#its been something like a decade since any of this happened and while i remember plenty of things from that time i remember this

[wososcripts]

Face to Face (Part 1)

Fridolina Rolfö x reader

Summary: After months of a toxic back and forth with Frido, things reach a breaking point.

Word Count: 2.2k

A/N: I know it's been forever but that's what being a full time uni student will do! I hope you all enjoy this fic as much as I do, its been a wip for a while now!

As usual this is all fiction and in good fun! Nothing is meant to represent reality. All italicized dialogue is in a language other than English, and I promise... things will get better in this fic eventually.

Warnings⚠️: unhealthy situationship lol, injury, light medical description

"Get out!" You screamed, repeating it over and over until you were alone in your bedroom.

You hated yelling. Absolutely hated it. You couldn't remember the last time before today that you had actually yelled in someone's face. Plenty of people in your sport lost their tempers and shouted on the pitch—whether at a ref or another player—but it wasn’t your style. You always managed to keep your cool. It was your sport, yes, but not your life.

You'd been yelled at too much as a child to think it had any productive effect on a situation, which may have been part of why you immediately felt horrible once Fridolina left the room. You pulled your comforter around your half-naked form, wishing you were less exposed.

This was the end. Whatever you and Fridolina had, it was over. Finally.

You'd been trying to build up the will to make this happen for weeks, and yet your heart felt like it was being strangled with every moment you sat here alone. The worst part was, you knew Fridolina didn't care. She was probably angry, sure, but she was not feeling the heartbreak you were.

You weren't sure how you were going to make it through the next few days. You had to fly to Germany tomorrow for national camp—and then on Friday you were playing Sweden in a friendly. It was hard to imagine that you had been excited to get the news about the friendly last month. It meant you got to be around Frido more, got to see a few of your old teammates from Chelsea like Magda and Zećira, and you genuinely enjoyed being around the German girls. It was still home to you, there, even if you hadn't played for a German league in nearly a decade.

Now you just wanted to stay in Barcelona while Frido left. You wanted to call Alexia, or Patri, and ask them to come over and comfort you. You wanted Patri’s jokes and Alexia’s solid presence, but you were afraid of the questions they might ask. Your eyes were red now, tears running down your face, and your room was a mess. Everything had a trace of Frido, and you hated it.

Ingrid and Mapí, who you would usually call if you wanted to get your mind off of things, weren’t an option either. Though you were fairly certain they wouldn’t ask any pressing questions, Ingrid was Frido’s best friend. And that made her off limits for now, for anything regarding this.

You just had to make it through the night, and the next morning. Then you could collapse into the familiar arms of your national teammates, your family, your language, and try to forget all about this.

—

Your mother knew something was off the second you appeared on her doorstep, Laura in tow.

She wrapped her arms firmly around you, holding you tight for a minute. It had been three months since you were home for Christmas, and you hadn’t seen each other since then. You melted into her, wanting nothing more than the comfort of her protective embrace after all that had been swimming around your head lately.

Your mother greeted Laura next, and you were instructed to bring your bags up to the guest room. You’d have to share, but it wasn’t all that big of an issue. You and Laura often shared rooms when you were at national camp anyway, so this wouldn’t be much different.

“Wie ist Barcelona? Gefällt es? ” Laura asked you quietly that night, rolling over in the bed to face you.

It was late, too late to still be up. Tomorrow you’d have to be at training bright and early.

“I love it there.”

Something about your voice must have been off, because Laura stayed silent. You knew she fretted over you. She was protective too, something you experienced first hand when people were rough with you on the field—Laura hated most of your exes too. You’d known each other since secondary school, when you were barely tall enough to reach the top of your lockers.

“I’ve always wondered if it’s difficult, fitting in with the Spanish girls…”

“And I’m shy, which doesn’t make it easier.”

Laura laughed lightly.

“Well I wasn’t going to say anything!”

You poked her side playfully, and smiled.

“They’re all very welcoming. It can be intimidating when you don’t speak Spanish at first, but I’m pretty good now so I don’t have many issues.”

Laura began playing with strands of your long hair, putting it in small braids.

“What is it, Lau?”

“I can tell something is bothering you. In your texts, the way you looked when I picked you up at the airport, something is off.”

You weren't sure what to say. Laura didn't know anything about you and Frido. Nobody did. You'd have to explain the whole thing, start to finish. You'd have to explain why you stayed even when she treated you like garbage. Why you made excuses for her, compromised things you told yourself you wouldn't.

"It's hard to explain…" you mumbled.

Laura continued to play with your hair, pushing a few wisps back from your forehead.

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

You needed an ally in this, you realized. Desperately.

"Just be prepared, it's kind of a long story."

And so you launched into how you and Frido had been attracted to each other immediately when she was playing at Bayern and you were at Frankfurt. How you had danced around each other when you were signed in Barcelona. How she kissed you one day after a game, before she was even out of her relationship, and then ignored you for weeks—a pattern you didn't realize was going to dominate your life for the next year.

By the end you were crying. You hadn't cried in so long it felt foreign. Everything had been building up for months and nobody had been there to help you carry the weight of it until that moment.

Laura pulled you into her arms, rubbing your back in soothing circles as you sobbed into her neck.

"It's okay, you're okay," she whispered.

"I feel like a fucking idiot."

"She's the idiot for treating you like that, not you. Not you at all." Laura looked at you sternly. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that all by yourself…"

You snuggled closer to her and kept quiet.

"If you need someone to accidentally slide tackle her on Monday let me know…" Laura teased.

You giggled into her hair, and she couldn't help but smile in return.

-

You were nervous. Typically friendlies didn't worry you much, but you didn't want to see Fridolina. You had been playing well in training sessions, but your teammates could tell something was on your mind.

"Hey—" Sara's voice broke you out of your thoughts. The two of you had played together at Frankfurt for a little while, and she was like an older sister to you. She placed both her hands on your cheeks and pressed her forehead to yours. "Whatever it is, put it out of your mind. Leave it here and just play. Just for a few hours."

You closed your eyes and listened to her, letting her voice ground you. You squeezed her hands and nodded. Just a few hours. Then you could avoid Frido for an entire week before you had to fly back to Barcelona.

You assumed your position on the pitch, the roar of the German fans filling your ears. That was the benefit of playing at home. You spotted a few of the Swedish girls you knew: Magda, Zećira, Stina, and Rebecca. All of whom gave you small smiles.

In the few seconds before the match began you closed your eyes, counting down from seven as you always did before a match. Then the whistle blew and you began.

It was a tough match between the two teams. Where the Germans were weak the Swedish girls pounced, and vice versa. You were constantly fighting for the ball, the defenders packed onto you. Stina was the first to score, slipping the ball into the box amidst a chaotic mess just the way she was good at.

From there on out you were determined to score. You were playing all out, more than necessary really. It was a throwaway game, but you just had to get a point on the board.

When your quick pass to Lena had the ball soaring into the back of the net you thought you might explode from joy. You jumped into her arms, letting her twirl you around, laughing. In your head you might as well have won the Olympics.

At halftime it was still 1-1. Your heart was pounding. Laura made you drink some of your water, massaging your shoulders in an effort to get you to calm down. Popp was side eyeing you, considering pulling you out. This behavior wasn't like you.

The second half was considerably more intense than the first. Both teams wanted to score, and the more physical players on both sides were pushing hard. It was a miracle nobody had been carded.

And then suddenly you had the ball at your feet. There was a golden opportunity in front of you. Eyes facing forward, you raced down the pitch, completely blindsided to the weight that slammed into from the side. Suddenly the world went sideways and you were slamming into the ground, not enough time to even think about trying to catch yourself. Your hip and shoulder took most of the initial impact, but something about how you'd been standing, or how you'd been hit, meant your head followed, hitting the ground with a resounding thud.

You came to a few seconds later. Someone was kneeling next to your head, and their hands were on your cheeks.

Fuck. Everything hurt. You kept your eyes closed, thinking maybe that would lessen the next wave of pain you knew was coming. At first you weren't sure what had happened.

"Are you okay?" You heard Zećira's voice in your ear.

"Zećira?" You mumbled. "What happened?"

"You went down and hit your head."

You had gone down near the goal, that was right. Things were a bit blurry. You figured it was a bad idea to move your neck, what with the severe headache you could feel blossoming, and opening your eyes seemed to run the 50/50 chance of you vomiting.

"Do you remember that now? Do you feel okay?"

So you gave her a weak thumbs up, hoping it was clear you needed the medics.

After a moment in which you gathered your resolve and swallowed your nausea, you opened your eyes. There was Zećira looking worriedly down at you. She glanced upwards, probably at the medical team that was surely coming.

"Fuck, fuck…" you heard another voice, those of your German teammates beginning to filter into your awareness. And further away, the sharp sound of yelling.

The medical team finally arrived, clearing the space around you. Your hand shot out, grabbing onto Zećira's you gave her a look that said it all. Fear and panic met in equal amounts as she squeezed your hand lightly.

"You're gonna be okay, älskling, everything is gonna be alright." If anything, her tone scared you even more. You knew Zećira, and she wasn't someone you would describe as warm and cuddly. For her to be using that tone with you meant something had gone wrong.

"Okay, we're gonna sit you up now." The medic warned you, and you felt two pairs of hands rest on your body, one on the back of your neck, slowly pull you upright.

Your nausea came back in full swing, and you fought to keep your breakfast in.

"Can you hear me?" You nodded.

"Can you understand what I'm saying?" You nodded again, resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

"Can you squeeze my hand?" You squeezed his hand tightly.

"Okay, I'm gonna shine this light in your eyes for a moment, can you try and follow it for me?" You did your best, but it wasn't easy.

"Okay," he put the light away and you thanked whatever God in the universe for that. "We think it's likely you have a pretty bad concussion. We'll have to run a few more tests to be sure, but she definitely has to come off."

He must've been talking to your coach at that point, because the next thing you knew Zećira and the medic were helping you up to your feet, the man supporting you heavily with your arms draped across his shoulders.

"I'll visit you after the match, okay?" You heard Zećira assure you, to which you gave another thumbs up.

You cringed slightly at the sound of the crowd cheering you off.

[mikodrawnnarratives]

so i got more ideas for an extension of this post

Ideas about how the acquire this child below, if details don't line up with canon pls be nice i have the memory of a goldfish sometimes

The King finally being able to remember the forgotten island is the first step out of many to being able to recover what happened to it and how to recover its culture and ppl

It takes a while for ppl to realize this tho, and about a decade after the events of act 6 happen, Odile finds out that ppl are now able to travel to the island. Results are mixed, many report that if you get lost you have a slim chance of coming back out remembered, but the more successful trips bring back things like shells and fruit from the island

Odile shares this information with the gang when they all visit Bonnie, closest place to the island, and Siffrin really wants to go. And since Siff is going, everyone else is too. They paint on everyone's arms necessary information in case they get separated and temporarily forget, and get a long ass rope to tie to everyone.

The moment they get to the island they discover quite a bit but the entrance to the cities and civilization is blocked up with highly advanced mechanics.

Siffrin, in some way, finds a path from this and discovers a room. A room coated in wish craft of some sort. Inside there is a baby in a crib sleeping peacefully. Stepping inside makes the wish craft fade, and the baby begins to cry hysterically. A very very VERY confused Siffrin tries to comfort the baby but for xyz reason has to rush out of the room. Maybe someone set off a trap idk.

Siffrin and the gang make it back to the boats, they still have a lot to do before the island can be unforgotten and rediscovered, but for now they have this KID to deal with

Most prominent, and correct, theories are that someone wished for the baby to be kept in a state of inertia right before the wish that made the island forgotten. Siffrin stepping into the room made it vanish since the wish wanted the baby to be okay until ppl on the island were back to normal, Siffrin, an islander, set it off.

Siffrin would be so so lost but still trying their best with the baby, everyone else also trying their shot. Bonnie might try to see if they have anything a baby could eat but ofc they don't they didn't anticipate a baby joining the party for the short trip. Odile finds the situation both humorous and aggravating. Baby eventually stops crying, back in Siffrin's arms and everyone finds it adorable to see Siffrin acting borderline parental to the kid. It looks like they are biologically related too! Both with blackless hair and clothing of the same material. Isa melts at the sight.

When they get back they'll get the infant a check up to ensure everything is okay and the wish craft didn't have any adverse affects. While waiting, the fam has a lot to talk about. Mainly Siff and Isa. Discussion of where the baby is gonna go ensues alongside plan for getting farther into the island. The baby stays in the care of a nursery until Siff and Isa decide if they'll take the baby in. Isa's never been against the idea of having kids, and Siff has never considered it until this point. They'd have a bunch of worries about messing it up, but overall they want to keep a close eye on someone so connected to their country. And if they are investigating the culture, maybe the baby would have a better chance at learning it if it stayed with them...

A month of discussion and preparation, they sign the adoption papers, or do whatever in the world of isat that would confirm the baby is part of their family

They might name the baby something related to Inertia, and if its literally "Inertia" then a cute nickname would be Tia, I like the idea of them getting a bby girl. If we're being honest though they 100% would name her smthn like a pun i just can't think of anything creative atm. So lets just go with tia for now. Their friends would celebrate in the way all their different cultures do and bby's got a loving family.

Isa and Frin decide early on that they are going to try to raise the kid bilingual, Frin trying to speak the forgotten island's language as much as possible. Research into the forgotten island continues as Tia grows up, including how to teach the language and write it down. It's slower than anyone would like to admit

Tia grows up and upon learning that they were found twenty years after the island was forgotten, tries her shot at underage drinking "Y'know, ✨✨I'm actually twenty years older than i appear✨✨"

it never works

[kjsasha]

I Wish I Could Live Again - YJH

Pairing : Ghost!Jeonghan X Female Reader

Genre : Smut, supernatural, a bit of humour and sadness, strangers-to-something.

W.C : 3K+

Warnings : Dom!Jeonghan, kind of sub!Reader, making out, fingering, oral(both receiving), unprotected sex (be wise), rough sex, cuddling (this needs a heads-up too, right?)

NSFW

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

(I'd appreciate it if you could check it out too 👇)

Work hasn't really been easy these past few weeks. Fortunately, we've been granted two major projects from two of the most sought after companies of the decade but the deadlines are nearing and me being the substitute for our department's head for the time being since he's on a leave due to his surgery isn't really very efficient.

But it's not just about work; I've been exhausted for a while now with nowhere or no one to seek comfort in.

After a long day, I ran myself a much needed bath. I put on a pair of  navy blue cotton shorts and before I could grab my t-shirt to put it on, I felt a presence around me.

You know how you get a hunch when there's someone else in the room with you? But here's the issue; I live alone and it's literally around midnight right now. A shiver ran down my spine and I tried to gulp down the lump in my throat before mustering the courage to turn around.

I screamed at the sight in front of me followed by my hands instinctively covering my bosoms. A guy leaning on the wall while biting his nail nonchalantly. He seemed taken aback and checked himself as if he was supposed to be invisible.

"You can see me?", he asked with a little furrow between his brows.

"Of course I can, you thief", I said fidgeting to get my t-shirt with one hand while the other covered my chest.

"What? I'm not-...and it's not something I haven't seen before", he said gesturing towards my boobies with his head.

I hurriedly put my t-shirt on and grabbed the showpiece that was nearby.

"I'm calling the cops", I threatened him with the flower vase.

"Go ahead. Tell them that the ghost in your apartment has become visible out of thin air", he said sliding his hands inside his pockets.

"G-Ghost?", I muttered.

"Yes", he said as if it's something very normal.

"What do you mean?", now I was confused.

"That I'm the spirit trapped in this apartment. I don't know how or why you can see me right now but it has never happened before", he stated, trying to figure it out as his eyes averted to floor.

I tried to chant any holy verse that I could remember but then the guy looked at me as if I was doing something utterly offensive.

"Relax, woman. You've been living with me for about a year and a half now. I'm not gonna eat you now, unless you want me to eat you out", he said with a little smirk.

"What do you mean we-we've been living together?", colours were about to drain away from my body and the horror was visible in my eyes. The guy seemed to find it amusing.

He took three tentative steps towards me and I felt my legs backing away on its own accord. "Like I said, I'm bound to this apartment and I can see everything that goes on in here. I've seen you change, though I've been late to most but I've seen you take showers", he took two more steps, "I've seen you touch yourself", two more steps and he was right in front of me while my back was pressed onto my closet, "and I've seen you faking your orgasm when you brought that one night stand of yours", he lowered his voice as he said the last part leaning a bit near my ear.

All the fears that I had, flew away just like that.

"You perverted asshole", I gasped.

"Oh as if you wouldn't have watched me if the roles were reversed. I literally live here 24/7, what else do you expect me to do?"

"I don't know, maybe go to another room when I was clearly having some private moments?", I crossed my arms.

"Well, you always ended up in the places I was already in"

"I didn't know about your existence until now so how was I supposed to know that you were there? You should've moved away", I huffed, "What else have you seen?".

He made an expression of thinking before he spoke, "I've seen you taking a call in the middle of your little fingering session and then lying through your teeth".

"So basically all my intimate moments, you sexually starved perverted man", I said hitting him with the vase that I was still holding and he groaned.

He grabbed the vase from my hand and caged me against the closet with his hands on either side of me.

Author's Pov :

Y/N : "What are you doing?"

"I don't know how long you will be able to see me or how long I'll be able to hold you but if I don't do this now, I might regret this for eternity"

"Hm?", she forced it out of her throat and it sounded like a whisper.

"Let me feel you once, please", his face inched closer.

"Consider it just one of your one night stands if that makes it easier", his nose touched hers.

Something about him made her feel intoxicated. Like on autopilot, she raised her head up and her lips brushed his.

His right hand held the side of her neck as he pressed his lips on Y/N's and when he didn't find her pushing him away, he kissed her like he meant it. As she pulled away to breath, a small laugh escaped through her lips.

"What is it?", he asked.

Y/N : "You don't smell"

He : "Ouch, just because I'm dead, doesn't mean I smell"

Y/N : "You look cute when you whine"

"Do I?", he said as he picked her up by the back of her thighs and took her to the bed.

"Umhm", she nodded.

He put her on the mattress gently and brushed a stray strand of hair off her face.

"You're beautiful"

"Is it your way of getting inside my pants?"

"You're gonna let me do that anyway"

"Aren't you a bit too confident?"

"Maybe", he kissed her jaw and trailed it to her collarbones. She felt his teeth graze her skin but she could care less about the marks right now. His hands caressed her body and her clothes were piled up on the floor soon after.

He took one of her nipples in his mouth and bit on it lightly as his hand moulded the other all the while keeping his eyes on her face.

He kissed down to her belly to her inner thigh and before she could assess the hot electricity coursing through her body, his wet cavern licked her bundle of nerves. As he delved his tongue in her core, her back arched off the mattress and her fingers interlaced with his beautiful hair.

"Oh...god", she couldn't help but moan at his ministrations. He held her by the hips to keep her in place as his tongue did its magic. Her orgasm was on the verge of snapping when he thought now was the time to be a jerk and pull away. She tried to push his head back where she needed but he had the audacity to laugh at that moment.

"Trust the process", he said before kissing her lips. While their mouths melded together, she felt his hand near her womanhood before one of his fingers rubbed her slit. Once his digit was coated in her slick, he pushed it into her hole. After depriving her of her release, the intrusion felt delicious. Pumping it a few times, he added another one.

"Has no one been stretching this tight little cunt properly?"

As he pushed a third into her, she held onto his shoulders with a gasp. He pressed his forehead on hers, "Let it go for me", he curled his fingers, "Cum, angel".

As if on cue, the knot in her core untied and her vision almost went white by its intensity.

"This can't be faked, can it?", he showed his hand glistening in her arousal with a proud grin.

She sat up and he got on his knees.

"Your turn", she said as she held the end of his shirt to take it off.

He got off the bed and unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants leaving him in his boxers. She wanted to take a moment to appreciate how divine he looked and then her eyes drifted to the bulge in his pants, "See something you like?", he quirked an eye brow.

"That needs to go", she pointed at his boxers and he just chuckled before taking it off too, releasing his dick out of its confines.

He's hard and the tip's swollen and red with beads of precum on it. She neared the edge of the bed and reached for his member. It felt heavy in her hand and she lowered her head to give it a lick. As she took the head in her warm mouth and began to suck on it, his hand went to her hair and grabbed a fistful of it. When she tried to fit in as much of him as she could until her gag reflex kicked in and tears accumulated in her eyes, his grip tightened around her hair as he groaned.

He let her set the pace and when she looked up at him, his head was thrown back, bottom lip caught between his teeth and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

The view made her want to suck him dry but her plans were sabotaged when he pulled her away and sprawled her back on the bed and hovered her.

Y/N's Pov :

"I wasn't done with you"

"I'm not done with you either", he said entwining my right hand with his and pressing it against the mattress.

His other hand guided his tip along my folds, covering it with my wetness before prodding the head in my core.

I looked down to where he was in me but he raised my chin up with his hand.

"Eyes here", he said and thrusted in when our gaze met.

He kissed me to ease the sting as he pushed it all the way in.

He pulled out a bit and pushed back in, my hand slid up from his chest to the back of his head and soon he picked up his pace.

His thrusts were deep, sweeping against my walls and kissing my cervix delectably that made my toes curl.

"Fuck, fuck, ah"

The lascivious moans and the lewd sounds that our bodies made, reverberated through the room.

The little coil at the pit of my belly was about to go delirious and my walls clenched around his length.

He : "Keep doing that and this will end a lot sooner"

I did it again intentionally and a smirk made its way to my lips when he groaned.

"Brat", he pulled his dick out making me whimper at the loss.

He turned me on my stomach and pulled my ass up before giving it a smack.

"Ah"

He did it again and the burn shot up through my body as he pushed his member back into me.

He plummeted in and out of my heat, the bed followed the rhythm and made noises.

"Oh shit, yes..... don't stop, I'm.....gonna cum", my impending orgasm was just a step away.

He pressed my face into the pillows while his other hand guided my hip.

The second one hit harder than the first and I felt light headed in my rapture as I held onto the bedsheets to try to stabilise myself.

He helped me ride out my orgasm and pulled out before turning me on my back again.

He pushed into me once more but this time a little hiss left my parted lips.

"Hold on for me, angel", he said as he began to impel me on his dick, my body moving up and down due to the force of his thrusts.

His hand squeezed my breast before making its way to my throat. The pressure wasn't painful but just enough to leave an effect. But as he neared his release, the grip tightened to the point of asphyxiating me.

I held onto his back and my nails dug onto his skin involuntarily.

The twitch of his length and the sinfully libidinous noises that he made, pushed me to my third orgasm that I didn't even know I had in me. He followed right after, spilling his load inside of me.

His grip around my neck loosened and he stilled after a few more thrusts.

His face nestled in the crook of my neck and he balanced some of his weight on his arms to not put it entirely on me. We remained like that for a bit, him resting on top of me as we caught our breaths.

He placed a kiss there before pushing himself off and out of me. As he helped me get up and get to the bathroom, a realisation hit me too late, "We did not use a condom-".

"And?"

"And you did not pull out"

"And?"

"What 'and'? I haven't been on any contraceptives lately"

He : "Are you hungry?"

"Relax, I can't get you pregnant. What are you gonna give birth to? Ghosts?", he asked sarcastically with a boyish grin and I hit him on the chest.

I stepped out of the bathroom when he walked into the room with a glass of water for me.

Y/N : "No, are you? I can make some pasta for you"

"I wish I could eat that", he laughed and my mouth formed an 'O' as I processed his words.

"But I can cook for you, I make really good stews", he added.

I lied on the bed and tapped on the spot beside me for him to join me.

As he did, I moved closer to him and he wrapped me in his arms.

"You'll not become invisible again, will you?", I asked.

"I don't know.......but even if I do, I'll still have to be here. You're stuck with me as long as you're in this apartment"

I nestled more into him.

".......Those weren't the only times I've watched you, Y/N", he spoke after a while, as if he was having some thoughts.

"I watched you cry alone because you were missing your dad (he's no more), I watched you lie to your mom about being okay when you had a fever, I watched you doubting yourself, I watched the tears roll down your cheeks when you saw a video online of an old man talking about how he has no one and I watched you work hard late into the night", I kept staring at his face as he continued looking elsewhere.

"You're a strong woman, Y/N. You're beautiful, kind and an amazing person. Please, never doubt yourself. I know my existence might not have any significance in your life but know that I'll always be here if you ever need someone to talk. I know I won't be able to tell you anything but I'll listen", I pressed my lips to his, kissing him as my tears threatened to cascade down my cheeks.

The night went on with me in his arms and I had the sleep that I haven't had in years. As the sunlight seeped in through the curtains of my window, I stirred in my slumber. But the absence of his embrace made me open my eyes.

He wasn't around.

I got up and checked the entire apartment before realising that he was gone.

He wasn't my hallucination, that much I'm affirmative about.

I can still feel his touch, I can still feel him.

I stood in front of the mirror and the marks on my skin are fresh and the sensation between my legs is perceptible enough for it to be just in my head.

I remember everything that he said and I'm sure he's somewhere around here, watching me.

I sat back on my bed and looked around.

"I know you're here.......thank you for everything you did and said last night. I wish I had talked and asked more about you. I don't know who you are but you'll always be a part of my life now. You made me feel more like home than I've ever felt. You made me happy, acknowledged...wanted...and I feel like as if I've known you forever. And you even gave me the best orgasms of my life-...why do I feel like you're smiling like a cocky bastard right now?"

Author's Pov :

"Because I am", he said.

He's here and he has been here this whole time. When she woke up, he was right there beside her but then he realised that she couldn't see or hear him anymore, he couldn't touch her anymore; everything was back to how it has been before.

"I don't know what happened to you or why you're stuck in here and I know I'm being selfish but please, be here and never leave me", she said and he could see her eyes glistening. He wanted to reach out to her but he knows he can't.

"I'll always be here"

"Watch me shower, eat, cry or touch myself but just be here. And please...be visible again", the warm tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I didn't even know you existed 12 hours ago but now I feel so attached to you. What kind of sorcery have you done on me?"

"Oh my god", she gasped suddenly and he looked at her with concern, "I don't even know your name", and more tears rolled down.

He couldn't help but smile at that.

"It's Jeonghan", he said.

"Next time, we're gonna talk more, you're gonna make me stews, we can even watch movies and then we can have sex", she said the last part almost inaudibly but Jeonghan heard.

Jeonghan : "If there is a next time, we will"

"I'm gonna go get freshened up now, you stay here", she said with narrowed eyes making him chuckle.

"Yes, princess", Jeonghan bowed her way.

She stopped in front of the bathroom door and turned around.

"Within the span of a few hours, you made me feel the warmth that I've been searching for", she said with a smile before heading in.

"And you made me wish I could live again"

Author : It's something I thought of posting before the month ends. Let me know your thoughts on it.

[softieekayy]

In the dark of the Night

Hannibal x vampire!reader

Word count: 5.5k

A/N: the reader is characterized with having a mole under her left/right eye and brown/black hair. (She also comes from greek origins and I sincerely hope I don’t offend anyone.) reblogs and comments are always appreciated 🧸

Biologically, vampires were impossible. Their immortality and survival on blood didn’t make any sense, in the scientific and medical sense. At least that’s what Hannibal Lecter believed for the majority of his life. Until he stumbled upon one, in the dark of the night where in an alley there stood a creature of the night, blood thirsty, sucking on the neck of a lifeless man.

Hannibal paused, he didn’t know if it was in shock or intrigue, perhaps it was a mix of both. But at this moment, he didn’t care what it was. He was taken so dearly by this bewitching creature. Oftentimes, he wondered what vampires looked like, in his head, they were ugly beings with protruding teeth and rotten grayish flesh from the lack of sun. Not once in his life did Hannibal ever think that they’d be so beautiful. This woman who stood in front of him was bewitching with hair that cascaded beautifully down her back in perfectly done curls and makeup done with perfection and down to the outfit she wore. She was perfection.

“I wonder if I should let you live or die.” The woman in front of Hannibal smirked, snapping him out of his momentarily trace while discarding the corpse as though he was nothing. To her, he was nothing more than a blood bag. Hannibal noticed her fangs, sharp canines that looked nothing out of the normal.

“I believe my death will bring you peace for your secret.” Hannibal responded breathlessly, stil so taken by the beauty in front of him. He watched as she moved fluidly, quick and fast, he observed how the moonlight beamed on her skin making her look ethereal. In a quick moment, she was in front of him, gripping his chin between her fingers as she observed. Hannibal didn’t know why nor did he care why but his breath hitched, not allowing air flow to get to his lungs. He couldn’t breathe but he didn’t care to, if he could die in this moment, he’d die a happy man. Death at the hands of a death Angel.

“I can hear your heart, are you scared?” The woman whispered in his ear, giving a slight lick on the shell of his ear as she huffed out a small laugh.

She pulled back, watching him curiously.

Something about him drew her to him. She didn’t want to kill him. However, her soul was drawn to his, something that she could tell was as old as she was. Older than life itself.

“Do as you please.” Hannibal whispered, closing his eyes, awaiting his death. Upon feeling nothing, Hannibal was confused, he wondered why she didn’t kill him. He opened his eyes, eyes that were the colour of rum and a slight tinge of maroon, eyes that held warmth hurried deep within. The woman in front of him was observing him, similar to a cat observing its prey, her blood stained mouth pulled into a slight frown.

She took one step forward, sauntering like a cat and in a moment, before Hannibal had known what happened, she stood next to his ear, whispering “Find me when you have time, we need to have a long chat.” Before leaving a small kiss on his jaw, leaving behind a red lipstick print, the only thing he’d have to hold on to for a long while.

Time passed quickly and before Hannibal knew, it had been decades since he’d seen the beautiful beast in that dark alley. He was a young boy then but a grown man now and somewhere deep in his soul, he missed her. He didn’t understand why and he won’t for a while, fate has decided to play a cruel game on him. He still remembers the inquisitive look that she held in her eyes and the way the moonlight made her look like an angel from the highest of heavens.

Even as he stood now, in the dark street, his face being lit by the moon, he thought of her.

His eyes were closed and his head tilted up, as if he was long awaiting death. She thought he looked like a fallen angel, craving for the touch of heaven again. Unbeknownst to him, the immortal beauty had been keeping up on him. She watched him grow from a 20 year old boy in medical school to the man he was now. A beautiful man with the appetite for something so dark.

“Hmm, you look as delectable as the night I met you.” She hummed, voicing her thoughts. Hannibal snapped his eyes open, looking towards her direction, bewilderment coating his face. Calling her a young woman would be quite the irony for she was as old as time itself.

She sauntered forward like a fox, her black lace skirt flowing down her legs seamlessly, lips stretching into a foxy smile with fangs protruding onto wine red lips. Even at night she dressed like a beauty and Hannibal could not stop staring at her, his soul wanted her, no, it craved her.

“You’ve developed quite the palette, love. A very interesting one at that.” She told him, leaning against the wall, a respectable distance still between them.

“You told me that we’d talk when I find you, it seems that you’ve found me instead.” Hannibal mused, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“It seems that I did.” She smiled up at Hannibal and he smiled in return. He may not know her in this lifetime, but their souls are well versed, knowing every inch of one another. The two walked forward to each other, two hunters coming together for the hunt of a lifetime.

“I believe we can have that talk now.” She told Hannibal, her lips almost brushing his own as their noses touched. Hannibal hummed in slight agreement.

“I believe that we can do the talking later.” He told her before kissing her, his lips twisting with hers in a passion that cannot be recreated. His hand gripping the back of her neck as her hands gripped Hannibal’s shirt, in an almost desperate manner.

She pulled back, giving Hannibal the chance to catch his breath, she didn’t need to breathe.

“Oh my dearest heart, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that.” The young woman told him, laughing a little when Hannibal pulled her close to his chest, resting his cheek on her head laughing a bit as well.

“So tell me now, why is it that you never killed me back then.” Hannibal asked her, leading her into his home and looking back at her. Despite the way her beautiful eyes glimmered in the warm light, they held a deep sadness within them.

“I’ve lived a long long life, my love.” She told Hannibal, caressing his cheek as she smiled. Hannibal leaned into her touch, wanting more.

“I’m here to listen to your pain.” He told her, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. Her body wasn’t warm, it hasn’t been for over a thousand years. It was cold, like a dead one.

“I was born in 487, in Ancient Greece, during the Hellenistic period, I was a priestess of the great goddess Artemis, a goddess of the hunt. A young woman who was to spend the rest of her days living in the temple of the goddess. Of course, back then I hadn’t known what life would hold for me. I was young and naive, wanting to help anyone who came to the Goddess’ temple.” She told Hannibal, her eyes closed and head tilted back as she reminisced the days of her early youth. Even though it had been over 2,400 years ago, she remembered it clearly.

Hannibal observed her closely, her hair that was once up nearly now lay in curls down her back as one hand held a glass of red wine he had kindly poured for them. Her nails were long and sharp, like claws but nothing out of fashion. She truly looked like a temptress, and maybe, just maybe, many stories of vampires being beautiful stemmed from her.

“There was this one night, it was cold and rainy all day, an indication that a storm was about to come. Many thought that the great god Zeus was upset hence why everyone stayed home that day. Women that came to pray for their daughters didn’t come, pregnant ladies hoping for a safe birth didn’t come and men who prayed for a good hunt did not come.” The old vampire told Hannibal and to him, it seemed like a myth. Her life, her humanity was so long ago that it seemed impossible to Hannibal yet it was. She was living proof of it.

“Yet there was this man who came, seeking shelter in the temple.” Hannibal listened to his companion continue her story.

“A young man in his 30’s I assumed. But he was beautiful, more beautiful than any creature I had ever seen. His hair was long and blonde and he was dressed in the richest of robes. I, being the young lady I was, allowed him in. I trusted him, fed him and gave him shelter from the rain. And he betrayed me.” She told Hannibal, the glass that she had been now shattered as broken shards embedded themselves into her skin.

Quickly Hannibal took her hand, eyeing for any injuries yet finding none.

“Are you hurt, my dear.” He asked her and she simply pulled her hand away before shaking her head no.

“What happened? What did this man do to you?” The older man asked her, running his hands through his slowly graying hair, worried about what she might say next.

“He betrayed me. That night, after feeding him and giving him a place to sleep, I went to pray to the goddess, to pray for the safety of my community and the children and for the families to never starve. I was just setting up her altar after praying when he attacked me. A growling creature with teeth as sharp as a sword and glowing red eyes, he turned to me and smiled and said “you’re a stupid little lamb aren’t you. Letting strangers you don’t know into your sanctuary.” Those words were the last I heard before searing pain and finally, darkness.” She sighed deeply, as if she had just breathed out the pain she held in her heart.

Hannibal felt pain for her and the way her life ended. She may be alive but she’s a walking corpse, she doesn’t breathe nor does she sleep. She’s not warm and she’s not alive. There’s no beating heart in her body.

“What about your family?” Hannibal asked her, making her smile slightly and look up at him, she stood up and walked over to him, running her hand through his hair and Hannibal leaned into her touch like a cat.

“I believe they simply thought I died in the storm, and I believed that it was best for them to believe that. My sister went on to have kids and so did my brother. However, my mother and father never really moved on from losing me.” The old vampire told Hannibal, and he nodded, understanding her reasoning for not going back.

“Come my love, you have work tomorrow and I have things to do.” The brunette told him, leading Hannibal up the stairs to his room and he followed behind her as if in a trance. Once reaching his room, he took out his nightwear and sat it on the dresser as the young woman watched.

“Are you going to leave again?” He asked her, not recognizing the voice that came out of him. He sounded like a small boy asking for someone to stay. He sounded pathetic to himself.

“Only to get my stuff. Unless you’d like me to leave.” The young woman winked towards the end of the sentence and laughed. Hannibal laughed when he came up to her and leaning down to her level, he placed a kiss on her lips and she returned it with just as much passion.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” She told him after pulling back from the kiss, and kissed his cheek.

Their one morning turned into another and another and sooner than later, they moved in momentum. One could not function without the other, a flowing river.

Hanniabl proposing to her wasn’t very secretive, he did it in their kitchen, while she marked work of her students, the pair had decided to settle in Baltimore, Maryland where Hannibal worked as a psychiatrist and his wife as a teacher. She always had a thing for children and teaching. Unfortunately due to her being physically dead, she could not have any children of her own.

“What are your thoughts on marriage?” Hannibal asked her one day, not bothering to look up from the veggies he was cutting. His lover smiled at him, putting her hand under her chin in faux thought, fangs poking her cherry lips.

“I have never really thought of it. I’ve had lovers, yes, I’ve been a mistress and everything in between yet I have never thought of marriage. Why do you ask?” The smile never left her face as her attention was fully directed towards Hannibal. She sat up straight, dark hair cascading down her back in Hollywood curls as she crossed her legs one over the other before pulling up the sleeves of her sweater.

“If you’ve had lovers, you never thought of marriage?” Hannibal questioned, a small hint of laughter in his voice. He looked up at her, hair disheveled from the long day he’d spent with patients.

“They were lovers, not someone I’d consider spending the rest of my life with.” She told Hannibal in a nonchalant tone. Her eyes held warmth when she looked at Hannibal, he noticed the way her body lost its rigid posture around him and the way she let herself become more loose.

“Would you marry me?” Hannibal dropped the question, his breath hitching in his throat while he anticipated her answer. Anything other than a yes would kill him, physically and emotionally.

“Without a doubt.” The dark haired woman told him as she hopped down from her place at the kitchen bar and made her way towards Hannibal. He looked over his shoulder at her, smiling at her.

“If you’d said anything other than a no, I think I would’ve died.” Hannibal told her, standing up to his full height, towering over his lover. He pulled her into his embrace as she rested her hands on his chest, looking up at Hannibal with a love drunk look on her face.

“When should we start planning?” She asked him, elated beyond means yet not letting an ounce of it slip through her voice. Hannibal let out a laugh before bending down to kiss her passionately.

“You can do the planning, I can assure you that money will be no issue.” Hannibal informed her as he went back to continuing their dinner.

“Sweetheart, I've more than enough money to last us for generations. I’ve been alive for so long and many of my lovers have transferred their assets to me as well. So yes, I agree, money will be no issue.” She laughed and Hannibal laughed with her.

It was not long after this dinner that the wedding planning began.

(Y/n) had a famous dressmaker that she had turned into her kind to forever make her dresses. A polish woman by the name of Olg, a fiesty woman. No matter how grumpy she may seem, the older woman had always thought of the brunette as her own daughter ever since she lost her own.

“Olga! It’s good to see you!” The young woman greeted the older lady with a tight hug and a kiss to the cheek. The older one returned the hug before pushing her back to take her in.

“Still the mournful colours you wear. Reds and blacks and grays. I see that nothing has changed.” Olga told (Y/n) with a distasteful tone. The younger one never listened to Olga when she told her to wear more colourful clothes. The only colours she had in her pallet were blue and red.

(Y/n) laughed fondly before hugging the old lady again and dragging her to the car. The ride home was filled with chatter about everything and nothing. Olga pestered the brunette about Hannibal and to know more about him. She was excited, her daughter, not by blood, finally found love within her life. Someone whose eyes light up when she enters the room and the one person who looks at her as if she hung the stars specifically for him.

“Have you thought about wedding dress fabrics?” (Y/n) hummed in thoughts the question. When she was born, it was a plain white fabric wrapped around you. Although she was very fond of the dresses that were worn in the 1800’s. The puffy dress with off the shoulder sleeves, ugh, (y/n) loved them so much. She liked to think that they were the height of fashion, Olga liked to disagree.

The ride home went by faster than the two ladies expected yet they were not disappointed. Olga was happy to be here to judge the groom in person.

“Do you smell that?” (Y/n) sniffed the air, smiling as she straightened out her dress and fixed her hair before bending down to pet Lucius, a fluffy black cat that wandered the grounds of the Lecter home. Olga indeed did smell that, she smelt meat with a tinge of blood and she was absolutely starving.

While the young brunette cooed at the cat who was now spread out on his back, Olga examined her surroundings. The home was nice and modern, it was a large home with a glass front.

“Do you like it?” (Y/n) asked Olga before guiding her into the home. It was just as beautiful on the inside with a blue coded interior.

“Hm, it’s quite nice. However it compares nothing to the estate that one Lord gave you. Madly in love, he was.” Olga reminisced, pointing her finger at the younger woman who laughed boisterously. The younger woman led Olga into the kitchen where Hannibal was just finishing up the dinner.

“Oh hello, my love.” Hannibal perked up at the greeting before turning around to greet his wife to be. (Y/n) kissed him on the jaw and hugged him and he returned the hug.

“Hello Angel.” Hannibal smiled, caressing her cheek before kissing it in greeting. (Y/n) pulled back before walking back to Olga and introducing her.

“Hans, this is Olga, my mother in all but blood.” (Y/n) enthusiastically introduced the older woman who was busy sizing up the tall man. He had charm and was good looking. He could also cook. However, all that mattered was that he loved her daughter and that she loved him.

“It's a great pleasure to finally meet you, (y/n) has spoken greatly of you.” Hannibal smiles at the woman who nods slightly at him in acknowledgement. He gestured for all of them to take a seat and they did, Hannibal sitting at the head of the table with his fiancee on the right and Olga on his left. Dinner was a silent deal, Olga didn’t know how to feel. There were many times in the past where (y/n) had come close to marrying yet never did. She only hoped that this couple would last for eternity and beyond. Olga knew deep down that it will, she could see it in the way they both looked at each other. Hannibal looked at her as if she was the breath of fresh air he’d been looking for his entire life while (Y/n) looked at him as if he was the only thing that she lived for.

Dinner was a silent affair and Hannibal was an excellent cook. After dinner, (y/n) wandered off into her study to mark the remaining work of her students as Olga cornered Hannibal in the kitchen.

“She’s loved men greater than you, many Kings and Lords who were willing to lay their lives down for her beauty.” Olga informed Hannibal who listened intently, trying to ignore the clenching feeling in his heart. He knew that his lover had many before him yet he never felt insecure, not until this moment that is, the words from Olga’s mouth put that into perspective. If great kings and lords were willing to die for her, then who was he to deserve her love?

“Yet she never married any of them.” Hannibal retorted looking up at Olga, maintaining eye contact as some form of dominance.

“No, she almost did though. A man, a lord really. A widowed man, he was. His wife had succumbed to the chills and (Y/n) was new at court, quickly catching the eye of the young lord.

Their love was pure and young, like a freshly bloomed flower. However it did not last unfortunately, the young lord succumbed to a strange illness that (Y/n) would never die from.” Olga told Hannibal who listened closely to a piece of his fiancée’s history. Olga stood leaning against the counter, watching Hannibal, waiting for a reaction.

“Well, that’s unfortunate. However, she has me and I have her, I am not succumbing to any illness soon.” Hannibal smiled at Olga in a sarcastic manner who just smiled back at him, glad that he hadn’t let the jealousy overcome his conscious mind.

“You, my boy, will do just fine.” Olga pat Hannibal on the back and wandered off, leaving the older man to his own thoughts. Hannibal himself wasn’t less than royalty, he was the Count of Castle Lecter in Lithuania, his mother was a descendent of a family that ruled over Milan for 290 years.

He was on par with any king or lord that would die for his wife to be. She was beautiful, perhaps even the most beautiful creature to walk this earth.

Lost in thought while doing the dishes, he didn’t notice his lover walking in. The slight touch of her hand on his back caught Hannibal off guard as he let out a sigh of relief once he saw it was only his lover.

“Are you alright?” She questioned him, a worrisome look on her face as her eyebrows furrowed together, wondering what made him so panicky. Her hand travelled from rubbing his shoulder to caressing his face. Hannibal sighed gently before allowing himself to lean into her touch, cherishing every moment.

“I’m quite alright, dear.” Hannibal told the young brunette in a soft yet tired voice. She muttered a quiet “oh Hannibal,” before encasing him in a hug. Hannibal hugged her tightly, afraid that she was just a dream that his mind had conjured up before burying his face in her neck, allowing himself to breathe in her scent.

(Y/n) pulled back from the hug, bending her neck down to look at Hannibal as a frown overtook her beautiful face. She carded her hands through his hair before they settled on his face.

“How will you tell me what’s wrong?” She asked him gently and Hannibal, just for a brief moment, lost control over himself.

“Olga told me about your past.” Hannibal barely whispered out in a bitter tone. “She told me about the man who you nearly married and the kings and lords who were willing to lay their life down for you.”

“Oh my dear heart, that man was someone I loved years ago. But you, my dear, you are my love now. My star and my moon.” Hannibal relaxed at her words of reassurance, fully pulling away from their embrace.

“Let’s head up to bed now, I’ll start a fresh bath for you. It’ll help you relax.” She smiled at him and patted his cheek before heading upstairs.

Hannibal stole a quick kiss from his girlfriend before going back to doing the dishes. Once he finished, he wiped his wet hands on a towel and removed his apron and hung it on the hook before heading upstairs. Halfway up and he can already smell the scent of jasmine and sandalwood beginning to drift through the air. Hannibal tilts his head up and takes in a deep breath, already feeling a bit relaxed.

“There you are my star.” (Y/n) called out to Hannibal as she got up from the bed. “I’ve been waiting patiently for you, truly had half a mind to go and grab you myself.” She tells him, Hannibal laughs as he makes his way to their bathroom.

Even at the end of the day she looks like an Angel. His beautiful angel, crafted by god just for him. He removes his clothes, putting them in the hamper and then getting into the bath. Sandalwood and Jasmine, the scent that comforted him the most simply because it belonged to his wife. He remembers the first time he saw her, in that alley way, smelling like freshly bloomed jasmine with a hint of sandalwood.

“Take your relaxing bath, I’ll see you in bed.” The young woman told her lover before kissing him on the corner of his lips and strutting into the room. Hannibal relaxed fully now, lowering himself into the extremely hot water. It felt nice to have someone care for him like this. Sometimes he let his mind wander and wonder if this is the type of love Mischa felt when she was being cared for by her elder brother. He missed his sister, his little star in the sky. Now she truly was a part of the sky. Shaking his head, Hannibal closed his eyes and drifted off a short sleep.

Once he woke up, 35 minutes had passed and his body had already pruned. Quickly getting out, he moisturized and put his night suit on. His wife, although they weren’t married legally, was on the bed, reading a book that was centuries old. She was there when it was written, hence her copy is an original.

“I thought you weren’t coming out of that bath today.” She joked, smiling up at him.

“It seems like you made it too relaxing.” Hannibal joked back, poking her side making her laugh. Sweet laughter that sounded like wind chimes. She set her book aside, arranging the pillows so that she laid down properly on them.

“Ready to sleep?” Hannibal asked her, moulding himself around the shape of her body.

“With you? Always.” She tells her husband, moving closer to rest her head on his beating heart, allowing it to lull her to sleep. Hannibal moved his cheek atop her head, breathing in that familiar scent of metallic blood and jasmine, allowing the scents to send him to a dreamless sleep.

The next morning was usual, Hannibal woke up first, made breakfast, woke up his wife and Olga, ate breakfast and then got dressed and headed off to work, he was now consulting with the FBI.

(Y/n)’s routine was the same as well. She ate, came up, got dressed for her teaching job, grabbed her papers and headed off to school.

Olga, well, she didn’t exactly have a job however, she had decided to get a head start on the wedding fabric. She knew that (Y/n) wanted something that was classic and elegant yet also wanted lace. She headed to multiple fabric stores and picked up multiple fabrics, allowing her surrogate daughter to pick one she liked the most. She wouldn’t admit it but Olga was excited, her daughter had happiness once, yet it was snatched straight out of her hands and now, she has a second chance at it with a great man.

The day came and went, by the time she reached home, it was 3pm and two hours later, (Y/n) returned home.

“Olga! What is all of this?” She asked surprised, shutting the door and taking off her gloves and coat, (y/n) put them on the couch and sat beside Olga.

“I brought fabric. The sooner you choose the type, the sooner I can begin the design.” Olga told her. The younger girl looked at Olga for a moment before hugging her tightly and kissing her cheek.

“You shouldn’t have!” She told her once, pulling away from the hug.

“Nonsense child. Now choose your favorite fabric.” And with those words, (y/n) began to finger the fabric and examined them closely. Some were beautiful crème coloured fabrics with a pearl sheen and others were decorated with gold threads and white coloured flowers embroidered. It was simply beautiful. However, the one that truly caught the young woman’s attention was a beautiful ivory coloured fabric with beautiful lace detailing and the fabric was woven with silver, causing it to have a beautiful shine in the sun and light.

“That one is it.” Hannibal called out from the door making his wife jump. She glared at him for a moment before running her hands through her hair. He laughed and shed his coat jacket, sitting next to his wife.

“It's beautiful, isn’t it.” She told him and Hannibal nodded. The fabric truly was one of a kind, however, his wife was more beautiful than any fabric or creature.

“I agree but I think that you’ll make it shine even more.” He tells her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear and kissing her. (Y/n) raised his hand to his cheek, deepening the kiss a bit more.

“So that’s the fabric I assume.” Olga guessed.

“Well then, I’ll get started on the dress.” Olga kissed (y/n) on the cheek and headed to the sun room that was converted into her studio.

4 months passed by and their routine continued. Hannibal and (Y/n) headed off work while Olga worked on the dress, keeping it a secret from the bride. A month later, the dress was ready.

“The flower arrangements are beautiful, aren’t they.” The brunette gushed over the flowers, clutching onto Hannibal’s arm as he agreed. They truly were beautiful. Baby’s breath paired with lilac coloured flowers.

“Have you sent the invitations?” Hannibal asked the wedding planner who nodded. Hannibal nodded in acknowledgement and placed his hand over his wife’s.

“Everything will be perfect, my love.” Hannibal tells her normally, kissing her forehead before muttering a soft “And anyone who messes it up will be our dinner.” (Y/n) smiled at that. They weren’t innocent, Hannibal supplied her blood and the rest ate with her.

Their wedding date was in a week and good lord did that week come fast. At work Hannibal had made good friends with Will Graham and that man was his best man. Hannibal had friends, many friends, yet Will Graham was surprisingly his closest.

“Are you ready?” Will asked Hannibal who looked at him through the mirror.

“To marry her? Any day.” Hannibal replied in confidence, making Will laugh.

“I just went to see her, she looks like a vision come true. Now I see why you call her angel.” Will laughed, running his hands through his unruly curls. Will hadn’t only become friends with Hannibal, he also became friends with his wife. Will reminded (y/n) of her brother, one that she never got to see grow.

“Are you ready?” Maya asked (y/n), straightening her veil before grabbing ahold of her hands.

“Maya, I’ve been waiting over 9 centuries for this, I am ready as I'll ever be.” (Y/n) tells her long time friend, squeezing her hands in confirmation.

“Alright then, let’s get you married.” Maya said, linking their arms together.

Will was right, his wife to be was a beautiful vision. Olga did so wonderfully designing the dress, it was reminiscent of fashion during the Tudor period, with a beautiful ivory bodice decorated with the most beautiful blue and gold birds and flowers, the skirt was simple and trimmed with lace as well as the arms. It was a heavy skirt with multiple layers of fabric. A true Tudor wedding dress. Her hair was done up and a few loose curls framed her face, the makeup suited her well, dark eyes with a dark lip and the finishing touch was a dark blue lace choker, with a pendant depicting the goddess that she once served.

“You are stunning.” Hannibal sighed out in disbelief, still looking at his wife and took her hands in his bigger ones.

The priest officiated the wedding and they said their vows, sealing the ceremony with a kiss.

Maya cried at the Vows while Will teared up a little, praying to whatever god there was to find a love like theirs.

“I’ve waited a thousand years for you, Hannibal. I’ll wait another thousand if it means to have you in my arms.” She tells him, placing her hand on his cheek as he leans into it.

“I’d wait a thousand years to feel your touch and your love again, my beautiful, beautiful wife.” Hannibal tells her, tilting her chin up before kissing her again. They are finally married now, after centuries (Y/n) found someone to love for centuries to come and Hannibal found someone to love.

Tagging my beauties: @chchchcheni @shawty-writes-a-little @jake-g-lockley @dimitrisebastian

[cowboyemeritus]

Cenerentola (Frater Imperator/Reader)

Summary: Copia hosts a gala to celebrate his ascension to head of the Clergy. When things go haywire, it's up to you to keep him safe. In the process, it becomes impossible to avoid your feelings for him any longer.

Content Warning: mild violence, a singular Monty Python reference

Notes: me? writing sfw? it's more likely than you think.

i've been doing a lot of social dancing so naturally that made me think about dancing with copia. i am also a sucker anything remotely cinderella-esque lol. reader is sort of based on an oc of mine.

i don't really know how i feel about this — i had ideas for two related scenes and then had to fill in the gaps from there. sorry it's so long lmao

feedback is always welcome :)

Even amidst the sea of people below, it is impossible for you to miss him. Copia shines like the Morningstar, the candlelight glinting off the ruby brooches and bedazzled collar of his new, freshly pressed suit. All eyes are on him as he spins the delighted young Sister of Sin in his arms, leading her with grace and elegance through the steps of the fast-paced waltz. He’s changed so much in the years since you left the Ministry. Now, with his ascension to head of the Clergy, there are moments where he seems like an entirely different person, exponentially more confident and self-assured than you remember. 

You know his new demeanor, however, betrays a deep-seated anxiety, the product of years of vague threats on his life from the organization he’s now expected to lead. And surely, the irony is not lost on him that the very hall in which he is now dancing sits directly above the crypts, where the bodies of his assassinated brothers lay in eternal repose.

From your position, leaning against a column up on the balcony, you have the entire ballroom in your sights. Every step, every gesture, every side conversation, is under your scrutiny. This was by design. Although Copia, by some miracle, lived to see the end of his reign as Papa, the transition of power has not been an easy one. Threats abound, the old guard of the Clergy still dissatisfied with him, many enraged by his recent promotion. His mother’s scheming was meant to protect him, but now it seems to have backfired, putting him in more danger than ever before. While this gala serves as a way for him to potentially smooth things over with the Upper Clergy, asserting himself as Frater Imperator, he is also making himself vulnerable, open to attacks of all kinds.

As a favor to his predecessor, the woman who taught you everything you know, you begrudgingly agreed to provide additional security around Ministry headquarters. At first, returning to the Abbey, its halls so hauntingly familiar, reminded you of why you left in the first place: decadence, hypocrisy, lies — a message lost in a quagmire of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Somehow, though, Copia and his ghouls have wormed their way into your frozen heart over these last few months. It was done before you even knew it was happening. Copia has this sort of magnetism about him, some preternatural force that makes it impossible not to be charmed. It was like this even when he was a shy, awkward cardinal. Because of this, although the Clergy wants him gone, he has the distinct advantage of a congregation that completely adores him.

The song ends, and Copia sweeps the Sister into a dip. She giggles, pressing a playful kiss to his cheek. Something in your chest pangs.

At the end of the day, you just work together. It would be foolish of you expect anything more. Still, there’s been an undeniable tension between the two of you since your return to the Ministry. You see the way he looks at you, the way he hangs on to your every word when you speak. But maybe you’re imagining it — you spend so much time around him that perhaps you’ve mistaken proximity for fondness.

You sense a familiar, fiendish presence approaching from behind. “You’re having fun,” Cirrus remarks, entering your field of vision. She has a flute of champagne in each hand and offers one to you. To maintain the illusion of normalcy you accept, taking a small sip of the bubbly, golden liquid.

“We’re on the clock,” you say, eyeing a small group of cardinals that have congregated near the refreshments table. They seem to be merely gossiping. Rain is stationed nearby, carefully observing. “No fun allowed.” The ghoul chuckles, leaning against the balcony railing on her forearms.

“I take it everything’s alright so far?” You nod, thinking back on the hours you spent painstakingly drawing sigils at various locations around the Abbey, setting up one massive alarm spell. If anything supernatural tries to get in, you’ll know. All that’s left is to be on the lookout for any natural, more human threats. You swallow down a lump in your throat, hoping your preparations will be enough.

“Try to relax, then,” Cirrus coaxes, sipping her own drink. There’s a pause. “You should go dance with him.” You feel your cheeks heat up, but keep your composure.

“I don’t have time to mess around,” you state bluntly. Your posture sags a bit. “He’s busy, anyway.” Copia is leading another Sister onto the dance floor, taking the starting position as the ghoul band strikes up another tune. You zero in on the hand resting on her hip, worrying your lower lip between your teeth. It looks like her dress doesn’t have any pockets; the probability of her concealing anything is low.

Cirrus places a clawed hand on your shoulder and gives you a playful jostle. “For you? He’ll make time.” You give her a quizzical look and she winks, straightening back up before taking her leave. “Do it!” She calls. “I’ve got good money on you two getting together!” Your mouth hangs slightly agape, watching as she descends the stairs to rejoin the party.

You take another, longer sip of your champagne, relishing in the sensation of bubbles tickling your tongue. It helps take the edge off, if only a little. You remain up on your perch for another long while. Copia eventually abandons dancing in favor of strolling through the crowd, greeting and shaking hands with various high-profile guests. It’s harder to keep track of him this way, even from your vantage point, so once your glass is empty you descend the stairs, entering the fray for yourself. To your relief, no one pays you any mind as you weave through the mass of bodies. You spot a truly nameless ghoul carrying a tray of empty glassware and flag them down, depositing your glass. You’re about to find a better place to camp out when someone taps you on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, signorina strega.” You turn and sure enough, it’s Copia. He’s holding out a hand. “May I have this dance?” Multiple pairs of eyes are now focused on you. Swallowing hard, you flush, smiling nervously. It’s a little more attention than you’d like, but you reason that within arms reach of him is the best place to be right now.

It’s completely logical, not motivated by anything else.

“Of course, Frater Imperator,” you reply, bowing your head slightly. You make it a point to use his full title in front of the guests. “I would be honored.” Gingerly, you take his hand, and he leads you to the dance floor. You pick up your pace a bit so that you’re able to whisper in his ear. “I’m not very good.” Copia gives your hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Do not worry. Just follow my lead.” As the last few bars of the current song play, Copia guides you into the starting position, placing his right hand delicately on your hip and holding the left out for you to take. You try not to think about how, even through the leather of his gloves, his hand is so warm. Having difficulty looking him in the eye, you glance over his shoulder in the brief moment of silence between songs. You see Cirrus, Rain, and Swiss gathered by the refreshments table, watching you with shit-eating grins plastered across their faces. The air ghoul flashes you a thumbs-up and you have to resist the urge to destroy her with your mind.

“Ready?” As if on cue, the band resumes playing. You recognize the song instantly: Waltz No. 2, Shostakovich. How woefully on brand. The dance begins, Copia stepping forward with his left foot while you, mirroring him, step back with the right. It’s easy enough to follow him after that, stepping to your left as he steps right, then forwards to start all over again.

“One, two, three. One, two, three. You’re a natural.” Once you find a steady rhythm, you’re able to look up from your feet and actually start to enjoy the feeling of whirling around the room.

“How are things?” He asks, clearly trying to remain nonchalant. There are so many eyes on you, and from the crowd you sense intrigue, amusement, and a significant amount of jealously.

“Fine, so far,” you reply through a smile, trying to make it as difficult as possible for people to read your lips. Copia nods.

“Bene.” A few beats pass. “Thank you for all your hard work. I appreciate you coming back after...” He looks away for a moment. “I appreciate it.” You didn’t do it for him and he knows that, but his expression of gratitude makes heat bloom in your chest nonetheless.

“I’m glad I did,” you say without thinking. “This place is different now. Good different, because of you.” Copia smiles, the skin around the corners of his eyes crinkling. He raises his left arm and you pass under it in a spin, feeling lighter than air.

“I had hoped you would be able to enjoy yourself tonight,” he admits, a hint of guilt in his eyes. “Instead it seems you are just fretting over me.” You quirk an eyebrow at him.

“It’s that ego of yours I’m worried about,” you tease. “Pretty soon there won’t be room for anyone else in this Ministry.” Both of you laugh at this.

“I had better check myself, then,” Copia says, running a hand through his mousy brown hair. “I would hate to see you leave again.” That catches you off guard and you nearly trip, but his hand finds your hip again, keeping you stable. By now, you’re certain he’s noticed the blush on your cheeks.

“Don’t worry. I’m not-“

Somewhere, an invisible thread snaps. It makes your stomach lurch, the color draining from your face. You pause, your playful expression melting away as you try to pinpoint the source of the disruption. The South Wing. It’s approaching fast. When you return to this plane Copia is looking at you with concern.

“I have to go,” you say quietly. He doesn’t have time to respond before you exit the dance floor, heading for the large double doors at the other end of the ballroom. It’s hard not to shove people out of the way as you duck and weave through the crowd. Dewdrop is at the entrance, minding his post, but as you approach it’s clear from the rigidity of his small body that he’s been waiting for you. He follows you wordlessly out into the hall. Kicking off your heels, the two of you take off in the direction of the intrusion. You internally curse your foolishness for talking yourself out of wearing sneakers, or even flats.

“It’s something nasty,” he says once you’re out of earshot of any guests. You can only nod in agreement, hoping the two of you are enough to deal with whatever this foul thing is.

You round the corner to the South Wing and stop dead in your tracks. The sight before you makes your blood run could. Charging towards you is a hulking creature, easily Mountain’s height but with Aether’s bulk. It’s clearly a humanoid figure, but its edges are poorly defined, a mist-like quality to them. Still, you observe shapes that resemble horns and a tail, and that tells you all you need to know: a rogue ghoul, not bound to this plane by a contract. As such, it’s less of a consolidated form and more of rampaging ball of fiendish energy. This information helps you narrow down the list of potential culprits exponentially.

There’s no time to dwell on that, though. The creature is headed straight for you, no doubt attracted to the smell of your human flesh. Before you can react, Dew puts himself between you and the ghoul, ready to engage. He’s strong in spite of his small size, but the odds of him defeating this massive a beast on his own, especially one this energized, are slim. You realize he’s buying you time to cast a spell, and immediately you formulate a plan in your head. It will take some time to accomplish, but if he can hold off this monstrosity for long enough, you should be able to successfully banish it back to the Pit without endangering him as well. Planting your feet, you take a deep breath, letting your eyes shut. There’s a whoosh of warm air as Dew charges the rogue ghoul. Energy begins to flow through you as you chant under your breath, crafting the spell. A metallic taste fills your mouth, the air crackling with static.

You’re about halfway through the incantation when the sound of a body hitting the floor breaks through your wall of concentration. The creature roars, forcing you to crack an eye open just in time to see it lunge at you. It’s covered in scratches and burns, but Dew is ultimately the one on the ground, desperately trying to pick himself back up. You’re only just able to side-step, the spell breaking as you focus all of your energy on surviving the next few seconds. You’re frantically backpedaling when it swipes at you, claws catching you in the side. You cry out as it tears through the flimsy red fabric of your dress, leaving three long gashes in its wake that begin bleeding immediately. Though profoundly painful it’s a superficial wound; if you had been stationary, there’s no doubt it would have disemboweled you. 

Your back hits the wall. Dew shouts your name but you just stand there, frozen. The creature is about to pin you when a large body slams into it from the side, knocking it to the ground. You immediately recognize the form as Aether, and looking in the direction from whence he came you see Cirrus, Swiss, Rain, Mountain, Sunshine, and Phantom, all approaching with teeth and claws bared. Cirrus gets to you first, grabbing your arm and pulling you away from the scuffling ghouls.

“Are you-“ She finally notices you clutching your side, blood seeping into your dress. “Oh shit, are you okay?” You nod, lifting your hand to show her it’s minor. Phantom is helping Dew to his feet. He seems alright other than a few scratches, the fall appearing to have knocked the wind out of him more than anything.

“I’m fi-” Your heart nearly stops. “Is someone watching Imperator?”

“Cumulus and Aurora are with him,” she says. “They’ve got it under control.” You let out a relieved sigh, shoulders dropping. It’s only now you that you notice how much tension you’ve been holding in your body all night. Your body trembles with excess adrenaline.

Aether lets out a frustrated growl. You barely have time to look in his direction before the rogue ghoul, having slipped out of his grasp, hurls itself out of one of the long, gothic windows lining the hallway. Bits of stained glass go flying, scattering across the marble floor tiles. The creature is smart enough to recognize it’s been outnumbered. One-by-one the members of the pack leap through the broken portal, none of them too keen on letting the intruder escape. Dew tries to follow, clearly excited about the prospect of a hunt, but Cirrus shoos him away from the window.

“Go clean yourselves up,” she orders, perched on the ledge. It’s directed mostly at you. “We’ll take it from here.” With that, she jumps down, disappearing from view as the sound of the pack whooping and howling fades into the distance.

Twenty some-odd minutes and a round of healing magick later, you and Dew are sitting out on the steps of the back patio, passing a cigarette back-and-forth. By now, the rogue ghoul has most certainly been torn to ribbons. There could still be threats lurking, but for as much as you’d like to go find Copia, you’re nowhere near presentable and would prefer not to incite panic, or suspicion, among the guests. Besides, you’re hardly capable of doing anything now, your energy completely drained by the evening’s events. You only had enough juice left to stop your cuts from bleeding; anything physically strenuous would certainly reopen the wounds. For now, you’re content to enjoy the cool autumn air, knowing he’s in capable hands.

“There you are.” Speak of the Devil. You look over your shoulder and Copia is stepping out into night, flanked by Cumulus and Aurora. Clutched in one hand are your strappy red heels, and it’s only now that you realize you’re still barefoot. Dew, with a quiet groan, rises to his feet and climbs the stairs, passing Copia as he descends.

“We’re going to go take care of this one,” Cumulus says, draping an arm over the fire ghoul’s shoulder. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but for a moment you swear she winks at you. Dew tries to shrug her off with a huff, and the girls giggle. Copia nods approvingly.

“Thank you, miei cari. We will debrief in the morning.” The three ghouls turn and step back inside, leaving you and Copia on the stairs. Your heart beats a little faster with the realization that you two are alone, although you tell yourself it’s because you won’t be able to defend him in this state. There’s definitely no other reason.

“Your glass slippers, my lady.” You roll your eyes and reach out to take your shoes from Copia, but he refuses to hand them over, kneeling on the stair below you. “Allow me, per favore.”

This might as well be happening. Lifting your foot up, you grant him permission to assist you. Copia slides the first shoe back on, holding your calf with one hand. Again, you can’t help but notice how warm and gentle his touch is. 

“I’m sorry for running off,” you say, needing to break the silence. “I hope you didn’t think that-“

“Not at all. I figured that something was, eh, ‘going down.’” When he looks up he finally notices the gashes in your side. He hisses, wincing. “Ahia! That looks like it hurts.”

You wave him off. “’Tis but a scratch.” He looks like he’s going to protest, clearly upset, but instead opts to tighten the strap of your shoe before moving on to the next foot.

“What happened?” He asks, starting the process over again.

“Rogue ghoul,” you explain, looking out into the forest at the edge of the lawn. “Likely the work of Cardinal Ambrosius. He’s gotten in trouble for trying to make contracts before. Doesn’t look like he’s quite figured it out, though. I can have his head on your desk by Monday morning, if you’d like.” 

Copia laughs through his nose. “You are absolutely vicious, mia strega.”

You shrug. “Just doing my job.” Once Copia finishes with your other shoe he stands, offering you his hand.

“Walk with me?” 

You give him a hesitant look. “I don’t want to keep you from your guests.” He scoffs.

“I have had enough of those two-faced pricks for one night. A lifetime, even.” His expression softens. “But if you are not up for it, I-“

“No!” You shoot up, taking his hand. It startles him a little bit. “I’m good. Let’s go.” Copia smiles, the moonlight sparkling in his eyes. Like an obedient  lamb, you let him lead you down the rest of the stairs and across the patio to where a walkway wraps around the side of the building. He’s taking you to the gardens, it seems. Though your legs feel like jelly, the walk isn’t very long, which you’re thankful for.

The gardens aren’t really a sight to behold this time of year, but the full moon bathes everything in a mesmerizing blue glow, giving the space a dreamlike quality. The ballroom is just up another set of stairs, the music still audible where you emerge. You stop by the fountain, a marble visage of Lilith pouring water from a bottomless goblet. The water is still running, providing a little extra ambiance.

“Care to dance?” Copia asks. “We were so tragically interrupted before.”

“I…” Damn you and your nerves. You’re blushing again. “I don’t want to get blood all over you.”

Still, he persists, shrugging. “It’s a black suit.” It’s hard to say no to that face, but the McQueen jacket? Really? He gives you a pleading look and your resolve instantly crumbles.

“Alright.” It’s all but a whisper. “But go easy on me.”

You don’t wait for the next song to start, you simply get in position and go from there. It’s slower than what you danced to before, and you two end up just swaying to the rhythm rather than following any steps. That’s fine with you, your legs are still shaking, though you can’t tell if it’s from exertion or something else entirely.

“You look beautiful,” Copia says after a few measures. In that time you two have drifted closer together, only a few inches between you now. It’s hard to look him in the eyes when your face is so embarrassingly red, so you choose to stare at the ground.

“I’m a mess.” You laugh, but there’s something bitter in it as your eyes wander to your soiled dress, torn and bloody. There was a silly, naive part of you that had been thinking of Copia when you selected it for this evening. He stops swaying, a hand finding your chin and gently lifting your head. In your opinion, he’s the beautiful one, practically glowing in the moonlight. 

“Nonsense. You are the fairest of them all, cara.” You roll your eyes, but the corners of your mouth draw up into a slight smile.

“You’re getting your fairytales mixed up.” The two of you share a laugh before dissolving into a few moments of comfortable silence. You can tell he’s thinking about something, and he looks away, clearly nervous.

“Did you mean what you said about coming back?” The question catches you off guard for a second.

“I did,” you finally respond. “I really did. This place feels like home again.” Swallowing, you decide to take a bit of a leap. “Did you mean what you said, about me leaving?” You haven’t discussed it in a long time, but when you first took the job, the understanding was that this was only a temporary arrangement, lasting at least until Copia was able to settle into his new position. The notion pains you now. He nods.

“Yes. I-“ He chuckles. “I cannot stand the thought. Signorina strega, say that you will stay with us, with me.”

You don’t even need to think about it. “I will. Of course I will.” Copia beams, and the sight is breathtaking. There’s another pause, the air between you charged with an energy more powerful than magick. In the ballroom, the final notes of the song ring out, though you hardly notice. A bomb could go off next to you, but even that wouldn’t be enough to pull you out of this moment.

“Beautiful…” You don’t protest when he cups your flushed cheek, running his thumb across the bone. “May I kiss you?” It takes everything you have to not melt into a puddle.

“Please.”

And then his lips — Sathanas, they’re soft —  are on yours. Stars explode behind your eyes as he presses into you, the hand on your hip to pulling you in closer. His body is so warm against you; it feels so right. Your heart is racing, head spinning, as the euphoria overtakes you. 

He kisses you until you’re both out of breath. When he finally pulls away, you want to chase after him, to kiss him until your lips fall off, but then your knees buckle. Copia is just barely able to catch you, letting out a surprised little noise you can’t help but find adorable. He seems less concerned when he sees you’re grinning like an idiot.

“Alas, I have killed her!” You both laugh as he helps you regain your balance. “Why don’t we sit down?” Humming in agreement, he leads you over to the fountain, sitting you down on the edge. He brushes a strand of hair out of your face, tucking it behind your ear. “Are you sure you are alright?”

“Just peachy,” you say, gazing at your intertwined hands. “It’s been a long night.” Feeling bold and still a bit woozy, you bring Copia’s hand to your lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. 

“Ah, young love.” You both jolt, heads snapping in the direction of the voice. Before you stand the glowing specters of Papa Nihil and Sister Imperator. The old man has a wistful, nostalgic look on his face, while your former teacher observes with her arms crossed. How long have they been watching you? “Just like we once were, don’t you think?” Imperator huffs.

“I sure hope not.” Her focus falls on you. The wrath in her translucent blue yes makes your blood freeze. “You think you’re good enough for my son, girl?” For a moment, you’re completely speechless.

“I-“

“Are you two serious right now,” Copia shouts. “Get out of here! Go on! Get!” He gets up from the fountain to shoo them away. Imperator gives you a pointed look before dissolving into a blue mist. Her message is clear: this isn’t over. You gulp.

Copia groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I cannot believe those two. I finally get to have my moment with you, and then they go and spoil it!” He flops back down next to you, sighing. “I am sorry, bella. I understand if-“

“Forget about it,” you say, holding up your hand to silence him. “Just kiss me, like, forever.”

Copia happily obliges.

[yesokayiknow]

good evening chief, may i please request any clara headcanons you have bc its been too long since ive thought abt the queen 🙏

something i was wondering about the other day is exactly how many times clara goes to her own funeral. bc it's at LEAST once right? bc who else can say they've been to their own funeral? and there's so many people there who she will never get a chance to see again, like her dad, and her nan. so she goes in disguise, and the whole thing's kind of awful but it's also pretty cathartic and she gets to see her family and her friends and her colleagues and her other colleagues (kate definitely sees her. they have a full five seconds of unbroken eye contact before kate just like downs her drink and grabs another) and it's nice. it's awful and it's nice.

and then a few decades later she's having a bad day and realises that she doesn't really remember everything that happened bc it was a while ago but she remembers that it helped. and hey, who can say they've been to their own funeral twice??? right????

anyway i estimate at least 40% of the people at clara's funeral are just clara in different disguises

[avocad1s]

Bring Back What Once Was Mine

Chapter Summary: You finally confront the False Creator

Characters Mentioned: Tsaritsa, Dottore, Lumine, The Imposter

Content Warning: Cult and Religious themes ahead! You've been warned.

Reader is the true creator of Teyvat. GN! Reader

Part Six Part Seven (You are here!) Part Eight

I had a bit of help on the beginning from someone who doesn’t even play Genshin 💀

Like always. This isn’t beta read 🗿 forgive me for any mistakes.

The creation of Teyvat was something Celestia would never forget.

The world was vast, full of untold wonder and color. Celestia could not have imagined something so beautiful. Yet, it always so eerily quiet, astoundingly quiet. For a while, just the two of them was enough to sate the needs of the creator. Something was missing from this new creation, something was lacking and the creator felt unfulfilled for some time.

And then the Creators loneliness returned.

“What’s the point of having all this space without anyone to share it with?” Is what the Creator would say.

No matter what protests it had, Celestia wouldn’t dare go against the Creator. So they watched, watched as they created life to live on the world.

Evening fell on Teyvat, and The Creator had been gone since morning to oversee the change of seasons. Celestia had kept a watchful eye over the creator from above. They had grown weary from watching them growing ever closer to the Gods and mortals of this world.

A small child had gotten separated from their mortal familiars. For many hours they wandered in the treacherous forest. A strong river flowed near by, and the rivers end was slippery and steep. Thick mud and gravel lay at the river bed and it was beginning to rain, turning the once calm river into a torrent.

Closer and closer the child came to the river, through the wooden thicket collecting small cuts and scraps from the lower brush. For a child so young, the cold would take them if the river didn’t. It happens more often than not, a simple thing.

In the beginning, the creator would have turned a blind eye to the nature of the world. Yet, Celestia watched The Creator follow the small child into the thicket. The child wailed and cried, but they found no comfort in the dark. The river’s edge was so close now, they slipped on the wet grass.

Celestia waited for the splash, but none came. Looking down yet again, small tears edge the child’s face but they were drying from the heat they radiated from the Creators chest and arms. They had wrapped them in their cloak and were carrying them across.

Celestia felt a small vexation toward the child, and noticeably was counting the centimeters that separated the two of them, and finding the measurement inadequate.

Time was an irrelevant thing to Celestia, unlike the mortals on Teyvat, it had no fear of growing old and dying. It knew that one day, the Creator would return, Celestia just had to be patient.

Yet decades, no centuries pass and the Creator never returned, never reached out. They continued to interact, continued to love the life that resided on the planet.

It burned inside to know that the second creation received more attention. Oh how Celestia craved even a fraction of the attention Teyvat received.

And then among the chaotic emotions Celestia experienced, the Creator left. Celestia scanned every part of the world and found only traces of them. Mortals weeped due to their disappearance but Celestia had faith. It would finally bask in the grace of their Creator, maybe they weren’t forgotten, weren’t the second choice.

Celestia spiraled into despair after that. The hope it held on to that the Beloved Creator would return diminished. No matter where it looked, Celestia never found them.

Celestia had no regard for life on Teyvat, looking down on it only made Celestia remember that the last time the Creator was seen….. it was on this planet.

If it could, Celestia would desecrate every atom on this world until there was no evidence of its existence. Listening to the foul ramblings of the so-called Gods who witnessed the Creators greatness; and expressing how much they missed Their Grace was more than Celestia could bare.

No one could fathom the loss Celestia did.

Why couldn’t they reach out to them? Beg them to return?

Celestia would do anything to get Their Grace to return, consequences be damned.

Sumeru City was finally in view.

With every step you take, you could feel an indescribable amount of dread being placed on your shoulders. Your mind was racing with endless possibilities of reality. What might happen once you were face-to-face with the imitator, and if it was Celestia, would they bend to your will?

“Your Grace…”

A voice breaks you from your thoughts, and you notice that the group has stopped. All of the them were looking intently at you.

“Are you alright?” Lumine asks softly, “you’ve been quiet.”

A soft sigh escapes your lips, “we need to find a way to discreetly enter the City. If we draw any attention we’ll lose our advantage.”

Dottore saunters over to you, “Your Grace,” he bows a bit, respect radiating from his figure. “I have a way for us to enter the City, if you’re up to it”

You look into his mask trying to sense his intent.

“Well? What is it?”

“A sound wave,” he explains, “it can put people to sleep, it doesn’t work on Gods.”

“Wait, Your Grace,” the Traveler approaches you standing on the opposite side of Dottore, “that doesn’t seem safe, are you sure you trust it.”

“You are really going to let your personal feelings get in the way of the plan?” the Tsaritsa says coldly crossing her arms.

“Well do you have a better idea?” You ask. Lumine closes her mouth with a downcast gaze.

You turn your gaze back to the doctor, “then we are going with your plan.”

You notice him smile underneath his mask, “of course Your Grace,”

-

Something is…. off.

The Imposter could feel it deep in their bones. The grating voice of the thing that created them rang in their head on loop. No matter how hard the Imposter tried, they wouldn’t have a moment of peace.

However, what is peace when you are a poorly constructed imitation of something far greater?

Their only job was to get the true one to return, they were supposed to talk like them, act like them, be them, but they were a puppet. With no will of their own, all they had were the unbreakable strings that left them tethered to their creator.

‘Once they return, I will free you’ it said.

Is freedom what they wanted? When the real one returned, would they be granted that privilege?

For hundreds of years they pretended to be them, and they know for a fact that they had lost the purpose long ago. All they were was a tool their creator used to intact revenge on what it believed to be the reason the real one left.

The Imposter nails dig into the palms of their hands as they grit their teeth, how is it possible for someone as infamous as the Traveler to disappear without a trace?

Suddenly the doors are pushed open and a guard comes staggering in breathing heavily, “your Grace!” He shouts, “everyone has suddenly fallen asleep!”

The Imposter tilts their head raising a brow, “what? What do you mean everyone has fallen asleep.”

The guard hunches over holding his stomach as he tries to catch his breath, “I was doing my rounds when everyone near the entrance collapsed. I came here to tell you immediately.”

“And you decided to come here instead of checking the problem out yourself?”

The guard opens his mouth to speak but quickly shuts it when they lift their hand up. “If you want to be useful then go check it out, I have no need for cowards.”

The guard stands up straight nodding quickly before exiting the room.

The Impostor let’s out a long sigh, so the time has come.

Unexplained circumstances like this could only mean that the Creator was approaching. Even though the Imposter had no true connection to them, they knew the Creator was near since Celestia’s instructions repeated louder and louder in their head.

The Imposter already knew that once the Creator enter these door they would be put on the back burner. Celestia would use their connection to take over their body and talk to them itself.

Moments later the large double doors again and a beautiful woman with white hair enters gripping the arm of a blonde haired girl. They both stand in the middle of the room staring at her on the throne.

“Your Grace.” She says coldly staring at them. “It seems that your guards are not trained well enough to bring you what you ask.”

She pushes the blonde girl on the floor, presenting her as if she was a gift.

The Imposter stares quizzically at the two women, “Tsaritsa. After you had kicked me out of your nation and told me to never return, you now show your face.” They cross their legs a smirk on their lips, “and the famous Traveler, you lied. Right to my face! But now you are groveling at my feet.”

They let out an amused laugh, “did you finally realize the consequences of your actions?”

Lumine stays on the ground as the Tsaritsa casts her gaze down at the floor, trying to come off as apologetic as possible.

“I am here to apologize. It was blasphemous for me to forsake you the way I did.”

“That was decades ago,” the Imposter explicates, “why should I trust you now?”

“I’ve heard you were looking for the Traveler, so I brought her as a peace offering.”

The Imposter stands from the throne walking down the stairs, their steps echoing throughout the cold room. “And how is it that out of everyone, you managed to find her?”

Before the Archon could respond the Imposter speaks again, “I just find it very hard to believe that after all these years you finally decide to come and apologize.”

They stand from their throne walking slowly down the long staircase their footsteps echoing throughout the room. Once they stood in front of the two girls, a cold look replaces the facade that has been on their face for years.

“Prove it.”

The Tsaritsa’s eyebrows raise slightly, “Pardon?”

The Imposter crosses their arms, “prove your loyalty to me.”

Lumine looks up from her spot on the ground a concerned look on her face, what could they possibly mean?

“How should I prove it?”

They point down at the Traveler a blank look on their face, “kill Lumine.”

“Kill… Lumine?” The Tsaritsa repeats.

The Imposter nods, “I have no care for outlanders and she has committed the biggest act against me. If you want my trust, you’ll end her life.”

The room falls silent as it starts to grow incredibly cold, to Lumine, it was unclear if the chill in the air came from the Cryo Archon or if it was due to the Imposter’s shell finally cracking.

“Well,” they say, “what’s it gonna be?”

Right Outside The Door

You had decided to send the Tsaritsa and Lumine into the room alone while you, Dottore, and Paimon stood right outside the door. You wanted to listen for a moment to know exactly how the Imposter acted to pick the best course of action.

And to see if you can feel any resemblance to Celestia before you were face to face.

“What are you gonna do?” A high pitched voice asks.

You notice Paimon floating near you a concerned look on her face. If she didn’t talk, you would’ve assumed she was anxious from being away from the Traveler but it seems her worry was all on you.

“If Celestia is at fault what will you do? Will you…” she trails off but you knew what she was going to say.

Getting rid of Celestia wouldn’t be an issue for you physically. As powerful as it was, Celestia could never overpower you no matter how hard it tried.

However the guilt you will feel if you get rid of it would be immeasurable, Celestia was your first creation and throwing it away as if it were trash would break you.

‘Why should I trust you now?’

You wince, maybe your plan of having the Tsaritsa apologize wasn’t as great as you thought it was. Even having the Traveler wasn’t enough to quell the worries of the Imposter.

You hear footsteps echo throughout the room, what could they be doing?

“I will do what is necessary…” You say truthfully to the fairy.

You push open the door slightly to sneak a peek of what was going on in the room. The Tsaritsa and the Impostor stood face to face while Lumine was on the floor.

‘Prove if to me’

‘How should I prove it?’

The next words made your blood run cold and you weren’t the only one. The color had drained from Paimon’s face as no other words were spoken in the room.

‘Well, what’s it gonna be?’

Your body moves on its own and you push open the door causing the trio to look at you. Lumine gives you a relieved glance while the Imposter’s eyes widen at your unexpected entrance.

Their cold look is replaced by something you couldn’t describe as they take a few steps back, “it’s you…”

You walk towards them slowly, “your reign over my creation is over.”

You payed no mind to nothing else in the room, everything was leading to this moment. Everyone who had helped you over these past few days had lead you right here.

The Imposters entire demeanor quickly changes, the look of surprise that was in their eyes replaced by a neutral smile as they stared quietly at you. You hadn’t even talked to them yet and they seemed completely different already.

“You have been on Teyvat for a while, but we now finally meet…”

You stare at their face blankly, not saying a word.

They took note of your silence and continue speaking, “I’ve waited a long time for you. Now that the time has come, I don’t know what to say.” They chuckle a bit.

You feel your heart sink as you close your eyes, “Celestia…” you whisper.

The Imposter’s posture fixes as a look of gratitude spreads on their face. “You’ve been gone for so long I didn’t think you’d recognize me anymore.”

“Even with this mask you wear, I will always recognize you.”

The Imposter, or rather Celestia takes a few steps closer to you, “I have missed you, my Creator.”

You take a step back, “You steal my face and caused pain to the life I created in this world, why? Why must you betray me like this?”

They stay silent for a moment as if they were choosing their next words carefully, “you left me…”

“I… left you?”

“it was supposed to be just us, then you had to go on and make this world then the life on this world.” The frown spitting the words out like venom. “You discarded me as you spent all your time here and then you just left!”

They snap their fingers to emphasize the meaning behind their words. “I was just a toy to you, and all I wanted was for you to come back.”

So this was its reasoning for everything it did, simply not giving Celestia attention made it act as if it were a child.

“You’re right, it was wrong of me to leave with saying nothing. Especially after not interacting with you for decades… but the doesn’t give you the right to mess with something that doesn’t belong to you.”

You bring your hand out gripping their chin forcing them to meet your gaze, “if you truly cared for me, you wouldn’t have done what you did. You are selfish.”

“I am so-“

“You’re not sorry,” you interrupt, “you’ve done this for decades, if you truly felt regret, you would’ve stopped long ago.”

You and Celestia stood right in front of each other as they look you right in your eyes, being reprimanded by you was their least favorite way of getting your attention.

“Giving you any rule over Teyvat is my biggest mistake.” You hiss, “I thought that after the Archon war that I could depend on you to keep life on Teyvat in order, but all you did was abuse your power.”

Their face falls a look of total devastation on it, “My Creator-“

“I don’t want to hear it!” You snap, “you’ve done enough damage.”

The room falls silent, no one behind you dared to speak up only watching the interaction between the two of you. Through the vessel, Celestia stares at you with trembling lips and watery eyes.

“You will return where you belong and never return to Teyvat again.” You demand.

“And what will you do?” Celestia stammers.

“I have to clean up your mess, you used my face and disgraced me on my own Creation. You’ve made people fear me and you say you did this all because you love me.”

They hang their head down in shame, “please forgive me, My Creator… disgracing you was never my intention I just…”

“You just what? Acted like a child to get me to return?”You let out a sigh, “don’t make this any harder than it already is. Just leave.”

The color from their face drains as their body goes limp in your arms as if it was a doll and if you weren’t talking to it just a moment ago, you would’ve believed that to be the case.

Footsteps from behind approach you slowly and you feel a warm hand in your shoulder, it was Lumine giving you a sad smile. “Are you alright Your Grace?”

You look down at the now empty vessel that was in your arms, “I should apologize. To all of you. You told me that it was Celestia this whole time and I didn’t want to believe it.”

Tears threaten to spill from your eyes but you quickly wipe them away.

“Now that the Imposter, erm- Celestia, is gone. What happens now?”

“Everyone else deserves to know the truth.” You mutter, “reversing all the damage Celestia has done is the most important thing right now.”

“Your Grace,” you hear the Tsaritsa call out as she approaches standing in the opposite side of the Traveler. “No one is going to blame you for this.”

“I blame me.” You look at the Cryo Archon. “I’ve should’ve been here.”

Despite the enormous amount of guilt you had for allowing everyone to suffer in the hands of Celestia for so long you knew you couldn’t dwell on it right now. Getting to every nation and telling the truth is more important and figuring out what to do with Celestia still sits in the back of your mind.

Even after all the terrible deeds it’s done you needed to have a proper conversation with it. It’s clear that the floating island still had lots of love for you but it was blinded by their jealousy. Was that enough to let them off the hook? If you decided to go off-world again would they just do the same thing?

You knew that you must sever the connection between Celestia and Teyvat, even if you do decide to forgive them, you couldn’t trust them with the well-being of this planet anymore.

You pick up the now lifeless doll draping it over your shoulder, “I am going to Celestia, it shouldn’t be gone online but once I return I will fix everything. I promise.”

Since you had no reason to his your identity anymore, you could use your powers. Not that there was any other way to get to Celestia without teleporting.

“I appreciate all of your help, and for telling me the truth. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me.” You express.

Lumine and Paimon smile at you, “you’re our friend, of course we’d help. While you’re away we will let everyone know the truth.”

“I will have my harbingers do the same,” the Tsaritsa says quietly to you.

You give them a small smile, “thank you. I will return soon.”

The group watches you leave without another word leaving them alone in the room where the False Crestor resided. The Cryo Archon turns her attention to Dottore, who had not said nothing during the entire encounter.

“Inform the other Harbingers of the situation.” She orders the coldness in her voice returning. He nods at her order not putting up a fight, leaving just as quickly as you did.

She turns her attention to Lumine, “I knew we’d meet eventually but I didn’t expect it to be like this.”

The outlander nods, “me either…”

????

He was beyond frustrated.

He knew that when he met the Creator in that tent, he should’ve brought them with him. No one would be able to help them better than he could, but that stupid woman they were with had stopped him before he could even ask. Oh how he wished he would’ve gotten rid of that woman, but if he had hurt her, the Creator would’ve never heard him out and that’s the last thing he wanted.

He runs a hand through his hair letting out a annoyed sigh.

“Your Majesty,” an Abyss mage approaches from behind bowing.

“What!” The Prince snaps, he was not in the mood to deal with any failures right now.

The Mage shrinks back glancing up at him, “We have been following Their Grace without being detected as your ordered. They have defeated the False Creator.”

He feels a smile spread across his lips, “finally you have brought me good news.”

“But” the Abyss Mage continues, “there’s one other thing.”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Your sister. It appears she was helping Their Grace the whole time…”

The Prince stands from his seat his braid blowing in the wind, Stormterrors lair never failed to be windy. “And is she aware of my… involvement?”

“Their Grace never mentioned you.” The Abyss Mage answers and the Prince nods.

“It seems that Lumine is finally becoming aware of the truth of this world.”

The Prince could feel the excitement bubbling in his chest, finally he could see you again without any interruptions, the Archons, the Adepti, and Celestia itself means nothing in your presence and he could not wait to bask in it once more.

Note: The last chapter will be fairly long as it will deal with your travels to every nation(besides Fontaine and Natlan lmao) including Celestia and the Abyss. Lots of characters will appear so if there’s anyone you’d be interested in seeing let me know! 🙏 Sorry for the almost two week wait for this chapter but I kept rewriting it because I couldn’t figure out if I wanted Celestia to be evil or not 💀

Taglist: @esthelily @the-dumber-scaramouche @grimreapersscythe @seawater-aurelia-writing @probablynoposts @genshin-impacts-me @itsredactedlove @chidouna @thedevioussmirk @hoo-hoo @chaoticfivesworld @akemiixx01 @lunarapple @nowords-onlybreathing @fangirlinindia @veyu002 @blackcoffex @kaveh-is-pretty @ariasdream @averycuriousperson @bloopthebat @chuuya-brainrot @crazydreamcat @sparklyphantom @multistanbee @bluebelony @mokakoto @mega-trash-cringe CLOSED

[rickgrimeswifey]

Secrets pt.3 - Negan Smith

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A/n: After what felt like a decade... it’s finally here. Sorry if you’ve been waiting for a long time :’^) If you haven’t already read the previous parts (or if you want to reread) then here they are part 1 and part 2. 

Category: ANGSTY, little smutty

Pairing: Negan Smith x fem!grimes!reader

Season: 8

Warnings: Violence, Rick is a sad guy, Negan type language, just some teasing from Negans side, some making out, not gonna put other warnings because it will spoil the plot

Word count: 9k

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It was early morning, and back at the Hilltop, Rick had barely gotten any sleep. He couldn’t sleep because all he could think about was if his daughter was alive and well. She could be laying in a ditch dead somewhere, if she did, Rick would feel like it was completely his fault. He kicked her out, he scared her away, he yelled at her. He made her think he didn’t ever want her to come back.

“Rick?” Michonne asked in a soft voice, Rick was putting up some boards in the room where Judith was going to be sleeping.

He didn’t look over his shoulder at Michonne, he just continued to hit the nail with the hammer.  He was putting the boards up over a broken window since they couldn’t fix it any other way.

“What’s going on with you?” Michonne asked softly, Rick didn’t give any response he just continued on like he didn’t hear her. “Where’s Y/n?” Hearing those words come out of someone's mouth made Rick tense up, he stopped what he was doing, the guilt and fear now consuming him.

“I don’t know...” he mumbled as a tear pushed past his waterline to then fall down his cheek lazily.

He scratched his scalp as he turned to Michonne, who was standing there confused.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she asked, sounding concerned and a little bit irritated.

“I sent her away...” Rick sat down on the bed, more tears running down his face. “And now she might be dead... because of me.” He almost started to sob when he admitted it.

“Why would you do that?” Michonne was still very confused, but her concern for Y/n’s wellbeing was growing increasingly.  

“She... she slept with...” Rick stopped because he couldn’t finish his sentence, it felt disgusting and disturbing.

Michonne slowly walked over and sat down beside Rick, she grabbed his hand softly.

“With who?” Now she was also starting to get emotional, something deep down inside her already knew who Rick meant.

“Him...” Rick sighed. “Negan.” A tear fell slowly from Michonne's eye, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Fury also started to grow rapidly inside her, although the concern for Y/n’s well being devoured it in a second. Her breathing was shaky, it was dangerous now more than ever out there. The war with The Saviors was more intense than ever.  

“Now, I have no idea if she’s even alive or ever coming back, maybe she’s lost...” Rick started sobbing, making Michonne out of reflex hug him tightly.

“She’s okay...” she comforted him. “She has to be.” Another tear fell from her eye. “We can’t lose two children in a week.”

-

The window in Negan's room didn’t have its curtains pulled down, which made bright sunlight burn its way onto Y/n’s eyelids. She flattered her eyes open softly to then squeeze them shut quickly when the sun burned into her eyes. Y/n turned around so that she was laying with Negan right in front of her. She rubbed her eyes before opening them, she furrowed her eyebrows. Negan wasn’t there, the bed was empty.

Y/n sighed remembering what happened last night. She sat up in his king sized bed and stretched. Y/n looked around the room, there was nothing. She had no idea where he was until the sound of a door opening was heard. Negan came out of the bathroom, his expression changing in a second when he saw Y/n.  

“Morning sunshine,” he joked, smiling like an idiot. “Sleep well?”

“It was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.” Y/n softly smiled back at him as she spoke with a raspy morning voice.  

“Great,” he clapped, then rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Because we have a big day in front of us today, get dressed.” Negan said and pointed to some clothes that were laying on the leather armchair, folded nicely.  

Y/n stood up from the bed, getting help from Negan to walk over to the piece of furniture. She looked at them and recognized it immediately. Thank god, she thought. It was her clothes that she wore yesterday when he’d found her. Her t-shirt was damaged from when her arm got injured but it wasn’t a big deal. Some grass stains were still there on her jeans although she didn’t really care. Everyone has stains from dirt and grass on their pants nowadays. Negan had even washed her underwear, what a gentleman. She moved the clothes to the table then sat down in the soft chair. Slowly putting on her jeans, careful to not harm her ankle more. It was very sore but didn’t ache as much today. Y/n put on her bra under Negan's t-shirt that she was currently wearing, not being completely comfortable with being naked in front of him.  

“Aw honey,” he pouted slightly from where he was sitting on his couch. “I wanted a show.”

Y/n just rolled her eyes when she pulled the shirt over her head. She had clasped her bra and now put the strands on her shoulders. Negan sent her an amused look because of the view he was getting. Y/n ignored him and put on her t-shirt. She grabbed her shoes that were in front of the armchair, quite literally right under her nose.

“I washed your shoes too, but in a separate washer.” Negan said. “You are just a very dirty girl, aren’t you?” he taunted, making her flustered.

“So, what are we doing today?” Y/n chose to ignore his comment meanwhile heat was spread through her cheeks. “You said it was a big day for us.”

“Yeah, I have some major business to handle here. You know, the big guy has been gone for a day. People think they can just do whatever they want as soon as I’m not there.” He talked like he was going to laugh but his eyes were almost flaming with fire.

“...Something happened?” Y/n asked cautiously, she didn’t want to poke the bear.

“Yeah, yeah something sure as hell happened.” Negan said quite irritated although it didn’t sound like he was pissed at Y/n.    

“What happened Negan?...” She asked quietly with a very soft voice.

Negan just stared at her for a moment, with one of those looks that made you wonder about what he was going to do next. There was no way to tell. He wasn’t smiling but he wasn’t looking pissed either. He just looked neutral with his eyebrows furrowed as if he was thinking.

“You know the garbage queen?” Negan asked, Y/n nodded. “Well, apparently Simon went over there and lined all of them up, to then have saviors shoot them all until they died. But, Jadis survived and told me all about it. From the beginning they were just gonna go over there to kill one, because the garbage people betrayed us, but Simon broke the rules only because I wasn’t there.” He explained, it looked like it pained him, it certainly made him pissed off, you could clearly tell by just glancing at him.

“Negan... that’s horrible...” Y/n sighed not knowing what else to say, what he had just told her sounds like what only an insane person would do.

“What’s worse is that Dwight warned me that Simon has been building a little club to try and kill me,” he sighed. “I’m going to have to kill him, but I’ll give him a chance to live.”

“A chance? How? What kind of chance?” Y/n asked to which Negan only answered with a mysterious shrug.

“You’ll see...”

“What-” Y/n breathed out confused, furrowing her eyebrows.

A firm knock on the door caused the two to break the eye contact they were currently maintaining. Negan stood up and walked over to the door, he opened it and outside stood Dwight and Arat.

“Simon called the group for a meeting in five minutes, snipers are ready on the roofs and everything else is set up.” He informed his leader. “We just gotta get everyone else in position.”

“Great, thanks D.” Negan thanked before turning to face Y/n, he put his index and middle finger up beside each other and motioned for her to stand up.

Y/n stood up with a shoe in her hand on the other on her right foot, since she couldn’t walk on her sprained ankle.

“Arat, help the lady to the main floor and then come outside and get in position.” Negan ordered Arat, who immediately stepped forward to let Y/n put her arm around her shoulder. “I want everyone to see me being reasonable by giving Simon a second chance.”

He grabbed Lucille before walking off with Dwight. Arat started walking with Y/n  out of Negan's room.

“Hey,” Y/n said immediately capturing Arats attention. “What does he mean by giving Simon a second chance?” She asked.

Arat shook her head. “No, nobody really knows with him. I mean you could guess but you’re probably not getting it right anyway.” She closed the door to Negan's bedroom behind them.

-

“Have you read it yet?” Michonne asked from her position in the doorway when Rick looked down into the drawer where he’d put Carl's letter.

“No...” he mumbled quietly.

“You should... Carl wants you to... that’s why he wrote them...” she said gently.

Rick just stared down at the letter laying in his hand.

“I know...” He whispered and his voice cracked. “I can’t lose another one of my babies Michonne...” Tears fell from his eyes as he spoke.

“I know Rick...” she sighed. “Remember Y/n is a smart, sweet and very tough girl, I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Carl was tough too...” Rick said sadly. “He was also very brave and sweet...”

Rick couldn’t help but to start sobbing again. Michonne was quick to comfort him. She wrapped her arms around him from his side while Rick cried with his hand to his face.

“I really think you should read your letter... it’ll be good for you... Rick, you need it.” Michonne told him a little more stern this time.

Rick just nodded, his glassy eyes mirroring pure pain.

“Go outside... here on the second floor onto the balcony where no one is and read it, you won’t be distracted.” Michonne said softly while she rubbed his upper arm with her hand. “I’ll finish the windows.”

Rick slowly walked out onto the balcony, dragging his feet behind him. Already on the verge of tears he sat down in the shadows, avoiding the burning sun. A tear fell from Rick's eye one again as he began reading Carl's letter. He had written about how he remembered school, Lori, going to the movies, Friday night pizza him and Y/n used to love, grandma and grandpa, church and cartoons. Just overall things that made Carl happy back in the day. Ricks heart hurt more and more the further he got into the letter. Especially when he read that Carl remembered that Rick used to tell him about the walks they used to take when Carl was three around the neighborhood all the way down to a farm. How Rick would hold Carl's hand and make him feel safe, special and happy. The guilt came back when he read the line “I thought growing up was about getting a job and a maybe a family. But growing up is making yourself and the people you love safe. As safe as you can, cause things happen.” A tiny soft smile had grown on Ricks lips as he read about how Carl told him he wish he could make Rick feel like he did when he was three, holding his hand.

The little peace Rick felt for a second had now been wiped away completely as well as the small smile was long gone as soon as Rick read the name ‘Negan’ in the letter. Carl tells him about the innocent workers, giving the people in there a chance and trying to make peace with The Sanctuary overall. Rick threw his head back against the wooden pole he was sitting by and sighed when he read this. Rick's lips parted in disbelief when he read the next few sentences, a small gasp of utter shock leaving his body, the tears instantly rushing back.

“Dad, there is something you need to know. When you find out about this or if you already have. I just need you to be able to forgive and forget because who knows how much time left she has? I didn't. If you know what I’m talking about, I know you must’ve been furious when you found out, I was. But dad please don’t be mad at her or do anything stupid without thinking. When she told me about it, I started yelling whatever I could at her, then I even threw some things across my room back in Alexandria. I need you to forgive her, please. And give her a hug from me and take her on one of those walks, please.”

Rick's heart ached, his breathing pace faster than ever. Panic rising quickly in his chest.

“No...” he sobbed. “No, no, no...!”

Rick knew exactly what Carl had written about, it was Y/n. What she had done, what Carl wanted Rick to do when he found out. If he had only had that letter earlier. If Y/n was dead, Rick would never heal knowing he’d let Carl and her down. He would never be able to sleep again. If he never found her, that would drive him mad. Rick hurried up to go out and look for her when he bumped into Michonne in the hallway on the second floor.

“Rick?” she asked, noticing how shook up he was.

“Carl knew.” Rick sighed. “I need to find her, I can’t let them both down like this.” He sobbed.

“Rick.” Michonne said sternly, catching his attention. “What happened?”

He showed the letter to her and pointed to the last part. He could hear Michonne's breathing increasing rapidly and how she lost her breath from time to time.

“I’ll go look for her.” She said, also wanting to read this letter to Negan. “You stay here Rick, the community needs you.” Michonne wiped his tears, the look on his face was extremely distressed and freaked her out a bit. “Okay?” she whispered.

“Okay...” Rick whispered back softly.

-

Outside by the fence Dwight was standing and tapping his foot against the concrete. He had his arm on a container as he leaned against it. He paced around in a circle, feeling nervous. What if Simon found out what he was really up to. He was basically setting this man up to be beaten to death by Negan himself.

A group of saviors came out of the exit underneath the stairs with yellow metal railing meanwhile Simon came out of the door on top of it where the yellow metal railing was on the stairs made out of stone with more saviors behind him.

“Hey,” a savior called out to Dwight. “Some shit, huh?”

“Yeah,” Dwight drawled.

“Gotta think uh, you wanted this before we did.” The man said to Dwight who knew exactly what he was referring to.

He didn’t answer, he just dragged his thumb under his eye, lightly scratching it. Simon stepped up to Dwight, looking him sternly in the eyes before turning his gaze to the other saviors.

“If you’re here right now,” Simon began and let out a small sigh. “You’re in. We can talk about approaches and finesses but you are in.” He turned around looking at Dwight as he said the last few words. “No take backs.” Dwight stared at the ground not wanting to look up. “We need to make this quick, quiet and respectful. Man’s done a lot for us, he deserves that.” Simon looked around the group before his gaze landed on Dwight once again, he raised his finger and pointed at him before starting to talk once again. “You have some legitimate personal issues with the man.” He took one step towards Dwight. “The kill is yours if you want it, something quiet, I mean not a knife.” Simon chuckled to himself. “Can’t make it that personal... silencer?” He backed up from Dwight and started pacing around in circles looking around at each group member. “We called a meeting, and that’s it. The next order of business is to set the brake to start the healing. The catalyzing event to facilitate that is the destruction of the Hilltop and its residents. We’ll make it a monument of compliance, sorry Gregory. And then we get on with our lives,” Simon stopped going in his circles and stepped up to Dwight again. “Right Dwight?” He asked.

Dwight looked up from the ground at him before whistling the classic savior whistle, Simon's facial expression went from confusion to a mix of anger and fear when Negan came out from behind the container, whistling. He took Lucille into his other hand that was gloved and placed his bare one on Dwights shoulder.

“Thank you, D.” He praised, keeping his pretty relaxed gaze on Simon. “I’ll take it from here.” Negan said in a dangerously calm tone.

Simon kept his gaze on Dwight, it was now full with fury and wonder. Negan kept his gaze on Simon, a hint of disappointment in his dark eyes.

“Three,” he began counting, making Simon move his gaze to him. “Two,” Negan continued on counting down. “One.” He said, directly after all the saviors in this little group were shot to death, except Simon and Gregory.

Simon flinched then looked around trying to see where the shots were fired from. Arat and another savior came out behind a van. The gun in her hand gripped tightly, aiming directly at Simon's head. He turned from art and looked back at Dwight as two other saviors came onto his left side, taking his weapons. Simon stood still before launching forward to try and get a hold of Dwight but the two saviors pulled him back, and then held him still.

Simon trying to attack Dwight brought a smug grin to Negan's face, he let out a breathy chuckle before speaking; “Now there is the Simon that I know, comes right at ya.Instead of that backstabbing bullshit.” He walked past him while talking.

Although Simon only still kept his gaze on Dwight, he couldn’t believe it. Why would he do this...

“Why?” he asked through gritted teeth. “After everything he did to you, huh?” Simon spat nodding his head to Negan by the mention of him, keeping his jaw clenched so tight that you could see the veins popping out on his throat. “Why do this?”

“He’d win.” Dwight said simply.

Negan stood a foot away from Simon beside him and those two saviors. He had a smug look on his face because of what Dwight said before turning more stern. Simon is still just staring at Dwight furiously, refusing to break off the eye contact with him.

“You killed all the garbage people Simon...” Negan reminded, before turning around and gathering some strength before crushing one of the dead former saviors heads’ with Lucille, the sound of her crushing their skull making Simon flinch. Negan turned around to look at him before speaking his next line. “After I specifically told you not to do that shit.” He gathered his strength again and crushed another skull. The sound of it makes Simon close his eyes and think that he might be next to face Lucille. He was breathing heavily, nostrils flaring since he was so pissed at Dwight. “I got a sneaking suspicion that you were hoping I was dead.” Negan bashed another skull, Simon still keeping his intense gaze on Dwight. “Rick kamikaze that convoy. The Hilltop? Yeah...” Negan asked before bashing a final skull in. “All is not forgiven.” He spat.

Negan turned around from the corpse and stood waiting for Simon to look at him. When he didn't, the saviors turned him around with much force. As they turned him around he still glared at Dwight as if he wanted to beat him to death.

“Why?” Negan asked. “After all this and me being me,” he moved his tongue in between his teeth slowly staring at the angry man in front of him. “I’m still gonna give you your shot.” Negan walked up straight into Simon's face making him straighten his back to look bigger and try and assert his dominance.

Negan stepped even more up in his face before straightening his back, looking directly into Simon's eyes. “You wanna be the man you gotta beat the man...” He informed me by looking at the man in front of him with a dangerous look.  “You can do that, hell you should be the man.” Negan challenged, a smug smirk growing on his lips.

Simon leant forward and slimmed his eyes down looking at his former leader. His chest rising up and down rapidly. Eyebrows furrowed and jaw tightly clenched. Ready to battle for leadership.

Y/n was standing in the staircase above the main floor, in front of the exit. Where she stood it wasn’t high up. It was just above the first flight of stairs that were connected to the first floor. There were more stairs to get to the top but she guessed this is where Negan wanted her, with a plain view over all the workers. This was actually the exact place Negan and Carl had stood before, when he was getting his tour around the Sanctuary.

She felt uneasy when she noticed how the saviors were staring at her, some of the workers too. It was just because she was Rick the pricks daughter. They knew she was, last time she was here the word had gotten around with the saviors that she was a part of the Grimes family.

Suddenly the doors to the exit beneath her flew open. In through then came SImon and two saviors that were holding him. They then let him go once he was right in sight of Y/n on the first floor. Behind came Negan walking slowly, stopping a fair amount of distance in front of Simon. Rows of saviors piled up behind him, making him look like the bigger man. Simon didn’t have anyone standing close behind him, there were just workers standing at their stations watching completely flabbergasted. The look on Simon's face made a pit full of anxiety make itself at home in Y/n’s stomach. She realized what the two of them were about to do. They were about to fight to the death. This could go horribly wrong. If Simon succeeded to win he would probably kill her then go and attack the Hilltop. He was crazy, just wanted to hurt people.

Negan stood with his head slightly leant back and so was the rest of his body. He had his arms down loosely crossed by his abdomen, Lucille gripped lazily in one of his hands. His back was to Y/n so she couldn’t see his face. Although, he hadn’t said a thing so she knew he was just staring at SImon waiting for him to make a move.

Everything and everyone was quiet, no one dared to make a sound, watching what was about to happen. Y/n’s gaze landed on Gregory, he looked nervous and Dwight did too. She didn’t blame them though, she was nervous too. This could all go wrong or good, no in between. Simon turned slowly to look at all the workers and saviors before he shouted out;

“Everyone! After this is done,” He continued on shouting while taking off his camo green jacket. “We get to work!” SImon threw his jacket onto the floor beside him. “Just know that I didn’t want this!” he yelled before making eye contact with Y/n for a moment.

She felt even more anxiety washing over her features when he gave her a look that told her that he would without a doubt, kill her and everyone she cared about if he won this fight.

“But The Sanctuary must stand!” He broke off the gaze with Y/n before it finally landed on Negan, rolling up the sleeves of his dark gray shirt. “This is not the man to prosecute this conflict!” He said walking closer and closer to Negan, with every step making Y/n lose her breath more and more.

What Simon was saying brought a challenging and smug smirk to Negan's face. He couldn’t believe this guy, being his best man for years then he just became some traitor and now wants to kill him.

“Just wanted to say...” Simon began making silly gestures with his arms and head before turning around to look around at the crowd of people. “A grateful enclave thank you!” he fumed, turning around and hitting Negan in the face, making him fall to the ground.

Y/n gasped, just hoping that Negan would get up. He sat up but was punched in the face again by Simon and fell back down. He grabbed Negan by his leather jacket and put him on his feet, to then punch him once again to make him fall over. This time when Simon ran at him and was trying to tackle Negan to the floor, he was ready. He caught Simon and elbowed him in the neck then threw him onto the floor. Y/n stood watching, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. Negan didn’t go straight back in to attack him again, he stood and paced slowly as Simon got up and let out a growl then he ran at Negan again. He grabbed his leather jacket again, Negan tried to get his hands off but Simon threw a punch in his face.

The saviors stood completely emotionless and watched as multiple more punches were heard. Y/n stood bent over the metal stair rail watching with a hand over her mouth so that her gasps wouldn't be heard by anyone else. SImon swung at Negan but he dodged it, he was about to grab Simon but he was quicker and got ahold of his ear. This time Negan managed to get his grip off of him and push him away, he then punched Simon right in his face four times in a row. He was about to throw a punch back but Negan dodged it and stepped to the side. Both of the men were red in their faces, growing weaker and weaker for each hit. SImon was more hurt than Negan at the moment, therefore he was slower and weaker. The two men were both breathing heavily and panting.

Simon ran at Negan and grabbed onto his jacket again, he immediately grabbed ahold of his hands to get him off. This time he succeeded but then Simon tried to tackle him to the ground. Negan gripped his shirt and lifted him up from his position, he headbutted Simon and swept his feet so that he fell onto the floor. Negan walked up to him and kicked him in his face as he laid there, he beat him a couple more times before getting on top and starting to choke him. Y/n felt relieved knowing Negan had already won when SImon first fell to the floor. She noticed how Dwight brought Gregory aside then saw Gregory run away. She furrowed her eyebrows at Dwight when he came back in sight, he just cleared his throat and looked away from her.

“You went for it all at the hilltop.” Negan spat at Simon. “You got saviors killed, and then you ran away like a coward!” he yelled. “You got shown up one too many times, those people they are always gonna know that there’s a loophole, a way to skate they’re always gonna be looking, they’re always gonna look for that chance to push back, so...” Negan was whisper-shouting at Simon before raising his voice out of fury. “Now I gotta kill all of em’, just like I gotta kill you!”

You could hear the bones in Simon's neck cracking as Negan squeezed as much as he could, it was a very disgusting and disturbing sound. She heard what he’d shouted and some of what he’d said and felt nervousness washing over her, maybe he was going to kill her. Maybe Negan didn’t give a shit about her. She stood frozen watching as he let go of Simon's throat and stood up, getting a chance to breathe properly. He was breathing heavily trying to catch his breath as he looked around before looking back down at Simon. He rolled his tongue against his bottom row of teeth, before sighing shortly.

“What an asshole.” Negan said to all the people around him.

He walked through the crowd to the stairs that led to where Y/n was currently standing. She was still bent over the railing, just watching Simon's corpse along with everyone else. Negan came up behind her and watched her position before walking up even closer to her. He tucked her hair behind her ear and leant into it.

“See what I just did darlin’?” he whispered, voice completely calm after he had just been shouting and fighting for his life.

“Mhm...” she hummed, not looking away from Simon.

He placed two of his fingertips on her jaw then pushed her head in his direction, making her look at him. Y/n looked into his eyes, starting to calm down once she noticed that he wasn’t angry anymore. He just licked his lips, looking at her hungrily as usual. She then noticed the cuts and bruises on his face, he had started bleeding from some wounds.

“Oh my god, you’re bleeding.” She stuck her hand out to touch his face.

He grabbed her wrist softly before she could touch his injuries.

“I know, he had a pretty fucking good right hook...” Negan sighed looking over at Simon.

“Let me clean it up.” Y/n offered and nodded her head in the direction of his room.

A smirk grew on his face, she knew exactly what he was thinking about as he looked her up and down. He picked her up bridal style again, he still thought it took too much time when he helped her walk. She let out a surprised squeal when he swooped her up. Negan then walked to his room, leaving all the other people behind. He had already told the others what to do with Simon's corpse when he was finished with him.

Once they got to his room, Negan put her down by the couch so that she could support herself. He walked and pulled out a drawer where he pulled out some supplies she’d need to fix him up.

“You’ve got the whole kit here in your room?” Y/n asked as she watched him place it on the coffee table in front of the leather couch before taking a seat.

“Yeah, even a badass like me catches a punch or two from time to time.” Negan jokes, winking at her.

She just sat down on the couch beside him and grabbed a cotton pad. He studied her moves as she prepared the cotton to go on his face. She placed her hand on the couch beside his stomach for balance as she got up on knees to then place her hand under his chin. She angled his head so that she could clean the first cut on his cheekbone. He had his head turned to the left and she pressed the cotton down onto his skin making him let out a short hiss from the stinging sensation.

“Sorry...” she mumbled, deeply lost in focus.

Y/n was looking intensely at his wounds as she cleaned him up, Negans burning gaze going completely unnoticed by her. By the time she had gotten to the last bleeding injury, Y/n had leant forward so that Negan could feel her breath on his face. His eyes flicked down onto her lips meanwhile she was preoccupied with a cut that was right over his left eyebrow. Negan admired how beautiful she looked while doing all of this, he could tell that she cared for him. That was a huge advantage on his part and more of a curse on her side. He could tell by the look on her face that there wasn’t anything else in her mind but him right now. Nothing about her father or about what had happened in the shower last night, it was just him and only him. It made him feel special in some type of way. He still couldn’t help but to get insanely turned on by the way her lips were almost on his while she patched him up or the way her hand was close to his crotch when she lost balance and had to grip onto his thigh to avoid falling onto him.

She leant back and checked out his face to see if there was anything else to patch up. Negan studied how her eyes flicked over his features and she traced her finger along his face while whispering to herself if she was done or not with the spot her fingertip was brushing over.

“All done...” Y/n removed her hands from his face and placed them on her thighs.

She put away the things she had been disinfecting his wounds with then turned to look at him again. Negan was just staring at her before a wide grin broke out across his smug face.

“Is it just me or did that feel awfully a lot like foreplay?” Negan smirked while letting out a breathy chuckle, watching how she grew all flustered.

Y/n looked around the room as if she was searching for an exit. She hated how her body reacted when he said something like that. Even though she knew how much everyone she loved hated him she couldn’t help the heat pooling in her underwear. She looked up innocently at him, his gaze flicking down at her lips then back up into her eyes.

She leaned in and put her soft plump lips against his, feeling his stubble itching against her skin ticklishly. Negan grunted and put his hand under her tit before sliding it up and groping it, earning a gasp from Y/n. When she separated her lips he slid his tongue inside, they didn’t fight for dominance since Y/n just let Negan take the lead. She was intensely submissive to him, that was something she’d never say out loud or admit to anyone. He felt her up while they made out and Y/n snaked her arms around his neck, pulling Negan closer to her. She wanted to feel him close, as close as they’ve been she’d never been with anyone else. She loved being that close, he made her feel so good and special. Negan had her wrapped around his finger.

Before things got too heated Negan broke off the kiss. Now their foreheads were pressed against each other, both of them breathing heavily. He had known about Dwight's backstabbing bullshit too, just not told him. Laura had come back to the sanctuary and revealed it for Negan, Dwight had made everyone believe that Rick's group attacked them and he was the last one standing. But Dwight had been in on the attack and shot at some saviors himself. So Negan made him think that he didn’t know about this and while they were in a meeting he’d made up a plan to trick Rick's people and kill them all. He knew Gregory had run off with the fake plan when he killed Simon and that Dwight had given it to him. Now their enemies would fall straight into their trap. His next move was to do the real plan which would trick Rick's people and lead them right into Negan’s palm, and that’s where he wanted them. Now he had to throw Dwight into a cell again and punish him or kill him. No, he wanted Rick's people to know what happens when you try to fool Negan. If he was going to succeed to kill Rick he wanted Y/n to reunite with her father first, he wasn’t that cruel. Although, he couldn’t tell her about any of this since she would surely rat him out. He understood the meaning of protecting family and didn’t blame her for it. But right now, she needed to get out of here, he didn’t want her to see the torture that happens in the cell and what was about to go down here.

“I’ve got something for you,” Negan said as he stood up from the couch.

Y/n followed him with her eyes around the room, watching when he got a pair of car keys from his bedside table. He walked up to her and dangled it in front of her face.

“Here,” he offered. “You need to go back to your dad, he must be thinking you’re dead by now.”

Y/n cocked an eyebrow at Negan, trying to understand what was going on. Did he actually care for her and was sincere or was it because her dad had just lost his other child?

“The car’s out in the back, the people at the gate will let you out.” Negan informed her, she just nodded while he talked and took the keys gently from his hand.

She didn’t dare to question why he was doing this, she wanted to believe it was because he was gonna go easier on her dad and cared for her. She refused to believe otherwise, she needed the comfort of that scenario.

“Thank you...” she breathed out before standing up.

Y/n walked past Negan but he snaked his arm around his waist and turned her back.

“Really think I was gonna let you go without a kiss, doll?” He raised a suggestive eyebrow at her.

There was the Negan she knew, the cocky and always semi turned on one. Y/n stood up on her toes and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Negan looked at her daringly, did she just tease him?

“Come on baby,” he said with a sly smirk before leaning in. “You call that a kiss?” His warm breath on her lips almost made her moan on the spot.

Negan slowly placed his lips on hers. His lip on top, already dominating her just from the position of his lips. He wrapped his arm around her lower back pressing her hips into his pelvis. Negan kissed her harder and harder for each second. Y/n felt her underwear getting damp as soon as Negan first placed his lips on hers. He pulled away and smirked at her.

“That’s what I call a goodbye kiss.” Negan whispered sensually.

He removed his arm around her back and Y/n took her leave. She limped through the big building before finally finding the car at the back. Y/n got in and turned the car on, it started easily. The only thing on her mind right now was her father who was probably losing his mind. She felt bad about not returning for a day although he had told her not to come back. He must have been worried shitless once he thought through what he’d done. Although, a part of Y/n was scared because she didn’t know if her father would be happy to have her back or not. She was about to find out, because here she was pulling up to the Hilltop. The guards noticed the car watching it uncertainly. Y/n understood their suspicion of the unfamiliar car and stuck her head outside the window. She waved at Jerry and he smiled warmly at her. They opened the gate for her and she slowly drove inside. The people at the Hilltop all watched suspiciously not knowing who was in the unknown car.

Y/n looked around from inside the car, she couldn’t see her father anywhere. He must be inside, she thought. When she stepped out of the car all the civilians thought nothing about the car anymore as soon as they saw that it was Y/n Grimes. Everyone went back to work while she started limping in the direction of the main building. She hadn’t figured out a story of what to tell her father about her foot but if he was happy or angry to see her, the first thing he’d notice wasn’t going to be her foot.

She stepped inside the old museum, there he was. Standing at the top of the stairs with his head in his hands. Y/n stood watching him for a moment needing to read his body language to try and make out what he was feeling. Poor guy looked like he was stressing himself to death. It took courage for Y/n to try and speak up so that her father would hear, even when she got the word out it was just a faint whisper;

“Dad...”

Rick slowly looked up from his hands, the look on his face looked as if he was trying to figure out if his head was messing with him or not. Then he saw her. The two maintained eye contact, his eyes began watering before he practically flew down the long flights of stairs. Rick ran to Y/n who was still standing in the same spot, he stopped in front of her and a couple of tears rolled down his cheek.

“You’re here, you’re alive, my baby...” he sobbed quietly to himself.

Y/n wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled her dad into a hug. She laid her head against his chest hearing how his heart beat. Rick had his arm wrapped around her back and the other stroking her hair. He mumbled various things into her hair while holding her tight. The things being stuff such as I love you, I thought you were dead, I’m sorry and I forgive you. Once he let go after a couple of minutes that’s when he began scanning her body for any signs of hurt. His eyes got stuck on her arm where she had a bandage and her foot that also was bandaged.

“What happened to you?” he asked softly.

Y/n frowned and huffed before asking if they could step into a separate room so that she could tell him what had happened. He helped her into Gregory’s old office and closed the door after them. The two were alone standing face to face, Y/n felt how she needed to take a deep breath before giving her dad the story of what had happened.

“Dad...” she began after a long sigh of uncertainty. “I fell and hurt my arm and ankle pretty badly... then when it started to become night I was walking on the road and this car rolled up beside me... then... I... I-” she grew extremely frustrated with herself because she couldn’t tell her father the news that would be devastating for him to hear again, Y/n knew though that she had to tell him.

“What happened sweetheart?” Rick stepped forward and cupped her face, looking into her sorrowful eyes sweetly.

Y/n teared up, she couldn’t do it. He was so happy to see her and she just couldn’t ruin this moment. She gathered all the bravery she’d ever had and spoke quietly;

“It was Negan...”

Rick's expression immediately changed, it was now a mix between relief and disgust. A touch of anger too, the relief of seeing his daughter again starting to slowly fade away as his hatred was stronger than ever.

“Did he do something to you?” Rick whispered daringly, not knowing what he’d do if she said yes.

“I- no... not really... he was actually kind of nice.” She met her fathers cold look, it scared her what would happen if she told him what had happened. “He took me to the sanctuary and had the doctor check up on me... and then...” she gulped nervously. “...I got a bed to sleep on.” Y/n mentally facepalmed, what was wrong with her? “Then the next day he killed Simon in front of everyone... brutally...” she looked up at her dad, the sight haunted her a little now and then. It wasn’t the coziest thing she’d witnessed. “Not much happened after that.. except that he gave me a car to go here.”

Rick took deep breaths listening to his daughter trying his hardest to be calm and comfort her. He saw that it upset her a lot, the thing about Simon or at least that was what he thought she was upset about. He brought her into a tight hug again, squeezing harshly in fear of her disappearing again.

“I’m just glad you’re safe.” He whispered into her ear with a smile on his face.

After a while Rick told Y/n about the plan Gregory had arrived with here at Hilltop. She confirmed that Dwight had given it to him since Daryl refused to believe that he would actually try to help, even after he shot his own people. No one could blame him though since Dwight had literally tortured Daryl.

They had all made a plan with the map and made different teams. Everyone had different colors and this plan was going to take place the next day.

Back at the sanctuary Negan was standing outside leant against the yellow railing. He was looking over at Simon who had turned into a walker, chained to the fence. He looked around with a frown on his face.

Suddenly his walkie talkie starts going off.

“Negan, it’s Michonne.” Was heard faintly.

He picked up the electronics and looked onto the fence again, wondering if he should talk to her or not.

“I’ll wait.” Michonne said letting Negan know that she wanted to talk to him.

He waited a couple of seconds before bringing the walkie talkie up to his mouth. “One with the dreads? Sword? Is that you? Rick there with you? Why don’t you put him on?”

“There isn’t about Rick.” Michonne bit at him, she was standing on top of a roof so that she’d have connection with Negan since she couldn’t be inside the Sanctuary. “It’s about my kids.”

Negan began thinking again for himself about what she’d want about her kids if it wasn’t just about Y/n, who should have arrived home by now.

“First off, do you know where Y/n is?”

He furrowed his brows, hadn’t she gotten home?

“She was here since last night, found her on the side of the road-”

“What did you do to her?” Michonne interrupted him with a threatening tone.

“Me? I didn’t do anything bad... I picked her up on the side of the road, she was hurt. Fixed her up, fed her and gave her a bed to sleep on.”

“Where is she now?” The concern in her voice was still there and was beginning to be replaced by irritation from talking to such an obnoxious man.

“I gave her a car to go home, she should be there by now.”

Silence. Michonne was silent after that for a minute. Negan began thinking if she was done speaking until he heard her voice again through the small electronic.

“Carl wrote you a letter... and I’m delivering it because that’s what he wanted.”

Negan felt the consuming feeling of anxiety fall over him from the thought of the boy’s death. He was a bit upset over it but he couldn’t let his walls down because of it.

“Well,” he said, a little more upbeat. “I can’t promise not to kill the messenger.”

“Just shut up and listen.” She demanded strictly.

Negan kept quiet because he wanted to respect the dead boy’s letter to him specifically. He went on and listened to the letter until Michonne was done. The letter was about peace and starting over. The two exchanged some words about Negan not backing down and then Michonne left.

The rest of the day went by fast. Michonne arrived home again and reunited with Y/n, they had a long talk about Negan and she still didn’t tell her stepmom about the second time. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

The next day they were divided into different colored teams and were going out to a field where a battle was going to take place. Y/n walked hand in hand with her father, it felt like those walks he’d taken Carl on when he was younger. They both had purple colored fabric tied around their arm along with Michonne. Every different color had its different assignment.

Even though when they got there it seemed as if their color system wouldn’t matter when they realized they had walked into a trap. The saviors had set them up. Negan's voice boomed through a megaphone and all of the saviors were out of sight. He talked about a clean house and how he was going to kill everyone. He also said that he wanted Rick and his group to find them and that they should just pick a way to run since they’d be there everywhere.

Eventually they found themselves surrounded by the saviors, everyone had a gun pointed to their head. Y/n stood with a savior behind her, looking up at Negan and Eugene. Dwight was also there in a cell outfit, guess he did try and help them after all.

The two locked eyes and Negan immediately told the savior behind her to put his gun down and just hold her in place, he didn’t want her to die. He just wanted her all for himself. Which he would have after this was done, what needed to be done, according to his mind.

Y/n looked at her father with pleading eyes while Negan counted down, holding a gun up to Gabriels head who had been at the Sanctuary held captive the last couple of days. ‘I love you’ she mouthed to him and he nodded towards her before mouthing back ‘I love you too’. She felt tears of panic begin rolling down her face when Negan said one.

Loud bangs were heard from around them, but no one of their own team fell down. Negan yelled in pain as his hand had been shot by his own gun. Something had happened to the saviors' guns as some fell down from catching a bullet in the face and others just being scratched.

“Eugene!” Negan roared loudly but was cut off as he walked towards him by a punch in the face delivered by Gabriel.

The savior who held Y/n began trying to wrestle her onto the ground as everyone began fighting. She tried to fight back even though the man had a tight grip on her arms. Negan had run away with her father right behind him. They were going to settle this one final time.

Soon enough the man behind her let go with a loud scream. Blood poured out as Michonne had cut his arm off with her sword. “Don’t touch her.” She spat through gritted teeth before killing him.

They gave each other a nod before looking around, seeing the saviors that remained all beginning to surrender when they saw that Rick had caught up to Negan and they were now fighting.

Y/n recognized one of the saviors who remained, it was Arat. She quickly turned her head back to her fathers fight and watched along with everyone else. It looked as if Negan was winning for a while until Rick kicked him and made him fall down. They began talking and Negan stopped for a few seconds after Rick said something. A gasp was heard from multiple people including Y/n when they saw Rick slitting Negan’s throat with a piece of broken glass. He held his hand against his wound before falling down onto the ground.

Rick walked up towards the people who’d been watching. His hand was covered in blood as he looked towards Siddiq.

“Save him.” The words gave Y/n relief as she held a hand on her stomach and could finally exhale.

“No!” Maggie began shouting. “No, he can’t! No! He killed Glenn!”

“We have too.” Rick said back calmly.

“We have to end it!” She cried. “Rick” She screamed and fell onto her knees and began crying while screaming further.

Everyone looked at her in agony while Rick began talking about the future. Everything went fast after that. Negan was carried by Siddiq and some other people away to an infirmary and their group began getting the Saviors out of there.

Soon enough it was just Y/n and her father. Her father who sat leaned against the tree he’d hurt Negan by. He sat there with tears in his eyes, thinking over his choices and how to move on from this and he thought about Carl, a lot.

She went and sat down next to him. Seeing her father like this, broken, lost and unfocused made her extremely worried. Though the worry doesn't only come from her fathers behavior. Ever since the two days prior she’d been very upset and anxious. And now, Y/n couldn’t hold it back anymore. Tears fell from her eyes again as she let out a sob. Her father looked over at her and put his arm around her.

“It’s gonna be okay, no more Saviors.” He said quietly.

“It’s not that...” Y/n let out another sob.

“What’s wrong?” Rick asked, growing worried for his daughter, he’d noticed she’d been acting a little different ever since she came back from the sanctuary but he guessed it depended on her not knowing if he was still mad at her.

Everything had changed so drastically in just a couple of days.

She hiccuped before taking a deep breath and looking her father straight into his eyes. “I think I’m pregnant.”

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@slut4glenn // @cherry-lovr // @igotmajordaddyissues // @bath1lda // @imaginethat16 // @Lenazblog // @freyafriggafrey // @nicepeony // @graciepies // @hopefulatrocity​ // @hicallmeveronica​ // @carlgrimeskisser​ // @lyl1pad // @pedropascal4l​ // @tresiri

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[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

This is a personal post about boarding school experience and its later effects in life. It will be under keep reading so anyone can scroll over it if they don't want to read it. It's mostly for me and the need to express the thoughts I've been having and I need an outlet for that.

I've been reading once again about boarding school syndrome all day since this morning. I don't know why I do this to myself. Why I feel the need to go back to all that as if to check if all the damage is still there. Or like a way to pity myself and then to hate it for feeling sorry for myself once again. It's a cycle. I must have remembered something last night before falling asleep because I found myself today at 10 am reading a research paper on it and then looking up testimonials in reddit.

But the thing is, most of the research is done on English boarding schools and as much as the overall experience is similar, there are so many nuances in the differences that exist.

I vividly remember looking out the window and watching my parents get in the car and leave. It was Sunday evening and they had the car parked on a smaller street in downtown where I was left to stay. The next day was the first day of school and I was 11, starting 5th grade.

I read that in cases of children going to boarding school, a lot of them remember in detail the moment the separation took place. And it's true even if it's been almost 20 years since then. That's when my stomach issues began. Of course the cause was emotional stress, but that didn't stop from going to medical clinics weekly to do full check ups when any adult should have realized that I was just homesick. The year after, I began to feel nausea each Monday morning. I used to beg my parents to postpone my return as much as possible so I would only leave home on Monday and arrive an hour before classes would start. For five years I went to school in the afternoon. The nausea became a constant. I would complain on that day, hoping my mother would tell me that I don't have to go to school. But I couldn't understand at that time that my mother was emotionally unavailable and had no idea how to deal with her daughter's real needs.

But I kept going and as years went by, I got used to it and it felt easier by the time I finished high school. When I was already in college, I had forgotten half of my experience and I would gloss over what happened. I would act proud of how fast I had become independent, without needing any help, as if that was a good thing.

Of course that at some point I slowly started to realize that not everything went that well, but either way, that perhaps it was worth the sacrifice if I manage to do something well professionally. Eight years of boarding school meant sacrifices and financial investment. For me to go to the most prestigious middle school (I had to take an English exam for 5th grade, that was unheard of at that time in any other school!), then to the most prestigious high school to receive the best grades which would help to get into the most prestigious university so I can study exactly what I want because by then I found my passion. And I was encouraged. So I worked for it for more than a decade because all the pain had to have been worth it. Yes, parts of life sucks, but perhaps a uni position while I teach and research would compensate for it. But it never did and that entire plan fell to pieces because life doesn't work how I wanted to.

So was all that worth it in the end? Absolutely not.

For years I would think and say that I never suffered bullying in school because my colleagues were nice and for the most part, I had nice experiences. And that's still true. While at the same time forgetting that I also had that other life in boarding school where 17-18 year girls found abuse a form of entertainment.

Bullying is such a common occurence but it gets worse in boarding school because you can't get to any space that feels safe. You can't get home to your own room and to your own parents who might notice something and intervene. In boarding school you have to sleep in the same room and next to the same bed as your abusers. You take showers next to them, hoping that nothing happens. It's living in constant fear.

All my emotional mechanisms have developed during those years, especially between the ages of 11-13. I quickly learned to avoid any type of conflict because that would mess up whatever aparent peace that existed from time to time. I learned that speaking up and telling the adults responsible meant that I was in more danger.

As adults, those who went through the boarding school experience have trouble maintaining relationships. We become self sufficient because we had to. There was no help so we learned to take care of ourselves. Consequently, we don't need other people, especially if we know they will eventually abandon us. Of course attempts are made because it's in our nature. I've lost friendships because rather than making myself heard and to be an active participant in a relationship, I distanced myself. It's easier than to speak because there's a risk that the other person would certainly decide to break the friendship. Avoid conflict at all costs, even it rots everything from the inside. I'm still actively doing this.

When I told my therapist about these experiences (which I don't think I'll talk about in detail here), she used the word trauma. To this day, I have a hard time accepting it. Because deep down I still don't believe that my experience was that bad to be labeled that way. It's not real trauma if nothing really actually "bad" happens.

It's only bad enough that it infiltrated and influenced all aspects of my entire life. From personal relationships to professional. The latter I used to think it was independent and untouchable of all the things I had going on personally. But of course to realize as an adult that the need for perfection, the impostor syndrome, all are a result of never feeling good enough which stems from the initial abandonment.

I find it hard to accept that some decisions taken 20 years ago without me having any real say in it (I was asked and I said yes because my parents know best) and the consequent experiences that I had to go through have negatively influenced my entire life. For many years I never looked at aspects of my life, thinking that something is not well and should be investigated. I was busy in my 20s with other thoughts without realizing the root cause of why I was doing some things. But by the time that decade was over, it's like everything is crashing down. Piece by piece. Every single aspect of my life had been fucked by that thing my therapist calls trauma.

[dsudis]

(Everything Looks Worse) In Black and White

(IDK guys "Kodachrome" was in my commuting playlist yesterday and then this happened.)

Hob was not, by nature, particularly introspective. Still, he did know that one of the things that had kept him sane for six hundred years was the way that he had been able to adapt, not again and again but continuously. He changed with the times as they changed around him, not just in mimicry of everyone around him but truly.

Cell phones had been an exciting new gadget to him, and then a useful tool, and then, in time, as deeply embedded in his life as they were for anyone else who was a busy adult in London in the third decade of the twenty-first century.

All this was to say that it did, of course, occur to him to try to take selfies with Dream when things advanced between them to the point where he ought to have couple photos in his phone. The first picture he dared to actually take, though, was the first morning he woke up to find Dream lying in his bed looking rumpled and sweet.

Hob hadn't even really thought about it, just reached over for his phone and swiped up the camera, snapping a few shots before he looked directly at his phone. He was too busy looking at the way the early morning light made Dream look soft and warm, raising red-brown highlights in his black hair and warming the cool paleness of his skin. There was just enough light to reveal the blue of one half-open eye as Dream squinted and then glared at him.

Hob only looked at his phone when it made a strange mournful noise he'd never heard from it before; he had a bare glimpse of something weird and pixelated before the screen went black.

He frowned down at it, and Dream murmured in his lowest, sexiest rumble, "Is that infernal device of more interest than your lover naked in your bed, Hob Gadling?"

Hob tossed the phone over his shoulder and rolled toward Dream to kiss him and then climb on top of him. Hob didn't think about his phone for a while after that.

It was only after Dream had gone back to the Dreaming and Hob was trying to get on with his day that he hunted down where his phone had landed. It was physically unharmed—he'd long since learned the benefits of a sturdy case—but wouldn't turn back on for love or money. When Hob opened it up he found that some of its insides had melted.

The next time Dream stopped by, Hob showed it to him. "What did you do to my phone? Were you that annoyed to have your picture taken?"

Dream frowned—Hob hastily checked to be sure his new phone was nowhere in range—but he looked honestly confused. "I... did not intend to, my love. I apologize."

"No, no, my own fault," Hob said. "But now I'm curious."

He went and dug up an old phone. He kept meaning to trade them in or recycle them or donate them somewhere, but somehow he always had an old one or two floating around and never remembered it was there when he actually needed a replacement. Now he plugged it in under Dream's curious gaze, and waited until he could power it on.

He checked that the phone seemed basically functional, and then swiped open the camera and pointed it at Dream.

He clicked once, under Dream's baffled but benign gaze, and then looked down at the screen.

What should have been a photo of his otherworldly gorgeous beloved was just a smear of black and white.

"Huh," Hob said.

He showed it to Dream, who tilted his head in interest. "I suppose the device is trying to capture what it cannot. My appearance, to any living being, is mediated by expectations. Dreamers see me in a way that fits their own perceptions, but," Dream gestured at himself. "This is not a body like yours, as much as it looks and feels like one to you."

"Huh," Hob said, staring at the photo again, an objective glimpse at the unknowable vastness of Dream.

Then he clicked another photo, and another, and another, until the phone made a mournful noise and died. Since he didn't have to fling it away at once, he tapped a finger experimentally at the back until he found where it felt burning-hot; a sniff gave up a distinct smell of fried components and liquefied silicon.

"Are you quite satisfied?" Dream asked. There was a tiny smile on his face when Hob looked up.

Hob grinned back. "Oh, no," he said. "I'm just getting started."

Clearly anything with electronics was out, so Hob went shopping in various storage units and online. Proper film cameras captured different kinds of black-and-white blurs; Hob took up developing his own film to experiment with processes. He managed to pull weird iridescence in the blackest black and brightest white sometimes. He captured slight variations of shape.

He read the darkness and brightness like tea leaves, like omens. It was fun for a while, and then fascinating, trying to discern some truth of Dream's nature, some hint of his real form.

As time went on, and Dream told him less and less of what was going on in the Dreaming when they weren't together, Hob started to feel differently about it. It started to feel like it mattered. Like he had to catch an image of Dream.

Like he wasn't going to be able to keep him, and was going to need something to remember him by.

There was a day when Dream came to him quiet, withdrawn. There were no tear tracks on his face, but he smelled of salt, and he wouldn't meet Hob's eyes.

It was habit, by then, to set up the camera, to snap a few pictures. Dream didn't seem to notice. Hob hardly noticed himself.

It was only later that Hob developed the images and discovered two streaks of lurid, bloody red about where Dream's hands had been.

Hob didn't see him after that for a long time.

Dream turned up on a rainy night that felt weirdly like that night in 1889 even before Hob opened his door and found Dream standing there.

Dream actually asked for a drink, for the first time Hob could remember. He didn't say what was wrong, barely spoke about anything at all, but Hob could feel it radiating off him.

This felt like goodbye. It felt like sitting beside a deathbed.

Hob didn't know how to make Dream stay, didn't know how to stop whatever was happening to him.

The only thing he could think of was to crawl into Dream's lap and kiss him—and after he'd taken that as far as he could, he grabbed the camera and snapped a shot of the two of them together. The first selfie he'd ever tried with Dream.

He didn't develop the film. He didn't want to know how it looked. He didn't want to know that his last attempt to keep some little piece of Dream had been another hopeless failure.

On a sunny Sunday morning, Hob woke up and Dream was lying in his bed. For a moment he couldn't breathe; for a moment the ache in his heart was enough to pin him in place. It had to be a dream, a hopeless memory of the way things had been a year ago, when Hob had imagined there was a future for them.

Dream made a disgruntled noise and turned his face into the pillow, pulling his arm up over his head, and—

There was hair under his arm. There was, in fact, a distinct whiff of body odor.

"Dream?" Hob whispered.

"If you are going to send me away," Dream said, his voice velvety and deep but lacking some impossible edge it used to have. "Kind—" he cleared his throat, "please, lend me some clothes. My siblings were optimistic about how this would end."

"Your siblings," Hob said, shuffling through the little Dream had ever told him about his family. Had Death done something?

Had... Destiny? Despair? Desire? The missing one whose name Dream never spoke to Hob?

Delirium?

Hob sat up and pinched himself, hard, but Dream was still lying naked in his bed, and now Hob could see that he was breathing. As Hob watched he turned his face out of the pillow, like he was experiencing the discomfort of not breathing freely when he hid his face in it.

"Dream," Hob repeated. "What..."

Dream turned over, slinging an arm over his face. "I am... just what you see, now. I have abandoned my realm. I am your Dream as you have known me, but no longer Dream of the Endless."

For a second there his voice almost had that elusive something, but—he only sounded like a human being trying to sound uncanny.

Dream was... here. And alive, despite the way things had seemed to be going.

"My Dream," Hob whispered.

Dream just barely peeked out from behind his arm, and Hob lunged sideways to grab his phone. He fumbled a few times trying to pull up the camera and snap a pic, his hands shaking badly, but after a few tries he dared to look down at the screen.

Dream was there, just as he looked to Hob, if on a strange angle and poorly framed. His pale skin was given a golden cast by the sunlight, his black hair showed highlights that looked almost red where the light was brightest, and one visible blue eye was narrowed in a glare.

"Is that infernal device," Dream murmured, a faint thread of amusement in his voice, "of more interest than—"

Hob threw the phone over his shoulder and silenced Dream with a kiss. When they both had to stop to breathe, he came up laughing; the second time they stopped Dream was laughing too.

Later—much later—Hob printed that first shaky picture and framed it.

[Also on Ao3!]

[workersolidarity]

Three, four years ago I could have told you, and did tell people, that inflation would start steadily going up, and I said even then that it would likely be stubborn, meaning it wasn't going to be an easy fix.

I knew this back then because it was obvious, even years ago, that the BRICS countries, along with many African and South Asian countries and elsewhere were looking for ways to get around using the US Dollar for trade.

They were making moves to expand trade relations outside US dollar transactions and were for many years planning and building the infrastructure for a future Multipolar world.

And that process began rapidly picking up pace three or four years ago.

I began to say then, what I'm still saying now, as that process goes on and trade outside the US Dollar system grows exponentially year-on-year, that's going to begin to have an effect on inflation.

Why? Well, Imperialism really. Because the US for decades has depended on the steady demand for US Dollars to hold down inflation, allowing the US to use debt spending to finance wars, military bases and imperialistic ventures like Syria.

Remember, it was the US in its massively dominant position after WWII that built the Bretton Woods System that made the US Dollar the world reserve currency pegged to gold, and it was the US that unilaterally abandoned Bretton Woods 1 and took the dollar off Gold, allowing for the US to finance wars through debt spending, and created the Petro-Dollar with Saudi Arabia in the 1970's.

This debt spending is essentially the surplus value from the Global South and other poorer countries that must buy US Dollars to fund infrastructure projects, energy consumption, food and medicine imports, etc since it's the world reserve currency and if you wish to use the US Financial System at all, such as the World Bank, or SWIFT messaging system, well you have to use US Dollars.

Basically, it's the sucking of the wealth out of poorer countries to finance their own economic oppression.

But as these countries catch on and with new rising global powers like Russia, China and Iran building the infrastructure for an alternative system, the US Dollar is being abandoned faster than ever.

In 2000, more than 70% of Foreign Exchange Reserves were held in US Dollars. By 2020, that figure had dropped considerably to 59%. And the rate at which it's dropping is only increasing.

Knowing this, I said back in 2019 and 2020 that inflation was likely to become a problem. And if it did become a problem, then we knew exactly what the Fed would do as a result: dramatically increase benchmark Interest rates.

This didn't take any particularly specialized or secretive sources to figure out. It's been obvious for years to anyone seriously interested in economics and geopolitics.

And what happens when interest rates go up? The value of the bonds bought under lower interest rates suddenly go way down, while debts become more expensive. It's like gravity in economics.

So with all that being said, why then did all these banks (Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank) continue buying troubled assets and Treasury bonds if they're so smart and educated and knew all this?

I mean, these guys are supposed to be the best of the best corporate bankers, right? On the cutting edge of investment banking, right? That's what everyone said even just months before Silicon Valley Bank failed. (CNBC host and moron of the year Jim Cramer literally praised Silicon Valley Bank less than a month before its failure)

So one of two things must be true here and neither one is good for YOU the average worker.

Either these bankers are idiots; complete morons who have little to no understanding of basic economics, geopolitics, and monetary policy, something that should be of concern to all of us.

I mean, I'm just a dude working for a small retailer in New Orleans and even I knew this inflation and higher interest rates were coming.

So why exactly are these people paid such exorbitant salaries? If I can understand the basics of their job better than they can, why am I a retailer, and he, a millionaire banker???

So that's one possibility, one I'm virtually certain is actually true, that our ruling Elite isn't particularly smart or well educated in reality, anymore than ordinary people I meet everyday, and any one of us could easily do their jobs just as well or better than they do given the opportunities afforded to them.

But even if in this case, that's not what happened. That these weren't idiots. Well then the alternative is something that should also be deeply disturbing to you: that these bankers knew they would be facing this situation, that they were well aware of the coming inflationary pressures and equally aware what the Feds response would be, interest rate hikes.

And instead of using the last couple of years to shed possibly dangerous assets and shore up the money the banks kept on hand, they continued to do what was personally making them so much profit, at the expense of tax payers, because they were absolutely certain that the government these bankers spend so much money on campaigns for, would swoop in regardless of the recklessness of their behavior, and bail them out no matter what.

These are not the signs of a healthy political, economic or banking system.

[writing-ca-ira]

HASARDER — PART 1

YJ/Teen Titans Dick Grayson x Reader

Prologue << MASTERLIST >> Part 2

Dick Grayson is no stranger to death, but that doesn’t make it any harder to deal with. As it turns out, however, the grieving process for you would prove to take an interesting twist when Tim calls him with some shocking news.

The reader is gender neutral.

Contains: civilian reader, mentions of death (your death), mentions of a dead body (your dead body), spoilers: you’re actually alive… kinda, I’m probably forgetting something.

“Does the hurt ever go away?”

“I wish I could say yes… but it will get better over time. For you. That, I can promise.”

Dick felt his grip on the picture frame get weaker and weaker. Had he not snapped out of his thoughts a moment sooner, it would’ve slipped out of his hands and clattered on the floor, shattering the glass in the process. The mere thought of that happening caused his stomach to churn, guilt eating away at his heart despite managing to avoid that outcome. To ensure the safety of the picture frame (well, more importantly, the photo within it), he gingerly placed it back in its rightful place on top of his nightstand, right next to his old digital alarm clock and bedside lamp.

You keep thinking..."If only I'd done something differently,” Bruce’s voice echoed in his head. “If only I could've...warned them." But there isn't anything you could've done. There isn't anything either of us could've done.

That conversation happened years ago; over a decade by now. Back when Dick was still processing the death of his parents, and when Bruce was there to help him through it. Despite the consolation those words provided in the moment, he never expected them to carry such weight throughout his life.

There isn’t anything you could’ve done.

His eyes drifted back to the picture frame. The photo within it was taken 4 years ago, during his sophomore year of high school at Gotham High. He still remembers the crisp autumn air against his skin, the red and orange leaves scattered on the ground, and the chocolate flavored milkshake he was halfway through. There was a giant smile on his face, his blue eyes sparkling with such joy and vibrancy.

It’s because you were right next to him.

The photo caught you mid-laugh, your eyes crinkling with happiness. You had haphazardly thrown up a peace sign with one hand while holding your own drink in the other. Though you were too busy laughing to notice, Dick had snaked his arm behind your head to give you bunny ears, which caused you to playfully throw leaves at him when you found out afterwards.

Thinking about that day still causes a fond smile to tug at his lips. Wally had to bail on their plans that day due to a date he forgot about with Artemis, so Dick found himself in the Cave to hand out with you instead. That’s how you two ended up walking around Happy Harbor — your idea, if he recalls correctly — exploring random shops and goofing around outside.

Had that really been 4 years ago?

Whatever warmness that flooded his chest while reminiscing on the past was immediately extinguished by the coldness of reality. It’s been 2 years without you now. The anniversary of your death was a week and a half ago, which was when he found himself so filled with grief that he could barely even get out of bed. It took all of the senior members of the team to rouse him out of his depressive episode; much like the year before.

You were gone. He still wasn’t used to saying that. Even with the time that’s passed since you died, he can feel his heart drop whenever he thinks about it, as though he’s learning about your death for the first time. The tears still wouldn’t stop, and neither would the nights filled with feverish dreams of your face.

If only I could’ve done something differently.

Of course, Bruce was right all those years ago; there wasn’t anything he could’ve done. Much like with his parents, Jason, and now the recently deceased Tula (all whom he still has nightmares of to this day), there was logically nothing he could’ve done to save you. He was all the way in Santa Prisca leading a covert mission when he received a distress call from your phone in Happy Harbor. All he could do was make sure someone was en route to your coordinates — which led to the Happy Harbor boardwalk — and pray you were safe.

But by the time Aquagirl and Tempest got there, it was too late.

Learning about what happened to you was hard for Dick. The ringing in his ears blocked out every sound except for his own shaky breaths, and he could barely even stand without feeling dizzy. But he managed to fight through his state of shock and despair to listen to the report. You were caught in a domestic dispute gone deadly at the Happy Harbor health clinic. A man stormed into the clinic to take back his kid from his ex-wife, who was there for a check-up. Things escalated, and the man shot and killed his wife, threatening the doctor in the room if she didn’t let his son go with him.

You happened to be in the next room over. Hearing the gunshot must’ve made you spring into action, making a 911 call along with the distress call to the team. The doctor that was with the son said that you snuck up behind the man and lunged at him, yelling at her and the kid to run. There was signs of a struggle in the room, but you unfortunately weren’t the one to walk out of there alive.

The man was neutralized by police around 3 to 4 minutes after your estimated time of death. If you hadn’t had your scuffle with him, it’s possible that he could’ve grabbed his son and escaped before the cops arrived. Your face was on the news after that, journalists proclaiming you to be a hero that sacrificed their life.

Except you should’ve never had to in the first place.

It’s not fair, Dick decided. Why did you, the one who wasn’t supposed to be risking their life, have to die because of some other people’s marital problems?! You weren’t even a hero; you were just a normal civilian going about your daily life. So why did you have to die like this?!

Even thinking about it caused his eyes to sting from frustrated tears, his jaw tightening as his fists clenched at his sides. If that guy wasn’t shot down by the cops, lord only knows what Dick would’ve done to him. The fact that he couldn’t even see justice for your death — your murder — get delivered also feeds into his anger. God, why couldn’t he just be there to at least get justice for you himself?!

Justice and revenge aren’t the same thing.

God, he hated it when Bruce was right.

There was nothing he could’ve done. There was nothing anyone could’ve done. Everything happened to fast; from the man barging into the clinic, to the shouting between him and his ex-wife, to the gunshot, to you calling 911 and sneaking up on the man, to the struggle that happened for a solid minute or so, to the gunshot that ultimately ended your life. All of that happened in under 10 minutes, according to the timeline, and that just wasn’t enough time for someone to come help you.

“There isn’t anything you could’ve done,” he had to solemnly tell Tula and Garth, who were both blaming themselves for not being there. Tula Zeta’d in from Atlantis, while Garth had to go on foot from Mount Justice. They were the only ones who weren’t on a mission at the time; the only ones who could respond to your distress call. But no matter how fast they moved, they just couldn’t be there in time.

A buzzing noise snapped him out of his thoughts. It caused enough surprise to him that his shoulders jolted upwards, his heart completely skipping a beat. He soon realized that it was his phone buzzing. Someone was calling him.

Shakily reaching for his phone (which was unceremoniously tossed onto his bed), he held it closer to his face to read the caller ID. Ah, Tim. It was a bit unusual for his successor to give him a call (he was a bit too socially awkward for that), but anytime he did, it would make Dick feel special. In fact, maybe a conversation with Tim would help clear his head a bit.

He cleared his throat as a small test for his voice, then hit accept and held the phone up to his ear. “Hey, Tim. What’s up?”

“Dick—! I… it’s—” Panic was evident in Tim’s voice. Hearing his shaky words on the other end caused Dick’s brows to furrow. At first, he thought that there was something going on with Batman and Robin, but he remembered that it was Tim who called Dick, and not Robin who called Nightwing. So, did that mean something happened at the Manor?

“Tim,” Dick softly began, though with slight urgency in his tone, “is everything okay?”

“They’re… I’m— I don’t…” an uneven puff of air could be heard before the teen tried again. “I’m really sorry, Dick, I didn’t mean to poke around!! It’s just that Ba— Br— B had been spending so much time away from the Manor and the Cave, and I wanted to know what he was doing, a-and I used the Bat Computer and found the file about everything, and— a-and…!!”

Dick had to raise his voice a bit to interject. “Tim!! Tim, calm down… what are you talking about? What’s wrong?”

For a moment, all Dick got was a shuddery breath as a reply. Before he could repeat his question, however, Tim finally responded. “Don’t… don’t get your hopes up, alright? Promise me you won’t get your hopes up.”

“… Okay,” Dick decided after a moment of hesitation. “I won’t.”

There was a long pause. Anticipation and apprehension was building up in Dick’s chest, his heart thumping against his rib cage. It seemed as though Tim was trying to carefully choose his words; trying to find the best way possible to break whatever news he had.

But nothing in the world could prepare Dick for the next few words that came out of Tim’s mouth. “There’s another (Y/N).”

Everything in Dick’s body stopped working.

From his heart to his mind, his hearing to his vision, Dick felt as though he was shutting down. He almost let the phone slip out of his hands entirely, the blood in his veins feeling cold as ice and causing his limbs to tremble. Even trying to get air in his lungs was a tough task, despite his mouth hanging open. The room was spinning for him, and the ringing in his ears almost blocked out Tim’s panicked ramblings entirely.

There’s another (Y/N).

What…

What did he mean by that?

“I-I know how close they are to you, Dick,” Tim practically wailed. “I know how close they are to the team… I didn’t know that Bruce was hiding this from you— I-I-I don’t even know if I should’ve told you… oh, god, Dick… is Bruce going to fire me—?”

Dick swallowed thickly, hoping to get rid of the lump in his throat. Despite his tongue feeling like sand, he spoke up anyway. “What do you mean by another (Y/N)?”

Tim sputtered out something completely incomprehensible to Dick. It was hard to tell if the poor kid was scared of what he knows, scared of Bruce finding out, or scared of both. Either way, Dick knew that he wasn’t going to learn anything from Tim in this state. He bit the inside of his cheek before dawning the most imperative voice he can muster in the moment.

“Tim,” he lowly chided. “Give me a report.”

That got Tim to his frantic rambling of nonsense. Getting him to think of this like a mission debriefing would calm him down, Dick figured. And, from the deep breaths the former Robin could hear on the other end, he knew he was right.

“Someone was taken in by the police a week ago,” Tim started, his cracking voice taking a factual tone. “Said their name was (Y/N) (L/N). Cops ran that name through their database and found (Y/N)’s death certificate. This (Y/N) was confused, ‘n started saying weird stuff about… something called the Titans.”

“Titans,” Dick echoed. It was meant to be a question, but came out more as a statement.

Tim hummed. “Titans. A… supposed team of young superheroes, o-or something. I don’t know, the report didn’t really…” he trailed off, possibly realizing he was rambling again. “Tests were ran. Their DNA is an exact match to the real (Y/N)— but when they… they checked (Y/N)’s grave a-a couple of days ago…”

The thought of someone digging up your grave made him clench his teeth together. They went through with something like that and he didn’t even know? Who gave them permission?!

Probably Batman, he bitterly thought.

“They’re still there, Dick,” said Tim. “(Y/N)’s body is still there. But this other (Y/N) is an exact copy..!!”

Dick’s freehand was digging into the flesh of his other arm. “Cadmus?”

“Isn’t involved.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“No biological trace of Cadmus’ synthetic enhancements in this (Y/N)’s bloodstream. No psychic trace of Genomorphs in their mind, either. This (Y/N)…” Tim struggled with his words for a moment, “is natural. Genuine.”

Genuine. Dick couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There was another version of you walking this earth, supposedly confused about your own death, and Batman was planning to hide this from him? No, even worse, Bruce was planning to his this from him?!

No biological trace… no psychic trace…

All of these people to run tests, and yet he still didn’t know?

“Send me the file,” he monotonously demanded.

There was a small pause on the other end before Tim’s fragile voice spoke up. “What… are you going to do?”

“… I don’t know,” Dick answered, a tired sigh escaping his lips. It was an honest answer; what was he supposed to do after learning this? There was a (Y/N) alive out there, but not his (Y/N)…

“Are…” Tim trailed off, then tried again, “are you mad at me?”

“No—!!” Dick’s answer was quick. When he heard the sharp intake of breath on the other line, he realized that he might’ve spooked the poor boy, so he took on a softer tone. “No, Tim. It was good that you… brought this to my attention. Why would I be mad at you?”

“Bruce is going to be mad,” Tim practically whispered. “I shouldn’t of gone through his stuff… and… he would’ve wanted me to keep this all from you…”

Dick took a few moments to think of his response. “Well, you made the right choice telling me. He shouldn’t be keeping secrets like this in the first place.” Definitely not secrets that revolve around you…

“… ‘M sending the file now.” Distant clicking noises could be heard through the call, and then Tim followed up with, “I’m… sorry that Bruce didn’t let you know.”

“It’s not your fault, Tim,” was Dick’s soft reply. “He’s always been like that. Thinking it would protect us, or something.”

Protect us. The words were like acid on Dick’s tongue. Using secrets as protection always made Dick feel sick to his stomach. Looking at the past couple of years, Bruce’s secrets have done anything but protect others. They drove Dick away from him, they put Jason six feet under, and now…

God, why wasn’t Dick the first person to know about this other (Y/N)?

Maybe it was selfish of him to think that. He wasn’t your only friend, so the rest of the Team had just as much as a right to know as he did. But he still should’ve known. He should’ve been involved with the investigation; he knows you better than anyone. And Bruce knows this.

“You… gonna be okay?”

Tim’s voice pulled him back to reality. With a weak cough, Dick wet his lips and said, “yeah. I’ll be alright. Just gonna read over the file for myself and… figure out what to do from there.” An awkward pause, then he continued. “Thank you for this, Tim. Call me if anything else comes up.”

“Yeah… yeah, of course. I-I will.”

And, with that, the call ended.

His hand dropped to his side, the phone in his hand almost slipping from his grip. This couldn’t be real. None of this could be real. You were dead, yet… you were back. Someone with your face was out there talking about some other team… the Titans, and he was just now finding out about this.

After a week, he bitterly recalled.

Taking a final glance at the picture frame, his eyes scanned over your face. This new supposed (Y/N) wasn’t you. It couldn’t be you. The memory of your dull, lifeless face at the morgue still haunts him to this day, causing a chill to run up his spine and his hair to stand on end. Dick knows what death looks like, and you were, without a doubt, dead.

So, who was masquerading as his dead friend?

The answer seemed to be simple; you were masquerading as his dead friend. But… not you. Even if your DNA was an exact match, and Cadmus didn’t have any involvement, whoever you were, you weren’t his (Y/N). He’d like to believe that his (Y/N) would demand to see him, to assure him that you were still alive. You wouldn’t have let him go an entire week without knowing, leaving him to mourn someone that was still alive. As far as he concerned, this new (Y/N) was a stranger.

But, that just led him back to square one; who was this stranger?

Guess I’m about to find out.

[thedreadvampy]

So, wow, ok, it doesn't grant them voting rights or a seat on the Security Council but the UN has successfully voted to move Palestine from an observer state to a member state, which means it can put forwards motions and join debates.

this is. fucking miraculous. as a sign that the US is wavering in its support of Israel.

Of course they're bitching about it and the US right are already trying to pull all funding from the UN (frankly I'm in favour of this if it was unilateral can we be honest cause if the US actually shot its load and withdrew from the UN maybe the UN could be something other than an arm of US control) but this has never been allowed to happen.

(threatening to pull funding is America's favourite pasttime when it comes to Israel, and is also the only reason Israel exists at all, because America threatened to pull funding and aid if there was a single-state solution in 1947)

As long as the US puts its full weight behind Israel, as it has for over 75 years, the popular movement for Palestine will not find any expression at an international state level. Nobody who is not already in America's bad books will intervene without support, and even those who are already disliked by the US, like Iran, are afraid to risk kicking off all out war with the US.

This is all true while America backs Israel.

But I think, or at least I hope, that it's becoming less and less tenable for them to put all their eggs in the Israel basket. They're being increasingly condemned and cold-shouldered from outside, and facing a popular uprising inside to a degree they haven't seen since the 60s which they're so far unable to quash through propaganda or violence. Popular support for Israel is collapsing fast.

Now to you or I - normal fucking guys - this is a moral issue first and foremost. People are being killed in their thousands and That's Bad. But governments don't believe in people, they believe in numbers - profit margins, approval ratings, debts, how many potential enemies vs how many potential allies.

A moral cost won't change things but an economic and political one will, and when the costs of supporting Israel outweigh the benefits, America will shuffle away from it and pretend they were against Israel all along.

If you believe, as I do, that Palestine will be free, then America still has time to do the thing it loves to do - come in blazing in defence of the underdog at the end of a genocide it sponsored and nurtured, claim the title of Great Liberator, and rely on everyone remembering that more than they remember the preceding decades.

the downside there is that the US has rarely been SO publicly, loudly in support of a second party state as it is with Israel. it has LOUDLY invested a lot - money, time, political capital - into Israel and the Zionist cause for over 100 years, and it's devoted a huge amount of its internal propaganda machine to a) the Goodness of Israel and b) the Arab world being the ultimate evil. I don't know if they can pull off the America Classic here. I don't know if anyone's buying it.

as well, the global incentives that made the US back the formation of Israel are still there - which is to say, there's a lot of Middle Eastern states with a lot of (reasonable) beef against the US, and Israel presents a powerful barrier to Arab unity. Could they transfer that power over to Saudi Arabia? Maybe, but that's still Arab. I think they're very afraid of losing a foothold in the Middle East. But also they're building hostility there again by continuing to support Israel, so they might be better advised to jump ship while they still can.

(the other fear I guess is that if they pull out and Israel survives and completes its genocide, they will also have lost the foothold, and will have burned all their bridges on both sides)

like my hope is that at this point the US state's relationship with Israel is a game of chicken and I hope they're coming towards a point where the internal division, the international condemnation, the rebellion of the UN, and the weakening of the Israeli state make it more threatening to US interests to stay allied to Israel than to withdraw.

And the US is the linchpin. The only thing allowing Israel to act with impunity is that the US is standing behind it holding a big stick.

When the US caves on Israel - and it will, sooner or later - the world will scramble to follow. So we have to keep making support for Israel politically inconvenient. Keep fighting US support for the occupation because the movement isn't visible much of the time but Palestine becoming a member state of the UN without US sanctions is a jolt of movement. It shows we're moving this huge thing off course, and we can't let up - the more it moves, the easier it will become to move.

[cjstheshethey]

I really wanna talk about Blue Beetle and why it's so important to me. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!

Ever since this movie was announced, I was excited because I have familiarized myself with the character of Jaime Reyes for over a decade now. My sister introduced to me to the character when we had our late night Young Justice marathons during a vacation in Mexico back in 2013. Eventually, we got to season 2, where Jaime was introduced. I remember when he would speak Spanish, I would say "Hey he speaks Spanish like us!" And sometimes my non-English speaking cousins would join us watching the show, and when he spoke Spanish, they were able to understand him. As time went on I kinda forgot about DC for a while since I was gaining other interests until Young Justice came back for its 3rd and 4th seasons(This is also your subtle sign that if you haven't watched Young Justice you should do that). Naturally, Jaime is still one of my favorite characters in the show. While I was still in my Young Justice hyperfixation, It was announced that a Blue Beetle movie was happening and even had some concept art shown. Me being the superhero loving Mexican nerd that I am, I was already hyped, and we hadn't even gotten a trailer yet. Then, on April 3rd of this year, the first trailer came out, and I was so excited. DC has been one of my special interests since literally as long as I can remember no joke one of the first shows I ever remember seeing was the original Teen Titans and so combine one of my special interests with one of the most important parts of my identity(my ethnicity) and an excuse to go to the movies? I was stoked. And so I finally saw it a couple of days ago, and I LOVED it. From the family dynamic to the music choices(La Chona in the beginning where Rudy was introduced was the most Mexican introduction ever and I love it.) and even a few references to Mexican culture I didn't expect, Blue Beetle was everything to me. Finally a movie centered around a Mexican family that wasn't afraid to go into topics like immigration and straight up racism towards Mexicans and those topics not taking up the whole story while also not stereotyping any of these characters and treating them like real people. These guys did their research, and it showed. During the part where Jaime comes back to Earth and starts saying something in Spanish, he's saying a prayer. I used to say that particular prayer a lot back when I was a kid, which is a good thing they added that in there because it makes relatable to someone like me. I really wanna make note of one of my favorite scenes from the movie. So after Jaime gets the Scarab and it attaches itself to him, he tries to find a way to get it off him. Once they go to Ted Kords' hidden lab and find out he can't get rid of it safely, he angerly walks out. His uncle Rudy follows him up to the roof. Rudy asks if Jaimes ok and Jaime apologizes for yelling at Rudy. Rudy then starts giving a really good talk about the family and how resilient they are. Then he says this. "I mean, look at your old man. He brought me here from Sonora....when I was 10." No joke, just ask @alextric-overload(Hey dude 😁) and my other friends who came with me, I legitimately gasped in that theater. Why? Because that's where my family is from. Never before did I ever imagine Sonora would even be mentioned in any media let alone a big screen superhero movie but I am so glad it was and I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never in my life have I felt so seen and so represented. The moment those credits rolled, I legit said word for word, "This! This is how you do representation. MORE. OF. THIS. PLEASE." This is why representation is so important because if we continue to make movies like this, more people like me can see themselves in media and feel the way I did. REPRESENTATION MATTERS! So please go support this movie if you haven't already, it's so worth it!

[wolpromptaday]

In reference to this mornings prompt.

Writing like all art, is a form of therapy. While this was not intended specifically to reference 9/11 I didn’t hesitate in posting it today for my own reasons.

There are people out there like me who lost people on 9/11, not just in the USA but all around the world in the other attacks. I lost friends from FFXI in the Twin Towers and I’m close enough to DC that the smoke from the pentagon reached my home. For that much, 9/11 has been a rough day for me personally since a decade before the attacks. Some of us have continued losing people for years after in adjacent military campaigns. Some of us know people who were on one or all of the ground zeros. Some of us have never been allowed or able to process our emotions.

If the prompt does what it’s supposed to and makes people think then it’s served its purpose. Perhaps it gives people the space to grieve, releases a long held anger, or lets them cope with their feelings in other ways. Art is therapy.

There isn’t a random draw bot that pulls from a list. I write these prompts for the month ahead of time, meaning I have a list that I make at the beginning of the month and post from each day. I purposely put that one down for today and I won’t apologize for the timing. Yes it’s difficult but it stirs up the emotions needed to be an effective writer.

Yes, sometimes art offends people and sometimes it draws upon strong feelings. In the end you have to realize how much media nods back through history. Take Star Wars for example, the galactic empire was based on Nazi Germany. We turn a blind eye to this because of how popular the saga is. In a few weeks the world will celebrate Halloween and play a song that talks about a massacre in Ireland simply because the song is titled “Zombie”. Never mind that it’s about the events of April 24-29, 1916. It has nothing to do with Halloween. But people continue to turn a blind eye to its true meaning.

The purpose of artists is to make people uncomfortable.

I understand that you and maybe others have a problem with that prompt being on 9/11 but it wouldn’t have an impact on Christmas or New Year’s or any other plain day. For that much it could have been posted on December 7th, or August 6th and no one would have said anything. Because no one really remembers what happened on those days.

I chose a day where the entire contemporary world saw evil and learned the definition of tragedy. Much like the survivors of the previously mentioned dates. Today is a day that has living people who remember what that feels like, the emotions are still raw. Not just in the USA but people who survived attacks all around the world on 9/11/2001. It is far more impactful than any random day. (Though most if not all of the people who have had issue with the prompt were not alive yet or too young to remember the events of September 11, 2001.)

I hope in the end that you are able to respond with an open mind. Tragedy surrounds us every day. You can let it hinder you, allow yourself to be blind to it, or expand your mind and do something that contradicts the intended outcome. Someone wanted the world to fear them. Will you let him win? The world was attacked that day, how do you cope in parallel to your WOL/D?

You do not have the right to not be offended. These prompts are meant to make you hear, feel, think. Our emotions are what make us who we are. If this is something that haunts you and makes you emotional, then I only succeed in our goal.

You’re welcome.

- Griever Worship

[ghost-of-a-system]

HI IM A PRETTY NEWLY DISCOVERED SYSTEM, AND WE HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT SOURCE MEMORIES

(sorry about the capslock, for some reason our keyboard glitches out sometimes lol) HOW DO THEY WORK?? LIKE, HOW DO I KNOW IF ITS A SOURCE MEMORY OR IF IM JUST MAKING IT UP? WE ALREADY HAVE PROBLEMS WITH RECOUNTING MEMORIES SO HOW DO WE DO IT FOR SOMETHING WE DONT EVEN HAVE ANY PHYSICAL PROOF OF?

(okay the keyboard is fixed now)

can it just be like... a feeling? sometimes i look at a character from my source and i go "oh i like them. i get a fond feeling when i look at them" even though ive never really been intruduced to that character before? can they develop after the alter is?

sorry if its a lot of questions, were just really confused and we cant find anything that answers our questions 😭

(Also we hope that you are all doing well!!)

no worries, and we'll try our best to answer. we struggle with similar things, the recounting memories part mainly. well, we struggle a lot with looking back on "the body's" memories (whether they're from yesterday or a decade ago) and trying to decipher whether they were real or not ('specially if there's 'no proof' to help us). so that happens with our pseudomemories/source memories as well.

there's two things that we really depend upon when it comes to remembering source memories, or determining if we even have them to begin with. those are usually emotions and, honestly gut feeling lol. what you described with looking at someone and simply feeling that way could very much help indicate something about your memories. for us it is usually kinda like this, just comes to us naturally really. it's what our brain jumps to first and it's what feels the most "right" when comparin it to how we feel about other possibilities.

as far as the whole emotions thing we mentioned, it's a little more specific to us, so it might not completely work for others (?). we generally have a pretty hard time forcing ourselves to feel a certain way, mainly towards people and events. emotions, connections, events, they're all things that take time or personal experience for us to feel much of anything for. when it comes to source memories, i mean we could try to make up a scenario from a source but chances are we won't feel anythin towards it. when we do remember something from our source/"past", and we feel something for it, usually strongly, well, we know it's genuine because we know how our brain works. if it wasn't real to us, we would be completely unfeeling about it.

now this gets a bit tricky since sometimes you can have source memories but feel little to nothing towards them anyway, and though it doesn't happen often for us (we usually either have them and feel heavily for/are affected by them, or have none at all), it has been the case a few times. usually we would rely on that gut feeling thing but, honestly? since we felt nothing for those memories, we never really had an interest in trying to learn more about them. so that's about the most i could add to that.

last thing promise haha, regarding the "can they develop after an alter already has" thing. we have a little experience with this personally, but my short answer is i'm sure it can. if it's what your brain needs, well, anything's plausible in a situation like this, in my opinion. personally it has only ever really happened to us after an alter has split but before they have completely "developed" past being a fragment of sorts. like we have an introject guy we split a while back, didn't know too much about em source-wise, did engage with the source a couple days or so after they showed up. then those bits ended up being part of their source memories later on. so yeah, i'm still sure it can.

hopefully that works, if not we can clarify anything! we hope you're doing well too :)