#i should write down the funny dream i had where it's revealed in chapter 3 that Jevil has a little nephew named Jonker.

[wasabikitcat]

Last night while dreaming I made the realization that I've seen fanart of Jevil reuniting with Seam, and I've seen fanart of Spamton becoming friends with Seam, so now I propose: Deltarune AU where everything is the same except instead of joining your party as an item, all the secret bosses go to live in Castle Town and join Seam's Gaster Victim Support Group™. As more secret bosses are recruited, Seam's Seap slowly grows à la Nook's Cranny in Animal Crossing and eventually they have a giant emporium run entirely by a tired cat and the like 6(?) fucked up little guys they've adopted.

[miyaniacs]

Mafia AU - Bokuto x fem!reader

A/n: uhmmm sorry for not updating ... i haven’t been motivated to continue this and then i did and forgot that i had this update lol... so here you are. The beginning of the downfall is here. Sooo Tbh it will Kinda depend on your responds to this chapter if it will take months for me to continue it - or days 🙇🏼‍♀️

Chapter 12 - A decision is made

Index ; masterlist ; Chapter 11 - The encounter

Warnings: uhhh... violence? Mentions of guns

Bokutos POV

Monday 12 am

I want to punish him. I want to hurt him the way he hurt her, by messing up her life.

He looks at Ushijima with hate filled eyes, his whole aura shifts when he sees his arrogant smirk.

Why is he so sure of himself?

Does he really think that he, Bokuto, wouldn’t beat the shit out of him, right here in his office?

“Oh and Bokuto - hope you have fun with that hoe.” Ushijima smirks and now Bokuto fully breaks.

“Call her a hoe one more time.” Bokuto hisses. Furious wasn’t enough to describe what he was feeling right now. He was boiling with pure hate, his fist was ready to collide with this arrogant face of the male in front of him. He was ready to sent him straight into the hospital, hell he was even ready to kill him right here.

The one thing that was holding him back was the fact that such a quick death would be way too ‘nice’. He needs to suffer, he wants to break him, makes him feel all the pain in the world. Slowly peeling the skin off his body, until he begs him to finally kill him.

“And what are you doing then? Huh? I’m just telling the truth. She would have went to bed with you straight away the first time you saw her, just to get close to you and get informations.”  Ushijimas face is now almost touching his, sparks flying, both ready to beat each other up. “That’s only because you’d force her to do so.”

He laughs again. What is so funny, was it all a joke to Ushijima? A joke that he ruined your life, forcing you to throw yourself at random man, just to get information out of them? And for what? A small amount of money, comparing to what Ushijima probably owns? Oh he has to deal with the consequences at some point, he has to ... feel the consequences.

He can already see him hanging on a wall, blood dripping off the several cuts on bis body, his arrogance long gone as he looks up at him with eyes, showing that Bokuto did it, that he broke him.

Suddenly he feels someone tugging on his arm and he spins around, taking a few seconds to understand that he is still im the office. The fire in his eyes burning up again as he sees the fearful look on your face. He wants to comfort you and ask what happened, but then the shook took over him. You’re afraid of him.

He takes a few steps back, giving you some room to breath.

He couldn’t talk to you, the knot in his throat hindering him from telling you how sorry he is. Bokuto is lost in his thoughts the whole way back to the car and during the drive.

He is filled with guilt.

He hates himself for showing you this side of him.

All he ever wanted was to be a save space for you, to make you feel home and at peace.

He never wanted you to feel fear when being with him.

He has to do something and he knows exactly what.

“Go inside, I have to discuss something with the boss.” He says without looking at you his eyes still fixed on the street.

“Kou�� let me explain… please.”

His heart breaks, you really feel the need to explain? To apologize? When he is the one that hurt you?

“Later.” He says way to cold for his own liking, but he couldn’t start crying now, even though he feels like it. He swallows the emotions that start to well up inside of him “I promise we talk later.” Placing his hands on your face he softens. You’re so beautiful.

He frowns when he sees small tears rolling down your cheeks.

No, why are you crying? He slightly starts panicking inside but tries to not show it. “Don’t cry my love.”

“I’m sorry.”  Here you go, apologizing for nothing, at last he doesn’t see a reason why your should apologize to him.

“No, don’t apologise. Non of this is your fault. I should have known better. You already told me how you’ve met Ushijima. It was my fault.”

Regret fills him up again.

Why was he so stupid?

He walked right into Ushijimas trap.

And now you were afraid of him.

He wasn’t good for you.

He wasn’t the right one for you.

The life he lives wasn’t one for you.

He had to get you out of this whole mess, you deserve so much better than this.

Even if that means, for him to leave your life completely.

He leans in for one last kiss.

“No. Don’t say anything. I promise you, you will never see me like this again. I can’t bear knowing that you’re afraid of me, even if it’s only a tiny little bit of you fearing me.” He mumbles before kissing you again. “Now please, get inside. And I hope to find you in one of my sweatshirts when I get back home.”

He hated lying to you.

But he had to.

“Okay, I can’t promise not to take your Vetements one tough.” You laugh and he smiles.

“Whatever I own is yours.”

My heart, my home, my car, my everything, he’ll make sure that you are save when he wasn’t with you anymore.

His cheerful smile dropped the second you were out of sight, he speeds through the city, not caring about the red lights or the other cars.

Monday 3 pm

“Sorry the Boss isn’t here right now.” One for the guards says.

Bokuto rolls his eyes and walks around in the empty office.

“What are you-“ the guard begins, “ I write him a note.” Bokuto huffs and scribbles something on a piece of paper.

“Make sure to keep Y/n save.”

He storms out of the building.

The Adlers really think they could simply tick him and the others? By putting Y/n in his life to spy on them? Are they really that desperate to involve such an innocent and pure soul as you into all of this?

The hate he felt for them just increased the more time he got to spent with you. Your pure soul lightens up his day, he smiles whenever he looks at you, his heart warms whenever he sees your smile, when he hears your laugh it’s the sweetest sound he has ever heard. All those days he got to spent with you for now, have been the best days of his life.

And how can such a beautiful person like you, work in such a dark world.

This isn’t a world that’s meant for you.

Sure he knows that you’re strong... but he isn’t stupid.

He can see that all of this is just a mask, you got used to this life, but it is not the life you wanted to be involved in. All your sarcasm, the cold look in your eyes, the raised eyebrow with that light smirk playing on you lips, whenever someone is saying something that could definitely get them into jail.

It is all an act.

And he knows that you know that he can see right through it.

Those nights he spent awake next to you, making sure to reassuring you that everything is alright and that he is right next to you, trying to keep all those nightmares away from you. He sees how you turn in your sleep, how your face frowns, he hears all those small no’s. And it breaks his heart whenever he feels your hands grabbing his shirt, clinging on him, burring your face in his chest while you whimper something only you can understand, your whole body shaking out of fear of whatever hunts you in your dreams.

Sure, you play tough, but he knows that deep inside your heart you want to leave all of this behind.

Enough was enough and he certainly had enough.

He takes his phone and type three small words before getting out of his car.

Opening up the trunk he pulled off the flooring revealing countless of guns and knifes.

It was a true old fashioned kamikaze mission, but he didn’t care.

Putting two of the small guns in the back of his pants, he grabs the loaded submachine gun in one hand, takes a deep breath and opens the door.

I’ll get you out of all of this, you’ll be able to live a normal life again, with or without me.

And he pulls the trigger, shooting the first guard.

Your POV

You stand in front of the big window, looking down at the passing people and cars, always looking out for one specific black one, but you couldn’t spot it. The longer you wait, the more restless you get, Bokuto was away for way too long now, he would have told you if it would take longer right?

So why haven’t he come back home now.

Your phone vibrates, before you could check it, you hear the door burst open.

“BOKUTO?!” You can hear Atsumu call out.

“Atsumu?” You walk over to him.

“Where is he?” The person next to him, Sakura asks.

“I was about to ask you the same thing, he dropped me off and told me he has something to do... but that was hours ago...” you mumble the next part, “ You... you don’t know where he is?”

“Does it look like we do?! The Boss is sending all of us out to find him!” Atsumu growls.

“Tell us everything that happened today.” Sakusa demands and you begin talking, describing the whole situation that happened with Ushijima and how Bokuto behaved slightly strange the way back to his.

The three of you stare at each other after you’ve finished and your attentions shifts to the TV.

“BREAKING NEWS - Countless of shots have been heard from the Casino, related to the infamous Adlers, we’re live - Cassie, what do you know?

‘ We all know nothing, civilians could all leave, all of them are talking about only one men, entering the building. The police is still clueless, but a few minutes ago, the shooting stopped and -“

“FUCK!” Atsumu screams and he and Sakusa run out of the door, “YOU STAY HERE!” He shouts before pulling out his phone already calling someone.

No. No. No no no. This can’t be real.

Your mind is racing while you collect your things and rush out of the apartment.

If there is one small chance that Bokuto is still alive, you have to take it, you had to save him at all costs. Even if it means breaking his heart and revealing everything... you just have to everything you can.

Looking down at your phone, you remember the message you got.

From: Bokuto

Please remember that I will always love you.

@tendouthighs ,  @lilacshouko​@softhourswithseb​ ​@theperksofcoffee ​@cuddlesslut @shhhlikeme​​, @kynyta​​ @yammmers​  @asahi-is-jesus-periodt​​ @hxnni-bxnni​​ @theduvetpirate​​ @chromaticstudio​​@gywjd0131​​​ @haikyuusimp91​​​ @kara-grayson04 @saucysamu​​ @brokeyiam​ ​

[warsofasoiaf]

Character Analysis: Jon Irenicus

Irenicus is a fun villain, and I think nailed one interesting element of writing down, that of bringing down the villain’s threat in an interesting and believable way. The hero typically grows in power in any story, not just in a game where your progression is literally your XP, but what the villain does, how they grow, is also interesting. If the villain is more powerful than the hero, and also does things to grow and learn, theoretically the villain should still be wrecking house. BG2 wove this into the story itself, where the more you learned about Irenicus, the less menacing he became, culminating into where he was arguably your lesser at the end: he was powerful but only aping what you were. 

Obviously, spoilers for BG2 abound.

Baldur’s Gate II introduces us to our villain almost as a cold open. Fresh off the high of defeating Sarevok, you leave Baldur’s Gate after being pressured to leave by “dark forces” and by those who suspected that you shared similar heritage to Sarevok. Seems a bit odd, honestly, to oust the Bhaalspawn with suspicion given that during the course of Baldur’s Gate I, you saved two of the Grand Dukes. It’s certainly understandable that folks would fear your heritage and you’d want to move on to greener pastures, but something more than a 3-minute cut scene would have probably set the scene better.

However, this opening, and the ‘cutscene’ that follows gives Irenicus a grand initial reveal to the player. This guy is an ultra-powerful wizard, and he speaks with a clinical detachment as he states: “It’s time for more experiments.” It’s a wonderful opening to illustrate exactly what you’re dealing with. He’s clearly interested in your godly soul, and exploiting it to some unknown purpose. What is unknown, as he gets called away by some unspecified intruders by a golem. In the next scene, magical traps are set off as an unspecified Shadow Thief gets disintegrated. Story-wise, this serves no purpose, it’s purely meant to be a way to show off the new spell effects and other cosmetic changes to the engine from Baldur’s Gate II, with the disintegration dust and the screen shaking. But it does help illustrate the power level that Irenicus is throwing around. Save-or-die spells were relatively rare in the lower level of Baldur’s Gate I, even Semaj, Sarevok’s mage companion, wasn’t firing off disintegration willy-nilly. Throwing around disintegration spells clearly shows that Irenicus is a new high-level baddy. Later we see that he killed characters from Baldur’s Gate I off-screen, Khalid and Dynahier, two of the three sets of paired companions from BG1. This gives their partners reason to join in with the player character, but it also serves to show his power; Irenicus is such a bad dude that he can wipe your party before the game starts, like he was getting coffee. It might be a cruel cut, but that’s its intent, to make the player character mad at the villain, to want to punch his smarmy face in.

Commensurate in the danger of Irenicus is the need to find out what’s going on. Irenicus clearly knows something about your godly soul and so you want to find out what he knows. Even for an upstanding lawful good character, growing in power means finding a way to effect good on a larger scale, and perhaps to overcome the evil in your tainted blood. After all, no matter how good you were in Baldur’s Gate I, you still were an incredibly powerful killer. Sure, most if not all of them were bad dudes, Mulahey the iron ore poisoner, the bandits of Cloakwood, the Iron Throne and their plans to take over the Sword Coast. But chaos and destruction follow in your wake, and that chaos undoubtedly would hurt innocent civilians; Saradush in Throne of Bhaal is clear of that enough. Even just knowing more about what is going on could better prepare you for the next Irenicus or the next Sarevok.

When you go through the starter dungeon (another piece of game design, you are being tutorialized but the pastoral instruction of Candlekeep makes no sense for someone who already had an adventure), pieces of the man start to fall into place. He holds a bunch of captive dryads as concubines to remind him of someone he lost. He keeps an immaculate bedroom for a companion that is never there, with an alarm ready to dispatch the golems to kill any who cross the threshold. There’s a woman that was in his life that is no longer there, and the loss pains him, or at least, it seems that it should. Chatter with Imoen and the dryads show that this mystery man is trying to elicit feelings that he had lost, and that’s an entirely different case of worms than pining over a lost love. There’s some element of almost-unwilling psychopathy to these actions. Other hints in this dungeon illustrate this as well. His servants, discarded in vats and forgotten about entirely, would at first evoke classical evil overlords casually disregarding their own subjects. He’s almost all of the way there, but there’s enough there that the player is suggested that there has to be something more to it than that. He does seem to have some sort of sociopathy to him, where people are objects that he can find fascinating but he has no empathy. We see this later with Wanev, who Irenicus spares solely because he was hit by a spell that left him a lunatic, which Irenicus found funny, the administrator of a jail for the insane now rendered an insane patient himself.

He is powerful though, that much is clear when you break out of the starter dungeon. His display of magic collapsed part of Waukeen’s Promenade, and when the regulatory magical body of the Cowled Wizards comes to shut it down, Irenicus is capable of swatting mages like they were mosquitos. Just like the Shadow Thieves that he had been fighting, Irenicus seems more annoyed at the interruptions than any physical threat posed by his myriad foes. He’s definitely a powerful wizard, and when he finally submits to the Cowled Wizards, he does so clearly as their superior, dragging Imoen along with him. It’s fairly plain from a game design perspective what Irenicus is doing; he’s going to Spellhold so you have to get there. Good characters want to rescue Imoen, evil characters want to interrogate him to unlock the power in your blood. Either way, the player character is given a goal, and Irenicus disappears physically from the story for the moment.

He isn’t absent though. In your dreams, Jon Irenicus waxes philosophical at the player character, evoking thought-provoking questions. He explains the paradox of your existence of being born of murder, given life from the act of taking life. He speaks about accepting the gifts that will be given to you, regardless of whether or not you want them. These dream sequences are clear upgrades in quality and presentation from the spoken-dialogue text boxes from the first game after you beat major milestones. David Warner does a great job here in delivering Irenicus’s lines, he feels like a evil mentor speaking about philosophical topics with the same detachment that he tortured the player character with in the opening. While we find out later that these dreams aren’t sendings from Irenicus but rather parts of your character’s godly subconscious, they suggest to the player going through Chapter 3 that Irenicus does indeed know a hell of a lot more about you and your godly blood, keeping the player interesting in finding out exactly what it is you need to find out. The other quests in Chapter Three don’t have much to do with Irenicus, aside from some random events with the guild war in Athkatla at night, where the player will find out pretty quick that one side is powered by vampires, the level drain and click-dialogue of “your blood is rather inviting” isn’t exactly hiding that there be vampires engaged in a secret war with the Shadow Thieves. Even then, it’s tangential. You knew the Shadow Thieves were attacking Irenicus, which suggests at least some level of camaraderie with the vampires, but as we saw with the deep dwarves in Irenicus’s lair, he doesn’t care about followers, and they might simply be disposable assets if anything at all. If you want to know about Irenicus, you’re going to have to get it from the man himself. 

Of course, as befits a high-level mage, Irenicus breaks out of the prison in a cutscene, kills the Cowled Wizards and goes back to whatever unsavory plans he thought up for Imoen, teleporting into the lobby and chewing the scenery with his “I CANNOT BE CAGED!” speech, reinforcing his position as the central big bad and confirming the Cowled Wizards as mere obstacles. This part of his plan has been made clear. Far from the meddling Shadow Thieves and Cowled Wizards, Irenicus can continue his experiments on Imoen in Spellhold, and it falls on the player character to go there and end it. Irenicus, of course, knows this too, and he makes sure he has contingency plans to deliver you to him. I’m of three minds on this. On one, he’s so powerful it seems that he is so powerful, and Amn so large, that plenty of these isolated areas within the continent would service just as well for Irenicus’s lair. Why waste time with all of this blah-blah-blah and just take what he wants? It’s not like teleport spells are beyond his ken. On the other hand, it’s a good way to break up into the freeform quest design that Chapter Three gives, offers the chance for your characters to level up and get cool gear, lets you rock the stronghold quests which definitely let you feel your class and increase replay value, and the idea of the forbidding wizard in the island lair is an excellent backdrop. On the third, it’s in-character for an immortal mage to have plans within plans, even to the point of complexity addiction, although his conduct afterward sort of torpedoes this idea. 

That is, after he recaptures you, he immediately goes back to work to his experiments, and after another trippy dream sequence with Imoen, you find his plan. His goal is to absorb your divine soul, taking it for his own. He doesn’t explain anything more, but now that he has you, he discards you just as he has so many others. Telling his sister Bodhi to dispose of you is what keeps him from being someone like the Riddler, since he’s actually going for a proper smart villain play and killing the soulless husk he leaves behind just in case he pulls a protagonist move and comes clawing back for his stolen soul. It’s Bodhi’s instability, her desire to hunt you brought on by her vampirism, that keeps you alive. After the player character becomes the Slayer, Bodhi tells Irenicus, but true to his condescending nature, he simply...ignores the PC, writing them off as someone who is going to keel over any second due to their lack of soul, completely oblivious to the fact that Bhaal’s avatar was the Slayer, and it’s clear that something is replacing the void that he left within you. The PC must effectively turn that dismissiveness against him, by releasing the imprisoned mages within Spellhold, from the powerful but mostly harmless Dili to the megalomaniacal Tiax. Yet this hard-fought battle does not end with Irenicus’s death and your victory, instead Irenicus goes to pursue his other, as-yet unknown goals while he sends another band of cutthroats to die at your hand. 

Yoshimo is sort of my feelings on this Irenicus’s Spellhold plot writ small. As powerful as Irenicus is, he really doesn’t need Yoshimo, not if he has Sarmon Havarian and so many others. Yoshimo shows up in the starter dungeon, and is useful if a bit obsequious in a “who me?” sort of fashion. He doesn’t have a really good reason to stay with the party from a story reason that he gives you. He could have said: “Hey, thanks for getting me out. Deuces!” Yoshimo’s geas gets him to want to stay with the party, otherwise he’s dead. In that sense, it makes sense for him to want to be with the group. And as the only thief who gains levels aside from the absolutely annoying Jan Jansen, he’s useful for dealing with annoying traps, because reloading a game because your main PC tripped a trap and got petrified is certainly frustrating. Game mechanics though, interfere with this. You as the player character have control over the six-person party and if you want Yoshimo to be there, he’ll be there, and if you don’t, he’ll sit in the Copper Coronet, geas be damned. He’ll stand right there until you go back in after the Underdark chapter, in which case he flops over dead and hardly anyone cares. That’s a system engine limitation certainly, but it’s remarkably clumsy. What is good though, is Yoshimo’s regret during this. He knows he has to betray you and is forced to do so, and he genuinely likes you. The writing that happens is crisp, Yoshimo truly does apologize and Irenicus backs up his dismissive assholery by telling him to shut up. When Yoshimo confronts you in Spellhold, his writing is crisp. “No redemption, and no second chances. My heart to Ilmater.” He fights you and goes down swinging (which was annoying the first time I played because he had the Celestial Fury +3). And you can actually take that heart to Ilmater, occupying a valuable inventory space through the next chapters until you can reach Waukeen’s Promenade again, where you can choose to forgive him or not, but give the heart to Ilmater either way. It would have been saccharine to restore Yoshimo, but this way, I feel, is more powerful in a world with such powerful enchantments to see the effects on the people whose lives it ruins. So the game can be clunky at parts, and Irenicus can be as well, but there’s true craft and joy in it.

Back to Irenicus though, we get the sense of more to him when we see the intro splash screen for the next Chapter. Making a dark bargain with the drow, we see that they have captured surface elves, one of whom immediately refers to Irenicus as Joneleth, suggesting a backstory far deeper as Irenicus immediately resorts to killing the prisoner after being the one to suggest interrogation instead of immediate execution, a lashing out that seems out of character for the clinically-detached evil villain we’ve been coming to know. The backstory is clear in the Forgotten Realms, the dark elves and surface elves are mortal foes and anyone who is known to the surface elves to ally with the dark elves is a great betrayal. As the PC goes through the Underdark and comes out, they are captured by the surface elves. Through a conversation with Eldoth, it can become evident that the surface elves know more than they are letting on, such as when they are the ones who suggest holy water and stakes to fight Bodhi, despite not knowing anything about either one of them. After you slay Bodhi and restore Imoen’s soul to its rightful place, you can call Eldoth out on it. Irenicus is “the Shattered One,” an exile of the elves, and it’s here that Irenicus’s story becomes apparent.

Irenicus was a powerful wizard and lover of Queen Ellesime named Joneleth. Yet in his heart, Joneleth yearned for more power and sought to take the essence of the Tree of Life, the lifeblood of the city of Suldanesselar, for himself and Bodhi. This dark ritual nearly killed many that existed within Suldanesselar, and so Joneleth and Bodhi were punished, stripping their elven nature and immortality away from them, leaving them with a mortal lifespan, thus Joneleth became Jon Irenicus, the Shattered One. Bodhi sought to become a vampire to transgress the mortal years she had, but Jon had felt that it degraded her to that of a high-functioning beast. Irenicus’s scheme was far more grandiose if also possessing an elegant simplicity: he lost an immortal soul and so he needed to take one for himself. The Bhaalspawn was the perfect choice, powerful enough to defeat Sarevok and awaken the power within, weak enough to be captured and have the divine soul snatched away. With his stolen soul freshly acquired, Irenicus now looked to the second part of himself, to revenge himself on the elves. The dark elf invasion ultimately failed, helped out by the PC butchering the leadership of Ust Natha, but Irenicus is still going with golems and summoned demons to destroy the city, usurp the power of the Tree of Life, and complete his long ago schemes. 

I... I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory, but it is gone... a hollow, dead thing. For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory. And then nothing. The Seldarine took that from me, too. I look upon you and feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me, along with all the others. Once my thirst for power was everything. And now I hunger only for revenge. And I... WILL... HAVE IT!!

When confronted by Queen Ellesime, she even asks if there was any part of him that remembered the love he had for her, and the PC sees that it’s her that was in his mind for the beautiful bedroom way back in chapter one. It was almost certainly her that Irenicus thought of when he was with his dryad concubines. And when she poses that question, he answers with the above quote, that he feels nothing. While it seems like this is a loss of depth, that he’s just a flat character, I don’t think this is the case. Irenicus had the chance to change, for self-reflection. Instead, he remembers it as all the others turning their back on him, without any recognition that his schemes nearly killed them. It’s the classic abuser mentality, how dare you make me do these things to you. When his victims tried to defend themselves, he lashed out and remembers only their ‘cruelty’ to him. It’s this that makes Irenicus, for all his great arcane might, so small. Where before he was this intimidating figure, now he’s a petty man, and fittingly, it’s here that you can kill him. Temporarily, at least, because there’s still one more dungeon. Irenicus and you are still battling for your divine soul, and after a few self-reflective quests of your own, you duel Irenicus, who dies pitiably, torn to shreds by demons as his power fails him. It fits the heroic and thematic heft of the arc. As you grow in power, Irenicus diminishes in threat. He was your torturer, an inhuman menace, then he became just a man, torn apart by tiny demons that you probably could take down by the truckload. 

There’s good things to learn here. Irenicus isn’t a super-unique villain, although some of the villain tropes are personalized for the sake of the Baldur’s Gate story specifics. But he does his job admirably. David Warner’s voice work, and the special effects (pretty good for when the game came out in 2000) really was able to sell Irenicus as an enjoyable villain. 

Thanks for the suggestions, Anons who were looking forward to this.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[crystalirises]

The Exiled and The Forgotten

Hello! So this is a fic about Tommy and Fundy just talking about their issues in Drywaters. Essentially, this is part of a series of one-shots where Eret and Fundy find Tommy in exile and they take him to Drywaters to heal. This is a continuation of ‘Safe and Sound’ (which I think posted before on Tumblr?) and ‘You Reap What You Sow’ (which is on my ao3 one-shot book since I haven’t gotten the permission to crosspost here on Tumblr.) You should probably read those two first before understanding this one.

TW:  Abandonment Issues, Implied Cheating (not really but Fundy thinks so, I don't write about actual cheating I just can't ;-;). and Mentions of Suicide and Suicidal Thoughts (Tommy pls ;-;)

Pls stay safe everyone!

ao3 link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28886223/chapters/74251095

Fundy didn’t know how long he had been out, but it was the distinct smell of smoke and meat burning that made his eyes snap open. The hallway was dark, save for a small sliver of light that came from beneath the kitchen door. He yawned, wiping at his eyes as the world slowly focused into view. It took him a moment to realize that he was on the floor, a tattered blanket draped over him as though to keep away the chill of the night that seeped into the thin walls of the house. He forced himself to sit, startling awake as he realized that he must have fallen asleep while waiting for Dream to leave. Dream to leave… Dream… Dream had been there… Tommy…

Tommy! Fundy flung the closet door open, heart pounding in his chest as he found it to be empty. He took a deep breath, the smoke strong in the air as if… Fundy stood up, the blanket left discarded on the ground as he made his way to the kitchen, nearly tearing the door off its loose hinges in his haste to get there. A strong and sickening torrent of heat attacked him, choking as he tried to bat the gray smoke away from his face. “Tommy! Tommy! Tommy, where the fuck一”

“WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SHOUTING AT THREE IN THE MORNING?!” Fundy jumped at the response, coughing and wheezing as he moved away from the direction of the smoke. 

As the smoke began to clear, Fundy saw Tommy standing by the poorly made table, two smoking plates of steak - if they could be called that - on top of it. Tommy had an exasperated look on his face, as if Fundy was being hysterical for no reason. “Tommy, why are you cooking at 3 AM?”

“I couldn’t sleep, and you told me not to leave the closet until Dream left. He left an hour ago. Honestly, man. I don’t know what you ever saw in that psychopath.” Fundy rolled his eyes, not ready to continue that point of conversation. He wasn’t sure if his heart could take it. The fox hybrid eyed the meat that was on the table, surprised that Tommy had even thought about making him food. Well, the meat looked awful and burnt to a fucking crisp but Fundy wasn’t going to say that outloud. “Are you going to keep standing there or are you going to sit and eat?”

“I would but… eh… I usually eat when the sun is up.” As if to emphasize his point, a yawn escaped him as Fundy settled on sitting against the creaky window ledge. Tommy shrugged, turning towards his meal. Fundy tried not to wince as Tommy began to eat. “Nightmares?”

“What fucking else? How the fuck could you sleep with Dream threatening to bash your door in? I couldn’t sleep a wink.” Fundy ran a hand through his hair, sighing as guilt ate at his heart. Tommy was right, he wasn’t sure how he’d fallen asleep. He forced himself to stand, moving to sit next to Tommy in some semblance of comfort. Fundy wasn’t really sure how to comfort someone after a nightmare. No one ever showed him how. He spared a glance at the teenager, shivering as he noticed soot clinging to Tommy’s shirt sleeve. “You know I think it was good that you found me. We both know Dream could’ve broken down the door if he really wanted to. Guess that’s what you get for being on his good side. He doesn’t act like a bitch around you.”

“Can we talk about something else? I’d rather not discuss my ex-fiance and the many reasons why he didn’t just smash my door.” They settled into an uncomfortable silence, but it wasn’t unnatural. Ever since Fundy and Eret brought Tommy to Drywaters, there has been an atmosphere of awkwardness and tension that permeated the air. Fundy couldn’t recall the last time he had even spoken to Tommy, the memories of tragedy and war muddling whatever positive moments he’d had in the past years. When was the last time they’d had a proper talk? When Tommy had mocked him in Pogtopia or when Tommy had publicly disowned him and threatened him during the elections? When did ‘uncle Tommy’ slowly change into just ‘Tommy’? Fundy couldn’t recall. “When you were in exile… what did you… you never told me一”

“Can we talk about something else? I’d rather not discuss my ex-fiance and the many reasons why he didn’t just smash my door.” They settled into an uncomfortable silence, but it wasn’t unnatural. Ever since Fundy and Eret brought Tommy to Drywaters, there has been an atmosphere of awkwardness and tension that permeated the air. Fundy couldn’t recall the last time he had even spoken to Tommy, the memories of tragedy and war muddling whatever positive moments he’d had in the past years. When was the last time they’d had a proper talk? When Tommy had mocked him in Pogtopia or when Tommy had publicly disowned him and threatened him during the elections? When did ‘uncle Tommy’ slowly change into just ‘Tommy’ ? Fundy couldn’t recall. “When you were in exile… what did you… you never told me一”

“It was during Manburg when I first met him.” Tommy fell into shocked silence, and Fundy took that as a sign to continue. “I don’t remember much about that day, but I know that I was upset. So, like I usually fucking do, I ran away to the forest until I collapsed by a lake… He was there.”

Fundy ignored Tommy muttering underneath his breath and continued with the story, “Ya know I thought he was going to kill me but he surprisingly left the moment I got there. So, I kept coming to the lake each time I was upset and he was always there, staring into nothing like the idiot he is.” He wished he could keep the amusement and endearment out of his voice, but he couldn’t help but remember the man that he’d fallen in love with. “One day, he decided to stay long enough to ask why I always looked upset each time I went near the lake, and it was stupid of me to tell him but… all I ever wanted was for someone to care enough to ask. So I told him why.”

“Horrible decision, really. 0/10 shouldn’t have done that.” Fundy nearly laughed as Tommy scoffed, rolling his eyes that they were practically disappearing into his skull. “You could’ve chosen anyone but you chose the green boi. I’m not fucking surprised, you got Wilbur’s tastes in people. Should’ve taken lessons from me, big man. I’m a fucking expert in people.”

“Sure, you are. Is that why you’re still single?”

“Oh shut the fuck up, furry.” Fundy found himself cackling at the nickname, somehow not as irritated as he should be at 3 AM in the morning where he was usually ready to just kill anyone who decided it would be funny to wake him from his slumber. “Go on. Tell me about how you fell in love with Dream of all people. I won’t judge your tastes, but they’re clearly fucked.”

“Whatever, Tommy. I told him. It was hard, do you know how painful it was to pretend to be someone I wasn’t? To act like I hated my own dad, to be hated by everyone all for a part that ultimately never even gave me anything? Dream was so nice about it too… he listened. He actually listened. He didn’t mock me or ridicule me or insult me… he just listened. I know. I know. I shouldn’t have revealed what I was to an enemy, but I just… someone had to know. I needed to tell someone.” Tommy had remained disturbingly quiet as Fundy spoke, his lips pressed into a thin line. “And he understood, at least that’s what he told me. He said he knew how I felt. He knew my pain and it was so easy . It felt like it was meant to be and I… I fell, hard. He knew what it felt like. He knew my pain and it was felt so good and so real that I一”

Fundy hadn’t meant to cry, or let out a whimper. He quickly tried to wipe his tears away. Gods, he was supposed to be the fucking adult here. Fundy felt a hand pat him on the back, an awkward gesture that helped Fundy cement himself back to reality. He sniffed, casting Tommy a smile. “I proposed. We were supposed to be married in a few weeks… guess I have to cancel the wedding invitations and preparations. I feel… stupid. I clung to the one person I thought… fuck it.”

“You could have talked to us. You had Niki. You had Eret. Why Dream?”

“I had no one, Tommy. In Manburg, I was alone.” Fundy ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the tips as his tail curled around his waist. “And I… I thought he understood. I really thought…”

Fundy took a shaky sigh, recalling the signs that he should have seen. “You probably said it to cheer me up but Dream doesn’t love me. I don’t think he ever did looking back on it now.” He felt the urge to curl into himself, to pull his knees closer to his chest and just bury his face in his arms. He glanced over at Tommy, a frown playing on the teenager’s lips. Fundy couldn’t bring himself to act childish, not around Tommy. “I should have seen the fucking signs. The way he wanted to keep us a secret, the way he never even looks at me when we meet in public, the way he had chosen to spend all of his time protecting George. It was always fucking George. It was so fucking stupid of me to even think that he cared. Slip of the tongue, what a fucking joke. Those flowers were always meant for George. It’s never me, Tommy. No one ever chooses me.”

“George?! Dream… what the fuck. I’m going to kill that son of a bitch一 How fucking… No one messes with the fucking Soots!” Fundy forced a laugh, hoping that his tears weren’t showing as he turned towards Tommy - who had forgotten about his steak, much to Fundy’s relief cause Tommy needed better food than that. Tommy’s eyes were narrowed, his hands gripping the edge of his seat. Fundy smiled, even if he knew that Tommy’s bravado and threats were nothing but for show. Tommy only cared about him because Fundy was protecting him. Once Dream was no longer a threat, Fundy would go back to being forgotten. As it should be一 “Hey! Stop that! I can see the self-pity in your eyes, stop it! You shouldn’t be this fucking sad... I mean, don’t be sad!”

“I’m not sad.” He rolled his eyes, tail lifting and falling as Fundy looked down at his boots. “It’s fine, Tommy. I get it. I’m okay with it. We barely even care about each other as it is. I’m not一”

“Going to lie to yourself? Yeaahhhhhhhhh, I can read you like a damn book, big man. You aren’t getting anything past Tommyinnit.” Fundy shook his head, conflicted on how he should feel by it all. Tommy was acting like his old self and he felt guilty at doing a shitty job as a caretaker. Fundy was supposed to be helping Tommy, not the other way around. “HEY! STOP IGNORING WHAT I’M SAYING AND LISTEN! I’m not just gonna… fuck off once this whole thing is over. Hell no. We’re all gonna be living in L’Manburg, every single one of us. One big fucked up family. We might even get Technoblade back if we convince him to break up with anarchy.”

There’s a smile on his face, Fundy can tell despite the ache in his chest. For a moment, he feels like a little kid again, looking up at his - at the time - taller uncle. He had been embarrassed, being older than Tommy but still somehow less mature. And now… he was tired. “Promise?”

Tommy scoffed, reaching out to smack him on the back of the head. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Fundy laughed at that. It was the same response that Tommy had given him all those years ago. The war was just beginning at the time, and Fundy had been frightened that he had decided to dig himself a little fox mound to hide in. Wilbur had tried everything in his power to get him out, but Fundy had refused to leave… until Tommy showed up and jokingly mocked him for being a baby and to “get out and fight like the man Fundy was”. What got him to leave was Tommy promising him that they’d all be alive by the end, that “uncle Tommyinnit was going to beat everyone and win the war for us!” Tommy always did have a way of making everyone feel hope.

“Thanks. Sorry for一” Fundy stopped as Tommy casted him a glare. He had nothing to apologize for… wow, that’s a first. He shook his head, trying to clear any negative feelings he may still harbor. There were many problems to be spoken about, and they both couldn’t say everything in one night. “Well, you’ve heard my shitty life problems… You don’t have to talk about yours, Tommy. What you went through, it’s a lot. I understand if you can’t really talk about it yet一”

“WELL TOO BAD BECAUSE FUCK YOU, I’M TELLING THE STORY, BITCH!” Fundy groaned as Tommy practically threw himself on top of the table, the plates rattling and nearly falling off the edge if Fundy had reached out to grab them. The table shook as Tommy began to pace on top of it, his energy a little too much than what Fundy could handle for a 3 AM talk. He leaned back, ears pressed to the top of his head as Tommy finally settled on sitting on top of the table, facing Fundy with a grin on his face. Fundy frowned, noticing how Tommy’s smile didn’t quite match the look in his eyes. It felt like Tommy was putting on an act, and Fundy knew all about acts and pretending. “Now, I’m a big man, you know? I can handle myself! I’m Tommyinnit! But… this exile, wow, it uh… it sucked bigtime. I fucking hated every moment.”

A somber look appeared on Tommy’s face, guilt appearing in eyes that had seen too much of the world despite Tommy’s youth. Fundy bit his bottom lip, knowing that look far too well. “I fucked up. I get that. I fucked up and I said shitty things to Tubbo when all he was doing was looking out for everyone. Selfish… Maybe… Maybe I was selfish. We had peace and I screwed it up because… for some discs?” Fundy felt a pang in his chest as Tommy raked a hand through his hair, shaking and pulling as though trying to make sense of it all. “I missed him. I missed L’Manburg, sure but I missed Tubbo. The thought of seeing him again kept me going because my exile had to end sometime and then I could go back and see Tubbo again. The thought of going home again kept me sane… at least it was holding me back from… from…” Tommy began to tremble, fear flashing in the teen’s eyes as his breath began to quicken in pace.

"You don't have to say it, Tommy. If you're not ready to say it, then you don't have to." Fundy reached out to tap Tommy on the arm, breaking him out of his panic as he looked around the room, as if cementing himself back to reality. Fundy's tail hung low, sad to see that Tommy was still suffering even if he did try so hard not to show it. Fundy didn't like seeing Tommy so… scared. "You can… tell me another day, ya? It's difficult, I get that. Maybe you can tell me one day, but maybe not today. You don't have to force yourself, you have every right not to talk about it. Tommy—"

"I want to. I want to get it off my chest because who the fuck else is going to listen to me?" Tommy snapped, rubbing a hand at his mouth as his eyes shut tight. Fundy wasn't sure if it would help but he reached to hold Tommy's hand, squeezing it. Tommy didn't let go, his hold tightening around Fundy's as his eyes finally blinked open. "I… I wanted it to be over. I wanted it to be so fucking over that I… I thought of… leaving. Just leaving, one final goodbye to the world. All it would have taken was one step off the platform. The lava looked so inviting, so warm and Logstedshire felt so fucking lonely and cold I— I wanted to go. Dream fucking stopped me but I doubt he did that out of the goodness of his heart. He said he cared about me too, about how he was the only one who cared about me… Fundy, how is Tubbo? Does he? Does he miss me? Dream said Tubbo didn't care, he was lying, right? Tubbo missed me, right?!"

"Tommy. I don't what the fuck Dream told you but Tubbo missed you. He didn't want to exile you, you know that." Fundy felt that Tommy needed more than assurance, needed more than words to quench his fears. He stayed where he was, unsure if Tommy would even want a hug from Fundy of all people. For the time being, all he could say were what he hoped would help Tommy realize that Dream had lied. His blood boiled at the thought of Dream wondering what he had done wrong, how could that idiot be so fucking stupid? Tommy was hurting and Dream continued to rub salt into his wounds. He shivered, wondering what would have happened if he and Eret hadn't found Tommy. Gods… would Tommy have been— Fundy felt sick at the thought of having another ghost haunt L'Manburg. "When you left, Tubbo threw himself into his work. He barely went out of that stupid office and he just kept planning and planning. He never said it out loud but everyone knew he missed you. He's… he's not doing so great either, ya know? I think it would be good if you two meet up! Oh! I could bring him over to Drywaters sometime… We could go to L'Manburg but I don't trust Dre— Dream enough that he wouldn't send or stay near Drywaters for a while. But, whatever. Fuck Dream. We're… we're going to plan a good ol' reunion. That would be good, ya? We could do that, right?"

"Yeah… that would be fucking great… AND OF COURSE TUBBO MISSED ME. FUCKING DREAM AND HIS LIES." Tommy jumped off from the table, nearly sending the plates to the ground, again. Fundy laughed, weak and almost pitiful in his ears as he looked over at Tommy's smile. It felt so surreal about how Tommy could still remain smiling despite everything he had just been through. "One day, I'm gonna beat the shit out of that fucker—"

Tommy paused, gaze snapping towards the curtain-covered windows. There was a worry in his sky blue eyes, a terror that was gone just as quickly as it had come. "That bitch better not be out there or I'm gonna kill him myself. Yeahhhhhhhh, I could do that. Show him what happens when you mess with Tommyinnit and his fucking family. How dare he…" Tommy began to tap his foot against the floor, anger burning in his eyes as he continued to rant.

"Tommy… are you okay? Are you okay now?" Fundy hadn't missed the way Tommy had glossed over the whole… he had wanted to give up. He couldn't help but fear what pain Tommy had through. Fundy wanted to cry, wanted to cry for both of them when Tommy refused to do so for himself. He couldn't help but move closer, wanting nothing more than to just hug his uncle until both of them felt somewhat better."Did you… Did you really want to?"

"I did. I was just so tired, so alone and stuck that I didn't know what the fuck I was supposed to do. I was exiled from my own country and I screamed and kicked the whole time. Tubbo… I hurt him. I hurt a lot of people. Fuck, I hope I didn't cause Ranboo problems since he tried to defend me. I—" Tommy took a deep breath, finally collapsing back into his seat, exhaustion in his gaze as he rubbed his hand on his mouth. Fundy moved a bit closer, hesitating before finally placing a hand on Tommy's shoulder. It wasn't a hug… neither of them were really good with giving those anyway. It was either Tubbo or Wilbur who started them and it was always Fundy or Tommy who would quickly pull away. "Thank you. I'm happy to know that he isn't mad at me, I wouldn't fucking blame him. I was a dick. I'd like… I'd like to see him again. Maybe plan ahead for whatever awful shit Dream wants to do."

“Ya… I’m sorry about what you had to go through.” Fundy patted him on the back, Tommy scoffing at the awkward display of assurance… but it was the best they both could do. Tommy patted his hand in return. “Dream’s gonna pay for that, he has to pay for that.”

“I just want to go home.” Tommy sighed, closing his eyes. “I just want—”

“You’ll see L’Manburg again, Tommy. Not today, not tomorrow but someday. I’ll make sure of that.” Fundy wished that they could leave right then and there, but he couldn’t risk it. Not with Dream still out there, waiting and plotting. “You’ll be home again. You’ll be happy again.”

Tommy hummed a low tune beneath his breath, a habit that reminded Fundy of Wilbur. 

After a moment, Tommy finally looked up, a hint of tears in his eyes. “Promise?”

“Ya…” Fundy wasn’t the best protector, but by the gods was he going to try.

“I promise.”

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But ye, hope you guys like this! Bye bye!

[spicycreativity]

Fanfic Appreciation Week Day 7: A Place Where I Can Breathe

Yes, folks, I'm appreciating my own darn fanfic for the final day of Fanfic Appreciation Week because I worked really hard on it and it was a labor of love for/with one of my QPPs, my roommate, the man who got me into Sanders Sides: @\cadeorade-powercade (That's him in the aesthetic board)

Allow me to present the director's commentary for A Place Where I Can Breathe:

Content Warnings: All content warnings mentioned in the fic apply.

Chapter 1: I actually wrote this fairly late in the game. It's meant to serve as a prologue and orient the viewer in the universe, s opposed to staring on Chapter 2, which just throws the viewer in without context. I think it was a good choice, as it also allowed me to introduce the concept of the Sides having power focuses early on.

The Premise: Cade is a Virgil stan and he was getting frustrated looking for Virgil fic. He was finding a lot of stuff written without nuance by young authors, a sort of "by teenagers for teenagers" type deal. We are not teenagers, so we both have a hard time relating to that kind of teen angst fic, as we're not the target audience. So he asked me to write him a Virgil fic and we worked together to identify what plot he wanted, what the Mindscape looked like, and what quirks the Sides have. So a lot of this fic is quite gratuitous and self-indulgent

The Title: Lizzie McAlpine has a song called "Apple Pie" which includes the lyric "I've been running around trying to find a place where I can breathe." Apple Pie SCREAMS Moceit to me, and I had taken notice of the lyric and wanted to use it as the title for a Moceit fic. I didn't really have an idea beyond that, and when Cade asked me to write this fic, I realized it was actually perfect and summed up Virgil's inner struggle quite nicely. So cheers to "A Place Where I Can Breathe," the Moceit Fic That Wasn't

-Cade asked me specifically to include Virgil having a spider and I wrote nearly the whole fic without doing so, then had to go back and sprinkle some references in. I think I managed 2 total.

Chapter 2:

"Uh, how about I hold off on that until I actually see my room?" Virgil stared expectantly at Roman, who bounced on his toes. "Lead on, Macduff."

"That's not the line and you know it," Roman complained, but he turned to lead Virgil to his room. "It's ' lay on, Macduff,' and--"

-This fic was originally supposed to reach a climax with a confrontation between Remus and Roman, and "lay on, Macduff" would come back as a brick joke. Unfortunately, the original ending was a result of me getting tired and lazy, so I had to go back and fix it, and we lost the Roman-Remus confrontation.

It was hard for Virgil to not shudder at the sudden heat and weight on him. With his senses already open and taking in more information than his brain seemed to want to process, touch was an added stressor, more unwanted sensory input.

-Virgil being touch-averse is a direct shoutout to Cade, who is also touch-averse.

Roman had already transformed the living room: metallic streamers of purple and black stretched across the corners of the ceiling, and shiny balloons spelling out A-N-X-E-I-T-Y hovered above the TV.

-Upon first writing, Virgil had already given the upstairs crew his name, so the banner spelled out "VIRIGL" which is way funnier than "ANXEITY." But then his name reveal became a plot point so I had to go back and change it.

-Let! Virgil! Be! Mean!

-Virgil's line about hearing refrigerator noise when Roman talks is another shout-out to Cade, who has leveled that accusation at me

A small, cruel part of him protested at the idea that he would need special treatment and desperately wanted to throw it back in Patton's face. He wasn't a sweetheart, he wasn't a baby. He didn't need to crawl into a blanket fort with Dad just because he was a little stressed.

-Remus calls Janus "Janus Geminus" because I was tired and couldn't come up with a pun. "Geminus" is one of the Roman god Janus' epithets; another is "Pater" meaning "Father." That led to a conversation about Remus deliberately confusing Patton by calling Janus "Daddy," but I couldn't think of a clean way to fit the explanation into the narrative, so I stuck with "Geminus."

Chapter 3:

"There's nothing normal about that! " Roman stared in horror at the coffee massacre Virgil had orchestrated. What had once been a respectable (if not very tasty) cup of black coffee was now part of a 1:1 coffee to milk suspension, the liquid a tasteful shade of tan suitable for business casual trousers or a show-ready chihuahua.

-Cade is a certified Nightmare Man and came up with Virgil's horrifying coffee order after I asked him about it. Keep an eye out for Janus' equally horrifying coffee order later in the fic.

1) Shouts out the fact that Janus is canonically a Dostoevsky fan

Chapter 4:

Janus smiled at him. "Where reason fails, the Devil helps." He fussed with his gloves and straightened his capelet. "It's showtime."

-I fucking love Crime and Punishment. Look at me. Look at me. I fucking love Crime and Punishment. Janus' quoting Raskolnikov serves multiple purposes:

2) Lampshades the fact that Roman just conveniently happened to be alone in the living room, because I didn't want to waste time getting him there. That makes me, the author, the Devil

3) Foreshadows the impending disaster. When Raskolnikov says this line it is because he had planned to commit axe murder. The axe he was planning to steal had been moved, but he finds another, different axe to use. Raskolnikov messes up the murder and ends up killing an innocent witness in addition to his intended target. Janus messes up his manipulation attempt and ends up murdering Roman's self esteem

-I was going to include a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Remus' line "debauchery and vomit" was originally going to be "blood, love, and rhetoric") but I didn't because... Uh... Hm. Why didn't I do that. Maybe I just forgot about it???

-Roman is too stubborn to manipulate for long and that is a fact.

"I was pretty much done anyway," Remus said. "There's only so much debauchery and vomit you can fit into one story."

-Cade specifically ask me that nobody cry in this fic, but after I had Janus eviscerate Roman I knew he couldn't not cry a little. I kept it to a minimum because there's already a billion fucking fics about [literally any Side] crying on the shoulder of [literally any other Side] and it's really just not interesting to either of us.

-It didn't come up because it doesn't matter, but Thomas dreamed he was participating in the exact Dionysian orgy that took place in The Secret History because it's my fic and I said so.

Chapter 5:

He just sat back and watched and tugged at his hair while Janus spooned mound after mound of crisp white sugar into his mug and Virgil poured his customary eight fluid ounces of milk into his own mug.

-Cade strikes again. Virgil's coffee order is equal amounts milk to coffee; Janus' is equal parts sugar to coffee. He had asked me to include a scene where Roman catches Janus massacring his coffee and is appropriately horrified, but I uhh... Didn't write it. I still might include it as an omake someday.

-I imagine that Roman feels really strongly about dragons vs wyverns, and Remus just pretends to give a shit because he thinks it's funny to wind Roman up. Fortunately for me but unfortunately for my sense of realism in writing, I can't relate because I adore my sister and we get along perfectly almost 100% of the time.

"You shut us down every chance you get!" Remus said, baring his teeth. "How would you like it if your pens never wrote, hm? What would you do with all those thoughts in your head?"

-I do wish I had developed the concept of power focuses a bit more, established rules and such. Basically, Patton is always on the prowl for wrongthink and actively represses it, which in turn breaks or sabotages the Dark Sides' power focus.

Chapter 6: This chapter really should have been Janus and Roman but I was really tired and didn't want to bother with it. Plus, you know, Moceit. This chapter was meant to demonstrate how the characters would get along without Virgil nannying them. There's friction, but everyone is making a conscious, deliberate effort to get along because they love Virgil, and love is a series of choices you make.

I chose "Leo" as the answer for the answer to the crossword clue instead of "Virgo," because my other QPP is a Leo. She'll never read this fic, but I did it anyway because I love her. (Trivia: My sign is Virgo, so it was really a choice between shouting her out and shouting me out, and the last chapter is self-indulgent enough, thank you).

Chapter 7: I was gonna write a fic where all the Sides watched Cats the Musical because I was going through a phase. Then Cade requested this so I combined the two ideas. By this point I was fucking exhausted, and that's the only thing that saved you and the rest of the world from me writing the Sides riffing on the movie scene-by-scene. I could come up with snarky commentary for almost every, if not every single song from the movie.

Most notably, I cut a Patton-Remus interaction where Remus declares his love for Grizabella and Patton gets all staryy-eyed about Remus connecting with the idea of rising above rejection and being loved and accepted only for Remus to shoot him down and explain that he just likes that she got to die in a tire fire.

Other cut scenes include Janus quietly pretending not to go feral over Mister Mistoffelees, Patton full-on fucking sobbing over Grizabella and the kittens, and Logan experiencing a deep, soulful kinship with Munkustrap during Of The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollices (and henceforth introducing the phrase "like herding cats" into his regular vocabulary

[spooks-and-tea]

Entangled (Spencer Reid x femReader) [Ch.3]

Summary: You don’t know how it happened. One moment you were watching Criminal Minds, and the next moment you were literally in the show. Can Spencer be the key to helping you find your way back home?

Warnings: minor character death, mentions of su*cide, bad explanations of quantum mechanics, sexual situations(some non-con), the usual criminal minds-type content

A/N: Thank you for loving this and leaving lovely comments<3 I’m literally only writing it out of boredom and wanting to make quarantine a little better for you guys. Sorry this chapter is so dialogue heavy! I like writing dialogue! Spencer says interesting things! 

Word Count: 3,526

Chapter 1.  Chapter 2.  Chapter 3.  Chapter 4. Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.  Chapter 7. Chapter 8.  Chapter 9.  Chapter 10.  Chapter 11.

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In most fiction, a character wakes up confused, with little memory of where they are. You never understood that scenario. In what situation do you spend the night at a friend's house and wake up confused? Surely you have some memory of the night before. You figured it was just a work of fiction, a plot device writers used to make a character reflect on a situation.

That was what you thought... until you woke up in a fictional apartment.

You woke up with a killer headache, sore limbs, and a sore throat. The full package, lucky you. You thought maybe you had drank a little too much the night before, after all 27 is a far cry from 21.

I'm getting old.

You stretched your aching limbs and slowly opened your eyes. Laying on your side, your eyes settled on the analytical gaze of none other than Spencer Reid.

"Holy shit!" You screamed, jumping back and startling the hell out of Spencer. You ungracefully flailed as you teetered on the edge of the bed, body about to fall off. Spencer quickly reached out and pulled your elbow, leveraging your weight back onto the bed just in time.

You clutched the sheets, grabbing your bearings, while silently taking in the situation.

"Are you alright?!" Spencer asked, catching his breath.

"Just peachy." You deadpanned.

I'm in bed with Spencer Reid. God, why does he look so hot with bedhead hair?

Spencer gave you a wry smile before breaking out into laughter. You glared at him, but his laughter made you smile. It was nice to hear him laugh.

"I don't understand how you can be so calm about this. Imagine getting sucked into my world where you have to be an actor that plays yourself."

"Well, hypothetically speaking, if that were to happen I would be overqualified."

You rolled your eyes and got out of bed, but not before noticing the coffee and woodsy-vanilla scent. You'd smelled that before.

"Do you want breakfast? I know a good café near your place." Spencer stood to stretch. 

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, that's fine." You stared at the bed, trying to place that smell.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just- a smell. Your bed smells like you. It's familiar. From before."

To a normal person, your words would sound weird. But to Spencer? Well, they piqued his interest.

"You've smelled me before?" He asked, curiously. You nodded, looking up to see he had moved around the bed to stand in front of you.

"In a dream. Just before waking up here. Before we even met."

"Smell is a powerful memory trigger. Do you remember the split? When your reality entangled with mine?"

"I remember some of it."

"Maybe we should try something to help you remember," he considered. "Close your eyes and think of where you were when reality split."

You closed your eyes, taking yourself back to the memory of that place. You heard Spencer step closer, stopping in front of you.

You felt his breath against your cheek.

"You said the smell was familiar. What did it smell like?" Spencer spoke, softly.

"L-like you. Coffee and a woodsy vanilla," you stuttered, clenching the hem of the shirt Spencer had lent you. You were sure if you opened your eyes, Spencer would be mere centimeters away from you.

"Good. Focus on that. Were your eyes open or closed?"

"Open. My eyes are open." You fell into present tense as you immersed yourself in the memory.

"How do you feel?"

"Weightless. There's no gravity, gravity doesn't matter here. There's also something tugging. It's pulling me somewhere. It's pulling from here." You placed your hand on your chest. "It feels like a magnet, a super strong force."

"Look around. Do you see anything?"

"Yes, I see lights and- and they're moving all around me."

"What colors are the lights?"

"Every color, even colors I've never seen before. We can't see them here. I-I can't explain it, but it's beautiful."

"Can you hear anything?"

"Humming, like a television static. Crackling electricity and-and then a loud snap, like someone snapping their fingers."

"What's happening? Do you see anything else?"

You nodded.

"Curtains opening, red, velvet and soft. I'm traveling through them and they're all around me, like a tunnel. I'm being pulled through. Pulled towards the other end of the magnet, the other half. I know this. I'm sure of it. The other half is reaching out to me. Oh god, what if I can't reach it?" You distantly felt a tear run down your cheek. Your body was leaning forward more and more as you remembered, as if following the pull you remembered feeling.

"It's far away," you whispered, feeling the magnetic pull in your chest now.

"Reach out for it."

You leaned forward more and more following the pull until the dream was suddenly interrupted. 

"Y/N." Spencer's fingertips brushed against your cheek, his voice barely a whisper.

You slowly came back to reality, opening your eyes.

Spencer was hardly a centimeter away from you, his lips ghosting so close to yours. Your hand lay flat against his chest, keeping you upright.

Both of you stayed silent, eyes half-lidded, listening to each other's soft breaths, and not daring to move. If you lifted your head just a bit you could brush your lips against his.

Spencer licked his lips, beginning to turn his head and close his eyes.

Then, as if this were a bad rom-com Spencer's phone ringtone went off. You both jumped apart.

Spencer avoided your eyes, leaving the room to find his phone which had otherwise been forgotten after last night's reveal.

You stared at the doorway, breathing heavily. You could hear your heartbeat, as if it were screaming out for him to come back and kiss you.

Had he actually wanted to kiss you? He let you unknowingly come close to it before even bringing you out of your memory. Up until yesterday, his false memories had told him you two were just friends. Did he actually like you, or was he just intrigued by you?

Spencer returned to the room, still avoiding your eyes. His body was stiff.

"That was JJ, she was just checking in on you. She said you didn't answer your phone, so you probably forgot it at home again."

"Spencer, I don't even know where I live," you spoke, carefully.

"Oh, right. You're not the same person I remember," Spencer frowned, "I can show you where you live."

You stayed silent, feeling a little hurt from his comment, though it was true. Did he want to kiss you, or the you he falsely remembered? Did he miss this false-memory version of you?

Spencer stared at his bed, lost in thought. You fought the urge to reach out and smooth the crease between his brows.

"What are you thinking, Spence?"

He shook his head, running his hand through his hair.

"I think there are some things in this world we just can't explain."

"Hmm that doesn't sound very 'Spencer Reid' of you to say." You tried to joke, anything to lighten the mood.

"You only know the parts of me you've seen on tv," he smiled, sadly. "You know it's funny, I know so much about you, and these false memories convinced me that we're friends, but I don't really know you either, do I?"

"I'd like to know you." You quickly spoke your thoughts.

Spencer sighed, finally turning his head to meet your eyes.

"I'd like to know you too."

************************************************************************

"Come on, Impossible Girl, let's go get some food."

You blushed as you followed him out of his home, adjusting your now-dry old clothes from the previous day. You had used Spencer's shower, loving the, now familiar, vanilla-scented shampoo. His fans would probably kill to know the exact smell, you giggled.

"Hey, is that nickname from Doctor Who?"

"Yup." Spencer smiled, adjusting his tie.

You knew he didn't like to drive, but for the time being he was the one driving your car since you had no sense of direction here.

He first took you to a café and treated you to a bagel and some heavenly mixture of french vanilla and coffee. You both sat at a table in the back next to the window and people watched. Spencer profiling a few passerby for you.

"How am I going to return to work? I don't know anything about profiling, other than watching you spout out facts on the show." You joked.

"I think you'll catch on. You're smart. But if it makes you feel any better, I'll try to cover for you whenever I can. Maybe your acting skills will come in handy."

You snorted out a laugh.

"At least, in this new life, I got the part. Kind of sad I won't be meeting Matthew Gray Gubler though." You joked, watching Spencer fake offense.

"We should leave now if we want to stop at your place first. Don't want Hotch firing you on your first real day."

You rolled your eyes with a smirk and followed him out.

Spencer parked in front of a high-end apartment block. Leading you through a squeaky clean lobby. There were elevators, but Spencer told you that you were on the second floor anyways so you might as well take the stairs. You were already wondering how you could afford an apartment in such a nice building. He unlocked your door at the end of the hall and led you inside, flipping on the light-switch.

Your jaw dropped.

"You have got to be kidding me," you breathed.

"Welcome home." Spencer said through a tight-lipped smile, shoving his hands in his pockets. He didn't look surprised, he looked comfortable, like he'd seen this place a hundred times before.

You walked further inside, mouth agape. A chandelier hung from the entryway and a staircase wound up to the left. To your right was a grand piano and two armchairs surrounding a couch and television. Large floor to ceiling windows with red velvet curtains lined the wall near the piano. You brushed your fingers over the keys of the piano that probably cost more than you had in your old bank account and assets combined. Spencer lingered behind you as you peered through an archway leading to the next room. This room contained the kitchen, every appliance looked brand new. The room also had another floor length window, and French doors that led out to an enclosed balcony that was bathed in natural light and plants. You couldn't believe there was more, and you hadn't even walked up the stairs yet.

Spencer lingered behind you, looking around and smiling at your reactions.

Just past the kitchen, another set of French doors gave way to the dining room which contained a large table lined with chairs. Art hung all around. Circling back to the main entry and, you guessed, living room, your eyes trailed up the stairs.

"Spencer, this can't be my apartment, I'm not even sure I can call it an apartment;  it's the size of the entire second floor of this building! There's no way I can afford this." The place was gorgeous, it was like something out of a movie.

"As I understand it, your father left you a large sum of money when he passed away; he left everything to you. You made some good business choices and bought this place," he smiled to himself as he explained. "That didn't stop you from pursuing your own career at the BAU, though. You also donate to plenty of charities every year."

"But my father was a fisherman. He caught and sold fish at a little shop in my hometown."

Spencer frowned, "maybe where you're from, but here he was the CEO of a large company."

"How did he die?" You nearly whispered.

"He drowned. He was on a fishing trip, your mother was with him. A storm caught the small crew by surprise. There were no survivors." Spencer spoke softly, nearing you.

"My mother," you swallowed back all of the emotions that were building up.

"I'm sorry, Y/N."

You shook your head. "No, it's okay. I just wish I had a chance to meet my mom. For me, she died when I was very young, too young to remember her."

Spencer wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close. You sniffled and hugged him back, welcoming the comfort you found in his arms.

"This is all so different. Would I sound crazy if I said I wanted to go back to your place?"

Spencer ran his hand up and down your back. "No, it actually makes sense. My apartment's familiar to you. You can stay the night again, if you want, but I don't think-"

"Y/N? Is that you?" A man's voice echoed from behind you. Startled, you clutched Spencer's shirt, though he tried to step away from you.

You looked up at the top of the staircase to find a shirtless stranger leaning against the railing.

"Um. Yes?" You answered in a questioning manner.

The man turned and started to descend the stairs.

"Spence, who is that?" You whispered, nervously. The man looked like a model with abs straight out of a catalogue.

"That's Chris. He's your-"

You stiffened as Chris pulled you against his chest. Your eyes widening as he kissed you, taking advantage of your surprise by sticking his tongue down your throat. Everything in you wanted to push him away.

"-boyfriend." Spencer mumbled.

When he pulled away you almost wanted to cry because Spencer had just watched a strange man make out with you. You didn't kiss him back, but Spencer couldn't see that from where he stood.

"Where have you been? I tried calling, but you left your phone on the kitchen counter."

"I-uh. I slept over at Spencer's."

"Why would you do that?"

"Um-"

"She had a long day at work, I offered to help her with some of her paperwork at my place and we sort of lost track of time, so she decided to stay the night. I let her take the couch." Spencer saved you an explanation. The ease at which he told the lie making you raise your eyebrow.

"Oh. Hey Spencer. How's it going, man?" Chris turned his attention away from you, but kept an arm around your waist. He reached out and roughly pat Spencer's shoulder. You held your breath, knowing Spencer hated when people he didn't know well touched him.

"It's going- it's going good." Spencer gave him a tight-lipped smile, lowering his head to look at his shoes.

"Good to hear. Hey, do you mind if I talk to her upstairs for a second?" Chris asked, pointing his thumb at the stairs.

"N-no."

"Good man!" Chris laughed, patting Spencer's shoulder once more. He led you up the stairs by your waist. You turned your head as you walked, giving Spencer a pleading look.

He turned his gaze to look out the window with an unreadable expression.

Chris led you through the first door, closing it behind you. You looked at the room, it must have been the master bedroom as a 4 poster king sized bed sat in the middle, floor-length mirrors and art lined the walls, and you could see another door at the end of the room most likely leading to a bathroom. It was all gorgeous, of course, but it wasn't as cozy looking as Spencer's quaint room. There wasn't a random scattering of books on the bedside table, or along the walls. If it wasn't for the rumpled sheets, you wouldn't believe anyone actually slept in here.

"You know I hate it when you spend the night at his place. I miss having you here, with me, baby."

Chris wrapped his arms around your middle, running his pinky along the skin just below your shirt hem. You had to admit, the man was drop-dead gorgeous, with baby blue eyes, a toned, muscular figure, and a complexion that glowed. He honestly wasn't the kind of man you'd normally go for. He was too perfect, like a manufactured person.

There was nothing about him, no small flaws to dote over, no inflection in his voice that raised the hairs on your skin. Who were you kidding? He just wasn't Spencer. Real life flesh and blood Spencer Reid, waited for you downstairs, with his unruly, wavy hair and dark eyes, and the way he did that thing where he scrunched his nose.

Busy thinking about Spencer, you failed to notice Chris trailing kisses down your neck. Your body tensed and you squirmed. He was a complete stranger to you, though technically your boyfriend.

"Mmm. I had to take care of myself while you were gone, but I imagined you. When you're on your knees begging for me, you know that's my favorite." Chris nipped at your earlobe. You had to admit, you moaned a little, that was one of your favorite things. Only someone you had been with before would know that.

"I-I have to get dressed for work now, or I'll be late," you stammered.

Chris chuckled and winked, seductively.

"I see, well I can help you with that." He started to lift your shirt. You took this moment to slide out of his grasp.

"Um, maybe show me in the closet?" You didn't want to have to explain why you didn't know where the closet was.

Chris grinned, and opened the door you thought was a bathroom. It revealed a walk in closet, lined with mostly your clothes, but some were definitely his. You felt like a kid in a candy shop as you ran your fingers along the racks.

You forced yourself to calm down and chose the first outfit you saw, you really were going to be late for work and you didn't want Spencer to get in trouble.

You retreated behind a changing divider, hanging the outfit on the divider. You quickly removed your shirt and pants, happy to finally be out of the old clothes. You felt arms around you, Chris had returned.

"Sure you don't want to take the day off? I could get rid of Spencer and we can spend the rest of the day in bed." Chris kissed your cheek. Man, why was this man so horny?

You frowned as he mentioned Spencer, talking about him as if he was nothing more than an inconvenience. You didn't know Chris, and you didn't want to judge him too harshly just because he wasn't the man downstairs, but he was certainly making it difficult to like him.

"Remind me how long we've been together, again?" You asked, distracting him as you pulled on a new outfit, a simple shirt and work pants combo with a trench jacket to shield you from the rain that was sure to start up again later. 

"About 2 months, why?"

You breathed a sigh of relief. Good, it hadn't been that long.

"No reason. Look I really should get going. I'l see you later, yeah?" You quickly made your way out of the room, waving goodbye.

You practically jogged down the stairs, feeling suffocated by the strange environment and strange man upstairs. Spencer still stood looking out one of the windows with one hand in his pocket and the other fidgeting at his work bag strap.

"Spencer," you whispered loudly, looking over your shoulder to see if Chris had followed you out. Luckily he chose to stay in bed by himself. You cringed at the thought of having to sleep in that bed beside him.

You fast walked to the front door, making sure you had your wallet on you.

Spencer turned around and almost looked amused at you trying to sneak out of your own house.

He followed you out and down the hall. You finally felt like you could breath.

"When were you going to tell me I had a boyfriend?!" You scolded him.

"He didn't cross my mind. Oh and here, I grabbed your cell for you while you were upstairs." Spencer held out your phone, you pocketed it knowing it was most likely dead and you'd have to find a charger at work.

"How on earth was any of that real? I just got here yesterday!"

"You're asking me like I should know how all of this works. I might be a genius, but even I don't know everything." Spencer smirked. "If I had to guess, I'd say the longer you're here, the more canon to the universe you're becoming."

"Chris is awful Spencer. I would never go for a guy like that," you sighed.

"You just met the guy. I don't know him well, but he certainly can compete in an ab contest with Morgan. And you have been together for 2 months, my memory tells me. 2 months has got to count for something."

You couldn't help but laugh at his observation.

"I really don't want to come back here after work." You groaned, getting into the passenger seat of your car.

"Is it really that bad? Your boyfriend's a clothing model and your home is worth millions. Some people would kill to have your life."

"Well it's a good thing we catch those people, then."

Spencer rolled his eyes, starting up the engine.

"Work will definitely be interesting today."

Next Chapter

[mcwriting]

Starstruck (7)

I’m back again and so quickly! Ha! I’m getting soooo close to finishing this but now I’m distracted writing my other series lol. 

While writing this I thought a lot about how much Tom actually curses vs. how little I put in andddd it’s pretty disproportional. I mostly just don’t speak like that so it carries over into my writing, but whatever. I’ll stick with it.

Anyways pls enjoy

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Fandom: Tom Holland

Ship: Tom x reader

Setting: Mostly LA, a little bit of South Korea in this one, but it doesn’t really talk about it

Word Count: 2146

Warnings: Mild language as per usual

Rating: K+

                            __________________________________

You tore apart your room looking for your favorite swimsuit, an olive green bikini top that accentuated your chest and a pair of black high cut bottoms that lengthened your legs nicely. 

It had been a few days since you went and stayed with b/f/n and she now wanted to go to the beach with you. You hadn’t gone out much since due to the paparazzi, who still hung around your house sometimes.

The suit was nowhere to be found, every drawer and cabinet searched high and low. 

And then you spotted something in the corner of your eye.

A beach bag slumped over the chair by your desk.

Could it be? 

No

Unless…?

You stepped carefully towards it, dreading opening up the bag and the subsequent memories attached to it. The hurt of what Tom did was still fresh, but better than before.

Neither of you had had contact since his final message to you, which was something you weren’t sure if you were happy, sad, or mad about. 

You’d thought about what Caroline had said in the past few nights, losing sleep over her words.

There’s no way I’ve caught feelings for the guy, right?

I mean, sure. He’s handsome, nice accent, great muscles, smells good, dancer, good sense of humor. The list could go on, I guess. 

Oh wait. Shit. 

Those thoughts flooded your mind as you dumped the contents of the bag onto the carpet, something landing with a heavy thud underneath the swimsuit you’d been searching for.

You peeled away the clothes and things to find a yellow glass bottle, Tom’s stupid unopened cologne now rested on the floor of your room. You stared at it for a few seconds, not knowing what to think.

You’d pretty much forgotten about it since the incident, pushed far from every other thought you’d had since that day.

A buzz suddenly sounded from your phone on the bed, revealing a text from b/f/n saying she was on her way. 

Not wanting to run late, you sat the bottle on the desk and ran to the bathroom to change before she arrived.

                             __________________________________

Photographers followed you and b/f/n at the beach, probably wanting to write a gossip piece about how you were “moving on.” Neither of you cared.

Instead, you both actively posed for the cameras for a little bit, laughing at the men’s persistence. Eventually, however, another of many celebrities in the area caught their eyes and they left, giving you much needed peace.

After a couple hours spent swimming, taking selfies, and tanning, the two of you gathered your things and headed for lunch at a nearby cafe. 

As you sat and ate under an umbrella, you found an article that had already been written containing photos from the beach earlier. It was titled “Moving on? Y/l/n spotted in spicy bikini with pal,” something that made you roll your eyes. 

“Wouldn’t it be funny if we reposted some of these pictures?” you joked to b/f/n. 

“Yes oh my gosh! That would be hilarious! Send me the article,” she agreed. 

You both screenshotted some pictures, picking your favorite to be the cover of your next Instagram post and intermixing some of the day’s selfies, too. Each of you hit post, tagging one another, and went back to your food.

                             __________________________________

The day had been long but perfect. 

B/f/n dropped you at your house late that afternoon, both of you tired from sitting in the sun most of the day. Since then, you’d spent the evening with your family and now prepared for bed.

You hadn’t checked your phone much since posting the photos, but you opened instagram to find that tons of Tom’s fangirls had liked and commented on your picture, most of them pretty supportive. 

Your caption had read “Apparently this is a spicy swimsuit and somehow it’s helping me move on from drama. Either way, today was a much needed beach day with my fav!” 

Other of your friends commented inside jokes, adding fire and pepper emojis, and called you spicy.

You spent a few minutes replying to comments when you decided to look at the likes. You searched “Holland” in the bar, wanting to see how many fans were liking it, but the first name caused your stomach to drop. 

Tomholland2013

There was a blue checkmark signifying it was him, too. 

There was no way he’d done it earlier, so you went back to the comments, where you found a new comment from only a minute before that read “OMG TOM LIKED!”

You were shocked to say the least. Was this some kind of a joke to him? Or was this his way of reaching out from a distance? Your thoughts became frequent and jumbled, and finally you decided to put up the phone and truly get ready for bed.

On the back of your desk chair was draped your favorite sleep shirt. As you went to grab it, the cologne bottle caught your eye once again.

You stared at it for a minute, then did something you’d probably regret later. 

You ripped off the plastic wrap off top and uncapped it. You took a heavy breath, and then spritzed the scent a few times over the sheets. 

It wafted up around you, filling your nose with the musky sweetness you were familiar with. 

After changing, you crawled into bed, the smell overcoming you, relaxing you. Surprisingly, butterflies filled your stomach as warm memories of yours and Tom’s night together came to mind once again. 

Ah shit. Caroline was right was the last thought to cross your mind as sleep overtook you.

                             __________________________________

Stan Twitter and Insta had blown up overnight as Tom’s fans speculated about him liking your post (and of course it just had to be one in a swimsuit). You tried not to think about it too much as you once again went to dance and tried to let off steam.

After class came and went, a parent came to let you know that once again there were dozens of people outside waiting for you with cameras and whatnot.

Your friends offered to help walk you to the car, but you were honestly angry. Enough was enough.

“I knew things would get crazy but this has gone on for too long. Celebrities might have to put up with this, but I don’t,” you spat, shouldering your dance bag and heading for the door. 

A few people tried to stop you but you just shrugged them off.

“Y/n, y/n!” the people began yelling, fighting to see who would get to your first. One woman beat out the rest and shoved a microphone in your face, the cameraman blocking your way.

“Tell us about your time with Tom Holland! We only want the truth!” she exclaimed with her feigned enthusiasm.

”You don’t want the truth, you want a story,” you began. Seeing the way people already looked uncomfortable with that statement, you continued.

“You take a good, normal person and turn him into your own little reality show. You build him up into a big celebrity just so you can tear him down in public.”

You were beginning to feel your face heat up and eyes threaten tears, but still you continued, looking out at the rest of the crowd.

“Just so you can sell magazines and TV shows? That’s really sick. And Tom Holland’s just one example. He’s talented and successful. He’s all the stuff lots of kids dream of having.”

Nothing you said had a hint of sarcasm or disdain, but rather it was a defendant tone. Now you took on an accusatory one directed at the reporters.

“But thanks to you, he’s had to give up some of the best things in life. Freedom. Privacy. Honesty. So congratulations, you’ve created a celebrity. But you have wrecked the human being inside. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

You finished the tirade, a tear slipping onto your cheek as you remembered the night he spent at your house telling you about how he often missed normal life. There was a heavy pause but cameras continued to flash. The reporter turned to her cameraman.

“Did you get that?” she asked. He nodded, so she turned back to you.

“Y/n, y/n just one more question. In your opinion, who is Tom Holland really?”

You looked at her, taken aback. Your blood boiled.

“Who is he? I don’t know. The Tom Holland you’re all so obsessed with…” you took a moment to collect your thoughts. “I promise you I never met him. And I wouldn’t want to.”

With that, you pushed through the crowd and to your car, hoping they were satisfied.

                             __________________________________

On the other side of the world, Tom was becoming stir crazy. By the time Tom had awoken, videos and transcripts of your speech were already circulating the internet and he was overwhelmed and frankly angry. 

He was supposed to be getting ready for another press day, but how could he do interviews when everyone would just want to hound on him about you?

“Tom, we need to talk,” Harrison said sternly as Tom paced his hotel living room. Harry and Sam stood behind him in the entryway..

“Alright what on?” he asked as though nothing was wrong.

“Tom. Tell us what’s got you acting like this, saying what you did, and her making that speech through tears. You obviously liked that girl and something happened with her,” Harry stated.

Tom paused and turned to the group.

“What are you talking about? There was nothing going on between us.”

They all looked at each other and then Tom like he was an idiot.

“Look mate, you have no reason to lie to us. We always have your back and we’ll probably understand,” Sam added. The group took a few steps forward.

Tom was becoming more agitated and avoided eye contact with all of them. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

“First off, I’m not lying. And secondly, if I were, you all wouldn’t understand anyways because you aren’t me! None of you get what it’s like living my life and you never will!” Tom exclaimed, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

The group was taken aback at Tom’s explosive statement and now Harrison was mad too.

“You know what, man? We came here to talk because we care about you. You’ve been a real dick the past few days and it’s getting old. All we wanted to do was help you out but instead you decided to go all movie star on us,” Harrison blurted. He turned to the twins, “Let’s go guys. He’s obviously beyond us.”

The three boys turned to walk out the door and Tom felt a weight drop in his stomach. Harry was just starting to open the door when Tom stopped them.

“Wait!” he paused and took a deep breath, “I’ll tell you all what’s really going on, but you have to let me tell the whole story first.”

They reluctantly turned back, eventually making themselves comfortable around the living room and letting Tom vent out the whole story, including how his management had made him cut ties with you.

“She was so honest and kind and I blew it. The more distant from her I can make myself, the better. I couldn’t let myself bring you in on this secret and feel bad too. She deserves to just hate me.”

The boys were all shocked and angered at what was going on.

“Tom, I love you, you’re my brother. But you are such a div! And I mean that in the most extreme manner possible,” said Harry.

“Yeah, come on mate. Just fire them! Why are you letting them control your life?” asked Sam. 

“You guys don’t get it! Singleness sells! I can’t jeopardize my career just because I found y/n to be the most beautiful and incredible and real person I’ve ever met. I mean, right?”

Harrison piped up at that.

“You really are more stupid than you look. Tom I’m gonna tell you straight. They’re living in some figmented reality where your relationship status determines whether or not you get hired. I mean, you’re Spider-Man for God’s sake. That has to count for something, right?”

Tom bounced his head back and forth in contemplation. 

“I mean I guess-” he started when Harrison cut him off again.

“You guess!” he stood up in disbelief. “You guess? Come on! Directors don’t care who the hell you’re dating if you’re giving them Oscar worthy performances and box office hits! And even then, who cares about your career when you’re putting your heart on the cutting board for it. Just go after the damn girl, Tom. And fire those assholes while you’re at it.”

                            __________________________________

A/N: Still can’t believe I got this out so quickly. Anyways, thanks for reading and as always, send me a message or ask if you wanna talk since I can’t respond to comments! (And keep an eye out for “the best revenge,” my new series)

TAG LIST: @marvel-lously, @jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl, @dreamyvans, @lisannehus, @honeymoonpeter, @shootingstarsaretearsofheaven, @chenellearose, @photoshopart15, @parkeret, @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch, @racewife2004 

[eleamaya]

Zerith and Cloti Lines & Quotes Parallels

FFVII Original Game, Advent Children (sequel), and Crisis Core (prequel) are written by Kazushige Nojima.... so it’s not surprised to see how he wrote both pairings in similar way as I found these parallels:

Parallel #1: KOIBITO ( 恋人 )

Zack and Aerith

The two characters deeply involved with Aerith were Zack, who would become her lover (koibito), and Tseng, her guardian.  (CC: FFVII Complete Guide)

One day, Zack is suddenly landed in a church in the slum. His cheerfulness and dependability capture Aerith’s heart and they’re being in a (koibito) lovers-like relationship. Although they can only see each other periodically, their thoughts keep them close in spirit. (Aerith’s profile, CC: FFVII Ultimania, pg. 22)

Aerith gently embraced Zack, who came back sad. The atmosphere makes them feel like lovers (koibito).   (Aerith’s profile, FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania)

Cloud and Tifa

“Is Tifa your girlfriend (koibito)?” (Aerith asking Cloud, FFVII Remake Chapter 8)

There are many dimensions to Tifa’s character. She’s like a mother, also a sweetheart (koibito), and a close ally in battle (Advent Children Reunion Files book, pg. 19~ Nomura’s interview)

Parallel #2: SWEET YOUNG LOVE, WHAT SHE LIKES ABOUT HIM 

Aerith about 16 years old Zack: 

“He’s strong, kinda funny, and there’s something special about him.”  (Crisis Core Chapter 5 - First Date) 

Tifa about 14 years old Cloud: 

“You were so small then … and cute.”  (Original Game scene 116 - Cloud Dark Past) 

Parallel #3: THE GIRLS’ DESIRE TO BE WITH HIM, JUST THE TWO OF THEM

Aerith, before Zack went to Nibelheim

Thinking that he would at least be of help to Aerith now, Zack began to make the flower-selling wagon as he had promised to make before. The two struggle to get use to the unfamiliar task, but they relish the happiness of spending time together. When Zack is called for duty, Aerith writes down 23 tiny wishes on a piece of paper and gives it to him. The note was filled with her earnest desire to be with Zack.

(FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania, Crisis Core Story Playback)

Tifa, before Cloud went to Midgar

"It was just an idea, but from the moment it was made, it became an irreplaceable promise. And that night, when Tifa realized that the Cloud she admired was just an ordinary boy, she fell in love with him. The kind of "love" that made her want to be with him, just the two of them. "

(Traces of Two Pasts, a novella written by Kazushige Nojima)

Parallel #4: SHE DRESSES UP FOR THE PROMISE THEY MADE

Zack and Aerith

For when they meet again on their next date, Zack’s specific suggestion was Aerith wearing pink. Aerith–who continued to wait for Zack’s return–starts to wear pink after making this promise (CC: FFVII Complete Guide--Keyword Collection)

Cloud and Tifa

Believing in Cloud’s promise, Tifa’s waiting to see Cloud become a SOLDIER like Sephiroth. Tifa dresses herself in a pretty and sexy look. Does she do that to spirit up herself in preparing for a touching reunion? (Tifa Lockhart Character Profile from CC: FFVII Ultimania)

Parallel #5: SHE ASKED IF HE KNEW A CERTAIN SOLDIER

Zerith: Aerith asked Cloud about Zack in SOLDIER in the Playground (FF7 Remake)

“Did you have any SOLDIER friends? Any war buddies? So Cloud, you were SOLDIER 1st Class, right? Weird. Just that you were in the same rank with the first guy I ever loved.”

Cloti: Tifa asked Zack about Cloud in SOLDIER via mails (Crisis Core)

“Are there any blond guys in SOLDIER?  Well, it's just a dream... Any girl would love to have a blond SOLDIER guy protect her when she's in a pinch. I almost forgot. Please don't tell anyone in SOLDIER that I asked about the blond guy. Okay?” 

Parallel #6: THEY THINK OF EACH OTHER UNDER THE SKY

Zack and Aerith -- the cloudy & azure sky

Zack think of Aerith:  “I wish I could show this sky to…” (Crisis Core DMW Cloud Scene #4: Cloudy Sky)

Aerith think of Zack: “He was like a cloud drifting through the skies. As we peered skyward through the rafters of a heavenless Midgar, we made a promise. And that was the last time we spoke.” (Crisis Core 1st Official Trailer)

Cloud and Tifa -- the starry & night sky

Cloud think of Tifa: “I was just thinking about the past.”  (Crisis Core DMW Cloud Scene #3: Starry Night At The Well)

Tifa think of Cloud: “Like the sky that night, the heavens were filled with stars. Did you imagine the sky? The stars were gorgeous. It was just Cloud and I. We talked at the well.”  (Original Game scene 116 - Cloud’s Dark Past)

Parallel #7: PROMISE AT THE NIBELHEIM WELL/WATER TOWER

Zack and Aerith --  CC Chapter 013: I Promise

Aerith: Hello… (calling by phone) Zack: Aerith! Aerith: Finally, got through to you! Zack: Ah, sorry about this but I’m in the middle of something right now. I’ll  give you a call a little later . Aerith: No. it’s okay. You don’t have to. Zack: I understand. I’ll come visit. Aerith: I’ll be waiting. Zack: I’Il see you. It’s a promise.

Cloud and Tifa --  OG scene 6: A Childhood Promise

Tifa: You said you wanna tell me something. Cloud: This summer… I wanna leave this town to Midgar. I wanna join SOLDIER… like Sephiroth. Tifa: Is it tough being SOLDIER, isn’t it? Cloud: Yeah, I probably could not go back to this town for a while. Tifa: Hey, why don’t we make a promise? Mmm… if you really get famous and I’m ever in a bind, you’ll come save me, alright? Whenever  I’m in a trouble, my hero will come rescue me. Cloud: Alright, I promise.

Parallel #8: SHE WON’T BE AFRAID WITH HIM, HE PROMISED

Zack and Aerith -- CC Chapter 8: 23 Little Luxuries

Aerith: “When you come back from your assignment, let’s go sell flowers under the sky together. I won’t be afraid if you’re with me.”

Zack: “Yeah, I’ll go with you. That’s a promise.”

Cloud and Tifa -- OG Scene 136: Understanding

Tifa: “But, it’s alright even if no one comes back. As long as I’m with you… As long as you’re by my side… I won’t give up even if I’m scared.”

Cloud: “Afterall, I promised. That if anything were to ever happen to you, I would come to help.”

Parallel #9: MUTUAL AFFECTIONS/RECIPROCAL FEELINGS

Zack and Aerith

Zack and Aerith meet by chance in a church in the Slums. They become intimate with each other. (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Compilation Timeline)

From the boy’s profile

Having fallen into the sector 5 slum church during a mission, Zack has a fateful meeting with Aerith, a young girl who was tending to flowers in the church. They share a “puratonikku koi” / chaste romantic love, satisfied just to be together. Those joyous days seemed like they would last forever… (Zack’s Profile, CC: FFVII Ultimania, pg. 13)

From the girl’s profile

CC shows her meeting and relationship with Zack, and the budding love between them. However, fate would tear the couple apart. (Aerith’s Dengeki Profile)

At that chosen day, she accidentally met Zack, SOLDIER 1st Class, and they were attracted to each other. (Aerith’s Profile, FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania)

The destined encounter with Zack makes them becomes the irreplaceable existence to each other.  (Aerith’s profile, CC: FFVII Ultimania)

His cheerfulness and dependability capture Aerith’s heart and they’re being in a lovers-like relationship. (Aerith’s profile, CC: FFVII Ultimania)

Cloud and Tifa

When their companions disperse to the places where people important to them await, Cloud and Tifa, who remain, reveal their feelings for each other together. (FFVII Ultimania Omega, pg. 198; story summary)

When Cloud and Tifa remain behind alone, in their final hours, together they disclose their feelings for each other. (FF 20th Anniversary Ultimania File 2: Scenario guide, FFVII Story Summary, pg. 232)  

From the boy’s profile

Declares that the team should dissolve in the final hours before the final battle, and communicates his feelings together with Tifa, who remains behind at the airship with him. (Cloud’s Profile, FFVII Ultimania Omega, pg. 15)

From the girl’s profile 

She ventured into Lifestream together with Cloud. Amidst the course of him trying to ascertain his memories, they became aware of the thoughts/feelings which each other was holding. (Tifa’s Profile, FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania. pg. 42-47)

In FF7, Tifa is the only one who knows Cloud’s childhood, and furthermore, she holds the key to people involved in the story of Nibelheim’s burning down, which is also depicted in CC. She and Cloud came to realize their feelings for each other in the end of the story, and live together in AC and DC.(CC:FFVII Ultimania, Tifa Lockhart Profile)

For many years, Cloud and Tifa have been holding favor for one another. At last facing the impending final battle with Sephiroth, they confirm together their feelings of desire toward partnership. (Tifa’s Profile, FF 25th Memorial Ultimania)

Parallel #10: THEY GO BACK TO WHERE THEY BELONG

Zack and Aerith -- Afterlife

Zack Profile in FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania: In order to help Cloud recover, he assured him from the Lifestream together with Aerith.

Aerith Profile in ACC Dengeki: She joined the Lifestream, but even then she carries on watching over the planet and Cloud. At all times, her first love Zack is always by her side.

Both are mentioned: ...She starts to leave, together with the friend who had given his life to Cloud. Cloud no longer has to suffer in loneliness. And so they too go back to where they belong. Back to the current of life flowing around the planet. (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania--Revised Edition, ACC Playback)

Cloud and Tifa -- Living World

Cloud Profile in FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania: With the help of his friends, he defeated Bahamut SHIN, which Kadaj’s gang had summoned. He defeated Sephiroth after his Advent, and returned to Tifa and the children.

Tifa Profile in ACC Dengeki: At the end of a long struggle, she gently welcomes back Cloud on his return home after settling things with himself.

Both are mentioned: “Inside, I felt one thing was for sure: Cloud and Tifa would be together. Everybody would be living back home where they belonged.” (Kazushige Nojima-the scriptwriter, Advent Children Reunion Files book)

Parallel #11: DESCRIBED AS A SINGULAR ITEM / A PAIR

Zack and Aerith described in ACC

For Cloud, they were people whom he can never forget. The two irreplaceable people; Zack, “who was sent to death because protecting me” and Aerith, “who met a tragic fate as I couldn’t protect her” became “the unforgivable sins” in his heart.

(Advent Children Complete Post Card Book)

Cloud and Tifa described in CC

Cloud and Tifa are childhood friends, both born in Nibelheim. When Cloud leaves the village, he calls Tifa out to the water tower and promises that he will become a SOLDIER. At the same time, he is also made by Tifa to promise that he will come to rescue her if she is ever in trouble.

Following this, the pair experience many hardships, such as the Nibelheim incident which also appears in CC, and the Jenova War in FFVII, and through these the distance between them shortens. And in AC they live together, with Barret’s daughter Marlene, and a boy named Denzel. Though there was also a period later where Cloud lived away from them after having contracted Geostigma, they finally reach a commune with each over and return to living together once again. In DC, they rush together to Vincent’s aid, in his battle against Deep Ground SOLDIER.

(CC:FFVII Complete Guide Book)

Parallel #12: NOBUO UEMATSU COMPOSE A MUSIC SCORE BASED ON THEM IN THE SCRIPT

Zack and Aerith - “Aerith’s Theme”

I really like “One Winged Angel”. I guess, I also like “Aerith Theme.” I’m happy that it’s always well received when it’s played at concerts. Honestly, when I made it, I didn’t think it would be popular. In the scenario, there was the line “Aerith waited. Every single day, she waited and waited.” So I made the song to match that scene which means, it wasn’t made for the scene in Forgotten City. The scene where Aerith waits for Zack at the station was first. It’s a song about “a poor girl who waits for someone who doesn’t come.”

(Nobuo Uematsu’s interview from Game Symphony Japan FF7 2014 concert pamphlet)

Cloud and Tifa - “Cloud’s Smile”

One of the staff’s favorite scenes was where Cloud smiles in embarrassing way towards Tifa. Nomura liked it as there was almost no dialogue and the expression of Cloud’s face communicated his expression to the viewers. Composer Nobuo Uematsu commented, “It sounds cool!”, considering the fact that gamers who have finished FFVII (OG) would find it hard to imagine how Cloud smiles. Upon reading that scene in the script, Uematsu was inspired to write the score

(FFVII Advent Children Distance: The Making of Advent Children)

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Colors, ch.24: Vellum

(A Spicyhoney ‘The Village’ AU)

The story so far:

1. Crimson | 2. Yellow | 3. Blue | 4. Blush | 5. Sallow | 6. Russet | 7. Spice

8. Whiteout | 9. Sable | 10. Blue on Black | 11. Midnight | 12. Ebony Falling

13. Golden | 14. Magenta | 15. Marigold | 16. Coquelicot | 17. Daffodil |

18. Verdigris | 19. Honey | 20. Scarlet | 21. Alstroemeria | 22. Onyx | 

23. Gray

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Warnings: This chapter contains discussion of past spousal abuse. (Not Edge or Rus.) It is not graphic, but it is implied to be both physical and sexual in nature.

~~*~~

Read ‘Vellum’ on AO3

or

Read More Here!

~~*~~

One of Rus’s clearest memories as a child back at the Village was the first time he’d gone shopping at the general goods store with his brother. Their parents were long since gone to meet the Maker and despite his youth, Blue cared for him the very best he could, spending long days training with Healer Gestor then returning home to spend more time caring for Rus. He never complained, no matter how exhausted he was.

Blue carried through with a smile, always, though Rus was often sickly and wasn’t able to help as much as he should. Even when Rus sometimes woke from terrible dreams and interrupted his already limited sleep. Shrieking for his brother in the darkness until Blue brought him back to his own bed and they slept there clinging to each other against the night.

His brother only ever reassured him of his love and that he was there for him, no matter what might come.

The occasion of the store visit was a rare treat, Rus was only seldom allowed into the Village proper for anything but prayer meetings, and those days were only for solemn reflection and silence. That day, Blue allowed him to chatter happily, to gawk at all the buildings and people, the horses that pulled carts full of produce and his agemates who ran playing through the streets as Rus couldn’t.

The store itself was a wonder, filled with shelves that held various goods. The walls were lined with barrels of pickles, bins filled with crackers. There were gleaming jars of peaches and applesauce, bottles of vinegars and molasses lining the shelves and bars of soap wrapped in waxed paper, the smell of which made Rus want to sneeze.

And there on one of the shelves was a tea set. Blue adored tea and every Saturday, he would bring out their mother’s tea set and brew a pot. They would sit together and drink, Rus’s cup filled more with hot milk and only a splash of tea that made him feel very grown up. They ate scones and Blue would tell him about his week, funny stories and interesting tidbits of gossip. It was one of Rus’s favorite times of the week.

This tea set was nothing like their mother’s. The cups were delicate with handles that curled and twisted, the edges bright with gold leaf, unlike their own plain white cups.

Rus only meant to touch that delicate gold for a moment and somehow, he accidentally tipped it over. He watched in horror as the cup fell from the shelf and shattered, a stinging fragment grazing his leg where it poked out of his short pants.

The shopkeeper was on him in an instant, grabbing him by the shoulders and shouting angrily as he shook him. Blue was nearly as quick, hastily pulling him from the shopkeeper’s grip, though that night there would be raised bruises in the shape of his fingers on Rus’s arms. Blue paid for the cup, his expression tight as he counted out the money, and they left without any of the groceries they were supposed to be getting. It wasn’t until they were back home that either of them noticed the bloody cut on his leg, marrow seeping down to stain his sock.

Blue healed that little wound silently. He never shouted at Rus, even though that week dinners were nothing more than bread and butter. He never said a word, but the weight of his disappointment pressed heavily and Rus never forgot that day, even though the old shopkeeper had retired and these days it was his son who ran the store, the same fellow who ignored when Elder Smith harassed Rus in his shop.

Memory was a funny thing and it was that day in Rus’s thoughts as he looked at Edge’s grim, silent face. He couldn’t say whether it was the shopkeeper’s fury or Blue’s disappointment he saw in Edge. It didn’t matter, he cringed from both and for a split second he couldn’t think past his own fears.

Spilled cream couldn’t be made into butter, that shattered cup that couldn’t be put back together, and Rus could only fumble with the journal, setting that brittle vellum picture back into the pages with trembling hands before he closed the cover. It wouldn’t be enough, just as he couldn’t fix that cup, he couldn’t stuff his prying knowledge back into the journal.

“i’m so…i’m sorry…didn’t mean to…” Rus stammered. He could feel tears rising and struggled to choke them back. What right did he have to cry when he was the one breaking trust with his little betrayals?

Edge only closed his sockets, hiding the fieriness of his eye lights, and he held up a silencing hand as he said, “Shh.”

Rus fell instantly silent, biting his tongue hard enough to taste salt-sweet fluid. Yet he couldn’t help the small protesting cry that escaped him as Edge turned on his heel and walked away, leaving him there alone.

He turned back to the table, looking down at the journal with tear-blurred sight.

Edge seemed so terribly angry. What if…what if he demanded Rus leave? He had nowhere else to go, he couldn’t go back to the village, he’d never survive on his own in the woods. If Edge cast him out, he’d be truly alone and as terrifying as that was, it wasn’t a match to knowing he’d upset Edge and he couldn’t even manage to properly apologize. Edge who gave so much to him, as Blue always had, his love, his tenderness, his care, and Rus could only offer disappointment in return.

He’d declared his love, called Rus is very soul and he believed Edge, he did. Except the fear in his own soul spoke louder, cruelly castigating him for his foolishness in thinking he truly had anything to offer someone like Edge.

Panic was clawing inside his rib cage making it difficult to breath, black spots wavering in his distorted vision and his whirling thoughts were a confused tangle of teacups and books, and pleading forgiveness that didn’t make it to his mouth.

He wondered blurrily if he were going to simply pass out only to wake alone in the frigid snow. The pained thought was interrupted by strong hands suddenly on him. Rus cried out, but they didn’t hurt him, their touch solid but gentle as they firmly pushed him to sit with his head lowered between his knees.

“Easy, Rus, easy.” A soothing hand rubbed down his spine even as Rus managed to gasp in a full breath of air. The darkness swarming his vision eased and his clamoring thoughts with it. Rus blinked and looked up to see Edge sitting next to him, his concern vivid as he murmured soothing words and words came to Rus then as swiftly as they’d abandoned him.

“i’m sorry,” Rus said thickly. “i didn’t mean to upset you.”

The sound Edge made in his throat was absurdly scoffing and Rus was forced to stifle an inappropriately hysterical giggle, “Upset, yes,” Edge agreed, quietly, “Not to Rus.” He took a deep breath and said very slowly in his own language, ensuring Rus could understand. “Give me a moment and I will explain.”

“all right,” Rus agreed. He leaned into Edge’s embrace, guilty absorbing the offered comfort. For once, Edge seemed to take equal comfort in him. The puff of his too-quick breath against Rus’s cervical vertebrae slowly calmed as he held Rus close.

He suddenly noticed there was a second cup on the table next to his own and he stared at it in confusion until it hit him. Edge left him alone to go make a cup of tea to calm himself, the same way Blue sometimes did after a long, frustrating day. Here Rus was, fretting that he was about to be cast out into the woods while Edge was only brewing up a pot of sweet tea. Standing in their little kitchen in his long red cloak and surely scowling ferociously at the water as it slowly heated, the vicious Monster of the Woods he’d been warned about so many times as a child as domestic as the motherly Dogaressa.

That unfortunate laughter bubbled up again, like blowing in a cup of milk with a water reed. Rus swallowed it forcibly down, snuggling gratefully into Edge’s arms. If Edge found comfort in tea and an embrace, Rus was more than willing to offer as much as he could of both.

The journal was pushed almost off the table by Rus’s panic, and after a moment, Edge reached out and drew it closer, tracing the faded gold leaf on the cover with a fingertip. His voice was hushed as he whispered, “I have not seen this in a long time. I did not know it was in the chest, else I would have hidden it away.”

“i am so sorry to have pried,” Rus burst out. He caught his breath, adding weakly, “i shouldn’t’ve. back at the village, they say curiosity killed the cat.”

Again, Edge scoffed and pressed a light kiss to Rus’s cheekbone. “You look healthy enough to me.”

It invited a watery chuckle as Edge briefly tightened his embrace. Then he opened the journal’s cover and revealed that picture again, his finger hovering overtop the fragile sketch without touching.

“you knew them.” Rus said. It wasn’t a question, it seemed as obvious as the lack of nose on his face. To his surprise, Edge shook his head.

“No,” Edge said slowly, “not them.” He turned the page, again, leafing through birth announcements and weddings invitations. There were Psalms and sayings written in between each, notions added in dark ink. The handwriting changed as he went further in, that lovely scrolling penmanship changing to spidery-thin letters, and then to bolder writing, each page carefully blotted to keep the words clear.

Not that Rus had much chance to read them. Edge kept turning the pages until he came to another sketch.

The artist was a different one, the picture a newer one. Of another young skeleton woman in a bridal dress and a flower crown, standing next to one of the Elders, though he was young enough the title hardly seemed to fit. His rounded face was one of arrogant pleasure, hers shyly smiling, and nothing about that picture explained why Edge would stare at it with such pained fury.

“edge?” Rus asked timidly. His fears were no longer for himself, but for the hurts he was beginning to suspect lay in his husband’s past.

Wordlessly, Edge reached up and roughly pulled off the medicine bag he wore around his neck, yanking it from the tangle of his other talismans. He opened it with more care, tugging at the drawstrings, and to Rus’s astonishment, from within he drew a tarnished golden locket on a chain and held it out to Rus in offering. Rus took it from Edge’s gloved palm. The chain was broken, but it was a fine one and from the weight Rus guessed the gold was no fakery. He opened it with cautious fingers to see the miniature within, of a young skeleton woman, her teeth parted in laughter.

It was the same woman, he realized. She was lovely, and drawn up over her skull was the hood from the saffron cloak of their village.

“who is she,” Rus asked, hushed.

Edge sighed heavily and offered a single word. “Mother.”

"your mother was from the village?" Rus whispered, stunned to his very core.

Edge only nodded. "Yes.”

“and she taught you village speak.” It was like finding a lost piece to an incomplete puzzle, snapping it into place to form an unexpected picture. How it was possible, Rus did not know, but the truth lay before him, undeniable.

He inspected the larger picture again. There was a certain resemblance in Edge to the young woman, he saw. Yet her eye lights were as pale as Rus’s, her teeth flat and even. Not at all like Edge’s fierce mandible or his crimson gaze, and there was no hint of the Elder in him. Doubtfully, Rus asked, “and this is your father?”

He flinched as Edge’s expression twisted into rage, directed not at Rus but at the sketch. “No! No father.” His gloved hand curling into a tight fist and the word he said wasn’t one Rus knew, spat out like a curse. Rus didn’t know what to say, what he could say, and he only wrapped his arms around Edge as he trembled, struggling for words.

“Bad,” Edge said finally, choked and low. “No father, not him, bad.” His fingers trembled as he reached out to tug a loose sheet from within the journal pages. Another sketch, this one done in a rough hand. Instead of ink, it was drawn in soft charcoal, faintly blurred before it was sealed, and showed four people; a family sitting together, two adults and two children, each dressed in long cloaks. The lines were simple and still offered much personality, the parents leaning into each other, the children appearing a mere sidestep from a childish squabble.

Edge tapped the picture of the smallest, who was drawn with an exaggerated little scowl on their tiny face. “Edge.”

Despite the seriousness of the moment, Rus couldn’t help a soft laugh. “that’s you? you were adorable.”

He was. Edge only shook his head, disgruntled. Rus leaned in, studying the picture closer. “and these are your parents?”

Edge nodded, sighing out a soft breath.

“i never knew my parents,” Rus confessed softly. He made a sign automatically, asking for a blessing for their souls. “they died when i was very young, it’s only ever been me and blue.” It was only a sketch, the details were so few, but it was obvious that the father was not the same Elder from the wedding picture. He was a skeleton, like them, and the resemblance to Edge was obvious. As gently as he could, Rus asked, “whatever happened to them?”

It was clear that some tragedy befell them, or Edge wouldn’t be here alone.

Edge hesitated, then began turning the pages again. Until he came to more writing in that same a bold hand as before, pages of it. The first page had a date at the top, some twenty years before. A true journal, he realized, written thoughts of someone from the past.

Edge tapped the page, “Make words.”

“you want me to read it?” Rus asked, astonished. Not ten minutes before he’d been worried Edge would cast him out for merely touching it and now he was meant to casually delve into his husband’s secrets as easily as he might another saucy novel.

“Yes, read,” Edge agreed.

“to you?”

Edge shook his head at that. “no. you read.” He switched to his own language to add, “and understand.”

With that, Edge gave him a last light kiss and left him to settle in and begin. It seemed the crassest invasion of privacy to read someone’s journal, but Rus was hardly through the first page before his reticence faded and he was absorbed, reading page after page of the writer’s, the young woman skeleton’s, daily thoughts.

The first entries were from a nervous bride-to-be, rambling on about her soon-husband.

After waiting for so long, this Sunday is finally the day, directly after the prayer meeting! Today Grandfather gave me our family album to take with me to my new home. I am the last of our line and marrying into the family of the Elders so there will no longer be a use for it, as our children and their lives will be recorded in the Elder’s family journal. Grandfather told me to write my thoughts and create a journal of my own, so that I might remember our line to our children when they come. I do wish he wasn’t so fussed about the wedding! I’ve made a good match in John. Were they here, I know my parents would be pleased. I wish Grandfather would be so as well.

Those excited thoughts gave way to other, less happy ones. From her first dissatisfying wedding night where she still offered excuses for her husband’s careless demands followed by other, worsening entries as she slowly gave in to despair. Her husband proved to be not the loving spouse of her fancies and instead a cruel one, commanding utter obedience and any small defiance was met in turn with brutality.

Rus barely noticed Edge bringing in fresh cups of tea though his husband made no attempt at being quiet. The cups sat for too long and Rus drank them cold, hardly tasting it, far too absorbed in the thoughts of a young woman trapped in an unloving marriage. Tears welled in his sockets as she described her husband denying her from seeing her own grandfather, though the old man was ill and wasn’t expected to survive the coming winter. All her many worries and hurts scribed on these fragile pages for Rus to follow these years later.

He read on, marveling silently as the story seemed to parallel his own too closely to be mere strange coincidence; it was more like fate, a brush from the divinity that Rus was no longer certain he believed in. On the night she ran into the woods to escape her husband’s brutality…and about the creature she met there.

I fear to even put these words to a page, though I must, for my world has changed in ways that I cannot properly understand. He was angry with me again last night, as he so often is. This night he claimed that his dinner was overcooked, though his true fury is that I have yet to provide him with an heir. I care not to write of the unspeakable things he did, only to say that when he was finished and snoring drunkenly in our bed, I fled from him to the woods.

I did not care if I lived nor died, only that I must be away from him!

I ran through the night and my terror was not of the trees before me but what lay behind. I know not how long I ran and I did not slow until I saw them. Him.

He was as it is said, a Monster, hooded in forbidden crimson and his face was that of a fanged beast. At once I no longer feared my husband’s drunken relations and instead feared for my very soul. I turned to flee and quickly found myself tangled in a snare. I could not run away and soon they were upon me.

I am ashamed to say I wept, pleading with the Angel herself that I might be spared. I expected to be torn apart and instead, the creature freed me and sent me on my way. I knew not the words, only that he was scolding like one might a lost child! I followed my own steps back to the village and he did not stop me.

I do not know what to think. Can the Angel make me understand why the one who made vows to me can cause me such pain and a Monster be the one to show me pity?

I have prayed for long days, but the Angel gives me no answers and I can make no sense of it on my own. It is a sin, but I must see him again. I must know.

My husband sleeps like the dead at night after his many cups of juniper tonic. Once I’ve submitted to my wifely duties, I will wait for him to sleep then slip away.

Rus sank back, absently aware he was blinking too hard, his sockets dry from forgetting to blink. He was lost in recollection, recalling his own secret meetings with Edge, his gentleness as he courted Rus, and yes, he could look back on it now and know he was being wooed with passionate tenderness. So unlike Elder Smith’s crass offerings, his cruelties when he was refused. His guise of civility as he claimed all his callous actions in the name of Angel.

At Rus’s elbow was a plate of fry cakes gone cold and congealed, and he scarfed them down in quick bites, wiping his fingers guilty on his trousers to keep from leaving greasy marks on the pages. To his dismay, there was only one entry left, she’d written nothing of her meetings with the creature, offered none of what was surely their own courtship. He read on, taking in her final words.

This will be my last entry. The journal I will bring with me along with the rest of my possessions that I can carry, but it will only be as a reminder. I waited only for my grandfather to pass into the light, for how can I possibly remain here when I know the truth of what they’ve done to us?

Gaster tells me truths, he speaks them into my very mind and exposes the lies that the Elders tell us.

Gaster has shown me the truth of our people and had I enough tears to shed, it would fill a bitter sea. Once we were one, before they came. The Elders, the Humans as they are called.

They made war on us, stole our homes, our children. Used us for their own purposes and taught us of the Angel and sin, convinced us that our magic was evil and allowed our bodies to grow sickly with its disuse.

The Elders, nay, the Humans, have filled our heads with nonsense to keep us under their control. Binding us in fear of our own people.

It was the Humans who drove so many of us away, the ones they deemed a threat, and kept those that they could use. Healers and workers were useful, the others were cast out to die alone, banishing any who might have challenged them.

Only they did not die. They flourished in the wood, dressing in the color of their magic in defiance, and so instead the Humans wove a new story, a new lie for those they enslaved. They called our own people Monsters and the color of their magic was forbidden to us. That is the falsehood they tell us to this very day.

It pains me to realize this, to know my life was built upon the lies of those who would seek to bind me. Who married me off to one of their own and allowed him to visit his cruelties upon me.

I will no longer be a vessel for his seed. I feared to leave for too long, afraid to break my vows, but no longer. My life will not be bound by their lies and with my grandfather’s passing, my only family in the village is gone. I shall join my true people in the wood, join him. My one, my true husband, my k’uhah.

He teases me, tells me that while I was the one caught in his trap, it was he that was snared. Perhaps, but I am bound as sure as he and my child will be born to his own people.

My false husband has given much to me and I shall give it back to him tenfold. Gaster has been teaching me to use my magic. I am not properly skilled, I will never be as I should, my power has atrophied from years of neglect. But there is power in possession and the land that I brought into our marriage as dowry is mine yet, a gift from my own parents. It is my will that nothing will grow upon it so long as my people are subjugated by the Elders, trapped by their lies in body and mind. No matter how it is tended, how diligent it is worked, the southern fields will offer nothing to the Elders, the ground itself soured by their deeds.

I go now to be with my true husband and when our child is born, it will be into freedom.

The journal ended there, without so much as a signature. Rus sagged, staring sightlessly at those last words written by a young woman he’d never met. And, he suspected, he never could.

“what happened to her?” Rus whispered aloud.

“He came.” Rus startled as Edge spoke. He looked up to find Edge standing at the entrance to the room, his face shadowed and unreadable. He spoke flatly, as though untouched by grief. “He and the others. They came to the woods and took them from me, left their dust behind. The Dogs found me not long after and cared for me, for a time.”

Sorrow filled Rus once again, he felt as though this day were an endless cup for grief. “how long ago was that?”

Edge held up ten fingers, then two more. Twelve seasons, then, not so very long ago. He’d heard nothing of this, not a single rumor ever came of the Elders entering the woods, not even under the guise of hunting creatures. They wouldn’t want anyone to know, Rus realized, it would invite others to do the same and might give them a chance to learn the truth.

Even the misfortune she’d spoken of leaving on her family’s land was unknown. The southern fields, the same place he’d slipped into the woods to meet Edge, were known to be fallow and there were rumors, fireplace stories of a curse, whispers from around cupped hands, but nothing came close to the truth. The Elders, it seemed, held their secrets very close.

Rus flipped back to the sketch of the wedding, staring hard at the drawing. Those arrogant features, had the artist unknowingly capture the spirit of his cruelty in their work? The was something about that wintry gaze, something familiar and Rus gasped aloud as it came to him with an unpleasant jolt, “that’s elder smith!”

Edge straightened, stepping into the room and coming swiftly to kneel before Rus. His voice was dry, stony as he demanded, “You know him?”

“he…he was the one who…who…” Rus couldn’t give voice to what Smith had done. Nausea rose in him to think of Edge’s mother enduring what he escaped. He held up a hand, showing only his empty palm, and could offer nothing.

Edge’s expression darkened, understanding without words as he so often did. He began to pull Rus into an embrace, but Rus resisted, pulling away. “edge, we need to go to the village. i must take this to my brother.”

Surely the weather was clear now, the Dogs had traveled all this way. To his confusion, Edge’s expression hardened further, closing over. “No, no, no.”

For him to lapse back into their old speech took Rus aback, “what? you must understand,” Haltingly, he said in Edge’s language, “my brother needs to know the truth, they all do.”

All their lives were a lie, all of it, and Rus was chilled to the depths of his soul to know it. He needed to share that knowledge with others in the village, to know he wasn’t alone with it.

He watched in confusion as Edge lunged to his feet, pacing restlessly. His cloak was gone, hung away, and his feet were bare, the bones slapping soundlessly against the floor rugs as he paced. Long moments passed before Edge turned back to him, both hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“Did you learn nothing?” Edge snarled. His words stung like a slap. “I will not take you there! The village is filled with murderers, child stealers, monsters!" He jabbed an accusing finger at the sketch, his mother standing innocently with her soon to be husband and the one who would eventually take her life. “Him! He came here, hunted them down and others! Mathon and Britta cared for me like their own for a time, then I returned here, home, alone. You would bring them back down on us!”

Rus could only shake his head helplessly, “edge, there are good people in the village.”

“murderers, all of them!” Edge spat back. His chest heaved, rising and falling with harsh breaths. It seemed to Rus they were not alone here; the room was filled with ghosts, the death of his parents haunted Edge, the unquiet dead unable to rest as they spoke from the pages of the journal.

But the Village itself did not murder them, only a cruel few, and Blue was not one of them.

“then why didn’t you kill me when you first saw me!” Rus cried.

Those ghosts loosened their grasp enough for Edge to falter, the harsh crimson shine of his eye lights dimming to shock, “I could never—you’re my soul.”

“you didn’t know that when you first saw me!”

“I did not. But the way you felt, the way you smelled,” Edge slapping his skull with a bare hand as if he could force the words to shake loose. “My soul. I could never hurt you, Rus, never.”

“but you won’t believe me! there are good people in the village, edge, our people, yours and mine! he's my brother, you have no right to keep me from him!" Rus took a deep breath and said, softly, “edge, i'm from the village. it will always be a part of me, whether or not i wish it to be so."

“No!” Edge’s voice broke, ragged and lost. “No, you are mine!”

And that was a claim that Rus could not allow, for both their sake. “yours?” he whispered, hoarsely. “would you try to own me, then? the same as he did your mother?”

“No!” His anguish ached in Rus’s very soul. Edge reached out with a trembling hand, fingers hanging empty in the air between them. “No, Rus. No.” That hand fell, leaving Rus untouched and Edge hung his head, no longer looking at him. “I cannot take you there.”

Edge turned and walked swiftly out of the room, living Rus there alone with the journal and the ghosts that came with it.

Rus stayed in their parlor that night, wrapped up in a single blanket as he stared into the darkness. He curled up miserable and alone, and what little sleep came was made restless by terrible dreams. Haunted by a young skeleton woman and her smile, her unheard voice whispering a curse down on spoiled land. Damning those who would sin in the name of their Gods.

~~*~~

tbc

[naberiuz]

drowning in the depths of you (don’t save me)

[mafia + modern fantasy + mermaid guan shan AU]

Chapter 5: An Unexpected Visitor

Unexpected visits in unexpected circumstances. Guan Shan just keeps getting more confused.

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Read on AO3

AN:

We love a fast-paced story. But we hate a slow-ass author.

I'm really sorry guys. I fell into a slump midway into last year's semester and had a major burnout. But surprise, I'm back kinda lol.

Yes, I'm updating this fic in 2020 quarantine arc. No I'm not dropping this, I have this baby planned out all the way to Chapter 11. Also, I made some slight revisions in the previous chapters, but they're not so significant that they changed the plot.

It might take me until 2021 to finish this. *shrug* But what did Confucius say? It doesn't matter how slow you go as long as you don't stop?

---

That night, after He Tian left to head home, Guan Shan dreamed about the ocean.

He woke up with the feeling of rushing water fresh on his sealed gills, as if he had just taken a dip. Already does he no longer remember the exact details of his dream, only that he knows vaguely that he felt the ocean calling to his heart. He rubs his eyes blearily, feeling comforted even though the experience hadn't been real. With a final yawn, he decides to return to work and went about his morning routine.

He felt incredibly apprehensive making his way to the restaurant, given that the incident from the other night was still fresh from his mind. He was restless as he travelled, feeling antsy at every cursory glance towards his person. He'd even bothered to wear a cap and pair of aviators, feeling extra paranoid about his appearance. He also made sure to avoid the alley where the incident took place. ‘The fuck I’m ever going to walk through that. Or through any alley ever.’

He arrives as the restaurant without a hitch. The day proceeds normally, with Xui Hong checking up on him in the morning. He waved his concerns off with a monotonous ‘I’m fine’ and blaming the flu.

The first few hours of the day ticked by quickly, with seemingly nothing out of place.

Too normal. I feel too normal. A whole day has almost passed and Guan Shan still feels jittery with nerves, stomach tight in anticipation as if something unknown was to strike at him. His paranoia spikes up when he remembers that someone might be watching him in that very moment.

The chime rings as he cleans a table. He turns to greet the new comers and almost drops the rag in his hands.

“Welco…”

 ‘What the fuck?’

The words die at his throat the moment his eyes land on the newcomers. There, at the entrance were two striking individuals. One of them was a stoic-faced man with unruly brown hair, but Guan Shan was more concerned with the other man. White hair and white eyes, sharp nose and a dainty, small face, almost an otherworldly beauty.

That said man was unmistakably Jian Yi, the man pictured with He Tian in the magazine.

He Tian's supposed fiancé.

“Table for two please!” Jian Yi chirps with a wide smile. Guan Shan nods at him dumbly.

His day just took a turn towards the abnormal.

---

The day is not normal for He Tian.

He’s woken by the incessant ringing of his doorbell. He wonders just exactly who has the audacity to be ringing him at a time like this as he walks barefooted on the marble tiles of his penthouse. He doesn't even bother to think about his current state of half-nakedness, having been rudely awakened from his precious sleep.

He opens the door to reveal broad-shouldered white-haired man. He Tian almost rolls his eyes.

“Qiu-ge. What a surprise.” He Tian says monotonously, leaning his back against the wall. The other man gives him a glare before inviting himself in, heavy combat boots clacking loudly throughout the apartment.

He Tian realizes inwardly that he already expected this happening, though not so soon. Qiu was the person closest to his brother, and for him to suddenly appear in Hong Kong only means one thing.

“Your brother is pissed.” The other man says unceremoniously, burly arms crossing in front of his chest as he leaned on the back of his couch. He Tian doesn't look at him and walks languidly towards the bar adjacent to his living room and pours himself a glass of water.

“Hm. Is he now?” He Tian replies, his annoyance at the situation starting to grow. “If this is so serious that he had to send you, why couldn’t he be here instead?” He continues icily, crossing towards the large floor-to-ceiling windows to peer at the city below him.

“Be serious for once, He Tian.” Qiu bites back. He Tian half-turns to look at him disinterestedly.

"So? What did he want you to tell me?"

Qiu breaths a sigh and rests his hands on the couch. 'Annoying brat...'

“The Hong Kong triads are starting to know of your father’s condition." He says, noting the lack of reaction from He Tian. "They will see this as a weakness, then they’ll start coming for you.”

I know that already. He Tian inwardly sighs and doesn’t reply for a few moments. The triads sure move fast, him having already received messages of faux sympathy and support, followed by thinly-veiled questions of what He Tian is set to do, “I wish your family are doing well, and rest assured we shall remain close by shall you need our assistance in the near future.”  

Or in other words, “We’re watching your every move.”

“Why should I leave?” He Tian replies, sounding far too nonchalant for someone who has a hundred targets on his back. “I’ll let them come to me, show them that we are not so weak even with that bastard being good as dead.”

Qiu fixes him a disapproving glare. He Tian thinks he’s about to admonish him about talking that way about his father. He silently dares the other to prove him wrong.

The other man doesn't, however. Qiu scratches irritatedly at his buzzut blonde head before replying. "I don't know what you're planning, but I hope you realize you're pretty much screwed here."

He Tian chuckles mirthlessly and shrugs at him. "Why, are you worried about me?"

Qiu rubs his temples before sighing exasperatedly. “Just go home." He Tian turns away from him in reply, going back to drinking his water as he gazed at the Hong Kong cityline. “Your brother is becoming impatient. Leave before things turn complicated.” He says with one last pointed glance at He Tian, starting to walk away, his heavy footsteps reverberating throughout the penthouse

"Hm. How about you go home instead. The full moon's right around the corner isn't it?" He Tian replies, still with his back turned. Qiu looks behind him with a glare. He can't see his face, but he's absolutely sure the younger man is smirking from behind the glass. You think that's funny don't you...

He doesn't say anything in reply and instead opens the heavy door of He Tian's apartment.

“Troublesome siblings.” Qiu mutters under his breath, letting the door slam behind his back. He curses both brothers, the older for reducing him to a messenger boy for his little brother, and the latter for being eternally stubborn.

---

Guan Shan stares at the two people seated on the table.

What the hell is HE doing here?

The two men were currently reading through the menu. Jian Yi points at something on the menu and asks his companion, quite loudly, if they could order that. The other man just grunts a whatever in response, preoccupied with a game on his phone.

He looks at them more closely. The man with spiky brown hair sports a glinting silver chain necklace that contrasted nicely with his black turtleneck. And Jian Yi…well literally everything about him is flashy designer. Gloves, coat, shoes, and all. Although the all white get-up is a little too much even in Guan Shan's opinion.

He huffs, having fully expected them to be of He Tian’s ilk.

Tch. They’re perfect for each other. Snotty rich bastards. He grumbles to himself, resuming to wipe at the table in front of him.

Did He Tian really have to tell his fiance where he works so he could show off? What am I even to him? Does Jian Yi know what's going on with He Tian and me that's why he's here? Why would He Tian want to go on a date with me if-

“Hey hey!” Jian Yi calls to him suddenly, waving his arm in midair. Guan Shan jolts upright, jaw tight as he forced the questions back down his throat. He turns around and walks towards their table stiffly.

“We'd like to get this Alaskan crab leg and this Aquitaine caviar. And egg rolls too!”

Guan Shan nods, writing down the order with the best straight face as he could (though it probably looks like a grimace, like always). He turns, almost robotically, to quickly head back to the kitchen.

“Oh and add black tea please!” Guan Shan acknowledges him with a curt nod, eyes on the notepad as he hurriedly wrote the order. He realizes he forgot to say the order back to them and appeared really rude, but he brushes it off with a 'whatever'.

This is so fucking weird. He thinks with spite as he stood at the kitchen doorway. He knows he's supposed to be at the station to answer customer requests, but given that the only customers around were the two oddballs he figured he'd be fine for now. Miraculously, no one enters the restaurant.

He looks at the two men at the corner of his eye. Or specifically, at Jian Yi. He feels many things for the man all at once, confusion because why would he be here in all places, disdain and annoyance for being present in close proximity, anger because he's supposed to be engaged to He Tian--

"Oh Xixi, tell me about it please!" Jian Yi pouts and pulls at the other man's sleeve. The other man merely rolls his eyes and tries to ignore him. "Pleeeaase, Xixi." Jian Yi tries again, now poking his cheek.

Okay...that's weirder. Guan Shan thinks to himself, finding the pale man's clinginess to the other man a little unusual. He looks like he's begging for the other man's attention. They must be really good friends? He wonders.

The food is completed within a matter of minutes. Guan Shan picks them up easily, carrying the plates over to their table. He wordlessly sets them down, trying very hard not to give either men a glare and trying to move as quickly as possible. He placed down the last of their order and was about to brusquely walk back to the station when yet another weird thing happens.

"Hey, sir waiter? You wanna sit down with us?" Jian Yi asks him with a smile. Guan Shan blinks, once, then twice, not really absorbing what the other man said.

"I..." He starts, unsure of what to say. There's no one except them, so he couldn't use the "I have to serve customers" card. And he doesn't think there would be any customers soon, given that lunch has already passed and it's currently in the middle of the dead hours.

"Come on! We kinda ordered too much for two." Jian Yi says, chewing nimbly on his food. The other man named 'Xixi' only gives him a deadpan look.

Realizing that his day has already taken a turn towards the abnormal, he supposes another weird experience won't be too bad.

So he pulls a chair under the table and sits down, preparing himself for a confrontation.

---

Qiu drops the man on the floor, not giving him a second's glance as he splutters and grasps for his throat. He gestures his men to follow him as they exit the dingy bar, the patrons astonished at the situation that had just transpired.

His claws recede back into normal human nails as he walked, along with his fangs that have turned back to regular human canines.

So much for civil talking. He thinks to himself, frustrated in the inability of underlings to recognize when they stand a chance or not. He enters the car, a sleek black Maserati,  and promptly presses the speed-dial. He waits one, then two rings before it's picked up.

"Five families are coalescing." He says into the phone without a greeting. "The She's, Wongs, Chans, Kwans, and the Huis. The She's at the lead, although we already expected that." He relays easily. There's a pause at the other end before he hears a reply.

"And Tian? What did he say?"

Of course. It's not like I just said almost all of Hong Kong's major triad families are aiming to kill us all. Qiu waits for a beat before replying, not without a tired sigh. "He doesn't want to."

He hears a sharp intake of breath. While to anyone else, He Cheng is the personification of ice, stone-cold eyes, words, and actions. But to Qiu, that one breath told him everything. He imagines what the other man's face must have looked like, probably the slightest twitch of a sharp jaw. Small things, but for Qiu who sees them clearly, they mean everything.

While He Cheng may be ice himself, Qiu knows deeply that if anything happened to his brother, surely he would crumble apart.

"Come back here for now. I'll pay him a visit some time." He Cheng replies smoothly, seemingly at ease. But Qiu is unconvinced. He doesn't reply for a moment, thinking carefully for his next words.

"You know...you're holding him back again. Just like you always do." He says because it's true. Not a single damn time you didn't try to hide him away, even from your own father...

"Because he doesn't understand." Comes the almost automatic reply, which was something Qiu already heard a few times before. "If you say so." He replies noncommittally and presses the end call. He then orders his men to make arrangements with the private plane as soon as possible.

---

Guan Shan chews at an egg-roll as he gives (or tries to give) discrete glances to the two men sitting in front of him. The man called 'Xixi' eats silently and only gives a dead-eyed look every once in a while. On the other hand, Jian Yi was openly staring at him with a sickeningly sweet smile in between bites of his food. Guan Shan resumes eating robotically for a few more minutes until he could no longer stand the silence.

He clears his throat and sits up straighter. "What is it?" He says, because it's the first set of words in his mind. 'Xixi' looks at him with a raised eyebrow while Jian Yi lets out an amused "Hmmmm?"

"Don't you have a problem with me?" Guan Shan tries again, his default glare now present on his face as he crossed his arms. If a confrontation was happening, he supposes it should happen right now. Jian Yi giggles at him.

"Oh no, we just wanted to meet you in advance." He replies, still with a sweet smile. He gives Guan Shan a wink as an additional effect. Guan Shan doesn't know what that means, so he just stares.

"I have to say, I didn't expect this." Jian Yi continues. "To think He Tian would be brought to his knees by a fiery one like you.”

The brown-haired man, 'Xixi', pauses eating and lets out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. It takes Guan Shan a split second to react. His face heats up all the way to his ears.

"W-what? What the hell do you mean-"

“Ooooh I think I can see it! You’re so adorable and pretty!" Jian Yi explains suddenly, leaning in closer. Guan Shan sputters and tries to lean away, though the nearly transparent white eyes follow him.

"I can’t believe He Tian kept you a secret from me.” Jian Yi pouts placing his chin on his hand. Guan Shan couldn't think of a coherent reply with all that came out of the white-haired man's mouth. Brought to his knees? Pretty? A secret? He never knew he could ever feel confusedly embarrassed in his life.

"Maybe because he didn't want you snooping around his business." The other man quips, dabbing his mouth with a napkin and leaning back into his chair. Jian Yi gives him a playful smack and looks back at Guan Shan, his smile morphing into a more natural one rather than sickly sweet.

"Which reminds me, we haven't introduced ourselves! I'm Jian Yi by the way, although you might already know that. This grumpy guy is Zhan Zheng Xi. We're He Tian's friends." Jian Yi reaches out for a handshake, to which Guan Shan just stares at, still perplexed. The white-haired man pouts, unhappy that his gesture wasn't reciprocated.

"Guan Shaaan! You're so mean!" He humphs, like a kid throwing a tantrum. Zheng Xi nudges at him to quiet down.

If Guan Shan thought nothing could be more confusing than being invited by He Tian's fiance to lunch, he was just proven wrong.

"How do you know my name?" He asks with a glare, starting to feel the beginnings of distrust. Though it's not like he completely trusted the two right at the get-go.

Jian Yi only shrugs his shoulders. “Oh I just took a peek here and there. Nothing big.” He says as he flicks a lock of his hair.

Now that's an unsettling answer. Guan Shan thinks as they continue eating. He can't help but feel that something is just not quite right. That he's missing more than a few puzzle pieces. Two extremely high profile individuals show up in his low profile life, an unsettling man, and an attempted kidnapping. And the fact that Jian Yi doesn't seem to be bothered that his fiance is meeting someone behind his back.

Are all rich people like this? Is he that dense? Or is this his way of telling me to stay away from He Tian? Guan Shan purses his lips at that thought.

Well that’s just fucked up. He looks hard at Jian Yi's face trying to see if the man is mocking or trying to deceive him, but the said man was currently whining at his companion. Guan Shan absolutely doesn't know what to think anymore.

The two men finish their meal quickly. "Sorry Guan Shan, but Xixi was telling me a while ago that we have to leave now or we'll be late for the movie!" Jian Yi tells him as he and Zheng Xi stood up from their seats. Guan Shan nods and stands up as well, breaking himself out from his thoughts.

Before he could open his mouth, Jian Yi reaches over and grabs his hands. Guan Shan reels back in surprise, but soon finds himself transfixed in the other man's gaze. He's so stunned into silence that he almost doesn’t hear what the other man said.

"I hope to see you again. I'll make sure to tell He Tian what I think. For now, be careful, okay?" Jian Yi tells him, unblinking, looking angelic and unsettling at the same time with his gentle features and all-seeing eyes.

"O-okay." Guan Shan manages to breathe out just as Jian Yi pulls away.

Jian Yi and Zheng Xi rush out of the restaurant, leaving Guan Shan to stare open-mouthed at the table, his own hands still hanging in the air.

---

"Jian Yi."

"Hmmmm?"

"Why couldn't you have waited until He Tian brought you here? He promised to let you meet him right?" Zheng Xi asks him softly from behind the wheel, eyes trained on the busy traffic along the Queen's Road. Jian Yi smiles and meets his gaze at the rear-view mirror.

"Aaahh Zheng Xi. You're no fun." Jian Yi replies playfully, his mind on the same track as he thought about the red-haired man and his eternally scowling face.

"I don't know if He Tian already knows, but he's in for a really big surprise." He says quietly, twirling a lock of his hair. Zheng Xi's brown brow raises at him from the mirror.

Jian Yi continues to smile. He can't wait to see how their relationship will unfold. He looks outside of the window and towards the Victoria Harbor, and remembers seeing crashing ocean waves and coral reefs in Guan Shan's eyes when he held his hands.

---

The rest of the day passes by quite normally for Guan Shan, much to his relief. Though he had been distracted most of the time because of his weird lunch with Jian Yi and Zheng Xi, he manages to finish the day without anymore hiccups. He was able to peacefully finish up in the restaurant as well as safely reach the bus stop, but not without a few paranoid glances behind him as he walked briskly.

Still, he can't seem to shake off the perturbing feeling he got after looking at Jian Yi up close. He admits inwardly that he feels embarrassed for his reaction, staring dumbfounded as if the other man had compelled him to stop moving.

It's almost as if he knew what I was thinking, or he knew more about me than I did. He scratches at his temple, still mulling about the weird conversation, and that somehow Jian Yi didn't come to the restaurant to chew at him for stealing his fiancé. Or that he even seemed oddly happy that He Tian was even taking a romantic interest in him. He considers texting He Tian and asking him about it.

He thinks back to the white-haired man's eyes and gentle face and realizes, belatedly, that he didn't look so human.

"For now, be careful, okay?" He had said to him.

 Could it be...that Jian Yi is like me?

Just when he was about to do so, his phone suddenly vibrates. He pulls out his phone from his jacket, expecting a message from He Tian.

-

6:27 PM

Unkown Number

You got lucky last time.

-

His heart freezes with cold dread.

---

AN:

Again, please reblog! And also give kudos and comments on AO3 <3

MGS is so dense he can't see that HT is deeply in love with him. And that JY and ZZX are actually together lmao.

I'm just gonna go ahead and say that He Cheng has sort of a brother complex. It's canon because I said so. And Qiu and HC are secretly f*cking.

Next chapter, they're finally going on a date. FINALLY. Also black earrings will be making a comeback.

Again, I'm really sorry it took me this long. The draft for Chapter 5 had been sitting around for like...three months. I also had to revise the plot bigtime; this was originally 15 chapters in total, but I crunched it down to 11. Because..well, 11 is more doable, and I believe in simpler is better. I just figured some of the chapters are quite unnecessary.

I don't know if people are still reading tianshan fics in 2020, but rawr here's an update.

[rosevanhelsing]

Chapter 10

3 years later

Lily combined her university studies with a job in an esoteric shop. One day her boss told her:

- Lily, pretty, they hired me for a private birthday party, but I feel terrible. Would you mind going? You have a gift for the Tarot.

- Of course I'll go.

Lily went to Willa Brewster's birthday party, and was explaining their  future to several children, in the end only Willa and her best friend Vic Mcqueen remained. Willa sat down and said:

- I want to know if I will have a career and become famous.

 Lily dropped the cards, studied them for a moment, and said:

- Look, darling, this is the Card of the High Priestess, it symbolizes study, so you will study a lot and surely do a career and next to it you have The Justice, perhaps it is something related to this, and Sun means success.

- Cool, I've always been attracted to law. Come on Vic, cheer up.

Vic McQueen wrinkled his nose, and said:

- I do not believe in that…

"If you don't believe," Willa said, "what difference does it make to you?" Let's see what the cards tell you.

Vic snorted, dropped her Raleigh bike on the ground, sat across from Lily and said:

- I do not know what to ask…

- Let's see what comes out then.- Lily said kindly

Lily revealed The Magician, and said- You are a highly skilled and hardworking girl.

Vic shrugged.

Lily then revealed the Moon and said, "And you're very creative." Do you like to draw or write?

- Draw- Vic said a little surprised.

- It's amazing how she draws - said Willa

Vic began to get a little more interested, and she  looked closely at what Lily was doing. Lily revealed the Devil's card.

- However you will have difficulties to achieve your goals, that is what the Devil's card means,

Then The Chariot came out

- This means that you will have to make decisions and direct your life.

Lily revealed the last two letters.

- Well, the Force means that you can face difficulties and break through. And  this is one of the prettiest cards, the Star  symbolizes the hope and your dreams. If you dream of being a successful cartoonist, you will be.

- Thank you

If Lily had had her previous Tarot card, the prediction would have been quite different and perhaps she would not have explained her. The visions would have shown her  that or rather who the Devil and the Chariot, and that Vic was the hope to defeat them.

 8 years later:

Lily had lived with Jeff together for a couple of years and life was going very well for them, Jeff had a good job as a mechanic in a workshop and Lily had finished a degree in Translation  and worked from home.  Jeff and Lily were engaged and she was five months pregnant.

On the other hand, Mary had moved with her mother to Europe and was living a new life there, although she missed her sister. One day, while walking through a second-hand market, Mary noticed something, which she could not define, that attracted her to a certain stand. It was a little stand where there were all kinds of things. The owner said:

- They belonged to my children, they are already married and they didn't want anything.

Mary looked, suddenly saw a silver glitter that was between a model of an old black car, which she did not know because it reminded her of one he had seen a long time ago, and an Optimus Prime, Mary pushed them away and picked up the shiny object. It was a pendant that represented a unicorn, it was the most beautiful she had ever seen, she held it in her hand and it was so fixed that she did not hear that the radios began to interfere. Mary asked the owner:

- How much does this cost?

- This?

The owner looked it and said:

- It's funny that my daughter got rid of this, she really liked this pendant, so I'll leave it to you for five pounds.

Mary paid and put it in her purse. Once home, she cleaned it and put it on a necklace. At dinner time, her mother Lucy saw the pendant and said:

- How nice, did you find it at the flea market?

-Yes.

When she went to sleep, Mary found herself in a white room, which sometimes looked like the walls had interference like TV's, and she looked away. There were several doors, each one had a name, she recognized them as her friends from school when she was little, she tried to open one of them, but it was closed, others were boarded up with boards and she gave up. Elsewhere, there was a white door with candy canes on the sides. Mary put her hand on the door, it was cold and there was a sign that said Christmasland. On the other side of the door Charlie Manx watched and said:

- Well, well, Mary, so you've got back to your old ways? Mary, Mary, come in and say how-do… he crooned

 Mary had a feeling she shouldn't go in and turned away from the door, looked away, and saw a door with a lily drawn on it, which she assumed was her sister's door. Mary entered and saw Lily, she was at the table in the middle of a grove reading and taking notes, Mary smiled and went to hug her:

-Lily!

Her sister looked at her in surprise and said:

-Mary… But what are you doing here?

- I fell asleep and appeared in a room with doors, only two seemed accessible, yours and one that said Christmasland ...

- Listen, Mary, for heaven's sake, don't go into Christmasland, I thought you had forgotten ... it's a bad place with a very evil man ...

Mary woke up suddenly and a little later in the morning Lily woke up abruptly although without remembering exactly what she had dreamed, and she was restless, she leaned on the head of the bed while stroking her belly, she had the feeling that sleep could be a threat to your baby. She looked to her side, Jeff had already gone to work, got up, went to the kitchen, and saw that they had left the newspaper. On the cover of this there was a story, it was about the disappearance of a child of about seven years in the state of UTAH, the mother of the child had appeared dead.

Lily left the newspaper on the kitchen table and went to get dressed, that day she was due for an ultrasound and possibly she would already know the sex of the baby. She went to the gynecologist and knew that the future baby would be a girl, she considered the idea of telling Jeff but preferred to surprise him  when he returned home. She went to eat and in the afternoon to work in the esoteric shop where she reading  the Tarot cards.

For his part, Charlie Manx was going to find a man in the city, a nursing assistant named Peter Ipes, to see if he could be useful as a collaborator. On his way he passed the esoteric shop where Lily worked and the Wraith emitted a hum of static. Manx frowned, braked, and looked out the window. On the door of a shop there was a striking sign beautifully adorned with Celtic-style lettering and a cute unicorn, which read:

THE MAGICIAN LILY

Consult your matters to the Tarot cards. A $ 10 question. Full consultation $ 25

Manx drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, it was too much of a coincidence and he wanted to make sure if it was Lily Aberforth who was reading  the cards and if she had found a new knife, in that case it was better to remind him that she should not cross his path and in passing he would try to find out if Mary had a new knife as he suspected. Charlie parked the car and went to the store. Once at the door he made a visor with his hand to observe, the store was dark but there was a light in the background, perhaps the owner or that Lily was in the back room. Manx rang the bell and waited a couple of minutes.

Lily was so focused on her work that she didn't hear the buzzer, but  she noticed the sudden change in temperature and her list of relaxation songs suddenly stopped and Christmas carols started playing, all of which   brought back dark and sinister memories that believed forgotten. Lily swallowed and put on a shawl for the cold, which hid her belly in the process. If the customer  was who she suspected, she didn't even want him to smell her pregnancy. Charlie rang the bell again and yelled:

- It's open?!

"I'm coming!" Answered Lily, going to the door and opening it.

Charlie smiled when he saw her, Lily was scared to death but kept her composure.

-Ms. Aberfoth ... how long ... –  he said leaning on the door frame and blocking the exit

- Mr. Manx ...

Lily noted that Charlie was even younger than the last time she had seen him in Christmasland.  even wearing more modern clothing, a long navy blue double-breasted coat, matching blue pants, a red vest and tie, and shoes instead. of high boots. His black hair was thicker, shinier and without  gray hair, his skin was smooth, and he would have looked prettier if it weren't for his teeth which stuck out and were still hideous  and the long nails he wore cut in a peak.

I was passing by here, miss and I looked at the sign when my Wraith reacted and I thought that perhaps my favorite witch had found a new "knife".

- Well, I don't know why your car reacted, perhaps you should check it, because I no longer have that power because I had to destroy my "knife".

- Are you sure? - He said laughing

- You want me to prove it to you? Although according to you everything was  rubbish

- Wow ... - Charlie said, showing upset - I'm sorry that he felt offended, although what he thought was  rubbish  is that I fell in love with someone who could harm me. By the way, maybe a little Tarot consultation will clarify me when I'm going to meet that mysterious girl ...

"Okay, but it will be a quick consultation," she said, putting on her shawl. "Sit down."

He sat down obediently, Lily shuffled the cards, cut them into piles and made him choose

"I have the impression that you want me to leave soon ... what are you hiding from me?" Charlie said in an amused tone but his  eyes gave away suspicion.

- Nothing. - She said curtly- Choose and ask your question.

 - How much will I find that mysterious girl you saw? And he pointed resignedly to the pile on his  left, Lily picked up the cards, and put them on the table to go uncovering them. He was looking at her carefully, he didn't notice anything in her but something had to happen since his car didn't react just because. Lily looked at the cards, curiously they were very similar to the ones from the other time she reading him, but this time The Wheel of Fortune came out and said:

- It seems that the thing is beginning to move, perhaps in a short period of time you will find it ... but it is not possible to specify when. In addition, it is not known what result there will be, The wheel of Fortune can bring luck but luck can also be twisted.

- Well, that's something. Thank you.

Lily got up and waited for Charlie to do so, he reached into the inside pocket of his coat, took out his wallet, opened it and took out a $ 10 bill, handing it to Lily.

- Thank you for answering my question, Miss Aberforth. I'm sorry that our meeting was so short and cold ...

Lily was disgusted to take Manx's money but she did it so as not to arouse his suspicions and did not see the avid glint in the eyes of her interlocutor. Manx grabbed her, softly but firmly by the arms, pulled him close and said in her ear:

- Tell me what you're hiding from me ... You think you can deceive me but it's not like that ...     I also know that your little sister has a "knife" again ... she was about to re-enter Christmasland but at the last moment she stopped ... so this is not It must be ... Let's see, let me guess ...

- Get your hands off me ..." Lily said, struggling to get away from him. Leave us alone.  I already told you and I repeat that neither Mary nor I will meddle in your affairs ...

Charlie pulled her closer and then he felt the bulge of Lily's belly against him, his dark eyes twinkling and he said laughing:

- Well, well, what do we have here? You have a bun in the oven. So that's what you were hiding from me.

Charlie put his hand on Lily's belly, she almost gagged with fear and disgust.

- Come on, little one ... say hello to your Uncle Charlie ...

He smiled when he noticed a kick from the future baby. Lily scrambled again to get rid of Manx's hold, but Manx had her tight. Apparently Charlie had much more strength than he appeared since he could control her just by grabbing her arm ...

- Who is the lucky dad? Mr. Stevens?

"Yes," she said in a whisper.

 Charlie released her gently, and made Lily sit in a chair as he said

- There was no reason for you to have to hide me about your future baby, indeed I congratulate you for it. I suppose you were afraid that I might take it away one day ... I won't, unless one day  he or she  appears in my Cemetery of May could be ...

Lily was horrified but preferred not to ask him what he was talking about. Charlie grabbed her hand, kissed it politely, and said:

- Arrivederci, my dear.

Manx left the store, got behind the wheel of his car, drove off and then he realized… Lily's baby would be a future creative soul! Manx smiled to himself and said:

- Well, time will tell ...

[aion-rsa]

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 9 Review – Chapter 85: Destroyer

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The mundane mingles with the supernatural in a enjoyably goofy episode.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 8

“It is better to know the truth and make peace with it.”

In a bit of selfless wisdom, Cheryl states the above words to Betty in tonight’s bonkers installment. The context being that Betty doesn’t want to tell her mother that it looks like Polly is a goner. So she goes to Cheryl basically to inquire whether she feels that her cousin’s life would have been better had she not known Jason’s true fate.

The from-the-heart response that Cheryl gives her is quickly ignored, and Betty hides the truth from Alice. Since this is an episode of Riverdale, Betty’s deception immediately backfires on her when her FBI superior Glen arrives at the Cooper household to reveal Polly’s probable fate and kick Betty off the case. (Somewhere in the night, Veronica does a breathy cover of The Thompson Twins’ “Lies”).

Anyway, let’s get back to that quote for a second: It is better to know the truth and be at peace with it. That’s going to be the mantra for this entire review, as there are fundamental truths I’ve touched upon in the past that demand to be recognized before the healing can be reached. They are:

1- Archie’s football storyline is a total snooze.

Riverdale may have leaped seven years into the future, but Archie remains as doltish as ever. Granted, K.J. Apa is killing it this season as a grizzled version of the character, but the problem of Archie’s messiah complex still drags on. There are a lot of fascinating things happening on this series right now, and all the Bulldogs stuff does is slow down the breakneck pace that those interesting storylines are moving in. Aliens are in Riverdale, nobody cares about high school football right now. C’mon.

All that said, Britta rules.

2 – Any time that this series isn’t focusing on Mothmen Aliens is wasted time.

The show is taking serious liberties by mashing up Mothman and alien abduction mythologies, which really upends my In Search Of-influenced ideology about how the world works. I’ll forgive this because putting “aliens” on Riverdale is a work of stupid genius but also because I love watching Cole Sprouse and his starter goatee running around looking totally frantic.

3 – Hiram Lodge should be eaten by Mothmen Aliens.

Am I alone in thinking this could actually happen? What a coup for the series that would be! We know that Hiram is involved in some shady business, and all his SoDale shenanigans are a cover for some big secret. Therefore the mystery of the Lonely Highway is directly traced back to Hiram. Is he working for the government? Did aliens cure his mystery illness of last year and in turn is he feeding them Riverdale’s castoffs? Nothing is off the table here. Hiram’s machinations have been the same since he first appeared, but what if he really was working for aliens THE WHOLE TIME? Wouldn’t that be insane/amazing? No other show could pull that kind of shit off.

What I’m saying here is that Riverdale has been dancing with insanity since day one and it’s time to consummate the relationship.

4 – Betty Cooper, Alien Hunter needs to happen.

She fights werewolves in the comics, so is this really that crazy?

The ultimate mystery of whatever is happening this season will likely have a logic-based answer. That’s disappointing, as the Archieverse can be shown to handle witches, so are extraterrestrials that far off? (I’m still burned by the conclusion of the Gargoyle King saga, so I’m not expecting much here). Imagine though, the writing staff wants you to think that everything will wrap up with a plausible explanation and then, boom, it gives you bona fide aliens! A dream is a wish the heart makes…

This episode did give us clarity on a few things. We learned that both Jughead’s and Betty’s investigations lead back to the Lonely Highway and the mysteries — either terrestrial or otherworldly — unfolding there. Additionally, we were reminded that even though he’s ostensibly the lead character of this series, Archie is straight-up boring when he isn’t being attacked by bears or escaping from prison. With only one more episode before an extended hiatus, I hope next week brings us some resolution even though deep down I know that it won’t.

Riverdale Rundown

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• Jughead’s student who writes the troubling story about Mothman abduction is Lerman Logan, a reference to The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Percy Jackson franchise star.

• Old Man Dreyfus’ name is clearly inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind star Richard Dreyfuss, which is fitting as the supernatural elements of this season are riffing on the sci-fi blockbusters of the 1970s and ’80s. Further proof of this can be seen by Drefyus telling Betty and Jughead about how Riverdale was a hotbed of Mothmen activity in the summers of 1977 and 1982, ones in which Star Wars and E.T. respectively ruled at the box office.

• Mr. Weatherbee threatens to fire Jughead if he doesn’t stay out of Lerman’s problems, apparently forgetting that Jughead isn’t really even a teacher and is only volunteering.

• Even objectively, Archie is a terrible coach. Can we please fold him into the Jughead/Betty storyline somehow? It’s great to see him and Veronica back together but damn do they need better plots to work with.

• One of the teams that defeats the Bulldogs is the Baxter High Ravens. In case you forgot already, Baxter High was one of the schools that Sabrina attended in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

• One has to wonder how the Vixens must feel about Cheryl, a woman in her twenties who graduated seven years ago, returning to her alma mater to steal the thunder of teenagers who live in Murdersville, U.S.A. and have no other outlet besides cheerleading by performing a self-aggrandizing Lady Gaga cover. Cheryl does a lot of messed up stuff on this show, but this act struck me as especially cruel.

• There’s no Toni and very little Tabitha Tate tonight. Boo.

• I still think they should sell the Pop Tate bobbleheads they keep showing.

• Kevin gets put through the emotional and physical ringer this episode. We learn that disparaging remarks from his mother impacted his self-image so much that he turned to cruising in Fox Forest. (The fate of Mrs. Keller is unknown, so it is possible that she will make an appearance in an upcoming episode). The assault that Kevin endured was brutal to watch, but the scene between Kevin and his father was powerful and cathartic. It will be interesting to see where the character of Kevin goes from here, because it is absurdly beyond time the writers give him a personality trait other than chronic thirst.

• Someone on the Riverdale production staff must really love Friday Night Lights.

• I don’t believe for a second that Polly is actually dead. There’s more of a chance of Hiram being eaten by Mothmen Aliens or Archie getting a compelling A-plot.

• I hate on the football storyline a lot in this review, but I do find all the talk about tainting the podunk town’s football league’s prestige to be weirdly funny.

• Pop’s sells take out cold cuts too? Helluva business, that Chok’lit Shoppe.

• “I’m saying that things happen, especially in Riverdale,” declares Jughead, in the most obvious statement in the episode.

• Please let them do a Mulder and Scully thing with Jughead and Betty.

• I think there’s more Mr. Weatherbee in tonight’s episode than there has been in the entire series to date. That’s a fantastic thing.

• So is Reggie done with Hiram for good now? He is such a key figure in the comics that it would be fantastic if the series figured out what the hell to do with him.

• Having reviewed this show from the first episode, I’ve learned a thing or two about how Riverdale storylines work. Therefore I’m calling it now: Glen is the Trash Bag Killer. You think so too, I know it.

• So far this season has drawn influence from everything from cryptozoological monsters to the real-life crimes of Patrick Kearney. Next week marks the mid-season finale, and the promise of everything from aliens to Pop’s possibly being blown up by Hiram? Whatever happens, cherish it, as the show then won’t return until July.

The post Riverdale Season 5 Episode 9 Review – Chapter 85: Destroyer appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[nikkzwrites]

(They Long to Be) Close to You | Dark Fix-It Fic Series Part 2 | Chapter 3

A/N: This fic is one that I started with my OC because honestly, I personally didn’t like how season 3 ended. So I am rewriting all of Dark with my OC Annalise Dahlheim. I hope you all like it. Some things will be expanded more on just for more depth to Dark that season 3 kinda skipped over so…. yeah. This is part two of the series! You can start the full series here!

CW: Canon Typical Triggers: Smoking, Sex, Language, Drugs, Drinking, Death, Violence.

Word Count:  3.9k

[First Chapter] [Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter]

Martha walked up the cobblestone street to the Tannhaus company warehouse as the thunderstorm raged on. She peeked her head into the makeshift time machine workshop. There was the crinkling sound of electricity arcing between the three towers until it stopped. Her eyes lay upon a man gripping at the table. His sorry head was hanging in exhaustion. She slowly found her voice again and asked, “Jonas?”

The man looked up and immediately stood back from his work station. He took a step back from the girl in surprise and confusion. He breathed heavily as he slowly approached the short haired girl crying. It had been so long since he had seen her face. He looked up at her and whispered, “You’re alive.” He shook his head and whispered again, “You’re alive.” He took her face gently into his hands.

This alternate world Martha slowly took his hands in her and lowered them. “I’m not Martha,” she whispered, shaking her head, “Not your Martha.”

The man shook his head and asked, “What does that mean?”

She explained to him, “I’m here to help you find the Origin.” She explained, “The one thing that’s the beginning of everything in your world and in mine.”

Martha dreamed of that night. The night she slept with a boy who didn’t love her and also the same boy she didn’t love at all. It was a momentary weakness for both of them over the girl they both loved choosing someone who wasn’t them and the fallout their moment of weakness created. The girl sat up panting and turned to see the bearded older Jonas next to her. He did not seem amused. She got out of bed and stared at him as well.

Jonas looked down at the letter in his hand then stood up. He told the girl callously, “get dressed,” before walking out.

After she was dressed, she walked back into the warehouse to see the alternate versions of her friends. They all stared at her as if they had seen a ghost.

“Martha,” Bartosz asked, walking closer towards the girl.

Magnus shook his head in disbelief, “This can’t be. You… You’re alive.” He ran to the girl who shared the same face as his sister and held her.

“This isn’t Martha,” Jonas explained harshly.

As Magnus slowly let the girl go, Bartosz turned towards Jonas and asked, “What is this?”

Everyone’s eyes shifted between Martha and Jonas before the girl spoke up, “He’s right.” She explained, “I’m not Martha.” She looked down, “Not you’re Martha.” She looked up with gritted teeth and explained, “I promised to make everything right again. So none of it happens. So you don’t die in my world and I don’t die in yours. So that Annalise… Ulrich… Dad… Mikkel… So they all come back. So everything finally comes to an end.” 

It was the 22nd of September in 1987 that Katharina found herself waking up in Jonas’s, or should she say, her son Mikkel’s room. The alarm blared waking her up. She glared at it as she got up. She turned off the alarm and stared at the picture of Mikkel with Ines on the nightstand. She listened to the call left for Ines as she rounded up her things to leave for the day. She grabbed the missing posters of Mikkel and went on her mission to try and find her son.

Tronte and Jana were having a hard time across town with their own memories and funeral for their own missing son. Jana looked at her husband and demanded, “Tell them where you were when our son disappeared.” When he refused to speak, Jana announced to the room, “When my son disappeared, he was screwing Claudia Tiedemann.” Whispers filled the room as she spoke again, “If only you’d put as much energy into finding your own son as you’re wasting on finding your mistress. Then maybe Mads would be back by now.”

Tronte looked down embarrassed and dejected. He whispered, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jana sighed and stood up. She grabbed his bag and dumped its contents onto the floor. “‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’“ She mocked at the reveal of all the newspaper clippings and photographs about Claudia lay upon the floor for everyone to see.

Tronte sighed. He hung his head as he walked out.

Claudia opened up the police station on that same day only 33 years later. She listened to the radio as it talked about the events of three months ago. She turned it off as she approached her daughter’s room. She looked at the cancer medication in her hands and walked to her daughter’s side, “How are you?”

Barely able to breath, Regina struggled out, “Momma.” She held the woman’s hand and hummed happily. When her mother released herself from her grip, Regina asked, “Are you leaving again?”

Claudia turned and explained, “I’ll be back before the sun sets.”

Across town, Elisabeth walked out of the trailer her and her father started to live in. Peter turned on his detector and started walking with his daughter to find out more if they had found his wife and older daughter yet. Another figure watched as they walked away. 

Freida stood inside the tent looking through the faces. She had heard that they were walling off the area in another five days. She prayed that they would find her daughter’s body by then. By all accounts, Annalise should have been found by now. Freida turned to look at her father who was nervously pacing around. He was mumbling under his breath about this reminding him too much of the war. She held onto her father and whispered, “It’s alright, Abba. No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe.” She pulled him close to her.

“I want to go home,” David complained looking at the wall of faces, “I keep telling you she won’t be here. Annalise is with Adam now!”

Freida turned to her father crying and yelled, “Stop Abba! This isn’t funny anymore. My husband and my child are gone! I need to find her so I can bury her next to-”

The tent opened interrupting the two.

Bartosz chuckled and asked, “You come from a parallel world?”

“One where Mikkel doesn’t disappear,” Magnus asked with his arms crossed.

Franziska asked, “I’m mute?”

“And Jonas doesn’t exist,” Bartosz added.

Martha nodded and explained, “And Annalise is in love with Bartosz.”

Bartosz let out a small chuckle feeling vindicated in his own feelings, but earning a sharp glare from the older Jonas. 

Magnus continued to the main part of the conversation and asked, “Where we’re all dead because your world ends just as ours does?” Seeing Martha nod, he placed his hands on this knee and complained, “That’s bullshit. I’m not dead. I’m here.”

Jonas slowly approached the girl and let out a small growled, “How did you find us? How did you know where to find us?”

She stared up at the man and said, “Jonas told me.”

Franziska crossed her arms and called, “I thought Jonas didn’t exist in your world.”

Martha looked down and explained, “He traveled there. From your world to mine.”

Jonas stepped closer to her inspecting her. He growled, “You’re lying. I was never in your world. Did you write the letter?” When she didn’t answer, he grabbed the back of her neck violently and yelled, “What do you really want? Did Adam send you?”

Bartosz and Magnus stood up and pulled the man away from the girl.

“What did you use to travel,” He screamed as he fought against them to try to get to the girl, “I want to know what you used to travel!”

“You’re late,” a deep voice interrupted the argument, “the machines aren’t running yet.” He approached the group and stated, “You have a visitor.”

Jonas stormed out of the warehouse as the other man touched her face, “So you’re the reason for his mood being even worse today that usual.” He chuckled and explained, “Don’t let me scare you. People might say I’m not quite right in the head, but I assure you that I see more than those among us who see.”

Katharina stood in the middle of the school handing out the flyers. Everyone kept denying that they had ever seen Mikkel. She turned to give out another flyer seeing the face of the younger version of her husband. She whispered to herself, “Ulrich?”

Ulrich turned to see a blonde woman. She was older but something inside of him yelled at him that she was familiar. He asked the woman, “Do I know you?”

Her breath trembled and she held out a flyer, “Do you maybe know where this boy is?”

Ulrich took the flyer and nodded, “Maybe the madman got him after all.”

“What madman,” Katharina grabbed onto the boy.

Ulrich pulled his arm away and told her, “Don’t touch me, Typhoid Mary!”

Tronte sat in the nuclear power plant waiting for Yasmine. He confronted her and asked if she noticed anything strange. That was when he learned of the older Claudia meeting her younger self before her younger self disappeared.

Peter nodded towards Freida, “Hello. We’re sorry to interrupt.” He looked at the pair and turned to the wall of faces, “Any news?”

“No,” admitted Freida shaking her head. Tears welled up as she bit her lip, “I-I’m sorry about Franziska and Charlotte. Charlotte was such a sweet woman.”

Peter nodded, “Thank you. None of them deserved this.”

David looked at them and stated, “I’m going back to the car.” He cursed under his breath about how all of this was useless. 

Freida nodded and asked the man, “Would you like us to wait for-”

“That won’t be necessary. Thank you,” Peter bowed his head. He watched as the woman nodded to him. 

The woman knelt down and gave Elisabeth a sweet smile. She reached into her bag and handed Elisabeth a pack of scrunchies. She smiled and explained, “These were my daughter’s. She used them for her track meets. I think she would want you to have them.” She kissed the blonde girl’s forehead and then followed her father out.

He looked at the wall once more. He walked over to two of the medics inside of the tent. He walked over to them and explained, “We’re looking for a woman. Late 40s. Blonde and a 17 year old girl. Red hair.”

The woman medic looked at him sorrowfully, “If they aren’t on the wall, they aren’t here. I’m sorry.”

Peter slowly turned back to Elisabeth and he sighed, “This is good. If they’re not here, then…”

Elisabeth signed back, “maybe they travelled.”

Peter walked over to his daughter and held her.

Katharina stormed through the police station demanding to know about the man who had escaped from the psych ward just earlier that year. She tried to get more information, but got shot down until the man took pity on her situation. She was told about the man and how Ines and Michael were in child protective services. She found the information on the man locked in the ward for 34 years interesting. She blinked and made her way out of the station.

Tronte started to drive down the road when he spotted Regina. She was sitting there with Gretchen the dog in her hands at the bus stop. He stopped the car and asked her, “Is that your dog?”

Regina replied easily, “She was my mother’s.”

Tronte sighed and asked, “Should I give you a ride?” When she didn’t respond, he just opened the door for her. He looked at the girl as they drove down the road and chuckled, “Strange. Looks like Gretchen.”

Regina made a face and commented, “I think that’s why she kept her.” They sat awkwardly for a moment before Regina spoke up and asked, “Do you think the disappearance of Mads and my mother… that they are connected?”

Tronte shook his head and commented, “I don’t know. The week before she disappeared, did she say anything to you about an old woman?”

Regina shook her head.

“And,” he asked, “did she say anything to you about me?”

Regina shook her head again.

Tronte shook his head and admitted, “I… I just thought maybe she’d said something.”

“I...I’ll,” Regina stuttered out, “get out just up ahead and walk the rest of the way.”

Tronte nodded and pulled over, “Well, if  you need anything…”

Regina exited the car and waited for him to drive away before she started to walk back home.

Claudia stared at the canisters and the machine. She picked up the microphone of the recorder and started, “My name is Claudia Tiedemann. I am one of the few survivors of the apocalypse of June 27, 2020. Almost three months have passed since the catastrophe. It’s still unclear what exactly led to the events in Winden. But the God Particle… If we can stabilize it, maybe it is a way back. Back to the past. Maybe we can save them. All of them.” She turned to see the pictures on the wall.

Peter and Elisabeth walked to the Kahnwald house to try and find supplies or bodies. He signed to his daughter, “I’ll take a look around upstairs.”

Elisabeth nodded and waited downstairs. She looked around the house. She then picked up an old picture of Hannah, Ulrich, and Katharina when she felt a presence. She turned to confirm with her full vision that there was a boy standing in the back door. He waved his hand and slowly took off his face mask and hood. He walked into the home and motioned for the word food.

His deep voice spoke slowly, “I’m looking for food. And you?”

Elisabeth took out a pencil and a notebook to write to him, “Mama and sister.”

Hanno had to take a step closer to be able to read her handwriting.

Elizabeth signed to him, “Where do you sleep?”

He wrote back, “Cave.”

Peter walked down the stairs to see the boy with his daughter, “What is this?” He stood between Hanno and his daughter and asked, “Why are you here? Have you been following us? I told you, we want nothing to do with you.”

Hanno looked from Elisabeth to Peter and stated, “You want to protect her, I know. So do I. And I will after you were killed.” He put on his face masked and left the two of them alone.

Back at the Machine Factory, the outside was storming. Bartosz used this time to knock on the Alternate World’s Martha’s door. He apologized to her and said, “I’m sorry about Jonas. Since we’ve been here… he’s… he’s been different.”

Martha looked at the boy. She felt sorry for him. The boy reminded him so much of her own world’s version of him. Well, except for the girl they both love being clung to his arm. The girl sighed and asked him, “How did you all get here?”

“We traveled,” Bartosz answered plainly, “Exactly the moment everything blew up.” He looked back at Martha and admitted, “He didn’t want to come here. It just happened. The device is empty. It’s not that easy to get nuclear fuel from the future in 1888.” He looked down again.

“And this,” Martha asked, “What is this? The workshop? The blind man? Does he know who you are? Where you come from?”

Bartosz looked around then stood. He held out his hand and said, “Come on. I need to show you something.”

The older Jonas stared at the letter in his hands and growled.

The blind Tannhaus spoke to him, “The young woman. Is she one of you? A traveler?” He sighed and then stated, “When I found you, it was a sign. A godsend. Whatever that woman means to you, don’t forget what we are going to create. Paradise. Every calamity can be reversed. Every pain, destroyed before it even comes to be. A perfect world. Sic mundus creatus est.”

Jonas sighed as he turned away from the man.

Katharina walked into the psych ward. She stared at the woman working behind the entrance. There in front of her was her own mother. She was nervous at first. Katharina slowly spoke up, “Excuse me?”

“How can I help you,” Nurse Albers spoke to Katharina.

Katharina stood in silence for a moment before slowly stammering out, “I’d like to visit someone. He’s been here for 34 years.”

Helene blinked and shook her head, “The inspector?” She stared at the woman and something in her rang a bell. She asked, “Have we met before? Somehow you look familiar to me.”

Katharina shook her head and told the woman, “He’s my husband.” Tears ran down her face.

“Oh,” Helene said, “You’re one of them. One of those women who go for madmen or prisoners because they can’t find anyone else. I’m off duty. Come back tomorrow.”

Katharina’s face fell in disgust. She then spoke to her mother, “I’ve traveled a long way. Let me see him. Please.”

Ulrich sat at his table by himself. He was staring at his chess game when Katharina sat in front of him.

“Ulrich,” She whispered to him. 

When he raised his head, he was surprised to see his wife there. He spoke, “Katharina?”

The woman sat back in surprise, but then reached to hold his hands, “I’ll get you out of here.” He nodded deliberately, “I promise.”

Yasmine walked into the power plant when she saw a flash light. She walked inside of Claudia’s office to see a man standing there with some of the files in his hand. “Excuse me, what are you doing here,” she asked bravely.

As he turned, his younger self closed the door. Mary sat in one of the chairs and stared up at the woman as the older version of her son appeared.

“What do you want,” the native to Adam’s world asked the imposters, “I… I’ll call security.”

The man stated, “No. You won’t do that.” He closed the file and placed it down. He looked at her, “Yasmine? Right?” They all closed one hand over their wrist and continued, “Hell is empty. All the devils are here.” He took out his wire and slowly approached the women telling her to hush.

As the other woman dropped to the floor, Mary looked up at the group and said, “Good job David. Let’s go.” She smiled. That was not his name, not natively anyway, but Mary thought it fit him well since in some ways, The Unknown was also her son. So she could get a say into naming him as well, right? So she named him after her grandfather. Someone who Eve helped raise so that Mary could exist.

Tronte walked into his home to find his wife waiting up. He sat next to her on their sofa.

Jana told him, “At some point, you have to decide. For us. Or against us.”

“I…” Tronte started, “I saw Regina. She’s all grown up.”

Jana told him, “I’ve wondered all these years… If she… Claudia never said who the father was.”

Tronte’s brow furrowed as he commented back, “You’re right. I have to decide.” He grabbed her hand and held it.

Regina shook awake from the storm. Tronte slowly revealed himself to the woman and said, “Regina… I’m so sorry, but this has to happen.” He left go of her hand, took her pillow and started to smother her saying, “She said it’s the only way to save you.” Tronte cried as he carried out the act.

It was snowing in 2053. Charlotte stroked the picture of her family as the older Elisabeth walked to her mother and daughter’s side. They sat in silence before holding onto each other. 

The older Jonas walked into Martha’s room as Mary slowly disappeared with her son back into their own world.

Bartosz and Martha slowly approached the Sic Mundus lair. He allowed the girl inside. He watched as she studied the room. When she turned to ask him what this was he responded, “This is kind of a secret lodge. Old Tannhaus is the only member left. His father was convinced he could override the rules of space and time. He dedicated his entire life to this. And so did his son. 

“They tried to build a time machine,” Martha put together the pieces. 

Bartosz nodded and told her, “Jonas is trying to rebuild things the way he saw them. He’s been here before. Not now. In the future.” Bartosz slowly approached her and said, “He asked you something earlier. Whether Adam has sent you. He said… He said Adam killed Martha and Annalise… Who is this Adam?”

The girl looked at him confused, “He didn’t tell you guys?” When Bartosz blankly stared at her she broke the news to the boy, “He is Adam. Jonas.”

A cry was heard within the Erit Lux lodge as Jonas sat with Eve. Jonas watched as an older Annalise rushed over towards the crib and picked the baby up. 

“Oh Jonah, don’t cry my dear,” Mary cooed to the child, “My sweet baby, please don’t cry. Mommy’s home.”

Jonas felt his heart racing as he watched the woman cradling her child. He listened to her hum to the child before singing. 

When I was young

I'd listen to the radio

Waitin' for my favorite songs

When they played I'd sing along

It made me smile.

Mary rocked the child and danced with him to help him slowly fall asleep. Her voice was just as angelic as Jonas remembered.

Those were such happy times

And not so long ago

How I wondered where they'd gone

But they're back again

Just like a long lost friend

All the songs I loved so well.

Eve seemed to be smiling watching the mother and her son. The older woman starting to hum along with the song as if she knew it by heart as well.

Every Sha-la-la-la

Every Wo-o-wo-o

Still shines

Every shing-a-ling-a-ling

That they're startin' to sing's

So fine.

Mary’s voice became hushed as if she were whispering to her son. Jonas wanted to go to her and help, but he watched as an older Bartosz walked over to her and kissed her temple. 

When they get to the part

Where he's breakin' her heart

It can really make me cry

Just like before

It's yesterday once more.

The baby’s eyes had slowly closed and he started to sleep once again. Jonas watched teary eyed as the couple kissed the baby’s head and slowly walked away. They treated him and Eve almost like ghosts. 

Eve turned towards Jonas and stated, “We don’t know our end. But our end knows us. Salvation or damnation. We can indulge in the illusion of free will, but we cannot escape our ultimate destiny.” She stood and walked to the family tree on her floor.

Jonas stood and followed her.

“The choices we make in this world may be different,” Eve explained, “but nevertheless, they converge on the same moment. Things may not happen in the same way, or at the same time. But they happen. You believed a world without you would be a better one.” She turned towards him and said, “But they will all die. Mikkel. Mikkel will die. Everyone will die. The apocalypse takes place in my world just as it does in yours. But in mine, that’s in just three days.”

[witcher-ot3]

List of Iorveth/Roche WiPs

Because somethings I like to torment myself by showing how many fucking things I’m working on. Doesn’t help that lately, I’ve started a new WiP every time I get stuck in another fic. So, in no particular order (literally just how the tabs are ordered in my window lmao), here are all my Iorveth/Roche WiPs

2 fics in the Petals and Stripes ‘verse - one with Roche’s POV straight after and one of the Stripes’ POV as they deal with the aftermath... and try to help their boss woo Iorveth. Surprising no one, they’re terrible at it.

Curse breaking WiP where True Love’s Kiss strong emotion for one’s enemy saves Iorveth’s life. And then he, Roche, and Triss team up to go save the Scoia’tael.

Roche’s POV WiP set before they first meet. Includes some nice knife and blood kink during a face off between Iorveth and Roche. No idea where this one is going.

Eye On You Chapter 3, for which the plan is thigh-fucking. That’s it, that’s all I got.

Fake dating casefic (The Curious Case of the Murivel Resort for Couples). rn they’re playing strip gwent and I somehow signed up to write 5 different gwent games for this 😢

Competitive makeouts (The Chase) rn they’re spiderman kissing, but there’s gonna be a conspiracy plot that Iorveth has to reveal.

New ‘verse involving Iorveth/Roche/Kayran and Roche/Foltest lmao. First WiP is Roche running into Iorveth during his monthly fuckdate with the Kayran... and then joining in. Second WiP is a comparison of Roche’s two relationships and how they make him feel. For some reason, I framed it around the Chivalric Virtues from Blood & Wine and made it a 5+1 lol

Pining and Poignards, a WiP in which there is pining and stabbing lol. A poignard is a type of knife, which Iorveth generously “gifts” to Roche. rn Iorveth is sneaking around the army base and has just caught Roche masturbating. I...only sort of know where I’m going with this one.

Tittyfucking. That’s it, that’s the plot lmao. Iorveth is a lil obsessed with Roche’s chest and attempts to fuck it.

Gross Gremlin Man aka Iorveth prefers Roche nasty and sweaty. Uh... I just started this one and somehow it went from “huh, why do I not mind Roche when he’s all sweaty” to “hmm, I think I’m gonna steal his clothes and smell them while I touch myself” and I’m still working on the transition from one to the other lol

Red is the Rose Chapters 3+4 - Ch3 is about ready for posting, but I’m trying to figure out how much of the events of W2 to cover or if I should just skip all of them and get to the post-W2 plot.

Fun fact: all of those WiPs above are in 1 document because I like to make life difficult for Google Docs. But the other docs are all specific ‘verses (or themes) and these ones are theoretically standalone. Theoretically.

More standalones

Letters - a post-W3 WiP where Roche is running Temeria and hates it and starts receiving letters from Iorveth (sealed with a forget me not in wax).

WiP where they both get captured and imprisoned in a magic cell and whoops, sex ends up happening... and then their teams come rescue them.

Cuddles with the Commander - continuation of Pride of Temeria, where Roche wakes up cuddled up with Pillow Tits and his team.

Fire Breathing - a Meet the Family WiP where Iorveth is hanging with the Stripes and PT decides to demonstrate how to breathe fire. Iorveth is more than slightly freaked out that humans have this ability.

Iorveth gangbang - uh yeah, what it says on the tin. The Blue Stripes take Iorveth apart under Roche’s guidance.

Different first meeting identity porn WiP - they meet in Flotsam just as the Scoia’tael is starting to get formed. Neither knows who the other is, but they have amazing sex and every time they’re in Flotsam together, they meet up again. But Iorveth, of course, leads the Scoia’tael, and Roche has been tasked with hunting them down.

Crones WiP - Roche went to the Crones to plead for his men back. He gets them back - but as ghosts. He also gets assigned to help work on a cure to the Catriona plague, and it turns out one of the people already working on it is Iorveth. I literally just want Blue Stripes ghosts laughing at Roche’s bad flirting, but somehow it’s mostly angst rn ooops

Love Shack WiPs

First Time WiP - this one is so close to being done dammit. It’s actually the first WiP I ever started for this pairing and it just needs like 2 more orgasms aaaaahhhhhh

Medicine WiP - morning after their first time, they have a discussion about scars and medicine and how elven medicine is way better than human medicine. Not at all based on the billions of medical procedures I’m going through or anything.

PWP Ovi WiP - uh yeah, this one is just pure porn. rn Iorveth is giving Roche his eggs and Roche is loving it.

The Picture Says It All - next is gonna be a sketch of Roche hard at work hunched over a desk and Iorveth is all “no, this is wrong, he’s meant to be wielding a sword and fighting me”

The Haunting of Barrack 8B - Adda!! Adda is officially getting introduced in the next part, which is good, ‘cause she’s important in this ‘verse (and in my heart)

Roche builds Iorveth a home WiP - oh yeah, I stalled out because I realized I had to establish Roche and Rinn’s friendship before she could give him a hint about making a nest for Iorveth

Long Live the King - WiP about Roche’s relationship with Foltest, some of what he’s done for the King, how Iorveth feels about it, and then the big finale for this ‘verse, which I will leave secret for now.

Don’t Cry For Me, Temeria WiPs These are only the ones that have actual WiPs started, because believe me, I have a LOT more ideas

(Im)Perfect Strangers ch 27 - time for Roche to step up his wooing. Featuring dinner, dancing, and gift giving. And, of course, it wouldn’t be me without misunderstandings lol.

Between Two Fools Ch 8 - I’m working on getting this out as soon as I can. Just gotta finish writing their sex from the end of (Im)Perfect Strangers ch 26

Unlucky Number Thirteen - I want to write about how he starts spying for Roche and their developing kinda mentorship relationship

Silas’s story - he’s literally JUST joined the Stripes and I need to write how he and Thirteen work closely together but also this poor anxious boy is like 3 seconds from a heart attack at all times rn. It will get better tho.

Earning Your Stripes ch 2 - the first time. This chap will actually have porn! But first I gotta finish writing it lol. Rn Ves and Finch are double teaming Fenn and PT and Thirteen are in subspace cuddling with Roche, but soon they’ll get to join in too.

break (v /brāk/): to destroy someone's resistance - cnc WiP where Iorveth asks Roche to break him - and Roche has a lot of fun doing so as they pretend to fight like they’re still enemies.

Bath House - this was SUPPOSED to be a porny lil thing where Roche talks dirty to Iorveth while they’re stuck being proper for the kids, and then finally they get some alone time. But what it also turned into is that Anais and Thirteen equally hate baths lmao. Boussy loves them tho. He’s a hedonist, while Anais is just bored and Thirteen is like a cat with water.

Tutti Ch 2 - Iorveth begins to compose a symphony for Roche about their love story.

Daggers, Dumplings, and Dresses - the Elihal/Hattori side story. Not gotten much written so far - mostly just Elihal reflecting on his friendship with Iorveth.

The First Rule of Fight Club ch 2 - Ves now has time to think about what Ciaran said about Roche not being worthy of her loyalty. And also about how Ciaran’s skin tasted when she bit him.

Dragonfucking - another PWP WiP featuring a threesome with Saskia... except Roche still doesn’t know about the whole dragon thing, so he’s in for a surprise.

Water Balloon Fight - silly lil WiP where the Scoia’tael and the Blue Stripes have a water balloon fight. PT is the ref.

Baby Mama - lmao yes that is what it’s listed as in my doc. Not gonna say a lot about this, but will probably be a longer piece. Set in the distant future in DCfM,T.

Tempt Not a Desperate Man ‘verse Yeah, does anyone know what this is? It’s the ‘verse that started with Devour What’s Truly Yours and so far has nothing else published oops

Part 2 - in which they actually have to face each other again and figure out where they stand. And then there’s some fisting.

The Chaperon - Iorveth decides to make Roche a chaperon since the last one was sacrificed as a cum rag

Human Bootlicker - Iorveth makes a joke about Roche surrendering on his knees when he gets the upper hand in a fight between the Blue Stripes and the Scoia’tael - and then Roche actually does.

Elven Baths - so it’s kinda a thing in this ‘verse that they end up meeting and fucking in the elven baths in the Flotsam forest. As in, the legend about “if you’re in love, you can still hear the lovers’ sighs in the garden” came to being because Roche is fucking loud lmao. Also, roses of remembrance. 😉

Sort of series fics, but technically stand alone. AKA apparently I decided I wanted to do Themes. 

Theme 1: Possessiveness aka all the kinky sex kinda embarrassed to admit to these which is dumb because fuck shame

Piss fic - uh, kinda what it sounds like? Roche decides to be an asshole and refuses to move out of the way when Iorveth tries to get to the bathroom - and somehow this turns into Iorveth pissing on his crotch.

Come inflation + piss fic - Roche gets a potion that makes him come a lot. Iorveth likes it and wants more.

Possessiveness - Iorveth has feelings about his nemesis and Roche does not know how to feel about this.

Tentacles + Breeding - a tentacle/vine plant instinctively tries to lay its eggs in Roche. Iorveth is not okay with this plant going for his enemy... until it turns out Roche is very much here for it. And also for Iorveth fertilizing the eggs after they’ve been laid.

Dream - Roche dreams about Iorveth being an elven king and himself being essentially Iorveth’s plaything, to use and to show off

Theme 2: King Roche aka hey, wouldn’t it be funny if he ended up in charge? He would hate it so much

Murder husbands - Iorveth breaks into the palace and finds the very unhappy “King” Roche, then they go run away and kill war criminals together. But of course Roche could never abandon Temeria, so he’s still in charge by day. But by night, it’s murder time.

Okay, technically this has like a line written for it, BUT bodyguard AU where Roche knows he’s gonna get assassinated without protection once he becomes king, and only Iorveth is allowed to kill him. So only makes since for Iorveth to become his bodyguard. 

Arranged Marriage AU - inspired by softestpunk’s The Gift, I literally just want cracky fun where they are forced to get married and they hate it but also fall in love. That’s it, that’s the story.

Holy fuck, I have a lot of WiPs. But I think that’s all the Iorveth/Roche ones. Which is not to say I don’t have more, but rn, I am hyperfixated on these idiots, so these are the ones I am actively writing.

[2ki8h1]

What if Ishimaru and Mondo had both survived the killing game?

So, at the beginning of this year (2019), I decided to embark in a different project: to write a full fanfiction surrounding a certain idea: “What if both of them had survived the killing game?”. The goal of this was to include Ishimaru, as well as Mondo, in the canon plot described by the games and anime (I still haven’t read the novels or the mangas) by creating an adventure surrounding them but also focused in points I wished I saw in Danganronpa. In other words, write about their character development, their relationship (yes, it was supposed to be mainly focused on Ishimondo as a couple, slowly blossoming their romance) but it was also an opportunity to write about tragedy and despair (I enjoy writing horror and angst). I won’t reveal any major spoilers (about my fanfiction) because I haven’t decided if I will continue to work on this. I have other tasks at hand that I need to prioritise. It was supposed to be a big project which I estimated to be longer than 100.000 words. [so far, I have only written over 13k with the 1st chapter still at the beggining, while the second one is already at the middle with over 10k words.]

The point of this post: since I don’t know if I continue this or not, I would love to share the best moments I have wrote so far (both humorous and romantic and I have decided to not share any gory/sad parts). I will give context for every part I share without giving too much details.

NOTE 1: The narrator tries to put themselves in the feet of the character they are focusing on. So, they also try to adopt their way of speech and attempt to convey their feelings facing the various occasions (for example: the narrator is more crude and sad when the character in focus is Mondo)

NOTE 2: English is not my first language. So I apologise for any mistakes found.

WARNING: HEAVY SPOILERS FOR DR1 AND SDR2.

1.       “Hopes and Dreams”

Chapter: 1

Context: epilogue of DR1, looking at the metal gate that locked them inside the school, after defeating Junko.

The prospects of a new start were high amongst everyone. Makoto was experiencing a restraint holding his body, in other words, he felt tensed. Suddenly, the feel of warm leather touched his right palm. Kyoko had approached him and gently held his hand. She didn’t made eye contact however he appreciated her kind gesture. “You will not fight this battle alone.” Her speech motivated him and invoked a determined willpower from within which led him to furrow his eyebrows and squeeze her hand slightly harder. Amused by his mood changes, Kyoko tried but failed to conceal a shy, joyful smile.

Mondo walked closer to his brother and hurriedly hurled his long coat to fall over the other man’s shoulder and placed his right arm around Ishimaru’s neck to enfold him in a friendly embrace. That action startled Taka, who barely succeeded to sustain both feet on the ground after the abrupt (and clumsy) headlock. Along with an open, radiant grin, Mondo spoke: “Finally, we’re leaving this place!” Taka with his left hand reached and grabbed Mondo’s right wrist and looked back at him to return his kind words with a soft, resolved smile.

(...)

Byakuya continued to show suppression of his emotions to let his cruel image rule whatever perceptions he wishes others to have of him. Toko was next to him, fidgeting her fingers in embarrassment, peeking briefly at her “beloved” every two seconds with an odd, lustful desire on her face. Hiro, in the other hand, was screaming and crying in ecstasy, praying down in all fours, blessing the floor underneath and showing gratitude to whatever god (or alien) was looking after him.

2.       “Lost happy memories”

Chapter: 1

Context: shortly after opening the door, the survivors stand inside the school grounds but outside the building, thinking what they should do next.

Even if any of the lost memories had still not returned, Mondo remembered fondly of the small time he spent with Chihiro during the game, it had been enough for him to develop feelings of admiration towards the geek. He reached out for a specific content that was sitting inside of his long coat’s left pocket (the same coat that continued to shelter Ishimaru’s shoulders) to purposely find the set of stolen photos that served as evidence in the former trial. He glanced upon one in particular. It starred him hugging fiercely both of the baseball star and the computer nerd – he was happy. No, he was extremely happy. Look at his wide, stupid grin; it was a smile that he didn’t recall to see a long time ago. He browsed through the rest and his suspicions were confirmed. He had good times at Hope Peak’s academy. However, the collection was limited. Did he get along with the rest of the class? Were he and Ishimaru as close as they currently are or were they fierce enemies fighting about dumb things? There were a few of him smiling towards Taka. More than anything, he wanted to believe in the happiest statements. He glanced through the same photographs once again but he ended up with the same doubts. He wished to rewind time and relive through those moments one last time where he could adopt the same idiotic, relaxed posture he seemed to use back then. At least, he wished the set included a photo of him with his kyoudai. Did they also resolve their differences with a competition in the sauna? He laughed at the thought.

Ishimaru sighed while pointing at one of them. “I will miss them as well.” At the end of his index finger was a photograph captured by Makoto: They were all posing for the picture, in their school uniforms, inside their classroom (well, almost everyone - of course, Leon insisted in wearing his version of a “uniform”). Mondo turned his head to encounter red eyes glazed, stained with tears that fought to break free. Wow, he really was kind. “We were lucky… I wonder if I truly deserve to be one of the s-”

Maybe too kind for his own good. “Shut it...” He caught Taka surprised with the response. “What would I do without my brother next to me?” Mondo added, wrapping an arm around the other’s neck in a friendly way.

“Maybe it’s true. I still have a lot to lecture you about the true value of effort!”

That was not what Mondo wanted to hear “Oi-“

“And, as selfish as this may sound, I am truly relieved you weren’t the one who passed away.”

Sadness and guilt. Mondo looked at Kiyotaka and remembered how those two words felt. Those were feelings Kiyotaka was over familiar with… hell, even he knew the despair hidden behind those terms.

Mondo had quickly learned to detect those moods. In fact, he was pretty good at it! And he was unnecessarily proud of that achievement... The diagnosis? Symptoms of a low self-esteem. He still hadn’t figure it out how to improve his condition however, he had to think about it later; right now, he wanted to focus in leaving this creepy-ass school.

“Movin’ on… What th’ hell is this creepy smile?” In a sloppy attempt to change the subject, he shoved the mentioned picture in Taka’s face.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Look at your face! You look like those creepy clowns but without the makeup. So stiff and robotic and why are you behaving like a soldier?”

“Ghk- Are you saying I am ugly?”

“Wha-! Ah- Shit! no!” just like mentioned before… embarassingly sloppy “That’s not what I meant! I just wanted to tell ya’ that ya’ need to smile naturally and not force yourself just ta’ try to look good in th’ pictures because it has the opposite result you intended!” Mondo pulled off a different photograph. In this one, they were with their gym clothes, enjoying a P.E. class and Ishi was smiling brightly while cheering for their class “For example, in this ya’ look natural ‘cause ya’ got caught off guard!”

“Oh- I see.” Disappointment was felt in his voice.

“Well- See? It doesn’t mean yar ugly or nothi’, actually I think ya’ are very good lookin’. Ya’ just look funny in photographs. Not everyone is photogenic! ... (especially you…)” he babbles.

“Thank you.” Taka released a soft smile. The type of smile someone would like to record it with a photograph “You are a very kind man, kyoudai!”

And Mondo gets easily flustered with sweet (and cheesy) praises “Oh! Stop it! Don’t worry that pretty head of yours thinking that yer’ ugly or some bullshit like that…”

“I don’t usually concern myself over those issues. But I can’t stop myself from wondering if the lack of a more relaxed posture or behavior is the result of my failures at adopting socials skills.”

Mondo couldn’t deny it. He had the same opinion. He gave it a shrug in an attempt to give the conversation a closure.

“And if I may say so myself. I think you are a very attractive man yourself, Mondo.”

Mondo blushed even harder at the sudden compliment. And again, that cute smile… if only he could make him smile like that in photos…

“I know!! What if I force you to smile spontaneously?”

A small silence broke between the two “Force me to smile spontaneously?” Mondo cringed at the obvious mistake “Did you think that through?”

“Eh- shit! Atleast I am tryin’. I don’t see ya’ spittin’ any ideas!”

Taka chuckled. Mondo never considered to see Ishimaru laugh as he did right now. It created an ambience of comfort. It’s a new side that Mondo wished to see his brother with it in more occasions. “I will try to think of something too, then.”

Observing those two talking was Kirigiri; detective mode activated: the right index finger intertwined and resting on her chin as she would normally do whenever she found herself immersed deep in her thoughts. “Those two seem to be in a good mood. It’s good to have someone to rely on.”

“Well, I consider myself lucky too. After all, I am the ultimate lucky student if I have you backing me up.”

That was… unexpected. Was he trying to be smooth, flirty or just kind? One look at his facial expression: huge smile, eyebrows tense, shoulders determined. He was definately not trying to be flirty but that comment was very effective. She turned around, flushed.

3.       “Makoto, the servant”

Chapter: 2

Context: daily life of Makoto in the Future Foundation.

Makoto had woken up with a tedious mood. He checked his alarm clock and groaned… 4 a.m., “Great!” He said before slamming the snooze button and slumping back into the flat, old pillow. He blamed Togami for that. The man continued to impose him waking up at ridiculous hours to perform the most preposterous tasks. To be honest, he sometimes felt to be Togami’s pet or worse… a servant. He cringed at the idea and quickly dismissed such unwelcomed thoughts to not further the cranky mood he was in.

“Peasant, I will need my coffee at exactly 65ºC (150ºF) with just a sniff of cinnamon or I’ll have you thrown into the dungeon. Naegi, you tell them the answer!” He adjusted his imaginary glasses, pointing forcefully to a random nearby object while attempting to copy Togami’s presumptuous act with an over exaggerated high-pitched voice. “Makoto, that was not what I wanted y-you to t-tell… t-them.“ …but he merely ended in chuckles in the middle of the last one, ridiculing his own failed attempts.

He pushed the sheets to one side and hopped off out of bed. Imitating Togami would always lighten his mood. He grabbed his phone to see what horrifying tasks awaited him that day…

4.       “Reunion”

Chapter: 2

Context: Mondo was part of the 2nd division (army) while Ishimaru belonged to the 14th division. Mondo was a soldier, facing wars in different points of the world; while Ishimaru worked in Future Foundation’s headquarters, safe from any danger. This was not their first reunion but it was the one where they spent the most time apart. The location of the reunion was in a cafeteria inside FF.

At the end of the corridor, he rested his hands over the knees to normalize his respiratory rate. One mental reminder to himself was to put his exercise in order! Those sleepless nights and postponing his exercise regime were clearly affecting his stamina. Though, he would have to worry about that later. Still panting, he recomposed to an upright stance to meet the single entrance of the beautiful building where Mondo awaited him. The smell of freshly baked buns was causing his stomach to start rumbling. He touched the glass door but didn’t push it to open. Instead he looked through the stained glass and tried to spot him. Shaky breaths were quickly turned into condensation whenever these brushed over the surface of the glass, defocusing the once clear image and forcing Kiyotaka to clean the droplets with his right sleeve. It had been wise to look for him behind the entrance door. It avoided a clumsy search inside the cafeteria for anyone to watch and whisper. He sensed something was beating fast inside of him. He confirmed that his heart was racing when he placed a hand close to his chest. Why did he feel so nervous?

The cafeteria was still pretty empty at this time of the day but a few people were starting to fill the empty chairs and placing their trays on top of the metallic round tables to start enjoying their meals. Loud laughter and loud chatter slowly scattered across the space, too much to his annoyance. He looked at his right, straight to his usual table. It was almost hidden by a load-bearing wall, away from the restless crowd and at the same time, closer to the landscape he so enjoyed. That blooming tree filled his morning with color and energy and made him believe that he could endure another harsh, boring day. Darn, someone was already occupying that… spot. Wait… sun-kissed muscles, different uniform (if not mistaken, he recognized it to be from the 2nd division), bleached long hair… That was Mondo right?

“Mondo.” he whispered only letting himself to hear before opening the door. The smile vanished in a brief second after he noticed bruises, scars and some bandages covering his best friend. Mondo turned his head around almost unconsciously to the scraping sound that the front door’s metallic base did over the tile floor, a common sound that repeated every time someone moved it to open.

Not five seconds passed when a very trembling Ishimaru had his arms around him. Mondo felt a stream of warm tears running loose in his cheeks, damping the collar of his t-shirt. Taka was crying, of course. Gently, Mondo folded his arms around the other’s midsection, pulling him to his lap to allow his forehead to drown in Taka’s neck, surrendering to the embrace.

The comments mocking the odd pair suddenly reverberated through the room, filling the air of not-so-sneaky murmurs. Without separating himself from the warmth radiated from Taka’s right shoulder, Mondo rotated his head, locking eyes with the few smug fuckers. A narrow purple iris shined in contempt out of a squinted corner of his left eye. Some deviated his looks, frighten by the former delinquent’s cold stare, while the boldest ones maintained the glare beside a derisive smile, maliciously enjoying the scene.

Yet, Taka was only focused in who held him; giving minimal concern to his surroundings. “Without hearing from you, I thought you were gone for good!” Hell, he didn’t even seem to notice the bastards around them! He only knew how his arms trembled and how his eyes hurt, overdriven with emotions.

Taka shifted to close the embrace even tighter, to reduce any amount of space that still remained between the two. The strong dedication put in those words chocked whatever sickening feeling Mondo was struggling with. Kiyotaka cherishing him was the remedy he needed to immediately light his mood and now, it was his turn to return the favor. Mondo moved one hand to ruffle Taka’s soft hair, while the left rubbed his back, working in tandem. Whatever it was, the affection was soothing the other’s tears. Mondo gave him time to compensate the time they had been away from each other so this position lasted for a few minutes.

Suddenly, Taka raised his head to look directly into the other’s eyes, who replaced kind eyes for a big smile. Mondo had a wide variety of smiles but this one, this stupid wide, teeth-clenched one meant ‘everything is alright’ where as Taka just continued to feel as hurt and tired. He inspected the scars meticulously, especially the ones across his face before unwrapping his arms around Mondo’s neck. Mondo didn’t budge but his palms slid to rest in other’s hips. Taka detected a tiny cut just under the left eye. He glared at it for a bit before rubbing it gently with his thumb to depreciate the change of texture that usually escorted injuries.

Red eyes were glazed deep in thought to which Mondo frowned and sighed. “Who are you?”

Taka was taken aback with the question. “What? Do you not recognize me?”

The exaggerated dismay on Ishimaru’s expression lines was what caused the loud, boisterous laugh that followed. It started off as a snort but it quickly developed to guffaws. That laugh only belonged to Mondo and to Mondo only. Taka simply gawked at him in absolute oblivion until the other stopped to explain. “I-I am just playin’ ya.” He managed to say between chortles “Ya’ almost fooled me with that long hair of yours, but your face continues the same. Oh gosh! How long has it been? 5 months? Hmph- it looks good on ya!”

This had not been the first time apart but it had been the longest they have been away from each other.

“This is hardly the time for games!”

“Sorry! Pout as much as you want. That cute angry face does not work on me! It was fuckin’ hilarious to see your reaction!”

Mondo conceded. He did look older, more mature, like a proper business man. He smirked turning Taka alert to his movements. He proceeded to remove his gloves and threw them carelessly on top of the table. He cupped Ishimaru’s pale but warm face against his cold hands. He flinched with the abrupt change of temperature but melted into it nevertheless. He pushed Taka’s bangs back revealing the angry wrinkled forehead and some kinky strands of hair that fought free from the grip. He noticed the obvious dark rims under the eyes, knowing full well he was the cause of that predicament. Regardless, he chose to leave the subject untouched. In any case he still had the same face and the same soft raven hair.

(…)

Although not evident, Kirigiri did worry about Ishimaru’s well being. He had a gorgeous smile when he truly felt happy and he was the only who could perform such a confidence boost in Taka.

“Hello, Mondo. It is nice to see you’re back safe.”

He looked at his right to see the former ultimate detective staring at him with a formal smile. “Hello Kirigiri. How are you?”

“Good. What about you?”

“Meh- could’a be worse!” he answered, looking fondly at Taka.

The conversation quickly died and Inadvertently, Kirigiri’s eyes fell over Mondo’s lap, where Taka was still sitting.

For once, Taka was able to read the surprise in Kirigiri’s face and immediately jumped out to his upright position leaving Mondo stunned.

“I didn’t realize I was still in y-your lap. I am so sorry kyoudai!”

He could have been quieter in saying that… Kyoko attempted to cover a snicker behind her usual thinking expression which became apparent that it would be a hard task when holding an apple in each hand.

5.       “???”

Chapter: 2

Context: after the “reunion” moment. Taka went to grab breakfast for himself and Mondo, while the other waited for him in the lounge.

Taka rushed to the kitchen without running. Old habits die hard I guess. Mondo chuckled at that. A tall man with ridiculous hair was now approaching Mondo.

“Mondo! So nice to see you again, man!”

“Same, Hagakure. How are you doing?”

“Fine. (gasps) those are some ugly, nasty scars.” Hagakure pointed it out “Are you ok?”

“No, dude. Can’t you see I’m dead?”

“AHHHHHHH- a ghost!”

Mondo is now the one stunned by Hiro’s overreaction.

“Bro… Chill… I am just teasing you… Did you seriously think I was dead? How high are you?”

“Are you sure you didn’t come to haunt me??” Hiro continued, half-hunched, covering half of his face with his forearms, squinting towards an even more stupefied Mondo,

“You have serious problems. I was bein’ sarcastic, ya’ big idiot!”

“Oh- haha! I am glad to hear it!” Hagakure quickly to his usual chirp self and laughed it off “It would be bad news if I had been haunted by a ghost.”

“Whatever man…”

Thank you so much for reading!! And apologies for my terrible sense of humour!

[the-cookie-of-doom]

Hey Cookie! It’s the anon who asked about Estranged’s process, you can call me Ursula, so you know when I’m here! I’ll also leave my name, too. x I saw your post about your dream of Mitch and Stiles and had a question, when you further the writing over the span of a year as you said, will they actually be in a relationship or is it casual between them? Does Stiles eventually stay with his brother and/or visit him throughout? It was funny to see Mitch actually being serious about hiring Stiles!

I haven’t settled on an EXACT timeline yet actually I haven’t even written anything down but what I’m thinking is something like this: 

January: Stiles, after trying to deal with everything on his own since what, Early November? Since everything happened just after Halloween? goes to stay with Mitch. 

The first few chapters of the story (up to Afterimage at least) would take place across the next few months/spring semester. Originally I had it that Mitch’s fights were a Friday night/weekend thing, but then while writing later chapters I thought it would be better for it to be more sporadic than that, not a set schedule. If you would like a MINOR spoiler, Mitch fights when the psychic feedback is getting too much. He needs an outlet. And as Derek said, pain makes you human; that’s a running theme in this story, but Mitch and Stiles take it to a self-destructive level. But I want Stiles to be watching him and studying his movements/behaviors over a longer period of 2-3 months to really build a pattern. 

Stiles and his dad probably agreed to let Stiles finish out Junior year in New York, and then come home for summer. If Stiles does, then things are awful and he hates it, and goes back to New York, idk. 

Stiles is probably back with Mitch by the late summer; he doesn’t want to touch Senior year with a 10 foot pole, and online school was working for him, so why not continue? After getting settled back in New York again things are better the second time around. This is where you start to see things like chapter 13, where Mitch and Stiles are going out and having fun together. I had one scene (which I will be posting later in my Deleted Scenes collection) where Mitch takes Stiles to Switzerland on a business trip, that was RIFE with sexual tension. It was actually going to be the first time they slept together, but obviously I would have to take that out of the extended version ;) 

Although, my original “plan” for Estranged, back before I even had the details sorted (Mitch could read Stiles mind in this version, I hadn’t fully decided on Mitch’s powers and what he could/couldn’t do yet) they go to Switzerland, maybe they sleep together maybe they don’t. but there was some Naughtiness happening. But it freaks Stiles out because he thinks he’s the one taking advantage, which confuses Mitch, until Stiles explains about the Malia situation, when then makes Mitch feel bad, and they’re just a disaster. But after they get home from Switzerland, Stiles wants to go back home because he doesn’t know where they stand and everything is just all screwed up, but Mitch convinces him to stay. I think? That idea is 2 and a half years old at this point so details are hazy, but lol draft one of this fic was SO messy and all over the place, you have no idea. What I have posted now is unrecognizable compared to where it started. 

Anyway. 

The current chapter I’m working on would probably START in October, Early November at the latest, where Stiles goes home after the big reveal. I really want a solid 2 months or so for Stiles to be depressed at home, which is made worse because home doesn’t even feel like home anymore, so he’s really out of place and adrift. He feels cut off from everything, and it’s Not Great. Right now Stiles contacts Mitch I think after like 2-3 days, but I would really prefer 2-3 weeks of no talking. Then they reconcile, and then there’s a few more weeks of Sexual Tension and some jerking off in the shower, etc. 

So to answer your question: it would essentially be the most painful slowburn ever! They’re pining so hard for each other! Except it’s for a year! It’s awful! 

And yes, Stiles will end up staying with Mitch! I’ve been waffling on how I want to do it, but I know that later down the line, Stiles does stay in New York for college. He goes to Columbia and Mitch pays his tuition, which makes John incredibly uncomfortable on a parental level, but... stiles didn’t exactly ask permission. And neither did Mitch, actually, from either of them. Stiles pitched the idea of going staying for college, which Mitch was perfectly happy with. But later he found Stiles going through different schools and he was clearly Stressed, but he wouldn’t say why. But Mitch saw Stiles’ notebook full of numbers and put together that he was stressed out about tuition costs, and so just point blank said he would pay for it. But Stiles couldn't just accept that because it’s a lot of money for Mitch to throw at him and oh god what if he fails out in the first semester? What if he’s awful in college? does he even really need to go? it’s not like any universities have a major in Emissary Magic School anyway, and--

And Mitch has to shut him up and convince Stiles to just accept it; Mitch has the means, Stiles should be able to go wherever he wants without worrying about the cost. That’s what families for, right? Just let him help. 

Then once college is sorted out, Stiles calls his dad and just kind of blurts okay by the way Mitch is paying for my college! And it’s not like John can say no to that, it would break Stiles’ heart. 

Then FAR into the future (I mean not that far, but a few years, Stiles was like 23) - and fair warning this started out as a cracky convo between my friend and I, that turned serious - Peter moves back to New York. He, Stiles, and Mitch are fast frenemies, they have a standing coffee date to meet up and talk shit. Peter loathes Mitch because his mind reading means he’s always one step ahead of Peter’s machinations, and Stiles always thought Mitch was so Mature and Adult, but around Peter he becomes such a petty punk. The reason I’ve dropped references to Peter here and there is to start laying the ground work for that future ot3; their dynamic is COMPLICATED. (but in case some people aren’t into it, they are a separate fic unto themselves). 

But yes, in both versions, they are very devoted to each other! It’s a lot of tragic longing in that first year, and then having to figure out how to navigate… everything. But once they’re together, they’re Together. 

And I have no idea if Mitch would actually hire Stiles or not, because I think Stiles is going to major in ancient history/occultism/something like that, because he does become a historian. but Mitch continues taking Stiles to various business functions, and it just becomes widely assumed that Mitch is mentoring Stiles in the family business.