#most bc its could literally cause any problem on the face of the fucking earth practically

[jimmy-wilson]

You know. I'm really starting to understand why they guess lupus in every fucking episode bc every single time some weird medical thing pops up i look it up and the cause is always Always Fucking Lupus

[maandags]

Eidolon (Angel!Keith x Demon! reader) {part iii}

something resembling peace n  quiet (ish) b4 the real shitstorm yeet

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Summary: Keith is an angel, and he’s completed mission after mission for the Upper Hand, the organisation controlling all of the Above. He’s only failed a mission once: when he was assigned to kill you, a surprisingly charismatic demon. He roamed Earth–Middle Ground–for years before he was caught by the Upper Hand again, and things quickly go south.

Word count: 6.3K

Genre: Angst 

Notes: ft witch!Coran bc he doesnt get enough love -- masterlist -- {previous} -- {next} --

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small-town boy in a big arcade

i got addicted to a losing game

 ~ Arcade, Duncan Laurence

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His fever isn't going down.

It's been five days and his fever just won't go down.

He's passed out on your couch, waking up occasionally so you can feed him and give him water to drink. Sometimes you have to shake him for minutes at a time just so he wakes up. You tried everything you knew, but the medicine you give him has no effect and the medicine you probably need is nowhere at your disposal.

It's safe to say you have no clue how to proceed and also are frustrated: you're risking everything here. You're risking being found by everything you have been outrunning for years and years. The combined auras of an angel and a demon are the closest thing to a signal flare you know.

And he just might die, and it will all have been for nothing, and you might still be located by Management and you would have to move. Quite bittersweet, you think wryly.

So Keith dying isn't an option. That much is clear. But as you sit in your armchair and glare at him, arms wrapped around the knees you pulled up to your chest, you have no idea as to how you're going to stop it from happening.

You clumsily wrapped him in a blanket when he collapsed on your couch. He's kicked it off since, and it lies in a bundle at his feet. His skin is ashy and pale and sweaty and his hair sticks to his forehead.

And his fucking fever isn't going down.

Usually you'd go straight to a doctor if any of your human friends were to contract a fever this stubborn–but you suspected bringing a dying angel to the average doctor won't do much good except frighten the poor sod to death. He looks like Death, you remark. What with his black wings and overall dark aesthetic, which is quite rare for an angel to have. You think, at least. It's not like you've met lots of them.

You sigh, filling a glass of water and holding it to his lips. He reacts almost subconsciously–he's not quite all there, but he's gulping the water down with gusto and you can only pray to the Dark Below that he'll hold it down, though that did seem to get better the last day or so.

The first two days were a nightmare. Keith tossed and turned and held nothing down, his stomach too upset. You had him spend his second night in your bathtub because he puked all over your couch. When he was asleep (which was most of the time) he had nightmares and whimpered constantly, and when he was awake he had hallucinations, his eyes clouded over. He even tried to attack you at one point ('tried' being the keyword here–he took a most pathetic swing at your face and cried when you dodged it easily).

If you had any common sense, you would have kicked him out long ago–hell, if you had any common sense, you never even would have considered taking him in.

Yet he is here. And you are here. And you don't exactly know how to feel about that.

Half the time you wish he'd just die already so you could be done at least with all of this. The next moment you feel horribly guilty and internally yell at yourself for thinking that way–because you made this choice. You decided to help him, and you should go through with it, even if it meant to be woken up at three in the morning because Keith was wailing again.

You brush your fingers across his forehead, hoping against better knowledge his fever had gone down, but he's still burning up. He's not tossing and turning anymore, he's not throwing up everywhere anymore. The last time he had a nightmare you actually noticed was more than a day ago. His breaths are shallow and irregular, and while you're no doctor, you know that's never a good sign.

You'd almost gotten used to having him in your apartment, and now you barely even notice he's here.

You've been on some extensive phone calls with Allura since Keith flopped into your life (which mostly consist of you yelling and Allura listening, occasionally muttering "go off, sis" into the horn) and you were itching for one now. You pull out your phone. Allura picks up on the third ring.

"Y/N, love, I have time for like, maybe a ten minute rant, because I'm at work and even though it's my break time my co-workers are giving me huge side-eyes and I still have four hours to go–"

"That's okay," you say quickly. "I'm fine, actually. No rants."

Allura pauses. "Sure about that?"

"Positive. I just had a question." You decide to throw in your favourite excuse whenever you have a weird question. As a nurse and your friend, Allura is often your first choice if you need to fact-check anything health-related."I'm writing this story..."

"Ah," Allura says. "Of course. Shoot."

You feel kind of bad for lying to her. But then again, telling the truth isn't really an option here, is it? "What does one do to break a fever that's been going strong for, say, five days, and literally no kind of aspirin is working and you can't take them to a doctor?"

"Huh. Well. All you can really do without, like, medical intervention, is wait, really. Yes, Jane, I'll be done in a minute. Have them sweat it out. Keep hydrated, remove excess layers of clothing, all that jazz. How high of a fever are we talking?"

"Um..." You glance at the thermometer on the coffee table. You'd taken his temperature just before calling Allura, to see if there was any change. Spoiler alert, there wasn't. "41.2 degrees Celcius."

Allura whistles. "For an adult? 'Cause if this is a kid, they have a problem."

"No, no, it's an adult."

"Okay. Well. You know, fevers aren't inherently bad for you. It's actually a way for the body to, like, kill heat-sensitive bacteria and viruses. So it's actually a good thing. Honestly I'm gonna just advise your character to stay in bed and drink water and sit in front of a fan. They should be fine."

You pucker your lips, poking Keith's arm with your toe. He doesn't move. "All right."

"You sound kind of unsure," says Allura, a tinge of concern to her voice. A pause. "Certain this is a fictional character?"

You bite back a curse. "Well. You know. I was–I was just curious."

Allura sighs. You imagine her rubbing the back of her neck as she shakes out her legs. "You know... as a medical professional–" the sarcasm drips from her voice– "I'm not really supposed to, like, recommend these types of methods to people because generally everyone thinks they're bullshit, but..." She hesitates. "My uncle Coran has this shop. He sells lots of weird, like, plants and crystals and crap like that. God, I can't believe I'm saying this. He might be able to help. Here's the address."

You lurch over to your desk and snatch a pencil and a post-it block, scribbling down the address she dictates. "Thanks, Allura."

"You are very welcome, dearest, but I really need to get back to work now. Bye."

"Bye."

You stare at the note for a while after Allura hung up. You don't exactly know the place, but a quick Google search helps you pinpoint it. It's not even that far, maybe a 20 minute walk. But something makes you feel uncomfortable about it.

He sells lots of weird, like, plants and crystals and crap like that.

It definitely sounds like something you should be a bit suspicious of. Plants and crystals. Hm.

But then again, you think as you cast another look at Keith who hasn't moved in over an hour, chest rising and falling with uneven breaths, it's not like you have many other options.

Allura said to wait it out. But maybe fevers aren't as harmless on angels as they are on humans. Maybe waiting it out will kill him, and you will have to live with it knowing that you did nothing to stop it.

Grumbling through gritted teeth, you yank your jacket from its hanger, write out a quick note for Keith in case he wakes up (he probably won't, but just in case) and dash out the door.

It takes you surprisingly long to find the place.

What was a 20 minute walk turned to a 30 minute walk, then to an hour long walk. You zoom in on your phone's map, narrowing your eyes and combing through every little alley you passed, gnashing your teeth. No matter how hard you look, the shop simply doesn't seem to exist anywhere but on the map. Is this Allura's idea of a prank?

But that's not like her, you remind yourself. And somehow, the fact that you can't seem to reach the place only makes you want to find it more. So you grit your teeth and clench the note with the address (that you just can't seem to memorize, no matter how hard you try) in your fist and march on.

You round a corner and slam into a tall and lanky body.

You yelp, arms flying out to regain your balance. The person in front of you gives a surprised hum–they don't seem to be fazed at all. You look up, prepared to give them a scolding about how they've got to watch where they're fucking going and blink, all words dying in your throat.

"You okay, kiddo?" says the most eccentric-looking man you've ever seen.

"Uh..." you give your head a shake, trying not to stare at the man's bright orange hair and moustache, or the fact that he's dressed like one of those fortune tellers out of fantasy stories, complete with the huge ornate earrings and everything. "Yeah. Fine. Thanks."

The man's light eyes narrow ever so slightly, and you make a mental note to not let his appearance deceive you: you have the feeling he's much smarter than he looks. "Were you looking for something?"

You clamp your mouth shut, running a hand through your hair. "Hm. Actually. Yes." You frown, wondering if this is a good idea, but if anyone would know where Coran's shop is–the shop selling weird crystals and plants and crap like that–this dude would be it. You hold up the crumpled note. "Do you know where this place is?"

The man takes one look at the writing and smiles, a wide and slightly unhinged grin that has you almost instantly regretting your choice. "Well, I sure would hope I know where my own shop is!"

You try and resist the urge to flinch. "Oh, really?" you squeak, shrinking back. It's not a very demon-like thing to do, you think at the very back of your mind, but this guy looks like he could give even the scariest entities of the Below a run for their money. "Neat."

The man–who you assume is Coran–grins even wider and whips an arm around your shoulders. "Well, then! Let's not beat around the bush any longer!" He has an accent you can't place. It fits him, strangely. Everything about the guy is strange.

He whirls around, dragging you with him, and walks exactly three steps before slamming open the door to the shop on the corner. You frown, ducking out from under his arm and giving him a suspicious glare. "What is this? I've passed this shop at least five times." You glance up at the sign and do a double take. Where had previously hung a sad wooden board announcing a tailor's shop hangs now a weirdly pretty sign that seems to be made out of plants. Vines twisting to and fro and entwining and overlapping, fluorescent yellow-and-blue flowers you have never seen before dropping from it in clumps. It sways slightly in the air. There is no wind.

All the hairs stand up at the back of your neck and your fists clench at your sides.

"Maybe you weren't looking hard enough," comes Coran's amused voice from behind you. You spin on your heels, narrowing your eyes at him. You're not unfamiliar with these kinds of experiences–the supernatural, the unsettling, the technically-impossible–yet Coran manages to throw you off in a way nothing really has before.

The atmosphere around you has dimmed, the sole source of light the doorway and the glowing flowers dangling from the sign. You're not in the alley you were in not one minute ago anymore. Coran raises an eyebrow and cocks his head, and you notice how different he looks in this new environment. He fits here perfectly. The slight curl of his lips says, Well? What are you waiting for?

You think of Keith. How he would react if he were in this situation. If the roles were reversed and you were the one dying on his sofa. You push the door open and march into the shop.

You almost slam directly into a tree.

"Careful, careful," says Coran quickly as he grabs your elbow. He slips past you and leads you into his shop that looks like no other shop you've ever seen.

Shelves are stacked with pots and vials and little baggies, all propped one on top of the other. It looks extremely unstable. You resist the urge to pluck out one jar from the bottom and see if everything tumbles down.

Every price tag is hand-written, and when you take a closer look a chill runs down your spine. One never-before shared secret. Three childhood memories. none of the prices ask for actual money, which now seems pretty useless and weighs down the wallet in your pocket. One particular tag says Your deepest fear. How dramatic.

Every plant seems to glow, for some reason. You notice more of those fluorescent yellow-and-blue flowers like the ones hanging from the sign outside, and flowers that look similar but in different colours. There are plants that remind you of grapevines, snaking around trees and shelves and tangling themselves around every support they can find. Clusters of small transparent bells float from the branches, even smaller flicks of light trapped inside them. You squint at one of them, grabbing it out of the air and studying it closely. Something is fluttering inside of the little sphere. A firefly, maybe. Maybe. When you release it, it zips back to its original spot among the other glowing bubbles.

Coran plucks a few dead leaves from a tree stump partially hidden from view by a huge black-and-white striped candle. He grinds the leaves to dust in the palm of his hand and drops them in the candle's flame. It glows bright green for a moment, then a comforting scent begins to spread through the air. You inhale deeply out of reflex. It smells like nothing you've ever smelled before, vaguely familiar scents all mushed into one; your favourite hot chocolate (with a hint of caramel), Allura's fruity conditioner, the animal shampoo you use on the dogs at the shelter. The air when it's just stopped raining. Towels, fresh out of the dryer.

You blink yourself back to reality with a sharp jerk of your head. Coran is already moving on to the very back of the shop and you hurry to catch up with him, ducking to avoid the arms of a rather sad-looking ragdoll as they reach for you. "Hey, hey–who are you?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Coran."

"Yes, I know that, but like–" you gesture vaguely to the general space around you– "who are you?"

Coran thinks about that for a moment, one finger pressed to the side of his nose. "A hobbyist," he decides.

"Right." You take a step back, eyeing the dark and slimy substance shlorping across the floor towards your feet suspiciously. It shrinks back beneath your glare. "What are those hobbies, exactly?"

"You know," says Coran, waving his arms around, "plants. Medicine. The occasional cursed artifact. Just regular stuff like that."

"Regular stuff like that," you echo. Caws sound from above you. When you look up, you spot a bird slightly hidden in the shadows of the tree in which it is perked (was that tree this big before?), glowing red eyes fixated on yours. You raise an eyebrow at it, cocking your head. It mirrors you, feathers ruffling and swooping from one side of its head to the other. It screams again, then spreads its wings and climbs up the tree with a speed you didn't expect. Literally climbs: there are claws on the joints of its wings that it uses to hack into the tree's bark. You brush a bit of dust off your shoulder and continue walking.

Stepping over the puddle of dark slime, you follow Coran even further into the shop. "You said you do medicine," you shout after him. "I need medicine to save my–" The words hitch in your throat. What is Keith to you? An acquaintance? An enemy? A guest? "My friend," you settle on.

Coran throws you a look over his shoulder, throwing off his ornate blue coat and suspending it in the air where it floats obediently beside him. He plants a hand on a bony hip. "Your friend," he repeats, a glint in his eyes you don't trust at all.

"Yeah." He's not getting more out of you, you assure yourself. That's it.

Coran watches you for a moment. "Hm." He turns around and starts rummaging through the shelves packed with jars and boxes and bottles, pulling out a number that all look the same to you, but evidently Coran knows exactly what he's doing. Occasionally he asks you questions.

"Reasonably high fever, is that right?"

"Yes."

He fumbles for a mortar and dumps a clump of brown-reddish leaves in it.

"Hallucinations? Nightmares? Inexplicable bouts of extreme hunger?"

"Yes, yes, and... no? Not that I know of?"

Humming, he adds a few drops of a clear liquid and a pinch of powder from a leather pouch. The mixture starts to sizzle and you eye it cautiously. Its colour shifts from a muddy purple to a darker blue. Coran whistles through his teeth, narrowing his eyes at the many pots around him as he searches for the next ingredient. His eyes focus on something behind you and he gestures with his pestle. "Grab that round orange pot for me, will you."

You turn. The pot in question is small and kind of hard to spot, and you have to twist your arm in strange shapes to reach it from where it's blocked by other plants and rocks. It's dusty and surprisingly heavy, and when you turn it over there's a crudely painted picture of a skull on the lid. Your head snaps up and your fingers tighten around the pot.

Coran rolls his eyes. "I didn't have any other pot to put it in. I'm not gonna murder your friend."

You hand the pot over to him reluctantly, keeping a close eye on whatever it is he's doing. Inside is a reddish-brown paste, and Coran scoops two heavy spoonfuls out and mixes it into the blue mixture. It becomes a pleasant shade of violet. He grabs a round marble-like thing from a vase filled with similar spheres and chucks it into a fire pit at your feet. Flames burst to life, searing hot and sending you stumbling back from the wave of pure heat that comes rolling over you. Coran puts a lid on the mortar and drops it into the fire.

"So, that's gotta bake for a minute," he says cheerily, spinning around and clapping his hands. He snaps his fingers, and immediately vines begin writhing and entwining until a stool has formed. He plops down, facing you. "You have questions. Ask them. Go on."

"Will you answer them?"

he flashes that wicked grin of his. "Maybe."

You grit your teeth, staring into the flames roaring in their pit. The longer you look at them, the wilder they grow. Agitated.

"Oh, dear, don't look at them. They don't like being watched."

Your gaze snaps back to him. "How did you know what's wrong with my friend?"

"I didn't. I guessed," he adds with an eyeroll when you narrow your eyes at him. "It's easier to guess than you might think. When customers are especially preoccupied with something I can usually read it right off of them. You were no different."

"Right." You pause, not sure which of the hundred and forty questions swirling through your mind to ask next. "What if the medicine doesn't work? Can I come back?"

"It'll work."

"But if it doesn't–"

"Are you doubting my abilities?"

"What? No, but–"

"It'll work."

His tone makes it clear there's no room for discussion. At the sight of his dangerously glinting eyes (or maybe they're just reflecting the flickering flames) you decide to veer onto a safer topic. "Can everyone get into your shop? Why couldn't I find it until you showed me?"

Coran slouches a bit in his throne of vines (it's got a back and armrests now, too, and it's growing those little glowing grapes) and considers the question. "Everyone can technically get into the shop," he says slowly, as if carefully choosing his words, "but not everyone will. It's not hidden, exactly–not to the people who aren't looking."

That confuses you. "So you're saying one won't be able to find the shop if they're actively looking for it?"

"Sort of."

"Does that mean that the people who do find it aren't looking for it in the first place?"

"I guess so? Man, kid, you're asking difficult questions."

"I'm curious." You fold your arms, tucking your chin down to your chest. "And that makes no sense anyway because I found it and I was looking for it. So."

"Yeah, but you didn't find it until you actually ran into me and I showed you." Coran leaps up and stretches out his lanky limbs. "So, we still have a bit of time left before that's ready. Do you want to arrange payment now?"

Caution crept into your veins as you remember the strange price tags you saw upon entering the store. But you're not getting this medicine for free, you remind yourself. Keith won't get better by himself. The price was the price and you're willing to pay it. So you nod.

Coran grabs a box. He opens it, and inside are the last things you expected: stacks of paper, each one scribbled upon with minute precision, every sheet adorned with different handwriting. He hands you a blank sheet: it's about the size of a business card, yellowish-white and kind of grainy to the touch. It reminds you of parchment.

He also hands you a pen. It looks like a regular ballpoint pen, and when you shoot him a questioning look–you had expected at least, like, a quill with purple ink or something–he shrugs. "They're cheap. And easy to charm."

Right. You roll your eyes. "So what's the price?"

His eyes are just a little bit too shiny. "What do you want most?"

You sigh, long and drawn out. Your grip on the pen tightens ever so slightly. "Really? The way too overused one?"

Coran shrugs again, gesturing to the blank card in front of you. "It's overused for a reason, kid. It just happens to work really well."

You clench your jaw, tapping the pen against the wooden surface of the table, forcing yourself to think about the question in a serious manner.

What do you want most?

You rack your brain for an answer, puckering your lips. There are a lot of things you want. You want Allura to be safe and happy. She's got a demon for a friend, for fuck's sake. You want to not have to worry every day about Management finally tracking you down and locking you up in the Below. To feel safe.

You bring the point of the pen down to the paper and start writing, frowning when the ink doesn't appear. You go over the lines a few times, even scribble a bunch of lines in a corner to get the pen to work, but to no avail. The ink stubbornly refuses to stain your piece of parchment.

"Your pen doesn't work," you say, irritated.

Coran casts you a knowing smile. "It works just fine. Try again."

You try again. No results. You throw down the pen, letting your head drop and taking a deep breath as you lean against the desk, because you know exactly where this is going. You have experience with these kinds of enchanted objects. You chew on the inside of your cheek, glaring at the pen as if it personally murdered your firstborn.

It wants the truth.

And you refuse. You refuse to give it what it wants because it's ridiculous. Absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

But this is the price. This is the price you told yourself you would pay no matter what.

A deep breath. One more.

You snatch up the pen, gripping it so tightly your knuckles go white, and press it down onto the paper. Immediately the ink flows out, letting you write your re-evaluated answer. It almost seems to sneer at you and when you throw the pen down, handing the card to a way too smug-looking Coran, you refuse to look him in the eye.

The medicine is ready.

Coran pulls it out of the fire using tongs (because it might be magical fire, but it's still fire, and it's generally not a good idea to stick your hand in fire) and drops it in a tub of water you're sure wasn't there before. A moment later he pulls it out and removes the lid.

The paste has transformed itself into a rock-hard ball about the size of a large pill, perfectly round and kind of rough and sandy at the surface, and when Coran hands it to you it's almost freezing to the touch. It startles you so much that you almost drop it.

"Smash it to bits and put the shards in this here baggie–" he hands you what looks like a tea filter– "and let it hang in a glass of cold water for a while. When the thingie's drained of its colour and goes clear and the water has turned bright blue you make sure he drinks the whole thing before it goes warm, yeah? That's very important. He's gotta drink it right away, and he's gotta drink the whole thing. It might not work as well if he doesn't drink the whole thing."

The fact that Coran refers to the pill as "the thingie" makes you more than a bit uncomfortable, but you decide to take his word for it, because what other choice do you have?

"Right." You turn to leave, when one more thing pops into your mind. "Actually," you face him again, "I have one more question."

Coran sighs. "You have a lot of questions."

You ignore him. "How do you know Allura? Or, rather, how does Allura know you? She's the one that gave me your address in the first place," you explain. "She's my friend."

To your surprise, Coran smiles–a genuine smile this time, where his eyes crinkle in the corners, not the manic grin he's shown up till now. "I knew her father very well. I've watched her grow up. She knows she can always knock on my door."

It doesn't make much sense–what business would Allura's dad, world-famous scientist, have with this man? You decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. "How much does she know? About all this?"

"I think she knows, deep down. I don't know how much she believes. What she tells herself is real, and what isn't."

You hesitate. "Does she know about me? What I am, I mean?"

Coran heaves an exasperated sigh. "Yeesh, kid. How am I supposed to know that? I didn't even know who you were up till now!" But you get the feeling he's lying. "Now get going. Go on." He starts shooing you towards the door, gently pushing you through the shop.

You blink in surprise, too stunned to do anything but follow suit. "Wait," you stammer. "Wait, I have more questions! Will I be able to come back?"

But Coran waves you off, giving you nothing but a smile and a "Bye-bye!"

You stumble over the threshold, the pill and its baggie in your clenched fist. Cold renders your fingers almost numb, and you open them, exposing the pill to the night air. White smoke curls up from it, and you turn it over to your other hand, wincing as you rub your fingers to get a bit of warmth in them again. It's like you're holding a hailstone.

When you look up, you're disoriented by the bright lights from street lamps around you, and the fact that you're not in the same alley you were in before you entered Coran's shop. It's not even the same block. You make a full turn, dazed, before you recognise the little grocery store on the corner of the street: it's the store where you do most of your shopping. It's right across from your apartment building. Coran deposited you as close as he could to your home.

You push open the door to your apartment with your shoulder, icy pill in one hand and two bottles of chocolate milk and scotch whisky in the other, letting exhaustion creeping into your muscles as soon as you enter the familiar environment. One look to your sofa confirms Keith has barely moved over the hours you were gone. The note and the glass of water you left for him sit untouched on the coffee table.

You make your way to the kitchen and set down the bottles, grabbing a small tray on which you drop the pill. Smash it to bits, said Coran. The back end of a kitchen knife does the job just fine. To your surprise, the pill shatters immediately, shards flying everywhere. You curse, sweeping them all up and dropping them into the tea filter and filling a glass with cold water. As soon as you hang the bag in the glass, blue drips out of it in wisps, slowly tinting the water a cool blue colour. You drop onto a kitchen chair and watch with your chin in your hands, the droplets of blue seeping from the bag mesmerising.

When the water doesn't seem to get any bluer, you peek into the bag. The shards are completely colourless, now resembling bits of clear glass more than anything else. You carefully pick up the glass, hissing through your teeth at the coldness of it.

Keith is still fast asleep, shivering. He's thin, you notice. You can see his ribs through his shirt. Setting the glass down on the coffee table, you try gently nudging him awake. He doesn't respond.

"Come on," you grumble, grabbing his face and tapping his cheek. "Wake up!" Your stomach twists at the thought that he might not wake up in time. The medicine will have warmed up. You should have woken him before preparing it! "Please," you whisper, swallowing back the lump in your throat. "Don't let this have been for nothing. Come on. Wake up, dammit!"

He groans under your touch. You breathe out a shaky sigh of relief as you coerce him into sitting up. "Don't you fucking dare fall asleep again." He looks at you groggily.

You raise the glass to his chapped lips. "Drink up."

He takes a sip and flinches, bursting into coughs. "Cold," he manages. You almost wince at how weak his voice sounds–barely a whisper. He'll get better, you remind yourself. He just has to drink this and he'll get better.

"I know," you mutter, nudging the glass to his lips again. "Drink it. It'll make you feel better."

He eyes you suspiciously but obliges, squeezing his eyes shut as he gulps down the contents of the glass. He shivers, smacking his lips when it's empty and you put it on the floor. "Ah. Gross." But as he shifts, you can already see the colour return to his cheeks.

"Rest," you say, brushing strands of hair away from his forehead. "You'll feel better in the morning." Your voice is shaky and your hands tremble as you bring the glass back to the kitchen and thoroughly wash it, using about a quarter of the bottle of dish soap, running it under the hot water until the stubborn cold is completely gone.

You're tired. You don't even have the energy to shower, so you brush your teeth and crumple into bed, only taking off your boots and trousers. You keep your socks on and pull the comforter tighter around you. You're cold.

As you turn to face the wall, you think back to Coran's stupid enchanted pen. Wondering if you've made a mistake. The words you ended up writing down looping through your mind, over and over again, lighting up in front of you whenever you close your eyes. What do you want most?

I want to be safe from Management, was your first answer. The answer the pen hadn't let you write down. And it was what you wanted most–or at least what you wanted most until Keith had shown up on your doorstep just over a week ago.

What do you want most?

You drift off to sleep, the question nagging at the back of your mind.

You jolt awake at the crash, bolting up from your bed and racing for the kitchen, where the sound had come from. In your hand is the knife you keep in your nightstand. Your knuckles are white around the hilt. You slam a hand on the light switch, and the person bent over and hidden behind your fridge hits their head and yells in pain, and you brandish your knife and scream at them to Stay back!

"It's just me! Y/N!" Keith says, holding up his hands above his head.

You huff out a breath, letting the knife drop to your side. "Keith?"

He nods, blinking and squinting against the bright light. You're only barely over the shock of seeing him up and about, yet you can't help but notice how thin he looks and how weary and sunken his eyes are. His eyes keep flicking back to the knife still in your hand, and you quickly snap it shut, slipping it in the pocket of your sweatpants.

"So I take it you're feeling better?"

He nods again. "I'm hungry," he says. His voice isn't quite back to normal–it's still quite hoarse from not having used it in over five days–but you suspect it won't take very long. "Sorry for startling you. I'll go back to sleep."

You grab his arm before he can walk past you. "Nonsense. You've slept for five days straight. I'm hungry too, anyway. I can order takeout?"

He gives you a tentative smile. "That'd be great."

And that's how you end up sitting in your brightly lit kitchen at four in the morning, eating out of cardboard Chinese takeout boxes, with an angel whose life you saved. His wings are completely concealed now and don't bother him when he sits in a chair or lies down. While neither of you talks much, you both sneak glances when you think the other isn't looking.

What do you want most?

He looks nervous, and even though he insists he's not tired you can tell he's fighting against the weight of his eyelids, his movements droopy and slow, as if he's moving through layers of syrup. When he almost drops his fork (at four A.M. you're allowed to eat Chinese with a fork) out of exhaustion, you nudge his leg with your foot under the table.

"Go back to sleep."

"I'm fine. I'm still hungry."

"You can eat tomorrow. You're barely able to hold yourself upright, idiot."

He sighs but pushes his chair back and stands up. His knees immediately buckle beneath him, and you shoot out of your chair and only just manage to catch him before he drops to the ground. "All right, okay. There we go. I got you."

"Not feeling as good as I thought," Keith mutters into your shoulder as you practically drag him to the sofa.

"Evidently."

You tuck him in (it seems like such a childish gesture–but curled up like that, looking thin and fragile, Keith reminds you of a small kid and it just feels like the right thing to do) and resist the weird urge to plant a kiss on his forehead. You settle for a somewhat awkward pat on the shoulder.

You stick the leftover food in the fridge and make your way back to your own room. You're still kind of cold, so you keep the sweatpants and sweatshirt on, bringing the knife out of your pocket and setting it back on your nightstand before climbing into bed.

The buzzing of the city outside of your window keeps you up for hours as you toss and turn. Feelings you don't know what to make of churn through you. Relief at the fact that the medicine seems to be working. Fear, because you don't really know how to proceed now. A demon saving an angel's life–that one's pretty much unheard of, you think bitterly.

Oh, if Management were to find out... not only would your fate be settled, you would have signed Keith's death warrant along with it. The comforter bunches in your clenched fists and you twist around, shutting your eyes resolutely.

What do you want most?

[pyronado-moved]

HEY ALEX :) hope itz alright bUT i wanna kno abt ur ocz if thtz ok!!!! aka basically *hands you a free pass 2 gush abt ur ocz* go wild. i wanna kno everything i can abt ur ocz bc im rlly interested !!!!!! :D

gasp tysm

this is an under the cut kinda thing bc i have... a lot to say abt my babies

okay so the main oc of this is carter and hes the anti-christ but hes actually super sweet and just a walking talking puppy with a heart of gold. he can do no wrong and i love him to death. he’s dedicated to loving his bf, his friends, and his mom and sometimes he dedicates himself to hating his dad.

then there’s his bf jackson who’s a sad boy until carter moves in w/ his mom who is jackson’s next door neighbor and they end up getting along rlly quickly and jackson is just suddenly ‘huh what if im worthy of love’ and suddenly he has friends and bf and hes baby

and carter’s friend serah is a half-angel who has 1 volume setting and its Loud As Fuck but thats okay. she’s a lowkey stereotypical dumb blonde but at the same time shes the only one of the group who knows the symbols for every element. she’s been dating brick for 6 years and has yet to even consider dating anyone else

and serah’s bff violet is just a normal human girl who’s head cheerleader and constantly angry. she pretends to not care abt a lot of things but she’s actually a total mother hen. she spends so much time around people in relationships that she starts hating them until she meets roga and suddenly decides love might not be That Bad Actually

vi’s twin brother and serah’s bf brick (aka chad but thats a dumb name so he goes by brick) is literally baby. he’s sick a lot so he lives his life to the fullest in any way possible. he worries abt his friends who constantly have to fight demons and monsters and shit but hes always ready to help no matter what.

carter’s bff and ex-boyfriend jae is an incubus with half a brain cell. he does not use it and is an idiot. he met violet and the two instantly decided that they would cause problems on purpose. hes basically the goose from that one game except gay. he and ara are stupid idiot bfs who are a whole ass foot apart in height and it only adds to the chaos. he dated carter for 1 whole month before they decided ‘nvm actually’ and went back to being best bros.

umm classic mean girls Paris, Trixie, and Chloe are there. Paris wants to use carter to summon the devil. trixie and chloe are just there bc theyve been friends since kindergarten and wanna make sure paris doesnt do anything super stupid. theyre all girls who support girls who want to summon the devil and thats rad.

AND THEN THERE WERE THE 7 DEADLY SINS WOW! They were hired to be the devil’s guardians but then they got bored of that so they fucked off to earth and tried to live normal lives until oops their ex-boss’ son is here now and they have to protect that ray of sunshine out of both spite and pity. they’re all basically siblings and stupid. also they dont meet carter and the gang until college years so like... all the ones up there are adults when they meet the guys down here to avoid any confusion.

Arazukiean is the sin of lust and he’s a siren. hes a trans king who met jae and decided that legally no one else could have him. all he does on earth is attend different colleges because he didnt register as a legal living human so now he just wanders around campus’ and sits in on diff classes. he doesnt rlly represent his sin bc he never even liked being a siren in the first damn place.

Panya is the sin of wrath and she’s a pheonix and I hate to love her but god i love her. shes not a good person and shes loud and seriously if i met her irl i’d deck her in the face. but at the same time she was the one who decided they should protect carter so like... +1 karma point i guess. she and mentu-ra knew each other b4 being hired by the devil so they’re rlly close

the sin of gluttony is Lilian. She’s an aswang but also she’s just soft baby. shes a total nerd and could probably beat jeopardy tbh. although she loves all 6 of her siblings, Ameera is her closest friend/sister and they do everything together.

Ammera is an al-mi'raj and the sin of sloth. shes actually not sleepy or lazy because she decided in order to keep herself from sleeping all day she chose to not sleep at all. shes an expert on all things video games and could probably beat you in mario kart with her eyes shut. on rainbow road. 

The sin of greed is represented by local dragon idiot Roga who owns a big rich company but never participates in anything involving it. he just collects the money. hes a capitalist until he meets violet who is the only person who’s ever put him in his place. he instantly gave up being greedy for money to be a very protective boyfriend to this fiery cheerleader. they dont look like a good couple on the outside but they’re really actually soft as fuck

pride is taken by mentu-ra, a sphinx who ran for state governor in rhode island and actually won despite being a complete fumbling moron. hes a very bad politician and just kinda... exists. he hangs out mostly with roga but he keeps tabs w/ panya the most since she was the one who got him out of scrapes before they were hired as the devil’s guards.

aand then there’s elva, the sin of envy. shes a pixie who decided instead of being envious of others, she’d make them envious of her. she’s a part-time model, part-time olympic figure skater, part-time olympic gymnast. she loves the spotlight more than anything else in the world and shes very annoying but less annoying than panya so she’s got that going for her.

also i was gonna have angels as the 7 heavenly virtues but i only got around to creating penelope, the virtue of purity so she’s there. she doesnt take other people’s shit and is actually serah’s shoulder to lean on as everyone grows and starts to do their own things.

[buckywintersoldierbarnes2017]

I Want You.

Request from @bellasett: Hello this idea just came to me I was wondering if u could do a Steve rogers where he just got unfrozen and his sex drive is up (bc it's like a side effect from the ice) and the reader has had a crush on captain America for like ever and they meet at stark tower and he ignores her and she thinks it's her but he just can't be alone with her without wanting to do the deed and maybe he's think of all the place he could have sex with her sorry this is really long if u don't do smut it's fine tho.

Note: I am soooooo sorry that it has taken me a while to get this written. Between my mind deciding to hate me and a whole lot of changes in my life everything has been a little too hectic for my muse to work. I hope this is what you were looking for! <3 I didn’t do too much smut though as my muse is very slowly coming back lol!

Steve x Reader

Words: 2,225

Warnings: Mild language and some minor smut. I haven’t gone into full detail with it and the majority is simply implied but figured I should warn you anyway....if I have missed anything please let me know :)

Disclaimer: GIF used is not mine so all credit goes to it’s creator. <3

You couldn’t believe it, not one bit. He was within arm’s reach of you, currently sleeping on the hospital bed in the room, his chest clearing rising up and then falling back down again at a steady pace….but still there was a part of you that was convinced you were going to wake up soon and be pulled back to reality.

Ever since you were a child you had grown up knowing his face, his name, and he was the very reason you now had the job that you did – working for Shield. He had made it his life mission to save others, never once expecting anything in return, and he had made the ultimate sacrifice in doing so. As far as you were concerned doing this job was your way of thanking him, something you never thought you would get to do in person.

Not only that but you were just like any other red blooded woman and you had developed quite the crush on him despite having never been in the same room as him until now.

A tired groan interrupted your thoughts and the rather perverted gaze you’d had on him as his eyes started to open.

“Captain Rogers?”

All hints of admiration faded from your face as a look of concern replaced it. This guy had been frozen for over 70 years, so he was going to have no idea where he was, who you were, or what year it even was. Agent Hill and Director Fury had both considered creating a façade to make him believe that he was still in his own time but you had quickly put the idea down; if you start with a lie how could you possibly expect him to ever trust you?

“Wh-Where am I?”

“You’re somewhere safe.” You sat yourself down onto the edge of his bed and although the temptation to take his hand was hard to resist you knew that it wouldn’t be the right course of action. He didn’t know you and when someone was both confused and scared they become unpredictable. “Now I know it is easier said than done but I need you to remain calm and just listen to me okay? You have been through quite the ordeal.”

As his eyes finally opened fully and his blue hues fell on you, confusion etched itself onto his face.

“What do you mean?”

Here it was, the moment you had been dreading, your next words were going to change his life forever and you couldn’t even begin to think how he would react.

“You’ve been asleep Captain…..for 70 years. Now I kn-“

You had started to rush into the reassuring part of your speech, noticing the glint of worry igniting in his eyes, and the reservations you’d had just moments before about placing your hand onto his flew out of the window completely as you encased one of his strong hands, but your words were cut short as he shot upright in the bed and his free hand gripped onto your arm hard.

Panic quickly built up inside of you but when you saw his cheeks beginning to glow a deep crimson colour confusion soon overrode it. He was…..blushing? Out of all the scenarios you had pictured in your head of how this conversation would go this was most certainly not one of them. Anger? Yes. Confusion? Absolutely! Maybe even a little sadness at the fact that everyone he had once known was either dead or dying. But what reason could there be for him to be embarrassed or nervous?

His eyes weren’t meeting your gaze at all, not even for a split second, and after a moment or two you finally followed his line of sight and immediately noticed the bulge that had formed underneath the sheets. Now it was your turn to feel the heat rising in your cheeks.

“You need to leave.”

The tone of his voice had you pulling your eyes away from the rather unexpected sight of his arousal and in a rather flustered manner you left the room. Your heart was racing as you silently signalled for two other Shield agents to head in and speak with the Captain

Things only got even more weird after that day…

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

ONE YEAR LATER

Your job at Shield was becoming increasingly harder to achieve with each day that had passed since Captain Rogers had woken up. Every time he entered the same room as you his entire body stiffened, and his eyes frantically looked at anything but you…or he simply left the room before he had even finished stepping through the door.

The first few times this had happened you simply shrugged it off and put it down to the fact that he was nervous and unsure of all the new people are him but now, a whole year down the line, it was just getting stupid….and rather hurtful if you were perfectly honest with yourself.

“Did you ever find out what it was you did?”

It barely registered with you that someone had taken a seat on the sofa next to you, or that it was your closest friend, as you continued to watch for any other reactions from the Captain.

“Earth to [y/n]!” A hand waving itself in front of your face snapped you out of your little surveillance mission. “Starting to think you have seriously insulted Rogers you know. You’re the only one here he doesn’t speak to.”

“Tell me about it…” Your words showed your annoyance at the situation and rather reluctantly you pulled your gaze away from the blonde Avenger and placed it onto the redhead sat beside you instead. “Maybe he blames me. I was the first person he saw when he woke up after decades of being frozen…he might think that it was me who woke him up.”

You didn’t even bother to hide both the fear and the panic you felt at such a scenario being true and the volume of your voice rose enough to start gaining the attention of others currently in the room – except the one person who was causing this turmoil for you.

“Fury has already explained all that to him [y/n]. He knows full well that you were not responsible for that.”

Her words went through one ear and then straight out of the other as the sound of footsteps stole your attention. Surprise, surprise! Steve was yet again leaving the room with a rather flushed look on his face. Well he wasn’t going to get very far this time because you’d just about had enough now.

“Then maybe it is about damn time I get the truth out of him.”

“[y/n] wa-“

In athletic fashion you had jumped over the back of the sofa you had been sitting on, Nat’s hand only grazing your shoulder and failing miserably in her attempts to stop you from going after Steve.

“He is definitely about to get his arse handed to him.” She sighed in defeat.

                                              * * * * * * * * * *

“Steve!”

Your voice echoed through the corridor as the door to the shared living area closed behind you.

“Not now [y/n].”

Everyone else in the tower got the kind-hearted Steve Rogers, the one that would crack a joke whether it was funny or not, but you got nothing like that, quite the opposite in fact. His words were always cold and even on the days where you knew full well he wasn’t busy he would push you away as though he didn’t have the time to talk with you.

“NO!” That made him stop dead in his tracks. No one had ever heard you shout with such an anger but it still didn’t seem to be enough to make him turn and face you…something which only fuelled your anger even more. “You don’t get to walk away from me until you tell me what the fuck your problem is!”

“Language.”

“Seriously? You’re going to scold me for my cuss word while you have been ignoring me for going on a year now?!”

He must have been out of his mind. It was an apology you had been expecting from him, an explanation even, but a scolding? He had literally just rid you of any hint of patience you’d had, which was made apparent when you stormed towards him and took a rough hold of his arm. Up until now you had only ever seen his body tensing but now you were feeling it with your own hand and it made you feel worse than you had ever done so before….sick even.

How could someone hate you this much?

Everything that happened next did so at a speed which left your mind still trying to catch up after your back had hit the wall and an animalistic growl rolled from the Captain’s lips. Thanks to his enhanced speed he had managed to pin you to the wall of the corridor and now you were the one who wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“You should have just left it [y/n]. You have no idea how hard it is for me to be around you.”

“Why?! I haven’t done anything to you! It wasn’t me who decided on unfreezing you.”

The only response you received from him was a quiet laugh laced with a mischief that was completely foreign to you as one of his hands glided down the length of your arm.

“What the hell is so amusing Captain?”

“Oh just the little fact that all this time you have been thinking that I hate you my mind has gone in the complete opposite direction.”

His hand continued to make its way down your arm until it came to rest on your hip, the sharp blue hues of his eyes never once leaving you. Never had you been this close to him, not even when he had woken up a year ago, and it was only now that you noticed the flecks of green in his eyes….good god he was incredible…

“Ever since the day I woke up and saw you for the first time I haven’t been able to control myself.”

“Wh-What?”

Out of all the scenarios you had pictured in your mind as to how this conversation would go the words that he had just spoken hadn’t been in a single one….there was no way that Captain America, the poster boy of World War Two himself, would see you in that kind of way.

“Don’t believe me?” With a single raised eyebrow, the hand of his that wasn’t resting on your hip reached for one of yours and slowly moved it nearer to his body. “This is what you do to me. This is what I have been trying to stay away from.”

You didn’t need to ask him to clarify what he was talking about because the bulge in his trousers currently pressing up against your hand was more than enough for it all to click into place. Of course you were still rather annoyed at him for the way that he had handled it, for ignoring you all this time, but right now you couldn’t focus enough to devise a plan to punish him…..not when his arousal was growing even more underneath your touch.

“I don’t….I don’t understand..”

“Did they stop teaching sex education in schools while I was frozen or something?”

A playful smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as he left your hand where it was, enjoying the sensation building up inside of him, and his lips started to lay gentle kisses onto the crook of your neck.

“No I didn-“

All your childhood you had fantasised about being in such a situation with Captain America, just as all the girls now did, but feeling his lips pressing up against your bare skin blew all of those thoughts you had conjured up right out of the window…..they paled in comparison to the reality. Biting down onto your bottom lip while you tried to compose yourself enough to continue speaking you refrained from letting a groan slip from you.

“I meant how….and why hide it?”

If he had noticed you reacting to him he didn’t mention anything, only pulling away from you after you had voiced your question.

“Because every time I saw you I could do nothing but picture you…and me…inside every room of this building. I hid it because I didn’t want you to think I was a sleaze ball. This is hardly the image of me that you grew up with [y/n].” Both of his hands rested themselves onto your hips as the pads of his thumbs traced light patterns onto the vest top you were wearing. “Even now…when I know you deserve better….I can’t keep my hands off you.”

“Who says I want you to keep them off me?”

Now it was his turn to look surprised but before a single word could escape his lips you were dragging him down the corridor; a task that wasn’t at all easy given his muscular frame but you didn’t care….you had fancied this man for the majority of your life and now you knew he’d thought of you in that way for a whole year you weren’t about to waste another minute.

                                        ~~~~~~~~~~

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[aximili]

For your OCs (you can choose whoever you want): 2, 3, 7, 11, 16, 17, 28, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 40. For you: A, B, D, E, G, H

omg thats a LOT so ill just do one person!! uhhhhhh how bout that Piers

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

he laughs a lot but he’s not often actually amused... it’s more to give the impression that he’s at ease. he’s never at ease, & doesn’t find much funny. 

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

definitely reading, he’s one of those people who will fight god over his inability to read everything ever written before his time on earth is done. 

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

the smell of mud & grass, fresh vegetables, quiet country roads, summer wind in your face... they make him think of where he grew up in the cotswolds. & no, he doesn’t enjoy it. he’s not comfortable with having the origin story of a country bumpkin, he finds it very gauche; it’s not the persona he’s trying to create.

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

depends on the context. alone, eg in academic writing? seek clarification. he hates not knowing things. in social situations? pretend he understands until he does. he never wants to have to ask. 

What makes their stomach turn?

sentimentality, & emotional displays. like, people who can’t be cynical and aloof about everything? cringe. 

Are they easily embarrassed?

not really, as in like, he’s good at never having a situation seem embarrassing for him? he’s a v natural leader and always acts as if he’s the one setting the norm, and other people do kinda fold to that. so if he like, tripped over, it would immediately become awkward for anyone who laughed, because he could be hurt, like what the hell. but if it was the other way around, he’d laugh at them, in the spirit of friendship. total double standards.

Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?

wow, talk about things his entire character is about haha... absolutely a lie. piers doesn’t settle for unpleasant truths, he’ll do whatever he can to make it so that the truth is what’s easiest for him.

Who do they most regret meeting?

B L A S lmao. tfw u become obsessed w someone, accidentally cause their death, then realise afterwards that you may in fact have fucked up pretty bad

Who are they the most glad to have met?

at the start of the book, at least? sol! he feels like he can use her to wipe away his guilt for blas, both literally (as in, misdirect her enough that he doesn’t seem at all suspicious) and emotionally (as in, make a new start and be a positive influence on her in place of her brother. unfortunately, he still has a twisted perspective on how to be a positive influence on someone). 

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt? 

fake it til you make it baby...... lmao he tries but it’s always there, probably because he’ll never confront it bc that would mean facing up to what he’s done and who he’s become as a person. 

How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?

almost always! on the surface, at least. he needs to seem like a supportive pillar. the things he secretly thinks are lame, though? he’ll chip away at those. like, he’s always making offhand mean-spirited & dismissive comments about ari’s fields of expertise, mainly because he doesn’t like that they’re much more intelligent than him, and he doesn’t want them to know they have that power. fortunately, ari has an ego of steel & cannot be manipulated! 

How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

all he SEES is flaws in other people tbh.... if he learnt to just whole-heartedly value the good stuff about others, like most people manage to, maybe he’d be a nice boy 

How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

tbh, piers is emotionally intelligent enough to know he has them. he knows, very deep down, that he’s a fucked up person who doesn’t treat others well. he just feels in too deep at this point, though? he’s been faking who he is for so long, he has no idea who the authentic him is, what would be left if you stripped away all the cynicism and left real feelings. .....god that sounds edgelordy when i put it like that. 

A) Why are you excited about this character?

what i mainly want him to do in the story is be a moral lesson about never trusting guys who treat you like he treats sol, and i feel like... so many YA books out there are unhealthy het romance focused and i really want this to be a rug-pull on that. i just really hope it’s effective. 

B) What inspired you to create them?

omg.... geez, let me think back.... originally, he was a dangan ronpa fan character (well, he remained one for a while lol), and female, and nice. she was a very chilled-out, new agey type, a source of wisdom and calm. he became male when i realised the cast wasn’t quite gender-balanced, and stayed that way since (he really couldn’t not be male, how he is now...). i thought it’d be a great twist for the end of the fangan ronpa for him to suddenly snap and reveal the stress of being the calm one had finally gotten to him. a few more iterations happened, for a while he was very much the secretly eeeevil one, and like... i guess he kinda still is, but i wasn’t happy w that, like, real people aren’t like that, and it would seem a cheap twist. so now he’s more like... the type of person who lowkey bullies his friends and enjoys the benefits of it, combined with the ego of being told he’s very intelligent, plus the typical white male brand of world-weary cynicism that can only result from never having had any real problems. 

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

he’s always had long blonde hair, and that’s definitely a character staple i couldn’t get rid of! however, he used to dress super feminine - essentially because, of course, he was originally a girl and i saw no reason to change the design. it was only later on that i realised like... i’m not at all comfy with my villain being a man who dresses like a woman. that doesn’t sit remotely ok, regardless of its innocent origins. now he dresses much more like a nerdy posh fuckboy, and it suits him better.

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

omg its easy to say NOOO but honestly? i can’t pretend he isn’t based a little bit on an amalgamation of cis guys i’ve known who have these emotionally manipulative tendencies hidden underneath a charming nerd persona, so i guess i could certainly see us becoming initial friends. hopefully, tho, i’d see sense and dump him eventually. and nah, he would definitely think i’m pathetic lol 

G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

fdjkjkdksdhkfjhsdj uh..... the murderin bit. well, i guess the most disturbing part of his personality, to me objectively, is, yeah, seeing troubled people as potential experiments. being someone’s token mentally ill friend in various ways is bad enough, i can’t imagine how fucked up i’d feel if i found out someone was trying to manipulate me to get worse in the brain. 

H) What trait do you admire most?

i wish i could read as much & be as devoted to my studies..... lol

[kewltie]

In which Donghae is the Helen of Troy in space and Hyukjae stands by him. 

<<First

"Stop scrunching your face up like that," Kyuhyun says, swirling his glass of rare Venetian wine. "You're going to make all the alphas in the hall cry if you ruin that pretty face of yours."

Donghae's frown only deepens. "If Kicher tries to get near me again, I won't hesitate to shoot him," he says, and then pauses for a moment before adding decisively, "in the groin."

"Please don't cause any more trouble," Kyuhyun groans, face pinched in exasperation.  "I’m only here to relax and binge on food. I don't want to deal with any problem at a party."

Donghae narrow his eyes, lip thinning out in an unimpressed line. "It’s my birthday," he points out, in case Kyuhyun actually forget the reason for this party.  "I can do whatever I want."

Kyuhyun snorts, rolling his eyes. "That's no excuse to throw a tantrum and your pheromones around, driving the alphas up the wall at the most lavish and overindulgence party I have the grace to be invited to."

"I didn't invite you," says Donghae with an annoyed huff.

"No, but Her Luminescence did,” Kyuhyun smirks as Donghae glowers at him, "and talk about tacky," he says, glancing at the stars projected on the ceiling above them like night sky brought down to earth.

"Don't insult my skylights,” Donghae snaps reflexively, though he'll never admit that it might have been a little too much. Sulli was tasked to plan his party and when Donghae casually commented that he wanted to see the stars up close, she went a little overboard to fulfill his wish and literally brought the stars to them.

"Your skylights are as ridiculous as you are,” Kyuhyun says, resorting to as childish of an insult as he is. “What do you even have to be sulking about at a party dedicated to you at the Empress’s behest?”

Donghae frowns, eyes looking out into the grand hall where every high lord and ladies, notable figures in the Empire, and friends and family are here for Donghae to celebrate his birthday but the one person that truly matters to Donghae isn’t here at all.

Kyuhyun looks him at knowingly. “It isn’t his choice,” he unhelpfully points out. “Telemore must be seized and even if he wanted to he can’t drop everything for you.”

“I know,” Donghae snaps with a viciousness that drives that bitterness of Hyukjae’s absent home.

Kyuhyun sighs, exasperation heavy in his voice. “Then just please turn down your pheromones," he scolds, his nose scrunching up. “I’m not even an alpha and your scent is throwing me off. Imagine how the alphas here feel when you’re making them so antsy because you’re frustrated with not getting your way." 

"I'm not here to accommodate them,” Donghae says sourly, folding his arms across his chest petulantly. “If they can’t handle me like this it’s only because they’re pathetically weak minded.”

Kyuhyun’s scowl deepens. “I don’t know how Hyukjae put up with you. You are completely insufferable.”

Hyukjae doesn’t. He only tolerates Donghae’s moods and whims at best. So while many other alphas crumble under Donghae’s wiles, with enough time and effort, Hyukjae is goddamn fortress of impenetrable resilience against everything that Donghae throw at him.

He won’t be move. He can’t be move.

It’s both annoyingly frustrating and endlessly admirable. Hyukjae is the only one who can bully and harasses Donghae into giving in but it doesn’t mean Donghae let anyone else walk all over him.

Donghae’s eyes flash with irritation at Kyuhyun. “Now you shut up, I—” But he never got to finish his retort not when the an uproar from the crowd of partygoers catch his attention and he catches sight of Hyukjae’s tired and weary face strolling into the hall.

His military uniform still on but the pristine suit is dirty and bloody as though he hasn’t left the battlefield at all.

Donghae’s finds word left his head as his heart catches his throat. He watches numbly with shock still as Hyukjae marches closer to them. In the back of his mind he knows the Empress is not that far behind him, sitting on her throne of steel and watching them all with a calculated gaze that held the Empire together for forty years.

Donghae almost throws himself in Hyukjae’s path because the idea of Hyukjae coming back here, tonight, not for him is a dagger to his chest and is the answer the question he has dreaded since Hyukjae signed himself up to the service of the Empire.

But Hyukjae answers it for him anyway as Hyukjae bypass the Empress completely and heads directly toward Donghae instead.

"My lord," Hyukjae says and drops down to one knee in front of Donghae. Head bows and holding his right arm out in front of him, palm up and in it was an ugly misshapen black rock—the empher ore, Donghae eyes go wide with realization, that Telomore is famous more and why the Empire went through all that trouble to seize it to fuel its many battleships and hunger for more conquest. "Telomore is yours."

Yours. Not ours or Empress Boah but Donghae's.

Voices of dissent rise from the crowd. Insubordination, they cry. Treason, they claim but all Donghae can see is Hyukjae in front of him and hears the statement, the declaration in his words. Right now Hyukjae may be in service to the crown but his loyalty belongs neither to it nor the Empress but solely to Donghae.

Donghae doesn’t know why he doubt Hyukjae for a second, he shouldn’t be not since he was twelve and Hyukjae had dropped down on his knees in the icy ground of Xuine and swore to him, "Just say the word and it’ll be yours."

Even at that age Donghae had taken it as an oath, a promise of devotion and a guarantee that Hyukjae will always be a sure thing that Donghae could march to the end of the world and Hyukjae would devoutly follow behind, guarding his back.

Donghae smiles, ardently please. He could do without all the expansive gifts, flattery sent his way, and even a resource filled star system as long as Hyukjae is there for his birthday, that would have been enough for him but this isn’t so bad either.

"Most people get pretty trinkets or some nice looking but only you would get an entire solar for your birthday," Kyuhyun says, sounding slightly amused next to him. "You always have to outdo everyone, huh."

Donghae may have just paint a larger target on his back with Hyukjae’s bold declaration made in front of everyone here—he may have the Empress’s favor but nobody wants to see a lowly omega from a nameless colony on the throne.

“Thank you,” Donghae says sincerely, taking the ore from Hyukjae’s palm and its feel heavier than it looks. “It’s the best gift ever.”

Hyukjae retracts his arm and looks up from his position. Their eyes finally meet and the weight of Hyukje’s action between them is a heavy and suffocating thing but Donghae has been prepare for this day since he was fourteen.

“You can’t have both,” his father had insisted back then when Donghae had set eyes on the crown and his hand clasped tightly around Hyukjae’s own. The world was new and shiny and filled with so many potentials and Donghae was just one person but his ambition was bigger than the small snowy deathtrap of a planet that they stand on could contain.

“Watch me,” he had replied, as daring and bullheaded as fourteen as he still is at twenty-six.

The galaxy will be his and so will be Hyukjae.  

  [1]the majority of the alphas population wears scent blocker to prevent from being easily falling under the omega's pheromones. it's actually pretty common thing for alphas to do here. But potent omega’s pheromones from powerful omega that really really REALLY put effort into frustrating and driving them up the walls like Donghae can really fucked them up lol. It actually consider bad manners to do it but Donghae does it bc he frankly don’t give a fuck :P

[2]donghae is one of several omega candidates for the throne (the empress isn't married and choose to live this way much to displeasure of the council; and only omegas can have the throne) and donghae is one of her many nieces & nephews; he's from a lower house & his parents are betas but he's favored by the empress for undisclosed reasons :'D however despite the push for donghae to have the crown eventually, the empress' clan (which also includes donghae) is extremely weak as of right now thus the crown is also weak against other clans that want other more desirable candidates that are on their side, can manipulate easier, etc b/c donghae is donghae and he refuse to be anyone's pawn :P.

[3]what hyukjae is doing has incredible significance b/c he's a military commander in service to the crown so bypassing the empress entirely (the news of the newly acquired planet should be given to the empress first) hyukjae is making a public declaration of loyalty and oath to donghae NOT TO THE EMPRESS 

[narkik]

slightly long but relevant explanation of why naraku LOVES kikyou, how she is literally the center of his entire world, how his life is meaningless without her, bc tbh its been 2 years & it blows my mind that some ppl still don’t see this and i am t i r e d

(summary @ the bottom for ppl who don’t wanna read the whole rantTM. if anyone doesn’t understand why narkik is shipped , pls, pls read this)

first and FOREMOST,, i’d like to reiterate that oNIGUMO IS NOT NARAKU. they are 2 entirely different people. kikyou is a different person than kagome, right??? right !!! i could go on about how kagome/naraku parallel one another and how kikyou/kagome & onigumo/naraku are textually compared in literally every fucking way, but that’s whole different discussion

anyway: naraku loVEs kikyou. naraku. all by himself. ??? why??? bc , kinda like how kagome is different than kikyou and loves inuyasha for her own reasons, naraku fell in love with kikyou for reasons entirely beyond onigumo. kikyou lived her human life with as much agency as a human could have. but naraku was literally born for her?? his . literal. entire. body. would not exist. if not. for onigumo’s thirst. in fACt, that was part of the bargain he made w/ the demons !!! like “hey guys, i’ll let y’all eat me alive if you give me a new body, so i can grab the shikon jewel & grab me some kikyou ;)))”

the problem?? naraku was a person of his own. thats why he had 0% issues w murdering kikyou in s1 episode 1, then frolicked around feudal japan for 50+ years w/o worry.

THEN. SHE COMES BACK . suddenly naraku’s Thirsty Human Heart is fuc kin racing, making his hands sweat, shoving warm fuzzy feelings down his throat whenever kikyou makes some snide remark about his body, etc. and he’s like??? “fuck fu ck cfuCk fu Ck” for CHAPTERS ON END. it pisses him off that she has that effect on him, it pisses him off that he can’t just stab her 10 million times, it pisses him off that she Turns Him On even tho she’s made of clay. every cell of kikyou makes him wanna die and he Hates Her Entire Ass. its incredible

fast forward a couple chapters: naraku finally removes his heart. hurray !!!! right ??? n  o p E !! he learns p quickly that the human heart that loves kikyou is the LITERAL GLUE THAT HOLDS HIS PHYSICAL BODY TOGETHER. just !!! let that sink in !!! w/o that love, his bod y actually f cukin cant keep itself together,!!!

thats?? not even the best part???? whats even better is when round 2 of this happens, onigumo’s human heart doesn’t love kikyou; the infant says himself that he did not possess the love for kikyou which caused naraku so much suffering. i think its at this point where these feelings become naraku’s; they’ve evolved from onigumo’s own. bc, a few chapters down the line, naraku realizes that. he doesn’t know what he wants to do w the jewel after its completed. therefore he has no DriveTM to complete it. and the jewel couldn’t have THAT

so naraku has to take back his love for kikyou. why??? bc the bitterness, hurt, and anger that he felt because of it fueled his actions. ALL OF HIS ACTIONS. kagome points this out later -- how he makes every1 suffer by breaking human bonds. the agony he felt from unrequited love fueled everything he did, up ‘til he made his wish on the jewel, whICH WAS FOR KIKYOU’S HEART!!! not for the chance to feel her up, not to fcuk her 5 ways to sunday -- he wishes for her heart. on tOP of thaT, he laments about how they could never be together: not in this life, and not in the afterlife (bc ,, like.. even he knows he’s gonna burn in hell 5ever lmao). idk about y’all, but if i lust after some1, the first thing i ??? dont think of?? is their heart?? or the fact that we couldn’t /be together in life/??? just !! sayin !!

naraku wishes for kikyou’s heart because it’s an echo of what onigumo wanted, yes, and onigumo’s feelings are the reason his Whole Entire Life started. BUT he wishes for her heart bc he realized that he had no other purpose on planet earth other than to love her after completing the jewel. naraku himself loves kikyou bc she fleshes out his existence -- he literally doesn’t know what to do without her. after finishing the jewel, he has no other p ur p o se than to love her. kagome, who asserts her identity beyond kikyou through her love for inuyasha, is able to free herself from the jewel -- but naraku could not. even though he himself fell in love with kikyou, it was in accordance with the circumstances of his creation. inuyasha says “kagome was born for me & i was born for her as well!!” guess what my guys??? naraku was born for kikyou. she’s the literal core of his existence. and they hate each other bc the shikon jewel needed it to be that way. neither of them had any choice in that.

this isn’t even incLUDIng the actual literary narrative structure that parallels inukag OR the fact that narkik is the cyclical repeat of midoriko/magatsuhi a la the jewel’s manipulation OR how the overall theme of ~~humanity vs. monstrosity~~~ rumiko makes in the text is in accordance w/ the fact that naraku is so haunted by love, a human emotion?? i mean !! god !!

anyways , to summarize , can you fucking believe naraku’s entire existence revolves around how he’s supposed to suffer, how his love will never be returned, how he Has No Other Purpose on god’s green earth than to love Kikyou + be hated by her + complete the jewel 2 trap them both inside it???? can you belie ve that naraku was his own goddamn person, tried his hardest NOT to love her, but like how kagome was ~~born for inuyasha~~, naraku was born for kikyou, and had no fucking way out of the fact that he loved her just bc he happened to be the person born via onigumo’s thirst???? bc the shikon jewel squished him into a role and didn’t care about how he was his own person??? and can you believe that in sPITe of all this , naraku fell in love with kikyou for the fact that she grounds his very bEING, that his love for her is the only thing he knows, that at the end of the day he still wished for her heart ??

and no it’s not healthy love, it’s not functional love, it’s by no means good reason to love anyone at all. but naraku’s love is what differentiates him from onigumo, and it exhausts me when i see them being lumped together bc everyone remembers how kagome was different from kikyou?? rumiko’s Whole Entire Point w/ so much of the series was that people are not defined by their heritage, that they are not defined by the people who preceded them, that every1 is their Own Goddamn PersonTM even in the face of some(thing)one reducing you to a role just bc you have similarities to whatever they want to see. naraku was his Own Damn Person, yet he still fell in love w/ kikyou , he wouldn’t exist w/o that love, those inescapable feelings for her define his life, & idk about y’all but this is why narkik is my otp?? i will never be over it, not for as long as i live, and i still can’t believe the most academically consistent/intricate story i’ve ever seen is from a fcukin 90s anime

[isaacathom]

one interesting thing i found in SB is that for its mythology, which is, Woof, the original bad guy was the fire god, not the dark one. so, passing forward to EC, Ryaris was the one who went rogue first, and then Dalace went down afterwards. And there’s the fact that the act which got her branded as a villain is specifically called a betrayal. of who?

my memory of most of the EC lore is fuzzy, but I know that Ryaris couldnt have betrayed, say, her direct elemental counterpart in the water goddess Caliyo, because she’s the one who, after the Second Event, broke Ryaris’ seal early. While that could just be a whole lot of forgiveness and an understanding of how their elements coexist, it’s more likely that Caliyo was not the one wronged by Ryaris’ actions originally. This is compared to what I later had down for EC, which is that Dalace had been bad from the word go and that Ryaris only became involved in the Second Event by trying to free her. fun!

So then the Q becomes what did Ryaris do, and who did she betray? The likely answer is she betrayed Losa, the goddess of Light. the reasons for doing so are, complicated? and have their routes in the way the elements all interact. cause the 4 standard elements are basically neutral towards eachother because while they can cancel eachother out short term, they have a ~relationship~ thats important. like, the air goddess Xen can blow out Ryaris’ flames, but her air is also responsible for flames growing in the first place, and the fires consume that air. You follow? But light and dark have a way more complicated relationship that leaves Dalace especially feeling wronged, because where light is present, dark cannot exist. dark cannot overpower light rawly, yknow? i have diagrams in my head which explain this sort of. point being, dark and light are not friend.

and that complexity extends to how the 4 elements interact w/ light and dark. Ryaris as a fire goddess mostly has vague beef with Losa, because fire creates light, doesn’t it? and light, when concentrated, can create fire. The two cannot destroy each other, their actions only fuel the other. so while in theory, on paper, theyre allies, in practice they set eachother off extremely easily. they just are not compatible personalities, their elemental dynamic personified.

which makes it easy to imagine that Ryaris, pissed off to no end by Losa’s holier than thou attitude, etc etc, decides to fuck with her. And thus, betrayal. An important aspect of this is that Ryaris was not sealed away by the gods alone, but also by a human on their side. that the conflict that spilled out from Ryaris’ actions impacted the human world in some way. So it was a very direct betrayal, going back on her word, doing what she was told not to do. Something that, even if some of her fellow gods thought the rule was bad, had to acknowledge that Ryaris had broken it. yknow. centrism. because the other gods don’t side with Ryaris. Even Dalace, who fucking loathes Losa, remains neutral. which she regrets, hence the Second Event.

So Losa tells Ryaris not to do something, Ryaris decides fuck you asshole, I’m going to do that anyway and even more, and thus, Chaos. It could lean a vague prometheus angle, like that Losa in her ~divine wisdom~ decided to impose some restriction upon humans, and Ryaris broke it. cause Losa is a hell of an individual generally, consider she decided of her own accord that she was gonna be the ‘keeper of lost souls’, like she ust. decided that. without input. and without letting anyone else even go ‘actually id like to keep the ghosts of the people who lived in my world with me, or give them a choice’ nope! Losa knows best! She’s presumably the oldest, or second oldest depending on your opinion of whether the Void is ‘dark’ or just ‘blank’.

Ryaris isn’t the oldest, obvs, or even the oldest of the elemental quartet due to fire requiring fuel (which supposes that Xen is the oldest, followed by either Ryaris or Elra the earth goddess, or possibly even that Ryaris is flat out the youngest if it goes Xen>Elra>Caliyo>Ryaris, with earth requiring water to make the like, carbon fuel, right). but the fact her power creates light lends a degree of authority. She’s in a very unique position as a goddess in that respect, since she can technically create two elements. so even though she’s either the 1st or 3rd youngest, she has that going for her. it fuels smth in her. that ability to stand up to Losa and say ‘no, fuck you’.

Maybe it does even tie into the ghost thing, or the general inability for souls and mortals to change realms (excepting all souls going to Losa’s realm). Maybe Ryaris breaks that barrier down. Maybe she creates the first portals, opens those floodgates that even Losa can’t really close. Which is even a bit of, idk, sorta dramatic irony since her creating portals directly leads to a lot of things that bring about her defeat in the Third Event (specifically Skye being a Very Weird Light Boy, Will being a Very Weird Dark Boy, and Violet being her literal lost daughter, lmao). But its also neat because in SB the method of weakening the seals was to create portals, which sorta punctured holes in the space. whch is pretty neat.

so Losa makes a decision that mortals have to stay on their world only and that when they die theyre souls come to stay in hers. While this sorta annoys all of them (who died and made her queen, whats the point of all these worlds if they cant interact, etc), Ryaris is the one who decides to act. She visits Losa’s light world full of ghosts on false pretenses (delivering some wayward souls, perhaps), sneaks in somewhere, and basically burns a hole in the fabric of space to create a portal between light world and Earth. Ryaris’ reasoning for doing this is sorta weird, but any important part of it is that with the change Losa made, only two worlds have no native inhabitants - Ryaris’ fire world, and Dalace’s dark world. To be clear, Ryaris isn’t bitter, because she made a conscious decision to not put like, sophonts on the fire world. she likes the quiet. But Ryaris likes the idea of visitors, of creating a place where people can come to see her and stay for a short while. And Losa’s decided that she literally cannot do that, and that the only people who can visit her are runaway souls (rough crowd) and the other gods. And they’re busy! Busy people! Ryaris likes the idea of the freedom of movement, probably because as a fire goddess, fire likes to just. Expand. It’s great.

so she lies to losa’s face, creates a portal, and then allie fucking oops outta there. excellent. things escalate from there as mortals start following ryaris’ example and making portals, thats the floodgates. Then Losa and co go ham, a pseudo war starts, and then eventually Ryaris gets sealed in her realm and barred from using the portals out of it. but now portals are there, and losa’s pisssssed.

dalace remains neutral in the First Event because even though she hates Losa and is against her just, by default, she’s also not... really allies with Ryaris? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, sure, but Ryaris is, as said earlier, in a very unique elemental position in that her element, fire, creates light. Dalace hates light. and so, unable to reconcile her loathing of Losa with her dislike of Ryaris, she exits the conflict and probably mopes in the dark world for its duration. The other goddesses are either neutral or side with Losa. fun times! Caliyo likely sides with Losa, but even at the early stage she regrets it. However she’s actually unable to break the first seal because it was made using, im pretty sure a water mage? I don’t honestly know if I kept track of what elements Talae and Silver were, but they were i think water and air, respectively? idk. It might make more sense if Talae is air ad Silver is water, because then Caliyo as water goddess can sorta.. ‘revoke’ Silver’s part of the seal on Ryaris after take 2. yea. i think that works.

so then the idea is that while Caliyo feels guilty because she actually agrees with Ryaris and the elemental counterpart relationship is Fun, Dalace feels guilty because she ‘let Losa win’. and spends the next few centuries weakening Ryaris’ seal so that they can get revenge. And Ryaris is down for revenge! And down for support! So she teams up with Dalace, they break her out, and cause chaos again. This time there’s no principle behind it. its just flipping the bird at losa. so while the first time around its like, Losa+Caliyo+idk, Elra, vs Ryaris, second time its Losa+Caliyo+Elra+Xen vs Ryaris+Dalace. And they get beaten and both get sealed.

At this point Ryaris decides that while she stands by her original decision to create portals, she doesn’t stand by the attempt at revenge, and she accepts being sealed as a consequence. Dalace, of course, does not. After time passes, Caliyo comes to visit Ryaris and see hows she’s doing (with Caliyo having fully forgiven her for the first thing, bc that wasnt Caliyo’s problem), and after deciding she’s appropriately sorry for what she did with Dalace’s help, leaves and weakens the seal, and some time later Ryaris is able to leave, whereupon she decides to visit the world she tried to destroy in the guise of a mortal to see whats up, whereupon she falls in love with and later marries Evelyn Nis, and the Story Persisteth.

the reason they went for fucking over the central world (earth, i guess) rather than losa’s world directly was the fact that the two of the, Ryaris and Dalace, can’t fucking touch the place. Dalace can barely even go there, fucks sake, she cant destroy it. And if Ryaris tries, it won’t work, because of the fire makes light thing. So you settle for the next best thing - the neutral world none of the goddesses rule directly, but which Losa has a great deal of influence over, because Fuck Losa.

presumably dalace’s current plan is to be a bit sneakier, and rather than appearing and trying to destroy everything, she basically wants the trick all the people into destroying it themselves, through war and so on. and so a lot fo subterfuge, and stuff. which is WHY Ryaris kidnaps Chase and Akian D’Lore - she’s ransoming the shit out of Sparklr Fountain and provoking them into accusing all their neighbours and vague enemies of being responsible. Quartai’s probably on that list which is fun. Lot happening. :)