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cakelanguage · 3 years ago

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This took much longer than I thought it would, but work has been absolutely exhausting lately. I'm honestly just excited that I get to share this with you all because I really wanted to participate in Hurt!Noct Week. This is a combination of day 1 prompts: buried alive and captured by Nifleheim (at least sort of?). This is just the 1st chapter, but I figured I’d share at least this bit for now. I hope you enjoy this!

You can also read this on AO3

He should’ve called Ignis. Or texted Gladio that he was going to be ten minutes late to their training session. Or Astrals, accepted Prompto’s offer to walk home with him even though his house was in the opposite direction.

But he hadn’t.

Instead, he’d strolled down the bustling streets, thinking about the planned King’s Knight session later that night. He scrolled idly through the mission details, trying to formulate a plan of attack. The last time Noctis had attempted this mission he’d been severely outclassed and had to abandon the mission lest he lose what little loot he’d been able to pilfer from the dungeon. With Gladio’s character acting as their tank, he could have Ignis on range attacks and healing. Prompto had the best stealth stats so they could have Prompto looting the place while the rest of them took care of the bigger monsters. Noctis fancied himself an all-around player so he could assist wherever needed the most help.

Caught up in his mini strategy session, he didn’t realize he was on a collision course with someone until he ran right into them. He stumbled, juggling his phone between his hands in an attempt to save it from meeting its demise on the pavement below.

“Watch where you’re going,” the man he ran into grumbled, brushing imaginary dirt off his jacket.

The man was dressed lavishly in a wide variety of patterns and textures. His coat looked sturdy and thick like it would keep out even the harshest of cold winds. The scarf around his neck was the brightest piece of clothing he wore—the reddish-orange silk oddly complementing the man's red-violet hair. Not a sliver of the man’s skin was visible besides the tip of the man’s fingers and his face under the shade of his fedora.

He had a right to be upset even if half of him wanted to insist that the man could have moved too. He shoved that thought down and instead nodded his head, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Sorry about that,” Noctis apologized. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

“Yes, I figured as much.” The man squinted at him, his head cocking to the side. “Hold on a moment, don’t I know you?”

Not for the first time, he was thankful for his privacy. His father had done a remarkable job at keeping him much out of the public eye. People knew who he was, but because he wasn’t in any of the newspapers or rag magazines that most celebrities appeared in he could go through life like normal. He didn’t have to think about paparazzi waiting outside his school or people approaching him asking for something or other.

“Probably not,” Noctis said, “maybe you’ve seen me walking home before? I go to the high school three blocks away.”

Shaking his head, the man inspected his face more thoroughly. “No that’s not it. I’ve definitely seen you before.” He felt as if the man could count his pores, and Noctis shuffled backward away from the man’s heavy stare. “Have you got an uncle that works at the palace? I used to work there.”

The man gave Noctis a private quirk of his lips like he was privy to some hidden joke that only he knew.

“Oh that’s… nice?”

The man nodded absentmindedly gaze still heavy on Noctis. “Hm, you really do look familiar,” he commented. “Quite handsome too.”

“Thanks?” Noctis looked down at his uniform and his loosened tie and wondered if there was a polite way to excuse himself from the conversation. He didn’t want to be rude by walking away from the man but he really did need to get going or he was going to be later than he thought to Gladio’s training session. “Well, I’m sorry for walking into you like that, but I gotta get going.”

“Right, right, of course.” The man swept a hand through his hair sheepishly. “It’s not like I can keep the prince from his important tasks just to talk with me.”

Ice filled Noctis’ veins as his title was casually thrown out by the man who claimed he couldn’t place his face. He stared at the man, uncomprehendingly. This was starting to look like the beginning of one of Ignis’ crime drama shows. Why did the man lie? What was his angle? What was going on?

“Who are you?” Noctis asked, channeling his calm façade to the max.

“A man of no consequence, I assure you.” The man waved him off with a few shooing gestures. “Off you go, your highness.”

Noctis gave him a wary look and an awkward bob of his head. He needed to get out of here. Ready to put this whole interaction behind him, he stepped to the side of the man to continue his route. Except he didn’t get very far before a hand latched onto his wrist with surprising force.

A violent tug had him wrenching himself back around, his shoulder twinging at the sudden jerk. Face-to-face with the man once more, Noctis saw how the man’s expression was colder, harsh in the afternoon sun. His teeth were bared in a sneer—looking for all the world like a coeurl.

“Let go,” Noctis ordered, now glaring at the man who wouldn’t leave him alone. “Didn’t you just tell me to go?”

A taunting smile peaked through the man’s sneer. “Now why would I do that?” He asked.

Noctis clenched his fists and bit out another order. “Let go of me, now.” He grabbed his phone with his free hand and quickly dialed the palace’s emergency numbers. It would be mildly embarrassing if Gladio found out he’d called the Crownsguard on a regular citizen, but his SAS kidnap training was blaring in his ears. “I’m warning you, I can have you arrested.”

A soft tsk came from the man who shook his head at Noctis’ threat. “We can’t have that now, can we?”

He opened his mouth to demand his release again, but all that came out was a choked-off yelp as something heavy struck his head. His knees refused to hold up his body and he collapsed to the concrete. The skin of his palms was torn in his attempt to catch himself, but he couldn’t feel it; the sharp pain by his temple shadowed the pain in his palms.

He turned his gaze back to the blurry figure of the man, who had been joined by another figure. His brain felt sluggish, his thoughts thick in his mouth as he tried to string a sentence together. “W-what—“

“Shh,” The man shushed, ignoring Noctis’ flinch as he tenderly ran a hand through Noctis’ hair. “Good night, sweet prince.”

The last thing he saw was a fist coming at his face.

Then nothing.

He regained consciousness with a choked-off groan. He felt like he’d gone through one of Gladio’s marathon training sessions and lost miserably.

Laying still, he took stock of his body. His lip was swollen and tender as he wet his dry, split lips. The right side of his face throbbed in-tune with his heartbeat and Noctis could barely get that eye to open more than a crack. What was he supposed to do? He’d been trained on how to handle a kidnapping situation; Cor had made it abundantly clear the variations in which people would try to snatch him up. But this wasn’t just a ‘what if.’ He’d been kidnapped not even four blocks away from his school.

It was a matter of figuring out what he could do to get out of here. He still had his magic though admittedly his connection to the Crystal felt like he was trying to pull at the energy through a strainer. Like sifting through a pile of hay for the needle—all of his abilities being the needle and the presence of his magic being the hay.

But that didn’t mean he was helpless. He just needed to approach the situation the right way and he could escape. He tried to remain calm, limiting his breathing to shallow breaths to keep up his ruse. This became a fruitless act when he heard someone or something step up behind him.

A familiar voice came from behind him. “It appears our guest of honor is awake,” the man cooed. Some of the man’s nonchalance had vanished, replaced by cruel giddiness. “And how are you, your majesty?”

Like hell he was going to go along with this guy’s fake care. His pride wouldn’t let him bite out a pleasantry, instead choosing to press his steely gaze on the eccentric man. His stare didn’t deter the man’s delight in his situation which only served to make his blood simmer in his chest. He wanted nothing more than to punch the smug look off that face.

“I think you’ll find, Noctis,” the man loomed over him, nudging him lightly in the ribs with his boots, “that I have the upper hand.”

He didn’t. Noctis refused to believe it. He may not have had any weapons on him, but Noctis had dialed the emergency response number for the palace. By dialing the number he had ensured back-up would be on their way to his location in less than five minutes. Well, the location of where the call took place. He couldn’t feel the shape of his phone in his pockets, but the Crownsguard would be able to pick up on any trail his kidnapper had left behind.

All he needed to do was wait.

“What do you want?” Noctis asked, shifting his position on the floor to try and alleviate the pressure on his lower back. He could already feel the scar tissue there begin to burn and ache.

“Already wanting me to reveal my dastardly plan?” The man questioned. “How cliché.” Noctis’ face must’ve given away his annoyance because the guy clucked his tongue at his expression.

“I realize this isn’t one of your silver-spoon soirees, but it’ll serve as a good setting for the video.” He straightened and made his way over to the small set-up of… camera equipment? “We need you to put on your best performance, your highness.” He looked up with a cold smile that sent a shiver running down Noctis’ spine. “Though do save some for the main event.”

“So you’re gonna, what? Ransom me or something?” Noctis squirmed in his binds. “Is that your plan?”

Humming noncommittally, the man continued setting up his equipment. “Or something.”

“Not much of a talker huh?” He was banking on being able to get some info out of the guy so he could shout it over what was sure to be his ransom video.

The waiting was bizarre. Despite the discomfort, he didn’t feel like he was all there—though the main contributor to this was the head injury—the quiet sounds of rustling cables and footsteps gave him peace of mind amongst the simmering unrest and anxiety as the experience faded into less immediate danger. If only he could concentrate on his armiger and summon the knife he stored there—then he’d be able to warp out of his binds and escape.

A quiet huff of laughter broke through the silence; it took him a few moments to realize the laugh came from him . It wasn’t funny, not by a long-shot. He was being stupidly optimistic, especially since his vision still wavered between doubled and covered in black splotches. He probably had one hell of a shiner too.

He wished he’d called someone to get him.

The derelict state of his mind was brushed away as a triumphant cry echoed slightly around him. He squinted at the man who looked at him expectantly.

“What?” Noctis asked, tiredly. He had no desire to give the man the reactions he was hoping for. Actually, the other being put off by his apathy made him feel better. “Did you finally get your whole… set-up ready?”

The man had the audacity to pout at him. “Now you’re just no fun,” he complained. “Aren’t you curious as to why I’ve brought you here?”

Noctis shrugged. “Not really?” The motion caused his chains to rattle in the tight space. “Most of the guys I’ve been kidnapped by all want the same thing: revenge or money.”

“I can assure you that my reason is definitely not for any monetary reason.” The man took a step towards him. “I suppose you could call it revenge, though I admit you are simply unlucky—to be chosen by the gods.” He cupped Noctis’ cheek with surprising tenderness, brushing his thumb along his cheekbones. “You do bear a striking resemblance to him.”

A nail dug it the flesh underneath his eye and Noctis hissed, attempting to turn his face out of the man’s grip. “What a pity,” the man said, releasing his hold on Noctis. “Before we begin, I think it’s only fair that you finally be able to put a name to your captor.”

“Oh now you want to introduce yourself?” Noctis grumbled—because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life apparently.

Fortunately, the man seemed amused by his comment. “Do forgive me for my rudeness, your highness .” The mocking emphasis he placed on the title was not lost to Noctis, but he didn’t dignify him with an answer. “I’ve been reduced to the moniker ‘Adagium,’ by the royal line of Lucis.”

It sounded familiar, but Noctis couldn’t place where he’d heard it. Had the name come up in his studies? Was it a political thing?

Adagium sighed and shook his head. “I’m not surprised you don’t know of me. Your dear father is desperately trying to keep you in the dark.”

Noctis furrowed his brow. “What do you mean he’s keeping me in the dark?”

With a shake of his head, Adagium stepped back over to his equipment. “I’ve talked enough for now, it’s time we get the show started lest the party be stopped before it’s even begun.” Adagium grinned at him. “The stage is yours, prince Noctis.”

A red light blinked to life on the camera as Noctis stared into the lens. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Did Adagium want him to beg? To show whoever was watching the video that he was scared? He wasn’t. Scared that it is. Unnerved? Yes, how could he not be when he was kidnapped and tied up in some unknown location.

His captor sighed tilting his hat to cover his face and—

Adagium changed. No longer was he wearing the extravagant, pattern-clashing, textile collage of an outfit. He was in a set of armor, his face masked and hair tucked away under the rigid helmet. Noctis had only seen the armor in person once before on that fateful escape from Tenebrae as he reached desperately for Luna’s hand.

Magitek armor.

To see the man stripped of his individualism did more to bother Noctis than he expected. Something about the metal, placid expression staring at him had his stomach clenching nervously. How had Adagium done it? An illusion? But how? To his knowledge, illusion magic was typically only used by the messengers of the gods; he figured he’d already met all of them at this point with his connection to Luna.

With four jerky steps, Adagium stood beside him, a hand painfully clasping his shoulder. Noctis side-eyed the man as if he could glean some sort of direction for what he wanted Noctis to do.

Once again, Adadgium broke the silence. “Salutations, Your Majesty, Regis Lucis Caelum,” Adagium said, “113th monarch in the long line of Lucis.”

He’d somehow managed to project his voice to see like he was behind the camera again. Another impossibility Noctis didn’t know how to find an answer to.

“As you can see, I have an auspicious guest with me, one I know you’re well-acquainted with. Won’t you say hello to your dear father, Noct?” Adagium asked.

Gritting his teeth, Noctis glared at a spot on the wall. He wasn’t going to give the other what he wanted, not when he could still deny him of his game. If he could weaponize his silence, he would.

With an angry tut from Adagium, Noctis’ hair was yanked with a merciless tug, pulling his head backward and exposing his throat. He could feel the handful of hair desperately trying to cling to his scalp as he let out a small whimper at the rough treatment.

“What a difficult boy,” Adagium commented, “he must’ve been quite the child to raise. To think he’d forget his manners at a time like this.”

“Shut up,” Noctis growled.

“Oh he speaks! Splendid! Now while I’ve broken through that stony exterior, we can commence the show.”

Suddenly, a knife was pressed against Noctis’ neck. He flinched back into Adagium’s hold on his hair, but the knife followed, the edge of the blade making a small, shallow cut on the delicate skin of his neck. He was helpless, tied up, and at the mercy of his captor. And it didn’t seem like Adagium had any qualms against hurting him.

The blood that lazily oozed from the wound dripped down his neck and settled into his jugular notch like a morbid jewel. Noctis heard Adagium’s hum of approval and could feel the pressure of the knife increase slightly as if Adagium had lapsed in his awareness that he was the one holding the knife and thus in control of how far the blade entered Noctis’ flesh.

“Now, I understand why Lucis values black as a special color—it goes amazingly with blood red, wouldn’t you agree?”

He said it so off-handedly that Noctis wasn’t sure who he was talking to: Noctis, Regis, or himself. What was clear, was that Adagium had a deep-seated grudge against Lucis—the royal line in particular. But why? Was he from one of the outer nations that had been left behind when his father had to pull back the wall to just the city of Lucis?

Adagium broke out of his musings, finally pulling the knife back enough that it was just resting against the cut. “Never mind that,” he said. “I expect you’re waiting for some kind of demand from me. Money? Some impossible wish for power? Recognition?” Noctis could hear the smirk in his voice, that deceptively playful quirk of his lips. “No, I don’t want any of those, not explicitly at least.”

What do you want? Noctis didn’t voice no matter how much he wanted to. This little video of Adagium’s seemed to be going nowhere which could be good if this was a live broadcast, build the tension maybe.

“My reason for kidnapping Noct is very simple: because I could.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that Noctis’ brain stumbled to a halt. That’s it? Because he could? That didn’t make any sense, not when Adagium had brought up some kind of revenge. “What happened to your revenge?” Noctis asked. “You mentioned your reasons could be considered revenge and the gods.” He remembered the forlorn look in Adagium’s eyes before the rage had trickled back in. “You said I resembled someone, Adagium.”

He knew he was being bold, foolhardy more accurately, but his captor hadn’t revealed his name and Noctis was hoping if he brought up his aforementioned desire for revenge on film he’d reveal more of his reasoning. If the heroes in movies could get a villain to reveal their schemes, Noctis should be able to do it to Adagium.

Adagium’s grip on his hair tightened, Noctis crying out as several strands were tugged out of his scalp. “Oh Noct,” he purred, “I see you’ve decided to join the conversation.”

Noctis felt his skin crawl at the contemptuous pride in Adagium’s voice. He’d overstepped with his nosy questions.

“Yes, I did say that, didn’t I?” Adagium said. “You remember Adagium, do you not Your Majesty? The mythical monster locked away in the dark depths of Angelgard for ages, lost to time amongst the words of false kings and fraudulent nations.”

Who was Adagium? Noctis wondered, a stray tear slipping down the side of his face towards his hairline. “Why?” Noctis whispered, afraid of the answer he’d receive but unwilling to let his question lie.

The magitek disguise rippled ominously, a black miasma seeping through the gaps of armor. Quickly, the figure of Adagium was being overshadowed by the mist. The tiny glints of gold light within the consuming shadows was what gave away the nature of the mist: Starscourge.

Eyes wide, Noctis struggled in the man’s grip. He remembered when the Starscourge had infected him as a child when the Marilith had sliced his back open and nearly severed his spinal cord. The burning agony of the scourge ravaging his body, when not even his coma brought him relief from its infection. The hushed cries of similarly infected at the edges of his mind like a web of anguish, ever-growing with each infected. Get away getawaygetaway.

His struggling was for naught as the black mirage leaned closer to him. “Why?” Adagium asked the hand that held the knife lazily dragged to the center of his chest. “Because I was saving people. Because that first false king was jealous and power-hungry, over-eager to be the one to wear the crown. And the rest,” he spat the word, “never bothered to question any of their forebears, convinced that they had always done what was best for the kingdom of Lucis.”

Noctis shook his head as best he could. “But why would they—“

“Because the gods didn’t stop them.” The knife in his hand pressed harder against Noctis’ chest and hissed at the sting of the blade. “But the time of reckoning is steadily approaching!”

With a flourish of his hand, the knife was sent away. Noctis thought it was eerily similar to accessing the armiger. “While all the pieces aren’t in their proper place just yet, a bit of ‘divine retribution’ soothes the soul.”

“What do you mean by divine retribution?” Noctis asked, his voice far quieter than he expected.

The miasma cloud seemed to grin impossibly wide, though he couldn’t discern an actual face. “I thought it would be perfect for you to atone on behalf of your forebears, Noct. And to have your father helplessly watch as he struggles to find you.”

Adagium stood behind him once more and wrapped his arms loosely around Noctis’ shoulders. “Let’s have the chosen, King of Light spend some time in the dark,” he purred, black ichor dripping onto his shirt. Onto his head. Onto his face. It was everywhere and Noctis couldn’t focus on anything else.

And then there was nothing.

#HurtNoctWeek2021 #hurt/comfort #Noctis Lucis Caelum #ardyn izunia #ffxv #ffxv fic #fanfic #final fantasy xv #noctis I'm sorry baby but I like seeing my fav characters getting hurt?#ardyn being well himself #we can all just blame somnus tbh #that's what i like doing

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wickedmilo · 3 years ago

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I’LL INVITE YOU IN | MILO & LUIS

PLACE: A Gala TIMING: A couple of months ago SUMMARY: Milo agrees to attend an event with Luis, and the two find the setting to be oddly intimate WRITING PARTNER: @ontheluis CONTENT WARNINGS: Addiction tw, alcohol tw

Luis’ footsteps were duly muffled on the intricate Ottoman rugs, all sound seeming to be soaked up by the thick window hangings and mahogany walls of this Harris Island manor. Everything he’d done for the syndicate thus far had been in the city's grimy underbelly, the kind of places the society liked to forget existed. None of the people he worked with seemed like they knew what silver spoon to use for what, Luis included. But here they were, attending a ball with some blue bloods in a place whose ceiling fixtures were probably worth more than his kidneys.

What did the boss want here? Luis had a feeling he didn’t want to know the kind of ‘discrete favors’ a monster like Vathnek Beckford was providing to White Crest’s upper crust.

Luis looked down at the ghoul-mark on the inside of his wrist, a misshapen scar from Vathnek’s claw that’d sealed their magical pact. The nauseous sense of accusation Luis felt on seeing it caused him to fiddle with his cufflinks and adjust his suit’s sleeves to cover the mark.

Luis entered one of the many lounges with thick sofas and smoking chairs. Exchanging nods of recognition with several fellow criminals masquerading as gentlemen, Luis went into one of the men’s fitting rooms and rapped softly on the wooden sliding door.

“Hey Milo? You good?”

Milo stared at the floor length mirror opposite him, completely devoid of his reflection, wondering, not for the first time, how he had managed to get himself into this. It wasn’t unusual for him to wind up in places he shouldn’t be. He had put himself in danger more times than he could ever hope to count, but this felt different somehow. When he had been human he had known the risks, or at the very least convinced himself that was true. He understood the chances of being mugged, or taken advantage of, or injured in some way. But he didn’t know this world, he didn’t understand the endless ways the evening could go wrong, and if he hadn’t started it with a cup of blood, and a pain pill, then that would likely be making him nervous. Instead he was curious, ready to throw himself into whatever was about to unfold. Tugging at the sleeves of the suit Luis had bought for him, it felt far more expensive than any item of clothing he had worn before. The Dracula cufflinks he had chosen to amuse himself were in stark contrast with the rest of the outfit. He almost wished he could see himself in it. Maybe he could take a few selfies before the end of the night. Letting out a quiet sigh in response to Luis’ question, he reached out to open the door for him, offering him a sheepish grin. “I’m good.” He confirmed, gesturing vaguely to the mirror, knowing his lack of a reflection would be incredibly obvious. How many other vampires were there currently in the room? Would anybody notice? Would anybody even care? “It’s just- fuck, I’ve been trying to tie this for like five minutes now and apparently I cant do it without a mirror…” Slipping the strip of material from around his neck, he handed Luis the tie, feeling both ridiculous, and amused by the prospect of what he was about to ask. “Any chance you want to do it for me?”

Dad had shown Luis how to tie a tie for church, the only time besides weddings and funerals where the Martinez family went in for nice clothes. Luis crossed the threshold into the small dressing room and slid the door shut behind him. Two walls were covered completely in mirrors while a dark wood closet and cushioned sofa occupied the other. He hadn’t completely understood what Milo meant until seeing only himself reflected in the mirrors.

Luis had to resist the dumbass impulse to poke Milo while looking into the mirror, wondering if his finger would vanish if he stuck it in Milo’s ear or something.

Luis was no scientist, but so many questions started popping into his head about what the hell was happening with photons here.

However he spared Milo ameture science hour, and slung the tie over his friend’s shoulders. “Thanks for coming here with me,” Luis murmured and glanced into Milo’s eyes before returning the silken knot. “I’ll uh...figure out how to make it up to you.”

Milo could almost pinpoint the moment Luis realised what he was talking about, the exact moment his friend’s gaze landed on the mirror and found only his own reflection staring back at them both. It would be comical if it wasn’t such a constant source of frustration for him. So he allowed a tired smile, pushing his hair back away from his face with no way of knowing whether the move had done anything to tame it. Maybe he would have to admit defeat and pull out his phone camera, though he always felt so ridiculous doing so. What if people thought he was filming a Tiktok? Honestly, he would rather die all over again. His smile growing exponentially when Luis took the tie and threw it over his shoulders, he couldn’t help catching his gaze. The close proximity felt strangely intimate, especially given the fact that the door to his dressing room was now closed, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. And he appreciated that, he didn’t have that with many people.

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes when Luis eventually lowered his gaze, he shook his head. This wasn’t the first time he had shown his gratitude, but as far as he was concerned he had no reason to thank him. “Look… you bought me a suit, if anything I should be thanking you.” He pointed out, intentionally keeping his tone lighthearted. He knew the room was filled with dangerous people, maybe his death was leading to him finding crazy new ways of being reckless, and self-destructive. But he was here entirely through his own choice, and in some twisted way he was excited. Not only was this a part of the world he had never been exposed to, underhand dealings, and intelligent power plays, this was a whole new part of the supernatural. And he was always desperate to learn more, always desperate to know. “It’s going to be fine… and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. I couldn’t exactly turn down a dinner date with Luis Martínez, could I?”

Luis couldn’t help but wonder about this situation if Milo and himself were both still human. Would they be preparing for some dance? Some fancy college donor reception? Would they just be nervous about some social or dating drama while getting suited up here, rather than whether Luis’ mob connections were about to get them both killed? When exactly had two perpetually stoned accidental monster kids gotten to the point where this was the new normal?

Luis knew deep down that Milo Summers was a predator, no matter how unthreatening that wholesome off-brand Draco Malfoy face seemed. Milo hadn’t asked to become a killer any more than Luis had, but the curses in their veins hadn't asked permission. Luis had been brought up to think of sin as something you chose, a temptation to stray from the honest clean life God intended human beings to lead. But Luis didn't have the chance to choose innocence, just as Milo now had to fight against the urge to rip the lifeblood out of people for an eternity. Empathy for the brokenness that came with loss of agency had turned a casual acquaintance of vice into something more.

But he actually needed Milo Summers the predator tonight. Luis knew just enough about the paranormal underworld to know he was walking into danger at this posh meeting between criminal outfits and rich clients, but not enough to really know exactly what form that danger would take. Luis needed another pair of eyes and someone to have his back that wasn’t also on Vathnek’s long list of indentured debtors. It wasn’t fair that Milo being a friendly murder-corpse made him a good candiate, but Luis would find a way to make it up to him later.

Milo’s assurance that he wanted to be here and broad smile evoked a reflection on Luis’ own face. The expression deepend in warmth at Milo’s teasing about a date. “Crime, nice clothes, and an upscale venue,” Luis replied airily as he attended to Milo’s tie. “I really do know how to show a guy a good time huh?”

The date thing tugged at the back of his mind, as Luis looped one end of the tie up by Milo’s neck and drew it down again, palpably aware of their closeness in here and how Luis could've brushed against the base skin of Milo’s neck if the mood struck him to be purposefully clumsy. The unsentimental part of his brain knew this wasn’t technically different then when they'd toked up in the dark of abandoned buildings together, but that didn’t stop it from feeling like something else entirely.

Yeah, there’d been times back when they’d known nothing about each other that Luis’ had considered offering to share more than pills with Milo for pleasant distraction without any strings attached. Ironically, coming to care for Milo on a deeper level had actually made Luis more hesitant. Luis didn’t have many connections left, let alone friendships, and he didn’t want to jeopardize what he had with Milo. Sure, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially since Luis would’ve happily added benefits to friendship if Milo had asked. However, dread of seeing confused surprise in Milo’s eyes or feeling an unrepairable change in their emotional relationship after sharing that intensely physical part of himself, kept Luis content with the comfortable wingman status quo.

Besides, he should probably focus on the party with the monster mobsters.

Luis stepped back and looked Milo over before reaching out to straighten his collar and a shoulder to keep things even. “Well you’re in luck,” he continued, knowing that Milo didn’t want yet another rehash of the ‘this is very dangerous thank you’ routine. “There’s legit blood wine being served, aged with additives and everything.”

Milo couldn’t be sure what Luis was thinking about but the expression on his face seemed deep, and distracted. He was so clearly lost in his head, and he was hesitant to interrupt what he could only assume was some kind of personal reflection. He had been there, hadn’t he? He found situations like this brought out an introspective side of himself that for the most part lay abandoned and forgotten, pushed away by substances, and his own sheer force of will. There was something about the quiet of the changing room, knowing what lay beyond it, knowing what the evening held in store for them both, that felt vulnerable. For a brief moment in time they were kids again, not two people who had been forced to grow up, who had been attacked against their will, and left to deal with the trauma. Luis too had become the very monster responsible for tearing into his flesh. It was something they shared; a dark, and twisted connection. As terrible as it was, he couldn’t help feeling grateful that his friend was able to understand. Wasn’t that why they had become so close? “Hm,” he hummed quietly in amusement, offering Luis a smile as he continued to tug at the tie around his neck. “Usually it’s just crime on its own, so… a nice change of pace.” He teased, raising his eyebrows as his company stepped back to survey his work. Resisting the urge to shrink in on himself, he feigned confidence, holding out his arms, and turning on the spot. “So?” His smile grew, and he pointedly caught Luis’ eye. “Am I presentable?”

Glancing towards the closest mirror, it was a habit he still hadn’t managed to break, and he stared at the place where he should be standing, annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t see himself. He wasn’t sure why being a vampire needed to come with so many minor inconveniences. Weren’t the major ones enough when it came to making a person suffer? A frustrated huff of breath escaping him, he refused to let his demeanour fade, turning back to Luis with a shameless grin fixed firmly in place. “Blood wine?” He echoed. “I don’t know if I could drink that without sitting in a dark dusty castle somewhere- probably Transylvania. I feel like it has to be Transylvania.” He pictured himself sitting atop an old wooden coffin, lightning storming outside as his cape fell around him, and he sipped blood wine from a beautifully ornate glass. It was outright laughable, but it only made him more eager to try the drink. “Jeez, I’m not even pretentious enough to drink regular wine.” They both knew that wasn’t true, if it had an alcohol content then he was game, but the comment was intended to make Luis laugh. Whether or not it was accurate didn’t feel relevant right now. What mattered was the fact that they were together. What mattered was the fact that, no matter what happened tonight, or on any other night, they were always going to have each other.

Luis instinctively looked with Milo towards the mirror, the reflex of following another person’s gaze overtaking him before he realized the dumbassery of it. “More than presentable,” he assured. It was the truth, tacky buttons aside, Milo was one of those guys who “cleaned up well” as Grandma Martinez would say.

Luis chuckled as Milo turned the conversation towards levity. In truth, Luis had never appreciated wine before being bitten. Ever since his sense of smell had become doggishly keen, all tastes had become more intense. Most colors had faded from Luis’ vision, but flavors had become so complex and distinct that even something boringly bougie like wine now made sense to him.

But it seemed real assholely to share that anecdote with a dude who couldn’t eat and taste as much anymore, so Luis kept that to himself.

“Hey Milo I got something for you..real quick.”

Luis took a handkerchief from his pocket and began to unwrap it. On the white cloth was a switchblade, a lightweight yet viciously edged toll of backalley violence. Luis took up the small flip-knife with his free-hand. Immediately, veins of irritation and necrosis began to climb up the tips of the werewolf’s fingers from where he touched the silver knife.

“I’m not the only one here that silver hurts,” Luis explained in a low voice as he offered the switchblade to Milo, pale metal gleaming in dressing room lights. “Just in case.”

Milo caught the gaze of Luis’ reflection although he knew Luis wouldn’t be able to see him, smiling sheepishly. It wasn’t often he was deemed presentable, let alone more than presentable. He almost felt like a different person, a new person. Not the Milo who passed out in gutters, and crashed in dirty apartments with no memory of how he had gotten to them. This was the Milo who combed his hair, who made the effort to shave, who scrubbed his face with cleanser, and actually worried about creasing his clothes. Raising his eyebrows in a silent question, he turned back to Luis, curious about a potential gift. It was only as his friend carefully unfolded a handkerchief that he realised the gift wasn’t something he wanted. The blade was short, and sharp, his clear vision allowing him to see just how deadly the edge of it was. “I-” He broke off, every instinct telling him to reject the offer, to insist Luis keep it himself. He wasn’t a violent person, it didn’t come naturally to him. He was far more comfortable on the sidelines, or actively running from a fight. But he knew that wasn’t why Luis had asked him to come, he knew they both needed to be smart tonight. Smart, observant, and prepared. As much as he hated to admit it, he might need the knife. He might have to use it. Why was the prospect of danger only ever fun until it became real?

Pushing his glasses up his nose, he watched as Luis handled the weapon, staring for a second too long as his body began to react to the silver. He wanted to ask whether it burned but the werewolf wasn’t showing any sign of pain. Regardless, a new instinct took over, and he reached out to snatch it away, hoping to spare his company from any further damage. “You didn’t have to touch it!” He insisted. “Drama queen.” He added, a smile still tugging at his lips. Looking down at the knife, it felt so alien, so uncomfortable in his hands. But he knew he was in no place to set it down, not now. “Are you sure?” He asked quietly, his smile fading, replaced by a serious expression. What they were walking into, as exciting as it felt, was no joke. “About- y’know, all of this?”

“I uh,” it seemed to occur belatedly to the werewolf that he could have just picked the knife up in the kerchief and handed it over. “Didn’t think about…,” Luis shrugged while his features gave way to a broad sheepish smile, dimples winking into existence on his cheeks.

But the moment of bashful levity passed as Milo succumbed to seriousness. “Yeah,” Luis answered. “I can’t keep hurting people like this I uh.”

The werewolf ran a hand through his sandy hair, some strands coming loose as a nervous habit quickly undid his efforts to slick it all back into presentableness. “I don’t know how you’re handling your change Milo but I’m…”

Why was he confessing this now? This wasn’t the time! Shit, but the worlds felt like they needed to come out now. But how could he burden Milo with one more thing to worry about when they were about to walk into danger? It felt selfish. “Losing me, like what made me human,” Luis confessed anyway, turning to face the mirror briefly being unsettled by the sight of his own reflection talking to himself alone in an empty room. “I can’t control any of it,”

The phone in Luis’ pocket buzzed but he ignored it, briefly pacing in the small dressing room like a caged beast chained in an evening suit. It seemed to take Luis a minute to realize that the stress was letting out the thing inside of him. The werewolf paused, fighting down the burst of freneticism as his shoulders rose and fell with long steady breaths.

“Milo,” Luis began when his mind was more still. “I’m...uh..I’m one of the ones the Hunters talk about,” the rabid wolf confessed quietly.

Luis swallowed letting the implication speak for itself. “I don’t want to die,” he assured. “But I can’t keep waking up covered in blood either.” Self-revulsion and determination made a painful interplay across Luis' face but the later seemed to win out, a long exhale adding steel back into the young man’s posture. “That’s why I’m doing all this, risking getting mixed up with these people,” the budding criminal insisted.

“Vathek’s got a cure,” Luis asserted with the quiet fervor of the truly desperate, those souls who’ve been pushed so far past the breaking point that now nothing could be too impossible or extreme to risk everything for. “And if I have to deal with mobster politics and do some sick stuff now so I don’t have to ever kill anybody else ever again for the rest of my life? Yeah, I’m in.”

The phone in Luis’ pocket buzzed insistently again, signalling the approach of the deadly dinner date.

Luis tried to meet Milo’s gaze and moved away from the door in case his friend wanted to get the hell out after everything he’d shared. “I didn’t want you to go in there with the wrong idea about me, what I really am, or why I’m doing this,” the killer said. “If you're not comfortable now that you know it, and need to head out, like that's ok. I’ll understand,” Luis promised.

Milo smiled at Luis, comforted by the fact that he seemed to be clumsy and unsure of his own condition. It was something they shared, something they had in common, and it made his friend infinitely more likeable. “I do the same thing sometimes.” He admitted. “I’ve had to stop halfway through opening the curtains before, it’s this weird instinct to let in the sunlight… I guess it’s just what humans do. You don’t even think about it.” As quickly as his smile appeared, it began to fade, stolen by the change in atmosphere, by the sudden, unfamiliar look in Luis’ eye. It was the first time he had ever heard Luis explicitly confess to hurting others, and he knew he needed to be careful when it came to his reaction. The information was personal, Luis didn’t have to share it, no doubt he would be watching to see whether he looked horrified, or upset, or disgusted by the revelation. Waiting patiently as he ran a hand through his hair, creating a tousled look that almost seemed intentional, he eventually stepped forward, reaching up to brush a few strands back into place. His friend’s hair was soft, and every time he ran his fingers through it waves of his natural scent seemed to roll off of him. But it wasn’t unpleasant, quite the contrary. “It’s okay.” He said quietly, although he wasn’t sure it was fair of him. He wanted it to be okay, but what about Luis’ victims? The people who had lost their lives to his wolf?

Letting out a gentle sigh, he slipped the knife into his pocket before lowering his arms, stepping back again so that he could properly see his company. The man before him looked so broken, so lost, he wanted to wrap him in his arms and hold him until he found a way to put himself back together. He still wasn’t sure the cure was real, but it definitely seemed more possible than a cure for vampirism. He was dead, Luis’ body had only changed. Could it be treated like an illness? Could it be reversed somehow? Why didn’t more people know about a cure if there was one in existence? He had so many questions, but he held his tongue. Luis needed support, not doubt. Faltering briefly as he heard his phone buzz, he swallowed, debating how much he wanted to tell him. “Luis… when you lose control, that isn’t your fault, you know that, right? I know it’s your body, but you aren’t responsible. You don’t know how I’m handling my change because- because if I talk about it I feel like I’m going to go insane. But you aren’t alone in feeling… I don’t know… hopeless.” Glancing up at the mirror, at the place where his reflection was supposed to be, he frowned, turning away from it so that he could move to sit on the cushioned bench lining the wall. Patting the space beside him, he encouraged Luis to sit down too, even though he had a feeling they were running out of time.

“When I woke up… I didn’t know what I was, or even what had happened. I just knew I felt… really fucking terrible. I hid in an alleyway, railed my entire stash- I kept thinking this is the worst comedown of my life...” Laughing bitterly at his own ridiculous assumption, he shook his head. If only it had been a comedown. “It got late, people started showing up for the clubs, and bars, and one person- they probably thought I was tweaking or some shit- they tried to help me. The next thing I know they’re-” He broke off, choking on his words as his vision became blurred by tears. Brushing them away with the sleeve of his suit jacket, he steeled himself. It was the first time he was ever saying them out loud, fully letting somebody know the true extent of the damage he had caused. And it was far more painful than he ever could have anticipated. “I watched them die, I’ll never get the image out of my head… and all I could think about was drinking their blood. I’d just killed them, I’d just drained them of their blood, and all I could think about were the few drops that I’d missed. If another vampire hadn’t found me I don’t think I would have stopped. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed that they were…” He exhaled, his breath shaky as more tears began to run down his cheeks. “It took me so long to stop blaming myself, but the truth is… if whoever did this to me had chosen to stick around, it wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t know what I was doing, it wasn’t my fault. And now that I know how this works, I’m making an effort to ensure it never happens again. You’re doing everything you can, Luis… you aren’t a bad person. The blood isn’t on your hands, not in the that way you think it is.”

“I have the power to stop the killing,” Luis said finally after a time staring blankly at a mahogany wall while Milo spoke. “At any time I could’ve put an end to it and saved so many more lives.” He swallowed down the tenseness in his throat. “But I’ve been too much of a fuckin coward, and other innocent people have kept paying for it with their lives.”

Luis turned his head to look at the vampire beside him, features steeled with the bleak strength that comes from looking self-annihilation directly in the face, perhaps holding its gaze for far longer than was healthy. Already reckless even before having every emotion dialled up to a fever pitch by lycanthropy, it hadn’t taken Luis Martinez long to realize that so many more people would be alive right now if someone had put a silver bullet in him early on.

“It isn’t about if it’s my fault,” claimed one young killer to another. “It’s about the people who’re being hurt. Does me being innocent or guilty do anything for the grieving families? I could be completely blameless but the people I ate and keep eating will still have been torn apart by a monster,” Luis said.

He let out a long shuddering breath before saying the part that probably should have been left unsaid. “Our lives aren’t worth any more than any other person,” the lapsed Catholic asserted. “So many of the supernaturals I’ve met make excuses, they kill people all the time but then go and on about how they are real victims, that they can’t be judged for they can’t control,” said the fledgling werewolf who’d perhaps spent too much time among fellow predators in the Bloody Stake. “Human lives are just expendable extras to them now, they’ll get all upset when a supernatural gets killed, but then shrug off slaughtering a buncha humans like it's somehow not as bad.”

“I don’t want to get that far gone,” Luis insisted to Milo, words becoming more heated and erratic as the normally amiable young man got too close to the spiritual unravelling inside of him. ‘But I can feel myself slipping...I can’t...remember their faces like I used to. The more I kill like...the more I acclimate to it.”

Although along the way Luis Martinez had come to hold onto his remorse, that capacity for recognizing the essential humanity of his victims, as the anchor to his own personhood. But matter how empathetic you are, doing anything enough times and it starts to lose impact, and Luis had done a lifetime of killing in the space of a year. As he grew numb to death, Luis became ever more unmoored from his sense of self.

Luis reached up to brush away some tears from Milo’s face if the other guy let him. “Thank you Milo,” he said softly, only able to guess at how much it took Milo to admit to all that. “I appreciate it man like...seriously,” he said with any scorn for his companion’s breakdown. “I don’t think you're a bad person either,” Luis assured. “I’m trying to find a way to keep that from happening again,” he gave a toothy smile that hinted at bitterness around the edges. “And I’m choosing the one that makes sure we can still do that roadtrip later,” Luis teased, gentle humor hiding the reassurance that he had chosen this road of vice and moral compromises over the lethal purity of a final alternative.

“That’s not fair, Luis.” Milo said, his voice barely louder than a whisper as he considered the terrifying implication behind his friend's words. Would the world be better without him? Without either of them? You could use that perspective to force so many things, to blame so many people for accidents, and mistakes that were far, far beyond their control. “You can’t think like that…” He trailed off, unsure of what else to say. Luis was more than capable of thinking in such a way, and he was absolutely powerless to stop it. He had his reasons, and he couldn’t imagine living through the horrors he had suffered. He had witnessed one person die at his own hands. Would he be okay, would he still be functioning if it wasn’t just one person. What if it was two people? Or three? Or five? Or ten? At what point did it become too much? At what point did the horror consume you? “I don’t think you’re a monster…” Holding Luis’ gaze for as long as he was able to, he finally looked away, staring down at his hands as he thought about his life, and what it was worth now that he had taken somebody else’s. Nothing was going to change the fact that he had killed somebody decent, somebody willing to help a stranger. Why did he of all people deserve to still be here? Still be somewhat alive, somewhat living...

“You aren’t that far gone…” He murmured. “We aren’t that far gone.” Chewing on his bottom lip, it hurt to hear Luis talking about becoming so desensitised. But not because he was considering the forgotten victims. Selfishly, he was upset because it told him just how much his friend had experienced. Just how desperate his brain was to stop processing the trauma of his situation. His expression softening, he tilted his head, looking back up at Luis as he brushed away his tears. His touch was surprisingly gentle, and definitely not unwelcome. It felt good to know he wasn’t being seen as a terrible person. That Luis was still willing to touch him, to be near him. It would be contradictory if he decided otherwise, but sometimes it was so easy to believe he was a waste of time. People could definitely do better than Milo Summers, and it often only felt like a matter of time before they realised that. “You don’t?” He asked, unashamedly needing the confirmation. If he could ask Luis to say it a thousand times over, then he would. “You’re the first person I’ve ever… I’ve never talked about it before. I still don’t know how to get over it… I’m not even sure I want to. Does that- does that sound stupid?” Offering a weak smile in return, he pushed his glasses further up his nose, tugging at his shirtsleeves in an attempt to compose himself. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you… you know I will.” He insisted, needing Luis to know he would always be there for him. It felt like the very least he could offer. “Hm… when you’re human again, you’re not going to want to go on a road trip with a vampire.” He was half teasing, though part of him felt guilty for encouraging what was potentially false hope. Another part of him was worried what he was saying might be true. If Luis ever became human, he would be mad not to put as much distance as he could between himself and the world of the supernatural. “Don’t let me hold you back.”

“No,” Luis shook his head at the admission. “It doesn’t sound stupid,” he assured. “Thank you for trusting me.”

There’s been a time where Luis’ had been clear, as open and bright as the sky over his father’s ranch. Honesty, hard work, love, and faith has been enough. If you kept to these things, you’d always find your way home.

Maybe back then, Luis would’ve been pretty sure what kind of person Milo was. His heart had been clean and the thought of taking another life was unthinkable.

But now? Everything seemed like a fog he was stumbling through, looking for a blue sky to show him the way but only sinking deeper into grim moral compromises.

Was Luis unable to condemn Milo because of empathy, or was Luis just so totally lost that he couldn’t tell right from wrong? Did Milo and Luis deserve to take up space in the world if it cost others lives? How could Luis justify allying with criminals simply for hope of a cure? Was there moral weight in any of this, or just desperation searching for answers that didn’t exist?

All Luis knew is that dad once said you have to keep walking in a snowstorm, because if you lay down you're as good as dead. Life right now was a blizzard, and all Luis could do was keep walking no matter what, and have faith his feet would find their way home.

“Milo when I’m human, I am going to take you south on a road trip,” Luis reiterated stubbornly, accepting the risk even in some future time where he might be powerless against Milo should his friend lose control. “We’ll go to my place in Texas…and I’ll invite you in,” Luis finished with slow emphasis on the words, a promise to wager his safety for the sake of trust.

Tonight Milo was risking everything for Luis’ humanity. Why would Luis hold anything back in return?

His phone buzzed again. Time to face the serpent’s nest.

“You won’t hold me back,” Luis said, momentarily squeezing Milo’s shoulder before rising and giving himself one last look-over in the mirror. Luis straightened his collar and painted on a carefree smile, the look of a better man who never felt lost.

“C’mon dude, can’t wait to seem them shit themselves when they see your lapels.”

#c:luis #milo and luis #drug tw #addiction tw #alcohol tw

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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years ago

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A Punchable Face That I Want to Kiss, Ch. 4

<- Chapter 3 | Chapter 5 ->

Summary: Your not-boyfriend is dead and you might just do something crazy like, I dunno, murder a serial killer.

2,815 words

Red.

All you could see was red. It boiled in your veins, it choked your thoughts, and gripped your throat with its skeletal fingers as you tried to sleep at night. It made your hands shake. Your world was swallowed whole by the pigment of blood and you could not escape.

It shouldn’t have been possible to hurt this much. He wasn’t supposed to mean that much to you.

But he did.

He did and you knew it, but admitting it would have given him too much power. You still weren’t even sure why he was stuck so deeply in your heart. He was rude, spoiled, and an idiot, somehow both over- and under-confident at the same time, always grating on the wrong people’s nerves. But beneath all the posturing, there was something soft you wanted to protect at all costs—something you had barely glimpsed and could only infer its shape by the outline of the walls he built around it.

You could never get him out of your head, no matter the time of day or how you distracted yourself. His pull only quieted when you were in the same room, and now that he was gone, he was cannon fire booming ceaselessly through every chamber of your memory. A deafening reverberation of regret. At the end of each day you just wanted to find yourself back in his arms again. He must have known how you felt. But you never told him. You never said it out loud.

He was never supposed to be this important to you. It was just sex.

It shouldn’t hurt this much.

You shouldn’t have been this angry.

For a week or two, you hid it well. The last thing Chilton said to you was don’t get involved. He wanted you to survive, and you wanted honor his last wishes and not die. But the red followed and you could not shake it.

You were the only one mourning for him; there didn't even seem to be a funeral. It was as if he just disappeared and nobody cared. Except you. The world moved on, and everything went back to normal. Nobody faced any consequences for what they did to him.

Chilton had gone to Will for help, and Will called Crawford to arrest him. Crawford was stupid enough to believe another of Hannibal’s frame jobs, stupid enough to let Miriam Lass grab the gun from his holster and fire. Your blood boiled red every time you saw them, and you struggled to contain your fury. But there was only one man who was really to blame. The Chesapeake Ripper. The one who had manipulated the whole situation to make Dr. Chilton take the fall for his crimes and then be swept six feet under.

Hannibal Lecter was still assisting on cases with Jack Crawford, and every time you saw him free, your blood boiled hotter, and hotter, until you came to the only resolution that allowed you to breathe: you were going to kill him.

You should have gone to Chilton’s house the moment you knew he was in trouble, stayed by his side, and fought. You were a coward. You didn’t protect the man you… the man you were sleeping with. The man you promised to protect.

Chilton was dead, and you knew who was responsible. Nobody was doing a thing about it, but you could—like you should have done in the first place.

Hannibal wouldn’t see it coming if you simply walked into his office with a gun and shot him point-blank in the face. You would go to jail, but the problem would be solved. Just like that.

It was smart for anyone involved with FBI investigations, even as a consultant, to own a gun, and so you did, though you’d never used it. You got it out of its safe, and looked at it. It was terrifyingly heavy in your hand. Then you put it back and locked it. Tomorrow.

The plan fermented for what felt like months of sleepless nights, ruminating on just how you would do it, and building up your resolve. Every time you thought, today! you found a reason to put it off. You took the gun out and cleaned it, then put it back. You avoided Hannibal—avoided everyone—because the murderous look in your eyes would be too clear, and you didn’t know who to trust—even Will Graham, who should have been your ally in revenge, seemed to be cozying up to Lecter in a creepy way.

You took the gun out.

It was Valentine’s Day. Romantic movies marathoned mockingly on your TV set, and red hearts and roses flooded the stores and streets as couples held hands in the snow.

Today.

This time you meant it. This time you wouldn’t be a coward.

What were you doing?

Hannibal’s office loomed above you, and you circled the block again. It was suddenly too real. You couldn't kill a person! You didn't want to die! What if you were wrong? What if Will was wrong and you were gullible to believe him and you would be killing an innocent man? No. You’re going to be strong. You can do it.

You took a resolute step up the short stone staircase to the entrance landing. The office was a brick Victorian building in the historic district, next to an old stone cathedral, which gave the whole location a flare of drama. You stepped into the foyer, the ancient wood floors creaking beneath you. You wouldn’t be able to sneak up on anyone in this place, but that wasn’t the plan. He would think you were just here to talk to him.

“Don’t.” The man’s voice so close in your ear made you jump with a startled yelp.

“You’re not a killer,” he whispered. “Even now with that gun in your pocket, you’re undecided. But Hannibal won’t be.”

“Will.”

Emergency lights flashed Danger! Danger! in your head, even as you breathed a sigh of relief that it was him.

“I thought you wanted to stay away from Hannibal Lecter. You were supposed to be the smart one,” he chuckled morbidly. “Though I understand your impulse,” he said, reassuring you that he was here as your friend, not the Ripper’s date. “He killed your lover. Hannibal made it happen as surely as he pulled the trigger himself.”

You stiffened and blushed, but what was the point in stammering out denials? Of course Will would know. Will knew everything. That beautiful brain of his.

“Was it that obvious?” you groaned.

“I don’t think Crawford knows.”

Your lower jaw trembled, teeth chattering together as your knees suddenly went weak. You were finished. You took your hand off the gun and rubbed your eyes with your sleeve to hide the redness. “If you know, then Hannibal must know too,” you grit your teeth to keep your voice steady. “I thought I could just... get the drop on him…”

“I’m going to catch him,” Will stated as a fact.

“Are you?”

He didn’t answer. Something had changed in Will. Part of him was still that innocent puppy who had been your friend, who had made you jealous of his unwavering gaze for Alana, and you hoped that part would win in the end.

“Is Hannibal going to kill me?”

“Don’t give him a reason to,” Will warned with a sort of shrug that was more in his face than his shoulders. He would have told you if you were in immediate danger. You had trusted him when no one else would, and that still bought you some favor, whatever dark place he was in. If he told you trying to kill Hannibal now would only lead to your death, you had to believe him.

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“What does anyone do? Grieve? Keep going? I promise I will catch him. Don’t do anything rash to get in the way.” With that, he brushed you off and went up to Hannibal’s office for therapy.

A shiver ran up your spine at whatever “therapy” between those two entailed. You turned, and didn’t stop walking until you were home.

It was a miracle Hannibal didn’t kill you. In hindsight, he was probably just as aware of your relationship as Will Graham, and predicted your half-baked vengeance plan from the start. You were spared because he preferred to watch you suffer in impotent rage.

*****

Crawford pulled you aside, arms crossed, shrugging into the raised lapel of his wool coat against the cold Maryland breeze.

“You need to calm down.”

“I can’t.” Everything was red. “You’re not doing anything about Hannibal, and he murdered Beverly! He murdered… he…”

Crawford could be dense at times, but he was still an FBI agent. The clandestine relationship you had with Frederick Chilton had not, in fact, escaped his notice—at least it became painfully clear when Chilton was shot in the face, and you melted down and became as obsessed with Hannibal Lecter as Will. The people Crawford worked with made his job so fun, sometimes. So fun. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Come with me.”

You climbed into Crawford’s car, and were surprised when he kept driving for two hours. It was starting to feel like a kidnapping. In a different city, he pulled up in front of an extravagantly baroque beachfront hotel and medical spa. It reminded you of those addiction treatment resorts where rich people go when they spend too much of their yacht money on cocaine.

“It is critical to the investigation that this remain secret, but hopefully seeing this will help you get your head back on straight. I need you thinking.”

A glass elevator brought you up to a suite on the 23rd floor. Jack knocked three times on the door, then crossed his arms, and leaned against the wall. “I’ll wait outside,” he said.

Paranoid bolts and locks slid and clicked open one by one, and the door tentatively opened a crack at a time, until a familiar eye and fluffy brown hair neatly styled back appeared in the opening. It took a moment for your brain to believe what your eyes were seeing, but there was no mistake.

Your heart cracked open and rainbows spilled out.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Chilton squealed as you launched yourself into his arms, nearly knocking him off his feet, heedless of the fact that he was probably still injured. His cane went clattering across the hardwood floor.

“You’re alive,” you said. “You’re alive!”

“I am.” Anything sarcastic or clever he meant to say was lost to the smile tugging on his lips, and his hands finding their way around your back, pressing your body against his. An ache he had mistaken for the background misery of his life was soothed, filled like an empty crater.

He was surprised how genuinely happy he was to see you again.

“You’re alive.”

“You’re alive” was all you could manage to repeat like a poorly-programmed robot as you stared at his face, his suit, his posture—it was really him?—as you patted the sides of his face up and down making sure he was corporeal. It was impossible! There was a red scar where the bullet had entered his left cheek, but otherwise he was perfectly fine. You glanced around the room—a spacious luxury suite with leather furniture, an enormous bed, and a panoramic view of the skyline and ocean as purple dusk settled across it. He was the only person you knew who would stay in a place as ostentatious as this.

He was alive all right.

“But you were...”

“You always said my face was ‘punchable.’ Apparently it is also shootable,” he said dryly.

A bark of laughter sprang from your throat. You snaked your hands around the back of his head and purred, “I can think of better things to do with your face...”

Your lips met his in a clash of pent up longing. You wanted to kiss him until the pain of separation was gone forever, until you filled yourself up with so much of him that you would never miss him again. He gasped into your mouth, fingers curling up the back of your neck, through your hair, guiding you to the bed.

Falling on top of him, you pushed him down onto the mattress, lips never leaving the salt of his skin. He smelled like spicy cologne, but his antiseptic hospital smell had worn off. His hands were already busy trying to find their way underneath the hem of your shirt.

“Wait a minute—you let me think you were dead, asshole!”

*****

He explained the situation while you sat on the large hotel bed in disbelief. Jack Crawford was not ignoring Hannibal Lecter. There was a plan to catch him, but it was dangerous, and worked better if Lecter believed his plan for Chilton to take the blame for the Ripper murders and die was successful.

Chilton was also keen to remain “dead” until Lecter was apprehended, as there was a distinct possibility he might otherwise return to finish the job.

You could understand the need for secrecy, but the fact that you were left out of the plan? You shook your head, clearing away thoughts of rejection. Chilton had been in a coma for a long time, so the initial decision not to inform you wasn’t his, and it wasn’t as though you would have had visitation privileges in the hospital. You weren’t a relative or spouse. You were just his fuck buddy.

It felt as though there was yet another reason he waited until now to let you see him, but you couldn’t place it.

“To be honest,” he added, with a sheepish side-glance, “I didn’t think you would take it so hard.”

*****

When Jack rapped on the door to signal that it was time to go back home, Frederick lingered with you by the doorway. With a hand on your cheek, his eyes locked on yours, and he instructed gently and firmly, “Do not let Hannibal Lecter kill you.”

“I’ll try.” You cupped his hand under yours, and turned into it, kissing his palm. There was something else important, before you left, “Hey, one more thing. I…” The last time we saw each other, I was pretending that I didn’t care as much as I do. I never got to tell you that I love you, you thought. But you could never tell him that. You weren’t even sure if you were dating. “I missed you.”

You wrapped your arms around him and drew him into a hug. He held you so dearly, leaning his head into the crook of your neck and just breathing.

“Frederick…”

The moment that name tumbled so casually out of your lips, a sigh into his collar, the floor dropped from beneath him and he was falling from a moving airplane toward something deadly or wonderful, or perhaps both.

When your relationship had been strictly professional (and adversarial) you called him by his last name, and the habit hadn’t changed. It was what you were accustomed to calling him.

He never liked being called by his first name, in fact. He preferred Doctor Chilton. He had worked hard to earn that title and the respect it came with. “Frederick” was weak, and the only people who used it did so to demonstrate their lack of deference.

But when you said it, its meaning changed.

His feet couldn't find purchase on solid ground, so he held on to you harder, like his life depended on it.

He looked frightened, reluctant to let you go as you pulled back from the hug. If things went wrong you could end up in Lecter’s refrigerator, so you understood why. “Hey, you know, maybe it would be safer if I stayed here… with you,” you offered meekly.

The well-dressed man stepped back suddenly, stiffening. “You-you can’t stay here—there, there are rules: suites are for patients only,” he backed away and paced nervously as he explained. Then he turned on his heel just as quickly back to you, “But maybe you shouldn’t go back until this over. I can pay for a room at a different hotel, without the fussy restrictions…”

“No, no, never mind,” you hushed him with a tense not-laugh. It was unclear why he was so panicked about you staying, but he was recently shot in the face, so you would give him as much space as he needed.

“It was a silly idea, anyway. I have work. Thank you for the thought.” You pulled him into a goodbye kiss, and went for the door. Before turning the handle, however, you turned around one last time, a broad grin across your face, and practically tackled him into an embrace.

He could tell by your sappy expression what you were about to blurt out.

“Do not say it...”

“You’re alive!” you cheered, and the world felt alive again, too.

#frederick chilton #Frederick Chilton x reader #Raúl Esparza #Hannibal #my writing

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krysyuy · 4 years ago

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Episode 6, and holy shit. Real Hee Seong up and about (in a flashback)! And it was him behind the wheel👀 I didn’t get any weird vibes off him just yet, plus he seemed genuinely worried about Hyun Soo (well, he did just run him over… lol). Since HS asked for no hospitals, I think Hee Seong will bring him home to doctor dad so he can patch him up. I previously assumed the car accident would be part of the reason behind the Baek family mystery. But now, what if Hyun Soo actually recovers at their home in secret, and he and real!HS develop a bond of sorts? Or at least are on good terms before shit goes down. As a side-note, I wonder if real!HS was in a gang, his clothes were flashy enough, lol. The parents continue to be shady as fuck. And for the first time, we get confirmation that the mother and her agitation is the reason they’re all in this mess. However, this came from the father’s mouth and I don’t trust him one bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some kind of gaslighting going on (a la the first case from Ep1). Also, I cannot believe the mom called Eun Ha a little rat. I will not stand for this slander!! I know HS doesn’t really feel anger, but I’m glad he defended his daughter. Hyun Soo and Hae Soo seem to have a real bond. I hope so because she was probably the only one who accepted him as he is. He only had her. I doubt either sibling knew about their father. (And HS confirms this, at least on his end, later.) If they did, they wouldn’t have let Moo Jin film so freely in their home and they definitely would not have let him go down to the basement. While the last episode made me doubt Hae Soo immensely (I’m sorry!), this episode reversed it. We see that Moo Jin was an asshole when he broke up with her, and Hyun Soo vouches for her. Someone else deliberately gave the charm to her, and she in turn gave it to HS. The accomplice is most likely a man (from the eyewitness account + voice message), who has to be from the same hometown. Normally, I don’t mind spoilers and even actively seek them out. I wish I had refrained here as I spoiled myself for the reveal. I wonder what I would’ve thought of JW’s actions prior if I didn’t already know that she knew. I think it was obvious something was going on with her, though that could be attributed to her worry and trauma from her husband nearly dying in front of her (which was of course part of the reason). But then - THEN - we get the reveal that she knew, woo boy. The conversation before that, when JW and HS talk in his hospital room, has to be my favorite scene from the episode. There are so many layers, especially in JW’s dialogue. She knows, and she’s saying one thing, but if you rewatch it with the knowledge that she knows, she means something else (or at least, not just that). While HS doesn’t process it all normally, he’s so in tune with JW that he knows something is wrong when she comes into the room. The emotions were so raw. She doesn’t want to be alone, to live without him, all while struggling with the fact that he’s been lying to her about his identity. HS wants to talk, to make it right, he wants to know what he can do, but this is something he can’t fix. God, the look on his face when she pulls away, and then when she leaves the room… Inject this into my veins. She knows. SHE KNOWSSSSS. And Hyun Soo TOLD her. What we think are his thoughts in the beginning of the episode is him talking to his wife. Of course, he was out of it, but she still heard it from his own mouth. (“I only believe what I see.”) I love that. I did not expect the reveal to go down that way. And my other prediction was right! Well, I was wrong about JW figuring it out for herself. But she does know and she’s investigating on her own, and at the same time trying to cover this up because she realizes how Bad this is. If it gets out, there’s no going back. And she wants to be absolutely sure of his crimes before she possibly has to do the unthinkable: arresting her husband and bringing him to justice. Meanwhile, he’s going about things normally after being discharged, probably thinking that things are okay, all while his wife continues to investigate him. In the next episode, she’s going to take him to his old home, to his father’s basement. She’s probably going to reveal that she knows, and she’s going to give him a choice. This is most likely where we get the last scene from the trailer - where he slowly approaches her and puts his hand on her neck. I wonder what prompts this because we know he doesn’t murder willy-nilly (or at all). If he’s not going to off the people who have actually tried to kill him, he’s not going to do anything to the woman who has been his safe harbor for the last fourteen years. The bag with Hyun Soo’s things… from the preview, we know she listens to the cassette player. (I’m actually curious as to what HS listens to - we see it first in a flashback with restaurant guy, and then even further back at his father’s funeral. Something that comforts him?) But whatever happens after that, it leads her to burn the evidence of Hyun Soo in that bag. There’s that scene in the trailer where she’s staring into a bonfire, and we even get a shot of it. What leads her to this decision? She declares that she’s going to give him the punishment that he deserves… so is she doing this because she figured out the truth? Or for more selfish reasons? From what we know of JW’s character, I doubt the latter even if there’s a (slim) possibility. It would’ve been so easy for JW to freak, to think the absolute worst when she finds the blood and the zip tie in the basement. But she sees the old baby walker, and she - more than anyone in the world - knows things aren’t that simple. There’s something going on, but he’s not a psychopath, and she will get to the truth of things, even if it’s ugly. While Ji Won is dealing with the worst crisis of her life, Hyun Soo is being given the dirty work by his “father”. Typical. That’s a man who definitely won’t get his own hands dirty even if he orders the act itself. Hyun Soo’s conversation with the taxi driver might be my next favorite scene. The fact that HS asks him of all people about emotions… HS doesn’t get it, but he wants to understand JW and where she’s coming from. And the way this drama gave us another fake-out, making us think he was really going to kill him… all this isn’t good for my heart. I pity the taxi driver. Yes, his actions are inexcusable but at the heart of it, he is a man desperate to find his wife so he can send her off properly. He showed remorse for everything and was willing to die at HS’s hand, knowing he deserved it. The driver even realized he could’ve been wrong about Hyun Soo. There were only rumors and he didn’t really know him at all. It’s rather ironic that he’s one of the first characters to admit this onscreen. Sunbae, just when I had warmed up to you. I don’t like him again, lolll. He has good instincts and is obviously very skilled at his job. But he’s gonna be a pain when it comes to proving HS’s innocence. He’s going to believe the worst while JW will be trying to prove the opposite. Notice how he told JW to pick a side, and she chose neither (for now). JW’s hoobae continues to be precious, however. I don’t have much to say on Moo Jin, though of course his storyline uncovered the very important fact that there was most definitely an accomplice. Who has probably been roaming free this whole time. I can only hope this doesn’t (ONCE AGAIN, ugh) point in Hyun Soo’s direction, especially since MJ has a TV appearance in the next episode. Lee Joon Gi and Moon Chae Won both killed me this time around. This drama deserves more viewers and higher ratings so that more people can see their talent. Y’all, it’s only Episode 6, and it feels like a lifetime. The pacing of this drama is insane, I love it. It doesn’t adhere to the usual kdrama norm. It’s going into unknown territory, which makes it unpredictable. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t stumble, but the writer hasn’t given me any reason to doubt them yet, so I won’t. Till next week! My Twitter liveblog for Ep6: twitter.com/krysyuy/status/1294043456944263168

#flower of evil #foe: text #character: baek hee seong | do hyun soo #character: cha ji won #ship: hee seong x ji won #character: baek man woo #character: kong mi ja #foe: commentary #foeep:06 #krysyuy ♥s kdramas

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septiembrre · 4 years ago

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GG Headcannons

Tagged by @sothischickshe. Thanks, boo ;-)

Ship: Beth x Rio -- in honor of our lovebirds day for GGWEEK2020

38. What is/are their love language(s)?

Haha, this has already made its way into one of my ficlets. I am also writing love languages into my next chapter of Better Be Mine. I can’t let it go!! I don’t actually care about them as tool for my irl relationship but it’s so easily identifiable for Brio. So my headcanons here...

Rio’s love languages:

Rio prefers to receive love through Quality Time.

Rio shows love through Physical Touch.

Beth’s love languages:

Beth prefers to receive love through Words of Affirmation.

Beth shows love through Acts of Service

49. Do they have differing political opinions?

Lol, @sothischickshe I can’t believe you tagged me in this!!!! Stop reading into the underlying vibes of Beth/Rio conversations in my fics!

So the short version of my response is: yes.

Now the absurdly long response:

I think about Rio & Beth a lot. I think about them talking about politicized issues quite a bit and imagine them in conversation with each other, teasing their beliefs apart. I like picturing these conversations instigated by hard parenting moments, things in the news, and things that come up as they finally start saying more words to each other. I think Rio could also just directly ask Beth about her political beliefs (I can’t necessarily picture the reverse yet).

I think Beth is definitely more conservative than Rio -- and that’s an assumption I make because Rio’s a Latinx guy who probably came up with lack of access to wealth, and Beth as a white woman in the suburbs who formerly perceived herself/her family as wealthy.

Beth’s characterization is complicated -- sometimes it really leans into Karen stereotypes/white woman privilege (lol, I cannot believe they literally had her show up at Gil’s workplace. I CRINGE!) and other times her beliefs and actions positively surprise me. Personally, in my fic writing, I love leaning into an idea that Beth grew up more working class/experienced neglect from her parents. I don’t want to romanticize these experiences but trauma around financial insecurity & complicated family relationships personally resonates with me. Ugh, I love writing about it, and it’s something that I read in her childhood that I like to lean into. That flashback in Season 2 really humanized Beth for me and it really made me love her.

Okay, that was a major digression about class, but her life experience must lend itself to her political beliefs. She married into a wealthier family -- a family that owned it’s own business, was financially stable and just... a family perpetuating all the harmful effects of white heterosexuality and problematic gendered labor. And she conformed to it! Beth diminished herself to make herself fit there, to find safety and stability, to feel worth. So, I think her politics as an adult are also “safe” and probably echo the popular moderate trends in normative, toxic parent groups. Honestly, irl as a queer WOC who is anti-capitalist and been forced to be political for my own self-preservation and preservation of folks I love, I would not seek out PTA Beth’s friendship for multiple reasons, but I still have such a soft spot for Beth as a character?

That being said, Beth in the context of Annie & Ruby is obviously a different Beth. She loosens up in these spaces, she speaks her mind much more freely and in these scenes she comes as a normal, relatable human and she’s funny and prim and awkward. I think she comes across as somewhat liberal but not particularly educated on the issues/progressive (as is the way most characters are characterized on network TV). In this vein, she throws around a lot of white privilege and because some of it has gone un-interrogated in the context of the show... I’m not sure how intentional these vibes are or if it’s just par the course of it being white-owned network TV. Obviously characters are allowed to make mistakes and do shitty things, but I wish there was more on-screen acknowledgement of race in the show, and more intentional naming of things. In regards to Ruby + Beth in particular, I feel like an American white woman can’t have a life-long/multi-decade friendship with a Black woman and not be intentional about acknowledging racism/the specific misogynoir that Black women face. But the show hasn’t really acknowledged this aspect of Ruby + Beth’s friendship...

*stares at the camera like I’m on The Office*

It would be such a rich opportunity to discuss the challenges of interracial friendship if done well. Also, what an opportunity to delve into what it’s like to maintain friendships across the years (um, it’s hard!!! Even with people you love so much! Tell us more about Beth & Ruby’s ups and downs!). Beth and Ruby care about each other so much. When they and Annie get friendship beats -- I cry! Just make it make more sense! If the show filled in these blanks, it would be so great. Beth is obviously awakening~ definitely so in regards to her gender and her power and it could shift her political opinions? The show definitely poked a little fun at her crime “wokeness” by having her push back on cultural appropriation with those other PTA parents. Just by the exposure of her own relationships, Beth has experience with the lack of American safety net, our terrible, impoverishing health-care system, and inaccessibility of higher education.

So, on one hand the show tries to do a thing where they equalize and don’t name race in the context of the three leads, “they’re three women”, but then they play on racial tropes with Beth and Rio’s relationship... I would like for their interracial relationship to be more overtly discussed/acknowledged outside of Rio’s somewhat performative call outs of Beth’s white lady fragility.

So anyway -- Rio’s politics. We don’t know a ton about Rio so we don’t have too much textual evidence to go off of. But, we do know that Rio picks at Beth’s facade of white women fragility all the time -- sometimes with more hostility and other times simply teasing. When I write him, I give him my own experiences of having to become well-versed discussing politicized issues by the default of growing up experiencing racism and xenophobia. Rio, like any Mexican-reading man, has probably been told to “go back to his country” throughout his life -- and I can’t imagine it not politicizing him... Though, conservative Latinx exist and constantly shock me with their assimilationist audacity. *stares at the camera like I’m on the office again* But, idk, it’s something about their characterization of him of being so worldly~~ I imagine him being informed and up-to-date on the American news. I want him throwing around his power and $$$ by donating to local, progressive candidates of color. But, this is all projection~ :-)

Ha, I feel like this was too critical of my forever otp (and on ship day to boot)!! And of Beth. The show has a habit of putting Beth through the physical and psychological wringer, and what I want instead is for our baby to be out of harm’s way, financially stable, divorced and independent, and also forced to interrogate the more harmful ways she deploys her whiteness. Lol, no one would watch my show. I know.

I love Beth & Rio. They thrill me. And like many others in the fandom, I often want to remove them from the GG canon and make them have harder/real/necessary conversations -- and generally converse about anything/everything because they barely do that on screen. I love the drama of their scenes, but my happy place is skipping a year ahead and building headcanons about what they could look like in actual relationship with each other... and one of these daydreams is Rio pushing Beth on her politics. I’m in an interracial relationship with a white woman myself -- and one of the things I love is endlessly discussing political issues and processing and growing together, and I like transplanting that to Brio in my fic perhaps too much, and it makes them OOC in my writing at times.

Okay!!! This got long again. Thanks for tangling with this if you’ve gotten this far. There were a lot of assertions up there and I’m happy to unpack something further (but, thats at your own risk y’know. Clearly I don’t know when to stop when it comes to writing these ridiculously long posts).

#beth x rio #my bbs #rants #ask memes

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smoljamswrites · 5 years ago

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all is fair in love & war | bts x reader | chapter one

pairing: bts x female reader

genre: (eventual) smut, fluff, angst, series fic, mafia!au

warnings for this chapter: kidnapping mention, mention of murderers, mention of being beaten, character being wreckless? and doing stupid shit? alcohol, character feels like she’s being watched, swearing, um idk if anything else could be a trigger?

a/n: I’ll try and update this regularly + thank you guys so much for your support so far!! Also, future chapters will be longer than this one!!

the playlist is here, if anybody wants the link!x

All these years living with Sin Syndicate you have been kept under lock and key. Which is understandable really, you’ve probably been labelled as a missing person for years now. Life is pretty boring for you though, you’d think living with a huge mafia gang you’d be up close and personal with all the dramas and crimes. But that isn’t the case; you just stay in this huge house all day, which sounds lovely, until you remember you share it with murderers. The only time that you have left this house was that one time you were 13 and you had snuck out. To your misfortune, you got caught within an hour, and got brought back home to be beaten. But what Sin Syndicate never found out is that you took some of their money and you brought yourself a phone that day. Not one that could be traced though – just in case they ever did find it – you bought an old Nokia phone, and now you spend most of your days playing snake. You never tried to actually run away from them though because you know that if they ever did find you again, which is very likely, then they would definitely kill you this time.

At the moment, Sin Syndicate has every reason to believe that Bangtan are going to attack soon. 3 syndicate members this week have mysteriously “vanished” without a trace, and well, it would be no surprise if they are now facing the wrath of the rival gang. Everyone is currently losing their minds, preparing for an attack. And it’s much harder to be ready for an attack when you don’t even know what the rivals look like. Bangtan have been good at shielding their identities; always wearing masks when they are on jobs. Luckily for you, they seemingly have forgotten about your presence in the midst of all this chaos. So, for the first time in almost 7 years, you sneak out of your window in search of fun, and that brings us to now.

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

You shouldn’t be here. There’s so much sweat on your skin, and not all of it is yours. The music is blaring, pulsating through your body. You’ve never been here before; it’s only recently opened and usually you wouldn’t be out at this time of night, but everyone had been so ‘preoccupied’ that you just took your chances. You left. Escaped even. Now you’re here, living life like a normal girl your age would, and god does it feel good. You feel alive. The club was like your heartbeat put on loudspeaker. As the floor vibrated with bass notes, your body sways with the rhythm, alcohol running through your veins like it was being fed through an IV drip.

This was your first mistake – escaping. The second being you’re here all alone. Truth be told, you were a strong-headed young lady and when push came to shove you could hold your own; that’s what growing up with Sin Syndicate has taught you. But this is different. Especially when this club is owned by them – Bangtan. But of course, you don’t know that. Nobody knows that, and well, if you do, then you better keep your mouth shut.

They’ve been wanting you for years. You’d be great leverage. Imagine being able to capture your rival’s most prized possession, their weakness. The accident that happened all those years ago, where they got caught and panicked. They didn’t finish the job; they didn’t finish you. And now Bangtan wants that hold over them. They want you, and all the information you have, whether you’re willing to give them it or not. And you’ve just handed yourself to them on a plate. And that is your third mistake.

You’ve never felt like this before – you feel on top of the world and you’re 100% certain that no punishment could make you ever regret this. Everyone’s bodies touched while moving to the melody of the music. You haven’t heard music in such a long time, and even though you have no idea what songs are being played, you can’t stop dancing. Everyone else seems to be mouthing all the words, and you have to admit it is a good song, it’s a shame you’ll probably never hear it again.

However, you cannot shake this feeling that someone is watching you. Call it crazy or maybe paranoia, it could even be called a ‘Spidey Sense’, but you feel like somebody is watching your every move. With a quick glance around, you see that almost every girl has caught someone’s attention. You try to tell yourself it’s nothing – probably just a predatory, hungry gaze from someone who is dying to take you home tonight…at least that’s what happens on the TV right? Deciding that you need another drink to loosen up a bit, you head to the bar.

Someone is watching you alright, and so is his friend upstairs that overlooks the dancefloor. The one downstairs watches you with a confused stare. Surely it can’t really be you? He’s seen a picture of your face a million times over, and yet actually seeing it right here in front of him doesn’t feel real to him. Is he dreaming? The taller man, who stands in the darkness of the upper floor, wears a different look. His grin shows his evident elation; basking in the joy that you are completely unaware of the situation you have unknowingly put yourself in.

As you push and squeeze past all the bodies blocking the way, you see the non-flickering lights above the bar, becoming instantly grateful that they aren’t like the strobe ones on the dancefloor. Taking a seat on one of the barstools you look over to the bartenders, and you see that one is on his way over to you. You quickly dig through your bag, in search for your money.

“Hi what can I get you?”

You don’t even get chance to look up to see which bartender the voice belonged to, when a deeper, much more stronger sounding voice took over.

“I’ll take this one, go serve them over there”

Instantly your head snaps up, and your eyes meet with his. This bartender has long, dark brown hair but your eyes are immediately drawn to his figure. He must work out a lot to get a body like that. His chest looked solid, and he had tattoos down his one arm. God, he looked heavenly.

“You okay there?” he smirked, eyes never leaving yours, “what can I get you?”

“rum and coke” you snap and look away, feeling heat rising in your face.

He turns away swiftly to make you your drink, muttering something under his breath that sounded awfully similar to ‘feisty’. When he turns back around and places the drink in front of you, he leans on the counter, making it so you’re now near enough the same height. You move back abruptly and hold out your hand to give him the money, but he just shakes his head.

“It’s on the house, don’t worry about it” he smiles, and even though he seemed really cocky before, this smile of his appears to be genuine. Its weird though, you think, that he wanted to serve you and he even gave you a drink for free. Is he allowed to do that? You’ve never been one to be timid and so you don’t bat an eyelid when you question his motive.

“Can’t I give out free drinks to pretty customers now? I can make you pay if you really want, but I’d rather you have it for free. Besides, I think the real question is why are you here alone?” his voice is sultry and smooth, slipping from his lips like warm honey.

How does he know you here alone? Warning sounds in your mind, and you tell yourself to be cautious around this man. There’s something about him that you just can’t put your finger on.

“My friends are on the dancefloor actually. Now if you’d excuse me-“

“No! Stay,” you turn around and look at him, what the fuck is happening?

“Please stay here, I know it sounds weird, but I noticed you earlier when you came in. You seemed out of place, and you were alone. You’ve had guys watching you all night, and I really want to keep an eye on you, make sure you’re okay. Wouldn’t want you to fall into the wrong hands now, would we?”

The way he said that last sentence sent shivers down your spine. It seemed a little odd. But he did have a point, coming here alone was stupid, and a little protection wouldn’t exactly be bad, would it?

Once you’ve sat back down, he straightens up, giving you some space.

“So what are you doing here alone?”

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

The room was black for the most part, except for the chocolatey wooden desk and sparkly silver chandelier. Two black, leather couches faced each other, and at the head of the room, stood a big office-type chair next to the desk. A small golden panther adorned the corner of the desk.

The sudden knock of the door, and a young man bursting in interrupted the 3 older men’s conversation. With a sigh, the man sat at the desk addressed the younger man who smiled like an excited child, “What is it, Taehyung?”

“You will not believe this!” the man, who’s name is Taehyung, exclaims, capturing the attention of the two other men sat in the room, “Guess who is downstairs!?”

All three deadpanned while Taehyung carried on, boxy smile still prominent on his face.

“Y/N! Y/F/N! Sin Syndicate’s girl. Yknow, the one who-“

“We get it Tae, no need to continue” the one in charge says sternly.

“Wait, what is she doing here though?” one of the guys sitting on the couch questions.

“Nobody knows Jin. She’s at the bar as we speak! Jimin was the first to spot her actually. Can you believe this!?” Taehyung is acting like he wants to jump up and down at this point.

After being asked who is serving you, and Tae answering with the name ‘Guk’, that starts a conversation with the two men on the couch.

“I bet he’s having a field day with her! I’d say he’s been determined to get her the most, from like day one!”

“Yeah Jin, but is he smart enough to fucking spike her drink? Because that’s what we need to do! And well, he’s a fucking dumbass when he wants to be!”

The one sat at the desk seemingly agrees with this, and turns to Taehyung, “Whatever you do Tae, don’t let her leave”

next chapter update: Wednesday 22nd January 2020 8pm gmt

tagging: @toddsgirl27 @honeydewseoks @whimsicalwoodlands @dearlydreadful @wendyiiwl @asifetch7 @barbyisafangirl @miraculyfe @smollmonajinsa

let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters!

Thank you so much for reading!

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Girl on Fire (Ninex) - Ashley

A/N: Nina finally starts to believe she is more than just a sidekick in other people’s fairy tales. Only her dream night is cut short when she is dragged away by her drunk best friend as soon as the clock strikes one-thirty. Monet is sick of pining after her straight best friend and thinks she’s finally found someone who steals her heart away. However, she doesn’t have any idea what her name is. (10k words)

Here goes my submission for the Black Girl Magic challenge, I had so much fun writing this and hope you guys enjoy - think of it as Cinderella in 2020. It is set in the same universe as Got My Number (Branjie fic) however you do not have to have read that to read this. Would love any comments/feedback/concrit anyone has and if anyone would just like to chat my sideblog is @artificialashley. Big thanks to Meggie for betaing this like a legend <3 Hope everyone is as well and as safe as they can be in these current times xoxo

It was safe to say that Nina had been placing her friends’ needs above her own for a long time. She didn’t know when it had started; be it the time she let Brooke swap roles with her last-minute before their drama exam in school, or every time she’d acted as a false alibi for Yvie during her secret rendezvous with a private school girl from the other side of the town, but it had been happening for a while.

This wasn’t something she felt guilty about, not something she would change for the world. Only every now and again the tiniest part of her brain wondered why she couldn’t be the one to have the Disney princess storyline, why she was always stuck as the bumbling sidekick, there to push forward someone else’s narrative. That was how she usually ended off feeling on nights out.

With Brooke sloppily dancing with a boy to her right and Yvie’s mind clearly elsewhere, Nina figured she might as well accept that this night wouldn’t be spent exactly how she’d pictured and try to enjoy it nonetheless.

“I’m gonna get another drink, you want anything?”

“I’m alright.” Yvie nodded, clearly distracted. “I might head back soon, anyway.”

Looking back to Brooke and the boy, a lilt of panic rose in Nina’s body. She knew her friend was a grown girl who could look after herself. But that didn’t falsify the universally acknowledged fact that when Brooke Lynn Hytes began to toss her hair and sway her hips, no one was safe. “Wait ‘til I’m back, though?”

“Of course,” Yvie responded, adding a thumbs up for good measure.

With that Nina made her way to the bar, trying her hardest to be speedy whilst still polite, something that was almost a kamikaze mission on nights like that. Despite her taller and broader frame, she’d always struggled to worm her way to the front of the bar, scared of hurting anyone near her and trying her best to remain patient.

Her foot tapping against the floor without thought, a wave of relief washed over her when a bartender beelined her way.

“A single vodka lemonade please,” she smiled to the man, holding the exact amount of change in her hand ready.

To her surprise, she heard a laugh to her left. A deep throaty laugh, the kind that required someone’s head to fall back to escape.

That’s when she saw her.

Monet.

“Make that a double,” the girl’s voice flanked down the bartender, smooth like honey. “With Red Bull. None of that lemonade bullshit. And one for me too.”

It wasn’t a secret that Nina had had a crush on the girl for a while. Or at least not to her friends.

It had started in year 13, when their sixth form decided to make some promotions, placing posters on the front gates, on roundabouts and even on buses around the town - Monet’s bright smile and warm brown eyes adorning every single one.

“Doesn’t Bob’s sister look just like her?” Yvie pointed at the poster as they made their way out the gates, on route for their daily meal deal.

“I know right!” Brooke added. “They could be twins.”

But Nina didn’t really agree, stopping in her tracks. “Look at her eyes, they’re much bigger than Bob’s. And her cheekbones, Bob’s face is more round. Look at her lips…” She trailed off for a moment. “She’s beautiful.”

Brooke and Yvie turned their heads to face her in synchronisation, realising the same thought.

“I’m not saying Bob isn’t pretty,” Nina panicked, afraid that she had been rude about the kind and bubbly girl that everyone in her year adored. “I just meant—”

“We know what you meant.” Yvie grinned with every muscle in her face.

“Nina and Monet, sitting in a tree—” Brooke started to sing and wave her arms in the air, only to be interrupted mid-stride after being swatted with a plastic folder full of literature coursework.

“We don’t even know her!” Nina turned to them, a blush starting to seep through her pale cheeks. “You can’t fancy someone you don’t know.”

She didn’t need Brooke or Yvie to tell her that wasn’t true.

“Oh,” Nina turned to face her, lost for words being an understatement to how she felt.

“Sorry,” Monet laughed, looking her up and down in a way that made Nina’s body tremble. “I wasn’t going to let a girl stand and wait anxiously for so long to order a single vodka lemonade, not on my watch.”

Before Nina could think of how to respond, the bartender had returned with their drinks, Monet handing him over a note and taking them, sliding one in Nina’s direction.

Nina found herself in awe almost of the other girl’s confidence.

“Thank you,” she managed to muster after taking a sip, the sweet tang of the drink giving her a shock, her hand automatically raising to her mouth.

“Oh,” Monet tilted her head and pointed a finger. “You’re one of them.”

“One of who?” Nina looked around confused, paranoia racing through her veins, only dissolving once she felt Monet’s hand touch her arm. Nina wondered if maybe a flame burned inside Monet’s ribcage where her heart should have been, heat radiating from the girl’s hands and eyes, from the entirety of her curvy frame.

“One of those pretty girls who just stands with a drink and doesn’t dance. The boring ones.”

And for a moment Nina forgot about it all. She forgot about how drunk Brooke was across the dancefloor, she forgot about how distracted Yvie had been acting. She forgot about her worries, her nerves, her usual hesitation. She forgot there were other people on the planet as she watched the girl she had crushed on for the longest time light up the night around them.

“I think you’re wrong,” Nina spoke softly, finishing the rest of her drink in record time.

She didn’t know if her heart was beating fast because of the girl or the drink. But either way, it was telling her that if she didn’t let those arms hold her it would jump right out of her chest and onto the sticky floor below.

And so she did, swaying to the music in time with Monet, letting the girl’s hands wander around her waist.

“Can I touch your hair?” Nina whispered, almost too quiet for Monet to hear.

Suddenly, she remembered seeing the girl eating on the grass once when the sun was out and shining. How she’d watched as her friend attempted a cartwheel and failed, Monet throwing her head back with laughter, her curls dropping down and almost touching the grass below them.

Monet nodded in response, Nina slowly and gently running her hands through the locks, smooth against her skin.

That’s when she felt Monet’s body inch in closer to her own, Nina seeing the purple sparkle on her eyelids briefly before shutting her own and leaning forwards.

She could feel the flame inside Monet make its way into her own body too, burning the whole floor that surrounded them. One word, one name running circles around her brain. Her lips felt familiar like Nina was simply coming home from a trip away. They moved together just perfectly, an equal balance of pressure back and forth.

Nina’s eyes opened for a second as she watched Monet pull away, a big, bright, and beautiful grin plastered on her face. Before she could take it in anymore she was pulled back into the fire, immersed in its embers, the outside world fading away to ash and dust around her.

Maybe she was more than the sidekick for one night.

That was until someone called the emergency services and the fire was extinguished.

That someone being Brooke Lynn Hytes.

She didn’t process it at first, the voice that was crying out being filtered out of her thoughts to focus on anything and everything Monet. But when she heard it again, Nina couldn’t help but double-take.

“You can’t kick me out! I’ve been coming here since I was fifteen, you nonces!”

Nina’s jaw dropped in horror as she saw her best friend being carried by two bouncers who’s heads almost touched the ceiling. Silently cursing at Yvie, she looked back and Monet, the red lipstick that was previously the definition of precision now smeared around her lips like a crime scene.

“I have to go.”

“Oh. Okay.” Monet frowned at her. “Can I get you on Snap? My phone’s dead, though. I’ll add you back as soon as I’m home.”

“Yeah,” Nina grinned, her mind taken away from her mess of a best friend for a split second to bask in what was happening. Only for her joy to plummet when she reached into her bag and pulled out an assortment of eyeliners and lip glosses instead of her phone. Her mind flashed back a few hours before when Brooke was only at her happy-drunk stage and had insisted on taking some cute photos of them on Nina’s phone (having the best camera, of course), realising that her phone was, in fact, being carried out of the club in Brooke’s pocket as she spoke.

“Shit,” she looked back and forth between her bag and Monet as if it would appear by magic if she wished hard enough. Knowing she needed to hurry to her friend, she quickly grabbed Monet’s wrist and began scribbling across it with her eyeliner, giving her hand a quick squeeze before running off in the opposite direction to find Brooke.

She could have sworn her lips were still tingling by the time she’d caught up.

“Nina!” Brooke cried from her seat in the smoking area, throwing her hands in the air to hug her best friend, only for them to flop back down dead-weight at her sides when they didn’t reach.

“Please can you get her out of here?” The bouncers turned to face Nina, leaving her petrified like a school kid who’d been caught skipping lessons.

Nina’s motherly side came to fruition as she tried to convince Brooke to come home with her, secretly thinking about how long she could make fun of her for being in this state. She decided on at least until the Easter holidays were over, all the way up until Summer at a push.

Eventually, the light at the end of the tunnel began to emerge; Nina managing to convince Brooke to make her way home. The only problem was that she didn’t want to do so with Nina.

“You’re not coming with me, I want you to go in there and get yourself a shag. I know you fancy Bob’s sister. Do it for me, Nina, I’m living through you!”

Her cheeks turning a brighter red than the lipstick that was smothered around her mouth (Monet’s lipstick smothered around her mouth), Nina found herself both mortified and joyed at her friend’s words, a part of her bursting with excitement at the fact she’d finally managed to kiss the girl that always caught her eye but also embarrassed at Brooke’s choice of crude words and inability to lower the volume of her voice.

“I’m coming with you, just let me find Yvie.”

“Nooooooo.” Brooke protested as if she were being asked to go home with a criminal trying to kidnap her rather than her best friend of ten years.

That was when a gravelly voice appeared next to her, a familiar voice she had spent years trying to imitate, never fully being able to capture just how unique it was.

Oh, how she had missed spending time with Vanessa.

Nina had never been one to pick sides, always wanting to be friends with everyone as best as she could be, but it seemed that had been impossible since the infamous breakup plagued their group earlier that year. She understood why Vanessa had cut her and Yvie out of her life, knowing that they would only be a constant reminder of the past but she couldn’t help but long that their group of six was just that again. And seeing the way Vanessa was looking at Brooke gave her a sneaking suspicion that she was not alone in those thoughts.

Content that Vanessa would be able to talk sense into Brooke ten times better than she would, Nina retrieved her phone and checked the time. The club didn’t close for another thirty minutes. Her heart almost skipped a beat and she realised she had a whole thirty minutes to feel Monet’s hands around her waist, their lips pressed together with varying pressure, releasing waves of latent heat into the disco lights above.

Only in the sea of heads bopping to the music, one set of dark curls was nowhere to be seen.

***

“So tonight’s not the night then?” Monet felt Anthony speak close to her ear, his gaze cast to Monique, who they could hear giggling as she attempted to re-tie the back of Asia’s bodysuit, her drunk coordination and false nails making the tying of a bow as hard as neuroscience for her.

“No night is the night.” Monet rolled her eyes at her friend.

As much as she loved him and admired his ability to want to address issues head-on, she had to admit that he was sometimes just a pain in the arse. And a shit-stirrer. He was also a really big shit-stirrer.

“Whatever you say.” He held his hand up in defence, grabbing Monet’s wrist and dragging her over to the other half of their foursome.

Only her attempt to get lost in the music failed as soon as Monique grabbed her hands, twirling her around and playing like they usually did.

Growing up in Britain to a Caribbean family, Monet had fought hard to fight off the bad stereotypes and embrace the good ones that came her way. She had never thought the one that would plague her the most would be pining after her straight best friend, yet here she was, dreading the moment that the repetitive playlist would remix into Flo Rida’s Low and she’d have to let the stunning girl touch her as if it was no big deal at all.

She decided it might just be better after all if she went to the bar once the familiar beat began to play, figuring that alcohol would work as a good enough distraction.

Only once she arrived there, she found one that was much, much more promising.

It annoyed her at first, the incessant tapping of the girl’s shoe so loud she could hear it in the busy club. But then she looked at the legs attached to the tapping feet and the torso attached to those legs and the face attached to the torso and Monet suddenly felt much more forgiving.

She seemed the opposite of Monique, her body thick and her skin pale. Her mannerisms showed a shy, reserved girl, unlike the one that turned everything into a production, unlike the girl she had found herself longing to kiss for months on end.

Monet would have given her the world and more. But she instead settled for a drink.

The perfect distraction.

It wasn’t until they began to dance that Monet realised how different she was to her hookups of the past, finding something endearing in her nervous nature. Normally she’d find herself cringing at someone’s bad dancing, but the way the girl stomped only made Monet want to pull her in closer, seeing something in the girl’s smile that made her feel like she’d known her a lifetime. Never on a night out had she felt so invested, so unaware of her surroundings, unaware of Monique.

Usually, kisses in the club were sloppy, too much tongue and touching. This time was different, the girl asking politely if she could touch Monet’s hair (Monet wanted to tell her she could pull it as much as she liked but refrained with fear or sounding too eager). Her lips were soft and gentle; Monet may have just let a small moan escape from her mouth after they parted, unable to stop grinning once she pulled away. The usual fire of confidence that burned inside of her was dancing all over, going crazy over the dirty blonde and her blue jumpsuit, the sequins dazzling in the light of the disco.

She tasted of hope and Red Bull.

That taste still lingering once the girl had pulled away, scanning the room in a panic and turning back to Monet. She wasn’t a mind reader but she knew something was wrong.

“I have to go.”

The words pierced her skin like an arrow, shot from the closest range. Monet should have been okay, she knew it was unrealistic to think that the girl would invite her back and she’d spend the entire night in her arms. Yet all she wanted was to wake up in a big four-poster perfectly entwined with her body. Generally, Monet thought of herself as a rather chill person, not letting much get under her skin, but the thought of leaving without this girl’s Snapchat made her stomach tighten just enough.

She watched as she pulled out her eyeliner and scribbled, unable to read the scrawl properly in the darkness of the club, knowing she’d have to wait until she was home to read it properly.

Monet could still feel where the girl had squeezed her hand minutes later, standing alone for a moment to take it all in before starting a mission to find her friends.

It didn’t take long. Within thirty seconds of looking she could already see them, their own circle formed in a less busy area of the dancefloor, Asia pretending to make it rain whilst Monique and Anthony took turns in the middle, splitting and kicking to the pop track playing as though they were in a fight for their lives.

She wouldn’t change her crazy group of friends for the world.

“Hey girl,” Monet placed her hands on Asia’s shoulders, unable to keep the ‘I’ve just pulled a really fit girl’ grin off her face.

“She returns!” Monique screamed over the music, still focused on dancing and managing not to miss a beat. “You look like you’ve had fun.”

It was rare that Monet spoke to Monique about any hookups, keeping that part of her life a separate entity in their friendship, shutting her friend down whenever she asked any questions about it. In her home there was a fine line between what was discussed and what was not, Monet sometimes struggling to remove that division when she hung out with her friends, afraid that she’d only open the box and release more creatures than intended. Afraid Monique would realise how she truly felt.

Only this time it was different; maybe she was still reeling from the kiss or maybe it was the vodka, but she had no problem telling her friends about the amazing girl she had just met, or as well as she could do given that they were in the middle of a dance to the death.

“Hey, Monique, why don’t you just do a cartwheel?” Anthony shouted to her, causing an eruption of laughter on Asia’s face and a contrasting one on Monique’s that only meant trouble.

“Do not encourage her!” Monet turned to her two friends trying to keep a straight face, montages of all of Monique’s previous failed attempts flashing through her head. She pointed at her and raised her voice: “You cannot do a cartwheel.”

“But who said?”

“Jesus,” Monet shouted over the music, causing yet another eruption of Asia-laughter before the disaster struck.

It started off stronger than most of Monique’s previous attempts. Her hands touched the ground. Her legs went above them. Everyone managed to move away fast enough (this being the reason for failure for fifty perfect of said previous attempts). But it didn’t stay that way. Monet watched almost in slow motion as her arm buckled underneath her, bending in a way that arms shouldn’t bend, hearing Monique cry out in pain.

A cry of pain she could still hear hours later in their local accident and emergency, surrounded by bloody knees and gurning jaws, waiting impatiently for the imbecile she called her best friend to be released.

Normally people would wait until the next day to tell their friend’s “I told you so” in situations like this, but Monet wasn’t that humble, making sure to say it at least six times in the ambulance journey, then another seven to Asia and Anthony once they arrived in their Uber.

“But you have to admit I was winning the battle.” Anthony sat up on the waiting room chair and looked back and forth between the two girls. “She didn’t even know the words.”

Giving him a slap on the wrist, Asia’s motherly side came out, her nose scrunching in annoyance. “That is the last thing on my mind right now!”

“Monet?” He raised an eyebrow to her, avoiding Asia’s stern look.

“I don’t know, mate. I didn’t really see the entire thing, you know. Would be biased to judge from those ten seconds of failure.”

Monet immediately prepared for an ambush based on the looks on each of her friend’s faces.

And ambushed she was, the pair of them forgetting their circumstances for a moment to ask Monet one hundred and one questions about her hookup. Only looking down at her hand to see a messy smudge of eyeliner instead of a name, Monet realised she couldn’t have given them valid answers even if she wanted to.

It would be her to find a girl so intriguing, a girl who made her want to dance all night and lose her the second the clock struck one-thirty. Her only glass slipper of hope turned utterly unreadable during the heat of their panicked ambulance journey.

Sensing upset in her face, Anthony grabbed Monet’s hand tightly. “Do I need to fight someone?”

But before Monet could begin to explain that her hookup needed finding rather than fighting, they were saved by a familiar cry.

“What do we think?” Monique began to shimmy towards the girls, her arm wrapped tightly in a cast, gaining the attention of every soul in the room (or at least the ones who were fully conscious).

Monet knew she should have been concerned, her friend could have been seriously hurt, but something about Monique’s grin as she danced towards them made her beam instead.

“Tens. Tens. Tens across the board!” She yelled as her friend pranced, resulting in the filthiest look from the receptionist, letting them know it was their time to leave.

“McDonald’s?” Monique looked back and forth between her friends once they had left the front doors, clearly unbothered by their haphazard appearances and the fact she had broken a bone.

The rest of the group didn’t even have to answer her question, simply beginning to walk in that direction without discussion, laughing like they had no cares in the world.

Only as the hours tipped on towards dawn and Monique reached out to hold Monet’s hand, it burned red hot where a pretty girl’s Snapchat username has been written. A face embedded into her brain that wouldn’t disappear no matter how hard she tried, a mystery left waiting for her to solve.

***

“Rise and shine!” Nina sang to her best friend, earning only a grunt in response.

“Why are you here so early?” Brooke winced at the sunlight seeping from her window, putting her hand to her throat and grabbing a glass of what she assumed to be water from the nightstand.

Nina guessed by the look on her face after taking a swig that it certainly was not water.

“Because I didn’t want to miss breakfast!” Nina pulled a greasy brown bag from her backpack and waved it in Brooke’s face, who perked up as if by magic. “You should be grateful, I had a right hassle getting this! I nearly ran over some drunk girl with a broken arm just running through the drive-through away from her friends.”

“I’m eternally grateful.” Brooke budged along and patted a spot for Nina to lie next to her.

As much as she hated the drama of nights out and the pounding headache that stopped her productivity the next day, Nina had really missed hungover food and gossip sessions with her friends. It just wasn’t the same without them at Uni.

“So?” Nina looked at her friend, ready and eager to hear what had happened with Vanessa, taking a sip of her drink in anticipation.

“So…” Brooke trailed in response, raising an eyebrow to her friend.

“Did you and Vanjie talk?” Nina couldn’t wait any longer for Brooke to start, spitting her sentence out in one breath.

“Yes.” Brooke looked at her with a gaze Nina had never quite seen before, despite their years of early mornings and late nights of spilling secrets and stories. “But that can wait. What can’t wait is the fact that you managed to pull the girl you’ve had a crush on for ages. Let’s talk about that!”

“Oh. That was nothing.”

Nina was telling the truth. Or at least she was if nothing meant the best kiss of her life. If nothing meant that she could still smell Monet’s perfume when she was getting her breakfast that morning. If nothing meant that she went to bed grinning from ear to ear, the image of the girl pulling her closer a carousel running circles through her head. If nothing meant that every step she’d taken on her way home last night felt as if it were on air rather than the pavement. If nothing meant that she had finally felt like the protagonist of her movie, being granted a night of magic by some special force in the world.

“Nothing? Did you at least get her Snap?”

“Na.” Nina brushed her off.

It wasn’t a lie. Technically she hadn’t gotten Monet’s username - she’d given Monet hers. Yet when she woke up that morning she didn’t have any new requests. She’d be lying for real if she said her heart hadn’t plummeted. It was normal. It happened all the time. That’s what she always told Yvie whenever she was ghosted. Only Nina couldn’t stop the horrible feeling of a knife twisting into her heart that came whenever she checked her phone and saw no notification. She knew it was silly, that it was just a dumb kiss in the club, but she couldn’t help but feel stupid; like she’d been some sort of fool for believing something special had happened to her, a fool for thinking that confident girls like Monet who breathed fire would want to chat to awkward ones like herself who let themselves drown in rain.

“Well, you can just follow her on Insta then. I mean you stalk her enough anyway it’s about time.” Brooke pulled her phone to her face and started to type, a flurry of panic running up Nina’s spine.

She knew that there would be no follow back.

“It’s fine!” Nina raised her voice almost too much, her friend flinching slightly at the volume. “Honestly Brooke, I just want to forget it.”

Nina knew she couldn’t forget it if she tried. She couldn’t forget it if she paid for someone to erase her memories like they did in the films. She couldn’t forget it if she was hit on the head a dozen times.

She wondered if Monet even remembered it at all. Or had she just decided not to think about it, having probably done it many times before, something normal to her. Nina didn’t know which of these options would be worse. She guessed she would never find out.

“I’ll let it go if you give me the last bite of your bagel,” Brooke teased and Nina obliged (having lost her appetite to the wonderful diet technique known as anxiety anyways).

“Have you heard from Yvie then?” Nina asked, trying her best to change the conversation, to think of anything but Monet.

Monet and her kisses.

Monet and her voice.

Monet and her mouth.

She wasn’t very good at this.

“She texted me this morning,” Brooke responded. “Said she was sorry she left. She went for a wee and ran into Ja’mie—apparently, we were gone by the time she got back.”

“Fair enough,” Nina smiled, knowing that she too was responsible for Brooke being left alone. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Brooke thrust her phone into Nina’s hands (who didn’t want to begin to question why it was sticky). “You can repay me by helping me type a text to Vanjie. How do you say ‘Thanks for looking after me in my drunken state, let’s all go for food like old times sake then make up and have babies together someday’ without sounding too eager?”

Nina laughed at her friend and began to type into her notes, grateful that her A-Level in English Language had not gone entirely to waste.

If only she could use it to express her own feelings about a certain dark-haired beauty instead of those belonging to her best friend.

***

“Get up! You’re doing my shift tonight.” Monet’s eyes opened to the feeling of a pen smacking against her face, her older sister stood menacingly with another one in her hand, ready to be launched at any second.

“Erm, who says?” She sat up and looked at the time.

There was nothing like waking up past midday to really motivate her to work.

“I said when I picked you and your friends up from McDonald’s at eight in the morning. Or do you want me to tell Dad you spent the night in A&E?”

“Fuck,“ Monet thought to herself. Or maybe said aloud. She couldn’t really tell, too caught up in images of the night (or morning) before flashing through her brain. The memory of a still drunk Monique calling Bob and demanding she take them home from McDonald’s, running away from the rest of the group and into the busy drive-through when they tried to stop her. Sometimes it scared Monet how averse to danger her friend was, having willingly run in front of a beeping car despite her freshly broken arm just so she could beg Bob to save them a fifteen-minute walk.

“Guess I’m doing your shift.”

Monet didn’t really mind that much, she liked working in her parent’s restaurant, finding joy in being able to chat to customers, recommending food and talking all things Caribbean. A big part of her thanked the job for her social skills, making her outgoing and confident when others in her year often struggled to speak to people. Yes, she often wished she’d gone to University like some of her friends, longing to bask in that fantasy of late-night shopping trips and early morning study dates. But she knew it wasn’t really her style, figuring she’d go full time at the restaurant until she found her true calling. Everyone liked to act like there were these big time limits on when everything had to be done but Monet knew they didn’t really exist.

Besides, her job meant she always had enough money to buy vodka Red Bulls for handsome ladies in the club, one particular handsome lady coming to mind.

The smudge was still on her hand.

Some would probably tell her it was fate, that she lost it for a reason. That they wouldn’t have worked out.

But Monet didn’t believe in all of that stuff. Monet was a fighter of fate instead.

Whipping out her phone, she Facetimed her best friend, eager for help on her mission. She thought for a second that she should have called Anthony instead; after all, his eagle eyes knew the most about Monet’s love life. But a part of her just wanted Monique by her side, knowing that she’d never get over her feelings if she continued to isolate that part of her life.

“Hey, girl.” She answered on the second ring.

Normally Monet would have spent a moment or two thinking about how gorgeous her hair looked wet and slicked back or how perfect the purple of her dressing gown complimented her skin, how it hung on her body just right.

Only now her mind was overwhelmed with other thoughts.

“Do you know what page the club photos get posted on, from last night?” Monet asked her friend after a short while of broken arm-related discussion.

“Yeah, I’ll send you the link - but don’t be tagging me in any where I look a mess.”

“Thanks.” Monet flicked through the photographs, examining each one for a bundle of dirty blonde hair or sparkle of blue sequins. “I’m actually trying to find the girl I got with. Gonna see if she’s been tagged, yanno.”

“Oh.”

Monet stopped scrolling, letting the silence linger for a moment before speaking. “Oh?”

“Nothing,” Monique brushed off. “Just seems a bit extra, is all.”

“I just want to find her. Do you think I should post it on the Uni confessions page in case she goes there? Or what if I tweet it? Maybe a tweet is safer.”

“I swear you’ve never been this bothered about a pull before,” Monique laughed through the phone. A laugh Monet knew to be fake.

‘Because I normally want them to be you,’ Monet thought to herself but didn’t dare say out loud. Only not once during the kiss the night before had her mind strayed back to her best friend like it usually did. She didn’t know if that would ever find a girl to make her feel that way again, she wasn’t throwing it away.

“This one’s different, I’m confident about it.”

“Okay,” Monique smiled on the screen, raising her hands in the air in surrender. “But remember you were confident in GCSE textiles when you tried to make a children’s dress from sponges for our coursework. Doesn’t always mean you’re right.”

“Don’t bring that into this!” Monet gasped, the attack on her garment cutting deep almost like an attack on her entire being, earning a chuckle from her best friend. “Imma get going, gotta shower and go to the shops before my shift but I think I’m gonna tweet it. Who knows, might see her again when we go out on Monday!”

“Monday? Bitch, I’ve got a broken arm.”

“You can still wiggle.” Monet winked at her friend before bidding farewell and hanging up the call.

She may not have had a glass slipper to try on every girl in town but she did have all the power of social media on her side, and that would simply have to do.

***

Looking around at the other girls as they made their way through the town centre, Nina couldn’t help but feel utterly ecstatic.

Things had been awkward at first - the lack of contact since the Brooke and Vanessa break up was a huge elephant in the room that no one wanted to address. However, as time passed the awkwardness began to melt more and more, Nina was excited to learn anything and everything she had missed out on whilst the girls were away at Uni.

“It’s just down here I think.” Brooke squinted at her phone and pointed to one of the streets.

“I thought we were going to the Lebanese,” Akeria stated from Vanessa’s side, earning a jab in the ribs.

“Scarlet doesn’t like it.” Yvie turned to face her. “Besides this place is really nice, I don’t know why we’ve all never been.”

“Probably because we don’t have the same taste buds as your highness!” Silky laughed, Brooke muttering some sort of private school girl gag under her breath too.

“You better not go on like that when she gets there!” Yvie shot daggers to the pair with her eyes, only making them chuckle even more. "If one of you even thinks about calling her that nickname you will be drop kicked.”

It was safe to say Nina had missed their shenanigans, a part of her wishing she could rewind time back to when they went for food like this every other week.

She’d missed Silky’s snide comments and Vanessa’s grunting laugh. She’d missed the way that Brooke and Akeria both clapped when they got excited. And the way Yvie tried to act all cool and hard in front of Scarlet but ended off turning into a soppy puppy everything she smiled anyway.

It was safe to say she was grateful to Brooke for organising their meal and catch-up. Not only was Nina getting to see the friends she had missed so much but she was also being distracted from refreshing her phone every five minutes, constantly disappointed when waiting to see if a certain someone had changed their mind and added her on Snapchat.

“Well, I’m excited to try something new!” Nina smiled at her friend, pretending not to be extremely anxious at the fact she couldn’t find a menu online so didn’t already know what she was going to order.

In fact, she still didn’t know what to order thirty minutes later once Scarlet had finally arrived, a round of drinks having already been devoured by the group, the range in the menu making her foot dance nervously on the floor below them.

“You guys ready to order your food?”

Nina didn’t dare turn around, the discernable voice ringing behind her.

The voice she’d let whisper sweet nothing in her ears less than twenty-four hours earlier.

The voice she thought she would never hear again.

She looked aside to Brooke, a devilish grin on her face, clearly proud of her work as Fairy Godmother.

Nina wasn’t so proud.

Her leg began to shake more, placing her own hand on it to try and calm down.

She didn’t do hookups, they weren’t the norm for her. She wasn’t used to just kissing someone in a club, giving them every part of her and more than acting like it was nothing afterwards. She didn’t understand how people just threw themselves all in and then decided it was nothing. There Monet was, most likely thinking that the whole thing meant nothing when it was filling the entirety of Nina’s brain. She was drowning in it.

It was like watching a gruesome video, Nina knew it would only end in tears on her behalf but couldn’t help but take a peek.

Only Monet looked anything but gruesome. Her hair slicked back into a ponytail, her face fresh, the end of the pen meeting her mouth as she took a break from writing.

Never in her life had Nina felt any inclination to be an artist yet suddenly she wanted to paint a portrait of the girl right there, her apron slightly stained and her hand showing the remnants of a stamp that hadn’t quite washed away.

Her hand that Nina had written on.

If Nina was drowning then Monet was on fire.

“What about you, Cinderella?”

It took Nina a moment along with an elbow from her right to realise Monet was speaking to her, just gawking at her like a kid in a sweet shop (Monet was probably a sherbet lemon, bright and fizzy right next to the till. She was more of a chocolate mouse, hiding on a shelf lower down).

‘Just ask what she recommends,’ Nina thought to herself, only the words never came out, her mouth opening and closing like a puppet she couldn’t control.

Brooke went to speak for her but Monet was too fast, a superhero reading Nina’s mind and saving her from the burning building. “My favourite is the jerk chicken, with lots of gravy.”

“Perfect.” She managed half a smile, wishing Monet would speak for her more often. Wishing she’d speak for everyone in the world with her voice so lovely.

Nina felt Monet’s hand leave her shoulder as she walked away.

She hadn’t even felt her place it.

“Well, isn’t that a weird coincidence.” Yvie sipped from her straw and looked up at Nina despite the utter lack of liquid left in her glass.

“Seriously? I told you I wanted to forget it.“ She turned to face Brooke, giving the best attempt at whisper-shouting as she could.

“I know, I’m sorry, but if I told you you wouldn’t have come. You’ve fancied her for so long I wasn’t gonna let you just let it go.”

“Did you ever think that I can make my own decisions, Brooke? You don’t have to dictate my life all the time. I look like such a freak now!”

“Hey,” Vanessa chirped in from the other side of the table. “Nina, she was just trying to help. I saw this thing on Twitter—”

“Scarlet, do you like Lebanese food?” Nina shouted over, interrupting Vanessa’s plea.

“Oh of course,” the girl responded, clearly unaware of the tension in the air. “My family visited the Zahriyeh beach resort last year and the food was to die for!”

“I’m going to the loo.” Nina stood up abruptly, almost knocking her chair over in the process. “Please don’t follow me.”

Making her way into the bathroom, Nina stared at herself in the mirror.

She knew her friends only wanted what was best for her, that she shouldn’t have snapped at Brooke. She just kept reliving her awkward conversation, kept thinking about the add that never came through her phone and wished they would have left it be.

It was okay for Brooke, who had Vanessa and everyone else in their old sixth form falling around her. Or Yvie who had the quickest wit, unapologetically herself every minute of every day. They were the type of girls who people fawned over, who girls like Monet wanted to speak to. Not Nina West who couldn’t say the word “chicken” without having an aneurysm.

Trying her hardest not to cry, she almost jumped out of her skin when the door opened, expecting an apologetic Brooke with her puppy dog eyes to walk through.

How wrong she was.

“Oh, sorry.” Nina looked around and made her way towards the door.

“For using the bathroom?” Monet smiled at her, Nina left unable to think of a response other than the word sorry again. “About the other night—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nina blurted, the fear of rejection injected into her bloodstream. She couldn’t bring herself to hear it, to hear Monet tell her that it was nothing or spurt some lie about losing her username. So she decided she’d do it herself, trying her very hardest to seem nonchalant. “We were both drunk, it was stupid.”

“Yeah.” Monet looked down at the floor. “No biggie.”

Nina missed her smile already.

Breaking a silence that felt like a lifetime, Nina released a breath. “I better go. Wouldn’t want to miss my jerk chicken.”

“Couldn’t have that.” She heard Monet’s voice tail off as she made her way back to the table, reliving their conversation for the entire meal - her mind lost in an alternate universe where the night before was the start of a new journey, rather than the remnants of one that never took flight.

Nina realised then how easier things were as the sidekick.

The sidekick never had their heart broken.

***

Monet was ready to take everything she had previously thought about fate and throw it out of the window when she realised the mystery girl from the night before was sitting in the restaurant, sipping happily on a strawberry daiquiri.

Monet had never wanted to physically be a cocktail before in her life but that didn’t stop her from wishing it at that moment.

Asking their head waiter to give her the order instead, she counted down the seconds until their last friend arrived and she could go ask what food they wanted, slipping into her natural confidence and flirtiness, ready to have a daylight conversation with the girl from her late-night memories.

She was nervous again, awkward. Monet wanted to tell her to breathe and shake it off, settling instead for placing a hand on her shoulder whilst she decided what to order.

Normally when asked for suggestions, Monet told the customer whatever was easiest to make, or whatever was going to waste, never her real suggestion.

She gave it this time without prompt.

It was probably wrong to follow her into the bathroom but a part of her just couldn’t handle the anxious look on her face and wanted to tell her everything was okay.

Monet was never one to shy away for what she wanted, overly-excited that she had found the one that got away, thinking of how much the girl would laugh when she told her about her night, how she lost her username thanks to her stupid best friend’s gymnastics related delusions of grandeur.

Only she never got the chance.

“Don’t worry about it. We were both drunk, it was stupid.”

Monet knew she shouldn’t have been upset, it was the type of thing she’d said to many girls before herself. But a small part of her just wanted to crawl up in a ball and cry thinking of how wrong she’d been, of how badly she’d read their moment of passion.

Monique was right. She couldn’t wait to hear her ‘I told you so.’ Monet guessed things hadn’t changed at all, those few words throwing her back in the cycle she was in before. Maybe fate was a part of it after all, maybe this was simply the role she was dealt, no arguments, no compromises.

“Enjoying the shift?” Bob called on her way out, grabbing some tofu from the bench and shoving it in her mouth.

“Something like that,” Monet sighed, checking the clock to see how much longer she would be hiding in the back kitchen until she was free.

“Not like you to be in a mood.” Her sister looked her up and down, clearly sensing a change in disposition from her usually annoyingly vibrant personality. “You better put a smile on cause I know those girls out there, I reckon they’ll tip you if you’re nice. They went to sixth form, used to host a lot of house parties.”

Monet was taken back for a second, laughing to herself at the thought that the girl she’d spent all day trying to find not only went to her old school but also knew her sister. She was starting to wish she’d looked beyond the three pillars of her best friends at sixth form and branched out that tad more, maybe things would be a lot different.

“Do you know the blonde one?”

“Brooke Lynn?” Bob asked.

Monet didn’t know how, but she knew that wasn’t right.

“No the other one. With the dumb smile.”

“Oh.” Bob realised. “Nina West. She was always real sweet, looking after her friends and cleaning up everywhere at parties. Awful fashion sense though, good god!”

Nina.

She could have said it again and again until it no longer felt like a name.

“Well, I’ll see you later.” Bob snapped her out of her daydream. “You out again tonight?”

“Nah,” she sighed. “Monday.”

All Monet wanted to do was get drunk and forget all about Nina and Monique and the thoughts in her head, desperate for the next forty-eight hours to whizz past her like lightning.

Only that didn’t really happen, Monet instead spending the entire time holed up in her room, letting the hours drag by until it was time to hit the club with her friends.

She wrongly thought that with every drink the name would slip out of her mind that little bit more, only it slapped her across the face every time she swallowed instead.

Maybe it was because she’d made the mistake of searching her.

She wasn’t hard to find once Monet knew her name, coming up immediately with twenty-seven mutual friends. Scrolling through picture after picture of the girl laughing with her friends, something pained Monet in knowing she could no longer send a request. That her feelings were unreciprocated. She’d told the girl that their hookup was “no biggie” but there she was thinking about the photo she’d seen of her standing on the bridge in town and how she wished she could hold her waist while she stood there.

Monet had a strong love-hate relationship with the internet.

One more shot and there she was again.

Nina West, as vivid as a photograph in her mind, her foot tapping against the floor, her eyes a scene of bewilderment.

She danced to a song she knew and then again to the next until they were all blurring into one and she couldn’t figure out what the words were anymore.

Another shot.

She could see Nina leaving some coins on the table before she left the restaurant, her body something that could inspire poetry.

Just one more wouldn’t hurt.

“You wanna go for a walk?” She heard Monique whisper in her ear, snapping her back to the reality her brain was running from.

She didn’t have to say yes.

The breeze was bitter against Monet’s face as they left the club; Monique wrapped a jacket around her body for warmth.

“What about the others?” She turned back and stopped, feeling her friend’s arm link into her own despite it being her only mobile one.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about them.”

They walked for a while before stopping at a spot by the river, the moon glistening in the water.

Monet watched it flow in silence.

Normally she’d have been scared by the rustling in the trees or the darkness of the night’s sky but those fears were lost in the moment.

“Are you really this upset about a girl you’ve known for a few days?” Monique’s eyes shone in the dark, pools of chocolate around her pupils. They kept Monet grounded. “She’s not even that pretty.”

Monet thought she couldn’t have been more wrong if she tried.

“You don’t get it.”

“But I really want to.”

“It felt different, Monique. I never feel like that, I never get like this. It’s fucked me up. I’ve only ever thought anything like that about…” Monet stopped to swallow, deciding she shouldn’t carry her sentence on anyway.

“About me?” Monique whispered, holding her hand out to her friend, her glittery nails scraping the surface of the other girl’s skin.

“You don’t have to feel sorry for me.” Monet pushed her hand away. “I don’t know, I just thought this was something telling me that things were gonna change. I was wrong, too confident. Like the sponge dress, remember.”

“They still can change,” Monique responded.

Her hand moved to the back of Monet’s head, falling down her hair.

She was hesitant at first, moving towards her friend, slow and steady.

Monet’s breath hitched just before their lips touched.

And then everything started to blur.

Lost in the moment, Monet felt Monique’s free arm move down her back, her own hands gripping tightly onto the hem of her top.

It was happening. She’d reached the pot of gold at the end of her rainbow.

Only the coins weren’t shining as brightly as they did in the fairy tales.

This is what she’d imagined for years, what she fell asleep thinking about.

So why did it feel so wrong?

Every movement flashed by in a second; Monet wasn’t feeling them.

She wasn’t feeling anything.

Then the image of highly arched eyebrows and dusty blue eyes made their way into her head.

Monet didn’t have to say it, feeling her friend pull away in the darkness.

“She’s got you bad, hasn’t she.”

“I know you’re just trying to make me feel better.” Monet ignored what she said about Nina. Their friendship was more important. “I know that you wanted to do that because you thought it’s what I wanted. And I did, by the way, think I wanted it. But I don’t. And even if I did, I don’t need you to make me feel better that way. I just need you to be my best friend.”

“I am,” Monique responded, her voice fighting against a brittle sound. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I’m always happy.” Monet smiled. It was weird how things seemed to make more sense rather than less when she was drunk. “I don’t need a girl. Granted, it’d be a nice bonus, but it doesn’t matter if I’ve got my best friends.”

Monique hugged her like she only had seconds to live.

Yes, Monet wanted Nina. She wanted her more badly than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

But she needed her friends.

“Let’s get you home and never speak of this again, then.” Monique smiled, holding out her hand yet again.

“Agreed.” Monet clasped it around her own, her balance still off-kilter from all the drinking.

At least she didn’t have any shifts to cover the next day.

“Except when you admitted you were wrong about your sponge dress.” Monique grinned. “That, I will never let go.”

***

Nina had just about managed to ignore Brooke and Yvie’s texts about their meal turned ambush. Of course, it was difficult, she’d even written some stuff in her notes that she wanted to chat to them about once she wasn’t mad, having started typing to Yvie about a question on Pointless before remembering she was supposed to be shunning her.

Except Brooke knew her weakness.

Nina could never hold her poker face against a smirking Vanessa Mateo.

“You’re here before me.” Nina stood in awe at Vanessa, a half-drunken hot chocolate and a plate of cookies in front of her.

When they went to Dublin for a long weekend before everyone moved away, Vanessa had slept through her alarm and nearly missed the flight, spending the entire trip borrowing belongings she’d forgotten from the rest of the girls.

She’d be late to her own funeral.

“Of course I am. Didn’t want to miss out on any of my quality Nina West time.” She grinned and pushed the plate across the table, motioning for Nina to take a seat.

Nina loved how easy things always were with Vanessa, finding admiration in the way she never complexified her emotions.

It seemed odd at first when Brooke fell for her. She remembered being told about the night they met, going into every detail about how intense and annoying Vanessa had been as they searched for her phone. It always made Nina chuckle remembering how casually Brooke had added “and then I kissed her” to the end of her thirty-minute rant about the girl.

She’d always pictured Brooke with someone who shared some of her qualities, a little cynical, a little stubborn, surprised that she’d date someone so full of energy. But the first time she saw them together she knew that Vanessa was her perfect complement.

It just made sense.

“So, are you gonna tell me why Brooke Lynn really sent you here?” Nina asked after twenty minutes of Vanessa’s intricate questions about her degree.

“She didn’t ask me.” Vanessa held her hands up and pouted her lip. “I know why you’re mad, we shouldn’t have meddled. I just thought I’d show you this.”

Nina didn’t know what she expected to see on Vanessa’s phone but it certainly wasn’t a tweet from Monet, dated the day of the meal.

“This is an urgent PSA: To the girl with the pretty eyes and sparkly jumpsuit I got with last night, I’m sorry I lost your snap. Hit me up so I can buy you another vodka Red Bull and put your dancing to test again x.”

Nina was glad Vanessa was there to pick her jaw off the floor and attach it back to her face for her.

“I saw it that day and showed Brooke. I honestly thought it was the right thing to do.” Vanessa held a hand out to her, warm and honest.

“No, no. It was.” Nina read the tweet for what might have been the fiftieth time since she’d seen it. If she wasn’t so shocked she probably would have signed herself up for the Guinness World Record for fastest reading. “I fucked it.”

“You can always pop up now?” Vanessa suggested.

“I can’t. I was so rude Vanjie, I read it all wrong.”

“So make it right.”

Nina grabbed her own phone for a second before placing it back on the table. “If I was her I’d ignore me.”

Maybe the fairy tales just happened to the princesses because they took chances, they didn’t let fear get in the way. They never told the prince that their feelings were nothing, a mistake. They were unashamed of how they felt and never afraid that it wasn’t returned.

Maybe that’s why Nina had always been the sidekick.

“Well, you don’t know you well enough then ‘cause the Nina I know wouldn’t ignore someone.”

She hated when Vanessa was right.

“Either way, I should probably go talk to Brooke and Yvie. I feel so bad!”

“Don’t change the subject,” Vanessa caught her out. “I think they understand. Besides, those two are gonna be there for you to message and kiki with as much as you like for the rest of your life. Do you really wanna go back after Easter and let this girl forget about you?”

Maybe it was Vanessa who should go for some sort of world record instead. Nina would have put money on a successful career for her in motivational speaking.

Cinderella wouldn’t have even made it to the ball had the fairy godmother not given her a gown and slippers.

All that Nina needed was to borrow her friend’s confidence for a night.

“I guess a message wouldn’t hurt.” Nina pulled out her phone and opened her notes, ready to type.

“As long as it’s not seven pages long like the ones you help Brooke write to me!” Vanessa leaned over and squinted at the phone.

“You know I do that?”

“You might as well wax seal them with your initials, bitch. Sometimes I’d rather she just trusted herself though. Like I’d rather have her tell me ‘Vanjie, I’m a dick but I love you’ full stop than all that poetry bullshit. I don’t know why she thinks she needs to sound all like you.”

Nina chuckled to herself for a moment, thinking of all the times Brooke had handed her a written message to Vanessa and told her to make it “more meaningful.”

She’d always envied Brooke in many ways. But she never really stopped to think that Brooke might have just envied her too.

“Noted.”

A notification flashed on Nina’s screen, her fingers automatically pushing it away so she could carry on drafting her succinct message.

“Wait, who was that?” Vanjie tapped the screen with an acrylic.

Pulling down the notifications bar, Nina’s face scrunched for a moment as she processed what she saw, looking up and making eye contact with Vanessa when she read the message.

Maybe they’d have to call Brooke to pick both of their jaws up from the floor at that point.

***

“The trailers are gonna start in a minute! Where you at??? x” Monet sent her third passive-aggressive text to her friend in a row.

She cursed under her breath, figuring it would be her best friend to convince her to get dolled up to go see a movie and then be late. She’d even begged Monet to walk further to the hipster cinema where you rented a sofa instead of seats - Monet having the entire one to herself for the time being.

“They’re on for twenty mins anyways. Whereabouts you sitting so I don’t have to scramble in the dark? xoxoxo”

Hearing a tut from behind her, Monet replied quickly with her location before putting her phone back in the pocket.

Normally she’d feel weird about being at the cinema with just Monique, sharing a sofa together in the most classic of date settings. Only now she didn’t, something about their kiss wiping away her feelings, picking up that “what if” she’d always had and sending it away down the river they had laid by.

Maybe it would make their friendship that tad stronger.

Just not strong enough for Monet to deal with being abandoned in a cinema. That would need a lot of forgiveness and grovelling.

A glimmer of hope dazzled before her when she heard the door close, making out a figure coming her way before realising it wasn’t Monique.

At least she wouldn’t have to share her nachos.

“Sorry, this seat’s taken,” she called out as the girl made a beeline for her sofa.

“I know.”

Monet could make out the blue of her eyes in the dark room, the cream jumper she wore complementing them perfectly.

This time it was her struggling to find the words as Nina perched her body onto the sofa, her knees tight together, arms smoothing her skirt and hugging her knees.

“I saw your tweet,” she whispered, looking straight ahead at the screen rather than at Monet.

“I thought you thought it was nothing, you were just drunk.” Monet didn’t even try to pretend she was looking at the screen too.

Her heart was racing. Her entire body on fire.

“I spoke to your friend too, she told me you’d be here.”

“Oh.” The frames began to merge together in Monet’s mind.

“I was just nervous to say it before. But that feeling you had, I felt it too.”

Monet placed a hand on the girl’s knee, noticing how her foot was starting to bounce.

She never wanted to take it away.

“I-” Monet started her sentencing only to be shushed from behind.

“We have to be quiet,” Nina whispered.

Monet moved towards her, their lips centimetres apart.

She looked at Nina and could have sworn she saw the flame that was burning in her chest in the girl’s eyes too, lighting up the darkness around them.

“Well, let’s stop talking then.”

#rpdr fanfiction #nina west #monet x change #monique heart #ninex #background momo #background branjie #lesbian au #fic challenge #black girl magic fic #ashley #tw anxiety #concrit welcome #diversity fic #got my number

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mariephillipswriter · 4 years ago

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Square Eyes

Do they still say that if you watch too much television you'll get square eyes? Or is that an expression that went out of fashion when kids started spending all their time in front of the internet? Putting aside the obvious riposte (televisions aren't square, they're rectangular) I can report that I have been doing extensive research in this area and have come to the scientific conclusion: no, you won't. I have been watching so much television. SO MUCH TELEVISION. I never believed that I could watch such an immense quantity of television. On the whole I don't watch it during the day except for sometimes when I am having my breakfast and also when having my lunch, but in the evenings, when I have finished pretending to work, I might start watching television at about 6pm, or 5pm, or 4pm on a bad day, and keep going until, say, 11pm or midnight. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE. HOW CAN A PERSON LIVE THIS WAY. Well it's easy enough, it turns out, if you're under lockdown in London in December and it's dark from 4pm and raining most of the time and you have the emotional resources of a gnat and reading is too demanding and talking on the phone is too exhausting and the light in the living room is not good enough for doing a puzzle in evening hours and you quit social media a month or so ago because it was driving you out of your mind with anxiety. I don't watch six or seven or eight hours of television every night. Don't be ridiculous. Some nights I only watch about three hours of television because I have a Zoom call or I'm cooking dinner or I've got stuck into a good cryptic crossword, maybe the Saturday Times Jumbo one because the Guardian ones are too gimmicky, or at last I've found a book gripping yet easy enough that I can't put it down (thank you Robert Galbraith, thank you Marian Keyes), but I would say that three hours is the minimum and my god that is a LOT. EVERY DAY. THREE HOURS. MINIMUM. But you don't need to me to explain that to you because you are all watching three four five six seven hours of television every day and when you are not watching television you are phoning your friends and first of all talking about the specific way that your own personal lockdown is terrible but then eventually saying 'what are you watching on television' because what else is there even to talk about? At the start of lockdown there was quite a small pool of television that everyone was watching (that thing about the Tiger King, which I didn't watch because by the time I got back from my early lockdown in Costa Rica you'd all seen it, and Normal People which I didn't watch because I was too embarassed to sit through all the sex scenes with my flatmates, and I May Destroy You, which I didn't watch because about five minutes of it was enough to send me into a massive panic spiral, but I hear was very good), but once we had all (other than me) got through that and Covid dragged on for months, our conversations began taking on the tenor of Vikings crowding around one another as a boat returns from a foray, WHAT IS OUT THERE, WHAT DID YOU FIND OUT THERE, IS THERE SOMETHING OUT THERE THAT I MIGHT DESIRE? And the Viking says yes, there is this thing called Schitts Creek but you really have to push on through the first season because I promise you it gets better and better and you will start to love that obnoxious family. And then we all watched Schitts Creek. (Including me, it's wonderful, you have to push on through the first series you will start to love that obnoxious family, Dan Levy is a divinity in human form and if you want more of him you could do worse than checking out the lesbian Christmas-themed romcom Happiest Season, which you can rent from Amazon Prime.) And now we are beyond even that and all our lives resonate with the screeching sound of a televisual barrel being scraped and now this is when things get really interesting (or put another way, VERY VERY BORING) because everyone has fractured and we are all watching different kinds of random stuff found in the dusty corners and unloved algorithms of our streaming services. There's the friend who has got into watching obscure French crime series on Netflix (The Chalet! La Mante!) and the friend who is watching every episode of Poirot on Britbox (thirteen series, 70 episodes) (though that pales in comparison with the friend who did a total rewatch of Friends from beginning to end (236 episodes) and finished it ages ago and is starving for more) and the friend who calls me up seemingly every week with a new old show nobody else has ever heard of (such as the early 1990s Nigel Havers and Warren Clarke comedy spy drama Sleepers, which he is watching old-school-style on DVD, and which apparently is like The Americans only with Nigel Havers and funny, and also, you should watch The Americans.) When I look back on the amount of television I have watched this year it defies comprehension. There were the things I would have watched anyway like the whole of Strictly Come Dancing and His Dark Materials, and the things that took me by surprise, like the stealthily hilarious Danny Dyer gameshow The Wall that was on straight after Strictly and drove me into a total obsession with the way that Danny Dyer says "Drop 'Em" (he's talking about the balls that are dropped down the wall, it's hard to explain, you can find it on iPlayer, but meanwhile if you only click on one link in this whole newsletter PLEASE click on that one), there were the things that were created especially to get me through lockdown (the wonderful David Tennant and Michael Sheen Zoom comedy Staged, which is not only extremely funny but allows you to see inside David Tennant's house which I'm not sure I am technically allowed to watch because of the restraining order? Anyway, new series coming on Monday, fellow DT fans) and the familiar things I watched to soothe me when it all got too much (Doctor Who, starting before Tennant even gets in on the action, right at the begining of the New Who seasons with Christopher Eccleston, because armchair space travel is the only kind of travel we are going to be getting for a while) and the exciting things I watched when I could no longer bear the tedious repetition of every identical day (Line of Duty, in which the famous-for-the-far-inferior Bodyguard writer Jed Mercurio delivers ludicrously compelling twisty-turny stories about police corruption that cannot be predicted for even a nanosecond) and the things that I watched just because I loved them (Fosse/Verdon, the Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon bio-series starring the breathtakingly charismatic Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams, which is one of the best-made pieces of television I've ever seen, Love Life, the Anna Kendrick romantic comedy series which was surprisingly touching and truthful about the relationships that make up a life and which didn't make me want to open a vein as a single person the way that many looking-for-love shows do, and Better Things, a sort-of-comedy sort-of-drama written, directed by and starring Pamela Adlon, which began as a collaboration with Louis CK and initially reflected the sensibility of his show Louie, but became far more experimental and interesting once, after CK's disgrace, Adlon took over completely - the fourth series is maybe the closest thing I've seen on TV to a representation of the rhythms of real life, with long scenes of Adlon just cooking a meal on her own, or contemplating the rain, of having arguments with her children that explode from nowhere and end just as suddenly with tears or laughter or nothing at all.) And this entire paragraph is just things that I have watched on the BBC. Not even everything that I have watched on the BBC. The BBC is INCREDIBLE and my license fee has been serious value for money, before you even count all that time spent watching the news [Munch Scream emoji]. But overall, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of television that I have watched this year. Though while we're here, have you noticed that sometimes it's more relaxing to watch something bad than something good? Have you noticed that a vapid, cliched show like Virgin River (heartbroken city nurse with a secret moves to small town and falls in love with battle-wounded bartender with a secret), a show that makes This Is Us look like Succession, has the same effect on your brain that taking off your work shoes and putting on your slippers has for your feet? You can rest now, it says, there is nothing more for you to do. Have you noticed how easy it is to chug down, say, four episodes in a row of Designated Survivor - a show designed by a committee charged with taking elements of The West Wing, Homeland and 24, and making something similar but, crucially, much more ridiculous - without your mind even noticing that anything has happened at all? And if you're really ready for something utterly idiotic, might I suggest The Bold Type, in which three twentysomething girls in bonkers designer outfits "work" at an aspirationally "feminist" glossy magazine, and by "work" I mean constantly leave the office in the middle of the day to take care of personal business, and by "feminist" I mean "empowering women by for example having them post selfies of themselves looking perfect but without makeup on social media", a feminism so very feminist that they called the magazine's parent company Steinem in the first series and then had to change it to Safford, I can only presume because Gloria Steinem threatened to sue them. A couple of episodes of that is the televisual equivalent of having a nice relaxing full frontal lobotomy. Don't get me wrong: I love these shows. I owe them more gratitude than I can say. I would be unable to survive without them. I've managed to watch five hours of television just since starting this post24 hours ago (three episodes of Doctor Who, half a really cheap and very bad Sky Arts documentary about the musical Hamilton, and a travelogue in which Torvill and Dean go in search of a frozen lake in Alaska on which to dance Bolero but can't find one for almost the entire show because of global warming, which made me simultaneously and conflictingly want to give up air travel, fly to Alaska immediately, become obsessed with Torvill and Dean AND wonder how they managed to skate together all these decades without killing each other especially Torvill but also especially Dean). Five hours of TV, sounds like a lot, but with eight hours of sleep, that still left me eleven hours to fill in this boring boring boring boring BORING BORING BORING boring boring BORING boring BORING BORING lockdown. I think I am being incredibly restrained, all things considered. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some time to kill, having finished writing this post, and with at least five hours to fill before bed. I wonder what's on TV?

***

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ryanmeft · 5 years ago

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Ryan’s Favorite Films of 2019

A stuttering detective,

A top hat-wearing vamp

A forced-perspective war,

A bit of Blaxploitation camp

Prisoners on a space ship

Having sex with bears

A writer goes remembering

Whenever his pain flares

A prancing, dancing Hitler

A gambler high on strife

Here will go cavorting with

A mom who becomes a wife

A family plot with many threads

Three men against their own

A stuntman and his actor

A mobster now quite alone

Doubles under the earth

Two men in a tall house

Are here to watch a woman who

Is battling with her spouse

A family’s plans for their strong son

Go awry one night

A man rejects his country

Which is spoiling for a fight

A house built by his grandpa

(Maybe; we’re not sure)

Looks out upon three prisoners

Whose passions are a lure

All these are on my list this year

It’s longer than before

Because picking only ten this time

Was too great of a chore

What are limits anyway?

They’re just things we invented

I don’t really find them useful

So, this year, I’ve dissented

You may have noticed this time out

That numbers, I did grant

Promise they’ll stay in this order, though?

Now that, I just can’t

I’m always changing my mind

Because, after all, you see

Good film is about the heart

And mine’s rather finicky

There are a lot more I could name

(And I’ll change my mind at any time)

For now, though, consider these

The ones I found sublime

20. Motherless Brooklyn

I’ve got a (hard-boiled) soft spot for 90’s neo-noirs like L.A. Confidential, Red Rock West and Seven, and Edward Norton’s ‘50’s take on Jonathan Lethem’s 90’s -set novel can stand firmly in that company.

19. Doctor Sleep

There’s something about Stephen King’s best writing that transcends mere popularity; his work may not be fine literature, but it is immune to the fads of the moment. So, too, are the best movies based on that work. This one, an engaging adventure-horror, deserved better than it got from audiences.

18. Jojo Rabbit

There was a time when the anything-goes satire of Mel Brooks could produce a major box office hit. Disney’s prudish refusal to market the film coupled with the dominance of franchises means that’s no longer the case. If you bothered to give Jojo a shot, though, you got the strange-but-rewarding experience of guffawing one moment and being horrified the next.

17. By The Grace of God

I’d venture this is the least-seen film on my list; even among us brie-eating, wine-sniffing art house snobs, I rarely hear it mentioned. Focusing on the perspectives of three men dealing with a particularly heinous and unrepentant abusive priest and the hierarchy that protects him, it’s every bit as disquieting and infuriating as 2015’s Oscar-winning Spotlight.

16. Waves

You think Trey Edward Shultz’s Waves will be one thing---a domestic drama about an affluent African-American family (and that in and of itself is a rarity). Then it becomes something else entirely. It addresses something movies often avoid: that as life goes on, the person telling the story will always change.

15. Transit

You’re better off not questioning exactly where and when the film is set (it is based on a book about Nazi Germany but has been changed to be a more generalized Fascist state). The central theme here is identity, as three people change theirs back and forth based on need and desire.

14. American Woman

Movies about regular, working class, small-town American usually focus on men. This one is about a much-too-young mother and grandmother, played brilliantly by Sierra Miller, dealing with unexpected loss and the attendant responsibilities she isn’t ready for.

13. Marriage Story

There is an argument between a married couple in here that is as true a human moment as ever was on screen---free of trumped-up screenplay drama and accurate to how angry people really argue. The entire movie strives to be about the kind of realistic divorce you don’t see on-screen. It is oddly refreshing.

12. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 70’s Tinseltown is essentially a question: What if the murder that changed the industry forever had gone down differently? Along the way, it also manages to be a clever and insightful study of fame and fulfillment, or lack thereof.

11. High Life

Claire Denis is damned determined not to be boring. Your reaction to her latest film will probably depend on how receptive you are to that as the driving force of a film. Myself, I’m very receptive. I want to see the personal struggles of convicts unwittingly shipped into space, told without Action-Adventure tropes, in a movie that sometimes misfires but is never dull.

10. Dolemite Is My Name

And fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game! Look, if you don’t like naughty words, you probably shouldn’t be reading my columns---and you definitely shouldn’t be watching this movie. Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, the ambitious, irrepressible and endlessly optimistic creator of Blaxpoitation character Dolemite. Have you seen the 1975 film? It’s either terrible and wonderful, or wonderful and terrible, and the jury’s still out. Either way, Moore in the film is a self-made comic who establishes himself by talking in a unique rhyming style that speaks to black Americans at a time when black pop culture (and not just the white rendition of it) was finally beginning to pierce the American consciousness. What The Disaster Artist did for The Room, this movie does for Dolemite---with the difference being I felt like I learned something I didn’t know here.

9. 1917

Breathless, nerve-wracking and somehow intensely personal even though it almost never takes time to slow down, it is fair to call Sam Mendes’s film a thrill ride---but it’s one that enlightens us on a fading historical time, rather than simply being empty calories. Filmed in such a way as to make it seem like one continuous, two-hour take, for which some critics dismissed it as a gimmick, the technique is used to lock us in with the soldiers whose mission it is to save an entire division from disaster. We are given no information or perspective that the two central soldiers---merely two, in a countless multitude---do not have, and so we are with them at every moment, deprived of the relief of omniscience. I freely admit I tend to give anything about World War I the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no doubt that the movie earns my trust.

8. Ash Is Purest White

Known by the much less cool-sounding name Sons and Daughters of Jianghu in China, here is a story that starts off ostensibly about crime---a young woman and her boyfriend are powerful in the small-potatoes mob scene of a dying industrial town---but after the surprising first act becomes a meditation on life, perseverance and exactly how much power is worth, anyway, when it is so fleeting and so easily lost. What do you do when everything that defined you is gone? You go on living. This is my first exposure to writer-director Jia Zhangke, an oversight I must strive hard to correct in future.

7. Knives Out

The whodunit is a lost art, a standard genre belonging to a time when mass audiences could appreciate a picture even if someone didn’t run, yell or explode while running and yelling every ten minutes. Rian Johnson and an all-star cast rescued it from the brink of cinematic extinction and gave it just enough of a modern injection to keep it relevant. Every second of the film is engaging; Johnson even manages to have a character whose central trait is throwing up when asked to lie, and he makes it seem sympathetic rather than juvenile. The fantastic cast of characters is backed up with all the qualities of “true” cinema: perfect camerawork, an effective score, mesmerizing production design. As someone who didn’t much care for Johnson’s Star Wars outing, I’m honestly put out this didn’t do better at the box office than it did.

6. A Hidden Life

After a few questionable efforts and completely losing the thread with the execrable vanity project Song to Song, Terence Malick returns to his bread and butter: meditative dramas on the nature of faith, family, and being on the outside looking in, which encompass a healthy dose of nature, philosophy and people talking without moving their lips. That last is a little dig, but it’s true: Malick does Malick, and if you don’t like his thing, this true story about a German dissenter in World War II will not change your mind. For me, what Malick has done is that rarest of things: he had made a movie about faith, and about a character who is faithful, without proselytizing. That the closeness and repressiveness of the Nazi regime is characterized against Malick’s typical soaring backdrops is a masterstroke, and the best-ever use of his visual style.

5. The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers is a different kind of horror filmmaker. After redefining what was possible with traditional horror monsters in The Witch, he returned with something that couldn’t be more different: an exploration of madness more in the vein of European film than American. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are two men stranded in a lighthouse together slowly losing their minds, or what is left of them. The haunting score and stark, black-and-white photography evoke a nightmare caught on tape, something we’re not supposed to be seeing. It’s not satisfying in a traditional way, but for those craving something more cerebral from horror, Eggers has it covered.

4. Us

I have become slightly notorious in my own little circle for not thinking Get Out was the greatest film ever made, and now I’ve become rather known for thinking Us just might be. Ok, so that’s definite hyperbole: “greatest” is a tall claim for almost any horror movie. Yet here Jordan Peele shows that he can command an audience’s attention even when not benefiting from a popular cultural zeitgeist in terms of subject matter. It’s a movie with no easy or clear message, one that specializes in simply unsettling us with the idea that the world is fundamentally Not Right. I firmly believe that if Peele becomes a force in the genre, 50 years from now when he and all of us are gone, his first film will be remembered as a competent start, while this will be remembered as the beginning of his greatness.

3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Ostensibly about urban gentrification, this story of a young black man trying to save his ancestral home from the grasping reach of white encroachment is a flower with many petals to reveal. Don’t let my political-sounding description turn you off: the movie is not a polemic in the slightest, but rather a wry, sensitive look at people, their personalities and how those personalities are intertwined with the places they call home. Though the movie is the directorial debut of Joe Talbot, it is based loosely on the memories and feelings of his friend Jimmie Falls, who also plays one of the two central characters. If you’ve ever watched a place you love fall to the ravages of time and change, this movie may strike quite a chord with you.

2. Uncut Gems

When asked why this movie is great, I usually say that it was unbelievably stressful and caused me great anxiety. This description is not usually successful in selling it. The Safdie Brothers have essentially filmed chaos: a man self-destructing in slow-motion, if you can call it slow. Howard Ratner has probably been gradually exploding all his life; he strikes you as someone who came out of the womb throwing punches. He’s an addictive gambler who loves the risk much more than the reward, and can’t gain anything good in life without risking it on a proverbial roll of the dice. His behavior is destructive. His attitude is toxic. Why do we root for him? Perhaps because, as played by Adam Sandler, he never has any doubt as to who he is---something few of us can say. He’s an asshole, but he’s a genuine asshole, and somehow that’s appealing even when you’re in his line of fire.

1. Pain and Glory

When I realized I would, for the first time, have the chance to see a Pedro Almodovar film on the screen, I was overjoyed. His movies aren’t always great, but that was of little concern: he’s one of the handful of directors on the planet who can fairly call back to the avant-garde traditions of Bergman or Truffaut, making the movies he wants to make about the things he want to make them about, and I’d never seen one of his films when it was new and fresh, only months or years later on DVD.

It seems I picked right, as his latest has been almost universally hailed as one of the best of his long career. An aging, aching filmmaker spends his days in his apartment, ignoring the fans of his original hit film and most of his own acquaintances, alive or dead---he tries hard to put his memories away. Throughout the course of the movie, he re-engages with most of them in one way or another, coming to terms with who he is and where he’s been, though not in a Hallmark-movie-of-the-week way. Antonio Banderas plays him in the role that was always denied him by his stud status in Hollywood. It isn’t simply him, though: every person we meet is engaging and, we sense, has their own story outside of how they intersect with his. Most engaging is that of his deceased mother, who in her youth was played vivaciously by a sun-toughened Penelope Cruz. Perhaps Almodovar will tell us some of their stories some day. Perhaps not. I would read an entire book of short fiction all about them. This is the year’s best film.

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luciferpens · 4 years ago

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( TOM ELLIS, MALE, HE/HIM ) ⌇ have you seen WESTON BENNETT around icaria? they are the 37 year old child of NYX they remind me of DARK CORNERS, WHISKEY ON A PIANO, and MOONLESS NIGHTS. They’ve been on the island for 2 months.

BASICS

FULL NAME: Weston Bennett

NICKNAMES: Wes

FACE CLAIM: Tom Ellis

AGE: Thirty-seven

SEXUALITY: pansexual & panromantic

DATE OF BIRTH: February 20

GENDER/PRONOUNS: cis male he/him

EDUCATION: ????

OCCUPATION: Panist at Supernova. Mafia son.

GODLY PARENT: Nyx

GODLY POWERS: Ability to melt into shadows and be totally unseen, teleportation within shadow/darkness, can manipulate the shadows to look like other things (think peter pan’s shadow), if you’re already asleep he can push you deeper into sleep or bring you out of it. Honestly, his darkness is so heavy that most people when they view it think they’ve fallen asleep.

BIO + BULLET POINTS

Born to Anthony Bennett and his wife Lilian Bennett. (Though his actual mother is Nyx)

Has an adopted half brother. Deacon Lock.

His family has worshiped Nyx for generations and they were granted blessings and protections by Nyx as long as they used what was given to them to protect others

This lead to them starting a crime organization to vindicate those wronged by family members, lovers, police, or any other number of things.

Weston Bennett was the first and only biological child Anthony Bennett. He and his wife could not have been any prouder to be blessed by Nyx with a child of hers. One would have thought Lilian would have been pissed her husband effectively cheated on her with the goddess -- but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. The family, and the family before them and those before them, all worshiped Nyx. Anthony came from a line of Nyx worshipers that could be traced all the way back to ancient Greece. Nyx continuously blessed the line with protections and blessings with the promise that they would use what blessing they earned to protect those less fortunate.

Of course, the family honored Nyx in whatever ways they could, and three generations ago had started a crime organization that specifically went after those wronged, hurt, or murdered by family, lovers, police, or the government. They were vigilantes, and never charged for their services but if someone paid them they wouldn’t refuse the payments either. And boy -- did people end up paying. Because of their blessing from Nyx it allowed them to slip in and out of places unnoticed and safe as long as it was dark.

And then -- Weston was born. They knew he would be the one to take over the family one day, for they knew he would be blessed with actual powers from Nyx herself. Her blood ran through his veins and they did everything they could to train him up to be the best leader they could. Now Weston will say he is nowhere near as good as his father and doesn’t believe he ever will be. His father is kind, loving, and amazing at what he does. His mother, a lawyer (and their protection) skilled and the best around. Weston -- doesn’t feel the same towards himself, he feels rather inferior when it comes to his parents. But he loves them dearly.

He was a decently normal kid growing up, or as normal as one could be being trained by a mafia family. He was trained in stealth by Nyx herself and trained in defense by his adoptive one. His father and uncle taught him how to kill and trained in poison by his aunt. Outside of that though? Weston really did try to be normal, he took piano lessons because both of his mothers loved the sound, he participated in drama, wasn’t great in school, but made friends anyways. He dated, fell in and out of love as he grew older.

It was when he turned into a young adult, that things started to change. He was pulled into more missions, put on the spot, and actually had to use all the training he had gained since a teen. He was scared out of his mind his first couple of missions, terrified of getting caught of hurting or killing someone -- but when he learned and actually digested what it was they were doing he came to understand, to enjoy what he did and to be good at what he did. Weston enjoyed getting vengeance for those hurt, enjoyed seeing light appear in their eyes when they realized that for the first time in a long time they were truly safe.

Weston, or at least his kills, became a well-known assassin within crime families. No one knew who it was exactly who killed these people but each was so clean and left no trace. They seemed either completely natural or accidental but to those with trained eyes, other assassins or crime families usually, could tell this was the work of a single assassin. He was 21 years old when Nyx returned to their life with a big surprise -- this time it was another child of hers. Taken from his family because of the abuse he was enduring and given to the Bennett’s for protection.

He was an adult, sure, but Weston loved his little brother more than most 21-year-olds would like having a 9-year-old suddenly in their family. He loved having a brother, another child of Nyx. One he could help come to terms with their powers and be there for in case the boy needed him. He was there for whatever Deacon needed happy to be of any help.

It was around the age of 26 that he met Vivian, saving her from a mugger. The two became the best of friends. And he watched as she fell in love with Charlie. It wasn’t until a couple of years later when he found out that Charlie was involved in human trafficking........ specifically demi-god trafficking. The rage that boiled in him when he realized that his next target was Viv was unmatched. He planned with his coworkers and they had a whole setup ready, to take out the buyer and Charlie in one go. But things when horribly ary when Viv ended up in the car with Charlie. Charlie let his emotions get ahold of him and the car spun out of control -- all Wes could do was throw his powers around Viv to protect her from sure death. And he did.... but she knew, knew it was him and knew he killed her boyfriend. Their friendship ended soon after.

Weston then threw himself deeper into the family business, focused his every fiber on building them up and making them more powerful. His goal was to take out the human trafficking ring and to help finally get what Nyx desired... even if it killed him to do so. A more peaceful world -- even if the result of that was him having to kill more people.

HEADCANONS/WANTED CONNECTIONS

Anyone from his childhood. Especially anyone would might have thought something was weird about him

An ex-boyfriend or girlfriend who knows of what his family does.

Someone he’s helped over the years!

Friends of the family who know what he does.

#weston #icaria: intro

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mxystan · 5 years ago

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Extra: Lotus Pods 1

i don’t know if others have done this already, but here are my translations for ch126 and ch127 of mdzs, the lotus pod extras (adapted once in audio drama season 1)

featuring: summer shenanigans, yunmeng kids doing Crimes and having Fun, single dog jiang cheng

Chapter 126, Extra 6: Lotus Pods 1 (gdocs mirror)

Chapter 127, Extra 6: Lotus Pods 2 (gdocs mirror)

Lotus Pier.

Outside the training hall, the cicadas chirped noisily.

Inside the training hall, fallen bodies lined the floor in rows, too pathetic to even look at.

A dozen shirtless teenagers laid in there, tossing and turning, like pancakes on a hot pan, occasionally letting out pitiful keens.

“It’s… so hot….”

“I’m dying…”

Wei Wuxian squinted up at the ceiling, his thoughts muddled by the heat. Man, he thought, if only it could be as cool as the Cloud Recesses in here!

The floor underneath him had already warmed, having absorbed some of his body temperature, so he flipped over, hoping to cool that side as well. At the same time, Jiang Cheng turned as well, his arm brushing against Wei Wuxian’s leg as he did so.

Wei Wuxian’s response was immediate. “Jiang Cheng, move your arm. It feels like a piece of coal.”

“Move your leg first,” Jiang Cheng groaned.

“A leg’s heavier than an arm,” Wei Wuxian shot back. “It’d take more effort for me to move. You do it.”

Jiang Cheng’s temper suddenly flared. “Don’t you start with that,” he said. “Shut your goddamn mouth, the heat gets more insufferable the more you talk!”

“Can you two stop arguing?” asked the youngest disciple. “I swear I’m sweating more just listening to you guys.”

But at that point, the two of them had already started fighting, slapping and kicking feebly at each other as they yelled:

“Fuck off!”

“You fuck off!”

“No no no, you may fuck off!”

“No, I insist, you may kindly fuck off first!”

Hearing this, the six younger disciples joined in as well, their chorus of angry complaints blending seamlessly into the squabbling.

“If you’re gonna fight, take it outside!”

“I’m begging you here, both of you please fuck off!”

“Hear that?” said Wei Wuxian. “They’re telling you to fuck off. You… let go of my leg! You’re gonna break it!!”

A vein twitched in Jiang Cheng’s temple. “They were talking to you, you piece of shit! I’ll let go of your leg when you let go of my arm!”

From outside the screen door, they suddenly heard the rustle of skirts.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian immediately separated.

Jiang Yanli poked her head in, looking around. “Ah,” she said. “So this is where you all were hiding.”

The disciples received her warmly with calls of “Shijie!” and “Hello Shijie!” Some of them, more easily abashed, scrambled to hide their bare chests in front of her and scurried away to squat in a corner.

“How come you all decided to take a break for today?” Jiang Yanli asked.

“We were dying out there,” whined Wei Wuxian. “It’s so hot today! Too hot! If we try to practice in these conditions, our skin would peel off! Please, don’t tell on us!”

Hearing him, Jiang Yanli turned her head and took a closer look at him and Jiang Cheng. “Have you two been fighting again?”

“No!”

Jiang Yanli let herself in, carefully balancing a plate in her hands. “Then why is there a footprint on Jiang Cheng’s chest?”

Did he actually leave evidence? Wei Wuxian snapped his head around to check. He really did!

But, at this point, no one cared if he and Jiang Cheng had been fighting. Everyone’s attention was now singularly focused on the plate of watermelon in Jiang Yanli’s hands.

–

The horde of growing young men made quick work of dividing up the fruit, and now sat on the floor, munching on their slices. It didn’t take long for a small mountain of watermelon skins to appear.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian could make a competition out of any activity. Watermelon eating, of course, was no exception. With ferocious speed, they shoved slice after slice into their mouths, with such intensity that the rest left them a wide berth to avoid the inevitable splashback.

Wei Wuxian engaged in the competition with great enthusiasm, eating with gusto. Halfway through a bite, though, he suddenly let out an amused snort.

“Don’t you dare,” said Jiang Cheng, a little wary.

Wei Wuxian grabbed another slice. “What? Don’t worry, I wasn’t gonna do anything. I was just thinking about someone, that’s all.”

“Who?”

“Lan Zhan.”

Jiang Cheng groaned. “Why the hell are you bringing him up again? Do you miss copying sect rules that much?”

Wei Wuxian spat out some seeds. “I was thinking about how fun he was! You know, he’s pretty interesting. I told him, once, that the food they make at his place was truly atrocious, I’d rather eat fried watermelon skin than the bland food they serve here! Why not just come over to Yunmeng-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Jiang Cheng interrupted with a swipe at his watermelon, slapping it askew. “What were you thinking, asking him to come over? Are you a goddamn masochist?”

“Hey hey hey! You almost made me drop my melon! I was just saying that, he wasn’t actually gonna come over. I mean, can you imagine him just doing something like that, going off to play on his own?”

Jiang Cheng’s tone, however, was still serious. “Still, I don’t want him here. Don’t just go around inviting other people over.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “I didn’t know you hated him that much?”

“I don’t,” said Jiang Cheng. “I have no real opinion of him. But if he really does come over, there’s no way my mom would ever shut up about him. And once she gets going, don’t think you’d get off easy either.”

“Whatever, let him come!” Wei Wuxian declared. “If he really does take up my offer, just tell Uncle Jiang to make him sleep in my room. I promise, I wouldn’t even need a month to annoy him to death!”

Jiang Cheng snorted. “You want to sleep together with him for a month? Then I’ll bet it wouldn’t even take a week for him to get sick of your shit and stab you to death.”

“As if I’m scared of him,” Wei Wuxian said. “If we ever fight for real, I’d be more than a handful for him.”

His boastful claim was immediately shot down with a chorus of jeers. Jiang Yanli laughed and teased him for his cheek, but even so, she knew that Wei Wuxian’s confidence was not unfounded. She moved to sit between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian.

“Who are you talking about?” she asked. “Did you make a friend in Gusu?”

“Yup!” Wei Wuxian said cheerily.

“Your definition of ‘friend’ must be loose if you’d count him as one,” Jiang Cheng deadpanned. “Ask the same question to Lan Wangji, and we’ll see if he’d accept your friendship.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Wei Wuxian said. “If he rejects me I’ll just bother him until we both die. We’ll see if he’d accept me then!”

Saying this, he turned back to Jiang Yanli. “Shijie, do you know of Lan Wangji?”

“Of course,” Jiang Yanli said, smiling. “He’s the esteemed second young master of Gusu everyone’s been talking about, right? Is he as handsome as they say?”

“Very handsome!”

“More so than you?”

Wei Wuxian paused in thought. “Maybe,” he decided. “But only by this much!”

He used his fingers to show Jiang Yanli the approximate difference between their looks, his thumb and forefinger almost touching. Jiang Yanli laughed as she collected the empty plates. “Then he must really be handsome. It’s good that you’re making new friends. If you are ever free, maybe you can visit one another?”

Jiang Cheng spat out a mouthful of melon, and Wei Wuxian immediately waved his arms in protest. “No, no, I’ll pass. The food at his place tastes bad and the rules are too strict. I’m not going back there.”

“Then you can bring him back,” Jiang Yanli replied. “This is a good opportunity, why not invite your friend over to stay for a while?”

Jiang Cheng sighed. “Don’t listen to him, Sis,” he said. “You should’ve seen how annoying he was in Gusu. There’s no way Lan Wangji would want to come over with him.”

“That’s slander!” Wei Wuxian yelled. “Of course he would!”

“Didn’t you hear Lan Wangji telling you to get lost? Or do I have to refresh your memory again?”

“Come on, you don’t get it!” Wei Wuxian said. “He might’ve told me to get lost, but I know what he really means! He really does want to come play with us in Yunmeng, I know it!”

“Every day,” said Jiang Cheng, “I want to ask myself: where the hell did you get your confidence?”

“Don’t even bother,” said Wei Wuxian. “If you’ve really been wondering that long, you should already know there’s no answer to that.”

Jiang Cheng shook his head, reached out to chuck his watermelon peel at Wei Wuxian’s head, and stopped cold at the sound of stomping feet.

From a distance, a woman’s voice called coldly.

“I was wondering where you pack of brats had gone…”

The disciples’ faces immediately blanched, and they scrambled to hide. Before they could do so, though, Madame Yu had already reached them, her flowing robes cutting an imposing silhouette as she glared down at them, her cold eyes flashing with menace. Seeing their bare chests and feet, their messiness and their dishevelment, her expression twisted further, her brows set in an even higher arch.

In this moment, the disciples only had one thought. Shit!

They scurried to make their escape, but it was already too late.

“Jiang Cheng!” Madame Yu fumed. “Put on your shirt! Walking around bare-chested like some kind of madman, what on earth were you thinking! Are you trying to embarrass me out here?”

Jiang Cheng immediately fumbled to put back on his shirt, tied around his waist. Madame Yu then turned to the rest of them. “And you lot! Don’t you see A-Li’s here? Showing your sorry faces in front of a maiden in this condition, who taught you to be so shameless?”

Of course, there was only one answer to that question. So, to no one’s surprise, Madame Yu’s next move was to glare at her new target and shout, “Wei Ying! Do you want to die!?”

“I’m sorry!” Wei Wuxian yelled. “I didn’t know Shijie was coming! I’ll go get my clothes right now!”

“You dare try to leave!? Come over here and kneel!”

The crack of her whip accompanied this command, and Wei Wuxian yelped in pain as it connected with his back, knocking him down on the ground.

Suddenly, in Madame Yu’s ear, came an eerily serene voice.

“Mom, would you like to eat some watermelon…”

Madame Yu jolted, startled by Jiang Yanli. By the time she recovered, the pack of hooligans had already made their escape, taking advantage of her momentary. Frustrated, she turned back to pinch Jiang Yanli’s cheeks.

“Eat?” she scolded. “You think I want to eat? Is food all you ever think about!?”

A few tears leaked out of Jiang Yanli’s eyes as her cheeks were pulled mercilessly. “Mom, A-Xian and the others were only sheltering from the heat,” she mumbled thickly. “I was the one who came to check on them, don’t blame them too much… you… you should really eat some watermelon… I’m not sure who sent them over, but they’re very sweet. Watermelons are really refreshing in the summer, sweet and juicy, I’ve already prepared a plate for you…”

Madame Yu had already been frustrated, made more hot-tempered by the heat, and now, hearing Jiang Yanli’s words, she was actually craving watermelon on top of all that. In such a situation… there’s nothing she could do but let her frustration increase.

–

The disciples, having finally taken off from Lotus Pier, rushed towards the harbor and hopped into a rowboat. After checking multiple times to see if there were any pursuers, Wei Wuxian finally relaxed and let out a breath of relief. His back protested as he tried to lift the oars, so he handed them off to one of his juniors and sat down to check on his back, still stinging from Madame Yu’s whip. “It’s really not fair,” he sulked. “Everyone was equally naked, so why was I the only one who got yelled at? Why was I the only one who got hit?”

“Perhaps because the sight of you shirtless burns the eyes,” said Jiang Cheng.

Wei Wuxian gave him a look, and jumped into the water. The rest of the disciples saw this and followed his example, leaving Jiang Cheng alone on the boat.

Jiang Cheng had a bad feeling about this. “What the hell are you trying to do!?”

Wei Wuxian swam over to the side of the boat and gave it a hard smack. The boat flipped over with Jiang Cheng in it, bobbing up and down in the water, its bottom facing straight up. Laughing madly, Wei Wuxian hopped onto the bottom, plopped down in a cross-legged sit, and grinned down at the fallen Jiang Cheng.

“Eyes still burning?” he shouted. “Give us an answer, c’mon!”

The only response his teasing got was the sound of bubbles rising to the surface. Wei Wuxian wiped his face, puzzled. “Why hasn’t he come up yet?”

The youngest disciple gasped. “Did you drown him!?”

“Don’t be stupid!” Wei Wuxian said. Still, he sat back up, thinking to lend Jiang Cheng a hand, and suddenly heard a loud grunt from behind him. He could only utter a confused “huh” before he too fell into the water, pushed from behind by a sopping Jiang Cheng. The boat flipped back up. It turned out Jiang Cheng had stayed in the water after being pushed into it, and had bided his time so he could circle around and ambush Wei Wuxian.

Having both gotten the upper hand once, they circled each other in challenge while the others continued to splash around.

“How come you get a weapon!?” Wei Wuxian shouted from the other side of the boat. “Put down the oar if you’re up for it! We’ll fight with our fists!!”

Jiang Cheng chuckled coldly. “Do you think me stupid? You’ll take it the second I put it down!”

Saying this, he lunged at Wei Wuxian with speedy grace, whacking him mercilessly with the paddle as their juniors cheered him on. Taken by surprise, Wei Wuxian fumbled and bluffed, “Hey! I’m not that shameless!”

From all around him, the juniors laughed. “Only you’d be shameless enough to say that!”

The water fight continued, a messy, ruthless affair. Wei Wuxian kicked at Jiang Cheng until he finally collapsed on top of the boat and spat out a mouthful of pond water. “Alright, alright, I surrender! I declare a truce!”

The juniors, covered in weeds and pond-grass, protested, having only just gotten into the fun part. “Come on, why are you giving up so easily? Are you really going to beg for mercy just because you’re losing?”

“Who says I’m begging for mercy?” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m saving my strength for a rematch! I’m just too hungry to move for now, so let’s find something to eat.”

“Then should we go back?” asked the youngest. “We can probably squeeze in a few watermelons before dinner.”

“If we go back now,” said Jiang Cheng, “the only thing we’ll be eating is whip.”

Wei Wuxian, however, had already planned for this situation. “We’re not going back. We’re picking lotus pods!”

“Stealing,” Jiang Cheng corrected mockingly. “We’re stealing lotus pods.”

“It’s not like we don’t pay them back!”

The Yunmeng Jiang sect took good care of the villages around it, and never charged for exorcisms. So, for the villagers, handing over a few lotus pods wouldn’t be a big deal; hell, some of them wouldn’t even argue against reserving an entire acre for the sect that helps them so much. Still, for every melon that they stole, every chicken that they swiped, and every dog they accidentally knocked out, Jiang Fengmian would send people to compensate the losses incurred.

So, there was no need for them to go around “stealing” in secret. It wasn’t like they were just lawless hooligans. They were kids looking for the thrill of the chase, indulging in the freedom of their youth.

The disciples boarded the boat and, after rowing for a while, arrived at one of the lotus ponds in the area.

The pond was a vast expanse of verdancy, layered with thick swathes of jade-green leaves, the smallest the size of dinner plates, and the largest the size of umbrellas. They were sparser around the perimeter of the pond, lying flat on its surface, but grew thicker as they progressed towards the center. The leaves pushed against each other in that space, forming a wall just large enough for the disciples to hide themselves behind as they rowed themselves in.

Still, if anyone tried to look closer and noticed the disturbance of the leaves in the water, they’d know immediately that someone was up to no good.

They made their way further into this verdant expanse, surrounded by lotus pods on all sides. Seeing this, the disciples left one of their number behind to guard their boat, and began to make their move.

The large, round lotus pods stood high on elegant stalks covered in small thorns that did not pierce the skin even as they were snapped, cut down with a single flick of the wrist. The stems were picked along with their heads, left long enough so that they could be stuck into vases, preserved for a few more days. Apparently, this was supposed to make the pods more tender and juicy when they were eaten later. Wei Wuxian didn’t know where he had heard this, or if it was even true, but he had repeated this advice nonetheless to anybody who would listen.

He looked over his pickings and plucked a few particularly ripe-looking seeds from them, tossing them into his mouth. The seeds were tender and juicy, and he hummed happily as he chewed on them.

“I’ll give you some lotus pods, what will you have for me…”

Jiang Cheng overheard his singing and looked at him. “Who are you giving them to?”

“Doesn’t matter!” Wei Wuxian said. “I just know they’re not for you!”

He was about to throw one of the pods at Jiang Cheng’s face when he was suddenly shushed. “Shit, the old man’s here today!”

The old man was the owner of the pond, the one who planted the lotuses in the first place. Wei Wuxian didn’t know exactly how old the owner was, but by his own standards, anyone who looked older than Uncle Jiang could be considered an old man. The old man had been the master of this pond for as long as Wei Wuxian could remember, always vigilant on hot summer days to give those who would steal from his territory a harsh beating.

Wei Wuxian suspected the old man might be the reincarnation of a lotus spirit. After all, he knew the exact number of lotuses on his property probably better than he knew the back of his own hand, being able to tell exactly how many of his lotuses went missing, and would deal out the exact same amount of beatings in return.

In the lotus ponds, the old man’s bamboo stick was far more wieldy than their oars. Hurt more, too, when he used it to whack them.

The disciples all knew and understood the terror of getting hit by an angry old man with a stick. Fumbling with their oars, speaking in panicked whispers the entire time, the disciples made their hasty escape out of the ponds.

But when they finally got up the courage to look up, the old man’s boat had already emerged from the thick forest of lotus leaves, and was quickly gaining on them. Wei Wuxian squinted at his approaching figure and cocked his head. “Strange!”

Jiang Cheng stood up as well. “How is he so fast?”

Hearing their confusion, the other disciples looked back as well. The old man’s boat was loaded down with lotus pods, but he wasn’t using any effort to row himself along. In fact, his rowing stick was lying unused to the side. And yet his pace was both steady and fast, faster than the group of disciples could row.

This was too strange to ignore. Wei Wuxian motioned towards the boat. “Come on, let’s check this out.”

As they rowed closer to the old man, the disciples could finally see what was going on. Next to the old man’s boat was the fuzzy outline of a white shadow lurking under the water!

Wei Wuxian turned around, pointer finger pressed against his lips. They needed to be cautious to avoid startling the old man and the water ghoul. Jiang Cheng nodded in return, and they rowed soundlessly forward.

They were about three zhang away from the old man when they saw an ashy-pale hand reach up from the water to snatch one of the lotus pods in the back of the old man’s boat. The hand then disappeared into the water, as silently as it had emerged.

A few second later, two shells floated to the surface.

The disciples stared in shock. “Shit, even ghouls are stealing lotus pods now?!”

The old man finally noticed them and turned around immediately, his stick sweeping the water as he did so. This motion startled the water ghoul, and it disappeared, leaving not a trace of its pale shadow behind.

Now, the disciples were really in for it. Looking at each other in panic, they wondered, What the hell do we do now!?

Wei Wuxian delved into the water, towards the bottom. A moment later, he resurfaced, holding something in his hand. “Don’t worry, I got it!”

The thing in his hand was a small water ghoul, its appearance ashy and pale but looking like a child of about 12 or 13 years, frozen in terror, looking as though it was seconds away from curling up in fright under the disciples’ gazes.

At this disturbance, the old man’s stick came swinging their way. “You again!”

Wei Wuxian’s back was still recovering from the whip, and now it was struck again with the rod. He gasped at the pain, his grip on the ghoul almost loosening as he did so. Seeing this, Jiang Cheng turned to the old man.

“Use your words!” he fumed. “What are you doing, going around hitting people who are just trying to help? Our kindness is wasted on you!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Wei Wuxian placatingly. “Old… Sir, look closely. We aren’t ghouls, see? This one is.”

“I can see that!” said the old man. “I’m old, not blind! Now let it go already!”

Wei Wuxian jolted, and looked back down at the ghoul in his hands. Its demeanor was absolutely pitiful, the ghoul shaking badly, eyes brimming with tears, hands still clutching tightly to the lotus head it stole. It looked like it had only just cracked open the seeds, having not been able to taste them yet before it had been unceremoniously fished out of the water.

Jiang Cheng frowned, and looked to Wei Wuxian. “Don’t listen to him. We should bring this thing back to Lotus Pier.”

Hearing this, the old man raised his stick again.

“No no no, no need to do that again!” Wei Wuxian said. “I’ll put it back down!”

“Don’t,” warned Jiang Cheng. “What if it ends up killing someone?”

“There’s no blood on this ghoul,” said Wei Wuxian. “I don’t think it’s ever left this pond. There’ve been no deaths in the area recently, so this one has probably never killed before.”

“Just because it’s never killed before doesn’t mean it won’t kill in the future…”

The smack of the stick interrupted Jiang Cheng’s sentence before it could reach its conclusion. Jiang Cheng whipped around, snarling. “What the fuck is wrong with you, old man? Don’t you know to be afraid of ghouls!?”

The old man’s temper did not balk. “I’m already a foot in the grave! What need do I have to be afraid?”

Deciding that the ghoul wouldn’t be able to go far even if it tried, Wei Wuxian made his decision. “Alright, alright, stop fighting, I’ll let go!”

True to his word, he let go. The ghoul landed with a splash and scurried behind the old man’s boat, as though afraid to come out.

Dripping wet, Wei Wuxian climbed back into his boat.

The old man picked a lotus pod from his and threw it in the water. The ghoul ignored it.

The old man picked another one, larger, and threw it again into the water. On the surface of the water, the lotus pod bobbed.

Then a white head emerged suddenly from the surface, almost like a great white fish, and took both pods into the water. A moment later, a bit of white floated up once more, the ghoul’s shoulders and hands coming up this time as well. It slunk behind the boat and, ducking its head, began to munch on its spoils.

The juniors, looking upon the gusto with which it was eating, could not help but feel envious.

Seeing the old man throw another lotus pod into the water, Wei Wuxian stroked his chin, a little miffed. “Old man, why is it that when that thing steals your lotus pods, not only do you let it steal, you also give it a couple more to eat, but, when we do it, you only give us a beating?”

“It pushes the boat for me, what does it matter if I give it a few lotus pods in return?” The old man turned towards them. “You brats, how many did you steal today?”

Abashed silence.

Wei Wuxian snuck a look to his side and hurriedly shoveled a few dozen more into his boat, deciding to cut his losses. “Retreat!”

At this, the juniors immediately began to pick up their oars as the old man started their way, swinging his stick around wildly, his boat moving with the speed and smoothness of wind. Chills crawling up their spine, as though already feeling the weight of the stick against their heads, the juniors immediately sprang into action, rowing like mad.

The two boats circled around the vast lotus pond twice, their pursuer gaining on them by the minute. Wei Wuxian, having already been struck multiple times, finally realized that the stick only struck at him and covered his head. “Not fair!” he yelled. “Why am I the only one getting hit! Why am I the only one getting hit!!!”

“We’re counting on you, shixiong!” the juniors called back. “It’s all up to you!”

“Right,” Jiang Cheng agreed. “It’s all up to you.”

“Pah!” Wei Wuxian spat, fuming. “I’m not dealing with this!”

Grabbing a lotus pod, he threw it into the water. “Catch this!”

The lotus pod he picked was a large one, splashing into the water with a thunk. As he thought, the old man’s boat halted. The ghoul merrily swam over to fish up the lotus pod.

This opportunity before them, Lotus Pier’s boat finally took advantage of it and made its escape.

On the way back, a junior disciple began to wonder. “Da-shixiong, can ghosts taste flavor?”

“Most can’t,” answered Wei Wuxian. “But, with that little ghoul, I think that- tha… achoo!”

The sun had set by now, bringing the wind in its wake. When it blew over them, a chill settled. Wei Wuxian sneezed and rubbed his face. “That little ghoul, it probably wanted to eat lotus pods when it was alive, but couldn’t, so it decided to sneak in here and steal a few but fell into the pond and drowned. So… a… ach…”

Jiang Cheng picked up his thought. “So it developed a fixation on lotus pods in death, and now eats them to satisfy that unfulfilled wish.”

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian said. “That’s right.”

He smoothed a hand over the new wounds over his back, still stinging from the whip earlier that morning, and could not help voicing his thoughts. “This is truly unfair. Why is it that whenever something happens, I’m the only one who gets hit?”

“‘Cause you’re the most handsome,” answered a junior.

“You’re the best at cultivation,” another called.

“You look best without clothes,” came another.

The disciples all nodded in agreement.

“Thanks for the compliments,” Wei Wuxian said. “I get goosebumps hearing them.”

“You’re welcome, da-shixiong,” a junior answered. “Since you’re always taking the hits for us, you deserve even more!”

“Oh?” Wei Wuxian wondered. “You guys have more? Let’s hear it.”

Jiang Cheng, finally deciding he couldn’t take more of this shit, stepped in. “Everyone shut up! Keep saying nonsense like that and I’ll stick a hole through the bottom of this boat! I’ll take you all down with me!”

At this point, the boat passed through into another part of the water, surrounded by fields on either side. A few petite girls were working in the fields, and, when they saw the little boat approach, ran to the water, calling to them. “Ah—!”

The disciples said “Ah” in response, and began to nudge and shove at Wei Wuxian. “Shixiong, it’s for you! They’re calling for you!”

Wei Wuxian looked over. Indeed, these were the girls they’d once conversed with, with him leading the effort. The dark clouds clearing over his mood, he began to stand up and wave as well, beaming. “What is it!”

The boat floated along the current, the girls walking in pace along the shore, calling as they followed. “Have you guys gone stealing lotus pods again?”

“Quick, tell us how many times you got hit!”

“Or did you go drugging other people’s dogs again?”

Jiang Cheng heard their words and couldn’t resist kicking Wei Wuxian off the boat, wringing his hands in despair. “You complete disgrace. Look at your infamy, bringing shame to this family.”

“They said ‘you guys,’” Wei Wuxian argued. “We’re a team. If I’m bringing shame, then we’re doing it together.”

While the two continued to squabble, another girl called to them. “Were they good?”

Wei Wuxian momentarily excused himself from the fight. “What?”

“The watermelons we sent!” she said. “Were they good?”

The realization finally hit Wei Wuxian. “So you were the ones who sent the melons over!” he said. “They were really good! Why didn’t you bring them yourselves, we could’ve invited you in for tea!”

The girl laughed sweetly. “You guys weren’t there when we sent them over. We didn’t dare stay long, so we left after we handed them over. I’m just glad you liked them!”

“Thank you!” Wei Wuxian fished a few large lotus pods from the boat and grinned. “I’ll treat you to some lotus pods, so come watch me train next time, I’ll show you my sword forms!”

From beside him, Jiang Cheng scoffed. “Are your sword forms anything to look at?”

Wei Wuxian continued to throw lotus pods towards the shore. Though he threw them from a distance, they landed lightly in the girls’ hands. Pushing a few into Jiang Cheng’s hands, he gave him a shove. “What are you doing, just standing there? Hurry up.”

Shoved twice, Jiang Cheng could only accept the lotus pods. “What?”

“You ate the melons too, it’s time to pay them back,” Wei Wuxian explained. “Come on, don’t be shy, go throw some over! Throw some over!”

Jiang Cheng sneered. “Don’t be stupid, what do I have to be shy for.”

But, though he said it like that, even as the other disciples began to throw lotus pods without abandon to the shore, only he stood, unmoving.

“Then throw some over,” Wei Wuxian said. “If you throw some over, next time we see them, you can ask them if they liked the lotus pods to start a conversation again!”

“Oh, so that’s why!” the disciples exclaimed. “Thank you for the lesson, shixiong really is an old master!”

“Look at him, you can tell he does this all the time!”

“What, no way, hahaha……”

Though Jiang Cheng had already picked up a lotus pod and was preparing to throw it, these words cleared his mind. Suddenly aware of how embarrassing this was, he sat back down, peeled open the lotus pod, and began to eat.

The boat continued to float along in the water, the girls continued to walk leisurely along with it, catching the lotus pods thrown intermittently from the boat, laughing as they went along. Wei Wuxian propped his head up with his right hand, looked at this scene, and smiled with a sigh.

The other disciples looked at him.

“What wrong, da-shixiong?”

“You’ve got all these girls chasing after you, what are you sighing for?”

Wei Wuxian hefted his oar on his shoulder and huffed. “Nothing. I’m just thinking about how I so earnestly asked Lan Zhan to come play in Yunmeng, and he actually rejected me.”

The juniors stuck their thumbs up. “Wow, that’s Lan Wangji for you!”

“Shut up! I swear, I’ll drag him over here one day,” Wei Wuxian declared. “I’ll kick him off a boat, I’ll trick him into stealing lotus pods. I’ll get the old man to hit him too, and then I’ll make him run after me, hahahaha……”

He laughed, and turned around. Seeing Jiang Cheng sitting sullenly at the back, eating lotus pods alone, his smile faded.

“Ah,” he sighed. “Some people can’t be taught.”

“What?” Jiang Cheng said, angered. “I wanted to eat by myself, what of it?”

“Oh, Jiang Cheng,” said Wei Wuxian. “Whatever, you’re hopeless. Spend the rest of your life eating by yourself then!”

And so, the thieving little boat, piled up high with loot, returned once more to Lotus Pier.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #translations #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #txt

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dndplus · 6 years ago

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In-Depth: Villains, Part 2

Again, if you’re hear to learn about making a villain for your adventure/campaign and you’re a newer, less experienced DM, I highly recommend you look at my posts titled ‘Getting Started’ first, specifically the ones about making an adventure.

They can be found here:

Getting Started: Making An Adventure, Part 1 Getting Started: Making An Adventure, Part 2

If you’re here and have not looked into Part 1 of my In-Depth on Villains, it can be found here:

In-Depth: Villains, Part 1

Hello again!

We’re picking up right where we left off with the steps I laid out in Part 1. They are:

Motive, Station, Mentality, Ability (Essentially, all of Part 1)

Introducing the Villain to Your Party (We’ll start here)

The Villain’s Lackeys

Evolution

The Hill They Die On

Most of the actual “Creating” happened in part 1 with identifying a villain’s MSMA. This is only a small part of a villain, though. Having a good one made does little if they way they’re presented and used isn’t also done appropriately. For some, simply being a menacing figure is at the end of your dungeon is enough. That said, you can’t simply having one basic, menacing figure after the next over a twenty level campaign, can you?

Introducing the Villain to Your Party

This is important, make no mistake. When the party first meets the villain is just as important as when they kill it (assuming the villain doesn’t win, of course).

There are several things to consider when you introduce the villain, but the MSMA of that villain go a long way in helping you determine the details. Here’s a few basic introductions to start:

1. The Guy At the End

This is the most basic of all introductions. Essentially, an NPC in need of help will describe the villain to the players, and the players will run into them at the end of their dungeon and fight to the death. Believe it or not, as basic as this is, it can be compelling even for a campaign’s BBEG.

I recall a specific example here of an Aboleth who worked so secretly that discovering his name was an event of enormous importance in the campaign. He was never seen (or interacted with) until the very final confrontation. Rather, the players dealt with a legion of spies (in the form of Deep Scions) that acted as the main source of their player-to-villain interaction.

For simpler villains, you really can just stick them at the end of the dungeon and call it a day. The scale may go up as your players increase in level, such as in who gives them the task, and what they’re there to accomplish, but at the end of the day there’s always room for a simple “they’re the guy at the end” situation.

2. The Power That Be

A powerful politician. A corrupt member of the military or guard. The ruler of an evil kingdom. This villain is best introduced to the players through their importance to the region, without any mention to the fact that they’re to be an enemy in the future. This builds precedence, and creates drama when their involvement becomes that revelation to really kick things off down the line. It fits will with the noble-as-a-thief trope I went into detail on in Part 1.

In some cases, this villain meets with the players directly before the two groups turn adversarial. They could be someone the players report their heroic deeds to, and are thus congratulated and even rewarded. They could be a person of importance they bump elbows with while at a gathering for the rich and powerful, whether it be for something completely unrelated or not. Regardless of what you do, when this chance meeting happens, I advise finding a way to show the villain isn’t entirely genuine. This could be as blunt as them being mean to a servant, or dismissive of plights of people they think of as ‘beneath them’, but it can also be more subtle than them. The villain could be trying too hard to appear kind to the players, such as by offering favors and help should the players ever need this. This approach is particularly devious, as your players will never turn down a favor from someone who seems powerful (especially if it seems like going to them is what you intend for them to do in teh future). In this way, you create a situation where the players learn of a plot by the villain without knowing who it is yet, and thus delivering their involvement directly to the villain themselves.

3. The Old Evil

Some villains have a history of being a villain. They enact schemes meant to disrupt life for good folk and cause disorder wherever they go. They may also be a great, roaming beast that’s awoken from a thousand year slumber that the players will need to assemble help against. Regardless of your particular brand of ‘ancient, terrible evil’, you can be certain to evoke an entirely different atmosphere when you introduce this villain through a story reminiscent of the Boogey Man.

Of course, how you reach the ‘ghost story introduction’ of your villain is important as well. Show the players the effects of the villain first, such as a village in ruins at the hands of their methods, or if the villain isn’t meant to pay off until much later, put the players IN the event that terrorizes a village/city/kingdom.

In Conclusion...

Regardless of how you choose to introduce the villain, and there are obviously more than the three I gave you to get started with, remember that your villain is unique. Two different villains with the same introduction should play out differently, sometimes even drastically so. A cocky, arrogant noble is going to be blithely charismatic, whereas a cold, uncaring sociopath who cares nothing for his people will likewise be a stalwart and serious individual.

The Villain’s Lackeys

This applies to every villain, even ones without ‘actual’ lackeys. I know that may seem strange, but we’ll get that particular type of villain in a moment...

For starters, consult your villain’s MSMA. Their station as a crime lord is going to put the criminal element front and center as far as lackeys is concerned. In contrast, a warlock may have deep sea monstrosities, wicked fae, or terrible fiends at their disposal. A crime lord who’s also a warlock might have both.

How do you handle that situation, though? Typically, the beings of a patron’s background (in the case of a warlock) are of a higher power level than commonplace thugs. In this scenario, your crime boss might employ a wide variety of thugs, bandits, and the like, and have a single, somewhat powerful fiend/fey/eldritch horror as a sort of ‘mid-boss’ to the adventure.

Some villains don’t really have minions, but may live in places that are simply fraught with danger. A Behir lives in a secluded cave, one that’s particularly hard to reach, and could have any arrangement mountain monsters between the players and itself. This could be a contingent of trolls, or a group of stone giants. It’s important to understand these aren’t true lackeys, of course. In the instance of a villain like this, the players will be able to sneak by whatever stands between them and their intended target, which can drastically alter the course and pacing of an adventure.

More significant villains are going to employ a greater variety of minions, including other villains! Keep this in mind when you have two greater villains operating in a similar realm, as a ‘mid-boss’ type, lesser villain can be the thread that ties the two together.

Other villains have far less complicated lackey situations, but ones that should still be heavily considered. Liches and necromancers, for instance, will employ the undead. It’s important to know a lot about undead minions when you select what they command, though. Some liches may have apprentices who weren’t quite up to the task of achieving lichdom themselves, which would create a Boneclaw. Other liches might have a Cadaver Collector employed, which suggests that they are mechanically inclined, a fact that can be reflected in their lair and the traps they employ later. Finally, a particularly sadistic and wicked lich may be host to a Devourer, suggesting a connection to the Demon Lord of Undeath Orcus himself!

A villain’s lackeys tell a story about the villain themselves, as well as what they do and what they might become. In that vein, we move on to...

Evolution

This section will be short, but it’s important. It does not apply to minor villains, as they are meant to come and go in a short period of time. Moderate and major villains, however, can be the focus of multiple adventures. Their schemes, as well as their defeats, can shape how they present in the later segments of an adventure.

A villain who succeeds in stealing a powerful object may acquire new abilities, or perhaps that same villain kidnaps a renowned tinker and adds mechanical wonders to its list of lackeys.

On the contrary, a villain who is defeated may set itself up to better counter the players’ own abilities, or retreat to a place where it is more powerful.

This can happen in reverse, as well. Players may simply find a villain becomes more nuanced and dangerous as they grow closer. The tactics used to achieve victory may prove less effective as time goes on, or they could reach a point where they need to evolve by finding outside help.

Whatever the case, always be mindful of how the successes and failures of your villain are going to shape their actions. It keeps things from becoming stale, and empowers the notion that the players are fighting a specific character, and not just ‘whatever the DM throws at them that session’.

The Hill They Die On

Another short section, and the one we’ll conclude on. There are scenarios where your players will kill a villain before you planned to have them die, and that’s fine.

Applaud your players for pulling something like that off, whether it be because they were exceptionally clever, or your own inexperience made it possible. It’s at this moment I’ll say something I may not have said yet: always be ready for the next adventure. If your players pull off a surprise victory ahead of schedule, knowing what their next adventure is to be and letting them find their way to it will allow you time to finish the session without canceling too early. This will then give you time to prepare assets and properly build the entirety of that next adventure.

Unexpected scenarios aside, your villain has a limit. There is both a point in time when the villain must truly ‘lose’, and when your players will yearn for something new. There are a few ways to do this, but what’s most important is to understand their motives.

A necromancer looking to learn about the undead will die on the hill of ‘backed into a corner with nowhere to go’. It’s not significant, but a necromancer of that sort is not a significant villain. A necromancer working tirelessly, maybe even selflessly, to use profane magics to resurrect a loved one will sooner die before let the players foil their plot, and that is the hill they die on.

Some villains will still try to escape after their plot is foiled, only to find they have nothing once truly beaten. This villain may fade into obscurity, beaten but not dead, or that villain may develop a personal vendetta against the players. That adventure finds the players as targets, with the villain pushed to their absolute limit as they attempt to assassinate the players in a murderous rage with no regard for their own well being.

Villains have an expiration date; a period of time where their involvement as the players’ main antagonist is interesting. You can save them if you want, keep them alive to be used as a lackey to a greater villain, perhaps purely to strike at the players out of spite, but they are still no longer the main antagonist in that scenario.

I end this post here, on this somewhat dour note, because you may feel particularly proud of a villain. That’s great, be proud, and even keep that villain for later. A villain in one campaign can come back in another as an undead, or a devil, or after some other grisly transformation, and when they do they’ll be interesting again. What’s most important for now is that you say goodbye and congratulate your players when they triumph, and then get excited as you start the MSMA for the next villain they’ll love to hate.

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