#like it’s a very very sad song to write about someone who hasn’t died yet and put it on the album

[persephoneflouwers]

"This reminds me of the fandom’s narrative about ESNY. People are still convinced that song is about losing a family member to a severe disease, even if it was written way before the tragical event happened." could still be about Robin though, they knew he wouldn't make it so even if it was written before he actually passed it would still fit the situation

“It still worked in that case though, because it is a song that a posteriori you would read as a sad song for someone you lost. It’s not the type of song I can imagine someone would write a priori for that reason.”

[kaeyasstarlight]

A Sleeping Beauty(Husband!/Prince!Shoto Todoroki x Wife!/Aurora!Reader)(Royal/Sleeping Beauty AU)

A.N: I hope you will like this scenario and I had fun writing it :D I will probably do more Disney stories like this with other characters and have fun reading! :)

If I made a mistake feel free to tell me! :)

Genre:Fluff

Warnings: Female pronouns(She/Her)

Story Used:"Sleeping Beauty" Disney adaptation

"Daddy! It's time for my bed time story!",your 4 years old kid yells(You can choose a girl,a boy or a non-binary kid).

"I'm coming princess/prince/royal",your husband Shoto responds while smiling at you both's creation.

He thanks you everyday for giving him the most beautiful gift you could have given him, a child of his own.

He goes sit on the bed of his kid and he sees your down expression on your face while you pass in the hallway.

You have been feeling down lately because of work, but you didn't want to show it to your family, but Shoto knows you too well and saw that you were down. An idea pops in his head at this moment.

"Hey Honey? Would like to come listen to the story with us. The one of today is special.", you smile at him

"Of course. I'll go get a blanket and I'm coming."

You then get back with the big blanket and put it on you, Shoto and your kid.

"So, you said that today's story was special?",you look at your husband.

"Yes. I took a story and changed it a bit at my manner."

"I'm excited to see", said your kid with a big grin on their face.

"Ok, so here it is":

Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of (Your Country), was born a beautiful princess named Y/N L/N.

"Just like mommy!", said your kid while cutting Shoto's story.

"Yes just like Mommy, and she was just as beautiful as your mother."

You knew where this was going and a smile popped on your face at his actions.

For the birth of the princess, their parents has organized a big event where all the kingdom and the Kingdom of the king Enji who had just gotten a fourth kid nammed Shoto, was invited. The parents(I made it so it works if you have two moms or two dads), had invited three fairies and they each would give the princess a gift. The first one, Katsuki, gave the princess the gift of beauty. The second one, Tenya, gave the princess the gift of a beautiful voice.

"For now the story works with mommy's description"

"You think so",said Shoto

"Yeah! Mommy is very beautiful and she has a pretty voice when she sings"

"You don't have to say all that",you respond while blushing a bit

"Also the prince has the same name as you daddy"

"Yeah. Imagine the princess and the prince ends up together like me and mommy."

"It would be so cute!"

"Before you continue, does the fairies has the same names as uncle Kacchan and uncle Iida?"

'Yeah, and the third one's name is Izuku just like uncle Midoriya"

"Ohhhhh you can continue"

Shoto continues:

When it was the turn of the third fairy,Izuku, a big amount of smoke appeared. It was the shapeshifter witch Himiko Toga.

"No one invited me to the party? How sad. Well I guess I can also give something to the little girl now that I'm here."

"No! You won't touch her and get her blood you crazy witch!"

"Oh come on! You know I have something better. You didn't invite to the celebration when you know I love parties. You know what? I'm gonna give the princess a gift! She will pick her finger on a spinning wheel on her sixteenth birthday and die!"

"NO!", yelled your parents

Himiko then disapeared in a cloud of smoke. The third fairy hasn't given her gift yet. He decides to give her the gift that instead of dying, she will fall into a deep slumber until someone gives her a true love kiss. The parents of the girl orders that all spinning wheels of the kingdom must be burned and the parents decides to let their daughter live with the fairies in a cottage in the forest.

Many years later, the princess turns into a beautiful and wonderful woman. She doesn't know her parents are the royal family and she thinks she's just a peseant and that Katsuki,Tenya and Izuku educated her after her parents died. It is now Y/N's sixteeth birthday and the fairies wants to organize her a surprise party.

"Y/N? Could you please go gather berries for the dessert tonight?", said Tenya.

"Of course! I'll be back later!"

"And don't forget not talk to strangers!",reminded Katsuki

Y/N left the house and went to go gather the berries in the forest. The girl then decided to go by the river a little while. The animals then gather aroud her. She always had a good relationship with animals and she taught they could understand her.

Meanwhile, the prince Shoto, who has also become a handsome young man, was out with his horse and heard the voice of the girl. He got struck by the beauty of her voice he wanted to know who she was. He tried to follow the voice but on his way, he fell into a pound.

On the side of the river, Y/N is talking with animals about the fact that her godfathers stills treats her like she's a child and she wishes she could meet someone. She then tells them she met someone "Once Upon A Dream". While she tells her dream about her walking with a prince, some of the animals finds the cape,the boots and the hat of the prince and takes them.

(At this part you can listen to the song "Once Upon A Dream" to be more in the ambiance ;) )

The animals acts as the prince of Y/N's dream and dance with her. She is getting directly in the scene and dances with them while pretending she's talking to the prince from her dream. Then at a moment, the real prince Shoto starts to sing. She's surprised at first and tries to go away because he's a stranger. He then tells her: "Don't you remember? You said it yourself, we already met, "Once Upon A Dream"".he then starts to sing again. The princess then gets confidence in him and dances with him like this.

Shoto makes you stand up and puts his hand on your waist. He makes you sway in his arms to slow dance just like the prince with the princess in the story. He starts to sing the song and you get along with it. You both are twirling in your kid's room and having a romantic moment like you never had. Your kid looks at the both of you with amazed eyes and claps at the end of your performance.

"Let's go back to the story shall we?",Shoto says after you both sat down again on the bed.

Y/N invites the young man to meet her godfathers at dinner and he accepts. Meanwhile, at the cottage, the fairies had some trouble to organize the party so they decided to use their magic.

"HUH?! Why the hell would you want to make the dress Blue?! It would obviously be better in Pink!(I can't belive I wrote that haha)",said Katsuki

"Kacchan I was just proposing an idea, but I think that the Blue would be better on Y/N",responded Izuku

"Hell nah! I have way better fashion sense than you damn nerd! She would be so much better in Pink!"

While they were arguying, Tenya was trying to make a cake with no big succes the normal way. With magic, it gave a better result and it looked so delicious. Unfortunately, all the magic that Katsuki, Tenya and Izuku were making was leaving traces and it caught the attention of Himiko's sidekick, Dabi. He hides behind the house and Y/N arrives back home. She tells her godfathers that she has fallen in love, but they don't know it's the prince. They tell her that she's the princess and that she's already engaged to the prince Shoto and they will bring her back to the castle tonight. She goes in her room crying because won't be able to be with the stranger she fell in love with.

Dabi overheard the conversation and went to tell Himiko that the princess would be at the castle tonight.

Meanwhile,the prince tells his father he wants to marry a peseant, which the king Enji is not pleased about.

"SHOTOOO! YOU CAN'T MARRY A PESEANT! YOU'RE ENGAGED TO THE PRINCESS Y/N!"

Shoto didn't care about his father and would go to the dinner at the cottage tonight anyways.

Y/N gets all dressed and ready for her birthday celebration and be with her parents again, but then a glow apears in the room. She follows it by curiosity. The fairies then also see the glow when they come to go get Y/N and try to go as fast as they can to stop her. Unfortunately, they came too late and the beautiful princess was on the floor. Himiko laughs at her victory:

"Hahahaa! I did it! The princess is dead and you came too late!", she disapears and the fairies put the princess in a bed in the highest tower of the castle. They put all the people from the castle in a deep slumber just like Y/N. Before they fell asleep, the king Enji and the parents of Y/N were talking and the fairies understand that the man Y/N fell in love with was the prince. When they go back to the cottage, they realize the prince has already been taken to Himiko's hideout.

"So....", Himiko shows to Shoto his princess in a deep slumber.

"Would you look at that. The beautiful princess you fell in love with has been put in a deep slumber. I think I should let her like this until you become old and raged while she didn't age a bit and you won't be together."

"NO!", Shoto yells.

Y/N was one of the only person Shoto trusted and wanted to be with forever and he was gonna lost her. When Himiko leaves the prince alone, the fairies rescue him and give him a sword and a shield to fight the witch.

Himiko tries to stop Shoto to go in the castle by putting thorns around it, but without succes for her, because the prince breaks them in a sway of his sword. She turns into a big dragon to confront him and the prince fights her furiously. At a moment, he throws the sword into her heart to kill her(I'm sorry TwT I love Toga I didn't want to kill her but it's for the sake of the story TwT).

The prince goes up to the highest tower of the castle and finds his beautiful princess on the bed. He goes closer to her to kiss her on the lips. She wakes up and sees her love smiling at her. They go together in the ballroom and Y/N's parents are glad to see her again after all those years. They all go in a hug and Y/N goes back to her prince and they dance together. While they dance, Katsuki and Izuku are still fighting over the color of the dress.

"I told you Pink, you damn nerd!"

"-_- You know what at this point I won't even try Kacchan."

They then got married a few months later and got many beautiful/handsome childrens.

The end.

"Wow! They ended up together just like you two! It's so cool!", your kid says didn't realizing it was you two all along.

Thanks to Shoto, your sad expression of earlier was long gone.

"It was a beautiful story Sho", you say smiling at him

"I'm glad you both liked it", Shoto responds.

Your kid yawns and you tug them in their bed.

"Goodnight my baby",you say to them.

"Goodnight mommy and daddy,I love you"

"Goodnight", you both say to them.

You peek throught the door to see that they are already asleep.

"So.... Many kids huh?", you say smirking a bit at him.

He also smirks at you and says:"I mean I wouldn't mind giving them a sibling.", he goes closer to you to kiss you on the lips and then rub your arms.

"Would you like to?", he says.

"I wouldn't mind either. You want to start now?", you respond.

He responds to you by smirking.

It's gonna be a long night... ;)

A.N: I hope you enjoyed this story. I had fun writing it and I will probably do more scenarios like this with other characters and stories :)

Have a nice day or night and remember to take care of yourselves! <3 (I'm on my period right now so I try to take care of myself TwT)

You are beautiful and loved! <3

See you soon!

[krabmeat]

I have not written anything in some time - since I took a break from my writing account, actually (now deleted) - so cut me some slack here. I’m gonna format this in the same way that I did my old fics for that jolt of serotonin. So, if you would be so kind to indulge me, this is how I (niceimafan) would have submitted this work on fandoesfictionwriting:

What War Does || (platonic) Father Figure c!Phil x Teen gn!Reader

A/N: This is my submission for the 100 follower milestone of the lovely @/krabmeat! Krabs (Damien today) is an amazing friend of mine and is quite possibly the best human being in the world. (Go follow him if you haven’t already!)

War struggles paired with the classic familial miscommunication, what could be better as a way for me to get back into writing? This takes place around the time of Doomsday, or the final battle/destruction. Also I can’t remember if Wilbur’s room was still there at the time of Doomsday because I have goldfish memory so pretend it was if it wasn’t.

Requested: No

{Word Count: 1,946}

CW: intense arguing, mentions of war, mentions of death, cursing (up to the f-word), caps, use of godforsaken (I don’t know if people get triggered by that? I’m not religious so I wouldn’t know), very brief mention of spit, less than great relationship with father

This is an xreader fic!

This has been proofread. (skimmed rip I don’t like reading my writing)

- In which Y/N and Phil argue about Y/N and their right to participate in Doomsday. -

Phil works away high in the sky, loading cannons with enough TNT to detonate a nation. He, Techno, and Dream have everything planned out; you know because they did all of the planning right in front of you. Meaning you know everything they are going to do, and you aren’t even allowed to be involved.

You avert your eyes from your father and pick mindlessly at some grass instead, feeling the cold breeze of afternoon cool your flaming temper. For a moment, it appears as though everything might be fine, like you could get over this and let the Big War Men do their thing. But then Phil’s boots appear in front of you, and it’s all ruined again.

“You look miserable,” he says. Phil finishes his sentence with an airy laugh, trying to convey that he’s trying to joke with you. And so you make sure that the gaze you shoot him ensures he understands you do not find him humorous. Phil sighs, taking a seat beside you.

“Look, I understand that you want to help. I do! But I also understand that people with a spirit as strong as yours have risen to unimaginable heights, only to crash back down onto the blade of loss. And I fear that you will be no different.” Phil places his hand on your shoulder. “I just want you to be safe.”

You shrug him off, turning your neck so fast to glare at him it leaves a sharp stinging sensation in your movement’s wake. “Safe? You want me to be safe? No one is safe here, and you know that.”

“Y/N, you know-”

“What, Phil? What do I know? Because according to you, it doesn’t seem like a lot.” You stand after that, stomping off in an attempt to clear your mind, hoping Phil won’t follow you. But, of course, he does.

“Y/N, wait.” He shouts, but he makes no move to speed up or stop you. He simply follows along at a distance, saying nothing else. Probably waiting for you to make the first move. But you refuse, you refuse to let him win this and watch you break again.

And so the two of you walk in silence, you with no destination in mind and Phil’s footsteps echoing yours calmly in the distance. All you can do is follow your feet to wherever they find fit for this argument to play out.

To your amusement, you find yourself in Wilbur’s old room. Where he blew up his dreams for the first time and where Phil took the life of his son. How fitting.

You finally come to a stop, taking a brief moment to collect yourself, before spinning around on your heel to address your father. “Ph- Phil?” It does shock you to find that Phil isn’t there. He’s not standing behind you with a small, comforting smile, or with his eyebrows pinched together in a way that lets you know you’re going to be scolded. Nothing.

“You dress like him, you know.” Phil says from behind you. You whirl around again, reaching for your sword on instinct. Phil stands with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out over the soon-to-be battlegrounds.

“What?” It feels like you’ve lost all air in your lungs. Phil doesn’t just say things like that, especially not to you. And of course you know who he’s talking about; Techno doesn’t wear tattered trench coats and Tommy hasn't adorned ripped up fingerless gloves to protect from burns, to your knowledge. But speaking of Wilbur when referring to another child of his in this room in particular hit you in a place you have not yet built walls in.

“Wilbur. You dress like him.” Phil turns around, and you finally see that his eyes are watering. But he still has that sympathetic smile plastered on his face. “Every day, you remind me of him. And in doing so, you remind me that I can not let you turn out the way that Will did.

“Wilbur was changed by war. He destroyed everything he worked for because of it. And for that to happen to you, with such grand dreams and ideas, it would be heartbreaking.” Phil can’t maintain eye contact with you anymore, “I just want you to be everything that Wilbur couldn’t have been.”

You let his words sink in, and as they do, you begin to fight with yourself.

He just wants to help you!

How, by comparing me to his dead son? Yeah, something about that doesn’t feel right.

Just hear him out.

You grit your teeth, balling up and releasing your fingers into and out of fists. “I am not Wilbur.”

Phil shakes his head, rubbing the place where his eyebrows crease together. “I know that, and that’s not what I’m trying to sa-”

“Yes, that is exactly what you just said!” You begin to raise your voice, getting tired of this stupid game you two are playing with each other. Lying about what you’re really talking about to try and avoid the inevitable. “You just compared me to your dead son that went crazy and blew up everyone’s homes! The one that sold drugs out of a damn hot dog van!”

The air around you seemed to heat up as tensions between you two started to rise, Phil clearly getting more angry as well. “You are not Wilbur, but you are my child!”

“Oh, am I? Am I, Philza? And how long have I been your child for, huh? My whole life, a year, a few months, just this past hour? You have been trying and failing to be my father figure because you just see me as some rogue that could get too far out of control unless you’re there. Isn’t that right?”

“No, of course not. I just-”

“No! How could I have not realized? You just want a replacement! Someone to fill the hole that was left in your poor old heart when you stabbed your son through the chest.”

“I love you, Y/N, you don’t understand! You are like a child to me, you always have been! From the moment that I met you, I saw greatness in you. I swear, you mean more to me than just some replacement for Wilbur.”

Tears burn your eyes, the singular one that fell leaving a streak through the gunpowder and dirt smudged on your cheeks. You shake your head and scoff, unable to believe that this is the conversation you are currently stuck in. “Phil, that’s the kind of bullshit that you have to tell yourself in order to sleep at night. But guess what? It doesn’t work on me.”

“It doesn’t have to ‘work on you’, it’s just the truth, Y/N. I don’t know how I can get you to believe me.”

“You can’t, Phil.” You say, trying to ignore the way your voice cracks. “Because I have believed people, and then those people have either died, or tried to kill me, or both. So you know what I did? I grew up, Phil. Because THAT is what war does. 

“It doesn’t make you write sad song lyrics on the walls, it doesn’t make you love your father figure oh so dearly, all it does is make you realize that there is more in this world to deal with than whatever any one person can do. And once you wrap your head around that, you realize that the best you can do is make the smallest of dents, and hope some other people do the same. That is how this world works, Phil.

“And do you know what my dent is going to be?” Phil has blurred by now. Once you blink the tears away, you can see that he’s crying too. Good. Now you’re really on the same page. “Blowing up this godforsaken nation once and for all.”

You turn to walk away again, hopefully for the last time, but Phil actually makes a move to stop you before you can get anywhere. “Y/N, I refuse to allow you to go out there and risk your life for a war already fought.”

“No war is already fought until people are dead.” You snap at him, resisting the urge to spit on his boots. “Besides, I can handle myself, I don’t need you to tell me who I can and can’t fight.”

“Y/N, I am your father!” Phil’s voice practically echoes through the entire SMP as he shouts at you, finally just as mad as you wanted him to be. You’re convinced people on the other side of L’Manberg can hear you two arguing. “Listen to me, you can not risk this.”

“YOU ARE NO FATHER TO ME!” You scream, getting your face as close to Phil’s as possible while still being able to look into both of his eyes. Phil’s eyes widen, whether in pain, shock, or both, you don’t know, but he quickly recovers with a stare solid enough to cut through stone. 

“Do NOT turn this argument to family matters when we are discussing life and death!”

“This is no longer a discussion, dad,” you make sure to add as much venom to the name as possible, “We are not talking this out like a father scolds his young kid about what they can and can not touch in the house. We are screaming, and shouting, and ruining relationships like adults.” You try one more time to walk out. This time you make it down to the ground floor, but Phil follows you yet again, stopping you before you can reach the Prime Path. 

“You aren’t an adult, though.” Phil’s voice is softer now, he sounds like he’s on the verge of defeat. “You’re still a kid. You shouldn’t have to deal with all of this.” 

“I was made an adult because of this damn war over some stupid place, I should be able to fight for it’s destruction like one.” You also stop shouting, but you don’t soften your voice. You keep it as firm as it can be despite your wobbly crying, letting Phil know that you are no longer playing games with him like you used to.

“I know that you could. I do. But that does not mean that you should.”

“Awwe, you really think so?” You feign a high-pitched voice, even clasping your hands together under your chin. “You honestly think that I can handle something more than a boo-boo, huh?”

“You know that I am making no attempt to infantilize you, Y/N. If you’re such an adult, you need to grow up. I do believe that you could fight for us, but I do not see it as wise.”

“Bullshit,” you say again, wiping at your eyes with your sleeve. Phil tries to speak again, but you cut him off. “No. No! No, I don’t want you to tell me over and over about what I can and can’t do. About how you think I could be a good ally to you. I already know that, because I can make my own decisions. 

“Do you know what I do want, Philza? I bet that’s something that your infinitely wise mind can’t think of. All that I want, all that I have wanted for the past SIX. FUCKING. YEARS. Is for you to just take me seriously for once in your damn life!”

Philza stands there in silence, seemingly dumbfounded, and you take this as your chance to stomp off for good. But you know full well that you’ll see Phil tomorrow. On the battlefield.

But you won’t be fighting for him, or Tommy, or Wilbur, or any of them. Tomorrow, you fight for yourself, and you win for yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DUDE WHAT?!?!?! INK THIS IS IMMACULATE HOW IN THE- WHAT THE F-CK THE WAY YOU CAPTURE THE ANGER AND FEELINGS AND HESITATION OF THE ARGUMENT IS SO WELL DONE!! AND THE FLOW OF TRANSITIONING FROM ONE SETTING TO ANOTHER ISNT CLUMPY OR FORCED AT ALL, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL INK! AND THE BUILDUP TO THE QUOTE, THE WAY YOU REALLY EMBODY ALL OF THE CHARACTERS IS SO MASTERFULLY DONE DEAR, AMAZING JOB!!!

[dinosaurtsukki]

[ too scared to say ]

pairing: tsukishima kei x f!reader

word count: 1.6k words

contains: slight angst, tsukishima with insecure!s/o cause he’s usually the insecure one in fics, another wedding-themed fic

a/n: had this idea for a while and i’m glad i’ve finally written it. it’s usually tsukki’s who’s insecure and guarded in xreader fics so i wanted to try it out with the reader being insecure this time

i love you.

you're caught off-guard when you hear the words from tsukishima's mouth. you never thought you'd ever hear him actually say them. as much you wished for it to happen, especially after you spent three years of high school doodling his name in the margins of your notebook, it feels too good to be true.

tsukishima looks sincere about it though. you're both seated on the couch in your apartment and even though it's pouring outside and the electricity had died, you can still make out his face in the dim lighting. you can tell it took him a great deal of effort to say that: his eyes are focused on the cushion on his lap as he picks at a stray thread, the sound of his breathing is more audible now as he inhales deeply.

this is the time where you say it back but the words catch themselves in your throat. after all, weren't you the one who got yourself into trouble for being too naive all the time? after leaving high school and all hopes of tsukishima ever liking you back behind, you tried your hand at relationships. you thought every single one of them would be your last, only to find that you had deluded yourself yet again.

meeting tsukishima again, years after high school, felt like a weird universal coincidence that you didn't know if you should thank for yet. even more so when he admitted to his feelings for you back then.

"so, what do we do about it now?" you asked.

"i'd... like to give this a shot," tsukishima said, rubbing the back of his head. you were reluctant, but agreed anyway.

you've said 'i love you' before, more than a few times. and yet, you couldn't say it now.

"aren't you... jumping to conclusions a bit?" you asked, nervously letting out a laugh.

"what do you mean?" tsukishima frowns slightly.

"just, saying that you might not be sure about that yet so... slow down a bit before saying things like that," you shrugged.

"what? you think i don't know my own feelings?" tsukishima scoffs. there's a look of hurt on his face and you can't exactly blame him for it.

"i'm sorry, tsukki," you apologize, resting your hand in the middle of the couch between you except he doesn't reach for it.

"it's fine," he shakes his head, focusing now on the wall in front of him. "i know you're not really the person you once were and, i don't mind that at all cause neither am i. sometimes, it really feels like you have a wall up."

you find yourself flinching slightly at that last part. maybe this is the part when things go south, like they always do. except, you feel sad that it had to happen with tsukishima too.

but he doesn't act like how you expect him to. "if you need time, it's fine with me," is all he says. tsukishima doesn't sound exasperated, nor frustrated at all. but he does stand up and head for the door.

'you can stay,' you think, 'please stay.'

but all you can bring yourself to say is: "take an umbrella. it's pouring outside."

...

that was about a week ago and tsukishima has barely heard from you then. he didn't know what else to do aside from give you space, and also silently regret things. maybe he was too hasty in saying that he loved you.

but, that was what he truly felt, and it wasn't easy for him to say but he did it anyway. 'you're not always losing anything when you open yourself up to someone,' akiteru had told him. and now, tsukishima was riding a bus on the way to his older brother's wedding.

he had just hung his tux on the curtain rod above the window and settled into his seat though when he caught a familiar flash of blue. of course, tsukishima would recognize your favorite dress and sat up in his seat to see you walking down the center aisle. he watched as you looked around for a seat before landing on the last empty one in the bus, which happened to be right next to tsukishima's.

"hey."

"hey," tsukishima swallowed as you approached.

"is this seat taken?" you asked.

"no, go ahead," tsukishima shook his head, his eyes distracted by the familiar dry-cleaners bag that you held in your hands. "let me help you with that," he offered, taking the hanger from your hands and hanging it up beside his tux.

“saeko nee-san invited me to the wedding,” you explained as soon as you sat down beside tsukishima. “congratulations to your brother, by the way.”

“thanks. we all, kind of saw it coming,” tsukishima chuckled. now that you were here, he realized just how much he missed you. 

“i’m sorry for not calling or anything, by the way,” you apologized. “i can’t say that this is all new to me but, it’s just... well... i’ve been in other relationships before and sometimes, it feels like things repeat themselves too much.”

tsukishima nodded, remembering the night when you two met again after so many years. he was working the counter at the bar and noticed you sitting there, obviously dressed up for a date, obviously stood up in that said date too. you were very much different from the young girl who used to invite him and yamaguchi to watch the latest romance movie theaters, the one who sang songs at the top of your lungs in your bedroom, loud enough for those downstairs to here. but that didn’t mean he liked you any less. 

“hey,” he laid a hand on top of yours. “why don’t we just enjoy today? you still love going to weddings, right?���

you smiled gratefully and chuckled. “yeah, that hasn’t changed.”

...

you fully expected to run into tsukishima at his own brother’s wedding and had thought twice about going before talking sense into yourself. and now, you were glad to have gone. 

the wedding was absolutely charming and more than a few of your old high school friends came. you and tsukishima were seated with yamaguchi and yachi at the same table and chatted about old times and what the volleyball duo was up to. saeko looked stunning in her dress and akiteru cried more than a few times during the ceremony. tsukishima looked proud of his brother, and more than a little tired of his new brother-in-law.

“they look really good together,” you sighed, smiling at akiteru and saeko who were breakdancing in the middle of the dance floor, the latter doing much better than the former. 

“yeah,” tsukishima chuckled. “they barely met each other in high school but i could tell nii-chan was star-struck when they met at the shiratorizawa match.”

“and now look at them,” you giggled. “kind of the opposite of us, in a way.”

“yeah, because you were definitely head over heels for me,” tsukishima snickered. you smacked his arm with the back of your hand.

“and you were too dense to realize it,” you countered. 

“not exactly. just thought it was too good to be true,” tsukishima smiled wryly. 

“we should have been accidentally locked into a room together to force us to admit our feelings.” 

“you and your romance movie cliches.”

you chuckled at that. “just saying. would have made things way easier for everyone.” you sighed again and remembered the confession letter you had penned to tsukishima before deciding to stash it away in your desk. then, you turned to tsukishima who was watching his brother and sister-in-law dance. 

maybe you were going to enjoy yourself tonight.

“hey, tsukishima?”

“yeah?”

“wanna dance with me?”

...

with the dancing and frequent visits to the wine bar, you ended up enjoying the wedding immensely. but as much as you didn’t want to, it was finally time to go home. you and tsukishima didn’t even bother changing out of your formal clothes before catching the last bus back home. your hair had escaped from its pins and you were definite that there was mascara smudged under your eye. tsukishima’s tie hung loosely around his neck and he had already unbuttoned the upper part of his shirt.

all of the dancing tired him out way more than you, but it was a pleasant surprise for him to comply with your request. you also had the wine to thank for tsukishima deciding to break dance for about a minute when his older brother asked him to. 

as soon as he was seated, tsukishima was out like a light with his head leaned back against the seat and his mouth slightly hanging open. looking at him, you realized that he was someone you didn’t want to let go. dating him was scarier because of that and you didn’t want tsukishima to be one of those people you were eventually going to say goodbye to.

but how could he be that person if you don’t ask him to stay in the first place?

once again, you remembered the confession letter that you had wrote to him all those years ago. there was a tremble in your hand when you wrote down the last line of that letter, so much that it screwed up the writing and you decided not to send the letter anyway. you glanced at tsukishima’s misty reflection in the fogged up glass of the bus before using your finger to write down that line.

i love you

the words looked like they were suspended in the air and fragile enough to be blown away by the wind. with a swipe of your hand, you could easily erase the message.

and that’s when tsukishima wakes up. 

his sleepy eyes travel from you to the message written on the window and his eyes widen when he realizes what you’ve written down. with a smile, he leans over, and writes a word right under your message.

i love you too

▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂

taglist (check out my post for details on being part of my taglist):@montys-chaos​ @miyumtwins​ @strawberriimilkshake​ @pocubo​ @sugawara-sweetheart @akaashisbabydoll @laure-chan​ @therainroguefanfiction​ @atetiffdoesart @stephdaninja @oikaw-ugh​ @charliefredb​ @dramaqueenweeb1469 @tremblinghearts @applepienation @kirakirasaku @haikyuu-my-love @waitforitillwritemywayout @kattykurr @atsumusdomain​ @goodfoodxoxoxo​ @ah-kaashi​ @guardianangelswings @definitely-yours @amberalisa @whootwhoot​ @liz-multifandom-hotel @kac-chowsballs​ @procrastination-lady @miyakiyo0mi

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 282: Aizawa Defeeted

Previously on BnHA: Oh my god do we even care about that at this point. Tomura made a speech; Gran Torino died; Deku lost his shit and tried to strangle Tomura to death with his bare hands; Ryuukyuu came back from Wherever She Was and tried to grab Tomura but he punched a hole through her giant hand; and now he’s grabbing his Quirk-Be-Gone bullets and is ready to cause some mayhem okay?? That about sum it up?? Is anyone even reading this?? CAN WE JUST GET ON WITH IT I’VE WAITED AN ENTIRE WEEK.

Today on BnHA: Well I guess let’s start with what doesn’t happen: Bakugou doesn’t lose his quirk. HE LUCKED OUT!!... for now, anyways. Because, thanks to a near-impossible-to-predict series of events (seriously, raise your hands if you had “Aizawa gets shot but goes full World War Z on his own ass” on your bingo card), Tomura has seemingly regained his regeneration powers, which means that his other quirks are probably back online as well! So we’ll see how that all goes. Anyway so in the meantime Shouto’s back, looking very mad that everyone temporarily forgot he was a main character. And Gigantomachia is back as well! Or almost, anyway. Also, you’ll never guess who broke another one of his arms! Go on, guess. But at least he still has the arm, though, which is more than we can say for certain other people’s limbs. Poor Aizawa is literally on his last leg. He and Tomura really got off on the wrong foot. He chopped his leg off, is what I’m saying. It’s that kind of chapter folks.

you guys I’m losing my whole fucking mind. I straight up deleted the tumblr app off my phone for 24 hours so that I wouldn’t be tempted to log in and risk potentially being spoiled. and I’m happy to say that it worked! so here we are now, completely spoiler free, and let me just say that if Horikoshi decides to cut back to Gunga Mountain now, I will either cry for hours or abandon the series forever and go do something more productive with the rest of my quarantine like learning how to play sad songs on the guitar

all right. here goes

so we’re opening with Deku, who is currently comprised of 100% rage and 0% mercy, and is doing that thing where only the whites of his eyes are visible. and basically he’s just thinking “I’VE REALLY GOT TO HOLD ON TO THIS GUY AND MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ELSE HOMICIDAL.” which is a solid game plan, but perhaps not so easily accomplished

-- oh my god this poor kid is still in denial, I can’t. why are you doing this

is there even still a Gran Torino to tend to at this point? after Tomura bulldozed a hole through his torso, and you went and finished the job with your own fucking attack? sob

but I guess the law of Tragic Shounen Mentor Deaths mandates that Gran’s should be at least as drawn-out as Nighteye’s was, though. so he’s probably only Mostly Dead, which is still Slightly Alive if I remember my Princess Bride correctly, and I think I do

so now the rest of these stooges are finally catching up with us here

yes, my friends. a bullet. WELCOME TO MY LIFE FOR THE PAST FUCKING WEEK. anyways I have a LOT of pent-up energy here just fyi. there may be a lot of unnecessary screaming in this recap

FUCKING WYOMING SMASH Y’ALLSSSS

I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT JUST HAPPENED SOB. DID HE JUST HAMMER FIST TOMURA’S HEAD INTO THE GROUND. DID HE SNAP HIS FUCKING NECK AT 100%. IN AN IDEAL WORLD HE WOULD HAVE JUST CHOPPED TOMURA’S ARMS OFF WHILE SOMEHOW MANAGING TO AVOID BREAKING ANY OF HIS OWN BONES IN THE PROCESS, BUT I HAVE A FEELING THIS SITUATION WILL NOT BE RESOLVED IN ANY KIND OF MANNER ONE WOULD CONSIDER “IDEAL”

(ETA: fun fact: this attack did absolutely nothing except make things approximately 100x worse. but you tried Deku. you tried.)

THE FUCK KIND OF PORTENTOUS BULLSHITTING TITLE IS THIS. OH MY GOD, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT EMOTION I’M HAVING RIGHT NOW, IT’S JUST A LOT OF LOUD THOUGHTS

anyway so if you’re just joining us, Tomura just pulled two bullets out of his pocket, the good guys finally noticed, and then Deku did a smash and everything exploded. the radius of this attack actually looks wide enough to have potentially involved Aizawa, who probably does NOT want to get any debris in his eyes right now, and also Gran, who probably doesn’t particularly want to be hit by another deadly attack for the third time in the past ninety seconds. anyway so I guess what I’m trying to say here is WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT YOU LITTLE GREEN LUNATIC

AHHHHHH

he got the one!! the one that was in Tomura’s right hand!! but what about the one in his left ahhhhhhh

(ETA: lmao at Kacchan being the one to blow up the same bullet I was so sure he was going to be shot with. saw the writing on the wall, huh kid? what do we say to the god of foreshadowing?? ‘NOT TODAY.’ ...except that we’re still not actually out of the woods yet so you still better watch yourself lol.)

...

based on the font here, these are Tomura’s thoughts. which he is thinking immediately after getting the lower half of his jaw very painfully cronched by the VERY homicidal sixteen-year-old still clinging to him. anyway so Tomura’s thought processes are as inscrutable to me as ever lulz

and Deku’s arm looks broken again, yaaaaay. but at least it’s his left arm and not his right! so that’s nice. now they can match

[SHRIEKS]

HE YEETED IT. IT HAS BEEN YEETEDED. HE DID A YEET. [sobbing] he DiD a YeEt oH my GOD

DID IT HIT SOMETHING!?!?!?

my reading process here is as follows: 1) scroll down exactly one panel. 2) scream even though absolutely nothing has happened yet. 3) WRITE THAT DOWN 4) REPEAT

DKSFJLKHSDLGKHLI

DID IT HIT HIM!?!? DID IT GET HIM IN THE LEG SOB ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS. JUST LIKE THAT?? BOOM GUN BULLET LEG!!?

YOU GUYS IT REALLY HIT AIZAWA AND NO ONE DID A GODDAMN THING?? it wasn’t even drawn out or anything??? it just HAPPENED, within like four pages??? NO SLOW MO?? NOT EVEN A REACTION PANEL WHAT THE FUCK

son of a bitch I would so dearly like to grab Manual and RockLockRock’s heads right now and just conk them together real hard. YOU STUPID FUCKS sob YOU HAD ONE JOB!!! IT REALLY WAS JUST ONE!! AND YOU WERE SHARING IT!! SO IT’S MORE LIKE HALF A JOB!! AND YOU STILL COCKED IT UP IN ABSOLUTELY NO TIME AT ALL OH MY GOD

(ETA: they should blow this panel up and make it into a t-shirt and make Manual and RLR wear the shirts every day for the rest of their lives. half a job, you guys. please go away I cannot even look at you right now.)

FUCK MY EVERYTHING

(ETA: I still can’t figure out if this horrific angle is due to the earlier damage from the Noumu, or if Tomura really just flung the bullet THAT hard. honestly I’m surprised it didn’t just slice right through him with that kind of velocity. “no thanks because then I wouldn’t get to write a scene where he chops his own leg off” oh okay well when you put it that way, Horikoshi.)

if I recall correctly this is the leg that he said was “twisted”, no? yeesh. might just want to chop it off real quick, then. s’not like it’s doing you any more good. does anyone know if zombie rules apply or not with this sort of thing?? shit

?!?!

“THANKS”?? okay what. did it hit him or not??

-- oh my god WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT

I WAS -- I WAS JOKING I -- FFFFFFFFKJK

jesus fucking christ. when I said “might just want to chop it off real quick” literally FOUR PARAGRAPHS AGO, I can tell you that the one thing I did NOT expect was for Aizawa to be all, “you know what, that’s a good idea”, and then YOINK OUT HIS TRUSTY HERO SHANK AND GO FULL 127 HOURS ON THIS BITCH. "LALALA WE’RE GONNA DO IT RATIONALLY TEEHEE” like excuse me, the fuck

anyways. I don’t even know what to say. thank you Aizawa’s leg for your sacrifice, and for always supporting him. literally. oh my god I came here ready for my son to enter a new phase of character development, and for the manga as a whole to enter a new phase of glorious, glorious angst. no one told me I’d be sitting here making puns instead. what a fine, confusing day

anyway though let’s just fucking hope it worked. and side note, if Aizawa Shouta really did chop off his own fucking leg just now and somehow STILL managed not to fucking blink, I think we might as well just go ahead and hand him the Biggest Badass In The Series award right now because no one is ever going to top that. nope. not happening

it is truly a testament to Shigaraki Tomura’s unfathomably mysterious sexy villain energy that he still somehow manages to look hot with only half a face

also no one in this manga actually feels pain, do they. not Deku, not Aizawa, not Tomura, no one. no wonder none of them have any self-preservation instincts to speak of

um

did someone just randomly explode just now. at this point it might as well happen, right

oh it’s the shockwave from Deku’s Wyoming attack, apparently. how nice of it to have a delayed reaction for absolutely no reason

anyway so Deku’s being flung back, but he’s grabbing onto Tomura again with Blackwhip. but oh shit you guys, if Tomura escapes Deku and Ryuukyuu’s clutches and still has any bullets left in his pocket, we may still be able to salvage this Bakugou quirk situation after all. would be nice to be able to actually do something with all of these “happy quirk losing day” balloons that I ordered

(ETA: actually, believe it or not I honestly like this better. Tomura using AFO was always the more dramatic option anyway. and now that we’ve done the bullet thing everyone has presumably let their guard down again, which, good.)

I love how Tomura apparently hasn’t noticed that Aizawa’s just amputated his own leg? to be fair he’s probably distracted by all the explosions and such

also gotta love how Deku’s arm-breaking attack seemingly just made everything worse for no reason. and also how Manual and RockLockRock are once again just standing there doing absolutely nothing

SO NOW GUESS WHAT’S HAPPENING

I MEAN IT! GUESS. BECAUSE YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE LOL

OH WELL OKAY THEN

just like we all saw coming!! ...

so is this Endeavor’s attack?? Bakugou’s?? either way, hot damn. fortunately for Tomura he is apparently operating under the same guidelines as the U.S. Federal Reserve, in which mutilated bills may still be exchanged at face value if more than 50% of a note identifiable as United States currency is present. basically as long as roughly half of him is still vaguely Tomura-shaped I assume he’ll be fine

(ETA: in hindsight I should have immediately been able to identify this as a Shouto attack based solely on how murdery it was lol.)

OH MY GODDDD

KRANCH?!?

OH MY GOD LOL WHAT. LOL. REMEMBER EVERYONE’S THEORIES FROM LIKE TWENTY YEARS AGO LOL. SHOUTO WHAT THE FUCK. DID YOU STOP FOR DRIVE THRU

AND MEANWHILE DEKU’S BACK ON THE SCENE GIVING ARGUABLY EVEN LESS FUCKS THAN BEFORE, IF SUCH A THING IS EVEN POSSIBLE. SO FAR THIS CHAPTER HAS PRECISELY ZERO THINGS THAT I ACTUALLY EXPECTED IN IT, WHICH IS VERY IMPRESSIVE

IT ALSO HAS A LOT OF SMASHING

a LOT. of smashing, guys. feels like... 60% smashing, 20% severed legs, 20% Kranch

-- oh no oh SHIT oh shit oh shit

(ETA: um so I really can’t tell how far that wound extends and whether or not Aizawa still has his right eye, shit.)

first of all how did Deku get here next to Aizawa when he was just over there with Tomura, what. and second, I think Aizawa just blinked, oh shit. probably on the verge of passing out after CHOPPING HIS OWN LEG OFF which STILL hasn’t been acknowledged yet?? did I just completely misinterpret all of that back there or what

(ETA: there was seriously so little attention called to this that I scrolled back up to confirm it probably like half a dozen times. apparently Horikoshi thinks that THE MOST BADASS THING TO EVER HAPPEN IN THE MANGA should be completely downplayed. whereas if it were me, there’d be an entire two page spread of JUST THE LEG. WITH MUSIC PLAYING. EVEN THOUGH IT’S A MANGA.)

YEPPPPPPP. fuck

look at him though. he’s so happy. this is why I can’t stay mad at you no matter how deranged you get you little maniac

so is quirk-stealing back on the menu then or what. don’t think I’ve been lulled into any kind of false sense of security by any of this lol

-- ARE WE SERIOUSLY CUTTING AWAY

so Todoroki really went after them ALONE. the better to put his dad right back up at the top of the Lose Your Quirk Sweepstakes finalists. well... second-to-top, maybe. like I said I will not be lulled

yuh-oh

why do I feel like the odds of Gigantomachia arriving to herald the end of this chapter just shot up DRAMATICALLY

so the next page is almost entirely just a list of cities that the news anchor is telling people to evacuate because they’re in Machia’s path. along with a bunch of dead heroes lying around everywhere, and Ochako being all ominous

(: weren’t they, though? heh. this is going to be so, so bad (: (: (:

-- fuuuuuuuuuuu

aaaaaand that’s it. hahahaha. okay then let’s summarize

Bakugou defied all expectations and kept his quirk (FOR NOW)!

Aizawa cut his own fucking leg off and it WASN’T EVEN REMOTELY ACKNOWLEDGED FOR REASONS I CAN’T UNDERSTAND (R.I.P. AIZAWA’S PRECIOUS LEG. YOU ALWAYS PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD)

Kranch showed up after 157 years and is probably wondering why the heck I keep calling him “Kranch” now. THINGS CHANGE WHEN YOU’RE MIA FOR A WHILE MY LITTLE STARBUCKS CHRISTMAS CUP

Deku broke his arm for the 78th time

Tomura regenerated but seems to think Aizawa’s quirk is actually gone for good, which I’m pretty sure it’s not. so if they can keep him from destroying everything long enough for Aizawa to turn it back on again, we might possibly still survive this

and lastly, Machia is about to kill all of these stupid people frolicking around outside of this fitness club who are probably so proud of themselves for not being glued to their phones 24/7 because they prefer to LIVE LIFE IN THE MOMENT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. well that’s on you my friends. at least it’ll be a quick death. ffff

[spn-romantica]

So I watched SPN for years, right up until the end of S11, when they brought back Mary. I heard that S15 would be the last season, and I was like ‘oh ok I’ll rewatch (for like the 8th time) and finish SPN then’ BUT THEN 15x18 happened and I was violently pulled back into the SPN fandom. I still haven’t caught up fully watching yet, but I’ve read so much discourse now...and I have thoughts. Hypotheses currently. I’ll wait to finish the whole show for real to call any of this theories but, I wanted to record my thoughts.

They’re about Chuck. As a villain. Which weirds me out. As an antagonist? Sure. As evil? No. Can’t envision it. I just finished my rewatch of S5 and, damn, but if Chuck is the ultimate villain, S5 reads very differently. :0

But I recently saw a post comparing Dean’s reaction in 1x18 (I believe) to his in 10x05 (for sure) about when someone mentions his mother’s death. In 1x18, it’s Sam when they were children and Dean gets angry. In 10x05, it’s a group of high school girls and Dean just bops his head along to the song. The post was framing it as 10x05 not understanding Dean’s thoughts about his mother, but I think that both episodes understand Dean. When Dean is a child, the trauma over his mother’s murder is still fresh. By 10x05, the event is 70 years in the past. Of course it still affects Dean. Of course. You never really get over something like that. But I’d argue that after 70 years, Dean has moved through the stages of grief to acceptance. It still hurts, but like an old ache, not a fresh, still-bleeding wound.

Interestingly, 10x05 is when we see Chuck, after a long absence. He’s watching the play, probably happy that someone loves his work enough to even make a musical, but he is also watching the Winchesters. The actual episodes of the show, aka the books Chuck writes, are what Chuck knows/cares about regarding the Winchesters. Despite being God, I’d argue he doesn’t pay attention to every second and all the little minutia of the boys’ lives. So, here in 10x05, we have confirmation that Chuck is around to see that Dean has healed from his mother’s death.

Later, in S11, Dean acts as therapist/life counsellor to Chuck/God, regarding Amara and Lucifer. And it works! Dean teaches God about family and about healing. Why does God listen to Dean Winchester, a random human? Perhaps it is because of S1-5. Perhaps it is because Dean and Sam were part of God’s test, as God himself describes it in 5x22.

What was the test? Was it God’s experiment about choice and free will? About freedom vs peace? Or, perhaps, was God trying to understand sibling relationships? He and Amara are two faces of the same coin. They are siblings, but with very different outlooks and it caused a rift between them, caused Chuck to seal Amara away before she could destroy his creations. Chuck regretted this, but saw it as a necessary betrayal. But then, some time later, Chuck’s angelic children experience their own betrayal and sibling rift. Lucifer tries to turn the angels against God, rebel and reject God. He makes demons, for sure, and maybe even Hell. But why? God figures that Lucifer was maybe jealous of the new baby (humans) like others in the show postulates. Or maybe Lucifer had beef specifically with Michael, because humans are little more than amoebas from an angelic perspective. Aside from Castiel, Anna and a handful of other angels, angels consistently view humans as humans might view dust mites. Maybe humans were the cause of the rift between Michael and Lucifer, but it was Michael and Lucifer’s relationship that needed fixing in the end, regardless.

So God is left with the sad conclusion that maybe close siblings will inevitably betray each other and be unable to forgive and heal. He wants to heal with Amara. But he also wants Michael and Lucifer to be able to heal. (It doesn’t occur to God that maybe Lucifer’s problem was never with humanity or Michael; it was with God.)

So God has research to do, to see if it’s possible for siblings to experience such deep betrayal and still heal. He turns to his little hairless apes, the only sentient species on Earth with potential to parallel the angels. He starts testing siblings. Cain and Abel are first up. Needless to say, but the betrayal was too strong and left no room for healing. But on down the line of Cain, God continues testing. Eventually, we come to Sam and Dean.

God has scheduled Michael and Lucifer’s family counselling session for 2010. All the data up to this point says it can only end badly. Maybe it’ll half-kill the Earth, but it’s finally time for Michael and Lucifer to meet and for one of them to die. God isn’t happy about this conclusion, but it’s what the data says. So, finally, the last test subjects, the last in the line who will be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer’s showdown, arrive. Sam and Dean Winchester are to be the last sibling test. The conclusion seems foregone at this point, but there is no point in cancelling the last bit of the test after so long, so it continues. God watches. And Sam and Dean surprise God. Siblings after siblings had failed for millennia to heal. Betrayals too strong, healing too little, too late. But Sam and Dean. no matter how badly they hurt each other, find a way to come back together and heal. They don’t give up on each other, despite millennia of data to the contrary. Still, the angels and demons push and push at Sam and Dean until their rift is as wide and as deep as Michael and Lucifer’s, as God’s and Amara’s (in late S4). It seems, despite the brothers’ best efforts earlier on, it’s all for naught.

But there is a further element of randomness, something God couldn’t foresee. Castiel. God hasn’t had occasion for romantic love in his own experience, so he is entirely blind to what choices Castiel is likely to make. He provides an element of randomness to the experiment, an essential part that gives Dean the ultimate chance to go back to Sam and begin to heal (4x22).

Throughout S5, Sam and Dean heal. There is hurt, still, of course, but they love each other and forgive each other. By 5x22, they’ve surprised everyone. Even the angels have given up on turning them against each other, and have shrugged and settled for using Nick and Adam as the vessels for the showdown. Sam and Dean passed their test. They were siblings who betrayed each other and healed from it. God reconsiders how family counselling will go with Michael and Lucifer. He figured it would be the Apocalypse, the end of the problems between Michael and Lucifer, as one of them dies, as had always happened before. But, Sam and Dean showed God, that though it is rare, it is possible to heal. So God gives Sam and Dean an out. He gives Sam the strength to seize back control from Lucifer, should things go south.

Finally, the showdown arrives. Michael and Lucifer meet. They talk things out. To God’s surprise, Lucifer reveals that he never had a problem with Michael. He had forgiven Michael long ago. But Michael couldn’t forgive Lucifer. He had to be a ‘good son’ and do what he thought God wanted him to do. But Michael didn’t realise, that God doesn’t give orders. Free will all the way, baby! But the whole thing comes as a surprise. Apparently, all this time, the problem relationship wasn’t siblings, it was parents.

Oops.

Good thing God had a back-up plan.

Sam throws himself and Lucifer (and Michael and Adam) into the Cage. Michael and Lucifer have an eternity to figure things out between each other now. But that’s beside the point. The point is, now, that God has to start testing all over again. Not how to fix sibling relationships, but how to fix parent-child relationships.

God restores Castiel, perhaps for a few reasons because God exists outside of time, but originally it may have been just for one. He likes Castiel. He is impressed that Castiel invented free will for himself, broke free of angelic programming (multiple times over), and did it all for love. It’s novel. It’s interesting. God might even think it’s sweet. But God has had time later, and thought about it, and he has a plan. And Castiel is essential.

But Dean Winchester is the key.

Sam and Dean’s relationship with their own father has been strained, but both boys find a way to forgive John his flaws and failings, and love him. Whenever they do get a chance to see him again, post his death, they don’t hate him. They’ve healed. John’s relationship with Sam and Dean is one point of data, Abraham and Isaac another. There are many data points that God can reflect back on and consider.

But as S6 through S10 roll on, God watches Sam and Dean and Castiel. He even watches Crowley and Rowena for another data point. Dean is his main focus, however. (This is a little meta, but as the story focuses more on Dean than Sam post S5, it ties in. Prior to S6, both Sam and Dean were essential - the sibling test. Now, post S5, the parent test, Dean is the most essential. Of course, Sam and Castiel are important too. But Dean is key.)

Dean is a good father. He was a good father to Sam, even when he was only 6 years old himself. He was a good father to Ben. He was willing to die for Bobby John. He’s always good with kids. Not only that, but Dean is blunt enough, brave enough, and crazy enough to tell God to God’s face what he thinks. God needs Dean’s advice, his perspective and opinion on family relationships, but he also needs to see what Dean would do if he were in God’s shoes.

[Edit (1/04/21): After seeing Michael and Lucifer (mostly) heal, and after seeing Sam and Dean heal their relationship, God finally has hope for him and Amara. So God logically wants to retrieve Amara from her prison. But how? Well, he could just wander on up to Cain and do it himself, but what would Amara say? “So I see you’ve come crawling back, eh, Chucky?” She wouldn’t be impressed with God. She wouldn’t understand, because she’s hopeless too. SO how to give her hope? How to make her see that she and God can be okay again? Why, stick her near Dean Winchester, of course! So God sets things up for Dean to get and lose the Mark of Cain, thereby ensuring that Amara will feel a connection to Dean and stick around him/keep him alive long enough for Dean to work his life-coach magic.]

In S11, God and Amara heal their relationship because of the hope Sam and Dean gave God, and also the direct advice Dean gives God. God and Lucifer, not so much.

God needs more data. He needs to see what Dean would do. In comes Castiel’s relevance. God sets things up so that Lucifer can have a son. A nephil. Jack. And God points Castiel in Jack’s direction, trusting Castiel’s ability for unconditional love to keep Jack alive long enough for the experiment. Castiel becomes Jack’s father. But Castiel will never betray Jack, the way God betrayed Lucifer. And, besides, Castiel isn’t the target of this experiment. But it is Castiel’s relationship with Dean Winchester that provides the link needed to get the experiment rolling.

Because Jack is Castiel’s son, he is therefore Sam and Dean’s nephew. Except, God has been watching Castiel and Dean. And, frankly, their romantic love for each other is so obvious even God cannot miss it. Through Castiel, Dean sees Jack as his son too. He loves Jack, exactly like a son. In this way, Dean parallels God, and Jack parallels Lucifer.

But God knows Dean would not easily turn on any child, let alone his own child. So God had a plan for that too. One that Amara helped him with.

They brought back Mary Winchester.

Mary is the one person in existence whose loss would hurt Dean enough to spur him to action. So, she was brought back to die. It was a matter of only a few years of gentle prodding to get everything in position. Jack causes Mary’s death. Dean is faced with a horrible decision. If Jack can kill Mary, what’s to say that Sam and Castiel wouldn’t be next? Mary’s death is like everything beginning all over again for Dean as well. Her first death set off a chain reaction, a series of unfortunate events that spanned decades and nearly caused the ruination of not only Dean’s life, but Sam’s and John’s and even the world. That scar, which had healed as well as it could after 70 years, that God saw was healed in 10x05, has been violently opened up again. It’s the only thing that could force Dean’s hand, that could get him to betray Jack and try to kill him. If Jack had killed Sam or Castiel, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Both Sam and Castiel had died and come back so many times, and while it would hurt Dean and make him doubt Jack, their deaths would be a sacrifice that Dean would feel obligated to respect, to give Jack a second chance like they would both want. (And God has been laying the groundwork for Dean, convincing him that Jack is evil, will be evil like Lucifer, can’t be allowed to live. All things God has thought about Lucifer over time. Was Lucifer inherently evil? Was their rift inevitable?)

So, here it is. The big test. Will Dean kill Jack? Will he betray Jack and cause an unhealable rift? Or will he find a way to heal, like he did with Sam against all the odds?

And, once again, Dean impresses God. He refuses to kill Jack.

But now we’re in the endgame. Sam, Dean and Castiel are aware that Jack’s life was only on the line because of God. It’s not something they can forgive, or understand. They’re all God’s guinea pigs, and while he loves his guinea pigs, he knows he’s hurt them in the name of science, of knowledge. or healing, and God can’t undo what he’s done. Free will is linear, after all. So it is time for the Winchesters, Castiel and Jack included, to be done with God. God is done with them, too. It’s time for them to be free and at peace. The experiments are done. God has decided not to kill Lucifer. He has decided to try to heal. He can get Lucifer out of the Empty and talk and try to fix things. He has forever to fix things, now that he knows he can. (The last element of this, Jack forgiving Dean for trying to kill him, is something I have limited knowledge of, but I am under the impression happens so... To be added in the edit once I finish the series.)

But the only way the Winchesters will be able to rest, is if they think God, the last and greatest villain, is out of the way. They know they’ve been manipulated their whole lives, first towards the sibling experiment and now the parent experiment, so they need to think God is gone so they can feel secure in their free will once more. Truthfully, God never took their free will. He set them up in situations, maybe even gave a bio-chemical nudge of anger (Dean) or attraction (Sam and Eileen) every now and then. But the choices were always theirs. Still, God knows they won’t see it that way. So he sets things up so that they can defeat him.

He lets them win. He wants them to win. They cannot defeat God, after all. It’s not God’s time, and Death is the only one who can claim God in the end, as the two embrace as friends and walk to the next existence. But the Winchesters need this, and so God allows it. A last gift, to the beings who have been such help, hope and inspiration to him.

With an eye for an eventual S16, 15x20 is written to be ‘an ending’ but also one that could easily be reframed as a bad dream.

For example...

Unfortunately, after Jack, suped up on a extra Grace God lent him, restores the Earth and expends all the Grace (”giving up the mantle of God so that their is no God, no plans, only Free Will”), and Dean, Sam and Jack head back to the Bunker to regroup and gather the ingredients to do the spell to rescue Castiel from the Empty, they’re jumped by monsters who are angry with how much God has fucked with them on behalf of the Winchesters. 15x20 is all a djinn dream Dean is trapped in.

16x01 is Dean waking himself up from the djinn dream, Sam and Jack escaping their own monsters, and then the end of 16x01 is Dean saying something about waking Castiel up from his own dreams in the Empty. The rest of S16 sees the boys save Castiel, reunite with Eileen, start a monster-hunting Bobby Singer/Men of Letters-esque organisation, Dean and Castiel getting together and getting married on Valentine’s Day, Jack getting to live a normal life, going to school, making friends, etc.

If their is no S16 ever (which would be criminal), then 15x20 makes no sense, unless it is plainly a recount of an old, hopeless ending written by God. However you spin it, 15x20 is not the way it seems (like owls).

All things being said, God is an antagonist, but he’s not evil. He’s an asshole, sure, but he never once worked against the Winchesters, never bet against them, never tried to erase or end them. He wanted them to win. He wanted to see the fruits of free will be love, second chances, hope, forgiveness, healing, and happiness, not just betrayal, pain, selfishness, jealousy, disappointment, and hopelessness.

Why is the ending he shows Becky ‘hopeless’? Because God is. He has spent his long existence losing his most loved family members. Amara, Lucifer. How can things end well for God, when they can’t even end well for humans? But Sam and Dean defy the script, again and again. They surprise God, defying the statistics, defying the hypotheses, throwing the experiment into disarray. Giving God hope. Sam and Dean were okay. Dean and Jack were okay. If God had a romantic love, he would find hope from Dean and Castiel being okay. But when God wrote the book he showed Becky, he was writing what he thought would happen. In the end, surely, not even Dean can be enough to hold Sam and Cas and Jack together. But in the end, as we see, as God sees, he is proven wrong and he’s happy to be wrong. He’s hopeful. And he can leave Dean, Sam, Castiel and Jack, and all the angels and all the humans, to rule the Earth and the Heavens. He doesn’t need to learn anything more from them, so he heads to the Empty, with Amara, with Lucifer, with Death (Billie or not, Death is there for God in the end), and they can all depart for a better existence of their own.

If you read all of this, thanks! I eagerly anticipate watching the remaining 10 seasons so I can come back and edit the heck outta this, but until then, if y’all have any thoughts, I’d be interested to hear them~

TLDR: God is a morally bankrupt scientist and the Winchesters are his guinea pigs, but he’s not evil and he does love his guinea pigs, even if he could really treat them nicer.

[the-alice-of-hearts]

Kids Again Ch 2

Ch 2: He likes to keep his burner on

First Next>

Marinette would always remember the first time she looked through her romantic Soulmate’s eyes. She was five years old when she started crying in the middle of the day in maternelle. Nino ran to get the teacher while she gasped, trying to form her feelings into words. Her parents came to pick her up and her maman held her while she cried. When she was able to tell them what she saw, they held her close.

Her papa told her that her Soulmate must have been even more scared than she was, but that she could help look over him.

Her maman said that she wasn’t responsible to be the one to save him, that the people who were responsible for this had a duty to take care of him. She also said she didn’t have to sacrifice her own life for his.

Her maman told her that if she showed him kindness and love, the universe would make sure that they could meet one day. Marinette kept that in her heart every day. She wanted to show her soulmate that the world could be a brighter place than the dark place he lived in. She lived every happy memory to its fullest, and every night she sent a prayer into the sky; asking her guardian spirits to watch over her soulmate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Marinette was nine, she woke up in the middle of the night in a panic. She saw through her soulmate’s eyes as he got stabbed, but even after that stopped, even as he passed out from the pain, she still felt emotions coming from her soulbond. She felt like she was watching someone die right in front of her. She was frozen in terror, knowing she could do nothing to change it. She didn’t go back to sleep that night, instead, she grabbed her sewing kit and started to take the pink applique flowers off her only black dress. She then went to work on making a veil. She also found the blue dress that she had worn to her great-grandfather’s funeral. She wasn’t sure what you were supposed to wear to a funeral for your soulmate’s family, but she wanted to be ready to get dressed in the morning.

When her mother came to wake her up in the morning she shifted her gaze up to her from the floor. She had sat there to write in her journal. She opened her mouth and asked her mom the important question she needed an answer to, “Maman, can you have more than one soulmate?”

______________________________

Sabine looked around her daughter’s room when she saw the dresses Marinette was sitting next to, “It does happen. What did you see Bǎobèi?” ((mandarin: baby))

Marinette shook her head, “I didn’t see it, mama. I just felt like I was watching someone really important to me die. I can still feel the link though, so it couldn’t have been my soulmate. But I didn’t see it, I just felt it... Could I have a platonic soulmate too?”

Sabine scooped her daughter up into her arms, “You could. I think it’s very possible you do.” Marinette started crying, “Shhh, it’s okay sweetheart.” She adjusted her grip on Marinette so she could move to sit them both onto her fainting couch. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She sniffled nodding, “what do you wear to mourn someone you aren’t related to?”

“In China, you would wear a dark color to the funeral of the death of a loved one who you aren’t related to. But not black. You only wear black for your parent’s or husband’s funeral. In France, you can wear black if you want to, but any dark color is okay. If you follow your gut feeling where does your platonic soulmate live?”

Marinette furrowed her brow, “I don’t know māma, I can’t see them.”

Sabine smoothed Marinette’s hair down, “Did your heart say somewhere when I asked you?”

Marinette nodded, “America. I thought about America… but I also thought about Paris…”

She looked at her daughter in contemplation, “Meiyun, do you remember how I taught you to meditate?” Marinette nodded, “I want you to meditate with me, but I want you to focus on your soul link. Can you do that for me?”

Marinette nodded. She sat up and got into a relaxed position. Taking in a deep breath she closed her eyes. After a few moments, Sabine started talking to her, “When you breathe in I want you to gather up all your emotions, and then, as you breathe out, let them flow to the background of your mind.”

Marinette smiled, “Like music?”

She smiled at her daughter, “Exactly like music. Let your feelings be the beat of the song, and look for the melodies of your soulmates.” She watched Marinette breathe and then start to hum.

Sabine’s older sister had been a part of a multibond and she knew it ran in the family, but she wasn’t sure how she would be able to help her daughter. Her soulmate died when she was a girl, they were a platonic bond and she hadn’t even met them. Tom’s soulmate bond was also platonic. He had met him once and they were pen-pals, but their friendship had never gotten that close. When Marinette was born she had a spark in her eyes that Sabine knew was pointing towards a difficult journey for her daughter. When she started to see through her Soulmate’s eyes Sabine knew she was right. She looked at her little girl, so young and yet so strong. Her sister had the same strength when she was young, Sabine just hoped that her daughter wouldn’t follow the same path. When Marinette opened her eyes Sabine waited for her to talk, her daughter was young, but, when it was something important, she always tried to figure out what she was going to say before speaking.

“There are three other melodies. So if I include my own that makes four. My song and Jay's are really close, but the other two are a little lower? They are as close to each other as ours are though.”

Sabine smiled at her, “It sounds like you have two platonic soulmates, and that they are romantic soulmates. Multibonds are rarer in the world, but they happen more often than most people think. My sister had a multibond too, she had four soulmates total. That just means that you have a lot more love to give, and a lot more love to receive.”

Marinette nodded at her, “So I could find one of my Soulmates here in Paris?”

Sabine scooped her daughter up in her arms, “You might sweetie, but unless all four of you are together you might never know.”

Marinette tilted her head in confusion, “but why?”

Sabine smiled and booped Marinette on the nose, “soulmates have a spark when they meet each other. It’s your soul saying ‘you did it! You found my other parts!’ but that can’t happen until all the pieces of your soul are together.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eventually, Marinette learned how to pick out each of the distinct ‘voices’ of her soulmates. She knew when her platonic soulmates were hurting.

Each year her soulmate from America would mourn the same loss, her soulmate from Paris would have days where they would be filled with so much sadness and loneliness, and her Soulmate would have days where he couldn’t eat or would be running for his very life.

When her Paris bond started having the same hunger pains she got worried. She was used to the pains coming from Jason, knew exactly what they felt like and how long you went without proper nutrition before the pain kicked in.

She started reaching out to those around her, making sure that everyone she interacted with knew she was a person they could turn to.

She made herself known as someone who cared deeply about her friends.

When Chloé started being mean to her she spoke only kindness.

When Kim and Alix got into a fight she was there to hear both sides and help them see the other’s point of view.

When Nino got overwhelmed she sat quietly by his side so he knew he wasn’t alone.

She did everything she could for her friends because she was fighting the feeling that she could do nothing for her soulmates.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She was 11 when she learned all about the Gotham vigilantes.

She had some memories of Jason on the streets where he hid from Batman and had heard him talk about him, but she had never seen him.

Until she checked in Jason when he was caught in the middle of taking the tires off the batmobile. She hadn’t meant to look through his eyes, she was just very tired. When she closed her eyes for a little too long the soulbond drew her to him. She giggled when he was spooked in the middle of taking off tire number 4. She was worried when she felt his burst of fear when the vigilante placed him in the back of the batmobile. She watched him scared when he was taken to the bat-cave, heard him plead not to be taken to the cops. He sobbed telling the vigilante that he would rather die than go to the foster care system.

“Marinette, earth to Marinette.” Alix was waving their hand in front of her face, “you want to come back to Paris?”

“Huh? Oh!” Marinette jumped back. She looked around at her trio of friends.

“Dudette, what happened?” Nino reached out to hug her, then added in a soft voice, “you were laughing and then got this look of panic on your face.”

Kim was sitting behind the two of them, with Marinette by the wall she could see that the three of them had formed a barrier of sorts. She could see him watching to make sure that no one tried to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“It was really funny, he tried to steal the tires off the batmobile.”

Kim started to laugh at that, “no wonder you looked panicked. Did he get caught by the bat?”

Marinette bit her lip trying not to cry, nodding at Kim, “He did. He was so scared.”

That shut him up real quick, “Mari, look at me.” Kim reached out a hand, “Jason is going to be okay. You know he will, he’s been in tougher spots before.”

Alix scooched closer to her to lay against her shoulder, “not like he hasn’t gotten out of worse scrapes before. Didn’t you say he took down two guys with guns like last week?”

Marinette giggled and rubbed her eyes, “yeah, but they aren’t batman.”

Nino had been looking up any information about the vigilante he could find, “Netté, it says here that he has a strict no-killing policy and a soft spot for kids. Jason could beat the shit out of him and he still wouldn’t hurt him.”

That got a loud laugh from them.

“M. Lahiffe, do you have something you want to share with the class?”

They all snapped to attention, “No Ma’am.”

Their teacher nodded, “Then might I request that you all return to silent study time.”

_____________________________________

After school, they all ran to the bakery. It was a long-standing tradition to lay around Marinette’s living room and eat snacks while they did homework. Alix was throwing a paper ball into the air while Kim checked over their math assignment.

“I don’t know why you have me check, it’s not like I’m the best at math.”

“You are in this group. Nino is our french lit. guy. Mari can check over English assignments. I have History, you have maths. And then we struggle with science and geography as a group.”

“Hey! I’m good at geography!”

Alix threw their paper ball at him, “then you should have volunteered to check my geography assignment.”

Marinette interrupted the start of an argument that would become a bet that would lead to her cleaning up the mess, again. “Alix, you have to stop using so much slang in your English assignments.”

“Why? You do, I’ve seen your papers.”

“I use common slang, you’re using the slang that I’ve picked up from Jay. He uses a lot more regional slang. And you know our teacher has given you marks off for it in the past.”

“Not my fault that he didn’t understand my essay.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, “haven’t you ever heard of writing to your audience?”

Kim laughed at her, “Mari, you sound just like Nino!”

She stuck her tongue out at him, “at least I’m not the one teasing my foreign language tutor before she checks over my work.”

“You wouldn’t!” he turned on the full puppy eyes, “please Mari, you know I would fail without you.”

“Yeah, I know. Hand it over I finished Alix’s.”

They sat there for a while, each finishing their assignments and then checking over the other’s work. Quiet afternoons spent above the warm bakery always lulled them into a peaceful state. The soft sounds of writing and the speaker in the kitchen playing one of Nino’s new study playlists. Marinette always loved these moments when she felt so loved; surrounded by her best friends, able to hear drifts of the conversations on the street below. Moments like these were feelings she cherished, images that she engraved into her mind. Opening her small pink journal she started writing to Jason. She wanted to tell him everything about her life, so until she could see him in person she wrote to him.

Nino was the first one to break the gentle silence, “Netté, why do you think he was so scared?”

Alix and Kim both looked up from where they were doing the maths homework. With all their gazes on her she knew she had to say something, “he doesn’t want to go into the foster care system.” She took a deep breath and started to doodle on the corner of her page, “he, well he knows some kids who have been in the system. It’s really corrupt in Gotham. A lot… a lot of foster care parents are bad people. They abuse their wards and get the money from the system. Older kids get it worse, a-an-and he’s 13 now. S-s-so he would ha-ve a harder time getting a good family.”

She had started crying and was now quietly sobbing. Kim moved closer and picked her up to hold in his lap. Nino and Alix moved closer to join the group hug.

After she had calmed down enough to talk Alix asked her, “Mar, why don’t you try to check in on him?”

She sighed, whipping her tears away, “I tried earlier during lunch, I think he was asleep though.” She bit her lip, “I could try again maybe, but he seems calm now. What if I just worry him more?”

“It’s up to you Netté. We are here to support you, not tell you what you should do about your bond.”

She nodded, “I think I’ll wait then.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next two years, she learned a lot more about Gotham’s heroes vigilantes. Jason was the new Robin. His new brother was the first Robin, now he had a new alias Nightwing. Bruce Wayne is Batman was a huge secret that was dropped on her. One that her three closest friends knew too. They had been sworn to secrecy, but she couldn’t not tell them.

They were her small family, and if she wasn’t going to tell her parents then she was going to tell them. Sure, his identity needed to be protected. But what harm could four people from halfway across the world do? She started collecting news clippings of Robin. Each time he helped someone and they caught him on camera. The kids around the blocks he patrolled being in awe of the kid in the bright colors who would help anyone who needed it. She got to see him splitting off from patrol to take food to a building he knew had people living in it.

Then came the other good moments. His butler, who was more grandfather than employee, taught him how to cook. His new father, the adoption papers went through really fast, enrolled him in school. Bruce saw how much Jason liked to read and put a couple large bookcases in his room. Then bought him different books that he thought might interest him. He was trying, but things were still awkward sometimes. His brother, Richard but people called him Dick, was in the circus before becoming a Wayne. He taught Jason to use his natural dexterity to flip around attackers, telling him that a moving target was harder to hit. The robin colors made you easy to see, so you had to be fast and think on your feet. If you never stopped moving then they couldn't hit you.

Marinette asked her parents if she could continue her gymnastics classes. They were only a little surprised. She had taken a break when her soulbond had gotten to be too much, but knowing that he was safe meant she could focus on herself again.

That started with being fast and nimble and getting herself ready for when she ran the streets with him. She spent hours redesigning the Robin suit and making herself a hero persona. She had decided on Nightingale as a name and designed her suit in black and orange. She made her design a partner to her redesign of Jason’s Robin suit. She knew they were going to be partners, so they needed to match.

She just wished that she could be there with him now. Running the rooftops by his side, helping him, making sure he makes it home.

[sugarcarnation]

what’s your thoughts on marlique?

(i’m asking around cuz I need content)

(wow look at me answering this in a totally timely manner)

you know this is an unfair question to ask me because you know i have thoughts but also i have already shared all of my thoughts with you

nonetheless i have some new marlique content for you. no need to thank me

i am convinced that marley and unique are probably involved in fandoms (although i think they don’t necessarily share the same fandom) and that they really love fanfiction

marley prefers reading them. she might be able to write songs but writing a story is an entirely different thing. meanwhile unique really likes writing fanfiction (and of course reads a bunch of them as well)

i’m imagining them hanging out in the choir room one day and they’re talking about what they’re currently reading (because uniques knows that marley loves books and she likes hearing about marleys interests) and it ends with both of them awkwardly trying to not say that they’re reading fics

theres a lot of im reading a story by an independent author going on until unique is eventually like okay so we’re both talking about fanfiction right?

and they are. they excitedly start comparing favorite tropes and it’s a lot of fun

marley loves fix fics and nobody dies/everyone lives aus. she has a tendency of ending up in fandoms where all her favorite characters die so she likes to read fics where everyone actually gets a chance to be happy for once. she also usually prefers fics about platonic relationships instead of ship fics

unique is pretty much the opposite in that regard. she loves reading about romance. her favorite trope is enemies to lovers because she enjoys some drama. the longer the better and she doesn’t want the characters to kiss preferably until chapter 24

when it comes to her own fics unique usually likes to write shorter fics though. she enjoys writing short au stories about whoever her favorite ship currently is

(at one point during their conversation blaine, sam and tina walk into the room and insert themselves into the conversation

tina eventually admits to occasionally writing fanfiction as well although none of them have seen the light of day yet. she ends up leaving everyone slightly terrified after telling them that her favorite trope is angst without a happy end

blaine also likes angst but he needs there to be a happy ending. he tries to reason with tina that happy endings are objectively superior to sad endings but she won’t listen to him and just ends up making fun of him

sam is very confused because he hasn’t heard about fanfiction yet. blaine promises to show him some later and thus sams obsession with fanfiction starts. no one is quite sure why but sam loves fics where where someone is talking care of a child. if he is picking out a fic to read with blaine it always ends up being a fic with this trope)

and from now on unique and marley just always end up updating each other about what fanfiction they’re currently reading. they usually aren’t in the same fandoms so most of the time they don’t really know what the other one is talking about but that won’t stop them from gossiping about the newest developments in their fics

unique likes writing fics for marley even if this does get complicated by them not being in the same fandoms. but marley ends up telling her so much about the fandom she’s currently that unique considers herself an honorary part of the fandom. and marley likes everything unique writes anyways

marley usually ends up being the one who comes up with titles for uniques fics. most of the time the titles are song lyrics. sometimes they are lyrics from marleys own songs

overall they are just really happy to discover that their best friend is having the same hobby as them and they have a lot of sleepovers where they read fanfiction to each other

[violetwolfraven]

Ray Molina: Best Dad Ever

For the March 11th explosion of content thing. Just Violet being a fantom and doing my part for this!

Tw: mentioned death, mentioned abusive parents, mentioned panic attack.

So the boys can be seen and heard when directly touching Julie after the whole post-Orpheum glowy hug thing but Ray doesn’t know that just yet.

What he does know is that Julie’s mental health took a rapid turn for the better for seemingly no reason and then a couple weeks later he found out she joined a band without telling him.

He’s not stupid. He knows that’s probably because of the band, though he is a bit confused as to how she even met them.

He kinda figures it’s a kids and your internet tricks thing but there’s some flaws to this theory.

1) He asks Flynn what she knows about the boys only... it seems like she doesn’t know much of anything. That’s weird because he knows Julie tells her practically everything.

2) The boys have American accents despite Julie claiming they’re from Sweden.

3) Carlos is a terrible liar and on the rare occasion Julie actually talks about the boys he gets this weirdly conspiratorial look.

So anyway Ray doesn’t really believe it’s as simple as ‘I met these 3 Swedish boys on the internet’ but he trusts his daughter’s judgement and he leaves it alone.

Anyway he has other things to focus on.

Such as how Ray has literally never been able to keep track of his keys/phone/hats/camera parts/stuff and now it seems to just pop up whenever he’s looking for it.

Also he keeps feeling like there’s someone with him around the house more and more.

Like not a malicious presence like Victoria fears, and definitely not like Rose is around watching him, but like someone is there.

Sometimes it feels like there’s more than one presence around. None of them familiar but all of them friendly.

Oddly enough, whatever or whoever it is feels almost like Julie or Carlos. Young and excitable and like a verse of a happy song. He’s not sure why they’re around, but they definitely don’t feel dangerous, so Ray doesn’t feel threatened.

But some days a better comparison might be to Trevor back when Rose first introduced him. Raw and fragile and very, very sad.

Ray tries to put on happy music or a Disney cartoon or something on those days and he doesn’t quite know why or how but the energy usually gets more positive when he does that.

Anyway after a while of this (after the Orpheum performance) he starts noticing weird things that Carlos and Julie do now.

Carlos will just carry around a small whiteboard and a couple pens and he erases it whenever Ray comes into the room but before he does it almost looks like there’s two, three, or even four sets of handwriting on there.

And he walks in on Julie talking to herself like. All the time.

Carlos doesn’t ask for help on his math homework anymore. Julie makes this insanely good chicken recipe for dinner once and then clearly panics and lies when asked where she got it. Flynn makes a set of rainbow friendship bracelets one day while she’s hanging out at the Molina house but he doesn’t see Julie wearing the match to the one she keeps.

Plus Carrie starts hanging out at their house again?? Out of the blue?? And none of the girls have a good explanation for how they made up??

Then later Nick Danforth-Evans (who Julie used to talk about having a crush on but hasn’t in a while) starts hanging around too and the kid seems... well, Ray doesn’t want to throw the word ‘traumatized’ around, but he’s jumpy and guarded in a way that can only be described as a little bit traumatized.

So all 5 kids are clearly keeping some secret and Ray’s getting suspicious and worried.

He sits them down and asks what’s going on. Like is one of them having problems at home, or..?

The kids, simultaneously:

Julie: no, we’re just all in a play together!

Carlos: we’re fine we’re just ghost hunting!

Flynn: we’re exhibiting bisexual-pansexual-lesbian solidarity!

Carrie: Julie and the Phantoms and Dirty Candi are doing a collaboration album!

Nick: we all joined jazz band??

Ray’s calling bullshit at this point.

Then Julie and Nick both look up directly at the same spot, somewhere a couple feet above the arm of the couch, which is seemingly just empty air.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem like the other kids can see it but they all seem to be waiting for something and Ray is wondering if they’re sharing a hallucination??? Are they all on drugs??? Should he be worried???

Then Julie says to meet them in the studio in 30 minutes. Flynn, Carrie, and Nick go home to give the Molina family some alone time.

*cue music performance where Ray is introduced to the boys*

So anyway Julie and Carlos (with the help of the ghosts whenever one of them has something to say and grabs Julie’s hand) give him a clearly-sugarcoated version of the last few months.

Ghosts of Trevor’s dead bandmates help Julie reconnect with music, they form a band, they meet another ghost, other ghost accidentally gets them involved with evil magician ghost, Nick got possessed, Carrie figured it out and helped plot to get him un-possessed, evil magician ghost is still out there and they’re sticking together so he can’t get any of them in the future.

Despite how they say it like it’s no big deal, Ray now understands why the kids have been acting so weird because all these things sound scary and painful.

Also the more he thinks about it, the more he worries about the fact that he has three 17-year-old boys sleeping in his garage who died terribly of food poisoning.

They are children and they died incredibly painfully and then almost got enslaved and/or erased from existence.

Then one day Ray’s feeling one of those presences around the house again and he realizes it’s probably one of Julie’s ghost boys.

Ray: who’s there?

Whoever it is freaks out and leaves, and Ray takes notes for next time.

The next time he feels someone in the room, he has a notepad ready and he writes down “Luke, Alex, or Reggie?” from what he remembers from Julie’s introductions.

Immediately, there’s a spike of anxiety in the room.

Ray: it’s okay. You can stay and we don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I’d like to know who it is I’m not talking to though.

There’s a few seconds of hesitation, and then the pen picks itself up and the name “Reggie” gets circled.

Ray: the bassist with the flannels, right?

Yeah, written in a teenage boy’s messy scrawl.

Ray: okay, do you want to watch a movie?

More hesitation, and Ray’s not sure what that’s about but he’s starting to suspect with the amount of fear still in the room, and there’s a good 20 seconds where Reggie doesn’t respond before I don’t know.

Ray: Moana or Tangled? Moana.

After that, he takes a page out of Carlos’s book and gets a small whiteboard with 3 pens that stick to it magnetically. Red for Reggie, blue for Luke, and pink for Alex.

Reggie has written conversations with him most, but Luke does sometimes too and Alex does least often but he’ll still request a movie occasionally.

All of them are wary around him and Ray doesn’t quite know what to do to earn their trust. But he asks questions about their preferences on things. He says they did good on their latest show. He remembers which movies are their favorites and introduces them to music he thinks are their styles.

Luke is a big fan of Fall Out Boy and Reggie fucking loves Taylor Swift.

Alex is less consistent but occasionally Ray will play a song and he’ll write something like This is a cool song.

He starts to be able to tell which energy is which even before they write who it is right around the time the boys start to be visible for longer and longer after playing.

They play a really good show and stay visible for like 2 full days and that’s the first (but not the last) time Ray really gets to get to know them.

He starts noticing after really good shows like that one how even more now that they can be seen, they’re all a little... off from how Nick and Carrie and Flynn act around him.

With Luke it’s mostly because he’s trying so hard to impress because *gasp* he and Julie are a thing but there’s still a little bit of tension that seems like it comes from something deeper than just being nervous around his girlfriend’s dad.

With Reggie it’s subtle caution. Like he’s happy to be hanging out with Ray but he’s constantly ready for something to go wrong. There’s a catch in his smile, a hesitation before he states an opinion, a practiced carefulness where he changes the subject at any sign of even mild frustration.

But with Alex... it’s mostly just avoidance. Like if he poofs in while visible and it just so happens that no one else is there, he’ll find an excuse to leave.

And Ray lets him, of course. He doesn’t want the kid to feel trapped. But all of the boys’ behavior bothers him.

On the rare occasion they spend more than 2 seconds together Alex is really quiet. He won’t admit if Ray guessed wrong about a song and he doesn’t like it even though his body language makes it clear he’s not vibing with it. Actually, his body language pretty much just spells I am very uncomfortable in every situation where Julie or Carlos went to the bathroom or someone went to grab a snack and they’re alone even for 5 minutes while he’s visible.

Ray’s not stupid. He knows three 17-year-olds don’t end up getting their instruments left to their only living bandmate’s new best friend’s family by having good relationships with their own families.

He doesn’t exactly want to bring it up, but he kind of knows.

Then one day he’s sitting with all 3 boys watching a movie while he fixes something on his camera and Julie and Carlos are at school and he messes up a little part that means he has to start over (don’t @ me I know nothing about cameras) and swears out of frustration louder than he meant to.

He reaches for the screwdriver on the coffee table and

And Reggie and Alex both flinch.

Ray hadn’t even noticed they were tracking his movements, but while Luke seems to just have moved his focus from the TV to his friends in concern, Alex and Reggie both look too tense to play it off.

He figures its as good a time as any to have a chat cause these boys aren’t his sons but they don’t have anyone else acting as a parent figure to them and he feels the need to take care of them. He pauses the movie.

Ray: Can we have a talk? About you boy’s families?

Naturally Luke jumps in to try to distract him immediately, telling a story about his dad taking him fishing once, but he stops when Ray asks him to stop.

Ray: That’s not what I’m talking about and I think you all know it.

The boys are all still silent. Luke looks 500% ready to deflect again. Reggie and Alex look more like they’re expecting to get yelled at or worse.

Ray: I just want to help. I’ll drop it if you want me to but I want you to know that I would never do something to hurt any of you intentionally. You can talk to me about anything if you need to.

He means to make it an option of ‘you can talk but you don’t have to if you don’t want to,’ but the boys clearly don’t take it as such with how Luke starts talking immediately.

Luke: I ran away when I was 17. My mom and dad didn’t want me to stay in Sunset Curve, I think they thought it was going to get me into drugs or something.

They have a short talk about parents having good intentions not equalling them being right to push Luke so hard they pushed him away and it’s okay to feel hurt by that and then press play on the movie again and Ray thinks he sees all 3 boys relax somewhat during that.

A couple weeks later Reggie comes in visible and hesitantly asks about watching this series he saw when Carlos was scrolling through Netflix once.

Mid-episode he blurts out

Reggie: I don’t want to look for my parents and I feel weird about that.

He rambles for a while about knowing he was lucky that his family had money and his mom and dad told him they loved him and stuff but also he remembers so many fights between them where he felt caught in the middle and it never ended well if he chose a side but there was no way to win because they’d both turn on him if he didn’t so it was just this constant balancing act to try to prevent fights in the first place.

Reggie: I felt like I was walking on a tightrope. Like, all the time. I tried so hard to keep them from getting mad at each other or at me. Only it never worked and it was always a question of when they were going to snap next and it was confusing cause one day we’d go to the zoo and everything would be fine and the next they’d yell at me and send me to bed without food.

He feels guilty for not wanting to put in the effort to find them because he’s pretty sure on some level they did love him but he doesn’t want to see them again.

And he doesn’t want to know if they even miss him at all because when he got older and the fighting got too intense he would sneak off to Luke’s or Bobby’s and no matter if he stayed away for an hour or a couple days they never seemed to notice he was gone.

Ray listens and a lot of things about Reggie start to make sense. How he’s so careful not to catch him in a bad mood. How he shuts down whenever anyone raises their voice. How he helps out so much in an effort to stay on Ray’s good side.

It’s a day and a half after the latest show so they can’t really hug but Ray does what he can to provide comfort and validate his feelings anyway because damn Reggie is a good kid and he didn’t deserve that.

Reggie and Luke get more comfortable with coming to him for meaningful chats, or even just to vent about whatever’s going on lately.

Eventually they seem to feel almost as comfortable with him as Julie and Carlos do so it kinda becomes a routine.

Like Julie will ask for cuddles when she’s sad about missing Rose or she’ll walk in and vent about Carrie and Flynn being so obvious about liking each other but somehow not realizing it’s mutual and she and Nick are 3rd wheeling and going insane.

Carlos will excitedly ramble about his latest baseball practice shenanigans for an hour but also sometimes ask for someone to watch old home movies or listen to old CDs from Rose and the Petal Pushers with him.

And that’s normal. That’s been Ray’s life since his kids started talking. But the thing is that it’s just as normal when

When Luke tells how he’s still angry about his music getting stolen because it feels like a part of him was taken away and he worked hard on those songs. Also one day he very shyly admits

Luke: I like Julie a lot.

Ray: I know, kiddo.

Luke: You’re not mad?

Ray: As long as you two make each other happy, no. I’m happy for you.

And it’s just as normal when Reggie talks about missing his little cousin Kelsi and wondering where she ended up only for them to look her up and find out she’s a major Broadway writer/director now oh my god— and also

Reggie: I think I like boys. Like boys are cute. But I know I’m not gay because girls are cute too and ugh it’s confusing it’s probably nothing I guess everybody goes through this.

Ray: Have you ever thought you might be bisexual?

Reggie: Bi-what-now?

Ray, already digging out his old flannels that he would have passed down to Julie except they’re too big for her: It’s okay to like both, kiddo.

All this is great of course. It’s great how Reggie and Luke aren’t afraid anymore and they feel validated and seen and listened to.

But months have passed and Ray notices how Alex remains separate. He still avoids Ray when he can and stays quiet and cautious when he can’t.

Like Ray still senses Alex around him sometimes but never right after a show when he’s visible. He doesn’t come to him with problems. He’ll stay and listen when Ray plays a song he thinks he’d like, but he still seems so cautious and Ray doesn’t know how to help.

He asks Luke one day while he’s introducing him to a Wicked bootleg if he’s done something specific to scare Alex away.

Luke gets this really dark look on his face and he just

Luke: Let’s just say that my parents didn’t do everything perfectly, but they’re saints compared to Alex’s.

Ray decides to drop it, but Luke wants to reassure him.

Luke: You haven’t done anything wrong. He’s just not very comfortable around most adults in general. It’s one thing when we’re invisible, but...

Ray: I just wish I could help.

Luke: You do help. But it took a while for Alex to trust me.

The conversation ends there because Luke starts getting really into Defying Gravity.

But then that night Julie comes in with a kind of out of character movie request so Ray thinks Luke talked to her.

Because Julie does not like most romcoms that aren’t musicals. She gets bored. But she requests Love, Simon anyway.

Ray kind of sees what she’s trying to do there because now that he’s thinking about it the boys haven’t really seen many things with queer rep. Especially not queer main characters.

And nobody’s really told him that Alex is gay but cmon he’s an elder bi. He has accurate gaydar so he can support his queer ducklings.

Despite how the boys all know being gay is more socially acceptable now (they found out about Nick’s dads and the girls gave them the ‘gay marriage is legal now’ talk) they still seem kind of baffled by how there’s an entire romcom centered around a gay boy and it did well.

From there Ray tries to find more movies and tv shows with canon queer representation.

And he keeps giving Alex space but also trying his best to show him that he’s not like his parents.

For a long time nothing changes beyond Luke and Reggie getting increasingly comfortable with him.

Well that’s not completely true actually cause Reggie starts tagging along to photo shoots and becomes Ray’s unofficial mostly invisible assistant.

Then the band plays an amazing show and the boys stay visible for a full week.

Around the middle of that week, Ray goes out to the garage to find Reggie and see if he wants to come on a photo shoot.

Reggie isn’t out there but Alex is.

And he’s crying. Hard.

He looks like he’s going to poof out when he sees Ray there but Ray’s already 100% ready to do exactly what he always does when he walks in on Julie or Carlos crying.

Ray: Alex. Hey, buddy, it’s okay. I’m here. It’s going to be okay.

Alex freezes and it breaks Ray’s heart how that kind of concern is clearly not what he’s expecting.

Ray: Are you okay with being touched?

Alex looks kind of like he’s in shock but he nods.

He clearly doesn’t really know what to do with it but he kind of melts into it when Ray hugs him and he just sobs on his shoulder.

When he’s stopped crying enough he starts rambling about how he’s been looking everywhere but he can’t find Willie.

At that point he’s basically having a panic attack so finding out what’s wrong takes a backseat compared to calming him down and Ray knows how to do that because he and Rose used to do that for Trevor all the time.

Ray: Alex, breathe. In for 4 counts, hold for 7, out for 8. Breathe with me.

It takes a couple minutes until Alex has calmed down enough, but once he does, Ray asks what’s wrong and what’s happening with Willie.

He only vaguely knows who Willie is from what he’s been told by the other kids but he knows he’s important to Alex.

So Alex takes a deep breath and explains that Caleb confronted him and basically said the boys had to join his house band or he would make sure he’d never see Willie again. And he doesn’t want to ask his family to sacrifice themselves for him but he doesn’t want to lose the boy he loves either.

Ray wants to throw hands but from what the kids have told him about Caleb, he has a better idea.

Ray: Here’s what we’re gonna do, buddy. Reggie said Caleb has this super catchy number, The Other Side of Hollywood?

Alex: Yeah?

Ray: How quickly do you think Luke and Julie could come up with an arrangement for you four to cover that and how desperate do you think Covington would be to make sure a video of that never gets published without crediting him?

Alex: :o

Spoiler alert: Julie and Luke, in collaboration with Carrie, can come up with an arrangement very quickly.

They do a private performance of it and film it and basically blackmail Caleb into letting Willie go.

Willie has an empty house that used to be his parents’ that he still considers his so he mostly crashes there if he needs to. Also he loves skating around so much that he never stays in one place for very long.

Julie can see him but she can’t make him visible so it’s a little odd but Ray gets an orange pen for him for the whiteboard and he finds skateboarding videos and stuff for when he visits.

They eventually figure out that he can be part of the magic by adding him to the band so they give him a tambourine and yay now Willie can be seen but that’s later.

The biggest immediate change to come out of all this is Alex.

He’s not afraid of Ray anymore for the most part (healing isn’t linear and he can’t help a few bad days) and he starts actually talking to him. Not about serious stuff but he’s talking. Mostly just rambling about how Willie makes him feel or how Luke and Reggie have been being annoying lately.

Then one day he comes in really nervous and says something about Reggie saying he talked to Ray about his parents.

And Ray confirms it and asks if there’s anything Alex needs to tell him.

Alex sits down and clearly he’s been holding this in for a long time and he just unloads how he came out to his parents because his youngest sister found his diary and he was scared she’d tell them. They didn’t react well and when he cried out of fear and frustration his father... gave him something to cry about.

His father did that a few more times, trying to ‘make him man up,’ and Alex never told his bandmates but he always knew they could see the bruises and that was why Bobby made it so clear his garage was open and his house was a safe place to run.

But Alex didn’t no matter how bad things got because he guessed some small part of him thought he deserved it but mostly it was about how his oldest sister dropped out of college and ghosted the family and Alex was the next-oldest so he felt responsible for protecting his younger sisters even if they both had learned behaviors from their parents and hated him.

Then that summer he found out his parents were planning on sending him away to some Christian camp where they’d ‘fix’ him.

Alex made it clear that he wouldn’t go and if they tried to make him he’d run away, but their ultimatum was that he couldn’t live under their roof if he was gay.

So he didn’t. And it was a situation somewhere between getting kicked out and running away, but he packed a bag and never went back.

He ran to Bobby’s house, he wrote a whole bunch of angry songs, and he tried not to think too much about how he understood why his older sister left and how he was doing the exact same thing to his younger sisters.

By the time he’s done explaining everything Ray’s trying not to cry but Alex is definitely already crying mostly out of anger.

Alex: I hated them all. I hated Molly for leaving me and I hated my mom for turning my little sisters against me and I hated my dad for hurting me and I even hated Anna and Josie for not standing by me and I just hated them all so much. I still do. And it is so stupid that I feel guilty for that because they were terrible to me and I was 16 and I didn’t deserve that but I do feel guilty for it because they’re my family and I hate them.

Ray doesn’t have much to say because damn this is heavy stuff but he assures him that after what he went through he has a right to hate his blood family.

Alex tells him awkwardly when he’s calmed down a bit that Luke is the only other person he’s ever told about all this, because after he ran away they dated for a few months before figuring out that they were better as friends.

Reggie and Bobby guessed parts of it and Julie probably has too but none of them have asked and Alex thinks he might tell Reggie and Julie someday if it ever comes up but he never did end up telling Bobby.

Ray assures him that he won’t tell anyone and also that he would never do that. He would never do anything to hurt Alex or the others on purpose.

He makes a silent promise that no one will ever hurt one of his kids like that again and if Caleb or anyone else ever tries, they will regret it.

But anyway on to happier matters.

Willie visits a lot and he’s a little skittish around Ray but he loosens up after he jokingly mentions one time that Willie and Alex are like the beginning of the Sk8ter Boy song.

Alex and Ray might be Denim Jacket Buddies but once Ray digs his old leather jacket out of the closet he becomes Leather Jacket Buddies with Reggie.

You’d think he has to tell Carlos and Reggie off the most for breaking things but he doesn’t. It’s Carlos and Luke.

Also Ray doesn’t consider himself an overprotective dad but Julie and Luke are not allowed to be alone in a room with the door closed.

Neither are Alex and Willie technically but it’s harder to enforce it when they’re both ghosts.

Lmao all the kids follow the rules anyway because they love Ray and he’s not being unreasonable.

He helps Julie in her plot to get Carrie and Flynn together and also he helps Nick plan how to make a move on that cute boy on his lacrosse team.

Because Nick loves his dads but they’re disaster gays. Neither of those men can properly flirt. They fell in love because of a baseball rivalry and Nick doesn’t trust their advice.

Pride month rolls around and Julie makes sure to book a big gig the day before the parade so the boys will be visible and tangible.

Trevor’s on tour and can’t get away and Flynn’s parents are working and Nick’s are busy too so Ray finds himself escorting this whole little gaggle of various queer ducklings to pride.

Carlos isn’t quite sure what he is yet so he’s just got a rainbow flag painted on his cheek and a shirt that says I love my bi sister on it.

Julie’s all decked out in the bi colors, complete with ribbons braided into her hair and a flag to use as a cape. She made the tutu herself and it took her hours but it turned out really good.

Luke’s got a tank top with the pan colors and a trans flag as a cape and also yknow face paint of course.

Reggie browsed thrift shops everywhere until he found a flannel in the bi colors and he’s got that along with pink purple and blue laces in his combat boots and what Ray is really hoping is temporary dye and not spray paint in his hair.

Alex has a rainbow shirt that matches Willie’s and matching bracelets with Flynn. Also he painted rainbow hearts on his cheeks and put a lot of effort into them and they look really symmetrical.

Willie’s of course matching shirts with Alex and also he has sparkly rainbow socks and a flag to use as a cape.

Carrie’s got a whole ensemble in the lesbian colors complete with a pride wig and also matching necklaces with Flynn.

Flynn’s matching colors with Carrie but more in her style with of course matching jewelry with the people closest to her. She’s got friendship bracelets corresponding to Alex and Julie.

Nick’s got a pan tshirt and a fedora with a ribbon in pink yellow and blue plus face paint cause all of them have face paint. Nothing too crazy.

Meanwhile Ray’s got a bi bandanna and one of those shirts that’s like Free Dad Hugs.

Plus everyone did each other’s nails with varying degrees of success the night before and Julie did Ray’s so they turned out good.

Nick’s lacrosse buddies and the rest of Dirty Candi are around somewhere but they didn’t ride in the same car so they’re not that relevant.

They party. Celebrate being alive. Idk I’ve never gotten to go to pride.

And afterwards they all go back to the Molina house and the couch isn’t really big enough for all of them but it’s okay it’s not like they know how to sit correctly anyway.

They all kind of pile together and cuddle and watch movies until Flynn and Nick’s parents can come pick them up.

And Ray just looks around and realizes that

Sure only 2 of them are his biologically

And 3 of the others have good parent(s) who are actively a part of their lives

The remaining 4 are technically dead

But he has 9 children and he’s totally fine with that.

Cause he’s Ray Molina: best dad ever.

Victoria’s head is going to explode when she finds out that not only is the Molina house really haunted, but he’s adopted the ghosts.

[silverlightqueen]

Monsters

silverlightqueen’s SKZ Scarefest

ot8magicalcreature!skz x readers from all 8 fics - comedy, fluff, angst, basically just tying up the loose ends from all the fics with the setting of Jackson’s famed party lol

Word Count: 16.2k+ (she’s a monster lmao)

Summary - Jackson’s (in)famous Halloween party is finally here, after months of being hyped up, anticipated, and labelled ‘the Party of the Year’. He’s invited everyone who’s anyone - the guestlist is exclusive to say the least. Werewolves and vampires, wizards and witches, angels and demons (and demon hunters), living creatures and dead; magical folk of all kind are on their way to Jackson’s party on All Hallows Eve. Oh, and a few humans too.

Warnings: explicit discussion of sex, alcohol and mention of drugs, I think that’s it but please let me know if you noticed that I missed something!

a/n: and here is the ninth and final instalment of my SKZ Scarefest! I know it’s not actually Halloween anymore lmao but uh better late than never ig? I’ve had so much fun writing this series, and this part was actually my favourite to write, even though it’s taken me soooo long. I really hope you guys enjoy reading this (make sure you’ve read the previous parts first, or reach out to me to ask for a summary for any parts you haven’t read - this part won’t make sense if you haven’t read all of the others too!). a big thank you to @silverlightprincess for being the best, and to everyone that’s interacted with all of the previous parts, I really appreciate it. and now, this is silverlightqueen signing off on my SKZ Scarefest! x

taglist: @kodzu-ken @cloudsgathering @silverlightprincess 

@peculiarskidz @cararoserae @t-tbinnie​ @liatlyn​ you guys didn’t ask to be tagged but you’ve shown interest in this part I think so I thought I’d tag you guys anyway lmao sorry if you didn’t want to be tagged lol

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‘Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, angels and demons, and everything in between! Before we get into this, I wanna lay out a couple ground rules. Wolves and vamps, if you can’t get along, stay away from each other. Wizards, witches and fairies, keep your magic away from the drinks. My bedroom is off limits, unless I take you up there myself. Everyone’s an equal here, so I don’t care if you’re a king of hell or some shit – in Jackson’s house, you’re the same as everyone else, so you better treat each other like it. And have fun, motherfuckers! Let’s get this party started!’

Jackson finishes his very eloquent speech with a loud ‘whoop’ into the DJ’s microphone, voice echoing out into the massive living room of the manor house, and everyone cheers in response. I can’t help but laugh, rolling my eyes amusedly as my friends, dressed in our matching Pink Ladies’ outfits, scream and shout, bumping their cups together enthusiastically. ‘Come on, y/n! Cheer up!’ Yeji practically bellows into my ear, and I wince at the volume of her voice over the music blasting out from the speakers. ‘I’m fine!’ I reply, the girls all raising their eyebrows at me. ‘You’re not even drinking. If you’re gonna be heartbroken, at least be drunk heartbroken!’ Chaeryeong says, the girls cheering at her words, and I laugh at them, trying not to think about the reason that I’m heartbroken. ‘Listen, y/n, Hyunjin ain’t shit! You’re better off without him! He’s fucking ancient, anyway! You need a young sexy thing instead! Fuck him!’ Ryujin exclaims, and I grin at her words. She’s right; he’s probably off feeding on some girl dressed as a sexy nurse or devil in a club, and I’m here moping at the party of the year. Fuck that.

‘Someone get me a drink!’ I say, the girls cheering loudly. ‘Yuna, get her a drink! Wait, no, you stay away from the drinks. I’ll get her a drink,’ Lia says, all of us laughing as she stumbles towards the kitchen, already a little tipsy. ‘I hate seeing you like this! You’re supposed to be my dancing partner,’ Yuna says, sitting down next to me, and I give her a sad smile. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I just can’t get him off my mind. I feel like such an idiot,’ I say, and she shakes her head, scrunching up her nose. ‘Don’t be silly, you’re not an idiot. He’s the idiot for leaving – you’re the best thing that would’ve ever happened to him,’ she says kindly, my heart swelling. ‘You’re so sweet, Yuna,’ I say, throwing my arms around her, but I don’t hear her reply, my focus shifting to the front door where I see Chan walk in, immediately catching Yeji’s eyes, and the two of them wave at each other across the room. Seungmin and Jisung follow Chan in, and I guess Hyunjin’s gonna be there too, with the rest of them. ‘Fuck. I need to go,’ I say, not wanting to see him just yet (I’m far too sober), so I detach myself from Yuna and jump up from the sofa, quickly dodging my way around people to get into the kitchen. ‘y/n!’ Lia exclaims when I pass her, ‘I’ve got your drink here!’

‘I’ll have it if she won’t!’ Jisung calls out to the girl in the Grease Pink Ladies jacket stood beside us, watching her friend rush into the kitchen. ‘Oh, uh… yeah. Here,’ the girl says, handing the cup to Jisung who thanks her with a wink, and she rolls her eyes amusedly, heading back to her friends. ‘You flirt,’ Ryujin laughs, Jisung smirking at her as he takes a sip from the drink. ‘More like slut. Whoring himself out for a drink,’ Hyunjin teases the boy, who shoves him, the two of them getting into a little fight, and Chan just sighs, looking away from the two of them with a hand raised beside his face, as though to block them from his sight.

It’s been just over a week since the boys first stumbled into the diner, and this is already the fifth time I’ve seen them. They came into the diner again a couple days later, and then again, and then another time, when Chan asked if we’d go to Jackson’s party with them. It’s a full moon tonight, so they’re gonna be disappearing in a couple hours, and then making a reappearance a bit later than that. That was their excuse for not wearing costumes, but I’m not sure I’m buying it. We decided to dress up as Harry Potter characters, us girls in the Hogwarts robes, and we already got some cute pictures at Ryujin and Yeji’s apartment before the boys came to pick us up. The girls have already started developing relationships with the boys too, and I can see us becoming one big friendship group.

With regards to Chan and I, though… things haven’t progressed in the slightest. I texted him, and we’ve been messaging, but he hasn’t made a move or anything! He’s the perfect gentleman, which is great, but also sucks, because I just want him to be forward and tell me if he’s into me. But I’ve decided not to say anything, just in case he isn’t actually into me, and I’ve misconstrued everything.

‘Oh, God, the vamps are here,’ Minho murmurs, all of the boys grumbling as they watch the vampires walk in and join the Pink Ladies girl and her Pink Ladies friends. ‘Ugh, look at them, all of them in all black. They look like they’re going to a funeral or something,’ Changbin spits out, and I exchange a glance with Chan, the boy rolling his eyes. ‘Don’t even look in their direction, guys. I don’t want anything to start, especially on a full moon. So stop looking,’ Chan says calmly, and the boys all look away, muttering under their breaths. ‘If I catch any of them giving me a funny look, I’m not holding back,’ Jisung threatens, Chan sighing wearily as I hold back a laugh. ‘Honestly. Not one peaceful party with you idiots,’ Seungmin complains, and Jisung lets out a scandalised noise. ‘Idiots? Who are you calli-’ ‘You. He’s calling you an idiot, Jisung,’ Jeongin clarifies, Jisung turning his scowl to the youngest now. ‘Are you siding with the vamps?’ he demands, everyone sighing. ‘No one’s siding with anyone. Nothing’s even happened. Can you relax?’ I say amusedly, and Jisung looks at me with a frown.

‘I hope you’re not trying to boss me around, y/n. You’re forgetting that you’re human,’ Jisung says warningly, and I roll my eyes at his empty threat. ‘And you’re forgetting something too,’ Felix says in a sing-song voice, looking amused, and Jisung’s eyes suddenly widen, flitting to Chan. He doesn’t say anything, and neither does Chan, the latter looking at the former serenely, and Jisung seems to relax under Chan’s chilled gaze. ‘What?’ Chaeryeong says suddenly, everyone’s eyes turning to her. ‘What?’ Hyunjin asks, and she rolls her eyes. ‘What did Jisung forget?’ she asks, and I won’t lie – I’d quite like to know the answer to that too. They keep doing this – one of them will say something cryptic and they’ll all look at each other and then go silent. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ Hyunjin says, us girls exchanging an exasperated glance. ‘Fine. Whatever,’ Chaeryeong sighs, the group falling silent at that. ‘Anyway… I’m gonna get a drink. Does anyone want anything?’ Minho asks, getting up from where he’s perched on the sideboard, and I raise a hand. ‘Can you get me a cup of Echo Falls please?’

‘God, these humans drink some weak shit. Echo Falls is practically flavoured water,’ I say to Felix, the boy rolling his eyes. ‘Stop eavesdropping on their conversations.’ ‘I can’t help it. You know I’ve got good hearing,’ I say, and Felix just gives me an amused smile. ‘You should be focusing on me.’ ‘You’re being boring, though. You won’t dance with me,’ I complain, pouting as I flick his plastic red devil horns, and he raises an eyebrow at me. ‘I’ve already told you why. If we dance together, you won’t keep your hands to yourself, and one of the other angels will see us and go snitching to God. I want you to speak to her before anyone else does,’ Felix explains for, like, the tenth time, and I roll my eyes at him. ‘I will speak to her. But is it that big of a deal if she hears about it from someone else beforehand? No. I just wanna dance with my boyfriend without worrying about anything,’ I whine, and his lips curl into a smile, eyes sparkling.

‘Did you just call me your boyfriend?’ he asks, and I realise that, yes, I did, and my face heats up a little. ‘No.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘I didn’t.’ ‘I think you did.’ ‘I think you’re hearing things.’ ‘Hmm, I’m not so sure about that,’ he teases me, and I roll my eyes, trying not to show him how embarrassed I am. ‘Whatever. Maybe I did. Am I wrong?’ I ask, and he grins at me, pulling me down from the arm of his armchair into his lap, and I’m surprised at the sudden display of affection. ‘Of course you aren’t. My girlfriend is never wrong,’ he murmurs with a grin, tilting his head up to press a gentle kiss to my lips, and I practically melt into him.

I break away a moment later, grabbing his hand and climbing up from the seat, pulling him up with me. ‘If you can kiss me, you can dance with me,’ I grin, dragging him towards where people are in a big throng, dancing along to the loud music pulsing out into the room. I wrap my arms around his neck, his arms coming around my waist, and we instantly begin dancing, bodies pressed close as we roll and wind against each other, the smiles never leaving our faces. Dancing with him like this is so… mundane, so human. To anyone else watching, we’re a boy and a girl dancing together, and that’s all. It feels like the most simple happiness, one I haven’t experienced for a long time. And one that gets cut short very quickly.

I blink, and suddenly Felix is no longer in my arms, and I’m no longer at Jackson’s party either, the air around me a startling silence. Instead, I’m stood in an office, God sat at the desk opposite me. She’s leaning back in her seat, her eyes on me, inspecting me, almost picking me apart, and I feel a little bit of panic flare inside me. I’m not prepared for this now – I’m halfway to being drunk on tequila shots.

‘Are you dressed as an angel?’ she asks amusedly, and I nod, feeling sheepish now in my little white dress, wings pinned onto the back of it, and my wire halo headband. ‘Quite ironic. Such a crude depiction, these humans have of my angels. Though… I do like your dress,’ she says softly, and I’m flattered. If God likes my dress, it must be good, right? Or maybe it’s not. I mean… I thought this was sexy and revealing, but if God likes it, it’s probably not as sexy or revealing as I thought. Shame.

‘Did someone snitch?’ I ask bluntly, and she lets out a gentle laugh, the sound melodious and light. ‘Yes. Somebody… snitched.’ ‘Who?’ ‘I’m snitching if I tell you,’ she says with a small smile, and I roll my eyes. ‘Can’t you just tell me?’ ‘It was Seungmin.’ ‘That little shit,’ I mutter, sighing in annoyance. ‘Felix didn’t make me aware of your relationship.’ ‘I know. I told him I’d speak to you about it.’ ‘You speak to me? Why not him? He’s here every day. You… are not,’ she says pointedly, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. ‘I know, but he was nervous, so I said I’d handle it.’ ‘And how will you handle it?’ she asks amusedly, leaning forward with her elbows on the desk. ‘By asking for your permission.’

She looks quite taken aback at my answer, raising an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Asking my permission?’ ‘Yeah. We assumed you wouldn’t be too impressed if one of your angels pursues a relationship with a demon.’ ‘I wouldn’t be impressed if the circumstances were any different. But, as I’ve observed recently, you seem to be particularly harmless with Felix around. He keeps you under control. I suppose it’d be in my best interests to encourage him to be around you, to keep you on a better track than Lucifer would have you on,’ she shudders, saying his name with disdain, and I bite my tongue rather than defend my father. I doubt she’d take well to it.

‘So you don’t mind?’ ‘No. I don’t. He’s good for you. And I’m quite impressed that you unconsciously won his affections. I never expected such a lovely angel to fall for a demon,’ she says, and I feel my lips quirk up into a small grin. ‘He’s a dark horse.’ ‘Apparently so.’ ‘Does this mean you’re not gonna kill me?’ ‘Yes, y/n, I’m not going to kill you. I’m nothing if not benevolent. So you may return to your party. Just bear in mind,’ she adds, as though it’s an afterthought, ‘I have a particular fondness for Felix, so see to it that you don’t break his heart.’ ‘I can’t make any promises,’ I say honestly, and she just looks at me for a moment, deep in thought, before a small smile breaks across her face. ‘I can’t fault you for such a truthful answer. Now go,’ she says with a kind smile, her warmth seeping into even my cold heart, ‘make him happy.’

The next time I blink, I open my eyes to Jackson’s party once more, the earsplittingly loud music making me wince as I scan the room for my boyfriend. ‘y/n!’ I hear him call from behind me, and I turn to briefly see his panicked face before he pulls me into his arms. ‘You disappeared! I was worried sick,’ he says into my ear, holding me in a vice-like grip, and I let out a laugh, pushing him away gently. ‘I’m fine,’ I murmur, pressing a brief kiss to his lips. ‘Where were you?’ he asks with his big eyes, and I grin, before replying, ‘With God.’

‘Goodness. Whatever were you doing with that bore?’ I ask Lucifer’s daughter, my equivalent of the ninth circle, and a smile of joy spreads across her face at the sight of me. We hold each other in a brief embrace, her boyfriend stood to the side, watching with curiosity. ‘What are you doing here? It’s been forever since I saw you at a party,’ she says, her language so much more modern than mine. I suppose I hung onto my outdated vocabulary, just as I hung onto my love. ‘I have much to celebrate. My love is returned. Changbin is himself once more,’ I inform her, her face lighting up at the news. ‘No way! That’s amazing, I’m so happy for you! Is he here?’ she asks excitedly, and I nod. ‘He is getting a drink for me – I am quite parched. Be sure to greet him at some point before you depart. He has missed you all – he was more excitable than I have ever seen him as we were readying ourselves for this party. He could not wait to come and see you all once more,’ I explain, hearing the fondness in my own voice. ‘I will, of course. It’ll be nice to see him.’

‘Yes. It shall. And who, may I ask, is your companion?’ ‘This is Felix. He’s an angel, which is why I was with God,’ she explains, my mouth falling open. ‘You, Lucifer’s daughter, with an angel? Goodness me, this is surprising news. I expected you to choose Minho as your companion. Certainly not a being so… soft. But if you are happy, I am happy for you. I just hope Felix does not do anything to hurt you, for he shall have many dark ones to answer to,’ I say threateningly to the sweet boy, his face falling as he gulps. ‘Of course not. I’d never hurt her,’ he says quietly, and I smile at him, taking to him almost instantly. He reminds me of a little lamb, or a gentle fairy. He is quite lovely. ‘I am glad to hear so. I am going to go and find Changbin, for he has been gone a while, but I hope to catch up with you at some point tonight,’ I say to the both of them, embracing them both and taking Felix quite by surprise when I do so (it is unusual for demons to be so kind to those they have just met, but I quite enjoy teasing other beings, and making them all flustered), a small smile on my face at his girlfriend’s soft giggles, before I turn away, making my way towards the kitchen and stifling a laugh when I hear Felix ask, ‘Who’s Minho?’

I enter the kitchen, Changbin stood on the opposite side of the room, pouring himself a scotch, a glass of red wine for me beside his tumbler glass. I glide over to him, sliding my arms around his waist when I reach him, and a smile stretches across his face when I press a kiss to his cheek. ‘I have missed you,’ he murmurs, turning to pull me into his arms, and I let out a soft laugh. ‘I left for a few minutes – you cannot have missed me that much,’ I reply, and he grins at me. ‘I don’t mean the last few minutes – I mean the last few centuries,’ he chuckles, and I feel my heart swell. He has told me he missed me so many times over the past few days and it has not yet become old to hear him say so. ‘I like hearing you say that.’ ‘I shall say it to you every day for the rest of our lives if you so wish,’ he proclaims, making me giggle (only he can make me behave as though I am a young teenage human girl with her first love).

I can feel eyes on us, and I manage to pick up whispers here and there, about how the famed original demon hunter is no longer a demon hunter, and is in the kitchen of a Halloween party thrown by a drunken fool. How Jackson has all these connections, I am not quite sure, though I suppose he is a sweet boy on occasion, when he is not intoxicated out of his sanity. ‘People are talking.’ ‘That is what they do.’ ‘I mean, they are talking about us.’ ‘They will always talk about us,’ he grins, cockiness seeping into his tone, and I roll my eyes. ‘More specifically, they are talking about you.’ ‘Well, they will always talk about me.’ ‘And why is that, my love?’ I ask with a grin, leaning against him with my arms around his neck, and he leans back against the counter, hands resting low on my back. ‘Would you like to guess, my love?’ ‘Your dashing good looks?’ ‘No.’ ‘Your unfairly perfect body?’ ‘Not quite.’ ‘Your… lovely personality?’ ‘Not even close,’ he says with a grin, childish giggles falling from my lips every few seconds. ‘Then what, my love?’ I ask, feeling drunk on love when he replies, ‘they wonder how somebody like me is with such a perfect lady like you.’

‘Wow. Did you hear that? That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,’ I murmur to Jisung, the boy rolling his eyes as he takes a sip from his beer. ‘He’s had a long time to practice his lines,’ Jisung says dryly, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘So have you, being a thousands-of-years-old demon and all.’ ‘Nope. I was too busy fucking people. Anyway, stop listening to other people’s romantic conversations, and focus on your own romance,’ he says sternly, and I hold back a laugh. ‘Romance? He didn’t even pick me up. He said he’d ‘see me there’ which is, like, totally not a date,’ I say mildly, and Jisung shakes his head. ‘He’s trying not to be too eager.’ ‘He’s going a little too much the other way.’ ‘Well… he’ll regret it when he sees you. You look hot,’ he says offhandedly, though the way his eyes roam over me hungrily betray his cool demeanour. ‘I do, don’t I? It was a good costume suggestion you made,’ I say, looking down at my angel costume. It’s a little basic – quite a few other girls here are dressed as angels (I’m pretty sure I saw a princess of Hell dressed as one, which is quite funny actually) – but the white dress, feather wings and tinsel halo are quite cute, if I say so myself.

‘Yep, it was. Sex God Seonghwa’s gonna love it,’ he grins, and I shush him, looking around embarrassedly in case someone heard. ‘Relax, relax. Oh, look. Talk of the devil…’ he trails off, and I follow his eye line to the door of the kitchen, Seonghwa and his friends just walking in. They’re dressed in standard house party outfits with a little bit of makeup on their faces – a half-skeleton face here and a half-zombie face there. I’m not quite sure what Seonghwa’s supposed to be, with his bright white contacts and cuts across his eyes, but he looks hot. I catch his eye, and he smiles widely at me, the butterflies I usually feel when he looks at me absent today, but I shrug it off. ‘I’m gonna go say hi,’ I say, rising from my seat, and Jisung nods. ‘I’ll be with Hyunjin, if you need me. Not that you will, but… just in case,’ he says gently, and I nod with a smile before heading towards Seonghwa.

‘Hey, y/n. You look… nice,’ he says with a devilish grin, eyes flitting over me before he pulls me into a loose hug. ‘Thanks, Seonghwa. You look good, too. I like your… contacts,’ I say awkwardly, but he continues grinning at me as though he can’t feel the uncomfortable tension in the air. ‘Thanks. Not more than my real eyes, I hope,’ he jokes, and I let out a forced laugh. ‘No, of course not. You’re real eyes are, uh, much nicer.’ ‘Thanks. Can I get you a drink?’ he offers, and I hold up the cup in my hand awkwardly. ‘Oh, never mind. I’ll just grab myself a beer,’ he laughs, turning to get one out of the fridge, and I want to scream at myself. Why am I being so awkward with him? Come on, y/n, step up your game.

‘So what exactly are you supposed to be?’ I ask, trying to sound more comfortable than I feel, and he grins as he flips the top off the bottle with a bottle opener. ‘Can’t you tell? I’m a… possessed… devil… thing?’ he says, and I laugh, the boy laughing with me. ‘You don’t sound so sure.’ ‘Yeah, it’s a little ambiguous. Wooyoung did it and I’m not sure what he was going for, but I’ll roll with it,’ he chuckles before motioning to me. ‘Your outfit’s pretty obvious, though. A perfect little angel, right?’ he smirks, and I let out a fake laugh. ‘How did you guess?’ ‘I think the halo and the wings give it away a little. The dress isn’t too angelic, though. A little… tight. Not that I’m complaining,’ he grins, and I feel my heart sinking. He’s attracted to me, he’s flirting with me, and yet… I don’t feel a single thing. What is wrong with me?

‘Well… I’m glad you like it. It’s a little… out there for me,’ I admit, hoping that derailing the conversation to something a little more tame will make things less awkward. ‘It really suits you. I think you should wear things like this all the time, if you want to. Be more confident in your body,’ he says encouragingly, and I feel so sad. Look how nice he’s being, and I still somehow feel like I’d much rather be talking to anyone else at this party. ‘I’ll try. I’m not sure my tutors would be too impressed if I showed up to my lectures and seminars in teeny little bodycon dresses,’ I joke, and he chuckles, grinning. ‘Maybe not,’ he murmurs with a smirk, ‘but I’m sure… other people would appreciate it.’

‘God, that’s the most awkward conversation I’ve ever listened to in my life,’ I say dryly to Ryujin as we leave the kitchen. ‘I know! The girl was obviously not interested, but he was not getting the message,’ she says, both of us wincing at the thought of how uncomfortable that was. ‘Boys are so dense,’ I complain as I throw myself down onto the sofa beside Lia, Ryujin perching on the arm of the sofa beside where Yuna sits. ‘Listen to you. She’s got a demon boyfriend now and, suddenly, she’s above human boys,’ Chaeryeong teases, and I raise my eyebrow, the other girls laughing. ‘He’s not my boyfriend. I’ve met him once.’ ‘And that was enough for him to fall in love with you,’ Lia says simply, and I roll my eyes. ‘He’s not in love!’ ‘He’s willing to come to a human party for you – it’s close enough to love,’ Yeji says dryly, and I shake my head with an amused smile. ‘This is not a human party at all. We’re like the only humans here, pretty much.’ ‘Us and that girl being practically tortured by that boy in the kitchen,’ Ryujin says with a wince, and I laugh. ‘Poor thing. We should’ve saved her. Pretended we know her or something.’ ‘Na, he was pretty hot. Maybe she’s just looking to get laid,’ Ryujin says with a shrug, and I consider it, nodding after a moment.

‘Who’s looking to get laid?’ a familiar voice says, and I look up to see Minho stood there, my heart stopping momentarily. He looks so handsome, in a pair of tight black trousers and a black shirt with white stripes on it, an expensive-looking black jacket thrown over the top of it, a smart casual outfit perfect for a date. I tried my best to wear something that doubles as a date outfit and a Halloween costume, but all I could come up with is a little black dress and a cat ear headband with a matching tail on my ass which I’ll take off when we leave here. At least I look sexy in it.

He holds out a hand to me and I take it, letting him pull me up from my seat, and he keeps my hand in his, holding it up and pressing his soft lips against my skin. ‘You sound different,’ Ryujin observes dryly, eyebrow raised, and he grins at her. ‘I decided to drop the formalities. No one wants to date a guy who sounds like he’s just stepped out of the Victorian era. Unless you’re into that?’ he asks with a grin, coaxing a laugh from me, and I’m relieved to hear him speaking like this instead of that stiff formal language. It makes him much less… intimidating.

‘I brought my friends,’ he says, and my eyes focus on the group stood a few feet behind him, all of them dressed similarly to Minho. They’re all taking turns to hug one blond boy who I saw earlier with his gorgeous girlfriend, the girl now stood beside the group, watching them with a loving smile on her face. ‘I’ll introduce them in a minute. Our friend was turned into a demon hunter centuries ago, and we’ve just now found out he’s back to being a demon again. It’s a long story – I’ll explain over dinner,’ he says, and I’m a little confused but I brush it off, just nodding.

‘Dinner?’ a voice says from behind Minho, the boy turning to reveal the blond boy’s girlfriend. She’s dressed in an elegant white evening dress, decked out in jewels and finery, a white veil in her hair and horribly gory cuts and wounds all over her face and chest. ‘Yes, dinner.’ ‘Ah, so this is the date you mentioned?’ she says, her eyes flitting to me, and I feel a little intimidated under her powerful gaze. ‘Hi. I’m y/n,’ I say shyly, and she looks impressed, holding out a hand to me, and I shake it firmly. ‘Nice to meet you, y/n. I am the Princess of the 5th Circle of Hell,’ she says with a smile, and I blink in surprise. ‘Charmed,’ I reply faintly, and she lets out a gentle laugh. ‘Does she not know of our nature, Minho?’ ‘She does. I suppose it takes a little getting used to,’ he says ruefully, and I nod embarrassedly.

‘You are dressed as a cat,’ she observes, and I nod, even more embarrassed. She looks all graceful as a zombie bride (I think?), and I’m in a cheap ass black dress and a flimsy plastic headband. ‘Minho has a liking for cats,’ she says amusedly, Minho choking on thin air, and I try to ignore the girls’ stifled laughter behind me as I say, ‘I… didn’t know that.’ ‘I guessed as much. What exactly are you supposed to be, Minho?’ ‘A normal boy taking a girl to dinner?’ he says with a small grin, and the girl rolls her eyes. ‘How boring.’

‘We don’t all have your creativity, Miss Zombie Bride,’ he teases sarcastically, and she lets out a little outraged gasp. ‘How dare you? Are you accusing me of being unoriginal? You should see Lucifer’s Princess – she’s dressed as an angel, and she’s here with her angel boyfriend,’ the girl says, sounding a little gossipy, and Minho’s mouth falls open. ‘Angel boyfriend?’ he asks, the girl nodding with a grin, satisfied at Minho’s reaction. ‘Do not ask her for details – she will gossip with you all night, and you shall be late to dinner with your human love,’ the blond-haired boy says amusedly, Minho nodding before his eyes flit back to me, a grin spreading on his handsome face.

He holds an arm out to me, and I link mine with his shyly, feeling more than intimidated with all these demons around. ‘We should get going. I’m parked outside,’ he says, and I feel excited – I’m really looking forward to this, regardless of the fact that my date is a demon prince. ‘Why did you bring a car?’ the demon princess says amusedly, and I look between her and Minho with confusion. ‘How else would we get there?’ ‘We can travel without… vehicles. What is it you humans call it… ah, teleporting, I believe,’ she says, and my eyes widen. ‘Can we do that?’ I ask Minho excitedly, and he shakes his head, an amused smile on his face. ‘You’ve never done it before, and it takes a lot of getting used to. I don’t want you to get hurt,’ he says, the last bit a little quieter, and his demon friends behind him fail at holding back their laughter, making him look more than a bit sheepish. ‘Do not tease him. He is obviously taken with her, and it is high time he settled down,’ the demon princess says, though she looks like she’s holding back laughter too, and Minho just shakes his head.

‘We’re going. See you in a few hours,’ he says embarrassedly, leading me towards the door, and I wave goodbye to the girls and Minho’s friends over my shoulder, all of them watching us leave with big smiles on their faces. We dodge around the groups of partygoers, dressed up all sorts of supernatural creatures and famous characters, and it feels like we’ve entered another world when we step out through the front door, the air clear, crisp and quiet. ‘Are you cold?’ he asks, and I shake my head, his eyebrow raising. ‘Okay, maybe I am.’ ‘I’d be shocked if you weren’t in that dress,’ he says amusedly, taking his jacket off and helping me to put it on, giving me butterflies. It smells like expensive aftershave and something… dark and smoky, like night itself. ‘Come on, angel, let’s get going,’ he grins, throwing an arm around my shoulders and leading me towards where several cars are parked on the driveway of the manor. ‘Where are we going?’ I ask, and his grins grows even wider. ‘Wherever you want to go, angel,’ he says softly, holding me close to him, ‘I’ll go anywhere with you.’

‘Oh, my God. That was so romantic,’ I squeal under my breath as we pass the couple who are leaving, the boy holding the passenger door of his car open for the girl, and I.N. – no, Jeongin – rolls his eyes. ‘It was cheesy,’ he says, ever the cynic, and I shoot him a look. ‘Whatever, grumpy,’ I mutter, and he lets out a little laugh. ‘I’m not grumpy.’ ‘You are! You complained the entire way here!’ ‘Yeah, because I don’t want to be here. I don’t like leaving the house.’ ‘But I’ve got a s-’ ‘Surprise, yes, I know. It’d be nice if you told me what it was,’ he says pointedly, and I roll my eyes. ‘It’s not a surprise if I tell you,’ I say simply, the boy muttering something under his breath as we reach the front door. I push it open, stepping through the doorway with Jeongin behind me, and I can feel the nervous energy practically radiating from him as we head further into the party. This is the first time he’s left the house to go further than the local shops and I can understand his anxiety, which is why I reach out and take his hand into mine, leading him through the big groups of people, to where they said they’d be in the kitchen.

‘Okay, I have some good news,’ I say when we reach the door of the kitchen, his hand still in mine, and he looks relieved that he’s finding out the surprise. ‘What’s the good news?’ ‘You can carry on living in 325 Sunshine Street,’ I say excitedly, looking forward to his reaction, and his face lights up. ‘You’re not selling it?’ he asks breathlessly, eyes sparkling with excitement, and I hesitate. ‘It’s still being sold… to me. I’m moving in,’ I say tentatively, and he doesn’t react for a moment. I worry that I’ve got this all wrong, that this is the last thing he would want, and that this is going to ruin the friendship that’s developed between us, the friendship that I treasure more than I realised. ‘You’re moving in?’ he asks, and I nod slowly. ‘I mean, only if you want me to! I don’t have t-’ ‘I want you to. I really want you to. Are you serious?’ he asks, eyes lighting up as he speaks, and relief floods through me. ‘Yes, I’m serious. I’m buying the house!’ I exclaim, and he lets out a loud whoop of excitement, pulling me into his arms. He’s so real, so warm and soft, and he doesn’t feel like a ghost at all.

‘That’s the best surprise you could’ve given me!’ he says contentedly, pulling away from me, and I can’t help but grin at him, so happy that he’s happy. ‘Actually… I don’t think it is. I have an even better one for you,’ I say excitedly, and he eyes me suspiciously. ‘Another surprise? Better than you moving in?’ ‘Mmhmm. It’s in the kitchen,’ I say, and he looks at the door before looking back at me. ‘Can I…?’ he asks, and I nod, laughing. He holds a hand up to the door, looking nervous as he pushes it open, and when he opens it, I wish I could imprint the look on his face to my brain forever, the look of pure wonder and happiness making me feel warm inside.

I can hear loud yelling from the kitchen before Jeongin rushes in, and I follow behind him, watching with a fond smile as his friends greet him and hug him for the first time since their exams all those years ago. For the first time since he died. I reached out to Chan last night, who was the one trying to sell the house, and told him everything. He told the other boys, and they told me they’d be at the party tonight, asking if I could bring him so they could see him again. When I first spoke to Chan, I suggested they all move into the house with Jeongin, but he told me that some of them were married with children. They had their own families now, and it was too late for them to move in with their old family. Which is when I came up with the idea to live there myself. I still have to work out the logistics, and how I’m going to tell my parents that I’m moving out of their house to live with my friend that they’ve never heard of in the house I’ve been trying to sell for months and haven’t been able to do so. But that’ll come later.

Jeongin’s eyes are full of tears and so are his brothers’, all of them radiating happiness as they embrace, and try to catch him up on what’s been going on in the past few years. He looks so young next to them, but I can see the echo of what they were at school, his presence making them seem younger too. I stand in the doorway and watch, wanting him to have his time with them, but he turns to look at me after a few minutes, telling them he’ll be right back. ‘You’re the best. Thank you,’ he says sincerely, pulling me into another hug, and I feel my heart melt. ‘You’re welcome. Now go back to your family, stupid. You’ll have all the time in the world to speak to me, when we live together,’ I say with a grin, and he rolls his eyes. ‘You’re the stupid one, y/n,’ he grins, and I raise an eyebrow, and my heart swells when he says, ‘don’t you know you’re my family now too?’

‘Did you hear that? How cute,’ I say to Chaeryeong as we enter the living room, wanting a reprieve from the racket those boys were making in the kitchen. ‘Yeah, but what’s the context? Because it’s not cute if she’s into him. That wasn’t even friendzone – it was familyzone,’ Chaeryeong says, making me laugh. ‘I didn’t think about that. Poor thing,’ I say as we head to the bathroom. There’s a little room before the actual bathroom itself, with mirrors lining the walls, and we head to the one in the corner to check our appearances. I nearly have a heart attack when I spot a wrinkle creasing my forehead, and I feel faint when I see grey locks streaked through my hair, making me look more like the Bride of Frankenstein than the sexy vampire I’m dressed up as. ‘I’m gonna cry. Look at the state of me. I look like an old lady,’ I wail miserably, Chaeryeong giving me a pitying look. ‘You don’t, y/n! This hairstyle is in!’ ‘Okay, but wrinkles all over my face isn’t!’ I shriek, the girl wincing when she spots them. ‘Well… you’ve gotta break the curse then.’ ‘I’ve been trying. It’s harder than you think. I’ve been doing so many selfless and generous things, but apparently not without judgement, even though I wasn’t even being judgemental,’ I complain, and Chaeryeong raises an eyebrow.

‘What have you been doing?’ ‘I paid for the coffee of the guy behind me in Starbucks, even though he totally wasn’t my type. I gave this half-troll girl a pad when I went for dinner with Yuna last night. I stopped to let an old man cross the road, and he was super slow. I did loads of other stuff too!’ I list off, and Chaeryeong shakes her head despairingly. ‘y/n, you moron! You judged every one of those people!’ ‘No, I didn’t!’ ‘Listen to how you just described them. A guy who wasn’t your type. A half-troll girl. An old man. You’re supposed to look past people’s appearance, but that’s the way you just described them all, stupid!’ she exclaims, and my mouth falls open. She’s right. I am stupid. ‘Oh, my God. I’m never gonna break this curse. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I look at people without seeing what they look like?’ I wail helplessly, Chaeryeong rolling her eyes at me.

Before she can speak, a girl dressed as a devil walks in, ranting and raving angrily, and Chaeryeong exchange a glance. She looks like she’s crying, her friend trying her best to comfort her. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask, and she looks at me in surprise before letting out a loud sob. ‘No,’ she wails, and I step towards her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask, and her friend sighs. ‘Her ex is here, with his new girlfriend, and they’re dressed as an angel and devil. She thinks her ex’s new girl is a better devil than she is, and now she feels like an idiot that she’s wearing a couple costume with her ex, but he’s here with his new girl,’ her friend explains, and I wince. It’s an awkward situation to say the least, and I feel really sorry for her. If that was me, I’d probably leave out of embarrassment, especially if I thought her costume was better than mine.

The girl in front of me is in all black with a red belt (a devil tail hanging from it) and red devil horns, with red contacts like mine, and she looks around the same size as me. ‘Oh, my God, I just had the best idea! Why don’t we swap outfits? You can have my fake fangs and I brought fake blood, too, and I’ll have your horns and belt! Then you can be a sexy vampire instead of a sexy devil!’ I suggest excitedly, the girl’s eyes lighting up. ‘You’d do that?’ ‘Of course. Exes are, like, the worst. Here,’ I say, pulling my fangs out and rushing into the bathroom to give them a quick wash. When I came back, she’s taken off the belt and horns, holding them out to me. ‘You’re really nice, you know? Thank you so much,’ she says sincerely, looking a lot happier now than she did a minute ago, and I grin at her. ‘No problem,’ I reply, passing her the fangs, and I help her to put some fake blood around her mouth and in two dots on her neck. She keeps thanking me and we even exchange socials before she leaves, because she says she wants to keep in touch with the girl that saved her Halloween. I can’t stop smiling as I put on the belt and horns, carefully wiping away the fake blood on my mouth and neck, touching it up with my foundation. It feels nice to do something nice for someone.

‘Oh, my God!’ Chaeryeong exclaims, and I look at her worriedly. ‘What?’ ‘Look at your hair!’ she practically screams, and I look at myself in the mirror. The grey has disappeared from my hair, and so have the wrinkles on my face. My body feels a little stronger than it did a few minutes ago, and I poke my tongue around at the back of my mouth, finding that there are no longer gaps where three of my teeth fell out yesterday. ‘I broke the curse!’ I say excitedly, Chaeryeong pulling me into an excited hug. ‘Look how easy it was!’ ‘I know! God, this’ll teach me to stop being such a bitch. Ugh, I’m so glad to have my teeth back! I’m gonna go find Seungmin,’ I say, wanting to tell him, and she nods. ‘I’ll be with the girls. Just phone me if you can’t find us,’ she says, and we leave the bathroom, going our separate ways.

It doesn’t take me long to find Seungmin – I can hear his friendship group from a mile away – and he grins at me as I approach. ‘You just broke it, didn’t you?’ he asks, and my eyes widen. ‘How did you know?’ ‘It’s obvious. Look how excited you are. How did you do it?’ he asks, and I explain to him, the boy rolling his eyes. ‘See how simple it is? I’m glad you’ve learnt not to be a judgmental bitch now,’ he teases, and I shove him half-heartedly. ‘Whatever. But, honestly… I really have learnt my lesson. I feel terrible about that witch now. I’ll never be nasty again,’ I proclaim, and Seungmin raises an eyebrow. ‘We’ll see about that.’ ‘Well… I’ll try to never be nasty again,’ I amend, and he laughs. ‘That sounds more like you.’

‘y/n! Long time, no see! Are you two back together?’ Changbin slurs drunkenly, throwing his arms around us, and I wince as Seungmin closes his eyes momentarily. ‘No. We’re not,’ he replies, Changbin cringing. ‘Oh. Sorry for making it awkward. I’m gonna just…’ he trails off, turning back to the boys and whispering loud enough for us to hear, ‘they’re not back together, Jisung. You owe me a twenty.’ Seungmin sighs, putting a hand over his face as though he’s trying to keep himself together, and I let out a little laugh. ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s okay. It’s not that big of a deal,’ I say, and Seungmin hesitates before saying, ‘I actually wanted to speak to you about that.’ I freeze for a moment, blinking as I try to process his words.

‘About… us?’ I ask, and he nods. ‘I know you ended things because I’m immortal, but I… found something. I’ve been looking for a… solution to that problem, and I found one. There’s this… potion, I guess, a really complicated one that takes a long time to brew, but I collected all the ingredients and I’ve started brewing it already,’ he begins, and I’m itching to hear the rest of what he’s got to say. ‘It’s an immortality potion, but it works in different ways, depending on who takes it. If someone mortal takes it, they become immortal. If someone immortal takes it…’ he trails off, and I finish for him; ‘they become mortal.’ He nods gravely, and I don’t reply for a few seconds, mind working at a million miles an hour.

‘So you want me to take the potion to be immortal?’ ‘No! No, y/n, God, no! I’d never ask that of you!’ he says quickly, looking shocked that I even asked, and then I realise what he means. ‘You’re suggesting that you take it? To be mortal?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘But… is that what you want?’ I ask, and he sighs, taking a few moments to reply; ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and… yeah, I think so. I mean…. I don’t want to outlive everyone around me, everyone I care about, and love. And it’s not even outliving them, it’s seeing them turn 30, 40, 50, 60, whilst I still look like a teenager. I don’t want that to happen. I want to grow old with the people I love. I… I want to grow old with you,’ he says quietly, and I feel my heart stop momentarily. ‘Me?’ ‘Yes. You, y/n. I still love you. A lot, actually. I’d do anything for a life with you. And I understand if you don’t feel the same way anymore, but I thought I’d tell you, because I know that’s the reason you ended things. I guess… I’m hoping that that was the only reason, and that now I can fix it, you’ll have me back. But I get it if you don’t want to-’ ‘I do, though. I really, really do,’ I say without even thinking, and his eyes widen, face lighting up.

‘Wait, really?’ ‘Yes, Seungmin. I do want to have you back. But… I want you to properly think about this. It’s a big sacrifice that you’re thinking of making, and I want you to think it through.’ ‘y/n, I’ve been thinking it through the entire time we were broken up, the entire time I was looking for the potion. It’s all I ever thought about. I want this,’ he says earnestly, and I know that he’s being truthful, that he really has thought this through properly. He’s mature and responsible, and I know he wouldn’t rush into a decision like this without thinking it through properly. ‘Okay,’ I say simply, and he blinks in surprise. ‘Okay?’ ‘Okay. I’ll be with you.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yes, Seungmin, really,’ I laugh, and he lets out a loud shout of celebration, throwing his arms around me in a hug and I giggle at his reaction, touched at his excitement. ‘Are you back together?’ Jisung demands when we break apart, and I roll my eyes as Seungmin sighs at him. ‘Yes. We are now.’ ‘Ha! Changbin, you better give me that twenty back!’

‘Oh, that reminds me of our bet!’ Jisung says suddenly, all of us looking at him in surprise. ‘What? What bet?’ Yuna asks, and the boys exchange yet another cryptic glance, none of them speaking. ‘Oh, my God!’ Lia exclaims, finally losing her patience, ‘what is wrong with you guys? Why can’t you just tell us what the hell is going on? Or, at least, stop talking about it in front of us! Because I’m fed up of it n-’ ‘y/n,’ Chan says suddenly, cutting Lia’s tirade off, and we all turn our gazes to him. ‘I wasn’t talking, it was Lia-‘ ‘I know. I just… can I have a word with you? Outside, please,’ he says quietly, and I blink in confusion. What’s with the weird timing, and what exactly does he want to say? ‘Um, yeah, okay,’ I say softly, completely confused, and Chan rises from his seat, holding out a hand to help me up too. He leads me through to the back of the house, taking me out into the grounds, and he sits us down on a bench, a group of boys sat smoking weed on the bench on our left, and two other boys having a heart-to-heart on the bench to our right.

‘What’s the matter, Chan? Are you okay?’ I say concernedly, and he gives me a faint smile. ‘I’m fine. I just… I’ve got something important that I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, but it’s kinda… serious. Just, um… prepare yourself,’ he says seriously, and I side-eye him. ‘You’re scaring me, Chan.’ ‘It’s not bad! Well, maybe it is. I don’t know,’ he rambles, and I let out a little laugh. ‘Chan, just tell me.’ ‘Sorry, sorry. Um, so, basically… you are my… um… my mate,’ he says slowly, wincing as he speaks, and I just blink for a few seconds before asking, ‘Your mate?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘Like… life companion forever?’ ‘That’s right, yeah.’ ‘But… I’m a human,’ I say slowly, unable to believe what he’s saying. ‘Anyone can be our mates. Even… vampires, or demons. So, yeah… you’re my mate. But just because you’re my mate, it doesn’t mean I have to be yours,’ he says, almost sounding sad. ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, puzzled, and he sighs.

‘Humans don’t have mates, so you can be with anyone you want to be, fall in love with anyone you want to fall in love with. You don’t have to be with me if you don’t want to,’ he explains, and I feel even more confused. ‘Wait, so what does it mean then? Like… I’m your mate but I don’t have to be with you? So what’s the point of it then?’ ‘It means that I will never… want anyone else, or love anyone else. Not that I want or love you – I barely know you – but y-’ ‘I know what you mean. So… if you don’t end up with me, you’ll end up alone?’ I ask, and he nods sadly. ‘But don’t… force yourself to be with me because of that. I want you to be happy, whether or not that’s with me,’ he says, and I can feel the burden of it already settling on my shoulders. I’m the love of his life – he’ll never love anyone other than me.

‘Um…’ I begin, but Chan cuts me off, ‘you don’t have to, like, make any decisions, or even say anything. I just… thought it was important that I told you.’ ‘Yeah, I know. I’m glad you told me, because now I can tell you that I’ve been crushing on you since the second I saw you, and I’d really like it if we went on a date together,’ I force myself to say, feeling so nervous even though he’s just told me I’m his mate. He just stares at me for a second before he says, ‘really?’ ‘Yeah. Really.’ ‘Well… I’d really like it if we went on a date, too,’ he says with a grin, and I can’t help but smile back shyly. ‘God, y/n, I was supposed to ask you out! Not the other way around!’ he complains, and I let out a fond laugh, amused at his childish behaviour that he’d never show around the other boys. ‘Well, you did make the first move by telling me I’m your mate,’ I point out and he thinks for a moment before a satisfied smile spreads across his face. ‘Yeah, I guess I did,’ he grins, and I roll my eyes.

‘Come on, let’s go back in. You must be cold out here, and we better get going. We’ll be turning soon,’ he says, standing up and taking my hand to pull me up from the bench. ‘So what’s the bet Jisung mentioned?’ I ask, curious, and Chan lets out an embarrassed laugh. ‘Whether or not I’d tell you tonight. They all betted I wouldn’t, and I said I would. They owe me ten each now,’ he says with a victorious grin. ‘I’m gonna deny all knowledge,’ I laugh, and his mouth falls open. ‘You wouldn’t betray me like that!’ he exclaims dramatically, making me giggle. ‘I won’t if you share the money with me.’ ‘y/n,’ he begins, eyes sparkling with amusement, ‘you’re my mate. I’d share my life with you if you asked.’

‘Ugh, did you hear that sappy shit that wolf was saying? Oh, y/n!’ Jisung says when he sees me, eyes lighting up which makes my heart stop for a moment. ‘Hey,’ I say, sounding breathless to my own ears, and Jisung grins at my tone, looking up at me stood before the bench with dark eyes. ‘y/n. It’s nice to meet you,’ the boy sat next to him says, and my eyes flit to Hyunjin, the boy Daehwi originally tried to set me up with. He’s even hotter in person. ‘Hey, Hyunjin. It’s nice to meet you too,’ I say shyly, and he grins. ‘Sorry I couldn’t make it. But I’ve heard Jisung more than made up for my absence. You two have struck up quite the friendship, right?’ he asks, and my gaze turns to Jisung, the boy smirking, and I look back to Hyunjin before nodding. ‘Yeah, we have, actually. He’s a great friend.’ ‘And a great wingman too, by the sound of it,’ Hyunjin grins, and I feel my face heat up at the thought that these two very attractive boys both know that less than two weeks ago, I was an untouched virgin who wanted to have sex before my first ever date. I’m embarrassed beyond belief, and it’s like they can both sense it, amusement settling on both of their faces.

‘Yeah, y/n, speaking of which, where is your date?’ he asks, and I remember why I came out here, a pout making its way onto my face. Jisung and Hyunjin move apart, making space for me on the bench, and I throw myself down with a long, dramatic sigh. ‘He is literally… so boring,’ I admit, both of them bursting into laughter. ‘Don’t laugh! It’s not funny! I’m, like, heartbroken!’ I complain, annoyed that they think this is funny, but I can also feel myself holding back laughter. ‘Sorry, sorry. But… y/n, I thought you wanted to have sex with him. You don’t have to find him fascinating,’ Jisung says, and I let out another long sigh. ‘I’m not like you stupid boys. I don’t wanna just have sex with someone because they’re good looking. I was attracted to him until I found out he’s literally the most boring guy I’ve ever spoken to in my life. Okay, maybe not boring. Just… we’re not compatible, so it was really, really awkward. And the worst thing was that it seemed like he didn’t even realise that is was awkward. He just kept talking,’ I explain, the boys nonstop laughing as I talk, and I’m laughing along with them by the time I finish speaking.

‘That’s such a shame, y/n,’ Hyunjin says, still laughing, and Jisung says, ‘maybe not. I don’t want you in a relationship.’ I look at him in surprise, and he looks surprised too, as though he didn’t mean to say the words out loud. ‘You were good, angel. I’d like it if we c-’ ‘Okay! Okay, you don’t need to finish that sentence,’ I say embarrassedly, not wanting him to say it in front of Hyunjin who fails at stifling his laughter. ‘So why are you here, y/n? You’re best friends with Daehwi’s girlfriend, right? And she’s here. Why are you out here with us?’ Hyunjin asks, and I hesitate, not exactly sure myself. ‘I guess… I wanted to come and complain to Jisung about the fact that he took my virginity for no reason, because I’m not even gonna have sex tonight,’ I say miserably, kicking at the gravel like a sulky little kid. ‘I mean, you could,’ Jisung says with a grin, Hyunjin bursting into laughter as I choke on thin air. ‘I’m kidding.’ ‘No, you’re not,’ Hyunjin chuckles, and Jisung says, ‘you’re right, I’m not.’ ‘Well… thanks for the offer, but I’m not in the mood. I’m too upset,’ I say dramatically.

‘Let me cheer you up then,’ Jisung says, and I side-eye him. ‘I just told you I’m not in the m-’ ‘No, I don’t mean that! Let’s go dance together, or we’ll go somewhere for food if you’re hungry. Let’s get your mind off… Soggy Seonghwa,’ Jisung says with a grin, both Hyunjin and I dissolving into uncontrollable laughter. ‘Soggy Seonghwa?’ I giggle, Jisung nodding. ‘I don’t think he deserves the Sex God title,’ Jisung says, tone all shady and gossipy, Hyunjin and I laughing even more now. ‘Well, whatever. You don’t have to cheer me up, it’s okay. I’ll go find one of the girls and get blackout drunk,’ I say, Jisung frowning. ‘No, no. I don’t have to cheer you up, but I want to cheer you up. I mean…’ he trails off, and Hyunjin raises his eyebrows at Jisung, as though there’s something going on here that I don’t know about. ‘We’re friends, right?’ he asks, and I nod instantly. ‘Of course.’ ‘Well, you must know I see you as more than just a friend, and I think you see me as more than just a friend too. So, yeah. I’m kinda relieved things didn’t work out with Soggy,’ he says, and I’m too shocked to laugh, butterflies exploding in my stomach.

He sees me as more than a friend? ‘Wait, what do you mean?’ I ask, and he laughs. ‘I like you, y/n, and you like me too. You might not know it, but you do. I can tell from the way you feel when I’m around. So let me… woo you,’ he says, making me laugh, and his lips curl up into a small grin. ‘Woo me?’ ‘Mmhmm. Let me dance with you, or take you for food, or take you back to your apartment,’ he smirks, and I roll my eyes. ‘Having sex is not wooing me.’ ‘I never said anything about sex,’ he grins with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘So what would we do?’ ‘I don’t know. Watch a film? Cuddle? Bake? What is it you human girls like to do when you’re dating someone?’ he asks, and I let out a gentle laugh. ‘That stuff sounds about right. But I don’t want to leave yet.’ ‘Okay. Let’s go dance then,’ he says with a grin, jumping up from the bench and pulling me up with him. ‘Hyunjin, you coming?’ Jisung asks, and I’m reminded that the other boy is sat there too. He smiles up at us, eyes shining with happiness, and he shakes his head. ‘You guys go. Have fun. I’m gonna find a cute little human girl. Got any friends, y/n?’ he asks with a mischievous grin, and I laugh. ‘Quite a few. And you’re hot, so you can take your pick,’ I say, Hyunjin jumping up from the bench at that, all of us laughing as we head up to the house. ‘Wait,’ Jisung says when we reach the back door, looking at me with a scowl, ‘did you just call my best friend hot?’

‘He is pretty hot, though. I won’t lie,’ I say to the boy as I step out through the back door, the pretty girl dressed very similarly to me and the two pretty boys on either side of her looking at me. ‘Yeah, I am, right? Can I get you a drink?’ the taller boy asks with a cocky grin, and I roll my eyes. ‘My boyfriend’s getting me one,’ I say, and his grin falls. ‘You just said I’m hot,’ he complains, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘I’m Lucifer’s daughter – I can say what I want,’ I tell him, and his mouth shuts straight away, the girl looking a little scared and the other boy looking amused. ‘Shame you’re in a relationship. You’re pretty hot,’ the taller boy says, and I grin at him. ‘Thanks. She’s hotter, though,’ I say, pointing at the girl who looks like she wants to curl in on herself and disappear. ‘Me?’ ‘Mmhmm. You got that cute little innocent vibe going on. Makes you even hotter.’ ‘Oh. Thanks,’ she says, a little more at ease now after the compliment.

‘She likes him,’ the taller boy says, pointing at the short boy who’s grinning proudly. ‘Share her,’ I say, only half-joking, and the girl coughs out of shock. ‘Share me? I’m not a chocolate bar,’ she says indignantly, and I feel my eyebrows go up in admiration – she’s a feisty one. ‘I like you, angel. You into girls?’ I ask, and the shorter boy’s smile drops. ‘You’ve got a boyfriend.’ ‘What about it? You think Princesses of Hell conform to different sexualities? Or to monogamy?’ I ask, purposely trying to piss him off, and he opens his mouth before closing it. I look at the girl again, waiting for her answer. I’m not actually interested (I mean, I wouldn’t say no) but it’s fun to tease her little boyfriends like this. ‘I’m… open to anything. But I do kinda like him,’ she says, pointing to the shorter boy, and I shrug. ‘Shame. I’m way hotter than him,’ I grin, the boy letting out an indignant noise.

‘I’m getting you a drink, and you’re flirting with someone else?’ I hear Felix’s voice behind me, and I turn my grin to him, my heart jumping at the amused smile on his face, the boy handing me a cup of some fruity flavoured vodka. ‘Ah, you’re the boyfriend? I’d sort her out if I were you – she’s flirting with my girl,’ the shorter boy says, and I roll my eyes. ‘He’s just jealous because he knows I could steal her if I wanted,’ I tease, baiting him, and he scowls at me. ‘Stop trying to steal the demon boy’s girlfriend, please. I’m not in the mood to hold you back from a fight today,’ Felix says, and I look at the shorter boy interestedly. ‘You’re a demon?’ I ask, surprised Felix realised and I didn’t, and he nods. ‘An incubus. So is he,’ he says, pointing at the other boy who gives me a lazy grin, and I look between the three in them with amused interest.

‘This just got way more interesting. A human girl has two incubuses wrapped around her little finger,’ I observe, the taller boy blinking in surprise. ‘I just met her,’ he says, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘You think she’s hot, though?’ ‘I’m not blind, of course I think she’s hot.’ ‘You got competition, kid,’ I say to the shorter boy, the frown on his face making me hold back a laugh. ‘Anyway, I don’t care about you two. Well done, girl. Bagged yourself… at least one incubus – I don’t know about this guy, but the other one definitely likes you. He’s, like, radiating jealousy right now,’ I tease, enjoying this, and Felix puts an arm around my waist. ‘Okay, that’s enough picking on the human girl and her incubus boyfriends,’ he says softly, the three of them letting out annoyed noises. ‘He’s not her boyfriend!’ ‘He’s not my boyfriend!’ ‘I’m not her boyfriend!’

‘Relax, he’s just kidding,’ I say as Felix begins to pull me towards the living room. ‘You’re a handful,’ he mutters amusedly, and I roll my eyes. ‘It’s fine, Lix, you don’t have to worry about me.’ ‘I don’t. I worry about the poor thing that you piss off to the point where they try to fight you and then you kill them,’ he says tiredly, and I let out a laugh. ‘I wouldn’t kill them. Probably just injure them a little.’ ‘Wow, I’ve really changed you, huh?’ he jokes, and I shove him gently as we reach the farthest corner from the DJ booth, both of us perching on the bay window.

We’re silent for a few moments, just looking at all the partygoers. It’s been quite a few hours now, so people are very drunk. The wolves left a little while ago, ready for their turn, and the vampires are making the most of their absence; they’re all scattered out into the party, biting people (consensually – I think) left, right and centre. The humans here seem at home around us otherworldly beings – in the space of a minute, I notice a human boy making out with a wizard in the corner, a group of human girls and succubuses dancing together in the middle of the room, and a pixie boy on the lap of a human girl, the two of them playing cards with their pixie and human friends. It’s quite nice to see the way everyone mixes together so freely, without worry or judgement, but we all know that nothing like this would happen in any other district. That’s why District 9 is so special.

I look at Felix, the boy deep in thought, and I lean against him, pressing a kiss to his neck. ‘What are you thinking about?’ I ask him against his skin, and I can feel him grin. ‘Whatever you’re thinking about,’ he says, and I groan, making him laugh. ‘That was so cheesy.’ ‘You’re dating an angel, babe. Get used to the cheesy lines.’ ‘I might have to dump you if you use another one.’ ‘If I can deal with you flirting with random human girls and demon boys, and nearly starting a fight with one of them, you can put up with a bad line every now and then,’ he grins, putting a hand on my chin and tilting my head back to press his lips to mine. ‘You’re lucky you’re so cute, because I wouldn’t put up with it from anyone else,’ I grumble when we break apart, and he smiles at me softly.

‘I’m so glad God was fine with it.’ ‘Of course she was! I told you she would be. You just worry too much.’ ‘I know, I know. I can’t believe you spoke to God dressed an angel when you’re literally her biggest betrayer’s daughter.’ ‘Did you just refer to my dad as God’s biggest betrayer?’ I ask with a raised eyebrow, and he winces, making me laugh. ‘Sorry.’ ‘It’s fine. He’s not that good a dad, anyway.’ ‘Oh, God, have you got daddy issues? Would be nice if you’d told me before I started dating you,’ he says, mirth in his eyes, and I shove him gently. ‘You’re so annoying.’ ‘You wouldn’t have me any other way,’ he grins, and I roll my eyes. ‘You’d be boring if you weren’t so annoying.’ ‘Oh, thanks.’ ‘I’m kidding. Kind of. No, I’m joking, I’m joking. I wouldn’t have you any other way,’ I admit when he starts pouting, laughing at the proud grin that stretches across his face.

‘You’re so whipped for me.’ ‘I am not whipped.’ ‘You are.’ ‘Am not.’ ‘It’s okay. I like you whipped. Whipped you is super cute.’ ‘Cute?’ ‘I was gonna say sexy, but I thought that’d make you act up,’ he laughs, and I raise an eyebrow, feeling my eyes glow red and watching the grin from his face slowly slip away. ‘You thought right,’ I reply quietly, hand snaking up his chest to the back of his neck, and he gulps imperceptibly. ‘You think there’s any empty rooms upstairs?’ he asks, hands sliding around my waist, a small smirk on his face. ‘Trust me, I’ll make one empty if I have to,’ I grin and his smile grows as he takes my hands into his, our drinks discarded when he pulls me up from the windowsill. ‘You know,’ he begins, pulling me towards the stairs, ‘I never thought it’d be so sexy to hear you threaten to murder people so we can have sex in an empty bedroom.’

‘I’m so tired of all this romance,’ I wail, throwing myself back against the sofa, and Yuna raises an eyebrow at me, holding back a laugh. ‘Romance?’ ‘She threatened to kill people for him. That’s so romantic.’ ‘She’s a demon, so it’s not a big deal for her.’ ‘Did you just say murder isn’t a big deal?’ I ask, and Yuna is silent for a moment. ‘This party’s changed me,’ she says with horror, making me burst into laughter and momentarily forget about my drunken wallowing. ‘It’s crazy being around all these different… magical people,’ she says quietly, obviously not wanting one of the said magical people around us to hear and take it the wrong way. ‘We’re always around vampires. This isn’t any different, if you think about it,’ I say, reminding myself of vampires and then letting out a dramatic cry, Yuna shaking her head amusedly at me.

‘y/n, just go speak to him if you’re that upset. There’s no point ruining your own Halloween by being all drunk and sad. Just speak to him, get it out of the way, and then you can enjoy yourself!’ she says, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to enjoy myself if he breaks my heart,’ I say dryly, and she thinks for a second before saying, ‘he already did, didn’t he?’ ‘Well… yeah, but-’ ‘So what have you got to lose? Go, speak to him.’ ‘I thought you were calling him an idiot earlier,’ I say pointedly, and she raises an eyebrow. ‘I was before I realised you’d be moping all night and drowning your sorrows in the worst alcohol I’ve ever smelt in my life,’ she spits, making me laugh when she scrunches up her nose, pushing my cup further away from her. ‘It doesn’t smell that bad.’ ‘Tell that to your breath.’ Yuna!’ ‘I’m kidding! But here,’ she says, reaching into her bag and pulling out bubblegum, handing me two pieces. ‘If you’re gonna go speak to Hyunjin, you don’t want to smell like cheap gin,’ she says as I down the rest of my gin and put the bubblegum in my mouth, quickly chewing it down from solid little shells into stretchy elastic gum.

‘Okay, now go. Seriously,’ she prompts, pushing me up from the sofa, and I nod, looking down at myself. ‘How do I look?’ I ask, and she inspects me. ‘Touch up your lipgloss. And take the jacket off – it covers how cute your top is,’ she says, and I do as she says, applying some more lipgloss from the tube that’s in my back pocket before pulling off my jacket, Yuna taking it from me. Now, I’m just in black leather trousers, a black crop top and black heels, looking more like sexy Sandy than pretty pink lady Sandra Dee. ‘Go. And don’t tell the girls you’re going – they’ll stop you and give you all sorts of stupid advice,’ she instructs, and I nod, heading towards the kitchen before I lose my nerve, avoiding the girls dancing in the middle of the room. I take a deep breath when I reach the door before putting my best uninterested face on, pushing the door open and revelling in the way all eyes turn to me. It’s much quieter in here, due to the door separating us from the loud music, and the fact that it’s very late and a lot of people have already left, so I can hear people whispering about how I look.

I ignore the whispering, not bothering to look around yet because I don’t want Hyunjin to catch me looking at him, and just head towards the fridge, pretending to decide what to have before I reach for a small glass bottle of alcoholic pink lemonade. I close the fridge, looking around the room for straws and I spot them, right beside where the vampire boys stand. I head towards them and they all go quiet, obviously expecting me to speak to them, but I don’t bother, just reaching for the packet of black straws and pulling out a clean one. I begin to walk away, hoping my plan will work, and I have to stop myself from punching the air when I hear Jeongin call out, ‘y/n!’ I turn back around slowly, pretending to be surprised when I see them. ‘Oh, hey! I didn’t see you guys there. Where have you been all night?’ I ask, taking a couple steps towards them but still keeping my distance, my eyes staying on Jeongin and not straying to the annoyingly handsome boy beside him. ‘We’ve been around. The question is, where have you been all night? There’s eight of us, and one of you, and none of us have seen you,’ Changbin says with a grin, and I raise an eyebrow, taking a sip from the lemonade. ‘I’ve been around,’ I reply, and his eyebrows go up, an impressed look on his face. ‘Touché,’ he murmurs, a grin spreading across my face at that.

‘I’m gonna head back to the girls in the living r-’ ‘Why in such a rush, y/n? Stay and chat for a bit,’ Felix says with a small smile, eyes cryptic, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘About what?’ ‘You.’ ‘What about me?’ ‘What you’re dressed up as,’ Felix says, and I laugh softly. ‘I was a pink lady, but I got too hot, so I took my jacket off. Is that all?’ I ask, the boys exchanging a glance. ‘No, no, not quite,’ Jisung says, and I roll my eyes. ‘What else then?’ I ask, sounding exasperated to my own ears. ‘I wanna know why you’re so drunk,’ Seungmin says dryly, and I let out a laugh. ‘I’m not that drunk.’ ‘Your eyes aren’t fully focused, the smell of peach gin is literally dripping off you, and you’re chewing on bubblegum to try and cover it up,’ he says pointedly, and I let out a little sigh. ‘Okay, so maybe I’m a bit drunk. What about it?’ ‘You’re usually so responsible, y/n. It’s not like you to get drunk. What’s going on?’ Minho asks, smirk on his face, and then I realise what’s going on. They know what happened, and they know that I’m hurt and that’s why I’m drunk, and they’re basically dangling it in my face.

‘If you must know,’ I begin, all of them practically hanging off my words, ‘I was drowning my sorrows, but now that I’m so drunk I can barely see straight, I feel a lot better. So good, in fact, that I might take the incubus I spoke to a little while ago up on his offer. So, if you’ll excuse me.’ I turn on my heel, heading back towards the living room, and then I hear his voice. ‘y/n, wait,’ he says softly, and I freeze, taking a deep breath before I turn back to face them, the boy shrinking in on himself when he sees my face. This is the first time I’ve looked at him properly, and it breaks my heart how beautiful he looks, his soft dark locks falling over his eyes, tall and lean build dressed in all black, top few buttons of his shirt unbuttoned and trousers skin tight. ‘Yes?’

‘Drowning your sorrows?’ he asks softly, and I want to scream at him, my eyes filling with tears. ‘The embarrassment of leaving me without a word wasn’t enough, and neither was the ghosting me or the telling your friends about what happened so they could interrogate me whilst I’m smashed, so now you have to humiliate me by making me spell out how hurt I am? Is that what’s going on here?’ I demand, voice wavering, and about a million emotions pass across his face, the most prevalent being guilt. ‘No, y/n, that’s not what I-’ ‘I don’t care. Please… just leave me alone like you have been the past few days,’ I spit out, turning back towards the living room, and then I hear sudden movement, feeling a hand grab my arm a few moments later.

I turn around to see him, desperation on his face, and wrench my arm away angrily. ‘y/n, please, let me… explain,’ he pleads, and I hesitate. This is all I wanted, an explanation, and that’s what I came in here for, but now… I don’t know if I can handle the hurt. We stare at each other for a few seconds until I open my mouth, not quite sure what I’m about to say. ‘Fine. Explain,’ I say quietly, relief appearing on his face. ‘Can we go outside?’ he asks, and I nod as I put my drink down on the counter top, letting him lead the way out of the kitchen and out through the back door, everyone whispering behind us.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he says when we’re sat down on a bench, and I let out a humourless laugh, not even looking at him. ‘You can’t be that sorry; you’ve been ignoring me and avoiding me since that night. No reply to my text, no call back, and you didn’t come to the apartment once. So forgive me for not believing you,’ I spit out, and he lets out a little sigh. ‘y/n, I am sorry. And I know I shouldn’t have ghosted you, but I wasn’t sure what I else to do. I should’ve just spoken to you and explained from the start.’ ‘You don’t need to explain. It’s pretty obvious,’ I say bitterly, and I can see him smiling sadly out of the corner of my eye. ‘No, y/n, you don’t understand,’ he says gently, and I meet his eyes as he tells me, ‘I love you.’

I feel my heart stop, my entire body freezing, and it takes a little while to process what he’s telling me. He loves me. ‘So… I heard right. That night, when I was falling asleep, you said it then, didn’t you?’ I ask, and he nods with sad eyes. ‘And it scared me so much that I left.’ ‘But… I love you too,’ I tell him, and he doesn’t react as I expect, just smiling wistfully and nodding. ‘I know you do. You have for a while, and I’ve been lying to both of us by pretending I didn’t know, and pretending I didn’t love you back. But I did, the whole time. I do.’ His words are all I’ve wanted to hear from him, for so long, and yet, he looks so sad, sounds so sad, and it’s breaking me. Why is he acting like there’s something between us that’s stopping this? ‘You love me, and I love you. What else is there to say?’ I ask, and he lets out a mirthless laugh.

‘You’re a human, and I’m a vampire,’ he says simply, as though that explains everything, and I blink at him before saying, ‘what about it?’ His lips curl up into an amused smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘I’m over 300 years old. You’re, like, a fifteenth of that-’ ‘So what? We look the same age anyway.’ ‘We won’t forever. You’ll only get older, and I’ll stay the same. You’ll be 90 dating a 20-year-old.’ ‘That doesn’t matter. We’re in love, Jin. I don’t care what you look like, or what I look like.’ ‘And neither do I. But I won’t even be able to love you in public in a few years’ time, y/n. People will think you’re, like, my sugar mommy or something.’ ‘But I don’t c-’ ‘And, not just that, you’re alive. I’m dead. We can’t have a family, or have children-’ ‘Ugh, I don’t want kids. I never have,’ I say, nose scrunched up in disgust at the thought – all they do is eat, cry and shit. I’d rather not, to be honest – and he lets out a laugh. ‘You might change your mind as you get older.’ ‘Then we’ll adopt.’ ‘y/n…’ ‘I’m being serious! Wouldn’t you prefer to give a kid a better life than they’d have in the care system? Better than me having to carry a baby and my body getting all fucked up because of it.’ ‘And then the kids we adopt will grow to look older than their dad,’ he says pointedly, and my mouth is open, but no words come out. I’ve run out of solutions.

‘It doesn’t matter, Jin,’ I whisper, and he shakes his head sadly. ‘y/n, you’re being silly. You know that it’d never work out. I love you and you love me, but I can’t ask you to give your life to me, when I can’t give mine to you. We can’t grow old together, can’t start a family, can’t love each other in public – these are basic things in a human relationship.’ ‘But we wouldn’t be a human relationship.’ ‘Which is exactly the problem,’ he says softly, and I don’t even know what to say, my eyes full of tears. ‘I’m sorry, y/n. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but you make it too easy for me to love you,’ he whispers, taking my hands into his and my tears spill over onto my face, making him let out a gentle laugh. ‘Don’t cry,’ he murmurs, leaning forward to kiss my tears away, and my eyes flutter shut. I wish I could live in this moment with him forever.

‘Okay, I’ve got a solution,’ I say, mustering up the courage to tell him something that’s been on mind for months now, and he breaks away from me with a raised eyebrow. ‘Living in seclusion so we don’t have to deal with people judging us for the difference in the ages that we look?’ he asks suspiciously, and I laugh. ‘That’s not what I was gonna say, but it’s a good idea,’ I joke, and he rolls his eyes. ‘It is not. What’s your solution?’ he asks, and I take a deep breath before saying, ‘you turn me.’

He doesn’t react, just staring at me for a few seconds before he says, ‘I must be losing my mind because I could swear you just suggested me turning you into a vampire.’ ‘I did.’ ‘y/n, are you fucking crazy?’ he demands, and I sigh. ‘Jin, hear me out-’ ‘No! Are you actually insane? There is no way in fucking hell!’ ‘Why not, Jin? What would I lose? The pale thing is a myth, the burning in the sun thing is a myth, the-’ ‘y/n, are you listening to yourself? That stuff might be myths, but you will have to drink blood to survive! You will watch generations of humans that you love die! You will lose your humanity!’ ‘Jin… I don’t care. The blood thing doesn’t bother me at all. You haven’t lost your humanity, so I don’t think I will either. And… maybe it’ll suck seeing my family die, but my friends… they want the same too, Jin. We’ve all been thinking about it and discussing it, and we all want to turn,’ I admit, his eyes nearly falling out of his head.

‘This isn’t, like, a matching tattoos thing! This is serious!’ ‘We know, Hyunjin, we’re not stupid! We’ve been discussing it for months! But I don’t care if they do or not – I want to anyway. I want to be with you… forever,’ I say, and he shakes his head. ‘No. I won’t turn you, and I won’t let anyone else do it either. It’s not happening.’ ‘Hyunjin, please. This isn’t a spur of the moment thing. I promise I’ve thought it through. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of time with you. I was just waiting to see if you felt the same way before I mentioned it to you. It doesn’t have to happen straight away, obviously, but I just want you to consider it,’ I say, and he shakes his head. ‘You don’t understand. My selfish side wants it more than anything – you think I don’t want to spend the rest of time with you? But my responsible side can’t let you give up human life for me.’ ‘Why? It’s what we both want. We’ll be happy, Jin, so happy, forever. I don’t expect you to agree to it, but promise me you’ll at least think about it, and we’ll discuss it regularly,’ I say, and he doesn’t say anything, looking down at his hands. ‘Please, Jin,’ I plead, and he sighs deeply before his eyes meet mine, my heart stopping like it does every time he looks at me.

‘I’ll think about it. That’s all,’ he says over my loud shout of celebration, an amused smile curling up his lips as I throw my arms around his shoulders, his hands coming around my waist to hold me against him. I tilt my head back to press my lips to his, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of his kiss – it’s only been a few days, and it feels like a lifetime. He grins against my mouth and we break away after a few seconds, his lips coming to my forehead. ‘I love you,’ he murmurs against my skin, and I feel like I’ve never been happier when I reply, ‘I love you too.’

We stand up from the bench after a little while, holding hands as we head back up to the house. ‘You wanna dance?’ he asks, and I can’t say yes quickly enough, my eagerness making him chuckle. ‘Oh, the girls are gonna kill me.’ ‘Why?’ he asks, and I hesitate before replying, ‘maybe because they all hate you for ghosting me, and we’ve been cussing you nonstop since you left.’ His mouth drops, fear in his eyes, and I wave it off. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine when I explain. But they didn’t even know I was coming to speak to you.’ ‘Well, neither did you. You came to get a drink,’ he says, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘You’re 300 years old and you still don’t know about girls, do you? I came to get a drink because I knew you’d speak to me, stupid,’ I say as though it’s obvious, and his eyes widen. ‘You’re so sly.’ ‘Oh, whatever. You should be glad. If I hadn’t set it up, we wouldn’t be…’ I trail off, not actually sure what we are, and a small smirk spreads across his lips.

‘Wouldn’t be what?’ ‘I don’t know. What… are we?’ I ask, and he laughs. ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ he asks amusedly, as though he thinks it’s silly, and I know he’s only asking for my benefit. ‘Yes,’ I grin, preening at the question, and he rolls his eyes. ‘So we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, I suppose,’ he laughs, and I laugh along with him, half finding it ridiculous that after confessing that I want to be a vampire so I can spend the rest of my life with him, our relationship is reduced down to boyfriend and girlfriend, and half ecstatic that I can officially call Hwang Hyunjin my boyfriend.

‘Do you know how exciting this is?’ I ask, and he chuckles, raising an eyebrow. ‘We’ve practically been dating for months already anyway.’ ‘I know, but it’s official. Now I can tell people you’re my boyfriend instead of saying you’re my hot friend,’ I explain, and he looks at me in confusion. ‘Who have you been saying that to?’ ‘On nights out, when girls would ask if you’re my boyfriend. I’d say no, you’re my hot friend, and they’d ask if you were single.’

‘And what would you tell them?’ he asks suspiciously, and I bite my lip. ‘No. Obviously. Why would I want all these pretty girls trying to get with you?’ ‘You’re the only pretty girl I’d ever want, y/n,’ he murmurs, making my heart skip a beat, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘I’m being serious! Look how hot you are in your… costume,’ he says amusedly, eyes travelling up and down my body, and I roll my eyes. ‘I promise you, I was wearing my Pink Ladies jacket a little while ago,’ I say, and he raises an eyebrow, taking his own jacket off and putting it over my shoulders. ‘That’s better. I don’t like people looking at what’s mine,’ he says lightly, only half-joking, and I feel my stomach fill with butterflies. ‘Now,’ he says sternly, face serious but eyes shining with amusement, ‘what did you say about an offer from an incubus?’

5 YEARS LATER

Chan and y/n are married and living together in the house next door to the pack house, raising three little werewolf pups. y/n still works night shifts at the diner because she’ll miss it too much if she leaves, and she’s the only one who knows the wolves’ after-turning orders off by heart. She has it ready for them when they arrive, and she feels herself falling in love with him all over again each time he walks in, the same way she did the first time he walked in with his sandy hair and his bright sparkling eyes.

Minho and y/n are in a long-distance relationship – she’s in District 9 and he’s in the 2nd Circle of Hell. He stays at her apartment a couple nights a week, and he takes her for date night every Saturday. Ryujin and Chaeryeong are also seeing a couple of Minho’s friends – y/n’s friends and his friends make quite the dysfunctional group. y/n found a ring in his jacket a little while ago and has been waiting for him to propose, waiting eagerly until she can say yes. She hasn’t come up with a solution to the problem of him not aging when she does, but that can come later, because their love is all that matters to her right now.

Changbin and y/n are happily ruling together in the 5th Circle, doing whatever they can to turn demon hunters back to their original state. They have had a child together and y/n is pregnant again – Minho and his girlfriend pay regular visits because of how much the human girl adores their child. They are old, so old, but y/n feels like a little girl when she’s with Changbin – their love keeps them young and happy, and will do so for the rest of time.

Hyunjin and y/n still live in their apartment, now as an engaged vampire couple. They’ve been engaged for a couple years now and still haven’t started wedding planning yet – they have all of eternity to do that. Lia and Yeji have both turned, and Yuna, Ryujin and Chaeryeong plan to do so too, in the next year or so. y/n’s family knows what she and Hyunjin are, and they have since gotten over their initial despair about the fact that their baby girl will stay this way for the rest of time, and the couple are always welcome at family events. The two have discovered that vampire blood tastes so much better than human blood, and has better effects than human blood too. y/n is still Hyunjin’s little blood bag, but she has a particular fondness for the name now.

Jisung and y/n have their own apartment together in District 9, and they are very much in love. At the beginning, y/n found it difficult that Jisung has sex with people for a living, and so they began… training y/n, building up her stamina and tolerance in a sexual sense, and now she can satiate Jisung alone. Even if she couldn’t, Jisung still wouldn’t have sex with anybody else – she’s the only one he ever wants. y/n and Seonghwa are good friends now, and Jisung and y/n regularly meet up with Seonghwa and his husband (Jisung found it hilarious when they got news of Seonghwa being closeted all that time – he claimed that it made perfect sense because no straight human boys are good enough at sex to get the title of Sex God). y/n still gets a little upset that Jisung can’t get her pregnant, but she’s come to terms with it and the couple have now started to look into adoption.

Felix and y/n have bought a house together on Earth, their common ground, and are engaged – y/n found it slightly ridiculous when Felix proposed to her, considering they’re otherworldly beings that don’t really conform to humans’ customs like marriage, but she still said yes in a heartbeat. Lucifer and God both regularly reach out to the couple, asking them to visit, and have even showed up at their house a few times (it was more than awkward when they both visited at the same time). Felix and y/n stayed a few weeks in the 5th circle with Satan’s daughter and her love, and their child took a particular liking to Felix. After seeing him with the child, y/n suggested they have children of their own, and they have begun trying to get pregnant.

Seungmin and y/n are living together in District 9, the two of them slowly aging together as a happy married couple. y/n redecorated Room 13 at the surgery for Seungmin, and she much prefers it now, spending a lot of her time there with him, training to become a magical nurse. Seungmin’s mum was over the moon when y/n started making appearances at family events again, and she played the part of the enthusiastic mother-in-law perfectly at their wedding a year ago. y/n is still trying her best to be a nicer person, and she is mainly succeeding. She slips up every now and then, but Seungmin is always at her side to pull her up on it.

Jeongin and y/n lived together at 325 Sunshine Street for a little over three years before Jeongin sat y/n down to tell her that he wouldn’t be a ghost for much longer, and would be passing over to the afterlife soon, as he had discovered that his unfinished business was the house. He’d found someone worthy of living in the house, and they’d truly made it a home – where he and his friends had made it fit to live in, a house in only a home once it’s full of light, love and life. And once y/n had brought that, his business on earth was finished. She held back her sadness over the last few weeks of his time with her, and threw a farewell party with all of his friends. She felt her heart break when she awoke one morning to find that the other side of the bed was empty, and he was gone forever. Jeongin’s friends drop in nearly every day to check on y/n, and she’s doing much better than she was when he first left. She still misses him, more and more every day, but she’ll be okay, because she knows that even if she can’t see him, he’s always with her, no matter what.

[janiedean]

PLEASE tell me about sam >> the world and the rock band au.

OKAY SO:

 sam >>> the world was... originally a thing I wrote for an exchange which then I scrapped bc it got too long and I never finished it, but basically the concept was jon gets robb’s will before he’s elected LC and he accepts being kitn except he goes to sam like PLEASE SAM BE MY HAND OR I CAN’T DO THIS, and then sam was going to proceed on solving Each Single Problem Jon Could Have starting from being friends with theon to finding sansa in the vale to finding arya and sandor to basically really solving everything and it was gonna be jon/sam but eeeeh I quit when sandor showed up bc I lost track of the plot T_T HOWEVER, I WOULD LIKE TO FIND AND QUOTE YOU A BIT WHERE BASICALLY SAM DRAGGED THEON WITH HIM TO THE VALE BC HE WAS SURE THEY’D KILL HIM OTHERWISE WHERE THEON RECOGNIZED SANSA AND TOLD SAM IT WAS HER WHICH IS2G WHEN DND HAD THE SAME THING HAPPEN WITH POD AND BRIENNE IN S5 I SCREAMED BECAUSE I WROTE THIS SHIT IN 2013 OR 2014 AND I SAID WHAT I SAID

“Go, go,” Baelish says, and he looks pale as a sheet as well. At least he didn’t have anything witty to say, Sam thinks before grabbing Theon’s arm and leading him outside the room.

“Stop,” Theon tells him a moment later. “I don’t – I just need some air. I don’t think – I won’t.”

“All right,” Sam agrees before leading him towards a half-open window in the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” he says as Theon takes deep, heavy breaths.

“For what?”

“I didn’t even – how did you know?”

“Don’t you think that Ramsay Bolton would have spared me the details?” Theon whispers. “I threw up. Then. And he – he also threw at me handfuls of red hair covered in blood. I told you I could play along.”

Sam thinks that he’s going to be sick.

“But – I need you to listen to me,” Theon whispers then, his voice still shaking, as if he’s forcing himself to say what he’s about to say.

“What?”

“The Lord Protector’s daughter.”

“Yes, what about her?”

“That’s no bastard. She’s Sansa Stark.”

For a moment, Sam is sure he’s heard wrong.

“She’s who?”

“Sansa. She dyed her hair and she’s older than – well, the last time I saw her, but I lived at Winterfell for nine years. Do you think I wouldn’t recognize her?”

And it does make sense. Sansa disappeared from King’s Landing when Baelish went to the Vale, didn’t she? Sam is pretty sure of that.

“And – you saw her when I was telling that story. She looked sick. As much as I felt.”

Oh gods be good. He’s right. Sam wonders how a simple mission suddenly turned out complicated – and if Theon hadn’t been there he wouldn’t have even known, would he?

He thinks about his options.

And then he hopes that he still has some courage left and that he hadn’t exhausted it when he killed an Other.

“All right,” he whispers. “I have no idea of why she’s here, but if she wants to come with… do you think you have it in yourself to go down the mountain twice in one day?”

Theon goes pale all over again. Sam had noticed that he could barely keep his eyes open the first time.

“What’s the plan?” he asks.

“I’m asking her. If it’s true, and if she’s here against her will… well, I already know I’m not getting Baelish’s men. And I’m sure that if I came back with his sister Jon – I mean –”

“You don’t need to call him His Grace,” Theon says, and he sounds almost amused. Barely. As much as someone like him can sound amused. “I couldn’t call Robb like that either.”

“Fine. Jon would like that better than an army, I think. So, do you think you can do it?”

Theon shakes his head again and then looks up at him. “I don’t think that I’d ever want to do it again, but just the fact that you asked first makes me think that I can try it.”

Well then, Sam thinks, that’s settled.

like excuse me but what the fuck

rock band au: okay so I had written this rock band au for jonc/brynden for that last prompt meme I took which I should finish one of these days but like then I was doing this chalenge and I ended up writing a sequel for it where they’re touring with theon who’s like the opening solo act for their band and him and jaime argue in the changing room also theon is with robb who’s the long suffering agent and theon wants jaime to hit on brienne who’s like going to all the concerts and it’s actually finished but I really need to revise it and see if I can put it together with the other one, at the end of it theon and robb had a moment™ backstage while jaime and brienne got together post-concert but here have a snipped or more:

“You know that girl that always is in first row, Lannister?”

“I do, Greyjoy. I very well damn do, and is there a reason you’re gloating at me now?”

“Just saying,” Theon says, and Jaime thinks, don’t finish that sentence, don’t finish that sentence, don't finish that sentence, “that while the time for groupies is over, I mean, supposedly so, considering that you invite her backstage every other moment and that she’s been at each single show of this tour, maybe you could invite her.”

“Can it,” Jaime groans, “no way. I’m not —”

“And why not? Come on, I’ve opened for your band for the entire last month, we drove through half of this bloody fucking country and I know for sure that you’re the only person in it that’s not getting any, and seeing your pretty face, it’s honestly baffling.”

“And since when do you care about how much I’m getting? Are you volunteering?”

Theon laughs, dark hair falling all over his shoulders as he fixes his leather trousers in front of their shared changing room — yes, this venue is so shitty that they have to share rooms in between bands, and fine, Theon’s technically a solo act but he does have a band, and he hopes the others are not being too cramped because their room is so small they can’t even change at the same time. He nods, pleased with his hair, definitely, and then goes to grab a black shirt from his bag and puts it on without closing it. Guess this is the night where he plays with his shirt open making sure his poor manager dies of frustration.

Robb Stark is a saint, Jaime thinks sometimes, because to manage this guy, you really need to have an insane amount of patience.

Good thing that they never needed one and Jon always took care of it, but still.

“I mean,” Theon says, “in the ideal world, I would, but alas, I know that it’s not meant to be. For one, I’m not your Kinsey scale one —”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“What, that you’re a one or that I’m not it?”

“Both, for —”

“I mean,” Theon goes on, “you obviously aren’t a zero or you wouldn’t stare at your bassist’s ass, and honestly also at your guitarist’s, and I wouldn’t exclude, you know, that you three might have had a go at it at some point —”

“That never happened!” Jaime protests, not that he hasn’t entertained that thought once or twice, but still, he doesn’t bat for that team, as a general rule. He just hates that Theon has apparently figured him out that easily.

“Regardless,” Theon goes on, “you’re a one, but if those two are your type, considering they’re both older than you and ginger and blue eyed and I’m not either of that, I think I’m not it. Also, no way you like pitching.”

+ throbb snippet

“So,” Theon says, as he drags Robb towards the back exit, “I might have told Lannister that I’d leave him the changing room for the night.”

“… What,” Robb says, following even if he’s trying to slow him down, “he finally decided to fess up to that poor girl?”

“Oh, that’s to be seen, I just gave him the chance to,” Theon shrugs, “which is why we’re taking a cab and going to the hotel at once.”

“Wait,” Robb says, “we should —”

He never finishes the sentence because Theon presses him against the wall and kisses him and fucking hell, Robb would like to just give in and let him and actually he would like to grab Theon’s shoulders and press him against the fucking wall, except —

“We should wait until the Kingsguard is done,” he breathes, “you agreed to sign those records, but it has to be with them. And people paid for it.”

“Oh, of course, ever the correct person —”

“Theon, I’m your fucking manager, you picked me, it’s not like you can exactly skirt around — obligations,” he groans when Theon sucks a bruise into his neck.

“Right, right, so you’d rather stay here and wait two hours instead of running to the hotel with me? We could make it, you know, if Jimmy Page and Robert Plant could —”

“It’s not the fucking seventies,” Robb groans, wishing Theon would just not press, even if fuck but now he really feels like he’s going to come in his trousers like a fifteen year-old and the fact that he’s definitely been wanting to kiss Theon at least since then is not helping, and yet —

“Really? I missed that memo.”

+ jb snippet

“Sure,” she says, reaching out to grab it, and then she swallows — “You know,” she said, “you sounded… more intense today.”

“Did I,” he says. “How?”

She shrugs, her large shoulders barely slimmed by the black band shirt sporting his face that she’s wearing, and fuck if it was weird being the face of the merchandise, except that it had to happen.

Fucking Targaryen.

“I’m not quite sure,” she says, “just… there was a difference? In the good sense, though. You felt… more immersed, not to say that you’re not usually, it’s just… I don’t know, I felt like crying more than once.”

Oh.

Well.

“Maybe,” he sighs, “I had a conversation with Greyjoy before that made me realize a few things,” he goes on. “I suppose. I don’t know,” he shakes his head, “I just… you’ve been listening to us since before Rhaegar fucked off, and I just — I guess it just sank in that I’m not going back to my former job anytime soon.”

“Can — can I say I’m not sad that you aren’t?”

“You can,” Jaime shrugs, “it’s just, it felt a bit too much. I never signed up for that.”

“But you sing those songs a lot better than he did.”

“Not the first person that told me that, today.”

“But it’s true. He just — he was good. But you just have a whole other delivery.” She blushes, guileless blue eyes staring into his, and he thinks of how she told him that his songs made her survive high school and some kind of ridiculous bet her supposed friends made about her fucking v-card and he just — fuck. She’s so nice. She’s the kind of nice person you wouldn’t presume listens to his fucked up lyrics, and yet.

And yet she does.

[chowtrolls]

Glitter

Length: 1791 Words TW: None, ask to tag if needed. Brief: Juleus talks to an old friend. Credits: Juleus and Brutus belong to me Here’s the song I listened to while writing this!

Google Docs link for easier Viewing!

    The halls of the ship groaned with each step Juleus took. The crew were scattered amongst the ship, doing their assorted jobs. In the distance, small chatter could be heard. Laughter. Voices of his crew making and forming relationships, conversing with each other, enjoying the company of friends and peers. And here Juleus was, the lonely commander, King of everything he wanted, making his way to the one room on the ship that held anyone worth conversing with.

    Juleus closed his eye as he walked. He listened to the ship, drowning out the sounds of voices and focusing on the hum. Every captain should know what his ship is saying. He learned this at a young age from a much wiser man. The ship was telling him it would be alright. 

    The voices dissipate as Juleus grew closer to the power room. One of many on this ship. Juleus was no idiot. If one battery died, there would be another. This particular room held someone...important. And yet, not. He unlocked the door and ducked inside. The room was dark, the only lights came from the glowing wires that traveled along the walls. In the middle of the room was a troll with his back to Juleus. He was silent, as if sleeping. In front of the troll was a chair. Nothing significant about it. The light from the wires pulsed, fading in and out as the energy was pulled. Mint and pink lights danced to a song only the sleeper was hearing. Juleus shut the door, causing it to make a heavy slam. 

    Every wire in the room flashed as the sleeping troll was startled awake. Juleus watched the goldblood before him glance around but said nothing. Instead, he slowly walked around him and sat in the chair. He crossed his leg over his knee and leaned back. The chair groaned in complaint. The goldblood narrowed his mismatched eyes when he realized who was before him.

    “To what do I owe the honor, oh great Imperial Bastard?”

    Juleus barked a bitter laugh. Despite the bitterness, he still grinned, “It’s nice to see you, too, Brutus.” 

    “You never call me that. Unless you want something.” Brutus cocked a brow, but he looked far from pleased. 

    “Can I not just enjoy the company of a friend? Must I want something, Brute?” 

    “You call me a friend, yet wear my ring. You always want something, Julie.” Brutus’ expression softened slightly, “Has it been getting worse?” 

    Juleus’ expression fell instantly. He glared at Brutus, lip pulling up in a slight snarl, “Who are you to ask such a thing? I should kill you for asking. Inconsiderate fuck.” 

    “I see, it has. I suppose Bixith being gone hasn’t...helped.”

    “Shut up.” Juleus sat upright, “You do not get to say her name. You do not get to question me. You are the exact reason we are here; therefore you do not get to question it.” His voice was cold, eye narrowed. 

    “Julie…” Brutus started, but was interrupted by Juleus slamming his hand down on the armrest of the chair. 

    “I’LL KILL YOU!” 

    “Then do it already, you bastard!” Brutus barked back just as sharp, with little fear in his chest. The wires flashed along with his outburst, but quickly faded into their normal rhythm. He had no doubt in his mind that Juleus would not. 

    Juleus glared at Brutus for a moment. Slowly, he slouched back into his seat. He looked off to the side, watching the wires pulse. The silence that fell over them was thick with tension. 

    “Julie, can you pull me out of this?” Brutus finally broke the silence after what felt like a millennia. Juleus perked up as his name was said.

    “It’s not safe to.” Juleus’ voice was now soft, “You know this.” 

    “I know. Just for a bit. I just want to walk for a few moments.” Brutus’ eyes were sad. He knew the reason he was a battery, and he knew how Juleus felt about him. His betrayal. But still, he tried. 

    Juleus sighed softly, and stood up. He walked around Brutus and shut off the power. The wires immediately stopped glowing, submerging both of them in total darkness. After a moment, an overhead light flickered awake. Juleus stood behind Brutus and contemplated what he was about to do. The goldblood was silent. Juleus sighed once more. 

    Slowly, the fuchsia wrapped his arm around Brutus. Doing this with just one arm was never easy, Juleus had learned this the hard way. Regardless, he paused before going further. 

    “Are you ready?” 

    Brutus closed his eyes, “In a moment.” He leaned back against Juleus, taking the moment to relish in the feeling of being held. It was more than just being held, of course. Being close to someone he once loved, he still loved. Brutus didn’t want Juleus to notice what he was doing, so it only lasted a second. Then he nodded. 

    Juleus had noticed, but said nothing. He steadied himself, then pulled. The wires gave out easily. They had gotten used to Brutus being pulled free by this point. Juleus gently set Brutus on his feet, slouching over to do so. He kept his hold on the gold for just a moment. To steady him, of course, that’s what he told himself.

    Juleus finally let Brutus free, and made his way over to the door. The giant man slowly got down on the ground, sitting in front of the only exit. He wasn’t sure if he trusted Brutus not to run. He wasn’t sure why he let the gold free once more. He watched quietly as Brutus stretched and took a few steps. There were scars along Brutus’ arms and legs. His hair was cut short, but still long enough to be wavy. It was naturally blonde. When Juleus had first arranged for Brutus to be a battery, he had the gold’s hair cut short. He found himself quickly regretting that decision. While his feelings on Brutus were uncertain, he knew for sure that he loved the other’s hair. As Brutus stretched his arms upwards, his tank top pulled up as well, exposing the bottom part of a hidden tattoo. The silence was filled with a few loud pops from Brutus’ neck and back.

    The gold shook out the last of the tension from his fingertips, then finally faced Juleus. He was silent as he got closer to the fuchsia. He stopped and sat on the ground a few feet in front of him. This made Juleus raise his brow. 

    “Can I help you? Walk around, stretch, enjoy freedom while it lasts.” That was how it normally went. Juleus would sit in this exact spot and watch Brutus walk around for a few minutes before telling him the time was up. Brutus never went back with a fight. For Brutus to sit in front of him...it was strange. 

    “Talk to me, Julie. Or don’t. If you don’t talk...can you sing? I miss your voice.” Brutus smiled softly to sweeten the deal. He leaned forward, closer to Juleus. Jules on the other hand was uncertain. He was quiet. 

    “I know you remember the shanties, the tunes we’d sing at sea. They haunt you. They haunt me too. My voice is no good...Can you…? For me? Then I can go back and you can leave.” Brutus inched closer as he spoke. Juleus felt cornered. And yet, he couldn’t find it within himself to lash out. He remained silent. 

    “Cap got your tongue, eh?” Brutus laughed softly, “That’s alright. I put you on the spot. Do you remember...what was it called...Old Maui....rolling down to old Maui.” Brutus began to hum the chorus softly. Juleus narrowed his eye slightly. 

    “You’re not in tune.” He finally spoke, though he knew well that Brutus had done that on purpose. 

    “Sharp as a tack, that Deepbite.” Brutus nodded, moving a little closer still. Before he could continue, Juleus spoke once more. 

    “What are you doing? Stop prolonging whatever it is you are prolonging.” Juleus said this with uncertainty. Brutus could lash out and try to kill him. That didn’t seem like a very in character thing for Brutus to do...but Juleus was never certain. 

    Brutus paused, before nodding. He crawled the rest of the way to sit between Juleus’ legs, and lean back against his chest. It was painfully obvious to Juleus just how small Brutus was compared to him. Despite the gold’s small size, Juleus still felt himself tense up. Brutus closed his eyes and Juleus slowly relaxed. 

    Juleus let the silence fall back between them. There was nothing for him to say. It was pathetic. He allowed himself to be toyed with by a goldblood of all things, and not just any goldblood. But the exact goldblood who got him in the Fleet. The goldblood who used Juleus’ status as a means for a cushy life. He was still using Juleus for a cushy life, even as a battery. Juleus was more upset with himself than with Brutus, however. 

    “I don’t hate you, Jules.” Brutus finally broke the silence and disrupted Juleus’ train of thought. 

    “...I know.” Juleus looked off to the side. 

    “Do you hate me?” Brutus opened his eyes at last, but kept his gaze forward. 

    “I don’t know.” 

    Silence fell on them once more. Brutus looked down at his hands, scarred and bruised. He reached to his side and gently took Juleus’ hand, pulling it up into his own lap. Juleus didn’t fight him. Brutus entertained himself by tracing his fingers over the tattoo of his symbol on Juleus’ finger. 

    “It’s okay if you do, Julie. You can hate me if it makes you feel better.” Brutus spoke softly, but Juleus never replied. He wasn’t certain if Juleus was even listening. Brutus wanted to explain the reasons for what he had done. But he knew it didn’t matter in the end. Nothing he said or did now could change the past. The silence was no longer uncomfortable, just heavy. Eventually, Brutus leaned his head back and closed his eyes. 

    “I’m going to take a nap. You should too.” His words were more of a demand than a request. He kept Juleus’ hand in his own. The fuchsia did nothing as Brutus continued to stroke the rough skin. All Juleus did was sigh softly. They both knew he wouldn’t move again until Brutus had woken up. And they both knew once he did, that things would go back to how they always were. Juleus would leave and continue his slow descent, and Brutus would go back to the boring life of a battery. But maybe this time, Juleus would visit him more. Just maybe.

[vashak]

Blackbird - Notes

Blackbird is a short fic inspired by two completely different songs sharing the same title. It seems that the inspiration I get from songs compel me to write fics for the Banana Fish fandom as the only other one I wrote is built around a song too.

The fic itself and the notes below contain spoilers about the ending of Banana Fish. Also, the fic hasn’t been beta-read and English isn’t my first language. So please bear with me if it reads difficult/weird at times. I don’t have plans to post it on AO3 yet, so currently it can only be read here on this blog. But if I were to post it, it would have a Teen rating.

I’ve had this headcanon for a while where Eiji hums The Beatles’ “Blackbird” to himself while he’s cooking. I think I mentioned it to a couple of fans before. Then last fall, Alter Bridge’s “Blackbird” came up on the radio while I was a in a friend’s car. It was the first time I heard the song (because I always discover amazing music at least a decade after it’s been released) and I didn’t know it was also called Blackbird. But I was overcome by just how sad the song was. The lyrics made me think that it was written for someone who had committed suicide (which is not the case, as I explain below). Then my mind wandered to this endless debate in the fandom about how to interpret the ending of Banana Fish. Did Ash deliberately let himself die by not seeking medical help? Or did he succumb to his wounds and didn’t have a choice between life and death to begin with? I tend to go along with the second interpretation. Ash knew he wasn’t going to survive and wanted to spend his final moments in his favorite place, reading his favorite person’s letter. So, in my mind, Eiji in Garden of Light also thinks that Ash was fatally wounded by Lao and died. But what if Eiji were to get doubts from time to time just like I do every time I discuss the ending with fans who think differently? This is how the idea for this fic was born.

Ok, here’s where this fic becomes more meta than fic: For Eiji, the blackbird in The Beatles song is Ash and never himself. But come to think of it, it could have very well been Eiji himself too. Ash and Eiji have vastly different personalities, but throughout Banana Fish, they both fight their own demons and win. Eiji comes out of his depression and adapts to a foreign and cruel world with lightning speed, because he finds a new purpose in life and is determined to see it through. Ash meets someone who sees him for who he really is for the first time, which leads him to want to hold on to him and maybe even think of himself as worthy of love (at least enough to make a run to the airport). So in the story, they both “take their sunken eyes and learn to see.” And indeed, in the last scene where Eiji finally makes peace with Ash’s death, he starts humming Blackbird again after all those years, but this time the blackbird is him. Eiji, who is often depicted as a bird in the story, “takes his broken wings and relearns to fly into the garden of light of a dark black night.”

The Beatles’ “Blackbird” (1968) was written by Paul McCartney. According to McCartney’s own words, the song is about the civil rights movement in the US in the 1960s and was inspired by the call of an actual blackbird when the band was studying meditation in India.

The lyrics of Alter Bridge’s “Blackbird” (2008) was written by Myles Kennedy in memory of his friend Mark Morse. While performing live in Wembley, Kennedy says that Morse sold him his first guitar when he was a child. I did some reading and found out that Morse was battling cancer before he passed away around the time when the band was working on this song. In the same live version (which is the one Eiji hears on the radio of the cab) Kennedy plays the melody of The Beatles’ “Blackbird” in the intro of the song.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 7: Forget Everything You Know]

Hi y’all! I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all so much for reading and for showing me and my fics some love. You better believe that I see EVERY. SINGLE. reblog, comment, tag, and message, and they mean the absolute world to me! I know that a lot of content creators are frustrated and taking breaks right now, but rest assured you will not be able to get rid of me if even a SINGLE person looks forward to something I write. I’ll finish this fic (eventually), and I’ll finish the next one too (it already has a name!), and I won’t disappear or leave the Queen/BoRhap fandom at any point in the foreseeable future. Lots of love to you all, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy! 💜 💜 💜

Chapter summary: Y/N brings home some friends; Brian attempts an intervention; John draws a line; Roger gets an answer.

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @loveandbeloved29​ @killer-queen-xo​ @maggieroseevans​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @joemazzmatazz​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @namelesslosers​ @inthegardensofourminds​ @deacyblues​ @youngpastafanmug​ @sleepretreat​ @hardyshoe​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @sevenseasofcats​ @tensecondvacation​ @bookandband​ @queen-crue​ @jennyggggrrr​ @madeinheavxn​ @whatgoeson-itslate​ @brianssixpence​

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! :)

“Smile, everyone!” Your dad peeks through the viewfinder of the Canon F-1 and beams. “One...two...three...say Queen!”

“Queen!” you all shout gleefully. The flash illuminates the dining room, and you blink away momentary blindness. The table materializes back into vision: lobsters, clams, haddock chowder, sourdough bread, fried oysters, pierogis with Vermont cheddar cheese, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes...and, of course, Boston cream pie for dessert.

“Ah, perfection,” your dad sighs contently. “Please continue, Mr. Mercury.”

“Mr. Mercury!” Brian whines, incredulous. “Like he’s got a bloody PhD or something!”

Freddie cracks a lobster claw. He hasn’t taken his sunglasses or wrist-full of clanging bangles off all afternoon. Your parents are profoundly confused by him, but welcoming nonetheless. “I’m a professor of lusciousness. Pay attention and you could learn something.”

Brian rolls his eyes and dunks a hunk of sourdough bread into his chowder.

“So,” Freddie tells your mother between bites of lobster dripping with drawn butter. “Our darling damsel in distress was in the clutches of that horrid, dodgy wanker when none other than our very own Roger Meddows Taylor—”

“You weren’t even there!” Brian protests. “I wasn’t even there! This is, what, a third-hand account?!”

“Eat your soup, peasant. Thank you. Anyway, our beloved Roger comes raging out of nowhere, red-faced, nostrils flaring, a terrifying sight to behold, grabs this guy by his hair and slams his despicable face directly into a marble column. Broken nose, cracked orbital socket, blood everywhere! It was magnificent. I’ve never been more proud.”

“Good for you!” your mother cheers, patting the back of Roger’s hand encouragingly. He smiles at her, warmly, radiantly, like the wildfire he’s always reminded you of. And you marvel at how every human on this earth is made of the same fundamental components—blood and muscles and vessels and nerves, hearts and enigmatic brain matter and ribs, vulnerable parts, armored parts, all webbed together like nature’s own organic circuit board—and yet the marks they leave on you can feel so different: burns, scars, bruises, shadows, imprints that are deep enough to brush bone and never fade.

“Mom, the guy could have died!”

“Did he?” she asks innocently.

“Nope,” Roger says.

“Well then, Mr. Taylor here is a hero in my book.”

“Mr. Taylor!” Brian groans.

“I was petrified he would turn out to be the son of an executive or producer or something and the band would be ruined,” you say. “Fortunately he was just someone’s annoying frat brother from college who already had a reputation for being a sleazebag. So, we were in luck.”

“You were in luck that Mr. Taylor was there,” your mother points out, gazing at him dreamily. This delightful English boy is going to be my son-in-law and give me gorgeous, doe-eyed grandchildren, that look says.

“Yes, a literal superhero,” John says ruefully, sipping a Manhattan. Your dad has a passionate love for mixing cocktails, especially for guests who also happen to be rock stars.

“Mom. Don’t make his ego any bigger, please. I’m begging you.”

Roger snarls around a mouthful of Boston cream pie, sending your mom into a fit of giggles.

“I’m just glad you’re okay, dear.” She smooths your hair. “And that you have people to keep you safe all the way over there across the ocean, and that you’re happy.”

“Yes, your work environment is much improved, isn’t it?” Brian says. “That supervisor you had at the hospital was an absolute bear!”

Your dad strokes his short grey beard. “Well...” he admits. “That may have been my fault.”

Brian’s brow crinkles. “Really?”

Your mom turns to you. “You didn’t tell them?!”

“Oh, is there a scandalous backstory?” Freddie inquires, elated. “Do tell, darling!”  

“Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away—just kidding, it was here in Boston—my archnemesis Patricia and my dad dated.”

Roger drops his fork, appalled. “No!”

Freddie’s nose wrinkles in revulsion. “Why?!”

Your dad rocks back in his chair and laughs loudly, heartily. “She wasn’t always so cantankerous, if you can believe it. She was a sweet girl, wonderful even. But then I met my future wife, and...” He smirks guiltily. “What can I say? The heart wants what it wants!”

You nod along. “And I got the illustrious honor of being an outlet for the frustration stemming from Patricia’s lifelong unrequited love.”

“You saucy minx!” Freddie playfully lashes your mom’s shoulder with a cloth napkin. “Homewrecker!”

She chuckles, not the least bit offended. “People get together under all sorts of strange circumstances, and you know what? You can’t wreck a home if the home wasn’t already half-wrecked before you got there, that’s what I think.”

Roger raises his Patriot’s Punch. “I’ll drink to that.”

Brian clutches his New England Express, bewildered. “Are we...toasting to infidelity?”

“Oh, does that horrify you?” Rog asks sarcastically. Brian grimaces, but dutifully raises his glass.

“We’re toasting to love,” your dad clarifies. “However it comes, as long as it’s true.”

John holds his Manhattan aloft. “To love.”

Freddie clinks his Flying Elvis against the other beverages, including your parents’ wine glasses and your Cranberry Crush. “Cheers!” Then Fred glances at the clock and swiftly polishes off his slice of Boston cream pie.

“Can’t you all stay a little longer?” your mom pleads, collecting plates and gazing longingly at Roger. “This has been so much fun...”

“They have soundcheck at seven, Mom. We have to leave for the stadium soon.”

“Well, before you jet off to your next adventure, can I treat anyone to a long distance call?” your dad asks.

Brian perks up. “Really?!” You know there’s a ring in the future for Chrissie; not an expensive or extravagant ring (not that Chris would want that anyway), but a ring nonetheless. You know because Brian has taken you shopping to help him choose one.

“Of course! You can use the phone in my office. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all. I’m sure there are some lovely ladies back in jolly old England who would be over the moon to hear from you.”

“That would be very much appreciated!” Brian says. “And thank you so much, this has been such a treat, you have no idea how long it’s been since we had a proper homemade meal.”

“I had to rehabilitate the reputation of us Yankees, didn’t I? Now come on, Mr. May, I’ll show you to the office...”

“Mr. May...I like the sound of that!”

“Ten minutes, Bri!” Freddie calls, following them down the hallway. “Then it’s my turn...!”

You begin gathering up the empty glasses, but Roger promptly snatches them away. “No way, Boston babe. You go relax. I’ll help your mom.”

“I think she’s in love with you.”

He grins. “Do you have a secret stepdaddy fetish I could exploit?”

“Oh my god. Roger.”

He snickers and sweeps off into the kitchen. It’s only then that you realize John has disappeared. You check the kitchen, the living room, the hallway, the study, and finally the front porch; John is standing outside in the cold, smoking and watching the setting sun. The sky is threaded with cerulean, rust orange, lavender, indigo. You pull on your coat and go out to join him.

“We’ll make it to Florence one of these days,” you promise John, resting your arms on the wooden, white-painted porch railing. Your mother hung baskets of fresh flowers for the band’s visit, which swing lazily in the breeze. “Crank out a few more hits and we’ll get the record company to add it to the tour itinerary.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.”

“Are you going to call Veronica?”

He shrugs, frowns, exhales a lungful of smoke into frigid New England air. “I don’t know if I should.”

“You don’t think she’d like that?” you ask, confounded.

“I think she might like it too much.”

“Ohhhhh.” You read his soft greyish eyes, which are faraway and somber, sad even. “I’m sorry, John. You know she’s wild about you.”

“I know it.” He takes a drag off his cigarette. “She’s the first person who ever was, actually. The first person who ever noticed me. Came up to me out of the blue at a disco and asked me to dance, me! So I said yes, like you do when you’re the guy nobody notices. And then I said yes again, and again, and again, until one day I realized...oh, this girl thinks we’re getting married. When the hell did that happen?”

“I noticed you,” you contest.  

John chuckles and nods. “You did,” he agrees. “Right away. Tried to win me over when I was too nervous to finish a sentence around you. But that was long after I’d met Veronica.”

“Well, you can’t break up with her tonight. On Valentine’s Day?! That would be traumatic.”

“Agreed.”

“We’ll have a few days in London between the American and Asian legs of the tour. You can think it over and decide what to do then. I’m happy to arrange the getaway taxi if that’s something that interests you.”

“Yeah.” Again, he peers out into the Western horizon, into rising stars.

“John?”

Now he looks to you. He’s a little too thoughtful, too low. There’s something you’re not seeing.

“...Is there somebody else?”

He doesn’t speak; he just stares at you with those velvety azure-grey eyes, drums his fingers against the railing, lets the ash from his cigarette crumble into the snow-dusted Blue Pacific Junipers.

Roger barrels through the front door and out onto the porch. “There you are, Deaks! I thought we were going to have to find a new bassist. Enlist Nurse Nightingale’s mum or something.”

John smirks and crushes the rest of his cigarette in your father’s ashtray. “I suspect you’d do just fine without me.”

“Oh no. No way. Not happening.”

“That’s kind of you,” John says, unconvinced.

“Here, I’ll prove it.” Rog holds out his calloused hand. “If you ever leave, I leave too. Come on, Deaks, shake on it. It’s official. It’s a pact. There’s no Queen without John Deacon.”

Reluctantly, trying not to show how pleased he is, John shakes. “Alright.”

Roger grins triumphantly. “Signed, sealed, delivered. You’re ours for life, baby.”

“Deaky, do you want the phone?!” Freddie yells from inside the house.

John sighs and exchanges a knowing glance with you. “I guess I should say hi.”

“Okay, but quickly!” Rog presses. “We gotta go!”

“So bossy...” John ducks inside; and Roger, though he’s not wearing anything over his pale pink button-up shirt—sufficiently sophisticated to impress your parents—comes to the porch railing to join you.

“You’re not staying out here, are you?” You eye his thin shirt worriedly, the goosebumps rising over his collarbones, his bare forearms where he rolled up his sleeves to help your mom wash the dishes.

He tosses you a mischievous wink. “I’ve got no one to call.”

Roger looks up at the hanging baskets of flowers, plucks out a cerise carnation, and offers it to you. You mean to say something witty, something sardonic, something that will make him laugh; but all your words vanish into cold February air. You take the carnation, smiling helplessly.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Roger whispers.

You just let me know if you ever change your mind, okay?

Okay.

He turns to go back inside the house.

I won’t fall in love with him. I won’t fall in love with him. I won’t fall in love with him.

Then Roger pauses in the doorway. “You coming, Boston babe? I can’t have you catching pneumonia or something. I won’t know how to fix you.”

Oh, you realize, with horror and yet relief, all those grueling lies stripped away. It’s too late.

~~~~~~~~~~

You knock on the frame of the dressing room door. “Hi Bri!”

He glances over from where he sits in front of the mirror, rimming his eyes with inky liner. Soundcheck went swimmingly, and now Queen has thirty minutes until they need to be onstage. You can hear the disembodied reverberation of voices from the waiting crowd through the walls. “Hello, love. Come in.”

“Freddie said you needed to see me. Did you rip a sleeve or something? I brought my kit—”

“No, it’s not that.” He pats the chair beside him. The boys practically always get ready together before a show, but you suspect profoundly introverted Brian is experiencing one of his post-socialization crashes after dinner with your parents. Something about him is tired, very tired, almost drained to empty. “Join me.”

“Sure,” you say cautiously. You shove your medical kit onto the countertop and then reach to feel his forehead. “Are you feeling alright...?”

“I’m fine, love. I just have a favor to ask.”

“Anything.”

Brian sighs deeply, sets down the eyeliner, swivels his chair towards you. “I need you to promise me that you’re not going to start seeing Roger.”

You titter, deflecting, brushing Brian’s hair away from his troubled, angular face. “Well, as the official Queen touring nurse, I see him quite a lot.”

Brian catches your wrist. “I’m being serious.”

Now your brow knits into tight agitated lines. “I’m curious as to why you think that’s something you have a say in.”

“Bloody hell, I’m not trying to offend you—”

“Job well done.”

“Dear, please, listen to me—”

“Eight months,” you hiss through your teeth as you tear away from him. “For eight months I’ve listened and avoided and resisted and ignored and it’s not going away.”

“Oh, fuck,” Brian breathes in despair. “You love him.”

There are tears biting in the periphery of your vision; you don’t want them to be there, but they are. Your voice is hoarse and trembling. “Bri, please don’t.”

Brian shakes his head and motions with his hands frenetically, desperately, trying to make you understand. “Look, sometimes...sometimes the people we love, the people who own us, the people who fucking set us on fire...they’re not the people we end up with. And that’s not always a bad thing. It’s necessary. It’s self-preservation. Because sometimes the people who set us on fire would burn us alive.”

You gape at him, furious, stunned. “That’s just fantastic, Brian. You’re a true romantic. Jesus christ, does Chrissie know about this? Is that why you’re with her, because she’s, what...safe?!”

“No, that’s not fair, Chrissie’s great, she’s steady and supportive and she’ll make a wonderful mother one day, and my parents adore her—”

“Those aren’t reasons to marry someone, Brian!”

“They are!” He leaps to his feet. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! You have to think about these things, you have to be rational, you have to protect yourself—”

“Why the fuck do you care?” you flare bitterly.

“Because you saved my life.”

“Stop it, I didn’t.”

“You did, I truly believe that. And I want you to stay with the band. And I want you to be happy. But, dear, please, I’m begging you...this is not the way to do it.”

“I’m not going to go out to some pub and drag home a random guy who’s suitably passionless and predictable enough to be Brian-May-approved.”

“That’s not what I’m asking you to do—”

“Because you’re such an expert on relationships!” you shout, exasperated. “Planning to propose to Chris while you’re still secretly pining over some fling from New Orleans, fucking groupies and then having the nerve to mope around guilt-ridden the next morning as if anyone but you was responsible for that decision, and do I say anything about it?! Do I ever say a single fucking word about it to you, or Fred, or Roger, or your future wife, or anybody?! No, because it’s not my life!”

The dressing room door flies open and John storms inside. “What’s going on?!”

You cross your arms and stare at the floor. Brian’s wide green eyes flick to John, to you, back to John. If it was Freddie, Brian would tell him in a second, would try to enlist him in the effort, and it would probably work; but John is a different story. John won’t side with Brian over you, everybody knows that. And John has a talent for sharpening words into blades. “Um. Nothing.”  

“I could hear you in the hallway,” John says flatly. “Obviously it wasn’t nothing.”

Brian points to you. “Have you tried to talk her out of this? Maybe you should, maybe she’d listen.”

“It’s not my choice to make, just like it isn’t yours. Worry about your own body count. It seems to be growing exponentially these days.”

Brian scoffs. “Because you’d be so thrilled if she ended up with him, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” you demand.

Brian and John glare at each other from across the room. John raises his eyebrows, daring Bri to answer. Brian gnaws his lower lip, but doesn’t elaborate. The air is heavy, tense, electrified.  

“Don’t upset her again,” John says darkly.

Brian shows the white palms of his hands in surrender. “Fine.”

John waves for you to follow him. “Come on.” And he slams the door behind you as you both escape into the hallway.

“I’m sorry.” You chase away stray tears with the back of your hands. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get anyone worked up right before the show...”

“Don’t worry about it. I treasure any excuse to harass Brian.”

You study him, seeking answers, seeking more than you know how to put into words. “Do you think I’m being stupid? If you do, you can tell me.”

“No,” John responds carefully. “I think you’re being hopeful. And I’d like to believe that stupidity and hopefulness are two very different things.”

You smile. “I don’t deserve you.”

“That’s very inaccurate.” He fluffs his hair with his fingertips. “Do you want to touch it before we go on stage?”

You feign demureness. “Hmm...”

“Oh come on. You know you want to. It’s extra voluminous right now, Roger shared some of his magical mousse or whatever. Something way too expensive. You should thoroughly berate him for it.”

You laugh. “I’ll see what I can do.” You comb your hands through his brunette hair, and John’s right; it’s extraordinarily full and soft, and smells like honeysuckles. “You always know how to get me smiling, don’t you?”

“You do insist that I have game. Though I remain skeptical.”

“Good luck tonight. Not that you need it.”

John’s rough thumb lifts your chin, then whisks away a tear you missed. “You’ll be watching, right?”

“I always am.” And that’s the truth; you haven’t missed a Queen show since you met them.

He beams, those gentle grey eyes incandescent. “Then we’ll have an ocean of luck.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Exactly twenty-four hours later, Queen is in New York City.

The thunderous bassline of the opening act shudders through the concrete walls. You’re staring yourself down in the bathroom mirror under harsh florescent lights, your palms gripping the cold rim of a white sink, your eyes shimmering with black and gold shadow, your lip gloss slick and crimson. There’s not a single thing left to do. You’re running out of time.

You breathe in, breathe out, snatch your purse off the floor, breeze out into the hallway.

You can hear the boys’ laughter even before you open the dressing room door. Inside, Brian is tuning his Red Special with his mantis-like legs propped up on the countertop, John is attempting to teach Freddie how to make popcorn in a microwave without setting anything on fire, Roger is scrutinizing his hair in the mirror and frowning as he rearranges it with a comb.  

“Hello, darling!” Freddie warbles. “Can I interest you in some delicious and expertly-prepared popcorn?” He opens the microwave, and smoke pours out. “Oh, you bitch!”

“I’ll pass, Freddie.” You glide to where Roger is sitting, knot your fingers through his blond hair, and tug his head back so you can kiss him. He tastes like mint gum and the ghost of smoke and reckless intemperance; he tastes like everything you’ve ever wanted. There are gasps, and surely dropped jaws as well; but you don’t have eyes for them. “Okay,” you tell Roger.

He stares up at you with huge, starry eyes, a dazed grin slowly lighting up his face. “You changed your mind.”

“Come find me after the show.”

“Yes ma’am.”

You move to wipe your blood-red gloss from his lips, but Roger stops you, knits his hand through yours, stands to meet you.

“Leave it,” he murmurs. “I want them to know.”  

“Want them to know...?”

His lips touch yours again, smiling and scorching and ravenous. “That I’m yours.”

[hubbie22]

tears ricochet part two

A/N: If you’d like to be tagged, please let me know! Thanks for reading.

“Well, where is she going to stay? I have more than enough room.” Freddie starts to talk about the late night wine fests, the sleepovers, and parties.

“What about one week with you, one week with Deaky and Veronica, and one week with us?” Brian says trying to come up with a compromise.

“We sound like divorced parents passing around our child.”

“Well, she can’t stay alone!” Brian seems frazzled as he always does. “Chrissie is adamant on that.”

“I think we all are, at least the six of us.” Deaky’s words cut Roger, cause he knows he’s excluded from this conversation.

“Where will you go?” It’s a legitimate question.

“You don’t have to worry about me, not anymore.” She says, as she holds Felix in her arms. He’s a happy baby, and he seems to like anything that gives him attention. And Liv hands it out to him in spades. This was the compromise, he did what she asked. He didn’t come alone, he came with Felix in tow. While that certainly wasn’t alone, it wasn’t what she meant. She wondered if Roger’s girlfriend knows he brought their son to see his ex. And if she knew, did she care? Or maybe she pitied Liv, that seemed to be the prevailing emotion she always recieved.

“Shouldn’t smoke with him in the room, Rog.” Liv scolds him, “And you shouldn’t worry about me.”

“Always worry ‘bout you.” He says as he takes a drag of his cigarette. It was preconditioned into the very fiber of his being to worry about her. Even if he tried to push it away, it always came flooding back.

Somehow Liv ended up with Freddie at Garden Lodge, at least until she was on her feet again. Or that was the promise they made to her.

“It’s like one big slumber party!” Freddie says pulling out silk robes from the Chanel bags. Freddie hands her a rose gold colored one, and he puts on a blood red one. The rose gold fabric pools around her feet, its luxurious.

“Freddie this is beautiful.” She says feeling the silk against her skin.

He looks at her with a playful light in his eyes, “All ways the best for us, dear.” It felt odd to be included in the word us, again. The last time she had been part of an us, was when the other part of it was Roger. She pushes him out of her head, he can’t occupy that space anymore. Just like he can’t occupy the other part of us in her life anymore.

“Manicure and pedicures this way!” Freddie says, he must sense her sadness. Because he tops her off with more wine, as she sinks her feet into the small tub of water.

They are in the middle of getting facials, being pampered for the tenth night in a row, “This really is a never ending slumber party.”

“What a great song idea!” He darts off with a blood red silk robe, leaving her alone with a multitude of cats. She picks up the orange tabby, who nestles into her embrace. She brings him up the stairs to the bedroom, and she can hear the pitter patter of little paws following her. She lays on the California king, looking up at the great white canopy above her. She can hear him singing from the other side of the house. It reminded her of the old times.when they were a penniless band, and not a household name.

“Like this!” Brian says as Roger bites back. “That’s not it! It’s slow!” They had been at the studio for the better part of 96 hours. Liv watched them, she hadn’t been spotted yet.

“I don’t like it!” Freddie says with a biting ferocity. “It’s so blasé!” They couldn’t achieve the correct sound for the song, and it was driving them mad. Which of course, lack of sleep didn’t aid in driving them mad either. But, she wouldn’t tell them that.

“I’m playing it how I always play it, Fred!” Brian seems to be cracking under the pressure, which is typical. She rolls her eyes, as she snaps a candid photo of Brian’s reaction.

“What do you think, Liv?” Deaky asks her.

She turns her head ready to answer, letting her camera fall against her chest as it was secured by a strap, only for Roger to answer for her. “Livie listens to only sad songs!” He goes on, “ She thinks the whole of it should be slow. For god sakes, she listens to sad American country music on repeat. If I hear that damn twang of “Your Cheatin Heart” one more time!”

“How dare you disrespect the late and great, Hank Williams, Rog.” She looks at him, “That man was a legend in a cowboy hat!”

Roger rolls his eyes, “All he does is stand there and sing sad country songs about his lost love in his country twang.”

“It’s called talent.”

“I know, I have it.” Roger says with a smirk on his face.

“What’s wrong with American country? What’s wrong with the sad songs they sing? I find it quite lovely, very telling of the human experience.” Brian asks, but he’s ignored.

She snorts, “Also, didn’t know your name was Liv, now?”

“ ‘S how I see it, just telling it how I see it.”

Hank Williams voice blares through the house, “Your Cheatin Heart” reverberates off the walls of Garden Lodge. Even those five years she spent comatose, did nothing to diminish her love for the American country star. Deaky chuckles at the thought, as she closes the front door.

“Liv?” Deaky shouts when the song dies down, and she yells from wherever she is. He walks to where the sound of voice came from. She’s dancing, her bare feet agaisnt the marble floor, to a sad country song. It’s a new one, George Jones if he’s not mistaken. A small smile is on his lips, as he noticed that Liv hasn’t changed. If anything it’s like she’s been frozen in time. She’s twirling around to the sounds of “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” in her white eyelet sundress. She hasn’t changed, it was like she was frozen in time. He had seen this scene at Liv and Rog’s flat and the Surrey Mansion. But the scenery around her changed, if this was five years earlier she would be dancing with Roger. But now, she danced with Freddie’s cats.

“Deaks!” She says clearly winded from her little dance party.

It causes Deaks to laugh, “Sorry to break up your dance party, but I was looking for Fred.”

She grimaces, “He’s with that evil bloke, Paul.” Liv and Paul didn’t like each other in 1975, and time didn’t faze that dislike from either parties. “Said he’d be back soon.” She answers his next question before he can even ask it.

He looks around, “Eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Come on, let’s get something.”

They end up at a little diner around the corner, one that they used to visit when Freddie only dreamed of owning Garden Lodge. She orders a burger and a strawberry milkshake, and he follows suit substituting the milkshake for chocolate.

“You haven’t changed, still blaring that horrendous country music.”

She rolls her eyes as she bites into her burger, “It reminds me of my dad.” Deaky didn’t know that, and he winces as she continues. “He was an American from the great state of Alabama,” She says the state with a fake southern drawl, “He came over here during the War. Survived that, and married the nurse that took care of him in the hospital.” She has a small smile that dies on her lips, “Only to die of cancer, when I was five.” She plays with the straw in her milkshake, “All I had of him were his Hank Williams records, kinda turned me into country music. We used to dance around the kitchen to it. I guess I found comfort in it. And I just never stopped finding comfort in it, makes me feel like he’s still here.”

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “It’s just another sad story in a long line of sad stories.”

The only sounds that can be heard is the chatter of the waitresses and the clinging of pots and pans.

“After your accident, we had some rocky times between the band. And I remember Roger would blare Hank Williams, when he was getting ready to go on stage.” Deaky looks at her, really looks at her and he sees how her eyes light up at the revelation. “Said it was his way of feeling like you were there, even when you weren’t.”

“Took my coma for him to appreciate my musical taste.” She deadpans. And the rest of the meal is spent in silence.

Her brows knitting in confusion, as they are walking back to to the Come to think of it those records at Freddie’s aren’t dad’s. I don’t even know where dad’s records are anymore. The last of dad just gone.”

The sounds of a country drawl lull him out of his sleep. He opens the door to his dressing room, head peaking out to find the source of the music. His feet take him to Roger’s dressing room. He opens the door to find what he least expected to find, Roger head in his hands as “I Saw the Light,” drifts off the cement block walls of the arena dressing rooms. Roger wasn’t a religious man, but Deaky knew this song wasn’t being played for religious purposes. It reminded Roger of someone, and with it the memories of her singing it. Those memories comforted him, when he couldn’t be at her beside. Maybe in a way, it was akin to a religious experience for him.

For two years, Hank Williams lulled him to sleep on couches across the world’s arenas. Until, that day when Roger decides to put it behind him. Deaky finds the Hank Williams records in the trash bin of the arena, he notices a pretty redhead knock on Roger’s dressing room door. Deaky takes the records from the trash, and he notices how old they are. And the intials etched on the cover OLH, it takes all of him not to march in Roger’s dressing room and drag him out by his hair. But, instead he takes the records with him. Closing the door to his dressing room, he slips the record out. He puts it on the player, when he walks to the couch he notices a note fell out the cover. He unfolds the note, finding a tear stained letter.

Dearest O,

I don’t want to write this, actually put it off until I could. But I can’t anymore. Soon, it’s just going to be just you and your mama. You have to be a big girl for your daddy, now. No tears, no fear, just be brave. I need you to be good for your mamma, she needs you. Do what she says, even if you don’t want too, which I know you never want to do what she says. I know you think she’s hard on you, she only is hard on you cause she loves you. And she just wants the best for you, she wants your life to be easier than ours was. Just remember everytime you listen to one of these Hank Williams albums, I’m right there with you. Singing along, while dancing around with kitchen with you. I’ll always be with you. I’ll be the wind that carries the leaves that dance around you in the fall, the sunshine that warms you up, I’ll be everywhere you are, where ever you are, there I’ll be. I love you, O. I’ll love you until the sea meets the sky.

Deaky folds the letter back up, placing it snuggly in the cover. The next thing he knows the phone is in his hand, and he’s waking Veronica up at 2 am to speak to his children. When they leave the arena the next hour, he put the records in his bags. He notices Roger has his sunglasses on, and his arm draped around the same redhead from earlier. And so begins the revolving door of groupies, until Roger meets a dark haired girl that reminds him of someone else.

“I have them.” Deaky says as they reach Garden Lodge.

“Why would you have them?”

He can’t tell her the truth, that Roger throw them away in some arena trash can in the States. So he covers it with a lie, he has to save her from the truth that Roger threw away the last of her dad so he could put her in the rearview mirror. “You let me borrow them before the accident.”

“Oh!” She still looks puzzled, knowing damn well she wouldn’t let anyone touch those records. But whatever Deaky isn’t telling her, she decides it best she doesn’t uncover it. “Can I have them back?”

“Of course, I was keeping them safe for you.” And that wasn’t a lie, it was a truth. Those records were locked in safe in his house, so the kids couldn’t destroy them.

The next day, Deaky is back with at Freddie’s with the records in hand. He notices Roger’s car is in the drive. He opens the front door to hear Liv laugh, and the sounds of a Felix stringing together some sound. He walks into the living room to find Roger and Freddie sitting in chair facing opposite each other, while Liv is on a pallet on the floor playing with Felix and Jimmy, Brian’s son. And the second Liv notices Deaky has arrived, her eyes zero in on what he’s holding. She leaves Felix laying on the pallet, but Jimmy is running after her. “Daddy’s records!” She sounds like a little girl. And as Deaky puts them in her hands, Roger’s eyes are as wide as saucers. Liv darts out of the living room, Jimmy hot in her heels, as she’s explaining to him about Hank Williams. The two year old is enamored with her, as she scoops him up. She’s running up the stairs to her room, focused on showing Jimmy the her dad’s records. Once Liv is out of earshot, Deaky decides it’s time to face the truth.

“Luckily I fished them out, knew she’d want them.” Deaky doesn’t skip a beat, as he situates himself on the couch. “Throwing out her dead dad’s records, that’s low.”

Freddie looks at Roger, “Was this during-”

“Yeah.” Roger interrupts him, as he bends down to pick up his son.

“He didn’t know what he was doing.” Freddie says defending Roger’s actions from three years ago. As if they could be defended, as if it was something so simple.

“Who didn’t know what they were doing?” Brian asks as he comes from the kitchen, three cups of tea in hand. He hands two cups to Freddie, one for him and one for Liv. He sits a cup beside Roger’s chair, and the other beside the spot he was occupying. He turns to Deaky, “Hello, John! Tea?” Deaky responds with a nod at Brian. Brian is back in a second, handing the cup to Deaky before taking a seat. Brian of course doesn’t let his question go, “Who didn’t know what they were doing?”

“Apparently Roger, didn’t know what he was doing when he threw away Liv’s dead dad’s records on tour in America.” Deaky’s words cut like a knife, and every word was meant to kill. “Of course Rog and Fred think it’s okay he did that, right?” Deaky looks at them, “Because of the cocaine?”

Brian looks at Roger, “What the fuck?!” Brian looks disgusted, “And you blame it on the drugs?”

“I went back for them the next day,” Roger looks like he’s on the verge of crying, “When I realized what I did-”

Freddie steps in, “He told me, after I punched him in the face. We went to the arena and turned every trash can inside out. But it was too late, they were gone.” Freddie is pleading, “We tried, Roger tried. He was just in a bad place.”

“And that makes it alright?” Deaky snorts.

“Please don’t tell her.” It’s all Roger can say, he can’t let her find that out. He can’t. And he knows Freddie won’t let it happen. Because Freddie was with him that night, when he smashed his drum set and destroyed everything in his hotel room.

“He won’t.” Freddie says finitely, turning to Deaky. “Will you, John?”

“No.” Deaky looks at Roger and Freddie. “But not because you asked me to, but because Liv doesn’t need you to break her heart a second time.” Deaky looks at Felix, “She can handle that fact that you moved on, that you settled down. She can be happy for you.” Deaky gulps his tea down. “But she won’t forgive you when she finds out, that you threw out something out of hers that was the last thing she had of her dad.”

“Thank you.” Roger says quietly. Freddie mouths a thank you to Deaky but he doesn’t say a word. And Brian seems like he is trying to process the information.

“You got it Jimmy!” Liv has the record player in her hands, and Jimmy is carrying the records. She sets up the record player in the hallway. She puts on the record, and Hank Williams voice floats through Garden Logde. And the three of them, with Felix in Rogers arms watch as Liv and Jimmy fight a fit of giggles as they dance.

“I did it cause I remember what that looked like.” Deaky says pointing to Liv twirling Jimmy around in her arms. “Maybe that morning you woke up, you remembered it too.”

[an-intronerd]

thoughts on jaskier (+ geraskier) post episode 6: rare species

this was honestly supposed to be a teeny little rant but like, my hands grew minds of their own.

...

ok, so like, i recently binged the witcher (and i’m one of those people who has not yet read the books and never played the games, so going in, i had no idea who these characters were or what their dynamics in the other medias were like or anything) and next thing you know, i’m drowining in the geraskier fandom. 

as one does, i’ve seen a lot of geraskier content, including fics and the like, and one idea that’s always there is that jaskier is this heartbroken, sullen, pining thing after the Big Fight. like, 98% of what i’ve seen or read has sad!jaskier. and like, the general plot is always like 

jaskier is sad that geralt yelled mean things at him. 

jaskier sings heartbroken love songs. 

jaskier runs into geralt/geralt finds jaskier/somehow these two meet again. 

geralt is a dick/geralt feels bad but is emotionally constipated so he doesn’t know how to use words to apologize/geralt saves jaskier’s life. 

geralt and jaskier make up because jaskier knows how to read his witcher’s emotions and forgives him. optional: they bang.

the end.

and its like, people aren’t perfect?? i think that’s a little unrealistic. and yes, fanfiction can be like that sometimes, because it’s what we want to happen. but like, imagine this:

jaskier going through the 5 stages.

jaskier goes down the mountain, leaving geralt behind. what else can he possibly do?

jaskier spends a few nights wasted and crying because hey, guess what, the love of his life for the better part of two decades is a gaint wart-covered dick. he’s sad about it, sue him.

jaskier decides fuck this, his witcher is a piece of shit and though he is by no means the best person on the planet, he is at least good enough to deserve better than what geralt gave him. or well, was incapable of giving him.

jaskier decides he will move on, and it’ll start with him getting out of this mountainside village and heading to one of the first places where he truly found himself, oxenfurt. afterall, music has been and will always be the one constant and greatest pleasure in his life.

it takes time, but jaskier perseveres. he gets over his denial pretty quickly. he will not believe geralt didn’t care for him at all. he knows that’s an insult to both of them. geralt cared in his own way. thats the truth. unfortunately, the other, much harsher truth is that it wasn’t enough. so, no geralt won’t be coming for him, and jaskier won't be waiting around.

anger is a bit harder to get over. once it truly sets in, it’s all jaskier can do not to hunt down that fucking white wolf and tear him a new one. jaskier is a person, he is a human with feelings, and that damned witcher had no right to treat him like the scum at the bottom of his shoe. if it wasn’t for jasker, geralt would still be run out of every other town he came across, stoned and bloody. he’d probably have died in a puddle of his own blood fifty times over by now, considering all the times jaskier had to patch him up. that ungrateful prick. except, once he’s exhausted three supllies of parchment and written enough songs about the bitcher, (yes not his most creative insult but he’s too petty to care!) he knows none of that is remotely true. and he wants closure.

and that’s when bargaining hits him full force. all of a sudden, he just needs to see geralt one more time. once more great adventure and a song to go with it, one more meal shared, one more conversation, to see if geralt really ever cared. he needs to ask him, and have geralt verbally confirm or deny his doubts. he needs this, just once. one more time, he needs to see his witcher, and it’ll be enough. one more time. just once. he almost fails himself, on one lonely night. he knows he can’t, he doesn’t even know where he’d start looking but he’s drunk beyond the point where common sense dictates his actions, and he’s packed half his belongings... and he’s getting ready... to track down the white... wolf... he wakes up with a bitch of a hangover the next day, but he didn’t go after geralt. he knows deep down once will never be enough. 

anger was tough, but depression was worse. it came for him like a siren in all her glory, drawing him in and in and in until he’s drowing and he didn’t even realise when that happened and then it’s too much, it’s too painful... he isn’t really surprised. he thrives on emotion, the good and the bad, it’s how he writes such brilliant ballads, he admits he hadn’t really delved into his own feelings about geralt yet. he hadn’t dealt with all the heartbreak follwing the mountain, and maybe he should have done so earlier, but he doesn’t think it matters. his heart wasn’t going to hurt any less months earlier when the wounds were still fresh. and though they may have closed up over time, the phantom pain is always with him. there are days where all he can do is curl up under his blankets and sob. some days he goes without eating a single morsel, finds himself lightheaded from dehydration, not leaving his bed for anything more than to relieve himself. some days, he flips through old songbooks, filled with twenty-odd years of adventure, both the fun and the dangerous kind, and laughter and frustration, companionship and solidarity... what was it he used to say? death and destiny, heroics and heartbreak. words of a lifetime past. some days, he compartmentalizes and sets all that aside in a little box in his mind and goes about his day as if he isn’t weighed down by the constant weight of his loss. it’s almost too much, but he’ll manage, he tells himself. he doesn’t let himself think of what he would do if he can’t.

it’s a cloudless day outside, and he’s in the market for new writing materials, and he’s going over next week’s lesson plan in his head, when he’s hit with the sudden realization that he hasn’t thought about geralt in a while. he’s thinking of him now, sure, but that doesn’t count because he’s thinking of how he’s not thinking of him, it’s a totally different thing, and oh- it doesn’t ache as much as it used to. he feels lighter than he has in a while, and he doesn’t know how that happened, or when, but he’s... okay. 

that’s the thing about healing, it happens whether you realise it or not, you just have to give ypurself a chance. it’s pontless to hold on to the negative feelings because you’re trying to hold on to something or someone that isn’t there anymore or maybe never really was. he didn’t know when it happened, but. the bitterness that accompanied the memories of geralt’s last words is no longer there. neither is the anger. there’s a dull sadness, but mostly it’s resignation and a sort of comfortable if lonely acceptance that geralt is gone. but there’s also a bittersweet understanding that jaskier will always love him. the history they shared isn’t erased because of a few angry words. jaskier will have, if nothing else, a lifetime full of moments and memories. if he sees geralt again, it will no longer be with a vision clouded in pain or anger or sadness, but rather a deep-seated love and forgiveness. he will let geralt decide now what they will be to each other. but he will not accept anything less than what he is worth. he will not be geralt’s punching bag. if geralt wants to have a relationship with him again, it will be one of equals, the bard and the witcher. if he wants to go their seperate ways, well, jaskier will live content like that too. 

he’s moved on.

sometimes, moving on doesn’t mean finding someone else. sometimes, it means mending your own heart, piece by broken piece, and then tucking it away safely inside, giving it a chance to heal. it’s about making that very difficult choice to let go of the bad that you’re holding on to, because it’s a way of holding on to the person you lost. it’s about finding yourself again, and who you were before the pain and heartbreak, and, figuring out who you want to be now. i need more of that, because that’s real. that’s how i imigine jaskier would feel. he’s not perfect, and he has his ups and downs as all of us do, and he is angry at geralt and sad and broken but also he’ll pick himself up, because he was someone before geralt, too, and he’ll still be someone after geralt, not just the witcher’s bard. he doesn’t know who that is yet, but he’ll figure it out.

and because i’m at my core a geraskier + happy endings hoe:

geralt realises an important thing on that mountaintop. he has been running from destiny and anything real all his life. he needs to get his head out of his ass, and find ciri. clearly, he was destined to lose yen, and that’s happened, no matter how hard he tried to make it different. she’s destined to be his and he accepts that now, but everything else is up to him. 

he finds ciri, and then, he’s a father. he vows to be a better parent than the one he had. 

he finds yen, and they learn to be enough for each other without turning it into something more than a vague frienship. somewhere between a truce and a partnership. for ciri, they agree.

he returns to kaer morhen, to his family with his daughter and his yennefer in tow. 

he realises that he has everything he could ever want, and more than any witcher ever gets, but there’s still something missing. 

then he realises it’s his bard, the one person who wasn’t unwillingly tied to him because of some wish or destiny, someone who chose him every single time, and who he misses with such a fierce ache.

then he remebers how badly he fucked that up, and then yen tells him he’s a wart-covered, emotionally constipated dick, and dumb too, but hey thank god you finally got your head out of your ass long enough to realise that you miss your bard and you’re sorry for what you did and you love him, and geralt just goes what? yen, love? oh- okay so that’s what the constant turning of his stomach and insomnia is.

then he sets out to find his bard, and ciri asks if she’ll finally get to hear all those famous songs about geralt from the source, and he says he hopes so.

it doesn’t take him long to find his bard, now a professor at oxenfurt academy, and geralt thinks that makes perfect sense because where else would jaskier have gone but to one of the few bright bits of his youth?

he gets to oxenfurt and it’s a cloudless day, and there’s people millig about and he thinks he’ll head to an inn and give roach a well-deserved rest, and then his heart stops. because there is jaskier, exchanging coin for parchment, and he looks just as he did a year and a half ago, except less disappointed and more happy and his heart hasn’t beaten this fast since he was a child left on vesemir’s doorstep. he thinks of all the nights he’s been unable to sleep because he had gotten so used to the bard’s humming and how it had been the most soothing wordless lullaby. he thinks of his last words, and he feels his breath leave him, because jaskier had taken it to heart, and left him. he’d given geralt his one blessing, and geralt thinks that those words are something he will regret for as long as he is living. he gives himself a moment to wonder if perhaps he should leave jaskier to the life he’s created for himself, be unselfish for once and let jaskier remain happy and safe and free. 

he should leave, though he knows that jaskier deserves so much more from him, an apology to start, and then a real friendsip, one tat goes both ways, and wow, geralt really is a wart-covered dick because he had treated jaskier so unfairly and he doesn’t undertsand why jaskier kept coming back to him, again and again. destiny hadn’t entwined their paths. jaskier chose to entangle them anyways. and he deserves so much more than geralt of rivia, and he should let jaskier have that, he should...

but he couldn’t walk away now, not when jaskier, his bard, his life-long friend, is standing right there, and jaskier turns, collecting his items and geralt stops breathing because jaskier looks over, and geralt watched the recognition flit over the bard’s face as he sees roach and then up, up, up, his eyes trace geralt’s form until.

their eyes meet, and jaskier smiles.

tl;dr: i just want more realistic portrayls of jaskier’s emotions after the Big Fight in episode 6, and i want to see jaskier go through all the feelings, and more depth to him that just some pining, heartbroken lump of a person. he’s more nuanced than that, i think. 

p.s: a big part of this ended up being based on my own experineces with love and friendship, pain and hertbreak, and the process of moving forward despite it all. idk how much of that comes through, and i hadn’t really planned for this post to go in the direction that it did, but i like how it turned out. i’m still trying to figure out that tricky little thing about making the choice to let go, and writing this helped?

p.p.s: this ended up way, way, wayyyyy longer than i intended, oops? why do i do this lol

p.p.p.s: if fics like this actually exist, please feel free to tag me in them or send me links, i would adore you forever!