#i am not dead. i have not abandoned you. i just got really into malevolent changed my name touched some grass and then got really into

[tango-but-everywhere]

*rises from the dead* thank you pearl for this behind the scenes/exclusive preview!!

[ID: a minecraft screenshot, taken within a trial chamber. Pearl and Etho are closest to the viewer, standing back to back. The minimal armour texture pack is on. Pearl is drawing a bow in full netherite and Etho is wielding an enchanted diamond sword in a mix of netherite and diamond armour. Between them and further away, Tango is walking somewhat toward us. He’s wielding a bow but not drawing it, and wearing full diamond. There’s a whole bunch of blue flame and skull particles in the air between the three of them. End ID]

[enbee-ai]

@its-your-mind this is for you

here are my notes on malevolent's season one, episodes one through eight

considering my history with eye-related imagery podcasts, it was only obvious that one day i'd get around to malevolent as well. so here it is:

the two things i knew going in are as follow:

one of them is named john, while the other's name is arthur. i have no clue who is which

lots of the aforementioned eye imagery. i think at least one of them might be coded yellow, although as far as i know they are... sharing a body, perhaps. one of them is not human. and he's EVIL

i didn't jot down many notes while listening to the first bunch of episodes, but i have some general thoughts.

the setup is really smart. it's a really good idea to have arthur suddenly go blind and having john describe his surroundings, the people they come across and the actions arthur himself is going to take, but it also almost feels like a dnd campaign as far as descriptions and the dialogue goes (good, i'm very passionate about taz), especially when john gives arthur a description and arthur asks him questions, or when john lays out the possible courses of action they could take and leaves the choice to arthur. also why are there dice sounds sometimes when john notices some detail or other? what's up with that

part 1 "the dark world", part 2 "the missing girl", part 3 "the mansion", all in rapid fire:

(at this point i was convinced this was all taking place in england. podcast protagonists love being named john, and british)

i love stories that start in medias res, but this isn't even that. this is directly after the res. intriguing

peter... a private detective's partner in investigating... mmh nureyev i am constantly reminded of you come back home

the mystery seems straightforward enough, at least as much as a mystery can be, but arthur's detective skills really shine through here. he seems quite level headed.

it's really funny that he tells the voice (this is what i was calling john until episode five) to shut up and calm the fuck down he's so right for that, you go you funky little detective! 

i wonder when he's going to break down

DRIVING? WHILE BLIND???

creepy rotting abandoned mansions and mystery babies, love it, nothing to complain about

part 4 "the voices"

is the guy (kellin) the one who can actually hear the voice? is the severed head just a lifeless thing? does he think ! he can't hear the voice while his sister's head can, because he's unstable? is this what's happening? how would this guy (kellin again, i had no idea how to spell his name before looking it up i apologize) even be able to talk to the severed head in the lake?

oh this is GOOD horror

part 5 "the gift"

what? how did that happen? what? (i'm apparently referring to how arthur got in a hospital, according to the time stamp i left next to this note!)

is that the dream world the book guy was talking about in his notes?

did they actually have this kind of medical technology back in the 1930's?

oooh john

OO FRIEND

thank you for the recap of the previous five episodes i have just listened to

I KNEW SHE WAS DEAD!! CONSEQUENCES (of being asleep for a month)  (i'm talking about amanda / sarah here)

part 6 "the hill"

john seems to really like saying arthur's name

"arthur" "what?" "it's closed." hah

alright yes i s'pose i could yeh

how come john keeps asking arthur to play the piano? is there a reason beyond the obvious?

oh oh his reaction!! it's so lovely!!

gingerly walking into a gun shop and buying a gun like the real americans do. yeehaw

"you know how to [pick a lock]?" "many times, friend" "friend"

!!! john is so surprised to be called arthur's friend!! he didn't even notice it when they were in the hospital but arthur's been calling him that for a while now, back before the coma :)))

"more than telling (turn right) more than telling—"

part 7 "the island"

abandoned houses, severed heads, creepy lighthouses in the middle of a foggy lake, hitchhiking with the wrong guy. cults

all of my favorite things

we fucked up, you fucked up

who's john????????? what 

what do you mean who's john. what's happening to him, why doesn't he remember his own name that he picked out for himself kind of

part 8 "the caves"

"once more in the abyss, john" "once more, friend"

first time john's called arthur his friend! it's even more meaningful knowing how much he likes calling him arthur

john hates rhetorical questions, i see. although i'm pretty sure they're an integral part of being a PI and reasoning stuff out

the coffins were removed... and the widow wasn't alone... this is the thing that fucks me up the most 

more dice sounds

"if they are a cult, who or what are they worshipping", i see john's the one asking the rhetorical questions now

a woman? the widow? why has she gone feral

counting? what? the coffins? time? (about the signs they find on the cave's walls)

ah

john 😳 i need you with me on this 😳

the black goat, the king in yellow (arthur and john? is that why they're coded yellow? is john the king in yellow? could that be?)

is john hiding something? why is the fact that he left the severed head behind continually brought up? is it going to be relevant, was the head actually... supernatural?

does john know something he isn't telling arthur?

antoine's final plan and henry's sacrifice ?

"the one who wore, yellow?" "yes the king in yellow"

the one who tried to kill arthur in episode one? (i think this might be referring to the one who killed sarah, or the one who was following her)

"FUCK YOU JOHN" "FUCK ME? FUCK YOUR EYES"

well john is obviously worried that arthur's lack of empathy for the creatures they've come across up to this point will translate in a... rejection of some sort (fear, disgust, or anger) towards him if and when they find out where john came from and what he is

he's also aware that the time he spent in the dark world must have greatly influenced him, both in his actions and his mind. i think this is why he is showing so much empathy for the widow (was she really?) getting sucked into the cult, he knows how much the environment you're in and the company you are with can influence a mind

i mean, this is just speculating. i hope whatever malevolent veteran is reading this is having a laugh

this also makes me think that john might be having quite the influence on arthur's mind, to an extent, one that arthur is not aware of, at all

well, shit

[gym-leader-blair]

Hmmm yeah, a lot of people don't seem to realize it but exactly what makes a pokemon a ghost type is, well, there's not a strict list of criteria like there are for some other types. The standard 18 type system is pretty rigid and it's helpful in understanding pokemon's relations to the world and one another, but it doesn't really let people realize the amount of variety within each type, if that makes sense? Not all ghost types are strictly what we would consider 'dead', as in they came into existence by experiencing something akin to 'birth' and an event that drastically changed the nature of that existence, usually going from a more corporeal to incorporeal form in the process. In humans what's considered to be that exact moment of death varies depending on the culture and the individual considering it, some say it's when your heart stops, or when you stop breathing, or when your brain seizes functioning, etc. But death itself isn't always an easily defined, neat and tidy process. Even less so for pokemon, who come in a nearly endless variety of sentient beings and the nature of whose existence is often so different from our own.

There are some ghost types you can euthanize in a more literal sense like shelterstories mentioned, generally the ones that are the closest to what's commonly considered as being 'alive', but it really, really depends on a pokemon's species. Like how do you provide a 'good death' to a being that's already dead, or beings that were never technically 'alive' to begin with and thus can't die in a literal sense? A lot of the time that's got more to do with soothing the pokemon so it can move on to whatever comes next for it. Take banettes, for example. Exactly how they come about is actually pretty varied despite what a lot of pokedexes like to claim, that they're all the spirits of abandoned toys and want vengeance on whoever abandoned them, but a lot evolve from shuppets who decide to take up residence in a toy. It can be hard if not impossible to ascertain an individual shuppet's motivations for that, but a lot of them are curious or want to give having a more corporeal form a try, and toys are a convenient medium of possession that they find themselves particularly drawn to. (I've heard of some refusing to possess certain toys because they, for whatever reason, were not to the shuppets' liking, and people wanting to evolve their shuppets are encouraged to offer a variety for them to choose from. My banette Mirage wasn't so picky, she just kinda saw one of my old toys and went 'it's free real estate' all on her own one day. She's always been a bit impulsive, lol).

A lot of the more 'stereotypical', vengeful banettes can be rehabilitated, but others are so caught up in their anger and sadness that it essentially chains them to our world, and they either can't move on by themselves or simply refuse to. They're spirits inhabiting toys, you can't stick some vaccine needles in them and call it a day. In my region, Hoenn, and many nearby regions, channelers or other spiritual experts perform rituals to help the banette (and pokemon with similar profiles, the whole '*technically* neither alive nor dead' thing) move on. Some pokemon are easier to handle than others, unfortunately. I also know the exact nature of those experts and how they tend to handle the situation varies a lot over the world, and some tend to be more humane than others. I particularly am not fond of 'experts' who treat ghost types like inherently malevolent forces and don't seem to actually take the pokemon's wellbeing into consideration, a lot of times their primary concern is just 'getting rid of them'. They're more common in some regions than others, and it has a lot to do with certain regions' cultures and attitudes towards ghost type pokemon in general.

do… do ghost types ever have to be euthanized??? They are (with exceptions like frillish and dragapult) already dead, right? What happens if a ghastly or yamask is gravely ill or cannot live in peace due to health conditions?

dead vs. not-dead isn't really a helpful category when talking about pokemon that are sometimes spirits haunting something that isn't really alive- an in fact, the dreepy line do fall into the category of beings that were once alive, died, and are now spirits!

keep in mind that euthanasia means "good death" and is our way of providing a painless end to pokemon who no longer have good quality of life. this is relatively rare on a physical level for ghost type pokemon- though it does happen- and tends to be more for ghost types that are so stressed, fearful, and reactive that being put to rest is the kind thing to do.

for pokemon like decidueye and skeledirge, we euthanize like we would most other pokemon by ceasing brain function, usually through injection. but with pokemon like duskull, gastly, or shuppet, which are spirits, euthanasia takes the form of helping to soothe their spirit enough to move on. it's not unusual for veterniarians to call upon the outside help of ghost-type experts to assist in instances of spiritual euthanasia! this is a really tricky process, so thankfully it's not super common to need it. i've personally observed it once with a yamask whose trainer had passed away, and it was honestly a really beautiful experience to watch, but it took a long time and involved a lot of complicated spiritual techniques.

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

CURSED: CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“‘Cuz Parents aren’t always right”

Kai Parker x OC!Mack Grace

Series synopsis: "We're both cursed, in a way."

We all know the story of Kai Parker, but he once lived in a very different life. Do you ever wonder what that life looked like?

Chapter summary: not ever ending is good o guess

Warnings: violence, so much fuckin’ violence, blood, use of spells for torture, swearing I think, death

A/n: last chapter! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this fanfic!!

Masterlist | series Masterlist

Paralysed, aching, vulnerable, crushed, tormented, dejected. Kai stood frozen in place, unable to move from the spot - feeling as heavy as lead, as empty as a dead man's eyes, as broken as the promises he had made. Time seemed to stand still as the boy watched the little red car drive away, it's silhouette only getting smaller and smaller as it drove further and further down the tarmac rode.

Then reality hit him. A sound of anguish tore from Kai, a heart-clenching sound that bounced menacingly off the street, filling the once-silent area with the noise of his sadness. It's stung is vocal chords, strained his mouth and rattle off his teeth.

Then it went quiet again.

His solemn footsteps filled the quiet night with a melancholy vibration as he paced quickly to his scratched-up car. He'd need to fix that - the damage could become suspicious. Getting inside, he started up the engine and drove off with little hesitation, desperate to get home and possibly hit something.

Kai bit back a wince at the sight of the crumpled up empty packet of pork rinds lazing on the passenger's seat, his mind flashback to every time Mack would make a sound of disgust whenever he'd start chewing obnoxiously on one. He quickly swiped his tears from his damp cheeks before focusing back on the road, gravel crunching meticulously under his tyres, the wet sound of the sticky tarmac the only noise accompanying the purr of the Jeep's engine.

Suddenly, Kai slammed the brakes so hard he was jerked forward in his seat, chest aching against the tight strain of his seatbelt. Kai gathered himself quickly, unbuckling himself and getting out of his car. With fast paces, he walked towards Ian's car that was laying abandoned at the side of the road - empty.

Kai walked around the car, vexing down to peer inside the windows yet he saw nothing. He stood back up, hands fisting his hair as he let out a frustrated groan. That's when he noticed the car keys strewn carelessly in the glistening grass. Kai's eyes blew wide, he picked them up and clicked the button.

Yellow-orange lights flashed from the red car.

"No no no." Kai muttered, yanking the driver's door open and rooting through the glovebox, the pouches on the back of seats, the boot, anything - not really knowing what he was looking for. A small, silver glint caught his eyes from the grass again - next to where the keys had been. Kai was quick to investigate, picking up the silver watch crested with the unmistakably Gemini symbol beneath the ticking hands.

Kai threw the piece of jewellery roughly at a nearby tree, letting out a shout of rage before he was running back to his car and jumping in - not even bothering to put on his seatbelt before he was driving at 100 miles an hour towards his house.

...

A groggy state filled Mack's clouded mind, a metallic rattling noise colliding with her ears like nails on a chalk board - jolting her sore body awake. Her head was hung low, toes dancing precariously on the gritty stone floor and arms strung up above her by long, thick chains. She was acutely aware of the persistent throbbing on the left side of her head, along with the stabbing pain echoing across her cheek. What she couldn't figure out was what caused them.

The second one was answered quickly.

"Wake up, girl!" A sharp voice boomed. "Fucking spells." The same voice muttered quietly after, the sound of footsteps fading away caressing Mack's ears painfully. A drawn-out groan tumbled from her lips, the sound of footsteps getting louder again. A pointed gasp escaped her as rough, strong fingers dug into her jaw, tilting her head upwards until she was looking into dark brown eyes.

"J-Joshua?" She croaked, voice shattered from her drowsy state. The man's lips curled into a menacing smirk, a dangerous flame flicking in his eyes. "What am I doing here?"

"All in good time, sweetheart. We just need to wait for my abomination of a son to arrive and the party can get started." Joshua spoke, a malevolent glint in his tone that made Mack sick to her stomach. He wasn't the good guy in this situation, and she definitely wasn't safe.

"W-what do you mean 'get started'" she stuttered out, eyes blown wide with fear as the man stalked around her - like a predator hunting its prey. A dark chuckled filled the tiny shed.

"You'll soon find out, my dear. No need to worry yourself, yet." Joshua cooed sinisterly in her ear, body looming behind Mack's and sending a crawling shiver up her spine that made the girl's entire body quake with terror.

"Joshua!" Mack gasped at the loud shout of Kai's voice, muffled by the creaky walls of the little shed. "Joshua get out here!" Kai bellowed and the feeling of Joshua's breath on the back of Mack's neck as he let out another deep, dark chuckled made the werewolf want to vomit.

"Show time." The witch murmured, an evil smirk gracing his thin lips.

A shrill scream ripped from Mack's throat, right knee buckling slightly but her hanging frame was kept up high but the ever-rattling manacles, causing a burning pain to spark in her upper torso where her body stretched. Mack didn't dare look, her eyes clenched shut as the pain climbed up her leg and through her body, head pounding.

"KENZ!" Kai boomed, the little, flimsy door of the shed flinging open, crashing into the weak wood behind it and shaking some of the shelves lining the walls. There he stood, panting and shaking with anger, eyes dark with an unreadable cloud as he stared at Mack's tear-stained face and the sight of his father stood with a smug smirk behind her.

"Nice of you to join us, Malachai." Joshua finned malevolently, another pained scream echoing from Mack as she felt a searing, sharp pain stabbing through her left arm. The burn didn't leave, the bones being torn apart by the harsh binding.

"Stop!" Kai shouted. "Leave her alone!"

"I don't think I will." Joshua smirked. "You see, I think you need to be taught a lesson. Ever since this girl has come into your life it's been nothing but trouble - mixing with werewolves, steeling magic...I might just have to lock you up." Joshua said, almost sing-songy towards the end. "But I'll start with getting rid of her." Joshua spat, just as three bones broke in Mack's body.

Her ear-piercing screams and pleas brought a siege of tears to Kai's eyes, but an amused glint to his father's.

"Why are you doing this to her." Kai demanded.

"To show you the monster she really is." Joshua said sternly, muttering a spell under his breath to speed up her transition.

"P-please! Make it stop! I can't take it anymore, please stop!" Mack cried, voice shattered with exhaustion and pain.

"Stop it! Just- take me instead! Punish me! Not her," Kai pleaded, eyes pooling with tears once again.

"Boy, don't you see that I already am? By hurting her I am hurting you much more." Joshua confirmed. When Mack looked up again, her eyes were rimmed with gold.

"Stop it!" Kai shouted. Joshua laughed darkly.

And then Mack was truly changing.

Joshua used his powers to disconnect the thick chains from the ceiling, instead rooting them to the concrete floor. And when he was finished, a wolf stood in Mack's place.

"Time for the grand finale." Joshua smirked, hand raising. "Phasmatos superous em animi..."

The pained whimpers of the wolf made Kai wince and Joshua laughed mockingly at him.

"Don't tell me you feel bad for it, Malachai?" Kai raised his head with anger storming in his eyes, yet he was helpless. The whimpering had stopped, the wolf's body still. A shift happened in Mack, her shaking body reverting back.

Kai was quick to rush to her side, arms wrapping around her and cradling Mack's body to his.

"I've got you, I'm here, Kenz. Please- please just come back to me, please." Tears dropped onto her cheeks, a salting sheen over her sweat covered skin and she slowly blinked awake.

A smile broke out on Kai's face, but it was soon replaced by a fearful grimace as her strained voice filled his ears.

"I love you, Kai. With all me heart. Remember that." Mack's lifeless eyes bore into the ceiling, shining with a gloss of tears, but lacking the glint of life they usually held.

Kai's lip trembled uncontrollably, wobbling as his grip on her body slowly loosened. He didn't even get to tell her he loved her one last time...

"I'm done!" Kai's voice bellowed, his tear stained face ripping away from Mack's limp body, rolling lifelessly from his lap and dropping to the stone-cold floor. Kai slowly raised to his feet, head raising. He looked straight into Joshua's eyes as he spoke, clearly. "Do you hear me!?" He continued, noting the way Joshua's throat bobbed as he sealed thickly, trying to contain the fear he suddenly felt for his son. "I lost everything! You made me lose everything!" Kai boomed, rage written over his features as he spun to face his father, face red.

Kai advanced on Joshua, hands fisting the older man's shirt collar tightly as he pushed him up against the gritty stone wall. Kai looked into his father's eyes as he spoke, heavy breaths panted between them as Joshua cracked - showing his first sign of fear towards his son since the first time he saw Kai siphon.

"And you will regret everything you ever did to me."

[albatris]

Wait that sounds cool tell me more about Bright and Burning Things? (If you want to ofc you definitely don't have to)

:D!!! of course, I can tell you some stuff!!! thank you for the question, I'm happy you think it sounds cool!!

this is not really a super sensical explanation, this is some rambles, as usual

so, this is a short standalone project of mine, it's uhhhh........ hm. something something fantasy comedy something. it's meant to be a bit of a light-hearted adventure, but as it is with most of my more silly stories, it takes a sharp detour into some "oof" territory c':

bits of the premise sound kind of Heavy but silliness and heaviness go hand-in-hand quite nicely I think

the central character is a ghost kid! this kid’s name is Max! the story kicks off right after they die and they’re being ushered onto the bus that will take them to the afterlife. as they are being ushered onto said bus, they’re like “holy fuck wait no” because they have unfinished business in the living world. they got straight-up murdered!  their life got cut short! they don’t have any closure! they don’t even know who killed them!! so they make a run for it and go ghost

and like, oh, this happens sometimes. the dead are sometimes quite affronted by the fact that they’re dead and kick up a bit of a fuss when it comes to Moving On. the thing is, souls aren’t really built for Being Ghosts and can’t really survive long out in the living world, so there’s a bit of a time limit on Max’s quest to figure out who killed them and solve the mystery of their own death, since if they stay too long in the living world as a disembodied soul they’ll start to unravel

related, and perhaps more pressingly, is that there’s various agents of the afterlife who are attempting to find them and bring them back and Make Them Move On. these forces take on a bit of an antagonistic role in the story, but they’re not really any malevolent force that wants to hurt Max, they’re just the folks who go after stray and panicked souls and try to bring them to the afterlife before they fade away and disappear completely

Max’s got shit to do, though, like I said

so the story follows Max over the course of one night as they piece together the story of their death and fill in the gaps in their memory, while also attempting to stave off their unravelling for as long as they can

Max becomes acquainted with various other supernatural beings who are on their own time-sensitive quests on the same night, n they form some sort of kinship over this fact and band together to help each other out on their missions

firstly there’s Daisy, stir-crazy thousand-year-old heir to the vampire throne, due to be crowned the next day, who suddenly had an existential crisis and was like “actually vampire society is dull as hell I wanna LIVE”

so she goes out into the human world and robs a pizza store and starts several fights and is like “hell YEAH this slaps” and basically decides she’s just gonna kick up some real chaos since this is her last night of freedom, basically, n she’s gotta make it count

she’s very smart! she knows next to nothing about human society and how to be a normal person though, and if you leave her unsupervised she will attempt to eat marbles

also the structure of vampire society is very convoluted and confusing and full of complete nonsense. it makes no sense to anyone but the vampires themselves, and even then the rest of the supernatural world is half convinced the vamps are just playing the long game with an extremely elaborate prank. their royalty live in an abandoned petrol station? they wear those little paper crowns from hungry jacks/burger king. they take themselves very seriously

also this is the story in which I was really drunk when I was planning it n just slammed some vodka and was like “VAMPIRES COME FROM SPACE NOW” and then sober logan just had to deal with that

ANYWAY

next there’s Hope and Deckchairs, a socially anxious uni student and a socially anxious demon respectively, and the deal with these two is uhhhhh

well, Hope was trying to be a Cool Kid and tagged along with some Cool Kids who wanted to do a demonic summoning ‘cause Hell Yeah That’s Edgy And Cool

and Deckchairs (not named Deckchairs at the time, this is a name that’s adopted during the story) was doing their very overdue demon taxes and stressing over demon finances, n then got yoinked out of the underworld because of the aforementioned summoning

(I think this is generally viewed among demons as a mild inconvenience, sometimes you get Yoinked when you’re right in the middle of something and you just have to be like “ugh fine I’ll just kick up a bit of a ruckus then come back”)

however, when the summoning actually works, the Cool Kids freak out and scatter and in the chaos Hope gets her head bonked on the side of a dresser and fuckin starts bleeding out, and Deckchairs is like “oh fuck I did not sign on for this” ‘cause they’re........ yeah, look, they’re gentle and anxious and not a very good demon, maybe. n so Deckchairs possesses the body of Hope to keep her alive

so now these two are co-piloting a body, and have to figure out a way they can split and return to their lives without Hope dying. however, they’re also being hunted down by

the Cool Kids, who are now all keyed up and paranoid and convinced they’re the heroes of a horror movie n they have to kill the demonic entity they brought into the world

the underworld, who.......... now, I haven’t figured out whether they’re pissed ‘cause they think Deckchairs is committing tax evasion by body-hopping into the human world, or they’re pissed just ‘cause Deckchairs has work to do and they don’t consider one human life to be worth all the hold up

so that’s not great for either of them, but like, yeah, if they can figure out a way to split and be done with it, it’s problem solved for both of them. yeehaw. too bad they’re both nearly too anxious to speak to each other

and that’s................................. all that

facts?

there’s a plot twist at the end that I am SUPER psyched about! and it has taken literally all of my willpower not to spoil it completely

I feel like it’s an easy one to guess, but it’s perfect for the story and the themes and it’s one I’m hella excited about

and this is..................... this is I think the only story of mine where I would say it doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending? like. it certainly doesn’t end in TRAGEDY, but this is definitely a bittersweet ending, it’s got some real sad undertones

it’s the best possible ending for the characters, but like, hey, my protagonist is already dead, y’know?

anyway if you read this far I hope some of this was fun for you :’))

thanks for coming to my ted talk I hope you have a nice day :D

[metaphysical-human-being]

Switcheroo

Pt1

Pt2

A/N- Okay so you all remember this headcanon, right? Well, anyway, I loved it so much that I decided to make it a series? I don’t know how long it’ll go but, yeah! Also, I’m not the best writer so sorry in advance!

Warnings- death mention, abandonment mention, guilt mention, nightmare mention, swearing. Tell me if I missed any others!

Summary- Roman and Remus reunite after four years…

It doesn’t go well

Remus zoomed down the hallway, smile on his face and madness in his eyes. He could hear the voices of a few of those dipshits chasing him but he didn’t really care. He knew they’d never catch him and if they did..

Well, let’s just say that he won’t be the one wobbling away with a busted lip and a broken nose. 

He turned the corner and looked around wildly. The voices were getting a bit closer and as much as Remus would willingly fight them, it was his first day and De would be really mad if he got expelled on his first day again-

“There he is! Get him!” He heard the “leader of the pack” yell. He snuck a glance behind him and shot them a crazed smile before taking off running once more. He ran up a flight of stairs and hopped over a few kids skipping class but they never caught him. They got close, but never got him. 

Turning onto a random hallway, he spot two large double doors. A sign saying Auditorium directly above them.

“Perfect!” He mumbled before opening them and closing them quietly. He waited a few seconds to catch his breath before pushing his ear to the door. 

“I think he went this way!” He heard one of the guys call from the end of the hallway. He listened to them run closer and closer to the doors. They stopped right outside the auditorium and Remus heard them discuss going inside. He backed away from the door and looked down the long rows of chairs. Velvety red and plush looking. Kinda comfy. Maybe he could come in here during free periods to nap…

He looked over to the stage before running through the aisles and hopping onto it. The doors opened and he heard the guys walk in. Remus ducked behind the curtains and crouched down as small as possible. 

Just then, someone walked onto the stage. 

“Garrett! And poise…what can I do for you fine gentleman on this beautiful January day!” The loud yet… familiar voice boomed. Something inside Remus seemed to stir but he didn’t pay attention. He only payed attention to the voices. 

“Roman, a pleasure as always.” The main guy, Garret, sneered. 

Remus felt all the air in his lungs leave his body and he had to uncurl from his crouched position to sit down instead. A dread filled his stomach and he kinda felt like throwing up.

Roman?! Roman?! Like, the twin he tricked, Roman? That one? Remus didn’t know he went to this school! Or…maybe he doesn’t? Yeah! Maybe he doesn’t and Remus is just overreacting!

He peaked his head out from behind the curtain, enough to look at the teen in the middle of the stage and…oh ever-fucking Zeus..

It was Roman. He hadn’t seen him since they were twelve and Remus…

At first Remus thought that it wasn’t him but then he saw that deep and prominent dimple on his right cheek and his fiery red hair. (“Just like the Weasley twins!” Ms. Malevolent would always say.  “I’m trouble!” Remus would say. “And I’m double!” Roman would always say after him and then they’d laugh and laugh. Hey…at least neither of them were dead).

Although the clothes were definitely strange to Remus. He had only ever seen Roman in rags and hand me downs, never anything new. Unlike the bright white t-shirt and…Remus guessed maroon pants and the bright Adidas, the only non-new looking thing was…was the sports jacket Remus found when they were ten. 

It was way too big for Roman but now that he was older it fit pretty well. Remus was surprised he still kept it 

“It usually is! Now, why are you here, exactly? I know none of you have drama as an elective and you all definitely aren’t trying out for the school play so…” Roman trailed off, a sense of confidence in his voice that Remus always admired. It didn’t surprise Remus that Roman was in drama either. His twin always loved being the center of attention and putting on little plays for Remus and all the other kids in the orphanage whenever the power went out or any of the kids were having a bad day. They always cheered everyone up and Roman, again, adored the attention. 

“Some new kid tripped my pal Ricky over here,” he heard, presumably Ricky, grunt out an agreement. Remus and Roman both rolled their eyes, although neither knew it. “ And we wanted to…. teach him a lesson! Yeah, teach him a lesson. We thought we saw him go in here.” All the other guys agreed and Roman huffed. 

“Well, I can assure you all, that no one ran in here. Virgil and I are the only ones in here and we didn’t hear anyone come in except you four.” He said, his voice almost song like but that was always Roman. Actually, the only thing Remus could pick out that was different was the deepness of the voice. It had definitely gotten deeper since they were twelve but…it suit him. Remus bet he sounded even better singing than when he did when he was young. Less whiny and more rich. 

Garrett huffed. “Yeah, okay. But if you see him, tell him that Garrett just wants to…talk. Yeah, a nice friendly little chat.”

“And if they don’t show up?” Roman asked, merely out of curiosity, Remus had to guess. 

“Oh, if he’s smart…he will.” Garrett answered before him and his gang walked out. Remus turned back around and let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He got ready to go until a voice stopped him.

“Okay, they’re gone! You can come out now!” Roman announced, still standing on the stage. Remus froze. 

“Oh, come on! I promise I won’t bite~” Roman chuckled. “Well, if you’re cute then I might.” Roman said. Remus gagged. He would have not said that if he knew who was behind the curtain. Still, Remus stayed silent. 

“Y'know I can see your foot, right?” Roman asked. Remus quickly pulled his foot to his chest and cleared his throat. 

“I think I’m comfy right here.” Remus replied, making his voice sound as different as possible. It’s only been three years, it would not take Roman long to figure out who he was if he used his normal voice.

He heard Roman chuckle, it was melodious and he felt tears gather in his eyes. God he missed that sound. 

“Oh, come on. I’m not gonna hurt you-”

“I doubt that,” Remus cut him off. He knew that Roman would probably beat the shit out of him for what he did and he really can’t blame the guy. He did kind of trick him and abandon him. 

“How are you so sure?” Roman asked. Remus let out a watery bark of laughter.

“Oh, I’m sure,” he said. He heard Roman walk closer to where he was. His footsteps were slow and light sounding. 

“Can I at least know your name?” Roman tried. Remus shook his head no but then realized that Roman couldn’t see him.

“Hey Roman, I’m heading out. Pat and I are going to lunch! You spending your free period here?” A new voice, presumably Virgil, said. Roman just let out a loud hum and then the doors opened and closed. 

“That was my friend, Virgil. Although, if you were listening, you already knew that. Can you please come out?” Roman asked once more. 

“I’m gay.”

“Haha. Very funny.” Roman responded, tone light. Remus chuckled slightly too. “I am too, if that makes you feel any better.” Roman said.

“It does, actually.” Remus whispered. A tear had streamed down his face but he kept his voice level. 

“If…if I show you who I am…do you promise not to get mad?” Remus asked after a few seconds of silence. He heard Roman back away to the center of the stage. 

“That depends…are you my long lost twin?” Roman joked, voice layered with a type of sadness that made Remus’ stomach twist with guilt. He rose to his feet and walked out from behind the curtain. 

“Actually,” he walked over to Roman who was now frozen to his spot, eyes wide and filled with a lot of emotions. “I am.” Remus said, spreading out his arms in a “here I am” type way. 

There wasn’t much to show though. They both had pretty much the same build. Except, Roman was a lot more muscular in the arms while Remus was more muscular in his legs( due to running a lot of track…and away from the cops sometimes)

Their wardrobe was a lot more different too. At first De had offered to buy Remus all new clothes but he liked the more raggedy and dirty clothes. (“They fit my ass-the-dick” young Remus had said. De chuckled. “You mean, aesthetic?” He had asked. “Yeah, that thing” Remus waved off, marching out of the random store.) His dirty and very ripped jeans and his old crop top that he found. The only decent thing he had was the army jacket De insisted he get when he first got adopted. 

The silence that dragged on through the air was as thick as Remus’ book of regrets and as sharp as his many knives.

The slap that rang out across the room easily broke that though. 

Remus fell to the ground, hands cradling his right cheek. He didn’t even realize Roman moved closer to him.

“I…I deserve that.” Remus winced, feeling the spot. Damn, how hard did Roman hit? There was definitely gonna be a bruise. 

“Damn right!” Roman yelled but Remus rose to his feet and held out his hand. 

“You said you wouldn’t get angry,” Remus reminded. 

“I said I wouldn’t get angry if you weren’t my long lost twin.” Roman corrected. Remus sighed. He did say that. 

“What are you doing here?!” Roman yelled. Remus winced at the loud noise and covered his ears. 

“Aye, quiet would ya? I don’t need the whole school knowing about this.” Remus muttered, fiddling with a loose piece of thread on his jacket. Roman quieted down his tone but it was still filled with the same venom as when he was yelling. 

“What. The hell! Are you doing here?! Roman seethed. Remus licked his lips before answering. 

“Well, I was on my way to second period but then I accidentally tripped one of those assholes and spent the next five or so minutes getting chased around the school.” Remus explained, attempting to ease the tension. Roman did not find it funny. 

“I’m serious, Re." 

Time seemed to stop. That nickname, the old nickname Roman used to call him. No one is allowed to call him that anymore, not even De! It made Remus feel something that he didn’t particularly like. 

"I-I mean, Remus." 

"Yeah..yeah I know uhm. I got expelled from my last school for….a certain incident and De and I moved up here, to NC, to be closer to his family…also because I got expelled from almost every school in a 100 mile radius.” Remus rushed through the last part but Roman still got it. 

“So…so what you just went to this school to-to- I don’t even know! Rub it in my face! Humiliate me more than you already did? Mock me for being tricked by my brother!”

“No! Of course not! I didn’t even know you went here!” Remus defended, although a bit weakly. It seemed to go unnoticed by Roman. 

“And then you show up here-of all places! You haven’t even bothered trying to get into contact with me once since I left!.” Roman said. It felt like a kick in the gut to Remus but Roman didn’t seem to see that. Or if he did, he didn’t care. 

“I know tha-" 

"Do you know how long I waited? Just waiting for you to contact me? Tell me that you missed me-that you regret what you did- that you loved me- that you were safe?! Cus I had no idea if you had died or anything!,” Roman continued. Remus looked across the large auditorium guiltily. The rows of seats and the box seats on top. They all looked almost brand new and very…regal.

Damn, this school was rich. 

“Oh, nothing to say? Well maybe you’ll say something when I tell you that I had to go to therapy because of what you fucking did to me!” Tears had started to stream down Romans cheeks but he kept going. “Think about it? How traumatizing that is? Knowing that my twin- my brother, my only family- had gotten rid of me and didn’t even feel bad enough to send me a fucking emai-”

“I do too,” Remus whispered. 

Romans paused. 

“What?” he sneered. 

“I do too.” Remus said, louder. “Go to therapy, I mean. The guilt I felt, the nightmares I got…I didn’t know if you were okay and your last name changed- I couldn't  find you- then I got adopted and we moved to Florida and I just-…I gave up. On everything, actually. De got me therapy not long after ….” Remus trailed off. 

A range of emotions swimmed through Romans dark brown eyes. The same eyes that Remus possessed but they looked…older. Like he’d seen the universe crumble and couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

Remus probably looked much the same. 

“I-I…I have to go!" 

"Roman, wait!” but he had already jumped down from the stage and ran through the double doors and straight into the crowd of students.

Remus collapsed into a crying mess in the middle of the stage. Tears mixed with snot as they met at his chin and he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He just pulled out his phone and clicked the first contact. He held it up to his ear and waited. 

“Remus? Wha-”

“C-c-can you p-pick me up…” Remus stuttered, voice low. 

“What? Why? And why are you crying? Remus what ha-” the concern seemed high in the man’s voice and Remus felt bad for putting it there. Not bad enough to continue through the rest of the day though. 

“I-I…I wan-wanna go h-…h-home!” He pleaded, curling into himself as tightly as possible. It almost felt like a comforting hug. Almost. 

“Of…of course, darling. We can go home. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes so gather your things.”

“O-okay….I love you D-De.” Remus whispered, wiping away a few tears. They kept coming but at least he tried. 

“Of course. I love you too, Rem.” De hung up with a click. Remus lifted himself up from his folded position, wiped a few more tears, and headed towards his locker to grab the few things he brought. 

God, he wished he kicked those kids asses after all.

[trensu]

Episode 14: The One where LWJ Sings to WWX, y’know, Like a Bro

WE’RE STILL IN THE BEST CAVE IN THE WORLD GUYS

AND WE START OFF WITH ~THEIR SONG~ PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND AS LWJ GENTLY WAKES UP.

And first thing he notices is that he woke up with his forehead ribbon on his forehead where it’s supposed to be (it’s right there in the name) 

Wwx: oh yeah, i put it back on you while you were sleeping. I know how nervous you get when you’re not wearing it.

DID YOU HEAR THAT?

DID YOU?

HE PUT IT BACK ON HIM TO SPARE HIM ANXIETY

(You can't tell me that LWJ does not low-key have anxiety. Nobody's that much of a stickler for rules without being constantly anxious about breaking them. That's just facts)

Also, lol, the minute lwj wakes up, wwx is all “ah, must be 5am.” HE’S KEEPING TRACK OF TIME WITH LWJ’S SLEEP HABITS LOLOLOL

Now wwx and lwj are talking Important Escape Details

Wwx: yeah, went back into the pond and it looks like the Murder Turtle blocked off the escape route

Lwj: you shouldn’t be going into the pond with your injury

Wwx: i’m not that delicate!

And then he turns it around and asks lwj how well the medicine was working on his leg (it’s all better now, i guess?? idk he seems fine now. wq’s medicine is MAGIC)

BECAUSE THEY CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER

Here we learn the official name of the Murder Turtle

Lwj: it’s like a xuanwu but not

Wwx: xuanwu?? *proceeds to describe what he knows about it*

Lwj: *is impressed and surprised*

Have more faith in your soulmate lwj. He reads! Sometimes! When it’s important!

Wwx: aren’t xuanwus supposed to have sharp teeth? Like Grrr

HE MAKES THE MOST ADORABLE GROWLY FACE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE AND MAKES THE CUTEST GROWL SOUND AT LWJ. AHHHHH!

But also, he’s disappointed that the xuanwu didn’t have sharp teeth?? WWX, THE THING TRIED TO EAT YOU JUST YESTERDAY. BE GRATEFUL IT DOESN’T HAVE SHARP TEETH

Wwx: it doesn’t even matter what it is! It’s a big monster and if we kill it we’ll be Big Damn Heroes

So EXCITED and EAGER and he has this MISCHIEVOUS LOOK ON HIS FACE. Obviously he’s suffered brain damage

Wwx: and, ah, if it kills us, it’s okay bc it’ll be an AWESOME death lol

Lwj just stares at him LOL

His face is like, “this guy? This is the guy my heart decided to fall for?? Really???”

Okay so now they’re being all sneaky and gathering up bows and arrows that surround the pond and then they go back and get to work on fixing them and preparing for battle

We get to see lwj practicing the chord assassination technique like a BADASS

They come up with a plan!! Wwx will go into the Murder Turtle’s shell to coax him out of it so that lwj can then, idk, decapitate it with his Killer String.

(that’s...not how actual turtles work, but bc this is a magic murder turtle, i figure the rules don’t apply)

AHHHHH

LWJ DOES A THING

So obvs since wwx has to go inside the shell and lwj has to stay outside the shell they gotta communicate right and Ancient Fantasy China does not have good cell reception

Wwx: listen to me

And with that verbal cue, lwj does this thing that makes his fingers glow with spiritual energy and then taps wwx’s forehead which then has a little burst of the glow for half a second.

And TA-DAH! NOW THEY’RE PSYCHICALLY LINKED!!! 

THEY’RE SOULMATES AND NOW THEY’RE PSYCHICALLY LINKED YOUR OTP COULD NEVER

It must be a link that only lets them hear what the other wants them to hear otherwise wwx would’ve found out lwj is smitten with him right there and then, omg, that could’ve saved us so much heartbreak later on

But we’re not gonna think about that right now bc i don’t want to short-circuit my keyboard with tears

YUCK, wwx is inside the Murder Turtle’s shell and it’s SUPER GROSS

EVERYTHING IS ALL RED

THE FLOOR’S ALL MUDDY AND GUMMY

THERE’S LIKE, FLESHY ROPES HANGING EVERYWHERE

DISGUSTING

Wwx: ewww, it stinks so bad i wanna puke *chokes back bile*

BE STRONG WWX, YOU CAN DO THIS

And now he’s bumped into some dead bodies 

WHY ARE YOU PUTTING YOUR FACE SO CLOSE TO THE DEAD BODIES WWX, THAT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA. YOU WERE JUST COMPLAINING ABOUT THE STENCH 2 SECONDS AGO, AND NOW YOU’RE SHOVING YOUR FACE IN IT???

Oh noooo, now he’s found the Screaming Sword of Resentment that screams bloody murder at him

He grabs it and stabs Murder Turtle in the face which makes Murder Turtle mad enough to get out of the shell

We’re going to continue to ignore the bad cgi and ridiculously over the top fighting moves

...and the way he floats horizontally(??? somehow??) as the Murder Turtle tries to shake him off

My poor bb is hanging on for dear life while lwj does his Killer String thing

I LOVE LWJ’S DETERMINED FACE HERE!!

His brow is all scrunched up and his mouth gets all pinched and firm. SO DASHING LAN ZHAN, GO SAVE YOUR SOULMATE.

But oh no! The resentful energy pouring from the sword is getting to wwx!

Uh oh, I did not like the look of that grin on wwx’s face

that was NOT HIS MISCHIEVOUS GRIN

THAT WAS A MALEVOLENT GRIN.

I DON’T LIKE IT

STOP THAT WWX

BE A GOOD BOY

Lwj shouts his name, he’s so worried!!

And now we see wwx use resentful energy for the first time ever!!

In a badass move he starts levitating all the abandoned swords and staffs that littered the shore AND USES THEM TO STAB THE MURDER TURTLE IN THE THROAT

SO COOL, SO COOL

Murder Turtle flops over dead and takes wwx down with him INTO THE POND AND WWX IS UNCONSCIOUS!! NOOOOOOO

Lwj, ofc, rushes to his side as soon as he hits the water and rescues him

He gets him out of the pond and takes him to dry land

Lwj: wei ying, wei ying! Wake up, wake up

GUYS, THIS IS THE MOST EMOTION WE’VE HEARD IN HIS VOICE SO FAR

HE’S REPEATING HIMSELF FOR GOODNESS SAKE

HE OF FEW WORDS GOES ON TO REPEAT HIMSELF TWICE OVER

HE’S FREAKING OUT

Oh gross, we cut to the Evil Wen’s lair 

C’mon nobody cares about whatever’s going on there. Get us back to the important stuff!!! I am Done listening to evil wens ranting

AHH WE’RE BACK IN THE CAVE WITH OUR BOYS!!

WWX REGAINS CONSCIOUSNESS!!

Wwx: lan zhan, is it dead?

Lwj: yes

Wwx: yes? (he says weakly, in disbelief, MY POOR WWX)

Wwx: is it dead? (why’s he repeating himself, WWX ARE YOU OKAY??)

(I mean, obviously he's not what with the murder turtle thing but I don't think he can afford to get more brain damage at this point)

Lwj: yes, it is.

Oh and now wwx is telling lwj about all the screaming voices he heard from the sword and asks him if he was dreaming those up

LIKE HE’S NOT TRUSTING HIS GRASP ON REALITY RN OR SOMETHING!!

AND HE’LL ONLY TRUST IT IF LWJ CONFIRMS IT FOR HIM

BC HE TRUSTS HIM AND THEY’RE SOULMATES!!!

Lwj reassures wwx that he did not dream up those screams

(Somebody should probably check him for a concussion,jic. I mean those screams were real THIS time but you never know!!)

(Maybe concussions don't exist in Ancient Fantasy China, idk)

Wwx is all pale and shaky!! MY POOR WWX!! Lwj is rightfully fussing over him

He lets out a weak laugh (BC THAT’S HIS COPING MECHANISM, DIFFUSE THE SITUATION WITH HUMOR, MY POOR WWX) and is like “who knew that one day i’d get to see the 2nd jade of lan look so worried?”

IT’S BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU, WWX, YOU DENSE IDIOT

Lwj doesn’t respond but he does look away briefly LIKE HE’S AFRAID OF WWX SEEING SO MUCH EMOTION ON HIS FACE

AAHHHH, LAN ZHAN, IT’S OKAY, DON’T HIDE AWAY LIKE THAT!! I PROMISE WWX LOVES YOU TOO!!!

WWX: lan zhan, i didn’t think i’d survive this

He whispers weakly AS HIS BODY IS STARTS TO TREMBLE LIKE CRAZY

Lwj: wei ying, you have a fever

And then he brings wwx’s wrist close to start pouring in some spiritual energy

SO GENTLY, WITH SUCH DEDICATED CONCENTRATION

BC HIS WEI YING IS HURTING AND HE WANTS TO MAKE IT STOP

AAHHHHH

WWX: that’s so soothing lan zhan

Oh jeez, the way he sounds when he says that...

And omg the way lwj looks in the blue glow of the spiritual energy transfer

AS IF HE DIDN’T ALREADY LOOK LIKE SOME SORT OF HOLY DEITY, HE’S LEGIT GLOWING NOW TOO

WWX: how boring...why hasn’t jc showed up to rescue me yet?

Uh, rude much? Lwj is right there

AND HERE WE COLLECTIVELY LOSE OUR MINDS BC WWX ASKS LWJ TO SING TO HIM!!!!!!!!!!

AND LWJ STARTS TO SING TO HIM!!!!!

AND THIS IS WHERE WE GET ~THEIR SONG~ ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE CHARACTERS FOR THE FIRST TIME BC THAT’S WHAT HE SINGS TO WEI YING

AND WHILE HE SINGS, WE GET GIVEN THE MOST WONDERFUL OF ALL FLASHBACKS. 

IT IS A COMPILATION OF ALL THEIR IMPORTANT MOMENTS TOGETHER SO FAR

THEIR MOONLIT ROOFTOP SWORD FIGHT!!

THEIR COLD POND CAVE MARRIAGE!!

THEIR BUNNY LANTERN!!

BASICALLY EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN SCREAMING ABOUT THESE PAST 14 EPISODES

I’M LITERALLY TEARING UP

I CNA’T TAKE IT

MY HEART, MY HEART 💕💕💕

THEY’RE SINGING ~THEIR SONG~ AND I’M DYING OF FEELINGS OVERLOAD

Also, jfc, there’s no Heterosexual explanation for that flashback sequence…

Wwx: it sounds so nice, so nice, what’s the name of the song…?

AHHHHHH!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

LWJ TELLS HIM THE NAME OF THE SONG!!

!!HE PRACTICALLY CONFESSES HIS ETERNAL UNDYING LOVE TO HIM

AND WWX HAS TO FUCKING PASS OUT BEFORE HE HEARS IT GOD DAMN IT

IT’S LIKE GETTING COCKBLOCKED, BUT LIKE, EMOTIONALLY WHICH IS SO MUCH WORSE  WTF

And when wwx wakes up again, he’s out of the cave!

But instead of seeing lwj’s godly visage, he wakes up to that peacock jzx and is like “you??”

Jc shows up!

Wwx: where’s lan zhan?

Jc: he left

Wwx: he left?? But he’s still injured!!

Jc: so is everyone else!! And he went back to gusu so…

Wwx: but he--

Jc: A THANK YOU WOULD BE NICE

Jc: IT’S NOT LIKE I TRAVELED WITHOUT REST FOR 7 DAYS TO GET HELP AND RESCUE YOU

Now we got to go through Plot Things

We’re at Lotus Pier!! (where wwx proceeds to pass out again!! Get used to it guys, he does this a lot)

Then the yunmeng sibs have a beautiful moment together

Okay, we’re gonna pause here BC WWX IS SO FREAKING ADORABLE??

He gets all pouty and asks jyl to clean his face for him bc his arms are too tired and jyl does it bc she loves her brother

AND HIS ADORABLE FACE

HIS SO CUTE ADORABLE FACE WHEN SHE CLEANS HIM UP

I CAN’T I CAN’T

IT’S TOO MUCH

HOW IS THIS GUY AN ACTUAL PERSON THAT EXISTS 

Lol, wwx is like, i wish you’d been there in the cave with me jc, lan zhan almost bored me to death

What a liar, lol

Like he wasn't completely enraptured by LWJ's presence the ENTIRE TIME

Oh yikes, we’ve got some screwed up family dynamics in the Jiang Family courtesy of m-yu and jfm.

For the sake of my sanity we’re gonna gloss over that

Now that the parents stormed off, wwx does his best to console jc (bc his parents, double yikes)

Now watch me as a break down sobbing when wwx makes A PROMISE HE WON’T BE ABLE TO KEEEEEP

I’ll be your right hand man, he tells him. Gusu has the twin jades, but yunmeng will have twin heroes, he says

(WHY MUST YOU HURT ME THIS WAY, SHOW, WHYYYYY)

After wwx says those things about the twins, he looks up at the sky wistfully and asks jc “do you think we’ll ever see them again?”

“Them” he says, like he’s not completely talking about just lan zhan

jc’s like how the heck would i know???

And we end the episode with wwx still gazing at the sky, dreaming about his lan zhan

I mean, we don’t see it, the dreams or thoughts or whatever, but we kNOW IN OUR HEARTS THAT’S WHAT HE’S DOING

This was a Very Heterosexual episode. For that I give it 10/10 stars. I would watch that flashback sequence with him singing over and over and over and over and over and ov--

Return to Masterpost

[darylandbethfanforever9]

Downfall Of Us All: Chapter 12

Downfall Of Us All

Chapter 12

AN: I’m going through a rough time right now, emotionally and I’m sorry that I won’t be posting a chapter every day. Thank you to @jtargaryen18​ for writing this story with me.

"If Foster's assistant hadn't been snooping for information, on Project Genesis then Foster wouldn't be in this mess." Rumlow said bluntly, eying Pepper hungrily. She wasn't bad looking, and she had wonderful breasts as he pulled out the metal handcuffs. He restrained her hands, and Laura smirked in amusement. This would be fun.

Rumlow could tell help but feel aroused by the sight of Pepper Potts handcuffed to the bed, and he cupped her right breast tightly. He heard her moan, and smirked.

One of the HYDRA female scientists strapped her legs down to begin the process, he was going to enjoy this. He saw her wake up and grinned malevolently at her. "Hello Virginia, you're gonna be part of our experiment." He said amused, as he began cutting at her hospital gown with his knife.

Pepper's eyes widened, she jerked in the restraints as the knife sliced the gown up, over her stomach. "W-what experiment?" Pepper looked groggy, but she did understand that she was in very real danger. "Where am I?" "Don't worry about where you are," Rumlow told her as she slid the knife through the gown to just under her chin, grinning as he let the gown gap open down her body. "The experiment, well, let's just say it's not totally unfamiliar to you personally." Pepper's gaze bounced from Laura and back to him. Pepper squinted at her, did a double take. "Laura?" she rasped. "Right? You're Clint's wife." Laura shrugged nonchalantly. "Was." "What? Why are you here? Where's Clint?" Pepper's panic was a living thing around them, her fear nearly tangible. For Rumlow, the fear satisfied a craving. It was all he could do to contain the feeling of triumph as he watched the famous Pepper Potts, posed wife of Tony Stark, crumble before him. "Clint will meet the same fate as his children soon enough," Laura said coolly. "Not your problem though." One of the scientists reached the table next to the bed, opening a case he placed on the table. He opened it to reveal a set of injections of something that looked terrifying familiar. "Is that…?" The scientist, a small bald man, didn't even make eye contact with her. "Extremis?" Rumlow asked. "Why, yes, it is. I'm pleased you remember." Pepper shook her head frantically in denial. "You can't… Why would you… Why are you doing this?" Rumlow shrugged a shoulder. "I'm doing this because that's why HYDRA wants. Specifically, to you because you once had Extremis and you did remarkably well. You'll be our star pupil." "I need your help now," the scientist said, injection at the ready. Pepper fought as she watched the huge man walk around the bed to the other side. His grip on her arm was like a vice. He kept her arm flat against the metal bar, so she couldn't move it, smiling at her the entire while. "Just a few pricks," he told her, making it sound like she was overreacting. "Then a bigger one once he's done. Me and you will have a little fun." Pepper's mouth dropped open as the needle slid into her arm. She screamed as it burned its way along her arm, through her body.

"T-Tony will come for me," she warned them. "I wouldn't be so sure about that," Rumlow said with a chuckle. "That was a pretty bad fight. The slap across the face was a nice touch. I'm not so sure I'd come after you. I mean, you have a guy, a do-gooder granted, working hard to make the world a safe place for everyone, including you, and you're just a complete bitch to him. It's a level of selfishness that's just impressive really." Pepper gasped, feeling the virus burn its way into her body. "That's why I'm not going to feel too bad about what we do after these injections." Laura laughed on the other side. "You going to stay and watch again," Rumlow asked her. Her nod was the last thing Pepper saw as everything started to fade in and out. It felt like she was burning alive, from the inside out. The pain was intense and then he planned to rape her? With any luck, this time, the Extremis would kill her.

She could feel the burning sensation, despite needles being injected into her bloodstream. She could feel the fire burning through her veins, and cried out in pain. This could be happening to her again, it couldn't be. She felt tears stream down her face, she didn't regret how she'd spoken to Tony. If Tony hadn't gotten back into being Iron Man, then none of this would have happened.

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The team refused to give up on finding Pepper, Darcy and Jane. The team had reluctant help from S.H.I.E.L.D grudgingly and were searching abandoned HYDRA bases in America. Clint and Grace both surveyed the abandoned HYDRA base located in Wyoming, it looked deserted. They cautiously entered the base, and Grace looked around quietly. It was like people had left in a hurry, there was hardly any equipment around the place. Clint cautiously checked the room and found nothing. He joined Grace and they both began searching the other rooms, when they came across a file. Half of it was written in Romanian, and Ukrainian. Clint couldn't make out most of it, but Grace helped him translate some of the words. He felt his stomach drop, as he saw Grace's face pale. Project Genesis. The project had been formed by Dr List and Dr Wolfgang Strucker, in 2014. The project's aim was to use Enhanced, Inhuman and Gifted women as breeding mares for HYDRA agents who had been part of Project Centipede. The file went on to file how many of the women had died from complications, caused by being impregnated by the HYDRA agents. Many of the women had died along with the baby, and there had been only one survivor. Grace Melnychenko Drăgoi had survived the procedure, she'd been captured in early July. Unlike the other women who had failed to carry the pregnancies to term, Grace had thrived, and it was believed her DNA had protected her. 'Test Subject 24 shows no signs of illness, or stress. The father of the child had been informed.' HYDRA also expressed interest in using Peter Parker, Natasha, Sophie and Bucky but dismissed Peter due to his young age. Clint saw that Grace was shaking slightly and gave her hand a tight squeeze. She gave him a grateful smile, and they put the file away as they continued to search. The wind howled around the base, and Clint pulled out his bow when he saw a blood trail leading down the hallway. He cautiously followed it, Grace behind him. And lying on a medical table, was the dead body of a young woman. Her stomach had been cut open, and her skin was waxy looking. She'd been dead for a few days.

"My God, Clint," Grace said with tears in her voice. "How many women have they done this to? How are we going to stop them?" Clint steered her out of the room. "Grace, we don't have to know right now how we're going to stop them. We only have to know that we will." Her beautiful face was drained of colour. "Clint, I'm scared." "I know," he told her, getting his comm ready to bring the team in for the body. "But I'm not going to let anything happen to you. The team will keep you and your sister safe. I can promise you that." "And Bucky?" Clint snorted. "Steve damn near tore the Avengers apart before for Bucky. I would expect no less now. Besides, I think he likes your sister." Grace smiled at that, one small happy thought in all this darkness. "Need a team up here," Clint said into the comm. "We've got another body. If we can spare a couple of agents, let's sweep the grounds. You'll probably find the body of a child buried somewhere on the grounds." Grace's chin trembled. Clint wrapped an arm around her, trying to steady her. She was clutching the file so tightly in her hand that her knuckles were white. "Let's get you out of here," Clint said. "Okay?"

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Tony sat behind his desk when Clint walked in, Steve and Bruce waiting with him. "What did you find?" Tony asked. "Why the specificity on who was here?" Clint held the file, placing it down on Tony's desk. "Information Grace and I found on in Wyoming," he explained. "Most of it is in languages I can't read. The gist of it? Project Genesis."

That got Tony's attention. "Did you say Project Genesis?" "Yeah, reasonably sure I did," Clint told him. "Do you know what it is?" Tony asked curiously. "A breeding program to create super-soldiers," Clint told him. "The only one the Erskine serum ever really worked on was Cap here. Since they can't replicate his formula, they are taking enhanced and inhuman women, raping them, and forcing them to carry pregnancies that they hope will be a new race." Steve's expression was grim. "That's disgusting." "I asked for the specific people now because I don't want people's emotions to compromise them as we deal with this," Clint explained. "Compromised?" Steve asked concerned. "I even hesitated to have you here," Clint told him. "This concerns Bucky too." That got Steve's attention. "What about Bucky?" Clint calmly explained what they found. Aside from the body being autopsied at the moment in their lab, he explained the contents of the file. "Basically, only one woman has survived this procedure to produce a viable child," Clint finished. "Grace," Tony said out loud. Clint nodded grimly. "They will want her back," Clint told them. "And I don't mind saying that I'm emotionally invested because I'll die before I let that son-of-a-bitch Rumlow lay another hand on her." "They also had Sophie, Bucky, and Parker as viable candidates," Clint went on. "Peter?" Tony's face darkened in anger. "They ruled him out because of his age," Clint explained. "Bucky?" Steve didn't like that. "He's been through enough." "Agreed," Clint told him. "That wasn't why I didn't request him here. With Sophie being a target? I don't want him going off the deep end if they target her." Steve understood, but shook his head. "I think it will give him… focus." "I'll defer to whatever you think, Cap," Clint told him. "But I'm going to make my intentions very clear here. Rumlow? Is mine. Laura? She's mine. I don't want to fight any of you for the privilege of killing either one of them, but I will if I have to." "It's okay, Legolas," Tony told him, his expression serious where his words weren't. "I understand. For my part, I'll stay out of your way." "But parts of our team are targeted," Steve wanted them to understand. "That means we're going to have to handle things carefully. And Ross…" "Ross knew," Tony said, rising from his chair. "Son-of-a-bitch, you're right. He knew the girls were targets and that's why he put them on the Avengers Initiative. Bucky, he was theirs to play with for years. No offense, Cap, but that was a given. And Peter?" Clint knew that pissed Tony off. He thought of the kid as a son. "I want Peter looked after," Tony told them. Steve nodded his agreement.

"We won't let anything happen to Peter, Tony. Grace, and Sophie love Peter like he's their baby brother, and Lilia might actually blow up someone if they hurt her assistant." Clint reassured, Tony looked relieved and reassured. "We better tell his aunt, and put her into protective custody. Not to mention his friends, their parents never came back after we killed Thanos," Tony said quietly, sighing bitterly. Even though Thanos was dead, people had still died because of him snapping his fingers. It was something he still hadn't forgiven Peter Quill for, and why none of the team left them alone. Steve squeezed his shoulder in a sign of comfort, and they both decided to get the others.

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Lilia had been busy looking through Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster's laptops, that SHIELD had given to her. Whoever had been on them, had not left any clues. She frowned when she saw that Darcy had been hacking into the old Soviet Union government files, she managed to download the files onto a backup USB stick. 'Project Genesis Candidates.' 'Natalia Alianovna Romanoff: Deemed a suitable candidate, due to having been in the Red Room Program.' 'Sophie Anastasia Melnychenko Drăgoi: Deemed a suitable candidate, due to having been burn from the successful Widow Project.' 'Grace Alexandra Melnychenko Drăgoi: Deemed suitable, after successfully carrying a child conceived from a HYDRA agent who was a member of Project Centipede.' 'Peter Benjamin Parker: Not a suitable candidate, due to his young age.' 'James Buchanan Barnes: Deemed a suitable candidate, due to having the super soldier serum. Will be recaptured in time, along with the two sisters, and Black Widow.' The file went on to express interest in using an Enhanced individual known as Quicksilver, Lilia had no idea who that was. But HYDRA did want Wanda Maximoff, who was the only surviving female from Project Psyche. Lilia felt sick, as she saw Tony's name had been added onto the list, due to his genius intellect. It was hoped by using Steve, Bucky, and Quicksilver, and a man named Ronin that they could build an army. Hands shaking, she printed the files quickly and told her AI D.A.V.I.D to make sure no one hacked into the laptop. David assured her they wouldn’t and locked the laptop.

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Sophie and Grace had been in the training room all afternoon but neither minded, Grace had told Sophie what she and Clint had found in abandoned HYDRA base. It made her feel sick and horrified at what these people did to those poor women. Had they done this to their mother, when she'd been used by them.

She took off the boxing gloves, and took a sip from her bottle of water, wiping the sweat from her forehead. She saw Bucky entering the room, and he looked at her quietly. "Tony and Steve are calling an emergency meeting, everyone needs to be there in an hour," he explained quietly, and Sophie could tell that he was worried. "Has something happened?" Sophie asked concerned, Bucky bit his lip and squeezed her hand. He didn't want to scare her or Grace, as Peter came over. "Lilia's found out something on Darcy's laptop, and it's not good." He said finally, his voice from. Sophie felt her hair stand on end.

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They'd all gathered into the larger conference room at the compound for the meeting, Steve and Tony waiting for everyone to arrive and take a seat before getting started. Grace caught the concerned glance between Nat and Steve when she walked in with Sophie and it did nothing to bring down her already elevated anxiety level. Clint motioned her over, having saved her a seat. Joining him she sat down as Tony looked ready to get started. "Hey guys," Tony started. "So, thanks to ah, my –" "Lilia," she offered with a smile. "Her," Tony pointed to her, "we have some critical new data that we need to review as a team." "Starting without me?" Nicky Fury walked into the room to loom over them ominously, Maria Hill right behind me. "Just started," Tony told him, trying to reach his usual snarky level but missing it by a mile. Whatever it was, it had Tony rattled. That wasn't a good sign. "Lilia, why don't you…." Tony motioned her to the front. "Okay," Lilia told him, coming to stand next to him. "I was able to retrieve data from S.H.I.E.L.D from laptops belonging to Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis. Unfortunately, it appears they were targeted because of their hacking efforts into old Soviet files. From what I can tell Ms. Lewis was able to retrieve files and download them onto a thumb drive. No clues were left as to who accessed the systems after they were captured. Whoever they were, they really knew what they were doing." Steve's expression was grim as he looked to Thor, knowing his friend's feelings for Jane were still raw and painful. "They are calling this program Project Genesis and it's a breeding program. They need to generate an army of enhanced, superior individuals," Lilia explained. "Which doesn't do them any good for what – twenty years?" Nick offered. "Well," Lilia continued, "you would think that but…" "But what?" Sophie prompted, knowing the other woman was struggling with whatever she needed to say. "Okay, look," Lilia explained, "HYDRA has been secretly working on some very interesting biological experimentation in the last few decades. None of this is really new, it just existed without our awareness. They are working with Extremis, which I know most of you have heard of, and is likely why Pepper Potts was taken. She's been the most successful project with the virus to date." Tony's face showed his shock. "I'm sorry," Lilia told him. "The one project they haven't had any luck on – so far – is age acceleration. The minute they figure out how to do that, their army goes from being a threat down the road to an immediate emergency." "So, we need to locate facilities where this is being developed and shut them down?" Steve asked. Lilia nodded. "Apparently Darcy was able to locate certain data files, including lists of possible candidates for the project. They include Natasha ---"

"I can't have children," Nat pointed out. Lilia took a deep breath. "Another part of their biological developments is the reversal of sterilizations. Even on females. Their plan for you is to reverse that and then breed you." The look on Natasha's face made Lilia's heart drop. To think they sterilized her to make her a weapon, taking away her ability to have children if she ever wished. Then wanting to reinstate it to cruelly use her for a broodmare. "They have also identified Sophie and Grace as potential candidates," Lilia went on, "particularly since Grace is the only experiment case to produce a live birth and thrive with the child." "Live birth?" Grace's eyes stung with tears. "He's my son." "I know," Lilia said gently. "I mean you no offense. Sophie was the result of an experiment, same as you, and they think she's viable along with Bucky who they plan to take back and Wanda who is the only living experiment from Project Psyche." Bucky's expression was closed while the sisters gazed at each other fearfully. "They eliminated Peter Parker as a possible candidate, for now, due to his age," Lilia went on. "But the minute they can age him…?" Tony threw in. "They'll likely re-add him to the list," Lilia said. "This is barbaric," Natasha grumbled. "Forcing people to breed. How is that scientific?" "It greatly increases the chances of a viable pregnancy," Lilia told them. "They are using their agents as fathers for the female patients. Many have been a man named Brock Rumlow who is working with a female accomplice, someone you all knew as someone named Laura."

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Tagging list: @jtargaryen18​, @marvelfansworld​, @sapphirescrolls​, @queenoftheunderdark​, @nomadicpixel​, @sweater-daddiesdumbdork​, and @my-favourite-fics​

[keichanz]

Another Day in Hell

*in a horrible flirty voice* so...ya like zombies

I don’t know if there will be a part 2. i just got the sudden inspiration at work yesterday and i just had to write it. i blame @clearwillow and @bearpluscat for their horror red riding hood au that i am already hopelessly addicted to lol idk why but that one pic of woodcutter Inu inspired me and i was like “shit i wanna write him being all badass and killing monsters” and then suddenly this happened. 

whoops. #sorrynotsorry

don’t worry, i’m still working on Move Your Body and the next part will be posted soon. YRM is still in the works as well. this was just something i had to get out of my brain because i really liked the idea. like i said idk if i’ll continue it but there’s definitely potential so. *shrug* we’ll see, i guess.

please note: the title is tentative; i’m not sure if i like it but i can’t think of anything else at the moment so please be aware that it might change in the future. feel free to give suggestions. also i wrote this entire thing in a single day and it’s unedited.

fun fact: i hate zombies. i loathe them. they freak me the fuck out and the nightmare i had about them once is entirely to blame. 

anyway, enjoy. :). 

Read on AO3

Ch. 1 || Ch. 2 || Ch. 3 

You know that phrase, “Just another day in paradise?”

Well, the same thing could be said now for one Kagome Higurashi. There was just one small difference, however, because Kagome sure as shit wouldn’t call this paradise. 

The undead and monsters both of the bestial and human variety wandered the streets looking for their next kill. To trust blindly could very well mean your death so it’s easier to not trust anybody at all even when they claim all they want to do is help. The smartest thing to do was to look out for number one, question everything, and always, always watch your back. Evil lurked around every corner, hid in every brush, and nowhere was safe anymore.

No, definitely not paradise. Because this was just another typical day in goddamn hell.

Careening through the desolated streets, dodging rotting trash, abandoned cars, half-eaten carcasses, and dead bodies, a lone figure bit back a desperate sob as she looked over her shoulder with wide, terrified eyes. Covered in blood, some of it hers, some of it not, pale, and shaking, Kagome looked for a place to hide, her exhausted body starting to slow down from all the sleepless nights and lack of proper nourishment. She was cold, hungry, in pain, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to go on for much further.

She could hear them behind her now, snarling, groaning, growling and the sounds forced her to keep moving as tears ran unchecked down her face. She was being tracked, hunted by more than just the rotting undead, remembering with a terrified whimper the manic, inhuman eyes glittering malevolently down at her and the flash of cold, bloody steel as the knife plunged for her neck. She’d narrowly escaped with her life, fleeing from the crazed man she’d been stupid enough to trust and now he was after her and she knew he wasn’t going to rest until she was dead. There had been a loud bang followed by searing, burning pain in her left shoulder but she’d forced herself to ignore it, gritting her teeth and not stopping.

It was while she was escaping that she’d grabbed the attention of the undead currently giving pursuit, relentless, driven mad with hunger, thoughtless and determined and unstoppable.

Desperate, knowing that screaming for help would be useless, Kagome dove for one of the abandoned shops lining the streets, hands yanking at the door but of course of course it was locked. She let loose a sob and sparing a quick look over her shoulder with wide, frightened brown eyes, Kagome darted into the dark alley beside the shop, hoping for another way in, another doorway, a broken window, anything.

What she found instead was a heap of scrap metal leaning against the wall and knowing she was out of time, without hesitation squirmed her way behind it, ignoring the cuts she got from the sharp edges as she crouched down low and held her breath, shaking, eyes squeezed tightly shut, praying the monsters would keep on going.

Mercifully they did and Kagome withheld a sob of relief, clamping her hands over her mouth as she took a moment to just breathe. She didn’t stay long though, because lingering in any place for too long was never a good idea. So not quite recovered but left without a choice, Kagome slipped from behind her cover and carefully peeked out from the alley—

Only to come face to face with another monster, amber eyes cold and piercing, the huge sword in his hand dripping with fresh blood, and Kagome didn’t give herself time to think.

Emitting a short shriek she ran, thinking that the undead must have drawn his attention and he’d come out of his bloody hidey-hole to investigate, no doubt looking for his next victim. She heard him curse, heard his hoarse shout for her to come back but of course she ignored him, pumping her legs, breathing hard, sobbing when she detected his heavy footsteps behind her.

And really she should have realized that with the racket they were making it would once more attract unwanted attention so when she spotted the same horde of rotting bodies stumbling their way toward her, snarling and falling over themselves in their haste, Kagome really shouldn’t have been surprised.

She stopped short, trapped, the undead before her, the murdering swordsman behind her, and with a desperate sound she dove to the right, toward a sedan that miraculously still had its windows intact. She locked herself inside even though she knew it was fruitless, it wasn’t going to do her a bit of good and cowering on the floor, curled into a ball with her arms wrapped around her head, she waited.

What she heard instead of the car door being ripped off its hinges was a loud curse, excited sounds of the undead as they targeted their next meal, and then vague sounds of a fight. Grunting, snarling, low growls and wet squelching sounds were all she could hear for the next few minutes and even when all went silent she didn’t dare move, shaking, eyes shut tight, jaw clenched, waiting.

Waiting. Waiting.

A knock on the car window had her jumping in alarm but she shook her head, hunching in on herself. “Go away!” she screamed, her breath hitching in her throat, heart hammering wildly in her chest.

She heard a growl and more insistent knocking--or more like banging, really. “Open up, you wanna fuckin’ die in there?”

“Fuck off!”

With a screech, Kagome moved, unlocking the door and then shoving it open so hard the killer on the other side grunted and stumbled back from the force. She didn’t revel in the brief victory and instead made another run for it, sobbing as she ran away as fast as she could, demanding her tired body to keep moving, dammit.

Please please please please plea—

She screamed when a familiar figure suddenly dropped in front of her and Kagome made the horrifying realization that the man wasn’t human. She looked at him now with wide eyes, spotting the dog ears on his head, the sharp talons tipping each finger, and the fangs that were clearly displayed in a dangerous and...annoyed? snarl.

“Dammit bitch, I’m trying to—”

“No!” Kagome shrieked and swung her fist, landing a blow to his stomach, but the guy hardly even flinched. Tears running down her face, Kagome did the only thing she could, punching him with all that she had, kicking his legs but when a large hand suddenly clamped down on her wrist in a vice like grip, Kagome wailed.

“Wench! Fucking listen to me, I’m not gonna—!”

“Please,” Kagome begged, yanking fruitlessly at her hand, shaking her head while her free hand banging uselessly against his chest. “Please, let me go, I don’t wanna die, I don’t—”

“Fuck’s sake, woman, you’re—”

He suddenly cut off and Kagome went limp, knowing this was it, she was going to die, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do. She slumped against him, waiting for the inevitable to happen, wondering if he’d use that huge sword or the claws stained with blood.

She heard a low, thundering growl, felt it in the hard chest she lay against, and she tensed. But then he cursed - again - and muttered, “Fuck it, we don’t have time for this,” and she frowned. What—?

A strong arm wrapped around her waist and Kagome was abruptly lifted off her feet and promptly thrown over a broad shoulder. She gasped, eyes going wide and instinctively she fisted the material of his shirt at his back.

“What are you doing?!” she screeched. “Let me—!”

“Shut up,” he bit out as he started stalking back toward the shop where she’d tried to take shelter earlier. “Do you wanna alert every fucking undead asshole—fuck, you already did. Dammit.”

Before Kagome could utter another word, she was hauled back down, her would-be executioner darted into a familiar alley and he was crushing her against him, pressing her face into his chest to prevent any sounds from escaping as his arm went around her waist, a steel band.

“Don’t. Fucking. Move,” he hissed in her ear and Kagome stiffened, eyes wide as another hoard of undead stumbled down the street, perilously close to their hiding spot. She couldn’t see them but she could hear them, groaning as they dragged themselves along the blood-stained pavement, searching for flesh, creepy clicking and grunting noises echoing as they communicated with each other.

A small eternity passed as they waited for the undead to pass them by, frozen against the wall, unwilling to move even after the noises had faded away to silence. Another five minutes passed before the man dared to move, his grip loosening slightly as he sniffed the air a few times and grunted.

“They’re gone,” he rumbled and without warning swept her up into his arms. Amber eyes collided with dark brown and Kagome gasped at the intensity in them, for some reason feeling her face heat in a blush. “Keep your mouth shut, wench. I fucking mean it.”

Before she could respond - like she had even been able to anyway - he scowled and then abruptly launched them into the air. She bit her lip to stifle her startled cry and instead clung to him, her thoughts a jumbled mess, wondering for the first time if this man meant to kill her or save her. What was happening?

The guy was fast, not taking any chances in being detected by undead or other as he darted across the rooftop he landed on and swiftly dropped into an opening in the roof–a door, she realized somewhat dazedly. 

It was dark inside but the storefront windows provided a little light as he gruffly instructed her to close the door using a crude pulley system he’d no doubt manufactured himself. Wordlessly she did, a little impressed, and then afterward he was maneuvering through the darkness of the store, being cautious and ducking behind shelves nearly picked clean of all their merchandise. 

Kagome was quiet, biting her lip as she foolishly allowed this stranger to carry her into the depths of the store, pushing through the doors marked “Employees Only” into the storage room. He bypassed pallets of shrink-wrapped food and other supplies and hunger gnawed at Kagome’s stomach, but she ignored it, fearing that if she spoke up the man would react negatively after he’d told her plainly to keep her mouth shut.

She had no idea if he was friend or foe but figured it was out of her hands now either way so she did as she was told, biting her lip to quell any questions as he made a sharp turn toward the back and headed for yet another trapdoor-looking opening in the floor.

Kagome blinked. Stores had basements?

Evidently this one did, she mused as the man dropped down and this time Kagome shut the door without prompting, spotting the simple chain drilled into the underside and tugging until it was sealed above them. Pitch black surrounded her and she could see nothing. It was cold and smelled a bit like mildew but still she said nothing as he moved forward, the darkness hardly a hindrance to him and Kagome secretly marveled at that fact.

He suddenly stopped and then Kagome was blinking against the harsh glare of bright florescent lights as he flipped them on. After her vision cleared, Kagome took in her surroundings, her eyebrows rising and her mouth parting slightly in wonder.

She hadn’t really known what to expect, but it certainly hadn’t been an efficient and clean looking hideaway. Amidst the hot water tank, the plumbing system snaking across the ceiling, and a large metal box that looked to be some sort of electrical system, he had made himself a little home, complete with a bed compiled of stacked wooden pallets and a thick mattress with clean blankets and pillows.

She spotted a two-way radio on a sturdy looking table with three chairs surrounding it, a bookshelf filled with non-perishable food, and a freezer chest beside it that she suspected was filled with frozen meats and meals. There was an old television but she doubted it worked, a beat-up washing machine that acted as a cooler from what she could see, and a very old, puke-green armchair that had seen better days. A mini fridge sat against the wall with a timeworn microwave on top and beside that what appeared to be one of those old fashioned water pumps protruded from the wall, situated over a drain in the cement floor.

Kagome was impressed, and okay, yeah, a little envious. It was safe, secret, and protected, hidden from the outside world. It was a slice of paradise in a world gone to hell, a safe haven from death and disease with enough food and supplies to last for a very along time.

The man grunted, disrupting her thoughts, and crossed the floor to set her carefully down on the bed.

“Don’t move,” he rumbled her eyes followed him as he wandered over to a large chest she hadn’t noticed before, opened it up to retrieve a small bin, and came back over. He set the translucent green container beside her and Kagome received her second surprise to find it filled with various medical supplies.

Was he...going to treat her injuries? What kind of serial killer was this guy?

Or maybe...maybe he wasn’t one?

Biting her lip, Kagome refused to get her hopes up, still too frightened and wary to say anything and watched as he walked back with a cooking pot filled with water before dragging a chair in front of her, sitting down and carefully setting the water on the floor at his feet.

Wordlessly he reached for her arm and Kagome instinctively flinched back, a sound of fright echoing in her throat as her wide eyes stared at his blood covered hands. He paused, stared hard at her face for a moment with a deep frown, before taking the rag he’d gotten from somewhere, dipping it in the water and wiping off the dried blood on his claws and hands.

Kagome blinked, not expecting that.

He continued to silently clean his hands the best he could, the rag becoming a ruddy brown color and the water turning a light pink.

“You got a name?” he asked out of the blue and frowned when she jumped. He paused and studied her quietly, eyes searching the dark, terrified depths that gazed back at him.

“Relax,” he murmured. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

Kagome’s lips pressed into a thin line and she ducked her head.

He rolled his eyes. “If I wanted you dead, wench, don’t you think I woulda already done it? Clearly you know what I am, and yet I still saved your ass from becoming zombie food twice now. You can trust me.”

She still looked uncertain, worrying her bottom lip and avoiding his gaze and he sighed. He could understand her hesitance; it was foolish to trust so blindly during these trying times, and he suspected she might have already made that mistake once which explained her wariness now. Still, he needed to treat those cuts and that nasty looking gash on her temple. Poor girl looked like she’d been through hell, and he was worried she might either pass out from sheer exhaustion or fever if any of her injuries were infected.

How the hell did he get her to trust him, though?

Racking a hand through his short hair, Inuyasha blew out his cheeks in another sigh and studied her, eyebrows dipped into a deep frown. His ear flicked, and then with slow movements, making sure she saw what he was doing, he dropped his hand to the Glock holstered at his hip and pulled it out. He’d gotten it from the dead body of a cop a week or so before and it was more for backup than anything since Tessaiga was his favored method of destruction.

Predictably she tensed, the color leeching from her face at an alarming rate but before she could bolt, Inuyasha flipped it around and held it out to her, the butt facing her.

She froze and stared wide-eyed at the firearm being offered to her for a long minute before lifting her dark eyes up to his, her shock evident. Inuyasha said nothing, silently waiting, his gaze steady and expression carefully blank.

Her eyes kept darting between him and the gun but Inuyasha remained patient, waiting for her to take the offered protection he knew would provide at least a little reassurance. Sure enough a moment later she slowly wrapped her fingers around the butt and drew the weapon into her lap, finger poised on the trigger while still avoiding his gaze, her face turning a light shade of red.

He fought a grin. It wasn’t loaded; he’d used up the last bullet just earlier that day when Tessaiga had been knocked out of his hand, but she didn’t need to know that. Then as an extra precaution, still keeping his movements slow, he jerked Tessaiga from the belt loop of his opposite hip and lowered it to the floor before lightly kicking it away, out of his reach. She relaxed visibly after that, the tension leaving her shoulders and she released a shaky breath.

Gratified, Inuyasha steeled himself and carefully reached for her arm again. She tensed, he paused, and waited a few seconds before trying again. She let him grab her arm this time and with measured movements, after wetting the rag again, he carefully began washing her skin of blood, both dried and flesh. He was glad to see that it looked worse than it really was, most of the cuts superficial and already clotting.

“My name’s Inuyasha Taisho,” he told her as he worked, voice low. “I’m thirty-one and I own the dojo across town, Sword and Shield.”

Surprise flickered across Kagome’s face. She recognized that name; she passed it every day on her morning commute to work.  Or at least she used to.

Her eyes met his and Inuyasha’s lips twitched, his expression softening. “I’m a half-demon,” he said and her lack of surprise suggested she’d already guessed that. “But I’ve never killed another human before.”

Inuyasha paused, and then grimaced before amending, ”Uh, that hasn’t tried to kill me first.”

Her lips twitched slightly and she nodded. She understood that.

Relieved, Inuyasha worked on cleaning up her cuts and then treating them with antiseptic and bandages, muttering a soft apology when she winced as he doused the deeper ones. He did the same with her other arm, carefully cleaned and treated the gash at her temple – being sure to keep his claws away from her soft skin – and sat back.

“…Kagome.”

Inuyasha paused in studying his handiwork to flick his gaze to hers, giving her his undivided attention.

She blushed, gave him a trembling smile, and repeated softly, “Kagome Higurashi. Twenty-nine. Office worker.”

Inuyasha gave her an easy grin and he nodded once, eyes locked on hers, the vulnerability and lingering fright still clear as day. “Kagome,” he echoed, sliding his hand down her arm to grasp her hand and squeeze. “Thanks for trusting me.”

“Don’t make me regret it, please,” she whispered and relinquished the Glock back into his grasp.

“You’re safe here,” he rumbled and swiftly holstered the firearm. “I promise.”

Then she gave him her first genuine smile and something in his chest tightened as his breath caught in his throat.

Well. Fuck.

Clearing his throat and shaking his head, Inuyasha stood and went to the washer-turned-cooler filled with melting ice to get a cold bottle of water.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten anything? Or slept?” he asked, frowning down into the well of the washer. He’d have to get more ice soon.

When he didn’t receive an answer, he looked over to find Kagome sheepishly avoiding his gaze, blushing and biting down on her lip. That didn’t exactly look encouraging.

“Um…like, three days?” she admitted with a shrug, and then immediately gasped and winced as hot pain flared in her shoulder.

Inuyasha’s frown deepened. “What’s wrong?”

“Shoulder,” she murmured, hissing through her teeth as she attempted to raise her left arm, but couldn’t move it without stabbing pain shooting down to the very tips of her fingers. She bit her lip to stifle her cry of pain.

Instantly Inuyasha was there, sitting beside her and gently nudging her to twist around so he could take a look. What he found had him sucking in a sharp breath and his eyes to go very wide.

“What?” Kagome pressed, trying to crane her neck around to see without jarring her shoulder too much. She failed. “What is it?”

“What the fuck,” Inuyasha growled, ears pinning into his hair. “Kagome, you’ve been shot.”

Kagome blanched. “W-what?” she squeaked, the disbelief clear in her voice.

“That’s a fucking bullet hole,” he went on and started lifting her shirt to get a better look at it. “Christ, wench, who the hell did you piss off to get them to shoot at you?”

Kagome was barely aware of him tugging her shirt up and over her shoulder as she suddenly recalled with vivid clarity a loud bang followed shortly by burning agony exploding in her left shoulder as she’d sought to escape the murderer she’d foolishly trusted.

“Oh,” she breathed, feeling lightheaded and slightly nauseous. “That’s what that was.”

“What do you mean that’s what—dammit, wench! Why didn’t you fucking tell me about this?!”

Growling, Inuyasha ended up slicing her shirt to get it off without moving her shoulder; it was already torn and bloody anyway so he didn’t think she’d mind. With hard amber eyes, Inuyasha took in the neat little dime-size hole on the back of her left shoulder. Oozing fresh blood in a steady trickle, the edges were red and inflamed and Inuyasha knew the bullet was still lodged inside. There wasn’t an exit wound on the other side of her shoulder and he could already smell the beginnings of infection from the foreign material embedded in the tissue. Shit.

He needed to get it out, quickly, before the infection set in and caused damage that he did not have the required medication for. He did, however, have the tools for it; he’d been shot at more than once, which was how he recognized the wound for what it was, so at least she’d have the comfort of knowing that he had experience with this sort of thing. Unfortunately he did not have any numbing agents so this was not going to be fun for her. Since he’d only ever done it to himself, figuring he’d never have to perform the “procedure” on a human, he’d never bothered to look for some since he could handle the pain.

Kagome, though? God, this was going to be a bitch for her and he hated himself for what he was about to put her through.

Swearing under his breath, Inuyasha left Kagome’s side to get clean water, a fresh roll of gauze, a mini stitches tool kit, and even though infection had already started to set in, he still grabbed the antibiotic ointment to prevent it from getting any worse. She seemed to be in a bit of shock, sitting there staring dazedly at the air in front of her and either unaware that she was topless with her white cotton bra revealed to him, or she didn’t even care. He suspected it was the former and he muttered another curse, grabbing a handful of rags he’d made from random articles of clothing before returning to where she sat.

Inuyasha set what he needed on the chair and hesitated briefly before crouching before her, hands resting lightly on her knees. Her face was pale and tightened from pain, however her eyes were surprisingly clear as she stared down at him. She worried her bottom lip, sighed, and the fleeting look that crossed her face suggested she knew what he was going to say next.

“I wish I didn’t have to say this,” he began, the regret on his face and in his voice genuine. “But I need to get it out. And I’m sure you already know, but it’s not gonna be fun. I don’t have any numbing solution, Kagome. I ain’t gonna lie to you, it’s gonna hurt like a bitch and I’m gonna need you to stay as still as possible for me so I don’t slip and accidentally cause more damage. Alright?”

If possible Kagome paled even more and she grimaced, but gave a curt nod, setting her jaw in determination and sucking in a steadying breath. She could do this.

He had to smile at her bravery. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve done this before so I know what I’m doing. I’ll try to be quick.”

Kagome nodded again and that time offered a trembling but genuine smile. It made his heart hurt so swallowing the lump in his throat, Inuyasha stood and sank on the bed, kicking up a leg to stretch out beside her and urging her to turn so her back faced his chest and nestled comfortably between his legs. She kept her arm to her chest while doing as she was bade, shifting until both of her legs were stretching out before her and unable to hide the wince of pain when her pain flared briefly in her shoulder.

His ears flattened and clenching his jaw, Inuyasha got to work cleaning the surrounding area of dried blood and disinfecting it with some rubbing alcohol. Predictably she hissed and arched her back at the sting, instinctively trying to escape it as her hand reached down and fisted in his jeans.

“Okay?” he murmured, setting aside the antiseptic before wrapping an arm around her waist and brushing his fingers over her shoulder, readying to dig out the bullet.

Breathing deep, Kagome closed her eyes and jerked her head. “Yes,” she breathed and couldn’t stop the way her body tensed, preparing for the pain she knew was coming. “I’ll be fine. Just—get it over with. Please.”

Fuck, but he wished he didn’t have to.

“On the count of three,” he rumbled, swallowing thickly as he poised his claws above the wound. “One, two...”

Stifling the whine that welled in his throat, Inuyasha plunged his fingers into the open wound and Kagome screamed.

Burning, searing, agonizing pain exploded in her shoulder and ricocheted down her arm, sending every single nerve on fire and compressing the air in her lungs until she was gasping for breath. Tears pricked her eyes and Kagome tried very hard not to withe in agony, sobs catching in her throat as she girt her teeth and dug her fingers into his legs beside her, her body shaking, her stomach rolling, and her chest feeling impossibly tight.

Behind her Inuyasha wasn’t fairing much better, jaw clenched hard as he rooted around for the bullet and tried to pinch it between his claws, but the blood made that difficult. Switching tactics he tried to scoop it out instead, tightening his arm around her waist as she started to jerk and twist against him and he knew it was an unconscious bid to escape the pain.

“I know, baby, I know,” he soothed her as she cried, wanting nothing more than to heed her pleas for him to stop but knowing he couldn’t until the damned bullet was out. “You’re doing great, Kagome, just a little more, hold on for me, alright? You’re doing great, just a little more—”

He kept repeating the same things over and over again in her ear as he dug around for the blasted bullet, being careful not to dig his claws even more into the tissue of her shoulder but it was difficult. Kagome keened and sobbed, legs moving restlessly but the arm around her waist prevented her from jerking away from him.

Her entire arm was on fire, her shoulder felt like it was being stabbed over and over again and Kagome idly wondered if she’d ever been in as much pain before as she was right now. It was excruciating, blinding, and she almost wished she could just pass out so she wouldn’t have to endure it even a second longer—

“Got it.”

Inuyasha crooked his fingers, jerked his hand and the bullet popped out of her shoulder, glistening with blood and landing on the floor with a soft clink.

With a sob of relief Kagome went limp against him, curling her knees up as she turned her head and buried her face into his chest as she cried.

Though he wanted nothing more than to hold her, the tiny tremors that rocked her frame and the muffled whimpers against his chest tugging at his heart, Inuyasha forced himself to stay focused on the task at hand. Hurriedly he reached over and wet a rag before cleaning the wound. Though he felt like he was going to be sick, Inuyasha prepared the needle, making sure it was thoroughly disinfected and then giving a soft word of warning, he speared the flesh around it and stitched the wound closed.

Kagome jerked and issued another low moan of pain, her body stiffening but she offered no other protests, knowing it was necessary. At least he seemed to know what he was doing, his movements sure and swift. Kagome was surprised, but grateful when only seven minutes later he announced he was finished and then he was spreading the antibacterial ointment over it, staunching some of the blood flow. He wasted no time in pressing a thick gauze pad to it and keeping it secured with medical tape.

He remained quiet as he dressed the wound, and though he wanted to ask if she was okay, he had a feeling she would scoff in the face of his concern since she clearly was not.  Still, the need to distract her even a little bit from the pain was urgent and so he repeated his earlier question.

“So,” he rumbled and reached over to grab the roll of gauze. “How’d you get it?”

More or less composed by now, her sobs having died down to sniffles and quiet sighs, Kagome sucked in a shaky breath and sat up straight to make it a little easier for him. Her newly bandaged shoulder protested and she winced, but the pain was tolerable.

“I made a stupid mistake,” she answered, her voice hoarse. Inuyasha started wrapping the gauze over and around her shoulder and she lifted her arm the tiniest bit so he could pass it under. “I trusted the wrong person and he ended up being...not very nice.”

“Let me guess.” Inuyasha frowned and added another layer of gauze, passing the roll over, under, and around again, passing just beneath her breasts. “One of those psycho axe murderers from a bad Halloween film?”

She gave a watery laugh and nodded. “Basically. I ran when I realized what he was and narrowly missed having my head cut off. I didn’t know he had a gun too, and as I was running away I heard a loud bang and then sharp, burning pain in my shoulder. I think I was too scared to really understand what it meant, and the adrenaline probably temporarily numbed the pain, so that’s why I didn’t tell you about it. I didn’t even know I had it until just now.”

His frown deepened. It made sense, but he didn’t like that she’d been so frightened the pain from the bullet hadn’t even registered, hadn’t even penetrated the terror she was feeling then.

Why did that make his gut twist and make him physically ill?

“That’s why I ran from you at first, you know,” Kagome said softly, drawing him out of his thoughts. “When I saw you standing there, your sword dripping blood and looking...well, terrifying, to be honest, I thought you were another crazy and didn’t think before I ran.”

Inuyasha grimaced and shook his head, recalling what he’d done right before he discovered her in the alley. “Yeah, I can imagine how bad that must have looked. I’d just finished tussling with a few of the undead fuckers myself. Damn things had been hanging around the shop for days before I finally managed to catch ‘em off guard and slaughter the lot of ‘em. I hadn’t even gone back inside when I heard someone yankin’ at the doors, trying to get inside, and that’s when I saw another group of them pass by with that single minded focus that could only mean they found their next meal. I was about to give chase, hoping I could get to whoever it was before they did, but then I heard something, ended up finding this tiny thing looking and smelling absolutely terrified, and she ran from me before I could ask if she was alright.”

Kagome blushed and smiled sheepishly even though he couldn’t see it and ducked her head. “Then what happened?” she asked and he easily detected the teasing lilt to her voice.

Inuyasha’s lips twitched. “Then I chased after her, killed some zombies, and tried to coax this terrified creature out from a car she’d locked herself in. She nearly knocked me on my ass with the door, told me to fuck off, ran away again and I had to stop her before she went and got her fool ass killed.”

“What an idiot.”

He chuckled that time. “Then I carried her back to my poor excuse of a shelter, treated her wounds, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Kagome hummed but said nothing more and Inuyasha took that cue to reluctantly remove himself from behind her and put away the supplies. She slowly swung her legs back over the edge of the bed, releasing a yawn and Inuyasha suspected she was minutes away from passing out but first he wanted to get something in her stomach. It was obvious she hadn’t had a decent meal in a while so he’d start her off with something small first lest she get sick.

Kagome was seriously considering laying down and crashing for the next day or so when Inuyasha suddenly appeared before her, holding a bottle of water and some crackers, and her stomach loudly told of its emptiness at the sight of food. She flushed but gratefully took them, choosing to ignore his knowing smirk as she uncapped the bottle and took her first drink of fresh water in three days.

“Slowly,” he murmured and she forced herself to do as much. “You’ll get sick if it’s too fast.”

While Kagome slowly but surely drained the water and nibbled on saltines, Inuyasha made himself a PB&J and pretended it was a big juicy steak as he chomped down, finishing it in four bites. He rifled around in a box of clothes and found one of his clean t-shirts for to wear since her last one was nothing but rags now.

Wordlessly he walked over and held it up. Predictably Kagome flushed, setting down her small meal so he could help her put it on. Though she was gritting her teeth the entire time, Inuyasha managed to get her arm through the sleeve with minimal difficulty and she breathed a sigh of relief when she was covered once more.

“Thank you,” Kagome whispered softly, sincerely, and Inuyasha’s expression softened.

Because the urge was too great, he reached out and tucked a strand of raven hair behind her ear, prompting her to lift her gaze to his.

“Don’t mention it,” he rumbled, quirking a grin, and dropped his hand. Before he could step away, however, a small hand darted out and grasped his shirt, keeping him there, and he frowned down at her in concern.

“S’matter?” he asked, kneeing down and brushing his fingers against her arm. “Do you need—”

Shaking her head, Kagome tugged on his shirt, cutting him off and she finally lifted her head, deep pools of chocolate brown locking with burnished amber.

“Not just for that,” she murmured and the smile she graced him with was shy, but stunning. “For...everything. For chasing after me, feeding me, for...saving me. Thank you, Inuyasha. You didn’t have to, but you did, and...”

Her throat closed up and she could say no more, but she didn’t need to. Her eyes told plainly of her gratitude and a peculiar warmth spread throughout Inuyasha’s chest as a knot developed in his throat, suddenly making it a little harder to breathe and goddamn, but she was pretty when she smiled like that.

Composing himself, Inuyasha cleared his throat and tossed her an easy grin, though his eyes were soft and his words genuine when he rumbled, “You’re welcome, Kagome. I’m glad I did.”

Her smile widened and her blush deepened. “Me, too.”

He stared into her eyes and had the insane urge to...well, he didn’t know what, but then Kagome abruptly yawned and the spell was broken.

Shaking his head, not without an amused chuckle, Inuyasha sighed and stood up going back over to the chest of medical supplies and digging around for some painkillers. The second she spotted them Kagome made a little noise of demand and made grabby motions toward them with a little pout. He grinned and shook out two for her.

“Get some sleep,” he rumbled and waited for her to knock back the Ibuprofen with the rest of the water before taking it the empty bottle and tossing it in the cracked recycling bin that served as the trash. “Honestly I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long. Three days is a long time to go without sleep for a human.”

Kagome shrugged and then immediately regretted it when her shoulder twinged in protest. She winced and mumbled, “Kinda hard to sleep when you’re trying not to get to eaten or killed.”

Inuyasha snorted. He could agree to that.

Sighing, she carefully lowered herself down onto her right side and it was like her exhaustion hit her all at once, suddenly struggling to keep her eyes open as her body melted into the mattress and her mind became hazy. Her shoulder was stiff and still hurt like a bitch, her arm didn’t feel much better, but she was easily able to ignore all of that because she was finally able to get some sleep on an actual bed, in a safe place without worry about being discovered, without the fear that she might never wake up.

She was covered with a light blanket and she sighed, losing the battle to keep her eyes open as she murmured,  “N’yasha.”

“Hm?”

“Stay.” It was barely above a whisper, her voice nothing but a breathy wisp of air, but Inuyasha heard it anyway and he felt that weird tugging sensation on his heart again.

“I’ll stay,” he replied roughly and gently brushed her bangs back, his touch lingering, a feather-light caress. “Sleep, Kagome. I’ll protect you.”

Kagome smiled, sighed, and slept. 

Ch. 2

[idrawstuffidk]

Dereliquit Deum (a Creepypasta)

Oh boy, I don't really know where to begin with this, honestly I didn't think I'd ever be able to do this for a long time, but it's been 20 years, and I think I'm safe. I hope I'm safe. Anyway, my name is Micheal, age 35, and this is a story about my childhood “friend”. It all started when I was 5 years old, or at least, that's when I remember it starting. My mom told me it started more, when I was 2, but I haven't talked to her in 10 years so I don't remember the specifics. Wow, that sounded assholish of me. just, let me explain, and no, she isn't dead. According to my mom, when I was 2 I would stare at the fireplace, and I just wouldn't stop no matter what they did. They'd try to get me to move but i’d just sit there, cross legged, staring at the fireplace. Sometimes I would turn my head a bit in confusion, my parents eventually got used to it, until I turned three. When I was three, my mom claimed she’d see me at the fireplace on the last day of every month, just before midnight, just staring. The entire year she was scared by this but, again, got used to finding me and bringing me back to my bed. It wasn't until the last night of December, when we were celebrating New Years, that I burst into tears. My mom asked me what was wrong and, according to her, I asked her “why didn't you save the little girl, mommy? She’s scared.” My mom was, naturally, terrified and confused, but apparently after a few minutes I calmed down. my mom said she’d never forget what I said next. I looked up at the ceiling and said “it's ok now mommy, she’s safe in the light”. My mom was obviously freaking out over her devil child, but my dad told her that it was ok, because I'd just seen a soul ascend into heaven (which wasn't really wrong) and that it was late so I had to go to sleep anyway. My mom was kind of comforted by that, and for two years, nothing happened. When I was five, it got worse. Much much worse. I was sleeping on the couch, since my room was under renovations and my bed had been disassembled (I needed a bigger one). When I heard whispering coming from the fireplace. I was still young and didn't really assess the danger of the situation, as well as that, I was half asleep and not very scared in the moment, so I looked up. There. Standing in front of the fireplace, she was staring right back at me. To give you an idea of how she looked, she was tall, probably 7 feet, her head almost touched the ceiling, she had greasy, straight black hair that reached her shoulders, and a single lock of white hair in the front that was longer than the rest. She had a white bowling hat with a silver ribbon on it that looked like it would fall off at any second, a white sweater overtop of a black button up with a white bow tie, and a black leather corset overtop of all that. She had a black pleated skirt that almost reached her knees and black and white striped leggings, ending in silver shoes. As well as this, she had a huge black and white bi-coloured umbrella with a silver handle that was behind her. But her face, her face is what stood out to me. Porcelain pale skin and 3 silver diamond marks on her face, one on the bridge of her nose, and one under each of her eyes, going along her cheeks. Her eyes were a light, dull blue that stood out against all, the blacks and whites. There wasn't any blush on her face, only one solid colour throughout. Like an amateurly painted porcelain doll. She looked human, but something was off. Like she was either trying so hard to look human that she did something wrong, or she wasn't trying hard enough. She looked at me and smiled, the smile looked wrong, just because it was too perfect, fixed, like a doll’s. She looked at me and whispered again, this time I could properly hear what she said. “Dereliquit Deum”. She asked me for permission to stay, and I, being the tired little kid I was, just sleepily nodded and said “ok” before falling back asleep. For the next few days she followed me from a distance, silently when I was with other people. But when I was alone she'd be much closer and talk more. and I didn't really mind for some odd reason. I did, however, pick up on a few of her behaviours. She always seemed to stand on her tiptoes, and I don't recall her ever really walking, just being there when I looked behind me. As well as this, her umbrella was always leaning against her but I don't think I ever saw her pick it up. She told me a lot of things, and I'd always remember chatting with her, but not what was said as far as “small talk” goes. I’d only remember specific facts and a few key phrases. I think those were the things she wanted me to remember. One of those phrases were “Dereliquit Deum”. She said it a lot, and I never asked her what it meant. I asked her what her name was after, probably, a week of her following me around. She looked at me, smiled that fixed smile of hers and responded “Relicta Per Deus” (and I'm guessing how that is spelled) I always called her “Reli”. Reli would follow me around day after day, and had followed me around for about a month when she said her first words to me while I was not at home, I don't remember what she said, but I know she distracted me just long enough to stop me from crossing the street, where I would have died as a cement truck ran its red, and would have killed me. when I told my mom (who had, up until the point, believed Reli was just my imaginary friend) she told me that maybe Reli was my guardian angel, sent to protect me, and the words I couldn't remember was because she was speaking in an angelic language I was incapable of comprehending. And for a long time I believed it. She couldn't have been more wrong. After about a year of having her around, she started to say different things to me. I’d go about my day and suddenly my mom would be shouting at me to stop, i’d look down and a knife would be in my hand or my hand would be inches from the window cleaner. I would have no memory of even reaching for these, or going to the room they were in at all, it was as if I had blacked out entirely. And Reli would be silently standing a few feet away. Not stopping me, just… looking disappointed. This went on until my mom was sure I was being possessed, and brought in a priest to cleanse the house. Weird thing was, Reli was nowhere in sight this whole time, but the priest did say he sensed something malevolent by the fireplace. He couldn't sense a demon, but he did lead a prayer and told us that it was all he could do. So the blackouts continued for a little while longer, until I was about 7 years old. Then they suddenly stopped. I do remember sometimes telling Reli rings like “but that's really bad” and “no! That's dangerous!” But I never remembered what she said before that. It seemed to me like Reli was trying to get me to kill myself, but eventually I got old enough to not fall for her tricks, but i’ll never be sure. That was when Reli started getting much more violent in he attempts. I remember one occasion in particular, I was walking to my room following dinner, and I could hear Reli’s breathing behind me. Then I heard a loud crash and jumped out of the way. The bookshelf in the hall had fallen over and had nearly crushed me. I'm positive Reli pushed it, and even at the time I was pretty sure she did, though I wasn't as sure as I am now. That was just one of the many instances I have of Reli trying to kill me, I'm sure I could find more if I think hard, but I really really don't want to. It continued until I was 10, then, it stopped. Reli started to show up less and less, she’d only show up to try and kill me, but her attempts became more and more clumsy and dejected, like she knew she had already lost, but was hoping by some miracle she would win. Eventually I stopped seeing her altogether. It wasn't until we were moving out when I was 12 or 13 that I saw Reli for the last time. I was exiting my room with my last bag, and she was waiting for me. I would have run, hell, I wanted to run, but I didn't. She looked sad, and as terrified as I was, I didn't think she would hurt me. She knew she had lost, I doubted she would try again. She just looked like she had something to say. “Just ask your mother, she’ll tell you everything. One day” was all she said, and then she turned to walk away, whispering for one last time “Derelequit Deum” And with that, she disappeared in a blink of an eye. I ran as fast as I could to get out of the house, terrified as you can imagine, and she didn't follow me. I never saw her again. But that isn't the end of the story. I was so afraid that I didn't think to ask my mom about anything, but I never forgot those words, I guess she just really wanted me to remember them. When I was 25 I had been in college for a bit of time, and I was taking a class on Latin for my specific major, the professor was reading out of a Latin text to use as an example for the grammar used, when they used to term “Dereliquit Deum”, I asked what that meant since we hadn't learned it, and they told me it meant “God left”. That's what reminded me of all of this, so I asked the professor at the end of the lecture what “Relicta Per Deus” means. They were confused, but told me it means “abandoned by God” Every day, she would tell me that God left, when I asked what he name was, she said she was abandoned by God. At this point I decided enough time has passed and I had to ask my mom about Reli. She refused to say anything at first and we ended up having a screaming match over the phone but eventually, she cracked. I don't think I'll ever forget what she said. “When I was only 12, my 10 year old sister, Susanna, fell into the fire on New Year's Day and died. I begged her not to leave me, it wasn't until I knew that you saw her that I realized she was still there, and told her she could go. The demonic… thing that's followed you around your entire early life, I'm so sorry, it was my fault she targeted you, the only reason I saved you all those times was because I was watching you like a hawk, knowing it was there. I didn't say anything, I didn't try to get rid of her because I was scared she would hurt me too, I'm so sorry” Then she hung up, to be fair, the only reason I know the whole thing was because my calls are recorded, I listened to the recording probably 20 times because I was so shocked. Still, I was confused. So she knew she was there but, how was this all her fault? Sure, I was kind of angry she didn't try to get rid of it but I still didn't know what it was, or what that little girl, my aunt, I guess, had anything to do with this. Confused, I composed a post, describing the situation, what happened, what she looked like, and everything, and posted it, Asking if she matched up with maybe some sort of myth or legend from another culture. Wondering if there were other people who might know more about her. It didn't take long to get a response. I'm just going to copy and paste the text she sent me here, I think she summed up the gist of it. Micheal- From your description I can only imagine that “Relicta” is a Solum, it's a creature from Latin origin that remains a myth in some Latin based cultures. They’re dark creatures that are born when a child’s soul ascends to heaven. They represent the evil in the dead child, that stays on earth, while the soul lives on. They are eternally dead and hollow, incapable of positive emotion, they only feel cold, alone, and spite. Solum’s stay in the area that the child died, they are tied to that area and cannot leave unless they have tied themselves to another child. The reason for this? They want to kill all the children in the area to create more of their kind, so they aren't alone. They feel as though God has betrayed or abandoned them, and because they cannot ascend to heaven, they try to make more of their kind so they can suffer as well. This is why they are sometimes confused as guardian angels, because they want the children to die where they are, not anywhere else, because then the new Solum will not exist in the same area as they do. I'm going to tell you this because I do not believe you are 100% safe now, Solum’s can shapeshift, they do not have a solid form, they can appear as an animal, a family member, even a bug on the wall, they can always be there, but they're especially good at hiding. Children above the age of 10 typically do not create Solum’s, and adults definitely do not, so while you might think you are safe now, you have to understand, Solum's are vengeful, spiteful creatures. Even if they know that they won't gain a companion, they sometimes seek out revenge on the ones that escaped them. Just because you aren't in that house anymore doesn't mean that she hasn't tied herself to you, she could still be lurking, waiting to strike. At any moment. Remember this, if you ever do see her, Solum’s are weak creatures, they can inflict a lot of damage but can't take much themselves, especially if it is using the thing that killed the child that created them, if you see her, I suggest using a lighter or match to fend her off. I wish I could tell you more, but that's all I know. Regards, I edited out her name to protect her privacy, but yeah, that's what she said. I would say that's the end of the story, but it isn't. A few nights ago I had a dream about Reli, she was screaming at me, surrounded by flames, begging for me to help her. I ran to her, I don't know why, and grabbed her hand. She never touched me as a child, just stood by me. She was cold and clammy, like a dead person. I woke up in a cold sweat and, for whatever reason, decided I had to check on my childhood house. So, at 4 in the morning, I drove over 3 hours to my childhood house. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I just felt like I had to. But when I arrived at the property I was stopped by a policeman. He asked me what I was doing, so I told him I used to live here and was sent to retrieve some things left in the house (complete lie, I know), He apologized and told me that the house had burned down, no discernible cause, at about 3:00am. I convinced myself it was just a coincidence, and managed to have a small chat with the policeman, that's when he told me something very very odd. He said that they heard a woman screaming from inside the house, despite the fact that all the family was outside. They thought it was an intruder so they sent in Firefighters to get her out. But while they were searching for her, she suddenly stopped screaming. No body was found. I asked him what time she stopped screaming. He said a little before 4:00am. I don't know why, but I couldn't bring myself to drive home that morning, I stayed in my childhood town all day and a motel at night, finally taking all the back roads home in the morning. I’m sure it was just a coincidence, I know I should be happy, she’s probably dead, or too weak to hurt anyone now. But I still can't stop thinking about how her clammy hand felt in mine, how she stopped screaming the second we made contact, how the wind behind me sounds so much like breathing. How when I saw the remains of that house I was so sure I could see an umbrella in the rubble. I'm sure it's nothing, but my brain keeps telling me she isn’t dead. Relicta can’t be dead. And if she isn't attached to that house anymore, well, that family didn't have any children.

[thecloserkin]

book review: Marian Veevers, Jane & Dorothy (2018)

Genre: Biography

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: No

Is it shippable: Yes

Bottom line: Y’all fools: Stanning Lord Byron and his half-sister Augusta whom he didn’t even meet until he was nearly grown, never mind whether he actually knocked her up. Me, an intellectual: William and Dorothy Wordsworth are right there, eloping to the countryside and spending the rest of their days holed up in a picturesque cottage composing poetry.

First let’s have a detour where I yell about Crimson Peak (2015, dir. Guillermo del Toro). A few of the recent asks about incest vs. the patriarchy got me thinking about this line from Jane & Dorothy: “the malevolent power of married women over their spinsters-in-law.” Between the wife and the unmarried sister it’s obvious who has more power and it’s clearly not the spinster sister-in-law—and yet Guillermo del Toro would have us believe that Edith in Crimson Peak is helpless before Lucille’s resistance to giving up the skeleton key (the one that opens every room in the house). Edith is made out to be the victim of Lucille’s bloodthirsty unhinged jealousy, when she’s not only THE WIFE she’s got ALL THE MONEY, she’s literally holding all the cards??? It doesn’t add up. This biography is the antidote to that. It looks at the paucity of options open to your average 19th century girl who just wants a Room of One’s Own to write in, and situates her bid for freedom in the context of having no good options. The trouble with “Crimson Peak” was not that Edith wasn’t relatable or that I didn’t identify with her; when Thomas tears her down in that faux-breakup speech he attacks her on the terrain where she’s most vulnerable, her abilities as a writer. The trouble with Crimson Peak was that this beat would have hit so much harder had it landed on Lucille, a woman who’s WAY more vulnerable than Edith by dint of having (1) no marriage prospects and (2) no inheritance. Without Thomas this bitch has (3) no survival strategy either! Otoh take away Thomas and Edith is still left with her dad’s $$$, Edith still has Alan waiting in the wings to swoop in & save her, in other words Edith will be just fine. No wonder Lucille feels so threatened!! The situations are not even comparable. Here then is Jane & Dorothy which offers two case studies of women whose impulse to write & create was just as strong as Edith’s, but whose plight was much closer to Lucille’s ie. precarious as fuck.

I picked this book up because it’s actually a dual biography of Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Austen, and I’m a basic bitch and Jane Austen is my eternal favorite. I’m going to focus on the Dorothy chapters but rest assured I read the Jane chapters with equal gusto. Jane Austen (b. 1775) and Dorothy Wordsworth (b. 1771) were both born into the British pseudo-gentry, which means they were too highborn to go and get a paying gig as a governess or companion but not highborn enough to have any independent source of income (neither of them had a dowry settled on them). While the two women never crossed paths, the arcs of their lives run in parallel as they pursue divergent strategies to secure their futures. So the primary imperative here is to avoid a life of domestic drudgery. But the secondary imperative, because these are both perceptive girls with rich inner lives, is this:

For an intelligent woman, confined to a society which denies her higher education and restricts her existence largely to the home, the male companion with whom she shares her life is her chief provider, not only of security and affection, but of intellectual stimulation.

This is a popular romance novel plot, do I want to marry a man who is a bore (possibly also a boor) or do I want to starve hmmmm. The point is that women are frequently starved for both affection and intellectual stimulation, and it’s little wonder Dorothy fell so hard for her brother William when he showered her with both. Dorothy and William were separated as children when, after the death of their mother, she was sent to live with an aunt in West Yorkshire (she was seven, he was eight). Nine years later they reconnected and sparks flew almost immediately. I mean I think their letters speak for themselves:

”the last time we were Together William won my Affection to a Degree which I cannot describe.”

What kind of brother needs to “win” his sister’s affection? Most of them treat sisters like furniture.

”Never have my eyes burst upon a scene of particular loveliness,” he wrote, “but I have wished that you could be transported to the place where I stood to enjoy it.”

standard “everything beautiful either reminds me of you, or makes me want to share it with you” pablum but EXTREMELY effective for all that

but enough he is my brother, why should I describe him? I shall be launching again into panegyric

Dorothy: hahaha but don’t you think my brother was looking mighty fiiiiiine today

”his attentions to me were such as the most insensible of mortals must have been touched with”

”I assure you so eager is my desire to see you that all obstacles vanish. I see you in a moment running or rather flying to my arms.”

That letter is from William, and you have to remember that William was supposed to be a huge dick who routinely ignored his friends’ missives leaving them in suspense whether he was alive or dead and yet he managed a lively & regular correspondence with Dorothy for years before they moved in together. It’s almost like he treated her … special.

”that sympathy which will almost identify us when we have stole to our little cottage”

These kids are already plotting their elopement jfc! Here are some snippets from Dorothy’s diary from much later, after they have in fact achieved The Dream of their own cottage:

”After dinner we made a pillow of my shoulder, I read to him and my Beloved slept.”

”The fire flutters and the watch ticks and I hear nothing save the Breathing of my Beloved and he now and then pushes his book forward and turns over a leaf.” It is a picture of domestic contentment such as Jane Austen draws to portray a genuinely happy marriage.

”After we came in we sat in deep silence at the window — I on a chair and William with his hand on my shoulder. We were deep in Silence and love, a blessed hour.”

This is literally #goals. Veevers points out that “the conflation of marriage with home, spinsterhood with insecurity” meant that “William was promising the kind of permanence and safety which women usually found in marriage.” Dorothy really thought she could Have It All: a home of her own and a rich, stimulating intellectual life shared with the man she loved. And she proceeded to spend the rest of her life making fair copies of his poems. Hell, she pushed him to be a poet in the first place (it was not at all clear initially that this was the best plan for William, who could just have easily have embarked on a career as a political polemicist, but it was Dorothy who pushed him to be a poet, Dorothy who spent the rest of her life copying out his verses in her fairer hand). Early on Dorothy & William befriended the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was so envious of their bond that he complained, “You have all in each other, but I am lonely, and want you!” Can you b e l i e v e Coleridge actually said that. If one of you hoes doesn’t write me the William/Dorothy Historical RPF that’s Coleridge Outsider POV I s2g I will do my damnedest to die of consumption.

Veveers sums it up this way: “It was a relationship few women would be able to have with their husbands, for, at the time, the two sexes were expected to inhabit different mental landscapes.” To put it bluntly women had ovaries instead of brains; they just weren’t interested in the same stuff a man was. Otoh you have William and Dorothy Wordsworth, actual soulmates: the historical consensus is there is “some uncertainty as to whether she would be best described as muse, emotional support, secretary or co-author.” And she didn’t hide it, either. This is where you really see the difference between Dorothy, who is so open, and Austen heroines like Eleanor Dashwood (Sense & Sensibility), Fanny Price (Mansfield Park) or Anne Eliot (Persuasion) who also feel things deeply but had to regulate the bejeezus out of their emotional responses. This is Dorothy:

After any separation her joy at meeting her brother again was uncontrollable. “I believe I screamed,” she admitted on one occasion when there were witnesses.

Uncontrollable screaming in front of witnesses every time she’s reunited with her brother??? WE STAN. This is how low Dorothy’s spirits sink whenever he’s gone:

”I slept in Wm.’s bed, and I slept badly, for my thoughts were full of William.”

adkfjdkfjdkfjdk I just want to add that when William is home the floorboards are so thin that she can hear him pacing in the bedroom above hers, so his insomnia keeps both of them up at night but she doesn’t mind, she can’t sleep until he falls asleep, she would probably give up a kidney or a lung if she thought it would sell 500 more copies for him. I’m torn between GIRL HE AIN’T WORTH IT and stanning her even harder for being so ride or die on any topic that touches her brother (later, when he has kids, she decides William’s kids are smarter and better-looking than everyone else’s kids).

This is the most iconic line in the entire book, from a letter Dorothy writes to an interfering relative who deplores Dorothy’s judgment for throwing in her lot with a penniless failson like William:

”I affirm that I consider the character and virtues of my brother sufficient protection”

The icily scathing tone of the setdown is PERFECTION. But also, this just in your brother abandoned his pregnant Catholic mistress in France. You know this. Yet here you are gallivanting around the countryside in his company. In fact, when he proves too much of a coward to tell your uncle himself about the existence of said pregnant mistress—this is the uncle who funded all of William’s education and reasonably expects some return on it—he delegates Dorothy to break the news. Dorothy also winds up in charge of all correspondence with the poor girl, who writes occasionally asking for a little money or when is William coming back to France to marry me, and it’s Dorothy who has to fob her off. And this whole incident—the revelation of the French mistress, the break with the family, William refusing to take holy orders to become a clergyman—is so pivotal in their relationship! They were close before but this is the irrevocable step when Dorothy decides to join her fate to his. And her motivation could not be clearer:

William’s outspoken affection for her seems to have first aroused a reciprocal love in Dorothy, but it was his fall from grace, his isolation and his need of a friend, which provided the final catalyst that raised her gradually deepening affection into wholehearted, single-minded devotion.

She saw his need and responded almost involuntarily. She is a RESCUER.

Dorothy, was in one way, very fortunate to have fallen in love with her brother. “Rambling around the country on foot” with a slightly disreputable brother might bring down the censure of her more conventional relatives, but it was a good deal safer than rambling about with a man who was not a brother.

This is the kind of behavior that if two unrelated people engaged in it must have resulted in the man being honor-bound to extend an offer of marriage, because a woman has nothing if she doesn’t have her virtue. Two siblings roaming the countryside, picking flowers and wading thru streams and stargazing? My god what PRIME fodder for fake married tropes! Just present yourself at the first inn you come to as a married couple and then guess what? There was only one bed!!!!

at Grasmere “there was an unnatural tale current of Wordsworth … having been intimate with his own sister.”

tell me MOAR omg this is so deliciously Gothic i keep thinking about that line from Wuthering Heights “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

at Alfoxton, “the master of the house,” it was said, “had no wife with him, but only a woman who passes for his sister.”

PASSES for his sister trololololol like they don’t act the way you’d expect of a brother and sister, like they’re too into each other.

And it was generally accepted that immorality and radical anti-British sentiment went together.

But really William got much more staid and less radical as he got older, and Dorothy was never political because her energies were centered on William William William. On top of which it’s hard to overlook the fact that William would go into Dorothy’s journals and “borrow” her words and publish them verbatim as his own; he felt as entitled to her intellectual labor as her domestic labor, and there is nothing radically egalitarian about that. So I definitely don’t think this is a case where incest is subversive so much as incest illuminating existing hierarchies & oppressions. Veveers writes: “An unmarried woman’s hold on her own time was extremely fragile. She could be made use of in any crisis, transported against her wishes” to fulfill another family members’ needs. Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra evidently shouldered both their weights when it came to this sort of emotional labor: writing letters of thanks & condolence, minding their brothers’ children, calming hypochondriac aunts down, attending births of little nephews & nieces. Cassandra doing all this extra labor gave Jane the space and time to write. Moreover Jane had formed the ambition to write. Dorothy, on the other hand, thought anything worth saying was already being said by William. And she didn’t have her own Cassandra to share the unceasing burden of housework with:

In fact, the domestic labor and childcare that lay ahead of Dorothy were almost indistinguishable from the duties she had escaped at Forncett rectory. But now she was to be living in a home she had chosen, with a man she loved.

Did it matter in the end, Dorothy’s rebellion? If she’d remained a hanger-on in her uncle’s household, living on his charity, her life would not have been outwardly all that different. I have to believe that her choices did matter, of course. It would be easy to sit here and speculate that if Dorothy had not poured all her mental and physical resources into supporting William’s career, she too might have produced another Pride & Prejudice, but naturally we cannot know that. What we know is that Dorothy and William were 100% in love, a fact that anyone with a modicum of reading comprehension can verify by reading their letters. Why is this not more widely discussed? William Wordsworth was not exactly an obscure poet. The explanation, again, comes back to patriarchy:

The idea that Dorothy might have inspired (or felt) desire at Dove Cottage was as abhorrent to mid-20th century academics as it was to gentlemen of the early 19th century … who preferred to think of unmarried women drooping and degenerating after the age of 25, rather than maintaining a subversive and disturbing sexuality.

I wish I could say that William and Dorothy grew old together at Dove Cottage. What actually happened is he got married (she talked him into it—she chose a mutual friend of theirs whom they’d known for ages) and accidentally fell in love with his wife oops. His new wife was neither young nor pretty, in fact she was painfully plain, but that William became genuinely attached to her there can be no doubt. Dorothy continued to live with them and look after their children until her death. So I think we have avoided the worst case scenario, the malevolent-power-of-the-married-woman-ruins-her-spinster-in-law’s-life scenario: This is what happened to Jane Austen when Jane’s father unexpectedly announced his retirement, uprooting Jane and Cassandra from the Steventon rectory where they’d lived all their lives and forcibly removing them to Bath, where Jane was so miserable she did no writing for years. All this upheaval on account of Jane’s brother and his wife wanting the Steventon rectory and its income for their own! The accursed woman was probably measuring the drapes before she’d moved in. Anyway, it is fortunate this open enmity did not characterize Dorothy Wordsworth’s relationship with her sister in law; they were fast friends and they remained friends after the latter’s marriage to William. But instead of William-and-Dorothy forming the nucleus of life at Dove Cottage now it was William-and-Mary, and if this did not sting at least a little Dorothy would not be human. She had been supplanted in William’s heart. I CRY.

Because I’m literal shipper trash I want to end on the bittersweet note of SIBLINGS EXCHANGING RINGS AS A SYMBOL OF COMMITMENT EVEN THO THEY CAN’T LEGALLY GET MARRIED. This is Dorothy’s description of the morning of William and Mary’s wedding, right before they leave the house to attend the ceremony:

”I gave him the wedding ring—with how deep a blessing! I took it from my forefinger where I had worn it the whole of the night before—he slipped it again onto my finger and blessed me fervently.” It might be said that William married her before he married Mary, and that Dorothy was making a promise in that upstairs room try like the one Mary was about to make in church.

it’s been two months since I read this book and i’m STILL SCREECHING byeeeee

[izzy-b-hands]

Usurp The Throne

So I’m taking a stab at the other part of my Horror Movie AU with Ghost, and this is also technically part of the NOLA AU as I have it taking place with Eugene living there with Snafu, so both tags are gonna be on this one!

if y’all have never looked them up or heard them, give ‘em a whirl. It’s catchy Swedish metal with a hint of pop...idk magic? I can’t describe it exactly it just works. 

The song in question that inspired this one can be listened to right here: 

https://open.spotify.com/track/4yrxgaL6zAsxkeMCwCtORS

I might do more of these based on more songs, but we’ll see how this one goes first. If nothing else, I’m def indulging myself here but I can’t help it lol. 

My love to all who read/like/reblog!!

“That’s a goddamn zombie,” Snafu stuttered, and dashed away from the window, his eyes wide. 

“Very funny,” Eugene replied as he flipped to the next page in his book. “It isn’t even Halloween, but nice try. You aren’t gonna get me this time though. Not like last time with the vampires.” 

“That was funny though,” Snafu chuckled. “Poor thing, thinkin’ we had vampire neighbors.”

“After they party all night, every night, they look like ‘em. Still wish I could convince them to sleep for a night then come over for brunch,” Eugene sighed. “They seem like nice people, but they keep turnin’ me down.” 

“Maybe this gal will wanna come in for a nightcap,” Snafu said, slowly approaching the window again, as if something would come bursting through it. 

“You’re still tryin’ this, really? Okay, show me this spooky zombie,” Eugene set down his book on the coffee table, pulled himself from the comfort of the couch, and walked to the window. 

She was...rotting. There was no nice way to put it, no bush to beat around because the whole garden was already burned down. She dripped with the moss of the swamps from the outside of town, her bone exposed on various limbs, bits of muscle and gristle still hanging to some. And she was headed towards their door. 

“Jesus Christ,” Eugene backed away from the window, and searched for his Bible on the nearby bookshelf. “Is the door locked? Make sure it’s locked, and we can push the couch in front of-Snafu!” 

Snafu was at the door, and had opened it, staring at the woman as she stepped in front of him. 

“May I come inside? It’s so dreadfully cold tonight...” 

“It is August, and I have sweated through two shirts today,” Eugene said briskly, gently moving Snafu aside from the door. “But that’s what you say no matter what time of year it is, don’t you?” 

The woman’s eyes were somehow intact, though cloudy enough that he wondered how she could even see to walk around. “What year is it?” 

“1947,” Snafu piped up from behind him. “What year was it when you died?” 

“Merriell!” Eugene scolded. “Please don’t encourage this!” 

“She’s a real, live zombie! You tellin’ me we really aren’t gonna let her in and ask some questions?” 

Eugene sighed in desperation and frustration. “No, I don’t really want a dead woman in our house. Why on earth do you?” 

The woman’s sniffling caught his attention, and his glare fell. 

“I...how awful do I look?” she asked. “It was 1760...I was waiting for my sweetheart near her work and...” 

She broke out into gasping sobs, despite there apparently being no fluid left in her to create tears. 

“Okay, come in, come in. Not gonna leave a crying woman in the street, even if you are dead,” Eugene said, moving aside to let her in. 

“Do you remember what happened? Who killed you?” Snafu’s eyes were wide, with curiosity now instead of fear. 

She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please...” 

“I’m sorry. It’s just...I mean...well, not often we have a guest like you,” Snafu said. 

“Or guests period,” Eugene remarked, thinking of the neighbors. 

“I...where do I go? What do I do? Why am I awake again?” the woman was suddenly encased in a fear of her own, and reached out to grab Snafu’s hand. “What curse is this?” 

Snafu stared at her hand on his, the bone of her fingers visible in her viscera that should have been so much more decayed than it was, and Eugene caught his eye to try and calm him. 

“Look. I...this is is far out of my range of what I know that I can’t even begin to explain it,” he said as he motioned for all of them to sit on the couch, though he feared for cleaning the couch later. “But maybe we can help. Somehow. I’m not really sure how...” 

“I just wish I knew why,” she sighed. “I mean...I remember some things after.” 

“Like what?” Snafu asked, a look of horror on his face. 

“The alligators. I never feared them much in life, but they were hungry. I don’t blame them for what they did,” she said, and with growing terror Eugene noted the scrape and bite marks on some of her exposed bone. 

“Could you feel it?” Snafu looked like he had thousands of questions behind his eyes, spinning in his head, but he seemed to be holding back for the woman’s sake. 

She nodded. “It wasn’t exactly painful just...sensation. But I fell back asleep then...or died again, however you want to put it. I mean, I must have been dead already. I must be now.” 

“Y’know,” Snafu said. “The city has a bit of a reputation now. For some spookiness. If you don’t...fall back asleep, maybe you could capitalize on that.” 

“How is she gonna do that?” Eugene asked. “Move in down the street and make herself a roadside attraction? That’s no way to live...er, or not live.” 

“Nah, nah. The swamps. How cool and creepy would it be, for there to be a myth of a Zombie Queen, haunting the swamp. Reigning over it all. If you wanna pass through, you better look out for her,” Snafu grinned, and gently took her hand in his. “You could do it, I bet.” 

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said softly. “I just want...I don’t know. To be somewhere safe. Your face when you saw me...I must look horrible. I can’t stay near town, or I’ll scare everyone.” 

“Exactly! You get your peace in the swamp, maybe take over one of the abandoned cabins out that way. Make an appearance every now and again to creep people out, and they’ll fear you but leave you be cause they know if they bug you, maybe somethin’ bad’ll happen. But nothin’ bad has to happen; we’ll just start the rumors that somethin’ would. We could do that, right, Eugene?” 

It wasn’t a bad idea. He felt for her, even as some of her flesh fell off of her onto the floor. She wasn’t the malevolent creature come to attack them like he’d thought. She was hurt and scared and lonely, and it seemed hadn’t even known really that she was dead until now. She deserved peace, if she was to deal with having been brought back to something near life by some unknown force. 

“I think we could do that. We travel out to the swamps on occasion, and I think we could report back a haunted cabin everyone should avoid for their own safety, and the sighting of a powerful and terrifying Zombie Queen, who commands the creatures of the swamp and has defeated death itself,” he replied. 

If she could have blushed, he figured she would have been, her eyelash-free lids fluttering softly as she giggled. “That’s a lot. But I like it. I just want to be left alone. Maybe get to fall back asleep again, and hopefully never wake up like this.” 

They drove her out of town towards the nearest swamp, after making a stop at the home of one of the queens they knew who had dresses that were being rotated out of their closet. 

The woman looked queenly now, in a thick black velvet gown, covered in sequins. It clung just closely enough to show off the shape of her exposed rib-cage, and she smiled as they traveled. 

At the edge of the swamp, they got out with her, looking out into the mossy waters. 

“You ready, Zombie Queen?” Snafu asked. 

Again, Eugene could envision the blush that would have colored her face. “I think so. I...you didn’t have to help me. You could have more easily hurt me and dumped me somewhere else. And you’d be justified, given how strange this all is...” 

“We’ve dealt with weird things before. This won’t be the last thing, I’m sure,” Eugene smiled. “I do have to ask though, before you go: what’s your name? We can’t just call you Zombie Queen to everyone.” 

“Clara,” she replied. “But I don’t know if that’s a real queenly name. My sweetheart, now she had the queenly name. She was a queen, to me.” 

His heart dropped in sorrow. “What was her name?” 

“Delphine. Do you think you could use that instead? I think it sounds better...and then whenever anyone is talking about me, it’ll be sort of like they’re talking about both of us,” she said. 

“Zombie Queen Delphine,” Snafu smiled, but Eugene could see the tears at the corners of his eyes. “We’ll start spreadin’ word as soon as we get back to town.” 

“Thank you,” she smiled gently, and turned to the water. As she walked into it, it was as if the animals in the water somehow knew, and respected her new title. The alligators in the water all popped up around her, not attacking her, but watching, creating a sort of aisle for her to walk down as she drifted towards the other shore, far away, where one of the abandoned homes they had found in trips previous sat. 

 They held hands on the ride home, both of them asking the same question in their heads. If it was them in Clara (or rather, Delphine’s) situation, would they be strong enough to deal with living without each other? 

He wanted to think yes, but he knew that he couldn’t truly know for sure if it wouldn’t drive him mad. To be stuck somewhere between life and death, hundreds of years later, with Snafu dead and gone. He admired her strength and ability to tackle her new life, or whatever you would call what she had now. 

For now, he relished the feeling of Snafu’s hand in his, and focused on appearing as scared as possible for when they got back into town. They’d really have to sell it, and he was prepared to make sure everyone they met believed in the Zombie Queen Delphine, ruler of the swamp. 

[lake-lyn]

ET’s exclusive excerpt of The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan (1/2)

Chapter 1

There is no food here

Meg ate all the Swedish fish

Please get off my hearse

I believe in returning dead bodies.

It seems like a simple courtesy, doesn’t it? A warrior dies, you should do what you can to get their body back to their people for funerary rites. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. I am over four thousand years old. But I find it rude not to properly dispose of corpses.

Achilles during the Trojan War, for instance. Total pig. He chariot-dragged the body of the Trojan champion Hector around the walls of the city for days. Finally I convinced Zeus to pressure the big bully into returning Hector’s body to his parents so he could have a decent burial. I mean, come on. Have a little respect for the people you slaughter.

Then there was Oliver Cromwell’s corpse. I wasn’t a fan of the man, but please. First, the English bury him with honors. Then they decide they hate him, so they dig him up and “execute” his body. Then his head falls off the pike where it’s been impaled for decades and gets passed around from collector to collector for almost three centuries like a disgusting souvenir snow globe. Finally, in 1960, I whispered in the ears of some influential people, Enough, already. I am the god Apollo, and I order you to bury that thing. You’re grossing me out.

When it came to Jason Grace, my fallen friend and half bropppther, I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. I would personally escort his coffin to Camp Jupiter and see him off with full honors.

That turned out to be a good call. What with the ghouls attacking us and everything.

Sunset turned San Francisco Bay into a cauldron of molten copper as our private plane landed at Oakland Airport. I say our private plane. The chartered trip was actually a parting gift from our friend Piper McLean and her movie star father. (Everyone should have at least one friend with a movie star parent.)

Waiting for us beside the runway was another surprise the McLeans must have arranged: a gleaming black hearse. Meg McCaffrey and I stretched our legs on the tarmac while the ground crew somberly removed Jason’s coffin from the Cessna’s storage bay. The polished mahogany box seemed to glow in the evening light. Its brass fixtures glinted red. I hated how beautiful it was. Death shouldn’t be beautiful.

The crew loaded it into the hearse, then transferred our luggage to the backseat. We didn’t have much: Meg’s back- pack and mine (courtesy of Marco’s Military Madness), my bow and quiver and ukulele, and a couple of sketchbooks and a poster-board diorama we’d inherited from Jason.

I signed some paperwork, accepted the flight crew’s condolences, then shook hands with a nice undertaker who handed me the keys to the hearse and walked away.

I stared at the keys, then at Meg McCaffrey, who was chewing the head off a Swedish fish. The plane had been stocked with half a dozen tins of the squishy red candy. Not anymore. Meg had single-handedly brought the Swedish sh ecosystem to the brink of collapse.

“I’m supposed to drive?” I wondered. “Is this a rental hearse?”

Meg shrugged. During our flight, she’d insisted on sprawling on the Cessna’s sofa, so her dark pageboy haircut was flattened against the side of her head. One rhinestone-studded point of her cat-eye glasses poked through her hair like a disco shark n.

The rest of her out t was equally disreputable: floppy red high-tops, threadbare yellow leggings, and the well-loved knee-length green frock she’d gotten from Percy Jackson’s mother. By well-loved, I mean the frock had been through so many battles, washed and mended so many times, it looked less like a piece of clothing and more like a deflated hot-air balloon. Around Meg’s waist was the pièce de résistance: her multi-pocketed gardening belt, because children of Demeter never leave home without one.

“I don’t have a driver’s license,” she said, as if I needed a reminder that my life was presently being controlled by a twelve-year-old. “I call shotgun.”

“Calling shotgun” didn’t seem appropriate for a hearse. Nevertheless, Meg skipped to the passenger’s side and climbed in. I got behind the wheel. Soon we were out of the airport and cruising north on I-880 in our rented black grief-mobile.

Ah, the Bay Area . . . I’d spent some happy times here. The vast misshapen geographic bowl was jam-packed with interesting people and places. I loved the green-and-golden hills, the fog-swept coastline, the glowing lacework of bridges and the crazy zigzag of neighborhoods shouldered up against one another like subway passengers at rush hour.

Back in the 1950s, I played with Dizzy Gillespie at Bop City in the Fillmore. During the Summer of Love, I hosted an impromptu jam session in Golden Gate Park with the Grateful Dead. (Lovely bunch of guys, but did they really need those fteen-minute-long solos?) In the 1980s, I hung out in Oakland with Stan Burrell—otherwise known as MC Hammer—as he pioneered pop rap. I can’t claim credit for Stan’s music, but I did advise him on his fashion choices. Those gold lamé parachute pants? My idea. You’re welcome, fashionistas.

Most of the Bay Area brought back good memories. But as I drove, I couldn’t help glancing to the northwest—toward Marin County and the dark peak of Mount Tamalpais. We gods knew the place as Mount Othrys, seat of the Titans. Even though our ancient enemies had been cast down, their palace destroyed, I could still feel the evil pull of the place—like a magnet trying to extract the iron from my now-mortal blood.

I did my best to shake the feeling. We had other problems to deal with. Besides, we were going to Camp Jupiter—friendly territory on this side of the bay. I had Meg for backup. I was driving a hearse. What could possibly go wrong?

The Nimitz Freeway snaked through the East Bay flatlands, past warehouses and docklands, strip malls and rows of dilapidated bungalows. To our right rose downtown Oakland, its small cluster of high-rises facing off against its cooler neighbor San Francisco across the Bay as if to proclaim We are Oakland! We exist, too!

Meg reclined in her seat, propped her red high-tops up on the dashboard, and cracked open her window.

“I like this place,” she decided.

“We just got here,” I said. “What is it you like? The abandoned warehouses? That sign for Bo’s Chicken ’N’ Waffles?”

“Nature.”

“Concrete counts as nature?”

“There’s trees, too. Plants flowering. Moisture in the air. The eucalyptus smells good. It’s not like . . .”

She didn’t need to finish her sentence. Our time in Southern California had been marked by scorching temperatures, extreme drought, and raging wild res—all thanks to the magical Burning Maze controlled by Caligula and his hate-crazed sorceress bestie, Medea. The Bay Area wasn’t experiencing any of those problems. Not at the moment, anyway.

We’d killed Medea. We’d extinguished the Burning Maze. We’d freed the Erythraean Sibyl and brought relief to the mortals and withering nature spirits of Southern California.

But Caligula was still very much alive. He and his co- emperors in the Triumvirate were still intent on controlling all means of prophecy, taking over the world, and writing the future in their own sadistic image. Right now, Caligula’s fleet of evil luxury yachts was making its way toward San Francisco to attack Camp Jupiter. I could only imagine what sort of hellish destruction the emperor would rain down on Oakland and Bo’s Chicken ’N’ Waffles.

Even if we somehow managed to defeat the Triumvirate, there was still that greatest Oracle, Delphi, under the control of my old nemesis Python. How I could defeat him in my present form as a sixteen-year-old weakling, I had no idea.

But, hey. Except for that, everything was fine. The eucalyptus smelled nice.

Traf c slowed at the I-580 interchange. Apparently, California drivers didn’t follow that custom of yielding to hearses out of respect. Perhaps they gured at least one of our passengers was already dead, so we weren’t in a hurry.

Meg toyed with her window controls, raising and lower- ing the glass. Reeee. Reeee. Reeee.

“You know how to get to Camp Jupiter?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“ ’Cause you said that about Camp Half-Blood.”

“We got there! Eventually.”

“Frozen and half-dead.”

“Look, the entrance to camp is right over there.” I waved vaguely at the Oakland Hills. “There’s a secret passage in the Caldecott Tunnel or something.”

“Or something?”

“Well, I haven’t actually ever driven to Camp Jupiter,” I admitted. “Usually I descend from the heavens in my glorious sun chariot. But I know the Caldecott Tunnel is the main entrance. There’s probably a sign. Perhaps a Demigods Only lane.”

Meg peered at me over the top of her glasses. “You’re the dumbest god ever.” She raised her window with a final Reeee. SHLOOMP!—a sound that reminded me uncomfortably of a guillotine blade.

We turned west onto Highway 24. The congestion eased as the hills loomed closer. The elevated lanes soared past neighborhoods of winding streets and tall conifers, white stucco houses clinging to the sides of grassy ravines.

A road sign promised CALDECOTT TUNNEL ENTRANCE, 2 MI. That should have comforted me. Soon, we’d pass through the borders of Camp Jupiter into a heavily guarded, magically camouflaged valley where an entire Roman legion could shield me from my worries, at least for a while.

Why, then, were the hairs on the back of my neck quivering like sea worms?

Something was wrong. It dawned on me that the uneas- iness I’d felt since we landed might not be the distant threat of Caligula, or the old Titan base on Mount Tamalpais, but something more immediate . . . something malevolent, and getting closer.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Through the back window’s gauzy curtains, I saw nothing but traffic. But then, in the polished surface of Jason’s coffin lid, I caught the reflection of movement from a dark shape outside—as if a human-size object had just own past the side of the hearse.

“Oh. Meg?” I tried to keep my voice even. “Do you see anything unusual behind us?”

“Unusual like what?”

THUMP.

The hearse lurched as if we’d been hitched to a trailer full of scrap metal. Above my head, two foot-shaped impressions appeared in the upholstered ceiling.

“Something just landed on the roof,” Meg deduced.

“Thank you, Sherlock McCaffrey! Can you get it off?”

“Me? How?”

That was an annoyingly fair question. Meg could turn the rings on her middle fingers into wicked gold swords, but if she summoned them in close quarters, like the interior of the hearse, she a) wouldn’t have room to wield them, and b) might end up impaling me and/or herself.

CREAK. CREAK. The footprint impressions deepened as the thing adjusted its weight like a surfer on a board. It must have been immensely heavy to sink into the metal roof.

A whimper bubbled in my throat. My hands trembled on the steering wheel. I yearned for my bow and quiver in the backseat, but I couldn’t have used them. DWSPW, driving while shooting projectile weapons, is a big no-no, kids.

“Maybe you can open the window,” I said to Meg. “Lean out and tell it to go away.”

“Um, no.” (Gods, she was stubborn.) “What if you try to shake it off?”

Before I could explain that this was a terrible idea while traveling fifty miles an hour on a highway, I heard a sound like a pop-top aluminum can opening—the crisp pneumatic hiss of air through metal. A claw punctured the ceiling—a grimy white talon the size of a drill bit. Then another. And another. And another, until the upholstery was studded with ten pointy white spikes—just the right number for two very large hands.

“Meg?” I yelped. “Could you—?”

I don’t know how I might have finished that sentence. Protect me? Kill that thing? Check in the back to see if I have any spare undies?

I was rudely interrupted by the creature ripping open our roof like we were a birthday present.

Staring down at me through the ragged hole was a withered, ghoulish humanoid, its blue-black hide glistening like the skin of a house y, its eyes filmy white orbs, its bared teeth dripping saliva. Around its torso uttered a loincloth of greasy black feathers. The smell coming off it was more putrid than any dumpster—and believe me, I’d fallen into a few.

“FOOD!” it howled.

“Kill it!” I yelled at Meg.

“Swerve!” she countered.

One of the many annoying things about being incarcerated in my puny mortal body: I was Meg McCaffrey’s servant. I was bound to obey her direct commands. So when she yelled “swerve,” I yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. The hearse handled beautifully. It careened across three lanes of traffic, barreled straight through the guardrail, and plummeted into the canyon below.

[sweetd1417]

SPN 14x02 Gods and Monsters

I thought this was a surprisingly enjoyable episode for a Buckleming episode. Unsurprisingly, Speight did an incredible job directing.

Thoughts I had on my first watch:

Castiel talking to Jack sharing his wisdom is just the best thing since sliced bread. Great advice. Advice about loving yourself coming from Cas = PROGRESS I’m so proud. Heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. Then Nick tells him he’s just like Lucifer much like Lucifer himself said to him in “Abandon all hope” and something Cas has struggled with in the past. But this Cas finally (hopefully) loves himself enough to know better.

I’m so torn between wanting Dean back and wanting Michael to stay if only to watch Jensen crush it. I’m so happy they let Jensen have this opportunity to spread his wings (I know, I groaned internally at my pun, too!) again finally. He’s truly a wonderful actor.

Jensen in a tux...Picking up that werewolfina by her neck and saying “Summon your master.” Holy. fucking. Wow. Yes, sir. That was hot.

Holy shit Jack! Kelly’s parents are your family, yes, but Cas and the Winchester’s are way more! Found family again a consistent theme and this time it’s Jack who is struggling with wanting to know his blood relatives vs being satisfied with his found family. You can see on Cas’ face the hurt he feels when Jack says Kelly’s parents are the only family he has left.

And don’t even get me started on the to “save or not to save Dean” debate!! Wooooweee for Destiel parallels. It was like looking in a mirror of Dean arguing with Sam about extracting Lucifer from Cas in season 11. Hmmm Buckleming must ship it. And what I found most interesting is that I recall thinking the same thing about Sam that I thought about Jack in this weeks episode. That thought was confusion of the “what the fuck” variety. Because Sam loves Cas and Jack loves Dean. So I can only come to the conclusion that those scenes were written to specifically highlight the fact that Dean and Cas feel differently about each other - they are not willing to sacrifice each other for the “greater good.” They cannot imagine living while the other is dead. And that’s the Destiel Difference.

So....did Nick kill his family? Or he just killed that guy with a hammer because it was convenient or poetic or something ? I think Nick killed his family. Oh shit. Maybe I am going to be ok with this story line after all.

I do not trust that Michael is gone. Who would leave that meat suit?!? But seriously - he sets a trap for the Winchesters and AU Bobby, then just up and leaves? No way. He’s either hiding so Dean doesn’t know (and somehow otherwise undetected) or he is up to something totally crazy or he got pulled out by some other force. I’m kinda excited about this mystery.

But I’m disappointed he left Dean’s vessel so early. Maybe we’ll see more Jensen doing Michael!Dean later in flashbacks or something even if he’s not still in there hiding. I hope so. Why is Michael!Dean so hot ? Same thing with Demon!Dean. Come to think of it every version of Dean is hot, so that was a dumb observation. But really, something about an evil / malevolent Dean is just 😍🔥👌🏼👏🏼.

Im really excited to see what happens next. Jody is back next week and Dean has a new scar. This is looking very promising !

[rosinapowrie-blog]

The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.

“The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all, for sure” – Socrates

Learning isn't just about passing exams.  Since starting a career in teaching four years ago, I have struggled to remember this myself, let alone show pupils what they could be missing out on.  In response, I set up a school society mimicking TEDx Talks, giving kids the chance to listen to in interesting lecture at lunchtime with no hidden agenda: simply to try to show them that academia goes beyond mark schemes and box ticks.  This was my opening address entitled 'The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.'

_______________________________________________________________________In my first fortnight of teaching at a prestigious new school, once we got over that slightly awkward unsure phase of ‘nu teacher who dis,’ a student asked me where I’d been to university and what I’d studied...

‘St Andrews, in Scotland... where Prince William went’ (I added after only a minuscule pause which I have become accustomed to when speaking of the tiny town on the East Fife coast). ‘I read English Literature, but did loads of modules in Philosophy, Classics, Art History... it was good.’ ‘Wow’ the student replied, ‘that’s like really good isn’t it? You must be... like... really clever..!’ And then the student said the 10 words that have shocked me the most in my haggering career as an educator... ‘So why did you end up as a teacher then?’ Now I am not so naive as to think that this is simply one view held by one teenager in that particular moment... What this delightful girl had uttered was probably the ultimate Freudian slip of today’s youth... you lot just don’t see the value in education for its own sake... you think that school is just something you have to get through, preferably do well at, then you can start living your best life. But this must be challenged: if we know and accept that gaining knowledge is a vital crevasse to conquer whilst mountaineering the Range of Success, why do we see it merely as a means to an end? Why can we not enjoy the ride, live in the moment, and value our opportunity to learn new stuff? Why is it that, still in 2018, when teaching is known to be one of the most draining and stringently trained professions, requiring the skill and discipline of an artist, athlete and jail warden simultaneously all before 9am 5 days a week, do our very target audience view our profession as a sort of embarrassing accident that losers happen to fall into? Perhaps you are already outraged by my cynicism. I am aware I am currently preaching to the converted - you guys have chosen to spend your lunch time in this room pursuing knowledge and discussion. But I vehemently believe that this modern apathy to education is due largely to the portrayal of teachers in the media and popular culture. I don’t solely mean the ludicrous click bait that floods your newsfeeds every day (I’m thinking headlines such as ‘boy of 1 wins Nobel peace prize for finding cure to cancer despite failing all GCSEs - who needs em anyway’ or even just the multitude of distracting cat videos you’d much rather be watching), I mean those subliminal messages in books, TV and film that have been drip fed to my generation and yours in our formative years. I’m talking about The Teacher Dichotomy: heroes vs villains. By this, I mean that teachers are firmly type cast into two roles: the sickening sycophant who inspires their flock with their unconventional quirks and flagrant disregard for any sort of teaching standard... that one who really gets down to da youf’s level. Or, worse, the maniacal villain who struts around with a cape and cane doling out detentions and appearing entirely inhumane. The inability to portray teachers as warm blooded mammals with the same instincts, desires and fears as the rest of the world has not only devalued the joy of education, it actually undermines the incredible passion and hard work that goes into just the average, unmemorable bog standard Mr or Mrs Bloggs’ daily job as a teacher. On demand, could anyone name an example of just a regular teacher that a) exists in a book/film etc and b) fulfils meaningful purpose in the plot purely in his or her role as educator and not for any other reason? Three examples analysed... Firstly, our heroes: I’ll start with that that ever hilarious, ever chaotic excuse for a school teacher portrayed by loveable comedian Jack Whitehall in popular BBC3 series ‘Bad Education.’ Alfie Wickers, the History NQT at Abbey Grove School, prefers to befriend students rather than enable them responsibly to achieve their potential. His typical pedagogy includes such escapades as practical re-enactments of battles, or ‘Class Wars’, where any Ofsted inspector would literally have a fit at the flagrant violation for safeguarding an 'ealf and safety. Yet Mr Wickers is respected by Form K – they even like him and learn from him – but do we see any assessment, formative or summative? Do we see him planning or marking? Do we see him tracking progress and planning interventions? While it may be a TV show, and art does not need to imitate life, the point is that Mr Wickers is seen as a fun, likeable teacher.  If he did anything that he was actually supposed to, he would be seen as boring.  And what sort of message is that sending a young audience – that the people who dedicate their lives to ensuring their progress in a conventional way are not heroes.  Only those who offer them fun and entertainment, and no actual learning, are.

At the other end of the positive spectrum, there are those sorts of hero teachers who move students emotionally, yet still wouldn’t actually pass an observation. The epitome is John Keating – the maverick English master portrayed by Robin Williams in the classic ‘80s film, ‘Dead Poets Society.’  Keating encourages his vulnerable student, Anderson, to come out of his shell by joining the eponymous banned extracurricular club.  Here, he forges friendships with unlikely characters and experiences true life and love by looking at poetry differently and forgetting the pressures and requirements of school.  Professor Keating is eventually called out for his disregard for school standards and duly sacked, leaving the boys chanting a heart-wrenching chorus of Whitman’s ‘O Captain, my Captain’ whilst standing on desks.  It’s the ultimate bildungsroman: the boys have come of age, and Keating helped them get there.  Yet again, his inspiring nature is not at all borne of his skill in traditional education methods, but rather the fact that he ignores them completely.  Yet another example of the hero teacher, shaming regular teachers into the background of mediocrity.

And now the other end of the spectrum – the villains.  Who better to analyse than Rowling’s malevolent Professor Umbridge, who swans into Hogwarts in The Order of the Phoenix with the sole aim of making monumental, ‘Ministry approved’ changes to the school curriculum and generally shaking the status quo.  Fans of the series, let’s forget the reasons behind our negative view of Umbridge’s changes for now (the government’s refusal to believe that Voldemort has returned, etc) and read this simply as a teacher trying to raise standards by reviewing current practice and attempting to embed systemic change.  We see this when she addresses the school for the first time: ‘some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited." This sounds rather like a forward-thinking teacher, school leader or governor wanting to make improvements, yet she is completely slated and seen as evil.  For example, what are her actual crimes: conducting lesson observations of fellow staff?  Holding staff accountable for their performance and the progress of pupils, and removing them from post if they are not up to scratch? Ensuring that the curriculum is standardized? Essentially, all things that normal teachers do in normal schools to meet the teachers’ standards and provide robust education systems.  However, she is utterly vilified for doing so: so much so that Rowling chooses to portray her as committing the ultimate teacher-sin – failing to safeguard students and actually physically assaulting them in her detentions.  This is a choice the author has made: to show traditional schooling and education standards as petty compared to the great, heroic things that the rest of the Hogwarts teachers inspire the heard with.  The irony is that Umbridge is certainly the only member of staff who would even pass a PGCE, let alone be promoted to senior leadership, in real life.  Yet again, we see the dichotomy in action, reinforcing that subliminal message that traditional education is nasty, negative and pointless.

The glass ceiling must be broken and education needs to be esteemed once more.  The conditioning we’ve been subjected to through popular culture has not helped, but now we have been enlightened to our ignorance. The great irony is that if we enjoy the ride, stop seeing education as a means to end, but rather an end in itself, then you will get further in life if you have become a fully rounded person with a broad cultural capital.  Take umbrage with Umbridge: value your current opportunities and enjoy learning your subjects even if you never need to use that information again.

[winchester-writes]

I Forgive You

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: mentions of torture, self-loathing, witches are bitches, language

Word Count: 1,846 (unbeta’d all mistakes are my own)

Square Filled: Torture

A/N: Welp guys, I signed up for @spnangstbingo and I couldn’t be happier with the card I got! I have many ideas running around in my head for each one but I hope you enjoy this first one!! Many more to come!!

Lifting your head, blood pooled from your mouth and onto your already blood-stained, ripped jeans. Wrists and ankles rubbed raw with the rusted shackles that were placed there a couple days ago, while your whole body screamed out in agony from all the cuts and bruises that now littered it. You couldn’t let any of that show though. Sam would find you, Sam would show up in time to make it all stop; just had to hold out a little longer.

Watching the careful movements of your tormentor, his body moved with ease as he looked around the table of weapons. Almost as though torturing was his natural-born profession. His fingers skimmed and danced over each weapon trying to decide which one he was going to use next on your body. They suddenly came to a stop over the scalpel. It looked so tiny as he picked it up between his fingers...those calloused fingers you knew all too well. Next came that gravelly voice followed by that beautiful face that would now haunt you forever. A devilish smile forming as his dark green eyes shimmered in what little sunlight there was in the abandoned warehouse as he held the scalpel towards you.

“So, sweetheart, you ready to have some more fun?”

Smirking, you hide the pain and utter fear behind your smartass attitude, “I’m always ready to have fun with you baby.”

Jolting awake, you looked around an all too familiar room; your bedroom. Safely tucked underneath the blankets, you set your hands down to lift yourself up until an excruciating pain shocked your system. Looking down, the red marks around your wrists taunted you, reminding you that everything wasn’t a dream. When did you get from there to here? Did Sam finally show up?

“H-How did I…”

The moment you spoke out loud, the bedroom door opened and Sam’s face lit up. A washcloth and a bowl of water in his hands, “You’re awake!”

“Yeah...how long was I out?” You voice was quiet since your throat felt a little sore.

Sam set everything down before moving your desk chair over to the side of the bed. Leaning back he rubbed his sweaty hands on his pants, “Only about two days, you look a lot better though. I’ve been keeping careful watch over you.”

Reaching out, you grabbed his hand, “Thank you for finding and helping me Sam.”

“I always will Y/N. You’re like my sister, you’re family.” Sam kissed the back of your hand, which caused a small smile to form on your face. Only for it to slightly falter when you thought of the bunker’s other occupant.

“Speaking of which…”

“Y/N, I wouldn’t.” Sam knew exactly what your next question was going to be, “He’s not himself, not after everything that happened. Give him a little time, he’s really beating himself up over this.”

Your brow furrowed, “Then that means Dean needs me now more than ever. He can’t blame himself over this, it wasn’t him, it was that fucking witches fault.”

Sam sighed and ran a hand down his face, “His hands still tortured you. Dean was a wreck when he came to and saw what he had done. The spell...the spell wore off because you were half-dead Y/N. She wanted the both of you to suffer.”

“Exactly Sam, he’s suffering right now and I’m perfectly fine!” Moving your legs over the side of the bed was a mistake because the moment your feet touched the floor you almost fell forward. If it wasn’t for Sam catching you, you would have been on the floor.

“You can’t walk yet Y/N. The shackles were on for too long and the wounds need to heal first. Give it time.” Sam helped you get back in the bed, checking the bandages that were around your ankles, “I’ll go ask him to come in here to talk to you but I’m making no promises. Just...stay in bed.”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you nodded. Even though it hurt for you to stand, you still felt like the pain Dean was feeling was much worse. After watching Sam leave the room, you let out a big sigh as your head went to lay back against the pillows, your eyes closing for a moment. Flashes of everything that happened, every tool and weapon marking your skin while your lover grinned malevolently at your pain. Your eyes opened in an instant, willing your brain to not do this, to not be afraid of him when he walks in. It wasn’t really him.

Seconds later you heard a small knock on your door.

“Come in.” You spoke softly, hoping to God that it was Dean. The face that peered through the door though made your shoulders sag.

“I told you Y/N...he’s not gonna come in here.”

It’s been a little over a week and you still haven’t seen Dean around at all. Your ankles had started to heal and because of that, you were now more mobile. Walking to his room now and then to see if he would open up but of course, he wouldn’t. You’d either get complete silence or a gruff go away. Leaving you to sigh and walk back to your room, hoping you’d get him to answer one day.

Letting him sit in his room most of the day to suffer alone was something you could not bear to see happen. Dean Winchester was too good of a man to let the worries of grief and guilt continue to pile up on his shoulders. Especially if it was all because of you. You wanted nothing more than to show him that you were healing and that everything was okay. Mostly, so you could tell him that you didn’t blame him for torturing you. Dean was merely under the effects of a witches curse, he wouldn’t really hurt you all the ways that he did if he was his normal self.

Here it was, 3 o’clock in the morning and all of these thoughts wouldn’t leave you alone, not allowing you to sleep for a couple days now. Well that and the fact that you weren’t laying beside Dean, his warmth and embrace was always a welcome comfort before bed.  For some reason, this night, there was a need to get out of your bed and get a drink of the whiskey variety.

Walking towards the kitchen, you stopped abruptly when you heard the sound of the fridge door shutting. One of the boys must have been up and your heart started to quicken at the thought of it being Dean. Rounding the corner, you came face to face with the man you have been trying to see all week.

“Hi Dean…”

He stood there and stared at you for only a second before he was trying to make his way out of the room with his head down. It hurt that he couldn’t even look you in the eyes anymore.

“No. Stop.” You held your hand out, not allowing him to pass through the only exit. “Sit...please…?”

A sigh escaped past his lips as he moved over to the table, eyes still on the ground as his hands went to fidget in his lap. Walking up to Dean, you set a hand on his head, your fingers running through the soft dirty blonde locks and you swore you heard him take in a sharp breath.

“Please talk to me. I miss you, ya know? I want my boyfriend back.” You dryly chuckled, leaning down to try and get his eyes on you.

You didn’t expect him to actually respond, his voice scratchy and rough from not being used as much this past week, “I tortured you Y/N, how is it that you even still consider me your boyfriend? I hurt you to no end, I was hellbent on killing you, almost fucking did. And yet you still want to be with me...why?”

“Because I know it wasn’t really you. Because I knew it was that witch who cast a spell on you to do all that stuff to me. Because I will love you no matter what complications this relationship has to go through which isn’t exactly a normal one and never will be considering what we do.” You sat beside him and wrapped your arm around his, bringing your head to lay on his shoulder, “I don’t want you feeling like this Dean, I hate it and you know I do. I’m getting better and that’s all that should matter.”

Both of his hands came up to wipe down his face, “I can’t...everytime I close my eyes I see you sitting in that chair again, bloody and weak, with my hands still holding every blood soaked weapon. No matter how many times I will myself to try to stop, the knife goes right through you and you end up dying.” He held his hands to his face now, trying to hide his emotions, “Baby, I am so sorry for what I did to you.”

You felt his shoulders start to shake and you moved to sit on your haunches in front of his, taking his hands off his face to show his red and teary eyes, “And I forgive you. Dean I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere any time soon, okay?”

“You don’t understand Y/N!” He stood up and started pacing before turning back towards you, “When the spell wore off. I kept telling myself that I was dreaming and that’d wake up and you’d be in my arms in the bed! But then Sam was there, trying to untie you as I lay there on the ground. I thought the blood on my hands was mine at first but then I got one good look at you and I just knew...everything hit me at once. I was still holding a fucking gun Y/N! Thank God Sam came in when he did!”

You stood there a moment and looked at the man breaking apart in front of you, you wanted to rush up to him and hold him forever. The pain and sorrow that radiated from his body caused your own tears to form in the corners of your eyes. If only there was a way that you could wish everything to be better again, to wish that your life could go back to the way it was before this hunt. Right as you went to speak, he was shaking his head as he moved, grabbing a bottle of whiskey and then heading straight for the door.

“Please don’t leave.” The emotions got the better of you and a small sob escaped, him about to walk out without even trying was hurting ten times worse than when he was torturing you, “We can fix this, don’t give up.”

Dean was stopped in the doorway, his shoulders sagging and his voice as small as yours.

“I’m far too broken Y/N. You can’t fix me, nobody can.”

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