#no but also whatever this fate thing is it's GRINDING it's literally pulling them towards each other so i cant even blame her

[koishua]

GAGGINGGGGG THROWING UP SCREECHING i paused on each frame and sobbed like a FREAK he can never stay mad at her he's so freaking smitten, down bad, he's a simp my god get a GRIP sunjae wth

[anjuschiffer]

Even in Hell, There’s a Place Called Home

A bit out of my usual writing and different from my usual formats, but there’s always a reason behind the madness. 

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This an overdue prompt I wanted to write for @chocolate1721 so after two whole months, here it is! Of course, I kinda strayed from the original concept... Hope you enjoy it!

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Concept/Context: The Batfam are demons. During a failed summoning, Damian adopts the sacrifice (Mari). He takes her home. Ensue the chaos

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Warning: graphic scenes, gore, blood, mention of animal sacrifices, human sacrifices, character death

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Tag: @theatreandcomicfreak @damianette-is-life

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AO3

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Marinette tried to keep herself calm as chants were spoken all around her, every now and then hearing the soft jingle of bells that haunted her every thought.

She stared at the pitch black ceiling as her back was pressed against the cold stone table, the blinds at her wrists and ankles cutting into her flesh. 

She had tried to fight back, but the cold shackles’ clinking laughed at her efforts, causing her to stop struggling.

So dressed with nothing but scraps of fabric to cover her chest and lower region, Marinette could only wait until she was sacrificed to whatever it was her mother and her cult were attempting to summon this time. 

They had found a new summoning book in the depths of the abandoned church, the Cult believing that they would give it a try. So after carefully planning the ritual for months and gathering the herbs and animals they could steal, and kidnap a child to sacrifice, the ritual went underway.

It was just her luck that she was the child they chose for this occasion.

It was the greatest honor to be chosen, her mother had told her…

Should she even call Sabine her mother?

What kind of mother offers their own child to be a candidate to be sacrificed?

What kind of mother encourages their child to even think about wanting to sacrifice themselves for a ritual they don’t even care about?!

Marinette let out a shuddering breath as she tried to recollect her thoughts, to compose herself as she tried to accept her unwanted fate.

However, the fact that they were in the middle of the animal blood ritual wasn’t helping. 

Marinette watched as bowls of blood were set beside her, bloody organs adorning the outer edges of the table she was strapped to. The stench of iron hit her nose, wrinkling in disgust. 

Marinette didn’t know what organ belonged to what animal, but she honestly couldn’t care. Those poor animals didn’t deserve to be killed for such foolish reasons!

More chanting filled her ears as her mo-Sabine stood beside Marinette and drew a symbol onto her forehead, forearms and stomach. 

She felt the swirls that trailed down her arms and body, knowing some dots were added along the way. 

Marinette felt as the temperature in the room began to increase, feeling beads of sweat trickled down her head. 

She felt as her entire being went cold as she felt something drag across her abdomen, screaming as they dug deeper into her skin. The grinding of the shackles rang in her head as she tugged and pulled, writhing in pain. 

Marinette could hear her screams echo within the abandoned church’s walls, a red light coming into view, an odd comfort coming from it.

She listened as her breaths started to grow longer and less short, containing more air as she bared the pain aching from her stomach.

The chants were soon spoken more quickly and with vigor, Marinette only then noticing a dagger that was dangerously close to her chest, feeling her urge to fight to rise once more.

That’s when he came into view.

Something rose to her vision, something that appeared to be human, yet it also wasn’t one. It looked at her with sad emerald eyes as everyone in the cult stopped what they were doing as the being approached her mother.

While he approached her, Marinette also heard another voice. It softly whispered to her, it’s smooth and hypnotic melody calmed her, feeling her eyelids gradually becoming heavier with each passing second. 

She soon found herself drifting off, the screams and shrieks of the cult lulling her to sleep. 

———

Damian didn’t want to go. 

“You have to go.” Bruce said, flipping a page from the book he was reading, ignoring the yells coming from the other room of the manor. 

“Why should I grace them with my presence?” Damian asked, motioning to the portal he had created. “They’re literally using animal sacrifices to summon me Father. Animal. Sacrifices.”

Bruce huffed, fully knowing what was stopping Damian from going to where he was being summoned. 

Despite being a demon, he was against animal cruelty, so much that he collected all the spellbooks he could get his hands on and changed the items needed to summon him. 

Damian had changed his animal sacrifices to using herbs and other organic lifes to summon him, placing these new changes back to where he found them, only for those stupid mortals to ignore them and make their own versions of his summoning spell or the old one they learned from their mentors.

Ignoring the set of instructions was the greatest taboo among cultists, something even demons learned about. All those years of cultist training wasted. Changing the script meant an incomplete summoning, a defective portal for any demon to use. If a demon tried to traverse through them, they could remain stuck in the warp and stop existing. However, if they did manage to get by, the summoning would be void since the cultists were not using the revamped version to summon the demon. In other words, the cultists were at the mercy of the demon they had chosen to summon. 

“You know how mortals are, believing that they’re the best at something despite knowing little to nothing about said thing.” Bruce reminded, turning another page, hearing Damian huff in annoyance. “Why not make an example of them?”

With that simple phrase, Damian appeared before the mortals that dared to think they knew what it took to summon a demon like himself. Earraping chants filled his head, Damian wishing they would stop their ununified screeching.

Traversing through his own portal, Damian appeared before the stupid mortals, feeling his blood boil upon seeing the animal corpses scattered around the room, heads with eyes wide open, stomachs ripped open as organs spilled from them. Carcasses of goats and cows pried open and hung as their blood dripped to the containers below them, the blood dripping out of it and pooling onto the floor.

Damian let out a low growl, scanning the room as the chant came to a trailing halt. His eyes finally laid on the old altar, decorated in animal organs, the blood being absorbed by the stone table and dripping onto the floor, a red river flowing down the crossing. But that wasn’t what grabbed his attention.

It was the girl that laid at the table, her hands and ankles bound to the disgusting moldy furniture, looking at him with hazy eyes.

How old was she? Why was she so thin and frail? Why isn’t she- 

Damian’s breath came to an abrupt halt. 

There, stretched across her abdomen was a vile gash, running diagonally across her body. Blood oozed from her deep gash, the skin around it jagged and already festering, meaning that if he didn’t start healing her now, her infection would grow even worse.

She could die a pointless life.

“Oh Great Spawn of-”

“Silence.” Damian cuts off, wanting to let out a grin when the short stature woman promptly shut up, her hands trembling as he made his way towards her. “Let me tell you something.”

Damian loomed over the woman, a grin unraveling itself as her eyes widened in terror as flames erupted all around the old building and on the people present, screams singing through the smoky air.

“Did you really think a demon would let themselves be controlled by a mortal? Nonetheless by one who disregarded the new changes? How naive.” With a snap of his fingers, the woman went ablaze, Damian ignoring her cries. He walked up to the girl, freed her and scooped her up into his arms. With a swish of his tail, he reopened his portal.

Just as he stepped into the portal, a hand tried to grab him. He quickly turned around and kicked the small woman away, barely hearing her final words as he watched her breathe her last breath.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… Marinette.”

------

Bruce didn’t know what to say. 

“I’m keeping her.” Damian said sternly, leaving no room for debate. “She’s under my care, whether you like it or not.”

It didn’t take long for Damian to come back from wherever it was he had gone. But seeing him come back with an injured child in his arms -who’s time was slowly coming to an end- was not something Bruce would ever think of seeing one day.

The scent of her blood quickly drew attention, Tim appearing in the room seconds after Damian’s arrival while Jason walked into the common room minutes later.

“She’s a mortal.” Tim stated, walking up to the shallow breathing girl, his claws itching to analyze her. It wasn’t everyday that a mortal came to the Underworld. “She’s not going to last here in that condition.” Tim watched as the girl whimpered and stirred in Damian’s arms, Tim knowing she would die in a few moments if Damian didn’t act fast.

“Might as well grant her a single wish before we-” Jason started, his tails low and swaying eagerly near the floor.

“Don’t you dare lay a finger on her, Todd.” Damian growled, his tail quickly wrapping around his katana.

Why did Jason have to drop by today? 

“What if I don’t give a shit about your warning?” Jason said with a shit-eating grin, casually pulling out his guns from their holsters. 

Damian let out an even deeper growl, his wings flaring in warning. Jason grinned as he let his own wings flare in response, Damian hating that they easily rivaled his own.

While bare boned and thin, the remains of Jason’s wings were twice the size of Damian’s, a reminder from Jason that he didn’t care about whether Damian was Bruce’s son or not. Jason never saw him as a threat. He would gladly challenge him anytime.

“Boys.” Bruce spoke, rising from his chair, his book long forgotten. “Enough.”

“Let the Spawn be.” Tim proposed, watching lazily as the two continued their stand off. “If he fails to fix that girl, then you can duel him for the girl’s soul.”

“Hmm...fair enough.” Jason said, releasing his guns from his grasp, only for his two tails to catch them. “I’ll be awaiting your failure, Demon Spawn.”

With that, Jason walked away, allowing Damian to lower his wings, making them settle against his back.

“You only have a few more minutes before she-”

“I don’t need you to remind me, Drake.” Damian huffed, taking Marinette to his private quarters, Goliath purring upon seeing him. “Not now Goliath.” He softly said, petting the creature with his tail, placing Marinette onto his bed.

He frowned upon seeing the festered skin, the skin clumping in attempts to heal itself.

“Hope you make it through.”

------

Cold. 

No…

Warm…

Dark… 

It was very dark.

Marinette let out a shuddering breath as she attempted to breath, feeling something warm against her skin as her body trembled in agony as she tried to exhale.

Was she saved?

Who would save her?

No… she had to be dead.

Death sounded nicer than being alive.

“Seems like you’re awake.” A soothing voice said, Marinette quickly recognizing it. 

It was the being from the ceremony. Where was he?

Marinette attempted to speak, but only air came out of her.

“Here, drink this.”

Marinette felt as her head was lifted, a cup of some sort, brought to her lips. But as soon as the iron hit her nose, she tightened her lips into a thin line. 

“You need to drink this if you want to get better.” 

When Damian saw that the frail girl continued to struggle, he simply pried her mouth open with a spell and forced her to drink the blood, watching as the girl sputtered to breath, going into a coughing fit. 

Now it was up to her if she wanted to live or not. He already did his part. 

“Why would you- oh.” Marinette surprised herself with her slight outburst.

She would speak without struggling, but she still couldn’t see. Bringing her hands to her face, she could feel the blindfold over her eyes. That would explain why everything was dark.

“Let me help you.”

Marinette flinched harshly as light broke through her dark view, having to blink rapidly to adjust to her surroundings. 

Velvet, creams and shades of black adorned the room. Simple, yet an elegant choice of colors. 

“What happened to the-“

“They’re dead.” Damian said, Marinette feeling the bed sink at the edge to where her feet were. “It’s the price they had to pay.”

He watched as Marinette frowned, attempting to sit up, wincing as she did so. 

How did she forget about her scar? 

He watched as Marinette traced her fingers over where the gash was once, now replaced by a lighter patch of skin. The scar had a golden lining, Damian watching her confused expression as she tried to piece together the different textures of her body. 

“Will this stay like this?” Marinette asked, finally deciding to look at the being that had cared for her.

“It will.” The being responded, Marinette humming in return. “Is there a problem with it?”

“Won’t-Won’t others find it odd that my wound healed this way?”

“No one else will see it, and if they do,” Damian looked at her with narrow eyes. “They’ll know not to approach you without caution.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Golden lining around wounds and golden scars mark a person under Wayne's care or a Wayne themselves. Every demon in the Underworld knows best to avoid us and since you are under my care, they would know to not harm a single hair on you.”

“Wayne? Demons? Underworld?”

“I suppose it’s time for me to introduce myself to you.” The being said, Marinette watching as they walked up to her side, noticing their tail hanging above the ground and the wings that peered from behind them, “I’m Damian of the Wayne Manor, Damian Wayne for short.”

“Damian.” Marinette repeated, watching as his eyes softened. “Are… are you a de-”

“A demon? Yes. I’m the one that your cult tried to summon.”

“I wasn’t part of that cult.” Marinette corrected, turning her head away from Damian. “I was just the human sacrifice they decided to use that time.” Marinette dug her nails into her arms as she recalled her mother’s final words to her. 

Damian wondered if he should tell her about what her mother told him before she was burned alive.

Should he tell her that her mother apologized for sacrificing her own daughter?

That she realized that what she did was the biggest regret of her life?

Should he tell her that her mother cried as she watched her daughter be taken away from her?

That she tried to grab a hold of him while he stepped into the portal, in a desperate attempt to die alongside her daughter?

He should probably keep that to himself.

“I see.” Damian said, walking towards the doorway. “By the way, how old are you?”

“11.” Marinette watched as Damian took that information, a hum escaping him.

I see. I will be back later to check on you.”

“Thank you, Damian.” He heard Marinette say. 

“There’s no need to thank me.” Damian turned around, Marinette seeing a small smile on his lips. “I already told you, you’re under my protection. I will always be by your side.”

After all, she still had a whole life span ahead of her. 11 was no age to go ahead and die.

-------

Damian did come back later that day, fussing over her when he learned that she had tried to get up and managed to before she felt dizzy and had to lie back down.

Marinette soon regretted that, Damian now staying in the room with her, watching her every movement. He would also help to bathe her with a cloth and water and gave her clothing to wear.

The next few days were spent in comfort, Marinette and Damian getting to know one another and Marinette learning about the other residents of the Wayne Manor.

Damian learned that Marinette was a village girl, running a bakery alongside her parents until her father died during the Grand Plague. Falling into despair, Marinette’s mother seeked comfort in the cultists.

He also learned of her love for vegetation and botany. (He managed to convince his father to start a greenhouse in one of the manor’s rooms, quickly showing Marinette once it was done.)

Marinette learned to never speak fondly of Jason, as it got Damian into a bad mood and usually resulted in Damian chasing Jason around the manor for even looking at his ward.

“Todd, one day I will get my hands on you and stick a-”

“Woah there! Not in front of the child!” Jason would scandalize, covering Marinette’s ears. She would then be dragged away and carried by Jason, Damian hot on his heels.

Tim… Tim was just there, sometimes studying her from afar whenever she would join Damian into the manor library. If it wasn’t that, it was Tim teaching her the history of the Underworld, which then trailed to Tim and Damian debating on the topic of which Wayne actually caused the fall of a place called Byzantine. (It was Bruce. He didn’t mean for it to happen.)

Marinette didn’t meet Richard until a month later, accidentally running into him as she left her study that was next to the newly implemented greenhouse. 

“Holy shit.” Where the first words that came out the man’s mouth, Marinette blushing as he soon cupped her face in his hands. “Tim wasn’t kidding when he said it was genetic.”

-------

Marinette hummed as she tended to her roses, trimming off some black ones to replace the dying ones inside the manor. 

It’s been years since Marinette had left the mortal realm, 20 years to be exact, and yet… she remained 11. Or rather, looked 11 despite being 15 years of age. 

When she had asked Damian why she wasn’t aging, he replied that demon blood had different side effects from bloodline to bloodline. It also depended on the soul of the individual who drank it.

The Wayne blood was always known for its quick recovery abilities, but once Marinette drank it, it morphed into having longevity abilities alongside its healing ones. And ever since other demons heard of this, they’ve countlessly tried to kidnap the mortal girl, waging war against the Waynes.

Of course, there have been a few close calls, but the Waynes were victorious in each battle.

“How are you doing?” Damian asked, Marinette showing him her arm, golden lines wrapped around her arm. Damian held in a growl upon seeing the scar, regretting not being able to get to Mari sooner than he thought in their latest attack. 

“Better I suppose.”

“I should’ve been by your side when it happened.” Damian said as he inspected her arm, a scowl forming as he looked at it.

“Dad, I’m fine.” Marinette stated, yanking her arm away. “You know you couldn’t have known that Joker had me where he had me.”

Marinette remembered the first time she accidentally called Damian ‘Dad’. It was a little over a year since she remained at the manor. Damian had just gotten her a hellhound as a gift. Out of gratitude, she had said ‘thank you Dad’ and from there never heard the end of it, Jason and Dick always reminding her of the incident whenever they could. It was also then that she kept calling him that. 

It just felt… right.

“I know, but still.” Damian pulled her close into a hug. “I should’ve been there to protect you.” Marinette hugged him back, knowing why he was so hung up on the guilt. 

While they were demons, it didn’t mean they were void of emotions. 

She still remembered the way he looked when he had finally reached her, his form unrecognizable if it weren’t for the fact that Grandpa Bruce was right behind him. 

Getting tired of the moment, Marinette pushed herself away from Damian. 

“By the way Dad, didn’t you promise me that I’d get to take Goliath for some fresh air?”

“I-”

“You. Promised.” Marinette enunciated, placing her hands on her hips, hiding her smirk when Damian huffed.

“Fine. But I’m coming as well.” Marinette grinned, throwing her arms in the air.

“Alright! Goliath! Did you hear that?” Upon being called, Goliath came down from where he was resting, licking Marinette, a set of giggles echoing within the garden. “We’re going for a walk!” At this, Titus came into the garden, huffing as he sat in front of Marinette. “You’re invited as well Titus.” At this, the hellhound let out a huff, but he couldn’t hide the excitement. His tail was also wagging with glee. 

“Come on then, let’s get going.” Damian instructed, already leaving the room. “Wouldn’t want to come late for dinner. Alfred said he was making something special for tonight’s dinner. Something called a quiche.”

She quickly skipped to catch up, Goliath and Titus right behind her. 

How could she have forgotten? Today marks the day she was welcomed into the manor. 

20 years since the day her father brought her and welcomed her with open arms.

20 happy years with her beloved family. 

While she did miss the mortal realm, she wouldn’t go there if she had the chance. This was her home, and she loved it dearly. 

[the-nut-queen]

I Have a lot of thoughts on beyond light so I’m going to share them

spoilers for beyond light obvs

The Nut Queen’s thoughts on Beyond Light/SotH:

Campaign:

·       Pretty much went how I expected, i.e. nothing unpredictable or particularly interesting/mould breaking

·       That being said, I liked it! And had a lot of fun

·       Good to see Variks again, good to see the Stranger.

·       Eramis was a pretty decent villain, but pretty much had the same motives as every other Eliksni enemy before her (Skolas, Aksis, Siviks, etc.)

o   Very much felt like Rise of Iron… 2! With the Eliksni taking a new power that they didn’t fully understand to wreck shit, and also, it’s Clovis’ fault again

·       The boss fights felt a little dull. Getting to the end and just spamming stasis got old pretty quickly. I think having that for the first time work, then being able to use stasis as a subclass going forward would have been better (instead of getting the subclass at the very end of the campaign, I haven’t even started upgrading it with shit yet)

·       Liked the ghost lines and voices lines that would happen as you travelled to places

·       The progression felt very smooth, I hardly noticed when the game switched from “story mission” to “kill some adds for some stuff to progress” which was nice.

·       Liked the likewise smooth integration of the empire hunts to the main story line (good source of repeatable content for the future) although I was a little confused when I got a triumph for empire hunts since I literally hadn’t heard House of Salvation call themselves an Empire before

·       Ghost being super concerned with you using the darkness then the guardian just not fucking saying anything is kinda dumb lol but that’s pretty standard

·       It was pretty dumb when at the final boss fight Eramis freezes your ghost and shatters your splinter and freezes you then the stranger’s voice over is like “look within” and you can just suddenly use stasis because why not lol

o   Would have been cool to have a “guardians make their own fate” reference here instead

·       WHAT IS THE POINT OF FIRETEAM “E” (Elsie/Stranger, Eli/Drifter, Eris) Don’t get me wrong, I love them! and I love that 1 solitary cutscene where they’re brawling and using stasis, but they literally serve no purpose to the story? Especially dumb how mara and the nine were like “ooh only 3 have transcended their design ooh they are so special” and then they just stand around a campfire while you do all the work lol

o   Sidenote, the Stranger’s little floaty thing: what is it? And what is the point of it besides looking cute in one cutscene??

·       Also really annoyed that the BOSS for the Glassway Strike is just another boring fucking hydra, like wtf. You introduced a fucking sick new Vex type!!! (wyvern) and you DIDN’T use it as a BOSS for the NEW VEX strike. The boss fight was so boring too, it was literally just a hydra but with lots of health and sometimes it disappeared, come on bungie

 New Light:

·       Pretty cool! Shaw Han is boring though. Bungie you need more women characters and more GHOST characters (also like any non-binary characters)

o   It’d be funny to see a guardian/ghost duo NPC where the guardian doesn’t talk and the ghost does! Like with literally every npc except Osiris/Sagira their ghosts just don’t fucking say anything . (I get that it is more money to hire more voice actors and to write more lines etc. etc. etc. but its getting a bit old. GHOSTS HAVE OPINIONS!

o   Maybe even an npc who is just a solo ghost! They haven’t found their guardian or their guardian was slain by the hive or something that would be cool

·       Where is Shiro-4?

·       Where is Misraaks/House Light?

·       Navota: also boring. Just a hive wizard. You may as well have just had Omnigul come back. Or her nightmare (though I understand that that was dealt with on the moon in the nightmare hunts but still)

o   Disgraced strike: also boring. And the boss fight is also boring and takes forever?

·       Cosmodrome: Cool to be back, was fun to get annihilated by an immune hive night in skyshock as is tradition

o   Annoyed there doesn’t appear to be any Rise of Iron continuity with the landscape, the splicers fuck some shit up in the divide and outside the wall

o   Also, is the path to the Rasputin bunker just gone?

o   Yeah I just checked, the path to the grottos area (from D1) from the forgotten shore has just disappeared in D2 they just put more cliff there

o   Wtf why

o   Also the D1 location maps are so awful lol (wow, we really used to live like that huh)

·       Cosmo lost sectors: nice. Hive labyrinth was fun. Sad they didn’t reuse like the Rasputin bunker but that’s chill

 Season of the Hunt:

·       I’m keen to see my BOYS Pulled Pork and Crow

·       SPIDER DON’T HURT CROW ISTG

·       Not sure what the seasonal content has in store

·       I hope it isn’t as boring as season of undying that sucked asss (obvs I have this worry since they spent the majority of the time developing Beyond Light/Europa, (I assume))

·       It looks like a combo of nightmare hunts and other seasonal public-style events

·       Maybe an escalation protocol/blind well style thing? Idk we’ll find out

 Overall:

·       BUGS! So many fucking bugs

o   you fucked up a perfectly good game, look at it, it has anxiety

o   omg bungie please help us

o   girl help, I’m trapped under the prison of elders grav lift thingo

o   girl help I’ve been launched into the wall at mach speed

·       GAMBIT:

o   You fucked up gambit too. You took all the cool shit out of Prime then mixed it with the lame shit from regular gambit to make gambit whatever the opposite of “prime” is

o   My idea for a better gambit TM:

o   Each class gets one (1) class item

o   They look like the prime class items except not coloured/glowy

o   There are 4 mods you can slot in the “combat style” mod slot ie the last slot

o   They’re like, idk 6 energy to slot

o   And they give you the gambit prime role! And the class item glows in the respective colour and you get an aura too

o   you get all the fun prime perks without having to grind r*ckoning and also have a full set of amour equipped, so you got freedom with your gear

o   it would be GOOD

o   sigh

o   gambit is the worst now

o   it’s like just as hard as prime was too but you don’t get good perks so you just eat shit

o   gambit rant over, moving on to planet rant:

·       YOU CAN’T SAY THAT FOUR CELESTIAL BODIES HAVE “DISAPPEARED” CANONICALLY ONLY LEAVING AN “ANOMOLY” (AS DESCRIBED BY WEBLORE) AND THEN

·       AND THEN fucking have CRUCIBLE AND GAMBIT MATCHES ON THE DISAPPEARED PLANETS

o   I totally get that for time, resources, crunch, and hell even desire would mean throwing out a heap of crucible matches would be not ideal because then there would be like 3 left

o   But

o   WHAT THE FUCK. Maybe if you said idk the vanguard has quarantined the four legacy planets due to the giant fucking darkness pyramids looming there so you’re not allowed to go there any more (as like an in game/lore reason for the planets being vaulted)

o   Cus like yeah you can’t patrol there anymore but drifter doesn’t care about vanguard sanctions so he can just ignore it for the gambit maps

o   And shaxx

o   Could like come up with a reason? Idk

o   It’s just really

o   Really

o   Stupid

·       I like the move towards being chill with gender (changing “male” and “female” to “Masculine” and “feminine” however I would like to see this go further. Ability to change your pronouns whenever you want, ability to change your characters gender presentation whenever you want, ability to be “androgynous” and use “they/them” pronouns

o   Like really, we’re space wizards in the far far future and some of us are even robots. there’s no doubt there would be trans guardians

Final thoughts:

I love this game, I love bungie, I am keen for what the future has to offer

But

I can’t help but feel like this is just another “beginning”

Like shadowkeep was supposed to kick off the era of darkness with the discovery of the first pyramid ship then we just had two random seasons after it that just felt like Curse of Osiris and Warmind Redux

Then arrivals was a phenomenal season

But yeah I was expecting things to be more high stakes I guess? The beyond light campaign didn’t feel very high stakes and it kinda just felt like “oh look you can use the darkness now”

in short, bungie hire me for good ideas and more queer characters

[hazzastylesfanfics]

Part 2/?

still testing the waters with this but i think it’s starting to shape into something i like?

idk

i’ll do longer parts if people are interested!

lemme know :-)

I curse whoever decided that glass doors were a good idea and weigh my options. I could fully ignore him. It’s not like I’d made eye contact with him. Twice. I could also act like an actual adult and go to the door. Opening 10 minutes early wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I finally move my body cemented in place towards the door. He flashes that damned smile at me causing me to trip and drop my keys. Even on my best days I can barely hold my shit together. I give him a little wave, place the keys into the lock, turn, and crack the door.

“We’re not open yet,” I blurt out. Apparently my lips decided to not consult my brain before speaking. Of course he knows we’re not open, Grey. The front door is literally locked. Idiot.

The corner of his mouth rises into a smirk. “I was passing by and wanted to stop in for another small coffee.”

“At 5:45 in the morning?” He can’t be serious. I’m not falling for the “just passing by” trick.

“Yeah, I try to go on a run every morning.”

I realize how stupid I look then, shielding myself with the door and a blank expression on my face. So he’s not stalking me. Plenty of people run through the Pearl in the mornings, apparently he is one of them. I really need to get my head straight.

“Right. Sorry, uh come on in.” I pull the door open wide enough for him to walk by me. True to his word, he’s in running gear. I notice his arms are glistening slightly. God, look at those arms. A ship inked onto his left bicep catches my eye. Does this guy have a nautical thing going or something?

He slides by just close enough for me to get a smell of his aftershave. He smells incredible. This is a joke. Not only does this guy look unfairly enticing after a run, but he even smells good. I shake my head in an attempt to chase away the dirty thoughts running through it.

“Er, I haven’t brewed drip yet so it’ll be a minute or so. Is that okay?” I hurry behind the counter as he stops at the register.

“That’s fine. I can wait.”

“Cool, cool,” I mumble.

I feel his eyes burning into my back as I grind the espresso beans and toss them into a filter. I press brew above the empty container and watch a steady stream of coffee pour into the open top.

“What’s your name?” He asks conversationally. I turn to face him. He’s casually leaning on the front counter, fidgeting with the merchandise sitting on it.

“It’s Grey.”

With amusement in his eyes, he meets mine. “Like the color?”

If I had a dollar for every person who’s asked me that over the years I would have enough to legally declare grey was no longer a color.

“Yeah, I guess.” I scrunch up my nose for a moment. “It’s more like my parents partied too much and smoked a lot of weed and thought Grey was a perfectly suitable name for a human being.”

That earns me a laugh from him. “I like it. Very moody.” He winks.

“Thanks.” I look down at my twiddling thumbs. “Uh, what’s yours?”

“Harry,” he says.

“Like what’s on your head?” The words escape before I can stop them. I can feel my ears redden at my idiotic joke. He chuckles softly.

“Something like that. It’s fairly boring if you ask me.”

“No booze and drugs involved?” We both laugh. The beep of the brewer behind me indicates it’s finished. “You said a small, right?”

“Whatever you’d like to give me,” he says coyly.

I give my head a little shake. I fill a 12-ounce cup to the top, remembering he likes no room, and snap the lid on. I spin around and nearly drop his coffee in the process. He’s leaning as far forward as he can on the counter, arms extended in front of him with his hands clasped. My eyes trail along the curves of his arms for a second, fantasizing about them pinning me down to this very counter and-

“So what are you doing when you get off?”

“Get off?” He matches my puzzled expression. “Oh! You mean work.” I mentally kick myself. Get your head out of the damn gutter, Grey. “I’ll probably just go home and take a nap. That’s usually what I do on the days I open.”

“Not much of a morning person?” He takes a sip of his coffee. I can’t help but watch his lips wrap around the lid. My thoughts wander to his lips to what else he could wrap them around.

“I despise mornings,” I agree. “Days shouldn’t start before 10 a.m. if you ask me.”

“Sounds like you’re in the right line of work then.” He smiles. How am I just noticing the deep dimples that indent his face when does? They paint the perfect illusion of youth.

“I’m good at it.” I shrug. “It’s an easy job anyway. Tips are good.”

“Speaking of, how much do I owe you?” He reaches for his wallet.

“It’s on the house.” I smile.

“If it’s because I came before you opened then I can wait until the register is ready or whatever,” he reasons.

“No, no it really is fine.” I glance at the clock on the iPad. “We’re open now anyway.”

“I insist.”

“It’s a dollar seventy-five; I think we’ll be alright.”

“Let me pay you back tonight then?” He peaks over the top of his coffee as he takes another sip, looking hopeful. “Drinks?”

“Uh-” I bite my lip. Did this guy really walk in here with the intention of asking me out or is fate throwing me a sympathy bone? “I can probably do that, yeah. What time?”

His expression relaxes. “Whenever works for you. I can pick you up at your place or you can swing by mine? Do you live around here?”

“My apartment isn’t far from here. There are some bars within walking distance of it if you just wanted to meet me at mine?”

“Sure, just send me the address.” He pulls his phone out and hands it to me across the counter. I take it and type my phone number in, adding it to his contacts. Grey, (like the color), I add.

“Here you are.” I hold his phone out to him. Our hands brush momentarily and every nerve in my body ignites. They’re soft. His hands are really soft. “You better not ghost me.” I laugh.

His eyebrows shoot up and a look of exaggerated shock takes over his features. “I would never.” He laughs along with me. “Do I look like the type of lad to do that?”

The door opens and two of my morning regulars walk in before I can answer. He glances over his shoulder and then back to me.

“Looks like that’s my cue.” I smile apologetically.

“See you tonight.” His eyes twinkle like two stars I could get lost in.

As he’s leaving I notice a five-dollar bill in the tip jar.

“I look terrible in absolutely everything, oh my god!! Why do I even own half of this shit!” I fall facedown on my bed next to Lana.

“Shut up, babe you’ve looked hot in everything you’ve put on,” she assures.

“You’re a fucking liar and you know it.” I sigh. “It’s easy for you to say considering you look good in everything you wear.”

“Not true.” She stands and walks to my wardrobe. “What about this?” Lana pulls out a midi, light grey silk dress.

I sit up. “Don’t you think a slip dress is a bit...much?” I scrunch my nose up. “I don’t even know if this is a date.”

The texts Harry and I exchanged throughout the day were short and simple. He never explicitly said the word “date” nor did he really flirt much. It made me feel anxious.

“You said yourself you didn’t want this to be a date,” she responds.

“That’s not what I meant. I just- You know how it is.”

She sighs. “Sometimes Grey? I really don’t. C’mon, this gorgeous guy is clearly into you and you’re gonna play these stupid games with him? He could actually be a decent guy, ya know. Can we also talk about the fact that he’s fucking British? How often do you find that in Portland?”

“Not interested.” I take the dress from her hand and hold it up to my body, observing it in the mirror on my wardrobe door. It really is a pretty dress. I’ve only worn it a handful of times but it’s done wonders for me every time I have. I could toss a white tee over it and knot it to tone it down a bit. Sandals would also help. I undress and let the silk fall over my body. I forgot how it hugged what little curves I have just enough to hint at them.

Lana’s eyes narrowed in approval. “That. You have to wear that. Remind me why I’ve never borrowed it again?”

“Because you were gifted with an ass and I wasn’t?” Envy consumes me. Lana had this perfectly curvy body that genetics would never allow me to have. She constantly switches between hating it and loving it.

“Oh right, that.” She frowns. “So you’re really not gonna give this Harry guy a chance?”

I pull a white tee out from my drawer and pull it over my head. After fussing with the knot for a minute, I settle on one I like. “What do I even do with my hair?” I ignore her question and walk down the hall toward my bathroom.

She follows and perches on the edge of the bathtub. My tiny bathroom barely fits us comfortably. “Grey, seriously. Maybe it’s time to open yourself up again.”

I pause with my hands holding up my hair in a simple, low messy bun. I pull a few strands of my bangs out to frame my face. Not liking what I see, I drop it in frustration and run my fingers through my loose brown curls. Maybe I could just wear it naturally. Except I hadn’t washed it from my shift this morning and it smelled of coffee. I sighed. Naps are great until I sleep the day away. Back to the bun it is.

“I like the bun,” Lana comments.

“Is my makeup too like-”

“Come fuck me makeup?” She finishes for me.

I laugh lightly. “Not exactly how I would have put it but, sure.”

“You look hot, babe. If I was Harry I would most definitely have that dress on the floor by the end of the night.”

I bite my tongue through my teeth and smile. “That’s the goal.”

We walk back to my room so I can find shoes and my purse. I check my phone for the time and see I’ve missed a call and two texts from Harry.

Sorry if you’re not ready. I’m a bit early.

Then, 10 minutes later.

Should I come up or wait for you down here?

“Oh shit, he’s early.” I dash around my room looking for my ID and grab a bundle of cash from the vase I keep my tips in. Lana is laying on my bed absentmindedly petting Charlie. She’s curled up on my pillow - her favorite place. “You can stick around as long as you want but I can’t guarantee what will be happening in here later.” I smile devilishly.

“Thanks for that, Grey,” she replies sarcastically. “I’ll head out after you two are gone. Sure you don’t want me to tag along as backup?”

“Yeah and have you flirt with him the entire night? I’ll pass.” I fluff my hair once more in the mirror and make sure my lipstick is in place.

“I’m just saying, I would give the boy a chance so maybe you should too.”

“Right, uh-huh.” I’m already halfway to the front door.

“Be safe!” I hear as the door clicks shut behind me.

[v-le]

Kmusic: JTBC’s 슈퍼밴드(Superband) Review

Foreword: SUPERBAND WAS AMAZING AND IT WAS EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED IN MY LIFE. yup

--

After binge-watching this entire program, I knew I had to write something about it. This show literally took my breath away, this show filled all my senses with overwhelming excitement, appreciation, and respect for every single participant, and the music, THE MUSIC, that came out of this show will forever be some of the most amazing songs I have ever heard in my life. But above all else, this show filled a void, an emptiness, a traumatizing, painful longing in my heart that has been needing some intense healing for a while now.

With all the things that have happened with my singer, Superband coming into my life and being the show it was, with all those amazing artists doing what they did, it was a literal blessing and I just……. I just cant believe they did THAT. They did it and it was AMAZING.

First off, whoever thought to make an audition program for MUSICIANS, SINGER-SONGWRITERS, ARTISTS, PRODUCERS, and just instrument-playing people AND VOCALISTS…….. you are a fucking genius and I am so glad that this idea never died in the shadows and was allowed to come to life on the screens.

What I found so poignant about this show from the get-go was how GOOD THESE AUDITIONS WERE… these people came in being REALLYYYYY good at (presumably) one thing like the guitar, or singing, or the violin. These people each had their specialty, they were exceptional music-making people. No one was quite mediocre or “rookie”, each person had some pretty credible expertise or experiences with music, and that in itself, the fact that we got to start off with these sorts of contestants, is something ive never seen before.

I don’t want to compare to other singing shows or the Produce series or whatever else countless audition programs Korea has been churning out over the past years, but since Superband began with this concept, it was already a show that I knew I would LOVE. For the 2 times ive watched Produce, I was always so perturbed by these prepubescent pretty boys frolicking around on stage, barely being able to even pull off a simple note. I just thought so many of them were so TALENTLESS…. But who am I to judge.

I think it really just comes down to preference, and even though I knew very well that idols and k-pop are not even things I enjoy anymore, I forced myself through programs like Produce. But now, with Superband, I felt so HAPPY and glad to be watching and discovering such talented musicians…THIS IS WHAT I WANTED ALL ALONG.

Even with the very first audition with Ha Hyunsang… OMFG UGHhHhh THAT BOI IS SO FLUFFY but so good at the same time… I feel like each time I see him, I ACTUALLY just want to give him a hug :’-(( the emotional depth in his singing is beyond describable and im SO PROUD TO HAVE WATCHED HIM GROW !!!!!!

That’s another thing I really really realllyyyyyyy loved from this show........ it was the process of watching these people develop, mature, change, grow with show. Some contestants went through some major growing pains, but it was so heartwarming to watch them improve, not that they were even bad to begin with. And the reversals!! Or the expansions?? The turnarounds?? The CONMEN!!!

AHHhhHHhhh okay im still very obsessed with the infinite amount of talent some dudes had, but before I get to that, let me continue on with those stellar auditions, aka the three genius guitarists, too ;_______; they. Are. So. Amazing. I love them a lot. I think I completely fell for them. And I hate myself. I hate to admit it a lot because I used to ALWAYS shit on dudes younger than me, I disliked basically every contestant on produce that was younger than ‘99, I thought they were all useless young children… but 김영소, 이강호, & 임형빈, were a completely different story. I LOVE THEM!!! I always had a bias toward a man that could play the guitar well… but these guys holy moly, they blew me away… they are so exceptional at what they do and the fact that theyre still so YOUNG… good lord…..my poor heart was so conflicted but ultimately so happy to have discovered them.

To watch these guys be thrown into that first 1:1 perf, and literally tearing up the stage and setting the bar VERY HIGH from the very beginning of the competition… phew… my goodness…. The talent with these kids… o my…. Okay yeah, nope im never gonna get over it. The ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ stage will always be an iconic one from this program, and we all know it. Who knew a pure acoustic, musical performance, no vocals included stage would be so amazing…. I LOVE THEM!! Have I mentioned that yet?

Going back to the reversals/scamming thing... I guess this goes with watching some people grow……. I want to give a holy and blessed shoutout to probably my favorite contestant out of this entire show: 신광일….. he was such a dark horse. In fact, I don’t even remember his audition tbh because he was THAT not-memorable in the beginning LOL (or also.. I believe they never showed his audition to begin with)… but he quickly caught my eye as the eps went on because he came out of nowhere and whipped out all (or maybe not even all…) his skills like secret weapons, stage after stage.. he came in as a vocalist, picked up the bass for two the performances after that (all while still singing, too), although having never played the bass formally... and then once joining hands with Juhyeok and Yechan, he just miraculously becomes the drummer, because they ultimately decided that they needed percussion in their songs. So from thereon after, since ‘Hold Back The River’, Gwang-il, to me, was literally GOD(신) Gwang-il, as he played the drums and SANG TOO…..and may I add, hes not even that old?????? HES FRKING ONLY 2 YEARS OLDER THAN ME WTF;__; the boy got all these crazy blisters while perfecting the drums, but he didn’t let anything stop him and he was sucH A SOLID BAND MEMBER ALL THROUGHOUT, AHHHHHH MVP GOES TO SHIN GWANG-IL, YALL….(also I just found out that hes a trainee from Mystic Story, aka Yoon Jong shin’s agency aka the agency that I’ve been following for many many MANYYYY years now bc a lot of my favorite artists have come out of it…. Wow what is this fate)

And special recognition goes to Im Hyung-bin aka one of the 18 yr old genius guitarists bc he … oh my…. He frking became the pianist and singer by the end of the show…. Omfg… yall.. HE is also another infinitely talented soul. AND HES EXTRA FRKING YOUNG…

Besides these two though, there were many many many manyyyyy other people as well that took up multiple instruments throughout the show, or even began singing, or just did EVERYTHING….I was so mindblown by this, im still honestly not over it at all.

Because like, is this normal?? Isn’t that so unprofessional?? Its already so crazy that this show already starts us off with NON-amateur musicians and artists. But then some of these dudes have never done any other things formally before they got thrown into it; they came into this show “specializing” in something completely different, yet they jump onto the stage and do what they needed to, HELLA FRKING WELL…… so many of these dudes, you wouldn’t know that was his first time playing the bass, playing the drums, first time playing that piano, or first time being on the keyboard AND being a vocal, you wouldn’t know any of that unless they mentioned it, unless you watched the show and saw their story.

Because they all pulled it off THAT well.. these people that did these things for the first time ever while being on Superband, they executed their roles so well and showcased such wonderfully exhilarating talent…. IM SO BLESSED TO HAVE DISCOVERED SUCH AMAZING ARTISTS….

That was one of the biggest feats of Superband for me. The limitless talent that came out of it. I LOVE watching people like this. Their passion for music fuels such undeniable skill and fervor, and when they step onto that stage, they are literally unstoppable. They made music that stopped my time, stopped my heart, in the moment, but literally MOVED me...i applaud these people so much. I really do.

Thinking back to it now, the number of stages that came out of this show was like…. Countless…. Like… A LOT…. Since episode 1, each stage was very well-produced and I truly enjoyed watching each one from the start. This show was just so jampacked overall, although I admit that sometimes it was arduous due to the GRIND that these people were on, presenting stage after stage after stage, and then listening to LOTS of feedback from almost each judge over and over and over, but it was still nothing short of musical masterpieces out there. I really appreciate how STUFFED, how FILLED TO THE BRIM, this show was with dynamic, enjoyable, exceptional performances (and words of valuable opinions & evaluations, too)

I can re-watch many of them, every day, for days on end. I loved it. And can we just talk about how impressive these dudes are for pulling off something new, for taking on a brand-new challenge with a brand-new set of members, time and time again, stage after stage, week after week, until we came down to the 6 solid bands in the last 3 episodes? They constantly had to work with new people, match their music preferences, fill spaces in their music where they didn’t exactly have someone they may have needed. They had to compensate, compromise, and ultimately DELIVER, at the end of it all. Multiple times. I don’t even remember how many rounds they did… was it 4? I think they had 4 rounds of eliminations before they settled into their official bands. But still... its crazy impressive to think about how driven and flexible a lot of these artists were, to be creating, producing & then performing despite all the different teams they were getting put into week after week.

ANDDDDDD, despite all the odds up against them like the time crunch, the new collab of members each time, the potential lack of a missing instrument or sound, SO many of these teams still came out with self-written and self-produced songs!!!!!!! I mean, even for the cover songs alone, many were already re-arranging everything & basically turning them into new tracks. BUT WITH THOSE SELF COMPOSED SONGS??????????? Some teams literally started from scratch each time, but busted out some amazing tunes and lyrics and executed very very very impressive stages and IM JUST AKFJAKJFKJBSN how…. Are they….. so…. Talented…… I still ask myself each time.

By far, the combo that took my heart and kept it for good….. LUCY ;_______;. I never expected to like Juhyeok’s voice tbh, it was a little TOO weird for me in the beginning… but watching him perform with Yechan and Gwang-il and Wonsang really brought to life his vocal potential for me… that team is literally a combination made in heaven, they have all the right pieces to make ARTWORK… their signature sound was so prominent from the very beginning and i was SO HAPPY when I saw that they stuck to the same exact members once the finale came around.

Before the winner was announced, I told myself very honestly that I didn’t even care who won because the two teams left over, Hoppipolla & Lucy, were already my two all-time favorite combinations of artists from the entire show, and I was already MORE than satisfied with all the wonderful music and stages that everyone had delivered up until that point anyway. But even with that, I was still thoroughly shocked when they announced Hoppipolla as the winning band LOL I gasped aloud. I thought that Lucy at least had a chance. Or like I guess, in my heart, I assumed that Lucy actually won.. LOL but they didn’t.

And in terms of the finale in general, I really would also like to address how I purposely tried really hard to avoid any spoilers and rewatching of performances on youtube before actually finishing the entire series. I tried like reallyyyyy hard, because I wanted to watch the program as thoroughly as possible without spoilers. I HATE SPOILERS. But oh the irony. It was in all in vain anyway.

Once I finally DID finish all 14 episodes, when trying to look for more information/reactions/articles/videos (initially searching in English), I actually struggled SO HARD LMAOOOO bc there was like NOTHING OUT THERE……..i should have known better; this show was definitely NOT catered to the intl. audience (yet?), especially because its in its first season still. There were probably like 2 articles max in English about Superband & it was just about its upcoming premier. Nothing about winners nor results nor anything else i was wary of, anyway. LOLLL THE INTL COMMUNITY DOESN’T CARE; or at least the intl population that DOES care about Superband, is probably reallyyyyyy small……a reddit thread I found was the most substantial discussion I could find, comprised of a few comments max.

And so that brings me to how I always see a lot of comments begging for English subs and everything, but honestly…….. all I have to say to yall is: LEARN KOREAN IF YOU REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE SHOW THAT BADLY !!!

If after all these years, I could pick up Korean to an extent where I can watch things raw, im sure others can do the same as long as they put their mind to it. Ive been really appreciating how far my skills have taken me LOL not trying to be THAT person, but I just know that if I COULDN’T read or listen & comprehend or type in Korean like I can now, I would be missing out on a WORLD of amazing stuff. E.g. superband. And if anything, I would like to think that this show helped me practice my vocab skills a lot more. Listening to the judges’ evals after each stage was really enjoyable: I learned plenty of valuable words out of THEIR words.

This show was phenomenal in that all the contestants had total musical freedom. It was soOOOOO refreshing to watch. They got to choose all their music & their teammates in a fair manner (maybe not so much their competition), but seeing them take their passions & what THEY wanted to do with music and laying that all out onto the stage, was so compelling!!! This freedom allowed for countless, ICONIC AF transformations and growth journeys for soooo many of the artists too!!!! I really realllyyyyyyyy loved watching some of them stepping WAYYYY outside of their comfort zones / the image that they originally came in with (e.g. HONG ISAAC HAAAAHAHHA, Jisang, Hyunsang!!), and also watching alllllll those multitalented “scam characters”!!! HAHAHA, without this program being as open as it was, it would’ve been impossible to be able to see such a myriad of sides to so many different people. I appreciate, I really do.

And I really really realllyyyy enjoyed watching all the behind the scenes of each performance as well!! Of course, its normal to give viewers some background story before each stage, but in Superband, we got to see some very raw sides of music-making….. these dudes literally lived like hobos in the recording studios, all disheveled and sleep-deprived human beans, but ceaselessly making music because that’s what they love. I liked watching teams try out a lot of different songs & styles as they searched for THE right one. And then we got to see the final result on stage after the countless discussions and trials behind the scenes. And these processes repeated for months on end. All the contestants are so commendable in this right. The grind was real, and the show didn’t try to hide that. I enjoyed this very realistic approach !!

At this point, after drowning myself in this show for a few days straight… (those episodes are LONGGGGG, close to two hrs each) ive literally spent every night, and basically day, too, watching all the cuts that jtbc uploaded on youtube over and over and oVERRRRR….. ive also been watching some Superband concert clips, from when the entire final 6 bands went on a domestic tour and performed together for several concerts!!

THAT OPENING STAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLESS THOSE PEOPLE THAT CAUGHT IT ON CAMERA BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY SUCH A PIECE OF MUSICAL HEAVEN, omfg the energy on that stage IS SOMETHING ELSE… IF I WERE THERE IN PERSON I PROBABLY WOULDVE CRIED INSTANTLY……. lee juhyeok, kevin oh, chae bohoon, im hyeongbin, kim youngso, ha hyunsang, lee chansol, and kim woosung, all the guitarists/ vocalists lined up in the front… (hearing each vocalist sing a line each made my HEART HURT....I LOVE THEM SM) then the bassists, lee jonghoon, kim hyungwoo, kim hajin, jo wonsang, clustered up AND HAVIN A TIME all by themselves, and the three epic electric guitarists, yang jiwan, kim junhyeob, and Zairo, literally held SUCH stage presence… on the drums: kang kyungyoon all the way to the right, and red haired hwang minjae in the middle, and the super in-sync, traditional drum banging bois, choi youngjin, shin gwang-il, a-il, & jung gwanghyun, all 4 of them bouncing up and down in the back like intense oompa loompas LOL THEY LOOKED SO CUTE, and the string bois!!!!! Shin yechan & benji on the violin next to hong jinho on the cello; yechan and benji started off sitting down but as the song goes on they literally WENT AT IT HAHAHA as expected of two of the most high-energy musicians. On the piano, lee na-woo, the classic icon himself starting off the entire intro, and next to him hong isaac the transformation legend himself on the keyboard + his super distinctive voice!!!!!! And of course, d-pole with his much-expected little music break in the middle….. in fact many of them got ICONIC solo time: kang kyungyoon’s drumming part, kim hyungwoo’s super duper solid bass, minjae’s powerful beats, kim hajin’s LOUD ass bass, lee jonghoon’s legendary slap finger bass playing, jo wonsang’s super ting-y, classic bass section, and yang jiwan’s loud ASS ELEC GUITAR TOO, omg they were all so cute, pointing to each member & hyping them up as it was their few seconds to shine….AND THOSE COLLECTIVE VOICES???? HEARING ALL THE VOCALISTS SING TOGETHER ONE BY ONE… OH my gosh it was soooooo GOOOODDDDDDD.... just watching all those dudes literally have THE TIME OF THEIR LIFE on stage (literally an ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME), the energy was off the charts… I loveeeeee seeing them so happy, making eye contact with each other, jumping up & down, rocking out, laughing with each other, all while playing their instrument, so fervently, all 27 people on the stage, connected by one song…. Theres SO MUCH OVERFLOW of talent in one freaking place, that song sounded SO MASSIVE just thru the video I cant imagine….. if I were actually there omfg… that’s an actual BAND Like A HUGE FRKING BAND… AHHHHHHHHHH a really legendary stage.. the finest of finest……I can literally watch this opening on repeat without getting bored because I just loveeeee the concept of all of them being together like that :”)))

After watching member after member, team after team get eliminated, seeing them like this on one stage with such happy expressions and making a beautiful piece of music like that o MANNNNNN…. This show…… has really done something to me…

I appreciate every contestant SO MUCH and I wish I could watch everyone be together FOREVER….because knowing how artistically talented each person is on their own, to watch them join together is like the avengers times 72737446352 or something, its just talent & skill plus talent & skill stacked onto even more skill & talents and just an INFINITE amount of potential AND THAT…IS LITERALLY.. THE POWER…. OF A BAND………and of great ass music.

This show was GENIUS TO combine so many musicians from so many different backgrounds…but watching them work together to make pure art, that is so frking rewarding and heartwarming and I feel so blessed to have witnessed it all.

The genres and potential were literally limitless……I think this is what encompassed Superband for me, this is what made me enjoy it SO damn much…. I think ive finally run out of things to say… this piece of text is quite a mess, not very polished….. but I was hasty in recording my thoughts & emotions before they left me, so I tried my best.

My biggest regret with this show is that I didn’t watch it sooner. (what is really ironic is that it took me FOREVER to start the first ep, despite having tonssss of time on my hands... I had it open on one of my tabs for the longest time, but I lowkey grudgingly, eventually, forced myself to finally start it LOL..(thank god I rly did tho) I watched it 2 months after the finale, which is… kinda late? If I had watched it while it was airing, all while I was still in korea, I feel like I would’ve been EVEN MORE in love, even more fervent and passionate about everything. Digging thru old vids & watching things from contestants before they came out onto the show, seeing the artists they were, I could’ve easily gone and seen them myself probably… goddamnit I probably could’ve gone to the superband finale live show, if I had known.. I COULDVE VOTED IN REAL TIME... not that I could’ve brought myself to do it anyway, probably lol….. but basically, if I had known of this show WHILE I was there with them… I don’t know, I could’ve been a lot more active as a fan, I feel like..

Now im back to my original roots: crying in front of my laptop screen and tap-tapping away at my keyboard as a I rant to no one but myself. Being in korea made my appreciation for all kinds of artists, all my beloved ones, EVERYONE, a lot more tangible.. but being back in America… it all becomes hidden into the depths of my heart, once again…

PHEW……I think now is a good time to mention my favorite stages… as I mentioned before, the Lucy AND pre-Lucy lineup will always hold a really special place in my heart so basically all my faves include their stages LOL

‘Swim’ cover by LUCY(신예찬, 이주혁, 신광일, 조원상)

‘Hold Back The River’ cover by 신예찬, 이주혁, 신광일

‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ cover by 조원상, 김영소, 이강호, 임형빈

‘누구 없소’ cover by 케빈오, 박찬영, 신광일, 강경윤

‘선잠’ by LUCY

'Castle on the Hill’ cover by 아일, 하현상, 노마드, 홍진호

‘1000x’ cover by 아일, 하현상, 홍진호, 김형우

‘One More Light’ cover by HOPPIPOLLA(아일, 하현상, 홍진호, 김영소)

‘Cry Bird’ cover by LUCY

‘Viva La Vida’ cover by 하현상, 홍진호, 김영소

‘Flare’ by LUCY

‘Find You Again’ by People on the Bridge(이찬솔, 임형빈, 김준협, 강경윤,  김형우)

My favorite funny moments:

“이게 무슨 짓이야!!?” - mellow kitchen (the stealing of the 3 kiddo guitarists)

“okay let’s be honest, you can’t even hear the bass” - shin hyunbin 2k19

울보 팀

Hyunsang’s fam: 아일 the mom, 홍진호 the dad, 김형우 the hyung

“idk if im allowed to say this but it looked like zombie movie” - yoon jongshin, as they all gathered around the cello man

“I thought to myself, isn’t that cello expensive tho..” - yoon jongshin as youngso slapped & tapped jinho’s cello for percussion

Ah-il’s iconic castle on the hill pose

Zairo’s luck with member choosing lmao

HONG ISAK’S DANCING in ‘Time of My Life’ LOLLL IT GETS ME LAUGHING EACH TIMEEE (& all his nicknames, like eungalchi lmaooo)

Benji’s “YO-RO-BOON HAM-KAY HEY-YO” during ‘Woo-ing’

Gwanghyun’s “do-doom-tak”

Gwanghyun calling Gwang-il’s drum skills equivalent to that of a middle school band’s LOLLLL

**I watched Mone’s radio appearance on Arirang Radio where Benji is the host, and they were an absolute MESS LMAOOOOOO THEY WERE HONESTLY ALL REALLY FUNNY THOUGH.. they kept roasting the crap out of each other and laughing their asses off and man… it was gr8 time and it was really cute to discover that Hong Isaac is now a part of one of Benji’s radio shows too!

One important question I have for this show though: where tf did all the females go? Why was there no female presence at all in this show, I have no clue…… :/

At the end of the day, this show reminded me once again, how to feel happy and excited because of music. how to let great music fill my life with undeniable joy. Being able to look forward to listening to these songs every day, definitely had lifted a small part of me that has been down for all too long. I really appreciate, I am very grateful for, I just… im so thankful to have discovered this show & all its wonderful masterpieces & the beautifully, magically, PASSIONATE artists behind it all………. I needed this in my life at this point in time, I really did. 

Thank you for coming to be, Superband.

[tiny-smallest]

not all gone (but you’ll wish it was)

Rating: T Characters: Henry, Bendy, mention of Joey, Buddy (oc) Warnings: implied abuse, so much Description: Thirty years after running away from his abusive caretaker, Bendy returns to Joey Drew Studios at the behest of the man who hurt him so badly, afraid at the vague threat Joey made towards his friends. Upon his arrival he finds the place utterly abandoned...

Except for his dead best friend and a tiny, knock-off version of himself he finds shortly thereafter.

Surely turning the Ink Machine back on will fix Boris but... the little knock-off? Apparently doesn't agree.

Also on AO3!

HELLO WELCOME TO ‘I HAD AN IDEA’ STARRING @upperstories​‘s BUDDY AND @thelostmoongazer​‘s HATIM BENDY TIME TO SEE WHO REALIZES WHAT’S GOING ON HERE EHEHEHEHEHE

This felt like a million mistakes. The biggest was leaving in the first place. Oh god, Bendy did not realize it was possible to feel this guilty. It was going to smother him out of existence.

But it was also why he had to make this right. @#$% Joey. He wasn’t sure what the man wanted from him, and this was probably not it, but he wasn’t leaving this place without attempting to fix his best buddy.

Finding him was... indescribable. With every footstep he heard that question again.

“What do you want from me, Joey?”

Why Boris? What did Boris ever do to Joey? Boris was the kindest, sweetest person he knew. He lacked the grown-up wisdom of... of him... but he made up for that with sheer, enthusiastic, endearing chutzpa.

Boris, Alice, him... sweet Lucifer Morningstar how he missed them. How he’d mourned them, at times, sure he’d never see them again. And now thanks to Joey...

The more he thought about the ripped opened corpse strapped to a table the more he wanted to be sick. He had to bring Boris back. He had to.

The Machine was his one chance. Boris’s one chance.

Assembling one’s own potential doom was not an easy task. With each item he collected he feared he was just writing on his own tombstone. Here Lies Bendamin D. Drew. Idiot Extraordinaire; Thought Interacting With Demonic Rituals Made By Joey Drew Was A Smart Idea.

But if this worked... if turning that thing on fixed his friend...

There was still no telling what would happen, exactly, but at least Boris would be alive. He deserved--was owed--that much.

If he weren’t also so irritated he might have been glad for the distraction from the all encompassing guilt and terror that were mixing in his gut like lead. As it stood, the little pipsqueak was really grinding his gears.

Or gear, as fate would have it.

“Kid, I need that.” He folded his arms across his chest, tapping his foot. The tiny look-alike, whose very existence sent his heart twisting with bitterness, held the gear aloft in probably the only exhibition of tooniness Bendy had seen from him so far. Likely because the gear was so big compared to him there was no other way to carry it.

He’d question how he held onto it with his ridiculous mitten-fingers, but whatever. Toon. Barely a toon, but a toon nonetheless.

Said barely-toon shook his head.

“I gotta turn it on. Did you just miss the- the body in the other room or what!?” He gestured back in the general direction of that horrid room, feeling his forehead drip a little. “There’s a pipe connected right to him! I can fix him!”

Still, the runt shook his head.

“You’ve been following me around and yankin’ on my tail this whole time an’ trying to pull me away from stuff! Two hours! Two hours’a that! Haven’t you been annoying enough!?”

He shrank a little then, but gripped the gear tighter, face morose. Bendy stamped his foot.

“Gimmie the gear already! I got enough problems without this malarkey!”

Another shake of the head.

“I said gimmie!” He grabbed for it and the runt zipped around him, speeding off. Cursing up a storm, Bendy followed, which was in hindsight a bad idea if he wanted to catch the brat. Slidewhistles and airhorns were not exactly stealthy and signaled to his target where he was.

It wasn’t long before he was cornered, though. Bendy’s run slowed to a jog and then to a walk as he and the runt realized, at the same time, that he’d run into a dead end, trying to hide in the room Bendy had found the record in. The runt made staticky sounds of distress as he shoved himself and the gear as far under the desk as he could, arms out as if trying to protect the stupid thing.

“Oh c’mon,” Bendy huffed as he got down on his hands and knees, reached under the desk, and yanked the toon and the gear out, letting go of the runt’s arm and quickly hoisting the gear out of his reach. “Jeez, at literally no point did you wanna make this whole thing even a little easier, did ya? Take a hike if yer not gonna help me, brat; I got a best friend to save.”

He turned on his heel and returned to the ritual room, shuddering at the pillars. Yeesh…

… He’d need a stool to get up there, wouldn’t he? “I don’ know if I’ve said this enough but wow, I hate this!”

Shoving the gear into hammerspace, he circled back to the hallway, stealing a chair from it. The runt came running out of the little radio room to pull his tail again, trying to pull him back even as Bendy pushed the chair onwards.

“Quit pullin’ my tail!” he shrieked as he got the chair in place, whipping around to snatch his tail out of the other toon’s hands. “Get lost already! Go- crawl down an inkwell or somethin’!”

The tiny, dripping thing stared (presumably, anyway; creepy little thing had NO VISIBLE EYES HOW WAS HE EVEN DOING ALL THIS) at him, eyebrows knitted together in fear or maybe sadness, but shoulders squared. Sort of. Pah. As if he could fight him!

“I don’ know what other ideas you have brewin’ but consider: don’t,” he seethed as he climbed up the chair, pulling out the gear.

While the runt kicked up a fuss the entire time, there mercifully wasn’t much he could do. Bendy sat all the items on their pedestals, cringing each time they settled in place and their spotlight lit up.

He stared at The Illusion of Living clutched in his trembling fingers. Even if it wasn’t the original one--and he had no idea if it was or wasn’t, but he had a feeling Joey would never let the original out of his sight--the sight of it still made his stomach clench.

Slowly, he set it on the pedestal. The marble column depressed into the ground with a clicking sound, the spotlight snapping on above.

Okay. That was done. He quickly pulled the chair away as the runt made to try to scramble up it, pulling the chair far from the pedestals. Judging by the frustrated way he looked at the chair and then at the six places, moving the thing was beyond his capabilities.

There is a god, he grumbled to himself as he left the room. The runt wasn’t long in following, making desperate noises and tugging at his coat and tail. The hardest part of this hell over, Bendy grabbed his tail away and held it as he marched onwards. Fixing the ink pressure should be miles easier than gathering up the ritual items.

The runt ran on ahead when he snatched his tail away. He let out a sigh of relief. Maybe he was going to finally disappear.

Two minutes later, as he turned a corner and walked down a hallway, one of his cutouts peeked around the corner.

“YEEEEEAAAAA!” Bendy jumped back, half ready to bolt, arms up as if unsure whether he was going to try to shield his head or punch whatever jumped out at him.

Nothing.

Slowly, he eased from his tense position, then slapped a hand to his forehead. “That’s you, ain’t it?”

No answer. But he could hear little shuffling sounds.

“... That was you before too, wasn’t it? Wid the cutout. Cripes.” Dragging the hand down his face, he walked down the rest of the hallway, turning the corner and shoving the runt out of the way.

The projector clicked on.

By itself.

“HOLY MOTHER MARY-!” Bendy jumped back, clutching his chest. The runt jumped too.

One of Bendy’s animation reels began to play. Not an episode. Just a simple little moving image. Could barely qualify as a dance. He swallowed.

“Tha’ was one of the very first movin’ images of me produced,” he muttered, turning away from it, shaky arms coming up as if to fold across his chest. They settled in more of a self-hug position.

He’d shown it to him once, talked about how he spent ages on that, getting familiar with his design. His voice was so warm and…

No. No point in dwelling on that. He let go of himself with a heavy sigh and walked around to where the valve he remembered seeing earlier was.

Only to be reminded that it was was too high up. Throwing his arms into the air with a cry of frustration, he turned and grabbed the nearest chair, pulling it over and climbing it to turn the wheel. Screw this; he wanted out of this room!

He pushed the chair away afterwards and stalked back to the room that would make all of this better. Little taps behind him let him know the runt was still following, and he made sure to pick up his tail to avoid anymore blasted tugging.

Standing in front of the lever, he swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut as his fingers wrapped around it.

Please. Just once. Just once, let things work out.

He pulled it just as the runt grabbed onto his arm and tried to yank. But Bendy was stronger, and the lever wasn’t rusted in place. It moved easily, tugged into place with a sharp click.

The room’s lights faded, dimming into darkness. Bendy’s heart rate kicked up, the devil standing there frozen for a good minute, still clutching the lever. The little doppelganger was already trying to shove the lever back up, but no dice. It didn’t budge.

Swallowing was a lot harder now. Trying to ignore how dry his mouth was, Bendy eased his grip off the lever and turned. Peeking down the hall, his face fell.

He didn’t have to enter the room to see Boris himself wasn’t much different. He wasn’t moving. His chest- his chest was- still… open…

Oh there was that nausea again. But he had to get closer to see if there was anything he could do…

Not even the runt bothered him this time as he approached the body. He nearly threw up when he spotted the spurts of ink shooting from his best friend’s ribcage, fleeing the room and down the hall.

It was a few minutes later when he came back to himself, finding himself crying. The runt was nearby, watching with obvious concern. Scowling, Bendy wiped his face with the back of his hand, not so much upset that he’d cried that this little pest had seen it.

“Buzz off,” he whispered.

He didn’t. What a shocker. Wiping his face again, Bendy straightened and pushed off the wall.

Okay, just turning it on didn’t work. Maybe examining the machine itself would help...?

He turned to go. The tiny devil sprang into action, pulling on him desperately. Bendy barely paid any attention until he realized there were inky blotches on the floor beneath them.

That were… too big… to be his…

Fear was a flood of icy water dumped over his head. His eyes snapped over to the brat, then trailed up the hallway.

The footprints were going right to the machine.

Were they big enough to be Joey’s? Wracking his brain as he started walking, he couldn’t come up with an answer. It had been too many years. Joey’s face was something he’d never forget, or how tall he was, but not his feet. Amazing, considering how often Bendy had stared at the floor when in his presence…

The second gut punch came swiftly, sending him reeling. The door was partly boarded up!?

Slowly, he approached.

As he tried to stand on tiptoe to peer through a gap in the boards, a hideous noise sounded from above. Bendy screamed and threw himself backwards as a loathsome shape loomed into view above him, reaching over the boards, wailing out an earpiercing shriek. Bendy landed flat on his back, scrambling to turn himself over and flee.

Halfway down the hallway he realized the runt was not with him.

Skidding to a stop, heart thumping, he turned to find him standing halfway between Bendy himself and the thing smashing its way through the boards. With a cry of terror, he ran back towards the little toon, shaking his shoulder. “KID WE GOTTA GO!”

No response. There were more of them now, horrifying inky husks rising from the flooding ink, but the kid’s gaze remained firmly on the biggest one.

That was heading right for them, something akin to a jaw opening and emitting horrific, guttural sounds.

“ssssss...oooouuuuuulllllllll… SSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUOUOUOUUUULLLL!”

Bendy scooped the runt up and ran for his life as the thing behind them moaned and groaned and chased after them, the dark, inky aura on the walls stealing every last tiny bit of light from the world, moving faster than them, overtaking them, no no no-

But there it was, there was the door, slightly ajar and there was light leaking out of it and they were so close and Bendy reached out to grab the doorjamb and slam it open-

The ground was gone.

With no warning, not so much as a groan, the floor dropped away from under them.

Bendy screamed harder than he’d ever screamed in his life. By the time coherent thought caught up to him they’d already landed in the deep well of ink pooling at the bottom, Bendy coughing and choking as it flooded into his mouth, abruptly cutting off his screams.

Thankfully it also wasn’t very deep, and he kicked his way to the surface, breaking it moments after landing, hoisting the little devil he hadn’t let go of up.

Someplace to put him down. Someplace to put him down. Where-

There! There was a cabinet leaning up against a wall! Bendy kicked and swam over, depositing his tiny charge on the cabinet before hoisting himself up there, breathing heavily.

Slowly, he turned to look at the pipsqueak, who stared upwards from where they fell, trembling and almost as if in a trace.

“What,” Bendy gasped, the other devil jumping and looking to face him, “in blue blazes- was that.”

But only the sound of dripping answered him.

I’m trying to think of something to say for the closing comments here but all I got is my brain responding to ‘regular hatim au’ and ‘bendy and buddy au’ with that stupid ‘why not both’ taco meme MAYBE I WILL HAVE SOMETHING MORE INTELLIGENT TO SAY HERE LATER WHO KNOWS.

Man writing Bendy bitching is fun and I hope too much of my own Bendy characterization didn’t leak in. Pretty sure Bendy would be 1000x more terrified and morose if Buddy wasn’t driving him crazy the entire chapter.

Also I have no idea when Buddy shows up exactly so I’m just rolling with the idea that it happens after Bendy’s done sobbing his eyes out following this scene, probably when he’s picking up the inkwell at the art department.

[hekate1308]

Symbiosis

12x23 AU. Yes. Another Crowley survival story. Because I can, and the King isn’t dead until I say so. Enjoy!

Read it on AO3

It happens in the blink of an eye, or even faster. Dean’s not even completely aware what’s happening, he only knows that Crowley is talking to Lucifer — rather, taunting him —  but there’s something nudging his mind, something familiar and strange and bad but good, and it’s altogether way too confusing on an already exhausting day. Then suddenly there’s a hint of a voice, sad, resigned, that says, Either both of us or just him, I get it, and then it... goes away. No, it’s moving away, whatever it is, and Dean suddenly can’t stand the thought, because even if he doesn’t know what it is, he knows it’s important, he knows it’s been with him in the past, and something in him pulls—  

Crowley stabs himself and Dean can only stare. The King is dead. The King stabbed himself for them.

Not so fast, Squirrel.

Crowley. That was Crowley. He reels around but there’s no one there, and Cas is moving towards Lucifer, and Dean calls out his name, but Sam is dragging him away –

How many times do I have to save you?

Suddenly, he finds the strength— rather, no, it’s not him, it’s something else, the something he held back, that’s fast enough and it wrenches him out of Sam’s grasp and makes him go after Cas, actually managing to drag him away and through the portal, his brother following him, obviously confused.

Dean’s baffled when Cas turns on him the second they’re through.

“Let go of him!”

Let go? Let go of what?

“Sorry, Feathers, he invited me in. Insisted on it, practically. Believe it or not, I would have had a hard time to get away.”

Crowley.

That’s Crowley in his noggin. Dear God, Crowley’s alive and possessing him.

It’s not possession if you wanted me to.

Of course it is! And I didn’t know what was happening!

I see.

And there it is again, the sadness, the resignation to his fate that made Dean allow him in, and he swallows.

Crowley, if you’d told me beforehand... of course.

It’s a rather big confession, that he’d rather have saved the King than the poor schmuck he was possessing, but who cares. Certainly not Dean.

Really?

Now he sounds surprised.

You’re the one inside me. You should be able to tell if I was lying or not.

He could swear that Crowley... mind-chuckles at that. Is that even possible? He has no freaking idea, but he’s also carrying a centuries-old demon around with him, so who cares.

I can’t believe you actually dragged that literary agent around for years.

It’s actually pretty draining, killing off a meat suit from within, and I kept him under at all times. We had a deal, and this was his way of getting out of Hell for a few more years. He knew he had to go when I wanted him to.

That’s seriously screwed up, but in a way, it’s clever too.

Thank you.

Keep out of my thoughts.

But they’re so intriguing.

Dean only realizes that conversation took place within seconds when Sam asks, “What the hell? Crowley, get out of Dean this instant!”

“I am going to, I just want to— “

And then Crowley in Dean’s body drags Cas out of the way again, just in time for Lucifer to show up. If Crowley wasn’t there, Cas would be dead now. The realization triggers something in Dean. Suddenly he and Crowley are united in purpose, and somehow they both have control over his body. He grinds his teeth and balls his hands into fists.

He could control my old meat suit. Hated that.

I bet.

“Crowley. Didn’t you just kill yourself in front of me? I guess I’ll have to make sure this time...”

“Not so fast.”

It’s Dean who speaks.

Crowley. He isn’t controlling this body.

Absolutely correct, Dean.

I know this sounds crazy and desperate, but…  things are a little weird right now, right? Any possible way Lucifer is weaker because of this brush between universes? There's one where he's dead, after all. What I am saying is, what if a normal angel blade could -

I understand perfectly. It’s probably the most reckless thing I’ve ever done, but it can’t hurt to try.

You wanted to off yourself five minutes ago.

Fair enough, here goes nothing, then.

Faster than he has ever moved before, he turns and takes the angel blade out of Cas’ hand, charging towards Lucifer, who’s too surprised to react. He hears Mom calling his name, but he’s too busy burying the blade in Lucifer’s chest once and for all. Bright light implodes from the wound, but maybe because of Crowley, he can see, and he watches the devil die, his wings burning into the ground. He takes a deep breath as the portal closes in front of them.

That was fun. We should do it more often.

Not a chance.

Yet, it is rather satisfying contemplating Lucifer’s corpse.

“What? You’re possessing my son?”

Dean and Crowley turn around. “Far from it. Your son is giving me a ride, that’s all.”

“Really, Mom” Dean says; he can clearly hear the differences between him and Crowley using his voice, and he hopes the others do as well. Man, is it weird to hear himself sound so posh. “Don’t worry about it; we’re fine for the time being.”

Or not.

Light shines through the windows of the cabin.

With a blink, Dean and Crowley are inside.

Woah. Warn a guy before you start beaming me around.

Just doing what I have to.

Dean rolls his eyes.

And there’s Satan Junior, Jack, whatever. The creepy smile doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

“A human and a demon working together? Isn’t that neat! But then, I have my experience. Remember what I did to Cassie? He actually believed me! He thought I would bring paradise!”

He laughs.

Dean grips Cas’ blade even harder.

Just as the others arrive, Jack continues, “As if I would leave anyone his free will, that was the worst thing God ever came up with.”

Dean only hears Cas’ shocked gasp and then he’s off, all but flying through the room.

It’s okay Squirrel, I got this.

And so he allows Crowley to take over for a moment.

That’s all he needs to say “Bye baby devil” and almost slice Jack’s head off.

“Well,” he says when all is over and done with, “Crisis averted and we’re still alive. That’s something.”

Sorry about your mother though, Dean remembers to tell him.

Like I said, I would have ended up killing her anyway.

And yet there is something like grief there too, Dean can feel it.

“Yes,” says Sam. “Look, Crowley, it’s not that I’m not thankful, but could you please leave my brother now? It’s kind of creepy.”

“He can stay until we find a suitable meat suit. Preferably empty and not yet rotting.”

“Are you sure?” Mom asks, “Is the demon making you say that?”

“Cas.” He turned to his best friend. “You can tell, can’t you?”

He reaches out and squeezes his obviously shell-shocked friend’s shoulder. “Cas?”

He looks up and right into Dean’s eyes. He blinks. One, two, three times.

That’s what it’s like being stared at so intently. And I’m the creepy one?

Crowley, not yet. Poor guy’s traumatized.

What do you think I am? How much self-loathing can you fit in—  

“Cas. I know this is hard, but please— “

“Dean,” he breathes.

Dean beams. “Yep. All me.”

“Not only you. I can see Crowley too.”

And what a sight I must be.

He ignores Crowley for now to hug Cas.

“No harm done,” he mutters. “Let’s go home.”

Once they’re in the impala, he actually feels Crowley yearning for something. It takes him a moment to get.

You wanna drive?

Don’t think you’d let me –

Be my guest. We’re all exhausted.

And so he allows Crowley to take the wheel. Literally.

After they’ve been driving a while in silence, Sam asks, “What kind of meat suit are we looking for, anyway?”

“Probably something like his old one. I imagine he got used to it.”

You bastard, he says, but without heat in it.

“Very funny Crowley,” Sam says. “I can hear the British drawl, you know.”

“Always worth a try.”

It really is something of a relief that he doesn’t have to drive after all of this, if he’s being honest.

They’re all rather done for, and decide to go to bed early once they arrive at the bunker. It means he’ll be up before dawn, but who cares.

He still wakes up feeling remarkably well-rested. He learns why when he looks at his alarm.

“Eight hours!?”

You were getting restless halfway through, but I decided to keep you under. You needed your rest.

That’s... kind of touching in a really weird way, but then it’s Crowley. He should feel lucky that Crowley didn’t get up to any shenanigans.

I was in need of rest as well.

How he manages to sound sarcastic without a mouth, Dean has no idea.

Anyway, I’m, starving.

You’re always starving.

That might be true, he says with that same weird mind-chuckle Crowley used yesterday.

As they walk to the kitchen, Dean asks, And, you got any precise wishes for your new meat suit?

Younger.

It’s so sudden that Dean, who has the control over his legs at the moment, stumbles.

Younger? Why? You always seemed rather happy with the literary agent.

Crowley is silent.

Dean decides not to ask and goes to get breakfast. Mom is the only one already up; even Sam decided to sleep in, it seems.

“Dean! Did you sleep alright?” she asks.

Dean nods. “Yeah, thanks to Crowley. Didn’t get eight hours in years before tonight.”

Her eyes narrow. Dean just shakes his head, tired of it all. “Come on, Mom. You know it’s me.”

She sighs. “I know. It’s just... I’m worried.”

He could point out that she wasn’t that worried when she went and hooked up with the Brits, but he won’t.

You are much too forgiving.

Shut up Crowley.

“Mom— “ he begins, unsure what to say when she suddenly says, “Crowley, can you let us have a moment, please?”

“Sure thing, Mummy. I’ll listen to Squirrel’s musical library in here.”

And with that, Crowley’s silent for once.

Mom takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“What for? You were under— “

“No, not that, although God knows I made enough mistakes. I am apologizing to you. You shouldn’t have had to go through all of this. You should never have had to raise your brother by yourself. You should have had the chance at a normal life.”

“I know you want us to have that. But this life? It ain’t bad.”

“I see that now. And I should have made more of an effort too. I’m so sorry, Dean.”

And she hugs him. He can only reciprocate, tears burning behind his eyes. No one ever told him they were sorry just for him.

When she steps back, he clears his throat. “Can Crowley come back out, now? I don’t want to know what he’s doing in there.”

You’re no fun, Squirrel.

He actually smiles when he hears Crowley’s voice.

Eventually the others stumble into the kitchen, and everything feels surprisingly domestic, even with a demon borrowing his voice now and then. That afternoon, Dean goes to get a beer; but when he tries to grab it, his arm doesn’t obey.

“What the – “

It’s not even three pm, Dean. Pace yourself.

And whether he likes it or not, he has to wait until five to get one damn beer.

They start bickering over his choice of food too. Three days in, Dean caves and orders a damn salad as a side so Crowley will stop complaining. Sam wisely chooses to say nothing.

Life goes on. For once, the world isn’t ending and they have time to kind of settle down. Dean gets used to the voice in his head. And then, one night, it’s not just a voice anymore.

He knows he’s dreaming, but feels like he’s wide awake. He’s sitting in a bar, Crowley next to him in his old meat suit. God, it does it feel good to see him.

“What’s all this?” he asks.

The demon shrugs. “I was bored. Decided we might as well have a little fun.”

Dean nods. “How are you holding up?”

“Quite frankly, I’d rather have my own body, but this works for now.”

Dean notices the word “body” but doesn’t comment on it.

“What about you?” Crowley asks.

“I’m good. Hey, at least the demon who’s possessing me isn’t killing anyone.”

“What a high bar. I will have to be careful.”

“Whatever. Hey, can you— “

Drinks appear in front of them. “Thanks.”

They are silent.

Eventually, Crowley says, sounding as smooth as ever, “I didn’t expect to find nothing.”

Dean looks at him. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no disgust, or even fear.”

The penny drops.

“Dude, you’ve been checking how I feel about you?”

In fact he would be surprised if Crowley hadn’t.

“I have a lot of time on my hands.”

“Crowley,” Dean finally says, “did you just look for negative emotions? No mixed or positive ones?”

Crowley blinks, his face blank. Simultaneously, they look away, unsure what to say.

Dean eventually settles on, ”Anything fun we can do around here?”

For a second, Crowley looks almost upset, but then a pole and a stripper appear. She’s hot, but Dean can only roll his eyes and shake his head. “I meant like a pool table, come on.”

Before he can blink, the stripper’s gone and he and Crowley are playing.

“You can pray to Feathers, if you want. He can join us.”

Dean thinks about it, but decides against it for now. “You know what? Let’s do it tomorrow night.”

Crowley nods.

“Say,” Dean starts a while later, “I’ve been wondering... why did you need my permission to begin with? You are a demon. You could have just possessed me.”

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” Crowley answers, shaking his head. “You’ve never realized how strong you are. I would never have been able to get through if you hadn’t drawn me in.”

Despite spending his night talking to Crowley, he still wakes up as refreshed as always now. The next night, he prays to Cas, who immediately appears and visibly relaxes when he sees them just hanging out.

“I thought something was attacking you— “

“Nah, Cas. We’re just having a bit of fun, and I thought you’d like to join.”

He beams. And just like that, Dean spends his night hanging out with the best friends he’s ever made.

One day on a case, they stumble across a basilisk. It’s an old sort of dragon, or at least that’s what Dean remembers, until Crowley opens the gate and his brain is flooded with more lore than he thought existed.

Crowley.

What? Don’t you need to know this?

Yeah, but—

Whatever. He decides to roll with it, and it is pretty neat to know that a basilisk can only be killed during a full moon with a stone taken from a graveyard.

Really, after three months, Dean almost comes to accept their state as how things are going to be from now on. Brain-dead or very recently deceased John Does with no family to claim them are just hard to come by. He barely even notices anymore that this isn’t normal. Even Mom greets both him and Crowley when he enters a room.

And then there’s a case involving a Trickster. Not even Cas expects them to stumble across Gabriel in the end.

“Little bro! Look at you and— Dean, do you know you have a house guest?”

Both he and Crowley roll their eyes.

Please tell me I can stab him.

I think it would upset Cas.

Gabriel raises his hands. “Say, I got an idea!”

“Don’t even think of going after Crowley,” Dean warns him.

“Calm down, Ken doll. I was thinking more of something like this.”

Gabriel snaps his fingers. What appears is something that looks very much like Crowley’s old meat suit, only a few years younger — about mid- to late thirties, Dean would say.

“No soul, no trouble. Just an empty vessel to use. And because it wasn’t technically born human, no one will be able to exorcise the former king. Now what do you say? No harm no foul and I just go on my merry way?”

There’s only one answer, really.

A few minutes later, Crowley is standing among them for the first time in months, and Dean suddenly feels strangely lonely.

He gets used to it. He only thinks he’ll miss the nights he, Cas and Crowley spent together. A little. But after he goes to sleep, Cas and Crowley appear in his dream.

“Is that— “

“It’s us,” Cas confirms. “I brought Crowley with me because he annoyed me.”

“Doesn’t that sound just like him,” Dean comments. “How’s the new meat suit?”

“Better than I could have hoped for. Any of you up for a game of table football?”

It seems this is his life now. Still confused why he doesn’t get an answer when he asks a question in his head, his brain full of lore that Crowley left there, his nights spent with a demon and angel bickering next to him. Listening to them, he decides he couldn’t have asked for a better fate.

[oodlyenough]

fic: the thing with feathers

Fiona can think of a dozen reasons why Rhys might have kept Handsome Jack a secret, but none that will make Sasha feel any better. She hates him a little for that.

~3k, angst, gen. Fiona & Sasha after the fall of Helios. Also on AO3. Notes: When I played this game I felt like some of Fiona's anger towards Rhys in the present-day narration scenes seemed pretty extreme as a reaction to the choices I'd made (trust Fiona/lie about Jack/reject Hyperion), even for someone as dramatic and emotionally clumsy as Fiona (god love her). I also thought the relationship between Sasha and Fiona was excellent. So I wanted to play with those things.

Fiona watches Gortys explode in stunned silence, adrenaline shooting tremors through her arms and legs. Fate—and a shockwave—sends her half of the core to the ground near her feet, and Fiona picks it up in a daze, her ears ringing.

As they walk, Sasha’s hand finds hers, and Fiona clings to it, anchors herself with it like she has since she was eight years old. She closes her eyes, focusing on the mantra that has kept her and her sister alive all this time. Take care of Sasha.

Sasha is the first to speak. “Where are the others?”

Fiona looks back at the empty stretch of land where Gortys had been, the swirl of the storm settling, the Vault and its monster gone. Debris and bodies are scattered among the rocks. She doesn’t answer.

Sasha lets go of her sister’s hand, raising a finger to hear ear instead.

“Rhys? Are you there? Can you hear me?” The sound of Sasha’s voice echoes double in Fiona’s ear. “Loaderbot, what about you? Anyone? Hello? Rhys?”

There’s nothing but silence in return. Eventually Sasha’s hand drops back to her side.

Fiona allows herself a second to feel the roiling mess of emotions pulling her every which way, then sets her shoulders and puts it all aside. Take care of Sasha.

Everything else comes second to that.

“We need to get out of here,” Fiona says. “This place will be swarming with bandits and scavengers and God knows what else any moment.”

In another life, Fiona and Sasha would be among them, picking through the remains of Helios  with relish. Here, now, Fiona wants to get as far away from the wreckage as possible.

Sasha must feel the same, because she doesn’t protest, even for a shot at the stockpile of Hyperion weapons that must have landed somewhere. Instead she moves to help August, who’s still crumpled on the ground, mourning a mother Fiona had wanted to kill herself.

As she passes Finch’s body, Fiona stops. Fresh burns on his face have eclipsed the old ones she gave him.

She rips Sasha’s goggles out of his limp hand.

—

They steal a vehicle left behind by Vallory’s gang and ride in silence, a deafening change from the constant companionable chatter of the last few weeks.

Fiona drives until she can’t anymore, until the last of the adrenaline is replaced with a fatigue she feels in her bones. She pulls over somewhere she hopes is as safe as any place in Pandora, tips her hat down over her eyes and falls into dreamless sleep in the driver’s seat.

When she wakes again a pit has settled in her stomach, leaving her nauseous. After nearly thirty years on Pandora, Fiona has killed more people than she could count. It’s a matter of necessity and survival, and she stopped wasting guilt on it long ago.

Yet she can’t turn off the parade of faces in her mind: Felix with her bullet in his neck, opening a briefcase set to explode. Scooter, his hand trapped by a piece of bad design. Vaughn lost somewhere on Pandora. Loaderbot asking for a promise Fiona can’t keep. Athena dragged away by Vallory’s goons.

Gortys begging for her own destruction.

Rhys on the other side of a nearly-closed door, so scared and wanting to be the hero anyway.

“Fuck,” she hisses, heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

Desperate for a distraction, she turns away from the steering wheel. August is asleep across the backseat, a makeshift bandage over his wound. Sasha is missing from the passenger’s seat.

The roof, Fiona thinks. Sasha always liked the view from the top of the caravan when they were on the road, liked how vast and expansive the night sky is—a whole universe of possibility outside of Hollow Point.

Fiona has never been as much of a dreamer as her sister.

Still, she hops out the window of her door and heaves herself up to look at the roof. The storm is over, the sky clear and dark. Liberated from the shadow of Helios, Elpis shines big and bright by its lonesome.

Sasha is nowhere to be found.

For a split second, it makes Fiona’s heart race, but she takes a breath. She climbs back into her seat and leans over August, hitting his ankles to wake him.

“Where did Sasha go?”

His peaceful sleeping face turns to a scowl as he wakes to the wrong sister looming above him. Fiona knows full well he’d helped them for Sasha’s benefit only, though she doesn't blame him. He must know he wouldn’t be her choice of survivor.  

“How should I know?” he grumbles. “I’ve been sleeping.”

He’s got a point. Fiona scowls back anyway. “Whatever. I’m going to find her. Try not to do anything stupid, okay?”

August rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue any further, which is too bad, because Fiona is itching for a fight. She thinks of Rhys—always good for a verbal dust-up whenever she wanted one—and then wishes she hadn’t.

She leaves August sleeping and steps outside.

“Sasha?” she calls. “Sash, you out here?”

She picks up her pace, circling the car, trying to stamp out the anxiety rising in her belly. Sasha is fine. If she survived Helios and Pandora and a Vault monster, she’ll survive a pitstop.

Still, Fiona quickens her step and calls Sasha’s name louder.

Finally, after a minute that feels like an eternity, Fiona sees a silhouette in the distance and jogs to cross the space between them. She’s just about to unleash a scolding when she gets a proper look at Sasha—shoulders tensed, fists clenching and unclenching, lips a taut thin line—and changes her mind.

“Hey…” says Fiona, gentle instead. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” says Sasha automatically. Then, “No. No, I’m not, I’m—ugh.” She moves frantically all of the sudden, stripping off her black blazer as urgently as if it is on fire. “I’m so—fucking—sick of —fucking—Hyperion,” she snarls, holding the blazer in both hands and tugging. “And I just—I— oh, ugh, God, okay, this is really well made.”

Unable to rip it in half as she intended, Sasha throws the blazer to the ground instead. She rips the headband out of her hair and adds it to the pile, grinding them both into the dirt with her heel for good measure.

Fiona blinks down at the discarded clothes, suddenly regretting the sleek black-and-gold outfit she actually quite likes; she has nothing to contribute to the sacrifice.

“I know.” She sighs, then shrugs. “But… hey, you know, there are other Vaults.”

“I’m not upset about the stupid Vault!” shouts Sasha, staring at Fiona so incredulously she recoils. Then her face softens. “I mean… not really.”

Fiona crosses her arms and looks down at her chipped nail polish.

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly, “me neither.” She forces a smile and tries for levity. “It's not all bad, though. I mean, we did literally bring Hyperion crashing down in flames.”

“Yeah, we did,” Sasha grins, but it's fleeting and followed by a frown. “It... didn't really feel as good as I always imagined.”

Fiona’s smile fades, and brushes back her dyed lock of hair. “Uh... no. No, it didn't, did it?”

Sasha is quiet for a moment, staring plaintively at the sky. They’ve worn all sorts of things for all sorts of jobs over the years, but seeing Sasha like this—with her hair down, a white button-up blouse and a black pencil skirt—is so incongruous that Fiona finds it a little unnerving. It makes her look strangely vulnerable, a side of Sasha that even Fiona rarely gets a glimpse of.

Then she turns to face Fiona with wide, imploring eyes and it’s even worse.

“Why didn’t he tell us?” she demands, sad and angry in equal measure. “I knew something was wrong! I asked him! I told him we were worried! Why did he lie? Why didn’t he trust me?”

Fiona can think of a dozen reasons why Rhys might have kept Handsome Jack a secret, but none that will make Sasha feel any better.

She hates him a little for that.

So she snorts and shakes her head and says, “Because he’s a selfish douchebag, and if he’s still alive I’m going to—”

“Shut up,” Sasha snaps, so sharp that Fiona’s eyes widen in surprise. Just like that, Sasha’s sadness is superseded by rage. “Shut up, just—stop it! He’s not here to hear you insult him, okay? There’s no points for you to score, you don’t need to keep up with this stupid charade. He’s not here, he’s probably dead, no one’s here, it’s just us, and maybe if you weren’t jumping down his throat every five seconds—”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on, this is my fault now?” She doesn’t want to fight with Sasha, not really, not now, but all the emotion she’s been keeping down for hours is boiling over inside her. “Sorry, which one of us wanted to ditch him in Jack’s office and which one of us insisted we wait?”

“Oh my God, I just wanted to wait by the ship! I wasn’t planning to abandon him on Helios, which is exactly what you did!”

“I didn’t have a choice! I had to look after you, like I always do—”

“I can take care of myself!”

“—because you got yourself kidnapped to help August, of all people—”

“He got shot for us, why shouldn’t I?”

Fiona scoffs. “After nearly putting a bullet in us himself six times, yeah, big hero.”

Sasha shifts uncomfortably but doesn’t back down. “It’s not like we’re innocent. We tried to con him—”

“Who cares?” Fiona’s eyes roll in exasperation. “We tried to make a buck, we weren’t going to hurt him. Meanwhile his warlord mother blackmailed us into this whole mess, she stabbed Vaughn—”

“You let that happen!” yells Sasha with an accusatory finger jab. “And yeah, I wanted to help August, okay? I felt bad. I spent months with the guy, and he got shot for me, and I wanted to help him. So what?”

“Oh, come on, we’ve been over this!” Fiona shoots a frustrated stare skyward. “You can’t care about the marks, Sasha, that’s the point.”

“Well, excuse me,” Sasha snarls, “if using people doesn’t come as naturally to me as it does to you and Felix.”

“I do what I have to do to keep us both alive.” Fiona is distantly aware of the way her voice is starting to shake.

Sasha’s glare is ice cold. “Yeah, but it never seems to bother you very much, does it?”

“Of course it bothers me!” Fiona explodes, arms spread wide. “I’m not a monster, all right? Of course it does! But I haven’t had the luxury of letting it get to me me since the night Mom didn’t come home, okay?”

Sasha opens her mouth like she wants to yell back, but no sound comes out. Slowly her expression softens.

Fiona can’t think straight over the sound of her heartbeat in her ears, and the nausea from earlier is worse than ever. She looks away, nibbling on her lip, trying to keep her breathing under control. Her eyes sting in a way she hasn’t felt in years and she blinks rapidly to push it down.

“Fi…” Sasha says eventually, her voice gentle now. “I—I didn’t mean that. I know you’re not a monster. It’s just…” She sighs. “You make it look so easy sometimes.” When Fiona looks at her, she’s got a weak smile on her face. “Even with Felix. It’s like you can just… get over it. Makes me jealous.”

“Well…” Fiona raises her chin, puts her hands on her hips and adopts an expression of false pride. “Making it look easy is maybe my greatest con.” Then she deflates. “And I don’t want you to be like me. I don’t want you to stop caring. It’s just…” She trails off, gesturing helplessly.

“Caring sucks,” Sasha offers frankly, and Fiona smiles.

“Yeah.”

With a huge sigh, Sasha looks around, and then, finding nothing better, sinks down to sit on the Hyperion clothes she’d dropped earlier. She props her elbows on her knees, and Fiona takes a seat next to her, legs crossed.

Fiona doesn’t want to fight anymore, and she feels exhausted enough by the argument they did have. But with her anger melted away, Sasha only looks unreservedly sad, and Fiona knows she’s ill-equipped to help.

“Feels like every time we get close to something good it slips away again,” Sasha admits quietly, looking at her hands, chipping the polish off her thumbnail.

“I know.” Fiona traces a circle in the dirt with one finger, trying to find the optimism Sasha needs to hear. “But… listen, one day we’re gonna get it right. I promise.” She puts on a grin. “I mean, statistically, we must be due for some good luck soon.”

Sasha nods, but it's clear she doesn't believe it.

That’s fine. Fiona doesn’t really believe herself, either.

A minute or two passes in silence, Sasha picking at her nails, Fiona mindlessly adding to her design in the dirt until the interlocking circles start to remind her of Gortys and she wipes it away with her palm. She shifts until her knee is bumped up against Sasha’s thigh, appreciating the touch, however small. She never wants to revisit the few moments when she thought she’d lost Sasha too.

When Sasha speaks again, her voice is small, and Fiona pictures her many years ago, ratty clothes and dirty hair, crying because she was too frightened to steal the wallet from the man Fiona was distracting.

“It was good, though, wasn’t it? Having a team?” Sasha asks, and though Fiona looks over, Sasha is looking at her lap. “Having friends, real friends, for once, not—not marks or trading partners or temporary alliances, but real, actual friends. It was nice, right?”

She looks at Fiona then with such desperation that Fiona couldn’t deny her if she wanted to.

Fortunately, she doesn’t have to lie.

“Yeah.” Fiona swallows the lump in her throat. “Yeah, it was nice.”

Sasha hugs her knees tighter, staring at some spot on the ground in front of her. “I just—I can’t believe they’re all—all…”

She can’t bring herself to finish the thought. With a noise midway between a groan and a sob, she rests her forehead on her knees and squeezing her eyes shut.

We don’t know that, Fiona thinks of saying. Rhys and Vaughn have both surprised her before, and Loaderbot is, well, durable. She wants to believe Athena’s okay, too, that she’s escaped her captors and gone back to Janey with nothing more than a vague sense of regret at taking a job from Felix in the first place.

But Fiona’s a realist, and Loaderbots are strong, not indestructible. Vaughn is lost somewhere in the Pandoran desert without a weapon or even the know-how to use one. Athena’s at the mercy of people who want something that can’t possibly be good. As for Rhys—

Fiona had been there as Helios started to fall. She’d been there to feel the frenzied panic, see the people outnumbering escape pods three to one, watch the explosions as the station collapsed in on itself and escape pods collide with each other. Throw in Handsome Jack with a vendetta, and...

Well, Fiona’s a gambler, but she wouldn’t take that bet.

False hope can be crueler than the truth. She won’t do that to Sasha.

So instead she reaches out, puts her hand on her sister’s shoulder and squeezes. Sasha doesn’t look up, but she rests her hand overtop of Fiona’s.

“We’ve still got each other,” says Fiona, more resolute in that than in anything else. When Sasha nods, Fiona allows herself a little grin. “And, hey, you know, I’m pretty sure August would do just about anything you asked, so, if that’s what you want...”

Sasha finally lifts her head, resting her chin on her arms. She lets out a whisper of a laugh, then says, “You know, he gave me a flower.”

“August? Seriously?” Fiona snorts. “Didn’t strike me as a flower guy.”

“No, not August. Rhys.”

Surprise contorts Fiona’s face. “Wh—what? When?”

“At that Atlas biodome place, when it was just the two of us.” Sasha’s voice has turned wistful. “He picked one of the flowers and he tucked it behind my ear.” She chuckles. “Um, of course, then it sprayed some kind of pollen in his face and those floaty jelly things got really angry…”

Sasha smiles at the horizon, lost in the memory—which is good, because it means she doesn’t see Fiona’s expression of mingled shock and disgust.

She’s not an idiot, of course; she’d seen the looks Rhys sent Sasha, and heard the way his inarticulate bumbling became even more pronounced whenever Sasha was around. What surprises her is not the flower-giving itself, but rather the look on Sasha’s face as she retells it: soft and fond and faraway.

Fiona schools her features into a neutral expression even as she buzzes with renewed irritation. Anger is far more comfortable than grief, so Fiona wraps herself in it like a blanket.

Rhys liked her sister enough to give her a flower, but not enough to tell her the truth when she asked.

If Fiona ever sees him again, she’s going to knock him flat on his skinny cyborg ass.

“I know it’s stupid,” Sasha says, her expression suddenly self-conscious as she hugs her arms around herself. “But…” She hesitates, chewing her lip and looking away shyly. “It was a really pretty flower,” she finishes lamely.

“It’s not stupid,” says Fiona, short but sincere. She rises to her feet, brushes the dust from her hands. She won’t give her sister false hope, but she can give her a plan. “Okay. Here’s what we’re doing. We go back to Hollow Point—”

Sasha snorts humourlessly. “Fucking Hollow Point—”

“We go back to Hollow Point,” Fiona carries on, “because people can find us there. If someone…” She pauses, choosing her words carefully. “If anyone were looking for us, they would know to look in Hollow Point. Okay?”

Sasha regards her for a moment, weighing her options, her hatred of Hollow Point against the love of her friends.

Finally she nods. “Okay. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. Hollow Point it is. Again.”

Fiona offers her hand, Sasha takes it, and the combined effort lifts Sasha to her feet. Together they turn and head back towards the car.  

“Tell you what though,” Fiona adds, bumping Sasha’s shoulder with her own. “I’m proud of us. Technically we did find a Vault. Not bad for a couple of orphaned Pandoran street urchins.”

“Hey now.” Sasha’s mouth turns up in a small smile, her first of the night that isn’t overshadowed by sadness. “A couple of orphaned Pandoran Vault Hunters.”

No one comes to find them, and though they never discuss it, Fiona knows she and Sasha draw the same conclusions.

Months pass, and when a message arrives addressed to them both and claiming to be from Rhys, Fiona is suspicious. Her gut tells her it can’t be him, and Fiona trusts her gut more than she trusts just about anything else in the universe.

But she’s curious about who would use his name to try to get to them, so she keeps the message to herself, feeds Sasha a lie about going to follow up on a lead about a Vault key (“it’s probably nothing—you know how it is”), and goes to investigate the rendezvous on her own.

Besides—on the off chance it really is Rhys, Fiona owes him a punch, and he owes her an explanation for why he sent a goddamned missive instead of having the balls to come see Sasha in person.

When she gets hit from behind and wakes up alone in God-knows-where, arms tied to her sides, her first thought is that her gut is always right.

Her second thought is that only Rhys could continue to ruin her life posthumously.

[honestgrins]

human klaroline at a party. klaus is talking to his friends when drunk caroline comes up behind him. she catches him by surprise when she grabs his hips and starts thrusting into him. klaus is embarrassed, his friends think it's funny. katherine recorded it on her phone and caroline is mortified after watching it. (inspired by kourtney kardashian's instagram video with kylie at. please don't judge me for keeping up with them).

I would never judge, Anon! I made some slight adjustments, but I hope you like it!

Mortified || Klaroline

Caroline awoke to the bang of her bedroom door opening, though the piercing pain in her temples quickly took precedence. “Ow,” she moaned. Pressing her face into the pillow helped to block the offensive morning light; unfortunately, it couldn’t do the same for her roommate.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Katherine teased, jumping onto the bed to throw off the covers.

Cringing from the onslaught of light and noise, Caroline reluctantly accepted her fate. “Hangover cure, please.” She held out her hand, grateful for the aspirin and the protein shake Katherine passed her. Choking down the chalky drink, Caroline winced when she finally opened her eyes. “What happened last night?”

“I’m so glad you asked.” Katherine smirked as she pulled up her Snapchat story. “Remember your adamant plan to finally suss out Klaus’s deal with you?” she asked smugly.

Caroline racked her brain for any memories of the night before, but they all ended around Kol’s birthday dinner with all their friends - and Klaus. “He showed up at the Grill late, right? I don’t know anything about a plan.”

Though she could guess.

When she met Kol Mikaelson in college, he was just the trust-fund baby looking to sleep his way through college (both literally and figuratively). After weeks of feuding and Caroline snapping back at his smart-ass remarks, a grudging respect was born. Over the years since, that respect grew into an iron bond of friendship.

His brother, on the other hand, never seemed to care very much one way or the other about her witty banter. Klaus had been the one to take pity on a recently graduated Kol whose trust fund access was cut off when he didn’t want to move back home to join the family business. With Caroline moving to Chicago for her first big-girl job, it was a no-brainer to live with his follow, ne'er-do-well brother just a few blocks away.

It was during Caroline’s apartment-warming party a few weeks earlier that she realized Klaus Mikaelson was weirdly quiet. She and Katherine, a fellow Whitmore grad with better closet options and cleaning habits than Kol, encouraged everyone they invited to bring a friend in an effort to widen their social circle in a new city. When Kol bought his artsy architect of a brother, she thought he’d be a natural fit for their group.

Honestly, tolerating Kol was the first task to master, and the guy was living with him.

Katherine had called dibs immediately upon seeing his tousled curls and delicious scruff, but Klaus’s nonverbal reactions to her blatant come-ons were too much work for her. Caroline had rolled her eyes at Kat’s annoyed declaration, determined to strike up a conversation with him. She had noticed him glancing in her direction throughout the night. Being Kol’s brother put him firmly in her ‘friend’ pile, but Caroline wasn’t above a little innocent flirtation among friends. Hell, it was the best way to survive both Kat and Kol.

Still, Klaus hadn’t risen to the occasion. He nodded appropriately, attentively listening to her babble about linen closets for some reason, but he had nothing to offer in return. It was like talking to a mirror that would now and then hum noncommittally in response. Every time she asked a direct question, he would pensively take a drink, pause, then quietly answer with the barest explanation. While she was all for people doing what they needed to in social situations, Caroline hated that he felt so uncomfortable in her presence; Klaus quickly moved from the 'friend’ pile to the 'guy standing alone at the party’ corner.

According to Katherine, though, she had apparently decided enough was enough at Kol’s birthday party.

“Your plan to, and I quote, 'find out Klaus’s weird grudge against hot blondes’ involved slamming back the tequila shots Kol gleefully fed you,” Katherine explained just as gleefully. “After about an hour of thinly veiled comments about 'actual conversationalists’ and 'judgmental staring,’ you decided that Klaus wasn’t blushing hard enough and took to the stage for karaoke.”

Caroline frowned, unsure why she let herself get so worked up to actually unleash the hell of her overactive mind on Klaus. She usually had more tact than that, especially after Kol explained his brother was just super shy with strangers. Caroline had shrugged that first meeting off, then, figuring he would warm up to her over time. It wasn’t until Klaus had formed biting retorts to Katherine’s constant needling that Caroline was officially offended.

“How did I become persona non grata before Kat?” she had asked Kol furiously. The little jerk just shrugged and smirked at her frustration, swearing he had no idea.

It was a lie, and Caroline knew it - which was probably why she had allowed Kol to feed her shots and fuel whatever confrontation Kat had inevitably captured on her phone. “Show me,” Caroline demanded, resigned.

Scrolling past drunk selfies on her story, Kat landed on a surprisingly loud video. Caroline automatically recognized Joan Jett’s 'Do You Wanna Touch?’ playing, though she could hardly believe the blonde girl giving an exaggerated lap dance while singing was her. “I-is that-”

“-you grinding on Klaus’s lap in front of the whole bar?” Kat finished with a smile. “Yep. You had moves, too, ended up with some bills thrown for you. Mostly from Kol, but still.”

Embarrassment burned her cheeks as Caroline squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, my god. I’m such a bitch.”

“A sexy bitch,” Katherine supplied unhelpfully. She just shook her head when Caroline groaned in misery. “Get over it, Forbes. Dimples got under your skin, so you called him out in your…own, particular fashion. What’s the big deal?”

“A, it was Kol’s birthday I turned into a personal sideshow.” Caroline held up her thumb before adding a finger for each additional point. “B, you published a video of me giving a lap dance. C, I gave that lap dance to Klaus, Kol’s painfully shy brother who can barely speak to me after a month of knowing each other. He must have been mortified.”

Katherine snorted, replaying the video. “No, sweetie,” she mocked. “He was too busy staring at your boobs. As fun as this whole dumb blonde thing has been for me and Kol, I really need you to wake up and realize Klaus is stupidly into you.”

Scoffing, Caroline finally got out of bed to get dressed. “He’d actually have to hold a conversation with me to like me.” It was an old argument since moving to Chicago, one of Kol’s favorites. “Like you said, he’s too focused on my boobs.” Wrangling them into a bra under her dress, Caroline waved goodbye.

“Where are you going?”

“To straighten out this mess you did nothing to help me avoid!”

With that, Caroline slammed the front door shut as she fled the apartment.

As loud and determined as she left for Klaus and Kol’s place, Caroline felt a rare timidness when she finally stood in front of their door. Summoning her courage, she knocked twice and bounced on her toes while the footsteps inside came her way. Klaus was the one to open the door, a tired hand running through his rumpled curls. “Caroline?”

“Hi,” she greeted softly. He only seemed surprised to see her, not angry or dismissive like she had feared. “Can I come in?”

Stepping aside, Klaus pointed toward his couch. Caroline took the hint and sat, though her eyes roved around the neat, minimalist apartment. “I’m surprised you can keep the place so clean with Kol as a roommate. He’s a walking tornado.”

“Part of the agreement we made when he moved in,” Klaus answered. He rubbed his neck as he watched her fidget on the couch. Rather than addressing the oddness of the situation, he just waited her out.

Caroline wasn’t good with silence. “So, where is Kol? Too hungover to get out of bed?”

Almost instantly, the tips of Klaus’s ears flushed pink. “He didn’t make it home last night, actually,” he said quietly. “I saw him leave with that Enzo chap.”

Caroline frowned. “But my coworker Bonnie brought Enzo to the party, I thought they were dating.”

Coughing, Klaus shook his head. “No, love, I think Bonnie left with them, too,” he explained, his face cutely bashful.

“Ah,” Caroline smiled in realization. “Happy birthday to Kol, I guess.” Her smile faded as the reason for her visit came back to mind. Glancing down to her knees, she picked at the hem of her dress. “But I should be honest and tell you that Kol wasn’t the one I came to see. I think I owe you an apology.”

She peeked up to see Klaus’s expression; he seemed curious, as opposed to upset. Interpreting that as silent encouragement, she took a deep breath to prepare herself. “As you can probably tell, I don’t remember a lot of what happened last night, because I was completely wasted, and Kat showed me a video that I wish she hadn’t had the opportunity to take, not only because my voice was a little pitchy during karaoke, but also because of the inappropriate dancing that might have been fueled by tequila,” she rambled. At his blank stare, however, her mouth decided to keep going. “You know, the dancing that breached all personal space and proper manners.” Holding out her hand, she gestured broadly below his belt. “In that general area.”

Curling his lips into his mouth, the dimples in his cheeks betrayed Klaus’s smile. “Caroli-”

“-and I know you’re shy, and I probably embarrassed the hell out of you in front of so many strangers, and I can’t begin to apologize enough for basically forcing my insecurities onto you because I can’t figure out why I’m the only one you don’t even try to talk to, when that was so not the way to go about broaching the subject because you’re a person with your own needs and habits and you don’t need me barging in with my own expecta-”

This time, the interruption came from Klaus sitting next to her and reaching for her hand. Caroline’s mouth closed with a snap; her eyes were automatically drawn to the light circles he drew on her wrist with his thumb. “Perhaps I needed the push,” he admitted.

“Push for what?” Her voice was hesitant, breathy as the space between them shrank.

Quiet as always, Klaus just leaned in to place a soft kiss on her cheek. Small pecks lingered on a path to her lips, where he brushed his mouth against hers until she sank into the kiss. For a long moment, she breathed him in when he pulled away. “Oh,” she finally sighed. Remembering her spat with Katherine earlier, Caroline’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But you don’t talk to me.”

Rubbing his nose along hers, Klaus seemed to be searching for the correct words. “I listen more than you think,” he answered. “I’m not used to sharing much, but I enjoy listening to you talk. You love your work, your apartment, your family, your friends. You hate the color of your kitchen, the latest episode of your favorite show, and whoever thinks casual Fridays include velour tracksuits.”

Caroline stared in shock. “It’s just babbling,” she pointed out. “You can’t really remember all that.”

“You’re passionate, love.” His hand was drawing those distracting circles on her wrist again. “I place high value on passion.”

“What are you passionate about?” she asked softly, letting her lips brush his as she spoke.

Smirking, Klaus kept that inch of distance between them. “I’ve taken a sudden liking to karaoke,” he whispered against her lips.

She shoved him lightly, giggling. “That might be the first joke I’ve heard you make,” she said. “But seriously, I know nothing about you, save what Kol tells me.”

“Don’t believe a thing he says.”

“I don’t, trust me,” she snorted. “So, what are your passions? I want to know.”

Klaus ran a hand along her side, and she tried not to react to the warmth. “You’re welcome to find out,” he said. “I have a makeshift art studio in a spare room, my work desk is right over there if you’d like to see a blueprint. There’s also a great bottle of wine I’ve been keeping for a special occasion.”

“Those are great and varied passions.” Caroline noted the way his eyes traced the freckles across her nose, smiling as he realized he was caught staring. “Any others?”

“I can think of one,” he murmured before kissing her again.

For a guy who didn’t talk much, Caroline wasn’t embarrassed to admit that Klaus certainly knew how to use his mouth.