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sondepoch · 5 years ago

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Chapter 7

Written in the Stars (Lucifer x Angel!Reader)

Four thousand years is a long time. In the absence of your most cherished friend, it feels even longer. But when a certain student exchange program in the Devildom reunites you and Lucifer, things aren't the same. Because four thousand years of separation is a long time. And the love you once felt for Lucifer has changed into something different—something forbidden. But that might not even be your biggest problem, because with each passing day, your holy wings are turning blacker and blacker.

MASTERLIST

Panic sets in the moment you open your eyes.

You'd sensed hints of it in your dreams: the sensation of Lucifer's arms loosening their hold on you despite your protests, the feeling of the Devildom heat growing faint and being replaced with the coolness of the heavens, the sensation of the Morningstar's aura growing dimmer and dimmer until you couldn't detect it at all.

No doubt, your subconscious realized what had happened. Asleep, you may have been, but you felt it when your angel form manifested, when the room grew noisy with shouts and chaos as people must have set their eyes upon the blackness of your wings.

Your subconscious had known it, and yet your mind continued to deny such truth.

But now, having opened your eyes and taken in the unmistakable sight of the room you've spent thousands of years in—you can't deny it any longer.

You've been taken back to the Celestial Realm.

"S-Simeon!" You shout on instinct, untangling your limbs from the softness of the blankets.

When he doesn't come, you stand, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror mounted on the wall.

Your eyes widen when they fall upon your wings.

They're white.

Just how long have you been asleep?

Biting your lip, you creep the door open. "Simeon?" You call again, hoping, praying that he's nearby. You turn your head to the right, glancing down the hall that's usually lined with paintings and artwork, but all you see is an empty stone wall.

A sight you know all too well.

Gasping, you slam the door and retreat back inside, but then all the small details of the room you'd missed earlier are now highlighted in your eyes.

Your eyes dart over to the circular rug, the same creamy white you're used to but far too new and pristine to be the same one that you've had in your own room. You glance at the bedframe, a perfect replica of the one you once slept on, but it lacks the scratches along the side from all the nights you'd spent dragging your nails along the wood in boredom. The robes hanging off the hooks on the back of your door look the same, but they lack the telltale creases of your failed ironing attempts, too perfect to be the ones you've worn for so long.

You fall onto your knees, a shudder running through your body when you recall the familiar sight of the empty, stone walls outside.

There's no pretending otherwise.

You're in the tower of the High Seraphs.

You glance out of your window, hoping that the sight will prove you wrong, but the lack of neighboring clouds only confirms your fears. The room you're in is nothing more than a replica of the one in your shared abode with Simeon, the familiar surroundings nothing more than an illusion meant to give you some peace of mind.

You scowl.

Stomping over to your closet, you yank it open to find all the same clothes you have in your actual room, but it's obvious that these have never been worn. Still, you yank them over your figure with such force that you almost injure your wings in the process, knowing that time is of utmost importance right now.

You frown, running a comb through your hair as you begin to realize everything that must have taken place while you slept.

Doubtless, Simeon administered medicine to you, which must have manifested your angel form. If you recall the sound of shouting correctly, then the first person to scream must have been Luke—who likely summoned Michael on instinct.

Curses, you can't help but think. Luke can hardly be blamed for doing what he thought was right, but this situation absolutely could have been avoided if you'd told Simeon the truth about your wings. And now he must know that I've kept secrets from him.

Regret fills your heart at the realization, and you begin to wish you'd given him the truth from the beginning. Not just about your wings, but about Lucifer as well.

You're terrified to see the look of disappointment he'll give you when the two of you next meet.

But surely, there will be more to it than just disappointment. Michael must have also seen your wings and returned you to the Celestial Realm, which means that, as your guardian, Simeon should also be here. And if the High Seraphs know that your wings turned black while under his guardianship…

You don't want to begin to think about the punishment he will have to endure.

Mind heavy with thoughts of the angel, you yank open the door and storm down the familiar corridor that leads to the chamber of the High Seraphs. You've walked these halls before, during the Great Celestial War, when you were locked in these towers and isolated from Lucifer.

But back then, you were young. Young, timid, and docile. Now, you won't hesitate to speak your mind.

***

"Speak wisely, child." One of the seraphs warns you, raising a hand. Every holy being in the room frowns upon your figure, disapproving of your blatant disrespect, but you won't let them intimidate you into silence.

"Return me to the Devildom at once!" You repeat, your plea phrased as a demand while you cross your arms in defiance. "You promised me that I would be given a full year with Lucifer, and I will be given the full year!"

"You will be given what we permit," A voice returns swiftly, disinterested in your protests. "And nothing more."

"You can't go back on a promise!" You screech, gesturing wildly. You hate their utter apathy toward your situation, how they barely look at you as you argue your case. "It's unholy! You swore to me! You swore!"

"Our oath to you was that you would be allowed to partake in the exchange program as long as you did not allow your divinity to be corrupted by the demons," Another voice answers, and you whip around to face them. "Do not lie, child. Your wings were black as the abyss when Michael returned you to us. You are not so foolish to let such a thing go unnoticed. It is by Father's blessing that they have been restored to their true color."

"Perhaps our current punishment is too lenient for the child. Not only did she hide the truth, but she broke her vows to us in the process."

"Indeed. It is rather an embarrassment to have one so troublesome."

"Ah, but she is still young. With her lies, she has ruined all chances of ever seeing that fallen angel she adores again, so perhaps that may be punishment enough. Not to say that further punishment cannot be issued if she continues to act out."

Your body flits back and forth, turning every time a new voice speaks. The room is circular, and the High Seraphs each sit across from each other in different parts of the room, making a perfect circle that forces you to turn every time someone else speaks. Finally, you've had enough.

"Stop!" You shout, hands clenched into fists. You know that every time you raise they take you even less seriously, so you try to compose yourself. "Please, High Seraphs. I beg you—hear me! My wings turned black not from corruption but simply because I absorbed the darkness the way I absorb light. It never tainted my purity, I assure you!"

"The darkness did not taint your purity, but do you deny that you allowed Lucifer to do so?"

How do they know?

You flinch at the seraph's words, looking down. "W-we never had…"

"It matters not what physical pursuits you engaged in!"

"You foolishly gave your heart to a demon, child. How is that befitting of the holy equalizer of our realm?!"

"Love between an angel and a demon is forbidden. We allowed you to reunite with Lucifer because you swore that your love for him was pure, but that vile creature defiled you with temptation!"

You stare at the ground as the High Seraphs continue to rain insults down on you, each one mocking and ridiculing your relationship with Lucifer. You shut their voices out, trying your hardest to hold back tears as you stand, remembering a time where they had once praised you with the same vigor.

When a silence settles over the room, you speak again.

"W-who told you?" You ask, glancing away. You don't have any proper defense for falling in love with Lucifer when you were warned against that very thing, but you have the right to know who breached your privacy and spilled your secret to the High Seraphs. "W-was it Simeon?"

"Simeon?" A seraph asks from behind you, scoffing. "The fool has refused to answer any of our questions since returning. He is being punished. When he understands that it is his responsibility to confess the extent of your sins while in the Devildom, you can be certain that your own punishment will follow."

You gasp. "You would punish him simply for maintaining his silence? That's awful! It's immoral!"

"Simeon's sole instructions were to ensure that you were kept in line, and he betrayed us in the name of what he called your 'happiness.' We are not so foolish. Your happiness lies here, in this realm. Not in the arms of the treacherous Morningstar."

A fire ignites within your heart, fueled by the thought of these heartless divinities punishing the angel who's protected you for so long. "How could you do that?!" You spit, disbelief painted over your features. "Simeon has served for millennia as your holy defender! How can you lock away the very angel sent to protect you?!"

"Simeon is honorable, no doubt, but his loyalty is wasted. We live in the Celestial Realm, child. The defender of the High Seraphs is a noble title, but what need have we of him? Who would attack us?"

The fire in your heart blazes bright with the seraph's deriding words.

"Me."

The word leaves your mouth before you can even consider the weight of what you're saying, and you lunge forward to the seraph directly in front of you, your smaller frame growing closer and closer to his until he rises, summoning a wave of holy energy that deflects your body back onto the ground with more force than you ever imagined a person possible of procuring.

You try to suppress the sound that leaves your mouth when your body strikes the floor, sending you sliding along the ground as it cracks beneath the weight of the force you were thrown at. But you can't hold back your whimper as you raise your hand in defense, wings curling around your body as you try to nurse your front where the seraph's whip of light burned into your body.

"Foolish child!" The seraph exclaims, shaking his head in disdain. "You would dare attempt to attack me?!"

Another voice speaks up, and you might consider it an attempt to deescalate the situation if not for the fact that they take the side of your assaulter. "Celestial equalizer or not, this child's ways have been corrupted by demons. Let us leave her to repent, and that will be the end of her right to see us for the day."

With that, you sense the bodies of those around you fading, each seraph disappearing and leaving you alone in the room.

You let out a broken wail once they're all gone, not sure you're releasing your pain over being struck or over learning that Simeon is being punished for your actions or over the fact that the High Seraphs have made it painfully clear that you will not be permitted to see Lucifer ever again.

For once, you really don't know which is worse.

***

"And you'll never let go of my hand, is that clear?"

"For the thousandth time, I get it!" You tugged Lucifer's arm forward, pulling the two of you closer to the edge of the cloud. "Can we start now?"

Lucifer hesitated, glancing away. He didn't want to, you knew, but it was high time you learned how to fly, and he had made it clear that he wouldn't be letting any of his siblings teach you.

"Come on, Luci," You mumbled quietly, his nickname slipping from your lips as you pleaded with him. The angel had practiced posture and form all morning and all afternoon with you, running you through various exercises on land that he insisted were necessary for flight. Of course, you knew it was all just a ploy to delay the inevitable. Mammon had already told you about his first attempt with flight, and how Lucifer had thrown him into the sky and let the boy figure the rest out on his own, merely flying beneath him in case something went wrong.

But Lucifer was far too protective to pull anything remotely similar with you, and his hand never left yours as he tried to protest one more time.

"The sun is setting, MC." He gestured with one arm toward the ball of fire, which had only begun to journey underneath the horizon. "It's best to wait until tomorrow to try this."

"No," You responded, scowling. "We're doing this now."

Without even waiting for his word of agreement, you swallowed the last of your fear and jumped forward, tugging Lucifer with you as you spread your wings.

"Eek!" You screamed when you realized that you were falling, only held up by Lucifer's firm grip. But then you recalled the exercises he had drilled into you and attempted to flap your wings once, then twice, then thrice, and then you were flying!

"Lucifer—Lucifer, look! I'm doing it! I'm flying!" You exclaimed in joy, realizing that you were floating in place, wings bobbing your figure up and down as they flapped. Laughter spilled from your lips as the thrill of flight seeped into your bones, feeling nothing but unbridled joy as you pulled the angel next to you higher and higher.

"Very good, MC," He said, trying to keep his voice even. But you could see the pride in his smile, and his grip on your hand loosened as he began trusting you to use your wings. His hold tightened every time you wobbled or lost balance, and he pulled you closer when the two of you began making simple circles around the cloud of your home island, but soon he was letting you roam freely in front of him, a watchful eye trained on your body as you attempted to replicate all the fancy twists and spins you'd seen from Levi and Asmo.

"How does Belphie go so fast?" You asked, trying to flap your wings with more intensity. But the motion only lifted you higher in the sky, rather than propelling you forward.

"Lean forward," Lucifer instructed, flying in front of you to gently correct your posture. Even he couldn't tear the smile off of his face as he watched you. "And when you move your wings, make one strong push and then fold them inward to minimize air resistance. After that, just move your upper body to guide your path of flight."

Your guardian demonstrated once for you, circling back to where you were, pushing your neck down once before nodding.

With his approval, you followed his instructions, flapping your wings once with all the strength you could muster, and then folding them on your back as you tried to let your body propel forward.

For a few seconds, it worked. You were soaring faster than you'd ever moved, and you could feel your body cutting through the wind. But then, you began to plummet downward, falling headfirst as you desperately tried to unfurl your wings. But the wind was too fast around you, and it kept them furled close to your back as you flailed your arms out, opening your eyes and desperately trying to stop yourself from dropping.

You didn't even have the time to call Lucifer's name before he had managed to catch you, soothing you quietly while smoothing out your hair. "It's okay," He whispered, placing a kiss to your forehead. "You're safe. It's okay."

You managed to stop yourself from trembling in his arms, leaning into his strength and using it to fuel your own.

"I want to try again," You told him, and he didn't even protest as you pulled yourself out of his arms and got into position once more. He flew low beneath your figure, gazing up at you before nodding, and then you were at it again, flapping your wings once and then tucking them into your back, soaring forward at top speed. You managed to stay on your desired trajectory a little longer this time, and you almost thought you had gotten the hang of it when your body began to dip down against your will, leaving you to desperately try to stop yourself.

But this time, Lucifer was already waiting for you, strong arms wrapping around your body to catch you.

"Again?" He asked, a smile on his lips as he watched you continue to attempt the move over and over, proud of your tenacity.

You nodded, holding his hand as the two of you soared back up to try once more.

A smile blooms on your face at the memory.

Even then, you always knew that Lucifer would be there to catch you if you fell. But now that you've been ripped away from the Devildom, will he ever be able to save you again? Doubtless, if he had seen the seraph strike you earlier—regardless of whether you started it with your futile attempt of an attack—he would have been at your side, defending you against anyone who might hurt you.

And while you were prepared to leave the safety of his arms at the end of the school year when the student exchange program finally ended, you never expected it to happen so soon.

Just yesterday, the demon had been by your side, hugging and holding and kissing you. The two of you had expected to have ten more months together, ten more months of happiness before having to separate, but your time has been cut short.

How is that fair?

Please, Father, you plead, staring upward into the emptiness of your ceiling, imagining the face of God peering over you. Please help me. The High Seraphs can never understand. They'll only hurt me again if I continue to ask them, so I need your aid. I know that Lucifer has wronged you in the past, but have mercy.

You offer a light smile, unclasping your hands.

No matter how focused you are during prayer, your thoughts always stray to Lucifer at the end. Though this is the first time you've consciously voiced your desires to Father.

Mercy on us both, you think, closing your eyes before you rise to your feet. Amen.

Glancing at the mirror, you see that the feathers of your wings are still ruffled from when your back collided with the ground, and though your front still stings, there are no marks where the seraph summoned light to strike you down.

But your entire body is sore.

Not even bothering to change out of your clothes, you pull yourself into bed. It's already well into the evening, and you should probably stay awake in case someone delivers dinner, but the crawl back to your room had exhausted you. You just want to fall asleep.

Closing your eyes, you barely have the time to make yourself comfortable in the bed before exhaustion pulls you away to the dreamworld once more. Silently, you hope that Lucifer might visit you in your dreams, that you can bask in memories for some final tranquility.

But the moment you close your eyes, you're taken to a place all too familiar.

This isn't right, you think, recognizing the familiar circular chamber where all the High Seraphs sit.

This doesn't feel like a normal dream.

You frown, realizing that no one in the room seems to react to your presence, not even when you wave your hand in front of one seraph.

You're far too conscious for this to be a dream, impossible aware, to the point where you recall falling asleep just moments ago. So then, what is this? A vision? Of something to come or something still going on?

You walk forward, looking around as you try to make sense of what's going on. It almost feels as if you're awake, but surely that's impossible.

Hear me.

You flinch at the voice, the sound seeming to come not from anyone around you but from the inside of your own mind, the two words echoing in your brain. It's familiar, you realize, though you can't pinpoint where you recognize the voice from. Almost like...

A hush falls over the room, and you realize that the High Seraphs have heard the voice, too.

"Father!" A seraph cries, raising their hands to the sky and bowing low against the ground.

Your eyes widen in disbelief. Surely that cannot be true? But then you hear the voice again, and then there's no denying that this is the unmistakable sound of your Father, and you drop to your knees in a bow, honoring your creator even though you don't understand this vision.

Is it true that the child I have sent to you to answer all your prayers is now being denied happiness in her time of need?

"The child?" A seraph asks. "Do you mean the equalizer, Father?"

Who else?

You can almost hear the huff of irritation in Father's words.

I speak of MC. Her prayers cry for happiness and for mercy. Are you the fools who make my child weep?

Your eyes widen at the Father's words, realizing that he has heard your prayers. Instantly, you understand the nature of this dream, this vision, this truth. It is his gift to you: his silent blessing to allow you to sit in as he speaks to the High Seraphs as he does so often. Only this time, the subject of discussion is your fate.

And it seems that he is on your side.

"N-not at all, Father! She foolishly seeks the love of a demon, and we have been trying to show her the path of light."

"Indeed!" Another seraph cries in response. "Her heart betrays her holy nature! The Morningstar has corrupted her, and we merely wish to purify her soul!"

"The Morningstar may be gone, and her capabilities of absorbing the light may no longer be needed, but we aim to—"

You dare presume she was simply sent to absorb the excess light of my domain?

Everyone in the room flinches at the hostility in Father's voice.

That angel is my child, the daughter I constructed by hand to eternally protect the Celestial Realm. In her body, she harnesses the power of equality—to absorb light or radiate it, whichever is necessary to maintain the balance of the Celestial Realm. I gave this child to you as a blessing. You would dare trample her happiness?

Your eyes widen at your Father's words, and you glance down at your hands.

You've always absorbed the light, never attempted to radiate it. You've always thought that you were different because of your inability to radiate light, but if what Father says is true, then you truly are one of the most powerful of angels.

Suddenly, the title equalizer rings differently in your ears.

"Th-that is too much power for a single child to possess! Her heart is not pure, if she sides with the demons she can eradicate our entire realm and—"

You dare presume one of my holiest creations would misuse a power I have personally invested in her?

There's a pause, filled only with Father's fury. Not even one of the High Seraphs dares to speak.

Come, child! Show the realm what you are capable of!

You flinch, and suddenly everyone in the room has their eyes on you—likely another work by the hand of Father.

Hesitantly, you meet the eyes of the seraph who struck you earlier.

Don't just absorb the light, you tell yourself. Radiate.

It's every angel's most basic instinct: to give off light. Yet you've always walked the line of absorbing it.

But if you try...

You visualize Lucifer, how he's always pulsed so brightly with the light of his heart, carrying in it holiness or darkness and spreading his will.

Be like Lucifer.

While the High Seraphs watch you in shock, you try to harness the power in your heart, to radiate light as Father has so clearly instructed.

Like Lucifer.

A blinding light fills the hall, bursting with your energy. The sheer brightness of it jolts you awake, and then you're acutely aware of the power flowing through your veins. Breathing in and out, you can sense yourself absorbing and radiating light, the room darkening and brightening with your every motion.

Your gaze flits to the door. It's the only thing separating you from storming down the corridor and back into the hall of the High Seraphs.

Father's words replay in your mind.

It's time to show the realm what you are capable of.

***

Lucifer wakes up with a start, flinching as he opens his eyes.

The ink spilled, he realizes, wary eyes glancing over his desk. The demon blinks and pulls off a report that's stuck to his cheek. He must have fallen asleep. Small wonder, given the fact that he's hardly slept since Michael whisked you away, instead opting to bury himself in work.

But for the first time since your departure, Lucifer is wide awake, the demon now scrambling out of his desk to tear his door open.

That dream was vivid. Too vivid. And it's not the first time he's had such an impossibly lucid slumber.

Did Father mean to send him that vision?

Lucifer bites his lip, stumbling through the corridor. He's sweating, and his hair is disheveled, but he bangs on Mammon's door anyway, the noise loud enough to wake all the residents in the hall.

"Did you—did you dream—"

"Yeah," Mammon nods solemnly, not an ounce of sleep in his eyes when he opens the door.

"Go, Lucifer," Belphie calls from behind, standing next to Beel. "Father sent al of us that vision for a reason. Looks like MC is about to show the Celestial Realm the full scope of her power. And you can bet that she's going to want to see you when it's over."

Lucifer turns around, hesitant. "Lord Diavolo—"

"Lord Diavolo will understand," Satan interrupts, crossing his arms as he, too, opens his door to face the firstborn. "And if he doesn't, I'll take over your duties until you return, so stop wasting time and go."

Levi opens his door, nodding in agreement, and even Asmo is startled awake by the vision, making no comment about missing his beauty sleep as he urges Lucifer to go to you.

"I—" Lucifer hesitates, running a hand through his mussed up hair as he looks at his brothers. Each of them stands with their arms crossed, waiting for him to leave. "I want you to know that I—"

"Hurry up and go."

Lucifer can't tell who said it, but the words bring a smile to his face. This isn't the time to thank his brothers. Rather, the best thank-you gift he can get them would be the sight of your smiling face, something he'll only get to see if he manages to reach you in time.

Without another word, he nods his head and flies out the overhead window, left open the night prior when Belphie was stargazing. He begins soaring into the sky, his four black wings pushing him higher and higher as he prepares to exit the domain of the Devildom and approach the heavens.

It's been millennia since he's been so close. Millennia since he's dared to fly so high.

But he won't let any of that stop him, any of that prevent him from going to see you. Because to him, you are his world.

And there are no lengths he won't go to for your sake.

MASTERLIST

Word count: 4.7k

Notes: It's kind of wild to think that at this time next week this series will be complete 0.0 This has been a wild ride and we finally get the beginning of our happily ever after with luci in the next chapter so yayyy

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Next Update: 6/13/20

I do not own the rights to Obey Me! or any of the characters within it.

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lunarthedragon · 5 years ago

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Demon!Jaskier Part 5

Previous Part: here | Ao3: here

+++

He doesn’t remember where he started. Or where he ended.

He stands in the middle of a glorious-unending-miserable-fascinating existence with no brackets on either side.

He thinks his earliest memory is of a cave - or is it his last? - with a child crying and bleeding and dead-but-not, hurt in a way that can only be inflicted by others.

The child cries to the cave and the cave answers. “You poor thing,” it says, pity and sadness rolling out like tumbling stones. “They have hurt you, those monsters. Those humans.”

“They won’t stop,” sobs the child. The child’s eyes are not older than their body like so many poems claim they should be. They are just abused and hurt and begging for answers that can never come.

“They won’t… But I can make you greater.”

His first-last memory, and he does not remember if he was the voice in the cave or the child.

+++

“How often does that happen?” Geralt asks when they set up camp a few miles away from the mountain. He’s been quiet in a way he’s usually not. Considering. Worrying. Restraining.

Jaskier looks at him from across the fire, confused as to what the Witcher means. “Does what happen often?”

“Earlier,” Geralt says, then hesitates. He swallows. His discomfort feels like an itch that can’t be reached, deep under the skin, turning red. “On the mountain.”

“Have I been yelled at by an idiot before? Yes,” he drawls, expression bland, and Geralt flinches and looks away. There is still a tsunami coming, Jaskier refuses to be it, but he is still allowed his retribution.

“After that…” Geralt says lowly, looking at the fire and not Jaskier.

“When I was upset?” He clarifies, finding himself surprised, and furrows his brow. Geralt nods. “You’ve seen me upset before…”

“Not like that.”

Cracking. Ripping. Screaming without noise. Bleeding from a heart that doesn’t want to beat.

“Ah… that…” He looks to the fire too. “Do you feel worried?” It would just be his luck that after so many years, after taking a step towards healing, Geralt would start to look at him like all the others have before.

“Should I be?” Geralt asks, leaning forward just a bit, his eyes narrowing. “Are you hurt?”

“What?” Jaskier looks over at the Witcher, surprised, because what does his wellbeing have to do with this?

Unless that’s exactly what this entire conversation has been about and he was blinded – tying the cloth over his own eyes, ignore, flee, don’t be a fucking hypocrite – and he feels like a complete idiot.

Geralt worries. Worries about Jaskier when he doesn’t have to. Never has to. But he does. Jaskier should be used to it by now but it still sends his insides churning. Burning. Fluttering. Collapsing.

“No, Geralt,” Jaskier says, a smile, sad but honest and loving, growing on his face, “I’m not hurt.”

He pauses, making sure he has Geralt’s eyes, his attention. “Not anymore.”

The stutter that twitches around Geralt’s edges is sudden and shocking, surprising both men, until sunlight curves through the new cracks like rays through a canopy.

Jaskier recognizes it as relief and so, so, so much love it puts his own songs to shame.

+++

Sometimes Jaskier flickers, twitches, and is yanked to a new corner of the universe. He doesn’t know what causes it, if it is himself or something else, but he doesn’t question it anymore.

It is common. Every few centuries classifies as a normal occurrence for him.

He tells Ciri that, once, and she giggles. She doesn’t giggle much after she lost her parents, but Jaskier has helped regrow the response in her lungs. Cultivate her happiness and love and cover her in affections royals are often denied.

Calanthe makes a point of telling him off, in front of other important – posturing, selfish, egotistical, cruel – people, but afterwards the guards mysteriously begin turning a blind eye to the bard that appears in their halls.

“What kind of places are you pulled to?” Ciri asks eagerly, her big eyes twinkling in interest, her dolls momentarily forgotten.

“All kinds,” Jaskier sighs wistfully, putting on a dramatic show of his exploits, “Sometimes forests. Sometimes plains. Sometimes oceans. Always for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“I don’t know until I’m done,” he replies, tapping his chin.

“How do you know you need to do anything, then?” Ciri looks confused and pouty, like she doesn’t really believe Jaskier, but he just smiles back at her.

“Sometimes all we have is a feeling. Deep in our gut. In the back of our skull. Hovering over our shoulder. We can’t see it, we’ve never heard of it, it has never been felt before. We must follow it, though, so that we may one day give it a name. Have you ever had these feelings before?”

“I… think so…” Ciri says hesitantly, her tiny face turning downward, her whole essence, so sharply radiant, dimming to shivers-fear-anxiety-deep breath after deep breath. Too tiny a response to too large a girl. “They get scary…”

“Do you fear your fingers and toes?”

“What?” Ciri looks up, blooms of lilies in her surprised smile. She is the smell of flowers on a breeze and Jaskier hates for it to sour. “Of course not!” she giggles, the breeze making windchimes jingle.

“What about your joy? Your laugh?”

“No!” Ciri keeps giggling, finding entertainment in the bard’s seemingly random, ridiculous questions.

“It’s such a silly thought, isn’t it?” Jaskier smiles to the music of the little girl’s laughter, “To be afraid of a piece of yourself? So, then, why fear the thing you have yet to name?”

Ciri pauses, a twitch of her face, and then she is pouting again. Thoughtful. Like a scholar but not quite.

“Do not fear a piece of yourself, even when it is new. Learn it. Understand it. Give it a name,” his fingers twitch, black under the fingernails, “And move on.”

+++

When Nilfgaard makes a move for Cintra Jaskier feels it. He feels it like a surge, cracking and tumbling levies so carefully constructed by the hearts of man. Boarders, unseen in the earth but respected nonetheless, shatter and crumble to dust, obliterated under the war drums and thunderous rage.

Manifest destiny thrums through the army, tasting of bitter weeds the doctor claims are herbs. A placebo for their righteous arrogance.

Jaskier’s seen it so many times before and his hackles rise, teeth bared on armor-clad throats, his fury personal and unbiased all in one.

The army is like the nail in the coffin that splits the wood. The final judgement for something that already came and went. Opening the box for Schrödinger’s cat but the box is already empty.

They are like a tsunami, Cintra’s army going out to meet them like the receding tide.

He screams, blood in his teeth, frost in his claws, and he is gone.

+++

“What are you doing in here?” Jaskier asks when he stands in front of the bars of a cell. The thrum above him is familiar – thin spaces for him to hide in, squeeze through, smelling familiar and alien with grief – and he doesn’t know how long he’s been gone.

“You’ve been gone a while,” Geralt says, eyes shut in meditation despite his mind snapping straight, like a soldier, the moment Jaskier reappeared.

And… apparently, he’d been gone for “a while.” Lovely, Geralt, thank you very much.

“I felt the Cintran army move where they shouldn’t,” he replies honestly, glancing around. No guard has noticed him yet.

“Fuck,” Geralt curses, opening his eyes and standing. He is agitated but not surprised. Disappointed. It hangs in the air like moss cracking the foundation of his bones. It always makes the base of his ribcage hurt, the muscles tight.

“They will die. I can feel it,” he continues. The void that feels like him is large as a chasm, opened under the feet of the soldiers, but they are too distracted by purpose to notice. A tear rolls down his cheek, staining his skin like soot, as the vibrant twin stars of Calanthe and Eist are engulfed.

“I have to find the princess,” Geralt says urgently, stepping towards the bars of his cage. Wrong. Wrong. A wolf does not belong in a cage. In a prison. It makes Jaskier’s chest hurt for a different reason. “Can you get me out of—” Geralt reaches to grasp the bars, likely to lean towards Jaskier, but his hand finds nothing and he stumbles forward into his freedom.

Jaskier raises his hands, grasping Geralt’s arms to steady him even though it isn’t needed.

Geralt blinks back at the cell, freed of the metal confinements, then looks back to Jaskier. “Do you just pick and choose when you help me?” he asks blandly.

“Depends,” Jaskier replies, voice thinned by the grind of his misery, the urge to rip out the pain in his gut a tempting pull, but he swallows down stones to keep moving. He is distant, but he is here.

“Ciri is in her room,” he says, “Hold your breath.”

They are there, and then they are not, and then they are there again but somewhere else. Geralt stumbles, hands flying up to grasp his own head, pain like a ringing bell trilling out his ears. Jaskier lays a hand on his shoulder, ignoring the startled cries around them.

“Sorry. It was quickest,” he apologizes to the Witcher.

“That’s what that feels like?” Geralt groans in disbelief, the tumbling of an avalanche in his stomach that wants to come up, up, up.

Geralt gags once, then swallows, and forces himself to stand straight and not glare at Jaskier too hard.

“Jaskier!” comes a gleeful voice and the bard swings around, arms already out, to catch the laughing princess as she runs at him.

“My favorite princess!” Jaskier replies just as gleefully and for a moment he fills into his own cracks, fitting back together again, but only for a moment.

“Geralt…” Mousesack says thinly, standing just behind the princess and eying the Witcher nervously. “You’re here.”

“Hmm,” Geralt hums, not sounding pleased at all, and giving the druid a glare that screams, ‘no thanks to you.’ Jaskier should know. He speaks Geralt’s facial language.

“You’re not stopping us,” Jaskier says firmly, stepping away from the princess just enough to look at Mousesack.

“She needs to be protected,” Geralt says, his voice holding more natural authority than Jaskier’s, which is helpful. “I can protect her. I should have done so much earlier.”

“What’s going on?” Ciri questions, looking around the room for answers before settling on Mousesack, her eyes confused and desperate. There is a tang to the air, sharp and bitter, left in the wake of the army’s departure, and it sits especially heavy on Ciri’s back.

A presence without a name.

“Princess Cirilla,” Mousesack begins slowly, anxious, and Jaskier tilts his head, his eyes turning black and veins bleeding under his neck and fingers.

“Tell her,” he bares his teeth – too many teeth, too sharp – and Mousesack and the nearby guard stutter, falter, retreat without moving. “You all should have told her so much sooner.”

“You had just as much an opportunity to say something,” the guard, only mildly familiar, like a face in a dream, says vindictively.

“That was not my duty.”

A heavy hand lays on his shoulder and he takes a breath, loud and long, until the room tilts and he stops. He raises his own hand to pat Geralt’s, like the eye of a storm, calm amidst the turmoil.

“Too many fingers,” Geralt says lowly, before releasing him and stepping forward. Jaskier looks down at his hands, counts eighteen, then shakes them out. When he counts ten, he thinks he’s got it right.

The conversation has been continuing on around him and he looks up, pulls the words that have already been thrown into the silence into him so he might understand what he missed, and steps forward. Ciri looks shocked and lost, but there is so much worse under her skin. Hidden under a poorly placed rug.

“We have three days,” he says abruptly, feeling how the void closes in and changes course. A crack is forming under the city and he knows it will be next.

“Take a day to do what needs to be done,” Geralt says, looking to Mousesack, no longer asking. “After that we can at least be two days ahead of Nilfgaard.”

Mousesack looks to Ciri, clearly torn, pulled between his duty and his knowledge-belief-morality. Ciri looks back, pulled between her duty and her anger-confusion-anguish.

Jaskier looks between them and knows how this must end, and they all know too. Cintra is already lost. The only thing they can do now is minimize their losses.

“You know what needs to be done,” Geralt says lowly, mostly to the druid, while Jaskier’s eyes flicker to Ciri, her body stiff as her insides shatter.

“In the meantime,” the bard says, stepping up and hooking his arm with Geralt’s, his eyes back to blue and a gentle smile on his face, “We will wait in the guestroom down the hall. Sort through this as needed. You have some time.”

He pulls Geralt out of the room grudgingly, swift steps against sluggish minds. The beginning to the end to the beginning.

+++

“H̵e̵l̶l̷o̷,̶ ̴D̵u̶n̷y̵,” he greets on an echo, standing in an office while armies clash vassals and provinces away.

The man, well-groomed and well-dressed, behind the desk looks up. He is familiar but not. Not quite right. Not quite wrong. He doesn’t flinch at Jaskier’s sudden appearance, as if he’s had a few years to get used to it.

”Did you know everyone thinks you’re dead? Buried under the waves with Pavetta?” the bard continues, a bit more solid, a bit more himself. He stands in the corner of the room, dark and larger than the space he occupies. There is no gleam of eyes or shimmer or pale skin. He is darkness, absence, void.

He is furious.

“I am ‘Duny’ no longer,” says the man, voice aristocratic and booming. Like a toddler in a cathedral. “I am Emhyr var Emreis. White Fla—”

”White Flame of Nilfgaard. Yes, yes, I know. Spare me.”

Duny, because Jaskier refuses to call him anything more, straightens up, eyes thinned. “Careful, demon. Cintra may have disregarded me, but here I am seen as a proper king.”

“I preferred you as a hedgehog,” Jaskier twists, like a tilted head without the head. The shadows in the room grow longer, reaching for the torches and pinching them out like candles. “Or dead, for that matter.”

“I know your weaknesses, demon,” Duny continues, confidence where intellect should be. “I know what will draw you short. Years in that castle and you did not expect me to take something from your visits and stories?”

Another torch is pinched out and Jaskier spreads, poison in the veins, madness in a crowd.

“I could snuff you out with a snap of my fingers,” Duny continues and from the depths of the shadows teeth are bared, thinned into a smile. And then another. And another.

“I could snuff you out with less than that,” he says just beside Duny’s ear and finally the monarch jerks, startled, and stands. He glares back at the shadows, uncertain which are real and which are scripted.

He bares his teeth, blunt and rounded, and hot coals fueling his justice shake, uncertain. “Nilfgaard brings prosperity to these people.”

“Nilfgaard brings death,” Jaskier huffs, unimpressed, voice resounding through the room, everywhere-but-nowhere, wrong-but-right. A hand slowly creeps onto the top of the desk, black as night, staining the wood like ink. Then another. And another.

A hand wraps around Duny’s ankle and he seizes back, eyes wide, and the shadows surge forward. A massive, crumbling, broken face presses towards the monarch, only vaguely reminiscent of a human. A mirror. Cracked and honest.

“I allow you to live today only for what you once were,” he says, massive jaw moving, unhinged and broken, dripping onto the floor. ”But if we meet again, if you do not make a change, I will not hesitate in plucking every bone from your body like feathers from a chicken. Your arteries will be my strings and you can finally, properly, play the part of puppet to your predecessors.”

Duny stares back at him, blood run thinner and thinner, skin beginning to sag, cartilage turning brittle. Decaying where he stands.

The massive face tilts, morphing like a smile, and the laugh that bursts out shivers the walls like cold on skin. Dewdrops form like goosebumps. “Ah, did you hear that alliteration at the end there? I didn’t even do that on purpose! How lovely,” and then he’s releasing the man, retreating and compressing back into the corner, a thing so unknown his shape has no name.

“There must be rules,” Duny suddenly says, moving forward, leaning against his desk until his weight creaks the bones. Something shifts the way it shouldn’t and he straightens up, clutching his hand as pain, pain, pain thrums out of his throat.

”Oopsie,” Jaskier sing-songs, smirking with no mouth but too many as well. “Feeling fragile there?”

“There must be rules,” Duny repeats, clutching his hand, then falling back into his seat when his legs threaten to crack and bend. “Something as ancient as you… There must be rules against interfering with our politics. Our history.”

Finally, the dictator was understanding just how much of a threat he was under. How little chance his armies stood if the entity before him, around him, within him, actually decided they should be eradicated.

Jaskier takes a step forward, pushing out of black, inky shadows like mud, his eyes pitch black.

”Oh, my dear rodent,” he says, lips unmoving, purring like bug wings. ”It is because I’m so ancient that I don’t waste my time with rules in the first place.”

+++

When Queen Calanthe returns to Cintra it is to empty streets and houses. Barren walkways and stores. Buildings frozen in their last moments of life.

The city is a whisper in a vacant corridor.

Soldiers bring the injured queen up to her chambers, castle a skeleton of its former glory, where Jaskier stands alone.

“Your people have been evacuated,” he tells the queen as she is laid out. He looks up at the soldiers. “You should leave, too.”

“We will not abandon Cintra,” says a man in a captain’s uniform.

“Then you die for nothing.”

“Cintra will fall…” Calanthe heaves and Jaskier sets a hand on her stomach. A wound opens on his own center, bleeding black and red, pain taken from the powerful woman momentarily. He cannot heal this wound. It is already filled with void and death and endings. He cannot remove himself.

“Cintra will fall,” he agrees.

“But the people live on,” the Queen ripples, a stone into a pond, and her pain turns to relief. She orders the last of her soldiers to go after their people and live to fight another day.

“Mousesack leads them,” Jaskier explains, almost conversationally, dripping with Calanthe’s pain alongside her.

“And Cirilla?”

“Geralt has her. I will join them after. We will not allow her to fall.”

“Keep her safe,” Calanthe orders, weak and strong all at once, and dewdrops form in the corners of her vision. Jaskier reaches over to wipe them away. A strong woman allowed her weakness. “Keep her laughing.”

“We can do that.”

Silence. A thunderous wave in the distance. Closing in.

“I will fall with my city,” Calanthe says when the drums can be heard. Jaskier releases a breath and it comes out shaking. The Queen reaches up a hand to wipe dewdrops from his eyes in return.

“Yes,” he says, looking to the window, pinpricks of torches amidst the swarm on the horizon. “But so will they.”

A wicked, vicious, vengeful smile pulls at Calanthe’s lips and her hand flops back down.

“Good.”

+++

When the army fills the empty streets of Cintra, blades aloft but bloodless, the final, manic laughter of Queen Calanthe fills the air. A surge for the castle marks their end.

Hands, black as shadows, large as mountains, stretch across the sky. Earth shatters like glass, buildings tumble like dominos, and the city falls, crumbles, cries.

The hands press down against screams, loud like an explosion, roaring like a fire, and crush.

The tsunami comes and goes and all that is left of Cintra is a fissure, a crater.

A void.

+++

He stands on the edge of the destruction, death licking at his feet and charring the grass brown.

There is nothing left. No army. No city. No castle. No queen.

The pain that blossoms has him reaching for his chest but he stops short. He wants to crush his heart, demand it stop this torture, but he can’t. Not when he holds a soul in his ribcage, dragged inside before she perished, before she was pulled somewhere not even he could reach.

A chance at another life. A promise at another attempt. Another cycle.

“I will only do this for you once, your majesty,” he says lowly, weak in every piece of himself. The essence flutters, strong as an ox and stubborn as a weed. If he isn’t careful she may even take root in his ribs.

He reaches out, searching for an empty vessel just as he does for himself, and releases her upon latching onto a stillborn little girl in the far, far eastern lands across the sea.

A new beginning. A new chance. Separate from this anguish and—

He cries out when something comes slicing through his hand.

He falls, black ripples pulsing out of him so violently his body tears and falls apart. Clutching his hand, an agony so racking it sends his screams into a new octave, the trees dying, pillars of magma erupting around him.

The earth bleeds with him, screaming and crying, clouds spiraling like vultures.

A glowing, white arrow pierces all the way through his right hand, burning out, out, out, the light as sharp as its tip.

A holy arrow.

No…

He scrambles, trying to rebuild his hands, collapsing and crashing, rippling and spiking with every pulse of torture like a heartbeat.

He cannot pull out the arrow, he simply falls apart around it. He sobs, the pain still tearing through him, and he can’t remember what eyes are, what hands are, what bodies are.

“Hello, J̷̖̯͎͍̗̐̉̑̈́á̸̛̮̠̫͇͒̑̕͘͜ș̵̨͈̲͖͔͖̄͑̆̿̒̀̀̍͐͝k̵̡͈̩̮͚̆ȉ̷̡̧̫̘̼͓̱̥͠e̷͔̖̍̾̊͌̈́̕̕͠r̸̛̞̙̀̅̾̔̌͛̒,” says the entity behind him and he looks, twists, forces himself into a reality he does not belong.

A single figure stands in the center of the crater that was once Cintra, yet his voice sounds as if he is right beside Jaskier. Or Jaskier is right beside him. He wears armor, black, with a helmet like a bird. In his hand is a bow and on his back a quiver, filled with arrows that glow as if forged by dying stars.

A snarl ripples over the decimated landscape, deep as the churn of the abyss. Jaskier rises, pain making him spark and jolt but fury making him burn.

He pulls at the other, tears and rips until he finds the name for the body it now possesses. Severs it from the silence.

“C̷̘̦͇̣̟͚̦͗͐̊͊̚͘a̶̖̖̰͙̭͎̝̾ͅḧ̷̫̹͈́i̵̡͖̗̦͈͖͛ͅr̵̹͇͆̔̓̈͊͑̊̔̌̚,” he booms. His brethren. His enemy. Himself.

Death – Death come to collect – Death weeping – Death free of its bonds – Death hungry, hungry, hungry – Death – Rebirth – Death –

Black eyes stare back at him.

“How dare you wield that weapon against me,” Jaskier rattles, gnashing teeth. He remembers teeth. He needs more teeth. He makes more teeth until they dig into the earth, sparking new spurts of molten stone.

”Times are changing,” replies Cahir, a cold whisper, frost inching across the ground towards the rushes of magma that still crack and bleed around Jaskier. ”There are no new challenges in these worlds and I am bored.”

”Bored of constant change? Of life?” Jaskier argues back, stepping forward, leaving a print on the ground that glows hot. It isn’t human. He doesn’t know what it is.

”It is time for an end. For all of us,” Cahir sighs, wistfully, and raises his bow. He takes an arrow, the smell of burning flesh and sulfur sparking through the air where he grasps the holy weapon, and notches it.

Black eyes take aim and Jaskier surges back, searching, latching, and pulling.

The arrow is released but he is gone before it can make another landing.

+++

When he tumbles into the gathering hall at Aretuza he gags and vomits out black. His hand, and it is a hand again, glows like fire from the hole that goes straight through it, stinking of sulfur and blood and the vacuum of space.

There are cries around him and he pulses, trying to retake his shape, rebuild himself, and he thinks he might be close but not entirely right. Cracks cross over his face, chest, limbs, glowing like the wound in his hand, like the earth beneath him.

“Jaskier!” comes a familiar voice by his ear and he clings onto Yennefer when she crouches beside him. He must be a sight if even she sounds so frightened. That’s usually Geralt’s job.

”I’m sorry,” he sobs, the black tears falling from his eyes burn against his skin, like ice shards. ”Couldn’t let Geralt or Ciri see me like this… Please… help…”

“What is going on?” comes another female voice, powerful as Yennefer’s but not her. Jaskier is too exhausted to pull out her name.

“Your hand?” Yennefer asks him, then lower so only he can hear, “A holy weapon?” He nods, at least he thinks he does. His awareness slips away like water, oil staining his insides, unable to be rid of.

“I need to help him. Move!” the sorceress orders, the strength in her voice, power in her presence, returning like a crack of thunder.

“Hold on just a moment,” comes a male voice and, unfortunately, Jaskier does know who that is, memory of the man bleeding on Geralt’s mind, loud and miserable.

”Fuck you, Stregobor,” he hisses, high as a kettle, vicious as a beast, before his consciousness comes to an abrupt stop.

+++

Let me know what y’all thought! Hope you enjoyed!

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #jaskier #geralt #geraskier #geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #yennefer #demon jaskier #creature jaskier #nonhuman jaskier #fanfic

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keeroo92 · 5 years ago

Note

I read your post about the dmc boys helping a s/o with body image issues and I loved it 😭 can I ask for more comfort?? How would the guys help a partner who has PTSD from an assault that happened years ago? If you're uncomfortable writing that's totally fine! 💞

Soooo this got slightly out of control. I originally planned on making this a headcanon thing, but... well...

The first section is an intro to the Reader’s viewpoint, read that first and then pick your favorite guy. (Sidenote - Apologies in advance for Vergil going OOC)

Hope you enjoy!

____________

The past weighed heavy on your soul. Over the years, you learned how to ignore it and keep moving forward, but some scars never fully heal. It wasn’t a memory you spent much time dwelling on if you could help it.

You told yourself it didn’t matter, that you were over it. That person couldn’t hurt you ever again, you wouldn’t let them. You were stronger than what they did to you and never again would you surrender to them, even mentally.

Yet when your beloved partner accidentally reminded you of it, the walls shattered. The ache in your chest felt as if it was only yesterday, the tears as powerful as ever. Even after all those years.

---V---

He froze as your breathing hitched, but not in pleasure. Something was wrong, had he hurt you?

“What’s wrong, love?”

Tattooed hands left the bare flesh of your stomach to stroke your cheek. He longed to ease the pained expression on your familiar face, but you flinched back from his touch. Confusion and concern warred in his mind as he shifted away, granting you the space you so clearly needed.

The glow of the television danced across your body as the film played on, heedless and uncaring. A soft rustle accompanied your every move upon the upholstery. Only seconds before, sighs and moans filled the now silent air.

Something was terribly wrong.

“Please talk to me. Did I hurt you?” the poet begged.

You shook your head, arms and legs pulled tight to your core. “I- it’s not you.”

His heart twisted at the broken tone of your sweet voice. Restrained sniffles and shaking shoulders only heightened the sensation. He knew you far too well for you to hide your pain.

Slick fluid still coated his rapidly wilting length, the flush on his skin only barely faded. Echoes of his arousal lingered in his belly, but easing the ache was his last priority. All he cared about was restoring your smile.

“What can I do?”

At first, he thought you weren’t going to answer. By the time you finished telling the story, he wished he’d been correct.

Why did such terrible people exist? What evil needed to manifest for a person to steal your very ability to choose? How dare they, what gave them the right? He would tear them to pieces, drive stakes into their body until they begged for mercy just as you did. They’d receive the same level of compassion as they’d given you.

But not tonight.

Tonight, you needed him. His wrath could wait.

“I cannot imagine the strength required to survive that. I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “Thank you for trusting me with the truth.”

Hesitant hands reached out to you, slow enough you could easily deny his attempts to pull you into an embrace. Despite the fear and pain lingering in your eyes, you allowed it, huddling against his chest as if he could hide you from any strife.

He’d do his best.

“I’m sorry I’m like this, I thought I was past it,” you whispered. “I won’t hold it against you if you want to leave.”

You trembled in his grasp, curling inwards as another round of tears slipped free to drip from your chin. His grip only tightened, crushing you against him as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“Never apologize for being in pain. Not to me.”

He paused and rubbed soothing circles across your spine, listening to your unsteady breathing. When you stopped shaking at last, he pulled back to look deep into your eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere. Now that I’ve found you, I refuse to let you go. Understood?”

You sniffled again and nodded, the first hint of a smile gracing your lips.

Nero

In the back of his mind, he always knew. The way your eyes always searched for an exit in public spaces, how you never slept as well alone, the way you saw yourself… It all hinted at the truth, but he never pressed for the whole story. You’d tell him when you were ready. In the meantime, he did his best to support you.

As you finally broke down and spoke about it, an odd sense of joy rushed through him. It was nice to know you trusted him so much.

But the feeling didn’t last. How could he ever be happy about any aspect of it?

It didn’t matter that you barely cried. It didn’t matter that your voice was steady and constant. It didn’t matter that you didn’t push him away or let go of his hand as you spoke. No, all that mattered was how none of it should’ve ever happened.

“This is so messed up…”

He didn’t know what else to say. Words didn’t seem like enough.

“I’m working through it, bit by bit,” you said. Judging by your defensive posture, it wasn’t helping.

Nero sighed and scratched the back of his neck. He knew plenty of people who dealt with similar crap. Growing up in the orphanage exposed him to the concept before he even hit puberty. It never made sense to him, wasn’t it more enjoyable when everyone wanted it? What kind of monster preferred forcing themselves on another person?

Regardless. It wasn’t the kind of thing anyone should face alone and despite his knowledge, he knew he could only do so much. He stared at the floor as blood rushed to his face. It felt strange to ask such a personal question, but considering the circumstances…

“Have you… y’know, been talking to someone?”

Your hands fidgeted the way they always did when you got nervous, picking at the seam of the bedspread. Was that because of the trauma?

“No, not for a few years,” you mumbled.

He took your hands and brought them to his lips, pressing soft kisses across the knuckles. It was important not to make you feel worse, no matter how much he wanted to scold you for not taking proper care of the issue. Support, not judgement. Understanding, not condemnation.

“I can help you find someone, when you’re ready. Anything you need, okay?”

He wrapped an arm over your shoulders and kissed the top of your head, his heart heavy and stomach twisted. What else could he do? Was anything enough?

Probably not.

But that never stopped him before.

Dante

The devilish smirk fell from his lips the moment you started crying. He’d never seen you cry before, not once. It shocked him, if he was being totally honest.

“Babe? What’s up?”

It was clear on your face how desperately you fought whatever was troubling you. What could possibly be wrong, and why didn’t you say something? You told him everything, even the stuff he didn’t want to know.

The clatter of the cue ball breaking the rack at the next table made you jump. Raucous laughter followed soon after and the red-clad man set aside his stick. Fear and shame stained your eyes; whatever was going on, this wasn’t the place.

He took your hand and pulled you outside into the chilly evening air. Overhead, the stars shone in a pitch-black sky, no moon to be seen. Wisps of cigarette smoke drifted over from where some idiot puffed away.

“Hey, get lost,” Dante commanded.

The fool almost protested, a sneer already teasing at his mouth but Dante had no patience. He focused on his blood and allowed his eyes to shift, growling at the man until he dashed away with a terrified look. That shit never got old.

“Right. Wanna tell me what’s going on, now?”

He never would’ve imagined the tale you told him, pausing here and there to sniffle or take his hand. Pressure built in his sternum with every word, glass choking him as his hands tingled. What he wouldn’t give to take away your pain and make it like nothing ever happened.

But all he came up with was a stupid joke. “Want me to go kick their ass for ya?”

You sighed and wiped your eyes, staring at anything except his face. “No, it was my fault anyway. I should’ve been more careful or worn something else. It was my mistake.”

Oh, hell no. He was not letting you get away with that bullshit. Not in a million years. Calloused hands took careful hold of your chin and gently turned it to face his stern glare.

“That’s stupid and you know it. The only person responsible is them. They chose to… do that to you. They chose to be an ass. It’s not your fault. Don’t you ever say or even think stuff like that ever again, you hear me?”

“But-“

“No.”

A petulant frown split your tear-streaked face. “But-“

“Stop it,” he insisted.

“Dante, come on-“

“I said no, damnit!”

A hint of amusement filtered through the sorrow in your eyes. It was a start. Enough for him to drop his hand and pull you into a hug, encasing you in his body in a silent promise. He didn’t know what you needed to do to heal, but he’d be there every step of the way.

Vergil

It explained so much. Why you didn’t like swimming or wearing a bathing suit. Why you hated going downtown. Why you were so hesitant with your affections. How had he not figured it out before? You shouldn’t have to relive it just so he understood.

As if he ever could.

Still, he’d been violated before. Scars still marked his otherwise pristine skin, not to mention those on his soul. He knew what it was to survive against all odds, and the knowledge that you did too deepened his respect for you threefold.

“I never knew,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

You sat on the antique couch, hands in your lap and eyes locked on the oak parquet. Throughout your tale, he’d been pacing. The living room was the perfect size for it, even with the elaborate fireplace. The motion helped to ease the pressure to do something, anything to fix this. A way to channel his energy without causing damage.

Much as he wished to sink his blade deep into the gut of the villain in your story. Not too deep; only a slow and painful death would suffice. No mercy for such a crime.

“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t want you to know how weak I am.”

His repetitive footsteps froze. You thought yourself weak, and that he would as well. Guilt and shame mixed in his mind; how could he have allowed you to not understand? A muscle in his cheek spasmed and he whirled to kneel at your feet, an earnest look etched across his regal features as he grasped your hands in his own.

“Weakness lies not in the inability to avoid pain, but the inability to withstand it. You are not weak, quite the opposite. That you haven’t given up is a testament to your strength.”

A shaky breath slipped from your lips. What else could he do or say to help? How could he make you understand that in his eyes, you had the strength of a typhoon?

“You’re wrong, I’m a coward. I’m not strong, just too broken for them to bother killing.”

First you called yourself weak, and now broken? You couldn’t possibly think so little of yourself. Unacceptable, he wouldn’t allow it. Not anymore, at least.

He knew of only one way to piece together a wounded soul. Hopefully, it would prove sufficient for your needs. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t be with you at all times.

The pommel at his waist warmed to his touch. His oldest ally and most reliable companion, the Yamato never failed him. A pang of loss ached in his heart as he untied the strings, as if he were surrendering a portion of his own soul by holding it out to your curious eyes.

He never allowed you to touch it before.

“Take it.”

Your mouth dropped open, shock tinting your gaze. “W- what?”

He huffed and forced his arms not to retreat. “I will train you, until not a soul alive can call you anything but strong. Even yourself.”

Your trembling hands wrapped around the sheathe after a long pause. Releasing his grip sent shockwaves through his body, but somehow he managed. It was worth it if it helped you.

“I- I couldn’t! It’s yours!”

A soft smile twisted his lips as the last echoes of pain faded into static. Truthfully, the arrangement was perfect. Yamato was a part of him; nothing in the world would work harder to keep you safe. If ever you found yourself in a dire situation again, escape would be child’s play.

And in a sense, as long as you carried his blade, he was at your side.

“And now it’s yours.”

He paused, another wave of agony rushing through him as you slid the blade free. “At least until I find a suitable weapon for you.”

#fanfic #ask response #dmc dante #dmc nero #dmc v #dmc vergil #my writing #tw: assault #reader insert #devil may cry

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miss-m-calling · 5 years ago

Text

Fandom 5k letter

Requests:

Adult Wednesday Addams (webseries) -- Wednesday Addams

American Gods (TV) -- Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

Kingdom (Netflix) -- Prince Lee Chang/Seo-bi, Prince Lee Chang & Seo-bi

Starred Up (2013 movie) -- Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

Without further ado…

Adult Wednesday Addams

Wednesday Addams

I belatedly discovered this webseries, and it resurrected (see what I did there?) my love for Wednesday and how the Addams Family canon runs on the endless possibilities of this loving, happily eccentric family being 100% true to themselves and the world just having to deal with it. The show was everything I never knew I wanted till I watched it, the perfect blend of Addams-macabre and cozy slice of life with bonus Wednesday navigating the world alone, without always knowing her family will back her up, and it made me crave more of adult Wednesday’s mini adventures in LA. For this canon, I’m good with gen or, if you want to write that, more of Wednesday’s adventures in dating guys who really aren’t up to the challenge, and you can absolutely have Wednesday interact with OCs I haven’t listed as part of a pairing. I’m keeping the prompts pretty short, just to (hopefully) pique your creativity, as I expect I will love any way you make these or any similar scenarios play out:

-Wednesday goes to IKEA

-More of Wednesday’s interactions with the nice interns at her receptionist job. Maybe they invite her out to happy hour, or to the beach or a club. Or maybe we get to eavesdrop while they shoot the breeze on their lunch break, possibly over barbecue-chicken pizza from CPK.

-More of Wednesday’s gigs. She already babysits and walks other people’s dogs, what else might she do for extra cash that would be both really common and seemingly ill-suited to Wednesday, except she totally makes it work for her? Cat sitting (especially if the cat belongs to someone incredibly rich whose house is full of secrets – and expensive things for the cat to knock over), driving an Uber/Lyft, becoming an AirBnB host, catering/server, working the late shift in a New Age/occult supply store where none of the woo is real…?

-Or, alternately, Wednesday finds a career that is perfect for her, in which she can have success and respect. What ever could that be and still fit into the non-Addams world?

-Wednesday tries speed dating

-Or, she runs into Brian a.k.a. chains guy (I cackle with glee every time I rewatch the bit when he tries to kiss her at the pet store) a third time – how does it not go quite as he wanted or expected this time?

-Wednesday’s family comes out to sunny, plastic, image-conscious LA to visit her and make sure she’s doing alright. She gives them a tour of the city, and LA will never be the same again.

-Wednesday takes an evening class, or goes back to school part time, or enrolls in an online degree program

-Wednesday takes a road trip, alone or with her apartment mates/colleagues/Brian/strangers she met for carpooling purposes. Bonus points if you work in real roadside attractions, or tourist traps, or famous sites/landscapes.

-It’s Dia de Muertos, and Wednesday goes out to celebrate and soak up the atmosphere. It may or may not live up to her expectations.

Canon-specific DNW: smut (keep it no higher than an M rating, please!)

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other (S1 was more one-sided SweeneyàLaura) but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them.

My prompts are a combo of prompts I had after I binged S1 and others I added throughout S2. Even if some of this is addressed or hinted at in canon, feel free to diverge – canon divergences and canon-adjacent stories are my jam!

Please give me either missing scenes from the road trip (if you can work in a divergence, that’s great - for example, I like Salim, but if you want to have him boot Sweeney and Laura to the curb and go off on his own, or Sweeney to boost his taxi before Salim catches them, or whatever else to have those two alone, go for it!), or a divergence from either season (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected. Or things go down differently in New Orleans, or Cairo, or anywhere else) or something about these two post-canon.

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved. (If nothing else, Mama-Ji mentions that the coin is now in Laura’s heart, and we saw Sweeney place it on her ribcage after the accident, whereas it was originally in her gut like she’d swallowed it. Laura might ask herself how the hell it moved.)

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice. One possibility, though not remotely the only one, but as of S2E3 Laura is technically a god-killer...) Or later when she straight-up says she’s going to kill Wednesday, but is warned to bring power with her when she does, how does that work? How else might she damage Wednesday or ruin his plans, just in case she can’t actually kill him?

-At the end of S2, Laura hoists Sweeney’s dead body over her shoulders and strides off, seemingly leaving Cairo, Shadow, and all of it behind. Tell me what happens then – does she use Baron Samedi’s potion to bring him back, and whose is the blood filled with love she uses (does she still bleed? You could get creative here, worldbuilding is also my jam)? Does her/his coin play a part – and how come the coin still “powers” Laura despite Sweeney’s death? Does she bring him back another way, maybe figuring out how to keep herself around and be able to give Sweeney back his coin? Does he come back like she did, more undead than alive, or does his godhead, however depleted, help with that? That still leaves Laura to be fully resurrected too… Or does something completely out of left field happen – surprise me!

-Possible divergences from “Treasure of the Sun”: Sweeney manages to kill Wednesday, and then Laura rolls up, and then…? Or Laura rolls up and makes like Mama-Ji told her – destroys some motherfuckers? Or Sweeney gets killed temporarily but Laura brings him back, or brings herself back, or does something else with the Baron’s potion, and is Sweeney’s blood the one filled with love, or can we interpret voodoo spells in a non-literal way? Or what happens with Gungnir hidden in Sweeney’s hoard? And definitely how do they deal with each other once they meet up in Cairo, given how they parted in New Orleans (I don’t know what hurt more to watch: Laura deflecting at the diner, or Sweeney rambling drunkenly about her when Shadow finds him, or later on telling Shadow with such desperate sincerity to keep her away from Wednesday)?

-Or how about a wild divergence from the last several episodes? Sweeney and Laura manage to settle their differences (ahem, more fucking, on this plane of reality, might help) and don’t part ways before leaving NOLA. Or they roll up in Cairo separately but at the same time, and confront Wednesday together, and neither of them die (or die more, in her case). Or they’re there together when the police nearly raid the house. Or they have Wednesday (the ultimate cause of Laura’s death) and Ibis (a death deity) and Bilquis (a love/death/life deity) on hand, surely they can concoct some kind of resurrection thingamajig for Laura, and if they have to twist some divine arms then so be it. Or or or…?

-Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, what if Sweeney decided much sooner to say to hell with Grimnir and his war and his having Sweeney kill random people? I’m guessing Sweeney too drank three glasses of mead so he can’t back out without dire consequence – but he does have a fierce, dead woman in his corner.

-They go to some as-yet-unnamed old god (feel free to bring in whatever mythology you want) in order to bring Laura back to life. Between Sweeney’s mouth and temper, and Laura’s mouth and temper, it doesn’t go well. Now one or both of them are in big magical trouble with a pissed-off deity and have to get themselves/each other out of it.

-Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-Sweeney and Laura fighting together, like they did on Mr. Town’s train of torture. Whether it’s a bar fight of their own making, or the big gods’ war they find themselves embroiled in, or something else entirely.

-Things happen and Laura finds herself in the position to throw Sweeney under the bus but also help/save him, and while he knows it’s only karma (he did kill her way back when), he can still be pissed off about it – how do they navigate this?

-Related to that, the Baron said: “In death is her true love, but she betrays him also.” If that meant Sweeney, or can mean Sweeney in the future (I don’t like destiny-wills-it stories, and they’re definitely not there yet, but they could maybe get there at some future point, and even then It Would Be Complicated), was the betrayal Laura rejecting him after the loa ‘fuck them,’ or is it something that hasn’t happened yet, and if so, what?

-Laura gets fully alive again, but traces of her (un)dead state remain – what are they, how does she cope, what price did she/he/they have to pay for her resurrection, and how does their relationship change? I’d especially be curious how it would work if they’re already a sorta-maybe-item and then she’s alive again and it’s weird in a new way.

-For reasons I’ll leave up to you, Sweeney and Laura have to stay put in a single place for a while and end up essentially cohabiting, regardless of what their relationship is at that point. Take “cohabiting” as literally or as creatively as you want – in any case, I’m sure it will be marvelously disastrous and amazing. If the place they have to stay happens to be NOLA, all the better, I find everything about that city fascinating. Or, if you wanted to use book canon, Laura and Sweeney (rather than Shadow) are the ones who have to spend time living in Lakeside and deal with its creepy Norman Rockwell-ness and with Hinzelmann.

-Slight or major AU from the opening of “The Ways of the Dead”: Laura has hitchhiked with Sweeney instead of going off in a huff with Wednesday, or she otherwise gets to New Orleans sooner, and she and Sweeney tear up the town together. Gimme bar fights, carnival shenanigans, all the food and drink porn, backstage craziness with the Christian rock band (Sweeney seems to have a backstage pass on a lanyard around his neck when Laura finds him)… Maybe they even cross the paths of some loa and it doesn’t get all angsty (for what it’s worth, I think the reason the sex magic didn’t bring Laura back to life was because she couldn’t accept the truth(s) revealed during the astral-plane sex and just ask Sweeney to prick his finger for the potion – instead she defaults straight to “this is all Wednesday’s evil plan” the morning after – not because the loa fucked them over). They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes in NOLA, only ribbing each other a little while still being their grouchy selves, before they got to Le Coq Noir. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some more of that.

-AU from the end of “The Ways of the Dead”: they still have their big fight (which was amazing as well as painful) or some variation thereof, but they don’t split up. (Maybe the reason is as mundane as Sweeney refusing to get left behind or they have a shared ride out of town, or maybe the more time passes the less Sweeney can afford to be far from his coin – or maybe the coin needs him close by to work at full capacity.) And then what?

-All the old gods hide their true appearance to an extent. A situation arises in which Laura sees Sweeney’s true, or at least old, self (I’m thinking of his surprise!poignant monologue about when he used to be a king, and him in full Celtic warrior mode in the S2 flashbacks). Or Wednesday’s war ends in victory, meaning the old gods again get belief, worship, and sacrifices. How does Laura, the ultimate skeptic even when she’s on the other side of the mirror, react? How does this new knowledge and new reality change her opinion of/attitude to Sweeney? Or to flip that around, if Sweeney were again relevant and believed-in, would that actually change his bad attitude and fix his issues (my guess is it would be complicated)? On that note, Sweeney’s decline from Lugh to king to leprechaun was more sketched in than really explored in canon, ditto I didn’t really get why he couldn’t seem to remember his own history except in snatches (the curse that made him a bird/madman of the woods?) – I’d love to see more about it and his (not) dealing with it, or with a reversal of that decline. Eorann told him long ago to adapt and change with the times – but what does that mean after humpteen centuries in a rut and becoming used to always feeling angry and unappreciated?

-The power of names, since they never use each other’s in canon: for all his “dead wifeing,” there comes a time when Sweeney (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is not his actual name, and true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

-So far in canon, it’s pretty clear that Sweeney has a lot of complicated but sincere feelings for Laura. Laura is still pretty focused on Shadow (or rather her idealized vision of Shadow and what their relationship might yet be), whom she seems to equate with her own lost-maybe-to-be-regained life, although that’s starting to change at the end of S2. For one thing, she’s starting to soften toward Sweeney as she realizes he’s doing things for her that are not all about getting his coin back (and her sparring match with Wednesday in “Muninn” as well as Shadow refusing to be called puppy anymore in “Moon Shadow” may finally force her to accept that her relationship with Shadow died alongside her and Robbie on that road in Indiana). Not to mention the shared truth revealed in “The Ways of the Dead” (bullshit was that just Laura’s truth!) and how Laura flips out rather than deal with it and Sweeney can’t spit out that it mattered to him either, or how obviously cut up she is about Sweeney’s death despite refusing to admit it. Tell me the story of how Laura stumbles her way to feeling – and acknowledging that she feels – more complex, maybe kinder or softer, really annoying for her blunt-force-trauma-personality things about Sweeney and about the notion that her dynamic with him is different from the way she tended to use men for her convenience without really letting them in in the past. Also I’m pretty sure that even if they can admit they feel the same – or sorta in the same ballpark – about each other, their relationship would still run on a lot of conflict, and I would so be here for it.

-On that note: in “Munnin” it also becomes clear that Laura has, without realizing it herself, started to rely on Sweeney. The “I trusted you” line made me think, whoa she’s too furious to catch herself doing it but this is huge for Laura, and the fact that she goes off with Wednesday (!) basically because she’s mad at Sweeney because she thinks he’s prioritizing his debt to Wednesday over her… Yeah, I would like to see that explored some more and/or to see Laura and Sweeney get to a point where they trust each other and rely on each other, and know it and accept it, however difficult the getting there and being there may be for them.

-Sweeney has this intense need to see himself as a brave person and someone worthy of the world’s respect – but his past and his long experience as just a leprechaun have chipped away at that. Add the guilt of having been the instrument of Laura’s death and then all the pesky feelings he develops for her, and it’s a lot. Obviously his final actions in S2 are his trying to reclaim that courage and nobility of old (also to spite Wednesday, who’s messed both him and Laura up), but I would love to read about his character development under different circumstances, where Laura is there all the way, as opposed to them parting ways and meeting up again multiple times like in canon.

-And since I’m on the subject of Laura, you know how she’s not actually an abrasive bitch all the time to everyone? And when she is, the people on the receiving end of it sometimes richly deserve it, or very occasionally they push back (ILU, Mama-Ji!), and anyway it’s refreshing to see a female character who defaults to confrontational and doesn’t bother flirting and accommodating others for the sake of social harmony? As much as I enjoy watching her rip into people (ahem, Sweeney), I also love it when she acts differently, like her genuine interest in getting to know Salim and her joy in seeing him again in S2, or her running passive-aggressive battle of wills with Wednesday. Her beginning to feel sympathy for Sweeney and her anger and disappointment when she feels let down by him are a part of that, and I’d love to see all that explored more. Nuance! Give me all the nuance and seeming contradictions in both Laura and Sweeney’s characters!

-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn, including a canon-divergent first time, or their second time, or all the later times after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.

-If you wanted to throw in some worldbuilding, maybe something exploring living death. Magical bargains. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have – or have left from when he was Lugh? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? What even are the rules governing and the limits of different beings’ magical abilities? For example, why can’t Sweeney just take his coin back, or why does Laura gain super-strength as part of her undead package deal? Is the hoard in the same space as the behind-the-scenes accessed through the merry-go-round, or it’s a different place? Why does the coin seem to start to “run down” the longer Laura has it? Why did Wednesday need Laura to kill Argus when he killed Vulcan himself just fine? What happens with Gungnir now it’s in the hoard – can only Sweeney get to it, has it been transformed somehow (it’s now the treasure of the sun), etc.?

If it helps your inspiration, you can find some of my meta and lots of tag-burbling about these two here. I have read the book though I remember it only in bits and pieces, and while I prefer the show characters and the fact that they get thrown together, you can use or riff on book material if you want, though I’d prefer a story that isn’t just a retread of the book. With reference to one of my DNWs, for this canon, describing Laura’s physical decay is totally fine. Also, Shadow/Laura don’t interest me except as a part of Laura’s backstory (so if your story wants to include Laura figuring out or having already figured out that pinning all her hopes on Shadow to make everything right is unrealistic, unfair, and not how it works – by all means, go for it!), and Shadow/Sweeney interest me not at all.

Canon-specific DNWs: Sweeney dying/staying dead (at least not permanently), Laura being treated as just a part of Sweeney’s story, and Laura being Essie’s reincarnation/descendant/reincarnation of Sweeney’s wife from back when he was a king in old Ireland. Reincarnation/“new love looks like old love”/“lost love found again” plots bore me, and I don’t enjoy ships that hinge on characters being somehow destined to be together. Characters having agency is my jam as much as canon divergences are. Anyway I’m certain that Laura would have neither time nor patience for the notion that Destiny Fate and All That Jazz threw her together with ginger minge, and even if it were technically true, she’d still want this relationship to work on her terms – and Sweeney obviously has a problem with Laura’s cheating, her relationship with Shadow, her personality (though he also recognizes they’re alike in many ways), and all that maps onto his anger and sadness over becoming irrelevant over time, so it’s not just about Laura. So yeah, let them be their own (grumpy, spiky, dysfunctional) people, and let Laura’s dynamic with Sweeney not be shaped solely by his past and his issues.

Kingdom (Netflix)

Prince Lee Chang/Seo-bi

Prince Lee Chang & Seo-bi

I fell so hard for this show. So hard! The beautiful production values, the wonderful cast, how the characters develop, how the show slowly but surely unfolds one reveal after another and packs so much into two short seasons, all the period detail, the genuinely tense action scenes, the moments of humor and intense emotion, the intertwining of political intrigue and zomg! really scary zombies, how the zombie outbreak works on multiple levels both literal and metaphorical…

I love the brave, kindhearted, but sheltered prince, whose whole life has been so privileged yet shadowed by the possibility of death if he loses his position as heir, learning what it means to actually rule and lead people, to protect them and be protected by them in turn. And I love Seo-bi the fearless, dedicated, selfless physician, who notices things and figures things out regardless of whether this annoys the people in power. I ship them, but I also love their platonic interactions, how instantly and fiercely loyal she is to him (not just because he’s the crown prince, but because she’s seen how brave and altruistic he can be) and how he immediately takes her advice and experience seriously despite her being a woman and a commoner in this super-hierarchical setting. So I’m good with either / or & for this pairing, and you can work with any of my prompts accordingly. In a / fic, I’d even be good with a totally sublimated, “they both must kinda know what’s going on between them but for reasons of both their personalities and their respective genders and social positions, nothing overt ever gets said or done” scenario! So don’t stress too much over which flavor of dynamic you write for them.

Also, I love most of the cast (not a huge fan of Chancellor Cho, but he is an effective antagonist), and would be delighted to see any of them in fic too. Especially the loyal and funny and badass Mu-yeong (he was loyal, despite the Haewon Cho clan’s blackmail, and if you want to diverge from canon so he lives, I would not mind that at all), the even more badass and wounded and snarky Yeong-sin (or is that “Yeong-sin”???), Chang’s sparky, exiled uncle several times removed, and the terrifying and frankly unhinged young queen are my favorites. I even have a soft spot for that mostly-useless coward Cho Beom-pal, but really, they’re all great and I would love reading about them too, or just about the prince and the lady physician – whatever works!

Finally, before I get to prompts, I know a bit about the Joseon period, but we’re talking the bits and pieces I remember from a college class, and what I’ve read on Wikipedia and picked up from this and other Korean movies and shows. I know a bit more about some of the cultural background, like the Confucian values, the social stratification and feudal system, the gender segregation among the aristocracy, the wars with Japan, but again – my knowledge is limited. So if you want to teach me stuff about Joseon, go for it! If you want to invent or handwave stuff, as long as it fits the canon’s mood and broad cultural parameters, go for it! And if you want to treat me to some worldbuilding, period detail of any kind, and/or costume porn, definitely go for it.

Prompts:

Zombie fighting anything! Learning to survive in a society that’s rapidly breaking down, having to transcend their habitual social roles and challenging each other, anything! Maybe one of them teaches the other to hunt, or to make herbal medicines, or to fight with a sword, or heck, to cook or clean dirty clothes. (FYI I wrote most of these prompts before I was quite done with S2, and the time-skip took me totally by surprise. So while my prompts ignore Chang renouncing the throne, I’d also be down for the untold adventures of the former prince and his traveling companions, as Chang learns how to be just regular folks and they pursue clues about the resurrection flower, or for your take on what happens in S3. Use whatever works for you in my prompts in any way you want!)

Figuring out how the zombie infection continues to evolve and/or working together to find a cure beyond dunking the infected in water – whether that means to destroy large numbers of the undead, or to develop an antidote, or to cure and bring back those afflicted. One plot detail that really struck me: more experimenting with zombies, like Chancellor Cho started to do, might also hold the key to a cure?

Political intrigue anything! Having to fight zombies and/or factions at court with both friends and unexpected allies (not gonna lie, I would have loved to have seen the young queen unleashed on some zombies, even if that did not make her the prince and Seo-bi’s ally).

More road trip/survival/battle goodness – maybe Seo-bi offers Lee Chang some advice while they’re navigating their new situation, or she witnesses him developing his leadership muscles, and it brings them closer together than before. Or maybe a moment of humor, relaxation, or quiet affection on the road or in between zombie-slaying, especially if it catches them both a bit by surprise. Or one of them gets a non-zombifying injury (nothing too gruesome or life-threatening, please!) and the other one has to care for them – extra points if Seo-bi is injured and the prince kind of bumbles through the most basic things so she has to talk him through her own treatment. Or nightmares/being triggered by something, like we saw both Chang and Seo-bi react at the sounds of zombies growling and people screaming in S2E5.

We have seen Seo-bi insist on staying loyal to the prince, and Lee Chang rely on her repeatedly to the exclusion of all his other people – give me a situation in which he has to make clear his own loyalty to her, as a part of both his becoming a better leader and as a step in advancing their relationship. Or, there comes a time when Seo-bi really pushes against the rules of what someone like she can and cannot say or do to/around a crown prince – we’ve seen Chang refuse to stand on his dignity to the point where so many of his interactions with commoners would end in the commoners’ death, but I imagine even he has his limits, and that kind of clash can only drive this dynamic forward!

Canon divergence in which Seo-bi gets sent to the capital and assigned to be the personal physician to the petulant, frustrated prince we meet at the start of the show (handwave the gender segregation and impropriety). She knows her place, but she also does not suffer fools or male nonsense. Sparks fly, social conventions get tested, zombies may or may not happen, and a new mutual understanding is born.

Canon divergence from the scene in S2E2 when Seo-bi finagles her way to being allowed to see the prince and he instructs her to resurrect Ahn Hyeon – what if instead of that, they came up with another plan of escape? Or maybe Chang sending Seo-bi to spy on the queen goes a different way than in canon? And really, anything that requires those two to pass secret messages while grabbing each other’s hands and staring intently into each other’s eyes is A++ with me!

One theme which emerges gradually, and I really loved, is people having to compromise their principles to survive and ensure the safety of those they feel loyal and/or obliged to: Ahn Hyeon agreeing to turn the sick villagers into zombies, dear Mu-yeong having been a spy but also protecting the prince all along, Seo-bi resurrecting Ahn Hyeon, Lee Chang instructing her to do it as well as his thousand-yard-stare after having to finish off what’s left of his father… I’d love to see more such compromises, how their consequences ripple out, and the emotional fallout.

In addition to zombies, other magical and/or supernatural events and creatures start to appear in Joseon. If you want to bring in something from Buddhist mythology or Korean folklore, please do, and any and all worldbuilding would be awesome.

Post-canon something in which Lee Chang is king, possibly of only a part of the country (maybe a zombie-free enclave, or a part he won in a civil war against the Cho clan or a cadet branch of his family), and Seo-bi is there as his advisor, physician, and unofficial chancellor. Gimme policymaking to deal with the lingering zombie issue, and assassination plots, and servants/guards/ladies in waiting gossiping like it’s their real job, and all the palace intrigue!

Kind of related to the previous: even as a “spare” prince, Lee Chang can’t marry a commoner. Would he ever think to offer Seo-bi to become his concubine? I don’t think she’d go for it, and he might realize it, but maybe I’m wrong! Or maybe being intensely platonic at each other is as good as it gets for them, and they’re kind of okay with that. Or they get married in secret and have to very careful not to let slip anything by word on gesture in public, or not to let Seo-bi get pregnant. Or, y’know, one day or night on the road or in a fortified town, in between scavenging for supplies and fighting zombies, they decide to bone just because their lives are weird enough now to forget about propriety and all that jazz for an hour. (For this canon, I’m DNWing smut, please keep it M rated at most.)

Role reversal: Seo-bi is the sheltered, willful princess fearful for her position (especially since she’s a woman as well as the daughter of a concubine only) and Lee Chang is the proper yet willful provincial physician. Do they meet as in canon, or under different circumstances (maybe she must flee the court to escape assassins, accusations of treason, or an arranged marriage, with or without bonus zombies)? How would their dynamic be complicated (and made awesome of course!) by the gender reversal? Also, burning question: does Princess Seo-bi already know how to fight (because she forced Mu-yeong to teach her back at court, of course), or does she have to learn once zombies/brigands/insurrection/whatever happen? And does Physician Lee Chang know one end of a musket or sword from another, or does he need rescuing at some point?

I realize that some of these prompts could work as well (better?) as a no-zombies AU, and that’s fine if you want to take it in that direction. Just so we’re clear. :-)

Starred Up (2013 movie)

Oliver Baumer, Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Role reversal: Oliver as the con (jittery, shut off, sticking out like a sore thumb in prison with all his fancy learning, yet no pushover) and Eric as the newbie counselor (kid from the wrong side of the tracks made good? Youthful hoodlum turned around his life, now trying to help others via tough love and lots of swearing and maybe a bit of manipulation when called for?)

BTW, for this canon my blanket DNW for dubcon does not apply! If it calls to you, I’d prefer if it ends with everyone getting just what they want -- say, one person needs to be dubconned into what they secretly want but can’t admit, rather than one person getting off just as they wanted and the other one feeling used or cheated.

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love stories about characters at work and play, group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), oh-god-why-did-it-have-to-be-you-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, bickering yet loving couples, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, one betrayed the other or they betrayed each other), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it-hammer-and-tongs, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. When it fits the characters and their canon dynamic, you also can’t go wrong with we-both-wanted-this-for-forever-and-now-we-both-know-it-so-here-we-go-diving-in-headfirst. For het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (the exception is Laura Moon in American Gods dying so she can become undead), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#dear author letter #fandom 5k

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