#lose clarity au puzzle

[lunar-solarsystem]

little drawing for Lose Clarity :] Ruin finally got an arcade machine to work!!!

Puzzle became eepy and fell asleep while their da- i mean, protective guardian was working

up close of the eepy:

[justdrawlynn11]

Puzzle from @lunar-solarsystem’s Lose Clarity Au!!

Look at ‘em!!!!! Eheheh!

[corntort]

okso . i may have accidentally written a whole fucking novel about stej band au. you have been warned

(SPOILERS OF MAIN GAME ALLUDED TO!!!)

ok so main focuses are astra, spark, fark, (and less so freom and clarity) so before i get into the Meat of it let me assign characters their genres!

i will link the most appropriate songs by each band to match the style of whoever im talking about, but i also mean the whole band's Entire aesthetic fits them well too! SPARK: rock with rough vocals (either dad-rock or grunge-y) EXAMPLES: SAKURAN-ZENSEN, Orange Dog Club

FARK: softer somewhat psychedelic sound (with latin inspiration), or strong prog-rock ballads EXAMLES: Kiltro, Thank You, Scientist, Children of Nova

ASTRA: LOTS OF GENRES. SO MANY. and she's got a crazy range. but Vocally she's like [examples below] EXAMPLES: Queen Bee (Ziyouu-vachi)[they are the Perfect example of astra's style], Hey, Baby! (SEVERE FLASHING WARNING!)

FREOM: ROCK. but heavier and edgier than spark's, with a very different sound. and the occasional r&b/soul/blues!! EXAMPLES: A Perfect Circle, Trivium, Earl St. Clair

CLARITY: edm or electro-pop or something similar ! EXAMPLES: ano (flashing warning mid-way through!), lianhua, adore

spark is an indie artist finally staging gigs at her favorite bar known in f.m. city as "bottleneck." it's run by the charismatic formie vegas behind the bar, and their sister thea, who works as one of the few bouncers.

fark, another competing indie musician (with scattered but influential ties, which puzzles spark) finally also starts to perform there on only some afternoons, until he starts performing more regularly throughout the week, taking up shows from spark which makes her Piiiiissed.

she kicks up a huge fuss with fark and is essentially silently fired for the uproar, leaving in a rage to find some other bar thatll take her rough rock sound (with no success).

everything kinda crashes down for her, hitting the worst timed artblock, losing all her inspiration and getting so angry at how fark replaced her. she, one day, after being cooped up for so long, dejectedly forces herself to leave her apartment to go to a local indie music festival, where she spots astra performing on one of the bigger stages the festival offers, her show being set to electrify the night at 9pm-11pm.

spark is Amazed, watching her whole performance as she pulls off many different genres and sounds effortlessly, igniting another fire under sparks ass and inspiring her in a profound way.

spark then decides to herself "okay. i Really need to talk to this girl, see if we can make something together. or at least get some tips, cause i obviously can rock it on my own anyway." yknow as the stubborn, haughty ass she is.

she sneaks backstage to try and talk to astra about a collab/spitball session and is met with a pretty firm and annoyed "hell no? and who even are you? get out of my backstage parlor."

and spark, aforementioned ass, doesnt take this well. she's so frustrated and hotheaded about her loss of the bottleneck she makes a brash decision to steal the show from astra at a future performance, and stews on it for a while.

Another (albeit smaller) venue hosts astra once, and spark, who's barely heard her music before, sneaks backstage again mid performance while all of astra's tech crew is focused on her audio levels and balancing her with her bandmates that spark goes unnoticed as she finds a spare amplifier, hooks her guitar up. and mid song starts Shredding it in a bombastic, brash, and Loud solo.

astra is incredibly confused, and visibly falters mid performance but tries to roll with it for as long as she can while she's internally panicking like "what the fuck is going on." this is already a Huge breach of her standards and boundaries. she runs back in a flurry and when she spots a smug spark backstage after the song ends (ANOTHER sin of hers, as she never leaves between songs with the standards she holds herself at) she almost tries to beat the shit out of her in fury. lots of "what on LUNA gives you the idea that you can just. BARGE IN. AND STEAL MY SHOW. HUH?!?!" and stuff of the sort.

spark barely keeps her back as she flusters like "now wait hold on hold on hold on!!!!!!!!!!!!! chill!!!!!" (this makes astra more pissed, but with the worlds most clenched jaw she listens to spark)

spark explains that she wasn't being listened to, her skill and practice and desire to grow as an artist was shrugged off and that's not something she could tolerate. so she was gonna Make astra listen by any means necessary. and it doesn't help astra's rage as the crowd did go Wild after the solo ended and the song concluded. so she, INCREDIBLY begrudgingly, goes "fine. FINE! Fine! You and me, we can spitball something together, only one song, and then you LEAVE my shows alone. got it!?"

so then they make it a deal, and astra starts visiting spark. er rather, she visits spark's place Once, looks around in disgust, and goes "okay. you go to my place now, because this is gross."

anyway after about 3 separate days of trying to work on a song together, with astra's many different genres she pulls influence from, she tries to help spark. she's just not budging though, frustrated when she's not confident in these new sounds and styles she's trying. on day three, they work very very late into the night trying to tie in a chorus that stands out from spark's other works, but balances her special sound in a way that doesn't betray her brand, and spark has a Massive meltdown.

she almost breaks her special guitar and has a self aimed screaming match aggravated at her artblock and finally shouts that she wouldn't have to do all this work if that stupid faker didn't steal away her special bar.

this intrigues astra and when she hears fark's name she visibly stiffens and goes "wait. THAT GUY? what?!? why didn-- WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT SOONER!?"

turns out fark and astra have a very bitter history. astra worked for the big wigs in f.m. city, Claritas Records, but they never actually made her sing her own music, she only produced/songwrote for either freom or clarity, and then they'd perform her music without a second glance.

she then finally got the chance to sing, recording half of an album she put her heart and soul into, and it pushed a lot of boundaries of what claritas records was used to releasing.

then fark was pushed to join the label (unbeknownst to astra, that he was the Son of clarity and freom).

he "stole" her music, butchered and diluted it, and released it under the label of claritas records to a smashing success.

astra left immediately after, breaking her contract and parting ways. she's held a grudge against fark ever since!

spark, hearing this, goes holy FUCK astra. LET'S GET THIS GUY.

they both get a second wind and smash out 3 hard hitting songs for the rest of the night (and early morning.)

spark can't wait another day to perform it once nightfall hits. she's gotten a total of 30 minutes of sleep and is about to reclaim her throne at the bottleneck.

she pulls a similar tactic to what she did with astra, but makes herself known after fark finishes a song in the middle of his stay at the bar. spark (sneaking a mic from backstage) barks out a "haha yeah, that's great lover boy, but can you move aside for the real musician?"

the audience, mostly consisted of regulars, lose their mind when spark walks on stage, all of them hollering and whooping when she challenges fark to a music-off.

of course she obviously wins but fark just kind of silently takes it, which actually only makes her even more pissed as he just kinda bows and darts out.

even though spark won the competition and now the bar is her's again shes So mad that he didn't even feel a little bit of her anger when she was kicked out. so she's off to find the guy and yell some anger into him cause she's petty like that.

fark is taken in by clarity again as she haughtily says "i knew indie wouldn't go your way, you couldn't even stay in a gig for more than two months!" and now they're planning to hold the city's music in a vice grip, banning more indie performances with each month that passes as fark has to perform at live venues so claritas records can assemble a huge base of musicians to play all their music at every stage/concert/venue to chase the indie artists out.

think similar to nsr (though funnily enough i didn't even play nsr yet as i started thinking abt this au)

spark, catching wind of this. IS PISSED. AGAIN. and now she's gonna try and chase out the claritas artists like she did fark. but she's Really in over her head on this one, as she doesn't even have a 100th of the influence and revenue that claritas records has.

its an uphill battle, most of which im not really sure how to tackle just yet, but while this is happening, fark is making a big name for himself under claritas records. His audience has grown incredibly fast for someone at his point in his career, not much of a one hit wonder, a lot of the music he's sung is getting put on the city's radio, stretching over all of lua in a huge sweep that makes him dizzy with success. he's really formed into the perfect heir to freom's success, adopting a similar aesthetic to freom while still standing out in his own way.

his music isn't that slow and thoughtful or theatrically earnest melody anymore, its been diluted into just a rougher rock sound that's just a homage to freom's legacy. he's sick of it, wanting to embrace a completely different sound of rock, but is pushed into the grungier tone that doesn't suit him well.

and he hates every single second of it.

none of the music is his, his persona pushed onto him deviated so much from his organic look before, him having to display his robotics and lean into a mechanical style of singing, and he doesn't like it!!!!!! it's not him! he wants to be a mesh of the two and something so Organic in style you'd be confused hearing he was a GPA until he intents to make his voice static-y/warbled/distant for effect.

spark doesn't know about his situation though. once she's bashed her way up, with the help of many other indie artists to chase out claritas, she faces fark again performing on a stage that astra did in the indie music festival, but it's only fark now.

and she's fucking Done with everything. drowning out the rocky, robotic tune fark's singing it with her hoarse and brash sound with crazy time signatures and a Lot of screaming. with the help of astra, and many other artists (which i will flesh out au wise when i get the time!!) she makes a song that's Fully her style, so earnest and loud and furious that drowns out his music.

and the crowds going wild!!! they love the crazy sound that's so much more lively than fark's music they cheer when fark storms off the stage.

clarity and freom are so disappointed with fark when he returns with nothing to show for it, and also grow incredibly furious with spark's antics that they target her and only her. if they can crush her musical aspirations, anything is fair game.

fark's had it with clarity and freom, and as theyre scheming on how to take spark and her "riot" apart, fark ducks out in the middle of the night to find her performing at the bottleneck as she always did before the whole musical war.

fark doesn't get much of a word in before she punches him square in the face when she sees him backstage.

they actually get into a full blown fight back there because they really bring out the worst in each other at this point. so after a whole half hour theyre finally done fighting like animals in the back. spark says, while laying on her back next to an equally exhausted fark, "get the hell out man. i'm sick of seeing your face."

he laughs at that which almost gets him punched again but he says "don't worry. i will. i just wanted to say, if you need anyone to break apart claritas records from inside. call me."

spark like shoots up and looks at him like he's a lunatic.

"are you serious???? you want to throw away your whole career?"

they talk back and forth for a while, fark saying his resentment for his own family's label and how he wants nothing more to see them fall. spark keeps asking what the hells wrong with fark for tossing this success away so flippantly, and even as she's learning how much it's crushed fark she's Pissed at having to consider to work with fark and gets up in a huff to storm out.

wow. okaythis is a long ass post LOL. i havent got much farther in my thoughts of this au with how shit gets much worse for spark to the point she Has to call fark to not get drowned by claritas' efforts to push her out of the city. i can think and spitball that stuff later. cause i know i'm gonna be up til like 1am muttering to myself in my room about what could happen like a freak.

i just want them to see eachother at their worst so they can turn around and bring out the best of themselves through their rivalry, and subsequent mutual respect.

like a normal person, surely .

random tidbits i thought of while writing this:

freom's actual genres of choice is soul, swing, jazz, and soul, but due to clarity's strict regulations of what she wants played, he was made to perform rock mostly, only getting to indulge in his own style once in a blue moon. fark leaving was the impetus for him detaching himself from claritas records later

astra was given a guitar by claritas records while under their employ, she still takes the guitar to her shows, but has painted it (intentionally shoddy) and a small middle finger to clarity as she's been successful without her label.

fark's attire choices for shows not under claritas records are intentionally the ugliest, least fitting pieces of clothing to put together. this isn't for any symbolic reason, he just loves bright colors and flowing fabric and has 0 color coordination.

spark is very tall for a formie, but fark is one of the few people she's ever met that's taller, and she's irrationally mad about it.

romalo pops into the picture as astra and spark start working regularly together after the reclamation of the bottleneck bar. he claims to know nothing about music, but on the rare instances he feels like contributing to the music, he composes and arranges the craziest more ass slapping tunes. but, again, it's rare, he's more about the physical show aspect! bright lights, stand-out outfits, and visual effects, and often coordinates the technical side of astra and spark's shows when he starts getting regularly involved.

okokok. i tried to make this as readable as possible. ITS DONE NOW IM DONE ADDING THINGS. FUCK!!!!!!

[theluckywizard]

WIPPIE WEDNESDAY

Just working on a little possible AU/possible HC one shot piece with my Inquisitor Rose and my Hawke.

The dream I’d formulated with Solas was a prison of my own making, meant to keep things out more than keep me inside. The intense clarity that the anchor gave my dreams had always been tolerable– at least until Hawke stayed behind in the Fade. I could only live through so many iterations of watching the man I love get impaled and crushed by the Nightmare. So many dreams replaying the moment I left him behind. Listening to Hawke tell me in a dozen different ways that I’d abandoned and betrayed him. Watching him end his own life out of hopelessness. In my grief and desperation I begged Solas to teach me some manner of control.  My subconscious had become dangerous and I needed to master it. So he and I crafted a dream I could safely retreat to each night, the prison keeping me safe from such intrusions. He’d asked me to choose a familiar place, where each detail was etched deeply in my memory. He had me choose activities to pursue within the safety of the setting, something to pass the time until I returned to consciousness, where my darkest thoughts were under stricter control. I’ve dreamt of my quarters at home at the estate hundreds of times. It’s my refuge. Jigsaw puzzles and knitting. Playing my lute in my pillows piled high by the window. It gives a sense of peace I could never hope to find in Skyhold, where I’m haunted by ghosts of my decisions and the cost of war. Haunted by memories of Hawke.  The wards Solas taught me to set keep all of that out.  I pick at my lute, singing a tune in Antivan as rain rolls in from the Waking Sea and washes down my window. My voice is always sweet in my dreams, never needing warming up or clearing. My velvet pillows hug me while I lounge back into them. Everything is in its right place.  But there’s something strange across my room.  Something that doesn’t belong. On the center of my bed is a yellow cactus flower.  My lute slips and clatters in a twang of strings on the floor as I’m assaulted by the memories, how a yellow bloom would grace my cot each evening in the Western Approach. I stand and approach the flower with the caution its alien nature merits.  “Maker’s breath,” I mutter, crawling onto the bed and picking it up. I spin the fragile bloom against my nose, the petals like satin, the fragrance familiar, flooding my chest with warmth. If I’m losing my grip on my recurring dream, at the very least this is a welcome intrusion. But I check the wards to make sure I’ve activated them properly before slipping into the safety of my dream. The wards are live. I examine the flower, brushing it over my lips, attempting to divine meaning from it. It’s a fond memory of a different time, of a great love I didn’t understand or appreciate. But the warmth gives way to torment, as considering the flower cleaves my heart, the grief falling like a greataxe as I recall how I’d failed to tell him how deeply I’d felt before being scooped around the waist by Alistair and flung back through the rift.  And then I wake myself, because Maker, I can’t do this all over again.

Tagging @bluewren, @nirikeehan, @rosella-writes, @warpedlegacy, @kiastirling-fanfic, @ar-lath-ma-cully, @anneapocalypse, @effelants, @plisuu, @breninarthur, @crackinglamb, @ir0n-angel and anyone else who wants to share their works in progress art or writing!

[sassooda]

Worlds Away JJK AU / Chapter 22 - Familial Ties 🔞

w/c - 5,892

           Choso is on his way to Itadori. He could create a portal but found that he wouldn’t mind using the time it took completing the distance on foot so he could arrange his thoughts. He’s planning on bringing Itadori into the understanding, giving him all the knowledge he’s idly kept to himself over the years. He’s not even sure where to begin but only hopes that he’ll be able to properly explain everything to him.  It seems that even with a slowed pace and shortened steps, Choso ends up in front of the door before he knew it. He takes a moment to collect himself, breathing in deeply. ‘Maybe I should start off with the good news about Elska…’. He knocks on the door lightly and announces that it’s him.

           “Ummm…come in?” Itadori sounds confused that he’d be treated with the courtesy of the warning before entry.

           Choso opens the door with a nervous demeanor, eyes primarily looking at the shabby floor as he turns to shut the door behind him. He’s so anxious that he forgets all of his words completely and upon raising his eyes, sees an agitated Itadori. He wishes maybe he would’ve taken after Naoya in preparation of his room, it being dingy and plain in comparison to Elska’s.

           “You’re Choso, right?” Itadori’s arms are folded into his shaman uniform while he sits in the cushion of the yellow couch that was placed in the room. “I thought you were on our side, you helped us rescue Gojo didn’t you?”

           “I did, yes.” Choso is struggling to find his confidence as he sits in a chair across the couch from Itadori, his black suit feeling uncomfortable. “I know you have a lot of questions…and I plan to answer them all.” He’s now relaxing into his seat as he studies Itadori’s face to judge where to go next. “For starters, Elska is going to be alright. Naoya’s with her now.”

“Naoya? I was told he’s one she needs protection from!” His body language is slightly tensed to this but finds relief in knowing that she’s alright after he was told that Getou attacked her. “She wouldn’t have been put in that situation if you’d left us alone.” He’s not sure what to make of this situation yet, nor of Choso but something is telling him to listen.

           “He’s not a bad man at all, he’s actually one of the greatest I’ve ever met.” He sees Itadori frown to this as he’s not convinced. “I’ll show you in a little bit but first we have to talk…I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time.”

           Itadori remembers Toji once saying that he would want to converse with Choso and this causes him to become more interested. There was something they knew that he definitely didn’t and feels even less alarmed about the visit now. He’s not sure how Choso would show him what he means about Naoya but he decides to let that go and so he can continue. “Ok, I’m listening then…”

           “Itadori… have you ever found your inhumane strength odd?” He asks rhetorically before proceeding, “It’s because you’re not exactly human.” He waits a moment to take in Itadori’s reaction but is kind of relieved when he sees he’s not dismissing him yet.

           “I’m still listening, I really have wondered about this…” Itadori leans in to where his elbows are now placed on his knees and face resting on fists as he lets Choso speak.

           “To put it simply, you’re half cursed spirit in origin, like myself.” He holds his breath for a moment, “To put it even more directly…I’m actually your older brother.” He chooses this instant to hold courage in his expression as he informs Itadori of their familial ties. “I’m gathering you haven’t any memory of this though…”

           “This doesn’t make any sense. How? I had a family…a human one.” Itadori is clearly puzzled and having a hard time understanding how this could be. He looks down to his hands after removing them from under his chin and asks himself, ‘There’s no way, right?’. He’s searching his brain for some kind of excuse but finds it difficult to deny Choso’s words, ‘There is something super familiar about him now that I think about it…’

           “We have more brothers, others like us born of the same Kamo blood.” He sits back up in his seat as the ease of Itadori’s reactions settle him into a more composed way.

           Itadori’s eyes widen to the mention of the Kamo clan, the third of the three major ones. “I still don’t really understand but that’s alright.”

           “Some of our brothers are scattered around the globe, a few still sealed as I was for so long. You were too until the family that raised you in this life found you.” He smiles sadly and softens his eyes, “They seemed like good people, I’m sorry that they’re not with us anymore…” He see’s Itadori’s confusion after that statement, probably unsure of how he was able to know that. “Due to you being Sukuna’s vessel, I was tasked with keeping an eye out on you and so I have for a  while now, even before you were forced into being so.”

           Itadori’s brow furrows as he thinks of his past. “I did actually feel like I was always being watched.” He lightens his tone, “Not in a creepy way but it’s more like I never felt alone!” He smiles now as his mind is trying to churn all of this information at once. “Why am I here though? Is it because I’m your brother?”

           “No, I would probably just approach you normally if circumstances were different.” Choso almost chuckles at the end of the statement, laughing to himself as if he knew what normal really was. He looks around the room further, ashamed that Itadori’s quarters were so plain and barren. “Getou needs Sukuna to help him defeat Gojo. He needs Elska more or less for the same thing, except she’s also been promised to Naoya by the elders.” He leans forward, closer to Itadori and lowers his voice, “But neither Naoya or myself trust Getou. I specifically aim to destroy everything he is.”

           “I really don’t get it…why are you here working for him then?” Itadori is calmer than he thought he would be given the situation of his abduction. He finds this uncanny urge to trust Choso. His gut hasn’t failed him yet, more like the other way around so he internalizes these thoughts as he listens further to what he has to say. ‘…my brother?’

           “Getou murdered two of our siblings.” Choso stops for a second and brings his hands together slowly as he inhales deeply. The sadness he experiences to this day is clear as the humanity within him longs for salvation of his younger brothers. “I don’t even know why but before I could intervene, Kechizu, the youngest, was killed. Shortly afterwards Eso, the middle one, perished while trying to avenge him.” His hands start to shake as he recalls how close they all were, how Choso was supposed to protect them like he swore he always would. “I’m here to ruin Getou from the inside out. He has hurt so many people and will continue to do so if he remains unchecked.” He thinks about the black-haired woman now and how he failed to save her too. He clenches his fists on his knees while looking down to the cement floors.

           Itadori can’t explain why but an uncontrollable sadness washes over him as he hears Choso’s words of their family. It’s almost as if he found a part of himself that was lost for so long, only to lose it again instantly. ‘Could this really be true?’  Instead of communicating this he asks instead, “Why wait to take him out? Are you hoping he’ll fight Gojo too?”

           “I actually do not care one way or another about Satoru Gojo. The only time he will concern me is if he gets in Naoya’s way with Elska. That’s also why I haven’t harmed Getou yet though, I want to help Naoya be successful in his venture.” Choso’s words trail as he remembers the golden light that cascaded over Naoya before, the sheer power that was emitted from him at that time. “There’s something strange occurring in our cursed energy world Itadori.” He looks to him with complete seriousness, “I have a feeling Gojo isn’t the only complete member of his clan.” He sees Itadori’s raised eyebrow. “I can’t say for sure how much but I can tell you Naoya has unbelievable strength that he’s yet to show anyone. I can’t figure out why he would be so intent on hiding it though. Getou claims to be an orphan with no particularly profound background but he’s so incredibly strong himself that I can’t help but wonder if that’s completely true. That power comes from somewhere at least.”

           “What do you mean by a complete member?” Itadori is still struggling to keep up with everything but is trying his best to wrap his mind around it. His mind takes to different instances where he’s seen Gojo in action and is unsure about how he feels knowing there’s a possibility that Naoya or even others could posses the same realm of strength.

           “Gojo is revered and feared for being the first six eyes user with all other inherited techniques in 300 years…but I have a feeling there may be other clans with the same awakening…like the Zenin’s. Naoya has unwavering power but refuses to let anyone know and I’m beginning to wonder if his desire for confidentiality is due to him possessing the Zenin’s ancient techniques as well.” He leans back further and crosses his own arms as he thinks out loud. “Getou’s strength in itself would hold as a full fledge member but I don’t know which clan his techniques stem from…I’ve never seen or heard of gravity manipulation branching form a lineage.” Choso’s eyes widen in a moment of clarity. “Sukuna might recognize it though, he’s around 1,000 years old!” His eyes shift back to Itadori, “I don’t want you to worry about that right now though, keep your body for yourself.”

“So you’re saying there are others that could potentially be as strong as Gojo sensei?” Itadori’s mouth drops as he thinks of that and fears what that could mean. “Even so, you want to help Naoya but what if I told you that Gojo will stop at nothing to get her back?”

           “That’s partially why the elders have concocted this atrocious plan…they’re hoping for him to attack and initiate the proper means for the elders to vanquish him. If killing him is out of the question I’m sure they won’t hesitate to have him sealed once more.” He sighs as he relives the scene of Naoya holding the dying Elska. His heart shivers at the echoes of his cries that rang through him. “Naoya truly cares about her and I believe him when he says he would never cause her harm. When she was hurt, he fell apart…I’ve never seen him so emotional before…”

           “Sukuna isn’t the most cooperative you know and I also would never give him control to fight Gojo sensei. Not ever.” It’s not often that Itadori speaks so coldly but he can’t help but frown internally about some of the information received. “You would have to fight me and I doubt Elska would ever be convinced to go against him either.” He knows Elska and Gojo love each other and although he oddly trusts Choso, he can’t help but disagree about her being better off with Naoya.

           “I don’t want you giving control to Sukuna either. I detest the thought of you being used like that to hurt the ones you love, regardless of how I feel about them.” He sees Itadori’s eyes light up to this and gives a shy smile to emphasize he was being truthful. “Is there no way that Sukuna would work with us temporarily?” He asks Itadori know more than well enough it was unlikely. The curse is not exactly known for being reasonable.

           “I can try and ask him but I don’t think so…there would have to be something in it for him, probably something terrible.” He throws his arms up in the air to stretch while still sitting, “Plus, Gojo sensei had to suppress Sukuna yesterday so I don’t think he’ll be out for a while.”

           “What do you mean ‘suppressed’ him?” Choso looks distressed and wide eyed.

           “He came out when we saw… something strange and he tried to attack Toji, Gojo and Elska. I think he was trying to take Elska, wanting to…umm…breed I guess with her…” His expression is of embarrassment as he considers he would’ve had to sit front row for that show. “I remember enough but when I woke back up, I didn’t even feel the usual strain from keeping him at bay all of the time like I usually do. It made sense when Gojo told me he locked him down.” Itadori places his hands in his lap as he goes to rest back against the cushion, feeling very casual with Choso and finding himself to respect the honesty he’s receiving.

           “That doesn’t make sense…you can’t just suppress Sukuna…” Choso has brought his hands together, palms flush against each other while the tips of his fingers nudge into his chin.

           “What do you mean?” Itadori is perplexed at this statement as he’s living the proof that he definitely could be subdued. He has to do it all of the time.

           “It just doesn’t work that way with an outsider…he would have had to made a deal with the curse.” He’s now staring at Itadori with concern, not understanding fully what took place. “…and you’ve not felt any issue with him since the occurrence took place?”

           “I mean I still hear him in my head but he’s not trying to overthrow my consciousness.” He’s now finding it odd too, although not wanting to doubt his sensei. “I trust Gojo did what he had to…” Itadori speaks with conviction but now is seriously starting to wonder what it could have been if there was indeed a pact involved. He said it himself just moments ago, in order for Sukuna to cooperate there would have to be some kind of reward or benefit…something awful more than likely. He thinks of everyone back at the academy and wishes he had everyone’s brain power to help him sift through all he’s learned. His expression lights up as he raises to his to face Choso again. “I need to let the others know we’re ok!” He’s now overcome with haste to prompt the others as to what’s going on.

           “Toji has been calling me nonstop but I’m afraid to bring anyone else into the fold. Getou is extremely lethal and he needs to be handled prudently.” With regret in his eyes he asks, “We can make contact with them soon, just not yet. Please, try to understand…”

           Itadori still thinks it’s best to let the others know that they’re ok but also isn’t in the best position to make demands. “I don’t like that part but I’ll wait just a little while.” He’s still looking at Choso, “As soon as it’s ok though, please tell them…I know they’ll worry about us.” He hopes Megumi is doing alright and that Gojo sensei hasn’t lost his mind at them disappearing. “Everyone is against her becoming a Zenin though too, you should know that.”

           He feels terrible for having to ask Itadori to wait to inform his friends but knows it’s absolutely for the best. He’ll probably have a lot of explaining to do when this is all over in order to keep it amicable with Itadori’s party. “I’m grateful that you’ve been so understanding about all of this, I appreciate your willingness to learn about the situation before acting.” He smiles to Itadori again, “As far as her and Naoya go, like I said before, it’s better if I just show you.” Itadori nods to him slowly and can tell he was waiting for that to be explained. “This is how I was able to watch over you for so long.”

           Choso moves to the couch next to Itadori who gladly scoots over to see what he meant. He draws the oval into the air and maps the path to Elska’s quarters. He opens his eyes abruptly when he hears her and Naoya moaning loudly into each other.

“Ahhh!!! WAIT… This isn’t what I meant!” His eyes widen and he becomes red in tint as he embarrassingly moves to look to Itadori for assurance that he doesn’t think he’s a freak. Itadori’s eyes blare open as blushes immediately. He rips his gaze away from the window and stares into the floor awkwardly. It seems like Elska and Naoya were at the end of their sexual floundering but he was still nervous about what Itadori would feel about that and goes to wipe the technique until he hears Getou’s voice.

“No…not again…” Choso is fluster free as he waits to see exactly what Getou is up to by being in there. He’s ready to move if he strikes against Naoya or her. “…Getou.”

           “That’s Getou? What is he doing?” Itadori is watching Getou sit on the bed as Naoya and Elska sit bare into each other. The angle doesn’t show their nudity, aside from Naoya’s ass so he’s not terribly bothered by it but feels uncomfortable for Elska as the supposed dangerous man creeps closer to them. ‘Is she with Naoya too?’ His confusion increases.

           “I don’t know but if he attacks them then the plans change.” He feels his body tensing up as he quickly tries to come up with alternatives that would suffice if shit hits the fan. “What he did to her was unacceptable…I know it’s taking everything in Naoya to let him live.”

           Itadori is watching the way Naoya stands in between Getou and Elska, seeing the fire in his expression. He doesn’t seem as possessive as Gojo even while claiming her at the top of his lungs to Getou’s face. Only the worst of rumors have met his ears about the Zenin clan but everything Naoya is displaying with Elska actually goes against it all. They didn’t value women for anything aside from bearing children, he knew that much. Naoya seems to really care for her well-being though, at least in this interaction. He tenses up too as he sees Getou side step to see Elska.

           “He’s a really bad man Itadori, we can’t let him have his way.” Choso’s brow is furrowed until he see’s Getou leaving the room. “His plan is become an elder, this job is from the elders. If he can ascend to such heights then we will be in a world of hurt.” He then looks to Itadori who is watching Naoya protectively console Elska while watching the door to make sure Getou left. “I am so thankful that didn’t escalate…but I wonder why he went back? Surely he knew Naoya would be with her after what happened…”

           “I don’t know but I’m glad too.” Itadori’s eyes are still still curiously trained onto Naoya and Elska, wondering if something happened between her and Gojo to make her be so seemingly ok with being with Naoya. ‘Everything seemed fine before we left…’ but then he remembers how strange it was that Toji was there naked in their room with them. ‘I completely forgot about that!’ He thinks for a moment but then hollers out, “Toji!! Toji is like her but I’m pretty sure he needs Elska to feed from! He’s my best friend’s dad…” His heart sinks as he thinks of the stress the others must be under with them both missing. It’s more than just being upset at their vanishing, Elska was actually imperative for Toji as far as he knows.

           “Naoya and I are already working on how to handle that. We both care for Toji too and will not see him undone by this.” Choso relays a warm smile as he assures Itadori that no harm will come to anyone if they can help it.

           “That’s…incredible…thank you.” Itadori feels his trust was not misplaced in Choso and is still finding himself surprised by how kind the powerful being is.

           “I will try to arrange it so you and Elska can visit with one another. I know that would probably be nice for both of you.” Choso goes to stand, feeling lighter than ever as his fears fall away about Itadori’s judgment of him. “For now though, I’m going to figure out how we can take care of Toji too.” He starts walking to the door but is stopped as Itadori calls out to him.

           “I still need to let everything soak in but Choso…” Itadori is leaning forward in the yellow cushion, “If you’re really my brother…then I’m happy for that, you seem like a good person.” He smiles to Choso meaning every inch of his visible affection.

           “That brings me the upmost joy.” Choso feels like his heart may have mended slightly from the loss of his other brothers. He was never going to let harm befall Itadori. He was going to be the greatest big brother that has ever lived.

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           Getou found himself extremely irritated with the pressure in his groin. ‘Why do I suddenly want to impale that bitch?’ He’s made it back to his new quarters, although he can’t ignore his disappointment that his lovely black-haired beauty was gone. He never meant for her to die, she actually refrained from breathing even after he released his grasp from around her neck…she genuinely was never going to submit. “Now I have nothing to fuck.”

           He sits back in his brown modern wingback chair as he sighs his frustrations into the air. His eyes are strapped to the ceiling while he storms his brain for an explanation. “Something is definitely up with that fucking girl…” He brings his gaze back down to his lap and knows he’s going to just have to take care of it. Not even the walk minimized the blood flow, he was still throbbingly hard. “Ugh…fuck…”

           He unzips his suit pants and lifts his hips so he can push them down to his knees. His bulge is prominent through his light grey briefs. As he slides those down as well, he grabs himself and begins to stroke. He tries to picture his black-haired goddess, the one he wanted for so long but the disappointment of her resistance causes his hands to stop the jerking motions. Not even his fondest memories of debauchery of with her were doing it for him. “Fucking women… almost completely useless creatures.” He closes his eyes and begins to pump himself again but this time his mind takes to Elska.

           He’s imagining how entitling it would feel to pummel her throat with his length. “Maybe then she wouldn’t have anything distasteful to say.” He’s actually finding himself very turned on by the idea as he pictures how pitiful her face would be as her tears flow down her face to his stretching. “Mmmmmm” He’s liking the idea more and more as he visualizes her lips meeting the base of his member, him jutting his hips into her to further abuse the situation. He can almost hear her gagging as he continuously spreads her throat. Her trying to push him away while he absolutely controls the situation sends a twinge to his testicles. “Fuck…yes…”

           He’d wrap his hand into her brown hair and yank her off so he could see her disheveled expression as her saliva connects them both. He would then degrade her verbally, call her a slut and make her say that she liked it before slamming himself back into her mouth. He might even spit on her and smear it with his glistening tip. His hand finds an increased rhythm as he pictures fucking her face so horribly that her eyes can’t even remain open… but that’s when he’d command her to look at him. When she fails to do so he’d remove himself from her mouth hastily and slap her a few times…the last one being hard enough for her to fall to her side.

           He figures she would try to scurry away but he’d grab the chains wrapped around her and pull her back towards him while she screams out in horror. Her stomach would have contact with the floor but he’d use her metal restraints to bound her arms behind her back as he straddles her flattened body from over top. He allows his imagination to run wild as he forces himself into her completely while she lies on the floor in displeasure. “Take it like the nasty little whore you are.” He mumbles to himself as he continues to yank himself off. He’s so hard by this point he’s unsure of how long he’ll last like this but is salivating as the imagined scenario plays further.

           She would likely still fight him, so he’d have to use his body weight to keep her pinned as he violently thrusts into her. It wouldn’t be fun to use his technique. He even pictures her crying his name out in distress and finds it so exhilarating that he almost felt himself get close to releasing. “God…I would fucking dominate her…” His brow furrows as his eyes remained closed, fist still engulfing his extension rapidly. He then wonders what it would be like to do so in front of Naoya. He bites his lip and he entices himself further to the depravity of breaking him while simultaneously breaking her in. It would be better if Gojo were there too though.

           Naoya would be trapped by gravity no doubt but would be purposefully positioned in such a way that the only thing he could see would be Getou splitting her. He’d probably yell to no end, announcing threat after threat as he helplessly watches her body bounce off the floor from his crude impacts. He’d then grab her by the neck and bend her backwards so she’d have to look up to Naoya.

           “He’s not such a great prince now, is he?” While her tears roll down her face, he’d snap his hips a few times for additional effect as she’s made to take it all. He imagines she’d somehow be sopping wet from this as he grips his length a few times to simulate her spasms around him. “Fuuuck…” his light moans now erupt as he continues. He can see himself laughing in her ear, mocking her whines before pulling out from her and lining up for a different type of punishment. He’d broadcast boisterously to Naoya that he was going to ruin every useable orifice of hers, reveling in the fear that would stem from them both. He bets that as he nudges into her rear she would wince and attempt to scoot, attempt to run away from him. He of course wouldn’t allow that.

           As he pictures himself ramming relentlessly, he can’t help but let the thoughts of him wrecking her all over bring him to his release. The images in his mind are so fucking wonderful that he just keeps replaying that specific switch of holes over and over until he’s finally filling his hand with his contents.

           Upon opening his eyes, he certainly felt relieved but also is disgusted in himself for thinking of her to get there. “What a fucking mess.” He looks to his hand that’s seeping DNA and stands to halfway pull his pants up to go wash his hands, trying not to do drip on the suit along the way. He’s confused as to why he had felt so compelled do that, why he wasn’t able to stave off masturbating. “I have to figure out what it is about her that causes these…issues.” He’s lost in thought as he washes his hands extensively, not meaning to for as long as he was. He turns the water off at the porcelain sink and dries his hands on a rough green towel hanging on the grey papered wall near it. He would rather not use his clan technique to spy on her but feels it might be necessary to get to the bottom of things. It’s that or he jeopardizes the entire operation by going back to her room and fucking her senseless. He’d be forced to kill Naoya then too. “There’s too much on the line.”

           He then thinks to grab his phone, he has a lot of updates to report.

           He dials the number, it being saved into his memory versus the phone. As it rings, he holds the phone between shoulder and chin as he fastens his pants again. He’s trying to pretend that he didn’t just fuck his hand to the thought of her. ‘Unacceptable’. The phone line picks up after the third ring and he’s met with a voice on the other end.

           “I would just like to inform you that we have them both.” A smirk now forms across his lips as he’s happy to finally be able to say that. “We still don’t have Gojo but with the girl and the vessel here, we can corrupt them and force them to join us.”

           “We can certainly try with the vessel but there are major risks that pose a threat with repeating the same manipulations on the girl’s mind.” The tone of the male voice on the other end is calm but also domineering. “If her mind breaks, we can’t hope to predict what that will mean.”

           “Why is everyone so concerned about this? We can just fucking kill her if it doesn’t work. She’s not as necessary as you all seem to think.” Getou is irritated by that response, he would really rather the bitch be out of the equation totally…he truly does not want to be adhered to her.

           “You still have much to learn Getou, do not act rashly.” The other person clears their throat. “If she loses control, we don’t know how powerful she will be. We cannot guarantee that we’ll be able to contain it.”

           “Well she certainly isn’t going to accept her fate with me either, I can almost assure that.” Getou’s frustration is obvious as he unknowingly taps his fingers along the surface of the table in front of him.

           “She doesn’t have to be willing, she just needs to remain unharmed. I know you detest the idea but you have to keep her safe, she’s just part of the bigger the picture.”

           “Tch. You’re right, I definitely don’t care for that.” Getou is now twirling the ends of his hair that have escaped his bun. He was smarter than to let them know of his recent theft of her wing, he knew that wasn’t allowed. “When can we get this ball rolling again?”

           “You should have a meeting coming up in the next couple of days with the elders. Just keep your focus and mind yourself for a short while longer. Everything is going rather smoothly now.”

           “I have a feeling that Zenin may try to undermine me, he’s hiding something important, I can tell.” He thinks of Naoya’s drastic change in personality within the last few months, ashamed in his former accomplice’s weakness for the girl. “What do I do if he tries to take her?”

           “You don’t allow that to happen.” The voice is now dreadful with seriousness, “You’re the next head of the clan so you will have to behave as such and be able to navigate these kinds of situations. We’ve waited 900 years for someone like you to be born again, you cannot mess this up.”

           Getou slams his fist down on table. “Just let me kill the fucker and it’ll be dealt with! What’s the point of having all of this power if I can’t use it to wipe out our enemies?”

           “You will get your chance to but you first have to face Satoru…or have you given up on that timeless revenge?”

           “Of course not, I am eager to hurt that fucking cunt…we’re just so close and I’m losing my patience.” Getou realizes this revelation as he speaks it out loud. He’s usually so good about waiting, he has for all these years anyways so what’s a few more weeks or even a month? Getou thinks of his mentor and all of the admiration he had for him, how Gojo himself snuffed the one light in his life.

When Getou was a child of age 5, he had a typical temper tantrum for not receiving his way, most kids do. The difference here was in this same moment, all of his abilities came to fruition from the astronomical magnitude of emotions he experienced. Being so young, he was not able to control the feelings nor was he aware of it being a problem, he simply just felt them. Without meaning to, Getou unleashed his gravity technique and slowly crushed his parents to death, horridly watching the life fade from them as their cries silenced to trade for growing amounts of surrounding blood. He hadn’t a way of understanding that was even him that caused it, he was just plastered in place, immobilized by fear. This was a moment of evolution in his life being that he was then recognized as the long-awaited youth that reclaimed the clan’s ancient techniques. His growth came at the price of his heart for the memory is so fucking horrifically shattering, he can still recall it clearly to this day. Often times it takes place of his dreams causing him to constantly feel tired and unrested.

He was secretly celebrated amongst his clan’s elders and people after this, them all putting the faith and responsibility of absolute greatness on the young boy’s shoulder. He may have developed differently had he more support but the same members also feared his capabilities and much like Gojo in a sense, suffered the duality of his existence. There was only one man that had the strength in his heart to raise Getou, to provide him with the backbone he so desperately needed. Genghis Temujin.

Gojo’s killed so many in their clan and each death weighs on Getou but he can never move beyond the fact that his mentor suffered extremely at Gojo’s hands. ‘Experiments…’ It’s been years since the silver shaman abused his clan but for years before that, they agonized immensely under his tyrannous involvement. His clan was pertinent to Gojo’s goals then…and it would help them advance their own ideas along with the elders as well so they remained compliant.

           “Alright then. I need to you gather yourself, there’s much to do in the small time remaining.” The voice pauses but then proceeds, “Indulge Zenin for a while longer, you may need him even with the help we expect from the vessel against Gojo. If he’s so enthralled with the girl then surely, he’ll fight to keep her there.”

           Getou sighs in annoyance some more, trying to center his brain around the true task at hand. “I understand and I will make sure everything is ready over here.” He hears them say “Perfect” before the phone clicks and gives tone of a dead line. Getou slowly lowers the phone from his ear as he relishes in the excitement that they’re that much closer from eliminating every single one of their obstacles.

           “Master Genghis…” his eyes become dead in sight as he imagines the amount of agony his mentor suffered. His purpose is embedded back into his thoughts as he allows his own darkness to soothe his physical body.

“I will avenge everyone.”

Next Chapter (23) >>

Chapter List

[xiaomoxu]

West Moon (坠月之宴) Chapter 2 Part.ONE

⚠️ SPOILER ALERT!! ⚠️

A story from CN server which hasn’t been released in EN server. Contains detailed spoiler from the AU (Alternated Universe) - 坠月之宴 West Moon Story.

Read the previous chapter here

There’s some sub-chapter which full of battle stage so I didn’t put it here.

Stories under the cut-

Chapter 2-1

You are my only dream.

The wind passed through the bamboo forest that day,

I passed by a good dream.

Want to hear the sound

But he strayed into a scene in spring.

It broke the black city.

This time,

Who disturbed whom?

The jade chess piece fell on the chessboard with a crisp sound and broke the silence around.

I opened my eyes in the mist, and the sky light had dimly lit up for unknown time.

The morning breeze brushed over the bamboo leaves, blowing away the mist, and the green lake in the distance also had its starting point ripples.

The stone tables and benches are still the same, but the pavilions surrounded by bamboo shadows make me feel a bit strange.

MC: Strange. Where am I?

At the last moment of my memory, obviously still staying in the backyard of the wine shop.

I propped up and looked down at the table that had just fallen. The magic qin that was originally placed on the stone table was gone, only a criss-cross chessboard.

On the chessboard, black and white pieces are clearly distinguished, and white pieces are surrounded by black pieces.

There was no smell of demons around, I faintly breathed a sigh of relief, and began to wonder if I was in a dream.

The situation in this dream seems to be familiar, as if I have seen it many times in the past.

During the three years of deep sleep, my consciousness has been trapped in long dreams for some reason. The blurry and chaotic dreams are like fragments of colored glaze, which cannot be put together into a complete picture.

Sometimes I traveled in the wilderness, sometimes in the purgatory, every dream, whether absurd or cruel, is a long torment.

But occasionally there will be moments when the breeze comes, like this pavilion.

MC: Will I see that person again this time?

Inexplicably, I have a kind of expectation in my heart that I can't express

There was no one around, so I picked up the white piece on the side of the chessboard and placed it according to the memory in my dream.

The person who played against me doesn't know where it came from

In my dream, the five senses are not working at all times. I don't remember his appearance very much, but I still remember a little voice.

Dreamer: You messed up like this

His voice seemed to sound in my ears again, and I was slightly lost. The chess piece between my fingers had just landed on a corner of the chessboard, and a gust of breeze suddenly passed over the bamboo forest behind me.

??: If you play in such a mess, you will ruin the game.

A gentle voice rang in the ear, as if overlapping with the voice in the memory.

I turned around subconsciously, but a pair of hands came from behind and surrounded me.

The wide sleeves engraved overturned the chess game in front of him, and the black and white chess pieces rolled to the ground, making a jade-like sound.

The temperature that was about to fit behind my back came through the thin clothes. I was shocked, suppressing the exclamation from my mouth.

MC: ... It's you.

With a chuckle in my ear, the temperature that surrounded me left.

Mysterious Man: We meet again.

There is a faint smile on the corners of his lips, and his gradually clear face gradually overlaps with the figure in the dream

MC: It's you who helped me repel those monsters. Who are you?

I squeezed my sleeves tightly and looked calmly at the person sitting opposite.

He didn't explain, letting his sleeves skimmed over the messy chess pieces on the table, he twisted a black piece casually.

Although the hidden energy in his body is strange, but he has no devilish energy in his body, and he does not look like a bad person...

But maybe because of the little bit of familiarity, or maybe because he saved me once, I didn't feel nervous.

MC: Sorry, I didn't mean to play this game of chess...

Mysterious Man: How can you conclude that this game of chess is mine just because I am here?

I was choked by his words, turned around and had to ask again.

MC: Where exactly is this?

Mysterious Man: Don't you know it?

He did not directly affirm my guess, but I still feel that he seems to be suggesting something.

MC: Why... you appear in my dream?

Mysterious Man: How do you know this is your dream, maybe you broke into my dream?

I froze for a moment, and met his dim eyes.

Those eyes were like cold pools with no bottom, but just a moment of looking at each other gave me a suffocating feeling of oppression.

But he casually continued to play with the chess pieces.

Mysterious Man: Or, the owner of the dream is not you and me.

Hearing what he said, I seemed to really feel the prying eyes in the dark.

"Shooㅡ"

The abrupt sound made my whole body tremble, and I turned back abruptly, but only a bamboo leaf fell to the ground.

I breathed a sigh of relief. A thin layer of sweat had formed on my back, but the uncomfortable feeling had not disappeared.

MC: When will this dream end?

I desperately wanted to leave the dream, but the only insider hid the chess pieces and placed them on the messy chessboard.

Mysterious Man: Can you play chess?

MC: .... I understand a little.

He looked up at me with a smile but didn't reveal my clumsy chess skills.

Mysterious Man: There is a way of talking in chess called "raid".

Mysterious Man: Once the catastrophe occurs, the two sides will be trapped in a cycle of incomprehension. Therefore, after the raid, one party can pick up one son, and the other must make another move before the raid can be resolved.

Although I don't know how to play chess, I know a little about these terms, but I don't know why he mentioned this.

Mysterious Man: The catastrophe in this game is you.

I heard it inexplicably, but it seemed that I knew what he was talking about, and looked at him more defensively.

MC: When you will tell me your identity?

He did not answer, playing with the last sunspot on his fingertips. When I looked down, I realized that the previous game had been restored by him, but my white piece was missing.

Mysterious Man: This game of chess cannot be returned.

He sighed softly and threw the black stone between his fingers to the chessboard.

With a light "break" in, something was pierced.

Like a calm lake being broken by flying stones, the ripples in front of my eyes are like dissolving ink and still water.

I can't see his appearance, only the figure blurred by the waves seems to be reflected on the other side of the water.

Mysterious Man: We will meet again soon. By then, you will know who am I.

His voice gradually dissipated, and the cyan layers in front of me faded away. I woke up like a dream. I shook my dizzy head and found that the person before me was gone.

And there was no such splendid bamboo forest and water pool around. Fortunately, I was in the courtyard of the wine shop, and the magic qin was quietly placed on the stone table.

The sun in the sky has just risen, and from time to time we hear the singing of birds and the shouts of the morning vendors in the deep alleys in the distance.

MC: Was it a dream just now?

I rubbed my swollen temples, still echoing what the man said.

What he meant by the robbery in the game...what exactly did he mean?

Before I could think of a reason, a small shouting came from behind me.

When I turned around, the lady boss was looking at me in surprise.

Boss lady: MC, why are you here early in the morning?

Boss lady: ...Did you sit here all night?

Suddenly seeing a real figure appear in front of my eyes, I couldn't help but lose consciousness for a moment, and the lady boss suddenly saw that something was wrong with me.

Boss lady: What happened?

MC: Nothing, I was a little tired recently and fell asleep accidentally.

I shook my head, afraid that she was worried, so I concealed the bizarre dream.

Boss lady: The weather hasn't warmed up yet, what should I do if you catch a cold? Go back to your room and freshen up!

My mind gradually returned to clarity, and I nodded to her.

Whether it is this mysterious dream, fragments, or maybe the puzzles in the magic qin. For me now, they are hard to solve.

I took the magic qin back to the room and locked it, changed my clothes and planned to find the master.

After all, now only the master can tell me how to take out the fragments.

Chapter 2-2

When I walked out of Three Dreams Square, the sky was already bright.

The street is bustling today, and the crowds are rushing in the same direction.

The golden sun shines over the glazed dome on the palace building. The water fell on the tall white platform standing in the far north of the city.

That is the tallest and most sacred building here.

My heart was slightly still, and then I realized that today is the day of sacrifice for the West Moon.

My steps uncontrollably followed the flow of people to the pure white platform, but an indescribable complex emotion surged in my heart.

The worship of West Moon Kingdom has always been presided over by the master. And I will also stand on that high platform during the annual ceremony.

Suddenly, there was a burst of exclamation and noise from the crowd. At the same time, the vigorous bell rang from the northernmost end and awakened the entire city.

Commoners: It's an envoy of God!

My heart jumped suddenly and I raised my head. As expected, there was a man in profound clothes standing on the towering hidden spirit platform.

It's Master!

The lingering sound of the bell dissipated, and everyone's voices fell silent, except for the hunting sound of the dark blue curtain being blown by the wind.

First, the hundred officials, and then all the people at the banquet bowed down and worshiped, toward the direction.

That tall, sacred and inviolable figure is the only person who can communicate with God in this world, and it is also the belief of West Moon Kingdom.

It is the gods who have guarded this country for hundreds of years since the establishment of this country

I looked at the master's back, and my heart shook slightly.

Master... was also the one who saved my life.

The sacrificial ceremony ended in a solemn sound of bells and drums. Seeing the master's figure leave from the high platform, I wrapped my cloak, passed through the crowd, and continued to the hidden spirit platform.

There was a commotion behind him, and there was a rush of horse hooves galloping in this direction.

Passersby: Hey, girl! Be carefulㅡ

I didn't have time to get back to my senses, and there was a scream of horses behind me, and the sound of horses hooves close at hand, as if it was about to hit me in the next second!

I quickly flashed aside, and the tall horse passed me by, and the turbulent wind almost turned the cap on my head.

In a hurry, I had to saw the teenager on the horse.

The teenager who rides by has a handsome face, and his long hair is also raised high, with a strange color in the daylight.

MC: Why is he?!

I was shocked, I quickly held down the veil, turned and flashed into the dark alley, fearing that the little magic star would notice.

Passersby: The second prince is out of the palace again?

This person has always been arrogant. A few years ago, His Majesty controlled him strictly and would not let him out of the palace easily. How can he let him go on the streets now?

Teenager: What's going on today? I will definitely teach you a lesson when I go back!

The sound of horse hooves finally stopped. I hid behind the crowd and heard the familiar voice sternly scolding the restrained horse, but his tone soon softened again.

Teenager: Don't be afraid, I won't use you to make horse meat hot pot.

MC: This person, as expected, is still the same...

The officers and soldiers in the distance had already rushed over, and I quickly lowered the brim of my hat and flashed into the market with my back facing them.

I don't know how long this worry about being discovered will last.

Fortunately, the sacrifice was still going on, there was no one around, and I came to Master's residence with little effort.

Haven't seen it for three years, the layout here is still the same as I remember.

Except for the necessary living utensils, there is nothing else, spotless, still cold and not like the place where people live.

I lifted my foot and walked in.

The warm sunlight flooded into the room through the window, and a new set of clothes was placed in a tray on the table, neatly folded.

I'm not familiar with the patterns on this dress. There was nostalgia in my heart, and I subconsciously stretched out my hand to touch it.

This is the uniform of the Miko. It is also the clothes I used to wear once a year.

In the past three years, I was in a long dream, and the rituals of the hidden secret was forced to shelve for three years.

There are not a few months left before this year's ceremony for the secret ceremony, is there already a new selection of Miko in the middle of the kingdom?

At this moment, there was a muffled noise from the back of the temple, and the ground shook.

My heart shuddered, and I recognized that the abrupt sound came from the backyard.

The backyard has always been a forbidden place for the master, and the master is still presiding over the sacrifice. Who would be there?

Listening to the movement, I had a bad feeling for some reason. Although it is a forbidden area, I haven't broken into it before.

Thinking like this, I stood up and walked towards the door to the backyard

Suddenly there was a door opening behind me, and there was a scream in my heart.

MC: Master is back!

Fortunately, the Master hadn't entered the room yet, so I went back to the room and picked up a book, pretending to look through it.

The familiar sound of footsteps gradually approached, and I lowered the book I opened and couldn't help but go to the door.

It might have been expected that there would be someone in the house, and the master had not even entered the door, and a cold voice had already come in.

Master: You are not allowed to come in without my consent next time.

Chapter 2-3

My heart sank, Master was not so indifferent to me in the past.

The door opened with a "creak", and the master stepped in at the answer, and I quickly raised a smile.

MC: Master, you're back!

Master: Why are you here?

Master seemed a little surprised when he came in and saw me. His previous clothes had been changed, and the sense of distance that he could not reach seemed to fade with it.

MC: There are some things to ask Master for help.

He was startled, and nodded faintly.

MC: Master, I seemed to hear noises in the forbidden area just now, and I don't know if someone broke into it by mistake.

Master sat down opposite me, as if he didn't hear my reminder, and asked directly.

Master: What’s wrong?

MC: .....It's not a very important thing either.

I took a deep breath and started telling stories directly.

MC: Yesterday, when I was in the back of the wine shop, a qin suddenly fell from the sky.

Anyway, no matter what excuses, Master would not believe it. I simply let go of my courage.

MC: Who knew there was a hidden crystal fragment in this qin, It may also be that the hidden crystal fragments in my body have the power to summon.

MC: So I want to ask Master how to take out the fragments.

Master listened to my clumsy lie without saying a word, and there was no wave on his face.

MC: If you don't find the pieces quickly...

I paused and swallowed back the words.

Master: Wait for me here.

The master retracted his hand and walked towards the hall. I looked at his back in a daze.

These three years are just a long dream for me, but for Master, what three years are they?

Soon, Master took out an exquisite and simple black box.

Master: Take this with you and don't lose it.

MC: What is this?

I took the palm-sized black box from him, it heavier than I thought, and there's chilly sensation, as if some kind of energy was attached to it.

Master: This is the box of retreat, which can help you recover the fragments attached to their media.

Master: But before taking it back, the body attached to the fragments must be annihilated.

He motioned to me to open the box. I opened the lid of the box curiously, but found that there was nothing in the box.

I just wanted to ask, suddenly a chill spread across my body, and the spar on my chest actually resonated faintly.

Master: Feel it?

MC: Yes... I feel it.

I nodded, only feeling that my heart was filled with this strange yet familiar energy in the box.

This energy is indeed as sacred and clean as the master, but for some reason, I somehow remembered the power that I felt in Three Dreams Square last night.

That kind of pure and evil power.

Master: What's wrong?

As if he saw me distracted, and frowned slightly. His voice brought me back to my sense.

MC: Nothing, thank you Master.

In any case, Master will never harm me.

Having figured this out, I immediately put aside the worries I had just now.

Master glanced at me, and was about to ask something, suddenly there was a knock on the door.

The visitor was the emperor's attendant, and he was asking Master to go to the palace to discuss matters. Master responded and looked at me again when he got up.

Master: Be careful.

MC: Thank you Master, Master, take care.

Seeing the corner of the black robe disappear behind the door, I carefully put the box of retreat into my arms. I looked around, the voice I heard before was still suspicious

At this glance, I noticed that there were still a few brightly colored red spirit fruits on the table, which seemed to have just been picked off.

I couldn't help but murmur in my heart: Does master like this kind of fruit so much?

I thought about it, grabbed a piece of fruit on the table, and ate it as I went outside, when I suddenly heard a strange noise in the courtyard.

MC: Who?!

I stopped and looked around warily.

I don’t know if it’s my illusion. From the moment I enter the door, I feel like I have a pair of invisible eyes watching in secret.

While I was fully alert, a civet cat suddenly got out of the bushes and shook all the blades of grass.

Those black eyes looked at me, and then ran away quickly.I was relieved, speeded up and walked out.

After walking far away, my heart choked suddenly. Master's courtyard has always been a place where all the beasts are kept away. How come there are civet cats?

I looked back at the ebony gate in the distance. The stone lion head is majestic, but I suddenly feel a little ominous.

Is something wrong with the master?

When hesitating where to go next. Suddenly something was faintly hot in sleeve.

I took out and looked, and found that it was the black feather that fell from the boy in the dark alley yesterday.

The black feather was faintly glowing and deflected in my palm. I moved my palm, and it moved with it.

This is... pointing a direction?

My heart moved, and there was a subtle curiosity that the young man was calling me, or just my intuition?

For some reason, I always feel that the boy who held a sharp knife yesterday will not hurt me. And I even have an urge to see him again.

I thought for a moment and walked in the direction that black feather pointed out.

Chapter 2-5

Following the direction guided by it, I gradually heard the noisy voices not far away.

This strange feather did not lead me to the remote and deep alley as I thought.

MC: Could it be that I was thinking wrong?

Not far away, the people watching the crowds in the city square went inside and outside for several times. I lowered my head and dialed the black potassium in my hand, but it slowly turned back to this direction.

MC: Okay, just let me see what you want to lead me into.

From time to time there was exclamation and applause from the crowd. I stood on tiptoe and looked around for a long time, only to see a golden hair top in the distance.

Looking at this posture, it seems that some strangers are performing some novel tricks.

The city have always been a place where foreign business travelers gather. Ordinary tricks have long been popular. Why is it so lively today?

MC: Excuse me.

I squeezed into the crowd and saw a round table in the open space, there's stood a light blond boy.

His facial features are a bit unreal and delicate, and his friendly and clear smile has narrowed the distance again. No wonder the business is so prosperous.

At this moment, he turned his head to the side of my sight in the crowd.

MC: It's you?!

This boy is clearly the assassin I ran into in the alley that night!

My exclamation stuck in my throat. The boy's eyes seemed to stop on me for a short time, and a trace of surprise flashed in his eyes, and he continued to look away from the crowd.

I confirmed that I didn't mistake the look in his eyes. But is this hearty blond boy really the same person as the silver-haired assassin who raised his sword?

If only the looks are similar, why would that black feather guide me here?

I subconsciously pulled the curtain down, intending to observe again.

The blond boy fetched an empty bowl and quivered back and forth. A stream of clear water poured out of the bowl.

The crowd suddenly cheered, and his fingers tapped the side of the bowl flexibly, and smiled as he spread the water around him like a flower.

I was caught off guard, so I had to lift the half-wet gauze on my hat.

At this time, someone screamed again, and I ignored the water droplets. I was surprised to see a red koi suddenly jump out of the bowl held by the young man.

There is a row of small fish tanks under his feet. As he rotates, the red and gold fish jump into the tank one by one from a high place, splashing clear water.

But the scene did not last. Sudden shouts rang from behind the crowd, interrupting the boy's performance.

I turned my head and looked like everyone else, and saw that the city guards appeared.

Guards: Today, the whole city is under martial law, no one can stay here!

Passerby: Why did the martial law suddenly come?

Passerby: I heard that the second prince was stabbed at the city gate just now, and I don't know if it was because of this...

I hadn't heard it really, the people watching the excitement were quickly scattered, and those who were slow were pushed a few times.

These brave guards do not seem to maintain order, but rather come to add chaos.

I wiped the drops of water on my face, pulled the veil down again, and quickly entered the crowd.

Guards: The one in the hat, stop! Take off the hat!

My heart sank suddenly, pretending not to hear, bowed my head and walked forward quickly.

Guards: I'm talking to you! The one in front, stop for me!

The officers and soldiers behind we shouted, and the curious eyes all around fell on me.

Oh no!

The situation is critical now, and I cannot expose myself in any case.

There was a burst of brisk laughter behind.

The conjurer put down the water bottle, jumped lightly from the stage, and stopped between me and the guards.

MC: ...Get out of here!

I lowered my voice, my anxious heart couldn't hold back and was about to pop out

He bends down deafly, picked up a small white porcelain fish tank, and put it in my hand without any explanation.

I stared blankly at the fish tank in my hand, a small red and white fish swimming slowly in the water.

Mysterious Boy: For you.

He blinked, and before I could reply, he turned to face the guards.

Mysterious Boy: All the adults also join the show, how about my newly learned trick?

Guards: Get out of the way and don't hinder official duties!

The boy was not angry, but smiled and reached into his arms to get something, but after a while he took out a handful of soybeans.

The guards were about to get angry. The corners of the young man’s lips were raised, and his hands were held together. The soybeans thrown high into the sky turned into yellow coins.

Passersby: It's money now! Pick up the money!

People scrambled to pick up the copper coins scattered on the ground, and the streets that had just been evacuated were instantly blocked.

Guards: Hey, don't run!

He grab my hand and ran forward. Seeing that my hood was about to be blown away by the wind, he quickly reached out and pressed my head.

MC: Youㅡ

Guards: Find me that guy!

In a hidden alley, facing this familiar face, I didn't know what to say for a while.

MC: You, you run too fast.

Mysterious Boy: I will lead them away first, and you will wait for me somewhere else.

MC: Somewhere else?

He pointed to the back, and a large tree was far from behind the high wall that was twisted and looped.

MC: You mean, we will meet there later

Before I got a confirmed answer, I was pushed out by him and involuntarily rejoined the crowd.

And he slid in the direction he had come, but turned his head halfway, as if confirming, and glanced at me from a distance.

The guards saw him as the most conspicuous in the crowd at a glance immediately shouted and rushed over.

The young man shook his hand in the air, a burst of golden smoke suddenly exploded in the air, and the lazy smile on his lips was so beautiful and dazzling.

My hand was empty and I lowered my head. The little goldfish disappeared along with the fish tank.

Without thinking about it, I tightened my veil and hurried to the place he said before.

There was no one in the depths of the alley, only an old tree.

There are still some dirty child footprints and messy feathers scattered under the trees.

MC: Strange, has anyone else been here?

With many doubts, I hesitated for a moment, but decided to wait for him.

I don't know if it's because he just offered to help, or the lingering sense of familiarity that always lingers in my heart.

But how could he and the assassin I met in the dark alley be the same person?

There was a sound of footsteps in the quiet alley. I turned around and held my breath nervously.

MC: Youㅡ

However, it was not the boy who appeared in front of me, but a few tall men in black. The leader saw my face and sneered.

Man in black: Finally found it.

I took two steps back quickly. I didn't know where these people came from, but I felt the strong murderous aura in them.

MC: Wait a minute! Did you admit the wrong person?

The man in black didn't listen to my excuse. He raised his hand to his companion behind him, and showed a dark color around his waist without warning.

MC: A Talisman? Are you a Master?!

The black-clothed man's eyes dimmed suddenly, and I realized that I shouldn't be so reckless. He knew that I had discovered his identity and would only want to kill me even more.

MC: We.... Let's talk first, in fact, I am also a master of the hermit, and I just joined yesterday. Everyone is a colleague...

Man in black: Stop talking nonsense, come on!

–

Read Part.TWO here

[rabid-heart]

Good Bones

For @sefikuraweek Day 2 - Prompt: New Beginnings

Sephiroth asks Cloud to move in with him and Cloud says yes. But once the house hunting starts and Cloud rejects every possible suggestion, Sephiroth begins to doubt if Cloud’s heart is really in this relationship.

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Notes/Warnings: None really, other than one tiny brief mention of sex.

Inspired by the song "The Bones" by Maren Morris.

AU – Everybody Lives! Shina is no more, Sephiroth and Cloud have been dating for a few years, and now their biggest argument is about finding the right place to start this new chapter of their lives together.  

(There is angst, because Sephiroth is just an angsty guy, but really the whole thing is just purely indulgent fluff.)

Read on Ao3 | See Previous Day

---

“No.”

Sephiroth sighs, exasperation, exhaustion, and annoyance evident from the crease in his brow. He moves his hand away from his face and points at the laptop screen, while turning to his very stubborn boyfriend. “What’s wrong with this one now?” he asks.

Cloud simply huffs, as if that sound were enough to explain everything, and then walks away to the kitchen, leaving Sephiroth once again a little more than frustrated. It is not as if the former General himself was perfect at vocalizing his own thoughts and needs, particularly after a lifetime of being forced to suppress them, but Cloud’s pointed lack of clarity around this whole escapade had long begun stressing Sephiroth’s discipline and patience.

He pushes his chair back away from the desk and leans to watch Cloud dig into the refrigerator and pull out one of the soft-drinks that the blond had stocked in Sephiroth’s apartment. Those drinks are one sign, but there are many others – pieces of Cloud everywhere in the two bedroom condominium he had bought with his Shinra savings years ago: a blanket strewn on the black leather couch; junk food on the kitchen island (Sephiroth was never allowed junk food in his former life, but even after obtaining freedom from Shinra and Hojo’s strict meal plan, he had yet to develop a taste for that stuff); a toothbrush in the bathroom; some clothes and underwear in one of his dresser drawers. Even beyond those facts, Cloud himself arguably spent most of his nights with Sephiroth here, instead of in his actual living quarters in the house he shared with Zack, Kunsel, Aerith and Tifa (a place that Genesis not-so-affectionally dubbed the frat house).

They had been dating for over two years, though they had known each other for longer. In the end, Cloud Strife had now become invariably and inextricably woven into the fabric of Sephiroth’s life and space. He would either wake up to the blond in his arms or to a text message from Cloud. Most dinners they shared together, holding hands huddled in a restaurant booth or making a game of distracting each other while cooking. When Genesis and Angeal sent their wedding invitations, Cloud and Sephiroth’s names were on the cards together, as one. So, while Sephiroth had, admittedly, little relationship experience before this, asking Cloud if he would like to start living together seemed like a natural progression of the dance.  

He did, on the advice of Aerith and Tifa, try to make the actual asking a romantic affair. He bought Cloud’s favorite whiskey, lit candles in the apartment, asked Aerith for her best roses. Cloud had seemed thrilled at the prospect, the usually scowling face instead blushing brightly throughout the evening. When Cloud had said yes, it started such a swell in Sephiroth’s heart that he was sure there was nothing else he could ever be more grateful for in his life. He had carried Cloud to his bedroom and made sure that the blond knew just how much he loved him, well through the night and into the hazy hours of the morning.  

Then, something changed. They had agreed to find a new place, something that would let them have a true fresh start, something that they could turn into forever. But every open house Sephiroth suggested, every listing he found online had gotten summarily shut down. That would not have bothered Sephiroth as much had the blond provided more thorough explanations for his rejections, or at least explanations that were not so contradictory. Too far away from everything. Too close to the city. Too traditional. Too modern. Not enough space. Too much space. I don’t like the carpeting. I don’t like the kitchen. I don’t like the bathrooms.

Sephiroth had studiously jotted down the curt notes that Cloud had offered and then tried to adjust, come up with new possibilities. And yet, nothing seemed to please Cloud, not in the slightest. It became bizarre. Cloud did not act picky about anything other than his motorbike or his hair. And it did not make a difference that Sephiroth offered to finance renovations on an existing property to make it perfect. Cloud would shake his head, say it was too troublesome, and then move on to something else.

Sephiroth had considered himself an intelligent man, but this behavior tore at the boundaries of his understanding. He had begun to think that he had done something wrong, something to cause Cloud to suddenly grow cold on the idea of living together. He wracked his photographic memory for something – an offhand comment or gesture, a sign, even discussed the possibility with Genesis and Angeal over their weekly lunches together (Genesis called him a paranoid shithead, and while Angeal was much nicer about it, he essentially hinted at the same idea) – but could not find anything suspicious.

It had then dawned on Sephiroth that perhaps what Cloud was getting cold to was not the concept of moving in together – that maybe it was him. When that thought arose, he had quickly tried to push it down, bury it with all the other dark parts of his mind that he worked very hard to control. But try as he might to ignore it, it continued to nag away in the corners of his mind.

Even now, as he watches the blond kick close the refrigerator and wander into the living room to sit in front of the television, Sephiroth cannot help but wonder. Did Cloud really love him? Sephiroth had said it first, had felt it really from the moment Zack introduced them, and he was stunned into silence by the brilliance of those sky-blue eyes. Back then, Cloud was shyer and sweeter, but he had a stubborn streak a mile wide that often clashed with Sephiroth’s arrogance and tactlessness. They had fought often in the beginning, stumbling over misunderstandings and insecurities. But after a few honest and true conversations, things began to blossom. Sephiroth found himself being less afraid of being truly known and more willing to be honest and emotionally open. And Cloud in turn became more confident, less doubtful of his worth. They began fitting perfectly into each other’s lives, like pieces of an unusual, but beautiful puzzle.

Or at least, that had been what Sephiroth thought.

He turns to the computer screen, opened on a lovely four bedroom home just at the edge of Midgar proper – close enough to enjoy the central city, but far enough for peace. It has the large master bath, hardwood floors and open concept kitchen that Cloud had requested, and the laundry room, gas-range stove and garage that Sephiroth desired. Sephiroth had thought he struck the right compromise and had been excited at the idea of showing Cloud this new listing. But when they finished dinner and Sephiroth had pulled open his laptop, Cloud was simply as dismissive as he had been before.

Resignation begins to creep on Sephiroth now, like spiders crawling up his back. Dread, too, starts to mount in his chest. The weeks of this, the stress, the wondering, the doubt, the fear – it is too much, like an itch under his skin that he could not scratch for relief. He had pushed this conversation out for so long, under the guise of his own paranoia, but now, enough had become enough.

Sephiroth stands and walks into the living room. He reaches down for the television remote and shuts the program off, turns to face a perplexed Cloud and says, “I believe we need to talk.”

Cloud pauses, soda halfway to his lips, before putting the can down on the coffee table (no coaster, Sephiroth notes with a mild hint of irritation). “I was watching that, you know,” he responds casually.

“Cloud, I am serious.”

“You always are.”

Sephiroth closes his eyes, wills himself to breath, to calm, to still. “Do you still want to do this?” he asks, looking down at the blond sitting cross legged on his couch.

“Do what? Move in together?”

For a moment, Sephiroth considers taking the out – letting Cloud admit that he is not ready to live with him and allowing them to just resume their relationship as if nothing had happened at all. But Sephiroth knows that would not be enough for him now. He loves Cloud, wants to spend the rest of his mornings and nights with this man, but if Cloud does not feel the same, if he wants his freedom, then maybe it is best to let the blond go. Even if it means breaking open his own heart.

Sephiroth decides to push forward. “No. I mean our relationship.”

Cloud’s eyes suddenly widen in shock. “What?”

“Do you wish to continue this relationship?”

"I heard you,” Cloud says, standing up now. His face looks flushed, with anger, with embarrassment. “What I don’t understand is why you are asking this. What happened?”

Sephiroth looks down, for he knows if gazes in those blue eyes, he could never gather the necessary strength. “For the last few weeks, you have shown disinterest in every option for a new home together. I have tried my best to listen to your comments, but nothing seems to be right. I thought perhaps the true issue is that you no longer desire a life with me. I simply— I just…”

The words become trapped now, blocked by the swelling sorrow and fear in his chest. Is this it? Is he going to lose Cloud? Will he never hear that bell-like laughter, watch those blue eyes glaze with love and pleasure, dance in his living room to imaginary music with that lithe body, kiss that beautiful neck and those happy lips ever again?

He does not notice that Cloud has stepped close to him, until he feels a warm hand on his chest. Cloud glances upward, and the eyes Sephiroth loves are tinged with fear. “You don’t want to end this, right? You don’t want—”

“Of course not,” Sephiroth insists suddenly, grasping onto that hand tightly. “I love you. I love you more than anything, more than life itself and I--”

Then, Sephiroth stops, because Cloud, inexplicably, strangely, starts laughing. The blond presses his face against Sephiroth’s chest, and he can feel the vibrations of Cloud’s amusement and relief running through his body. It leaves Sephiroth feeling all the more mystified for it, and in his confusion, he finds himself locked in place and unable to move.

Finally, Cloud pulls back and looks at Sephiroth with slightly misty eyes. “You scared me, for a moment. I thought that you…oh, Gaia, Sephiroth. I’d never leave you, not for anything in this world or the next. I just needed another few weeks, that’s all.”

Sephiroth blinks at him, tilts his head. “I do not understand.”

The blond pauses for a moment, biting his lip in the way that he does whenever he is considering something. Then, he reaches down and tugs on Sephiroth’s hand. “Go get your jacket.”

“I don’t—”

“You won’t regret it, I promise.”

Sephiroth’s mouth opens to protest, to question, but Cloud is already moving, shoving his feet into his boots and slipping into his coat. The blond fishes into the ceramic bowl on the table next to the front entrance of the apartment and takes Sephiroth’s keys in his fingers. “I’m driving,” Cloud explains. “Now, c’mon!”

There appears to be no other option. Though his mind is still reeling from the whiplash of the last few moments, Sephiroth takes his jacket from the coat closet and follows Cloud down the hall, into the elevator and into the parking garage. Cloud is at his car quickly, with a springing nervousness to his step that Sephiroth only sees whenever the blond is excited about something. That recognition only serves amplify Sephiroth’s bafflement.

But he goes along anyway, watches as Cloud hops into the driver’s side of his car and complains again about having to adjust the seat for Sephiroth’s “impossibly long legs.” They drive in relative silence, Cloud with one hand on the steering wheel and the other entangled in Sephiroth’s own. It only takes a few minutes (with Cloud’s borderline reckless speed) for them to reach the edge of the city proper, and another ten or fifteen to reach the outskirts. Sephiroth recognizes their route. Since the deconstruction of the plate, the reactors and the wall, more and more residential districts have cropped up on the land surrounding Midgar, especially now that the Planet had begun to heal, and the ground had begun to repopulate the grass and flowers that used to be so scarce.

Finally, Cloud pulls up in front of a plot of land, with an unfinished two-story house sitting atop it. Some of the roofing had yet to be completed, windows installed, and outside walls painted, but the construction appeared strong and in good progress. Attached to the house is a large garage, and there is an unpaved path winding from the front door to the street. Though it is far from finished, looking at it now, Sephiroth can image the quiet, peaceful beauty of the place – the flowers they could plant along the walkway, the welcoming double-doors of the entrance, the little mailbox they could stand at the end of the path to the street. The house is slightly larger than most of the ones Sephiroth had been considering, but it still seemed comfortable all the same.

Sephiroth turns to Cloud now, bewilderment on his face. It is his turn to ask, “What?”

Cloud glances at him quickly, skittishly, then releases his hand and jumps out of the car. “Now, I know it’s a mess, but you should see the sketches Genesis gave to the contractor.”

“Genesis?” questions Sephiroth, as he steps out of the car. His mind flickers briefly to the lunch he shared with his two oldest friends earlier in the week, to Genesis’s teasing of his suspicion. He almost wants to sigh in mortification.

Cloud takes Sephiroth’s hand again, begins leading him up the path. “Angeal, Tifa and Aerith helped too, with picking out designs of stuff, making sure it would be things you’d like. Zack was useless, though, said we could just use him to help us move in.”

Us? Move in? His mind craters on the verge of shutdown. He stops abruptly, halfway to the front door, and Cloud turns to him with worry on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Sephiroth begins. “I’m sorry.”

Cloud is in front of him now, his hands around Sephiroth’s shoulders. He leans forward on his toes and closes the distance, kissing him gently but insistently, as if trying to push back the doubt and the fear that had been spilling from Sephiroth these past few weeks. He keeps going, tugging on the lapel of the man’s jacket to bring him even closer.

Then Cloud breaks the kiss, almost too soon. “I love you, Sephiroth Crescent. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He then walks backward, and with a guilelessness that seems so at odds with the ferocity and skill of that kiss (but that was Cloud, that special contrast of sweetness and steel that made him so appealing, so seductive, so irresistible), he motions to the house behind him.

“So, I built you a house. Well, technically, it’s still in progress.”

Sephiroth tries to say something, but nothing comes out of his mouth. And yet, when the realization hits him, relief floods through his body like water over fire, and he can’t help but feel his cheeks tug into a wide smile. He pulls Cloud back into him, kisses him again and again, trailing his lips down that delicious jawline, the lobe of that ear, that wonderful neck. In between kisses, Cloud breathes out words in delight.

“It was an old building partially torn down and they said renovations would be done in six weeks, but they kept delaying things and finding issues and I was getting so nervous and I—”

“Mmhm,” Sephiroth hums, just kissing Cloud again. He can feel the blond laugh against his lips, but he merely takes the opening to explore the blond’s mouth, and almost rumbles in pure thrill at the way that Cloud’s laughter melts into a soft moan.

Then, the blond pushes him back, blushing red. “Stop, we’re in the middle of the street!”

The former General finally backs up, but can’t stop himself fully, can’t bring himself not to nip that adorable nose. “Alright.”

Cloud smiles but glances askew, apologetic. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to send you on a wild goose chase for a mystery home. I just wanted to surprise you, and I wanted to build something for us. For our new beginning.”

The two then turn to the building now, still empty and still incomplete. But with a bit of magic and imagination, Sephiroth could see it – the promises of comfort, of love, of peace, of a whole lifetime, held up by the good bones of this house. He could see the garden out front, Yule decorations hanging from the roof, the warm glow of fireplace light within. Most of all, Sephiroth could see himself happy here, for the rest of his life, with the man that he could hardly believe he had the good fortune to love.  

Cloud squeezes his hand, softly, gently. “I can show you the sketches, if you’d like?”

“No need,” Sephiroth whispers, as he dips down to kiss him once more. “If it’s from you, I know it will be perfect.”

[pocket-void]

Why don’t any of you pay attention when you always have the privilege to see?

Orange without his big toothy grin looks really off to me, though that’s just because he doesn’t drop it often in front of people.

I literally…can’t stop thinking about this guy… So I’m gonna talk about him in some more depth for fun! (And also so I can get it outta my system o///o) I drew him a couple times before this, but just to be clear, he’s a personal version of the Orange side I made. Though it’s not really a theory, since I am 100% sure I am incorrect, this is just purely for my own enjoyment because I ended up?? Really liking him as a character??? W h o o p s. >///<

So yeah, don’t mind me as I just talk about him a bit... It’s just some random scattered notes about him I really want to put down somewhere...

He does have a name, but I’m not gonna talk about it for now. 

He represents a bunch of things, but his main embodiment is that of anger, mostly in the form of blind rage. He is 100% blind most of the time and possesses dull brown-orange eyes. The only circumstance in which he can see is when he wears Logan’s glasses, and his eyes turn blue within that duration of time. Due to his disability, he tends to jokingly ask people to do him favors, but he actually kind of despises the fact that he’s blind. Not because he can’t see though, it’s because he thinks everyone else is taking their own sight for granted. His eyesight is actually scarily clear when he can actually see, and it makes him think other people are wasting it. (He’s actually more perceptive because he can’t see normally)

It’s incredibly important to remember that Orange is in fact, another aspect of Logic. He is based on the real life phenomena in which anger can sharpen one’s critical thinking and concentration in small doses. Wearing Logan’s glasses gives him the clarity he needs to rip people’s arguments apart, and he is particularly efficient at bringing up things people often overlook as evidence for his case. He’s sharp, but also incredibly blunt and straight to the point, as funny as that sounds. He’s who takes the reigns when regular logical reasoning fails, and he’s no where near as nice or understanding. If he goes too far however, Logan’s glasses will break and he’ll turn blind again and lash out. If it goes farther than that he’ll actually also start to lose hearing. Which makes him really destructive in the long term, and while Orange is fully aware of that, he can’t help but get carried away sometimes. Which is why he only ever gets to do anything if Logan is out of commission.

Now that’s him when he’s serious, but most of the time he’s actually kind of a big goof. He’s got this really blasé and laid back attitude to him, which mostly stems from the fact that he doesn’t have much to do. I describe him as a rat bastard because I love depicting him as a gremlin, and he most certainly can be. He is also 100% the type of guy to take threats seriously for fun, and will throw down with you if you suggest it. He’s awfully perceptive and knows when chaos is happening but will still be that guy who says he “can’t see” the problem and laugh. Honestly not one above causing trouble just for the fun of it. He’s sly, often coy, and acts like he doesn’t take anything seriously, which is why when he does, he really does. He tends to think that things would be much easier if he was allowed to look at the issue, but his impatience when dealing with things is probably why he’s not the one usually in the driver’s seat.

Another important thing to note that alongside anger, he actually partially represents self respect. Similar to how Janus is self preservation alongside deceit. Orange is completely focused on the self, and will argue things accordingly to benefit that. He’s that voice that tells you that you don’t deserve to be treated that way or that wanting to be treated better isn’t an unreasonable request and pushes you to actively fight for and demand it. That attitude is where his relationship with Logan kind of fits into the puzzle, and while I find their dynamic interesting I think it’d take too long to actually get into and this is already plenty self indulgent as it is fajkfbeg. Note that he’s not ego, he is very different from self esteem. He’s more like the embodiment of “Being garbage still doesn’t mean that I get to take shit from you”. 

He habitually chews things, which is why the collar of his shirt is absolutely destroyed. When he’s really antsy, he also bites his nails. He likes to call people by color because it’s the most identifiable thing about them from what he remembers during his short periods of sight. Except Patton, who he probably calls “Pops”, in a more sarcastic way if anything. Since they probably disagree a ton.

There’s a funky mafia? AU I imagined with him in it, but thaaaat’s not gonna be elaborated on any time soon. I also semi-made a playlist for him for fun.

Thanks for reading my rambles? If you’re here?? Honestly I just like him a lot for some reason, hhhh- >///< I have fun imagining stuff for him, but I can’t really say how much I’ll actually use him. I just like talking about things way too much akjfbakegt. See ya around! u///u

[traincat]

traincat! thoughts on a spideytorch trek au? thanks!

Oh I have a lot of thoughts about this actually! I was working on one a while ago where it was supposed to be part of a bigger series but now I think I’d kind of like to go back in, rip up the foundations a little, and make it its own oneshot. (It involves Johnny and Peter meeting each other for the first time since Starfleet Academy -- where Johnny flunked out -- and crash landing on an alien planet where Johnny gets worshiped as a sun god.) 

So I do think there’s a bunch of directions you could go with Peter in a Trek AU -- I was briefly toying with the idea of him as a Romulan, because Secrets -- but my top pick is as a genetically engineered human. Trek’s genetically engineered humans have the right power set: enhanced speed, strength, and smarts! It gives Peter a reason to keep his abilities hidden! His parents being involved in Section 31 is a no-brainer, given their canonical background as spies! It’s half a ripoff of DS9′s Bashir, but hey, it’s fanfic. I go back and forth on whether he should be involved in Starfleet. On the one hand, I do think he’d be good at it and it’s kind of a given, in a Trek AU, that your main characters are in Starfleet. On the other hand, he’s kind of terrible at cooperation. I think at the end of the day my idea is to have him as a ship’s Science Officer but like, do I think he stays there? Probably not in the long term. (The AU equivalent of when he ditched that really good lab job in Portland!) Whereas originally I was thinking of building the ship out of other hero characters Peter’s worked with, now I think I might go with the Bugle staff -- Captain Jameson, First Officer Robertson, Chief Medical Officer Kate Cushing, Glory Grant as Communications Officer, etc. There’s definitely enough Bugle employees to build a full staff out of, down to Ensign Billy Waters. (Very likely to get killed on an away mission. Sorry, Billy.) Alternatively I could make Norman Osborn the captain and have things go very, very badly. That could be fun too. 

With Johnny, I’ve had my heart set on his being half-Betazoid since I first thought of a Trek AU. Which is like, with most AUs I usually pretty immediately know what I want to do with Johnny, and especially here because I don’t know if I’ve talked about this very much on tumblr but if I could give Johnny one additional power/a different power, it would definitely be empathy. Feelings powers! For a boy who has a lot of them. Is it an excuse to throw around “imzadi” in a fic? Yes, 100%, but it’s an excuse I stand by. I love a made up alien term of endearment. I think it’s pretty easy to duplicate the Fantastic Four’s origin here, with Reed stealing a space ship for an experimental flight he couldn’t getting funding/approval for from Starfleet instead of from the US government, and then wham, horrific accident resulting in strange powers. Which like, obviously I wouldn’t have to stick to in a Trek AU, but I think if it’s right there for the taking, you might as well, and I like the idea of the Four on the fringes of Starfleet but very much their own thing, much like in original canon. Also Johnny Storm, Starfleet Academy dropout, is important to me. 

I did manage to dig up my old WIP doc for the Trek AU, so here’s a snip of something that would probably be very heavily rewritten if I went back to it:

The two moons in the sky were bright crescents and the breeze through the window was soft and sweet. Johnny Storm was stretched out next to him laughing like there was no place in the galaxy he'd rather be. It was enough to make Peter lose all sense, and that was why he leaned over and pressed his lips to Johnny's.

Johnny tasted like wine and alien fruit, and he was warm, warmer than anyone else Peter had ever kissed. The heat of him surprised Peter - he pulled back, but Johnny surged forward.

"Don't you dare," Johnny growled, practically climbing into Peter's lap. He caught Peter's face between his hands and kissed him again, head tilted, the angle just right. Peter's hands flew to his waist to anchor him before they tipped over.

"Johnny," he said, lips sliding across Johnny's mouth, down to his jaw. "I didn't think -"

"Can you shut up for once?" Johnny pulled back enough to demand. His dark eyes sparked, his lips were bruised. He looked imperious and royal, the sun god everyone on this whole backwater planet believed him to be. "Thinking is the whole problem, Pete!"

"I'm sorry some of us can't just turn our brains off!" Peter snapped back, shoving Johnny backwards. His eyes went wide when his back met the wall, and he fisted his hands in Peter's shirt to pull him back against him. Their mouths clashed again, open and messy, the kissing equivalent of every stupid argument back at Starfleet Academy. Peter's blood burned in a whole new way.

"Try it, genius," Johnny said. "Just once. For me."

Johnny's flimsy shirt hung off one shoulder. Peter traced the line of it against his flushed skin, the way the delicate fabric clung to his body, highlighting Johnny's lean waist, his flat stomach.

He grabbed a handful of filmy fabric and tore it off.

Johnny inhaled sharply, and then he started to laugh. He pulled Peter in with one hand fisted in the hair at the back of his head, pressing his smiling mouth to Peter's. "See? I knew you could do it."

"It's just because your stupid's contagious," Peter said. He ripped the fragile golden chains from Johnny next and Johnny laughed, head thrown back, all golden insolence. "You're some kind of intelligence sinkhole. Is that a Betazoid thing?"

That was all he got the chance to do before Johnny shoved him back down onto the bed.

"Insulting my heritage!" he mumbled against Peter's mouth, clever fingers plucking at the hidden clasps of Peter's uniform. "Very sexy.”

(...)

Johnny's hand closed around the back of his neck, thumb stroking the hair at his nape. "I wanted this, at the academy."

It was a soft confession, and maybe that was what startled Peter into admitting, "Me too. I thought about you. All the time. Couldn't get you out of my head."

"I know." Johnny's fingers curled in his hair, tugging Peter's head down so he could kiss him. "I could feel it. I mean," his grin turned flippant, "everyone wanted me. But I always felt you separate from everyone else."

"Is that supposed to make me feel special?" Peter asked, nipping at Johnny's lower lip. "Your ego is so huge I'll have them name a star after it."

"That's sweet. I want two," Johnny said, but the look on his face was soft. He knocked his forehead playfully against Peter's and said, "Do you remember that time at that club? God, what was it called - Orbit. That was it."

It was easy to conjure up the memory in his usual crystal clarity. The flashing lights, the chrome of the bar top, the very annoyed Benezian bartender. Johnny, drunk and absolutely infuriating. Peter, not drunk, but no less annoying for it.

"Oh wow," he said, remembering how hoarse his voice had been. His throat felt scratchy in sympathetic memory. "We screamed at each other for like an hour."

It had been exactly an hour and twelve minutes, plus a spare handful of seconds, but who besides Peter was counting.

"We got kicked out," Johnny snickered, tugging his fingers through Peter's hair until it stood on end.

"You filled my room with Bajoran oatmeal and gagh the next day," Peter said, nose wrinkling. One of the downsides of his brain: he could still remember the smell. "Two feet of it."

"The things I did to that replicator," Johnny said dreamily.

"I tried to figure it out," Peter confessed. His eyelids felt heavy; he let them fall, rolling over so his chest was pressed to Johnny's back and their knees fit together like puzzle pieces. "I could never work out what you did to bypass the safety. I was going to rig a tub of Cardassian fish juice to fall on your head."

"I have the touch," Johnny said. "You're not going back to your room?"

Peter stilled. "I can go -"

"No," Johnny said, fumbling for Peter’s arm. He draped it over his waist. "No. Stay."

[lunar-solarsystem]

(click on pictures for better quality + full picture)

mini comic for Lose Clarity - a gift for Eclipse!! Puzzle made him a friendship bracelet :D

they accidentally spelled it as “EclipzƎ” with the letter beads, but Eclipse doesn’t seem to mind :)

extra :3 - Eclipse secretly keeps the bracelet, hiding underneath his wrist ribbons securely so it doesn’t slip out and off his hand (and to make sure no one else sees it)

explanation for Eclipse and Puzzle’s relationship below:

with Puzzle technically being Ruin’s child, Eclipse (and Nexus, even previously as Moon) has never been fond of Puzzle. Eclipse hates Ruin, and he saw Puzzle just as a smaller version of Ruin when he first learned about them.

These two’s relationship started to grow more whenever Puzzle started coming around more often, usually out of boredom or just for fun if Ruin was off doing something and/or was occupied. (In the mini comic above, Puzzle decided to make friendship bracelets in their free time; one being for Eclipse as seen here). Eclipse never wanted to, and probably never will, admit that he started to like Puzzle’s company, sorta like Earth as well - and tbh, Eclipse and Puzzle’s relationship could end up being explained with this meme (<- i thought it could fit)

Eventually, Eclipse (sorta similar how he did Earth) grew a small soft spot for the kid. Eclipse ends up being one of the people who tends to Puzzle, whenever (Ruin is missing.) others are occupied. Eclipse has also taught Puzzle a few things here and there that Ruin may or may not know about :) Eclipse is also the person who Puzzle is comfortable with later in the timeline. Eclipse keeps them safe in the future.. (for certain reasons…)

tbh, part of the reason Eclipse hangs out with Puzzle is to spite Ruin-

i mean who said that??

(…no one tell Ruin-)

[saladejin]

Call An Uber? | 08

BTS x Reader | idolverse au, uber driver!Reader, translator!Reader | Fluff, flirting, super slow burn, angst and hurt/comfort, mature themes and eventual smut

Summary: Your normal life with a normal, yet inconsistent job gets drastically changed when your dreams come true. Sounds boring right?

What happens when all of this occurs, but you’re still doing something you love AND getting a large sum for it? Now there’s something to think about, and it’s definitely not what you’re thinking.

Warnings: Talk of insecurities, hurt/comfort

Word Count: 2.7k

< masterpost >

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  “You guys…”

I shook my head in disbelief, knowing exactly how the smile wouldn’t leave my face for the rest of the night. It was still slightly warm, but the boys were freshly showered and clothed in jumpers and coats to prevent sickness. I breathed in awe at the sight of them.

“You’re all absolutely amazing.” 

Taehyung, who was one of the first to reach me, couldn’t stop beaming at the shaky delivery of the words.

“Thank you! (Y/n)-ah, you’re the best!” he yelled in an excitable manner, and without warning he thrust himself aggressively into my arms. I could physically sense how much his body was trembling with unbridled happiness. That at least seemed to explain this unexpected attack.

I let out a surprised huff, but it became muffled by his thick woolly coat as he smothered me deep into the suffocating warmth. “Tae!”

I was stunned, but there was no way I wasn’t going to return the hug wholeheartedly. The other boys immediately moved to stop their bubbling bandmate and I knew Namjoon would likely be the most disgruntled. What they weren’t prepared for was me to ducking Taehyung’s head and roughening up his hair with one frisky hand.

“You’re too cute.” I pinched one of his cheeks and laughed when he puffed them out in an even cuter display of glee. His friendly and outgoing nature would surely be the death of me, but where exactly did his sexiness on stage even come from? I guessed that I’d never really seen the more earnest or mature side of the boy just yet.

“Alright, alright! Don’t kill the girl,” Yoongi piped in loudly from the back of the group, but his smile was still there, even if it was only small and hidden under a partial look of disgust. I glanced around to see the other members sharing a similar brightened mood full of accomplishment, and I couldn’t even blame them after how exhilarating the night had been as a whole.

They were certainly used to this experience, which was a similarity I couldn't share even as an ARMY. The fact that they could still be this happy about performing for their fans, even after several comebacks and widespread concerts, was just an incredible feat in itself.

“I’ve never watched you all live, only through a screen.” I stepped back from Taehyung to address them all, knowing my eyes were undoubtedly starting to water.

“It…it was just so much more than I could ever imagine. Every single one of you has such an incredible stage presence, and I could only catch glimpses the whole time! Everything I could hear, the fans chanting along, the live vocals, rapping. It was all so surreal, I was-”

I trailed off, moving my hands rapidly to try and formulate the thoughts whirring around in my head into words. Korean words at that. I knew I was launching into a full-blown rant but couldn’t bring myself to care. They needed to know these things. I mean they surely did know already, right?

Namjoon stepped forward and nodded at me with a gentle smile resting on his features. I scrutinised the look in his eyes and saw genuine, glowing happiness from within their depths. He was truly grateful for the support, and with the way he reached forward to softly give my shoulder a squeeze along with the nod, I knew he felt more than heard the point I was trying to get across.

“Aw, she’s lost for words!” Hoseok chuckled and dashed over to stand next to where Taehyung was still smiling. “Thank you (Y/n)! Guys, look at our little staff-ARMY.”

He stood behind me and took care not to let his large duffle bag knock me over. I just knew he was making little cutesy hand gestures behind my head. Seokjin grinned and made a big deal of pulling a finger heart unexpectedly from one of his pockets, dampened black hair falling into his mischievously glinting eyes. In my head, I was only relieved that he didn't blow a kiss.

Don’t fucking lie, you'd eat that shit up like a starved animal.

“Do you want me to take back what I said?” I eventually threatened and tried to whack Hoseok’s hands away, but he just continued to tease me while darting to the side. I was about to lose my composure from the sight of his facial expressions alone.

“Boys!”

At the deep and commanding voice, all of us turned to see one of the managers beckoning the group towards a line of black transport vans. I was suddenly brought back to reality, remembering that they would be travelling back separately and celebrating their own success in the dorms they called home.

I really needed to stop wanting more than I could have.

“Oh, sorry manager-nim!” Namjoon called before quickly bowing in my direction and taking his leave. Most of the others followed without question, but Jungkook turned his whole body to wave back towards my lonesome figure.

“Thanks for all your help noona!”

I smiled brightly and waved both hands, noting that some of the other members followed their maknae’s example and yelled back their own variety of appreciative phrases. My heart was full.

“Thanks Kook-ah, and all of you better get some rest!”

They began to pile into the van slowly, almost as if hesitating in their rush to leave. I was a little confused, because wouldn’t they want a well-earned session of R&R right about now? I mean, after the concert and all…

At least Yoongi was quick to ditch his bag and scramble into the vehicle to find a comfy seat. I truly did sometimes wonder if that man was my humanoid spirit animal. Another smattering of seconds passed before I noticed one member in particular lagging behind the rest, though.

Jimin had become sluggish, and it only occurred to me then how silent he’d been after the initial holler of my name. We couldn’t have that now, could we?

“Hey Jiminie, not so fast.” I jogged a few strides to catch the pale-haired boy, grasping onto the sleeve of his hoodie to stop him in his tracks. Knowing his manager wouldn’t be happy with the delay, I sought for help desperately with hawk-like eyes, and eventually caught the troubled gazes of both Taehyung and Yoongi.

I need a diversion!

Suddenly seeing their bandmate in such a state had already caused the members grave concern, but that only meant they could understand my intentions with more clarity. In a brilliant spark of a plan whispered by an ardent Seokjin, Namjoon patted at his pockets wildly and groaned before leaning forwards.

“Hyung, I think I left my phone in the dressing room.”

The manager, who had finally settled into the driver’s seat, turned off the van with a sigh and pointedly glowered at the leader. I silently blessed Namjoon and all of his clumsiness as he hurriedly rushed past back inside the venue hall, leaving me with a reassuring smile as he went. Jimin followed the rapper with curious, concerned eyes.

“What is-”

“Jimin, are you alright?” I gripped his sleeve harder, willing for his attention to be brought back my way. The younger boy looked down at the sudden pressure and then followed it upwards. I kept my voice gentle and probing, not wanting him to think I was excessively pitying him and his uncertainties.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” He smiled, but I saw past the softened exterior.

An obvious strong front, how should I go about this?

“Are you sure? You were a bit quiet. Why didn’t you leap into my arms like Tae?” I joked, and thankfully he produced a smaller but more genuine half-smirk.

“Ah, Taehyungie can be a bit much sometimes, but if you wanted a hug from me all you had to do was ask.”

I could tell there was still a few doubts sowed within his mind: maybe about his performance? It was commonplace to hear people say how the sweetly natured singer was notorious for these kinds of things. He needed attention when it came to this brand of negativity, and he could have all of mine without even asking for it. No doubt Hoseok, Tae and Kookie had been onto him already.

“In your dreams.” I laughed. “I was gonna tell you how I especially enjoyed your performance, but I don’t know anymore.”

“Really? I was off-key for like, most of the concert.” He turned his gaze downwards and I could feel the hurt curling deeply within my chest. It wasn’t even my own, but it still made a painful lump rise up into my throat. The next decision was made before I could even grasp at what my mind was conjuring.

“Hmm, can I have that hug?” I raised an eyebrow and watched as his saddened eyes began to gleam with surprise and a tinge of warmth.

“What, now?”

“Of course you numpty, I always thought you’d be the best hugger so I want to prove myself right.” I held out my straightened arms, waiting for his response but also prepared for refusal. I knew it was quite strange, and I knew that he was nervous because the people in the van were eyeing us off like helpless prey.

“What happened to ‘in your dreams’?” he snorted, but I saw his uncovered hands twitch needily.

I turned to look behind me, meeting Yoongi’s gaze within the van once again with my own and letting it sharpen in yet another signal. He instantly tapped into my brain’s wavelength and reached out to pull the members into a small huddle, effectively creating a diversion. Damn, these boys were on fire tonight with their skills in clairvoyance.

“Fine.”

I only heard the sharp breathy sigh from Jimin before suddenly, I was warm again. He was obviously smaller than Taehyung, but that only made it all the cosier. I felt as though I fit into his frame like a long-lost puzzle piece.

I barely had any time to turn back around, but it was easy to see he would’ve been too shy in any other circumstance. I brought my hands up to encircle him immediately, not wanting him to start getting cold feet.

“Jiminie, I want you to know just how much I love your vocals.” I squeezed him back, relaxing my tense body and allowing my chin to nuzzle into his shoulder. “I want you to know that to us, it doesn’t even matter that you’re not perfect, because nobody is.”

“Your singing and dancing are continuously what we want as our own version of perfection, no matter how different one performance is from the next. We know you work hard every time. Without fail. And you may hear these kinds of things already, but I just really need you to hear it right now.”

He relaxed even more into my hold, and I noticed how I’d unconsciously started rubbing one hand around in lazy circles across his back as a comforting gesture. His hands tugged into tiny fists behind my waist before he was suddenly pulling back. I thought about how cute and unnecessarily considerate it was that he didn’t even dare to touch me with his own palms. When you really thought about it, we hadn’t known each other long enough to consider ourselves as ‘close’.

“You’re sweet. Thanks for telling me that.” His voice was clipped with emotion, but his smile was the realest one I had caught a glimpse of in a while. My breath was taken away by how effortlessly an airy giggle followed in the wake of his words.

“Jimin I’m serious, stop hurting me with your self-doubt,” I wailed and playfully bumped his arm with my own. His serious expression crumbled even further as another bout of laughter gripped his body. His eyes disappearing into dark, crescent shaped moons.

“I’m sorry! Why did you hug me if I was hurting you?”

First of all, it was you who hugged me…

“Sometimes I can’t express things completely in words, and you know what they say about body language,” I murmured and saw him nod in understanding. He was flushed, and I knew the shy boy had once again finally returned.

“Ah, you’re right. Well I needed that anyway, you’re amazing (Y/n). Everyone’s always having to boost me up, I’m sorry.”

I forced myself to keep my eyes trained on his, even though intense emotions of profound gratitude and respect were swimming within them. I wouldn’t be able to call myself strong-willed if my heart couldn’t even take Park Jimin being sincere.

“Stop, before I hug you again.”

He looked like he wanted to stand and test the theory, but was interrupted by the loud commanding tone of his manager yet again. Maybe Jimin wanted to celebrate together just like I did? The idea was improbable at best, but the embers of hope were ignited and fuelled the longer I spent standing in the car-park.

Wait, how long had Namjoon even been back from finding his ‘phone’?

“Oh.” Jimin tilted his head in disappointment and sighed, “I forgot about that, are you alright to get back?”

He was suddenly concerned again, and I almost clicked my tongue at the unsurprising turn of events.

“Yes Jimin, I’ll be fine. But if you don’t rest up properly, I will hunt you down.”

“Oho, and what?” he challenged, adjusting the strap of his own duffel bag onto his shoulder. I only noticed it now for some reason. The large black obstacle must have been abandoned on the ground for most of the encounter.

“I’ll…torture you into eating a healthy meal and going to bed,” I finished with crossed arms and flashed him a defiant expression. His irises of deep mahogany sparkled with amusement, but I didn’t want to keep him occupied for too long.

“Actually, I don’t have access to the dorm. I’ll tell Seokjin-oppa to do it for me.”

He chuckled and shook his head, shuffling from foot to foot as he procrastinated on bidding his farewells. “I’m sure ‘Seokjin-oppa’ would love to have you over for dinner one night anyway.”

“Really?” I balked, honestly not expecting the somehow sarcasm-soaked response. Would I actually be able to visit their home one day? The very thought instigated feelings of excitement and scepticism so strong that I had to fan myself to get rid of the heat alighting my face.

“I would. We all would,” Jimin continued, scuffing at the ground with the toe of his shoe before smiling up at me once more. I couldn’t help but think this whole scene probably looked like an awkward confession to anyone passing by.

“Jimin-ah, we need to get going! Jin-hyung’s stomach is making noises again,” Hoseok exclaimed suddenly from the open van door, and I jolted at the sudden reminder that they were all still waiting for their blonde-haired bandmate.

“Fuck, Jimin please go before I’m the meat they decide to grill.” I grimaced and squeezed his forearm in a final act of reassurance before backing away. He nodded at me with blown out eyes, dramatics increasing tenfold, and I had to stop myself from laughing even more.

“Bye, you crazy ball of talent!”

I waved and turned to step right out of the situation, praying to dear God the manager didn’t roast the living hell out of the poor boy. It was my fault more than anyone’s, even if I did have a few helping hands.

I didn’t stick around to hear a reply and scanned the area for my own ride home. It seemed there were still a few people packing up, and I felt guilty for being lazy with most of it.

Hey, I did help in another way, I guess.

I realised with disdain that my ride with the three female crew-members was already long gone from the scene, and I had been so quickly thrust into the vehicle that I didn’t even have time to think about driving out here in my own Red. How inconvenient could you possibly get?

“I guess I’m calling an Uber.”

            Copyright © 2020 by salade. All rights reserved.  

tagged: @l4life​, @joyful-jimin​, @gee-nee​, @m0chilattae​, @rossemayme​, @doilooklikeinoe​

[k-s-morgan]

(this is a long ask, sorry) part 1) first than anything i want to tell you that i love "Those Gentle Slopes that Lead to Hell"its one of the best fanfics i have ever read, and as a sebaciel fan this is exactly what i have been wanting to read for years, it has all of the darkness of the ship and still its tenderness, (because even if its in a twisted in my opinion, they obiously care for each other)

(part 2) you manage to make the bitterness of ciel's feelings for sebastian sweet, i love how ciel as annoyed as he is, accepts an loves sebastian and obsessibly tries to become someone that sebastian will never forget, sebastian demonic thoughts are fascinating and i love the tenderness mixed with all his cruelty, your fanfic is perfect, i absolutely love it, and i am going to re read it again soon

(part 3) something i especially love, is the attention you put to their games and how good it is to see them through, for the reader, and i was wondering, what makes you come with the idea for their games? i love them, and it is really a big part of their whole relationship, and so, i would like to know how do they come to mind? what is the sort of challenge you make for yourself when you create them?

(part 4 and final) i find them beautiful and i am also curious, because i like, this sort of characters who indulge in these sort of games, but i still am not sure how to incorporate those things to my writting, so in the end, i was wondering if you had any advice for writting characters like this and their relationships?

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

Hello! Thank you so much for your absolutely wonderful words, I’m so happy you’re enjoying this story! I never expected to fall in love with Sebaciel the way I did, but it captured my attention from the very start. The dynamic between Sebastian and Ciel is amazing and so many-layered - and I absolutely agree that they care about each other. They are both obsessed, even if in slightly different ways. They can no longer imagine their existence without each other, and I love how Yana underlined Sebastian’s attachment to Ciel in the epilogue to an AU version of S1 ending (the one presented at Red Valentine event). Where Sebastian ends up eating Ciel’s soul and then regretting it, feeling lonely and unable to let go months later, making a cake Ciel will never eat for his birthday that will never come. This broke my heart, but I still love that scene because it demonstrates the depth of Ciel and Sebastian’s bond.

As for advice - I’m afraid I can’t give any specific tips! Writing feels like magic to me, it’s something that I love but don’t understand. Just, one moment, my head is empty, but the next one, the idea suddenly comes and instantly unfolds. For example, the latest game with the teachers was something that I came up with merely days before starting writing - before that, I had another idea, but it was shitty and I disliked it. Then I wondered, “What else can I create for them?”, and I suddenly thought of And Then There Were None novel, where a group of specifically selected people arrives on the island and they end up dying one by one. It inspired me to change the reasons and style of the game, and a few seconds later, I suddenly had this whole plot in mind. It was chaotic and spontaneous, and there is nothing really useful to be derived from this experience - it just happened. I love this about the process of writing, but at the same time, it can be frustrating because I can’t explain any of it. The knowledge of what to do is simply there. 

The best I can say: I know that as a reader, I love seeing tough characters react emotionally to something, so I try to incorporate this into my writing. I imagine a reaction I want (like Sebastian losing his cool) and then wonder what could lead to it. Many ideas appear before one central one gains clarity, revealing the direction I should take. Same thing about the relationship: the characters themselves dictate how fast or slow their feelings develop. Usually, they lead me, not the other way around. 

I always view writing as a giant puzzle where all pieces are black: I can see some revealed bits of the overall picture - some at the middle, some at the end, but I have no idea what’s supposed to come prior to that. When I start writing, the pieces closest to where I am are automatically disclosed one by one, and I merely describe what I see. This way, eventually, all of them become clear. 

Sorry that I couldn’t be more helpful about this! And thank you again for your amazing words. I hope you’ll enjoy the next chapter.

[thecloserkin]

Doom (2005) fic roundup

I have now recommended this action/sci-fi/horror film based on a bestselling video game franchise to not one not two but three friends and I am happy to report they all concur, cinema Peaked in 2005, this is the best movie ever made. I watched it for the first time on @shipcestuous‘s recommendation: She has an extremely thorough breakdown here, and the pitch of her enthusiasm and the penetration of her analysis are without peer. Honestly I can’t think of a single reason not to watch this movie. Watch it for Rosamund Pike. Watch it for Karl Urban. Watch it to marvel at how much Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s acting chops have improved in the past 15 years. I have now seen this cinematic masterpiece three (3) times and I have zero (0) regrets. There is a sequel out, Doom: Annihilation (2019) but it’s not worth your time. Recently I went through the John Grimm/Samantha Grimm tag on ao3 and read every single fic, most of them for the second or third time, and I had a fucking blast. Friends, if any of you would like to experience this cinematic masterpiece for yourselves please please PLEASE message me and i’ll send you the link to dl it.

Doom (2005, dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak) is about a squad of Marines dispatched to contain a zombie outbreak in a secure scientific facility on Mars. There is no earthly reason for it to be set on Mars btw so I just chalk this decision up to video game continuity (same with the first-person-shooter sequence in the third act, which is five minutes long and it was the longest five minutes of my life). What’s impressive about this film is it somehow manages not to glorify (1) the military or (2) the scientific establishment. It’s a film stuffed to the gills with dudebros (outside of Rosamund Pike they’re all dudebros) yet to my eternal delight the humor actually landed, and I think the anarchist bent of the narrative is a big part of why (anarchist as in hella skeptical of authority). I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say this is another “we tried to cure cancer, accidentally unleashed the zombie apocalypse” setup. What’s surprising is that the protagonists are failed by science, as an institution. Our protagonists are one of the Marines (Karl Urban) and his estranged twin sister (Rosamund Pike), who is an archaeologist at the quarantined facility. The chemistry between these two is instantly and unmistakably through the fucking roof. The first time they appear in the same frame the other Marines mistake her for his ex, and it just gets better from there. Every time I watch it, the final frame of this film has me flailing and screeching. I still can’t believe we got a mainstream movie that was this good to us—horror movies in general have a track record of being good to us ‘cest shippers, but this is on another level.

cold hearts, thawing by merely (3k) They’re on the run and they get FAKE MARRIED!!! My god the amount of characterization smuggled into this—Jon and Sam getting hot for each other’s respective areas of competence is my entire kink. It’s not predominantly humorous in tone but the humor slaps in the best way. This is my forever favorite because it was written by one of the friends I got into the movie, so tailor-made for meeee ❤

Before, During, After by anr (1k) If you plotted the arc of their lives it would be a circle. Something about the spareness of the prose & the amount of stuff occurring in the interstices really stayed with me. I realized later it’s because I’d read another of the author’s fics from a diff fandom—it’s in the same mode, love to see it when authors just nail that one register.

DOOMED by chase_acow (1k) ”I thought you said your microbiology was rusty!" "You know I like it when you give me the bottom line.” Lmaooo. In case you haven’t noticed this fandom consists almost entirely of post-canon getting (back) together fic.

Normal by mneiai (<1k) Shut the front door did somebody say pre-canon getting-together fic??! Of course we all know 90% of the reason John enlisted was to flee his feelings for Sam right.

Glimpses of Clarity by izzyb (1.5k) John and Sam have rough sex and it’s completely consensual, but still scary. Part of working through trauma is recognizing that removing oneself from the traumatic situation does not, in itself, dispel the trauma. John has this inability to relinquish control, or abate his vigilance—except, apparently, when he’s fucking Sam hahaha.

Written in the Scars (of our hearts) by Mercury32 (21k, unfinished) I don’t read a lot of soulmark AUs so idk if this is common but it turns out John and Sam are not soulmates??? He gets his tattoo covered up because he’s only ever wanted Sam. They’re on the run because there’s a nationwide manhunt on and they take refuge in their grandpa’s cabin in the woods and along the way they meet Jon’s actual soulmate but he chooses Sam. He will always choose Sam until the day they put him in the ground. The conversation where they explained to their ex-CIA grandfather how they were going undercover as newlyweds is unadulterated gold.

No Heroics by amathela (3k) They go back to their jobs. They try to keep John’s newfound abilities under wraps so as not to turn him into a target or a military guinea pig. The stakes are high but it’s so …. whimsical? And domestic? It’s so good ahhhhh I love it when they’re trying to hide something other than the incest. “He never was able to win an argument against her.” “She rolls her eyes. ‘Not all of us are as pretty as you.’”

He a Tiger Will Be Who Drinks of Me by Brenda (3k) This story is packing some serious mythological and folkloric resonances. I was going to label it post-canon but half of it is pre-canon. When you frame their relationship as Ares and Aphrodite, Selene and Endymion, it does seem inevitable doesn’t it? All roads lead to you.

Need You Tonight by Mercury32 (2.5k) Hot damn it’s a pwp that’s kicked off by Sam having nightmares, and is all about how Sam trusts John implicitly. I still think about the way Rosamund Pike delivers that line in the movie, I know you, like, on a weekly basis. “You've ruined me for other men and I'll probably be walking uncomfortably tomorrow, but no, you didn't hurt me.”

And I Know What You’re Thinking by amathela (1k) Sam loses a lot of blood and John donates his. Course, now that John is a genetically modified superhuman this creates a psychic bond between them. Nobody does dialogue like amathela does, it’s like you can hear the words behind the words the characters are saying.

Homecoming by amathela (1k) Not as playful as her work usually is but still lovely and understated.

Ephelides by Rahmi (1k) Sam gives John anatomy lessons and it’s sexy as haaaaale. "Just because I'm about to give you a handjob doesn't mean I'm not still your sister.” "Your intelligence reflects on me. And you're my brother. Therefore, you're intelligent."

The Edge of DOOM by chase_acow (1.7k) I don’t know what’s going on but the apocalypse is here and Sam and John are shooting things.

If You Don’t Know Me by Now by Mercury32 (4k) Sam and John rifle through his unsent letters and it isn’t 100% full-blown epistolary but we still get a firm idea of what they were up to for those ten years apart. Ok but CONSIDER: what if they sent each other birthday postcards. Imagine!! This line in particular cracked me up: “Congratulations, you finally got your wish of being an only child.”

desert ghosts by river_soul (1k) They’re not “almost home” because they’re together therefore already home asdfkdjfkdjfd. Gorgeously wrought.

You Hit Me Once (kiss with a fist) by aohatsu (3k) I could read pre-canon John/Sam fics at a rate of 100k a day probs. God these kids are so lonely and nobody else understands. John getting into schoolyard brawls to defend Sam’s honor? Habitual bedsharing???!

I Wanna Kiss You (but i want it too much) by Mercury32 (<1k) It’s not a missing moment from canon, exactly—it’s a replay of the scene where the squad meets Sam, only the camera is firmly situated inside John’s head this time. “His fingers are twitching with the need to hold her, to see if the curve of her hip still fits into the palm of his hand, if her forehead still tucks perfectly into his neck. Like a jigsaw puzzle, she'd observed once, made to fit together.”

No Relation by aj2245 (<400 words) I mean the “surprise! they’re not related” reveal came outta nowhere but it was worth it just for this line: “Life on Mars is fragile. The three coffins waiting in the Ark anti-chamber speak to that. One little mistake and she's lost everything. She's lost John, it's just on time delay.”

In the Blood and the Bone by kyrene (10k) Pwp where John and Sam try to get pregnant. It wasn’t my thing but it’s the top-bookmarked fic in the tag, so other people must’ve liked it, and I always try to assume other people are acting rationally so there must be something this fic does well that I’m missing because I don’t care about that facet that much.

**This is not an exhaustive list of John/Sam fics, just a list of the ones I had anything coherent to say about. I do not think there is a single bad fic in the tag and they’re all bite-sized and bingeable!

[darkpoisonouslove]

Griffin has lost her Christmas spirit just like she thinks she's lost her best friend, but miracles do happen at Christmas when your heart is full of love. No magic AU.

Here's a holiday-themed fic that is probably a bit too angsty compared to what is standard for those but it has a happy ending!

38 - clear

“What do you want for Christmas?” Faragonda asked as she left her bag on the small coffee table that currently only sported a cup of green tea that Griffin loved to drink. It went with all the activities she enjoyed which was why she didn’t feel like drinking it at the moment.

“I want you to leave me to read in peace,” Griffin said without moving her gaze from the book she was holding. Faragonda had let herself in when she hadn’t gotten up to open the door. She usually wasn’t one to be unable to take hints so she must have ignored it and barged inside her apartment even though she knew she wasn’t wanted.

“Come on, Griffin!” Faragonda whined as she plopped herself down on the couch, bumping into Griffin on purpose to draw her attention. All it drew was more venom to the surface. “I need you to give me a hint.”

“I thought you’d be spending Christmas with Saladin,” Griffin said as she kept her eyes on the book. She couldn't look over at Faragonda lest she saw the hurt her words may have caused her friend in her eyes. It would make her soften and she couldn't allow that, for she was already too close to falling apart. “You won’t have time for me,” she said and she wished she could ascribe the tears in her eyes to the fact that she was staring so hard at the page it was a miracle she hadn’t bore a hole into it already.

“Of course I’ll have time for you,” Faragonda said as she wrapped her arms around Griffin's shoulders and her warmth was making Griffin's heart melt from the frozen cage it had been locked into after she’d seen her best friend kissing with Saladin at her office. She’d had some free time and she’d wanted to ask her to go grab a cup of tea together but instead of a hot drink and a warm conversation, she’d gotten the freezing realization that that was what Faragonda had been keeping from her. “I’ll always have time for you,” Faragonda said in a quiet voice as she rested her head against Griffin's shoulder as if she couldn't take the burden of Griffin's accusation. “Nothing’s changed between us,” she tried to reassure but all it managed to do was make Griffin's teeth grind.

“Please, leave,” Griffin spoke slowly, opening her mouth as much as the words would allow to make sure she wouldn’t break her teeth from gritting them together so hard.

Faragonda let go of her, sitting up, and it was like the sun had disappeared forever but it was better that way than only getting some leftover rays. “Okay,” Faragonda said, her voice raspy or perhaps that was just the edge of Griffin's thoughts that made it seem like that, “but we will celebrate Christmas together so you’d better give me some pointers when it comes to your present.”

Griffin closed her eyes and focused on breathing deeply. In and out. In and out. Focus on the air in her lungs not the burning in her heart.

“I could get you a book but you have to tell me which one you want. Or at least drop some hints because I don’t want to get you something you’ve already read. You should probably send me a list of the books you have since I doubt I can remember the titles of all of them. Or I could get you a plant? If you have where to put it.”

Griffin’s eyes snapped open and she dropped the book in her lap before turning to Faragonda who was looking around as if trying to figure out how big a plant she could fit in the empty space the apartment offered. She grasped Faragonda’s chin and turned her head towards her. “Are you going to stop talking any time soon?” she asked because her nerves couldn't take much more of that. There was only one thing she wanted but it was better to just accept it would never happen instead of breaking her own heart with empty hope.

Faragonda swallowed and shook her head. She either couldn't talk now that she’d realized how close their faces were or it was because Griffin was holding her jaw. Or it might have been because she’d finally figured out what her presence was doing to Griffin and why she’d been avoiding her ever since she’d seen her with Saladin.

“You won’t give up on this present thing, will you?” Griffin asked.

Faragonda shook her head again, but this time it seemed like she didn’t want to talk, it seemed like she was afraid of ruining the moment. And Griffin couldn't miss the opportunity. It could be the only one she had.

She leaned in and touched her lips to Faragonda’s just barely, letting go of her chin and closing her eyes because she was afraid of her friend’s reaction. She didn’t want to see her pulling away and leaving. She couldn't see her walking out on her to never come back again after she’d ruined what they had because she’d been selfish in wanting more, in wanting Faragonda for herself when she didn’t deserve her after the heartache she’d caused her with her behavior the past few weeks.

She barely held back the surprised moan that was on its way out when Faragonda pressed her lips against hers harder and moved them slowly, almost not at all, allowing the feeling of fullness and wholeness to sink in. It was like she’d found her complementary puzzle piece. Faragonda was like a natural extension of her being, like the part she’d been missing, and now that they’d been put together her thoughts and feelings ran to completion like they hadn’t been able to before. She felt like a whole person for the first time, like a person she could love when Faragonda was bringing out the best parts of her.

They had to pull apart for air, though she doubted she could breathe well when she was feeling the emptiness of Faragonda’s absence. To her surprise, she was still there when she opened her eyes and hadn’t disappeared like a product of her wishful thinking. She was there and she was looking at her with a gaze full of expectation. Like she was waiting for permission to touch Griffin’s heart and reach their joint being.

“Did I make myself clear?” Griffin asked, unsure of how she found her voice but glad she had. Now at least Faragonda could make her decision with open eyes just like she had when she’d decided to show her feelings despite the very probable consequences of losing her best friend.

Faragonda nodded, still not saying anything and Griffin was afraid that she would never get to hear another word from her again. But she still couldn't make herself regret the moment of total clarity that the kiss had provided. It had become clear to her, indeed, what she wanted and how much she wanted it.

“Goo-”

She hadn’t even gotten the whole word out when Faragonda kissed her again and this time it wasn’t just their lips that were touching. Faragonda came closer and pressed herself into Griffin, allowing their souls to touch fully and caress each other with the devotion and care that had always been a part of their friendship. For they’d loved each other all along and it was now clear to both of them.

[riseandshinelittleblossom]

Cordonian Nights Ch 3

Next installment of the Cordonian Nights AU.

Summary: Ember finally reveals her history with Maxwell.

WARNING: mention of miscarriage which may be an emotional trigger for some.

Disclaimer: I dont own the characters, except my ocs. Credit to PB

Tagging: @fullbeaumonty @blackwidow2721 @cocomaxley @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @bobasheebaby @leelee10898 @brightpinkpeppercorn @speedyoperarascalparty @ao719 @katurrade @hopefulmoonobject @ritachacha @stopforamoment @choiceslife @gibbles82 @dancetothestoriesinyoursoul

         “Em, hold that thought.” Whitney said flagging down the waitress. “We're gonna need another round of mimosas.” She said.

     “Make it two more. Things are about to get heavy, I think.” Blair piped up, rubbing Ember's back.

     “ Okay. Before I start I think it goes without saying I expect there to be no grudge holding against Maxwell. Deal? We all have to see him and work with him, so I've not said anything before now to keep everyone professional at the sins.”

“I make no promises.” Sky commented, sipping her drink. Whitney and Blair both glared at her.

“What? Bitches, I can hold a grudge. I’m just sayin.”

Ember could feel their eyes like lasers burning holes through her in anticipation.

“Whenever you’re ready, Em.” Allison told her.

Ember took a deep breath, gathering her ginger locks and pulling them over her shoulder.

“Ok, so about ten months ago I found out I was pregnant. I told Maxwell, and he seemed really excited. I think it made him feel obligated to propose though, because about two weeks later he did.”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘were pregnant?’ What happened?” Whitney questioned, shaking her head in confusion.

“Well...I lost the baby.” Ember’s hands fell to her lap, and she stared into them feeling as though she’d been hit in the stomach.

       A sympathetic chorus of “I'm sorries” whirled around her head making her dizzy. She closed her eyes to steady herself before taking a long pull of her mimosa.

“How did we miss that, guys?” Allison asked slumping back in her chair. “We should’ve known something was up with you, Ember.”

“Well do you guys remember when I had that really bad stomach flu? Maxwell told me you all stopped by to check on me. Really I just couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed. Especially after the D&C. I was devastated.”

“Em, I don’t know what to say.” Blair stated, her face awash with a mixture of sympathy and betrayal.

Ember looked at her, silently pleading with her to not be angry. This was the first thing she’d ever kept from Blair in their entire twenty-year friendship.

“Oh, sweetheart. You did this all alone?” Sky piped up gripping the redhead’s hand.

“Why didn't you tell us? We could’ve helped.” Allison’s voice, dripping with sympathy.

“I wasn’t alone. I had Max, and he never left my side. He fed me, held me..hell he even bathed me.” Ember shook her head, embarrassed. “But I didn't want him. I didn't want anyone. So I pushed him. I pushed him as far away as possible. Yelled at him. Called him unspeakable things...it wasn’t my finest hour.”

Whitney cocked her head slightly. “What do you mean you pushed him?”

“I told him that I needed some space; that we needed to take a break. Told him it wouldn't be forever, I just needed to fix my head.”

Allison spun her engagement ring on her finger, lost in thought. “Makes sense. What did he say?”

“He said he would give me everything. Whatever I needed. But also that he didn’t understand why it had to be us taking a break. At least I thought it was only a break.”

“And Maxwell didn’t?” Sky asked, scowling.

“He just went buck wild. You all have seen him. That’s when all the partying started. All the booze and the women he’s had…” Ember’s voice trailed off, cracking at the end.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Maxwell!” Sky huffed crossing her arms over her chest with an eye roll.

“Em, have you tried talking to him? Explaining how you feel?” Whitney pressed, passing a napkin towards Ember.  She accepted it, wiping the tears from her cheeks. She took a deep breath and fanned her face. ‘Enough with the water works.’ she thought.

“Well, no.”

“I’m gonna kill him.” Sky seethed

“I’ll help.” Blair declared

“The fuck you guys will! There won’t be anything left of him when I’m finished with him.” Allison snarled.

“Simmer down, guys. His behavior is not okay, but he was grieving too. ” Whitney said.

“I thought that may have been the case too, but then it dawned on me...what if...whatif i never meant as much to him as he means to me?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,Ember.” Whitney told her.

“I’m sure it's not, I mean we all saw they way he looked at you, the way you still look at him. You guys were together for seven years,hun.” Blair said.

“He just seemed to be over me so easily. I mean, I broke things off but clearly he’s made his choice.”

“Wait,” Sky waved her arms, making a “T” with her hands. “You guys haven't hooked up again have you?”

Allison elbowed Sky, giving her a stern look.

“No, Sky, we haven’t.”

“Good. Stupid fucker.”

“Yeah, he doesn't deserve you.” Blair agreed.

“If you still want a relationship with him, you’ve got to tell him that. His behavior isn't necessarily his feelings.” Whitney explained as Sky rolled her eyes again.

“Bullshit Whit! Just be mad with us. She needed him and he just bailed. Even if she told him to go, Max should’ve known better.”

      Ember drained her second mimosa, reaching for her third. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Its awkward when we’re alone. And I’m not sure I’m ready to hear him tell me that it's over for him, ya know?”

     “But what if it's not over for him? And even if it is, would you rather sit here and watch him continue to throw himself at everything in a skirt? Wouldn't you like closure?” Whitney asked.

   “And still get to sit here and watch him throw himself at everything in a skirt?” Ember rolled her eyes, lip quivering.

   “I hate that Whitney's always right, but she is.” Blair quipped, opting against the second mimosa since she was driving.

    “I know. I promise I will talk to him eventually.”

    “And when that time comes, honey, please know that we're all here for you.” Sky said, giving Allison a side eye.

   “Yeah, Em. You never have to walk alone again.” Allison reassured.

********************

         The sun was just starting to set as the ladies parted ways; Sky was meeting Liam for dinner and Ember was heading to Blair's for some extra cheering up.

    Allison grabbed Whitney pulling her aside.

    “I need a favor outta you.”

    “Anything, Allie. What's up?”

    “It's just you've always been the level-headed one and I need you to make sure I don't completely lose grip.”

   Allison motioned toward her car and they both got in.

   “Where are we going, Al?” Whitney quirked a suspicious brow.

**************

       Maxwell laid across his couch, staring at the ceiling. Sunday nights were always the hardest for him. With the Sins being closed, he didn't have to work which left him ample time to think, always about his Emmy.

     He sat up and grabbed his glass, the few fingers of scotch he'd poured almost gone. He refilled it, taking a sip just as he heard the knock.

     “Open up, Maxwell. I know you're home.” He heard Allison's voice.

    He crossed the living room and opened the door to find Allie and Whitney.

   “Hey guys. Wanna come in?” he asked stepping aside. Allison marched in purposefully, Whitney pausing to give Maxwell a quick hug as she entered.

    “Are you fucking stupid, Max?!” Allison began spinning on her heels to face him.

    Maxwell looked puzzled, cocking his head to the side as he closed the door.

   “It's nice to see you too, Allie.” He said.

        Whitney stared hard at Maxwell. He wasn't wearing a shirt, which was rare, but something caught her eye. There was a  shiny smudge on his left ribcage, and she stepped closer, reading the words “All the days of our lives, til I'm ninety-nine” in small, delicate script. Just below it were the letters “E.N.M.”

        “Ember Nicole Madden.” She muttered. “Max, is this new?”

      Whitney reached out, her fingers grazing the slightly raised skin.

    “Hey! That tickles.” He chuckled, batting her hand away.

    “Til I'm ninety-nine. Wasn't that you and Ember's song? ‘Til I'm ninety-nine’ by Nathan Angelo? I remember because Em always played it on the jukebox at the Sins. Drake would always poke fun and ask her 'whatif you both live to be one hundred?’”

    “Yeah. That's our song.” He gave her a  half smile.

    “Eyes on me, Max. I'm not done with you! How could you be so stupid? Parading around with other women, drinking, acting like a moron? Did you not take Em's feelings into consideration?” Allison shouted, starting to pace.

   Maxwell blinked, unable to comprehend why the woman before him was so angry.

     “What are you talking about? Em's feelings? She broke up with me remember? This is what she wanted.”

     Suddenly he felt very defensive. He could feel a rage bubbling within him, just below the surface.

    “Yeah, because she was hurting. She lost a child Maxwell. Your child. You really are a clueless idiot aren't you?” The woman scoffed. Whitney shot her a warning glance and she took a deep breath.

  “Wait, what are you…? Did you just find out about this?” He asked, finally finding some clarity. If he was honest with himself he was surprised that this conversation hadn't happened sooner.

     “She told us about what happened.  She ended things to clear her head and you got into the pants of the first easy bimbo you laid eyes on. And then every time you parade one around, you break her heart even more. Get your head out of your ass Maxwell!”

     “Yeah. She lost a baby, Allie. But I lost a baby and her. Did that ever occur to you? Did it ever occur to her? Em just needed an out. You didn't hear the things she said to me...she wanted out of that relationship. She asked for space, so I gave it to her. Even though it killed me to walk away...and besides who I sleep with is none of your business or hers.” Now Maxwell was shouting, Allison taking a step back, unprepared for it. Maxwell always rolled with the punches, was always down for anything, but he rarely raised his voice.

   A part of him was glad that he and Ember had surrounded themselves with people that cared for them so much, but another part was pissed off that she had clearly only told the ladies half of the story.

   “Now I have to live with that everyday. Somehow I couldn't be what she needed.”

   “But that's the thing Maxwell, you walked away too easily. You were both hurting, I get that, but you made her feel like you never cared at all. And it may not be my business who you sleep with, but if you want her back, it's damn sure hers. She loves you, Dumbass.”

    Allison threw her hands up in frustration, Whitney placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

   Maxwell raked his hands through his hair before he continued. “Loved. You mean she loved me right?”

    The words were sorrowful, barely audible as they fell from his lips. He could feel tears stinging his eyes, allowing a few to roll down his cheek because he was so exhausted from holding them back all these months.

    “I walked away because she asked me to, Allison. I would've moved heaven and Earth to take away her pain, but she didn't want that. She didn't want me anymore. So yes, maybe I walked away too easily, but I never meant to hurt her. I'd die first. I'm just trying to deal with things the only way I know how: forget. I thought she's been forgetting about me too…” he choked out.

     “I should smack you upside your head. No Maxwell, she still loves you. You'd see that if you'd open your damn eyes and stay sober for five minutes.”

     “Then why are you here and not her?” He spat. He knew her intentions were good, still he really wanted to slap her.

     “Because, A. She is stubborn and she thinks you've moved on and B... she doesnt know I'm here... so don't tell her or I will kick your ass.” Allison sighed, poking his bare chest at the finish.

    “I... I wish she would have told me. I mean look around you, everything is exactly like she left it. This is her living room. Its still her home. I haven't moved on, I'm surviving.”

    Whitney's eyes darted around the room, then met Allison's who did the same. The couches had been Ember's in college.

    Allison remembered going with Ember to pick out the chandelier which hung over the small dining table.

   Whitney nodded towards the framed photo collage hanging above the mantle.

   There was a picture of Em and Max playing beer pong. One of them waving wildly at the camera, smiles smeared across their faces. The two of them kissing at Drake and Whitney's wedding reception after she'd caught the bouquet.

    Maxwell looked over at the frame, wiping a hand down his face.

    “Look, Allie, I...I uh.. appreciate you caring enough about Emmy to come here like this, but if you're done reminding me how much I screwed up the only good thing about my life I'd um...I wanna be alone if that's okay.”

   Allison's heart sank. She had been so busy being angry with him, the thought that Max may be hurting just as much had never crossed her mind. She could see now that he was, and she crossed the floor pulling him into a tight hug.

   “Max, I'm sorry. we all love you. This whole thing with you guys...it broke our hearts too. We just want to fix it. So fix it, Max.” She told him as she and Whitney headed for the door.

*************

      Leo was staring at a stack of spreadsheets. Liam had always been the business side of the business, but now that he and Allison were engaged Leo was trying to take a more active role in his finances. Which, if he was understanding correctly, didn't look good.

    The Seven Deadly Sins was drowning, floundering thanks to Enigma; and he had no back up plan. The Sins was the plan. If it went under….well he didn't wanna think about that.

    He shuffled the papers, making a mental note to meet with Liam and Blair in the next few days. Checking his phone he saw a text from Allison. She and Whitney had gone to run an errand but she'd be home soon.

   He smiled to himself just thinking about her. All that he wanted was to be able to take care of her. Glancing back at the spreadsheets he sighed lacing his fingers together and laying them on his head.

     He wondered for the hundredth time if he should ask Allison to push back the wedding. Her parents were paying for the ceremony, sure, but what about afterward? Could he really stand before all of their family and friends and vow to honor her and care for her knowing that he didn't have a way to do that if things didn't work out with this bar?

********************

    *6 years ago-Drake and Whitney's Party*

     After a few drinks, Allison's attitude had softened towards Leo considerably. They found themselves  in the VIP booth with Maxwell and Ember.

    “I've got to say, I'm a bit surprised that we haven't met before now. I mean Max here follows Liam like a puppy, and Ember is always with Max. Are you guys not close with each other?” Leo asked, desperate to learn more about her.

    Allison threw her arm around Ember's neck. “Me and Em and Whitney and Max all had Cordonian history together sophomore year.” she beamed.

   “Yeah. We had a study group. Drake and Max were close and so were Blair and I so we'd all meet up after school. Sometimes Liam would come.” Ember shrugged.

    “Yeah, Mr private school, Liam.” Allison giggled.

   “You remember how bad you crushed on him?” Maxwell asked with a laugh and Allison blushed.

   “That was a loooooong time ago, Max. Liam is too stuffy for my taste. We’re just friends.”

  Leo felt an inexplicable tinge of jealousy hearing that Allison had once been attracted to his little brother.

   The way her chocolate locks framed her face is the low club lighting captivated Leo. He was beyond intrigued by her, and he couldn't wait to learn more.

    “So Leo. What do you do? Who's Leo in the daylight?”  Allison asked, leaning her face on her hand, propped on the table.

   “In the daylight? Leo sleeps. I live the night life.” He chuckled gesturing around the room.

  “Right now I'm a bartender by trade, but I have big dreams.”

   “Yeah, Leo and Liam want to move to Ramsford to open their own bar.” Ember stated, laying her head on Max's shoulder with a yawn.

   “An entrepreneur?” Allison asked. “You know that's risky. Most small businesses fold up within the first five years.”

   “Not my bar. I'm telling you...you laugh, but it's gonna be great. I'm gonna ride that wave to retirement.” He quipped while Allison giggled.

  “Yeah? You sound confident. I'll make you a deal. If your bar is still open after a year, I'll come work for you. Any position you choose.”

   Leo quirked an eyebrow. “I am confident, but I'm also right, so I'll take your deal, Allison Morgan. I look forward to working with you.”

*******************************

       Ember and Blair stood in the middle of Blair and Ollie's living room, almost too drunk to accomplish even that. They were giggling when Ollie opened the door, music blaring from the TV as karaoke style lyrics displayed across the screen.

    “Go on now go! Walk out the door! Just turn around now cuz you're not welcome anymore! Weren't you the one who tried to break me with goodbye? Think I'd crumble? Think I'd lay down and die? Oh no not I. I will survive!” They both belted loudly and out of key into hairbrushes.

    Ollie laughed. “What's all this?”

   “Ollie!” Blair shouted, clumsily making her way to throw her arms around his neck. His hands roamed over her curvaceous body, settling on her hips as he planted a chaste kiss on her lips.

     Slowly the smile melted from Ember's lips. “Hey Big Ben.” She said. “I...uh I think it's time for me to go.”

She gathered her phone from the table.

   “Aw Em, you can stay.” Ollie said.

   She shook her head. “You guys have been apart all day. It's your turn to enjoy Blair's company. I'll just call a cab.”

   “No. C'mon Em. At least let me drive you since I ruined your party.”

      They approached a red light and Ember bit her lip. “Just keep straight here, Ol.” She said and Ollie gave her a side glance.

    “Your flat is that way.” He hurled a thumb to his left.

   “I don't wanna go to 'my flat.’ Can you please take me to Maxwell's?”

   Ember thanked Ollie, exiting the car and promising to call him and Blair in the morning. She faced the building swaying a bit from the alcohol as she fiddled with her keys.

   She reached Maxwell's apartment, sliding the key in the door. She was shocked when the door unlocked and she let herself into his darkened living room.

   She crept toward his bedroom, the path there memorized long ago. She pushed open the door and stood in the doorway, listening to the sound of his bathroom faucet running.

    Maxwell, obviously hearing the loud creak of the door opening, exited the bathroom, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and his eyes went wide as he held up one finger. He stepped back into the bathroom to spit and rinse and he reappeared patting his mouth on a towel.

    “H-hey, Emmy. What are you doing here?”

    She slapped her hand with the house key, her eyes roaming around his bedroom- their bedroom- exactly as it had been when she left.

   “You didn't change your locks.”

    “Why would I? You're always welcomed here.” He scoffed shaking his head. “We're still friends, right?”

    Ember parted her lips as if to respond, but instead she said nothing, her hazel eyes meeting his across the distance between them. She stared at him for a long time, both of the silent. Her eyes wandered the smooth plains of his muscular chest- lingering on his brand new ink for just a moment- down his defined torso and lower the familiar bulge in his boxers briefs causing her to involuntarily lick her lips.

    “I'm up here, Emmy.” He laughed motioning upward with his hand.

    She shook her head and walked over to him, her steps slightly wobbly. Without warning she shoved him against the bathroom door, her lips crashing against his feverishly.

   He deepened the kiss almost immediately, his tongue sliding over her lips to find hers. She tasted like orange juice and champagne and Maxwell couldn't get enough as he spun her, pinning her to the door with his body, cupping her face in his hands.

    After a moment he pulled away, resting his forehead on hers. Her eyes were still closed as he whispered. “Emmy, what are you..?”

    She placed a finger over his lips to quiet him finally peering into his questioning eyes. “I've missed you, Max.” She said stepping out of her heels, now dwarfed by the man before her. She kicked them aside and grabbed his wrists pulling him towards the bed. “I want to show you. Make love to me, Max.”

    He reached up and twisted the skin of his pectoral, wincing audibly and Ember cocked her head to the side.

   “Yep, not dreaming.” He commented, his hand tangling in her hair as his lips claimed hers once more.

    He breathed her in deeply as they tumbled onto the bed, bodies tangled with one another. He hesitated.

    He'd been waiting for so long to hear her say those words to him again, but it didn't feel right.

    “Emmy, we can't do this.” He rolled to her side as she sat up, her face scrunched in confusion.

   “You'll fuck any bimbo with a pulse except me, is that it?” She hissed, sitting up and flipping her hair over her shoulder.

     Maxwell's face fell. He gently took her hand and placed a kiss on her inner wrist, rubbing his face against her fingers.

    “Sunshine, I would love to do this, don't get me wrong, but...I don't want you to regret it. Clearly you're…”

   “I'm what, Maxwell? What am I?” She shouted as her face flushed.

   “Drunk, Emmy. You're drunk. Look, I'd give my left arm to feel you like that again, but not tonight. Not like this.” He shook his head, rising from the bed.

   Ember averted her eyes, ashamed of herself. “I'm sorry. You must think…”

     “I think it's definitely time we had this discussion so,” he began turning down the blankets on what used to be her side of the bed. “ I want you to stay. I'll take the couch. We can talk over coffee.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

Nocturne (FFXV) - 2/30

Fic: Nocturne (2/30) - Ao3 Link

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Pairings: Mostly Gen (variety later to come)

Summary: In which Cor Leonis loses his temper, accidentally acquires a kid, and tries to single-handedly dismantle the Lucian immigration system – and that’s before he and his lawyers find out about this Prophecy business. If the Astrals think Cor’s going to let his kid’s best friend die without a fight, they’ve gotten the wrong cheetah ‘taur.

(a young adult novel set in @kickingshoes’ ‘taur AU)

——————————————————————————————- ——————————————————————————————-

“So, I’ve done something rash,” Cor says into his phone. It’s not connected, of course – any hope of reception died ages ago – but he likes to record his reports as voicemails to himself in the event that the only part of him that makes it back to Lucis is his phone. Clarus makes a point of checking Cor's voicemail when he's away on mission, and sometimes after, and they've informally agreed that the garbled statements that sometimes make it through are not to be monitored for things like clarity, coherency, or cursing the way normal reports are. After all, one must sometimes make allowances for the weather.

Cor’s currently wrapped up in a thick cloak that’s barely enough to keep out the chill. He’s never been more grateful for the fact that ‘taur physiology permits all creatures, regardless of type, to keep their most sensitive parts retracted inside the body, though of course his poor bare paws are freezing every time they touch down on the frozen earth. Cheetahs are made for warm climates, not – this.

Niflheim.

Yes, yes, he knows this particularly bitter artificial winter that sits upon Niflheim comes from that almost legendary battle when the great Glacian Hind came to life and massacred a large portion of Niflheim’s armies before being killed in turn. And yes, he’s well aware that that battle is one of the only reasons Lucis has managed to hold Niflheim off for so long, but that’s not the point.

The point is that it’s cold.

The point is that Cor is seriously considering buying some of those stupid booties they sell sometimes to keep his paws from icing over, and he hates those.

The point is –

The point is that Cor usually has more self-control than this. This was supposed to be a covert mission, after all – and it still is, mostly.

There's another explosion from behind him. Cor turns to look, just in time to see a giant swath of the factory ceiling caving in as one of the support pillars goes down. He winces at the sight.

He winces again as a small fire breaks out within the ruins of the factor, penned in only by the gently falling snow.

...mostly still covert.

Well, okay, they haven't actually definitively identified it as an act of Lucis and of Cor specifically yet, and that's about it, really. Every other pretense to subtlety has been blown up – quite literally.

And yet, when he saw – he couldn't leave it the way it was. He couldn't leave them.

The kittens.

Well, puppies, actually; he's fairly sure canideataurs call their young puppies instead of kittens, but it's irrelevant. They’re not even proper kitlings yet, just - babies! Babies in cages, babies in tubes, babies with mechanical attachments, with brands, with barcodes –

Sometimes, Cor hates the rulers of Niflheim so hard it takes his breath away, and he's never hated them more than he does now.

How could they?

How could – anyone?

The letter that Clarus' spymasters had dismissed as an obvious trap, the one that purported to be from a scientist in a Niflheim factory, offering up the coordinates of what was supposedly one of Niflheim's infamously well-hidden Magitek factories, where the tech that made them so dangerous was developed, offering to smuggle them into the factory in return for assistance getting out of Niflheim – it sounded too good to be true, on paper, but it was true.

Justina had just about lost hope of a response when Cor came and made contact with her. She really was a scientist working at one of the hidden Niflheim factories, a big and plump ‘taur of the canine breed she fondly referred to as a 'San-Bernard' or something like that, and she'd worked for the Niflheim Empire for ages without complaint only to find the experiments performed on babies a step too far even for her. She'd developed a plan to smuggle the puppies out of the facility, but she needed help, and she was willing to trade access to the facility in return for that help – like Cor wouldn't have helped her regardless, just for the puppies’ sake. She hadn’t realized he would care about that; that’s why she hadn’t included any mention of the puppies in her letter.

Niflheim is an awful place sometimes, and nowhere is it worse than in its factories.

She'd take them to Cleigne, Justina told Cor after he’d seen them and stopped in his tracks, horrified; in Cleigne she’d made arrangements. There were families there, families living quietly under Niflheim rule, not bothering anyone, families that would be happy to take in some puppies without question. She’d prepared thoroughly in advance; she’d even had passports made up for all of them -

- or so she'd thought.

She hadn't been able to count up how many kids there were – some died during the process, she explained, which in Cor’s opinion ought to be enough reason to stop any process at all right there, and she couldn't afford to have extra passports made for her without having the kids to show for it at the border, so she'd estimated the numbers.

She'd gotten it very nearly right: there was only one left over once the passports were all handed out, a blond baby puppy labeled (labeled!) NH-00O6-O204-1987.

"I'd thought he'd die," Justina whispered to Cor when they found the child, thin and sickly and not even a full year old, but still alive. He was snuffling slightly in his sleep. She looked taken aback by the fact that he was still there. "I thought - he's a runt, even for a saluki, and I thought – all the other salukis his age died already, you see, and were incinerated.”

She gestured at the empty tubes next to the sleeping puppy, and Cor shuddered to think of them being filled with puppies just like this pup – to think of those puppies dying, alone and unloved in these cages, and their bodies callously thrown into the fire.

“What does that mean, then?” he asked. “For your plan?”

“I didn't get a passport for a saluki,” Justina said. “Which is a problem – some of the others, I could pass off as mutts, but salukis? They’re rather distinctive.”

"What does that mean?" Cor asked again.

She frowned at him.

“What do you suggest we do?” Cor clarified.

“We leave him, of course,” she said. “I don’t have a passport for him; I can’t get him across the border.”

“No,” Cor said. He didn’t even need to think about it. “I’ll take him. I have to smuggle through the Niflheim border anyway, and Lucis will let me through with him.”

Justina frowned at him. “Do you even know anything about puppies?”

“I’ll learn,” Cor said shortly. “Better than leaving him to die.”

“They won’t kill him immediately or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Justina said, puzzled. “They’ll just keep going with the process – which, admittedly, will probably kill him, but honestly, he’s so sickly, he’ll probably just die anyway.”

“What do you mean, they’ll just continue?”

Justina shrugged, clearly not understanding the source of Cor's question. “As long as the factory’s still standing, they’re not going to stop production.”

Well.

From Cor’s perspective, there was really only one way to go from there, and he thinks (hopes) that Regis and Clarus will agree.

And if they don’t – well. That’s that, he supposes. He doesn’t think they’ll throw him out of the Crownsguard or anything, their old friendship is good for that much at least, but he might have to endure some sort of punishment. Maybe a suspension from his new role as Marshal.

Actually, a suspension might not be so bad; it’ll give him time to find a place for –

The puppy yawns.

Cor’s eyes drop down to the basket at his paws and he grimaces.

Yeah, no, forget everything. He’s totally fucked this one right up.

He has no idea how to deal with kittens. Much less baby kittens! Or, he supposes, baby puppies, but he assumes they’re much the same, and in either case he’s vastly underqualified here. Thank the Six that ‘taurs are a species with a very short period of early development: ‘taurs are only truly helpless babies for a few months before they grow into (mostly) self-sufficient, if extremely inexperienced kitlings, capable of speech and thought, and from that state they grow into children, then teenagers, then adults…

What Cor wouldn’t give for the puppy to be an adult right now.

He does not know how to deal with puppies!

Six, Cor can barely take care of himself – in fact, he’s almost convinced himself that his king and his advisor sent him on this mission exclusively because Regis and Clarus somehow found out he’d started having trouble sleeping again.

Also with eating, but Clarus wouldn’t let him leave until he’d eaten half a meal, so it’s not like he’s had nothing to eat recently. And Clarus only let him stop after half because it was visibly hurting Cor to continue to eat despite his anxiety; he made Cor promise that he’d at least try to eat some broth while he was travelling because collapsing mid-battle isn’t good tactics (Cor is aware of that, thanks, Clarus), and there’d been that lingering suggestion of a psychiatrist hovering in his eyes.

Again.

Cor does not want a psychiatrist. He hates talking about his feelings, he despises motivational speeches, and while he is perfectly happy for other people to benefit from correctly prescribed medication, he’s had a bad reaction to every single pill he’s ever taken.

(Domestic housecat his spotted ass. He’s still low-grade pissed about that. He doesn't think he'll ever be anything but low-grade pissed about that.)

In fact, just about the only good suggestion a shrink has ever had for him was to up his box time and to invest in some bubble wrap to knead with his paws as an anxiety-reducing measure, and that was someone he saw once when he was sixteen.

The last four shrinks Regis and Clarus strong-armed him into going to see (supposedly because there was a mental health requirement for being appointed to senior Crownsguard positions, which Cor knows is a damn rotten lie but honestly it’s not a bad idea to put in place, so he went along with it) weren't anywhere near as useful. Cor isn’t into mediation or ‘centering’ or self-reflection, and he likes himself just fine, so listing out positive things about himself (good at fighting, good at running, good at surviving, good sense of humor, albeit one that very few other people understand…) isn’t exactly helpful either.

He’s just stressed, is all. And no, ordering him to not work is even more stressful, as shrink number two and twelve both learned.

The most recent one even suggested that Cor think about getting some sort of therapy animal to help with panic attacks. Cor heroically managed not to punch him, but it was a remarkably close call.

It doesn’t help that he’s not dating anyone – of course, Cor doesn’t particularly want to be dating anyone, neither romantically nor sexually, to be honest. It’s not that he’s opposed to the idea or anything, it’s just never seemed important enough to pursue with the same sort of single-minded passion that he does for fighting or command or training and mating doesn’t seem like it would be a project worth going into anything less than whole-heartedly – and really the only problem with the lack is that basically everyone around him assumes that having a mate would ease his anxiety while simultaneously assuming that his anxiety is the only thing between him and a nice mate. Possibly also kittens.

Cor wouldn’t be adverse to a kitten or two down the line, but he's never really seen anyone who he thought of as mate material – he doesn’t even really have an image in mind, just a vague floating checkbox that society claims he’ll eventually need to mark off – and he’s just sort of figured that he couldn’t have the former without the latter and given up on both for the time being. After all, he’s young enough that he can afford to wait.

This plan, while tactically sound, also meant that at no point had he ever put any effort into learning how to deal with kitlings.

And now he has to smuggle a puppy across enemy lines.

Said puppy yawns again, displaying his little milk teeth.

Oh Six, the puppy is waking up.

Cor is so unqualified for this.

He crouches down next to the basket. “I’m going to need you to be quiet,” he tells the puppy, who’s now blinking at him. “Okay? No noise.”

The puppy burbles a little and reaches out for Cor.

“Um.”

When Cor doesn’t move, the puppy’s face starts scrunching up. Tears start forming in the corner of his eyes.

Oh crap.

Cor reaches out and picks up the puppy. This is apparently the right move, because suddenly the puppy is cuddling into him and making contented sounds.

His fur is very soft – silky and pale, just like his skin and his bright shock of hair.

“Well, at least you’re not crying,” Cor tells the pup.

Then he tries to put him back in the basket.

An hour later, Cor concludes that he may as well discard the stupid basket, because the puppy has somehow got it into his head that Cor holding him is the only acceptable way to get around and anything else is to be met with tears and long, mournful howls that carry far too well in Niflheim’s frozen environment.

“You’re not defeating me,” Cor informs the puppy as he trots further into the forest. “I just want you to know that. I’m just compromising with you because I need to get out of this country swiftly and quietly and fighting with you is distracting me from doing that.”

The puppy yips happily and nuzzles Cor’s neck, quite content with his current position.

Yeah, Cor wouldn’t believe him either.

Luckily the puppy’s pretty well swaddled against the cold – Justina’s work – and Cor is accustomed to carrying heavy swords for long distances, and the puppy barely weighs more than one of his swords. The puppy is also remarkably well-behaved, though Cor suspects that it has less to do with behavior and more to do with the ill treatment the puppy received up to now – he’s pathetically glad to be held by Cor, yes, but also his muscle tone is low and his lung capacity isn’t great. The puppy is small and sickly; a runt, as Justina said.

If Cor spends too long getting him back to Insomnia, he might not survive. That is – unacceptable.

Cor has accustomed himself, after all these years, to losses endured in battle. He’s lost colleagues, friends – even soldiers under his own command. And yet, the thought of losing this puppy, who had done nothing but be born in the wrong place at the wrong time, induces a stronger emotional reaction than Cor expected.

That’s probably why, when the puppy finally does start to get over-tired and starts hesitantly to whimper and whine, a tentative sound that nevertheless sounds hopeful, Cor immediately stops and begins to set up camp – hours later than Cor would’ve expected before encountering tears, but hours before Cor would normally have stopped.

The tears dry up immediately as soon as Cor puts the puppy down and frees him from the swaddling – looks like the puppy was just tired of being confined and was testing to see if making sounds would obtain a reaction, which is a horrifying thought in relation to puppies or kittens. No one should neglect a crying puppy to the point that he’s unsure whether crying will do him any good, especially one that’s just barely on the cusp of kitling maturity: old enough to think for himself, to wander by himself, and Six, old enough to be talking and understanding speech, and thus old enough to understand that he’s being neglected intentionally and be hurt by it.

Monstrous.

At any rate, the puppy is no longer on the verge of tears – now he’s frolicking around, rolling in the snow and the leaves like he’s never seen either before.

Probably hasn’t.

Cor groans and makes a small fire the old-fashioned way, not wanting to draw the attention of anything magical. The forest is thick enough that he’s fairly sure the MTs won’t be able to identify him based just on the flame, assuming they’re even looking in this direction after all the misdirecting he’s being doing –

“No you don’t!” he shouts, leaping forward to catch the puppy before he runs straight into the fire.

The puppy beams up at him, babbling wordlessly.

“Fire is dangerous,” Cor tells him. “I know you probably never encountered it before, but don’t touch it.”

He puts the puppy back down.

The puppy goes for the fire again.

“No!”

This is going to be harder than Cor originally thought.

He ends up planting a paw in the puppy’s soft belly (and kneading it a little, to the puppy’s delight) while rummaging in his pack for some food that he can boil down. Luckily he has some soup – surely that wouldn’t be too difficult for a puppy to eat?

He offers the puppy a spoon.

The puppy blinks at it.

“You eat it.”

The puppy pants happily, but show no sign of taking a bit.

“You eat – oh, by the Six.” Cor sighs. He waves the spoon in the air a little until the puppy is focusing on it. “You eat the soup. Like this.”

He takes a bite himself, making a pointed purring sound of enjoyment as he does. Then he offers the puppy the next spoonful.

The puppy eats the spoonful.

Cor sighs in relief. Mission accomplished.

He offers the next spoonful, but the pup whines unhappily.

Cor seriously considers beating his head against the nearest tree. Didn’t he just show the puppy that he could eat the food safely?

He takes another bite himself, and on the next try the puppy does accept another bite. Going back and forth, they manage to finish the whole bowl, at which point the puppy promptly flops over onto its stomach to fall asleep, making cute little snores almost at once.

Cor rolls his eyes and cleans up the campsite in case they need to leave in haste, then curls around the puppy to provide warmth.

It’s not until he’s about to drop off into the light doze he uses on missions where he needs to be on watch at all times that he realizes that the half-bowl of soup is more than he’s eaten in a single sitting for nearly a month.

“See, Clarus,” Cor grumbles as he yawns his way into sleep. “I can take care of myself just fine.”

The puppy somehow maneuvers himself out of the warmth of Cor’s belly and onto Cor’s face while he sleeps, as Cor discovers when he wakes up, but somehow this ends up being charming instead of annoying.

He does wonder why the puppy doesn’t talk, thinking to himself about it as the puppy wiggles around on the ground while Cor goes to hide the evidence of the now-extinguished fire. After all, surely the puppy's something like a year old, now, judging by size comparisons with Regis’ kitten? Little Prince Noctis has certainly started talking, and quite a bit, too, albeit with some fairly terrible grammar. He’s a good comparison.

Unlike, say, Clarus’ Gladio, because even besides him being two years older than this puppy, Cor would be willing to bet against Bahamut that Clarus’ boy is going to out-grow everyone around him. After all, his mother in her youth was one of those tall Lucian warrior ‘taurs that settled in the Duscae outpost, a berserker who knocked Clarus clean out in a friendly bar-fight and whom he’s been madly in love with ever since – and Cor has long since learned not to use anyone who breaks the curve as a standard.

(He used to beat all his friends at footraces when he was a kitten, and they hated him for it, but he couldn’t run as slow as them, he just couldn’t, and he never knew why – just that biting freezing isolation of knowing something was wrong and he wasn't like the others – didn’t have parents, didn’t act right, didn’t love right, didn’t move right, not like the rest of them –)

The puppy sneezes and sits up.

A lone leaf drifts down and lands on his nose.

The puppy watches it fall with absolute fascination, and once it lands, he tries to bat at it, unbalancing himself, and falls over backwards with a surprised expression.

Cor doesn’t laugh, but it’s not for lack of wanting to.

The puppy starts to tear up again.

“No.”

The puppy stops and look at Cor.

“No crying,” Cor says sternly.

The puppy holds its arms out towards Cor, babbling happily, albeit incoherently.

“Why don’t you talk?” Cor grumbles. “You should be talking by now.”

It occurs to him only a moment later that the puppy probably didn’t have people around him to learn from – and no incentive for the scientists to bother teaching him.

Even Justina dismissed him as just a runt doomed to die.

Cor makes a face, mentally damning Niflheim yet again, and scoops up the puppy, starting to trot onwards again.

“Let’s start you on some basics,” he tells the cooing baby puppy. “Don’t want you falling behind just because the Niflheim scientists stunted your development.”

He frowns, trying to think of what would be a good place to start. What’s a basic, necessary, commonly-used element of speech?

“How about ‘no’,” he finally says. “That should be harmless enough.”

By the time they get to the border a few days later, the pup is familiar with ‘no’, ‘up’, ‘mine’ and ‘want’, and Cor has determined that he’s an absolute moron because now the kid won’t stop saying them.

Especially ‘no’.

The border itself is – trickier than expected.

“Papers,” the bored female ‘taur at the window says.

Cor isn’t surprised by the request, even though he’s normally recognizable enough that he doesn’t have to bother with the details: after all, he’s covered in mud from having to do a bit of fancy footwork to get around the bigger MT patrols, he’s not wearing Crownsguard clothing, and he has a baby strapped to his back because that turned out to be the acceptable balance between “being held” and “in a convenient location so that Cor can still fight”.

He passes over his papers.

“Papers.”

“I just gave them to you,” Cor points out.

“For the baby.”

“He’s a refugee,” Cor says. “Also, a baby. He doesn’t have papers.”

“He can’t go through the border without papers.”

“We get dozens of refugees every day,” Cor stresses. “Not everyone can have papers.”

“They can get papers,” the clerk says, clearly uninterested. “You’ll need to go to the administration building down the block.”

Cor sighs, but goes.

There’s a line.

Sure, he could probably cut, using his status as head of the Crownsguard, but that feels a bit too much like being a privileged asshole, and at any rate he’s not looking forward to explaining this to Regis and Clarus anyway, so he waits.

The people at the front of the line are overworked and overtired and he gets three questions in before he realizes that they’re trying to make papers for him, and then he has to explain that he already has papers, it’s just the puppy that doesn’t.

…he thinks they think he stole the kid from someone. That’s definitely the look on their faces right now.

Then they send him to another line, because apparently combined situations are taken care of at the other admin building.

Six lines and multiple hours later, Cor’s fur is standing on end and he’s considering stabbing someone before putting a sword to Clarus’ neck and demanding he fix whatever the fuck is wrong with administration here because this is just plain awful even if they're trying to stall him because they think he’s some sort of child smuggler.

“Listen,” he snarls at one particular female ‘taur, a bobcat, that he’s been talking to for nearly twenty minutes after yet another line. “It’s not that hard. Just make the kid a passport. I’ll get the rest verified when I get to the Crown City. I don’t need a pass. I don’t need a housing permit. Just give me a piece of paper that gets me though the border.”

The bobcat clerk scowls at him. She has circles under her eyes, and Cor would’ve been sympathetic two hours ago but he’s not anymore. “Fine.” She pulls out yet another form. This is the fourteenth he’s seen. Most of them have turned out to be the wrong form only after he’s gone through the process of filling them out. “What do you call him?”

“Pu – oh,” Cor stops abruptly. That’s the first time he’s been asked that. As far as he knows, the kid doesn’t even have a name, just a number.

And he’s pretty sure ‘puppy’ isn’t actually a real name.

Like, 90% sure.

You never know what celebrities are naming their kids these days.

“Prompto,” the clerk says, writing it down. “Got it. I assume he’s also a cheetah?”

“Why would you assume that?” Cor asks blankly. Prompto? Where’d she get that from?

“Prompto means quick,” she says. “Standard cheetah name, and I can see your spots. He’s a cheetah like you, right?”

Cor twists to look at the pup – Prompto, he guesses, because one name is as good as another – and he’s gotten so wrapped up in the swaddling that his legs are barely visible.

“No,” he says. “He’s a saluki.”

“A what?”

“Canidaetaur.”

The clerk frowns at him.

“You assholes know mixed families exist, right?” Cor asks, crossing his arms. “He could be mine.”

“You look fifteen,” she says. “And you’re covered in mud and – is that blood?”

“When I was fifteen, everyone said I looked twelve,” Cor says dryly. They were usually being generous, too. “And no, it’s MT engine oil.”

She looks more suspicious now. Chalk another one up to Team 'they think he's a child smuggler.' “Is he yours?”

“No,” Cor says. “I rescued him.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Listen, if you’re going to have me arrested, can that happen sooner rather than later?” Cor asks. “And preferably after I get the pup’s papers?”

He actually does end up having to talk to a local guard about it, because apparently Cor is a very suspicious person when he’s trying to follow the rules. The guard turns out to be one of the remnants of what was once Lucis’ army, one of the branches that never swapped over to being Crownsguard, but he still recognizes Cor and suddenly everyone is horribly embarrassed about everything, which does not even slightly make up for the fact that Cor could’ve been a normal person going about his daily business with a rescued baby and then he’d still be in those awful lines waiting to get through, and possibly also in prison.

By the Six, Cor is going to Do Something about this, and if Clarus and the Council won’t do it, he’ll just have to file another goddamn lawsuit.

(Regis joked once that Cor must spend half of his Crownsguard salary on lawyers, but he’s not entirely wrong. Winning one massive precedent-setting lawsuit in such a well-known and public manner has gotten the idea into people’s heads that he’s potentially willing to fight others, and unfortunately they’re not entirely wrong about that, either. Cor’s sharp-toothed and very expensive lawyers are very fond of him.)

And then he takes Prompto (is that a typical cheetah name? Cor has no idea; he’s never really fit in with the other cheetahs in Insomnia – his mannerisms and cultural understanding are totally different, having been raised a housecat, and most of them are far too intimidated by his reputation as the Immortal to actually have a conversation with him about what he’s getting wrong) and marches his way back home, through the back end of the city, and straight to the Citadel.

Normally, he’d swing by the barracks to at least groom himself first, but he has a point to make.

“Cor Leonis, Marshal of the Crownsguard,” the doorkeeper announces, as unmoved as ever. The day he sounds surprised about someone coming through this door, Insomnia will be about to fall, Cor swears it.

Cor marches in, stiff-legged and pissed off, his tail stuck out low and puffed up in case they hadn’t gotten the message from the angry stalk.

“Welcome back, Marshal,” Regis says warmly from his throne. “You’re several days later than we expected you; we were beginning to become concerned about –” He stops mid-sentence.

“The border crossing is a shambles,” Cor says, totally ignoring the usual protocol of talking to the King while he’s sitting on his throne. “It is imperative that we fix it.”

“Perhaps you should start with your mission report –” Clarus begins, only to get rather obviously elbowed in the side by Regis. He frowns at Regis, who is doing something bizarre with his eyebrows, and then looks back at Cor. A second later, his eyes go wide as well.

Meanwhile, Cor has managed to get a hold of himself. Clarus is correct. Protocol is protocol, and there are no exceptions. Cor shifts into parade rest – hands behind his back, legs straight – and starts, “I left Insomnia on the thirteenth of –”

“No, no, never mind the mission report,” Regis says. “Cor – is that a baby?”

Prompto has gotten loose of the majority of the swaddling and is attempting to chew on the edge of Cor’s jacket. This is a sufficiently common occurrence that Cor has stopped paying attention to anything more than whether Prompto is still slung on securely and if the jacket is still relatively clean but for the drool. He’s hypothesized that Prompto’s baby teeth require sharpening and that he’s using Cor’s jacket as a substitute teething tool.

“Yes,” Cor says shortly, even though technically Prompto’s probably closer to being a kitling at this point. Prompto is not the issue here. “As I was saying. Upon leaving Insomnia, I went to the check-in point, where –”

“Cor. Why do you have a baby?”

“That part doesn’t come until later in the report, your Majesty.”

“Skip ahead.”

“There weren’t any passports left to get him to Cleigne,” Cor says, being deliberately obtuse. “Which is why I just spent nearly a full day waiting in line at the border – and nearly got arrested for it.”

“Cor, just – please – just tell me you didn’t steal somebody’s baby,” Clarus says. He’s put his face into his hands.

“I didn’t steal somebody’s baby,” Cor says obediently.

“Thank you, Cor. Could you try that again, but this time at least make an effort to make me believe it?”

“He may have been somebody’s baby once,” Cor says, though privately he’s not so sure about that. Some of the puppies Justina had taken with her had looked awfully similar – cloning, perhaps? “But they gave up all moral rights to him when they locked him in a small cage and branded him with a number instead of a name.”

Regis and Clarus’ smiles disappear.

“Start at the beginning,” Regis orders.

Cor starts at the beginning.