#my husband knows i can’t keep a plant alive to save my life but that i love having greenery in my space so he bought me the cutest

[jadefyre]

You know that Ada Limón poem where she’s like “i can’t help it i love the way men love”? my dad recently confessed to me that he became a shoemaker because they buried my grandma shoeless

oh…………………………………

[esta-elavaris]

Flufftober Day 1: I've Got You ~ Thorin Oakenshield/OC [2,818 words]

My Flufftober '23 masterpost can be found here 💜✨

Erebor was beautiful. Gwen had thought so when they’d first entered – sneaking through the hidden door and doing their best not to wake the dragon slumbering within. Although she’d quickly forgotten all about it thereafter. Not because of the dragon, but because of how she was forced to watch as the Gold sickness claimed the dwarf she’d so reluctantly come to love over the months that had passed between her taking on this ‘job’ and now.

Now, though? Now that Smaug was defeated, the battle thereafter was won, all were alive, and Thorin was himself again? Now she was able to appreciate the splendour of Erebor once again. Save for the damn walkways.

“I don’t know how I feel about your sending everybody out from the Throne Room just for this,” she commented to Thorin where he stood somewhere behind her, the great walkway to the throne stretching before them.

“You said you wished for no witnesses as you overcame this.”

“Because I thought you’d find a quieter walkway to practise on.”

“I am King – and in a moon’s time, after your coronation, you will be Queen. We can order all from the mountain, if we so wish.”

“That’d make for a pretty depressing kingdom,” she said, doing what she could to keep her tone light as he led her to the main walkway that led up to her husband’s throne.

“Did you run out of stone to make railings? Is that it?”

“Dwarves are sure-footed.”

“And hard-headed.”

“I heard that.”

“I did not whisper,” she countered with a smirk that felt much too bold for the fear creeping up through her chest.

While that fear did not show on her face, however, it did in how her hand anxiously sought his where it was pressed over her hip, planting it there as if to make sure his grip remained firmly on her. Her shrewd husband recognised the gesture for what it was immediately.

“You’ve crossed higher paths than this before,” he pointed out. “On Durin’s Day.”

“That was different. I had a dragon snapping at my heels.”

“Well now you’ve your brute of a husband to offer you similar motivation.”

“Yes, well, it should warm you to hear that I much prefer you to dragons.”

Unless he was in a really foul mood.

“This is folly, Gwen.”

Thorin’s humour might have been lighter these days than it was during their quest, but an excess of patience in the face of what he viewed as foolishness was not one of his virtues. It showed now in the edge his voice gained. At least, it did until he moved from behind her back and saw just how pale her face had grown.

“I can’t help it,” she said quietly – too focused on the pit in her stomach to see how his features softened.

It was folly – he was right. If someone draw a chalk outline on a path the same width as this walkway, she could stick to it without so much as thinking about it, laughing all the while at the mere notion of being worried about somehow falling over the edge of that outline. But the mere presence of the unfathomable drop at either side of the walkway raised the stakes, and had her unable to think of anything but. It was instinct – self-preservation, the same sort of in-built thing that would have her thinking twice before she stuck her hand in a fire, or caused a problem with someone twice her size. She was unable to help it.

Nor would she be able to make a life here if she was unable to approach the throne at a speed greater than one foot per hour. The embarrassment only made this all the worse. Thorin had met her when she was a thief in Bree – hardly an occupation without its risks. Now she was paling over the prospect of placing one foot before the other. It hardly did anything to combat the beliefs of the Dwarves here who revelled in shaking their heads and grumbling over their King’s affection for a human. No doubt a Dwarrowdam would have covered the distance a hundred times or more in the span of time she’d stood here faltering like an idiot.

“Do you think I would bring you here if there was any risk of your falling?”

“I don’t think you’d love me if there was any risk of my falling, considering it would take an impressive level of idiocy to manage and you don’t suffer fools. Gladly or otherwise.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he teased. “You would make a very beautiful fool.”

“I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered.”

He chuckled lowly.

“Whichever you choose, you’re distracted. See? We’ve already covered some distance. That is the key – do not think of it. Simply do it.”

Well, that was the sort of thinking that had gotten her here, wasn’t it? Not only to her shiny new station – regardless of how it had intimidated her, a woman of no birth who had once been a cutpurse far, far west of here – but throughout all of the hardships that had hounded their path to Erebor itself.

“All right,” she sniffed, straightening her shoulders and nodding decidedly. “All right.”

Thorin’s hand remained at her back, all the same…throughout the hundred strides up and down the walkway it took before she finally began breathing properly and trusting the fine stone beneath her feet not to suddenly crack and give way.

She did grow used to it – eventually. Over and over that day they’d strode up and down the walkway to the throne room until fear turned to unease, and unease turned to boredom. Gwen dreaded to think what the folk of Erebor thought they were up to in here that would cause their King to demand privacy for so long, but it did the trick, and she’d no longer spend this walk battling with the temptation to lower herself to the floor and crawl the distance towards the throne next time she had business here. Although that was a sight Thorin might enjoy, depending upon his mood.

Still, as she strode across the walkway not two moons later, shiny new sapphire-laden diadem upon her head, she had a surprise that she knew he’d enjoy a great deal more. And the drop on either side of the walkway was the furthest thing from her mind – a grin on her face, and a spring in her step.

The King was holding court, dealing with a visiting merchant who had seen fit to scam a number of the people, so no doubt he would be in need of a bit of levity once he was finished. She would wait on the sidelines, Gwen decided, until he was finished. Then she would tell him.

“I was not aware, your majesty, that steep prices were a crime.”

The merchant was kicking up a stink so loudly that he could be heard throughout the entirety of the hall.

“Perhaps not, but swindling the honest peoples of Erebor is,” there was a warning note in her husband’s voice. “Your trading permissions have been revoked, so unless you have some other manner of earning a living here, I suggest you leave and take your way of doing things elsewhere – and count yourself lucky that you have not found yourself in the dungeons.”

Was he so unimpressed because of the merchant’s misdeeds, she wondered, or because he was being forced to deal with something so beneath the notice of a monarch? She could hardly fault him for either one, although she suspected it was some combination of the two.

Folk cleared a path automatically to let her by as she neared the throne – something that was still taking some getting used to, even though it had been that way ever since Thorin declared his intentions to take her as his wife – but she seemed to escape the notice of one person. The merchant.

Either he thought the path had been cleared for him, or he simply did not care, whirling and beginning to storm his way down the walkway with a face like thunder – the fury in his eyes blinding him, no doubt. Or perhaps what he did next was an act of pure defiance in the wake of his dressing down. If it was, it was an incredibly stupid one.

When he barrelled into her, she thought little of it. Queening around didn’t come quite so naturally to her as to have her ordering beheadings because somebody shouldered their way past her; but it appeared the merchant himself wasn’t happy to let things lie there.

“Move!” he demanded, one hand planted flat in the centre of her chest so as to shove her backwards.

Which was when things very quickly went pear-shaped. Had she not gone on here stubbornly refusing to swap her sturdy and comfortable boots for the delicate slippers the ladies of the court here favoured, it would have been worse. Had she not had to wear a stupid number of skirts it disguise those boots, it would have been better.

For the grip of her soles stopped her from skidding back right over the edge of the walkway, but the skirts sent her tumbling to the ground, rolling to a halt not so much close to the edge, but at the very edge itself. Indeed, she feared to move at all, her body hanging over the endless drop right down to the bottom of her ribcage, face down. The silence that took over the throne room was unparalleled and stretched on and on…which was what allowed them to head her diadem clatter, and then smash, as it clattered down to the next level below.

Gwen let out a slow, shuddering breath. The angle did not allow for any purchase with which she might pull herself back, but before she could even think of how to best act, strong broad arms wrapped around her middle and pulled her back and up. She did not need to look to know who they belonged to.

“I have you. I've got you,” Thorin said, pulling her back from the edge. “Are you well?”

She took a moment to actually consider the question, rather than nodding automatically in response. Thank the stars she’d fallen on her side, and then rolled from there – her right hip ached something fierce, but her abdomen had taken none of the impact.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I’m all right.”

One hand remained at her hip – her sore hip, though she hadn’t the heart to shrug it off when he appeared just as shaken as she was. Although that worry quickly turned to ire, a positively glacial gaze turning in the direction of the merchant. At first the poor sod looked half-tempted to turn and run, but the guards at his back quickly made their presence known, and he was stuck between them and the King Under the Mountain. An unenviable position for him. The paling of his face told Gwen that he quite agreed, and the hall remained perfectly silent – all gathered dying to hear how Thorin would deal with this.

“The dungeons,” he said flatly. “Until I deem that you’ve had enough time to recall proper courtly manners.”

Which would take months. If not years. Thorin was capable of many things, but swift forgiveness was not one of them.

“Your majesty, I did not mean to-”

“Or the blade. An attempt on my queen’s life is treason.”

The merchant looked to Gwen as though hoping for an intervention. He would not find one, her hand was itching to grasp the hilt of a blade that was now seldom at her hip. In the end, he seemed relieved when the guards stepped between him and Thorin so that they might clamp irons about his wrists.

“How long will you keep him in the cells?”

Gwen asked Thorin as she changed for bed that night. In the end, she’d decided to keep her announcement for tonight, any mood having been well and truly killed stone dead by the merchant and his idiocy.

“For however long that bruise takes to heal, tenfold,” Thorin replied grimly, his eyes fixed on the angry bruise already forming at her hipbone.

She sighed quietly, slipping into the nightgown and hiding the injury from his brooding eye.

“You could have died, Gwen,” he said sharply – misinterpreting her sigh.

“It’s not that,” she shook her head.

“I’ll craft your next diadem myself,” he said. “It will be good – to make something again, rather than sitting on my backside listening to inanities. If I’d crafted the first, it would have survived the fall.”

“It’s not that, either,” she laughed softly, slipping into bed beside him. “But thank you, husband.”

“Husband, now?” he echoed with a smirk. “You seek a favour from your king, then.”

“No,” she pressed a kiss to the side of his jaw, and received one in turn at her brow for her troubles, a broad hand settling itself into the curve of her waist. “Well. Perhaps. I would ask that you don’t lose your temper when I tell you this.”

“My temper? Why?”

The lazy sort of tired humour left his face and he became all King Thorin again, eyes searching her face as if he’d find the answer to his question hidden in the gap between her eyebrows.

“The reason I came to see you today…the reason I was in the Throne Room at all…I was going to wait until you were finished holding court, and then I was going to tell you…”

“Tell me?” he pressed.

Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she pressed her hand over the top of the one at her waist, and then she brought it around her abdomen until it was pressed flat over the yet-unrounded area just below her navel.

His eyes flickered down in question and then realisation hit him with the impact of an arrow, and he met her gaze with eyes wide in wonder.

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

Any who liked to dismiss Thorin as nothing but grim and dour could only do so if they’d never seen him smile – truly smile, and the way it lit up his entire face, no, the entire mountain. Gwen was powerless to do anything other than grin back, laughing softly as he used that famed Dwarvish strength to draw her up nearer to him as though she were as light as a feather.

He kissed her then – a kiss that they both smiled into – and pulled back swiftly thereafter, unable to contain his joy to an extent that a longer embrace would require.

“Why would I lose my temper over this, my love?” he chuckled. “This is…”

He trailed off as it clicked, and then he looked downright dangerous.

“I’ll have his head, Gwendolyn.”

“Thorin…”

Already, he tried to slip from the bed – but she leapt forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, dragging him bodily back to her. He allowed it, she’d have never managed it otherwise, but he didn’t make it easy for her.

“I shall try not to take it personally that you’re willing to have his life as revenge for our child, but not just for your boring old wife,” she teased, leaning forward to press a kiss to the side of his jaw.

He made a noise caught somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff, and she knew she’d just saved the merchant from being murdered by Erebor’s half-naked king.

“I would have thrown him from the walkway myself, had I not known you wouldn’t wish it. This just makes me less inclined to heed that.”

“I had no idea I had such sway over your decisions,” she planted another kiss on his neck this time, then another on his shoulder. “Perhaps I might use it to tempt you back to bed.”

“You should see a healer – after that fall.”

“I did. I’m well,” her hands trailed across the muscular expanse of his chest, fingers threading through the hair there. “My hip took the impact.”

“That does not please me, either.”

“If you’re looked to be pleased, I can think of a thing or two better than bloodshed.”

“Oh?”

“Unless I’m mistaken,” she sighed. “After all, your husbandly duty is done. Perhaps you see no reason to-”

As she put on her best show of feeling forlorn and neglected (which still was hardly very convincing), she released her grip on him and made to untangle her arms from his body – only for  strong, rough hands to catch hers and keep her where she was.

“Your machinations have lost their subtlety over time, my queen,” he all but rumbled.

“You just know me too well now for them to work,” she laughed. “But I can hardly mourn that fact.”

“Mm. Nor can I,” he said softly – and then he did return to bed.

Links: AO3 -- FF.net -- flufftober masterpost -- dividers by cafekitsune

[livia-dovehallow]

anticipating Chain of Thorns with Cecily Herondale

a random night at 2am two weeks before CoT's release, maggie has a sudden break in writer's block to spew some nonsense from Cecily's point of view about the events to come in Chain of Thorns.

no spoilers, obviously, because CoT is not released yet and this is all speculation. besides, i doubt we'll get a Cecily POV in CoT anyway :P

each section has no smooth transition as i cannot write transitions to save my life. enjoy these random bits of Cecily Lightwood

Cecily brushed his cheek as if her thumb were just a feather. His eyes were sunken and red from all that the past two days had brought. Cecily couldn’t blame him—she felt as run down as Gabriel looked, and she still could not get the image of him covered in blood out of her mind. “Don’t push yourself so hard,” she murmured. “You need to heal.”

He met her eyes. “I can’t just lay here, Cecy,” he whispered. Each sound of the crack in his voice sent a crack through her heart. “Not when all these things are happening to our family.”

Cecily was silent for a moment. She felt as he did, frightened and worried and angry. How could they not? One niece had died. Another was locked up in the Silent City. Another was missing. And their long-dead nephew was now alive. Cecily felt a pang of guilt and selfishness that her own children were safe at home, all under one roof. That her husband had not died from his injuries. “I know,” was all she could muster in response.

Gabriel let out a shaky breath and reached up to grasp her hand in his and lower it from his cheek. She could only keep gaze with him as he did so, afraid to look down and see the bandages that wrapped his entire chest and burst into a fresh set of tears. “I don’t know what Tatiana did,” he continued. “Whatever she did to get herself charged with dark magic put Grace in the Silent City, and Jesse—” his voice cracked at his name—“Brought Jesse back.”

Despite her best efforts, tears began to drop from her eyes once more. “Whatever Tatiana did is not your fault,” she told him sternly. “Not yours. Not Gideon’s. Do you hear me?”

“She’s still my sister.”

Cecily swallowed painfully. For all the grief she had put Will through all those years, she hoped she never brought him to tears the way Tatiana brought her brothers to tears. 

Oh, God. Will. 

At that very moment, Will was with James, jumping portal after portal to find Lucie. She could imagine it now, even as she sat beside Gabriel in their dimly-lit bedroom, the desperation in her brother’s eyes to find his daughter. The frustration he would feel each time his Familias rune did not lead him to Lucie. Never letting James out of his sight while they searched. 

And Tessa, holed up in Lucie’s bedroom sobbing, praying for Lucie to come home safe. The guilt she was feeling at not being able to wear a Familias rune and help her husband and son look for Lucie. 

Cecily was brought out of her thoughts at the feel of Gabriel’s hands wiping her cheeks. She blinked until she was back in her bedroom and leaned into his touch. “They’ll find Lucie,” he said softly. “They won’t give up until they do.”

“I know,” she sniffed. “We’ll find Jesse, too. And when we do, we’ll be able to help Grace.” Suddenly, realization lit up across Gabriel’s face. Cecily took one of his hands and squeezed. “What? What is it?”

“That’s it,” he said, his voice clearer. He moved to sit up, but the moment he winced, Cecily planted her hands on his shoulders and forced him back down with a fierce look. Gabriel sighed, but did not fight against her. “We can find Jesse the same way Will can find Lucie. A Familias rune.”

Cecily’s heart ached. He wasn’t wrong. Gabriel shared blood with Jesse. He could use a Familias rune. But he was too hurt to join the search, and being only his uncle, his Familias rune wouldn’t be as strong as Will’s was to Lucie. “You’re too hurt,” she told him, sounding angry only because she couldn’t bear the thought of Gabriel getting more hurt. 

“Gideon can use it too,” he added anyway, determined. 

“By your logic, so can Eugenia and Thomas,” she tried to reason with him. Gabriel’s features began to soften. “And our own children.”

“You’re right,” he relented. Cecily wished terribly that she could crawl in next to him, curl up with him, and pretend everything was all right. She didn’t even take pleasure in being right. “We’re not sending our children anywhere.”

She sighed, and instead of crawling beside him as she wanted, Cecily moved from her stool to sit beside him instead, facing him with her hand locked tight in his. His eyes followed her every move. “Gideon is working on a plan to find Jesse, I’m sure of it. And a way to get Grace out of the Silent City. There is no chance he isn’t.”

Gabriel squeezed her hand with as much strength as he could muster. “You’re right about that, too,” he said, giving her a tiny smile. Cecily did not take pleasure in being right anymore, she decided. 

.

Cecily didn’t want to leave once Gabriel had finally fallen asleep, but she could not sit still watching him knowing the lengths the rest of the family was going through to find the missing children. 

The closer she dragged herself to Lucie’s room, the more she could hear voices murmuring. Was someone already with Tessa?

Cecily pushed open Lucie’s door and stuck her head in enough to spot Tessa looking up at her from the floor beside Lucie’s bed. Beside her, Sophie was patting Tessa’s hand gently. “May I join?” Cecily asked.

Tessa nodded and held out her other hand toward her. Cecily scurried across the room and fell beside Tessa until both her and Sophie were squishing Tessa between them. Tessa was shaking, her breaths hitching, but she’d otherwise stopped crying long ago from the dried streaks on her cheeks. Cecily’s heart hurt terribly—she knew the pain of not knowing what would happen to your precious child. But at least she knew exactly where Christopher was. She could not imagine how it would have felt if he’d been missing. 

“Is-Is Gabriel doing all right?” Tessa whispered. Tessa sounded more English when her voice was choked like that. Cecily preferred Tessa’s natural American accent because of that. 

Cecily squeezed Tessa’s hand. “He wants to help in the search,” she answered. “And you? How are you doing?”

Tessa hardly moved. She had a fixed gaze on the rug that covered most of Lucie’s bedroom. Dozens upon dozens of journals and loose papers were everywhere, as they usually were. Nothing was inordinarily out of place. “I don’t know,” Tessa answered blankly. “I thought I might find a clue as to where she may be in here, but there’s nothing.”

Cecily bit her lip and thought deeply for a moment. There was no way Lucie didn’t write down every aspect of her life, every thought. She knew Tessa knew that too. But Lucie wrote in riddles and stories. Names for people that weren’t always as obvious as Cruel Prince James. 

“There is probably something,” Sophie offered quietly. “But she’s hidden it well. It may not even be in her bedroom. Don’t blame yourself for that, Tessa.”

“Sophie is right. And Lucie is resourceful. She’ll be all right, and Will is going to find her.”

Tessa closed her eyes, sending a new wave of tears down her cheeks, but she remained still in her place. “There was something Jamie said before they left,” she sniffed. “I don’t know what he meant. But I think it had something to do with Lucie. ‘She could see him.’”

“’She could see him?’” Cecily repeated. She met Sophie’s eyes, equally curious. “That could mean many things. Maybe he’s told Will what he meant by that. James wants to find Lucie as much as you do, of course.”

Tessa nodded. She was normally a quiet person, Tessa, but even now, she was uncharacteristically quiet. Cecily felt strange about it, but not unable to understand why. And James’s words lingered in her mind. She could see him. Who could she see? If James sounded surprised by it, did that mean Lucie could have seen a ghost that he couldn’t? 

Cecily started. Lucie was last seen going down into the Sanctuary. Where Jesse’s body was being held. Where Jesse’s body disappeared.

“Cecily?” Sophie asked, concerned. Cecily turned to both of them, eyes wide and heart racing. “What is it?”

“Jesse,” she breathed. Tessa and Sophie looked more puzzled. Cecily sat up further, her mind racing. She had to find Gideon. “’She could see him.’ If James said that because Lucie could see something he didn’t, it couldn’t have been just any ghost, right?”

Tessa began to nod. “It’s possible,” she said slowly.

“I think Lucie could see Jesse’s ghost.”

.

Gideon stared at her, shock frozen across his face. “Come again?” he asked her, his voice choked.

Cecily fiddled with her hands in front of her. She could hear the rumbling conversation of the other members of the Clave just down the hall. They had to be so curious why she’d burst into the room and demanded that only family be a part of what she had to say. And when Tessa and Sophie appeared behind her, she could have sworn all the color had left Gideon’s face.

“I know it sounds unbelievable,” she said, uncertain. An unusual tone for her to take and the family knew it, for Anna, Eugenia, and Thomas stared in surprise from the other end of the table. “But Jesse being alive also sounded unbelievable. If the reason he’s alive is because his body was preserved, what if that also means he’d been a ghost all this time, unable to return to it?”

Gideon stumbled on his feet until he put his hand down on the table to steady him. “Cecily,” he said, his voice low. “This—This changes so many things if you’re right.”

Cecily made a small sound of distress. She hated uncertainty. She also knew she had to repeat her theory to Gabriel when he woke up, and she was not excited to put him through more shock. Especially if this was how his brother was reacting. “If I’m right,” she strained, “it also means Jesse has been here all these years.”

Gideon looked like he was about to vomit. He sunk into the nearest chair, looking horrified. The elder children at the other end of the table remained speechless. “Tatiana,” he breathed. “The dark magic.”

“You’re saying Aunt Tatiana was using dark magic to bring Jesse back?” Anna piped up. “And it worked?” 

“Tatiana was sent to the Adament Citadel weeks ago.” Gideon shook his head. “If it really did work, why did it take so long?”

Sophie let out a deep gasp. “Grace.”

A hush fell over the room. If Grace had not only known about the dark magic but took part in it, it was possible she continued the work after Tatiana’s arrest to bring her brother back. She’d turned herself in the same night he disappeared. 

“I have to go to the Silent City.” Gideon rushed out of his chair toward the door, but Sophie grabbed his arm with pleading eyes. 

“Tatiana spent years keeping Jesse and Grace away from us,” she said. “If you barge in their asking questions about Jesse, she might be too frightened to answer. We might as well be strangers to her, Gideon.”

It was harsh, and Gideon looked in pain, but it was true. Cecily wanted to cry at the expression on Gideon’s face. Gabriel would be just as hurt when he found out. There was a reason why Grace had turned down their offers to take her in. “I’ll go,” Cecily offered.

Gideon and Sophie turned to her. “Cecily—”

“I’ll go,” she repeated firmly. “She’s our niece, too. And she might feel more comfortable speaking with a woman. Even if I am her aunt, I’m more removed from Tatiana than you or Gabriel. Grace might not feel as much pressure if I go.”

Sophie turned back to Gideon. “She may be right, Gideon.”

Gideon sighed but nodded. “Okay, Cecily, you go speak to Grace. See what you can find out about Jesse and where we might find him.”

.

Cecily dropped her shoulders. Grace was scared and alone, without her mother or brother, in a place her mother had refused to ever take her before. The lone Voyance rune on the back of her left hand the only sign that Grace had had true Nephilim parents before Tatiana.

“I’m not here to convince you to see your uncles,” Cecily said as gently as she could. She remained in place, hoping that the distance would make Grace feel more inclined to feel comfortable around her. Grace only stared back in silence. “But we do need to know where Jesse is, Grace. You’re the only one who can help us.”

At that, Grace startled, and shot up from her curled position. “Where Jesse is?” she asked. “What do you mean where Jesse is?”

Cecily blinked in surprise. Grace seemed shocked, and more scared than she had moments ago. “Grace, love,” she treaded carefully. “Did—Did you not know Jesse is alive and missing?”

Grace paled. Her knees buckled and Cecily shot forward below the girl hit the floor. Cecily held Grace up in her arms, more confused than ever. Grace’s breathing became erratic and Cecily did exactly what she would have done for any of her children—she hugged Grace and rubbed her back with long, gentle patterns. “Shh, love, breathe. Breathe.”

Cecily expected Grace to stiffen at the contact, but she did not. “J-Jesse?” Grace squeaked.

Cecily closed her eyes and scolded herself for being so brash about her question. The poor girl had no idea her brother was alive. “I’m sorry for breaking it to you in that way. I did not mean to shock you.” She pulled away and held Grace’s shoulders back enough to see the girl’s face. Tears stained her now red cheeks, the only color that had returned to her face. “We thought you may have had something to do with it or known about it. But I’m not here to punish you. We just want to find him and bring him home.”

Grace’s eyes were wide. She knew something, Cecily saw in her eyes, but she didn’t know he was back. No, it had to have happened after she was already in the Silent City. “Grace, dear, was it your mother’s dark magic that brought him back?”

Slowly, Grace began to shake her head. Surprise lit up Cecily’s body. If it wasn’t Tatiana, who did it? “Was it you?”

Grace did not shake her head yes or no. Instead she shook terribly in Cecily’s grasp. “I—We—We tried. S-She came to m-me. I gave up b-but—s-she did it.”

“Who, Grace? Who did it?”

The girl looked terrified. “Lucie.”

.

Cecily felt just as Grace had looked. Lucie. Lucie helped bring Jesse back. She could see him. Him was Jesse. 

The moment before stepping through the portal back home, Cecily felt like throwing up. It was all connected. Lucie’s disappearance and Jesse’s disappearance. Wherever they were, they had to be together. Which meant when Will found Lucie he was going to find Jesse, too.

Mrs. Lightwood? 

Cecily started with a sharp inhale and turned to the Silent Brother beside her. “I’m sorry. Lost in thought for a moment. I’ll be going.”

She stepped through the portal and looked around the lab. No one was there waiting for her. With a relieved sigh, she lowered herself to the floor and buried her face in her hands. How was she going to tell Gideon and Gabriel what she had found out? How was she going to tell Tessa?

Before long, loud footsteps came barreling down to the lab. When she looked up, Christopher was still in the entryway, looking at her with great surprise. “Mam?” he asked, incredulously. 

Cecily rushed to her feet and brushed her skirts. “Oh, Christopher,” she said, clearing her throat. “I was using the Portal. I’m sorry if I messed anything up with your lab, love.”

Christopher shook his head. “Nothing is out of place,” he assured her with a concerned frown. He looked so much like his father when he was concerned, Cecily thought to herself. Her sweet boy. “Are you okay, Mam? You look upset.”

Cecily gave her son a small smile and made her way toward the opening, where he remained standing. When she reached him, she squeezed his cheeks. “So much has happened the last couple days. With your father still recovering, I’m just a bit tired.”

“Why don’t you rest?” he asked her, genuine and caring. He was taller than her now, and Cecily had to look up a bit to meet his lavender eyes. “I’ll watch Alex.”

Cecily’s smile grew, though her thoughts still ran inside her head. “Thank you, love. I need to find your uncle, but I will go up and sit with your Father after. All right?”

Christopher didn’t look entirely convinced, but he nodded anyway. “I’ll bring you tea once you do.”

.

Cecily took a long, painful breath before pushing open the doors to the study. Gideon shot up the moment she stepped through the door, but only when the doors shut behind her did he begin questioning. “Is Grace all right? Does she know where Jesse is?”

“Gideon,” Cecily began, meeting his eyes with despair. His expression fell. “She didn’t know Jesse was alive.” Sophie gasped beside Gideon and covered her mouth with her hand. “The poor thing was in so much shock when I told her so brashly. Oh, I felt so guilty. She was in hysterics.”

“Is she all right?” Gideon asked, eyebrows furrowed. 

Cecily nodded. “She told me as much as she could. And—well, we all need to sit down and someone must bring Gabriel down here because I don’t think I can say all this again.”

[angelamajiki]

PAIRINGS: Father! Yandere! Enji Todoroki x Daughter! Reader

CW: yandere, incest, soulmate AU, fluff, slight angst, nsfw, kissing, praise kink, virginity kink, size kink, bathroom sex

A BNHarem Collab!

AN: my longest piece to date! the prompt this month was sex work, so i decided to stretch the prompt and do sexual slavery. wanted to go for a softer version of daddy endeavor, so please enjoy <3

5.2k words

The mark on his wrist was one that was shared with yours. Enji had given up on finding his soulmate, deciding that his career and legacy were far more important than some silly marking on another’s body. Love was something he thought he could go without. But when he saw your bright eyes gaze up at him, your chubby hand wrapped around his index finger, his heart had fallen hard—such a sweet, gentle thing. No traces of fear, of disdain, of disgust for him as a human being. Just pure curiosity and unconditional love. His heart leaped for his little girl.

Enji was determined, then and there, that he would never fail you, not like he forgot the others.

Oh, what plans he had for you, his precious princess. He couldn’t wait to spoil you, to marry you and start a new family once you were old enough. Rei realized this as well. Her youngest daughter, her last hope at salvaging her broken family, was to be had by her husband. The thought frightened her, especially after seeing the adoring look in her husband's eyes when she saw him cradle you for the first time. It was so unlike the stoic nature he held for the other children when they were born, only caring to see that they were healthy before leaving off back to his agency, never giving them more than a fleeting touch. It was nothing like when he held you, snarling at any nurse who dared to take his soulmate from the grips of his arms.

Something that had Enji’s conviction more so than his career was something to be feared. Your mother swore to herself that she would not let her husband ruin you.

Once he fell asleep with you tucked in the crook of his arm, a social worker came and collected you to be sent to a foster home and be set up for adoption. It was better than falling into the hands of the monster of a husband.

After the death of Touya, the pair decided to have one more child in hopes of fixing their broken family, but Rei now knew it was for naught. Nothing could save them know, especially now that Enji had nearly burned the building down when he discovered that his little girl was gone, just hours after he had finally found you.

Rei alerted the commission as well for your protection, that utter bitch of a woman. They very well couldn't have the number two hero caught in an incestuous bond with his daughter, now could they. All information of your whereabouts was hidden from him, blacklisting him from working with any foster children, lest he loses his hero license. Enji may have lost you for the time being, but his patience grew as he did. They couldn't keep him from you forever. You'd be reunited one day; he knows it.

The first time he saw you again was when you were fifteen. It was your birthday and the day he had become the number one hero officially, plenty of reason to celebrate. Usually, he would have taken the time to sit near the rose bush he planted in your honor in his courtyard on your birthday, renewing his vows to find and love you to the best of his ability. Enji took great pride in keeping your memory alive with the bush for his beautiful little rose gone too soon from his grasp. But there you were, mere meters from him.

The foster home you stayed at took you out for dinner when he was meeting with Hawks after the billboard awards. Your eyes were unmistakable, a perfect cerulean just like his own. He was so close, yet so far. My, how you had grown since he saw you. Unlike him, you bore your mark proudly on your wrist, not ashamed to admit to the world who your soulmate was. Not like you actually knew who it was anyway.

Enji was prepared to leave Hawks at the table; a new flame lit under his ass, one far more exhilarating than the thought of being the number one hero. He was up and on his way to speak to you before Nomu attacked him. Damn villains, they'd pay for separating the two of you once again. But his conviction only grew stronger. It wasn’t hard to find you after that; he knew what city you were living in. Instincts lashed out at him, demanding that he go sweep you up and hide you away. No, no. That would make you frightened; he can't have that. He’ll watch from the sidelines, waiting until you were of age to make a move. He was curious to see just how life as a foster child was treating you.

Growing up in the foster system had been a nightmare from hell for you. A cursed child is what they saw you as when your skin sprouted flames every time it was touched by the human hand, burning everything and everyone who came in contact with it. From the moment your quirk manifested, you were an outcast, an untouchable, unlovable freak. Someone destined never to feel the touch of their new parents, their lover, their soulmate.

It wasn't long before you realized that you would remain in the foster system until you aged out. Who would adopt a child they couldn't hug when they cried, hold their hand when they crossed the street, snuggle up to when it was chilly outside? Any potential parent was taken aback by your quirk once you reached for the warm touch of mommy and daddy, only to singe their hand or burn a hole in their shirt.

You learned quickly that your touch was something to be feared, that you were something to be feared. You supposed that’s why you looked up to him so much. So much so that you thought about him late at night when the loneliness seemed to drown you in the sea of your insecurities.

Endeavor was the only one who could understand you, understand your quirk. If only your soulmate mark could match him, maybe you feel the warmth of another human being without hurting or mauling them with your power. Abrasive he may be with the media, but there something about him that was so comforting and endearing to you. In your eyes, he was simply misunderstood, a gentle giant amongst the mass personalities of the other pro heroes.

Watching his interviews brought you comfort when you were lonely, his merchandise made you swell with pride and confidence, and his posters on the wall reminded you that you were never alone. It was a silly crush, but it made you feel better about your miserable life.

You even got to see him on your birthday! Well, not exactly. You happened to be in the same restaurant when your foster parents took you out for your birthday. It was apparent that they just felt bad for you, having looked after you for 15 years only to still have custody of your sorry ass. You were almost certain that they were going to kick you to the curb the morning of your 18th birthday.

Too bad they never had the chance. That fate would have been much kinder than the reality you faced now.

Once the Paranormal Liberation Front had effectively ripped society up by the roots and let the tree of life rot for the world to see, your foster parents packed their shit and left the country while you were at school. You’d been alone in the world ever since and were snatched off the streets, ready to be sold into slavery by the villains of the world. Your quirk was the only thing keeping you from being bought like a bitch from the auction floor.

Enji, on the other hand, was more than eager to do just that. After his public smear campaign by his allegedly dead son, he was dead to the world, finally abandoning his family for good in hopes of finding his beloved daughter. His life was dedicated to searching for you, having managed to track you down through his vigilante work. He likes to lie to himself and say that he’s continuing to fight for the greater good, but Enji does it just to have the chance to see your sweet face again. There wasn’t much to go off of, but he’d rather see his fiery end than to give up. That's how he found you at the auction.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Another auction night was approaching, which meant another night of humiliation and being displayed like a slab of meat for a crowd of degenerate wolves. Your quirk was the only thing keeping you from being sold; no one wants a fucktoy they can’t touch. It reduced you to physical labor for your captors, but you were better fed because of it. That didn’t mean they still didn’t try to sell you.

After being stripped down into nothing but a collar, leash, and a muzzle, you were brought to the stage and shoved in front of the ravenous, roaring crowd. You could feel their stares seep into your bones, the grime from the floor on your bare feet only adding to the overwhelming sensation of disgust you couldn’t even begin to describe.

The crowd’s excitement was raucous, jeers and shouts echoing off the halls of the underground auditorium. Masks covered their faces for the sake of privacy lest a vigilante break-in and hunt them all down. Even in the lawlessness of the world, heroes were still crawling everywhere to trail after even the slightest scent of villainy. Doesn't mean they’ll win, but hey, the death of a hero is just the same as the auction was to them.

“Up next, a darling girl with a fiery quirk!”

That was your cue. A handler had a fierce grip on your leash, giving it a few tugs for good measure as the crowd laughed at your stumbling. The auctioneer began to list your qualities and physical attributes, including your quirk.

“And she’s a virgin!”

Added for good measure, the crowd fell silent after listening to the abilities of your quirk. You couldn't hate it anymore; it's what was keeping you from being someone’s onahole until the day you kicked the bucket.

“Can I get $10,000?”

Ah the starting bid. The silence was relieving. Just a few more moments and you'd be off that damn stage.

“No? Going once, going twice, going-”

“One million.”

A booming voice came from the back row, the depths of the shadows to further hide the masked man who just bought your life. Why did it sound so familiar?

“Outstanding! One million dollars for the young lady!”

“Going once.”

It couldn't be.

“Going twice.”

This can't be happening.

“Sold for one million!”

No!

You were supposed to be unwanted, just like you have been your entire life! Yet some mysteriously familiar man outbid the entire auction for little ol’ you.

“Off the stage, bitch.”

The handler snarled, yanking you off the stage and causing you the fall and bruise yourself in the process.

“Watch it!” He spat, picking you up by the roots of your hair. “The merchandise needs to be handled carefully before reaching the customer. Let's hope he doesn't mind some bumps and bruises. For your sake.”

“That won't be necessary; I'll be taking her as is. Immediately, if you will.”

The mysterious man stood had already made his way backstage and behind you, standing formidably over your stark form. Your hair was released, dropping you back to the floor.

“Excellent, sir! I’m more than happy to get this welp off my hands.”

A brief exchange was made while you recovered on the floor, shaking in fear as the situation weighed heavily on your already broken self. The handler took the money and returned to the back room, leaving the two of you alone together.

The stranger crouched down to you and extended a hand to brush the stray hair out of your face, touch remaining tender and gentle when you flinched harshly.

“My poor girl, what has the world done to you?”

His coat enveloped your body as he scooped you up in his arms. The scent of him comforted you more than you would have liked to admit. Teakwood and coffee grounds filled your senses as he held you flush against his chest, leaving the auction house with a renewed sense of vigor.

You were placed in the backseat of a car before he dressed you in simple pajamas.

“Rest. You deserve it.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

At some point in the car ride, you let yourself fall asleep only to wake up in a cozy king-size bed wrapped up in a soft blanket next to a warm fireplace. The false sense of comfort lulled you for a few moments before your situation hit you like a ton of bricks. The anxiety you'd had known your whole life had finally kicked back into gear, forcing you out of bed and into the rest of the house.

It was daybreak, the sunlight slowly trickling in through heavily curtained windows as you walked through the halls and into the kitchen. The man was standing over the stove, sans mask, dressed in a wife-beater and his pajama bottoms. It couldn't be-

“Come in; breakfast will be on the table in a moment.”

Now you were certain.

“Who are you?” Your voice barely above a whisper. “Why did you buy me at the auction?”

A deep, rumbling chuckle flowed from the man.

“I think you know the answer to that, little one.”

His focus was retained on the meal in front of him. “I’ll explain myself over breakfast. Now sit.”

You couldn't help but feel compelled to obey him. While sitting, you took the time to honestly look him over for the first time in your life. Never did you think you would be so close to your childhood crush in such a domestic setting.

He had noticeably greyed but still possessed a majority of his red hair. Muscles were still taught and budging, but he had grown a little bit of a belly. Endeavor was as handsome as ever, aged like a fine wine that you couldn't wait to sip on.

The food was placed in front of you as he took the test next to you.

“Eat and have some water. Then we’ll talk.”

Once again, you obeyed him without question and refrained from eating like a rabid animal. It wasn't even a question, so much so that it is evident that you hadn't had a decent meal in a long time. You were still muscular from the labor you did for your handlers, though.

And Enji liked that about you. How resilient you were, he loved that you inherited his strength but still possessed Rei’s gentle nature. Not that he wanted to credit that woman for anything, but he couldn't deny the obvious. You were his strong, beautiful little girl who had to endure so much because his bitch of a wife decided to separate you from him.

But he was here now, ready to give all his love and protection to his only love. It took everything in his power not to swoop you up from your seat and hold you in his arms until his last breath.

Enji watched you eat, pride swelling in his chest at the thought that you liked his cooking. He couldn't help but wonder what your favorite meals were as well. There's certainly all the time in the world to get to know his little girl now that he had you. And he was never going to let you go.

Your breakfast was devoured quickly, both out of desperation for a real meal and answers to your questions.

“Why did you buy me from the auction?”

It was a complicated question, but you wanted a simple answer.

“I’m your soulmate.” His wrist was on display as he reached across the table to hold your hand.

For the first time in your life, you felt safe. Your one, shining hope was meant to yours and he wanted to be yours. You didn't even question how he knew at all.

His touch was warm and slightly rough, but it was welcome all the same. Even though your skin was lit aflame at his flesh against your, he paid it no mind. He was built to take your quirk, to take you.

“Endeavor…”

“Please, call me Enji.” His thumb rubbed over the palm of your hand. “I’m sure you feel better after having something to eat.”

“Why don't you go take a bath? It’ll help you relax, I can take care of your dishes.”

It was strange how insistent he was on taking care of you, but you can't say you don't enjoy the attention. He seemed to care for you in a way that went beyond caring for a partner, or in your case, a soulmate. But who were you to judge? It wasn't like you had a lot of experiences to use as a comparison.

Making your way back to the bedroom, you took the time to study the house you were in. A traditional, well-kept home, it practically looked like it was untouched. And maybe it was; buildings and homes fully intact were hard to come by these days, let alone ones that were clean and warm.

Enji seemed to lull you into an instinctual sense of safety, even though he bought you out of slavery. Just because he was your soulmate didn't mean that he had good intentions for you, but somehow, his presence alone filled a void in your heart that you had forgotten was even there.

Once you made it to the bathroom connected to the master bedroom, you drew yourself a bath just like Enji had instructed you to do. It wasn't the wisest decision to let your guard down like this, but the man already had plenty of opportunities to fuck you up by this point.

The water was warm and inviting when you sank yourself into it; you couldn't remember the last time you had warm water to clean yourself with. It made you feel light and hazy, slipping into a headspace you had long forgotten—a place of safety and comfort.

Three raps on the door pulled you from your haze as Enji entered the bathroom with fresh towels. Despite the fact that he had already seen you naked, the intimacy of the situation only left you feeling more vulnerable than ever.

“Let me help you.”

He kneeled next to you outside of the tub and pulled a lavender chamomile shampoo from the tub’s shelf. There was room to protest, but you couldn't find yourself willing to do so.

Water was poured over your head before he started a lather in your hair, gently scrubbing your scalp for a while. Even this simple touch made you shudder, it was a long time since you last felt the warmth of someone’s touch. And everything about this man was warm, for you at least. His words, his touch, his heart.

Conditioner was added to your hair as well before he moved onto washing your body. The scrub was gentle across your skin, his hand following after it to help keep the suds from rising too much. Strong hands massaged your back and your neck, both of which needed the much-deserved relief.

“So tense.” He murmured, mostly to himself.

There was a comfortable silence shared between the two of you as he massaged out all the knots and kinks that had built up over the years with your handlers. His touch should have made you flinch but you found yourself pressing into it. A small moan escaped your lips as he worked through a particularly tender spot on your neck.

“Are you enjoying this?”

His lips ghosted your ear as warm breath tickled your cheek and neck.

Your face flushed with a fiery warmth from a combination of the steam, your embarrassment, and the man whispering sweet nothings in your ear as his hands worked at your tired skin.

“Let me help you relax, sweet thing.”

Enji picked you up momentarily to slot himself behind you in the tub. Placed on his lap, you gasped when you could feel his erection hard against your back. Fear started to trickle into your veins as you squirmed slightly, attempting to get out of his grasp.

“Shhh, it's alright, you're okay.” His hand made its way to your throat and rested there gently, stroking over your artery with his thumb. “I’m not going to hurt you, sweetheart. Let me show you how much I've missed you.”

His touch made you feel alive, feel wanted for the first time in your life. You couldn't help but whine when his other hand made its way down your body, gently groping your breast as his lips were pressed to your ear.

“Do you trust me to take care of you?”

His fingers toyed with your nipples, obviously skilled.

“Do you trust me to make the sweetest love to you?”

Another whine caught in your throat as his hand went further, cupping your sex in his much larger hand. He kneaded gently, pressing a soft kiss to your temple when you writhed in his grip.

“Please! Enji-”

Shushing you gently, Enji’s thumb made its way to your clit to stroke in small circles.

“How does that feel, sweetheart?”

You were used to touching yourself, but oh God it never felt like this.

“Good!” You managed to choke out in a wanton moan. “So good! Enji, please, I need-”

A warm pair of lips sealed over yours, silencing you once again. Enji knew how wrong this was, to take advantage of you like this without revealing the truth. But he wanted at least to just once to have you in his arms willingly and eagerly. He wanted to kiss you breathless, listen to your cries and feel your nails dig into his skin as he gave you all of himself without a fight from you. He can worry about revealing himself to you later.

The rough pads of his large fingers started to apply pressure to your clit as his middle finger slipped into your tight hole under the water.

“Don't worry, little one. I'll give you what you need.”

Soft kisses were trailed along your cheek and hand that was on his that was still holding your throat tenderly. Finger pumping in and out of you, Enji whispered sweet praises to you as he felt your hole clench around him.

“Doing so well for me, sweetheart.”

Your breathy moans and whines only served to harden his cock. He felt like a teenager all over again, closing to cumming just from the sound of your voice.

Another finger slipped into your tight core, careful not to overwhelm you too fast. It was obvious you'd hadn't been touched before, not even by yourself. You felt full but greedy for more of his touch.

“Deeper, Enji! Please, can you?”

You were babbling at this point, writhing in his lap as he fingered you nice and slow with thick digits. Enji hummed as he pressed further into, curling his fingers into your G-spot.

Your cry was loud as he began to abuse your most sensitive spot, fully squirming in his arms as tears of pleasure breached your eyes. The sensation was too overpowering for you, making you thrash and arch in his arms.

“Shh, you're okay, sweetheart. You're okay; I'm right here.”

His fingers continued to stroke in a curled fashion, thumb still circling over your twitching clit. Enji kissed you again, deeper and more fierce as he began to fuck you earnestly with his fingers.

“Cum for me, darling.”

Squealing, you gripped his forearm and cried helplessly into his mouth. The build was slow and intense, allowing your orgasm to wash over you in waves of pleasure rather than a blinding, quick light.

“E-Enji!” You wailed. “Enji!”

You shook in his arms, holding onto the larger man for dear life as you experienced your first orgasm. It seemed like Enji knew your body better than you did.

No words were exchanged between the pair of you, but you could feel the tension of your desired hanging thick in the air. This man was going to take your virginity, here and now.

Enji removed his hand from your throat and between your legs in order to maneuver you to sit facing forward in his lap.

“Are you ready for me?”

His honesty made you flush even more. Biting your lip nervously, you hesitated to answer. Were you ready? It wasn’t like you had much of choice; the man could very well take you by force if he so chose to. But you felt safe in his arms, safe with him.

“Let me help you, my love.”

Warm, large hands gripped your backside as he held you steady above his cock. Your hand reached down to line yourself up with his throbbing sex, lowering yourself down on it slowly.

It burned in the best way, stretching you out fully as you pressed your forehead against his chin.

“Good girl, taking my cock so well, darling.”

A pitiful whine left your throat at the praise, hands gripping the forearms that held you in place.

“Can...Can you hold me?” You whimpered. “Please?”

Enji’s arms enveloped you and pulled you flush against his, tucking your head into the crook of his neck as you continued to lower yourself onto his cock. Your breath tickled his ears, making him groan lowly once he bottomed out inside of you.

“Such a sweet girl you are, taking all of me on your first try.”

Another whine responded for you as you ground your hips down on his.

“E-Enji.” You whimpered his name over and over again like a prayer. “Enji!”

“Be still, little one.” Hands back on your hips, holding you in place near the tip of his girthy length. “Let me take care of you.”

Hips in place, the man began to thrust up into you slowly, holding you tight as he stood up from the water. You only gripped and nuzzled yourself into him further, letting out sweet whines and whimpers into his ear while he thrust into you.

Your back was placed against the cool tile of the wall when he tilted your chin up to meet his gaze. Even in this position, he was still at least another head taller than you.

“Look at me when I make love to you.”

Through wet eyelashes, you gazed up at his eyes and let your mouth hang open as he rolled his hips into yours. His eyes shut briefly when he moaned, hissing at the feeling of your wet cunt hugging his cock so well.

“You were made to take my cock, little one.”

Arms reached up to wrap around his neck as he thrust into you, taking his time to make his strokes slow and deep. His hips were flush against yours when you asked him, “Kiss me, please? I want all of you Enji.”

Your bold proclamation stunned him for a moment before yielding, placing a deep kiss and a hot tongue against your lips.

His thrusts became faster as he kissed you with more passion and vitality. For an old man, he certainly had his stamina up to par. Your fingers thread through his red and grey tresses, tugging him closer to you gently as you moaned shamelessly into his mouth.

The pleasure in your core was more intense, fiercer this time around as his thrusts became hard and fast. The sounds of both of your moans and skin slapping against skin echoed off the tiled bathroom walls as the both of you felt your orgasms coming.

“Enji, fuck!” You whined, beginning to squirt on his fast-paced cock. “I-I’m cumming; I’m cumming!”

“Cum for me, princess.”

With a choked sob, you creamed yourself all over his cock, which continued to pound into your hole before he groaned your name and came deep inside you.

Nothing but the sounds of the water sloshing and your labored breathing could be heard as you both came down from your highs.

After a moment of rest, Enji pulled out and wrapped you in a towel before laying you gently on the bed. A towel was wrapped around his own waist as he looked at you fondly, brushing stray hairs out of your eye sight as he sat next to you on the bed.

“I must ask, how did you end up at the auction site?”

What a loaded question, but the intimacy you two shared allowed for it.

“I was kidnapped off the streets after my parents abandoned me when the prison break happened.”

He sighed gruffly and took your hand in his.

“What utter fools, tossing aside a beautiful rose such as yourself.”

His thumb traced over your soulmate mark. You still had yet to know how he knew before ever meeting you.

“It's alright; I never considered them my family. I just wish I could have met mine, but at least I met my soulmate.”

A crinkled smile adorned his face.

“You've done more than meet them.”

What could that have meant?

“I’m your father and your soulmate, little one.”

A rock hit the pit of your stomach as you retracted your hand from his.

“That isn't a funny joke, I'm serious.”

“So am I.” His hand was quick to snatch your back. “What could I possibly gain from lying to you?”

“P-Prove it.”

“Our soulmate marks, I saw yours the moment you were born in the Hosu hospital before my wife separated us all those years ago. I can recite your birthday if you'd like me to, for good measure.”

Fuck, he really wasn't lying. A lump formed in your throat as tears sprung in your eyes.

“Why would you do this to me?” You whispered, barely even able to hear yourself.

“Because I love you. I love you so much, sweetheart. Ever since I saw you for the first time in the hospital, my entire life has changed because of you. All I ever wanted was you.”

Enji was quick to shush your cries, using his free hand to wipe your tears away.

“Will you forgive me for being selfish?”

The disgust and horror filled everyone of your senses, especially when you came to a realization that he was everything you've ever wanted.

What came out of your mouth next stunned the both of you.

“You can apologize by begging on your knees and cleaning me up with your tongue, Daddy.”

TAGLIST: @tomurasprincess @bonesoftheimpala @sightoru @cxnicalsweetheart

[rosemaryandarsenic]

do u have any hc's for domestic life w/ gareth ..?

DO I! Oh my god, too many haha. Both fluff and NSFW HC’s to follow so minors, this is your warning lol.

- firstly, Gareth radiates dad vibes. He’s always watching for deals on new tech, I feel like he’s the kind of person to get an in home computer and he’s SO EXCITED about it.

- he absolutely has a VHS collection that turns into a CD collection. Even as they lose popularity he keeps those CD’s and tapes, still has a huge stereo even though he could just use Spotify.

- he hates mowing the lawn, def a cool weather kind of guy. Loves the fall and winter, enjoys going out and shoveling the driveway then sitting outside with a mug of coffee or tea.

- goes all out for Halloween and Christmas, wouldn’t be caught dead with Easter themed anything. It took him awhile to get into Valentine’s Day but now he buys you flowers every year in excess. I could see him getting you one of those lego flower sets so you can save them.

- can’t keep plants alive to save his life. Literally manages to kill everything except one pot of violets his sisters got him one year. He guards them with his life. They froze one year and he literally cried and has never forgiven himself for letting them die.

- drinks black coffee, prefers tea to coffee though. A big fan of Irish breakfast tea. Thinks Starbucks is a waste of time. Secretly goes for pumpkin spice season though. Will deny that like his life depends on it. I just know he’s the kind of dad that would take his girls though, wouldn’t let anyone call them basic.

- speak of dad, he’s def the dad that has the treat tax. Like he gets his kids treats and surprises all the time but he always gets a piece of their candy or a bite of whatever. Yknow that meme where the dad is reaching back while driving? That. The dad tax.

- owns a frankly ridiculous amount of socks, none of them match and he doesn’t even know which ones are his at this point. Like, you’re at the store and he tosses a pack in the cart and you’re like, “again?!” And he’s just like, “listen-“

- he’s def messy but if there are dishes in the sink or coffee mugs on his desk he will freak out. ADHD clean if you know what I mean.

- hates typical sports, will not watch them and will not play them. One of his kids asks to join the football team and he’s like, “why don’t you take a dance class instead?”

- he’s the kind of husband who signs you both up to learn salsa and then proceeds to nearly break both of your legs because he simply cannot dance. It’s okay though because he tries so hard and it’s fucking adorable.

- enjoys slow dancing with you whenever possible. When you two started dating he’d play Top of the World by the Carpenters or Our House by Cosby and swirl you around his parents kitchen. His mom caught you one time and nearly cried because it was so precious.

- this man loves his mother. Like, would do anything for that woman. When he met you, it was exactly the same. Huge family guy but has daddy issues so male authority figures are not his fav. If you’re family though, he’d guard you with his life.

- got bullied a lot in HS obviously. If Eddie came back alive he’d tell him about what Jason did and apologize profusely for spilling even the tiniest bit of info. Eddie forgives him completely but Gareth never really lets go of it and feels horrible about it to this day.

- if he ever found out one of his children was getting bullied he’d literally lose it. Like, irrationally angry and has to go smoke in the garage to calm down so he doesn’t kick some 12 year olds ass.

- teaches his kids D&D.

- always wanted kids, but never wanted you to feel pressured. If y’all got pregnant anytime, teens or later he’d literally drop everything to prep for being a dad. Gets scared alot about not being able to provide for you.

- I feel like he’d take up piano as well as his drums, so he would have something he could practice quietly. Finds peace in creating things whether it’s music or art. Literally gets lost in the rhythm.

- so many good flannels and sweaters

- can’t sing for shit but likes to sing to you

- doesn’t know how to do “manly” things because his dad was not around so he asks Eddie to teach him how to fix cars and build shit. He’s really good at sewing and mending things, likes to cook too. Can’t bake for shit but he’ll try if it’s important. Ended up getting really into cars and bikes, never owned a motorcycle though.

- big breeding kink. Like. Aggressively into it lol.

- he rips your underwear a lot because he’s needy and just pulls them off lmao

- has broken two bed frames of yours, once in college and once in your first apartment. Now you just have one of those box frames with drawers that holds the mattress because he can’t be trust haha

- fucks your on top of the dryer while the kids are asleep, or sneaks you into the garage to smoke and fuck in the car.

- begged you to get some type of pet like a cat or a dog when you finally have your own place

- has always wanted a pet snake

- major pediatrician or English/history/music teacher vibes

- took him three years after high school to go to college because he wanted to just find his own way and HS really burnt him out.

- stops drinking around 25, just not into it. Says he likes being more present. Maybe would have the occasional beer or glass of wine on special occasions but really hates hard liquor.

- played with the band into his 30s! They have a couple albums and quit after Eddie had his second kid.

- Jeff and him are life long friends, they still play video games together once a week even if they’re 60 and retired lmao

- does not like being outdoors much but is really good at camping and swimming. Has a big connection with nature when he’s in it, it’s just not very often.

- takes you to drive ins all the time

- gets headaches a lot

- steals your clothes. Like you’ll wander into the kitchen in the morning and he’s wearing your sweatpants that say Juicy or PINK on the ass with rhinestones. Will also wear dresses with you and skirts. A fashion icon really.

- he takes up the entire bed when he’s sleeping, steals all the blankets and talks in his sleep.

- the kind of guy who lifts up his leg when he farts and laughs at it, idk what to tell you about that one

- he loves bubble baths

- literally cannot work blinds for the life of him. Like, he’s always pulling the chord wrong and then getting really mad when they come down lopsided and he has to come to you begging for help because he just can’t do it.

- opens pickle jars on the first try every single time

- smells really good, somehow always sweet but in a natural musky way.

- hates the sound of people chewing but also chews really loudly himself

- one time during sex, you were on top and he grabbed your boobs and yelled, “what’re thooosee.”

- makes jokes at the wrong time, all of the time.

- people think he’s angry all the time but he’s just quiet until he trusts you and then he talks your ear off and gets so fucking loud

- watches TV at full volume with no awareness of his surroundings like a heathen lmao

- collects comics

- will not go within 10 feet of spiders

- constantly dehydrated, chugs water all the time and it’s still not enough

- he’s really good with animals. Y’all have chickens, and he always wanted to work on a farm. Teaches your kids 4H stuff, but doesn’t like the idea of scouts because it “encourages kids to romanticize the military instead of helping the community”

- he loves rock collecting

- buys lots of crystals

- superstitious as fuck

- really good at running but hates working out, he only does it so he can perform on stage and keep up with his kids.

- really into yoga and Pilates, but can’t meditate at all, gets distracted too easily.

- he’s a causal enabler, if you want something he buys it then and there and if you’re debating something he just does it for you. Can’t say no to his partner or his kids.

- he goes to therapy on and off again, practices coping mechanisms and reads a lot of workbooks. Hates the mass produced self help books but wants to stay self aware so he’s always looking things up or calling his therapist to talk about it.

- still has his stuffed teddy from when he was little.

[translations-by-aiimee]

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun - Chapter 22

Original Title:  二哈和他的白猫师尊

Genres: Drama, Romance, Tragedy, Xianxia, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 22 - This Venerable One's Shizun is Getting Angry

When Chu Wanning heard this, he was so angry that he could barely keep himself from retracting Tianwen and slashing the Chen couple. But he couldn't open his eyes to confront them. Once he opened his eyes, the barrier would be broken. The Return to Truth barrier could only trap a ghost once. If his interrogation was interrupted, he wouldn't be able to listen to any more of Luo Xianxian's story.

All he could do was contain his overwhelming rage and continue listening to Luo Xianxian.

After she died, her soul entered the underworld, unaware and confused.

The only thing that she could make out was a woman wearing red and green robes with facial features that resembled the Master of Ceremonies Ghost enshrined in a temple. The Master of Ceremonies Ghost stood in front of her and asked her in a soft voice: "You and Chen Bohuan couldn't share a bed in life. Would you like to share the same grave in death?"

She hurriedly agreed: "Yes. . . Yes please!"

"Then I can let him come join you right away. What do you think?"

Luo Xianxian wanted to blurt out a yes, rushing to agree, but suddenly remembered something and froze. "Am I dead?"

"Yes. I am the Master of the Underworld Ghost. I can give you the destiny you deserve and fulfill your long-cherished wish."

Luo Xianxian was startled: "Then, if he comes to join me, will he. . . also die?"

"Yes. However, if loves persists in the afterlife, life and death are irrelevant. What difference does it make?"

Chu Wanning heard this, he thought to himself that he had been right; this Master of Ceremonies Ghost would persuade others to make a wish so that she could reap the benefits. This immortal was truly diabolical.

Although Luo Xianxian died unjustly, she hadn't yet become a malevolent ghost, so she repeatedly shook his head: "No. It wasn't his fault. You can't kill him."

The Master of Ceremonies Ghost smiled compassionately: "And what did you get in return for this kindness?" It didn't force Luo Xianxian to do anything. As an immortal being, they could persuade someone to make a bad wish, but they couldn't force them. Its figure gradually faded away, its voice becoming hazier and hazier.

"Return to the world in seven days. During those seven days, go and see how the Chen family is faring. After that, I'll ask you again if you still have no regrets about your decision."

Seven days later, the day arrived.

Luo Xianxian's soul returned to a conscious form and returned to the world of the living.

Following the old road, she eagerly walked towards the Chen house to see her husband for the last time.

Unexpectedly, the Chen house was decorated with lights, and outside the courtyard, there were fireworks. Bridal flowers were decorating the halls. and a big "double happiness" banner was hanging in front of the main hall. Madam Chen was radiant, not appearing sickly in the slightest. She was smiling and instructing the servants to wrap the bouquets with red silk.

Who. . . was having a wedding?

Who. . . were the bride and groom?

Who. . . no one was engaged, what was going on?

Who. . .

She walked through the busy crowd, listening to the sound of people in the world of the living.

"Congratulations, Madam Chen. Your son is getting engaged to the daughter of the county magistrate. When's the wedding?"

"Madam Chen, you're so fortunate."

"Yao Qianjin is truly the lucky star of the Chen family and they aren't even official yet. Madam Chen, you look so much healthier already."

"Your son and Yao Qianjin are a match made in heaven. I'm so jealous, hahahaha."

Her son. . . Her son. . .

Which son?

Which one was marrying the daughter of the Yao family?

She shuttled back and forth across the familiar front yard, growing more and more frantic, looking for that familiar figure in the midst of all the laughter.

Then she found him.

In front of the peony flowers in the back hall, Chen Bohuan stood with his hands behind his back with a haggard face and sunken cheeks. However, he was dressed in red. Even though it wasn't a traditional wedding outfit, it was a Caidie Town custom. When a prospective son-in-law comes to propose marriage, he should wear this type of red gown.

Was he. . . going to propose. . .?

The decorations in the whole house, the strings of gold and silver beads, was it all. . . was it all from Chen Bohuan, her husband, as a dowry for the daughter of the Yao family?

She suddenly recalled the time when they got married.

There was nothing but two people that shared one heart - nothing else.

There was no master of ceremonies, no bridesmaids, and no dowry. The Chen family weren't wealthy at that time and didn't even own a decent set of jewelry. He went into the yard and picked a delicate orange blossom from under the orange tree they had planted together and carefully tucked it behind her ear.

She asked him: "Does it look good?"

He said it looked beautiful. After a moment of silence, he stroked her hair with some sadness and told her: "You deserve so much better than this."

Luo Xianxian smiled and pursed his lips, saying that it didn't matter.

Chen Bohuan told her that when he married her three years later, he would hold a lively wedding banquet. He would invite people from all over the world. He would have her make a grand entrance on a large sedan chair. He would give her gold and silver to wear, and the dowry gifts would fill the entire main hall.

Those vows still echoed in her ears. Now, all those promises have come true, the hall filled with gifts and guests.

He was getting married, just not to her.

A monstrous flame of anger and sorrow surged through her. Luo Xianxian screamed, trying to tear at the hanging red silk in the room.

But she was a ghost; she couldn't touch anything.

Chen Bohuan seemed to vaguely notice something. He turned around, staring at the silk moving despite there being no wind. His eyes were dull and hollow.

His little sister came over, a white jade hairpin clipped on the side of her bun. She didn't know who she was secretly mourning by wearing it.

She said: "Big brother, go to the kitchen to eat something. You haven't had a proper meal in days. You have to hurry up and go to the county magistrate's house later to propose. Your body won't hold up."

Chen Bohuan suddenly asked without thinking: "Sister, did you hear someone crying?"

". . . What? No, brother, I think you're still. . ." She gritted her teeth and didn't finish her thought. Chen Bohuan still stared at the fluttering silk sheets.

"How is my mother? Is she happy? Has her illness been cured?"

". . . Brother."

". . . I'm glad she's feeling better." Chen Bohuan stood there, muttering to himself. "I already lost Luo Xianxian, I couldn't live without my mother."

"Brother, go eat something. . ."

Luo Xianxian wailed. She yelled and bawled with her head in her hands.

Don't go. . . don't go. . . please don't go. . .

Chen Bohuan said: ". . . Alright."

The tired figure disappeared around the corner.

Luo Xianxian stood alone in a daze, large tears rolling down her face. Suddenly, she heard the brothers of the Chen family who killed her approaching. The second eldest brother and the younger brother were whispering to each other.

"Mother is finally happy. Finally, things are going our way."

"Right? She pretended to be sick for half and year. Now that that cursed bitch is gone, how could she not be thrilled?"

The younger brother tsked and said, "How come she died? We wanted to force her out, not kill her. Was she really so stupid that she couldn't even find someone to help her?"

"Who knows. She was weak, just like her rotten father. It's not our fault that she died. Even though mother pretended to be sick to get rid of her, our family has its own struggles. Think about it, when the options county magistrate’s daughter and some pauper girl, only a fool would choose the latter. Besides, even if Yao Qianjin is a brat, she's got enough money to go around."

"Yes, she's so dumb. She didn't want to live so she let herself freeze to death. No one could've saved her."

The words drifted to her ears.

After Luo Xianxian died, she finally understood the so-called "Divine Fate". She was completely broke and couldn't compare to the county magistrate's daughter who was so noble and honourable.

Only a fool would choose the pauper girl.

She finally snapped.

She returned to the Master of Ceremonies' temple full of hatred and resentment.

She died there. Unlike how weak and helpless she was when she died, she returned with overwhelming hostility.

She used to be such a kind person, but now, all the hatred and evil that had been built inside her while she was alive came flooding out. She roared, her eyes turning red, her soul trembling.

She said: "I, Luo Xianxian, would like to give up my soul and follow the path of wickedness. I only ask you to avenge me! I want the Chen family - I don't want you to kill them!!! I want. . . I want to let my beastly mother-in-law kill her sons by her own hand! All her sons!!! I want Chen Bohuan to go to hell with me!!! Let him be buried with me!!! Do it for me!!! I hate them! I hate them!!!!"

The eyes of the clay sculpture on the shrine shifted and the corners of its mouth slowly raised.

A hollow voice echoed through the temple.

"I have heard your prayers. It will be as you wish. As an evil spirit - kill all those that you resent -"

A piercing blood-red light flashed, and Luo Xianxian couldn't remember anything after that.

However, Chu Wanning already what happened next. After that, the Master of Ceremonies Ghost manipulated Luo Xianxian's spirit to possess Madam Chen and force her to kill each member of the Chen family.

The red coffin on the top of the mountain, the reason why Chen Bohuan was dug up, naturally, was because the Master of Ceremonies Ghost was fulfilling Luo Xianxian's greatest wish - "Let Chen Bohuan and I be buried together." Moreover, it deliberately placed the coffin on the property of Chen Bohuan and his new wife as an act of spiteful revenge.

As for the floral scent in Chen Bohuan's coffin, it was the scent of the butterfly fragrance powder that Luo Xianxian had worn before her death. The resentment and fragrance in the coffin were both extremely strong because Luo Xianxian's soul was resting alongside Chen Bohuan inside it.

Luo Xianxian had no family. According to the customs, if a person like that dies, their bones should be cremated instead of buried. Therefore, she had no physical body and could only be contained within the coffin by the Master of Ceremonies Ghost. That's why, when Chu Wanning opened the coffin with his willow vine, Luo Xianxian had escaped the coffin's containment. Her soul flew away, and it was difficult to recapture. It was a situation of "a closed coffin being heavy with resentment but an open coffin being light".

But during the illusion, why did other people have dead bodies as their partners but Chen Bohuan only had a paper-mache ghost bride?

Chu Wanning thought for a moment and figured out this much:

The Master of Ceremonies Ghost didn't break its promise. The paper-mache bride was the "physical body" that it gave Luo Xianxian. It was a vessel so that Luo Xianxian could be buried with Chen Bohuan.

Everything was clear.

Chu Wanning looked at the weak and helpless girl in the barrier. He wanted to say something but didn't know what to say.

Elder Yuheng wasn't particularly good at comforting words. He couldn't think of anything, so he stayed silent, not having anything he could say.

The girl stood in the vast darkness with her soft round eyes open.

Chu Wanning looked at her eyes and couldn't bear it. He wanted to leave. He didn't want to take another look. He was about to open his eyes and leave the Return to Truth barrier.

Then the girl suddenly spoke.

"Lord Yama. I. . . I have something else I want to tell you."

Chu Wanning: ". . . Alright."

The girl suddenly lowered her head, covered her eyes, and cried. She said softly, "Lord Yama, I don't know what I did after that. But, I. . . I really didn't want to kill my husband. I didn't want to be an evil spirit. I really. . ."

"I didn't steal the oranges. I really am Chen Bohuan's wife. And I truly, truly didn't want to hurt anyone either."

"I truly didn't want anyone to get hurt. Please believe me."

Her voice choked and trembled, her words breaking.

"I. . . didn't lie. . ."

I didn't lie.

Why is it that, in this life, almost no one believed me?

She sobbed and screamed. Chu Wanning's voice sounded low in the darkness. He didn't say much, but he said it with conviction.

"Okay."

Luo Xianxian was shocked.

Chu Wanning said: "I believe you."

Luo Xianxian wiped her tears with her hands indiscriminately but couldn't hold them back. Hiding her tearful face, she lowered her head and bowed her head in his direction in the darkness.

Chu Wanning opened his eyes.

After he opened his eyes, he didn't say anything.

Time in the barrier wasn't the same as in reality. He had stayed there for a long time but, for the people waiting outside, it had only been a moment. Mo Ran hadn't returned yet. The few remaining people in the Chen family were still looking at him with bated breath.

Chu Wanning withdrew Tianwen and said to Madam Chen: "I'll avenge you. You can find peace."

Madam Chen froze and opened her blood-red eyes, and suddenly fell to the ground with a thud, knocked out cold.

Chu Wanning raised his head again. His eyes swept across Chen's face then landed on the youngest son. His voice didn't waver, and it was still frighteningly cold.

"I'll ask one last time." He said each word slowly and decisively. "Did you really not recognize whose voice that was?"

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

[mercy-burning]

Cold Feet

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: After receiving a letter from an old flame just days away from her wedding, Reader wonders if she should call it all off. —Inspired by the song Cold Feet by Tenille Arts Category: Angst (happy ending) Content Warnings: An almost kiss that isn’t with Reader’s fiancé, and blink and you’ll miss it implied smut Word Count: 1.7k

MASTERLIST | Alternate Version/Ending of Cold Feet

NOTE: When @meganskane announced her 700 follower celebration I just knew this idea would be the perfect way to implement one of the prompts she gave! The one I chose is “quit looking at me like that” ❤

Also! Fun fact: this song opens with “they’re all set to go on the 18th of June”, and that’s today, so it’s festive 😊)

***

She should be happily wrapped in a dream, Dying to kiss him and put on his ring. So why is she walking alone after midnight, Down a small town street, with cold feet?

Y/N is currently finding it difficult to breathe.

It was easier a couple days ago when she knew exactly what she wanted. Her husband-to-be was more than excited to marry her, and she'd reciprocated that feeling entirely. Everything was ready to go. Truthfully, they could have gotten married right this second if that's what they wanted, that's how ready to go they were.

But now? She was questioning everything.

She still feels the thin paper in her hands, even with its folded body currently tucked away in an old book she knew was never going to be opened again— a gift from the man who'd written the letter in the first place.

The first time she read it, her heart sank. And by the third time she'd read it, her heart soared.

And then her fiancée walked in, asked her about what to make for dinner, and her heart sank all over again.

Honestly, damn him for choosing now to finally confess. Damn him for making her question everything, after she'd finally moved on and found someone who would always be around.

But then again, she'd ended up choosing to live in a house in their hometown, just blocks away from that creek he'd mentioned in his letter. So... Maybe she hadn't moved on entirely

She hated that she even had to think about it.

She hated that her thoughts were so consumed with this man she hadn't seen in years when the man she was about to marry slept next to her every night, unaware of the start to her inner turmoil. Each night since then, she dreamt of dances with both of them, alternating between the two until they made her choose which of them she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. And every morning she'd wake with an even bigger tear in her heart than when the old flame had burned it alive and left her alone in the aftermath to piece it back together.

Her fiancée helped her do that, though. Day by day he taught her to love again, to trust in somebody again, and he was truly a good man.

So why was it absolutely destroying her, thinking of getting married to him when there was someone else in the picture to think about? Someone who'd had a hold on her for well over fifteen years?

Again, she hated that she even had to think about it.

But she wasn't about to get married with all these conflicting thoughts, so whether she wanted to or not, her only real option was the one that would also be the hardest on her tattered heart.

She'd sent him a text message this morning that read, Midnight, and tucked her phone away for the rest of the day, drowning herself in mindless work and looking to keep time moving forward.

Now, she struggles to breathe as she makes her way down to the creek.

It's cold, having just rained fifteen minutes prior, and she wraps her fiancée's cardigan tightly over her her arms, searching for warmth and comfort. She would have settled for one of her own, heavier pieces, but in some strange way she thought maybe having something there that belonged to her fiancée would ground her, something to remind her of the gravity of the situation at hand.

Nothing could have grounded her upon seeing her ex boyfriend after all these years, though, especially when she finally shows up to their old spot and sees him perched on the big stump right next to the water, relief and joy flooding through his features at the sight of her. His smile is just as bright and familiar as she remembered, and it just about knocks the wind out from under her feet.

"Hi, Y/N," he greets softly, standing up and stretching his hands out over his legs. It's obvious that he's nervous to meet up with her after all these years apart, and she couldn't blame him in the slightest.

She's just as nervous as her feet take baby steps towards him. Meanwhile she's hugging her fiancée's cardigan around her body tighter than before. "Hi..."

"I... I can't believe you actually wanted to meet. Truthfully I thought I wouldn't hear back from you."

"Well... Your letter kind of rattled me... You rattled me. I guess I just had to know..."

There's a long pause before he takes a small step towards her and tilts his head. His words are hesitant, like he thinks she might say something he doesn't want to hear. "And... What do you know?"

"I know that I love my fiancée. After you, I didn't really think I'd ever love anyone the same way again, but... He makes me happier than I've ever been, and I... I can't just discard that feeling because you decided too late that you still love me. You know?"

"I do, Y/N, I really do," he answers earnestly, and this time his hand reaches out to grab hers. "But... I mean, you showed up here, didn't you? That has to count for something..."

She isn't really sure how to respond after that. It's true that seeing this man in front of her for the first time in years has brought back a wave of feelings that she'd repressed and even experienced with someone new.

But it's also true that with those feelings comes an inevitable aftertaste of bitterness. He'd left her, decided ultimately that his career was more important to him, and now that she has someone new he's asking her to leave behind this peace she's found. And for what? For him? What's to stop him from leaving again, or deciding years or months down the road that he'd made a mistake and gotten her to leave her one shot at happiness after him?

Nonetheless, she sits with him for hours, listening to him explain... Giving him a chance.

He apologizes for the past, he promises to do better in the future, and in between he makes her laugh. Their hands brush, their breaths mingle as they huddle from the cold, and with every passing minute, the cardigan on her shoulders becomes looser and more forgotten.

Slowly but surely, he's lowering her defenses and gaining her trust. He's showing her bits and pieces of the man she fell in love with until they're laughing at close to 3am.

And then, for a moment, it's quiet. Absolutely quiet, save for the crickets and the soft rolling of the creek behind them.

Y/N almost lets him kiss her then.

But then her heart hammers in her chest, and not in a good way. Suddenly, she's imagining the pure heartbreak that would surely manifest on her fiancée's face if he found out- if she really decided to leave him for this old flame that had barely started to kindle once again years later.

She has to be absolutely certain of her decision.

So she pulls back and wraps her fiancée's cardigan tightly around her arms. "I should go home."

There's disappointment in his eyes, and it twists her gut a little. "Right... Um... I-I can take you back, if you want."

"No, I, uh... I think I'm gonna walk. I have to think."

Y/N avoids his gaze just quickly enough that she doesn't see the disappointment in his eyes fizzle into a tiny sliver of hope.

Rain on the sidewalk, doubt in her mind. One thing's for sure, she's running out of time To decide what's right, And who's heart she's willing to break.

She climbs into bed some time later, the cardigan still wrapped tightly around her body, and she can't quite bring herself to face the man sleeping next to her. It feels wrong, like somehow she's betrayed him by even thinking of spending the rest of her life with another person. She doesn't feel worthy of his love.

When she wakes up the next morning, she'd somehow ended up facing him anyway. He's staring at her with adoring eyes, and under his gaze she can't help the guilt that washes over her.

"Quit looking at me like that..."

Her words are grumbly and soft because of having just woken up, and because her face is half hidden behind blankets and his cardigan, her fiancée doesn't know anything is wrong.

Instead, he laughs. "What, you're beautiful... And before you start arguing with me, yes, you're even beautiful when you wake up."

She only grumbles, feeling anything but.

It's quiet for a moment or two before he speaks again. "You're wearing my cardigan..."

Peeking her eyes out from the mountain of fabric, she can see the enchantment in his eyes and it makes her warm. "I was cold..."

While true, she mostly means I had cold feet.

"Come here."

Two simple words, two syllables, and yet it's the softest declaration of love she's ever heard. Her body instinctively nestles into his, face going straight into the crook of his neck while he wraps her up in his arms.

"There," he says, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "You feel warmer yet?"

"Mhm..." She sighs into his skin and then takes in a deep breath.

He smells like home.

He feels like home.

And as he starts softly humming her favorite song, rubbing soothing circles into her back as he holds her close, Y/N wonders why she'd ever doubted her love for him.

He is home.

James never was.

Y/N burrows herself further into Spencer's body and plants a gentle kiss to his neck, shivering slightly at the way his curly locks tickle her temple.

He stops humming and laughs. "What are you feeling for breakfast?"

"Hmmm... You." She articulates her point by selfishly kissing his neck, reminiscent of Cookie Monster.

Pretty soon, the two of them are laughing together, limbs tangling and breaths mingling, and then an hour and a half later they're in the kitchen, sipping on coffee.

As its warmth radiates through her throat and chest, Y/N studies him from across the room. He flips through pages of a book as he drinks his coffee, and for a brief moment, his eyes flick up to see her staring.

The action brings a smile to both their faces, and Y/N has never felt happier.

She's never felt more loved.

***

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[blorbosondeck]

fic rec masterlist

canon divergent/finale fix its

Anamnesis

THIS! FIC! this fic lives in my head rent FREE it is so good and it makes so much sense in the narrative that the shitty finale concocted, as to why they wouldn't mention cas or anyone else and its just. so good and they write chuck in the most villainous way that i love!!!

"Chuck is depowered, Jack is the new god, and the world is free. Dean and Sam get into the Impala and chase down the miles on an endless highway, and their story is finally, finally their own to follow. At least, that's what Dean tells himself. But the diners and motels and painted interstate lines are blurring together and the smallest details keep catching at his brain like tiny fishhooks and he can't quite shake the feeling that not everything is exactly as it should be. Fix-it/alternate series finale. Canon-compliant through the end of 15.19."

Sunset Sound: Stairway to Heaven by @adhdeancas

GOD FUCKING CHRIST this is so good and sweet and im such a sucker for team ups and reunions!!! its 3:30 am rn and i just finished it and i love it SO much it made me laugh a lot and the last few chapters i had the stupidest grin just plastered to my face

The Closer the Star, the Greater the Parallax by @rocksalts​

repressed bastard dean submits to the mortifying ordeal of being known and receives the rewards of being loved but only after some miscommunication i LOVE this i read it last night and it’s a fast favorite. my interests have overlapped and i am INTO it

“When Dean sits down to watch some bullcrap Discovery Channel episode with Cas, he doesn’t expect to actually learn anything. Except, with Cas explaining, he makes an effort to connect the dots.”

Don't We All Deserve To Be Happy?

VERY sweet and a VERY good pick me up. all around feel good fic!!! 

"Post-canon fix-it, divergent from 15x19 where Jack stays and Dean doesn't die and Cas comes back and everyone is happy. Take a shot every time I'm salty about the finale."

Keep Your Love Alive

okay. okay okay okay this may be my favorite finale fix it just because of how well reasoned it is. like this feels what should have happened i love it SO much

"Dean gets to spend eternity sharing beers with Bobby on the Roadhouse porch and riding around in his Baby with Sam. He’s at peace… or he feels like he should be. But a few things nag at him: Where is Cas, and everybody else Dean had been hoping to see in Heaven? Why does he feel like he’s stuck in a loop, reliving the same memories over and over again? And who are the strangers wearing Sam’s and Bobby’s faces?"

The GoldenRod Revisions by @aethylas​

this is one of the most well written things ive ever read. the script format DID make it feel more real and honestly? this is better writing than this show deserves. the finale that could have been ♥️

“A rewrite of Supernatural’s final two episodes, expanded into a five episode arc - in which Chuck needs to be defeated, Castiel deserves to be saved, and the characters in this story get a very different ending.“

Ascend by @wanderingcas​ 

THEE finale fix it fic!!! written by the AMAZINGLY skilled and talented @wanderingcas !!! it’s 50k of angst and hurt/comfort and pure bliss

“Something in the world is wrong.

Demon activity is rising where mysterious black substance oozes and unusual ecological events are shaking the world. Dean, grief hanging on his shoulders, restlessly searches for answers that might lead him to the Empty… and to Cas.

But what Chuck wrote can’t be undone. The narrative thread pulls Dean along, forcing him to comply. Because once a story already has an ending, it can’t be rewritten.

Or can it?”

Things Happen (They Do, And They Do, And They Do) by THEE @sobsicles

i KNOW everyone has already recommended this and likely you’ve all already read it. but it has to go here bc REPRESSIOOOOOOOOON i LOVE this so much it is one of the most perfect things i’ve read. are you bisexual? did you have a kind of weird relationship with your best friend and not realize that how you felt about them wasn’t necessarily how other people felt about them and you were maybe a little bit in love with them but were too repressed to realize it? you’ll feel seen. maybe a little too seen

Closer (isn't close enough)

are you a sweet and sappy yet horny bastard? do you like cas exploding light bulbs? you will like this.

“the one where they finally talk about what cas said before the empty took him”

You and Your Husband

it is exTRMELY sweet!!! repression dean strikes again <3

"Five times Dean corrects someone about his relationship with Cas, and one time he realizes he doesn't need to."

Tall Grass

miscommunication and a slowburn! despite being written in 2017 and finished in 2018, it feels like a fix it. ft. plant obsessed cas <3 

Invictus

a LOVELY and short (relatively) finale fix it

“They saved the world. They're free. It's done.

Except it's not, and carrying on is the last thing any of them are thinking about.

They still have someone they need to save.”

Unchained Link

post finale- it’s a great case fic and i am compelled i want more!!!

"It's after the end of things. Life continues on while Dean is "livin it up" in heaven. But it's never that simple, is it? A freak occurrence sends Dean into another time stranded back on Earth. And he thought his hunting days were over. But, no worries. His knight in shining armor comes to the rescue. Hijinks, therefore, ensue."

fun and time unspecified

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Love Potion No. 5

very funny and sweet! miscommunication at its finest ♥️

"Cas gets drenched with a mystery potion from the ‘love spell’ shelf and... Dean has a sneaking suspicion, angel or no— the spell may have taken effect. And Cas might be in love with Sam."

The Way We Were

Y'all. It is so good its a great mix of funny and serious- extremely fun to see dean as like a base bisexual

"Dean and Castiel pose as a couple to gain access to a gated community known as 'The Glen', a pleasant if secretive location that the boys believe might be linked to several dead bodies showing up over the years bearing signs of ritualistic sacrifice. All seems well until Dean's memory is affected from an incident during a solo exploration, leaving Dean convinced that their cover story is true. Castiel is left trying to resolve their case without taking advantage of an increasingly enthusiastic Dean"

While You Were Sleeping

this is basically just the movie but replacing sandra bullock with cas. this is my comfort movie and imo, one of the most perfect rom coms. the fic isn’t finished but i still have the tab open on my phone and i will straight up go back and re read it when i need a pick me up. 

aus/rewrites

The Harvelle Gospels: Offscript

i know everyone ever ( @jewishcharliebradbury ) has recommended this fic. and for good reason go fucking read it

“The Apocalypse is averted, the angels are in Heaven, and Jo is free from the threat of possession. Somehow it couldn't be farther from a happy ending.“

absolute riots

An Ineffably Profound Bond

i honestly would have put this in the finale fix it section! look. i know. i know you've been burned by crossover fics before. but this is Thee good omens/spn fic you want. its funny as hell and immensely satisfying. im weak for everyone working together tropes and that is this

"After Chuck sets 'The End' in motion, the remaining members of TFW make a miraculous escape. Not willing to waste any time, Castiel comes up with a plan to travel to one of the other worlds to try and get help from the angels there, but after a fight with Dean, it's the hunter who gets sent into an alternate universe,with seemingly no hope of return.

When a mysterious human with a heavenly weapon shows up in Aziraphale's shop, he and Crowley learn that their world is not the only one. Now it is up to them to decide whether or not they want to join forces with the human and help him save his world or simply find a way to send him home."

Somebody Up There Likes Me by @lafilleredige

cas is hit with a spell that turns his vessel into a woman, hijinks and sexuality crises ensue etc etc sam is a supportive and bitchy little brother and its all SO fucking funny and also. horny as hell i love it i love it i LOVE it

“’Dean doesn’t want to talk about your breasts, it’s making him uncomfortable because he hasn’t acknowledged the complex fluidity of human sexuality.’“

Stray Cat Strut

a long crack fic that IS one of the funniest things i’ve ever read and i can’t explain why. it’s so ooc but its so funny that i don’t care. if you need a laugh you gotta read this

"Sam and Cas are immediately in love with the adorable kitty they find outside the bunker door, and occupy their time planning how to convince Dean--who they believe is off sulking after a botched hunt--to let them keep their cat. Along the way, Dean learns to use a litter box and hears some confessions he maybe wasn’t supposed to hear, all while realizing just how much he loves Castiel.

Now all Dean has to do is convince Cas and Sam their new pet cat is actually him before they do something crazy--like neuter him!"

canon compliant or slight canon divergence

Give

by @doublestuffedimpala post season 7 episode 7, kind of ambiguous ending but truly a cas is happy to bleed for the winchesters fic

Punch Like Bones 

short, post 5x04 homoerotic moment that i wish we’d gotten

[honourablejester]

Shadow & Bone Reaction

Okay, so I watched Shadow & Bone last night. Stayed up until 5am to manage it, so this is going to be muddled, but howandever. Spoilery and involved first impressions from someone who has not read the books below:

Right, so the Ketterdam crew are my favourites. Obviously. This was guaranteed

All three of them, I cannot decide between them

Jesper is a gambling addict which does grind my miserly gears a bit, but he’s also lovely and adorable and quite possibly the most badass person on the show, which is an achievement, and his interactions with Inej are beyond adorable, so I love him with all my heart

That thing Inej said to Alina? Whenever you need it, my hand is yours? That is me for Inej. More on this later

Kaz is a vicious little gremlin of a man with a badly hidden streak of loyalty, and he’s exactly my stripe of guile antihero, so of course I adore him madly

The absolute chaos of them just … accidentally poking their oars into the entire rest of the plot is beautiful beyond belief. They’re just there and mucking things up for everybody like someone threw a bag of spanners into an engine, and it’s beautiful

I was surprisingly really on board for Mal and Alina. Particularly them as kids, this pair of tiny scrappers against the world

I also loved the whole First Army part at the beginning. Like, Mal’s pair of friends, Mikael and Dubrov, they’re adorable (and I fucking screamed later, with the machine gun, you bet), him and Alina in the camp, his friends teasing him about her, him stealing Grisha grapes for her. The show got right in on the friendship and the love there, and honestly I was there for it

The Darkling, on the other hand …

Right. So. I expected him to maybe be … more subtle than he was? I mean, I think everyone’s expecting him to go villain here, so it probably wasn’t supposed to be that subtle, but …

That moment where Alina decides to kiss him. After being separated from Mal, with no communication with her old life, and with Kirigan being all sad and incredibly intense at her at random moments. Like. Long, long before we get to his whole forcibly altering her body to control her moment, I was looking at her kissing this dude and going ‘Oookay, okay lady, that’s, that’s not a good plan. I get that it’s Ben Barnes, do not blame you there, but that’s so not a good plan’

He just kept coming on so fucking strong, you know? The whole intense ‘I’ve been waiting for you my whole life’. He was bleeding desperation and control from the get go. And like, lots of people have those in this show, but where someone like Kaz or Inej feel like ‘I will stab you in the face right fucking now to get out of this alive’, Kirigan is very much, yes, ‘I will swallow your entire city in darkness and give a nice little speech about it to captive dignitaries who I’ll then murder because they shouldn’t have opened their mouths’

There’s more power there than the others, I think, so it feels less like ‘I’ll do what I have to do’ and more ‘I’ll do what I want’

Which his backstory was an interesting show on, yes, how he started out just as desperate as any of them, and then vengeance and black magic ate him. As it does. But still. He comes on too strong

(And the collar. The collar. Not even the massacre later matched that one for me, though Genya’s casual mention of him ‘gifting’ her at 11 came close. But it didn’t match the collar for visceral no. He mutilated Alina to implant a control device within her body. He can die in a ditch with his head covered in pitch and set on fire now. I can’t with him. No)

So, yes. Excellent villain, definitely, I just expected him to maybe take a bit longer to show it?

His minions are adorable, though. The two married heartrenders, Genya and the Durast she has the biggest danged crush on (gotta say, when Kirigan said he needed him for later, I was honestly expecting him to kill him for something, to hurt Genya, did not expect David to be in on the whole mutilating control collar thing)

The show did a lot of work humanising the various factions, so when you get moments like Jesper vs Ivan, round 1, you don’t want either of them to lose, because Ivan has a husband to go back to, and Jesper is Jesper. And then Jesper can’t shoot a pretty man in the face, and we’re golden

(Sidenote one: that scene was badass, holy shit, Jesper was playing with him, it was incredible)

(Sidenote two: Jesper vs Ivan, round 2? Less sympathetic on Ivan’s part)

(Sidenote three: the Ketterdam three vs Kirigan’s everybody was just, god I love them, we’re going to be straight badass all down the line, can you beat a centuries-old shadow sorcerer with a flashbang? An inferni with a knife? A heartrender with a gun while playing with him the entire time? Come to Ketterdam and find out! I love them)

Now. Now. The main thing for me. Inej. Inej and Alina and Kaz

The scene in the Little Palace where Alina shows her power. Ignoring everything that promptly went tits up for everybody. The look on Inej’s face. The look on her face. Hope and faith. From Inej, who’s been so hurt and desperate so far. Oh, that killed me. So much. I was there like, Alina, Alina, it’s not your fault, but you better be worth it, I know you don’t need the pressure but if you have to let anyone down, let it not be Inej. Not her. And Kaz Brekker, you sociopathic mushroom, do not fuck this up for her. Okay? Not this

And then he doesn’t. He doesn’t. He gives up a million kruge and potentially everything he has so he doesn’t have to break Inej’s faith. I loved him there. Right there

And like, he was trying to weasel something out of it. He was still trying to bully Alina all the way to the end, even after she saved his life, because he didn’t want to lose everything, he wanted to have some way to be able to bring Jesper and Inej back with him, because otherwise he was walking back to a city that hated him with literally nothing, since he’d mortgaged the Crow Club on Inej’s debt, and she’d walked out on him anyway, and he’d let her. So he tried to bully Alina, tried to force some way to let Inej come back, without actually forcing Inej. Just, you know, the saint she loved instead, and a woman who’d also just lost everything, and maybe could have used those jewels to stay ahead of pursuit for a while, but that’s not his problem. That’s not his problem

Kaz Brekker is a vicious horrible gremlin of a man, but not to his own, mostly, as much as he can avoid it, and like … did they know in advance what I like? Because that was it

(Him entering the fight on the skiff solely to save the other two, everyone else can die, but he’s going to dive Jesper clear of the Cut and hammer a volcra’s head in to save an unarmed Inej, that was beautiful. Even if I was a tiny bit annoyed at Inej for panicking and throwing her weapons away while outnumbered by flying things. No. Keep them close to stab anything that comes near you, honey, don’t throw them into the darkness. But Kaz saving his Crows was beautiful)

Also, to go back to Inej and Alina, just a little. How much do I love that Inej’s knife saved them all? Inej kissed her knife and planted in the Darkling’s chest, and it did fuck all to him, but then it’s the knife Alina used to take her freedom back and save them all

Inej’s knife freed Alina. Gave a slave her freedom back. Gave her saint her power. Not by killing, but as a tool to break a chain. I can’t. I really, really can’t. Whoever wrote that episode, thank you a lot

You may have guessed, I have feelings about Inej, and Alina, and Kaz, and freedom, and faith, faith in another power and faith in yourself and those you trust, and it’s all tied up in a knife and a debt, and people offering freedom to each other against their own best interests, and I really can’t with them. I can’t. I’m inarticulate over here

Like, this beautiful man did this hideous thing, made this horrible vicious collar, and then all these scared, battered little outcasts and ex-slaves and current slaves gave each other tiny moment after tiny moment after tiny moment that allowed them all to free each other

I can’t

And then Alina gave Inej her knife. The little letter opener that she’d robbed from the Little Palace. The little symbol of two tiny orphans having each other’s backs against the world. Alina gave that back to Inej

Inej’s knives are a whole thing. Kaz gave Inej a job, a way out of slavery, and it’s both joy and horror to her, freedom and damnation, she doesn’t want to kill people but that’s what knives are for, and it’s a freedom she sometimes forces herself to surrender out of trust in Kaz, and then she does kill people, but it’s to save those she cares for, to save Kaz, and then her knife saves them all as a key, not a murder weapon, and Alina, for whom knives are also a symbol of protection, for herself and those she loves, and now freedom as well, gives Inej hers as this tiny gesture that means so much …

And earlier, Kaz stopping her from killing the Conductor, and it was for his own reasons, it was because he needed the man for a job, but the fact that he did that meant that Inej’s first kill wasn’t a murder, an assassination to save herself, but a clean kill in defense of someone else. A kill she could explain to her saints. Especially the one that showed up, because Alina knows all about that

(And when her knives run out, when she’s lost them all on the skiff and is facing death, it’s Kaz who saves her, who pays his debt and preserves her freedom, because he can be trusted with them, with the knives and all they mean …)

And the two things Alina gives them. The knife for Inej, and the jewels for Kaz. A gift for the woman who saved her, and a bribe for the man who threatened her. And it’s exactly what they need. Both of them. It’s freedom and forgiveness and hope for them both. And she had no idea, she just gave what she had at the time. A saint by pure accident, like she’s been all along, but it meant the world. Sometimes all a person needs is one thing. A knife, a chance. A hope

Whoever was writing the thing with the knives, and the saints, and faith in yourself and those around you, you are a genius and I love you

And, like, I should move on. There were other things in the show. Nina and Matthias, I’ve pretty much not mentioned them at all (they are adorable, even as they’re basically Stockholming each other, and then the last episode hit, and everything was good, more or less, for everyone else, so that last fucking punch was a lot, thank you so much), I just …

Knives and faith. Inej, Alina and Kaz. I love everybody, but that was so much the thing that caught me here. That’s what I’m mostly getting out of this show right now

[venusluvrr]

The Psychological Horror Manhwa “Killing Stalking” is not a Romance, but an Emotional Series Depicting the Codependent Relationship Between Two Ill Individuals

Content Warning!!: contains mentions of sexual abuse (rape) and mental illness.

Killing Stalking is an immensely twisted webcomic series, mainly popular within the Yaoi community for its boy on boy focused plotline. The story follows characters Yoon Bum (Bum), a shy, scrawny young man with a haunting past filled with abuse, and Oh Sangwoo (Sangwoo), a younger man who also has a quite damaging upbringing but masks it perfectly with his vibrant, extroverted personality. After being saved from a rape attempt during his time serving in the military, Bum develops a crush on his saviour, Sangwoo, from which an unhealthy obsession starts to arise and he eventually finds himself locating and breaking into the man’s home one day when he’s out. When he does, he discovers a terribly injured woman being held captive in his basement, and with further evidence, soon comes to the realization that his crush is actually a serial killer -- hence the name “Killing Stalking,” as Sangwoo kills and Bum stalks. For a very specific reason though, Sangwoo decides not to kill the man that had been stalking him, and instead holds him hostage in his custody. From here, the story goes into exceeding depth of the abnormal, toxic, and manipulative relationship the two form during their time spent together. By just the mere description of it, it’s a bit concerning to know that a large portion of readers still support Sangwoo and Bum’s relationship. In other words, they believe they truly loved each other and that the story was not only horror fiction but a romance as well. One could easily come to this conclusion by basing their relationship on the few parts within the novel where they showed affection towards each other -- for example when Bum allows Sangwoo to hug him to sleep when he suffered through the night, or my personal favourite, when Sangwoo buys Bum a stuffed frog keychain after finding out that he had an affinity for such creatures. But we cannot simply dismiss the underlying factors of their relationship because of some cute things they did that made our heart melt -- Sangwoo still abused Bum at his leisure which makes those moments quite meaningless in the sense of it all. What Sangwoo and Yoonbum shared can’t be classified as “love,” because even with their peculiar bond and endearing moments, the psychological damage they both endured played a bigger part in the way they perceived each other.

Many toxic relationships start out lovely and glamorous until the couple have become comfortable enough to start revealing some bad habits, but in Sangwoo and Bum’s case, they were already off to a bad start, as the reason they remained with each other was solely for reasons pertaining to their poor mental health.

At the time Sangwoo saved Bum in the military, Bum still suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) -- a disorder he inferrably developed due to the fact that he grew up being constantly physically and sexually abused by the people around him. People with this illness may easily develop an infatuation for a person who shows them even the least bit of care; It can reach the point where they begin to idolize them and see them almost as a perfect human being -- which is exactly how Bum viewed Sangwoo after he helped him to escape a rape attempt. The likely specific term for what Sangwoo was to Bum is a Favourite Person (FP). To an individual suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, their FP is everything -- their self-worth, identity and emotional dependency all rely on this one person, making them the center of their lives. In contrast to this sincere fondness, the only reason Sangwoo kept Bum alive was because of the man’s resemblance to his late mother -- the one person in his life who he truly loved. While his father was abusive and negligent, his mother tried her best to care for her son even while her own mental stability wasn’t so great either. Even though it was implied that he was responsible for the murder of both his mother and father in high school -- getting away with it scotch-free because of how perfectly executed his plan was -- he still shared a special bond with the woman, allowing her existence follow and continue to torutue him mentally as he grew older. When he saw Yoonbum, he felt as if she had been somewhat resurrected, or at least he could pretend so by dressing him up in his mother’s clothes and making him cook and do the chores; He also played the husband role by abusing and assaulting Bum just as his father did to his mother -- mostly just out of his own nature. Sangwoo had his own issues, “mommy issues,” and he initially needed to keep Bum alive so he could fulfill his own longing desires. Knowing the man’s character though, things wouldn’t end there and instead headed down a very gruesome and frightful path.

The very reasons that the two were drawn to each other we’re even more evident the longer they lived under the same roof. While Yoonbum continued to recall the perfect image he had of Sangwoo in his head, Sangwoo continued to manipulate the man in order to satisfy his own needs. A healthy relationship cannot be based on deceit, because one person will end up victimized instead of loved.

Oh Sangwoo is a sadistic sociopath with a history of kidnapping, abusing, raping and torturing innocent people, and because of his illness, he shows feels and shows no remorse for his actions and even proceeds to kill off his victims as they pleaded in objection. What some people don’t understand is that when Sangwoo met Bum, the only reason he treated him differently was not because he thought of him as special, but because he had a personal agenda that included making Bum think that was the truth and that he was indeed the favoured victim among many. It’s no surprise with the man’s manipulative personality that he would enjoy planting a lie in Bum’s head to make him stay and continue to do as he says, and this is confirmed whenever he returned back to his old destructive habits even after showing the man acts of affection. Yes, Sangwoo spared Bum’s life, clothed him and fed him, but as their bond grew, his narcissistic attitude was still more apparent than ever.

Upon meeting Bum for the first time, Sangwoo didn’t hesitate to aggressively break his ankles to prevent his mobility, he left the man within the dark confinement of his basement for a certain period of time before letting him out only after he had gained his trust. He made him sit in a chair to wash dishes and make dinner because he could no longer stand. Sangwoo also constantly dragged Bum down with derogatory words and statements every chance he could get, this included calling him a “retard,” and referring to him as a “disgusting” and “filthy” human being. As confirmed by the author, Sangwoo is also heterosexual, which is further proved by the homophobic remarks he made towards a significantly older man who was sexually attracted to him while murdering him with Bum’s aid. This fact alone is another one that should justify a strong point that demonstrates the true hostility of their relationship -- Yoonbum never gave his consent to have sex with Sangwoo, nor did he allow it to happen because “he wanted it.” He specifically used phrases such as, “No,” “Stop,” and “It hurts,” implying that sometimes there was no mutual agreement when they had sex and Sangwoo had actually raped him several times.

People with Borderline Personality Disorder have been reported to have difficulties seeing the faults in their partner -- this explains why Bum still held on to him. He chose to stay when he had the chance to escape, and with tears rolling down his face from excruciating pain he still told Sangwoo he loved him. In a scene where Bum is left alone with the police as they investigate the suspicions they have surrounding him, he questions them saying, “Could you kiss somebody like me? Could you love somebody like me?” As he believes nobody but Sangwoo could answer yes to those two questions, convinced that Sangwoo really does have feelings for him. It’s saddening to know that the poor man had successfully been lured into a trap, and because of his mental health it would be much harder for him to realize it.

To the readers that think, “Sangwoo and Yoonbum needed each other,” -- You’re not completely wrong. They did need each other in the way that they found somewhat of a saneness from each other’s presence, each using one another to each other’s benefit. But being together at the same time built on their insanity, as the presence of Sangwoo’s mother seemed to grow even more prevalent with Bum, who resembled her, also in the picture, and Yoonbum growing so unhealthily attached to Sangwoo that he constantly feared of abandonment and turned the sociopath into the only source of his happiness. They needed each other, but not for the right reasons. They were attached to each other, but there was no love, otherwise it would reflect throughout the story. One of the most debate-worthy scenes that challenge this fact is when Sangwoo is reported by an old lady in the hospital, the one that had ended his life, that he was calling out Bum’s name throughout the night as he lay in his deathbed. Those were his final words, and Yoonbum’s final word was also Sangwoo’s name before he was very well implied to have been hit by a car while he chased an illusion of the man he “loved.” Even I almost felt that this was solid proof that even through the tough and terrible of their relationship, deep inside, the two really were in love but could not express it in the right way due to their mental health issues -- after all, what someone makes of their final moments before death is much more meaningful than most of what they've done in their life entirely. But I came to realize that the only way I could support this relationship would be if they had met in an alternate universe where they did not suffer from such dreadful childhood trauma that made them into the hurting individual they had become before meeting each other. As difficult as it is for me to picture the two with different partners, it would be best if the two had not met at all as they only fed into the severity of their conditions.

[sun-summoning]

part ii | part iii | part iv

after speaking to kido, sakura rushes home. when she calms down from the rage that nearly had her crush his throat, sakura can admit that she doesn’t really think this is him. he knew a lot about her for someone that was supposed to have been locked up all this time, but he seemed genuinely surprised to hear that sarada had been taken, if not disappointed. he fit the profile of what shikamaru and kakashi thought -- that someone wanted sarada for her eyes -- but sakura can’t stop the nagging feeling that somehow this runs deeper.

back in her apartment, megumi’s body is right where she left it, and sakura feels awful for having moved so mechanically. megumi was an orphan, but she was still someone’s little girl. ashamed, sakura lays a sheet over her and swears she’ll do more later.

she heads to her bedroom and begins her work. alone, she summons one of the cats she’d made a contract with shortly after her marriage. the black cat is sleek and holds himself confidently. he’s always been an efficient one, quick to do as she needs and be competent about it. he regards sakura with a cock of his head.

“sarada’s been taken.”

“your daughter.”

“yes.” 

the cat nods. “i shall inform the clowder. if anyone spots her, i will let you know.”

“thank you.” sakura pauses, self-conscious for needing to rely on everybody else for this part. “if you...if any of you are able to come into contact with sasuke-kun, can you pease let him know too?”

“of course.”

“thank you.” sakura promises to provide the usual exchange at a later time and the cat disappears with a puff of smoke. she heads to her bedroom and she begins to pack in silence. 

her movements are as meticulous as they are automatic, done just so she’s ready to leave the moment she knows where she needs to go. her medkit is stocked. her bag has scrolls, weapons, supplies, and sarada’s favourite toy. she changes out of her days clothes and into the leggings and turtleneck of a uniform she hasn’t worn in years. her cloak is in the front closet. she needs to change her boots. she’ll put on the boots now. she leaves the armour on her bed to don later. right now, they only hinder her movements. she goes to the drawer where her mask hides in plain sight among other trinkets and knick knacks, and on the dresser she notices a flower.

sakura stills as she takes in the detail she must have missed in her earlier haste. she considers the simple glass vase and the single red flower sitting in it. its petals curl at the ends and some are even missing. 

this flower has travelled and as sakura considers what it is, she knows it’s travelled far. 

-

konoha became unbearable by the time she tuned twenty. it's so petty and selfish and she'd never say it aloud, but she hated seeing everyone else so happy. she's happy too -- has so many reasons to be -- but she couldn’t help the nagging jealousy she feels when ino declined her invitations because she was going to see sai or when naruto prioritized her almost always only to head home to hinata.

she wanted to be someone's too. she wanted to be their focus and heart and home, but sakura already knew who her someone was and knew that on some level she was his too, so all she needs to do right now is wait.

most of the time, sakura wasn’t bitter. being apart from him wasn't unfamiliar, nor the steadfastness, nor the hope that one day this will pay off one day, nor the self reminders that what she felt was irrelevant as long as sasuke knew and was comforted by the fact that she would always love him.

to suppress her frustrations rather than confront them, sakura worked. she worked tirelessly and relentlessly and by nineteen, they'd named her the greatest medical ninja konoha has ever seen for her accomplishments, ideas, and innovations.

this took her to suna at twenty and to ame at twenty-one to help establish their own clinics.

“i have a gift for you,” ino told her before she left. 

sakura expected a ribbon or a piece of jewellery or that new book on poisons she mentioned she was interested in. instead, ino handed her a bag. its contents shift, imbalanced, and inside sakura finds a potted plant. 

“a flower?”

“not just any flower, you ungrateful bitch.” ino pointed at her accusingly and then at the plant. its petals are a bright red with darker flecks at their base. “i made it.”

“you made it?”

“yes. you know me, interrogating and mind-reading by day, splicing plants together and making my own by night.”

“that’s sad.”

“fuck you. you’re sad.”

sakura laughed and ino laughed too but it got a bit sad because ino probably definitely knew that sakura was sad. “anyway,” ino continued, “we’ll call it the sakuino flower--”

“how creative.”

“--and i expect you to keep it alive through all of your travels.”

sakura frowned at ino, wondering if ino understood that a potted plant had no place in her travels, but ino didn’t seem to care. moreover, this particular thing didn’t seem to have the ability to survive in the desert climate she was going to be living in for the next six months. 

when sakura expressed as much, ino waved the matter off. “deal with it,” she said, giving sakura one last hug. “you’re one of the brightest minds to come out of this village. you’ll figure something out.”

-

its common name is the fire poppy, having originated from the fire country but somehow managing to survive in the deserts of wind country as well. the flower is know for its vibrant red petals, eye-catching and jarring across the barren brown it’s normally found in. sakura had to play with the original plant’s physiology when she first moved to ensure it could survive the alternate climate. in her spare time, when she wasn’t working with the kids, she deigned to work with her plant, eventually working on cloning the original. at some point she’d given one to a nurse she worked with who much admired the first, and gaara asked if he could try planting them in his garden. from there, the spores began to spread.

“why the fire poppy?”

was this someone from suna?

sakura considers the obvious motivation of revenge, but who would even want that? there were people who didn’t appreciate her friendship with kankuro or any of his siblings. perhaps an apprentice of chiyo’s who blamed sakura for not saving her when she gave her life for gaara’s. worse, perhaps someone that once worked sasori who resented her for his demise. or maybe someone she, sadly, can’t even remember. a patient she lost during the war whose family hated her.

sakura truly cannot pinpoint a motivation for this, much less a person. 

especially a person that would understand the meaning of this flower for her. 

ino would never give her this flower. ino would have scoffed at it and created her own. sarada couldn’t have picked it today. and sasuke certainly couldn’t have left it for her.

someone was in her apartment. someone brought it here. 

was it here before?

sakura considers the poppy and forces herself to keep calm. stay logical, she demands. stay smart. was the poppy there before? no, she thinks at first. she would have seen it. she’s certain she would have seen it.

but, she can accept, it’s possible she might have missed it. sarada was taken. her babysitter was murdered. it wouldn’t be surprising if sakura missed it. but sakura doesn’t miss things. right?

“don’t gaslight yourself,” she orders. 

no, she knows. the flower was not there before, meaning in between her going to kakashi, going to the prison, and then running back home, whoever took her daughter came back.

or worse, there was a team involved and one was with her child and another came back for her. 

sakura curses, wishing she’d put on her black ops armour earlier, because whoever brought the flower here is now making their presence known. she senses two people before she sees them and is unsurprised to find sudden flares of strength.

the bedroom is small and they’re in a building. she needs to take this outside, but where? there’s too much risk for others getting hurt in the crossfire. that’s why this was supposed to stay quiet. that’s why this will stay quiet.

they step out of the shadows and sakura assesses them quickly. one male, one female, both fairly young based on stature and development, maybe early twenties at the oldest. they’ll have agility on her, but they won’t have her experience. 

the man holds a chokuto. good. an advantage. sakura is excellent at fighting against such a weapon. if they’re foolish enough to use her husband’s favourite sort of blade, perhaps they didn’t do enough research on her. perhaps they were hired? but if they were unprepared, then were they really here to kill her? 

are they here to distract her?

that thought fills sakura with dread. is someone trying to keep her busy so she can’t get to sarada on time?

the woman shifts, one leg sliding to the side as she raises her hands. she holds no weapons, therefore she is the weapon. sakura knows all about that. she’ll need to be careful with this one. but she still has a holster on her thigh. it’s thinner that the usual styles. maybe a couple kunai, but more likely a set of sebon. this one is smart then. she’ll know precisely where she needs to hit sakura to stop her.

“haruno sakura,” the man greets with a short nod.

so it is her fault.

if this was about sasuke, about the uchiha, they would know her married name. this is about her, and for that sakura feels worse. her baby was taken and why? just to hurt sakura before killing her? sarada was who knows where with surely no one that could be good and all just to hurt sakura?

sakura snarls, furious in a way only a mother could be, and she feels the chakra pulsing around her fists.

“where is my daughter?”

their masks hide any expressions. they remain at ease in the face of her rage, shockingly unafraid of this woman that can level mountains. 

good, sakura thinks. let them be brave. let them come at her like fools. 

she runs through the bedroom door to get to the living room where there’s at least more space to maneuver. the man leaps and brings his blade down upon her, but sakura manages to shift to the side. careful to not be forced into a corner, she spins out of his range and into the open middle until the woman runs past her partner and takes sakura on hand-to-hand.

she matches sakura’s punches and kicks blow for blow. she’s good, sakura thinks nervously. and she’s fast. she’s small, maybe half a head shorter than sakura, so she puts her weight behind every quick jab. sakura gives most of her attention to the woman, but keeps a wary on eye on the man who sheathes his chokuto.

what as he planning?

it takes that one moment for the woman to catch her unaware. 

sakura chokes on her breath as the woman thrusts a senbon into her shoulder. the shock from that slows her down enough so she can lodge in a second.

“shit,” sakura curses as she stumbles back. she rips the senbon out, but she feels her left arm begin to go numb from the struck pressure point. “what did you do--”

sakura’s eyes widen she she feels something foreign begin to course through her. she considers the senbon, dark with her blood and likely something else. there’s a metallic smell that isn’t from the weapon, and sakura knows she’s been poisoned.

however, her body doesn’t bother to fight it. 

sakura watches her opponents, trying to understand how she’s been poisoned with something she’s immune to and just what poison this might be. she’s immune to everything in konoha’s own collection, as well as the ones she shares with shizune.

which poison is this?

does that matter?

sakura scowls at the two people involved in her daughter’s kidnapping and reminds herself that she can take them on one-handed just fine. she pulls her right hand into a fist and charges. the man is closest, so she lunges at him with a chakra-laden punch that sends him barreling into the wall. 

she grabs the front of his shirt and as she pulls him forward, his mask falls away to reveal green eyes, cold and lifeless, and a black diamond under his left eye that makes her uneasy.

sakura stares at the man, confused, because she knows this face.

she knows him.

her fear and pain and worry makes it hard to focus, but knows him. 

focus.

finally, it clicks. 

“isao?”

she thinks she might have seen something like recognition in his eyes. that doesn’t long though. she left herself open, and his partner stabs her shoulder. sakura releases isao with a cry before the woman punches her in the back of the head and everything goes dark.

-

the sun is up when sakura begins to stir. she hears the birds chirping and people outside going about their days. but the buzz of the television is missing, as are the small thuds of sarada’s steps. where is sarada? sakura wonders hazily, lazily, not quite understanding yet.

where is sarada?

her eyes widen and she sits up so quickly her stomach rolls.

“careful.” tsunade comes into view, steadying sakura and checking her for any problems. “you’re still healing.”

she’s in her own bed. she’s not at the hospital. she got knocked out and the assassins got away. she should’ve done something to track them. dammit. was she so arrogant she didn’t have a failsafe in place for if she didn’t simply beat them? sakura punches the bed, earning a disapproving frown from shizune on her other side.

“there was poison in your system.” 

“it was one of ours,” sakura admits warily. 

“yes. there are very few people with access to those, much less this particular one.”

the one that the assassin used was meant to render a victim paralyzed but still able to feel. it was a dreadful thing, meant only for the worst of interrogations. or, more accurately, for torture. sakura concocted it in her darkest moments at fourteen under shizune’s watchful eye. since then, while they’ve both had small handfuls of keen students, they’ve probably shared poisons from their personal roster with only five people at most.

for this particular poison, sakura knows only two people they showed it to, and only one of those was a student of sakura’s.

“how did you find me?”

tsunade rolls her eyes. “shizune sent you off to a prison from kakashi’s office. i figured i’d have to check on you shortly after. and it’s a good thing i did, stupid girl.”

“thank you.”

“don’t thank me. i’m scolding on you.”

“did they find anything useful?”

“no one’s been able to contact your husband.”

“right.”

“and they’re still under the impression that this has to do with the uchiha blood.” 

“they would be,” sakura mutters, too tired and in too good company to be anything but blunt.

shizune sighs. “do you know who came after you last night?” the flower is still where she left it on the dresser. shizune follows her gaze to the fire poppy, and all knowing with plants as well, shizune determines its origins. “how did that get here?”

“i think it was to taunt me.” sakura grimaces. “you were right.”

“about?”

“i think this is my fault.”

shizune’s eyes widen and quickly soften with sympathy. “none of this your fault,” she reminds sakura. 

tsunade crosses her arms. “enemies of yours then?”

“no.” sakura looks sad. “people i once loved.”

-

tbc

[starlessskies94]

Consequence (Joel Miller x OC)

Summary: What if Joel survived his injuries from the Abby and Fireflies attack but ends up with really bad amnesia. He can’t remember his wife, Ellie, or the Outbreak; only before. How will his family bring back the man they once knew?Pairing: Joel Miller x OC                                                                                      Note: An update? Could It be? After all this time?...Yes. It is I! I come with a thousand apologies for taking so long to update. I didn't plan for it be so long but with Covid and going back to work during Covid and family stuff, I just haven't had the time but I'm back my lovelies and I really hope this chapter doesn't disappoint :)

Chapter Seven 

Tommy woke up late for the first time in weeks; he didn’t often sleep in but given his late night chasing lost cattle through the town after they’d somehow managed to escape the paddocks; he figured he more than deserved it. Maria had woken him when she made to leave and insisted he stay put while she made a start on the morning checks. She kissed him goodbye and they promised to meet later for lunch together.

The morning air was crisp and fresh as he stepped down onto the path, his jacket zipped tight to fight off the dwindling cold. The snow had long since melted and there were clear telltale signs of Spring fast approaching in Jackson.

And while the cold wasn’t as biting as it had been, there was still the odd chill that needed to be shielded from with a layer or two.

It wouldn’t be long before they were preparing for a new harvest to grow throughout the year. The sacks of seeds and planting equipment appearing all over town as families began to prep the soil and start their planting as the wildflowers poked their heads through the ground to bask in the warming sunlight.

Tommy made his way through the streets heading straight for his brother’s house. It was still hard to believe that it had been a whole two months since Joel’s attack.

Two whole months since his sister in law had lost her husband; his niece, her father. And unfortunately for all of them; it didn’t seem like Joel was making any progress to getting his memories back. He tried to help of course but his brother, being the stubborn grump that he was, had only pushed his younger brother away, insisting he was capable of handling the trauma alone.

He hated seeing his brother struggling, especially when it seemed that some details were coming through. It was little things but it was better than nothing. The only problem was, it was things Joel seemed to dismiss without a second thought.

Tommy honestly believed if Joel focused on them, they’d help process bigger things. Though it certainly hadn’t helped matters that the older Miller had stopped going to his weekly check ups to help his mind improve. The head of the infirmary had voiced her concerns to Tommy a few days earlier. His constant dismissal and disregard for their importance to his slow recovery; not just frustrating the Doctor but also Tommy himself.

He just hoped he could talk some sense into his big brother.

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

He knocked but no answer greeted him as he stepped inside the house. It was quiet but clean. Each room meticulously organised and tidied to within an itch of its life. He figured this was what Joel must have been filling his days with over the past few weeks. The sound of muffled hammering caught his attention, leading him up the stairs to Joel’s workshop room. The door slightly ajar. Tommy had barely entered the room before Joel acknowledged him.  

“What do you want, Tommy?” Joel grunted without even bothering to turn around. Tommy just shrugged silently, his hands awkwardly stuffing into the front pockets of his jeans.

“Well good morning to you too, just stopped by to see how you’re doing.”

“As good as I can be I guess.” He muttered as he continued to work, never taking his eyes off the wood in his hands. It felt nice seeing his brother once again taking an interest in an old hobby that he had enjoyed before his injury. It felt like maybe they were finally heading in the right direction. But Tommy had to hold off, he didn’t want to push anymore than was necessary. He knew Joel well enough to know that if you pushed too far; Joel would only push back twice as hard. “Right, sorry... whatcha making?”   Joel hobbled back a little from the table, giving Tommy a better view of the work in question. The long neck and the four legs beginning to take shape made his heart skip. The older man had always had a talent; that was for certain. The horses he made were always magnificent. The wolves and the deer along with any other animal the people of Jackson had asked for; were always made with utmost care. And it seemed this work of art was no different.

“I think I meant for it to be a giraffe before... everything. Figured I might as well finish it. Hell if I know who it was supposed to be for.”

“Ellie.” Tommy whispered.  

“What?”

Tommy took a second for his brain to catch up with his words as he quickly cleared his throat and tried not to fidget too much. “It’s just...uh.. that it’s her birthday in a couple of months and she always liked giraffes, maybe it was meant for her?” He offered nervously. Joel just hummed casually. With a quick dismissive shake of his head and a sigh; he moved the half carved giraffe onto a nearby shelf along with his other unfinished projects. Turning to face his brother, his arm reaching out to grab his cane to steady his balance.

“Yeah, maybe...maybe Ada asked me to make it for her to give to Ellie as a gift.” He wondered out loud, stopping Tommy in his tracks.

“You talked to her?” He asked almost a little too quickly. Causing Joel to frown slightly in response at his brother’s unexplained eagerness.  

“Who Ada? Briefly, why? Am I supposed to know her or something?”

“You guys were...friends I guess…” Tommy replied weakly. He knew he had to be cautious here, baby steps. They were moving into uncharted territory when it came to Ada and Ellie. Joel had only just started to accept the life they had lived in Boston as smugglers and that was before he had even had the courage to bring up the Fireflies. He needed to steer clear of things deeper than that for now  and ease into the conversation he wanted to have. But his patience was starting to run thin. “Look, the reason I came by is because I was talking to Elizabeth and she said you’ve stopped going to your check ups.”  

“Oh not this again Tommy!” Joel snapped, his brother rolling his eyes in frustration as Joel hobbled away from his work space and further towards the door. But Tommy was quick to stop him, stepping in the threshold and blocking Joel’s exit.

“Look I know I don’t understand what you’re going through but-”

“You’re damn right you don’t!” He yelled. "You have no idea what it’s like Tommy; to lose years of your life in an instant. Forget everything you’ve done and the people you used to care about. I don’t see how bitching about how shitty this is to the damn Doctor is going to help!”

“But you’re starting to remember things Joel! That’s a big fucking deal!”

“How?! All I’m remembering is crap no one cares about! How are horse’s names gonna help me? Or how I take my coffee in the morning? I couldn’t even remember holding my little girl in my arms after she was shot! Oh but thank the lord I could remember what colour shirt I was wearing when it happened!!”

With every word Joel got closer, his nostrils flaring in anger as blood continued to boil. But Tommy never backed down, squaring up to his big brother wasn’t unusual and certainly wasn’t the first time they’d been at odds on how to handle something. Joel’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.

“It’s been two months Tommy...two months of this and it ain’t getting better any time soon. This ain’t your problem so just back off!” He hissed between gritted teeth.

“You can’t just push me away Joel, I want to help. I’m trying but you’re just being so damn stubborn.”

“Then leave, I didn’t ask you to babysit me. And I sure as hell don’t need you sticking around outta guilt.” The words stopped Tommy dead.

“What?”

“I might not remember what happened but I know enough from what you told me about Boston...You survived because of me. All those years I took care of us. Just like when we were kids. So what? You feel like you owe me? You gotta take your turn to take care of me now? You can keep it baby brother because I don’t want it. And I didn’t ask for it.” The words spit venom with every ounce of bitterness Joel had in him. And Tommy felt his lip snarl in response. The ungrateful bastard; he thought coldly, after everything he’d done to keep his brother alive on the way back to Jackson after the Fireflies had almost beaten him to death and this was what he had to say in response.

“How do I know the people who did this weren’t after you. I mean they did a pretty good number on you too right? Big brother to the rescue to save your sorry ass; yet again! You think I want to live like this?! Huh?! Trapped in a life of a man I don’t even know. A house full of memories I can’t even goddamn remember!”

That was it, Tommy was done. Joel was frustrated and angry, he knew that. He understood that. Of course he did. But to blame him for this?! How the hell was that fair? His hands shook in pure anger, chest heaving as he held back his punches as much as he could. He stumbled away from the door. His trembling hand reaching up and running through his beard in a poor attempt to calm himself.  

“You know what screw you! Screw you Joel! You wanna give up, you wanna feel sorry for yourself? Fine! I’m done. You give up on your family-”

“Family?! What damn family? There’s no one left Tommy! Sarah is gone!”

“She ain’t the only one you got!” Tommy cut off without thinking. Joel’s face dropping at his brother's outburst. The younger man’s eyes widened in shock as he realised what he’d said. But it was too late to take it back now. And Tommy knew that. They both did. Perhaps now was the time to tell the truth.

“You want to know who your family is Joel? Take a look in your damn attic.”

Tommy uttered the words into the thick silence left between the two men. Before turning on his heel to leave, never giving Joel a chance to answer. Leaving the man to stew in his confession. He just hoped that somehow...Ada could forgive him for this.  

[atomic-taco-muffin]

The Legend of Hana Chapter 103

Warnings: Giving the Twilight Trio some love here. They’re so underrated!!!!

Rating: SFW

In Twilight Town, a dark portal opened near the Ikusaba Mansion (For anyone who is confused, Ikusaba is Mukuro’s last name). The first person to step was Ansem the Wise followed by Nagito Komaeda. Ansem the Wise looked up to the second floor at the window that was once Rumi’s room but then became Naminé’s when Rumi moved to Xemnas’s. But now it was Rumi’s once more. 

“What now?” the Remnant asked. 

“Please. I have created enough victims,” the elder man replied. 

“Yes, you have. My mistress told me about all the children sacrificed in the name of your research... So make things right.” Ansem the Wise regretted his shameful past, but ultimately, it was irreversible. 

“I told you I did not take her. Her disappearance was why I put a stop to the research,” he said, shaking his head. But Nagito had no sympathy for the pain of the older man. 

“And that makes you honorable? You used Roxas and Naminé and threw them away. I doubt there's a merciful bone in your body. You took the girl, and hid her. Now, show me the data you are hiding here,” he said. 

“I believe that it’s time for you to go. Don’t you know that this is a private property, Remnant?” a familiar voice snarled. Standing at the front door of the mansion was none other than Mukuro herself with her husband and guard dog on either side of her. 

“Ah, if it isn’t my mistress’s sister, Mukuro. So glad to know that you’re alive and well,” Nagito smiled. 

“Leave this house, now!” 

“Oh, but I’m afraid that I can’t. You see, I have orders from my mistress and her husband to find data here.” Ansem knew that the man who destroyed his home had data hidden here and he made sure to keep it safe. Mukuro summoned her Guardian, Monomi, and her guns and pointed them directly at Nagito. 

“I said to leave. Or do I have to force you out?” she said. Nagito laughed and summoned a Monokuma to battle. “So be it then.” 

While Mukuro and her husband were fighting the Remnant, Olette and her brothers took this opportunity to save Ansem the Wise and the three of them ran to underground tunnels of the town. 

                                                          ☽✧☽✧

Olette and the others waited Ansem and Mukuro to arrive and when they did, Olette and her brothers ran to give them a tight hug. 

“It’s alright, little ones. Your mother and I are safe,” Ansem said. 

“What about Nightmare? Is he okay?” Olette asked. 

“He’s okay. He went back inside to enjoy a treat,” Mukuro replied. 

“You are Roxas's friends,” a surprised Ansem the Wise said to the three teenagers. 

“That's right,” Hayner replied. Ansem the Wise looked at Mukuro and immediately knew that he was in some deep shit. Mukuro walked up to him and punched him in the face, making him fall to the ground. 

“That was for destroying my house,” she said and walked away. 

“Damn! I knew mom was a savage but I wasn’t expecting that!” Pence exclaimed. Just then, summoned appeared from behind. 

“Lady Mukuro! You’re alive! I don’t believe it!” The Ikusaba family turned around to face another man--a man who had once gone by the name Vexen as a member of Xemnas’s Organization. 

“Vexen, it’s good to see you again,” Ansem said. 

“What are you doing here?” Mukuro asked, curiously. 

“I have been waiting for this. Gave up a normal life in order to plant myself in the Organization. And when I heard Xehanort had gone looking for you, I realized it was my chance to find you as well. For you see, I, too, wish to atone,” he said to his old Master. Intrigued by his request, Ansem the Wise waited to hear more. 

[jeromesxreader16]

Such a Joker (49)

Part 48 Here

~o0o~

I walk in looking at the extravagant new home hidden away. "This is beautiful, Jeremiah." I gasp looking over every inch of beauty crafted from the mind of my man. "The children already have an empty room waiting for them. I'll have the workers gather some materials. From now on I would like you to stay here. If you must leave, please be with Ecco or Babara at all times." Jeremiah speaks calmly sitting on the couch. "You trust me with Babs?" Jeremiah smiles nodding his head. "For now."

I smile laying in his arms looking out of the large windows. "Are you happy you're going to be a father?" Jeremiah pulls me close humming. "Of course. We'll need to get married. I will not have my children be born Gordons." I laugh kissing his nose. "They're Valeska's, trust me."

~

I sit up covering myself with the silk sheets. Jeremiah stands in the mirror looking over his new attire. His hair has fully darkened and his lips are a brighter red in contrast to his pale tone. "I like it," Jeremiah smirks at me walking over. "You're adorable, dear mommy." He leans down kissing me.

"Now while I'm out where will you be?" I roll my eyes, crossing my arms. "Right here, Jer. You don't have to worry." "Oh, I know. It's others that worry me. Call me if you have any trouble, love." I nod watching him walk away.

Hours later my phone rings as I'm going through my new wardrobe Jeremiah provided me with. "Hello?" "(Y/n)! How are you doing, love? Want to grab lunch before your boyfriend blows the city up?" I giggle at her as I hold up a shirt smiling. "So you've heard." "Yeah. Care to chat?" "I can do that. I'll send you the address." "Great! I'll get you a ride."

Not long after the call ends a black car rolls up into the driveway. I exit the house getting into the car. Barbara sighs, "I'm sorry, (y/n). Nothing personal. We just need the upper hand." "What?" Suddenly a bag is thrown over my head and my wrists tied together.

As we enter a warehouse I'm sat down in a chair and the bag is removed. I look over and see Jongleur has been captured as well.

Barbara kneels, smiling. "You look really good by the way. Glowing and all." I turn my head away. "I'm still mad at you." She nods, "Yeah, but we can't have Gotham blown up."

Only after a long ten minutes, Jeremiah walks down with his followers seeing us.

"Oswald Cobblepot. Barbara Kean. In my stronghold."

"Not one step closer, Mr. Valeska," Oswald says pointing a gun at me. Jeremiah's eyes grow deadly cold. "And is that my dear Jongleur with my core relay in his hand and a grenade taped to his mouth? Not only that, but you have the future mother of my children strapped to a chair with a gun pointed at her head?"

"Indeed, it is."

"Huh. Well, it seems you have the upper hand."

"Undoubtedly. And now, we have our own demands.... $50 million.

Jeremiah widens his eyes in amusement. "That's what you want?"

Oswald smiles nodding, "It's a nice, round number."

"I don't quite have that on me right now," Jeremiah says calmly. "You gave the mayor six hours to evacuate Gotham. An impossible task. Let him buy another hour. He will save thousands of lives. $50 million will seem cheap." I laugh, shaking my head. "You're playing him the villain, while you get away free and rich? Shoot me now." I roll my eyes laughing.

Jeremiah smirks at me, giving me hope. "I get you the money, you give me back my fiance and my core relay." Barbara hums smarting off, "That is usually how a hand-off works, yeah." I look over my shoulder at her huffing.

"You drive a hard bargain, but I'll see what I can do. Hold tight, darling." Jeremiah pulls out his phone quickly. "Just like that? After knowing your brother, I expected something more..." Jeremiah scoffs, "Insane? I'm nothing if not sane and reasonable. Two things my brother never valued. That's why I'll be successful where he failed. Well, that, being vastly more intelligent and winning (Y/n). Now, to see about your money."

He dials the numbers and brings his phone to his ear. "This is Jeremiah Valeska. I'd like to speak to the mayor. I have additional demands... Yes, really... 50 million, unmarked bills. I'll tell you about the location. "

Jeremiah chuckles looking at us. "Would you believe it? They put me on hold." He bends down pulling out a bazooka. My chair is pulled out of the blast range from one of our followers as Jeremiah aims and shoots at the core relay blowing it up.

Jeremiah cuts me free holding me close. "Are you alright?" I nod into his chest.

"Are you out of your mind?" Oswald screams in shock.

"Why do you keep insisting I'm insane? What's insane about having a backup plan, something Jongleur never knew about. And, so you know, this building is within the blast radius. And because of your interference, I'm going to detonate the bombs as soon as I'm far enough away to observe the destruction in peace with my family."

"No, you promised the city six hours!"

"Whose fault is it that I changed my mind?"

~

"You've blown up the bunker and the Mayor already. How many bombs were you thinking of using, honey?"

Jeremiah lays his hand on my leg as he transports me home safely. "I need a blank slate. Everything must go. I want to be set up in the center and have the whole Gotham city park the backyard for the kids." Jeremiah opens the door for me as we walk into the house. "I'll be home soon. Take a tour of the barracks downstairs. Then tour the master bathroom with the newly renovated jacuzzi." Jeremiah finishes halfway out the door. "I'll miss you." He sighs dramatically gazing at me. "And I you, darling."

~

Jim POV:

I walked into the GCPD shocking every one of my colleagues. "Jim!" Harvey rushes pulling me in a hug. "Oh, Buddy." I chuckle while pulling away wincing. "All right, easy there, big fella. Remember, I just got blown up."

"How did you get out of the bunker?"

"It's a long story, but what matters is, I have the locations of every bomb Jeremiah planted." I hold up the plans from the bunker for everyone to see.

"Jeremiah wasn't bluffing. There are at least a dozen bombs on this map."

"But you're saying, if we disarm one of them in the sequence, we'll stop all of them from going off. And according to this, the closest one is just a mile away."

Harvey starts rambling off plans for the squad to carry out, "Alert the bomb squad. Tell them to meet me there." "Wait, Harvey. Let the bomb squad handle this. You don't have to go." He nods at me with the determination of prey. "Yes, I do. I need this, Jim."

~

Jeremiah walks in the bedroom seeing me spin in one of the many new outfits he gifted me with. "Are we happy, (y/n)?" He asks strolling over and taking me in his arms as he looks at us in the mirror.

I nod smiling at my soon to be husband. "Are you ready to start our new life together, sweets?" He pulls my hair over my shoulder lining my neck with kisses. I turn away from him pulling him out the door by his tie. "If you keep that up we'll be late."

We enter the elevator descending to the followers' barracks. As we enter they chant cleanly, "Jeremiah! Jeremiah!"

Jeremiah switches the denominator on his trigger; just one flick of that switch and its bye bye Gotham City.

"All my life I spent by myself, hidden away. I am so glad to be sharing this happy moment with you, (y/n), and all of you as well. Today marks the dawning of a new Gotham City. One where we will all be free. Now, shall I do the honors?"

Jeremiah makes his speech walking down the lined army of members, towards a TV with the news just waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly a familiar face appears on the screen. My father.

"That's Jim Gordon! He's not dead." The followers cry out in a tantrum.

"This is a message to the followers of Jeremiah Valeska. Jeremiah claims to have killed me. Well, bad news, I'm alive." My father smiles smugly on the screen.

Jeremiah turns back to all of us shaking his head trembling. "No. No, it's a trick. I killed him."

"So, just know, you're worshiping a fraud. A pale imitation of Jerome. You did your worst, Jeremiah. And I'm still here. And I'm coming for my daughter." Jeremiah turns off the TV in a rushed frustration.

"Doesn't matter whether he's alive. When I hit this switch, you'll hear the sounds of a new world being born. Our world. Now... Listen." He hisses as he flips the switch. I smile awaiting a reaction, but nothing changes. I tilt my head confused and look at Jeremiah turn the switch over and over.

Every one of the false followers starts to gang up on Jeremiah, "He's a fake!" "He's a liar! Liar!"

"SHUT UP!" He screams, slowly making his way to the door. He makes his way to me grabbing my hand and kissing it. "I want you all to know I find your fickleness quite hurtful... And more so, very predictable. Come, love." Jeremiah pulls us out, locking the room shut with the followers inside. He pulls open the box on the wall pressing the large red button engraved with PURGE.

The room soon engulfed in horrid screams and bright flames as they burn in the chamber. He sighs watching them through the window. "Well, that is disappointing."

I grab his hand pulling him towards the elevator. "Don't focus on that, what we need to do now is go to your office and figure this out." "Darling, I adore enthusiasm, but I haven't gotten started in the office. This was supposed to work out." He groans frustrated.

The elevator takes us up a floor to a large room I have started to make into his office. He walks in seeing a desk there with his plans and breaks into a smile. "You didn't have to do this, darling." He removes his blazer, tossing it on his chair while I move to sit on the desk.

"I know, but I wanted to. If this is going to be our home I want you to have your spot to work again." Jeremiah rolls out the map smirking, "Well then, let's get to work."

We spend hours looking over the plans for flames and or issues, but I can't think of anyone who would've taken the chance between the two triggers.

"I got it!" I laugh lowering my feet from the desk. " If you had Jim in your office with the prints he took them when he escaped!" Jeremiah nods gathering along, "Gordon found one of the bombs, and sabotaged the sequence... I'll have to start again." Jeremiah nods looking down at the map of the City.

"You're tenacious. I like that." A ghostly voice runs along the walls of the room. Jeremiah pulls me behind him pulling out his gun. "Who are you? What do you want?" He speaks calmly.

"I had a vision of Gotham in flames. Together we can make that happen." A man from the upper half of the platform speaks. "Well, I say we appreciate the offer, but recent events have convinced me of the benefits of working alone." Jeremiah shoots at him, but the man moves too fast.

I stifle a giggle pulling out my gun. "Your shot is horrible."

"Don't be so rash. Your dream of a new Gotham fit for your family will come to be, with my help." This man speaks again from the other corner of the room. I raise my gun shooting at him, but he vanishes.

Jeremiah sighs laying a hand on my hip. "You're behind me, aren't you?"

We turn around meeting this mystery man with the plan. "I can conquer Gotham on my own. What makes you think I need your help? Whoever you are."

He smirks walking closer. "Because, my boy, all this is not just about Gotham. This is about Bruce Wayne."

I gasp giggling. "This just got interesting."

~

"You're going to get arrested!" I fight Jeremiah as we go over this plan. He shrugs dusting his hat. "Love, I'm escaping. Can't you focus on that?" I huff crossing my arms. "I want to go with you." Jeremiah laughs shaking his head. "Have you forgotten you're carrying twins, my love? I am going to be shooting people. Use your head." I laugh pulling at his tie. "I've been thinking of names." "Oh? Want to tell me as we watch Gotham burn?" "Root beer floats will be waiting." Jeremiah rolls his eyes. "You and your cravings." "Blame your kids!"

~

I walk into Wayne's home leaving the door wide open. I walk to the study smirking as I hear the ongoing conversation.

"Why do you think he's so obsessed with you?" Selina Kyle asks Bruce. "Jeremiah said, "All it takes is one bad day to drive a person insane." I wonder if my parents dying made me a little insane? Maybe he sensed that. Maybe he wanted to bring it out." I smirk nodding my head. "Smart boy."

"Well, you proved him wrong."

I roll my eyes entering the room. "To be fair, the day's not over yet." Selina stands up going to attack, but I simply pull the trigger of my gun shooting her in the lower abdomen.

Bruce screams as I am tackled to the floor by the butler and brutally beaten. Just one bad day Bruce.

[nebulablakemurphy]

Full Bloom

Summary: Before Neville goes back to Hogwarts, he helps Y/N plant a garden. When he returns everything is in full bloom. 

A/N: Written for A Very Harry Potter Summer with the prompt ‘garden work.’ Special tag for @lupins-sweater​ happy birthday! 🎁 (Be sure to send her lots of frog pictures and or Remus fan art!) @eleven-times-lively you are not on my tag list but still wishing you the happiest of birthdays!

Masterlist

You first notice Neville Longbottom at age five. He’s been your next door neighbor for just as long. Despite his grandmother’s wariness, the pair of you are drawn to each other like a moth to flame.

Neville is special. Although the thought never really occurred to you, until his eleventh birthday.

When he pulls you aside to say he won’t be returning to school with you in the fall. This, of course, shatters your heart into a million pieces.

You were going to lose your best friend. In a mix of anger and shock, you don’t wish him safe travels. How could he leave you for a stupid boarding school anyhow?

Despite yourself, when he returns, you can’t help peeking between the slots in the fence. Catching him reading over a newspaper that appears to move by itself.

As the years go on, Neville begins to open up a bit more. About magic and Hogwarts, the special school only wizards can attend. Naturally he’s not supposed to share any of this with you; and could get in a fair bit of trouble for doing so. But you’re very persistent and above all else, Neville knows he can trust you.

You’re sixteen when he finally kisses you, only goodbye and only on the cheek. But you swear you’ll never want to kiss anyone else.

There are other boys. Normal, available, boys, who don’t leave for part of the year. Only none of them are Neville, therefore none of them are good enough.

————————————————————-

Things grow darker in his word, you can tell by the way his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You can feel it in the way he avoids speaking about magic. And the way he tries to direct the conversation away from him and back toward you.

You don’t push, instead you begin searching for ways to ease his nerves. Plants and herbology always seem to do the trick.

Your family’s garden is barren and has been for sometime. Although you have nothing akin to a green thumb, you’re ready to give it a go. You drive up to the nursery that day and return with a trunk full of flowers.

Neville spots you from his bedroom window, rushing over to help unload the plants. “These are beautiful.” He points toward the forget me nots. “They’ll bloom every year.”

“So it’s impossible for me to kill them?” You inquire, hopefully. “Because I can’t keep plants alive to save my life.”

“Do you want to know the secret?” He says, leaning a bit closer.

“Magic?” You reply, cheekily.

Neville shakes his head, no. “Love the plants and the plants will love you.”

“You can’t be serious.” You scoff at the idea, that’s ridiculous!

“Try it.” He insists.

“I don’t believe you,” you say, giving him the side-eye. “But it couldn’t hurt.”

Once you’re all set up, you begin shoveling dirt, to make a proper hole. Effectively flicking it up at yourself instead.

Neville chuckles, having perfectly executed the same task.

“Shut it,” you swat his shoulder.

“You’ve got a bit of dirt,” he motions to your nose.

“Here?” You ask. Wiping your hand over the spot in question, only serving to smear it about your face.

Neville smiles, moving toward you. “I’ll get it.”

———————————————————————-

When Neville leaves that year, you can sense he’s heading into something dangerous. Even before he tells you.

“I don’t want you to wait for me, Y/N. I don’t know if-“ he breaks off, “when,” he corrects himself. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ve been waiting for you since I was five.” You remind him, “seems silly to stop now.”

Mustering the courage, Neville takes your face between his hands. Eyes searching yours, then leaning down; his mouth ghosting over your own.

His lips are slightly chapped, he tastes of childhood and the bittersweet unknown. And you want to remember him, just like this. So you weave your fingers through the short hairs at the nape of his neck. Pulling him closer and keeping him there.

——————————————————————

Then you wait, just like you always have. Through Christmas and the warmer months. Your garden flourishes nicely, just as Neville promised. Sunlight, water and love have brought the buds to fruition.

“Y/N,” the voice, his voice, startles you.

It’s far too early for Neville, he shouldn’t return from school for weeks. But here he stands, perfect as the day he left.

“Neville, you’re back.” You greet him with an embrace, that sends you both stumbling backwards.

“Y/N, this is brilliant.” He beams, eyes alight with wonder.

“Think the plants love me yet?” You pull away, enough to see his face. Checking for any obvious signs of damage.

“They’d be mental not to,” Neville smiles. Taking in the beauty that surrounds him.

This time when he kisses you, there’s no hesitation. He tastes of hope and things yet to come.

—————————————————————-

It’s not for sometime after the wizarding war that you finally have all the details. Mainly because it’s very hard for Neville to speak about, and you respect that.

With his confessions come healing. Years pass easily between you; he’s more himself, happy again. Eventually he drops down on one knee, asking for your hand in marriage. An offer you eagerly accept.

Married life is kind to you. On your two year wedding anniversary, you run out into your garden. Unable to contain your excitement, you scream at the top of your lungs, “I’m pregnant!”

Neville drops his shovel, rushing to sweep you off your feet. Spinning around in circles, until you’re both dizzy.

Your belly grows, full of new life. The beginning of a family you and Neville once dare only dream of. He’s more than happy to maintain the plants, once it becomes too uncomfortable for you.

Stepping out barefoot, onto the soft grass of your shared lawn; you spot your husband, watering the new growth. Raising a hand to your brow, to block the sun, you make your way over. “Hey Neville, how are my flowers fairing?”

He turns away from his work, with a radiant smile. “Very nicely, they’re in full bloom.”

Taglist: @bforbroadway @summer-writes @lupins-sweater @chaotic-fae-queen @a-mexican-waffle @obsessedwithrandomthings @siriusly-addicted-to-writing @firewhisky-kisses @haphazardhufflepuff @peachesandpinks @iliveiloveiwrite @hufflefluff-writer @masterofthedarkness

If you enjoyed this, please be sure to check out all the other amazing works written for A Very Harry Potter Summer. The masterlist can be found on @hufflefluff-writer’s blog! 💕

[trashcankitty12]

Flora Headcanons:

Guys, meet the Sugar and Sweet part of the Winx Club.

Or, as you already know her: Flora La Rosa of Linphea.

Under the cut are the headcanons because again, these get long. (Also some I’ve mentioned before, I think, but whatever. And again, these are mostly for my main verse ‘Balance/The New Company of Light’ and for ‘Left’.)

-Flora has a rather large family, one that stems partially from cousins adopted after the Great War of Magic ended. (So many were displaced or orphaned, and her family was just one of many who took in the children left behind.)

-Honestly though, she really just sees her immediate family often, the rest of them coming around only for major Linphean holidays. (Though they all stay in touch through letters, phone calls, and social media. Especially the cousins.)

-Flora tends to be closer to her father as they share a similar sense of humor and have similar hobbies (like leaf surfing and giant ladybug racing). But her magic took after her mother’s and her mother was her first magic teacher.

-(She was a bit late getting her magic and a bit late getting her wings. She was eight when her magic came in and already 13 by the time her wings sprouted. Though she wasn’t surprised, as her mother had been a late ‘winger’ too.)

-Flora’s mother is the Guardian Fairy of Linphea and helps run the Main GreenHouse alongside the Nymph of Linphea and the royal family. Thanks to Alyssa’s job, Flora got to meet and assist all sorts of people from her realm. (Including the witch triplets who went to Cloud Tower; Euphorbia, Ververine, and Gerbera. And Princess Krystal.)

-Rhodos works with a faction of conservationists in Linphea to keep endangered animals (and plants) alive. He mainly works with the magiwolves of Linphea and tries to keep their numbers where they’re supposed to be. And because of his job, he ended up adopting a young magiwolf pup they named Amarok.

- (They weren’t going to keep him… They weren’t. But because he was born a different pigment than his littermates, his mother had abandoned him and… Rhodos couldn’t very well leave him to die. Besides, Amarok is nothing more than an overgrown lapdog. Usually.)

-Miele was born when Flora was about six or seven, give or take a few months. And yes, there was a touch of jealousy when Miele first came home because Flora didn’t understand why her parents weren’t spending as much time with her.

-Her parents were quick to pick up on her anxieties about the new baby and started incorporating Flora into assisting with Miele’s care. (Like reading and playing with her while Alyssa made dinner and helping her toddle around the family’s garden while naming off the plants.)

-Honestly, they grew up close and Flora became like a second mom to Miele. (Which would later turn into a minor annoyance as Miele got older, but that’s fine. They’re working through that.)

-Sibling shenanigans still occurred however, like Miele taking and reading Flora’s diary or Flora planting frogs or bugs into her sister’s room. (Or the Great Baking War that Alyssa refuses to let them live down.)

-Flora’s paternal grandmother, Nana Rose, is close to her family and has been living with them since her husband, Poppop Miden passed away.

-She’s a witch who works at the local clinic, her focus is on potions. (Which she passed on to Flora and has tried to teach her everything she knows about them… And everything she knows on poisons too because sometimes a poison is necessary.)

-And yes, Nana Rose did have hope that at least one of her granddaughters would be a witch, but she’s still proud of them. Wings and all.

-Flora has a hidden angry side. It doesn’t come out much and she does her best not to show it often, but she has a major temper when she does slip and let it out. She will unleash her will into the plant life around her and have it come for whoever pissed her off. Or if she’s really feeling it, she may just go in for a physical attack. The girl can pack a punch. (Granted, this only happens in situations where loved ones are in danger.)

-Flora is the only one from her elementary and middle school friend group that went to a Magix School. Most of her friends went to the Linphean Academy.

-She’s the tallest in her main friend group, standing at 5’7.

-She’s one of the Mom friends in the group, the other being Tecna. (She’s the more empathetic and emotional mom friend. Tecna’s the ‘well you fucked around and found out the hard way’ mom friend.)

-Flora wasn’t too sure about Chatta being her pixie at first, but is beyond grateful for the pixie helping her come out of her shell more.

-They now attempt to have weekly (though it’s sometimes monthly) tea parties to catch up on everything.

-Flora doesn’t really ‘do’ competitive sports often, but leaf surfing is the best thing ever and it’s one of the few sports she’s better at than Layla. (Though she does have the advantage of being Linphean and getting to leaf surf regularly…)

-Flora is a romantic and enjoys the ‘rom-com’ things; walks on the beach, silly moments around the town, dancing in the rain. But that shouldn’t mean she’s not careful with her heart. She’s empathic (as many Linpheans are) and is good at reading people when meeting them. So unless you’ve got a ‘beautiful’ soul, she’s not going to be interested.

-Flora loves that her friends are from such vastly different places because it means she can learn more about the realms from people who actually live there. (And teach her their languages, though she’s only really fluent in Solarian and conversational in the others.)

-She’s a spiritual person, as many from Linphea are. Flora believes that just like plant life, all life is connected by an invisible root system and that life is precious and should be treated with respect. (However, she also recognizes that there are those who have ‘tainted spirits’ and need to be dealt with so they don’t harm others.)

-Flora’s not exactly shy. She’s just shy around new people. But once she gets to know you and considers you a friend, you’ll find she has no problem speaking her mind. (And sending random things to you over the phone because they made her think of you.)

-There’s a misconception that she, and other Linpheans, are vegetarian. That’s not entirely true. Linpheans do eat meat: fish. They don’t have it often, only for certain occasions, but they do eat it.

-Flora also doesn't mind dirt or getting dirty. (But there is a difference in natural dirt and gunk. Okay? And gunk sucks.)

-Flora doesn't swear often, but she has let a few slip out from time to time. Usually in heated or emotional or upsetting moments.

-Her favorite parts of an Linphean holiday are getting to spend time with her family. She loves it when they all get together and enjoy each other.

-Like most Linpheans, Flora is immune to most poisons. She’ll likely feel a touch of nausea or a minor headache when poisoned, but due to her immune system, she’ll be perfectly fine within a few hours.

-Despite the fact she’s usually the one trying to talk the others out of dangerous situations, doesn’t mean she’s actually afraid of them. Sneaking into another school, fighting through a realm of shadow creatures, going toe-to-toe with magical terrorists; those don’t phase her.

-No, her real fear is something a bit more… Relatable. She’s scared of losing her loved ones. The thought of having her magic and being able to do such incredible things, but not being able to save her family or her friends just absolutely shakes her to core. (Especially in her nightmares when she’s forced to watch them die and she can’t do a thing to save them.)

-(Freshman year really fucked her up when they were fighting the Army of Darkness/Decay. There was a moment she thought she’d lost Musa and Tecna and she nearly broke down. Thankfully, the other two fairies managed to recover with a few of Palladium and Ofelia’s healing salves, but it was touch and go.)

-Flora can’t stand bullies. Granted, not many people like bullies or tolerate them, but Flora just can’t stand for someone to pick on anything that can’t fight back. It’s why she’s managed to enchant a few endangered plant species to being able to speak up and fight back against those who want to pick them apart and why she’s always ready to take on the Trix.

-Flora was the one who helped catch Bloom up on some of the most important aspects of the Magical Dimension (or at least the parts that Stella glossed over or that Tecna overexplained to the point of making it sound alien even to Flora). In return, she learned so much about Earth culture… She was stunned.

-(And fell in love with Earth’s versions of disaster movies. She likes to show other Linpheans and be like “see, if we don’t start really helping the other realms with the ecological problems, this will happen here too.”)

-(Bloom may have also gotten Flora hooked on those ‘hidden camera’ shows... It’s a guilty pleasure.)

-Flora’s got a major sweet tooth. Major. Which is fine because the girl is great at baking. (The other girls are always excited to taste test.)

-Flora’s not quite as delicate as others make her out to be. Yes, her hands are soft despite being in dirt and soil 80% of the time (Linphean lotions are awesome), and yes she’s good a giving that gentle touch to her plants, but she’s physically stronger than she appears. She can lift 50 pound bags of fertilizer with little issue. She’s pretty handy with a shovel (and not just for digging, which her poor cousin Marlow found out when a prank went wrong). And she’s not ‘razer thin’. She has decent muscle mass and is a bit on the broad side. Doesn’t make her any less graceful in the air or on the ground.

-In a fight, she tries to be more defensive than offensive because she doesn’t want to get in Bloom, Layla, or Stella’s way. And she finds her spells work better as traps than as an offensive maneuver. That said, if she feels her friends are in extreme danger, she will not hesitate to call on the Plant Life around them for help. (And she’s known for getting physical too, so watch out for that.)

-Aside from Layla, Flora feels a connection to Roxy. The younger girl’s passion about animals makes her think of her father and she does her best to encourage Roxy to use her passion in her magic.

-Bloom introduced Flora to the game Minecraft. For the first time, Flora understands why Tecna gets so involved in her videogames. (Please send help, she may be addicted. But her farm is looking amazing.)

-Flora doesn’t really worry about fashion, preferring to go by what she feels is comfortable, but she has a hard time saying ‘no’ to Stella when the other fairy has ideas. (Which usually turn out to be beautiful and comfortable and really, Flora just has the best friends.)

-Flora enjoys the nights when all six Winx Club girls can just hang out and be normal for a few hours. Sleepovers, Truth or Dare, movies and junk food. She loves it.

-She got close to Mirta while the other girl was a pumpkin, even finding a way to communicate despite the spell. After the spell was broken and during their sophomore year, Flora was one of the students who helped show Mirta around and made sure she was comfortable. They often talk and catch up. (And yes, Flora did have a hand in helping push Mirta and Lucy together. She regrets nothing.)

-Flora has thought about a tattoo. Many people on her realm get them, though it’s not a requirement nor does it give any extra magical benefits. She just doesn’t know what to get and she wants it be special. (All she knows is where she’d put it, over her burn scar from the Wizards.)

-At her time at Alfea (and in her middle school), Flora was part of the Student Council and Eco Club. She did her best to help make her schools a little more ‘green’ and energy proficient. (Tecna was a big help in coming up with a design for more efficient electrical equipment.)

-Out of all the girls, Flora has the hardest time connecting to Musa with convergence. Their personalities and magical abilities tend to clash from time to time, so they need to really strike a feeling of harmony before trying.

-Bloom is the easiest to converge with. They shared a room and often had so many late-night chats that their auras and feelings just naturally come together when needed.

-Out of all the girls, she’s the most likely to continue living on Earth. She finds the realm so fascinating. (It was a magically dead planet that kept on living... Just.... how?)

-Flora’s current goal in life is to start the revival process of other dead realms in the Magical Dimension. She feels that if she and her friends can resurrect Domino, bring ShadowHaunt back to its former glory, and bring magic back to Earth, they should be able to handle bringing others back to life too.