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unpack-my-heart · 5 years ago

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I Have Crossed Oceans Of Time To Find You

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Chapter One [click HERE to read on AO3] : [WC 6794]

The sleepy town of Krov died in 1539, and no one heard its death rattle. Ask a historian, and they’ll tell you that it was the pestilence that finished Krov off, that death had swung his buboed scythe just enough times to ensure that the entire town was swallowed by the gaping maw of the plague pit. Those who could afford to migrate south to Brașov did so, plague snapping at their heels as they ran. Those bound to the town with invisible manacles barricaded themselves in their small houses and prayed feverishly to a deaf God. Now dead, the body of the town sailed straight past rigor mortis and steam rolled into rot and ruin. Buildings crumbled, and wild flowers sprouted, vein-like, in the cracks.

The only building that remained stood proud and untouched by the hand of decay at the top of the tallest hill, a splintered pearl-white rib jutting out of a wound.

The town of Krov heaved its last staccato breath in 1439, and in 1893, Richard Tozier, hands scrabbling against pallid skin, followed suit.

Ever since he was a boy, Richard had been fascinated by maps. When he was an infant, still attached to his mother’s breast, he’d watched as his father, back hunched and eyes squinting, had drawn the swooping, dancing lines of the town.

“Is that our house?” Richard had lisped when he was older, with a tongue that still felt too large in his small mouth.

“Yes,” his father confirmed, “that’s our house, and that’s where the tree is that you fell out of, and that’s where your grandmother lives, and that’s where …”

Richard had watched with fascination, eyes glued to the rustly piece of paper, as his father pointed at each landmark. His father told him that he’s a cartographer, someone standing on the shoulders of the many great men who came before, men who charted the land with careful eyes and dancing lines. With his thumb lodged firmly in his mouth, Richard had confidently announced that he wanted to be a cart-grapher too.

– X –

The tale of the disappearing town had fast become Richard’s favourite bedtime story. When Brașov marched into the mists of winter, the nights drawing in earlier and earlier, young Richard could be found tucked up in bed, head poking out from under the thick, scratchy blanket.

“Tell me the story about the disappearing town again?”

At that, the question that came, like clockwork, at the time of year when the blustery winds hammered on the windowpanes with fleeting fingers, his father rolled his eyes.

“You know this story just about as well as I do, Richie”

And, as he always did, Richard would squeal with faux-frustration until his father, with a tut and a sigh, relented.

“Once upon a time, a long long time ago, in a small town called Krov …”

– X –

True to his six year old self, Richard apprenticed with his father in the art of cartography when he came of age. Like his father, with steady hands, Richard immortalised the boundaries of his home town, the houses, the forest on the eastern most edge of the town, the church with its singing bells. Now fluent in lines of longitude, Richard slowly built up an impressive portfolio, expansive enough to rival even his fathers. Still, when the snow fell from the sky in great woollen clumps, Richard found himself sprawled on the floor in front of the raging fire, gazing up at his father.

“Do tell me the tale of the disappearing town, just one last time”

“That’s what you said last year, and the year before that, and the year before that and –”

“I know! I know. I am a rotten liar, but please, tell me just one last time”

“How about you tell me the story, since I am now a weary old man,” his father scolded, the fire dancing in the watery sheen coating his eyes.

Shifting onto his back, Richard closed his eyes, and began to speak.

“Once upon a time, a long long time ago, in a small town called Krov … wait, father?”

“Yes, child?”

“Why is Krov not on the big map in your study?”

His father rolled his eyes. “Why on earth would a mythological place be on a map?”

“Maybe people just haven’t put enough effort into finding it,” Richard mumbled, as he stared up at the cracks that divided the ceiling into fictional countries.

– X –

Richard’s obsession with the story of the disappearing town only deepened after that conversation. Blindly convinced that the town could never be anything but real, Richard devoted large portions of his time to pouring through printed collections of maps of the region, basing his search off the vague references to an unusually large and dense forest collected at the belly of a mountain range the town was near . Confident that he’d plotted the 100 mile radius that the town must be located in, Richard intensified his search, picking through map after map, going back four centuries, searching for the elusive town.

However, the search proved fruitless. Exhausted and bleary eyed, Richard scooped the pile of crinkly maps up into his arms, intending to throw them onto the fire in a fit of sleep-deprived impulsivity when a fresh, crisp map fluttered to the floor like a leaf carried by a lazy autumn breeze. Dropping the rest of the papers to the floor, Richard stooped and picked up the errant map, and inspected it.

The Northern Transylvanian Region (1530)

The map, though ostensibly entirely unremarkable, felt inexplicably hot in Richard’s hands, as if he’d just wrenched it from a hungry flame. Tracing the roads with a trembling finger, Richard’s eyes fell upon a faint, but very obviously present, line that he’d not noticed in the previous maps. Dropping to his knees, Richard spread out the other maps of northern Transylvania, eyes searching for, but never finding, the line. Scrabbling once more for the 1530 map, Richard again located the faint line, but this time, looked closer. Bringing the paper but millimetres from his face, he noticed six tiny, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them words, written neatly besides the line.

‘the road that leads to Nowhere’

The road, connected to the main street running through the small town of Zhizn, curved in a gradual arc that halted before it even attempted to connect to another road. It stopped, abruptly, in the middle of an empty section of map, jutting out from the rest of the lines awkwardly, like the cartographer had become distracted and forgotten to finish it.

A small part of him, a part of him that had been born the moment he had laid eyes on those six words, knew he’d found it. If Krov was to be anywhere, it was here. This infant part of him screamed with the lungs of a newborn, it’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here, and then, in a voice that wasn’t his own, slick and dripping with rot, it spoke again,

seek Him.

– X –

Richard didn’t recognise the name on the back of the map. He asked his father if he had ever heard of a sixteenth-century cartographer called J Alexe, and his father nodded his head enthusiastically.

“Yes, I worked with him over twenty years ago now. I haven’t spoken to him in years, why do you ask?”

“No significant reason,” Richard had replied, playing at inconspicuous, “I just found an map he drew a few years ago and was curious”

“Oh? I didn’t think he’d published anything for several years after – well. I think I have an old letter of his”

With that, his father stood from his chair, knees creaking, and shuffled into his study. Several minutes later he emerged, waving a crumpled letter victoriously in his hands.

“See, here. He said he was retiring from the craft, but the old devil mustn’t have been able to resist her siren call. Could you show me the map once you’re done with it?”

“Of course”

Taking the letter from his father’s hands, under the pretence of reading the rather dry conversation about cartography tools, Richard internally memorised the return address.

– X –

Dear Mr Alexe,

I do hope you won’t mind me contacting you. I am the son of Wentworth Tozier, I believe you worked together many times. The reason for this letter is that I found a copy of your map of northern Transylvania in the fourteenth-century, and I notice that there is a road marked ‘the road to nowhere’. I was wondering if you would be able to confirm whether this road leads to the city of Krov?

Many thanks,

Richard Wentworth Tozier

Immediately after finishing his letter, Richard folded the paper in half, before carefully sliding it into a cream coloured envelope. Impulsively, with the eagerness of a child, he all but ran to the post office, sending the letter off to, hopefully, reach its desired recipient in full health.

When he arrived home, his father waved a shiny black envelope in his face.

“This arrived for you”

Richard took the envelope from his father, retreated to his bedroom, and ripped it open.

Mr Tozier,

It is wonderful to make your acquaintance. I have admired your father since we met long ago, and it is a long awaited privilege to speak with you. I believe the map you are enquiring about is simply the object of a joke once played on your father, who was once enthralled by the story of Krov.–

A thick blot of black ink strikes through the next line, obscuring it so Richard cannot read it; the word ‘home’ barely visible near the margin.

–I assume by your letter that Wentworth’s indulgence in the story of Krov has not faltered, unless this obsession is hereditary. These are li- (again, the rest of the line has been struck through in thick black ink). I can assure you that the road to Nowhere leads not to nothing, but to something that cannot be explained using ink. It’s true that Krov no longer has a heartbeat, but it still breathes. Listen for it.

And then, right at the bottom of the page, scrawled in a crusted, brown liquid, two words.

seek Him.

– X –

The decision to travel to Krov, following the road that lead to Nowhere, came to Richard as easily as the decision to send the letter to Alexe in the first place. He had spun his father a lie out of golden thread, told him that he was going to travel north, up towards Zhizn (this, of course, only a half lie) with the intention of visiting an old archive kept in the town hall. Such a town hall, and such an archive, didn’t exist, but his father didn’t know that.

Richard left on a frigid Monday, breath visible in the air when he’d bid his father farewell at the station. The train, a rickety thing that jaunted across the Romanian landscape like a drunk staggering home, wound this way and that, until, nearly a full day later, it pulled into the station at Zhizn. Richard wasted no time wandering the windy streets of Zhizn, instead, he walked with purpose into the tavern, door swinging violently behind him. A stunned hush fell over the patrons of the tavern, as they all turned with dinner-plate eyes to stare at the newcomer with wild hair and bottle-top glasses. The young woman stood behind the bar, glass of honey’d liquid frozen in the air comically, stared at him with curious eyes.

“Glass of ale, sir?”

“That would be marvellous,” Richard replied, and the quiet chatter resumed around him.

The tavern was fairly small, with a creaking wooden floor that sung out every time Richard took a step towards the bar.

“New around here, are you?” the barmaid asked, busying herself with pouring Richard’s drink.

“Yes. I’ve come up from Brașov, I’m trying to find a town that’s near here, perhaps you’ve heard of it”

“Aren’t any towns near here, Sir. Not for miles”

“Ah, but there is. It’s on this map, see,” Richard fished in his pocket, looking for J. Alexe’s map that he’d folded into tiny pieces, small enough to fit snugly in the pocket of his jacket.

Locating it, he pulled the map out and unfolded it on the bar. The barmaid, expression a hybrid bemused-annoyed, stared blankly at it. With eager fingers, Richard jabbed at the road to Nowhere.

“Here, I have reason to believe there’s a town at the end of this road, a town called Krov, have you –”

At the mention of the word Krov, the barmaid gagged dramatically, a great retch that sounded like it had been pulled directly from the very pit of her stomach. The noise startled Richard, his sentence extinguished abruptly like a flame.

“Are you alright, can I help? Do you need –”

“Stop,” the barmaid commanded, sticking her hands out in front of her, defensively, “I need nothing from you. I just … that place”

At that, Richard noticed that the quiet chatter had died down once more, and the silence hung itself oppressively around his neck.

“We don’t speak of that town here, lad,” a man called out, obscured by shadow, “not anymore. Not for centuries”

“Why ever not?”

“Brings bad things if you mention it. That word hasn’t been spoken on this here soil for decades and we’ve been just fine”

“See, I was hoping that I’d find someone to take me there, I have no transport”

“There’s no one here that’ll take you. You best go back where you came from, forget you ever came here, forget about that … place. No sane man would take you there” the barmaid insisted.

“How much are you paying?” the man from the shadows interrupted, slamming his glass down on the bar top.

“As much as it’ll take”

“It’s gonna cost you,” the man warned, but Richard shook his head.

“I’ll pay anything”

“It’ll cost you everything”

– X –

The man, William Denbrough, was a drunk. Richard learnt that almost immediately. As William stood up, with every intention of leading Richard and his luggage to his cart, but this plan had been interrupted by his inebriated brains inability to keep himself upright. Richard watched as William staggered, and then fell to his knees as if in prayer, all the while laughing rather manically to himself.

“Er … Do you need help?”

“Naw, leave him be. He’s fine, just a bit giddy. Give him a few minutes and he’ll be right as rain,” The barmaid laughed, scrubbing the inside of a glass with a cloth.

“Is he here a lot?”

She nodded. “Every day like clockwork. He always says to me, ‘Bev, keep me out’, but his habit pays half of my wage, so, I let him in every time”

By that point, William had managed to haul himself to his feet, and was walking towards the door on unsteady feet. Richard said goodbye to the barmaid, and followed William out of the door. With rough, calloused hands, William threw Richard’s luggage unceremoniously onto the back of his cart, before clambering onto it and, barely giving Richard a chance to hop on himself, urged his horse onwards.

The journey took a little over two hours, and, try as he might, Richard could coax very little information out of his chauffer.

“How many times have you been to Krov?”

“I haven’t”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know”

“Do you know if anyone lives there?”

“I don’t know”

“Do you know when the town disappeared off the map?”

“I don’t know”

“Do you know why the town disappeared off the map?”

“I don’t know”

William’s mantra, ‘I don’t know’, echoed in Richard’s mind for the rest of the journey, which they spent in uncomfortable silence. Thirty minutes before they stopped, William’s horse became unsettled, whickering and whinnying loudly. Fifteen minutes before they stopped, the horse began to sweat, despite the aggressive chill that seeped into Richard’s marrow. Five minutes before they stopped, the horse bucked wildly, eyes wide and white.

“He won’t go on, you’ll have to walk from here. I’ll be back for you in five hours, leave your luggage with me” William muttered, climbing off his cart and running a soothing hand down the horses sodden neck.

“I see. Is it far from here?” Richard asked, climbing down.

“No, a ten minute walk or so”

“How will I know if I’m in the right place?”

“You’ll know,” William said, and, with a grimace, continued.

“You’ll smell it”

With that, and without any further explanation, William Denbrough and his petrified horse disappeared back down the track, leaving Richard standing dumbly on the side of the dusty path.

– X –

Cursing William Denbrough and his alcohol-hazed brain, Richard had trudged down the path for nearly thirty minutes before he reached any indication that he was going in the right direction. As he pushed his way through a thicket of thorny bushes that obscured the path, a huge wooden sign loomed ominously overhead.

KROV.

Richard stared at the sign, unblinking, unbreathing. Krov. Seeing the word, written down in letters as large as his arm span, set Richard’s blood on fire. As plain as day and night, as real as the sun and stars, there it was, written in chipped paint on rotting wood. Krov.

Richard scurried past the sign, finally breaching the border of the town. As soon as he set foot past the boundary, however, Richard was hit by an overwhelming stink. The stench of decay hung heavy in the air. It was a cloying smell, a syrupy stench that stoppered his nostrils with the scent of death, of decaying plant matter, of wood left in the rain, mixed with something Richard couldn’t place. The sort of smell that attacked you, violently, unrelentingly, but the sort of smell you’d let assault you. The sort of smell you’d let devour you, consume you, subsume you. It was a smell that, deep in the hollow of his gut, Richard craved. Covering his nose and mouth with his hand, he pushed on.

The town, as Richard has expected, was entirely deserted. The buildings were nothing more than dilapidated old huts dotted slapdash along the main street, with the houses stood in hodgepodge rows like crumbling gravestones in a long-forgotten churchyard. Dead plants wound themselves around the houses, out through the windows, sprouting through cracks in the walls like hairs. As he picked his way down the street, stepping over centuries old detritus, Richard listened to the click-clacking of his shoes, echoing painfully loudly in the otherwise deafening silence that snaked its way through the town. There were no birds singing their evening songs, no insects chirping happily in the undergrowth, no leaves rustling in the autumn breeze. The sky was empty. The plants were dead. The air was still.

Fishing in his pocket for his notebook, Richard began to sketch the lines of the town, using little boxes to indicate where each building was. It had always been his intention to map this town, to discover it, to immortalise it, godlike. However, the further Richard ventured into the town, and the more streets he wandered down, pencil scribbling furiously, the worse his headache became. What had started as a dull echo in his head had swiftly become a cruel bellowing, a great roaring between his ears that caused his eyes to ache and his stomach to churn. The wind had picked up, nipping furiously at his heels, and the thin overcoat he was wearing provided but little respite. Rubbing his hands together in hopes of generating some friction, Richard began to walk purposefully towards the nearest house, hoping to find shelter from the wind. However, a rogue and rotting tree root ensnared his foot in its grasp, throwing the entirety of his bodyweight against the house. The door gave way, splintering into thousands of tiny shards, and Richard fell to the ground with a loud thump.

“Son of a bitch!”

Richard’s head collided with the tough ground with a dull thwack, and he lay there for several seconds, groaning pitifully to himself. He lay on his back, watching as the dust danced daintily in the air, illuminated in technicolour by the thin strings of light that filtered in from the windows. Richard rolled onto his side, before hauling his protesting bones upwards. Standing on unsteady feet, he surveyed the small lodgings, that seemed to be just big enough for one. The house was cold, colder than it had been outside, and the sickly-sweet smell of decay was much stronger. Rolling his aching shoulders, Richard advanced towards the only identifiable thing in the room – a small wooden pallet bed – before recoiling in horror. On the bed, lying perfectly serene with its head on a straw pillow and its arms crossed over its chest, was a person. Or, more accurately, the remains of what had once been a person. Taking careful steps so as to not to disturb the eternally slumbering corpse, he approached the pallet bed. The bones didn’t move. Upon closer inspection, the rib cage had been caved in, and in the now cavernous and empty space, in the space where previously the heart had thrummed with the energy of life, was a small, brown leather book.

14th May 1539

Three more young men vanished from their beds the night before last. As before, all that remains is a bloody handprint. Mary came to visit, she tells me she is fleeing for Brașov in the morning light. I do not begrudge her this, but oh how I yearn to be taken from this place. I fear I shall die in my bed like a dog.

16th May 1539

They will leave me. I hear them, each day, children screaming, men shouting, women weeping. They will leave me here, to rot with the town. The chanting grows quieter each night. It does not work. For now, silence.

20th May 1539

I heard someone scream three nights ago. I have not heard anything since, not a whisper, not a groan, not a laugh, not a sob.

28th May 1539

I grow wearier and wearier each day. I am tormented by nightmares, of wheezing breaths, of hot saliva on feverish skin, of coal black eyes. It has come for me.

3rd June 1539

It comes each night. Each night, it stands by my bed, and it watches. Never speaks, only breathes. I, the coward, cannot look. I do not look at it, and yet it looks at me. I feel it. Perhaps tomorrow I shall look. Perhaps tomorrow I shall talk to it. Tomorrow, I will open my eyes, and see what looks back.

The leather book fell from Richard’s hands with a clattering thud. On the last page, written in an almost illegible scrawl,

seek Him.

– X –

Richard couldn’t breathe. The combination of the biting cold, the skeleton lying peacefully on the pallet bed with a splintered rib-cage, and the bizarre diary had spliced together, reaching for Richard’s throat with large, meaty arms. He had a job to do. That much, he could do. Chart the town, immortalise it on paper, and then never return. It was enough to know that it was real, to breathe the air, but he didn’t want to be here, in this strange, silent, rotting world, any longer than was absolutely necessary. Richard left the house, relief hot and heavy on his tongue like treacle, but was stopped in his tracks by a monster looming over the town with bright, yellow eyes.

How he hadn’t noticed the large manor house, with its illuminated windows and soaring turrets, when he’d first begun his exploration was a mystery. The mansion, large enough to perhaps be described as a castle, stood erect and proud atop a large cliff that overlooked the rest of Krov. Something about the house, something about the way it stood against the grey sky, unnaturally, as if, at any moment, it would blink out of existence, tugged at Richard’s gut with slithering, persuading, hands.

Come. Come. Come.

As if on autopilot, with hurried footsteps, Richard began his ascent.

– X –

When Richard was nearly nine years old, his father had taken him on a brisk trek up one of the mountains near their house. His father had told him it wasn’t a mountain, that it had been, in fact, just a medium-sized hill, but Richard had bitterly complained otherwise. To him, and his bean-pole legs, that medium-sized hill was a Promethean effort, a mortal trying to scale the side of mount Olympus. This was nothing like that. This cliffside, at least four times as big as that medium-sized hill, was infinitely, suspiciously, easier. Richard expected his legs to give out at any point, expected his lungs to burn with the flames of exhaustion, but it never came. In fact, the headache that had been pummelling the inside of his skull continually since he began to breathe in the Krov air seemed to dissolve more and more with each step.

Soon enough, much sooner than he could have anticipated, Richard summited the cliff. His headache had entirely gone, and no memory of the debilitating pain remained. Staring at the mansion, the monstrosity that looked over the town with spiteful eyes and perfect stonework, Richard gulped. The windows, illuminated by a dim yellow light, stared back at him. Daring him, willing him, inviting him in with open arms and a hungry belly.

Richard graciously accepted.

– X –

The door opened easily. Stepping into the enormous entrance hall, Richard held his breath, as if the straining in his lungs would mask the clacking of his shoes on the worn marble floor. The air was musty, as if the house had been breathing the same air for centuries, but it was warm, a welcome change from the frigid air of the rest of the town, and it caressed the tundra of Richard’s skin. As he progressed further into the bowels of the mansion, the door swung shut suddenly behind him, lock clicking into place with a loud clack. Richard stepped forwards with measured footsteps, advancing through the entrance hall quickly, searching for something he couldn’t quite name.

The mansion, he quickly discovered, was a rabbit’s warren of twisting corridors, hallways that lurched this way and that, doors that opened up onto brick walls, stairways that disappeared into thick, deep black voids. In every room, propped up in the corner like an afterthought, was a small brass candelabra. A candelabra that had four lit candles sat in pride of place, flame flickering despite the unmoving air.

He was not alone. That much was certain. It was a certainty that he’d been sure of since the moment he began his ascent, and perhaps, in the deep recesses of his brain, since the moment he set foot onto Krov soil. Even if it weren’t for the flickering yellow in the windows, Richard knew that the mansion, the breathing body amongst the cadaver of the town, held the key to something. The same something that made the stench of the town so appealing, the same something that compelled him to pocket the diary he’d found, and the same something that drew him here, up that cliffside, a magnet, helpless.

A scream, blood-curdling and raw, ripped its way through the silence, and then, abruptly, as if nothing had happened, it stopped. Despite every fibre of his being willing him not to investigate, screaming at him to run, to run far, far away and forget about Krov, he didn’t listen. On shaking, reckless legs, Richard walked towards the room where the scream had come from, opened the door, and came face to face with none other than William Denbrough.

William Denbrough’s corpse was sprawled face up on the floor of the room. His face had been twisted into a mask of not quite terror and not quite peace, and the bones in his neck stuck out awkwardly, like someone had wrung him like a damp cloth. Blood was oozing in thick streams from two angry, rapidly bruising puncture wounds on his neck.

“He felt no pain”

Richard, who had been crouched on his knees in despair, slowly rose to his feet.

“He felt no pain. I snapped his neck as easily as a child snaps a twig, he felt nothing”

The voice, metallic and shimmery but human, almost human, spoke with quiet grace from the doorway.

“Wh-who are you?” Richard stuttered, voice gravelly and hoarse, a stark contrast to the velvety smoothness of the stranger.

“You know who I am”

seek Him seek Him seek Him seek Him seek Him seek Him

“You’re … You’re – you killed –”

The stranger stepped forwards, and placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder. Even through the layers of his overcoat and shirt, he could feel an icy coldness seeping through the fabric, leaking into his bones.

“Richard,” the stranger implored, “turn around”

Richard did not turn.

“Turn”

“No. How do you know my name?”

“TURN!”

Richard turned, spinning on his heels like a top, and was confronted with the face of the most beautiful man he had ever seen. The strangers face, though pallid and pointed, looked as if it had been chiselled from the finest of marble with the careful hands of Pygmalion himself. The man was slightly shorter than Richard, but he stood erect, with his chin jutted forwards, a challenge. He wore a long, sweeping coat made of the thickest looking wool, with a black cravat tied in an elaborate knot around his neck. His hand, that still sat on Richard’s shoulder with a firm grip, was slender with a single, gold ring on the index finger.

“Richard,” the stranger began once again, but Richard cut him off impatiently.

“You know my name. You knew I was coming,” he stated dumbly, and the stranger nodded.

“I do, and I did”

“For how long?”

“For longer than you care to imagine”

“I’m rather imaginative, I’m sure I could –”

“For four centuries, I’ve known of this day,” the stranger said, voice ocean calm, “for four centuries, I’ve felt you, anticipated you, I’ve …” the stranger paused, staring into Richard’s eyes steadily, “I’ve smelt you”

Richard snorted. An ugly sort of laugh that escaped his nose without permission.

“Four centuries? Are you insane?”

“Quite the contrary”

“You snapped old Bill’s neck like it was nothing, like you do this sort of thing …” Richard’s voice died in his throat. “what are you?”

“My kind have had many names”

When Richard said nothing, the stranger continued.

“Perhaps you’ll know of us as strigoi, lurid beasts who bite and claw and scratch and gnash their awful teeth, or perhaps your father told you stories about the moroi who visit naughty little children under the cover of darkness and drain their bodies of life, or perhaps,” the stranger stopped, a strange, ugly smirk blooming on his mouth, “perhaps, you’ll know of my kind by a different name”

Richard, growing impatient, wrenched his shoulder away from the strangers hand. “Tell me”

“Vampire”

The last time he’d run for his life, Richard had been seven years old with a pocket full of stolen candy. This time, he wasn’t being chased by the old woman who ran the corner shop. This time, he wasn’t being chased at all. He had taken off at a screeching run when the stranger had muttered that word, that word that set his teeth on edge. Although he had expected the stranger, the vampire, to reach out and grab him, or to charge after him, he could only hear one set of pounding footsteps on the dusty carpet – his own.

Soon, when he’d reached what he thought was the door he’d entered the mansion through, a familiar voice floated into the room, carried on the stale air.

“Do you know how many years I’ve waited? Do you know what it’s like to crave something that doesn’t exist, that will not exist for centuries? Do you know how it feels to smell something so intoxicating, so delicious, so inviting, and have to wait?”

“Fuck off!” Richard shot back, voice shaking wildly, but he was met with the sound of whooping laughter.

“You’ll be back. You’ll come back to me, eventually. You’ll come straight back, and I’ll let you, just this once, Richard, I’ll let you”

– X –

It took three hours of pacing the grounds of the mansion for Richard to decide to venture back inside. For those three hours, Richard stalked the gardens like a stray cat marking its territory, hackles raised and teeth bared. Something in his gut, deep deep down, was pulling him straight back to the mansion, and straight back to the stranger. It wanted him. Richard had experienced his fair share of lust, longing looks at the blacksmith’s apprentice with the strong arms, letting his eyes linger for too long on the chest of the young woman who taught the children on a Wednesday morning. This was different. This wasn’t lust. This was hunger. This was an insatiable, unquenchable hunger that only abated when he was staring into those watery grey eyes, or when he thought about pressing his body, heaving and needy, against the body of the stranger.

Before he could push the door open, he looked up, up to the top window of the tallest turret, and there he was. Standing in the window, looking down at Richard with apathetic eyes but a wide, manic grin, was the vampire. When Richard pushed his way into the mansion, however, the vampire was standing on the balcony that overlooked the entrance hall.

“It took you less time than I had expected”

“What can I say, I’m decisive when I need to be,” Richard tried to joke, but the words fell to the ground, flat, with a squelch.

“You know, when I smelt you in the mansion for the first time, I thought I was hallucinating”

“Pardon?”

“I had waited for this day for so long, I have been so patient, that I did not trust my own nose when you finally arrived”

Unsure of what to say, Richard decided not to say anything at all. This seemed to be the correct answer, as the vampire began to descend the stairs slowly, almost performatively.

“I’ve been so patient,” the stranger repeated, “but you’re here now, and my century-long wait has, I suppose, come to an end”

“Your …” Richard muttered, pausing before he continued, reticent to hear the answer. “Your wait? Wait for what?”

“For you, of course”

“Me?”

“You” the vampire nodded.

By this point, the vampire had reached the bottom of the staircase. Richard steeled himself, but the vampire floated straight past him, but not before sending a, “call me Edward” in his direction.

– X –

Edward was, by all accounts, a terrible host. He left Richard standing dumbly in the entrance hall, unsure whether to follow Edward or whether to take off screaming. Eventually, predictably, he followed the vampire down the twisting, turning labyrinth of hallways and into a surprisingly cosy room. There were lit torches hung in metal brackets on the wall, the smell of burning wood hanging comfortingly in the air. In the center of the room was a plush looking velvet couch, upon which Edward was reclined, an Adonis in repose, arm slung lazily behind his head.

“Come sit”

Richard hovered in the doorway, causing Edward to roll his eyes.

“Sit with me, I don’t bite,” he said, before chuckling to himself, “although, I would, you know. If you asked me to”

“What, like you bit William Denbrough and snapped the bones in his neck like sticks?”

Edward hissed out a laugh, stretching his arms behind his head luxuriously like a cat until his back cracked loudly.

“That was entirely different. I had no intention of, uh …”

“Of what?”

“Of turning him”

“Turning him?” Richard parroted, feeling faint once more. Edward, noticing this, rose to his feet.

“I really do insist that you sit. I’ll stand by the window, you do not even have to look at me, should you choose not to”

The couch did look inviting, all soft velvet and squashy cushions, so Richard picked his way over, sitting down on the cushions cautiously, like they might jump up and savage him if he moved too quickly.

“Is there anything you would like to know?” Edward asked, voice flippant and breezy, causing Richard to splutter indignantly.

“Anything I’d like to know?!” Richard repeated, “anything I’d like to know about what? Who or what the hell it is you say you are? What I’m doing here? Why it feels like I’m going to vomit out all of my internal organs when I so much as think about leaving this place?”

“Those are all valid questions,” Edward replied lightly.

“Let’s start with the last one, because that’s the only thing keeping me from running away as fast as I can and sending the police in to arrest you for murder”

Something shot across Edward’s face, something that Richard swore looked almost like hurt, but it was gone as soon as it had appeared.

“Your body is, um, well. Your body is bound to mine, and always has been. For centuries, we’ve been … linked, I suppose is the best way to describe it. Linked through a metaphysical bond that I cannot even begin to explain so do not ask me to”

“But –”

“I said do not,” Edward warned. “It is far too complicated. Your body is … it knows that mine has … changed”

“Changed?”

“Changed,” Edward confirmed with one short nod. “I suppose we were supposed to be the unlucky ones, the ones destined to be born centuries apart from their partner, but … that changed. I changed”

“Oh, the whole … vampire thing”

Edward flinched. “Yes. Do please be more flippant about it, you know how that thrills me”

“I don’t know anything about you,” Richard replied petulantly, but he sank back into the couch, relishing in the feeling of being surrounded by the soft cushions.

“You will. Know anything about me, I mean. You could know everything about me, but only if you want it. Only if you want … I shan’t keep you here against your will”

“I can’t leave, I tried to, before, but I couldn’t …”

“Eventually, when we have been sharing the same space long enough, the link will allow you to leave without feeling too sick. You’ll know it, though, for the rest of your days, you will never feel pure comfort again, but you will be able to live a normal life away from here. Away from me”

“and what if, hypothetically, I don’t … I don’t leave. What happens then?”

“Ah, that’s something we’ll talk about when you’re ready, when you’ve decided. For now, we drink”

In a flash, Edward had produced two crystal glasses, and a bottle of syrupy looking red liquid. Richard, who had never been much of a fan of alcohol, took the glass from Edward gingerly.

“Is this …”

“It’s wine, Richard. Wine.”

“I knew that, I was just … checking” Richard admitted guiltily, taking a small sip of the burgundy wine. It was sweet, and tasted like blackcurrant with a woody undertone, and Richard gulped it down happily.

“How long have you lived here?” he asked.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was so long that I have forgotten the exact length of time?”

“I suppose so”

“Well good. I do not remember when I arrived, but I remember when everybody else left”

Richard sucked in a breath, remembering the diary sitting hot and heavy in his coat pocket. “You mean the people of Krov?”

“I do. Even I, an undead creature of the night, get lonely. It is a very human emotion, loneliness”

“You’re not human”

“I was,” Edward spat back, venom dripping from the words. “I was, and I remember it so fondly, so vividly. I remember the crushing isolation, the months and months I spent without talking to another living soul that wasn’t my mother. I remember the hours I spent wishing I had a confidant, someone to share my wishes, hopes, sorrows, dreams with. And you, Richard Tozier, are that. You supposed to be that. My ally, my partner, and wish all you want that it was not be true, it will change nothing”

“So I’m your, what, your soulmate?”

Edward scoffed. “I do not believe in souls, but yes, I suppose the theory is the same”

“Only I could end up with a fucking vampire for a soulmate”

Edward hissed again, teeth bared sharp in his mouth. “I may have a heart that no longer beats in my chest but I am not immune to your barbed words, Tozier”

With that, Edward stood from where he was perched on the window sill and stalked out of the room, air buzzing in his wake.

#reddie #eddie kasbprak #richie tozier #vampire au #vampires #it fandom #it fic #it fanfiction #thefuturisbright #i have crossed oceans of time to find you

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flatsuke · 5 years ago

Text

The Tragedy of Eisuke, or another Eisuke Meta

So I’m back on my bullshit, and I’m going to go on yet another tangent on Eisuke, so please bear with me if I ramble on at times lmao. For the purposes of this meta, I’m going to use screenshots from both main stories, POVs, and substories. Even if the substories happened in AUs, his characterization and personality are still canon.

Disclaimer: This is all my opinion and in no way am I claiming this is the absolute truth lmao. This is just how I interpret Eisuke and the events in the game. Also, this is going to be a very long post peppered with memes (ty Screenshots of Despair) and game screencaps, so good luck reading through this really long post.

I’ve replayed some of Eisuke’s stories again, and wow, sometimes I feel like I discover facets of him that weren’t obvious to me before. I think I’ve said this many times before, but man....Eisuke’s such a complex character that it’s so fun to dissect him.

The first thing I want to bring up are the recurring themes present in his characterization: power and utilitarianism. In almost all of his stories, power is explored in different ways — from the most superficial point of view, we see Eisuke exhibit his economic ad social power as a internationally renowned hotel mogul. There’s the power he has as the boss of his company and the leader of the bidders.

That aside, Eisuke values utilitarianism to a nigh obsessive extent. Every decision he makes is based on how it’d benefit himself and his interests, and his standard for measuring a person is based on how useful they are. Basically, he quantifies everything and everyone.

The interesting thing I wanted to point out was the he didn’t start off that way, rather, he grew into that. There was once a time when he was idealistic and still had faith in people. But that time is long gone.

(RIP that smile)

I think it’s tragic to see what Eisuke could have been. We see how he was as a kid in the Examination of the Heart Story. In this AU, he never experienced his mother’s death and family’s downfall. He was a kind, caring, and thoughtful child. He went out of his way to visit MC almost every day to take care of her. He even goes to medical school all for the sake of curing MC’s heart disease! I’m inclined to think that if the Kuga family was never separated, he would have grown up to become softer and kinder.

Sadly, the canon timeline has a much more unfortunate turn. Eisuke ended up adopted into the Ichinomiya household at seven years old after his family separated. The seed of self-doubt and insecurity was planted, and it only grew downhill from there.

He grew up in an environment where all his actions were judged because he wasn’t a real Ichinomiya. He was constantly scrutinized and judged, so he couldn’t afford to trust anyone. The fact that he was never an Ichinomiya became a lifelong insecurity for him. According to Akira, Eisuke was a lonely child.

That lonely child grew up into a cynical and apathetic teenager. Teenage!Eisuke believed that since his path was set for him, he didn’t have to try hard to do anything. So he slacked off in school, only bothering to do the bare minimum of everything. He never thought about the consequences of his actions, either; he picked fights with pretty much everyone who pissed him off and he spoke his mind, not caring about what would happen to him or to anyone around him. He was never held accountable for anything, so why did he have to bother? Let everyone shit on him like they always did since nothing could bad could happen to him.

This all changed when Frank, the headmaster’s son, framed Eisuke for starting a fire in one of the buildings at their boarding school. Here, Eisuke starts to realize that his complacency towards everything is biting him in the ass. The seed of insecurity in him morphed into a seed that hated himself for being weak and powerless This is where Eisuke’s fixation on power comes from.

It only becomes worse when Luke takes the fall in Eisuke’s place. Here, Eisuke truly understands that his lack of power doesn’t only affect himself, but also the others around him. What’s sad is that Luke willingly took the heat for Eisuke out of affection; he expected nothing in return from Eisuke because Luke viewed it as an act of friendship. However, Eisuke doesn’t think like that — he sees it as transactional. Eisuke becomes downright obsessed with paying Luke back for everything. In fact, it becomes a core facet of his personality.

He views debt as a sign of weakness. He even sees his relationship with Akira as transactional; Akira took him in raised him, so he felt like he had to pay Akira back. Eisuke felt like everything he owned had to be earned. He studied business and economics because that would benefit the company the most. Hell, his entire motivation for making the Ichinomiya Group the huge conglomerate it is today was because he wanted to prove to everyone that he deserved his place because he worked for it.

On that subject, Eisuke always feels like he has to prove himself. He does everything he can to make himself useful so people can’t tear him down for being a liability. This is why he views everything with a utilitarian lens; if he isn’t useful, then he’s worthless. I was reading his Bidding on Eisuke Story and these lines really got the point across:

In this AU, MC is the owner of the Tres Spades and Eisuke a nameless nobody. She rescues Eisuke from the black market auctions by bidding on him. MC tells him he’s free to go. But the first thing he does after that? He offers himself as payment. The story doesn’t go into detail about his past, but it’s implied he was used mainly for sex. He didn’t have anything to offer her aside from his body, and he didn’t want to be seen as useless. So the most logical course of action in his head was to offer sex to her. In the process, he effectively dehumanized himself just to pay back what he perceived as a debt.

It’s easy to see him as arrogant, and ostensibly, he is. But I really think he has a crippling sense of self-worth because he bases it on how powerful and useful he thinks he should be. In essence, he has an inferiority superiority complex; he acts haughty and prideful, but that’s only because he’s afraid of being replaced, rejected, and abandoned.

(Nothing screams Eisuke more than Oh No! by Marina and the Diamonds lmao.)

I’m not sure if he actually even loves himself, to be honest. Sure, he’s confident on the outside, and he believes his merit and abilities got him to where he is today ...but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s happy with himself. His self-esteem is so fragile because he always quantifies everything he does. If he isn’t perfect, then he’s not worth it. This is why he always pushes himself to the extreme (and I daresay this is why he overcompensates with MC when it comes to sex, giving gifts, etc.).

Luke even says so himself:

The sad part is he probably isn’t even aware of it. He’s probably one of the lesser self-aware bidders, if not the least. He knows that his lot in life wasn’t the best, but he doesn’t realize how this affected his emotional state. He is by far, the least emotionally mature among the bidders because he literally cannot process his feelings properly. His Main Story POV gives us a really good example:

On a base level, he’s aware of what jealousy is and what it entails, but he’s so repulsed by the idea that he can feel jealousy that he vehemently denies it. After all, why should he be jealous of the others if MC likes him the best? At least.....that’s what he tries to tell himself anyway. Again, he doesn’t realize how insecure he really is.

If he isn’t repressing or denying his feelings, then he’s turning to sex as a coping mechanism. If I has to list every scene where Eisuke has sex with MC to fend off his anxiety, this post would be too long lmao. In Eisuke’s mind, dealing with feelings scares him so much that he’d rather bury them or distract himself. Still, that doesn’t mean his feelings go away, no matter much he wants them to.

(It’s a cold day in hell if Eisuke isn’t actively repressing his emotions.)

With all this considered, Eisuke definitely knows he isn’t easy to love. Hell, I think he expected to get through life without anyone ever loving him. Meeting MC was a literal miracle because she is the One Person who could love him unconditionally. Loving him takes a lot of understanding and empathy, and he knows he’s really fucking lucky he has MC in his life. I’m honestly not surprised at how possessive and protective he is over her. Deep down, I think he’s insecure that MC might leave him one day, so he tries his best to keep her satisfied (especially physically) so she doesn’t have any reason to go (again, this is a manifestation of his utilitarianism).

Even though he still sometimes feels like he has to prove his power and usefulness to her, he’s slowly (and I say very, very slowly) getting comfortable with the idea that maybe, he can let his guard down around her. Intuitively, he knows she won’t think he’s weak for being open.....but that seed of self-doubt in him hasn’t completely gone away yet.

I think it’ll be a long time till we can see him completely open up to her, but part of what makes his story so interesting is the slow process he goes through to reach emotional maturity. He’s not quite there yet, but he’s trying, and I think that deserves some credit.

In conclusion,

He needs a goddamn hug

#meta #spade writes #eisuke ichinomiya #kissed by the baddest bidder #kbtbb #voltage inc #long post #if you've reached the end of this post congratulations lmao #this was a long ass meta rip sorry #hopefully the read more works #if not then.....welp #please don't clown in the notes im begging you #otp: thank you for being born

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longneckreach · 5 years ago

Text

Breakout

[Archive folder]

Longneck Reach struck under cover of night.

Aspis slithered flat against the ground, the hard stone beneath him still hot enough from the day to burn his stomach; but with no natural cover for miles, they had to be very careful.

He was grateful for the moonless night but more grateful, exponentially more grateful, for the dragons on either side of him. The Reach was reeling, still, in the wake of the Marrow Massacre raid; and there were only so many dragons they could justify sending on a mission like this, so different from anything they normally committed to.

Adecia defended her borders--the Council, Aspis reminded himself. It was strange thinking of a dragon like Adecia as not being mistress after the gods to her clan, even stranger to think of a clan leader who held no power except as a tiebreaker and willingly bowed to the will of a Council that was more Beastclan than dragon.

So, the Council, and the clan itself, they defended their borders and would send aid to allies and potential allies. But that was very different from a black-ops strike in the middle of the Wasteland.

Ostensibly, they were only here for Alumette, and the Serthis who was commanding the force had been sending messages up and down the arrowhead formation while they flew here. This was a rescue mission only, she’d said, firm. They were not here to destroy a clan of slavers...this time. Nor were they under any circumstances to cause so much damage that the clan was likely to fortify, nor were they to give any impression that they would be coming back.

Because they would, she’d said, razor-sharp blades somehow glinting in the black night, be coming back.

The handful of dragons that had been able to accompany the strike force were mostly smaller breeds. Ennis had shrugged off any attempts to get her to stay behind in favor of insisting Kenner, blue-and-white Wildclaw who’d healed Aspis’ injuries, was useless in a fight and better than her in an emergency. Chavi had shown up without being sent for with her mate, a Wildclaw who looked like the kind of cocky mercenary Aspis used to kill in the arena except for the way all the Resistance liaisons seemed to revere him. Aspis had secretly hoped that Adecia’s mate Radec would join them, or else Captain Turania; but Turania was needed to organize the forces remaining, and Radec’s injuries in the battle for the Reach had been too severe.

They’d picked up another Wildclaw in the form of an auburn dragon named Lexine, who’d introduced herself with a smirk as an “archaeologist” to general good-natured eye-rolling. The plan was to send her in as a scout to try to smuggle Alumette out without being seen, and she’d come prepared with a literal bag of thieves’ tricks, so Aspis had a pretty good idea of what kind of ‘excavating’ she usually did.

(“I’ve never stolen anything in my life,” she’d assured him when she saw his skeptical look. “Every artifact I’ve ever touched has ended up in the hands of its rightful owners, no exceptions.”

That gave him an even better idea of what her ‘excavations’ were about, but it also increased his respect for her considerably.)

Other than that, however, they were short on hard hitters. His new friend Katosomata, who gently told him to call her ‘Kat’, had flown him here; but she wasn’t a fighter at all. That role was being filled by a big red Imperial named Claret who’d carried most of their Beastclan allies—two centaurs, seven longnecks, four serthii. Kat was only here as a navigator. Aspis, after all, had only been to their destination once, and he couldn’t fly. Navigating from the air would be an exercise in futility, and they didn’t have time to waste.

She said she could “remember” the Pit, from the pain it caused. Aspis had first thought that maybe she’d been held captive there too; he couldn’t imagine that she had ever been part of the clan. She’d looked at him for a long time, smiled, and shaken her head. “Neither,” she’d murmured softly, and hadn’t offered him any more information.

He respected her too much to press. Alumette would have had a million questions, if she were here—well, she would have a million questions. If this worked, she’d be here very soon.

Nearly soundless even against the hard-baked earth of the Wasteland, the Serthis leader slithered up beside him.

“Shirala,” Kat greeted her.

“Hush, my friend, unless you need to speak. The scouts are closer than you know. We’re ready to move,” she murmured, face pressed close beside Aspis’ ears. He nodded, trusting her to feel it. “You’ll follow Lexine. Do as she says. Identify your sister. If she sends you back, come back.”

“Yes ma’am.” Even though he was nearly frantic with the knowledge that his sister was nearby, Aspis would never do anything to risk the mission.

“We expect an alarm to be raised,” Shirala continued. “Chavi will be with you; Perry will be close.” They’d sent Perry in on the ground earlier that morning; he had the blessing of being a generic-looking low-tier merc with a weirdly good reputation considering all of his Beastclan Resistance prisoners conveniently ended up escaping at some point. Exactly the kind of dragon who might sign on with a group of slavers for a quick, easy bit of treasure. “If you can run, run east. If you can’t run, do your best to make noise and light. Stay alive. Do not allow them to separate you. We will come. Trust us.”

“I do.”

Like magic, between one breath and the next, Chavi’s beautiful marbled-copper fur pressed into Aspis’ right side. Shirala clasped Aspis’ shoulder before dropping to the scorched earth and hauling herself flat away, and was replaced by Lexine.

“Tell me what I’m looking at.”

Aspis did his best to point without moving. They were crouched in the shadow of a low plateau, maybe half a mile from the edge of the Pit itself; it was the only cover to be found.

“That’s the Pit,” he said in a low voice. “The web of metal. The camp is behind it. It’s centered around Adder’s command tent. Um, the command tent is big and red. They weren’t keeping Al in the Pit last time, but they might have moved her.”

“Will she come with me if I ask?”

Aspis thought about it. “I’m not sure. She might think you’re one of Adder’s trying to trick her. Tell her...tell her that her brother says he wants her to get out of there like clockwork. They shouldn’t know that reference.”

“Clever,” Lexine whispered. “Ready?” Aspis gave a single, steely nod.

That was when the Pit exploded.

It started slowly.

A little too slowly for Alumette’s sense of comfort, actually, but it was within the expected parameters.

It started with a glow, racing through the wire she’d planted all around the Pit’s edge, and from there shooting through the ugly mismatched web of chain and razor wire that kept dragons from flying out.

It glowed, bright angry red then orange then yellow in the dark, then white, and then the network was no longer able to handle the strength of the electric current she’d created.

Alumette knew what that meant. It was the central thesis of her Plan, after all!

She remembered what it meant in time to duck.

Flames burst into existence like dropping a torch in lamp oil, not racing from one end of the wire to the next but all at once; violent green flames, fading to a furious red as the copper burned out and the heat began eating through the other parts of the net, the cords and the grime and the shards of glass. The wires unravelled, weak points snapped. Sharp nails and glass were flung in every direction; Alumette heard a strangled scream but couldn’t afford to care, because within seconds, the net over the Pit had collapsed.

Before the guards had a chance to recover, she’d already slithered over the side and was racing on all fours through the burning wreckage of the overloaded wires.

Without the net, there was nothing to keep the bridge up. And with the bridge down, that meant that if she could just get the keys…

And without the net, there was nothing keeping her from racing across the Pit, while the stunned and confused guards would have to run around the perimeter in order to get anywhere first.

The guards liked to taunt their prisoners while they ate. Some of them, not all but some, would have been standing on the metal bars over the prisoners’ cells when that lightning bolt ran through the circuit. Al raced toward a gap in the guards’ line. Part of her thought she should try not to look too closely at his body; but she did, anyway. He sure did look dead.

Maybe that should bother her. But maybe, given who he was, what they did here, it was fine that it didn’t.

She grabbed his key pouch in her teeth and tugged, hard, before diving back down into the Pit.

There was only one guards’ entrance to the Arena, and none of the guards on duty down there carried keys in case the prisoners overwhelmed them. So Alumette flung the key pouch through the arena-level bars of the closest cell, grabbed a spear from the rack and dove through the guard door. A guard, a Snapper, was on his way through it from the other side. She dodged snakelike around him; he shouted after her, like she was going to stop.

By the time she skidded to a stop in front of the cell she’d identified, the injured Skydancer on the other side was just coming through the outer door.

“Who the hell—” he began.

Alumette snatched the key back and shoved a spear at him. “Later! Fucking later!”

She kept running, and left the Skydancer to deal with the guard.

She really couldn’t have carried more than one weapon at a time, so when she fumbled all the other cell doors open she didn’t have anything to give them. They were dragons, though, or Beastclans who were used to hardship, and even if they normally hated each other they weren’t stupid enough to fight amongst themselves right now.

Hopefully. Probably. She did not have an appropriate alteration to the Plan if she were wrong about that part.

“Don’t leave without me!” she called to a venom-green fighter as she bounded from her cell.

“No promises,” the Mirror rasped back. “Every dragon for himself out here.”

“That’s dumb,” muttered Al, and ran off in the other direction.

Despite having just said every dragon for himself, the Mirror shouted after her, “Hey! No! Kid, don’t go in there!”

Aspis didn’t know what was going on anymore.

His first instinct had been to run toward the flames too, but that was just his first instinct. Whatever was going on, it had to be the perfect distraction. Who would notice them going after Alumette now, with a breakout in the Pit? Wasn’t this perfect for them? Lexine had said the same thing, gesturing them in toward the camp while chaos broke out.

But he wasn’t one of the Reach, and Chavi was; when she’d countermanded their “archaeologist” simply by virtue of saying that no, the fire was where they needed to be, Lexine had listened to her. And Aspis...gods forgive him, but Aspis trusted these people.

That being said, he really hoped reinforcements got here soon, because the two dozen escaped arena fighters plus the three from the Reach weren’t going to be able to hold out against the entire captor clan for much longer.

And ‘two dozen’ was a stretch. By now, it was probably closer to sixteen that had actually stayed, and a few of those were dead already. A lot of them had broken clear the moment they could spread their wings.

He knew the Reach force was right on their heels, he’d heard Ennis and Shirala marshalling them as his trio bolted for the fire; but as he slashed, hissed, twisted to slash again, a snarling leonine Tundra raised a battleaxe that Aspis wasn’t going to be able to dodge, and he knew they’d get here too late.

From the rear of the pack, he heard a bloodcurdling shriek.

“She’s loose! She’s loose! The plague rat’s—!”

The Tundra’s head snapped around. Even as he turned something flashed, black on black and gray, in the smoke and flames; red eyes and the wicked curled horns of a mutated daughter of the Wyrmwound glistened like blood as the Tundra’s life poured out, scarlet, pooling on ground too tortured by the sun even to drink up moisture.

Kpinga, free and with frills spread for the first time Aspis had ever seen, raised her head to look him in the eye.

“You’re an idiot,” she told him flatly. “Your sister is too. You were both right. Don’t let it go to your head. Duck.”

Before Aspis could process literally any of that, his body had already responded to the order; it had learned not to hesitate when his arena partner said things like that during a fight. As he was halfway through hitting the dirt hard enough to jar his teeth Kpinga beat her tattered wings once, shooting over his head and slicing out the eyes of the Mirror who’d been about to tackle him while both dragons were in midair.

The Mirror hit the ground screaming, and a Serthis finished it off.

Longneck Reach had come for them.

Serthii and longnecks swarmed down the bridge, one longneck warrior sitting astride a galloping centaur; she flung herself off to impale an enemy Wildclaw in passing. The other centaur, leading a group of beastclan warriors and Ennis, charged straight through the battle and into the guard’s entrance to sweep the back corridors for injured, or anyone left behind.

Aspis turned to Kpinga, who had managed to kill two more Mirrors and a Coatl since the last time he’d looked.

“Al’s here?” he asked.

“Spiral, bright silver, talks with her front paws, never sits still, picks locks like nobody’s business. She’s running a sweep. I like you, Aspis. But if you go back in there, I’m not coming after you.”

“You should run,” Aspis agreed. “While you still can.”

Kpinga dipped her head, spread her vast wings, and leaped into the sky without another word.

Aspis ran toward the guard’s entrance.

“No one’s coming, lightning rod.”

Alumette’s claws scrabbled against the hard ground, trying to find purchase. The Wildclaw digging bloody front claws under the scales of her tail had electric blue eyes too; she’d tried to shock him to no effect, except to make him grin wider.

She hadn’t liked that grin at all, so she’d stopped.

He tugged her back; reflexively, she tried to spread her wings and cried out when they jerked against the piercings. She lost her balance, rolling her front half onto her back to try to twist out of his grip, and also so that she could snap and bite. She flung an empty food bucket into his face, but he dodged it.

He raised one sickle claw and ripped it down; she twisted at the last second and it missed her wing, biting deep into her left flank instead and ripping open a long gash. She screamed.

“You, you can’t hurt me,” Al said desperately. “Nalkh—”

“Your brother’s running with the Resistance now,” said the guard, planting his foot firmly on her belly, killing claw raised again. “I don’t think Nalkh is very happy with him. You should be begging me to gut you quickly instead of waiting to see what she wants to make him watch.”

Al twisted again, trying to turn and bite; he jerked her tail until he flipped her back around, banging her head on the floor and hauling her tail under his arm and over one shoulder so her back legs were off the ground, pinning her to the floor with his sickle claw over her throat.

Al had never been very good with words. She was good at making things, like equipment, and inventions, and plans, and scripts. But talking was hard, and she didn’t know what to say that would help.

She hadn’t been paying enough attention. She’d been running one last circuit, making sure she hadn’t missed anyone. And there’d been a Wildclaw curled up in an empty cell who’d called out to her, so she’d slipped inside to free him, and hadn’t looked close enough to realize he was one of the relief guards...

Maybe she was imagining things, but as she closed her eyes and pressed back into the floor she could almost hear Aspis calling for her.

The guard growled low. “Oh, good. The meatshield’s still alive.”

Alumette’s eyes flew open. Her brother’s voice hadn’t been a dying hallucination?

Well. That was definitely not part of the plan.

“Aspis!” she yelled before the guard bore down on her throat and choked her.

“That’s your brother, right, lightning rod?” he said. “Good. I want him to watch this. I had a brother too, you know that? You’re carrying his key pouch.”

Al froze, then glared at him.

“Your brother was a piece of shit,” she informed him, since he was going to kill her anyway. “And mine’s gonna kill you.”

Claws shrieking against the packed dirt like a chalkboard, Aspis skidded to a halt outside the cell. “Al! Are you—”

He froze. The Wildclaw, turned to look at him, grinned viciously. He slowly raised his sickle claw over Al’s throat.

“Who’s faster, meatshield?” he said. “You move the tip of your tail, and I’ll—”

It wasn’t like the end of that sentence was exactly a mystery, but Alumette never did learn what it was going to be. Something rushed by overhead with a wet thud, the guard’s head snapped to the side, and his suddenly limp sickle claw glanced harmlessly off her throat scales as he collapsed.

“Kpinga?” Aspis blurted, looking around. Al didn’t know exactly what he meant by that.

Ss she picked herself up she did definitely know there was a white arrow embedded in the guard’s skull. She stood on her good hind leg, peering out the window in the thick wooden door to peek into the arena.

A white centaur, with elegant silver skin and flashing hooves, stood on the other side holding a second arrow to the loose string of a recurve bow.

She smiled when Alumette waved at her, put the arrow between her teeth, and waved back before turning and galloping away.

Aspis, big paws shaking badly, had managed to fumble open the cell door by then, and Al dropped back to the ground and dragged herself through it.

“Al,” her brother whispered. “Al, you’re—was this all you?”

Al’s tail twitched with the need to wind herself around him and never let go, but this wasn’t the time or the place.

“I made an electromagnet,” she explained. That was probably a sufficient summary. “You have friends!”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” protested Aspis, but at that moment an unfamiliar Mirror came loping up behind him. Al stiffened at first; but there were several longnecks and a serthis with her, and she slowed to an easy stop when she saw Aspis, so this was probably a friend.

Note to self: Not just the Resistance, there are also new dragons. Addendum: Do not electrocute strange dragons on sight.

“Your sister?” the Mirror confirmed. Apparently taking Aspis’ watery eyes as confirmation, she nodded to Alumette and said, “You need to lie down. Aspis, Shirala, Riin, cover me.”

Hoofbeats echoed along the corridor as the Mirror (“This is Ennis, Al, she saved my life”) worked. It was the beautiful silver centaur from earlier, the young archer. She took one look at Al’s injured leg, and winced.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured; then, to the Serthis, she said, “Chieftain, we’re being overrun. We have to move, now.”

“She can’t walk, and she can’t fly,” said Ennis. She tied off the bandage. “Can you carry her?”

“Like I would with a young Serthis, she’s almost the same size,” confirmed the archer. Al didn’t protest as she trotted forward.

“This is going to sting,” she said. “I’m sorry. Wrap your tail around my quiver and your body around my shoulders…”

“I think I’ve got it.” Al squirmed slightly, feeling sick as her injured leg twinged. “If I put my paws here I can balance and my head won’t get in the way when you shoot. I’m Alumette.”

“Alayna,” said the centaur. “That’s a beautiful name.”

Ennis double-checked Al’s bandage, then nodded to the Serthis who seemed to be in charge. Without pausing, she shouted, “Fall back!”

Everything was kind of a blur after that.

Alayna was very fast, and everyone seemed invested in getting their group to safety. The arena was mostly empty, but there was fighting at the top of the bridge that was probably going to present a problem…

Except that it didn’t. Their band sprinted toward the silhouette of a Guardian in the darkness, encouraged by shouts from the Beastclan already sitting on her back. As they started getting close the air shuddered, something made the black sky even darker…

“Oh!” Al realized. “That’s what it’s like being under an Imperial attack run—”

The Imperial opened his mouth, and gold flames enveloped the arena.

“He’s a Light dragon!” she informed Alayna.

The centaur turned to glance over her shoulder, grinning. “I know.”

Al twisted her head to watch the Imperial as he finished his first pass and pulled up. The golden light of his own flames danced along his scales, drawing out all kinds of beautiful shades of red. But the bigger members of the slaver clan, the ridgebacks and the handful of their own Imperials, were readying to meet him. If the smaller dragons and beastclan wanted to get out, it would have to be now, while they had a big red distraction and the smaller enemy dragons had been scattered or immolated.

And they weren’t all going to fit on that Guardian.

Judging by the Serthis’ expression, she knew that too.

“If you can fly, fly,” she shouted. “Everyone else, move! Get southeast! Now!”

#fr lore #flight rising lore

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brokehorrorfan · 5 years ago

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Blu-ray Review: The Omen Collection

In the pantheon of religious horror, the holy trinity consists of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and The Omen. Although The Omen arrived last, opening on June 6, 1976, it arguably offers more excitement than its satanic brethren (which is not to say that it is a superior film). Likely to be considered a slow-burner by today's standards, the picture builds tension and unravels a mystery at a meticulous pace, but it's punctuated by elaborate, Rube Goldberg-ian death scenes.

The Omen spawned a trilogy of films, a made-for-television sequel, and a modern remake. Scream Factory has collected all five movies in The Omen Collection, which is limited to 10,000 units. Besting Fox's earlier Blu-ray set - which omitted Part IV and featured some of the worst box set packaging known to man - each film is packaged in an individual Blu-ray case with original artwork within a rigid slipcover case. It boasts a deluge of extras, new and old.

In the original film, American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird) and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick, Anatomy of a Murder), adopt a baby named Damien (Harvey Stephens) after their own child is stillborn. Beginning with his fifth birthday, a string of mysterious deaths surround Damien. Upon being presented with convincing evidence by a photographer (David Warner, Tron), Robert becomes convinced that his son is none other than the antichrist, and he is faced with the task of stopping him to prevent Armageddon.

Firing on all cylinders, The Omen is an exemplary horror film. Working from a well-constructed script by David Seltzer (Shining Through, Prophecy), director Richard Donner grounds the story firmly in reality. The fantastical elements are easy to swallow, as each and every incident in the plot could be mere coincidence. Peck brings a gravitas to the production, leading a strong cast in which Remick also holds her own. Even the six-year-old Stephens, who never acted before and did very little after, is convincingly malevolent.

John Richardson's (Aliens, Harry Potter) special effects for the proto-Final Destination deaths - including one of the greatest beheadings ever committed on celluloid - remain shocking after more than 40 years. Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor (Star Wars: A New Hope, Dr. Strangelove) captures it all with clean camerawork, while Jerry Goldsmith (Alien, Gremlins) provides a chilling orchestral score elevated to pure evil with choral chanting.

The Omen has been newly mastered in 4K from the original negative, approved by Donner, for the new release. The result is a pristine presentation with improved detail and color saturation over Fox’s previous high-definition transfer. The Omen carries a whopping four audio commentaries. One, featuring special project consultant Scott Michael Bosco, is new. His audio sounds compressed - as if it were recorded on a cell phone - but it's dense with details focusing on the theological aspects. Bosco often digresses, but I appreciate the fresh perspective rather than a historian reciting IMDb trivia.

The other audio commentaries include: a track with Donner and editor Stuart Baird (Lethal Weapon, Skyfall), in which the two old friends reminisce about the highs and lows of the production; a track with Donner and filmmaker Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential), which features as much good-natured joking as it does insight; and a track with film historians Lem Dobbs, Nick Redman, and Jeff Bond, largely focusing on Goldsmith's score. A lot of information is repeated across the commentaries, but the varying viewpoints make them all worth listening to.

Seltzer and actress Holly Palance (who plays the nanny whose suicide by hanging is among the film’s most memorable moment) sit down for new interviews. Seltzer's chat is particularly enjoyable, as he's candid and humble. He openly states that his script is not as good as the movie it birthed. He also shares what he would have done if he had the opportunity to write the sequel. Palance, the daughter of the great Jack Palance, recounts her naivety about working on her first film and shooting her iconic death scene. The final new extra is an appreciation of The Omen's score by composer Chris Young, who says he looked to Goldsmith's progression across The Omen trilogy as he was scoring the Hellraiser films. It's fascinating to hear one accomplished professional praise another in their field.

All of the archival extras are ported over: a thorough, 15-minute interview with Donner from 2008; 666: The Omen Revealed, a 46-minute retrospective from 2000 featuring crew members along with religious experts to provide context; The Omen Revelations, which is essentially a streamlined version of 666, recycling much of its footage in 24 minutes; Curse or Coincidence, in which the crew recounts a variety of curious incidents that nearly derailed the production; an introduction by Donner; a deleted scene with commentary by Donner; an older interview with Seltzer, which features a lot of the same information as the new one; and an interview with Goldsmith about his score. There's also an appreciation of The Omen by filmmaker Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street), in which the master of horror waxes poetic about the influential picture for 20 minutes; Trailers from Hell trailer commentary by filmmaker Larry Cohen (The Stuff), who cites The Omen as one of his favorite movies; the trailer; TV spots; radio spots; and four image galleries: stills, behind-the-scenes, posters and lobby cards, and publicity.

Following the massive success of the first film, Fox fast-tracked a sequel, Damien: Omen II, to open in 1978. Having narrowly survived the events of The Omen, a 12-year-old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) now lives with his affluent uncle, Richard Thorn (William Holden, Sunset Blvd.), aunt, Ann (Lee Grant, In the Heat of the Night), and cousin, Mark (Lucas Donat), in Chicago. Damien is ostensibly a well-adjusted kid, unaware of who - or what - he is, but those who cross him wind up dead in freak accidents.

Omen II's plotting mirrors that of the first film, but the mystery aspect that made the original so effective is gone. The viewer knows from the start that Damien is, in fact, the antichrist, so they're left waiting for the characters to catch up. The plot dedicates an inordinate amount of time to Thorn's business enterprises, which is only vaguely paid of in the next installment when Damien rises to power. On the bright side, there are several admirably inventive deaths in the tradition of the first, from a bird attack that would make Alfred Hitchcock jealous to a visceral elevator bisection to a harrowing scene of a man trapped in a pond under ice.

Since Donner had moved on to Superman and Seltzer was either uninterested or not asked (depending on the source) to pen the sequel, a new creative team was employed. Stanley Mann (Firestarter, Conan the Destroyer) and Mike Hodges (Get Carter, Flash Gordon) wrote the script, with the latter set to direct. Hodges only shot for a few days, during which he quickly fell behind schedule, before being swiftly replaced by Don Taylor (Escape from the Planet of the Apes). Goldsmith returns to score with a worthy successor, retaining the signature sound while expanding it to incorporate electronics.

Leo McKern is the only returning cast member, reprising his role as archaeologist Carl Bugenhagen in the prologue. Peck's formidable presence is sorely missed, but Holden - who, incidentally, turned down the lead role in The Omen - and Grant bring some prestige to the production. Scott-Taylor is a convincing surrogate for Stephens, but the child acting leaves a bit to be desired. It's offset by a supporting cast that includes Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Lew Ayres (All Quiet on the Western Front), Sylvia Sidney (Beetlejuice), Allan Arbus (M*A*S*H), and Meshach Taylor (Mannequin).

Damien: Omen II's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Grant, who is proud of the sequel and shares a funny anecdote about discovering her first wrinkle while filming; Foxworth, who was able to get to know Holden, one of his heroes, on their daily commute; and actress Elizabeth Sheppard, who proudly discusses working with Holden as well as Vincent Price (on The Tomb of Ligeia). In a separate featurette, Sheppard narrates a gallery of her personal photos from the shoot, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the bird attack sequence.

Since Omen II's mythology has little biblical foundation, Bosco's new commentary features even more tenuous tangents, but it affords him the opportunity to discuss the franchise more subjectively. An archival commentary with producer Harvey Bernhard proves to be a bit more informative. The disc also includes a vintage making-of featurette consisting of clips, interviews, and footage from the set, along with the trailer, a TV spot, a radio spot, and a still gallery.

The Omen trilogy came to a conclusion in 1981 with Omen III: The Final Conflict - although it proved not to be final after all. As prophesied, Damien (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park), now 33 - the same age as Jesus when he was crucified - has risen to political power. Following the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain’s ghastly suicide, Damien is appointed the position, which was once held by his adoptive father. The only true foe for the antichrist is, naturally, Christ himself. Rather than bringing about the apocalypse, as the franchise had been driving toward since the beginning, Damien attempts to prevent the second coming in a sanctimonious conclusion to the story arc.

While no successor could top the original Omen, its first sequel smartly embraced the gratuitous death scenes. For the third installment, however, director Graham Baker (Alien Nation) made a conscious effort to avoid them. Instead, he delivers inept monks trying to assassinate Damien with the Seven Daggers of Megiddo, while the antichrist’s legion of apostles murder newborn males who are the potential Christ child. Andrew Birkin's (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) script leans further into religiosity at the expensive of the horror elements while interjecting silly mythology akin to Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Omen III: The Final Conflict's Blu-ray disc features new interviews with Baker, who takes a truly retrospective look back on the film, comparing the society of today to that of when it was produced; Birkin, who hadn't seen The Omen when he first met for the gig and wasn't particularly impressed when he finally watched it; and production assistant Jeanne Ferber, who explains how she was among those polled by Bernhard to help choose the lead, with Neill selected unanimously.

For his final commentary in the set, Bosco is back to pointing out the film's connections to scripture, leading to a lengthy tirade comparing Christianity and Judaism. An archival track with Baker has a few nuggets of information among extended gaps of silence, but most of his points are addressed more concisely in the new interview. Special features are rounded out by the trailer, TV spots, and a still gallery.

Although The Omen’s main storyline continued with two more book sequels, Fox opted to use the familiar title for a made-for-television movie on their budding network in 1991. Although dubbed Omen IV: The Awakening, the film largely serves as a remake of the original film but with a female antichrist. After numerous failed attempts to get pregnant, politician Gene York (Michael Woods) and his wife, Karen (Faye Grant, V), adopt an orphan girl. Seven years later, Delia (Asia Vieira, A Home at the End of the World) becomes increasingly violent and manipulative, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.

Similar to Omen II's production troubles, Omen IV started with Jorge Montesi (Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal) in the director's chair, but he was fire mid-shoot and replaced by Dominique Othenin-Girard (Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers). Writer Brian Taggert (Poltergeist III) keeps the basic structure of Seltzer's original script intact, but the details of each beat are altered and the death scenes are subdued for TV. In addition to gender-swapping the creepy kid, it's the mother who is proactive this time around.

Despite maintaining the general outline of The Omen, the plot is harder to believe this time around, stretching the required suspension of disbelief to include psychics that can read auras. The most ludicrous plot point comes in the form of a shoehorned connection to The Omen mythology. This "twist" canonically positions Omen IV as a sequel rather than a thinly-veiled remake, but it feels more like a low-budget knockoff than an official installment in the franchise.

Omen IV: The Awakening doesn't have any audio commentaries, but its Blu-ray debut includes a new interview with Taggert, who breaks down several of the major choices made in the script. It also contains The Omen Legacy, a feature-length documentary on the franchise that aired on TV in 2001. Narrated by Jack Palance (City Slickers), it finds cast and crew members (including a couple of folks who don't appear in any other special features) and religious figures (the Church of Satan’s high priestess among them) discussing all four films while playing up the alleged curse. The trailer and a still gallery are also included.

Amidst the onslaught of horror remakes that dominated the early 2000s, Fox shrewdly capitalized with The Omen in 2006 - on 6/6/06, to be exact. Director John Moore (Max Payne) offers slick production value and an inspired cast, but it feels wholly unnecessary considering how closely it follows the original script. Seltzer is the only credited writer, but it's unclear if his 40-year-old script was simply polished off or if he was involved in re-writes, as there are some subtle changes to contemporize it. While it fails to bring anything new to the table, it’s a stronger effort than Omen IV.

Liev Schreiber (Scream) and Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You) star as the Thorns. Talented as they are, they lack the chemistry of Peck and Remick. Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is successfully creepy as the new Damien, while the role's originator, Harvey Stephens, makes a quick cameo. In a particularly motivated bit of stunt casting, Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby) plays the antichrist's new nanny. David Thewlis (Harry Potter) and Pete Postlethwaite (The Lost World: Jurassic Park) also have supporting roles.

The remake is the only Blu-ray in the set that doesn't offer any new special features. The existing extras cover a lot of ground, but it would’ve been interesting to hear the crew reflect back on it. Omenisms is a 37-minute documentary exploring the pressures of making a movie with a release date set in advance, even showing Moore losing his temper and yelling at a producer. It feels very of its time, with director Stephen French treating the piece like a hip art film, but it contains a lot of great material.

Moore, producer Glenn Williamson, and editor Dan Zimmermann participate in an audio commentary that's fairly informative but doesn't touch on many of the trials and tribulations showcased in Omenisms. There's also a featurette about Marco Beltrami (Scream) recording his score at the legendary Abbey Road Studio; Revelation 666, a cheesy TV special tracing the history, interpretation, and theories of 666; unrated, extended scenes, including a longer version of the ending; and theatrical trailers.

While The Exorcist remains the be-all and end-all of occult horror, The Omen franchise as a whole is more consistent. The first three Omen films comprise a cohesive trilogy, while Part IV and the remake each offer a fresh, if flawed, perspective on the material. Between the movies, commentaries, interviews, and featurettes, The Omen Collection contains over 30 hours of content, making it an unbelievable value and a must-have for any horror collector.

The Omen Collection is available now on Blu-ray via Scream Factory.

#the omen #gregory peck #damien: omen ii #omen iii: the final conflict #omen iv: the awakening #mia farrow #scream factory #dvd #gift #review #article #damien thorn #liev schreiber #julia stiles #lance henriksen #lee remick #william holden

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delicateunraveling · 5 years ago

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Dear Taylor,

A version of this has been in my drafts since the week Lover came out, and I’ve been alternating between too shy and too overwhelmed to post it, but I wanted to try and say something in honor of your 30th birthday, the astonishing year you’ve had, and the impact you’ve made on my life. (The photo is of things I received in a package from a fellow Swiftie, who sent me the deluxe version of the album - and the extra surprises! - because I couldn’t afford it myself, and that itself was remarkably kind and a testament to you - you’ve inspired so much goodness and generosity in others.)

Even if you’re, understandably, never able to see this, it’s honestly a blessing to think I can send this out into the universe. That's enough. Somehow I never knew that I could reach out on Tumblr until recently, or I likely would have said something to you many years ago (despite that overwhelming shyness). I wish I could be eloquent or imaginative in writing it (if I could be complex, if I could be cool!) instead of...an overemotional mess? I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you, for everything you've given to us in your music, everything you've given of yourself no matter how hard it's been, everything you've represented in your honesty, your displays of compassion and strength.

Music is the deepest passion and love of mine, it's the gossamer thread that's held me together in the worst times, the safe place where I could pour my heart and be myself. I'm a couple of years older than you are, though I generally feel behind these days because I've been chronically ill and mostly housebound since I was 19, and that halted my life and dreams in their tracks. The dream of truly honing my voice and my musical self was the most difficult to put away in the midst of all the others. It's often felt like being trapped in amber while the world keeps spinning, or like being a ghost, ostensibly drifting in the world, but nearly invisible to it, only occasionally peeking out of the windows to see the sun.

Ten years ago, I fell for a boy (still the only person I've ever felt that way about), and everything he was ended up being a lie and devolving into him gaslighting me and threatening my safety directly, along with breaking my heart. It took such a toll that I had to pull myself out of a harmful darkness, and he was a musician himself, so I had some terror that the experience with him had stolen or tainted that dearest part of my being. It hadn't, but the recovery took a while. One of the very first things that got me through it, that woke me up again, was being able to hold close to your first two albums. Those songs quite literally helped keep my heart beating, and then Speak Now helped it to heal. I’ve unfortunately never had the chance to see you live (the concert films are spectacular, though!), but your music became a part of the tapestry of my life from those first moments on. I've loved your work ever since then, but often quietly and tenderly, because it's near to such a delicate part of my spirit. It's vulnerable and personal, it's romantic and devastating, it’s starshine salvation when the world feels cold and clouded, and saying that is strange since those expressed emotions are fundamentally yours, but the way they transform into something both universal and specific is truly magical.

This year has been the worst and the darkest I've felt since that heartbreak ten years ago, though for very different reasons. My health took a serious turn for the worse. My beloved dog, who was my constant companion and my emotional support through every day of my illness for almost 13 years, succumbed to cancer. She was my sweet baby (I'm sure you understand this feeling with your precious kitties), and I still struggle with her absence daily. My mom and I are in the most precarious position we've ever been in financially, and we're looking at losing our condo with nowhere else to go. I've felt like everything is terrifying and tenuous and slipping away from me, including time itself. I apologize for even putting those burdens down in words, but if I don't, the weight of my thanks to you isn't as real. "Me!" came out only a couple of weeks after she passed away, and the pure happiness of it was the first bit of joy I'd even felt since she had relapsed. Then when you released “The Archer,” it moved me to the point that tears were streaming down my face when I first played it, feeling like I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost was transcribed from a cathartic place in my own thoughts. Knowing a new album was coming from you once again gave me something to look forward to, a reason to want to keep going, even when it hurt to breathe from missing her, even on days when my illness has been flaring too severely and painfully for me to get out of bed, I kept thinking...make it through to August, you have to hear Taylor's next album. Making it there felt like a minor miracle, and even though I’m scared and don’t know what’s ahead or what’s going to happen now, I am unbelievably glad that I was here to listen to your music, and then to witness your continued bravery, over the past few months. Laying that out in words on a screen sounds too small, but it's tremendous to me.

There are connections to each of your album releases that I could ramble about (Red would take several chapters of its own in my hypothetical novel, My Melodic Inclinations and Inspirations: An Autobiography), in their meaning to me and how much they represent in the pages of these passing years, but I realize how special Lover is to you specifically, and that's why now, more than ever, I wanted to be able to say how grateful I am for your poetic words, for your sweeping and intimate melodies, for your works of art. Hidden away in my room, I've sung-screamed your songs in delight at the top of my lungs, I've curled up under covers and cried to them, I've twirled around in pajamas with them. This is the first time I won't have my fluffy girl to hold on my lap and sing them to, but somehow that has made having new songs all the more treasured and cathartic. Lover is an absolutely exquisite, sparkling gift of an album. I cherish it as I do each of your albums, each for their own special reasons, and I will forever be thankful for all of your work.

I respect and admire you so much for the way you've stood your ground, the way you've championed what you believe in and spoken for equality and for artists’ rights, the grace with which you've approached everything you've been dealt in such a harsh spotlight. I can't fathom what that's like, but I am constantly proud of how you respond, your ability to both grow and remain authentic in expressing your views and truths. Exceptional artistry is worth celebrating (your Artist of the Decade and every other accolade is earned and deserved!), but being an exceptional person is even more worthwhile, and I believe you're both. When we say we stand with you, when we rally around you, I hope you remember that it’s out of not only that admiration and pride, but also rooted in genuine care and connected humanity. Our society needs bright, bold women, making changes and supporting one another. The world is lucky to have your beautiful songs, and your individual voice.

Thank you for creating such incredible things. Thank you for giving a valuable perspective to such a breadth of emotions. Thank you for giving your dazzling art so wholly. I hope you remember how much it means, how deeply it resonates, to so many people. I hope you remember that so many of us are in your corner with the brightest wishes, for your happiness and your freedom to be yourself, with prayers for you and your family and loved ones. I hope you know that your words have given some of us life rafts in swirling currents that threaten to drag us under, that your music has the ability to break through shadows with powerful light. There is a sacredness which exists in art that knits us together. Wherever I go, I'll carry your songs in my heart and soul.

Happy, happy Birthday!!! 🍰 🎈✨ It truly is the end of the decade, but the start of an age. May 30 be the beginning of brand new creativity and experiences, and even more wonder and daylight, golden on the horizon.

Love always,

Jess 💖💖💖

@taylorswift @taylornation 😘

#taylorswift #taylor swift #taylor nation #taylurking #happy birthday taylor #i love you so much #this is absolutely okay to reblog if anyone wants to #♥♥♥

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orenonahaichigoda · 5 years ago

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Again, I'm gonna meld my experience and something I just learned into Ichigo.

So, remember, I'm reading the whole "unusual haircolour" being of note as Ichigo being mixed, probably via Masaki, because Issin is coded VERY Japanese, either Yamato or Ainu, but not Ryukyuan. Masaki is not. Orihime's same colour of hair is not noted (only how pretty her hair is) nor is Chizuru's darker red. (Yeah, that one classmate has purple hair, but purple and blue are often stand-ins for shades of black, to differentiate, in a way of compensating for the lack of detailed faces. Brown is because brown to black is a scale--my own head and beard hair is very dark brown, and how black vs brown it looks depends on lighting, mostly. You can also read brown hair as "basically black" on characters like, say, Keigo, unless stated they're not Japanese/Asian, like Chad)

Some shows are pretty low on racial coding--these are often shows like...okay, I don't actually watch a lot of cartoons, but there are shows out there that might be slice-of-life or romance or something, where everyone's supposed to be Yamato Japanese, including the girl with lime green hair and purple eyes, which is basically for visual interest and easier character differentiation.

Bleach...is not that show. Not only are some noted in dialogue--again, Chad--but then Kisuke is inspired by a Scandinavian fairytale or something, and seriously, just hold Byakuya up against Tousen. I'm also pretty convinced Yoruichi's supposed to be Black, but Tousen or sea urchin guy is obvious.

I mean, I could go on about Shunsui convincingly reading European (or headcanoning him as Romani and growing out his hair in defiance of the Spanish), or how seriously no one ever read Grimmjow as Japanese, but canonically is pretty diverse. Kyouani kept it up with the Bounts who were clearly from Europe (remember the backstory of Cain and striped-hair guy and the boy that died?)

I mean, Soi-Fon, the Bount in the qi pao, Shaolong, and the fracción of Barragan (which is a real Spanish language last name, I forget what architect he was named for) with the braided hair are all super-duper Chinese-coded, but these are apparently codings the average Westerner misses. (I get maybe missing Barrangan's guy, but how the heck people miss the friggin guy named Shaolong...! Then again, I just saw keysmash fake-Japanese name in a Digimon 02 fic where it was really hard to take seriously a professor named "morning sickness." You can't make this up!)

So point one is that I've always felt like this was probably another thing that Kubo was stopped from doing by his editors, though "the world may never know" www but I've seriously long thought Ichigo was supposed to be mixed.

(of course, my nascent project goes ahead and diversifies further, including the aforementioned Chizuru and Orihime, but that's separate)

So I've known pretty much my entire life that sans hard leftists, Japanese/East Asian women 30+ (I used to say "older," but now I'm older, too!) are a heck of a lot less accepting of mixed people than the men are. I guess it skews opposite from orientation issue positioning. (Only the right 25% of the Japanese spectrum really kick and scream about binary trans. Non-binary is not something I have a whole lot of data on, period, as my generation grew up in the binary-insistent 20th Century)

Anyway, my experience as a kid and now alone reaffirms that this isn't limited to Dankai/Sirake and Boomer generations, unlike some other problems. Nor is it limited to the far-right Liberal Democrat voting bloc, as those types tend not to leave Japan, and it happens here, too.

I notice less of it among Dankai Juniors and Post Dankai Juniors generation immigrants, as I notice less of it from age-peers American born Gen X, but it's still there, and is present among people my dad's age (blanking on the Japanese generation, but second-wave Silent Generation is the American one for those years) and always was. In both countries.

I was hanging out after work at a nearby spot, and was talking to a half-Black Boomer.

The same thing where Asian men in-group me and many Asian women fiercely out-group me was found among G.I. Generation and Silent Black Americans.

So I feel like this would very strongly play into Ichigo's experience as I have him wherever he goes. Hanging out in some random town in Soul Society, anywhere (Seireitei just cares who can cut more people to bits www). This has clearly been going on in many places for a long time. Sure, racism as it was in 20th Century Japan, particularly even the idea of anti-Blackness, which was rightfully scrapped starting around '90, was brought, along with queerphobia, by Admiral Perry/President Filmore, but in-group and out-group dichotomy is pretty much everywhere.

And I have to think "us v them" style bigotry also comes in in Chad's story. Is he Zainichi Mexican? Is he from Okinawa because he's got something to do with the U.S. Army base (Futenma) there? Or is he Mexican and Ryukyuan?

I'm not RPing Chad, though I'm seriously tempted. Look at how much I blather--it'd be an interesting challenge.

But for now, I'll focus on Ichigo.

Now, yeah, bullies pick on him a lot for looking different. But there are always bullies, and kids will pick if you can't afford meat in your lunch, or you like an "uncool" TV show, or you sneezed. Anything.

But this would really and strongly colour Ichigo's interactions with adults. I didn't reach high school there and *I* had this come up with teachers and school staff over there (although I really only did high school here, but anti-Asian racism from teachers/staff came up in a higher percent than anti-mixed sentiment in Japan from school staff. There's probably a conclusion I should be able to draw)

Anyway, with the anti-miscegination crowd, mixed people who are part-their demograph get way more scorn and coldness that someone 0% their demograph.

So if Ichigo's mixed and Chad's Zainichi Mexican, and they're talking to a teacher like this, she'll be way worse to Ichigo. That kind of crowd always wants to prove your claim to the demograph invalid. That you're not "real" demograph. Like they see you existing as a threat to their identity. It's a threat to nothing, but this is how they treat mixed people.

Learning the universality of this tonight made me realise this would definitely be a part of Ichigo's life, as unfortunate as that is.

Also, about bullies, the guy bullies tend to pick on the guys. The girl bullies tend to pick on the girls.

(Reason 465 why I say everyone knew I was male before I figured it out myself)

So I don't feel like this is something that would affect Ichigo's interactions with his peers, at least in youth.

But in adulthood, yeah, he'd start to get this from women his peers. The men, not really. I have no clue why the women are the ones doing this and men don't really care. Do not get the gendering of it. But it's apparently a thing. And really, really common, unfortunately, so there's no way he wouldn't meet it. A lot.

(Although frankly Karakura First Private High School staff is almost entirely banananas in their own special way. How is that school even still accredited/operating/ostensibly graduating people? Sure, high school isn't *mandatory,* but they're more of a minor plot device than a functional school!)

#out of body #musings #mixed race #headcanons #racial coding in animation #diversity

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laliberty · 6 years ago

Link

Body camera footage of the encounter—released by local news station KSHB—shows cops using a taser on Wheatcroft a total of 11 times, even though the man was neither resisting arrest nor under suspicion of having done anything wrong. Even worse, while Wheatcroft was handcuffed and pinned face-first on the ground of a hotel parking lot, an officer kicked him in the groin, pulled down his gym shorts, and used a taser on his testicles.

This happened while Wheatcroft's two sons—who are 11 and 6—watched in horror from the car.

"I have never seen anything like this before," said Jeff Noble, a former police chief who reviewed the footage for KSHB. "This is just beyond the pale."

The incident took place two years ago, on July 26, 2017. Wheatcroft was in the passenger seat of a car—a male friend was the driver—and his wife, Anya Chapman, and their two children were in the backseat. They had pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 6 when two Glendale police officers, Matt Schneider and Mark Lindsey, approached the car, ostensibly for failing to signal a turn. The officers asked Wheatcroft for identification; he declined to provide it, correctly reasoning that only the driver needed to do so.

Schnider then opened Wheatcroft's door, grabbed the man's arm, and twisted it behind his back, causing considerable wrist pain. The two officers attempted to push Wheatcroft forward, contorting his body into an even more uncomfortable position. Next, they used a taser on him, over and over again. Wheatcroft ended up on the ground outside the car, with his legs still tangled in his seatbelt. The officers then handcuffed Wheatcroft, though this did not end the torture. According to the lawsuit:

Given the temperature of the asphalt, the officers' contorting his body, and the tasing, Plaintiff Johnny Wheatcroft was writhing in pain while his family watched and screamed for the officers to stop. Plaintiff Johnny Wheatcroft was prone and handcuffed on the ground, when Defendant Schneider pulled down Plaintiff's shorts and tased his testicles and perineum, which was significantly and excruciatingly painful.

Defendant Glendale's officers then rolled Plaintiff Johnny Wheatcroft onto his side and began to remove the taser prongs that were embedded into his skin. As the officers began to forcibly remove the prongs, Plaintiff Johnny Wheatcroft screamed in agony and Defendant Schneider placed his taser on Plaintiff Johnny Wheatcroft's penis and screamed, "Keep fighting and you're going to get it again! You want it again? Shut your mouth! I'm done fucking around with you!" At this same time, one of the officers placed a handgun to Plaintiff Johnny Wheatcroft's head.

I would encourage anyone who doubts that this description is accurate to watch the footage. Consider yourself warned: It is extremely disturbing.

Wheatcroft and Chapman were charged with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer—Chapman evidently hit one of the officers in the head with a bag during the confusion—and spent months behind bars because they could not afford bail. Chapman eventually plead guilty to a lesser charge in order to get of jail and reclaim her children.

Prosecutors dropped all charges against Wheatcroft after they reviewed the body cam footage. (Wheatcroft is currently back in prison for committing an unrelated burglary.) The Glendale police gave Schneider a mere three-day suspension: In a statement, the department neglected to mention the use of the taser on the groin, noting only that "a review of the officers' actions has been performed and discipline implemented regarding certain tactics used by one officer."

KSHB's report notes that Schneider is an award-winning police officer who "represented Glendale twice on the TV show Cops." It is appalling that the department still employs a police officer who deliberately used a taser on a restrained man's exposed testicles.

Hearing the kids call out “Daddy,” and then seeing the boy break down when the cop turned his rage on him? Ugh. Also not noted is how violently they seem to take down the wife in the background.

These people are animals. And it’s systemic.

#police abuse #cops #libertarian

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imagineclaireandjamie · 6 years ago

Note

Imagine if Frank didn't take back Claire when she went back through the stones?

HomePart I: Bittersweet

Doctors. Nurses. Priests.

Frank.

Mrs. Graham.

Reverend Wakefield.

Frank.

I rolled onto my stomach, pressing my mouth into thepillow. I needed to scream. The pillowcase filled my mouth with each breath,and all that escaped was a dry groan. It was humid and trapped against the fabric whenI started to sob.

When I was done screaming, I dozed fitfully, knowing that waking wouldbring about the same stream of thoughts – new, cruel ways to end a life ordisrespect a fallen body.

I could hear a jumble of words in the hall, the uselesssyllables of a number of doctors. All ofthem with their white coats and wait-and-see attitudes, the same fucking prewarhaircut and bland, disbelieving cadence to their words. They could all go directly to hell.

(Their accusations were of the type leveled at women with colorful emotions were in any century: hysterical, confused, deluded. And there were whispers: “Something about the Highlands?”)

And what I could hear always ended in the same way: Justgive it some time, Mr. Randall.

I couldn’t see these doctors (these men), but I imagined them placing warm handson Frank’s arms. Frank’s arms were forever crossed over his middle, a shield fromthe reality of his “fucking mad wife” (his phrasing, just as someone pulled shut the door to my room).

The few timesI had allowed myself to look at Frank – reallylook – he had a furrow cleaving a channel between his brows. From the way it softened when I talked, itwas a facial feature that had taken up residence there since my return. I could tell that it had not been a permanentfixture during my absence.

But time was not going to do it –– to fix me.

If anything, I knew that time would make thewound more acute. As the passage of time dulled the edges of my memories withJamie, I would become cagey and desperate to revel in what I could recall.

“My baby’s father is dead,” I had whispered to Frank thenight before.

I allowed him to situate his lean body along the edge of thenarrow hospital bed. Frank barelytouched me and he did not put his arms around me. He just stared up at the ceiling, one armdangling over the edge of the bed and the other contorted so as to not touchme.

I was fine with it.

But that is when the pills started. Tablets to make me sleep mainly. (“Just a mild sedative, Mrs. Randall,” explained a doctor in a hushedtone as I looked around the room, faintly forgetting that I was ‘Mrs. Randall.’)

My mind was a tangle of contradictions.

I did not want to sleep, even more so I did not want to not feel. But feelingwas excruciating.

Jamie had not been afforded the luxury of not feeling. He had a look about him when I left – thelook of someone who knew he was saying goodbye to the world. Jamie knew that he would not see anothersunset or sunrise, would not feel the bump of life he created inside of hiswife, and whose eager, searching hands and lips would not learn anew his wife’sbody swollen with a new life.

The kiss he gave me when we parted, sucking the breath rightout of my lungs, said everything that he could not articulate.

The way he made love to me that last time, desperate and punishing, panting my name and choking on all other words, said he knew this would be goodbye forever.

The sleeping tablets did not help, but my doctor did not discontinuethem.

Perhaps they would have helped if I had been even remotelycompliant.

No. Jamie did nothave the option of not feeling, so I was not going to medicate myself (to allow myself to be medicated) until itbecame an option to shut my racing head down for even a minute.

Jamie’s word was better than gold. (He was going to die on that field with his men.) His fealty to all of the promises he had made meant he was 200 years dead. Jamie let me go (made me go) with the sweat from ourlovemaking still trickling down my neck, spine. I went through those stones with a belly full of his promisethat he would never seeing me again.

I needed to feel every agonizing moment, to commit everymemory of his face, his hands, his body, his voice, his scent to memory.

I agonized, attempting to catalogue it all for laterretrieval. His every touch. Every whispered expression of love. Every electricburst at the joining of our bodies and the rising before they came crashingdown together. Every word mumbled in Gaelic into the back of my head as he wokeon cold mornings, the ones where the only thing that kept us warm was the other’sskin.

Some number of days in and I was discharged from thehospital. I was now free to antagonizemyself with hypotheticals in the freedom of a spare bedroom in ReverendWakefield’s manse. There, I would be nursed by Frank Randall, a total stranger to me.

Instead of giving into rest wrought by pharmaceuticals, Icommitted to cheeking the pills. The bitter, chemical taste of the dry pill overwhelmedmy taste buds and made me gag before I could spit it out into my hand. I then deposited the sodden tablet beneath my mattress.

Every four hours, except in the middle of the night, Frankwould knock on the door, trying the single syllable of my name.

“Claire?”

It always had a question mark on the end.

I never answered, but it didn’t matter.

Frank never even gave me the time to try to marshal a response before turning the knob and stepping intothe room.

Like clockwork, Frank fulfilled his nursing duties:

0800. “Claire?”

1200. “Claire?”

1600. “Claire?”

2000. “Claire?”

2400. And then nothing. A respite,until it began again.

Frank’s routine followed the same litany: one hand out, the outline of the scored pillon his dry palm; the other hand out, holdinga sweating glass of water. I wouldfollow a litany myself: take the pill, place it onto my tongue, and takea sip of water, all with a feeble smile to cover the vibrant color of Jamie’s blood that coated my vision at all times.

He asked the same question every time: “Howare you?”

It was the wrong question. He was the wrong person. I offered something plain as an answerevery time he asked.

(“Oh fine, thank you.”

“Better, I think.”

“Tired.”)

Frank always offered a response, a polite volley that neverrung true.

(“Oh good.”)

The first time Frank came in to the spare bedroom in the manse, I took the pill from him, caughthim by the wrist, and drew his hand closer. He started as if he was somewhat frightened by my purposeful attempt atcontact. Coming half of a step nearer, lookingdown at me and shifting inside his button-down shirt and vest, he cleared histhroat. I ran my pointer finger over thegold band along the base of his left ring finger.

“You still wear it,” I whispered, my voice hoarse from daysof only whispering monosyllabic responses to questions and four word platitudes.

“You do, too,” he pointed out blandly.

Frank withdrew his hand, cleared his throat, and patted myshoulder through the nightshirt I had been wearing for two days. I was no longer able to smell myself.

Frank’s focus was on a rougher ring, the silver on my right hand. Jamie’s ring. His upper lip twitched slightly and I slipped my hand between thesheets. His eyes on it felt like a betrayal across centuries, as though Frank could see every intimate moment with the one I had lost.

After that, Frank started to set the glass of water down onthe bedside table, next to a vase filled with slowly-decaying lilacs. He never again gave me the chance to touch the band of gold on his left hand.

Days into our stay at the manse, he finally said what I knewwas inevitable. “Claire, we need to go home at some point, you know.”

He stopped.

“We aren’t just going to abandon everything and live here… inScotland.”

I had just stared in response, feeling the dark circlesunder my eyes and the pulse in my neck. Every inch of my skin was alive.

That is exactly what Iwas doing, Frank.

In my mind, emphasis was on the word “Frank,” spit with venom that hehad done nothing to earn. When his name did cross my racing thoughts, it was uttered like a curse word.

Abandon everything.He had no idea. I did not have anything to abandon. It was already gone.

Home. Somewhere in some city, I thought. Ostensibly a house or flat or somethingother than a cardboard box on a street corner somewhere.

The fact that he called his residence “home,” implying it was mine as well, shook me to my core. But what else should he call it?

We talked about Boston – of a new opportunity for him, a newstart for us, with nothing spoken of what would exist for me.

Within the first few days at the manse, we talked aboutliving somewhere that I was not Claire Randall, Bored and Pregnant (And FormerlyMissing, In Quotes) Housewife.

Boston would work, he insisted.

And if it was too unlike home, we could find somewhere withthe Queen on the money. Canada, Australia, somewhere, anywhere to start again and again until it was right.

I even choked out a laugh at Frank’s idea of being expatparents, stubbornly resisting tea in bags, together. It was an idea so ludicrous Icouldn’t help a hot, mirthless croak from leaving throat.

We had talked about raising the baby together.

(”The Baby,” he always said. I screamed inside of myself at what was unspoken, each cell bursting for relief. Jamie’s baby. My baby. Made of our bodies, our love with our bloodrunning together into one.)

The question remained of what we would do the interim – thespace between Now (Scotland) andWhatever Comes Next (Boston).

I had never contemplated a stop over from this quiet,permanently-damp room in Reverend Wakefield’s manse until we made our way tothe United States.

I curled my fingers down into the mattress under thecovers.

Frank said we should go Home: a place I had never been with neighbors I had never met. A place where I would have to ask where to findthe cutlery and spare towels, where magazines I had never read sat with curling pages on a side table. It would not be my home, though it was a home. Frank’s home.

I had allowed him to touch me that night –– his handson my face with a reverence I was not sure I would have been able to muster hadI been in his shoes. “We can make this work, Claire,” he promised. I had turned my mouth into his palm, kissing his ring. I would try, even if it killed me.

I woke the following morning resigned to go Home (capital “H”).

There, on the nightstand was a piece of folded paper with thescrawl I had seen hundreds times, bent over drafts of his thesis anddissertation with a red pen:

I can’t do this.

-F

He was gone.

#;mod kate

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1000bodies-piled-up · 3 years ago

Photo

transcript:

"When you're kissing a guy with a beard, it's different." Gerard Way

Tinley Park, Illinois: There's blood everywhere. On the steps, on the cheerleaders, and most definitely on rock sound. "I've got some in my eye!" one girl screams as My Chemical Romance vocalist Gerard Way leans into the camera lens. A kneeling undead cheerleader grabs Way's pewter bat-wing belt buckle and peers up at the frontman with a blank stare. A third cheerleader (there's one "regular" cheerleader, two zombified), in the prone position, has forgotten to cross her legs, affording MCR guitarist Frankie Iero - who's off to the side having a smoke - a nearly unobstructed view up her extremely short skirt. The kneeling one already has a bloody handprint smeared on the inside of her right thigh.

"Brilliant, girls!" rock sound photo-wizard Nigel Crane enthuses as he snaps off another quick series of stills. Crane signals for the rest of MCR - Iero, devil-locked bassist Mikey Way (Gerard's younger brother), drummer Matt Pelissier, and afro'd guitarist Ray Toro - to join Gerard and the girls for a last round of group shots. Crane is ostensibly shooting the band, but you can tell by the way the dirty fucker is positioning the girls he's probably angling for some camel toe as well. Not that we can blame him. Meanwhile, Mikey is nervous about getting blood on his favorite coat. Iero loves it, though, and lets his tour manager pour the stuff down the front of the guitarist's white shirt. It's fake blood, obviously (zesty mint flavour, no less, and at $35 per quart, a right bargain as well) - most of it anyway. the krovvy dripping from Gerard's mouth is painfully real. Earlier this afternoon, during the band's 4:25pm set on the Warped Tour second stage (the venue's main stage), he accidentally smashed himself in the face with the microphone.

Therapy Rock

At first glance, Gerard Way resembles notorious black-metal imp Dani Filth - only better looking and, like, taller. Way and the rest of MCR espouse the kind of neo-goth 'n' roll that requires a generous application of mascara, Iron Maiden guitar acrobatics, and an unusual affinity for things like bats, blood, and, um, zombie cheerleaders. Their major label debut, 'Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge', is a lyrically ambitious emo-rock fantasy headache detailing the presumably complex relationship between two dead lovers and "the corpses of a thousand evil men" left in their wake. Shit, there's even a song about playing tonsil hockey with The Used's Bert McCracken (the aptly-titled 'You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison').

"I probably shouldn't even say that," Way laughs. "I've never even told my girlfriend about it. It happened when Burt and I were playing Truth Or Dare - when you're kissing a guy with a beard, it's different."

Today's injury is nothing new for Way. MCR's website even has mock New Jersey Medical Center County Hospital "Lab Reports" detailing the members' various injuries and ailments. "I had the top of my lip torn off," Way tells us. "I don't even have that little piece of flesh that connects to my gums anymore. At a show, my head connected with another kid's head and now (that little piece) is gone. I was gushing blood, but the only thing i was concerned about was whether people could actually understand what I was saying while we finished the song."

Such triumphs of the will are what constitute MCR's daily existence. Way's ongoing battle with depression and now, apparently, excessive drinking - go a long way toward explaining why he thanks not one but two headshrinkers in the 'Three Cheers...' liner notes. "One was my therapist before the band, and the other is still my therapist," he explains. "I didn't thank them to get cool points, but to show in a way that it's okay to have a therapist. They ask a lot of questions about the band and my music because it's my whole life. By figuring out how my band works, they figure out how my brain works."

Way's current therapist has even managed to convince him that the trials and tribulations of a certain vintage folk-pop duo are not unlike those currently being encountered by MCR.

"My therapist right now, Bruce, is a big fan of Simon & Garfunkel. and he relates the mental stuff they went through to my band. He does it in this hippie way, which is kind of alien to me, but we talk a lot about alcoholism. (Bruce) was very adamant about getting me to stop drinking, but I haven't. I think I'm gonna take action soon, though. It gets to the point where the after-show drink becomes getting up at 10 or 11 and thinking you need a drink just to function. And sometimes it's more readily available than water. We're usually playing at a bar, so they've already got the beer."

Home Sweet Home

Before MCR formed, Way and the rest of his future bandmates were toiling away at crappy jobs in their native New Jersey, a place Way maintains a love/hate relationship with. "the worst thing about Jersey is that it's a microcosm that sucks you in. Everything's within an hour of your grasp - malls, jobs, drugs, liquor, trashy women. You never have to leave a 50-mile radius. You'll never see anything beautiful, but you're satisfied as a standard American consumer." On the other hand, "the best thing about Jersey is that it's honest. It's got a vibe very much like New York City, only more family - it's got this camaraderie to it that a lot of states don't have."

In Jersey, Way achieved moderate success drawing comics and illustrations before turning to music as a creative outlet. He did, however, draw the album cover and tray-card art for 'Three Cheers...'. "I've been drawing since I was little kid, but I didn't really take it seriously until high school," the singer explains. "That's when I realized I wouldn't be able to hold a normal job. I was a cart-boy at a supermarket, so I had my taste of manual labour, and I hated it."

So, naturally, Way went to art school. "I'm kind of what you'd call a failed starving artist in the sense that I found a different art that I can live off of - which is all I ever wanted

x x

#transcribed #hopefully i didnt fuck up lol #just thought this might make it easier to read

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fuzzballsheltiepants · 7 years ago

Text

The Forging of the Wolf, Chapter 9

Aedion’s backstory continues. Mildly NSFW. Trigger warning for attempted sexual assault and PTSD symptoms. Read Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8.

Paget’s camp ran like a dream, Aedion decided a month into his tenure there. The more experienced officers were eager to involve the newer ones, regardless of rank. They, in turn, helped train the regulars and recruits, rather than that training being left to a couple of lower ranking officers as been protocol at Perrington’s. As newly made lieutenants, he and his fellows were being taught how to manage large groups of men both in training and in battle, and how to foster obedience to their commanding officer. Yet respectful debate was encouraged, and good points were listened to regardless of who made them.

It reminded him of Terrasen.

His fellow officers were by and large good men, though there were a couple who seemed to delight too much in their newfound status. He enjoyed whenever he was paired with them in training, as he got to knock them down a peg or two. General Paget would ride out whenever it was horse work, and even though he was fifty five if he was a day he was still an outstanding horseman and intimidating opponent. Those were Aedion’s favorite sessions, and Avenar proved her worth again and again. Then there were the private sessions with Captain Paget. It was remarkably satisfying to be able to punch something as hard as he could, and the captain had him hold weights to increase his speed even more. Not to mention the fun of the constant bantering with innuendo that bordered on flirtatious. Captain Paget - Mikkal - had also insisted that he eat more, so his plate was always loaded. It still felt like he could never get enough.

And once a week the officers had social time in town. It was essentially glorified whoring, but Aedion wasn’t about to object. The evenings off afforded him the time to grab a new book and eat an extra meal before satisfying other appetites.

On one such night he lay on his back, panting, between two women in similar situations. He had always wondered what one man could manage to do with two women, and it turned out the possibilities far exceeded his imagination. It had never occurred to him that they might also enjoy each other’s skills; nor how much fun that would be for him to observe. One of the women stirred, brushing her fingers over his chest, and he pulled her to him for a thorough kiss. He just needed a few more minutes…

A faint scream hit his ear, and he was out of bed before anyone could blink. Yanking his pants on, he ran out of the room shirtless and barefoot, the calls of the women he’d left echoing after him. At the bottom of the stairs, he paused, listening; he could hear muffled sobbing now, coming from down the hall. Tracking the sound, he burst through the door it came from, ripping the hinges straight off. Lieutenant Harcourt was in there, pants down, tearing at the clothes of a terrified girl lying prone on the bed. He froze as Aedion roared in rage and grabbed him by the throat. As Aedion dragged him through the hallways and out onto the street, Harcourt made enough noise fighting his hold that doors slammed open throughout the inn.

When they reached the open air, Aedion threw him down the front steps. “What the hell is your problem?” Harcourt yelled as soon as he had breath.

“My problem, you son of a bitch, is that you were about to rape an innocent girl!”

Harcourt tried to laugh derisively, though it came out as more of a squeak. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you stupid bastard,” he sneered. “She wanted it, you had no right to interfere.”

“Her screams would suggest otherwise.” Aedion could feel himself shifting into a cold rage. All of his senses were heightened even more than typical; he could hear the heartbeats of the people clustered in the open doorway behind him, could still smell the salt of the girl’s tears, the acidity of her fear. “You’re so weak you have to prove yourself by taking some poor child by force?” He spat in the dirt at Harcourt’s feet.

Harcourt lunged at him, and Aedion struck him on the cheek, hard enough to knock him back a little but not enough to break anything. Swearing, the man charged him again, and Aedion’s knuckles buried themselves in his gut. Harcourt fell to his knees, retching. When he’d finished he leaped up, wiping his mouth, and came at him a third time. One more blow, this one to his ribs, hard enough to bruise bone, had Harcourt down on one knee, gasping out, “You don’t outrank me, you can’t do this!”

“I’ll take the censure if it comes, you fucking prick.”

“I don’t see how you can hold yourself up as some sort of..” he sputtered incoherently for a while, before spitting out, “You fucking killed a man for no good reason.”

“And you would do well to remember that,” Aedion snarled, and Harcourt blanched at the promise of death in his face. Aedion prowled down the steps and bent low over his fellow lieutenant. “You might think you’re some sort of stallion who can breed whatever filly he wants,” he murmured softly. “But I wouldn’t even need a knife to geld you, if you ever touch a woman without her consent again.” Grabbing the back of Harcourt’s shirt, he yanked him to his feet. Turning back to the inn, someone tossed him Harcourt’s pants, and he threw them on the ground in front of him. The crowd parted as he stalked through, but there were a few gentle pats on his back as he passed. He went to the room where the girl was still clutching at the sheets, sobbing quietly, and knelt gently on the floor next to the bed.

“Are you all right, honey?” he asked gently. She nodded, then burst into a fresh round of tears. He sighed, wanting to comfort her but could see his presence was only scaring her more. The innkeeper’s wife bustled in with a basin of water and a washcloth, and he rose to let her help the girl. Out in the hallway, the innkeeper was hovering, looking anxious. Aedion apologized for damaging the door, but the man waved that off, thanking him for intervening. Now that the situation was under control, he could feel the blackness pressing down on him and fought to retain consciousness. He trailed back up the stairs to the room, leaning heavily on the bannister, everything around him going gray. The women were gone, thank the gods. He almost made it into the bathing room before his knees gave out and he vomited up his dinner. There were spots in his vision and a buzzing in his ears, as wave after wave of nausea hit him. Finally he became aware of a cool dry hand on his forehead. Litton. His face was grim as he helped Aedion to his feet and handed him his shirt. He stayed with him while he put on his socks and tied his boots, not speaking, until Aedion stood up to leave. Then, Litton pulled him into a quick embrace.

“Thank you, my brother,” Aedion said, looking steadily into Litton’s face. The two men clapped each other’s shoulders, and Aedion headed down to walk home alone.

*****

Mikkal had kept his vow to himself for a full month, which was about three times longer than he had expected to manage given his constant close contact with Lieutenant Ashryver. Indeed, he was beginning to congratulate himself on his self-control when the man in question swaggered into the officer’s lounge, brushing past him on the way to the small bar. Like most of the unmarried officers he had evidently spent the evening in town, and he reeked of sex and ladies’ perfume. Mikkal had stayed at camp ostensibly to finish the week’s reports, taking advantage of everyone’s absence to spread his papers out all over the table in the lounge. In reality, he wanted to avoid temptation.

It looked like temptation had found him.

No. He would go back to his quarters and finish up there. As he started to gather up his files, Ashryver flopped down in the chair opposite, sliding a glass across the table at him before propping his feet up and leaning back. “Thought you could use a drink,” he said, smiling crookedly. “I know I’d need one to get through all that shit.”

Mikkal huffed. “Seems like you’ve had a few already.” But he picked up the drink and took a sip, rolling it in his mouth before swallowing the burn.

“Not really.”

Mikkal looked at him more closely, at his glittering eyes and the aggression that seemed to be pouring off of him; usually he kept it more tightly leashed. But he certainly didn’t seem intoxicated.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Sir,” Ashryver said, the honorific an afterthought; he got to his feet and prowled over to the bar. Mikkal waited. “It’s just…Nothing.”

“You know I’ll hear about it eventually,” Mikkal said evenly.

“There are plenty of women who are ready and willing in town. Plenty.” He walked around the room, coming to a halt next to the table, looking down at Mikkal, who nodded, unsure where this was going. “So why do I have to pull a fellow officer off a fourteen year old girl who’s not?”

That was when Mikkal noticed the bruised and cracked knuckles. “Who.”

“Harcourt. Don’t worry, I got there in time. Barely. And the bastard’s not going to try anything like that again, or I told him he’d lose the ability permanently.”

At least it was another lieutenant and Ashryver hadn’t assaulted and threatened a superior officer. Mikkal closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Technically, it should have been reported to a superior and they should have dealt with it, but realistically there probably hadn’t been time. Also, technically, he was reporting it now. “How badly did you hurt him?”

“He’ll have some good bruises but I didn’t break anything. Except his sense of entitlement.”

Mikkal laughed; he couldn’t help it. This camp had never held with taking women by force, though he was aware it was all too common elsewhere. He would back Ashryver up, and more to the point so would his father. He held out his hand. “Let me see.”

Reluctantly, Ashryver reached out with the injured hand. It was his left, though Mikkal knew by now that he favored his right. Inspecting the knuckles, Mikkal noticed that several of the fingers were crooked. “How did you break these?” He brushed them lightly with his thumb and pretended not to notice the shiver that followed.

“Umm.” His voice cracked a little. “They were broken in a fight a few months ago.”

“Why did you punch someone with a hand that’s been broken that recently?” And how had he not known about this? He’d been having the boy punch weighted bags for the past month.

“Because if I’d hit him with my right I probably would’ve done a lot more than I meant.”

Mikkal brushed his thumb over the fingers again, then released his hand and looked up into those strange, beautiful eyes. “How was the rest of your evening?” he asked quietly.

“Satisfactory,” Ashryver replied, that one corner of his mouth hitching up again.

Definitely time to leave. Mikkal stood, tapped his files against the table a few times to get them to line up, and headed for the door. Ashryver downed his drink, then turned out the lamp and followed him, reaching him just before he could turn the handle. That bruised hand appeared over his shoulder to press on the door, holding it closed. Mikkal turned around to find them inches apart. His eyes focused on the other man’s mouth, the little dent in the upper lip. Ashryver was the only man he’d ever met who made him feel small. It wasn’t so much the few inches in height but the breadth of his frame. Even though he was lean - too lean, despite all the work they’d been doing to build his body up - he was still utterly overwhelming.

His eyes flicked up and were caught by the intense expression in the lieutenant’s. Holding his gaze, Ashryver leaned in and covered his mouth with his own. Mikkal felt himself melting into the kiss, much as he had that first time all those weeks ago. Ashryver’s tongue brushed his lips and he opened for him. He reached up to cup his face, to drag him in even deeper, and ended up bashing him in the shoulder with his files. Ashryver broke off abruptly and looked down at the papers in confusion.

“Ignore it,” Mikkal said, and dropped them on the floor. Ashryver chuckled and returned to the job at hand, pressing him back against the door, that long lean thigh between his own. Their hands began roaming over each other’s clothes, and Mikkal couldn’t stop his body’s response, didn’t even want to. Ashryver clearly felt it pressing into his hip and he gave a soft groan into his mouth. He tugged harder at Mikkal’s shirt, sliding those callused fingers directly over heated skin as soon as he found a gap. Mikkal let his own hand wander down, feeling the smooth ridges of the younger man’s muscles through the thin fabric, then down further to palm him gently through his pants. Ashryver jerked slightly with a soft curse, then leaned into the touch, continuing to explore Mikkal’s back with his hand.

Suddenly he froze, listening intently to something Mikkal couldn’t hear. “Shit,” he whispered. “The others are back.” Mikkal wondered how he knew. “What should we do?”

He heard it then, the faintest of voices. “I don’t…” He couldn’t think over the roaring of blood through his veins. Ashryver kissed him once more, softly, then pulled away. Picking up the papers, he handed them to Mikkal, then moved him gently out of the way. Opening the door, he sauntered casually into the night. Mikkal could hear the other men calling out a drunken greeting, and Ashryver replying in kind. He waited until the men had passed, then slipped out and headed to his quarters. An hour later, he was laying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, fighting an absurd urge to cry.

*****

A month had passed. A month of living in relative luxury, delivering letters, and waiting. In which Delaney had learned nothing of the message she had brought hundreds of miles to Terrasen. In which there were whispers on the street of the resurrection of a prince thought dead, of rebellion, of the rousing of the Bane. In which there were hushed meetings behind closed doors and people coming and going in the night. In which nobody smiled, but everybody began to feel a tiny spark, smothered long ago, glowing deep in the ashes of Terrasen.

*****

The weeks continued to slip by. The lieutenants were divided into pairs to start working with regulars, organizing drills and planning forays out into the field. Aedion was paired with Amond. He was a nice enough fellow; the third son of a minor lord, he had ended up in the military more or less by accident and seemed determined to make the best of it. Together they schemed and organized and trained, and Aedion loved every second of it. Loved finding the rhythm of the work, the new ways to challenge the men and keep them interested, breaking the monotony of routine while not disrupting the comfort that comes with familiarity. And he loved the few stolen moments he found with Mikkal, their brief clashes of lips and breath that never went farther but somehow left him more sated than his trysts with women in town.

One afternoon, Major Ivry asked him to run into town to pick up something for his wife. He liked Mrs. Ivry; she was cheerful and funny and so pregnant she looked like she was going to rupture at any moment. Hopping on Avenar, who needed the exercise and made the first few moments of the ride interesting, he made it into town to the herbalist just moments before the skies opened in a summer squall. While waiting out the worst of it, the innkeeper’s wife saw him and began making a fuss. Naturally this drew the older generation of women out of the woodwork who all clustered around him, telling him how noble he was, how wonderful it was to have officers with such a sense of honor, and so handsome too. Flushing beet red, he made his excuses and grabbed Avenar from her tie under the building’s overhang. The rain had lightened some, but he and his horse were both soaked through before they passed through the gates. At least the herbs were safe in their waxed paper in his satchel, and he handed them off to Mrs. Ivry.

“Oh, thank you, Lieutenant. I’d have gone myself, but the major wouldn’t have any of that. He told me he couldn’t have me be dropping the baby on the public street. And here I’ve got another month to go!” She laughed, shaking her head at the ridiculousness of men, and patted Aedion on the cheek. He bowed and retreated, blushing fiercely again and cursing his complexion.

Once safely in his room, he realized he was dripping all over the floor. Stripping off his sodden clothes, he toweled off and then began digging through his wardrobe. Shit. He’d forgotten that he’d sent his spare shirt to the laundry for repair. With a sigh, he pulled out a short-sleeved training shirt. It wasn’t protocol to wear off the pitch, but he could get a fresh shirt from the laundry before dinner.

He was about the pull the shirt over his head when there was a token tap on the door and Mikkal entered, focused on a paper in his hand. “Sorry to intrude, Ashryver, Litton said…” he trailed off as he looked up and realized he had just walked into a room with a very naked Aedion in it.

Aedion raised an eyebrow. “What did Litton say?” A grin began to spread across his face at Mikkal’s distraction, those amber eyes roving over his body.

“He, umm. He said you were, um, in here.” He dragged his eyes up to meet Aedion’s, then reached behind him and closed the door.

“So I am,” Aedion said, and closed the distance between them in two strides. “What did you need?” he murmured in Mikkal’s ear.

“It can wait,” he replied, dropping the paper on the small desk by the door and pulling Aedion down the couple inches to meet his lips.

It was so easy, Aedion thought, slipping his tongue into Mikkal’s mouth, so easy to lose himself in this man. He yanked Mikkal’s shirt free and pulled back to watch him tug it over his head. Then they were chest to chest, and he savored the skin on skin contact, the feel of those hard muscles against his own. Their hands roamed, and it was getting hard to tell where he ended and Mikkal began. So easy to lose himself, and to love being lost.

Which was why he didn’t feel the wave of icy black coming until it crashed over him and dragged him under.

*****

Mikkal had never felt so helpless in all his life as he did when Aedion collapsed in his arms. It was too sudden and Aedion too big for him to do more than control the fall. At first he thought it was some sort of seizure, but Aedion’s eyes were open and staring, horror-filled, as if it were more of a waking nightmare. Then the retching began, and he helped him onto his hands and knees as bile poured out of his mouth and nose. This must be what Litton had told him about when he came to him the day after the incident with Harcourt. No wonder Litton had been so shaken.

It seemed to last forever. He thought about calling for help as more spasms of nausea wracked that huge frame, but he didn’t want to have to explain the lack of clothing. And Litton had said he’d come out of it on his own eventually. So he waited, crouched on the floor with one arm steadying his shoulders, using his body to stabilize them both until finally Aedion pulled away and sat down, back against the wall, arms resting on his knees. There was an odd sort of defiance in the tear-bright eyes, and Mikkal sat back and waited quietly, not breaking eye contact.

He must be ill, somehow. When he had burst in on Aedion he had been first struck by his sheer beauty, but it hadn’t escaped him that despite his muscle mass, those bones were far too clearly visible. Holding him as he had been sick made it even more obvious. Mikkal wondered how long it had been going on, how he had successfully hidden it. He certainly ate plenty, more than any of the others, especially since they’d decided he was underweight, but if anything he seemed to be getting leaner. “I want you to see the healer,” he finally said, little louder than a whisper.

“I’m fine,” Aedion replied. He leaned his head back until it rested against the wall, closing his eyes and rubbing his face.

“You’re not fine. You’re losing weight, you’re vomiting -”

Aedion dropped his hands and glared at him. “I don’t want to see the healer,” he snapped. “There’s nothing wrong, this just…happens sometimes.”

Mikkal thought for a moment. Behind the flash of anger there was a glimmer of fear, and he supposed that having the official camp healer diagnose him with some sort of illness could impact his status. “What if I took you to an outside healer?”

“What?”

Mikkal stood and grabbed the paper he’d brought off the desk. “I was coming to ask you if you were familiar at all with Oakwald. I’ve been assigned to do a little scouting training there, and I wanted to visit beforehand to plan. But I haven’t spent much time in the forest, and I thought perhaps you had.”

Aedion nodded warily. “Yes, I know the forest well, at least on the Terrasen side.”

“So…what if we go together to plan the training exercise, and find a healer on the way?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t need a healer.”

Mikkal smiled, a slow, lazy smile that he knew would get under Aedion’s skin. “Then it will be a short visit.”

Lurching to his feet, Aedion stalked to his bureau and pulled on some pants, then picked the shirt up from where he had discarded it and pulled it over his head. “You’re not going to let this go, are you.”

“Would it help if I made it an order?”

Cursing, Aedion went to his washbasin, poured himself a glass of water, and rinsed his mouth several times. Then he crossed back to Mikkal, pushing into his space, but Mikkal planted his feet. They stared at each other, so close that details blurred. “Fine,” he said, and his breath hitting Mikkal’s cheek almost made him shiver. “I’ll see a healer, but only because I want to take this trip with you.”

Mikkal’s reply was not in words.

*****

Delaney came down to breakfast one morning to find a stranger sitting at the table. Clery had still not descended, but the fair-haired man seemed quite at home despite his dusty clothes and pungent smell. He looked up from happily slapping jam on a piece of toast. “Good morning, miss,” he greeted her in a cheerful Adarlanian accent, slurping some coffee.

“Good morning,” she murmured automatically, and sat down a bit dazedly in her usual chair. Shaking her head to clear it, she pulled the silver teapot closer and poured herself a cup, adding her usual heaping teaspoon of sugar. Clery burst into the room, making Delaney slosh her tea everywhere, and pulled the stranger into an enthusiastic hug.

“Fulke! I didn’t expect you back so soon. When did you return?”

“About twenty minutes ago,” Fulke replied with a grin. “I came straight here, as you can see.” He gestured to his stained clothes.

“And what news from Paget’s camp?”

Delaney startled at the name and leaned forward, feeling her pulse all the way in her fingertips.

Fulke settled back in his chair with the air of someone preparing to tell a good story. “Well, it seems the new lieutenant class has made a bit of a splash. All was pretty quiet in town when I arrived. I was staying at the main inn, just like we talked about, trying to feel out if there might be some work available in the camp itself. I’d only been there three days when I was wakened out of a sound sleep by a ruckus the likes of which I’ve never heard before. Out on the front step was a half-naked giant of a man, beating the shit out of some fool lieutenant who’d evidently tried to take a young girl to bed against her will. It was young Ashryver.” He shook his head, chuckling.

“Ashryver tried to rape a young girl?” Clery asked, aghast. Delaney almost laughed, the idea was so ludicrous, and Fulke looked contrite at the misunderstanding.

“No, no, he was doing the beating. And let me tell you, there’s no doubt that boy was trained by Rhoe. Dropped the man in three blows. Nobody in that camp is ever going to force a woman as long as he’s around, not after that.”

Clery sagged in relief. “And you’re sure it’s him.”

“No doubt. He looks just the same, only bigger. Could never mistake those eyes, anyway.”

“Aedion’s all right?” Delaney interjected, needing to hear the confirmation. Fulke looked at her in some confusion.

“Sorry, this is Delaney, the girl who brought us the message,” Clery introduced her. “Delaney, Fulke is one of my…associates.”

“I’m one of his spies, he means,” Fulke said, adding, “Come on, man, it’s gotta be obvious,” in response to Clery’s glare.

“But Aedion really is all right.” She would not be deterred.

Fulke nodded. “Yes, he certainly is.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked furiously. The fair-haired man smiled at her kindly. “You must have been…close.”

She couldn’t help but smile at that, knowing what he was implying. “He’s like my brother,” she said. “As dear to me as my real one.”

Clery began questioning about more general matters then, and Delaney paid close attention even though her heart was singing. Fulke answered in great detail about the layout of the town, the proximity to the camp, the frequency of visits from the officers, and the ease of traveling there from Terrasen. Evidently despite Clery’s acquiescence to Darrow, he was still developing a contingency to get Aedion out of Adarlan altogether if necessary.

After breakfast, she was sent out with just one letter, but it was to a country house well away from the city. Part of her wondered if it was to get her out of the way while Clery and Fulke plotted, but she didn’t mind. It was a glorious day in high summer, and even Horse didn’t seem to object too much to being ridden out, though that may have been because of all the tall grass lining the road. As the sun beat down on her and she could practically feel her smattering of freckles darkening, she thought about Fulke. About the advantages Terrasen could find in having spies of Adarlanian descent. About her own skill in getting around unnoticed, and her longing to do something other than eating all of Clery’s food and waiting, always waiting. After delivering the letter and receiving her reply - and a delicious lunch, courtesy of the bustling cook - she returned to the city.

Dropping the letter onto Clery’s desk, she stood straight and proud before him and announced, “I want to learn to be a spy.”

*****

Aedion shouldn’t have been surprised at the ease with which Mikkal arranged their trip, but he was. They would travel due west to a small town that bordered Oakwald forest, then spend two or three days exploring the area to determine how best to set up the scout training. The training itself would take place in a month or two, after the lieutenants were all made and had received their assignments. Which meant it was possible neither Aedion nor Mikkal would be present for the actual training, so their notes would have to be meticulous.

Avenar seemed glad to be on the road again, or perhaps she was feeding off Aedion’s mood. The weather was glorious, and the rich scents of baking earth and growing plants filled his nostrils. He and Mikkal joked and laughed for most of the trip, interspersed with brief snatches of more serious talk about the challenges of training in the forest compared to on the plains. It was well past noon and getting on towards evening when they reached the tiny town, little more than a village. Mikkal asked a passing farmer if there was a town healer, and they were directed to a small cottage right on the outskirts, backing up against the woods.

The healer was a pleasant faced, pleasantly curved middle-aged woman who nonetheless made Aedion edgy. She welcomed them into her cottage, directing him into a clean, bright room that smelled pungently of herbs. As Mikkal followed him into the room, she glared at him. “And who are you?” she demanded, hands on her hips.

“I’m his commanding officer,” Mikkal replied, drawing himself up to his full height.

She glanced at Aedion, comically unimpressed. “Is it all right with you if he stays?”

“It’s fine, he’s the reason I’m here,” he said with a disarming smile, adding silently in his head, Because I’m incapable of saying no to him.

She closed the door and, gesturing Aedion onto a stool, sat on a small chair opposite him. Mikkal hovered behind him. “What brings you here today?”

Feeling a bit foolish, he replied, “I’m having trouble putting on weight.”

She looked him up and down with a knowing eye. “Is that the sole complaint?”

Aedion started to say yes, but Mikkal spoke over him. “And you’re having those episodes.”

Nearly growling, Aedion turned to Mikkal and snapped, “I’m not having episodes.” Turning back to the healer, he added more gently, “I’m not.”

“You’ve had two that I know of,” Mikkal retorted, not backing down an inch. “Yes,” he said in response to Aedion’s self-conscious look, “I got the full report of what happened with Harcourt, so don’t give me any bullshit about it.”

The healer was watching them with some amusement. “Define episodes.”

“He collapses.”

She turned to Aedion for confirmation. “If I get…upset, or emotional,” he said with a warning glare at Mikkal, “I vomit and get light-headed.”

Making a few notes on a small pad of paper, she asked, “How often does that happen?”

He shrugged. “It varies. I can go a month or more with nothing, then have two in a week.”

After asking a few more basic questions and jotting the answers down, she asked him to remove his shirt and examined him carefully, making more notes after examining his eyes and his mouth, then pressing an ear to his chest. “How well do you sleep?” she asked, as she probed his abdomen.

“It’s inconsistent. Sometimes like the dead, other times I can’t settle, especially if I don’t fight or…” he trailed off, reluctant to say “fuck” to this motherly woman.

“Have relations?” she suppled drily. He nodded, feeling the blood rise to his face.

“Well,” Mikkal muttered, “when it comes to that, I have the same problem.”

Finishing her examination, she pulled back and tapped her pen against her leg. “Can you shift?” He sat up straighter and eyed her warily, twisting his shirt in his hands.

“Shift?” Mikkal asked. “What’s shift?”

Aedion ignored him, staring the healer right in the eye as she gazed back calmly. He gave in first. “No.”

“Could you…before?” She waved her hand in the air, and he knew she meant before magic vanished. He shook his head, biting his cheek to keep from laughing at Mikkal’s baffled expression.

“Was it your mother or your father?”

“It was,” he thought back to what he’d been told, “my mother’s…grandmother, I believe.”

She shook her head. “That’s impossible. It’s way too strong to be that distant.”

“What’s too strong?” Mikkal interjected. “What are you talking about?”

“Mikkal. Shut. Up,” Aedion hissed.

“Commanding officer, you say?” the healer asked Mikkal sweetly, and he cursed under his breath.

“My cousin could shift, though my senses are better,” Aedion said, turning back to her. “We shared the same amount of blood. We were told it just bred true in our generation.”

“Hmm.” The syllable was dripping with skepticism. “Who was your father?”

His lips tightened slightly. “Unknown; I’m a bastard.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Mikkal supplied quietly. If Aedion could have cold-cocked him without upsetting the healer, he would have.

The woman studied her paper, then him, continuing to ignore Mikkal. “How old are you?” she asked abruptly.

“Sixteen.”

“And you?” she said, turning to Mikkal.

“Twenty four,” he responded automatically. She gave him a disapproving glare. “What?” he asked defensively, but she just turned back to Aedion.

“How often do you eat?”

Aedion’s brow furrowed. “Uh, three times a day? Sometimes four, if I can manage it.”

She stood with a derisive snort. “Well, then, there’s your problem. Don’t you know demi-fae have to eat at least six times a day during adolescence? You’re burning up the food too fast to follow human eating habits.” Mikkal looked so shocked Aedion thought a strong breeze would take him off his feet. “Of course, if you settle, you’ll be able to eat far less often.” She ushered him to his feet, then opened the door to the small room and swept into the hallway, saying over her shoulder “Now, I’ve got to be going, if you don’t mind; I need to collect some herbs before dark.” The men followed her, Mikkal still looking like he’d been punched in the balls, Aedion feeling a bit the same. They were nearly out the door when Mikkal stopped.

“Wait, what about the episodes? Why is he collapsing?” he asked.

The healer looked at Aedion for a long moment, expression unfathomably sad. “A totally normal response to trauma,” she said quietly. He looked at the ground, unable to hold her clear-eyed gaze.

“Trauma?” Mikkal repeated in little more than a whisper.

Throwing a red cloak over her shoulders, she locked her door behind her and patted Aedion on the arm as she passed. “Be honest with your lover,” she said. “And eat more frequently.” With that, she walked into the woods and disappeared.

*****

It was a quiet ride back into the town proper. Once, a number of years ago, Mikkal had taken a colt out that was only just started under saddle. The horse had shied at a bird and set off in a series of back-cracking bucks; on the fourth leap, Mikkal had sailed over the colt’s head and landed flat on his back. He still remembered the feeling of being utterly unable to move air, of feeling the earth sway beneath him even though he was laying down, of the nauseating spinning of his head. He felt somewhat like that now.

Not that it was really so shocking that Aedion had fae blood, when you considered his size, his speed, and his strength. He wondered if his father knew. If the King knew. Remembering his recent conversation with his father, he suspected they did. The general had pulled him aside before this trip and warned him to be careful of the young lieutenant.

Mikkal had laughed. “I don’t need to worry about Ashryver,” he’d assured his father. “I’ve never raped a woman, and I don’t plan on starting now.”

The general had huffed. “I certainly hope not, son, or you’d have more than Ashryver to worry about. Just…don’t forget what he’s capable of.” Mikkal had pointed out that Aedion had deliberately used his off hand when he had punished Harcourt, and the general had looked grim. “I know, son, and that’s part of what worries me. A man who can show that type of control when he’s in a rage like that? It’s not just you who needs to be worried about Ashryver. We all do.”

He was still a bit lost in his thoughts when they reached the inn and requested a room for the night. “One room or two?” the innkeeper asked. He hesitated, uncertain what to say.

“Do you have a room with two beds?” Aedion asked smoothly. He turned to Mikkal. “Might as well save the general the coin.”

“Of course,” the innkeeper said, and showed the to a large, airy room on the top floor. Mikkal ordered food, and then stopped the man before he departed and asked for another meal to be sent up right before the kitchens closed. Aedion flashed him a quick smile in appreciation, then dropped his pack on the floor and fell back on one of the beds, just staring at the ceiling. Mikkal sat on the other bed and pulled off his boots, wiggling his toes in relief. He needed new ones, he noted idly; these ones always seemed to pinch.

After several minutes of silence, Aedion sat up and pulled off his own boots, setting them neatly by the bed. Then he met Mikkal’s eyes and just…waited.

Mikkal opened his mouth to ask some sort of brilliant question about the implications of being demi-fae, but what blurted out was, “Does the age difference bother you?”

Aedion gaped at him in disbelief, then started laughing. “After all that came out during that examination, that’s what you got caught up on?” he asked once he was able to recover his breath. There was a knock on the door before Mikkal could reply, and he opened it to allow in a man carrying a tray with two heaping plates on it. After setting the food and silver on the small table, Mikkal gave him a copper and the man bowed and retreated.

Mikkal sat at the table and picked up his fork; Aedion sat opposite him and fell on the food as a man starving. Which, Mikkal thought with a twinge of guilt, he was. “Yes,” he answered the question asked several minutes ago. “It’s been bothering me for a while, actually.”

Aedion came up for air and met his eyes. “Really?” He nodded. “How long?”

“Since I read your file.” He gave a short, humorless laugh and decided he might as well confess. “Otherwise I probably would’ve invited you to my bed a while ago.”

Taking another bite, Aedion chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “But I’ve bedded women your age and nobody thinks twice about it.”

That hadn’t actually occurred to him. “Well, but…it’s different with women.”

“Why?”

That was an excellent question. Mikkal searched his mind for a reason. “They’re less predatory.”

Aedion choked. When he had finished coughing, he said wryly, “You’re fucking different women than I am, then.” They ate in silence for a while, and finally Aedion set down his silver and leaned back in the chair. “Let me get this straight. I’ve been raised for war, trained for it since I could lift a wooden sword. I’ve killed a dozen men that I know about, most of them when I was fourteen. Are you telling me I’m old enough to kill a man, but not old enough to love one?”

There was no answer to that. Mikkal didn’t want to even consider the ramifications of that word, even as a wild joy flared through him. He cast about for a different topic. “And you’re fae.”

Those turquoise eyes showed no surprise from the abrupt change in subject. “Only part. It’s not a secret.” Mikkal narrowed his own eyes at him, and that one corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “I’m an Ashryver,” he said by way of explanation. “All Ashryvers have fae blood,” he added at Mikkal’s blank look. “It might not be common knowledge over here, but I’m sure the King knows. Probably how the healer did, come to think of it.” Finishing his food, he stood and stretched, then pulled a book out of his pack and sat on his bed, back against the headboard, long legs crossed at the ankles. The book sat on his lap, unopened. Mikkal rose and sat himself at the foot of the same bed, pulling Aedion’s feet into his lap and beginning to massage them.

There was something intimate about it, some dropping of a barrier as Aedion gave a little moan of pleasure. He peeled off the socks and dug his thumbs into the ball of one foot, enjoying the feel of the strong arch and the smooth calluses beneath his fingers. “I’ve been in war camps my whole life,” Mikkal said quietly, watching his hands work, “and I trained in Rifthold for a year. I fought in Terrasen and then in Fenharrow. I’ve seen almost every torture that can be devised for a man.” He glanced briefly up at Aedion’s guarded face before returning to his task. “You don’t have to tell me what happened to you, but you can. It won’t change how I feel about you.”

Aedion was silent for so long Mikkal was sure he wasn’t going to answer. Then, in a soft voice so cracked with pain it didn’t even belong to him, he began. He told about the confrontation with the man who’d broken his fingers, about the ambush with the corporal. About being brought around with smelling salts solely so he would feel the terror of being trapped, the pain of the repeated violations. About the threats and mocking words that had been whispered in his ear, the pinches to his thighs and balls every time he threatened to lose consciousness again. About the overwhelming smell of blood and sex and his own fear that had saturated the room. Mikkal kept his eyes down, barely daring to breathe, just absorbing the pain and humiliation that poured off this man he knew now, in this moment, he loved. Only when Aedion admitted that it was exhaustion alone that had kept him from throwing himself off the watchtower afterwards did Mikkal’s own tears start to fall.

“So you see,” he concluded so quietly Mikkal had to lean closer to hear him, “I want to…be with you, but I…” Aedion’s voice broke completely then and Mikkal all but lunged to gather him in his arms. Pulling him to his chest, he rocked him gently while Aedion’s whole body strained to control his weeping. Mikkal sang to him as he held him, just the nonsense songs his mother used to sing when he was upset, over and over until his voice was growing hoarse and Aedion finally began to cry himself out.

As Aedion quieted, Mikkal still held him close, gently brushing back that golden hair with his fingers. Slowly, he felt him relax, and he pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. They lay pressed together, Aedion’s head on his shoulder, their legs tangled. Mikkal felt grateful for the tranquil closeness that came from the purging of such pain. Eventually he realized that Aedion had fallen asleep, and he smiled a little despite himself as he rested his cheek against the top of his head.

He himself was fully awake. The sky outside the windows was finally darkening, a rich deep blue stained with orange and pink at the bottom. The day’s revelations crawled through his brain. It was hard not to be angry at himself for not picking up on what had happened to Aedion; now that he knew, it seemed obvious. He thought of the note he had found in his pocket after leaving the healer. Be patient, it had said in a beautiful flowing script. Be kind.

Aedion shifted slightly in his sleep, tucking himself in closer. Mikkal realized that he had lied earlier when he had told Aedion the story wouldn’t affect how he felt towards him. Well, not so much lied as been wrong. He had known, before Aedion started talking, that he was brave; yet the guts it took to sit there in the lamp light and lay bare those soul scars was something he had never seen. He couldn’t even comprehend it, it was so different from his brand of hot-blooded courage that took soldiers into battle. Until tonight, he had cared for Aedion, had been attracted by him, even to the point of distraction; but now, this draw he felt was something he didn’t dare name for fear of destroying it. The arm trapped underneath the broad shoulders began to tingle and slowly go numb, but he didn’t move. This was the first time since he met him that Aedion had ever actually seemed content, and he couldn’t risk ruining that. So he waited, grateful for this moment of peace, wishing it would never end.

#aedion #aedion ashryver #tog #prequel #my writing

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themanicmagician · 7 years ago

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The Ivory Doll - Final Chapter

Summary: Gaster becomes enthralled with Sans’ younger brother.

Sans sits in the same interrogation room he’d been led to weeks ago, when Anton had gone missing. The butterfly tape stuck around his right eye socket itches, but the cuffs that lock his wrists together (and put a stopper on his magic) make it difficult to scratch.

He’d been locked in a cell at the royal guard headquarters for days. He couldn’t afford bail on his own, and refused to call anyone for aid. Not a week ago he would’ve defended Gaster, Saul, or Em from anyone. Now he doesn’t know who he can trust. Had his coworkers known what was going on all along? He would’ve been able to tell, right?

Then again, he should’ve been able to tell Gaster was a massive pile of shit, too. So maybe he’s not the best judge of character.

Captain Mira sits opposite of him. There are hints of a sleepless night—mussed hair, a disheveled uniform, circles under wild eyes—but in spite of it she seems more energized, somehow.

Sans has recounted his side of the story; his personal investigation, and what it revealed. He watches Mira digest what he’s said, no doubt questioning the validity of his claims. She steps out for a moment, ostensibly to speak with Snapdragon or some other guard hiding behind the two-way glass.

“Well I have to say, Mr. Serif, you can spin quite the tale,” Mira says, as she rejoins him in the room. “Elaborate. Some might say far-fetched.” Her expression hardens. “Why should I believe you when the most likely explanation is two premeditated murders on your part, only this last didn’t end up quite like you’d planned?”

“You took my keys when you locked me up in here. Search my apartment. You’ll find the drawings.” Sans shrugs. “And gee, I don’t know. Maybe search the bastard’s home. There’s gotta be something there.”

“Being a sarcastic shitsack doesn’t endear you to me,” Mira warns.

“Sorry. Can you tell me where he is?”

“If by “he” you mean Gaster, he’s being treated for the injuries you gave him. Was near death’s door when they brought him in last night.”

“You should have let him die.”

Mira raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like there’s a lot of hate packed into that little body of yours.”

“You don’t think I’m justified?” Sans asks, acerbically.

“The Royal Scientist secretly being a pedophile is your story, not mine.”

Sans bristles. “Who wouldn’t do what I did? You have a daughter, don’t you? Isn’t she around Papyrus’ age? And you’re trying to tell me you wouldn’t stop at nothing to—”

“We’re not dealing with a what-if scenario, Mr. Serif.” She interrupts. “Regardless, supposing what you say is true, you should have come to us with your evidence.”

“I couldn’t wait.”

“And now you’re a suspect for one murder and two attempted murders.”

“Two?”

“Your brother was dangling above the Core’s magma by your magic.”

Sans rises, agitated. “I was saving him—”

“Sit down, Serif, before I make you.” Mira speaks over him.

Glaring, Sans sits again.

“Good.”

“Where is my brother now?” The last time he’d seen him, Papyrus was being carried out of the room in Snapdragon’s hold, screaming for Gaster.

“He’s safe. That’s all I’m telling you.”

“You have to take me to him. Please. I-I need to make sure he’s okay.”

Captain Mira places a hand over her soul. “On my honor, Papyrus is well taken care of. No one will bring him harm. But I can’t let you see him.”

“Papyrus has been through hell. He needs me.”

“You beat the shit out of a monster twice your size.” Mira points out. “Until the facts are clear, I’m not comfortable leaving you with a vulnerable child.”

“Just let me see him, at least. Please. He’s my brother.”

But Mira shakes her head.

“It’s best to keep Papyrus isolated from both you and the doctor until the trial. We’ll be needing his testimony. Now, I think we’re done here.”

Mira rises, and grabs Sans by the arm. She leads him from the room. Snapdragon had indeed been watching on the other side of the glass. His cool gaze follows Sans as Captain Mira drags him out by the bullpen. Guards are puttering about, trying to look busy, but there’s no doubt they’re all sneaking glances. Monsters are made of love and compassion. Crime is generally low; this case will most likely be the largest of the decade.

Sans bows his head, trying to ignore the stares. The captain leads him back to his holding cell.

~*~

When he wakes up, he’s nowhere near the Core, or his brother, or him. He’s lying on a bed that’s not his own. The air is strangely thick, humid. And affixed to the unfamiliar ceiling above him is a dangling mobile. There are seashells, orcas, blue bottlenose dolphins. They sway ever so softly.

Papyrus is nearly lulled back to sleep by the repetitive swaying motions when his view is suddenly blocked. A fish monster with blazing red hair and uneven fangs beams down at him.

“You’re up!”

He flinches, her voice unexpectedly loud.

“You’ve been hogging my bed for three days! Not cool.”

Despite her chastisement, she helps him sit up, fluffing the pillows and placing them against the headboard before he sits back.

Papyrus tries to apologize for sleeping in her bed, but the most he can muster is a strained croak.

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, right! I’ll be right back.”

She darts out of the room. The sound of her bare feet slapping on the floorboards soon fades, and once more he is alone. His gaze is drawn back to the mobile and its slow shifting movement.

Papyrus can’t tell if it’s been five minutes or five hours by the time she returns, with a glass of water in hand. She stops short at the bed, and the water sloshes over the brim of the cup, spilling onto the comforter. Uncaring, she shoves the glass of water towards Papyrus until he accepts it. His grip is weak, and more water gets on him than inside his mouth, but by the time the glass is empty he feels more coherent and all-together.

She plucks the glass from his hand.

“Do you want more?”

He shakes his head, so she sets the cup aside on the floor.

“Mom said to call as soon as you woke up, but…” Her brows knit. “Screw that! She wants to talk to you about some boring adult stuff. Let’s hang out!”

She grips his hand suddenly, with surprising strength. Papyrus panics, scrabbling back, away from her. Jagged bones pierce the foot of mattress between them, a clear warning to back off.

She raises her hands, taking several steps back.

Papyrus gasps for air, his soul pounding in his chest. He squeezes his eye sockets shut, bunches his shirtfront in a trembling fist. He can’t—he can’t—

“Hey, just relax, okay? Touching you was a mistake. Get that now. I won’t do it again, so just relax, okay?”

She continues rambling assurances until his breathing evens out again, and his summoned magic dissipates.

There’s something at the corner of his mind—the last time someone had grabbed him in bed, the time before that—but before it can settle down and grow roots, it glides off the surface of his mind. He’s not going to think about it right now.

“Are you better now?”

He nods. She lets out a gusty sigh of relief.

Her gaze wanders the room, stopping at a pirate treasure chest.

“I’ve got an idea!” She throws open the chest, letting the lid bang against the wall. She digs into the chest and resurfaces with an armful of action figures. She dumps them all on the bed, before hopping up on it herself. The toys are between them; she’s keeping her distance.

“My mom doesn’t know I found these in the dump. Aren’t they cool?”

Papyrus picks up one of the toys. It’s a muscled creature, with a blonde moustache.

“What are they?”

“These are human action figures!” She explains in a hushed, excited whisper, though it’s only the two of them in the room. “Here, check this one out!”

She grabs one around the chest. When she squeezes, it flexes.

“That is pretty cool.” Papyrus admits.

“I knew you’d like them, Papyrus.” She flashes a toothy grin. “My mom told me your name. I’m Undyne, by the way. My friends just call me ‘dyne, though.”

“Oh.” Papyrus locks in a blue beam onto the hand of a human in orange clothes. He depresses a switch on the human’s back, and the blast flies out and smacks another figure on the bed. Papyrus reloads it.

“Could I call you ‘dyne?”

“Of course, you dummy! That’s why I told you.”

Papyrus can’t stop himself from smiling. There’s a warm feeling in his chest.

“Thanks, ‘dyne.”

~*~

Sans is startled awake as the door to his cell is slammed open. It’s Mira, a keyring in hand.

“Get up.”

Sans rises off the cot. Mira unlocks his cuffs, and he staggers as his magic rushes back to him. He buzzes all over, as if all his limbs had fallen asleep and he’s suddenly lurching forward again. Mira steadies him by the shoulder.

“Come on. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

He follows Mira into her office. The décor is rather Spartan. Law books sit in a neat line on the lone bookshelf. Her desk is absent of any trinkets, and all paperwork is sorted neatly. A golden medal given to Mira for her appointment as Captain of the Royal Guard is framed, and hung above her desk. The one hint of personality in the room is the framed photograph of Mira with her young daughter. There’s no indication of a father.

“You’ll be pleased to know we’re going ahead with the claim that Gaster’s the perpetrator.”

“Can’t say I’ll be happy ‘till he’s locked away for good, Captain.” Still, the band of pressure around his chest loosens considerably. He’ll be able to go home, and be with his brother again. “So you did find something, then.”

Mira nods grimly. “More than enough.”

“…What did he do?” Mira doesn’t respond. “Captain, I need to know what that bastard did to my brother.”

“You’ll hear the evidence in court Sans, just like everyone else. That’s not why I brought you in here.” Mira pulls out a yellow legal pad and a pen from her desk drawer. “We need to prepare. This is going to be an exceptionally hard case. Your testimony needs to be flawless—God knows Gaster’s will be.”

“I’ll say whatever you need me to say.”

“No, you’ll tell the truth. And mind your temper—they’ll do everything possible to provoke you in court. You can’t let them get to you.”

“Okay.”

“We both want the same thing.” Mira clicks her pen on. “Now let’s get to work so we can nail this asshole.”

~*~

Sans fiddles with his tie. He didn’t have the money or the need for a suit before now, but Mira insisted his appearance was crucial, and went out and bought him a new suit out of her own pocket.

Mira squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. “Brace yourself.”

The doors to the courtroom are shut before them. Sans sucks in a deep breath. Captain Mira is on his right, and Justine, the prosecutor, on his left. The vibrant phoenix has served in hundreds of court cases, her reputation one of integrity and passion.

Captain Mira pushes open the door and they step inside. They’re immediately bombarded with questions from every reporter in the Underground. Ignoring the swarm, they proceed to the front of the courtroom. They pass by an elephantine monster, who mumbles apologies to himself as he prepares his canvas for newspaper sketch work.

Seats are reserves for Sans and Mira right behind the prosecution table. When they’ve settled, Sans looks over to the other side of the courtroom. The defense lawyer—a crocodile with pearl-white teeth—shuffles a sheaf of papers, appearing prim and collected. And next to her is…

“Gaster.” He growls, darkly.

Sans’ wrath has left a mark on him: his face is wrapped in so many bandages he’s practically mummified.

“Easy now,” Mira grips Sans’ arm tightly.

The judge enters from his chambers. An old owl, his tawny feathers are greying in his sunset years. He wears thick horn-rimmed glasses, connected to a beaded chain around his neck. Despite his age, his sallow amber eyes look razor sharp.

“All rise.” Commands the bailiff.

The courtroom stands. The defense lawyer lays it on thick, taking great pains to help Gaster up and steady him.

When they’ve all settled again both sides launch their opening remarks to the jury. The prosecution paints Gaster as a monster who abused a child and his position, while the defense claims he’s an innocent, dutiful public servant.

“We would like to call W.D. Gaster to the stand, your honor.” Says the prosecutor.

Gaster rises. His usually brisk, graceful gait is now a pathetically slow limp.

“Bastard’s putting on a show.” Captain Mira mutters to Sans. Gaster winces in pain as he takes the stand.

Justine doesn’t dally. “You’ve made it clear to your staff that you do not socialize after-hours. Your house is well-secluded. You do not appear to enjoy the company of others, so why did you agree to tutor Papyrus in the first place?”

“Papyrus had followed Sans to work one day, and nearly died when a dangerous experiment broke free. I wanted to make sure the boy was alright after such a scare. So yes, I did want to tutor him, but I also felt responsible for his near-death experience. I wanted to make sure he was alright.”

“When the experiment threatened Papyrus’ life, what happened next? Why did the experiment cease attacking?

Gaster purses his lips. “….Sans placed himself between Papyrus and the construct.”

Captain Mira elbows Sans. “Already fixing you for the good guy.”

“You were supposed to tutor Papyrus in his language class studies,” Justine continues. “But after he began attending sessions with you, his grades plummeted. So tell us, Dr. Gaster, what were you doing?”

“Papyrus took to me quite quickly,” Gaster explains. “Sans raised him, yes, but he is barely now an adult. I, on the other hand, plainly resembled the part of a fatherly role. Papyrus soon opened up to me about his troubled home life. He informed me there were nights when Sans would storm and rage about their apartment. The following day he would apologize. To earn Papyrus’ forgiveness, he would make him “feel good”. I of course was appalled.”

“If you were so appalled, surely you could’ve gone to the guard with your concerns.”

“I admit, it was foolishness on my part. I had no clear evidence. I was praying to the angel above that I was merely overthinking it.” Gaster’s one visible eye meets Sans’ glare. “And he had been so charming at work. I never expected the perverse nature behind that perpetual grin.”

Justine brings out her first piece of evidence. A dress for a child.

“This dress was found at the back of your closet. Forensics found residue near the waist and breast of the fabric. A confirmed match for Papyrus’ magic.”

Captain Mira hadn’t told Sans about any of this.

“Would you care to explain why Papyrus’ sexual and soul fluids were found on a garment you own?”

If Gaster is surprised by the evidence, he doesn’t show it. After a pause, he delivers his smooth explanation: “That garment is an Aboveground relic. I had brought it home from a routine dry-cleaning, to protect it from moths and dust. Papyrus saw it hanging on the back of a chair in the living room, and asked to try it on. He wore it for the remainder of our time together that day. Sans did come up; I can only assume discussion of what Sans did to him caused such a reaction.”

It’s a bullshit answer, pulled out of his ass. Sans eyes the jury. Several jot notes down. A few nod.

“They can’t seriously believe that,” Sans whispers to Captain Mira, incredulous.

“Gaster’s a hero,” She says. “No one wants to believe the truth.”

The prosecutor gathers up several more evidence bags from her desk, passing them to the jury. They study each drawing carefully.

“Dr. Gaster, your claim is that Sans is the abuser. And yet, found in Papyrus’ room were several drawings by him that depict you as something frightening.”

“Sans had been the boy’s cornerstone all his life. Change is always upsetting. I’m sure that my attempts to help did alarm him, on some level.”

“When the guards searched your home, trace amounts of cat fur were found by your front step. The fur was a match for Anton Belikov’s.”

“Anton would come over intermittently to discuss work. I don’t see how this is a problem.”

“The problem is that this hair was shed within the time window that Anton went missing. And his dust was found in the river barely a mile from your house.”

“What motive could I possible have to kill my assistant?”

“Anton was last seen leaving the Lab Tuesday, November third. And you were tutoring Papyrus that very same day.” The prosecutor addresses the jury. “It is our belief that Dr. Belikov had something to discuss with Dr. Gaster. Dr. Belikov was unaware of Dr. Gaster’s meetings with Papyrus. And so Dr. Belikov showed up unannounced. He saw something he shouldn’t have—some form of sexual act between Dr. Gaster and Papyrus—and that is why Dr. Gaster killed him. To protect his illicit secret, he killed Dr. Belikov in cold blood.”

“All I can say is that simply isn’t true. I never engaged in sexual acts with Papyrus, and thus I have no motive for this crime.”

“The jury will decide that. Not you.” Gaster purses his lips. Justine returns to her seat. “No further questions, your honor.”

They’re going to win this. Gaster’s responses are eloquently stated, but their logic is flimsy. Everything he says sounds like a considerable stretch of logic.

The defense attorney rises. “Dr. Gaster, can you tell us your opinion of and relation with Sans?”

“Certainly. I hired Sans on for his intellect and his magic control, but also because I took pity on him. He came in to interview in a threadbare suit, which was a few inches short. It was clear that he needed the position. At first, things went well. Sans frequently mentioned his brother at work, how much he loved him. I’d assumed it was a more platonic love at the time.”

“Why did things sour between you two?”

“I initially forbid Sans from working with the magic constructs. He only has 1 HP; naturally I wanted to minimize his level of risk.” Gaster sighs. “But unfortunately, he was impatient, and ambitious. He complained when Anton was chosen over him for trials. That, I believe, is where his resentment stemmed from.”

“And how could a 1 HP monster kill another without so much as a scratch?”

“While Sans might be physically frail, his magic power is extraordinary. He’s deceptively strong.”

“The bandages on your body are from your fight with Sans, yes?”

Gaster nods. “I’d like to show the jury, if I may, the extent of my injuries.”

The judge permits it, so Gaster carefully unwinds the bandages and unsticks the gauze on his face. There’s a collective gasp at the sight of the damage done. A thin crack runs from the top of his left eye, through the crown of his head. A second, deeper crack runs from the bottom of his right eye, down to his throat. Typically healing magic will knit together broken bones and skin. Cracks and scars are rare—marks only linger when a monster is struck with a severe intent to harm.

“There are not marks left by an innocent man.”

“Objection! Let’s not forget who’s on trial, here.”

The defense attorney dips her head. “My apologies. Withdrawn.”

“His attack was savage. He was desperate to kill me. He tried to—” Gaster swallows. “It was like he was trying to split my skull apart.”

He looks choked up. Playing the sympathy card. Sans’ hands grip his knees tightly. That absolute fucker.

“The defense rests, your honor.”

~*~

“The defense calls forth a witness to speak for Dr. Gaster’s character.”

The doors to the courtroom open. Sans sucks in a breath, and hushed whispers spike up all around him. Asgore Dreemuur, the king of all monsters, glides through the courtroom. The boss monster is too massive for the usual witness bench—another is brought out for him by the bailiffs. The larger bench still creaks as he sits. He smoothens out his rich purple robes, before placing his folded paws on the wooden lip of the stand before him. Sans feels his soul sink. Even with the facts on their side, how are they going to win against the word of the King?

The defense attorney gives a slight bow. “King Asgore. We thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be here.”

“A child has unduly suffered,” King Asgore rumbles. “I consider it my duty to be here.”

“Can you tell the jury of your relationship with Dr. Gaster?”

“Gaster and I have known each other since monsterkind’s time on the surface. He was instrumental in the final days of the war against the humans. It is thanks to his tactical maneuvering that we were able to bring in so many monsters into the Underground.”

“Would you say that Dr. Gaster is someone who helps others?”

“He can be terse with most, but I firmly believe that he cares about monsters. The Core project resulted in hundreds of jobs, and upon its completion, we now have power. Power for our schools, our hospitals, our homes. He has used his intellect to better monsterkind.”

“No further questions.”

The prosecutor rises, carrying the dress over one arm.

“King Asgore. Could you please identify this dress for us?”

The king studies the fabric carefully. “Yes, I’ve seen this before, very long ago. It’s a relic from the surface. I believe the dress belonged to Dr. Gaster’s betrothed.”

“And what happened to his betrothed?”

King Asgore shakes his head. “Like many, she was lost to us. A human mob came to Dr. Gaster’s village. He was lucky to survive.”

“So this dress is undoubtedly something he treasures, right? Something he would take great care of.”

“Yes. It is his most prized possession.”

“In all the time you’ve known him, has Dr. Gaster ever taken the dress to be dry-cleaned?”

King Asgore’s brows furrow. “Not to my knowledge. I don’t believe Dr. Gaster would trust anyone else to its maintenance.”

“It’s interesting you say that, as it directly contradicts the lie Dr. Gaster told us earlier—”

“Objection.”

“Withdrawn. No further questions.”

After King Asgore is dismissed, several more character witnesses are paraded around for the judge and jury. Ivana testifies that her brother Anton got along well with his boss and with Sans; there was no bad blood that she knew of. Saul and Em, surprisingly, side with Sans over Gaster. When the character witnesses are finished, the adjourn for the day.

~*~

“The prosecution calls Sans Serif to the stand.”

A hush of anticipation falls over the crowd as Sans takes the seat on the stand. The bench squeaks as he sits. He wonders if the knobby wooden bench was intentionally made to be uncomfortable.

A sea of faces stare at him from the jam-packed courtroom. Sans forces himself to take a deep breath. He must remain calm, and convey his points clearly. Despite the evidence the prosecution laid out against Gaster, the jury do not appear to be fully swayed yet.

Justine approaches him.

“State your name and occupation for the jury.”

“Sans Serif. I was an assistant to the Royal Scientist.” Past tense. Even when Gaster is locked away for his crimes, Sans cannot return to the scientist’s domain.

“You’re 18, and yet have been watching over your brother for some time on your own.”

Sans nods. “Our parents died when I was 12. I didn’t want us to get separated, so I raised Papyrus myself. I made sure he was taken care of.”

“You made sure he was fed and had an education.”

“Sometimes money would be tight. I always made sure Papyrus got what he needed, first.”

“Why did you do all of this for him?”

“I love him. He’s my little brother. He—He’s a sweet kid. I’d do anything for him.”

“When did you first suspect Dr. Gaster was hurting your brother?”

“Papyrus had been acting strange for a while. More withdrawn. Then the school informed me his grades were plummetin’. Despite going to tutoring a couple times a week.” Sans feels sick. He’d sent his brother up to Gaster, delivered him to the door. “So I got to thinkin’, if Gaster’s not tutoring him, what are they doing?” A short incredulous laugh escapes him. “At first I didn’t—I thought Papyrus had just seen Anton get dusted. It didn’t even cross my mind that Gaster would do something like that, that he could touch—”

Sans’ throat closes. He’s choked with rage.

“I found some stuff in his room. Pictures. And Anton’s notes. And when I found out about that, I confronted him. He panicked and ran into his room. That’s when I found out about the—the sexual abuse.”

“Why did you not inform the royal guard?”

“I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t even think of that. All I could think is that I had to stop Gaster before he did it again.”

“Were you trying to kill him?”

“…Yes. I’m not proud of it. I used to—I’d admired Gaster. I was hurt that he’d take advantage of my trust, furious that he’d hurt Papyrus, who never deserved somethin’ like this.”

“When the guards found you, Papyrus was dangling over the Core by your magic. Can you explain that?”

“I cornered ‘em. Gaster had told Papyrus to jump if I came closer. I couldn’t let Gaster get away with it. And I couldn’t lose my baby bro either. So when he jumped, I made sure I grabbed him.”

Justine nods. “I’m done here.”

The defense attorney is next up. She saunters over to Sans, and sneers down at him, unimpressed.

“You’ve worked hard to support Papyrus. While children your age were out at the mall and the movies, you were working. You did this all without complaint, for years.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“Right, yes, yes.” The defense lawyer paces the length of the room by the jury. “And isn’t it possible that that planted a seed of resentment? It’s not fair that Papyrus gets to have a happy, completely normal upbringing while you toil away. Is it not possible for that seed to flourish from years and years of taking care of duties that should never have belonged to you. You never had any time for yourself. A significant other out of the question. You’ve never dated, have you?”

“No, but—”

“Papyrus should give up something too, right? You felt you were owed something. So what was the harm in having a little fun, feeling good?”

Sans rises from the bench. Magical pressure thickens the air like a thundercloud.

“Mr. Serif.” The bailiff points at the bench. Mira is glaring at him from her seat, no doubt mentally screaming at him to keep his shit together.

Sans sits down again. The magical pressure evaporates. But the defense attorney has a sly smile on her face.

“Quite the explosive temper you have there.”

“I’m sure you can understand why you saying shit like that would piss me the hell off.”

“Is that how you got Papyrus to do what you wanted? Did he live in fear of setting off your short temper?”

“Of course not. I love Papyrus dearly, as a brother. I’ve never, ever touched him. The thought makes me sick.”

The defense switches tactics. “How would you describe your drinking habits, Mr. Serif?”

“Uh, you know. Recreational-like.”

“How many times a week do you drink, on average?”

“…I usually take a shot before bed. Work is stressful. It helps me relax.”

“Ah. So you are drinking five of the seven days of the week.”

Sans grits his teeth. “You ask any salaryman in New Home, I bet you they do the same.”

“They are also larger than you. And older. Do you drink in front of Papyrus? Excessively?”

“No. Of course not.”

“I find it interesting you would say such a thing. Dr. Gaster has told me of the evening he went to your apartment. For a Gyftmas party.”

Shit. He’d played into her hands without even noticing.

“Dr. Gaster has told me that you were halfway drunk while Papyrus was awake, and after he went to bed, you drank yourself into a stupor.”

Sans flushes. “That was one time. It was a holiday. Gaster was drinking too.”

“You say it was “one time”, but there’s no way for us to know the truth of that, is there? With your temper and alcohol combined, it’s possible you touched your brother without his consent, and don’t even remember doing so.”

“That’s not true.”

“Can we trust anything you say? And furthermore, if you considered Dr. Gaster a threat to your brother, why would you get drunk and pass out with the doctor still in your apartment? That would have left both you and Papyrus vulnerable.”

God, had something happened that night? Is that why Papyrus had such a strong reaction to Sans on top of him, in his bed?

“I wasn’t sure yet at that time that he’d done anything.”

“You’re the youngest hire in the Lab’s history. And in Dr. Gaster’s elite group, no less. Someone as brilliant and cunning as you truly took that long to put the supposed facts together? I find that difficult to believe.”

The defense attorney turns to the judge. “No further questions, your honor.”

~*~

Sans picks halfheartedly at his sandwich. After his turn on the stand, the courtroom broke for an hour lunch break. He sits now with Captain Mira and Justine, in one of the many out of use rooms in the courthouse. Captain Mira wolfs down her food, while Justine takes small bites as she looks through her notes.

Captain Mira nudges Sans. “Chin up. We knew they’d be slimy bastards, and you’re not the one on trial. If they wanted to turn around and accuse you of everything, we’d need an entirely new case.”

“Gaster is angling for reasonable doubt,” Muses Justine. “If we don’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Gaster is guilty, we lose.”

“He can’t walk free. Not after all he did.”

“He won’t, Sans. Trust us.”

If the jury declares a mistrial, Gaster can’t be tried again later for the same crime. Sans chews his food, tasting nothing. If the court system fails, he’ll make damn sure Gaster doesn’t get away with what he’s due. No matter the consequences.

~*~

“There’s only one witness remaining. A key witness for both the defense and the prosecution. Papyrus Serif.” The prosecutor addresses the judge. “The prosecution understands that the defendant has the right to remain present in the courtroom of his own trial. After a discussion with our psychiatrist, she has deemed it best that Papyrus has as limited exposure as is possible to both Dr. Gaster and Sans Serif until the verdict has been decided. We request that Papyrus be blindfolded for the duration of his testimony, and that both the defendant and Mr. Serif refrain from speaking while Papyrus is present.”

“The defense has no issue with this.”

The judge nods.

“Papyrus has damage to his soul. Our psychiatrist noted that the improper handling of his soul left a lasting imprint on it. Papyrus might perjure himself out of a need to protect the one who manipulated him. The prosecution asks the jury to take Papyrus’ words, for lack of a better term, with a grain of salt.”

The prosecutor steps out of the courtroom, along with Captain Mira. Sans watches the door, hardly daring to breathe. It’ll be the first time he’s seen Papyrus in nearly a month. Gaster is also waiting, expectantly.

The door opens. Mira walks slowly, leading Papyrus by the hand. A black band has been wound around his eye sockets, but it’s hard to miss the feel of all the magic in the room. Papyrus knows he’s being watched by many, many eyes. Shoulders hunched, he keeps a tight grip on Captain Mira’s hand.

“That’s it, you’re doing well. Just a little further.” She coaxes.

Papyrus is too small for the witness stand; a bailiff runs into an adjoining room and grabs a chair cushion, to boost him up a few inches.

Sans clamps his mouth shut as Papyrus is led past him. There’s nothing he wants more than to grab Papyrus in a hug and take him away from all this. But he forces himself to stay rooted to the spot as Papyrus takes the stand.

This is it. Despite truth being on the prosecution’s side, the verdict of the jury has felt somewhat up in the air until now thanks to the defense attorney’s silver tongue and Gaster’s pity party. Papyrus’ testimony will shape the outcome of the case.

“This is a very brave thing you’re doing. Thank you for being here, Papyrus.” The prosecutor’s tone is noticeably softer then it had been with earlier witnesses. “Can you tell us how old you are?”

“Ten.” His voice is so soft, Sans can barely hear him. And he’s in the front row.

“What are some things you like, Papyrus?”

“Um, I like to draw…and read about cars.” Papyrus pauses. “I want to drive a car on the surface.”

Justine continues to coax answers from Papyrus. Simple questions, in non-dangerous territory: his favorite foods, television shows, and the like. The defense attorney looks like she wants to object to the inane line of questioning, but says nothing. Justine’s winding chitchat soon shows its purpose. The harmless questions serve to relax Papyrus on the stand. After ten minutes he sits straighter, speaks louder.

“Now Papyrus, do you think you can answer some questions about the monster who hurt you?” When Papyrus stiffens, Justine hastens to add, “You don’t have to say his name. Just say “he”. Can you do that for me, Papyrus?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Thank you. Can you tell me when it started? When did he start to touch you?”

“Not, not until October.” A few weeks after Gaster started the tutoring sessions with him. “I-It didn’t hurt. He was nice. He made me feel nice. It was our special s-secret.”

“How did he make you feel nice?”

“He touched my soul. And I got to help him too. And he also, um. Showed me how to make parts.” Papyrus squirms on the stand. “You know, down there.”

“Was there penetration?”

Papyrus nods.

That sick fuck. Others share Sans’ sentiment—there’s outcry in the courtroom. The judge bangs his gavel, shouting for order until everyone quiets again.

“You said you helped him, too? With his soul?”

“I h-held his soul. ‘n did stuff to it.”

The prosecutor hands Papyrus a foam soul model. “Can you demonstrate how he touched your soul, with this?”

Papyrus massages the foam with a practiced ease.

“He, um, bit my soul too.”

Justine’s feathers crackle. She flicks them, snuffing the sudden flames out.

“Have you received education on soul bonds yet in your school?”

Papyrus shakes his head.

“It is a very special bond, meant to be shared only between adults. It is possible for emotions and urges to be shared through the joining of souls. Do you feel like you’ve been effected in this manner? That how you feel has changed?”

“I…I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“How do you feel about him?”

“It’s my fault this is happening. He’s so nice to me and now he’s in trouble because of me.”

“Papyrus. I know this has been a stressful and confusing ordeal for you, but he’s not nice. What he did to you was wrong. Illegal and immoral.”

Papyrus shakes his head vehemently. “N-No, you don’t understand. He said I was mature enough. It was okay!”

“You’re only saying this because your soul was manipulated—”

The defense attorney rises. “Objection! Your honor, the prosecution cannot cherry-pick what truths they want from this witness to steer their agenda.”

“Judge. I request permission to treat the witness as hostile.”

“Hostile?” Sans hisses to Mira. “What does that mean?”

“Just wait, alright?”

The judge gestures to both attorneys with a sweep of his wing.

“Approach the bench.”

Both do. Their voices are heated, but hushed; no one can hear their private discussion, except maybe Papyrus. The defense attorney returns to her seat as the prosecutor assumes the floor again.

“Papyrus. Though only one of them is on trial now, there are two monsters everyone in this room considers suspects. Either Dr. Gaster, or your brother, Sans.” She steps closer, looming over the witness stand. Papyrus can’t see her, but undoubtedly he can feel the heat of her flames, and sense her magical pressure.

“Tell me who touched you. If you say Dr. Gaster, then Sans will die.”

“Prosecutor!” The judge hoots.

“If you say Sans, then Dr. Gaster will die!”

“No,” Papyrus moans.

“Gaster or Sans! You have to make a choice!”

“I can’t do it! I can’t! I—I—”

“Say the name! Do you want your brother to die because you wouldn’t say the name?”

Papyrus claws at the sides of his skull in distress. The blindfold is pulled askew, but his eye sockets are vacant.

“I can’t! I can’t!”

“That’s enough!” Sans rises from his seat, despite Mira’s attempts to yank him down. “He’s hurting himself!”

“Sit down, dumbass!” Mira’s claws drag him back down.

“Sans or Gaster!”

“I can’t! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…” Papyrus whines brokenly.

Papyrus is hyperventilating. Tears run down his face. He presses his head to the witness stand.

“That is enough, Justine!” The judge pounds his gavel.

“Tell me!”

“Bailiff, please remove—”

“Doctor, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Papyrus’ voice cracks at the end of his sentence. “Tell me what to do, please. I’ll be good, just tell me what to do!”

The courtroom erupts in noise at Papyrus’ inadvertent admission, as Gaster’s face drains of all blood. Papyrus sobs like he’s dying, and his low wails will haunt Sans’ nightmares for years to come.

~*~

Wingdings Gaster is found guilty of murder in the 2nd degree, two attempted murder charges, as well as sexual and soul abuse of a minor. Capital punishment would be the typical verdict for such crimes, but the doctor escapes the executioner’s blade.

Because they still need him.

No other monster understands the Core’s intricacies as intimately as the monster who designed it. If the Core seriously malfunctioned, Gaster would be the one to turn to, not the Chief Engineer.

And so Gaster is kept alive in a magic-dampening cell, under 24-hour guard surveillance. His life, once full of challenge and excitement, is now drudgery. Sans fervently hopes he dusts himself.

Captain Mira returns Papyrus to Sans’ care. He flinches at every touch, and says little.

The city is too much for Papyrus, after all that has happened. Sans makes arrangements to move to Snowdin. The remote, rustic area is the best option to get away from everything. Many of them probably haven’t even heard about the case, despite its infamy.

Before they can move, he just has one last obligation to see to. Sans has never seen the barrier before today. It shimmers and pulses, alien-like. It looks like a solid wall, and yet also something that stretches on forever.

A small group has assembled. Saul and Em are present, as well as the King, who organized this spectacle. Sans brought Papyrus along as well; he doesn’t want to leave his brother alone, not yet. Everyone hangs back from a safe distance as Sans calls forth the blasters.

He concentrates on his feelings from before—all the rage and desperation—and the blasters fire. The beams of raw magic collide with the barrier wall. The barrier ripples around the impact center. He angles the blasters to target the same spot. If he could weaken it, just a little…

Sweat beads on his skull. He summons a third blaster, pouring his soul into it.

He’s not used to controlling this technology for long periods of time. In minutes he starts to sway on his feet. When the beams stutter out, he dismisses the blasters themselves.

The barrier’s ripples become larger, smoothing out again. Saul steps forward, a device in his hands that was built to scan the barrier’s strength. It clicks and beeps for several minutes.

Grim-faced, Saul turns back to them and shakes his head. “No damage.”

Sans’ laugh at that is sharp and bitter. He had worked on Project BOMB for months; his coworkers, years. The weapon forged with the combined magic of the strongest monsters in the Underground can’t even scratch the barrier.

King Asgore rests a heavy paw on Sans’ shoulder. “Do not give up hope. We can try this again, when you obtain further mastery over their powers. And the Lab will turn its focus to alternative solutions to this problem.”

Parting from the group, the King escorts Sans and Papyrus to the throne room. Papyrus sits among the golden flowers, while Sans and King Asgore take tea at a wire picnic table.

Asgore’s paw engulfs the spoon in his hand. With delicate precision, he stirs his tea.

“Have you given thought to my proposition?” He’d offered Sans a head position overseeing Lab technicians. Increased wages, but restricted hours to look after Papyrus.

“It’s kind of ya. But I think Papyrus would be better off somewhere a bit quieter.”

King Asgore nods, solemn. “I have heard of your plan to move to Snowdin. Don’t worry about cost, in any matter regarding the move. I’ll see to it that you’re both provided for.” He fiddles with the rim of his tea cup. His head bows in grief. “It appears I’m not as great a judge of character as I had thought. I’m glad the jury overlooked my partiality. I am deeply sorry for what both you and your brother have gone through.”

Sans doesn’t know what to stay. An apology, even from a king, is still just words.

~*~

The crisp Snowdin air cuts like a knife. Papyrus readjusts his scarf as Sans fumbles with his keyring.

Their new house looks old. The red paint is faded and curling. The front door is made of weathered oak. Sans unlocks it, and has to shove against it with his shoulder to get the stiff wood to move.

Sans lets Papyrus in and shuts the door again behind them. It’s warmer inside, fractionally.

Sans whistles, craning his neck as he looks around. “This is much bigger than our old place, don’t you think?” The modern furniture—top of the line, shipped from New Home—feels inorganic in this bucolic house.

“Look, Paps.” Sans hops on the couch. He pats the plush green fabric. “Feel how comfy it is.”

Papyrus reluctantly perches on the other side of the couch. Forces a smile.

Sans keeps trying to make him feel better, by pretending everything’s okay and normal. It doesn’t work. But when he’s around Sans, he feels obligated to act like his brother is cheering him up. It’s too much, so while Sans explores the kitchen, Papyrus heads upstairs. He picks the room closest to the staircase. This is meant to be his room, he can tell by the décor, but it’s missing things. His racecar bed has been replaced with a simple frame and headboard. He checks his closet—all the clothes the doctor had given him are absent. Instead, he has a new wardrobe; thick cable-knit sweaters, long black jeans, to ward off Snowdin’s perpetual chill. Papyrus grabs a pair of red gloves, fitting them onto his hands.

Things don’t sound right here, either. In New Home he fell asleep to the sound of sirens, the laughter and music coming from nearby bars. Here in the woods, in this sleepy cluster of homes, the only sound outside is the wind’s howl.

Papyrus pulls out the object he had carefully tucked away in his inventory—his stuffed rabbit. Sans has tried to get rid of every trace of him, but Papyrus managed to hide this one thing. Papyrus strokes the soft velveteen lining of Fluffy Bunny’s ears. Sans doesn’t understand the fierce unrest in his soul. That Papyrus needs to be as close to him as possible.

Papyrus presses his face into the rabbit’s plush fur. He can smell the spiced cinnamon of Toyland, and the faintest whiff of the doctor’s cologne. He breathes deep.

There’s a sudden scraping sound.

Papyrus’ gaze flies to the door, as he guiltily shoves the bunny back into his inventory. However, the door is still shut. So what’s making that noise?

Papyrus timidly peers around the corner of the bed. The scraping noise is coming from inside one of the moving boxes. The box wiggles. As Papyrus draws closer, he hears heavy, excited breathing.

Papyrus lifts up the lid. He lets out a scream of fright as something lunges at him from the box, tackling him to the floor. There’s a distant thud from downstairs, and then Papyrus’ door is slammed open, the pressure of Sans’ magic flooding the room.

Sitting on top of Papyrus’ chest is a fluffy white dog. Not a dog monster—an animal. While common Aboveground, down here animals are something of a rarity. He can feel the dog’s cold paws through the fabric of his sweater. The dog yips, bestowing several excited licks on Papyrus’ face.

“Papyrus?” Sans spots the pair of them. The tension deflates. “Well at least that explains the dog hair under the kitchen sink.”

Papyrus sits up. The dog butts its head against Papyrus’ shoulder, whining for attention. Papyrus scratches it under the chin, and its tail thumps against the floor.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Sans grabs the dog. It wriggles.

“What are you going to do with him?” Papyrus’ voice is hoarse from disuse.

Sans pauses in the doorway. “Was gonna put ‘em outside. Must’ve slipped in with the moving crew.”

“Wait.” It’s freezing outside; no condition for a monster, much less an animal with no real means to shelter itself. “It can stay here.”

Sans sighs, but doesn’t say no to him. He rarely does, now.

Sans sets the dog back down, and it trots over to Papyrus’ side. He crouches down, carding his hands through its fur, untangling old knots. Its tail is a blur.

“Should be easy enough to get kibble in town, considering,” Sans half-mutters, thinking aloud. “Just make sure it knows to do its business outside, alright?”

Papyrus nods.

~*~

When Papyrus wanders from his room the next day, Sans is watching television, the volume dialed low. The Underground has only three channels: the news channel, the film channel (which shows both monster-made features, as well as old movies scavenged from the dump), and the cartoon channel for kids.

The news channel typically is depressingly boring: nothing really changes. So when the investigation began, the media pounced on it like a starving animal.

Sans is watching the news—the nonstop coverage of the Dr. Gaster scandal, picking apart every piece of the trial. Gaster’s face is shown, and Papyrus gasps. He hadn’t seen the horrific cracks that marred the doctor’s face before, but he’s pierced with the sudden stark knowledge that it’s his fault they’re there, if only he had been better—

“Shit.” Sans fumbles for the remote and changes the channel to harmless, bright cartoons. Sans calls over to him, voice shaky. “Why don’t you come over and join me, Paps?”

Papyrus takes a seat on the couch, on the opposite end from Sans. The dog—Papyrus still hasn’t thought of a good name for it yet—hops up to sit beside him.

His brother shuffles off after a few minutes to make them both breakfast. Sans slips the remote into his pocket. Papyrus could still get up and change the channel. He might be able to see the doctor’s face. Learn where he is.

But Sans would be mad with him. He has to serve, Sans has to be happy with him. He can’t disappoint him. His bones itch with heat.

Squeak!

The dog hopped off the couch while he was distracted, and retrieved a plastic bone from its fast-growing collection of toys. The dog squeaks the bone between its jaws, and bumps the toy against Papyrus’ knee. He gives in, grabbing one end and playing a game of tug.

He’s grateful that Sans allowed him to keep the dog; though it has a penchant for drooling and leaving its fur on everything like a second carpet, it’s also the first living thing he’s been able to touch without flinching for months. Papyrus takes advantage of this by snuggling and cuddling with his canine companion every chance he gets. And the dog, when wiped out from playtime, is always happy to oblige.

“Breakfast’s ready.” Sans announces.

Leaving the dog to its bone, Papyrus joins Sans at the table. It’s his favorite, again—dinosaur oatmeal. It’s more expensive compared to the plain oatmeal, so Sans used splurge on it for him only on special days. Each packet was parceled out like treasure. Papyrus has eaten it every day this week. If Sans keeps this up, he’ll learn to hate the smell of cinnamon.

“So.” Sans clears his throat. His spoon clinks against his bowl. “So. How are you, uh. Holdin’ up there, Pap?”

“Fine.” Papyrus eats a small bite of oatmeal.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

Sans frowns. “What’re you wearin’ your gloves for then, kiddo?”

Papyrus shrugs.

“…You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

Papyrus nods. They finish their meal in silence.

~*~

Sans must not have believed him, because soon after, Papyrus is brought to a therapist’s office in Waterfall. The degrees on her wall honor her psychology doctorate, but she pointedly introduces herself as “Miss” Maybelle.

Miss Maybelle is a sheep monster, with curly yellow fur and elegant ashen horns. She exudes serenity and patience.

Nice as she is, Papyrus doesn’t really want to talk to her about what happened. But he wants to talk with Sans about it even less, so he agrees to attend further meetings with her.

At first he tries to tell her what he thinks she wants to hear. Gaster was horrible, frightening. Papyrus hated every second. But Miss Maybelle pulls the truth out of him, and prescribes him several medications. One for his anxiety, another to help him sleep. And a third, which relies an innovative new herb blend, meant to flush any foreign magic out of Papyrus’ system.

Papyrus doesn’t take to the third well.

Minutes after his first dosage find him running to the bathroom. He lifts up the toilet seat just in time to heave. Thick, syrupy fluid drips out of his mouth, splattering into the toilet bowl.

Sans isn’t far behind, and reaches out to soothe him. Papyrus jerks away.

“D-Don’t touch—” Papyrus groans, heaving again. “Don’t touch me.”

Sans’ outstretched hand wavers in the air before it falls again to his side.

“I’m gonna call Maybelle, make sure this is ‘sposed to be happenin’. I’ll be right outside, ok?”

Papyrus nods feebly. Another wave of nausea moves through him. Papyrus coughs up more gunk. The viscous, violet ichor drips down the side of the bowl. His hand fumbles for the toilet handle. He leans back against the cool tile of the wall, before unspooling toilet paper to dab at the smeared residue on his mouth.

By the time Sans returns, Papyrus feels wrung out and weary.

Sans crouches down beside him.

“Hey kiddo. Think you can make it back to the couch for me?”

Sans hovers behind him as he returns to the living room, but Papyrus stubbornly walks the distance by himself. When he flops wearily onto the couch, Sans is quick to wrap him in a blanket.

He burrows into the soft fabric as Sans disappears into the kitchen. The dog wiggles out from under the couch, a stray candy wrapper clinging to its fur. Papyrus pulls the garbage off the canine before it flops across his lap, panting happily.

Sans returns, and hands him a glass of warm milk. Papyrus mutters his thanks, taking small sips. His nausea settles, gradually.

“Maybelle said it should get better with time. There must just be a lot of stuff to, uh. Flush out.”

Will this really help him be normal again? He feels sick, and tired. But otherwise, still the same as before. He still feels things for Dr. Gaster he knows he’s supposed to think are wrong.

He sips his milk.

~*~

The dog paws miserably at his door for a few minutes, but Papyrus ignores the scraping and whining. This is something he needs to be alone for.

Papyrus climbs into bed, pulling the Fluffy Bunny out of his inventory. The doctor’s smell has faded, but Papyrus’ eye sockets flutter shut as he imagines it. Fear was an afterthought when Dr. Gaster’s hands were on his soul. He felt calm, at peace. He could stop worrying, stop thinking, just let the doctor take control of everything.

Papyrus tugs off his sleep-shorts, and bucks against the plush rabbit. The stuffed animal is too soft and pliant on its own, so he tugs his pillow under the rabbit, humping it. Dr. Gaster touched him multiple times a week. He’s conditioned to crave touch, friction, release. All this time without it has left him restless.

His magic glows dimly at his pelvis. He rubs against the rabbit, and tears of frustration spring to his eyes. He bucks frantically, but it’s a pale imitation of how the doctor made him feel.

Papyrus pretends this is a punishment. The doctor is perched on his desk chair, watching him with those dark, piercing eyes.

That works. Papyrus’ pace becomes frantic.

His soul spurts, a quick burst of release.

Papyrus slows, breathing hard.

He comes down from his high at a sharp plummet—he throws the rabbit off his bed. It hits the wall and lays limbs a-kilter on the floor.

Papyrus curls into a ball. He’s sick. Disgusting. What’s wrong with him?

~*~

“Papyrus, we need to talk.”

“No.” Papyrus rolls over in his bed.

Sans drags up a chair to his bedside. “Well just listen to what I’ve got to say then, alright?”

Papyrus reluctantly sits up, watching Sans.

“I’ve been wondering how to say this for weeks now. I might as well just go for it at this point.” Sans sucks in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Papyrus. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner.” Wetness appears on Sans’ face. Papyrus has never seen his brother cry before. “I just need you to know that I’m sorry. I love you so much. Please, if you’re ever in trouble—come to me. I don’t care what it is. Tell me what bothers you, and we can fix it together.”

Sans reaches for his hand, but Papyrus flinches.

“Bro, please. I won’t hurt you.”

“It’s not that. I…I’m afraid what’ll happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to, but. I, I’m afraid if you do touch me, then I’ll start wanting you to do those things, too.”

Papyrus stares at his bedspread to avoid the look on Sans’ face. He picks at a fraying thread.

“He doesn’t control you anymore, Papyrus.” Sans holds out his hand. “Please, just try. Without the gloves.”

“I can’t.”

“C’mon, Paps.” Sans cajoles. “You’re the greatest. I know you can do it.”

He’s afraid. But it’ll make Sans happy. And maybe—maybe it’d make him happy, too.

He’s clumsy with panic as he fumbles to pull off his right glove. He finally succeeds, revealing pale ivory bones.

Sans slowly moves his hand over.

Papyrus cringes as their palms touch, their fingers meshing together. Tense, Papyrus waits. But there’s no heady rush of desire. Just the feel of Sans’ warm palm against his clammy one.

“See? I knew you could do it.”

Papyrus crumbles. He hugs Sans around the waist, tight as he can. He bawls into his brother’s jacket. Sans rubs a soothing hand along Papyrus’ back, squeezing him close.

He’s not better, not by a long shot.

But it’s a start.

#papyrus #sans #hurt/comfort #gaster #papster #trauma recovery #my fic #this took forever to get done #over a year on this fic #it's finally done oTL #now onto the next fic

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terminallydepraved · 8 years ago

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Opportunity

commission fic here! i had a lot of fun with it and i think it shows!

read on ao3 here

commission me here

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For a world renown assassin, Chrollo could tell that Silva Zoldyck was more of an idiot than a threat. He could see it in the way the man sat, relaxed and blind to the bustling whirl of commerce and transit around him. Blind to the men and women who lingered nearby, who brushed past him as Silva waited for his train to come. Blind to the angry spider lurking only a few yards away, fangs poised to rip out the man’s throat the way he’d done to Chrollo’s underling.

This was going to be criminally easy, Chrollo thought, checking one last time that his headband was tied tightly in place. How long would it take to steal his hatsu and then his life? Chrollo gave Silva fifteen minutes, tops, and that was being generous. Putting on his placid, unassuming smile, he hid his aura with zetsu and wove through the crowd, the space beside Silva on the bench calling his name. It was too perfect, almost as if Silva was inviting him to partake of the hatsu he’d used to rend Chrollo’s spider limb from shattered limb.

“Is this seat taken?” Chrollo asked, smiling so genially that it nearly made his face ache.

The assassin was even larger in person, when seen at close range and not from a building above the street, looking down on the man as he tore into his friend. Silva looked up from the comically small phone in his hand and leveled Chrollo with a stony look, the hard features of his face barely shifting. “Suit yourself,” he said gruffly, before turning back to his phone.

As dismissive as it was, Chrollo hardly let it phase him. “Thank you so much, I’ve been on my feet all morning,” he said, offering up more when Silva’s body language screamed to go away. Chrollo plopped down and smiled dully at his surroundings. “I wonder how long it’ll take the train to get here,” he muttered, looking curiously at the phone in Silva’s large hand.

Silva caught on that he was watching. The phone snapped shut and disappeared into the man’s pocket, steel blue eyes pinning him in place irritably. Someone certainly didn’t like being watched. But, since he was no longer occupied, he now was left open to Chrollo’s most dangerous weapon: small talk.

“So, where are you headed?” the thief asked cheerfully, pulling his bandit’s secret from his messenger bag as if it were any other normal book. He flipped it open to a bookmarked page, one he’d changed to make the book appear as a text book. “I’m going to Heaven’s Arena myself. I’ve got a fight scheduled and I’m really excited. Have you ever been?”

Just as he’d expected, Silva perked up at the information and completely disregarded the question. His eyes turned assessing, his aura sneaking out as if to test Chrollo’s mettle. Chrollo held his placid smile in place and maintained his zetsu, acting for all the world like a powerless, non-threatening individual.

“You don’t seem like a fighter,” Silva remarked after a terse moment of silence. There was a shift in the air, and Chrollo could see the tensing of his muscles, his readiness to spring.

It only got worse when Chrollo clenched his book in his hands and bit his lip. Silva’s defenses went up immediately, but Chrollo stayed cool, his smile morphing from polite civility to coyly interested. “Actually, I have a confession to make,” he said, willing himself to blush. “I’m actually a fan. Maybe your biggest. I saw you earlier in town and I just had to follow you to make sure you were really the Silva Zoldyck.”

For as risky as the ploy had been, Silva seemed to eat it up. His posture relaxed and his frown turned into a cocky smirk, almost as if he were a rock star caught in public by an eager and avid fan. “Oh, well,” he said, feigning nonchalance. “Can’t say I get recognized often these days.”

“Really? I find that hard to imagine. You look exactly like you did when you were a fighter,” Chrollo praised, laying it on thick and heavy like honey over a trap. “I bet you can still do that energy attack, right? That one you used to turn that one Enhancer into dust?”

Silva let out a chuff of a laugh, lifting his hand to emit a small, but horrifically condensed version of the same power he’d used to blow a hole in Chrollo’s spider. It hovered above his palm and glowed brilliantly. “Careful now,” Silva said, as if Chrollo was likely to lose his common sense and try to touch the ball of pure energy. “It’s just as deadly now as it was back then.”

Chrollo looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “How does it work?” he breathed, licking his lips and leaning into Silva’s space. The man hardly protested the contact now, his own legs spread wide to show off his crotch and to brush against Chrollo’s calf. “Are you an Emitter?”

“Transmuter, but it is using Emitter techniques as well,” Silva explained, just this side of patronizing. “I transmute my nen into condensed energy, and use emission to send it in the direction I want it to go.” To accompany his explanation, he shrank the ball to the size of a pin head, sending it down at the sidewalk in front of them. It connected and Chrollo made himself jump when it resounded like the crack of a whip, decimating a chunk of concrete the size of a bottle cap. “You see?”

“God, that’s just so cool,” he answered, checking another requirement off the list. “Can I have your autograph?” Chrollo asked suddenly, before clapping his hands over his mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m so embarrassing, I’m just so excited to meet you!”

Silva rolled his eyes and chuckled good naturedly, as if he were old hat at being asked for his signature. “I don’t know, aren’t you a little old to be so riled up by some old fighter?”

“But you’re my favorite! I simply must have your autograph,” Chrollo nearly begged, fumbling with his book to make it seem as if he were looking for a blank sheet of paper. “Please? Please? You can sign my book, I don’t mind!”

“Well, alright,” Silva replied, the proud look on his face almost too much to handle.

The excitement he felt had nothing to do with the prospect of an autograph. Chrollo thanked him profusely and made as if to hand over the book, but at the last moment, he fumbled it. The book tumbled out of his hands and settled between Silva’s feet, cover side up, the hand just waiting to be touched. “Oh, dammit!” Chrollo muttered. “I’m so clumsy. Could you get that for me?” he asked. The barest hint of a smile graced his lips, so he worried his bottom lip between his teeth to keep it to himself.

Just one last requirement to fulfil. One little touch and it would all be over.

“You really don’t look as deadly as you are,” Silva remarked, and his tone was so conversational, so level, that Chrollo didn’t register he’d been made until a large hand grabbed him around the neck and squeezed. Chrollo’s eyes widened and he looked up, clutching at the man’s wrist, his book disappearing like smoke between the Silva’s legs. Silva’s grin was sharp. Dangerous. “You’re Chrollo Lucilfer, aren’t you? Your tattoo is showing, you little brat.”

What a disappointment. And to think, he’d been so close, too.

Chrollo put on his most winsome smile, though he knew well enough that it wouldn’t afford him anything. “Took you long enough,” he managed to say, his voice strained. It was growing harder and harder to breathe. He saw the muscles in Silva’s arm tense, and it was the only warning he got before he found himself dragged off the bench. “Where are we-”

“Shut up,” Silva said, cutting him off with a tightening grip, none of the kindness from before remaining. Chrollo had to jog to keep up or risk strangling himself, and even though the people around them watched, Silva’s intimidating aura made sure that no one made a move to intervene. Not that Chrollo needed the help, but a distraction might have been useful.

With the ruse ruined, Chrollo’s mind shifted to the next course of action. He could let Silva drag him ostensibly somewhere less crowded. It would be to Silva’s benefit not to cause a scene, especially if he desired to board a train or plane to wherever he was going. Notoriety rarely aided assassinations, and when Chrollo noticed the shadow of a building creep over him, the cool embrace of a back-alley ghost across his skin, he knew he wasn’t willing to play this by Silva’s rules. Chrollo had no use for a low profile right now, and given the anger mounting in him, any little inconvenience he could pay Silva was worth it.

Silva didn’t know what hit him until Chrollo’s knuckles brushed his thigh, the Ben’s knife firmly lodged in the meat of his leg. Chrollo grinned cheekily at the shocked assassin, but it quickly morphed into a grimace as Silva lifted him by the throat and slammed him into the brick wall nearest to them.

“You’re going to pay for that,” Silva practically hissed, holding Chrollo to the wall with one hand as the other ripped the knife from his leg. Chrollo wished he could see the expression he wore when he realized it was his own knife, the one he’d left buried in the dead troupe member in his haste to avoid another fight.

“You’re just mad…that I…nearly stole your precious hatsu,” Chrollo gasped, wasting his breath on one last jeer, because when it came down to it, it was always worth taking the assassin down a notch. “Who would have thought…all it takes…to pull one over on the…infamous Zoldyck patriarch…is a sweet face and—”

“And what?” Silva growled, sounding like an utter beast as he forced Chrollo’s face into the brick wall. This fight wasn’t over, not even remotely, but the assassin seemed to savor the idea that he had Chrollo in a compromising position, regardless of whether Chrollo allowed it to be or not. “A cocky little brat who’s zetsu was just too perfect?”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Chrollo wheezed, his vision fluttering black around the edges. This had gone on for too long. He needed to break the hold Silva had on him. Strong as he was, Silva had him beat when it came to brute force. With both hands immobilized and his face denting the wall before him, Chrollo arched his back and ground his ass into the assassin’s hips, feeling a burgeoning hardness that he had figured would be waiting for him. Silva was so pathetic, getting worked up over having Chrollo like this.

The pressure on his throat eased the barest amount, granting him just enough slack to take in a sharp, painful breath. “What do you think you’re doing, brat?” Silva asked, and Chrollo froze instinctively when he felt the man’s warm breath against his ear.

“What do you mean, what am I doing?” Chrollo laughed, a thousand ideas flowing through his head on how to subdue the assassin and still get his hatsu. It wouldn’t be hard, so long as he got Silva to let go. “You’re the one who dragged me into an alley and pinned me to a wall. Don’t you have a family? What would they think to you rutting against me like a dog in heat-”

And just like that, Silva let go. Chrollo dropped the few inches he’d been lifted and coughed messily into his arm, his lungs aching even as he rushed to fill them. Silva was lurking just a few inches from him, hovering like a beast waiting to spring, and as surreptitiously as he could, Chrollo summoned his book.

Just one little touch. That was all he needed.

His eyes went wide when a pair of wide, hot hands grabbed him by the hips. Chrollo nearly dropped his book for the second time that day, looking over his shoulder with wild eyes at Silva. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his voice low, hushed, like silk draped over the edge of a knife.

Silva’s face couldn’t seem to make up its mind, stuck halfway between a glare and a smirk. “You made me miss my train,” he said simply, as if Chrollo owed him the time he’d just lost. The hard line of his body draped itself along Chrollo’s, pinning him back up against the wall, but in a way that was infinitely different than before. “What’s the matter? And here I was, thinking you were a groupie of mine.”

Was he seriously suggesting what Chrollo thought he was suggesting? “Seriously, aren’t you married?” Chrollo asked blankly, noting the hands slipping around to palm at him through his trousers. Chrollo let out a little squeak, his cheeks flushing red.

“Weren’t you the one grinding against me, like a…What was it?” Silva replied, dipping a single hand beneath his waistband to cup him through his underwear. “A dog in heat?”

It was almost laughable how much the man was compensating after being tricked so easily before. If Chrollo had the breath to laugh, he would have, but he settled on rolling into the hand in his pants. It’d be hard to get Silva to touch the book with his hands occupied thusly, but Chrollo was clever. He’d make it work.

“Suddenly so eager? Maybe you are a fan,” the assassin chuckled, tugging his pants down to bunch up around Chrollo’s knees. The cool air felt so nice against Chrollo’s heated skin. The hand moved so slowly though, working up and down his shaft with a touch that didn’t seem as clumsy as it should be.

Chrollo heard the rustling of clothes behind him, and then felt the unmistakable length of Silva’s hard cock against his back. Did he think Chrollo would let him fuck him? Was he really that stupid? “Maybe I’m going to kill you for killing my friend,” he managed to say, though it sounded anything but stern. His voice kept breaking, his gasps turning to moans.

Silva just laughed, low and heady in his ear. “Will you now? Who would have thought the notorious leader of the Phantom Troupe would look so cute up against some dirty wall?” Every word made Chrollo want to tear into him, but every pump of his hand had him biting back a keen. “You aren’t threatening at all like this.”

“I hate you so much,” Chrollo gasped, the hand moving faster on his cock. He clawed at the brick, his forehead falling forward to rest against the cool stone. He couldn’t summon his book like this. “I’m…I’ll….”

“You’ll what?” Silva laughed. “Steal my abilities? I’ve seen through your little trick, brat.” The press of his cock between Chrollo’s legs nearly made him yelp, but when it simply thrust between his clenched thighs, he relaxed minutely. “Why don’t you go back to being cute? It suited you better.”

A knife through Silva’s throat would suit him better, but Chrollo was beyond words. The hands on his hips went lower, pressing his thighs together to create a tight space for Silva to fuck. His skin grew damp with precum and sweat, and Chrollo bit at the sleeve atop his wrist to keep his noises to himself. If anyone were to look down the alleyway, they’d think he was a prostitute servicing a john. The sounds filling the air only added to the illusion.

Chrollo came with a moan nearly spat between his clenched teeth. Silva’s teeth sank into his shoulder as he finished fucking himself dry between Chrollo’s thighs, the mess of his release dripping lazily down his legs to stain the clothing that had survived Silva’s rough undressing. “You’re disgusting,” Chrollo whined softly, staring down at the cum splattered on the brick wall and down his legs. “Couldn’t you have done that somewhere else?”

“You’re a terrible fan,” Silva laughed huskily, his voice a content growl. “A real one would thank me for the gift.”

Chrollo was going to thank him by stabbing him again. And then twisting it, just for good measure. He jerked himself out of Silva’s arms, wrestling with his trousers to yank them back up, mess be damned. “I’m sure your wife would appreciate your generosity,” Chrollo snapped, and Silva flinched, his good mood evaporating just like that. “You should just let me kill you at this rate.”

“And why is that?” Silva grated.

“Because you’re the one who has to live with what he’s done,” he said sweetly, buckling his belt with a smile that was cloyingly sweet, even to Chrollo. “Was this on your bucket list? Fucking some twenty-year-old groupie like a man half your age?”

There were no words to describe the expression on the assassin’s face. Anger, bitterness, guilt, hatred, bloodlust— it all coalesced into a tight frown. Furious aura poured off him in waves. Chrollo opened his mouth to say something else but in a movement he barely registered, Silva threw the Ben’s knife. He barely managed to move his head before the blade buried itself into the brick beside his cheek.

The two stared at each other for a tense moment, waiting for the other to move.

“Don’t come after me again,” Silva said after a minute of silence, the rasp of his voice near deafening in the quiet of the alley.

“Don’t come after any of mine again,” Chrollo said back. They held each other’s stares, but Silva ultimately broke away first, turning his back with a confidence that grated, and a stiffness that spoke of the weight now resting on his broad shoulders. Silva shouldn’t have done what he’d just done. He shouldn’t have, and he knew it.

Chrollo smiled as Silva walked away. Maybe he didn’t have to steal an ability to pay the man back for what he’d taken from Chrollo. Perhaps the guilt was vengeance enough.

#silvakuro #fic #honey pot chrollo #check ao3 for othe rwarnigns im fuckin tired

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