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daydream-believin · 3 years ago

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you were my clarity, i swear

warnings: no capitalization, swearing, reader insert’s bare chest at one point gn tho, blood, dark humor, stabbing, minor character death, as in not a minor character but a minor death

a/n: you could say this idea possessed me haha not full texas accent but still some country sentence structures cus i’m trying to be more me flavored instead of palatable. ¡buen provecho!

taglist: @moppetwithamanbun @alovesongshewrote @blixeon @prismarts @transformers-insanity @fantasyiswaybetterthanreality @ukuleles-and-roses @rookiedook19 @faraum

PLINK! the sound of glass shattering pierced the quiet rhythm of the cauldron’s bubble. archie jumped at the sound. the bottle had slipped right out of douxie’s hands. its contents lay helplessly on the floor, contaminated and ruined for any further use. the five second rule doesn’t exactly apply to eye of newt and toe of frog. douxie didn’t hear the crash. transfixed, he numbly stared at the spilled potion ingredients. and as the inexplicable grief filled his heart, a few silent tears made their way down his face. archie rubbed against douxie’s legs as he braved himself over the cauldron, choking out a painful sob.

• • •

so! you were dead. funny thing, you weren’t even that vexed about the situation. it’s just sort of a thing that happened to you. there’s nothing you could’ve to change this fact, so why fight it. you left behind some pretty great people, but the afterlife was chill.

at least, you thought it was chill. you were sure there’s probably someone who’s unhappy with it. to each his own. but to you, it was marvelous. you felt like you were swimming in jello. well, just a little thinner. a semi-set jello taken out of the fridge by an over-eager nine-year-old. you didn’t know what zero gravity was supposed to feel like, but maybe this was it.

sadly, you didn’t get to be one of those cool ghosts who haunt the shit out of the places they died. sure, you had unfinished business, but not the kind that ghost immigration deemed fit for haunting. but that was for the best. you really didn’t find the idea of haunting the rest-stop in between arcadia oaks and fresno for the rest of your existence appealing.

it wasn’t that bad. the stab wound was pretty metal. it would’ve made such a kickass scar if you survived. kind of a bummer you weren’t wearing anything nice. not your fault though. how were you supposed to know you were picking out your ghost outfit. and it’s not like people wore anything fancy to wizards duels. in fact, it’s a general rule of thumb that you don’t go to those things in any garment you aren’t willing to walk away with holes in. on the night of your death, you weren’t one to completely follow that rule, however. you were wearing your best friend’s hoodie as a good luck charm. ironically.

you were glad you had the hoodie on that night. it was one of the only personal items you had now. along with your keys, wallet, earbuds, and two pocket lint covered almonds you didn’t know what to do with? its not like you can eat anymore, and you ain’t about to be no litterbug in the void.

and of course, not to be forgotten, the bronze locket around your neck. you ran your fingers over the clasp of the locket like you used to do when you were stressed. opening it up, you stared down at the photo within. you were laughing. he was laughing. you don’t even remember what was so funny, but the little frozen younger-you knew. they’ll always know. that moment was one of your most cherished memories. you closed the locket in reverence. gently, you pushed it to you lips. the bronze felt cold against your kiss. funny, you hadn’t noticed that before. cold. you weren’t cold, like you associated with death.

sticking the earbuds into your ears, despite them being plugged into nothing, you shifted your weight to a laying back position. might as well relax for a bit, you’ve got all the time in the world now.

•••

douxie lit the candles, one by one, casting a soft orange glow against his face. he placed them strategically along the circle he had drawn in his own blue magic on the bookstore floor. he spread some lavender about the space, for no reason other than it was a favorite of the deceased. he sat in front of his work, floorboards creaking underneath him.

he pulled a worn photograph out of his pocket. his favorite photo. he was laughing. you were laughing. and the both of you were so happy. over the years the sweat from his hands had warped the paper the image was printed on. he continued to clutch it tightly anyway.

douxie had enough emotion swirling around now. surely he had enough before rubbing salt on the wound by dragging out that memory, but he needed to make sure. he stuffed the photograph back into the pocket of his black skinny jeans.

he concentrated. the candlelight turned blue around him, creating an eerie atmosphere in the empty bookstore. doux could feel something in his chest. he instinctively closed his eyes tight to focus on the feeling, and vaguely registered how sweaty his hands felt as he clasped them together.

“my dear friend y/n l/n, i invite you into my home. i ask you to commune with me.”

silence. not even the candles flickered.

douxie opened his eyes to the sight of nothing. he waited a breath. one. two. three. and there you were.

“heyyyy douxie darling~ how’s it going?”

“you had one job. one fucking job.”

“i got the time map back. chillax, mate,” he crossed his arms, very not-chillax, “it’s right here…” you fished around in your pockets for the magical artifact, “…”

douxie got off of the floor, rising to his full height. he looked pretty pissed. you hit him with your best cheesy smile. it had no effect.

“so it’s looking like someone might have taken it off my body,” you shrugged, “heyyy how about that.”

“of course someone took it off your body. you fucking bled out on the grass, y/n.”

douxie stared you down like he couldn’t believe you had the audacity to go and get yourself stabbed. which you were fine with. you didn’t blame him. the whole anger stage of grief and all that jazz. maybe if he had summoned you a week later you could’ve talked to sad-douxie, but honestly, you preferred angry-douxie right now. the last thing you needed was to watch him cry over you. truth is, you hadn’t really processed this whole thing, and seeing him cry would make you cry. that wouldn’t do. you made up your mind when you were still alive that, when the time came, you weren’t gonna be one of those sad ghosts who moan and weep all the time. you’re a fun ghost. the kind of ghost middle school girls ask whether their crush likes them or not at a sleepover.

“i completed the task set for me. and i won the duel.”

“i don’t care about the time map, or who won, i care that my best friend died alone on the side of the highway. you are dead. you are gone, y/n.”

“doux—“

“i should have never let you go out there by yourself in the first place. i shouldn’t have trusted you,” douxie growled, “you weren’t ready.”

“HEY!”

now it was your turn to have your blood boiling. this again, huh. gods, clutching your wrist behind your back, you had to remind yourself that he’s just lashing out. this was a common argument amongst y’all, but bringing it up right now was a low blow.

“i’m every bit of wizard as anyone else. i had everything under control,”

douxie gestured to, well, all of you, “apart from the stabbing. okay?”

you and douxie found yourself engaged in an intense staring match, like a pair of children. a few energy charged seconds passed between y’all. in the spirit of being childish, you stuck your tongue out at him, effectively breaking the intensity of the moment. douxie rolled his eyes fondly.

“i suppose you did win the duel.”

“i did. you should have seen the look on that prick’s face.”

a hint of a smile graced douxie’s face, “their ego must have taken quite a hit,” that almost-smile faded as quickly as it arrived, “for them to have done what they did.”

“… you wanna see the stab wound?”

before douxie could protest or you could think this over for one second more than zero and realize how fucked up this was, your shirt was off.

“wow,” doux took in the cavern that had been hastily carved into your chest, “that’s so metal,” his voice cracked.

you chuckled, “that’s what i said.”

douxie ran his thumb along the edges of the wound. his touch was warm, but you shivered nonetheless. he looked perplexed, staring into your bare chest, and you got a bit insecure under his gaze. it felt like forever as he inspected you like a fresh specimen in a lab.

“wouldn’t it have been cool if i got to keep the knife?”

you watched as doux grit his teeth at the iffy joke. maybe you shouldn’t have said that. it’s your fault really. ever the jokester, unable to take even your own stabbing seriously. but all you wanted was a response. something, anything out of him.

he pressed the pad of his thumb ever so lightly against your flesh, and you waited for him to finally speak. and he did, but you didn’t like what he said,

“…it’s amazing, how little was able to separate you and me… to separate you from the future… how simple an action that took everything away…”

you took a deep breath, not daring to add anything to this funeral pyre he was building in your chest. he ran his fingertips away from the wound, tracing sparks under your skin until he cruelly removed them.

“what was their name?”

“no,” you knew where this was going, and your weren’t about to supply angry-douxie with information, “no, you’re not avenging me. or anything else of the sort, hisirdoux.”

“bollocks. you bled out behind a rest-stop bathroom. tell me that wanker’s name.”

“they’ll die by the sword,” you turned out your palms in a gesture for emphasis, “soon enough,”

you looked him in the eye, “but not your sword, doux.”

douxie didn’t supply you with any answer to that statement. it didn’t mean he had decided to back down on his stance in the slightest. he was just done arguing with you.

and for a long while no one said anything. just stared into each other, each understanding the other’s view but remaining frustrated at it nonetheless. you slipped your shirt back on. untying the hoodie from around your waist, you shrugged it back onto your shoulders. you were cold, after all. cold. you were cold here, on earth.

pushing past the impasse, douxie nodded to you. you didn’t know what he was nodding to but somehow knew what he meant.

he left your side, going across the room to pick out some book from the shelf. he climbed the ladder attached to the bookcase so he could reach the top shelf. doux pulled one out and mulled it over. it was quite thick, and blue, and the gilded pages slipping through his fingers like silk. curious, you floated up to see what he was reading. you rested your chin on his shoulder. it probably felt weird to him, to have you there but not be able to feel the weight that should rest there.

“here’s a bright side of things. says here that since i’ve summoned you, you’re bound to me until i banish you.”

“wow. okay,” a smug grin took over your features, “do you want me to wear a little maid costume?”

“not like that.” he attempted to push your face away from his, unsuccessfully, since you were only solid when you wanted to be, “i only meant that you can stay here with me as long as you like. that’s all.”

“oh. okay. like a funky roommate scenario. like Friends.”

douxie sighed defeatedly, “like Friends.”

you floated back down along with doux as he made his decent down the ladder. bookstore ghost. now that’s a dream job right there. right up there next to museum ghost or aquarium ghost. you crossed your arms as you laid back, lounging about in the air,

“well i don’t think being bound to you sounds like that bad of a deal, then.”

•••

“oh hey, by the way, i don’t think i’ll be able to give back the jacket i borrowed anymore,”

“that’s fine, you died in it, you keep it.”

“no, i mean, i think it’s made up of some sort of ecto-matter or something now? i physically cannot give this thing back.”

#douxie x reader #hisirdoux casperan x reader #hisirdoux x reader #tales of arcadia x reader #hisirdoux casperan #douxie #my writing

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laurie-vexen · 2 years ago

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Blood Hunt (Part Four)

Date: Tuesday, October 25th

Location: Revvly (cavern level)

Notes: Laurie meets Benvolio’s younger cousin.

So, this city was a bigger mess than Laurie could have imagined.

As explained by Benvolio, the other Dyussameu sept was led by his younger cousin, Miranda. She owned a capsule hotel in the cavern levels, and she used it on the side as an asylum of sorts for other, sept-less Umbra. Laurie was quite annoyed to find out about this, because if she had found her way to this hotel first she could’ve saved herself this huge headache. Now she was stuck being on a crooked cop’s radar, and it wasn’t like she could just go back to the ship now. He warned her that she was being watched, and given his status she could believe that.

Sure enough, when she was closer to the hotel, she was hit with the scent of a number of Umbra. The most she’d ever been near outside of her family. She sluggishly walked inside, where a shorter brunette Umbra with the same piercing golden eyes as her gross cousin was already standing in the lobby in her direction.

“Welcome!” the woman cheerily greeted, wasting no time to rush over to Laurie with her arms open. Laurie was too tired to process what was happening, and next thing she knew the short Umbra was squeezing her tightly. She was not in the mood at all for hugs, so she just stood there and hoped it would be over soon.

The woman pulled away with a grin, and placed a hand on Laurie’s cheek. “You poor thing, you look absolutely famished.” Laurie realized she was inexplicably speaking in an Earth English accent. When she switched to the Umbra language, Lexum, she still maintained the accent which just sounded odd coming out of her mouth. “What is your name, my child?”

Laurie couldn’t even remember the last time she spoke in Lexum. At least her name didn’t need to be translated. “Laurie.”

Miranda pouted, as if she were looking at the saddest display she’d ever seen. “Aw.” She gave Laurie’s cheek a pat. “My name is Miranda, but please when we are in public refer to me as Viola. Our non-Umbra guests know me as Viola Dessamer around here.” Laurie simply nodded in acknowledgement, really not caring. “Come, let’s get something in your system and we can talk privately.” She grabbed Laurie’s hand - this family seemed really grabby - and pulled her to their next destination.

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

The fake stuff was never as good as the real thing, but Laurie couldn’t be happier than this moment as she consumed the entire bag she was given. At least she could avoid organ failure for a little longer. Miranda had not shut up the entire time, and Laurie honestly hadn’t been paying attention for most of it. Miranda also didn’t seem to notice she wasn’t paying attention either. But now that she was no longer on the edge of death, Laurie decided to finally listen to what Miranda was saying.

“... and that was how my fourth husband passed on. Terrible thing, Erkuss life span.”

Laurie stared. “You had four husbands?” How did she have the patience?

Miranda’s face lit up at Laurie’s interest. Clearly, she liked talking about herself. “Four husband and two wives, yes. All died of either old age or illness, sadly.

Her eyebrow furrowed. “How did that work with... the whole...”

Miranda smiled. “Umbra thing? Yes, well... we all have our secrets. Even in marriages.”

“But... how did you explain the not aging thing?”

“Oh!” She laughed, as if there was some sort of huge misunderstanding. “No, no, I didn’t marry them one after the other. I was often married at the same time.”

Laurie’s eyes widened. What?

“I don’t understand...”

“I travelled a lot when I was younger,” she explained, sitting back in her chair as she began to reminisce. “It was one of those long distance marriages, you see. Let’s see... I had two on Kraysha, one on Jehk, one here on Kor’Sel’Koo but that one was on the other side of the planet... another one on this outpost planet very far away called...”

Laurie started spacing out again. Great, this family was full of weirdos. At least this one wasn’t out murdering people, she guessed.

As they kept speaking - or rather, when Miranda refused to stop talking for a really, really long time, she got to know more about her sept. A lot of Umbra in her sept were made of once-lost Umbra who ended up in her care. Because of this, her sept was bigger than her older cousin’s, Benvolio, who when mentioned Miranda had a grimace on her face. She warned Laurie to stay away from him, explaining he was a natural feeder and that he loved to harvest petty criminals to feed. Yeah, a bit too late for that Miranda.

Miranda also liked to speak in different accents when she felt like it, hence why today she was British. It was not clear beyond her explanation that she thought the accent sounded nice for why this was. Laurie couldn’t be bothered to ask further about it.

When Miranda was all talked out (hours later), she offered Laurie a capsule to stay in for the night. She told her she could stay for as long as she needed, if she wanted to leave at all. Laurie appreciated it, and despite how strange Miranda seemed, she was starting to feel bad for deceiving her. Because she wasn’t here to seek refuge. She was here to carry out what Benvolio told her to do.

She lay in her capsule, wide awake. She knew the wedding was tomorrow, so she hoped to resolve this by then since she was trying not to miss it. She would wait until it was the middle of night, and then she would do it.

#once again per lisa's suggestion this is sofia coppola #bc this is just an au of the coppola family #self para

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adsdragonlover · 4 years ago

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You Matter To Me

Coda to 15x19

Wc: 2k, Tags: fluff, pie, happy ending, first kiss

Also on ao3

It’s been three weeks since they won, but Dean still isn’t happy.

He’s been driving around the country, searching for something he knows he won’t find. The thing he wants that he knows he can’t have. He lost his chance.

Eventually, he ends up at a diner.

Lulu’s Pies, it says in softly glowing neon cursive above the building.

The bell above the door chimes as Dean pushes it open and steps inside. It’s pleasantly warm compared to the cold night outside, but Dean still feels cold. At least on the inside.

He heads to the bar and sits down on one of the stools.

With a cursory and habitual glance around the diner, he realizes he’s the only one here. At least the only customer.

That makes sense, he supposes. It’s barely 3 AM and the diner is plopped in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. The only other signs of life in the area are the long winding road outside and the shitty old gas station a few miles back.

To be honest, Dean doesn’t quite know why he came here. Maybe he needed a break from the drive.

He wanted to get some pie - the place was literally named for its pies - but that was mainly out of habit rather than actual desire. It’s been hard to want any of the things he used to enjoy, not since…

He cuts off that train of thought with a scowl to himself.

The waitress, a sweet looking woman with long, wavy, dark blonde hair and deep blue eyes approaches Dean from the other side of the bar. “What can I get for you, sugar?” she asks with a warm voice, rich with a soft southern accent. It reminds him, inexplicably, of his mother.

“I-“ Dean stops. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly.

The waitress, Jenna, according to her name tag, smiles sympathetically. “That’s alright,” she says sweetly. “It can be hard to know what you want, especially when you lose someone dear to you.”

Dean frowns. “How did you-” He begins.

Jenna smiles sadly at Dean. “There are some things a mother just knows, and heartbreak is one of them.” Her eyes are understanding, and painfully blue - too close to Castiel’s eyes for comfort. Dean looks away. “You look like you could use a slice of pie,” she says, handing him a paper dessert menu, specifically made for this week. “They’re all made from scratch, and made from the heart. Take all the time you need, honey. I’ll be back with a cup of coffee for you, it’s on the house.”

Jenna’s words soothe something raw and stinging inside Dean, and he offers her a small smile as she heads back into the kitchen.

He looks over the menu with a tired sigh. Not too long ago, Dean would’ve killed to eat here. All the pies sound awesome, and something about the waitress makes it very clear she puts effort into her pies.

Still, his heart isn’t really in it.

When Jenna comes back with a mug of coffee and a smile, Dean nods thankfully, but shakes his head when she asks if he’s ready to order. “I just- I need more time,” he says.

He isn’t just talking about the food. Not anymore.

Jenna nods. “Just give me a call when you’re ready, hun,” and then she’s gone.

Dean isn’t really sure how long he sits there, staring blankly at the dessert menu, coffee warming up one of his hands, his soul feeling achingly empty.

He's snapped out of his stupor by the sound of the bell above the door chiming to indicate someone else entering.

Dean’s eyes are glued to the menu still, reading the blurb under Heartbreak Pie. It's a black bottomed cherry pie, and the picture stops him.

He hears footsteps walk over, but he ignores them. They come closer until the stranger sits down on the stool to the right of Dean.

Dean feels irritation flash through him briefly, the diner is completely empty, and Dean’s positive he’s radiating “leave me alone” vibes, but for some reason the stranger decides to sit next to him anyway.

The irritation is gone as fast as it appeared however, Dean just doesn’t have the energy. Not anymore.

A couple days after they’d won, after Jack had left and Sam had reunited with a newly brought back Eileen, Dean had broken down in the bunker.

He’d lost it a little, had cried and cried and cried for days. Begging and pleading and praying. But Cas hadn’t come back.

Not long after, the sadness had turned to anger. Anger at Cas, for making the deal in the first place. For loving Dean so much it killed him. For telling him and then leaving before Dean could say it back. Anger at Jack, for dying and causing the deal, for becoming God and not bringing Cas back, for leaving Dean just like Cas had, just like Sam.

But mostly, Dean had been angry with himself. For not saying it back when Cas told him, for just standing there, for being the reason Cas died, for being too stubborn and too scared to say anything sooner, back when he’d had the chance. He was angry at himself for not being everything that Cas apparently thought he was.

Those few days were fueled entirely by anger in Dean’s opinion. He knew, deep down, that the anger was caused by love, but he didn’t want to think about that. Because if Cas was right, if he was right about Dean then there really wasn’t any good reason why Dean had never said anything.

Those few days were fueled entirely by anger. He knew, deep down, that the anger was caused by love, but he didn’t want to think about that. Because if Cas was right, if he was right about Dean then there really wasn’t any good reason why Dean had never said anything.

Nowadays though, Dean just felt numb. He drives around in Baby with the hopes of bringing something back into his life, but nothing helps.

He almost missed it, he was so lost in thought, and he barely caught the tail end of Jenna asking the stranger what she could “-get for you, dear?”

“I’ll have a slice of cherry pie,” came the low and gravelly voice, and Dean’s heart stopped, “and a slice of apple pie for my friend here,” Castiel finished.

Dean could barely hear Jenna’s acknowledgement and departure over the sudden ringing in his ears and the unavoidable bloom of hope in his chest.

He wants to look over, he does. He wants to see for himself if it really is Cas. Or if he's finally going crazy. But he can't move. He's frozen in his spot.

And then Cas’ hand comes to rest on Dean’s shoulder, right where his handprint had been, both as a scar that was no longer there, and as a bloody stain on a jacket Dean kept in the trunk of the impala for safekeeping. That movement, that touch, it was undeniably Castiel, and it forced Dean into action.

He turns his head, and looks his best friend in the eyes for the first time in what feels like forever.

And it's Castiel. Undoubtedly. He has the same messy hair, the same stubble, the same beautiful blue eyes, same dirty trench coat, the same stubbornly crooked blue tie.

“Cas?” Dean croaks, voice wobbling, painfully close to cracking.

Castiel smiles softly and the sight of it brings endless relief to Dean. And when Cas responds with, “Yes. Hello, Dean.” The relief doubles until it floods over Dean so completely his hands begin to shake.

“Cas,” he starts, voice trembling almost as much as his hands. “I- you- how-?”

“Oh look, our pie,” Cas says, cutting Dean off as their slices of pie are placed down in front of them.

“Cas, listen-” Dean begins quietly.

“Dean,” Cas interrupts. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk, I promise. Just eat your pie.”

And maybe, some other time, Dean would’ve been worried, would’ve been suspicious over Cas’ clear redirection. But he isn't. Because Castiel’s eyes are earnest and honest.

And Dean suddenly understands. Cas doesn't want to talk about it yet. He doesn't know how Dean is going to respond. He wants to have this first, just a quiet, peaceful moment.

So Dean nods, and begins to eat his pie.

It is really good pie, especially a regular apple pie, and it's probably the best apple pie he’d had in years. Mentally, Dean decides to give Jenna a large tip.

He’s halfway through eating his pie when he can’t do it anymore. Not with the way he could feel Cas watching him contentedly, fondly.

“Cas, listen, I-”

“It’s alright, Dean,” Cas says, cutting him off again, but Dean can’t be mad at it. He just needs to keep going.

“No,” he says sternly, looking stubbornly down at his half-eaten slice of pie. “No, it’s not Cas. It’s not alright, and I need to say this.”

He looks back up at Cas and waits for his response. When Cas nods in understanding, Dean takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes to steady himself briefly before opening them back up and looking Cas in the eyes. “Cas, I love you,” Dean says quietly. “You gotta know I love you too.”

Cas’ eyes widen slightly before his expression softens to something so fond it would probably make Dean uncomfortable had it been coming from anyone else. “I know,” he says with a smile that’s almost a grin.

“You kno-?” Then Dean gets it. “Oh you little shit,” he laughs. “You did not know, you don’t get to Han Solo me, you asshat,” Dean says with a wide grin.

Cas chuckles and the sound warms Dean up from the inside out. “My apologies, Dean. It seemed fitting and I figured you’d appreciate it.” Cas ducks his head slightly, avoiding eye contact, though he’s still smiling.

“Hey,” Dean says, and he reaches out and grabs Cas’ hand. “There’s no need to apologize, man.” Dean’s grinning too, and, distantly, he figures he should probably make an effort to stop calling Cas “man” and “buddy”, considering the fact that he’s in love with the stupid angel.

Cas’ smile widens and he looks back up, meeting Dean’s gaze as he turns his hand over and laces their fingers together almost hesitantly.

The flood of warmth the action brings Dean, as well as the hesitation in Cas’ eyes, brings Dean to squeeze their hands automatically, reassuringly.

All the hesitance in Cas’ expression melts away, and he practically beams at Dean. “You should finish your pie, Dean,” he suggests softly.

“So should you,” Dean points out.

Cas chuckles again and shakes his head. “It only tastes like molecules to me. I’ll get a to-go box for it and you can finish it for me later,” he says, and the ‘later’ in that sentence fills Dean with joy.

They aren’t over. There’s going to be a “later” for the two of them.

He grins at Cas and squeezes his hand before turning back to his delicious pie.

It’s after he finishes it that he gets an idea, and he grins. “Hey Cas, you wanna taste it? It’s pretty good.”

Castiel frowns and does his confused little head tilt that Dean has always secretly found unbearably cute. He realizes, suddenly, that he doesn’t have to keep that a secret anymore, and the thought makes him smile.

“Dean, I don’t understand,” Cas says slowly, “there isn’t any pie le-” and then the look on Dean’s face must sink in, because he cuts off with a slowly growing and a little shy smile. “...yes,” he says finally. “I would like a taste.”

“Good,” Dean says, and then he reaches over with both hands, wrapping one around Cas’ arm and cupping the back of his neck with the other as he pulls his angel into a kiss.

Castiel melts into it, and Dean feels a little like he’s glowing from the inside out, he’s so happy.

When they pull away, Dean is still grinning. “Well?” he says. “Did you like the taste?”

Cas is wearing a matching grin. “Hmmm,” he says with mock thoughtfulness. “I’m not sure, I think we should do it again, so I can have another taste.”

God, Dean is in love.

They meet again in the middle for another kiss.

Dean’s face almost hurts from smiling so much after such a long time of not smiling at all. And he knows, as they hold each other close in the pie diner, that they have the rest of their lives to spend together.

And Dean is happy.

Tag list! Ask to be added or removed!

@dreamnovak @tearsofgrace @bluebell-24 @rambleoncas

#coda #spn fanfic #destiel fanfic #destiel ficlet #destiel coda #spn 15.19 #spn 15x19 #spn spoilers #supernatural fanfic #deancas #deancas fic #destiel fic #destiel #my writing #catch me being a musical theater nerd #and adding Jenna from waitress to the story

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imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs · 4 years ago

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Rosegarden Week 2021: 🌹3rd April: Free Day

He went into the forest that day following a flash of red.

He’d been tending the turnip patch when he’d seen it.

Or rather her.

A girl wreathed in flowers, roses and poppies, speeding through his peripheral vision and into the trees.

“Don’t go into the trees,” his Grandpa Lyman has told him, “that’s where the Estries live.”

“Estries,” his grandmother had chuckled in her thick Quechan accent.

“I’ve seen them,” Grandpa Lyman had said.

Oscar didn’t get to hear the rest, because his mother had scooped him up and scolded her father in law for telling him stories about blood-sucking women.

Oscar never really liked those stories anyway. He much preferred his mother’s parents’ stories of nature spirits, with flower crowns and cow tail.

Except he hadn’t seen a cow tail on the girl that had run into the forest. Just flowers trailing behind her like a cape.

He really shouldn’t be doing this. He had chores to do, a cow to milk.

But he was at that age where, as his grandmother would say “curiosity is what he wakes up to.”

And he had to face the fact that women were the greatest curiosity God created had a bigger hand in his choices today than anything else. He was only human.

As he pushed a cedar branch out of his face, Oscar stopped as the heady scent of wild flowers hit him in the face.

Before him stretched a carpet of roses, intermingled with poppies, chrysanthemums, anemones, and yarrow. Dead cockscomb blossoms lay at his feet, and Gerbera Daisies intermingled with aster and a dozen other flowers he couldn’t name.

Oddly, the trees here grew thick, the evergreens and willows forming a canopy of this secret garden. Flowers shouldn’t be able to grow here from what little sunlight there was. And none of the trees had any lower branches, but plenty of their upper branches, so rain would have a problem getting in.

It was as if someone had pruned them.

There was laughter to his left.

Oscar looked towards the source of the laughter, but saw nothing. Grandpa Lyman’s stories of Estries came creeping back to his mind and he turned to go. The trees were no longer odd, but rather shadowed and menacing. The flowers had become a warning.

‘Get away,’ they seemed to say, ‘get away or what planted us will put you in the ground too.’

But before Oscar could go, something grabbed him around the waist and he felt air rush past him as he shot upwards into the trees. The scent of wild flowers filled his nostrils even more strongly than it did before.

‘This is it,’ he thought, ‘this is the end.’

Oscar opened his eyes and felt his heart stop.

Before him was the face of a girl. Her dark hair was short, choppily cut as if she’d done it herself with anything but scissors. Cherub faced and dainty but like an acrobat. She wore a crown of flowers on her head and more of the red flowers covered her in cloth-like waves. And upon closer inspection, her attire also consisted of red autumnal leaves and red berries. The girl smiled and in the intimate light of the sun strained through the branches they inexplicably floated through, Oscar felt his ears flush.

“Hello,” the girl said, her voice like bells.

“Hi,” Oscar said.

“I like you,” the girl said and before he could speak, she bent down and captured his lips. Oscar felt his head swim with the scent of flowers and trees and wild berries. Then felt himself drop, and the girl’s lips were gone as he landed on a branch underneath him. The mysterious girl floated down in front of him still smiling. It was at this time, Oscar got a good look at the pair of luminescent eyes she had.

“You,” he started, awkwardly, “you have silver eyes.”

The girl just smiled and laid her head on his chest, silver eyes closed.

“Um, you’re…very nice,” Oscar said, “So…do I know you?”

“No,” the girl said simply, “but you live on that farm outside the forest.”

OK, so the girl knew where he lived, but that raised a few questions.

“Well, where do you live?”

“In the forest,” the girl said, not even opening her eyes.

“Where in the forest?”

“Deep in the forest.”

This wasn’t getting him anywhere.

“Um, you’re not gonna suck my blood, are you?”

The girl finally looked up at him, an expression of horror on her face.

“No, that’s gross!”

Oscar breathed a sigh of relief. At least she wasn’t going to suck his blood.

“That’s good,” he said, “so…can I get down from here?”

The girl frowned at him.

“But if you go, you won’t come back,” she said sadly.

“No!”

If there was one thing Oscar couldn’t stand, it was to see a pretty girl cry.

“I mean, no, I’ll come back tomorrow. Really I will.”

The smile came back, brighter than ever.

“Then we can get married!” the girl cried, throwing her arms around his neck. Oscar had to grab onto her to keep from falling off the branch.

“I’m not sure about that,” Oscar said, “But I’ll definitely come back tomorrow.”

The girl looked him in the eye.

“Promise?”

Oscar smiled.

“I promise.”

The girl picked him up with surprising ease and jumped, the sensation similar to falling but at a much slower pace. The two touched down gently onto the ground.

Putting his feet down on solid earth, Oscar suddenly realized he’d forgotten to ask the girl’s name. But when he turned to do so, she had vanished. It was just him and the flowers.

Well I can always ask tomorrow, he thought. He shoved his hands in his pockets and his eyes went wide when he felt something hard inside.

What Oscar pulled out of his pocket was a ruby the size of a lemon.

Had the girl given him this? When had she even?

Oscar looked around the grove.

“Thank you,” he said, pocketing the ruby.

As he walked back the way he came, he had to wonder if this would be the end of it.

#My Writing #Rosegarden Week #Rosegarden #RWBY #AU #rosegarden week 2021 #Rosegardenweek2021 #Oscar Pine #Ruby Rose #Fairy AU

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highsviolets · 4 years ago

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ne plus ultra

summary: you encounter acclaimed scholar obi-wan kenobi after an academic conference

rating: mature (not explicit)

notes: all my love and affection to brit and mia. @profkenobi you are my prompt muse & @goldenkenobi you win many awards by listening to my endless rambles about this fic. // CHAPTER TWO

ne plus ultra (n).

(1) the highest point capable of being attained

(2) the most profound degree of a quality or state

the story starts in medias res, as all lives do. the beginning of your life is always in the middle of someone else’s. your death coincides with another’s gallant ebullience, your semi-colon failing to incise upon their life. so the scholars say.

the conference — your first since you passed your dissertation — had made you nervous, and you were glad to be spending an extra night before returning to the real world tomorrow.

your palms are slick, as they always are after too long spent in the company of other academics. the anxiety that swells in you is ballast and the deadweight forces you to slump forward slightly, the visible seam on your the shoulder of your shirt sashaying inwards.

when you smile at the concierge, it is tight, like a formation of soldiers in Napoleon’s day, and does not quite reach your eyes. still decked with traces of freckles and darkened by a summer spent abroad under the sun’s penetrating gazes, your skin fails to comply with demands of minuscule muscles pulling and stretching, commanding it into a thin arc.

but it is no matter — you receive your key and you sign the paperwork and are ascending the winding staircase to the seventh floor. emerald green carpet is your guide, swathing your ascendancy in a sheen of dark-hue velvet. sir gawain chasing after the knight in green armor, a lecture on virtue streaming from the knight’s mouth, materializes on the steps. the galloping thought makes you smile, this time more relaxed. that story is something you know. something you know so well you could almost touch it. indeed you had fingered its pages, during your apprenticeship at the British Library.

hope. the words springs forth, nearly unbidden, from your lips. the word is spoken so softly — merely a breath and a hint of sound disturbing the stairwell’s precious physics. it is a reflex of association. green means hope, the scholars had said, and during the course of your studies you had been disappointed to find that you agreed with them. you did not want to agree with the fashionably smug expert in the field. you wanted to rattle him. shake him to his sacrosanct core, the sanctimonious scum.

you had never met the man: the mysterious OWK. your advisor had raved about his breakout lecture series that had taken place years ago, when he was a newly minted phd and you were still in undergrad. sipping a cup of cafeteria coffee (they always forgot you preferred tea, all these years later), they had rambled on about the poetry of OWK’s phrasing and his decisiveness in speech and the unparalleled skill of his primary source research. the lectures had been sadly lost, the footage deleted, or archived, they didn’t know which. just that the man had refused to distribute them and speak on the matter further, nearly abandoning academia entirely.

the beverage was bitter but you laughed lightly. “is this thomas moore and his lectures on st. augustine, then? so legendary that no one can find them?”

your advisor had inclined their head, congratulating you on your witty reference. “i suppose so,” they had mused, leaning back in their office chair and staring at some point above your head, at the oaken bookshelves with brightly colored book jackets lining the walls. “now, your latest draft—“

the memory fades as your purpose alters. a simple twist of the key and the door opens. but you remain on the threshold, stuck between two modes, between here and there.

there is a man in your room, and he is as handsome as sin. he sits in a chair in the corner of the room and one leg is resting on the other’s kneecap at a ninety degree angle. he is wearing glasses, and has short auburn hair that gleams in the dull light of the lamp beside him (although, a few wayward strands obscure his eyes, layering over the frame of his glasses). he is reading. the cover is folded over so you cannot see the title but it is hefty, judging from its position on his thigh. shadows have formed over high cheekbones.

the man removes himself from the task, focusing his gaze on you. you see now that he has bright blue eyes.

“hello there!” his greeting is polite, and amiable, and accented, though not pleasantly so. “can i help you?”

“I’m afraid there seems to be a mix-up!” you say in your ‘adult voice.’ it’s same one you used on your dissertation defense. “it seems we were placed in the same room.”

“ah.” he nods sagely, as though this were to be expected, and unfolds himself from his chair.

you place a hand on your hip — near the phone snug in the back pocket of your jeans — and shrug. “I’m sorry.” the apology is saccharine and tastes like grenadine. “I’ll pop back downstairs and find out what the problem is.”

he urges you to stay, to let him call from here rather you lugging your things all the way down and all the way back up again. “it’s not proper,” he insists, dragging you in and closing the door behind you. in the time that his is so near to you and you feel the way his frown matches the steady grip on your upper arm, something warms in you at his indignation. your hand drifts away from your phone. he retreats to his corner to make the call while you linger just beyond the threshold.

the conversation is hushed and decorated with the raised tones of inquiry. when he hangs up, he sighs.

“they were under the impression that we were a married couple. apparently we booked under a similar last name.” his voice turns down at the edges. he sounds the way his frown had earlier: weary, confused, and a dash of inexplicable certainty.

“but—“ you gesture to the beds — “two beds?”

something of a grimace shadows his face. “all that was available, apparently.”

“oh.” there is a pause. he does not continue. “but they got me a room, right?” if you sound slightly desperate, perhaps it is because you are. you are sweaty. you are nervous. you want to relax. in your own room.

he zooms past your query. “i know you,” he says, and sounds as if he is surprised he knows how to speak.

“i —“ you shake your head — “i don’t think so.”

when you give your name and recognition fails to present itself, he falters and twists to stare through the glass behind him. “i thought…” but he breaks off. in the end he rights himself and tells you of the situation — how there is no vacancy, but he does not mind the sharing a room with you, just for the night, it wouldn’t be a bother.

there is something different about him. maybe it is the way that he emphasized the word can. maybe it is the way he is pushing the hair from his eyes, and removing the glasses from his face. maybe it is the way that, now pausing his actions, the man cants his head and furrows his brow.

air grows thick with the brush strokes of caravaggio: he is in the spotlight, sure and solid and steady, pure against the whirlpools of unknowing realism.

you are on the cusp of stepping into his white light when he offers his name. the first letter of each word drags itself from his mouth and burrows into your ear, until you almost divorce the meaning but for the particulars.

the first instinct that you are aware of is one you cannot name — it is an anger that is sweet, and one that is shielded by sadness, yet fueled by frustration.

there are dozens of others that your heart and mind have already examined, of course, turning them this way and that, inspecting their corners with bloodied hands. but they are rejected, and expelled into the waxy shadows, without your being aware of them. that is the job of the soul: to know before you are even aware.

he senses the shift. perhaps uncertainty has clouded your eyes. obi-wan kenobi, OWK, takes a step back from rising mist and shadow and once more turns to gaze out the window. through the glass there is a gentle village scene, all cobblestones and iron street lamps and hills keeping time on the horizon.

“i — “ you start, but you stop again. you must start, you feel, but you do not know what path to take, and you halt. the time he thinks you consider you are in fact not considering at all. there is only one answer (answers that are wrong are never really answers, after all, just more questions).

“i’ll stay.”

—

Obi-Wan is courteous and deferential and demands that you permit him to treat you this evening as an apology. he departs to give you privacy as you shower, and the flash of shimmering emerald carpet you spy as he exits makes you wonder if you are the Lady Bertalik to his Sir Gawain.

the steam and the water beat down clenched muscles with gentle hands and lingering touches. it is for several minutes that you linger in their warm embrace, but as you wipe away fog from the mirror you cannot help but encounter the sensation that you are alone, and wrongfully so. you cannot feel Obi-Wan’s presence and the air feels stale without him — like there is no current disrupting the atmosphere’s mundane course.

droplets decorate your shoulders and the hollow of your throat. they hold fast even when you pad softly to your belongings for a fresh change of clothes.

The ache in this room is stronger. The walls themselves are mourning his absence. You feel it settle in your gut, a gluttonous mass that lightens when you consider that he should be returning soon. the sky outside the window is orange and gold, flattering the leaves of maple trees in autumn.

the room is pretty, in a simple way: the emerald carpet of hope has been exchanged for a darkened hardwood. Chrome accents gleam in the reflection of the wood, and two beds — one at opposite ends of the wall — are smothered silver-white sheets. a series of Malevich paintings are hung up in a neat grid, as though the dissembling artist would come barging in, screaming of the devil, if the French theories of symmetry were not obeyed.

as you dress and begin to comb your hair, you wonder why you miss someone whom you have just met, and someone you are not disposed to like. can you miss someone you don’t like? he is sporadic and paradisiacal; in motion and steady. his kindness had surprised you, as had his beauty. he was less corrosive than your advisor had made him out to be, less ambitious than the accolades awarded to his name. but he is zealous, hungry, seeking: you could see in the way his eyes bunched around the edges, in the crick of his neck when he sought wisdom from the hills, how he had contorted his body in the chair.

(he is like you, both here and not here, and although you did not yet know, your soul was aware and reflective in wonder)

when your flesh-and-blood sir gawain returns, you muse that you are a poor temptress in an thick-knit ivory sweater that encases your body from neck to wrists. it had been a steal from a second-hand store a few years back, and you had never found the heart to give it up. it was like a childhood book, or a favorite mug — the object, in all its durable materiality, was akin to you.

Your smile pleases him. Obi-Wan says he has found a place for this evening, nothing special, but nice. “We are celebrating after all,” he says, shrugging off a dark woolen coat.

“We are?” you look at him through the reflection of the mirror. blue eyes meet yours.

“Of course!” the phrase suspends itself for a moment, maybe two, as though it is waiting for something to slip in and complete its trinity. but it falls, tumbling back down to terrestrial concerns. “We are celebrating our meeting.”

He is absurd, and you laugh. Obi-Wan’s theory of festivity is not so mercurial as his speech — the declaration sticks to your ribs, pumping blood to your heart and flooding your cheeks with a natural flush.

Obi-Wan continues to examine you. “Might I ask,” he starts, hands stilling in their expedition of finding suitable attire, “where you bought your sweater?”

you respond: it was from a second-hand store, you found it during your apprenticeship, it was the only thing that kept you warm that terribly dreary winter, it was your constant companion.

“does it have a trio of red threads on the left cuff?”

satisfying his quench takes precedence to mystery of his request.

Obi-Wan’s smile engulfs the spirit of the room, and the two of you, and the bedding, and the glass window, too.

“that was my sweater,” he says. “my uncle made it for me, and i gave it to my brother after we adopted him. he wasn’t used to the dampness of English winters, but he didn’t like the itchiness of the knit. he always had an aversion to gritty textures.” he reaches out a hand with a faint smile, like the combined power of his simple offering can cross space and time and memory and return him to the days of him and his uncle and adopted brother.

you do not know what to say. you watch him for several moments. you want to speak, but your mind is blank, thrumming with the idea that it is so very right that part of him has been with part of you all of these years. parts have him has seen you through the long hours of a dreary apprenticeship and discovering the healing properties of English tea and catching tears and wisps of smiles and witnessing ink spill over pages as you churned out dissertation drafts until the argument was smooth and refined.

the idea makes you feel very alive, and alert, and you want to offer him comfort. “would you like to take it back?” one hand tugs at the edge of the cloth, near your waist. “it’s yours anyway.” the pain of parting is lessened by the joy of giving.

he demurs, you coax. eventually it is determined that he will wear the garment for the evening, but only if you wear something of his, too. “that way it’s even,” he says, and you laugh again to hide the dip in your stomach at thought of wearing something of his, of wrapping yourself in his scent, of placing your body in a place his had once inhabited.

you settle on a light gray blazer that you think must compliment his eyes, which sparkle with aquamarine and crystal. it is paired with a turtleneck and when you emerge to show him the completed ensemble, spinning in a circle, he chuckles.

“you look like me,” he says, one hand cupping his chin.

a feeling pulses in your mind but you let it go. you may like him after all, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a pompous academic whose theories had made your life hell.

—

you expect him to take you to a cozy place. somewhere where they serve the local brew and make homemade shepherd’s pie, but he doesn’t.

he takes you a bar that is sleek and modern, with soft yellow lights and paneled ceilings and marble counter-tops. Obi-Wan escorts you to a high table in the corner, a hand on the small of your back. the warmth from his palm spreads through his jacket and your turtleneck and it feels like cinnamon and candlelight.

later, you will not remember what you ordered to eat, but you will always remember the two cups water that appear on the table.

the glasses have smooth edges and and rounded sides, curving around themselves ad infinitum or perhaps reductio ad absurdum. faint golden orbs hunch against the surface; integers of light cling to any sort of tactical reassurance. even the glass will do.

the cups are hefty, and not just with the font of life. the vessel is weighty, durable. Obi-Wan tells you that they are recycled.

he does not talk about what he does now and how he teaches, and you do not mention your work. you do not need to: what these truths have taught you is in every swallow, every glance, every gentle barb. the two of you do not need shields of citation guidelines to understand one another.

the conversation dances. he pulls you in with a question. you twirl around him, brushing his five o’clock shadow. artifice glistens and then falls away. with every pass and dip and pas de chat resentment and assumption weaken, and your eyes become bigger. he changes the time signature, the style (first it was a waltz, and then a swing step, and now it is easing into something unknown). the fabric of his jacket is smooth, and comfortable, and smells like him — warm and spice and clean. you ease into it like it is your birthright.

you do not see, but Obi-Wan notices, and grins into his water.

he does not see, but you notice, the way he couches into your sweater, and your eyes curl in some form of elation.

“what were they about? the lectures, i mean.” this is the question you have been waiting to ask. here, in the bar, with glass, you are emboldened to let go of one last grudge.

he looks at you, and his gaze stabs you, but then it softens — like the needle from a shot easing into muscle before retreating as swiftly as it came.

“what did your advisor say they were about?” he fiddles with his glass.

“they said…” you close your eyes in recollection. eyelashes flutter against freckles. “they said the lectures were about grief.”

Obi-Wan’s smile is wry, but he does not seem displeased. he is still too relaxed to be angry. how you can read his body language so quickly, you are not sure — maybe it is because he is wearing your sweater. so many things you are unsure of, but he is not one of them. not really.

uncertainty is different with him. he is not an ever-fixéd mark, nor a staid anchor in the waves. but he is resolved, and you can separate him from the rest of the particulars that impede your life. he is not just krei: distinguishing and judging and explanatory and crisis all at once, all at everything.

yes, uncertainty with him is less about judgment and is rather imbued with mystery. it is krei mixed with mysteriam: separating the hidden things from that which is known.

Obi-Wan taps his finger on the glass and the sound returns you to the present. he has caught you wandering, again, wandering the wayward halls of esoteric remembrance.

“they were about grief,” he nods, staring at the transparent material in his hands.. Obi-Wan’s voice is kingly and aromatic, like basil. it lilts and sways around the words he speaks as in a courtly dance, like those Anne Boleyn performed for King Henry.

lifting his gaze to yours again, he adds, “and they were about joy. those lectures were about everything, and nothing.” a hand rises, and rhythmic fingers sweep away invisible cobwebs. “they were,” Obi-Wan concludes, “about life itself. phenomena, as it were.” the hand floats down and rests on the table.

it is perilously close to yours now: mere inches from the edges of your body. you both look down at his hand in a brief moment marked and scratched with silence, and you are alone with your thoughts. his hands are worn, like they have been used — little scars and wrinkles and a slight puffiness that tells you that he spent a lot of time writing today. you like that.

you point to the swelling, at the v of his hand where thumb and palm meet. the tip of your index finger hovers above the spot and your confession must linger too, because it takes several moments for him to drag his eyes upwards to study your face.

“how many ACE wraps did you fray while writing your dissertation?” he asks, and you want to push him for being such a competitive brat.

your hand is still suspended above his.

you tell him your answer, and he cups his fingers around yours in a spasm of revelation. “me too!” his grip tightens. “academia is one son of a bitch.” he catches you in a sideways glance, and when you laugh, he relaxes into a smile.

“I read your dissertation, you know.” the sweater itches against your wrist, where the sleeve of his blazer has ridden up and exposed skin.

“i didn’t.” you take a sip. “but i do know how you feel about scholars such as myself.” another sip. are you biding time? you are not sure. “you feel very strongly about the color green, Dr. Kenobi.”

his grip slackens but he does not release your hand completely. “please. call me ben.”

“no?” your eyebrow arches. “not OWK, either?”

“I don’t use that name with friends.”

“Are we friends?”

his eyes are earnest, open, porous, like blue tulle on ballet costumes. “yes. i dare say we are.”

—

when the two of you stand to leave, there is a still a table that prohibits unity. emptiness subsumes you; he is so near and yet so far; Ben should be next to you. the distance continues, grows, as you exit, and an ache pours forth from your soul, because you now know what you did not know before. you had seen it in the glass, and in the reflected light, and the way you had seen yourself in his eyes when you danced with him without touching his hand.

you halt, he pauses. you take a step forward and Ben watches you. darkness blankets the town’s cobbled streets; the stones gleam dully and swallow the street lamps all into an abyss. except his eyes: Ben’s silken azure eyes are your anchor.

people don’t make sense but you do.

a few steps more and the two of you are very close. you tilt your head to look at his face. you are there, reflected in his pupils. “maybe i am you.” you mean for it to sound teasing, but your soul knows before you do, and the words are laden with imperial import, like a royal seal.

those gemstone eyes flicker over your face. he has felt it too, he is telling you, but how you know this you cannot say. “no, i do not think so.” letters drip out, leaking in a slow stream. “but i think perhaps we are a part of each other.”

and then you have narrowed down the sum to its composite parts. the glass has shattered and the left hand swims in its sand and calcium carbonate and ash, drifting through a process of becoming. particles glimmer on skin, under nails, brandishing depth and texture and a pantone coloring book of the human heart.

it is a mutual kiss, one where individualism no longer endures. his hands — swollen, calloused, firm — are grasping your cheeks. your arms are around his waist, winding around sweater and skin and soul. when you close your eyes, you think it will be dark. you are wrong. tenebrism creeps away and shadows vanish, and there is only him, and a resounding tenor of colors.

ben’s lips are soft, and his breath is warm, and it is the kiss for which you feel like you have spent your whole life preparing. he is safe (tender) and unexpected (his tongue grazes your teeth). he likes it when you grip him harder, the knit no longer coarse against your palms, not when his hand is wandering through your hair in flashes of blue and gold and pearl.

when you pull away, and nuzzle his cheek, Ben smiles — soft and comforting like the garment on his back. maybe this is why glass shatters and cracks around your feet, crunching as you sway slightly in each other’s arms — you have worn his jacket, and he has worn your sweater.

—

it is predawn the next time he kisses you. the two of you are on his bed, near the window. sweaters and blazers have been exchanged for baggy t-shirts and sleep shorts. Ben is facing you, cross-legged on the pale sheets, and he watches you as you take in the metamorphosis of the sky, from black to navy to the merest smidgen of blue and grey on the horizon, skating across the silhouette of the hills.

he watches you as you speak, too, about the way you loved the ocean as a child, and your favorite book is Moby Dick. it was so very ethereal to you, the way that sailors used the stars to navigate. it was like they were communing with the heavens.

Ben thinks that your voice glitters. it is weary with much talk and too little sleep but it shines the way diamonds do when they are stitched onto spanish lace, supported with the strength that is only found in delicacy.

your eyes, he thinks, are more like satin, for the way they gleam and mix their depth and shadows without losing their sheen, glassy in their wonder.

but you notice his regard, and you pause. he cannot see it, but he can feel a blush jogging from your neck to your cheeks.

you stare at each other. and then — he is next to you, and laying you down, and you are learning his labyrinthine ways even as you begin to come undone.

he is coming alive, or waking up—you’re not sure. his ends and beginnings are still a unknown to you: you must fashion yourself a mystic to enter his realm. somehow you suspect he is yours. your alpha and omega, the moral force that has driven you forward to now, to this point, where his forehead is meeting the jut of your jaw as he kisses his way down your neck.

you are hot and cold all at once and when he licks your pulse point, and sucks, you gasp. it is a gentle thing, more like a deep breath than an exclamation. you feel yourself leaning into him, straining for his touch. his auburn hair under your fingertips is soft and slick with his gel and you tug at it in an act of encouragement.

he pulls away. hovering over you, eyes blue and silver in the pale light — twin moons, perhaps — he smirks. “are you trying to tell me something, darling?” he asks lowly, and his voice is dark molasses. it is sticky and sweet and bitter, inching down your body. you want his kisses to follow its tortuous path, staining you with vermillion and black and dying you with pleasure.

he is color. you are cloth.

the durability of your nature returns in a rush marked with grains of steel. “no.” you swallow and the action traces where his lips met your skin just moments earlier. “i rather thought you were trying to communicate with me.” you sound ragged, coy, on the verge of aching.

Ben does not take your bait. “i was.” his breath is hot against your ear, and arresting. he pauses. the molasses continues to drip. “i was just wanted to make sure i had a clear answer.” and he nips your earlobe. you bite your lip in response: the two of you are in sync.

“yes.” you are fabric, and your voice is terrycloth.

“Yes?” he repeats your fiat. Shards of glass collapse around you as he again meets your gaze.

this must be how the Virgin prayed her Magnificat, you think as his heart errantly beats against his throat. She must have been like he is now, brimming with humble righteousness and bound by understanding. Tenderness cords through you; it tempers your breathing, smoothes the bubbles of molasses. Reaching up to to cup his face, you let your fingers splay over his cheek, resting on stubble and skin. your pinky finger meets the angle of his cheekbone. the image falls into place and the symmetry causes you to smile.

“yes. etiam. ja. sí.” you are about to conclude in greek — ναί — but he halts your litany of assent by placing an offering on your lips. the greek is in the twists of his tongue in your mouth, and so is the hebrew, and the arabic, and all the languages yet to engrave themselves in your memory.

it is like the first time you experienced champagne at your father’s christmas party. one of his students had poured you, then sixteen, a glass and said with a wink, “the monks declared it was the taste of the stars.” you had raised the flute to your lips and drank as you were bid, and when you had swallowed, you knew the world was different now. or perhaps the old world had not changed, you had merely adapted to fickle ways.

your tongue did as it had then, skating across your front teeth onto your upper lips in quick, jabbing motions. unsatiated and incomplete.

he pulls away again and you frown. eyes closed, you tug at his shoulder in a nonverbal ask to come back.

silence meets your plea and you open your eyes. he is still above you, weight resting on his forearms, and he is smiling. “you are so impatient.” the rebuke is fond and he soothes its burn with a kiss to your cheek. your eyes flutter closed, briefly.

“i am not impatient.” arms cross over your chest and eyes roll. “i am —“ the phrase is paused as he kisses your other cheek. you open your eyes. “i am.” he waits for you, as he always has, but after a few heartbeats he gleans the completeness of your meaning. existence is the watchword of this night, or this dawn: let sartre and his kind be put to rest.

so the two of you kiss again, and when his arms get tired, you drape your legs over his lap and press yourself into his chest. the last vestiges of moonlight have settled upon you, but it is no thing, not when skin feels what eyes cannot. lips are languid and hands stroll up and down pathways and alleyways and sidewalks. brittle substances of impatience are burned away through the silk of his fingers. you are content to rest in chiaroscuro.

there is another breaking: transparent and fortified compound of ash and sand — let in by the moon and the rising venus — twinkles around your head, his spine. a whispered ask, a tender assent: shirts glide over shoulders and he guides in your descent.

breathing is knowing, feeling is seeing: for here essence and existence bleed into one consummate act of communion.

lips touch your collarbone, your breast. your hands plane over his chest in a crusade of knowledge. he does not begrudge your gasps, now, or the arches your back erects to his honor. ben’s lips, hands, the vehicles of his words to the world, at once analyze and soak in praise.

clothes fall away, skin uncovering skin, manifesting a reality that had resided in your souls far before today. before the bar, the hotel, the sweater, there was always the two of you, striving for eudaemonia.

“this is phenomena,” he whispers against the curve of your hip. ben presses a kiss to the bones that give form to your body politic (the totality of your shattered glass made whole).

fin.

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chachkayes · 4 years ago

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The Weight of Words

Look at me go - 2 fics in one day. You can thank @herrera-n-hayes here on Tumblr, and @/NotAnSvuFanPage over on twitter for the ideas for this fic. Clo and I were once again discussing fic ideas that just ended up really inspiring me to write. Between my conversations with her, and my friend on twitter at the same time, this fic came to fruition. We were all getting very emotional over the potential for a really sweet bond between Ellis Shepherd and Cormac Hayes, and Ellie calling Cormac “dad” for the first time, since she’d never experienced a stable father figure in her life before then. So this fic explores the development of the bond between Cormac and Ellis, him winning over Zola and Bailey, as well as Austin and Liam bonding with Bailey and Zola a little bit. It’s probably a lot more angsty than I originally intended, but that is almost inevitable at this point. Anyways, enjoy!

Ellis Shepherd had grown up without a stable father figure in her life, much like her mother when she was younger. She’d gotten used to all the men coming into her life, and then one day, inexplicably leaving. It’d become her norm. Zola would tell her stories about Derek, her dad. She knew she should miss him, but she never knew him. So, there was always this little part of her that wanted a father in her life. She knew it made her mommy sad when she’d ask about her daddy, and when she was going to have a dad, so she never did. And though she was only 5 years old, she never thought she was going to have one. That all changed when Cormac Hayes showed up in her life.

He made her mom smile like she’d never seen. Right from the moment he introduced himself to her, Ellis knew she liked this guy, whoever he was. She was entranced by his fun accent, and she was glad that he always made sure to pay attention to her, Zola, and Bailey when he’d come over. That was a new feeling for all of the Grey-Shepherd children. Zola and Bailey were always a bit more on the hesitant side with the man their mother called “Hayes”. It wasn’t that they didn’t like him, they were just worried that he’d leave them one day too. They knew the feeling more deeply than Ellis could comprehend.

Cormac understood the children’s hesitations. He’d told them that he has kids too, and that they were feeling the same way, because they lost a parent too – the same way Zola, Bailey, and Ellis had. He made sure to explain to them that that their feelings, and the feelings of his own kids, about him and Meredith were all incredibly important to him, and that he wasn’t there to play with their emotions. He wanted to be there for them, just like Meredith would be there for his sons. That was when Ellis decided she loved him, and when Zola and Bailey happily accepted his presence in their lives.

Ellis got attached to Hayes incredibly quick. She always sat beside him when he came over for dinner - she enjoyed how he’d help her cut up her food for her. When he and her mom were watching movies on the couch, she climbed up in between them and snuggled in close to him, to which he always happily held her until she fell asleep. She loved that he let her sit on his shoulders sometimes, and it made her shriek and giggle like a maniac when he’d stand up. It always made her mom so happy to see, so she tried to do it as often as he’d let her, which was almost all the time. She liked seeing her mom happy. It didn’t take long before Cormac Hayes was wrapped around little Ellis’ finger. He adored all of his girlfriend’s young children, but he had a special little bond with Ellis. He’d never had a daughter, and even though he didn’t want to infringe on any boundaries, he wouldn’t deny that he enjoyed having Zola and Ellis in his life.

Zola got along quite quickly with Austin and Liam. Though they were teenage boys, and were sometimes moody, they developed a soft spot for Zola, and when they looked after the children, they engaged in whatever games Zola wanted to play during the day. Bailey loved having the older boys around to talk superheroes with. They often put on a Marvel movie to watch with him while the girls played, and they sometimes made popcorn to split among the three of them – but they’d wholly deny it if either of their parents ever asked. When they first told their friends at school that their dad was dating, they neglected to mention the three young children, until they decided that they liked having, what they considered to be, younger siblings.

Then, out of nowhere one day, it happened. “Dada, we’re home!” Ellis yelled to Cormac as she entered the house, not even realizing the weight of what she’d just called him. It’d slipped out of her mouth, like she’d been calling him ‘dada’ her entire life. Cormac’s head shot up to catch Meredith’s gaze the moment the words came out of her mouth. Meredith’s eyes were wide as she looked up and down between him and her daughter. Even though he hadn’t done anything, he felt bad. He gave Ellis a small hug as the young girl ran over to him on the couch. “I’m happy to see you, but Ellis, sweetie, I’m not your dad.” He said, looking at her sweetly, as he sat her on his knee. Meredith put her purse down and entered the living room, sitting down beside Cormac, her mind racing. She had many conflicting emotions surrounding the whole situation. As much as she wanted to say something, she let Cormac handle it.

“What do you mean?” Ellis said innocently. Both Meredith and Cormac’s hearts broke. “Your daddy is up in heaven, same with my boys’ mom, remember?” He told her gently. “I know… but I love you the same way my friends love their daddies. You do the same things with me that their daddies do with them, like make me breakfast, cut my food up, put me to bed, play with me…” She paused for a moment. “I never had anyone to make a Father’s Day card for at school, and I can’t answer anything when my teachers ask about my dad. Or at least, I couldn’t think of someone to talk about, until now.” Her little voice trailed off as she saw a tear roll down her mother’s face. “I’m sorry mommy…” She said sadly. Meredith’s whole viewpoint had changed as her daughter spoke about how much she loved Cormac. “Oh, sweet girl, don’t be sorry.” Meredith said, cupping her daughter’s face in her hands. “You deserve to have a dad in your life, who loves you just as much as mommy does, and as much as your dad does in heaven. You didn’t make mommy sad when you called Hayes ‘dada’ – it just took me off guard a little bit. I know you love your dad, even though you never knew him.” She finished, placing a small kiss on her daughter’s forehead.

Cormac hugged her as she sat completely still on his knee. “You are one of the sweetest little girls on earth. And you know that I love you like one of my own. But you know what I love even more?” He said as the young girl turned to look at him. “What?” She asked, a small smile forming on her face. “I love how much you love your mom and respect your dad.” He said, looking over at Meredith and then back at Ellis. “I would be honoured if you wanted to call me dada, but it’s all up to your mom, okay? I know she still loves and misses your daddy very much, same as your brother and sister. And I want to make sure that she’s okay with it first.” The moment Cormac said those sentences, Meredith decided that she was completely okay with it. “Mer, what do you think?” He said, looking up at her and smiling. She looked down at her daughter, who was looking back up at her with eager eyes. “Yeah. It’s okay with me.” She said, and Ellis erupted into the brightest smile. She hugged Cormac, and he hugged her back. “Now, what’s this I remember you saying the other day about some new toys you wanted to show me?” He said as he smiled at Ellis. She grabbed her shopping bag and lead him to the kitchen, where she promptly sat him down and began her ‘show and tell’ of new stuff.

Meredith sat back on the couch and watched quietly as Ellis showed Hayes every new thing she’d gotten - he smiled at her the entire time, and kept himself engaged in their conversation. She smiled to herself as she watched them interact. She loved how much they loved each other. As she watched, Meredith thought to herself about how she would have never been okay with her children calling anyone like Riggs, or DeLuca ‘dad’. But she knew that Hayes had such a deep love for her children, and respect for Derek, that it was okay to hear her daughter call him ‘dada’, because it was him. She knew that Cormac knew that he’d never be their actual dad, and he was okay with that. He was totally content with just being whatever they needed, to them - even being considered a father to little Ellis. He would never, ever, complain about having to step up to that role in her life. He loved her like she was his own daughter.

#meredith grey #merhayes #merwidow #cormac-hayes #grayes #meredith x hayes #meredith x cormac #hayes x grey #hayes x meredith #hayes x mer #grey x hayes

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wigwurq · 4 years ago

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WIG REVIEW: THE PROM

You guys. Remember when just last week week I LOLed at my mom when I told her I had finally watched the lesbian holiday movie (The Happiest Season) and she thought I meant The Prom and I told her (and then you, dear readers!) that it would take me forever to hate watch that. WELL I JUST HATE WATCHED THAT. There is a lot to discuss, you guys. ALSO WIGS.

We begin in “New York City” or the CGI hellscape replication of it. Nothing about this movie is authentic except for maybe NY1′s theater reporter, Frank Dilella at the opening of a fake musical called “Eleanor! The Eleanor Roosevelt Musical!” which is meant to be a hilarious joke (it is not) starring Meryl Streep as Eleanor and James Corden as FDR and JOKE IS ON THEM AND US because why are they in this terrible movie and why the hell am I watching it? Oh right: THE WIGS. YOU GUYS THE WIGS. Meryl, who is truly slumming more in this than any other actor in this garbage also has to endure the very worst wig. SHE DID HAVE AN EVEN WORSE WIG IN MARY POPPINS RETURNS. But here this wig is so very much a bad wig that I struggled for a while wondering if this was going to be a wig within the narrative but no. Sadly, it looks like a castoff from some QVC Liza Minnelli wig collection.

AND EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE THEY ARE DRESSED IN A QVC LIZA MINNELLI NON-HALSTON SEQUIN COLLECTION GHOSTMARE (Liza should probably trademark that tho). I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MANY SEQUINS OUTSIDE OF DAVID GEST’S GUEST HOUSE. Also, after the fake Eleanor musical opens, Meryl and James retire to “Sardis” or the CGI version of it where they discover that their show got (gasp!) bad reviews. EVERYONE LEAVES IMMEDIATELY except Meryl, James, Andrew Rannells who is another actor/bartender and NICOLE KIDMAN.

SHE IS ALSO WEARING SEQUINS AND HAS A BAD WIG. But we are talking about Nicole Kidman, so the chances of her wearing a bad wig are 110%. I couldn’t honestly tell you what her role is in this other than “another Broadway actress”(?) Her wig is likely the same one that Joanna Lumley wore for 10 seasons as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous which has in the last decade or so been slowly decaying in a crawlspace somewhere only to reappear on the head of Nicole Kidman in the role of “another Broadway actress” in this movie. Anyway, all these washed up randos decide they need to stop acting and start activist-ing and pin all their hopes on a lesbian in Indiana who wanted to go to the prom and got the whole prom shut down due to smallmindedness. They travel to Indiana in a non-equity Godspell touring bus during which time my husband asked me who designs bus seats and truly: that is a question more profound and interesting than anything you will find in this “film.” But I do have many questions! If these actors have all been on Broadway and Meryl’s character has a few Tonys even, why do they need to bus it to Indiana?!?!

Anyway, over in “Indiana” (all places are actually LA or a set or a CGI hellscape), there is a big community meeting or something which is still all about not having a prom, because the only damn thing that matters in this community is THE PROM. The NYC actors show up and turn the meeting into a musical extravaganza with Meryl and her tragic wig center stage. More questions!! As a theater piece, it would make sense for this whole meeting to suddenly become a musical performance complete with spotlight entrances and sparkle curtains because it is already all fantasy. Ryan Murphy has no interest in creating a more realistic presentation in this new medium and just lets that happen here too? Sure - I guess the actors could have just arrived with all stage cues and crews to make this happen (LOLOL NO THEY COULDN’T) and this is honestly exactly why most stage to screen adaptations rarely work (though to be very fair - I had just about as much interest in seeing this on stage as on TV - negative 1000%). All realism, logic, quality, are not at all what this “movie” is aiming for. JUST SEQUINS! CONSTANT GODDAMNED SEQUINS!

It should be noted that Kerry Washington plays the conservative PTA mom at the center of canceling prom and bitch got away with the very best wig! Also the big spoiler here is that her daughter is the secret lesbian love of the lesbian she is trying to stop from going to the prom! GASP! Kerry also made really terrible career choices this year between this and Little Fires Everywhere which also involves secret lesbians.

Also those lesbians have a love song that looks like this - aka that one scene in the loathsome La La Land which was itself completely derivative. There are many (many!) derivative scenes in this movie - a later one on a staircase with Nicole Kidman is a clear nod to that one staircase scene in All That Jazz (RIP ANN REINKING!) This was all done intentionally for us theater nerds but also all the movies it ripped off I also hated so? NO THANK YOU THE PROM. ALSO THE MAIN LESBIAN’S GRANDMOTHER IS PLAYED BY MARY KAY PLACE AND I LOVE MARY KAY PLACE FYI.

Anyway! The NYC actors start their very ill-advised get-back-the-Prom campaign at......CGI monster truck rally wherein Andrew Rannells wears THIS GODDAMNED COAT. Trying to find any logic or realism in this movie is about as foolhardy as being Andrew Rannells wearing this coat and singing a musical theater song at a CGI monster truck rally in “Indiana.”

Also! Keegan Michael Key is in this (WHO I LOVE ALWAYS) as the liberal principal who is trying to make prom happen. He also is a HUGE MUSICAL THEATER FAN though that doesn’t actually translate to being gay - it translates to him being obsessed with Meryl Streep who is his favorite stage actress. Sure! It all turns into Keegan Michael Key being a love interest with Meryl Streep which I DID NOT SEE COMING but I would love to watch an actual rom com with the two of them and not whatever this is? THEY HAVE A DATE AT AN APPLEBEES YOU GUYS HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.

At said Applebees (or “Applebees” more accurately because I’ve never seen one that sparkles like this), Keegan has a nice ballad which I couldn’t possibly hum for you now where he sings about the escapism of THEATRE and there is a flashback to him seeing Meryl in a musical called “Swallow the Moon” which is a pretty hilarious title and the whole thing looks exactly like another Liza Minnelli fashion show - this time with maybe a circus theme? At any rate, Meryl’s flashback wig is longer and more of a fashion bob but is still very fretful.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that although I never saw The Prom musical on Broadway, from the pictures I have seen, Beth Leavel’s wig (in the same role as Meryl) is vastly superior in every way, despite the fact that stage wigs are allowed to be different/inferior as they are viewed from further away and not in bitter bitter closeup.

Meryl looks great in close-up by the way BUT THAT WIG!!! I couldn’t find a good picture of it, but the hair part (if you can call it that?) is a dangerous ravine of mysteries none of which have anything to do with looking like real hair. MERYL HAS MORE OSCARS THAN ANYONE HOW WAS SHE GIVEN THIS WIG?! HOW!!!!!

Anyway, back to the “plot” of this movie, the PTA somehow agree to having a prom and all the kids go around prom-posaling (which is an awful horrible thing that I’m glad I was never part of) and which truly begs the question: if the kids hadn’t prom-posaled (UGH) to begin with, how did word get out that two lesbians were going and how did this prom get derailed in the first place? WHY AM I ASKING ABOUT PLOT HOLES WHEN THIS ENTIRE THING IS A PLOT HOLE?!?!?! So they have the prom, but it’s all an elaborate and cruel ruse and the real prom is at some hotel and the fake prom only for this one sad lesbian is a really depressing affair in the school gym (THIS PART OF THE MOVIE IS LEGIT HORRIBLE AND SAD). So Nicole Kidman, in the very important role of “another Broadway actress” that definitely needed to exist, decides to tell her to just “razzle dazzle ‘em” (WHICH ABSOLUTELY MEANS NOTHING IN THIS CONTEXT) in a very Fosse inspired (AND INCREDIBLY NIGHTMARE INDUCING) and also very confusing number. Also Andrew Rannells convinces a bunch of teenagers in a mall to like gay people! Mazel!

ALSO TRACEY ULLMAN IS IN THIS MOVIE AND NO ONE TOLD ME AND SHE HAS AN AWFUL WIG! So ok - James Corden, who I normally adore, plays a gay character with an American accent and in conclusion, is very miscast in this role. One of the few things Ryan Murphy has done which I actually liked was the revival of Boys in the Band (the play - I have yet to watch the movie!) And the entire cast was gay men playing gay men. Not sure why he then cast James Corden in this role because it’s not like we’re having a shortage of gay men who can sing? A friend of mine rightly pointed out that this character should have been played by Titus Burgess and VERY YES. Anyway, that’s not what happened and anyway, Tracey Ullman plays his mother who he reconnects with and I’m pretty sure the wig she wears was from her own collection from one of her past sketch shows and though I applaud wig recycling, bitch deserved better.

So yes - all these Broadway actor characters inexplicably are still in Indiana just TRYING TO MAKE THE PROM HAPPEN and Meryl, who somehow has both a celebrity ex husband and a Hamptons house (AGAIN WHY DID SHE TAKE A BUS TO INDIANA) uses both to get the main lesbian a forum on TV but she doesn’t take it and instead makes a singer-songwriter YouTube video which everyone on earth simultaneously watched!!! We are supposed to believe that this random video got 8 million views and she decides to use that leverage to make her own inclusive prom. This is a very lovely idea but again: not based in reality so Keegan is all: girl we need $$ to have a prom and somehow she doesn’t immediately make a go-fund me from all those YouTube views she got and instead all these actors throw down their credit cards to fund The Prom which is really horrifying knowing about real events which will totally make all those actors very unemployed (#2020) and YES I KNOW THIS MOVIE IS THE OPPOSITE OF REALITY BUT STILL.

In the end, ALL OF LIZA MINNELLI’S NON-HALSTON SEQUIN COLLECTION QVC FASHIONS get their own damn prom and even Kerry Washington shows up in the most outrageous sequined number after her daughter finally comes out to her and everyone dances it out and life is reaffirmed and Meryl’s wig IS STILL A PILE OF GARBAGE AS IS THIS MOVIE.

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

#wigwurq #theprom #netflixtheprom #merylstreep #nicolekidman #jamescorden #keeganmichaelkey #NOTHANKYOU #LIZAMINNELLICOLLECTION

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krolock-in-the-snowlock · 5 years ago

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I watched Broadway’s Dance of the Vampires so you don’t have to

Ever wondered how bad the broadway version actually is? Now’s your chance to find out, my friend...

So about a month ago, I came across a bootleg of the broadway show and, because it was late and I am a Certified Idiot, I decided to watch it and write down my thoughts. Having heard how bad it was, I knew to expect a train wreck, but I had no idea just how much of a train wreck it was going to be until I pressed play and witnessed something that truly cannot be described in words.

I was originally just going to post my whole list of thoughts but it ended up being over 5000 words (many of which were me screaming NO and wHYYY) so I’ve put it in a separate post, so click that link if you want to read it in its entirety!

Instead, I’ve decided to do a (slightly) shorter summary of ‘highlights’, if they can really be called that, with a kind of silly score for each ‘category’. A review, if you will. I’m sure I’ll have missed some things, but this should hopefully at least give you an idea of what exactly they did to poor Tanz der Vampire. Still, I apologise for the length of this in advance - I just had a lot of thoughts, okay?

A quick disclaimer: While I have seen clips of producations of Tanz from various countries, I’ve only seen the whole production once - the Berlin bootleg from somewhere around 2009-11 - so I’ll mostly be comparing with that!

I know the broadway musical is a big taboo subject, so I’m not expecting many, if any, to actually read any of this. But if you ever wondered how bad it was and didn’t want to have to actually watch it, this post is for you!

So, without further ado…

The Characters: -7/10

Let me begin by saying that many of the characters bear almost no resemblance to the originals. The worst case, of course, is with Giovanni von Krolock. A cringeworthy caricature, his awful faux-Italian accent, terrible jokes and horrifying bat form make him the polar opposite of what Krolock is supposed to be. In my notes, I actually referred to him as Giovanni rather than Krolock, because this is not Krolock; where Krolock is mysterious, aloof, powerful, and occasionally slightly sarcastic, Giovanni is silly, makes puns in nearly every line, and commands no respect or fear whatsoever. I resent that I began to ironically enjoy mocking him by the time I’d finished watching it.

Alfred is absurdly confident and confrontational, and narrates everything he writes in his journal (and tbh is probably a closeted bi). Sarah now apparently has friends and is allowed to leave her room. Koukol doesn’t exist, and is replaced by a man that Krolock hypnotises, who sometimes acts like a dog. Herbert is French, ridiculously stereotypical, and there is a very poor attempt from Krolock at pronouncing his name in a French accent. The other characters are fortunately mostly the same as the originals, although not entirely.

The Music: 2.5/10

Oh, the music… how do I begin?

Long story short, it was generally horrible. Multiple songs were cut entirely, and others were mashed together into strange frankensongs. The opening song, for instance, is completely different (and was what immediately made me realise I’d made a terrible mistake in deciding to watch it). The lyrics were mostly not as interesting as the original German lyrics, and often had less syllables, so the songs often felt empty and drawn out.

Many of the songs had slightly different overall meanings/purposes to their German counterparts, and I though that songs like Total Eclipse and Invitation to the Ball were way too sappy and romantic, lacking any of the drama and tension of Totale Finsternis and Einladung zum Ball. Krolock had been so ridiculous the whole time that Die Unstillbare Gier sadly could never have worked, even if the lyrics had been better. The singing itself was actually pretty good from what I remember, which was the only thing that saved the music, but Krolock’s horrible accent ruined many of the songs he was in. There was so much potential for it to be good if they’d just done a faithful adaption…...

I could go on forever about the music (as I do in my full commentary) but that would probably need a whole new post! So instead let’s move on to…

The Costumes: 2/10

Boring. Sarah’s red ball gown is nice enough, but all of the other vampires’ costumes are painfully simple and poorly designed. Krolock lacks a cape for most of the musical (which is a crime), Herbert is dressed in a hideous bright blue coat and an aggressively yellow wig, and the finale costumes are just simple black leather coats. It all lacks any of the detail or, in Herbert’s case, sparkle, of any of the other versions of the costumes that I’ve seen. While I should probably note that this was in 2002, it is still noticeably simpler than other productions of Tanz around the same time. Krolock also lacks his usual makeup, and Herbert’s is just ugly. And Krolock’s top hat in the opening? Why???

The Staging: -5/10

When they aren’t dancing, most of the ‘staging’ is just the characters at opposite sides of the stage facing each other. It doesn’t matter what is supposed to be happening in the scene, or the message of the song; they just... stand there. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, the characters might stand next to each other, but such close proximity is a rare occurrence in Dance of the Vampires, saved mostly for Alfred or Krolock with Sarah or Herbert and, in a strange duet about books, Krolock and Professor Ambronsius.

Krolock does pretty much nothing in Die Unstillbare Gier, and the staging for Einladung zum Ball was very confusing, at least when they weren’t just standing still. Sarah’s bedroom inexplicably becomes a cloudy place with no floor, and it was never quite clear whether the scene was a dream or not. Considering the rest of the musical, either possibility is honestly equally likely. At one point at the start of the first act, Krolock literally rises out of the ground in a huge coffin. I could go on. Also the sponge Krolock gives Sarah is a fraction of the size of the one he gives her in the original, which I like to think is a metaphor for the broadway production itself.

The Sets: 3/10

While not accurate to any other versions at the time or since, a couple of the sets were admittedly quite pretty (though still not quite on Kentaur’s level). However, there was no inn structure for the first act, and some of the sets were quite limited. One of the most popular (and nicest) sets in the second act is a huge stairway covered in a frankly impractical number of candles.

In the finale, despite the characters on multiple occasions declaring that the story takes place in Transylvania in “18something”, the background is for some reason Times Square with all of its neon signs (which I’m pretty sure did most certainly not exist in the 1800s). Whether a huge location change and time skip of a couple hundred years has taken place or whether the directors and set designers finally gave up trying to make the story make sense, I have no idea.

Worst Moments:

I just had to include this section! These are only a few of the worst and/or most bizarre moments I could pick out. I’m sure there’s more that I forgot but here are some (read: quite a few) of my favourites:

Krolock, wearing a top hat, rising from the ground in a giant coffin before saying, “God has left the building”

Krolock appearing as a hideous animated bat thing

Sarah and her friends getting high on mushrooms in the opening

The fact that Sarah’s birthday is on Halloween at midnight during the total eclipse of the moon

Krolock offering Alfred a sponge shaped like a penis then slowly tilting it down when Alfred says no

Ambronsius decorating Sarah’s room in Halloween decorations to scare off Krolock

Krolock genuinely being convinced that Sarah is a literal princess until he visits her room

Krolock and Ambronsius harmonising about books together

The big grey winged gargoyle demons dancing on the bed during Carpe Noctem

Krolock repeatedly dressing in a big grey dress and pretending to be his own mother/wife/who even knows what

Alfred angrily threatening Krolock, followed by Krolock physically attacking Alfred (this happens on more than one occasion)

The nonsense ‘prophecy’ they randomly introduce

“I use my body as a bandage, I use my body as a wound” (and this is instead of “Ich will frei und freier werden, und werde meine Ketten nicht los”) WHAT DOES IT MEAN

Koukol-replacement saying, “Okay, here he is, the man you’ve all been waiting for, his excellency… the Count von Krolock!) and Krolock waving and pointing like a rockstar as he kisses people walking down the stairs to the ball

Krolock dramatically dying on the stairs at the end of the ball for a solid minute

The Good Parts

Surprisingly, there were a few redeeming features!

Firstly, the couple of songs where they kept things very similar to the source material (such as Knoblauch) were actually quite good at times. Unfortunately, this isn’t to say that they were necessarily good, but compared to the less faithful parts they were a nice surprise, even if Knoblauch was never my favourite song from Tanz.

The singing itself was generally pretty good too! I also hate to admit that I did at times find myself laughing a little at the awful jokes.

And... uhh...

...yeah, that’s about it...

Some Highlights From My Notes:

And finally, here are some out of context quotes from my notes that I feel sum up the musical quite well:

It sounds like he’s about to start a really sad rave

I was gonna roast the lyrics some more but I’m gonna be honest I’m not sure what he’s saying

This feels on the same level of what kind of acid trip hallucination parallel universe have I landed in as seeing the Cats film in the cinema

Is this actually Deadpool in disguise with all the fourth wall breaking

Crawford looks like he regrets everything and can I just say Michael so does everybody else

He looks like a potato or a rock or that neutral nicolas cage face that people put on the sequin cushion

This sounds like a poorly written Krolock/reader wattpad fanfic

Giovanni would highkey be like lol arent i so random rawr xd on myspace

He might as well have said, “Itsa me, Mario”

They’re just stood there like two pigeons aimlessly squawking at each other

Alfred is like a chihuahua with small dog syndrome barking at a bigger dog, except Giovanni is barely bigger and is a flea-infested Chinese Crested dressed in a cheap Halloween costume

The throne glides like a magic carpet only it doesn’t leave the ground so I suppose it’s actually more like a chair with wheels, which is much less exciting

He just stands there like a poorly-dressed rock

-22/10 would not listen again

Final Comments:

So, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope that was somewhat informative and/or entertaining for you! It took me weeks to get through the whole musical because I couldn’t stand watching it for too long at a time, and maybe you can see why! Like I said at the start of this monster of a post, there’s probably a lot that I’ve forgotten to mention, so if you’re unfortunate enough to have seen any of this car crash of a musical, feel free to add your thoughts! :D

#tanz der vampire #dance of the vampires #watching the broadway production was a good 4 hours of my life that I’ll never get back #was it worth it?#honestly I’m not sure #but here we are

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theteaisaddictive · 5 years ago

Note

It just hit me in a flash that i never asked for your thoughts/rankings of the Cats 2019 soundtrack. Please forgive my ignorance and bestow the gift of your wisdom upon us

i have been caught in a whirlwind of events, which is why i have not responded sooner, but i’m currently home sick so what better excuse is there to wax evangelical (evan . . . jellicle??) about the cats movie soundtrack than this precise moment

i. jellicle songs for jellicle cats

i mean. well. first things first, it was recorded in advance (i assume that the 90s version was a live recording, but i could be wrong here) so of course it is going to sound awkward and stilted. this is nothing compared to how awkward and unnatural it is to see a bunch of actors naked save for cgi fur and ken-doll-like crotches singing and . . . uh, i think they’re dancing? -- around the white cat victoria, who did not have nearly so big a part from what i can digest of the 90s youtube clips. my favourite part has to be the fucking techno beat though. god damn. party on, you funky little abominations.

ii. the naming of cats/the invitation to the jellicle ball

yes, i will be smushing the exposition-related songs together unless i feel like separating them. this is my life, these are my choices. idk, it was fine?? i guess? munkustrap (aka The Main Cat Who Isn’t Victoria or Judi Dench and Quite Frankly Deserved Better Because He Was Giving This Performance His All) kind of just says the naming instead of it being a company-wide thing. they did not include bombalurina or demeter’s names in the naming, and this was the point at which i realised that the big name stars were not, in fact, going to lounge around in the background for the entirety of the play like they do in the musical. :(

the invitation also sees my Sweet Boy mr mistoffelees get his first solo line, which is good bc i fell in love with his sweet little face over the course of the film, and bad bc it marks the start of the absurd victoria/mr mistoffelees subplot which i am convinced was put in because of course a plotless weirdmageddon like cats needs a romantic subplot

iii. the old gumbie cat

something that needs mentioning is that idris elba shows up as macavity at various points in-between songs. i’m pretty sure he shows up for the first time here and like, tries to lure victoria away?? i think?? anyway it obviously does not work bc unfortunately we are stuck with victoria for the entire film, so onto the gumbie cat song we go.

what can i say about the rebel wilson song that hasn’t already been said. she unzips her skin. the cockroaches are uncanny in the extreme. there are slater-sized mice played by children. there is no funky tap routine, or if there is it was erased from my mind by the frequent awkward gaps in which rebel wilson attempted to be funny. dear god.

iv. the rum tum tugger

miiiiilllllkk

ok, ok, fine. jason derulo gave a fun, lively performance and didn’t even have the decency to do a bad english accent, which means there is at least one song which i have to genuinely like and can’t just like ironically. but also miiiiillllkkk why is there a milk bar in london which is perfectly cat-sized whyyyy.

v. grizabella

i am going to be honest. i think that this song appeared later in the movie, but the soundtrack only lists ‘highlights’ so it doesn’t appear in the track list. idk what to say. there are some girl cats (unnamed, although i think they have names in the stage version) who are mean to grizabella and then they say that she started working for macavity?? i’m not sure if this does or does not imply that he became her pimp, although he certainly has the coat and hat for it, which only raises more questions which i dare not put voice to.

vi. bustopher jones

fuck james corden. what the fuck did he do to the refined, fat old cat who frequents gentleman’s clubs and only dines on the finest stuff?? he made him dig around in the rubbish bins and interrupt the song twice to make ‘jokes’ about how fat he is. god i cannot fuckign stand james corden and i do not think he’s funny so i’m aware i may be biased but still. god.

oh yes and then at the end macavity lures him over to a giant bin (in full view of the other cats, might i add) and thanos snaps him out of existence, but sadly not out of the movie. rebel wilson also got thanos-snapped earlier i just forgot to mention it.

vii. mungojerrie and rumpleteazer

i understand that this melody is the original melody and that the melody used in the 90s recording was a change made for broadway; however, this was the most boring fucking song in the movie and they should have used the broadway version, good night. also victoria is there while they burgle the house, for some reason, bc having an audience surrogate means she needs to be in Every Fucking Scene, so that was a Choice.

viii. old deuteronomy

a nice, sweet song introducing judi dench, sung by munkustrap in such a manner that i began to wonder if he was like, her boytoy or something. also the nuzzling is, like, out of control. i know there’s nuzzling in the stage version, but onstage they're also all crawling around on all fours and stuff whereas here they’re bipedal most of the time. it makes it look like everyone is constantly going in for a kiss when they’re actually just being sociable, and it is fucking disorienting.

ix. the jellicle ball

by the way, the jellicle ball itself takes place in some sort of cat-friendly dilapidated theatre, and it is both the weirdest and least weird thing about this whole movie.

idk, it was fine?? oh wait, i actually forgot -- so waaaaay back at the start, victoria has a famous solo which wasn’t actually a solo in this version but danced with munkustrap, which . . . .was a Choice. so now she dances with like five different male cats, and it gets frantic, and Every Single Cat is just tearing it up on the dance floor, seriously the dancers in this are incredible, and then i think they all collapse on the floor in a heap, and it was at this point that i learned to be thankful i was not subjected to watching a cgi cat orgy while sitting next to my horrified sister

x. grizabella the glamour cat/memory (prelude)

like i said, i can’t remember what order this happens on the movie, so i’m taking the tracklist from the olc on genius. anyway victoria sneaks out for . . . reasons, and she sees grizabella. and grizabella is sad, and sings her song in the first person, because demeter got cut, because fuck demeter, i guess. oh yeah, and tom hooper, he of the masterful subtlety, had jennifer hudson sitting at a lamppost with withered leaves collected at her feet which she pointed to at the relevant lines. i’m surprised he didn’t add a sound effect of a moaning wind.

xi. beautiful ghosts

this was the song that taylor swift wrote for the movie and by god can you tell. it is incredibly jarring and serves no purpose (beyond, i guess, the purpose of deepening the nothing character of victoria), and -- ugh. look, it’s a pretty little song, and both victoria and taylor swift sing it well, but it’s thoroughly unnecessary. it’s like ‘suddenly’ in 2012 les mis -- why is this here??

xii. gus the theatre cat

i am not ashamed to admit that ian mckellen ‘singing’ gus the theatre cat was enough to bring a tear to my eye. because, well. the man may not have sung, but by god he acted. i challenge anyone with a heart to sit through all of cats and not even feel the slightest tug at their heartstrings when gus’s song plays. not even judi dench lifting one leg in appreciation could completely break the mood. oh wait. it did. (also gus got thanos-snapped by macavity immediately after exiting the stage)

xiii. skimbleshanks the railway cat

oooooh fuck YESSSSSS this is the single best song in the whole damn film. skimbleshanks himself?? wonderful. iconic. beautiful. his tap routine?? inspired. he’s skimbleshanks the railway cat -- the cat on the railway train! he inexplicably is wearing red dungarees, making him the fourth cat to be wearing clothes for no reason, and at the very end he spins like a top all the way into the air, before being thanes-snapped out of existence (but happily, not out of the movie) by.....

xiv. macavity the mystery cat

taylor swift is there. she’s undressed except for her cgi fur and a pair of stage heels. she starts tapping her little container of catnip over the collective of cats, causing munkustrap to make the sort of face you see reeve!superman make when he’s being poisoned by kryptonite, except that he is a cat being drugged with catnip and it is hard to take him seriously as a result. the song itself is a perfect guilty pleasure. taylor swift’s accent is shitty enough that you can enjoy the ridiculousness of the entire situation. idris elba cuts in to join the final chorus on ‘the Napoleon of criiiiiimmme’ and then he takes off his pimp coat and is . . . distressingly nude for the rest of the film. he dances briefly with taylor swift. it’s a thing.

anyway they thanos-snap judi dench to a boat on the thames bc she won’t let him go to cat heaven and the rest of the cats are left discombobulated. this is when Local Sadboy mr mistoffelees is uh, peer-pressured into attempting to magic judi dench back to the cats. bc mr mistoffelees has an arc now, you guys. and his arc?? is about getting his mojo back.

xv. mister mistoffelees

this song is also sung in first person by mistoffelees, which makes less sense when you get to the second verse, but whatever the movie only has about twenty minutes left let's just do it. it’s a solid song, but they keep pausing after every chorus to see if he can get judi dench back yet, which really dampens the groove that they have going on. anyway, they get her back, mr mistoffelees believes in himself now, yadda yadda yadda. meawhile back on the boat, this dickhead apparently didn’t bother to teleport the other cats back, so they fight their way out and rebel willson unzips her skin again. at this point in the cinema i was praying for mercy.

xvi. memory

memory was a song. it was clearly sung with a lot of emotion. for me, personally?? that emotion did not connect. sorry jennifer hudson. oh yeah also victoria has a verse in this song and i mentally wanted to s c r e am because this is not your fucking moment victoria, let the sad jennifer hudson cat belt her lungs out in peace

xvii. the ad-dressing of cats

god. let it end. let it end. this last ‘song’ was dragged out minute after minute after minute. judi dench looked into my very soul when she told me a cat was not a dog, and i still don’t know what she found there. when she started talking about cream and pie i could see munkustrap, he of the Giving This Performance His All, continue his impeccable acting by making faces of delight at her words. oh, munkustrap. even now, at the very end, you brought me joy. thank you, dear cat. thank you.

#asks #cinderellasfella #cats #cats 2019

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 5 years ago

Text

Athazagoraphobia (Part 16)

Waking up to a painful throbbing in her leg and a fresh helping of blood running from her nose to her chin is no longer a foreign occurrence. At first she had instinctively called for Li. Now she simply picks herself up, gaters her crutches, and wanders down the hall for her sorry excuse for a meal.

In the passing days, though with an icy demeanor to match her own, Bujing has been civil with her. Sometimes even inviting her to reminisce about better times. Or to ask her how she is feeling. She lies and tells him that she is well, save for her leg. But her head aches most of the time and her stomach is delicate and queasy every now and again.

“I think that we should set out for the prison soon.” He says. She thinks that he is beginning to pick up on the palpable feeling of foreboding. The inexplicable inkling that something dreadful will overtake them if they don’t make a move first.

Even without such ill premintions, Azula would agree; she is getting anxious just sitting around. It leaves her too much time to think and simmer in her multitude of regrets and physical discomforts. To dwell on everything she used to be, what she could have been. To realize, with a sense of horror and self disgust, that a part of her enjoys this. She thinks that it is the part of here that sees things that aren’t there. This part of her is glad that the world had gone to shit precisely when her life had. If she is going to fall, the world will fall with her.

“We should leave the palace tomorrow morning.” Li agrees over a stale, unsavory meal.

But the parasites decide that they will leave tonight.

She wakes to their incessant whispers. Their tendrils curl like curtains around the rungs that hold the canopy above her bed. Her ears ring louder as they draw closer. They wiggle about and reach out for her. Don’t they know that she is already one of them? But Li and Bujing aren’t. She ducks under their invisible fingers and within her rises a frenzied tingle as though those spirit parasites are trying to connect with those within her. In her mind there is an itch. A desire to succumb to the madness brewing in the recesses of her brain.

She steps out into the hall, she comes upon a sight that makes her soul run cold. They are inside. The hosts. An army of them.

They simply stand. Stand rigid and contorted at impossible angles; bent, twisted, and agnonized. In them, she can tell who has been newly possessed, their bloodshot, leaking eyes express a degree of torment and fear that the longtime hosts no longer have.

Azula’s stomach lurches all over again at the notion that the host is still there, if only a fragment of them. At the notion that perhaps they could come back.

Those of them that have no humanity left stare at her with lifeless, glossy eyes. She holds their stare, waiting for them to make a move of any kind. She resents how unmoving they are.

Growing tired of this game, whatever it is, she takes another step. And then another and another after that. Each accented by the clatter of her crutches. She weaves between decaying bodies. The only thing that follows her is their potent rotting scent and their eyes. They don’t turn to stare at her, not in full. Instead, in a series of grotesque cracks and pops, they twist only their heads.

Azula shudders. She thinks that she hates the infected more than the parasites nestled within them.

Instinct cries for her to call out to Bujing and Li. She holds her silence. She doesn’t need them giving away their hiding spots...if they had even made it to hiding spots. She soon finds that she doesn’t need to, she hears a weak wail come from down the hall.

Azula goes to it as fast as her crutches can carry her. Li’s cry sets the hosts in motion. Azula’s blood runs colder. She turns around and takes a deep breath. She reminds herself that they had planned on leaving anyhow. She calls forward as much fire as she can manage and sends the blaze down the hall.

She watches only long enough to make sure that the wall of flames will keep raging. Satisfied that they will, she follows the echoing screams, hoping that it isn’t too late. She finds the old woman on the ground with her back arched and her mouth locked agape. Silver threads dance on her lips.

Azula’s stomach sinks. She is going to be alone again. Perhaps forever. She wonders if this is a special hell crafted just for her. Damned to isolation in a devastated world, the last woman left. It will drive her mad, completely and irreparably.

She wanders over to Li’s contorting form and finds the best sitting position that her legs allow for. She takes the woman’s hand in her own. She is already dying, she knows that much. What are a few more parasites. The creatures seem excited to be reunited, she lets them sliter from Li’s flesh and soul and into hers.

She falls back, body seizing and twitching. They are going to rip her apart from within.

.oOo.

When she comes to there is silver-blue all around. Specters and phantoms scream in every corner. Li sits in the center of the room, she meets Azula’s gaze and shakes her head sadly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Azula’s mouth runs dry. “H-how long?”

“Before you, dear.” The old woman says. “They got me when they got Lo.”

Azula shudders.

Li holds out a wrinkly hand and helps Azula to her feet. “But you’re not decaying.”

Li laughs. “I sure am.” She holds up her robes. Her wrinkled, sagging belly is pockmarked with oozing lesions and holes. “But it’s alright. I was decaying long before the infection.” She gives a cheerful wheezing laugh as though she had cracked a silly joke. “That’s what old age is.”

“I won’t have to worry about that.” Azula mutters.

Li flashes her a sympathetic look and places a hand on her shoulder. “You never know, princess. And if you don’t make it there, I’m proud to say that I’ve had the pleasure of raising you until the end.” She flashes a missing-toothed smile.

“Where’s Bujing?”

Li shakes her head.

“So it’s just us?”

She nods.

“How quickly had they gotten to him?”

Li clicks her tongue. “They didn’t get the chance. He took himself out quick and easy before they could.”

Azula finds herself staring blankly at her toes and the floor. She feels Li’s gnarled hand wrap around her own. “Come on, dear, I think it’s time we head out.” She becomes aware of the smoke wafting into the room. She feels numb as she lets Li escort her into the hall. Hollow as she notes the darkness of it. Hollower still when she realizes how quiet it is. They must be playing with her because they don’t whisper. They don’t make a sound. They leave her to dwell on the crackling fire and emptiness of a palace that had once been bustling and teeming with life and chatter.

In her mind’s eye she can see servants wandering down the hall with armfuls of towles, dipping their heads as she approaches. She sees guards switching shifts. The royal tailor with silk draped over her shoulders and in her arms. She sees war generals passing through the rays of a setting sun that stream through the windows, on their way to war meetings. She can hear the lively chatter. The clanking of pots and pans as the team of chefs begin their dinner rush. She sees a life that she had taken for granted. And she sees a dreary, lifeless, vacant hallway. Coated in dust and full of tattered tapestries.

Looking at the palace, from the outside is almost worse. To see something that had once been so grand, in such a decrepit, crumbling state. Many of the accents and ornaments on the roof have fallen and shattered on the cracked stone below. Their gold is tarnished. The spokes of the flame-like structure have lost their shine. She thinks that they might be cracking. The stairs and walls are spattered with mud and blood, a stark contrast to the time when they had been well-kept and polished.

Azula is like her palace. Or maybe the palace is like her.

“Come on,” Li says gently, “don’t look at it for too long.”

But she already has. She has already looked long enough for it to truly set in that her old life is gone.

She can’t say why she has done it. Maybe it is a way to make her feel like she has some semblance of control. To make her feel like this has been her choice. Whatever is compelling her, blue fire dances on her hands. She sends blast after blast into the palace, until it is fully ablaze.

The jewel of the Fire Nation is in its natural state.

#Avatar #Azula #Lo & Li #Fanfiction

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anistarrose · 6 years ago

Text

Some Sunny Day - Ch. 12: The Ancient Power (Gravity Falls - Same Coin Theory)

Summary: We’ve seen how Stan remembers. Now: how Bill forgets.

Warnings: none

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947964/chapters/45565759

Previous / Next

The Beginning

(The Same Coin Theory is by @dubsdeedubs and @renmorris!)

***

It was when he first encountered the Axolotl — eons and eons ago, while giving the more obscure and least comprehensible corners of the multiverse a quick look-over as he often did when bored — that Bill Cipher first realized that there was someone who knew and saw more than he did.

It wasn’t a pleasant realization. He was the All-Seeing, All-Knowing Eye; omniscience was his brand. He was the ancient, elusive god of mysteries and answers — and, on good days, brief little glimpses into the future.

(Not that he often acted on those glimpses — they tended to be about things he either couldn’t change, or didn’t want to change — but dropping cryptic warnings into conversations with mortals was always fun, as well as a good way to remind them who was really the brains of the operation.)

But the Axolotl existed outside of time entirely. It had already seen what was yet to come to pass — it had seen it last night, and a century ago, and would see it fifteen million years down the line. It was seeing it now, and seeing it always: if Bill could occasionally switch the metaphorical channel of his sight from “present time” to “five hours in the future,” then the Axolotl was constantly watching every channel, every second and millisecond and nanosecond of existence and so on to an infinitesimal degree. It not only knew everything, but had always known everything and always would.

And Bill hated that.

“This only upsets you because you fear the unknown,” the Axolotl told him, its voice echoing like Bill’s own, but also more pleasant on the ears, more musical.

“Psssh, yeah! Right!” Bill scoffed. “Do I look like I have anything to be afraid of, Frills? I’m the incorporeal king of nightmares and my throne is built from intangible screams of mortal terror! Fear is — is breakfast for me! Serve me up all the fear in the world!”

The Axolotl tilted its head. “Deny it if you must,” it replied, “but your actions will tell another story.”

“Oh, so we’re playing the cryptic remarks card now? Well, I’ve got nothing left to gain from this conversation.” With that, Bill willed himself out of the time and space between time and space, leaving behind a triangle-shaped ripple in the fabric of the universe.

But in his haste, he failed to notice the Axolotl’s massive tail curling around five human figures, all of them shrouded in pink mist as they watched his exit intently.

***

It was during his second encounter with the Axolotl, somewhere in the realm of a million years later, when Bill Cipher was warned.

“One day,” it told him, “you’ll be so afraid of the inevitable unknown that you’ll beg me for help, and I will help you.”

“I’m not afraid,” Bill blurted out immediately, cringing as he realized how much he sounded like a naive little kid pleading his case to stay up late and be told spooky stories.

The Axolotl kept talking, as if it hadn’t heard him. “But it won’t be a free pass onto a new life of your choosing. It will be a catalyst for an unimaginable change, and the start of a long, hard path — but I know you will have it in you to succeed.”

“I don’t need you to believe in me like some proud, overinvested parent,” Bill shot back, making a show out of straightening his top hat and bow tie. “Do I look like a guy who has problems with self-confidence?”

The Axolotl just smiled at him, with its big, smug, frill-wreathed face.

“Invoke my name, Cipher, and time itself will contort to bring you back from the ashes.”

Once again, Bill willed himself back to the Nightmare Realm without noticing the five figures — not even the one that stood further forward than the others, the one that had first stared at Bill slack-jawed and dumbfounded, but now straightened his back with a confident, imposing sort of determination, and curled his fingers into fists.

***

Bill rifled through Ford’s memories — high school bullies, college all-nighters, a fiercely regretted discovery of a cave in the woods of Gravity Falls — as simply as one might flip through the pages of a book, scoffing at the man’s loneliness and need for validation. But Bill already knew all about that — it was what he’d preyed upon, how he’d gotten his portal built in the first place. No, tonight he was looking not for a general weakness, but for some specific memory, something he could purposely throw back in the six-fingered freak’s face later —

But now, he was struck with a wave of… familiarity?

A hand reaching to mess up a head of brown hair.

“Don’t listen to them, Sixer. I think you’re pretty cool!”

A knock on the leg of a bunk bed.

“Morning, smart guy!”

A reassuring hand on the shoulder.

“You heard it here first, Stanford Pines is gonna be known as the guy who changed the world!”

Switched outfits, a striped shirt in place of a brown jacket.

“Okay, Brainiac, today I’m gonna teach you how to lie…”

Bill withdrew from Ford’s memories with a jolt — not quite angrily, not quite sadly, but driven by something fierce and consuming, some feeling that he wasn’t used to and wanted to be rid of as fast as he could. Wrenching Ford’s body out of its slumber, he flipped through a journal with shaky hands and just so happened to notice a code he’d scrawled a few nights ago —

I ASK YOU WHY MUST TIME ONLY MOVE FORWARDS

WHY MUST CAUSE PRECEDE EFFECT

WHO VOTED ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICS

***

The third time he encountered the Axolotl, Bill Cipher was trying to save himself, but ended up killing himself in more ways than one.

Blue-white flames consumed walls from the ground up, and transformed exit doors into impassable infernos. Bill had practically forgotten what hot truly felt like, but he knew this was worse than anything he’d ever felt before — it was eating away at his very essence, suffocating his own flames and threatening to choke out everything that made him him.

Stanley’s mouth moved, but the voice felt like it was coming from inside Bill’s own mind, words spat through gritted teeth threatening to rip apart his consciousness.

“You’re a real wise guy, but you made one fatal mistake. You messed with my family!”

“You’re making a mistake, I’ll give you anything! Money! Fame! Riches! Infinite power, your own galaxy!!”

He was struck with a sudden vision — a static-corrupted and not quite real-time clip of a triangular statue resting in a forest, dark beneath the shadows of pine trees even as bright afternoon light spilled down from the blue summer sky above.

“PLEASE! HELP! WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME?!”

In a panic, he fumbled after the last few sparks left in his draining pool of energy, trying to channel them into his form and grow big enough to smash right out of Stan’s strangely well-disguised mortal mindscape, but his body melted and struck the floor almost instantly, only growing more unstable and difficult to hold together by the second — and seconds were all he had left.

Invoke my name, Cipher.

“NRUTER YAM I TAHT REWOP TNEICNA EHT EKOVNI I!”

And time itself will contort to bring you back from the ashes.

“NRUB OT EMOC SAH EMIT YM L-T-O-L-O-X-A!”

Stan pulled back his fist, winding up for a punch, and time slowed to a crawl. Blue flames froze in place, and the frenzied roar of a collapsing mindscape faded to a drawn-out, agonized groan before at last giving way to silence.

Then the scene began to fade as Bill found himself paralyzed, helplessly watching pink mist seep into the room. The fires grew dim, all colors turning pastel and all clarity lost to a clouded blur, until all he could see were pink cumulus clouds drifting carelessly across a blue, star-speckled sky.

(He was thrust back to the independent demises of a million different civilizations across billions of years, but he hardly heard the screams as he found himself in a flat world, a gray world, a despised yet fiercely missed world where he struggled to leaf through an oversized book that spoke of Points and Lines and Spheres and colors…)

Two beady black eyes opened in front of him, and a familiar head emerged from the clouds with a satisfied smile on its face.

“I see you invoked my name,” the Axolotl said, a hint of smugness dripping from its melodic voice. “So you do fear what lies beyond death.”

“Ya got me, Frills!” Bill shouted, hoping that sheer volume would be enough to disguise how much he was shaking. “You really did! I panicked and I invoked you, so — so what’s the fuckin’ catch already?”

“Catch?” the Axolotl asked innocently, gills twitching.

“That shtick you gave me last time about a ‘hard path!’ I know how you work, Frills — you’re not gonna let me go without some lesson as punishment — so have at it already! Dump me into whatever new existence you’ve decided I deserve, and get it over with!”

The Axolotl frowned. “You misunderstand, Cipher. It’s not about what you deserve.”

“Then what the fuck is it supposed to be about?!” Bill could feel the fire rising up in the core of his essence once again, about to rupture him beyond any hope of repair, but he kept shouting. He couldn’t stop. “WHY DID I EVEN INVOKE —”

“It’s about where you’ve got the potential to change,” someone interrupted, and for a moment, Bill thought that the Axolotl’s voice had inexplicably grown low and gruff, abruptly developing a Jersey accent as it spoke with a quiet confidence —

But then a flicker of motion towards the Axolotl’s tail caught his attention, and finally, he noticed the five familiar figures — less bruised and battered than he’d last seen them, yet still impossible to mistake. Four of them stood in a straight line, Pine Tree and Shooting Star close together and flanked by Question Mark and Sixer, while in front of them…

In front of them was the Pines that Bill had always paid the least attention to — the one he’d never had a nickname for. With tousled gray hair and and a plain white shirt, Stan looked unassuming and out-of-place here at the fringes of the multiverse, but his narrowed eyes took in the scene exactly like they had seen it all before, bright golden sparks of recognition dancing within brown irises.

“It’s not about what you deserve because you don’t deserve anything, Bill,” he calmly explained. “You don’t deserve to live in the first place. But about six decades later, in your future…”

He took a deep breath, and recalled from Bill’s perspective that his family was currently smiling at him from behind his back, proud and encouraging as ever.

So Stan smiled too.

“I will.”

“No,” Bill stammered. “Are you — are you saying that you’re me? ‘Cause I’m nothing like you! There’s no way I’ll become you, I’ll —”

Stan snorted and extended a hand in Bill’s direction, palm facing up as blue flames danced across it. “Man, we’ve always both been good at lying to ourselves, haven’t we?”

For the first time in nearly a trillion years, Bill Cipher felt the physical sensation of a chill running through him.

What had he ever truly been if not a con man? If not a stubborn, scheming scam artist?

“But hey, you’re half-right!” Stan went on. “You’re becoming me and there’s nothing you can do about it —”

He made a fist, and the flames were instantly extinguished. “But I’m definitely nothing like you.”

“You — you — you can’t light your hands on fire and seriously believe that!” Bill sputtered. “If you really are me in the future, then you’re the one lying to yourself if you think you’re anything other than a ticking time bomb! You’re still gonna be Bill Cipher forever, buddy, and you show it whether you know it or not!”

Stan directed his gaze towards the clouds below, biting his lip. A ways behind him, Dipper started to step forwards, but Ford gently rested a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.

“It’s almost hilarious how bad you are at playing the hero! All you’re good at is lying and stealing — oh, and ruining and destroying things too, can’t forget that! You know, I never got why you were so obsessed with turning the portal back on to save someone who hated you so much — but all this time it was just a favor for your past self, wasn’t it? Kickstarting the apocalypse for an old pal! We want the same things, you and I — no matter how incompetent you are at actually getting them!”

Stan’s fists trembled at his sides, but he still didn’t look up.

“But don’t worry, ‘cause your pathetic existence is gonna come to an end real soon!” Bill cackled, rubbing his hands together with glee. “You don’t have to pretend to be these dumbasses’ family anymore — we’ve pulled off the perfect con, you and I! We’ve got a physical form all set up in your dimension and no one’s standing in our way — no quantum destabilizers, no memory guns, no zodiacs! You can rule the world again now — you WILL rule the world again, whether you think you want it or not!”

“That’s all?”

Bill’s delirious laughter cut off abruptly. “What?”

“That’s your whole argument,” Stan murmured, a hint of a smile beginning to develop on his face.

“You’ve got some good points about me ruining everything,” he went on slowly, “and I think I believed it, for a while — I think I believed it before I remembered, even. I never thought I was good for anything, and part of me never believed it whenever anyone told me I was a hero…”

His head snapped up, and Bill flinched when their eyes met.

“But I know something about myself that you don’t.”

“Wh-what?”

“I know that you offered me money, fame, riches, infinite power, my own galaxy, and I didn’t understand how anyone could choose that over their family. I still don’t — and talking to you now, seeing what an egotistical little shit I used to be and how much I’ve changed since — now, I’m sure that I’ll never understand again. I’m better than you, Bill, and I always will be.”

“But — but don’t you remember all the fun we had? We could have that again! Don’t you want —”

“I remember plenty,” Stan growled, “but torturing people isn’t fun. Killing people isn’t fun. Those things are going to keep me up at night for the rest of my life, and I don’t want either of them ever again.”

“No, no, no! You’re wrong! I’ll always —” The heat inside Bill was intensifying, making it harder to hold his form together, but he wasn’t going to let this happen, couldn’t let this happen, had to remind his future self who he was before he forgot everything —

His gaze landed on Ford, watching the argument with eyes that looked tinted red from recent tears.

“Sixer, you can’t possibly believe this! You’re just gonna trust him — trust me — and let us burn you again? You of all people musta let us stab your back more than enough times to get tired of it, right?!”

Stan hid it quickly, but he cringed a little at that line, and shot a nervous glance to Ford, who closed his eyes and took in a slow, deep breath.

“By choosing to be reborn, all you’ve done is ensure that you’ll die more definitively, more completely, than if you had simply been destroyed,” Ford stated. “You could have just been gone — but now, you’ve been changed. You’ve been replaced.”

“No! You can’t get rid of me that easy! I’ll —”

“Oh, yes,” Ford growled. “You will become the antithesis of everything you once were, to the extent that you will even erase your own legacy. You’ll be the one to reverse your own apocalypse, to protect the family you tormented…”

His voice cracked. “And you — you’ll be the one who teaches me to trust again, after all the time you spent isolating me and driving me to paranoia. I don’t trust you, Bill, but I trust my brother — because there is a world of difference between the two of you. You destroy senselessly, but he protects us. He’s helped heal the wounds that you’ve caused.”

“I’ll never really leave your side, Stanford! Is that what you want? No matter what you tell yourself, you know you’ll never be able to really let your guard down around your brother again —”

“The era in which I let you manipulate me into distrusting my friends and family has long since ended, Bill,” Ford shot back without flinching. “You left my side long ago.”

“You really think that I can change? Me? Bill Cipher?!”

“I do,” Ford answered. “It may be a stretch to call my brother mature, in any sense of the word, but he’s most certainly more mature than you. He has changed for the better — in a way that does not often tend to revert.”

“Yeah, you want to know why time is so meaningless?” Stan added. “It’s ‘cause I grew up more in sixty-two years than you did in a trillion. You’ve been around for too many eons to count, but you’re still just a selfish little brat who’s obsessed with playing puppet master.”

“NO!” Bill shrieked. “I won’t become you! I WON’T! I am Bill Cipher, and SO ARE YOU, YOU HEAR ME?! The person you call Stan is — is — is NONEXISTENT!”

“Oh, I hear your whiny little screams in the back of my head all the fucking time,” Stan spat. “Telling me I’m a shit person, telling me I don’t deserve my family, telling me everything I think of myself as being is a lie. Telling me I’m just going to turn into a demon again, and the one good thing I’ve done in my life is going to end up being less than worthless…”

Columns of blue flame erupted from his hands, and he stepped towards Bill, teeth bared. “But you’re an even bigger liar than I am.”

“You — no, we could have ANYTHING! Power without limitations, minions to obey our every order, revenge on anyone who’s ever wronged us! BUT YOU CHOOSE TO BE STANLEY? YOU CHOOSE TO BE MEANINGLESS?”

“I hate to break it to you, wise guy, but you’re already doomed.” Stan took another step closer. “You’re going to be meaningless soon. Everything you think of yourself as standing for is gonna fade away, and all you’re gonna be is just another one of my memories.”

“And memories,” Ford added, “will never take away my brother — not by their absence, and certainly not by their presence.”

Stan’s hands curled into fists, and the columns of fire wound themselves around his fingers, solidifying into shining golden knuckledusters engulfed in a crackling blue aura.

“Hey, Bill?” he asked, smiling innocently.

Bill let out a whimper.

“Will you please say hello, to the folks that I know? Tell them I won’t be long?”

Two scenes play out overlaid upon one another, blurring together into the same decisive, time-defying moment as the burning of Stan’s mindscape resumes from where it left off. Two versions of Stanley Pines swing at Bill — one standing unflinchingly before a backdrop of flames about to consume him, the other channeling a reawoken fire of his own into his resolute, superhuman punch, but both sharing an absolute confidence in what will happen next.

And what happens next for Bill Cipher, as their fists collide with him, is excruciating pain.

The blow from the mindscape is blistering hot with vengeance, the weight of a tremendous but unregretted sacrifice behind it. It’s the love and compassion of a selfless protector that fans the oxygen to these white-hot flames, that fuels Stan’s particular stubborn brand of heroism against which no demon can possibly stand.

This one’s for my family.

The blow from the time and space between time and space is metallic and colder and spiteful in an intimately personal way, as Bill watches his own flames punch a hole in his body — but these flames, this fist, they’re bolstered by a family’s returned love and kindness that brings Stan back from the ashes but doesn’t just stop there. The weight behind the punch is as much Ford and Mabel and Dipper and Soos as it is Stan; it’s their stubbornness and refusal to give up on the good they know they see in their hero, it’s the trust they place in him and foundations for a trust in oneself that they’ve planted for Stan to rebuild upon.

It is fueled by a fresh spark of something new, something defiant, burning deep within Stan’s chest — an ember glowing faintly at first, but holding the potential to become a roaring blaze of self-confidence, of self-acceptance, even self-love.

And this one’s for me.

The punches shatter Bill with ease, eclipsing his own power by countless orders of magnitude, and his fragments scatter, cast adrift in spacetime. Yet a long, pink and blue-finned tail sifts through the fabric of the universe, curling protectively around the shards of a consciousness as it collects them together once again and then carries them back to where it all began…

The sunny New Jersey day of June 15th, 1951, where an all-seeing eye closes, two human ones open, and Bill Cipher forgets.

***

The flames around Stan’s hands died down, and the Axolotl, who had spent most of the confrontation watching from a distance, drifted up to face him.

“Why were you doing in the fishtank all those years?” Stan blurted out.

“Now, there is a limit to how completely I can be somewhere,” the Axolotl told him, “a limit to how much of myself I can manifest in the spacetime that you all are capable of perceiving. But to answer your question, Stan… to the greatest extent that I could, I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t be too lonely for those thirty years.”

Stan rubbed his eyes. “You’re such a — a sentimental old salamander. You know that, Frills?”

“An eternally young salamander, actually,” the Axolotl corrected him teasingly, with a gleam in its eyes. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?”

“We had another question when we came here, but…” Stan wiped away a few tears, and took a deep breath. “But I know the answer now.”

“I thought so.” The Axolotl beamed. “I have a few messages for you all as well. First of all, Ford — Jheselbraum has asked me to say hello. She says that she’s proud of how you fared in the Mindscape… and that she’d like to visit your dimension sometime, which I think could be arranged.”

Ford blinked a few times in owlish confusion, but then a smile spread across his face. “Tell her… tell her I’m immensely grateful for her help, and that I’d love to see her again sometime — and I’m sure the kids would love to meet her, too.”

The Axolotl nodded. “And Stan, one last thing. You invoked me in the clearing as you were beginning to remember, and I heard you, but I did not reply. That was because there was nothing for me to do. You asked me to stop Cipher, but he had no need to be stopped — though you understand that now, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Stan answered, giving up on wiping away his tears as his voice grew choked-up. “Thanks, Axolotl. For everything.”

He turned around to face his family, and spread out his arms. “And thanks for not letting me go.”

The kids were the first to run towards him, and he lifted them up and hugged them tight. Soos quickly followed, wrapping his arms around all of them as he buried his head into Stan’s left shoulder while sobbing with joy.

Ford was the last to join the embrace, but may have hugged the tightest and most fiercely of all of them — not letting go even as the stars and clouds of the Axolotl’s dimension faded away, replaced with sunbeams and trees and a familiar old swingset.

“Thanks for staying with us, Stanley.”

***

pssst reread the beginning of chapter six and you might notice a few familiar lines, I’ve been plotting this scene for a while ;)

This writing experience has been a hell of a journey, and now it’s finally coming to a close! I’ll save my big mushy ramble for the end of next chapter, but I’m getting sentimental over it already.

But although the end of this fic is nigh, that’s not the end of this specific continuity — I’ve got a few different ideas for sequels (as well as potentially prequels and deleted scenes!) to write once I finish with Some Sunny Day itself, so keep an eye on the series for those! Jheselbraum’s visit will probably be one such sequel, since it doesn’t quite fit into the final chapter I have planned but would feel like a waste not to expand upon.

#gravity falls #same coin theory #stanley pines #bill cipher #stanford pines #the axolotl #rosalia writes fic #fic: some sunny day

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icecubelotr44 · 6 years ago

Text

Trouble with a Capital ‘T’ (3/who knows)

It liiiiiiives! Whumpetition Entry 3: Bedridden

Still basically just another excuse to whump the Jones brothers, after all.

Chapter One | Chapter Two

ao3 | ffn

"I suppose the real question is, 'who the bloody hell are you?" The girl made a startlingly accurate mockery of his accent and Liam blanched for a moment. She had this look on her face that reminded him so much of... His thoughts trailed away from his little brother when the girl's face fell. "You two are really hurt, aren't ya?"

Something clicked in his head, and he didn't really understand why. "Tilly?"

She nodded automatically, not really looking at him, but at his little brother. The look on her face as it crumpled, the devastation there, it all started to make a strange kind of sense as to how they'd gotten into this mess in the first place.

"How did you find us, lass?" He didn't understand how she'd gotten here, how she'd found them.

If she would help them.

"I just looked for what wasn't there," she replied cryptically, not taking her eyes off his brother. She looked so familiar.

"What?"

She smiled, but it was a sad thing. "I knew he'd come looking for me. He'd never leave me out in the cold, not on a night like this. I've spent colder nights, you know, out in the forest. But not here."

Liam still didn't understand.

"When he didn't show up, I came looking. But he's not waking up..." she trailed off, turning her tortured glance towards him. "I don't even know if he's really awake."

Liam blinked, not understanding.

"Are you awake? You're not supposed to be if you are," she riddled again.

He didn't know what made him understand. If it was her mannerisms or just a remnant of the curse. If he'd ever known who she was or if he'd never met her before. He didn't understand how he knew - just that he knew.

"Aye, luv, I'm awake. And so are you."

She nodded. "He named me Alice. After your-"

"After our mother,” Liam finished. “Of course he did. Alice, we-"

"You need help. I'll be back in a tiff!"

And she was off, her footsteps muffled in the snow and gone so suddenly that Liam wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't a figment of his imagination.

Did he have a niece to worry about now, as well?

Liam twisted around, trying to peer out the back window of the SUV to watch Alice scamper off, seemingly unperturbed by the blizzard swirling around her. All too quickly, she was lost to the whiteout conditions and Liam couldn’t do anything more for her.

Besides, he had his little brother to worry about, still.

Killian was shivering more violently now, tiny little whimpers escaping from him though his face was still slack with unconsciousness.

Liam shifted again, moving closer to his brother and trying to share what body heat he could. Killian was terrifyingly pale, his eyelashes sooty against his cheeks. There wasn't much else he could do, what with the way the world was tilting around him and the way his own shivering was lighting a fire in his arm. Neither one of them was in any state of health, both of them needed help - at least an hour ago, if not sooner. There was nothing he could do other than try and keep them both alive until Alice could get back with help.

Gods, his niece had better hurry.

His niece. He had a niece. Killian had sired a child. One who, by all accounts (from what he could see in her eyes anyway) had been raised well and loved thoroughly. Liam smiled a little - Killian hadn't had the best role model in their father in how to parent, but Liam wasn't so blind as to think that Brennan had any influence over them anyway. No, Liam knew that any ability to parent that Killian had grown into, it was solely due to his little brother's strength of character.

Liam had never been more proud of Killian.

Never.

Of course, he couldn't tell him that. Rogers wouldn't understand, may be drawn to Ali- Tilly like Jewell had been to Kil- Rogers, but didn't have a daughter.

He'd have to wake him up, and soon.

Alice needed her father, and Liam needed his little brother.

Killian needed him, too, even if he didn't know it yet.

Liam sighed, resisting the urge to pull Killian forward and check on the wound in his back. He knew the pressure was better for it, but not being able to see if the bleeding had stopped was terrifying. He wanted to control it, wanted to control everything about this situation. Especially now that he'd inexplicably gotten his little brother back and both sets of memories in his head were shouting from the rooftops in a combination of relief and fear.

Gods, what if he lost him again?

Liam was sure this wasn't another curse, that there wouldn't be a magical do-over if his brother died here in this car. He didn't understand how Killian was here, how he wasn't long ago returned to the sea to rest, how he was here.

He didn't bloody care.

Killian was here and Liam was going to make damned sure that he was going to stay that way.

"Liam?" Killian's whisper rang through the SUV and nearly made Liam shout in startled concern.

Put a lid on the cursed memories, Jones, he thought hastily. "Rogers?"

Killian sighed sadly and Liam began to hope. It all came flooding back to him, the last few hours in the car, the stilted conversations, calling him Liam, calling him brother.

He turned hopeful, tortured eyes up to where Killian was looking at him blearily. He had to try. He could always blame it on stress if he were wrong.

"Ki..." he cleared his throat, his heart nearly choking him. "Killian?"

Startled, frightened eyes met his own gaze, Killian looking at him with such hope that Liam knew it already.

"Little brother?"

Killian very clearly wasn't breathing, shaking with tears checked in the corners of his eyes. "Liam?" he whispered, sounding nearly terrified.

Liam nodded, reaching out to clasp a hand over Killian's knee, tears stinging his own eyes.

"I..." Killian started, "I need..."

"What do you need, Killian? Help is coming." There would be time for explanations later.

But the guarded look didn't leave. "I need you to tell me your last name."

Oh. Right. Killian was just as worried as he was.

Liam smiled gently, hand coming up to cup the back of Killian's neck. "Glory for the Jones brothers, aye Killian?"

Liam Jones had spent centuries in Neverland, dreaming of the day he'd find out what had happened to his little brother. He had spent the first few years imagining that he could escape and reunite with Killian. Had pictured the reunion so many times, locked in that godsdamned cage in that bloody tree.

Had expected tears, hugs, disbelief, anger. Anything and everything. Or so he thought.

Liam Jones had never expected this.

Killian pulled sharply away from him, plastering himself against the door and stifling a cry as he jostled some injury that Liam wanted to catalogue and fix. He started shaking his head 'no', scrabbling for the door handle.

He was shaking.

Violently.

"Killian?" Liam didn't know what to do. What was wrong. How to fix this.

Was it because Killian had thought him long dead? Liam had thought the same about him and was just relieved to find he got another chance with his little brother. Was it because he'd abandoned Killian when he was still so young, so vulnerable? Was it superstition? Was it... he just didn't know.

"No. No no no. Nonononono. You can't be awake. You're not supposed to be awake. Jewell was safe. You're not Jewell anymore. You're Liam and she's going to come for you. I can't protect you from her. Not now, not here. Not like this." Killian's arm rose, his prosthetic running jerkily through his hair as he muttered maniacally.

"Killian, it's all right," he soothed. "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out. It's the two of us again. The two of us together, Kil- it's all right, just calm down."

Killian kept muttering, eyes wild, tears in his eyes. "I can't lose you again."

"You're not going to, little brother. Come on now, it's all right. Just slow down. I don't understand." Liam reached out hesitantly, telegraphing his intentions before he laid his hand, palm up, next to Killian's right hand. He wouldn't have to move it much, wouldn't risk pulling on his shoulder, he just had to-

Killian clutched his hand desperately, holding on for dear life.

Killian's fingers were freezing around his own, making Liam stare at their hands in something approaching wonder. They were both in the same car, had been in the elements for the same amount of time. And yet. Killian was bloody freezing. God, how long had Liam been out cold in the back, secure under the blankets they should have been sharing. How much blood had his little brother lost from that gash in his back? What other injuries was he hiding, did Liam need to be worried about shock, should he be-

"Li-" Killian tried to speak, shaking violently and staring at Liam imploringly. Gods, he looked so bloody young, like those first days on Silver's ship, begging Liam to make it right, to keep him safe, to lead him.

"It's all right, little brother," Liam assuaged, gentling his voice as if speaking to a frightened stray. "I've got you now. Just relax, Killian, it's going to be all right."

Killian's tremors eased fractionally, leaning almost imperceptibly towards Liam, his hand still contracted almost painfully around Liam's own fingers. He looked even younger than he had a moment ago, seemingly caught between his terror and his natural tendency to follow where Liam led.

"Let's get you situated more comfortably, aye?" Liam reached out to ease Killian back around, wrapping his arm around his little brother's shoulders and tugging him close. A quick check that the abdominal pad was still firmly in place and a sharp tug of the blankets to keep his brother warm, and Liam was more comfortable than he'd been in centuries - with Killian secure under his arm where he could keep him safe.

"Li'm," Killian slurred, the adrenaline waning and leaving him near boneless against Liam's side. "You've gotta stay safe. I need you."

Liam shut his eyes against the pain, against the loss in his brother's voice and murmured softly into his hair. "I've got you, little brother. You're safe now."

Killian shook his head, but it was sloppy, not something Liam had ever associated with the young Lieutenant who had turned his life around so completely once Liam had bartered with a god for their freedom. Liam's unease ratcheted up past worry and concern and into a nearly crippling fear. Alice needed to hurry up. The ambulance needed to get here. He needed to save his brother.

"'m safe. Sh' doe'n't wan' me. Already used me. But sh' needs y'r heart, Li'm. Please, brother. Stay safe. Can' lose you 'gain." Killian tucked his head more firmly under Liam's chin, tightening his fingers as much as he was able as if this woman he was so afraid of would materialize in the SUV and steal Liam from under his nose.

His little brother was scared. It wasn't an emotion Liam was used to seeing in his brother. Even when they were small, Killian was brash and fearless. Not even the cane nor the whip, not even the bloody cat could break his brother's hold on his temper. Sure, he may have been afraid, and who wouldn't have been under the circumstances? But he'd never looked it.

"I'll keep a weather eye out, Killian,” Liam vowed. “I promise I won't leave you again. Not again, little brother, I swear it. I'm here."

Killian nodded, but his movements were slowed, his eyes when he looked up at his brother were glassy and unfocused. "m cold, Li..." his words trailed off as he dropped his head back to Liam's chest, seizing up a moment as he shivered before going completely limp.

"Killian?" Liam questioned. "Killian?!"

There was no answer. He shook his brother hard, hoping beyond hope for some kind of response.

Killian flopped limply against his chest, his hand lax in Liam's.

"Killian!"

Liam tore the blanket from around his shoulders, shivering when the cold in the SUV assaulted him, but ignoring it as he wrapped the wool tightly around Killian. The combine pad was still in place, pinned between Killian's shoulder and the backseat. He could still smell the blood, though, far too cloying and pervasive in the air to be under control. Was he bleeding from somewhere else? Was there something Liam couldn't fix? Was he going to lose Killian before he had a chance to find out how he was here? Pressing down harder on the wound, Liam did something he hadn't done since his mother had been dying in their seaside cottage.

He prayed.

In English, in Gaelic, to any god he could think of, any god he'd ever heard of. Anyone and anything that would keep his brother with him. Gods, he needed to go after Alice, make sure she-

"They're coming."

She came out of nowhere, he was half-convinced she was a ghost or a hallucination. The thought came unbidden and nearly made Liam weep in fear - what if she was a hallucination? What if no one had gone for help? What if no one knew-

"Uncle Liam?"

Alice had managed to climb into the SUV through the driver's side door when he wasn't looking, her thin hand reaching around the tree branches resting on the console to reach for him and squeeze his knee in reassurance.

She was real. Bloody hell, she was real and that meant help was coming.

"I'm all right, sweet. You called the ambulance?"

She nodded. "I found some service a little ways up the road. Told them who you were. They're all coming."

Liam did start crying then, tears slipping - unbidden - down his cheeks.

"Uncle Liam?"

"'m all right, little lass. We're going to get your fath... gods, your father is awake, luv... we're going to save him."

She grinned, and he could see all of the attributes that Killian had passed down to her - and a little of their mother's looks, too - in her beaming face.

"Papa?" she whispered, tearing her gaze away from Liam to stare hopefully at her father.

Killian didn't so much as breathe too heavily, his chest rising and falling only slightly. She called for him again and again, each time making Liam's heart clench just a little bit harder, making the tears fall faster down his cheeks.

"He'll... he'll be all... your father's strong, sweet. He's stronger than I am. He'll be all right." Liam wished it sounded more than an empty promise, cursed under his breath for even thinking that, and hugged Killian tighter.

Alice nodded sadly, her lower lip trembling as she turned glassy, wide eyes on him. "I need him to come back."

"I do too, little one. We'll be strong for him together, aye?"

Liam may not have known much about the relationship between his brother and his niece, but he knew this - Killian would rather die than leave his little girl alone and abandoned. The least Liam could do for him was be strong for her.

Alice started to say something else, but stopped abruptly, her eyes wide.

It took a second longer, so focused as he was on the sound of Killian's breathing, but then he heard it, too.

Ambulance sirens.

He grinned at Alice, or rather at the back of her head as she scampered off again, out of the car and presumably up to the road to flag down the EMTs.

There was a flurry of activity then, men asking questions and taking vital signs and focusing on both of them until Liam waved them off. He was fine, his arm could wait - Killian had done a fine job to stop the bleeding - and his brother needed them far more than he did.

Alice stood behind them, hopping from foot to foot and trying to stay out of the way.

There was a collar and gauze pads and... gods what were they looking at on his leg? What had he missed? Then something orange and blue wrapped around whatever injury that was - Liam belatedly recognized the SAM splint that must be stabilizing a fracture.

And then they were moving Killian, out of the car and onto the longboard that they'd use to transport him up the hill and to a gurney. To help.

One of the men came around the vehicle, pulling open the other door and fiddling with Liam's arm despite his protests. He couldn't see Killian, couldn't hear Alice, needed to keep them safe. He growled at the man until the EMT raised his hands in acquiescence and helped him out of the back seat.

The world went dark before Liam could take five steps away from his car.

***

He couldn’t have been out for long, just barely long enough for the EMTs to clearly panic and strap him to a backboard of his own - trussed up tighter than a mutineer to the mast awaiting sentence. Liam struggled despite knowing it was useless, needing to get to his brother, needing to get-

“Please stop, Uncle Liam,” Alice begged from his side, kneeling in the snow and soaking her jeans. He was caught by the unreasonable need to sit up and get her out of the snow. Before he could demand that she stand up and get someplace warm, Alice reached out and tangled her fingers in his. “Let them help you.”

There was something in her eyes - something his stomach rebelled against seeing seated there. Fear. She looked so frightened, so much like her father had as a little boy left alone in the dark. Gods, she looked just like Killian when she-

Killian.

“Where’s your father?” Liam all but shouted, immediately groaning and trying to curl in on himself when the sound of his own voice set off every nerve ending in his head. Tears leaked out of his eyes, unbidden, as the pain crescendoed and nearly took him under with it. He had to stay with it, he had to find out about Killian, he had to…

When the backboard underneath him was lifted, the sickening feeling of weightlessness washed over him and sucked him back into unconsciousness.

Sniffling. Quiet tears. Steady beeping. Constant whirring. Muted footsteps. Garbled Announcements.

Hospital.

But who was crying?

And how had he gotten from those icy woods to the hospital?

And where was his brother?

Killian shot up in the bed, regretting it immediately, but forcing himself to maintain his balance as he hunched over his lap and breathed through his nose. Memories came crashing back - Liam Jones, his brother was awake and that meant he was in danger. Gothel was out there and Killian had no idea what she wanted nor why she needed Liam for it, only that he would take her to the Underworld with him before he let that witch use his brother.

Even if it meant leaving his brother behind.

A nasty voice in the back of his head that had often let loose his temper whispered that turnabout was only fair pay.

Killian felt sick to his stomach just thinking about where that thought had come from. He’d always known he wasn’t a good man, not like Liam. And he knew that Liam hadn’t meant to leave him. He knew that. But the fact remained that he’d been a lost boy for centuries, left to face the world alone because his brother was as stubborn and loyal as the day was long.

And Killian had suffered immeasurably and lost so much in that time.

No. No, that wasn’t Liam’s fault. His brother had died nobly, in pursuit of honor and everything that made him good. Killian just didn’t measure up to that.

And probably never would.

But the fact remained that, no matter how much he couldn’t compare to his brother and would never be enough for that, he was a an utterly selfish bastard who would do anything and everything a chance to allow his brother to truly live. Like he hadn’t had a chance to the first time around.

More sniffles, and shifting in the chair next to him. “Are you really awake?”

Alice.

No. Tilly.

Killian wasn’t sure if Gothel wanted Alice awake or not, but he was absolutely sure that he would protect her more vehemently than even his own brother. And it was safer if she were still cursed.

Gods, at least the bloody curse that kept them apart didn’t seem to work here. It was all he could do to stay sitting in that bed, barely conscious, and not vault himself into her arms and hold her close. His daughter.

“Tilly?” he asked, tilting his head and ignoring the way the room spun in favor of making sure his baby girl was all right.

She was curled up in a chair, looking far too uncomfortable and far too bloody young - and old, they’d lost so much time together - huddled under a blanket and watching him. She tried to smile, but her lower lip wobbled and only the barest reminder that she wasn’t his daughter in this realm kept him from sweeping her up like he’d done when she was young to soothe her.

“What’s the matter, Tilly? Where’d you come from?”

Tilly shifted in the chair, turning the saddest eyes he’d seen on her in awhile - and that was saying something. “I hate it when you call me that,” she whispered brokenly.

No.

Yes. Could it be?

Killian was terrified to get his hopes up, but he wanted. Oh gods, how much he wanted for her to know who he was.

��Would you…” he began, ignoring how tremulous his own voice sounded. “Would you prefer it if I called you Starfish?”

It was worth it. Whatever pain he’d gone through up until this point was worth it to see that look on his daughter’s face before she launched herself out of the chair and into his arms.

“Papa!”

It hurt. Everything hurt and he was partly sure that he was dying, the bruises on his chest and the jagged tear in his back and his bloody leg were all screaming for her to get off. He didn’t care. Even as the world started to spin around them and stars danced in his vision, even as monitors behind him screamed and his hands began to shake, Killian just held on tighter, hoping that Alice - Alice, by gods, it was Alice - didn’t notice how damp her hair was getting.

“You were asleep for a long time, Papa,” she mumbled into his chest, her own tears soaking his hospital gown.

“I know, my heart. I’m so sorry.” Killian tugged her impossibly closer, ignoring the way she sat on his leg in favor of muffling her quiet whimpers.

“Detective Rogers are you all- Hey! I chased you out of here twice already. I’m calling Security, Detective, don’t-”

“Don’t you dare!” Killian hissed, putting his hand up to shield Alice as if he could protect her in the state he was in. The monitors continued to scream and the nurse continued to glare as everything grew hazy.

“Papa!” Alice cried again, hands grasping at his back and igniting more pain as she clutched his shoulders to keep him with her. “Don’t leave me again!”

As his back hit the mattress and his shoulder erupted into an all-encompassing agony, Killian realized that he hadn’t even asked about Liam yet.

He didn’t have a chance before the pull of darkness claimed him.

***

It was quiet the next time he woke, the beeping of the monitors settling in the back of his mind even before he was aware that he was waking up. There were quiet footsteps moving around his room, not stealthy but sure.

Alice, he thought. She must be getting so bored; his girl was always on the move, always looking for her next adventure. Ever since she’d been stuck in that tower, ever since they’d come to Washington, she was always moving.

“Starfish?” he mumbled, turning his head towards her as she stepped up to his bedside. He’d open his eyes in just a moment, he was sure.

“Excuse me?” a voice said, startling Killian enough to open his eyes.

Not Alice.

The woman in scrubs stared at him like she wanted to hit a panic button somewhere, and she was certainly not his daughter. Wasn’t Alice here? Hadn’t she been just there a moment ago? Didn’t he remember her knowing him?

“Was there a young woman here?” he asked, trying to push himself up and realizing, belatedly, that his right arm was strapped to his chest. That hadn’t been like that before, he was sure of it.

Killian nearly toppled over trying for any other position than flat on his back. There was a pillow keeping the injury to his back away from the mattress, but it wasn’t helping much. The nurse huffed at him before steadying him and raising the head of the bed.

“Please, the young woman. Where is she?” Killian tried again once he was - more or less - sitting up. He felt strangely naked beneath the blankets, the thin hospital gown doing little to protect him. There was something about the leather he’d worn for centuries, as much practical protection as it was symbolic armor.

Some days he missed it.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, Detective,” she told him, writing down the numbers on the monitor. “I’ll let your doctor know you’re awake. He should be in shortly.”

Killian watched, dumbstruck, as she strutted out the door.

Where was Alice?

Had she even been there in the first place?

Was any of it real?

Liam.

Killian kept being surprised at just how long it was taking him to remember his brother. It was, he supposed, only fair - since Liam was supposed to have been dead for centuries and Alice was… gods, was she Alice or was she still Tilly? It just all seemed so convenient to be given back his brother and his daughter in the span of a few… hours? Days? Weeks? How long had it been since the accident?

And where was his family?

Killian swung his legs around, letting them hang off the bed and getting his equilibrium before attempting to stand.

“Just how far do you think you’re going to get, Detective?” Weaver’s voice had Killian spinning around and nearly toppling to the floor as the world spun around him.

Probably not weeks then.

Nausea assaulted him, making Killian clamp his eyes shut and clench his fist tightly in the sling that held it. Gods, with neither of his hands available to… he was nearly helpless right now.

Killian slitted his eyes open when a rhythmic squeaking moved into the room.

Weaver had a wheelchair.

“I thought you might want to check on y- our captain,” was all he said as he gestured for Killian to sit.

Killian stared defiantly for a moment, loathe to show weakness in front of the crocodile. They may not be the sworn enemies they once were, Alice going a long way towards reconciling both of them, but old habits died hard.

Practicality won out quickly however - that and fear of what Weaver was going to wheel him towards - and Killian slumped into the ancient wheelchair. Weaver made quick work of silencing the monitors, detangling the wires, and hanging the IV on the chair back. Clearly, he’d done this before. Then they slipped out of the room with surprising stealth.

Killian wasn’t going to question how no one had come to stop them; he needed to see Liam.

“It’s not… pretty, Dearie,” Weaver warned when they snuck out of the elevator two floors above where Killian had been staying. His partner flashed an id badge over the keylock to the ICU and wheeled Killian in as if they belonged there.

Killian nodded by reaction more than understanding. He didn’t care what Liam looked like, Killian just needed to see that his brother was still with them. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost Liam again. He’d even take Jewell if that was all he got.

Killian Jones hadn’t gotten too many second chances in his long, long life. He didn’t want to squander this one.

He should have taken better heed of what Weaver was trying to tell him.

Liam was in the room, all right. He was hooked up to so many monitors with so many wires snaking underneath the blankets that Killian wondered if there was anything left of Liam at all. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

As Killian nodded to Weaver to bring him closer to Liam’s side, his eyes were transfixed by the rise and fall of the ventilator - the even cadence of whooshing and sucking that breathed for his brother was hypnotic and terrifying. He followed the path of the tube from the machine to his brother’s mouth and was caught up in the insane notion that he needed to pull it away from Liam in order for his brother to breathe. It was secured completely, looking like someone had gagged Liam to keep him from crying out at the pain he must be in.

And then Killian looked further, cataloguing the paleness to Liam’s skin, the absolute lack of expression in his brother’s face, the… the tape that kept Liam’s eyes shut to the world. It seemed like his big brother wasn’t even there, just a badly crafted caricature.

Killian reached out hesitantly, the fingers of his prosthetic slipping tentatively under his brother’s limp hand. He managed enough control to tighten his grip imperceptibly, and for once was glad that there was no feeling in those fingers. He could imagine that Liam’s hand was gripping his back, that his skin wasn’t cold to the touch, that he wasn’t going to lose his brother.

“Come back to me brother, please?”

tagging: @killian-whump @gilliangrissom @gusenitsaa @pirate-owl @nothingimpossibleonlyimprobable @ladyciaramiggles @cocohook38 @nonnyj @queen-mabs-revenge @eala-captian @crystalyte @kmomof4 @killianmesmalls @whumptober2018

#whumpetition #whumptober 2018 #whumptober #brothers jones #ouat fic #my fic #trouble

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bobbichoicesfeedback · 5 years ago

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Choices: Stories You Play, by Pixelberry Studios

Bloodbound (Spoilers for Book 2 finale and Book 3 intro)

MC (Bobbi) x Lily

The first chapter of Bloodbound 3 really frustrated me. It was bizarre, for a game called Choices, how few they gave you. The biggest problem was the fact that you had no choice but to forgive your Love Interest for Turning you. I’d been playing the whole series as someone happy to help the Vampires in her life, but with no interest in becoming one herself. Ever since we woke up in the coffin at the end of Book 2 I’ve been feeling a little sickened by the game, which I normally really enjoyed. It’s actually put me off other books in the app, which I was enjoying.

There was a moment, right at the beginning of Chapter 1, where I thought “They didn’t turn me, it’s a plot point, I’ve woken up in a real coffin” and I could live with that. But it was a fake-out. Later on Lily (My love interest) confessed to turning me and without any options I ‘forgave her’

Some people have pointed out that, because the Turning didn’t appear to take at first, we may have become a Vampire because of Plot points after all. That’s all well and good, but she still tried to Turn me. The fact that it wasn’t because of her, doesn’t negate her intent…

This little fan-fiction is what I wanted to say and do. I needed to write it because I really enjoy this game and I needed the catharsis

“

Kamilah, Jax, and Adrian all walked politely out of the room, leaving me alone with Lily. The smell of… the smell of blood coming from the leftover droplets in the goblet was intoxicating. My body craved more, but my mind was rebelling at the thought. I barely heard what Lily was saying to me until some terrible words broke through my shock.

“It was me,” Lily said, looking distraught, “I Turned you. Adrian helped me, but I was the one who did it. But it didn’t take. We buried you.”

I turned to Adrian’s huge office window, made of the tinted glass that protected vampires like him… like us… from the deadly rays of the sun. My reflection stared back at me – another vampire myth that didn’t hold up – looking distraught.

“How could you do this to me?” I whispered. Lily easily heard me.

“Bobbi, you did it to me,” she said, suddenly sounding worried, “You found me dying and forced Adrian to turn me.”

“You forgave me,” I said, feeling a tear welling, “I acted out of panic and fear of losing you, but you forgave me, and I was grateful for that until the day I died…”

“Bobbi,” suddenly her arms were around my waist, hugging me sweetly. I turned in her grip, faster than I could ever have moved before and she pulled back with a look of unaccustomed fear, “It’s okay to be shocked… I was…”

“I’m not shocked, Lily,” I snarled, feeling the sharp point of my fangs pushing into my lower lip. I realised why she had pulled back from me, my eyes must have the red glow I’d grown to love in hers, “I’m upset, I’m heartbroken, I’m angry!”

I pushed her away from me and she slid most of the way across the room, hitting Adrian’s desk with a thump. She looked up at me, now looking angry. Her eyes had gone the same red and her fangs glinted in the lights.

“So, you get to be angry, when I didn’t?” She said, accusingly. Neither of us noticed the door opening, but Adrien, Jax, and Kamilah must have stepped back in about this point, “I couldn’t live without you, Bobbi. This time since I was Turned, I’ve fallen so hard for you. I thought you knew that?”

“I fell for you too, Lil,” I confessed, glancing sideways and smashing a chair with a gentle kick. I saw the anger in Lily’s eyes drain away as she realised what I was doing, “But I thought you knew me, too. I thought you knew I didn’t want to be Turned. Ever. You were scared of losing me? Well, you have.”

Before I could drive the chair leg into my own heart, it was taken from me. Kamilah’s arms were wrapped around my shoulders, holding me tightly to her chest. A hand even stronger than me pushed my head down into her shoulder. Despite this I could see Lily’s horrified face as Jax had to pull her out of the room. I felt remorse for hurting her, but I still couldn’t let go.

“Lily,” I said, ignoring the warning pressure Kamilah pushed on me, “I will never forgive you for this…”

“Well, that could have gone better,” Adrian said, his sardonic tones offset by the clear look of distress in his eyes.

“Not the moment, Adrian,” Kamilah said, in her beautiful middle-eastern accent, “That’s not the first time I’ve seen a fledgling attempt suicide, Bobbi. They usually miss, so I thought I’d spare you and Lily both the pain.”

Finally, I accepted Kamilah’s embrace, pressing my face to where her neck and shoulder met and sobbed heavily against her shoulder. I felt her hand gently caress my hair, felt it more strongly than anything I’d felt before. I understood what Lily had meant about how senses were all heightened. Then I shuddered again.

“Why did you let her do it?” I managed to ask, between racking sobs, “You’ve both known me as long as you’ve known her. I’ve never asked any of you to do this…”

“Bobbi,” Adrian said, weakly, though I could hear him as clearly as though he were stood next to me, “You mean such a lot to all of us. We all saw you sacrifice yourself to defeat Gaius. We couldn’t bear the thought of you dying for us, without doing all we could to save you. Lily’s Turning didn’t seem to work. We held a funeral for you, which wasn’t easy given the state of the city. Then you turned up in the park.”

“And I was chasing an innocent woman,” I snarled, extricating myself from Kamilah’s arms and stalking across the room, “I was going to kill her, because I needed her blood.”

Saying the words reminded me of the sudden hunger swelling in the pit of my stomach. I doubled over, clutching myself round the middle and felt tears flowing again.

“You need to feed, Bobbi,” Adrian said, putting a hand on my shoulder, “Otherwise you will lose control again or, worse, turn Feral…”

“Jax was the only one who was against Turning you,” Kamilah observed, “He said he didn’t think you would want it, but we three overruled him. I apologise, my dear. Adrian, I think Jax would be best placed to help with… this next step…”

“The city is still in chaos,” Jax told me, somehow sounding comforting despite the horror in his words, “We’re trying to restore order before the government take more drastic action. Even with Gaius and Priya dead, there are more than enough idiots out there.”

“Thank you,” I muttered, leaning against the wall of the lift, trying to ignore the ache in my belly.

“For what?” I could tell from his tone that he already knew, but he was trying to humour me, “All I’ve done is damage control.”

“Thank you for trying to stop them,” I clarified, looking over my shoulder at him, “Thank you for thinking about what I wanted.”

“Well, I’ve clearly listened better than them,” Jax looked annoyed, “You’ve always tried to help us, but never once have you even vaguely hinted at wanting to be one of us. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them. But, for what it’s worth, it is really good to see you again.”

“Say that again in five minutes,” I said, as the lift drew to a halt, the doors opened, and the scent of prey… No! The scent of innocent humans filled my nostrils.

“Remember Lily’s first feeding,” Jax’s voice sounded distant, “Try to keep control of yourself. The people down here have volunteered to provide us with blood in exchange for us keeping them safe from the nightmare outside.”

My fangs pressed against my lip, I could almost hear the blood coursing through the veins of the two humans approaching me. They smiled, looking happy to help me and asked which I wished to feed from. I chose the woman, to an unsurprised chuckle from Jax. I grabbed the woman, who suddenly looked pained but, before I could bite, a powerful hand held me by my throat.

“She’s newly turned,” Jax’s voice said, still sounding distant behind the sound of her accelerating heartbeat, “This will be a difficult feed for you, young lady. I will be here to stop her hurting you, but please know there are risks…”

At the back of my mind I was still there, screaming against this instinct controlling my body. Just like in the park, I couldn’t stop. Jax talked me through the process and within moments the inexplicably delicious taste of human blood filled my mouth. I sucked at the puncture wounds I’d left greedily, I needed more, more of this perfect food.

“Enough!” Jax threw me against a wall, pricking his finger and touching it to the ragged bite marks on the suddenly much paler girl’s neck. My self-control finally reasserted itself and I dry-heaved, dropping to my hands and knees.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying not to burst into tears again, “I’m sorry, so sorry…”

Jax helped me to my feet and we went back into the lift. That one feed had completely satiated me, I no longer had an ache in the pit of my stomach caused by hunger. Now, it was caused by guilt.

“How do you feel?” Jax asked, his arm around my shoulder, chastely, “You didn’t do too badly, considering.”

“I feel disgusting, Jax,” I confessed, running a hand through my hair so roughly I nearly pulled a handful out, “I enjoyed it, it was delicious. But I hate that I did. I don’t think I can live like this…”

“Well, please give it some time, my friend,” he said, sadly, “If you still feel this way, I will help return you to your grave myself, but please allow yourself some time to adjust. If only so you can say goodbye to Lily properly, this time…”

“

#Choices #Pixelberry #Bloodbound #Bloodbound3 #VisualNovel #Vampire #FanFiction #ConstructiveCriticism #HonestFeedback

#choices #pixelberry #bloodbound #bloodbound3 #visualnovel #vampire #constructive criticism #honest feedback #fan fiction

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sweetsmellosuccess · 6 years ago

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TIFF 2018: Day 6

Films: 4 Best Film of the Day: First Man (pictured)

First Man: Epic films, almost by definition, operate out of a hyper-real, melodramatically grand scale, everything is meant to be bigger than life to justify the hagiography of the film’s subject matter. Damien Chazelle’s film about Neil Armstrong and the first lunar landing, takes a contrary approach. Despite the obvious urge to paint larger than life subjects in full bas relief (THE REAL STUFF, more or less), he traps his focus down to the nuts and bolts of the man, and the program of which he was such an instrumental part. Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) is many impressive things, but emotive is not one of them (a moment from press conference, after the Apollo crew has been named: a reporter asks him what special thing he’d like to bring to the moon with him, his answer “More fuel”). There are some reasons for this, one of which is the death of his toddler daughter from cancer before he joined the space program, but we are also lead to believe his desire to go to the moon outweighed his emotional obligations with his family, including his two young sons and his long-suffering wife (Claire Foy), who understands but does not take kindly to his increased detachment as the mission approaches. Chazelle, who, like Gosling, appears preternaturally versatile, is less interested in the mechanics of the project than he is the grinding gears of the man most associated with the eventual landing. It is shot beautifully, of course, and has strong performances from the entire cast — though Foy is the real standout and should be recognized as such comes award season — but the real glue is Chazelle’s vision, and his attention to the smaller emotional nuances that so often get dropped like a third-stage rocket on such pictures. Because he keeps the film, and Armstrong’s character, so understated, a simple moment towards the end packs far more of an emotional punch than you would expect. In many other directors’ hands, it’s the kind of emotional hotspur that you could bring full battlements on, but Chazelle keeps it so quiet and simple, it’s that much more devastating as a result.

The Sisters Brothers: Part of the appeal of the western genre is the simple tropes that can be bent and twisted into new and exciting shapes, like a pack of pipe cleaners. Jacques Audiard doesn’t do anything revolutionary in his approach, but working from a script he co-wrote, he throws enough feints and downbeats in to keep the film rumbling along at its own eccentric pace. It also helps when you have a powerhouse cast — Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Riz Ahmed — that are totally on board with the approach. The story involves the Bros (Phoenix and Reilly) as they try to track down a detective (Gyllenhaal), who in turn is tracking down a chemist who has invented a compound that he claims will reveal gold nuggets in the river. Eventually, the quartet all join together with not so wonderful results, but not before we’ve dealt with bears, vertical teeth brushing, and a spider crawling into Reilly’s mouth as he sleeps. Filled with odd, stylistic accents — Reilly also carries with him a scarf given by a woman somewhere which he fetishizes; Gyllenhaal inexplicably speaks with a British inflection and keeps a highly literary journal for himself, and so on — it’s less of a conventional western (there actually isn’t a grand showdown, per se) than an exploration of the male consciousness, it’s avarice, brutality, aspiration, and kindness on full display.

Free Solo: Anyone who has had the pleasure/terror of watching Jimmy Chin’s previous mountaineering doc (co-directed with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi), Meru, have a pretty good idea of what awaits them. Chin, a climber himself, understands both the mindset of his subjects, and the best technical way to show the terrifying nature of what they do, but even he was given pause at this concept: Following world-class climber Alex Honnold as he attempts to free climb (sans ropes, in other words) the formidable El Capitán face in Yosemite, a feat never before accomplished (and likely not very much attempted). In a faction of people that tend toward the eccentric, Honnold stands out, both for his preternatural abilities and for his quirky personality, which generally doesn’t allow for a lot of emotional breadth. As he prepares for this climb, easily the toughest of his life, he’s also negotiating a relationship with his newish girlfriend, and dealing with the actual act of having this attempt filmed by Chin’s cameras. As with Meru, Chin is gifted with the ability to draw out these narratives in a way that feels incredibly powerful without being exploited. Watching Honnold make his attempt to climb a 3000-foot face made over the course of several excruciating hours, and knowing that a single wrong grip or misstep will lead to his death, can be almost unbearable at times – and we’re not alone, one of the camera operators, stationed at the base of the mountain with a huge, telescopic lens, is forced to turn away along with us – but the film gives a sense of the freedom and exhilaration that accompanies such risk. It’s well worth the psychic trauma, unless you happen to be deathly afraid of heights.

The Predator: You could say Predators, those space aliens who venture down to Earth every so often to partake in some trophy hunting of he-men in the military, have caused a lot of suffering amongst humans, but our suffering pales in comparison to what we’ve done to them over the course of the last 30 years: Each new installment of the series has been notably worse than the one before it – and don’t even get me started on that loathsome ‘Alien vs. Predator’ nonsense – and this film, sadly, doesn’t break that cycle.

Tomorrow: On my last full day at the festival, I’m going out with a bang: I begin by watching Elizabeth Moss tear up the stage in Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell; finally get to see one of the more buzzworthy films of the fest so far in Steve McQueen’s Widows; slide over to the Princess of Wales theater to see Jeremy Saulnier’s latest, Hold the Dark; and close things out for 2018 by watching, Everybody Knows, the new film of one of my favorite international directors, Asghar Farhadi.

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childofthemoon86 · 6 years ago

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@francisandtheworldweek Day 1: Photographer/Model au

Love is Inspiration, Inspiration is Love

Pairing: (pre)FrUk, implied spamano

Characters: France, Spain, Prussia, England, America, South Italy (mentioned)

Rating: T for language

Word count: 2350

Summary: When Francis loses his love of photography, inspiration comes from an unlikely, and rather drunk, source.

Cross posted on FF.net

Francis sighed as he clicked through the images on his screen. Male models sporting the latest fashion flick past his eyes with barely a moments glance. Snazzy street clothes, expensive suits, swim wear, underwear, each image taken has the perfect theme for the occasion and really, by anyone else’s standards, the pictures are beautiful, breathtaking… perfect.

But when Francis looks at these pictures, he doesn’t see that special spark anymore. He sees hours of rigging just to set up the right lighting for maybe one or two passable photos, and dozens more tossed for not being ‘just right’. He sees fussy hair and makeup designer arguing over the same faces day after day, only to paint the same look on each one. He sees boring models who act more like play-doh than clay. He sees dozens of people acting like cogs in a machine, and the expectation they all have of him, for him to make it all work.

He sees a process, a set up.

He doesn’t see art. He doesn’t see life.

Turning from the screen, Francis pushes himself away from the desk, the wheels of his chair squeaking under him as he rolls back from the force. He leans back, slowly letting his eyes rove around the studio.

Around him the white walls are decorated with some of his best works. Large portraits filled with bright, and back then new, models in some of his more… ostentatious works. As his eyes roll over each, he can’t help but feel a smile pull at his lips. How can he not? Each picture has a story, and every time he looks at them, he feels himself whisked right back to the day he took it.

But then his eyes returned to the black screen at his desk.

He frowns, wondering when did he lose his spark? Just when did he start to hate the very thing that used to give him such joy?

Looking to the side, his eyes land on the small frame nestled on the corner of his desk.

Most people who come to his studio don’t even know he’s the one who took it, mostly because he’s in it, that, and the fact that it’s nothing like the others. It’s a bit blurry and off centre. It also has an odd tilt, and lens flare from the sun blots out the upper right corner with it’s glaring white light, almost blocking out the view of one of the peoples faces.

But despite all these apparent flaws, it’s by far Francis’s most precious picture.

Gently, he lifts it up to examine it closer.

The picture was taken in a park, one not too far from his old studio, and is a simple one of three friends. It was a summers day, the last summers day that the three friends would share for some time, and they wanted to remember it. Francis was only a budding photographer back then, but even so, he knew just how to capture the day.

He had set up a tripod with his new camera all ready to go. The timer was set and he rushed back to the others for the perfect shot.

What he didn’t count on was a ball bouncing down the hill he set the camera on, or Gilbert’s decision to be ‘helpful’ and kick it out of frame back the way it came. The ball veered to the right and struck the tripod, causing the camera to tumble. The timer ticked down and the shutter went off before the camera hit the ground, capturing the sight of Gilbert cheering to his right, Antonio laughing at the accident to his left, and Francis in the middle, dashing forward in the vain hopes of catching the camera.

It’s an image full of life, and the very picture that set Francis fully on the path to becoming the photographer he is today.

Before he can set the picture down again, the door flies open and the sound of manic laughter soon reaches Francis’s ears.

“Hey Franny! What you still doing sitting there?” Gilbert calls, grinning like a mad man as he steps in.

Francis looks up in confusion for a moment, before he spies Antonio through the doorway.

“Merde! Is it that late already?” He curses, looking at his watch.

“Yup!” Gil beams, “So get your butt out of that chair and let’s go drinking!”

“Ah,” Francis shakes his head sadly, “Sorry, but I still haven’t finished here, and the deadline is tonight.”

Before he can apologise further, Toni waves away his worries, “We thought you might say that, so I had a word with Lovi, and we both agreed to give you an extension, so no worries!”

Francis chuckles, shaking his head at the pair.

Of course, he should have expected as much. Not many people are as lucky to work for their best friend.

“Well then, what are we waiting for?”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Ja, now let’s go hit the bars!”

Francis knows he should be trying to enjoy himself, but he can’t stop feeling bogged down with this new inexplicable loathing for his work, and he hates that he hates it.

“Aww cheer up Fran,” Toni chirps, waving the bar tender over to order him another drink.

“Ja,” Gil nods, trying to act sagely as he clumsily claps the blond on the back, “It’s not like you to be this down. It’s weirding me out.”

“If you need a change of pace, Gil could always model some stuff again.”

“Damn right I could! You know I make anything look hot.”

“No,” Fran sighs, running a hand through his hair, “Thanks, but I don’t think even Gil’s eccentricities can get me out of this slump.”

Toni hums in thought, though how clear such thoughts are is questionable at this point, “Maybe you just need something new, like last year with the spring wardrobe change? Though I don’t think I could take another of Lovi’s tantrums…”

“Just get a new model.” Gil slurs slightly, taking another swig of his beer before continuing, “I mean, no dummkopf pretty boy will be as good as me, but can’t hurt to try right?”

“Gil has a point,” Antonio nods, sipping at his own drink, “that’s what you used to do at the old studio, right?”

Francis shook his head, frowning at his drink, “No, I mean yes, but, it’d be impossible. Even if I could find someone to model, there’s no way I could reshoot all of Lovino’s line by next week. I’d have to work 24/7 solid to get it done, and you know how fickle the makeup department is. It’s impossible. I’ll just have to… make… do?”

Francis trails off, his attention drifting to the other end of the bar where an argument seems to be getting out of hand.

He can just about see a head of scruffy blond hair slumped across the bar, and another taller blond trying, and failing, to pull the slumped man up.

“FUCKING PISS OFF!” An accented voice heavily slurs as the smaller man tries to push the other away.

“Dude, Artie, come on. It’s time to go.” The tall one sounds frustrated, but is doing well to stay calm.

“A said Fuck OFF, am still drinkin’ h’re!”

“No your not,” the bar tender cuts in, frowning disapprovingly at the drunk man, “I cut you off half an hour ago. Now will you please leave before I call the police.”

“Whoa, no need for the cops dude, I can handle him.” The tall blond grins nervously, before switching to a more direct approach.

Francis, and by now most of the bar, watch as the young man stuffs his hands under the drunks armpits, forcefully lifting him up off the bar and pulling back to remove him from the stool. It goes well for about five seconds, before the drunk man seems to realise what’s happening and tries to pull away. The ensuing scuffle sends them down the bar, and, by a bout of bad luck, the drunk man tumbles free of his helper/captor to land in Francis’s lap.

Bloodshot green eyes look up at him in dazed confusion for a second, before rolling over to vomit down Francis’s trousers.

Francis is fairly certain it’s the booze talking, but as he watched this man puke, he saw a glow, and just like that, to the sound of retching and the disgusting warmth running down his legs, he’d found his new inspiration.

“Oh shit! Dude I am so sorry!” The young man cried as he pulled the sick man to his feet.

Downing the last of his drink, Francis stood, beaming as he helped to steady the drunk and proclaimed, “Your hired!”

At exactly 11am the next morning, Francis eagerly paced the studio, making last minute adjustments to the lighting, before nearly jumping in glee at the sound of the door buzzing.

Hurrying over to the intercom, he excitedly asked, “Hello?”

His excitement however, was met with a far more cautious and nervous voice, “Yes, Hello? My name is Arthur, I, Uh, believe you made a job offer last night? The card said to come here so…” the voice trails off, but Francis is far to excited to pick up on it’s unease.

“Oui! Oui, come on up!” He calls, happily buzzing the man in.

It only takes a few minutes for a knock to come at his door, and Fran near pulls it off it’s hinges in his rush to open it. But any words he had prepared leave him in a rush of air as he lays eyes on the man before him.

The sloppy drunk in a ratty old band tee, jeans, and heavy jacket that was hanging off of him last night has been completely replaced. Instead what stands before him is a neat, casual suit wearing man, who stands straight and clean shaven. Though the hair remains the same, and what was confused green eyes, now stare back at him with weariness behind dark sunglasses that some how go with the suit.

So this is Arthur Kirkland when not drunk out of his mind, Fran thinks.

It’s only when Arthur coughs does Francis notice he’s been ogling him for far too long and is now making things uncomfortable.

He quickly smiles to recover, stepping back and waving a hand to welcome him in.

“Please, come in, Mr. Kirkland.”

There’s a moment of uncertainty before he does, and Fran sighs in relief.

“Um, so what is it exactly you wanted to hire me for?”

Now Francis realises why Arthur sounds so unsure, and he chuckles at his own blindness.

“Ah, I suppose you were rather, incapacitated last night, though I thought your friend, Mr. Jones? would have explained everything to you?”

Arthur seems to frown at the mention of his friend as he looks around the studio, “Alfred left early for work, all he left me was a note and your card. Not exactly much to go on.”

“Ah well, in that case, allow me to explain. My name is Francis Bonnefoy, I am a photographer for the fashion magazine Project Tomato. And what I want you to do, Mr. Kirkland, is model for me.”

“Model?”

Oh, Francis doesn’t like the way he said that, as if the very notion was ridiculous. He has to save this, and fast. Time to pour on the charm.

“Why of course! You see, back before I started working for PT, I was an independent photographer, and part of my work was finding fresh new faces to be models, so I know when I see potential.” He grinned, pausing to try to gauge Arthur’s reaction before continuing, “Don’t worry, we won’t do anything too taxing on your first day. We’ll start of easy with a simple white drop background and something light and easy to wear, maybe a few costume changes later on, but nothing big.”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur blinked, shaking his head like he’s trying to understand what’s going on, “but you want me to model?”

Trying not to show his worry that he might lose his one shot at new inspiration, Fran smiles warmly, “Yes, that is what I said.”

“Me? Model?”

Fran sighs, now getting frustrated with this circling.

“Yes. You. What about that is so hard to understand?”

He doesn’t mean to sound so sharp, but he really needs Arthur to agree.

Arthur looks around at the studio again, this time clearly taking in all the pictures, and if Francis didn’t know any better, he’d say Arthur almost looks scared.

“But aren’t models supposed to be…” he trails off.

“Supposed to be what?”

“Never mind. You said the pay would be good? Or Al’s note said that…”

Finally getting somewhere, Fran beams, “Yes, very.”

“Alright then.” Arthur sighs, before directing his full attention to Francis, “What do I have to do?”

Francis can easily say that Arthur is by far the most difficult model he’s ever had to work with, and for some unknown reason, that delights him. He hates the makeup and hair designers, he refuses to wear any shorts, or sleeveless shirts without a jacket to cover his arms, and he absolutely won’t let anyone near him when he changes. He’s grumpy, demanding and unreasonable. He’s an unpleasant spanner in the once smooth running machine of Francis’s studio.

And that makes him perfect.

He’s not play-doh, or clay, he’s a rock. No, a gemstone, a diamond in the rough. It’ll be tough, but with time, Francis is certain he can polish him to shine greater than any model before him.

But more than that, Francis finds himself drawn to him. He doesn’t remember the last time his camera was so draw to something, when one, twenty, forty photos was never enough.

And when the day’s shoot is over, never has he been more afraid of a model deciding this wasn’t for them, or chased after someone to beg to know that they’ll come back the next day.

And never has he been so happy when they said yes.

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