#letting out thoughts heh. this does help process shit i must admit

[daz4i]

did y'all know that apparently i'm a good dancer. who'd have thought

[breadqueen95]

Dress - Bucky Barnes

bucky barnes x fem!reader

wc: 5k

plot: bucky and y/n’s relationship is new, and they don’t want to share with their friends just yet. but something as simple as a dress can change anyone’s mind, even the winter soldier. 

content warnings: kissing. physical affection. flirting. allusions to sex. drinking. being drunk. language. bucky being a flirt. 

a/n: this is for @natasha-romancff and her taylor swift writing challenge! it took me awhile, but i’ve had a ton of fun writing this. so many bucky fics are angsty, and rightly so the man has some TRAUMA. but for my first bucky fic, based on dress by taylor swift, i wanted something happier for him 

***

Damn. That was a lot of leg.

“I don’t know,” you muttered as you stared into the mirror, “aren’t these things…a little classier than this?”

“Uh…have you met Tony Stark?” Natasha grumbled as she continued to scroll through her phone. “The man has never been classy a day in his life.”

“Well I know he isn’t, but fancy people show up to these things. I just don’t want to embarrass myself.” You were currently standing in front of the full-length mirror in Wanda’s room, staring at the reflection of a woman who didn’t quite look like you.

But it was you, wasn’t it? It was just…that you was wearing a very short, very sexy red cocktail dress. The sweetheart neckline was a nice touch, but the back was completely open. And that hemline? Definitely hiked way up past your knees.

“Y/n, relax,” Wanda reassured in her lilting accent, “sure, the dress is a little…spicier…than you’re used to, but it’s in a good way.”

“I’m pretty sure every single person would be able to tell I spend my days in tactical gear. God, I’m not sure I even know how to walk in heels this high!”

Heaving a dramatic sigh, Natasha threw her phone down and looked at you in the mirror. Her eyebrows were raised, and she was giving you her usual ‘don’t give me that shit’ look. It nearly had you shaking in your very strappy black heels.

“Are you kidding me, y/n? I’ve seen you strut in enough fancy parties during undercover missions to know that you’ve got this.”

“Yeah,” Wanda scoffed as she took a sip of red wine from her glass, “all she’s nervous about is what Bucky will think.”

Rolling your eyes, you tried to hide how much that sentence affected you.

“C’mon, Wanda. You know Bucky and I are just friends.”

“Do friends undress each other with their eyes whenever they’re in the same room?”

Damn it. Damn Wanda and her stupid perceptiveness.

“You’re reading too much into it, Wanda.” She just laughed at you, acting like she knew so much better.

What you knew and wasn’t ready to admit to your two best friends, was that she was right on the money.

Bucky Barnes, the infamous Winter Soldier, your favorite person in the entire world, was now your boyfriend. He had been for a few weeks now. The two of you were insanely private people. Hell, it had been years before the two of you had finally learned everything about each other. Once you had gotten past the walls the other had so carefully crafted, well…

At that point you were in love.

But the others didn’t need to know that, not yet at least. The Avengers were a family, your family. They were really the only true family you’d ever had. But Bucky…Bucky was finally yours. And you were his. You didn’t think it was crazy to just want to enjoy that, just the two of you, without everyone else sharing their jokes and opinions just yet. They did it out of love, you both knew that, but you just wanted him all to yourself.

As you looked back at your reflection in the mirror, you took a minute to really consider what Bucky’s reaction might be. He had the best poker face in the room no matter who he was with, but you knew him well enough to know how he was feeling just based on his eyes. He’d always said how much he loved red on you, and he adored every and any excuse to touch your skin. Those steel blue eyes of his would absolutely burn once he saw you in this dress.

And fuck, that was something you really wanted to see.

“Well, if you aren’t going to wear that dress, you better pick something else,” Nat said, jerking you from your fantasies, “we need to be there in twenty minutes, and we all need to touch up our makeup.”

“Actually…I think I’ll wear it,” you said confidently, trying to hide your grin as you ran your hands down the silky fabric.

What you didn’t see was Natasha and Wanda sharing a secret smirk behind you, like they’d known what you’d do the whole time.

***

Six weeks ago, everything had changed for you and Bucky.

You’d known how you felt for a long time. Bucky Barnes, despite his past, was the kind of man anyone could fall in love with. He was sincere, kind, generous, witty…everything you’d ever wanted in a partner. He had been your best friend for even longer.

It had been a long time before you could even admit your feelings to yourself, let alone to him. After everything the two of you had been through, who had the time and mental capacity for romance? It just didn’t seem important. You just chalked up your feelings to being such close friends. All you wanted was to be near him, even if you just sat in silence doing different things. Just being in the same room as Bucky brought you a sort of peace you’d never had before. Whenever he touched you, even if it was just a brief hug or brushing your back to get past you, your skin erupted into goosebumps. But that was just because physical touch was still foreign to you, right?

And his smile. God, his wonderful smile…

Bucky didn’t smile much. He hid behind a mask of stoicism, a remnant from the trauma of his horrible history as the Winter Soldier. Showing any sort of emotion, especially happiness, was hard for him. But when he finally let himself smile? It was the most beautiful thing you’d ever see.        

It took several sleepless nights wrestling with those confusing feelings to figure it out. You didn’t just see Bucky as your best friend. You had it bad. Not just “oh my god he’s so handsome” bad, like the “I would take a bullet for you I’m so in love” bad. That revelation? It left you euphoric. It also left you scared.

Because you were so sure Bucky didn’t feel the same. And that thought was like a knife to the heart every time it flashed through your mind.

So you kept it to yourself. You tried to keep things as normal as possible, but your heart kept fluttering whenever he walked into a room. Being so close to Bucky meant you confided in each other about pretty much everything, and he knew you well enough to know you were hiding something.

It all exploded on a Tuesday night in the compound.

Tuesdays were your movie nights. Bucky had a lot of pop culture to catch up on, so on this night every week he would come by your room to watch a movie. It was a weekly tradition that kind of started by accident. You were shocked he still hadn’t made time to watch Lord of the Rings, so you forced him onto your couch with popcorn and The Fellowship of the Ring. He loved it so much, and immediately asked if you guys could watch The Two Towers the next week. How could you say no to him?

Tonight, you were watching 13 Going on 30. It was your all-time favorite romcom, and you figured you could both use a break from all the action and fantasy movies you’d been cycling through. Something with a happy ending was worth indulging in.

“Does that Matt guy look like Banner to you? Or is it just me?” Bucky asked through a mouthful of popcorn.

“Heh, maybe a little,” you said, “Give or take a few years.” He laughed at that, and you forced yourself to laugh quietly. You wanted to blurt out your feelings every time you looked at Bucky, so you’d gotten quieter and quieter every time you spent time with him. It was an awful reaction, and you knew he noticed. But it was better than losing his friendship, right?

After that awful and painfully obvious forced laugh, Bucky let out a huge sigh and paused the movie. He set the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table in front of the couch, then turned to face you. Exasperation and hurt glimmered in his eyes.

“Y/n, what the fuck is going on with you?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Oh come on, don’t give me that,” he said sharply, “I know you better than anyone, and I know for a fact there’s something you’re not telling me. Is it me? Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No, god no!” You exclaimed.

“Well it must be something I did, because you’ve never been this quiet around me and it keeps getting worse. I hate it, and I want to know what I did so I can fix it.”

“Bucky, I’m serious, it’s nothing you did—”

“Then why? Why are you shutting me out?” He cut you off angrily, arms thrown wide. “You’re my best friend, I just don’t get why—”

“I don’t want you like a best friend, Bucky!” Your eyes went wide as the words flew from your lips. In the most comical way, you clapped your hand over your mouth as if you could stop the words that had already been said. Bucky’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

Oh fuck. He didn’t get it. Curse him and his old man ways.

“What does that even mean, Y/n? Are you saying you don’t want me around anymore?”

“Bucky, of course not. God, I would never want that. Never in a million years.”

“Then you better explain, because if you haven’t noticed, I’m over 100 years old. I need a little help here.”

“It means, uh…um,” you stuttered, wringing your hands together. “Is there any chance we can just forget I said that?”

“Nope, not a chance.”

“It means…it means that I care about you. As more than a friend.”

His entire face seemed to crinkle as he processed that. If you weren’t freaking out, you’d be obsessing over how damn cute it made him look. Then his eyes got wide as he began to make the connection. Your stomach nearly fell out of your ass as his eyes lifted again to meet yours.

“I…I think I know what you’re saying,” he nearly whispered, “I just need you to get real specific real fast, because I’m not about to say anything until I know exactly what you mean.”

“It means I’m in love with you, okay?” You burst out. Even through your mortification, there was a sudden sense of relief. A secret as big as that had definitely been weighing you down. Now that it was out there, that was one less thing you had to worry about.

His eyes grew even wider. How that was possible, you didn’t even know. That beautiful mouth of his began to turn up into a small smile as he gazed softly at you.

“You’re in love with me?” He asked, his smile getting wider with each passing second.

“What, you need it carved into stone or something?” You couldn’t help but sass him. Did you fucking stutter?

“No, it’s just…I never thought you’d feel that way about me.”

“Well, clearly I do. So you – wait, you mean you’ve thought about this before?”

“Of course I have,” he said as he shrugged, “I’ve been in love with you for two years now, how could I not think about it?”

You were instantly filled with warmth and pure bliss. In all your obsessing over your own feelings, you’d never allowed yourself to consider that he might feel the same about you. It just didn’t seem possible.

“I’m sorry,” you burst out, holding a hand up, “you’re telling me you’ve been into me for two years and didn’t say anything?”

“Why didn’t you?” He shot back, inching closer to you.

“Because you’re my best friend. I didn’t want to lose you because of stupid feelings I have.”

“But…I have those same ‘stupid feelings’ for you. So can we just cut the whole act and get on with it?” Bucky brought a hand up to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing along your skin so gently.

“Uh…um…get on with what?”

“Well I’d kinda like to kiss you, if you’re cool with it.”

“Bucky Barnes did you just use current slang to ask if you could kiss me?” You didn’t move an inch as his face moved right in front of yours, breath intermingling as you gazed into each other’s eyes. God, was this really happening?

“Yeah, guess your lessons worked,” he murmured.

“Well you better kiss me, then.”

As soon as your lips met, it was like coming home.

***

That memory, your favorite memory, replayed in your head as the three of you stepped into the elevator. Nat and Wanda were happily chatting about who would be there, what kind of antics Tony would cook up tonight, if there would be music we could actually dance to. You know, normal party things.

All you could think about was how long you had to stay until you could sneak off with your boyfriend.

You were so happy Wanda and Natasha had convinced you to wear this dress. When you’d first put it on, the difference from your normal look was so jarring that it took you a few minutes to get used to it. But now that you had, now that you felt the silky fabric shifting against your skin as you moved, now that you saw how dangerously long your legs looked in these heels…

Damn, you felt sexy.

And that sexy feeling? It made you want Bucky’s hands all over you.

But this was a party. A party thrown by Tony Stark, one of the most perceptive and observant people you’d ever met. If you left too soon, if he thought you weren’t “having enough fun”, he’d be more than a little upset. So you had to stay, drink, mingle, maybe dance a little…and then, maybe later, you could go do what you actually wanted.

The elevator pinged, indicating you had reached the topmost floor of the compound. This floor was home to a huge communal space, often used for just hanging out with the team. But on nights like tonight, Tony went all out and turned the space into something that resembled…a club?

The three of you stepped out into the massive room, upbeat music already blasting from the speakers. Typical Tony – he never really outgrew his love for dancing and parties. The bass thrummed through your body, making you want to move to the music. The lights were dim, but you could still tell who was around. It looked like you were some of the last members of the team to arrive. There was a huge bar off to the side, and Natasha headed that way right away. You turned to ask Wanda if she wanted to follow Nat, but she was already making a beeline for Vision. Smiling, you just turned right back around to follow Natasha. A drink sounded pretty good right now.

As you made your way to the bar, you felt more than a few pairs of eyes on you as you walked. You sneakily looked around as you went, noticing men and women watching you with admiration, and dare you say it, longing. As someone whose job was to blend in with the background all the time, this was a different and slightly addictive feeling. You leaned on the bar next to Nat right as the bartender slid her drink over to her.

“Straight whiskey tonight? Damn, going hard.” You quipped.

“Hey now, you know I can handle my liquor. It’s you we need to watch out for, you lightweight.”

Laughing, you scanned the party guests, looking for the one person you wanted to see. Tony had had arm around Pepper’s waist, both laughing at something Rhodey had said. Bruce lingered around them, drink in hand and looking a little nervous, but still happy to be included. Wanda and Vision were sitting quietly on one of the couches, both looking absolutely smitten with each other. Scott Lang, one of the newest additions, was busting some moves, while Peter Parker laughed as he watched. Thor, who was visiting from Asgard, laughed boisterously as he watched various guests try to lift his hammer. You couldn’t help the smile growing on your face. You loved these people so much.

Then, you saw him.

Bucky was with Sam and Steve, as usual. But even as Sam and Steve were talking animatedly next to him, those gorgeous blue eyes of his were glued to you. There was a kind of intensity in them you hadn’t seen before. Your breath whooshed from you body as he grinned at you. Trying to maintain the suggestive image your dress gave you, you managed to send a flirtatious smile his way, then turned back around to face the bar. Leaning against the counter, you knew he’d get an eyeful of your bare back. God, this was fun.

The bartender finally made his way over to you, and you ordered two tequila shots.

Nat turned to you, one eyebrow arched in surprise as she asked, “And you say I’m going hard? You can’t just down two shots right away, babe.”

“I’m not doing two shots; you think I’m stupid?” The bartender slid the shots over to you along with two lime wedges. “One is clearly for you.”

Unable to hold back a laugh, Natasha put her arm around your shoulders and pulled you into her side as she said, “Why the fuck not, let’s do it.” The two of you went through the process: salt, shot, lime. You couldn’t help but wince as you downed the harsh liquor. Of all the shots in the world, tequila probably tasted the worst. The only reason you kept going for it was the warmth it traced down your body, and you felt your muscles begin to loosen up.

“Two more,” you called over to the bartender.

“Uh, no,” Natasha shot at you, grabbing her whiskey, and pushing off the bar, “I’m good with my top shelf shit, you keep going after that gasoline if you want but I’m out.”

“C’mon, Nat,” you called out, “what am I gonna do with two shots?”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone else, babe.” She said with a wave over her shoulder.

Sighing, you turned back to the ridiculously pretty bar (seriously, how much had Tony paid for this thing?). Who else would help you look cool and sexy at a bar for your secret boyfriend?

Okay, that was the cringiest thought you’d ever had. Gross.

As the bartender slid the tequila in front of you, you steeled yourself for the nastiness that was about to happen.

“Fuck, I didn’t think this through,” you mumbled.

“Yeah, you tend to do that,” a deep voice answered on your right. Instead of being the slightest bit surprised, you couldn’t help but smile. You’d know that voice anywhere.

“Something I can do for you, Barnes?” You looked up at him from under your lashes.

“Well, it looks like you’ve got an extra shot there. Thought I could bail you out.”

“Is that all?”

Bucky shifted so that your arms were just barely touching. His hand was right next to yours, and you reached out with your pinky to lightly brush his.

“Doll, you have the gall to show up in that dress and ask what I want as if you don’t already know?”

“Sorry Buck, I’m a little slow, must be the tequila. You should probably be a little clearer.”

Putting on quite the show of reaching for one of the shots, his mouth somehow ended up right next to your ear.

“I want you.”

It was lucky everyone was so distracted and couldn’t see how you shuddered at his words. Trying to maintain brain function, you managed to take the shot with him. You were now fully facing each other. He was wearing the cockiest smirk you’d ever seen, one that would put Tony Stark to shame. You couldn’t help but respond with that same energy despite the jitteriness his three little words had reduced you to.

“Well why don’t you—”

“Hello, my friends!” A booming voice sounded between you as Thor threw a huge arm over each of you. Bucky, with his stupid super soldier strength, didn’t really have a reaction to it. You, on the other hand, stumbled a little under the weight and force of it. “It’s so good to be back with you tiny humans.”

Was…was he slurring his words?

“Thor…are you drunk right now?”

He simply laughed in response. Well, that answered that.

“Of course I am, tiny person! It can’t be a party without good Asgardian wine.”

“Wait…you have literal god wine?” Bucky, who had a look of vague irritation on his face up to this point, now looked interested. Maybe even a little excited?

“Of course, metal appendage.”

“Dude, you can’t just call Bucky ‘metal appendage’—”

“He can if he lets me have some,” Bucky interrupted.

“We have a bargain!” Thor slapped Bucky on the back before scurrying back over to where he had come from, probably to get the wine he had promised.

“Bucky, you can’t even get drunk,” you hissed, “what exactly is the point of this?”

“Since everything happened, I haven’t found any alcohol strong enough to get me drunk. I figure god wine is worth a shot.”

“Bucky—”

“When I kiss you against a wall later, I wanna be a little tipsy,” he whispered in your ear, “that cool with you?”

Unable to keep yourself from smiling again, you nodded as Thor sauntered back over. Ever since that moment a few weeks ago, right before he kissed you for the first time, asking “is that cool with you?” had become your thing.

And the idea of Bucky kissing you against a wall? Yeah, that sounded pretty good.

***

As it turns out, Asgardian wine is just as potent as Thor had promised.

For the first time in over seventy years, Bucky Barnes was certifiably drunk. It made him feel like the Bucky from all those years ago, and it was the most incredible thing. Here he was, over 100 years old, partying, and all his favorite people were here.

Including his ridiculously hot girlfriend.

Even as they both flitted around the party, Bucky and y/n still found each other’s eyes, even from across the room. They would send winks, smiles, even funny faces. All he wanted to do was be right next to her, talk and dance with her all night…

But they had agreed. They wanted to keep their relationship a secret for now, keep the attention off of them for a bit while they got to know each other in this new way.

But god damn, that dress.

Y/n in red was…indescribable. It didn’t matter what she wore, she was always the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. But in red? In this dress?

She was breathtaking.

“Buck, you breathing?”

A hand waved in front of his face, snapping Bucky’s attention back to the people around him from Y/n’s back. He had been imagining putting his hands all over that back later and had gotten more than a little mesmerized. He managed to get his eyes to refocus, finding a drunk Sam smirking right next to him and an even drunker Steve dancing next to him. But what Steve was doing couldn’t really be called ‘dancing’ per say…more like an aggressive wiggle.

“Why wouldn’t I be breathing?” Of all the things he could’ve said to get Sam’s attention off of him, that wasn’t it.

“Uh, probably because the girl you’re in love with decided to show up and show off tonight? Pretty sure you’re drooling, man.”

Despite himself, Bucky slapped a hand across his mouth, only reducing Sam to wheezing laughter. Knowing he had been caught, he rolled his eyes and grimaced a little. Of all the people to catch him, he wished it hadn’t been Sam.

“I wasn’t…staring… at y/n, I just never see her dressed up is all.”

“I never said anything about the girl being y/n.”

“…fuck.”

“LANGUAGE,” Steve yelled out, pointing a finger at his two friends before returning to his shimmying.

Turning back to him, Sam added, “Just go be with her, Buck. You’re not fooling anyone, and neither is she.”

“We’re that obvious?”

“A few weeks ago you’d at least try to hide it. Now I’m surprised you’re not jumping each other’s bones right here right now.”

“Point taken,” Bucky said, lightly slapping Sam’s shoulder before power walking over to his girl.

***

“Nat, if you don’t stop asking about Bucky and I’s relationship, I’m going to kick you,” you called over the music before taking another swig from your glass. It was no Asgardian wine, but the human stuff wasn’t half bad in your opinion. It wasn’t like you could drink the god shit, anyway. If you had even one sip, you’d be swinging from the ceiling like Miley fucking Cyrus. You were pretty drunk as it was.

“Okay, fine,” she said with a shrug as she took a sip of her whiskey, still as calm and collected as ever. “You’re almost as drunk as he is, you’ll be talking soon enough.”

“Oh? Is that your spy master plan?”

Natasha was still looking as unbothered as ever, but as she looked across the room over your shoulder, her face split into a savage grin.

“It was, but it looks like I might not need it.”

“What do you me—”

Your words were cut off as a large, warm hand enclosed around yours. Whirling around, you were suddenly face to face with the man himself. Bucky was clearly having a good time. His mouth was relaxed into the cutest smile you’d ever seen him wear, and he moved without his normal stiffness and intensity. He threaded your fingers together, smiling down at you with so much love it was a wonder Nat hadn’t said anything yet.

Looking back in front of you, ready to explain yourself, you only found empty air. Guess she’d seen all she needed to, but honestly, you really didn’t care. All you’d wanted the whole night was to be exactly where you were right now; hand in hand with the man you loved.

“We’re just kidding ourselves, doll,” Bucky called next to your ear, “Sam said we’ve been pretty obvious.”

“Nat said the same,” you answered with a sheepish smile, “kind of hard to keep my face under control when you’ve got that leather jacket on.”

“You’re blaming me?” He asked with mock indignation. “You’re the one who looks,” he gestured wildly to your whole body, “like that!”

Trying ignore the heat spreading over your cheeks, you shot back, “Like what?”

“Like the most…” he screwed his face up in the most adorable way as he searched for words, “like the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” As the last few words tumbled out of his mouth, he gazed at you with such a softness you almost melted right into the floor.

“Wanna get out of here?” You asked, finally giving up the game. It was pointless, really. Now, all you wanted to do was for your boyfriend to keep his promise and kiss you against a wall.

Wrapping an arm around your waist, he answered, “Absolutely.” Without looking at a single soul, the two of you began walking as quickly as you could for the exit. You and Bucky were both leaning on each other a bit, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Stepping out into the light of the hallway, you blinked as your eyes adjusted after the dark room you’d spent the last few hours in. Bucky led you until you were right in front of the elevator, and he lazily pressed the button to go up. There was tension in the air between you, like a thread that was being pulled. Biting your lip, you stared at the doors in front of you. You knew if you so much as looked at the man next to you, you’d jump him right then and there.

The shining doors slid open, and the pair of you walked in, his strong arm still around your waist. His grip wasn’t loose in any sense of the word. Bucky kept you right next to him, even as your legs wanted to drift all over the place. You pressed the button for the residential floor.

As soon as those doors slid shut, that thread of tension snapped.

Bucky whirled you to face him, then walked you backward until you were pressed against the wall of the elevator.

“I promised I’d kiss you against the wall, didn’t I?”

He didn’t even wait for a response. His mouth was on yours in an instant, lips moving together like a dance. The kiss was slow and unhurried. You tried to bring him closer, linking your hands behind his neck and pressing yourself to him. Instead of responding in kind, he unwound your arms from around him and pinned them above your head.

Oh damn.

Okay.

No complaints here.

“You’ve been teasin’ me all night just by wearing that dress, sweetheart,” he murmured in between the kisses he trailed down your jaw, “I think it’s my turn.”

“Would it change your mind knowing I only wore this dress so you could take it off?”

The heat that bloomed in those blue eyes of his was unmistakable. As the doors opened on your floor, he swept you up into his arms and began to walk purposefully to his apartment. All the while, he kept that signature cocky smirk of his you’d come to adore.

“Bucky?” You asked once he’d walked into his unit.

“That sentence was the single most attractive thing you’ve ever said,” he murmured as he set you down. Even still, he kept you pressed against him. “But nah, I’m a patient guy. I think I’ll take my time.” He followed this by resuming his slow and sensual kisses, and you couldn’t help but melt into them.

“I love you,” you whispered against his lips.

“I’ll never get tired of hearing that, doll. I love you too.”

***

[idontknowwhattomakemyurllol]

Bakugou, comfort fan fic

Summary : You and your ex just broke up. And you didn’t leave your room for a week. Bakugou wasn’t having any of it, and took you out.

Warning (?) : Not the best writing

 A/N : Hi hi hi, Blinky here. So uhm..I made this a few days ago and I didn’t copyread it so if it’s REALLY sucky I’m sorry T_T. I hope you still enjoy though :D!

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Bakugou’s POV:

‘That weirdo isn’t here again.’ the blond male thought to himself, as he scanned the common room area of the Class-1A dormitory. ‘Sigh…Y/N must really be having a hard time..” Raccoon eyes sighed Bakugou’s ears perked up at the sound of your name. “Yeah..They haven’t left their room in a while…” Round cheeks added. Sipping from her boba tea. “Didn’t they just breakup-” the invisible girl was cut off by the two other girls “Shhhhhhh!! Y/N didn’t tell us if they were comfy with saying that info!!” Raccoon eyes shushed. “Gah-! Sorry…!” Hagakure apologized.

As they continued to worry about Y/N’s well being. Wondering if they should go check up on them. Bring them some food. Comfort them. Or all the above. Bakugou got his phone, and texted you.  

 Your POV:

 Memories of screaming and shouting and tears played through your mind as you clutched onto your pillow. The breakup. You and your lo-..I mean..Ex,broke up about a week ago. Was it a week..? You don’t know. It felt like forever. Yet the pain didn’t go away. You slowly woke up, and sat upright. The room was dark. Only a little bit of light coming in through the small gap between the dark colored curtains. But then you noticed another source of light. Your phone. Someone sent you a text. You picked up the phone to see who it was. And you never thought you’d see the day where he of all people would text you this, let alone text you at all!

Sparky sparky boom boom man ;

Oi. You idiot. Why didn’t you come out of your fucking room again? Those dumbasses are beginning to worry you know.

Bakugou Katsuki. THE. BALUGOU. KATSUKI. Asking if you were okay? Well-- he isn’t really but you can tell he was somewhat worried. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be texting you,

Y/N :

Sorry Bakugou. I still don’t feel too well.

You replied, and in the skip of a heartbeat he texted back.

Sparky sparky boom boom man:

I’m omw.

..You read the text aloud. “I’m on my way..?” you asked yourself. You took a minute to process what those words meant. “..Wait…” your e/c eyes stared at the phone in disbelief. “HE’S COMING OVER?!?!”

Third Person POV :

He got you some breakfast and started walking towards your room. “Hey! Bakubro! Where are you going?” Shitty hair- I mean. Kirishima, asked. “IT’S NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS SHITTY HAIR!” Bakugou snarled and began stomping towards your room.

Bakugou knocked on your bedroom door -more like banged his fist against the door-. “Hey, Let me in.” he demanded. No response. His eye twitched. “Oi oi oi…Don’t tell me you’re just gonna leave me out here.” ..Nothing. He realized what he said could make you not want him in your room even more. He sighed, trying to calm down at least a little bit. “Look. I’ll only be doing this once. So if you don’t let me in now. I won’t help ever again. Including your homework shit.” he lied. Of course he would still help you. He-…No he didn’t…He just saw you as a good rival and wanted to make you even better. The better you are. The more challenging you are to fight.

“I’m gonna count to three. And if the door isn’t open by then. I’m leaving.” He stated, “One..Two..” then the door made a click noise. And his vermilion looked down to see you. Your h/c hair was a mess. And you were wearing a gray hoodie. “H-Hey Bakugou..” you muttered. He huffed, “You look like shit.” you laughed. “I know..” you agreed. You then looked at the plate of food he was holding. “Thanks for bringing food. I needed it haha,,” you reached out for the food. But he just lifted his hand higher to a height you couldn’t reach. You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “You thought I was just gonna give you food then leave?” he asked. Your eyes widened. “Uhm..Maybe..?” you laughed nervously.

“Move.” he demanded. You tried to close the door, but then he stopped you with his one hand. “Heh. That was a bit rude don’t you think?” he teased. But then looked at you. And saw the look on your face. He then realized this could’ve been the wrong choice. “..Sorry” he mumbled and handed you your food. “What..?” you stared at the food. Then looked back up at him. “I said I’m sorry okay! I..I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” he averted his gaze. He..Was apologizing to you? He. HE-..Said sorry..?

You smiled and took the plate, “It’s alright. It’s just..’ You looked at your room. “My room is a mess right now..You’d get even more pissed..” He looked at you. “Now I just wanna get in there even more.” he complained. You thought about whether or not you should let him in. He won’t get that mad right?

You let him in. And God were you worried with anticipation. Just waiting for him to lecture you about keeping your room clean or something like that. But no. He just kept quiet as his eyes trailed along the room. Which may I add, DID NOT MAKE YOUR FEAR ANY BETTER. He finally sighed. And said “Go sit and eat. I’ll clean this fucking mess.” and he began to pick up one of the clothes on your floor. “E-EH!? Y-YOU DON’T HAVE TO IT’S OKA-” “JUST SHUT THE HELL UP AND LET ME DO THIS.” he barked back, as he crouched down and put it around his arm. You did as he said and ate your food, and tried to make sure he doesn’t catch you staring.

He had this look on his face. It..Wasn’t that pissed off angry face. It looked a bit like that but..It felt somewhat different. He looked a bit worried..? Sad even..? God. You’re probably overthinking it. Just don’t think about it, Y/N! You shouted at yourself. But as soon as you did. You remembered the breakup. And tears began to prickle at your eyes. But you wiped it off as soon as you realized you were about to sob. You turned to him, hoping he didn’t see. And he had his back turned against you, and was entering the bathroom. “I’m gonna look for the laundry basket. I’ll be back” he said, then rummaged through the bathroom.

He saw you. He saw those tears. But he didn’t say anything-- Yet anyway.

After you had finished eating. He finished cleaning the room a bit. It wasn’t full on cleaning since he would have to sweep the floor and dust the dirt and etc but hey, it looked better than before!

“Thanks Bakugou. I’m sorry you had to do this..” you thanked the explosion boy. “Yeah yeah. It was no problem. Now get dressed we’re going out.” he turned to leave but you stopped him. “Huh? What do you mean?” you question. “What does it sound like? You haven’t left your room in a while and I can tell you’re getting lazy again. So we’re gonna go out for a walk. You understand?” he explained. “O-Oh. Okay..” You trailed off. “Where will we be going?” “Don’t ask. Just get dressed. And you better take a bath okay?” he said and closed the door. 

A little later you took a bath. Combed your hair -you had a bit of a hard time with that-.Got a bag and filled it with things you need. And wore some casual clothes, You then heard a knock on your door, and as expected it was Bakugou. He glanced but walked away immediately. “Hurry up. I won’t wait all day for you.” And you ran after him

. As the two of you entered the common room. Eyes stared at you and the blond. Some began asking if you were okay. Others teased and asked If you were going on a date, then the small portion minded their own business and didn’t say anything. Bakugou raised a middle finger to those who were asking if you two were going on a date, you told those who asked about your well being that you were okay. And you two were off. To wherever Bakugou said you would go.

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You stared in awe at the scene in front of you. Sparkles in your eyes as you read the sign. Bakugou tried to contain the smile on his face. But he couldn’t help it. Not when you looked so happy. “This..This is…” you began. Bakugou forced himself to make his usual grumpy face. “It’s a damn dog cafe.” he stated the obvious. You ran in the cafe and grinned, looking at all of the puppies inside. One immediately running towards you. As you crouched down and cooed at the small creature. Bakugou tsked, and walked toward the counter. Asking for a menu. Since he won’t really be playing with the dogs, “OI! Do you wanna eat anything?” You were swarmed with puppies. A LOT of puppies were gathering around you. And you were loving it. And so was Bakugou. He loved seeing that smile on your face. Although he would never admit it. He ordered you some fries and the lady asked, :”Is she your girlfriend?” Bakugou turned red and yelled no. Then stomped to a nearby table. The lady chuckled in amusement.

Bakugou grumpily sat down. Arms crossed as he muttered insults. Boyfriend. The word played through his head. He snapped out of it and scolded himself. He can’t date you. Not yet anyw- no never, nope nope nope- “Bakugou!” you called for him, and his heart pounded against his chest a little bit more than usual. You were now sitting on the floor. Your eyes sparkling like stars from the galaxy. Your smile warm and bright. “You’re not gonna play with the puppies?: you pouted, holding a puppy up to him. It’s puppy dog eyes staring at him. “No. I don’t play with dogs.” he said, about to pull out his phone. Before you hastily put the puppy around your arm, and used the other arm to hold his hand. Catching his attention. “Pleeeaaaseee? It’s fun! I swear!” you begged. And he blushed. “Ugh! Fine! If It will stop you from making that annoying face then..Fine!” he got out of the chair, and sat next to you. “And stop holding my hand!” he quickly pulled his hand away from you as you simply laughed at his aggressiveness. And placed the puppy on his lap.

You were always like this..You always laughed it seemed. And for some reason, it felt like music to his ears every time he heard it. He patted the small creature on his lap. He sneakily took his phone from his photo, and took a picture of you. And you didn’t notice. You looked..Beautiful. He caught himself thinking that, and tried to ignore the feeling again.

The food soon came and you whined, not wanting to let the puppies go. It took him awhile but after threatening to finish your fries you agreed. You looked at the puppies longingly. And he couldn’t help but chuckle. Then you two began to talk about whatever came to mind. Stupid new trends. School. Homework. Your love for dogs. Anything to keep your mind off your ex. And it seemed to be working. Or at least he hoped it did.

After you finished eating, you immediately went back to the puppies. Still somewhat keeping the conversation with Bakugou, just distracted by the puppies. He then finished his meal, and you two had to leave, And Bakugou caught a glimpse of the same lady giving him a thumbs up.

“So..Where are we going now?” you asked. As you two walked around the mall. “..Shopping.” he blurted out. He didn’t think he would make it this far. You tiled your head in confusion, “What was that?”. He grumbled “We’re going shopping..I swear your deaf.” he mumbled. And shoved his hands in his pockets. “OOh~! Shopping!!” you smiled. “I wonder what the oh so great King Explosion Murder is looking for?” you teased. “Shut up or I’m leaving you alone.” he began to walk faster. And you hurriedly chased him.

You two looked at a lot of stores. You two looked at clothes, stationary, stuffed toys, -all might- merch, skin care, etc. You bought a few of the said items, and walked out of the mall drained. “God. Why did you drag me to so many stores?” Bakugou groaned. “Huh?! You were the one dragging me around!!” you shot back at him. As you two sat down on a bench. “I’m not the one who went into a store full of stuffed animals and gushed over how cute they were for a long damn time!” he said, expecting for your response. Until he noticed you went quiet. He glanced at you, noticing that you were looking at something- rather, someone. He followed your gaze and saw your ex with their group of friends. He grit his teeth, but turned his attention back to you.

He was not having it. He stood up. Grabbed your wrist. And pulled you away, “B-Bakugou? Where are we-” “Don’t ask. Just follow me.” he replied. And picked up the pace. And you followed suite.

He then stopped when you were a good distance away from them. And looked at you. Then at the place he wanted to go. He sighed, and gave you the few bags he was holding. “Take them.” and as you did as he asked, he bent down a little and made his back face you. “Get on.” “What..?” “I said get on.” he growled and glared at you. You hesitantly got on and he stood straight. And off you two were. Flying. In the air.

…Flying..

 .......

You..YOU WERE FLYING-

 After a short trip. You were finally at your final stop. A fricking mountain. You swiftly got off of Bakugou and gazed at the beautiful view. The sun was setting. And you could see the city from here. “Woah..” is all you could say. It was..An amazing sight to see. Bakugou put the bags down next to a tree and walked over to you. “You like it?” he questioned, and you nodded. “It’s..Pretty..” not as beautiful as you. He said, in his brain of course. “Mm. I come here ever once in a while. I usually run up the mountain but I still got my exercise.” he commented. “I see.” you replied. Not wanting to say much.

He bit his lip. Wondering if he should really go through with the plan. “If you want. You could scream all of your emotions out here you know>” you faced him, and wondered if he was serious. “I..Do that when I’m feeling stressed sometimes. It doesn’t fully help but it gives some sort of comfort.” he added, his ruby eyes glowing.”I know you bottle up your feelings you damn nerd. And thats not fucking healthy. So,,If you want to. Just..Scream and yell it all out.”

The offer sounded nice. But you weren’t sure if you should or not. He sighed. Then suddenly yelled which made you flinch. “Like that. See? Wasn’t that hard.” he smirked. You took a step. And took a deep breath in. And yelled.

You yelled, and you screamed, and cried and everything. You got angry, and you got sad. You let all of the things you wanted to say go. You let everything out.

And by the end of it. Your voice was hoarse. As you cried, Bakugou didn’t think this through, so he wasn’t sure on what he should do. But he pat your shoulder, and pulled you in.

“I..Don’t know what to say other than..You’re not allowed to give up. Cause I’m the one who will defeat you and become number one. So until then..Be strong. And fight everyone who gets in your way.” he pat your head. “B-But..I’m so..Weak..” you sniffled. “You know that’s pretty insulting. Since I’m the one who helps you train. No rival of mine is fucking weak.’ he pulled you in closer.

 “You’re not weak. You got that, dumbass.” you nodded. “Good.”

[huntsman-ash]

RWBY V8E4 LiveThoughts

And were back at it again, this week with turkey and Italian preserved sausage as a snack! Lets see what RT has for us this week.

Oh, 20 minutes. Are they normally this long?

Oh, wait, the openings almost 2 minutes long. Thats more like it.

And now to Robyn and Qrow. Seems Robyns actually liking Qrow a little bit now. 

Guess the cells aren’t secured if a fly got into Schnee’s. This a “Fly on Mike Pence’s face” reference?

Qrow sounds more growly again. Did he get smacked back two seasons by Clover dying?

If by “darkness” you mean “Tyrian” then, yes. Also dude, its Clover. He was shit anyway. All the Aces are shit. Dont feel too bad about him.

And he’s got a point too. If Clover had thought with his head instead of his dick (yes, Im sure they were gonna fuck, Fair Games totally a thing), he probably wouldnt be dead now, and Tyrian would be the one with the sword through his chest.

But of course this is RWBY and V7/8 so things cant go their ways.

Ouch. Deep thoughts of Qrow. And some interesting stuff from Robyn too. I still think I’d prefer hopeandharmonizing’s Briar, though.

Marrows glare gives me life. Hare’s just a moron right now though, but thats no real surprise. She’s immature emotionally.  Honestly, shes...kind of like a less bad version of our current President. Always has to be the best at everything, fastest, leader, whatever.

Thats probably why this is grating on her so much. Even though shes TECHNICALLY the Ace’s leader now (I think? Seemed like she was Clovers lieutenant, so by rate of succession she’s in command now)

A glance at the little floating control pad... “Clerance access only”. Okay, that...seems weird. Shouldnt it say something like authorized personell only? Maybe it means access by clerance only or something.

Then Robyn’s name, and then process ID 4591-27. No idea what thats useful for but its there.

Also Marrow seems to be the only competent member of the Aces rn. 

Ah now we get to see some of the hills around Atlas. For those of you who have seen my headcanons on the Hunter-Killers and their base of operations, Fortress Academy, its out in these hills somewhere.

The music sounds like a boss fight.

The screen on Ren’s hoverbike reads “HVB Rhino” and “HD5800″ I can only assume HVB stands for “hoverbike” and Rhino must be its name, like how the dropships are Mantas. No clue what the number is. 

Also apparently the cold in Solitas is so bad it corrupts machinery?

Ahh, good, some action. Lets see what we get now. Ohh, teamwork. And again, signs that aura allows you to move faster and farther than a normal human

Heh, it really is like a boss fight, like the chase scene at the end of the first Viking level in For Honor.

Oh, and it can call for reenforcements literally out of nowhere? Or is the whole tundra of Solitas just CRAWLING with Grimm?

Yes, yes it did just call for backup, Yang. Maybe these are all forward scouts and ambush units from the Grimmstorm. They did say its the biggest...

Another banger from Casey Lee Williams...

What the hell happened in Solitas to cause this geography? Seriously, its a line of bridges over a gap in two cliffs...that cant be natrual, not that equal in distance.

Man, those bikes didnt even last half an episode...I guess thats fair, they are facing obsurd odds. Or maybe they just want Yang to be the only one with a bike.

And there goes the dropwall. Woops.

Also you can just kinda see it but they bounce off the rock and thats why they slow down. Useful.

Also this part with them falling off the edge reminds me of the ending cutscene of Halo 4s Forerunner level, where Chief flies out of a portal and almost goes sailing off a cliff in a Ghost.  Except here, the bike stays on the land and THEY go off the cliff.

I paused at just the right time cause YANGS FACE XD

Holy shit what are Ren’s weapons cables MADE OF? The one atop him is holding him AND the weight of his two teammates. And the one below has both Jaune and Yang. No sign of slippage or breackage at all. 

Ahhh there’s the whaleship (Monstra? Fuck it Im gonna keep calling it the whaleship). So yeah my headcanon now is the mountain its right next too is Menachite, where Fortress is. 

Oh hey back to the Schnee manor of all things! Does...this mean military invasion of the Schnee grounds. Hey Whitley. Lesbians are here. 

Someone make a video cut of Weiss banging on the door to the “Knock knock open up the door its real!” part of that one song.

Hehehehhe. Nice Weiss.

Also convenient about the house staff. Good thing RT doesnt need to animate them or Willow now...

I hope the staff took some of the silverware and some paintings on the way out.

Why is MAY the one carrying Nora.

Ah so now they’re stuck out there with no cell service. Hehe.

Ah okay so the cold in Solitas DOES eat aura. Good, my headcanon still kind of stands. 

I wonder, does wearing proper cold weather clothing (like bundled up stuff) help? Or does it cut right through...

Why is JAUNE the one hauling the bike? Isnt Yang the strongest? Or maybe they take turns.

Ahhh inter-team talking. Also, outpost. Hmm. Atlas one? Overrun if I had to guess. Unless he saw Fortress. Which I doubt.

I do love the circling shot here, with the light on Yang’s hair and the shadows on Ren. Its...really artistic and emotional. GREAT WORK RT. 

Rens got points. And hes saying stuff I myself have been saying for ages, which is good. I wonder why this is how Ren is now...working with the Ace Ops? Being afraid of loosing Nora? No one tell him what happened last episode.

Also, Jaune’s hair seems to have gotten less crazy in recent episodes. It looks less like a banana and more like a close tactical cut.

Yangs got a point.

Ahhh and now we get to see the inside of the whale. 

SALEM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP SHOWING THE FUCK OFF. SERIOUSLY. WE GET IT. 

...this is gonna be a really criingy torture section, isnt it.

Someones gonna take that “hound didnt break you” line in the WRONG direction 

It is amusing the only thing holding Oscar down is the Hound actually. 

Ah so they’re still searching the remains of Beacon.

Also I like how Salem calls them “her forces” as if its anything but a random bunch of expendable monsters. Like, bruh, you cant search anything with THAT.

Ignoring the boring chat between these two, notice how the Hound’s shoulder literally flexes and shifts when Salem touched it. I dont think this thing is solid at all aside from the head and the bone claws...the whole thing is just amorphous Grimm material that can adapt to whatever situation it requires. A specialist unit. A...Hunter hunter.

Yo what the fuck was that. Magic? Huh. Did we actually SEE magic for once in the show? Only took us 8 FUCKING SEASONS...

Doesnt seem to be anything but an energy blast/pain never firing though. I assume his auras still gone, cause its completely singed his shirt, but it didnt do much else.

...Im not impressed.

She really needs to stop touching his face, its creeping me out.

HAHA SHE CANT DO IT HERSELF SHE HAS TO RELY ON HAZEL BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF HIM. I think we know where she stands now, doesnt she...say what you will about her letting Hazel have his vengeance (which is very valid, even he admits hit), but me? I think she A) cant actually beat up on Ozma herself because she still cares and B) shes almost out of magic too. Its weakened as the Gods have been gone and shes been forced to rely on the Grimm and on pawns. Basically, once she and Oz are both gone? That’s it for magic. Remnant will belong to the Grimm...and to technology. 

At which point without Oz around to hold them back Atlas is going to go fucking BONKERS and basically ensure the Grimm get pushed back into a corner and then finally permenantly STAMPED OUT.

More Whale insides. Seems like most of its empty grandious spaces. Or possibly muscle? Hard to tell. Either way theres a lot of open air in there...with tight corridors. If you fired a thermobaric warehead into one of the chambers the resulting blastc could possibly blow the doors off and send a raging fireball through the entire thing...Hmm. Filing that away for later.

NEO IS SO SHORT ITS FUNNY TO ME. I know its just positioning BUT SHE LOOKS EVEN SHORTER IN THIS SHOT THAN USUAL.

More note on the Hound; the “flesh” around its right shoulder spike actually sinks down when it stops moving. Its neck shifts and moves too, like the material isnt solid, but recirculating.

I also dont see any eyes. And it looks like it has some kind of...forehead mouth? Def looks like teeth down the ridge of its spine.

Oh boy yeah that...whole thing is basically melting in on itself.

I wont lie; hearing Cinder get berated by CORTANA (and yes, I still hear Cortana in Salem, espeically now that the two characters are kind of one and the same, both megalomaniacal leaders of giant armies, bar the fact that one of them is about a TRILLION times more dangerous than the other because one of them has access to Guardian Custodies and the other one is...well kind of lame and has to have beefy dudes beat up on small children etc) is pleasing to me. 

Get fucked, Cinder.

And THERE is Cortana again too.

Neo Marry Popins’s Ya’lling is fucking CUTE. And I love her little smirk.

Wait the whale’s that close?

..oh my...hold on.

...thats it. THATS ATLAS’S AIR FLEET!?!

12 AIRSHIPS? 12? EXCUSE ME!?

ARE YOU LEGITAMETLY TELLING ME THE BIGGEST MILITARY ON REMNANT HAS FEWER AIRSHIPS THAN THE SMALLEST NAVY ON EARTH HAS FRIGATES? YOUR FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT? THERE HAS TO BE MORE SOMEWHERE. THIS IS A JOKE, A STRAIGHT UP FUCKING JOKE.

...

No, thats...thats it. Thats Atlas’s airfleet. 12 tiny vessels. I swear it was bigger last season...

...HA! HAHA! HA! Oh, Ironwood, and Atlas as a whole...you deserve everything your about to get. I hope you die SCREAMING, and that when your bodies fall bleeding and shattered to Mantle, the people down there will realize that, no. You cant just assume Hunters will do all the work for you

THIS IS REMNANT. ITS KILL OR BE KILLED. YOU EITHER MAKE A FORCE POWERFUL ENOUGH THAT THE GRIMM RUN FROM YOU  OR YOU DIE INSTEAD. ATLAS FAILED. NOW THEY SUFFER.

Emerald stop simpin.

Also that is...the SHITTEST outpost...I have ever seen in my life. My overall thought process of Atlas is...sinking even LOWER than before. 

Though it seems more like a waystation. Bed, Dust, some dudes coat on it. Dead heater. Its probably a rest spot for Specialists out in the tundra.

Ren does the emo sit. Lol. Yang even says it. Brood himself to death.

Alright whats this now...something forcing itself out of the tundra?

And thats it for today! Cool ass concept art at the end there too. 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 242: SANTA IS REAL

Previously on BnHA: We said farewell to the League of Pliff and were finally reunited with the kids of U.A., an institution which I would just like to point out is so diametrical to the League that they literally took the polar opposite route when choosing their name, and focused only on the acronym. I’m 100% sure U.A. doesn’t even stand for anything. Anyway, so Bakugou and Todoroki went on whirlwind press tour following their ch 219 antics, and the resulting interviews were so disastrous that Aizawa decided to bring in Mt. Lady to give the whole class a crash course in PR 101. Meanwhile All Might scoured Ancestry.com for info on the past users of OFA, and Rat Principal announced that U.A. was going to resume its internship program. This is great news for Deku, who’s been taking his sweet time mastering Blackwhip. Like, we’re not even talking baby steps here so much as little tiny flea steps. Kid’s going to need all the help he can get.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi targets all of my weak points at once. The My OT3 Academia arc gets off to an incredible, award-winning start with a Christmas party and the announcement of Internships 2: This Time, it’s Compulsory. Highlights include: (1) Kaminari and Mina forcing Bakugou to accept the spirit of Christmas into his heart and soul, (2) Iida rocking a Santa beard, (3) Eri holding a giant sword, (4) Bakugou reminiscing about his internship with Best MIA Jeanist, specifically the part where Jeanist was all “A HERO’S NAME IS REALLY IMPORTANT AND SYMBOLIC AND MEANINGFUL, SO YOU NEED TO THINK VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT IT” and oh my fucking god, and lastly (5) Todoroki inviting Bakugou and Deku to come intern with him at the Endeavor Hero Agency (known for its famous business slogan: “Got Plot?”). It’s like I wished on seventeen different falling stars and they all came true at once. I still can’t even fucking process this. kfkdslgk.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

I just got like three excited-seeming asks (I haven’t actually read them yet) in rapidfire succession less than an hour ago, and my dashboard is now filling up with filtered “bnha spoilers” posts, so I took this as a sign that I should read the new chapter ASAP. oh gosh

(ETA:

(1) SAMEEEEEE, and (2) YEEEEEEEEP. listen I’m not religious you guys, but I said “oh my god” so much while reading this chapter that I wouldn’t be surprised if he or she finally answers and is like, “YES!? WHAT IS IT???”)

what new state-of-the-art tomfoolery will our intrepid heroes engage in this week. what novel hijinks will they commence. what frivolous escapades will they embark on this lovely Friday morn?

HOMGAAAHHHHHH

THE TITLE IS LITERALLY MY FEELINGS RN. MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS TO ME. YES GOD I LOVE IT. I’LL TAKE A DOZEN

okay. so today, September 6th, is officially Christmas. you heard the man and who am I to argue

so we’re opening with a teacher’s meeting! probably about the internships. or the fact that they’re all screwed. I don’t really know what their priorities are nowadays

okay yeah it’s about the internships. also Rat Principal is nested in Aizawa’s scarf for absolutely no reason, and Aizawa is disgruntled about it. heh. tomfoolery already and it’s only the first panel

oh shit, Nezu’s saying it’s now a government requirement. I got so surprised I actually forgot to call him RP

because ain’t nothing safer than hero internships. if the Basement arc taught us nothing else. it’s that

that was sarcasm in case that’s not coming across. this is clearly a baffling decision. but what are government committees for if not for making baffling decisions I guess

and now Midnight is coming to the same conclusion I was starting to wonder at

can someone please tell me what the PSC’s goals actually are, then? is this not the same group that recently changed the rules of the provisional license exam so that an even smaller percentage of people would pass? so do you want more heroes or fewer? which is it?

how do they cope with it? does anyone even have any idea?? it seems to me like they’re just throwing them to the wolves. we have this problem that we have absolutely no idea what to do about, oh I know, let’s toss a bunch of inexperienced kids at it. and hope that none of them gets murdered I guess

anyway so The Sheriff is speculating that the League must have been involved in the Deika situation, and he’s wondering why the PSC is trying so hard to keep it on the dl

oh yeah. friendly reminder that the PSC, thanks to Hawks, probably knows exactly how powerful Tomura and the League have recently become. so they know full well how shark-infested the waters are, and they’re making it mandatory for the kids to all take swimming lessons. nice

lol back when I was brainstorming ideas for future arcs, I seriously thought Horikoshi would have to go out of his way to come up with excuses for the kids to have future encounters with the League, because the school was so concerned with their safety that they wouldn’t allow them to leave the grounds except on rare occasions. well I sure got that one wrong. though to be fair, for once it isn’t U.A. that’s doing the child endangering here

(ETA: and actually, regardless of how insane it is, I do appreciate that when shit inevitably hits the fan again, at least it won’t be U.A.’s fault this time. I’d like to be able to continue rooting for them, and that can be difficult when they keep doing reckless things that needlessly put children in danger. at least this time they’re not the ones driving the Stupid Bus to Bad Decision School.)

a message to who? the League?? “we’re not scared of you”?? did they seriously not think of all the numerous ways this could backfire?

oh shit Aizawa even went and said the d-word

well there you have it. the government is drafting teenagers to risk their lives dealing with a crisis they won’t out-and-out admit they’re actually having. on today’s episode of “Oh Hero Society, You’ve Got Problems”

anyway so RP is making the admittedly good point that “we’re fucked and everyone is in terrible danger” is hardly a new state of affairs for them these days, and so they’re all moving on. okay then. good talk. lol. gonna need my damn Christmas fluff after all of that

and also RP is mentioning some other mysterious new program to Aizawa too. I wonder what that could be

(ETA: oh yeah I almost forgot about this. thoughts??)

and now we’re cutting to “several days later” oh my god. it’s really happening. I need a moment here, I’m not even ready. gotta get all my Christmas headcanons lined up here. Satou baking cookies. Kaminari and Sero running around arm in arm singing “JINGLE BELLS, ALL MIGHT SMELLS” over and over at the top of their lungs until Bakugou screams at them to shut up. Mineta debating anyone who will listen over the merits of the song Baby It’s Cold Outside. the naturally Christmas-themed Todoroki savoring this, his time to shine

oh shit, we’re still with the fucking Rat Principal. for fuck’s sake

-- ooh but are they talking about the traitor??

will this put an end to the “Horikoshi forgot about it” rumors? several people have mentioned this to me here and there (sorry to everyone whose asks I still haven’t answered), but as far as I know, this was part of a fake interview with Horikoshi that was unfortunately circulated around as though it was the real deal. sometimes people are not cool and think it’s fun to take advantage of communities that are enthusiastic and trusting! always fact-check what you read on the internet just to be safe guys

anyway

so there definitely is one, then. got it

so the traitor is definitely a student in the hero class, then. got it

sob. I got an ask about the whole Kaminari traitor theory earlier this week, so I’m in the process of doing up a whole long post about that. but the cliff’s notes version is, it’s not him. it’s Hagakure. but I will actually go into detail in the post. it’s been a while since I’ve discussed the traitor thing in depth anyway

so RP is asking All Might if he’s coming back today, and All Might is immediately all “WHY, DID SOMETHING HAPPEN TO MY CHILD, OH GOD IS HE OKAY” which, omg. so much love for this man

and RP is like “geez relax” and OH MY GOD

[slaps on a paperboy cap and screeches at All Might in a bad cockney accent] TODAY, SIR?? WHY, IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY

OH MY GOD

I SPOT A GRINCH UP THERE AT THE TOP. SOMEONE NEEDS TO BE VISITED BY THREE GHOSTS FROM VARIOUS DIFFERENT TIME PERIODS

LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE CHILD (GREMLINS ASIDE) IS WEARING A SANTA CLAUS OUTFIT. DID U.A. JUST GIVE THESE OUT FOR FREE

AND IN THE TOP RIGHT NEXT TO SHOUJI, SATOU’S COOKIES! JUST AS THE PROPHECY FORETOLD

I SEE THEY HAVE THE REQUISITE KFC PLATTERS LIKE GOOD JAPANESE CITIZENS. WE SHOULD ADOPT THIS TRADITION HERE IN THE WEST TOO TBH

and last but not least, there are only nineteen children in this panel. it took me forever to figure out who was missing, but pretty sure it’s Iida. Iida where are you. clearly the traitor. certainly not off visiting his brother and the rest of his family, what kind of gullible fool do you take me for

looool

I love when the characters start to become self-aware that they’re the main characters in a story and that plot things keep happening to them at an unreasonable rate

oh my god they really are wearing the suits. it wasn’t just a title page gimmick like I half-wondered

ANSWER THE QUESTION, JIROU. INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW. do we even know where she did her first internship?? I suddenly desperately want to learn more about this

(ETA: she interned with Death Arms, the traffic cone-looking guy who notably chewed Deku out for trying to save Kacchan’s life in chapter one. Jirou my hope for you is that you find someone better this time around!)

also Tsuyu is observing that Momo doesn’t have a chair, and I honest-to-god was trying to count how much seating there was in the previous page. it seems to me like the common room got a lot bigger. it keeps adjusting to their needs like the room of requirement in Harry Potter

also does anyone else wish that Jirou would move her cup off of the armrest. IT’S GOING TO SPILL ffff :/ this is who I am at parties

oh shit wait, that was Iida with the beard?? I honestly thought that was Satou. well then Satou is the traitor. -- NOBODY TOUCH THOSE COOKIES!!

anyway so he’s all “well Deku not to bring up the elephant in the room but YOUR PREVIOUS MENTOR DIED A HORRIBLE DEATH so what’s your plan huh”

oh sweet god

listen, no offense to Centipeder, he seems like a really nice guy, but if I never see his repulsive face again I will count myself lucky

OH FOR FUCK’S

PLEASE GET RID OF IT IT IS CHRISTMAS!!! here I am trying to have a nice time and!!

god. and like, I feel bad, it’s not his fault he is A GIANT BUG and he has like, fucking mandibles and shit! but I can’t help the fact that my skin is trying to crawl off my body right now, and god but I can barely look at this panel long enough to read the dialogue sob why

(ETA: and now that I’ve forced myself to read it again, this doesn’t even make any sense lol. “we have too much work and not enough help, so we have to pass on you coming back to help us out. ...wait.”)

I want Iida to like. pat his lap and tell Deku in a big booming voice to cheer up and come sit and tell him what he wants for Christmas. not in a weird way you guys, come on. but just, he looks so forlorn. do you want Santa to bring you some cozy All Might socks

or wait, didn’t he want a PS Vita according to that one omake thing. what the fuck Deku. someone get this kid a Switch

anyway so Deku says that participation is mandatory this time, so the school will handle assignments if the kids aren’t able to find someone

meanwhile Kacchan is in the background accusing Mina of stalking him. I think she is trying to get him to wear his Santa outfit. doin’ god’s work

OH SHIT YOU GUYS I CLICKED TO THE NEXT PAGE, AND THIS. THIS IS MY CHRISTMAS OMFG

HORIKOSHI YOU DID GET MY LIST! BAKUGOU BEING TROLLED BY HIS SNEAKY DETERMINED FRIENDS AND MANHANDLED INTO A RIDICULOUS GETUP WHILST ANGSTING ABOUT BEST JEANIST BEING MISSING, YESSSSSS. IT’S SO SPECIFIC, I THOUGHT, “SURELY HE WON’T ACTUALLY DO IT,” BUT SANTA IS REAL, EVERYONE

HFMLSDKMGLKLKL!!!!!LKL:DSF

RED ALERT RED FUCKING ALERT PEOPLE!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHH HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS

“MERRY CHRISTMAS MAKESTE HERE’S A WHOLE FUCKING CHAPTER ABOUT KACCHAN’S FUCKING HERO NAME COMPLETE WITH A BEST JEANIST META ON THE TOPIC�� mother fucker I need to start reading these chapters with a goddamn life alert and a defibrillator on standby

“your name represents your wish.” ladies and gentlemen, introducing the new number one hero... Number One Hero!

heh. just kidding. “what do you want to become?” this, though. this right fucking here is why I’ve been dying to know what name he’ll actually choose. because it does reflect exactly what Jeanist is saying. whichever name he chooses will be an insight into who he is, and who he is trying to be

and this meta is making me rethink all my chapter 223 feels, and tbh now I’m back to thinking that it’s not going to be Ground Zero, unless he comes up with a cool reason for why that name ties in to the image of the person he wants to be (because right now, that particular name is tied more to the past than to the future). but oh my god, if he does choose the name Kacchan I am going to spontaneously combust. I will fucking do it. I will fucking die from being a dramatic excited bitch

(ETA: because. listen. there is one person who has always looked up to him in spite of everything and has always seen his potential. “in the end, in my mind, you’re the image of victory.” this, to me, is the meaning that the name “Kacchan” would have if he did choose it. it would symbolize him choosing to be his best self.)

don’t mind me I’m just stanning this child so fucking hard it hurts

(ETA: oh hey, and more feels on the reread because it looks like the reason he’s having this flashback is because he was planning to go back to Jeanist’s agency to do his real internship, and to show him how much he’s grown. but then The Thing happened. Hawks I just want to talk why won’t you answer my calls.)

Mina and Kaminari are the MVPs of this fucking chapter and I owe them my life omggggg. THEY’RE HERE TO SAVE CHRISTMAS

what are you thinking about there, Best Friend?

are you thinking about your daddy angst. penny for your thoughts

(ETA: “how can I cheer up my new best friend? I know, I’ll make him a lucrative job offer.” actually that’s a good way to cheer up just about anyone in this day and age, Shouto.)

okay, is there some sort of perverted context to Christmas that I’m totally missing here?? or is Mineta just really into the holiday spirit?

I feel like I missed something. eh

anyway Mr. Traitor himself is walking out now and HE’S BROUGHT THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE! or turkey! but goose sounded funnier

of all the things to be shocked about?? “SATOU CAN COOK!?!” like um yes hello you’ve been living with this guy for four months already? like the only thing more ridiculous than this would be, “TOKOYAMI IS A BIRD!?!”

(ETA: like I know baking and cooking are two different things, but in a manga they’re the same thing. fact.)

now someone is making a dramatic entrance! IS IT ERI I WILL DIE!!!! BRING IT

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I HEREBY SWEAR FEALTY TO THIS PANEL OF AN ADORABLY AND FESTIVELY DRESSED ERI MIXING UP HOLIDAYS WHILE DADZAWA PATIENTLY CORRECTS HER. I WILL PROTECT IT WITH MY LIFE. SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS CHAPTER SO THAT I CAN GO DO IT SOME MORE AGAIN, OVER AND OVER AND OVER

Ochako is me

(ETA: DEMONS OUT! DEMONS IN!! THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT!! YOU DO THE HOOOOOOOOKEY POKEY.)

and Kiri is out here asking the real questions, but sadly Aizawa says Mirio is spending Christmas with his own class. WELL FINE. I HOPE HE’S EXPERIENCING THE FOMO OF A LIFETIME. HOW DARE HE HAVE OTHER FRIENDS whatever I’m over it

sobbbbb

WELL HOW MANY FUCKING HOLIDAYS ARE THERE!? CAN SOMEONE HELP A GIRL OUT OR WHAT

oh my god I’m just going to reblog every single Dadzawa panel and none of you can stop me go on and try!!

impatiently waiting for fanart of Aizawa tucking Eri in and reading her A Visit from St. Nicholas. get on it, fandom

ohhhhhhhhh my goddddddd

I know it’s not a Christmas song, but I am this close to cranking up “I Gotta Feeling” by the fucking Black Eyed Peas. ya feel

do you guys see him sitting there next to Dadzawa. he finally gave in. Satou is feeding him chicken. his friends will not abandon him to be on the naughty list. motherfucker that’s it. I’m fucking doing it. fill up my cup. mazel tov

lol I don’t even want to click to any more pages because they’re all so happy and it won’t fucking last. :( noooo

good little boys and girls. noshing on that chicken. Kacchan continuing to be stalked by the Ghost of Christmas Friendship. Tokoyami what even is that. lol and is this their weird way of distributing random gifts. did Sero buy Jirou a scarf. did Deku buy Ochako a freaking All Might plush keychain!? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT IS THAT THING AND WHY DOES ERI HAVE IT NOW AND WHY IS SHE MAKING THIS FACE

-- holy fuck, IT’S A SWORD. oh my god. THEY GAVE THE SEVEN YEAR OLD A FREAKING BUSTER SWORD AND SHE IS FEELING IT YESSSS THIS CHAPTER TRULY IS ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE

“dad can I keep it.” Aizawa: [not even opening his eyes, all bundled up in his oogie boogie suit] “sure”

so now we’re cutting to afterwards and everyone’s cleaning up and Deku’s using his freakish super strength to lift heavy things impressively while Bakugou continues to stomp around with his hands shoved into his pockets waiting for someone to finally tell him he can go back upstairs

OH???

motherfucker. are you going to invite them to come intern with you and your dad!!?!?? I know I was all set on Bakugou interning with Miruko just last week, but I TELL YOU WHAT BITCHES, I’M FUCKING FLEXIBLE LIKE THAT

OH SHIT YOU GUYS!!!!

TODOROKI ARE YOU PLAYING THE OT3 SONG BECAUSE HONEY YOU KNOW THAT’S MY JAM, BRO

OH FUCKING SHIT YESSSSS

BAKUGOU DO YOU WANT TO INTERN WITH YOUR TWO BEST FRIENDS, EXCUSE ME, HATED ENEMIES. DEKU DO YOU WANT TO INTERN WITH YOUR TWO BEST FRIENDS. AND THE NUMBER ONE. WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE BEST FRIENDS WITH THE NUMBER TWO. WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE BEST FRIENDS WITH TODOROKI “I DIDN’T HAVE A FLASHBACK IN THE LAST ARC BECAUSE WE WERE SAVING IT FOR THIS ONE!” TOUYA? THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S BEST FRIENDS ALL THE WAY DOWN. OH MY GOD

it’s like Horikoshi made a long and detailed list of all of his regrets about the previous internship arc, and then said, “fuck it. do-over”

you guys. I’m all out of cans. we only have can’ts and cannots. I cannot

Christmas fluff. Dadzawa. Bakugou hero name meta. hints that the traitor plot will soon be relevant again. and the motherfucking OT3 of OT3s, MY SONS, MY THREE RESPLENDENT OFFSPRINGS, interning together at the motherfucking Endeavor Hero Agency because Todoroki is the sweetest most considerate angel, and because KNOCK KNOCK, IT’S ME THE PLOT, I’VE COME FOR YOU AGAIN AT LONG LAST AND I VOW TO NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE AGAIN FROM THIS MOMENT ON

shit, y’all. I don’t know if it’s possible for an arc to become my favorite motherfucking arc only two chapters in, but damned if this sunnuvabitch ain’t trying

[lilithsgayadoptednephew]

Holy Hands

Fandoms: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!   Not Rated Graphic Depictions Of Violence F/M, Other Complete Work

Chapter List

Chapter 26

How could MC possibly hide from him all day in such a small house? Lucifer searched every room including the basement, then he checked the town, finally he double-checked the house and still came up empty.

He would find them, he wanted his answers and he'd get them one way or another. That being said...he missed them. They always avoided him now unless they were reminding him to eat. He wanted to get back to how things were before they'd moved to earth. When they could banter and have fun in each other's presence.

What had changed?

As the night fell he retired to MCs room, defeated. The only way they could've evaded his search was if they'd sprouted wings and flown away. He could see them now standing on the roof to take off.

The roof…

MCs room was on the second story, but the garage roof was only one story tall. Which meant in theory…

Getting up from MCs bed he walked to their window and peered through the curtain.

Sure enough there MC sat on a convenient ledge of roof just under the window, face turned to the night sky. He felt victory well up in him as he opened the window to address them.

"Ah so I've finally found your hiding spot." Lucifer smirked in triumph as he stuck his head out the window. With a sigh they dropped their head.

"Good evening Lucifer," they didn't look at him as they spoke. "What have you eaten today?"

"Everything you've made me eat, you know I don't need you doing that. I'm fully capable of feeding myself."

"Have you drank water today?" They asked blandly. Lucifer cringed, water was something he wasn't fond of indulging in anymore.

"Yes… a little."

"Ok"

Then there was silence.

"Why can't you just tell me why you're avoiding me?" He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, is that what you wanted to know? I had no idea…"

"You will tell me."

"That right there"

"What?"

"That" MC twisted around to face Lucifer. "You haven't actually asked, you've just demanded an answer." They turned back around and looked at the sky again. "I don't owe you anything…" Even though their words were irritated, their tone was simple and wistful as they looked up at the starry sky.

"You don't seem to understand MC, you–"

"Stop talking from the window and get out here" they shook their head. Lucifer stopped and examined the small window. It was a tight squeeze but he managed to step out onto the roof. Standing beside MC he saw what they were staring at. The trees blocked a lot of the surrounding light pollution. The stars showed brilliant strips in the sky, even the Milky Way was visible. They were never this bright in the Devildom.

"Have you considered that you're just...too distracting?" MC interrupted his admiring the sky. He looked down at them but they didn't meet his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I have nine people in a house barely fit for two. And…" they shook their head.

"And what?"

"It doesn't matter, I'll figure it out. It's just taking a lot of work." Lucifer looked down and thought to himself. Thought about how much work MC was actually doing for all of them. Picking up extra shifts, making sure his brothers were comfortable, making sure Lucifer did basic things he should be able to do himself.

Maybe they had been a little justified in accusing him of slacking, from an outside perspective it did look like he'd given up. He looked down at them and thought, maybe looking down on them was the whole problem. He sat beside them, demon next to human, and he asked again with less force.

"What is it?" MC paused before answering.

"We're broke"

"What?"

"I'm completely out of money…" they buried their head in their arms folded on their knees. He was immediately in solution mode, no longer would he be slacking.

"That's alright, my brothers and I can work, we've done it before. It's the least we can do after all you've shared with us."

"Okay, but let's not think about it, not out here" they looked back up to the stars. The night air shuffled the inky branches of the surrounding trees, an ominous scene against the starry sky. "I don't think of real things out here."

Lucifer watched their face, a small smile on their lips. They looked tired, but peaceful.

"Why do all of our conversations have to be tense?" He didn't even know he was speaking until he'd asked. He had no proof they'd ever loved him, but he had a suspicion, and now they only ever tried to make him go away. They gave him a strange look but answered anyway.

"I tried to be on good terms with you, I just...you freaked me out when you yelled at me."

"Pardon?" Lucifer didn't remember yelling at MC.

"Before…" they waved their hand at the general situation. "This...you tried to take Acacia's phone away, remember?" He did remember, but that felt like a lifetime ago. Technically it was since he'd died.

"I was not in a good place." He admitted tightly, staring ahead of him.

"Yeah I know you were stressed and scared, but a lot of what you said... wasn't ok." Now Lucifer was confused.

"I understand I may have yelled when I shouldn't have, and I spoke in a rude manner, but I didn't say anything I didn't mean."

Wrong move. MC stood and looked down at him. "Then we have nothing to talk about." They started to leave, Lucifer wasn't going to stop them, if they were going to act like a child that was their problem. They stopped and stood for a moment. Then they lowered themself back down to sit beside him again.

"No, we do have something to talk about. Avoiding each other isn't helping this so we're gonna get to the bottom of it." With that they turned to him. "You meant what you said? For real?"

"Yes, I did mean it. It's my job to keep you safe as long as you're in the Devildom, well it was, and that means sometimes you just have to trust what I say."

There was a tense silence.

"That is not what you said"

"You call me a liar?"

"No I think your memory's shot from the stress you were under and the fact that you drowned recently." They placated.

"Fine" he conceded, "what do you think I said."

"I wrote it down." They deadpanned. Springing up from their seat they climbed into the house.

"You what?" He had not expected them to have recorded the event. He heard them dig around their room for a minute before returning to his side. They opened their journal and thumbed through it for a while, finally coming to the page they were looking for.

"Here," they pointed to a passage scrawled on the page. It was hard to see in the dim light but they read it aloud easily.

"'You must be confused MC, the only one who will be figuring this out is me. The rest of you are to stay out of trouble here in the house.'

'You are mine to keep and you will do as I say.'"

They gave the book to Lucifer so he could see better. They'd doodled some very disturbing and angry imagery that dangerously resembled his demon form. "Yeah then your horns and shit came out and you tried to back me into a corner."

Lucifer stared at the page. That's...not how he remembered it.

"I...said this? Looked like this?" He asked, even though he already knew the answer. It seemed like something he'd say unfortunately.

"Yeah, but you were really stressed." They shrugged.

"I didn't mean to sound so...possessive. I don't know how I was trying to sound honestly." He shook his head and gave the book back to MC.

"Wanna hear my guess?" They raised an eyebrow. His curiosity got the better of him.

"By all means."

"Well, and stop me if I'm wrong, but I think at least subconsciously you don't understand I'm...a person." They paused to gauge his reaction, his face remained carefully neutral. "You're a person, obviously. You have a unique thought process and outlook and values...but you're so far above a human like me, you never really grasp that I have that too. Just as much as you."

He couldn't help feeling a little patronized by their psychoanalysis, but he had agreed to it. They were on a roll now.

"I think you see me as more of a pet. Something too ignorant to know what's best for it, something you have to protect and order around so it doesn't get itself killed."

That one hit him a little too close. Had he really thought of them like that? He had to admit now that he was drawing comparisons, MC did hold a similar place in his mind as, say, Cerberus.

"Why?" He asked suddenly. MC was pulled out of their rant.

"What?"

"Why do I do that?" The question sounded rhetorical, but MC thought about it nonetheless.

"Maybe it's because you think so highly of yourself? I mean you're the Avatar of Pride and the definition of pride is to put yourself...above... God…" they trailed off, lightbulbs going off in their brain. "I bet that's it."

"What is?"

"God. God made angels to love him always, no matter what, you weren't given a choice."

"What does that–"

"Shut up and let me put this together" they waved him off. He wasn't comfortable with the subjects they were breaching, but they were on an interesting path. "God gave the humans the choice of whether or not to love him but he never gave the angels that choice. You see yourself above God and God didn't see your autonomy, so why should you see that in a human?"

He was actually really uncomfortable now, and it must've shown because he MC stopped their conspiracy there.

"Perhaps...my issues with my father went deeper than I realized." He said quietly.

"Oh no...I broke my own rule." They chuckled. He raised an eyebrow. "No thinking about real stuff on the roof." He was happy they were trying to lift the mood slightly. The roof really did feel like a place dark thoughts didn't belong.

"Ask me something stupid" he said. MC blinked at the unexpected request.

"Why?"

"Because I miss talking to you about meaningless things." He sighed. MC smiled, it was a simple enough reason.

"Ok lemme think" they were quiet for a moment. "Ok got it, so...nah that one's too stupid." They shook their head.

"No what is it?" He insisted.

"Heh ok well...is Satan like...your son?" They asked. Oh no, that was a weird one.

"That's complicated, you see he is made from my anger so in a way he's...how would a human say…a clone?"

"Really" they seemed genuinely interested.

"Yes" he was encouraged that they weren't unnerved by the subject. "Though I suppose in a way he's my... son" he admitted. "More than he's my brother."

"Then why do you call him a brother?" He didn't speak for a moment.

"I was far too young to be called... especially since I wasn't very fond of the man I knew who was called 'father'." He shrugged. The blush on his face gave away his embarrassment, but he didn't seem uncomfortable any more.

"Your turn." They said.

"To ask you a question?" He guessed, they nodded. He had a few silly questions he could ask, but he decided against it. They had made him very uncomfortable before and he couldn't just let that go without retaliation.

"Why did you stop loving me?" He decided to ask. He wasn't upset, but he was curious. He'd expected them to be thrown by the presumptuous question, but they took it in stride.

"I didn't." They shrugged

"Then what do you want from me?" He turned to them and fixed them with a stare.

"Nothing" now that he couldn't believe. How could they claim to love him but not want anything from him?

"You must be confused, surely you love something about me that you want. Is it protection? Status? Loyalty? I can offer you a lot if you just tell me what it is." His tone sounded light, but inside he was pleading. He'd had feelings for them for so long he was willing to give them anything their heart desired. And that was before they'd taken in his family, shared everything they had and resurrected him from the dead.

Didn't they know he owed them the world?

"'you must be confused'" they mimicked his tone. Did he really sound that condescending? "I don't want anything from you Lucifer. That's not how loving someone works."

He rolled his eyes in disbelief and they laughed a breathy laugh. As if having to explain it was silly to them. They thought for a moment on how to best put it into words.

"I love you...like I love the night sky" they decided. He looked up again at the beautiful night tapestry. "It's too far away to reach, but that's ok because I don't need to touch it. It's far too vast for me to understand, but I don't have to understand it to love it. It's there whether or not I show up to see it. And it's so beautiful no words could ever describe it." Their wistful eyes weren't on the sky as they spoke, but on Lucifer.

"It owes me nothing." They finished.

He was left speechless at the comparison. They had said no words were enough to describe the night sky but Lucifer had to disagree. What they'd just said was far more beautiful.

He was silent as he sat beside them, human next to human. He was silent for so long they must've thought the conversation was over. They stood slowly and bid him a quiet "night" before climbing back into their room. Lucifer just stared at where they'd disappeared from.

He thought he loved MC, but his idea of 'love' as a form of control was a far cry from the exalting definition they'd given him. To see someone just as they are, and to expect nothing. MC was a perplexing human indeed, their dignity and intelligence something he'd sought to own. Never taken the time to just see. As he thought of them he understood a little better that in the end they weren't his.

And they owed him nothing.

[setaripendragon]

Trapped in the Amber - 1x03

Book 1 :: 01 - 02 - 03 Not a lot to say about this one, except that, on watching this episode for the first time, I was severely disappointed that Sam and Dean went to all that trouble to make those Homeland Security badges, and didn’t even think to use them to, oh, I don’t know, stop a plane from taking off? (Also, ngl, so mad that the continuity didn’t remember that they’d had Dean dealing with poltergeists before when they got to the episode Home.) Also, Moonfiends are completely made up by me, based on this one little bit of folklore I found about young women who look at a blue moon getting pregnant from it and giving birth to monsters. SPN lore is surprisingly limited for a show with hundreds of episodes, so I’m going to be tossing in more of my own lore to fill in the gaps in this story. (This being mostly self-indulgent nonsense, there’s going to be a lot of lore, a lot of ethical debates, and at least some linguistics.) And this chapter is dedicated to everyone who’s liked the last two parts, I absolutely wouldn’t have had the courage to continue posting this without you. Especially @spideypoolalways, and @lyratalus​ and @millieccino for those lovely comments <3

Allentown, Pennsylvania – Saturday 3rd December 2005

Meira makes Dean tell her about the poltergeist on their way to Pennsylvania. It’s a good story, and it’s also a reminder that John Winchester is a real person, her grandfather by blood. She knew about him, of course, but he was long dead by the time she came into the world, and honestly, she’d never given him much thought. Now, she’s suddenly aware that if it was her in her dad’s place, she wouldn’t be half so composed.

They don’t even stop to find a motel before heading to the airport where Jerry works. He greets Dean with no small amount of relief, and then shakes hands all around. “And this must be Sam, right?” He asks when he gets to Sam.

“That’s right.” Sam confirms. “And this is Meira.”

“Pleasure.” Jerry says, sincere but perfunctory, before leading them inside. He reminisces a little on the way to his office, and Meira listens in fascination, but once they get there, it’s right down to business. “Okay, listen to this.” He says. “It sounded like it was up your alley. Normally I wouldn’t have access to this. It’s the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight 2485. It was one of ours.”

At first, it’s just a crackly recording of a may day signal, and then it fuzzes out to be replaced by a sound that makes Meira reach for her blade on pure instinct. Pain lances through her, and she flinches hard.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jerry asks.

Meira nods. “Took me by surprise, is all.” She says dismissively.

“Alright, well, it took off from here.” Jerry explains. “Crashed about 200 miles south. Now, they’re saying mechanical failure. Cabin depressurised somehow, nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board, only seven got out alive.”

“Seven people survived?” Meira echoes in surprise.

Jerry’s eyebrows furrow. “That surprises you?” He asks carefully.

Meira shrugs with a grimace. “That sounded demonic to me. Sometimes spirits can affect radios and such, but it’s usually just static, psychic residue. That was way too loud to be residue. And demons aren’t known for leaving survivors.” It isn’t like she can tell them that she understands Hellspeech well enough. It isn’t like human languages, which she’s always been able to understand, but Crowley was one of the few creatures in existence that hadn’t thought she was an abomination. Or, he had, it’s just he didn’t have a problem with abominations, so he’d taught her how to understand his, heh, ‘native’ language.

Yeah, she definitely isn’t telling these two hunters, who aren’t yet her dad and uncle, that the King of Hell, or King of the Crossroads as he is now, taught her how to understand demons. Or that this one is fucking gloating on the radio of a plane it had just caused to crash.

Jerry pales. Sam and Dean both turn to stare at her, eyebrows raised. “Demonic?” Jerry asks, quiet and strained.

“I can’t be sure.” Meira lies. “But that would be my guess, yeah.”

“Well,” Sam says slowly, “we’re going to need passenger manifests, a list of survivors, and-”

“And any way we could take a look at the wreckage?” Dean interjects.

Jerry takes a breath to marshal himself, and Meira is actually impressed by how well he  “The other stuff is no problem, but the wreckage?” He shakes his head grimly. “The NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I’ve got that kind of clearance.”

Dean nods slowly, and then shakes his head in dismissal. “No problem.”

Meira has to bite back a grin, and once they’ve gotten the lists of passengers and survivors from Jerry and they’re leaving, she nudges Dean with her elbow and asks, “No problem, huh?” Dean just grins back, smug and cocky, and, oh, yeah, this is going to be good.

A short drive and an endless wait later, which Meira fills with reading a paperback she picked up from a bookshop across the street, and Sam passes with pacing and frustration until Meira gives in and starts reading aloud in an over-dramatic fashion, Dean returns with brand new fake IDs for all of them. Sam, of course, immediately remembers his impatience, and huffs, “You’ve been in there forever!”

“You can’t rush perfection.” Dean retorts, flipping one of the cards over to Meira, who catches it between the pages of her book, then retrieves it eagerly.

“Homeland security?” Sam asks incredulously.

Meira whoops. “Oh, man. Yes.”

“See?” Dean says to Sam. “She knows an awesome idea when she hears one.”

“The doors this baby is going to open.” Meira agrees in delight. “The prank opportunities will be endless and glorious.”

Sam rounds on her, while Dean bursts out laughing. “Pranks?”

Meira blinks at him in feigned wide-eyed innocence. “Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to scare the shit out of someone by threatening them with charges of treason or something.” She points out. She wishes Pabbi were here, or Jace. They’ve always been better at coming up with the truly hilarious pranks. Sam just shakes his head and gets back in the car. Meira and Dean share a grin, and then follow to discuss the case and plan their next move.

Which turns out to be interrogating the passenger in the psychiatric hospital. Meira keeps quiet and lets Dean and Sam do most of the talking, wishing she could see the state of the man’s soul. She doesn’t really need to, to know he’s disturbed by what he saw, but it would be nice to know how disturbed. Whether he’d prefer the illusion of normality, or if doubting his own perception is doing more harm than good. In her own, limited, twenty-five years of experience with human souls, she’s never seen anything so damaging as doubting their own perception, but in some cases, she has to admit that the lie does seem to help people hold it together through otherwise traumatic incidents.

“It’s okay.” Sam says, as Meira considers everything she can read from Max Jaffrey’s body language and comes to a decision. She’s pretty sure Sam and Dean are going to hate it, but they can suck it up and deal. “Just tell us what you thought you saw. Please.” Sam entreats, and it works.

Max sighs, and starts, haltingly, to talk. “There was… this- man.” He begins, stops, licks his lips nervously. “And… uh, he had these… eyes.” He gestures vaguely towards his own face.

“Black eyes?” Meira asks.

Max’s head jerks up and he stares at her with wide eyes, while Sam and Dean both turn to stare at her. “Y-yeah. How did you…?”

Meira takes a step forward from where she was loitering, and claims the last open seat, opposite Max. “You weren’t seeing things.” She tells him simply.

“Meira.” Dean growls.

“Man deserves to know he’s not crazy.” Meira replies without looking away from Max, who’s shaking his head.

“That can’t have been real.” He protests. “I saw him-”

“Saw him what?” Sam prompts gently, although the look Meira sees him direct at her out of the corner of her eye is hard.

Max’s next breath shakes. “He- he opened the emergency exit. But that’s- that’s impossible. I mean, I looked it up, there’s something like two tonnes of pressure on that door.” He insists, looking between the three of them, pleading for an explanation, any explanation, that makes sense.

“Do you really believe you were seeing things?” Meira asks him.

He stares at her, then swallows hard. It’s several long, long minutes before he finally answers. “No.” He says, so quiet Meira almost can’t hear him. “Some-something made the plane crash, right? And if it wasn’t- wasn’t what I saw, then… what was it?”

Meira smiles at him, gentle but proud. “It was exactly what you saw.”

“But how?” Max demands.

“The black eyes are a fairly good indicator that the man you saw was possessed by a demon.” Meira informs him, and Max’s eyes widen in belated fear. “Demons do possess far greater strength than your average human, so one could absolutely open the emergency exit while the plane was still in the air.”

“Oh.” Max says thickly. “Demons actually exist.”

“I’m afraid so.” Meira agrees wryly. When it seems Max is too busy processing that to have any immediate questions, she nods. “Do you have your phone with you?” She asks. Max shakes his head wordlessly. “Do you know your number off by heart?” She asks, not hopeful.

But, it turns out, there are some benefits to being stuck in 2005. People aren’t quite so used to their phones doing their thinking for them, and some of them do, still, memorise their own phone numbers. Max rattles his off without a problem, and Meira whips her own phone out to save it. Then she sends him a text. “There. Now, when you get out of here, if you have any questions, you can call me.” She explains.

Max nods. Then he shakes his head. “You’re not Homeland Security, are you?” He asks.

Meira grins at him. “Special branch.” She tells him, then raps her knuckles on the table, and stands. “Don’t worry, Mr Jaffrey, we’ll get the thing that did this.” She assures him, and a little of the fear in him melts away as he nods.

It isn’t until they’re out of the hospital that Sam rounds on her. Meira honestly wasn’t expecting it. “What the hell was that?” He demands. Meira stares at him incredulously. “Why did you tell him that? You scared him half to death!”

“Um, no.” Meira snaps, indignant at this false accusation. “I didn’t. The demon did.”

“And he was perfectly fine thinking he’d imagined the whole thing, so why did you-?!”

“Checking yourself into a psychiatric hospital is the exact opposite of fine!”

“He would have gotten over it! And then he could go home and carry on his normal life, but instead, you had to go and drop demons on him!”

“You have no guarantee that he would have gotten over it!”

“You have no guarantee how well he’ll handle demons, but that didn’t stop you!”

“Oh, so we should have just joined in on gaslighting him, then?”

“Whoa! Okay, time out!” Dad barks, physically inserting himself between Meira and Rob- No, it’s Sam, Sam who is not yet her uncle and Rob hasn’t been born yet. Meira blinks rapidly as she backs up a step, and then another. She didn’t realise how in each other’s face they were getting until Dad intervened. Dean. Until Dean intervened. She closes her eyes for a moment, trying not to feel too much like her family’s been ripped away from her all over again. “Okay, let’s all just chill.” Dean instructs firmly. “What’s done is done, Sam.”

“It shouldn’t have been.” Sam insists through gritted teeth. “People shouldn’t have to deal with all this unless they don’t have any other choice.”

“Hey, man, I agree with you, but there’s no helping it now.” Dean repeats. Sam scowls.

“He already had to deal with it. It nearly killed him.” Meira points out. “I’m not going to go around shouting it from the rooftops, okay. Not least of all because people would think I’m nuts, but… Do you know how hard it is, to have the whole world telling you that you’re the problem? That there’s something wrong with you, not something wrong out there? No one deserves that!”

Sam sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose, and it’s a gesture that’s going to carry through the rest of his life, all the way until he’s in his sixties and a father and an uncle exasperated with his oh so headstrong niece. But instead of patiently and logically ripping all of Meira’s dreams of chaos and glory to shreds, he just shakes his head and heads for the Impala without another word. It leaves Meira feeling strangely like she’s the one who just lost that argument. Or maybe lost something more important by winning it.

“You know, Sam ran away.” Dean says suddenly.

Meira startles, and is half an instant away from saying something really stupid, like ‘yeah, I know, Dad, you’ve told me this story about a dozen times’, but manages to stop herself just in time. “Oh?” She asks instead, her voice wobbling slightly.

Dean glances at her and grimaces faintly in apology. “Yeah. He wanted to get away from hunting, from the supernatural, be normal or whatever.” He shrugs as if to say the notion baffles him. It baffles Meira, too, but then, she never has been and never will be ‘normal’, and she’s never really felt like her life was missing anything. “Then the thing that killed our mom killed his girlfriend.”

“Ouch. I’m sorry.” Meira says, trying desperately to remember that this is supposed to be news to her, not ancient family history.

“Yeah, well, it makes it pretty hard for him to argue that you should’ve let that guy live in ignorant bliss. He tried that, and it came back to bite him, it could come back to bite this guy, too. But I think he wishes the world worked that way. It ought to. People shouldn’t have to be afraid of the monsters in the dark.”

“People shouldn’t have to be afraid of robbers, either, but we still lock our doors at night.” Meira replies softly. “If people knew, if it was common knowledge what was out there, yeah, maybe they’d be afraid, but maybe they’d line their doors and windows in salt, and get anti-possession tattoos, and then go right on living their normal lives.”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Yeah, maybe.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it, though. Meira can’t exactly blame him. There’s a reason the supernatural has stayed more or less hidden for the last several hundred years, and it’s because most people don’t want to believe it’s true, so they refuse to see it. “Still think it was kind of shitty to just drop demons on him and then leave.”

Meira pulls a face, hunching down against a lecture she knows probably isn’t coming. “I gave him my number. And once we’re done with this, I’ll probably call him if he doesn’t call me and give him the full lecture on demons and theology as it applies to reality.” Somewhere Dean and Sam can’t hear her to question her in depth knowledge of the workings of Hell.

“You hunted demons before?” Dean asks in surprise, finally starting towards the Impala as well.

The answer is yes. On a normal day, demons wouldn’t really be difficult for her. She is anathema to them, after all. “No.” Meira lies.

“Then how do you know enough to give the full lecture?” Dean asks, giving her a look as he opens the driver’s door. Meira doesn’t answer until they’re both in the car with a sulking Sam, and once they’re in, Dean doesn’t give her the opportunity. “You said you don’t really hunt, but you’re a freaking encyclopedia. Moonfiends?” He prompts.

Meira sighs, and resigns herself to cobbling bits and pieces of the truth into a coherent whole, because infinite angelic memory isn’t something she’s going to bring up. “Okay, that one is because my best friend is a moonfiend, so I got a first person account.” She defends. “But my aunt and uncle keep- kept a supernatural library, and I read a lot as a kid.”

“Huh.” Dean muses as they pull out onto the road. “Okay, I’m just gonna ask. You best friend is a moonfiend?” He sounds incredulous.

Meira pulls a face at him through the rear view mirror. “Azura.” She confirms defiantly.

“What exactly is a moonfiend?” Sam asks, turning to look at her, putting aside his irritation in favour of academic curiosity. Meira beams fondly at him, because this is why Sam has always been her favourite uncle. “I know you said they’re kind of like mothmen, but mothmen are a really specific type of vengeful nature spirit.”

“Well, no, they’re more like furies. They’re not spirits, they’re corporeal, but they’re born from… desecrated ground. Furies are born from human sins against humans, mothmen are born from human sins against nature.” Meira explains, leaning forward as she gets into explaining. “A moonfiend is actually more like a werewolf in metaphysical characteristics, but like mothmen in physical characteristics.”

“So, they’re subject to the phases of the moon?” Sam checks.

Meira nods. “A moonfiend is born when a virgin, and that’s not just a sexual virgin, but a magical and metaphysical virgin, too, stares too long at an unfiltered blue moon.”

Dean actually takes a moment away from watching the road to turn and stare at her. Sam gapes for several minutes, until he finally manages to ask. “Blue moons happen every three years. Why aren’t they everywhere?”

“Well, half the time the pregnancy kills the mother before the baby is viable. Or the mother kills the baby after she’s given birth because, well, it’s pretty obviously not human. All that on top of just how hard it is to count as a metaphysical virgin these days.” Meira points out. “Or what counts as unfiltered. I mean, glasses, smog, clouds, astral disturbances.”

“Astral disturbances?” Sam questions.

“Okay!” Dean says loudly, interrupting Meira before she can even start to explain. “I’m glad you two have made up, you nerds, but can we figure out our next step here? I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never hunted demon before.” Meira has to sit back and let the weirdness of that statement wash over her. This is her Dad’s first ever demon hunt. Weird. “Are we even sure it is a demon?” He asks, glancing back at Meira and sounding like he wishes he could hope, but he doesn’t. “I mean, this doesn’t exactly seem like demon MO… does it?”

Meira grimaces. “It’s not tempting mortals to sin, sure, but… they like to spread pain and suffering, death and destruction. It’s like a hobby.” She chirps, all dark humour.

“And this one’s hobby is plane crashes?” Dean demands incredulously. “That seems a little… I don’t know, modern.” He mutters, and Meira snickers. “Jesus. Okay. Evolving with the times or not, it’s still gotta be possessing someone right?” Meira nods when Dean’s eyes flicker to her in the mirror. “Great, so it could be anyone right now. How the hell are we gonna find this thing?” He asks, and Meira’s heart leaps into her throat. It’s stupid, she knows that Dean’s never done this before, but he’s her dad and he sounds overwhelmed and that scares her.

“Dean?” Sam asks, obviously picking up on the same thing. “What…?”

Dean sighs. “I don’t know, man, this is kind of out of our league, don’t you think? Demon’s aren’t like the rest of the shit we hunt. Even wendigos, they still- there’s still rhyme and reason to what they do, you know? Demons, man…” He pauses and sighs, hands going white-knuckled on the wheel. “This is… this is big, Sam. I wish Dad was here.”

“Yeah.” Sam agrees quietly, staring intently out of the wind-shield. “Me too.”

Meira swallows and doesn’t say ‘me three’, even though she really wants to. She wants all of her dads. She wants her grace free so that she’s not quite so helpless without them. “Hey.” She says, and ploughs on even though her voice shakes a little. “We can do this. Okay, it might be an entire order of magnitude bigger than a vengeful spirit, but it’s the same basics, right? So, how do we find our monster once we’ve figured out what it is?”

“We figure out what it wants.” Sam says practically. “Because that’s how we’ll know where it’s going to be.” Then he shakes his head. “But if all it wants is to cause plane crashes… I mean, do you have any idea how many flights take off from even just one state every day? There’s no way we could find it.”

That is a good point. Meira grimaces. She’s still trying to figure out how the hell they can do anything about this when Dean slams a flat palm against the wheel, making both her and Sam jump. “Son of a bitch.” He swears sharply, in a tone of revelation. “The survivors.”

Meira blinks. “Dean?” Sam asks, in equal bewilderment.

“The message, on the voice recorder. The demon, it said-”

“‘No survivors.’” Sam echoes. “But there were, there were seven.”

“Yeah, and if this were a vengeful spirit…” Dean trails off pointedly.

“It’d want to finish the job.” Sam realises, nodding along. Then he dives on the bag at his feet to pull out the list of passengers and survivors.

“It was gloating.” Meira interjects, a touch amused. “Prematurely. It’s gotta be so pissed it failed to kill everyone on that flight. I mean, talk about embarrassing.” Dean snorts. “So, now we know what it wants. Now we’ve just gotta figure out where it’s going to be.”

“Do you think…” Sam begins, tapping a finger rapidly on the side of the sheet with the survivors on it. “I mean, if it was a spirit, I’d say for sure, but… Do you think it’ll want to stick to killing them in plane crashes? Because that would be a way to narrow down who it’s going after next.” He points out.

“Sounds like a lead to me.” Dean agrees, and Sam immediately pulls out his phone and starts scanning over the list, before dialling a number.

“I mean, demons basically are vengeful spirits, just ramped up to a thousand on a scale of one to ten.” Meira muses to Dean while Sam hangs up and tries another. “So, yeah, some patterns of behaviour probably do carry over, at least a little.”

“That is so not comforting.” Dean mutters.

“Hey, Jerry, it’s Sam.” Sam greets. “I was just trying to get in touch with the pilot. You said he was a friend, so I thought you might-” He trails off, and then snaps “Dean.” so urgently that Dean automatically takes his eyes off the road to look over at him on high alert. “The pilot’s going up in less than an hour.”

“Shit.” Dean swears, and floors the gas.

“Look, Jerry,” Sam is saying into the phone, “is there any way you can get in touch with him, convince him not to go up?” A pause. “Please try. We’re on our way.” He hangs up, jaw tight. “How soon can we get to the airfield in Nazareth?”

“Forty-five minutes.” Dean announces, then somehow makes the Impala go even faster. “Forty minutes.”

“Okay, so we need to figure out how to get rid of a demon in forty minutes.” Sam states.

“Exorcisms?” Dean suggests.

“Do you know any by heart?” Sam retorts.

“I do.” Meira offers. It’s not exactly hard when one’s fluent in the language of angels and can invoke the name of god in it. Pretty much anything becomes an exorcism then. ‘Go away’ could count as an exorcism, as long as you followed up with ‘in the name of the lord’ or something similar.  “Do we have any holy water?” She asks, not daring to hope.

“Uh, no.” Dean replies.

Meira winces, and amends her request. “Do we have water and a rosary?”

“Rosary is in the boot.” Dean tells her, while Sam retrieves a bottle of water from his bag. After about five minutes of bickering, Meira convinces him to pull over so that she can hop out and grab the rosary. Dean’s peeling out of the layby before she’s even got the door closed again, and then she screws the top off the bottled water, dumps the rosary inside, and sets about blessing it. She really, really hopes this works, and isn’t contingent on her grace being able to affect the world beyond her skin. She’s never officially been ordained or anything, but active grace or not, she’s still a fucking archangel.

“That should be holy water now.” Meira says once she’s done, handing the water back to Sam.

“Should?” Dean barks.

“I’ve never done this before, okay?” Meira shoots back, unable to keep a hint of defensive panic from her tone. “I have the qualifications for it, but I never thought I needed to check that it would work!” Dean pulls a face, but lets it go. Meira swallows down her fear. “You should- you should check on the others while we have the time.” She says to Sam, and he nods. He spends the drive going through the list of survivors and pretending to be a United Britannia Airlines survey. While he’s doing that, Meira calls Max, which turns into an impromptu explanation of how to identify demons.

By the time Meira’s off the phone, Sam’s gone through the rest of the survivors. “I still can’t get in touch with the flight attendant.” Sam states, hanging up the phone again.

“Given her job, I’d say that’s a bad sign.” Dean says dryly.

Sam snorts. “Yeah, no kidding. I’m going to call Jerry, see if he can tell me when she’s working next.” He explains, and then does just that. After a brief introduction, he gives Jerry the woman’s name, “Amanda Walker,” and waits a couple of minutes while Jerry does the research he can’t while he’s stuck on the highway. “Oh?” Sam says, an edge to his voice Meira really doesn’t like. “This evening? Look, Jerry-” A long pause. “No, I understand. Okay. Yeah, we’re on our way. Bye.”

“She’s working tonight?” Dean asks in dismay.

“Yeah. Flight leaves at eight. And there’s no way Jerry can ground the flight.” Sam adds in dismay.

Dean takes a bracing breath. “We’re just going to have to stop this son of a bitch before he can get that far.” He announces, and Meira tries to bolster her own confidence with his.

Nazareth, Pennsylvania – Saturday 3rd December 2005

By the time they get to the airfield, there are already two men walking across the tarmac to a small plane. “Shit.” Dean swears, and they all fling themselves out of the car.

“Mr Lambert!” Sam calls as they jog over. Security inevitably tries to stop them, but Dean flashes a badge at them, almost too fast for them to see more than that it looks sort of official, but it is enough to get them past. “Mr Lambert!” Sam calls again, and one of the two men nudges the other, and he turns.

“Yeah?” The second man says, so he must be Jerry’s friend, the pilot.

Meira looks at the other one, who’s watching them with a sort of sceptical hostility. She holds her hand out to him. “Agent Meira Geyad.” She greets, watching him closely, but there’s no reaction except a raised eyebrow as he takes her hand. Oh, hell. She starts to turn, but then a fist meets her face with enough force to send her sprawling.

“Shit!” Dean swears.

“Chuck!” The other man shouts in horror. “Wha-” He’s cut off by an awful crunching noise that makes Meira’s stomach turn over in guilt. It’s followed by a splash, and the hissing of corruption being melted away by a holy blessing. Holy water worked then, thank God, Meira thinks dizzily, finally healing enough to look up.

The demon grabs for Sam, getting him by the throat, and Dean yells his name in desperation. Meira starts to spit out the simplest exorcism she knows, but before she can get more than three words in, the demon has dropped Sam and kicked her in the ribs hard enough to wind her. Hard enough to break ribs, actually, but those heal quickly like her fractured cheekbone did. It takes a little longer to catch her breath, and by then, the demon has abandoned its meatsuit, streaming out of Chuck Lambert’s mouth and leaving him to collapse to the ground.

“Jesus.” Dean breathes. “Sam?”

“Fine.” Sam rasps.

“Meira?” Dean checks, dropping to his knees beside her. “You alright?” Meira groans, and takes the hand he offers her, letting him haul her up into a sitting position. “I’m guessing that wasn’t how an exorcism is supposed to go.”

“No, it realised what I was trying to do and left before I could send it back to hell.” Meira huffs, rubbing at her side just to check that her ribs are back where they’re supposed to be.

“Why’d it flinch at your name?” Dean asks curiously.

“Ge-Iad is one of the names of God.” Meira explains.

“Never heard that one before.” Dean says, eyebrows rising. “I thought you used Christ to test for demons.”

“The more often the name is used without faith, the less power it holds over the demonic.” Meira replies. “You can amp it up by using a language like Latin, which is both dead and stuffed full of religious ritual by now, but, you have any idea how many people say ‘Jesus Christ’ as an invective, without a thought as to why they swear that way?”

“And Ge-Iad, that’s, what? Never used?” Dean asks.

“Never without the proper reverence.” Meira corrects, and then tips her head. “Until today.” She adds with a pointed look, which earns her the best devil-may-care grin in her dad’s arsenal.

“Guys.” Sam calls, solemn. “Chuck’s dead.”

“Oh, that petty son of a bitch.” Meira grouses, flopping back down onto the tarmac.

“Uh-uh. Come on, up.” Dean instructs, getting to his feet and holding out his hand again. “We’ve still gotta stop this son of a bitch before he brings another plane down.” Meira whines, but takes his hand and lets him pull her to her feet.

“And we’ve got company.” Sam adds, as the airfield security descend on them.

Sam and Dean both look like deer in the headlights of a semi, so Meira takes charge. She orders security to inform the police of the incident, flashes her fake ID about, and then leaves with Sam and Dean on ‘important business’ before the police actually arrive. “Back to Allentown?” Dean checks, and Sam nods, already on the phone.

“I still can’t get in touch with the flight attendant.” Sam tells them several minutes later.

“We can’t let her get on that plane.” Dean insists.

Meira thinks about the fake IDs they’ve been using and has a really, really bad idea. She’s pretty sure Pabbi would approve. “I have an idea?” She offers. Sam turns to look at her, and she grimaces as she holds up her fake ID. “But… we’re going to need to look the part.”

Sam blinks once, and then his eyes widen. “Oh, no.” He says quickly. “No, there’s no way we can pull that off!”

“Why not?” Meira challenges.

“What?” Dean asks, glancing in the rear view mirror. “What’s the plan?”

“What’s TSA going to do if Homeland Security shows up and tells them there’s a terrorist on that plane?” Meira asks rhetorically.

Dean stares out the windshield for a long moment. “Okay. Monkey suits it is.” He says in a tone of resignation.

“And then what?!” Sam demands, a little hysterically, in Meira’s opinion. “We ground the plane, that’s great, and then we’re in the middle of an airport, surrounded by TSA, and we’re going to have to produce a terrorist for them!”

Meira shrugs. “Not necessarily. We just say we got a tip, or a suspicion that there might be, and when there isn’t, well, can’t be too careful in the pursuit of terrorists, right?” She points out. “We won’t even be lying if we tell them we have a suspicion that someone on board is planning to sabotage the flight. It’s true.”

“And how are we going to do an exorcism in the middle of all of this?” Sam demands.

“I’m not sure.” Meira huffs. “If it was just a case of getting the exorcism out, that would be one thing, but we have to make sure the demon sticks around for me to use it. Easiest way would be a devil’s trap, but it’d probably be a bad idea to go around scrawling pagan voodoo on the walls in front of TSA, huh?” She muses.

Dean snorts. “Okay, here’s the plan.” He says briskly. “Once we’ve got the plane grounded and all the passengers and staff isolated for interviewing or whatever, we’re going to insist on talking to everyone separately, and then whatever room they offer us, you two are going to keep everyone busy while I put a devil’s trap… on the ceiling, probably. Somewhere that’s not glaringly obvious, anyway.” He pauses, glancing back to make sure both Sam and Meira are on board. Meira nods enthusiastically, and Sam sighs in surrender. “Okay, so, what’s a devil’s trap look like?”

“Pentacle.” Meira answers easily. “You can make them more complicated, if you need to hold a stronger demon or a specific demon or you need to limit specific things within it, but… basic devil’s trap is just a pentagram in a circle.”

“Right, easy enough.” Dean agrees.

They stop to get suits at the first place they see. Dean looks hilariously uncomfortable, and Meira really wishes there was something she could say to help, but given that it’s a feeling that persists all the way through his life, she figures there’s not much anyone could say to make him feel better. “Should’ve got one with a waistcoat.” She says instead.

“Why the hell would I want extra layers of this bullshit?” Dean demands.

“Waistcoats are sexy as hell.” Meira informs him, smoothing down the front of her own.

Dean pauses and looks back at the shop with pained consideration. “Nope, no time.” Sam informs him. Dean makes a face at him, but doesn’t protest.

Allentown, Pennsylvania – Saturday 3rd December 2005

The plan goes off without a hitch. Meira knows that the most important part of pulling a prank like this is confidence, so she turns hers up to the max, channelling her pabbi and every archangel instinct she has, and TSA goes along with it. In fact, Meira is honestly a little shocked by how quickly everyone responds, until she remembers that, of course, it’s been four, not forty, years since the whole 9/11 thing. The flight gets grounded, TSA agents scurry about searching people and, helpfully, dragging them to and from the room they let the three of them conduct ‘interviews’ from. Meira is honestly having a ridiculous amount of fun, playing the scary Homeland Security agent looking for terrorists.

“You’re having fun.” Sam accuses under his breath, once they’re done with the passengers and about to get started on the staff.

Meira flashes him a wild, reckless grin. “I told you the prank opportunities were going to be glorious.” She murmurs back. Sam gives her an incredulous look, but doesn’t say more because the door is opening. Meira gives it a minute before she turns around, because if this is their demon, she doesn’t want to spook him before he’s sitting right on top of Dean’s devil’s trap, which he drew in magic marker on the bottom of the chair.

“I don’t see why this is-” The co-pilot cuts himself off when Meira and Sam turn around, his eyes flashing black as the demon loses control of itself for a brief moment in its shock. Or rage. Either one. “You again.” It hisses.

“Us again.” Dean says leaning back against the door.

The demon tries to lunge upwards, but the chair, conveniently bolted to the floor, doesn’t move, and the demon can’t leave it. It looks down, then back up again in outrage. “Who are you?” It demands, looking directly at Meira.

She smiles. “Zirdo zizop ol Ge-Iad, od lis ip darb ziri.” She informs it, and watches it recoil in horror with no little satisfaction.

“That’s not Latin.” Sam comments, looking at her in surprise.

“Nope.” Meira agrees cheerfully enough.

“You, though, you I know.” The demon adds, looking at Sam. He and Dean both go very still, staring intently. “I know what happened to your girlfriend, and if you let her do this, you’ll never find out why.” It taunts, a nasty smirk curling the host’s lips.

Sam stiffens. “Wait.” He says, and the demon grins.

“Sam.” Dean warns.

“What do you know about Jessica?” Sam demands.

“Let me go and I’ll tell you everything.” The demon promises.

Sam splashes holy water in its face, and it recoils with a yell, steaming. “Tell me, or I’ll-”

“Or you’ll what?” The demon spits, mocking. “What do you think you can do to me that’s worse than that?” It jerks its chin at Meira, who arches one eyebrow. “Let me go, or no deal.”

“Sam, we’re not letting this thing go.” Dean states. “It’s probably lying anyway.”

Sam’s free hand clenches into a fist. After a minute in which he doesn’t move, Meira gently pushes past him to stand in front of the demon. “Bols ma a’aiom, pa’aox il adohi ol Onsamir.” She instructs, and the demon hisses and thrashes, actually cracking the floor where the chair is bolted to it. Meira reaches out and puts a hand on the demon’s shoulder. It stills, tensing, staring at her with wide black eyes. “Niizo i etharzi, ammal, od yinay ma doal.” She says gently. “Oyi gohe Zire.”

Holy light suffuses the vessel, and the essence of the demon pours out of his mouth in the form black smoke even as it’s forced from this plane of existence, vanishing in midair.

Sam turns away and punches the wall. Dean watches him carefully, but when Sam just stands there, breathing hard, he goes to check the slumped co-pilot’s pulse. “He’s alive.” He reports. “So, do we need to carry on this farce, or can we just…?” He jerks his thumb at the door.

Meira takes a moment to hate the demon, because Sam’s mood is going to suck all the fun out of this. “I think we should finish. Let’s not give them a reason to get suspicious straight away, yeah?” She prompts, and Dean reluctantly nods, then shakes the co-pilot awake. He comes awake with a jolt, and immediately panics at the memory of the demon. “Calm down, you’re fine now.” Meira assures him.

“And if you want to stay fine, you’re going to act normal and not talk about this, or the nice TSA agents are going to arrest you for being a terrorist.” Dean adds, which doesn’t exactly help the guy’s fear, but it does redirect it nicely.

It’s a little tedious, going through the same rote questions with the rest of the staff, but there’s few enough left that Meira doesn’t mind. It’s worth it for the opportunity to bitch, in a restrained and professional manner, to the TSA agents about wild goose chases and bad information, and how she’s going to complain to her superiors about their lax fact-checking. The agents are so busy reminding her that ‘better safe than sorry’ and that it’s important work that they don’t even stop to wonder about a whole plane being delayed for what turned out to be nothing. Then the three of them are back in the Impala and driving away clean.

“We should have questioned the demon properly.” Sam says abruptly.

“Dude, Sam, seriously. It probably didn’t know jack shit.” Dean insists. “These things like to play with your mind, you can’t let it.”

“And even if it did know something, torturing information out of demons is hard, Sam. Not to mention ethically dubious given that the host suffers everything you do to the demon, too.” Meira points out, and Sam flinches, but his hard glare doesn’t waver. “Do you really think you can torture someone worse than Hell can, Sam? Someone innocent, just to find out what the demon riding their soul knows?”

Sam whips around to glare at her. “Yes.” He bites out, and then looks away, nausea twisting his expression. “No.” He capitulates. “I don’t-”

“Look, Sam. We will find this thing, alright? We will. And we don’t need to drag innocent people into it to do it. We’re better than that. Better than them.” Dean insists.

Meira smiles, bracing her elbows on the back of the front seats and lacing her fingers together to rest her chin on. “Damn straight.”

Marion, Indiana – Sunday 25th December 2005

It’s stupid, but it never occurred to Meira that Sam and Dean might not do Christmas. When she’d asked, a few days ago, Dean had just shrugged and said sure, they could do a present exchange this year, like that was optional. It’s only just sunk in, lying in the dark in a lonely motel room, that there just isn’t going to be Christmas this year.

No tree, no lights, no elaborate Santa traps, no cake for not-bro Jesus so entirely stuffed with candles that you could kill a wendigo with it, no trip to Scandinavia to have snowball fights in ancient pine forests, no stories of hunting pagan gods through the festivities. She’s alone, bound beneath her skin, with no possible way of finding out who did this to her, never mind what they did, or how to get home. She could pray to Pabbi, but he couldn’t answer, not without revealing himself to the Host, and she won’t do that to him, won’t force him to make that choice.

Midnight comes and goes, and the only way Meira knows is because she’s watching the shitty digital clock on the bedside table. She can’t feel the turn of the earth through the cosmos, can’t feel the ripples of time as billions and billions of humans make choices and change things. All she has is what’s trapped under her skin, and it’s nothing. Nothing compared to what she used to have. A family, and an entire universe to share with them.

Unable to bear it any longer, she rolls out of bed, gets dressed, and heads out. Once there, she goes to the vending machine and buys one of everything that looks like it has a cavity-inducing sugar-content, and carries it all over to the Impala. Then she hops up onto the hood, lies back, and starts in on her stash while watching the stars. “Hey, Granddad.” She says, out loud while opening up a pack of skittles, because who gives a fuck. “Looks like you’re the only family I’ve got for Christmas this year. Well, you and not-bro. How’s the garden, Josh? Sorry about no cake this year. It’d feel like… cheating, somehow, if I tried to get Sam and Dean to do it with me. Like I’m stealing something from their future, you know? Even if I bet Dean would get a kick out of it.”

She takes a deep breath, suddenly finding it hard not to cry. “You know, I always got why you fucked off, Granddad. Why you won’t interfere. I don’t think anyone else in my family really does. Except maybe Jace. He might’ve figured it out, but I bet he’s still stuck on the free will thing. That you won’t interfere because we’ve gotta do it ourselves, we’ve gotta make choices, and we can’t do that if the Father of all Father’s is looming over our shoulder. And that’s part of it, yeah, but it’s more than that, too, isn’t it?”

She has to sit up, because otherwise she’s going to choke on her own tears. Skittles spill across the hood of the Impala, and she doesn’t give a shit. “You won’t interfere because you love us. All of us, even the worst of us.” She says to the sky. “Even the actual devil. Even pond scum and slime mould and every last demon. Even me, even though I’m a blasphemy, an abomination, the devil reborn.” She pauses to gasp a few wet breaths. “I always knew, you know? You weren’t there, because you’re everywhere. But I don’t- Sorry, Granddad, but I don’t feel very loved, right now. I know you don’t like to- to interfere, but… but I could really use a miracle right about now, and I don’t know who else to turn to.”

She waits, but of course nothing happens. The stars don’t move, the world doesn’t shift. There isn’t even a change in the wind. Meira smiles bitterly, blinking tears onto her cheeks, and pulls her knees up to wrap an arm around them and bury her face in them. She gasps for air and lets it out in silent screams, with nothing left to pray for. Somewhere in the motel, a door opens and footsteps crunch across gravel.

“Meira?”

Meira’s head jerks up. Dean is standing there, looking sleep-rumpled and a little bleary, squinting at her in concern. Then his gaze drops to the mess of sweets scattered around her, and he snorts. He shoves them more towards the middle of the hood so that he can hop up to sit beside her, and snags a pack of M&Ms out of the pile for himself. “Can’t sleep?” He asks, and there’s a veneer of carelessness to it, like it’s an idle question and he didn’t just find her bawling her eyes out in the middle of the night, but he’s asking, and he’s there.

Thanks, Granddad. Meira thinks, as she tips over sideways to drop her head onto her dad’s shoulder. “I miss them.” She says quietly. “Never done Christmas without them before. Didn’t realise… how hard it’d hit me ‘til I got here, and suddenly it’s like I’m the last person on earth, it’s so lonely.”

There’s a long silence, but Meira doesn’t mind. She just watches the stars, and retrieves a skittle, and then starts in on the haribo. After a while, Dean shifts, but only enough to get his arm free so that he can put it around her shoulders. Meira shudders with another sob, and is so desperately glad when he doesn’t take that as a sign that he shouldn’t have done it.

“I felt the same, after Sam went to Stanford. Me and Dad were hunting separate, and Sam was gone. I knew I could just drive to Palo Alto, and he’d be there, but… That felt further than the moon, when he’d chosen to be there, instead of here.”

Meira nods a little against his shoulder, to let him know she’s listening, and she understands. “Pabbi used to dress up as Santa.” She says, sniffling and trying to put a little cheer into her voice. Pabbi didn’t so much as dress up as Santa as conjure one out of the ether for them, actually, but close enough. “And he’d have this huge sack of presents, right? But he’d only leave one. The rest, he’d say, we had to get for ourselves.”

Dean bursts out laughing. “He made you steal from Santa?” He asks, delighted.

“No, he made us hunt Santa.” Meira corrects, laughing a little herself. “Traps and tricks. A present would magically fall out of the sack every time we scored a ‘killing blow’.” Dean gasps out a startled curse, laughing too hard for anything else.

Once he’s calmed down a bit, he wipes at his eyes, still chuckling, and steals a few of her haribo. “Man, we never did anything that fun.” Dean bemoans, but not too seriously. “Most of the time Dad wasn’t even there for Christmas, tell you the truth, since monsters don’t stop just ‘cause it’s Christmas. One year Sammy gave me this, though.” He adds, lifting a hand to snag the cord around his neck and lift an amulet out from under his t-shirt. “Best Christmas present ever. Though, if you tell him that, I’ll put itching powder in your underwear.”

Meira catches it in the palm of her hand to draw it closer. It’s dark, but as she peers at it, she recognises it, despite never having seen the actual thing before in her life. Recognises it from her dad’s and qaada’s stories, and from some deeper well of knowledge that’s from the part of her that should have been nothing more than the Angel of Thursday, the remix, and instead ended up a little bit archangel.

And maybe it’s just lingering body-heat, but it feels warm in Meira’s palm. She grins, and lets it fall. “It’s pretty awesome.” She agrees. “And my lips are sealed, I swear.”

Love you too, Granddad.

[vengfulfate]

Both of Them, and Only Them, Ch. 10

Story Summary -   Melanie and Miltiades Malachite have trouble with love. They share everything, and this has either scared people away or made them think their relationship was more open than the twins would wish. Then along came Ruby Rose… could she be the one the sisters have searched for?

Chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine

I apologize to everyone who looks forward to this story for the extended gaps between updates. This is kind of a side project for me. It's getting a chapter now because I haven't settled on my next project yet and wanted to get some writing done. It might get another chapter or two in the next few weeks, or it might not. It all depends on how things go.

Please enjoy!

   ---

The morning came, and neither Weiss nor Ruby knew how to breach the subject. They prepared for their mission around each other in uncomfortable silence. The tension between them only grew along side the silence, and Yang and Blake feared it would boil over badly. As much as they wanted to avoid it, neither of them knew how to get the former ‘BFFs’ to an agreeable conclusion either.

Even the arrival of Zwei, Ruby and Yang’s corgi from Patch, did little to lessen the anxious air. The subject was all that was on their minds, but none of them had to courage to breach it. Not until they were almost on the airship, anyways.

“Hey, Yang?” Ruby asked for her sister to get some words in the air, “What are the details of the mission you guys picked, anyway?”

“Oh yeah, about that…” Yang began cautiously, “We tried to pick a mission that turned out to be restricted to first-years…”

“Then Ozpin came out of nowhere, basically told us he knew exactly what we were up to, and approved us for the restricted mission,” Weiss finished matter-of-factly.

“So… our mission is to actually look for the White Fang?” Ruby asked, confused.

“Not officially,” Blake answered, “But I’m pretty sure that’s what was implied.”

“And… our thing?” Ruby finally directed to Weiss. Getting a conversation out had exactly the effect she hoped. “It won’t get in the way, right?”

“Of course not,” Weiss stated sharply, her classic cold demeanor reemerging.

Yang wouldn’t exactly call it progress, but at least the team knew they would still work efficiently together. It was enough for the team, at least for now.

   ---

Their mission brought them to the ruins of the township of Mountain Glenn. A failed expansion of Vale, Mountain Glenn was a concrete jungle of crumbling buildings and wandering grimm. The concentration of grimm had spiked in recent weeks, which was not unusual on it’s own, but it still lined up with the information Blake had obtained. After a long afternoon with little progress, RWBY and their chaperon set up camp for the night in one of the many collapsed buildings.

Ruby was keeping watch when Doctor Oobleck, their history teacher and huntsmen chaperon clad in safari clothing, approached her. “Good evening, Ms. Rose.”

“Hey, professor,” Ruby greeted in turn in her usual cheerful demeanor.

“Doctor,” Oobleck warned.

“Right, sorry,” Ruby giggled.

“You team is very impressive, for first year students,” Oobleck complemented.

“Thank you!” Ruby smiled. After a pause, she added, “Doctor.”

“But there is a tension here, isn’t there?” the teacher pointed out.

Ruby’s smile failed. “You see it?”

“I do,” Oobleck nodded.

“It won’t get in the way,” Ruby promised, “we’ve talked it over.”

“But not resolved it?” Oobleck pressed further.

Ruby sighed. “Doctor, how do you feel about… polygamy?”

“Hm...” Oobleck thought. That seemed a lot more complicated than what he initially assumed teenagers would argue over. “I believe there is too much negativity in the world deny someone something that makes them happy.”

“One of my team mates doesn’t believe it can be real,” Ruby explained.

“And another is partaking in a polygamous relationship?” Oobleck deduced.

“I am,” Ruby confirmed.

Oobleck couldn’t help but think back on the various observations he had made that day. “Not to be inconsiderate, but Ms. Schnee...?”

Ruby did a double take, panicking for a brief moment. She felt like confirming such was akin to bad mouthing her behind her back. “I… shouldn’t gossip.”

“Of course,” Oobleck nodded, understanding. “I admit I don’t have any advice for you. Much as he may seem it, Professor Ozpin is not omnipotent. Teams are not always a perfect storm of friends and confidants. Being able to work together regardless is part of being an adult.”

“We’re trying,” Ruby nodded. “I just wish I could make her see she’s wrong.”

“She may be wrong in this specific instance, but her fears are not entirely unfounded,” Oobleck defended. “There are those in this world who would prey upon the young, hopeful and niave. If she is concerned for you, it proves that she indeed cares about you.”

Ruby cast her gaze behind her, landing on the heiress’s figure bundled in her sleeping bag. She smiled. “I guess it does. She’ll come around. I can feel it.”

“You are her leader and friend, and would know her better than I,” Oobleck explained, “if you feel as such, I’m sure it will be so.”

“Thank you, professor,” Ruby nodded. Oobleck opened his mouth, but Ruby quickly cut him off, “Doctor! Heh, sorry.”

Oobleck closed his mouth and smiled. With a nod, he left the young leader to resume her watch.

   ---

Weiss gazed over the city with blank eyes. It was her turn to watch camp, but her mind was engulfed by other thoughts. Truth is, she was wide awake when Oobleck prodded Ruby about the tension in the team. She heard the entire conversation, and it gave her plenty to think about. She knew her upbringing was oppressive, to say the least, but there had to be a line somewhere?

“Hey, Weiss?”

Her concerns weren’t baseless, that much Oobleck agreed with

“Um, Weiss?”

But was it really true that Ruby’s relationship could be fine? Healthy, even?

“Weeeiiiiissss?”

Weiss was ready to wait in the wings with an ‘I told you so’, but maybe-

“Weiss!”

“Huh?” Weiss spun around, finally broken from her train of thought.

“Finally,” Ruby sighed in relief, having finally gotten Weiss’s attention. “Are you still tired? We can swap watches if you need more rest.”

“No, I’m fine,” Weiss insisted.

“Alright,” Ruby shrugged, “anyway, I wanted to say I think I noticed something. It’s probably nothing, but I’m gunna go check it out.”

Weiss nodded, “don’t rush into something, okay? Call us if you need us.”

“I will,” Ruby promised.

Weiss nodded and cast her gaze back over the city once more. Ruby may not be a genius, but she was far from stupid. Crescent Rose alone could attest to that. And she is training to be a huntress, so it wasn’t likely the twins had physically overpowered her at any point.

I was ready to standby with an ‘I told you so’, but maybe that’s not how I should be thinking. And it won’t help Ruby should that come to pass. Perhaps I should support her now, and be there for her later if the worst indeed happens. And if it doesn’t happen, if Ruby’s relationship is valid…

“I don’t want to lose her as a friend,” Weiss finished her thought aloud.

The sunrise wasn’t far away, and soon the light and warmth of morning was rousing the sleeping hunters.

“Well!” Oobleck stretched and took a swing from his portable mug, “Who’s ready for a brand new day!?”

“Wait a minute,” Blake looked around, “something’s not right...”

“Yeah, where’s my sister!?” Yang noticed.

“What do you mean?” Weiss asked, “Isn’t she back?”

“Back?” Blake questioned in turn.

“She told me she was going to check something out,” Weiss explained, “and she promised to call in if it turned out to be, well, something. I never got a call.”

“And you didn’t notice she never returned!?” Yang shouted, “How long has she been gone!?”

“Girls!” Oobleck quickly took control of the situation, “now is not the time for anger. Whatever lessons this mistake can teach must be pondered later. First, we resolve the mistake itself. You leader may be in danger, and we must stay calm as we search for her.”

Camp was packed hastily and the group set out with no delay. Blake was the first to spot Crescent Rose, folded on the ground in front of a large sinkhole. Oobleck began a rant about sealed subway lines underneath the township, but Weiss could barely hear it.

She was looking forward to telling Ruby about her change of mind and hopefully mending their friendship, and subsequently the connection with the rest of the team, in the process. Now the girl was in danger and Weiss would regret it the rest of her life if she never got the chance to repair that particular bridge.

“Well, Weiss?” Blake broke through the heiress’s haze of thoughts, “You with us?”

Weiss quickly deduced what they were asking, not that it was very hard. They needed to go down into the dark. Weiss picked up Crescent Rose, steeling her resolve. She looked to the others and nodded, “Let’s go save our fearless leader.”

   ---

Melanie yawned as she leaned across the bar. “Why on earth are we awake again?”

“Because Junior agreed to host a wedding reception and he needed hands,” Miltiades reminded her sister.

“Who the hell has a reception at a nightclub?” Melanie stifled a laugh, “They’re probably under 20. I give them two months.”

“Don’t be rude,” Junior scolded, “They’re paying customers. Well paying customers.”

Melanie sighed. “Can you at least turn that off?” she pointed to the television currently displaying the morning news. “It’s putting me to sleep.”

Junior nodded and picked up the remote.

“Wait!” Miltiades stopped him, staring at the screen.

“What?” Melanie looked up and read the screen.

BREAKING NEWS: Explosion! Huntsmen and Grimm brawl in downtown Vale!

“Holy shit...” Junior read, “Don’t think that’s near us, though.”

“Mel...” Miltiades pointed again as the ‘huntsmen’ came into frame.

Black hair. Combat boots. Red cape. “Ruby!”

Now wide awake, Melanie dashed out of the club. Miltiades made to follow, but stopped short. The less brash twin didn’t want to leave without her boss’s blessing.

“Go,” Junior told her. Miltiades nodded and ran after her sister.

By the time the twins reached the battlefield, the chaos had already passed. Someone in handcuffs was being loaded onto an airship and a tall blonde the twins recognized as a Beacon teacher from the dance was talking to a man in safari gear. Ruby and her team stood close by. Blake spotted the twins first, nudging Ruby’s shoulder.

“Girls!” Ruby’s eyes lit up as she jogged over to them, “what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Melanie turned it around, “I thought your mission was outside the kingdom, not blowing up downtown Vale!?”

Ruby, perhaps still high on battle adrenaline and victory, giggled.

“What?” Melanie asked, confused.

“I’m sorry,” Ruby continued to grin widely, “but you acting all super concerned like is adorable.”

In another rare display, Melanie stuttered and struggled to respond, simply crossing her arms as her face lit up.

“She does has a point,” Miltiades defended, “What happened?”

“Well...” Ruby searched for where to begin.

Before she could, the three were interrupted by an approaching Weiss. “So,” the heiress cut in, “Which of you is ‘Miltia’?”

The twins shared a silent conversation, quickly deducing this was Weiss. They crossed their arms defensively before Miltiades answered, “I am Miltiades.”

“And I don’t believe I have heard your name?” Weiss looked to the other twin.

“Melanie,” the white twin answered.

“I am Weiss Schnee,” the heiress introduced herself elegantly.

“We figured,” the twins answered in unison.

“Right...” Weiss nodded, slightly unnerved. She pushed through regardless, saying what she wanted to say. “I have made some comments recently that I have come to regret. And I apologize.”

Melanie raised an eyebrow at this while Miltiades cautiously lowered her crossed arms. Ruby placed her hand on her partner’s shoulder. “Weiss?”

Weiss lowered Ruby’s hand before continuing. “The team is trusting Ruby would let us know if anything untoward is happening, and I can’t deny you are making her happy. I won’t attempt to disguise that I still have my doubts… However, I look forward to the three of you proving me wrong.”

“Was that… acceptance?” Melanie looked to her twin.

“It sounded like it to me,” Miltiades answered.

“I knew it!” Ruby drew her partner into a crushing hug, “I knew you’d come around!”

“Off! Ruby, get off!” Weiss panicked, trying to pry herself away. “Get off me! Down! Down!”

Ruby let herself be peeled off, retaining her grin. “You like it.”

The heiress huffed, but made no real rebuttal. Instead, she turned back to the twins. “As much as I’m sure Ruby would love to run away with you right now, we’re still ‘on the clock’, so to speak, until we debrief at Beacon. I’m glad to have finally met the two of you.”

“Wait, we still haven’t heard what happened?” Melanie recalled.

“I’ll call you the second I’m free!” Ruby promised as she and Weiss walked back to their team. “I should be going before Professor Goodwitch gets angry. Well, angry-er. I love you both!”

Melanie frowned at missing the story. Miltiades supplied, “We love you too.”

As Ruby and Weiss fell back in line with the team, Ruby offered a, “Thank you, Weiss.”

Weiss smiled. “I know I don’t show it well, but I do appreciate our friendship. Same with Yang and Blake as well. You constantly show me how to better myself, really better myself and not just… well, you know.”

“Don’t worry, Weiss,” Ruby smirked, “We’ll have you wearin’ PJ pants all weekend with some wicked bedhead like the rest of us lazy commoners before you know it!”

“As if!” Weiss defended. “I will hold on to some decorum, thank you very much! There is a difference between elitism and harmless class.”

“You’re definitely a class act,” Yang jabbed.

Weiss turned to the blonde. “Yang, I-”

“Stop worrying,” Yang cut her off. She flashed a smile for good measure. “Just messin’ with ya, shortstack.”

Weiss returned the smile. “Brute.”

[worlds-within-words]

Chapter Five: Starting the Journey

I grabbed my bags and halberd and called for Sora. We figured she’d be useful for hunting and whatnot.

Hak and I set the pace, stumbling around, sore from the match yesterday. We hobbled along, and I risked a glance back at the house. The only thing I’d ever known except for my old village. It was home, I had grown up there, learned, and been loved there. But all birds have to leave the nest at some point.

Iksu stood on the doorstep, simply watching as we continued down the path. As I turned away, I could’ve sworn a stubborn tear ran down an otherwise smiling face.

We soon arrived at a village, and I helped Hak stuff Yona into a bag, although not unscathed. Who would’ve thought such a sweet little princess could be so vicious? I thought. We passed by an old farmer pulling a cart behind him. My face became damp from sweat as we drew near. Yoon stopped by to have a little chat, and I felt something poke my rib cage.

“Stop hiding your face in your cloak, it’s suspicious!” Hak hissed. I’ve been doing that? Hm. Must be a nervous habit.

“Says the man with a big hat to hide his face and a body-shaped bag over his shoulder!” I snapped back.

“Touché.”

“Stop bickering like an old married couple you two! Let’s go!” They all exchanged some words while I kept quiet.

Yoon led the way and we soon arrived at a forest. I helped Yona out of the bag and she immediately stomped off.

“Priiiiiiiiincess. Priiiiiiiincess.” Hak called in a monotone voice. “What are you mad about? Is it because I packed you in a bag and carried you over my shoulders? Is it because I said there were clothes in the bag and I treated you roughly? Or is it because I felt up the good stuff in the bag?”

Yona clenched her fist and growled, ”Everything.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Yona practically chase Hak up a tree and shrugged. I’m gonna have to get used to them eventually. Which reminds me, I still have to clear things up with Hak and his little ‘test’.

Yoon mumbled,”The bag that was supposed to have clothes in it started squirming around…...and I was really nervous that the old man had found us out.” He paused and eyed them. “Are you two alright?” I glanced at them in amusement. They were still at it.

He pointed at us consecutively. “Red-haired princess!” He pointed at Hak. “Ex-general beast Raijuu!” And lastly, me. “Stunningly terrify-I mean-beautiful sister! You guys stick out like a sore thumb! Especially you two, quiet it down, you’ll attract too much attention!”

They both nodded meekly. “Yes.” Ah, they’re already becoming obedient!

“Now then,” Yoon pulled out a map and continued,”The village of the Dragon Warrior should be right about...here.” He pointed at a set of mountain ranges. Finding a Dragon Warrior? What’s he talking about?

“Um, sorry, but what are you guys talking about?” I looked at them in confusion.

“Oh yeah, you weren’t there when Iksu explained.” Hak replied. “He spouted this weird prophecy which claimed that I would die if we didn’t find one of these warriors. I don’t buy it, but Yona seems pretty hard set on it.”

“You’re telling me the Dragon Warriors are real? I thought they were just made up.”

Yona gasped,”But your father is a priest, how could you not believe in them?”

“Er, I guess it doesn’t really make sense to me?” I fidgeted with the hem of my cloak.”I mean, this god person comes down and turns regular people into half-gods? It just doesn’t really seem possible to me.” Nobody spoke after that, but Yoon saved me when he said,

“Well anyways, one of them lives in these mountains right here.” He pointed on the map again.”It’s near the capital and the Fire Tribe though, so we should be careful.”

“It’s near the border too, huh?” Hak smirked,”Near Kaitei and the capital….” I half heartedly stroked Sora’s fur as I contemplated our problem. If we got too close to Kaitei, the capital, or the Fire Tribe, we’ll be in serious trouble. We need to find a safe route that isn't too hard to travel on. Yona could have some trouble getting up a steep path, not to mention Hak and I. I vaguely heard Yoon yelling at Hak for something, and snatched the map out of Yoon’s bag as he ran by.

I unrolled it and pointed a section of the map that showed a small valley. It was a little too close to the capital than I would’ve liked, but if we were careful it might work. “Hak! Stop messing around with my brother!” I jabbed him in the gut.”You know the area around Kuuto pretty well, right? Is this place safe to go through?” I pointed to the valley.

“It should be. Heh, unless they built a castle while I was resting.” He joked.”But yeah, it’s safe. Good eye Ōkami!” For a guy that will attack you in the woods as a ‘test’, he’s actually quite likable… But I still have to keep my guard up around him. Something about him just doesn’t sit right with me.

“Thanks….we have to head Northwest right?”

“Yeah. While we still have daylight, let’s get moving.”

We started to head down the trail when the footsteps behind me suddenly ceased.

“Will the soldiers attack us again?” Yona had a slight quiver in her voice, and was covering part of her face with her cloak. This poor girl. What exactly did they do to her? I wasn’t really listening when they explained, although I wish I had.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” He said it with a smile, but I could tell he was worried about her.

Yoon quipped,”While you’re at it, protect me too, I’m weak.”

“I need to learn swordsmanship. You can teach me on the road Hak.” Coming from that small weak girl, it would’ve been ridiculous, if not for her circumstances. Hak’s eyes went from wide in surprise to narrow slits.

“Could you kill a person?” Hak’s voice was low and cold.”Even if you repel them, you can’t give enemies the chance to flee. You need to hurt them to the point where they’re beyond recovery and kill them. Could you do that?” Yona stood as still as a tree on a windless day.

I attempted to lighten the mood.

“Heh, no need for that Yona. You saw me fight Raiju right? Us together provide more than enough protection.” But they ignored me.

“At that time, even though you had a sword you didn’t use it at all.”

Yona’s face was scrunched up with unease as she replied,”Even if I can’t match up against them, or kill them, I want to at least create an opening for you and I to get away.”

Hak rubbed his chin.”Swordsmanship for self defense… Surely you’ll need that.”

Yona’s face brightened as she asked,”Does that mean you’ll teach me?”

“You’re upper body strength isn’t the greatest and I don’t want you to be on the front lines, so here.” He chucked the bow and quiver from his back to Yona. It landed in her arms with a dull thud and her arms struggled to hold it. A bow, huh? I suppose it would be easier for her to carry.

“Princess, I’m going against your father's wishes. King Il hated weapons. Think about why his majesty hated weapons.” Yona clutched the bow tightly.”But you might as well practice while we’re heading to the village.”

We walked along for a bit before Yoon asked,”I wonder if you can kill birds and rabbits with that. Sure, Sora can hunt a lot of things, but she would never be able to catch a bird. Would you be able to?” Yoon paused for a moment and continued.”I-if you don’t mind, of course.”

“If you don’t wanna, then I could go hunt with Sora. But I really think that it would give you great practice though.” I said. We walked for about an hour, Yona trying to shoot a bird the whole way. It was getting kind of annoying; the fwoosh and whack of the arrows creating an unsteady beat that drove me insane.

Hak, must’ve felt the same way, he grabbed the bow and arrow from her hands and shot an arrow straight at a bird. In three seconds it fell to the ground, the arrow directly piercing the heart. Show off. But it was pretty cool.

“How did you do that?!” Yona exclaimed. “I can’t even hit one!”

“I aimed.”

“I don’t get it Hak.”

“You’re a terrible teacher Hak! I can barely shoot an arrow fifteen feet, but I bet I could teach her better than you!” I was exasperated. How did the soldiers he trained ever learn anything?!

“I can! Look, I’ll show you!”He turned to face Yona.”Ok, so basically you don’t have enough strength. Your arms shake when you aim, and that’s why you’re missing. Draw the bow with full strength and aim on instinct. Some of the best archers close their eyes when they shoot, so they aren’t fooled by their eyes. For now though, focus on shooting the arrow straight.” Yona nodded.

“Alright, you might be able to teach her. But when you’re finished, I want lessons too.” I admitted begrudgingly.

He smirked at me and said,”I doubt I’d be able to teach you much, you’re as clumsy as a toad!” He chuckled, and as I lunged to tackle him, I tripped over my own feet, and his laugh turned into full on guffawing.

Night soon fell, and I let the sound of crickets lure me into sleep as I snuggled against Yoon to keep him warm. Well, maybe I was the one that needed the warmth. We usually slept like that at home too, the walls of the house sometimes let in a draft.

I was asleep for maybe four hours when I was roused by a noise. Fwap. Fwap. Fwap. What is that irksome noise?! It almost sounds like….arrows? Shit, are we under attack!? I threw the blanket off of me, much to the discomfort of Yoon, who curled in on himself as I prodded him to get him to wake up.

“Ugh, what-what is it Ōkami? It’s like three in the morning, sis!”

“Yoon, I think we’re under attack!”

“Hungh? Whaddya say?”

I lightly slapped him on the face.”Wake up Yoon! I think we’re under attack!” It took him a second to process my words, but his eyes soon widened in fear.

“Stay here while I check it out, okay?” I crept out of our makeshift bed and ruffled his hair in reassurance as I tiptoed around him. I rummaged through our stuff and took out my halberd. Every rustle if fabric as I unwrapped it grated against my ears.

I felt a disturbance behind me and whipped around with my weapon in hand, ready to fight. Hak held up his hands and my shoulders relaxed.

“Do you know what that noise is? It sounds like arrows, are we being attacked?!” My hands were shaking as I faced him.

“Hey, hey, calm down. It’s just Yona practicing her bow and arrows. Why are you so panicked? Did you see something?”

“It’s nothing…it just reminds me of something that happened in the past.”

He regarded me with a somewhat worried look, but went on,”Well, since you’re already up I need you watch over Yona for a bit. I need to go pee.”

“Um, okay. But I gotta go tell Yoon that everything’s ok.” Why did he even tell me that? I could understand if he said it if I asked. What a weird guy.

“Don’t worry about that, when I passed by him he was panicking like a little bird, and he told me that you thought we were being attacked, so I told him that it was just Yona.”

I looked at him.”You better not be lying. When I come back Yoon better be calm. The stress isn’t good for him.”

“Don’t worry, he’s fine. She’s over there by the way.” He pointed to a patch of undergrowth. “Keep her safe.”

I walked over to where Hak told me she was, and settled down in the bushes to watch. There was definitely some improvement from where she was the previous afternoon. Her arrows flew straighter, and she hit the tree about seven times out of ten, which was pretty amazing progress compared to her not even being able to shoot without her arms shaking. She must really love this country if she’s willing to take up the bow like this. She could’ve just given up and stayed in Fuuga, or let Hak protect her. I judged her wrong when we first met. I always thought that she was a lazy princess. But look at her. She’s becoming stronger, and I feel a strange sense of pride and an urge to protect her whenever I look at her.

I was so enthralled with her that I failed to notice the footsteps behind me. I only realized my mistake as I felt the cold edge of a blade against my throat.

I was wondering where chapter five was, but it turned out that I hadn’t even posted it yet, so here! I’m sorry it took such a long time! Chapter six is in progress I’m not so mean as to leave you on a cliffhanger for too long. No promises of when I’ll finish the next chapter though.......

[nightblink]

Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 58-63

In which I stare Branderson straight in the eye as I crank up the volume on Paleblood Moon.

I know you play this game. I see what you’re doing here.

Part Three – Defying Truth, Love Truth

[squints] I'm not sure how I feel about this Part title. That fashion folio picture on the back page though! EXCELLENT YES GIVE US MORE

Chapter Fifty-Eight – Burdens

Oh niiiiiice, we're getting transcriptions of the information crystals left in the drawers in the Urithiru library! Definitely a good type of chapter-header.

How high up is Urithiru, if even without clouds below they can't see the ground from the cliffs?

Dalinar, you're only mid-fifty-something, and you still have a tight butt. You're not that old.

Probably good to put a pause on vision-walking while you don't know how much Odium can affect them. One time alone was nearly enough to give you (and the readers) a heart attack.

Uniform design note - “right leg pocket” and it has buttons

Good, they're figuring out how to use their Fast Travel at decreased Stormlight cost; that'll definitely help with resource allocation. And they're finally going to Thaylenah!

...wait what. Kaladin is l a n d e d now, wHAT

(that land is in Sebarial's princedom, Dalinar, did you get permission form him to give that away) (...oh. part of the Crownlands, all right. fair.)

Time/event note – 'Midpeace', which is obviously the low-flow season when all the intermittent and ephemeral streams go dry, possibly the halfway mark of the year from Lightday

Kaladin, you adopt practically everyone you come across who needs it. This is just the logical extension at this point.

You'll move your family if they agree to it. Lirin might have some objections.

The Fused advance is originating from the south, likely close to the Shattered Plains since that's where the changed Listeners would have begun from. Good to know.

….why do I feel like this delay of you becoming Highking is going to have Bad Consequences.

Oooh, shit, Thaylen City is basically avalanching down upon itself from the exposure to the Everstorm. And on top of that, what must have been nearly a tsunami wiped out the docks as the Everstorm hurtled across the sea.

(Culture note – Queen of Thaylenah has a Prince Consort and not a king.)

It's just one more reason that Queen Fen didn't want the Alethi coming through – there's no real way to defend themselves at this point. It's practically all in ruins.

Chapter Fifty-Nine – Bondsmith

[gasps at the chapter title and does a screeching circuit of the room] Okay I'm good

...maybe. A Dustbringer entry this time, one of a woman who wishes to leave memory of her family. Aaaaaahhhhhh-

[cackles] You're bored, Dalinar. You just want to move on and get to the point of the visit, admit it. Keep calling him out on it, Navani.

“I am a diplomat.” Not yet, not really, Dal, but you're trying. You're trying very hard and with great honesty, you're just not used to it yet. Practice. You still need diplomatic experience, in whatever form you can get.

[screeches and rolls at the reinforcement of trust he shows in taking her hands. plural. both of them.]

Huh. So the Everstorm can have rain, or ash and embers, all sorts of variation. Good to know it's intentional and not an inconsistency on Sanderson's part.

Ah. They're using the temples as makeshift hospitals. Perhaps you can offer to send Renarin through to do what he can, Dalinar? It'd be good experience, if nothi-

Goddamn it Taravangian. As generous an offer as that is, I don't think I trust your surgeons. There's bound to be at least a few or more of the Diagram among them.

Taravangian's already written these people and this place off as Unnecessary. He just wants the Death Rattles.

Ehhhhh, letting you come here relatively alone is one thing, but letting Alethi armies come through the Oathgate? Even if she starts believing that you really want to help, I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon, Dalinar.

The throne of Thaylenah isn't hereditary, but they still call their leader 'Queen'. Do they run as a monarchy even? Interesting. We need information on how the Thaylens choose their leader(s).

OH and then we get a bit of the answer right there. Council-elected.

“Does it involve punching someone?” YES. IT DOES. OF COURSE IT DOES. EXCELLENT. PERCUSSIVE DIPLOMACY.

Ooo, that triggered something – something buried deep. Was it what broke you, that memory?

[CACKLES] Just let your emotions reach your expression, Dalinar. Even Navani thinks it'll work.

'Dalinar, instead, decided to pick a fight.' Well, that is the thing that Kholins are best at. Show 'em how it's done, Dal.

Oh my god. Dalinar. Dalinar. You're just. (SNUG UNDERSHIRT I'M DYING)

This is almost as much Drama as Jasnah

You're just going to go out there unarmed? Huh. Okay, okay, you're skilled enough that I can see you lasting the three minutes, probably disarming him at some point in the process.

He's here to make treaty with you and your people, not accuse people of assassination in a fight (that he set up). Besides, he's a Radiant with Stormlight. You're not winning this, kid.

Oop, ooop, lots of dodging, this is another part where it's very plain to see that Sando plays Dark Souls and Bloodborne

Dalinar. Dalinar what are you planning, why are you just standing there at the end of the time-

WHAT

WHAT

WHAT

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, DALINAR. I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO MAKE A SHOW, BUT. DUDE. SERIOUSLY.

TALK ABOUT KHOLIN EXTRA™

And you're just. Going to go on and compliment him on his form as you take his hand and shove the sword further in. Casually standing there. No big deal. Just Kholin-ing your way through the scene.

Well. You've convinced them that you're a Radiant. That much is completely indisputable. I'm just not sure that you've convinced them of much else. And that's why you're disappointed in yourself, isn't it? You're thinking it yourself – other than the Stormlight healing, this sort of display is something you've done many times over. So. What do do next? What can you do?

!!!! And… you're hearing the spren of the Temple? Oh oh oh are we going to get to see you Surgebind-

Yes. Along with imbuing yourself with so much stormlight that you're lifting boulders, and I'm not sure that that's part of a Surge – you're just enhancing your strength that much, probably halfway to Plate-strength. H e r ald s.

Bondsmith.

[gasps] Are you sending for Renarin for his healing, please tell me that you are.

….and look at that, you're still going around shirtless. Fen's son seems to be in a state of confused but productive awe, though. Heh.

YOU DID BRING RENARIN TO HEAL. YESGOOD, TRUST HIM WITH RESPONSIBILITY

!!!! And you're somehow getting a sense of another language through your unique Bondsmith power? Oh man, you're basically going to be able to forge Connection once you get used to this, aren't you? Oh that is too cool.

'Renarin kept blaming the healings on him.' Renariiiiiiin, that's… you need to be able to accept the thanks for what you yourself have done. This is your power, something good, and even with no negative connotations like that carried by foresight! (…..[insert Midoriya vs Todoroki “it's YOUR power!” shout here]) What's holding you back in this instance? I… worry about you; this doesn't seem to be the same sort of reluctance that you discussed with Rock.

Culture note, Alethi military saying - “Shardbearers can't hold ground.”

Yessss, good on you admitting (aloud! And to another, independent ruler!) that you need different perspectives, that the world needs them. And then you even go for her advice, even 'unsavory' advice, with “Try me. I'm starting to appreciate that the way I usually do things has severe limitations.”

You're much changed from the man you once were.

Chapter Sixty – Winds and Oaths

….that foreword does not bode well.

!!!! STRIKE TEAM TO KHOLINAR, GO

Okay, so nine total, not a bad size since their infiltration is for an entire city. The 'maidservant' though, I wonder… is that Ishnah. Did Shallan bring Ishnah along. Ishnah doesn't know that Shallan is Veil, though. Hmmmm.

Kaladin: “how does she achieve such heedless joy?” Shallan: [suppresses all Bad Feeling so hard that they start leaking out in Multiple Personalities]

Really, though, he's idolizing her for her coping mechanisms, not her for herself, which is Not Good. I feel like Sanderson knows this, but I'll bet that this rising dread within signals the start of a Love Triangle Plot (which I hate. if you're going to do this, Sanderson, get it over with quickly and decisively, please.)

I'm snorting with laughter at Adolin, though. It doesn't seem like he's afraid of the height like Dalinar was; rather, he's too used to being in control of his own motion and is trying to correct this even though he can't. I get it, man, it happened to me the first time I went skydiving, too.

[screeches delightedly over the growing empathy/telepathy evidence we're getting from the Nahel bond]

[drags hands down face] SYL please understand that your human is demi and does not need to get laid to be happy, and let him choose any romantic entanglements he wishes for himself. If he  starts actually getting to know Shallan rather than idealizing her, that's one thing, but shoving him towards her? Especially right now? I love you dear but you are not helping in this regard.

Bless Sigzil for trying his best to quantify Kaladin's Surges so the rest of us have some idea of what's going on

([snorts] Team OT3 stopping to wisecrack at each other in midair is a lovely scene, though. Adolin self-deprecating to lighten the mood, Kaladin snarking, and Shallan going on a tangent with a punchline.)

Huh. Amazingly enough, it looks like Kholinar isn't under occupation yet, even if it is under threat of such. I'd've thought they would've launched the attack by this point.

[whoops and punches the air] Kholinar does have the colouring of the Zhangye Danxia, I was right, headcanon CONFIRMED g o d that must be utterly gorgeous with the windblades

...but of course there's a marring darkness. Odium-influence of some sort, even if the Voidbringers haven't punched through yet.

Oh, Kaladin.

[winces] Kaladin makes a very good (silent) point about Elhokar not appearing to care about his wife and son – he didn't even refer to them by name right then, and we never heard him mention them himself back in the other two books. It could be many things – an aftereffect of Gavilar's tendency to apparently ignore his own wife and probably his kids as well, I'd bet, though there is also the possibility that it was a political marriage alone and Elhokar just never came to care for his wife (and maybe even his son, when there's a good chance that he's barely even seen the kid while he's playing the war-king).

Ouch. Trying to sound decisive but then trailing off. It's good that he looks to others for their opinion, but the way he does it doesn't inspire confidence. The way Adolin automatically responds – measured and strategic without appearing to override Elhokar's authority – makes me think that this is the way it's always been. Elhokar recovers, bolstered by the given advice, but still.

Chapter Sixty-One – Nightmare Made Manifest

...well that's an inspiring chapter title. We do get a map of Kholinar, though, for which I am thankful.

The chapter quote is from a very snappish Skybreaker, but doesn't reveal much, alas.

The Fused, at the very least, aren’t afraid of unarmed, untrained humans (and why would they be?) so they see letting the refugees go into the city not as giving the enemy possible soldiers, but overwhelming their supplies and space and weakening their ability to hold a siege. Smart, really. Kaladin’s not picking up on it; the Kholins might.

Shallan’s been making damn good use of her practicing. All night is a long time to hold a single illusion, especially using only little light.

Hah – Elhokar definitely didn’t go through the army training that Adolin did, and Shallan hasn’t really had to sleep without shelter save for one night after the shipwreck. The bridgemen, of course, handle a little weathering like it’s nothing.

Oop, yeah, there it is, Adolin understands the Fused’s strategy there.

I am really worried about what might be in the Palace complex. All in shadow? Shallan’s sketch of it warped and twisted? If it’s another one of the Unmade…? The Midnight Mother was bad enough, I worry that in an urban area Branderson’s going to pull something full Bloodborne on us.

Elhokar is doing so much better than he was in the past. Giving him a goal and responsibility that he can work with that a) doesn’t require him to make public/crowd, social decisions and b) he can bounce ideas and opinions off of his crush and his cousin without feeling like they’re going to undermine him.

You can still pretty much see the bridgemen rolling their eyes in the background as he’s speaking, though.

YES YES ILLUSION TIME

I need a description of what Kaladin looks like, stat, because Adolin gleefuly calling the illusion “wretched” does not suffice, even more so when Drehy winces.

[CACKLING OVER ADOLIN’S ILLUSION THOUGH] “Oh, now that’s unfair.” “If I stretch a lie too far, people are more likely to be suspicious.” B l e s s. I can only imagine what poor Kaladin's wearing if that's what you're going with.

That line/excuse on Shallan’s part makes it even more interesting that she Lightweaves Elhokar into a woman, even with the explanation she gives. And he is immediately, perfectly fine with it. Huh. Interesting. Could be just distracted, though; he’s definitely focused and raring to go.

PFFFFFT, even Syl- Shallan what did you weave for him

Not ‘dignified’? Syl, you can totally be a mirror, come on. Wyndle made an excellent, elegant Shardfork, after all.

Elhokar, your crush is showing.

Yeaaaaah, Elhokar is cracked right through, Kal, and if the cryptics he’d seen in the mirror all the way back in TWoK was any indication… Well. At least you’re starting to see it now.

Elhokar, don’t go all fatalistic on us like this, or you might make us think it’s foreshadowing. [side-eyes Sanderson] Also, once again you say “my wife and child” without using their names; it makes you sound very… detached from them.

It’s the arrogance, Kaladin – it’s a Kholin fault for all of them save Renarin and you know it.

‘Stormblessed’ is the mask you made for yourself, even if other people gave it a name. Also mention of Tarah who we still know pretty much nothing about. That needs to change, and hopefully within this book.

‘Those strata remind me of the tunnels in Urithiru.’ In colouration? Layering? How? Sanderson plz elaborate on your geology for me.

H e r alds but Kaladin's illusion-face must be awful.

Yeaaaah, what with the situation both inside the walls and especially at the palace in severe question and no information on what's currently going on, they'll need a base of operations. This is not likely to go quickly or smoothly, and if there is an Unmade there…. oof. I wonder what kind of place Adolin's talking about though? It would be brilliant if we could meet some of his old friends – actual friends, not cordial-political friends like Jakamav and the like used to be.

Aaaaand there goes Kaladin with the needing to feel things to understand them. He needs that emotional tie to really get something.

BOYS. BOYS BEING NERDS AND SHARING SMILES. I am so glad that you two grew so believably into actual friends – from that day all the way back in Sadeas' warcamp to now, it's been a journey.

Uh oh, has the city reached capacity for the refugees it can support, or are they worried about taxing their supplies with an army on their doorstep (like the Fused planned/hoped)?

Oh goddamn it Elhokar they told you all to stay back. If nothing else, the imperious manner and demands might get them answers though (or kicked out entirely. That's also an option.)

….'Azure' does not sound like an Alethi name. It's also a colour. Do I sense a Nalthian woroldhopper…? But then how would they have made it to the rank of Highmarshal, especially since Elhokar's apparently never heard of them? I'm suspicious.

“The highmarshal has no commander.” EVEN MORE SUSPICION, AND WORSE

Look Elhokar I'm sorry but from what we've seen Aesudan is not the most competent of Queens, and it's entirely possible that the city just defaulted to martial law by this point

Weeeeeell, shit. Is this the start of the full assault, or just a harrying force?

Oh, Kaladin. You want to follow that binding urge to protect, but that's not what you're here for. Mm, thankfully, Adolin's already assessed the situation and is managing to get through to you.

There's that saying again, the second time from a Kholin - “Shardbearers can't hold ground.”

The city is stuffed to capacity. The Fused's strategy of herding the humans here to overwhelm the defenders looks to be working.

Yeah – Kaladin may have a good grasp of small-unit tactics, but overall strategy not so much. Nice to have that saying explained out, though, confirming what I thought it meant.

….is that performer basically wearing a bastardized Mistcloak

Behaviour out of the normal, and spren out of the normal too? Affected by Odium? I'm starting to wonder if I wasn't far off in thinking Branderson'd go for a touch of Bloodborne…

Oh my god, Shallan, you made him look memorably hideous. [CACKLES] Well, you're right in saying that people will remember something entirely different from how he actually looks.

“We'd need to stay with someone I'd trust with my life, or more. ”

Adolin.

Adolin please

(please help me I love this dumb, brilliant, vain man so much)

(so much)

Chapter Sixty-Two – Research

A Skybreaker at the beginning of the chapter does not fancy the idea of giving up Urithiru, but there's still no mention of why they abandoned it in the first place.

…Shallan, I know it’s for research, but can you try to attract something other than painspren. How about creationspren instead, that seems to happen around you often enough. And please, please don’t ask Adolin to do it for you, he’d probably recoil in horror at the thought.

Finally getting information on the riots! GOOD, the cliffhanger with the ardent and Aesudan was not comforting in the least.

What is comforting is, apparently, Adolin. I need more info and backstory about him and Yokska, because he feels very familiar with her, waaay beyond just an artisan-customer relationship, even though fashion is one of his Interests. We’ve seen before that he doesn’t trust his life and that of others to someone easily.

Speaking of fashion, examples of civilian fancywear, yesgood. The design seems very early-19th century English or French, which makes sense when Sanderson’s said the military ones are similar to Napoleonic ones.

[winces] Aesudan essentially provides that match for the flames of the riots, then disappears. That doesn’t bode well for her possible survival.

….Elhokar, referring to the probable-Unmade in the palace as ‘the dark spren’ without the person you’re talking to having any context isn’t exactly going to instill confidence – it just makes you sound possibly unhinged and definitely in denial.

SHALLAN, NO

Fucking hell, don’t do that, stormlight healing or no! Listen to Pattern. Effective it may be, but that’s a bad idea

….and the painspren that come to her are basically zombified versions. With claws. Lovely. That’s not good. Unmade influence, or that of Odium directly, it has to be.

Kaladin’s getting more used to being called ‘brightlord’. Not even a twitch.

Ooop, the shadow appeared after the first Pass of the Everstorm. Hmmm.

So the Royal Guard and the Watch are both AWOL – possibly dead, possibly insane, who knows with this different Unmade? Either way, no wonder the wall-guard are listening to this Azure person over anyone else. Their chain of command was thrown into chaos.

I wonder where Aesudan came to the knowledge that the Parshmen were/are Voidbringers. This was after Kholinar lost contact with the rest of the world, and Jasnah didn’t mention anything, so that information must have come from somewhere else.

Huh. Not all of the spren in Kholinar are affected by whatever it is that’s happening to them. It’s not a blanket, immediate AoE, though it could be corruption over time.

Shallan is going to give me some terrible secondhand embarrassment here, I know it.

L o r d

I was right. 'Mortifying' is definitely the correct word for that.

….the highmarshal 'appeared'. Oh, that's not suspicious at all. My money's definitely on Azure being a Nalthian worldhopper at this point, high Alethi rank or no.

So the parade wasn't just a parade, but part of a cult showing and/or ritual – the 'Cult of Moments'. And people might be having scattered visions, or might just be interpreting the changing spren as a sign.

Cultural Note: Alethi addresses for royalty at least follow the English 'your Majesty' → 'your Highness' pattern. Unknown as to others, though I might have missed a 'your Grace' at some point.

Holy shit. No wonder they couldn't call into or out of the city via spanreed, if the voidspren and Fused react to their mere activation like that.

Thank you for your support of Yokska, Shallan. She definitely needed that, and Adolin was apparently too focused to notice (he does have a tendency to tunnel-vision) though he did immediately react.

YES PLEASE FIND OUT MORE ABOUT AZURE AND THE WALL GUARD

Haaaaahahahaha Kaladin knows you did that on purpose omg

Elhokar is actimg more like the king he is now that he's not under the accidental crush of Dalinar casually steamrolling his way into power. Between his social anxiety and getting shoved out of the way in major decision-making, it was easy to misjudge said decision-making skills. (Not that his paranoia helped.)

Ooof. You may be the only one that directly faced an Unmade, Shallan, but still. Please, please skedaddle rather than face an Unmade without backup.

...also you don't want people to know about your Personality Problem. Kaladin's observant enough that he'd probably pick up on how Veil even thinks differently, though he'd already expect a disguise to act in a different manner.

HAH IT IS ISHNAH SHE BROUGHT AS A 'HANDMAIDEN'. Oh man, I wonder how Veil explained that 'their Brightlady' wanted to bring her along on this mission. That skyeel's out of the bag now, though.

And you're casually jumping out of windows now, I see. Well then.

Chapter Sixty-Three – Within the Mirror

ANOTHER MENTION OF AKINAH IN AIMIA, and this time by a Willshaper! Interesting. The mention of maps just makes me sob over Eshonai and my (now reluctantly abandoned) theory that she'd make a good Willshaper.

It's likely the trapped spren that power the fabrials somehow drawing the voidspren when they activate, so yeah, Surges wouldn't grab their attention in the same way.

Huh. Veil automatically thinks of Kaladin as 'the bridgeboy'. That's…. hmm. Adolin and Kaladin have become close enough that those nicknames they use don't feel derogatory anymore, but when Veil uses it it still feels… Not Good.

[winces] Looks like even proximity to the palace complex is having an adverse effect on those nearby, if the guards in the city manses are anything to go by. How close does the area of effect extend, I wonder…?

'She left the park as Veil playing a part. … She was still Veil. Merely in disguise.” Every chapter we get with Shallan fading to the back of her own mind, the other personalities seem to grow more… solid.

The cultists are putting a sort of guard on the Oathgate? Or are they basically doing so for the palace entire? If the Unmade has a hand in the whole spren-cult, then they're much more dangerous than any of the Strike Team first assumed. Considering that there's screams coming from the direction of a fire on the platform they guard? I wouldn't put it past them to be burning “prayers” in the form of people.

[winces again] Shallan. Bringing up the Boots Incident is not the way to endear yourself to Kaladin – quite the opposite, in fact.

…really, Veil? Really? You're eyeing up Kaladin during a mission? Not that he isn't Canonically Gorgeous, but I'm rolling with laughter here over 'dangerous eyes'. She's seeing the stone shell and nothing of the marshmallow insides. (And you think Adolin is bland? H e r alds, Veil, for all your powers of observation, they seem remarkably restrained to the superficial.) Also, Kaladin glaring at you? Not a good reaction. That's reminding me of the satisfaction you felt at the resolution of the Boots Scene, as opposed to his takeway from that same scene of 'Lighteyes take what they want from people without care or consideration.'

Ooo, shit, the Unmade-spren might have some sort of reality-warping influence, or at least some way to twist anything visual.

Veil is absolutely as foolhardy as Shallan, you're just deluding yourself.

WELL THEN. So much for not killing the messenger?

Are the guards inside all being mind-controlled? Or are they dead and reanimated? I wouldn't put it past Odium to zombify people. And what was that figure in the mirror, white-eyed and surprised? A spren, a human?

She's getting better all the time at her infiltration and distraction skills, but her coping mechanisms just keep bottling emotions and reality away deeper and deeper.  Sooner or later, this is going to explode, and it's going to be messy.

The pun duo strikes again.

[graveyardari97]

I need this a whole sperate post.

[https://minority-media.tumblr.com/post/165119573343/life-is-strange-bury-your-gays-and-bullshit] -read this last night.

THIS RIGHT HERE BASICALLY SUMMERIZES HOW I FELT ABOUT THE ENDING OF THIS GAME AND WHY IT DESTROYS ME ON SO MANY LEVELS!

I didn’t even know what Life is Strange was until I saw video compilation of all the worse bury your gays. I didn’t even know that was an actually trope till I show it. I was just coming off the episode where they killed off Lexa I was so sad and pissed at the same time because I recently talked about how good the show was with how they were making the Clexa relationship but that even up in flames hella fucking quickly and I stopped watching. I tried to keep watching for the other actors I liked but I couldn’t do it then I think three episode later they kill off Lincoln a black man.

Anyways, in a way, Pricefield/Amberpice/Amberpricefield kinda mirrors Clexa in a way. The two medias gives us a strong relationship between two of the main leading ladies takes their time for you to love them as individual characters and then as a couple.

To later be like all this time and effort we put into this relationship was basically for shock vault it meant nothing here’s a relationship that’s drier than my hair!

Like, how many times do you want me to kill Chloe fucking game!? There was only two choice I didn’t think twice about and that was kissing Chloe and sacrificing the town! The whole game never gave me any reason to like the town. So, why make the right ending being the one where Chloe is dead?!

And another thing, people who think you’re a terrible person for nuking a whole town that didn’t give a fuck about the character we play gets me so mad.

I made a post a while ago talking about it and it will still piss me off. I don’t know much about the writing process in video game storyboarding but as an armature fanfiction writer, I thought of five different ways this could’ve played out.

Max could’ve re-winded back to the bathroom stopped Chloe from going in. She could have gone back to early in the game and warn people of the storm [sure people will think she’s crazy but there are beached whales] Chloe could’ve texted Max back in the BtS timeline “I’m having a shit day and mom’s got a shitty boyfriend that doesn’t like me. I want to hear your voice” IDK!

I am only 19-years-old and I could come up with a better story than the train wreck that Life is Strange is oh wait I already have!

I admit that I am a shit writer but a number of people that have read my original stories and liked it. Makes me really want to adapt my stories into a TV show. Shameless plug of my own story.

The war between hunters and supernaturals has been going on for years however the newer generation has brought this century long conflict all new sorts of drama. Follow the life of Ashley Kimaru and her group of friends as they fight off her ex-girlfriend who is hell-bent on ridding the world of these demons.

Does that sound interesting to you? If not the whole group of friends are in the LGBT+ and has/have dated one another and still make jokes about it daily. Here’s a something I wrote.

A twelve-year-old Ashley was sitting on the edge of the roof eating Sea Salt Ice Cream. It was the anniversary of the death of her parents, she was doing everything she could to avoid class.

“Hey what are you doing up?” asked young Jade.

Ashley looked up at her friend. “It’s that day. I can’t believe it’s been that long.” said young Ashley bringing her knees to her chest.

Jade confused. “What the hell are you going on about?” asked Jade.

Ashley sighs. “My parent’s death,” said Ashley.

Jade fumbles. “Oh, right I forgot. I’m sorry,” said Jade.

Ashley smiled at her best friend. “It’s not your fault,” said Ashley.

“I was wondering where my girlfriend when off too. Hey, babe you okay?” asked young Kylee.

Ashley shrugs “Hey K. I’m okay I guess.” said Ashley.

Jade not having any of this. “No, she’s not. It’s the day her parents were killed so she’s up here sulking,” said Jade.

Kylee frowns. “C'mon Ashley I don’t like seeing you sad,” said Kylee.

Ashley chocks back tears.“Sorry….I just can’t get his face out of my head,” said Ashley.

Jade sits next to her best friend letting her lean her head on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault! Listen to me you were only three. You couldn’t have done anything about it. Your parents would be proud of you now. The leader of a pack.” said Jade.

Ashley giggles. “You always know how to cheer me up, Kyuubi!” said  Ashley.

Jade nugs Ashley’s shoulder playfully. “Heh-heh it’s my job to cheer you up, Tanuki. If I can’t then who can?” said Jade.

Passing Jade a popsicle stick. “I’ll have to remember that. Hey, I got you this,” said Ashley.

Jade’s eyes lit up“Holy! You got me Sea Salt Ice Cream!?” asked Jade

Ashley grinned. “I know how much you wanted to try it. I bought it for you,” said Ashley

A bit hurt that her girlfriend didn’t think about her. “What I don’t get one?” asked Kylee.

Ashley gives her an apologetic look. “Sorry, I only bought one for Jade because she’s asked me to make her one,” said Ashley.

Kylee frowns. “Oh, okay then,” said Kylee.

Kylee stood there watching as her girlfriend was sitting there laughing with her ex-girlfriend. The two of them have known each other ever since they were kids. Jade met Ashley’s parents they were good friends after all. Sitting there listening to the stories about the adventures that Ashley and Jade had before and after the tragic event was making Kylee jealous.

Jade laughed recounting a remember. “You remember when you got stuck in that tree?” asked Jade

Ashley groans. “How could I forget? You had to run home to get my mom. I was so terrified of falling.” said Ashley.

Jade nodded. “Yeah, when I burst through the door mom thought you were really hurt. She ran out the house faster than I could keep up,” said Jade.

Ashley smiled. “She worried about me. When we got home that day she wanted me to remind you that she thanks you,” said Ashley.

Jade lean against Ashley. “I couldn’t let my best friend stay stuck in a tree. Besides dad would’ve kicked my ass,” said Jade.

Ashley grinned “Yeah, my dad would’ve been pissed if he heard you left me out to dry.” Ashley laughed.

Kylee looked at her girlfriend confused. “Wait, you call Ashley’s parents mom and dad too?” asked Kylee.

Jade nodded. “We’ve been friends since we were babies and our parents were friends too. So, it was like we had another set of parents,” said Jade.

Kylee side glared Jade.“Oh, so you two were really close huh?” asked Kylee in a bitter tone.

Ashley smirked. “Heh-heh-heh that’s an understatement. Jade was my first girlfriend.  My mom thought were going to get married.” said Ashley.

“Kylee shocked by this nearly falling off the roof. “What?!” asked Kylee.

Jade sighed. “After the death of her parents. Everything wasn’t the same anymore. I tried my best to keep her together but it wasn’t working out. So, we ended things.” said  Jade.

Ashley hit her head on Jade’s shoulder “Jade, I’m sorry I didn’t call for a while after that. I was so depressed with life,” said Ashley.

Jade wrapped her arm around Ashley. “Don’t worry about it Tanuki! I know you didn’t mean to cut me out of your life,” said Jade.

Ashley smiled up at Jade.“See this is why I love you so much! You always know how to cheer me up.” said Ashley.

Jade leaned her forehead against Ashley’s. “It comes with the job description. Best friends are there to cheer one another up.” chuckled Jade.

Ashley closed her eyes. “I’ll have to remember that next time,” said Ashley.

Jade kisses Ashley’s forehead.“See you don’t have to be depressed on this day,” said Jade.

Ashley smiled. “Thanks, Kyuubi,” said Ashley.

Jade shifted her weight. “Hey, I know what will cheer you up!” said Jade.

Ashley’s ears perk up. “You mean?”

Jade grinned. “Yup! Happy birthday,” said Jade as she handed Ashley a CD case.

“You did!” freaked Ashley.

Jade stuck her tongue out at Ashley with a wink. “Look at the back,” said Jade as Ashley flipped the case to the back as she gave Jade the biggest hug ever.

Kylee feeling left out. “What did she just give you?” asked Kylee.

“I got her the “Wicked” soundtrack and it’s signed Idina Menzel,” said Jade

Ashley smiled that her face hurt. “You’re the greatest, Jade!” said Ashley.

Jade shrug sheepishly. “You want to start playing it?” asked Jade

Ashley snapped her fingers. “You wanna sing “For Good” with me?” asked Ashley.

Jade nodded. “If I get to be Glinda,” said Jade

Ashley give her friend that look that said are you really gunna ask that. “Always,” said Ashley.

“I’ve heard said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing we must learn and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them. And we help in return. Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true but I know I’m who I am today because I knew you. Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood. Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better but because I knew you. I have been changed for good.” sang Jade

“It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime. So, let me say before we part: So much of me is made of what I learned from you. You’ll be with me like a handprint on my heart. And now whatever way our stories end I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend. Like a ship blown from it’s mooring By a wind off the sea. Like a seed dropped by a skybird In a distant wood. Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better But because I knew you.” sang Ashley

The two of them started singing the song as Kylee watched. Sitting there in complete and utter jealousy because she doesn’t know anything about Ashley or even Jade for that matter. It was that day everything went down hill for the three young girls.

I still think I’m a shit writer but I have been told otherwise. I don’t know I would love to know what you think.

Here’s to hoping one day maybe I do get this greenlit. I’m just tired of all the queerbaiting and guilt tripping these story writers are doing. They do not know what type of damage they are putting us through. I still find myself crying over Lexa’s death. And I keep thinking how sacrificing Chloe is the “good” ending of the game despite everything that Max is.

This isn’t about some fictional character dying! No, this is about how showrunners and whatever other people that want to make a story use us as shock value. It isn’t fair that there is a trope that is called burying your gays it isn’t fair that we are not looked at as being part of the fandom! Yeah, I’m looking at you Supergirl cast that mocked Supercorp and I don’t even watch Supergirl! I just want to see my story, my life being just as important as heterosexual ships. And it feels like we’re always fighting a losing a battle because people fail to see why we are so hurt.  

Dammit….now I made myself cry. I guess I’ve been holding onto that thought for a while now. It shouldn’t hurt this bad just because I’m gay. I shouldn’t have to fight to see people like me in media happy. This is the result of this trope having me yelling at my computer screen at 11:34 PM.

I just….can’t. Well, that’s my rant for today. I’m gunna get back to writing about my happy gay characters

Being gay shouldn’t hurt this much.

[s-asuke]

SasuSaku Month 2017 - Day 3 - Chemistry

SasuSaku Month 2017 – Day 3 – Chemistry AU in which the Hyuuga were somehow infected / harmed by Kaguya and their Byakugan is weakened. Yuuno Hyuga is an OC. I think Bout this becoming a multi-chap story. If you would like it to become one, send me a request, PM or just simply reply to this post!! Feedback is love!! Warnings: mild nsfw (Sasu's thirsty ass is my thirsty ass ok) "Sometimes you just gotta relax, yeah? And we have so many missions lately, so just being at the onsen with you, Sai and Sakura-chan would be ideal, watcha think?" His favorite moron was waing four golden-lined cards at him, his Sharingan nearly wanting to shoot a few black flames at the annoying cards. Ah, destiny was so cruel. Naruto Uzumaki just told him that the Rokudaime has ordered Sasuke, and the rest of the Team 7, to go to hot springs and relax. Fucking impossible, Sasuke ponders, all the while staring at the jelly he was supposed to eat. "C'mooon, teme, it would be pretty good for us! We haven't had a vacation since the war!" Sasuke doesn't say anything to the comment that jabs his heart. "Naruto, don't be an idiot. We have a lot of work. And just because I healed Neji, and the main family does not mean we can lay back and relax!" Naruto's cheerful expression visibly falls, but gets back up quick, not minding Sasuke's stern demeanor. His strict, grayish eyes, color watered down by tiredness, stare at the blue, whose are nearly scared? Sasuke softens, recognizing the fear that Naruto's orbs held – the aftermath of war was almost as terrifying as the war itself. Kaguya cast a rather potent jutsu that manifested quickly – a month after the war. Only Byakugan users were in danger – and so it seemed only a Sharingan could heal them. Which made Sasuke get out of the prison pronto, since not even Tsunade could heal this one. Their discovery of his possibly life-saving kekkei genkai was made with a help of the most revolting person. Orochimaru edo-tenseied Madara Uchiha, the only Uchiha privy to all nooks and crannies of any doujutsu. The man had a few exausting, snarky and sarcastic sessions with Sasuke – having only heard of the issue in legends and myths of his clan. At last with much bitching (they just had to summon Hashirama so he'd calm the man down, he didn't hear the end of it) Sasuke was explained with much emotional pain from Madara's side how the only special ability he had ever seen to a Mangekyou Sharingan were the ones the user could develop aside the original three; ones like Kamui and his younger brother Izuna's Healing eye, which could heal and nurture any kind of disability and disease. The only irony laying in the predicament of him not being able to heal himself. Madara said that on a whim, it could cause people to even lose memory, and since those abilities were all passed down to Sasuke by blood. Madara was very well acquainted with what Sasuke could do (he seen it in war and he had a peek at the family tree). "Hmph." The rowdy haired man would note, Sharingan passing over the scrolls. "What," Sasuke became rather impatient as of now. "It says here, that you are related to Obito Uchiha." "And?" Sasuke hides his annoyance by the fact. "That means you are related to me, too." Dead serious, Madara waits for a reaction from the younger Uchiha. "His grandmother was my illegitimate daughter. I didn't know she existed until I met Obito. And that, Sasuke, means," he traces the line that intwines with other Uchiha, passes crossings and other details until it lands on Fugaku Uchiha, "that you are my great-great-great, many greats, grandchild. Did someone from the clan continue with a specific powerful Mangekyou Sharingan?" Sasuke answers quickly, leaving no room for any remark,"Father had a Mangekyou. He was hiding it, so the clan wouldn't force him to use it to control the Kyuubi." "Only a weak leader would allow his followers to dictate him. That's straight-out moronic." Ignoring Madara and his own clear bout of rage, Sasuke continues. "There was also Shisui of the Teleportation, he had an amazing Body Flicker Tehnique, and only Ita- my brother could match him in genjutsu. He also had a particular tehnique which he had done with his Mangekyou, Kotoamatsukami, he could manipulate a person's mind and make it seem as if the decisions he would implant in their brain were their own. My brother had a Mangekyou, and had extraordinary abilities even as a young boy. That's all." "Ooh. Would you look at that; Shisui was Kagami's boy. I bet that he inherited the Amatsukami from him. Or a variation thereof. It doesn't matter, even if the kid would be interesting to fight," Madara muses, fingers languidly passing the scrolls, ignoring Sasuke's questioning gaze. "Is your brother the one who slaughtered the entire clan with Obito's help and joined Akatsuki?"asks without raising his head from the scroll. "Aa." Sasuke's dry remark doesn't put Madara off, and Sasuke was prepared to talk about uncomfortable things. "Interesting." It's silent for a bit, and then he asks something very weird. "What about your mother? Mikoto Uchiha? Did she awaken her Mangekyou?" "Hn. I have no knowledge of such a thing." "I suspect that she has." "And how did you come to such a conclusion?" Sasuke is sceptic, but Madara mentions nothing of it. "This person, Naori Uchiha, is related to her through here, and she also has the blood of my mother's sister. My mother had a great fighting power, and I even suspect she has awakened her Mangekyou before me. Your mother had a healing prowess or something?" "Not that I know of." "Very well then. I am about to teach you a very taxing healing technique, assuming that Orochimaru has taken my eyes post-war." "How can you assume such a thing?" "It's too great of a power for him to possess, at this point. He has my Rinnegan, probably both. Since they have mutated and I am dead, I have no use for them. You will absorb them rather simply: like you do jutsu. Then come back here since we have no time to waste." "Sasuke. I am... grateful. You know I am. But..." "Ugh, fine! I will come!" "Yas! I knew you would admit defeat, 'ttebayo!" Naruto shouts triumphantly, pumping his fist in the air, shoving Sasuke sideways in the process. "HEY! NARUTO!" "Heh, heh, sorry, Sasuke..." "You will be!" = It's a lonely night, as always, in the small complex Sasuke lives in. He is plagued by thoughts – a thing far more terrifying than any jutsu. Breathes in. Out. In again. Numerous times just thinking about the action... and the house feels vastly big and lonely... Somebody's voice he wishes to hear, somebody's heartbeat he wants to sleep on... he despises himself for it, but his dreams just aren't safe when he doesn't sense another person breathing, fighting, yielding, relaxing, dreaming, sighing, saying, 'Sasuke-kun, did you put away the food? The bread will go stale if you don't...', voice like a ring, small and everpresent, orbiting around him like a navigated fireball, the kind his mother liked to show him and Itachi when they were kids. "Sasuke Uchiha-san." From his sofa in the living room, he can hear them: two ex-ANBU, now Jounin, looking to take him to the Hokage's. He doesn't expect himself to be so fast as he readied his clothes and his headband, a wave of nostalgia shooting through him as his chakra flares. They are there quickly – Kakashi's silent and tired silhouette welcoming them wearily, Sasuke finding the literal sunshine emanating off the people awaiting annoying. And, well, endearing. Sakura's pink, now slightly longer hair that is the lead role in his wildest dreams and nightmares is in a braid, the toned muscle she has covered by a thin summer dress, no trace of her headband. The summer dress was so light and tight, it made him want to sallivate. "Here he is, all ready for a mission. Didn't I tell you we might have some problems with him, Kakashi-sensei?" "Well you must have mentioned," the silver-haired Hatake smirks underneath the mask, favoring the presence of his former students plus Sai. Naruto's comments are only natural to Sasuke, so he gives no reaction. "Naruto, this is a mission, after all. A mission of you four relaxing!" Good-naturedly putting his hands on his hips as he stands up from his chair, Kakashi looks over each of them. "Sai doesn't even know what the word vacation means... Sasuke thinks it's a tropical animal probably. God knows you need one, Sakura... and as for you, Naruto..." trailing off, as if not knowing whether he is finding a good word or not, he coughs up a bile,"we all know you deserve one." "Hurrah!" Loud exclamating of the blonde moron positively burst Sasuke's eardrums, he wonders what did he do to deserve this. But, in a second, he doesn't like the answer to the question. "Sakura-chan, Sai, Sasuke! Let's go to the hot baths and have a vacation like never before!" = Somehow, Sasuke is content. The futons they sleep on in the beautifully furnished inn are warm and comfortable, and he only remembers that the comfort of his own bed could rival it. So why does he fucking avoid it like plague? Because he is already plagued. Shit got real the night he finally realized that Sakura's hair is the softest fucking thing, that she reads him like a book, knowing how he breathes, all the things he hates (there's too many), how he doesn't like to eat ramen if it isn't with Dobe, or her. How he can't tolerate his eyes being nearly boiled out of his skull while Hyuga fucking Yuuno is worried about her ponytail. The utmost respect and damn near adoration for her skill and passion for medical ninjutsu, loyalty to the quite annoying person who has taught it to her, and all the nights he would make his small patrols to find her under the light of a candle, reading yet another scroll on headaches and how to remedy those caused by Rinnegan of all things, and it's their little secret. There is the second type of plague. When he can't stop thinking about how warm her eyes are, and how aflame they would be if he just sucked on her most secret place, there, in the crook of her inner things, and he would sigh, because she'd be all warm and wet and- Crap. He earned himself a hard-on. He thought of her as a specific kind of medication one couldn't take a little more than just prescribed, because if they did – he would be addicted. Like the heady scent of chemicals – so inviting, but capable of doom. He would take not the prescribed amount – he would take so much his doctor would scream at him to stop. And he would like to make her scream soon.

[fellythealphaskeleton]

“I’m doing this for me!”

[In which Felly breaks the news to his brothers he’s going to war]

SHARKY

 [He's sitting on the couch again with the bean, playing one of his favorite games. He might not be entirely into it, but he's making sure Jellie is getting all the credit and taking down anyone in the game who gets in the way of that.]

JELLIE

[*he's doing way better than he normally does. having sharky with him must make him lucky]

FELLY

[Felly ports back into the livingroom.] [Still wearing the helmet]

SHARKY

[He glances over, and quirks a brow at the helmet. He hasn't seen that before.] "heh, did moldy give you a new addition to your armor?"

FELLY

[Carefully, he removes the helmet] [He's smiling, but there's a bit of a serious tone to his expression] Yeah. I guess he did. [He studied the details on the item for the first time] [Certainly scary looking] I'll be wearing it into war soon. [Absoutely no icebreaker to this. But at the same time, he's saying rather calmly]

JELLIE

[*the controller is dropped. he hasn't looked over yet, but he just can't wrapped his mind around what happened, and his chest just feels tight] * *what?

SHARKY

[It's spoken so casually, Sharky actually almost missed it. He was even watching Jellie for a second or two when Jellie's reaction made him realize what he heard. But rather than shock, he let out a laugh. Placing a hand on Jellie's head.] "you and the other guards practicing or something..? i did hear of there being this game, i think, that supposedly helps with training. and that it gets pretty intense.""i mean i say 'game' but it's suppose to be a legit training technique."

FELLY

...Um. No. [He stands a little more properly facing them. They were seemingly done with the game anyways] It's... the real thing. There's a battling coming up and... [He passes the helmet forward for one of them to take] I'll be taking part.

JELLIE

[*you can't really face him, because now he's just going to cling to felly via short cut. he's you're helmet now.] *NO!

FELLY

[sdfghj] [Trying to peel the bean off his face] BRat!!

SHARKY

[Sharky's eyes settled on the helmet, and something in his visage fell. He doesn't take the helmet. Nor stop Jellie. It's awhile before his eyes finally look up at Felly and he mirror's the beans question.] "what?"

JELLIE

[*he's going to do his best to stay there]

FELLY

[No. Sorry kid. You get peeled off. Felly plops the boy down to his feet] Kinda hoped you two would of took it better than this,

JELLIE

[*he'll just attach to your leg then, fuck you] *NO!!

SHARKY

[He's still sitting down. Processing. Actually... He's probably a little too 'calm'. He smooths a hand over his face with the fingers of his other hand are tapping at his knees.] "'better'?" [There's a bite to his words he didn't mean to portray.] "what would of been better, a parade?"

FELLY

No, but- [Gestures at the brat screaming 'no' while glued to his leg] Look! It's not like I'll be fighting some soulled up god with a butter knife! ....None of this should be a surprise anyways! What did you think the guard is for- any guard?

SHARKY

"guarding and protecting civillains from other monster assholes!" [Finally he rises to his feet and faces Felly.] "not go to fucking WAR when they just barely broken in their armor!"

FELLY

The guard in Fiends timeline are already on the surface. This is protecting 'civillains from other monster assholes'. [He's trying to not to argue. And he told himself, he was expecting this sort of reaction] [Felly takes a breath] I'll be with Sleazy the whole time. But I need to prove I can do more than stand around and play security guard.

SHARKY

[He's trying to calm down, and he is. But this was just another rock among many others that was finally going to start an avalanche. All he can manage right now is a deep breath himself.] "these. are fucking. humans." [Another breath.] "they're not like monsters. we lost the war thousand of years ago, and now you're going to go fight another one?!"

JELLIE

[*he's not going to calm down. he has no reason to because this is the worst. there's unashamed tears] *I DON'T WANT YOU TO GO FIGHT HUMANS! THEY'RE THE WORST!

FELLY

These humans can't reset thats the difference! [Words aimed at the both of them] ...I can do this. I know I can.

JELLIE

[*he's just so scared, he's already lost to humans, he doesn't want to lose more. especially not someone important like felly. so crying against his leg seems to be the only way to go]

SHARKY

"NO YOU CAN'T!" [The words explode out of his mouth, and like a top shot off, the rest are following in hot pursuit.] "you've nearly gotten yourself killed, you've lost fights more than you've won 'em! you rush into things without thinking them through, you put yourself in danger, you lose your goddamn temper over stupid shit, you-" [He stops suddenly, frozen. Realizing what he just said.]

FELLY

[His eyes hollowed out, staring in disbelief at Sharky] [Those words. Those painstakingly honest words cut him deeply] [Nearly, he felt the same way with Sleazy just moments prior.] [He didn’t think he was ready either. But the opportunity, the chance to prove himself was still given.] [And he knew Jellie would either be completely against him leaving, or absolutely on his side. Although it was the former, it wasn’t anything some reassurances couldn’t ease. Hopefully.] [But Sharky.] [Was that what he really thought? Was Felly just that incapable in his eyes? That irresponsible? That incompetent?] [His expression had been at the very least relaxed before. Open to criticisms.] [But now it’s turned to stone]

I’m going.

[He said, cutting the silence] I’ve already made the commitment. I don’t need your approval.

SHARKY

[The silence cut deeper than the words did. He hadn't glanced up after his explosion because he couldn't bring himself to. He didn't dare see the look on Felly's face. But even if it did, the words still sent a shudder of fear through him. Made a prick of coldness enter through his chest, and have it spread.]

"fuji...."

[Now his voice is quiet.] "i didn't... i didn't mean that..." "but please... don't go..."

FELLY

No. You just didn't mean to say it out loud. [He peels the brat off one last time] ...I'm going out for some air.

JELLIE [*he makes an attempt to grab for him with such desperation that you'd think that he was leaving for the war right then and there] * NO! DON'T GO!

SHARKY

[If Jellie slows him down, that helps Sharky from stopping him himself, but he's still gonna take a step forward. Finally he's glanced up off the floor.] "wait!" [The words stung, because in a lot of ways, Felly wasn't wrong. But that wasn't it.] "that's not... that's not true, it's just..." [For once, words are failing him. And panic is beating away at him.] "....you don't have to prove anything, you know?? you don't have to do this!"

FELLY

Don't you think I WANT to stay?! [Felly hissed at his elder, this close to kicking off his younger] THAT would be the smart thing, wouldn't? I know I never fought in a war before! I know I never killed a human (permanently)! I FUCKING KNOW MY TRACK RECORD! MY WEAKNESSES AND HOW MANY OF THEM I HAVE [His fists clenched tightly at his sides, he slams a fist into his chest plate] I'M DOING THIS FOR ME. 

 I NEED TO DO THIS. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE HUMAN SHOWS UP HERE SHARKY- WHATS MY TASK THEN? STAY THE FUCK OUT THE WAY WHILE YOU HANDLE IT. 

WHEN THERE'S A RESET. OR A CURSE. OR SOMEONE JUST FUCKING SOMEONE ELSE UP- WHERE AM I? WHY IS IT I ONLY HAVE AN IMPACT ON OTHERS WHEN SOMETHING WRONG IS HAPPENING? 

AT LEAST THERE, AT LEAST IN THAT WAR, I'M DOING SOMETHING. ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING. THE ONLY FUCKING FUCKING THING I KNOW HOW TO DO. AND IT'LL HELP MONSTERS.

SHARKY

[He steps back. It was his turn to have his sockets to go hollow. Staring hard at the floor as hands clenched into fists. But it's not because he's angry.] "....i know." [The words are said with a good deal of effort. It's hard to speak when your fangs want to clench so hard. When you had to admit something you didn't want to admit. But those words hit him harder than anything. And anything Sharky could of said tumbled away with every word spoken.] "you're.... you're right... you're right." [A hand shakily raises to press at a socket, then smooth over his skull again. Settling behind his neck.]

"...i'm sorry."

[He repeats.] "i. didn't. mean what i said. not like that. please, please believe me, not like that..." "i know... you're not going to back out. and i don't want you to go. and... i know this was something you were going to have to do. but i just wish it didn't have to be this soon. i think you could at least maybe wait until you were better prepared, or... something! i barely even know sleazy and i'm suppose to t-trust he'll have your back?!" [He takes in a shaky breath. Holds it for three seconds.] ".....it doesn't matter what i say. i know you're not going to back out of the war. but... please..."

"don't go mad at me."

FELLY

[i'm sorry] [Slowly. The anger gave way to something else. Something that ached.] [His shoulders untensed as those final few words struck him] ...i... [He didn't want that. No one wanted that.] [Tiredly, he rubbed a hand over his sockets] [Feeling tinges of regret for losing his temper like that- even if it did get his point across] ....okay. [His hand lowers. Not stone, not calm, but a simple tired and saddened expression left on his face] [He knew he was being difficult. He wished he wasn't.  He wished he could be simple and make less trouble- but then it wouldn't be him anymore, would it?]

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

SHARKY

"........" [Wordlessly he goes over to pick up Jellie. Holding the bean close to him. Once he has him, though, he makes the remainder of the way to his other brother.] [He's going to hug him to him. Jellie trapped between them both. Even if both their expressions are grim. Especially because of that. And the grip Sharky has on Felly, while it's only with one arm, is strong and fearful at the same time. Not wanting to let go.] "don't be sorry. be careful. be safe.

okay?"

[His voice was unnaturally small, and he swallows.] "don't... don't do anything i wouldn't do. it's a war, but not everyone has to die. do... do only what you need to..."

FELLY

[He hugs Sharky back tightly, stretching an arm around the kid as well] [He could only nod in agreement] [He'll have to make this all up to them some day.]

[rizzizzsins-blog]

From the Ashes, Ch. 4

Wanna read this on Archive? Click here.

 “Right. Th-thank you. We’ll be on our way.” *click*

 “Who was that, Fi?”

 The King of Underfell hid his irritation at being woken at 3 AM. It was part and parcel of being an active king, but it was also endlessly frustrating, considering its frequency.

 “Fi?” He asked. “Where are we going at this hour? Those vulture bureaucrats can wait till tomorrow.”

 She slowly shook her head, hands trembling as she turned around.

 The expression on his wife’s face was one he hadn’t seen since their children had died. As soon as she put the house phone down, she tossed her cell and wallet into her purse.

 “Fi, it’s 3 in the morning. What happened?”

 Nope. His wife was in a state of shock. She wasn’t going to tell him anything like that. Deep breaths, he reminded himself. Don’t get worked up. Don’t scare her off again.

 “Fafriel. What happened.”

 Nothing.

 Before, he would have raised his voice until she answered him, but he knew better. A hundred years or so of separation had taught him that.

 “I’ll call the babysitter.”

  Beep…. Beep…. Beep……

 What was that annoying beeping sound? Asher reached to turn his alarm clock off, but his arm wouldn’t move.

 He wasn’t in his house.

 What had happened?

 All at once, the memories hit him. The excruciating pain in his body started at his arm and spread like wildfire. He involuntarily screamed and a clearly inexperienced and shaken nurse dashed in, yelling into a walkie-talkie.

 “He’s alive! Oh, gods, it’s a miracle, he’s alive!”

 Something was blocking his view of her face… something reflective.

 The mask and the glass surrounding him told him that he’d been tanked in liquid  magic to keep him stable. It really had been as horrible as his mind told him.

 “Hello? Ms. Samara? Can you speak?”

 He managed to croak his name.

 “Asher. I’m really sorry! Can you tell me what day it is?”

 “__/__/____.”

 “That’s a g-good sign. I’ll be taking care of you for now… Dr. Dreemurr is in a meeting with the other Royal Families.”

 Wait, Dr. Dreemurr was a queen? Jeez, being a glen monster really left him out of the loop on stuff. Considering he always saw them on the news, he really should have made the connection earlier.

 His stomach flipped.

 “G-gonna puke,” he managed.

 “G-go ahead, Mr. Asher. The tube attached to your mask will drain it away then self clean.”

 The feeling of vomit sitting against his mouth made him want to die, but the nurse hadn’t lied. It was gone in seconds.

 “It’s q-quite a handy machine. If the sensors find more fluid buildup in your lungs, th-the tube will get rid of that, as well as any sap you might cough up.”

 Now that Asher’s eyes were a little more in focus, he took a look at the nurse. She was a lizard monster, hunched over and anxious. He would be too, but he was too numb. Too drugged out on whatever the hospital put him on.

 He felt the steady pressure of liquid painkiller osmosing through another tube suctioned to his arm. It certainly beat needles.

 “How’s y-your pain level?”

 “Z.”

 “Th-that’s not a number.”

 “I know…. Just messing with you,” Asher attempted to smile, but his muscles weren’t doing it right. He could feel it.

 “I’m g-glad you’re feeling okay enough to joke. That’s always a g-good sign in a patient. Your vitals are gobbledygook, but steady, in their own off-kilter way. Dr. Dreemurr will be in soon. In the meantime, Dr. Clemm will be in to keep you company.”

 Clemm? His professor? Was he tripping, or did she just say his teacher was coming into his room?          “Why?”

 “Oh, you didn’t know? Dr. Clemm teaches classes at your school, but he’s also a trained emergency response trauma psychiatrist and counselor. I h-hope it’s not too awkward talking to your instructor, but he’s the best guy in t-town, I promise.”

 “I’ll take your word for it.” Every word out of Asher’s mouth hurt his throat. His voice was deeper, phlegmy.

 Knock knock. Speak of the devil.

 “You can come in, Dr. Clemm.”

 “Right. Would you mind opening the door for me, Alphys dear? I have my notepad and phone in my hands.”

 “Oh, of course!”

 She rushed to the door and pulled it open. Another skeleton? Weren’t they supposed to be rare? Why was Asher meeting one every five minutes?

 “.... heh. Fancy meeting you here, Professor.”

 Clemm’s already gentle features softened further at seeing Asher. He must be a right mess.

 “Alphys, if you wouldn’t mind? If something goes wrong, I’ll press the button.”

 “R-right. Confidentiality and all th-that.” the nurse stepped out.

 “So… how’s this for more personal?” Asher chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.

 “You match my younger son to a tee. Always making light of the painful to spare others, I’m sure… but I shouldn’t make assumptions. Yes, Asher, this is certainly more personal than I expected. Now then, you understand your rights as a patient, yes? I cannot, and will not divulge your personal information without your consent, unless I feel that you are going to hurt yourself or someone else.”

 “Thanks, yeah. I briefly went to therapy before.”

 “Excellent. So… let’s talk. It can be about anything you want. It doesn’t even have to relate to what’s happening right now, but you can talk about that if you want to.”

 Asher stiffened.

 “...... Do you have a mirror? I want to see what’s left of me.”

 “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

 “I’m used to not liking what I see. Just show me. No one else will do it and you know it.”

 “...”

 Clemm hadn’t expected to get woken at 3 in the morning, but as soon as he’d gotten the reason why, he’d packed his tools and set off in his car. He hated to admit it, but he could no longer teleport that far.

 He hadn’t been given much information as to the nature of the accident, to prevent it from leaking to human media. All he knew was that it happened in the science building after hours, to a student janitor. There was a pit in his stomach that told him what had occurred; it would explain the surge in his own magic not much earlier.

 There was a stirring in the VOID. And he hoped to the gods that he wouldn’t pull in to pronounce a death.

 Now that student was staring him in the eye with his? Her? Dark grey eyes, their foggy white eyelights piercing into him.

 He couldn’t say no. It wouldn’t be fair.

 “I’ll… go get you a mirror.”

 “Just take a picture and show it to me.” There was an age-old heaviness in the student’s face, as if he had lived for a hundred years. Hesitantly, Clemm took a picture with his phone. He had to retake it a couple of times, no thanks to his trembling hands. The student’s hands trembled in their restraints as well. A bad sign.

 Each step towards the youth felt like a hundred miles. He really, really didn’t want to be the one to do this, but they would be more at risk if they saw themselves with no one to help them process.

 It took Asher’s eyes a couple of seconds to focus onto the picture of him, and when he did, he wished he had never asked.

 He was horrible.

 The moss in his hair was black like broom bristles. His once vibrant yellow eyelights were a muted white, like steam, and his body looked like it’d been left in a forest fire and dipped in an oil spill at the same time. His soul was a marble of black and purple in his chest, and each beat of it hurt him to his core. He looked dead. He should be.

 He wished he was.

 He didn’t realize he was crying, but he felt the water dripping from his eyelids onto his face.

 “I’m... horrible.”

 “Nonsense… you’re----”

 “I look like a fucking corpse, Professor. This is what my people look like when we’re buried in the ground. You don’t have to lie to spare my feelings…. I know the truth.”

 Bingo, Clemm thought.

 “Alright, I’ll have to stop you right there.”

 “What?” Asher asked, confused.

 “Let’s analyze that statement. You say that I don’t have to lie to spare your feelings, because you look like a corpse. But I have never seen a dryad corpse in my life, so I cannot lie to you about something I don’t have any concept of in the first place.”

 “Oh… shit, you’re right.”

 “Now, you know what the corpse of your kind looks like. But the truth is based on fact, and as much as your brain says your opinions are the truth, your perspective is warped by the fact that you just went through one of the most horrible events of your life.”

 “That kind of helps… not much, but a little.”

 Clemm beamed. “That’s what a therapist does. We’re lawyers against the angry voices in your head.”

 That got a chuckle out of Asher.

 “Look, Clemm, I appreciate it a lot, but I’m starting to get really sleepy.”

 “You’ll be out for a couple of days. The tank is putting you to sleep so that all your magic can focus on stabilizing you. I’m glad I got to talk to you a bit before you went out,” the professor smiled. “Don’t worry too much about my class, alright? We can work something out when you’re capable of working again.”

 Asher yawned, nodding. “I appreciate it, Prof. Nighty night.”

 “Goodnight, Asher.”

 Asher gasped himself awake.

 There was some dust on his tank, but not too much. Someone put a sticky note on the front.

 “When you wake up, press the call button.

 -Alphys”

 Would he even be able to? Remembering how much it hurt just to move his hand terrified him.

 Before he knew it, his arm shakily pressed the button.

 P̶̦͕̪͛̏͊r̷̬͓̯͝e̶̺̮̅̀͊s̸͖̯̈͌̄͝s̴̜͌͆̕è̴͚̪̜̱̅̒d̷͚̺̦͗̿̎̉ ̷̡̝̟̥̃̿ṱ̵̯̥̈́͌͛ḥ̵̺͔͍͂͛e̵̢̛͓͙ ̴͉̈́͊̚b̴̗̻̓̂͂͝u̶͙̣̱̬̿̒t̵͕̳̦̯͌̏͊͠t̶͕͓̞͗̕o̸̖̅͒̽ņ̷̣̠͋͝

 ̷͙͕͑̅̚P̵͐̔͜r̷̻͗ë̴̛͕̟́̅̾s̸͓̤͇̮͛̍̒s̶̳̹̮͙̕ę̸̛͇̲̊͑d̸̦̼̒ ̷̫̜̑͜t̸̘̿̽h̵̰͓́̈́̒͝e̶̮͊ ̶̥̥̈̐͆̅ͅb̵̲̮̀̋̎̓ṵ̵͖͂t̶͇̼́̇̀̐t̶̜̎͊o̸̰͉̖̍n̶͓͕͓͗

 ̶̞̼̈́̈́B̷͚̖͚̈́͗͊͗ũ̶̡̳͊t̶̼̤͙̋̊͋ ̴̯̠̗̍n̶͍̼̪͋͌ǒ̴̘b̵̯̍̓́ọ̸̅̕͝ḑ̸̲̲͋͌̎y̴̛̝̦̜̟͑́̕ ̵̯̹̂͊c̵͚͇̰̐̓ä̵̠̥́̈́̌͝m̴̹̮̺͔̈́̓͘ě̵̩̣̣͐

 ̵̤͈̞̲̆B̴̗̱͙͐̽̈́̽ü̶̲̝͇̇͑͘t̷͎̍̆̚ ̴̛̗̤͈͛͌n̸͕̺̱͈̔̀o̷͙̅̕b̴̛̖̒ȯ̶̙̥d̷̦͑̂͝y̸̰͐ ̸̬̓̎͠͠c̸̖̄̇͛a̵͖͇͖͚̒m̴͇̪̟̩̌͛ȅ̴̩͛͝

 ̴͉͓͓̀͘B̷͚̤̞́̐ṷ̶̈̈t̶̨̯̙̓̈́̌ ̷̦͚̪̓͗̃n̵̻̔̏ǒ̶̼͔̉̇b̶͓̲̕o̶̹͖͓͋͊̎d̵̗̓͌̈́́y̴̞͓̝̓̕ ̷̧͔͎̈ͅc̵̳̋̽͛͘a̴͙̥̋̎͆m̸̹̳̌̈́e̶̘̤̽͂

 “A-are you alright, Asher? You’re awake a full day early. Asher? Asher? C-can you see the hand I’m waving in front of you?”

 “Huh? What? Oh… hey, Alphys.”

 “H-hello! I’m glad you were able to press---- move your hand! That’s a g-great sign already. I’m gonna d-drain the tank, and open the hatch. Will you t-try to sit up for me then?”

 Asher managed to nod.

 With a hiss, the liquid magic drained out of the tank, and the hatches opened. With some effort, he sat about halfway up before collapsing.

 “Hey, that’s okay. A-anyone would have trouble after all your body’s been through.”

 Alphys took hold of his shoulders.

 “Let’s try it again, t-together. Ready?”

 “Yeah.”

 With her extra muscle, Asher managed to sit up and stay that way. The tank bent forward like a lawn chair to prop him in place.

 “Your vitals are still making their own kind of sense, but you are alive, you’ve displayed 0% risks of immortality, and your body composition is…. Mostly solid. I’m gonna call in Dr. D-Dreemurr, and she’s gonna talk to you about your opt-options.”

 Options? What the hell did that mean?