snarl and slash at the other side of Janus’ face, give him a matching set of scars, and roar that he didn’t care what Janus had done or would do.

The truth was: Virgil could say a lot.

The truth was: Virgil said nothing.

Virgil stared at this angel and refused to admit that he really did just want to see him as his brother once again.

He stared at Janus and nodded once.

“You can... always return,” Janus went on. “There are rules about demons and angels coexisting, and I doubt I will be able to change those ones as swiftly, though... I believe I can be convincing enough for an expectation to be made.”

Virgil’s ears flicked.

“Remus misses you, I think.” Because of course, Janus wasn’t going to admit to any weakness, and missing someone was certainly a weakness. “You... know that you can return to your family, no matter what, right?”

Virgil narrowed his eyes as he said, “I am with my family.”

Janus’ face didn’t betray any emotions, and Virgil wondered if he had seen that coming, and had been prepared. For a long moment of silence, he said nothing. His eyes darted over Virgil’s tensing shoulder. Virgil’s ears swivelled to listen as Roman shuffled on his feet anxiously, and Patton’s hands brushed over his shoulder, and Logan’s feathers fluttering as he strained to overhear their conversation.

“So you have,” Janus admitted faintly.

Virgil lifted his chin. Similarly, Janus lowered his gaze.

“I... will return, now.” The angel stepped back.

A quietly cleared throat made Virgil glanced over his shoulder. Patton, between Logan’s curious eyes and Roman’s deep frown, made a face that Virgil couldn’t make out. He blinked uncomprehendingly, and Patton gestured, a little wildly desperate, to Janus, who had turned to leave.

Virgil almost ignored him. Almost said nothing.

But then he was blurting out a jumbled, “Wait.”

Janus went rigid, but he paused. He didn’t turn, and didn’t speak up, obviously waiting for Virgil to speak.

“You... you may return,” Virgil said haltingly. “Once... once there are... more developments.”

For a long time, Janus said nothing.

When he turned, it was only a slight tilt of his head. The scars on that side of his face glistened in the heat of the Demonic Kingdom’s landscape.

“Only for updates,” he agreed without a hint of bitterness or malice. “Understood.”

With that, he flared his wings and shot into the sky. Virgil watched until the clouds swivelling around his disappearing form and he vanished.

Well,  Virgil thought in a voice that was almost painfully reminiscently Patton’s.  That could have gone worse.

“Are you going to stand there all day, you striped shorthair?” Roman called, still obviously impatient.

With a jump, Virgil turned and returned to them.

“How did it go?” Logan inquired.

Virgil tried to think on that, but all that his mind provided was static.

Logan smiled and rubbed his arms reassuringly. “That’s a perfectly normal reaction, Virgil. Don’t worry.”

Virgil nodded. Another warm hand brushed against the side of his face, and he looked down at Patton.

“Are you okay?” Patton asked with that soft, light voice of his, those gorgeous, caring eyes staring up at him. Virgil decided that after a long time, he really was.

In answer, Virgil grinned, and kissed him.

[bubblegum-writes]

every storm runs out of rain

A/N: hello guys! this is my first fic of allllll time. please let me know how i did and any feedback would be appreciated! thanks and love uuuuu guysssss!

          The light of the morning is far more delicate, more gentle than any other light of the day. Whereas dusk and especially noon-light stabs at the eyes, sparing no one from its rays of power, morning offers a peace that only a few privileged early-birds can see on any given day. For this reason, Katsuki was grateful for his strict sleep schedule. To see his lover's face in the pale sunlight of dawn, with her lips parted and small snores reverberating through the sleeping space, was to see the face of God in his eyes. His eyes peeked through his eyelids, the warmth of the body next to his becoming more apparent with every waking moment. Her (h/c) locks were piled atop the pillow; sleep has not treated them well. The tangles would surely be a mess to deal with when she woke up. 

          If someone had asked Katsuki 10 years, 5 years, hell, even 2 years ago, if he saw himself finally settling down with someone with whom he found love within, he’d simply sneer at the thought with some not-so-delicately picked explicits. His pride would not allow him to entertain such fanciful ideas. No, it wasn’t just pride; it was a culmination of pride, fear, and ignorance that had wrapped itself into a tight, Gordian knot-esque ball of strangled emotions. However, unlike ancient beings of superb physical power like Alexander the Great, (Y/N) did not simply tear through it like a savage in hopes that the problem would be solved. Instead, she took her time to study it, to understand why the knot had formed in the first place. With delicate and dainty fingers, she slowly unraveled the heap of emotions, traumas that were committed to memory long ago, and precariously put them all into a single, organized line of memories. Together, they traversed the paths of hurt and anger. Throughout the process, Katsuki finally saw how someone can be simultaneously caring yet strong, soft yet hard. His eyes slowly opened to the world, and with her help, he took it all in with grace. Well, as much grace as Katsuki Bakugou could handle. 

          After a few slow blinks, he was able to look at his lover (no, his wife) sleeping soundly in their king-sized bed clearly. After last night’s certain affairs, neither one of the duo had bothered getting dressed afterwards. No wonder her naked figure had yet to wake up; the passionate love-making and numerous rounds they had both endured not even twelve hours ago must have taken a toll on her body. The light from the gigantic window that stood above the headboard streamed through the room, illuminating everything in a peachy, almost antique color of yellow. Fierce red eyes held a somber, yet enduring look as they slid down her figure, from her hair, to her eyelashes and eyes as they flinched to and fro in her deep sleep. Further down her looked, and he found the marks he left on her the night before. Dark purple and blue spots on her collarbones, chest, and midsection looked like the finest art to him; he felt an overwhelming sense of pride knowing that he was the artist who littered them across her beautiful skin.

          His hands slowly left the mattress and moved up towards her face, his calloused thumbs rubbing against her cheek lovingly. Subconsciously, (Y/N) moved her head towards the hand that comforted her, that brought her great pleasure. He smiled, his eyes narrowing so he can take in everything glorious about this moment. He slowly encompassed his ethereal wife with his strong arms, careful not to wake her up, and tucked her head beneath his chin. His calloused fingers rubbed and her arm and back, deep hums of a long-forgotten lullaby reverberating from his throat. The burnt orange blankets were strewn about their bodies, their legs entangled and chests tightly pressed onto one another. The birds were singing their morning songs loudly; spring has finally shown its face despite the harsh winter whose storms and snowfalls had ravaged Japan just months earlier. The thought of the renaissance of the trees and birds made Katsuki recount one of his darkest nights that led to his lightest moment.

          Every storm runs out of rain. (Y/N) told Katsuki that one day after his hero work had finally cracked his constitution. He had come home with a blank face, a far cry from his expressive, if not constantly angry, face. He dropped his bags by the door, not even bothering muttering a small ‘hello” or even a grunt in acknowledgement. (Y/N) was busy finishing dinner, his favorite: spicy takoyaki. Immediately she could tell that something was amiss with her fiancé. She knew if she pried or even attempted to ask what was wrong straight-out, she’d be met with a dismissive wave and passive aggressive rumbles at best. She watched Katsuki sulk through their apartment and into their bathroom, shutting the door with a loud slam! With a deep sigh, (Y/N) returned to the takoyaki, making sure none of the fried balls had burnt.

          She was grateful that she was almost done before Katsuki came home. She finished up the takoyaki, unplugged everything, put foil on the balls to keep them warm, and slowly paced herself towards their restroom. She gently placed her head upon the door and she heard the water running, but no music.

          How unusual, she thought. Ordinarily, he brought his phone into the shower and listened to whatever music fit his mood that day. However, she was greeted with near silence. Except for the near-silent sobs of her favorite person in the world. Gently, she turned the knob and pushed the wooden door. The shower curtains were closed, but she could barely make out his silhouette through the steam. Katsuki was crouched on the shower floor, his head in his knees and his arms around his torso. His head was shaking slightly, the sobs breaking (Y/N)’s heart with every moan. Katsuki was so caught up in his suffering that he had yet to notice (Y/N) slowly undressing just outside of the curtains.

          Gently, she grabbed the edges of the curtains and pulled them back. With a pitiful yelp that almost made (Y/N) purse her lips and eyebrows in pity (she didn’t however, because she didn’t know how he’d react in this situation), Katsuki looked up at her, trying his damnedest to look tough and put-together. Quite frankly, he looked like a wet, sad dog. In any other scenario, (Y/N) might’ve chuckled, but this was not the time to do so. She slowly dipped one foot into the scalding water, wincing as it barely burned her skin. She gauged his reaction to see if she should continue. When he just continued staring at her, not making an attempt to stop her or even move, she slowly lowered herself until she was sitting directly across from him.

          “Hello, dear,” she whispered, the sound of her voice barely carrying over the sound of pounding water. He suddenly swiped his red-tinged eyes away to stare at the ground between his knees. His breathing was labored and his blonde hair was stuck to his face; he didn’t even try to move it.“Hey,” he slowly said, still not making eye contact. The words permeated the air, hovering like the steam off of the two hot bodies. Testing the waters (both physically and emotionally), she took her hand and lay it atop one of his knees. He tensed, not prepared for the physical contact as his eyes slowly started trailing up (Y/N)’s body. She was perfect in his eyes; her body always seemed to melt into his, like two different puzzle pieces finally finding their other half. Above that, her personality glowed like a horde of fireflies on a hot summer night.

          He always wondered how someone could be so empathetic yet strong, funny yet serious, positive yet idealistic at the same time. On top of that, how could that person find anything good in him? He knew he wasn’t the easiest person to handle; he didn’t really choose to be that way. Yet (Y/N) found the good within him, behind the anger and sarcasm and pain. 

          “Wanna talk about today?” She gently offered her ear to whatever problems Katsuki had.

          “Maybe....I just….” He never had an easy time communicating his feelings, but at least it was easier around (Y/N). Before he could continue, (Y/N) slowly moved her body to rest atop his between his knees and chest, her arms wrapping around his neck.

          “Everything will be alright, dear. You can cry. I am here. I am here for you. I love you.” She assured him as she traced her nails atop his shoulders. Finally, the dam broke. His tears mixed with the shower water, his sobs echoing in the spacious bathroom. He told her about a villain that had attacked the city today, how he wasn’t fast enough or strong enough to save everyone. As he talked he gradually tightened his arms around her, until they were in each other's vice-like grip. He felt the safest had ever had, or maybe ever would be as well. (Y/N) dragged her fingers through his hair, humming in response to his talking and shushing sweet lullabies when his emotions came to a peak. After both lovers had been drenched and their extremities had started to prune, Katsuki felt lighter than he had for some time. He opened the locked chest that was his heart, poured the contents out in front of (Y/N) with no hesitation, and she worked his soul into newer, brighter shapes. Completely forgetting the takoyaki, they moved to their bed to finally rest for the night. He would never forget what she said after they had dried off and lay down in bed, naked yet not sexually connected in the moment. He thought he had finally gone to sleep, but before he could succumb to the darkness himself, he heard the words that stuck with him ever since.

          “Every storm runs out of rain.” 

          Gently reuniting with the current moment in time, he felt his eyes had teared up without his knowledge. His smile was not a sad one, but rather one of pure, unadulterated bliss. He pulled (Y/N) even more tightly into his chest, kissing the crown of her head repeatedly. Lethargically, she opened her eyes, her eyelashes tickling the blonde man’s chest. Trying not to disturb the perfect moment between the two lovers, she gently raised her head to meet crimson eyes. In that moment, the world had stopped moving; every set of eyes in the world was concentrated on the two sweethearts, awaiting their next moves.

          “Hello,” Katsuki grumbled, his knuckles pushing her hair out of her eyes, “How did you sleep?”

          “After last night? Like a baby.” She joked as she leaned up and kissed his chin. Again, if you had asked Katsuki 2 years ago if he would ever find himself in such a vulnerable position, he’d deny ever allowing himself to not be as strong or as brave as humanly possible every second of every day. That’s what (Y/N) did to him, though. Piece by piece, brick by brick, she took apart every facet of him with gentle heart and hands and put him back together with as much love conceivably possible. He never asked her to, she just did. He’d find a way to thank her, one day.

          “You sure as hell don’t snore like a baby,” he chided with a light tone. He leaned his head back so he could take her beauty all in. Her eyes were still drowsy, but it just added to her charm. He felt so incredibly safe here, in their shared bed with (Y/N) deep within his hold. “Speaking of a baby…” Katsuki drawled, watching her face scrunch up with a mixed look of confusion and...was that hope? His hand slowly trailed down to her lower abdomen, stroking below her navel where his future children would grow.

          “Are you putting down what I’m picking up?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows and best as she could in her tired state.

          “God dammit (Y/N), I’m tryna be serious about having a kid and you’re over here joking about it!” His eyebrows furrowed, but both of them knew it wasn’t done facetiously. He pulled her face towards his, their lips only centimeters apart before their eyes met. In that moment, every word he had wanted to say to her about them, about their future, came into light. Her eyes narrowed with a smile and she closed the space between them.

          It was a kiss that started slow, their heads slowly twisting and lips opening and closing on one another. Eventually, things got heated and, after a good hour, they lay in each other’s arms again, considerably sweatier and higher off ecstasy than before.  

          “Would you want a boy or a girl?” She spoke softly into his hair, his head tucked beneath her chin. 

          “I want a healthy baby for us to love, that’s all I want. That’s all I ever wanted after I found you.” He murmured into her chest, stroking the hand beneath her bottom on the outside of her thigh. (Y/N) giggled before she took his face into her hands.

          “I’ve made you a softie, haven’t I?”

          “....Shut up…”

thank you for reading! i appreciate any feedback! lemme know if you need any trigger warnings and also lemme know what you guys would like next!

[sylph-feather]

delta echo alpha delta

Summary: 

He is here, for some reason, in this place and with these people he vaguely recognizes. He wants help. Please, please, please. 

(All they see is a haunting and a monster.)

Prompt by @ectopal

“Jack and Maddie, at the end of their rope,  beg Vlad to come to Amity to help stop the ghost that's haunting their family. Vlad realizes that it isn't a ghost that's terrorizing them, but their son, who recently became a half ghost and is having just about the worst time in the world dealing with it. Bonus points if in his human form Danny is extremely unsettling. ”

Notes:  (yes the title is from lemon demon’s lifetime achievement award). this... i spent. way longer setting it up so sorry about minimal vlad but. uhh im really proud of this. i went. i went a little nuts, admittedly. with imagery. i hope its not incomprehensible? 

Wordcount: 2825

Being dead… is new.

The Phantom isn’t sure just how it is new, it contemplates as it stares at two children who scream and scrabble at a smoking portal. Blank in their terror, they ignore him.

His eyes flicker towards a mirror on the other side of the room, and it only shows the two of them.

The phantom ignores them— who is he to interrupt? Dead men tell no tales. He gets the distinct feeling that everything is wrong, and a piece of that puzzle is the pair’s odd familiarity— but hey, he just died, he’s really not feeling up to much of anything.

Green eyes stare in the mirror, but that’s all he is— two green wisps, apparently ignored in the panic of two teens.

He supposes he should feel weirder having, presumably, died. No, he innately knows he died.

But mostly he just feels… confusion. Displacement.

And cold, not unpleasantly so, just a buried, almost peaceful chill.

In between blinks— perhaps he is tired, so tired, dead tired (he laughs to himself), the two teens flicker away, basement restored, before he can even think about questioning them. Why are you so familiar? Why am I here? It pokes sharply at his heart.

For the phantom knows he is dead, but he never considered that means alive once, too tired and dead-brained (hah) to question implication.

The ghost of Danny Fenton closes its wispy eyes, not strong enough to maintain form, let alone to pervade that shock scrabble at memories that may lead him to living again.

xXx

Three days pass. The ghost, in moments of waking, had decided Phantom. There is something so familiar about that name, the way it rolls off his (hypothetical) tongue.

In between blinks, he sees the Family in the basement, that place of awakening.

They speak of someone missing, lost. They gesture to the green, swirling abyss, upset as they work on something that looks like a rocket. Rocket. Stars pervade his mind as he lazily blinks, and he falls back asleep to dreams of space before he can even think again of questioning the Family, of asking can I help?

He knows what it is to be lost, but he is too tired and unfocussed.

xXx

The one with the firey, long hair notices him first. He has taken to floating about the abode. Nothing physical keeps him here, but there is some tug in his heart that makes him want to stay.

He likes the red haired one. She reads a lot. Talks about bad coping to the Parents, though he’s not sure what those words mean (he’s unsure also why he gets the feeling of vague annoyance, oddly familiar, and the stinging in his chest becomes so painful when he thinks like that, like a scorpion’s deadly barbed stinger).

One day, one higher energy day, a week after the awakening, Phantom lazily swishes after her, into her room. Sometimes he blinks and he hears the swishes of pages and a drip of water, and he has enough energy now to be curious.

The doors, the walls, the floor— they’re all nothing. Or maybe, rather, he’s nothing, he observes as he notes the girl crying on her psych book.

He frowns, distantly. She’ll ruin the pages like that. Maybe there’s something more he should be concerned about, but he is so young and lost, and so tired.

He runs a finger along a page, rolling away a tear, in an effort to dry it. The pages flutter in a wind, and the girl startles, glancing at the closed window.

For just a moment, Phantom sees not two piercing green wisps, but something blue and glinting, and a fragment of a foggy body in his place. He glances down— there is no second person here.

He’s distracted by the fact the girl is crying again, harder, scrubbing her eyes.

Distressed, he thumbs at her face, and a cool, wintery wind blows over her hair.

He’s too tired to do much more, and his chill becomes like a blanket to him.

xXx

It’s small, but maybe Phantom can help the family. His waking moments get more frequent and longer, and he starts to fidget with objects; the daughter cries, and he rustles her hair. The mother sleeps on her research of the great swirling door, and he drapes a foggy arm over her. The father squints into darkness at his foggy form as he goes down for a midnight snack— then blinks and rubs his eyes. He flickers the computers off when they should be sleeping, touches at their shoulders in comfort, because he wants to help them and he wants to be with them so bad. The flailing stinger pierces again and again.

“We’ll find him,” the Parents insists, and the Phantom tries to support them as best he can. The Daughter has given up, but he tries to help her, too.

Bluntly, the Phantom notes perhaps he is not exactly selfless— one of the few concrete truths he knows of himself (the other being an enjoyment of word play; he’s twisted dead and ghost every which way). There is some innate desire within him to be with them; seen, known, interacted with.

At the moment, he’s not more than a blustering wind and a foggy reflection.

He sinks to the floor, ghostly sigh escaping his ever invisible lungs. He’s wondered if ghosts are supposed to breathe as he does, but it’s not like anyone’s around to ask. His crackled voice is never heard by the Family, responded to by nothing but icy silence.

He brushes a hand against the cold lab table from his floating position. His hands feel solid to him, but again, do not reach the Family.

The Phantom takes a look around at the toxic green beakers and sleek white tech. He is slipping away again, not that he wants to— but not that he has a choice.

In what feel like his last moments for the day (week? Month? Time is undefinable) he grasps at a beaker, curious.

Green oozes onto the floor as it blows over. Frantically, the Phantom tries to correct his mistake— but touching it… touching it feels good. A jolt of electricity and energy. The tiredness… is gone.

Something flickers beneath him, and the Phantom jumps into the air. White feet follow black legs. Him.

The mirror that showed green wisps and two teens now show a white haired boy, with two green eyes. Something seems… underneath that reflection, though. Approaching the mirror, Phantom tilts his head, and the picture glints into something blue eyes and black haired for a fraction of a second, as though it is iridescent.

And then he blinks out altogether again.

xXx

Phantom’s first appearance is in the night. The girl has put away her book she was crying over while reading in the kitchen, and the Parents are upstairs; they eat, softly, quiet. It’s like walking in snow. The cold is not tranquil, the flakes not soft, they are just sharp things that land quietly in flesh.

The Phantom decides to break it with an icy crunch.

From the shadows, from the floors, he claws at that energy.

The Family stare in shock at the white haired, green eyed form that flickers in the shadows.

Their ears ring as his form, like static snowflakes, glints into something familiar, as they sit frozen.

xXx

He sleeps again, after that stunt— but the Phantom wakes, hopeful. The Family is searching for the lost person— perhaps they will also be sympathetic to his cause. Maybe they don’t even need to find the lost one, Phantom considers; this feels so much like home, maybe… maybe. No, no, you can both get help, he scolds in gentle reminder to himself, reminding those thoughts are the scoprion’s poison. It’s not malevolent— it just, in some way, he just knows he’ll slot in like a missing puzzle piece. He doesn’t know how he knows, and thoughts like that make the urge of please see me, the love, the need, grow so strong.

His voice reaches them in a static scream; he gives that approach up quickly when the Parents shoot into the nothing. He doesn’t want to scare, he wants to be helped, and to help. He’s finally a little less braindead (his chuckle is tinny static) and can contemplate a little more emotionally complicated situations— in other words, he can tell continuing to screech is perhaps not the best idea, and perhaps more subtlety that is available to him with his increased thoughts is required.

The TV channels, the word magnets, the radio. Static and the message lost lost lost please help lost lost forgot forgot see me see see see seeseeseeseesee me.

The Phantom feels his message is going well until the Family destroys those things in a green fire.

I need your help, though, he grimaces. Perhaps they just aren’t getting it. The dead cannot speak, are not supposed to; he knows this when he writes messages, something grating in his mind that keeps him from communicating all but his basic thoughts and wants.

Determined still, he starts flickering into existence again, clawing out of shadows. Lights flicker at his arrival.

It’s hard to do much like that, though; his brain dies (more?) and it’s all his concentration of see me see me.

The Family shoots at him, and more sleek machinery invades the household— defenses.

It doesn’t hurt him.

But… if he gets frustrated, slams at the fixtures a little harder than needed, rakes the words into place to try to say something, who can blame him? The Phantom, for some reason he cannot explain, feels the Family is his family. The Phantom wants to be seen. The universe tries to keep the dead in line, restrain the dead from disrupting that natural order of their old life and their afterlife. It’s a lot of factors, the Phantom dismisses, very much like a sassy teenager, and slams a door a little harder to get someone to notice.

The real problem is that they notice, then react in all the wrong ways. But the Phantom cannot swallow that, that his efforts are squandered, because then where would he be?

xXx

By the time the Fentons are valiant enough to get Vlad to get the “gang” back together, the creature is a constant. The ghost scrapes its filthy claws over the lights, resides in mirrors, screams over anything electronic— and their tech puts no stop to it. It’s like it has a foot in each world, caught between the ghost zone’s intangibility that would let it not be hurt but make it challenging to interact and the human realm’s solidity that would allow it to be wounded.

It is too powerful.

xXx

The Phantom can feel that the irritated old man is powerful. Something about his eyes glints red, in that same iridescent way that something inside Phantom’s green eyes glint blue like a glacier, if you just tilt your head and squint just right.

The Parents, who the Phantom has grown wary of— and yet he’s still here— why? It feels so much like home. He wants it to be home, because it’s always felt his place. Maybe that missing person doesn’t need to be found— maybe he can—no, no, remember!— the Parents, they are ranting about ghosts loudly. The man is impassive, and the Phantom plays with tilting his head just right to get the man’s skin to flood blue.

“I think it’s Danny,” Daughter says softly. That name stings him, but Phantom doesn’t think Daughter means to hurt him. She, Phantom still likes. She looks at him when he shows, looks at him like someone is concerned, even if she cries harder than ever nowadays (maybe Phantom is just awake to see it more, but he notes the constant redness of eyes and face is new, so maybe not). She doesn’t destroy his messages, just stares. Not helpful in the least, he notes sarcastically, plucking at the invisible yet black (—how can it be both? How can he be two things that are so opposite and parallel?) jumpsuit of his (how can it exist when he never can exist, so many hows).

“That isn’t Danny,” the Parents cement, and Phantom frowns. The name stings again, the scorpion sitting perched upon a rib and taking personal offence to that person. Who is Danny?

xXx

Watching the old man is tiring and boring. Phantom doesn’t have enough energy to reach him, to say help me (because the old man has the glint and that has to mean something) so he decides to change that.

When he sleeps, he dreams of so many glinting things. Flickering figures of the Family and the Teens that visit sometimes. But they are just ghosts of memories.

xXx

It is in the night when he wakes up, green eyes staring at the silver pool moon, pleased as he ever is staring at those stars.

A breath passes his lips, and his nonexistent form shudders. Someone—!

“You must change back,” the ghost he saw in glints of the old man says. Belatedly, he introduces— “I am Plasmius, and I am… like you.”

“You see me,” Phantom murmurs, breath foggy. No, that isn’t right. The ghost is squinting in general directions, as though Phantom is a glimmer in his eye. Phantom is a glimmer in his own eye in the mirror, so he understands.

“You are... foggy,” the blue ghost amends, confirming Phantom’s thoughts. “Something about you is wrong.”

“Thanks,” Phantom says sarcastically (a new ability, a new joke that he loves), “tell me something I don’t know.”

“What happened to you?” the ghost asks.

“I woke up,” Phantom says bluntly. “I’m here now. They won’t help me.”

“Their son— they ignored their son?”

“They have a Son?” Phantom’s eyes flutter— “is he the lost one?”

xXx

The ghost went back to flickering inside the old man, because the Mother charged in.

“Oh,” she sighed, “it’s just you.”

“Yes,” he says, and he glimmers and shows fangs and horns, “just me.”

Phantom does not like the way he is looking at the Mother, but he’s not that good at judging subtleties in people still, so he lets that feeling pass.

xXx

The next… Phantom isn’t sure if it’s the day, he fell asleep, but his naps are less and less, so he feels safe in calling it the next day… the next day, the ghost flickers out of the old man to float with him again.

“How do you do that?” Phantom wonders. Is it the key to not being seen, to guise oneself as one of them, as not dead?

“You should be able to do it, too,” the ghost mutters, “I see it in you.”

“The blue eyes and the black hair,” Phantom breathes. Like a bird feather that shows green at an angle, so too does his other, and this ghost is the same.

“But you are unstable,” Plasmius informs in a frown. “You never settled into one world, so you are stuck unable to traverse between them.”

Phantom blinks, confused, and Plasmius heaves a sigh of thin patience.

“You flicker a lot more than I do,” he informs bluntly, in a tone that suggests perhaps Phantom is an idiot. “And,” he tacks on, more contemplatively, “you seem to not remember anything, as though you’ve separated yourself from that essential connection.”

“Connection,” Phantom echoes, and he yearns for that connection. His entire soul keens for it, to fill that hole.

“Yes Danny,” Plasmius grunts, and that scorpion strikes again, “a connection.”

“I’m Phantom,” he defends, tapping at his ribs like he can knock the stinging creature off, away from his vulnerable chest.

“You’re both,” Plasmius says.

“Danny is the other?” Phantom asks.

“The blue eyes and the black hair? Yes. He is your glint, and he is the lost one, and he is just you.”

“Oh,” Phantom breathes, and the scorpion is writhing and striking his heart and itself and his ribs and— and—

He passes out, green eyes going out like a light.

—But the flickers, the flickers finger around him, crawling over his form like electricity for a moment, and his form is a patchwork of two, and his mind is a flood of memory.

xXx

“I defeated the ghost, last night, and he gave me your son,” Plasmius’ old-man voice rings.

And Phantom is Danny and Danny is Phantom— and as usual he sleeps. Memories came in dreams, an eruption after so long of being dammed, brought forth at simple acceptance. Despite the dreaming, or rather because of it, he is achingly tired, with zero energy.

This time, his family (the Family, the same) surrounds him in warmth, in that thread of connection, and inside, in more normal and soft dreams, he feels something become filled.

The scorpion crawls away into the soft, soft snow.

[btssmutficslovingfan01]

Late Night Confessions...With Father Jimin (Chapter Two)

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: 𝘼 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙚𝙛 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙪𝙣 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙝 𝙛𝙞𝙜𝙪𝙧𝙚, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙥 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙝. 𝙈𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙚, 𝘼 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙣𝙪𝙣 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙝 𝙖𝙨 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙮 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩?

𝒢𝑒𝓃𝓇𝑒: Romance, Smut, Forbidden Relationship

𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔(𝓈): Vanilla Sex, Mentions of BDSM, Manipulation, Priest! Jimin, Nun! Reader, Rich! Hoseok

𝒲𝑜𝓇𝒹𝓈: 4k+

𝒫𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔: Jimin x Reader

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next →

_________________________________________________

“So have any of you committed a grievous sin before you became a nun?” Sister Anne asks, making all of you shudder.

“Once I stole a cookie from a cookie jar after my mummy told me it was time for bed.” Sister Levy confesses.

“Once I stole my best friend’s boyfriend.” Sister Jen answers.

“Oh, that’s bad.” Sister Anne laughs, lying on her back.

“What about you, Sister Rosemary?” They look to you, and you muster up the courage to tell them the truth.

“I slept with my step brother,”

 Your comment makes all of them turn pale white, and their eyes widen as they look at you with newfound horror. “That was a joke! Did you think I would really do that?!” You all laugh it off, but a detail you forgot to mention was that it was very real, and you indeed had intercourse with your step brother. It was a hot summer’s day, you were both attracted to each other, he said you looked hot in booty shorts, and the next thing you know you’re sprawled out on the couch, letting him have you like a meal. He was hot, until you found out he was also sleeping with a lot of your friends. And then you ended it. It lasted for about two years, since you were 15 until 17. And now, you’re trying to escape it again; afraid of what he might do in case his father gave him permission to punish you however he sees fit.

Evening rolls around and it has become a routine for you and the Bishop to stay behind for extra prayer before bidding goodnight and retiring to bed. Slowly, you’ve both began speaking to each other, a couple words turning into sentences, and now he even helps you turn off the lights and takes care of other things before bed. You learned that he grew up in a small town and became a priest after his calling at 15, and then at age 20, he became the Bishop, proving everyone wrong. You’ve also began noticing other things, like the way his hair looks in the dim lighting of the candles, or the way his eyes sparkle when he talks about his family, or even the way his voice streams from his throat like a pretty melody, just an excellent tonality for a priest.

“C-can I confess?” You ask, earning a weird look from him.

“Sure. Let’s go to the booth.” He takes his seat, as you scoot in close, your nose almost touching the wooden cell. You’re so close, you can hear him breathing on the other side. Your knees have gotten used to the peu, so it doesn’t hurt as much as it did the first day.

“It must have been three years ago, when I made a terrible choice. I couldn’t help it, he looked too good. His jeans clung to his hips, his open shirt revealing his abs, I just couldn’t help but spread my legs for him. Oh forgive me father for I have sinned, I actually am a lecherer who had sex with her brother. Step brother.” Your confession makes him go silent, for a good minute and a half. Jimin had never heard of such a thing, as step-family or not, it’s taboo. 

“Were you pressured?” He asks, finally breaking the silence.

“No. I was in the heat of the moment, and after a couple more exchanges, we ended up doing it…” He had never heard of a nun who lost her virginity. Now he knows Sister Rosemary isn’t just an ordinary nun. And you willingly told him.

“Since you’re confessing to me, I feel it be best that I confess to you,” Your eyes widen as he looks at you through the tiny wooden holes, a smile forming on his face. “I accidentally killed the bishop, and took his place. My name isn’t Father Francis, it’s Jimin.” Finally, someone who understands.

“My step father is the leader of a mafia group. My brother is his heir, and I ran away because they were so bad...they killed my first boyfriend, Jay,” You explain, making Jimin frown. “So I’m in hiding now. Pretty crazy, huh?” You look at the clock, 11:00 exactly.

“It’s been a month since you got here, right?” You nod, biting your lips and looking at your feet. “It’s been the same for me. Father Yoongi won’t let me do anything.” Jimin sighs, and you get to your feet. 

“Shall I go to bed then?” You ask, the initial awkwardness wearing off.

“No. You stay right there.” Jimin runs off for a second, and leaves you waiting. “Close your eyes!” He shouts to you. 

“Happy one month of being here.” In front of you is a cake, decorated in pretty colors and some fondant flowers as well.

“Thank you, Jimin. I don’t know what to say-”

“Nothing. You don’t have to say anything.” He simply lights a candle. “Now make a wish.”

“But it isn’t my birthday!” You laugh, and he simply rubs his fingers through your veil.

“Even so, you deserve it. I feel bad for you, it sounds like you don’t deserve any of the shit you went through,” You close your eyes and blow out the candle, as Jimin takes a knife and cuts a slice for you. “It’s days like these I don’t feel like doing anything it all.” And you don’t have to. You want to say. He accidentally killed the Bishop, but one death is nothing compared to the thousands your step father had killed.

“Jimin...thank you so much.” You hold his hand and squeeze tightly, tight enough for him to look at you with that blank stare.

“I didn’t do anything, though.”

“You’ve done so much.” You find yourself leaning in, and just as the clock strikes 11:20, your lips are connected.

“You should go to bed now.” He wipes a piece of cake off your lips and puts it into his own mouth, savoring it before leaving the room, flustered by your actions. It was the first time in a long time that any woman had looked his way, and the first time his heart reacted the way it did. What were you doing to him? A simple nun, well not so simple since you told him the truth. A girl was making him go crazy.

“You look like you’re in a good mood.” Father Yoongi smiles as Jimin comes prancing into the room.

“Who? Me? Pfffft, I’m just feeling the holy spirit today.” The older man just rolls his eyes at Jimin.

“Whatever you say.” The priest already suspects him though, because one day while he was making a nighttime food run, he saw the lights were still on in the chapel, long after prayer was over. There, he saw you speaking in a hushed voice to the Bishop. What were you two up to? He had no idea, but he was going to find out.

The next day, Jimin calls you to the garden after prayer. He wasn’t going to let Yoongi catch you and stop your end of the night heart-to-hearts.

“Can I make another confession?” You ask him.

“Sure, why not now?” Jimin has nothing better do except talk to you for a sense of home and comfort.

“I actually wanted to sleep with my brother. Even back in the beginning, when I met that bastard, I wanted to actually fuck the shit out of him. He was just too damn attractive.”

“Wow, how brave of you to admit it.” Jimin didn’t mean that in a sarcastic sense, as he felt empathy for the girl. She was just a hormonal teenager at the time, and he noticed how she had matured into quite the young woman. You had luscious lips, large breasts, and an overall curvy body. You’re fit, but not too skinny, a natural beauty. Perhaps if you met at a different time, Jimin would have saved you from your horrible family earlier. He wanted you to be happy, seeing the pain in your eyes.

“I feel so stupid, he just played with me.” You start letting your emotions pour out in the form of tears.

“Don’t cry, at least you realized how crazy he is.”

“He was bad for me...but he made me feel so good,” Your words astonish Jimin, and a sudden urge to pin you down and have his way with you clouded his thoughts. He wanted to be with you, emotionally, mentally, physically. You simply sigh and turn your head to see Jimin deep in thought. “Something on your mind?” He shakes his head.

“Just...you look so beautiful under the moonlight. Can I kiss you?” You lean in, and he accepts that as his answer. “So soft…” You think out loud as Jimin lightly moans under you, his hands moving down your habit (yes that is the name of the tunic type clothes that nuns wear), and his fingers pull the fabric taut. You gasp, allowing him to roughly grab you, the dress hiking up your thigh.

“Shit, Father Yoongi’s light.” Jimin pants heavily, sitting up as you crawl on top of him.

“He won’t notice if we keep quiet.” You smirk at him, an idea formulated in your mind. “Or we can continue this later...in my room.” You never liked having sex outside, since once Hoseok thought it was a good idea to do it in the backyard when your parents were home. You still have nightmares from that.

“Sounds like a plan. You use the backdoor from the kitchen, I’ll go in through the chapel. He’ll never know you were here,” You nod, rushing out the way he told you. Jimin simply strolls to the door and greets Yoongi, who was momentarily startled by the unexpected movement in the corner. “I wasn’t feeling sleepy, so I took a walk through the gardens.”

“This late at night?” Yoongi questions him but there is no evidence to prove him wrong so he has no choice but to let him go.

“Now I’m really tired, so if you’ll excuse me…” Jimin makes his way towards you, and you open the door for him so he can sneak into your room unseen.

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quickly.” You lick your lips, temptatious thoughts filling your mind as Jimin stood before you, now disrobing and revealing his much more attractive parts.

“We better hurry. If someone catches us, we’re both finished.” You weren’t a fan of quickies, since Hoseok came in 12 seconds every time, but you could tell it was different with Jimin. Hopefully you aren’t repeating the same mistake.

“Relax. Father Yoongi isn’t gonna burst into your room, is he?” You ask. Jimin sighs.

“Hopefully, he doesn’t. But he has a bad habit of being unpredictable, since his hobby is sleeping, it’s easy to tell when he’ll wake up.”

“I’m not taking any chances. Fuck me already.” He pushes you onto the bed, kissing you vigorously and climbing over you. You whine into his mouth, panting as he pinches your ass, smirking at your reaction. He looks for more ways to make you cum without even taking your clothes off. The look in his eyes is enough to make any girl drenched, but the way his lips melt against yours is different. A good different.

“A girl like you is nothing close to a nun. Look at you, so wet already.” He pulls down your panties, digging his fingers into your pussy. Your walls tighten around him immediately, making your moans a bit higher-pitched. “Be quiet, unless you wanna get caught.” You nod, closing your mouth and breathing erratically through your nose. After fingering you for awhile, sensing your climax, he decides to remove the rest of your clothes and get to the good part. You lick your lips as he removes his shirt, and then unbuckles his Levi’s jeans. There’s no way a priest could look this good. You reminded yourself that he wasn’t a priest, and you aren’t a nun. But this could make for some really hot roleplay.

“J-Jimin!” You scream as his lips are suddenly on your clit.

“That’s it,” He pulls out a handkerchief. Before you can ask what he will do with it, he stuffs it into your mouth. It tastes like clean laundry, but you have your doubts. “If you can’t keep quiet, I’ll just have to make you be silent.” Your eyes fly open when you feel the pressure at your ass. He rubs his dick between your cheeks, and you can do nothing, powerless and submissive to his actions. The worst part is, you don’t want him to stop. This was your problem with Hoseok. You shudder at the memories, moaning for him to stop. 

“Y/N?” Jimin stops teasing you, removing the makeshift gag from your mouth.

“Sorry, I was just getting flashbacks.” You close your eyes. “Please...can we take this one slowly?” You plead, hoping he wouldn’t be overly aggressive like Hoseok.

“Of course we can, baby.” You begin kissing each other again, except this time feels more heartfelt. Slowly, you both sink into the bed and Jimin lowers his kisses to your inner thighs. You moan as he leaves hickies, softly. He smiles, no longer afraid of getting caught. You start chasing after your climax, bucking your hips and begging him to make you cum as his tongue dove deeper between your folds.

“You’re doing so well, baby. Cum if you need to, cum on my tongue, babe.” With his permission, the white fluids leak out from your body, and you gasp at the force of the orgasm. You had literally never cum so hard in your life before.

“Jimin,” You don’t care if he just ate you out. You simply kiss him, expressing all of the adoration you have for him at the moment.

“Y/N. Fuck.” You smirk, switching positions when you feel his penis harden. A good thick veiny cock with about 8 inches. Perfect. Every inch of him is perfect.

“Let me ride you.” He nods, helping you adjust yourself on his dick. After you’re ready, you start moving, bucking your hips forward as his cock slips into you.

“Fuck! You’re so big.” You whisper, trying not to let the moans grow too loud.

“Look at you, so full. I can feel how tight you are, baby. Such a sinful girl, aren’t you?” He hums, as you press soft kisses to his pillow like lips. “Fuck, so good...fuck fuck fuck!” His words make your own walls clench around him excitement, sucking in his heated sex expertly.

“Jimin, please!” You rock into his body, as his hands stay put on the sides of your ass cheeks, guiding you to your orgasm.

“Yes, god, right there.” He closes his eyes, more exhausted than anything.

“Please, father, let me cum.” His eyes are darkened with lust. Under the dim lighting of the room, you can see him looking at you with dark, passionate eyes. The innocence which once possessed him is gone, replaced by a man with much more need and power..

“Only if you can hold out longer, I’m almost there, Sister.” After a couple more thrusts, you both reach the much-needed climax, your bodies covered in sweat and cum. “Such a bad nun, but such a good girl.” He kisses me again, before pulling off the condom and discarding it.

“Thanks. I needed that.” You smile, closing your eyes and drifting off. You do briefly awaken throughout the night, as Jimin retreats to his chambers.

The next morning is rough, as your body recovers from the much-needed exercise. You didn’t realize how much you missed sex until Jimin was 9 inches deep inside you, rutting his hips against yours in a sinful manner. It had been awhile since a man showed you how well his hips could move, excluding your asshole of a stepbrother. You manage to make through most of the day despite the soreness, but only one nun suspects you, or rather catches on.

“Who was it?” Sister Jen has a basket of bread looped around her arms, and she rests her other hand on her stomach.

“What?” You try to resume your business, sweeping the floors as thoroughly as possible.

“I’m a nun, not a child. I know these things, and also,” She trots in front of you, trying to be as secretive as possible. “You’ve been standing in the same place for five minutes.” You curse to yourself for being so careless.

“What do you think you know?” You’re curious to see if the nun is as bad as she makes herself out to be.

“You’re smiling a lot more today, and you have a slight limp in every step. Darling, there’s no reason for you to be happy if you’re on your cycle.” You sigh in relief, relieved to know she hasn’t got a clue as to what you and the Bishop did in the previous night.

“I’ll have you know that I actually have a lot of friends who are naturally in a good mood during their period.” You retort, playing along with her. Sister Jen snickers before running off to the kitchen, presumably to get more food. As you make your way further down the hall, you reach the preparation room, which is like a kitchen but it’s used for storing divine gifts. Normally, only the priests and nuns in a mass go into the room to retrieve items in case they are running low on any. You didn’t have a mass to attend today, as the church was closed down due to a financial situation. Apparently the head priests are going to make a deal with a rich businessman and keep the church up and running. That’s why everyone has been going crazy with the cleaning duties today.

You just hope the rich businessman might be a normal guy, a CEO looking for profits, or anyone who doesn’t want this place to fall into the wrong hands. You’ve grown to love it here, as all of the priests are young and new and learning everyday, the nuns treat you like family, and you met Jimin. You also know that Yoongi is a wise person despite being younger than most of the head priests in the area, and he wouldn’t allow it to happen. You pray that he negotiates with a good man, someone who loves church and God and all things good. You wish you were born into a normal family, as being the stepdaughter of a mafia leader has only gotten you into trouble thus far. His son treats you like a sex toy, his friends see you as a trophy. He is dead to you, and you hope that one day he becomes a better person. You realized it too late, though, and look where that’s gotten you, hiding amongst nuns pretending to be one and lying to everyone in the vicinity. You despise it, but you have to survive. You finally have a chance at a fresh start, as soon as the cops catch him, and send him to jail. In that case, you’d inherit all his money, since Hoseok would be caught as well.

It was never about the money in the first place, when you teamed up with the cops and decided to start working with them. You’d had enough of your evil stepfamily and all of the horrors that followed, even complaining to the policemen about it. You whined about Hoseok but they couldn’t arrest him, since you had no evidence, as your body was clean of any scratches or bruises. Then after you went home, your stepfather had revealed to you that he planted a mole at the police station and you were to go to Belgium with Hoseok as punishment and stay under his care. You were only 17, so you couldn’t live alone. Especially in a foreign country. So you ran to the police station and the officers offered you the easiest solution: go into hiding and don’t go out until the perpetrator has been caught.

That’s how you ended up in the Abbey, and how you eventually came to the church, since your father’s men almost found you and you had to relocate. Things should be calmer here, but there’s always something in the back of your mind that tells you that you’re not safe and they already know where you are, and that’s on your paranoia. You know there’s nothing to be afraid of, since you have Father Yoongi and the Reverend Mother on your side.

They are always monitoring things, always updating you. Sometimes, Father Yoongi even tells you how things are going back at the Abbey, and how the nuns miss you. Virtually, this is supposed to be the safest place in the world. That is, until a cold clammy hand makes its way to your mouth and you’re struggling as the person pulls you into the empty preparation room.

You bite him, and then you hear a familiar voice. “Ah, what was that for? It’s just me.” You turn around, recognizing those juicy lips in the dark lighting of the room.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, I thought you were a mole. My stepdad is infamous for sending people out to drag me back to him.” Jimin notices how your breathing has gotten heavier, and how fear lingers in your voice. You bite your lip as he stares into your soul, seeing you as you are.

“I won’t let anyone take you away!” His voice gets a bit louder, startling you as you hear a door slamming outside.

“Go, Jimin. I think the rich guy is here,” He nods, but instead of turning around like you anticipated, he lifts you up and presses a sweet, warm kiss on your lips. Before he gets the chance to slip his tongue in, you rip yourself out of the embrace, breaking the kiss with haste. “We can continue this later.” You stare after him in awe, as he exits the room, waiting for his footsteps to disappear before sneaking out of the room to the dining room, where all of the nuns and priests are gathered to eat.

You catch a glimpse of Jimin’s hair, as he disappears into the chapel with Father Yoongi and a couple of men in suits. You assumed two of the three other men were his bodyguards, as rich people have many attempts on their lives nowadays. But something about the figure sends chills down your spine, when you catch the way his lips turn upright on his mouth, the curve, you know that curve.

“Excuse me.” You make your way to the bathroom, haunted by the replaying memories of Hoseok, as he used you for his pleasure. The same Hoseok who was seemingly nice when you first met, but later became a womanizer who would fuck anyone with a pair of tits and a pussy. He became a menace, someone you couldn’t stand to look at as he took your innocence and turned you into something disgusting. You couldn’t even look at a mirror for months because you were so disgusted. It took a lot of courage for you to look at him directly in the eyes again, but his sweet persona combined with his beastly sexual habits made for a fucking heaven in bed. That’s what you hated, the fact that you liked it, you liked the rough sex. You actually hadn’t been vanilla with anyone in over a year, as Hoseok had exposed you to BDSM and you stayed within that bubble. It was Jimin who broke down your walls yesterday and gave you amazing vanilla sex. You just wish you weren’t ruined. Maybe it would’ve been more enjoyable if Jimin was your first time.

“Y/N~” His voice sends shivers down your spine as you dry your hands, the memory slowly coming to life again as you dwell on the thoughts of him. “Come give your brother a hug,” You’re at a loss for words when it repeats, and instead of disappearing, the sound bounces around the bathroom. “I missed you, didn’t you miss me too?” You’re frozen, as he makes his way into the bathroom, and your suspicions are confirmed. It was Hoseok, who Yoongi was thinking about splitting the cash with. Filthy, dirty, Insectuous Jung Hoseok, who was your older brother. Step brother.

“No. You’re not real.” He grabs your hair, yanking it for proof. Okay, that hurt.

“Yes I am.” His voice comes out all sing-songy, as he looks at you with amused eyes. You hate how pleasing he is to your eyes, and how his voice sends shivers down your spine, and how your pussy throbs with excitement as he licks his lower lip.

“Please don’t tell dad. I don’t want to live with you, just leave me alone.” You close your eyes, sobbing silently and praying for him to go away so you wouldn’t be tempted anymore.

“Actually, I’m not working with dad. I’m here because the cops sent me, I’m gonna help you detain him.” Your eyes widen as you look at him through the mirror, looking for any signs of a lie. But he does look sad, genuinely.

“What?! But h-how? Didn’t you want to make me your sex slave in Belgium? Use me however you see fit?” He sighs, clutching the bridge of his nose with two fingers. You see lines on his forehead, and how he looks...remorseful.

“No, not really. I didn’t realize how badly I was treating you, until a girl down in London did the same thing to me. She used me for sex, and money, and I was so blindly in love with her that I didn’t realize-” He sighs again, and you catch his lips trembling as you look at him, facing forward to examine his flawless fatures again. This version of Hoseok was one you’d never encountered before. So vulnerable, so needy...exactly the type of guy you needed back when your parents married each other. “The point is, I didn’t come here to take you back. Dad has no idea, and I want to try to be a good person. So can you please forgive me?” You clutch the tap in front of you, resting on the entire sink as Hoseok waits for an answer.

“Maybe not fully, but right now, I’m pretty happy. There’s a priest here who isn’t a priest, and I slept with him yesterday, but I wasn’t fully satisfied...since he was all vanilla.” You can’t believe yourself for doing this, but since the opportunity presented itself, why not seize it by the horns?

“Oh, so you’ll forgive me better if I do a favor for ya?” You nod slightly, cocking your head to the side as Hoseok’s eyes have mischief in them. You recognize it from when you were just clueless teenagers, how experience shaped it all. 

“Not now, but maybe later. Are you staying overnight?” You ask, as he presses a couple buttons on his phone.

“Wasn’t planning on it, but it looks like I don’t have a choice now. Until next time, sister.” He tilts your chin upwards before smashing his lips against yours in a passionate manner, all of the pent up lust and frustration released within a matter of seconds. He picks you up and sets you down on the sink, so that your legs are wrapped around his hips and his arms are wrapped around your lower back for support. After kissing for a minute or so, he breaks the kiss, panting heavily and resting his forehead against yours.

“I missed you, and I’m sorry for being a jerk.” You hum in agreement, feeling light from all of the information. It was a bit overwhelming, the jerk brother that took your virginity is now trying to be a good guy and kissing you like he loved you. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he’s in love with you, but Hoseok is the same as he always was, and he only realized his mistakes from the past, trying to make things more bearable for you.

The rest of the day goes by pretty slowly, as you anticipate an exciting night with your brother and your boyfriend/friend/Bishop. You haven’t talked to Jimin about it, but you have a feeling that he’ll be open to it. You grab his hand and guide him to Hoseok’s room.

“What’s…?” You smirk, making your way next to your stepbrother and patting the bed beside you.

“Jimin, meet Hoseok.” A smile plays on your lips as Jimin looks between the two of you in disbelief.

[hoxton-wolf]

Reiji Sakamaki

hey hey this is an x reader I would like to let y’all know that there is some mention of depression and violence so yeah be warned but yeah do enjoy it.

besitos~

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For (Name) it was to say the least, difficult to be Reiji's girlfriend; without the constant insults that over time, has now affected her greatly. Over time she had learnt to keep the problems she faced away from Reiji knowledge. She was well aware how it can become quite bothersome, he is not the comforting type; and thus she learnt to bottle up her problems, granted it isn’t the most healthiest or smartest thing to do and she knew this very well.

Walking to school was calming for  (Name), it gave her time to just appreciate life even for just a moment. Normally she would have taken the limo, with the Sakamaki's. However, in her favor the Sakamaki’s knew that she needed space every now and then; but there was this nagging feel at the back of Reiji’s head, telling him that something was off.

Once at the school grounds she was greeted by her male friends, greeting them all with a “bro-hug” as she would explain it. Although her male friend had her back no matter what, more so when she had to deal with the female students that would spread petty roomers and spit venomous insults her way.

Whilst chatting with her male friends she was unaware of her boyfriend who had heard her laughter, as she chatted with her friends. He stood for a moment to observe his girlfriend, in hopes to confirm his suspicion. There he saw the answer, it seemed that as she finished laughing her smile had fallen as soon her friends talked among themselves

"(Name)" a deep, demanding voice beckons her over

"Hello Reiji" she smiled walking to him

"Are you alright?" He asked arching an eyebrow at her

"I'm fine, better than ever" she gave him the thumbs up.

Reiji had decided it was best to not comment on anything for now, and that he would rather wait for when they were in private. Looking at the time he gave a small sigh;

"Hurry (Name) we have to attend the home-room, and i would rather not have to wait for you to get out of detention for being late to home-room" he said turning on his heels with a sigh.

(Name) made no protest, she decided she had no sark to be snarky with his slight rudeness. They walked down the hall together, Reiji with his head held high and strong as he paid no attention to the whispering slurs around them. (Name) however, trailing behind him only two steps back; kept her head slightly down and eyes forward, but her fidgeting hands hidden in her pockets desperately trying to push the unwanted thoughts and feelings;

"Oh my god why would Reiji date her? She looks like a boy" said one female studen to her friends

"I feel sorry for him, he must be embarrassed by her" said another

"Yeah, what if some of the guys in the school start spreading roomers about Reiji being gay" another female studen exclaimed

"Ugh does she have no shame" scoffed another 

And the insults just go on and on. Obviously Reiji had heard these slurs before however he paid no attention to them. The only opinion he cared about was that of his girlfriend. With a small look to his girlfriend he could tell that she was bothered, being the observant person he is he could tell she was fidgeting in her pockets and felt anxious; and for his sake kept a strong and unbother expression.

There were times when (Name) would be able to hide her depressive mood to the point where at times she would start to think she's beaten it, when in reality she would convince herself it would all go away, but the hard truth was that it will always be there and it would be something she would have to manage and deal with all its hardship.

Sitting in class (Name) began to stare off into space, she was almost detached from reality. The teacher was calling out the roll and soon the teacher had arrived to her name. After the first, second, third time teacher then lost their temper;

"(Name) is she here?" announced the teacher.

Reiji stepped on her foot snapping her back to reality and giving her a stern look. He would never have to do this, sure he could have replied for her but he is well aware that she is more than capable to answer for her own actions.

"Here!" She called out giving a "bright" smile.

The teacher heaved a sigh and continued to call the roll. Reiji looked at his girlfriend clearly annoyed by the lack of attention to the teacher. She dismissed it saying that she was keeping track of a fly that was in the classroom. Reiji gave a sigh and put his attention back onto the teacher.

During class change, a few of the female students had circled around (Name). Startled at first she soon covered her facade with a cocky smirk. She stood herself up right slightly to intimidate but more so to be ready for whatever could come next; 

"Here’s some advice (Name), dump him. It's clear that he isn't into you" snarled one female 

"Maybe you're right, but then again. I doubt he’d be into any of you lowlives" she said with a shrug

"Shut up tranny" one snapped

"Well that's not very polite, now what would poor Reiji think of that vocabulary?" mused (Name) as they grew angry

"Go die in a hole!" one shouted

"Thought about it a few times" she let out an exasperated sigh.

One of the more slightly petite females lunged at (Name). She had no choice but to defend herself; she kicked her in the gut sending her back. This caused an obvious stir as the rest went forward to try and land a hit on her. Unfortunately it was too much; it was five against one, but (Name) put up a good fight. 

With a few cuts and scratches from their nails and bruises from their kicks, (Name) had managed to get herself to the nurses office. After small treatments the nurse excused herself to make a report and to give (Name) a sick note to be sent home. As the nurse was gone (Name) let herself cry for a bit to let out some stress.

Throwing herself on the bed staring at her ceiling fan, heaving a heavy sigh knowing it was going to take a long time for her to get to sleep. She decided on taking some natural sleeping pills to aid her falling asleep. After what seemed like a while (Name) she had turned on her side however, she felt that someone was in her room. The anxiety and paranoia started to set in, sliding her hand under her pillow she gripped an open switch blade. hearing the light steps of the person approach cause her to act fast, grabbing the weapon, she waited for them to get closer that was until she heard them call her name; none other than her boyfriend

“And why are you absent, you are lucky that I have a double free period. I would rather you not end up like that deadbeat of a brother of mine. Now care to explain” Reiji asked with slight annoyance

"Oh it’s you Reiji, what's up?" she replied.

Her back to him as she replied. There was a moment of silence, Reiji sniffed the air descrit; he smelt old blood. He grew very serious as his demeanor turned from annoyed to a protectively concern

"Don't ‘what is up’ me.... You will turn over and look at me, this is a serious situation; now please explain to me why there is a scent of blood" he growled a little

"Chill dude" she muttered curling into a fetal position

"Look at me (Name)" he growled. She ignored him

"I said look.at.me" he growled a little louder

On any other day he would give into the fantasy of making her obey and punish her, however he was well aware that this was a serious matter. He pulled her shoulder back a little so that she could look at him. She felt weak emotionally and physically but that was from the natural sleeping pill slowly relaxing her body, turning he finally could see her face.

She could see many emotions go through his face; from shock, concern, annoyed and lastly anger. Her lip cut, already scabbing with dry blood, and her left eye slightly irritated and bruised.The growl at the back of his throat began to rumble, clearing his throat he took a deep breath. Grabbing her face he examined her fully, his face grew dark in features

"Who?" He asked calmly his feature still dark

"I handled it myself" she said looking away

"I don’t care if you handled it yourself. As your boyfriend and partner, I am to protect you regardless" he sighed

"I can look after myself, I don't need your protection. I'm not weak" she snapped striking his hand away from her face

"I am aware of that, you certainly are a strong mortal woman. I’ll give you that, but you don’t need to deal with everything by yourself. You do understand that what you did was highly irresponsible" lectured Reiji

"Can you leave me be, Reiji. I wish to be alone" she said sitting up, stopping him mid lecture

"Unfortunate I cannot do that I need you to understand the severity of this-"

"Reiji" she growled

"(Name)" he growled back.

The two glared at one another, Reiji was more bothered by the fact his girlfriend was being stubborn and interrupting him when he was trying to explain something, but what was bothering him the most was that his own girlfriend had a lack of trust with him; even though (Name) had told him many times that she trusted him. It wasn’t until (Name) back down and looked away, to avoid his pointed gaze. Reiji takes a deep breath, unsure how to react in a situation as delicate as this.

Reiji took a seat on the end of her bed, his back lightly touching hers. She sat up and rested her head on his shoulder. He sighed softly as he lowered his tone quietly

"What is the matter? You seem to be out of it these past few days? Your grades have also taken a hit… (Name), I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong"

"It's none of your concern" she said bluntly

And just like that Reiji could feel (Name) build these walls up as she moved her head off his shoulder. He glared lightly as he stared at her blank yet cut and bruised face

"It is of my absolute concern, whatever you are caught up in, it needs to stop, it is affecting your basic function of what makes you human… such bothersome and complex creatures you are" Reiji sighed pushing his glasses up

"Just leave me the hell alone, Reiji. I can deal with my problems, alone" she snapped.

She faced his back and shoved him off her bed, stumbling he was reaching his patients with her now. Getting his footing back he turned around to meet with her angered face and matched it with. Reiji had her pinned to the bed, her hands pinned above her head, getting real close to her face he growled out;

"Don't ever speak to me like that, ever again. I am not only your boyfriend but I hope you haven't forgotten I'm a vampire and can easily overpower you" he growled in her face.

She looked away from him, she could feel the tears burn behind her eyes; looking away from Reiji’s piercing gaze. With a softer tone he asked her again to just let him know what was going on with her

"You wouldn’t understand, Reiji." she said quietly

"Then explain it to me, explain in a way to make me understand" he said softly.

He let go of her and sat next to her. Slowly sitting up she looked down on the floor fidgeting with her knuckles that were bruised with her brawl with the female students;

"Look, I know not to get caught up in pathetic roomers and insults; but in the end they always come back to bite me. I hate feeling this way...you really deserve a beautiful mature woman. Not some tomboy that is mistaken for being a boy. Or some pathetic and weak person who takes other people's opinion to heart….it’s just so human yet so god damn annoying " Tears started to fall

"Why would I want someone just like myself? You humans are strange... Plus I find you very interesting... (Name) I'm sure you know this already, but I take in pride that you're an intelligent young woman. And you are not only physically strong but you are much stronger emotionally but you shouldn't bottle up your emotions" Reiji explained as he bumped her shoulder with his own.

(Name) let's some more tears fall. Reiji decided to put a hand on her head bringing her into his chest. She tried her best to not sob, the unfamiliar contact from her sometimes distant boyfriend meant a lot to her. She knew his past and so knowing that he was willing to do this simple gesture was very special

"It’s alright to cry... Didn't you tell me that" he said, giving her a soft kiss.

And just like that she fell apart in front of him for the first time throughout  their whole relationship. He held her close as she cried herself to sleep. Staying the rest of the night until she woke up, he wanted to make sure she was alright.

[alwaysaglader]

Be Your Own Hero

Warning : Self destruction, self harm and suicidal mentions.  

Newt's P.O.V

My eyes shot wide open as I woke up drenched in sweat with tears on the brim of my eyes and my heart pounding rapidly in chest. I felt like a burning house being buried beneath floodwaters rushing all around me.

It was another haunting nightmare.

I choked back a sniffle, wiping the tears streaming down my face with my shivering fingers. It's been hell. It's always been hell. For years, I've been coping with depression, which I started suffering from since some traumatic things that happened in my life but these last few months have been a worsening disaster each and every day.

I am barely breathing with a broken heart that is still beating.

Ever since the Dark days, I feel like it's gone to a point of no return. I've been waking up everyday, feeling lost and confused, and scared. This feeling occurred often inside me, exhausting me emotionally and physically. I've been tired forever.

That feeling you get in your stomach, when your heart is broken, it's like all the butterflies just died and all I wanted to do right now was cry and scream it all out because it was killing me inside.

The Dark days left a broken piece in each of us, something to haunt us for the rest of our lives. The word nightmare is too less a simplicity to define it all.

I let out a few sobs and stuffed my shivering cold fingers to my hoodie pocket only to feel something inside. Confusedly, I moved my fingers only to grab hold of a flower - I picked for Y/N. I twirled my fingers around the  stem, the soft petals brushing against my skin as my mind immediately drifted off to her.

Y/N - the angel of our Glade.

There wasn't anyone else in the world who would always be there when someone was in need, whether it was for a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on or even simply for a hug to feel better.

When she caught someone having crying fits and beginning to keep everything to themselves, including words and mood swings, she would sit for hours on end, just simply listening to us and making us feel safe and not alone in this cruel world, regardless of how much she has to deal with on her own.

Most of us are gifted with the ability to see the monsters hidden within another, but are unable to see past them. It takes a special kind of person to see the light inside of every living being.

Specially with me, even though I am not the same person I was to her as in the beginning, and I sometimes feel like I'm still not the same but Y/N didn't once ever leave my side, even though I tasted of heartache and war.

Y/N is an unbelievably strong girl. She walks around every day on the verge of tears, and no one even has the slightest clue that she's not okay.

She puts on a brave face everyday to give us hope and strength but I know that she is carrying the burden of the world on her shoulders alone but will do anything to see someone else smile.

She's got the eyes of innocence; the face of an angel. The personality of a dreamer and a smile that hides more pain that you can ever imagine.

She's the type of girl that is going to say "I got this" even with tears in her eyes.

I left my room and stumbled through the dimly lit halls, making my way out of the Homestead to grab a glass of water to quench my thirst.

I opened the door of the kitchen and fumbled for the light switch. Only as I flicked it on, did I see the bloody mess, cupboards opened wide, food scattered all about, which isn't like Fry at all, so I assumed that Minho and Thomas were definitely here sneaking out food. Those shanks with their never ending hunger.

Letting out a deep sigh, I started to clean up the kitchen to a certain extent before leaving, a commotion was not needed tomorrow morning. Specially with those two shanks who run away when they see Alby fuming towards them.

After I was done, I decided to take a check on the boys soundly asleep on their hammocks, before heading anywhere else but my room. I couldn't stand to be in there tonight.

As I was making my way across the Glade, I stared up at the sky above, admiring the canopy of stars that lit the clear night sky. Star gazing has always been a favourite, as the simple beauty of the stars is enough to calm me at times and take my mind away from my problems. 

Sleep could not be caught tonight, so I walked over to the Watch tower and climbed to the top, only to see a bundle of blankets and pillows, and Y/N cocooned in the middle of it.

She looked so pure and angelic that it took me aback a little.

Now grinning myself, I moved myself closer and knelt next to her, only to see her chubby cheeks puffed and red as if she's been... crying all night. The sight broke my heart, as I leaned into her and cupped one side of her jaw, trailing my fingertips over her soft, silky skin.

A hum left her lips as she started stirring under my touch. "Shh.. it's alright.. it's just me... Newtie" I whispered, brushing a few strands of hair away from her face, as her eyes which had one of the most beautiful mixture of colours I had ever seen in my life, slowly opened.

"Love... do you want to go to bed?" I asked, as she blinked her eyes a few times, looking lost, before fixating them on mine. Her lips curled tiredly as she settled herself from her rolled-up position. "I'll think I'll stay out here tonight Newt".  

She's battling things her smile will never tell you about.

"Y/N, do you mind if I join you?" I asked, not wanting her to be alone again, and she nodded in acknowledgement, looking up at me with her beautiful pair of eyes as I scooched myself beside her.

Being cuddly, I slowly wrapped my arms around her, listening to the change of her breathing pattern. Y/N stirred in my arms, and pressed herself tighter against me, nuzzling her face just underneath my chin. Smiling to the cuteness, I caressed her back.

"You make me so cosy" she let out a giggle of glee. "Well of course love", I grinned and pressed a kiss on her little nose, "you are my cuddly teddy bear".  

A soft wave of warmth washed over my heart as her lips spilled with many giggles. I felt my heart melt at the beauty of her voice filling the silent sky. I was so mesmerised at the way her lips curved at the edges, dragging her beautiful smile across her face, all the way up to her glimmering eyes. It was the most breath-taking sight to behold.

Only when her puzzled voice echoed through my ears, did she pull me out of my daydream. "Newt?" she carefully cupped my face into her hand palms, as if I'd break any second, "you blanked out there for a minute".  

I felt my cheeks go red in embarrassment as a sudden wave of shyness washed over me.  "You haven't laughed in a long time" I murmured softly, feeling my cheeks burning, "I guess I was staring cause I forgot how that looked like".

Her cheeks dusted pink as a gentle smile appeared on her face. It was one of the most adorable things I've ever seen in my life.

A silence fell across the night sky, as we simply rested intertwined in our embrace. I hummed and smiled, loving this moment. For the first time, after too long, did I feel a flicker of joy in my heart... but it was taken away from me too quickly.

Having a heavy heart and an anxious mind is the worst. I never let myself be happy, I feel alone even when I'm not and sometimes I don't even know what's wrong.

"Newt are you alright?" Y/N's small voice sounded with concern, pulling my mind away from my drowning thoughts. "Not really love... but I'll be fine" I answered, my heart saddening as I gazed upon the worried expression on her face. "Newt, please talk to me".

"It's nothing important"I muttered, shaking my head like a little kid and looked down with a pout, "I don't want to talk about it". Soon after did I feel a longing kiss being pressed on my forehead. "Why not Newtie?".

"I'll cry" I mumbled, to which she cuddled me closer, and I grew boneless in her arms, to the warmth of her body and the steady beating of her heart.

"Crying doesn't make you weak Newt. It means you have been strong for too long" she whispered and peppered kisses here and there. Her hands closed in on mine, fingers sliding between the gasps of my digits. "Talk to me".

With our hands intertwined, I finally dared to look up at her.

"Have you ever felt so lost in your life to a point where you don't seem to know even who you are? Ever feel like you're trying to find a simple sprinkle of happiness but your mind is too intoxicated with poisonous thoughts, tearing you apart bit by bit inside each day? That's how I am feeling" I started to cry, as my emotions poured out of me, as if I finally opened myself up, this time all the way.

"I've fought so hard but I feel like my entire world is breaking apart no matter how much I've struggled through my life. I feel like I've lost all hope at this point. I can't even remember what it feels like to be myself anymore" my sobs and my mouth pressed against her shoulder almost made my speech unclear, but Y/N didn't mind as she continued to listen to me while she wiped the tears that had started falling.

"I feel so alone, struggling to get to a point in life which I don't even believe can exist anymore" I panted, completely out of breath, voice trembling a little from all the emotions, "I'm not even asking for happiness anymore Y/N, just a little less pain to say the least".

"I am going closer to the edge Y/N" my sobs transformed into soft sniffles, as a feeling of absolute cold shot through me, making me shiver against her. Y/N stiffened.

"Ending your life doesn't stop the pain Newt" she murmured softly, her fingers gently combed through my hair, "it just passes it on to someone else".

Her voice was almost inaudible, but I still sensed her words.

I could feel my head spinning, my emotions encircling me like a tornado. I buried myself deeper into her arms and hid my face, squeezing her a little.

"Shh, don't cry". Her calming voice caused my heartbeat to slow down, and my crying to die down, like a mother hushing her child.

After a few moments of cuddling quietly, I gently pulled away and sat down beside her again. ''Y/N, darling?'' I murmured, moving closer as she continued to look at me in complete silence, "do you struggle?".

Her expression soon turned dull as she rubbed her eyes in a hurry, desperately trying to fight her tears back, but I slowly grabbed her wrists gently into my hands and bought them close to my lips, placing a kiss on each.

I think people often forget, that sometimes the person who tries to fix everyone, needs fixing too.

"Love, please talk to me" I told her just above a whisper. She looked small and hurt, completely curled into a small ball against the wooden fence, knees against her chest. My heart shattered at the sight.

"Please talk to me Y/N" I pleaded again, and she looked into my eyes this time, with an intense look that squeezed the air out of my lungs, her bottom lip trembling as she tried to keep himself from crying. "I can't loose you".

Y/N's P.O.V

"I just handle it alone Newt", I murmured softly, my voice barely a whisper, "I've always dealt with everything alone". Without saying something, but just with some tears, did he crawl towards me and nuzzle himself deep into my chest for a cuddle. "Why Y/N?".

His heartfelt plea made my heart ache.

"I've cried so much in my life Newt" I started with a broken voice, remembering my past memories which used to haunt me, "but nobody has ever been there to wipe the tears that rolled down my cheeks".

"One day I looked down and realized - I have two hands myself". I pulled away from the snuggle so I could look at him. His watery, chocolate brown eyes fell on mine.

"Everything that's hit me in my life I have dealt with on my own" I continued in a quiet tone, "cried myself to sleep on my own, picked myself back up and wiped my tears on my own and have grown from things that were meant to break me".

"I saved myself" I whispered, and rested my head on top of his as he gazed at me with a softened expression,"instead of waiting for other people to save me".  

"I stopped thinking of myself as damaged, and started to think about myself as growing to be stronger from the person I used to be".  

Running a hand over his head, I brushed a few strands of hair behind his ear before he placed his head back against my chest. "Does your past still haunt you?".

"Not anymore" I said, my hands occupying themselves by twirling and playing with his blond locks, "the only time I look back to the past now is to see how far I've come. It can't hurt me, unless I let it".

"My past beats inside me like a second heart Y/N" he choked out, clutching onto me like it's his lifeline, "there seems to be no end to it ending to getting over it".

I quickly grabbed his face in my hands and pulled it closer to my own and pressed a kiss on his forehead, what made him smile a little.

"I know letting go is a slow process Newt, but quitting won't speed it up, it does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop" I said, while wiping the tears that had started trickling down his cheeks, "it's okay to have setbacks and the need for do-overs. It's okay to draw a line in the sand and start over again and again".

"Just make sure you're moving the line forward. Take baby steps and simply make progress". My heart ached again, to have him so broken in my arms. I could still feel his tears dripping on me.

"Sometimes you will have to fight a battle more than once to win it" I mumbled just above a whisper and cupped his face, drying his wet cheeks, "and the hardest battle you are ever going to have to fight is the battle to be just you".  

We all have a war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us. But it always leaves us a scar. Sometimes you don't see them until later. Sometimes you don't know where they've come from. Sometimes they fade before your eyes. But the world leaves its mark on us. But that scar is proof that you was stronger than what had tried to hurt you.

Strength is not about how much you can handle before you break. It is about how much you can endure after you've been broken.

Slowly and very softly did he part from me with watery eyes. "It is so hard Y/N".

"I know Newt". Nodding, my lips left kisses all over his head and face again, smothering him, "but you are strong enough to face it all, even if it doesn't feel like it right now and sometimes you just got to cry before you can move forward and all of that is ok".

"If you have the courage to make it through a lonely night with nothing but your self destructive thoughts to keep you company, you have the courage to make it through anything". My lips left a gentle kiss on his forehead to reassure him. 

"Remember your proudest and happiest moments, rather than fixating on your flaws", I stroked his cheek and nuzzled our noses together, causing him to giggle, "think of all the lovely moments that happened to you, and put the bad ones behind you".

"Start making peace with yourself, rather than listening to destructive emotions" I grabbed his wrists with the gentlest movements, which had some scars on them. I left kisses here and there. "Seek out new beginnings rather than settling down for unworthy situations".

"Focus on how to improve, rather than on how you messed up" I whispered, and rested my head on top of his as he gently nodded at me, a hint of hope twinkling in his eyes.

For once there was no wall between us, keeping me from getting close to him. It finally broke down just for me, and I could finally get close to his broken soul. 

When I drew away from him, my own smile couldn’t be held down at the sight of seeing a momentary lapse of hope in his eyes, as I gently pressed a few kisses on his knuckles.

"If you are having a rough day place your hand over your heart" my hand closed on his big, tender one as I clenched it and placed it gently on his chest, "feel that?".

"That's called purpose. You're alive for a reason". When I said this to him, I made sure to look deep into his eyes to make sure he understood every word I spoke. "Never give up".

"One day you will tell the story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else's survival guide".

With our hands intertwined, I grinned and pressed a kiss on the tip of his nose. A fully blown, toothy grin appeared on his face, letting his big brown orbs shine.

"Owning your story is the bravest thing you will ever do".

Newt's P.O.V

There are wounds on her that are never shown on her body but are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

The fire blazing in her dark and injured heart seemed to glow around her like a flame.

She was not fragile, like a flower. She was fragile, like a bomb.

"You are so incredible". My cheeks warmed faintly at the unexpected burst of wording the thoughts in my head. Her cheeks turned red while she smiled shyly to herself with eyes sparkling brightly, as she cuddled into me. I let out a happy sigh in return as I wrapped my arms gently around her. My heart fluttered in adoration.

Y/N may have grown a callous and hard shell but inside that shell she was a warm and tender heart, and a kind soul.

Being both soft and strong is the most beautiful combination a person can master.

"You've gone through so much Y/N" I whispered, and rested my head on top of hers as we lied there in silence, enjoying our own little bubble, "I don't know how you do it".

My fingers tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, making her even more beautiful than she already is. "I wasn't given a choice".

Biting her lower lip between her teeth she suddenly lowered her head and averted her gaze away from mine. "Y/N?".

"Hmm?" She hummed, before falling silent again.

"You are awfully quiet love" I whispered, and pulled her in for a hug, to which she nuzzled her face into the crook of my neck for a moment. "What's going on in that beautiful mind?".

My lips left a kiss on her shoulder to soothe her.

"I've thought about killing myself about a hundred times Newt" I felt her lips curve against my skin, "but I somehow found myself to be still in love with life".

My heart missed a few pulses from her words.

Moving back away from my embrace, she looked at me with a faint smile before using her little fingers to rub on her watery eyes, wiping the tears before I could even lay my fingers on her skin to do it for her.

My thoughts went blank as I continued to gaze in absolute awe at this beautiful warrior in front of my eyes.

This version of Y/N wasn't built overnight. She had been to the utter depths of hell, through abuse, mistakes, insecurities and heartache, to get to the level she is now.

Behind this strong independent woman today, lied a broken little girl who had to learn how to get back up and to never depend on anyone.  

She was a knight polishing her armour. Carrying her own sword. Fighting her own battles. Making her own glory.

And that was the thing about her, she kept on surviving. With bullet holes in her lungs and knife marks itched in her heart. She never let anything get in her way, resilient.

A fighter, not by choice. But a warrior at heart.

Y/N's P.O.V

Newt leaned towards me and cupped one side of my jaw with his tender hand, his expression softening as his brown, piercing eyes began to sparkle. "Tell me more about it".

"I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life" I started in a quiet tone, and could feel my bottom lip quivering a little, as I kept talking, "but my life was never ordinary to begin with".

"I started to learn to appreciate the little things in life and I noticed that life is a series of thousands of tiny miracles... you just have to see it".

In silence, he pressed his lips gently on my cheek, a smile spread all over his face. "Go on, love". The smile resting over my own lips twitched, spreading into a blown-out grin as our eyes found each other for a long, craving stare.  

"I love to watch the 5am sunrises and 5pm sunsets" I began softly, as he caressed my head with the palm of his hand while he continued to hold me close, "where you'll see colours in the sky that don't usually belong there.

"I love the way the first sip of coffee warms me up in the morning, or the way I feel so cozy and fuzzy when wearing oversized clothes" I told him, causing him to laugh, taking me by surprise, but then let it die down to a chuckle, "I love the smell from baked bread to the earthy scent of the air after a rain shower".

"I love eating breakfast in bed or having an extra half an hour to snooze in bed" I continued but with lots of smiles and giggles, which cheered me up, "or having some time to myself to read a book I love".

"I believe in small gestures" I cooed, and threaded my fingertips along his jawline, where I left a few kisses, "someone making me smile, or holding the door for me or even something simple as a wave of hello".

With dreamy eyes, he continued to gaze.

"I don't pay attention to the world ending anymore" I just shook my head, chuckling to myself, "it ended for me many times and began again in the morning".

Smiling, he pressed a kiss on my head as a comforting smile appeared on my face.  

"We are all a little broken Newt" I murmured gently, cupping his soft cheeks in my hands to which he hummed and nuzzled his face in,"that's how the light gets in".

With bright red cheeks this time, he nodded.

Now grinning myself, I placed my head back on his chest to listen to the familiar beating as I gently grabbed his hands in mine just to press my lips on top of his scars again. "Just promise me to never do this to yourself again".  

"I won't" he promised truthfully as I lifted myself up, only to rest my forehead on his. I felt him radiate heat again, cheeks glowing brightly.

"We have enough in life against us already don't be against yourself" I pressed a kiss on his nose and then nuzzled it with my own, making him grin,"be brave; dare to love the pieces of yourself no one else will ever see".

"Be patient and loving towards yourself" my lips pressed a kiss right on the place where his heart is located, "be the reason for your own smile".

"Embrace who you are" I whispered, and kissed each of his knuckles lovingly, to which he giggled sweetly, as he grabbed a hold of my hand and slid his fingers between mine, "be proud of yourself".

"Be your own hero".

A smile from ear to ear appeared on my own face to the sight of his beautiful face smiling at me, his warm chocolate brown eyes shining brighter than the constellation of stars above us.

Newt didn’t say anything, but his eyes told me more than enough. And along with his smile, bigger than ever before, I knew enough.

In complete silence, we sat there - rocking from side to side. Newt breathed calmly and slow, as if his mind had finally found peace, resting. Our eyes kept staring at each other, drowning in the colours of our irises, heartbeats changing until they were beating on the same rhythm.

Our hands intertwined even more, and something told me they'd be locked for the rest of the night.

[artificialqueens]

The Best Type of Chaos, 1/? (S12 Group Fic) - Lau

a/n- welcome the the s12 highschool au that nobody asked for but i’m writing anyway! this is my first time submitting anything here so i hope y'all like it (and i did it right) there will be plenty of ships so keep your eyes peeled!! 

summary - twelve teenagers at one dinner table may sound like a recipe for disaster. and maybe it is. but the girls love it and love each other, so who can really complain? it’s their junior year, and they’re ready to take it on together.

A group of 12 teenage girls at one dinner table in the cafeteria sounds like it would end in disaster, but for the past few years, The Gays Plus Gigi (as they had deemed themselves) have managed it quite well. It’s like they have their own little family - sometimes they fight, Dahlia usually being the one to start an argument, but they would always make up in no time. They make the most out of their lunch hour each day, allowing themselves to take a small break from the often stressful school day. The group just worked together, each person a cog in the machine they had built up during their time at school. 

They would sit in the same seats at the same table each day, their routine hardly ever being broken. The only two girls who weren’t there everyday were Gigi and Nicky, both being ‘popular’ girls and sitting with their other friends most days. They both preferred their little family of twelve though, loving the ability to be authentically themselves.

-

The first day of school always seemed to bring up a different emotion in each student. On the first day of junior year, Crystal woke up early, her alarm marking the start of a new day. She wasn’t usually a morning person (not many students were) but sometimes she could appreciate the way the morning sun would shine brightly throughher windows, brightening up her mood in the process. She was ready for the school year. She knew it would soon get stressful and something would absolutely go wrong at some point, but right now she was looking forward to another fresh start. 

Gigi hated the first day of school. She had a hard time letting go of summer, which seemed to only get better each year, meaning reality came crashing back to her harder and harder each time it ended. When she woke up, the only thing that could motivate her to leave her bed was the thought of seeing her friends again, even if she had seen them a million times over summer anyways. She could never get tired of them. Soon enough, she made herself a coffee and set off to Crystal’s house so they could walk together.

Crystal didn’t wait for Gigi to knock on her door, she swung it open the second Gigi arrived at her doorstep, quickly giving her a bone-crushing hug as a ‘hello’. 

“I’ve missed you so much Crys” Crystal giggled at the way Gigi’s breath tickled her neck, both of them refusing to leave the tight hug.

“Gigi you saw me, like, three days ago” Gigi stepped back to look Crystal in the eyes.

“I know! I know, but it was summer then and now it’s not and we’ll still see eachother but it won’t be the same because now we’ll be worrying about school and we can’t just hang out. We’ll have like no spare time!”

“G. I will always have time for you. Now let’s go, we can’t be late”

The walk to school took them the best part of half an hour - too long for Crystal’s liking, but at least it gave her time to chat with Gigi before the day got too hectic. The girls walked side by side, shoulders bumping with every other step. The contact was not unwelcome. They had always been close, both emotionally and physically, not being scared to show any affection. They had even shared some friendly kisses from time to time. They were just pecks. And Gigi was straight anyways so it couldn’t mean anything, right?

Crystal couldn’t help but steal glances at the girl next to her on the way to school. She had always found Gigi beautiful. The way she walks, the way she talks. Crystal would never admit this aloud, not like it wasn’t already painfully obvious to everyone but Gigi, but she was in deep. It didn’t help that Gigi had started interrogating her on their walk.

“So how are things with your girlfriend? I feel like you haven’t mentioned her in like months. You’re not keeping something from me are you? You didn’t like, secretly elope over summer did you? Because that would be rude Crystal Elizabeth. Not inviting your best friend, horrible” Crystal knew she was joking, but she also knew she did actually have to explain why she hadn’t mentioned her, Gigi was just using humour to get round it. Maybe to try to make it less awkward.

Crystal stopped walking. Gigi was right, she hadn’t mentioned her girlfriend in a while because she hadn’t even thought about her. She broke it off at the beginning of Summer, when she began to realise she had rising feelings for someone else. She wasn’t even that bothered by the break up, which was surprising because Crystal felt every emotion so strongly she would often get overwhelmed.

“We uh… we broke up. At the start of summer. I didn’t tell you? I thought I had. Funny.”

Crystal knew for a fact she hadn’t mentioned it to Gigi - the less she talks to her about her love-life, the better. She can’t have Gigi find out about her feelings for her. She knew she wasn’t the kind of girl to instantly assume every lesbian has a weird crush on her. She has been the most supportive of Crystals’ sexuality ever since she came out. A true ally. Hell, Gigi had joined her for pride a few times, and didn’t flinch when people assumed she wasn’t straight. Sometimes she would even forget to correct them. But still, no matter how cool Gigi was with her closest friend being gay, Crystal was terrified of exposing her feelings. She didn’t want to be the lesbian who crushes on her straight best friend. She doesn’t want to make Gigi uncomfortable, especially with how close they can get at times. 

“You guys broke up?! Oh my god, do I need to kill her? Because I will. Are you ok? Because all summer you seemed to be ok and, I mean this with so much love, I kind of expected you to be a mess if things didn’t work out…”

Crystal was at a loss for words. How could she even begin to explain this? ‘Yeah it didn’t work out because I’m kind of in love with my straight best friend. You.’ No. Absolutely not.

“Yeah um, I guess we both kinda lost feelings for eachother and decided we’d be better off as friends. I really am ok G, promise. Thanks for checking though. Anyways! Are you ok? I know you never really talked about your breakup much. I’ve gotta be honest, that guy totally rubbed me the wrong way”

Gigi’s mind suddenly went blank. There was a reason she didn’t necessarily want to talk about her breakup - especially with Crystal. But she didn’t know if she could even admit that to herself yet.

“Yeah I’m ok. I don’t wanna talk about it” Gigi cursed her voice for cracking at the end. Crystal’s face softened at her friend’s vulnerability and chose to respond by intertwining their fingers together and giving Gigi’s hand a squeeze. The action probably wasn’t good for either of them.

-

Jan and Jaida caught up that morning when they both visited their lockers, which were conveniently right next to each other. Both girls were stuffing their basketball kits into their locker, idly chatting about the year ahead of them. They had always enjoyed each other’s company, and their friendship was built on love - they trusted one another with their life. And their secrets. Which is why Jan wasn’t surprised when Jaida brought up Jackie.

“Ok, chile, what is up with you and Jackie? Y’all better sort yourselves out and get together this year or so help me God-”

“Oh my God Jaida! Shut up! You’re being so loud what if she like, walks by and overhears you?”

“That would be great! Maybe one of you would finally actually acknowledge your feelings towards each other instead of staring and drooling from across the table”

“I don’t drool. And neither does she! She doesn’t like me that way Jaida, just let it go”

Jans voice lost all enthusiasm, and it set off alarm bells in Jaida’s mind. Sometimes she surprised herself with how well she could read the girl despite how happy she acted all the damn time. If this was getting to Jan of all people, it needed to be sorted out. She was quick to engulf the blonde in a tight hug, trying to convey that no matter what happens or doesn’t happen with Jackie, she would always be there for Jan. Always.

“It’s weird I talk to you about this. You’re technically my ex” Jan laughed, void of any actual humour, as she stepped away from the hug, trying to hide the sadness in her voice.

“Maybe. But you’re my friend first. Besides, I think I am the best person to talk to about this because I have personal experience” She gave a comically over-exaggerated wink, just to get her point across. 

About a year prior, the two had dated for a bit, being the only two out gay girls on the team, they figured it was how things should go. However, they quickly realised they were better as friends, though they couldn’t deny that they enjoyed their time together. Their ‘fling’ was short lived, and while they were both more than happy to stay friends, neither girl let the other forget what happened, taking any opportunity to poke fun at their past relationship. It was their own little way of preventing anything from getting awkward - if they didn’t acknowledge it, it would get weird, so they opted for the odd joke. If they could laugh it off, it meant they didn’t take the whole situation too seriously. Besides, they didn’t want to make lunch awkward.

-

The first few lessons of the day passed painfully slow for everyone. Crystal spent most of her time sneaking looks at Gigi. Jan spent the day looking forward to the first basketball practise of the year. Dahlia managed to start two rumours by accident (both about herself, somehow). Brita and Aiden had already fallen out and made up twice before the end of third period. Rock M doodled through all her lessons, hoping the teachers wouldn’t call on her - most classes were doing start-of-the-year admit tasks anyways. 

When lunch rolled around for the first time that year, the girls found it easy to fall back into their well-loved routine. It was comforting really, having that one constant no matter how crazy school could get. Yeah, they might get loud, or they might fight, or fall out, but they all loved each other and made the chaos of high school so much more bearable (despite being chaotic themselves). The ten girls (Gigi and Nicky sat at another table for the day, but not without a quick hello at the beginning of the lunch hour) talked about everything under the sun, and eventually the topic of relationships came up. Crystal shied away, leaning back into her seat and hoping that she wouldn’t be asked about her love life. She was. 

“You have a girlfriend, right Crystal? What was her name again?”

“It doesn’t matter, we broke up at the start of summer and before you ask yes I am ok, no you don’t need to ask any further questions, ok thank you!”

Crystal’s attempt to stop any more questions was feeble, at best, and definitely didn’t work, because now she was being flooded with questions from nine other girls about if she’s really ok, who broke up with who, why didn’t you tell any of us, are you still friends, did she break your heart, oh my god did you break her heart? She didn’t answer any of them. Until Dahlia piped up, somehow always being up to date on the drama (even if Crystal hadn’t told anyone),

“Does it have anything to do with your crush on Gigi?”

The table fell silent. Crystal turned red, but refused to acknowledge it - if she acted like the question was nothing, then it would seem like nothing. She took a deep breath.

“My what on who?”

“You heard me bitch! It’s obvious you like her” Dahlia was laughing. Crystal didn’t think it was very funny. She looked over to the table where Gigi was sat, Gigi was already looking at her, smiling.

Was it that obvious? She thought she hid it well. After all, she didn’t want anyone to know, especially Gigi herself. Thank God she couldn’t hear this.

“I don’t. She’s straight - I don’t fall for straight girls. There’s no point”

Crystal wished it was that easy.

[writingformadderton]

The Book of You and I - Part 4

Ship: Madderton

Word Count: 3458

Summary: Taron keeps his distance from his friends and Richard,feeling betrayed. Richard gives him time but it quickly shows how bad they cope with it. When they mess up a scene Richard suggests to talk about it and Taron wants Dexter with them to calm them both down. During the talk a lot of things come up that change Taron’s life all over again.

Additional Tags: emotional hurt, dizzy, Tiny dancer, argument, memories, crying, comfort

Dedicated to @taron-eggmcmuffin ❤️

Part 3  Part 5

Taron stays at home during those two weeks and barely eats anything. He knows he should, but he can’t convince himself to do so. His head hurts and he’s emotionally unstable, feeling terrible.

He looked up his and Richard’s name for the first time and found articles about them getting into the car crash. As he scrolls further down, he finds some where they suggested a relationship between them. Taron clicks on “images” and finds a ton of them. Most are of them being outside together, having dinner or giving interviews. Taron looks at the pictures closely and sees the looks they shared. “God you’re getting brainwashed by these dumbass articles.” he growls and finds a interview of them on YouTube. He considers watching it and stares at his screen for ten minutes until it turns off automatically. Taron gives himself a push, logs back in and clicks on it. “Holy shit.” he breathes out when he sees it’s from five years ago. He looks at himself, only twenty-four back then and Richard next to him, twenty-seven years old. They fool around through the interview just like they did a couple weeks ago. He watches other ones and sees the way their behavior with each other changes throughout the years. They get more comfortable around another, finish each other’s sentences and seem to know exactly what the other one is going to say. But were they really a couple? Not possible. Probably just stupid shit talk.

He throws his phone aside and stares up at the ceiling. Tomorrow would be his first day back at work. The first day he sees Dexter and Richard. Bryce told him she would be on set tomorrow as well to keep him company and Taron was glad to have her around.

Taron isn’t fully sure if it’s good to return to work tomorrow, but he knows he needs a daily routine again. He sat around the house more than he could possibly remember of his old life. T growls a bit and turns onto his side, staring out of the window. It’s like the bright sun and deep blue sky wanna mock him, not fitting his mood at all.

_

After a sleepless night, he gets up with a horrible headache and takes a quick shower. He dresses up slowly as every movement hurts his head and grabs his apartment keys. Welp, welcome back to the real world.

_

On set he is greeted by Bryce, who watches him worried. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just haven’t slept properly the last four days.” he says and rubs his face tiredly. If this bloody headache would stop, he would feel better.

She hands him a pair of glasses. “Put those on.”

“Thanks.” he mumbles and follows her to the main building. Going in with Bryce by his side gives him a bit of security. Inside, he takes the glasses off again. The light isn’t as bright. When he comes inside the meeting room, he sees Dexter chatting with Jamie and Elton is also here today.

Just when they’re about to start, Richard steps inside, taking off his sunglasses. T glances at him and sees the dark circles underneath his eyes, the same he had seen beneath his own this morning. Ten minutes into the meeting, Taron feels himself getting dizzy and looks down at the floor irritated. His head hurts and he starts to feel sick while his world starts spinning.

“Taron, are you okay?” Bryce asks worried as her friend stumbles a bit and tries to hold himself up.

Richard looks over at them and tenses when he sees how pale Taron gets. “Sit him down.” he says to Bryce. Jamie helps her sit Taron down on the floor. Richard walks over to him and sits down in front of him. “Are you dizzy?” he asks and looks at him observantly.

“Mm.” T just hums and tries to blend out the black spots before his eyes.

“You should drink some water.” Rich says and takes a bottle from Dex. He opens it and holds it towards Taron. T takes it with shaking hands and takes a tiny gulp. Richard watches him closely. It’s scary to see him like that again. “When did you eat properly the last time?” he asks, knowing T stopped doing it whenever he was sad or extremely stressed. Taron just shrugs his shoulders and Rich nods slowly. The rest starts talking, giving them some space and Taron rubs his face tiredly. “Can we talk later?” Richard asks low enough for only T to hear and Taron looks at him shortly before shaking his head with tears in his eyes. “Okay. Then go home, eat something and get some sleep. You definitely pushed it too far.” he says.

“I can only tell you the same.” Taron says and raises his eyebrows at him.

Rich laughs weakly and pushes himself up. Taron gets up as well shaking a bit and sits down on the sofa. Bryce sits next to him and rubs his shoulder shortly. Dexter continues and Richard leans against the wall, feeling his own body growing tired. T was right. He needs sleep and a proper meal. But the last two weeks have made it impossible. He felt bad about lying to Taron, and he still doesn’t know the whole truth.

_

Three days later, both of them come to set feeling better physically. T shoots the Tiny Dancer scene and has some fun on set with Jamie before starting to sing. Soon enough, it’s already late and he’s freezing from standing in the dark, cold nighttime atmosphere. He sits on the top step of a little staircase and the scene starts. Taron hears Richard approaching him and takes a deep breath. Rich starts saying his lines and sits down next to him. As soon as Taron looks into those deep blue eyes, he feels the hurt welling back up inside him. He looks at him remaining silent and feels a tear running down his cheek. “I can’t do this.” he whispers and Rich bites his lower lip. “I can’t pretend to fall in love with you after what happened.”

“I know.” Richard says low-voiced and looks at him sad. “I’m sorry, T. Can we talk about it, please?”

Taron takes a shuddery breath and looks down at his knees. “When?”

“After the shoot maybe? I’ll drive you home… if you want to.” he suggests.

T nods slowly. “Okay. But I think we should take Dex with us.”

“Yea.” Richard says and gets up. “Dex?” he shouts and Dexter comes over to them. “We can’t do this right now. Not like this.” their director nods and looks at them. “We wanna talk about it.”

“Everything?” Dex asks and watches Richard curiously.

“Everything.” he says firmly and nods.

“Can you come with us? Probably won’t end well otherwise.” T admits and gets up.

“If that’s okay with you.” Dexter says and Taron nods. Seems like his friend wasn’t that mad at him.

_

Richard changed into jeans and a sweater, which is a lot more comfortable at 11:30pm than the suit he was wearing before. Taron changed into a pair of blue jeans and his favorite sweater. Seeing it makes Rich smiles a bit. It’s one of his that Taron kept when they got together. They sit down at the round table and Taron doesn’t know where to look.

“Do either of you wants to start?” Dexter asks them and both remain silent, hoping the other one would start. “Taron?”

T shifts in his seat a bit before looking at them. “You two made me feel like shit, honestly. You lied to my face and you were the ones I trusted with my stupid life that I know nothing about.” he feels the tears coming back but he doesn’t care this time. They needed see what they did to him. How he felt.

“I can understand that you’re upset about it but we had our reasons. The last time Richard tried to tell you, you told him kindly to leave and never talked to him again because you couldn’t remember him.” Dex states.

“Oh and that’s my fault now? I wasn’t the one who was driving. I was the victim in this crash.” Taron growls and shoots his friend a glare.

“Okay, next time I’ll run over a woman and probably kill her. Is that what you want?” Rich spits out and looks at him angrily. What happened that evening was neither his nor Taron’s fault. “You’d be traumatized now, just like I am. Sometimes it’s better not to remember something.” he says and sees Taron’s face going blank.

“Yeah, because you’re having such a hard time.” T laughs pejoratively and rolls his eyes.

“You don’t know shit about me. So don’t judge me on the last two months you’ve known me.” Richard says harshly and looks at him serious.

“And that’s it.” T leans forward and looks at him, feeling himself getting angry. “I don’t know shit about all of you. I don’t know shit about where I grew up, my family, my friends. The worst out of all of them is I don’t know shit about myself.” his voice cracks as he leans back in his chair again and shakes his head. “And it’s fucking gross to play with that, both of you. You don’t lie to someone who feels lost and depends on stories from others.”

“I tried to protect you, Taron. I know this wasn’t the best way.” Rich tries and gets cut off by Taron letting out a loud breath.

“If I really mean so much to you that you feel the need to protect me…then don’t fucking play with my issues.” he says through gritted teeth. “I need to be able to trust you, because trust is all that I have left.”

“I know.” The Scottish mumbles.

“No you don’t! Everyone thinks they know how it is for me, but they don’t. I can’t sleep because I’m constantly overthinking. I forget to eat. I panic late at night when my brain realizes once more there’s nothing left to remember!” he stops for a moment and wipes away the tear on his cheek. “I pull myself out of this shit day after day. You weren’t there to help!”

“I was, Taron. As you know now, I drove the bloody car. I was the one calming you down when you hit your head and I pulled you out of the car unconscious and covered in blood.” Richard says and it’s the first time he actually puts it into words in front of Taron. His throat gets tight at the thought of Taron at that evening.

“Well you were gone after the car crash, left me on my own. Where was the guy the media called my boyfriend, huh? Probably realized I’m no longer useful and just dropped me off at home.” Taron spits out and tucks his legs up on his seat.

“Who told you that shit?” he asks frowning.

“Don’t answer with a question.” he just says and looks at him, challenging him.

“I picked you up from the hospital and brought you home. On the first day, you handed me a picture of us. The second day, you said you need space. You practically erased me from your life. I would’ve never left you willingly.”

Taron remains silent for a moment and all the anger slowly fades. “And how should I know that you’re not lying to me again, right now?” he asks tiredly.

“Taron, Richard was your boyfriend.” Dexter steps in and T looks at him with raised eyebrows.

“How could you wanna prove that? With some shitty articles blogs would post when I went out with whoever for dinner tonight?” his voice shakes heavy now and he slips into hurt and sadness instead of anger now.

“I can’t do more than tell you again, I was there.” Rich says tiredly, getting frustrated.

“Prove it.” T says and shrugs his shoulders.

Richard groans and rubs his face. How the fuck was I supposed to prove the relationship was real? Suddenly, he remembers the letter he wrote for Taron on the day he left. “Hey, my name is Taron Egerton. I was involved in a bad car accident and am suffering from a retrograde amnesia, which means I forgot a lot.”

Dex watches him confused. “What the heck are you doing?”

“Shut up for a second.” T says and looks at Richard shocked.

“If I feel bad right now, it would be lovely if you could get me to a hospital. If I’m on my own and I don’t know what’s going on, I should call my mother.” Richard continues with a shaking voice.

“Here is her number. Thank you.” Taron finishes it and Richards nods. “Why the fuck do you know this?”

“Because I wrote that when I brought you home and you didn’t want me around anymore.”

Taron gets up quickly and gets a pen and a piece of paper. “Write it down.” he says and presses his lips together. Rich does as he says and writes down the first sentence. Taron recognizes his hand writing immediately and swallows hard. Did he really -?

Richard takes out his phone and removes the phone case. He takes out a picture and hands it to Taron. “That’s what you gave me.” Taron looks at the picture. That’s actually very cute. He’s smiling softly into the camera while Richard presses a kiss into his hair with his eyes closed. His eyes fill with tears and he looks back at Rich shocked. “That’s my sweater.” he says and points at T.

“It’s my favorite.” Taron admits and looks down at the dark blue soft sweater that gave him comfort so often before.

“I know.” Rich smiles softly. He searches for Taron’s number and presses call. The words “My love” appear on the screen and Taron looks down at his phone a bit startled. “The reason why my Air Pods connected so fast to your phone was because we always listened to your music with my headphones.” Richard looks up to Taron, standing there completely in shock and disbelief. “Can I show you something on your phone?”

Taron nods timidly and hands it to him. He watches Richard opening his photo gallery and scrolling down to the folder with the password. “I didn’t know the password, so I couldn’t open it.” Richard types it in and looks up to him shortly, before writing it down at the piece of paper. Taron’s eyes fill with tears and they threaten to fall down his cheeks as he sees the words “Theloveofmylife.”. He turns pale when he looks back at his phone and sees all the pictures of Rich and him kissing, cuddling, holding hands or at premieres together.

Taron falls onto his chair heavily and takes his phone back with shaking hands. He looks at the letter, Richard’s handwriting and the password. “Fuck.” is all he gets out and buries his face in his hands for a moment. When he looks up, tears are rolling down his face and he lets out a shuddery breath, tangling his hands in his hair while leaning forward. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks and his voice cracks in the middle of the sentence.

“When you knew about it and pushed me away, I decided to not tell you this time. I wanted to let you figure things out on your own and put the pieces together with time. It felt like forcing the fact of us as a couple onto you.” Richard explains lowly. “You can’t tell someone that they love you.”

“I-I don’t know what to say right now.” T says and his voice threatens to crack again.

“Do you understand now why we didn’t tell you about Rich and you in the first place?” Dex asks carefully and T nods slowly.

“How long have we been together?” he asks and looks at Rich, who watches him sad.

“Seven months. You wanted to make it official because you were sick of hiding it. You were talking about a future together and - two minutes later we crashed into a wall.”

“So we were happy?” Rich nods. “Did we fight?”

“Not often, harmless.” he says. “It was always about unimportant things and you came back after five minutes to cuddle.” he chuckles softly.

“Was I-Was I a good boyfriend?” he asks timidly.

“The best.” he says with a sad smile.

Taron sits up straight and nods slowly. “Tell me about the car crash. Please.”

Richard knows he’s the only one who can tell him the whole story and so he gives in. “Everything was fine until a drunk woman suddenly crossed the street. I couldn’t stop the car fast enough, so I pulled sideways. We crashed into a wall and you hit your head really bad. Had a nasty wound on your forehead. I was a bit caught up in the shock but then you asked for me and threw up. You couldn’t sit up straight because of the pain and I tried to calm you down… And then you passed out.”

“Did I say anything before I passed out?” Taron asks curiously.

“I love you forever, okay?” Richard hesitantly says and swallows hard after seeing Taron’s face going blank. “Listen, I won’t force anything onto you and if you don’t feel good around me anymore I’ll back out of the role. Blame it on stress or whatever.” Rich rubs his face tiredly and bites his lower lip nervously. “If you want me to go, I’ll do it.”

The Welsh looks up to him caught up in thoughts. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you were the most important person in my life and I wouldn’t do anything to make you feel bad on purpose.” Richard looks down at the table for a moment. “Which is why I felt like shit as well those past two weeks.”

Taron watches him startled and looks deep into Richard’s eyes. He wasn’t lying. T looks back at the picture and the letter before looking at Richard. “I’m so sorry for this mess, Rich.” he says and his voice cracks. “And the car crash wasn’t your fault. I was talking dumb shit.”

“It’s not your fault, T.” Richard assures him weakly.

Taron grabs his hand hesitantly and looks at him with tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Rich.” Richard smiles at him sadly and shakes his head. It wasn’t Taron’s fault that he forgot everything. “Can I hug you?” T asks timidly as he gets up and Rich just opens his arms, doing the same. Taron wraps his arms around his waist and buries his face in his shoulder.

Richard tightens his hesitant grip around Taron and softly rubs his back as he starts crying. “Hey, it’s okay.” he whispers and Taron just shakes his head.

His whole world just got turned upside down. Again. He would have never thought that Richard and him had been a thing. Maybe that was the reason that he felt so good around him so quickly and got hurt so badly when he found out about the lie. “I’m so sorry. I completely ignored the fact that I’m not the only one who’s struggling with this.”

“You didn’t know. It’s okay, bub.” Rich says and fondles over his hair. He knows exactly where to touch him to calm and comfort him.

“Please give me a chance to make it right again. I was talking shit about you.” T begs and clings onto him.

Richard pulls back and cups Taron’s face. “Calm down. You did nothing wrong.” he looks into his sad puppy eyes and feels the urge to kiss him. But he holds himself back and wraps him into a hug again. “Don’t blame yourself now, please.”

“I’m so sick of this shit.” T sniffs into his shoulder.

“I know.” Rich mumbles. “Me too, T. Me too.”

“Please don’t lie to me again. I really can’t take this.” he chokes out and sobs into his shoulder helplessly.

“I won’t.” Rich promises and plants a soft kiss into his hair.

@fuseburner @sarahegerton96 @multicoloredchicken @primaba11erina @anxiety-at-the-classroom @maddertonmyheart @madderton-obsessed