#i named the snake randomly hope it suited him

[ask-human-hastur]

Can I pet your snake?

[marauderundercover]

Taking Chance Ch. 10: Father Daughter Time (alt. prompt Take Your Kids to Work)

AO3

Prev

Sitting in her hotel room, Marinette pouts. Her family hadn’t wanted to talk about their identities. Or hers. So instead, they’d had a rushed (awkward) dinner, and then sent her and Adrien away. But she knew they were going to patrol. Marinette grins as an idea forms. 

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not a good idea.” Tikki says from her spot on the bed, obviously tired of the drama and insanity that Marinette had managed to find since coming to Gotham. 

“Tikki, please. I just found out that my brothers and Mr. Wayne are all heroes. Not just any heroes, heroes known for their detective work. Can you blame me for wanting to go out and talk to them? Maybe if I go as Ladybug and not Marinette, maybe they’ll actually help. You know, hero to hero.” She pleads, looking at Tikki with her best puppy dog eyes. Tikki, unfortunately, was an ancient deity and was not affected by puppy dog eyes. 

“Marinette, I still think it’s a bad idea. Besides, Ladybug shouldn’t be in Gotham.” Tikki argues. Marinette huffs, knowing the kwami is right. 

“Fine. Well if I can’t be Ladybug, then I’ll just sew a domino mask really quick and go run on the roofs as myself.” She says, jutting her chin out in defiance.

“Marinette! That’s completely unsafe.” Tikki chastises. Marinette ignores her, moving around to find cloth to use for her mask. Tikki sighs. “Just- be careful. Think about the Bats, and that Ladybug is not supposed to be seen in Gotham.” She says. Marinette frowns. It almost sounds as if Tikki is giving her permission. But at the same time….

“Wait, what?” She asks. 

“Think about when you transform.” Tikki says with a tired smile. Marinette frowns, but does as she instructed. When the light from her transformation fades, she gasps at the new suit design. It was much darker, and looked as though she belonged with her family rather than the brightly colored Parisian heroes. What was once one singular piece of material was now several. The bottom part of her suit was black. It started at her feet and went all the way up to her chest. Underneath that, she had what seemed to be a deep red leotard (but it was hard to tell since it disappeared under the black bottoms). On her feet were ballet shoes that matched her leotard, the ribbons snaking up her legs. The shoes were slightly confusing, as she’d never seen a member of the Batfam with ballet shoes (and she herself couldn’t dance) but they fit with the rest of the costume. She also now had a hood, much to her delight. It would be useful against the slight chill in the air. Pleased with her new costume, Marinette opens her window and takes a deep breath before jumping out and swinging onto the roof. Giggling, she starts swinging around randomly, hoping that she’ll bump into a friendly sooner or later. A slight miscalculation between buildings leads her to freefall, her eyes wide as she desperately tries to hook her yoyo onto the roof. Arms wrap around her roughly and she yelps in surprise, tilting her head up to look at who grabbed her midair. Her father. Crap. 

“I don’t take kindly to unknown vigilantes in my city.” He says gruffly as they land on the roof. She frowns before she remembers her costume is completely different, and the Miraculous magic definitely helped conceal her identity (even though her family technically already knew). 

“Oh, I’m not unknown. It’s me, Ladybug? Couldn’t exactly bring out the spots in Gotham. Especially with French students in town.” She says with a grin. Batman (Mr. Wayne?) tenses before sighing. 

“Marinette?” He asks, she nods. 

“Yes, though I think it’s probably best to not use my actual name. You can call me….” She hesitates for a moment, searching her mind for a new name. “Ladybird.” She finally says. Ladybird, because it was another name for a Ladybug and because if someone didn’t know that, they’d think she was just another Bat with a bird theme. 

“Very well. Ladybird, go home.” He says. 

“Home home, or where I’m staying home?” She asks cheekily, the banter coming easily with the freedom of a mask. 

“Where you’re staying.” He says through a clenched jaw. 

“Yeah...no can do. See, I’ve been trying to bond with my biological father and it just hasn’t worked out so far. I’m hoping to fix that tonight though!” She says, hoping she doesn’t sound as desperate as she feels. She can’t help it though. Ever since she found out she was adopted, she’s wanted to connect with Bruce. And every time she’s tried, something has come up. Or some revelation has happened and they’ve had to stop their pitiful attempts at bonding. 

“I don’t think-” Batman starts, his lips pursed. 

“Oh no, you see, I know he’ll say yes. See, it’s take your kid to work day.” She rushes out, tilting her head as she thinks of what she just said. “Or rather, night, I guess?” 

“Why not go to his day job, that’s much safer.” Batman argues, Marinette snorts. 

“Sure, it might be safer, but it’s also gonna be boring. Plus, he’d never bring me. Then he’d have to say something about me and I’m not sure either of us are ready for that yet.” She says. She watches Batman, holding her breath as she waits for a verdict. As much as it would hurt, she’d leave if he told her to. Well, she would now once she’d said her peace. But if he made her leave now, after hearing how much she wants to spend time with him? She wasn’t sure if she could handle it. 

“If you’re out of my sight for even a minute, I’m taking you home. I’m serious, Ladybird. You don’t have the training that the others do.” He finally says. She grins, jumping up and wrapping him in a hug. She instantly freezes when she realizes what she’s done and backs up, stuttering out an apology. 

---

Bruce looked at his daughter, unable to move as she continued to apologize. 

“B, I swear if you don’t tell her it’s okay, I’m going to shoot your fucking foot.” Jason’s yelling on the comms finally pulls him from his own thoughts. 

“It’s fine, Ladybird. Don’t apologize.” He manages to say, fighting the urge to smile reassuringly at her. She was so excited, the pure joy on her face made him feel like he had done something right for once. Of course it was replaced almost immediately by her stumbling out an apology and her once cheerful face twisted with regret. So he was still a failure as a father. Nice to know he was staying consistent. He watched, slightly worried as she stayed, stood completely still, in total silence. It was the first time he’d seen his daughter still. She truly was like a bird, always flitting about the room, moving from thing to thing with no real direction. To see her almost frozen was unnatural, it just felt wrong. Just as he opens his mouth to try and see if she’s okay, she snaps out of it. 

“Right! Well, let’s go! Patrol isn’t gonna happen by itself.” She says with a grin. He nods, taking off, always watching her from the corner of his eye. Maybe this wasn’t the bonding he had originally wanted, nor the bonding she’d been expecting. But he’d always found it easier to deal with stressful situations under his cowl. And a fourteen year old daughter? That was the definition of stressful situation.

Ladybird’s suit

Next

Tag list: @maribat-bdbwm @vixen-uchiha @stainedglassm @liquid-luck-00 @jayjayspixiepop @jjmjjktth @mizzy-pop @trippingovermyfeet @queenz-z @thepaceperson @iloontjeboontje @waiting247 @laurcad123 @toodaloo-kangaroo @ritacrow-blog @deathssilentapproach-blog @kittenmywaythrulife @nerd-nowandforever @imarivers8 @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks

[dreamii-yume]

Did you say birthday crumbs? 😌😌😌

I saw the cradle in his bday card and immediately thought. Lilia likes babies. He wants babies. MC can give him a baby... Whether she likes to or not.

It's his birthday! Why don't she fulfill his wish, please?

Yume may be very late for Daddy Lilia’s birthday, but there are never truly a time where we can be “late” for hornii. (΄◉◞౪◟◉｀)

“You would be a great mother. I’m sure of it.”

Lilia had randomly told you that one day as what you initially thought as a strange way of breaking the silence. You didn’t think too much of it, there were more things that the old fae had said that left you speechless after all. You laughed at it and took it as a compliment instead, flattered even. He was truly a man full of surprises, you naively thought that day. You didn’t even notice that glint of mischief in his eyes, a sign that may or may not just be some childish intuition, but he was dead serious.

...You know, thinking back, you should’ve noticed all the signs while it was still there, harmless and tamed. You did not understand what he really meant by it, but you accepted it anyway, since you genuinely thought that he meant no ill will. It was most women’s dream to become a good mother after all and you just happen to be very good at taking care of kids. So, for this talent to be recognized by someone older and more experience than you in raising kids, it made you happy. But ever since that day, Lilia started acting strange towards you.

...For some reason, every time you meet up with him, coincidentally or not, it was always your stomach that he’s most especially delicate to. During one of his surprise acts of affection, his hands would always snake down across your tummy, caressing them through your shirt. Whenever he’ll take the opportunity of resting his head down on your lap, you’ll find him eyeing your stomach with a loving look in his eyes, almost as if he’s waiting for something. Even times when you’ll suddenly find him in your bed the next morning, leaning his ear on it like there’s even something to hear on the other side. When you get scratches and wounds just near your waist line, Lilia would freak out and patched you up as fast as possible, whispering something about how upset he is for something to damage your skin on this specific spot.

You weren’t one to judge people, Lilia was a man full of surprises after all. It wouldn’t be too strange if he has some kind of stomach fetish of some sort. Even though you knew that this man was a lot older than what you already thought, Lilia knows best on how to use his appearance as weapon and mean to get out of the situation. He’s so childish and mischievous, kinda like how a typical young boy would act, and to you, who’s weak against the affections of a child, it was a blade that cuts you deep. It bothered you for a bit, but eventually got used to it, letting him do what he wants.

“Eh? Lilia-senpai, you have kids?”

“You can call them that, but they’re not my own.”

Eventually, you started catching on his true intentions bit by bit and they were surprisingly very wholesome...At first, at the very least. He was very careful of not naming the identity of the children that he took care of, but being able to hear him fondly remembering his moments with them, you came to understand him a bit more. You didn’t want to assume to much to a life that you’re not very familiar with, but a simple thought came into your mind.

Perhaps, Lilia was simply...lonely.

He is fond of children, and had claimed to raise some until they could walk in their own out in the outside world. His bond and love for them was undoubtedly absolute, but as he said, his relation to them was not something that he could call his own. Perhaps Lilia was not interested in your abdominal region alone, but instead of the womb that can bare those children. Thinking that, you almost considered all his actions justified, not that you didn’t before, but at least you have some sort of context behind it. Lilia said that you were going to be a great mother someday, but with these thoughts in your head, you just can’t help but think that it’s a compliment that best suit him instead.

...That’s what you kept thinking as he one day grabbed you by the hand, leading you in the bounds of his room. His hands were so smooth, moving across your arms, legs, and back, giving you goosebumbs along the way. Of course, his last destination was on your stomach, going underneath your shirt and feeling warmness of it all. He nibbles on your neck like a little mouse, but with one wrong move, his fangs could absolutely pierce your flesh open. Charmed by his hypnotic touch, you reaction didn’t quite line in with your rationality as Lilia pulled you by your chin and slammed his lips against yours.

With his tongue playing inside your cavern, his saliva felt as if it was laced with natural aphrodisiac, rendering you immobile. You were surprised, but got you distracted enough to not be able to notice your clothes slowly being stripped away. Chuckling, Lilia couldn’t help but find yo oh-so adorable, having to completely wrap you around his fingers

♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎

“P...Please...I-I’m so full...” You sobbed as you covered your face in embarrassement, still in disbelief that something like this is happening to you. “Pull out...! Please, I c-can’t take any more...!”

Flinching as his fingers traced over the small bulge in your stomach, filled with the seed that can penetrate the depths of your flower so easily. “Not yet, Love. Just a little more.” He whispered, eyes half-lidded and seemingly drunk with both lust and pleasure. “We’ll have to make sure that you get the most of it in.”

A sharp, burning pain spread from your lower region as he pushed himself in your cunt deeper. “Aagh!” You squeaked as you instinctively grabbed the sheets and grit your teeth. Despite his best attempt of stuffing your hole with his own cock, his overwhelming cum had still managed to seep out through the gaps and stains the bed. Lilia hummed in disappointment, before scooping some in his fingers.

“Aw...What a waste.” He sighed, coming into terms that your human body just doesn’t have enough capacity to hold truck-load of a fae’s love juice. You also hoped that he had come to understand that yourbody is practically giving out on you. You’re exhausted, after being relentlessly fucked for hours, you just wanted to let your heavy eyelids fall but every time you do so, Lilia would use pain to wake you up. However, he took one look at the white substance sticking to his fingers and he proceeded to glance back at you, the look in his eye was not something you appreciated. Unfortunately, you were not given enough time to ponder over what went through his head as he suddenly shoved those cum-filled fingers inside your mouth.

He pinches you tongue, smearing the flavor of his love juice on your taste buds with a sadistic smirk on his face. “...Guess we’ll just have to improvise, yeah~?” He playfully said, as your mouth quavered whilst forcefully tasting his salty juices. You whined at his actions, but Lilia sighed heavenly from just your horrified and tearful expression combined. “Aah...What a good girl...I knew you were the perfect fit for me~!”

To your dismay, he began to move again, motivated to ruin your body both inside and outside once more than it already is. He pulled his fingers out of you, before immediately cupping your cheeks obsessively. “Those eyes...Oh, how I love those eyes.” Lilia said and in an instinct, you closed them as a force of habit when he began to move his hips, dragging your battered walls along. “...The eventual eyes of a dedicated mother, a loving wife.”

“Even after all this time, your eyes haven’t died yet. How wonderful...” You cried as you felt the disruption straight into your womb, toes clenching as you weakly gripped onto him. “This is exactly why...”

“...You would be a great mother, Darling...” Lilia told you once again, reminiscent of his former words but now carries a heavy burden on you. His eyes glows red, learning closer to your lips to give you yet another painful, yet passionate kiss. “...And just the perfect, loving wife that I dreamt of.”

Since I was late, this doesn’t seem to have anything related to Lilia’s birthday at all (*´Д｀*) pls im sorry my head is long been drained but regardless, Yume’s still going to put this in the Birthday Crumbs watch me break my own rules lol

Yume’s Resolution is to get a driver’s license and be better at it, and write sinfics faster. (*´꒳`*) What’s yours, Darlings?

[dailylogyn]

Logyn Meta: Loki & Sigyn’s relationship in the Marvel Comics

Photo Source (by Sexy-Salmon): https://lokisergi.tumblr.com/post/70164902295/siege-loki-problems-it-almost-looks-innocent

Other Logyn Meta’s: https://dailylogyn.tumblr.com/tagged/logyn-meta

Did you know Sigyn was in the Marvel Comics long ago? Did you know Loki had a wife? 

Oh...that’s probably because Marvel wanted you to forget their terrible writing mistakes concerning this great Norse Couple. 

Let’s dive into this exploration of history where the Marvel writers realized they fucked up on telling a perfectly good couples story, and in the process, setting off a spark of rebellion that caused some retconning and a group of fans to demand justice for both Loki & Sigyn -- not just as a couple, but as their own individual beings. 

#JusticeforSigyn #JusticeforLoki #JusticeforLogyn

Where it First Began (Meeting & Marriage of Lies):

In September of 1978, Thor #275 came out featuring the first appearance of Sigyn, Loki’s wife from Norse Mythology. She was introduced as a beautiful Asgardian Loki had randomly come across while looking into a crystal ball inside his castle, wanting to find some companionship to fill his loneliness. 

However, when Loki came with riches and jewels to offer her in exchange for her hand in marriage, Sigyn outright rejected him, stating she would never take someone as vile as him, even stating she was already engaged to an Asgardian Warrior part of Odin’s guard -- Theoric. 

Unable to accept this, Loki came up with a plan to have her fiancee killed during a mission, resulting in the Trickster taking on the disguise of Theoric in order to take Sigyn for his own. Despite having slightly suspicions of her lover being more romantic than before, Sigyn didn't notice that her lover wasn’t exactly who she thought he was.

Now comes the day of the wedding as Odin marries the happy couple. This was when Loki finally revealed his true self and what he had done. Odin tried to null the marriage, but it was against Asgardian law for even the High Father to do such a thing. Hence, Sigyn accepted her fate as Loki’s wife. This caused Odin to name her the Goddess of Fidelity. 

Where it’s Heading (Cargo of Incantation-Fetter’s Arms):

Loki being Loki, he did some shit that ended up with him being imprisoned in a tree by Odin, something that infuriated Sigyn, resulting in her trying to take control over Donald Blake to use over the All-Father as a way to free her husband from his punishment. However, it didn’t work out, resulting in a bunch of other crazy shit happening and putting Thor on their trail.

After Balder was killed, Loki was put on trials for his crimes and received yet another punishment that Sigyn had to protect him from -- having burden over the fact she was “the evil’s wife.” Just like the classic Norse tale, she holds a bowl over his head, shielding him from snake venom and leaving to empty it momentarily when it became full, resulting in Loki cursing her. 

Also, Loki and Sigyn had a child -- Narvi, but they died young, being used as the binding to imprison Loki (following the Norse myth too.) 

Some more crazy shit happens and now Odin has shackled Loki to Sigyn so he doesn’t cause anymore trouble. Loki of course is not pleased about this one bit. Having had enough of this, he went to Odin demanding to be released, only resulting in him being banished to an outpost. 

There Just Might be Hope????:

Some more shit happens again, resulting in Loki being stuck in an astral form and bound to a suit of armor so he could reside in Asgard thanks to Sigyn. A fight happens with Thor, Loki and Mephisto, putting Sigyn in danger. This is when for the first time ever, Loki ends up having a tender confession of love over Sigyn, asking Thor to save her since he could not.

It’s unknown if this is just Loki putting on an act or being real, but you know how the Trickster God can be. 

After the battle, while Loki had released Sigyn from her marital vows, his wife swore to always be there for him when he needed her.

And that’s the last we see of Sigyn’s regular appearance in the comics in 1996. She makes a cameo in Avengers: Unleashed #1 in 2019, but it’s nothing more than a flashback to her time of helping Loki. 

A Hypothesis & Notes on their relationship in comics:

The whole entire plotline consisting of Theoric and Loki killing him in order to obtain Sigyn is just something most of the fandom doesn’t like. Not only does it objectify Sigyn, but it makes Theoric a Pointless character to introduce anyway, only used as a tool for means in which Loki can get Sigyn, when honestly, he could have done so in a different way.

I like that they stick with Sigyn being the faithful wife of Loki (that’s who she is), but they honestly don’t give her any agency in this besides that trait alone. The writers don’t even let Sigyn be her own damn person! She is SO MUCH MORE than Loki’s loyal wife. SHE IS A FREAKIN GODDESS! I know there is more we can do with her.

Instead of pulling the ‘woe is me, my husband is evil and I’ll just go along with it’ card, something else could have been done. LIKE LITERALLY, ANYTHING ELSE! We know Loki can be a troublemaker, but Sigyn knows how to deal with his shit. She isn’t some damsel in distress here! It’s another reason Loki likes her.

Couples can bicker in times, it’s normal in marriages and relationships, but to have Loki whining about how much of a burden Sigyn is is just....WHY? I mean, you went after the woman and killed another guy for her. This is what you wanted! *shakes head at writers*

I will give them kudos though for some of the stuff near the end when Loki actually starts displaying his true feelings of love towards Sigyn. And sadly we only got a little taste of that...and we aren’t even sure if it was an act or Loki being real.

THE FACT THAT SIGYN ISN’T EVEN IN THE COMICS ANYMORE SINCE 1996. She’s only mentioned, but it’s just as a tale, not as an actual person who USED to be his wife. They literally killed her off. EXCUSE ME! #JusticeforSigyn (We’re still waiting for her in the MCU...)

NORSE MYTHOLOGY TIE-INS:

There were some moments in the comics between them that they writers took from Norse Mythology with them. Thought It’d be important to list.

Loki’s Punishment of snake venom dripping onto him while Sigyn holds a bowl to collect it and shield him.

Narvi being Loki & Sigyn’s son who was killed and his insides used to bind Loki for his punishment.

Sigyn being Loki’s wife. 

DIFFERENT WRITERS, DIFFERENT CHARACTERIZATION:

As is the case with everything out there, if you have different writers working on the same project, there is bound to be a difference of characterization and interpretation, resulting in OOC moments or just something completely different altogether. After researching and pondering on this subject, I FULLY believe this is what has happened with Loki & Sigyn’s relationship in the comics. Let’s take a look at the evidence I’ve found:

For the comics Sigyn’s creators were Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Tom Palmer. 

Loki’s creators for the comics were Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby, Violet Barclay, and honestly, many others.  

My favorite quotes on them from the comics:

Wait? Despite the crappy writing, I actually have quotes I like from the comics? GASP! I call these the only positives from the comics of their relationship. 

“My Sigyn-- the love of my immortal life...” — Loki, Thor Annual Vol 1 #19

“Aye-- For only Sigyn, of all in the realm eternal, feels love for Loki. And among all Asgardians, only for Sigyn does Loki feel...” — Loki, Thor Annual #19

“Sigyn loves me-- just as she is the only thing in the nine worlds that I truly love.”— Loki, Thor #483

Photo Source: https://www.zerochan.net/1262293#full

Fandoms Wish for MCU & Future Appearance Justice:

Fans would like to see Sigyn make an appearance, not only in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), but also the Marvel Comics once again. They would like to see Loki & Sigyn’s characters done justice with proper writing, especially regarding their relationship with each other. 

This is why there is plenty of fans out there writing Fanfiction, making Fanart, Roleplaying and even Cosplaying them, giving their interpretation’s of what their relationship would be like. This is THE VERY REASON this blog and @sigynappreciation​ was created to help spread awareness and unite fans who feel the same way. 

These characters are very near and dear to our hearts. Some of us even worship them in our religions. We would like to see their relationship grow and portrayed in a way that helps fill the pieces of the missing puzzle to how they came to be in Norse Mythology. 

CONCLUSION:

Although their relationship in the comics usually leaves fans grimacing, at least we got to have it explored. Who knows if Marvel will ever touch anything with them ever again, but at least it’s brought together a small community that continues to go strong -- and honestly, that kind of unity is what Loki & Sigyn would want. 

So imagine to your hearts content! Draw that fanart! Write those fanfictions! Dress up in that cosplay! Be those characters! But just remember, you have a family here to love and support you. 

SOURCES:

Sigyn’s info on Marvel Database: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Sigyn_(Earth-616)

Loki’s info on Marvel Database: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Loki_Laufeyson_(Earth-616)

Sigyn on Marvel Universe: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/sigynthor.htm

Logyn on the Shipping Wiki: https://shipping.fandom.com/wiki/Logyn

Loki & Sigyn’s relationship through Media: https://www.alehorn.com/blogs/blog/norse-mythology-loki-and-sigyn

[angelixskz]

see you again; k.sm

↳ pairing; kim seungmin x reader

↳ word count; 3.4k+

↳ genre; fluff,angst, soulmate!au [reincarnation]

↳ summary; with each goodbye came the same five words because this wasn’t the first time the two of you met and it most definitely would not be the last.

↳ a/n; my skz fic for the month :) this is my first time writing a reincarnation!au, so I don’t know what I’m doing. feedback is always appreciated! please enjoy <3 

↳ warning(s); death, mentions of blood 

He looked so peaceful.

Seungmin glowed under the moon, the light reflecting ethereally on his pale face. He shouldn’t have looked that angelic under the moon’s kiss, not when all the blood was draining from his body and soaking into the material of your clothes. His breathing was calm, way too shallow and much quieter than the hiccups that you relentlessly released as tears streamed down your face. It wasn’t fair how he was able to smile weakly, barely forcing a chuckle out of his mouth as he whispered how silly you were for crying. It wasn’t fair how cold he felt when his hand grasped yours. He mumbled about everyone being too loud with their shouting and the pounding of their feet on the concrete.

You were about to tell him to shut up. You were going to tell him that he was the silly one for taking the arrow to the chest. However, when he languidly blinked his eyes closed and laid more weight onto your arms, the words died in your throat.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep on me!” you cried out, cupping his face.

“You’re comfy,” he managed to murmur, struggling to open his eyes.

“Seungmin, no,” you frantically brushed your thumb on his cheek, “stay with me.” With your other free hand, you clasped the ring he offered to you just minutes ago. “You didn’t even finish proposing to me.”

Your eyes were open; his eyes were closed. Your temperature was rising; his was lowering. Your pulse pounded in your ears; his was slowing down. You swallowed, his body limp in your arms. He opened his mouth, releasing a promise with his last breath.

You sat up with a gasp, forehead precipitated in sweat and arms shooting upwards as if to lift someone up. You stared down at your clothes. There was no blood. You touched your face. There were some tears. Sighing, you pushed off your blanket and dragged your feet to the kitchen.

The green numbers 4:39 glared from the microwave, casting a tiny glow in the dimly lit apartment. Your fridge hummed loudly as you pressed the dispenser for some water. You relished in the cool contact with the glass cup and savored each drop of water that graced your tongue.

With a satisfied ‘ah’ you placed the cup on the counter. The dream replayed in your mind. There was something about the boy that left you unsettled, like you’ve met him before. You frowned, the name of the unknown boy resting at the tip of your tongue. You dragged out the ‘s’ sound, hoping you’ll remember. It’s not uncommon, however, for your brain to randomly introduce strangers in your dreams and reassure you that you knew them. You only rolled your eyes at your attempts to say the mysterious boy’s name, muttering to yourself that you sounded like a snake. Your focus then drifted to your surroundings.

The apartment was bare. All the, very few, items that belonged to you were safely tucked away in their respective boxes. Your lips pursed into a pout upon remembering that you’d have to carry those boxes down several flights of stairs since the elevator was broken. Clicking your tongue, you refilled your cup once more and made your way back to your bedroom.

A gloomy, discontent overcast sat on your head as the dream lingered in the back of your mind. Bits and pieces were slowly disappearing from your memory. However, those five, muffled promising words stood out to you and quietly drizzled in your ears.

After contemplating for a good ten minutes, you grabbed your keys and made your way to the front door. It was your first day off. A day where you were free to do what you wanted and be stress free. So why not spend that day exploring the area?

As you locked your apartment door, you heard your next door neighbor’s door click shut. In the whole two weeks that you’ve been existing in this new building, you never once saw the person who lived next door.

“Oh, that guy?” the dimpled guard (he always greeted you whenever you passed by) scratched his chin. “Well, I see him out pretty frequently. Most of the time, though, he arrives when you leave, or you leave when he arrives,” he chuckled, “it’s like the two of you always miss each other.”

You pushed Chan’s words to the back of your mind and ignored the disappointment that swirled in your stomach. While you didn’t plan to be best buds with the boy who was a wall away, you thought it’d be nice to actually know someone other than the friendly guard. You shook your head, breaking away your lingering gaze on the gold numbers on the door next to yours.

He has his own life, and so do you.

You found yourself driving to a nearby cafe. It looked fairly busy and your hand hesitated to open the door, for you worried the wait would be long. Waving off the petty concern, you swung open the door. A harsh wave of deja vu hit you when you stepped into the bustling room. The sky dimmed and the people in the cafe faded away.

The stars signaled that the cafe was closed, yet you knocked on the locked door anyway.

He didn’t ignore you, he invited you in. He didn’t shout at you, he offered you some tea. He didn’t sigh in disappointment, he gave you a patient smile. And you knew. You knew he was filled with questions, you knew how hurt he was, yet he sat there. He sat there with expectant eyes and open arms.

You hated it.

You twiddled your thumbs, eyes lowered to the recently cleaned table.

“I’m moving.”

His voice was quiet, stable, but quiet. “Is that why you were avoiding me?”

“I thought it’d be best if you hated me,” you mumbled, a lump lodged in your throat, “that way, it would be easier to say goodbye.”

Seungmin took your hands into his, “First of all, I don’t hate you. I never have, and I never will.”

You sniffled, still refusing to look at him.

“And secondly,” he lifted your chin, “we won’t be saying goodbye.”

There were his eyes. You wanted to laugh at all the scientists who located the galaxy up high in the sky and out of this world when each and every star, each plant, each spec of dust, was floating in Seungmin’s eyes; the galaxy wasn’t up there, it was right here. The corner of his mouth quirked up at the cute furrow of confusion in your brows. “What do you mean, Seung? I’m moving.”

he chuckled, “don’t you remember?”

and there were those five words again.

“I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

You flinched at the touch of the waiter’s hand on your shoulder. You blinked at him, the face of the boy in your flashback disappearing and slowly dissolving into a freckled boy. He stood there with concerned eyes and a tray full of broken glass. His eyes weren’t the same. “I’m fine,” you quickly told him, making your way out towards the exit.

Not a minute later, a guy entered the cafe. “Woah, Felix, what happened here?”

You, on the other hand, sat in your car, head spinning as nausea crept up your throat. You didn’t remember. You don’t know what that boy, s- seu- You cried in frustration as nothing but an ‘s’ sound flowed off your tongue.

Just as the dream you had two weeks, bits and pieces started to fade away. You don’t remember why you were crying, you don’t remember what his reassurances were, and you don’t remember hiss name.

What bothered you the most, were the five words he told you. It was a melody you didn’t know the lyrics to.

“Have a nice night.”

You replied with a brief ‘you too’ before shoving your wallet into your pocket and grabbing the grocery bags filled with junk food. After that incident at the cafe, you’ve been finding it hard to do anything other than laze around your apartment all day.

You let out a yawn. Today was no different. You woke up to lay in bed for the whole morning, only to rummage through your near empty fridge and pushed away your thoughts on finishing the essay that’s due in two days. It could wait, you thought, pressing play on the remote.

You had successfully stared at a blinking cursor for fifteen minutes before feeling the sudden urge to sleep, which you did. You woke up an hour and a half later, the sun setting outside of your window.

Another day was wasted.

Although you barely did anything, your stomach growled for food. That’s how you ended up walking to the convenience store across your apartment complex, hoping to fulfill your hunger with some instant ramyeon.

Your grip on the plastic bags tightened as you passed by an alleyway. The looming darkness caught your eye, but you refused to explore the curiosity. At least, that’s what you were hoping to do. Instead, your feet paused, body frozen as you heard rummaging in the trash can.

And suddenly, the darkness consumed you.

“Come here kitty,” you beckoned, waving an open can of tuna in front of the hissing cat. You frowned, “Okay, okay.” You gently placed it in front of him, squatting calmly as Seungmin, you named him, started to slowly make his way out of the tattered box.

“Hey Seungmin,” you cooed, the cat’s ears flattening at your tone.

“How do you know my name?”

You jumped up, the shaggy, orange cat following suit before scurrying away into the darkness. You turned around and glared at the stranger. “He was just about to eat, you kn-”

Without any warning, the stranger shoved you further into the alleyway, pushing you against the wall and covering your mouth with his hand. You protested, pushing his shoulders and biting his finger. He hissed at the pain, body still pressed against yours as he quickly peeked towards where the lamppost was.

“Help!” you shouted, hearing heavy footsteps coming your way.

His eyes widened, “shut up.”

You only pushed his unmoving figure, mouth opening to shout louder. However, before you could even have a chance to, the stranger put his finger on your lips.

“I will kiss you if you shout again,” he warned.

You blinked at the boy, his face still hard to see under the shadow of the brick walls surrounding the two of you. “Isn’t that like, harassment?”

It was hard to see, but you could tell the boy rolled his eyes. “Just be quiet or else you’ll find out the real definition of harassment, and those guys won’t be as nice as me.”

“Seungmin,” you whispered, his name breezing through your teeth as if that was the first word you ever learned.

He turned his head to you, “So you really do know my name.”

“Well, that’s what I named the cat, but apparently it’s your name too.”

He raised his brows at your comment, about to say something else before the shouting and footsteps got louder. You felt your heartbeat pick up and you squeezed your eyes shut. He pressed you closer to the wall, almost as if the two of you could magically phase through the bricks and disappear.

You held your breath as you heard footsteps falter at the entrance of the alley. Seungmin leaned his forehead against yours, arms clutching around you. It was oddly comforting.

“There’s nothing here, let’s go!” yelled a gruff voice.

For a few minutes the two of you stood there. You slowly opened your eyes, shocked to see the boy already staring at you. It was unfortunate that  your eyes adjusted to the darkness because your, once normally beating heart, picked up the pace and started beating like you finished jogging a marathon.

“I think they’re gone,” you whispered.

He cleared his throat, immediately backing away from you, “right.”

You swallowed, dazed by how cold it felt without him near. Seungmin didn’t spare you a glance, simply turning away and making his way out to the sidewalk.

“Wait,” you called out, catching up to him. Your breath was taken away, words lost at the familiarity you felt thru his gaze. You shook your head, eyes focusing on the cuts he had on his face. “Don’t you want to get bandaged up?”

He grinned at your offer. “Sorry, sweetpea, but I have to keep moving.”

You were disappointed by his rejection.

“But,” he added, “there’s always the possibility…”

“A possibility…” you repeated, trailing off just as he did.

The way his grin widened made your stomach flip, but the five words he uttered, made your head spin.

“I don’t have any money!” you yelped, heart palpitating in your chest when the cat sauntered past you. The night air created goosebumps on your arms and it sadly did not make up for the lost warmth you got from the stranger in your… dream? How odd to randomly dream at a moment like this.

As quickly as the dream appeared, it left.

You let out a loud breath as the cat meowed. You made a face at the cat who tilted her head innocently. “Don’t look at me like that,” the cat meowed again, “I genuinely thought you were a person who was going to mug me.”

The cat walked towards you, rubbing her head against your leg.

“Yeah, yeah,” you tsked, “I get it. You’re cute, but I don’t have any food you can eat.”

The cat then started to purr. You sighed, “Wait here.”

Walking back to the convenience store with your bags, you shot a smile towards the yawning cashier. “You’re back,” he commented.

You planted the cans of cat food on the counter. “Yes I am,” you glanced at his name tag, “Jeongin.”

He scanned the items, “How funny.”

You raised your brows at his statement, handing him your card. “What is?”

“Some guy also bought the same thing just a few minutes ago,” he chuckled.

Those words shouldn’t have weighed so heavily, but they left you feeling empty, like you missed something very important.

“That is funny,” you mumbled, a slight pounding in your head recalling indecipherable words to ring in your ears.

You made your way back to the alleyway. “Kitty, hey kitty!” you called out, slowly approaching the cat. You paused when you realized she was eating. “Huh,” you frowned.

You really felt like you missed something important.

“Are you sure you don’t feel tired?” Chan greeted, gesturing towards your eyes as you exited the elevator.

“Is this your way of telling me I have eye bags?” you pursed, eyes squinting at his accusation.

He shrugged, “I’m just saying that, judging from the weight under your eyes and how you seem to be yawning every time I see you, that maybe you’re tired.”

You yawned. “See,” he pointed out.

You rolled your eyes. “Maybe I’ve been a little restless at night, but”—you wiggled your finger—“that’s just because I feel…”

“Restless?” Chan guessed.

“Wow, you’re so smart,” you deadpanned, rolling your eyes at his ‘thank you.’ “Anyways, as I was saying, I’ve been feeling, for a lack of a better word, incomplete lately, like I’m forgetting, or missing something. And I’ve triple checked that I turned in all my assignments due on Friday.”

Chan watched as you took a moment to mentally check off everything that was due.

“Have you ever...dreamt while being awake?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s called daydreaming, y/n,” Chan lightly laughed.

“No, no! Like- like you feel like you’ve been to this place before-.”

Your friend interrupted you, placing a hand on your forehead, “Are you alright? Maybe you should go back to bed.”

You shook your head, pushing off his hand, “I’m fine, it’s just…”

“That deja vu feeling?”

“Yeah,” you whispered, “like I’ve been here before.”

You exhaled sharply and turned to Chan, “Do you have some time to spare?”

“So, you’re telling me that you’ve been having these...dreams ever since you were young?”

You laughed, “Oh no! No, no. It only started having these when I moved here.”

He hummed, And you get a heavy sense of deja vu?”

You nodded your head, “Usually accompanied with a headache.”

“The same guy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Those, um, dreams?” he clicked his tongue, “they feel real?”

“Strangely, yes. And for some reason, I can never remember the guy’s name, nor the last words he says to me before I’m brought back to reality.”

Chan was silent for a moment, finger tapping on his chin as he pondered. “What if they’re memories?”

“Memories?”

He leaned back in his seat, “Yeah, you know, a recollection of something. What if you’re remembering stuff from your past lives or something.”

“Past lives?”

He chuckled, “Why do you keep repeating everything I say?”

You glared at him, “Because it doesn’t make sense.”

“My grandma used to tell me about soulmates and reincarnation,” he commented, “maybe that’s what’s happening to you.”

“Reincar-” you stopped yourself from repeating what he said upon seeing his raised eyebrows, “What about it?”

“Two people,soulmates, are reincarnated in different lives and in each life, they always find each other.”

“Why would I be getting these dreams then?”

“I don’t know. You’re manifesting,” he suggested, “in hopes that your soulmate will find you soon.”

You gagged, “Soulmates aren’t real.”

“That’s what you think,” he cheekily grinned.

You shook your head, “No, it’s what I know.” You got up from the couch and walked to your mailbox; it’s what you came down to the lobby for anyway.

“You never know, y/n,” Chan called from behind you, tone sing-songy.

You ignored him. “Hey, did the mail come today?”

“Yes it did.”

“Do you recall seeing mail getting put into my box?” you asked, opening and closing the door of your mailbox.

He hummed, “I think so.”

You opened the door for the nth time, disappointed when the mail didn’t magically appear, “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe you don’t have any mail?”

You pursed your lips, “Maybe. If that’s the case, then I came down here for nothing.”

“You got to talk to me, though,” Chan reminded you.

“And what did I get out of talking to you?” you chided, looking at him with crossed arms.

He feigned a hurt expression, “You wound me, you know that?”

“You commented on my eye bags.”

“Like a good friend should,” he smiled, walking you to the elevator, “you know, I think your manifestation will pay off real soon.” He pressed the ‘up’ button, “but for now, you should go back to sleep. Maybe you’ll dream more of your soulmate.”

The doors to the elevator opened. “Again, soulmates-”

“Are closer than you think,” he finished, pushing you into the elevator. “Sweet dreams!”

You glared at him as the doors closed. “Curse you Chan,” you muttered, angrily pressing the ‘9’ button, “putting that stupid thought of soulmates into my head.”

Unfortunately, the thought lingered and overstayed its visit in your mind.

It was simply a coincidence that his face was the same in every dream, you thought, that was just your mind making up your dream boy. You found yourself sounding out the ‘s’ sound.

“What was his name?” you frowned, “seung…” You hummed in uncertainty as you exited the elevator, slowly walking to your apartment. “Seung,” you kept repeating, keys jingling as you attempted to find the right one.

You pushed in the key, struggling to twist it. “Seungcheol? No, that doesn’t sound right.” You pulled out the key, jamming it back inside the keyhole before twisting it again. “Seungmin!” you gasped, the door unlocking.

“Do I know you?”

You paused, his voice ringing in your ears. Quickly, you turned, vocabulary disintegrating when you saw his face. You recognized the slope of his nose and the blush of his lips. You recognized the arch of his brows and the apples of his cheeks. Most of all, you recognized the slight twinkling in his eyes.

He stood there, face scrunched in thought. “I dreamed about you,” he blurted, the thought leaving his mouth before it processed in his brain. “I- yikes, he nervously chuckled, scratching the nape of his neck, “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Your heart swelled at the red that tinted his ears.

“Seungmin,” you tested out.

He blinked at his name being called

“My dream boy,” you grinned, “would you believe me if I said I dreamt about you too?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” A smile tugged his way into his lips and he looked at the mail in his hands, your name in bold letters. “We’ll see each other again.”

[oftenderweapons]

The Power Couple - hyung line

Pairing: hyung line member x reader

Wordcount: 1.2k words circa, each

Genre: romance scenarios/imagine

Rating: suggested 18+

Hello, my darlings, sorry I didn’t post last week but exam season is insane and I’m seriously struggling :(

Anyways, I’ve been working on these and I hope I’ll be able to write and post the maknae line during the next week. 

Did you enjoy Bang Bang Con The Live? I watched it with my ARMY squad and since we were still craving BTS material afterwards we did a 5th muster rewatch, YAY!

Okay, now TRIGGER WARNINGS: not much this week really, just mild allusions to smut, (a bit more descriptive in Yoongi’s piece), there are some more explicit thingies (ahem, collar, leash, generic mention on toys, stress relieving quickie) and milder but possibly sexy thingies (slightly revealing outfits), mild angst in Joon’s piece (namely minor harassment, nothing descriptive). Watch out for: one tense, insecure and lowkey (highkey) kinky Joon, one very soft Jin, one very tired, very whipped Min Suga and the usual energy fluff ball Hobi (also kinky, though)

I love you all, please stay safe <3

Here you can find the maknae line

And here you can find my masterlist

Namjoon

“You know we don’t have to do this.”

You offered him the string. “What if I want them all to know.”

"_____, I love you and I repeat, I will only do this if it's what you want. You have to give this to me. I won't take it from you. I seriously don't want to force this on you." He fixed his tie, loosening it a little. He was nervous. The car was slowly arriving to the venue. A couple more minutes and you would be out, photographers screaming for your attention, celebrities surrounding you, women envying you, men wanting you. It wasn't the first time you attended a red carpet as Namjoon's plus one, but the previous attempt had peaked with a cocky rapper putting his eyes on you, flirting inappropriately while Joon was busy and making you deeply uncomfortable. As a consequence, Joon had kept you close for the rest of the night and had to give up on having you beside him for a couple events after that, since you didn't feel safe enough to attend.

However, this afternoon he had come to your room with a hefty velvet box, looking at you with complete rapture in his eyes.

“You look like a dream come true.”

“I hope it’s a good dream,” you replied, waiting for the stylist to finish fixing your hair in a classy bun.

“A very good one.”

You were wearing matching suits. Regular, black silk suits, tailored exactly the same, the only difference was the fact that you weren’t wearing any shirt underneath your jacket.

“Thank you.”

“I have something for you.” He came closer, the stylist done with your hair, bowing kindly as you made a small bow to her in reply, thanking her for her work.

“I thought we said no jewellery.”

“Well, technically…” He opened the box, showing you a collar of diamonds. “You don’t have to.” He said sheepishly. “Wear it, I mean. And I don’t want people to think that I consider you an animal that needs to be collared, or a possession. I saw it and I thought you would love it.”

“Yes. I love it.” You touched it gently with your fingertip. “I’ll wear it.”

He smiled so brightly that you knew all the negative comments would never cast a shadow on the overwhelming joy he was showing in this moment: you would do unspeakable things to make him smile at you like that.

“Can I put it on you?”

“Yes, sir.” It was half a tease, half an admission of his dominance over you. In the secret language you had created together this meant that you trust him and that you allow him to take complete control over you, that he is entitled to do whatever he wants with you. It was also a way to reassure yourself that he would protect you tonight, that he wouldn’t leave your side and that he would take care of you. That no man would ever lay his eyes and hands on you tonight.

He clasped it easily around your neck, the measure just right, and you suspected he knew because of the way he uses his hands on your neck, randomly, sometimes to soothe you and support you, some others to arouse you and gain his own pleasure.

The tension on your shoulders eased a little as you saw your reflection in the mirror. There was no doubt you belonged to him, that you were his. Still, some anxiety snaked in your belly.

“I don’t really wanna push my luck,” he said, looking down, breaking eye contact, “but I had a small thing made to match the… necklace.”

You looked at him curiously. “Can I see?”

“I know you won’t judge me but I feel very vulnerable about this and I thought we should talk it out before you…”

“I love you.” You whispered, calming his gibbering. “Show me.”

He lifted the board where the necklace laid, showing another compartment of the box were a snaky string laid, all coiled up. You took it and unwrapped it.

A leash.

He looked at you. “You don’t have to say yes, we can use it another time, or not use it at all.”

It means guidance, belonging, discipline. All things you needed tonight.

“Yes.” You told him, confidence sparking in your eyes.

That night, when you walked down the red carpet you felt nothing but the cold sensation of the metal around your neck, and the scorching pride in Namjoon’s eyes.

Journalists asked questions, people took pictures, but the only thing that mattered was what you felt: you were Namjoon’s equal, with your identical suits, and at the same time you were his beloved pet, someone he would cherish, guide, defend and protect.

Seokjin

“Ready?”

“Yup.” Seokjin smiled a tight lipped smile and wrapped an arm around your waist.

“God, they won’t take their eyes off of you.”

Tonight you were supposed to attend a film premiere of one of Jin’s friends. It got you slightly uncomfortable, since it was your first official event with him as a couple. Of course ARMY had already seen you a few times since the official announcement of your relationship, once at the airport, as you came back from a quick getaway you and Jin had taken, then then in a bunch of pictures, and then during a vlive, when you had taken a small visit to say hi and introduce yourself, letting Jin lead you through the whole event and giving you the cue when he thought he needed some alone time with his fans. He had been very tactful in the whole revealing, hiding you enough to protect you from harmful stalkers, but also introducing you to ARMY like a single dad would present his girlfriend to his child.  

“Is the dress inappropriate?”

“No. You’re stunning. I love it.” He pressed his nose to your temple. “I’m just worried.”

You leaned softly into him.

“There’s so much skin here...” He let one finger slide down the curve of your neck. “Everyone will be looking.” He kissed behind your ear. “You could wear a rubbish bag and they would still be looking.” He wished he had more skin to touch, but he was also grateful your body was pretty much covered up, the delicate green dress exposing nothing but your collarbones, with long chiffon sleeves, the corset decorated with a leaf embroidery, stopping just above your waist and then flowing down in lush emerald waves.

“I’m glad I wore my white suit.” He commented,

“You look incredible, love.” You complimented him.

“I needed to show them I deserve you.”

You laughed. “I’m the one who needs to one-up her game to match you.”

The back of the limo was quiet as you created that special space of communion and comfort you naturally slip in when you’re both silent.

“You’ll be by my side all night, right?” You murmured, worried. “There’s a lot of people and I feel like such an outsider...”

“Right beside you.” He comforted you. “So they can’t snatch you from me.”

You both giggled, his voice betraying his anxiety. “It will take a major calamity to get me away from you.”

“Like a very big magnet.” You frowned. “You know, attraction.” Your frown intensified. “They say I’m magnetic. the only way to beat me would be a really big magnet.”

Your mouth stretched in a tight lipped smile, hoping not to show how much you loved his unusual sense of humour.

“Are you nervous?” You asked him.

“It’s been a long week. I was hoping we could just stay in and chill. Instead we’ll have to go through all of this while I’m tired and tense. I really don’t feel like being among people tonight.” He sighed. “My social energies have reached a new minimum.”

“We can be pretty and silent, hide in the background.” You held his hand and kissed it, careful not to smear lipstick on it.

“I doubt they’ll let us. It’s your first public presence.”

“They’ve seen me on your vlives, on pictures.”

“They’ll want to see you live, up close, see how you interact.” He twisted his wrist to intertwine his fingers with yours.

“Then let them watch. We’ll casually brush them off. ARMY know you, and they will get to know me with time, no need to reveal our whole life to journalists. Plus, it’s not like we’re the main event of the night.”

“As if, darling. They’ve been waiting for this for so long they’ll be like vultures. I wish I could protect you.”

“It’s good, love. We’ll have each other’s back. We just need a secret code to say when to run and hide in the closest broom closet.”

He laughed. “Usually Namjoon is so good, you know, he’s an extrovert, he takes care of all the press and journalists so well.”

“It must be reassuring.”

“He does all the talking, J-Hope drowns them in pretty smiles and positive energy, and Jimin gets flirty and cute, and that’s all it takes. I can stand on the side, jump in when I’m more comfortable. They ease the anxiety a lot.”

“I’ll learn from them. I’ll have them teach me so I can help you," You stated reassuringly.

“Just hold my hand.”

You reached the venue and exited the limo, suddenly immersed in the flashing lights of cameras, Jin extending his hand to you, helping you out of the car. He kept his palm against yours, “I got you.” He whispered in your ear, then smiling brightly at you and inviting you to walk forward, indicating you the red carpet with his free arm, bowing slightly with perfect manners. He charmed you all over in that second.

“Follow the stewards’ lead. They’ll tell you when to stop, when to walk, where to look.” You started strolling comfortably, close to each other. “If you wanna run, just squeeze my hand three times and I’ll carry you to the closest broom closet.”

You smiled at each other. The sounds of camera shutters multiplied infinitely. Not that you really noticed. You were too caught up in your man’s smile. As you promised, you grabbed his hand and never let go.

Yoongi

“How did it go?”

“The interview?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re gonna hate it.” He plopped on the sofa.

“Was it that bad?”

“They kept asking questions about you.”

“Like?”

“Saying my new music really reflected how you brightened my life or something.”

You laughed and sat beside him, passing him a cold beer, your own drink in hand. “They really love the whole ‘love redeems you’ anthem. They can’t stand the idea of self growth and acceptance.”

“It kinda looks like the beauty saving the beast, because of AgustD being a bad boy who met love and found the right path.”

“So dumb.” You clinked your bottles. “Still, congrats for finally finishing AgustD promotion.”

“Yeah, but this means that next week I’ll be in Los Angeles. I need to meet a singer for a collab.”

You huffed. Being his girlfriend is not easy. It’s a matter of carefully planning your schedules, continuously living with two different clocks on your phones set in different time zones, sometimes even wearing two watches at the same time, one at your wrist, the other a nice pocket watch that he had gifted you for your first anniversary, so that you could always “have his time”, as he said.

“Well, then we’ll have to make the best of this weekend.” You nudged him with your elbow. He smiled at you knowingly then took a sip. He zapped through some tv programmes, finally settling on the news. Right in that moment a small clip of the two of you came up, something about his album sales or the fact that he donated a percentage to a school that you had visited together a while ago for a project.

“God, you look amazing, babe.” He licked his lips and stared at you smiling wide at the cameras. They went on discussing your relationship, which to the public was quite new, even though the announcement had come shortly after your two year anniversary, that is about a couple months ago.

“That’s cause you make me look radiant.” You took a sip yourself.

“Really, look at that!” They showed a short footage of your first public appearance, at his side during a music award. “Beautiful.”

You smiled mischievously, brushing his knee.

“You remember that night?” He said. That’s exactly what you were expecting.

“Of course. How could I forget it? You left one-month-long reminders.” You remembered how you had to postpone your regular medical checkups because of the bruises he had left around.

“You were so good.” He praised, his eyes half glazed over, caught in a memory.

You felt emboldened. “I wish we did it more often.” You turned towards him.

“Look how pretty.” He ignored your cue, and it was quite probably intentional. “Showing all those tits to the world.” He gulped a mouthful of beer and clicked his tongue. “The interviewer’s eyes kept going downwards.”

Your dress was not improper at all. It covered everything that needed to stay private, the long sleeved, high neck bodice had just a central stripe of mesh fabric, starting at your collar and hitting a few inches above your belly button, which let the crevice of your breasts be vaguely outlined, just vaguely, and Yoongi had risked losing his manners and self control over it. Photographers had loved your overall vibe, looking adorably ethereal, your hair braided in a crown, your flowy gown matching Yoongi’s lace shirt.

But of course your bodice caused a fuss the day after in the news. Not that you really cared. Yoongi had loved it, clasping your hand like crazy anytime a man came close, but at the same time parading you in front of the cameras, moving you around like a delicate nymph -- which he would undoubtedly claim as soon as the night was over. He swam in the calm and femininity you radiated, your energy matching his. All it would take was a twist of a wrist, a tap of a finger and he would be directing you in posing, your bodies moving simultaneously, as if you were nothing but a puppeteer and his toy, him pulling at your strings.

The whole experience awakened a connection so profound and intuitive, instinctual, that as you reached your hotel room together you still felt those magnets pushing and pulling you to each other, turning your lovemaking into some complicated dance, then into wild, rowdy fucking where no words were needed, your moans and groans saying exactly where to kiss, bite, hit, grope and fondle.

“Are you thinking about it too?” He asked.

“I miss it so much.” You whispered.

“Do you want to?” He kissed your temple. “Need me to?” He used his spare hand to massage your scalp.

Still, you noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “It’s okay. You’re tired.” You leaned into his hand and nuzzled into him.

“It’s been three weeks. Usually you can’t go three days without it.” He kissed you again, delivering eskimo kisses on your cheekbone. The tenderness of it was slowly gnawing at your insides.

“But you’re tired.” You whined. “Let’s just chill.” You grabbed his empty bottle and cuddled beside him. A few minutes later he was deep asleep, his head propped against the sofa and his mouth open. You covered him with a blanket and held him tighter.

Hoseok

“Oh, sweetie! Oh, love! Oh, my god! My girl, so good!” Hoseok cheered you on as you descended the stairs, careful not to stumble on your dress.

“Thank you, Hobi.” You touched your hair, falling in soft waves on one side of your face.

“Seriously, ____, you look so fucking good, baby.” He took your hand to spin you around for him, examining you carefully.

“Oh god.”

“I can change if you need me to, there’s an alternative upstairs and I have time, I can-”

“No baby, it’s… wow.” He eyed again the slit on your gown, starting mid-thigh and exposing the side of your left leg cheekily. His eyelashes batted like crazy, his hands already reaching for your bum, cupping it through the tight, sparkly fabric. The dress had a siren gown, and since it was quite daring you had the stylist prepare an alternative, since Hoseok couldn’t see you in it and you weren’t sure of his opinion. It’s not like you needed his approval, or that he wouldn’t let you wear it, but you weren’t completely sure of it, and you needed him boosting your ego a little. One single sign of unsurety and you would dash to the bedroom to change. But his beaming smile and the way his eyes were glued to your skin made you understand he would be lowkey upset by your change of outfit.

He looked unreal. His baby blue suit was highlighted by silver details, matching the sober sparkles of your grey dress. He looked you in the face, hesitating one second before pressing a blazing kiss on your lips. It was scorching, resembling the usual bolt of energy between the two of you.

“I need more.” He whispered against your mouth, licking your bottom lip.

“You know we’re gonna fuck it up.”

“I feel like fucking you up.” He murmured, a little disappointed that you were resisting him. You could feel his arousal against your hip.

You simply laughed. “They’re gonna pick us up in less than half an hour. We don’t have all that time.”

“We can take way less than that, you know it.”

Quickies with him were… perfect. Hot, messy, reckless. Merciless. His pace could be devilish, ruthless. Still-- “We’re gonna be sweaty and sleepy afterwards.” You grabbed the hair on his nape gently, holding him away from your face.

“So?” His hands, once on your hips, now were on the small of your back and slipping lower.

“I don’t want them to see you all freshly fucked out.” You murmured with a pout.

“Oh, are you jealous or are you worried they’re gonna see you all freshly fucked out?” He asked, nagging you, squeezing your ass.

“I just don’t want you to.” You replied, pout intensifying to the point it dimpled.

“Baby is jealous.” He teased you, his voice doing that cute ups and downs it does when he’s being deliberately cute and bratty. “You don’t want them seeing how good you are to daddy?”

That word. He was playing it dirty, pushing all your buttons: possessiveness, praise and your daddy kink. “Hobi, I swear to God, if you don't’ stop now you’re not getting any later. And I’ve spent the afternoon charging all the toys.” You warned him. And you were pretty sure you would stay true to your warning. Not 100% sure, but sure enough.

“Can I at least see what you’re wearing underneath?” He squeezed your bum once more, as if checking for the signs of undies.

“What makes you think I’m wearing something underneath this? After all it’s so damn tight.”

“Sweetie… Do you really need to tease me like this! Such a bad girl!” He laughed and at the same time he fixed his pants. Your dress wasn’t the only tight indument at the moment.

You headed for the living room, grabbing your shoes in the process, giving him a glance that invited him to follow you.

“You’re wearing those sandals, aren’t you?” He stared at the box, a pair of stilettos emerging from it, their sparkly strings catching his attention.

“Let me.” He motioned, helping you wear and latch them onto your feet.

“You truly are a vision, ____.” He was kneeling before you, looking at you wide eyed, his sweet smile edged with admiration and pride.

“You sure you don’t want to get rid of some tension before we head there?” He caressed your knee with apprehension. His personal pleasure would just be a minor advantage, what he really wanted was to help you with your nerves, since a couple days before you mentioned how worried you were about attending to such a big event.

“I don’t think I could even possibly enjoy it right now.” You put your hand atop his. “But ask me later, and with the adrenaline of the night and the relaxation of being done with it, I might be very interested.” You smiled, faking coyness.

In that moment his phone rang, probably the driver.

“Then let’s pick up from here later.” He let his hand trail along the naked back of your calf, kissing your hand and helping you up.

You couldn’t wait for the event to end. And for your night to truly begin.

[taetaespeaches]

valentine’s day mini drabbles.

hyung line.

genre: fluff word count: 1.8K

a/n: Happy Valentine’s Day lovelies! Here’s the hyung line’s mini drabbles to celebrate this silly day of love. I hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading :)) 

Check out the maknae line mini drabbles here. 

“I can’t believe you destroyed six bouquets.”

kim seokjin x reader genre: fluff word count: 431

YOU giggled at your boyfriend who was excitedly telling a story about his hunt for rose petals earlier that day. He was sat at the opposite end of the tub, ranting about how the stores were understocked, bobbing his head like crazy as he spoke causing water to splash out of the tub onto the tiled floor.

The scene was like one straight from a romance film, a trail of flower petals leading down the hallway to the tub, candles lit up around the bathtub that was overflowing with bubbles. Petals were scattered all around, of all different types of flowers.

“I could not find a single thing of rose petals,” he complained with pouted lips and wide eyes. “I ended up buying six bouquets of flowers and pulling all the petals off just to do this.”

At that, you cackled loudly, Jin joining you in laughter with his own squeaky version. “Freaking ridiculous,” he laughed.

“You are ridiculous. And hilarious, and beautiful,” you complimented, Jin smiling softly at you as he tried to hide it behind his hand. He finished the wine that was in his glass, reaching out of the tub to place the empty glass on the floor. “It’s perfect though. This,” you gestured around the bathroom.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said sincerely. “I worked hard for it so you better appreciate it,” he added in a joking tone.

“I can’t believe you destroyed six bouquets,” you shook your head with a smile. You finished the wine in your glass, depositing the glass on the floor next to Jin’s.

“Don’t worry, it was only five. I saved you one,” he smiled. You laughed as you reached for the wine bottle, foregoing the glass as you took a sip straight from the bottle.

Sitting up, Jin followed suit as he sat up as well, your faces inches from each other. “Happy Valentine’s Day, love,” you whispered as you lowered the bottle, dangling it outside of the tub.

“I love you, you goddess,” he spoke, his lips hovering over yours. Pressing his mouth against yours, he left a lingering kiss. Trailing kisses down your jaw to your neck, his fingers dragged down your arms until they reached your hand. His fingers toyed with your fingers until he grabbed the bottle from you, bringing it to his own lips.

As he took a drink of the wine, you leaned forward, placing kisses along his shoulder as your hand settled on his side, squeezing his flesh. “Love you too,” you whispered against his damp skin. “The thought of you, the reality of you, all of you.”

“I romance you all the time.” 

min yoongi x reader genre: fluff word count: 390

YOU were sat on your kitchen counter eating a bowl of cereal when your boyfriend let himself into the apartment and shuffled through the hallway to find you.

“Cereal?” He asked, standing across the kitchen from you holding a pink box.

“Heck yeah, want some?” He thought for a moment before shaking his head. Yoongi made his way to you, positioning himself between your legs as he placed the box on one of your thighs. You raised your eyebrows in curiosity and lifted the lid to show you a dozen heart shaped sugar cookies with pink icing.

“Oh my god,” you smiled. “You know, for someone who hates this holiday, you sure do tend to partake in the capitalism of it all,” you teased him, earning a scoff from your boyfriend.

“I’m a conformist.”

“You’re cute,” you smiled as you moved the box of cookies to the counter next to you.  

“Oh, shut up,” he whined, a bashful gummy smile threatening to overtake his expression. “I can hate the holiday and still want to spend the evening with you. It’s not my fault all the desserts are shaped like hearts.” He sported a pout as he gave his weak explanation.

“Yeah, yeah,” you patted his cheek. “I kind of love when Lover Boy Min Yoongi makes an appearance.”

“What are you talking about?” He pulled a look of confusion, nose scrunched. “I romance you all the time.”  

You held back a laugh at the word choice, romance you, leaning in to leave a peck on his pouted lips. “That’s not Lover Boy Min Yoongi, that’s just Min Yoongi my soft boyfriend,” you teased him. “Lover Boy Min Yoongi is the hopeless romantic who buys heart shaped cookies on Valentine’s Day despite it being capitalistic bullshit,” you quoted him.

“I hate you,” he told you through a bashful gummy grin as he stepped closer to wrap you up in a hug, burying his face in your neck to hide his growing blush.

“Love you too, Lover Boy.”

He groaned against your neck before leaving a peck there. “Love you more, Kid.”

You threaded your fingers through the hair at the back of his neck as you massaged the spot soothingly. “Now what was that you said earlier? You romance me?”

Yoongi groaned louder, you giggling as he squeezed your waist tighter.

“We’ll go to the moon.”

jung hoseok x reader genre: fluff word count: 430

AS you sat with your legs spread in a v-shape atop the picnic blanket, Hoseok sat between your legs, his head resting against your chest as he munched on piece of chocolate. You supported yourself with one arm stretched behind you as your opposite hand stroked your boyfriend’s hair.

You snuck your hand around his face, booping his nose, surprising the man. His lips spread into a fond grin as he took your hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the back of it, and then placing a kiss to your wrist. He held your hand there for a moment before returning it to the top of his head.

“Demanding, aren’t we?” You teased as you began running your hand through his hair again.

With a chuckle, he nodded. “Just a bit. It feels nice.”

“You’re cute,” you complimented before adding, “even if all that success is going to your head,” you joked, Hoseok giggling as he closed his eyes.

“Only ego, ego, ego,” he sang, referencing his solo outro track making you laugh loudly.

“Trust myself,” you joined in, Hoseok smiling brightly in response. You looked around the mostly empty park, 1 am being pretty late for most people to be out roaming around. “Thank you for this picnic,” you said, looking down at Hobi, watching as his eyes opened and his head titled back to meet your gaze.

“Did you get enough to eat?” His eyes were wide as he anticipated your answer.

“More than enough. I’m stuffed.”

“Good,” he smiled, looking up to the sky.  

As he admired the night sky, you admired him, appreciating the way his features shined in the moonlight.

“You know that movie where the guy says he’d lasso the moon for his girl?” He asked before quoting it with your pet name. “What is it you want, Petal? You want the moon?”

With a fond smile, you nodded. “Yeah, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.”

“Yeah, that’s it. I get it now,” he confessed as he stared up at the moon. “I would give you the moon if I could. If you asked for it, I’d find a way.” You ran your hand through his hair as you peeled your eyes from him to look up at the moon.

“Maybe we could just fly there instead,” you suggested.  

“To the moon?” He shifted his gaze to yours as you looked back at him.

“Yeah,” you smiled, leaning down to kiss his forehead.  

“I like that,” he nodded. “We’ll go to the moon.”

“Perfect,” you mumbled into his hair. “We’ll go to the moon.”

“You’re cute when you’re shy.”

kim namjoon x reader genre: fluff word count: 586

HAND in hand, you walked down the city street, cars speeding by, headlights creating a constant stream of lights that lit up the man beside you. You and Namjoon opted for a casual Valentine’s Day date, deciding to check out an exhibit at one of your favorite museums.

As you both talked excitedly about your favorite pieces, you walked around the city with no destination in mind. And as much as you basked in the pale moonlight, and as much as you enjoyed his conversation, the thrill of him being near was more than enough to delight you.

Suddenly, Joon stopped talking about a painting he found particularly interesting as he dragged you to a street vendor who was selling tulips. As Namjoon picked up a red and pink bouquet wrapped in brown paper and tied together with some string, he took a shy glance at you, quickly looking away when your eyes met.

After buying the bouquet, he handed it to you with a dimply grin. “Happy Valentine’s Day, babe.”

You let out a breathy laugh at his shy demeanor, leaning into him to kiss his cheek softly. “Thank you, Joonie.”

Wrapping an arm around your shoulders, he suddenly pointed across the street. You followed the direction of his finger, your eyes falling on a little diner.

“You hungry?” He asked, looking at you with a soft smile.

Nodding, you shrugged. “Starving actually.” His smile lifted just a bit more as he nodded back. Dragging you to the crosswalk, he pressed the walk button.

“I want some pie,” he said randomly.

Grinning, you squeezed his hand, peering at the cars. “What kind?”

He thought for a moment, going through the options in his head. “Cherry maybe? You have to share it with me, so whatever kind you want.” Your boyfriend turned to look at the light to see if it was changing yet and you took the opportunity to wrap your arms around him in a back hug, holding the bouquet at the center of his abdomen.

“Cherry sounds great,” you replied as the light changed. He started walking, dragging you along with him as you both repeatedly tripped over each other’s feet. “As long as there’s ice cream involved too.”

Namjoon chuckled, grabbing onto your forearms as he nodded. “Of course. À la mode.”

When you made it across the street, Namjoon was wearing a big smile as he pulled you around to walk next to his side, your arm still wrapped around his back, his snaking around your shoulders. Entering the café, it was mostly filled with groups of friends. It was loud and casual, and somehow absolutely perfect. Then again, maybe it was just the nearness of him.  

Sitting across from one another in a booth, Joon quickly ordered the last piece of cherry pie, à la mode of course, smiling giddily. You took the opportunity to admire his gorgeous dimples again.

“You’re adorable,” you complimented him, a light blush gracing his cheeks as he looked down to the tabletop.

“I wonder if I’ll ever get used to you saying things like that,” he told you shyly, looking up at you.

“I hope not,” you reached across the table, taking his hand in yours and threading your fingers through his. “You’re cute when you’re shy.”

His bashful smile grew as he shook his head, bringing your hand to his lips to leave a kiss to your knuckles.

“You’re always the cutest,” he chuckled against the back of your hand. “I love you.”  

[tsukaramachi]

Dream come true (Yandere!Vincent x gender neutral reader)

(Note: A little bit of context to this is that my oc Vincent isn’t human. He’s a playmate which are magic stuffed animals that can take different human forms that suite their owner’s interests. They’re usually given as gifts to those who are well loved by special toy makers. This is kind of how I feel a bad ending would be for him and his owner :o)

Happily humming to himself, Vincent walks down the dim hallway to your room. The sweet yet eerie tune filling the silent home. He takes a key out from his pocket and places it into the locked door. A soft click comes out and the door groans as he steps inside the dreary room. Everything is placed where it belongs. Books on the shelves, clothes folded and snug in the drawer, and the sheets on the bed fixed in place. But besides that, the rest of the room feels empty. Your other personal possessions had been stored away in boxes long ago.

The family photos and posters from series that you loved that were once hung up on the walls are now replaced by just photos of you and him. The windows now sealed off from the outside world. Gifts from your friends collected over the years now placed in the storage out of sight. But the mountain of stuffed animals that Vincent made for you stayed. 

"(Y/N)? How are you today, my dear?" Vincent asks as he sits down at the side of your bed. 

Raising a hand up to caress your face, he gives you a smile. It's the same as all the ones before but for some reason it feels off to you. On the outside it's the same charming smile that greeted you everyday, but for the past few months his pleasant smiles now feel a bit off.

"I'm doing okay... How was your day?" you reply as you sit up from your pillows. You feel a bit sluggish but try to sit up straight.

Everyday you've been staying inside your room. Ever since your family and friends randomly cut off any contact with you months ago. You've always stay home.

He scoots closer towards you and lays his head on top of your lap. You begin to brush your hands gently through his bangs, "This week's meetings are boring but everything without you is boring." he says as he leans into your touch.

Everyday Vincent cares for your every need and you no longer even need to leave the house. He's been able to provide for all of your needs and since he's not human. All of the money he earns goes towards your care. Your home, food, bills, and even the internet too are covered by him. Ever since he started to work with that Amir guy, the two of you have been well off.

Abruptly sitting up, Vincent hugs you. The sudden gesture almost makes you fall back but you're able to stay up. Pulling away from you, Vincent smiles as he gets a good look at at you. His eyebrows furrow and a slight blush dusts his cheeks as he admires you. 

"Oh my dear (Y/N)..." resting his head into the crook of your neck, he takes in your scent of the lavender shampoo that he recently bought you. 

The two of you stay like that for a while but after thirty minutes or so. Your stomach grumbles out asking for food. With a small chuckle from Vincent, he takes your hand and leads you off from your plush bed and into the dining room. As he sets you down at the dining table, he politely pushes in your chair and heads off into the kitchen humming the tune from before.

You quietly wait as Vincent prepares dinner. Looking around your home, framed photos of you and Vincent are placed everywhere. Some of them are recent but most of them are from before. There's even a couple where it's just you because Vincent thinks it's not good to have any reminders to hurt you any more. So he took all of your old family photos and took you out from each one. He even went through the photos you took with your friends and blocked them out with ink leaving only you and the scenery in the back untouched.

At first you thought these actions were uncalled for but slowly over time you forgot about those days. Whenever you were sad, the person that was there for you always more than anyone else was Vincent. The person that comforted you was always him. The person to come searching for you was only him. You trust Vincent for he's the one that knows you best. Being a gift to you since the day you were born, the two of you have always together.

You hear Vincent call your name from the kitchen and you head over to help him.

After dinner, Vincent prepared you a bath and now you're back in your room. As the hair dryer's warm air blows against your hair, you can hear Vincent hum happily to himself. Looking at your reflection, you take note of how different you've looked. Since you're being cared for by Vincent everyday, your complexion is clean and clear. It's as if you're like a living doll. 

As Vincent finishes brushing your hair, you feel his arms snake around your waist as he gently takes a hold of you. You hear him take a deep breath in, and a second later he breathes out.

"It's almost like a dream..." Vincent quietly says and he stays in place.

You turn you head to try and look at him behind your shoulder, "A dream?" you ask him.

He hums in response. Pulling back, he smiles happily at you. "I've always thought that it was wrong of me to have these feelings for you... but now I'm able be always by your side, always and forever." taking your hand, he plants a couple light kisses against it before making your hand hold his cheek.

"Everyday I worried about the fleeting time we have together. The thought of not being by your side makes me anxious but the very concept of you one day disappearing from this world." he bites his bottom lip before continuing.

"I couldn't accept that..." Vincent's melancholic eyes look down at the floor, but they soon close as a cheery smile quickly takes over. Leaning forward, Vincent embraces you as he brushes his hands through your soft strands.

"But now, now we can be together forever! Amir understands how I feel and his plans will soon fall into place. We're this close to figuring out how you can become like me. You'll no longer be bound by your flesh and blood waiting to one day wither and decay. We'll be able to be together for as long as we want!" he says as he squeezes you tighter.

"It's almost like a dream come true..." 

You rest your head against his shoulder and drowsiness takes over you. The lids of your eyes feel heavy as they close shut. Your grip around Vincent loosens as your sleepiness takes over. Hearing your breathe out gentle breathes, Vincent sighs happily as he rubs circles against your back soothing your sleeping form.

Vincent puts his arms underneath you, "Now then, upsy daisy." he lifts you up bridal style and takes a second to look at you lovingly. Walking over to your bed, he lays you down and grabs a plush blanket at the edge of the bed. Casting it over your form, he tucks it in to make sure you won't be cold. 

Taking a seat at the edge of the bed, Vincent watches as you gently breathe in and out. Under his breath, Vincent mumbles to himself.

"It's almost like a dream come true... but it hasn't become reality just yet. Not until I find a way to keep you by my side forever. Though, I have high hopes that will soon be granted thanks to his help, sweet dreams my love." leaning over you, he plants a kiss on your lips and pulls back. Looking up over to the home camera in the corner of your room, he takes out his phone and checks the feed to see if it's working. Waving his hand at the device, he can see the same action repeated on the phone's screen.

A content smile spreads across his face. Taking a plush rabbit out from your pile of stuffed animals he made especially for you, he takes off the red ribbon wrapped around the white rabbit's neck. On the back, a small switch is exposed and he flicks it. Setting the stuffed friend next to you, he looks down at his phone to see your sleeping face. He hums approvingly and walks over to the door, flicking off the lights to your room and heading out. The door softly locks shut.

[boopypastaissalty]

Here sre some of my Sanders Sides theories. Long post btw so yee

Roman and Remus were originally one all-encompassing creativity, then they split and become the two different sides of creativity, or the "Creativitwins". Their names seem to follow a theme: Ancient Rome, specifically the legend surrounding the creation/beginning of Rome. I think that the original creativity's name was Romulus. Here's why: Remus killed Romulus over a land dispute and then started the city of Rome in his brother's name. Citizens of Rome are called Romans. Though it could be argued that Thomas's moral sense as a concept, not necessarily Patton, separated the two, thus "killing" the original creativity.

Patton may have suffered from anxiety and could have created Virgil as a way to relieve some of his stress, therefore making him Virgil's "dad" in a sense, in Patton's mind warranting him calling Virgil "kiddo" all the time.

We all know that Patton is allergic to cats, but what about the others? What are their weaknesses? My speculations are that Virgil is iron deficient, as he doesn't like to rise up because it makes him dizzy, he is also described by Roman to be the "fairest of them all" and then admitting it was a pale joke in Virgil's expense. Roman is lactose intolerant, as when Patton is feeding him cream of broccoli soup, Logan says that it will "upset Princey's stomach". Logan is OCD: Always planning and organizing things. He gets upset when things don't go exactly as he plans it. He also feels the need to always be right and to make sure everyone else is kept in line. Also: Patton seems to suffer from depression. Oftentimes depressed people crack jokes and give people the general idea that they are happy. They also try to make other people happy. Patton also sometimes gets into these sad funks and even says "I had this problem where I'd hide my less than awesome feelings, so when I would feel like sobbing I'd just smile and crack jokes. I thought that was coping, only joking, never showing sadness, hoping it would just go away".

The thumbnail for "Putting Others First - Selfishness v. Selflessness Redux" has a character selection screen telling the viewer to "select a side", but one thing I noticed is that there is a blank box, indicating a locked character or a character who hasn't been revealed yet. Another thing I noticed is that the sides have a rainbow theme going on. Thomas even says that he is "full rainbow all the time" as an allusion to his sexuality, and possibly even the sides in general. Roman is red, there is no known orange side, Janus is yellow, Remus is green, Patton is light blue, Logan is indigo, and Virgil is violet/purple. Red is the color of physical strength, power, confidence, and passion, which suits Roman's personality. Yellow can be happiness and joy, but also directly means cowardice and deceit, which is self explanatory. Green is a color of healing, life, and vitality, but the flip side being greed, jealousy, pessimism, and superficially. Blue is the color of trust, loyalty, faith, wisdom, truth, patience, and understanding, which sums Patton up pretty well. Indigo resembles wisdom, integrity, fairness, impartiality, and justice, which is all right up Logan's alley. Violet is the color of ambition, dignity, devotion, pride, mystery, independence, magic, being cynical, and mourning, which all makes sense in Virgil's case. Now to orange, which resembles joy, sunshine, risk taking, adventure, enthusiasm, creativity, attraction, success, rudeness, frivolity, and untrustworthiness, which is a balance of traits that both Roman and Remus have and directly resembles creativity, so orange could be a fusion of Roman and Remus, the original creativity before they split. Another possibility for the next side is someone who resembles ethos, as we have pathos and logos (Patton and Logan).

All the sides have an ancient Rome theme going on. Roman and Remus, after the legend surrounding the beginning of Rome. Virgil, after the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro, who is often called Virgil. Janus (formerly known as Deceit) after the Roman god of the same name (Janus is the god of new beginnings and transitions, often depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions, one for the past and one for the future). All of the sides except for Patton and Logan, whose names are derived from pathos and logos, an ancient Greek concept proposed by Aristotle. And have you noticed that they mirror each other in almost every way, suggesting that, much like Roman and Remus, they are brothers, possibly even twins?

Dukes tend to not be a part of the royal family, but if so they are princes who have gotten married. Does this mean that Remus is married?!?!? If so to whoooo?

Welcome to me overthinking things again! What if Roman has control over the other sides? Like he's creativity and the sides are figments of Thomas' imagination, so like what if one day he was just done with Logan's nonstop fact train he just (this is extreme) went: "Fuck you, Logan, you're dead now" and Logan straight up dies? Like where would his power end if he could do that? Overthinking things can be scary kids, let me do it for you.

If you overthink it: Patton basically just was like "Nah" in POF SvSR. So he said in SvS that going to the wedding would make Thomas feel good, something that he basically controls because he is Thomas' moral sense and at the center of most of his feelings. Basically Thomas went to the wedding and Patton was like: "This is nice and all and you did the right thing, but uhmmm about those happy feelings. No." And then got all sorts of frustrated about being wrong. So yee. I am just doing the overthinking things thing again.

What if creativity split solely as a big "Fuck you, Logan"? Like I just imagine: C: "Hey Logan, I'm performing mitosis"

L: "Yes, your cells- *he looks up* Whaaaaa?"

R&R: "Cha cha real smooth, Logan"

And thus the twins were "born"

Logan thinks feelings are bad and claims to not have feelings, even though he clearly does (cough, cough, Crofters the Musical? Getting angry in some episodes? Logan, you're a bad liar, bud). So he bottles up most of his feelings, for all practical purposes making him a ticking time bomb. Something's probably going to happen and he won't be able to hold it all in and he'll have an emotional breakdown of sorts. Another thing is he will not duck out. He knows he's too important to Thomas' mental wellbeing for that. He is also getting progressively more angry as the others listen to him less, so he's probably going to overwork himself trying to get everyone to listen to the point where he physically can't be there for Thomas. Cuz like I suspect Logan leaving would have the same effect as Thomas having a massive stroke: The right side of his body wouldn't work, he wouldn't be able to talk/communicate, and his reasoning skills would be gone.

Janus just loves philosophy. Every episode in the main timeline, he makes references to famous philosophers to get his point across.

Patton is always the first of the light sides to accept the dark sides. First with Virgil and then with Janus. He may be taking them in as his troubled but lovable children who he will defend under almost any circumstance.

Virgil's name is not Virgil. People think his full name is Virgilius, though Thomas and Joan have previously stated that it isn’t. Bc of that, some people have theorized that Virgil was lying about his name, or that when he moved to the “light sides” he changed/used a different name, and maybe they’re going to reveal that sometime. Like the scene with Remus and Vee where Re goes, “I would never hide anything from you” looks pointedly at Virgil, and you assume it’s bc he took forever to tell Thomas, but what if it’s bc he was lying about his name from the moment he told Thomas??? And also the moment when Janus says "It takes a liar to know a liar" and Virgil says "Don't" and the response was "What? I'm only talking about your name" I think his name could be Acanthus

Ya know, Patton probably has an indirect role in how the other sides look. Not like "But you're anxiety, you wear the hoodie" but closer to Thomas beliefs of stuff like lying is bad and the fact that Janus often plays devils advocate, so he has a snake face

Random thoughts:

Virgil has the most ace/demi aesthetic and I love that

SvS: Multi part episode, "bad/evil/dark" side gets accepted, the FEELS, angst. Hmmm…

The twins getting along and just like sitting at a table causing minor chaos.

Patton randomly hugs everyone. He just does.

Janus and Patton: animal bros

[eternallybri]

Voltage

A/n: Thank you so much for this request, I hope you like it. I got a little inspiration from Miraculous ladybug.

Superhero!au

Warnings: fighting, crying, and almost character death.

One peaceful day, that’s all you wanted is one peaceful day. Will it ever happen? Probably not because being one of the only superheroes in the city caused you to have a busy schedule. Every other day villains would show up, all with the same plan. Destroy you and Portal and take over the city. Who’s portal? Portal is the blonde superhero that you fight alongside, his real name is Yeonjun. He has the powers of water manipulation and teleportation. Yeonjun is a boy that you avoided in your everyday life. He was well known and the attention tended to follow him and his friends. You on the other hand had one close friend and didn’t like attention being on you. You have the power of electrical manipulation. You can concentrate bolts of lightning from your hands and use the electromagnetic repulsion field to fly. Both of you always have your powers, as long as you’re wearing the jewelry that gives you your powers.

It was around five-thirty when a big wave of water hit the city. You let out an exasperated sigh at your wet clothes, but luckily in a few seconds you’ll be in a different outfit. Looking around you seen a small alley and ran towards it. You grabbed the small lightning bolt from around your neck and ran a small current through it, triggering your suit to come out. A form fitting, dark orange suit clung to your body before the black armour on your arms legs and chest formed. A black eye mask formed around your eyes. Instantly you jumped into action telling citizens to get out of the streets and into high buildings. You used the electromagnetic field to fly around the city looking for Hydra-snake. You heard water being moved around and decided that was the best place to go. You landed safely on the roof behind the woman. ”Nice to see you again Voltage.” Hydra-snake said Turning to face you. “I can’t say the same.” You snarked with an eye roll. Hydra-snake sent a blast of water towards you sending you flying a vent near the end of the roof. You wanted to fight back, but you knew the water caused a shortage in your powers.

Yeonjun teleported on the rooftop moments after you landed near the roof. “Voltage are you okay.” He questioned. “I’ll be fine, just take care of her.” You said with your teeth clenched. He saw Hydra-snake looking at you both with a smirk across her lips. She was planning on throwing more water blasts your way and he knew that. Yeonjun looked around trying to see the angels of Hydra-snake’s attack, he figured teleporting in front of her would throw her off enough for you to get up. Yn could see the look in his eyes, she knew he was going to teleport. Yn wished that Yeonjun would look at them so that he could see the way they were shaking their head. Hydra-snake wanted Yeonjun to teleport so that she could get him out of the way. He teleported right in front of Hydra-snake causing a wicked grin to come on her face. She instantly shot Yeonjun without a blast of water causing him to harshly fly back to the edge of the roof. A groan of pain left his lips while you clicked your tongue and rolled your eyes. “Well that didn’t go as planned.” he admitted as he sat up. “I’m going to die. I’m going to die with an absolute idiot!” You cried out while throwing your head back. “Hey, don’t call me an idiot!” Yeonjun bickered. “How could I not, you didn’t even look to see me shaking my head! I was trying to tell you she figured out your plan!” You screamed. Hydra-snake laughed in your faces before throwing a wave of water towards your bodies. You jumped out of the way and Yeonjun used his manipulation to fight for control over the power. While Hydra-snake was distracted you ran up and punched her, making her head snap to the side. She stopped fighting for control of the water, deciding to fight you instead. Punches were thrown and blocks on both ends. You were both good at combat, which caused fights to be slightly longer.

“I can finally understand why you call them your arch-nemesis! Hydra-snake is your arch-nemesis because you have electrical powers and she has water! Her water can stun your powers for a bit!” Yeonjun exclaimed feeling proud of himself. The fight between you and Hydra-snake came to a halt at Yeonjun’s statement. I mean who just randomly declares why someone is another’s arch-nemesis mid fight. “Less talking, more fighting!” You yelled. Without another word Yeonjun teleported, but nowhere on the roof. You stopped a bit puzzled on where your teammate went, praying he didn’t leave you to fight alone. Hydra-snake laughed in your face when she saw your teammate was no longer on the roof. “What. A. Dick.” Hydra-snake sneered out. You knew she was trying to get into your head. She wanted to tear your team apart for god’s sake. “Don’t talk about him that way.” you called out. “He just left you here and you're still defending him? Pathetic.” she spat out. “I said don’t talk about him that way!” You sneered. She laughed in your face before kicking your feet out from under you. A grunt left your mouth when you landed, but instead of worrying about the pain you swiped her legs right back. You got on top of her punching her in the face a few times before she head butted you. She threw you off of her body and stood up. With you slightly out of it she had enough time to create a ball of water big enough for you to drown in. Hydra-snake held the ball of water over your body for the next couple minutes. Meanwhile Yeonjun was trying to convince the man that gave you both superpowers to give someone else powers for help. The man refused as he knew you and Yeonjun were more than capable of defeating Hydra-snake. “Yeonjun stop arguing with me and go back to your teammate.” The man boomed, fed up with Yeonjun’s begging. Yeonjun’s eyes widened when he realized how long he left you alone for. He quickly teleported to see you laying on the rooftop. From where he was standing he could tell if you were breathing, which worried him. Quickly he ran over, taking your body into his arms. Your pulse was weak, breathing faint from what he could hear.

“Yn… Yn please wake up!” Yeonjun sobbed. His arms were holding you close as he racked his brain for a solution. The only thing he could think of is using some type of electricity to give you a kickstart. Yeonjun knew that the school had an emergency Defibrillator in the nurses room. Yeonjun laid you down softly before teleporting to the school. He looked around frantically looking for the white box. He was growing frustrated that he couldn’t find the box, for all he knew you could die at any moment. Yeonjun opened the drawers on the desk and finally found the box. When he teleported back to the roof he wasted no time before turning on the machine. Yeonjun followed the diagram and directions, placing the sticky pad under your suit just like the diagram showed. He pressed the button sending a shock through your body. Nothing happened, you still laid there faintly breathing. Tears leaked down Yeonjun’s cheeks as the defibrillator told him to send another shock. He took a deep breath before pressing the button again. This time you sat up taking a deep breath in, your eyes were glowing orange and your hair was sticking up slightly. The surge cause a lot of electricity to flow through your body and you were trying to

“Why're you crying?” You questioned softly. “I thought you died dumbass!” Yeonjun cried softly. “You really thought I was dead?” you teased with a tired smile, reaching your hand to caress his cheek. Yeonjun’s eyes sparkled with joy as he smiled down at you. “Don’t you ever do something stupid like that again. We’re a team, I can’t be Portal without Voltage.” Yeonjun whispered. “That’s not true, you’re an amazing superhero with or without me. You have water manipulation and teleportation, you’ve handled tons of villains by yourself.” You assured him. Yeonjun smiled softly in appreciation, his cheek nuzzled into your hand before making a quick decision to place a soft kiss on your palm. Your eyes widen to the size of saucers making Yeonjun let out a soft chuckle.

“Don’t get hurt next time.”

Posted 05/31/20

[sanders-sides-fic]

Hunters and pray(ing)

So, I talked to my younger brother about the prompt-thingy. My brother doesn’t watch Sanders Sides and avoids English with a passion (it’s our secondary language), but he still made a request. So, even though he will never read this: “Are you stupid? Or just randomly suicidal?” and “Careful, there are Vampires around here” with, and I quote, »the purple one, the snake-guy and the one who does that thing with his arms«

XD Enjoy.

Virgil hated whenever Janus did something like that. He was supposed to be the one in charge, he was supposed to be careful. Not… Whatever that was!

Then again, Virgil may or may not be a perfect example on what not to do, as well. After all, he hadn’t left their new house since they had moved in, not even for the sake of buying new clothes. But that didn’t matter, he’d just used some of the fabric from an old cloak he couldn’t wear anymore anyways and had patched his outfit up. He kinda liked it. Actually, he felt way more comfortable in the worn, customized hoody than he had with any of the high-price stuff Janus felt to be appropriate.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that Janus was ignoring all the flashing lights and for what? He just didn’t get it. Why was it so important to Janus to always look perfectly put together at all times? Why was it so important that he had to go into the city, right amongst the ones they had to fear the most, every other day. Appearance had always been a huge deal to him, Virgil guessed, but not to that extent. Maybe because they were new or something like that?

No. No, Virgil couldn’t believe that. Janus was a smooth talker, a slick bastard and a cunning schemer. Janus lied like it was his second nature. Janus was untrustworthy and, yes, at times also back-stabbing. He was impulsively loyal, fiercely vindictive, specifically prideful and his moral compass mostly seemed like a fucking roulette wheel, but the one thing Janus was not was dumb. Dense, maybe, but not dumb. He knew when a risk wasn’t worth it.

So there had to be a reason why Janus went into town all the time. Virgil knew that there had to be. But he had confronted Janus before and, as always, received an outrageous lie as an answer. That and a half-hearted promise not to go for the next few weeks. A promise he’d never intended to keep, as Virgil and he had both known very well.

Virgil looked at the clock in the back the room. It was fairly late, almost five in the morning. And yet Janus wasn’t back still.

That was something that had happened more and more lately, too. Janus never named a reason or anything, but he went out in the early evening hours and would return way too late. Sometimes even injured. He never used to come back hurt, never used to be this careless.

Virgil bit his lip, wanting nothing more than to slap Janus for being home late, again. Seriously, what could be more important than to come back to-

A sudden thought occurred to Virgil, making him stop his pacing back and forth dead in his tracks. No. No, not Janus. Right? Janus wouldn’t get this caught up over some… some guy, would he?

Sure, he had had many lovers before, but every single one of those had been disposable to him. Some even just means to some end, if Virgil remembered correctly. But Janus had never really been in love. He had been loved, but he had never put anyone on equal footing or, perish the thought, even above himself. Even Virgil, who had known Janus basically his entire life, could barely reach thought to him. There was no way Janus had fallen that hard, to actually endanger himself and his family, was there?

…

He didn’t take a coat as he ran outside as fast as he could, just following the street Janus would always take. It took him about five minutes that way to reach the small town close to their new home. He knew Janus had been exaggerating! But that wasn’t what he was here to do. He was here for Janus, to make sure Janus hadn’t gone and done the one thing that had even landed them in this situation.

It took a long time to find him. Longer than he wold have expected, which made it pretty clear that Janus didn’t want to be found. He had been on the verge of giving up and returning home for the night, hoping Janus had done the same already, when he saw him. The young man he considered to be his brother was leaning against a wall, clearly amused. His gloved hands twirled his hat around, the black vest had moved up ever so slightly above the yellow button-up, and Virgil couldn’t help the snicker. As per usual, Janus looked like a mafiosi standing in that dark ally, possibly as suspicious as that would have been possible for a man in a suit at all. And Virgil mistrusted most men in suits.

But, there was also someone with him. Someone with the back to him, so Virgil couldn’t see him properly. But he could make out the brown hair. It looked neatly trimmed and pushed back smoothly. Judging from his back, Virgil would have guessed that the other man lived uptown. A good, stable household. The worst kinds of people, if anyone asked him.

He made a point of not listening in on their conversation, but he didn’t let them out of his sight either. Janus looked happy, or at least he was enjoying himself. Virgil could appreciate that about the stranger. After all, with what had happened, Janus had been tense for quite some time. Thinking about it now, Vigil realized that Janus had been a bit more relaxed lately. Less frustrated and more playful. That hadn’t happened since Remy…

Well, there was a good reason for them to be tense and on the other end of the globe now.

It was close to sunrise when Janus said something and pointed in the direction of a shop. Judging that it would be safe to listen in without disrespecting Janus’ privacy too much, Virgil stopped dulling his senses. “-so my roommate doesn’t get worried. Well, more worried, I suppose. He’s always anxious.”, Janus laughed silently. Virgil huffed in annoyance. As if he hadn’t seen through that tactic long ago. Janus didn’t even try anymore at this point, just bringing back a single, random article. “I’ll be right back, alright?”

“Or, just a thought, you could talk to him.” The strangers voice was thick and rich, like a singer’s voice. Thinking about it now, he also had a great posture, like an actor on a stage. Oh, great. As though Virgil didn’t have enough dramatic people in his life already.

“I will. I promise I will”, Janus replied, making Virgil clench his teeth. Such a liar. “as soon as he’s gotten used to life in America. He’s shaken from that fire still.”

“Oh, the mysterious fire I’ve heard so much and nothing about. Will you ever tell me what actually happened?”

Janus only laughed and waved as he walked into the shop he had pointed at before. Some sort of candle store by the looks of it. Oh, God. Please, not another scented candle!

Virgil sighed deeply as he watched his ‘roommate’, apparently, walk away. Maybe he should go take a closer look at the stranger? See what kind of person Janus had fallen for? Just to make sure it was safe, of cause, the curiosity wasn’t any part of the reason he wanted to do that at all.

Nah, he should probably get back. If Janus wanted to end up a pile on the floor, that was his decision. He himself would much rather go back to sleep or have a nice meal right about now. Besides, it could be dangerous to go talk to a stranger in a strange town in a strange country. Yeah, really didn’t seem like a fail-safe plan to Virgil.

So he naturally put his hands into his pockets, looked for cars and crossed the street, right to where the stranger was standing.

The stranger’s brown eyes meet Virgil’s storm grey ones. He was pretty, Virgil had to leave him that. And he had a color coordinated outfit, which didn’t matter much to Virgil, but was probably a huge plus for Janus.

“Uhm, hi? Can I help you with something?”, the stranger asked. Virgil looked him up and down and nodded his head slowly. “Yes… I kinda got lost and I’ve been wandering around for most of the night. Do you know the direction to the highway, by any chance?”

“What?!”, the nameless stranger asked shocked, his eyes visibly widening, “The entire night? Oh, lord! You have to be more-”

“Responsible? I know. My whole family seems to have that problem lately.”, Virgil interrupted annoyed, looking for a way look into the stranger’s eyes deep enough to question him.

“No. Careful. There are vampires around here, you know?”

And that made Virgil freeze up. He knew? The humans knew? How did they find out?! Had Janus been even more careless than he had thought? Had Janus maybe even confessed? No. No, surely Janus wasn’t that stupid. No way.

“Oh? Doesn’t the church usually take care of things like that?”, Virgil asked, paranoia creeping into his mind. Had there been anyone there tonight who might have figured him out? Anyone who could follow him and stick a pole through them while they slept today? He didn’t think so, but he hadn’t payed attention either. Well, fuck.

“Yes, we usually do. And we did. We have a non-aggression pact with them, though it’s anonymous. Still, you have to be careful with creatures like that. They have… prejudges. Justified prejudges maybe, but they still often attack first and ask questions later, you know?”

What. The. Fuck?! Who the hell was it having prejudges now, idiot? But Virgil forced himself to remain calm. “So, what do you do to be careful? Wear a cross or something?” Most of the things humans thought to be helpful were rubbish, but some of them actually worked. If he was unlucky, he wouldn’t be able to hypnotize the stranger, and then it would only blow his cover and he would know about Janus and they would end up like Remy and-

“No, that doesn’t really work. Best is just not to be out on the streets so late. Well, not alone anyways. I usually go with a friend of mine, but he’s in the store right now.”

Okay, good. If he was quick about it, he might actually be able to pull this off. So Virgil took a deep breath, took the stranger’s face in his hand and forced the eye contact, with a smirk. “I see. You will do as I say and answer al my questions, then.” The stranger barely had any time to gasp in shocked recognition before his body went lax.

“Good. Now, who are you?” “My name is Roman Royals.”

“How old are you?” “Nineteen years.”

“And you are completely human?” “Yes.”

“Do you know Janus?” “I do.”

“What is he to you?” “My boyfriend.”

“And is Janus human?” “Yes.” Virgil let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when he heard that answer. So at least Janus hadn’t told him anything.

“Okay, last question: You just said ‘we’ when you talked about the church. Why?” “My father’s the priest there.”

Well, fuck. Did Janus know? Probably, he did a background check on the barista he gets his coffee from now. So why did he stick around Roman if he knew? What kind of bullshit was he pulling here? Virgil sighed heavily. “I see. Well, you will forget this ever happened. You just told me where to go and I was on my way. Got it?”

Roman nodded absentmindedly and Virgil let the hypnosis drop, sprinting home without checking that Roman actually forgot what had happened. He just had to get away from there, away from Roman, the priest’s son.

Shock turned to fear pretty fast, and fear to terror. Terror turned into a lack of air and that lack of air turned into helplessness. It was unfortunate that Janus came home right when that helplessness just finished its slow transformation to rage. Not unfortunate for Virgil, but certainly unfortunate for Janus. And Janus could tell the moment he closed the door and locked eyes with Virgil.

For a few moments everything was silent. Then, Virgil pointed out in a voice colder than ice: “You’re late. From happy hour to blue hour, again.” Janus nodded slowly. “Yes… I lost track of time.”

Virgil didn’t even acknowledge that lie with a response, which told Janus enough about how damn angry he had to be. So Janus gave a nervous smile, swallowing dry. They both knew how dangerous Virgil could be if he wanted to. He had always been their best fighter, amongst other dangerous but useful qualities. Janus cleared his throat. “Right. As you said, Virge, it’s pretty late, so I should probably go to bed. Good day.”

“Don’t”, Virgil interrupted Janus’ fast retreat dead in his tracks, making his friend stop dead in his tracks, “lie to me, Janus. I know about him.”

“What?” The question was a mere whisper, probably even imperceptible to the human ear. But neither of them were human, were they? That was kind of the problem, so Virgil certainly heard. He didn’t answer, though, only looked Janus dead into his eyes. So Janus asked again, this time a little louder though still full of shocked uncertainty: “What do you mean?”

“I mean”, Virgil answered through clenched teeth as he stalked forward towards Janus, “I know what you’ve been up to every night. I mean I know about your stupid ass decision. I mean, Janus, that I know about the Royals boy.”

“How do you know about Roman? You never even leave the house!”

“For good reason! Or have you forgotten why we came here at all? Have you forgotten about the fire that did that” - Virgil pointed uncharacteristically expensively to the light burn marks on the side of Janus’s face that started to stand out more in the morning light - “to you? And then you go and, what, jump at the first decent looking human you can find?”

“No! Of cause I didn’t forget. But this is fine, we’re fine, we’re safe, I promise.”, Janus was quick to defend, but it didn’t do him any good. Virgil only let out a humorless laugh.

“Oh? Is it? You are always out with a human, whose family runs the church no less, and come back so close to dawn that you arrive seriously injured. So, please, tell me, Janus, are you stupid?! Or just randomly suicidal? Which one is it, huh?!”

“Really, Virgil. I’m being honest right now.”, Janus insisted, even taking off his gloves to show the trembling hands underneath and painting a cross above his heart. “He… Roman, isn’t like that. He’s different. This is different. You have to believe me!”

“Funny. That’s what Remy said, too. And then the fucking house was brunt down by the fucking human. Tell me, how did that go? Hm? Where’s our coven now? Our home?! It’s only you, me, and the two unconscious brothers upstairs that’s left!”

Janus tried and failed to hide the pain that crossed his face remembering that night, whispering: “No one could have seen that coming…”

“I did!”, Virgil cried angrily and desperate, ”I did, and you didn’t listen to me, and now it’s happening again, and you don’t listen to me again, do you?!”

A beat passed by before either of them did anything again. It was Janus who moved first, straightened his back defiantly and moved out of his defensive position, crossing his arms and shaking his head slightly. “No, I will not. And I don’t have to, either. In case you forgot, I am the leader of this coven, so I get to decide. Maybe I should have listened to you back then, but that was back then and now is right now. This conversation is over.”

“It’s not.”, Virgil sighed defeatedly. He didn’t make eye contact anymore but watched the sun rise through the protective glass instead. “I won’t stand around and watch this happening again. If you don’t end things with him, I will end things with you.”

“Are you… Virgil, is that an ultimatum? Are you making me choose between you and him?”, Janus asked in disbelieve. He wanted to get angry at Virgil, but he could see the pained expression on his friend’s face. His shoulders were shaking and tears started to silently race down his face, as he whispered with a broken voice: “I just can’t see that happen again, Jan. I’m sorry, but I just… Just, please.”

Janus sighed. “How long have you known me for, Virgil? Six-hundred years?” “Five-hundred-thirty-five. Since the fourteen-eighties.”, Virgil nodded absentmindedly.

“Right.”, Janus softly continued, drawing soothing circled on Virgil’s back. ”I got us through the times of the witch trials, I got us through two world wars, I got us through the development of photography and videos. I protected us from werewolves, aristocrats, christian fanatics, fanatic civilians, homophobes and even nazis. So why would you ever mistrust me?”

“Because you are a liar by nature.”, Virgil answered without missing a beat. But he also sighed, leaning against Janus. “But… It’s not you I have troubles trusting.”

“Only because you don’t know him yet. Roman won’t hurt us.”, Janus insisted again

 Virgil scoffed: “He’s human.”

“So where you. But I gave you a chance, didn’t I? When everyone was avoiding you because your mother used to be a witch?”

The silence dragged on and on, until Virgil finally pulled away and walked towards the stairs. “I’m gonna hit the hay, tonight was fucking exhausting.”

“Virgil?” Janus’ voice was so soft and breakable right now, so very vulnerable, and Virgil couldn’t even bare to look at him. So he sighed, almost out of sight, hesitating before finally saying: “One dinner. Tell him I’ll cook dinner for us the night after tomorrow, nine in the afternoon. He’ll get his chance to make me trust him then, and if he does he can stay. But that’s all he gets, just that one dinner.”

And then he left, leaving a smiling, somewhat relieved Janus down in the entrance hall. Now all he had to do was tell Roman. And maybe, in time, the two most important people in his life would actually get along some time soon. He sure hoped they would. But for now, a chance was good enough.

For now.

Masterpost: here

Prompt-chart and one-shots: here 

Taglist:  @gattonero17

[hoodoo12]

Beetlejuice Squared 2:  You Asked for It (2/3)

Let’s just jump in, shall we? With the quick reminder that part(s) 3 are your personal choice. And still thanks beyond words for @beejiesbitch for helping out and encouraging me and suggesting things that made me cringe. Part 1

@beetlebitchywitch @beetlejuicebeadoll @sapphic-florals @turtlepated @realmonsterboyhours @monsterlovinghours @witchyrem-ains @beebeyjuice @imma-fucking-nerd @iambuggy

NSFW

It felt like the air had been sucked out of your lungs. 

Instantly panic hit you, flooding you with a rush of adrenaline in preparation for fight or flight. Nipping closely on its heels was rage; you’d kicked him out, and he just had the audacity to saunter back in like the two of you hadn’t had a screaming match the last time he was here?! Then the thought that the Beetlejuice laying beside you was going to think this was a set up, that you’d asked him here and fucked him knowing that the original Beetlejuice was going to show up in some shitty plan to make him jealous ambushed you too, bringing up the rear of this train wreck. You looked over at Beetlejuice on the bed with you, hoping you could convince him this was a complete surprise to you too. You needn’t have worried. If his knee-jerk reaction was to think you’d organized this, the expression of abject fear on your face convinced him otherwise. Reading your terror at the situation unfolding made a snarl curl his lip and he pushed himself up off the mattress to go confront his counterpart. He wasn’t quick enough, though. The other Beetlejuice, the one you’d told to never come back, walked through your bedroom door. Whatever he was expecting to find, it wasn’t you sprawled out on the bed, your only clothing a black garter belt and stockings, looking thoroughly fucked, and a taller, naked version of himself getting to his feet.

“What in the fuck?!” he exploded. 

His hair, which had been a neutral green, erupted into red. His scruff and eyebrows did too, as did his eyes. You’d never seen him so enraged. 

Automatically you pushed yourself backwards, further up the mattress, away from him.

“You’re fucking behind my back?!” he bellowed. “With this guy?!”

Beetlejuice, who’d conjured himself back into trousers while you had been focused on the demon-shaped personification of rage that had entered your bedroom, stepped forward with anger etched in his face as well and red streaks beginning to show in his hair. But your fear fled in the face of Beetlejuice throwing the exact same complaint you’d had about him back at you. You started to get up, even as the Beetlejuice who’d just been beside you ordered, “Back off, asshole--”

Beetlejuice bristled at that and stepped up against his taller counterpart. “Fuck you--you pathetic, second rate knockoff--” Never mind their exchange of words; you were still fixated on the fact that the original Beetlejuice used the same argument you’d originally accused him of. “How dare you!” you shrieked. “You’re the one who fucked anything that looked in your general direction! You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants--you never tried to keep your dick in your pants--” “Shut up. Adults are talking,” he replied almost casually to you, flicking his fingers in your direction.

Immediately you found yourself pinned spread-eagle on your back, held by invisible hands. You struggled against them while the animosity passing between the two demons became palatable.

“You lost a good thing, asshole--” “You’d’ve done the same thing, dick! Just because you don’t get called as often, don’t pretend you wouldn’t have grabbed at every bit of pussy or cock that you were offered! Fucking hypocrite, you’d have begged for scraps--” “You cheated on me you fucker!” you yelled as you continued struggling against the restraints. “I never cheated on you, I told you to get the fuck out of my life! We were done!”

The taller of the two, the Beetlejuice you’d just laid, glanced over at you, a look of slight puzzlement on his face, and the Beetlejuice you’d tried to end things with took advantage of his distraction. He reached forward and grabbed a handful of flesh, the other’s pectoral muscle, and clenched his fist. The yowl would have been enough for you to realize that fingers had punctured skin; the immediate blood that erupted from the site told you that it was nails sharpened into talons that did it.

Beetlejuice continued to cry out, but the noise was quickly becoming less surprised pain and more rage. He grabbed the arm and wrist of the one causing the injury, but went to his knees. 

“You didn’t say his name?!” the smooth voice of the Beetlejuice you’d spent the evening with admonished harshly in your ear. “You told him to get out, but you didn’t say his name!” You’d have slapped yourself in the face if you could have moved. You were so stupid! You hadn’t banished him, you’d been so upset you didn’t think of it! He’d left, and hadn’t shown up for weeks, so it was out of your mind! So now all you had to do was say it! You took a breath--

--a final invisible hand slapped over your mouth, before you could get an actual word out, pinching your skin so tightly it hurt and almost covering your nose as well. You struggled now to take a full breath. Unfortunately, Beetlejuice knew the tricks of throwing a voice and wasn’t risking you saying his name and banishing him for real.

“Told you to shut up, baby,” he told you in a sweet tone, with a wink.

Under the heavy hand, you shrieked again, using your throat.

Distraction seemed to be a good tool to use, because while his attention was making sure you couldn’t speak, Beetlejuice from the floor lashed out and knocked his counterpart backwards. It dislodged the grip on him, making blood flow more freely down his chest, but that was ignored. The two grappled for a moment, but from the floor he had a disadvantage and Beetlejuice who was standing managed to twist a hand into the other’s hair, yanking his head back.

A flash of pink rippled through the shorter of the two’s blood red hair, a sign of his enjoyment, and he didn’t hesitate to punch Beetlejuice solidly once, twice, three times in the face. Blood spurted from the mess of a crushed nose, and Beetlejuice’s head lolled a little from the punishment. His hands released the hold they’d taken on his twin and fell limp to his sides. His body followed suit, and for a moment, it looked like the only thing holding him up was the fist still in his hair.  He was released and dropped to the floor dismissively, and the Beetlejuice you’d wanted out of your life crawled up the bed, between your legs. You tried to arch away from him, but your stocking-clad thighs were grabbed. Casually he wiped his knuckles on them, leaving bloody marks.

“You look good, baby,” he cooed. “Wish you’d worn something like this for me.”

You strained so hard against the restraints your limbs hurt. He chuckled, still slinking up on all fours. “I can’t say I’m super fond of smelling that fucker’s come in you, though--”

He never dropped his eyes from your enraged gaze, but did lower his head and snaked his tongue through your pussy. You bucked again, hating that it felt good, hating that he knew just how to lick you to make you moan and writhe in pleasure. He ducked down further and put his whole mouth on you, sucking lightly. 

You couldn’t help but go lax for a moment, your body betraying you under his mouth.

“Asshole,” Beetlejuice snarled, his smoother voice deeper than you’d ever heard it, and much more similar to the one with his face in your pussy.

You lifted your head; he was still smeared with blood but you couldn’t see the broken nose or split lips that had been so evident before. His teeth were still coated red, however, as he pulled his lips back like a predator.

The Beetlejuice between your legs took one more second to lick you again, then he was yanked harshly off you by his jacket. As he was swung around to face his counterpart, he spit the wet and come he’d sucked out of your pussy into the other’s face. 

That escalated it all.

The anger that both had been exhibiting before ratcheted up to a level that made the very air feel electrified. It was two forces of nature colliding, two storms of equal strength battering each other in the confines of your bedroom, while you were trapped, helpless, on a mattress.

You could only see flashes of the two of them; your mere mortal lightbulbs couldn’t handle the surge of power and they flickered, dimming and growing brighter randomly. You half wondered if, while seeing the nightmare visions of the two demons clashing in front of you, your own vision would do the same. 

Beetlejuice, still only clad in trousers, must have thought along the same lines. “Close your eyes, babydoll,” he said in your ear. His voice, still smoother, was in stark contrast to the horror of shadowy tentacles that seemed to erupt around him.

“Keep your eyes open, baby!” the other ordered, in your other ear, and a new hand gripped your forehead. Instinctually you knew it’d force your eyelids open if need be. “I want you to watch me fucking destroy him.”

Torn between the two, you continued to buck against your invisible restraints. Your throat felt raw. Tears leaked out of your eyes. Your nose started running. You hated all of this.

With the exception of those words to you, the Beetlejuices focused solely on each other. No more human words came from them; in their place were hisses and guttural sounds of some demonic language that put pressure in your ears like you were too far underwater. It was seductive, however, and part of you thought that if you strained, if you concentrated, you could learn to understand it. A more rational part of your brain, the one more concerned with survival, warned you away, it wasn’t truly for human ears. The tentacles you’d first glimpsed were more solid when the light was low; when it flared it just looked like two dead guys beating the shit out of each other.

The taller of the two, the one you’d invited here tonight, had a slight advantage of less clothing to grab, but it also left his skin exposed to the other’s talons. He was a mess of gouges and lacerations, bleeding freely. His wounds knitted closed freakishly quickly, a nightmare in itself, but with so many he couldn’t concentrate on healing while still fighting.

Beetlejuice in his suit, who you didn’t banish properly, had some protection, but it gave his doppelganger something to grip with more force and land more punishing blows: a knee to the face, making the same gush of blood as you’d witnessed before; a twist of an arm into a inhuman position against the joint. His elbow snapped and Beetlejuice shrieked.

You’d have curled into a fetal position to protect yourself in fear if you’d been capable. As it were, you continued to watch in horror. 

Beetlejuice struggled back and away, breaking the grip of his twin, cradling his crooked arm. Shirtless Beetlejuice stepped between him and you, hunched and watching him warily. Because of his stance, you didn’t see the repair Beetlejuice did to his arm, but heard the wet cracking and hiss of pain. You were able to see him shake his arm out to the side, no worse for wear, apparently. 

He sidled to one side. Beetlejuice moved with him, keeping himself bodily between the two of you. The shorter one cocked his head enough to see over his shoulder and caught your eyes. “You sure are something, baby. You’ve got this prick of a duplicate snared--you sure you’re not some succubus, trapping saps by their dicks?”

You glared as best you could at him, although it was from no position of power. 

“None of this had to happen, baby,” he continued, like this was a perfectly reasonable conversation during a perfectly reasonable situation. “This is all your fault. You said you were angry I was summoned by other people and I fucked them, but you refused the final step that would’ve set me free!”

Your glare became laser-sharp in intensity. Yes, you refused to fucking marry him. But he probably would’ve continued to fuck anything that moved even if you’d done that for him!

He must have read your mind, because he laughed. Laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he agreed amicably.

If you’d have had the strength, you’d have gotten off the mattress and probably hit him yourself. As it was, you’d at least provided enough distraction--what a tool to use!-- that the taller Beetlejuice eased close enough to him to rush him, grab him by the waist, and slam him into the wall with a resounding crack that shook the house. 

The infernal language returned as they screamed at each other. You winced. The lights waned, and waxed, and waned again, giving you strobe light effects of their true demonic forms, or the body horror they could twist themselves into: undulating tentacles; needle teeth in countless maws; some arms all grey and depraved, with fingernails rotting off its hand; all awash in the blood from injuries too horrific for any non-dead being to survive.

They were so evenly matched it seemed like this was going to be an eternal war. Each attack was countered, and both were wounded and bloody. Whatever they were saying to each other occasionally devolved into wordless growls and spits. You couldn’t stop sobbing, which made you feel like you were drowning. Although your anger was still burning, your strength against the spectral restraints was ebbing. You sagged and closed your eyes, unable to watch the carnage any longer. 

Then, out of nowhere, there was a beat of silence. It’d been so loud in your bedroom the hush made you wonder if you’d suddenly gone deaf. You picked your head up as best you could to see what was happening. Beetlejuice had his counterpart in a hold that was inhumanly possible and inhumanely done: the umbral tentacles had solidified and impaled the other through his chest, then wrapped snugly around his torso, arms and legs so that he had no leverage to fight it. Two hands held his head in a crushing grip, while a third was on his throat, clutching so tightly the sharpened nails on the fingertips were buried in the meat of his neck. 

Trussed and beaten, he was no longer pale; Beetlejuice had been painted in red ink with a heavy brush. He wasn’t pinned to the floor, either, the tentacles kept him suspended above it but his own weight pulled him downward against them, causing more grievous wounds. Thick, dark blood had splattered your floor, and continued to drip from him. You had no idea if a ghost or a demon could die from exsanguination, but he looked close to unconsciousness. 

The Beetlejuice holding him didn’t let that happen, however. He leaned down and whispered something you couldn’t hear into his twin’s ear, then kissed his slack mouth. It was the final show of dominance; the loser didn't have the strength or fortitude to pull away or even bite. As he pulled away again, you saw the victor’s tongue lap along the inside of the other’s hard palate before he stood up completely.

Still holding his victim, Beetlejuice turned his gaze on you.

“Say his name,” he ordered. 

tbc . . .

[tvdiaries-imagines]

Quite The Assumption

Pairing: Klaus x Reader x Kol 

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1620

The weather is absolutely perfect outside as you’re reading a book, sitting just outside a cafe here in Mystic Falls. You took a sip of your coffee before placing it back on the small table, allowing yourself to get lost in this novel.

A moment later, a shadow casts over you briefly and you notice a figure take a seat just ahead of you. You glanced up, learning that it’s Klaus and your stomach stirs with excitement but on the outside you remained calm and collected.

“Hello love.” He said, smirking.

“Hi Klaus. What’s up?”

“I just so happened to be in the area and noticed you here all alone. I also wanted to say that I enjoyed our little date the other night.”

“I did too.” You flashed a soft smile, placing a bookmark at the page you left off at before closing the book. You’ve only gone on two dates with Klaus so far and both were amazing. The hybrid has definitely grown on you.

“Do you have any plans tonight?” Klaus asked.

“I’m not sure. I have to check my calendar in a sec.” You lied. You know that you have nothing planned tonight. “Why?”

“I am throwing a soirée at my mansion tonight. You are more than welcome to come.”

“Oh okay. What time does it start?”

“An invitation with details will arrive at your doorstep later.” He reached across the table for your hand, placing a gentle kiss over your knuckles before rising to his feet to disappear along the street.

You smiled from ear to ear at his gesture, unable to focus back to your book. There’s no doubt that you’ll join his party tonight.

(Later…)

It is a quarter past 8. You followed the details of the invitation and dressed semi-formal with a black body con off the shoulder dress that stops at your knees. You paired it with a pair of strappy black heels.

After one quick glance at your rear view mirror, assuring your makeup is still on point, you took your keys out of the ignition and hopped out of your car.

Stepping inside Klaus’s mansion, a waiter was quick to hand you a glass of champagne. The gesture alone instantly felt like deja vu from when you attended the Mikaelson ball not too long ago. You accepted the bubbly and went on your way to search for Klaus.  

Through the crowd of people, you still couldn’t find him but happened to bump into Kol. You were slightly relieved to finally see a familiar face.

“Hello darling.” Kol greeted. “Pleasure seeing you here. Let me guess, you’re looking for Nik?”

“You read my mind Kol. Do you know where he is?”

“I do not. But I can keep you company in the meantime.”

“Sure thanks.” You clinked your glass with Kol’s, followed by taking a generous sip. “What is this party for anyways?”

“My brother didn’t get into the specifics with me. However, I enjoy a good party.”

Glancing around at the guests, you randomly made eye contact with Rebekah, who is conversing with someone you don’t know. She winks at you and you raise your glass to her as a greeting.

“Klaus sure knows how to throw a great party.” You mentioned.  

“Silly me. I forgot to mention how stunning you look in that little black dress.” Kol commented. You fought the urge to blush from his compliment.

“Thank you.”

“And you bought it specifically for this party?”

“Actually no. It’s been sitting in my closet for awhile now. I’ve never found the proper occasion to wear it until now.”

“You should wear it again.”

You let out a chuckle, swallowing down the last bit of champagne. “You're funny. It’s not like I go to these kinds of parties often.”

“What I meant is, you should wear it on our next date.”

“Kol stop.” You nagged as you glanced around nervously, hoping Klaus isn’t in earshot.

“I’m serious, darling.” Kol said.

“You know that I’m kind of seeing your brother.” You rolled your eyes. A waiter came by, stealing your empty glass from you.  

“And I kind of don’t care.” He challenged.

“You’re ridiculous.” You shook your head in amusement before walking off to search for Klaus again.

Finally, you see Klaus at the top of the staircase with the back of his head facing the crowd below. You notice that he’s lost in a conversation with a red headed female and you didn’t want to be rude by catcalling his name, so you slowly made your way towards the stairs. You couldn’t get over how handsome he looked in a suit and tie since he’s always dressed in a Henley shirt and jeans.

As you reached the second step, you noticed Klaus and his female acquaintance exchanging laughs. Next thing you know, she playfully hits him in the chest and that same hand found its way on his chest. You didn’t think anything of it until you noticed that Klaus allowed her hand to linger there.

You annoyingly felt a pang of jealousy and turned on your heel back to the first floor. A part of you hoped Klaus would have at least called or texted you asking of your whereabouts since you haven’t spoken to him since earlier this afternoon in front of the cafe.

“So Y/N, how about that date?” Kol said, suddenly appearing at your side.

“How about a drink first.” You marched towards the nearest waiter and stole a filled glass from the tray, taking a large sip of champagne.

“You see, my brother isn’t right for you. Bad temper, enemies around the world, and not as handsome as me.”

You couldn’t tell if you’re already buzzed from the alcohol or if Kol is downright funny right now. “You’re hilarious.” You chuckled, leaning your back against the nearest wall.

“I forgot to add, not as funny as me either.” Kol stepped forward, placing him palm beside your ear on the wall as he towered over you.

“Okay okay.” You put a hand up in defense. “Enough with all of the comparisons. I get it, you’re conceited.”

“You’re pretty and you have a sharp tongue.” Kol leaned down, whispering into your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. “You’re just my type.”

Before you had the chance to respond, you were rudely interrupted. “What the bloody hell is this?” Klaus asked with obvious distaste.

Kol grinned, pleased that he got a rise out of his older brother. He straightened his posture and snaked his arm around your waist.

“Oh hey Nik. I was just showing Y/N which Mikaelson is best suited for her.”

Instead of vamp speeding, Klaus took heavy steps towards his younger brother, holding him by the throat and slamming his back against the wall. He’s raging with so much fury that he didn’t care that all eyes are on him. “You just couldn’t help yourself, now could you, brother?! You’re so pathetic that you had to resort to compelling my date!” Klaus’s hand was so tight around Kol’s throat that he couldn’t breathe out a word.

“Klaus stop it!” You shouted.

“Niklaus.” Elijah announced, attempting to put his brother is check. His hand was placed inside his front pocket, standing beside you.

“Kol didn’t compel me!”

Klaus looked over his shoulder, eyes boring into yours. “What?” He let out in a loud whisper in disbelief, loosening his grip over Kol’s throat.

“Nik, what the bloody hell are you doing?” Rebekah asked, brows furrowed. Her heels tapped along the flooring as she made her way towards the scene.

You shot him a glare before storming off outside, not caring that you’re shoving into people along the way.

“Don’t point fingers at me, Nik.” Kol implied after catching his breath. “Go ask Y/N yourself why she’s cross with you and chose my company instead.”

Klaus followed after you without a response, ignoring the remarks that the party guests are exchanging with each other about what just happened.

The cool breeze hit him in the face. “Y/N, stop.”

“No I’m going home. It was stupid for me to come to this party.” You continued to walk towards your car with your keys in your hand. In the blink of an eye, you found Klaus in front of your driver’s door.

“Tell me, what did Kol say to you?”

“Why does it even matter?” You used all of your strength to shove him away so you can have access inside your car, but he’s got a thousand years on you and you couldn’t shift him. “Why don’t you go back inside and flirt with that red head some more.” You folded your arms across your chest, scowling at him in defeat.

“You can’t be serious, love.” He said with hint of amusement, which annoyed you even more because he is so goddamn handsome.  

“Leave me alone. And don’t call me love.” You spat, advancing around your car to the passenger side, hoping you can get to your drivers seat from there. But, Klaus beat you to it with his vamp speed. His fingers lightly grasped your upper arms, holding you in place with your back against your passenger side door.

“I was not flirting with anyone. I only fancy you.” You rolled your eyes at his response. “In case you’re wondering, she’s a witch. I was only playing nice to be on her good side.”

“Fine I believe you. But playing nice doesn’t mean it’s okay for her to have her hands all over you!” You shook off Klaus’s grip and made your way back to the mansion.

Klaus snickered, following behind you. “And I thought I was the one with the temper.”

[blankdblank]

Loki Baby Pt 8

…

Wk 22 - The beauty of the moment may have faded, but the joy was still there.

…

Work since that suit appointment had kept your freedom at bay. Breakfasts were kept as shared meals with Loki treasuring hearing about your plans while he had made good on your offer of lending him your car to pick up a few things he had forgotten to stock up on in your shared trip to the shops. Stolen moments of freedom came behind the wheel of the sports car he was allowed to borrow and even with sights of Natasha and other agents on his route still keeping the Prince under surveillance, though now at a milder distance. Monitored freedom but a freedom none the less with clear links to the source of said freedom just a call away if they dared to try and rope him back to the tower again.

The upcoming event on top of the sparse times with you had his nerves mounting. A stolen slip into your nightly reading from a feigned borrowing of a book at the end of his short stack he had bought however had calmed him at least with another joint drift off to sleep at opposite ends of the same couch.

The gentle sunset waking the Prince, who in his sleep had shifted to his side extending a hand to drape over the ankle of the woman on the couch beside him felt his eyes opening when his thumb pressed a bit tighter onto a vein in your ankle clearly revealing quite an odd heartbeat. Though just waking and still swimming his way out of his sleepy daze body had a different idea of what to do past inspecting it further. In a shift he sat up and turned to drape behind you properly lulling your body to melt against his under his arm laying across your middle. Sleep had been hard to come by and for now at least the goal was another night with you in his arms.

A leg had slid between his with a knee pulling his higher holding his hips flush against yours, arms tangled under the blanket and in the burrowing of his head into the back of yours a smoothing of fingers eased under the sleeve on his green shirt. That was what brought you out of sleep, curious raised ridges under finger strokes far from readable. In a deep inhale cracking an eye open to see what it was the swirling ridges around the wrist branched up in solid lines with diagonal dashes and dots in between on the inner side of the arm. Again in his sleep the Prince’s arm tightened around your middle and closing your eyes the sleeve was tugged down and over it a grip on his arm was returned calming the slumbering belief you were trying to break out of his hold.

It was clear he was not Asgardian, he was not like Thor, the red eyes were evident enough and now with such markings over his arms he clearly kept hidden from you in his earlier days of having his dress shirts rolled up. Nestling back into his hold it was decided to wait, allow him to bring up his hidden traits, unless you couldn’t help yourself of course. They reached up his inner arm, it was a hope they were like fingerprints, that he was born with them and not having been self inflicted, you could never handle that, him being in such pain to have etched such a vast set of markings into his skin. Warmly you were cuddled back to sleep and joined the Prince in grumbling at the alarm sounding from the panel on the wall to wake up hours later.

“I’m up,” The chiming dropped to soft trickling of notes had you grumbling again and dipping your hand lower to grab Loki’s leg making his eye crack open, “Your leg’s longer.” In the tap of his foot to the floor the alarm silenced making him chuckle and settle his head behind yours on the pillow.

“Intriguing addition to getting up out of bed. Easily bested though.”

“That, was merely the snooze, we have seven minutes or the couch gets tilted up.”

“That intent on remaining in bed?”

“I do love to lounge.”

“Do you need to go somewhere?”

“No, manicure appointment, did you want in?”

“Hmm,”

“If you like you can watch mine get done and decide then.”

“Would I be able to choose a color, or clear coat only?”

After a giggle you said, “They’re your fingers, Prince Loki.”

“I might try gold.”

“Ooh, with sparkles?”

“Perhaps, though Pepper once had this forest green that looked interesting.”

“You could always alternate, or have diagonal designs in alternating colors.”

Again the chiming picked up and huffing to yourself you found your feet and said, “I’m up.”

After tugging up your sleeves you led Loki down to the lowest floor with tea in hand where you chose black nail polish topped with silver glittery specks across them randomly resembling stars while Loki grinned seeing his forest green shimmering nails with golden glittering arches around the edges and bed of his nails. Pedicures were set to match the base colors and in paying you led the way up to breakfast before you would split up to get ready.

Though a grin from you held him in place and at the boxes you accepted from the floating otters they had fetched from your closet that had arrived the night prior a curious smirk eased across Loki’s lips. “Thought you might need a couple finishing touches.”

Wetting his lips he opened the top box, the smaller of the two and his lips parted seeing his symbol in the Norse faith of two interlocked snaked above his name in Norse Runes etched into the golden cufflinks. “I know the stories recorded and what actually happened for you and your family aren’t exactly cohesive, though I thought you might like them. Even if they aren’t-,”

“They are incredible.” His eyes locked onto yours, “Even though I do not have a symbol, per se, on Asgard, I do admire this one, and the runes are correct. I will be honored to wear them.” Looking down he said, “I cannot imagine what the other surprise might be.”

With a smirk you said, “Not hard to guess, though the details, might be a bit harder to guess.”

Inside the second box his lips parted again seeing the black ring coated face of the watch with white glowing speckles he shifted the outer ring around the face revealing different settings. One to follow the moon cycle exposed by the moon in the center and various constellations and planets with a special marker on the ring he could hit showing the galaxy around Asgard. When his eyes locked on yours you said, “I thought you might like it, not just for telling time and the date. To help you find your way, or just remember our little corner of the world when you are on Asgard again. Water proof, shatterproof and solar recharged battery included, has a compass and all that, and,” in a reach into his view you pointed to an extra dial he could pull out and you said, “If you needed to get in touch. A communicator.”

Smirking at you he asked, “How powerful a communicator?”

Smirking back playfully you quipped, “You might be surprised.”

“Thank you, truly. You must have put quite a great deal of effort into this. I will treasure it always.”

Nipping at your lip you nodded then said, “Well, I should let you get ready. Tails take a while.” In a chuckle he nodded and thanked you again turning for his own apartment still in awe at the watch he had eased onto his wrist smiling at the etching across the back, ‘Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.’

It was simple, and hopeful, and for a moment everything he needed to have strapped to his wrist to help keep him going on his worst days. A glimpse of home, a glimpse of you, a bridge of sorts between the two. Layer by layer he readied after basic primping and finalized the look with the securing of his cufflinks in the hall only to turn with lips parting at your long sleeved silver shimmering gown practically poured over you with only a cutout over your back revealing any of your skin. Your silver clip secured bun held in place for a sleek look already making him feel under dressed out of his armor and cape. A gown like that you were ready to be presented to a King, not being taken to some Midguardian dinner, no matter how fancy the occasion was slated to be.

A loop of your arm in his extended elbow and his heart began to flutter imagining the faces of the men seeing you arrive on his arm. Though that came with a landslide of doubts on being the one on your arm. The killer, the invader, mass murdering psychopath. How could he ever be deserving of an innocent’s attentions or company? How could he ever make anyone understand the reasons behind it when this planet was so far behind his own? How could he ever be enough for all your kindness?

Small talk led to dinner and more talking while the orchestra readied. A single glance of a man tapping your elbow at the bar in his step away to explain a painting fuller to a woman who asked if he knew about the artist and his heart dropped. His answer was given and the woman gone leaving him turning for the terrace. Straight to the stone half wall he went unbuttoning his outer jacket in a sharp exhale trying to reign in his tears threatening to fill his eyes imagining you spending the night in another’s arms to dance and at the worst to sleep. There was no bond past monetary partnership and in fair exchange he had fulfilled his duty, escorting you here tonight, just as you had fulfilled yours, housing and pampering him to comfort.

“I hate realtors.” The sound of your voice tore his eyes open and his mind from the edge seeing a glass of champagne set in front of him, “Every party nonstop offers on my building.”

“Realtors?” The frailty of his tone and bare glace at you made you dip under his arm and have his wide eyed teary gaze looking you over.

Moving closer in a simple ease of your hands around his sides his chest rose in a deep inhale as you hummed out, “I believe you owe me a dance, Prince Loki.” The reach for his folded back vest had his eyes shut and body inching closer in a sort of timid hug in the ease of his arm around your back followed by the other. In his next inhale showing he was readying to release you, you hummed near his ear, “I would not abandon you. I arrived with you and perhaps we should take a spin or two around the floor then let the land hungry men watch us go back to our apartment for some dessert?”

“Those tarts were disgraceful,” making you giggle in his hands slowly sliding off your back allowing you to secure his vest for him and watch his downing the glass as you did the same with yours followed by an offer of his hand paired with a confident grin mustered up by your assurance and embrace. A gentle press of his lips to your knuckles and back into the room he led you in a camera drawing set of dances, close and intimate with whispered conversation appearing far from the childish jokes and gossip it was, followed by an early departure flooding stories out across social media of the supposed serious relationship.

‘Lovers caught in an embrace.’ The title read and the picture behind it showed what seemed to be your lips on Loki’s cheek and him smirking in the drawing of his arms around your lower back. Below the picture Loki scrolled down and read the brief synopsis of your smirk and loving stare filled dinner followed by a subtle slip from the Prince out of the ballroom allowing you both the private moment. A kiss to your knuckles and several comments on the intimate holds in dancing, subtle traces of his fingers lower on your back and down your arms and a final stolen imagined kiss to your cheek, really a whispered secret, but not from that angle.

Closing the app on his phone in your putting away your phone after it’s alerting you to your father’s ship being within a week’s distance away. A grin slipped onto his face and keeping the news to himself to keep the night from being spoiled he kept his mind focused on the hour prior with you in his arms imagining you were dancing in his home and not here for the mortal’s supposed need for gossip.

Talk of what treats was shared and upon return a simple stripping to your pajamas was had and around the ice cream set on your kitchen island you chose your dessert to go with your brownies and cookies and went to lounge through the movie Loki had picked.

Washed and comfortable away from the public eye back to your continued bliss of the protected apartment building and couch where once again he could hold you possibly through the night. It was impossible to stop now, imaginings Royal occasions with you on his arm, a chance to return the favor and flaunt you proudly in return once he found his way home.

A momentary flash of awkwardness slid across your face making his head tilt in a glance at his exposed arm in cleaning up your dishes and he asked, “Is something troubling you, Miss Pear?” Again refusing to cross that line of intimacy out loud hoping partially you might insist again on his using the informal title for you.

“When we were sleeping last night, I felt some marks on your arm.” His lips parted and you said, “I know you’re not human and according to Thor not Asgardian, but I have to ask,” Inhaling deeply he gave a slight nod only to have his brows furrow in shock at your asking, “You didn’t carve those in your arms yourself, did you?”

All at once it washed over him in the concern in your eyes how worried they had made you for his well being and he flatly replied in his still shaken tone, “No.” Hastily he wet his lips and extended his arms lowering your gaze at the rising of his Jotun ridges, “I am a Jotun, I have them on my back, face and neck as well. Though I prefer to keep them to myself.” A timid lift of your fingers to stroke one of the swirls had him saying, “They are unique, for each Jotun.”

“Like snowflakes?” You asked catching his gaze and his nod.

“I did not mean to concern you, merely they rise again in my sleep occasionally.”

“I’m just glad you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”

In a tilt of his head he hid the marks again saying, “Not counting plans for myself and Thor to harm one another or my playing dead to distract others, no, I try to avoid physical harm as others would.”

“Good.” A glance towards the living room in a wonder as to what film you would choose to end up taking you from the minor tasks on your to do list possibly ending in another morning of waking up in the grip of the snuggle happy Prince.

Tonight however Thor would call and ask to finish their marathon and the blonde would be the one he would wake beside on the connected lounging couches of their private theater. The night however would continue to play on in his dreams while you tinkered in the bunker far below sharing with your precious Tardis that parts were soon in the way knowing your father would never allow you to be stranded for very long anywhere or any time. Tonight was flawed but perfect all the same. The beauty of the moment had faded but the joy was still there.

@theincaprincess​, @himoverflowers​

Pt 9

[fyeahwonderbat]

Keywords #5

Theme: Intelligence

Rating: PG / T

Word Count: 2,057 words

Bruce had no clue what was going on around him. He heard Diana ask that the goddess of witchcraft send him away and that her request was obliged. The words he wanted to say in protest felt like they evaporated in his mouth as he traveled through space and time to some foreign location.

He landed on his knees, surrounded by a crowd.

“Warriors!” a chorus of angry voices shouted as Bruce tried to recalibrate himself after such a forced teleportation.

There was the distinct shifting of armour amplified by the thousands reverberating around him, like a shockwave that was meant to knock him to his feet. All it managed to do was seize his heart with panic as he lifted his head to stare down his foes.

It shocked him more than he’d care to admit when he came face to face with an army that was made up entirely of women. Donning leather armour with ancient designs and medieval weapons in their hands, the female cavalry that threatened to skewer him with spears and swords and arrows reminded him of the costume that his so-called partner wore…

“Intruder,” roared an authoritative voice from behind the readied warrior. “Identify yourself.”

With all due respect, Bruce kept quiet while her surveyed what little terrain he could make out from the gaps in their forces. He spotted grass that was the color similar to emeralds, and trees that sway in the seabreeze. There was the sound of the ocean somewhere close but he couldn’t make out the direction it was in, meaning he had no obvious means to escape the angry women’s wrath. Carefully, monitoring them to determine whether or not he was allowed to move, he took the chance to see if he was enclosed in a circle by their army or if he was his back against a wall of some kind.

No matter which direction he cast his gaze, there were hundreds of furious glares staring right back at him.

“I won’t ask you again!” Warned the assertive voice from before.

Bruce knew that he should not press his luck any further he wanted to make it out of such a sticky situation alive, so he turned back around and replied with just as firm a tone, “Am I on the private island of the Amazons?”

Meeting their demands with a question urged the arches to pull on their drawstrings and the spear-throwers to tug their arms back. Furious, the supposed commander howled at him, “You were warned. Atta--!”

“Heads up!” Cheered a familiar, cocky, unwanted voice the second before something sharp landed in front of Bruce. The way it embedded itself into the ground was so fierce, he took a step back for fear of being associated with the soaring trident.

“Dammit,” he hissed to himself as many of the warriors turned to face the direction from which the weapon was thrown. Thinking on his feet, Bruce blurted out the only thing he could think to say in order to diffuse the arising tension. “We mean you no harm! We must speak with your queen--”

“Silence, heathen!” Demanded a woman with long brown hair, sitting on horseback and armed with nothing more than her animosity.

Bruce met her hatred with his signature indifference when a gust of wind rushed by him. “Hey Batman,” said the Flash, as chipper as ever. “Glad we got here when we did.”

Bruce had so many things he wanted to say to that, such as an inquiry about how they got to the seemingly secret island, or why he let Arthur announce their arrival like that. However, he lost his chance to when Victor landed next to him and filled in the gaps faster than the speedster. “Your magician friend really saved your ass just now.”

“You really couldn’t have picked a worse time.” Bruce said, vehemently.

Ignoring his derision, Cyborg scanned the group and whispered to him nothing more than a number, “Five thousand.”

The army was larger than he first anticipated. Unwilling to participate in a standstill any longer, Bruce kicked Aquaman’s trident down from its upright position and stood over the holes in the ground that its prongs had made. Then, he made sure that his voice carried its signature boom when combined with the distortion application in his suit as he proclaimed, “We seek an audience with Queen Hippolyta, on behalf of her daughter Diana! There are demons being made in the Underworld that threaten all of mankind, and she is down there fending them off on her own! She needs your help, now!”

The lie he told was small, but it helped to sell the emergency he was presenting to the army and their commander. As Arthur was pushed through the crowd with his hands in the air, his shirtless body offending the women greatly, Batman stood tall at the front of the haphazard Justice League in the hopes that his stoic demeanour would prove to them that his claim was legitimate and worthy of their attention.

It took longer than he would have liked - with images of Diana battling those lava rock-made demons passing through his mind at lightning speed sending him into a spiraling state of concern - but eventually, the commander spoke over the silence and the chirping cicadas to decree, “Bring them to the queen’s palace.She will know if he speaks the truth.”

Not one to bask in the feeling of relief, Bruce released an involuntary sigh when his spontaneous scheming managed to keep him alive. Considering the chaos that his involuntary teleportation caused, any turn of events that didn’t end with him being sliced in two gave him a fighting chance.

And, as a result, Diana too.

__________________________________________

The great hall of the palace was shrouded in gold, almost as if every inch of the room had been bathed in the metal. Filled to the brim with what he assumed to be Amazonian council members, none of the other women had the same presence in Bruce’s eyes as the queen herself. Hippolyta stood in front of her circular throne, appearing domineering and spiteful as she glared at the gathered members of the League.

The gathered men.

“You four are quite brave,” remarked the queen with a false tone of admiration. “Traversing the Underworld, facing off against demons while some of you are nothing more than mere mortals, staring down one of my strongest fleets and commanding them to bring you to me.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Arthur thought it was wise to chime in at that exact moment. “I’m not mortals like them.”

Hippolyta cracked a smile, Bruce noticed, but it most definitely stemmed from her righteous sense of hatred. “I know, Atlantean. You’re merely the one who threw his weapon at my warriors.”

No one in the room spoke, awaiting Arthur’s reply. Thankfully, the silence drew out over many beats, which was music to Bruce’s ears.

“Tell the queen what you told me, Bat-man.” Ordered the general from the field. Though he’s never told her his heroic moniker, he figured that it wasn’t that difficult to identify him in such a way given his costume.

“My name is Bruce Wayne. Your majesty, I didn’t mean to randomly appear on your island.” Bruce apologized in his own way.

“No? You materialized in the very spot where a raging purple fire spawned in our field.”

Bruce used her words against her, “You said it yourself - you know I’m mortal.”

Hippolyta’s eyes narrowed as she spat, “Then who sent you here?”

“Hecate.”

The mention of the goddess sent the Amazonian council into a frenzy after a collective gasp filled the space. For the first time since he met her, she reminded Bruce of Diana. When she was too distracted by his circumstances to present herself as the matriarch of the island, she had the same emotional pair of eyes as her daughter. Her shock, her cautious joy and her immediate curiosity all fought for dominance over her expression, painting a rather human depiction of the queen of the Amazons.

“What nonsense is this!?” Screamed the general.

“Menalippe!” Scolded the Queen, regaining her composure by the time she finished saying the woman’s name.

Menalippe was taken aback, but she refused to cease her inquiry. “He mentions a goddess from our history and expects us to believe him!? What, were his friends brought here by Poseidon!? Were they flown in on the back of Zeus’ eagle!? Our gods are not for you to speak of so lightly!”

Unaware of the fact that the Amazons thought of their gods as deceased, Victor raised his hand at Bruce’s side. “No, we were brought together by the magician Zatanna. She told us that Bruce needed us, and her portal brought us here.”

“Diana and I visited her—“

“Mentioning my daughter now too?” The wayHippolyta hissed at him made it easy to compare her to what he imagined Medusa would have sounded like.

If she was real.

But she wasn’t.

Bruce hoped, at the very least.

Unafraid by the growing animosity in the great hall, Bruce approached the bottom step of the staircase that led to the infuriated queen. There were whispers that also reminded him of snakes, but he persevered. “We know your daughter. She is a founding member of our team and all we want to do is to keep this world safe. She was with me while I investigated these strange stone-made creatures that were gathering… in the North, and it led us to ask a magician I know—a sorcerer who could help me locate the place where these monsters come from.”

He expected someone to interrupt him, to insult him or question his legitimacy. When no one made a sound within a millisecond after he said his last word, he decided to keep going.

“She sent us to the Underworld, and we met a woman in a cell. She said her name was Hecate. She had no idea just how long she had been trapped down there, but Diana realized that it had to be for thousands of years based on a story you told her about a battle between your gods.”

“And somehow, only you escaped?” Scoffed the general, all while the queen tried to hide her sparkling eyes by closing them tightly.

Bruce could tell that he was breaking through to Hippolyta. Her heart was drawn to his story and desperately wishing it were true. He couldn’t guess when she last saw Diana, but—

He knew when she had last seen Hecate.

He climbed a single step, much to the frustration of the Amazonian council. Menalippe even drew a dagger out of its hilt from her back and readied herself to strike. Bruce didn’t care for her threatening behaviour, not when he had a goal. Not when he knew he was so close.

“Your majesty,” he tried to coddle her before he would have to push her back into some of her deepest memories. “You didn’t know that Hecate was alive, and she didn’t know that the war with Ares ever happened. Her last happy memory is when you dressed her for her wedding to Hades. She was honoured to meet your daughter, and now they're fighting alongside each other against Hades’ demons in the Underworld.”

He knew that what he had said was a lot to digest, and it took the queen some time to fully comprehend what he was telling her. With her eyes still shut, Bruce could still make out the pride she felt given the way the corners of her mouth quivered as they fought off the desire to smile. Her expression was so telling, the typically combative Menalippe called to her with an uncharacteristic softness. “My queen?”

Bruce climbed another step and was immediately blocked by the general’s body. She leapt down to the stair right before his and leered at him. Unperturbed, he decided it was time to get to the point.

Bruce knew that the reason why Hecate sent him here was so he could ask the queen of the Amazon one thing. “So, your majesty, I have one request of you: please... take us to the gates of hell. The same one you took Hecate through all those years ago. Let us help your daughter. Let us defeat Hades.”

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

Still

Hey gang, got something a little different for you.  I bumped into an old classmate from a creative writing class, and they reminded me of a story I wrote for it.  It’s the first pure horror story I ever wrote and it shows, but I still like it.  Please let me know what you think!

            Still

            Alice couldn’t help but think back to when it all started.  She had been vacuuming the living room when she noticed Coop wasn’t barking anymore.  Usually he barked the entire time she vacuumed, thus why he was banished to the backyard.  A quiet Coop was suspicious.  

           “Brody, could you please go out and make sure Coop isn’t eating crap?” she called.

           “Why do I gotta do it?” came the response from upstairs.

           “’Cause I gotta finish vacuuming downstairs and I said so!”

           The ‘fine’ was implied when Brody stomped downstairs and opening the back door.

           “Shut it behind you!”  This time there was a groan.

           Alice managed to finish vacuuming both floors of the house in record time, if she did say so herself.  She was strutting down the stairs when she noticed Brody crouched by Coop out the window.  Great, she thought.  If Brody’s invested too it must be some kind of dead animal.  If it’s another snake I am going to lose it.  The back door was cracked open.  And he didn’t shut the door!  Does that boy ever listen?

           “Brody Andrew Mathews, why did you leave the door open when I explicitly told you not to?”  No response.  He had his back to her.  Alice crossed her arms.  “Young man, you better not be ignoring me…”  Nothing.  “What the hell are you looking at over there?”  That should’ve gotten him; she never cusses.  But still nothing.  She stomped over to him, steps growing lighter the closer she got.  “Brody?  Coop?” They weren’t moving.  Their hair and fur blew in the wind, but the rest of them didn’t stir.  Brody she could understand; it would be the first time he’d held his breath and freeze when she yelled at him.  But Coop wasn’t even panting.  His mouth was open and his tongue was out like he would have been, drool constantly dripping out, but he wasn’t.  Brody’s finger was touching his nose.  Alice creeped around and kneeled down to see his face.  It was scrunched up as if he had been crying, some wetness still lingered in the corner of his eyes.  His mouth remained in an ‘O’ shape.  Alice took in a sharp breath.  Brody had been in the middle of saying “boop” while he touched Coop’s nose, as he often did. And froze during the action.

~

           Coop and Brody weren’t the only ones to freeze. Reports came in from all over Golden Dunes that people had randomly stopped moving.  Mostly children playing outside.  Alice had been one of the few to realize what was happening and back away. Most other parents had panicked and grabbed onto their kids, and freezing on contact.  Brody and Coop’s positions, along with Alice’s testimony, confirmed that the stillness spread through skin to skin contact.  Hair and cloths remained unfrozen, as evidence by them still blowing in the breeze and not freezing those who touched them.  The theory was that Brody had realized something was up with Coop, and may have tried to move him by touching a fur-covered part of his body.  When that didn’t work, he started crying and tried to perform an endearing gesture the two shared, and was stilled by touching the one part of Coop not covered in fur.  

The fact that Alice was able to put two and two together so quickly likely saved her life, and probably the lives of others in the future.  At least, that’s what the authorities told her.  It was the only intel they had to go on.  Freezing hadn’t occurred anywhere else in the world, leading to the hypothesis that it had something to do with the location.  They brought in what must have been every kind of expert under the sun to try and figure out what was going on, but never got any further than Alice’s discovery of the skin.  Men in hazmat suits and their seemingly endless supply of machines became so common that she wondered if they outnumbered those left unfrozen in their little community.  Their numbers thinned gradually as no progress was made, but the occasional misstep meant that some never left.  

It wasn’t until a little boy froze in the middle of the street in midair, unaffected by gravity, that a supernatural explanation was considered outside conspiracy circles.  Not that it solved anything, but the boy’s smiling face, forever reaching up to catch a frisbee that had long since landed, became the symbol of the Golden Dudes situation.  Without context, all the photos of the boy that circulated looked like any other advertising.  Alice couldn’t quite remember any of their names.

What did matter was that the boy’s parents had enough public support to overturn the proposal to have the neighborhood evacuated and quarantined.  

“He’s never been all that athletic.  When he starts moving again, he’s gonna fall.  He might hurt himself.  And we need to be there so we can pick him up and make him feel better!”  His parents had said something along those lines at a press conference against the evacuation.

Alice had wanted to get out.  She had already lost one son; how could she stay and risk losing another?  But the “whatever their names were” statement about how their son was going to move again lit a hopeful fire under people, one that cast Alice as a quitter who lacked faith in her child’s strength.  The authorities suspended the quarantine, saying those who wanted to stay could. They didn’t pay much attention to those who couldn’t afford to get out.  At least the news put her statement next to an alias.  But the rest of the neighborhood figured it out pretty quick when they used B-roll of her house for the coverage.  No one else had a lemon tree in their front yard.  Nobody said that’s how they figured it out, but Alice new. The neighborhood committee had been breathing down her neck for months about having a fruit tree against policy, but the complaints suddenly stopped after the news broadcast.  Then new ones started coming in.

Tony wouldn’t let her explain to Braydon where Coop and Brody were, or why he couldn’t play in the backyard anymore. He told him they were just staying at a friend’s house for a while and that he would be back eventually.  However, then he cried for being excluded.  He ended up sleeping with them in their bed for two weeks.  In that time, they’d bought black-out curtains and covered every window facing the backyard.  They had to black-out the car windows as well.  Down almost every side road on the way to the front gate there were clusters of the unmoving. Parents stuck in a permanent scream as they grabbed for their ignorantly smiling children.  Dogs forever licking their unresponsive master’s leg.  Birds hanging motionless in the air, casually spitting in the face of physics.  But after Braydon started sleeping in his own bed again, Tony took the curtain in their bedroom down.

“Don’t you want to be able to keep an eye on him?” he’d said.  She envied his optimism.  That night, she dreamt of Brody turning his head to watch them sleep.

~

Alice and Tony had sat outside with Brody and Coop a lot in those first couple weeks.  Usually they’d just read and pretend they were spending normal family outside time.  That was until she notices something dark around their feet.  Ants.  Thousands of them.  They had swarmed around Brody’s shoes and were freezing upon reaching his exposed legs. They made it further up Coop, his fur providing scaffolding.  The ants pooled and froze around his eyes.  Alize threw up.

~

Alice was shocked that book club was still happening, considering more than half its members couldn’t come anymore.  She’d been wondering recently if she had been too dismissive of Tony’s concerns.  At first, he’d accused her of not caring enough.  How could he have said that?  Of course she cared!  Was she not allowed to think about something other than her oldest son still frozen in the backyard for two hours?  He wouldn’t let her go out and get a job so they could save up to move because she needed to supervise Brayden.  Couldn’t she have this at least?  She just needed something to take her mind off of it for at least a moment.  It she didn’t, she’d probably lose it.  He just sighed.

“What if you don’t come back?”

“I will.  Promise.  Why don’t you spend some guy time with Braydon?”  And she kissed his cheek and left.  

They never did get to talking about the book. It was more of a group therapy session for people to vent their paranoia.  Not that it was unjustified, just not what Alice was looking forward to. Most of them were older women who lived alone.  When she spoke of who froze in her life, they berated her for talking about her dog in the same breath as her son.  It was just a pet, why would she even mention her dog when her son was still?  She couldn’t possibly be upset for both of them at the same time!  Then they found out Alice still lived with her husband and other son, they chastised her for not staying home and spending every moment she could with her family.  She regretted going.

~

Alice couldn’t remember if it was before or after the incident with book club, but it was around that time when the first vulture came. It was just one at first.  She saw it land on Coop while she was bushing her teeth.  She ran to the door, but was immediately thrown off by the wall of stink that greeted her when she opened it.  If anyone were to ask she’d swore she could physically feel it hitting her.  Only momentarily deterred, she plugged her nose and pressed on, but it was too late.  The vulture landed on Brody’s shoulder and tried to peck his ear, and stopped moving.  A puddle of ants surrounded his and Coop’s feet.  They completely obstructed Coop’s face.  It was the same for Brody, but with flies.  

It was as if the first vulture had crossed some sort of threshold, because after the first one came, other scavengers never stopped coming.  Alice managed to throw a tarp over Brody and Coop before they were completely covered. Tony had been against it at first, saying that his son wasn’t some old antique that you threw a dust blanket over. But then the swarms went after the birds frozen in midair.  Huge masses of interlocking bodies formed unaffected by gravity a few dozen feet from the ground.  One was just above the turn onto their street, and within a week of the first crow in was larger than their minivan.  Only then did Tony agree to the tarp.

~

Another week or so later, a baby carriage was abandoned on the sidewalk.  It wasn’t empty.

People lost it.  How dare someone leave their baby all alone?  It didn’t take people long to track down the mother.  Alice counted less than four days, but it could have been sooner.  She just knew that the four-day mark was when people started showing up at her house. The woman’s name was Carri Green. She’d said that while she was pushing the carrier, she suddenly couldn’t move it anymore.  She said she walked home crying.  The people who didn’t believe her outnumbered those who did. She was a young, single mother who had moved in just before the freezing started.  She didn’t have any friends and was apparently estranged from family, but one neighbor recalled a conversation where she said he’d had her baby too young. Clearly, this meant she must have left her baby to freeze on purpose.  

Alice had considered inviting her over to talk. She never made any solid plans, but she had considered it.  It didn’t matter though.  On day six, Carri reappeared next to her baby with her hand on its forehead.  The first known intentional suicide by freezing.  

People refused to put a tarp over her, saying she didn’t deserve it.  Someone tried to set one up a few times; they did it in the dead of night, so it was unclear if it was the same person each time.  Either way, each time someone else came and ripped the tarp off.  The last Alice saw, the mass had extended to cover half the street.

The consensus was that she should have frozen with her baby in the first place.  She was a single mother who had lost her only child.  What else did she have to live for?  Alice had seen some version of that comment on an article covering the incident.  She recognized the last name of the boy frozen in the street.

“If that’s the case, why are you still here?” Alice responded.

The next day, people woke up to the floating boy having been uncovered, his parents reaching out to hold either hand.  The world praised their martyrdom.

~

The book club disbanded soon after.  Every member but Alice had rejoined their families.  

~

Cars lined the streets again.  This time instead of research vehicles, it was random regular people.  A few went to the uncovered body masses and became a part of them.  Some would take off and fold their clothes first, others would lay down comfortably before extending a hand into the mass.  Every once in a while, someone would crawl under the tarp of one of the more famous piles.

The authorities came in to try and set up perimeters around the clusters.  Undeterred, the strangers started to just wander around the neighborhood, hoping to freeze.  A handful got what they wanted, and then others would rush to touch them before they could be covered and guarded.

Alice started going in the backyard again to make sure no one messed with Brody and Coop.  To her knowledge, no one ever tried.

~

Braydon and Tony froze about three months after Brody and Coop.  It was the afternoon before Braydon started school again.  The wind was blowing the smell from the backyard away, so they agreed to let him play in the front for a bit.  He had been climbing their lemon tree, but fell and never hit the ground. Tony had rushed to catch him and didn’t stop in time.  Alice just watched from her lawn chair.  Frozen, but not in the way they were.  

She went inside without a word to get a spare tarp. When she came back, a woman she didn’t know was putting her hands over Tony’s.  She was younger than Alice, incredibly thin, and was looking up at Tony longingly.  That was when Alice finally screamed.  The strange woman payed her no mind; Alice was never sure if she had been still at that point or if she had ignored her.  

Alice spent longer than she cared to admit trying to figure out how to cover up her husband and child but not the woman.  She had tears in her eyes the entire time. Eventually she gave up and stormed inside.  She didn’t stop crying until long after the sun had gone down.

When it came back up, it sent the long shadows of the new mass of corpses, Alice finally admitted to herself that’s what they were in that moment, across her bedroom.  It took a few hours, but she summoned enough strength to get up and set up the tarp around all three of them.

~

Alice wasn’t sure of the time frame anymore, but the feathers from the rotting scavengers covered the ground and blew in the wind like autumn leaves.  The bird cluster above the street corner was larger than a house and growing.  The neighborhood committee had preemptively put up a wooden tunnel over the road to block the growth.  The wind blew the smell too.  Facemasks to block out the scent became standard attire.  Some older kids started trying to get people to pay them to sweep up the debris.  They put flyers in Alice’s mailbox, but she never took them up on the offer.  What was the point?  There would always be more.  

But the kids put two and two together.  They saw the new tarp by her lemon tree, and spread the word.  Suddenly she had voicemails and messages on social media asking about Tony and Braydon. They asked her how she was going to pay for her house without Tony around, how she was going to fill her life with both her sons gone, and how had she resisted joining them?  Some were messages of encouragement, telling her to be strong and that she still had worth without her family.  They all assumed she was going to stay with them.

She handled it well enough until people started coming to tell her these things in person.  Most were strangers, but they knew where to find her from the lemon tree. She tried to turn them away, but they were persistent.  They weren’t aggressive like they had been with Carri, but that almost made it worse. They weren’t being mean, so she was in no place to snap at them.  Who knows how it could have been interpreted? Would they have switched to outright harassing her in droves like Carri until she froze?  Would they have even put a tarp over her?

~

She thought about these things as she lied in bed one morning.  Out the window to her left, she could see the silhouette of Tony and the mystery woman illuminated through the tarp.  To her right, Brody and Coop’s tarp, cast in the shadow of the house.  Alice didn’t want to go through the effort of putting shoes on, but knew she had to.  The smell hit her same as ever.  

Brody and Coop’s tarp was one of the oldest.  The original red had since faded into a light pink from the elements, and there were a few clusters of mold sprouting on the top.  Surrounding the base were a couple dozen smaller tarps and towels she and Tony had put down to cover up the ever-expanding lines of frozen bugs that branched out from beneath.  She’d have to periodically check out front for such expansions now too.  Then it occurred to her that she never explained to Braydon what happened to his brother and dog.

Alice knew she would regret what she was about to do, but she did it anyway.  She briefly went back inside to grab her gloves and a long-sleeve jacket.  He put a few larger towels down, just in case she fell.  Then she ripped off the main tarp.

~

She had been replaying the events leading up to this for a while now.  Things got a little less clear each go around.  She usually lost one or two little things at a time.  The names of the floating boy’s parents were one of the first big things to go.  Their names had been plastered everywhere, not to mention they were right in front of her now.  But Alice had tried to ignore them in the first place so she couldn’t say she was surprised.  The two of them had basically been the same entity in her mind, she hadn’t really been able to tell them apart.  

Ironically, it was even harder now, without their hair and skin they were indistinguishable from one another.  Greenish-grey flesh hugged the mostly exposed bones.  Insect carapaces floated some centimeters away, forming a clear outline of where their flesh used to be.  Alice wondered how many bugs must have pooled around their feet, but she couldn’t see them over the crumpled hood of her car.  She wondered what had touched her; she couldn’t feel any more and couldn’t move her eyes to look around.  Her fingers in front of her face had stopped bleeding some time ago, but they hadn’t quite started rotting yet.  The wounds were, however, almost completely covered in flies. The torn tarp that covered them had long since blown away and no one was coming to replace it anytime soon.  The sun was rising again, so she could see their faces.  Their eyes had rotted away, yet Alice wondered if they knew she was still there.