#i was gonna dismiss him once and for all but then i saw fanart and it brainwashed me into thinking he’s alright

[pluskylar]

whitney the bully more like . whitney the bullied

[zayray030]

pocky got out of hand

Summary: Ace suggesting playing the pocky game with his boyfriend shouldn't lead to him having to prove that he isn't just submissive and breedable.

OR

Leoace are in love and are little shits to another because what else would you be for your boyfriend. ft, the pocky game

Notes: Realized it was pocky day due to a random fanart that had absolutely nothing to do with leoace and raced to write this fic.

I've always lowkey wanted to participate in pocky day but always got to lazy to actually do anything but I have something now lmao. Also, wanted to say sorry for any misunderstandings.

As always, my offerings and apologies to the cult leader of leoace. @Lummyzzz

Leona stared at the blushing first year and resisted the reflexive urge to start laughing right then and there. 

“So, what is this?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and using a hand to gesture for the first year to get closer. When he got close enough Leona used a hand to grab on to the first year's hip and brought him even closer. “Knew you were cute spikey, but didn’t think this cute.” 

“Oh, shut up!” huffed Ace, crossing his arms and turning away from his smug, annoying, stupidly hot boyfriend. “Cater found it and hasn’t stopped hounding me about it. Thought that maybe...” Ace trailed off and bit his bottom lip and then turned to look up at Leona through his lashes. “...maybe you wanted to do it with me.” he whispered out and if not for Leona’s enhanced hearing he probably wouldn’t have even been able to pick it up. 

“Now, aren’t you just the cutest frosh out there.” Unfortunately for Ace, Leona wasn’t done teasing him yet.  

“Look if you don’t want to-” Ace’s indignant complaints were cut short by Leona swooping down and stealing the redheads kiss in a surprisingly sweet kiss. It-as all Leona’s kisses seem to do him- made him feel all tingly and happy and like there was furnace in his stomach and falling all over him. Leona inspiring such reactions from Ace should be a concern however Ace was willing to deal with any health side effects he might receive so long as he kept getting kissed like that by Leona. 

“Now, now, don’t go putting words in my mouth.” Leona said lowly, lips still near Ace’s. It took Ace a while to comprehend what he just heard since, y’know, Leona’s kisses made him turn into goo, but he was finally able to understand it after a moment. Or 3. 

“So, you will do it with me?” asked Ace, eyes lighting up in excitement. 

“Sure, why not.” Leona moved back and smiled at his boyfriend. HIs genuine, happy smile and not that smirk he uses on other people to annoy them. “I get free food, get to kiss you and see you lose. Why would I miss out on that?” 

Due to Ace being excited about what he heard it took him a while to comprehend Leona’s whole statement and when he did, he let out an indignant sound. 

“What does that mean?” he asked, offended at the thought he would lose at such a competition. 

“It means you have a tendency to get...submissive whenever I kiss you.” Leona, for once, attempted to be delicate in his wording however it was clear he didn’t put much thought on how delicate. 

“Excuse you?” Ace asked, getting angrier every time his boyfriend spoke. 

“I don’t know why you’re getting upset at me for. We just saw you roll over and show your stomach over a tiny kiss.” okay nice to know what he’s the only who thinks their kisses are tiny. “I’m just saying. I would have the upper hand easily.” 

“We’ll see about that.” Ace snapped as he took out the pocky box out of his pocket and took a pocky stick out. “I’m gonna beat you so bad in this competition that you’ll be buying me shoes for a month!” not that he didn’t already but it was nice to challenge Leona as much as it was stupid to do so. 

“Oh? And what do i get if I win?” Leona raised an eyebrow at the cocky first year, amused by his sudden shift of arrogance. 

“You can say anything because you’re not going to win.” Ace waved away dismissively. Placing the pocky in-between him and Leona. “You ready.” he said around the stick. 

“Hmm.” Leona nodded in affirmation, internally ecstatic about the situation. There were a few...risqué things he wanted to try and now with the deals of the challenge he can finally try them out.  

Ace used his fingers to count from three. Now. Leona prides himself on his reaction time. He is a lion. He is a predator both in the royal family and in the school. He is a housewarden and the housewarden of a dorm known for stubbornness and meatheads.  

What he didn’t realize was that nothing was going to compare to a hyperactive first year who now has the promise of being able to get cool clothes for a whole month without any bartering and who’s just been called submissive and breedable (which he is but images are important.) 

Before he knew it Ace had managed to eat the entire pocky within a second and had pressed his lip close to Leona into a sweet, short kiss, completely different from the normal passionate, hot kisses.  

Ace crossed his arms smugly and smirked at his boyfriend. “I hope you’re ready to get dragged through all those stores-” 

“We’re doing that shit again, the fuck?” snapped Leona, glaring at his boyfriend's smugness. 

“Being a sore loser isn’t hot, y’know?” Ace pouted but acquitted when he saw the heat in Leon’s glare. He might be able to win some new shoes but that also means he’s going to get snapped over Leona’s knees. Eh, two wins. 

“This time actually count down properly.” Leona grumbled as he took his position, one end of the pocky stick in his mouth.  

“If you’re going to be this bitter over it, we might as well use the whole box.” Ace rolled his eyes as his boyfriend's childishness as if he hadn’t started this. He got into his position again and started counting down. However, when he got to zero, he felt Leona grab his chin and pulled him into a deep kiss, pocky stick already gone. 

When they pulled away there was a string if spit in-between them. Ace blinked before he managed to get his bearings around him and he waves his arms annoyed. “Cheater!” he snapped, crossing his arms and glaring. 

“All’s fair in love and war.” Leona merely shrugged and smirked at his boyfriend as he fumbled with another pocky stick. 

And it continued. Every time they would place the pocky in front of the other, the other would cheat and win and they would start all over again. However, the one thing that remained consistent was that Ace made sure to only press his lips briefly towards Leona and to not deepen the kiss, whilst Leona made sure to get in some tongue action in there. 

The results were a little startling. Ace, to the surprise of no one turned into goop when Leona kissed him, however Leona would pause and tilt his head thoughtfully whenever Ace would press a small kiss on his lips. Leona thought that it was adorable. 

They finally ended up on a tie. 

“So, what now?” Ace huffed, still pouting at getting called out by his boyfriend. Leona rolled his eyes slightly, before pulling the younger into his lap and rearranging him so that he was sat comfortably on him. Ace allowed himself to be manhandled and snuggled into his boyfriends embrace. 

“I’m sorry for being insensitive about how you like being kissed.” Leona apologized quietly, nuzzling Ace’s neck slightly and leaving small kisses on his neck. 

“I’m sorry for getting defensive about it and turning it into a competition.” Ace whispered back, running his fingers through Leona’s hair. 

They stayed like for a while in each other's embrace, the trace of chocolate still in their mouths. 

“Also, what did you what to do if you won the competition?” Ace pulled back and raised an eyebrow in question at his boyfriend. 

Leona smirked before leaning in and whispering into his boyfriend, making sure to keep a firm hand on his boyfriend's waist so he wouldn't squirm away. When he pulled back it was to the stunning blush on his boyfriend's face. 

“We can do that now if you want.” Ace mumbled and Leona wanted to thank every moment he had ever been patient in his life. Clearly, they were all leading to this moment. 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Pocky got out of hand! 

That was the caption of Ace’s new magicam post that featured his neck that was blooming with bruises and bite marks as well as the empty pocky box. 

“You really like to stir shit, don’t you?” Leona huffed, refusing to admit how impressed by how mischievous his boyfriend is. He scrolled though the barrage of messages he had been getting, all the way from the idiots he went to school with all the way to the royal family and their advisors.  

The most prominent messages were Riddle demanding he return Ace right this minute, Cater congratulating them and attempting to swindle a phone case or two because the pocky thing was ‘his idea’, Vil’s normal brand of disapproval and his brother begging he answer Cheka’s video calls. Sometimes he wished that he didn’t have to deal with all these morons but one look at his cute boyfriend as he started getting ready to go on the shopping spree that Leona had promised him and took it back. 

Anything was worth it if it means he got to be with Ace. 

“Eh, you love me!” Ace replied, looking surprisingly spry and ecstatic for someone who was fucked deep and hard. “Now come on, shoes!” 

Leona rolled his eyes as he got up and came up behind Ace and wrapped his arms around his middle. Ace wrapped his arms over that arm and the two took in the moment together, happy that they were together in that moment with no one to annoy, yell, or belittle them. Just their two souls together and they were truly at peace. 

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

[this week’s T5F was requested by anon]

Top 5 Reasons I Love Clouis

When I saw this request in my inbox, I knew I had to do it. You guys know by now that I never miss an opportunity to gush about clouis. I adore these two as a pair. Ever since ep1 dropped, I knew, y’know? I knew that Clementine and Louis were gonna be otp and now here we are. 

I have so many reasons for loving clouis, from major things that happen through the game to the smaller, fleeting moments, to things outside of the game like the fanart, fanfics, headcanons, and everything in between. So to condense all of that into only 5 reasons will be a challenge, but it’s fine. Some of these will be entire moments or episodes because reasons lie within the moments themselves, y’know? 

Also, thanks to @pi-creates for once again providing some of the screenshots used in this! It’s always appreciated! :D

Warning: This is very long.... I have a lot to say.

5. Oh my darling Clementine, your relationship with Louis has changed

I love the beginning of Clementine and Louis’ relationship in ep1. Everything from the meet cute to the confrontation with Marlon where Louis stands between them. 

Everything about their first meeting is so good. You have Louis focused on playing piano so that Clementine and AJ can reunite without interruption, then he introduces himself and claims he watched over AJ for her while she was out. 

Not only is this a great introduction to Louis as a character, but it’s a great start for the relationship that he and Clementine will build over the course of the season. 

One of the best parts of this scene is after AJ gets his gun back, Louis is alarmed but dismisses it after Clementine defends the choice to let AJ handle it.... which leads Clementine to give him a look before being like, “You don’t know any others?”

And In response, Louis throws back, “Well, there IS one... but you’re armed.”

Just.... the shared look they give is like they’re kinda challenging each other? Plus, for me, when Louis starts to sing Oh My Darling Clementine, not only is it him teasing her with a song that has her name in it, but it’s him seeing what he can push with her, if that makes sense? Like, is she gonna roll her eyes and tell him to knock it off? Or is she gonna have a bit of a sense of humor and go along with it? Or maybe she’ll even just like the song want to hear him play it? 

Listen just.... the immediate chemistry, okay? Even if you are someone who rolls your eyes at the song and tells him to stop, he doesn’t get offended. He listens to her and ends the song before smiling and winking at AJ. 

Oh yeah, speaking of which, there’s also him entertaining AJ with the song, who audibly gasps at hearing Clem’s name and it’s hilarious. Also love when Louis asks AJ to try it... it’s just the beginning signs that Louis is good with him and I love that. 

Now they have a lot of other moments in episode one that solidify them as my otp, but I’ll be talking about the hunting bit in another entry, and I don’t want this entry to be a million words long soooo let’s skip to the confrontation with Marlon.

Now this confrontation is a big moment. As the episode establishes, Marlon and Louis are best friends. They’ve known each other for 8+ years, survived all these years together, Louis never had a reason to not trust or follow him as a leader... and then this happens: Marlon and Clementine are yelling at each other, both covered in Brody’s blood, pointing fingers at the other for Brody’s murder.

It’s a lot, and Louis doesn’t say anything after Marlon gets the gun from AJ. You can hear him ask AJ to put the gun down before Clementine arrives, and he’s the one to help AJ up after Marlon shoves him down. 

And when Clementine turns to him for help? It’s so good. 

I know a lot of people were annoyed that he didn’t immediately jump to help her, but listen, that’s the point ya dingdong. 

Louis in ep1 is established as musical, laidback, charismatic, keeps his head down and doesn’t jump into conflict, goofs around before finishing his work, doesn’t think ahead or of the future, humorous guy who wants to trust his best friend’s judgement, even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with him. Plus, we can see that Marlon’s got him under his thumb from all the looks he gives Louis during this part and how he’s so smug when Louis says he’s not involved. 

The entire exchange with Louis curling in on himself like, “I’m sorry, Clem, but not me.” and you can hear it in his voice that he is apologetic for not having the confidence to step up and stop this, even though he knows it’s wrong. It takes Clementine being like, “You’d let him shoot me? Just so that you don’t have to get involved? I thought you were more than that!” 

And that really gets to him, y’know? He stares at her for a moment before mustering up what he can to ask Marlon to stop, who doesn’t take kindly to that and yells at him, which note that does make him flinch. 

Now this is just my interpretation of the scene after watching it so many times during playthroughs, but I don’t fully believe that Louis believes Marlon. Marlon’s over here insisting that Clem killed Brody and Marlon’s justified here, and we know he’s not but Louis wasn’t there, he doesn’t know what the hell happened in the basement... but I do think he wants to believe Marlon because again, he’s never had a reason to not trust him, and he’s always believed in him before, even if those around him didn’t. 

I’ve talked about this next part many times in the past. It’s beautiful. The scene tries to trick you into believing that Louis isn’t going to help with quiet shots on Marlon, then a shot on Clementine as she closes her eyes and waits.... only for Louis to slip in front of her with his hands up and this pleading look to Marlon as thunder rumbles and the corner of the screen says “your relationship with Louis has changed”

What else can I even say? 

Louis steps in front of Clementine so that his best friend is pointing a damn gun at his face, he has nothing in his hands because he’s trying to deescalate the situation, and he knows that if Marlon accidentally pulls that trigger, he’s dead. While I’ve argued that he’s also doing this for Marlon, we’re talking about Clouis so the fact that Louis just met Clementine but felt a strong enough connection to her to do this? To build up the courage to stop something that he knows is wrong rather than turn the other way? To not let Marlon intimidate him into silence? 

Aaahhhhhhh it’s too good you guys.

So yeah just.... ep1 and the beginnings of clouis is just... amazing. 

4. Building trust and breaking down walls

Remember when I was saying that ep1 establishes Louis as musical, charismatic, and all that? Well, seeing how Louis is so friendly, you’d think that he’d be a pretty open person, right? Sure, he’s easy to talk to, but you’d also think that he’d be easy to get to know... right?

Well, here’s the thing.... Louis isn’t open. Throughout the whole episode, Louis’ doesn’t tell you jack shit about his past. The most you get outta him is that he used to love baseball, he fucking hates cantaloupe, and he once saw a dude get his guts ripped out. Oh, and I guess he’s never had a girlfriend before. And sure, you get that he and Marlon are best friends, but he never tells you anything about his friendship with Marlon until the confrontation when he says he’s gotta trust him. But in friendly conversation? Or even when Aasim brings it up? Nope, nothin’. You get surface level stuff from Louis, but no backstory, nothing deeper.

You could chalk this up to the writer’s fault that he doesn’t get as much detail in ep1, but I’m choosing to look at this as he gives the illusion that he’s open and willing to share but really? 

“No, no, no, that’s not how this works. You see this wall? You’re on that side and I’m over here? Yeah, you only get to know the things on that side, and I’m gonna keep everything else over here. I’m not gonna lower the wall, and you’re not gonna climb it, and it’ll be a grand ol’ time.” 

Well, jokes on you, Louis-- Clem’s gonna climb that wall until you lower it. 

Now... the hunting scene. Clementine goes hunting with Louis and Aasim, and you’re faced with a choice of either helping Aasim hunt, or taking care of the walker with Louis. I know we all get a little salty about this given that the fishing path doesn’t play out with this similar ‘option 1 vs option 2′ thing, and believe me, I’ll be the first to admit I got my own stash of salt for it.... but again, I’m choosing to look at this as you want to know more about Louis? You wanna gain his trust? Well, then you gotta actually earn it... and going off what his end card says if you don’t go with him? Part of him wants Clem to earn it, too. 

And if she does go with him? Well, then you get the moment.

I love this part. Clementine kills the walker after some back and forth teasing with Louis, and he asks her if she feels better now that she blew off some steam. I usually tell him that I can’t wait for out next round of batting practice, which gets some flirty dialogue from Louis-- “Oh yeah? Bring it on, Clem, I’m always down for a little adventure.”

 “Is that so?”

“Life’s too short not to be. Aasim loves giving me crap about having a good time, always telling me I'm not thinking long-term. ‘We need to guarantee our future,’ all that horseshit. But I tell him right back, there's only one guarantee: this moment. That's the only thing you got, only thing any of us got. Might as well enjoy it.”

I adore this moment because Louis and Clementine have each let their guard down, and Louis is sharing with her why he prefers to look at survival the way he does and why he believes survival isn’t enough without living.... and going off Clementine’s expression after he’s done, it really gets to her and makes her think. 

...but then Louis realizes that he lowered his wall and it’s like a switch is flipped. You can see him look away with a thoughtful face as if he’s internally saying “Oops, I shared too much uhhh quick say something--” and then his tone completely changes into this happy, “I'll untie our friend here and reset the snare if you go check on Aasim. :D”

And that’s Louis ending the conversation and sending Clementine away from him so that he can think about what the hell just happened. 

This isn’t the only instance of this happening with them, either. While Louis does gradually warm back up to Clementine after Marlon’s death, that wall is still up and he’s struggling, y’know? Marlon dies, Louis saw it happen a few steps in front of him, and he’s heartbroken and traumatized from it. He’s also conflicted about Clem and AJ, not wanting them around but not wanting them to die out in the woods-- he doesn’t know what to do. 

So when Clementine and AJ come back and AJ’s shot to hell, he feels awful, guilty that it’s his fault for what happened. So he decides to bring Clementine some fresh clothes for AJ to change into when he’s better, and we get the dorm scene... which is just one of my favorites. 

It’s so interesting because you can feel Louis’ genuine concern for AJ and how he’s doing, but at the same time, he’s trying to distance himself from Clementine... and kinda failing. 

On top of that, you got Clementine trying to see where he stands with them [with her], if he’s okay with them staying, and Louis tries to avoid answering it... whether that’s because he really doesn’t know how he feels, or he has an idea but isn’t about to share it with her, or some mixture of both. He’s still trying to work through things by himself either way. 

“It’s fine while he gets better.”

“...And after that?”

“I don’t know, Clementine.”

Again, when AJ wakes up, Louis avoids the question of “Are we friends again?” and goes to leave where Clem stops him. I always pick “I really missed you,” and Louis admits that he missed her, too, before saying goodnight. 

I just.... my heart? 

Another moment I wanna talk about here before moving on is the piano room scene. We talk to Louis more during the archery scene where Louis finally opens up about Marlon and how he’s feeling about her and AJ, and they’re on good terms again. They have the fun card game, and then you gotta decide who you wanna go with.... and yeah, I still got my salt about the whole ‘check defenses vs play piano’ thing but again.... forcing myself to look at this as another moment where you gotta earn him and his trust. You wanna see him finally bring that wall completely down for Clementine and change their relationship for the rest of the game? Then go after him. 

And whattya know, Louis does this thing again.

Clementine goes after Louis to find him playing a song he wrote and he’s so clearly happy to see her. When Clementine mentions they haven’t heard music in a while [suggesting that Louis hasn’t been playing] Louis jokes about how some would say she’s not about here it now before playing again and just.... his face. Louis and his damn self deprecating jokes, I swear. And Clementine can see it on his face before again, it’s like a switch is flipped and Louis is all, “So how do you feel about our imminent deaths? :D” 

My favorite choice here is to remain silent, by the way. When you do that, Louis says, “You know I’m here for you.” and aaaahhhhhh-

So we all know how the rest goes-- they tune the piano, it turns out to be a joke Louis is playing on Clem, she calls him cute and he gets flustered. Louis doing this is pretty perfect and in line with his character. It makes sense that he would mess with her a bit to gauge a reaction before deciding whether or not he should open up a bit or not. 

Then he starts to play the song he wrote, and carves an L into his piano. This is interesting to see since you wouldn’t think Louis would do that, y’know? Especially since the piano already has shit carved into the side like, “You suck at playing!” 

But no, he knows that shit’s about to go down, and him and Clem carving their initials into the piano makes it theirs... if that makes sense. I mean that in the sense that “this is our place... this is where we shared this moment together and it’s ours forever carved here, no matter what happens next,” y’know? And Clem carving a heart around it? All the more special and cute. 

Side note, but I fucking love Louis’ reaction to the heart like... they haven’t even confessed their feelings yet and to any normal person this would be an obvious “hey I like you” moment but poor Louis is probably over here like “Oh it’s a heart, yeah okay, uhhhh heart of ultimate friendship probably?? that’s cool, really cool”  

Anyway, seeing Clementine carve a C next to the L is what I believe gives him the courage to finally let down the wall entirely. He lays it all out there, thanking her for being here [for choosing him] even after everything he put her through, he had a lot to work through for himself, and everyone always hears the jokes and the piano but after that they stop listening, but Clementine didn’t. 

Like okay.... do you remember when I mentioned that Louis’ end card in ep1 suggests that he wants Clementine to pursue him, if you will? When you go with Aasim instead, his end card says that he felt lonely... and yeah, okay listen... the end cards are usually a mess with things that make zero sense, but this one I’m inclined to believe. 

Again, Louis is viewed as this charismatic, friendly, musical dude, so he should be close with everyone at the school right? He has Marlon for a best friend, so there’s no way someone like him could ever feel lonely, right? 

Well, when you consider that he has this whole persona that he plays when around most of the Ericson crew, and the fact that he literally says that they only hear the surface level shit before they stop listening all together, and Marlon probably kept him out for at least a year...... so yeah, I believe he’s lonely... and then Clementine showed up, broke down his wall and listened, chose him when most people wouldn’t, and now he doesn’t feel so lonely. 

Like.... Louis falls for Clementine for a reason, okay? And when she returns those feelings, he’s shocked because he never thought someone like her would choose him, or that she’d even want him to let her in. 

Then they smooch and I die.

Oh, AND he names the song he wrote after her. I mean, something that he created and always wanted to share but people always rejected or made fun of him for it... he played this song for her and then named it after her. Just... it’s too perfect, I can’t-

But yeah, from here on, trust is a big part of their relationship... and okay, lemme talk about one more scene because it’s important to this point--

Louis sharing his backstory at the party.... y’know how I mentioned that Louis doesn’t tell you shit about his past? Well, that’s still pretty true up until this point. While he trusts and adores Clementine, he wasn’t ready to share what got him sent to Ericson in the first place... until the party when they’re reading files and Louis realizes that she should know who she’s taking into battle... and she should know who she’s in a relationship with. 

So he tells the whole group everything-- he came from a rich family, his father refused to let him taking singing lessons, so Louis spent over a year breaking up his parents marriage and threw it in their faces because he was a “vindictive fuckhead.” 

When you remain quiet, he says that he doesn’t even know the person he’s talking about, the only thing they have in common is the same name... and just, Louis telling Clementine this even though he isn’t that person anymore and has had years to reflect on why the hell he ever did that and let the guilt weigh heavy on him... I’m sure he saw it as risky, y’know? Like what if she found out who he was and didn’t want him anymore? But he wanted to be honest with her?

And well... Clementine’s past ain’t so clean either, and I do wish we had the opportunity to share something with him at some point, but regardless... they’re still together. Clementine still trusts him to come with her and AJ to sneak onto the boat, and she still loves him enough to be in this romantic relationship. 

It’s just... it’s so good, guys. 

3. Forgiveness and family

This goes hand in hand with #2, because while trust is a huge factor in why I love their relationship, forgiveness and found family are just as important. 

So, AJ kills Marlon and everything’s a mess. Louis is a mess of emotions no matter what you do at this point, and I still roll my eyes at everyone who claims that he’s so terrible for behaving the way he does in the beginning of ep2. I actually like that he doesn’t immediately forgive them because that would be stupid, and poor writing on the part of the writers. 

His best friend who he just found out did awful shit was murdered right in front of him because AJ thought that was the right thing to do, even though Marlon had surrendered. He doesn’t know what the fuck to do or what to feel.... so yeah, I can see how he’d be uncomfortable [an understatement] the next morning when Clem and AJ show up to the funeral, I can see why he wouldn’t want to stay no matter what they had to say, and I can see why he wouldn’t feel to great with them around. 

And at this point, you’d think that any relationship he and Clementine could’ve had, any relationship the three of them could’ve had, would be ruined. And y’know, if Louis was replaced with a grudge-holding character or if he had a big ego that prevented him from moving past it all, it would be...  but he’s not like that, so it’s not. 

As I talked about before, this is where Louis is conflicted with himself and everything around him, so I won’t get too into that... but, they bring Clementine and AJ out into the woods after being kicked out, which is interesting that Louis would agree to go with Violet to do that since you’d think he’d just want them gone and that’s it, y’know? 

And he even tries to justify it to himself by being like, “It’s not so bad, you’ve done this before” which... isn’t great, and he knows it, they all know it. 

Oh, and I always have AJ give Louis the gun because Louis will stay behind while Violet heads back, and he’ll give the gun back but... I don’t even know how to explain it. He gets down to AJ’s level and hands him the gun, but when AJ grabs it, Louis tightens his whole grip on it, which makes AJ look directly at him and just.... Louis’ expression.... 

He doesn’t say anything, he just gets back up, looks at both of them, then walks away. It says so much without saying anything. 

Fast forward to the archery scene. I touched on it a bit, but this is a key moment of forgiveness... assuming you aren’t one of those dinguses who picked the “fuck you” option because why would you do that, ya dingus? 

Anyway, they’re still in a bit of an awkward area. Neither of them have openly forgiven each other for what happened, Clementine doesn’t know if he wants her around or not, Louis has come to terms with what happened and understands why AJ did what he did, but hasn’t talked to Clem about it... plus, he’s trying to get better at archery so that he can help fight when the raiders come, so that’s another thing to stress about. 

Clementine goes over to check on him and they finally talk about Marlon and AJ. Louis admits that he feels responsible for what happened... for years, he wasted time with stupid jokes and messing around while Marlon was left with all the stress of leading the school, and it eventually killed him, and Louis didn’t do a damn thing about it. He then goes on to tell Clem if he could, he’d take back sending them into the woods. 

My personal favorite choice here is to forgive him, because that’s what he needed to hear. From this point, Louis, Clementine, and AJ are all on good terms, and I mean... there’s a reason we love our ninja fam. Their dynamic as a whole is so good, and it reflects on why I love clouis so much. 

Like... Louis is able to forgive them for what happened to Marlon, and Clementine and AJ are able to forgive him for sending them out in the woods which resulted in AJ getting shot. Think about that... they overcame something that big. 

Clementine and Louis are in a romantic relationship, AJ adores Louis, and that’s something incredibly important to Clem. If AJ didn’t like Louis or didn’t get along with him? Then Clementine wouldn’t be with him. But Louis is so damn good with AJ in the way he interacts with him. He helped Ruby take care of him when he was shot, he made AJ feel better during the card game when he was sad about not knowing what the world was like before walkers, he’s friendly and caring about him when the visits the dorms,  hung out with him during the party to show him the gramophone, blocked him from Minerva when she was threatening him.... 

Also, when Louis shows up in the woods after the cave scene and AJ goes running to hug him? My heart can’t handle it. 

And all of this happened after all the shit with Marlon. 

You can’t avoid that conflict. No matter what you do, Marlon will always die and you gotta work at rebuilding the relationship with Louis if you want him by your side, and he works to be at your side, as well. I’ll touch more on this in the next entry, just know that this forgiveness is earned rather than just expected... y’know? 

There’s one other key moment I wanna talk about here... and that deals with the bridge scene and Tenn’s death. 

Alright.... the dreaded bridge scene. When Clementine says she trusts AJ to make the right calls back in the caves, AJ will see Louis struggling to get Tenn over the gap and away from the walkers and Minerva, and AJ will make the call to shoot Tenn... which gives Louis enough time to jump across... but now Tenn’s dead and crazy ass Minerva got what she wanted. 

It’s pretty shitty and no one likes it. 

Now, Louis is furious at this, and it’s completely understandable. Again, I know people gave Louis shit for going off at AJ at this point but lemme tell you a thing... his reaction makes sense. Louis asks how AJ could just shoot him like that, and AJ will say he had to otherwise Louis would never see his new house and he did it for him. Louis is even more upset by this, and I usually have Clementine say that AJ saved his life and Tenn was gonna get him killed... and Louis responds with, “So what, we just cut him loose? Gun him down like he was nothing?”

Which tells me a lot... Gun him down like he was nothing? You mean... you mean like he kinda did with Marlon, Louis? 

To me, this shows that Louis just saw Marlon again.... he’s seeing AJ repeat what happened to Marlon, even after everything they’d been through and he’s overwhelmed with anger, frustration, and heartbreak.... so he grabs AJ and forces him to see what he did. 

“Tenn's dead. He's dead! Do you realize that? Look! He's...he's gone, because of you. Just fucking gone.”

Now, I don’t agree that this was the right thing for Louis to do in this moment, but I understand why he did it. He’s desperate for AJ to see and realize what his actions have done, that he just killed Tenn. 

However, they don’t have much time to get into it since walkers are coming, and they gotta go. Then we fast forward to the ending with Louis, Clementine, and AJ where they’re talking about seeing other survivors and how Louis is gonna go check them out in the morning, asking AJ to tag along... and I know all choices are canon and all, but for me there is only one correct choice--

“Aren't you still mad I killed Tenn?”

“I... AJ, I guess it's like... You saw something I didn't. About the situation, I mean. Minnie and the walkers and Tenn, it's just all this chaos in my head when I think back on it... Clem says you saved my life? Well, then, that's exactly what you did. And how can I stay mad at anyone for doing that?”

And then they shake hands. 

And I cry. 

This is so important and honestly, I hate the other options because not only do they throw off the balance of the ninja fam dynamic, but they’re insulting to Louis’ growth as a character over the season. Clouis as a couple, and the three of them with AJ as a found family, these moments of forgiveness are crucial... and once again, they’re earned. 

I adore clouis, but it wouldn’t be as good if AJ didn’t have strong relationships with both Clementine and Louis. 

2. They challenge each other and help one another grow 

One of my favorite things about clouis is that they aren’t afraid to disagree or call each other out for shit. They go through so much together, things that could break a lot of people apart, and they both come out stronger than they were before... and that wouldn’t be possible if they weren’t able to handle challenging each other or handle conflict together. 

Whenever I replay TFS, I never feel like I have to tiptoe around Louis, y’know? I’m never afraid that if I say something he doesn’t like, he’ll throw a tantrum or get pissy and throw it back at me later. 

The worst he ever does is if you tell him to fuck off during the archery scene. He’ll be hurt, try to explain himself, before throwing down his bow and leaving and like.... totally understandable. Also, he’ll say something like, “If we’re on speaking terms” during the card game and he’ll act surprised that you chose to go after him but like.... honestly, the first one if more teasing and the other one is genuine shock. 

Another case like this is when Clementine questions Louis’ survival viewpoint when you go hunting with him and Aasim. He talks about how he views survival as a day-to-day task, but he does get things done. 

Clementine can agree with him here, or she can challenge him, which he will mostly brush off but won’t get annoyed. However, if she doesn’t say anything, he’ll go, “Hey, look. I don't need approval from anybody. I've kept myself alive this long doin' what I'm doin', so...”

Interesting thing to say, Louis. 

Those are just some the smaller things... but bigger things?

Going back to the point I made previously: You can’t avoid conflict with Louis in TFS because his conflict is a major point in the overall story. You have to put in effort when it comes to rebuilding a relationship with Louis. Not only that, but Louis is working to repair it, as well. If he wasn’t, he would’ve told Clementine to fuck off and not bothered. 

Again, it’s annoying when people just immediately turn on Louis the second he’s upset with Clementine because all of this effort from the two of them is great and makes them being together in the end all the more satisfying. It’s interesting, too. If there was zero conflict with Louis and he didn’t get mad at Clem and agreed with her on every little thing, it’d be boring and the relationship wouldn’t feel as genuine or deep. 

Was the whole thing handled perfect? Nah. Could it have been handled better. Yep. But going off what we did get? It’s pretty damn good. 

If Clementine and Louis can make it through AJ killing Marlon, fighting off asshole raiders, breaking into said asshole raiders boat to take back their friends, get captured and escape the boat as it explodes, and survive AJ shooting Tenn and Clementine losing her leg to a bite.... then these two can overcome anything together. Their efforts are rewarded. 

Now, this plays into this bigger idea of them challenging their survival views and outlook on life, and helping them grow as better people. 

Clementine is sometimes so serious even when the situation doesn’t call for it. She’s survival-centric because she didn’t have a choice. She has survived in this world on her own, saw many people die, and had to do what she had to in order to stay alive. When she got AJ, she then had to look after and raise him, too, and teach him how to survive. 

On the other hand, Louis sometimes isn’t serious enough when the situation calls for it. He’s sheltered, having lived behind walls his whole life with a roof over his head and a bed to sleep in. He’s seen his fair share of death, but he’s never been out there alone having to survive. He chooses to enjoy every moment he possible can and that causes him to not look at the future. 

Then they find each other in ep1, and with each passing episode, they’re influenced by the other and grow to be better versions of themselves... and none of it would’ve happened if they gave up on one another.

By the end we have a Clementine who is able to think about things without the frightening aspects of survival, she’s able to sit down and laugh with her friends over a dumb game of cards, to push AJ on a tire swing and watch him color like a little kid, she’s able to rely on someone she’s comfortable with who makes her happy. She’s still the same strong, fierce Clementine that we love, but because of Louis, she’s grown a softer, more vulnerable side that she hasn’t had since the beginning of the series.

We have a Louis who who can now find courage within himself to step forward when he knows something’s wrong, to fight when people need him. He thinks about the future, he feels like Ericson is a home worth protecting and he’d sacrifice himself to make sure it’s safe. He’s let someone in, confided, and now he’s less lonely, he’s overcome a lot of bullshit and survived. He’s still charming, musical Louis, but because of Clementine, he’s grown stronger and more capable, willing to do whatever it takes to take care of his family. 

Say it with me: and none of it would’ve happened if they gave up at the first big thing thrown at them, didn’t learn from one another and were afraid to challenge each other.

1. Building a future together

Alright, we’re finally here at #1... this really feels more like an essay than a T5F but I don’t care, I’m not done... I have more to say about these two.

I wanna talk about the walk back to Ericson right before the bridge scene because it’s pretty much tied to everything else on this list and it perfectly encapsulates why I love clouis so damn much. 

So, after we get the wild cave scene, we’re out in the open when we Louis finds us. We get that sweet moment where everyone hugs, Clementine and Louis hold hands and give each other the looks, and they start to walk back home. 

Louis’ theme, which is my favorite, begins to play as he and Clem walk side by side ahead of AJ and Tenn, and they share even more looks. This is when Louis talks about Dorian, the woman he shot and killed back in the boat. You can tell he doesn’t exactly know how to approach talking about it, but it’s weighing on his mind and he wants to open up to Clem about it... admitting that it’s his first human kill and how he feels about it. 

I like to tell him that it’ll get easier, and even though it’s fucked up, he knows it will. 

Here is where Louis opens up more about himself and his past, something I’ve gone to great lengths here to point out that he doesn’t just do, y’know? But here he does it so comfortably which is drastic compared to when we started where he wouldn’t say anything. He talks about how he always thinks about dumb things when in life or death situations-- his grandma’s phone number, his pet turtle Geoff, how he lost a spelling bee because he misspelled recommend [which is fair, I always wanna put two C’s for some reason?], and then finally... he thought about the house his parents were building before their divorce. 

Louis willingly talking about his parents with Clementine is a pretty big step, especially after he told her what happened with them. 

Then together, they talk about creating their dream home which is not only wholesome and sweet, but it’s Louis’ way of saying he wants to build a home with her, to have a future [something he never thought about before] with her. 

I just.... yeah, he’s aware that it’s an imaginary house, even when he says they’re gonna build it. They’re not gonna be able to build a 914-floor purple mansion with a treehouse, but they can try.... y’know, try to make Ericson that dream home together. 

Clementine never had a secure home, and if she ever did feel comfortable enough in a place to it home, it was taken away from her. She was just a little girl at the motor-inn during S1, and with her parents constantly on her mind then, I doubt she ever saw it as a new home. Same with any other place the visited in S1. 

S2, she was on the move living out in the woods with Christa before going on the move with the cabin group, and no matter what ending you got, where ever she ended up never felt like home for her. 

Then we all know what happened in ANF soo... yeah. 

The first episode of TFS even starts out with Clementine saying she’s trying to find a home for her and AJ, and a little later AJ asks if they’ll ever have one... so this is a pretty damn big deal, okay? 

And when you factor in Louis wanting a future for them when he never cared to look that far and was a lonely person surrounded by people who now has something worth fighting for? I could cry.

What more do I even need to say at this point? 

Their chemistry is strong, deep, and romantic, they powered through so much unavoidable bullshit, they worked hard for their relationship, they’re comfortable and not afraid to lean on each other when needed, they get comfort from being together but aren’t afraid to disagree on things because they know those disagreements aren’t stronger than they are. With AJ and everyone else at Ericson, they’re a family now rather that a group of misfit survivors, and they’re working to change things for the better for Ericson. 

I love everything about them and damn it, they will be happy together every single time I replay TFS because that is what they deserve. 

---

Honorable Mentions

-the flirting between these two is just so damn cute -height difference... just... height difference -The clouis smooches... they’re all good and I wish we got more -Louis saving Clementine from being eaten by using a rock... the beginning of ep4 was wild and seeing him again made everything feel better. -Their interactions during the card games make me so damn happy...  -look, everything that isn’t captured Louis/dead Louis makes me happy, okay? They all get honorable mentions. 

---

This turned out way longer than I anticipated and for that I am sorry. So, what do you think? Lemme know the reasons you love clouis, I’m always down to chat about that! 

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

Next week’s T5F Top 5 Missed Opportunities in 400 Days

[bellatrixobsessed1]

On Azula Fans vs...The Rest Of The Fandom???

 So I was talking with several people (@wingsfreedom, @wish-i-was-fiction, and @iabsentmindeddreamer--though I didn’t actually reply to them, just read their post) on this post (https://wish-i-was-fiction.tumblr.com/) and I wanted to write my own desperate post as I have been kind of thinking about for a while but have been hesitant to post because Idk how it would be received/I don’t want to start anything. But it looks like a thing has already started so I might as well.

I’ll start by saying that this isn’t a Bryke, Yang, or any part of the fandom hate post.

The thing I’ve been wanting to talk about is that I feel like Azula fans (and Zutara fans) are kind of being ostracized by the fandom and I feel like the creators kind of help that happen.

I can’t say when I started feeling this, I think that it might have been around the whole Azula vs Katara debate. That whole ordeal made me feel like Azula fans just aren’t taken seriously/aren’t respected even in in civil discussion. Like I ended up pulling out of that debate because I felt as though people were becoming dismissive and/or aggressive. I’m not saying it was everyone, not at all. But there were a handful. And yes, I am aware that it came from both sides. But that debate has since died down, which I’m glad for. 

The point is, things like this seem to keep happening. I also think that there’s a certain user who keeps targeting specific portions of the fandom and says things in the fan tags that come off to me as very instigating and antagonizing. These posts tend to lead to a whole bunch of people coming along to completely drag Azula’s character through the mud and eventually her fans as they try to defend her character and justify liking it. I’ve since blocked that user, because (though they’ve always been rather civil with me) I just got tired of seeing hate towards a fandom I’m in and I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to keep conversation civil. I say this because I want everyone to know that, though I’ve mentioned this person, I don’t particularly have bad blood with them or whatever. Those two things I mentioned were kind of the catalyst in me thinking that Azula fans are kind of isolated from the rest of the fandom. 

And if this is beginning to sound familiar; I turn everyone to Zutara. The very first part of the fandom to be cast out of the fandom in a sense. Now I never shipped Zutara, in fact I hate it very much. And I used to think that the Zutara fans were ‘bitter’ and ‘hostile’. Now I kind of sympathize with them. I feel like that bitterness comes from not only not being able to see their ship on screen, but also because they’re kind of the black sheep of the fandom. To the point where even the creators seem to shit all over them and make fun of them and this is NOT okay. Because when creators start making fun of sections of the fandom, even in jest, it basically gives the fandom a green light to do the same. Like, ‘oh the creators do it, so its fine if we do’. It creates for a very bad and unfriendly atmosphere. 

I feel as though the same thing is starting to happen with Azula fans. With Yang calling them a cult (even if this was a joke I feel like it is in very poor taste) and Hicks saying that they are scary. Etc. 

There are two things that I think happen here (and it is the same stuff that happened with Zutarians).

1. Anti’s post hate in Azula’s tag (and the Zutara one) and fans get ont he defensive

2a. Some vocal people--seemingly on twitter--send hate to creators and the creators react creating a chain. 

2b. Some fans started 

I’ll discuss point 1 first because this happened first. I feel like one of the biggest problems is that a handful of people have begun to post Azula hate in her fan tags. Once upon a time people kept hate out of the fan tags with the exception of one or two posts every now and again. Then it started happening. And I have never seen an instance where massive amounts of hate in a fan tag was met with a positive response. The hate was posted and there was a reaction. Some fans were more kind in their responses and others got more aggressive. The amount of aggression increased as the volume of hate increased. And this I understand why Azula fans and Zutara fans get so irritated. We just want to enjoy our tag and see love for Azula and Zutara. But people keep knocking them. And so it puts fans on the defensive and starts a chain; hate is posted, fans argue back, anti’s now feel justified in their hate (and fans feel justified in their outrage), and more fighting happens. 

All the while a second chain was being created. Unfortunately I do think that this one was started by the Azula and Zutara fandoms (mostly on twitter). I’ve noticed and have been bothered by this. I’ve been rather quite on this one because I like the people in this fandom and I love talking to them. But there are a few people who I feel like are being rather unfair or harsh. I feel like this fandom has become a bit of an echochamber for shitting on the comics and on other characters (mostly Iroh, Zuko, and Ursa) and I can see how that would be off putting. Like people started woobifying Azula and using other characters to prop her up I feel like this actually drove several people away. Granted I feel like this was actually a bit reactory as well--people kept using Azula and hating on her to prop Zuko up and so the opposite began to happen. But I digress; I’ve started to notice that people started taking an almost ‘Azula did nothing wrong/is the victim mentality’. And I strongly disagree with that. I won’t get into that now because that’s not the discussion. But it began to get off putting for me personally. But I like the character and fans of her enough to stay.

Between the above and that crazy Sokkla vs Tyzula ship war, we lost a lot of really fun people who used to shitpost, make fanart, and write fics. And so the bulk of our tag has disintegrated into discourse and arguing instead of having fun like back in the day.

And then the hate began to stray from discourse to, actually sending hate to the creators; Yang in particular. Again I think that this was more of a twitter thing (hence why I don’t use twitter, I think that it’s a nightmare of a site tbh and a breeding ground for bad behavior). A good vocal few kept complaining about how the comics and show were/was being written and after receiving so many harsh comments the creators began to react. I’m gonna just say it; I don’t think that Bryke (in the above link) was in the wrong here. I feel like they were pretty tactful and respectful in their wording. And as a fic writer I 100% agree with them that it is their story and so they should write it as they see fit, even if I don’t like xyz plotline. And as someone who has had someone try to strong arm me into writing my fic their way, I understand their frustration.  My issue lies with Yang mostly. His ‘the Azula fandom is kind of a cult’ left a really bad taste in my mouth. Joke or not, this kind of grants people permission to judge the entire fandom. And we already saw it a bit in the very clip. This girl asked an innocent question, that response was her answer, and the crowd actually laughed. I feel like that was probably very uncomfortable for her. This was followed up by Hicks saying “I got a scary email from an Azula fan...please be nice to me guys”. Again, I’m not gonna knock Hicks too much because I feel like she’s still new (at least to Avatar) and that hate-mail can be quite rattling. 

The point I’m trying to make is that a second chain has been created. Once Yang made his cult remark that cued a lot of outrage in the Azula fandom and it was a green light for them to openly hate on him and his work. Which is something that was already happening. In this regard I am kind of on Yang’s side. I’ve noticed that the fandom began to religiously knock Yang for everything he did with the comics in the same way that Zutarians started knocking Bryke for everything Kataang. Again I found myself off put by all the hate because I actually kind of enjoyed the comics. Discussion of the comics always seemed to lead to more debating over whether they were good or not. I do feel like Yang didn’t like Azula’s character from the start, but people sending hate and him seeing this probably didn’t help. 

Eventually he reacted with his cult remark and so the fans felt justified in being more spiteful to the man. They started posting more hate. And so Yang probably feels more justified in thinking that her fan base is scary. And so the people who haven’t been posting hate and sending mean tweets his way are viewed as scary and mean too. 

Where I disagree with Yang is that he made that remark at all. While I understand being frustrated, I really hated that generalization. As mentioned above, even the fans who liked the comics are now associated with unkindness and hate. I really enjoyed the comics, though that enjoyment is kind of shadowed by a feeling of being unwelcomed. And with his generalization I think that it kind of puts a bit of the stigma around the fandom in the exact way that Zutarians have a stigma of being hostile. 

And when such a stigma is created it starts to become true because the fans feel like, ‘well they already see us this way, might as well be this way’. It starts to become true because others go into the tags to knock fans for being aggressive to the creators and so more people get defensive and the cycle just continues. 

Now with Azula’s fandom, this is only just starting, but I can see it getting to Zutara levels pretty quickly. And that’s a shame because this fandom is something I have enjoyed for a while and I like being able to react with other parts of the fandom. But personally I haven’t been venturing outside of the Azula tag much because I feel like I’m only going to see hate and arguing if I do. 

Idk, I hope that this didn’t come off as antagonizing to anyone because I’m not trying to blame any one group of people. Tbh I think that everyone has kind of played their part in this hot mess. I just really wanted to get this off of my chest. Mostly because I want people to tell me that I’m wrong lol and that the Azula fandom isn’t becoming a black sheep fandom and that I’m seeing something that isn’t actually there lmao.

I hope that I was able to explain things clearly, fairly, and kindly. Feel free to discuss in the comments and stuff. 

[alittlebitweird4]

Heart of a Monster (Fraxus Fantasy AU) - FT Reverse Bang 2020

I am so excited to show off my piece for the Fairy Tail Reverse Bang hosted by @ftguildevents ! This was my first time participating in something like this and I had a blast! My fanfiction is based on fanart created by the amazingly talented @fairiesherefairiesthere which you can check out here. I have been wanting to write something like this but didn’t know where to start but their piece and ideas gave me the inspiration that I needed. I am really proud of how it came out (although there are other things I would have added in if I had the time). Regardless, I hope y’all enjoy this. Thanks so much to my fabulous beta reader @onyxbaku (Twitter) who, among other things, helped me get Laxus to sound more Laxus-y.

Synopsis:

Freed is a peaceful spirit living on the outskirts of the kingdom of Magnolia. Frightened by this mystical being and misunderstanding his intentions, the humans gather a mob to vanquish the spirit. After a difficult battle, the humans successfully capture the spirit’s heart; however, instead of killing him, this act transforms the once kind spirit into a horrible monster. The king sends his strongest knight, Laxus to finish the job. But Laxus ends up growing closer to Freed than he expected.

Genres: fanfiction, AU, fantasy, BL

You can read the story on Wattpad, AO3, or under the cut. Enjoy and remember to check out all the other amazing entries for this event~

Prologue~

Once upon a time, a spirit was said to be lurking on the outskirts of the kingdom of Magnolia. The humans, frightened by this foreign presence, plead to their king for protection. When the king brushed aside their fears, they decided to take matters into their own hands. A group of villagers headed up the mountain with the intention of capturing the spirit’s heart as a trophy and as a warning to other paranormal entities. 

“Freed! They’re coming!” Evergreen shouted, pointing at the mob ascending the mountain - a pulsing mass of fire and anger approaching the castle.

“My babies and I can take care of them,” Bickslow announced, raising up the wooden dolls which contained the souls he controlled.

“Hold your attacks,” Freed replied calmly.

With a loud bang, the door came down and the humans flooded into the castle. Freed remained seated, Bickslow and Evergreen on either side of him ready to spring into action if needed.

“Monsters!” a man yelled, stepping forward from the group with a sword in his hand.

“Rude,” Evergreen muttered, earning a glare from Freed.

“This is your chance to get far away from here and never bother us again. Otherwise…” the man said, raising his sword, “we’ll take matters into our own hands.”

“Yeah! Tell them, Trevor!” The villagers cheered the man on.

“We have no quarrel with your people. We do not wish to fight you,” Freed replied.

“What? I do!” Bickslow retaliated, his babies chanting “Fight! Fight!” as they floated around him.

The crowd gasped. One young man, in horrified disbelief, said, “It’s true! A soul-stealing demon!”

“Bickslow!” Freed reprimanded. Bickslow replied with a nervous laugh, realizing that he had made the situation worse.

“A-and I hear the woman is a witch!” the young man continued.

“Witch?” Evergreen gasped. “Who’s going around calling me a witch?! I’m clearly a beautiful fairy!”

“That leader must be really terrifying to be able to give orders to a demon and a witch.”

“I’m not a witch!”

“Then let’s cut off the head of the snake!” The first man, Trevor, cheered. He charged into battle with the rest of the mob quickly following suit.

Freed sighed. “Please, we do not want to hurt you. We only wish to continue on with our lives here in peace.” He was drowned out by the commotion. The mob was on them in full force and Evergreen and Bickslow were beginning to fight back. “Evergreen, Bickslow, do not kill or maim anyone. Do only what you must to survive. Don’t let them turn us into monst-” his words were cut short by a dagger plunging into his chest. He looked down to see the same terrified young man from earlier.

“Take its heart as a prize, Michael!” someone called to the boy. The young human reached into Freed’s chest and pulled out his heart. He held up his prize hesitantly to the rest of the mob, who cheered violently. Bickslow and Evergreen screamed and tried to run to Freed through the mob.

Thunder rumbled. The castle shook. Instead of dying, Freed began to transform. He let out a guttural scream as he grew in size and sprouted giant horns. The hole where his heart had been glowed, the pulsing light mimicking the lost heartbeat.

“Freed!” Evergreen finally reached her friend; however, the greeting she received was not friendly by any means. The newly transformed Freed reached out and mercilessly plucked the fairy’s wings. As Evergreen screeched in pain, she was covered in glowing purple runes. When the glowing subsided, she was gone.

The mob looked around in terror. “Up there!” someone shouted, pointing at a window. Evergreen was trapped in the stained glass, her magic separated from her and secured in a second window.

“Freed… what did you do?” Bickslow’s horrified shock quickly turned into anger and he charged. Freed picked each of the flying dolls out of the air. “My babies!” Before Bickslow could transfer the souls or do anything else to fight back, he too was covered in those glowing purple runes. On the wall facing Evergreen’s windows, Bickslow and his babies occupied two more.

The humans fled the castle as quickly as they could, trampling over each other in panic. Some of them were captured by the monster. Those who made it out ran back home without a look back at the castle. Their mission was a success, but had an unexpected outcome. Instead of dying, the spirit was transformed into a terrible monster. 

The young man who had wrenched the spirit's heart from his chest went to the king for help. He described truthfully what had happened and what he had done, not sparing any gruesome details of the ensuing transformation and violence.

The king instructed his subject to bury the heart and to not spread his story. The monarch's worst fears were coming true and he wished to sweep everything under the rug as quickly as possible. So, to fix the mess, he decided to call in the local magical knight to quickly dispose of the demon.

1~

Laxus smiled smugly, quite satisfied with himself. He had just come from a meeting during which the king begged for his help. There was just something about having royalty bow down to him instead of the other way around. He supposed it was just another perk of being the resident magical knight. 

After preparing some supplies, he set out from the small town in the direction of the ominous castle whose occupant had been making the locals uneasy. The closer he got, the more he could feel the darkness emanating from the place. Heh. I'm gonna show this demon who's boss, Laxus thought with a smirk. The prospect of putting a horrible monster in its place got his blood pumping with excitement and confidence.

Standing in front of the castle door, he took a deep breath. Then, he stormed in with a flash of lightning. Subtlety was never his strong suit. However, as soon as he passed the threshold, he found himself caught in a trap of glowing purple runes. He writhed in pain, feeling as if his very life force was being drained by the runes. He soon found out that it wasn’t his life force, but rather his magic that was being ripped from him. His eyes followed a beam of bright light from his body to the stained glass windows lining the room. He watched in horror as the pattern on one of the windows became that of lighting bolts - Laxus’ magic. It appeared that several other magical abilities, and even a couple of people, had been trapped here as well. On one side, a woman looked down at him in anguish from her stained glass prison. Next to her was a pattern of wings, which Laxus guessed had once belonged to her. Opposite the woman was a man in a helmet. Laxus wondered if this man had been another knight sent in to do this job; however, he quickly dismissed the thought as nothing else about the man suggested knighthood. Beside the helmet-wearing man was a window panel containing some sort of wooden creatures.

What happened here? Laxus wondered in disgusted horror as the last of his power was drained from him. He could hear heavy footsteps descending the stairs and coming towards him. His head was spinning and he was in pain but he managed to make out the sight of a towering figure with large horns and a gaping hole in its chest. The demon smiled sickly at his new prey. The glistening fangs and cold eyes were the last things Laxus saw before everything went black.

2~

When Laxus finally came to, those horrible images he had witnessed came flooding back to him. Drowning in nightmares, he gasped for air. After a few desperate breaths, he finally calmed down enough to take in his surroundings. He noticed a square of runes on the ground around him. He reached out his arm and the runes came shooting up, forming a glowing cage and singeing his hand upon contact. “Shit, that actually hurt!” he complained.

A deep, slow chuckle sounded in response to his pain. Laxus looked up to see the same demon he had glimpsed earlier. The creature was sitting on a throne and wearing an expression like that of a cat playing with a mouse.

Laxus swallowed his fear and stood up, locking eyes with the creature before him. “Demon! I have been sent here by my king to vanquish you once and for all,” his voice resonated clearly and loudly through the castle.

“Is that so? And how is that going for you?” The creature retorted with a smirk. “You have no magic and can’t leave that square. You will be my plaything until you rot or until I grow bored of you.” His voice was gravelly and distorted. Whatever this creature was he did not look or sound human. Laxus recalled some of the old wives’ tales he’d heard about people who’d had their souls stolen and wondered if this was what they turned into.

Laxus’ eye twitched slightly with anger at being belittled by the demon. “I’ll find a way out,” he declared with cool arrogance, though he knew deep down that the odds were not in his favour. “And when I do, watch out. I’m going to make sure that you never terrorize any humans again.”

The demon chuckled at Laxus’ baseless optimism, a horrible sound that somehow resembled that of breaking glass. “Whatever you say… hero,” the last word was dripping with so much venom that Laxus shuddered involuntarily.

Growing bored of Laxus, the demon turned and left up the staircase. Long green hair and a cape adorned with stars flowed behind him. Laxus could imagine children wishing upon stars at night only for this demon to pluck those stars out of the sky and wear those shattered dreams.

“Hey! Come back here!” Laxus called into the empty space where the demon had been. He was alone, with only the terrified faces frozen in the stained glass to keep him company.

3~

The following morning, Laxus woke from a shallow and restless sleep on the cold hard floor of the castle. He was startled by the sight of the demon looming over him, studying him.

“Are you finally gonna let me out of here so we can settle this like men?” Laxus asked.

“You don’t see me as a man. Only as a monster,” the demon’s distorted voice made Laxus feel sick. He couldn’t argue with that statement. The demon retreated back to his throne from which he observed his prey.

“So… who are they?” Laxus asked, gesturing to the stained glass, trying to make conversation. “Those are real people in there, right?”

“I think… I think they were my... friends?” The word “friends” was the last thing that Laxus had expected to hear and sounded especially wrong coming out of the demon’s mouth.

“Some friend you are,” Laxus muttered.

“What was that?”

“If that’s how you treat your friends, I can’t wait to see what you have in store for me,” the knight said sarcastically, his cocky optimism returning.

The light emanating from the hole in the demon’s chest grew brighter and pulsed rapidly. “You know nothing,” he said angrily.

“So what did your ‘friends’ call you?” Laxus asked flippantly, ignoring the creature’s growing anger. “You must have a name, right?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Huh? Then what do people call you?”

“No one is calling me anything now,” he gestured to the stained glass. After a pause he added, “I think I had a name at some point. I can’t remember it now though and it is not important,” as he spoke, his tone grew angrier.

“It really bothers you doesn’t it?”

“Do not mock me, human.”

“Geez, don’t be so sensitive. I wasn’t-” The demon waved his hand and the runes glowed, causing Laxus to fall asleep mid sentence.

4~

Even after several days, Laxus still was not accustomed to waking up on the castle floor. “Why haven’t you just killed me by now?” Laxus asked, his voice coarse and weak from lack of food and water.

“I… don’t know.”

“All you ever say is ‘I don’t know.’ What the fuck do you know, then?” Ignoring the demon’s angry growls he continued, “Wait a minute… you can’t kill me. That’s the only reason that makes sense. You can’t kill me, can you?” The demon’s silence confirmed Laxus’ suspicions. “So why not, then? You have me trapped here, starving to death, because you’re too weak to kill me yourself? Is that it?”

“I told you I DON’T KNOW,” the demon roared, the light in his chest pulsing angrily.

“What, you got amnesia? Did you hit your oversized head?”

"I… didn't fight back,” he spoke slowly.

Laxus raised an eyebrow skeptically.

“When the humans came… I… didn’t fight back,” he sounded confused as if even he himself couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t fight back against attackers.

"Bull. Shit," Laxus taunted, angering the demon further. "I saw the guys who confronted you. Given the shape they were in you can't honestly tell me you were a gracious host."

The creature thought for a moment but it seemed as though he couldn’t fully remember or understand what had transpired on that day. “What does it matter?” He asked angrily. He paused and sighed before asking, “Did I kill any of them?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t know.”

Laxus sighed, then thought for a moment. The people who had come running back from the castle had been injured but not fatally, and those unlucky few who had been captured eventually found their way back as well. “No. I think everyone managed to survive.”

“Why didn’t I kill them?”

“Why the hell are you asking me?”

The demon slumped in his throne and took a deep breath. “I… don’t know who I am. When the humans came… they changed me.”

“What do you mean changed?”

“What happened exactly is foggy. I don’t even know when it happened, though I can guess based on your arrival and… the visions.”

“Visions?”

“Pieces of that day. They’ve been coming back to me in fragments. Those two,” he gestured to the figures in the stained glass, “they stood by me. I told them not to fight. I don’t know why I did that,” he spoke as though he was trying to recount someone else’s memories. “One of the humans - a young man - he charged at me. I felt a wave of anger and then… nothing. The next thing I remember is seeing humans fleeing back towards the kingdom.”

“So you conveniently don’t remember any of the things that you did. The things that put dozens of people in the hospital.Your story is that humans stormed into your castle and attacked you and your ‘friends’ unprovoked. One young guy came at you, a towering demon, and busted you up so bad you blacked out. And then they all decided to run away?”

“I know how it sounds but that is the truth. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. Your opinion does not matter.”

“Well if you really believed that you wouldn’t be keeping me around for these meaningless conversations,” Laxus muttered.

After a pause, the demon added, “I don’t think I was always… like this. That boy… he took something from me.”

“Oh so the big bad humans stole from you too?”

The demon, lost in thought and grappling with his hazy memories, ignored Laxus’ snide remark. He hesitantly brought a hand up to the hole in his chest. “There was something here,” he said in a faraway voice.

“Your heart?” Laxus asked, puzzled.

“Heart?”

“Ya know the organ in a person’s chest that pumps blood through their body? The thing people associate with kindness and… love.”

“Love? What is that?”

“You don’t know what love is?”

The demon shook his head.

“Well I guess it’s like… a feeling,” Laxus blushed. He wasn’t easily flustered but then again he had never before found himself having to explain love to a demon. “Like you would do anything for someone because… they mean the world to you and make you feel… whole.”

The demon touched the hole where his heart had presumably once been.

5~

“Hey! Restore my magic,” Laxus demanded boldly.

The demon chuckled. “Why do you suppose I do that?”

“If you don’t, then I’ll have a harder time marching into that town and getting your heart back,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“You would do that?”

“Of course. They had no right to take it from you in the first place.”

“But if I give you back your power, then there’s nothing to guarantee that you will return. What is stopping you from leaving here and never coming back? Or coming back with an army to kill me?” Freed asked, skeptically.

“I’m a man of my word.”

“You gave your word to your king that you would kill me.”

“No, I gave him my word that I would take care of the problem. I get your heart back and you stop being all monster-y, right?”

“I think so.”

“Eh, good enough,” Laxus shrugged, smiling slightly. Noticing that the demon still had reservations he added, “Trust me.”

The demon sighed. Suddenly, Laxus’ skin crawled with purple runes.

“What the hell?” Laxus exclaimed. Though he shortly began feeling reinvigorated. He saw the lightning pattern disappearing from the stained glass and felt the familiar tingle of electricity sparking in his veins.

“Your magic has been returned to you,” the demon said, eyeing Laxus warily.

“Oh yeah I feel stronger now! Time to go get that heart,” Laxus declared. “I wish I knew what to call you.”

“I think my name was… Freed.”

“Okay, then. See you soon, Freed.”

“See you soon…”

“Laxus. Laxus Dreyar.”

6~

“I demand an audience with the king!” Laxus easily pushed through the palace guards.

“Oh, Laxus! You’re back! Does that mean the mission was a success? Is that horrid monster finally dead?” The king asked hopefully.

“He’s only a monster because you people made him one!”

“Preposterous! I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Yeah right,” Laxus scoffed. “That’s the reason you just sent me, right? You wanted it done quickly and quietly.”

“I don’t like your tone, Laxus. You should show respect to your king.”

“Ha! Then you should be a king worthy of respect.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I’ll let myself out. If you’re not gonna give me answers then you’re just in my way.”

Laxus stormed out of the castle, fuming. His quest wasn’t going as smoothly as expected. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar figure.

“Michael.”

The boy jumped and attempted to avoid Laxus’ gaze.

“Michael… you were there, right? At the demon castle? Tell me what happened that day.” Remembering the anguished look on Freed’s face, he grew more desperate. “Please,”  he added sincerely.

Michael was shocked at the desperation in Laxus’ voice. “Well…” he began, “one of the men from the village said he was gathering a mob to take care of a spirit living on the outskirts of the kingdom. Spirits make a lot of people anxious and the king wasn’t doing anything about it. So a group of us went to the old castle where the spirit has been seen. I honestly didn’t actually expect to see anyone… but the spirit was there with his two friends. The spirit didn’t want to fight. I… I think I messed up, Laxus.”

“What did you do, Michael?”

“I took the spirit’s heart,” his voice was trembling and barely audible. He swallowed hard then continued with his story. “I made everything worse. He didn’t die. He… changed. He got bigger and scarier and… so much angrier. He even attacked his own friends.” Tears started to form in the boy’s eyes.

Hearing Freed’s story confirmed renewed Laxus’ motivation. “Where is his heart?”

“The king told me to bury it. I’m not even supposed to be telling anyone this story. Wait… you’re not-”

“Working for the king? I’m supposed to be. But I went to the castle and saw what became of that spirit. He’s in pain, Michael. I won’t turn you in to the king. I just want to fix this mess. So… where did you bury the heart?”

“I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to just cover up the mess I made and pretend it never happened.” Michael disappeared into his home and came back out shortly clutching a wooden box. He looked around nervously, checking for anyone who might be watching, before handing the box to Laxus.

“Thank you, Michael.”

Michael nodded. As Laxus was turning to leave, the younger man added, “Please… tell him I’m sorry.”

“Will do.”

7~

The king must have expected Laxus would retrieve Freed’s heart. The royal army surrounded the kingdom’s border, blocking Laxus’ path to Freed.

“How could you side with a monster, Laxus?” One of the knights implored.

“How could you?” Laxus retorted. “Your king is a liar. The only monster out there was created by the people of this kingdom. Get out of my way so I can fix this mess.”

“Stand down, Laxus,” the head knight warned, brandishing his sword. It made Laxus laugh.

“You really think you can stop me? I can crush you all like mere ants under my boot.”

On their leader’s command, the army charged at Laxus. Laxus retaliated with lightning. A sword caught him in the arm, but it didn’t slow him down. On the contrary, it angered him and drove him to fight harder. “This is for Freed,” he said, knocking down the knights in his way with a bolt of lightning.

Laxus broke through the barricade and ran on autopilot to the castle, clutching the wooden box tightly to his chest.

8~

Laxus crashed through the door, panting after having run all the way up the mountain.

“You came back,” Freed marveled.

“Of course… I did,” Laxus said, still trying to catch his breath. He held up the box triumphantly. However, the smug look on his face quickly disappeared. “Shit. Someone’s coming. They must have followed me.”

“Who followed you?”

Freed’s question was answered by the royal army bursting through the door of the castle.

“They did,” Laxus answered. He tucked the box away in his coat and prepared to fight.

Seeing that Laxus was outnumbered, Freed made a decision. The stained glass glowed brightly and two people came out of it. The two looked at Freed, then at the army. Though disoriented, they did not hesitate to back up Laxus in defending their old friend.

“Laxus,” one of the knights began, “if you’re going to defend monsters then you will be vanquished like one!”

“Oh we are not the monsters here!” The woman from the stained glass argued.

Laxus took her words to heart. She was right. He took the box out of his coat and called to Freed, “Heads up!”

The box hurtled towards him and he caught it. He opened it hesitantly and his heart, as if pulled by an imaginary force, flew to his chest where it belonged. With a flash of light, Freed changed back into his original form.

Though smaller and admittedly less intimidating, he walked confidently up to the fight. “I am not a monster, and so I will give you one more chance to back down from this ridiculous fight,” he said calmly to the army. The two figures from the stained glass looked at each other and nodded before falling into line behind him. Freed held out his hand to Laxus. Laxus hesitated before grasping it and joining his new friends. “Now,” Freed began, addressing the troops, “would you really like to charge against four powerful magical beings who just want to continue living their lives unbothered, or can we handle this like adults?”

One by one, the soldiers began to lower their swords and mutter apologies for disturbing the spirit and his friends. “Good choice,” Freed replied. “Now go back to your kingdom. Tell your people that we mean them no harm. And tell your king that we will not be so forgiving next time something like this happens.”

The soldiers filed out quickly with frantic gasps of “yes, sir!”

Once they had all gone, Freed sighed and turned to his friends. “I’m so sorry!”

9~

“I’m so sorry for the way I treated all three of you. Though I’ll admit I do not fully remember all of it. Without my heart… I just felt so… empty. And I lashed out. I apologize deeply.”

“It’s okay, Freed, we know that wasn’t really you,” the woman reassured him, patting his arm.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it!” The helmeted man chimed in. Wooden dolls floated behind him repeating his words.

“Thank you, Evergreen. Thank you, Bickslow.” Freed looked pleadingly up at Laxus. Now that Freed was back to his normal appearance, Laxus was the taller of the two.

“Yeah. It wasn’t your fault,” Laxus replied gruffly, fighting back a blush.

“Thank you, Laxus,” Freed replied, relieved. “Now. What will you do? I’m afraid you probably won’t be welcomed back into your kingdom.”

“Yeah I guess not. I don’t think I’d want to go back anyway after what they did.”

“Well… there are plenty of rooms here,” Freed stated. “You’re welcome to stay if you want.”

“Really?”

“After all the trouble I caused, the least I can offer you is shelter and protection. I promise you can actually have a proper room this time, not just a rune cage in the foyer.”

“Heh, well that sounds like a pretty good deal, then.”

Freed reached out his hand and Laxus shook it, sealing the deal.

10~

Laxus took some time to explore the castle before finally venturing into his own room.

“Laxus?” Freed stepped in from the hallway and approached the man hesitantly.

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to say thank you for sticking up for me like that and for getting my heart back. I know you sacrificed a lot even though I did nothing to deserve your kindness.”

Laxus was shocked by Freed’s honesty and sincerity. “It was nothing,” he declared with a shrug. “Besides, you’re a lot nicer with your heart than without so it is a win-win for everyone, right?”

“Heh I guess so,” Freed blushed. “Still, it means a lot to me. I feel like my words are not enough to express my gratitude.” He pondered this for a moment and then moved closer to Laxus. He quickly placed a kiss on the other man’s lips.

Laxus was stunned, but only for a moment. He quickly recovered from the shock and wrapped an arm around Freed’s slender waist, pulling him closer to kiss him deeply. They stood there, entwined in each other's arms, in a well-deserved escape from the chaos they had experienced that week.

[obsidiancreates]

Preparing A Party For The Glitchiest Birthday Boy

(Yes, this is two days late. What are you gonna do about it, report me to Jackieboy?)

(I realized right at the end that I should add this disclaimer: Not trying to make them or their actions seem okay or soft or cute of anything. This is what they view as nice and being good friends and having a good time, and it’s written from their perspectives. It’s all obviously fucked up, but they view it as fine and normal.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Jimmy gnawed on a bone and stared at the wall, deep in thought.

“Wil, I just wanted to remind you not to go online today-” Dark walked into the room while looking at a phone, and when he lifted his head to see Jimmy he had to stifle a groan. His shell cracked ever so slightly, just enough that one of the mirrored images could be seen rolling its eyes. “Where did you get that?”

Jimmy snapped out of his trace. “Huh?” He took the bone out of his mouth and looked at it. “Oh, I found it in Ghost’s purse.”

“... What is it from.” It may have been a question in nature, but the way Dark said it most certainly replaced the question mark with a period.

“Don’t know! Could be human, could be from a monster, an alien, it’s anyone’s guess.”

Dark just stared with disgust. “Where’s Wilford?”

“He’s out getting Anti’s cake.”

“Anti’s cake?”

“It’s his birthday!” Jimmy stabbed the bone into his leg repeatedly as they talked. It was too dull to pierce, luckily. Dark was sick of blood getting all over the carpets. “I’m trying to think of a good present. Do you think a knife would be too expected?” Jimmy snapped his fingers. “Oh! Maybe a needle felt dying Jack! Homemade means I don’t have to spend any money!”

“You’re a disaster,” Dark deadpanned.

“I know!” Jimmy threw the bone onto the couch, and Dark made an audible noise of disgust. “Hmm, I need to get my stuff from home... could you kill me real quick?”

Dark didn’t even speak, he just reached out with his aura and snapped Jimmy’s neck.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wilford tsked. “Is this your whole selection?”

“Yes, although we can do custom cakes. We need a few days though.”

Wilford sighed. “How red is your red velvet?”

The girl behind the counter stared at him. “The... normal amount?”

“Can you make it even redder?” Wilford leaned on one elbow, raised his eyebrows, and wiggled his mustache. 

The girl behind the counter, Marie according to her nametag, looked slightly confused and uncomfortable. “Um... I don’t think so.”

Wilford frowned. “Well shoot,” he mumbled. “What about frosting? DO you have any that looks like blood?”

Marie seemed to be inching away from the counter. “I guess... what um, what for?”

“Oh, my friend just likes blood,” Wilford said, waving his hand in dismissal. “How about- hey, where’d you go?”

The swinging door to the back room was doing exactly that, swinging. Wilford shrugged. “Well, if you want something done you’ve got to do it yourself!”

He set off for the grocery store, humming.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jimmy was surprisingly quiet as he worked, stabbed the tufts of wool to shape them. It was a relief, really. Dark was sat comfortably in his favorite chair, going through the Markiplier tag on Tumblr.

He supposed he should be grateful that the glitch shared his birthday with the anniversary of that awful series. It would keep Wilford busy, hopefully keeping any incidents to a minimum. Wilford was always hard to handle when he remembered some of his past life. 

And... maybe, maybe, some small part of him disliked seeing Wilford upset.

Maybe.

A half-finished needle felt doll was shoved over Dark’s phone. “Does this look like he’s dead enough?” Jimmy pointed at the red line on the throat. “Or should I make it look like this is dripping?”

“I couldn’t care less.” Dark pushed the doll away and focused back on scanning the tag. He made a mental note to have Google block Wilford from social media privileges for the next few days.

“Come on! Be helpful!”

“To you? Absolutely not.”

“You and Anti go way back! What, you won’t even get him a card?”

“Pre-canon doesn’t count, Casket.” Dark made the ringing around him more intense to drive the murderer away. 

Jimmy ignored it. “Whatever. You’re the rudest of us all.”

“I am the only one who hasn’t actually murdered anyone.”

“You’ve killed me tons of times!”

Dark scoffed. “Those don’t count. You don’t stay dead.”

Jimmy crossed his arms. “It’s still murder! The police back home say so!” He scowled. “Besides, you didn’t either,” he muttered, quiet enough that Dark didn’t hear. He looked down at the half-finished doll in his hand. “Should I dip this in some Septic blood?” he thought aloud.

“As long as you don’t get it on my carpet or walls, I don’t care.”

Jimmy ran out the door. Dark cracked his neck. “Finally.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anti held up the knew puppet to the light. “I͡f y̶ou̡ ̨c͘ha͏ng̷e y̴o̶u͠r l͜o͞o̶k ͞agaìn,̴ ͟Bro̢dy͟,͢ I'm ͟g̶oin͠g aft̶e̡r yo҉ur ͘ḱi̡ḑs̨ ̡ag̡ain,” he mumbled. 

He had to knit a whole new puppet, of course, after Chase got his hair cut. He’d tried cutting the hair of his other one, but it just didn’t look right. He needed his puppets to be perfect matches if he wanted them to have any kind of power.

It wasn’t the worst way to spend his birthday. Sure, he’d rather be attacking the Septics brutally, but the timing would be just too predictable. They’d be prepared, and he didn’t want to have to struggle with anything on his birthday.

He hadn’t heard from Wilford or Jimmy at all, but he didn’t mind. Really, he didn’t. He had his phone close in case he wanted to set the community on fire. Not because he was waiting for a call or text. Not at all.

He tied some strings to the puppet and flicked it in the head. He glitched over to his monitors and saw Chase rub the back of his head and look around, confused. Anti grinned. Well, at least he had some entertainment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wilford plunked the grocery bags down on the counter. “GOOGLE!”

Google made his way to the kitchen, grumbling. He scowled at Wilford, who grinned right back. “What?” 

“Okay Google, pull up a cake recipe!”

Google glared at Wilford but did as he was told. Wilford started (messily) measuring the ingredients.

Google watched as various ingredients began thoroughly coating the counters. His core ached with the knowledge that he would be the one who had to clean it all up. “You could just make one appear,” he said, struggling to maintain his monotone voice.

Wilford gasped. “But then there’s no love in it!” He smiled as he mixed the dry ingredients together. “I used to do this all the time! Back in the day I was a master of cake making! I would make it, and then-”

The smile slowly faded.

“And- and then...”

Google didn’t say anything. He just watched as Wilford stared into the bowl, his eyes moving all around the room, like he was searching for something.

“He decorated them... I- I can’t remember his name...”

Google stiffened. Dark had made it very clear that he was to be alerted if Wilford had an “incident”. Google waited, seeing if it would escalate.

“D-Dames? Dam- Damien?” Wilford blinked. “Damien?”

Google was about to message Dark when Jimmy burst into the room. “Wil! Which Septic would Anti want blood from the most?!”

Wilford kept staring for a moment. Jimmy waved Knifey in front of Wilford’s face. “Helloooo? This is urgent! It’s for Anti’s present!”

Wilford blinked, stared at Jimmy, and then grinned. “Jimmy! When did you walk in?”

“Just a second ago! Quick, which Septic would Anti most want the blood of?!”

“Hmm...” Wilford stroked his mustache, then tapped on it, then went back to stroking it. “That doctor! Or the silent one! Of maybe the one with the hat!”

“THAT’S NOT HELPFUL AT ALL!” Jimmy ran out of the room, spouting off “heck”s and “darn”s the whole way.

Google smirked. Jimmy’s inability to curse always made him feel smug, same as with Bing’s safesearch filter.

Wilford went back to baking. “What was I talking about before? Ah, nevermind. There’s cake to be made!”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anti took a break from watching the Septics and went to look at the community tag. “O̢h̷ hell ͘y͠e͡a̴h.̢ I'm so fuçk͡in͟'͜ c̸o͏ol,͝” he said to himself as he scrolled through the fanart. “Oh͟,̀ that̴'̀s ͝g̷oo̡d͘!͝ I'm uśing tha͏t͝. W͝o̷w͘,̨ t̡hey͝'̨ve͘ g̡oţ some g͘r̕e̴at i̷dea̸s..̵.͠”

It was fortunate he took the break when he did. Otherwise the surprise of his present would have been completely ruined.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jimmy no-clipped through the wall, into where he was pretty sure the lab was. Anti had shown him around the place once before, right before he tried to murder the hero one. Good times...

Jimmy looked around. Yup, he got it right! Bright lights, cold title, hospital beds...

A slightly blue mouse sitting on a desk in one of the corners started squeaking at him, quickly and furiously. 

“Shut up,” he hissed. 

The mouse squeaked even more.

Jimmy ignored it. No time!

He moved to the back room, where Anti had told him Jack was kept. He got his own room. Seemed like overkill to Jimmy, but it did make sneaking up to him easier.

The magic spells protecting the room did nothing to keep Jimmy out. They’d been made with Anti in mind, after all.

Jimmy walked up to the bed where the comatose Jacksepticeye laid, unmoving and unresponsive. “Not here to kill you,” Jimmy said as he got Knifey out, “That would be a terrible birthday present. Anti really wants to do that himself.” Jimmy tapped his chin. “Where to get the blood from...”

The neck? That was part of Anti’s whole style... but maybe somewhere less risky, after all for once Jimmy wanted the person he was stabbing to live...

He shrugged, went for a part of the abdomen that usually bled the least in his experience, and just hoped for the best.

He coated the doll thoroughly, until it was fully red and dripping. “Perfect!” He cleared his throat. ‘HEY SEPTIC WEIRDOS! I JUST STABBED JACK IN THE ABDOMEN!”

He heard some distant crashing, shouting, and then all five of them burst into the room at once. He grinned at them. “Don’t worry, I didn’t try to kill him! I just needed some blood!”

Chase shot him. Jimmy re-spawned immediately and went in for a few stabs.

He only managed to get some more blood from Schneep and Jameson. Jackie and Marvin kept killing him before he could get them. Schneep ran for Jack as soon as he could, despite the others trying to hold him back, so he was an easy target. Jameson tried to attack him with a cane sword (where the heck did he even get one of those?), and Jimmy managed to cut his hand.

“Well, that was fun! Bye!” Jimmy waved at them with the bloody doll and no-clipped through the wall again. He stole a car and quickly drove back to the Iplier household, somehow, despite them being across the ocean and hours away.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Wilford took the cake out right as Jimmy burst back into the house. “I GOT THE BLOOD!”

Wilford peered at the doll. “Wow! That’s a fantastic likeness!”

“I know! I’m very proud of it!” Jimmy beamed. He looked at the cake. “Ooooh, that’s really red!”

“I was think green frosting, your thoughts?”

Jimmy licked some blood off of Knifey. “Kinda Christmas-y.”

“Well, he did have that whole Overnightwatch thing. He loved that!”

“True! Add some black too! OH! Let’s do black eyes!”

“Genius!” Wilford got right to mixing up the frosting colors. “Want to help?”

“Can I eat the leftover frosting?”

“Sure!”

Jimmy wasted no time furiously mixing the colors, and then slathering the cake with frosting. He set the doll on the counter, much to the annoyance of Google. 

Soon they had a fully-decorated cake. Green frosting, black eyes, black sprinkles, and as an extra touch, a knife with fake blood (really just translucent writing frosting).

“It’s perfect!” Wilford gazed at their creation with adoration. 

Jimmy whipped his phone out and texted Anti. “Let’s move it to the living room!”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

Anti glitched into the Iplier’s living room. “Ìs͟ Dar̵k̵ ́actuall͡y̨ ̴c̡ove̕re̛d i͞n̵ ͜gl̨itt̸er̴?́ ̕B̕eca͏ųse ̕if̶ s̴o thi̶s ̵i͜s ̛t̛he ̧best͢... b̨i̵rt͝hd͞a҉y̵... “

He stared at the cake on the coffee table, the small box next to it, and his two friends standing on either side.

“Surprise!” they shouted. Jimmy threw some of that sharp plastic confetti at him while Wilford went with shooting a glitter bomb out of a grenade launcher.

“.̨.. ͡wha̶t̡ the ͠f͡u̕c͜k̀?̨” was all Anti could think to say. He didn’t mean it in a bad way though.

“Come open the present!” Jimmy grabbed his arm and pulled him closer. He slammed the box into Anti’s hand. 

Anti tore the wrapping paper off and pulled out-

“Is ̢t̡h́i͞s͟ ҉a ́de͠ad ̵J̢a̸c͜k?̨”

“Covered in his blood! I didn’t kill him, but I did also get some blood from the doctor and the old-timey one! Do you like it?”

“L̨i̢ke͟ i̢t? It's ҉p̢erf͠ȩct.” Anti grinned deviously. “I̶ ̵ca̶n'̛t ͢w͝a̛i̴t ̶to p̸o̶s̛t a͟ ̡pictur̀e ǫf̸ ̡i͜t̕ and̨ śe̸t͘ th̛e ̨f҉a̵n͝s on ̶f̡i̢r̀e̛!”

“YES! I DID GOOD!”

Anti looked down at the cake. “Are̶ t͟hos̀e̴ m͜y͡ ҉ęy̷es̶?”

“They are! and the inside is bright red! Red velvet flavor!” Wilford gestured to the knife. “Go ahead!”

Anti cut a piece and ate it off the knife instead of getting a fork and plate.

Jimmy took that as a queue to dive in his his hands.

Wilford got a plate without actually grabbing one and shoveled it in.

They finished the whole cake in mere minutes. Then they all ran out to the yard, buzzing from the sugar. Anti tackled Jimmy and killed him, cackling. Now this was his kind of birthday!

[akatokuro]

The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episode 36

One of the most truly pressing issues in Saint Seiya canon: why the fuck is Milo like this?

- I SEE THAT SAGA SENSED THAT AIOLOS WAS TAKING A BATH, SO HE FELT THE NEED TO JUMP IN TOO! and thus a meme was born

- Uhhhh, Saga? I know you probably had a crush on Aiolos at all, but... really, dude? ????????

- AND HEEEERE HEEEEE ISSSSSSSS

- Milo's ridiculous ego is on full display the second he opens his fucking mouth. No "what's going on, Pope?" or "How may I serve you?" but "WOW, POPE, FOR YOU TO SUMMON A GOLD SAINT! (DID I MENTION I'M A GOLD SAINT, BECAUSE I AM.)

- MILO. ALL HE FUCKING DID WAS ASK IF YOU KNEW ABOUT THE SITUATION. What is the need for you to add "heh, not that I care, since I'm so awesome, just so you know!" Yes, a lot of Gold Saints have pretty overinflated egos - yume and I actually thought about it, and we're pretty sure Camus is just about the ONLY one who doesn't pull some form of smug "heh, a Bronze trying to fight a Gold? lmao, and also, rofl" but Scorpio Milo is... something else.

- Ikki working for Sanctuary at first still feels really weird and ill-fitting. Well, fortunately, it's not really dwelled on that much, so it's easily ignored! That's one of the good things about there being no real Saint Seiya canon... <_<

- In a way, though, it is certainly fitting that Milo's scene here is our first proper introduction to a "Gold Saint", because Milo certainly thinks he is THE Gold Saint in a lot of ways. It drips from the way he responds to everything. "Measly Bronze Saints, they must be crazy, lol!" It's actually really interesting to think he was originally planned to be Hyouga's master. Like, in some ways that really fits - Smugswan had to get the smug and the overinflated sense of ego from somewhere, and it sure as hell wasn't Camus!

- It's also sort of interesting because Kurumada pulled the switcheroo on the basis of "oooh, ice/water themed signs, oooh!" But even at this stage, Milo definitely has a very, very different personality than Marshmallow Saint Camus. What would he and Hyouga's hypothetical encounter have looked like, really...?

- I'm not trying to imply, by the way, that Milo's sense of egotism is solely about straightforwardly boosting himself up - because it's not. It's intertwined with his perception of Saint honor and what it means to him to embody that, which becomes clear in how he deals with Camus, Hyouga, and Kanon respectively later on. It's also intertwined with a negative five thousand debuff to his intelligence stat, but, you know.

- I love Saga just sort of ignoring Milo going WHAT? A BRONZE BEATING A SILVER? RIDICULOUS, I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING! and continuing to exposit. Saga, why the fuck did you summon Milo of all people here to deal with this in the first place? I mean, not only would leaning on Aphrodite, Deathmask, or even Shura make infinitely more sense, but... it's fucking Milo. Did your bath-bonding with Aiolos rattle your judgment temporarily?  

- And right back at him, Milo basically brushes aside poor Saga's exposition to go "ARE YOU SERIOUSLY BOTHERING THE GREAT KONO MILO WITH THIS BULLSHIT, POPE? REALLY??? KONO MILO, THE GOLD SAINT???"

- Saga begins to realize his terrible, terrible mistake and cuts off Milo in the middle of his bitching, but Milo ignores him to continue whining.

- See, it'd be one thing if Milo suggested that the situation bore more investigation, or perhaps these Bronze Saints were being misled so they shouldn't be so fast to jump to the execution option, but no. It's all about his fucking pride.

- Saga is getting so edgy and short at this point and oh my god I cannot believe Milo is still fucking trying to argue with him THIS IS THE FUCKING POPE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

- Like, yume and I utterly lost our fucking minds at Milo blowing off Athena to haze Kanon when we were re-watching the Hades OAVs, but oh god it is extremely fucking consistent with this characterization here

- Poor Saga. "LOOK, THEY HAVE A FUCKING GOLD CLOTH, OKAY!?!? JESUS CHRIST WHY THE FUCK DID I NOT GET APHRODITE TO DO THIS"

- okay okay i know it's because lol seat of the pants kurumada making shit up as he went along and was promptly retconned out because it makes no sense but i will never stop laughing at milo being shocked that there are twelve gold saints. WHAT??? NOT JUST SCORPIO AND SAGITTARIUS???? WHO WOULD HAVE EVER GUESSED???? THEY COME IN, LIKE, A SET????

- Kanon pretending he's Sea Dragon is the funniest moment in Saint Seiya, but Milo's spectacular intelligence debuff is also a consistent point of hilarity.

- Shaina's crush on Seiya might be, like, one of my least favorite things in StS seriously. It's so unnecessary and it IS basically a pitch-perfect example of that "behind the ruthless, frightening female warrior lies ~the soft heart of a woman~ that only the dreamy male protagonist can truly uncover!" trope that I fucking despise with all my being.

- yume and I were cracking the fuck up to discover that the Tencent version of this sequence has Seiya bringing up the Saintias when Shaina explains the mask issue. Like, my issues with Saintia Sho as a series aside, that's just really adorable.

- The mask issue in general... there are really interesting things that you could do with it, both for Sainthood in general and for Shaina as an individual (the vibe I get is that Shaina takes it unusually seriously, even though it is accepted as a general rule) since it feels like sort of a mark of sexism that would be a part of an old, traditional, religious order - but I can't say I'm a fan of any attempts so far in the series to "address" it. Omega was a thing, and that thing was Bad.

- "Kill or love" is pretty bullshit, though. How about "kill or be expelled from Sanctuary"? I also don't really like Seiya being all "what, is that the only reason?" when he thinks it's about humiliation/pride - like, what's wrong with that? It makes sense with how Shaina has been characterized...

- this flashback is so fucking stupid

- OH NO, SEIYA, YOU SAW ME PET A RABBIT WHEN YOU WERE A LITTLE KID AND I WAS A TEENAGER AND THUS YOU HAVE UNLOCKED MY SOFT WOMAN'S HEART! I bet Seiya fucking tried to jump a high bar, too, as every single woman from the Fate franchise happened to be strolling by?

- Like, Shaina, did you fall in love with this little kid who talked down to you then or... because uhhh...

- Also, like, yeah, it's Saint Seiya, and "pulled things out of my ass" and "retconned" are the name of the game, but come on, there was no indication of this kind of past in all the screentime Shaina has had up until this point. Wasn't her grudge against him regarding Marin and Cassios and being defeated by him in battle enough? Do we really have to enforce her ~femininity~ that Seiya ~exposed~ too? Ugh ugh ugh.

- Whatever, I really do like Shaina, this garbage aside. It's just a shame we fell back on this dumb trope of all things to justify her transition into one of the good guys when it was wholly unneeded.

- Aaaand we're back to Milo and Saga. I love how the framing of this episode implies that Saga has been sitting there having to explain things very slowly to Milo all fucking day. Gonna need another bath to unwind after this shit, Gemini.

- HAVE I MENTIONED, POPE, THAT I AM A GOLD SAINT, AND THUS I AM AMAZING? I'M NOT SURE YOU KNEW. LET ME MENTION IT AGAIN. I'M A GOLD SAINT, BY THE WAY.

- And Lia enters the scene!

- Okada made this an explicit issue in Episode G, but the contrast between fully-decked-out-in-his-Cloth "have I mentioned in the last five minutes that I am a Gold Saint, preen preen" Milo and Lia--who strolls in WITHOUT his Cloth, just his regular training clothes - is really striking.

- Milo's face when Lia comes in... hmmm...

- I don't think Saga, like, actively made a point of or went out of his way to play ~mind games~ with Aiolia or anything, but this is definitely a deliberate passive-aggressive diss. The kind you would give when it's like, ah yes, I ruined this kid's life, let me just innocuously twist the knife a little here...

- You really can understand why Aiolia is as fucking mad and as fucking repressed as he is, from the dressed-up hostility coming from both sides in this whole amazing shitstorm.

- This is... an amazing moment. "What if I still wanted Milo to go?" "Eh, I'd kick his fucking ass." And Milo's EXCUSE ME!?!?! reaction lmfaooooo

- You can just sense the stony bitterness coming off of Lia here, though? This is a dangerous game to play, considering the whole rule about "no duels between Saints." Just the sheer dismissiveness of it, too. Just as Saga gets in his passive-aggressive digs against Aiolia, Lia gets his in against... Milo, lol?

- And Milo starts trying to argue with the Pope AGAIN and Saga finally just tells him to shut the hell up. Saga confirmed for legitimately impressive patience honestly.

- God, and Lia just leaves once he gets the confirmation. I LOVE that Aiolia went through this whole thing since coming in without saying a single fucking word to Milo or sparing him more than a glance. Please, just ask this man about his opinion of Scorpio Milo, I’m begging you.

- MILO FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

- And Saga is the one who points out that, BECAUSE of his history and his relation to Aiolos, he has a compelling reason to work on this case in particular. Milo just stops at HOW COULD YOU RELY ON HIM HE HAS TRAITOR'S BLOOD. The intelligence debuff is real.

- But, yeah, you can tell Lia has cause to be as cold, dismissive, and passive-aggressive towards Milo as he was. They... they do not have a good relationship.  

- It legitimately boggles my mind how there is a weird semi-common fanon about Milo and Lia being close friends, or Milo being this great guy who was so supportive of him. I've run across it multiple times in my hunts for cute fanart or interesting discussion, and I feel like I'm staring at an incomprehensible alien entity every time. Like. Where did you get that. How did. The characterization we get from both of them indicates the exact opposite. I would not be remotely surprised if Aiolia, as bitter and angry as he truly is, is going to hold a grudge against Milo until the end of time, long after Milo has forgotten about it.

- Rather than being his friend, Milo is literally the ONLY Gold Saint we see actually giving Aiolia shit for being a traitor's brother. Like I mentioned back in the Silver Saint scene with Aiolia, yume and I actually talked about this - since she is a raving Aiolia fan and all - about the possible sources of Lia's torment from his peers. The shitty Silver Saints, yes, and Deathmask, yes, because he's actively malicious in general, but he wouldn't be rubbing it in because he actually cares or thinks Lia having "traitor blood" actually means something. MILO sure does, though!

- Milo is prideful, often in shallow ways, and incredibly overbearing about that pride, thinking he has the right to lecture and judge and override others, including Athena herself. There is like literally no question in my mind that he is friends with Camus because Camus is basically the only person who knows him who will actually tolerate him.

- Milo: "Hmm, lots of people don't trust the Pope, and no one has seen his face. WHAT COULD IT MEAN??? welp back to my temple wonder what camus is up to"

- "Brother, I will make up for your sin, even if I have to sacrifice my life!" with a thousand-yard stare. Aiolia, you really, really need some therapy, badly...

- Man, I was gonna cover more episodes with this writeup, but it ends up I had a lot of ranting bottled up about GOD MILO WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU. Oh well. Next time, Aiolia continues to have serious, serious psychological problems! A good time is had by all!

[ohmytheon]

heroes of the dark (1)

title: heroes of the dark

pairing: Uraraka/Midoriya, Uraraka/Bakugou, but mostly friendships and focused on OchaDeku

summary: Uraraka has spent almost a year grieving the tragic loss of Deku, the hero who was supposed to save the world and the boy she loved with everything in her, but she is slowly moving on, acting as the hero that Deku would want her be. She's got her job, her friends, and her life. She's even managed a strange friendship with Bakugou, who bore the weight of Deku's death almost as hard as her. Things are once again looking hopeful. This is, until, Deku comes back into her life and shatters everything she's rebuilt. Except he's not what he seems. Something is wrong with him - with his mind - and Uraraka will be damned if she lets the darkness take him again. If only he agreed with her. If only he wasn't so determined to take her with him.

– Chap 1: Uraraka and Bakugou do their own version of mourning Deku on a day like any other.

notes:  When I first saw Villain!Deku stuff, I thought, no way, not my precious boy. Because he is a hero through and through! But damn if the fanart didn't suck me in. However, when I went scrambling for fanfiction, as one does, I found that nearly every single one lacked something: my girl Ochako Uraraka. I desperately wanted a villain!Deku fanfic that had Uraraka as a main character/protagonist, but found maybe one or two tops. Sometimes, in order to read exactly what you want, and so I did despite having that insane BNHA/FMA fanfic already underway. Deku will always be a hero in my heart and I think the heart of this story - however the hell it ends up - will be about bringing him back to where he belongs. I made myself upset writing this.

Love is willing to become to villain so that the one who you love can stay a hero. ― Josephine Angelini, Firewalker

Uraraka woke up falling.

Or at least it was the sensation of falling.

She jerked awake in her large bed, her legs and arms flailing as she was snatched out of the nightmare. For a brief moment, she was tangled in a sea of blankets and sheets and felt as if she’d actually fallen into the choppy water, but then a cool breeze and the sounds of the city blew in from her open window and she went still. She took a moment to stare at the ceiling before she slid her hands over her face and took a deep breath. By the time she pulled her hands away and opened her eyes, her heart had stopped pounding in her chest.

It had been almost a month since she’d last had the dream. Why had it come back out of the blue? She had thought that it might finally leave her alone, but no, it had come back to her last night in an unforgiving way. Even now, it clung to her desperately, hanging in the corner of her mind, as if afraid that she might forget it completely.

She had to get up. She had to get out of bed. She had to get on with her day.

Like she did every morning that she had off, Uraraka took a long, hot shower first. She took her time with her hair and with washing herself, like she could scrub away anything with a loofah. After that, she made herself breakfast in her small but cozy kitchen while the radio played in the background. She walked around her apartment aimlessly in a pink bathrobe and worn through slippers drinking a cup of coffee. It was only when she caught sight of her calendar that she came to a halt.

Oh. It was his birthday today.

As if on cue, the phone rang, forcing Uraraka to look away. She knew that she should answer it, but she also knew what it would be about, even if she didn’t know who exactly was on the other end. She waited until the answering machine picked it up, her single voice telling the caller to leave a message, and then listened as Tsu’s voice left a voicemail.

“Hey, Ochako, I was calling to see if you wanted to have lunch,” her best friend said on the other end. “No sense in lying. You shouldn’t have to be alone today. Call me back, please, or I’ll try again later.”

That was Tsu for you -- straight and to the point. She always said what was on her mind, even if it made other people uncomfortable. Uraraka didn’t mind. She knew that Tsu wouldn’t be the only one calling today, but she would be one of the very few who would be open about why. There was no sense in lying. It didn’t matter what any of her friends said; she’d know what they were up to. It was sweet of them, truly, but she couldn’t let herself get wrapped up in this today.

More than anything, she was desperate for it to be normal. Deep down she knew that her attempts to make it so during the day would only make it worse for her come tonight and she’d probably be calling Tsu babbling through tears, but Uraraka wanted to at least pretend like she was strong enough to handle this on her own. Even if she also knew that she didn’t have to.

Besides, weren’t they suffering too? Weren’t they sad as well? She should tend to their grief. She was being selfish.

Later, she’d call back Tsu later, but for now, Uraraka went about the rest of her morning routine. She took a walk around the quiet neighborhood she’d moved to two years ago. It wasn’t much, but it was very nice in her opinion and it was low in crime, almost as if any villains actively stayed out of the area. She ran errands, going to the bank and the farmer’s market and the like, smiling at neighbors and making friendly smalltalk with the vendors. The sun was out and everyone seemed so happy.

However, when she came home to a silent and empty apartment, no amount of natural light could lift the dark cloud that had been brewing in her mind. She dropped the bags and sunk down into a crouch with her back to her front door and covered her face once more as if to shield herself.

The phone rang again -- had probably been ringing while she was out since her cell was turned off -- and Uraraka once again waited for the voice of one of her close friends. Maybe it would be Iida this time or Momo. Maybe it would be Hatsumi or even Todoroki.

It was none of them. Instead, of all people, it was Bakugou.

“Hey, Round Face, you better be decent because I’m gonna be over there in like three minutes,” Bakugou’s voice said with all the delicacy of a wrecking ball. “We’re going day drinking.”

There was no preamble. No “are you doing okay” or “do you need some company” or “it’ll be alright”. It was just plain old Bakugou blowing his way in. He’d never changed in that respect. When it came to any defensive walls that she might have put up around everyone else, he just blew them up and stepped right over them, like they weren’t even there for a reason, like they didn’t matter to him.

Uraraka could be mad -- probably should be mad -- but it felt nice to not be treated like glass.

A few minutes later, just as he had said, the doorknob rattled and swung open. Having cleaned herself up, Uraraka was busy putting the items from her errand away in the pantry, but that still didn’t stop her from gawking in confusion as Bakugou stepped inside her place and kicked the door shut behind him.

“Excuse me,” she greeted, “but I don’t remember giving you a key.”

“You didn’t,” Bakugou simply told her, like that was all she needed to know. Uh, definitely not. Him having a key to her place was a new development as far as she was concerned. He rolled his eyes. “I made a second copy of it like ten months ago.” Ah, during the dark days when everyone had acted as if they couldn’t leave her alone for more than a day. None of the others had stolen her keys to make a copy. “Never used it before though. Stupid thing acted like it didn’t want to work at first.”

A part of her wanted to hold out her hand and tell him to hand it over. Another part of her realized that it would be futile and she wasn’t sure if he didn’t have a backup just in case she did demand it. Not that it mattered in the end. He could do whatever he wanted. It wasn’t like he came over all the time or something.

“That what you’re wearing?” Bakugou asked as he sat down on one of the stools that were placed behind the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. She had thought it cute when first looking for apartments. It was where someone could sit down and still chat and see whoever was in the kitchen.

Uraraka looked down at her outfit, black leggings with a baggy, faded red sweatshirt/dress that hung over her shoulders, and a black sports bra showing. It was a lazy outfit to match her slow-going day. She gave Bakugou a shrewd look. “Yes, what’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” Bakugou replied with a grunt, but he was still eyeing her strangely.

“Do you want me to change?”

Bakugou waved a dismissive hand. “No, I don’t give a shit what you wear.” Then why the hell had he commented on it? Sometimes, he had a way of drawing attention to the smallest details, somehow making her feel insecure even when he genuinely didn’t seem to mean to. She liked this outfit and she was going to wear it. After all, they were just going to do some day drinking, not some fancy restaurant. “You done?”

“Yeah.” Uraraka turned around to face him. “So where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Uraraka huffed. “So the same place as usual. Got it.”

The fact that she hadn’t fought this at all was either a testament to how tired she was or proof that she didn’t really want to be alone. It wasn’t the first time she and Bakugou had done something like this, but it wasn’t like it was a regular thing. He was off doing his own hero thing and she was doing hers. They had different lives and even lived in different cities, although he wasn’t that far away.

It occurred to her to realize that they never crossed each other’s paths accidentally anymore -- that every interaction between them was intentional and mostly on his behalf -- but he was still a normal part of her life. They didn’t call each other daily and sometimes she didn’t hear from him for a week, but then he’d shoot her a text or she’d email him an article or they just found themselves at lunch and that was that. It wasn’t an easy friendship -- it never was with Bakugou -- but it was...something consistent.

The fact that Bakugou never truly changed made her feel good, even if he was different than he had been at school. She wouldn’t quite say that he was soft, but he wasn’t as sharp around the edges anymore. He could definitely still be cutting when he wanted to be and she didn’t doubt his temper for a second, but he’d learned how not to blow up at the drop of a hat.

They walked a mile down the street to a bar that was reasonably nice. It had a good outdoor sitting area and a surprisingly nice selection of craft beers and variety of whiskeys. They even had better than average food. She had found the place shortly after moving here when exploring the area. According to Bakugou, it was the only good place around her neighborhood. If they had lunch or dinner, it was either by his place or further into the city.

It was a nice day, so they got an outdoor table and Bakugou immediately ordered for them, “We need two orders of gyozo and your most expensive bottle of sake. Scratch that. Make it two as well.”

“Bakugou!” Uraraka gasped.

“What?” Bakugou scoffed at her as the server scurried away. “I’m not drinking shit sake.”

Uraraka’s cheeks turned a little pinker. “But...it’s…”

“It’s what? I make a boat load of money. This is nothing.” Bakugou was, as usual, not modest, but he wasn’t outright bragging either. It was what it was. As one of the top pro heroes, he did make great money. She admittedly made good money as well, enough to support herself happily and give her parents a comfortable life, but old habits would always die hard.

It didn’t escape her that his words implied that he was paying for all this. He wasn’t going to say that outright either, but if she so much as moved to pull out her wallet, he’d snap at her. This was him being...nice. Helpful. A friend. She took it, knowing that, even though he wouldn’t admit it, today was almost as big of a deal for him as it was for her. Maybe just as big. He wouldn’t tell her the exact truth and she wouldn’t force it out of him.

When their alcohol arrived, along with two waters, Bakugou shoved one sake bottle over to her side of the table and then opened his to pour himself a cup. His courtesy extended as far as paying and nothing more, but it only made her smile. “What are you even doing here, Bakugou?” she asked, the smile still on her face.

“I’m drinking,” Bakugou replied almost childishly. When Uraraka set the bottle down and gave him a look, he huffed out a sigh. “You know why.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know that,” Bakugou huffed again. He pointed a finger at her. “But here’s what’s gonna happen anyway: we’re gonna avoid talking about him; we’re gonna get drunk and then we’re gonna talk about him; you’re gonna cry yourself out; I’m gonna make you laugh, carry your drunk ass home, and put you to bed; and then you’re gonna thank me and go the fuck to sleep.”

It wasn’t funny in the slightest. This was a serious matter that was going to end with her in tears. She didn't like admitting that though and hearing it said to her out loud made her hackles raise. “Do you think I'm that weak that I'll just cry all over you?”

“I'm not underestimating your strength, Uraraka,” Bakugou told her bluntly, his use of her name telling her how serious he was. She didn't think he would ever use her first name. She'd probably have a heart attack if he did. “You're basically the strongest person I know. Anyone else would've fallen apart and crashed, but not you.” The appetizers arrived and Bakugou picked up his chopsticks, pointing them at her accusingly. “Now you better eat because I'm ordering a stupid amount of food.”

Just like that, they switched gears. It was easy to do with Bakugou, who could drive a conversation like he would a sports car, completely in control and at a breakneck speed. He delved easily into his most recent hero activity, going from a huge villain takedown that she had seen in the news but just had to hear straight from the source to his most recent complaint about one of the sidekicks he seemed to loathe but kept around just so he could complain about the guy.

Bakugou was the kind of guy that could talk about himself a lot -- and you were somehow happy for it, because it was entertaining and you didn’t want to talk about yourself. And right now, Uraraka didn’t want to talk. She wanted the blissful ignorance that came with just listening to someone who could make the world spin around them. She liked his stories, always peppered with colorful language and vivid imagery. It immersed her in his world and swept her away from everything else.

They were each on their second bottle of sake and had ordered some more appetizers and Uraraka hadn’t even blinked. She’d sat there raptured, laughing at inappropriate moments that had him griping at her and throwing in teasing comments that made him smirk. It was an easy flow. She always forgot that until they were right here in these moments. That it could be easy. That she could breathe. Even with him.

“I saw on the news what you did last week,” Bakugou told her abruptly. His cheeks were pinker than he would ever admit, the sake finally taking its toll on him. She knew that she was worse. It was getting closer to the evening now. They’d been here for so long that the sun was starting its slow descent behind the city skyline. The orange haze made Bakugou glow like fire, his sandy hair and red eyes sticking out even more than usual.

Uraraka smiled shyly into her glass of water. “It wasn’t much.”

“It was fucking cool is what it was,” Bakugou corrected. “You saved ten people from a burning building and then helped catch the bastard that started it? Fucking cool.”

Deep down, Uraraka knew that she had done a good job and after consuming a terrible amount of alcohol, even over the span of quite a few hours, she could admit that she was proud of herself. But it was hard to do that when the one person that mattered the most -- the one save that she needed to do -- had slipped right from her fingertips. Not literally, of course. She hadn’t been able to touch him at all, missing him by mere inches. She could still feel the swish of empty air when she’d desperately reached out for him.

She had to save those people. She had to save everyone. She had to make up for who she hadn’t. And she hadn’t. She hadn’t saved him. She’d missed him and she’d fallen out of the sky to catch him and she’d still-- she’d still--

Oh, it was happening. Just as Bakugou had told her it would.

Despite being knee deep in drinking, Bakugou spotted it as well, the sudden shift in her demeanor that told him it was finally time. Her eyes dropped to her hands in her lap and he set his cup back on the table and leaned back in his seat. She suddenly wished that she hadn’t drank so much. She didn’t want to talk about it like this -- she knew that she wouldn’t be able to control herself -- and yet she also knew that she wouldn’t have talked about it at all if she hadn’t been in this state.

Uraraka could go weeks without talking to anyone about it until some reporter asked her how Uravity was faring after her devastating loss of Deku.

“I know it’s been almost a year,” Uraraka finally said, her voice so damn small, “but I still miss him.” Bakugou didn’t say anything for once. This was her time to talk. This whole thing was her time to talk, but he’d filled up the space until she was ready. “I still… It doesn’t happen nearly as often anymore, but I still sometimes forget that he’s gone. I’ll come home, expecting to smell take out and a hint of smoke from where he attempted to cook a fancy meal and failed, or I’ll roll over, half awake, and reach out for him -- and there’s just nothing. He’s not there. It’s like he was never there to begin with.”

Any of her other friends would’ve reached out to hold her hand, switch to the seat next to her, get up and wrap their arms around her shoulders. Bakugou didn’t do any of those things. He just stayed in his seat, watching her, and stayed silent, listening. His face was remarkably passive considering who he was, his eyes unreadable. Most of their friends didn’t think Bakugou was capable of patient listening, but she knew better. She knew that there was a quiet before the worst of storms and this one was hers.

“He was this...huge part of my life and not just because we were…” Uraraka rubbed her eyes. “And when he was gone, he was just gone. I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. He didn’t let me.”

After almost eleven months, she didn’t know whether to be angry or upset anymore it. He’d done what he did because he was a hero. It was who he was. He’d saved her life because she couldn’t save his and in his eyes, if his fate was sealed in order to save hers, then that was that. There was no other option. He had been ready to die to save someone else.

But it wasn’t fair because he was so more important than her. His place in the world was more than hers could ever be. The ten people she’d saved from an arsonist was nothing compared to the hundred he’d saved during an earthquake. She would never be the hero he could be and yet he’d still sacrificed himself to ensure she would live.

“And I’m just expected to move on with my life,” Uraraka said, tears slipping down her face. Just as Bakugou had said, she was going to cry in public. How humiliating. “Did you see that article online the other day?”

“Oh, the one about whether or not you were dating that pro hero… Kamui Wood?” Bakugou wrinkled his nose in distaste. “A bit old for you, isn’t he?” It was a brief attempt to lighten the mood and Uraraka made to laugh but then she started to cry instead, so all in all, a bit of a fail. She appreciated it though. “Fuck what they have to say. No one expects you to do anything except live. Take all the time you need. Never date again. Who gives a fuck?”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Uraraka mumbled. “You apparently have a new lay every week.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes. “That’s fucking stupid.” He smirked at her. “It’s every other week.”

That half laugh/half cry slipped out of her again. She couldn't react any other way. Bakugou didn't snap at her for it, but he didn't pity her either. There was no “poor little Uraraka lost her boyfriend” coming from him. It was understanding that there were some chasms that couldn't be filled; sometimes they had to be climbed.

“He was supposed to be the greatest hero there ever was,” Uraraka whispered. It was a testament to how much he had grown that Bakugou didn’t respond to that statement at all. “And I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t do anything.”

“Bullshit,” Bakugou snapped, not meanly. “You nearly died trying to save him. You literally plummeted in a free fall in an attempt to reach him again. The only reason you didn’t kill yourself trying to save him was because he had the foresight to see how blind you were to yourself.” They’d gone over this before, but they needed to again, one more time. She knew he was right. She knew she was being irrational. But she needed to hear it said once more. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine for not aiming right. I couldn’t get you to where you needed to be to reach him in time.”

A spike of panic flashed through Uraraka, a painful tug on her heart. He had never said anything like that before, only that it wasn’t her fault. “Bakugou, you did your very best. You did everything you could.”

Bakugou tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “Did I though? I keep asking myself if I could’ve done more. Maybe if I’d gone out there with you, maybe if I’d been able more damage to that damn villain so that Deku wouldn’t have had to use everything he had against him mid-air over a fucking ocean.” He sighed and leaned forward, looking terribly uncomfortable at having opened up. “All I could do in the end was make sure that you didn’t go under too. That’s what he wanted. I knew it the second he used the last bit of his strength to push you away from the water right before he hit it.”

That was the nightmare though, wasn't it? That they had done everything they possibly could've done to save him and they had still failed. What kind of heroes did that make them?

The moment Deku had leapt from the cliff, the blast off so strong that it had knocked them all back, Uraraka had known that nothing was going to be the same. It was either stop the villain now or let the city explode. They'd watched from their pathetic spots on the ground, covered in blood, sweat, and mud, as Deku collided fist first like a rocket into the villain and exploded with a power that none of them would ever be able to grasp. There had only been a moment of cheer and relief before they had realized that Deku was falling towards the ocean and falling fast.

He was always falling in her dreams and, just as she hadn't that night, she could never reach him then.

“I keep thinking that one day I'll wake up and it'll just be normal that I'm by myself.” Uraraka bit her lip. “One day I'll be able to put on my suit and not question myself about whether I'm worthy enough.”

Bakugou bolted forward in his seat so fast that he bumped into the table, the empty sake bottles and their glasses clinking as they trembled in the wake of his anger. “Don't you ever fucking question yourself like that, okay? You're an incredible hero. Deku knew that. You could tell that by the way he looked at you like you were the fucking moon and stars.” When she didn't look totally convinced, he clenched his hands into fists on top of the table. “You had your whole world turned upside down and most people would have shattered. Two weeks after, you went back to work, back to saving lives, back to kicking ass. I'm still pissed at you for that. You needed way more time.”

“I couldn't sit around and do nothing!” Uraraka told him hotly, tears flooding her eyes again. “I couldn't just stand there and act like the world had stopped turning, even if it felt like it had for me. That's not the kind of hero Deku was and I wasn't going to let it be me. There were still people that needed to be saved, needed to be helped, and I promised myself that I would do that for him. That I'd do it for me -- to prove that I was worth it.”

There was a shadow over Bakugou's face, one that she couldn't quite place, as he said in an uncharastically quiet voice, “You've always been worth it. He knew that right from the start.” The words were spoken with no less aggression than usual despite how quiet he was.

But they were just the right things to say. Uraraka could feel the walls bursting inside of her, punctured by such a simple statement. She curled her legs up in the chair so she could wrap her arms around them and press her face into her knees. Tears spilled out of her eyes and he let her cry. She didn’t care if there were people around them. She didn’t care if anyone she knew saw her. She didn’t care if the paparazzi showed up and snapped pictures of her weeping and made some ridiculous tabloid (although she was certain Bakugou would blow a gasket and physically haul them away). She just let the tears come until they stopped.

Eventually they did. As all things did, her tears came to an end. When it happened, she took a deep breath and lifted her face, the cool breeze of the evening chilling the tears on her face.

Bakugou took one look at her and screwed up his face. “You look like your face is melting.”

“It’s my makeup, you idiot,” Uraraka told him.

“Next time be prepared for emotional shit and wear waterproof makeup.”

Despite everything -- the pain, the absence, and the longing for something far gone -- Uraraka felt a little lighter. She also felt the beginnings of a headache, but that was usually what happened after drinking and a heavy cry spell. Bakugou pushed a water towards her and she accepted it gratefully. “You’re shit at comforting, you know.”

“Good thing I’m just here to drink,” Bakugou responded. “Now go clean your face before people start to think that I broke up with you or something.”

Uraraka thought to comment on him not caring about what people thought, but agreed that she did probably look like shit. Besides, a splash of water against her face would help her feel fresher. She hurried to the bathroom so she could fix herself up, fishing out her phone in the process. The amount of missed calls and unanswered text messages made her cringe, but truth be told, she’d forgotten all about it while they’d been talking. The first and only person she responded to was Tsu, who she knew would spread the word for her.

Ochako Sorry I haven’t answered any of your calls. I’m fine.

Tsu Are you sure? You haven’t answered anyone. We’ve been worried.

Ochako Again sorry. I’ve been busy. Had my phone turned off.

Tsu Busy?

Ochako Been with Bakugou for most of the day.

Tsu Explains why he didn’t answer our texts. We thought he was just being an ass.

That made Uraraka giggle a little, though it brought a few tears to her eyes as well. Everyone was handling this their own way. She should’ve talked to everyone earlier, but it had just felt so daunting. The idea of telling all her friends that she was fine, it was hard but she would make it, no she didn’t need them to come over -- it had been overwhelming. And then Bakugou had blown in and just swept her away from all of it like it was nothing and he didn’t care what everyone else thought they should do for her.

Still, she felt guilty for ignoring them. Her friends were hurting too. Deku’s...death hadn’t affected only her. It would be a day late, but she would talk to them tomorrow. Maybe it was the alcohol flooding her veins, giving her a false sense of confidence, but she felt like tomorrow was going to be a new day. Like she was going to wake up and know in her heart that, no, things would never be the same again and she would always miss Deku and love him too, but she would be the hero he knew she was and she would smile for real when she thought back to him.

When Uraraka returned to the table, Bakugou was pouring the last bit of their sake into her cup. “Oh, no, no, I can’t.” He raised an eyebrow and pushed the glass towards her. “I can’t!” She laughed a little. “Did you see how I was walking over here?”

“Yeah, not wobbly enough,” Bakugou countered, putting all the pressure on her. She concentrated on the cup, picked it up, and then drank it. Granted, it wasn’t much, but it was enough to make her feel woozy. He grinned at her, all teeth and vicious, and then stretched back in his seat like a cat, his t-shirt raising up to expose skin. “That’s much better.”

Uraraka eyed him and put her hands on her hips, which might have been a little intimidating if she wasn’t swaying a little on the spot. “Trying to get me drunk to take advantage of me?”

Bakugou stood up slowly, as if he had nowhere else he’d rather be than right in her space, and said, “Who says I need to get you drunk first?” in such an outrageously suggestive low tone that Uraraka burst out laughing.

The alcohol made it so much worse. She felt like she was shooting from one emotion to the other, but this one she embraced. It felt good to laugh. It had felt good to cry in all honesty. She’d been hiding from it all day, but now that she’d done it and it was out in the open, she felt relieved. She barely caught sight of the checkbook on the table, already taken care of, before Bakugou all but pushed her out of the bar so she wouldn’t try to sneak a peek at the damage. He knew her too well.

Unfortunately, he had also known that that last bit of sake would do her in. The walk home would’ve been painful if not for the cool breeze that brushed against her. They did it in silence, him with his hands in his pockets and her with her hands clutching the strap of her purse. More than likely it was because both of them needed to focus on walking without looking like a couple of drunk idiots, which they probably did anyways. Bakugou was doing a pretty good imitation at not being drunk, but his steps were sluggish and his eyes kept sweeping over to her like he was making sure she was still standing.

By the time they reached the steps of her apartment, Uraraka found herself groaning and slumping against him. Her eyelids were so heavy and she was so tired. Her mind screamed at her to just drift off where she stood. She didn’t want to walk up the stairs. She was only on the second floor, but it seemed so far away. Maybe she could get away with sleeping in her car. That seemed like a reasonable idea right now.

“I knew this would happen,” Bakugou sighed, even though it was his fault for getting her this drunk in the first place. She turned to tell him that when he bent down and slid his arms underneath her, picking her up like she was nothing and holding her bridal style in his arms. Uraraka let out a tiny squeak. “I told you that I was gonna have to carry your drunk ass home.”

The first two steps he took were far too wobbly and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his shoulder, almost certain that they were going to fall, but then he tightened his grip on her, tensed up his body, and made quick work of the rest, powering through it by sheer will. At her door, he once again used his copy of her key to let them in and kicked the door shut.

Once inside, she thought he’d let her down, which seemed like a terrible idea since her legs were jello and she felt out of it from hanging in the air, but he didn’t. He gripped her just a little tighter as if to let her know that he wasn’t done and, just a tad bit drunk, she didn’t fight it. Instead, he slowly made his way through her dark apartment until he reached her bedroom and carefully laid her down on her bed. It was far too gentle for someone as chaotic as him, but maybe it was the alcohol, dulling his emotions for once.

As Bakugou grumbled about her always leaving her damn window open for any old villain to crawl through and closed it for her, Uraraka opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling, suddenly remembering how she had done the same thing this morning after waking up from the nightmare about Deku’s fall and her twice failure to touch him in time. “I had the dream again last night.”

A breath of air escaped from Bakugou as he returned to her bedside. “Do you want me to call Tsuyu or…?”

She shook her head. “No, I’ll be fine, just…”

“I’ll stay,” Bakugou said in a decisive tone. “On the couch, I mean. Can’t really drive right now anyways.”

They looked at each other for a beat too long. Uraraka knew it was too long and Bakugou surely didn’t look at anyone that long, but alcohol had a funny way of making barriers seem nonexistent. The urge to reach out and squeeze his hand hanging at his side was so sudden that she didn’t even think about not doing it. She felt him tense up at first when she did so, but then he loosened up and squeezed back before she pulled her hand away.

Uraraka raised an eyebrow at him and he gave her a questioning look. “Are you just going to stand there? I’m not sleeping in this.” Bakugou narrowed his eyes at her for a second, a sharp quip on his tongue, before he decided against it and walked towards the door. “Hey, Bakugou.” He stopped to glance back at her and she gave him a tired smile, the moonlight from her window casting a faint glow on her. “Thank you.”

“Whatever, Angel face,” Bakugou dismissed, though she saw the pleased look on his face. She didn’t bother telling him where the blankets and pillows were for him to use. He knew where they were. Having done this a few times before, usually when Bakugou was in a foul mood and needed someone to vent to that wasn’t Kirishima, he was at least a little familiar with her couch.

She took a deep breath as she sat up in bed. Round Face. Angel Face. Bakugou was always full of nicknames for everyone that he came in contact with. Back at U.A., it had been because he’d never bothered learning names and then it just stuck for him, if not anyone else. He called (most of) their former classmates by their names now, but still fell back on his tried and true nicknames for them.

A deep wave of sadness swept over her again for a brief moment. It had been almost a year since he’d been called Kacchan. She wondered if he missed it, but knew better than to ask. As far as he was concerned probably, the name had died along with Deku.

After changing into shorts and a t-shirt, Uraraka fell back in bed and crashed quickly, as if she’d lost all strength to fight the battle against the alcohol. Hopefully the amount of food and water she’d consumed would prevent any sort of hangover, but only the morning would tell. Luckily, the alcohol had the effect of dampening any dreams she might’ve had, so that by the time she woke up, there was nothing to remember except Bakugou’s words and that last look she’d seen on his face. She considered it a blessing that there was only a faint thumping in her head that would go away in an hour or so.

Uraraka took her time getting up. She stretched in bed and yawned before snuggling up with her covers a little more and simply listening to the birds chirping and the morning traffic spilling in from her open window. When she finally got out of bed, she noticed just how quiet her apartment was. The last time Bakugou had crashed on her couch, she’d thought his snores were going to wake the dead, not that he’d ever cop to snoring.

Peeking outside of her bedroom, Uraraka found it empty, though he’d charmingly left the pillows and blankets bunched up on her couch. Such a gentleman. She shook her head and went to the bathroom to start her morning routine. She really needed to go to the gym today. Then she’d start her round of apologies for going off the grid yesterday and ignoring everyone else’s pain.

For just a little bit longer, she wanted to stand in this strange morning bliss. It was like a small weight was off her shoulders. Not all of it, but just enough where she could stand up straight again.

After finishing in the bathroom, Uraraka padded into the kitchen to make breakfast, only to find a bowl already made next to a note in Bakugou’s writing that said, Eat this!!! So he could cook breakfast but not fold up blankets? That man was full of surprises. He probably got up at the crack of dawn regardless of how much he drank or fought the night before. No rest for the wicked or those wanting to be at the top.

Smiling to herself, she took the food and went back into her bedroom to pack all her stuff for the gym. She hummed under her breath as she did so, feeling better with every bite and passing second. It was going to be a good day. She was going to do some wonderful things. She was going to live her life. That was what Deku would have wanted. Not just to push herself as a hero, but also as a person. He had been so thoughtful.

Uraraka was still humming pleasantly when she walked back into the kitchen to clean out her dish when a voice abruptly shattered everything.

“Good morning, Ochako.”

Instead of falling to the ground, the bowl floated up to the ceiling the second Uraraka let go of it to form fists and spun around. Her heart had leapt into her throat because for a half a second she’d opened her mouth to say a name that she’d spent months unable to speak, but no it couldn’t be. This was just a setback, like when she woke up sometimes and forgot he wasn’t in bed next to her or how she’d leave the shop down the street and think she saw a flash of his green hair moving around the corner.

But then she turned around completely and her hands flew to her mouth and her heart dropped into her stomach. Uraraka barely managed to whimper, but the name tumbled out of her mouth. “Deku?”

There he was, Deku, her Deku, like he’d never been gone. Sitting in the chair that they’d bought at a flea market and he’d refurbished for her just because he thought it would make her smile. It was undeniably him, alive and well and in her living room. His unmanageable green hair. His vibrant green eyes. The freckles that never left his face even as his body grew taller and stronger. Out of all things, he was wearing a black suit and matching vest and his tie -- her lips trembled at the sight -- his tie was still done far too short. She would’ve burst into tears had she not been so stunned.

However, when Deku smiled at her, a cold chill ran down her spine and the thought run away came to her mind when she had only ever run to him before. And she knew. She knew there was something wrong with that smile, something not quite right, but then none of this was right. “I missed you.”

[theaksarben]

Left Behind, Chapter One

I don’t normally write fanfiction, but here’s an attempt at what I hope will be a much larger story. It was brought on mainly by rewatching Operation Z.E.R.O. and looking at AU fanart for C:KND. So in the end, I decided to throw my collander-helmet into the ring. It’s an AU fic that takes place fairly early in the main series timeline,  but takes several creative liberties. Without giving away too much, the Delightful Children From Down The Lane as you know them are absent from this universe.

Fanfiction.net link:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12399557/1/Left-Behind

Characters: Monty Uno, Numbuh One (A.K.A. Nigel Uno), Numbuh 5 (A.K.A. Abigail Lincoln), Benedict Uno 

Set: Pre-Series timeline /AU. 

Summary: When the members of Sector V all go missing under mysterious circumstances, it is the families that take it the hardest. Monty Uno finds himself reflecting on the events that led to this tragedy.

“What happened, Nigel-Old-Bean? I was only trying to be your friend…” Monty Uno looked down at the floor as he sat down in what was once his son’s bedroom. He would often do so in his spare time when he wasn’t occupied with his job as a band director at one of the local schools. He read the “Do’s and Don'ts” section of the newspaper religiously, he’d take Nigel out fishing with him, he’d done everything is his power to try and be a better father to Nigel than Pappy was with him. Monty wondered if it had something to do with the incident that happened with Nigel not long ago. He thought back to that very day.

It was an ordinary afternoon. Monty was in the music room directing his students when he received a phone call from the hospital. Dr. Lincoln told him that Nigel was there, and that was all he needed to hear. In a hurry, he quickly dismissed his students and drove straight for the hospital. He found his wife Katherine trying to comfort Dr. Lincoln’s youngest daughter. They were sitting outside the emergency room where Nigel was being operated on. The little girl was bandaged and was shaking terribly. She saw one glance of him and pulled her hat down to cover her eyes.

“I…I…I’m s-s-sorry, Mistah Uno” she sobbed “I tried to help Nigel, b-b-but…” she trailed off and shook again. “Its all my fault” she sniffed and tossed her red hat aside.

“No, no, sweetie, Nigel just had an accident. It wasn’t your fault.” Katherine was trying her hardest to soothe the distressed child and looked up at Monty.

Monty’s heart ached for the little girl; whatever it was that happened to Nigel, he wasn’t going to blame her for it. He kneeled down so he could talk to her at eye level.

“It’s alright,” said Monty “I’m sure you did all you could. You did the right thing bringing Nigel here. I just need to know what happened.” Abby nodded and started to speak.

“Well, I found Nigel, and he was hurt real bad, and…and…” She paused as her mouth suddenly became agape. To Monty it looked like she knew what she wanted to say but something was keeping the words from coming out. Monty was beginning to worry that Abby might need to be hospitalized herself.

“Are you alright dear? Do you need anything?” Abby didn’t speak a word, she just pointed her finger in his direction, shaking. “It’s alright, I’m not upset with you,” he said softly. Abby shook her head furiously and pointed her finger again. Monty was getting nowhere, but he didn’t want to say anything that might upset Abby further. Quickly he changed tactics and put on a smile, and pretended to furrow his eyebrows as if in concentration. “Oh, I know, this is one of those guessing games isn’t it? Oh, don’t tell me…is it something behind me?” he asked. Abby relaxed just a little bit and nodded. She still had a look of terror on her face, but she wasn’t shaking. A ghost of a smile crept across Monty’s face “Now there’s a step in the right direction.” he thought. Now just what or, perhaps who was behind him that was making Abby so uneasy?

He turned around and saw his brother Benedict in his usual dress shirt and suspenders looking at Abby with an annoyed look on his face. Though for a moment, Monty thought he might need his eyes checked. Ben’s eyes seemed to glow like two burning coals behind his spectacles. When Monty blinked, they were their natural blue again. Monty wasn’t sure what it was about his brother that made children so afraid of him. He remembered something similar used to happen with Pappy when he was a boy and figured his brother also had that effect on children. It wasn’t a particularly good explanation, but it was one. There was an awkward silence that felt as if it could be cut with a knife.

“It’s not polite to point, dear.” said Monty as he rose back up to his feet. He turned his attention to the other man. “Hello, Ben. What brings you here?”

Benedict’s annoyed look quickly changed into one of concern.

“Monty, I heard about what happened to Nigel; is he alright?” Monty couldn’t place his finger on it but something wasn’t quite right. Maybe it was that Ben sounded a little too…rehearsed, or maybe it was the fact that Abby was still hiding behind Katherine, but his thoughts were interrupted when Dr. Lincoln came out of the doors.

“Dr. Lincoln do you know if Nigel will be alright?” asked Monty pointedly.

Dr. Richard Lincoln sighed. “Well Monty, it’s a good thing Nigel came here when he did. He’ll probably end up losing his hair, but from what I can tell it could’ve been a lot worse with the bleeding and the scarring and the…awww, you know what Ima’ talking about.” Again, a ghost of a smile crossed Monty’s face. Richard was a good man who always seemed to lift people’s spirits with his upbeat personality. Richard placed a reassuring hand on Monty’s shoulder “He’s gonna be alright.” He turned his attention to Abby, then to her red hat lying on the floor. He picked it up off the floor and placed it back on his daughter’s head. “Nigel will be okay, Abby. Promise you’ll put on a brave face for your Daddy, okay?” His daughter smiled and threw herself into her father’s embrace.

“Katherine, would you mind taking Abby back to your house? I’ll call Cree to walk her home.” Katherine nodded and Monty watched as she led Abby towards the elevator. Abby’s gaze not leaving Benedict who looked back out of the corner of his eye. Monty still couldn’t understand what that was all about.

“Richard, did Abby have anything to say about what happened to Nigel? Abby tried to…” He paused and sniffed the air. “Do you smell smoke?” He turned his attention Benedict who was lighting his pipe, as if he suddenly became disinterested in what was going on. Now it was Richard’s turn to be annoyed.

“You! No pipes near the emergency room! With the second hand smoke, and the threats to sick patients, and the risk of igniting flammable materials, and the awww, you know what Ima’ talkin’ about!” said Richard, who was making several exasperated hand gestures. Part of Monty was trying not to laugh, while the other part was questioning Ben’s sudden shift in attitude again.

Ben quickly snuffed the flame and feigned surprise “Oh goodness, I do apologize Doctor. With all the excitement I needed something to steady my nerves. I’ll go outside. I hope Nigel gets well again soon.” Ben left and Richard went back into the emergency room, leaving Monty all alone…

“Monty? Monty are you awake?”

Monty opened a sleepy eye. Dr. Lincoln was standing in front of him. Monty looked down at his lap and saw a copy of the newspaper sitting in his lap. Last thing he remembered he picked it up to read in a bid to “steady his nerves”, as Benedict put it. It appeared he had done just that and dozed off through Nigel’s operation.

“Well, I am now. Is it about Nigel?” He yawned.

“As a matter of fact, he’s sleeping right now. I can take you in to see him as long as you don’t make any noises.” replied Dr. Lincoln

Monty agreed, trying to put on a brave face for when he finally saw what had become of his son. The last time he had been this nervous was when Nigel was born. While he couldn’t remember part of his childhood for some strange reason, one thing he always remembered was that Pappy was anything but a good father. Sure, as Pappy’s first born, he received more favor, but Monty didn’t recall having it much better than Ben or the other kids. Sure, Monty did the bookkeeping for his father’s business while Ben and the others were working on the factory floor making tapioca (wait, how did Pappy get away with child labor?) Then there was his birthday cake…oh the cake. So delicious, and Pappy always forced him to eat every last bite himself without allowing him to offer it to Ben or the other children… while they were tied to chairs? “I must’ve been having strange dreams while I was sleeping” thought Monty.

While Monty didn’t have many fond memories of Pappy (hazy though they were), he was nervous at the prospect of becoming a father. If Monty’s scattered memories served, that had been when he picked up his habit of reading the “dos and don'ts” section of the paper. Monty wasn’t entirely sure what made his side of the family so dysfunctional, but now he had a chance to break the cycle.

He’d never forget when the doctor directed him to his wife’s room. There, in his wife’s arms was his newborn son, Nigel. Little Nigel was in his wife’s arms, sleeping softly while wrapped in blankets. He was so serene, so innocent, his skin unbroken, a blank canvas, a story yet to be written…

And a sharp contrast to the boy lying in bed before Monty.

His head and left arm were bandaged, his right arm linked to an IV, his breathing ragged, and the only sound besides being the heart monitor’s beep. Monty pulled up a chair next to the bed and carefully held Nigel’s good hand. Just what had happened to his son that left him like this?

Then Nigel jolted up screaming and caused Monty to recoil. The boy looked around frantically screaming the word “Father” repeatedly before a violent cough cut it short. Monty reached to calm his son down. “It’s alright Nigel, I’m here…I’m here” He gently patted his son on the back as he looked up with tears welling in his eyes.

“W-Where am I?” asked Nigel, trembling.

“You’re in the hospital, Nigel. That nice Dr. Lincoln over there operated on you after Abby brought you in” said Monty gesturing to the man. Nigel calmed down a little, but there was still worry etched into his features

“Where is Abby?”

“She went home with your mother. Abby will be all right, Nigel.” Truthfully, Monty wasn’t so sure about that last part, but he didn’t want to worry his son further. Nigel was still tense.

“What about Cree? The others?”

Monty was puzzled. He knew Cree was Dr. Lincoln’s eldest daughter, but these “others” were unknown to him. Friends from school perhaps? He wasn’t quite sure what they had to do with any of this. Dr. Lincoln perked up.

“Oh, I think they were hanging out with Cree before I called her to pick Abby up. But they should be all right. You on the other hand need your rest. With the sleeping, and the snoring, and the…awww you know what Ima’ talkin’ about!” and gave a good-natured laugh. That left Nigel feeling a little better. As Monty was about to leave, the boy was ready to protest. Monty assured him that he’d be back to visit him again tomorrow with his mother.

It was a slow recovery for Nigel. Abby would frequently stop by the hospital after school to check up on the boy and Monty sometimes found them talking about something called the “Kids Next Door”. Though what that was he didn’t know…maybe it was some kind of special club?

Nigel still didn’t like being left alone, especially in the dark. For him, every shadow was large enough to conceal some sort of boogeyman out to snatch him up. Monty remembered when Katherine brought their son a nightlight. The minute she plugged it into the electrical outlet, it bathed Nigel’s nightstand in a red-orange glow. Nigel still seemed tense when he and his wife left despite the light dispelling the sinister shadows. Then one night when Katherine went to plug in the light again, Nigel insisted that he didn’t need it anymore. Monty was pleased at his son’s recovery.

Then, when Nigel finally left the hospital, his personality changed completely. Monty and Katherine were surprised to hear that Nigel wanted to go to a summer camp like Abby. His reasoning was that after talking with Abby, he realized that he couldn’t hide forever. He’d have to rise up and overcome his problems. “I’m only a kid once, Dad.” Katherine and Monty were skeptical, but agreed.

And so Nigel went to summer camp, keeping in touch with his parents every so often, telling them about how Abby had his back and how he had made friends with Chad Dickson from across the street. For a time, it seemed like Nigel was managing to make something positive come out of his accident.

What followed was a rather bizarre turn of events, and that was putting it lightly. Looking back, it was highly likely that the incident that caused Nigel’s hair loss had something to do with it.

He recalled the first warning sign came at the start of the new school year after a boy named Wallabee Beetles moved in. On the boy’s first day of school, Katherine received a phone call from Gallagher Elementary. Nigel had apparently gotten into a scuffle with a group of kids and was covered in bruises. To hear Nigel resort to violence like that was out of character to Monty. When questioned about it, his son claimed he was trying to protect Wallabee because “the Kids Next Door save kids, it’s our job.” Monty didn’t know what this “Kids Next Door” was, but he could tell Nigel had good intentions. So he was firm with Nigel that he should tell a teacher the next time it happens. He tried not to be too harsh on the boy, and called the Beetles residence to invite the family over for dinner.

The dinner was mostly uneventful; Monty tried to remain attentive to Sydney Beetles and his long-winded stories about his job working for that Fulbright fellow from down the street. After that, Nigel and Wally were playing video games and chatting up about Nigel’s kids-on-the-block-or-whatever-it-was until it was time for desert. Liza Beetles was talking to Katherine about how she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her son play with another child.

Nigel and Wallabee were kindred spirits as far as Monty could tell. Both were kids from foreign countries who felt alone in the world. Perhaps it was fate that they both found each other, much like how it seemed when Nigel himself met Hoagie Gilligan in kindergarten.

Monty himself had also hit it off with Sydney Beatles over their mutual love of “footy”. He was sorry when the family had to leave, but offered the invitation to pop over for a visit whenever they liked. Monty decided that perhaps some good could come out of Nigel’s little club.

Then there was the time Nigel had been invited to Kuki Sanban’s birthday party. Nigel didn’t think too much of it at the time. Kuki was a bubbly little girl and had invited their whole homeroom. But as Monty would later learn from Nigel: most of the other kids wouldn’t give her the time of the day. When Monty brought Nigel with him to the party, he was amazed by how extravagant the whole affair was. Monty wouldn’t admit it, but he and Ben were very much children of “old money”. Whereas Ben would flaunt his wealth in that fancy mansion he lived in down the lane, Monty chose to live a more modest lifestyle. When he talked with Genki Sanban, she spoke with a sad smile how she wanted to give her daughter nothing short of the sun and the moon. She was born into a much lower social class than Monty, and had to work her way to the top as a C.F.O. for a Fortune 500 company.

When Monty looked over to her daughter, it was clear something was amiss. Kuki’s party had everything a child could want: bouncy castles, a large birthday cake, colorful balloons, and all the presents she could ever want. Yet Kuki was sitting all by herself while the other kids were playing. It seemed like there was one thing Kuki wasn’t getting for her birthday. When he looked back, he noticed Nigel wasn’t at his side any more. Somehow the boy had slipped away from his sight and was walking towards Kuki with his brightly wrapped gift box.

Even Kuki was surprised to see Nigel go out of his way to seek her out and personally wish her a happy birthday without prompting. She was very happy when she saw her present: a bright red Rainbow Monkey (though Monty couldn’t truly tell one of these dolls from the other). Next thing Monty knew, Kuki was hugging Nigel and all but cutting off his oxygen (not that his son seemed to mind too much). It wasn’t long after that Nigel introduced her to Hoagie, Wally, and Abby. And so Kuki ended up getting the one thing she really wanted for her birthday after all.

When Nigel met Hoagie P. Gilligan Jr. in kindergarten, the two were inseparable. Monty had the boy to thank for giving Nigel a mild interest in hobby kits. Though, if the still unfinished one on his desk was anything to go by, Nigel didn’t have the knack for building that he did designing. Whenever they were building models from scratch, it was always Nigel who drew out the designs with pencils, crayons, or whatever else they could find. But it was Hoagie who always saw the designs through to completion. It wasn’t unusual to see Nigel in his bedroom with Hoagie, a mound of crumpled papers, and several schematics sprawled across the floor. Nigel and Hoagie called them “two-four-technobobs” or something of the sort.

Monty thought back to the time when they tried to sneak some of Katherine’s cookies from the kitchen before dinner. Monty had a particularly taxing practice session with the band students (that sousaphone player’s sharps were awfully flat). He was surprised when he walked in the house and saw Nigel and his friend ducking behind the kitchen wall with a remote control. Monty looked up and saw they were controlling a modified toy plane with a claw attached to the bottom. Nigel looked over at Monty and quickly shushed him before he could speak. Monty decided there was no harm in watching his son’s attempts and gave the boy an encouraging wink. After all, not even he succeeded in sneaking one of his wife’s cookies before dinner.

Monty watched as Hoagie pressed a button and lowered the claw to grab the lid of the cookie jar. He was certainly impressed when the boy operated the toy with such skill as to lift the lid off without alerting Katherine, who was busy preparing to boil some asparagus. Though Hoagie didn’t succeed at getting a hold of even one cookie before Katherine caught them with the claw in the cookie jar. Quickly, the boys withdrew the plane and made a hasty retreat up the stairs. Katherine called up to them cheekily applauding their creativity for the failed attempt. It looked to Monty like it would be back to the drawing board for Nigel and Hoagie. Parents one, kids zero.

And of course, Monty would be remiss if he didn’t mention Abby Lincoln. Abby had become something of a safety net among their group of friends, especially for Nigel ever since his accident. While Nigel was the leader of the pack as far as Monty could tell, Abby was the second in command. She still hadn’t forgiven herself for what happened to Nigel, no matter how many times everyone else insisted it wasn’t her fault. Abby was a good girl, an honor student, and sometimes left Monty wondering why she wasn’t the leader. There was the time Nigel was screaming about how they were under attack by “kid-eating leeches”. The other kids went along with Nigel, though it was unclear whether it was because they believed him or were just humoring him as his friends. Nonetheless, Abby convinced Nigel that he was just imagining things and explained that it was just snowing. Which brought Monty to his next point.

His son became far more paranoid. Looking back, there was a connection: everything seemed to happen all at once after whatever incident caused Nigel to lose his hair. Though what this incident was, Monty could never get a straight answer from his son.

Nigel still trusted Dr. Lincoln, for all of his bluster. But every other doctor was met with great suspicion. Monty remembered the attempt to file a restraining order against Nigel by that one doctor the boy was spying on. He knew his son could get carried away, but surely a restraining order on a kid was a bit excessive. But Nigel was still convinced that all other doctors were up to anti-kid activity. Every shot he was given was an attempt to infect him with all manner of toxins. Not toxins to stimulate immune responses, just regular toxins to poison him. He thought back to the recent fiasco with that Dr. Sharpe fellow. Katherine regaled Monty with one of Nigel’s fantasies about the doctor chasing him like some big-game hunter. Granted, that same doctor ended up being arrested for quackery and was ousted by an anonymous individual as a criminal named Chester Banks. Alright, Monty would let Nigel have that one.

Then Nigel ranted about how every dentist trying to implant sub-molar tracking devices. Nigel like most kids was suspicious of dentists, and Katherine blamed it on watching too many cartoons. Then that same week the local dentist, a man named Jasper Jelly, was found on the floor the dentist’s office with several of his teeth missing. The police thought it looked like they had been punched out. It turned out that Jelly was working as an unlicensed dentist by day, and by night he ran around in a strange costume calling himself “Knightbrace.” The man made himself out to be one of those American comic book superheroes like Major Glory or Vallhallen. Of course, many would describe Jelly’s actions as anything but heroic. Among the other things he did, Jelly performed forceful (and often painful) dental procedures on random children. The real dentist, Dr. Sigmund Teeth, was later rescued from a broom closet, having been bound and gagged by the self-proclaimed “Enamel Avenger.” Teeth was unable to confirm the identity of his rescuer, but gratefully extended a free checkup as token of appreciation over the local news before the anchors cut him off.

First there was that Chester character, now Jelly. It had to be a coincidence, Monty told himself at the time. Dentists were supposed to be out to help children. He couldn’t understand why so many, including Nigel, thought that they delighted in nothing more than torturing them. Not that this Jelly character would help Monty’s case, though. What was this town coming to?

And then there was the day Katherine told him about how she had received another phone call from Gallagher Elementary. Nigel’s history teacher, Mr. Frybingle (such a silly name), complained that he disrupted class to rant about how the buzzing fluorescent lights were “adult-microwave-cranial-jellifiers turning children’s brains into milkshakes.” Monty tried not to laugh at this one in front of his wife. Nigel had a vivid imagination…Monty thought that might make a good science fiction story. “You need to do something about this, Monty. No son of mine is going to disrupt class with some rigmarole!” She rolled the “r” sounds and waved her hands for emphasis. While Katherine was clearly bemused, he on the other hand, was very amused. Nonetheless, he decided to humor his wife. Monty suggested that Nigel might improve his behavior if he got to know his family a little better. Katherine agreed.

So Monty took Nigel with him to visit Pappy at the Surewood Retirement Home on Saturday. He remembered when he first introduced Pappy to his new grandson. Nigel cried like any other infant, but Monty didn’t think too much of it then. Katherine calmed the child and everything was fine. Now when Nigel saw the man, he looked almost…unnerved by Pappy. He wasn’t overly afraid, but he cringed slightly whenever Pappy tried to pat him on the shoulder. Nigel looked at the man like he was a terrible demon ready to steal his soul (Not that Pappy could tell.) Monty never really liked visiting the man much anyway. He almost wondered why he still bothered doing that. Monty shook his head and watched Nigel run off to meet his schoolmate Hoagie Gilligan, who was visiting his grandmother.

When visiting hours were over, it was raining so hard that Monty could barely see the road in front of him. Monty called his wife to tell her that they were going to stop for cheeseburgers on the way home until the storm blew over. Nigel was quiet, and didn’t seem to respond to Monty’s attempts at conversation. He put on the car radio and tried playing a game of “twenty questions”, but to no avail.

They walked into the restaurant, got their table and went through the motions. Nigel ate his bacon cheeseburger quietly, and didn’t respond much beyond simple yes or no questions. Monty decided to order the signature ice cream bombs for dessert. Blurpleberry for himself and for Nigel, his favorite flavor of pistachio. Nigel picked at his dessert, which worried Monty. Normally the dessert was his favorite part of the meal. “Now Nigel-Old-Bean, I’ll confess that I don’t much like visiting Pappy anymore than you do, but it wasn’t all bad was it?” he asked. Nigel mumbled something under his breath that Monty couldn’t understand. “I’m sorry, son, could you please repeat that?”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Eh, what?” asked Monty “What is it that I don’t I believe you about”

“About the dentists, the shots, the fluorescent lights, adult tyranny, everything!” Nigel stopped short when he realized the waiter was looking at him surprised before setting the bill on the table and leaving. Mortified, Nigel slunk back in his chair.

“Surely all adults can’t be ‘tyrannical'…there’s me for example!”

“But you’re my dad, of course you’re not!”

Part of Monty was pleased that in spite of whatever happened to Nigel, he still trusted his father…at least that’s how he interpreted it. Though he would never admit it to Nigel, he had noticed a spike in crimes targeted at children in the paper during the last few months. There was nothing in the “Do’s and Don’t’s” section of the paper to prepare him on how to broach the subject to his son. So Monty decided that he would try being frank with Nigel.

“Look Nigel, I know you have a lot of fun with your 'kids-on-the-block’ buddies, but…”

“Kids Next Door” corrected Nigel.

“Right, right. And I know things are…shall we say…topsy-turvy?” Nigel’s expression darkened. Monty had to react quickly and hoped whatever he said next wouldn’t upset his soon too much. “But understand, Nigel-Old-Bean, there is an adult right in front of you who wants to help you very much. But you have to tell me first, instead of flying of the handle and…oh dear” Only now had Monty just realized what he had done when he saw Nigel looking down at the ground.

“I’ll go wait in the car” said Nigel.

Without another word, Monty unlocked the car outside and his son walked out into the pouring rain. He made a mental note to write a letter to the editor for The Daily Neighbor.

Nigel was becoming more and more distant now, even from his own family. Sure there, was their annual family vacation to Hap-Happyland, and even in his current state Nigel couldn’t resist riding the rollercoasters. But then there were times when he’d go out and seemed like he’d rather be somewhere else. Nigel was now going out of his way to avoid going fishing, something they both used to enjoy so much together. And sometimes when he did go, one of his “kids on the block” buddies would interrupt their quality time and Nigel would just leave.

At first, Monty figured it was all a great game of pretend like how children would pretend to be Yipper or a Pretty Princess Rainbow Monkey on the playground. He offered to join the game once, suggesting that he could be “Numbuh Zero” to Nigel’s “Numbuh One”(why did that seem so significant?) In any case, this was met with a response about how there are no adults in the kids-on-the-block and Monty relented. It was all fun at first, but Nigel continued to become more and more distant.

Then, when his schoolwork started to take a turn for the worst, Katherine decided it was time to intervene. So she looked into finding a child psychologist for Nigel, figuring it might help them work out what was wrong with their son.

And finally, came That Day.

That Day, Katherine took Nigel to the psychologist, and despite initial protests had relented at the promise of pistachio ice cream. After Nigel was directed to the doctor’s office, that was when things went wrong.

Katherine had been in the waiting room when she heard a loud crash and Nigel’s scream. She told the police she ran into the office and found it was set alight. The last thing she claimed to see before being knocked out by the smoke was Nigel in the clutches of a strange man. When she was asked what the man looked like, she said his face was shadowed despite the whole room being illuminated by the fire. By the time the fire department got there, the fire was already put out and everyone inside evacuated safely. Monty hurried over as soon as he heard the news and felt his heart shatter when he saw Katherine clutching Nigel’s favorite sunglasses, now cracked and scorched. Any leads the police could’ve used were lost in the fire, and there was a very distinct possibility that if Nigel wasn’t already dead… Monty didn’t want to even think about that.

One of the witnesses went on the local news and provided a testimony that supported Katherine’s version of the events. He also claimed to have seen a group of little people wearing samurai armor and combat fatigues facing the “shadowed man”. Almost no outlets, not even the local newspaper covered the events in depth. A few of the seedier publications had ran with this version of the story and added that these “little samurai people” were using household appliances modified into weaponry to fight Nigel’s captor before being knocked out themselves. Of course, these were the same tabloids that claimed there were multiple sightings of the Grim Reaper in a town called Endsville. Then again, even a broken clock was right twice a day. That same witness was later hospitalized after his house exploded due to a gas leak in the night. All sorts of rumors had begun cropping up about how this “shadowed man” might be behind it or that it was some pyromaniac who escaped from the happy hotel wanting vengeance on the town.

The next day, Senator Samuel Safely called Monty and Katherine to an emergency assembly at the school gymnasium. Safely, who would normally fret over every potential threat to kids, became dead serious now that an actual threat had surfaced. Safely urged all children to keep their eyes open for any suspicious characters and never talk to strangers before opening the floor to the Unos. Katherine nodded and took the microphone.

“Please children, if you see any sign of Nigel, please tell us. We just want to see our son come home safe and sound.” Monty remained silent and nodded in agreement. He spotted Abby and the rest of Nigel’s friends among the crowd. Wally and Kuki were holding hands and trying to comfort one another. Hoagie was still like a statue, and any emotion in his eyes hidden by his aviator goggles. Abby’s head was held low at first, but then surprised Monty by looking directly at him from the bleachers. He couldn’t tell from where he was standing, but it looked like Abby was mouthing something to him.

“I’ll find him”

Abby and the others wouldn’t be coming home from school that day.

And so the police now had four more missing child cases to solve on top of Nigel. At first, the police told the parents to keep close to the phone. Since there was a kidnapper, there was a possibility that it could’ve been a ransom case. Within a few days and no calls, the police began looking for the body, rather than the child. After a few more weeks of investigating, the police declared Nigel a cold case, and told Monty and Katherine to assume the worst.

To make matters worse, Benedict’s mansion had burned down the night after Abby and the others went missing. No trace of the man’s body was found in the ruins, but Monty’s hopes weren’t high. While he had never been particularly close to his younger brother, he couldn’t handle losing him, too. More rumors of the “shadowed man” and his involvement surfaced, but Monty didn’t pay much attention to them.

The car ride home from the police station went on for what felt like an eternity. Katherine remained silent with her head held low while Monty kept his eyes on the road. Neither of them spoke a word as they entered their silent home.

He looked over at a pile of newspapers on his doorstep. Not one issue of the paper held any information about what to do when your child was abducted…

Then Monty looked up. The large tree fort above their house cast a shadow over the married couple, as if it were trying to protect them. And if they knew what would await them all in the coming days, they were going to need it.

On his way upstairs, Monty peered into in Nigel’s room, looking around at his possessions. A blue Rainbow Monkey from when he was little, a model kit on his desk that would remain unfinished, his telescope and a large number of other items. What caught Monty’s eye was an old family photo. It had been taken on their first vacation to Hap-Happy Land as a family. Back when Nigel still had his hair and was sitting on Monty’s shoulder’s looking like he was having the time of his life…what happened? There was a distinct possibility that it would be now and forever unknown.

“What happened, Nigel-Old-Bean? I was only trying to be your friend…” Monty Uno looked down at the floor as he sat down in what was once his son’s bedroom. He would often do so in his spare time when he wasn’t occupied with his job as a band director at one of the local schools. He read the “Do’s and Don'ts” section of the newspaper religiously, he’d take Nigel out fishing with him, he’d done everything is his power to try and be a better father to Nigel than Pappy was with him…

But it wasn’t enough.

[pumpkins-s]

Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink

Read on AO3 Here

Read the Other Chapters on Tumblr Here

Lance Alexander Rafael McClain is born in the middle of a summer storm, thunder cracking and rain slamming onto the roof of an old ramshackle house that had seen more than its fair share of children.

The miracle baby, that’s what the family had called Lance. The unexpected son to a mother of five daughters.

(In which family is always complicated, Lance’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, and he and Keith are really emotionally constipated for each other.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, significant platonic Lance & Hunk

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran

Chapter 6: Live

(( Author’s Note: Heyo, new year, new update!

This wasn't originally going to be its own full chapter, but after doing the math on length and having just suffered through writing a 15k update for another fic (I'm serious, I did that, kill me), I decided to split the planned chapter up. Hence this. Now, before anyone asks, a lot of you have been asking about Keith, so I'll just say this-- They meet when Lance is 15. He's 11 now. How fast we get to Keith depends on how much of the next 4, Very Important, I'll add, years of Lance's life I cover, so please be patient, k? You'll get Keith in a chapter or two.

And!! Before we begin!! This fic has its own first piece of fanart!! I've been told it's a WIP, but it's still amazing so I have to show it off-- So everyone go check out Peachlance's gorgeous art of young Hunk and Lance. It's beautiful. I yelled in the middle of an airport when I saw it. (BTW if anyone ever does fanart for this fic and I miss it because it's on another site or whatever, please tell me in a comment on this fic or an ask to my tumblr with the link, I'd hate to miss it!!)

Also!! I'm on Twitter now since there seems to be a significant portion of the Voltron fandom that prefers that to Tumblr. I don't post a ton on it, but I'll be putting out update notifications from now on, so if you want those and my all-caps tweets yelling at Aiden, my irl Keith friend, feel free to follow me, yeah?

Ok that's it you can ignore me now here's Lance have fun y'all.))

Come September, Lance and Hunk pack their bags and move into the dormitories at Greenwood, accompanied by their moving team of the entire McClain family, plus Hunk’s grandmother— The whole lot of them piling into the old family jeep and pickup truck and Hunk’s grandmother’s tiny, ancient Toyota with an assortment of random things they’re each separately convinced Lance and Hunk are going to need.

Lance imagines they make quite the sight, pulling up to the pristine parking spaces outside the Greenwood buildings and piling out of the cars in a haphazard mess of long limbs and a loud mix of Spanish and English that blends together into a background noise that is comforting in its familiarity against the apprehensive mystery that is Greenwood. They certainly do get their fair share of stares as they cram into the entry building for student check-in, confirming that, yes, they are indeed all relatives, and are here to help Lance and Hunk move in.

Honestly, Lance has to admit they’re all pretty restrained, all things considered. Everyone knows how important this is to him, and to Hunk, in his own way, and his family is hardly inclined to mess this up for them, so there’s a fair degree of… what Lance might dare call caution in their behavior. They’re loud, and talkative, and move around a lot, because they’re McClains and that’s what they do when they move as a pack, but Karen doesn’t try to play soccer in the dorm hall, Igraine doesn’t punch anyone, even Marcie restrains herself from commenting loudly on the hairstyle choices of the people around them.

…Ok, yeah, she whispers a few comments under her breath to Lance, but that was still a marked effort on her part, and she was right that one guy’s undercut had been so sloppily done it was painful to look at, even Lance could agree on that.

Karen hadn’t seen anything wrong with it but, then again, that was Karen, who’s thought processes concerning her hair began and ended at where the nearest scrunchie was to pull it up into its perpetual bushy ponytail, much to Marcie and Lance’s horror.

If anything though, Lance thinks they just get odd looks because they’re… them. A large, loud, Cuban family who clearly don’t have the money to be here, let alone the pedigree.

“Fuck em.” Igraine mutters firmly under her breath the first time a mother helping her son with his bags scoffs at them when they pass by in the dormitory hall. “You’ve earned your right to be here. At least you didn’t buy your way in.”

“Igraine.” Aunt Rosa snaps, slapping her on the arm, and Lance snorts loudly, earning a victorious smirk from his sister even as she whines and cradles her arm as if it’s now broken. The burst of noise only earns them more side-eyes from the people in the hall, and Lance ducks his head sheepishly, scratching at the back of it nervously. He’s still not used to his short hair, really, and when he’s anxious he tends to find it feels quite itchy. At least the bangs that frame his face are just long enough to play with and twirl with his fingers. He thinks he’d lose his mind otherwise, far too used to having long curls to twirl and braid and tie into loose knots when he gets fidgety— Honestly, he has no idea what he’s gonna do in class now to keep his hands busy.

Eventually, they get all the boxes into his and Hunk’s room (and thank God for that little blessing, Lance doesn’t know how he’d function if they hadn’t been allowed to pre-choose their roommates), stacked up along the walls and all over the floor. Frankly, it seems like far more than the two of them will need to Lance, especially given they barely live an hour or so away, but a good portion of the boxes are things he can identify as not having packed himself, snuck in amongst all their other belongings, no doubt random pieces of junk his family has decided they require. Lance wouldn’t be surprised if he found something as random as a paper towel dispenser or half-empty bottles of shampoo, honestly. Knowing his family, it’s far too likely. He still remembers with a kind of abject horror the mess that was Carlos and Rachel moving into their new house.

It’s… different, bringing all his things in here and trying to make it a living space. Lance has only had one room his entire life, and if he ever slept in another room in the house, it had always been with Loraine. But… Loraine isn’t here anymore, and this is not his house.

Luckily, the adults largely take over once they get everything in, rearranging the school-provided furniture, getting the beds made with sheets and quilts and extra pillows, and unpacking the heaviest books. It only takes about ten minutes before Uncle Jesús, Lucas, Igraine, and Lance’s grandfather are kicked out of the room under orders to go get food for everyone, once it quickly becomes clear Lance and Hunk’s dorm room is not large enough to have all of them milling around in it. As it is, they still barely fit, shuffling past each other and ducking out into the hall as they work to make room. It’s a mess, but… nice. Lance is going to miss not being around his family every day, and so the squished hustle of it all is something he chooses to savor rather than be frustrated with.

When it comes time for families to leave, the extended visiting hours for the move-in day coming to an end once night falls, it’s a long, drawn-out procession of goodbyes. Lance has to patiently remind his mother and sisters that he’ll see them all again come the weekend, but even while reassuring them, he himself can’t help but cling to them tightly when they embrace him, memorizing his mother’s warmth, Marcie’s fruity smell, Karen’s chapped lips when she kisses the side of his head, the sharp dig of Igraine’s multiple ear piercings against his cheek when she hugs him tight. Each of them distinct in the little things that mark them as who they are— Marcie and her guiding softness, Karen’s grounding reassurance, Igraine’s fire, Evie’s quick wit.

His sisters.

…And Lance, the shadow to the all-encompassing, insurmountable ocean.

“Are these… Christmas lights. Yep, they’re Christmas lights.” Lance glances up at Hunk’s bewildered words, and snorts loudly, shaking his head in slight disbelief. Even with their families’ help, there’d still been plenty left to unpack once they left, and apparently they were hitting the boxes of weird stuff now.

“Just throw them on one of the desks for now.” Lance says dismissively, turning back to his own box, while Hunk bemusedly gathers up the lights in his arms and stares at them.

“…We could string them up along the ceiling? Like college students do in the movies?”

“Wouldn’t that be a safety code violation?” Lance asks, unfolding the flaps on the box in front of him and blinking in surprise. “…Why.”

“What?” Hunk says, frowning, and Lance sighs, straightening up and pulling out the large Cuban flag he’d found stuffed in the top of the box.

“I bet my abuelita put it in— She does realize I was born in the U.S., right?”

“Maybe she just wants you to be proud of your heritage. It’s a good thing.” Hunk says mildly, and Lance rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, okay, come talk to me when you find your giant New Zealand flag then.”

“Actually…” Reaching into the new box he’s just opened, Hunk pulls out a miniature New Zealand flag on a stick and waves it back and forth. “It seems my grandmother had a similar thought pattern.” Idly, he peers into the box. “…Oh look there’s an All Blacks flag there too.”

“Jesus.”

“He’s over there.” Hunk says, pointing at the crucifix sitting on Lance’s bedside table, also a gift from his grandmother, Lance suspects.

Lance grabs the pillow off his bed closest to him and chucks it at Hunk’s head.

Hunk dodges easily, not even sparing Lance a look as he pulls a few books out of the box and sets them on his desk. Lance huffs in irritation and chucks the flag onto the edge of his bed to deal with later, emptying the rest of the box to find… yarn, lots and lots of yarn.

Wincing, he runs a hand over the closest ball, a light pink that’s soft to the touch. He’d learned to knit from Marcie, who’d in turn learned from their grandmother, as something to do with his hands when he was feeling overly fidgety. It had been nice, something he enjoyed, even if he’d mostly only made scarves and blankets, but since Loraine’s death he hadn’t touched his knitting needles, the whole activity too drenched in memories of being tucked up on Loraine’s bed with her watching a movie as he moves the yarn through his fingers.

He gives it a moment of hesitation, and then folds the box shut and pushes it under his bed.

Knitting’s probably not a normal boy’s thing anyways.

“Hey help me with this box.” Lance startles, standing up and going over to where Hunk is standing next to a large box, helping him push it into the spot they’d cleared for emptying and sorting boxes and cutting the tape on the top. Hunk opens the flaps and reaches in, pulling out a mess of fabric. “Clothes. Guess we missed a box earlier. Looks like these are all yours.” Lance takes the bundle of shirts from Hunk and opens a dresser drawer, dropping them in before moving onto the next handful. They’re all plain or with simple logos, old things he’d gotten from Lucas and Carlos, a few of Karen’s old things when she wore more masculine clothing for a while when she was younger. He’d purposely made sure to leave out all the old floral-patterned tops and frilly blouses along with the other clothing hidden in the back of his closet when he’d picked out what to pack— He hadn’t needed too many clothes, anyways, since the school had uniforms. This was mostly just for lounging around the dorm or days when casual wear was permitted.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hunk reach for something in the box, pulling out an old grey shirt and staring at it, brows furrowed and a question clearly on the tip of his tongue. Before he can say anything, Lance quickly snatches the shirt out of his grasp, throwing it in the drawer with the rest of the clothing and shutting it firmly, ignoring Hunk’s questioning eyes even as they follow him as he folds up the now empty box and drops it into the pile with its brethren in the corner.

He knows Hunk has noticed the change in his clothing, his mannerisms, as distinct as his hair, but he’s not ready for the questions yet.

…He’s not yet come up with an answer.

“How many boxes do we have left?” He asks pointedly, kicking the pile of empty boxes into a more reasonable shape.

“Oh! Uh…” Hunk startles, and glancing back Lance watches him peer around the room. “Nine or ten? We’ve gotten all the big ones, we could always do the rest tomorrow after orientation.”

Lance frowns. “If you’re tired, you can sleep now. I want to finish tonight so we don’t have to worry.”

He’s too jittery to sleep, honestly. Nerves and fears and excitement about being away from Veradera, from home, but being here, colliding together in a mess of emotion and displaced energy. Hunk hesitates, shaking his head, and Lance can tell he feels much the same.

“Nah, let’s just… get it all done tonight.”

Lance nods, grabbing a box off the stack and passing it to Hunk before grabbing one himself, setting it on top of his bed and opening it up. Once he gets the flaps on the top open, though, he freezes, feeling ice trickle through his veins and under his skin as he stares down at the box. “…Dammit, Marcie.”

“What’s wrong?” Hunk asks behind him, and Lance jolts.

“Nothing. Just. Stuff I told her not to pack that she put in anyways.”

In the box sits the things Marcie and Lance had bonded over for years, the skills she had taught him— The child-size makeup case she’d given him, filled with bottles of tacky nail polish in bright, sparkly colors, the lip gloss set Mavis had sent him along with others his sisters had gifted him, a couple old, thick pen eyeliners Igraine had given him, a cheap set of cheerful eye-shadows Carlos had bought him from the dollar store as a present last year. Next to the makeup case is the little box of hair ribbons he used to use, and with a pang of hurt at the sight, Lance wonders why Marcie would even put those in. He cut his hair. It’s done, no changing it.

It’s done.

That Lance— Lancie, Loo-Loo, whatever, whatever he was, is nothing now. Just a pile of memories buried away with his old clothes in the shadowed places no one will think to look.

With only a second’s hesitation, fingers drifting over the top of the makeup case, Lance folds the box top shut, picking it up and shoving it under his bed, crawling under after it to make sure it is pushed to the furthest corner against the walls, and then shoves the other boxes being stored under his bed around it for good measure, until it’s hidden from sight.

There’s no room for that… person anymore.

“Hey, you alright?” Lance feels a foot prod the back of his leg as Hunk’s voice pipes up, and he yelps, shooting up and slamming his head against the underside of his bed, pain blossoming through his skull as his vision blurs.

“…Ow.”

“Lance?!”

“I’m fine, just…” He groans, wiggling back out from under the bed and staring up at Hunk tiredly. “You surprised me.”

Hunk grins sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m just… hungry. They said there’s snacks left out in the dorm lounge tonight, right? Since a lot of students skipped dinner to unpack.”

“Yeah.” Lance nods, wincing when that sends another spike of pain through his head. “You want to go get some?”

“Please.”

They barely make it five steps down the hall before the whispers, the sidelong glances start— There’s plenty of other students still out in the hall, curfew rules given some leeway due to the fact it’s move-in day, and out here Lance and Hunk stick out like sore thumbs. In uniforms Lance imagines they’ll look much like everyone else, but everyone’s milling about in casual clothing right now, and Lance and Hunk’s worn, clearly hand-me-down sweaters and jeans with their tears in the knees make a sharp contrast to the neat, new clothes the other kids sport. Glancing down uncomfortably, Lance tries not to stare too hard at his own bare feet in comparison to the clean-looking shoes many of the others he can spot are wearing.

He hadn’t even thought to put shoes on. His sneakers were for the mud of the park and the cracked gravel of the street, not for indoors. Lance is pretty sure his mother would kill him if he ever wore his grubby shoes on inside. Even Marcie’s pretty work pumps that she had saved for months for and looks after with religious zeal come off at the door at home.

He’s so preoccupied with his little thought derailment of the etiquette of shoes on versus shoes off, Lance doesn’t even notice the boys rounding the corner until he quite literally slams into one, their chin connecting with his forehead, sending him reeling back in surprised pain, Hunk catching him with a startled yelp.

“What the fuck?” Someone says in a surprised, vaguely annoyed voice, and Lance glances up cautiously as he straightens back up, wincing when he makes eye contact with an older-looking boy with pale skin and short red-blond hair who is currently glaring at him like he’s a particularly disgusting piece of gum under his shoe.

“S-Sorry.” He stutters on instinct, taking a step back and slamming into Hunk, who Lance had conveniently forgotten was right behind him.

“Sorry? You damn well should be!” The older boy says with a kind of miffed outrage, crossing his arms as the other boy next to him looms over Lance and Hunk. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you to watch where you’re going?”

“He said sorry.” Hunk says, taking a step forward, and Lance gratefully ducks behind Hunk. It’s hardly his proudest moment, but these boys are at least a head taller than him and could probably bench-press him easy— Lance is tiny even for an eleven-year-old, and Hunk, lucky bastard, sits rather tall and large for a twelve-year-old. Between the two of them, Lance likes Hunk’s chances of at least getting the other boys to back down, given they can’t really risk their scholarships by getting into a fistfight on their first day.

“What are you, his bodyguard? Back off, lumpy.” Big and scary scowls. “I’m talking to the twig.” He raises an eyebrow at Lance, and snorts. “How the hell did you get into this school? What are you, a Mexican?”

Lance flushes, pushing past Hunk with every intention of informing the boy that he is Cuban, thank you very much, and that he can, frankly, fuck right off, when a serenely cheerful voice beats him to the punch.

“Demonstrating a deep and layered understanding of the various nuances of the Hispanic identity as always, Travis.” A girl says from an open door on the left, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. “Then again, you’d probably know quite a bit about Mexico, right? Given your daddy gets his cocaine stash from there.”

The boy turns red, spluttering. “Fuck off, Ritchie.”

“Oh, right.” The girl hums, lifting a hand to inspect her nails. “I suppose I could fuck off? Could fuck off right to the headmaster’s office. I’ve been meaning to look in on my granddad since I arrived.”

The boy pales, and his friend grabs his arm, pulling him away. “C’mon, man. Not worth it.” The two turn, disappearing around the corner, and the girl watches them go with a satisfied smirk.

“Bye!” She trills, and then turns back to Hunk and Lance with a raised eyebrow. “You two all good?”

“Uh.” Lance glances at Hunk, who shrugs, eyes wide in confusion. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“No problemo.” The girl says happily. “Travis and Jordan are mcfucking pricks. I like any excuse to tell them to fuck off.”

“…Okay?” Lance says awkwardly, unsure of what else to say. Subconsciously he brings a hand up to play with his hair, like he usually does when he’s nervous, only to meet air and flinch, pulling his hand down as he remembers there’s nothing there anymore.

“Ritzie!” An exasperated voice calls from inside the room behind the girl, and a boy with short black hair, dark eyes, and a scowl appears in the doorway. “Stop harassing new students.”

The girl gasps, placing a hand over her heart. “Me? Never. I’m only introducing myself.” Sticking a hand out to Lance, she grins. “Isabel Lamae, but everyone calls me Ritzie. At your service.”

“…Lance. Lance McClain.” Lance answers, carefully taking her hand and inspecting the girl before him. Ritzie is tall and willowy, probably two or three years older than him, if he had to guess, with thick blonde hair pulled up in two pony-buns on the sides of her head in a style Lance finds reminiscent of Sailor Moon, and wide, thick-rimmed purple glasses. She’s pretty, he guesses, in an eclectic kind of way, and her easy confidence reminds him a bit of Igraine. “That’s Hunk.” He says, pointing over his shoulder, and Hunk waves.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Ritzie parrots back cheerfully. “The grumpy one who yelled at me is Yuu, my roommate.” Behind her, the boy’s eyes narrow, fixing a glare at the back of her head.

“I thought boys and girls couldn’t room together?” Hunk asks curiously, looking between Ritzie and Yuu.

“They can’t.” Ritzie says, sticking her hands in her pockets with a self-satisfactory smirk and pursing her lips, blowing a bright pink bubble out that explodes after a moment with a quiet little pop.

“Then…”

“Her grandfather’s the headmaster.” Yuu sighs, seemingly giving up and approaching them to stand next to Ritzie in the doorway. “Which means she does whatever she wants.”

Hunk pales, staring at Ritzie with wide eyes. “Oh my God your grandfather’s the headmaster.”

“Chill.” Ritzie says, idly waving a hand. “You two are new, right? Scholarship, I’m guessing? No offense but you can usually guess.” Lance winces, and Ritzie shoots him finger guns. “Don’t worry about it. I’m glad, you two look like you deserve it.” She nods to herself, looking pleased. “I have an eye for these things.”

“Well, she thinks she does.” Yuu says, rolling his eyes.

“…Great.” Hunk says faintly.

“Yep.” Ritzie nods, pausing for a moment, head tilting, and then pulls out a small packet from her pocket and offers it to them. “Bubblegum?”

Lance blinks, glancing at Hunk who subtly shakes his head, eyes wide.

“…Sure. Why not.” Lance says, already reaching out.

And that is how he and Hunk end up accidentally befriending Ritzie Lamae and Yuu Itami, the livewire princess of Greenwood and her sounding board slash handler.

Slowly, they fall into something like a settling at the Academy, or at least a semblance of it. It’s… undeniably odd, being even this far away from Veradera on a daily basis, but Lance finds it’s somewhat the change he needs. He misses home, of course. He misses it like hell, but he still gets to come back on the weekends, to revisit his sisters, his family, the worn staircases of his home, the faded glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, the cracks in the concrete outside his driveway, the crab-grass riddled front yard of Hunk’s small house where his now aging dog sleeps in the afternoon sun, the white, bright sand of Veradera beach, the creaking pews of the church, the feel of Loraine’s gravestone against his back.      

And this way, he’s still alleviated from the… pressures of his home. Lance will never say he feels unsafe or unwelcome in his house, because there would never be a bigger lie. His family would protect him with their lives. But… it’s also hard being there sometimes now. The gaping loss of Loraine, while scabbing over, is still achingly fresh in all their chests, and while Lance doesn’t have the heart to place any more undue burdens on his family in their grief, pretending to be okay all the time is, frankly, exhausting.

Because, ultimately, Lance is very aware he isn’t okay. He’s better than he was— He’s learned to function again, to survive, but a mediocre duct-taped job holding together solely on hope and a prayer doesn’t fix something firmly broken. Lance is never going to be whole again, not in his soul or his heart, he knows, in a way he can’t put into words. Even once the worst of the grief and the agony has been worked through, one day, this is something he will never move past. The connection between himself and Loraine was intimate and fathomless in a way he shares with no one else. He holds something similar with Hunk, he thinks, but it’s different. Hunk is someone he feels close to, like they hold a connection beyond their time together, but Loraine was like… the other half of his mind. Losing her fractured something deep inside his soul, well beyond the definitions of his short childhood or his yet unlived years.

Sometimes, he wonders if this is what the oceans might feel like, if someone came along and placed blocks between them, severing Pacific and Indian and Artic. That’s not the way things are meant to be, he thinks. Water is meant to intermingle and run together. You can’t take one piece of water and say it is different from another, when they are meant to be one.

Lance’s only other comfort in his thoughts, to rival that of knowing his family doesn’t have to see these broken pieces of himself, is that Hunk is here with him. Hunk, who picks him up and puts him back together when he falls. Hunk, who listens to his nonsensical ramblings about water and souls and Loraine with an understanding and patience beyond his years, and cleans up Lance’s messes afterwards, coaxing the blades from Lance’s skin before he can do more harm to himself, and forcing him to sleep and eat and keep up appearances in class.

Honestly, if it weren’t for Hunk, Lance really isn’t sure if he would have survived those first few months at Greenwood.

The other surprisingly consistent presences he finds at his side are Ritzie and Yuu, who seem to take an attachment to Lance and Hunk after that first encounter on move-in day. Or… at least Ritzie does. Lance suspects Yuu usually just goes along with whatever Ritzie fancies, either unable or unwilling to talk her out of her ideas, instead simply hanging around for something like quality control, and to make sure Ritzie doesn’t get herself killed.

Ritzie is easy to get along with, Lance finds. She’s beyond privileged, as pretty much almost everyone at the Academy is, but not arrogant or obnoxious about it. She has an ego, but only for the things she achieves herself— Not beyond showing off, largely the opposite honestly, but only for her own brilliance, never her family’s money or influence, unless she threatens it to protect an underprivileged or younger student who’s getting shit from the kids who do think their money entitles them to everything.

Lance has never been able to hold a friend beyond Hunk, too smart and too little and too different to give him much popularity before, but he… he likes Ritzie. She’s just as smart as him, as many others here are, and fun. She doesn’t care about his age or size, judging him by his kindness to others and his “interestingness”, as she puts it. He doesn’t tell her about… Himself, about the Lancie-Loo of Veradera beach, and Loraine, and promises to stars, but those are secrets reserved to Hunk and his heart, for a dead child who can no longer be to survive and do what he plans to. Still, he enjoys her company, embracing her loudness and her quirkiness and her spitfire energy. Hunk is slower to warm up to her, but even he can’t avoid her cheerful charisma.

Yuu is trickier, Lance finds. Despite his disgruntled complaints, he shows himself to be very attached to Ritzie, her right-hand man. He’s dismissive towards Lance and Hunk at first. Not in a mean way, but just as if he assumes they’ll soon get tired of Ritzie, or Ritzie will get bored and that will be the end of it, but with time, he seems to unfurl, accepting Lance and Hunk as occasional presences in his and Ritzie’s space. Yuu and Hunk get along well, once they both get over their personal cautions. Yuu is analytical design and portable game devices and formulas for circuitry and wires, and that clicks well with Hunk’s easy joy in technology, in science, in creation.

Ritzie is more… charm and exploratory whim. Bold words and the written truth in print and demand for answers to everything and anything. They’re traits Lance and her share, in part, and he figures that’s largely why they mesh so easily.

And so, while he and Hunk remain partners in crime, formed by unbreakable trust, Ritzie and Yuu also become on-and-off presences in their days, offering new company and idle chatter.

It’s… nice.

Adjusting to the academic side of Greenwood is its own bag of worms though, Lance discovers.

For once, Lance is no longer the youngest, smallest child in his grade. Instead, he finds his classes filled with a mix of different kids, sharing space with children several years younger than him, as well as those older, including Ritzie and Yuu occasionally, despite them being a year older than Hunk and two older than Lance. Class in general is less regular— They don’t take the same classes all the time, and aside from some basics, the curriculum is a lot less regimented.

Greenwood is, as Ritzie calls it, “a true magnet school”, dedicated to producing students who rake in accreditations and awards for the school. As such, Lance finds that pretty much every student is dedicated to one or two clubs or particular talents, be they academic, artistic, or athletic.

It only takes a few weeks before one of their science teachers pulls Hunk aside and recruits him to the competitive robotics and engineering clubs, his talent for schematics and building the impossible out of scraps, long honed from years hanging around Igraine and Lance’s uncle at the repair shop, quickly coming to light. As for the rest of Lance’s miniscule social circle, Ritzie is part of the school’s elite debate and mock trial teams, and Yuu the mathematics team, along with the same robotics team Hunk is dragged into.

Lance himself doesn’t really find an easy niche. His specialty, much as it can be called that, has always been being moderately decent at everything. It was what had allowed him to jump a grade, given there was no one subject he was significantly less proficient in than the rest. He has odd skills he’s picked up, but they’re all what he’s learned from his family— An intricate knowledge of makeup and hairstyling techniques thanks to Marcie, basic understanding of an engine via Igraine, some easy programming skills and how to hedge a wifi signal he’s locked out of courtesy of Evie, etcetera. Regardless, if he has any particular skills, they’re not any he can identify or that immediately stick out.

The thing is, Lance’d be fine with that, normally. So what if he’s not an expert in anything? He’s relatively good at most academics, speaks two languages perfectly, can keep up in P.E. just fine, and knows quite a bit about astronomy. But, the problem lies in the inherent purpose of Greenwood— To pull in as many accolades as possible. To not have a talent that can bring awards to the school is to be useless to it, and not a position he can afford to be in as a scholarship student.

Honestly, he stumbles across his saving grace completely on accident. It’s one of the lunch breaks when Hunk and Yuu are off with the robotics team for… something, it kind of goes over his head, and Ritzie is nowhere to be found, possibly off trying to break into somewhere she’s not supposed to be. Lance is left alone and bored, and accidentally finds some other students, a couple of which he gets along with well enough, playing chess in one of the common areas. On a whim, he asks to play, and one of the older students, who is known to be a bit of a cocky bastard, agrees with a smug smirk, probably assuming he can beat Lance easy as he explains the rules of each piece with a breezy air.

He isn’t smiling when Lance beats him five minutes later, his eyes wide as he stares at Lance’s equally shocked expression.

By the time Lance has thoroughly thrashed the next three others that challenge him, each of them waiting for Lance’s lucky streak to end almost as much as he himself is, one of the upper-grade math teachers finds them, and pulls Lance into her office for a… talk about his sudden new skill.

Within the next month and a half, he plays through three chess tournaments and ends up with two grandmasters coaching him that the school hires the minute he somehow wins his first competition.

Turns out he’s really fucking good at chess, not that Lance would guess that any more than most people would either.

“Of course you are.” Is what Mavis says to him when he tells her over the phone, ever as much the confidante to him she became over the end of summer. “You’re good at reading people and have a head for analysis, Loraine always talked about how smart you are. Try some language and statistics courses, that kind of thing. I think you’ll be fine.”

So Lance does.

The first Christmas home from Greenwood, and the first without Loraine is… odd. Christmas has always been a big deal with their family, and it’s his and Hunk’s first extended break home from the Academy, so while it’s nice to be back its also feels vaguely overwhelming. Lance really isn’t sure how being around his family, people he sees almost every weekend, can be exhausting, but it’s… difficult, to try and come back and get into the holiday cheer. Sleeping in his room in the house for more than a day or two feels odd, and Lance is grateful that by day two Hunk gives up the ghost and migrates over to the McClain house with his pillow for pretty much the rest of winter break.

It’s not bad. It’s nice being with his family and having a couple weeks to hang around Veradera, but there’s still an absence that sticks in Lance’s throat. He misses Loraine, achingly so, and being back home only emphasizes that.

It’s hard, knowing that this situation isn’t going to change, that she’s… never coming back.

Mavis avoids coming home completely for Christmas, a point Lance loudly berates her for over the phone, but she waxes poetic about not having the money and then mails him down a less-than-cheap looking dark blue sweater and a chessboard as Christmas presents.

“Don’t tell the others, but you’re my favorite.” She says, with put-on melodrama, when he calls her about the presents. “Besides if you have to dress like… that, it might as well be nice stuff.”

That’s another aspect that makes Lance’s skin itch uncomfortably about being home. He hasn’t allowed himself to touch the discarded clothing of his old life in the back of his wardrobe any time he comes home for the weekend, and he holds himself to that over the break as well. It’s not worth the risk, really, and part of him is afraid that, if he indulged, he might not have the heart to give it up and go back to living as this new image of himself at Greenwood only a couple weeks later.

Practice makes perfect. Surely, with time, he will come to accept this boyish, awkward version of himself he sees in the mirror.

So, he remains as he has taught himself to be, despite the worried glances his family still sometimes cast at him, and comforts himself with the familiarities of home. He spends time with his sisters, his mother, aunts, and uncle, he visits Carlos and Rachel two streets over, plays with Josie, no longer a small baby but an excitable toddler eagerly awaiting the promise of a sibling from her parents, walks the beaches with Hunk, chases the cracks in the gravel on the sidewalks on the way to the dairy shop, and sits in the garage under león’s shadow, the hoverbike preserved lovingly by Igraine and waiting, promised to Lance once he’s big enough, because of course it’s his, Loraine would have wanted him to have it.

Sometimes, in the early mornings, when the sun isn’t quite yet risen and the last of the stars are yet to sleep, Lance will sneak out to the churchyard, will dust the snow off Loraine’s gravestone and sit with his back to it, ignoring the chill of the wind and the nip of the snow against his fingers, because he always forgets gloves, always, and tells her about Greenwood, about his life.

Lance wonders, occasionally, if she would be proud of him, of what he’s doing to preserve their dream, her dream.

He hopes so. He really, really hopes so.

He wants more than anything to be the legacy Loraine deserves, to be worthy of the pride and the love and the confidence she had always held in him.

He feels closer to her, oddly enough, there with his back against the stone, or with his head pressed to it as he traces the words on the stone, and occasionally, on the ever slowly re-healing scars on his skin.

Loraine Ophelia Eliza, Loraine Ophelia Eliza, Loraine Ophelia Eliza.

Please forgive me, he asks in his silent mantra. Please protect me. Please let me get this right, for you, for me.

It’s not that bad, Lance tells himself, and that’s the important part, right?

And when he goes back to Greenwood with Hunk come the new year, and Ritzie and Yuu break into their room almost immediately, the former’s mouth running a mile a minute about all the boring socialite parties she had to attend, with the air of someone who has walked through a war zone, while Yuu patiently half-listens and shows Hunk and Lance his new video games behind Ritzie’s back, it’s not too bad either.

He’s surviving, rising on up on the way to the stars, and that’s all that matters.

[dvddggs]

To the Four of Us (Part Thirteen)

premise: modern AU chronicling the squad as they make their way through college and deal with general life things. 

words: 2,328

warnings: swearin and i think that’s it tbh

a/n: i had this chapter planned out as fluff in my head but where’s the fun in that tbh lol enjoy

all chapters: x

tags: @heythereitsloey @anitheunicorn @newyorkyoucanbeanew @lafbagxette @justafangirlwithanavy @iamgrayfox @ordinaryornate @schuylerjoon @angelica-peggy-eliza @trashyperson101 @crazydragon15 @geespilots @marvelous-hamilfan @5p00kygh05t @panda-powers

dedication: @but-if-you-had-to-choose bc she is my fav and draws amazing art (her art blog is @abbydextrous-art) and @skittlegeek03 for the jmads (and art)!!!!

soundtrack song: Coffee Shop Soundtrack - All Time Low

full soundtrack: x

let me know what you thought of this one!! reblog to share w a friend and lemme know if you want me to tag you in updates! alsO IM A SLUT FOR FANART ((do w this info anything u like :-) )))

Alexander ended up spending the night in John’s bed. And the next night. And the one after that. Lafayette knew because he could hear them fucking until 2 o’clock in the morning all week long. He didn’t understand why they always needed to be in John’s room.

“Listen,” Lafayette told them one morning. “I understand that you need to ‘make up for lost time’ or whatever, but can’t you do it in Alex’s room once in awhile? I can’t sleep. And listening to your bed frame smack against the wall for hours is, in a word, disturbing.”

John just laughed, kissing Alex on the cheek.

“Hercules told us that if we even think about banging in my room he’ll beat me up,” Alexander said matter-of-factly. “And honestly I wouldn’t put it past him. So, no. Sorry, Laf.”

Lafayette scowled and stomped back into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Oh well,” John laughed. “He’ll be fine.”

“No I won’t,” Lafayette yelled back.

It was finally Friday and the guys couldn’t have been more relieved. It had been the longest week of their lives. They’d been planning their Friday night outing since the middle of the week and, as much as it made Alexander feel guilty to admit it, he was glad to not be stuck in his room for Movie night Fridays anymore. John was a bit more free-spirited than Thomas was, so they both planned on getting hammered that night.

It wasn’t until he got to class that he remembered he and Thomas were in the same ones on Fridays. He sat down at the front of the lecture hall, as far away from their usual spot as he could manage. He didn’t look up once for fear of catching Thomas’s eye, but was relieved to find that the spot beside him had been filled so that he wouldn’t have to—

“Hamilton.”

Alexander froze. He didn’t recognize the voice of the person sitting beside him, but he didn’t sound happy.

Looking up, he instantly recognized the guy as Thomas’s friend.

“Hey,” Alexander began slowly. “You’re James, right?”

James nodded without breaking eye contact.

“Listen,” he said. “You really hurt Thomas. I mean, shit. I’ve never seen him like this. He wouldn’t even come to class today. You need to at least talk to him. I don’t want to start anything—really, I don’t—but he didn’t do anything wrong. Who knows, maybe you guys can work it out, right? I mean, it was just one kiss.”

Alexander bit his lip, a wave of guilt overtaking him.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It was just one kiss.”

As the day went on, Alexander pushed the conversation with James out of his head. He was going out with his friends that night and was determined to enjoy it. He could worry about Thomas on Saturday.

Alexander’s professor dismissed his last class of the day five minutes early and it took all of his willpower to not sprint back to his room to get ready to go out. It had been the longest and most dramatic week of his life and all he wanted to do was get drunk, make out with John, and forget about all of the problems he hadn’t yet dealt with.

Dropping his backpack unceremoniously to the floor, he pulled his hair out of the bun it was in and shook his head to loosen it. He was in the middle of changing from his sweats to jeans when John barged in the door, followed by Lafayette and Hercules.

John bit his lip, smirking at Alexander’s boxers. “Okay,” he murmured. “Y’all are gonna have to leave before I tear those off him.”

“You’re nasty,” Hercules sighed, padding across the floor to his room, Lafayette in tow.

“Oui. Whatever you do, hurry the fuck up, because I wanna go get my drink on!”

As they left, Alexander could hear Hercules grumble something about how only middle-aged wine moms say, “get my drink on,” and Lafayette cursing out John for teaching him that phrase.

They sat on Hercules’s bed and tried to drown out the sound of their best friends fucking in the middle of the afternoon by watching Netflix at full volume. It was working, quite successfully, until they heard a particularly loud moan from through the walls.

“That was John,” Lafayette mumbled.

“No way,” Hercules replied. “It was definitely Alex.”  

They were interrupted by a particularly violent yelp, after which Laf yelled, “WE GET IT. YOU’RE HAVING SEX. SHUT THE FUCK UP.”

Hercules cracked up and held out his hand for Laf to shake. “Ten bucks says both of those were Alex.”

“You’re on.”

Ten more minutes passed before the godawful sex noises subsided and John and Alexander burst into Hercules’s room looking dishevelled. Alexander was buttoning his plaid shirt, chest rising and falling rapidly, and John was tying his wild mane of hair back.

“You should leave it down,” Alexander said. “It looks hot.”

Lafayette suppressed a snicker into his palm—the only reason Alexander thought that was because it was John’s sex hair. Laf had seen it countless mornings after John had kicked his catch of the day out of his bed. And it wasn’t hot. 

“So whose moans were those at the end there?” Hercules asked, trying not to laugh. John instantly broke into hysterics and Alexander turned bright red. “Told you.”

“Merde,” Lafayette muttered, passing Hercules a ten dollar bill.

“This is why we use your room,” Alexander said to John. “Are you guys ready to go?”

John shrugged and tangled his fingers in Alexander’s. Herc and Laf followed them out the door and they headed downtown to a house party that they’d heard about. They huddled together for warmth as they walked, Alexander and John in the middle of the pack.

“Watch this,” John whispered to Alex, cocking his head at his roommate as they strolled down the sidewalk. “Hey, Laf.”

“Yes?”

“I think you’ve got a bit of up-dog on your shoulder, there.”

“What—what’s up-dog?”

Everyone started cracking up, except poor Lafayette who looked between the three of them, confused as hell. When Laf made eye contact with John, John physically stopped walking and doubled over to catch his breath because of how hard he was laughing.

“Oh my god, Laf,” he wheezed between fits of laughter. “I love you so much. You’re so pure.”

John wiped tears of laughter from his eyes and took Alexander’s outstretched hand.

“I still don’t understand,” Laf mumbled, forcing another fit of laughter from his friends.

Unlike usual, once they got to the party the four of them stuck together. It had been so long since they’d all been out at the same time that they were all acting clingy.

John and Alexander were practically wrapped around each other, and had been for the entire night. Every time John pulled away to get another drink or talk to a friend, Alexander would pull him back into his arms as soon as was humanly possible and kiss him like he hadn’t seen him in months.

“Stopppp,” Lafayette slurred, wine drunk.

“Why, Sugar?” John asked, his southern drawl exaggerated in his drunken state. “You jealous?”

John leaned over and kissed Lafayette sloppily on the cheek, which he wiped off hastily and went to go and find Hercules.

“His loss,” Alexander muttered to John, who smiled and kissed him deeply.

They migrated to the centre of the living room and began dancing together.  Alexander made eye contact with John and he broke into a grin. Getting drunk had worked—John was the only thing on his mind and he was absolutely bursting with happiness.

John locked his fingers behind Alexander’s neck as they turned in slow-paced circles which directly opposed the upbeat club music that was playing, but he didn’t care. Part of him felt crazy for being this happy about the cheesy slow dance with his best friend but another, larger part felt ecstatic. He was filled-to-the-brim, overflowing, almost sickeningly happy. Beaming, he leaned in and kissed Alex on the cheek.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Alexander pulled back, confused. “For what?”

John shrugged. “I dunno. Just…thank you.”

Alexander grinned, but it almost immediately faltered and turned into a look of shock.

“What?” John asked, surprised.

Alexander dropped his contact with John and turned around to face out the window.

“Nothing. Just—there we go—no…it’s nothing.”

John raised an eyebrow as Alexander shook his hair forward to cover his face. Why was he acting so weird all of a sudden?

“Lex,” John pressed. “What is it?”

Alexander simply shook his head, lips pressed tightly together. John furrowed his brow as Hercules came rushing over, Maria in tow. She seemed to be his regular party hookup, but they were all surprised it hadn’t yet become more.

“Alex,” he said quickly. “Did you see—”

Alexander shook his head warningly, but his eyes gave him away as they flashed in the direction of the mood change. John turned around and saw the back of someone who could only be Thomas Jefferson.

“It’s fine,” Alexander said quickly.

“Are you—oh, hi, Maria—are you going to talk to him?” Laf asked as he joined the discussion circle.

Alexander shrugged and glanced at John. He hadn’t told him what James said in class earlier that day about it only being one kiss and about Alexander and Thomas working it out. He knew this probably wouldn’t end well, but—hey—there was going to be a confrontation at some point and what better time than with a bit of liquid confidence in his system, right?

“Thomas,” Alexander said as he walked purposefully towards his ex, who towered over him.

“Oh, Alexander.”

“Listen,” Alexander began. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I’m really sorry for the way things ended earlier. I never wanted to hurt you.”
 To his intense surprise, Thomas smiled a bit.

“You know what,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and it’s okay. I mean, it was just a kiss, right? I kind of overreacted. I mean, I’m over it.”

John watched the two converse from afar, unable to hear what they were saying. He noticed that Lafayette held a hand on his shoulder while they watched Thomas laugh at whatever Alexander was saying.

Then, without so much as a warning, Thomas bent down and slowly and tenderly kissed Alexander’s cheek. John’s jaw dropped and Lafayette’s grip on his shoulder tightened as he subconsciously began to walk towards the scene. Why was Thomas kissing Alexander if he knew he was with John?

There was only one explanation that made sense in John’s head: Thomas didn’t know.

“Oh, hell no,” John muttered as Hercules assisted Lafayette by placing a hand on John’s other shoulder.

They watched as Thomas ended the kiss, shifting back to look at Alexander. And the longer he looked, the worse things seemed to get. Then John remembered: the hickeys on Alexander’s jaw. Thomas’s face twisted from a contented expression to one of pain to one of intense anger. John, Lafayette, and Hercules watched as Thomas gestured angrily to Alexander’s jawline then to John. As his voice rose, they could make out snippets of what he was saying.

“Goddammit, do you know how fucking embarrassing this is for me?…You’re a fucking asshole…We haven’t even been apart for a week…whore…fucking John? Already?…fuck off…”

They watched as Thomas’s friend James flew to his side, apologizing profusely for something. He was also berating Alexander, who stood by expressionless.

“Fuck, guys, let me go!” John said, breaking free of his friends’ grasp and rushing to Alexander’s side just in case. Things were heating up pretty fast and he wasn’t exactly sure how Alex would hold up in a fight.

“Oh, and here comes the dirty little mistress now,” Thomas spat, gesturing towards John. “Do you have any shame whatsoever, or are you just that thirsty?”

“Thomas, leave John the fuck out of this,” Alexander muttered defensively.

“It’s fine, Lex,” John said without taking his eyes off of Thomas. “He’s drunk as hell.”

“Fuck you,” Thomas said to no one in particular.

“Come on, Thomas,” James said quietly, tugging on his jacket. “Let’s just go.”

Thomas jerked away from his friend and continued to glare at Alexander and John, eyes filled with anger.

Before John could turn and pull Alexander away from the confrontation, Alexander stepped forward and looked up so he was as close to Thomas’s face as he could get.

“In case you forgot,” Alexander growled. “You dumped me. I didn’t ask for that, Thomas. I told you the truth because I made a mistake and I didn’t want you to find out another way. You made the choice to end it. Not me.”

And then everything happened at once. Thomas’s fist was in the air and he punched Alexander square in the jaw—right where John’s hickeys were—and Alexander fell past John onto the ground gasping in pain and John cried out as Hercules and Lafayette sprinted across the room, kneeling to the ground at his side.

Alexander’s eyes fluttered as he saw stars, dizzy with what was surely the most intense pain he’d ever felt. He vaguely noticed that he was falling as the room silenced around him. He heard Thomas, as if through a tunnel, say, “Add that to your little collection of bruises,” before he walked away. He registered that he was on the floor when Lafayette and Hercules surrounded him, closely followed by John and the rest of the people in the house. His vision went spotty as he felt Lafayette gently lift his head and place it in his lap. He heard someone say, “He needs an ambulance,” and John say, “Oh my god, Alex,” and Hercules say, “He’s going to pass out,” before everything around him went black and the pain subsided.

[vildflower]

Things take a dark twist

“What would happen if I do?” Dean had asked Benny, voice low, eyes cast down. His voice gave away just how weak he felt, as did the saking on his hand.

  Benny would have shown concern, reassure him, make him feel better. He would have said ‘nothing’, because it was never going to happen. Benny would have led him to the best outcome, because Benny wanted the best for him. Always had, even if it meant he’d end up screwed over.

  “This will be over. You won’t have to worry about it anymore. I promise brother.”

  But this wasn’t Benny. It was a mockery of him created by a spell, and yet it was the closest Dean had been to him since that day.

  His voice was the same, his face was the same, his eyes, and the little things that were off, well Dean was willing to ignore them. Because if he hadn’t seen him in two years, he had no one but himself to blame. Because it was him, with his selfishness and neglect, that had brought the best man to ever come into his life to the edge. Brought him to giving up on life.

  So if this face asked him to join him in death, who was he to tell him 'no’?

  He took the blade from Benny’s hand, their fingers touched and Dean felt Benny’s rough ones against his. He swallowed hard, look at the blade, then at Benny’s reassuring smile. That smile was what he looked at as he drove the blade onto his own chest.

  And as he did, his real body used the broken bottle to slash his neck.

  _______________________________

  He had woken up to Sam screaming his name in panic. His brother’s voice sounded broken, desperate. When he called his name again, the clear sound characteristic of incoming tears had been added to it.

  It made Dean want to laugh. So weak. So pathetic.

  He didn’t need to wait to see the flinch on his brother to know that his slasher smile came with black eyes. He felt that blackness running through him, flowing from the spell on his arm and going to every single corner of his body. It took away pain, it took away guilt, it took away care, and it took away guilt, and replaced all of it with will and strength and decision and everything he had never allowed himself to feel.

  He didn’t kill Sam. He came close to it, for having dared to take this away from him and just for being who he was. But for that same reason, being who he was, Dean decided to take pity on him and just leave him bleeding and unconscious on the floor. No matter what a pain he was, he still held some level of affection for him. It was a part of him, demon or not. But that didn’t mean he was gonna deal with him.

  Before leaving, he inspected the basement, out of curiosity. He easily broke the spell on the box and looked at what was inside. He didn’t know what it was but it was clear Sam wanted it, so he burned it down.

  And with that taken care of, he was driving his baby, freed from humanity, his brother, and with no King of Hell in sight to give him stupid orders. Mmmm, maybe he’d pay Crowley a visit later, have a drink again. He was gonna be next to the backdoor anyway.

  Because yes, right, Purgatory, Benny. Dean had an objective. Something to make right. Benny was the only one his new state still saw as his old one did; much more than a friend, someone who hadn’t backstabbed him. Someone worth getting back.

  He didn’t have his blade – he added that to his 'will fix it later’ list – but with some imagination a regular knife could be just as good. He had the reaper begging for mercy within five minutes, but he made that twenty before he allowed the being to open a door to Purgatory. Dean traced a slasher smile on his lips as he leaped in.

  He killed the first monster he found with his bare hands, making himself dirty with blood up to his elbow. The next few dozens met their end at the hands of the weapon his first victim had so graciously offered him.

  He didn’t keep count, but he thought he might be at 138 deaths when he heard it.

  “Dean?”

  The demon stopped in his tracks. He breathed deeply and grinned widely. Oh, that voice. It was real this time. He was actually there.

  Grin still on his face, he turned around slowly. And he shook slightly when he saw Benny, opens wide open in surprise.

  He didn’t really feel like hitting the 'why how when where’ topics so he skipped to the part when he ran to Benny and slammed him into a tree, smashing their lips together as he went. The vampire let out a little yelp as he was dragged, and Dean took the chance to make his tongue invade his mouth. Oh, how had he dreamed of those lips against his.

  “Dean?” Benny inquired, voice incredulous, when he got his mouth free. He seemed too shocked to even wonder about that. “What even-?”

  Oh, well, here it was, the 'wh-’ questions, there was no helping it. Dean rolled his eyes as he moved back a couple inches, although still very much inside Benny’s space. His eyes set on Benny’s shoulder, where he placed one hand, the other feeling up Benny’s chest.

  “Look, I don’t want to make this complicated. The basic points you need to know are, I’m a demon now courtesy of a very nice cursed tattoo on my arm and my ability to give fucks is vastly lower than it was when we last met. You’re the only thing I give a fuck about, actually. So fuuck Sam, fuck reapers and their rules, fuck death and fuck you and your fucking 'I don’t belong’. Yeah, you do, with me, to me, it’s your pick. Point being, I’m taking you back to Earth with me, one way or another.”

  He regarded Benny with a raised eyebrow as he watched the vampire’s face go through all kind of expressions while he took the information in. Once he had taken it all in, which was a fucking lot considering the whole coming out of nowhere deal, he seemed to have a handful of reactions at the same time. The one who won, though, was taking Dean’s arm and rolling the sleeve up to reveal the Mark as his brows furrowed in concern.

  “Demon you say…? Brother, I can feel darkness reeking out of this thing.”

  Dean huffed dismissively. Benny had the same concerned tone everyone else did. But he guessed he could forgive it. For Benny he could.

  “Well, yeah, I’m afraid I like it, so you’re gonna have to get used to it. Now, let’s go?”

  “Dean, this ain’t right. Damn, you ain’t right! And you don’t even see it. You need to fix this.”

  “There’s no fixing it, Benny. I don’t want it fixed, I only want you. Don’t act like you don’t want me too. C'mon, let’s go home and get some blood for you, huh? I’ll eventually have you drinking from me but I think demon blood’s a bit too strong for a starter, we’ll get you some warm young woman blood first, that OK?”

  If Benny had been reluctant before, well, now he was just pissed, going by his face. He sneered and pushed Dean away, although only because Dean allowed him to do so. He was the stronger of the two now.

  “Yeah, I may want you, but that means I want who you really are. And right now, brother, you ain’t yourself. You even listening to yourself?”

  Here it was. Pure Benny. Concerned, kind, but strong Benny. He may have been opposing Dean, but his words didn’t fail to make the demon smile. If he still held this much love for his broken version, how adored would he be once he got the other to see just how much better he was now?

  He didn’t have time for fooling around. As much as he enjoyed slicing things here, he had stuff to do on Earth. As for Benny, Dean slashed his neck with his own nails, not feeling pain but even smiling as he did it. Benny’s eyes had gone wide, and even more when Dean pressed his bloodied up fingers to his lips. He knew what he felt – it wasn’t human blood, so it was strange. But it was Dean’s, and so Benny desired it just as much as any human’s, or more.

  It took a second, but Benny’s instinct took over. He opened his lips, but before he could close them around the digit, Dean moved it away. Benny chased, and the operation repeated until Benny decided to go directly for the neck.

  Dean moaned in pleasure when he felt Benny’s fangs pierce his neck, turning them around and slamming him into the tree’s bark. He could feel himself start to grow hard, but alas, this was not the time for this.

  Taking advantage of Benny’s distraction, Dean smashed his head with his fist. His superior force was proven because it only took a few hits and a little struggle to have Benny fall down to the floor, unconscious.

  “One way or another” Dean repeated carefreely as he bent down to pick Benny up. He caressed his face, mouth wet with demon blood, and kissed his lips gently. In his eyes he had a tenderness that didn’t belong in a demon.

“I missed you, Benny. I’m not letting you go again. I’m not letting you be alone. I promise.”

deanbenny love week, day 5

i need a 50k+ words fic of this along with a fanart masterpost and a playlist byE