#i sound deranged in every post i make...well.. you asked

[dykedvonte]

Fallout New Crashes

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Suga Ain't Sweet

This post is kinda 18+ so if you're underage please do me a favour and skip this one.

I don't do this ever, but I'm in a mood and I want to talk about Yoongi. He's my bias, if that isn't clear by now. I usually don't talk about him or any of my biases, because I know I sound deranged and definitely unstable when I talk about them. But I've been getting some asks, D-Day is around the corner and after those concept pics I'm here to give you a sample of what loco BPP sounds like. I ask for your forgiveness in advance, or you could, you know, deal.

Lol.

I'm streaming/listening to D-2, from the top of the album down, and I just listened to People play after Burn It, and almost came. That's why I'm here really. To tell you that man is so raw it's impossible to think he hasn't been getting some for years. Everything about Yoongi, from the kind of music he makes to the way his eyebrows move, screams to me he's a pro at playing hide-the-salami, Korean style.

Listening to Suga on D-2, he sounds the way salt and bitter tonic tastes. You get what I mean? He sounds like that gooey milky-white thing he's shoving into the song.

Suga ain't sweet.

And he makes sure you understand it.

He serves cock in every song. C.A.W.K. Nearly every song this man has ever made is filled with the most naked greed I've ever seen in a man. The most honest sort. It makes Yoongi seem more vulnerable than the rest of the members, to me. I mean, Namjoon and Hoseok are just as shameless but at least they moderate those impulses better than Yoongi, at least so far. Maybe in D-Day we'll see a more mellow Yoongi but somehow I doubt it lol. Jimin and Jung Kook sometimes give me the sense they have the potential to express their shadowed thoughts as well as the rapline do, but out of every member, Yoongi's approach is often my favourite.

To quote what I've seen another Suga bias observe:

"Have you noticed how the posters are having consistent glitch affects with D-Day having the most distorted version?"

I'd noticed the same thing, how that glitch in his album design has progressively worsened. In the past on this blog, I've talked about Yoongi's love for distortion: autotune, pitch and sample distortion, chaos and fragments are his favourite tools to play with because it's how he makes sense of the mess inside him. And even within that mess, I recognize that while self-loathing is one thing you'll occasionally see in his work, self-pity is a whole other thing he certainly has no time for. The result of Yoongi's process is cathartic release and progressive evolution towards a more whole and healthy version of himself. In his music, Yoongi breaks it all apart, fragments himself beyond recognition, kills his own alter-ego, to put it all back together again into something that feels more right, more honest, and more just.

Everything about his music feels very much to be all him, it's bitter and salty and nothing about it is sweet. Except the aftermath which to me feels like post-orgasmic bliss.

It's how I feel listening to the production on Burn It, which makes me almost grateful Yoongi has said he'll try out more acoustic / folk / classic rock sounds in his next project. Like yes please something easier to take in at once, cause D-2 is so heavy. It's so bitter and so salty. It's so him. So him it's difficult to take it all in at once. It's too big, too thick, too heavy… too much. But somehow it fits and it feels incredible.

I hope that Yoongi gives us sweet on D-Day, but if he doesn't please don't look for me, because I will be managing my sanity very carefully during that period.

Goodluck and godspeed to us all when D-Day drops.

(You're lying to yourself if you think you're ready for D-Day)

*

(I just... fuck, I'm such a goner)

[waterfallofspace]

HI!! same anon who asked about vnc here. i feel like your answer is enough of a go-ahead for me to be a bit more unhinged so first of all PLEASE SHARE YOUR VNC THOUGHTS. at some point. you must be the change you want to see in the world and whatnot. ive been on a skk kick but my bimonthly vnc rewatch is my sanitys single saving grace. vanitas is such a pathetic worm and he deserved to get stomped painfully into the ground /aff

also just letting you know that a second season is unlikely bc the anime adapted 55 out of 61 chapter (WHICH ON THE BRIGHT SIDE easy to catch up!!! :"D) the only time ive seen an anime get THAT close is with... bsd. which. well. sure was something. but i doubt theyd go that route with vnc

i have... alot of opinions on the ships. but its ALOT. however i will disclose that vanoe <3 SO JUST KNOW THAT IF YOU DO POST ANYTHING VNC/VANOE RELATED.... there will be at least one person (ME!!) screaming about it FHDJDJSJ

Oh it's completely a go-ahead, I'd love the chance to be deranged about them!!! Gonna stick it under a cut because it's gonna be long ahahaha~ (possible V/anitas no Carte spoilers under cut, so be warned!)

Augh I know, I mean look at this man!!!! He deserves to be wrecked in the most gorgeously affectionate painful whumpening <3 I want to bite him (and we know he'd like it LMAO)

I adore skk and satosugu, but Vanoe will always have such a sweet place in my heart~ gah tragic beloveds (that are at times, not tragic) are my bread and butter.

Yeahhhh, I did hear about thatttt, but I'm still hopeful that after... idk... 5-6 years... we might get more.... I just!!! They can't end it like that!!!! I mean it's an ending I can live with, but god I crave so much more!!!!

Omg if you ever wanna discuss the opinions I'd be so happy to listen!!! I have some opinions about dif ships in there too (Olivier and Roland are In Love and you cannot convince me otherwise).

So I adore Vanitas like I mentioned, but um... Olivier also owns my heart. We don't get enough of him I love him- the way he gets a headache every time Roland is there???? ICONIC OF HIM <333

He's just... he's so gorgeous. He has the aethetics that I adore, and a personality I find intriguing and fun~ Gahhh now I need to rewatch again hahahaha~

(also love Roland but in the same way I love Noe, just lil sweethearts <3 also also Chloé and Jean-Jacques <3 are so precious <3 to me and each other <3 )

Aaaand a little snippet as a 'thank you' and 'congrats' for making it to the end of this way-too-long response, here's a lil taste of what I had headcanoned for Vanoe

Vanitas: Soft, little rapid ones, 'iHh'tchiew! hiH'tchhue!' and he is so. mad about it. Will often try to stifle so no one hears them, orrrr add a yell/growl to try and unsuccessfully make them sound more 'fitting'. Truth is, they fit him better than he'd ever admit~

Noe: Harsh and (fairly) Loud, and it surprises literally everyone, Vanitas most of all (despite hearing it however many times now). Think something like, 'hHRZShh'ieh! ah'yieASHhuh!' You'd think someone this soft-spoken and sweet would have a dainty little sound, but nope~

[vizziefizzie]

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Ethan Headcanons!!!

AKA: watch me dissect and yell about this 11-year-old in a needlessly long and unprofessional post because I'm deranged. (Yes, i do this to my favorite characters in my free time).

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General stuff:

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He/him pronouns (they/them is fine with friends... especially since he's still figuring out what sounds good to him)

Demipanromantic who feels strong aesthetic and physical attractions

(Fuck the mbti (unreliable and generalizing) so im using the big 5 (slay)) Sxx|A|i (highly social, average emotional stability and organization, HIGH agreeableness, mildly inquisitive.) (Also, side note, i usually hate categorizing people into specific personalities so please don't treat this like some holy text!!)

He does suffer from anxiety and stress over people, relationships, and everyone's wellbeing. He just wants everything and everyone to be okay!

He has ADHD

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Family:

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His dad died when he was young, but he doesn't know the details of his death

He has an older brother! But he's gone for college. Whenever he comes home, Ethan wants all the details!

His mom taught him how to make simple meals, so he knows how to cook and bake... but don't ask him what equipment he's using and don't ask for a grand meal (he will burn the house down)

He also has an uncle!!! Remember Ralph?? (I'm 99.9% sure that they're related based on the calls on the Pokégear.) He learned everything about fishing from him. Also, Ralph comes from his dad's side of the family.

Adventure and a love for the outdoors RUNS in that side of the family. And while Ethan's mom doesn't go out much, she very much enjoys hikes, and she met his dad on one!

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Friends:

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Kris was there with him in his early childhood, but she and her family moved to goldenrod. The two were close despite Kris' quiet nature.

He trusts Lyra and Kris with his life!

He has a penpal! (Spoiler, it's Dawn!)

His friends always bring out his hyper side!! He's perfectly comfortable being himself around them.

Silver.... he just wishes he could see him more without feeling... out of place? (He can tell that Silver doesn't exactly want him around, especially while he's training)

Every day, he scrolls through his contacts and gives everyone a call just to say hi!

Lyra moved in shortly after Kris left, and she quickly became Ethan's friend. The two act like hyperactive twins if anything else, and they often get the "Are you two related?" question.

Their parents get along too!! They bond over missing their old partners... though, Lyra's father just divorced.

Which, Lyra and Ethan cope together too! However, Ethan isn't as open about it.

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Mental health things:

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Speaking of!!! Ethan really does NOT know how to communicate his problems or insecurities to people. He's either silent and internal about it or screaming at the top of his lungs and having an emotional meltdown.

He has too much oxytocin.... people who know about stress hormones know exactly what I'm talking about (in short, it's craving support and physical contact to help relieve stress responses).

He's DEFINITELY an extrovert (not bc he's loud. No. People genuinely motivate him and he loves to just talk)... but some of his "cheerfulness" and giggling comes from a well of anxiety. He will laugh at anything, not bc he genuinely finds it funny (if he's genuinely laughing, it's non-stop wheezing and snorting between outbursts).

He has a "everything is okay!" attitude... especially around strangers. Sometimes it's good! Other times.... yeah, it's toxic positivity!!

He doesn't want people to stress about what he's stressed about! (So, he's anxious about his anxiety)

But on a side note, his mental health is usually great! But there are times when he's just not.

He often turns to exploring, helping others, and comfort foods whenever he's stressed... this happened a lot at the end of his journey and when he was champion (which was NOT a great time. But i want to make smth for that later.)

This kid suffers compassion fatigue from time to time!!! Especially when he's helping multiple strangers!! His friends are usually good about not asking for a bunch of stuff from him

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Behaviors!!:

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Remember the ADHD thing? Yeah, he stims.

Arm flaps, snapping (he has something good that he wants to say), wiggling, shifting (anxiously waiting (either positive or negative)), nail biting (he's concentrating), etc

He also has vocal ones like squeaking or speaking in a high (and quiet) voice like "woo!" or anything like that! He also loves to hum (not as much as Lyra though)

Also, he can't sit still in a chair... it's a short person with ADHD thing (im projecting SHHHH!!!) (Also we are the same height I HATE IT HERE (<- 7 years older than him))

[Patrick star voice] TOUCH

He uses tactile toys because he can't keep his hands to himself and he loves them!!

He loves to hug!!! Hugs!!!

Sometimes he can't shut up while other times he's uncharacteristically quiet.... it's usually because he's just observing other people or his head is in the clouds.

Maladaptive daydreaming goes BRRRRR!!!!

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Side things:

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He has a VERY messy room despite how prepared and organized he usually is for everything else. (Sometimes, his room is so cluttered, he needs Silver or Kris (the only organized people he knows) to help him get out and make it less of a hazard).

He loves sour and spicy things (sweet too.... but he needs that tart flavor with it)

He loves flowery scents but fruity ones overstimulate him

He hates grainy and stringy foods. He HATES oranges (but not the juice)

He is not a gamer. He SUCKS at them!! But, he's great with casual games like Animal Crossing (stress free!!)

On quiet days, he's usually sitting outside enjoying the breeze

He has suffered humiliation due to how gullible he is! But that was earlier on his journey, he's smarter now!

A lot of his team provides emotional support!!! More on that in a future post!

He can play the guitar!! Camp songs!! And calloused hands...

He sucks at reading!!! And he often needs to read aloud.

[UUhh I might add more!!!]

[breadvidence]

DAMMIT I.III

On AO3.

SUMMARY: Two suicidal old men with moral scrupulosity in a three-legged potato sack race towards domesticity. Dallas 2014/Brick crossover, all adaptation decisions arbitrary.

Note: Every time I post one of these I struggle against the conventions of my youth. Where's the song lyrics. Where's the tildes. Does anyone need a stern talking-to about homophobia. In any case, this is structurally a type 1 on the Bristol Stool Chart, which I am as a kindness to myself calling a montage. Warning for suicidal ideation, medical setting, homophobia.

⁂

Javert’s therapist praises him for setting boundaries. This distresses him. It is undeserved praise. The necessity that he reveal no details of his history with Valjean makes him sound like a deranged idiot, but for honesty’s sake he mounts an attempt: no, it is not himself that he protects, but Fauchelevent (and how he stutters over the name—! what does she think of that?). The man can bring him lunch and be free of him when it becomes too much, as it becomes too much each time he visits; where could Fauchelevent go to be free if Javert nested in his home? Fauchelevent’s freedom, he stresses, is important. Not, Javert explains, that he means so much to the man; he’s not conceited; no, he is not important, he is unpleasant. He puts a great deal of stress on this word, trying to communicate by tone where facts cannot speak: I served as guard to his prisoner, surveilled him for four years, denounced him, subjected him to a profoundly awkward social situation, threatened to shoot him, surveilled him again for several days before conducting a foot chase, demanded he stab me, threatened to shoot him a second time, and detained him briefly.

The therapist types a note on her laptop. She says, “OK, Mr. Javert, to clarify: do you think this man is literally an angel?”

Valjean’s prohibition of being rude to nurses doubtless extends higher in the medical hierarchy to therapists. Javert breathes out through his teeth and clarifies.

⁂

Marius’ course had been complicated by a hospital infection—ironic, that it’s not from the sewer—and neurological deficits from the head wound, but he went to his grandfather’s with home health rather than languishing in an institution. The house is in one of the more modest streets of Highland Park, which does not mean it’s less than ostentatious. Jean Valjean would have never gone there except that Cosette asked, so he acquiesced. The interior reminds him disorientingly of his mother’s shows from the fifties, her fascination with American wealth, stilled in time.

Cosette has warned him about the grandfather. He has strange manners, Papa. Teasing him, Do not fight the nonagenarian over my honor, please. He does not.

The boy is limpid-eyed and solemn, as at the riot, with a new searching manner to his speech and a tremble in his hands, which Cosette will later tell him is much improved. Jean Valjean anticipates, with immense weariness, exclamations, exposition, explanations sought, Cosette upset, Cosette in tears, Cosette hanging on his neck in unwanted thanks, her young man in his debt when he wants no more tie between them than what his daughter’s love demands of him. 

What he receives is a blessing, to his mind: a stiff greeting, “Pleased to finally meet you face-to-face, sir.” A hesitation, a question in his eyes that does not reach his lips. Marius cannot remember him well enough to accuse him.

Yes, a blessing.

Marius blurts, “About the gardens.” Loses his words, and tries, “About the house. About stalking, or—not stalking, I mean.” It is all spoken in a very cold tone, which saps it of the charm silliness might have given it.

Cosette looks very pretty, blushing, with her face in her hands.

Jean Valjean prays to God, though for what he does not know.

⁂

The television in the dayroom has been set to a program about the riots; it is on one of the channels that he would consider more aligned with his politics than not. Javert wants to claw his eyes and ears until there is blood and blood and no more sense. They call that young man a murderer and he thinks it is the same impulse as ever that makes him respond, No, not yet, he has not been deemed guilty by a jury of his peers. It is this imprecision of language to which he has always objected, conservative news or no. They have found a photo of Claquesous, blurry, in which he is young and smiling, face half turned from the camera as if in a presaging of his elder self’s leeriness of being seen full-on. Javert dwells on what he has always taken care to be unaware of: police contractors with felon’s histories, political agitators with state money in their pocket, men who do not get charged with their crimes. 

He thinks: Valjean’s example recommends felons to whatever jobs they excel at—is there a different, mayor or police agent? The implication is that it is not the felony but the policework at fault. He shudders. How lucky he has been, or how careful his superiors, that he has never been assigned to participate in—that—all of it. What he would call dishonesty. Like worms, there chew at him questions, questions, questions, missing evidence in narcotics cases, bruises on the faces of detainees who came in unblemished, reports written by partners with events he couldn’t recall. He considers reaching out to Gisquet, but he has read the response his first email earned him, and he—cannot; the rebuke hurts, sharp-edged even through a mind flocked by benzos.

Unless he takes himself off the edge of another bridge, or overcomes his squeamishness about exposed nasal cavities and risks a gunshot, or suppresses his resistance to taking medication in doses other than prescribed—really, there are so many ways to die, he could number more—unless he resigns, he will be a witness on the stand for that trial. He did not see Claquesous die, but it is rather compelling for the prosecution, those several hours he spent a guest of Enjolras and his friends. He thinks his past self would have seen them as rebellious, and disgusting; he does not know, now. He does not trust himself with this.

It would be easier to pretend that Jean Valjean is the sun which has risen, but all that good man has done is turned Javert’s face towards the horizon. What climbs above and burns him, what shows that he has deemed emptiness where there has in fact been darkness—that is something a great deal more awful than any single man could be, whatever awe he commands.

On previous occasions when Valjean has offered to drive him someplace off-site, given there’s room for the wheelchair in his trunk, Javert has been an utter bitch in response. Today he says, Please.

They get lunch. It is too much not for Javert’s spine or pelvis but for his left leg, which is swollen now, and the persistent numbness in his feet is like a saw’s whine under his skin, but he makes Valjean laugh, once. It is good.

⁂

Señor, Javert texts him in the middle of the night, and a rambling apology in Spanish. Maldito santo, he calls him. The vocabulary is robust and the grammar poorly. The word puta features regularly. In a particularly confused message, he repeats he aquí el hombre twice, then that Jean Valjean is solamente un hombre. The sentiment is difficult to perceive, much less absorb.

In the morning he replies, You know that I’m not Hispanic, don’t you?

I noticed you’re not Juan Valjuan yes

Please stop before, he types, and doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Thinks the children with their strange ways of wording things might just add racismand call it a day.

Not worht putting through Google translate so you know

Jean Valjean erases his previous text and begins, No, I do understand Spanish, but

I wouldn’t have sent it w/o the klonopin trazodone combo.

Jean Valjean erases, again, and before he can consider that he exerts undue influence, writes, Do you think they have prescribed too many

BTW back at Baylor for cts today so will be too busy waiting for them to get their shit together to entertain you.

medications. Jean Valjean does not hit send. He deletes the message and instead texts, Ok. He thinks of prison doctors, the haze of compliance. 

⁂

“I have not been to a Catholic service for many years,” Valjean says, “but I wouldn’t mind it, if you want to go. Ah, the Saturday before, too, if you like.”

“You’ve lost the faith?” Javert surprises himself with a nameless jerk of emotion in his chest.

“In God? Never.” He smiles, a soft thing. “But the details of a man’s religion are interesting only to him and his minister. I won’t bore you.” 

Javert recalls how, when handed his effects in the hospital, he had taken the rosary from the plastic bag and clasped it in his hand. After some time he realized that he was flushed, unable to look directly at Christ on the crucifix. He has lived his adult life in mortal sin, his righteousness as a man unshaken by his awareness that he stood among the Good Shepherd’s flock a ram with flystrike, biting at the wool between his legs. His expectations for his place in the social order has always been dour, and his faith was not excepted, with his religion further suppressed by a frank lack of neighborliness. He went to Mass on Sunday, he selected Catholic when asked for his denomination, and he carried that damned rosary, which was with its origin and associations equally a reminder of his dedication to the police. Never has he suffered to blush in the face of God. Bitterly, bitterly does he blush now. His recent attempt to break the fifth commandment has little to do with this, he admits to himself—though perhaps the God from whom he sought to resign would be exasperated by the fact? In any case, he had not, on the bridge, been running to anywhere he did not expect to end regardless. Only, the sins which condemned him changed.

“Javert?”

What he wants to say is, Please, talk with me about God. Hearing in his own ear the effortful quality of his speech, he says, “I can’t kneel for all that fucking penance I’m due.” He has not done penance in decades, but he knows perfectly well one’s knees are the least of it. “Let’s not.” 

Valjean touches his elbow and changes the topic.

It occurs to him that after four years in the same congregation, Valjean never took note that Javert didn’t come to confession or receive holy Communion. The lack of counter-surveillance is frankly galling. Or—he’s forgotten? Either way, it is difficult not to sulk.

⁂

It is a moral good and existential threat when several of Marius’ friends are released from detention. They managed to escape the police confrontation without major head wounds and cannot be relied upon to let Jean Valjean be. He, who has allowed Cosette her way in the matter of engineering situations in which himself and her young man must interact, now withdraws again. 

He recognizes her brightness in Marius’ presence as the open expression of what he has seen from the corner of his eye, in moments she did not know he watched, such that even if he hadn’t remembered those awkward days in the Arboretum he would have been able to place when their relationship first began. More than it troubles him to hate this person who his daughter so loves, it disturbs him that she predicted it—it is not for her to bear up that she is everything to him. Even as it broke him, he has always been proud that she chose an out-of-state medical school, that she did not take him into consideration for that. That she has felt the need for such caution around her romantic life is—

In all his turmoils of the soul Jean Valjean has had moments when he did not comprehend the whole of himself, and moments of denial; there is only clarity here: that she is everything to him that a lonely soul cries out for, but never that. What jealousy he has of her intimacy with Marius is not—that. He prays to God that she has never thought of such things, that her reticence indicates instead a caution born of a deeply religious upbringing, the shadow of the convent, his own silence giving no guide. 

She texts him frequently, and calls twice a week, and if it troubles her that he declines her invitations to spend time together, she does not tell.

He has found himself, of late, distracted by the question of how to make his various charitable projects move along without him. The money is his, and the impetus, but never the name or the hands, and it is not so difficult. It troubles him to think that they might deviate from their purpose without his eyes upon them; he prays on this, and concludes it is the sin of pride, as haunted his work in Montreuil. He thinks to himself that Javert is another charitable work that needs to gain independence, and feels badly over the knowledge that this would hurt the man’s pride. There is melancholy, too, but he cannot place why. He thinks of when Cosette was a little girl and they had found a bluebird chick pushed from the nest, half-dead, which they kept ’til it fledged and could be let free, and how she wept over its flight; has his heart been moved as hers was?

Javert, like the bluebird chick, has his moments of utterly lacking charms. He is up on crutches at last, and Jean Valjean has convinced him to come out for a celebratory meal. Evidently the resident in the neighboring room listens to Johnny Cash regularly, which has occasioned—Jean Valjean glances at his phone—a fifteen minute rant about the artist’s poor morals. He has not previously put much thought into Cash, but he has the sense from the facts stated between Javert’s opinions that their perspectives do not align.

In the pause following the arrival of their meal, he says, “He recorded those prison albums, didn’t he? I seem to recall he did some advocacy work.” He takes a bite of his gnocchi. 

Javert looks struck, which is unfair. Jean Valjean barely said a thing. There is a silence. Javert takes what is more than a sip of his wine. 

He adds, “‘Ring of Fire’ was catchy. I remember when it was on the radio. Ah, you probably weren’t even born.” 

“You’re not that much older,” Javert mutters, in an odd tone; then, altogether too neutral, “That was one of my mother’s favorites.” 

A man this fucked up, Jean Valjean thinks, has nothing good to say about his childhood. While he shouldn’t throw stones, his answer to the subject remains no, thank you. “You always change the radio to classic rock. That’s your preference?” 

“Not really, but it’s more palatable than the pop shit you always have it tuned to.” His smile is unexpected and softens his tone as he continues, “Ridiculous, a man your age listening to Taylor Swift and—I don’t know what else. The goddamn song about being happy that they won’t stop playing.” 

“The Pharrell Williams single? He’s quite an influential producer, too.” The station he prefers plays songs from the turn of the millennium to the present, and he’s really more invested in the older—relatively speaking—music, but explaining would require he talk about Cosette, nostalgia for her childhood, and he has thus far avoided mentioning her.  Besides, this mockery from Javert, it’s—well, Jean Valjean does not mind it. He might even mistake it for friendliness.

⁂

Good fucking Christ, thinks Javert, who can still feel his own smile in the corner of his lip, m I friends with that old man? He chose the glass of wine over the evening meds contraindicated for use with alcohol, and is therefore trapped awake with all the inescapable little sounds of a facility at night around him. The neighbor who listens to Johnny Cash also snores. He reviews the six weeks that have passed since he turned his head and found Valjean at his bedside. He tallies their behavior against his abstract knowledge of friendship. The results are not amenable to him. Surely they are symbols of failure and suffering to each other before they are men, much less more?

—Surely?

Valjean wore slacks and a button-up to their little celebration dinner—did symbols of failure and suffering go to dinner together?—and had something of Madeleine’s charm about him. Could be decade-old sexual frustration reviving, Javert tells himself, whose hatred of the man in Montreuil was matched step for step with a willingness to get on his knees for him. Javert is much more accustomed to thinking of himself as a cocksucker than as someone’s friend.  He is too alert and too honest to accept this substitution; far be it from him to pretend he wouldn’t bend over for Valjean, but that hardly signifies where the question of emotion is concerned. 

Should he ask?

⁂

A dozen times Jean Valjean almost demands, What is it, Javert, and a dozen times he falls back from the question. The man is a creature of habit, he knows; doubtless the transfer from the SNF to home, while seeming to him like a blessed escape, is in actuality a struggle. God alone in his wisdom knows what might be passing through that blockish skull. He has an elbow leaned against the door, chin propped in cupped palm. There’s quiet in the car, volume low on the censored verses of Nicki Minaj; Javert has not switched the station.

“I didn’t realize there was a woman in your life,” he says, abrupt but neutral.

It locks the muscles of his back. “I don’t see what makes you say that.”

“Her mail is in your car,” Javert says. “Saw it when I put my bag in the back seat. Or am I not the only invalid you’ve played postal service to?”

Yes, letters from the finance office of the college; he recalls, but would not have expected the man to notice, tucked as they are into the pocket on the back of the driver’s seat. His instinct is to lie—what does it matter, when they will not see more of each other? He could say: someone from church. A neighbor on a trip. A girlfriend? He is dubious he could sell the last, particularly given Javert must have been aware he abstained from romance in Montreuil. “You do know of her,” he says. “My daughter, Cosette.”

“You kept that child?” From the corner of his eye, it is impossible to make out quite what Javert’s expression has gone to, but his voice is harsh. “You can’t have adopted her.” 

I paid for her, Jean Valjean decidedly does not say, and knows he ought to have lied. “Ah, well.” He glances over. “Do you have a grocery store preference?”

In a distant tone, he replies, “Tom Thumb is fine. Take a right off the Field Street exit. We’ll have to go past the Jack Evans Headquarters on the way to my apartment—that fine?” When he receives a brisk gesture of assent, he restarts, with a dogged air, “The parole violation and fraud charges alone are enough for a prison sentence, but the statute of limitations won’t have expired for a fucking kidnapping, and—”

“Javert,” he says, his voice soft, “if you ar reconsidering seeing to my arrest, I would ask you to not involve Cosette.”

“I’m not—” His hands come up as if to seize, to fling something away from him. “Never mind. I won’t think about it.” 

Given the depth of his agitation, this seems an unlikely way to resolve the situation.  “I shouldn’t have put you in this position.” 

“I’m not thinking it through, Valjean.” He presses close to the door, as if he would escape were they not on a highway.

“Cosette’s mother—” He has not been able to bring her name to his lips for years. “—gave her into my care.”

“Yes, that woman had a habit of child abandonment, didn’t she?” he snarls, his vitriol towards Fantine shockingly crisp-edged, as if he has kept it under glass all these years. “You were a rich man, a prominent one. Of course the bitch would want to cuckoo her child into your house. I, of all fucking people, am aware she didn’t have time to change her mind once she knew what you are.” 

“No, she didn’t have time.” He will not look on those memories, knowing how he will find them: all of it gone strange with time and too much contemplation, here blurred, here more vivid than reality. He will hear the sound her skull make as it struck the headboard, feel her hand still warm under his lips, weep for how in her final repose she seemed to smile. He takes the exit. “Regardless, I made a promise.”

“A fugitive’s promise to a whore,” he snarls, “is not a legal transfer of child custody.” 

“No.” He takes the opportunity of a red light to turn and face the other man in full. “She wasn’t that.” 

“Well, she was never convicted,” Javert mutters. He holds eye contact, but too much of his sclera show. “No, she was never even charged.” The car behind them honks and he flinches hard enough to hit the door.

Jean Valjean does not startle; he checks the intersection before he drives forward. The controlled breathing of the man next to him is over-loud, and he wonders if he ought to pull off into an empty lot for this conversation. He would not engage with it at all, except he must be certain that Javert will not interfere in Cosette’s life. “I didn’t realize you held on to this anger. I haven’t seen it in you these past weeks.” 

“Why should my feelings have changed?” he returns. “You humiliated me—and then I humiliated myself. Twice, if you count that shitshow of an arrest attempt. Yes. Twice. And you—you don’t feel anything? I distinctly recall you accused me of murder, at the time.” 

He pulls into the Tom Thumb lot, parks. When he turns off the car, the radio keeps playing; Pharrell invites them to clap along. He presses the dial to silence it. His memories of Javert’s part in his downfall as Madeleine are faded, and not from being too gone-over; this man had the misfortune of being the lesser concern in each of the encounters that have remained so important to him, nothing beside Champmathieu, less than nothing beside Fantine. What does he recall? The surprise in Javert’s eyes when he took the gun from his hands and struck him with it, as if they had jumped from one script to another. Yes, most of all he remembers those eyes, watching through the years. Scattered incidences, from less emotional times. Sudden, clear: trying to calm Javert down, saying, I esteem you. A lie. He wonders now what impact it had. He is glad to have remembered; he will not try to de-escalate this situation in the same way, knowing it will not work.

Javert watches him, making no move to leave the vehicle. Fuck. He’s asked a question, and his patience has never been lacking. 

“I have never wanted you to come to harm,” he tries. 

Javert looks unimpressed by this.

What does he feel? At the moment, exasperation, and that first stutter of the heart that precedes the chase when one is the prey. “Please—”

“Don’t say please to me,” Javert rasps. 

It is one of those moments of vulnerability which has nearly driven him from the man’s side, entanglement be damned. He goes still. “We should get those groceries.”

Javert holds out a hand to him, gaze gone sharp, and while the curbing of his emotion is welcome, the shift of attention is not. “Are you afraid? What of?”

“Habit, only. I am used to running.” The honesty costs him nothing, but still, it stings his throat. “You don’t want me to say please—but I don’t know how else to ask, Javert. Please. I don’t care about the past. Cosette has not known what it means to run. Not like I have. She doesn’t know.”

“Anything?” Javert asks, bewildered, and sees the answer in his expression. “That’s fucked up, Valjean. Why must you lie?” 

Jean Valjean undoes his seatbelt. “Well?” 

“You said please and never specified what you wanted,” Javert replies, pettish, and mimics him. “But—fine. You’re a kidnapper; very good! Add it to the list. You’re a good man. I know that. What do you expect, anyway, that I’ll tip off the police? With what evidence? As if I didn’t learn my lesson the first time.”

“You were right then, too,” Jean Valjean says.

“No. I’d be equally wrong now.” Javert pops the car door with more force than is necessary. “I’ll have an answer some day, but sitting this long has been hell. —Don’t rush, I can lean on the car and get the crutches out of the back. Christ in heaven.”

It is an awkward shopping trip, a quiet drive the rest of the way to the apartment, both of them flinching under the shadow of police headquarters as they pass it by. Javert seems too tired for further conversation, for which Jean Valjean feels guilt, gratitude. They bicker over who ought to go up the stairs behind the other, Jean Valjean to catch Javert should he fall, or Jean Valjean so that should Javert fall he not be knocked down. Jean Valjean prevails. It feels normal, as if they had not fought. He does not know what to make of the fact that there is a sense of normal from which to deviate. When it seems like Javert might offer him some kind of hospitality, a glass of water, he leaves. 

There, he thinks as he drives back to the Southlake apartment. We are quit of each other. 

⁂

In the first moment that he is alone, Javert goes to his gun safe and removes the P250. It is not illegal for him to own; no part of his hospitalization related to his mental illness, and he has not been adjudicated as mentally defective. Whether the spirit of the law would see his right to carry revoked is another matter, and none of his concern. Or—perhaps it should be? Such questions are what makes him look speculatively at the firearm. But he does not own any tarps to put down and catch the mess, he thinks, and he has been on good terms with his landlord all these years.

He sits on his bed, the crutches fallen to the ground at his feet, and rests his forehead along the barrel of the unloaded handgun. It is painful to think. He would rather be cleaning up the disgusting amount of dust that has accumulated in his absence. In his ears is the sound of the river, in his eyes the mist. He blinks away the latter, an unmarked time later, and struggles with his rigid back to retrieve the crutches, and return the P250 to the safe. Not today, he tells himself. 

He wants his goddamn answers from Jean Valjean, for one.

After a week, Javert determines that Valjean does not intend to contact him. Well, is the man such a pussy that he can’t handle one argument over their shared past? Has Javert not reassured him that he will take no action against him? He composes several texts. He experiences self-loathing over those that are too harsh, and a different, less comfortable emotion when they are overly needy. Attempting to directly confront the reason for this silence does not prove fruitful. He settles on, Making stuffed chicken tomorrow night. Come over if you want. Six o’ clock. He adds, after a very stressful ten minutes, Can be earlier or later if you need it to be. 

⁂

Jean Valjean realizes, quite startled, that what Javert has extended to him is the open palm of friendship. This is far from the first time he has been presented with such a thing, but it is the only one he has been uncertain how to avoid. Old Fauchelevent had been tricky, but he had only to think of his deceptions to place distance between them. He has no such excuse here. He received Javert’s text five hours ago and has yet to reply. 

6 is fine, he plucks out. Sends.

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

Estinien for the Blorbo meme!

STINNY!!!!

Not as many boxes checked but rest assured, I love him dearly!

I am utterly deranged about him. His arc is quite possibly my favorite arc I've ever seen in any story EVER, no exaggeration.

The way he's a friend to and immediately adopts every kid he meets, how he cares SO MUCH despite his edgelord appearance, his quiet and initially begrudging friendship with Ysayle, how concerned he always is for wol when they have an Echo vision- the way he parallels them, and can understand their suffering in a way almost no one else can! Alphinaud always thinks Estinien would make fun of him for being sentimental but Estinien himself is pretty damn sentimental 😂

I love how he never addressed Ysayle by her name, odd as that sounds; the way he initially called her Iceheart in a derogatory way, but in time, when he calls her Lady Iceheart, his tone shifts to one of respect; his dialogue at the end of the Aitiascope in Endwalker, "Such was the strength of her faith in us."

In Heavensward when he calls you Warrior of Light, at first it's in a wary way, he doesn't believe the hype around you- he has to see your strength with his own eyes. His respect for you is earned, not freely given, which is a breath of fresh air when you're being swallowed up by your own legend. By the end of Dragonsong, when he calls you by your title, "I would ask one last favor of you, Warrior of Light"....the weight behind it. He trusts you. Calls you a friend. You're his equal, his comrade, partner in dragonslaying and truth-uncovering. You fight for him when everyone other than Alphinaud gave up on him, and your love for and faith in him saves his life. So in Endwalker, he fights for you just as hard and paves the way for you to do what you do best.

I am. Very much rambling at this point 😂 I could talk about this man for HOURS but the tl;dr of it is. Well. He's important to me 😭

There's a line someone says to him in Endwalker that I'm thinking about all the time:

"The fires of hatred that once burned in thy heart burneth no more. From their ashes doth spring the light of love, warm and pure."

He found purpose and meaning and a life outside of violence and vengeance, he is so surprisingly.....gentle, by Endwalker. And he's also the funniest person in the expac, no competition 😂 but in all seriousness, I HAVE MANY FEELINGS.

I'm just gonna end this post with what is quite possibly my favorite Estinien dialogue in the game, lol.

"You see the world the way you want it to be; I see the world the way it is. You are idealistic to a fault. But I know you would never turn your back on those in need, never close your eyes to their suffering. And somehow, your deeds lend truth to your words, giving the lie to my doubts in so doing. I have seen others draw strength from your belief—in Ishgard, in Ala Mhigo. You inspired them to stand up and fight. To win, no less. And even when you lost those you held dear, you carried their spirit with you, and made their memory your guiding light. The burden of so many hopes and dreams would be too heavy for most to bear. But you bear it willingly. As you have shown me, some dreams are too important to let go. If you have need of my strength, it’s yours. After all you’ve done, how could I refuse?”

[sincerely-krp]

very /gen answer. but rupes has always been tied with the insidigm admins because every time a conversation about how shitty the admin team is, suddenly someone will bring up rupes for no reason. /

it's pretty obvious why to me. i remember insidious really well, people are correct that they were all friends, some of the rupes muns were super active parts of the ooc community too. but the issues started when the insidious admins tried to tell their krp they owed them their muses more or less. a lot of rupes muns reached out to writers they liked to ask them to join rupes too, since they would be leaving (you had to consent that your muse what the insidious krp admin's property, you can see the canva for this), and i bet the insidious admins took that to be poaching because they couldn't see that people were only leaving insidious if they disagreed with their whole take on ip. like i genuinely don't think they comprehended just how immature we all found them to be, tossing terms like intellectual property around at the same time they used things like locations, and mythological concepts, things that simply can't be copyrighted to begin with. their statements just made no sense to begin with, anyone in school that has had to cite sources would know how deranged they were being.

i'm not saying this as a dig, but i think they were jealous, likely due to insecurity. i truly mean it, there's no other explanation for them hunting down people to harass in their dms, telling the rupes admins to change their own krp's rules and systems, and at the same time posting paragraphs about poaching and subtly digging at rupes. i don't think it was 100% vindictive, i think they truly just projected feeling helpless about losing such a good community of writers, and outsourced the blame. very much felt like i had to pick between one krp, when in hindsight idk if that was ever the case. supporting this are the other anons here saying they remember members having nothing but good things to say about insidious, or even joining paradigm/considering it. i was in paradigm for a while, but had a friend who left during the mass exodus (no one doing activity for the check), and it was really clear to us that perfectly nice muns were being iced out. i can't say for sure if the members my friend talks about are rupes members, but from what they sound like, they feel like they were.

i don't think the rupes muns were clueless though, that would make no sense, especially if they knew someone from that group was in rupes, and chose to not interact quietly. there's really no perfect way to handle hearing all this shit about your krp that's so blatantly false, but i do think it's not like... a far jump to think the rupes muns knew one of their writers was being harassed by the insidious admins. i would be suspicious too. it makes sense to me too, because a writer i wrote with, even up to a few months ago, was a longtime rupes member (we recognized each other from insidious and bonded over a lot of fun times we had) and never brought the krp up to me when the krp we were at died, like they had before at insidious. i don't think that was unintentional though, i think it's likely they just knew that it wasn't worth asking people in the au comm anymore because of these rumors. which was a bummer, because we wrote really great things in this krp.

i don't feel comfortable doing all this speculation without being a direct party, but i think that this is definitely a conversation worth having because too many au krpers are comfortable being judgemental without even knowing any facts, and this was proof of it. we always say we just want a place to write, but when there is one we all just bashed on it, and never allowed space for another side to the whole thing. that proof sincerely posted is really fucking damning. if/when rupes comes back, i think that's where i'll be anyways.

・❥・

[marlowe1-blog]

Job Chapter 12

Why you should never quote the Bible out of context

This one has a wealth of quotes that you can stick on a pillow and give to grandmother, starting with "Indeed you are the voice of the people and wisdom will die with you" (2) and as Job is about to talk about God starts out with "In his Hand is every living soul and the breath of all mankind" (10). He also starts up by saying to ask the bests of the earth and the fish of the sea before this bit. But he's not quite going for the Franciscan conclusion.

And what do these nice quotes out of context lead up to? Well first he's calling Zophar an idiot (when quoting the Bible out of context make sure you understand sarcasm) and then when he winds up to the asking the beasts of the field, etc. he's giving us a grand image of G-d but then but after "with him are wisdom and courage" these comes to be verses that basically say that God is a scary motherfucker.

Oh sure "whatever he tears down cannot be rebuilt/Whomever he imprisons cannot be set free" sounds like we are doing the standard "Oooh God you are so big" stuff but then there's the massive flooding and drought. God is either holding back the waters or destroying everything with floods.

And then it gets even crazier. Counselors go naked, judges go mad. Also the priests go naked. Seriously there's a lot of naked people. Oh yeah, he's also depriving great men of speech and taking away the reason of the elders.

One of my most smartass lines when I encounter an annoying Christian post about G-d being responsible for everything good is that yeah but G-d is also responsible for giving you cancer and making those volcanoes go boom.

Job is saying that G-d is responsible for Alzheimer's before talking about how G-d will make nations rise and then fall and leading nations astray. G-d deranging the leaders of people so they wander in a trackless waste seems like a problem for monarchies more than other governments. In America, we just elect the deranged. And then watch them wander as if drunk in their offices.

(just a side note - I tend to grab pictures based on what I'm talking about. That Alzheimer's picture is fucking brutal)

[existentialmagazine]

Review: A Different Kitchen’s debut release ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ falls into a blend of alt-indie and post-punk, angsty and soothing all the same

Emerging from the rubble of what used to be Sukko, the Norfolk boys of A Different Kitchen find themselves taking on a new endeavour now, channeling alt-indie meeting post-punk in the most obscurely profound blend. This quintet find themselves inspired by global injustice and a devotion to force a change for the better, writing music that encourages self-reflection and improvement where it matters most. The group address current global issues surrounding racial and gender equality, and the value of mental health awareness and wellbeing, looking to use their platform to influence systematic change. Their debut single ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ truly makes a name for itself though, pairing thought-provoking lyricism with a sound distinctly their own.

Hurtling in with a charged-up introduction, ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ sees clashing drums, gritty electric guitar and a bright riff all interweaving for a lead-in that can’t help but build your adrenaline high and your expectations higher. But A Different Kitchen are here to show why they’re not just your typical artist, instead reigning as a band looking to stand out and set themselves apart with a fluctuating sound of their own, uninfluenced by modern trends and making music that turns heads authentically. So when this fiery indie-rock turned punk-esque intro leads into more of an acoustic, almost folk-like verse, you may be unprepared for such a sudden twist and yet A Different Kitchen will have you fixating on every sound as if it’s exactly how you expected things to turn. An eclectic slow, acoustic guitar riff sets a bedding of warmth, while delicate beats leave you swaying along, soothed by their vocalist’s soft and sincere delivery. But this peaceful interlude is brought crashing downwards by a chorus that’s thrill-seeking, capturing aggressive drums, shredding guitar, spoken backing vocals and a spoken-sung turn in their main vocalist’s delivery, all-together setting a stage of performative angst and thunderous instrumentals. As things propel forwards, a sense of discontent lingers even in the more stripped-back second verse, slowly starting build and seek a dramatic climax - and that’s exactly what it does. Not a moment of ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ isn’t wholeheartedly gripping, and A Different Kitchen prove in this debut that they’re a band who know exactly what they’re doing and aren’t afraid to do it loudly and independently.

Written about a man they used to know who was always alone, outcast from the rest, ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ tells his story from afar. From his previous days of looking to fit in, to modern day where he was seen accompanied by a woman and had dyed his hair jet black, the track objectively looks from a distance trying to sense whether he’s truly happy in his current life now he’s no longer alone: ‘I saw Jack and he looked well, he had a girl and black hair.’ Rather obscure in its storytelling, ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ doesn’t tell a typical narrative you’d expect within a song, and yet A Different Kitchen make it the most enthralling journey to dive within and learn more of. From picking apart the nuances of whether this complete stranger is doing okay; looking introspectively at your own growth over the years and how others may perceive you in the same light, and the way the track spirals into more of a deranged rambling that asks you look deeper, ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ feels like it tells more of a story than its words let on. The almost distraught chorus repetition of ‘I’m feeling, I’m feeling fine’ loops throughout, with a solid thirty seconds until the track’s closure consumed by progressively more aggressive spewings of it, capturing a real sense of dwindling mental health but with little evident cause. We couldn’t help but feel in its three and a half minute experience that the track were more than it appeared on the surface, leaving us wondering if Jack ever truly existed or if the piece were more of a reflection upon oneself, disassociating and falling into an unstable headspace. Whichever way you choose to interpret it, there’s one thing for sure and it’s that ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ is a song you’ll be utterly addicted to listening to as well as picking apart for a meaning in whichever way you choose to see it.

Check out ‘I’m Fine I’m Fine’ for yourself here to enjoy the ever-so meticulously crafted soundscape and uniquely penned lyricism that makes A Different Kitchen a band not to forget anytime soon!

Written by: Tatiana Whybrow

Photo Credits: Felix Jordan

// This coverage was created via Musosoup, #SustainableCurator

[andsotheintrovertwrites]

a seat in the theatre (2022)

chapter 1 i guess? i haven’t posted writing in SO LONG

(ignore the confusion about names pls i will fix it after nano)

((also i know maybe only one or two people will even read but thank u ilu))

“Link, you go first.”

“Do- do I have to?”

“No, I’m just asking politely and if you feel uncomfortable we’ll just head out to Chuck-E-Cheese’s. Fucking go.”

The first of them stumbles through the front door in terror, which is amusing. What is even more amusing is the rest of them, following behind like scared children.

“We’re really not supposed to be here,” a third speaker in the back pipes up.

“No shit, name2. That’s the whole point, remember?” the first one snaps. These are the ones that typically get the most scared, but I suppose I’ll just have to find out.

The group, five of them including their human shield, clutching at each others’ backs—except their apparent offering to whatever they believe resides here; they were careful to always stay a few steps back—inches forward as a unit, past the foyer, through the looming open gateway, gathering around the topmost row of seats of the mezzanine to shine their lights down towards the stage. This could very well be my chance.

The forest green curtain blocks any view of the actual stage, so I sneak down from the box above where I could spy on the intruders. Remaining in the protection of the shadows, I glide up the stairs to the stage, never making a sound. I’m quite good at being quiet. Behind the curtain now, I can hear their footsteps cautiously attempt the stairs, so I begin to sing slowly.

“Oft in the stilly night,

“Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,”

“What the fuck?” the first voice says.

“It sounds like…” a new voice, the fourth of the group, begins, “like static?”

“No, more like humming,” the final member of the group finally speaks, voice breaking on the last word. Now I can categorize all of them.

“Fond mem’ry brings the light,

Not moving even a tick, they continue to argue about what they are experiencing.

“It’s like a deranged radio.”

“What the hell does that mean, name3?” the apparent boss of the group bites.

“I just—”

“Never mind, I don’t want to hear it,” he sighs, and encourages the group to keep moving with a shove. Someone stumbles and yells ‘hey!’

When I hear that they’ve gotten about halfway down the stairs, at least close enough to see some of the details in the curtain, I take a step forward.

“Of other days a round me!

I begin singing a bit louder than before.

“Oh my god, guys, what is that sound?!”

“I don’t know, but I really think we need to get out of here. Name1, please?”

“You guys are all acting like pussies. What are you going to do when we actually have to spend time and perform here?” Mr. Boss eggs them on. So, this is the next group. I have trouble remembering when the last one was here.

I wait to hear them begin to move again, and sing my next line.

“The smiles, the tears, of childhood’s years,”

With the last word, I throw my hand into the curtain and it lurches out at them, earning me a few gasps and one or two yelps. Satisfied, I slip out from behind the curtain and hurry back up to the boxes where I have a better perspective.

“Jesus, we really need to get the fuck out of here.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think all the rumours aren’t just rumours…”

“Shut UP, you guys,” Mr. Boss snarls at them, shoving his human shield forward once again.

To act so tough yet be such a coward. This man wouldn’t even dream of coming here alone, without his posse who seems to hang on his every word. How much of this group, I wonder, is the same as him deep down? Which of them will fight, flight, freeze? This is the most fascinating part of it all. I cannot help but chuckle to myself at the thought, and surprisingly enough, the shield gazes up towards the box as the rest have no reaction. This gives me an idea.

“The words of love then spoken,” Now they are all looking up, attempting to find the source of the returning noise. However, no light is shone in my direction. Sinking back into the shadows, I pull down the seat next to me and let go, allowing it to snap back up into its folded state. With another few yells, their lights finally search the boxes frantically. I know they likely have no idea of the words I sing, but I sing louder nonetheless.

“The eyes, that shone,” Divine timing is on my side today, and as I sing this line, a light dances across my face, briefly illuminating my eyes. The entire group gasps and jumps Before the light can return, I duck down behind the seats.

“now dimm’d and gone;”

“What the fuck was that?” one of them cries.

“You guys all saw that too, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“WHAT WAS IT?” Mr. Boss shrieks in a moment of weakness, and amusingly enough, no one reacts to his sudden change of character.

“It looked like eyes?” one of them pipes up, and they all go quiet for a beat.

“Oh shit,” the shield finally speaks up. “eyes that shone…” My heart launches into my throat. It had to have been a coincidence.

“Stop being a freak, freak,” the bossy one says, ruining any chance of finding out what he may have meant by that. “Just keep going, please.” He spits the last word.

“The cheerful hearts now broken!” I sing from my hiding place.

“Fuck,” I hear one of the exclaim.

“Keep. GOING,” he repeats.

“Are you serious, man?” the third boy of the group says.

“Guys, what did I say before?” the bossy one asserts, and I once again hear their footsteps stop. “You’ve heard the rumours, and it’s because those other people were scared out of their minds and couldn’t perform worth shit. I swear that’s going to happen to us if we don’t just figure out what’s really going on here.”

A few beats go by. It seems he’s won his case again. Silently, the group begins to walk again, finally closing the distance from them to the stage. As I hear them hop up on the stage, I decide it’s safe to emerge from hiding and watch them again. I sing again, but softer this time. They likely will hear me as nothing but wind rustling through the skeleton of the theatre’s attic.

“Thus in the stilly night,”

Just as I suspected, none of them react. Although the shield does pause for a second, once again making me wonder whether it could possibly be a coincidence. So I raise my volume ever so slightly.

“Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,”

Once again, none of the others react, but the shield tilts his head in my direction briefly. But then he is back with the rest, shining lights around the stage and admiring the beauty of the theatre from the actors’ perspective for the first time. It reminds me of the first time I felt that excitement; the warmth as if your heart will explode from the realization you’ve just found your home. You’ve found somewhere you belong.

“Sad mem’ry brings the light,

“Of other days around me.”

I sing these lines louder than before—loud enough to garner a head turn from a couple of the other, more attentive, members of the group. Along with Shield, of course. I can’t help but gaze as their lights dance along the walls, the wood carved accents hugging the perimeter of the walls and ceiling. It has been a while since I saw them in such light. I really don’t think about it much anymore.

Breaking that daydream, one of the attentive ones squeaks, “That sound is really freaking me out now.”

“What sound?” the bossy one scoffs. Maybe now I will get to hear more of what Shield is perceiving.

“It’s like—like radio static? But like the static is the song?” the original protestor explains.

“Static?” Shield says, but is immediately spoken over by the bossy one.

“There’s no fucking static, guys. Get a grip.” What a stubborn coward. He almost feels like the personification of an oxymoron.

“Seriously, we want to go,” the protestor continues arguing, signalling that the group’s composure has begun to deteriorate.

“We haven’t even explored most of the theatre yet. You guys are being really annoying.” You can practically hear the eye roll in his voice. But you can also hear the uncertainty.

“Ugh, fine.” They give in and search around for a backstage door.

“That’s more like it,” the bossy one says, regaining some of the unearned confidence he was exuding before. “There’s the boxes…” He hops down off the stage and duck right before his light reaches the box I am watching them from. As quickly as it came, it swings back towards the stage, and I peek up from behind my seat. “Backstage…” Finally, he shines his light up at the ceiling. I do not like where this is going. “I heard there’s even a spooky old attic,” he deepens his voice and sings the last three words.

Alright, my observation seems to have reached its end. I wasn’t really in the mood for visitors in the first place. One of them finds a backstage door to the right of the stage, and shouts to the others that they’ve discovered a way forward. One by one, they pile through the door and discover the [room right outside the stage where actors wait to go on], leading into the dressing room. There really isn’t a good place for me to spy on them there, not having been in the room already when they entered, so I think I should get them out.

I take a deep breath, and begin to belt out,

“When I remember all

“The friends, so link’d together,”

“HOLY SHIT,” I hear the bossy one scream. It seems like there is static, after all.

They all run back out onto the stage, a couple of them with lights jumping down and fumbling them around at ground level. The shield leads the group, but this time it seems to be his own choice.

“What?” he exclaims.

“Guys, we need to leave!” someone else yells.

“NO,” Mr. Bossy yells again, this time garnering an eye roll from me. Such a stubborn coward. “T-there’s—it’s nothing.” Is that so?

“I feel like one, who treads alone,

“Some banquet hall deserted,” I belt.

“Guys, those are words—” Shield says, louder than he had ever been. “It said my name.” And more panicked—as panicked as I became to hear him say that. I really need them to leave.

“SHUT UP, FREAK,” the bossy one shrieks, shedding the last shred of his ‘tough man’ exterior.

“Can we leave?!” “Yes, PLEASE,” “We have to go,” the others all yell over each other, as half of them begin running up the stairs from which they came. I sigh in relief.

“Whose lights are fled, whose garland’s dead,” I practically yell, which I can only imagine sounds like nails on a chalkboard on the inside of your head. The last two—the bossy one, who had completely frozen in fear; and one of the girls—finally snap out of their stupor and flee along with their friends.

But of course, the shield remains. The look on his face is not exactly fear, but a mix between that and bewilderment. He stands at the bottom of the stairs, gazing up toward my box, but I do not hide. He keeps his light off, leaving the two of us to stare at each other.

“And all, but he, departed,” I sing softly, but loud enough to reach him.

He stays very still where he stands, but I swear he looks right at me. Or, more like right through me. We stay like that for what feels like a very long time. My hands start to tremble as the reality of the situation sinks in. At this point, I only continue singing because I haven’t a single comprehensible thought in my mind.

“Thus in the stilly night,

“Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,”

He stays frozen still, so I frantically fly down the stairs, creating enough noise to shock him out of his trance and I hear his footsteps finally retreat. Peeking out from around the wall, I see that he’s stopped right at the front door, once again gazing back in my direction.

I continue, though I can barely remember how to use my voice anymore,

“Sad mem’ry brings the light,”

Finally, he throws the door open and runs, and for a moment, the brightness from the street floods in and blinds me. The door slams shut and I take a few seconds to try to understand what just happened. I thought it would be like all the other times. I thought I would be invisible once again. But that kid, the shield, was not a regular performer. Not fight, flight, nor freeze. Someone who pays more attention to the outside world than the one constructed in their head. It has been a long, long time since I have met someone of the type.

And it seems that he will be around again.

“Of other days around me.”

[necronatural]

any theories on why madatobi is so popular? to me it makes no sense. very little canon interaction (I mean not that this matters) and also like (and this goes to show how little Im aware of the fandom lmao) I always thought izuna & tobirama / madara & hashirama relationships would be more popular bc of the in text structure theyre given… so the prevalance of madatobi absolutely came out of left field for me. have to say I wish I was still ignorant

enemies to lovers babyyyyy

they're very, very, VERY good character types for the juiciest enemies to lovers tropes; tobirama is a mean little cunt and a realist while madara is a boisterous bastard and emotionally driven. fundamentally they go great together. for people who love E2L hashirama doesn't really 'click' because he doesn't believe they are enemies until madara starts attacking the village which isn't really a great jumping-off point. as for fandom archetypes people prefer balls of sunshine with loudmouths when they're not enemies or the loudmouth is a lone agent :( rip king you could have friendzoned him so good

the problem for me is that the text does not support it to the point it's comedic its like

1. madara already has a senju he has a fraught frenemy relationship with that canon made really really gay at least on his end even though i dont think hashirama will ever love him sorry king. sorry. hes gonna friendzone you man.

2. while their personalities go well together socially madara and tobirama are both the types of dudes to talk past people; they don't have any chemistry they would obviously just not pay attention to what the other is saying... its like...boring enemies

3. the battle is one of obligation the stakes aren't personal they don't even fight each other ever. imagine like idk enough iconic enemies with weirdly detailed pasts together... uh... ok forget that hashimada are homoerotic for a sec but imagine cloud and sephiroth battling to the death and sephiroth decides to hook up with tifa or barrett. like man. are you sure?

ok pre-game events sephiroth/barrett would be like crazy... um... i guess tifa in this case since she's younger and not a structural element

4. just give izuna madara's fanon personality are you crazy. he doesnt have a personality you can do this. this is why izuna is treated like a spare tire you took away his purpose (to stand next to tobirama)

5. in order to escape the antichemistry of the context they exist in people defang their dynamic and make tobirama the victim, make the uchiha the heroes, or both in order to get the awkward non-enemy thing out of the way so it's a more digestible "tobirama doesn't trust uchiha and the uchiha don't trust tobirama but they're willing to work together" kind of setup. which is good but it demands a softness that undermines the power of their cunty archetypes a little. i can't fuck with it but that's my preference i've said before i only read character stuff so "softening archetypes" sounds evil to me

every time people ask me about fic stuff i sort of cringe at how picky i am LOL...its fic...and i act this way. read more books maybe. anyway

6. people wont let them be toxic unless it's for sexual sadism reasons. i follow madatobi artists and fic writers all the time and they're all people who get that if you crash against someone you have no chemistry with specifically because you have no chemistry with them and you need that. and you discover you are capable of developing chemistry as you throw shit at each other. the magic fucking happens.

also full madatobi aus like modern aus or whatever tend to be waaay better but i love how fucked up founders era is so i won't read modern stuff for a ship i dont like LOL. and youkai aus are better but like...the prose in these trying to make tobirama seem ethereal always inventing a new kind of racism for albino people. buddy you wouldn't do this to jiraiya. stop

[bestiesenpai]

Canidae pt2 - Getou Suguru

Oh oh oh, oh here we go, walkin’ talkin’ like you know, I want your pretty little psycho. Oh oh oh, oh here we go, baby strike a pose, I want your pretty little psycho! 14.5k words

part one

Content warningz: pseudo-incest, yandere shit, spanking w/ a belt, dubcon+noncon, (slight) breeding kink, choking, size difference, face fucking, drugging, vouyerism, face slapping, (slight) blood, biting, virginity stuff, (slight) pussy slapping, implied somnophilia, kind of mindbreak at the end? sorry it probably sucks tho

The first thing you notice when you wake up isn’t the heavy drooping of your eyelids as you fight the drugs off still lingering in your veins. It’s not the stark white ceiling contrasted with pastel pink walls, or the fact that you’re surrounded by plushies in a soft bed that’s not yours.

It’s the borderline too tight collar around your neck, a good sized bell attached to it that jingled softly when you moved. Skimming your fingers over it you can feel the metal heart attached to the front as well and with a heavy head, you turn to follow the pastel pink leash attached to the collar, wrapped around one of the posts of the bed frame.

You were too tired to try and unwind it, simply staring at it for what felt like ages as your vision went in and out of focus. Even with the white curtains drawn closed there was still afternoon sunlight peeking in and giving you plenty of light to notice another thing.

This wasn’t the house you ran away from. This wasn’t your childhood room, the shape and size were different. The once familiar sound of cars driving by on the road was no longer there, just the ear ringing silence around you.

It’s unclear how long you laid there, but as the drug wore off more and more, you were able to sit up and take in more of the room. Nothing about it was familiar to you; there was a tiny en suite, you’d never owned this many cute little plushies in your life, and even the desk and trinkets that were under one of the windows wasn’t the same one you’d had.

Looking down at your clothes, you were torn between feeling happy they’d changed you out of what you were wearing or sick that all of them probably saw you naked. You were wearing one of Suguru’s shirts, his scent easily wafting up and surrounding you. It came to just above your knees and the amount of fabric left you swimming and shapeless.

Twiddling your thumbs, all you could do was wait for someone to come home and enter the room. Going by the sunlight it was nearing six pm and you knew Kento never worked overtime.

As if one cue, the front door swung open and muffled voices could be heard, but you knew exactly who they belonged to. Satoru’s loud chatter couldn’t be mistaken, nor the way Suguru laughed. Kento’s low grumble followed, and the three fell silent.

Footsteps clambered up the stairs, no doubt Satoru’s eager feet running to you. There’s the slightest creak of hardwood right outside the door and some hushed whispers, and then the lock is undone and the door swings open.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Suguru grins upon seeing you sitting up in bed, pulling the shirt down farther on your body to cover up your bare legs. They hadn’t put you in any undergarments, not that you were surprised by that fact.

You glared harshly at all three of them, your tail tucked away behind you. Still dressed in their business attire, they didn’t look like three foxes who would murder and kidnap. They looked respectable like any businessman should.

“Don’t give us that look, you’re where you belong.” Kento drawls, undoing his tie as he speaks. He’s tired, you can tell by the subtle bags under his eyes. Usually when he came over after work with Suguru, he’d silently cuddle up to you on the couch and lean his head on your shoulder, taking a nap as you played on your phone.

“N-no...no I’m not.” Tongue still feeling heavy from disuse, you slurred the words out. Satoru chuckled at you, hiding his laugh behind a few long fingers.

“You sound so cute, little sister! It makes me want to drug you again.”

“Ah, that’s right! Speaking of drugging, you need to apologize to Toru-nii.” Suguru pipes up, snapping his fingers like he’d just had an epiphany. “It wasn’t very nice that you drugged him, you know.”

“Don’t care.” Shaking your head, you turned away from them. Compliancy wasn’t something you were going to give easily, especially not so quickly. Humming softly, Satoru walked to the bed and sunk his knee down next to your leg, the mattress effortlessly dipping with his weight.

“Such a naughty kitty, aren’t you? Can’t even apologize to your big brother.” Hooking his finger through the front of the collar, Satoru yanked your head up and towards him. His fluffy white hair fell into his eyes, obscuring the deranged look he had. Forcing you to sit up a little straighter, he pushed a clawed finger into your mouth and pulled your cheek out.

“-top!” You tried to bite down on his finger but it was no use. Satoru shook your head, the wet gushy sound of your cheek slapping against your gums resonating in the room.

“Say you’re sorry and I will.” Letting go of the collar, he put two fingers into your mouth, skimming over your sharp teeth and pressing down on the back of your tongue. “Say ‘sorry Toru-nii’.” He mocked you in a high pitched voice. He knew you couldn’t speak properly and that just delighted him further.

Drool began to spill out of your mouth the more he played with you, pushing his fingers far enough to make you choke on them. Grabbing the tip of your tongue with his claws, he pulled it out of your mouth and leaned forward, spitting into your open mouth with practiced ease.

“You’ll apologize sooner or later.” Letting you go, Satoru stepped off the bed and to where he was previously standing, fingers glistening with your saliva.

“Are you hungry?” Suguru asked. His expression hadn’t changed during the whole exchange, just watching gleefully from the sidelines.

“No.” Your angry eyes flicked to Satoru for a moment before settling onto the floor.

“You will be.” Kento sighed. He’d fully shrugged his suit jacket off, both it and his tie in the crook of his elbow. “I’ll make dinner.” Leaving without another word, Satoru followed suit, leaving just you and Suguru.

Rocking back and forth on his heels, Suguru has the nerve to have an air of innocence around him. Twiddling his thumbs like an embarrassed high schooler about to confess, he bites his lip when he looks at you.

“I’m glad to have you back.” He says, just barely able to hide the bursting happiness in his chest. He doesn’t recoil at the glare you send him, his smile only gets bigger. “You’re so cute when you’re mad, you know.”

He takes a step forward, and your lip curls in anger.

Another step, and you scurry to the back of the bed, against the wall and plushies.

You’re fully hissing by the time his legs press against the bed. Fingers curled, you’re ready to swipe at him if he tries to grab you and you watch him closely as he takes a seat on the edge of the bed.

“You never used to hiss at me...did something happen while you were away?” Pouting at you, Suguru fiddles with the blanket. Even with his supposedly relaxed demeanor, you can see the way his arms are flexing beneath his clothes.

His arm slowly reaches out to you, just grazing the skin on your legs before you tuck them under yourself. Trying again to grab onto your leg, Suguru does startle a little when your hand comes down and you swipe your claws on the back of it.

“That’s not very nice.” His skin is pebbling red and there’s a few dots of blood on his skin. Shaking his head, Suguru stands up and rubs the back of his hand, giving you a disappointed look.

There’s a mumble of Kento-nii as Suguru turns on his heels and leaves the room, closing the door and locking it with a soft click. Still on edge from the encounter, you don’t uncoil yourself until you hear Satoru and Suguru downstairs and the clinking of dishes.

The sun is completely down when someone visits you again. Your stomach has started to growl, but it’s a dull ache that you can manage to ignore for now. Trying not to appear too eager at who it might be, you only look at who enters through the corner of your eye.

Kento walks in with his styled hair tousled, like he’d been running his fingers through it a few good times. It’s not often you see him in casual clothes, but now he’s in gray sweatpants and a fitted t-shirt.

You stay perfectly still as he flicks a lamp on and takes a seat on the bed. There’s something clenched in his fist and you can’t see what. The wide expanse of his back is intimidating, getting larger with every deep and even breath he takes.

“I saw you scratched Suguru.” Kento finally breaks the silence between you and finally uncurls his fist to reveal the brown leather belt in his hands. It looks like the one he had on just a couple hours ago.

“K-kento-”

“And you still haven’t apologized to Gojo. Are you going to take your punishment like a good girl, or do you still want to be difficult?” With a sidelong glance, he doesn’t give you much time to consider. Reaching over, he grabs the collar by the metal and tugs you onto your hands and knees to face him.

His eyes dip down to the front of the shirt that’s drooped considerably off your frame, exposing your breasts to him. Tearing his eyes away, Kento unhooks the leash and forces you to lay across his lap, ass perched up as your stomach digs into the tops of his thighs.

“Kento-nii…” You whine high in the back of your throat, fingers curling around the blanket in fearful anticipation of the pain about to come. Kento doesn’t say anything, wordlessly pushing up the shirt until it’s pooling on your mid-back.

“You have to count them or I’ll start over.” Smoothing his hands over your ass, he curls your tail around his fingers and runs it through them.

“No, please.” Trying to shuffle out of his lap only earns you a hard smack on the ass from his hand. “Ow!” Lurching forward, you nearly slide off him and onto the floor before he catches you by the hips and puts you back in place.

“You don’t get to say no to this.” Kento almost sounds angry, the usual apathetic tone in his voice slipping away. Wrapping the belt securely around his hands, Kento delivers the first smack swiftly, his other hand making sure to hold you in place.

“Ow!”

“What do you say?” There’s already tears brimming in your lashes and you’re struggling for the words, and Kento spanks you again. “Don’t test me, kitty.”

“One!” You shout, looking over your shoulder at him pathetically. “K-kento-nii, I-” He cuts you off with another spank, quirking his brow as he waits for you to speak. “T-two.”

“So you can follow directions.” There’s a barely there roll of his eyes and he does it again, giving you two smacks in a row.

“Three, four.” Dropping your head to the mattress, your voice warbles as you continue to count. There’s no method to how Kento spanks you, sometimes doing multiple in a row and spreading them out over your ass and the tops of your thighs.

“That makes twenty and we only had to start over twice.” Kento is pleased with the achievement and there’s a soft smile on his face as he watches you sob into the mattress. Letting go of you, he unwraps the belt from his hand and rubs his palm over your hot, stinging skin.

His hand squeezes the aggravated flesh, digging the tips of his claws into the growing welts in your skin. Pushing apart your shaking legs, Kento runs a finger through your slit, the tip of his claw grazing your opening making you clench around nothing.

“Maybe I could give you a reward for being such a good girl.” He’s speaking to himself at this point, you’re too distraught to listen or care. You just let your thighs be pushed to accommodate the size of his hand between them.

Finding your clit, Kento presses firmly on the bud, circling his finger around and gauging your reaction. He holds his breath to hear even the slightest moan or whine from you that’s not out of pain, and even though you don’t want to, you give it to him.

The lingering pain in your body has clouded your mind, confused you to what other feelings you should be having in this moment. The pleasure Kento is giving you, rubbing your clit quickly with two fingers, is a feeling you greedily drink up.

Arching your back, you turn your head to look at him. Kento catches your gaze, raising his other hand to cup your cheek and wipe your tears away with his thumb. Even though he’d just inflicted so much pain on you, the tenderness he showed now had you reeling.

“What a good little sister.” He coos as you cum with a few hiccuping moans. His fingers slow down as your body relaxes but he doesn’t fully withdraw his hand from your cunt. Swirling his fingers around and collecting your release, he brings them to his mouth and sucks them clean.

“Kento-nii.” Wiping your eyes childishly, you groan as he moves you off his lap and back onto the bed.

“Sshh, I’ll bring you dinner.” Giving you a kiss on the forehead, Kento grabs the discarded belt and leaves the room. Laying alone in the bed, you try to calm your racing heart and the hiccupped cry that just won’t seem to stop.

When Kento returns, he feeds you slowly. His cooking has never been one to disappoint and you gladly devour it, the warmth spreading in your belly pushing you to fully calm down. Rubbing his hand on your back, Kento calls you little sister freely and tells you about his day at the office. It’s almost like before, when he’d seat you on his lap while he was having a late night cup of tea and talk to you about how boring working was.

“Love you.” Kissing both your cheeks, Kento leaves almost thirty minutes after your plate is cleared. He’s rubbed lotion on your skin, not apologizing for his actions but helping you feel better about them.

There isn’t a clock on the wall but you can tell it’s late at night. You were engulfed in darkness now, Kento having turned the light off before he left. Crawling under the blankets, you’re tired after your punishment.

The sliding of the lock pricks the edges of your senses and you hold your breath. You already know who it is that’s coming to see you. Old habits die hard, especially when you make no move to break them.

“Sugu-nii.” You whine in protest, already shuffling over to make room for the large fox. Closing the door softly, he’s practically vibrating with happiness as he climbs into your bed.

“I heard you took your punishment well.” Wrapping his arm around your middle, Suguru forces you to turn over and face him. With the weight of his arm back around your waist, it’s like nothing has changed. It’s just like before when he’d crawl into your bed after a long night of studying and pass out.

“Yeah.” Too tired to truly put up a fight, you keep your eyes closed. You can find solace in the darkness behind your eyelids, not your older brother staring at you and grinning like a fool.

“Good girl.” Pulling you closer, you can feel his breath fanning against your lips before he kisses you. He’s never kissed you fully on the lips before and it has your eyes widening in shock.

“Sugu, wait-” Pushing against his cheek, you break the kiss for only a second before he’s pushing you to lay on your back. The pressure from the bed on your sore backside has you scrambling. “Ow, please not there.”

His face says it all, whatever plan he has in his head is working just like he wants. With a knowing grin, Suguru lays on his back and hauls you to lay on top of him. Pushing his hands under your shirt, he cups your ass softly, barely laying his hands on the still angry skin.

“Kiss me.” He whispers into the dark, easily finding your lips again. Kissing you softly, the swipe of his tongue against your bottom lip makes you purse your lips together tighter. Pinching right on a welt, Suguru shoves his tongue into your mouth when you yelp.

You can feel his sharp teeth grazing your lips and bumping into your own teeth as he pushes his tongue in, invading your mouth and claiming it for himself. His heart is beating hard underneath you, his tail lazily slapping against the bed.

His hands skim down your legs, parting them and wrapping them around his hips. In only a pair of loose sweats, you can clearly feel the bulge of his cock in them. It only takes one uncomfortable shift of your body to have him rocking up against you.

“Little sister…” He sighs against your mouth, pecking the corner. Planting a firmer grip on your hips, Suguru pushes his feet into the mattress and begins to hump you, soft pants falling from his mouth.

“Sugu-nii, stop.” You whine, balling your fists and gripping his clothes as he moves you. Dragging your sex against the front of his pants, the fabric brings rough friction on your clit, making you wet despite yourself.

Suguru ignores your little whimpers telling him to stop, they only spur him on if anything. Stopping for just a moment, he yanks his sweats down his thighs so you can hump against his underwear.

“Fuck-” Suguru nearly shouts the word. He can feel the heat from your cunt on his clothed cock, your lips molding around the shape of him without him having to do much. Throwing his head back into the pillow, Suguru sets a steady rhythm.

Dropping your head into the crook of his neck you squeeze your eyes closed, a shameful burn washing over you the same time pleasure shoots up your spine. You shouldn’t be enjoying this, he was your kidnapper, your adoptive brother, and yet here you were moving your hips in tandem with his.

“I love you.” Suguru says breathlessly, his voice tilting into a high whine at the end. “God, I love you so fucking much.” The bed is creaking loudly underneath him and you just know the other two can hear as well. “J-just wanna- I’m gonna breed you-”

“Sugu-nii, we can’t.” It wasn’t possible between you two, the difference in biology was too great. But Suguru didn’t care, as evident as him thrashing his head against the pillow.

“Yes! We- we can! I’m gonna breed you! My little...little sister.” One of his hands comes up to hold the back of your head against him, raking his nails against your scalp almost lovingly. “I love you so much I want you to have my- my-” He can’t even get the words out anymore.

But it’s not like you can really hear him over the sounds of your own whines, the bed creaking and his incessant panting. Your thighs are starting to burn the longer you go on, but chasing your high has made you delirious, pushing through it to get something nice out of this.

It only takes a few more drags of your clit against him to get you to cum, your balled up fists beating against his chest a little as you do. Suguru keeps going, a sobbing moan racking his chest as he hears you cum.

“So beautiful- m’little sister so perfect.” His words are slurred and his hips are moving overtime trying to prolong the moment. But he can’t stave off his orgasm any longer and it hits him like a train.

A few loud choking gasps fall from Suguru as his whole body tenses up and you feel the warm rush of cum shooting out of him and seeping into his underwear. He’s holding you so tightly it’s like he’s going to break every bone in your body.

When he finally calms down, you can hear him crying softly.

“Sugu-nii…” Pulling your head away, it’s shocking to see the display of emotion on his face. There’s a gentle stream of tears from both eyes, his lips quivering violently as he looks at you with so much adoration it makes your heart ache.

“I’m sorry, I just- I missed you so much.” Rubbing the back of your head now, Suguru sniffles childishly.

“Sugu-nii, don’t cry.” It’s unknown what possesses you to do this, but you lift a hand and wipe his tears away gently. For as long as you’ve known him, your brother has never cried in front of you. There had been times where you heard him crying after a particularly hard day at university or if he got physically injured, but you never saw it.

“Don’t cry, please, it’s okay.” Whispering into the dark, you kiss the corner of his lip and then his damp cheek. He chuckles through his crying, catching the hand still wiping his face.

“I should be doing that to you, not the other way around.” Lacing your fingers together, Suguru kisses your hand. Taking a few deep breaths, he slowly pushes you off of him and sits up. “I’ll go get cleaned up.”

Silently, you watch him leave the room. The sheets are hot from the friction your bodies had created and you’re suddenly aware of the light layer of sweat sticking to your skin. The distant sound of a faucet running can be heard as you fix the pillows and blankets.

Suguru comes back a few minutes later, tears dry and in a new pair of underwear. Immediately cuddling up to you as he lays back down, he sighs contently and rests his hand right above the curve of your ass, playing with your tail between his fingers.

“I love you so much, (Y/N).” He whispers into your ear, giving a kiss at the base of it. You can’t find the words to say back to him, you’re not sure what would happen if you said them and you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t mean them if you did, so instead you push your head into his chest and hum.

“Goodnight, Sugu-nii.”

“Goodnight my love.”

When you wake up in the morning, you’re alone. There’s not a sound in the house, not even the creak of floorboards downstairs to alert you to someone else's presence. Your collar is still on as tight as ever, the leash hooked onto it and wrapped around the bed post again.

Sitting up on your elbows, there’s a note on the bedside table waiting for you. It’s folded up so neatly you can tell Kento left it.

‘Gojo will be by at lunch. Be good.’

His handwriting is crisp and neat, the last two words punctuated with a bold underline. There’s a threat behind those words, one that your body still remembers from the other day. Folding the note back up you put it where it was left and hobble to your feet.

First trying the door, it’s unsurprising that it’s locked. Jiggling it a few times does nothing but rumble the frame. Quickly giving up, you set your sights on the rest of the room. The desk is a brand new pristine white, the chair a plush pink little number should you ever choose to sit on it.

There’s a few knick knacks from your old room, things you recognize surrounded by a sea of unfamiliarity. The drawers of the desk are empty, not even a single pencil left for you to play with.

Trying the windows next, they’re locked just as tightly as the door is. Looking down at the backyard, it’s pretty spacious with fresh cut grass and some lawn furniture spread out. The second window sees out to the quiet suburban street below where not a single person is walking by.

This isn’t just not the house you grew up in, the whole neighborhood is foreign to you. The street signs you can see aren’t registering in your head, no location is coming to mind when you read them. Suguru said he was taking you home, but where exactly is that?

Left with little choice, you pace back and forth in the room. There’s nothing here to really entertain you, just an obscene amount of plushies and some frilly clothes in the wardrobe.

“(Y/N), I’m here!” Satoru shouts as he opens the door. He always loved announcing his presence to you because he’d trained you to come running and hug him tightly whenever he came over to the house.

You still felt that urge today, walking closer to the door in anticipation before catching yourself and lightly slapping your cheeks. It was embarrassing that they’d managed to instill such behavior in you so well that it pervades your mind even now.

Waiting by the window, your skin tingles with goosebumps when Satoru opens the door. Dressed in what he called ‘boring business attire’ Satoru sauntered in and swiftly closed the door.

“How is my little sister today?” He cooed at you like you were a baby, wiggling his fingers cutely. His eyes flick to your collar, absent of it’s leash, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Fine.” Shuffling awkwardly on your feet, you don’t know what to say. Usually you’d be hugging him right now, asking how his day at the office was and if he wanted to play a video game with you before dinner.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.” Answering him quietly, you expect him to leave the room to go get food, or maybe take you with him to the kitchen. But Satoru is just standing there with his fluffy white tail swinging back and forth, his sunglasses perched atop his head. “What?”

“Don’t you have something to say to me?” He asks, raising a brow and waiting for you.

“What-” You’d almost forgotten about drugging him, but as you take a step back and your ass grazes the wall, you’re suddenly reminded. Satoru grins when your eyes raise a fraction and he waits smugly.

“Go on, say it.” He’s got an easy smile on his face, yet the way his body is tensed up is giving another signal.

“I…” Swallowing thickly, the longer you looked at Satoru the more you were reminded of the things he said at the club and how nonchalant he was about describing your parents murder. Biting your lip, you shook your head and his tail drooped.

“Hm, you won’t?” Tilting his head with a hum, Satoru looked you up and down. “I’ll give you another chance, kitty. Apologize to me or I might just have to take what I want.”

“No.” Shaking your head again sealed your fate.

“You really are something.”  Backing you fully up against the wall, Satoru pushed his chest against you and smacked his hand down on the wall next to your head. A thick silence settles between you as your breath mingles. The goosebumps on your flesh prick harder now out of fear and your hands come up in front of you to try and keep some semblance of personal space.

“Toru-nii!” You gasp as his other hand comes up to rest heavily at the base of your throat, pushing the collar up so his fingers can wrap around your neck. Satoru chuckles darkly, his sharp teeth poking out from behind his lips.

“You always did sound cute when you were afraid.” Satoru loved to make you watch scary movies with him just to hear you whine and complain in his lap. His hand squeezes your throat lightly, just enough pressure to make you squirm uncomfortably.

Shoving his knee between your legs, Satoru presses his thigh firmly against your sex. Taking off his glasses and tossing them onto the desk, he leans down and kisses you, immediately sinking his teeth into your lower lip.

“Toru-nii, that hurts.” You manage to pull your mouth away from him just long enough to feel the metallic tang of blood on the tip of your tongue. Grunting in reply, Satoru forces your mouth on his again, lapping at your irritated lip before pushing past it and tangling his tongue with yours.

Overtaking your senses, you struggle to keep upright. Between the jerky movements of his thigh between your legs and the sheer volume of his upper body leaning over you, it’s too much to take in. Pushing against his chest to try and create distance between you doesn’t work, and Satoru smacks your hands away.

“You’re gonna make it up to me, little sister.” Satoru’s tone of voice scares you, makes your ears stand on end from how low it is. His eyes are clouded over with lust and something else just beneath the surface, something that makes your knees lock up.

“What’re you-” Stumbling forward as he moves back, Satoru stops you from falling by catching you by the collar.

“Since you won’t apologize with words there’s something else you can do.” Flashing you a sadistic grin, Satoru all but tosses you onto the floor and leaves you there. Taking a seat on the bed with his legs stretched out onto the floor, he leans back on his hands and looks at you.

He’s looking at you expectantly with a bulge in his pants that’s impossible to miss or ignore. Flicking his chin down towards it, he has to bite his lip to stop himself from smiling even bigger when you fumble to stand on your knees.

“C’mere little kitty, I know you know what I want.” Satoru hooks his finger at you, beckoning you closer. There’s no amount of pitiful looks or desperate little whimpers you can give him that will change the situation you’re in, and making him wait too long would only end badly.

Biting your tongue, you crawl to him and sit between his open legs. Resting your hands on his thighs, you rub up and down to try and soothe the nervousness in you.

“I’ve never...done this before, Toru-nii.” It truly was your first time, Suguru had made sure of it. He stopped any potential romances you ever could have had, even ones where you didn’t see any romantic potential yourself.

“Don’t worry, I’m a great teacher.” Taking one of your hands off his leg and onto the front of his pants, Satoru doesn’t need to tell you to undo them. Shimmying his pants down his thighs, Satoru lets his cock free as well.

As soon as it’s out, it slaps against his stomach. Already dripping precum, the length makes you swallow thickly. There’s a trim patch of white hair at the top of his pubic bone and his cock is the same color as the rest of him, only the tip is a nice rouge.

“Go ahead little sister, take a lick.” Satoru grabs your jaw, already impatient and rushing you to put your mouth to use.

“Okay, okay.” You can’t shrink out of his hold, his claws dig into your skin too much. Bracing yourself on his thighs, you let your tongue loll out of your mouth and flick the tip of his cock.

There’s an immediate reaction to your action: Satoru twitches and his cock jumps, bouncing against your lip as his stomach contracts. It feels kind of good to know that such a small thing made him react that way, and it bolsters you with enough confidence to do it again.

“Now open your mouth a little more and suck on the tip.” Letting go of your jaw, he leans back to watch you work. Nodding, you do as you’re told and open your mouth. Taking the tip of his cock past your lips, you know enough to keep your teeth away.

Hollowing your cheeks, you keep your eyes locked on Satoru’s face to see his reaction as you suck. Your tongue rests against the tip, the unfamiliar taste of his precum coating the slimy muscle and making drool pool in your mouth.

“Take a little more in baby, it won’t hurt you.” He says it so gently, rubbing a hand at the base of your ears, that it almost feels like you two are dating. With an encouraging hum, Satoru helps you go down on him, putting a little more in your mouth until his length fills you and you have to stop him from hitting your throat.

“Shit, is that all you can take?” Satoru grunts and it’s unclear whether he’s happy about it or not. You don’t even have half his cock in your mouth yet and you already have to stop, reminding yourself to swallow so you don’t soak him completely in saliva.

Sitting up a little, Satoru quickly grabs something from his back pocket with his free hand: his phone. Pushing you down as you try to remove your mouth from him, you can’t stop him from taking a few pictures of you in the compromising position.

“Toru-nii, don’t!” He finally lets you up after a bit of struggling and you immediately try to take his phone away. “D-don’t take pictures of me!”

“But I want to save the memories.” He whines like a child, taking a few more and then tossing the device onto the bed.

“Delete them!” Reaching for the phone, you barely get a few centimeters towards it and Satoru is grabbing both your hands and pinning them to the mattress.

“Do what I tell you and maybe I will.” He squeezes your hands in a crushing hold for a few seconds before letting them go. Your fingers throb painfully but you have no time to soothe them; Satoru is already dragging you back to his cock.

You give him a lasting look before putting your mouth back on him, sucking the length of his cock you can fit comfortably in your mouth. Resting your hands at the base of his cock, you were content with the pace you set.

But Satoru wasn’t. He quickly grew bored of only seeing you take half of his cock. Grabbing his phone in one hand, he angled it down to your face as he put the other hand behind your head.

“C’mon little sis, you can do better than that, can’t you?” He asks softly, starting to push your head further down, the tip of his cock hitting your throat and trying to push past it. You start choking immediately, nostrils flaring as you try to pull away and breathe properly.

Satoru keeps a firm grip on your head however, only letting you get a few inches of reprieve before he pushes down again. Unused to the sensation you’re already feeling lightheaded, barely remembering to breathe through your nose.

“Be a good girl for me.” Satoru huffs, forcing you up and down his cock much faster than before. Unhinging your jaw doesn’t let much air flow into your mouth, if anything it only makes him go faster.

Tears blur your vision and drip down your face in messy lines, snot beginning to materialize at your nose. Satoru doesn’t take notice of the way your claws are digging into his skin, either that or he just doesn’t care. He especially doesn’t care after he forces his cock as far as it’ll go and you start to beat on his thighs.

“Fuck-” Drawing out the word, Satoru nearly drops his phone from the ripple of pleasure going up his spine. The click of your throat against the tip of his cock is enough to make him think he’ll cum early. “Kitty, you won’t mind if I…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, only leans over and props his phone on the nightstand. The blurry outline of you and him shines on the screen, and you'd knock the phone down if you weren’t struggling to focus on breathing. With both hands free, Satoru holds your head with both hands and sits up properly, back slightly bowing so he can look down on you.

The first thrust up into your mouth takes you by bitter surprise and your stomach lurches in turn, the fear of potentially vomiting on Satoru coming to the forefront of your mind. The second thrust, you still aren’t prepared for and just barely keep yourself from clamping your teeth down onto his cock.

By the third thrust you’ve learned to give up what little control you’re trying to salvage. Letting your mouth hang open, you can’t care anymore about soaking the front of Satoru’s pants in your spit. All you can think about is breathing, no matter how hard that might be.

“Fuck, what a- a good girl you are.” Satoru can barely breathe himself, but for a different reason. His stomach is tight, all the muscles in his body are tensed painfully as he fucks your mouth. This is something he’s been dreaming about ever since he met you, ever since you sat on his lap for the first time and told him how much you loved big brother Toru-nii.

The strain in your neck is nearly as bad as your jaw as Satoru uses you for his own gain. Your fingers are cramping as they continue to dig into his thighs, the smooth expanse of skin threatening to break from how hard you're gripping him.

“Shit-” Cursing angrily, Satoru holds you down on his cock. There’s no warning from him as he shoots cum down your throat, only slight thrusts up as he does it. You have no choice but to swallow it all, the motions of your throat making Satoru grind into you a bit more.

As soon as Satoru lets you go, you’re collapsing onto the ground and gasping for air. Throat fucked completely raw, you can’t even make a sound as you sob and try to wipe away the snot that’s dripped down your face.

“Made me cum so quick, are you sure this is your first time?” Satoru jokes, tucking himself back into his pants and standing up. Looking down at your crying form, Satoru doesn’t have a lick of remorse on his face.

“T-tor-” Trying to speak is far too painful and Satoru grins at your inability to do it. Scooping you up under the armpits, he pulls you onto the bed with a pleased hum.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you just said sorry.”

“M’sorry.” It’s too late now, far too late, but you still say it and Satoru still grins at you.

“I know you are.” Kissing you on the forehead, he stands up and walks to the door. “See you after work, little sis.” Waving goodbye over his shoulder, Satoru leaves the room. Too upset to care about the rumble in your empty stomach, you turn to face the wall and sleep off what just happened.

You don’t wake until there’s a tugging on your collar. Opening up puffy, bloodshot eyes, they follow the line of the leash up to who’s holding it.

“Sugu-nii?” Letting yourself get pulled up and out of bed, the light of the hallway burns your eyes when you enter it.

“It’s time for dinner.” He hums, playing with the leash between his fingers. “Since you were so good for Toru-nii, I thought it’d be a nice reward for you to eat with all of us.” Taking a pause, Suguru looks at you over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t that be nice, (Y/N)?”

“Yes.” Your voice is still a little rough and your hand flies up to rub at your throat. Suguru doesn’t say anything, only chuckles under his breath. Leading you down the stairs, he keeps a tight hold on the leash as you go from the bottom step to the dining table.

Kento and Satoru are already there, Satoru waiting at the set table while Kento does a few finishing touches on dinner in a plain black apron. There are only three chairs at the table, and Satoru doesn’t offer to have you sit on his lap.

“Where do I…” You trail off, looking at everyone in the room as they avoid your curious gaze.

“You’ll sit on the floor until you prove you’re a good girl.” Kento is the one to answer your question as he sets the last of the food on the table.

“But-”

“Don’t argue. Only good little girls get to sit at the table, and you’ve yet to prove you can be good.” His voice is firm, dripping with authority that you wouldn’t have dreamed of challenging before.

“Kento-nii, I-”

The rebuttal you had was snatched away by the sharp yank of the leash, cutting your air off as Suguru pulled high up by his head.

“Little kitty, listen to your big brother please.” He sang the words but the way Suguru was looking at you and choking you with the collar told his true nature. Loosening his hold once he was sure you wouldn’t speak again, Suguru led you to a corner of the wall by the table where a cushion was waiting for you.

They were at least nice enough to give you a plate and utensils instead of making you eat out of a dog bowl like Satoru jokingly suggested. None of them addressed you as the meal progressed, not sparing you a single glance or second thought.

Your plate was cleared long before theirs and although you wanted to get up and put your plate away, maybe attempt to either go back to your room or slide into the conversation, you sat completely still on the cushion, fiddling with the edges of it and simply waiting.

“(Y/N).” Kento snapped his fingers, catching your attention as he stood up. “Help me with the dishes.” Standing up slowly, you gathered the empty plates Kento put into your hands and walked to the sink.

You only stood alone at the sink for a few minutes, filling the sink with hot water over the dishes and gathering soap on the sponge, before Kento came and slinked in behind you. Putting his arms around you, he slid his fingers through yours and held them tightly under the water.

“Missed you.” He whispered in your ear, laying his cheek atop your head and nuzzling into you. His whole body wrapped around you, his chest greatly expanding with air as he inhaled your scent and rocked you slightly. “Everything will go back to normal soon, promise.” You weren’t sure if he was saying that for you or for him, but you didn’t get the chance to answer.

“Aw, look at you being all soft.” Satoru giggled behind you, going up to the fridge and grabbing two beers.

“Fuck off.” Kento growled, whipping his head around to glare at the intruder. Slinking away with a vicious giggle, Satoru could be heard talking to Suguru about what he just saw. Heaving an annoyed sigh, Kento unwound one hand from yours and started to clean the dishes.

Working quietly together, Kento kept himself pressed against you the entire time. He didn’t speak much, occasionally giving you a kiss on the head or taking a dirty pan from you to leave it to soak. When the sink was clear and your fingers were properly wrinkled, he stepped back and grabbed the leash you’d managed to forget about.

Following him out of the kitchen, you glanced at Satoru and Suguru sitting together on the couch playing some game you could never quite get the hang of no matter how many times they tried to teach you.

“Oh, time for a bath already.” Suguru glanced at the two of you and tossed his controller onto the couch. Standing up and cracking a few bones, Suguru took the leash from Kento and led you up the stairs.

Ever since Suguru’s interest in you turned more obsessive, bathing yourself became something you grew to detest. He would often find some way to barge in while you were taking a shower, trying to sneak peeks at your naked body all lathered up and sometimes trying to join you. Even after locking the door, he still found ways to pick it when he could and leer at you through the crack in the door, and you were pretty sure he installed a few hidden cameras as well. And during the times he didn’t actively snoop on you, he would be waiting in your room for you to come in clad in only a towel.

This time was no different. There was already a clean towel waiting for you in the bathroom, and your favorite products all lined up on the counter that Suguru was leaning on. Unclipping the leash, he was gentle in undoing the collar.

“Would you rather take a bath or a shower?” He whispered, already grabbing the hem of your shirt and pulling it off.

“Bath.” Folding your arms over your chest did little to truly preserve your modesty, but it was better than nothing. Nodding, Suguru turned the tap on and the roar of the water filled the air. For a brief moment, you hoped he would just be content with sitting on the closed toilet lid and watching you, but you should have known better.

As the tub was filling up, Suguru began to take his clothes off as well, leaving them in a pile on the floor. Steam clouded in the air, making the fur of your tail and ears damp and clump together.

“I got you something from that store you really like.” Suguru digs into the medicine cabinet for a moment, pulling out a deep purple bath bomb with specks of gold glitter. He grins widely at you before dropping it into the tub where it sinks to the bottom with a ‘thunk’.

When the bath is full enough and the powder halfway dissolved, Suguru nudges you gently into the tub. You’ve tried to stay out of his line of sight as the water poured into the tub, but now you were on full display as you climbed in and he followed suit.

Holding your breath, Suguru climbs in after you. His fluffy tail immediately soaked up the water, the fur getting weighed down and heavy. Pulling you flush against his open legs, you can feel his soft cock resting on your lower back.

“Isn’t this nice?” Suguru whispers, the only sound to offset the silence is the occasional drip from the faucet. Swishing the purple water between his fingers, Suguru wraps an arm just under your breasts.

The gold glitter sticks to your fingers when you move them through the water and bring them up to the surface. The scent of the bath bomb is nice enough, truly one of your favorites, but it didn’t bring you any peace like it usually did.

You couldn’t relax and Suguru could tell. You refused to lean your back onto his chest, and whenever he tried to intertwine your fingers together you slipped out of his grasp. Leaning your head away from him, the water just barely brushed your collarbones.

“You’re awfully quiet, little sister. Something on your mind?” Running a wet hand down your back, Suguru lets his claws graze your skin and leave goosebumps.

“No.” The word slips from your mouth and for a moment you’re not sure he heard you because there’s no immediate response. But Suguru is always listening to you and he definitely heard you.

“Hm, then why don’t you try and relax?” The arm under your breasts tightens and Suguru yanks you effortlessly back onto him. Pushing your head to lay on his chest, Suguru peers over your shoulder down the expanse of your naked body.

“Stop.” Scrambling to clench your legs closed and cover yourself, the heat from the water only adds to the burn in your cheeks.

“Shouldn’t I get to see how my little sister grew up? You’ve become quite beautiful, you know.” His other hand rests on your knee, fingers splaying out and, if he really tried, he could wrap almost your entire leg in his hand. “But, you’ve always been beautiful, ever since we met.”

Giving you a kiss on the side of your head, Suguru wrenches your legs apart with one swift motion. You barely have time to make a sound let alone react, and Suguru is already shoving his hand between your legs by the time you do.

“Sugu-nii!” Clutching his wrist, you try in vain to yank him away from cupping your sex with his hand. “Don’t- don’t touch me there!” Digging your claws into his arm, you let out a low whine.

“Don’t be so shy, I need to check down there. You were gone for so long, who knows what you were up to.” Laughing softly at your discomfort, Suguru slips two fingers into your slit, the warm water helping his fingers glide along your cunt.

“I’m still a virgin if that’s what you’re worried about.” Craning your head up to the ceiling, you can’t stand to look at his hand moving between your tightly clenched thighs.

“Mmm I still think I should check.” Keeping you untouched was one of Suguru’s life missions. He was distraught when you told him you’d had your first kiss, utterly shattered when you mentioned potentially having a crush on the person. After that singular moment, he vowed to ruin any potential romance and to stop you from ever having sex with someone he didn’t approve of.

Swirling his fingers around your clit, Suguru chuckled as he made your legs twitch. He knew the motion was purely automatic, but he still took it for all it was worth. Pressing more firmly against it, his other hand snaked up to wrap around one of your breasts.

A soft sigh escaped your lips and you clenched them tightly together. Suguru heard it, how could he not? It was all he needed to keep going, not that he would have stopped even if you asked.

“Pretty little girl you are.” He hummed, tweaking your nipple gently in his fingers. Prodding your entrance with one finger, he quickly retracts it when you let out a pained whine. “Just checking, just checking.”

“I wasn’t lying.” You huff, once again trying to squirm out of his hold.

“And for that you deserve a reward, don’t you think?” His fingers are already rubbing your clit under the water, sloshing and splashing some of it onto the ground. Keeping his lips firmly pressed against your head, Suguru groans deeply in his chest.

“Sugu-nii...please…” Screwing your eyes closed, you’re not sure what you’re asking for. For him to stop? For him to keep going? Based on the way your hips are grinding against him, you can easily find the answer.

Suguru’s ministrations are deft, like he’s done this countless times before. And perhaps he has on other women, and that thought bitterly crosses your mind for a moment, but it’s dashed out just as quickly when he pinches your clit.

“Moan my name when you cum.” His breathing is ragged, almost as if Suguru is going to cum as well. Nodding drunkenly, only a supply of soft moans fall from your mouth. The hands that were gripping his arm have fallen slack and to the wayside, one of them gripping the side of the tub.

Turning your head to bury your face into his neck, you inadvertently press open mouthed kisses onto him as you pant and moan. Your sharp teeth graze Suguru’s neck every so often and he leans into the touch, fingers working overtime on your clit.

“Su-Sugu-nii!” Pushing your face into him, you cum with a short, high pitched cry of his name. With a long groan, Suguru works you through your orgasm and presses kisses to your head.

“Good girl.” He sighs when you finally come down, relaxed and pliant in his hold now. Slowly withdrawing his hand from your cunt, Suguru leans back against the tub contently. Laying in silence for a moment, you try and push the shame away that’s creeping up from the base of your spine.

Silently, you lean forward to grab the other products still waiting untouched on the counter. Opening the body wash he’d set out, you take the cloth he’d left as well, intent on scrubbing yourself raw and cleaning away the moment you just had.

Freshly bathed, moisturized and dressed in a new oversized shirt you didn’t own an hour later, the weight of the collar put back around your neck was starting to become familiar. Back in your room, you and Suguru laid together, the soft sound of evening rain helping you fall asleep.

Waking up to the sound of a blaring smoke alarm, the previous relaxing night was ripped away from you. Bolting upright and stumbling out of bed in a dazed panic, you try the bedroom door. It’s still locked, not budging as you attempt to force it open.

“Hello?!” You scream, anxiety rising the longer the alarm goes off.

“It’s okay!” Satoru calls back to you, voice muffled and distant. He’s clearly downstairs, hopefully dealing with whatever set the alarm off. “Just cooking!” As soon as he says that, you immediately relax.

Satoru wasn’t known for being a good cook, or even a very decent one. Whenever he tried, he always ended up burning something or making the food taste horrible. Letting go of the doorknob, you were right in assuming he hadn’t changed; the smell of something burnt wafted through the vents and up to your room.

Ten minutes later, Satoru unlocked and flung open the door with excitement brimming on his face.

“I made breakfast, come on down.” Quickly clipping the leash to the collar, he practically drug you down the stairs in his eagerness for you to eat his food. Whatever was waiting for you on the dining table looked less than appetizing, your stomach churned just looking at it.

Taking a seat, Satoru wound the leash around his fingers, drawing you closer and closer until you were sitting sideways on his lap. Resting a hand high up on your thigh, Satoru pulled the plate closer.

“Doesn’t it look good?” He asked, a childish giggle behind his words.

“Sure.” You fought to keep your face neutral, but it was hard when you took the first bite and wanted to spit it out right away. Knowing Satoru though, he wouldn’t let you cook anything for yourself, wanting you to eat what he made you with a big smile.

“Do you like it?”

“Sure.” Nodding through clenched teeth, you quickly changed the subject. “Toru-nii, why aren’t you at work?”

“Took the day off. Wanted to get reacquainted with my little sister.” Squeezing your thigh with a big grin, Satoru grabbed your utensil from your hand. “And maybe later we can go to the corner store and get ice cream!”

Even though you knew you’d have to jump through some hoops before going outside, just the mere mention of leaving this house making your stomach erupt in butterflies. You ate Satoru’s bad cooking with vigor, offering to wash the dishes as soon as you were done.

Retiring to the couch, Satoru laid a blanket over the two of you as he flicked through the TV channels. Just as Satoru picked some random shitty movie to play in the background while he got down to the true fun, the mailman came.

“One sec.” Shifting you off his lap, Satoru dragged his feet grabbing the mail. There were quite a few envelopes in his hand when he returned, and a few of them you recognized from the insurance company your parents used and signed you up for.

“What’s this?” Forcing your way to his side once again, you read over the first letter. It was from your parents life insurance, stating that you were the sole inheritor of all the money in the policy.

“Looks like you got a pretty penny, baby.” Satoru grinned as he read over the next letter, one from the bank stating that all the money from your parents accounts would be transferred to you. There was also one from their will, naming you the only one that gets money from the meager stocks they’d invested in.

“Did- did you all set this up?” Remembering what Satoru had said about Kento setting up a trust fund for you, your stomach twisted into knots.

“Oh yeah, Kento is pretty smart when it comes to forging signatures and insurance documents.” Flicking the open letters onto the coffee table, Satoru opened a thick envelope, and the words at the top made your heart stop.

“Why uh, why is this letter talking about a house fire? What is this payout?” Snatching the letter from Satoru, you didn’t blink as you read over it. “Why is my address on here? Why are they talking about a fire at my address?”

You knew the answer, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. It was spelled out clear as day on the paper, that the house you’d been adopted into and grown up in had been set ablaze in some random arson attack and that you and Suguru were going to get a very large sum of money for the damages to the now unlivable abode.

You knew the answer, yet you still needed Satoru to say it aloud, confirm what you already knew.

“There might have been a little accident at your old house after you left.” Gingerly taking the letter from you, Satoru read it over himself. “If it makes you feel any better, we didn’t just set fire to your house. We did the whole street ya know, to make it more believable.”

It made sense why you were in a new home in a new neighborhood you’d never been in. He didn’t want you to be familiar with the area or try and contact the neighbors. You didn’t know where you were, all you knew was the house you were currently in.

“Now let’s watch a movie! Kento likes to handle all the file organization!” Hooking his arm around your shoulder, Satoru pulled you to his side. Your body was stiff and unyielding, frozen in shock and mind still reeling.

“T-toru-nii.” Forcing your voice to work, you stared at the opening credits. “Can we go to the store now? I’m in the mood for some- for some uhm, snacks.”

“Yeah, why not. We can have a little movie marathon.” Pausing the TV, Satoru stretched and groaned. “Go ahead and get changed in your room, I’ll wait down here.”

“Okay.” Keeping your legs as steady as possible, you went up to your bedroom. Shaking fingers picked out the least offensive clothing they left for you, a simple pair of leggings and a plain shirt and hoodie that weren’t previously owned by a very large fox.

Walking hand in hand down the street with Satoru, you tried to keep the collar around your neck hidden. He’d been gracious enough to take the leash off, stuffing it in his back pocket as a warning before exiting the house.

Being outside and breathing in the crisp air helped clear your head a little. There was only so much you could do to calm yourself in this situation, and having the wind go by and make your ears twitch was one of them.

It was a short walk to the store in question, and Satoru stayed close by you the entire time you were there. His figure lingered around you, trailing you through the aisles and sometimes keeping a few fingers hooked in your hood just in case.

Standing outside the store, Satoru had a sly grin on his face as he looked at the bag of treats in his hand. He had been unusually quiet upon leaving, and that almost always meant he was up to something.

“Hey, stay out here for a little bit, I need to go back in and get something for Suguru.” The bait was right in your face. Satoru held a lingering gaze with you out of the corner of his eye as he went back into the store. He was practically telling you to make a run for it now. To try and escape him, even though there truly was no hope of outrunning him.

It was painfully obvious what was going to happen, or at least what Satoru wanted to happen. He liked to play chase with you, running after you at the park on warm sunny days, or with snowballs in hand during winter. He always said it was just instinct to want to chase pretty little things like you.

Even though you knew you shouldn’t, you took one look at the closed doors of the store and ran for it. As you rounded the corner, you swore that the sound of Satoru’s laughter reached your ears. You willingly stepped into his trap, the most obvious one he’s ever set.

But the smidgen of hope you had of hiding from him and getting away again outweighed how stupid you felt for giving into his desires. Running through empty suburban streets close to noon, you felt like you were in a different world. None of the streets looked like ways out to a main road, and as you kept running, it felt like you were going in circles.

“Gotcha.” Satoru announced as he appeared around a corner, a crazed look in his eyes. His fur was standing on end, electrified from the adrenaline of chasing you. Grabbing your wrist as you tried to sidestep him, Satoru laughed and hugged you to his chest. “I knew you would run, I just fucking knew it.”

You had nothing to say, hanging your head limply in his hold. Satoru rocked you side to side, his racing heart struggling to calm down.

“I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t do it, that you’d be a little smarter than this and know to stay in your place. But at the end of the day, you’re just a dumb little house cat.” Releasing you, Satoru grabbed your hand tightly. “Now we can really have some fun.”

The fun Satoru mentioned didn’t come when you got back home. Stepping back through the threshold, you were ushered back into your room with a few of the snacks and left to your own devices. Satoru had made a phone call after locking the door, the exhilaration in his voice making him breathless as he walked away and babbled to whoever on the other line.

You weren’t visited for a whole day. No one came to knock on your door to feed you, there weren’t any late night visits from Suguru. It was as if they’d forgotten about you, walking past the locked door with no regard to who lay on the other side.

A full three days of isolation passed before Suguru opened the door. It was the weekend and they’d all been home all day, you could hear them moving around downstairs and Satoru certainly seemed excited about something.

Ravenously hungry, you ate the small meal he brought you immediately. Too focused on eating, you didn’t care about the slightly strange taste or the way Suguru watched you intently to make sure you ate every last drop.

“You need to change.” His eyes flitted over the clothes you still had on from your last outing. A displeased frown graced Sugurus face, and he walked over to the wardrobe and pulled open a few drawers.

You hadn’t really taken a look inside too closely at what they’d left for you. Only briefly digging around to change, there wasn’t a real need to switch up your outfits seeing as you didn’t leave the room.

“Put this on.” Turning to you, Suguru held up a pretty pink lacy bra and panties set.

“Why?” Swallowing thickly, you took the garments that were thrust into your hands.

“You’ll see. Just get changed and come out when you’re ready. You can put my shirt on over it.” Suguru spoke quickly and left the room, leaning on the door as soon as it was closed. Thumbing over the fabric, thoughts jumped in and out of your head at what he could possibly need from you in this outfit.

But something else was taking shape in your mind, a slow drip that wouldn’t leave. The tips of your fingers were tingling and your tongue started to feel heavy. Just standing up to disrobe had you lightheaded, skimming your fingers across your naked skin had you clenching your thighs together.

“Sugu-nii, open up.” You called to him, a concerned whine at the end of your voice. You’d changed just like he’d asked, and you were happy you had because you were starting to get sweaty.

“Let’s go.” He quickly undid the collar on your neck and led you down the stairs, making sure you didn’t trip on your increasingly shaky legs. Coming to the lounge room, you were greeted by Satoru and Kento, and an unknown older third man was leaning against the wall, a long skinny black tail dangling behind him.

“What a cutie.” The man chuckled, looking you over with sharp golden eyes. Planting you in the middle of the room, Suguru left you to stand on your own. Your own eyes looked back at the man, taking in the curved black ears atop his head and his wide chest.

Standing still was proving to be a struggle for you. Whatever was happening had made you delirious, all the blood seemed to be rushing straight between your legs. Just being stared at was enough to make heat burn your cheeks in an embarrassing way.

“So you said I could do anything?” Looking past you and to your brother, the man grins wide when Suguru nods his head. Stalking closer to you, you can see the scar on the edge of his lip and the very large canine teeth inside his mouth.

Speaking was also a struggle, evident in the way you couldn’t properly get any words out, only a few nondescript sounds trickled out. Shuffling back as the man got closer, you were completely enveloped in him when he opened his arms wide, taking up all the space in your vision.

“Hey little kitty-cat.” Putting a large hand on your head, he rubs your head gruffly. The sensation makes your knees buckle, tingling pleasure from his touch spreading across your upper body. “Name’s Toji.”

“He-hello.” Forcing the word out, now that he’s so close you can finally discern what animal he was, a smooth black panther. You hadn’t seen them a lot, only catching a few glances of a couple hybrids when you were at the hostess bar and they always seemed so elusive.

“Who knew you could sound so cute all drugged up like that?” Toji cooed, rubbing your head again. “You gonna introduce yourself to me? I am your brothers’ guest after all.”

“I don’t think she can.” Suguru chuckled from the couch. He, Satoru and Kento were enraptured with the scene before them. Seeing you dwarfed by their size had become something they were accustomed to, but seeing you look so tiny against an imposing figure like Toji stirred something in them.

“Poor little thing.” With a mocking laugh he dropped his hands to his sides and looked down at you. “Lets see if you can follow directions now, hm? Take this off for me.” Flicking his chin at you, he waited with bated breath.

“Sugu...nii…” Scrunching your brows together, you looked at him. Even with your mind full of nothing but the intense ache between your legs, you still had enough sense to try and figure out what was going to happen.

“Don’t be shy baby, do as he says.” Suguru made no move to come and help you or offer any explanation. Looking to Kento and Satoru, neither of them were any help.

“Don’t make me wait all day.” Toji snapped his fingers in your face, bringing you back to staring at him. He took one look at your still concerned expression and rolled his eyes. “I’ll do it for you then, princess.”

Toji wasn’t gentle when he took your shirt off, practically ripping it off your body with his sharp claws. There was a collective gasp from the couch and Toji let out a low whistle upon seeing your body in lingerie.

“You really are something, huh?” Grasping your upper arm, Toji turned you around to stare at your ass, giving your tail a sharp tug that made you keen and arch your back. “So responsive too. Good to see the drugs working.”

Wading through the thicket in your foggy mind, it all made sense now. Why you were moaning so loudly just from Toji hugging you to his body and raking his nails lightly against your skin. Why just feeling the barrel of his chest against your back had your spine tingling with nerves.

“Sugu!” Reaching out for him, you could only lean so far forward away from Toji.

“Be quiet baby, take your punishment like a good girl.” He chided, actively palming over the growing tent in his pants.

“Sugu!” Huffing again, you strained against Tojis hold.

“Hey, didn’t he say be good?” Toji quipped and smacked your thigh. The sound echoed in the otherwise quiet room, making you jump high into the air. It hurt, the force of his smack and the lingering pain after, but somewhere in you, you enjoyed it.

Turning you around, Toji wasted no time in kissing you. Grabbing your chin tightly, he forced his tongue into your mouth. Easily overwhelming you with the strength in his kiss, Toji palmed your ass roughly. Pushing you against his growing cock, he kissed you until you were so lightheaded your legs gave out.

“Ha, this’ll be too easy.” Letting you fall to the floor, Toji peeled his shirt off and cracked the bones in his neck. The cold hardwood offered no reprieve to your burning skin, and Toji quickly descended onto you.

Caging you in with his knees on either side of you, Toji grabbed both breasts, squeezing them so hard tears sprang to your eyes instantly. Your hands weakly attempted to push him away, stop him from pulling at your nipples through the sheer fabric of the bra.

“Hey, knock it off.” The slap across the face was an unexpected sensation, your head turning to the side as his palm went across your cheek. Gasping loudly, the tears that gathered at your lashes began to fall as the pain radiated across your face.

Choking out a sob, you tossed an arm over your face to shield yourself from any more. The painful treatment of your breasts was all you could focus on and you actively had to stop yourself from trying to push him away again.

“She learns quick.” Toji remarks to the group watching you with their cocks out.

“Always has.” Kento replies smoothly, like he didn’t have his pants around his knees with his half hard cock in his hand. Turning back to you, Toji rips your arm off your face.

“Don’t think you can hide from me now, little one.” Pinning your arms to your side, Toji leaned over you and bit down on the side of your neck. Screeching and arching your back, you squirmed and whined from the pain.

You could feel the light amount of blood trickle down your neck and his rough tongue lap it up. Soothing the bite, Toji went down a few inches and did it again, littering your whole neck with bites hard enough to break skin.

Moving down to your chest, he sucked angry marks into your skin, biting down a tad softer here.  The drug they’d given you had perfectly done its job in making you more sensitive to touch and the trace amounts of pleasure you were getting from this weren’t enough to outweigh the pain.

“Toji.” Throwing your head to the side as he bit down on your shoulder, your breath left you when he peered back at you with his intense gaze. Leveling you with a single stare, Toji returned his attention to your chest and ripped your bra clean off your body.

“Nice fucking tits.” He smiled maliciously, squeezing them as hard as he could between his fingers. He reveled in your pained squirming and the way you couldn’t hold back moaning in pain.

Letting go of your breasts, he laid a hard slap across your chest, and then another the other way. He slapped your breasts at least ten times, not that you could keep track from the way it hurt.

Pinching and twisting your nipples, Toji wrapped one in his lips and bit down. Your hands slapped against the ground, sharp wails leaving you as he let go and bit the flesh of your breasts as hard as he had done to your neck.

“Fuck kitty, you made me so hard.” Lightly slapping your face side to side, Toji forced you to look down at his cock, now unrestrained and freed from his baggy pants. It looked massive even compared with how large his body was, and when he wrapped his hand around it you could feel the blood leave your face.

Toji ripped your panties off with one swipe, dangling the tattered fabric from his fingers before tossing it to the side where your bra was. Pushing your knees up and nearly hitting you in the face, Toji peered down at your cunt.

“So fucking wet.” He mumbled, swiping a finger up your slit and presenting it to you. “Fucking dripping, huh.”

“Sugu!” Whipping your head to the side, you looked at Suguru with wide eyes. Fear struck a chord in you, Suguru had always drilled it into your head that your virginity was something special, making you promise over and over that you would save it for the right person.

And you had strong doubts that Toji was the right person to take it.

“Calm down baby. I said this was a punishment after all, didn’t I?” Suguru was languidly stroking his hard cock, a cocky smile on his face as he drank in your apprehension.

“But- no, no!” Shaking your head hard enough to make it hurt, you cried unabashedly. This wasn’t right, you shouldn’t be having sex for the first time on a cold hardwood floor with a stranger while your brother and his friends watched.

“Yes, yes!” Toji mocked your frantic voice, landing slaps on the backs of your thighs as you began to cry. “Don’t act all high and mighty now. Your brothers sold you out to me like some cheap whore, now take what I give you.”

“No!” Sobbing now, it only got louder when Toji slapped your cunt with his full hand. Your legs shook violently as he slapped you again, putting more weight into his hand.

“God, I could listen to you all fucking day.” Toji let your legs go, slapping your cunt one last time to see you jump and writhe. Nestling between your legs, he gripped your hips and pulled you flush against him. “Be nice and loud for us now.”

Guiding the tip of his cock into your entrance, Toji thrust his cock in with one smooth motion of his hips. Bottoming out immediately, he threw his head back and sighed. This was the first time you had anything inside you besides your own fingers and to say it hurt was an understatement.

Despite how wet you were from the drug, you had no prep for the immense stretch of Tojis cock inside you. You weren’t sure if any amount of preparation would have been enough to take him, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

The slow drag of his cock against your walls as he pulled out caught your attention. You were still sobbing, still shaking and clearly distraught, but nobody cared. They were all getting off on seeing Toji fuck you, all of their eyes bouncing between your face to where you were connected with him.

“Gojo you were right, I think I might cum quick.” They shared a laugh, Satoru echoing the sentiment back to him. Pushing back in, Toji held your hips tight enough to bruise them, digging painful fingerprints into your flesh that would linger for a long while after he left.

Setting a quick pace, Toji bounced you back on his cock as he thrust forward, dragging you across the floor with every motion. The sweat collecting on your skin helped it not to catch on the wood, but the glide was still irritating.

Putting your ankles on his shoulders, Toji bent your pliant body in half. He met no physical resistance from you, ignoring the way you groaned at the stretch and leaning over to put his forehead against yours.

“For a virgin you sure are flexible, maybe I’ll have to come back and have some more fun with you.” The deep rumble of his voice clouded your senses and you could feel the intensity behind his stare even as you closed your eyes tightly.

Rutting into you, the tip of Tojis cock bumped painfully against your cervix, forcing tears to drip out of your eyes with every thrust in. His entire being had completely consumed you, from the arbitrary way the tip of his tail swished against your bare thigh to the all consuming feeling of his cock pounding into you.

Getting used like a piece of meat, fucked into the very floor you’d have to walk on later, burned you with shame. Distressed moans turning into ones of burgeoning pleasure helped push that feeling even further and when you turned your head to see all three men furiously jerking their cocks, cheeks flushed red and sweat forming on their brows, you couldn’t help but wonder why they were letting this happen.

If they loved you as much as they claimed, why were they letting this man do this to you? He had slapped you all over your body, littered bloody bite marks across every inch of skin he could, and he had taken the one thing you were taught was sacred to you. Toji was nothing like your brothers, he was crass and unyielding, smacking you in the thighs as he fucked you.

He was so unlike them, the difference was astounding. The nasty words he snarled out to you, calling you a worthless little virgin and just a hole to be fucked, hurt you. Your brothers, as mean as they could be to you, would never say such nasty things. Even when Kento spanked you, he made it all better in the end.

Toji offered no happy ending, taking and taking from you until you couldn’t breathe anymore from the weight pressing down on your chest. Forcing you to kiss him, Toji growled into your mouth as he came abruptly.

Warmth flooded you, his syrupy cum smearing and coating every inch of your cunt. Grinding against you, he let your legs fall to the ground as he pulled out, his cock still rock hard. You were nearly unconscious when he finally pulled away from your lips, head falling to the side to see the three men all cumming as well.

“Y-you’re still hard?” Satoru gaped, milking his own cock for the last few drops of cum.

“Why does the little princess here have to be the only one drugged up?” Toji chuckled. Mentally and physically drained already, you were becoming practically comatose in his hold. Flipping you over onto your stomach, Toji peered down at your eyes slipping away. “Looks like she’s all tuckered out.”

Grabbing your ass, he spread your cheeks apart and revealed your puckered asshole. Spitting down onto it, he swirled his finger around it shortly, gathering up the cum and slick between your legs as added lubricant to push his finger through the tight ring of muscle.

“That’s okay, little kitty-cat, just go to sleep.” Pushing his finger all the way down to the knuckle, Toji smoothed a hand on your lower back and purred as he watched you fall unconscious. “Your uncle Toji will take good care of you.”

When you awoke again, you were back in your bed. Back in the room that wasn’t yours, in the house that you hadn’t grown up in, in a neighborhood you had no clue about. The collar was back around your neck, not as tight as before but still weighing just as heavy.

Every part of your body ached. There wasn’t a single part of you that didn’t hurt, all your muscles screamed in agony as you tried to move. There was a sharp, burning pain between your legs, raised teeth marks dotting along all the skin you touched, and your eyes were puffy and dry.

Parched beyond all belief, you struggled to grab the cup of water left on the nightstand. Nearly spilling it from how shaky your hands were, you gulped down the liquid greedily. It wasn’t enough to soothe your aching throat, but it was a start.

The sun moved across the room as you floated in and out of consciousness, casting beams of light in different directions every time you opened your eyes. There wasn’t much your body was willing to let you do, forced to just lay in bed under the fluffy blankets and wonder when someone would come to see you.

“(Y/N).” A soft whisper accompanied the slow creak of the door as it opened. The three men you’d been waiting for appeared, gentle expressions on all their faces. Suguru was the first to reach out and touch you, cupping your cheek and rubbing his thumb along your face.

“How’re you feeling?” He asked, taking a seat on your bed.

“It hurts.” You whisper back, wincing as you try and fail to sit up.

“Yeah, I bet. Uncle Toji did a number on you, didn’t he?” Suguru was speaking to you like you were a stupid child, his tone low and even.

“He did.” Barely nodding, your eyes flicked to Satoru and Kento. Satoru looked ready to jump into bed with you, his tail flicking in thinly veiled excitement behind him. Kento remained stoic, his arms crossed but his eyes never leaving yours.

“I hope now you understand how good you have it.” Kento said, the ever present sternness in his voice.

“Yeah (Y/N), men like Toji are all over the place, and one of them could have done something worse to you while you were away in Tokyo!” Satoru couldn’t help but chime in, stepping closer as he spoke.

“That’s true. We only let him have you for one night as a punishment, but think about how much worse it would be if you were still in Tokyo without the protection of your big brothers. This could have happened at that nasty little hostess bar, and it could have been much worse.” Suguru hadn’t stopped stroking your cheek the entire time he was in the room and he wasn’t about to stop now. “You don’t want guys like Toji around you, do you?”

“N...no.” Knitting your brows together, their words rattled around your skull. They weren’t exactly wrong, something much worse could have happened at the hostess bar, and you wouldn’t have your big brothers to watch over you.

Sure, the aches and pains in your body were horrible, but imagining going through the pain night after night, day after day at the hands of some random men at the red light district was much worse.

The longer you looked at all three of them, the more it made sense in your head. They had done horrible things, but the reality was that you were safe here. You didn’t have to worry about providing for yourself ever again, you had plenty of food and three people that loved you so much it hurt them to be apart from you for too long. Out in the world, anything could happen. Recounting the days you spent on the run made your stomach churn, unpleasant memory after memory coming back to you.

“You see now? You need us, (Y/N), just as much as we need you.” Drawing your attention back to him, Suguru swept his arm over to the other two. “We love you so much, we just want you to be the happiest member of the pack.”

“Of the pack…” Echoing the last words, you nodded. Pack life was important to them, it was what kept them safe and feeling secure in life. And right now, you certainly craved that security. “I want to be part of the pack.”

Large smiles erupted on all of their faces - Kento hiding his - at your words. It’s what they’d wanted to hear all along, and now everything felt complete. Sitting you up and wrapping you in a hug, Suguru was careful not to squeeze you too tightly.

“I love you (Y/N).” He said, tail thumping against the bed happily. Satoru and Kento echoed the statement, and they came to hug you as well. With all three pairs of arms around you, their warmth soothed not only the ache in your body but in your heart as well. Hugging them felt right, it felt like you were always meant to be here.

“Are you hungry? I can make you something.” Kento is the first to pull away, a light blush on his face that he tries to hide.

“Yes please.”

“Ooh, I’ll help!” Satoru throws his hand into the air as he pulls away but not before kissing you on the cheek.

“I guess I’ll help too then.” Suguru lingers around you, giving you a series of light kisses on your cheeks. “Little sister should eat well after all she’s been through.”

“We’ll be quick. Stay in bed.” Kento warns. He’s already at the door, the other two close behind him.

“I-” Your voice breaks when you try to use it and they stop before they fully exit the room.

“Hm?”

“I love my big brothers too.” Your cheeks burn a little from saying the words, and a shy giggle passes your lips. Fiddling with the blankets, you can see out of the corner of your eye that they’ve all started to blush a little.

“We love you too, little sister.” Suguru sighs, heart full to bursting. Wishing you another round of farewells, they all leave and Suguru closes the door behind him, leaving it unlocked.

[chudleycanonficfest]

Day 28, Post #1 by @floreatcastellumposts

Title: The Argument Author/Artist: FloreatCastellum Pairing: Gen Prompt: “Siblings: The only enemy you can’t live without” -Anonymous Rating: T Trigger Warning(s) (if any): Mild language

When he was a child, Ron had sometimes sat secretly on the stairs, feet in slippers too big for him, teddy tucked under his arm, listening to the goings on in the kitchen. Often his sister or a brother or two would be with him. This was especially the case when there was an argument, because they were a nosy bunch of kids, and they would grin gleefully at one another as they heard their mother roar over some issue, like when Bill came home with his first tattoo, or Charlie had done something dangerous like climb on the roof, or the many, many, many things that Fred and George had done. They would gather on the stairs and snigger and delight in their siblings being in trouble - that it wasn't them, and usually it was over something hilarious too. 

Today was quite different. The stairs were narrow, so Ginny was pressed right up against him, but she was gripping hold of his arm too. Behind them, Fred and George sat in grim, stony silence, their knees occasionally knocking the back of Ron's head, but, remarkably, none of them were squabbling.

'Is it so hard to just be happy for me?' Percy was bellowing, and that in itself was unusual, because it was never Percy in trouble. 

'It's not about that,' Dad was bellowing back, 'are you so naive? Are you really so foolish-?' This was unusual too, because it wasn't usually Dad bellowing. 

'Percy... Percy, we're just worried, we're just concerned...' Mum was sobbing. This was unusual, because she usually had a bit more fight in her, not this desperate pleading. 

'You're so cynical, the pair of you-'

'We're realistic! You've been promoted well above your grade before the dust has settled on the inquiry-'

'STOP BRINGING UP THE INQUIRY!' Percy sounded quite deranged; the ferocity of his voice made Ginny jump slightly, and grip Ron's arm harder. 'That - wasn't - my - fault! That was the point of it! That PROVED I wasn't to blame, I was acquitted-'

'Yes, and we were delighted,' said Dad, and to Ron's astonishment, his words sounded bitingly sarcastic, 'but even so, you have to see that mass scandal is not usually a precursor to promotion!'

'He SAW something in me!' 

'Yes, he did! He saw a potential spy! On our family - on Dumbledore-'

Percy let out a maniacal laugh, forced and sneering and sanctimonious, it made Ron wince as he heard it. 'And you say I'm arrogant?' 

'We've never said you were arrogant-' Mum tried to chip in desperately, but Percy continued talking over her. 

'You think you're important enough to warrant the Minister for Magic spying on you? You think he considers you in the same circle as Dumbledore? More to the point, you think Dumbledore truly respects the likes of you?'  

'Fudge has been going round making it more than clear that anyone who supports Dumbledore can clear out their desks-'

'Utter rot-'

'-He knows I'm friendly with him, he knows I have advised the school on muggleborn inte-'

'No one cares!' Percy screamed. 'No one cares about that stuff! You're ludicrous!'

'Ludicrous?' Dad echoed, with an uncharacteristic scoff to his voice. 

'Ludicrous! Not everything is a conspiracy, not everything has an anti-muggle agenda - I know what this is really about, you're embarrassed that your own son is rising above you, is succeeding where you haven't-'

'Percy!' Mum's gasp was so clear that Ron could easily imagine her hand leaping to her chest. 

'I've had to struggle against your lousy reputation ever since I started! Do you know how embarrassing it is? Do you know what it's like having people ask if I'm related to the muggle-mad Weasley on Level Two-' 

'That's enough,' said Dad coldly. 

'I lie to them, d'you know that? I tell them we're only distantly related.' 

'What the fuck?' Ron heard one of the twins whisper behind them. 'Is he serious?' 

'I never imagined I had raised you to be so small-minded-' Dad was spitting back.

'It's baffling that you raised me at all! You, who has no ambition, no sense, no idea of how ridiculous you come across with your obsession with muggles - is it any wonder you've always been passed over for promotion-'

'-Because of bigotry!'

'-Any wonder you've left your children to grow up in poverty? To be humiliated by the failures of their father?' 

'Stop it! Percy, stop it!' Mum was wailing, and whether it was Fred or George directly behind him Ron didn't know, but their knee was trembling against the back of his head. 

'It's not failure, it's a matter of principle and integrity!' Dad roared back. 'There are more important things than gold, that's what we've always-'

'You are deluded! You are so blinded by your persecution complex, by your victimhood, that you cannot be happy for your son!' Percy’s voice was hoarse and raw, whether from tears or overexertion, Ron wasn’t sure. 'You can't bear to see him succeed where you failed! To see him make something of himself!'

'Why would I be happy watching my son be manipulated and used? Make no mistake, Percy - this is no achievement, this is Fudge playing you as a puppet - if you're ashamed of your background, that's your prerogative, but there's no denying this family is known to be close to Dumbledore and Harry, and Fudge is waging a vendetta against-'

‘You’re an idiot to run around with Dumbledore!’ snapped Percy. ‘He’s heading for trouble - gone completely power mad the last few years - you know full well his glory days are over. You’ll end up going down with him-’

‘Fudge is fighting a campaign against Dumbledore when he should be-’

‘I know where my loyalties lie, and it is not with my old teacher! It is with my employer, the leader of my government, with people who look at the facts!’

‘The facts are that Harry-’

'Yes - Harry - here we go,' snapped Percy. 'You rank the word of a child above the expert testimonies and mountains of evidence brought up by the inquiry, above your own boss - no wonder he thinks you're cracked. You’re determined to see conspiracy everywhere-’ 

‘How can you say that? You saw the aftermath of what happened, you saw him-’

‘I saw the actual dead boy, I saw Diggory!’ snapped Percy. ‘Think what his family is going through, their child’s death being used as a political quaffle-’

‘That is Fudge’s doing! That is his choice! He has chosen to make a mockery of Diggory, to disregard Harry-'

‘To question the story of a teenager,’ corrected Percy. His tone was cold and quiet, the kind of sanctimonious "I'm being the grown up here, actually" patience that Ron found unbearably aggravating. ‘The only evidence is his word, it’s not unreasonable to question a witness. In fact, it’s a perfectly standard part of due process.’

Ron’s growing anger was now twisted with a kind of lurching dread. The snide little comments in the Daily Prophet, which they had all blustered and raged and gasped in revolted disdain at over breakfasts for the past week, suddenly felt sinister. As he thought about it, Percy had never joined in… had always been silent… 

‘Percy…’ said Mum, so faintly that, as one, Ron, Ginny, Fred and George all leaned forward to listen. ‘Percy, surely you… surely you believe him? Surely you can’t believe he deserves what they’re saying about him? He’s just a child - it’s like the whole world’s forgotten that he’s just a child.’ 

'Yes, he's just a child - so why should he be the centre of everything?' Percy demanded. 'Why should he shape our family? Impact our careers?' 

'Percy… if you had seen him in the hospital wing, if you had looked into his eyes…' 

'Mr Fudge was not convinced,' said Percy, as though that settled the matter.

‘Has he asked you about Harry?’ Dad asked abruptly. Beside Ron, Ginny was shaking. ‘Casually?’ 

‘I - no more than is to be expected when you have someone famous living under your roof-’

‘What did he ask? What did you say?’ 

They heard a brief, thick silence, and a sharp exhale of air. ‘He… he’s not relevant to this discussion. This is beyond - this isn’t the issue - the only evidence is his word, as I said-’ 

‘You don’t believe him.’ Dad’s voice was blank, stunned, quiet. ‘You… you know that boy, Percy.’  

‘You don’t believe in me,’ said Percy, and Ron could hear his tears now, the slight thickness to his voice, the sniffs between words. ‘You’d rather believe in some ludicrous conspiracy theory from a teenager who thinks he sees You-Know-Who around every corner than believe that your own son might have worked hard, might be talented, might deserve his career. You’d really think so little of me.’ 

‘That’s not it. That’s not it at all,’ Dad said quietly, and Mum was crying loudly. ‘We just-’

‘I don’t care!’ said Percy harshly. ‘I don’t care what you think! Not any more! Years I’ve put up with it, years! I’m going - I’m gone - I don’t want to see either of you again - you’ve made it clear that you don’t have my interests at heart, this was your choice-’

‘What do you mean?’ Mum shrieked, and they could hear the scraping of chairs being moved aside, thundering footsteps, Mum begging-

The door was thrust open, and Percy stood for a moment in the hallway, looking up at the four of them sitting on the stairs. His expression was unreadable. Tear tracks shone from beneath his horn-rimmed glasses, and his mouth was a thin, grim line. 

‘Move,’ he told them. 

‘You’re being a right bellend,’ said Fred at once. 

‘MOVE!’ 

They did not, and Mum had come running after Percy, hanging desperately onto his arm though he tried to shake her off. ‘Come on, Perce,’ she pleaded. ‘Come and sit down, let’s all cool off and talk about this-’

‘Get out of my way,’ Percy told his siblings once more, and now Ron stood. 

‘Harry’s part of our family,’ he blurted out furiously. 

 ‘He’s not, Ron,’ Percy growled. ‘He’s your friend, that doesn’t mean everything he says is right - move out my way.’ 

‘How can you say that!’ Ginny demanded. ‘What’s wrong with you? How can you say all these horrible things?’ 

Percy started climbing the stairs, pushing Ron aside and stepping over Ginny, furiously struggling past Fred and George who immediately made their bodies as big and awkward and gangling as they could imagine, shouting colourful insults at him as he pushed past and thundered up to his room. 

‘He just needs to calm down,’ Mum was squeaking. ‘Go - go to your rooms, let me and Dad talk to him-’ 

‘No chance!’ 

‘I haven’t said my piece yet!’ 

He returned just a few moments later, carrying a bulging bag with a jumper sleeve trailing out, a little line of abandoned socks and a pair of underwear left on the stairs. ‘I’m going to stay with friends,’ he said. 

‘You haven't got any,’ goaded George. 

‘Be quiet, George!’ Mum wailed. ‘Percy-’

‘Then I’m getting my own place, I’m not staying here anymore - I’m not letting you all drag me down with you. If you’re all going to be traitors to the Ministry I’m going to make sure everyone’s well aware that I don’t belong to this family any more-’

‘You do, Percy, you do - you’ll always be my son-’ Mum’s words were barely audible beneath her crying. Percy pushed past her, and stormed towards the door. 

‘Percy!’ Ron shouted, and to his surprise, Percy turned and looked at him. 

Ron could not find the words for his contempt, could not find an insult strong enough, could not decide what to do with the rage that was coursing through him. All he could hope was that Percy could feel it in his cold, hard stare. ‘How could you?’ 

Percy said nothing, simply looked back for a moment, and then turned his back and strode swiftly to the door. Mum was running after him, and though they heard the ear-splitting crack of disapparation, she stood in the doorway shouting his name. 

Dad had not followed, and with a creak, Ginny rose beside Ron and descended the last few stairs. She peered through the doorway to the kitchen. ‘Dad?’ 

Ron heard a splutter, and then dry, heaving sobs. Ginny vanished into the kitchen. Behind him, Fred and George were muttering mutinously, swearing and cursing. 

‘What’s he playing at?’ 

‘He’s an idiot. A big-headed, pompous, ridiculous idiot, we’ve always said it, we were right.’ 

‘Who does he think he is? Does he really think that promotion is normal? Does he honestly think he’s that extraordinary?’  

‘Moron…’ 

Ron’s jaw was aching from gritting his teeth so hard, his heart was trying to break through his ribcage and go after Percy to beat him. 

‘Do you really think he meant that stuff he said to Dad?’ George said. ‘It’s just…’  

‘I bet he does, the git,’ said Fred. ‘I bet he really does pretend he’s not part of the family. He’s ashamed of us. Slimy, brown-nosing prick…’ 

‘All that stuff about poverty? So uncalled for.’

‘That’s it, really, isn’t it? He’s a greedy arsehole.’ 

‘Well, he’s certainly written himself out of the will now, hasn’t he?’ 

‘He won’t care, nothing for him to inherit anyway, apparently.’ 

That prickling, heated anger was back - his very ears were hot with it, he wouldn’t be surprised if steam had been bursting out of them. The memory of Harry, pale and shaken in the hospital wing, his hands gripping Mum’s robes as she hugged him, was lingering in his mind. ‘Did you hear all that crap about Harry? Did you hear what he was saying about him? Harry!’

‘Yeah,’ muttered George. ‘Pillock.’ 

‘Why would he say that? What the bloody hell is going on with him? He’s gone bonkers. When did he turn into such a - a -’ He still could not quite find a word strong enough.  

‘Berk?’ suggested George. 

‘Something along those lines…’  

‘Easier than admitting he’s horrible, selfish, idiot snob, I suppose,’ said Fred. 

‘Money’s always been an issue, but blaming Dad like that is just…’ 

‘Nasty,’ said Ron, simply. 

‘You can make money without completely selling out and betraying your family,’ said Fred seriously. ‘You can do it and keep your integrity.’ 

‘He’s acting like we weren’t fed enough,’ said George spitefully. ‘Percy didn’t even get that many hand-me-downs, really - Mum and Dad were doing all right before they were hit with twins, and we all know Ginny was probably unexpected.’ 

‘Was she?’ said Ron distractedly.

‘Are you joking, you were only about eight months old, who picks then to decide to have another baby?’  

‘Mum.’ 

‘Fair.’ 

‘Anyway,’ said Fred, ‘Percy’s not exactly been hard done by, not really. He’s just always been ashamed we’re not as well-heeled as his smarmy new colleagues at the Ministry.’ 

‘It’s childish,’ said Ron, who was feeling another lurch of guilt as he thought back on the previous year. ‘It’s really petty…’ 

‘We’ve all wished the family was better off now and then,’ said George fairly. ‘Who wouldn’t? But that was a seriously low blow. God, poor Dad,' he added, his voice lowering further. 'I'm glad Ginny's gone in to comfort him, I don't even know where to begin.'

‘Do you think he’s really gone for good?’ asked Ron.

‘Hope so,’ said Fred viciously. ‘Hey - one less mouth to feed now, maybe the family’ll be better off.’ 

'You know what else,' Ron said sharply, his brain whirring, 'did you hear him dodging Dad's question about what he's said about Harry? Good thing he's buggered off before we go to the Order Headquarters, isn't it? Who knows what he would have blabbered about?' 

Fred was looking at him as though in a new light. 'You know what, Ronniekins, that is a really excellent and disturbing point. You're a bit of a bright spark at times, aren't you?' 

'Brighter than Percy,' Ron muttered.

[purityoflust]

The Smile [Jeff The Killer X Victim!Reader] [PART 2]

Jeff the killer X Victim!

WARNING: Yandere. That's it. Yandere.

I finally decided how I would write part 2 to The Smile, which is my first and most popular post on my account so far. Anyone new who has come to read this, check out my other posts as well if you'd like. I'll post more like this. I also have a Quotev account with more fanfictions.

9/12/20, 3/4 days after the top part: God, AFTER SO LONG, I FINALLY DID IT! Took me days! I'm so sorry if this is a bit lazy, it is a tiny bit rushed by the end but how would you guys feel about a detailed part 3? I'll probably go as far as a part 3 or part 4 for the final part.

The vibrations in your brain felt warm and numbing - almost like when you have a horrible migraine and you can finally feel it subsiding with your eyes closed and your fingers gently holding down onto your eyelids as if you're holding your eyes into place to prevent them from bursting out of your skull. Upon waking up you can feel cold air settling into your skin. You haven't been awake 3 minutes and you already know what you're resting on; an extremely uncomfortable metal table. You've only seen them in movies but this was real.

The sound of a singsong voice just slightly echoing through what seemed like a moderately empty room. You groaned softly as you turned your head to your right, very slowly opening your eyes. Your vision blurred in and out, which, you wanted to rub to clear it out but as you went to lift your wrists, you felt pressure around them.

Something was holding your arms down. This catches your attention, blinking multiple times while turning your head back up straight and attempting to sit up. You were hardly successful with that, struggling while grunting under your breath to pull your hands from under what seemed to be a thick rope. As you pulled harder, you sucked in your stomach out of habit before immediately coming to a halt and choking up in pain.

This whole time you were ignoring the voice that was singing eerily nearby, "You and me, always forever~"

The voice was of a male. Scratchy, shaky. Familiar.

Familiar.

You could feel a string of your heart pop out of place as your breath stopped. That's when you knew something was wrong, but it just doesn't add up. You gulp while your eyeballs vigorously glance around to see where the source was coming from, only to see a figure in a corner. It was doubled over and it was sitting down on a simple wooden chair. Doubling over a...table? An average male figure, nothing unique. Although, the clothing style was unusual. At least what was on the clothes. He wore a fluffy white hoodie and what seemed to be black pants and black-and-white converse. The problem wasn't the outfit, no. His hoodie was spotted and had patterns upon patterns of darkened and more fresh-looking blood splatter. He had long black hair down to his shoulders. And luckily, his back was facing you.

You were dumbfounded. How did you get here, why are you restrained, and why is there a blood covered man near you? Is that even blood? Maybe it's paint or a design? Some people do wear clothes that have different kinds of blood splatter designs on them. Hm. Or he's an actual murderer about to gut you like a fish.

You wanted to speak. You wanted to speak so badly but you just couldn't. As you parted your lips, your throat went dry while your gaze stayed locked onto the bloody male that sat before you. The singing made you shiver as you tried so hard to remember where you could have heard or seen him. Why can't you remember?

The male then turned around to look at you. His singing had come to a gentle halt. Your mouth closed as he did so, your throat going completely dry and your whole body feeling like an ice cube. You were greeted with cold blue eyes. They looked hungry and bloodthirsty, yet they held a warm affection as they looked into your traumatized eyes. It was almost comforting until you saw the rest of his face. His skin was snow white and his lips looked dry. That's when more attention is drawn to his lower jaw. He's smiling. Too big for a normal person.

That's when you realize. He has a large smile carved into his cheeks going from ear to ear while his own lips were curled within a smile as well. And that's when it hits you.

And it hits you hard.

The memories of hours prior start brutally crashing into you, flooding back into your numb brain. All of the realization replaced itself with agonizing anxiety, your heart starting to race at speeds that felt impossible. You could pass out, but something inside you kept you awake. Something about him and about this whole situation was making you dizzy. The male slowly stands and turns his body all the way to face you. He seemed deranged, yet, he had a very relaxed stance and body language.

Uncomfortable silence loomed in the air.

He kept staring at you before slowly taking steps forward. You watch him carefully as your head feels like it's spinning, which you could notice your vision blurring a little bit here and there. The silence is suddenly disturbed with the male speaking up again, choking up in giggles. "Oh my sweet Y/N, you're awake~" He cooed, now standing over you. He leaned himself down and reached his hand to your cheek, gently brushing your skin with his surprisingly soft thumb. He leaned his face closer to yours. The smell of booze, blood, & smoke overwhelmed your nostrils. Yet it didn't seem to bother you that much.

His touch almost kind of made you feel...at ease. Your heart slowed itself and your breathing went back to pace. You felt fine, somewhat, but something in your stomach was still sore. The more you stare at him, the more memories come flooding back. The more memories flooding back, the easier you fit the puzzles together.

"M-my...stomach..--" You stutter out painfully.

In response to this, the male turned his head over to your abdomen and gently rested his other hand onto your bandaged stomach, applying very gentle pressure on it as to not hurt you. It was still slightly painful, causing you to groan under your breath.

"Oh, this...I'm sorry, my sweet butterfly. I had to make sure you wouldn't get away, and you didn't! Don't worry, Jack patched you up, so you'll be just fine!"

You remember now. You remember it all. The chase, your friend, the salty kiss before what you thought was your demise.

You naturally wondered as well; who's Jack?

"Wh-.." You weakly force air out of your throat again to speak, "why am I..tied-?"

"Oh, so you wouldn't be able to get away. I knew you would run away, or struggles, so I had to make sure you wouldn't do that!"

He was right. You would run away and struggle to get out of whatever the hell kind of place you're in. Well, knowing what he looks like. He DID stab you, after all. Who knows what this sicko wants.

He lifts his hand from your stomach and turns back to you, gently placing both of his hands at each side of your face. "You're so beautiful, Y/N. So sweet and so innocent. I couldn't keep letting the others eat you up like candy. You're mine and only mine. I need to protect you."

"Wh-who- are you?" You weren't really all too scared for some strange reason now. You were pretty calm. Probably from all of the energy this is draining.

"His name is Jeff." A deep and gruff voice cuts in.

The both of you turn your heads to the door of the room where a tall figure in all black stood. He was about 6"4 wearing heavy boots, black jeans, and a black hoodie. His hair was a dark brown though while he wore a mask. The mask was a dark blue with black goo oozing from the eyesockets. He was pretty intimidating even just by standing idly like a character waiting to be loaded in.

"And I'm Jack." He continued, "I'm the one who took care of your wound."

Jack stepped closer, soon standing at the other side of the table. He stood at the left as Jeff stood at the right.

"He wouldn't stop insisting I help."

You just blink, unknowing of what to respond with. He pursed his lips under his dark mask, in his own thought for a moment while staring down at you. You seemed calm enough, and your still pretty fresh injury was gonna hold you back anyway.

"[P]-[Pronoun]'s gonna-!" He attempts to blurt out, only to be stopped by you.

"I won't."

You were untied at your wrists and ankles, allowing yourself to pull your legs up and rest your feet at the top of the table, propping your knees up. It made your stomach feel weird, but it felt kind of nose and felt like it was easing the pain. You wrapped your arms around your knees, looking around the room more. "What is this place?" You ask.

"It's a medical room."

"Huh.." You shrug it off. Your anxiety levels had died down and the more you actually think about it, this isn't the worst thing that's happened. Your life has been pretty fucked up and you have damaged relationships everywhere. Honestly, being around new people and being far away from others sounds not too bad right now. Not like anyone would care anyway.

The next few hours, you're introduced to everyone else at the Mansion. They've been so...unique and honestly, you're surprised some people and beings like them even exist. They were all equally surprised with how little fear you showed.

You actually got along with most of them.

The others have taken a liking to you and hope you hang around longer. Alone in the living room, you, Jeff, Jack, and others sit at the couches and chairs in the living room, chatting away and getting to know them as they get to know you.

You feel Jeff wrap his arms around you and place a gentle kiss on your forehead, making your heart skip a beat.

You found out Jeff has been stalking you for months at a time. Watching your every move, eliminating anyone in the way. Huh, no wonder so many people in your life kept disappearing. You...couldn't bring yourself to be upset or scared, let alone even sad. You felt kind of at ease.

And far from uncomfortable. Someone loved you. Maybe more than they should, but they love you.

You didn't even feel upset at the fact Jeff had murdered that friend earlier. I mean, you just met the guy, so he wasn't even a 'friend'? So you paid no mind to it.

If anything, you really liked the thrill of someone being obsessed with you. A serial killer being so infatuated with you. He could be so protective of you and get rid of anyone you asked him to! There's is an advantage here. You knew he could snap and probably kill you intentionally or unintentionally, but you didn't mind. You really had no one else, technically speaking. No one that really cared. Not as much as he did.

Maybe he isn't so bad.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

So...Misery style, how would you make Tomione work? (Or how would you do a Tomione story?)

Thanks, Anon, this might be harder than the Dramione one.

Well, again, to please my deranged captor, I'd likely follow the plot of your standard Tomione fic and hope it passes muster. "Oh yeah, Hermione's back in time and she's doing back and forth mind games with Tom and it's really intellectual." With any luck, my feet aren't smashed into oblivion.

But I think you're trying to get at what I would really do if I really had to write Tom/Hermione and I had to make it something I would read. At least, that seems to be the spirit of this ask.

So, we're going the thriller route people. A lot like Misery, actually.

Instead of Ginny, twelve-year-old Hermione picks up the diary. Like Ginny, Hermione quickly becomes besotted with Tom Riddle trapped inside. However, unlike Ginny, Hermione goes straight to the library and starts asking pesky questions.

Hermione's never heard of memories stored in objects before, the theory behind portraits and pensieves are completely different, what spells did Tom use and where did he find them? Did Tom Riddle invent an entirely new branch of magic at the age of 16 without anyone noticing? What was Tom's special service to the school?

Tom starts sweating when it becomes clear that Hermione's stumbling a bit too close to the truth (that this is not ordinary magic and highly dangerous shit) and that she's clearly going to start asking around about Tom Riddle (to Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid, who were all near Hogwarts at the same time Tom was going to school).

Tom confesses that he may have created the diary using something very... illegal. Hermione is appalled and asks if it was gasp dark magic! He admits it is but points out it's a bit late now, like it or not, he's stuck in the diary and running to Dumbledore isn't going to make that go away any time soon. And it wasn't like Tom asked to be shoved in a diary either.

Hermione's very conflicted, on the one hand, Tom's the first real intellectual friend she's ever had. Harry and Ron are nice, but they're morons and they thinks he's a nerd. Tom encourages her intellectual pursuits and confirms her concern over various what not and what have you happening in Hogwarts.

Eventually, Hermione decides that Tom in the diary can't help being a diary (though the other Tom, the real Tom, she'd have words with), and decides that she'll try to help him get a body.

Great, that's great, Tom says.

But it keeps getting worse.

Tom tries to possess Hermione, but unlike Ginny, Hermione knows that Tom is a dangerous, dark, artifact. If she's suffering negative health effects, losing her memory and ending up in the girl's lavatory, she's going to research this and decide that either a) she's suffering ill effects of using dark magic b) she just got possessed by Tom.

Either way, she tells him she can't use the diary anymore, it's affecting her health and she must research. Well, Hermione researching does Tom no fucking good, but he can't stop her.

The Chamber of Secrets, as a result, is never opened.

Instead, Hermione continues researching, and Harry and Ron... begin to get on her nerves. It's not like last year, there's no Flamel to research, no over-arching mystery, and they seem to be growing tired of her. In turn, Hermione's getting a little tired of quidditch, getting detention, etc.

She's a little tired of Hogwarts, if she's being honest with herself.

Hermione's now had a taste of having a friend who isn't there to simply use her brains. And it's very addicting. She decides not to tell Ron and Harry about Tom, they'd just get needlessly concerned (the irony of this isn't lost on her but what can you do)

In the end, she opens back up the diary, and point blank asks what Tom needs to get a body. Before Tom can tell her, Hermione lists out her own theories. Life cannot be created from nothing, golems and puppets cannot last in the long term, to get a real body... human sacrifice is on the table, isn't it?

Well shit, Tom thinks to himself. He tries to assure Hermione it isn't but ends up confessing that, well, yes, it kind of is.

They have another huge row about it, Hermione slams the diary shut, but the wheels in her brain are spinning.

Does anyone deserve to die?

Hermione, at first, adamantly tells herself the answer is no. No one deserves to be sacrificed. Tom's fate is cruel, but the original Tom made his bed and should lie in it. It's unfortunate, but that's just life. Not the diary's fault, of course, but nothing that can be helped.

But then she keeps thinking about it.

Malfoy struts through the school like a peacock, sneering every time he sees her, laughing every time Snape deducts points from her in Potions for being a 'smarmy know-it-all'. Every time he can get away with it he's shoving her in hallways, calling her a mudblood, and assuring her that she's worth less than the dirt beneath her feet.

She watches as Malfoy torments and bullies Harry, she looks at Draco's father, and she asks herself if the world would really be so much worse off if Draco Malfoy were to disappear?

Draco Malfoy's being groomed to use dark magic, he practically brags about it at every opportunity, why is his life worth more than Tom Riddle's, someone who has paid the price for dark magic?

Isn't Hermione, in a roundabout way, only giving Draco what he deserves? The fate he'd meet at some point in the not so distant future?

Draco does something phenomenally cruel and stupid to the trio, likely to Harry, and that settles it. Hermione's going to murder that motherfucker and get Tom Riddle a body.

Hermione tells Tom the plan, she's passing off the diary to Draco, she has her full blessing, her permission, and whatever help he requires from her to eat Draco Malfoy alive.

Tom is unwillingly impressed, he was a vicious gremlin as a twelve-year-old, but even he wasn't committing murder in cold blood.

Tom's not sure how he feels about murdering a Malfoy, that's bound to get noticed, but Hermione's unyielding. Draco Malfoy, or Hermione goes to Dumbledore.

So, Draco Malfoy it is.

The rest of the year is spent with Tom Riddle murdering Draco Malfoy and coming up with some excuse for his disappearance. The chamber isn't opened as Hermione reminds Tom that this would make it entirely too obvious who is behind this. Instead, Tom likely has Draco partake in increasingly erratic schemes to humiliate Harry Potter that end up endangering himself.

Near the end of school, Draco disappears into the Forbidden Forest to find acromantulas to put in Potter's bed and... never comes back.

A huge search is put on, Draco Malfoy is never found, and the acromantula infestation in the forest is now actively battled by ministry employees. Dumbledore is sacked as headmaster, Hagrid fired for having been responsible for the acromantulas in the first place, and Hogwarts is closed the following year.

Hermione is... conflicted about all of this. She certainly didn't mean to fire Hagrid (had no idea he was even remotely involved with the acromantulas) and certainly not Dumbledore. It wasn't Dumbledore's fault at all.

Tom, who is now a free man but has no idea what to do with himself, meets up with Hermione and points out that Dumbledore should have been sacked ages ago: he let kids get away with this stupidly dangerous shit and the year before actively endangered his students and lured a dark wizard into the castle. As for Hagrid, he raised a dragon illegally on school grounds, did release his pet acromantula into the wild, and more. They were terrible at their jobs.

Hermione, ever so reluctantly, agrees.

It's too bad though, Hagrid was very nice and Dumbledore's a great wizard (don't even get Tom started).

As for Tom, well, he had such dreams. Of course he planned to either meet up with his glorious self or (upon learning that Voldemort was blown up by a toddler) take the mantle of Voldemort for himself. But now that he's out, he has no idea where to start. Murder Harry Potter, certainly, but after that?

Tom only has the vaguest idea of who the original Death Eaters were, and they seem to have effectively scattered. More, how does he go about this? Sure, Tom had ideas when he was in school, but they were just ideas. He's never led a revolution before, has no idea how to impersonate an older, more knowledgeable, version of himself. He barely understands the political climate in this new, post-Voldemort, Britain.

Tom keeps hanging around Hermione because, well, inertia. He has no idea what else to do. (Hermione, while still torn over the consequences of her actions as well as the distant thought that she enabled murder, is quite delighted to have him around).

Tom tries to wheedle Harry's address out of Hermione and gets a lot more information than he bargained for. Harry lives with abusive muggle relatives, Dumbledore is apparently keeping him there, all of this sounds bizarre. Tom is officially weirded out.

Still wants to murder Harry, of course, but also wants to dig into this a little further...

And before this becomes a full on fic outline, eventually this will lead to the murder of Dumbledore, probably the murder of Ron when Ron inadvertently discovers 'the truth', Hermione telling Tom they're now an item, Tom trying to escape the relationship, only to learn there's no escaping Hermione.

Hermione becomes the next dark lord. Tom has no idea how this even happened.

[smuggsy]

Remember this post about how Riddler dug up Elijah's body and we just... collectively chose to ignore it along with Oswald? 😂

Well. I un-ignored it. With a sad angsty fic.

(You can read it down here as well.) Word count: 2040. Tags: #emotional comfort #established relationship #hence: canon divergence #nightmares

Oswald's used to having nightmares. He's no stranger to sleepless nights, 5-am coffees have become a bit of a recurrent habit to make up for the drowsiness clouding his mind after a particularly difficult dream chimes in without permission and throws his sleeping schedule off — so much that he often finds himself power-napping through the day when Ed isn't around to tell him off for it.

Yes, he's almost grown too accustomed to Hugo Strange's voice narrating all sorts of gruesome scenarios that he ends up carrying out of his own volition, propelled forward by an unknown and invisible force deep inside. He never really sees the Doctor, but he hears him all the time, he's just there all the time. He tells Oswald what to do and Oswald does it without a pinch of remorse. Shoot him. Stab her. Blow them all to pieces, they deserve it.

It's the kind of hell he's used to. He's almost learnt to accept it's never going away. That it's a part of his psyche now, a part of him that will never really go away — because how do you fix a tattered mind? He wouldn't let anyone try, anyway. Not after Arkham.

This night is different. This night he's assaulted by a new kind of terror, almost perfectly calibrated and specially curated for him. Blossoming from the deepest part of his mind where he'd stocked it, never to be revisited.

And it's most cruel for one reason: when he wakes up with a startle he can't bear the thought of those arms wrapping around him and providing comfort like they've done so many times before. In fact, the first thing he does when he opens his eyes is untangle himself from Ed's sleeping embrace like it burns him.

Which means he's got no-one but himself to count on, again. No-one to hush him through the aftermath and speak softly in his ear and hum a long-dead melody until he calms down or, if he's lucky, falls back asleep.

"Oswald?"

He sits on the edge of the bed, hunched over to catch his breath, and feels Ed shifting position behind him. His partner's voice is clouded with sleep and Oswald can't bring himself to even turn around and reassure him — lie to him. He fears if he turns around he won't see Ed but Riddler. Not Ed's gentle eyes but Riddler's mocking glare. Not a warm comforting smile but a disdainful sneer.

His father, standing on the other side of the bed with a disappointed frown. My boy, how could you steep so low? Do you know where I am? Do you know where he left me?

When Ed's warm fingers brush over his right shoulder Oswald bolts upright with a whine.

"Osw—?"

And he runs to the bathroom and slams the door close behind him, feeling his one-piece nightgown sticking to his chest with sweat.

"Oswald, what's wrong?" Edward's voice is immediately on the other side, he tries turning the doorknob but Oswald is pinning it closed with his own weight, still unable to brush away the gut-wrenching feeling of betrayal that's so suddenly taken hold of him, "Oswald, get off the door."

It's a gentle request.

Oswald might have done it, perhaps, might have considered it, if he hadn't looked right into the mirror hanging on the opposite wall and seen Elijah's pale and sickness-stricken face. A dead man's face that makes him shiver.

He shall never have peace, so long as you're with him, Oswald thinks. Some other Oswald. Some other voice that sounds like his but isn't. Can't be.

"Oswald," Ed tries again, and this time he pushes against the door with more conviction, Oswald leans off and turns around to face him when he comes in, to keep him away, Riddler, he's still in there, he's— "oh dear," Ed coos, having one look at him and taking pity instantly. He takes a step forward and Oswald takes a step back.

"No!" he blurts out with a raspy voice. Edward stops dead in his tracks, lost expression for a moment before his shoulders relax again.

"It's okay, Oswald. It was just a nightmare," he adds, softly like so many times before.

"No, it isn't! It wasn't!" Oswald lashes out, hating that he looks at Ed's dishevelled face and concerned caramel eyes and wants him to just get away, his voice comes out just barely, "you did that to him! You— How could you?!"

Ed opens his mouth and doesn't move, clearly taken aback by the accusation even if he fails to comprehend, thrown off by the way Oswald looks at him, stands like that, like a wounded animal, like he might flee if Edward takes another step forward.

He still takes a step forward, though, because he never was really good with physical cues.

"Os, I don't understand wha—"

"Don't touch me!"

Oswald jerks away and hits the wall behind, still shivering despite his burning skin. Edward shows him his palms, a gesture of surrender.

"Okay. Okay, I'm not," he takes a steadying breath in, "I'm staying right here."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! It's not him, I swear! I didn't—"

"Oswald?"

"He's different now! He's not like that anymore!"

Oswald gestures towards Ed, clever, supportive, thoughtful, with his checked blue pyjamas and plaid shirt and lack of glasses and puffy eyes from sleep. Then he looks back at his father now standing by the door and projects the thought: Ed. Not Riddler!

But Elijah shakes his head and purses his lips, looking him up and down like he doesn't approve and Oswald just needs him to understand.

"It's not hiiiiim!"

"Oswald, this is starting to become very unsettling."

Edward looks around, to his right, there. To where Oswald's looking, to nothing. He knows that deranged gaze, he's seen it countless times before, he's stood in front of the mirror a lot of times and seen it on himself.

"Os, it's just those new painkillers making you groggy, okay? It's a much heavier dose than the one you're used to. Whatever you're seeing," Edward chances a slow step forward and Oswald finally turns his head back to him, with glassy eyes and tears on his eyelashes and still looking like he'll run away, "it's not there, Oswald. I am here."

Oswald stares at him for a few more silent moments with a lost expression, mouth open and still bracing himself with one hand on the cold tiles behind and the other on the sink.

"You're not... you're not him, I try to— I tell him you're not," he babbles, looking feverish and lost.

That's when the penny drops for Edward. It feels like a stab to the heart, that broken voice, the trembling hands, the quivering lips, the whole sight of an Oswald so distressed he won't even let him get close enough to soothe him.

"No," Ed says softly, his own voice failing him for a moment, shaking his head and taking yet another step closer, "no," he repeats breathless, "I'm not. Please. Come here."

He reaches an offering hand and Oswald slowly looks down as if weighing his options. As if making sure this isn't a trick — which, well. If he's thinking of Riddler, he can hardly be blamed for exercising caution, Ed admits. It hurts him to admit it. To know he's caused this, one way or another. Painkillers or not. This raw incoherent fear is coming from somewhere, however small the flame that ignited it might be, and he can't fix it because Oswald won't stop trembling like a leaf and recoiling.

"Oswald, please," he begs, voice finally breaking and eloquence escaping him, retrieving his outstretched hand and rubbing fingers over his burning eyelids because if he breaks down too... "please, it's me, Ed, just Ed."

He doesn't know what to do. He's on the verge of blurting out apologies when he opens his eyes to Oswald latching onto him with one of those desperate hugs. Ed wraps his arms around him instantly, a reflex, feeling like he's just come back to life.

"Go away," Oswald says, sobs with his face buried in the crook of his neck and starts crying. Edward tightens his hold and hides his own tears in the other man's raven locks, understands he's not the one being spoken to, "go, please. I won't leave him!"

Edward can barely understand the string of pleas when Oswald's clutching onto him so firmly his words come out muffled and nearly intelligible. Either way, he's not about to ask who's there — better not add salt to the wound. Not feed the horror, lest it become a recurrent thing. He needs him to understand this is a figment of his imagination if he's not aware already.

"Shhhh, it's all good," he keeps Oswald in place with an arm around his waist and brings the other one to gently pet his hair, "it's o-kay, Oswald. I'm here, it's just you and me."

Oswald nods against his chest but he can't seem to bring himself to stop crying. Edward rubs circles on his back.

"Just you and me," he repeats, striving for a soothing voice and feeling it waver ever so slightly.

They stay like that for a whole five minutes until Oswald finally leans back, sniffs and looks up with red eyes and a self-deprecating comment on his lips that Ed doesn't let him voice out.

"Come on, it's freezing out here."

Ed guides him back under the covers and tucks him in, Oswald watches his every move like an overcurious child. That cloudy expression is gone, though, and Ed can't help but let out a sigh of relief at having him back. He looks drained but sober.

Mostly sober.

His eyes still dart around with a nervous air but he doesn't seem to find his demon anywhere. When Ed climbs back up on the bed Oswald immediately shifts closer and hides his face in his shirt again.

"I'm sorry, that—"

"No-uh-uh," Ed cuts in, brushing a strand of hair off his green doe eyes and feeling an almost compulsive need to plant a kiss on the now-red tip of his nose, "say no more."

Oswald purses his lips and shuffles even closer, pressing his flush body so firmly against Ed's that they can't exactly see each other's faces anymore.

"Can you...?"

"Yes I can."

And that's that. He settles his chin on top of Oswald's head and starts humming; content to sidestep the issue just for now but unable to brush aside the sour taste of guilt filling almost every corner of his mind.

He starts rubbing circles on Oswald's back and doesn't stop the melody until he feels the other man's hold loosen up and his breath change into a normal and peaceful pace. Only then does Edward slowly extract himself from the embrace, far enough that he can look at Oswald's face.

Red and wet and troubled, still. He reaches over and soothes the lines on his forehead.

"I'm sorry, Os," he breathes out.

He's used to Oswald having nightmares. He wakes up all heaving breaths and uncertain hands latching onto anything that's near for comfort, for safety or reassurance. Ed is always there to provide either one, wrap his arms around his shaking form and listen to him if he wants to talk. Make him a cup of tea or play soft tunes on the piano if sleep doesn't return.

Oswald's always been needy like that.

Having him wake up and frantically keep himself away, recoil from his touch and excuse himself to a third party only he can see... that's a first.

And it's terrifying.

Because He made that happen. Because Oswald's grown to be too dependant and Ed's grown to be his anchor in moments like these and if he can't even be that... then what can he be? What's left for him to be, besides the clear instigator?

Ed closes his eyes and lets out a sigh, focusing on the sound of Oswald's breathing and on the touch of his cold feet and the smell of cherry-scented hair conditioner. He relishes in the familiarity of the hold and shakes the darker thoughts away.

Perhaps he's become a bit dependant himself.