#i'm gone ! wrecked ! there is magic here ! pure pure pure MAGIC

[morgana-ren]

i feel like this is a safe space for He Who Was content bc theres not nearly enough with him. tbh i can just imagine a hopeful sunny and stupid Paladin thinking they could change him but just getting absolutely wrecked by him. sweet n friendly beacon of hope to someone He can make terrified and use :)))

Oh yeah, here is a good space for He Who Was. We do love him here.

Honestly, I would be totally curious to see how they try to go about it.

He Who Was is a little... how you say... off the deep end. He's lost his mind in the shadows. He's doing things on pure instinct now, but his brains have been a little scrambled. He's still maintaining a routine for the Raven Queen, but he is technically forsaken. I think at this point, he's just reveling in the madness of it all. He's too far gone to be saved.

But that wouldn't stop someone full of optimism and sunshine, really. It's clear he isn't well and that's obvious going to jumpstart her instinct to try to drag him to the light and save him.

At this point, he is just fully going to take advantage of that, whether he gets his mind back or not.

He seems a sight bit manipulative no matter how many screws he has loose, so I'm sure there's some impressive instinct there that he can hone if he really wants to. One of the downsides about being kind and sweet is it tends to make you far easier to take advantage of, and he seems the type to know how.

I'm sure there's some very good scenarios out there to be written. I personally don't know much about Paladins (I've never really played one-- the closest thing to an ultra-religious character I'll play is a cleric and I usually prefer magic over steel) but I don't doubt that there's some good shit to be done there.

I think if you could clean him up and get him out of the shadows (and manage to clear his head a bit) he'd fall back into sanity a little bit-- or we hope he would. However, he's still technically an 'evil' character, so even sane, he likely just becomes more dastardly and manipulative.

Someone very dedicated to showing him the light might very much get dragged down into the darkness with him.

[chieftn]

important side note    :    two  new  alphas   could     ...    have me   ?

[mirainawen]

Some headcanons for The Long Road that absolutely nobody asked for

Who’s the messiest one:

Everyone has their places that they are the messiest one in.

dean: when he cooks, he does not clean up the kitchen afterward. he reasons that cleanup is sam's detail, because that splits the work 50-50. most of the time, sam is okay with this because he doesn't particularly enjoy cooking and is tired of takeout. he'll bitch dean out in three circumstances: 1, he hasn't been there (fair), 2, he wanted to eat out (less fair), 3, DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO WRECK THE WHOLE KITCHEN TO BAKE A FRICKIN PIE (least fair).

when it comes to the state of his room, though, dean falls right between sam and adam. it's his space, so he reasons everyone can mind their own business. sometimes he is really on top of it; other stretches of time, he'll let things pile up / get out of place before he'll do something about it.

you so much as leave a to-go cup in Baby, though, and God help you.

sam: between the three of them, sam tends to be the most orderly and tidy. BUT, leave that man alone to his own devices in the library? he's probably fallen asleep atop an entire table of "organized chaos" of open books, pages of notes, a new (unimplemented) filing system, a dozen bookmarked tomes, and a couple dozen pens lost amid the chaos. sam in research mode + cross-referencing & digitizing & organizing the men of letters' archives into a streamlined and interconnected, coherent system is...a lot. just like A Lot. and it Shows. (and sam's loving every minute of it. utterly geeking out in his own head.)

adam: is a disaster child. he'll let shit pile up until he has to deal with it, or is otherwise bitched at enough by (usually) sam. he doesn't have a lot of stuff, so it can't reach actual problem levels in the bunker. but he's totally the kind to be like, "what the hell? how long has this been here? hey, guys, when did we eat at burger king? oh god, we should definitely toss that at the next gas station. what? no i'm not going searching for a trash can right now" about his car.

Who feels the most uncomfortable about PDA:

it is, get this, sam. i know, i know. hear me out. when given the option, adam can and will be affectionate within reason. he's the most uptight and gunshy about it at first, when he just gets out of the cage; tends to withdraw from people getting too close, always on edge; as a survivor of the most Traumatic Thing in the Universe, that is more than fair and expected.

once he's had time to find his footing with sam & dean, however, he'll greet them with a bro-hug, when appropriate, a slap on the back, a nudge of the elbow, lowkey affection like that.

dean came back from purgatory more affectionate than he'd ever been before. much more readily will not only greet with a hug, but say goodbye (even in 'casual' partings) with a hug.

that leaves sam, who used to be considered more mushy than dean by these terms. dean's lowkey affection he's used to. adam's? nah. no. especially in the first 5 years, for the amount of time that adam does it (before shit gets Real Bad). after adam gets out of the institution, he gravitates more towards sam naturally, even when pissed, and sam's kinda lowkey why is he in my personal space??? weird. because it doesn't innately fit the same kind of way it does with dean. post-reintegration, he's more affectionate after they've found their footing again. he tries to make up for the Bad Years with more slaps on the shoulder kind of affection. boy's trying.

Who’s the funniest drunk:

sam is a disaster drunk. he's the biggest lightweight of the three of them, which is funny because he's also the biggest, just like the biggest in general. dean becomes so much fun in unexpectedly different kinds of ways. like, he can be talked into karaoke. or doing some stupid shit he's gonna regret in the morning because odds are it's not gonna end well.

but adam is straight up hilarious. that sharp wit comes out, and all his inhibitions (and image) are gone so he just straight up cracks the worst jokes ever and gets away with it. they land. somehow they land. maybe because sam & dean are also drunk. maybe because he is just that funny. maybe it's that he has a tendency to get blackout-wasted and do stupid shit that makes no sense whatsoever, like shower with his f*ckin socks on and dean is never gonna let that shit die.

Who texts the most:

adam or dean. during large periods of time in the first 5 years, adam will leave dean on read and dean texts because read receipts means he knows when adam is checking his messages and therefore he knows adam is at least alive, if not entirely alright. by that view, dean texts the most.

but for random shit, that would be adam. he'll text dean something like

with either no caption, or something like: this reminds me you need to hit the gym, or looks like you have competition and doesn't give further context. dean doesn't mind because at least it means the kid's not dying in a basement somewhere.

he'll kick his ass for the fat comment later

Who reads the most:

it goes in this order:

sam "i read this entire book in one sitting cause i had the time, and now i am awake at 1am because i can't decide if i want to start another one since i have down time" winchester

adam "does it have cool illustrations? no? fine, at least tell me the lore on boobries is correct" milligan

dean "what job has the least amount of reading?" winchester

Who has the most embarrassing taste in music:

eff. ing. adam. even in his own car (where, hey, the rules are driver picks the music dean!) he's only allowed a certain amount of time for his "whiny teenage garbage music" (thanks dean) before he has to change it to something a little more tolerable (rock, at the very least). heaven help him if he hints at something country with dean around. dean will be like, sit your ass down it's time for REAL music 101 and put on Metallica for the 8th time.

Who’s better with kids:

adam, with dean a very, very close second! so close, they probably tie. adam, early on, isn't good with anyone because fresh-out-of-the-cage (even post-institution for a bit) makes him kind of a hairs-breadth triggered bomb when it comes to people of all ages. but adam a bit more balanced? a natural. he grew up around extended family, friends, wanted kids of his own someday.

sam, however, is the absolute worst. a pure disaster moron in this arena. when adam is de-aged? dean didn't think it was possible for sam to suck so much at something. (don't worry, the boy found his bearings. but oh man...the road to get there, paved with more potholes than road.) BUT when sam really tries? like if he lets himself relax and lowers his inhibitions, he can do pretty well. but he's mostly just Highly Uncomfortable around kids, and like, it Shows.

Who’s the one that fixes things around the house:

dean. put that boy in the garage, under the hood of a car, great. can do it all. put that boy in front of a little home repair? renovation? by god he'll figure it out. and he won't put a hole in the wall shut up sammy. he takes pride in the upkeep of the bunker.

sam, however, is much more content to just be like ah man i wish we had a shelf here. or, oh right we need to remember to do xyz and then sit back and wait for it to Magically Take Care of Itself.

Who’s got the weirdest hobby:

hobby? what the hell is that? a homeless person?

Who cooks and who cleans up:

dean cooks, sam cleans. adam cooks, sam and dean will rock-paper-scissors for cleanup. or leave adam to do it. sam is never allowed to cook. he's a horrible cook. they'd literally rather eat out than let sam cook. sam, of course, is highly insulted, but also like...he knows dean & adam are better cooks. they just are. yes, fine, he'll wash the dishes again.

every now and then he gives it a shot. surprisingly he makes really good pancakes. he'll cook just to force one of the others to have to cleanup when he's tired of being on dish duty. dean & adam are not impressed when he tries to leverage sandwiches for dish duty.

sam, somewhat sloshed on a saturday night will be like, guys! guys! hey why don't i make us food and dean and adam are like, duuuuuude. ...wait, no. sam- and he's like, no, guys, i got this, and brings them microwave burritos. and THEN they're like hey! no! this does NOT mean we're doing dishes!

[alison-anonymous]

♡ loose cannon ♡ switched roles!

Loose Cannon ♡ switched roles!

Requested: yep! Thank you @fandomsandmore394 for sending me all these ideas, without you, my Daily Hades wouldn't exist💖 Also I LOVED THIS IDEA AND WRITING IT!

Warnings: oooffff angst, I'm crushing your heart with an iron fist and then putting it back together again ♡

Summary: if you haven't read my previous Loose Cannon fic, please read all the parts before reading this so you'll better understand. The roles of the reader and Hades are switched so the reader gets frozen and is declared "dead" and Hades can't go on without her.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

♡♡♡

      Burning, cold hatred. 

      That was what coursed through your veins. Your eyes were a luminescent blue, hands covered in an icy light, and a scowl imprinted deeply on your lips as you prepared to throw another attack at your brother. You ignored the cries of your true love, Hades, and his daughter, Mal, as they tried their best to bring you back. 

      But you were too far gone now. 

      “Y/n, love, please don’t do th-” Hades voice was drowned out from your mind as you threw your hands out before you, and sent a malicious ice attack straight towards your brother, who sat there with pure terror written on his face. He was out of breath. You watched intently with wide, evil eyes as your attack sliced through the air... only to be stopped by a sudden electric blue force. 

      Hades’s ember.

      Before you even had the chance to turn and see who was behind the ember, your ice ricocheted off of the force field, and sprang back at rapid speed - right into your heart. It didn’t hurt, it didn’t burn, it just sank into your heart, covering it in frost, and spreading through your body. That was what brought you out of your power craze, only you were in a severe daze of confusion. You glanced around the room, starting to wonder why the room felt so... cold. You never got cold. Suddenly, your legs stopped working, you couldn’t move them. And then it spread to your torso, and your arms, and finally up your neck. Screams filled your ears, sobs, and people’s faces. Hands carressing your arms or cupping your cheeks, the leather of their gloves scratching on your face. But you couldn’t understand. 

      You were just a girl. A girl who was taken over by magic. 

      And before you could do anything, before you could say anything, the ice crossed over your eyes, your nose, and finally your mouth as you breathed your final breath.

♡♡♡

      Y/n L/n was dead. Your death hit Auradon like a sack of bricks, but it hit Hades like a thousand wrecking balls. He was furious with himself, with the kingdom, with anyone but you. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that you were gone. No one gave him the chance to try and bring you back because they were afraid he would never give up. They day they had to take you away to fit you into a casket, Hades threatened to murder anyone who touched you. He even threatened to chain himself to you so that they couldn’t take you away. It took Mal practically prying him away in order to get him to let you go. 

      But now that he didn’t still have you physically, Hades died soon after as well. Not physically, obviously, but emotionally. In the weeks that came before your funeral, Hades never left your bed. He stayed engulfed under the blankets, never once leaving unless he absolutely had to. He wouldn’t even touch the food that Mal brought for him. He wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t bathe, he wouldn’t do anything. He might as well have died with you. 

      No one had ever seen him like this before. 

      “Dad,” Mal had to bite back her tears as she sat down on your vacant side of the bed. “Please, just say something. I know you miss her... I do too, but we have to accept that she’s gone. We have to move on.” 

      She raised her eyes pleadingly to look at him, but his eyes were emotionless. He stared blankly out the large bay window you and him had once shared. It was as if he hadn’t even heard her at all. She sighed, her hope dwindling away inside of her as she rose, and smoothed out her dress. Of course she missed you too, she felt as if though something were missing in the days that passed without you. She began walking towards the door when a booming voice filled the room, startling her.

      “It’s your fault.” 

      Mal froze in surprise. She slowly turned around on her heels, her eyes wide as she stared at her father, who had now sat up in bed, his eye makeup smeared on his face, making his features even more terrifying. Fury was written in his eyes as his blue eyes pierced into her trembling form. “W-what?” This was the first time he had spoken in weeks.

      “I said it’s your fault that the love of my life is gone.” 

      “W-What are you talking about?”

      “The ember, Mal,” he scowled, his eyes never wavering from her form, which only made her tremble more. She had never seen him this angry. “I would never use my ember on Y/n. But when you took the ember from me and used it to stop her before I even had the chance to do anything, you took her away from me.”

      Mal’s eyes dropped to the ground as shame clouded her mind. She recalled that day, when panic took the best of her and she snatched the ember out of her father’s hands without thinking about the consequences. The ember didn’t do for her what it did for him. It couldn’t bring her back even if she wanted it to. Mal took a deep, shaky breath and dared to walk forward a couple steps. 

      “I am so, so sorry Dad, and believe me, what I did I will never forgive myself for. But her funeral is coming up and there is nothing we can do to bring her back. I know you loved her, but...” She waited for him to answer, but now he was silent once more. He simply stared at her. Only in this light, his stare sent chills down her spine. She turned and was about to leave the room once more when a thought imbedded itself in her mind. If Hades was still having a hard time letting you go, he might try to do something even worse: he might try to bring you back. And while she would do anything to bring you back, not just for her sake, but for Hades as well, she knew that you were gone. You had been entrapped in ice for days and not even you could survive that.

      “Dad, she’s gone and there is nothing we-” 

      “SHE IS NOT GONE!” His sudden scream echoed through the room, scaring Mal, which was a rarity. She stumbled back against the wall and stared in horror as her father’s eyes filled with tears and he smacked a gloved hand on his forehead, running it down his face. “She...is...not...gone...” 

      Tears began to fill Mal’s eyes as well as she cautiously walked over to his bedside, and opened her arms out. He glared at her for one moment, but then buried his face into her shoulder and began to bawl his eyes out. She had never seen him cry, but there is a first time for everything... 

      “I wish I could have done something,” he sobbed. “Anything. I could have saved her.” 

      “There was nothing you could have done,” Mal sighed, glancing at his nightstand and noticing the picture he had framed of... you. You were smiling into the camera, holding a floppy hat atop your head as waves were crashing into the yellow sand behind you. You were so beautiful... so happy. It warmed her heart to know that Hades kept a photo of you on his bedside. It was the only thing that was resting on the nightstand. No lamp, no eyeliner, no nothing. Just a picture of you. 

      “I just... I miss her. Life feels empty without her. I have no purpose without her. She was my light, my everything. It kills me to wake up in the mornings without seeing her smile. Without being able to see her or speak to her... she made me want to be a better man. She made me want to be my true self... and now... she’s gone.”

♡♡♡

      The day that your funeral came was the first day Hades left your room. He was the first to arrive at the wake and the very last to leave. They weren’t putting you in the ground until the next day, but just the thought of your frozen form rotting in the ground made him want to die. So, here he stood before your frozen form, tears dripping down his cheeks. Your eyes still had that dazed look in them, and your hands were still clutching your chest. He slammed his fists on the sides of the casket in rage, sobs racking his back as he let them fall over your body. His tears melted into your ice and softened the spots where they had landed. 

      “I am so, so sorry, my love,” his voice cracked as his blue eyes glistened. “God, I wish I could have done something. I wish I could have saved you. You’ve saved me so many times, for once I wish I could have saved you. And now... you’re gone. I just-I just want you to know that there is not a day that will go by that I won’t try to find a way to bring you back. I will find a way to bring you back, love. Because nothing is the same without you. My life is nothing without you. The world is colorless, food doesn’t have taste, sleep is dreamless, and life is motionless. I love you, Y/n. I have since the moment I met you when you kicked that guard off the platform even with chains on your hands and I always will love you. Please, if you’re listening, just know that I will never, ever stop fighting for you. You are my sun, my moon, my universe. Before I met you, I didn’t think I needed anyone. I thought I could make it just fine on my own. But then you showed up, and darling, you changed everything. You make me want to be a better person, you make me want to fight for good, you make me want to be a better dad for Mal... and a better fiancé for you,” he thought back to the ring that he had carried in his pocket for months waiting for the right time. He was just about to propose to you, but then your brother came... “I love you with all of my heart. And I will find a way to bring you back. I would say that I love you to the moon and back...” 

      A single tear slipped off of his chin and landed right in the center of your chest, right where your ice had hit. “But even that wouldn’t be enough...”

♡♡♡

      The day after your funeral was pure torture. Everyone who had ever even spoken to you showed up at the official Funeral held by King Beast and Queen Belle. There was food and wine and a little slideshow with pictures of you, and lots and lots of tears. Everyone was there, the VKs, Ben, the Pirate Trio, Dizzy, even some of your friends from back in Olympus. And even Hades had dragged himself out of your bed for this day. But of course, he stayed silent for the entire duration. There were many murmurs that didn't go unnoticed by him, concerning his droopy eyes and his relation to you. How when they found him sobbing on your frozen statue, they knew you were gone. About halfway through the funeral, Hades suddenly felt something burst through his chest. It was very faint, but it was there.

It wasn't a dread burst, it was more like... a sign. A sign of... was that hope? He felt a little spark ignite after that as well, and he suddenly felt this strong urge to go outside into the courtyard.

So, that's exactly what he did.

Shoving the fifth cup of wine he had into the chest of one of servers, he raced off past the startled guests, not even noticing it when Mal quickly followed him in concern. He shoved open the big grand doors and sighed the second he felt the snowflakes from the chilly December air touch his nose. It reminded him of you.

The spark that was still alive in his chest prompted to him to walk east. Now, he had never really had any sort of "gut feelings" before but something told him that this was about you. And we both know he would be willing to do anything for you.

He trudged through the soft snow towards the gardens, and after a few steps of walking he felt the need to stop. Mal stayed off to the side, watching anxiously from the porch, wondering where on earth her father could be going. He stood there for a quite a long time before-

"H-Hades?" A gentle cry broke through the silence. Hades swiveled around to face it and the second he saw who it was coming from, his fiery blue eyes melted.

It was you.

You were soaking wet, you hair and clothes hugging onto your body as you stood there in the middle of the snow, feeling your whole world collapse around you as you stared at him. The love of your life. The man you never thought you'd see again.

A grin suddenly broke out onto Hades's lips as tears filled his eyes and he stumbled towards you, you doing the same. Your e/c orbs glittered as he swiftly swept you up off your feet and spun you around in the air. You giggled, clutching onto his shoulders tightly as he slowly lowered you down and hugged you tightly, arms around your waist protectively. How you had missed his touch... All of that time spent encaptured in your own ice was torture. You couldn't move or speak or see, but you could still hear everything that went on around you.

"Y/n, my darling," Hades slowly pulled away and brushed the damp stray hairs out of your eyes, his warm hands lingering on your cheeks. "You're back."

"I am," you hummed, leaning into his touch. "I am so, so sorry, I never meant-"

But before you could even finish your apology, Hades had pressed his lips against yours. You were startled at first by the interruption, but soon melted into his embrace, wrapping your arms around his neck.

Your reunion in the snow was incredible, even more so when Mal came closer with a gaping mouth. You had to explain to everyone that Hades's tears of true love had melted the ice and set you free. The two of you vowed to always share things with one another and to never let things get out of control like that again. Because while true love works in many wonderful ways, it can be truly painful when it is separated.

But you always found your way back to one another in the end.

♡ a.a.

TAG LIST: 

@anycsirp​ @drhughgrection​

[thelucyverse]

Part 1, part 2

Tw: violence

The old Order headquarters being in Time Cottage, Tinworth, is from 'Pride of Time' by AnubisAnkh, one of the best HP fanfics I've read this year (and I probably took so long to notice it because it has a ship I don't usually ship, but then again the same can be said for this fanfic here...); Tinworth itself is a HP canon magical settlement I think

Back in Europe, I get ready to make new experiments while I also wait for all of Tom Riddle's horcruxes to be killed by the Order (I can't bear to call him the Dark Lord in my head, and I am afraid to think of him as Voldemort, afraid of what it would do should I accidentally say it out loud one day).

In September of 1981, my research and soul-magic training is coming to a close, and I believe that I will have more time than I could possibly need with how slow the hunt for further Horcruxes is going, so when Bellatrix asks me to attend the annual Malfoy Yule Ball with her- "And not just to show our faces for half a minute, either, I want to /dance/!"- I readily accept. She smiles brightly- my positive influence seems to work, she thawed immensely from when I arrived back in England to now- and we kiss. It has been a long time that we have kissed in private, just kissed.

It is on this very Yule ball that my careful plans of only moving on to fixing the souls of his followers when Riddle is most vulnerable are wrecked and my hand is forced: my positive influence on Bella really is already working and more so than expected. I only get a moment of warning when her aura shifts- her soul wants to reconnect- and she goes down with a pained cry I stifle with a muffliato.

It had to happen at Malfoy Manor, the one place it shouldn't, always filled by Deatheaters and high society that even frequented by Voldemort... I am lucky to get Bella into a private room- Lucius' study- with minimal attention, only Narcissa noticed and actually helps, afraid for her sister, understanding that something is wrong.

Inside, Bella collapses, I don't even manage to get her into the armchair, she just falls to the floor, clinging to me desperately, afraid for her life. My ears are ringing with fear- this isn't how it was supposed to go, I'm not prepared, I don't know how to help her- Bellatrix whispers something, and for a moment I think I didn't understand her right. "Love you." she coughs out. "Didn't say it before, but-" "You're not going to die." I hiss. "Bella, you're not going to die, and we are going to fucking /talk/ when this is all over." she laughs even when her eyes roll back in her head in pain. "You don't have to say it back if you don't-" I take the chain with the promise ring on my neck and press it to her skin. "That's not what I'm saying at all. You-"

"What are you doing?!" Narcissa must have seen me pressing the metal to her sister's neck and come to the wrong conclusion. She's pointing her wand at me, but I don't even bother to disarm her, instead dangling the chain with the ring in her face. "Nothing but reminding her to live!"

With a shaky breath, Narcissa lowers her wand. I hadn't expected her to trust me so quickly, but maybe she's just that rattled. "Then what?? What happened? Has she been poisoned? Do I need to get Severus? Do I-" "No." I say. "We need to-"

Before I can finish the sentence, Lucius enters, and I stupefy him without waiting for him to talk. I like Narcissa well enough, but I can't stand her husband, and I won't be taking any chances now. Open-mouthed, Narcissa quickly closes the door, pushing Lucius' foot out of the way- I'm glad, thinking that she doesn't much seem to care for him- when she bends down, checking for his pulse, making sure he is alright with a kind of urgency... I squint- and notice a dark connection between them literally binding her to him. Not soul-magic, but she probably can't kill or actively oppose him without being in terrible pain. A kind of vow? A problem for later.

"Narcissa?" I speak up. "/You/ need to do a round of the party now so as not to draw suspicion. Lucius will be unharmed when you return." still unconscious, though, hopefully, I think while I tie the man up for good measure. Narcissa nods shakily, gets her appearance in order and disappears.

Once I am alone with her, I set to work getting Bella's soul reconnected to itself. Like in delirium, I weave healing spells over healing spells while whispering sweet nothings in her ear, hoping she will hear it, hoping she will be herself again when it is all over... Bella screams, and I put up a new muffliato, cursing myself for not thinking about it earlier and hoping that no-one has heard or thought anything of it. Lucius wakes and I stun him again before he can say anything. Then I focus on Bellatrix, lighting up the essence of a soul with a spell Melodenia taught me so I can see what is going on- and I gasp. It's like her soul is stretched thinly between herself and the horcrux, wherever it is. Without the preparative spells, her soul is yanking at it in uncontrolled bursts, getting more of her soul back but also stretching the connecting piece way too thinly... Biting the inside of my cheek, I focus on her soul and dive into the world of soul magic.

There is so much pain. I wonder how Bella hasn't given up on life yet if this is what she is feeling right now. Distantly, I feel tears in my eyes while I let my magic move further along her soul strand, towards the Horcrux, a burning piece of dark magic- I really hope the Dark Lord isn't keeping this anywhere near him, there is no way he won't feel what I am about to do otherwise. And there is no way I will delay this to find out.

With a black-hot shock wave, the Horcrux explodes from the inside out.

Screaming, I fall back, my magic lashing out as I try to get rid of that tainted spell it touched. Now, I’m glad I only did this for her and didn’t try to cut all deatheaters lose at once, even better prepared that would have been a nightmare. I don’t blame Melodenia for not telling me that, though- there’s no way she could have known, she never tried to split her soul in two before, after all.

Drawing in ragged breaths, I sit up, my hand fluttering over Bella’s still form at its own volition. Why isn’t she waking? Her body is unharmed, and her soul is there, I can feel it- oh. Now that I am really looking, I notice that there are still streaks of magic, of curses in someone else’s magical signature surrounding her. I hadn’t noticed it before due to the nature of the Horcrux connection, but now it is obvious: her Dark Mark, connected directly to the Dark Lord. Either Riddle noticed, or there is a failsave, because now that the Horcrux is gone, something is happening- and I can’t stop it. I /could/, but with how weak I am now, the curse would just burn through me should I lift it. While I truly love Bellatrix, I am not ready to die in her stead. I have to think quickly-

In that moment, Narcissa returns, and I am reminded of the connection she has to that evil husband of hers, who is still in the room... “Please tell me you do not actually care for Lucius Malfoy.” Narcissa opens her mouth to speak, but chokes on her own words. I nod. As I thought. With quick, slashing spells I end the Vow or whatever it was that kept her bound to him. She collapses as if her strings are cut, but I don’t take the time to make sure she is alright- instead turning to Lucius: “Imperio.”

Through Lucius’ eyes, the magic looks different, as if he can’t quite tell what is good and what is bad. Maybe good and bad are just defined entirely differently to him. With my theoretical knowledge, I still find the curse again- and when I force Lucius to ignore the pain, the burning, I keep looking and find more than just that. An entire network of curses, leading from Deatheater to Deatheater to Voldemort. Not all of them are connected, at least not equally so, there seems to be a second network only slightly touching the first, but still- I can take down many Death Eaters in one go with this. I just have to make sure I don’t kill Bellatrix in the process. 

The connection of the Marks is a literal maze. Getting Bella free is still my priority, and as soon as I identify hers, I start to first push back the magic that is seeping into her, and, when I hear her gasp as she comes awake, one by one destroy the connections she has to the others. 

Bellatrix is free. I only take a moment to blink from my Imperius-Lucius-view to make sure she is alright- Narcissa is with her, of course, the other woman had never taken the Mark so she should be fine now- before diving back into the Maze of Dark Marks, getting right in the middle of it and destroying the curse from the inside out. Lucius screams despite the Imperius curse when the Dark Lord’s magic is burning his hands before his own Dark Mark explodes, taking his entire arm with him- he doesn’t have to live that way for long as the magic seeping through the maze tears him apart. Throwing up a shield, I banish his body and all magic it carries to go Merlin-knows-where.

The Dark Marks are gone. the Horcruxes remain. Can I get them the same way I got the Marks? 

Leaning down briefly to kiss Bella’s forehead and stroke her cheek, I stumble to the door, opening it a fraction to look out. The party is in disarray, many have felt the change in the Mark. I see Nott and Avery stumbling against each other a few metres away- easy targets, them. I imperio Avery first, and then I have /him/ imperio Nott- now Nott is the only one who can still use his magic for anything but holding up the imperius curse. Didn’t I already mention that this curse is stupid? But in this case, it would help me. letting Avery and Nott walk into the middle of the room, I then let Nott walk further, waiting for- ah! Sabina, a woman I am quite certain is an illegitimate half-blood instead of the pure blood she claims, and definitely affected by a Horcrux. Nott- or rather his body, lead by Avery’s curse and my command- walks into her, touches her arm as if to steady her- and then his magic is reaching into her soul. Feeling along the link towards the Horcruxes. Yes, there are more soul-pieces closeby, I can reach them- I don’t know whether this means that the Horcruxes are physically close together or just that they have been forged by the same hand, souls work in funny ways sometimes, after all. I don’t much care either way, just commanding Avery to command Nott to destroy them all- and then break the connection of the imperius while Avery passes on the command. 

If the way Sabina stumbles while Nott screams and burns and Avery falls to his knees is any indication, it must have worked.

I hurry back into the study, to Narcissa and Bellatrix. "Are you alright??" I ask, kneeling down next to Bella "Yes." she coughs out, but I can see the fear and confusion in her eyes. "Are you?" she adds. I just nod, pressing my forehead to hers, just breathing for a while. "What in the stars names /was/ that?" Narcissa's shout breaks our moment of peace. Huh. I didn't realise she could screech like that. And I don't think she knows /any/ real curse words. With a sigh, I get up, pulling Bellatrix to her feet, too.

"Your soul fixed itself" I tell Bella. "It- I had noticed a while ago that something was wrong with it, and suspected the Dark Lord might be behind it. I was still doing research, I nearly had it- and then today, it just started to fix itself, well, I helped it along a bit when I noticed that it had started. What I saw confirmed that it was Riddle by the way- the Dark Lord, I mean. I also broke the hold he had over you through the Dark Mark, oh, and Lucius' hold on Narcissa. Well, pretty sure he's dead now anyway." I sum up what had happened. Both stare at me, completely baffled. Feeling uneasy, I shift from one leg to the other. "So. Are you two ready to break with Voldemort and all his beliefs?"

Bellatrix is startled into a laugh. "I think we already did that quite thoroughly..." she snorts out.

Narcissa looks at her as if she has gone insane- then pales. "Draco! I have to- if someone notices-" Oh. I had completely forgotten about the kid. Not my proudest moment. "Uh, you hadn't left him with someone who's Marked, have you?" Now, both look at me like I'm insane. "You think anyone that high up would bother to play nursemaid??" Bellatrix asks. "Not even I would bother- no offense, sister." "None taken." Narcissa says curtly. "Now, I am going to get my son, and then- and then-" "I know where we can go" I say, feeling slightly sorry to force her out of her own home, but we really better move now- although really I should feel more sorry for the Order for having to put up with the three of us now. "If you are ready to leave not just the Dark Lord but blood supremacy in general behind, too, that is." Bella just shrugs. "'s long as you're there..." we smile at each other, and then I have to look away as I remember that I can't really promise that, that I have no idea how long I still have in this world. Shaking myself from these depressing thoughts, I swipe Tom Riddle's diary from Lucius' cabinet before leaving the room.

Narcissa goes to collect Draco from his nurse in the private chambers, and Bella and I disillusion each other, then lean against the corridor wall, hexing whoever comes past and doesn't look too friendly. Deatheaters, general scumbags, oh, Fenrir Greybag, that one I stun and disillusion, too. Might be a good present for the order, or something, showing that I don't want them to just pardon all former bad guys. It doesn't get to that, however, when one of the Carrows- Amycus? I honestly can't tell under the robes and the blood- realises where our jinxes are coming from and tries to fight back, sending a killing curse- well, moving Greyback in the way of that was self defense, really. And it's not like anyone's going to spill any tears over it. Carrow moves in for another blow- and is taken down from behind.

"Fuck, I've always wanted to do that."

A young man stands behind him, wand dangling from his hand, dark hair in disarray and a bloody nose. For a moment, he looks exactly like Sirius Black, but then I recall: this is Regulus! I didn't even know that he was still alive... His name had been on a lost of people I had planned to save, back in the very beginning when I arrived in this world. But then I didn't know when exactly it would happen to save him myself, and I had no information to prove his innocence or reform to the Order... Of course, the Order had found the locket earlier than him because of me. Did he go there, see it was gone and disappear again instead of drinking the poison? Or did he never try to leave the Deatheaters at all? The way he had just taken down one of Voldemorts' henchmen just because, in the current chaos, he had been able to, made me believe otherwise.

Disillusioning myself (and throwing up a shield at the same time, I'm not stupid), I stepped forward. "Regulus Black, is it not?" "Who wants to- oh, you're Bella's girl, aren't you?" my eye twitched at being called anyone's girl, but I ignored it for now. "Are you done being a pawn for the Dark Lord?" He blinked. Then actually laughed. "You know- yes. Why, are you leaving your wife behind? Wait, are you the reason for all this chaos?" "We are." Bella stepped forward too, and in the same moment, Narcissa came hurrying up behind us, baby Draco in her arms. Regulus stared at us for a moment, then started to laugh again. I see how he's related to Sirius. "You know- yes, whatever this is, I'm in."

I look at Narcissa. "Have you ever been to Tinworth?" If I apparate the four of us all the way there, I wouldn't have the power left to defend Bellatrix should it come to a conflict. Thankfully, everyone knows the village, Narcissa disapparating with Draco first, then Regulus, than me with Bellatrix although she insists that she is fine. We apparate to the east of the town, regroup and I apparate us to the closed off partage in front of the cottage that I had insisted on- it is not under the fidelius, so one can take others there, but it's protected by enough spells that new members can be read into the Secret without the possibility of anyone seeing and attacking. My past paranoia and overthinking comes in handy now. Letting the others stand behind me after telling them to watch each others backs and call for me should anyone show up, I move to open the door, knowing that I will disappear from their view as soon as I'm in the doorstep. I don't want to leave Bella alone, but this is the easiest way to prove that I am myself and not someone under polyjuice who doesn't know the Secret.

"Hello?" I call out. "Anybody home?"

Part 4

[shadowdianne]

Song prompt for SQ: Don't let me go by Raign. I think you can guess who's pov and what episode I'm thinking of when you hear it

The writer’s block is still kicking hard buuuut, this is what I managed to do: 

The full explanation of this one can be found here.

Lost can be found here

(To future readers, considering I wrote 3k while battling a huge block comments would be greatly appreciated xd)

“I’m reaching outwide//trying to catch myself before I fall//Too little too late”

Lichen covered the rocks around her, air stale and heavy. Drops of icy water falling; the sound of them ricocheting against the stone filled the, otherwise, chocking silence devoid now of the screams that had left her throat sore and raw during the first days there. The peels of maniac laughter had floated up and she had stared at them as they added to the already ghastly and putrid light the mushrooms that seemed to grow within the darkest corners of the catacombs.

Everything else, from the iridescent insects floating above uneaten food to the dust particles that floated between the brave beams of light that seeped from the entrance above, was covered in that chocking silence.

And she found that she liked it; the oppression; the same weight she felt between her temples.

She had learnt to like it at least; to like the walls in where hundredths of bones rested, slowly molding themselves to the stone; grey and fractured and heavy. The last proof that dragons had roamed the land above them all once upon a time. Now, their remains built her very same cell; decadent and forgotten. Just like her.

Blinking, Emma tilted her head as she peered through the bars of her prison, at the very bottom of the pit the roots of Camelot sat in. There was a faint sound, one that echoed deep on her limbs and she could do nothing but hiss as warmth spread behind her eyes, fever breaking through her skin.

She didn’t try to roll over the now filthy cot they had given her, her shivers wrecking her body. Once upon a time she had tried to fight them but now she only let out a gurgled sob as she kept herself immobile; all sunken cheeks and far too fair skin glowing in the almost total darkness. There had been torches there but they had consumed already, and no one had bothered to replace them; the ashes and burnt wood paler shadows at some point ahead of her, at the other side of the bars.

The sound didn’t quite reach them, her cries whimpers and Emma’s chest heaved, spit covering her lips as she tried to re-focus her gaze, mind swimming while the whispers reached through the soil her body rested against, hands that weren’t truly there marring her body with red and blood.

She longed for them to take her, but she knew they wouldn’t; just like she herself couldn’t escape.

The somber thought morphed her sobs into a mirthless chuckle as her hands rose, her palms covering her eyes, pressing against them willing for the warm to leave her, for the throbbing pain she felt with every inhalation to die. It was no use, of course, there was no warmth, just the pale resemblance to something like that and she wondered for the thousand time how that wasn’t an irony within itself. It was, she decided, her thoughts forming an almost mumble that escaped her trembling lips; of course, it was.

Sending a frustrated scream towards the bars she almost drew a slow smile at the way they trembled, the almost glow they emitted proof that the guards were still in place, keeping her inside, keeping others out.

And, she thought as she licked crackled lips, if they were still there it meant that someone would still remember her.

“I thought you wanted to keep us inside.”

The voice coiled around her earlobe, venomous and rotten just as her magic was now and she growled at it, as she watched as the shadows grew fingers that grazed her own. She had been afraid of them, of what they meant, but not anymore. Magic and darkness were now her domain. Yet, she snarled at the words, at what they implied.

Her anger and pain were momentarily cut from her as she heard the cavernous echo of chains clacking together, the platform made out of wood and poorly yielded metal shifting several feet above her. A visitor.

“I wonder who wants to see us.”

The voice held a sense of amusement now, as if it was smirking behind Emma’s own lips, toothier than the woman’s own smile, darker, sinister. Emma didn’t let it appear, but she still swallowed and cleaned the specs of saliva from her mouth with the back of her hand, the mud that already covered it from whenever she had dug into the earth, trying to reach for the hands that grasped for her leaving behind an almost iron-like aftertaste.

Despite her best instincts, she didn’t come forth to the bars; already knowing there would be no use. Mutters of footsteps approaching, usual words of warning floating to her and she clenched her hands, balling them into fists, as her joints screamed at her, abused on their disuse.

There were mere fading calls of a body that didn’t truly belong to her after all, the only thing that made her stand as tall as she was the promise of a pulsing magic that was becoming closer by the second; the thirst the power created within her one she had forgotten already why it was a bad thing to feel.

Finally, the steps reached the further end of the bottom of the pit, the small falter on them eliciting just the softest calls from within her magic, a bait, one she knew it wouldn’t be taken. It wasn’t like Regina to fall into something so crude.

Yet, she wondered, they wondered, both she and the voices, if the woman was here to finally do it; to finally fulfil a deal that had been broken many times already, in far too many different ways. Wishing again the cruel laughter that wasn’t hers as much as it wasn’t the one of others, she fought against the hope that threatened to poison her heart further; the dark spots that had begun to form on a once perfectly pure red proof of the ongoing change she was currently submerged in. She growled at it, at the way her right hand rose and clawed through the dirty rags she wore; fighting at the need of plucking it out, chucking it away, wishing it gone.

She had been the hope after all; have hold that title until it had crushed it; nothing but her corpse for the maggots to feel off.

The voice of a man was the first thing that reached her as the footsteps kept on approaching, the light of a slightly shuddering torch illuminating the path she had only taken once; frail, afraid and broken. Letting her hand unclench, she folded one atop the other in front of her, waiting for the tell-tale shadows at the other side of her prison. She didn’t need to wait long.

The gasp that followed the man’s advice was quick and faint but she pretended not to hear it as she put her head against the cavern’s walls, the protrusions of the rock digging into her skull. She looked like an almost broken doll. She was willing to bet that. A sleeping one.

Sleep, what a delightful stupidity.

“Emma.” Her name, another thing that she hated, another thing that kept the hope strong within her chest. Pressing her lips together, she looked beyond the bars into the dark eyes of a very particular brunette. Letting out a grim smile, she hummed, knowing well that every possible joy she had been able to feel didn’t reach her eyes anymore.

She could feel Regina’s pupils on her, taking notice on the changes of her appearance, the one that she had obsessively stared at while they happened at first, wishing for no scales to appear, for not high-pitched voice to come out of her throat. Her skin was frail and whiter, her hair colorless, her blood darker and her muscles spasmed. A side effect, whispers told her, of her fighting back.

But she wasn’t fighting anymore, was she?

She could tell Regina that, she mused, that there was no point on keeping up with the pretenses as she had already abdicated to the unbearable pain. Yet again, who she called when her thoughts were scrambled enough that she forgot shadows were her domain now? Who she called for when her fingers bled, and her fears brought her back to the vortex that had swallowed her whole, salty aftertaste on her lips where her tears had rested?

“Regina.” Her reply sounded almost mocking and she glanced away as the rush of the fire from the torch moved closer, brought forth by the pale and sweating guard, the remains of her predecessors a stench that had been cleaned already. Her eyes hurt but she forced herself to look back again; at the way Regina’s own irises slid over her; fearful and lost. She couldn’t fault him. It had been days since her so called parents had tried to come, even more since Hook had stopped to even pretend and so she had been stuck there; paler, bitter, closer to the edge.

Regina cleared her throat and she glanced down at her own hands, at where the dagger materialized, glimmering in the same sadistic way it always did; calling for her in old languages she hadn’t understood at first but now did.

It was funny, she momentarily thought, tasting blood on her tongue, how hope was so easily rekindled, like a sore memory. Hating herself but still unable to say no, she moved, the sound of her heavy steps another chip into the mountain of clues of how much it hurt for her to move.

“She won’t do it.”

Yet, she yearned for it. She had asked for it, she had put the dagger in Regina’s hands, knowing, wishing, for her to be able to do something no one else would do and as the air between then cracked with unstable magic, she felt the buzz of the guards hitting the bars, the air filling with the scent of ozone. An almost nice change.

Hope had been what had first kept her sane, she mused. Hope that Regina would do the thing she was supposed to do but now everything had turned to be mechanical; a day gone, a day she was also erased from her own mind as the darkness waited, unperturbable. She only had memories to give now to the increasing void within her and she paid that price religiously, not having anything else to bargain with.

Hope had transformed from being a source of warmth to bitter coldness that slithered through the rood of her mouth; her soul rotting while at it to a frightening speed. It was funnier, she hummed, how she, the so-called savior, couldn’t even control her homicidal urges anymore.

Regina’s hands trembled as she rose the dagger and Emma narrowed her eyes, one hand reaching towards the bars, pretending the pain she felt was just another figment of her imagination. It was hard to tell these days after all.

“Do it.” They had danced this dance before. At first daily, then, thrice a week. Now time had stopped for her and yet she knew the visits were further in between, addled by the pain her vision brought with it. She hated the almost pleading tone her voice carried but she almost smiled at the way Regina’s eyes darkened; able to hear it.

She wondered if the plea was nothing but yet another trick one of the many voices she now possessed was using. She decided that she didn’t care.

They were there after all; waiting for a day in where Regina decided that she was ready to finish her just like she had asked. Before she was fully transformed, before the meek, weak voice of Emma, the real Emma, was totally snuffed out.

That day was one she knew was much closer than she was willing to bet for.

“Kill me.”

Regina’s face was trembling, and hope died a little more within her chest as she saw tears building at the edge of her eyes. At first, they had hoped that the mid-transformation would be enough to keep things at bay. Now Emma suspected that it was an impossible. And even then, hope still remained lodged on her lungs, stubborn and yet as fatal as the magic was.

As long as there was hope Regina would remain pretending that there was another solution. As long as Emma fought against it no other solution would be found. She wanted to scream and destroy at such notion, at the stupidity of it all. She was tired, so damn tired of everyone pretending she was stronger than she was; of everyone asking her to be resilient when there was nothing of her left but just the need to rest, to let everything else be destroyed and turned into ask.

He hand was grasped by Regina’s free one and she relished on the soft contact; pain diminishing just an inch, as fragmented as it already was. She had come to long for those moments in where Regina reached for her, her magic causing the darkness to hum happily, hungrily as her whole body lost the corded tension within her muscles.

She had stopped asking why or how. She only waited and so when the other woman’s lips were on her fingers she only let out a soft sigh of pure relief as everything but her, the true her, was erased for a millisecond. It soon returned, quicker, stronger everyday and it was far too apparent that there would be a day in where Regina’s touch wouldn’t keep it at bay. Until there was one day in where Regina would need to pay the price she had been asked to pay.

Or she refused and then there would truly be the end of her.

She longed to be able to freeze time, but she couldn’t, not yet. And so, she waited, knowing that Regina would never chose the second option, uncertainty far too strong; the implications of it written all over her face as she moved her lips away, fear and longing lacing her features. Emotions Emma had learnt to hate.

True love kiss; another irony. A crueler one.

They didn’t really have that many options, no matter how much Regina pretended to still be thinking on new ones. It was either the dagger or the kiss; a kiss she would never get, a kiss that would never be given. And who was her to ask? Regina had found her soulmate. The fact, the another annoying fact written all over Emma’s skin in ink that she wished to erase nothing but a footnote on a book that hadn’t ever been about her but her title. Tittle that wasn’t hers to hold anymore. Was it?

So, there she stood, in front of Regina, the brunette unable, uncapable, of killing her, changing, losing herself.

She yearned to ask her to not let her go but that was yet another thing she couldn’t ask.

“Please.” The warning of her word sounded colder than the last time she had uttered it, a few days ago and it was effective enough for Regina to take a step back; her features changing as the guard’s free hand went for his sword. Not that Emma was worried about it. If bored she would kill him with just a lunge forward, nails biting into the soft organ that was his heart.

“I’m sorry.”

Regina’s voice made her look back at her and the words were so worn already that Emma could peer between each sound, nothing left on their meaning. She knew after all that the brunette meant them. She knew what it was coming.

“Will you kill me?” Her voice wasn’t hers anymore. Colder, haughtier.

There was no answer and Emma smiled cruelly as she grabbed the bars with both of her hands, the pain and burn that elicited barely noticeable.

“Will you kiss me?” This time a giggle escaped her lips, a giggle that hold darkness and hatred, that hold the last bit of hope she dared to spare.

“Emma…”

Regina’s lips trembled, the dagger still clutched, reflecting a light that wasn’t really there as both of them stared at each other.

It didn’t matter; the rage and hopelessness she felt. It didn’t matter the anger nor the anguish because she would offer yet another memory to the darkness the second the brunette was gone as she reached for the other end of a cliff she had been falling through for far too long already; wishing to rest where no screams would touch her. It didn’t matter because Emma knew she was going to be kept there for another day as if there was anything, someone, to look at anymore.

“You are a coward.” She said, her lips touching the metal, her tongue probing the rust that covered the bar, her lips slithering towards the brunette’s face as the woman stood, unflinching and Emma could feel the magic cursing through both of them: lethal.

But so delightful.

“I asked you to do it.”

“You asked me to save you.”

Emma shrugged, not even ready to address technicalities or fine print anymore in a contract that was already null and void.

“There won’t be any me for much longer.”

And they both knew she was telling the truth. There was too little of her that still remained. And she was grateful in a way since that meant that no more tears would be shed. No more pleas.

No more hope.

She didn’t wait for the brunette to leave; she turned and sat with her back towards her, her knees hurting, her back crying desperately as blood-stained thoughts whispered promises to her. It didn’t matter, she thought, it didn’t matter.

But it did, it did matter.

She smiled coldly as a Regina sighed and left, the sound of her steps turning weaker. When the chain of the contraption finally reached her she dug her fingers into the wet soil, alive with the spilled fire of the slaughtered dragons around her. Clutching the vial of ink, she had managed to snatch from the last troubadour that had tried to narrate her story she cackled a tired, broken laugh.

The place was certainly filled with fools. Fools that knew of curses and magic and still presented her whatever little ingredient she needed with the same wistful look on their eyes that children would have.

And so, the Dark One began to plot.

The sound of chains made her smirk, the ones she had been toying with, the ones that had been put around her ankles a day ago, hanging limply from her hands as she toyed with them; playfully.

Hands that were still covered with ink; ink that reflected into the horrified eyes of Regina as she approached her, dagger in hand.

There was no use of that anymore; no more memories to give, no more her to hold to.

“Hello dear.” She spoke, and her voice was scratchy and alive with hundredths of lives that called for her, willing to be taken. “Missed me?”

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Lisa, I'm killing our boy... Okokokokokokokok please tell me Trevor comes to visit every month or so to make sure Broody Mc. Blondie doesn't get too bored and that he enters the estate by loudly insulting him because it's the only kind of interaction trevor is any good at let's be honest. Alucard shouts right back at him and tosses him some tools and planks to help him rebuild the Belmont estate. That's how it goes right

See, you say “happy ending” but I say “I have some things toget OFF MY CHEST” and, well, you came to me, so…no.  That is nothow it goes.  Also this racked up to like 4k pretty quick so here, also on AO3.

Adrian is restoring the castle.

Both castles, he supposes—he’s strong, and he has all thetime in the world.  He pays for materialsout of Dracula’s vault and does not seek help. No one dares approach the strange and twisted castle above ground, andso below, like Belmont said.  Adrian hasa shrewd suspicion, when he bothers to think about it, that the incineratedruins of the Belmont manor grounds have been left untouched out of a fear thatthey might be cursed.

He’s glad, in a grim and distant way, that he pushed Belmontand Sypha to leave.  This is…this is tooraw, too aching, to have anyone near him while he faces what used to be hishome.

Adrian starts with the bare minimum.  The doors of both castle and hold have to berepaired, to prevent the elements from doing the work of destruction in amatter of weeks.  He can’t restore the Enochiansigil on the trapdoor of the hold—he would need a magician for that, and forall that Adrian is a linguist and a polymath the likes of which most humanscould never hope to match, his natural gift for magic is middling at best andlargely untrained—but a large granite slab does almost as well.  He hefts it into place and fits it over theopening, seals it with wax so that it will hold out wind and rain while hedeals with Dracula’s castle.

Adrian repairs the door of the castle.

Then he walks into the great library and stands in themiddle of the room, looking at the wreck, for seven hours.

Some of the books knocked from their shelves have been putback in place.  He did that, the very nextnight after they took the castle and he killed—

It had been something mindless and small, familiar from alifetime of loving the tidy order of alphabetized authors.  Adrian had picked up the books that hadfallen with the great impact of his back hitting the shelves, when he wasthrown into them, and slipped them back between their neighbors where they belonged.  Where the shelves were fragmented beyond use,he had stacked the books among the rubble on the floor, neat piles with thespines facing outward.  He had notbothered to move the broken glass or the splintered wood, nor done anything todeal with the scorched and melted hole in the wall.  Only the books.  

Adrian realizes, dimly, that the sun is setting through thewindow, the near-painful white light of day fading to something softer, lesslikely to make his eyes burn and his head ache.

Adrian leaves the library untouched.

Adrian—Alucard, hetells himself, murmurs it under his breath when he’s working, whispers it untilit loses all meaning, tries to carve it into his tongue and burn it into hisblood like silver, like holy water, like a ward—Alucard doesn’t have to hunt. He needs blood, but Dracula’s stores do more than pay for repairs.  He drinks from the preserved supply of bloodkept against a disaster, or a long period away from people, and eats from thefood stores that remain untouched by the vampires who lived here.  Some, the fresh fruit and vegetables, arelargely spoiled.  Most of the rest isfine.  There’s even flour, and yeast, ifAlucard had it in himself to spend the effort on bread.

If anyone else were here, someone else who needed food, ahuman or two, maybe, he might try.  

Alucard does not make bread.

The library and much of the other areas ruined in the finalbattle—the observatory, the laboratory, the wing of living quarters—are toohaunted for Alucard to bear.  He choosesthe deeper reaches of the castle instead, where the work is simple and directand miserably straight-forward.  He tearsout bloodied carpeting in the entrance hall and pulls down the throne roomalmost entirely, excises the forgemasters’ workshops like a gangrenous limb,dismantles guest quarters and burns a bonfire behind the castle taller than heis, for days on end.  

He destroys the night creatures still caged in the castleand burns their bones, burns the beds used by Dracula’s allies and the tablesused for their war councils, cracks open the Belmont Hold and burns the bodiesthere, burns bloodied carpet and broken wood. Alucard considers burning the books he finds there that are too damagedto be legible, but he sets them aside to evaluate later.  Perhaps he can decipher what is left andtranscribe them.  Perhaps Belmont knowswhat was inside.  Perhaps—

Alucard runs out of things to burn, eventually.   There was little to rebuild in the lowerreaches of the castle in the first place, and now he has reduced what there wasto empty rooms, a labyrinth of gutted dungeons and bare stone.  He scrubs the floor with his own hands andwith telekinesis and with lye so pure it makes him retch until he cannotjustify it anymore.  He retreats to theentrance hall, and then outside of the castle, where the ground is scarred andblack from the bonfire, and sits down with his back to the castle and his kneespulled up to his chest.

It’s dark out—he’s been working night and day without muchregard for what time it is.  He’s notsure how long it’s been since—since, but the air has gone cold and bitterrather than the sweet crisp bite of autumn he remembers from Gresit.  There’s snow on the ground.  He observes these things and forgets to allowthem to affect him, because vampires, even half-human vampires, do not sufferfrom the cold the way a mortal would.  Hesits behind Dracula’s castle—his castle, now, Alucard’s castle—in shirtsleevesand lets frost accumulate in his hair.

Alucard can’t sleep. There’s irony there, he thinks, in his moments where things like ironyand humor are achievable.  He slept for ayear and was more than ready to sleep again, to escape this world that Draculahad made and sleep until he was found, until he was needed, until Gresit felldown and destroyed his vault and everything inside.  Whatever came first.

Now he can’t sleep at all.

Where would he sleep, anyway?  He’s avoided thinking about this questionsince he sat in his father’s study—in Dracula’s study and cried until hecouldn’t anymore, curled up in the sturdy oak chair that he had hiddenunderneath as a child.  He had set someof the room to rights before he broke down, steadied the chair and set hismother’s portrait on the mantle, but he had fled as soon as he could trust hislegs to carry him.  Once, his father’s—Dracula, damn him, Dracula’s study hadbeen a place of warmth and comfort.  Itmeant that his family was together, when there was a fire in the hearth and thesoft sound of a quill tip writing, and Alucard had slept there often when hewas restless as a boy.

He hasn’t been back to the study since he fled the ghoststhat lingered there.  Nor the ruinedlibrary, where he used to creep after his mother put him to bed, so that hecould read late into the night.  Hehasn’t dared the observatory, nor her laboratory.  Dracula’s private library was in nearly aspoor repair as the main one, with the distance mirror shattered on the floor,but even if it had been pristine, it made the scar on Alucard’s chestache.  

His parents’ rooms, he didn’t enter even to check theircondition.  His own—

And he couldn’t feel at ease closing his eyes in the lowerreaches, where the burning taste of forgemaster magic lingered and his mindwhispered dark warnings about the dangers that lurked in the corners.  Now, of course, he’s rendered them more orless unlivable for a vampire until the astringent, insistent reek of the lyeairs out.

So.  Where does hesleep?

Alucard sits on the ground, back pressed to the wall of thecastle behind him, and lets the question chase itself around in his mind untilthe sky lightens.  When he finally stirs,snow drifts from his shoulders and hair.

He holds his hand out, palm up, and watches flakesaccumulate in his palm. They melt more slowly on his skin than on humanskin—than on his mother’s.  She loved thesnow, had taken him out on a balcony the first winter after he was born andcuddled him close, her warm cheek pressed to his and his hand, small andchildish, wrapped around the end of her braid as they watched the snow fall onthe mountains.

“Water is the only material in the world that naturallyoccurs as a solid, a liquid, and a gas, Adrian,” she had whispered, like shewas sharing a secret.  “Here, lupul mic, like this,” she said, andtipped her head back, sticking her tongue out. Alucard had done the same, turning his face up toward the grey cloudsoverhead, and had laughed, stretching his hands up toward the sky as the coldflakes landed on his tongue.  His motherhad laughed too, spinning the two of them around on the balcony until she wasdizzy and he was clinging to her jacket, and then…

And then his father had come to find them, had found themsitting on the balcony with Alucard in his mother’s lap, both of them rumpledand flushed and grinning.  He hadlaughed, had crouched down to ask what they were doing, and his mother hadcaught the fearsome master vampire Vlad Dracula Tepes by the collar and draggedhim down by main force to kiss him with her cold lips.  They had gone inside, finally, when hismother’s ears and fingertips were so cold she swore they had gone numb, and shehad put a cup of warm spiced milk in Alucard’s hands to match her own and theyhad sipped at it while his father read to them beside the fire, and it had beenso good—

Something hot strikes Alucard’s skin, shocking, almostscalding.  He may not feel the cold likea mortal would, but his skin has grown chill, almost deathly so, and the waterburns.  He raises his fingers to his face,presses his hand over his eyes as if to force the tears back, and a high, thinsound escapes through his teeth, like the whine of a wolf wounded by an arrow.  He feels a little like it, like there’ssomething barbed and terrible lodged in his chest that he’s been trying tooutpace, and sitting here has finally let it dig through his bones to tear opena lung.  That’s what Alucard imaginesthis feels like—gasping airlessly while tears fall down his face, as if he’sdrowning in his own lungs, grief filling the empty spaces like blood.

This is the third time Alucard has cried for his family.  

The first was when he returned to his mother’s home in apanic—he missed her by a matter of hours, because Alucard is too human toteleport any respectable distance and had to run home on foot when he heardrumors of a witch from Lupu.  He had pacedthrough the ruins of his mother’s home, marking the rooms and doors in his mindto prove to himself that it had really been hers.  Here, his mother’s kitchen; here, his parents’bedroom; here, his own room; here, her laboratory.  He had dashed the tears away without athought and run, flat out, toward Targoviste, and arrived just in time to seehis mother die.

Then he hadn’t allowed himself to shed another tear untilDracula was dead.

Now, crying hurts,makes his ribs ache, makes his head spin. Alucard closes a fist into his shirt, over the sharpest point of pain inhis chest, where a child is calling hopelessly for his parents to come back tohim, and lets his hair fall forward to hide his face.

Eventually, Alucard runs out of tears.  No one can cry forever.

Alucard wipes his eyes. Alucard stands up.

There are still repairs to be done.

The hold is less damaged than the castle—Belmont killed mostof the invaders in the first chamber, kept them from reaching the holdproper.  But the damage to the entrance shaftis extensive, the stairs smashed to kindling in places and ripped whole fromtheir moorings in others.

Alucard solves the first and most obvious problem by thesimple expedient of affixing a strong pulley to the top of the open column.  He can get himself in and out without trouble,but he’s not interested in testing the exact limits of his telekinesis in sucha high-stakes manner as lowering heavy construction materials down a hundredfoot shaft with him at the bottom.  

Then Alucard tries his hand at carpentry.

All things being equal, he’s not bad at it.  He dares the ghosts in the castle to findbooks in his mother’s study, her endless curiosity teaching him new things evennow as he repairs the shattered staircase. The stairs aren’t as fine as their predecessors, but they’re smooth andclean and sturdy, and he figures that the Belmonts would probably be all rightwith it.  Even if they wouldn’t—well, it’shis hold now, isn’t it?  If he decidesthat it needs pretty stairs, he’ll redo them.

The thought is equal parts encouraging and deeplyterrifying.  Encouraging, because in themoments where Alucard is still, trying to close his eyes for a moment, hedreads finishing the restoration of the Belmont Hold.  When he finishes here, there will be nothing leftbut his family’s own wing of the castle, no excuse not to repair the libraryand the laboratory, nothing keeping him away from his parents’ chambers and thelittle room where he grew up and killed—

Terrifying, because for the first time in his life, Alucardlooks forward at eternity and sees a long and lonely blank.  There is no one here.  Even if his mother hadlived a human life and died of old age—unlikely, in Alucard’s opinion, Draculawould never have allowed it—he would have had company.  Family. His father, who lovedhim.  Now he has an empty, hauntedcastle, and the last legacy of a family wiped out of history.  If Alucard rebuilds the stairs of the BelmontHold twenty times, at least it will be something to do to fill that endlesstime.

Alucard tries not to think about it too much.

When he finishes the stairs, Alucard turns to the rest ofthe hold.  He sets the painting of theBelmont ancestor back on the wall.  Hepulls rubble out of the places where the walls are damaged.  He returns the books they pulled down intheir frantic research back to their shelves, and begins trying to transcribethe ones that have been damaged.  Helearns the index inside out, expands it. He grins a little, for the first time in…a while, at the memory ofBelmont’s affront over his criticism of it.

It’s been—months, probably, since Belmont and Sypha left.  Alucard isn’t sure.  It’s even harder to track time in the holdthan in the depths of the castle.  Hedoes know that he hasn’t talked to anyone in almost as long, except for a fewpassing exchanges with the merchants who sold him the stores of wood and stone thathe needed.  He doesn’t talk much now,except for the occasional flood of cursing when something goes wrong in therepairs.  He doesn’t even murmur his own nameanymore.  Alucard comes easily now.

His mother would be so disappointed.

Alucard is restoring the Belmont Hold, and he is notthinking about his mother, or his father, or his eternity.  

He is not.

The hold is beautiful, and deep, and quiet, and kind—even toAlucard, who is trespassing on the legacy of those who might have hunted him,given the chance.  He sleeps a littlemore, here, an hour or two of restless dozing at a time snatched while he’slying on the floor or the top of a shelf or on a table, filled with uneasydreams.  He thinks he could be at peacehere, if the world left him alone.

He understands, a little bit, the world Dracula craved.  The silence. There is nothing that Alucard wants more than to close his eyes andsleep forever, and the hold, sometimes, seems like it would let him.

Alucard comes to the end of the restorations in the hold.  It takes longer than he’d first expected—he’sbeen doing makework, he can admit it, restitching old pages back into bindingand moving books that have been misplaced back to their proper shelves just todraw it out—but not as long as he’d hoped.

The last step is the granite slab.  It’s the same size and weight as the previousone, as best as Alucard can estimate, and smooth on top, ready to be engravedwith the Enochian seal.  Alucard hasseveral diagrams of the seal, drawn from his memory and checked against whatbooks he could find on the subject, and in theory, he should be able to engraveit and be done.

Alucard doesn’t engrave the seal.  He’s still not a magician, he tellshimself.  If there’s another step hedoesn’t know of, something left out of the books or lost over time, he couldcarve the seal and render the stone useless. He’ll look into it later.

Besides, no one comes near the castle.  The hold is as protected as it’s likely toget.

Some part of Alucard wonders if he can find a way to contactSypha.  She would know how to seal thehold.  Belmont might be with her—would heapprove of Alucard’s repairs?  He’s thelast of his line, it’s only right that he know what’s happened to his family’shold.  Maybe the two of them—

Alucard breaks off the thought as crisply as snapping a neck,and leaves the granite slab over the entrance.

It is spring.  Heknows this because the weeds taking over the ruin of Belmont Manor are greenand lively, putting out flowers.  Thesunlight is bright and cheerful, the air sweet with the promise of rain, warmenough that Alucard’s plain dress of shirt and breeches wouldn’t mark him asstrange.  It’s…beautiful.

Alucard stands in front of the castle, hands spread and facetipped up to the sun, eyes closed to against the brilliance, for a long time.  He has always loved sunlight, even though it’soften too bright for his eyes, he remembers, and the memory is strange and alittle foreign, as if remembering a story told to him by someone else a longtime ago.  But it’s his, his own story,his own memory, and as he stands there in the sunlight, feeling the warmth sinkinto his bones like so little sinks into a vampire’s bones, it clicks back intoplace, a stone pressed back into a wall he’d thought was mostly torn down.

He is—so glad to be half human, Alucard thinks abruptly, asa breeze whips around him and vanishes into the ruins.  He would hate to have never felt sunlight onhis face.  

The sun begins to set, and Alucard goes back into thecastle.

It’s time to face the upper rooms.

Over the last uncertain number of months, Alucard has done morework than a team of humans could have achieved in years, but when he steps intothe ruins of Dracula’s private library, the enormity of the work he has aheadof him hits him like a tidal wave.  Itleaves him breathless—there’s so much to do here, even just in this room, whichis less damaged than some.  He had thoughtthat starting here might be easier, the way it was easier to tear apart the lowerreaches, where there was more evidence of the monster Dracula than there was ofAlucard’s father.

This room is ruined, but in the way of a room willfullywrecked by someone in a rage, or a haze of grief, rather than the collateraldestruction the main library or the observatory faced.  The smashed distance mirror is far from theonly thing scattered in pieces—books and quills, glass beakers and vials, evena writing desk, have all faced Dracula and failed to withstand his wrath.  The icosahedron that used to govern thecastle’s movement is as shattered as the engine, planes melted together at oddangles and lying on the floor.  Alucardhasn’t even bothered to try and repair the engine yet, hasn’t even reallydecided if it’s worth repairing.  There’snowhere he wants to go, after all.

Alucard lights the lamps and looks around the room,breathing slow and careful, as if inhaling too sharply might send his fragile controlof himself spinning.  The shelves aremostly intact, at least, and he can probably repair the damaged ones easilyenough.  The desk is a lost cause, he’llhave to build up a bonfire again.  Mostof the books are more or less intact, and—

And there’s a spray of blood, smeared across the wall besidethe door as if someone had tried to scrub it away while it was drying but hadn’tcleaned it properly.  It smells old, morethan a year, and it has a distinct signature to it.  Unique, even. Neither the sweet promise of human blood nor the electric crackle ofvampire blood—somewhere in between.

Alucard retches, and it’s probably for the best that he hasn’teaten anything more substantial than donated blood in a while.  There’s nothing to bring up.  

He locks Dracula’s library behind him.

It’s a bad start and sets a bad precedent for hisprogress.  These rooms are haunted, true,by the memory of better times, but Alucard drifts from one chamber to anotherlike he’s the only ghost in this castle. He remembers this feeling from that first day, a sort of perfect numbhelplessness as he rights chairs and straightens pictures, lingering over them,but doesn’t move a finger to take steps toward real repairs.  He trails his fingers over his mother’s books,over Dracula’s telescope, over the door to his parents’ room.  He still hasn’t dared to go inside.  

Alucard passes through the halls of the castle with lessimpact than a strong breeze and—and he’s tired,a sort of soul-deep exhaustion that drives him on instinct to the door he leastwants to see.

At the end of all this, of Dracula’s war on the world, ofhistory’s longest and most disastrous suicide, Alucard is a little boy alone ina vast castle, and all he wants is to sleep, and so here he is, sitting on hischildhood bed without much memory of having walked there.

The room has suffered for the winter with a shattered window,but not as much as Alucard might have expected. The eave, and the fact that the broken window is one of those set intothe wall, have conspired to protect it from most of the elements.  The wallpaper is peeling, and many of thedrawings tacked to the desk and wall have been shredded or suffered waterdamage, but the portrait of the three of them is unharmed, and other than theblack and ashy stain on the carpet and the broken bedpost, there’s little else disturbed.

The ceiling is still painted with constellations—it’s full darkoutside, probably even getting on toward morning a bit, but Alucard can stillsee them when he leans back to lie down on the bed.  He’s too tall for it now, lying at an anglewith his legs bent at the knee and his feet on the floor.  His father had painted the stars for him, asa surprise for his first naming day, a mishmash of constellations that Alucardliked best arranged without concern for the reality of the night sky.

“If it’s the stars you wish to see,” Alucard says to theceiling, remembering what his father said, “look out your window.”  Art isfor us, Dracula had murmured, and Alucard had rested his head against hisfather’s shoulder, so that he could better hear the rumble of the deep voice inhis chest, like distant thunder.

It’s been some time since Alucard slept here regularly—firsthe stayed in Lupu, then he traveled, and then, of course, he fled to Gresit.  Still, though, the bed is made up with softsheets and a warm blanket, the pillow placed as if he might come back to it atany moment, and it smells familiar and soothing, the smell that meant love andcomfort for most of his life.

He is so tired, Alucard thinks as he stares up at theceiling.  The painted stars swim beforehis eyes, the periphery feathered with grey, and focusing his vision makes asharp, subtle pain lance through his temples. He hasn’t slept well in so long. Today was probably his least productive day in months, idled away in thesunlight and the night spent wandering the dark halls of the castle, but theexhaustion is hitting him hard and fast, like he’s been in free fall all thistime repairing the castle and hold and now he’s finally reaching the bottom.

The thought comes to him like it’s being whispered bysomeone else—maybe he can sleep here. Maybe, if he closes his eyes here, he can sleep until he wakes up better, without the ache in his chestand the weight in his bones.  Maybe he cansleep until he wakes up to his mother’s face, his father’s affection.

Maybe he can sleep until he wakes up in a world wherevampires don’t exist.

It’s a hopeless wish, but Alucard shuts his eyes anyway.

As the sky begins to turn grey, Adrian Tepes fallsasleep.

[mona-rei-is-not-okay]

Hello, hun. So here's my imagine for you: How would UT, MT Sans and the US and UF brothers (I'm sorry if I've exceed the character limit, feel free to choose any skeles you like in that case) react to an artistic s/o who has insomnia and they often spend the night sketching/sculpting/painting until the early hours of the morning, and the next time the s/o looks at the art peace they destroy it because it's a reminder that they lost another night to the insomnia? Who would try to stop/help them?

omg YOU’RE the sweetie ya sweetie

i just realized that i headcannon many of the boys as insomniacs jeezums but this is some unique prompt, holy carp i love

UT!Sans: At first, he’s really happy to know you’ve got a creative outlet. He has trouble with insomnia himself due to some reoccuring nightmares, so however and for whatever reason your insomnia manifests, he’s very supportive. He’s really proud of your creative endeavors, and often drapes himself over your shoulder to watch if you’re comfortable with it. He finds it soothing to see all that really cool stuff in your head gradually appear out of nothing.

He wonders where they all end up, of course, but he’s pretty sure the insomnia art is personal and he’s really not one to intrude on that sort of thing. The first time he catches you punching through a canvas, he’s more confused than anything else. He doesn’t know how you distinguish a good piece from a bad piece, but that portrait sure did look like a person. This worries him. He’ll wait until after you’re done and try to break the tension a little. “guess that portrait was a bust, eh? heh…”

Once you tell him why, he understands, but something about it feels wrong to him. He just can’t see your art as a product of a wasted night. If you gain some sort of catharsis from destroying your pieces, he sure as hell isn’t going to stop you, but his soul twinges whenever he sees you do it. Secretly, he starts looking up ways to start fighting insomnia and tries to open the topic to you. He can see how destroying the art might be harmful, and maybe if he expands your options you’ll start to keep them. In any case, he won’t try to directly stop you, but he will try to divert your coping mechanisms to something less… smashy.

MT!Sans: Your art is a breath of fresh air in his chaotic world. He also has trouble with nightmares, and will often stay up with you to watch you work or just read a book beside you. It does him proud to know his s/o finds such pure and creative ways to spend their time. Watching you is one of the few things in his life that’s truly peaceful, that makes him feel at home.

Which is why when he first catches you ripping up a sketch, he immediately snatches it up and asks what the actual heck you’re doing. He’s usually off doing jobs during the day, so he figured you were just stashing them somewhere when he wasn’t around. But this? It feels like sacrilege! Why would you destroy your own pieces?

Once you explain, he’s tempted to argue, but stops himself. Obviously he loves your art, it makes him think of you and the time you spent together when you made it. He never really considered that you might’ve had a more complicated relationship with your pieces, but it makes sense to him. Still, thinking about all those works being torn up or broken… it opens a void somewhere precious. One night though, something hits him. If you just want them gone, he might know a guy.

“‘ey doll, ever think of puttin these up for sale?”

UF!Sans: Color him impressed, kid. He’s the opposite of a creative type, so he doesn’t really know what’s good from what’s great, but you seem to have this stuff down to a T and he couldn’t be prouder. His night terrors and resulting insomnia is significantly worse than his Tale and Mob self, so he tends to come watch you for comfort after an episode. It’s almost surreal, the way are your art comes outta nothing like that. Sometimes it’s enough to help him wanna sleep again.

The first time he sees you smashing a small statue, he’s shocked and a little afraid. At first, he doesn’t connect the violence to the statue, and thinks something unrelated is making you angrily break things. And hey, he’s been there, but it still triggers a slight panic response. After taking a breath, he just gently swipes away the rubble of your statuette with magic and asks what’s wrong. He’s trying to formulate a short lecture in his head on how harmful getting into the habit of breaking things when you’re angry can be and how he can try to help you learn some better ways to cope, but then you tell him why you’re destroying your art specifically.

And he gets it. He really gets it. He’s broken some things that reminded him of times he’d rather forget, too. He checks your hands for any scratches or wounds from the clay, and treats them if he finds any. He’s not at all good with words, but if you’re comfortable with it, he’ll try to talk with you about his experiences with this stuff, and ways to work through the lack of sleep and the low moods and the urge to break the pieces. But he won’t try to stop you. In fact, those situations are some of the few times he’ll actually help you clean up a mess without complaining. He just wants to help you through it as well as he can.

UF!Papyrus: He loves your creativity. He’s not much of an artist himself, but he has quite an eye for detail and has a knack for finding that THING in a piece that’s bothering you, and offering gentle critique. And that’s nothing compared to how much he gushes to friends about you and your art. Everybody look at his wonderful artist s/o, they’re doing so much and so well! He has experience in supporting a loved one with insomnia from helping his brother, but he himself doesn’t have it. His sleep schedule is tight and short though, so he’ll likely catch you working in the wee hours of the morning sometimes and stop for a while to just… bask in your skill. He really admires your dedication, even though he’s concerned about your sleep schedule and will try to get you into daytime habits that’ll help you get in a couple more hours.

When he first sees you wrecking a pot you’d made, he panicks, swiftly lifts you out of reach of any breakable objects, and pulls you into a so-called “Calm-Down Squeeze,” in which he hugs you really tightly and hums a soothing tune until you either stop thrashing or soften your tone. His brother used to have a habit of wrecking things in anger, and he wasn’t about to lose another vase. Since you aren’t actually in a bout of rage, the Squeeze is short lived and he puts you down, tapping his foot and coolly asking for an explaination.

Once you tell him about your struggle, his finger, in the air and poised for a lecture, lowers. He didn’t expect to hear that it was about ridding yourself of a reminder. Edge can understand wanting to destroy the past, or wanting some sort of revenge against your issues. He’d felt that way for a long time, heck, he still felt that way sometimes. But maybe he could help you feel better? He starts with helping you with the mess, then tries to discuss better ways to deal with your resentment towards your sleepless nights. He’ll definitely try to get you to meditate with him more often, teach you some breathing exercises, and will likely start squirreling your pieces away after you’re done when he can, so that you don’t have to face them until you’re ready. And hey, now you’re familiar with the Calm-Down Squeeze and can have one whenever you need one!

US!Sans: He is immesurably proud of your artistic ability. He’ll probably try out some of some of your art mediums to support you, and try to get you to take classes with him to expand your artistic muscles together. He’s always wanted to tke up painting, but never seemed to get around to it until now. He’s not exactly an insomniac, but his sleep schedule isn’t exactly healthy. He pushes himself to stay up too late and get up too early, and though he can function well enough on little sleep, it’s still to his detriment. Seeing you struggle with insomnia and supporting you actually helps him admit to himself that he should be sleeping more, too.

When he first sees you ripping up a drawing, he assumes it’s due to some manner of art block. Goodness knows when he was particularly frustrated with a piece, he felt like destroying it, too. He figures that that plus and an extended lack of restful sleep didn’t mix very well. He sits beside you and touches your arm, asking if you’re okay.

Once you tell him what’s really going on, he’s a little surprised. He was pretty proud that you’d figured out a way to endure those nights, he always figured these pieces would remind you how well you survived, just like they remind him. He tells you that, but also that he won’t stop you from breaking the pieces, but he’d feel better if you looked into better solutions together. So now, every early morning while you’re awake, he tries to get you to meditate or paint with him while the sun rises, before you see that night’s piece again. He tends to hide them, but leaves one out every once in a while to test the waters. Art is just such an important part of what you do, and he doesn’t want it to act like a reminder of failure, when you use is so often to persevere.

US!Papyrus: He’s happy to see that you’re following your artistic passion. As a person that has had little to aspire to, seeing you tackle your work with such skill warms up a part of him that’s been been left mostly unattended. He’ll watch you work and ask questions about your technique, and offers pretty good criticsm if you ask. He has a way of letting you know what could be improved without making it sound like something’s really wrong with your piece. His insomnia doesn’t have anything to do with nightmares, but his anxieties drive him completely up the wall at night. As much as he wished you’d sleep more, he’s sorta glad that you’re awake during these times. Seeing you work gives him something to focus on when he feels like freaking out, and it can help him settle down after an attack.

When he finds you tearing up a painting, he doesn’t process exactly what you’re doing until he recognizes it as the painting from last night. He walks up and squeezes your shoulder, asking what it did to deserve that. When you explain, he shrugs. Makes sense to him that the process of creating would be helpful even when the creation reminds you only of the struggle. Shame about the canvas, though. Try to clean up after yourself if you’re gonna do that, okay?

But the thing is, now your works seem to just… disappear after you make them. At least the ones you make at night. If you ask Stretch, he’ll just shrug and say they’ll turn up eventually. He’s obviously squirreling them away somewhere, but he knows you won’t look for them. He just likes your art, and it’d be such a shame to waste the materials on something you’re just gonna break. Plus it’s satisfying for him to look at the end product of something he watched the making of. If nothing changes, he might never outright tell you that he keeps them. He’s also just a touch more active about trying to get you to come to bed. He realizes that it probably won’t do much, but maybe both of you could get an extra hour in edgewise if you were committed.

[endofzoe]

the killing moon - echo & the bunnymen

in starlit nights i saw you / so cruelly you kissed me / your lips a magic world / your sky all hung with jewels / the killing moon / will come too soon

under a blue moon I saw you / so soon you'll take me / up in your arms / too late to beg you or cancel it / though I know it must be the killing time / unwillingly mine

sky is over - serj tankain

you’re not so gentle / persuasion has been known / to wreck economies of countries, of empires / the sky is over

not even from the sun / don’t you want me to run?

in my time of need - opeth

i can't see the meaning of this life I'm leading / i try to forget you as you forgot me / this time there is nothing left for you to take / this is goodbye

i am drifting through the stages / of the rapture born within this loss / thoughts of death inside / tear me apart from the core of my soul / summer is miles and miles away / and no one would ask me to stay

anyone, anywhere - anathema

no one really cares where i go / searching to feel warmth forever more / the wheels of life they turn without me / now you are gone... eternally

the man who sold the world - david bowie

i laughed and shook hand / and made my way back home / i searched for form and land / for years and years I roamed / i gazed a gazeless stare / we walked a million hills / i must have died alone / a long, long time ago

love will tear us apart - joy division

do you cry out in your sleep, all my failings exposed? / get a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold / is it something so good just can't function no more? / but love, love will tear us apart again

right where it belongs - nine inch nails

what if everything around you / isn’t quite as it seems? / what if all the world you think you know / is an elaborate dream? / and if you look at your reflection / is it all you want it to be?

what if all the world's inside of your head / just creations of your own? / your devils and your gods / all the living and the dead / and you're really all alone?

all of this could have been yours - shooter jennings

i’m just gonna leave this here.

the last baron - mastodon

it is hard to see / through all the haze at the top of the trees / hold my head on stable ground / watch as the earth falls all around / please, please take my hand, please take my soul to rest / so we can always be around

believe - the bravery

i am hiding from some beast / but the beast was always here / watching without eyes / because the beast is just my fear / that i am just nothing / that that's just what i’ve become / what am i waiting for? it’s already done

the garden - einstürzende neubauten

this song has two lyrics it’s purely vibes.

sway - magma carta cartel

the winding of me / is far from success / instructions for fall / as you lose your hook / and i spit it out / it still leaves a mark

i’m asking me 'bout myself / and i’m fine / so if there's no hesitation / will you lead me to the edge?

everything else is illusion - shooter jennings

love is the only truth / everything else is illusion

i’m going to make a masterpost of all the songs on my artemy playlist and the lyrics that put them on there.