#in general he is not aware that there is a second soul entangled with his

[tangledinink]

Does Swannie ever think he's Odette? Or does he know he's a separate being from her?

Donnie occasionally thinks he's Odette, though it's more common for the lines to just kind of get blurred between the two. Overall, he's not really aware of Odette's existence, at least not all the time or in a very concrete sense. He may think or feel things that are Odette's influence, or she may occasionally be 'in the driver's seat,' but if you asked Donnie about it he wouldn't be able to tell you what was happening or explain it, if he was even aware it was happening at all. He doesn't know why he has memories or feelings that aren't his, largely because he's often not aware that they're not his own in the first place. Now that his family has this information, he may be able to become more aware of it with their help.

[yandere-daydreams]

hello yes i am a basic bitch when it comes to obey me and i would sell part of my soul for anything mammon. i just... love him. thank u

What an unfortunate choice of phrasing! Otome refuses to tell me all those sweet, sweet world-building details about pacts and magic and such, so I will continue making up the rules as I see fit until the Shall We Date Gods descend to personally correct me. Assume this Darling is just a normal human, too, rather than the MC. We all need a little witchcraft, sometimes.

Title: An Agreement.

TW: Blood, Blasphemy and Non-Graphic Violence. 

~

“I want a safety net.”

It was one of those phrases that sounded better in your head than it did out loud. You’d been repeating it to yourself all day, all week, the wording changing from time to time, but never straying from the soul of the statement. You’d liked the ring of it, how simple it seemed and how general it was, and yet, you couldn’t help but cringe as Mammon raised an eyebrow, your focus reflexively dropping from his face to one of the many, many candles littered around your apartment’s bedroom. The ritual hadn’t forbid normal lights or included anything about the pentagram your demonic guest was currently standing on, but they’d felt right, a few hours ago. Now, it just felt like you were a teenager telling ghost-stories at a sleepover, a flashlight still clutched in one hand.

It was a sleepover Mammon had chosen to attend, though.

His presence alone was enough to spur you on.

“You’ll have to be more specific, sweetheart.” His voice was steady, unfaltering. You had a feeling he wanted to draw this out much longer than you cared to. “I don’t deal in ‘safety nets’.”

“You know what I mean,” You mumbled, attempting to keep your tone as authoritative as his. It felt over-dramatic, too ominous to be taken seriously, and you tried to make up for your weakness by pushing yourself to your feet as you continued. “I don’t want to worry about money. I’ve spent too much time thinking about that kind of thing already, and I can’t afford basic maintenance to be an obstacle.” You paused, for a moment, crossing your arms. The last thing you wanted to come off as was unsure. “I need insurance.”

“Ah, the human can’t take care of itself?” He didn’t try to hide his mocking lilt, an unsubtle drawl that undeniably meant your greatest wish was little more than child’s play to the demon. You could only be thankful that ‘painfully doable’ was better than ‘impossible’. “I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been watching your kind for thousands of years, and every one of ‘em is more breakable than the last. ‘s not my problem, though. What do I get out of it?”

You swallowed, dryly. “My soul.”

Mammon didn’t argue. He stared, scanning over your still form and taking in what there was to take in, his dissatisfaction obvious in everything from his shifting, disgruntled posture to the scowl pressed into his lips, downturned and disapproving. But, your offer was accepted with a curt nod, and stiffly, you stuck out a hand, the action much less composed than you’d hoped for it to be. Mammon took a second to evaluate the offer, a low chuckling rolling from his lips as he finished. You didn’t have to guess which conclusion he reached, not when he was so quick to declare it. “That ain’t gonna cut it.”

Before you could ask what he meant, a taloned fist was clamped around your wrist, jerking you forward and letting you stumble into his outstretched arms as he pulled you into his chest, pinning you against him, his mouth crashing into yours. The gesture wasn’t prim or professional, it was rough, violent, fangs tearing into your lower lip and creating a jagged, bloody line, its metallic taste following a second later. He dropped your wrist in favor of entangling his fingers in your hair, only pulling back to add his own donation, a hole soon punctured in the side of his tongue and his warm, black blood left to mix with yours, the congealed combination soon dripping from the unattended corner of your mouth. Mammon grunted, the wordless noise further stifled by your proximity, or lack thereof, rather, and without warning, a warmth filled your chest, then drained all-too-abruptly. An awareness, then the realization that something that belonged to you no longer did. An absence of something that couldn’t be absent.

You were aware that there’d be side-effects, and yet, you weren’t prepared when your knees began to buckle, when an exhaustion too cold and too thorough took the place of what you’d lost, leaving you too tired to tolerate Mammon and the bitterness now coating your tongue. He seemed more than content to go on, but with a shove to his chest and a heel driven into his foot, his face was buried in the crook of your neck, biting at the skin of your collarbone, attacking it. “Stop,” You demanded, although it came out more like a particularly passionate suggestion. “You’ve gotten your part, now I want mine. I don’t care how you do it, as long as I--”

“As long as you’re safe, and happy, and you get to sit on your lazy ass all day without starving to death.” You felt your shoulders square, your body go tense, but Mammon was grinning before you could deny it, your candles suddenly not nearly enough to keep the room from darkening. “I’ve been around your kind enough to know that, I’ve been watching you long enough to know that. I’m not the brightest, but I can catch your drift.” His back straightened, Mammon rising to his full height for the first time since you summoned him. He let go of your hair, but you didn’t dare struggle. Not when he suddenly seemed so much bigger than you. “Aw, the poor thing’s scared, isn't it? Tell me, which one’s worse? Worrying about a little trouble further down the line, or the big, bad demon you called to ease your mind?”

“That’s not your place to ask.” You winced as a pair of pointed canines tore through flesh and muscle, rooting themselves below your jugular before pulling themselves free, the latter bringing tears to your eyes. The pain was hot, spiking and searing throughout the process, but if Mammon cared, he didn’t feel the need to show it, only moving on to search for his next target as you went on. “We had an agreement. You don’t get to tell me what I want.”

“An agreement…” He muttered, his smirk pressing into your neck. “Don’t worry about that, baby. I’m gonna take real good care of you, once I’m done here.”

It didn’t take a genius to understand what he was saying, and you reacted appropriately, kicking and clawing and moving to yell, before anything you could’ve said was silenced by a breathy, unabashed laugh, as self-satisfied as it was insidious. “Where?” You spat, if only to hear something besides Mammon. “I want to know where I’m going, or I’m not taking a step.

Mammon only smiled, squeezing your hip playfully. You shuddered, but he couldn’t have cared if he tried.

“We’re going home.”

[septic-dr-schneep]

JSE - Given Time (Part 12)

Previous chapters: [x]

A/N: You know how I said I would wait to post this? I lied

Three and a half weeks.

Three and a half weeks since Marvin had wrenched awake with a ragged scream, feeling like someone had punched a hole in his chest.

Three and a half weeks since he’d half-stumbled, half-crawled from his room to the others, everything in his body singing, Wrong! Wrong! Danger!

Three and a half weeks since they had broken down Chase’s door to find nothing but his hat, phone and wristwatch strewn on the floor. Weeks of terror, rage, grief and determination warring within Marvin as he drilled through every tome on his shelf, searching and scanning for answers in every line, for some kind of sign.

By only the sixth day his fingers were bloody with papercuts and burnt from entangling too many spells at once but the others knew better than to try stopping him. They were far too busy with their own search methods.

Jackieboy had scoured the city, cashed in as many favors as he could spare, dragged as many police officers as he could get his hands on into the search. It was a testament to how much of their faith he had earned, working with them over the years. “He’s my friend,” he said, and that was all they needed to know.

Schneep contacted every hospital, every urgent care, every house caller he could think of in the city, then as many as he knew in the Ipliers’ city. Dr. Iplier had sworn he would do what he could on his end, though who knew how much?

Whenever he wasn’t on the phone, Henrik was crying into scarred, shaking hands. “I wish it were me. If the monster has him, if Chase must endure what I did…” There were nightmares and horrors in his eyes that wouldn’t let him elaborate. “I wish it were me. I would take his place, I would endure it all again if it would spare him!”

Jameson, meanwhile, did the work that was left by the wayside: food, water, blankets when the others finally passed out with their desks as their pillows. After the initial panic he seemed to go into shock. China-pale and puffy-eyed, he drifted from task to task in a daze. His speech slides were scarce, his signs nonexistent. On the rare occasion that he rested, he prayed.

There were no traces of static lingering in Chase’s room—not a speck, not a flicker. Emergency calls and hospital reports of stab wounds came up empty. Chase’s gun was still in its locked drawer, as were the bullets. There was no note to detail a goodbye. When Marvin grit his teeth, swallowed his pride and bitterness and called Stacy, she said that neither she nor the children had heard from Chase in a couple of months.

That should have been a relief, a sign that this wasn’t another attempt. Chase wouldn’t dare try to leave this world again without telling Brianna and Connor that he loved them one last time. Nevertheless the fear churned, always, in the back of Marvin’s mind.

What if he did try to reach the kids but couldn’t get through, so he gave up? What if he doesn’t have his gun because he’s going to try some other way? What if he took the note with him so it would be on his body when he’s found?

No. No. I would know. I would have felt it.

That tether he held, that thin lifeline tangled up around Chase’s soul was all that Marvin could count on every day. Chase’s face card, the King of Clubs, could not locate him, aimlessly fluttering up and down the streets. With every dead end the card’s enchantment found, Marvin was taken back to the days of watching Schneep’s card tumble in the wind, unable to reach him in the pocket dimension where Anti had stashed him away.

That train of thought found a new track.

Three and a half weeks since this new twist of their living nightmare began and at long, long last, they had found something solid to stand on.

Marvin’s plan had been to utilize his soul bond with Chase from the start, combing through dimensions one by one, searching for any pang, any sensation. Yesterday afternoon, however, Dr. Iplier had called Henrik to pass on a message.

“The Host is well aware of the Septic Egos’ trouble. Marvin the Magnificent approaches it on too small a scale. Pocket dimensions will prove trivial, fruitless…but the Host Sees beyond. For the price of a future favor, he may be of assistance in locating Chase Brody’s thread of reality.”

It was the easiest debt they could ever agree to. Another nine months with a hole in their household was not an option.

Marvin emerged on the opposite side of the portal, the opposite side of the universe, with Jackieboy tensed for a fight beside him. Schneep was quick on their heels, machete raised for an upswing, and Jameson had his sword cane drawn before his feet even hit the rocks. It wavered in his hand, however, as he laid eyes on the city in the middle distance.

“Jeepers…That truly is Elvery Heights. It’s the spitting image of our own…yet darker,” he murmured in wary disbelief.

“I don’t understand. Should this portal not have taken us straight where we should be? We are on the outskirts,” Schneep demanded.

“The Host wasn’t about to do all our work for us—and it’s probably better that we haven’t been dropped into the middle of a fight,” Jackie pointed out. “We know nothing about this place. We should find our bearings first.”

“We should find Chase; he’s waiting for us somewhere in there and I’m not going to waste any time sightseeing! We need to get in, get out and get him home!” Marvin snapped, pushing past him into a jog toward the far street. “I’m going to West General, Schneep; if he’s hurt, the Anti of this universe would probably dump him there for you to find!”

He had hardly sprinted ten feet before Jackieboy caught up with him. “Marvin,” he began in a warning voice.

“I feel him now. He’s here and he’s frightened,” Marvin snarled, dodging the hand that grabbed for his shoulder. “Isn’t this how you felt when Schneep was gone? Can’t you understand, you of all people?! Wouldn’t you do anything to get him back, no matter the risks? You would’ve plowed right in too if you knew where he was and I will not hesitate to do the same! Chase is—”

“I know. I know, Marvin.” Jackie matched pace with him, gaze steady, low voice unfaltering. “But even if I had found out where Anti kept Henrik, I would’ve been an idiot to go alone, with no reconnaissance and no plan. I don’t doubt for even a second that I would’ve gotten us both killed.”

“I don’t plan to make that mistake.”

“It would be an even bigger mistake to leave us behind! He’s not just your brother. You think JJ wouldn’t do whatever it takes to save his dad right now? But he’s keeping it together and coming along with a level head. We’re all here to help you.”

Muscles twitching in his jaw, Marvin quickened his stride. I’m coming, Chase. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just hold on.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

All of the buildings, the streets, the parks, shops and walkways—They all seemed to be “right” but Henrik couldn’t shiver away this uneasy chill from his back as he followed Marvin and Jackieboy toward the hospital. It was his hospital. Shouldn’t he feel at ease, knowing this street so well? But as intricate as the familiar surroundings may be, they didn’t hold up well when he truly looked. It was like an optical illusion or a spot-the-difference game, everything further skewed as he ventured further in.

The passing cars were few and far between, the pedestrians dotted across the street so rarely that it was startling to see one. None of them smiled. None of them even seemed to care about each other’s existence. Unlike the civilians at home, these people didn’t give a second glance to the “quadruplet” Egos passing them. They didn’t bat a lash at their attire, didn’t bother meeting their eyes.

“You feel it creeping up on you too, doc?” Jameson shivered beside him, leaning on his sheathed cane to keep up. “The cold? The strangeness of it all? I can’t rightly put my finger on why but this place feels…ill, like the heart has drained from it. I find myself hoping that the hospital will show happier signs of life!”

“I hope that too.” Thanks to those words his patients’ faces were already flashing in his mind as they stopped before the double doors. “Okay…it looks normal enough, the way I know it…”

“You’re obviously the one who can get in and check around for any sign of him the fastest without being suspected,” Marvin announced, wasting no time to steer him forward by the shoulder. “You know where they keep the patient logs, right?”

“If they keep them where they do at home, yes, but that is an ‘if’,” he reminded him tersely. “This is a different world, Marvin; we do not know if I even work here, if I have ever worked here. Hopefully my coat and expert doctoring will let me pass through at a glance but if it doesn’t—”

“Henrik? Is that you standing dillydally around I see? I thought you were scurrying out to fetch our coffee twenty minutes ago!”

All other fears fled his mind at the call and left him paralyzed at the sound of that voice. Marvin and Jameson retreated a few feet, taken aback, but Jackieboy wasted no time shouldering defensively between him and the approaching figure.

“What’s going on? Henrik?” Albrecht repeated, glancing curiously between the rigid pair. “If you don’t hurry to the shop, our break will be over before you’re back.”

Henrik could only stare at his old enemy, openmouthed, drawing a blank on any possible response. The mere fact that Albrecht was unmasked, ungloved and clean of any bloodstains was enough to render him speechless. Jackieboy didn’t suffer that malady.

“What are you doing here, Doll Maker?” he barked.

“That’s the Doll Maker?” Marvin breathed, glancing at Jameson as he tightened white knuckles around the head of his cane.

“Well?” Jackie spat, eyes burning. “Have you been waiting for us to arrive? Are you the one who’s taken him?”

A snort of bewildered concern escaped Albrecht as he shifted back, hands lifted placatingly. “Very sorry, sir, but I imagine you think of someone else. I have never heard of any ‘Doll Maker’; I do not know why you call me that. Do you need a doctor’s help? Who was taken from you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Are you trying to mock us?”

“Not at all! If you are looking for a patient, you can ask the front desk in there—or if you would like to wait just a tick, my friend Dr. Schneeplestein and I can gladly listen to your story and see if there is anything we can—”

A nearby crash, splash and clatter cut him off before he could finish, making them jump. As he spun sideways Albrecht lit up, calling out, “Oh, hello! There is the coffee! I—”

“Schneep,” Marvin whispered.

Jameson flinched. Jackie swore.

Albrecht wavered uncertainly, glancing to and fro with the same disbelief mirrored on the others’ faces. “W-Wait. Wait a moment…How can there be—?”

As the steaming brew collected in a puddle that stretched for his shoes, Henrik remained absolutely still, unable to breathe. On the other side of that gap, his other self, bony, pallid and haggard, stared him down with sunken eyes that still shone as cold and sharp as razorblades.

“What is this?” he hissed.

___________________________________________________

@viostormcaller  @misslennie9  @obsidiancreates @plutoandpolaris  @rainidaydreamer @alvie-ashgrove @subtleshenanigans  @victory-cookies  @happysingingturtles @c4link @ashphoenix06  @a-humble-narcissus  @jackskeptically @burningbirb @theblackphoebe  @hexatrash  @realcanadianmoose  @o-0notsteph0-o @help-trashbin  @blitzindite  @rats-this-username-is-taken @lildevyl  @droidreamer  @number1120 @bookwormscififan  @wynterst0rms @awesomekattyk  @the-weirdest-fangirl-blog  @epicfangirl01 @rammypaige @the-spawn-of-loki @isa-ghost @rabbitsartcorner @totallynotanti @thesinginggal @akiacreates @veryanxiousdev @stardustdragon130 @10th-no-name-person @immabethehero @rataccoonn @darkiplurrr @smolswolpotato @gay-but-still-feral @definitely-asexual-volcano @0-chaotic-potato-0  @jade-orade @nagrom10714

@egopocalypse 

[leviathanswingman]

love is a losing game, chapter 8: i break the spell

In retrospect, Diavolo should have known there was trouble in the air. There had been myriads of signs, yet he had foolishly decided to remain blind in favour of avoiding an uncomfortable truth he was unwilling to face.

The moment those doors closed behind Diavolo's back and the off-putting silence was filled with the unmistakable echo of a dull thud, Diavolo was forced to recognize that every single one of his actions, no matter how little or seemingly insignificant, had its consequences.

He caught himself thinking back, and the more thought he put into it, the more he grew aware of his own foolishness.

Diavolo was less than thrilled when Barbatos had revealed the plan for the evening he had come up with in collaboration with Simeon. A night out at one of the hottest clubs in town, just Diavolo, Barbatos, Simeon and Solomon. Good grief.

Surely, their intentions were pure at heart, after all Diavolo had spent the entire day holed up in his room, wallowing in his own royal pity.

He had just made one of the biggest mistakes of his life, so he should confidently be allowed to pity himself for a good minute or two.

He had to face reality and remind himself that he had slept with Lucifer. Out of all the irrational choices Diavolo had made in his entire life, this might have been by far the most self destructive one. Normally, people would be thrilled, no, even elated to become one with their most beloved. For Diavolo though, what was generally supposed to be a joyous occasion had turned one of his most detrimental relationships upside down. It did not matter how deeply Diavolo wanted him, he was terribly aware of how keen Lucifer was on keeping their relationship strictly professional.

The one thing Diavolo could allow himself was meaningful side-glances and hands brushing against each other ever so accidentally as they walked side by side. He knew he should feel fulfilled by all of that, yet desire was keeping hold of his heart; there were these bony fingers with nails the exact shade of fresh blood tightening around that beating little thing of his that caused nothing but unwarranted trouble.

In spite of everything, Diavolo's feelings for Lucifer were one of the Devildom's most badly kept secrets and often-whispered rumours. To be completely honest, he himself didn't contribute all that much to stop the spreading of said rumour. Call it laziness or his disdain for telling lies, both assumptions were correct in their own little ways. Perhaps there was a part of him, however deeply hidden inside, that did not mind whatsoever. No, that fluttering part of his soul was filled with the undeniable need to make it known across all three realms just how adored and appreciated Lucifer was. How loved he was. Still, Lucifer was not his, he had never been and would never be.

Gentle feelings had been living in Diavolo's heart ever since he'd first decided to put his trust in Lucifer. Along the way however, they had ever so seamlessly turned from feelings of pride into feelings of love.

Thinking back, he had  never had much of a chance to begin with. It had been a race against time. Falling for Lucifer, that was.

And although Diavolo harboured these certain feelings for Lucifer, he knew better than to act upon them. Lucifer was as complex as the universe; stars cowered before the intensity of his light, the morning star, still shining bright and standing strong, smarter than life and more handsome than death itself.

However, and most importantly, Lucifer was not dumb. By now, he must have surely caught on to Diavolo's thinly veiled adoration. Lucifer being his ever so obedient self probably simply refrained from acknowledging the fact and now refused Diavolo ever so politely and professionally, in his own subtle ways.

So Diavolo had learned to stick to their untold boundaries, had learned to tease and to compliment and to form one of the most important relationships of his life, always with invisible boundaries in mind.

This specific friday night however, with the cold winter air kissing his cheeks, he had been made aware of how thin the ice he was moving on was when he had let his own warm fingers slip in-between Lucifer's icy ones. For a second, it had felt ever so divine.

Saturday morning, when he awoke in the early morning hours, entangled in silky sheets and surrounded by Lucifer's intoxicating scent, he could pinpoint the moment he broke through the ice and sank down to the mysterious depths of a dark yet comforting ocean, struggling for air.

As Diavolo laid on his stomach, naked as the day he was born, his exhausted head resting on his arms, he felt confusion corrupt his heart. Newly born eyes drifted over the man resting beside him.  Diavolo's eyes roamed over Lucifer's sleeping form next to him and ever so suddenly, he felt the need to avert his eyes. Seeing Lucifer like this felt like a sight he did not have the right to enjoy.

Still, he could not refuse to reach out, his fingertips trailing across the sharp angles of Lucifer's jawline, tracing along soft skin on strong cheekbones, working their way up to swipe beneath Lucifer's eyes. Diavolo took in every smallest bit of detail he could hang onto; his almost sickly pale skin, slightly swollen lips, elegant hands resting next to his face, dark strands of hair falling into his face, beautiful like a renaissance painting. Lucifer's face, for once all relaxed and without any signs of stress, so calm, so pristine. He looked so much younger like this, so much more at peace.

At once, Diavolo found himself struck with a single question: Why?

Lucifer had never been one to engage in Diavolo's flirtatious invitations, no. Actually, he used to make sure to pull up borders between them, set up boundaries to keep the two of them from growing closer than what was deemed acceptable in his mind. So why? Why had he humoured Diavolo this time, why had he allowed to let passion take the lead for once ?

Uncertainty was thick in the air. What would happen once the spell was broken and Lucifer awoke, ready to reject anything that had happened between them just to revert back to a painful working relationship?

Perhaps it was foolish of him, but to avoid confrontation and his own inevitable heartbreak, Diavolo did the one and only thing his old man had taught him all those years ago. He ran away.

A day later, he was now holed up in his room, finding comfort in the certainty of silken sheets and warm blankets.

There was a knock on the door before Barbatos raised his voice.”Young Master, are you ready to leave? We need to make haste.”

Diavolo suppressed a groan trying to emerge from the depths of his soul. “Barely, Barbatos. Barely,” he answered almost dramatically. He was aware of  how childish this little act of defiance of his must seem, but after what had happened between Lucifer and him, he felt like he could allow himself this kind of luxury for a day or two, just until he felt either less ashamed or until he had come to terms with having gotten so close to the one person he could never truly have.

For the shortest of moments, he felt tempted to throw a little fit. If that was all he had to do to be allowed to stay at home, he would gladly do it. He was a prince after all, and that did come with its perks.

Of course, there would be no fooling Barbatos though, but it would at least get him off his back for the evening at last.

In the end, that wouldn't do him any good though. Living in absolute denial was easy, but to move on, Diavolo knew he had to step out of his comfort zone and admit to his wrongdoings. And maybe Barbatos and Simeon were right, perhaps it would do him good to get distracted a bit.

Begrudgingly, Diavolo got up, shuffled towards his dresser and put on the clothes Barbatos had picked out for him. Leather pants and a black dress shirt adorned with crimson roses, fair enough. Diavolo made himself presentable in a routinely fashion. As he was done, he stared at his reflection in the mirror, only to be left vis-a-vis with a stranger.

He had always been so sure of his own strength of mind, of his own restraint, yet now that he'd broken one of his biggest rules, he failed to recognize the demon in the mirror staring back at him. With a bothered sigh Diavolo picked himself up again and snapped out of it.

His dear friends were waiting for him. Only bad hosts would make their precious friends wait.

A twenty minute ride later, Barbatos, Simeon and Diavolo arrived at one of the Devildom's hottest clubs. Even outside, demons and other creatures were mingling, some with drinks in their hands and others without, apparently having the time of their lives.

Diavolo couldn't help but feel suffocated. How exactly any of this was supposed to cheer him up was nothing less than a mystery to him, but he still appreciated Simeon and Barbatos' attempt at gifting him an enjoyable evening, even though he most certainly would have preferred to spend the remainder of the night by himself buried in silken sheets. Not that there was much to change about that now.

It was well near midnight and the rather small building seemed to practically vibrate with music, sweat and an uncomfortable heat, only adding to Diavolo's avid reluctance to be there to begin with.

Solomon was waiting for them, clad in a leather jacket, standing next to a clearly overwhelmed bouncer. As they all approached, the demon froze in place before greeting the group accordingly. Quickly, he started to press stamp after stamp onto the back of their hands before anyone could protest. The club's mark shone bright red in the darkness. Diavolo tried to admire it for a moment but all he was reminded of were those piercing red eyes, set aflame, looking up at him from the comfort of silken sheets and quiet moans.

Simeon placed his hand atop of Diavolo's shoulder to lead him to the table they had reserved. “Let's go inside and see what's happening,” he said with a pretty smile which Diavolo didn't appreciate all that much at the moment. Still, he obliged and followed the angel into the overfilled club. As they entered they found themselves surrounded by whispers and mumbling. After all, both Simeon and Diavolo had quite the reputation and were well known across the lands.

Solomon, being the one most familiar with the club due to multiple nights out with Asmodeus, lead the way towards their table.

Diavolo suppressed a sigh. Normally, he knew better than to show himself in public looking this miserable, yet this night, he simply couldn't bring himself to put on a smile either. He was currently facing the crisis of a possibly crumbling relationship, a good amount of gloom seemed quite appropriate to him.

“There we are,” Solomon finally said as he motioned  towards a table for four and stopped in his tracks. Diavolo swore he could hear the faintest train of curses leaving the sorcerer's mouth.

Upon surveying the room, Diavolo immediately zeroed in on the reason for Solomon's uncharacteristic reaction.

The table next to theirs, littered with several half-empty cups, was currently occupied by two men clinking their glasses together before indulging in their drinks. Without any hesitation one of them downed half of his drink while the other one took a solemn sip, looking rather miserable.

Out of all the places Diavolo could even consider running into Lucifer at, a sweaty night club was set dead last, yet somehow, fate had once again managed to betray Diavolo's trust in an epic fashion.

Despite his inner turmoil, Diavolo couldn't argue against the fact that Lucifer looked ravishing, even though there was that certain look to his eyes that suggested a high level of discomfort. Guilt gnawed at Diavolo's conscience as he couldn't help himself but feel responsible for that. He wanted to do nothing more than run to him, cradle his face and make everything bothersome go away. However, he refrained from doing so. To be perfectly honest, he could not place what their relationship was at the moment. After that night, nothing was certain anymore. Years upon years of suppressed feelings had finally boiled over in one night of glorious intimacy. Perhaps, Diavolo should have seen it coming. He was terribly impulsive by nature, and going against his own flow rarely worked out in his favour.

Diavolo looked at Lucifer and before he could so much as start to worry about how he should act now, their eyes met and Lucifer -ever so prim and proper, all elegant in his skintight onyx turtleneck- choked on his drink. He quickly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he averted his gaze again. As he turned his head to talk to his little brother, the collar of his turtleneck shifted slightly, revealing the quietest hint of a hickey under his jaw.

A sad smile flashed across Diavolo's face. What he wouldn't give to turn back time and unmake all of that night's mistakes, for now he knew what it was like to have a taste of this otherworldly perfection, only for it to be cruelly taken away from him.

“Oh, Lucifer! It's rare to see you out of your office,” Simeon greeted. “In a club nonetheless.”

Diavolo watched the way Lucifer's eyebrows furrowed in slight annoyance. “I am solely here to keep an eye on Asmodeus,” he swiftly answered before taking another sip of his drink.

Barbatos, Diavolo, Simeon and Solomon joined the two demons at the almost vacant table in spite of the strange aura that seemed to surround them.

Slowly, they lost themselves in trivial conversations, and if Diavolo buried his head in the menu to avoid Lucifer's illegible gaze, then he would allow himself this foolish behaviour for one night before having to decide on what to do about the Lucifer situation. He spent the night sneaking glances while simultaneously avoiding to make eye contact with his right hand man, unable to face him yet but also unwilling to look away.

Several hours into the night Lucifer got up and left the table, turning his back to Diavolo as he headed towards a far-away corner of the club, probably to threaten Solomon, who seemed to have gotten himself in quite the situation with Asmodeus.

As Diavolo's eyes followed Lucifer's retreating figure, he spotted the faintest of lines peeking out of  the collar which covered most of his neck, but had slid down a bit during the evening.

In that moment, Diavolo hadn't thought much of it. He was too occupied with the problem at hand, which was trying to find a way to fix what he had broken apart. So he shrugged off what he had seen as a fata morgana, as nothing but a mere illusion. His mind was probably just playing tricks on him.

Had he not been so distracted he would have taken note of the implications of those lines, still almost translucent in their newborn state.

The next time he saw Lucifer in more than passing was several days later due to Barbatos calling in an emergency student council meeting.

By then, Diavolo had made up his mind. To no surprise, a few days without any distractions, just him and his thoughts, were just what he had needed to come up with a solution.

All he had to do was apologize in complete sincerity. Lucifer deserved at least that much. He would apologize, he would do whatever was needed to set things right again.

Diavolo joined Lucifer's side, his right shoulder brushing against Lucifer's left one just as Barbatos opened the meeting.

Half-heartedly, Diavolo paid attention to the meeting. Apparently, someone on the council had managed to get themselves sick enough to be put on MagiMeds. Interestingly enough, the demon in question refused to reveal themselves. Not that they had to, but it was well known that it was generally the easiest way to fess up so you wouldn't inconvenience the rest of the council.

Normally, this would spark Diavolo's interest and he would find himself hell bent on finding out every single detail about the who, what, where and whys, but this day his mind was preoccupied with nothing but Lucifer.

After the meeting ended, Diavolo and Lucifer were joined by Barbatos. As they talked about the meeting, Diavolo found himself more interested in the matter the more Barbatos explained about the whole situation.

An unplanned bonding, he had called it. Something like this could only happen to the truly unfortunate. Diavolo expressed this sentiment to Barbatos just as Lucifer joined the conversation, his crimson eyes roaming over Diavolo's face, perhaps searching for something Diavolo himself wasn't aware of just yet. They talked, and even when faced with the hypothetical situation of an unplanned bond, Lucifer was being unapologetically, well, Lucifer. No one but him would write off an illness this logically and this removed from any sort of sentiment.

Diavolo didn't know whether to feel concerned or endeared, but in the end gave up on trying to figure out which one was the right one. After all, he was delighted to finally be able to talk to Lucifer again. Things weren't right just yet, but talking to him was already a step above pitiful pining from a safe distance.

Their eyes met for a moment and without any explanation, the strangest thing happened. Just as honey met glowing coals, a peculiar feeling ran through Diavolo's body. It felt almost as if he had been shocked by electricity; a subtle tingling followed by an uncomfortable buzzing. There was an additional stinging sensation running through his chest, right where his heart was. Subconsciously, Diavolo rubbed his chest to alleviate the discomfort.

Strangely enough, Lucifer's expression mirrored Diavolo's shocked one.

So he hadn't been the only one to feel it.

All at once, stronger than ever before, he was filled with the urgent need to touch Lucifer. Diavolo's heart was racing wildly, and without thinking about it, he reached out, the pads of his fingertips landing upon Lucifer's cheek, softly like the shyest of butterfly kisses. Diavolo felt another harsh sting run through his heart. There was no denying that he was absolutely helplessly in love with this man.

Suddenly flustered, Diavolo pulled his hand back again just as Barbatos joined them once again to pester, or perhaps remind Diavolo about his royal duties.

As Diavolo, thankful for the distraction, whined to Barbatos he noticed Lucifer twitching violently out of the corner of his eye, just once, before fixing his posture and rejoining their conversation as if nothing had happened whatsoever.

Diavolo decided not to comment on it, after all, it was nothing but a little twitch.

He paced back and forth in front of Lucifer's study. During the day, he had felt good about apologizing to Lucifer, almost excited even to fix their cracked relationship. Now though, that the time to take action had come, he found himself uncharacteristically nervous.

He was minutes away from being open about the fact that they had slept with each other, suddenly making it feel more like reality and less like a dream.

Just as Diavolo was leaning against the wall next to the door, mustering up enough courage to walk through that door, his pointer tapping against the door frame in a jumpy manner, the door flew open and Diavolo jumped out of the way right before he could be hit by the door.

“WHO-” A pissed off Lucifer was staring at him, his expression quickly changing to one of bewilderment as he realized who his visitor was. “Diavolo?”

“Good... evening?”

As Lucifer invited him, his face a blank canvas void of any sort of emotion, Diavolo felt his skin crawl. Whether this was his body telling him that something felt off or his brain trying to stop him from being a fool was unclear.

Distracted by the strange vibe he got, comforted by Lucifer's presence, disturbed by the look in Lucifer's eyes, Diavolo finally found the courage to apologize for his wrongdoings. Of course, it took two to tango -and tango they did- but Diavolo was ever so aware of the fact that all things Lucifer were deeply intricate and seriously complex matters. So as he had done so often before, he told Lucifer the truth by simply leaving out several crucial details.

Per his own rule, he refused to lie. However that didn't mean that he couldn't evade certain unspoken facts.

Lucifer was difficult, Diavolo knew that. They had strenuously built their relationship up from the ashes of a seemingly endless war, had gone from enemies to rescuer and rescuee, to allies, to friends up to something else entirely. And because of that, Diavolo knew he could not tell Lucifer the entire truth.

The relationship they'd had before that certain night had been fine. It had been safe despite those unspoken truths they often found in stolen glances and lingering touches. Diavolo was fine with pining as long as that meant he could keep Lucifer by his side. As long as Lucifer felt comfortable, he would be fine as well. They had been doing this spiel for decades now and Diavolo had gotten quite skilful at figuring out how far he could push their boundaries before they would inevitably crumble to the ground.

This was their little dance, he knew where to step and how to move just as Lucifer knew when to lift his right hand in unison with Diavolo's left one, palms mere inches apart as they slowly spun around each other to the soft tunes of solemn piano music.

Diavolo knew painfully well that the one thing he desperately wanted to say, he could not allow to be heard.

“I need you in my life,” he finally said after having apologized for what had happened. You don't know how much I love you, he conveniently left out.

The air was cleared yet still, Diavolo couldn't shake the undeniable feeling of discomfort prickling up and down his spine. So he did what he knew best; he deflected.

“Oh, Lucifer! This reminds me of this thing I overheard Solomon and Yuuta talking about. I think they called it 'kissing the homies goodnight' ?”

The joke came bubbling out of his mouth before he could properly think about it, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. Lucifer fixed him with a strangely twisted expression. “Please don't even joke about that,” he forced out without any hesitation.

Once again, he twitched and before Diavolo could dismiss it again, he moved without thinking and cupped the back of Lucifer's neck.

There was no logical reason for him to do so, yet somehow, it felt completely and utterly right in the way it made his heart buzz and the palm of his hand tickle.

The moment was over as quickly as it had begun.

Diavolo was hastily sent off by Lucifer and as the door to his study closed behind him, he was able to breathe freely for the first time in days. The sensation of relief did not last for all that long though. As his mind was finally freed from the crushing weight of uncertainty, reality set in.

The moment those doors closed behind Diavolo's back and the off-putting silence was filled with the unmistakable echo of a dull thud, Diavolo was forced to recognize that every single one of his actions, no matter how little or seemingly insignificant, had its consequences.

“Lucifer?” he asked, but received no answer. There was no sound coming from the room whatsoever. Diavolo knocked multiple times in quick succession. “Lucifer?!” he asked, louder this time. Still, he received nothing except for an eerie silence.

An unsettling feeling started to bloom in the pit of his stomach. Throwing any resemblance of caution or appropriateness to the wind, Diavolo pushed the door to Lucifer's study back open.

He felt like his heart was ready to jump out of his chest as he took in the sight of an unresponsive Lucifer lying face-down on the floor. A pool of blood was slowly starting to form around his head, a deadly crimson halo standing in stark contrast against Lucifer's almost sickly looking, ashen skin.

“Lucifer!” Diavolo rushed to his side and carefully turned Lucifer's body around, cradling him with one arm as he pushed his hair aside to inspect the source of the bleeding. There was a big gash across his forehead, blood oozing out of it and dripping down the side of Lucifer's head, landing on the marbled tiles on the ground.

In the middle of his panicked state, Diavolo came to the hasty conclusion that he was an utter buffoon.

Deep down, he had felt uneasy whenever he looked at Lucifer. What he had written off as anxiety due to their broken relationship status, now turned out to be so much more than that. All along, there had been several red flags which Diavolo had foolishly written off as either coincidences or mere trifles.

Diavolo pulled Lucifer closer to his body as the air filled with ashes and embers and he transformed into his demon form. This time, he wouldn't fail Lucifer, he refused to.

He made sure that his grip on Lucifer was strong before he unceremoniously stepped around the desk and kicked in the large window, glass raining down onto the ground like sharpened tears.

Without any hesitation Diavolo, holding onto Lucifer's unconscious body like it was the most precious thing in the world, stepped onto the window sill and leapt off the edge. Big, leathery wings carried the both of them through the glowing lights of dusk.

Diavolo was getting Lucifer the help he so urgently needed and after that, he would find out what was going on with the demon he loved so ferociously.

It was time to face the facts. Diavolo couldn't keep on living in this false state of ignorance anymore. There was something going on with Lucifer, and as his closest friend and superior, it was Diavolo's job to find out exactly what that was.

There was still blood running down Lucifer's terrifyingly pale face as they landed safely next to a hidden cottage in the woods. They must have made quite the sight, the demon prince himself covered in blood, dishevelled by the wind, his right hand man Lucifer cradled in his strong arms, unconscious and certainly unwell.

Diavolo's heart was beating ever so quickly as he knocked on the door, his body coming down from the adrenaline as he waited impatiently.

Finally, he could make out movement from behind the door before there was the sound of a key turning in its lock and a head of pretty red curls peeked through the doorway. “Lord Diavolo?” the woman asked incredulously before her eyes moved downwards and landed on Lucifer's lifeless form.

“Oh gee!” Quickly, she turned her head around and shouted towards someone inside of the house. “Darling, I told you this was going to happen! It's Mister Lucifer, you know, the one from before!” She opened the door and motioned Diavolo to come inside. Diavolo simply followed suit. There would be time to ask questions later. Right now, his priority was Lucifer and nothing else.

A second woman hurried down the hallway, seemingly unimpressed by the picture in front of her as she quickly put on a pair of medical gloves. “Follow me.”

Diavolo followed her into what seemed to be an examination room. Although it was strange this woman had such a room inside of her own home, he decided to keep quiet about it for the moment.

“Put him down.”

Diavolo did as he was told and reluctantly took a step back as Doctor Naamah started to check Lucifer's vitals before treating his head wound. “Normally, I would have to ask you to leave the room, but considering the situation I'll make an exception,” Naamah muttered as she hurried across the room, yanking open several drawers in search of  the correct medical supplies.

Diavolo leaned his back against the wall as he focused on the way Lucifer's chest rose and sank with every breath he took.

As he pushed back his hair, breathy laughter escaped his lips. “You couldn't get rid of me if you tried,” he said.

Naamah raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “My Lord, you better not test me.” There was a short moment of silence as she finished treating Lucifer's head wound. “He will be alright,” she started. “He is a fool, but he will be alright.” She beckoned Diavolo closer. “Lend me a hand here, I have to check his sigil.”

Diavolo halted in his steps. “What sigil, doctor?”

Quickly, Naamah's gaze shot upwards. “You don't know?” she asked incredulously. “Aren't you his superior? I made sure to give you a call about it since I put him on MagiMeds.”

He moved closer to Lucifer's body and helped the doctor turn him onto his side as his brain tried to process what had just been revealed to him. “My butler handles these sorts of things,” he eventually muttered.

Naamah pulled Lucifer's collar down as quickly as one would pull off a band aid, revealing a dark red sigil, tainted with splotchy black blots. “Oh, fuck!” she exclaimed in either surprise or shock, Diavolo wasn't too sure which one would've been more appropriate.

His head snapped around to the doctor as she examined the mark with careful fingers. Eventually, she sat up straight and faced Diavolo. “He is even more of a fool than I'd originally expected.”

For once, Diavolo found himself at a loss for words. His eyes were glued onto the alluring sigil on the back of Lucifer's neck. It all made sense now.

Before he could even think about it, his body moved on its own and he reached out, fingertips running along the pretty edges of this tainted sigil.

Naamah watched Diavolo closely as he had eyes for nothing but that ornate little thing on the back of Lucifer's neck. And just as his fingers had reached the epicentre of the sigil, Diavolo could feel a rush of electricity running through his body.

With a startle, Lucifer suddenly and unexpectedly awoke.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 9, Chapter 10

[saeyoungs-sunflower]

To Weather a Storm (Saeyoung x MC)

Oh, Saeyoung. How I have missed you.

Summary: It’s easier to hide from the storm, but do you really want to waste away under your shelter, having never danced in the rain?

Warnings:

Some violence, blood and brief mention of torture.

General angst (with a happy ending)

Songs:

I Dreamed a Dream - Les Miserables

Already Gone - Sleeping at Last

After the Storm - Mumford and Sons

Come What May - Moulin Rouge

Fic and notes under the cut.

A/N: Okay, I know I tend to ramble at the beginning of a fic but I feel like these need to be said, for my sake. You’re more than welcome to ignore this, but I gotta get these off my chest. This fic includes and was based on a poem I wrote a little while ago, which I know sounds horribly pretentious and pompous, but I had the idea for this fic weeks after I wrote it and it didn’t seem complete unless I included it. In addition, because it was written before the fic, it is personal and I feel very vulnerable posting it here, but once again I felt like it made the fic whole. I’m also anonymous on here so really, how vulnerable can I be? I am no poet, I am aware of that, but I am someone with a lot of emotions and a desire to express them. The poem essentially comes in two parts, the second part being written when I was having a better day. It may not seem that deep, and it probably isn’t, but it holds weight for me. That being said, here is some Saeyoung x MC, and I suppose, a little bit about myself. I hope you enjoy :)

~

“Why do you resist the calm?” they had asked.

Because calm comes with the promise of a

storm,

And the sting is much less felt from a fall

Out of an angel’s grip

Than a fall from their grace.

“Then why do you resist the storm?”

Because now, I have all the more to lose.

——

“But then answer me this,” they persevered,

“Would you not favour risking the fierce strike,

To feel the heavens kiss your skin

And witness the electric sky,

Than to waste away within your borders,

Having never learnt to dance in the rain?”

~

He was killing himself.

Eighteen years old. At this rate he wouldn’t live to see nineteen, inching closer to death’s cold embrace with every sleepless night and every meal skipped. Even off hours he was working, his fingers trembling as they danced across the keys for hours, days on end. He just needed to prove he was the best. He needed them to trust him.

Saeyoung was still technically in training, despite the fact that he was likely the most skilled hacker in the agency, let alone amongst the recruits. The agency were thrilled by his skills and work ethic, which was exactly what he needed.

He needed them to trust him to the point where they were dependent on him. If they needed him, then he would remain in the agency for as long as he lived, and therefore his other half was safe for that same length of time.

Whilst the agency didn’t care for their agents’ wellbeing in the slightest, they cared about losing something valuable to them. And, in this case, it was 707.

“They sent me to tell you to go the hell to bed,” came a voice from behind him.

He kept his eyes glued to the screen, “Then tell them to fuck off.”

“So you have a death wish?”

“You don’t?”

With a weary sigh, you sat at the computer next to him and he finally looked at you, his eyes bloodshot and his face devoid of any colour. Or life, for that matter. You looked him dead in the eye, “I get what you’re doing, but you’re not going to be any help if you’re a corpse.”

“I don’t care. That’s the boss’ problem, not mine.”

“I’m not talking about him, I’m talking about the person you’re protecting.”

His eyes shot to yours in panic, and you laughed despite yourself, “People don’t come here for a holiday, you idiot. Everyone who’s here is here for a reason, and we all know it’s the same reason.” You were the exception to that rule, but that wasn’t necessary for him to know.

He reclined in his chair and shut his eyes for what felt like the first time in days. Maybe it was.

You placed your hand on top of his, the action startling him a little, making you chuckle, “Listen, you don’t have to do all this. You’re better at this than all of us combined, the boss adores you. You have nothing to worry about, okay?” the soft smile that graced your features was enough to make Saeyoung feel more at ease. You were too kind. You didn’t belong there.

Your eyes flickered towards his computer screen and you sighed again, “I’m going to get you some water and some food whilst you finish up, but then you are getting some sleep.”

Saeyoung watched you as you left, and wondered how such a warm soul had found themselves in such an icy place. You were taking a huge risk by caring for him, and yet you did it without hesitation nor complaint. He couldn’t tell if that was down to altruism or naivety. He suspected it was both.

After you returned, he ate and drank as you took over his work, finishing the last bit of coding before shutting down the computer. He was surprised by your effortless ability to continue from where he left off, but was even more surprised by your willingness to do so. You stood up once you both finished and held out your hand for him, which he took, letting you hoist him to his feet as he discovered he was too weak stand on his own. With one arm around you for support, you led him back to the room.

Every recruit slept on the floor in the same damp room, and with your designated space being directly next to Saeyoung’s, you got to know one another. Not much, not at all, but a little goes a long way in such wretched circumstances. 

You learnt that his mouth twitched when he had a nightmare, so you always woke up when it did so. He learnt that you subconsciously twiddled your thumbs when you couldn’t sleep, so he’d watch over you until you went still and your breath evened. Little by little, you learnt to look out for each other. You were in it together and, at least for a while, that was enough.

Usually, forming relationships of any kind within the agency was forbidden, but since he was the boss’ golden boy, he could get away with anything he damn well pleased. Not you, though. And whilst you were kind, you were no doormat.

The next morning, during working hours, you kicked up a fuss (rightfully so, Saeyoung thought) about a guard whose hands were wondering in a place they had no business being. The agency were not impressed by your reaction. They didn’t like your stubbornness or your strong will. They didn’t like your self-awareness.

You were taken away, and Saeyoung didn’t see you again until you came to bed long after the sun had set. You were practically chucked into the room, your crumpled form a heap on the hard floor, the cold biting at your bare skin.

Saeyoung struggled to see you in the darkness, but he could just about identify your silhouette as you heaved yourself up, dragging your weight towards your space. As you got closer, he could start to see the glisten from the tears that coated your face, trickling over bruised and slashed flesh. When you laid down, he carefully moved his hand to envelope yours, stroking the back of it with his thumb - a silent message carrying all that your feeble heart needed to hear. I’m sorry you went through that. I’m here. It’s not happening anymore. I’m not going anywhere.

You’re not alone.

His warm breath tickled your face, and you knew that if you edged forward, your forehead would meet his. With a moment’s hesitation, you did so, and that was where you remained until morning, desperately clutching on to the only sign of humanity that could be seen for miles, and the only man to touch you without teeth bared.

From then, you slept every night like that, inching closer and closer until finally his lips hesitantly grazed against your own. Tentative fingertips roamed over pebbled skin, and with a hand cradling your neck and a stroke of his tongue against your bottom lip, you welcomed him to take you completely with his illicit kiss. A reckless attempt to feel something, anything other than pure agony.

You were only children. Naive, daring, broken children who had never known love of any kind, but were somehow able to offer it.

You wished it could still be enough, that your quiet entanglement could be your one reason to hold on. But the tightrope you walked on became more turbulent everyday.

It was an enormous risk, but a risk you would take.

The guards became more hostile towards you after your incident, and their tolerance had reached an all time low. You were reported more often and your punishments became more brutal. You realised then that Hell wasn’t a place, it was a snap of a belt and a knick of a knife, a knee to the gut. You needed to escape.

A month after this began, you sent him a message. He was a good enough hacker that he was able to set up a chatroom that only you two could access, and that wouldn’t be detected by those higher up. It was your only safe haven, a trench on a battlefield. But burying yourself away from the action didn’t mean the war had ended.

606: I’m getting out of here.

707: there’s only one way out, and you what that is

606: That’s only if I don’t run fast enough.

707: they’ll kill you

606: Then so be it.

707: i’m not going to let that happen

606: It’s not your problem.

707: it is if it’s you.

606: You don’t even know me.

707: i know enough

606: I’m sorry

That night, you didn’t come back to your bed, and there was no sign of you other than the chilling echo of a gunshot that resonated through the building. Saeyoung crushed his eyelids shut, yet the tears still flowed as his teeth dug into his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, the bitter mix of salt and iron consuming his taste buds.

A rumour got around that you had tried to run and were shot on sight. You were used as a cautionary tale for new recruits. Apparently they had the CCTV footage. Apparently they showed them the pictures. Saeyoung wouldn’t know, he stopped listening.

From that day forward, he put his headphones on and worked. He worked until his fingers bled and blistered, reminding himself everyday of why he couldn't rock the boat unless he could see the shore, especially in such turbulent waters. You took that chance, and you couldn’t even swim.

Saeyoung found your name two days after you disappeared.

MC.

A picture of you from your life before also came up in his search, and he threw up in the bathroom as the image of you smiling slowly morphed into that of your limp and bloodied body, eyes wide open as they pierced into his own, haunting him. One day he would avenge you, and one day, in another life, he would see your smile again.

But today, he had to work.

“Why do you resist the calm?” they would ask.

Because calm comes with the promise of the

storm,

And the sting is much less felt from a fall

out of an angel’s grip

Than a fall from their grace.

***

“707! On your right!”

Swivelling around, Saeyoung deftly aimed his gun at the guard approaching, landing a perfect shot between the eyes. His aim was so accurate, in fact, that he landed it with his own eyes closed. He never looked, he could never stomach it. “Vanderwood, you keep a look out. I’m going to scope out the place.”

“Roger that.”

Missions were the most onerous part of the job for Saeyoung. With every bullet and every crimson stain on another body, he felt a piece of whatever innocence he had disappear. Scar tissue was harder than skin, and at that point, he felt he had no softness left.

This mission, however, was particularly demanding. The opposing side outnumbered Vanderwood and himself by a long shot, but they somehow managed to hold their own. They were both convinced they had taken down everyone in the building, so he was caught off guard when he entered what he thought was an empty room, only to find himself face-to-face, or gun-to-gun with someone who should have been dead hours ago.

Or, upon inspection, years ago.

“...MC?”

He lowered his gun but you kept your hold strong, eyes never wavering from his. His mouth was agape as he took in the sight before him. Your hair had grown, you were thinner, and he could have sworn your eyes had lost their colour.

But God, there was still something so ineffably beautiful about you. That much hadn’t changed.

Saeyoung had dropped the gun completely, the clash of metal against metal pervading the room, “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

“Yeah? Well I believed you to be dead for years now so I think my question is a tad fucking more valid.”

For a split second, he swore he saw your lips quiver before you pressed them into a thin line, “You were always a better hacker, 707, but I was a better frontliner. I got away with merely a bullet to the arm. But as they say, birds of a feather flock together, and it wasn’t long until I was found and recruited by someone else. Fate never favoured me, clearly.”

You held your aim, but he noticed your eyes go glassy and your knees almost buckle under your weight, and only then did he register the wound on your thigh and the ominous maroon pool on the floor next to you. His heart rate shot up, “MC…I need you to lower the gun.”

“How the fuck do you know my name?”

“That’s not important, what matters is that you’re gonna bleed out if we don’t do something about that wound right now.”

“Then I guess we’ll bleed out together,” you said, your voice strangled but your aim never faltering.

“You don’t really want that though, do you?” Saeyoung said quietly, his arms up as he creeped towards you until there was no empty space between you and him, only the barrel of your gun. Carefully, he took hold of it and tugged it out of you grasp, an arm around your waist as he lowered your collapsing form onto the floor.

The colour left your face as beads of sweat started to trickle across your features. Saeyoung took out a bandage from his utility belt and started to wrap up the wound. It would need to be treated properly, but it was enough to get you out of there.

You watched him intently as he attended to you, the same crease forming between his eyebrows from when he worked. It was strange the things you remember about another person. Only then did you realise just how much you had longed for him in the years gone by, and hot tears spilled from your eyes before you had time to register them.

His attention immediately averted to your face, cradling it with both hands as he brushed away your tears with the pad of his thumb, “Hey hey hey, you’re okay. We’re gonna get you out of here, I’m not leaving you.”

“What’s the point? I won’t last a month out there on my own.”

“You’re not going to be on your own. Like I said, I’m not leaving you. You don’t belong in a place like this, and soon you won’t have to,” he rested his forehead on yours, just like you used to, “I need you to trust me.”

“I’d be a burden.”

“You would never. Not to me.”

You eyed him carefully, trying to find any mark of dishonesty on his face, but all you saw was heartache. “Your name,” you croaked, your bones growing heavier with every passing second, “I need to know your name.”

“Saeyoung,” he answered coolly, “Saeyoung Choi.”

He tucked one arm under your knees and the other under your middle as he stood up, effortlessly manoeuvring through the building as he carried you. Vanderwood was waiting outside, exasperation etched on his face as he took in the sight of you both, “Seriously? What the hell is this?”

“No questions, Vanderwood. Just drive,” he ordered as he glided into the backseat with you still in his arms. Setting you down carefully, he checked your injury before taking out his phone and calling the top name on his short list of contacts, “Jumin, it’s me. I need a favour.”

The drive was quiet, but it wasn’t long until your leg was being treated privately in the penthouse of none other than the director of C&R International, Jumin Han. You recognised him from the news, and his association with Saeyoung only raised more questions about his life after you left.

Once the doctor and Jumin Han left, Saeyoung moved to perch on the edge of your bed, gently rubbing your knee, “How’re you feeling?”

“Better…thank you. But, I still don’t know what you expect me to do now. I can’t stay here forever.”

“I have made some arrangements,” he explained, inching closer to you, “You can now go by your real name, and you will become a part of a charity organisation called the RFA, taking the role of ‘party coordinator’. Myself and Jumin are also members and we, as well as the others, will protect you. We have an apartment for you, and you will be safe there. You can start afresh.”

Your eyes widened, sceptical that fate had had such a quick change of heart, “What about the agency? And everyone else who wants me dead?”

“I’m dealing with it.”

“I can’t let you to do that.”

“It’s not your choice.”

You both sat in a heavy silence for what felt like an eternity. Eventually you moved over, inviting him to take the space next to you. He did so, sliding up until you were lying face-to-face with the man that you thought had slipped out of your grasp. Surely it was all too good to be true.

“There’s one catch though.”

And there it was. Too good indeed.

You cocked an eyebrow, and he continued, “If this is to work, we need to keep our distance. You can’t be close to me when I’m still an agent, it’s too risky. After tonight, I’m your colleague at the RFA and nothing more,” you opened your mouth to object, but he cut you off before you had the opportunity, “No, this is non-negotiable. It’s too dangerous and I’m not taking any chances,” he paused, his next words almost a whisper, “I’m not losing you twice.”

Something in your chest ached, but you understood. You had to. As long as he was an agent and was working to erase your soiled past, getting close to him would be too dangerous for the both of you. He was essentially betraying his agency, and if they found out, even he couldn’t get away with it. This was the only way.

So for one last time you grabbed his hand, holding it close to your chest as you closed your eyes. He pressed a kiss against your forehead before placing his own there, in same position as when you were young, but now your minds a little wiser and your hearts a little more bruised. You prayed that you could stay like that forever, that the sun would never rise and you would never have to let go.

But morning was inevitable, and with the first rays of sunshine that filtered through the curtains, Saeyoung untangled himself from you and drove himself back to his bunker, refusing to grant himself the luxury of looking back.

Headphones back over his ears and a soda in hand, he began to work, taking himself back to the quiet agony he resided in, his hiding place from the devil that knocked on his door.

“Then why do you resist the storm?”

Because now, I have all the more to lose.

***

Your legs were dangling over the clifftop as you overlooked the city in the distance. You observed as more building lights flickered off the longer you sat. You wondered whether all the lights would disappear if you waited there long enough, leaving you completely alone on the outskirts of the city you built your new life on.

But either way, you would never truly be alone, would you?

“You know, for a trained agent, you’re not very stealthy,” you said smoothly.

“Like you said, you were far better on the frontline than I was,” Saeyoung replied, “Besides, it was intentional. I thought I shouldn’t startle you when you’re so close to the edge.”

You smirked and gave a hollow laugh, “Literally or figuratively?”

“I don’t know, MC,” he said softly, sitting down next to you, “You tell me.”

It had been a little over a year since you started your new life, and you found it crazy how much had gone down in such a short amount of time. After everything that happened with the Mint Eye, you couldn’t believe that everyone returned alive. And better yet, Saeyoung returned with his brother, meaning he no longer relied on the agency, so he managed to worm his way out of their fierce grip. He became boundless, and so did you. Things were looking up, things we’re finally changing.

But still, nothing had changed between you two.

You rested your head on his shoulder, both of you looking out onto the city until he finally broke the dense silence, “What are you thinking about?”

You took a deep breath, “I don’t think I was meant to live this long,” you began, “I should have been shot that night I ran, or bled to death the day our base was infiltrated. Hell, I should have died in that alleyway before they took me away.” That last part was new information to Saeyoung. He never knew that’s how you were recruited, and he suddenly felt his blood begin to boil. He tensed, trying to conceal his anger. “Yet, somehow, the universe kept me living and as well as that, kept bringing you to me. Like a guardian angel, I suppose. But life’s never really that generous is it? Because every time you came back, I could only get so close. You were just a trick of light,” your voice cracked at the same time his heart did, and he laid his head upon yours, “You’re free now, Saeyoung. When are you going to stop shutting me out?”

He sighed, “There are people out there who hate me, MC, and want more than just me dead. Escaping the agency hasn’t changed that, it has left us in the same place as before. The closer you are to me, the less safe you are.”

“I don’t want safety, Saeyoung. I want you,” you turned to face him, but he was already standing up and walking away, hands shoved in his pockets. “So now I can’t even talk to you?” you yelled after him, getting up from your own seat on the ground.

“I already know what you are going to say. I’ve told you so many times before-“

“Yes, and I listened, now it’s your turn. I’m sick of both of us taking away the other’s right to choose. We’re going to decide our future together, right now, and in order to do that we need to listen to each other.”

He watched you silently for a moment, but you continued, attempting to swallow down the lump in your throat, “I used to dream of a life that was simple, plain sailing. A life where pain was a myth and everything was nothing short of a fairy tale. Every night I dreamed of that life, and every night I prayed for morning to never come so I could stay in that dream forever, because it was easier to hide there than to scrape through a day in the hell that was my reality. And then there was you, and you were kind and you cared for me when I thought I deserved nothing, that I was nothing. I realised then that I didn’t want to live in that dream anymore, you know why? Because you weren’t in it. Because I knew that being in love with you wouldn’t be easy-“

“Don’t throw that word around so carelessly.”

“Carelessly? When I ran away and heard that gunshot, the first image that came to my mind was you. Does that mean nothing to you? I’m about to die and I don’t feel fear, just a stabbing regret that I left behind the one thing that finally made me grateful for every sunrise,” you sobbed, tears now streaming down your face, “Saeyoung, if you tell me to stop, I’ll stop. If you don’t feel the same way, I will leave you alone. But if you tell me that you want me too, then how can you expect me to just walk away from you?”

“You could die.”

“I could not.”

“I’m not willing to take that risk.”

“But what if I am?” you cried, your body trembling, “What if I want to die having loved you rather than die having never known what it was like to do so?”

“It would be like loving a monster, because that’s what I am.”

“Not to me. Not ever.”

Saeyoung couldn’t take his eyes off you, his clenched fists shaking by his side and his mind reeling. His heart was screaming at him to go to you, to hold you in his arms and tell you that he fell in love with you in a place where love didn’t even exist. That he has loved you since you were young and broken, and loved you more with every day that you grew older together. But his brain ordered him to hold back, and so he did. His head would always have power over his heart, that was his rule.

The soft peal of thunder could be heard in the distance as rain started to shower, quickly soaking your hair and clothes. Saeyoung looked at you with pleading eyes, “Get in the car, MC, I’m taking you home. You’ll get sick if we stay out here.”

“You said before that you wouldn’t lose me twice,” you continued, ignoring his request, “but you lost me for the second time when you told me to keep my distance. I know you said it to protect me and I appreciate that, I really do, but you no longer get to decide that kind of thing on my behalf,” you stepped towards him until your faces were a breath away from each other, “I want you in my life, Saeyoung, and everything that comes with you. Please, you’ve been through enough tragedy and heartache, stop depriving yourself of what your heart yearns for. It’s a fleeting little life, take a risk and live it.”

Saeyoung’s heart was pounding so hard against his ribcage that he thought it would crack. He studied how your eyelashes glistened from the raindrops, before they slid down your cheek and rested at the point of your chin. He no longer knew where the raindrops ended and the tears began, but he did know that he couldn't hold back anymore. For once, he would let his heart take the wheel.

He tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear before he held your face in the calloused palm of his hand, tilting it up until your lips met. He revelled in the way your lips moved against his, the same way they did when you were kids. He knew your kiss better than the back of his hand, and he wanted to kick himself for keeping you at arms length when you belonged in their embrace. Saeyoung could finally understand what you meant, because he would happily drown in your kiss if it meant he could feel the way he did in that moment for the rest of his life.

Every nerve in his body lit up as he deepened the kiss, fire dancing through his veins as you wrapped your arms around his neck, hands running through his hair. With a moment of boldness, he moved his hands to sit on your waist as he pulled your closer to him, your bodies flush against each other.

When you both broke away to breathe, he tucked his face into your neck, his eyelashes tickling against your skin as his eyes fluttered shut. He didn’t particularly believe in destiny, but having you in his arms made him entertain the idea. He would no longer deprive you of the love you deserved, nor would he deprive himself of the love he desired.

There was a lot of healing to do, and it would take time, you both knew that. Trust doesn’t come naturally to those born in a storm. But you can’t soothe the storm, nor can you live in the calm before it, you can only weather it. And if you were by his side, then what was a little bit of thunder?

You both stood there in each other’s embrace, completely sodden but passed the point of caring. You wanted to savour that moment, because that was the first time in both your lives where you felt completely at ease in your bliss; and when it rains, it pours.

“But then answer me this,” they persevered,

“Would you not favour risking the fierce strike,

To feel the heavens kiss your skin

And witness the electric sky,

Than to waste away within your borders

Having never learnt to dance in the rain?”

***

[luninosity]

For @whumptober2020 for today, here’s a newly written chapter from...er...the sequel in progress to one of my original stories that’s still unpublished! I think it mostly stands on its own, so it should read just fine - all you really need to know is that book one involves a magician marrying his king (with kind-of sort-of polyamory, or at least an understanding about what Jamie occasionally does with the Faerie King as part of a willing arrangement about magic, and they all agree to that), after some Drama involving faerie kidnappings and rescues, and this one picks up several years after that happy ending resolution.

Theme No 20. TOTO, I HAVE A FEELING WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE - specific prompt: Medieval and theme No 21. I DON’T FEEL SO WELL - specific prompt: Chronic Pain

#

Jamie stepped out of nothing into a game of football happening on the Great Lawn, under large shaggy trees and the benevolent gaze of the castle’s old stones; the University students had the afternoon off and were taking full advantage of early autumn sun. None of them flinched, being more or less used to the Royal Consort walking out of tree-trunks and unexpected doors and magic; they were young enough to have grown up with a magician living in the castle and in love with their King, and several of them were also old enough to know that the University’d been one of Jamie’s personal projects as Consort. Rilla, the architecture-minded daughter of the farmers he’d once protected from the year of the Great Northern Flood, kicked the ball his way, laughing, an invitation. Jamie blocked it neatly, considered Faerie-related magical-traveling weariness and his second-best pair of boots, shrugged, and ran over.

 Bren would’ve worried. For multiple reasons. But, then, his husband was several years older, was the actual King and thus had at least a small amount more royal dignity, and was built of high-strung nervous protective awareness of the world. Brendan, Jamie had always thought, would’ve fussed over his family no matter the size of it, one other person in a clerk’s small rented room or the entire populace of his kingdom.

 Bren would’ve worried even more at this particular moment. They both knew perfectly well that trips to Faerie were exhausting, draining, entangled with enchantment in multiple ways; Bren knew that Jamie and the Faerie King had what could at best be called a tempestuous relationship, and did not like that either, also for multiple reasons. Jamie did not keep secrets from his husband, whom he loved with every ounce of his heart and soul, if magicians had souls—the Church he’d been raised in suggested that the jury might still be debating this one—and therefore had not kept that secret either.

 He occasionally did not tell Brendan every detail. Like the slow increase of the tug, the pull, the difficulty opening doors home again. It wasn’t exhaustion, not precisely, though it left him weary with loss. It wasn’t pain, not precisely, though it hurt someplace deep inside, and he thought it was getting worse.

��He breathed in bright green grass and familiar autumn, felt the low deep pleased thrum of ground and rocks and tree-roots and human taverns and roadways and rumbling carts and growing turnips; and came over to join the closest University student team when they waved. He wasn’t that much older than they were, as he sometimes found himself reminded by elderly Councilors and annoyed Lords. And he’d always liked football.

 Besides, the game felt very joyful and very messy and very human. An anchor. This plane.

 They’d already picked out goals and haphazard field boundaries; Rilla said, “So, no enchanting anything to move or talk or jump over someone’s head, no matter what rules you might’ve learned up there in Caledon,” but it was lighthearted, poking a Royal Consort who’d arrived years ago as a brand-new foreign ambassador and promptly fallen head over heels for their King. Jamie said, “I’m offended you think my side can’t beat yours fair and square, shouldn’t even need magic for that,” and grinned at her.

 It was a good game, noisy and full of shouting and sunlight and running and jumping around and cheering with delight when someone managed to score; the ball got stuck in a tree once, and narrowly missed a cart belonging to a seller of roasted apples once, and one of the palace cats ran across the field in the background. Jamie did in fact intervene with regard to the apple-cart, a tiny nudge of magic so as not to hit the poor man’s livelihood dead-on.

 He had to pause for a moment, leaning over, hands on knees. Surprisingly winded. He’d come back more wrung out than he’d thought. Too hard, leaving. Too much like tearing himself out of a tapestry, threads ripping in anguish, magic wanting to stay with magic—

 “Jamie!” someone said, from down the field. “I thought Royal Consorts were supposed to be good at maintaining relations with the people! Come have good relations with this ball!”

 Jamie laughed, straightened up, and went. And helped score that goal, with a mild sense of satisfied vengeance.

 His side lost in the end, though only by a point; they stopped as the sun got lower and a few players had assignments to finish for University masters or friends to meet, and they exchanged back-slaps and compliments and happy waves, breaking up the group. Several of them were headed to the nearest tavern, and they beckoned him along; Jamie waved them off and flopped down on the grass, sprawled lazily on his back.

 He was more tired than he’d let on, though it was the tiredness of good exhaustion, of physicality, mostly. Not entirely; but more than the rest.

 The tall calm young man who’d been the captain of the opposing team came over, gazed at the exhausted Royal Consort thoughtfully, went off and got a cup of water from the nearest well and came back. He had dark skin and dark eyes and darker ink-splash freckles across his nose, and he held out the drinking-cup. “All right?”

 “Oh,” Jamie said, sitting up more, “fine, thank you. Brilliant goal, by the way, that last one; you deserved the win. I really am fine; stop looking at me like that.”

 “Right,” Neved said, “that’s just what happens when the older generation plays football—”

 “How old do you think I am?”

 “And also when you jump out of a tree in the middle of the afternoon.” Nev sat down next to him on the grass, unshakably cheerfully watchful.

 “Ah,” Jamie said, and drank half the water. “That. Sorry.”

 “What for? Does it hurt? Going there. Coming back.”

 “Oh…” He looked into the depths of the cup. Thought briefly of color-shifting leaves, of unearthly shimmers in stones and vines. Of the touch of a hand, cool and inhuman, resting on his arm. “No. Not exactly.”

 “You’re sure about that, then,” Neved said, meaningfully.

 “It’s like…” He put the cup down. Used both hands to talk. “Imagine you’ve been mostly blind your whole life. You can see a bit, just enough to get the—the shapes of things. To know colors. But then you go somewhere else, and not only can you see—everything—you can hear and smell and taste and feel it too. Like drinking rainbows, or breathing sapphires, or seeing the notes of a harp in amber and scarlet and wine…” He waved fingers about, not quite sure he’d managed successful illustration. “And then you give it up, over and over, and you come back to that first place, in the dark…”

 It was true, though if he ever put it in those terms to Brendan he’d break his husband’s heart. He wasn’t sure why he’d said it here, under earth-bound sun.

 “So you are hurt.”

 “Culture shock,” Jamie said, leaning back on elbows, letting the scent of grass and the heat of fading sun envelop him. “It’ll fade. You did help, all of you.” And then he had to explain about anchors and the rich raw sensations of earth and laughter and bodies and sweat and human things. Neved listened gravely; Jamie finished, “Bren sometimes talks to me about economics. Nothing is more real than projected income from turnip crop yields, believe me.”

 This got a laugh. “I could tell you about my senior thesis at the University. Ekkarian warrior honor codes, historical, from the fourth century? And how they’re expressed in epic poetry of the time?”

 “Oh,” Jamie said, “absolutely yes, go on,” because he didn’t know much about Ekkarian culture and because he liked seeing people get passionate about pieces of themselves. “Honor codes? Something like our oath of fealty?”

 ***

 Brendan, glancing idly up from financial reports about the proposed cost of the harbor improvements, had peeked out his study window at blue skies and green trees and the stretch of the Great Lawn; he’d known when Jamie had arrived because he’d both felt and seen the presence of his husband stepping back into the world.

 His husband; his magician; his other half: sometimes all those thoughts still made him shiver with delight. Six years into being married, and he still found it hard to believe. The last proper magician anywhere, a secret Jamie’d kept for years. A beautiful young newly appointed ambassador, arriving from Caledon. A young man who’d looked at Brendan’s exhausted discomfort with the endless evening of royal reception protocol, and who’d smiled and cured Bren’s headache with a touch, never mind that it’d potentially expose his power.

 Jamie had fallen in love with him. Jamie wanted him: the anxious skinny unremarkable king of a small mostly unremarkable kingdom, a king who’d inherited too young and consequently got nervous about storms at sea and the ache of loss of both parents, a king who really genuinely did enjoy balancing numbers on a spreadsheet and panicked when asked to make small talk at a banquet. Jamie had married him. How?

 He knew it was more complicated than that. He let his pen slow, and come to rest, over a line about the docks.

 He watched Jamie laugh and get pulled into a game of football with University students, sunshine in auburn hair, tumbling over shortness and gesturing hands. Bren wasn’t sure whether to worry or smile. His people loved his husband—but were Jamie’s shoulders too slumped? Movements less energetic than they should be?

 He knew traveling to Faerie came at a cost. He knew Jamie came back tired, quieter, pensive, even if brighter and more knowledgeable, a paradox.

 He knew it’d been the only way Jamie could’ve ever found a proper teacher, a world of real magic, not the stray bits that slipped into the human realm. He knew Jamie and the Faerie King were—

 They were something. Bren tried not to think about that. He’d made himself mostly accept it: his husband loved him, and he loved Jamie, and he was consequently in some sort of strange three-way relationship with a King in another realm, because Jamie had once been kidnapped as a Faerie Consort and that’d gotten terribly complicated, and Bren wasn’t sure it was love but he also wasn’t sure it wasn’t. Jamie and Oberon understood each other in a way that he, being thoroughly human, never would; Jamie tried not to hold grudges because when magicians did it could be dangerous, and Brendan was allowed to be annoyed about the kidnapping on his behalf.

 He’d met Oberon twice. They’d regarded each other with prickly wariness, both rulers, both understanding that the entire power of Faerie could do terrible things to Bren’s tiny kingdom, and also equally understanding that they both cared for the short sturdy blue-eyed magician who’d folded both arms and leaned a hip against Bren’s desk and said, “How nice, we’re all getting along, shall we talk about establishing cross-realm communications properly, then?”

 He watched Jamie run around the Great Lawn and pause, briefly, to breathe, bending over. Bren’s heart did a little jump; but Jamie straightened up and ran over to help his team score. Bren might’ve cheered, alone in his study. He wouldn’t’ve cared if anyone’d walked in, anyway.

 He did sometimes wonder whether—

 No, he told himself. No. You’re not thinking that. You’re enough, you’re more than enough, he’s said he loves you and you believe him. He doesn’t care you’re not as young as he is or as fun or the sort of person who’d spontaneously join a game of football or gifted with impossible wild magic. He doesn’t.

 Bren went to move his pen, discovered an inkblot, sighed. Poked at numbers. They behaved themselves, adding up, clear and soothing.

 Cheers indicated that someone’d won. Drawn by the sound, Bren drifted back to the window, watched students and his husband run around, watched them being happy.

 He watched Jamie say goodbye to a few more players and then sit down abruptly, right there on the grass of the Great Lawn—and then lie down, leaning back, apparently too tired to stay upright—

 Bren dropped the pen.

 One of the students—he couldn’t tell who—had come over. Bringing water. Sitting with Jamie. Who took the water but didn’t get up.

 Jamie had been traveling—had been crossing between realms—and wearing himself thin even before that, trying to figure out the mysterious crop failures and unseasonal weather shifts—and now he’d come back and decided to play football with students, of all the ridiculous—

 And he was probably fine, almost certainly fine; Jamie knew his own limits—but if something were really seriously wrong, the students wouldn’t know how to help, what to do—

 Bren ran for the door. The castle stairs.

 When he tumbled out onto the Great Lawn, the sun was lowering itself beyond the trees; flashes of light dazzled him momentarily. Breathless and clumsy, he skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees at Jamie’s side. His husband’s eyes were closed, though he was awake; the young man sitting beside him was talking about some sort of epic poetry, very animatedly, while Jamie made interested noises of encouragement.

 “Hello, love,” Jamie said without looking, which might be either a magician’s or a husband’s senses; Bren wasn’t sure. Might’ve been both. “Have you met Neved? He’s our University football captain for the Blues, and he’s been lecturing me on Ekkarian warrior culture and epic poetry. Very eloquently, I might add. And also I’m fine.”

 “You are not,” said both Brendan and Neved simultaneously; they glanced at each other and away, embarrassed for more or less the same reason. Jamie opened both eyes and pushed himself up on both elbows, and laughed. “Your faces, both of you…”

 “No one believes you,” Neved said, “and next time you let me know if you’re tired, all right? I mean. Ah. Sorry, your majesty.”

 Bren winced a little—he knew most of his people liked him, and he also knew he wasn’t as approachable as Jamie, despite being the one of them born and raised in Erinne—but tried, “No apologies? Um. That is. It’s just Brendan. Really. Um. If you’re friends with Jamie.”

 Neved’s expression said very clearly that he wasn’t sure he could in fact call his king by a first name, but he nodded, at least.

 Bren took his husband’s closest hand. “Jamie—”

 “I’m just enjoying the lawn. Nice friendly grass. Don’t worry about me. How’re your harbor cost estimates?”

 “Fascinating. Lots of numbers to balance. I’ll tell you later. What do you need? Sugar? Chocolate biscuits? The last oranges?” Jamie’s hand was warm, but was his grip not as firm as usual? Bren’s heart shredded tiny pieces of itself in distress.

 “Sugar helps?” Neved said, with the expression of someone taking mental notes about the Royal Consort’s well-being, and also very aware that the Royal Consort’s husband was present, hovering, and technically his absolute ruler. “My gran makes these fantastic spiced honey cakes. I could run home and bring some up to the castle, later.”

 “Bren,” Jamie said, “our current ambassador to Ekkar, the one stationed in the capital, that’s Lord Summerton, right? I mean the older one, not the younger one who eloped with his mother’s lady’s maid last month and caused all the scandal. He must be nearly seventy by now—the older one, not the one with the lady’s maid—and do you think he could use a sort of junior ambassador? Someone who knows the culture and the customs? We don’t have enough people who do, and did you know Summerton didn’t even speak the language when he was appointed? I know he was friendly with your father, but honestly that seems a bit unfortunate. And Nev would be brilliant. Caring about people, and about history, and all.”

 “Oh Tree and Leaf,” Neved said, now sounding faintly shocked.

 “He’s always like this,” Bren explained, “you get used to it. Jamie—”

 “Of course you should finish University first,” Jamie said to him, “and speak to your family. And then come talk to us. I honestly am fine, love, I’m just being lazy now.”

 “You’re not,” Bren said again, and sighed. “But I’m not arguing. I’m taking you home and feeding you. Royal, um, edict. Or something. I can do that, you know.”

 “Love you.” Jamie sat up easily, more so than Bren had expected; a good sign, then. “And I’m listening. Especially if you’re promising chocolate biscuits. And you can tell me all about your numbers and the budget for improvements while I eat them.”

[empressxmachina]

Mouse Trap, part 1

“It would’ve been crazy not to start saving footage on sight. Or, am I crazier for doing so in the first place?”

Lonely days weren’t an oddity for Lauren. Aside from being stuck in self-imposed studies, there was a multitude of reasons why the pseudo-red head kept to herself. The current status of her living quarters said enough on its own. Papers novel and ancient. Food boxes with their stains and crumbs. Various types of hardware scattered across every surface she could traverse.

It certainly would be displeasing, perhaps even psychotic, for any visitor that came by. A home as disheveled as her current mind: it was fitting, to say the least. Fitting and comfortable for the new-wave scientist. A place of stability in her now topsy-turvy outlook on life.

During the following days after the sky screening, Lauren found herself in an entanglement of emotions.

On the one hand, the sight – the atmosphere a stranger’s portrait – was too bizarre and entrancing to not look at. On the other hand, that same sight was so bizarre and entrancing that looking away seemed like the only way to keep her head. As much as Lauren wanted to learn more about the forms that were hidden in the firmament by looking head-on, she felt enough confidence in herself that there might be just enough data encrypted in her recordings for a reasonable theory. Thus, that’s where she found herself today, just as she had been in the days prior.

Scanning transmission file after transmission file. Digging a crater in her desk chair from sedentariness. Burning her retinas off from laptop light in her lonesome. Stuffing leftovers from who-knows-when into her face. The new normal.

To look or not to look, that was the question. Lauren hadn’t a clue which option was better. Was what she had done and was doing even good? The needless calories being absorbed by her system probably weren’t. She could feel increased caloric intake in her pores. No matter what the best outcome for her was, she definitely knew two things about her current situation as the glares from her side lamps sprayed across her computer screen.

“This food shouldn’t be and look as good as it does,” she cooed, lukewarm victuals sliding down her throat at the same time, “and neither should this… thing.”

There was no way that far-reaching figure could’ve been a person, let alone another anthropoid like herself. It wasn’t in the sky; that was for sure. Every measure, especially those topographical, showed that it was, somehow, past it. Beyond it. It, itself. Literally larger than life to be so visible. Yet, it – he? –  looked so much like a person she could find on the street.

Could, not would.

The formality in his wear and his perceived location was way too extravagant for anyone in her neighborhood. Then again, many qualities of her own home were the same way. Like how he was hidden to all she used to know, her bits and pieces of glamour – all gifted from friends, family-like friends, and family via friends – were burrowed away from the public, shadowed by tossed clothes, trash, and graphics.

Although, for Lauren, it was purely his general existence and all it could suggest that captivated her, she wasn’t so ignorant (or scared) to not acknowledge what was probably the prevailing view. Almost undeniably on all accounts, at least according to the society she knew, he was handsome. Yet, she didn’t act on it, despite stopping at a frame where, for an instant, the sky-warping singleton could be perceived as looking right at her, right to her soul.

His hazel-looking planetary orbs pierced into her mocha irises. Sharp, manicured angles on every facet of his head. The boldness to wear a denim top of all things.

Hovering above the buildings and clouds, dwarfing them all with his pores alone, he was the antithesis to her insignificance.

Confronting her self-faults with groans, food, and a spin in her chair, she couldn’t deny her feelings of unfortunate, aesthetic pleasure brought about by the atmospheric individual. After all, there wasn’t much else she could do. When she finished her rotation and looked back at her screen, there was literally nothing else but a transitioning message in a sea of black. The future was always grateful for it, whereas it was always hated to be seen in the present.

“Hi. We’ve got some updates for your computer.” Her workstation had the audacity to enforce an update out of nowhere.

“What the—Are you kidding me?” No progress bar or prior schedule, online or in software, had declared the update’s necessity, and thus it was met with Lauren gripping her hair into a choker and griping. But, since she was only observing still images already saved in multiple drives rather than editing them, taking a break wouldn’t hurt her or her progress. “Ugh, fine. Whatever.”

Along with the tech being entirely out of her control, Lauren had also become aware of her focus waning. Amid amorous intrigue, her daydreams were, in truth, making her images move outside of their print, giving unknown life to the sky-scraping scene. While some musings were soft, such as him swaying his head or giving a possible wink, she could envision her city being wrecked in some way just as effortlessly by him, and no one option seemed more likely than any other… or better.

A look to a wall clock gave a reason for her madness. Three hours after midnight, she was still stuffing her face, and it didn’t look like she was going to stop. Soon enough, Lauren was drawn to her distant mini refrigerator for a thickened stew of a smoothie. However, unlike just moments ago with food as a catalyst for thought, here it distracted from it, almost too much of one that nearly sent her face-first into her second desk of a vanity.

The hazards and probable ankle sprain from slipping on loose paper were nothing compared to making sure she didn’t choke from her own, even more, possible failures in downing the drink. Hence, that took hold of her attention. If the hearty blend made it to the back of the throat, then it absolutely got ingested, passed past the event horizon of her esophagus in one fell swoop. If it had.

Her golden rule of deglutition didn’t hold up very long for all that hadn’t, and her wall and floor got a new paint job.

A gasp and dabs on her face with her hoodie helped with clearing her airways and skin of her palates’ passion, yet there was no way to give clarity to what she found waiting for her back at her computer screen. Rather than the expected message declaring how long the installation would take or heightened protection, Lauren was greeted with the complete opposite of the latter:

“You found me. It’s only fair if I do the same.”

[heartau]

My Queen | S.HS

Genre: royal!au - angst/slight smut Word count: 2.8k Comments: i have not read through this for typos/grammar mistakes yet!! Warnings: side character death, slight mentions of explicit sex (short descriptions), this is full angst.

He called you his queen, when you were anything but.

It was a balmy summer day on your first encounter. You were not styled like a royal, that day, the raging sun beat down on your supple skin, maids hesitant in putting you inside a dress that ended above your ankles, they opted for a lighter fabric. In your hair rested no decals, plain hair pulled back into a tight bun, grimacing in pain as the oldest maid brushes bumps out as your father’s messenger knocks on your quarter’s door to tell you that he is waiting down the grand hall. Your stubby legs and short stature could only bring you forthwith so fast; at a young age, you were already aware of your father’s intolerance for time and patience, the King’s face already grew sour by the time you had arrived, your maids rushing behind you.

“Is there reason for her dress?” your father had spit on your maids, you hung your head low in shame with them. “This is not something a princess should be wearing, it looks far too penurious.”

“My king,” your voice is still small as you had only been brought to the world eight years ago. Your father disliked being called anything else that didn’t refer to his royal title; it caused you great pain whenever you’d hear different variations of the word father each time you would go on an outing. “Please, excuse them, it’s a very warm day, they were looking out for me in case I faint from the heat.”

Your father eyes you when he studies your sentence, before nodding once and turning on his heel. “Okay, your maids may be dismissed. (Y/N), there is someone that I want you to meet. He’ll prove to be of importance to you, one day.”

He was a small boy, two years older than you were, but still shorter than you in height. His eyes sparkled in wonder when you had left the palace to walk into the royal garden, his cheeks lifting into mounds of flesh as he grinned widely, baring a grin with two missing teeth at you. An older gentleman, whom you assume is his father, stands behind him and bows eagerly towards the both of you, nudging the little boy on the shoulder to do the same.

“Your majesty, your highness,” the older man says, voice gentle yet mighty. “It is of great honour to be of service to you.”

“Of course,” your father smiles proudly, eyes dashing towards the little boy, whose eyes flash back and forth between the two of you in amazement. “And who might you be?”

“Your majesty, your highness,” he speaks with a lisp, causing the corners of your lips to quirk into a small smile, using all your energy to stop yourself from giggling. “My name is Wonho!”

It was a cool winter evening, months later, when you first realize how you and Wonho had grown to become best friends. As a princess, it’s not only difficult, but dangerous for you to accumulate a circle of friends of your age in case one of them acts out in treason or decides to attack you with you unknowing. Up until you had met the boy, you spent your time in your quarters playing tea party with your old maids and plush toys, but your father had allowed you to grow close with Wonho, a blessing and freedom that was rare for you to have.

“Last one around the corner is a rotten egg!” Wonho had yelled before bounding down the marble floors of the grand hallway. You giggle loudly, lifting the hem of your dress past your knees, hearing the pads of your feet slap against the cold floors as you follow him. He reaches the corner first, and you finish second, grabbing onto the wall as the two you heave and break into a round of giggles.

“You’re a rotten egg, Princess!” he laughs in sing-song, pointing at you.

You only stuck your tongue out at him before you hear your maids shout that you are gone from your quarters. You feel Wonho’s hands grab yours before he hauls you behind the table.

“Shh.” he whispers, toothless grin smiling back at you. You mirror his grin and nod, clamping your own hand over your mouth.

It was a crisp spring day when you had realized how you and Wonho now stood at the same height, a revelation so shocking to you that you had called him to your quarters to let one of your maids measure the both of you.

“He is five centimetres taller than you, Princess,” your maid confirms, and you widen your eyes in shock.

“How on earth have you grown taller than me!” you question him. “You were minuscule when we first met!”

It had been four years since the both of you had met on that balmy summer day; you were at the age of twelve and Wonho stood at the age of fourteen. His missing baby teeth had all grown in, his adult pearly whites straight and almost dazzling whenever he threw you a playful smile. He had also begun to dabble in combat, woefully rejecting your requests to spend time due to his interest in watching the royal guard practice, his father being one of them. You were afraid of this, though, because you were aware of the dangers of being a royal guard - the death toll is inescapable once it came to your father.

“Who knows, Princess,” he laughs, putting his hands on his hips. “I’m large enough to be your human shield now, aren’t I?”

You roll your eyes and punch him in the arm, not noticing how Wonho, the stringy little boy you had grown up with, who would always yelp in pain at your packed punches, barely even nudges when your fist meets his shoulder.

You will come to regret overlooking that, later that week, when you find out he had left the palace to join the training force.

It was a windy autumn morning, six years later. You had grown into a fine young woman, formed with flesh and curves, holding brains and wit, a woman ready to take on the throne if need be, especially due to your father’s declining health.

“Princess,” your maid’s voice is hush as she knocks against the wood of the library’s door gently. Looking up from your book, you nod at her to signal for her to continue. “There is someone in the grand hall, they want to meet you.”

Setting your book on the side table, you stand up from your chair and rake through your mind on who it could be. Perhaps it is that frail old man whose family you generously gave money to in order to aid their father, perhaps it was that young boy named Jaemin who worked at the towns bakery who you had offered a spot in your palace’s kitchen, perhaps it was the school of children who you had told to visit the palace anytime they wished. As you walked through the doors of the grand hall, a familiar voice causes your thoughts to silence.

“Princess.”

Wonho is inches taller than you now, evidently, standing broad and square shouldered as he is adorned in iron, holding a helmet close to his chest. His muscles are apparent, body wide as he bends over to bow towards you. His face still holds the innocence that you had grown accustomed to when you were young, you do not notice that his eyes aren’t holding the same twinkling wonder that they once had.

“Wonho,” you gasp, freezing the moment you see him. He looks up at you from his bow, widening his eyes as he freezes as well, eyes taking you in - you had grown into a beautiful woman. He opens his mouth to say something, but you interrupt him by running towards him, engulfing him into a crushing hug, tumbling backwards onto the ground. “I thought you left forever.”

He holds you close, memorizing the feeling of your body against his own.

“I would never leave you, my Princess,” his tone his hushed. “I’ll be by your side. Always.”

It was one month later, on a cool autumn morning, when your maids rushed into your quarters with tears in their eyes and mournful words falling from their lips, when your father, the King, had passed on. Your heart was heavy in your chest as you rushed down the halls to your father’s quarters, the doors that were usually closed with apathy now open with staff with tearful eyes piling in and out of the room. You were unsure on how to feel; you were never close to your father, you’ve never called him a father in your entire life, yet the soul crushing weight that had settled on your shoulders at that very moment, the cold realization that the throne is now yours, that this kingdom is now under your ruling, causing a tear to spring up in your eye.

“Princess,” Wonho whispered in a hush tone later that night as you sob into his chest. The balcony of your quarters has always been your meeting place; the two of you loved to stargaze. His hand rubs circles on your back as you cough out wrecked weeps. “Princess, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not ready, Wonho,” you gasp, clenching the fabric of his shirt into your fists. “I can’t rule over this kingdom yet, I’m not ready. I can’t be the queen yet. There’s too much pressure.”

He grows silent, pressing a kiss on your hair, where the coronation crown would be placed that following morning. “You can do it, I know you can,” Wonho whispers, pulling away from you, using his fingers to lift your chin up towards him, forcing you to look into his eyes. “You were made to be queen, princess. You’ve always proved, since you were young, that you would be a far better ruler than your father had been. You are these people’s queen.” The electricity in the air is apparent when you feel his breath against your lips. “You are my queen.”

That same night, you find yourself entangled in the sheets with Wonho. Moonlight slipping through your satin curtains as your skin meets each others, lips attached, never pulling away for breath. That night, he ceases in calling your princess, hushed sentences of praise, worship and love entangled around the title of queen; his queen.

It was one year of happiness, of pure unadulterated joy, with Wonho. Sneaky glances exchanged at each other as you sit in the grand hall, your subjects piling in to covet, or to offer gifts. Giggles of mischief, much like the ones that fell past your lips when the two of you were children, before pulling each other into closed crevices or empty quarters to fool around like young teenagers. He paid close attention to you, everytime he pulled your dress over the swell of your bottom, an action damning to the kingdom, before fucking you against any structure he could find. There was one time, when your maids had panicked that you were gone from your quarters, when he pulled you into a room filled with historical artifacts from past rulers, fucking you over a glass display case of jewels that dated back hundred years - but you could care less about sparkling mounds of topaz and emeralds when his cock hit you in just the right spot, over, and over, again.

You already had your mind set on making him your king, prepared to rule an entire kingdom with him, your lover, the only man you had ever had eyes for throughout your entire life. You could already imagine the mantle on his shoulders, as you bless him as a royal; imagine the feeling of contentment as you slide the ring onto his finger, as he does yours; envisioning your children, bounding towards him with their stubby little feet and toothless grins, calling him their father.

It is the morning after your last encounter with Wonho, a night filled with lewd words and gripping hands, when you find out that maids have uncovered your father’s secret will, hidden in his folders deep in his desk. You felt your entire life fall apart inside of you, your envisage of living the rest of your life on Wonho cracking and smashing into pieces, welling up with tears, falling onto the marble floor in nothing but your satin robes and sobbing into the empty room.

“I am Queen,” you had tried arguing against the court upon finding out what your father had written. “I am Queen, this land is under my rule. I refuse to follow the words of a man who did nothing for this kingdom, I refuse to follow the words of a man who has passed more than a year ago, I refuse to follow the words of a man who wouldn’t even allow me to call him my own father. I rule over you, my word should be taken as the end all be all.”

“It is law,” the judge’s roaring voice overpowered your own. “Your bloodline has been connected to the church for more than five centuries - your title holds no bearing against the rule that had been written down. Your father has said his word, and though he has passed, bless the King, you are to follow it no matter who you are.”

Your shaking body doesn’t cease in sobbing as you lift the torn up will that the maids have uncovered in your father’s old study.

“My Queen,” Wonho’s stepped into your room, hesitantly, worry laced in his voice as he watches you sob on the floor. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“Don’t call me that,” your voice is quiet. “I am no queen. How am I queen when I have no word in any of this, I am still just a chess piece, much like I was when I hadn’t been crowned. I am not your queen, Wonho. I am nobody’s queen.”

“M-” Wonho starts, but stops. “(Y/N), please tell me what’s wrong.”

You clench your teeth, not bearing to look him in the eye. Instead, you point towards your door.

“Please leave,” you tell him, voice wavering. “Please leave, and never come back.”

It was a chilly spring evening when the frigid gold slides itself onto your ring finger, a golden ring from a man whom you hardly even knew. He was the prince of the Kingdom that dabbled in combat, a war-stricken Kingdom, his father had struck a deal with your own to merge your kingdoms together when you came to the throne. His eyes were empty, just as yours, when the man lifts your veil and bores his eyes deep into yours. But even when he leans in to kiss you, frigid lips pressing against your own, you will yourself not to weep but tears still pool against your waterline. The church, and the entirety of the kingdom outside the sacred ground, erupts into cheers of celebration for their newfound king and queen.

You are only thankful that the tears that stream down your face could be easily mistaken for tears of joy.

Your subjects came to you to bear their wishes and congrats, kissing your hand and feeling your dress in desperate attempts to obtain luck - but you held nothing but pure anguish behind your joyful face. As the palace begins to clear out, you feel yourself breaking more and more as the seconds go by; you felt pitiful, both for yourself, and for the unknown man you now call your husband.

“Your majesty,” you hear, and if it weren’t for the familiarity of the voice, you would have thought it would be a stranger from his peculiar choice in addressing your title. It sounded odd when it fell from his lips, and that’s when you feel the tears welling against your waterline again; you were no longer his queen. His face had sunken in, the sparkle in his eyes that you had seen throughout your years have diminished, even the pink that rested on his plump lips has gone dull, but nevertheless, he bows. “Congratulations.”

You out stretch your hand, desperate for one more chance in contact, cupping the side of his face. Electricity appears in the air once more, much like the first time he had kissed you, but you bite back the urge to bring him to your lips - if you were to do so, you were to be punished by guillotine. So instead, you muster up a gentle smile, and for a second, his eyes captured the essence of wonder, the same look he had when you had first met him when he was a young boy, with a toothless grin. This is the last time you’ll ever have a glimpse of that wonder.

“Thank you,” you pause, steadying your wavering voice. “Royal knight.”

It is on that same chilly spring evening, when the moonlight glints against the wedding ring that adorned your hand, when you quietly sob into your wet pillow beside your unknowing husband, when you last see Wonho.

[funkymbtifiction]

My mom and I love your typings and your page! We bring it up every time we watch something new to see if you’ve typed it. She is an INFJ cp6w5 and I was wondering what that would look like within a character 💕 thank you for all you do!

I’m flattered. If only I could clone more of me, so I could watch more things. ;)

I tragically haven’t officially come across an INFJ 6w5 at all yet, much less a counter-phobic one, but in scrolling through the INFJ tag...

what about Dickens’ Lizzie Hexam, from Our Mutual Friend?

Her foremost quality is being loyal -- at first to her father, however undeserving he is, then to her brother (she gives up her own opportunities to ensure his success and personal safety), followed by Eugene Wrayburn -- a man who admittedly is not worthy of her either, given his propensity to drive Bradley Headstone to ‘utter madness.’ Lizzie often acts out of fear -- both in diminishing her father’s wicked temper, in sending her brother out of the house (and ensuring he is far clear of any backlash her father might have at him learning to read), then later in her interactions with Headstone and Eugene both -- she fears Headstone may ‘do some harm, cause some violence’ (she is right about that) and tries to avoid any entanglement with him, forcing herself to confront him even when he terrifies her with his bad temper (he beats his hands bloody on a headstone in the graveyard, after she refuses him). She is also, understandably and wisely, distrustful of Eugene’s interest in her -- sensing in him a restless soul, and somewhat of a predatory presence, yet falls in love with him against her own better instincts once she sees him defenseless and weak.

Her distrust of both these characters, yet her tendency to give Eugene a chance and to remain loyal and kind to her brother and father even when they do not deserve it are very 6-like. Lizzie is generous, loving, compassionate, and self-sacrificing, easily able to draw others in and make them like her, but she is also doubtful, suspicious, and tends to question herself -- a line in the novel remarks on that however sure she is of her father’s innocence of a murder, she cannot somehow keep it fixed in her mind when she speaks it. Lizzie becomes so fearful of what Headstone might do to her (and her Ni / 6ish apprehensions about him are spot on, since he’s unhinged and violent) that she runs away from him -- and she doubts Eugene’s intentions (also, rightfully so, since he seems intent for awhile on ‘toying with her’ as a member of the lower class -- it is only his near death, and her gentle tending of him, that redeems him) enough -- that she runs away from them both, hiding in the country and doing her best to avoid their discovery of her whereabouts, which is also a 6ish evasion tactic, now that she has no one to protect her from predatory males.

She shows none of the adventurous spirit or the idealism of a 7 wing, therefore 5 is credible -- also in her ability to self-center / self-focus and make rational decisions that she does not second guess later, since her 5 wing allows her a bit of independence.

- ENFP Mod

PS: IMO, if anyone really wants to see a contrast between the specific focus of an INFJ and the lazy listless Ne of an ENTP, watch Our Mutual Friend. She is a good characterization of a Ni-dom, whereas in Eugene, you will see the ‘worst’ traits of an ENTP without focus -- the intellectualism but also the tendency to treat other people as a plaything, with a total disregard of awareness of just how bad things can turn when you continually mess with a sociopath for your own amusement. Eugene’s continual abuse of Headstone for its own sake is a credible demonstration of ‘bad Fe’ (torturing him into madness through leading him on in his midnight walks, and getting a kick out of it) and also a really good, if tragic example, of the Ne-dom tendency to misjudge people. Eugene is so focused on the idealization of Headstone, he fails to realize just how murderously dangerous he is -- something that Lizzie, with her razor-sharp NiSe axis, catches onto almost immediately.

[tomasorban]

THE ZODIAC: TAURUS THE BULL

Date of Rulership: 21st April-20th/21st May; Polarity: Negative, Female; Quality: Fixed; Ruling planet: Venus; Element: Earth; Body part: Throat and Neck; Colour: Pink; Gemstone: Sapphire or emerald; Metal:Copper.

The explosive impulse that is epitomised by the zodiacal sign of Aries is steadfast followed by Taurus, a stellar bull which appears to straddle the horizon between vernal equinox and the summer solstice. Taurus is the celestial power most suitable to successfully harnessing the fiery potentiality of new life sown by Aries because of the unwavering strength, determination, and commitment it introduces into the cosmic meme pool. Looking at the sign from a purely suprapersonal and cosmogenic perspective, one could say that its position in the sky mirrors its symbolic and metaphysical locus as an ethereal apparatus of transmutation that directs an evolution of fiery energy set forth on the wheel of creation by spontaneous Arian generation. Just as the constellation of Taurus embraces the sun between the vernal equinox, a position of birth, and summer solstice, a position of maturation and the echelon of development, so too does the respective formative force behind the veil of stellar appearances guide the vital life-force of an organism to maturation or dismemberment and dissolution.

Taurus is second in a line of archetypal children born to the grandiose multiverse. Whereas Aries is descended of ethereal fire, the configuration of stars belonging to Taurus were crystallised beneath ethereal earth. “Of course we all know that Aries is the first born,” says Taurus from its place in heaven, “though being first at anything doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the best at it. Let’s not forget the great pains Mother Nature endured at the merciless hands of trial-and-error to perfect the complex thread of all intelligent Life. Aries may be impulsive, combustive and creative like raging fire, but the conditions for Life to accomplish its means requires calculated, controlled and mediated options and controls. Sure, you can plant seeds in the firestorm of Arian motion that is spring but you can be certain that they’ll wither and die by summer if you don’t stay the course and nourish them accordingly. In any case, Aries operates at lightning speeds and overlooks the finer fruits and flavours dangling from the Tree of Life. No kidding, we’re talking about a complete absence of the aesthetic. I guess that’s just too bad for Aries, huh?”

From this brief soliloquy regarding his older sibling one might deduce Taurus to be a level-headed, logical and intensely practical state of being. By modestly applying the laws of analogy we can at once understand the fundamental makeup of the Taurean psyche. Taureans, for the most part, are like self-taught, disciplined and autonomous little horticulturists. They come equipped with antediluvian knowledge pertaining to lunisolar cycles, lunar nutation, the seasons, and axial precession, and understand how these cosmic cycles can be used in conjunction with soil mix and fertiliser to garner superior natural products. For them, perfection is a work-in-progress and patience is a virtue. Their understanding and contemplation of unseen forces that link the Great Above and the Great Below is indispensable, for it prompts only those calculated moves and actions that will secure prolific results. Their propensity to spend a vast portion of the day connected to the ground, communing with friends of earth, and tending to them indicates a profound respect for and harmonious integration with Mother Nature, an intense awakening and awareness of their carnal appetites, and an unconscious instinct to mother, insulate and protect other beings irrespective of their phylogenetic kingdom. Generally speaking, these people are really good at working diligently to achieve material success in a relaxed and tranquil environment without entangling themselves in the mental landmines of past or future. They want everything to be concrete, fixed, practical, and predictable, sometimes to such an extreme degree that Life is made to resemble a ticking automaton void of individual expression, mental activity and “soul”. This is exactly what the Taurean psyche is about!

Apuleius, a second-century Latin writer, transcribed the Taurean archetype well when he penned the mythological narrative, Cupid and Psyche. In the fanciful tale, Cupid, the masculine prototype of Divine Love, falls victim to the potency of his own arrows and becomes enamoured of Psyche, a mortal princess. The entire narrative revolves around two antagonistic concepts; Psyche’s betrayal of Cupid’s trust and his mother’s (Aphrodite) disapproval of their relationship. Unsurprisingly the suspenseful barrage of frontiers intending to keep the lovers separated permanently is futile, and the tale concludes happily with the two beings united in Olympian matrimony. With respect to the figure of Cupid, Apuleius paints the picture of a man under the mediation of the feminine aesthetic. First impressions are also lasting, for he falls in love at first sight. From this point onwards Cupid brands the mortal Psyche his personal fiefdom and hopes to hold onto her for all eternity. Just like all love-struck individuals, he becomes physically and emotionally dependent. His meticulous efforts to fabricate lasting homely conditions delineates the condition of a soul which never veers from its path, a sentiment which stays intact even after Psyche’s act of duplicity. Here, we see a fiercely faithful and committed Cupid. No doubt the self-respect and value, as well as the sense of worth and spiritual status-quo that emanate from Love comprise foremost of the reasons why a temporary separation between the two eventuated. But the inflicted wound wasn’t significant enough to tear them apart forever and they were eventually reunited. Through the text the audience is also inclined to view Cupid as in instinctual being, a man whose actions and reactions were based on intuition and face value rather than intellectual evaluation. Cupid’s immense focus on attaining the object of his desire, his patient determination, his acute sensitivity, and his stubborn resolve in surmounting all odds stacked against him typify all Taureans.

Taureans can thank their lucky stars–quite literally in fact–for the intercession and ascendency of the Venusian sphere in the otherwise primal, unrefined and unyielding breeding ground urgently generated by the disposition of the bull. One can safely declare that Taurus would have been far too inert, selfish and utilitarian in its ways to enable progress and psycho-spiritual evolution had it not been for the pre-eminence of the celestial goddess. The graceful and supernal Venus dresses the scruffy-looking and unshaved Taurus in the manner that an affluent queen might dress a peasant lover in exquisite garments in order to pass him off as gentry. The latter is symbolic of the qualities of sensual love and is blessed by a holistic and integrated approach to life; she spends an awful lot of time procrastinating and prevaricating in order to satisfy her compendium of relationships and willingly compromises as to avoid altercations and war. In addition, Venus proceeds along a mode of being that is cultured, graceful, constructive, refined, resourceful and providentially productive; she is unconsciously programmed to preserve and celebrate the miracle of Life through art cleaved by spontaneous rebels and social misfits. These productive and benevolent energies diffuse into the psyche of the archetypal bull through a psychic conduit formed by fixed, earthy qualities indigenous to both. Venus operates through the ground and Taurus is always grounded, making the psychic transmission an autonomous and spontaneously-driven affair. Hence, Taurus can thank the Venusian powers for its inclination to seek gratification through the bodily senses, its inherent desire for serenity and physical contact, its occasional flippancy, its appreciation of music, and its conscientious attitude towards physical appearance and maintenance. Venus harnesses the soothing Taurean temperament.

In a nutshell the Taurean archetype strengthens the unconscious will through a self-disciplined and single-handed concentration of vital energies. There are innumerable virtues associated with this instinctual act, namely the capacity to commit, to persevere, and to take premeditated actions. This inevitably leads to an accumulation of material or spiritual assets, an inheritance that almost always rouses a concomitant Taurean propensity to nurture, to protect, and to hold onto things. Perhaps the latter is also its greatest detriment; when entrenched in the stability of its own habits for extended periods of time, Taurus can become painstakingly predictable and overindulgent, uninventive, inflexible, stubborn, and fiercely resistant to providential change. Resistance to change can be destructive, counteractive and soul-shattering for this sign. Nevertheless, the Taurean “soul” encompasses a potential rarely illumined in the other zodiacal beasts, one that can inevitably flower into an insoluble psychic force if it endears itself to versatility.            

Like Aries, there are also two symbols associated with the zodiacal sign of Taurus. The first is a pictorial representation of the entire bull; the second, a shorthand version utilised by astrologers in the creation of horoscopes, is comprised of only the head and horns. The design of the glyph is not coincidental; there is an inherent meaning and understanding communicated through its fundamental shape. Head and horns allude to masculine differentiation and virility, but in a feminine context. Taurus is invariably mediated by the formative energies of the Venusian sphere, meaning that any sharp and proactive masculine qualities expressed by the Taurean archetype are softened and tamed considerably. While it may be a beast of insoluble strength and willpower, its susceptibility to domestication and enslavement to more evolved extensions of Mother Nature illuminates this eternal subordination to the Great Mother. The shorthand glyph resembles a larynx, a phenomenon reminiscent of the sign’s sovereignty over the throat region of the human being. As an implement of comprehension, the larynx offers a conduit into the sensory world of sound, music, and language, linking the realm of matter and physical senses with the immaterial world of mental forms and intellectual comprehension. In retrospect, the symbols fit the sign’s inherent nature like a glove.  

Paul Kiritsis

[justforbooks]

Towards the beginning of The Golden House, there’s a soireè scene, where the eldest of the three Golden sons, the loquacious Petya, offers a brilliant display for the guests. The narrator recounts:

“That night he talked and drank without stopping, and all of us who were there would carry fragments of that talk in our memories for the rest of our lives. What crazy, extraordinary talk it was! No limit to the subjects he reached for and used as punching bags.” 

Those subjects range from the collapse of foreign currencies to the sex lives of British royals, from the lyrics of Bob Dylan to the flaws in Stephen Hawking’s theory of black holes. Petya, “glittering-eyed and babbling like a brook,” flies from topic to topic, drawing spontaneously on his vast reservoir of knowledge, “like a whole cable box full of talk-show networks that jumped channels frequently.”

Veteran readers of Salman Rushdie will recognise this tendency from the author’s body of work. Like Petya, Rushdie is a polymath. His books – and his lectures -– overflow with myriad allusions, digressions, and stories within stories, sweeping through eras, continents, and cultures. However, unlike Petya, who suffers from a crucial “flaw in the program,” Rushdie is the master storyteller in his latest book, never losing control over what is, ultimately, a suspenseful thriller.

Return to realism

In The Golden House, Rushdie abandons the fantastical elements of much of his previous fiction, choosing realism over the magical realism for which he has become renowned. His return to realism may not be all that surprising in a novel that examines life in the United States in recent years. Actual events in America have proven to be so bizarre that the need to invent fabulous ones may have been eliminated.

In any case, this book is set firmly in the real world – in contemporary Bombay and New York – the city of the author’s birth and the city where he now resides. Its present action coincides with the eight years spanning Barack Obama’s Presidential term. As in some of Rushdie’s earlier work, most notably Midnight’s Children, the story of individual characters runs parallel to that of a nation caught in the throes of transformation.

The novel’s immediate setting is the Gardens, a grassy quadrangle in the heart of Manhattan that forms “an enchanted, fearless space” for the exclusive community that resides around it. It is in this idyllic space, where fireflies sparkle on summer evenings and children play freely, that our millennial narrator René lives with his liberal, academic, parents. At the beginning of the novel René is “just a young man dreaming of the movies.” He is, in fact, an aspiring filmmaker, in search of a subject.

On the day of Obama’s first inauguration, an event marked by a sense of unbridled optimism across the city, the grand mansion that has lain empty behind the Gardens for years is finally occupied, by a wealthy foreign family who refuse to divulge any information about their previous lives. The family’s imperious patriarch, like many immigrants before him, seeks to reinvent himself in America. He christens himself Nero after the last of the Caesars, and his sons choose their own names – Petronius (Petya), Lucius Apulius (Apu), and Dionysius (D). The mansion itself is renamed The Golden House.

Nero Golden shares many characteristics with another American literary hero – a mysterious past, unexplained wealth, decadent parties, a mythic property. Like Jay Gatsby’s guests, Nero’s new acquaintances try to fill the gaps in his narrative by spinning tales about him. René, who fancies himself as a modern-day Nick Carraway, makes several references to Fitzgerald’s novel. But unlike Gatsby, Nero is not alone.

The golden sons

In a sense, this is a story of fathers and sons. Each of Nero Golden’s sons is idiosyncratic and distinctive. Petya, afflicted by high-functioning autism, is an incredibly intelligent and erudite but socially awkward man who spends much of his time inside his bedroom bathed in the blue light of computer screens. When he is not expounding on the many subjects that crowd his brain, he immerses himself in the virtual world of gaming. Petya’s manic conversations conceal a deep and endless suffering.

The second son, Apu, is the artist in the family. Romantic and political, Apu becomes a successful painter and dabbles in activism before growing disillusioned with what he regards as liberal posturing and ineffectualness. He has a way with women, which places him and Petya firmly on the warpath.

The youngest son, the beautiful, androgynous D, is forever the outsider. Born of Nero’s extramarital liaison with “a woman of no consequence” 18 years after Apu, D has never felt like he really belongs in this family. Tormented by his illegitimacy and plagued by questions about his sexuality, D is the first to leave the Golden House and find refuge elsewhere – in Chinatown – outside the cloistered precincts of the Gardens. There is something deeply tragic about each of the sons. Their vulnerability shines through at key moments. These are the most moving sections in the novel.

Compared to the men, the women seem less vulnerable. From a relatively minor character such as the exotic Somali sculptor Ubah Tuur to the “astonishing” Vasilisa who presides over the novel, their physical perfection and power over men make them both magnificent and slightly removed from the reader. Even when they suffer – and they do suffer, often because of actions taken by the men – we rarely get inside their souls in quite the same way as we do with the men. At one point René makes a telling statement when he says, “‘The art of the cinema,’ Truffaut allegedly said, ‘is to point the camera at a beautiful woman.’” It is perhaps fitting then that our narrator is a filmmaker.

Watching from the window

However, this does not mean that the women are not interesting or indeed fascinating. And no one is more so than the one whose machinations change the destiny of the Goldens: the Russian émigré Vasilisa. At once goddess and witch, Vasilisa is seductive, manipulative, and ruthless. It is her all-encompassing ambition of living a life “worthy of her beauty” that propels the plot forward. In a book about immigrants, Vasilisa embodies the immigrant desire to start over. “The past,” she says, “is a broken cardboard suitcase full of photographs of things I no longer wish to see.” Contradicting forces for good and evil literally struggle within her soul. Again, this seems more mythic than human, but whether or not she will ultimately prove to be one or the other is one of the many mysteries the narrator will have to uncover.

The auteur-narrator makes numerous references to movies throughout, and the influence of cinema, both on him and on the novel, is unmistakable. Like Jeff in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, René watches the Goldens – and other neighbors – from his home, overhearing noises and catching glimpses of scenes that hint at secrets and scandals. He soon discovers that the place the Goldens have fled is none other than Bombay. His research – and imagination – reveal that they left behind a city infested with corruption and crime, a world of underworld violence and international terrorism. “The worlds are less different than we pretend,” Nero tells him.

Initially, René is only a witness, but soon he finds himself becoming a participant and getting further and further entangled in the events. Poet, philosopher, and chronicler, René serves as the conscience of the book. And while he is flawed and complicit in the events that unfold, he says, “Allow me this at least: that I am self aware.” That he is, and it makes him the most endearing character of all.

Truth and lies

Even though this is not a work of magical realism, the distinction between lies and truth is often blurred. The Goldens of course tell “stories about themselves, stories in which essential information about origins was either omitted or falsified.” The characters frequently betray each other. The structure of the book further contributes to the blending of lies and truth, as René begins to invent scenes for his film in progress. Several sections are written as script, with scenes dissolving or ending with the director’s cut, and the camera zooming in and out. Some include voiceovers and other stylised effects. At times it’s difficult to say what really takes place and what is invented by René. If you don’t know the truth, fellow filmmaker Suchitra tells him, use your imagination.

Meanwhile, even as truth and lies begin to collide inside the Gardens, outside it, in the wider world of America, the greatest betrayal of all begins to take shape. The world readies itself for the 45th US presidential elections between two unlikely contenders. On the one hand there is Batwoman, “who owned her dark side, but used it to fight for good, justice, and the American way.” On the other is the Joker – a green-haired, white-faced, red-lipped, real estate tycoon who is “utterly and certifiably insane.”

Rushdie uses rants by minor characters on the streets of Manhattan, as well as observations by our protagonists, to explore the growing “discontent of a furiously divided country.” It is tempting to find the author’s own well-known views on certain topics in the characters, for instance, when Apu chastises “wishy washy” liberals for attempting to sanitise language due to political correctness, or when René defends his suspicion of organised religion. While much of this author’s prior work has dealt with political events, this book’s preoccupation with many of the burning issues of the day makes it particularly urgent and relevant.

The personal and the political

Of all those issues, the question of gender identity is especially prominent. The Museum of Identity where Riya works represents the quest for identity in general, but for D, this quest is very personal. “Come inside and learn about the new world,” Riya tells him. What follows is an education, mostly about transitioning and “gender identity, splitting as never before in human history, spawning whole new vocabularies that tried to grasp the new mutabilities.” Some of their dialogue on this subject sounds didactic, like an introductory lecture on the transgender community for a beginner, which of course is what D is. Nevertheless, the effect of this new education on him is profound and real and will eventually lead to the most poetic, moving section in the book.

Rushdie’s prose is as always both dazzling and dizzying. Replete with clever wordplay and digressions, it includes allusions to Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, the ancient Chinese hexagrams of divination, the 1956 chess Game of the Century between Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne, video games, superheroes, and Seinfeld, to name only a small fraction. References to current affairs range from Planned Parenthood and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States to the telecommunications scam and the 2008 terror attack against Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel in India.

People often appear and disappear within a few lines, but are given their own histories and eccentricities. They are, in René’s words, “minor characters who might not make it past the cutting room floor.” These people, like some of their dialogues and many of the allusions, might at times seem a tad gratuitous. The long, packed, meandering sentences can feel overwhelming. But, then, so is New York. Together, the obviously significant and the apparently insignificant help create the teeming, chaotic world of the city to which the book is a tribute of sorts.

The novel can be read as a chronicle of America in recent years, leading up to the present, troubled, Presidency. But that is only a part of it. At the heart lies a page-turner that is the stuff of blockbusters. There’s something breathtaking about the combination of contemporary events that we have all witnessed and are part of even now, and the gripping story of crime and passion, all narrated in such baroque prose.

Much suspense is created through René’s laments as he recollects events of the past eight years. Statements such as “it concerned all of us less than it should have,” and “I should have known there would be trouble,” suggest impending doom. Always, looming over us is the premonition of tragedy. “What would it mean,” René ponders, “if the Joker became the King?” The innocence, of both the Gardens and of Obama’s inauguration in 2009, cannot be sustained. This is the tale of a dysfunctional family within a dysfunctional nation, both hurtling toward disaster. At times it may be horrifying to watch, but it is impossible to look away.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[xyeollypopx]

Night Class

EXO Vampire AU: Part Two: Junmyeon

Masterlist | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven

——

Your eyes fluttered open as the sunlight cast its rays on the dishevelled bedroom. You became aware of the soft skin of the person laid flush against your back, their arm draped across your waist, securing you to them.

A blush rose to your cheeks as you remembered the events of the night before, simultaneously causing you to shift, despite having been in the same position several times prior. Your shuffling unintentionally woke up your lover, her grip on you tightening slightly, somehow pulling you even closer to her.

“Good morning, beautiful.” You shifted around to face Amber, the deja vu of all of your last encounters washing over your face as her smile and gruff morning voice stirred something familiar within you.

“Joy’s going to be so pissed that we left her, you know that, right?” Amber rolled her eyes at you, leaning in to press her lips against yours briefly, presumably to shut you up. It definitely worked, although, you really couldn’t complain.

It was always unspoken: your relationship with your best friend. There were so many times that you had questioned why you both did it and why you continued to act as if there was nothing happening behind closed doors. You knew her feelings weren’t real, and neither were yours, but every time one of you left the other alone in bed the morning after, hurt lingered in the sheets. There was also the constant unnecessary guilt that tagged along with your “relationship”. You knew it meant nothing and yet there was always something there. You both cared for each other so much and yet you both played with and used each other as if you were toys. It was just confusing if anything else.

You both sighed as you heard shuffling outside the door, and the sudden realisation dawned on you that you weren’t in either of your apartments, but a strangers house in the middle of nowhere. Not wanting to get up and gather the clothes that were scattered across the floor, you shifted to bury your head in the nook of Amber’s collarbone. She held you for a moment, the both of you cherishing the rare moment of quiet with each other; no sex, no pretending, just you and her.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to continue as loud giggling erupted from the corridor outside of the room, pulling you from your serene embrace. Amber pulled back the covers you were both entangled within, being the first to get up and sifle through the abandoned clothes that lay on the floor. You watched as she stood, the light enhancing her tanned skin and exposing her many tattoos that you loved to trace your fingertips over every so often.

Your eyes followed her figure as she wandered around the room, gathering all of the clothes from the floor. She tossed you your dress and her hoodie for you to wear, leaving her with just her jeans and t-shirt. You sat up, looking around the room for your underwear, but you couldn’t spot it anywhere.

“Behind you, babe” You blushed as you did as she said, finding the said garment hanging from the headboard. You quickly snatched it from her view and began to get dressed yourself.

Once you were both finished, you grabbed your heels from the side of the bed, not bothering to put them on, and walked towards the door to leave.

“Shit.” You stopped as Amber began to open the door. She looked at you curiously as your eyes scanned the room.

“I’ve left my phone. Go ahead, I’ll meet you outside when I find it.” She smiled at you and nodded, kissing your cheek before walking out into the hallway.

You sighed as you turned back to the room, beginning the search for your phone which no doubt had an abundance of notifications from Joy waiting for you on it. You already knew she was mad: she always was and you didn’t understand why. You knew you had left her alone at the party for a hookup but it’s not like you hadn’t done that to you before.

Mid-inner monologue, you were interrupted by a cough, gaining your attention. You popped your head up from behind the bed and looked towards the doorway, causing the person stood there to chuckle at you.

You were about to scold him when he held up a small black object; your phone!

You gasped, immediately standing up to run towards him, almost tripping as you picked up your heels that you had once again thrown on the floor. As you reached for your phone, a thank you on the tip of your tongue, he pulled it away from you, causing you to narrowly avoid falling into him.

“Hey!” It was then that you finally caught a glimpse of the stranger’s face, immediately causing you to tense up and take a step back.

Kim Junmyeon.

One of Minseok’s group.

As far as you knew, despite Minseok being the oldest, Junmyeon was the ‘leader’ of their group. He was always front and centre, and with a face like his, he was hard to miss. He was definately terrifying, but you decided that if you had faced Minseok, you could face Junmyeon just as easily.

“Y/N, right?” You we’re thrown off guard slightly. You hadn’t told Minseok your name, you were sure of it. So how did Junmyeon know.

You decided to ignore it and mask how timid you felt.

“I assume Minseok has mentioned me?” He hummed in response, something unidentifiable glinting in his eyes. It was gone within a second, his lips upturning into that damn smirk they all seemed to wear.

“Mentioned you? He doesn’t shut up about you.” He said with a sort of huff. You knew it couldn’t be true. You’d spoken to him once, other than that weird encounter last night.

You could tell that your face showed your confusion, and Junmyeon’s mirrored yours.

He was confused by you, that’s for sure. You hadn’t been a blushing mess when he spoke to you like every other girl he encountered, or completely speechless when he had mentioned Minseok, you had even dared to be cocky with him. It was this encounter that made him realise that everything Minseok had mentioned about you was true, and he was curious.

“Ah, what do we have here?” Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Minseok walked out of one of the rooms across the hallway and made his way over to you and Junmyeon. He lent against the doorway, slightly behind his ‘leader’. He nodded in greeting to you, a half smile being thrown your way.

“Sex hair? I like it.” He expected you to gawk at him, rush to fix the accused mess, anything. Yet, you just rolled your eyes.

“Must look nice. Unlike yours.” You smiled, winking at him. And it was Minseok who ended up gawking at you instead, his mind reeling. Junmyeon looked between you both, impressed.

You definately were something.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, my date is waiting for me.” You held your hand out to Junmyeon, waiting for him to return your phone. He gave you what you deemed at an approving look, and placed the phone into your awaiting hand. You bowed your head at both boys and nudged past them, disappearing down the staircase.

Once you were gone, the Junmyeon turned his attention towards Minseok, who had finally recovered from their encounter with you.

“You were right.” Minseok scoffed, looking at the stairs you had jogged down a few seconds prior.

“When am I not right?” Although, they somewhat felt sorry that they were right, because you had just been unknowingly dragged into a world you wouldn’t believe, and like every other innocent soul that had been dragged into this cruel game, you were destined.

Destined to die.

——

It wasn’t until eight in the evening that same day that you finally awoke for the second time. You had barely managed to fit in a few hours of rest due to being kept awake most if the day by Amber, but it was enough, for now.

You had fallen asleep in your clothes, which you had obviously gotten way to warm in during the time you were unconscious, meaning that you were currently drenched in sweat.

Deciding to take a quick shower, you pulled yourself from the comfort of your bed. Not being able to take your clothes of normally, you resorted to slowly peeling off each garment, sighing as the cool air hit your damp skin. The contrast in temperatures was almost euphoric, and you had to resist continuing to stand there in the open air.

Tossing your clothes in the hamper sat outside your bedroom door, you rushed over to the bathroom, desperate to rid yourself of the sticky uncomfortableness that you had acquired in your sleep.

It was a relief; the cool water running down your tense shoulders. You couldn’t remember how long it had been since you last relaxed, your schedule didn’t allow you to. Thankfully, it was nearing spring break, and your course leaders were generous enough in the fact that the majority of the homework that was assigned to be done before - and during - the break was mostly reading and note-taking, which you had already done a lot of anyway.

Despise your opportunity to relax, you couldn’t help but worry. There hadn’t been a single text or call from Joy, and you hadn’t seen her since the party last night. Your attempts at reaching out to her had settled as shaky messages in her voicemail. This was the longest you both had gone without speaking to each other without a reason. It was unusual, although, unusual had become a main charachter in your life as of late.

You shook the worry from your mind and moved to turn off the shower, only to find the handle coated in fresh blood, the deep red liquid dripping down, to be washed away mere seconds later.

You screamed as you jumped back, pulling your hand away from the handle as if had scorched you, leaving fingerprints in its wake. Your step back sent you stumbling into one of the glass walls of the cubicle, your now bloodied hand pressing flat against it, smearing most of it onto the glass. You shut you eyes as you panicked, using the wall as your support to prevent you from falling.

When you opened them again, the blood was gone, as if it were never there. The handle of the shower was completely clean, as was your hand, and the smear of blood on the glass had vanished.

You quickly shut off the water, fumbling with the glass door to escape the shower as quickly as possible, suddenly claustrophobic in the small space. Wrapping a towel around your trembling form, hoping the comfort of it would somehow ease your racing heart, you practically ran from the bathroom, slamming the door behind you.

“What the fuck.” You whispered to yourself as you lowered yourself into your bed, still trembling uncontrollably.

Still with unsteady hands, you dressed yourself in simply a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, grabbing your bag and keys on the way out of the front door.

That was more than unusual.

——

With a lump of anxiety taking residence in your throat, you entered your class three minutes late, no coffee in hand, and an overwhelming feeling of nausea. No one paid you any notice, tardiness being common within this type of class, except for one person of course.

The person sitting in your seat.

You made your way towards the back corner of the back row, throwing your bag down and taking a seat next to your usual one.

“You know, I’m starting to think this is planned.” You murmured, not even bothering to look at him as you spoke, instead turning your bag to pull out a notebook and pen ready for the lecture.

“What is.” He murmured back, knowing full well you could feel his stare on you. It wasn’t as if he was discreet.

“First Minseok, now you. Does your group have a particular habit of showing up in my classes now?” You finally looked at Junmyeon, not hesitating this time when you found him already staring at you.

“My group? No wonder you know us so well.” You rolled your eyes at him as you had with Minseok this morning.

“I pay attention.” You declared, rather stupidly to be quite honest, because he turned around and plastered one of those intolerable smirks on his pretty face.

“Although,” His face faltered, morphing into a somewhat curious look. You could tell he was trying to look more laid back than he was. He was anxious around you, for what reason you couldn’t figure out.

But you figured you could use it to your advantage.

“There’s always something about you all.” He tensed, leaning forward in his seat. Tilting his head slightly he urged to you to carry on.

“It’s probably so obvious but I can’t put my finger on it.” He relaxed slightly, but you had put him on edge, which was good enough for now.

There was no way that two of the most popular group of boys in your entire university had managed to sit next to you in two of your classes in a row by coincidence. You felt like a target, a project of theirs, but judging by Junmyeon’s reaction, there was definitely something that they were all hiding, and with each passing moment you were more and more determined to figure out what it was.

He chuckled at you quietly, and you turned to look at him with confusion.

“You really are everything Minseok said you were.” You didn’t reply, unsure of how to. Junmyeon has mentioned that Minseok talked to him about you, but the contents of those conversations were still a mystery, and you couldn’t figure out if what they had discussed was negative of positive. Whilst you ideally hoped for the latter, the former wouldn’t have been that bad as it might encourage them to stop distracting you from your classes, as Junmyeon was doing right now.

With this in mind, you turned your attention back to the lecture, having missed enough of it to struggle with what was being taught. You cursed yourself for striking up the conversation with your peer, and reminded yourself to study the current chapter tomorrow morning, otherwise you would continue to struggle.

Along with this, you also made note to avoid Minseok’s group - you guessed it was actually Junmyeon’s group, since he was the ‘leader’ and all - as they hadn’t revealed any motive for appearing to you so suddenly, and they were getting slightly annoying.

You remained ignorant towards Junmyeon for the remainder of the lecture, sighing in relief when it finally ended almost an hour later.

Gathering your things, you stood up to leave, being stopped by a hand grabbing your wrist. Following the arm up the the face, you mustered up the best glare you could, too tired and frustrated from the events of the last day to care about anything he could possibly say to you.

Or so you thought.

“Joy’s safe. Trust me.” Your expressions faltered and you sucked in a sharp breath. You didn’t believe him, you didn’t trust him, but you had to, for her sake.

You pulled your wrist from his grip and walked away without saying anything in return.

Where was Joy?

And more importantly, how did Junmyeon know?

[kondo-hijikata]

Reunion Konkata

Pairings: Established Kondo/HijikataRating: MSummary: The best part of traveling for business is coming home. Modern AU. [AO3] Thank you to @hakuyamazakisensei for the initial beta~

.*Terms of Endearment*.

“Getting to travel for work! How lucky!”

Bullet train, local train, and then the pointed taps of a brisk gait—of freshly shined shoes hurrying over pavement scorched by late afternoon sun. The stale July air was anything but suit and tie weather, and perhaps slowing down would have been prudent to benefit his comfort…however, a little extra sweat was worth it if it made Kondo’s arrival any sooner.

Despite his already heightened efforts, the anticipation brimming within him could barely contain itself as it was, and nothing short of a full-on sprint would satisfy the pressing urge to move faster and faster yet. Or, as fast as his bulky shoulder bag would permit him, in any case.

“Seeing so many different places, meeting so many different people. Do you know how great that is?”

Desire and need, necessity to throw his arms around the most valuable treasure and hold tight…to feel himself held back and clung to just as ardently after all this time… These were the impulses that drove him, were what had Kondo Isami pounding the sidewalk hard while decked head to toe in professional attire.

A briefcase rocked in the grip of his left hand and keys already drawn from a breast pocket clamored in his right, all as he laser focused on powering his way through the oppressive swelter. It didn’t matter how ridiculous he looked to anyone else dressed appropriately down and drifting lazily about their Saturday with uchiwa¹ and cool packs. Kondo had long been past giving thought to the generic critical gaze of society, especially when there were more pressing matters vying for his attention.

“Oh, and eating all kinds of new things, too. Psht, how nice it must be.”

He was thirty years old, after all—thirty and already entitled fourth successor of the Tennen Rishin-Ryu. Thirty and leader of a fighting style he could now call his own, one that had erred on the edge of struggle but began flourishing anew after transfer to his name. It was because he was thirty and trekking all over the country to aggressively spread renown, to secure its position and vitality for the next heir and hopefully even the one after.

Indeed, Kondo was only thirty and yet felt he’d traveled enough to satisfy the rest of his life at this point, if he had any say in the matter. Alas, none he had, as it was crucial to answer that beckon of responsibility which ensured the livelihood he’d made for not just himself. It was no longer about only his future but theirs, and there could be no greater duty to fulfill than safeguarding that.

…Even if it meant frequent trips and cold hotel beds and meals eaten with those of a much lesser quality of company.

“I wish I could just take off like that…”

So, frequent travel it was. Of course, he dreaded it—dreaded that last hug and the small kiss which always followed. Dreaded the be carefuls and see you soons. But for every difficult parting, there was a return that much sweeter awaiting him. Absence only put in perspective what he was missing when he went without, and made him infinitely appreciate what he had when it was back in his clutches.

It was sensible, therefore, to rush even under such uncomfortable conditions—quirked eyebrows and pensive stares be damned. For the sooner Kondo’s arrival, the sooner he could embrace everything that mattered most, and hold it like he’d never have to let it go again.

“…get away from my family without any questions asked…”

At last, Kondo veered about a corner, the soles of his shoes skidding along concrete as he came face-to-face with the sight for which he’d so vehemently yearned: Makoto Heights. Sleek and minimalist, the apartment building stood ten stories high with an entryway of heavy charcoal double doors embellished by diamond-shaped windows. There was no time to spare for appreciating pleasant architectural design choices, however; he bounded through the entrance with reckless abandon, heaving heavy breaths into his lungs while punching in his entry code and sending the automatic door sliding aside.

“…have my own adventures without all the annoyance and hassle…“

Naturally, the elevator was parked at the top floor. Kondo jabbed the call button, the keys in his hand jingling with restlessness while his heart pounded its ribbed prison. Shoulders rose and fell. His foot began to tap.

“…do whatever, or heh, whoever I want, y’know? No consequences.”

Just standing around, even for a few seconds, was a challenge. He dabbed at the beaded moisture on his forehead and then glanced at his watch. It had all turned insufferable by now: the need for patience he didn’t have, the rise in sheer excitement, and oh, the exhaustive heat made so much worse in this enclosed space with no moving air.

Still panting, Kondo flicked the tip of his nose and his focus shot to the staircase in temptation. Just as he started considering if a marathon climb would be quicker, the pleasant chime rang out with the elevator’s arrival: an invitation he eagerly accepted.

His pointer finger depressed the fourth floor button—and thrice thereafter for good measure. And when the doors closed in again and Kondo’s reflection came into view, he was rudely reminded of what unfortunate consequences racing around on foot this time of the year could have on one’s appearance.

The neat look he’d fixed this morning had gone rogue in some places, disheveled locks betraying the commanding rule of all that meticulously applied styling wax. Kondo lifted his chin and gave his head a shake, then quickly ran fingers over his hair to fix what he could. Surely, he’d looked better, when his face wasn’t red from exertion and his appearance not unkempt from an impromptu workout.

But it had all been worth it.

Because it was never about sight-seeing or meeting new people…

The chime rang, the doors split. With his heart beginning to hammer again, Kondo nearly tripped over his own feet while making for the left, toward the numbers 401 written in dainty silver font.

…It’d never been about trying new dishes or having so-called freedom he didn’t even want in the first place…

Key into the keyhole, a fast turn, and once the door was sent flying open, Kondo’s breath caught in his throat.

Natural light permeated gleaming floor-to-ceiling windows, flooded the inner spaces with an ethereal softness that left everything within glowing and glinting and warm. And there, in the middle of it all—Hijikata! Stupefied and rendered frozen, he stood with a clipped manuscript in hand and wide eyes fixed toward the entrance.

“…Kat-chan?!” The exclamation was breathless as the stack of papers he’d been narrating from fell limp, curling over backward from the top edge.

“Toshi!”

Luggage crashed to dark floorboards just beyond the genkan² and the keyring flew haphazardly atop the slipper nook, while Kondo’s legs nearly entangled from the haste with which he stumbled out of his shoes. Etiquette and conventionality meant nothing up against the urgency of needing purchase—to finally, finally pull Hijikata into his long bereft embrace and feel him, smell him, hold him.

Pages of writing fluttered free through the air, cast off as though they were meaningless, as Kondo sprang over the threshold with his hands held out. Their bodies collided and his arms snapped tightly around Hijikata, hauling him forward and squeezing as tightly as permitted without causing pain.

Kondo took fistfuls of shirt, clenching the material while feeling himself enveloped in turn with mirroring strength, then nosed his way into sleek black hair to inhale. The scent he loved most inundated him so that his knees nearly gave way, overwhelmed by waves of satisfaction and gratitude and relief battering him and making him cling even further.

“Kat-chan.” His name was muffled into his suit jacket, and though it’d been spoken in that ever soft and baritone voice so distinctly Hijikata, Kondo felt the unadulterated emotion it rode out on thrumming along the fabric of his soul.

Distantly, he became aware that he might have been holding with too much strength. Kondo clenched the shirt once more before releasing it and relocating his grasp to smaller shoulders, pushing back just enough to free up space for their lips to crash together.

The instant of connection was demanding and insistent, fueled by the racing of Kondo’s pulse and every ounce of insufferable buildup burning this perfect moment into the depths of his memory. Palms rose to cradle Hijikata’s cheeks, thumbs pressing gently beneath closed eyes as their mouths broke contact and immediately met again, over and over in a dizzying torrent of desire and exhilaration–until Kondo’s lungs starved and he was forced to breathe.

He gasped upon drawing back, his forehead immediately pushing unto Hijikata’s as he was unwilling to forfeit such closeness, while fingertips flexed and intertwined with locks of chin-length hair.

Hijikata’s exhalations fell with matching intensity and his hands rose to clamp onto Kondo’s forearms. “Wow.” He huffed through a gentle smile. “Welcome home.”

Kondo laughed once, just as softly and with a twinge of mortification for his lacking in self control. “…I’m home.”

The corners of Hijikata’s lips pulled a little further outward into his cheeks, his eyes managing to grow even more tender. “And early at that.”

Letting his lashes fall, Kondo nodded and couldn’t prevent his own grin from widening as well. “I, uh.” He chuckled. “I skipped out a little prematurely.”

A snort. “I’m sure Ito-sensei was thrilled.”

“He’ll get over it.”

Hijikata returned the next kiss bestowed upon him, shorter and more disciplined this time—and with eyes remaining open. When their mouths parted, his brow suddenly furrowed then and he pulled back with a squint. “Wait. Did—did you run here?”

Heat of a different kind flashed across Kondo’s face and his eyes shifted to the left before finding Hijikata’s again. “…Maybe.”

“Kat-chan! It’s the hottest day of the year yet!” Hijikata released Kondo’s arms, his nimble digits set to unfastening the suit jacket and shoving it off his shoulders. The escape of pent up heat felt heavenly as Kondo shook himself free, not particularly caring where the garment ended up while he began loosening his tie. “No wonder you’re all flushed.”

“And here I was thinking that was your fault.”

“Taku³…” Ah, the sound of vexation laced with fondness—so typically Hijikata and how Kondo loved it. Through rims of dark lashes, he peered at him with adoration, which resulted in an epiphany of his own.

“Speaking of clothing…” Kondo pressed his fingertips to the light blue shirt Hijikata wore and took hold of the unbuttoned edges; he ran his hands down each side, then pulled gently at the bottom hem. “This isn’t yours, Toshi-san.”

Blush threatened to creep across Hijikata’s cheeks. His brows pulled in and he tossed his face aside. “It was…convenient.”

“Ahuh.” Exhaling through his nose, Kondo’s brows raised with a knowing smirk. “It looks good on you, even if it’s a little big.”

“…Well, there’s no use standing around at the door,” Hijikata declared in an airy tone, and Kondo had to bite his lip to not laugh—or abuse his power of so easily flustering a generally unflustered man. Reaching for Kondo’s fingers and entwining them with his own, Hijikata gave a squeeze before releasing them and stepping off to the side.

He heaved the shoulder bag up, swatting at Kondo when he tried to take it, and then set off across the apartment. “I wish you would’ve told me you were coming in early, though. I wanted to meet you at the station.”

Kondo followed in his footsteps, stopping short in the living space as Hijikata disappeared through an open door across the way. “Not feeling the element of surprise, Toshi?” It was a jovial inquiry, posed as he began collecting the papers that had been scattered over the floor. “I knew you’d be busy with writing so—”

Hijikata scoffed from the bedroom and called out, “Please.”

Shuffling through the pages, Kondo’s eyes lifted as Hijikata reemerged. “How’s it going? Progress, or…?”

“Heh. How’s it going?” Hijikata reiterated over a breath. One corner of his mouth pulled upward in discontent and reaching for the stack, he rifled a thumb through it. “It’s not.”

“Ah.” Kondo slouched his shoulders. “Writing is hard.”

“At this rate, this novel is never getting done.” With an aloof shrug, Hijikata clipped the manuscript back together, despite still being out of order, and let it flop on the glass coffee table. His palm rose to press to his forehead and then stroked back through his hair. “Yet another WIP on the pile, I guess.”

Kondo’s lips pursed in a sympathetic pout and he closed the space between them, extending a hand to stroke along Hijikata’s cheek and then pulling him into another embrace. “Ne…” he exhaled, his lips close to an ear. “How about this? I’m gonna shower and then cook dinner for you. And you can tell me all about what you’re stuck on.”

Hijikata’s spine straightened and he lifted his eyes to find Kondo’s. “How the hell is that fair?” he protested, his voice managing to sound both soft and agitated at once. “You were traveling all day. Why should you have to cook?”

Letting his lashes fall for a beat, Kondo shook his head as a tiny grin twitched at his lips. “Toshi-san, you misunderstand.” He gave a squeeze to his hips. “It’s not a matter of having to but wanting to.”

Hijikata’s brows pulled inward, studying Kondo in minor vexation…and at last, he relented with a nod. “Fine. As long as I help, then.”

“Deal.”

A beat. “And shower with you.”

Kondo lifted his chin, openly wearing his interest. “I’m liking these terms. Anything else?”

“Cht.” Knuckles hit softly against Kondo’s chest and Hijikata groused, “Shut up.” Their lips met in one more brief kiss as fingers entwined yet again, and hand-in-hand, they made a beeline for the shower room.

And though Kondo was fully present in the present itself, his mind revisited that conversation from last night, if only for a moment.

“It’s just that my dojo is so busy that sensei never allows me to leave for long. I’m stuck in one place forever,” Katsura had said at the networking dinner, red-faced and with sake cup raised. “Yes. You guys who get to traipse around in the name of business…” His eyes had drifted to Kondo and Saigo, to Ito and Sakamoto. “You really have all the luck.”

While Kondo undid the intricacies of Hijikata’s attire…while Hijikata undid the intricacies of his own, he had to acknowledge just indeed how lucky he was—not because of the reasons Katsura had cited, but because he could always come home to this.

“You’re smiling, Kondo-san,” Hijikata noted without lifting his gaze from the line of shirt buttons he made quick work of undoing.

And that…well, that only made Kondo smile even more.

// Thanks so much for reading! This story will have multiple parts. :D

¹ uchiwa: A traditional fan that doesn’t fold, and an essential item in the hell known as Japanese summer

² genkan: The recessed part of the entryway where one removes their shoes before entering a home or some businesses

³ taku: Shortened from mataku. Used to express annoyance

Also, I modified the picture used for this piece by putting a wedding ring on Toshi. lol

Chapter 2 >>

[bizarre-conception]

                                                 Christmas-Present for Jovi [ @luciferborn ] ♡♡♡~

          The shimmering lights in the grandeur of a castle, illuminated with countless of candles, with the subtle glimmering souls, set deeply in chests whenever they catch glimpse here and there about this or that murmuring little secret hushedly breathed into the warm and encompassing air. It’s beautiful. Embellished with scents unknown to anybody else [ and how they craved to hold and keep in arms, circled close as embrace, what never was theirs to touch, could be burned to ashes by the smallest grace ]. Scents they only breathe in around one another and carry themselves through any sense.

          Their eyes. Their ears. Their noses. Their mouth, lips tingling with the delight, and subtle feel of thumb gracing along bottom lip - completely and utterly captivated by one another, drowning out whoever is just around them. Whoever might take place in the night.

          It was amusing for those that know the pair. That were aware of the noble engagement’s antics, found delight in it and diversion settling deeply in eyes [ a drowning low chuckle as an answer to the song - before the next set rhythm would captivate them again ]. They danced - and danced. Forgotten was the whole surrounding in their swinging back and forth, cradling each other in adoring arms, to find a footing, find their steps. And each create a new reign, a new move, a new lead. It was unbeknownst to those around them, that they did not truly need to speak.

          Words, those disposable little human creations, how they were replaced with songs of love and rhymes of adoration - each hum and breath - another tune to their everlasting lullaby. It’s a beautiful exposure of deeply settled love. Love unlike any other [ and nowhere ever to be found ]. She breathes when his hands do trace, do move and linger - set palm flat with one on slender waist. The sway of thoughts, to the sway of music, a dip that followed, set her a laughter to a chime. Draws a hum just moments later, when eyes of brilliantly darkened shine find his of hellfire furnace, burning so bright.

          That chuckle that had broken the fine and lingering waltz - came from the man setting parade to the hour - that had invited them inside. Their dearest relative was surely smitten like any else [ but he, in comparison just, had permission, allowance, and would never raise a word ]. Let them dance, so Vlad thinks, seated aside on higher throne. Let them dance, and get lost, for their wars and fights are not long enough gone.

          So they do, with each and every change of a song, with the way they laugh and smile and so far withdrawn. And suddenly, the notes do demand their setting steps to halt, so they stand just beside one another, would look at each other, not a single eye to be torn away [ nothing around them, past the ground beneath their feet, and the music singing with orchestra throughout the air, nothing just, was truly important here ]. They stare and watch and get lost inside each other. With hands interlinked, with their feet locked to another set of steps, following the known and rehearsed dance to a ballad, that was only natural, only a flowing cadence to a thrum. It’s an embellishing masterpiece they both are entangled in.

          A beautiful tale spoken with pictures and movements sure alone.

          They are a picture perfect engagement of pulchritude. The perfect harmony of yin and yang.Her clad in white. Him dressed in black. The way it clashes, and melts into another anew. She was like an angel so soft and clear - the purity of long flowing fabrics, gold and silver, here and there. He was like a storm, a devil in a human’s disguise - complimenting, with how he swallows her whole, and still was shining through her light.

          Clean and clear, the whole place of ball just was.

          None was to dare to step up with them, all were to made to leave them to their love. The next set of notes was driving them again. The next set of sounds, by violin and piano sung, was made for them to twirl anew. She fastens a hand upon his shoulder, has him guide her time and time around. He places a hand, along the hem and seams of her back, feeling pale skin, and the softness about. How they appeared just, like being taken out of dream. Of an age-old, centuries gone fairy tale, now breathed to life, within this time. Within these seconds ticking away [ does it not remind of those old stories told to children’s generations again and again? ]. Do they not feel and seem and move like taken out of a painting’s pulchritude?

          Like they danced just out of something their Lord’s thoughts would allude?

          As if they weren’t even real. Weren’t even people, beings with souls and hearts one was able to touch. Those softened sounds that swirled around them. Those thoughts and ideas, that set a smile to her husband’s lips [ she could have asked, could have inquired, it meant nothing at all - he would let her in soon enough ]. She laughs once again, with the whirl of feet spinning over the floor, his arm to raise higher, let her through with a pirouette, so that layers upon layers, made of satin and brocade, would dance with an unknown wind to the tune.

          They were taken out of a dream. In the whisps of an upcoming night [ hauntingly beautiful nightmares in human forms ], brought to life. Just with each and every melodiousness catching strings of chords in the fine lining of adorned vest clinging perfectly to broad chest. How she just appears like a doll, held by silvery string attached to long fingers of her partner’s hold. How she swirls and moves - and was just surely free. Dancing with a love, unknown to mankind as a whole. She laughs again, before the next reign of captivating bells would break around them in fine crystalline waves. She laughs in the subtle purity of a caught up moment.

          And winds arms around his neck, when once she’s dipped again.

          Keeps him close and ever closer, pressed so tightly against him. She could have murmured words of love, could have whispered in a thousand different tongues. Could have turned and twisted him about, and smiles just like the new day’s birth. All those that try to listen in, greedily, eerily, disturbing picture of pure fervour’s worth. All those that wanted, what they were never permit to hold, drowned out with softness of a lingering kiss. A brush of lips. A breath in time, tasted, shared [ breathe in me, never leave me, bring me life as only I do live through you, for you ]. The softness of a fleeting moment, the rise of that slender, doll-like form.

          He sets her back on her feet. Sets her back into reality’s time.

          Sunken still in a dream of bliss. Never meant, to have reason or rhyme.

          Applause around them, it meant little to none, for they only exist for one another, are never truly in favour’s gone. She’s endlessly smiling - with how she sees him anew and his eyes do light with a fire, dancing, singing, to a silent tune.

[morganas-pendragons]

Clones + Cuddling Headcanons

here you go have some cuddling with the 501st headcanons! remember, they’re brothers and touch starved. 

tag: @kill-the-feels​ @amazinggraceling​ @icanbringyouincold​ @kaikai1324​ @jellyfishpoptart​  @colorfulloverbatturkey​ // there’ll be more content this weekend i promise 

- this is, by far, either the worst or the best thing you’ve ever done 

- you can’t just stroll into the GAR barracks to be with your boys 

- you’re a jedi 

- but you do it anyway, long after Anakin and Obi-Wan have gone to sleep, you flee the Temple to meet the boys 

- they have no idea why their Jedi comes traipsing through the barracks at 3 AM in her robes 

- cody and rex are the first to approach you

- all the clones look so.. good in their blacks 

- you were somewhat aware that the 501st tended to bunk together whenever they were on leave, you’d seen it on the negotiator 

- they almost always slept two to one bunk

- that was also whenever you found out how touch starved they were and changed your whole approach with your men 

- ‘’what’re you doing here, general?” 

- “you don’t look like yourself’’ 

- your heart stutters in your chest and you lose your ability to breathe because you’re a Jedi, you shouldn’t have a problem being vulnerable in front of your men, you should just suck it up and go 

- but then you peer inside of the barracks and your mouth goes dry 

- there in the center of the room is a long line of bunks, bed guards removed, with about fifty clones piled on the top and even more piled on the bottom 

- kix and jesse are so close together they look like they’re wound tightly around one another 

- “I.. uh.. can’t sleep. I was wondering if I could come sleep here.” 

- Ironically enough, in the .3 seconds Rex and Cody hesitate, Fives comes barreling into the door and yanks you straight through it towards the center of the cluster of bunks 

- you smile softly because they’re so open and willing 

- your soul is as tired as your body 

- war is cruel and exhausting and eternal but they make it worth fighting for 

- ‘’c’mere, Y/N.’’ 

- fives and rex are barely a foot apart but somehow there’s enough space for you, not robed and in your sleepwear, to sink between them 

- there’s a couple of things you notice as the silence envelops the barracks 

- warmth

- the clones are freaking furnaces 

- fives is touchy, but he’s especially touchy in his sleep 

- you actually end up with his arms around your waist, face buried in your hair, your hands resting on top of his own 

- your forehead ends up in rex’s chest 

- rex likes to act like he doesn’t need the touch, but he really craves it as much as you do 

- his legs end up entangled in yours and by the end of the night, you’re very comfortably enveloped in two of your clones 

- who blush scarlet when they wake up the next morning and realize their jedi is in their bed 

- “kriff, kriff!!!! who drugged me and let the jedi into the barracks?” 

- kix and jesse are on the other side of rex and fives, so you begin casually being rolled over by the boys 

- ‘’over the hips and through the arms to comfort and warmth we go’’

- this goes on every half an hour because the clones are exhausted and you just exude comfort and warmth and safety 

- anakin and obi-wan of course immediately noticed that you weren’t there in the temple when they woke so they went in search of you 

- you favorite the 501st

- this makes anakin laugh 

- ‘’c’mon master let me show you how soft these men are’’ 

- so somehow, without getting caught, they jump to the bunks at the very top of the wall where the shinies sleep and watch as you very slowly begin waking up 

- ‘’sorry boys but if i stay any longer, skywalker and kenobi are going to wonder where i am’’ 

- a face they don’t see yells something out about how warm you are and how you definitely need to join them again as it’s the best they’ve slept since being deployed

- the vets all nod their agreement

- you have to pry yourself away from Kix and Jesse who grumble their complaints and let you go 

- by the time you’re halfway out of the barracks and looking for your robes, you sense the pair on the top of the wall and snap your eyes upward to where anakin is bent over in hysterical laughter 

- “NOT A WORD!” 

- truth be told it’s the best sleep you’ve had since the war started and the same goes for the boys 

- so you definitely plan on doing this regularly with the 501st as you grow more familiar with each of its members 

- you love them.. don’t deny it 

- they already know

what you’re definitely not expecting is obi-wan asking you to do the same with the 212th... which is a whole different story but who’s asking for it? 

[juniperpublishers-yoga]

How Entanglement Phenomenon Offers a conscious Universe-Juniper Publishers

Juniper Publishers- Journal of Yoga and Physiotherapy 

Introduction

The most basic definition for consciousness is simply awareness. In psychology, consciousness is generally used to describe a state of awareness. One common definition of consciousness that can be found in any dictionary is "the ability to be aware of and to be able to perceive the relationship between oneself and one’s environment" [1]. It also seems to be associated with the ability to process, store and or act on information gathered from that external environment.

Based on the rational implications of philosophy, our job here is to elaborate the concept of consciousness step by step. The existence of memory alone is not sufficient to quickly establish the claim that the world has the attribute of consciousness. As a matter of fact, the ability to process the information is the definition of the consciousness. When there is utilization from memory such as recognition, making a choice, determining, etc. it is indicative of levels of consciousness; so the two important factors are memory and utilization from memory.

Basic definition of memory

The main notion of Memory is ‘condensed information’that summarizes a large number of other pieces of information, all of which contributed to the formation of the memory. Therefore, the key definition of memory is the storage of the condensed information.

Numerous scholars asserts the "collective aspect of memory", which is derived from the "collectiveawareness or collective consciousness". Some scholars argue that these individual and collective memories mutually influence each other [2].

'Entanglement' phenomenon in physics

In a simple explanation, we consider two entangled photons or a pair of photon, one of those is sent to observer (A) and the second is sent to observer (B); the two observers could be in a notable distance apart. It should be mentioned that two entangled photons must have orthogonal polarizations; this is due to the law of the conservation of angular momentum: 'angular momentum of the system before the split must equal the angular momentum of the system after the split'. So when (A) measures the polarization of its photon and finds it to be, say (Figure 1), vertically polarized, we instantly know that (B)'s photon will have horizontal polarization even though (B) has not yet measured it [3].

Looking deeply in the above brief description, the first result is that entanglement represents "characteristics of being remembered". Several scientists considered it as "teleportation" in which two or sometimes more entangled objects serve as a link that moves quantum information from one physical location to another [4]. Therefore, the setup is really simple; one object records the information to be teleported [5]. Nowadays several papers are published about the generalization of this subject. 'Everything is entangled' or the 'Entangled Universe' are the common topics; For example, in article everything is entangled (2012), due to the cosmological evolution, everything evolves into an entangled state and the entanglement easily can be considered beyond the cosmic horizon. However, we cannot observe this entanglement too easily because the entanglement is diluted so a randomly chosen pair of nearby objects is not inherit too much of this entanglement. Therefore, it extends to everything in our universe [6]. So the first result of this, is memory feature, but as we mentioned earlier, the actions of remembrance and recognition from the storage implies as though there is consciousness. In fact, the final result of entanglement is 'universal memory' and then after the existence of 'collective consciousness'. This is really similar with some theories in Psychology, Social Sciences and religion.

Philosophical implications about universal consciousness

Carl Jungpsychotherapist, who established analytical psychology, stated the concept of the collective unconscious as universal datum or universal library of human knowledge and wisdom [7]. Moreover, the theory of Noosphere by Vladimir Vernadsky introduces the same idea. Noosphere derived from Greek language: nous is mind and sphaira is sphere. It denotes the sphere of mind or thinking layer of the world. As the mental cover of our earth, the Noosphere defines mind and consciousness as a unitary phenomenon [8]. Hagelin Quantum Physicist explores the concept of "field of consciousness". With considering the empirical scientific frameworks, it indicates that the individual consciousness exists beyond our brain and physical body. In fact, it is shown that we human are not isolated individuals but more we are as a part of a collective consciousness, which can be considered as the outcome or result of the individual’s consciousness [9]. In another terminology, it is named collective soul introduced by other thinkers in the field of sociology and philosophy. The consequence of all human feelings and perceptions is reflected in this collective soul and it implies the global population qualitative of developments. In fact, we can consider this as a memory like a big mirror or universal memory for consciousness, which record all individual's consciousness; when we humans pulse the radiations of our thoughts, insights, attitudes, beliefs and so on towards it, this memory after a while reflects the outcome of our thoughts to us. So it is given a fact that people are all connected to each other from the collective soul or collective consciousness; and the feedback of their thought, behaviors, attitudes, and so on is reflected back to them by the mirror of the collective soul [10]. The concept is truly showed in Figure 2.

Several instances of universal consciousness

Morphic fields by rupert sheldrake: Sheldrake by conducting experimental researches considers the Morphic fields in all beings, even crystals, atoms, plants, birds and human societies.For example in the case of rats in the laboratory, when a number of them learned a new maze, other rats would also learn it easily and quickly elsewhere. Sheldrake explains the whole process by the definition of Morphic resonance. Another example is a fascinating experiment among English students. Sheldrake chooses three similar Japanese verses: one is a traditional famous lyric and the other is a very new contemporary verse and the last is nonsense pointless poems. Students were asked to memorize the poems while they were not aware of the contents. The result indicates that English students easily learned the famous Japanese poem. So we can find out that the famous poem was recorded in collective consciousness and the students were affected by that. In summary, when a critical number of people learn something new, the process of learning would become easier for those that would get involved with it after. It means that we humans are unconsciously linked and nurtured in a collective consciousness by considering a collective memory to store knowledge when utilization from the collective memory and reflection will be taken place [11].

Monkey case by ken keyes: The projection titled the hundredth monkey by Ken Keyes explains the collective consciousness as a result of an observational experiment. Some monkeys started to wash sweet potatoes before consuming. Other monkeys even in other islands learned the new behavior not from observation but from the spread of new behavior. This is an effect in which learned behavior of monkeys spreads instantaneously from one group of them to all others once their number is reached to a critical level. Its key notion is that when enough species in a society or group adopt a new behavior or learning, an ideological breakthrough occurs among them that lead this new awareness to be communicated directly from mind to mind without the linkage of external experience and all individuals in the society or group spontaneously adopt it. Keyes presented the monkey case effect phenomenon in order to discuss positive change in a human society [12].

Maharishi effect: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, proposed a theory in transcendental meditation in 1960.He submitted his idea that if substantial population practices the transcendental meditation method, the quality of life for the whole population would change dramatically. He published his idea in 1976 about the decrease of the crime in the society. The result demonstrates that for 1% of the people practicing the meditation in a community, there is 16% decrease of crime in average. Later, this universal phenomenon was named "Maharishi effect" and expanded as a positive coherence in the field of TM and TM-Sidhi programs. Surprisingly, statistical analysis indicated around 11% decrease in violence at Washington and in total crimes at Metro Manila and Union Territory of Delhi. Another experiment was done in 1983 to test the Maharishi effect in Jerusalem. It was aimed to reduce the stress in the collective consciousness and behavior of people in Israel and Lebanon. The finding of this study demonstrated that for a large number of people for the Meditation group,the victims of war decreased by76%. It should be said that, this project were constantly repeated, for more than two years during the war [13].

Religious perspective: The importance of collective prayer can be determined herein in religious practices, such as allotting a day especially for global collective prayers. For example in Islam, Fridays are specified for congregational prayers because calling for congregational prayers are frequently mentioned in the holy Qur'an, which is the central religious text of Islam. People are mostly asked to gather at midday on Friday to perform a prayer as communion. Broadly speaking, such communities invocate universal peace, collective salvation, redemption and intercession. It is noted that there is a bigger reward in collective prayers as well as it could form mutual understanding and chain of love that leads to feeling of a collective unity. Besides, the value and power of collective prayers for seeking rain is also a means of providing religious lessons and spiritual advances in Islam because in several sections of Holy Qur’an is mentioned that the most merciful is God [14].

Similarly, in Christianity, Sunday is allocated for collective Orison and its central concept is about collective salvation. Such group invocations are performed for different purposes by considering social aspects of prayers, for example, to pray collectively for health as well objective conditions like for world peace [15]. Altogether, this indicates that human beings have a path, which is shared together and they are affected by this joint part. In Eastern tradition, Zen doctrine is likewise the expression of a general consciousness. According to the teachings of Zen, although individuals are separated and there is defined self-consciousness for everyone, yet from a very broad point of view, taken together it is seen as a single universal consciousness. Two perspectives of consciousness are considered; first it is only about separate individuals and the second, in a broader scheme, is universal. In this perspective, it is very childish to see the world only from one limited point ofsentiment that establishes the world and its constituents just from one plaza. It means that from an all-encompassing view, separate individual consciousness are all related and it creates a higher one by extensions such as towards the consciousness of a school, ethnic groups, political parties as well as towards the city and country. In fact, what we see onthe Earth, good or bad as well as negative or positive are outcomes of humanity’s actions that can harm or help, give out advantage or disadvantage toward the all [16].

Conclusion

In sum, our universe is able to act consciously to save information, process and then reflect. Considering the faculty of memory is possible from two sides: (i) one is the storage side and the (ii) is the utilization side. The second one truly demonstrates the features of conscious action; so, eventually, what quantum entanglement says is a consequence of Consciousness and then after, by gathering together empirical observations, we are able to conclude that our world is somehow functioning consciously.

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