#in my head ending Master Splinter does manage to get him out- though he's already lost a lot of air (lungs full of water)

[ilivelikeimtrying]

Fic idea: (angst)

Leo saving his brothers from drowning but is stuck (whether trapped under something, stuck in the debris, or trapped on the other side of a see-through surface). Master Splinter comes for them and gets the others to safety before going to Leo, but can't seem to get him unstuck/free, doing everything he can to save Leonardo while watching as his son slowly loses the battle for air, until he can't hold it anymore.

[tossawary]

2,500 words of the Moshang Forced Marriage AU, in which the PIDW plot is turned off and Tianlang-Jun doesn’t fall, but this only causes even more problems for Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua. Written on my phone. 

- 

Shang Qinghua stumbled back into his leisure house with a jar of Zui Xian Peak’s best light wine in one hand and a sack of Qian Cao Peak’s tastiest specialty melon seeds in the other. He kicked the door closed, kicked off his shoes, and then kicked back for some quality lounging. 

   “Ahhh, now this is more like it!” he declared, wiggling into the cushions worthy of a head disciple’s house. “It’s all shoving off my chores onto other people from here on out! Having flatcakes on order with a snap of my fingers! Making some other poor bastard deal with Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge - at each other’s throats even at Yue-Shixiong’s nice dinner to celebrate our future ascension, eugh. I’ve really earned this! I’ve suffered enough!” 

   He dropped the sack of seeds onto the side table and fiddled with the wine, embarrassingly clumsy despite the fact that he was sober. As always, he’d been much too chicken-shit to really indulge around other people. He needed his fast reflexes for ducking and running away when he was out and about! Plus, people would freak the fuck out if a transmigrator started running his mouth, giving everyone existential issues and shit, so him waiting until he was alone to drink was really more of a societal service here than sad. 

   The Transmigration System had also been a concern before, but not anymore! 

   Shang Qinghua raised his jar and laughingly declared, “The plot is dead! Long live the free author! Ah, this toast is a little late, but better late than never, huh?” 

   At long last, this transmigrator had managed to get into the Transmigration System’s settings and turn off the plot! It had honestly been a little infuriating just how easy it had been, once he’d hit on the right combination of things to open the right settings menu. There may or may not have been a lot of outraged shrieking and frustrated crying, after all the sweat, blood, and tears he’d shed to become the head disciple of An Ding Peak. All Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had needed to do, in the end, was flick a few buttons from “on” to “off”. Outrageous. 

   “No more missions! No more restrictions! And no more bad endings for anyone! Ah, at least for everyone besides Huan Hua Palace Sect’s old master, that is… but, heh heh, I really think that I and the new Empress Su Xiyan can live with that,” Shang Qinghua muttered, then took a drink, wiggling deeper into his lounging and feeling very good about himself. 

   He felt as free as a bird! As free as the wind! Why shouldn't he celebrate his newfound freedom and future as a Cang Qiong Peak Lord by doing a little bit of nothing at all? 

  Shang Qinghua shamelessly did his best to become a lump. As he toasted to the distant happy couple and the bouncy baby protagonist on his way, with wine and melon seeds both, he removed all but one layer of clothing, tossed his belt and his jewelry on top of the pile, and yanked everything out of his hair. He slid from a sitting position to a totally horizontal one without realizing how it had happened, then he let heavy eyes fall closed with the knowledge that everything was going to be so much better now. 

   A person knew things were good when they could fall asleep just like this. 

   Then a burst of cold air startled him into looking up at a shadowy figure stepping out of nowhere above him. Shang Qinghua shrieked with terror. 

   "SHUT UP!” the shadow snarled. “Get up!” 

   “What- my king?!” 

   Mobei-Jun didn’t wait and grabbed Shang Qinghua by the front of his robes, hauling him to his feet. The wine sloshed against the floor and the melon seeds scattered around them. Shang Qinghua yelped, choked, and then wheezed and flailed, and then yelped again as his loose robes got a little looser with the rough handling and he slipped in Mobei-Jun's grip. 

   "What- get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped, and then dragged him into the bedroom right away. 

   "The sight of my naked chest offends you this much, bro?!" Shang Qinghua thought, stumbling along. "There's not enough room in this house for two tits-out outfits?! What the fuck is going on?!" 

   Mobei-Jun threw Shang Qinghua towards the dresser. He just barely managed to catch himself, taking a hard wooden edge to the gut and stubbing his toe on its base, instead of falling and concussing himself at least. Shit! It still hurt, though! 

   "Get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped again, pointing at the dresser for emphasis. "Now!" 

   "Right away! Right away, my king!" With shaking hands, his heart thundering in his ears, Shang Qinghua pulled out the first set of robes his fingers touched. 

   "Not those!" 

   "Aah!" 

   Shang Qinghua dropped the robes onto the floor. They were the regular everyday robes of an An Ding Peak disciple, plain and sturdy, something that the demon had seen him in many times before. 

   "Wh- what's wrong with th-these?" 

   "Too plain!" Mobei-Jun barked, and stalked forward to shove Shang Qinghua aside and go through the dresser himself. 

   Shang Qinghua stumbled away and took shelter near his bed, quickly retying his current robes to prevent another fucking nip-slip or worse. He watched with wide eyes as Mobei-Jun threw his clothing to the floor as not good enough. The next drawer was yanked open with so much strength that it splintered and tilted crookedly to one side. 

   "My king, why-?! What's happening?! Are- are we going somewhere?! Who does this servant have to impress?!" 

   Mobei-Jun finished throwing aside everything in this drawer and tried to shove it back in, but it was too broken to be moved. The demon snarled, yanked the entire drawer from the dresser with another terrible splintering sound, and threw the drawer out of his way. It hit Shang Qinghua in the chest and sent him sprawling back onto his bed. 

   He lay there and wheezed without shoving it away, just feeling the impact rattle through his ribs. He heard another drawer splinter. 

   "Ah, so this is how I die?" he thought. "Just as expected: with a bang AND a whimper." 

   He pushed the drawer to one side and sat up, only to be smacked in the face with the robes thrown at him. They were the nicest robes he owned. The An Ding Peak Lord had ordered them for him for the coming ascension of a new generation of Peak Lords, so they had all sorts of fancy embroidery and several heavy layers, which meant Shang Qinghua fell back against the bed again under their weight when they hit his head. He sat up again and then gawked at these robes he had never worn and wasn't supposed to wear yet- 

   "Tianlang-Jun." 

   "Aha, what?" Shang Qinghua looked at the demon lord scowling at him. "My king…? What about Tianlang-Jun…? This- no. What?! My king, you can't mean to take this servant before the Demon Emperor, that would be ridic-" 

   "Get dressed," Mobei-Jun snapped. 

   "It's not Tianlang-Jun, right? Why-?! What's really going on here? Are we going somewhere? Are we meeting someone?" 

   Shang Qinghua got to his feet, but he didn't dare put the fancy robes on, like being nearly naked would save him from being dragged off anywhere else. No amount of nice clothing would ever make the likes of this displaced author impressive to the likes of the OP Demon Emperor, finally sitting on his late sister's throne. 

   "This servant can't serve his king to the best of his abilities unless he knows what the-" 

   "My father is dead!" 

   “...Wh… what?” 

   Mobei-Jun’s expression was like a thunderstorm. Shadows curled around his clenched fists, as light and heat fled this room that was suddenly even smaller than Shang Qinghua remembered it being. 

   "My father…" Mobei-Jun repeated, slowly, daring Shang Qinghua not to understand a second time. "...is dead." 

   Shang Qinghua stared in horror, the robes slipping out of his hands, which itched to count all the years that had just been skipped even though he knew he didn't have enough fingers. Thirty years or so? Definitely more than twenty. His breath came out in a trembling fog as he demanded: 

   "H-how?!" 

   "Tianlang-Jun," Mobei-Jun said again, through gritted teeth. 

   Good point! Good point! Who the fuck else could it be? The real question was why the fuck?! And also what the fuck was Shang Qinghua of all people supposed to do about clashes between OP demon lords?! 

   Mobei-Jun advances on Shang Qinghua, the shadows in his fists writhing like he's strangling them. "Tianlang-Jun took offense to some of my clan's foolish disrespect towards his human Empress and he made an example of my father. He has threatened to destroy the body unless a suitable gesture is made." 

   "But… the power of your ancestors…" 

   Mobei-Jun, looming over him, shoved him down to his knees to pick up the robes he had dropped, and snarled: "Get dressed." 

   Shang Qinghua snatched up the robes and skittered away to dress himself up for the slaughter. His heart was racing fast, but his mind seemed to be going even faster, almost too fast to actually think and also do things like make sure clothes weren't inside-out as he put them on. 

   The power of the Mobei clan rested in the ascension ritual in which the new king "consumed" the body of the old king. Spiritually and… er… possibly also physically? Shang Qinghua had no idea if the System had picked up on those implications or not. Anyway, if Mobei-Jun's father's body was destroyed, then he wouldn't receive that power-up necessary to enforce his rule, which would make him the target of every ambitious cousin and every greedy neighbor. The Mobei clan would probably fall into civil war and the rest of the northern kingdoms would follow them into bloody battle. 

   Shang Qinghua's favorite character, currently glaring at him for the fancy clothes probably making him look even less fancy by comparison, was sure to die. Mobei-Jun's shitty uncle had probably already picked the poisoned knife with which to stab him in the back. 

    "My king… what… what gesture is being made here…? This servant… this servant really needs to know how he's supposed to be of service…" 

   Shang Qinghua also needed to know whether or not he needed to take the first available window to run away. He definitely wasn't above leaping out of literal windows. If Mobei-Jun intended on hanging him over to Tianlang-Jun as a human sacrifice or some shit, then promises of loyalty might expire a lot sooner than originally planned! 

   At the question, Mobei-Jun's expression only darkened and the room darkened again with it. The cold seemed to spread from Shang Qinghua's skin deep into his twisting chest.

   "Marriage," Mobei-Jun said, again through gritted teeth. "Tianlang-Jun has suggested marriage to a human as a worthy gesture." 

   "M-marriage?" 

   Mobei-Jun looked so fucking murderous that Shang Qinghua knew he hadn't misheard. He had to have misheard, though, because this was absurd. 

   "Marriage betw-between me and- and…?" 

   "Yes." 

   "And… you?" 

   "Yes." 

   Shang Qinghua should have been given an award for not fainting dead away. The System should have given him a million points for every second he managed to stay conscious, except… the System had essentially been turned off. No more points. No more plot. 

   No more Proud Immortal Demon Way plot, at least. 

   Ah, was this some kind of warped vacuum effect? A new plot come to take its place? 

   "There will be great riches." 

   Shang Qinghua refocused on the demon glaring at him. Riches?! What the fuck did riches have to do with anything right now?! 

   "Mobei Clan is the second strongest in the Demon Realm," Mobei-Jun informed him, but the demon was kind of scowling like he resented this now, instead of bragging. "You would not have to work again." 

   It was a really fucking weird day when being told that his Dream Guy wanted him and that he'd never had to work again was somehow bad news. It almost sounded like Mobei-Jun was… was… trying to persuade Shang Qinghua to marry him by offering wealth, power, and a life of indolence. All things that would tempt most people! Especially blindly greedy, thigh-hugging sect traitors like his character! 

   "Did… did Tianlang-Jun tell you… to just pick any human?" Shang Qinghua asked faintly. "There weren't… there weren't any requirements…?" 

   Clearly Mobei-Jun didn't want to be tied to Shang Qinghua of all humans! 

   "He asked - laughingly - if none of us knew any humans. I said that I did." 

   Okay, Shang Qinghua fully believed that Mobei-Jun didn't know any other humans. Mobei-Jun was on a deadline and didn't have time to go find the most acclaimed matchmaker or anything. By default, Shang Qinghua was the best, most handsome, most skillful, most wellborn, most desirable, and altogether most marriageable human Mobei-Jun knew - and he was not feeling super fucking thrilled by this victory. 

   "What… what did my king say about me..? What is the Demon Emperor expecting?" Shang Qinghua could only hope expectations had been set on the floor, preferably into the floor or maybe even underground. 

   "A disciple of Cang Qiong in my service." 

   "Oh…" 

   "Fix your robes." 

   "What? Oh, shit. Right away!" 

   Shang Qinghua didn't have a lot of experience wearing robes this nice and Mobei-Jun barking at him to look less like shit wasn't helping. The fact that he was sweating from nerves and his fingers were still shaking a little also wasn't helping. He skittered around to add tasteful ornaments and jewelry, some of which got violently rejected by Mobei-Jun as too ugly to show anyone, but looking down at himself, he mostly just felt like he was throwing shiny gold onto a pile of crap. How could this really fool anyone?  

   "My king, what… what am I supposed to say to the Demon Emperor? Do you want me to lie? To the Demon Emperor?!" 

   "Do not speak unless spoken to." 

   Sure, Shang Qinghua could do that, but was he really supposed to leave the talking to Mobei-Jun?! To Mobei-Jun?! The protagonist's right-hand man had not been known for his silver tongue! Did he think people weren't going to have questions? Like, "How the fuck do you know some random human?" Or, "Holy shit, you're really going to marry THAT one?" 

   "Isn't… my king, isn't Tianlang-Jun well known for his interest in humans and human stories… though...?" 

   Love stories! Shang Qinghua was pretty sure that the man loved a good love story! How the fuck were he and Mobei-Jun supposed to pull off a love story? And make it a love story compelling enough to convince a pissed-off Tianlang-Jun to grant the Mobei Clan mercy? Shang Qinghua wasn’t totally sure he was going to be able to do anything besides break down sobbing and curl up into a pathetic ball on the floor. 

   Mobei-Jun's face twisted slightly, in the way of an angry demon who didn't want to admit that his lowly human servant actually had a super great point. Tianlang-Jun had already proven himself a man who liked to play with his food a little. 

   "Do not tell some story," Mobei-Jun snarled finally. "Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not lie." 

   "Of course! Of course! Very wise not to lie to him!” Shang Qinghua told himself to focus on the logistics here; he was the logistics man; it was what he did. If he just kept focusing on the details, he didn’t have to think about the bigger picture. “This servant will remain silent until called upon, which… when… my king, when will that be? Tomorrow morning? I have to tell-" 

   "Now." 

  "-my martial sib- what?!" 

   "Now," Mobei-Jun repeated. "He is waiting." 

[lloydskywalkers]

chrysanthemum

1/2 of the fics i wrote for the 10th anniversary zine!! if you haven’t checked it out yet please do @ninjaneverquit-zine , everyone worked so hard and did such a wonderful job, i’m beyond honored to have been included <3

I may not have been in the fandom since the start, but ninjago means the world to me - it’s gotten me through some of the worst times and pushed further in writing than i thought i’d go, and the fandom’s been a particularly bright light in my life since i’ve joined 💕and of course i can’t not celebrate that by writing for the light of my life lloyd garmadon, so here’s me crying over the garmadons anniversary-style :’D

Garmadon’s son has only been on the earth for twenty-four hours, and he’s only been Lloyd for nineteen, but he already finds himself terrified of the tiny, living thing he cradles in his arms.

“He’s so small,” he tells Misako, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Is he supposed to be this small?”

Misako, who’s been answering questions similar to this for the better part of the morning, rolls her eyes. “He’s fine, Garmadon. He was born a little early, that’s all.”

Not as reassured as he should be, Garmadon returns his gaze to his son. He’s sleeping now, deathly still in his arms, and he resists the urge to wave a hand over his tiny face, if only to feel the small puffs of breath he knows must be there. He brushes a wisp of hair from his head instead, marveling at how pale it is.

“He’s got my father’s hair,” he murmurs.

“I don’t care, Garmadon, we’re still not naming him after the man.”

It’s Garmadon’s turn to roll his eyes. “I never said that. I said Montgomery was an unacceptable name to burden my son with.”

“Oh, your son.”

He misses the rest of her retort as Lloyd fidgets briefly, tiny features screwing up as he shifts. A flash of lightning from outside brightens the room, and Garmadon pulls Lloyd closer reflexively. The thunder crack follows soon after, and Garmadon flinches, the thick smell of rain filtering through the open windows. He can already see thick droplets sliding down the hydrangeas Misako’s growing in the windowsill, drowning the pale flowers. It’s been pouring all week, typhoons hitting the coast with gusto as they always do this time of year. Garmadon doesn’t like it — his son is much more suited for the sun and all its brightness, not the grey-skied downpour of thunderclouds.

Lloyd hardly reacts to the downpour, having gone still and silent in his arms once again. Garmadon’s heartbeat quickens. He shouldn’t sleep this much, should he? He doesn’t remember Wu being like that, but he was so young when Wu was born, and it was so long ago, and he can’t feel for Lloyd’s breathing now because the breeze pouring through the window’s too strong, and—

A soft hand sets on his shoulder. “Here,” Misako sighs, guiding Garmadon’s hand to rest gently over Lloyd’s chest. “Feel. That’s a heart, going strong.”

Despite his hesitance, a deep-rooted part of him still desperately afraid his touch might hurt something so small, Garmadon does so. Lloyd’s heartbeat is rapid and as fragile as a bird’s wing, but undeniably there. A small, living thing.

Something warm curls in his chest, and Garmadon thinks he might understand his father’s delight in creation — in things that live.

Not, of course, that his father has ever created anything so perfect as Lloyd, but Garmadon can credit him for having tried.

* * *

It’s weird, having a dad.

Not the concept of having a dad — Lloyd’s bragged enough about being the son of Lord Garmadon to at least get that part. But actually having him here, a living, breathing person who looks at Lloyd and cares—

It’s weird, that’s all. Not that it’s a bad weird.

“You need to wrap your hands, before you go hitting things like that,” Garmadon scolds gently, twisting gauze around Lloyd’s bruised, swollen fingers. “The others can show you how, for training. They should have shown you earlier.”

Lloyd bites his lip. He doesn’t tell his dad that the bruises are less from training, and more from pointlessly banging on bars in an attempt to get on Pythor’s nerves. It sounds silly, compared to the way his dad swept in like a big hero and took out all the snakes in single swipes.

A big hero. Lloyd wonders if the others will ever see him that way, too.

His hand twinges as the gauze pulls tight, and Lloyd sucks in a sharp breath. Garmadon flinches, drawing his hands back.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quickly. “I keep forgetting — you’re so small.”

Lloyd makes a face at that. Small? “I’m not that short,” he grumbles. “I’ve grown lots.”

“Of course you have,” Garmadon amends. “I only—”

His expression twists, and Lloyd’s stomach drops. There’s that look again.

“I’m sorry,” Garmadon repeats, sounding downtrodden.

Lloyd purses his lips. For all his bragging, he’s never really thought much about whether he likes his family or not. It’s hard, when you don’t have one around to like. Watching the way his dad worries and his uncle walks around all stone-faced now, Lloyd’s not sure he should like it. He likes Uncle Wu, of course, and he loves his dad, but—

He hates the way they all walk around like they’re preparing for a funeral. His dad’s funeral, his funeral, whichever it ends up being. It’s stupid. Lloyd’s lived on the streets for months, and in Darkley’s even longer. He wouldn’t have minded walking around like he’s doomed for misery then.

But now? When he’s got people who care, and a family?

Lloyd sets his mouth stubbornly. He doesn’t know much about destiny, or the prophecy, but he knows he’s not about to lose this. Not when he’s come so far, when he’s so close to having — to being someone worth having around.

No funerals, Lloyd promises himself. He can see this prophecy through — they both can, the two of them. You have to be alive to be a family, right?

“It’s okay,” he finally replies. “I’m alright, dad.”

And he’s gonna stay that way.

* * *

When Garmadon had thought about the final battle in the past, he’d expected the darkness. The destruction, the pain.

He hadn’t expected to survive.

“So you’re really giving up fighting, then?”

Glancing up at Lloyd, taller now yet still small enough to not quite fit his bright golden gi, Garmadon finds survival a very welcome surprise.

“Yes,” he says, returning his gaze to the flowerbeds Misako’s helped him put in the monastery garden. They’re coming along well, despite the recent fits of bad weather, and they do a fine job of making the monastery look homey. Unthreatening.

He hopes, at least.

“I think I’ve done enough fighting, for my part,” he continues. He gives Lloyd a wry look. “I’m not sure Ninjago could take much more of it from me, anyways.”

“I dunno,” Lloyd says. “It’s been getting pretty boring.”

Garmadon snorts. “Boring is something you should appreciate, son. Excitement isn’t always good.”

“No, but it isn’t bor—dull,” Lloyd mutters, crouching down to study the flowerbeds. Garmadon shakes his head in reply, sighing. He remembers being his son’s age once, yearning for the next thrill, even if it feels ages away now.

He’s got a whole lecture on appreciating the quiet moments on the tip of his tongue, too, when Lloyd speaks up again.

“We used to have these flowers at Darkley’s,” he says, tilting his head as he studies them. “Some of the boys tore them all up and threw ‘em at the window, but they were pretty before that."

Garmadon bites the inside of his cheek, his eyebrows furrowing. His expression softens as he spots the gentle way Lloyd handles the flower, carefully pushing it back to place. It never fails to baffle him how someone as gentle as Lloyd could’ve come from his beginnings, much less from Garmadon, but he treasures it.

“Snapdragons,” Garmadon says, instead. “Fitting flowers, for our family.”

Lloyd looks at him curiously, eyes bright with the light of suspicion, and Garmadon is tempted to tell him the full truth, then and there. But Lloyd is still so young, innocent and naive and barely come to terms with his place as the Green Ninja. The truth of their blood is a heavy one, and Garmadon can’t find it in himself to lay it on Lloyd’s shoulders today. No, his son is happy among humans, so a human he’ll let him be. Someday he’ll know he’s more, closer to the dragons he admires than he realizes, but not quite yet.

Miraculously, Garmadon has the time, now.

“If you stay after dinner, I can show you how they’re planted,” he offers. Lloyd nods, and Garmadon’s smile widens.

Destruction is in his blood, and he’d be blind to say it isn’t in Lloyd’s as well. Power is power, whether it’s bright and beautiful or stained in darkness, and Lloyd could shatter mountains as well as move them, if he wanted.

But Lloyd never moves to pull the flowers up, only watches them rustle slightly in the breeze, leaving them to grow a little bigger, a little brighter. Garmadon, for his part, watches his son, all bright eyes and the burnished gold hair of his grandfather, and reminds himself that one needs not be a master of creation to appreciate life.

* * *

Lloyd likes to think of himself as an optimist, for the most part. He’s at least good at pretending that he is one, with how many times he’s had to convince himself it’s worth it to get back up.

Right now, he’s trying to remember how he’s ever managed to convince himself, because this time, getting back up seems impossible.

Lloyd used to wonder, back during Morro, how far you had to push yourself to break like that. How far someone had to push you, to truly splinter. He thinks he might have found his answer, though his is less of a bitter hatred and more of an empty abyss of hurt.

It hurts to breathe. That would be a sign that something’s wrong, if Lloyd didn’t already have about sixty other signs that he’s in trouble. But the breathing thing is sticking out to him especially, right now. His lungs feel like they’re scraping against his ribs every time he tries to draw breath, bruised and stinging, and there’s a deep ache in his chest that grows worse by the minute.

He tries swallowing again, sand scraping down his throat as he does. He hisses out a breath instead of coughing, almost frightened that his lungs will give out completely if he does.

He says almost, because Lloyd isn’t sure what emotions he’s got left to feel anymore.

A lie. Pain starts numb, sometimes.

Lloyd’s chest spasms as he sucks in another breath, and he wishes the desert would swallow him whole. His father — his real father, who pushed him from the Cursed Realm and told him to return to light and living — would want him to stand back up. He’d beg him to, stress the importance of continuing on, of persevering. Stuff like that.

But if it wasn’t for his father, Lloyd wouldn’t have to get back up in the first place. If it wasn’t for his father, Lloyd wouldn’t be—

His eyes burn, stinging as he squeezes them tightly shut, and he tells himself it’s the sand.

Instead, he focuses on the ragged beat of his heart. He only knows it’s there because his chest throbs in pain with every pulse, but he latches onto the feeling and holds tight.

Still alive, he tells himself, even as every bit of him sings in agony and his lungs scream at him to stop. He’s still alive. His powers aren’t answering him but they will, he knows they will, he can’t disappear like he did with Morro. He can’t — he can’t leave it, not like this, not with his father — not like this. If he can’t stop Harumi, if he can’t save his father, if he can’t do anything else at all, he can at least do this.

Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.

He’s never realized how long the nights out here are, before.

* * *

After everything, the light dies down and the Oni vanish, and Lloyd’s heart stops.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to Garmadon, who isn’t even sure his own heart beats now, but it is.

It’s not supposed to stop. There was a promise made, somewhere, to keep it beating.

It restarts before he has the chance to process what that even means, and the swell of relief is so foreign, Garmadon leaves before he even has the chance to ask Lloyd what he’d seen. He thinks to himself, that will be the end of it. The end of whatever tentative connection he has with the boy, whatever frayed and tattered threads of something they once had. Better to cut them away for good.

Lloyd’s not one to let things die, though. Garmadon should know that at least, the boy tells him.

“I know you like repeating yourself,” he mutters. “Letting go is different.”

“That’s not what this is,” Lloyd huffs back.

Garmadon rolls his eyes, the two of them drifting aimlessly down the Ninjago City garden paths. It’s secluded, the rest of the city still recovering, and Garmadon’s grateful for the quiet, even if it is awkward. Building any kind of bridge with the boy is difficult, if only because Lloyd stresses that they’re rebuilding a bridge, and Garmadon has no memory of any bridge to begin with.

He’s still sifting through jumbled emotions, sorting out what his place in this world was and is supposed to be, but he knows that the word son slips easier from his mouth than daughter ever did, so he figures he’s on the right path, at least.

“It’s about—” Lloyd pauses, his expression contorting. “It’s about surviving, I guess,” he grinds out.

Garmadon’s mouth curls into a grin. “Really. You were quite…vocal, that it was about more than that.”

“It is, it’s just—” Lloyd cuts off again, stopping them in a half-ruined section of garden still littered with remnants of concrete. “It’s the payoff, you know? Here.”

He bends down, brushing dust from a surviving scattering of flowers. He gently touches the edge of a petal, pushing the flower head toward the sun. “See?” he says. “After all that, it’s still alive.”

Garmadon stares at the delicate edges of the petal, smaller and more fragile than any of the buildings that crumbled beneath his rule. At Lloyd’s nod, he stretches his own fingers out toward it, his hand impossibly dark and calloused next to his son’s own small one. But he brushes his fingers over the petal edge nonetheless, almost surprised that it doesn’t decay beneath his touch. It’s soft, he notes, like the fragile skin of a newborn. Odd that it should’ve survived, out of everything else that perished.

“So it is,” he says, carefully. Lloyd says nothing, but there’s a ghost of a smile around his lips. They must make an odd sight, the pair of them crouched in the dirt in the recovering garden. There’s no use in sitting here and looking at the flower, no explanation Garmadon can offer himself, but he doesn’t leave. He can take the moment, he decides, to appreciate what Lloyd is trying to show him.

They too, after all, are still alive.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

tmnt 2012 x miraculous ladybug headcannons based on the nyc special?

This could be its own what if!

(What if the NYC Special was a TMNT 2012 crossover?)

-Most of the story beats in Paris are the same. Marinette gets permission to have Adrien come to NYC. Ladybug asks Chat noir to guard the city, etc.

-Hawkmoth knows about the seedy criminal underbelly of NYC and tries to get intel from the Foot about the Eagle miraculous.

-The school that the class meets is from April’s school. She and Casey greet them. 

-Casey hitting off with Kim and the other guys. April becoming friends with Marinette.

-Alya asking April about the weird sightings in the city. Which April tries to downplay, but Casey overhears and is happy to blab to the cute girl about some of the crazy stuff in NYC. (except he doesn't mention the turtles because he is a bro.)

-”Ninjas? Aliens? mutated people?! I need to get photos of this!” Alya practically rushed out.

-April glares at Casey over that. Which Casey is like “Oh come on red, how much trouble can one girl get into.”

-Marinette immediately runs after alya because she KNOWS! what trouble she can get into. 

-April decides to follow to make sure nothing bad happens. She tells Casey to stay and not let anyone else leave. And Casey rolls his eyes but says sure.

-Nino notices his girl is gone and asks Casey if he saw her. Casey smirks says that she and a cute girl and his friend left.

-Adrien joins the conversation

-”We should find Alya and Marinette before they get in trouble with the teacher.

-Nino and Casey agree, (the later because he was bored.)

-Alya, Marinette and April end up running into Bebop. (literally, because he was cloaked.) He was not happy with alya’s comment on calling him a weird pig man. (she took photos)

-Alya almost got blasted but April saved the day, telling them both to run.

-Marinette tells Alya they should split up and get help. Alya agrees and they go. Ladybug will make a quick appearance.

___________________________________________________-

-The guys end up running into Rocksteady. who was not happy to see annoying hockey player.

-Adrien tells the two to leave, but Casey is already attacking. Nino says he will go get help. Adrien decides a quick appearance of chat noir would help.

____________________________________________________

-April had put a call to the turtles as she was fighting Bebop, and just when Bebop has her cornered, a yo-yo swings in and yanks the pig away into a dumpster.

-”You alright?”  Ladybug asks, leaving the red head confused. Who was the girl in the spots? Though, for some reason she felt REALLY familiar (can't fool the psychic powers)

-”Is that you Marinette?” Asking quietly.

-Ladybug dismissed the notion entirely and goes to fight Bebop, who was outtie 9000.

_________________________________________________________

-Casey realized that fighting a rhino without weapons was not smart. Thankfully just before he was street pizza, Chat noir jumped in.

-”Ill take it from here. Do you think you can give up, I don't want to fight an endangered species.”

-”The only thing that is facing the danger is you Comrade.”

-Cue fight with Chat noir holding his own against the rhino man.

-Casey admits the blond got style. And he NEEDS to introduce him to the turtles.

-Rocksteady gets a call from Bebop saying that they got what they needed and they needed to head back. So he tells the cat boy he got lucky.

-Casey notices the distress call and asks the cat boy to join him.

-”Its chat noir.”

-”Okay Chat”

-”WOW! Watch the pronunciation.”

-”Why?”

-”Nevermind just go.”

_______________________________________________________________________

-Donnie is the first to arrive on the scene, (worried about April.) April tells them she is fine, and then he realizes that there is another person that just saw them.

- “Ummm hello.”

-Ladybug had to admit, the pig was a lot at first. now the giant talking turtle. Then include the other 3 TURTLES.

-They introduce themselves. The Purple headband was Donatello, The blue headband, Leonardo, The red headband was Raphael, and the Orange one was Michelangelo.

-Mikey was hyped because “SUPERHERO!” and asks for autograph. Leonardo may or may not have an infatuation because (leader type)

-Casey arrives with Chat noir. Cue argument between the two. Which Chat noir feels ashamed.

-Mikey says “Ooof Superhero couple arguments are intense.”

-Leonardo feels he can relate to Ladybug, and takes her side on that. Donnie does as well. Raph and Mikey takes Chat noir’s side. Thus causing a divide for the team.

-But after the argument, Chat noir was able to explain what happened and that if anything should happen. He does have the akuma alert active and he can fly back. Which Makes Mikey have a field day with all the questions he want to ask

-The turtles bring the two back to the lair where they meet Master Splinter, who recognizes the miraculous.

-”You know about the miraculous?”

-”It is in the ancient Hamato book of legends. Powerful artifacts that contain powerful spirits that will give the user amazing powers and abilities. There was once one of my clan that did use one once, he had the power over storms. He was known as Hamato Ryu, the Dragon Shinobi.”

- Ladybug was fascinated by the legends, asking if he knew anything else. 

-Splinter agreed to tell her more, if he could test her and her partner’s abilities. (they were both in the middle of an argument) so they were a bit hostile towards the other.

-Splinter kicked their buts hard. Even with their super powers. Splinter pointed out that they are both powerful, but they are not in sync. Should they learn to fight as one, they would be able to beat anyone.

-Chat noir and Ladybug still argue over the situation, and Raph recommends that they spar. Chat noir says he doesn't want to hit her.

-Ladybug says its a good idea, and cue them fighting. Chat noir and Ladybug actually do get out a lot of their hostility (which may have made things worse) out during the match. But an akuma alert actually stops it.

-Ladybug decides that flying to Paris wouldn't be fast enough and uses the horse miraculous to warp them both there.

-The turtles tag along and they fight Robustus (sentimonster)

-Ladybug then Leaves Chat noir in Paris, Saying now he can keep his word now. Which then leaves Chat noir a bit hurt. 

-Now chat noir feels the brunt of his actions and is consumed with guilt.

_____________________________________________________________________

-Hawkmoth had managed to get the Eagle miraculous thanks to dealings with the foot.

-Hawkmoth thanks Shredder and agrees to his part of the bargain. To power up his mutants.

-He akumatizes Stockman fly into the ‘Mutanifier’ which has the ability to amplify the power of other mutants.

- Bebop, Rocksteady, Rahzar, and Fishface get upgrades. Bebop Now much bigger, His tusks Longer and he has wings. Rocksteady Now even tougher and taller then one of the Tryceritons. Rahzar moves even faster and his claws are much shaper. Fishface gets actual legs, and can shoot his scales like bullets.

-Shedder orders them to destroy the turtles.

-Hawkmoth then tells shredder that he wants two more artifacts

-”When I get the head of Hamato Yoshi, you can get your jewelry.”

-Hawkmoth can sense the amount of lose and rage from shredder, he decided not to akumatize him, because he seems to strong willed to concede to him right now.

________________________________________________________

-The turtles comment that what Ladybug did wasn't cool. Donnie had to agree, it seemed like a jerk move.

-Ladybug dismisses it and goes back to her class.

-Alya was relieved to see her friend, but Adrien was still missing.

-Marinette was shocked to hear Adrien was gone. She goes looking for him, only to see the city of New York under attack.

-Ladybug must go back into the fray and she meets up with the turtles, who are outmatched by the powerful mutants

-They barely escape and Ladybug reveals she has a plan.

-Ladybug realizes its time to give her new friends some power ups.

- Leonardo gets the Dragon miraculous, Making him Kame Ryu.

-Donatello gets the fox and becomes Kame kitsu

-Mikey gets the monkey and becomes Kame gokuu

-Raph gets the Turtle and becomes Kame Kappa. (he does not like that his weapon is a shield) But he works with it.

-Mikey is LOVING the powers, though he is not use to the weapon. He asks Donnie if he wants to switch.

-The new hero team is able to beat the improved mutants and they even free stockman fly from the akuma. Which infuriates Shredder. Which Hawkmoth uses as a chance to *Free* him of his mental restraint and then akumatize him.

-That is when Hawkmoth akumatizes Shredder.

-Creating the wild and Powerful Doom-ja. Who had more armor and basically looked like a less mutated super shredder. All feral

-The doom-ja was deadly and beat the crap out of the team.

-Ladybug calls her lucky charm, only for it to show a postcard to Paris.

-She needed chat noir here.

-Chat noir was patrolling paris. Only to see a portal that he collides with. He was surprised to see it.

-Chat noir apologies to Ladybug about everything, and Ladybug apologizes for snapping at him so hard. They both agree that they could have handled it better and that they are a team.

-The two join with the hero turtles and fight Doom-ja.

-They take the lesson they learned from Splinter about fighting as one, and the two of them were able to knock Doom-ja off his rhythm. The turtles were able to destroy the akumatized helmet and defeat Doom-ja.

-Shredder now facing 6 super heroes and now more clear minded. He decides he would leave for now, mostly because he was angrier with another individual at the moment.

-Hawkmoth had been watching from the sidelines, and didn't notice that Splinter had tracked him down.

-While The heroes fought Doom-ja. Splinter fought Hawkmoth.

- Despite the powers, Splinter kicked his butt. Splinter comments the he can sense that he lost a loved one, and that his grief and rage have consumed him.

-”You will become no better than the shredder if you continue down this path. So take this as a warning, come back into my home with your obsession, and you will not get back up again.”

-Splinter had snagged the eagle miraculous from him before leaving Hawkmoth beaten and bruised. Hawkmoth crawled away, ego bruised.

-Splinter give the eagle miraculous to Ladybug, saying that a guardian would be best to overseeing the miraculous.

-Ladybug thanks him, offering to let him keep it. But Splinter says that they will be fine without it.

- The turtles say good bye to their hero friends. Ladybug and Chat noir are back to in sync partners.

-Adrien is back in NY and marinette is relieved to see him safe. Hugging him and forgetting her awkwardness for a bit. 

-The class does get their fun sight seeing adventure, and the turtles let them have a break. Mikey asks if they can visit Paris.

-”Maybe one day.”

[mar-iiposa]

Hi, how're ya? ^^ How the beyverse turtles would react on their first time riding a horse? (I know, it's not a comum question :D I've been thinking about it)

a/n: hi! I'm good, thank you ! congrats to being my first request. what an odd request for a headcanon, never really thought about turtles riding full on horses lmao. I, myself, have only been on one for a mini-photoshoot when I was in preschool, but definitely had a horse phase shortly after that. well, here you go !

how do I put this in a way that, at the very least, makes some partial sense yet somewhat proves the point

okay so you know how horses are depicted as beautiful, graceful, and free-spirited creatures?

imagine that depiction. but with a 6 ft tall turtle on top of it.

that's how leo looks on top of an entire horse.

feels heroic, like he's about to lead his army into a deadly battle

at first, the he's a little hesistant, "do I really have to get on this thing? How did a horse even get down here?"

"leo, donnie can literally get on the horse with all of those gadgets on, you'll be fine."

donniewearinghisgadgetsnotthehorse

he's seriously overthinking this

if you're on the horse with him, that'll probably calm his nerves down, immensely

if not, sucks for him lmao

"fearless ain't so fearless anymore, huh?"

"shut up raph." he's so done with his younger brother(s)

but as SOON as he gets on this horse, all of his previous worries just 🌠 wash away 🌠

"oh, well this isn't so bad."

"what else did ya think, numbnuts?" there goes raph again-

takes the horse around the lair, like a great warrior or something

"on a crusade now?"

leonardo sends his second youngest brother an unphased stare before carefully trotting off with the horse towards the dojo

"no horses allowed in the dojo, leonardo" "yes dad"

a little disappointed when they have to return it, but he knows it's for the best :)

"no."

"why not??"

"I'm gonna fall off the thing."

"that thing is a horse, raph."

as we know, Raph, the muscle of the team, is scared of heights

pretty obvious

but is he scared of falling off the horse? you bet your ass he is

almost fALLS WHILE MOUNTING THE HORSE

once he's on the horse, he's all stiff and awkward

"what do I do now?"

once he gets the hang of it, he noticed that he starts to really bond with that horse

gives the horse a name in his head, he doesn't tell anybody

"get yer ass up here with me."

you're just partially speechless at the sudden command. but nevertheless, you end up on the horse, holding onto raph

just strolls around on top of the horse, it's so therapeutic for him??? oddly enough??

a little sad when he has to say his goodbyes

everyone else, but you, tend to not notice the final look he gives the horse

he was so attached to it already

"I know you miss them"

"shut up-"

"I absolutely have to?"

"yes donnie."

"is there some sort of logical reasoning explaining that I really have to?"

"just get on the damn horse-"

won't shut up about it

"you know, there are over 100 deaths a year related to horse-riding and technically spe-"

"get on the damn horse, donnie!" raphael hollers from the other end of the lair

"a-alrighty then."

he hesitates a little mounting the calm creature

instantly falls in love with the horse. instant connection

"I am naming them cornelius."

GIVES CORNELIUS A LITTLE TOUR OF HIS LAB

and shows him the monitors on his computers

cautious around it though, who knows if the horse is a spy

won't stop blabbering on and on about fun facts for horses

petting cornelius and carefully brushing their silky mane

he's fallen head over heels for this horse, watch out y/n

doesn't experiment on the horse because although the dude loves to experiment, he won't do it on animals :(

feeding cornelius carrots and apples !!

"say goodbye to the horse, donnie"

"we'll meet again, cornelius-"

saddened by the bittersweet departure

would still do anything for cornelius

actually the one who somehow managed to bring it into the lair

"giddy-up!"

conquers the horse

"where did you get it fro-?"

"the world may never know, donatello."

"he stole it from this birthday party."

"ah, ah, ah! I'm borrowing it!"

apparently he knows how to get the horse back to their ownner

he doesn't. yet.

TRIES TO FEED THE HORSE PIZZA

"donnie, do you think bobby can eat pizza?"

"well no, I think pi- you named it "bobby"??"

"he looks like a bobby. right, y/n?"

"just don't give bobby any pizza, mikey."

mikey doesn't even google the question as to whether or not horses can consume pizza

thank god he's right

headcanon that mikey brings the horse into raph's room, riding it, and it turns into a chaotic mess

the horse poops in raphael's room.

a lot.

mikey sadly (but thankfully) doesn't keep the horse

after endless hours of begging master splinter to

but he does visit it every week or so after that so that's nice :)

Sorry if they might seem ooc at all? it's just sort of an unusual request that I'm not used to seeing around haha. feel free to request more headcanons or request a story with a specific prompt. anonymous or not is fine, just be descriptive in what you want !

[halla-hunts-the-wolf]

A short-story preview.

Set in a story where years down the line, Fen'harel has yet to destroy the Veil, but his plights are making all of Thedas weary of the modern elves.

Four Dalish elves band together to avenge a massacre. Will they inflict Justice or Vengeance on those responsible? And what secrets will they uncover along the way?

Warning: Violent acts & Character Death.

----

On the outskirts of Ansburg, a Dalish settlement had been destroyed. 

They had been camping beside the coast, where a river drained off from the ocean. 

They’d thought that the lack of freshwater would make the paths less favorable towards merchants or humans in general.  Their aravels had been pitched and their halla let loose to graze. 

They lasted three days. 

On the fourth day, when two cloaked riders closed in on where the Dalish were meant to be, the stench of death still remained, carrion birds harvested bodies, and a started fire had laid waste to everything.  

Blood ran the river red by the time the two riders reached the desolate camp.

Their movements became slow and they approached with caution; anticipating an ambush, but all they were met with was the silence that the massacre left behind. 

“Maker,” one of the riders mumbled, bringing his arm up to cover his nose.  “Who could have done this? Do you think it could’ve been Fen’harel?” 

“No,” the other rider says, his voice somber and distant. “No, these elves were not his enemies and they did not deserve his wrath.”  As he spoke, he would have abandoned his mount, an older Dracolisk, beside the river. Carrying on by foot, he would assess the carnage.  Bodies lay to waste around him, many of which were missing their pointed ears. It was sickening, deplorable, and a byproduct of fear.  “Even so, this act is unforgivable.” His voice would crack, overwhelmed by anger  and grief. “There are so few of our people left, and the only thing they have done is chosen not to take a side in this foolish war.” 

“The war that we are fighting.” 

“Yes, because even though it is foolish, it can not be ignored.  Not when innocent people are being slaughtered like this.” The second rider would crouch down, to close the eyes of an elf who was staring up at the sky. “Falon’Din enasal enaste.” 

“What are we going to do now, carry on to Tevinter?” 

“We are going to bury them, and find those responsible.” 

The first rider lets out an exasperated sigh. “Lavellan, we don’t have the time-” 

“- Then we make time.” 

The first rider says nothing more, hanging his head in silent compliance. 

They spend their evening in this way, gathering bodies and offering them final prayers. They didn’t have the means to do a proper ceremony, but they would do their best with heavy hearts.  

Nightfall had soon come and gone, and as a new dawn broke across the sky, the two men sat across from each other, swallowing down their rations despite lacking a proper appetite.  

“So you didn’t find your dalish contact amongst the dead?” The first rider would ask, his bright green eyes were growing red, as he fought the  need to sleep.  Only in his mid-twenties, and a recently freed slave of the Tevinter Imperium, he was not used to the constant traveling and combat he had to endure while shadowing the former Inquisitor.  He rubs at his face, hands running across his mutilated vallaslin.  The branches that spread over his cheeks had been cut into and burned by his former master, when he was only eighteen and freshly kidnapped from his own clan. “Perhaps he went after those responsible?” 

“No,” Lavellan would shake his head. “Ryland would have waited for us, had he still been alive and of his own free will.” The older elf  would be fiddling with a string around his neck. He clutched at the sending crystal as if it was his life line with one hand, while the other, a prosthetic, would be clutching a potion. “This group was made up of smaller dalish clans, ones that were left abandoned by their clanmates when they joined Solas. Ryland was traveling with them, to bring them to another encampment on the other side of Nevarra.” 

“That was very noble of him.” 

“Yes, and I’m the one who asked him to do it.” 

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened, and drink your potion.” 

Lavellan would stop fiddling with his necklace, taking to unscrewing the cork of the bottle in his hand. “If we had gotten here a day sooner Ma’hallian, we may have prevented this from happening entirely.”  He would down the bottle in one go, guzzling it’s dark purple liquid, looking as if he’d just bit into a lemon afterwards. “This thing could be a poison.” 

“A poison that keeps you from keeling over in pain.” Ma’hallian would remind him gently, before reaching out to take the empty bottle from the other man’s hands. “And we didn’t get here a day sooner, so we have to keep moving forward.” 

“We will, as soon as the person responsible is brought to justice.” 

The white-haired elf would lean forward, fixing the former Inquisitor with a narrowed gaze. 

The older elf was on the cusp of fifty, with silver streaks in his long chestnut hair and wrinkles overtaking his darkened skin.  These days, his hands shook whenever he lifted his sword, and his amber eyes always smoldered with conviction. “Is it justice you are after, or is it vengeance?”

“The two are not so different, when faced with a situation like this.” 

“We both know that they are.” 

Lavellan hated being shown up by his assistant, someone who could be so callous and shy towards the rest of the world. The boy had spent the majority of his life either in solitude or servitude and yet, he still managed to come out of it with a remarkable sense of responsibility and level headedness. 

“I-” He does not get a proper sentence out, as a distant sound causes his ears to twitch. Ma’hallian hears it too and they rise to their feet.  

Ma’hallian draws a dagger from his belt and Lavellan pulls free his sword from its sheath.  They approach the source of the noise with silent steps, until they are looming over the site of a destroyed aravel. It’s red fabric and splintered wood had made a heavy pile, and something dared to move beneath it. 

“Careful,” Lavellan murmurs, “it may be an abomination that’s risen.” 

Leering forward with one foot, the elf  would kick the debris away, his sword poised to strike down, but he would stop just short of skewering another elf. 

An elf also nearing his fifties, with deep red hair that was coated in soot and streaked with soft greys. His face, while well defined, was covered in laugh lines and scars alike. They danced along his vallaslin for Ghilan’nain, etched in blue to match his eyes.   This new elf stares up at them, as a cough rattles throughout his chest and past his lips.  “Well, hello your highness. I survived then? Unless you managed to finally kick the bucket too.” 

“No, Ry, you’re just that lucky.” Lavellan would put his sword away before holding out a hand, hauling his former partner from the aravel. Eyeing him wearily, in search of any wounds that could prove fatal. 

“Ah well, what can I say? The universe loves me.” Ryland dusts himself off, wincing as he does so, but seemingly unharmed save for a few aches, bruises, and perhaps a concussion after being crushed beneath one of their landships. “How bad is it?” 

“You’re the only survivor.”

 The red-head takes in a sharp breath. “That can’t be right. Where are the bodies?” 

They take him to the people who they had wrapped or covered, ready to be buried, as time permitted them.  He looks them over, with blue eyes watering, before he shakes his head.  “There were younger elves here, children, and a mage. None of them are with the dead.” 

“Perhaps they perished in the fire that ravaged the camp?” Ma’hallain offers, supervising Ryland as Lavellan wanders off to their mounts. “Or animals picked off their remains?” 

“You are  a grim young man, Ma’hallain, but no. The only scavengers in this area are the birds, and they wouldn’t be able to devour  a body within a day, let alone a dozen or so. The person responsible for the siege must have taken them.” 

“And who was responsible?” Lavellan had rejoined them, bringing a fresh pair of clothes to Ryland from his carry on.

“There’s a human settlement nearby, Ansburg? They’ve recently come into new leadership and the man appears to be terrified of us knife-ears.” Ryland would strip there, pulling his otherwise tattered shirt over his head and tossing it to the ground.  Lavellan would hand him the clean one and Ma’hallian would have the decency to look away as he took off his pants as well. “When the local militia arrived, I told them that we had no ties with Fen’Harel or the Qun. They said that they were under orders and at the end of the day, all elves were the same.” 

“Yet they would never claim that all humans are murderers, would they?” 

“Fear is bred by ignorance, highness. They’ll get what’s coming for them.” 

Lavellan would grumble, “Did you at least scout Ansburg when you first made camp?” 

“Course I did, seemed like a normal shemlen village. Smelt of rotten fish and wet dog. There weren’t any elves, but I didn’t find that odd. There aren’t many flat ears left in the smaller settlements.”  

“Did you find where this new leader lived?” 

“It was the first thing on my list, but something seemed off about it. The whole village was sort of dreary, but his estate was shimmery, almost. Like the stones were reflecting the light.” 

Ma’hallian snaps back to attention, his ears drooping just so. “That sounds like warding, and a very obvious one.  I bet he is using it to scare others away, people do that in the Magisterium. Either to scare the already fearful, or to make a spectacle out of something valuable.” 

“So we’ll need a mage?” Lavellans asks. 

“Unless warriors suddenly know how to dispel things? Rogues most certainly do not.” 

“Oh,” Ryland would croon, “Do you know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like a call to Dorian. Tell him I said hello, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to know that I survived.” 

Rolling his eyes, Lavellan would turn away from the other men. Knowing that Ma’hallian was glib due to his many years living in darkness and Ryland was only using humor to cope with the carnage around them. 

[let-it-raines]

your wonder under summer skies (14/18)

Summer in Storybrooke, Maine means one thing for its residents: tourist season. This year, for Emma Swan and Killian Jones, it means relationships ending and friendships changing all the while they attempt to figure out just what their relationship is. It’s somewhere straddling the line between friends and lovers, and there’s no guarantee of a soft landing if they fall into new territory.

Rating: Mature

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 

-/-

This place is decidedly more cabin in the woods than Killian was expecting. Well, if the cabin in the woods was a bloody large cabin made for groups of people in Maine looking for a weekend away from their regular lives. When he looked at the link Anna sent him when they were planning this trip, he didn’t look past the specifics of price and how many bedrooms there were.

So when he pulled up and saw the two-story cabin with its wraparound porch and large, floor-to-ceiling windows nestled near a lake, he was a little taken aback. Mostly, though, he doesn’t understand how the owners of this place decided to make every wall wood paneling and for each damn piece of furniture to be made out of a log or pine or something that looks like it’ll put a splinter in his ass when he sits down.

Hell, he’s pretty sure that he’s going to turn the corner and there’s going to be animal heads hanging from the walls.

At least there’s sunshine and clear water and all of the food and alcohol that a man could ask for.

Or, well, that could be asked for by a joint bachelor and bachelorette party that Elsa and Liam wanted, the both of them insisting that they needed a weekend away and that it should be nothing like the beach…so naturally they’re spending it on a lake.

Anna seemed to think it was all a brilliant idea, and since she is so keen on planning things, he figured he’d let her do it instead of getting into arguments over it. Or, well, he might have been distracted when she called to talk about the trip because Emma was on her knees in front of him, and he wasn’t paying attention to anything other than the feel of her.

“Why do I feel like every time I turn a corner, a deer’s antlers or something are going to poke me in the eye?”

Killian chuckles and turns to Emma next to him. She’s got a large duffle bag hanging over her shoulder, and he doesn’t know what she packed, but it must be all of the contents of her closet.

“Because you probably will.”

“Okay,” Anna shouts as everyone keeps walking through the front door, chatting and dragging in suitcases and looking around, “I have had all of the bedrooms labeled. Elsa and Liam get the master, obviously. Mary Margaret and David have bedroom one on the first floor, and Kris and I will take bedroom two, which shares that bathroom. Will and Belle, bedroom three, which is at the end of the hall just down that way. Ariel and Eric, you have bedroom four, which is right at the top of the stairs and will share a bathroom with Ruby and Mulan’s room, which is bedroom five. The final room is, like, basically the attic. Emma and Killian, you guys get that one. It may or may not be the kids’ room, so don’t be surprised if there are bunk beds up there.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Killian mutters. “Bunk beds? We’re twenty-eight. We don’t get our own regular beds?”

“Do any of the couples here want to give up their private rooms with big beds to go sleep in the attic in bunk beds so that Killian can have a queen mattress?” “For fuck’s sake,” Killian laughs, rolling his eyes at Anna, “the beds are fine. I simply wasn’t aware Emma and I were going to be punished for not having significant others.”

“Yeah,” Emma joins in, “we should get compensated in, like, first choice of food tonight.” “I think Elsa and I get that,” Liam says. “You two will be fine. I’m sure the beds will be comfortable, but Emma, lass, as someone who lives with Killian, you might want earplugs. He snores.”

“Liar.”

Liam shrugs, bright smile on his face. “Have some mercy on the poor girl, Killian. Try not to be too loud.”

Killian opens his mouth to keep protesting, but then he snaps it shut. There’s no point. He doesn’t snore, and Emma knows that. Why should he care if everyone else thinks he snores? He’s sure that half of the people in this room do anyways.

This is Liam’s weekend.

If he reminds himself that enough, maybe he won’t try to pick at everything Liam says and does, and they can all have a good time like they’re supposed to.

Even if he does have to sleep in a damn bunk bed.

Emma elbows his side. “I have ear plugs, but that was mostly because I was scared I’d have to sleep next to David and Mary Margaret.”

“Please don’t put that image in my head.”

“We’re in a cabin full of couples, KJ. How is the image not in your head?”

Killian groans and tilts his head back, and Emma laughs, nudging him again before adjusting her bag on her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go put our stuff up. My legs are stiff from the drive, and I’m ready to go hiking.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Anna squeals, “I have sunscreen and bug spray for everyone who forgot it. I’ll leave it in the kitchen. Let’s all meet up in half an hour, okay?”

“Anna is…very organized,” Emma sighs as everyone begins walking in different directions looking for their bedrooms. “I feel like she’s a very intense version of Mary Margaret.” “That’s exactly who she is,” Elsa laughs, walking next to Emma up the stairs, which leads them to a hallway with more wood paneling and more large, paneled windows. There are no animal heads yet, though, so Killian would count that as a win. “I think she wants everything to be so perfect for me that she’s taking it overboard. Plus, she’s used to working with all of these extravagant people, so this is kind of out of her wheelhouse. You’re just lucky my cousins couldn’t come this weekend, because that would make it even worse.”

“She’s doing a great job. With this and the wedding. I mean, the wood paneling here is a little much, but this is beautiful.” “Hey, I could have helped plan this,” Killian protests.

Liam, Elsa, and Emma all laugh at him.

“What?”

“If I was a betting man, I’d say the only thing you planned was the food and the alcohol.”

“And to that,” Killian laughs, “I’d say you were right. If I had gotten my say, I would have found a place with one more bedroom so that Emma and I weren’t sleeping in bunk beds while everyone else got normal rooms.”

“I mean, technically,” Elsa says, “I think there’s another bed in David and Mary Margaret’s room, but I think you two might be safer upstairs.”

They get to the end of the hallway where the master bedroom is, and Elsa and Liam tell them that they’ll see them in a few minutes before walking inside while he and Emma turn to find the spiral staircase that leads up to the attic. It’s beautiful, but it’s not exactly convenient when carrying luggage, but he and Emma manage to get their stuff upstairs without any kind of disaster.

“Those stairs would be horrible if you’re drunk. I feel dizzy just getting up here.”

“Aye,” he sighs, dropping his bag and looking around the room.

It’s small, just a set of chairs, a dresser with a television, and then, indeed, a set of bunk beds covered in red plaid bedding. In the center of the room is a round window, and when Killian looks out it, he has a direct view of the lake and all of the surrounding hills and trees.

He imagines none of the other rooms have a view like that.

“Wow,” Emma whistles, “a view like that will almost make you think the lake is better than the beach.”

“Never,” he laughs, looking at her to his side. “I like my salt water and my sand too much to ever give it up, but it is stunning.”

“I can’t wait to get to explore it. It’s so damn nice not to be working this weekend. I haven’t had an actual, multiple-day break in months, and I’m taking full advantage of it.”

Killian nods as he keeps looking out the window. He sees two people walk out onto the deck, and he believes it’s Ruby and Mulan. It’s hard to tell from here, but then one of them walks a little further out and he recognizes Ruby’s red shirt. They must be ready to go already. He needs to change into a different pair of shoes.

Turning around, Killian moves to grab his bag only to see the last seconds of Emma pulling down a sports bra. She’s in nothing but a pair of black shorts and a white sports bra, and dammit if she doesn’t drive him mad like this.

He’s grown to know the curves of her body more intimately than he ever thought he would, and that’s how he knows that she’s been running more this summer and that places where she was once soft are the slightest bit more firm and how he knows the way her skin has changed from a creamy white to a shade or two darker, all of her freckles showing up more and more.

It’s how he knows that if that’s all she’s wearing today, he’s going to struggle holding it together in front of all of their friends.

He doesn’t know what to do when it comes to Emma any longer.

He wants her all the damn time, but his traitorous mind keeps telling him that he wants her in a way that he hasn’t had her: where there are no rules or implications or anything even closely relating to the friends with benefits situation they’ve got going on.

Where Killian can get it out of his mind that Emma kisses him in greeting now, how she intertwines their fingers, how she finds a way to touch him even when they’re not alone. It’s subconscious, he thinks. She’s not doing it on purpose, not seeking him out like she would a boyfriend, but it’s still happening.

(It matters not he is also guilty of doing the same things.)

It’s messing with his mind, with his heart, with everything.

And all he knows is that he feels like he’s betraying her because what Killian feels for Emma is far more than friendship, and he has no idea how to deal with that without mucking it up.

Especially because he can’t seem to stop being with her.

Their first rule was to keep the friendship at the center of everything, to make sure that neither of them messed it up, and the more time that passes, the more time that he thinks he’s barreling them toward disaster.

But he can’t stop.

“You gonna just keep staring at me like that?” Emma teases as she ties a jacket around her hips.

“I don’t believe I was staring.”

She chuckles and saunters toward him until she’s standing toe to toe with him. Killian glances away from her face, but that only leads his gaze toward the top of her breasts and the freckle that seems to be calling him.

Not now, not now, not now.

“Oh, you definitely were.” Emma presses up on her toes and runs her lips across his jaw. God, this is another one of the things about her that drives him mad, and he has to focus all of his attention on his breathing to keep himself from becoming too aroused. “Later,” she whispers. “I really do want to go on this hike, and I’m not going to let you distract me, Jones.” “I thought you were the one distracting me.”

“Eh, it goes both ways.”

And then she’s pulling away with this bright, kind smile on her face, and he has no idea how she can go from seductive to friendly all within the span of five minutes.

“See you downstairs. I need to get Ruby to braid my hair, so I’m going to go ahead and go.”

“She’s out on the deck with Mulan.”

Emma nods, grabs her phone, and then walks out the door.

This weekend is going to be bloody torturous.

-/-

If Killian had to guess, he would say that David and Liam have gotten them lost somewhere in the middle of the woods despite the fact that they’re all following a trail.

Or, well, supposed to be following a trail.

At one point, Anna and Elsa got distracted by this flower bush, and once they veered off the path to look at it, wondering if they could get Elsa’s florist to change her bouquet arrangement, they all started veering on and off the path, especially since there are twelve of them out here on a trail that really only allows two people to walk side by side.

If someone had brought alcohol on the hike, he imagines at least half the group would be lying dead in a ditch by now.

Honestly, Will usually has a flask on him, but as far as Killian knows, he hasn’t pulled it out yet.

Damn.

Killian ignores David and Liam arguing and keeps looking ahead. Emma and Mary Margaret are directly in front of him, now leading the group, and he tries to focus on the ground instead of the way Emma’s ass is nearly on display from the way her shorts are riding up. She hasn’t paid him much attention since they started the hike, and he’s never been so thankful to be left alone, if only for a little while.

He hasn’t been able to run all week, and this is exactly what he needed, even if the quietness of nature is cancelled out by everyone talking.

“I’m not kidding,” Ruby chuckles. “It’s awful. I mean, I get it, these are teenagers who are getting away from their parents for a little while, but do they have to make out in booths that I have to clean? There are so many places they could go, places where I don’t have to look at them while I’m trying to do my job.”

“We’ve made out in those booths.”

“That’s different, and you know it.” “Why? Because you’re the one who is getting a little action?”

“Exactly.”

“Granny’s is a fucking popular make out spot,” Will adds in. “There’s the hallway that connects to the B and B, which has seen more action than Killian has all summer.”

“Oi,” Killian scoffs, turning around to stare Will down, “mind your own bloody business.”

“Sorry, mate. I couldn’t resist.”

“You know who I keep seeing there?” Will continues. “Neal Cassidy. I know he’s dating Tamara, but damn, you’d think they could go to one of their places every once in awhile.”

Killian cringes, nearly faltering in his step, and he finally looks up to Emma, who is simply continuing to walk.

Good. That’s good.

She told him that she was over Neal, that she’s letting it go, but you don’t love someone for that long and have them break your heart and not be affected when someone is talking about them.

“Will, shut up,” Belle hisses.

“Why do I need to – oh fuck,” he mutters. “I’m sorry, Emma. Please ignore me and that bloody wanker.”

“It’s fine,” Emma shouts back, not turning around. “Neal has nothing to do with me anymore. He can do what he wants as long as I don’t have to look at him while I’m eating my onion rings.”

“I’d never make you do that,” Ruby tells her. “I’ll kick him out.”

“Can you even do that?”

“Eh, I can try.”

“Look,” David interrupts, and they all stop to stare where he’s pointing. “There’s that damn split tree. That’s where we were supposed to be going.”

“How do you even know that?” Liam grumbles.

“Because I noticed it on the way up. We’ve been here before, so it we turn that way, it should take us back to the house.”

“Can’t we use our phones to check where we are?” Killian asks only to have both Liam and David glare at him. “Okay, okay,” he backtracks, holding his hands up, “I guess we’re not using technology to make our lives easier.”

By the time they’re back at the house, Killian’s skin has been kissed by the sun, his feet ache, and his stomach is growling with hunger. He could really go for a nap, but Kris offers to cook burgers for everyone down by the lake, so everyone grabs their swimsuits and some drinks and heads down to where the grill is.

Killian settles into one of the lounge chairs that’s set up down there, a bottle of water in hand, and leans back, wondering if napping outside would be possible, but then Liam starts blaring music over some speakers and he knows the nap is never going to happen.

“Hey,” Emma says as she plops down in the chair next to him, “why do you look like you’re about to fall asleep?”

“Because I desperately want to.”

“How are you tired?”

“Because, unlike someone, I drove us up here and could not nap in the car.”

Emma shrugs and curls her legs up in the chair before taking a long sip of her water.  “You make a good point, KJ. Do you think I’d get my hand slapped away if I went and got the bag of barbecue chips off the table before all the other food was ready?”

“Depends on if the picnic table guardian is looking over it or not.” Emma laughs and leans forward, looking over at the table. “David seems to be occupied staring at the grill being all macho man with Kris. I’ll be right back.”

And then she’s jogging over to the table, slowing down right before she gets there, and then grabbing the big bag of barbecue crisps before springing back over to him and sitting back down in her seat, dropping the crisps between them. David looks over at them, and Killian swears that he sees his eyes narrow, like he knows Emma took the crisps off the table.

“Sneaky, love.”

“I try. I don’t know why he does that at any event. It’s like he gets some weird high off of making sure no one gets too food, but the worst part is definitely the fact that he watches to see if people throw any uneaten food away.”

“It is rather odd, isn’t it?”

“It’s the worst is what it is.”

She leans over between them and opens the bag, grabbing a crisp and taking what he swears is the loudest bite in existence. David is likely about to look over at them and give them hell for it. The man is going to make a great father one day.

If only because he can monitor food better than anyone else in existence.

Killian leans back in his chair and settles down into it, closing his eyes. He stretches out his arm, his hand laying against the arm of the chair, and after a few moments of relative silence, he feels Emma’s fingers tracing over his forearm in soothing patterns that have a shiver running down his spin and settling in his stomach.

It feels so natural for her to do this, for him to let her do this, and he should stop it.

But he can’t, not now.

Soon. He’ll figure it out.

Soon.

“I’ve always liked this tattoo the best.”

“Hmm?”

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” She traces the words inked into his skin as she says them out loud. “I don’t know. I just feel like it’s so fitting to have them mixed in with your scars.��

Killian fights with himself to keep his eyes closed, to keep himself from looking into Emma’s eyes. Not a lot of people get such unfiltered access to his scars, and yet here she is in the open tracing them and talking about them and yet again making him feel like maybe they’re not too bad.

“I mean,” she continues, “I like all of your tattoos. They always make me want to get more than my buttercup, but I really like this one.”

“Aye,” he sighs, deciding that just for today, he can let everything be. This is a good moment, and he’s not going to let his mind ruin it. Instead he’ll let Emma run her fingers over his hand and let her hold onto him for a few moments. “I am fond of that one as well. I am also fond of yours, though it is rather small.”

“What? Do you want me to get a giant one?”

“You should get one that covers your entire back.” “Shut up,” Emma laughs, digging her nails into him. “I am obviously not doing that. I don’t know what I’ll do, or if I ever will. I think I’ll just stick to liking yours.”

“I like that plan. Do you think if I eat a crisp that David will hear it?”

“He hasn’t noticed me yet.” “Ah, but you have better luck than me.” “Guess you’ll have to try your luck to see.”

Killian slowly opens one eye, then the next, before moving his arm away to reach into the bag. He takes one bite, eyeing David who still has his back turned, before eating a few more. He thinks that maybe he’ll get away with it until David turns around.

“Jones, put the damn chips back on the table before I burn your food.”

“Sorry,” Emma says to him, shrugging, but he can tell that she’s not sorry at all.

“I think I’ll survive, love.”

When the food is finished cooking, everyone settles around tables and in chairs, eating and drinking and laughing. And it’s nice, a nicer time than Killian has had in awhile if he’s honest with himself. But then the night falls, crickets finding their places in the surrounding trees and a breeze wafting through the campground, causing a chill to travel down his spine as his skin pebbles with goosebumps.

There is a fire going, though, and plenty of alcohol being passed around to warm him, but really, the alcohol might not be the best idea right now, especially since Mary Margaret and Ruby tend to like to play games when they’re halfway to drunk.

Mary Margaret said something about how they needed to play a shower game. It was tradition, but Elsa and Liam hadn’t wanted that. Then Ruby stood up from the bench she was sitting on and declared that they would play Truth or Dare like the grown adults they are. They love their games, though, and, well, Ruby does know how to turn the game into something that is rather more adult than what he played when he was a lad. This is nothing new. They tend to do this at every party they have, but he never knows if it’s going to be tame or not.

So far Elsa has had to share some intimate details about the first time she slept with Liam, which Killian truly did not need to hear about, Liam has chugged down half a bottle of ketchup, Will has jumped into the lake, Mary Margaret has had to answer what the one thing she’d change about David would be, which resulted in a hushed argument, and Ruby has run to the neighboring house and asked them for condoms.

She came back with an entire box.

So, now it’s Ruby scanning the semi-circle they’re sitting in looking for her next victim, because, really, of all the people here, the last person he’d want to have pick out whatever form of torture this is would be Ruby Lucas.

His one glass of rum has not numbed him enough for this.

“Emma,” Ruby finally says, and Killian swears he hears half the group let out sighs of relief.

“I hate you,” Emma mutters, flipping Ruby off.

“Oh, no you don’t. You love me, and I’m going to be really nice to you by telling you that if you pick ‘truth,’ I’m going to ask you about the guy who gave you that hickey last week.”

Killian’s cheeks immediately heat, and he swallows, pushing the thought down. He hadn’t meant to do that. It had been an accident because they are not teenagers and don’t usually leave marks, and he didn’t even know it happened until Emma had sent him a picture the next day.

Shit.

At least Emma’s a damn good liar since it’s not like anyone is actually forcing them to do this.

It’s the spirit of it all.

“Dare, you asshole.”

There are a few whistles from around the group, and Killian already knows there are going to be a few follow-up questions to Ruby’s words later.

“I dare you to…kiss Jones. Killian, not Liam. And none of that on the cheek shit. You two have so much chemistry, and I need to see it. I feel like everyone here needs to see it.”

“Oh my God,” he hears Emma murmur next to him at the same time that he has that exact thought. The whistles increase, some hollering too, and he swears that everyone here but he, Emma, and David are drunk off their asses. “Ruby, no. Pick something else. Like, something normal that non-tipsy you would pick.” “You chose ‘dare.’”

“Because you were going to ask me something I didn’t want to talk about. I don’t want to kiss Killian.” She turns back to him and winces. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he mumbles, knowing she’s trying to save face.

“Why not? He’s super hot. I mean, I know you think he’s hot. You’ve said it before, and you guys kind of have that ‘will they, won’t they’ thing going on, which I have been saying all summer. We actually have all talked about getting a betting pool as to when you’ll finally get together, especially since you and the dumbass are no longer a thing. So, come on, it won’t be that bad. You’ve got to uphold the integrity of truth or dare.”

Emma’s lips part, and Killian knows she has a retort on her tongue. She always does.

But then she’s turning and leaning over her chair until she’s grabbing the collar of his t-shirt and pulling his mouth to hers.

Fuck.

Her lips press into his, soft and warm as they always are, but it takes him a minute to fully close his eyes and appreciate how she feels against him. Eyes are on them, whistles ringing out around the group, and Killian swears he sees flashes of camera lights as Emma sucks on his bottom lip and his hands thread into her hair, pulling her closer.

And for one, miniscule second, he forgets about the people around him and the warring thoughts he’s been fighting for weeks now, and he lets himself revel in how damn good it feels to kiss Emma Swan.

But then it’s over.

They part, gasping for breath, and Killian’s grip tightens on the back of Emma’s head as her forehead rests warmly against his.

Strangely, all he can focus on is the fact that she smells like sunscreen.

“Well, hot damn,” Ruby sighs, and Killian finally drops his hand from Emma’s hair, “I feel like I need a glass of water now. Anyone else?”

There’s a murmur of voices, but Killian ignores them, focusing on the way Emma is blinking at him with a smirk painted on her lips. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” “No, that wasn’t bad at all.”

“Emma, it’s your turn,” Ruby reminds her. “Feel free to do your worst to me.”

“Trust me, I plan to.”

In the blink of an eye, things go back to normal. The attention is back on the game, not on him, not on Emma, and no one says anything else about the kiss.

Apparently everyone cares about it a lot less than he thought they would.

But it was all part of a game. It wasn’t real.

None of it has been.

And he has no idea how much longer he’s going to be okay with that. He also has no idea how he could make any of it real, even if Emma wanted that, because he’s got no fucking clue how to do this.

His brain doesn’t seem to be conjuring up any ideas either.

Shit.

Eventually, the game dies down, everyone quieting and forming their own circles and conversations, and while Killian tries to stay for a little while, when the opportunity to sneak out and go to bed presents itself, he takes it.

-/-

-/-

tag list: @qualitycoffeethings​ @mrtinski​ @klynn-stormz​ @scarletslippers​ @jonirobinson64​ @snowbellewells​ @therealstartraveller776​ @thejollyroger-writer​ @sherifemma​ @galadriel26​ @galaxyzxstark​ @idristardis​ @karenfrommisthaven​ @teamhook​ @spartanguard​ @searchingwardrobes​ @jamif​ @shireness-says​ @ultimiflos​ @nikkiemms​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @onepunintendid​ @bluewildcatfanatic​ @superchocovian​ @killianswannn​ @carpedzem​ @captainkillianswanjones​ @mayquita​ @mariakov81​ @jennjenn615​ @onceuponaprincessworld​ @a-faekindagirl​ @scientificapricot​ @xellewoods​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @stahlop​ @kmomof4​ @tiganasummertree​ @singersdd​ @tornadoamy​ @cluttermind​ @lfh1226-linda​ @andiirivera​ @elizabeethan​ @captain-emmajones​ @csalltheway​ @itsfabianadocarmo​

[goodomensblog]

Afterward - Part 17

A Good Omens Choose Your Own Adventure Fic

Here’s how it works:

I’ll write a scene.

At the end of each scene, you’ll be presented with 2-3 options for what the characters will choose to do next.

Comment or reblog to vote for your choice. I’ll count all votes after the first 24 hours after each update is posted.

Read: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16

(#2 definitely won - but #4 was a pretty close second, so we’re doing the classic punch and run!)

Afterward - - - Part 17

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

Entropy, rising up, tilts its head and smiles a wide, infinitely deep grin. Pale, ephemeral tendrils squirm where the creature’s head and neck are rapidly reconnecting.

Gabriel has picked up the sword and is twisting it up.

Beelzebub, however, beats him to the punch. Literally.

“Mine,” is all Beelzebub manages, a low, rasping shout. Pushing roughly in front of the archangel, Beelzebub winds a bloodied fist back and strikes.

Their knuckles smack between its eyes - and with a wet sounding squelch, the head which hadn’t yet fully re-attached, flies off Entropy’s shoulders.

This time, however, Entropy seems to retain consciousness, and the head screeches in outrage as it careens across the room.

“Shoo, bitch,” Beelzebub spits.

“My angels,” the head shrieks, rolling across the floor. “Your master commands you! Attack!”

From the top of the courtyard, where tiled roofs curve above stone carved archways, movement draws Beelzebub’s gaze up.

Angels line the tile rooftop, their formidable white wings spread wide. In the place where the angels’ eyes should be, dark, sunken pools hauntingly stare.

From behind Beelzebub, Gabriel makes a low noise of distress.

Beelzebub scans the faces. There are none they readily recognize - Michael and Uriel, at least, are absent. But surely most of the dark eyed angels are - or were - under Gabriel’s command.

“No…” the archangel breathes.

Forcibly ignoring the pain they feel radiating off Gabriel in cold, nauseating waves, Beelzebub shakes their head and, squeezing their hands into fists, cracks their knuckles one by one.

“What are they?” Aziraphale asks, horror lacing his words.

The first angel steps from the rooftop. Where it lands, stone splinters around its feet. From its eyes, black ichor drips, trailing like tears down its pure, celestial skin. It takes a second step, and the floor cracks anew.

“That,” Crowley says, speaking up from the back, “looks like an angel on steroids. Bloody evil steroids.”

Another angel drops. Then another. Gray dust from pulverized stone rises in an ominous cloud.

“I - I have to-” Gabriel is muttering, and Beelzebub can feel him moving behind them, probably making up his mind to do something stupid.

“Yeah,” Beelzebub says, surveying the hoard of freaky angels. “Fuck this noise.”

Turning right the hell around, Beelzebub grabs Gabriel roughly by the arm. 

When he doesn’t move - like the absolute asshole he is - Beelzebub grits their teeth and yanks, violently hauling the lead-limbed archangel with them. When they look up and see that Aziraphale and Crowley are still standing there, waiting, they yell, “Oi! Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum! Fucking move!”

Crowley and Aziraphale retreat through the doorway, but go no further.

Beelzebub is panting, blood from a cut they didn’t even realize they had dripping into their eyes, and the room is tilting as a frankly annoying whine picks up in their ears - but this is no time to pass out, so Beelzebub doesn’t. 

At least Gabriel is finally moving; Beelzebub, all too happy to release him, shoves the archangel through the door. 

Upon crossing the threshold, Beelzebub is hastily elbowed out of the way by Crowley; Aziraphale, bracing a hand on the wall, traces glowing symbols on the floor.

“What’s-”

“That’s why we were waiting,” Crowley snaps.

Beelzebub reflects that if the room were spinning any less, they would have happily smacked that smug look off his face.

Instead, they crouch, bracing their hands on their knees.

Aziraphale straightens up with a satisfied nod. “That’ll do the trick.”

Then Crowley is swinging the door closed. Hand on the handle, he melts the lock. 

“If Aziraphale did what I think he did, we do not want to be here when they cross that threshold,” Crowley says.

“I did,” Aziraphale says with a grim smile.

Gabriel, who Beelzebub thinks is looking more like his usual insufferable self by the minute, claps his hands together. “Then let’s fucking go!”

“Right!” Crowley crows, pointing at Gabriel, “Your illicit sneaking out of Heaven door!”

Beelzebub and Aziraphale turn to look at Gabriel.

“Okay it’s really not as weird as he’s making it sound.”

 “It doesn’t matter-” Aziraphale says with a wave, but Beelzebub isn’t listening.

Blinking rapidly, they frown at the black dots blossoming across their vision. They immediately blink harder because they are not going to pass out; It is a fucking bad time for losing consciousness - and besides, they’d honestly rather die than look weak in front of these morons.

Crowley is turning, leading the way, and Beelzebub starts to step after him - when everything takes a sharp and sudden dip. 

And shit - Beelzebub thinks, consciousness slipping as a roaring white noise fills their ears. Blackness is spreading, sweeping across their vision.

They see outstretched, reaching hands - and then darkness swallows them whole.

Reality narrows to individual, isolated moments.

The press of fine, soft as silk fabric against their cheek.

A long hallway lit by a single flickering light.

Aziraphale, pale with purple bruises beneath his eyes, pulling a tapestry aside - pushing a doorway open.

Crowley’s hands cupped around that strange, blue flame.

Then white light - at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

Beelzebub stiffens, crying out in protest - because they know the saying about light and tunnels, and they straight up refuse to let that prick Death lay those frigid hands on them now.

This is followed by the soft, hesitant brush of fingers over their forehead and a whisper-soft murmur. “Don’t worry. It’s not that kind of tunnel.”

Again, darkness.

And then Crowley is exclaiming, shouting excitedly, and Beelzebub squints their eyes open to glaring sunlight - and a sleek black car, parked on what appears to be a random London street corner. 

When someone swings one of the rear doors open, Beelzebub has a sense of deja vu as they are laid down on black leather seats.

Voices drone, someone shifts beside them, and the car awakens with a reassuring purr; Beelzebub’s tired eyes close.

- - - 

Brushing his hands over the steering wheel, Crowley sits in the Bentley, taking a moment to enjoy the car’s energetic rumble. She doesn’t handle long periods of idleness very well. And though Crowley hasn’t been gone all that long, he imagines it must have been rather demoralizing to have been abandoned on a lonesome countryside road. He’ll have to make sure she’s still in working shape. 

“Just cause I gave you a little vacation,” Crowley says, tapping the dashboard admonishingly, “is no excuse for any slacking off, you understand?”

The car rumbles, and Crowley sighs, rolling his eyes. “See? I leave you for half a day and now I’m getting back talk.”

“Can we please just fucking go?” Gabriel snaps.

A glance in the rear-view mirror reveals the altogether unpleasant sight of Gabriel’s frowning face. 

The archangel is pressed up against the door, his large arms folded impractically in front of him. 

Beelzebub, in the few minutes after they’d been set down, had somehow completely rotated, and now they stretch out, arms flung out in either direction. Their booted feet are kicked up - one jabbing Gabriel’s side and the other shoved up against his face.

The archangel glowers.

From the passenger seat, Aziraphale clears his throat.

Crowley’s attention is immediately diverted.

Aziraphale is battered. Deep scratches scatter over the entirety of his person, and a bone deep exhaustion shows in his overall pallor and the bags like dark bruises gathering beneath his light eyes. 

Crowley has the impulse to stroke a thumb beneath that gentle gaze and burn a miracle to soothe some of the exhaustion marring his skin. 

He doesn’t.

Because he filled Aziraphale’s veins with demon blood, and Crowley isn’t entirely sure Aziraphale won’t come to resent him for it. 

The desperate transfusion had worked. Aziraphale is here. That is what matters. But the fact that the cost of this gamble - the cost of mixing that which was never meant to join - has yet to reveal itself, leaves Crowley deeply on edge. 

“Dear,” Aziraphale says, mercifully interrupting Crowley’s rapidly spiraling thoughts. “We fled the bookshop earlier because we believed we were dealing with a threat who knew us, personally. Entropy does not know us. And I presume that it does not know where I live.”

“...you want to go home, don’t you?”

“Yes I want to go home!” Aziraphale says in a rush, hands folded, his fingers twisting together. “It’s been a really long day.”

Crowley considers, drumming his fingers on the wheel. “I suppose we could ward the hell out of it.”

Aziraphale is eagerly nodding, “I already have a good few around the foundation as it is.”

“Is it defensible?” Gabriel asks.

“Better,” Aziraphale replies. “It’s hidden.”

“Though adding a few defenses wouldn’t hurt,” Crowley adds.

“As long as we get off the damned street,” Gabriel says with a weary sigh.

“That, we can do,” Crowley says, shifting the car into drive. 

“Wait!” Aziraphale says, grabbing Crowley’s arm. “First, we need food, Crowley.”

“....right this second?”

“As soon as possible. You do realize that we should avoid using powerful miracles at the moment, right?”

Crowley glances in the rear-view mirror, only somewhat mollified to see that Gabriel is also staring at Aziraphale with an expression of blatant confusion.

“Er - yes? I mean, we don’t want to go around putting beacons on our heads,” Crowley replies. “But what in the world does this have to do with food?”

Aziraphale is staring at him like he might be stupid - which he’s not. Right?

Crowley checks the rear-view mirror again.

Gabriel is squinting at Aziraphale. “Aziraphale. What are you talking about?”

Aziraphale looks between them, mouth agape.

From the backseat, Beelzebub groans. 

“Angel,” Beelzebub says, cracking an eye reluctantly open, “They’re both idiots. Don’t… strain their brains.”

Aziraphale glances back, relief evident. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“Of course I know what you’re talking about!” Beelzebub replies, and the other eye opens to a menacing slit. “Food strengthens your bloody corporation. You. Are. Living. In. It. So fucking feed it. The stronger your corporation is - the stronger you are.”

Aziraphale is nodding vigorously. “And we are all very injured. Beelzebub especially. A good meal will help kick start our angelic - and demonic - healing.”

“Ah,” is all Crowley manages.

“Honestly, dear. You really didn’t know that?”

Crowley, who will frankly never admit that he played hookie during the body orientation seminar to check out the strange angel he’d seen walking up on Eden’s wall, adjusts his glasses and shrugs. “I’m a demon. What’s the archangel’s excuse?”

“Corporeal bodies are not my department.”

Beelzebub blows a raspberry.

“Since you’re awake, your highness - mind moving your foot out of my face?”

Beelzebub’s only reply is a long, deep snore.

Crowley shuts both of them up by jerking the car into motion.

Food it is!” Crowley says, foot sinking satisfyingly down on the gas pedal. “And I know just where to take us.”

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

The angels and demons have managed to escape Heaven and flee from Entropy. Before holing up at Aziraphale’s bookshop and deciding their next move - Aziraphale insists they get something to eat. Crowley decides the best place to get a couple of angels and demons lunch is….

The grocery store! Crowded around a single cart, they will shuffle round the aisles of the local grocery mart, exploring the strange wonders of fluorescent illuminated human cuisine. 

The Ritz! Sitting elbow to elbow around a pristine white tablecloth, they will be sipping at champagne and making awkward small talk. Probably nothing will catch fire.

The drive thru! Packed in the Bentley, Crowley will drive them all to the greasiest of fast food establishments. With all three speaking at once, Crowley will attempt to order.

Please comment or reblog to vote! :)

Part 18

[deluxinn-works]

[Ever Since Then] Chapter 1-9

【Chapter One: The one who I wanted】

Adelyn successfully escaped from the ski trip.

She softly sat down in the subway and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was sad that she had to miss such a big event, but witnessing the one she wanted laughing with her rival would’ve been even more tragic.

Or so she felt.

Her only lament was knowing the disappointment everyone would have of her since she backed out at the last second.

But there was nothing left she could’ve done at that moment, so she gave up.

The sorrow was her lullaby, and it would’ve led her all the way home.

Martin, however, didn’t let that happen.

Adelyn momentarily opened her eyes and saw him standing there with eyes of melancholy, whilst her eyes filled with agitation.

“Of course the one who I wanted to see the least is the one who shows up. What are you doing here?” she questioned.

“I could ask you the same thing. You looked forward to this trip more than anyone else, so I don’t get it. Why are you on the train back home?” replied Martin.

She looked away with dull eyes.

He stared for a minute then realized an eternity could pass and she still wouldn’t have responded.

So, instead, he took a seat next to her.

“I can’t go back without you. It just won’t feel right.” he said.

“…Are you trying to guilt trip me or something?”

“No, not at all. I just can’t believe the class would have fun without you around. I also don’t believe it’d be right to leave you alone now that I know you clearly wish you didn’t leave.”

“And what makes you so sure?”

“Well… If you took pleasure in ditching us, you would’ve been doing something along the lines of happily snickering or dining at a restaurant, not… Scowling.”

“You haven’t stopped to think that maybe you’re the reason of that scowl?”

“I have, actually. Not for now, though. But for before.”

Adelyn’s eyebrow twitched, and Martin knew he was spot on.

“Aren’t you just the knight in shining armor? Just assuming that people who are alone hate the isolation.” she said in attempt to change the subject.

“There’s nothing wrong with some alone time, but there’s a difference between preferring to have no company and having something preventing you from company. Something like jealousy.”

“It looks like you don’t have to wonder why I hate you anymore because now you’ll know. It’s because you think you know me.”

“Really? I think you hate me because I know you too well.”

“Enlighten me, then. What could I possibly be jealous of?”

“That I was with Winter. The fact that she and I happened to be in the same group bothered you. Before the grouping period, you were just fine.”

Adelyn felt her stomache drop.

She figured that her secret was out.

She felt betrayed.

“Then, why did you ask me why I left if you knew?” she asked.

Martin shyly looked away.

“I just can’t give myself too much credit.” he said.

“To be fair, I thought I hid it well. Giving yourself a little credit wouldn’t hurt.”

“No, I mean… I just can’t believe anyone would actually like me.”

“Like you? What are you talking about, Martin? You know I like-”

Adelyn paused.

Then her face got red with embarassment.

He didn’t know her secret.

But she gave it away.

The two made wide eye contact for a few seconds then slowly turned away.

“Arriving at Dasdun. Dasdun Station.” the transit system said.

As the train doors opened, Martin grabbed Adelyn’s hand and began to run.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” yelled Adelyn.

“I was just thinking, you can’t think Winter’s going to wait for you forever. Besides, it’s already November!”  said Martin.

“I can’t tell if you’re talking about the person or the season!”

“Sure you can! Just read the sentence that’s right above your reply! It’s not that hard!”

“You’re an idiot!”

The two headed to the Northbound platform and barely made it onto the train back to the lodge.

“You should be there. I promise Winter will be happier with you around. She was the one that did her best to convince you to come, after all.”

She finally managed to crack a smile to him.

“I guess, in the end, I should be glad you’re a moron.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Even though we only spoke a few times before today, you seriously thought I liked you. And… Without that, I would’ve kept believing you were some stuck up jerk. You could’ve left me, but you gave me a chance to spend time with her again. But…. You should’ve seen the look your face after you found out!”

“What?! You mean your face that was as red as Hide in the last episode of New York Ghoul!”

“I-I’ll show you red!” she yelled as she pulled on his cheeks.

Ever since then, she knew he was her best friend.

【Chapter Two: Falling for you】

“Huh, Adelyn? Where’s Martin?” asked Estelle, not aware of Adelyn’s hour long absence.

“He was insistent in joining the group I was in. Must’ve really wanted to ski with Jaime or something.” she replied.

Of course, this was planned by Martin and herself a few minutes before their arrival. It took him a while, but Martin had finally convinced Adelyn a second time to be brave when it came to Winter.

“Oh I see… So he wants to ditch us for the beginner’s group, huh?” smiled Winter.

“Beginner..?” asked Adelyn.

“Yeah. Don’t you remember? We were split into three groups: Intermediate, Casual, and Beginner. This group being intermediate.” said Estelle.

“Dammit! That lil sackbag used me!” Adelyn thought.

Martin sneezed. After he regained his composure, he graced his eyes upon the bunny hill.

“It still looks pretty damn scary for a beginner’s course.” shivered Jaime.

“Don’t worry man. The trick to not falling is to never stand up in the first place.” said Martin.

“You mean like squatting your ass down on the skis?”

“Yeah.”

“Uhh, that’s missing out on the experience. What’s the point of that?”

“To not wipe out like the dinosaurs.”

Winter and Adelyn stood atop of the intermediate mountain.

“I’m probably not ready for this, Winter. I mean, this is the first time I’ve ever worn skis.”

“I know, Adelyn. Don’t worry. It may look kind of intimidating, but it’s actually the same as the bunny hill. The only difference is that there’s trees and multiple paths downward”

“You mean multiple ways our bones can break while falling down.”

Winter gave a warm laugh.

“That can happen, yes. Even for me. But if it’s falling for you I doubt I’d mind since with every moment of pain there’s a moment of experience to learn from.”

Adelyn’s face beamed and, without her noticing, subconsciously took a step forward and began the downhill journey.

“Oh, shit! Winter! What’s the ‘I wanna freaking stop going downhill’ maneuver?!” yelled Adelyn.

“No! You don’t want to stop too abruptly! Try slowing down first!” Winter shouted back.

“Okay, what’s the slow down maneuver?!”

Winter took a deep breath.

“Hold on!”

She sped down the hill to catch up with Adelyn, and she did it with much grace and such speed.

When the two finally met, they grabbed each other’s hands and they started to slow down.

“Not bad for your first time, Adelyn.” said Winter.

“You too, er, I mean…”

The two shared a gaze for a moment.

After a few seconds, a squat skiing Martin crashed into Winter, causing her to flip twice in the air then roll down the hill.

“What’re you doing?!” screamed Adelyn.

“Losing control! I never thought skiing like this would be so difficult! I also never thought the bunny hill was connected to the intermediate one! Like that just makes no-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Martin crashed into a tree.

In the distance, Adelyn saw Jaime also making his way from the bunny hill to the mountain.

“Ahhhh, Adelyn!” he cried.

He tried to grab onto Adelyn to stop himself from falling, but she dodged, causing him to trip. As a result, though, she slipped on his back and began sliding down the hill while dragging him on her ski.

“Oh God! This hurts a lot more than you think it does, yo!” yelled Jaime.

“You shouldn’t have tried to grab me! What would’ve that done, huh? This would’ve happened anyway, with my head on the snow and all!” replied Adelyn.

The two of them kept tumbling until eventually they flew up a few feet into the air.  

It was then that Estelle showed up and opened up her arms.

“It’s alright! I’ll catch the both of you and then we’ll-”

And before she finished her sentence, they crashed into her and the three shot down straight to the bottom.

【Chapter Three: After you win】

“I’m really sorry. I thought I’d be able to catch the both of you… I have been working on my upper body strength after all.” said Estelle.

“I think you’d require a lot more than that to catch a falling boulder, but…” replied Adelyn.

“Look at all of you so beat up and stuff. As for me? I haven’t got a scratch on me. Oh, a splinter.” Martin said as he pulled out one of the fifty pieces of wood in his forehead.

“I think most of this happened because of you, but…” Adelyn once again replied.

“Yeah, I wish I were more like you, Martin. I’m still working on my balancing. I mean I can’t even do it when it comes to chemical equations either.” sighed Jaime.

“I think those two things are completely different, BUT…!”

“Hey, we can’t be too hard on ourselves. On the bright side, Martin taught me that back flips are a lot less painful that I thought they’d be. Rolling down a hill on the other hand… Well, anyway! With every moment of pain there’s a moment of experience to learn from!” Winter said.

“Then he’s gonna get a full lecture today!” angrily said Adelyn as she pulled Martin from the splinter in his head.

His eyes teared up from the pain of getting dragged from the piece of wood. After the two of them were alone, Adelyn harshly pushed him to the side then began to scold him.

“I thought you were good at skiing! What’s the big idea?!”

“I am good at skiing! But squat skiing’s a new thing for me, so can’t expect a guy to master something that difficult so quickly. Like shuffling, you’re either really bad at it or really good at it, there’s like no in between.”

“Remember when I said I was glad you’re a moron? I think I take that back.”

“Good, because now you’ll be glad to see my genius side.”

“….I’m not sure I follow.”

“That’s also good, because you’re not gonna follow, you’re gonna lead. You see Winter all cold and stuff over there? Now’s a great time to grab her some hot chocolate. I think she’d really appreciate it. Oh and everyone else unless you wanna be all suspicious, which you already are, by the way, since we’re talking right in front of the bathrooms.”

“You trying to get a free hot chocolate off of me?”

“Ye- no.”

“You’re like Aizen or something. I bet me transferring to this school was your idea too. Ugh, I could’ve still been having skiing lessons with her if it weren’t for you.”

“A lesson on death mountain? Iiiii think you already learned that one. Look, I’m sorry about losing control on my squat ski crusade. I didn’t mean to interrupt the both of you, but with one closed door, another one opens.”

“In haunted houses, maybe.”

“And ski lodges. Look around you. It’s warm and cozy, and hey there’s even a fireplace. Wait no, that’s just a flat screen with a heater beside it. Anyways, I think it’s better to have more of a intimate environment when it comes to doing confessions.”

“Confession?! I don’t want to do that yet! I… I just want to get closer to her, that’s all.”

“You could get closer to her after the fact.”

“Why? I mean, it’s not like I have to rush into things.”

“Adelyn, how long has passed since you met her and she still doesn’t know? You could tell yourself you’ll do it someday, but that’s a fancy way of saying you’ll do it never. If you take the time we have while we’re young for granted, you might regret it. I won’t have any time rewinding powers either, so you gotta decide for sure whether or not you want to go another day keeping her oblivious.”

“I guess. But what will I do when I get rejected?”

“You don’t have to be scared of not having hundreds of chapters to delay an inevitable confession. This isn’t Hina Love or koiNise! Readers love when all the filler’s cut out, trust me. You won’t get rejected.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’d date you. She can’t say she wouldn’t date you.”

“Yeah, you’d date me if I were into dicks.”

Martin couldn’t tell if she was talking about genitalia or the type of person. Or both.

After pondering for a moment, he continued the conversation.

“Anyway, you can practice on me. Come on, pretend I’m Winter.”

“Psh. You’re barely Autumn.”

“I-is that a compliment?”

“No it’s not a goddamn compliment!”

“I was mimicking Winter just then because I thought the ‘what if’ scenario already started. Was that seriously what you would’ve said to her?”

“I am so done.”

“Wait! You didn’t tell pretend Winter you like her yet!”

“I’m not gonna tell Winter I like her!”

As Adelyn’s sentence left her mouth, Winter walked into the hallway that led to the bathrooms.

Martin and Adelyn shared shocked expressions and huddled together.

“Quick, help me think of something to play it off!”

“Don’t play it off! Now’s your chance to be honest and just let it out in the open! You can talk to me again after you win! Not many stories continue after the main couple get together, so maybe you can make this one an exception!”

“W-wait, I can’t!”

Winter noticed the both of them and decided to let them know she was there.

“So this is where the both of you were hanging out. Come on, we ordered hot chocolate already. It’ll get cold if you don’t hurry back.” she said lovingly.

“Oh shit. The hot chocolate plan failed like me in math class.” thought Martin.

“Yeah, no kidding! What are we going to do now, order bagels?!” thought Adelyn.

“Wait, I’m thinking this in my head right now! How’d you reply to me, Adelyn?”

“I took your advice and read the text above my sentences!”

“If it’s bagels you want, we ordered those too.” said Winter out loud.

“So she could read our minds toooooooo?!!!” they thought in unison.

Adelyn took a deep breath and began to speak.

“A-about that sentence I said earlier that you heard…”

“Sentence I heard?”

“…I! I meant it! I’ve been in lo- li- lo- like with you since a few days after we met!”

Adelyn was completely flustered. She wanted to turn to Martin so that he’d give a thumbs up of encouragement, but he was gone.

【Chapter Four: The coolest person 】

“That asshole ditched me!” thought Adelyn.

Winter had a calm expression but her face was as red as Rudolph. Rudolph himself, not just his nose.

“Wow…. I don’t know what to say! I mean, I always thought you were the coolest person who ever spoke to me. So, hearing you say this makes me really happy!” said Winter.

“Coolest person? Me? Noo no! W-wouldn’t that be you?”

“Ohh, I got you! Is that a joke about my name?”

“No, but it is a joke about how you tumbled down the mountain.”

Adelyn stuck her tongue out then turned away. It was the first time she felt truly comfortable with casually speaking with Winter.

“Let’s go out!” Winter said with a smile.

“Wait, what’d you say?”

“I said we should go out with each other!”

“You’re not going to reject me and say you want to know me better first? B-but the first time we like spoke spoke was when you convinced me to go on this trip.”

“No… To be honest, the only reason I haven’t developed feelings for you yet is because I didn’t expect someone as cool as you to like me. But now that I do, I don’t want to let go of that, you know? And I’d be happy to get to know you more, so let’s go out with each other!”

Adelyn tried to keep eye contact with Winter but was too flustered.

“I’d be happy to.” she managed to reply.

The two began to walk back to the lodge cafe to rejoin the others.

“So, about us… Do you think we should tell everyone or should we just-”

Before Adelyn could finish, Winter saw their friends and said:

“Hey guys! Adelyn and I are dating!”

Adelyn made an almost inaudible squeal.

Winter looked over and saw that Adelyn was caught off guard with the announcement.

“Sorry! I was excited and I wanted to let them know. I could say I was just kidding if you-”

Before Winter could finish her sentence, Adelyn held Winter’s wrist and shook her head.

“It’s okay, Winter. I want to tell them too. I just didn’t expect you to do it like that.” she said while smiling.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it look like I’m showing us off. Alright, let’s go tell them together!” Winter replied happily.

The two sat down with their friends and let them know of their new status together.

Everyone was excited for them and they held a toast to celebrate. After a good thirty minutes, they returned to the ski lifts and spent time together till it was time to head home.

Jaime and Winter lived near each other, so they took the same bus home. Estelle got picked up earlier at the lodge by her mom. So, that left Martin and Adelyn.

“Why did you ditch me at the most crucial moment, you jerk?” asked Adelyn.

“I didn’t need to be there. It was your special moment, right? You’re dating her, not ‘us’ dating her.” Martin replied.

Adelyn raised her eyebrow then changed the subject.

“Speaking of… How did you know she’d say yes? Are you from the future? You did mention something about rewinding time.”

“If I were from the future, don’t you think I’d change the part where I crashed into a tree?”

“I thought you didn’t have a scratch on you.”

“Yeah, I didn’t have A scratch on me, I had like a million.”

“Hm… Okay, then you’re not my imagination either, right? You seem to be too supportive to me and I didn’t even notice when you left.”

“Imagination? This isn’t Might Club. And I’d be worried if your attention was on me during your own confession.”

“Curious. But I still don’t believe you. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“What? Okay… Uh, a cat’s penis is like a hook.”

“That’s disgusting. Why would you say that? But yeah, I already knew that. Tell me something else.”

“Um… There’s a place called Eromanga located in Australia.”

“Woah, really? That’s actually kinda funny! I didn’t know that one, I guess that means you’re real.”

“Of course I’m real! How else was Winter gonna back flip like that?”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“Mm, yeah that was a pretty perfect moment, I can’t argue with that.”

The two paused then shared a laugh as their train drew closer and closer.

【Chapter Five: Self defense】

“Hey, we should take some self defense classes.” Adelyn suggested to Martin.

“Sounds like fun. Which styles were you thinking?” he replied.

“Hm. Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Jujutsu…”

“Everyone learns those. We should try something unexpected… like Drunken Fist.”

“You mean try sitting your ass in jail.”

“No, I’m serious. I mean there’s gotta be countless assholes who recognize the usual styles so they’d know how to counter us. We gotta be the hipsters of combat in order to survive.”

“Okay… Why don’t you suggest something other than the Drunken Fist?”

“If you say so. Hmm, I know, what about Muay Thai?”

“We’re learning self defense, not how to kill someone.”

“Muay Thai wasn’t designed to kill! Nothing is.”

“Then explain guns, dude.”

“Guns could just be a device that emits a loud noise to warn people that they’re about to get shot by a gun.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s the best example to help your case.”

“Trust me, the best defense is a good offense. Not a great offense though, that’d be too offensive.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll look for a place that teaches Muay Thai.”

“And if we don’t find one, we could always use ThouTube.”

Adelyn narrowed her eyes and glared at Martin.

“You better show up to every class.” she said.

“I will. Unless I have homework- Oh, who am I kidding? I never do school work anyways.” he replied.

Adelyn sighed in response.

“Hey, don’t worry. This whole thing was my idea, I wouldn’t ditch it after all this.”

“You mean our idea. The killing stance was your idea, and self defense was mine, so our idea.”

“Alright. Our idea.” Martin happily agreed.

Thus marked the first activity they have committed to together.

【Chapter Six: Our bar date that’s probably not a disaster】

“So… We’ve been on a couple dates now, right?”

Adelyn took a couple sips of her mojito before she nodded and replied with a “Mhmm.”

“Well, not that I’m counting but it’s been about 2 years, 7 months, and 10 days since our last appearance together so I was wondering… Is why you brought us to a Barcade? To change it up for the reader’s lost time?” asked Winter.

The glass in Adelyn’s hands that was once a steady fellow became more akin to a person at a club, judging from the way it was shaking.

“No! W-Who would care about those two people anyways? Because I do, a lot and I appreciate them but I’ve just been busy with learning Muay Thai that I’ve wanted to become a bit more spicy. You know, pick you up in this bar because I can’t do it physically.”  

Winter stopped her laughter so fast that it sounded like a sneeze.

Though that and Adelyn’s words to made it impossible to suppress the rest of it and let out bursts one after the other.  

“You’re too adorable. You picked me up once already Adelyn. I think you can do it again.” she said while moving closer to Adelyn’s side.

Oh God. I might’ve confessed to her first but I swear I’m not a top. I’m not a top. I’m not a top! thought Adelyn.

“Oh yeah! Totally! All me…!”

Adelyn said that in a convincing voice by the way.

Winter put her hand on Adelyn’s shoulder then slowly slid it down to her hand, interlocking their fingers in the process.

“Let’s see what kind of spicy things we can do here then, shall we?”

I don’t need to be a top.

The two noticed some sort of special event happening at one of the motion sensing game cabinets.

“Come beat me and my partner at TekkSoulStreetVirtuaMortalFighter to get five rounds of shots on the house!”

It was one of the managers with his buddies. Apparently they’ve been beating customers left and right with their incredible skills of getting motion detected.

However, Winter knew she and her girlfriend also have skills of motion. Spicy skills of motion, one might say.

“Alright! We’re gonna kick the ass of the manager and get shot up because of it!” said Adelyn.

Wow that sounds really bad without context she thought.

“Oh yeah?! Just try it! My brother’s aunt’s sister’s nephew’s roommate’s online friend’s cat’s dad’s owner’s made this game and I’m not about to let some awesome paying customer take that away from me!”

“Defeating you won’t take away that fact dude but we will beat you anyway!” challenged Winter.

The four players took their stand at the cabinets and were ready to pick some brass.

A referee began to speak.

“Now the rules are simple. Each character looks different but is exactly the same. They have the same movesets, same specials, hitboxes, et cetera. It’s poetic, really. Just like in this game, we all look different on the outside but are the same in the inside. Amen.”

“Yo why’s a priest the ref?” asked a viewer.

“I don’t know.” said Chris Evans.

The players had a few seconds to check the controls, so Adelyn did what any first timer would do. She flipped the bird. It buffed her character with something called BDE.

“Oh hey, check that out! It’s really radiating with the veiny aura and stuff!” she said.

“Very sexy hot and/or mild! Now let’s flank em!” yelled Winter.

But unbeknownst to them, the manager and his buddy already got the drop on them!

The two made punching motions at their screen which one could probably imagine what happened in the game… It made them kick Adelyn and Winter’s avatars over and over!

“Shit! They did the move where our HP bars go down a little bit!”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan!”

Winter copied the middle finger gesture with both her hands, giving the two of them massive buffs of BDE.

“Wow! She’s going even further beyond?!” asked a hyped customer.

The buff was making their HP heal faster than they were getting damage… No… It made their HP bar grow even bigger than the screen!

“Christ! I didn’t even know that was a feature! But it won’t be enough!” said the manager.

The combo stun locked Winter, making the extra health pointless.

Dammit. Is there nothing I could do…? Wait…

Adelyn noticed something about the base combo.

“Winter! Try moving after the third hit!”

“Okay!”

Winter took the first two kicks of the combo then was able to dodge the third, just like Adelyn advised!

“What the funk?!” yelled the manager’s friend.

“I know the secret of the combo. You’re done!”

Adelyn did a quick kick then stopped. After a half second, she did another one. And another one. The ultimate technique has been discovered: The first hit is a stun! Using only the first attack without triggering a combo allowed the 『True Stun Lock』 to be used!

Winter joined in, making it impossible for their opponents to move, even in real life!

“And the winner is Adelyn and Winter!” announced the priest.

The crowd chanted their names and ordered more shots of their own to celebrate the hype.

“Wow, that was quite the game. I learn new things everyday. Hey, I’d love for you guys to be regulars here. It’s been a while since we’ve got crowds this excited.” said the manager.

Winter looked at Adelyn and smiled. She nodded back.

“Sure. I think we had a lot of fun too.” said Winter.

The rounds of shots just arrived at the bar.

“And I think it’s about to get a lot more interesting.” Adelyn smirked.

【Chapter Seven: Leg muscles】

Adelyn noticed Estelle heavily panting as she struggled to make her way down the hall.

“Woah. You’re looking… Energetic.” Adelyn said.

“Adelyn! Help me!” said Estelle as she fell face down.

“The nurse’s office is right there. You can make it. I believe in you.”

Estelle instantly got up and put her hands on Adelyn’s shoulders.

“Do you remember what you said at the ski trip? I took it to heart!”

“Umm.. What’d I say again?”

“That it’d take a lot more than upper body strength to catch a boulder.”

“Oh-”

“…But now I know! It was leg muscles that I lacked! So I leg pressed 500 pounds for like 40 minutes just now!”

“Now that’s hefty.”

“It sucks now since I could barely crawl. It’s like the opening to Metal Gear Solid V!”

“Yeah, maybe. Though unlike that game, you’re looking like a finished project so let’s get you to that office, ‘kay?”

Adelyn looked around for a second then squatted down reluctantly.

“Come on. We’re doing the anime thing where I carry you to to the infirmary then we have some deep talk.” said Adelyn.

Estelle’s eyes lit up as she hopped on her back.

The two made their way into the office and Estelle was dropped gently on one of the beds. Not even a second after, Adelyn made her way towards the door.

“Marianas Trench.” said Estelle.

“Huh?”

“You said we were gonna have deep talk so I said Marianas Trench.”

Adelyn turned around to hide her smile.

“Not that kind of deep. Though yeah some of their songs get sorta deep.”

Estelle was different though. She couldn’t hide her joy from Adelyn.

She was glad that they got a chance to talk a little more.

“I’ll catch you next time for sure, Adelyn.”

Adelyn nodded and waved as she exited the room.

“I’m counting on it.”

【Chapter Eight: Two years】

“Yo dude. Am I really the right one for Winter?” asked Adelyn.

“We had a two year gap in chapters and you’re only wondering this now?” Martin asked in reply.

“I mean… Yeah. She’s everything I’m not. She’s beautiful, athletic, outgoing…”

“Sounds just like you to me.”

“What? Knowing like some Muay Thai doesn’t count as athletic. Also I don’t really like talking to people if I could help it… And… Did you just call me beautiful?”

“Course I did friend. A Martial Art’s an art and you practice it ergo you are beautiful.”

“Oh. I thought you meant like physically or something.”

“Yeah I meant that too. That’s why I’m not really seeing your point here.”

“The point is I’m just not as composed as she is. I don’t think that I have anything figured out.”

“And you think that she does?”

“Of course I do. Haven’t you seen her?”

“A couple of times I think. Yeah.”

“I don’t know… It just seems that nothing phases her. Everything we do, she’s just so knowledgeable and good at it. I just seem to screw up at everything I do. Even the simple things. Like… Did you know I didn’t even know how to tie a knot till like a couple years ago?”

“I did not know that. But everyone experiences shit at different times anyway. Look at me, I haven’t still haven’t done the fuck word with anyone but that’s just cuz It’s Not The Right Time by Daichi Miura.”

“Well that’s almost the song title.”

“It’s been like a two year hiatus. You don’t think Winter would’ve moved on by now if that’s how she felt? She chose to commit to you. Even if other people are into her, even if she found herself attracted to someone else, she’ll say fuck all that and choose you. You might have to stop and think that maybe she’s just as flustered when it comes to you sometimes.”

It took a second, but Martin’s words really stuck with Adelyn.

He does have a point. Then instead of wondering why she chose me in spite of my flaws, I will focus on what she does like until it drowns out all my doubts. I’ll give to her as much as she gives me and more. Much much more. This I do swear to both myself and Winter.

“Yeah. You’re right. Even if our story isn’t written for two or three or ten more years, I’ll always be Winter’s. I’ll always… Always commit to her!”

Adelyn made her way to the gym where Winter’s volleyball club activities were held. When she got to the doors, she kicked it open and slid in.

“Winter! You go! Be better than Shoyo Hinata!”

Winter noticed her girlfriend cheering from the side and smiled.

“Sorry! What was that last part? I don’t understand French!”

Ah well we can’t all be anime. Yes.

Adelyn waltzed up to Winter after her match, with a nice red Gatorade to quench her thirst.

“Hello Mon Winter, how was your game?” asked Adelyn.

“It was great! Really inspiring to see the talent we got out here… Even better to see you around. I thought you didn’t like going here.”

“Well… Maybe going anywhere you are is a place I’d like to be. From now on. I mean only if it’s chill.”

Winter was a bit surprised and flattered. You see, deep down, Winter did have the similar doubts about herself. She would often go to Martin for advice just like Adelyn did. Everyday she would ask him if perhaps they were too different for each other. Maybe Adelyn wasn’t attracted to someone whose interests were of going out often or speaking to people on the regular. Perhaps she’d find it exhausting. And yet there Adelyn was, willing to and even voluntarily spending time with Winter in an environment she would probably avoid regularly.

“The things I find myself avoiding aren’t because I don’t like them. It’s because I was scared. Scared of… Being too pathetic or being too boring. Being nothing really. But you helped reach out. I probably won’t be able to be good at everything right away so… If you’re okay with walking me through a couple things, I’m here.” continued Adelyn.

“Yeah. Always.” said Winter.

Winter took a sip from her bottle then set it down. She glanced at Adelyn as she pat the empty space beside her on the bench.

The two found that they were both scanning each other. From their legs, chest, shoulders… Then to their eyes.

Winter looked to the side then back to Adelyn’s eyes nervously.

“It’s just that I’m a bit sweaty, so…” she said softly.

What? Wait… Is this…? Could it be that this is our chance?

After our dates and confession.

After all the doubts and promises.

After our broken bones from a ski trip. And after winning free shots…

Will we finally…?

Adelyn’s shaking hands found their way to Winter’s wrist.

She carefully slid it up to her shoulder to her neck, and finally to her cheek.

“I like you, Winter. I really like you. I’ll always…”

Before she finished her sentence, Adelyn leaned in.

The tips of their noses touched and the both of them let out a small laugh.

Adelyn then chomped Winter’s lower lips then they began making out for an undisclosed amount of time.

It was rad.

【Chapter Nine: The narrative perspective】

The reason I’m having this monologue today is to show that I, Jaime, can also have a chapter dedicated to myself. I’m here to show Winter, Adelyn, and Martin that they can’t have all the screen time to themselves! Uh, sorry… Is screen time the right thing to say? I’m not really sure. I suppose technically yes because this  sure wouldn’t be shown on actual paper unless someone printed this or if we got some sort of publishing deal.

But I digress. While everyone else has been ranking up their Social Links and Confidant levels, I have been doing the important duty of studying academics. Yes. Unlike the rest of them, I actually pay attention in class!

I mean my grades aren’t very good at the moment but it’s still my passion. When you learn about the world and its functions, you’ve already attained the most basic foundations to becoming a great help to the rest of the planet!

And learning about curing all kinds of diseases is especially important to me, because you never know who’d need that kind of help.

“Why are you trying to change the writing style to first person, Jaime?” interrupted someone at the lecture hall entrance.

It was Estelle. She took a running start then jumped from her end to Jaime’s desk, skidding on the edges while avoiding everyone’s school supplies except for Jaime’s. His notebook was the only thing that flew off and burst into flames upon her stopping momentum.

“What the feudal are you doing?!” he asked.

“Oooh, yikes. You might need to grab a new one.” she answered, well sort of.

After the room calmed down a little bit, she took a seat on the desk.

The professor was mad yet impressed with her athleticism so they simply ignored her and continued with their lecture of the selfish gene.

“Nice. They’re still going. Come on, you can borrow my tablet.” Estelle continued.

After she handed it to a slightly fuming Jaime, she took out a small sketchbook of her own.

The hell does she have that for? This isn’t an art class…

Estelle crossed her legs and began to sketch. Every so often, she would pause to stare at the professor. After they were done with a point, she continued to work on her picture.

“And that’s all for today! Be sure to blah blah deadline blah blah homework and blah blah exam!”

Most of the students were surprised that the prof actually said blah blah but continued on with their life.

After the class was mostly empty, Jaime went to pick up his banged up notebook. It was mostly okay in that it resembled old and burnt notebooks from a world war, so he was only mildly upset.

“I’ll email you the notes you took- Oh it’s just an angry emote.” said Estelle as she took back her tablet.

“I didn’t take any. It seemed kind of like a philosophy class this session anyway. So… Why’d you come here again? Did changing up the narrative perspective make you hate me that much?” asked Jaime.

“No.”

She held up her sketchbook to show him what she was drawing.

In the picture was an elephant. It lifted a capybara with its trunk to put it on its back. On the elephant’s back was a bunch of fruit and there were plenty of other animals surrounding them in what seemed to be an oasis. There were so many trees. The lake was enormous.

“I just wanted you to know you’re not the only one. It might be a little different from what you’re used to but yeah, it is what it is. It doesn’t matter who’s there to see us, as long as we see ourselves.” Estelle continued.

Jaime realized her picture really matched up with the lesson. Estelle wasn’t trying to interrupt the lecture. She was there to be by his side… To show him that even if he thought he wasn’t in anyone’s spotlight, he’ll always shine somewhere else.

This narration doesn’t need to be in first person. Because it would be too selfish. The only writing style out there needed is the one that has Estelle, Winter, Adelyn, and Martin too.

[un-bearablysweet]

Spider mom Au Headcanon

Even though Big Mama did my man dirty and used Master Splinter for her own gain, I can't help but wonder what life would be like if she had said yes to his proposal. Imma calls it "SpiderMom" Au.

Picture it, Lou Jitsu proposes, and Big Mama confesses that before she can give him an answer, he has to know the truth. She then reveals herself to be a Spider Yokai and a crime lord and asks him if he still loves her? Even when in her Yokai form. She had seen the previous girls he had been with, why would he again choose her to marry?  

This gonna be a little longer than usual, so bear with me.

Lou Jitsu, at this point, is too far gone to even think about letting Big Mama go. He's shocked at first, but once he looked into those eight beautiful eyes that this was still the woman he loved. No matter what she forms she took, she was still is his sassy sugar badger. Besides the whole crime boss thing, it was a minor inconvenience. Lol

With no further hesitation, Lou Jitsu stands by his proposal. 

Big Mama agrees, but before the can get hitched, Lou Jitsu has to prove his worth to not only hear but to the Yokai community and her associates. These lead to Lou Jitsu's fighting and winning at the battle Nexus to prove himself. Kinda like how animals in the wild have mating dances or fight challengers as a show of dominance and that they are the best choice. 

Lou Jitsu wins, and he and Big Mama are happily married a couple of years passed. And while Lou does remain champion after suffering nasty injuries after a particularly lousy fight. He and Big Mama agreed that he should retire early with zero loses; by then, Draxum had already seen Lou Jitsu fight and is still moving along with his mutation plan.  

Draxum doesn't know that Lou and Big Mama are married at this point and believed that Big Mama was hogging Lou Jitsu for herself and would only make him fight once a year to draw in a bigger crowd. Lou Jitsu only fights once a year as a part- one wedding anniversary gift. It's only after the fight that when Lou Jitsu is getting his minor cuts and scrapes healed up before he and Big Mama continue, they're planned anniversary that Hugin and Munin strike. 

Rather than willing going with them, as shown in the episode Goyles, Goyles, Goyles. Hugin and Munin manage to chloroformed him with some of the healing potions in the room. 

It's at this point that when Lou reawakens in Draxum's lab, Draxum does his usual villain monologue, and Lou explains that he's doesn't have time for crazy fans, and he doesn't plan to be late for his anniversary dinner. Lou Jitsu was used to be occasionally kidnapped or threatened by rivals or business associates of Big Mama. 

These yokai's soon learned not to mess with Big Mama's business, let alone her hubby. Insults were hurled, punches were thrown, the mutations happen, and the lab was destroyed. Lou manages to make his way out of the fire and rubble with four baby turtles clutched in his arms. But rather than retreat to the sewers to Lou immediately makes his way to the Battle Nexus outpost to flag done a ride back to the hotel. 

He and Big Mama had never thoroughly discussed the idea of children, but I guess there was no backing out now. Lou quickly made his way to the hotel and was immediately tended to by the onsite healers. Big Mama had been getting ready for the anniversary dinner all morning. She now has to process the fact that her husband appears to be turning into a rat. A group of her bellhops was trying to calm four baby turtles.

Once Lou finishes his tale of events, Big Mama is furious and immediately wants to put a hit on Draxum's head. With the mutation continuing with no way of reversing it, Lou convinces her it would be better than Draxum believe that both he and the turtles are dead from the fire. Draxum was very reclusive, and he didn't run deeply in the same circles as Big Mama so the wouldn't have to worry about word getting out. Most yokai were smart enough to not spread Big Mama's business around. 

Big mama wasn't exactly sold on having not one but four children, but once the little box turtle looked up her with the sweetest look and chirped at her. She swore from then no harm would come to them. These were now her turtles-boos while she was certainly not the most maternal. Isn't that becoming a parent was about learning along the way? And the kids were a part of her husband, and she still loved him dearly they would get through this together.

She did, however, refuse to name the green 1-4. She drew the line at that. While she would miss her husband's tall stature and tan skin, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't enjoying how fluffy he and small he was. Gray was definitely his color, she had her servants set up a nursery near her rooms and knew that this was definitely going to be interesting.

The boys are then raised mostly in the Nexus Hotel topside, not wanting to catch the eye of Draxum; the boys were only allowed outside the hotel into the hidden city with at least 12 guards. The boys are given private tutors, of course, and due to Raph's "sharp" physique all his clothes, his clothes had to be enchanted but would still end up ripping. Donnie, of course, chews through tutors like packs of gum. And Big Mama loved to indulge all of her baby's talents. 

She especially loved to brag how brilliant her children were to anyone who would listen.

"oh your 21yr son finished college how cute, my Donnie kins just finished building his second AI system, it's what all the 12yr olds are up to." 

"My Darling Miguel has been winning the hidden city gymnastics competition for several years now."  

"Oh, yes! My lovely Leo just led his Kendo team to nationals for the 5th year in the row! You must see the trophy."

"Raphael is getting so big, I'm sure his boxing coach will soon be moving him to the advanced class. 15yrs need to stay active, you know."

Everything is not always perfect, you know.

The boys are an absolute menace on the hotel as children; Donnie won't stop ripping out needed appliances and messing with the elevator. Mikey once painted over a 500 dollar rug, Raph and Leo turned the dinner carts into chariot racing. 

 I imagine that Big Mama is a cross of Mama bear and Tiger Mom, she's very loving and wants the best for her children. But when she's mad, it's best to stay clear. She can't stay mad at her babies for long though, family nights were a must. Lou Jitsu marathons with lots of snacks, pizza, and cuddling. And must to Lou's chagrin Jupiter Jim movies. You definitely missed being human, but being rat had its advantages. And with a cloaking necklace given by his wife, he could hardly tell the difference. 

The boys still meet April while sneaking out and manage to convince their mom that she wasn't like other humans. The boys were getting older, and she couldn't keep them in the hotel forever. Cue giving them cloaking necklaces and bracelets to hide out in the human world and start going to school with April. 

And all the shenanigans of trying to hide four mutant turtles in high school included.

This is getting pretty long for me, so I'll end it here, if anyone's interested in more info on my take, feel free to message me.  

[schleierkauz]

The Color of Revenge: Chapter 7

Local Glass Man Disappears Into The Night - You Wont Believe What Happens Next..!! Click Now To Learn More..!!!

(Special thanks to @theminstrelwoman and @bluejayfiredancer for helping me with paint questions <3)

Chapter 7: A Meeting in the Night

Oh, how ashamed he was, the fancy illuminator. Ashamed of the ambition shadowing his eyes. Ashamed of envying his competitors who were just as talented as he was, and of the carefully kept secret of his less than fancy past.

Baldassare had discovered a few interesting things about Balbulus of Cipressa. He was the bastard son of a cloth merchant and a whore. The eighth of ten children, and Ironstone could see the same devil on his shoulder that plagued Orpheus. An insatiable hunger for fame and fortune, hoping it would silence the worries that ate away at him: that someone might discover his worthlessness and he, as well as everything he had ever created, would be forgotten.

The meeting place that the illuminator had chosen probably resembled the dirty streets where the Great Balbulus had understood for the first time that his hands could create wonders with just a little paint. He was waiting between the dye baths of the tanners and even Baldassare looked around cautiously before he approached him.

“You’re drunk again!“ Ironstone hissed when he stumbled towards Balbulus on such unsteady feet that he slipped on the muddy pavement.

“Don’t you dare drop me in this cesspit!”

Balbulus noticed Baldassare’s wine breath as well. He frowned as he watched them and it looked as if some other illuminator had painted the wrinkles onto his skin. The wide black cloak he was wearing couldn’t protect his velvet clothes from the smell that hung in the cold night air. Only the hemline of a sleeve revealed that they were dyed with princely crimson. Violante paid well for Balbulus’ art.

“You’re late.“ The prominent cheekbones, the slightly slanted eyes, and the face that was wide yet delicate – the Great Balbulus looked like a human cat. Ironstone congratulated himself for the description. Why wasn’t he writing verses? They would certainly be better than the stuff Baldassare came up with.

“I have to get back to the castle. Violante commissioned another book about the Bluejay, as if we didn’t have more than enough of those already.” Balbulus’ voice sounded as if someone were dragging the bow too slowly across the strings of a lute.

“Our princess’s obsession with robbers is getting more and more annoying,” he continued with his whiny voice. “My art wants to depict princes, kings, saints, heroes! But no – I have to paint bandits and fire-eaters.”

He shivered and hid his hands beneath his cloak. The Great Balbulus was nothing without his hands. And his eyes. Ironstone noticed that he was blinking quite often. Ah, they were already getting weak from all the work hours by candle light… The glass man felt a warm flash of schadenfreude.

“Yes, it’s a shame. What a waste of your talents!“ Baldassare put his hand in his pocket and slowly, very slowly pulled a leather bag out of his dirty vest.

“Even thieves call themselves princes in this city and it goes unpunished. Where are the heroes of the past? My verses also lack inspiration lately.”

Ha! Ironstone knew why that was. The Black Prince had not appreciated Baldassare’s verses as much as he’d hoped, putting his name on the long list of people who were blind for his talents as a troubadour.

Balbulus plucked the bag from him. Unlike Baldassare’s filthy fingernails, the illuminator’s nails were flawlessly manicured. Balbulus had beautiful hands, so slender and white it looked as if he’d drawn them.

“Are you done working on the book?“ Ironstone glared at the fat blue fly that buzzed around him. He hated flies. He drew the tiny dagger he’d made out of a stolen kitchen knife and cut its wing off.

Balbulus was clearly impressed as he watched Ironstone throw the helplessly twitching body off of Baldassare’s shoulder. The Great Balbulus probably thought of glass men as nothing but breathing writing assistants, but they worked in many fields. Ironstone knew of at least three who were very successful assassins.

“The pages are finished except for the faces. I always finish my commissions on time.”

Balbulus opened the bag he had taken from Baldassare and poured the contents into his white hand.

“Incredible,“ he whispered when he saw the sticks who stared up at him with their carved eyes.

“Who made these faces? I have never seen such perfect work before. The realism reminds me of the art of the Great Bernini in Venetia.”

“Then I hope that the faces you’re going to paint will measure up to these references,” Ironstone said while wiping his dagger on Baldassare’s vest.

“My master demands perfect copies. If you fail he will take back his money and the paints he delivered to you.”

A few heartbeats of silence passed while Balbulus seemed to consider whether such an insolent challenge of his art even deserved a reaction. But he was too arrogant to let the sacrilege go uncommented.

“It seems that you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to, glass man. I am Balbulus, the greatest illuminator of his time!”

Ah, human vanity… A balloon Ironstone loved to poke at.

“If you’re so sure of that, why did you agree to the deal with my master?“ he replied with his glas-sharp tongue. “What was your price again? Ink that grants you immortality?”

Anger made Balbulus’ face swell up like yeast dough.

“Ink that grants my work immortality, you impertinent penholder!”

Ironstone scoffed and spat down into the red and blue shimmering mud.

“Keep saying that and maybe you’ll believe it eventually. I certainly don’t. Let me remind you of my master’s orders before your self-love suffocates us all: When you draw the missing faces you will follow my master’s order of the figures exactly. You will begin tomorrow morning at dawn and you will draw the last face in the morning of the next day. That same day at sundown you will await us with the finished book behind the castle, as soon as the bells signal the tenth hour. By the monument Violante has set for the Fire-Dancer.

Balbulus nodded impatiently, as if he’d heard every order a hundred times.

“I’m perfectly capable of reading, glass man!“ he snapped as soon as Ironstone had finished.

“The orders were quite clear, but I was supposed to leave out fourteen faces. These…,” he counted the sticks in his hand, “…are twelve.”

Ironstone drove his fingers so deep into Baldassare’s spongy ear that he screamed.

“Twelve?“ the glass man hissed. “I collected eight. You only had to deliver six! Don’t tell me you didn’t even manage to do that!”

“The Prince’s was gone when I tried to take it back,“ Baldassare whispered, hurt in his voice. “His filthy bear probably ate it. And the young Fire-Dancer left Ombra months ago!”

Ironstone felt tempted to jab his fingers into Baldassare’s brown cow eyes as well. Oh, he had warned Orpheus! But no – Baldassare has served me well in the past. Baldassare is loyal. Baldassare is stupid enough to not ask any inconvenient questions…

“The Black Prince? What does he have to do with the book you commissioned?“

Balbulus took a closer look at the sticks in his hand.

“And these faces… I know them all.“

He looked up, surprise clear on his face.

“The text I illuminated doesn’t mention any of them. The Bluejay and his daughter, the Inkweaver, the book collector – what is the meaning of this?”

“What makes you think that’s any of your business?” Ironstone answered with a sinister smile. “Immortality, remember. It’s not going to happen if you ask the wrong questions.”

Balbulus stared at the sticks and put them back into the bag, one by one.

“Will you be able to paint the boy and the Black Prince without reference?“ Ironstone frowned at his fingers. He had pushed them into Baldassare’s ears with such force that they were bloody. He wiped them on Baldassare’s collar and the look that earned him tasted like splinters.

“Of course, if you’ll allow me some creative liberties,“ Balbulus answered. “I have only met the Prince a few times… and I must admit that each time I paid more attention to his bear than to his face. And the boy has only ever been a shadow by Dustfinger’s side. Dark skin, black hair… One of Violante’s maids was crazy about him, maybe she’ll be able to describe him to me.“

Maybe, or maybe not. This was bad. But Ironstone swore to himself that Baldassare would be the one to take the blame, not he. The best course of action was probably to just not tell Orpheus. After all, only two sticks were missing and neither the boy nor the Black Prince were at the top of Orpheus’ revenge list.

“Good. Ask the servants to describe the two of them,“ he told Balbulus. “After all, the Prince is coming and going as he pleases. I hear he’s having an affair with Violante, and I’m sure there are other pictures of him and the young Fire-Dancer.”

Balbulus shrugged sullenly and put the bag away beneath his cloak.

“Sure – painted by a few lousy artists. Fine. I’ll try, but I will need more paints.”

Ironstone whacked Baldassare’s temple with his elbow. The missing sticks had made him vulnerable. Ironstone was sure that even Baldassare had gotten that into his hardly ever sober head. He would sell him his silence for a steep price.

Balbulus took the sachet Baldassare pulled out of his backpack with such awe as if he was taking a few of the allegedly miracle-working bone relics that the monks of the new religion worshiped on their knees for nights on end.

“Ah, yes…“ he whispered. “That will be enough for many books! Green earth, essential for painting human flesh.“

He tenderly felt the paper that enclosed the colored powder, even though it was just as dirty as anything that came out of Baldassare’s pockets. “Azurite… orpiment… sienna…”

Each name was the invocation of a god. There were many gods in Ombra’s streets, even though the priests of the new religion tried to change that with missionary enthusiasm.

Balbulus‘ god had limbs of ground lapis lazuli, a body of burnt earth and his blood was that of the cochineal.

Balbulus put the sachet away as carefully as one does with things that are precious and dangerous at the same time.

“Is it true that the price for paints like these is human blood?“ He tried his best to make the question sound casual but Ironstone could tell how much the possible answer worried (and fascinated) him.

“You don’t want to know how my master paid for these paints,“ Ironstone answered. Orpheus had buried his conscience at some dark place back when he was still a child, but even he had been unresponsive for days after he’d come back from the woods clutching the paints. A while later Ironstone had walked in on him while he was performing a ritual that was supposed to cleanse the soul of deadly sin.

Balbulus stared at him like he still wanted to know the answer. But he lowered his head at last.

“I will deliver the finished book on time.” He turned to leave – and turned around once again.

“There’s this illuminator in Lorraine. He calls himself Jean Lenoir. He’s younger than me yet his work is already being compared to my own. Should Lenoir overshadow my glory one day, despite our agreement, I will find your master, glass man. Even though you don’t want to tell me his name.”

It was an empty threat and Balbulus knew it.

“Oh, we’re happy to tell you his name, Great Balbulus,“ Baldassare said.

What the hell? Ironstone reached for his ear once again to stop his foolish tongue, but Baldassare was prepared this time. He grabbed Ironstone before his fingers could pierce his flesh and his dirty hand closed so tightly around Ironstone’s limbs, the glass man thought he could hear them splinter. Why did he always forget that Baldassare had a fiery temper?

“Your client…“ The filthy hand stuffed Ironstone into an even filthier pocket. “Your client is the noble Walter von Vogelheide who lives in the faraway Nuremberg. When he was courting the enchantingly beautiful Brunhilde von Bamberg last year, he asked the Fire-Dancer to use his flames to write a few of his verses on her castle walls. This way, Walter von Vogelheide won her favor despite being repulsively ugly. The book will be a gift for the Fire-Dancer. My master hopes that it will be a wonderful surprise for him to see the faces of all those he loves on the pages. Painted by the Great Balbulus.

Impressive. The lie seemed to be tugging at Balbulus’ heartstrings.

Yes, Ironstone had to admit that Baldassare Renaldesci was a talented storyteller. He just shouldn’t try to put his stories into verses. It was also smart to let the illuminator believe that his art was supposed to be a noble gesture. Artists loved the illusion that they weren’t just doing things for money but serving a higher cause. Baldassare’s story would surely inspire Balbulus’ fingers more than the truth and Orpheus’ evil goals could.

The night had already swallowed Balbulus‘ dark cloak when Baldassare’s hand grabbed Ironstone once again. It was ridiculous that he was named after metal yet his body was about as durable as an icicle.

Baldassare pulled him out of his pocket but didn’t place him back on his shoulder. He put the glass man into the mud, so careless and rough that Ironstone fell over and when he struggled to get back on his feet he saw Baldassare look down at him as if he were a bug he was tempted to squash under his shoe.

“Orpheus won’t hear anything about the missing stick, understood, Shard Head?“ His voice reminded Ironstone of a hungry cat in the worst possible way.

“Of course not!“ Ironstone wiped the mud off his hands and almost swallowed his own tongue out of anger.

Yes, it was anger. Not fear. Definitely not.

“Good.“ Baldassare gave him his slimiest smile. “I just wanted to make sure we understand each other.“

Then he walked away, singing one of his bad songs.

Pompous, drunk human scum! But he’s bigger, Ironstone. So much bigger.

It was a long way back to the shabby hole Baldassare had rented for the two of them. A very long way for a glass man. Baldassare was already snoring, the usual smell of cheap wine on his lips as Ironstone climbed down the musty stairs. Oh, he would get his revenge on him! He would find a way. He just had to make sure that Baldassare didn’t break his neck first…

(Next chapter)

[just-horrible-things]

Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.iii

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[Caution: gore.]

Loiral whines as he feels the chains on his ankles shift, stammers another useless “no no no please-!” as his legs are lifted, then screams as his body comes off the floor, forcing the broken limbs to bear his weight. He loses all other awareness as he swings from his ankles. Each break is alight with agony, stretched to the point of rupture. The already-torn-and-swollen tissues cannot bear the strain, he is almost certain that his legs are going to come off. The agony makes him jerk and writhe helplessly, and the motion redoubles the agony in turn. His throat is already raw but he screams and screams, panicked and shameless with desperation.

Suddenly fresh pain slams into his side from hip to armpit, stinging and bruising at the same time. The force knocks him sideways, jolting the strained breaks yet further. The cuffs on his wrists jerk him back, stopping him from swinging freely, yanking hard on the breaks in his arms.

Again, and this time the swathe of pain falls across his back. Again the impact slams him sideways, pulling his body taut between his ankles and wrists. Again, across the belly. Loiral’s arms are chained to the floor with little slack and he cannot lift his arms to defend his exposed body. His hands twitch and spasm frantically, catching at the chain and tangling in the links. He’s oblivious to the force of the metal on his fragile fingers, utterly consumed by the greater agony in his limbs.

The blows keep falling. Loiral can’t even tell what kind of injury is being done to his skin. Each time it’s a broad tract of stinging heat across his body, littered with sharper stabs of pain. It pales at first beside the effects of the sheer force, each impact translated by the chains into a blindingly hard tug on each and every break. He can’t think, can’t breathe past his own screaming. In scattered, fragmented thoughts he longs to black out. But it goes on and on and on without respite.

The fire across his skin gets worse with every impact. Lacerations layer across lacerations, leaving him raw and burning. There is no warning as to where the blows will fall next. Back, chest, back again. Sides, thighs, shoulders, arms. Blood drips across his skin and forms rivulets down his arms. Sometimes the agony stabs hard into particularly sensitive points and rivals even the breaks. Occasionally his face is struck and the weapon leaves deep burning gashes across cheek, chin, scalp. He twists and struggles helplessly, driven by raw instinct.

His voice gives out long before the punishment ends. His thrashing grows weaker. He is all agony. All awful, over-extended breaks and shredded, searing skin. There’s no thought left, no hope, no reason, no understanding, no sense of self. There is only pain layered over pain, and the torment gets worse and worse and worse without end.

---

Marcus loves the way his prisoner’s strength fails. He loves the helpless tremor, and the way the back-arching tension gives way into feeble limpness. He loves the wet sound of the scourge against bloodied flesh, and the near-silent straining gasps. The drow’s mouth is stretched wide, lips peeled back from the teeth as he tries to scream, but his voice has cracked and splintered and faded and now there is only the quiet whistle of air forced through his tight throat.

Marcus loves the opportunity to let loose, to abandon careful restraint and break his fragile little toy.  He works the whip up and down across that narrow, frail-boned body until the skin hangs in ragged scraps and strips from the lacerated flesh and the drow is coated evenly in crimson, seeping blood from his knees down to the tips of his fingers where they just barely brush the floor. There was more than a handspan of clearance when Marcus started. The breaks in the long bones of the drow’s legs are horribly elongated, the soft tissues stretched grotesquely by his body weight and the constant jolt of the whip.

Eventually Marcus stands back to simply watch Loiral tremble. There’s no visible reaction to the respite from the whipping. Only the frantic, irregular pace of his breath gives away that he is still conscious, though Marcus knows that he will be. It is difficult to pass out while suspended head-down. 

Unhurriedly he kneels down in front of his victim. He traces his fingers along the edge of the blindfold to the back of the head, and unpicks the knots with gentle, precise care. The cloth is sodden with blood as it peels away from the skin.The drow’s pupils constrict to pin-pricks at the sudden onslaught of light. But the eyes remain wide and glazed, unseeing. Loiral is lost in the agony, rendered all but insensible. Just the way Marcus wants him. 

He pauses to stroke the drow’s cheek, unable to resist pressing firmly enough to pull wide the gash left there by a stray hook. Blood flows freely over and around his fingers. Loiral reacts not at all. Marcus did not mean to tear up his face, but all in all he is quite pleased with how few strikes landed off target. The new scourge is not yet familiar, and placing all nine tails precisely is not trivial.

Still smiling to himself, he stands and unlatches the chain that suspends his prisoner from the ceiling. He lowers Loiral to the floor slowly, relishing every feeble twitch and agonised gasp. The drow’s chest heaves, sucking in air. Marcus can see the broken ribs shifting beneath the patchwork of shredded skin and exposed muscle. It is beautiful. He could just watch his prisoner shudder and struggle to breathe for hours.

But he only waits until the frantic gasping slows a little. He cannot be sure how conscious Loiral is, and he doesn’t want to leave him too long to recover. “How are you feeling, drow?” he asks, smirking fractionally at his own humour. “Are you still in there, or have I driven you out of your mind altogether?” There is no answer – not unexpected – so he puts a little more edge into his tone. “Do you hear me, drow? I asked you a question, I expect an answer.” Loiral’s mouth twitches, but no sound emerges. His eyes slide sideways, searching, but fail to settle and focus. Marcus crouches beside him and gently turns his face to help him make eye contact. His gaze wavers, eyes still dull. “Do you hear me, drow?” Marcus repeats patiently. “—hhhh—” whistles Loiral’s breath as his abused voicebox fails to engage. “Words, drow. The answer you are looking for is ‘yes, master’.” “—ss—” he manages faintly “—ss — mmhh—sr—” “Good,” Marcus purrs, amused. “Have you learned your lesson yet?” Another near-silent whistle of a whimper. “—mmhh — plhhh — sss — plea—hsss—” Marcus chuckles.

But amusing as the incoherent attempts at pleading are, there is little evidence of understanding. Marcus wants to speak to his prisoner. He anticipated this. After all, he deliberately took Loiral past the point of reason, it is no surprise that he is not recovering fast. So Marcus incants a spell-prayer. Just a small thing, a little expenditure of power. He touches his fingers to Loiral’s forehead. To his irritation, the magic fizzles out against the drow’s skin. Marcus frowns. He casts again, and this time delivers the spellcharge into the exposed muscle at the base of the neck. The enchantment will find the mind regardless, it does not need to be delivered directly to the cranium. A minor nuisance.

As the magic takes effect, Loiral’s eyes clear and find focus. He does not look happy to be forced into lucidity. His mouth works uselessly. The utter terror written across his face is gratifying. He will learn from this experience. Now he just needs reminding what lesson it is that he is meant to be learning. “Are you hearing me now, drow?” “… yes, master…” Loiral whispers. A shudder ripples through his flesh and makes his eyes roll back for a moment despite the magical aid. “Good. Do you remember why you are suffering like this?” “… yes, mmh– master.” Marcus waits, wondering idly if his silence will be cue enough, or if the drow will need more explicit prompting. “… tried … to run …” comes the confession at last, “ss-- I’m-- I’m sorry, master… so sorry, please, ple-ease…” Satisfaction is warm in Marcus’ chest. He has picked his victim well, this time. Loiral breaks so beautifully into shards of panic and servility.

“I do so enjoy your submission, drow,” he tells him fondly. “Show me more of this in future and less defiance, and I will not have to keep breaking you so.” Silent sobs break Loiral’s breath up into shuddering gasps. “…please,” he mouths, “please, please…” “Make no mistake, though. Your screams bring me just as much pleasure. Do you think that you are at the limits of your endurance? You know nothing of the limits of pain, not yet.”

“Listen very closely.” Loiral’s breath is very fast again, shallow and irregular with terror. But his eyes are still focused. “If this were solely for joy,” Marcus tells him, speaking slowly, clearly and with unconcealed relish, “I would next finish breaking your limbs. Six or seven breaks for each of the long bones. Or perhaps I would take a hammer and reduce them to shards, as I did your feet. “Once shattered like that, a prisoner can be restrained by weaving the limbs through cage bars or the spokes of a wheel. Can you imagine how that would feel? I doubt your imagination captures the full intensity. “I might crack your teeth next, or finish the flaying that I have started with the whip. Or perhaps I would just leave you alone with your pain for a few hours. I wonder if you would beg for death, in the end? I would grant it to you eventually, of course. I have a busy schedule, after all, and my goddess loves sacrifice just as yours does.” It is a shame that his prisoner has no voice left. Marcus considers healing his throat so as to hear his whimpers. He is a perfect picture of terror and suffering.

Tragically, though, it is time to lift him back out of despair and offer him some mercy to cling to. Loiral is not merely a sacrifice, despite his recent transgression. “But,” and he touches the drow’s face gently again as he lets his tone warm. “This is not an exercise in self-indulgence, and I do not mean to kill you. This is a lesson for you. And if you learn it well, this will be the end of it. What do you think of that, hmm?” “—please—!” Loiral begs urgently, “please, please—!” Marcus laughs softly. “Very good. I want you to remember this, drow. I want you to remember this point that we have reached. How bad it is, and how it can still get worse. Will you remember?” “—yes,” he sobs, “yes, master, yes—!” “Good. Remember this also: if I must bring you to this point again, I will show a little less restraint. I will take you a little further down the path of agony. You will learn new depths of misery and desperation. Do you understand?” “—yes, master, yes, I— I understand—” “Very good.”

Marcus smiles as he invokes his divine patron again, channeling her healing power. He wants his prisoner witless a little longer, so he crafts a variant spell-prayer that will deliver the required energy over perhaps an hour. The pain will be less intense than a single burst, but it should be more than enough to keep the exhausted drow insensate, especially once the artificial clarity wears off. This time he remembers to deliver the magic to the exposed flesh, bypassing the properties of drow skin.

Loiral convulses as the reddish energy envelops him. His strength is already spent and he can barely lift his back from the floor, but the tortured motions still convey the depth of his agony beautifully. “—mercy—!” he gasps voicelessly, hopelessly “—please please — I’ve learned — please—!” Marcus watches impassively until the attempts at speech stop and the light vanishes from his eyes again. 

Then he kneels down to set the broken bones back into place and to lay the limbs out straight. Without proper care, injuries like this are at risk of leaving debilitating scars, even with magical healing. The slow delivery will reduce the risk. Still, he’ll have one of the initiates come and tend to Loiral as he heals. 

It will be interesting to see how he takes that, as he starts to return to lucidity.

[chromecutie]

Not A Ghost - part 39

A/N - Multi-part fic. Colossus x OC where OC has come home after being wrongfully imprisoned in the Icebox. Warnings for whole fic - references and flashbacks to harsh prison environment, including various types of abuse.

NEW WARNING - fictional police brutality. Takes place shortly after events in Deadpool 2. Whole thing will end up on my AO3 eventually.

Masterlist on my profile!

Taglist: @emma-frxst  @ra-ra-rasputiin  @holamor ​  @empressme-bitch  @marvel-is-perfection  @hazilyimagine ​ @marvelhead17 @rovvboat @angstybadboytrash ​ @whitewitchdown ​ @master-sass-blast ​ @mori-fandom @mooleche @dandyqueen @emberbent @leo-writer @silver-stormy . Wanna be added or removed? Holla at me.

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

The X-Jet wasn’t made to transport so many passengers. There weren’t enough seats, so the most injured inmates were strapped in and everyone else had to hang on. Mimi carefully watched everyone. She hadn’t made it this far just to have a fellow freed prisoner do something that would make the X-Men turn them over to authorities and land them right back in prison. The last thing she wanted was going back to any holding facility. As the X-Men rushed around the jet, preparing for take off, Mimi made eye contact with as many individual freed inmates as she could, making sure they knew she was watching them.

The larger blue mutant was seeing to the more severe injuries. He was enormous, heavily muscled and had thick claws and fur, but spoke with a gentle accent. When the smaller bright blue mutant had boarded the jet, holding a barely conscious Rhonda, Mimi was surprised to find dread cracked her heart. 

“Henry!” he called in a German accent, and the larger mutant turned. “She doesn’t look so good, ja?” 

Henry’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. He promised his current patient he'd come back to him and hurried to meet the German holding Rhonda. He moved a gear box to clear a spot on the deck of the jet. “Here, Kurt, lay her here.” Kurt took care to set her down in a smooth motion. "What happened?" Henry asked as he was already checking her vitals and pupils. "Pulse is weak. Pupils irregular. Is all this blood hers? Swelling at her temple." He worked quickly to examine her. 

“I don’t know,” Kurt shook his head, “Colossus is still on his way.”

Mimi craned her neck, and only saw Rhonda in bits and pieces past the men’s shoulders. Her skin was bluish, head lolling, breathing shallow and labored. The easiest thing she could see, however, was the soles of her feet - they looked like raw hamburger, absolutely riddled with shards of glass. “Hey!” She called to them. “Check her feet!”

Kurt and Henry gave Mimi a sudden wary glance, then both shifted to check her feet. The smaller mutant cursed in German. “Indeed it’s not good,” Henry agreed. He tore open Rhonda’s jumpsuit, “But there must be something else. Kurt, take the other first aid kit and help the others with the bumps and scrapes, please.”

With Kurt giving him space, Henry carefully tore away pieces of the grey cotton shirt under the jumpsuit, finding plenty of swelling and bruises that were starting to blacken. He muttered about broken ribs. He suddenly paused, and Mimi couldn’t tell what he’d found.

"STORM!” he roared to the cockpit, “We need a hospital! Now!" Storm gave an affirmative over the cabin radio. 

Several more inmates and the last few X-Men boarded the jet, including Wade and the tall, musclebound steel mutant. The tall brute immediately knelt by Rhonda’s side, and though Mimi couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying, the anguish in his voice was unmistakable. “That’s her husband,” she said softly to Robinson. She shook her head, “Exactly as she used to describe him.”

“Huh,” Robinson slid an arm around Mimi’s waist to support them both as the jet rumbled its take off. “To be fair, an eight-foot-tall steel Russian man does sound made up.”

The floor tilted as the aircraft banked on a new course.

--

Piotr smoothed hair away from Rhonda’s face. The swelling around her temple worried him, but not as much as how her eyes rolled and how pale her lips were. "Stay with me, Rhonda, look at me," he urged. "You are safe now, stay with us." 

"Pi-Piotr," she barely managed to speak between wet wheezes.

Tears welled up in his eyes. She tried to speak again, but he shushed her, "Don't try to speak if it hurts. Let Cable help you, please." He waved Cable over, who carefully wove through the other passengers to loom over them.

With the ugly, bloodsoaked jumpsuit and the grey t-shirt under it torn open, Rhonda’s torso was bare to the warm cabin of the deck. There was no gaping wound, no horrible laceration, but just below her ribs, the last quarter inch of a toothbrush head stuck out of Rhonda's skin, the bristles slowly oozing with blood.

Beast carefully touched around it, figuring out at what angle the rest of the toothbrush pointed and how long it was. Rhonda couldn't even keep her eyes open anymore, and when she struggled to breathe and speak, she coughed and blood sprang to her lips.

"Henry, please! Pull it out!" Piotr begged with a strained voice, his stomach churning with panic.

"She's bleeding internally, probably a punctured lung,” Henry spoke quickly. “If I take that out here she'll bleed out before you can say dasvidaniya." He squirted saline solution over the wound, then moved to squirt saline on her head wound, rinsing blood away to examine the external damage.

Cable crouched by her feet and extended his telepathy. Where he had previously found a strong mind full of resistance to being read, he found no fight now. "She says, you brought me home," he read from her thoughts, "Thank you." He looked at her glass-crusted feet and scowled.

"No, no, no, Sladkaya, we're not home yet! You have to stay awake!" the Russian struggled to stay calm. He kept touching her face, shoulders, arms. Her skin felt cooler than it should.

"I can get this glass out, cleaner than your surgeons can in this time," Cable said. The other two either didn’t hear him or they ignored him. So he grabbed an empty cardboard box from between some people’s feet and leaned his weight on one forearm across Rhonda's shins. He searched for every little shard of glass and with his telekinesis, he pulled. Each shining glass splinter worked its way out as if they were seedlings in a spring garden, and ranged in size from a single snowflake to a quarter. Rhonda shivered, but didn’t react much besides that.

Blood bubbled at her lips as Piotr's vision blurred with tears. "Stay with me," he begged, "I can't lose you again, not like this."

After that, things moved in a quick blur. Hank improvised a chest tube from an inmate’s ballpoint pen, jabbing it near her collarbone and releasing the air that had been building up in Rhonda’s chest cavity. Her shallow breaths became a little deeper, but she still didn’t have long to live without tools they didn’t have on the jet. They landed on the rooftop helipad of the nearest hospital, and Cable levitated Rhonda to the gurney some nurses wheeled out. They slapped a medical grade power-blocking collar around her neck, and Piotr almost smashed them into the walls. "You take that thing off my wife!"

"Sir, sir!" One particularly short nurse patted the air between them. "This is standard procedure. Could this mutant's abilities be fatal to another person?" They had almost reached the elevator.

Piotr froze. He swallowed and clenched his jaw. "Yes...but...she cannot have that thing on when she wakes up."

The nurse promised, "She won't. Waiting area's downstairs." The elevator doors closed, and Rhonda and the nurses disappeared.

Ellie and Yukio stayed close to Piotr while the rest of the team helped coordinate help for the injured inmates. Storm made several calls to the Xavier house and started setting up a safe house and protection for any inmates who had to stay in the hospital. Kurt and Henry took the jet with a few passengers to head for the safe house.

--

In the waiting area, Cable studied how Piotr sagged into a plush chair that creaked under his weight. “Wade,” he snagged him by the arm as he was walking by. “When I was in Rhonda’s head…” he hesitated. His brow pinched. “I don’t know if she’s gonna make it through the night. If she doesn’t…” Cable jutted his chin toward Piotr, “We both know what it is to lose a wife.”

Wade frowned and shook his head. “No. No fucking way.” He batted Cable’s hand away. “A little head trauma, collapsed lung, torn shoulder, and a bunch of broken ribs never killed anybody. You know? Fuck outta here with your negativity, House.” All the same, he crossed the waiting area to sit beside Piotr.

Ellie found her way to sit beside her mentor and father figure. For a long while, none of them said a word. Eventually, Ellie drew her arms tight around one of Piotr’s biceps, crushing her cheek against the steel of his arm as the tears finally came. Yukio rubbed her back as she cried. As Piotr started to reach with his free hand to touch her face, Wade hugged his other arm the same way as Ellie. Together, they waited for the surgeons to finish.

--

Piotr stayed by her side in the intensive care unit. As promised, they had removed the medical grade collar, and Rhonda’s neck was mercifully bare. His uniform was still stained with her blood, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave her for even the minute it would take to change into the fresh clothes Ellie and Yukio had brought. Swathed in bandages, breathing through a tube, his wife had never looked so fragile. He held her right hand, pressing the back of it to his cheek as he watched her face, tears streaming. His other hand delicately touched her hair. He whispered around the lump in his throat, “Come back to me, Sladkaya, come back to us. I’m here, whenever you are ready. Please.”

When the hospital staff tried to tell Piotr visiting hours were over, and that he could come back the next day, he said simply that he wasn’t going anywhere. He explained to the seasoned nurse in her fifties a short version of what had happened in the last few years. He would stay, and promised not to make any trouble for the hospital staff. The nurse took a slow sigh and replied simply, “I’ll get you a coffee, baby, be right back.”

Hours stretched into days. Wade, Ellie, and other friends could only get Piotr to take breaks if at least two of them stayed in Rhonda’s hospital room while he changed clothes or took a short walk. Every minute that he was with her, Piotr had a hand on her. He would clasp his hands around her feet to warm up her toes, check how the deep lacerations in her feet were closing, rest a hand over her stomach or chest to feel her breathe, study the finger stump on her right hand, and slide his palm up her arm over the Xs as he had seen her do so many times.

Once, when Wade was sitting beside him, Piotr had been studying the Xs again. “Wade...what are these?” he asked.

Wade puffed out his cheeks and blew a long breath, fumbling, “Ohhhh buddy, uhh, I - you should - you know - that’s just not my story to tell, you know?” Wade gripped his knees and stretched, popping his shoulders.

Piotr traced a few of the smaller Xs, then laid his palms to cover as many as possible. “They are signatures, aren’t they?” he said quietly, voice tight. “They called her Guestbook, and put these marks all over her. The x-rays showed scar tissue in this shoulder, like it had been dislocated more than once.” Wade’s silence except for sucking in a hissing breath through his teeth was answer enough. Lifting her hand, Piotr pointed out the newest one, with a long tail that curved around her arm. It was scabbed over and a little irritated, but no longer puffy with infection. “I have been cleaning and caring for this one,” he said with a tone that was too calm. “Wade, who did this to my wife? Was it guards? Other prisoners?”

The images flashed in Wade’s mind, another horrible thing he would never forget. Rhonda on the ground, arms pinned and twisted, knees in her back, a dead look in her eyes. Weak with cancer and restrained by several people, he had been unable to help her. He blinked. “Both.” 

With what could only be described as reverence, Piotr laid Rhonda’s hand back on the bed, and actually pulled his hands away to ball into fists on his thighs. His gaze was still riveted to her. “The prisoners we brought with us - was it any of them?” His voice was even, and clear, and filled with cold determination.

Wade could smell the desire for revenge like a shark smells blood in the water, and raised his hairless brows. “For what it’s worth, sexy, beefy Terminator,” he started to smile, “I’m pretty sure your lady killed about half the motherfuckers who ever touched her.”

For the first time in days, Piotr made direct eye contact, with a placid expression. Jaw tight, he asked, “And the other half?”

The seasoned mercenary was beaming. “As much as I love this color on you,” he waved an open hand in a circle. “Do I really have to remind you of your rules? One of the ones near the top - I think it’s number five, maybe nine - no killing? Anyone?”

“Perhaps you were right when you killed Francis,” he said. “Perhaps an exception can be made.”

Wade squirmed in his seat, groaning, then jumped to his feet, “Stop talking dirty to me! This hospital room is no place for a boner!” He growled in frustration, then pointed at Rhonda, “Plus…she said...we don’t know how many of them seem like fucking monsters now, but they weren’t like that until the Icebox made them that way. I - uggghhhhhh,” he grumbled incoherent cursing about turned tables and moral compasses. “I think she’d want you to leave them alone.”

The Russian’s shoulders sagged and he looked down at his hands, opening and closing his fists. “What good is all my strength,” he sighed, “if I could not prevent any of this? If I cannot protect her?”

[darnloveablecharacters]

Prove Me Wrong, Part Nineteen: Fear

Series Summary:  Caithwistë, born from the only known pairing of an elf and a dwarf has spent most of her life in hiding. When an old friend, (or a certain meddling wizard) finds her in the woods, everything changes. Now, she will have the chance to prove the world wrong about her value. A ‘The Hobbit’ fanfiction based off of the following imagines from @imaginexhobbit: This One is the basis of the story, and This One and This One will be added in later. If you recognize it, it belongs to Professor Tolkien or Peter Jackson. But, as usual, the story and all of the mistakes are my own!

Prove Me Wrong - Masterlist

Chapter Notes: This was legitimately the hardest chapter for me to get right. Good lord so much happens here. I’ve re-written it so many dang times and I know I’ve said this before, but I hope I was right with the decision that this was the best version. Also, I’ve discovered how to make my  own gifs, YAY!

Warnings for this chapter: violence, death, fluff if you squint a bit - basically the same as the last one

Tagged: @imaginesreblogged @chevycastiel1967 @rices4me93​ If you want to be added just let me know!

Caithwistë squeezed her eyes shut against the sound of the Company’s screams. She was pressed between Thorin and Dwalin as the bridge tumbled down the crevasse, creating an avalanche of rock and splintered wood in its wake. Together, they shielded her from the flying debris until they were jolted forward violently and Dwalin was forced off her. Her eyes snapped open and she saw him tightly gripping the edge of the bridge, barely stopping himself from tumbling over. “Dwalin!” She screamed, reaching out to him. She felt Thorin tighten his hold on her just as she managed to grasp Dwalin’s wrist. She could feel that they were slowing down and braved a glance behind her. They were caught between two walls now and she could only pray that the fall was nearly over.

With a final crash, the bridge came to an abrupt halt. The impact forced Caithwistë out of Thorin’s arms and off the bridge. With a groan, she pushed herself to her feet brushing the debris off that had covered her. She looked to the bridge and let out a relieved breath at the sight of the Company, bruised but alive.

“Well that could have been worse.” Bofur said, right before the corpse of the Great Goblin crashed into the bridge. The Company groaned in unison with the additional weight on the destroyed bridge crushing them.

“You’ve got to be joking me.” Dwalin growled.

Caithwistë smiled affectionately at the rough dwarf and rushed forward to help them out of the rubble. She was pulling Bombur to his feet when Kili suddenly yelled, “Gandalf?!” Her eyes shot to him then followed his gaze up the cavern and she sucked in a breath at the sight. Hundreds of goblins were now scuttling down the walls quickly, headed straight for them.

“There’s too many, we can’t fight them.” She heard Dwalin say as she moved forward to pull Glóin out of the wreckage.

“Only one thing will save us. Daylight! Come on!” Mithrandir called out.

The rest of the Company was quickly freed from the confines of the bridge and they ran through the first opening they could find. It wasn’t long before sunlight came into view, and Caithwistë couldn’t help the smile forming on her lips at the near freedom.

“Gollum”.

Caithwistë stopped in her tracks. She was certain that she had heard someone calling out in agony but couldn’t place the voice. She was not given time to process what she heard though, as she was pushed forward by Bombur. “Keep going, Miss Caithwistë.” He said breathlessly and she quickened her pace again pushing the thought from her mind.

Finally, they burst out of the caves into the sunlight and she took in a deep breath of the fresh air. The comforting feeling of their freedom gave her a new burst of energy as Company continued their retreat, wanting to distance themselves from the caves as much as possible before the sun set. It was not until the sun began to dip below the horizon that they finally stopped.

Caithwistë took a moment to catch her breath and turned to Thorin. “Lost your way again, did you?” She said with a smirk.

Thorin rolled his eyes and shoved her playfully, making her giggle.

“Where’s Bilbo? Where is our hobbit?”

Caithwistë’s gaze snapped back to Mithrandir who was glancing around at the Company uncertainly. She peered at the gathering, confirming he was not there and felt sick. How could she have not noticed he wasn’t with them?

“Where is our hobbit?” Mithrandir demanded again when there was no answer.

“Curse that Halfling! Now he’s lost? I thought he was with Dori!” Glóin growled.

“Don’t blame me!” Dori protested.

Mithrandir stalked toward him. “And where did you last see him?” He asked forcefully.

It was Bifur that answered. “I think I saw him slip away when they first collared us.”

Caithwistë sighed in relief. Perhaps Bilbo was safe.

Mithrandir turned to Bifur. “What happened exactly? Tell me!”

“I’ll tell you what happened.” Thorin said, stepping forward angrily. “Master Baggins saw his chance and he took it! He’s thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since first he stepped out of his door. We will not be seeing our hobbit again. He is long gone.”

“No, he isn’t.” Bilbo’s said, appearing as if out of nowhere behind them.

“Bilbo!” Caithwistë cried with tears in her eyes. She jumped forward and pulled him into a fierce hug that briefly startled him. He chuckled and patted her back comfortingly.

“Bilbo Baggins. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.” Mithrandir said cheerfully when Caithwistë released him.

“Bilbo, we’d given you up!” Kili exclaimed with a wide grin.

“How on earth did you get past the goblins?” Fili asked curiously.

“How indeed?” Dwalin asked, watching Bilbo suspiciously.

Bilbo laughed nervously and Caithwistë saw a glint of gold as he stuffed something in his pocket. She glanced at Mithrandir nervously and saw a flash of fear cross his eyes. He had seen it too. “Oh, what does it matter? He’s back.” He said, quickly recovering.

“It matters.” Thorin said, narrowing his eyes at Bilbo and Caithwistë braced herself for the worst. “I want to know. Why did you come back?” He asked softly.

Bilbo regarded him uncertainly before answering. “Look, I know you doubt me. I know…I know you always have. And you’re right, I often think of Bag End.” He said with a shrug. “I miss my books, and my arm chair, and my garden. See, that’s where I belong. That’s home. And that’s why I came back, cause…you don’t have one. A home.” He glanced at the Company, finally stopping at Caithwistë who was watching him with glassy eyes. “None of you do.” He said, and she nodded sadly before he turned back to Thorin. “It was taken from you, but I will help you take it back if I can.”

Caithwistë was speechless as she watched Bilbo smile fondly at the Company. He had already come such a long way. From a flustered hobbit worrying about his lack of handkerchief to a strong friend who would risk his life to help them find their place in the world. She didn’t think she could ever feel more pride than what she felt in that moment. She glanced at Thorin who was now looking at Bilbo appreciatively. It was the first time she had ever seen him regard the hobbit with anything other than disdain.

The moment of peace was tender but unfortunately could not last. Caithwistë tensed when the sound of growling reached her ears. She turned uncertainly back toward the mountain just before a loud howl cut through the silence, setting the Company on high alert.

“Out of the frying pan.” Thorin growled.

“And into the fire, run. RUN!” Mithrandir called.

Caithwistë grabbed the stunned Bilbo’s hand and pulled him down the rocky slope as the Company scattered. She could hear heavy paws hitting the ground as the pack rapidly gained on them. Releasing her grip on Bilbo she turned, drawing her bow, and killed the first warg just as it came into view. As soon as it dropped, another was quickly in its place and she was forced to dive out of the way when it leapt at her. She rolled to her feet with another arrow drawn but the warg had not turned to her as she thought it would, it was headed for Bilbo instead. She released the arrow but aimed too high, barely missing just as Bilbo and the warg disappeared behind an outcropping.

“Bilbo?!” She screamed, running to the spot where they were hidden. She drew Emel-o Orcrist as she rounded the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. Bilbo was alive, trying to pull his blade out of the now dead warg’s head. She rushed to him to help. “Come on Bilbo, we have to move.” She pleaded as they finally wrenched the blade free. He nodded and they ran to toward where the Company was now scrambling into the trees.

They reached it just in time, Caithwistë pulling Bilbo onto a branch as the wargs snapped at his heels. “That was too close.” He muttered.

Caithwistë nodded silently, watching the pack circle underneath the branches. Her arrows would be no good here, there were simply too many. Suddenly the snarling stopped and the wargs turned back, watching as their leader approached.

Caithwistë froze, gripping the trunk of the tree tightly as the white warg and her rider climbed up on a nearby outcropping. She felt ice in her veins, and it became difficult for her to breathe as the memories of Moria began flooding through her at the sight of him.

Azog, the Defiler sat triumphantly on his mount, focusing directly on Thorin. He took a deep breath and leaned forward, stroking his warg gently with a deadly looking claw that had replaced his severed hand. “Do you smell it? The scent of fear? I remember your father reeked of it, Thorin son of Thrain.”

Caithwistë trembled violently as Azog’s eyes moved across the Company, finally resting on her. He smiled menacingly. “You. You should be dead and yet, here you are. I will enjoy having my favorite toy back after I kill these dwarves.” He said with a cruel laugh.

Caithwistë felt someone grip her hand tightly, but she couldn’t tear her fearful gaze away from the Pale Orc.

“Those are mine.” Azog called out, gesturing to Thorin and Caithwistë. “Kill the others!”

The tree shook as the Wargs violently rammed against it but she was still frozen in her spot. “Caithwistë!” Bilbo yelled, shaking her. She glanced at him, eyes wide with fear and he tightened his grip on her. How long had he been calling to her? “We’re going to have to jump!” He exclaimed, pleading with her to come back to the present.

Caithwistë visibly shook herself at his words and nodded. She noticed the relief flash in Bilbo’s eyes as the tree began to fall. He pulled her with him, jumping to the next tree. She landed agilely onto the branch, regaining a bit of herself but Bilbo slipped, and she dove down to grab his arm. She quickly pulled him back onto the branch before that tree fell as well and they were forced to jump again.

They were now in the last tree at the edge of the cliff with nowhere to run. She had no choice then but to draw her bow and try to protect the Company as long as she could. Before she was able to shoot though, a ball of flame was thrown from above her driving the wargs back. She released the tension on the bow and looked up as Mithrandir began lighting more pinecones and tossing them down to the dwarves. They used them to light even more pinecones and were quickly able to create a defensive ring of fire between them and the pack.

The Company cheered as the wargs retreated but were abruptly silenced when the tree shook and began to fall. The descent of the tree halted when it was level with the cliff, the jolt making Caithwistë lose her grip on the branch. Her fall was abruptly stopped, and she glanced up in surprise to see Thorin gripping her arm tightly. “Unalê, do not let go.” He commanded with wide eyes.

Caithwistë nodded and he pulled her up just enough so she could cling on to a branch and push herself back onto the trunk of the tree. Thorin let out a breath and nodded at her but his expression darkened, and he turned back to the pack. “Thorin?” She asked as he released his grip on her and stood. He stepped off the tree with his sword drawn, moving in for the attack. “Thorin, don’t!” She pleaded as he began to run through the flames.

He couldn’t hear her, to him there was only Azog now.

Caithwistë scrambled to her feet and watched in horror as Thorin burst through the flame and Azog’s warg leapt at him, knocking him on his back. He had barely managed to climb back to his feet when Azog charged him again, dealing a fierce blow to his head with his mace but they still weren’t finished. Caithwistë gasped at the sound of Thorin’s scream as the warg picked him up and bit down, hard. Even clenched in the wargs jaws, Thorin managed to slash at her nose and she reflexively threw him toward the edge of the cliff.

Caithwistë blanched when the screaming stopped. A new feeling of pain ripped through her when Thorin hit the ground and did not move.

Caithwistë trembled at the sight. She no longer shook with fear though. Instead, she was consumed by a fierce rage that she hadn’t felt since the death of her father. She drew her sword and swiftly charged forward; sight set on Azog. “Bring me his head.” He was saying, and another orc moved forward with its blade drawn. Shifting her focus to protect Thorin again, she let out a guttural scream as she approached and swung her sword in a deadly arc, beheading the orc as it had raised its own blade.

The orc fell, and she backed up to Thorin with her blade raised, glaring at Azog. “You will not touch him.” She growled.

“So be it, kill her then.” Azog said dismissively.

Caithwistë braced herself for the attack as three more mounted orcs moved toward her, but they were all surprised when a chorus of battle cries sounded out and the Company joined the fray in a fierce attack, led by none other than Bilbo.

Caithwistë only had eyes for Azog though. As they pushed the other orcs away, she dashed forward with a savage swing of her sword and managed to knock the mace out of the distracted Orcs hand. She turned to attack again, but Azog swung at her with his clenched fist catching her the jaw and knocked her to the ground. Dazed from the blow, she tried to climb to her feet but failed as the warg turned to her for the kill.

That was when she heard the first call of the eagles. She fell back and watched in awe as they swooped in, catching the mounted orcs off-guard. The moved in quickly, picking them off a few at a time and tossing them over the edge.

Azog was fully focused on the eagles, and Caithwistë took advantage of the distraction. She pushed herself to her feet and ran to Thorin. “Thorin?” She called to him, stroking his cheek lightly. He was unconscious but breathing which gave her a moment of relief until she realized how labored it was. She shook him lightly, but he did not respond. “Thorin, wake up. You must get up, the eagles are here. They can help.” She shook him again and he still did not respond. “Thorin please, you cannot leave me. Not now.” She begged with tears forming in her eyes.

An eagle landed next to her and she gripped Thorin tighter when it reached out to pick him up. “Let go child, I will not harm him.” The eagle said calmly. Caithwistë looked up at it and it regarded her solemnly. She took a deep breath and nodded, releasing Thorin so it could move him. The eagle wrapped its talons around Thorin gingerly, taking great care to not cut him. “Jump young one, we will catch you.”

Caithwistë nodded again and watched the eagle fly away with Thorin cradled in its talons for a moment, then remembered where she was. She looked back and sent a final glare to the enraged Azog. He roared at her, angered at the loss of his trophy. She sneered at him with her own feeling of triumph before jumping off the cliff onto the back of another great eagle.

As the Company was carried to safety, she made a promise to herself that the next time she met Azog, it would be the last.

Translations: Unalê - My tracker (khuzdul)

yeah yeah, I know I got lazy with the black speech on this one but just so y'all know.... I actually had it all translated but thought for the reading sake, we'll just throw it in italics and call it a day lol.

Authors Note: I’m really sorry for taking Thorin’s rescue away from Bilbo, but helping Caithwistë is just as good, right? Sorry Bagginshield fam, but we all know that moment is crucial for the developing relationship.

[alexisluthor]

Prodigal Son Deep Dive - “The Professionals” *SPOILERS*

*PRODIGAL SON SPOILERS AHEAD*

A lot happened in the latest ep of PSON, “The Professionals.” As soon as Malcolm walks into the station and everyone’s staring at him, you know something bad happened. Plus, Gil was drinking. During the day.

So, Eve’s dead, that’s a bummer. We also miss getting two episodes of the show due to the virus, so who knows what those two episodes contained. What we have to work with is a seemingly all-powerful Nick Endicott who promised Whitly in 1999 that he’d…sleep with…Jessica and destroy his family if he ever reneged on their agreement. He’s made good on the first point and is working on the second.

It is my theory that when Malcolm went to “interview” Eddie, the man in the room wasn’t even Eddie. If the team were smart and trying to intercept Nick Endicott’s attempt at framing Malcolm…they would have a bandaged man sent to the hospital – have Malcolm show up with orders from Gil to interview him (which is weird bc he’s a profiler, but whatever). They’ve already got the assassin in their pocket. She goes to Endicott, tells him she killed Eddie and planted evidence after Malcolm’s visit. Voila. Nick thinks he’s got the upper hand.

The team has to keep Malcolm in the dark, to make everything look believable. But notice, at the end of the ep, Dani is looking upward. As if searching for cameras or something. Eve’s place had been spied upon and I think the team hoped that Malcolm’s place was bugged as well so that Nick would get the confirmation he sought. Malcolm gives an amazing ‘shocked’ performance, because it’s not a performance. He really thinks he’s being arrested. Although, if you watch his face carefully, you watch his expression shift to something…else. Less shocked and more… ‘aha, I know what you’re doing here.’

Maybe he’s safer in the clink than anywhere else at the moment – at least until Nick is…taken care of. But the promos for the next ep indicate that he’s not in jail.

Speaking of “taken care of…” as soon as it’s mentioned that Mr. David was sick, alarm bells went off in my head. It was nice to see Martin ‘caring’ about his ol’ pal, and even nicer to hear him hiss at Eddie that he’s, “not like other prisoners.” Is Mr. David still alive? Did Nick kill him?

Now we know that Martin’s cushy existence behind bars is because of Nick. But at what cost? The way Endicott threatened Martin…talked down to him…offered him his little rug. I would say that Martin is a…dominant…type. I think it’s killing him that Nick has infiltrated his family so thoroughly. That pent up rage is probably not doing good things for him, mentally. I think a lot of that rage comes out when he’s brutalizing Eddie.

The scene where Eddie tries to kill Martin was fantastic. Martin being choked…Malcolm unable to get into the cell. As he was being choked out, it was like Martin had all but given up until he heard Malcolm scream, “Dad!” It was a moment that so perfectly echoed that scene when Martin was in a coma. It was Bright who brought him back to the surface. Martin’s eyes snap open and he gets the upper hand, going into full kill mode, and all Malcolm can do is watch. I think Malcolm watches in both horror and fascination. This is the first time he’s really seen his father do real damage, revealing his animalistic nature in the most brutal fashion.

What’s just as shocking is the way that Martin attacks Eddie. He goes for the eye sockets, which is one of the ways he’d mentioned previously, to a collegiate Malcolm, how he could kill him. He tells Eddie, “this is for my boy,” and grins wildly at Malcolm as he does it. It’s like watching his sanity snap in real time. And Malcolm can’t pull his eyes away.

I think part of Malcolm…a part that he’d never admit to having…wasn’t too terribly upset by his father’s brutal treatment of Eddie. That is the man who killed Eve after all… The look on his face is more one of fascination than disgust. Despite not being >>as<< panicked as when Martin was being attacked, he still urges Martin to stop. JT pulls Martin off Eddie and Martin has this moment…it’s almost like he’d disassociated a bit. He almost has to come back to himself. Hmmmmm….

And poor Gil and Jessica, talking about Malcolm – drinking – reconnecting. Their night had been going well. Jessica is right, she sure can pick ‘em. And to find out that she did have a history with Gil is beyond satisfying and something I think we all suspected. But to hear that she had turned him away – made him think he wasn’t good enough for her – that was brutal. Poor Gil. Still, he got to have his life with Jackie. And now he gets Jessica. Or does he?

Boy…what a time for Martin. He lost Jess both to his enemy Endicott, and to his enemy Arroyo. That rage will really boil when he hears about Gil. He already fears that he’s lost his boy to the lieutenant and now his ex? Ouch.

We get that lovely kiss between Gil and Jess and several other incredible moments with the rest of the team.

Ainsley puts herself in danger as she tries to investigate Nick. But part of me wonders…if she’ll be the one to kill him. I think Martin went after the wrong kid to try to convince to be a killer. If I had to put my money on it, I’d see her killing someone before Malcolm would. Then again, he did stabby stabby his very own daddy daddy but I think the reasons behind that were more complicated than – well, he’s a killer. I digress.

And poor Eve. No wonder Malcolm is haunted by her specter. In a way, it is because of his family that both she and her sister are dead. She had just begun to taste hope, had just renewed her spark, and boom –  her life was snuffed out. I think Malcolm’s psyche is more fragile than ever as a result… How many ghosts can haunt him before he cracks apart entirely?

And what of Nick’s fury? What happens when he finds out Jess has moved on to Gil? When she says “no,” to him? Eeeeek. Martin is the big, bad predator, but he can’t do much protecting from behind bars. And judging from the ‘upcoming ep’ scenes, there’s a bounty on Martin’s head. He’s going to be in gen pop – all of his cushy privileges bestowed upon him by Endicott revoked. There is a prison free-for-all in the promo for the finale so I still hold out hope that Martin could manage a jailbreak, or at least a chance at staying alive.  

Tangent --- If Martin does stay alive (which he better), how would his dynamic with the team be altered now that he’s a ‘regular’ prisoner? No more private room? No more desk and books and surgical consulting? No more Mr. David, lion nature specials, and extensive private phone time? His own sanity would probably begin to splinter. Maybe his work/cooperation with the NYPD and surgical consultations would be enough to get him some old comforts back? As much as Malcolm professes to hate him (and does hate him), I don’t think he’d like these changes for Martin either (because part of him, also begrudgingly loves him). Perhaps he himself could rescue Martin from the lost privileges? After all, is it really a GOOD IDEA to mix Martin with a bunch of other prisoners? He is a puppet master, a mastermind. So maybe Mal gets him his old existence back. Wouldn’t that be a twist? >evil grin<

What I need is Mal and Martin in the same prison. Malcolm protecting him from getting whacked while the team and Ainsley try to bring down Nick. But if Martin is urging Malcolm to kill Nick, that means that Malcolm’s free. No Prison!Malcolm for me unfortunately.

I think it’s also highly unlikely that Malcolm will kill Nick in the end.

Finally, I find it fascinating that Martin urges Malcolm to be the killer, rather than Ainsley, even though he’s talking to both of them. He points out that HE is a Whitly. Like…hello? So is she? (THIS REALLY BOLSTERS MY THEORY THAT SHE IS NOT MARTIN’S KID – that and the way he barely acknowledges her existence) Maybe she’ll take Nick out in the end? Who knows.

All I know is that the team is more kickass than ever. Malcolm improvising with that knife and ketchup? Perfection. Dani taking out the assassin. Beyond amazing. The director actually giving us a LIT SHOT OF TOM PAYNE’S FACE…YESSSSSS. There were plenty of wonderful moments in this ep that have me screaming at FOX to renew this show.

PS If Edrisa is the ultimate Malcolm Stan…HOW DID SHE NOT KNOW THAT HE HAD DATED EVE? LIKE…what kind of stalker are we here Edrisa? You can do better. Plus, no one from the team thought to CALL HER? Give her a heads up maybe? “Yo – Bright is coming in. He dated the dead girl. Act somber.” NOTHING. She just had no idea. This from the same woman who HAD MAL’S MEDICAL FILES after he got kidnapped? I just…. sigh…come on team. Come on Edrisa. (GIF courtesy of MyBoy)

[fizzingwizard]

kizuna countdown part 2! yup i just did them all in one go, everyone who’s doing it day by day, have fun! See y’all on Friday!

Favorite Chosen Child-Digimon bond

... uh... so I guess I already answered this in the last question XD I think it's because it's so difficult to think about the Digimon without thinking a lot about the relationship they have with their partners. So I'll just let this one lie, I guess.

Favorite Chosen Children friendship

I pretty much like any relationship dynamic that involves Taichi.

Taichi & Yamato show the most growth, both in themselves and in their appreciation and respect for each other. Taich comes at Yamato expecting to make friends just by being himself as always. Yamato's built up walls to keep himself from getting hurt, plus there's a side to him that wants to be as free Taichi, and he winds up feeling jealous. Then there are ways in which they are legit different which adds even more friction. Their friendship comes out on top because both of them are extremely loyal to their friends at their core. They rock. I loved them in Tri too, when Taichi was acharacteristically waffling around and Yamato was even more concerned about it than the confused viewers hahahaha.

Taichi & Koushirou because they're the opposite of him and Yamato, their friendship is steady and strong throughout. They already respect each other from day one. Taichi puts a lot of faith and trust in Koushirou's abilities and relies on him to get him out of a pickle, even one he's made on his own. Koushirou is a bit shy and not exactly afraid to speak up, but not 100% convinced that his contribution is valued. Taichi helps him see his own worth. And Koushirou believes in Taichi :')

I also love him and Sora and Hikari. For friendships that don't include Taichi, my favs are:

Takeru & Hikari because they're really POWERFUL when they're together (teasing Daisuke for example)

Sora & Koushirou Managing Things, Somehow

Koushirou & Mimi driving each other crazy while really valuing each other

Daisuke & Miyako ^ similar dynamic

Ken & Miyako, I know it becomes a romance, but I loved it when they were kids and it was like Ken and Hikari were off being angsty together and Miyako's like I FEEL LEFT OUT and whines about and then kicks their butts to make the sun shine

Favorite Adventure series villain

Etemon! just kidding. Though the Etemon arc was so great for Taichi that I really enjoy it XD

I'd definitely pick the Dark Masters. Devimon was your typical RPG villain, then Etemon was nonsense run amok. Myotismon was the most fun storyline, what with going back to the human world and the search for the eighth child... I especially loved the chaos when the kids are all separated throughout the city.

But yeah, it'd be the Dark Masters, mostly because I loved how much the kids' resolve got tested when they had to decide for themselves to go to the digital world instead of just being thrown in there. The only one who's had to do that before was Taichi. They fought and they lost a lot of friends, and their team splintered and we saw new sides to everyone. It was harsh. About the villains themselves, MetalSeadramon was whatever, but Puppetmon with his envy and vulnerability and weird relationship with Cherrymon was so interesting to me. Machinedramon was downright terrifying. And then Piedmon playing everyone like marionettes and taking down the trump card as soon as it appeared on the scene... it all led to my favorite moment when the kids are running away one by one and sacrifice themselves to save each other. Sora's moment saving Takeru and Hikari while grabbing Yamato's doll was absolutely epic.

Favorite non-partnered Digimon

Piximon! I loved and wanted more of his training sessions. Wish he'd been like Rafiki and just followed Taichi around smacking him on the head with his stick.

Does Gennai count? He's not a Digimon so I guess not, but I loved Gennai too. He was useful. And also useless. I mostly liked it when he was useless xD

Also Whamon. Traveling in the belly of a whale is awesome. And I was so upset when he got killed.

Also Leomon & Ogremon should count as one of my favorite friendships.

Favorite ship / OTP

So, my number one Digimon OTP is Joumi. Always has been. I like it for a lot of similar reasons that people like Koumi, I guess. But the reason I glued onto Joumi mainly happened in Dark Masters when they were traveling just the two of them for a while. Mimi is positive and outspoken and caring despite being a bit self-absorbed. Jou is reliable, steady, and protective, even though he's also perpetually stressed out. They can both be panicky, but they grow out of it a lot. I think they're pretty realistc in personality and that's one reason I like them together: no one's unusually adept at something or other, they're just kids. They confide in each other about their struggles and they pick each other up. (I loved Ketsui for those moments! Such gifts)

Other ships I really enjoy are Taishiro, Taito, Miyakari, Daiken, Takari, and Daikeru. I also love one-sided Taidai and Mimiyako!

A friendship you'd like to see developed

Honestly? Sora and Miyako. The 02 kids inherited the Adventure team's crests, and each seemed to have a slightly stronger bond with one predecessor than the other. Daisuke had interesting dynamics with both Taichi and Yamato, so that was okay. Iori seemed to have more significant moments with Jou than Koushirou, I think because the sort of knowledge that Iori quests for is a different kind. Miyako is really, really similar to Mimi, her passions are just more hard sciences than artsy-fartsy.  But Miyako really never gets any moments with Sora at all? There's that one when she's panicking about being a Chosen in like episode 2, and I can't think of any after that. I would love to see Sora big sister-ing Mimi, helpig her bring out her sensible side, since Mimi's got the eccentric covered.

I'd ALSO like to see Hikari & Sora have a great friendship. One that isn't entirely based on worrying about Taichi x'D

Favorite Kizuna character profile

Takeru's because I just love that he's in a children's lit club!

Favorite Kizuna promotional art

I... haven't been paying attention, so this isn't a real answer, but that one with the boys eating ramen I guess. I even wrote a ficlet for it lol.

Favorite Tri. installment

Kokuhaku!!!! That destroyed any reservations I still had about Tri. It was epic. Somewhat undercut by the fact that we all knew the Digimon would wind up getting their memories back eventually, but I was okay with just enjoying the ride until we got to that point. It was great. I loved the sacrifice the Digimon were willing to make, I loved the secret farewells each partner took, I loved Takeru's protectiveness, Koushirou's breakdown, and Tentomon's strength. Like seriously, he gets all the MVP awards.

Favorite non-Tri. Adventure movie

Our War Game. It's just classic. Plus, Bolero.

Favorite character besides the 12 kids & their partners

Oh, I guess now I could pick Gennai if I want. But I think I'd pick Meiko. I was so not feeling her when Tri came out because I expected her to be the Typical Anime Movie Newbie, who's almost always a girl, bland and uninteresting, eating up valuable screen time from the characters we actually want to see, magically saves everyone and then never appears again.

Meiko did not end up being that girl. Her shyness and awkwardness might have been annoying if they hadn't been tempered by her personal journey through the six movies, and I ended up really liking having a shy girl on the cast. It was refreshing and it was beautifully cast against Mimi. Mimi/Meiko FTW. And she hd real female relationships - with both Sora and Mimi. Her protectiveness of Meicoomon, but also her selfishness, and the terrible decisions she had to make, the way she struggled with self-pity and real honest grief... it ended up really moving me. I think she became very well-rounded and added a lot to Tri.

If Tri had been just one movie, like those anime movies I was expecting, I think she would have been That Girl, but fortunately with six we had plenty of time to get to know her.

(Bonus) Freebie! Talk about something we didn't cover :)

Well, we did lots of favs, so how about a "least fav"?

Of course I don't have a least favorite Chosen, or Digimon. In fact the only thing I'd really pin as a big disappointment happened in Tri. I love Tri but it's certainly got its holes, and for me, Himekawa Maki is a big one. I hate that we just left her wandering in the dark ocean. I hate that were wasn't more expansion on the original Chosen team. I remember when I was a kid and we found out in the last ep or so of Adventure that there had been kids before Taichi and co, I was annoyed, I'd wanted them to be the first.

But I was also curious. With Tri, we finally found out some about that... but only scraps. Who were the others on the team? Where are they now? What's their relationship with Digimon, and if they don't have one anymore, why? What would they say about Daigo's death and Maki's disappearance? Honestly I didn't want to dedicate more time to them at that point (even with six movies they couldn't cram everything in - much as I love Ketsui, I think it should have been a bit different, and moved the plot along faster). But I also hate that we finally learned some stuff about them and in the end were just left with even more questions.