#i love the immortality vs mortality theme :) its just so sad

[epiphyllous]

gift of immortality (Malleus x Reader)

The potion of immortality has been made and Diasomnia rejoices over its discovery. No one is happier than Malleus, who upon the knowledge of the potion existing, presents it to you immediately. The last thing Malleus expects you to do is gently close his hand around the vial of immortality and shake your head. word count: ~2.4k  notes: malleus x reader, gender neutral reader “you,” established relationship, angst to fluff; hurt/comfort (it works out in the end), diasomnia dorm

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For a fae, Malleus is much too aware of his lack of mortality. For as powerful as he may be, he will always be beat when it comes to facing the march of time. He is not affected by it-- not directly, anyways, but recently Malleus finds that he wishes that it did touch him the same way it does others, like it does you.

If it did, perhaps his fear of being left behind would not have such a hold on him when he thinks of you growing old. 

He tries not to think upon it too much. He already has so little time with you to lose any of it to the fear of something that is only inevitable. You have told him this very notion several times as gently as you could, so perhaps his fear is not so easily masked (perhaps just to you). And he is fine with it; accepts that things will be as they are, and that his life must be lived to the fullest with you here with him. 

This goes well for him until the time you get sick. And the fear comes back tenfold. 

(Malleus isn't sure what he would have done if he had lost you then, futilely holding onto your clammy hand as your breaths come out unevenly and labored. He isn't ready to lose you. Not then, not now, and now he isn't sure if he ever will be.)

Which is why when a potion of immortality is given to him on a silver platter, Malleus does not hesitate. With Sebek and Silver trailing after him, their congratulations interrupted by his abrupt exit, Malleus goes to find you sitting in the Diasomnia lounge with Lilia and announces the solution to all his problems.

"This is quite the miracle," Lilia says, blinking, "if it is what we believe. When did you request such a potion to be made, Malleus?"

Malleus avoids your searching look as he answers, "A few months, though I am also surprised by how quickly they have developed it, even with my help."

At this, Lilia perks up. "Well, if it truly is a potion of immortality, that is quite the discovery!" Malleus sees the fae gaze at the vial with a hint of longing, and Malleus hopes that his friend will forgive him for not giving him the first batch of the vial for what he assumes would be for his son. Yes, that would be quite the sight-- Silver, Sebek, and Lilia by his side as he rules over Briar Valley for eons on end like his grandmother. 

He looks to Sebek who is switching his attention between looking up at him and the vial in awe. And certainly, Sebek would be wanting the vial for his father as well, as much as he grouses about having a mortal father-- and if not for himself, then for his beloved mother or his siblings to have a father who will live with them throughout their lives. "This is a fantastic endeavor that you have set out to do, young master!" Sebek exclaims, "To possess the power to grant immortality-"

"Shh, now, now, Sebek," Lilia drawls with an indulgent smile. "Not too loud now, lest unsavory company hears of such a thing."

"A-Ah, yes, of course. My apologies..."

To the side, Silver looks on quietly, though even his gaze follows the vial in Malleus' hand as though entranced. 

Finally, he hears your voice then, but it is to teasingly berate Sebek for his loud voice than to comment on the potion that has captivated everyone else's attention. 

Malleus calls out to you, and he likes the way you turn to him immediately, laughter still in your eyes as you look at him. "What do you think of this?"

“About the potion?" You say, "I think it's nice. For those who want a longer life... I would say it's great. You can help a lot of people with it... or get paid a lot of money."

"Perhaps you belong in Octavinelle," Sebek mutters immediately, avoiding the swat you gave him for his comment. 

"It is what it is," you tell him, as you have told Malleus and others countless times before. "Immortality would definitely sell. It's dangerous, even. So I hope we're careful about who we give this to, if anyone."

"Yes, Malleus, that would be correct." Lilia says, looking at him carefully. "What did you intend to do with the first vial?"

The vial itself is not very large, as large as his pinky with a liquid that is deeply magenta. Malleus has yet to open it, but he wonders if you will be able to smell it and tell him what scent it holds. He walks to you and holds the vial out to you. "I want you to take it," he says, watching as your eyes widen. 

Malleus thinks of a life long-lived with you by his side. You who temper his anger and guide him to wisdom, you who know him better than he knows himself, you who he has told of all his hopes, dreams, and fears, you who he knows he wants to spend an eternity with (the road to realizing and accepting this was a long one, but he is here now)-- he gives you this vial of immortality.

The last thing he expects is for you to gently close his hand around the vial and shake your head.

"Please don't look at me like that," you say to him after looking away, and Malleus wonders what he must look like for you to tell him that. He thinks that it is a shame that the worst of his emotions are clear on his face at the worst of times. But he cannot quash the feeling of betrayal that comes up at your refusal. 

Perhaps it was foolish of him, but it did not once occur to him that you would ever deny the offer of immortality when others covet it so. When the sense of betrayal fades, it bleeds into disappointment and even the feeling of hurt, tinged with an indignant anger that consumes him like wildfire. 

Don't you want to live a life with him? Hasn't he told you about the loneliness of it all? Do you not understand the pain of being left behind, or do you simply not care?

You suddenly look up at him and snap with a voice just as brittle as he feels, and he realizes he must have spoken aloud. "Don't you dare say I don't care," you say. "How could you even say that?"

"Then take the potion," he says, and his voice is low when he sees you take a step back as though the vial were poison.

"This is a huge decision, Malleus," you say instead. "This isn't something a person does on a whim."

"Then you will think upon it and take the potion then?" Malleus presses, and when he sees the hesitation on your face, he knows you are only trying to placate him. "You will refuse me again when I offer even then, won't you?"

You stand before him with an unwavering resolve that he has always loved about you-- that he wants nothing more than to crush if it would make you see his way. "I'm not going to drink it, Malleus," you say warningly.

Malleus snaps, taking a step forward. "Then shall I make you drink this then, if you will not take it willingly?" 

"You wouldn't," you say, your voice trembling at the strength it takes to speak. "You wouldn't dare, and you know it." 

He wouldn't. He respects you too much to force something upon you, and it is a weakness he didn't expect to have until this moment. (You would never say it is a weakness, though.) Still, Malleus growls, eyes narrowing.

"If you make me drink it," you say resolutely, "then you will lose me."

"And if I do not," Malleus says, a fluttering sense of panic in his heart that he cannot control, "I will lose you anyway! Please.” You look up at him in surprise as he pleads, "Understand where I am coming from. What I am asking of you." 

"This is not something that I can do for you," you tell him, your voice breaking at the end. "No matter how much I love you."

Malleus swallows, hands gripped at his side, as he struggles to speak without his emotions holding him captive. He knows with certainty he has never experienced this predicament before, but loving you has shown him that his emotions can run deep and loyal. "You have never been afraid of me," he says, closing his eyes. "But I've found myself increasingly more afraid of losing you."

"Malleus-"

He says your name and you snap your mouth shut. Malleus thinks he would beg on his knees if you would like him to. Cut his hair, break his horns, leave him bare-- if only you would tell him 'yes.' A future in which you are not in it is beyond what he can imagine. Though there was once a time he was frightened by the love he felt for you, he can no longer remember how he has been able to live a life without it. Without you. "Please.”

He watches you as you step closer to him and take the vial in his hand. Instead of opening it, as you seem to want to lay eyes on it as little as possible, you hide it away in your other hand as you grasp his hand with yours. 

There is a silence, and Malleus watches as you shift where you stand, and it is only then that he vaguely remembers that they are not alone in the room. (Not that it matters to him-- not when he has always considered the three in the room akin to family.)

"Can I talk to Malleus alone for a bit?" You ask them, your eyes never leaving him for a moment.

It is telling in his kingsmen's trust of you that they do not question your request, Lilia quickly ushering the two out with a knowing look at you, and Sebek and Silver filing out with little complaint. (Sebek does mutter a little to himself though, but for him, that means a lot.) 

You take his hand and lead him to the couch, and he follows without a word, quieted by the emotional outburst that has left him wrung out.

"Malleus," you begin to say, rubbing his hand with your thumb comfortingly, "how do you feel about the time you've spent with me so far?" 

"I enjoyed it," he says immediately. "Very much so. Though we have not known each other for very long (in my eyes), it feels as though I have known you forever." Malleus takes your hand in his and squeezes it, liking the way you squeeze it back almost automatically. "My time with you has been worth living through," he says, and you smile; he feels himself lighten with just the sight of it.

"I think," you say, "that I have been very lucky to meet you where we are. At this time, at this age." You look at the wall of the dorm, lost in thought. "We could have not met at all." Malleus flinches at the thought of it. "Isn't that funny?"

"I would not go so far as to call it 'funny,'" Malleus mutters, and you laugh, quick as you are to find amusement in his fits of petulance. 

"Well, what I'm trying to say is getting to know each other is a miracle on its own." You tell him, your eyes meeting his, "You are my chance encounter, Malleus. I feel very lucky to have met you in this lifetime.”

"We could have more than a lifetime together," Malleus says. He eyes the vial in your other hand, and when you see his line of sight, you bring it to him, palm up. When he does not take it, you place it in the space between the two of you where it stays.

"I do not want immortality." You raise your free hands to cup his face, thumb brushing against his cheek tenderly, and he feels like falling apart. "I want to make this life of mine count. I know you don't understand that right now but..." You reach up to press a kiss to his forehead. "Maybe you will someday. But regardless, this is my choice, Malleus."

Malleus closes his eyes when he feels you press your lips onto his skin, your hands holding him as though he were a fragile gemstone. He reaches up to hold onto your wrist, your pulse a comforting beat against his fingers, and he thinks that love is oh-so-loathsome at the same time it is wonderous. To have known your love and touch but to also covet it and know what it would feel without it-- it is overwhelming. 

"I hate the knowledge," he says finally, "that you will one day go to a place where I cannot follow."

At this, he feels your hands curl into his face, and before he knows it, your lips are on his, pressing kisses into them as though it were your last chance. Malleus wastes no time in hesitating, returning your affection with as much fervor as you-- tilting his head and pressing forward until you are as close as can be, his hands grasping at your sides. 

"...Is this really okay?" You ask, your voice wavering with the presence of tears, more unsure that you've been in the past hour. You press your forehead to his, squeezing your eyes shut from the world. "If everything works out with us, beyond NRC, beyond... everything else with your royal status, my education... is it really okay that I stay with you?”

Malleus breathes out your name, feeling you shudder. He grasps onto your face gently and whispers to you, "A day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime-- even if I cannot spend my entire life with you, I am yours for as long as you will have me."

"Till death do us part," he hears you say wetly, and he brushes a stray tear away from your cheek.

"'Till death do us part,'" he says back to you, like a promise, and the two of you hold each other as though protecting the other from the world.

The vial of immortality lay temporarily forgotten in the divot of the couch.

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taglist: @malleusmybelovedd @supernatural9000

[joiedecombat]

100 Days of Writing: the List

Since it seems there is some interest, why not? List of works (nominally) in progress, old unfinished fics, and Stuff I Want To Write below the cut. Feel free to ask about any of these.

Works (nominally) In Progress

Fanfic

"Reason or Rhyme" (Time Princess - Gotham Memoirs). The Vittorio expansion/fix-fic, because I will be forever disgruntled at how little romance content was actually included in the Mafia romance route.

Galactic Date Night Shenanigans aka "The one where everything is Balkar's fault." (SWTOR - Theron Shan/Jedi Knight). Theron "disaster spy" Shan is goaded into trying to take his wife out for a nice date for once, and it goes like every other plan these two have ever had anything to do with.

#3: [I] trusted [you] (SWTOR - Theron Shan / Jedi Knight). A post-Nathema prompt fic I swear I will finish one of these days.

Original

super secret short story/novella project - Okay it's not that super secret, but it is something I'm mostly keeping under my hat for now as I work on it because of reasons, and is actually (inconveniently, for 100 Days of Writing purposes) the main thing I've been working on lately. I expect to be able to say more about it later. Maybe even within the 100 days! We'll see.

southern gothic urban fantasy procedural romance - Faerie Animal Control Warden meets FBI Elf during investigation of a suspicious death out in the kudzu. A little bit of Bright, a bit Mushi-Shi, a drop of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Stuff I Want to Write

Distinct from works in progress in that I have not actually gotten past the planning stage on any of these - if that. A few of these have been rattling around in concept for long enough to have gone through several distinct evolutions without ever getting any writing done on them. Still, hope springs eternal and ideas are never wasted.

Fanfic

the rival bands AU / the rock opera playlist fic (Sailor Moon - Makoto Kino/Nephrite). Currently exists entirely as an incomplete playlist.

space opera Pride and Prejudice retelling - exactly what it sounds like on the tin. Do y'all know I have yet to encounter a futuristic/space AU? Surely there's one out there somewhere, but I have yet to see it. If you know of one, for the love of God don't tell me.

"Ten of Swords" - (Archer EMIYA/Minako Arisato). fate/stay night + Persona 3 Portable crossover what's even wrong with my brain.

Original

the Regency fae story - a Regency-era fantasy in which a lot of the needlessly complicated and restrictive social rules followed by the upper classes are actually an attempt at defending against the Fair Folk. Sort of Pride and Prejudice vs Changeling: the Lost vs Labyrinth. Could turn into a whole Pride and Prejudice retelling, I guess?

drinking games - fantasy imperial court intrigues involving a romance between a court poison taster and a master spy/assassin.

untitled - East/southeast Asian-inspired Beauty and the Beast retelling in which the Beast is a mountain god whose appearance is based on a tiger. I'm probably too white to write this.

untitled - Private investigator hired to investigate local bad-boy-made-good for insurance fraud, turns out it was actually an ill-advised teenage deal with the devil coming due. Might fit in with that other southern gothic urban fantasy idea, I am not sure.

the ciphered letter - This one started off as a combination of a Mage: the Awakening campaign and a really, really weird spam email I got one time. Orphan gets mysterious ciphered letter, meets snarky Welsh mage, awakens to magic and maybe almost gets made a human sacrifice to an eldritch abomination.

Forfeit - Regency/Victorian-esque fantasy involving reincarnation, a race of immortals, and a half-immortal teaming up with a mortal who sacrificed his future reincarnations for pseudo-immortality to uncover and stop the sinister secrets that power a colonizing empire. It makes more sense in my head... probably?

untitled - Slow burn enemies to lovers between the world-conquering emperor and the rebel leader who's opposing him, over the course of a time loop. AKA Lord of Heroes Kartis/Monarch with the serials filed off. Or I guess I could just write Lord of Heroes fanfic?

low fantasy Magnificent Seven Samurai - Farming village scrapes together a group of starving mercs to protect them from marauders, drama ensues. That's it, that's the whole idea.

Unfinished Fics

Distinct from works in progress in that these are all old enough I can no longer claim I intend to finish them. Some of them I may come back to, especially the few that had substantial progress made before they fell by the wayside. Most will probably be left abandoned, either because I have lost interest in continuing to work on them or I have just plain forgotten what I was planning to do with them.

dreameater - A very old, loosely Forgotten Realms-inspired concept involving an aging half-elf, his fully elven partner, and a mysterious magical threat that's devouring people's dreams.

"Fortune Favors the Brave" (Baccano! - Luck Gandor/Eve Genoard). The Luck/Eve shipping fic.

"Intermezzo" (Blood+ City of Nightwalkers). Follow-up fic to an obscure manga prequel/side story for the vampire anime Blood+, involving Hagi and the Hong Kong cop who semi-adopted him that one time.

"The Art of Losing Everything" (Dragon Age: Origins - Alistair Theirin/f!Cousland). An Alistair/f!Warden fic with themes of loss, duty, and sacrifice.

"In Pieces" (Dragon Age II - Fenris/f!Hawke). A terrible horrible no good very bad AU where Hawke actually turned Fenris over to Danarius and then came back to try to fix her mistake, which I can never finish because I can't make that initial decision make internal sense no matter how hard I try.

"Pas de Deux" (Final Fantasy VIII - Squall Leonhart/Rinoa Heartilly). Exploration of how Squall and Rinoa's relationship could develop after the events of the game.

"With Good Intentions" (Final Fantasy VIII - Squall Leonhart/Rinoa Heartilly). An AU in which Rinoa discovers that technically you can change the past, it's just that if Squall has an actual decent childhood the world ends. Way too ambitious for me to ever actually finish, probably, but I can't quite give up on the idea.

"I've Loved These Days" (Gundam SEED - Mu la Flaga/Murrue Ramius). One of several partly-written Gundam SEED fics kicking around in my files.

"The Last Night of the World" (Gundam SEED - Mu la Flaga/Murrue Ramius). Another Gundam SEED fic, one that began as a prompt in ye olde LiveJournal days. "I've Loved These Days" might have been a prototype, though they don't appear to have any text in common. Could in theory still get finished, maybe.

Valentine's ghosts (Gundam SEED Destiny - Andrew Waltfeld/Murrue Ramius). I'm just saying, Andy/Murrue would have been so much more interesting than the whole Neo thing in Destiny.

"Lion Passant" (Kingdom Hearts). Something something Leon as a failed Keyblade Bearer. The Kingdom Hearts franchise has rewritten its own lore at least three times since I originally had the idea, I can't imagine I'll ever continue it now.

"Vigil" (KotOR - Carth Onasi/f!Revan). Carth/Revan retrospective somewhere around the tomb of Naga Sadow on Korriban.

"Semper Fidelis" (KotOR/KotOR II - Carth Onasi/f!Revan). Post-Sith Lords Carth/Revan resolution fic.

"Clarity" (KotOR II). Atton Rand backstory study from the POV of that one nameless Jedi.

"A Simple Game of Cards" (KotOR II - Atton Rand/Jedi Exile). Spoilers: it is never a simple game of cards. Turns out someone already did it with more or less the same twist I had in mind.

the besieged base fic (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). A fic rendition of the "Besieged Base" mission from the first Mass Effect.

"Get Up, Jonah" (Mass Effect). I woke up thinking about Turkish drummers. Didn't take long; I don't know much about Turkish drummers. Virmire, before the other shoe drops.

"Long Night" (Mass Effect). Ashley on Virmire.

"My Heart Dances" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). Liara POV of Shepard/Kaidan.

"No Way Out" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). Heading up the Citadel during the ME1 endgame.

"Right Here, Right Now" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). An ME1 epilogue / pre-ME2 sort of fic.

"While the Night is Still Young" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). Shepard/Kaidan en route to Ilos.

Apparently I had approximately a million little Mass Effect shortfic ideas I never finished and in some cases never started. Apparently they're all for the first game. (I think there was a Thane idea or two for ME2 that I just never started on at all. RIP.)

"To Absent Friends" (Tiger and Bunny). Sad, sad futurefic of an elderly Pao-Lin reflecting on the deaths of all the other heroes over the years.