#not exact to the painting obviously but i am still very proud of this!! looking at the two there is a very clear difference in skill

[freakura]

the first vicar.

almost a year ago i drew my vicar laurence design as a painting i thought would be fitting. last week, i decided, now 9 months, an art program and device change, and a minor redesign later, i decided to redraw it.

painting is inspired by what is allegedly called (the penitent) maria magdalena by mateo cerezo, circa 1665. my original art post can be found here :^)

[romantichopelessly]

Line Without a Hook

Happy holidays @romanapologist ! I am so so so sorry that this @sanderssidesgiftxchange gift comes to you so late, but I am very bad at checking my email and just found out that I was going to be your pinch hitter. I hope that you enjoy this Intruality hurt/comfort anyway. It came with some help from my wonderful friend @sunshineandteddybears as well.

Words: 2.6k

Summary: When Patton's entire world view is challenged--when he doesn't even know who he is supposed to be anymore, help comes from an unexpected source. Maybe things can be okay after all.

Warnings: This is hurt/comfort, so there is a happy ending. Before that there is descriptions of intrusive thoughts, guilt, depression and negative self talk.

----

Morality was a bit more complex than Thomas had been led to believe when he was younger. No, a lot more complex. When Thomas was just a kid the rules were clear cut. Simple. Don’t fight with your brothers. Do as your parents tell you to. Respect your teachers. Say please and thank you. Don’t lie.

Or do?

Were even those simple, childhood rules concrete anymore? Janus’s words suggested otherwise. And from what Patton could tell, the snake-like side was right. Had been right for a while now, just muffled by Patton’s own ignorance and… pride. His insistence that he had to be the one to help Thomas out of every situation. Was the foundation that Patton had built everything on--Thomas’s feelings, his motivations, his perception of the world--even stable?

Patton himself sure wasn’t.

Even now, sitting in his sepia-toned room, surrounded by stuffed animals and memorabilia that could usually comfort him, when Patton closed his eyes, he could see the green on the edges of his vision. He could hear his own voice, distorted and croaking, feel his heart racing again, the knowledge that he had hurt Thomas, his Thomas, and that he was responsible for years of grief-

Patton choked back on a sob. The lump in his throat was almost unbearable. He pressed his mouth into the back of his panda pillow pet to muffle the sound.

The only thing worse than sitting alone in his room with the crushing knowledge of his failure was the possibility that someone would hear him and come to check on him. The idea of one of the other sides--one of his friends--seeing him like this, weeks after the incident, was unacceptable.

He could just imagine the look of pity that would cross their face. Roman would look so heartbroken to find Patton in such a state. Virgil would probably extend the same amount of kindness that Patton had always shown when he found Virgil in the midst of a panic attack. (But had Patton been kind to do so? Or was it just another form of selfishness? An act born out of guilt for shutting Virgil out for so many years. Was Patton only kind because someone told him to be once? Did he actually love any of them at all? Or was he just destructive?) Logan- Patton was ashamed to admit that he was not sure how Logan would react. He was sure that it would be heartachingly sweet, though. He would probably say something poignant and true that would make Patton feel stupid for ever feeling bad in the first place.

If one of the d- the others found Patton…

It wasn’t like Patton had been avoiding them. In fact, in the days following the… incident… Patton had gone out of his way to seek them out. Janus had been wary at first, and it broke Patton’s heart a bit. The look of distrust in his two-toned eyes. The slight curl of his lip. Confusion? Suspicion? Patton couldn’t tell at the time, and although it had replayed again and again in his mind ever since, he still was not quite sure.

He liked to think that he was doing the right thing now. That he could make things right.

But who was he to judge that anymore?

It was obvious, now, that he had never known what was truly right. He was only just deluded enough, just stupid enough, to assume that his function as Thomas’s Morality was infallible. But his versions of right were wrong. Catastrophically so. Up was down. Left was right. Black was white. Or was gray the new goal? That sounded like something that Janus would say. He was still confused about it.

He was just so stupid.

Another sob was stuck in the back of Patton’s throat. His eyes burned, shame and guilt curling in his stomach in an ugly flash of putrid green and black.

He had carried Thomas’s heart on his sleeve and on his shoulders. And he had buckled under the pressure.

And now Thomas was cracked. And no one knew if it was fixable, least of all Patton.

Grounding. Patton knew, distantly, that he needed to ground himself. But it was borderline impossible with tears clouding his vision and pooling in the frames of his glasses.

How could anyone ground themselves when it felt like the ground was opening underneath them?

Did he even deserve to be grounded? Didn’t Patton deserve to feel this way? After everything that he had done to Thomas, to Virgil, by ignoring his obvious discomfort at Patton’s over exuberant displays of love, to Janus, by pushing his contributions aside for years, hell, even to Logan and Roman. Not to mention Remus, who Patton still did not have the guts to spend more than ten minutes alone with. Who was so, painfully, obviously bereft of love and craving attention. Who looked at Patton like he was a friend, like he was something to smile at, even though Patton had shown him time and time again the exact opposite.

A gasping sob wrenched its way out of Patton’s chest before he could muffle himself with his panda. He didn’t deserve that kind of a second chance. He really, really didn’t.

He deserved nothing other than to sit here alone in his room, with nothing other than his own guilt.

In fact, Patton should probably just stay there, in his room forever. He could do his work as Thomas’s heart and emotions from here, and really that was all that he had ever been any good for anyway.

There was a loud POP from the far side of Patton’s room that startled him into raising his head up from his pillow pet.

Across the room, just beside the door, stood Remus. Patton blinked, stunned. His hair was disheveled, which was not out of the ordinary, the silver streak that ran through his brunette locks sticking up in a wild cow lick. The purple eyeshadow that encircled his eyes gave the unique impression that he was startled. Or perhaps deranged.

“...Remus?” Patton’s voice came out in a weak, watery croak that made him wince. Tears were still fogging his vision, so he couldn’t quite see Remus’s reaction to such a sad sight.

“Pattycake?” The usually taunting nickname sounded surprisingly… soft. The Duke’s voice was almost… gentle. It nearly shocked Patton into stopping crying. Nearly. “What’s up?”

“I’m fine.” Patton responded immediately. Reflexively. He didn’t even bother to try for a smile though, even he knew that it would be weak.

“Don’t try that.” Remus’s voice was steady. He still hadn’t moved from his station at the door. “I could hear you bawling your eyes out from the hallway.”

Patton closed his eyes. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He had been too loud. They had probably all heard him in here, crying like a baby over his own stupid mistakes. And now Remus was here, and could see him, all blotchy and red in the face, his hair messy from when he had been running his hands through it earlier before covering it with the hood of his cat hoodie. Remus was here, and he knew that Patton wasn’t okay right now. Remus was here, and he sounded… sympathetic.

Patton sniffed pathetically. “I’m sorry.” Remus blinked this time, tilting his head at an awkward angle. He looked confused. Patton continued on. “I didn’t mean to be so loud.”

Remus was silent for a moment. Patton took a couple of deep breaths, trying to stop himself from crying.

“Can I come sit with you?” Remus asked.

Patton swallowed. There was no use in denying the Duke. He pulled his knees closer to himself and gestured to the open space beside him. Remus had crossed the room in an instant and dropped unceremoniously down next to Patton.

“Who upset you?”

Patton looked up, surprised once again. It wasn’t unusual for Remus to say shocking or surprising things, he embodied Thomas’s intrusive thoughts. However, the level of… concern that Remus was showing at the moment was not something that Patton expected.

“If someone said something to you, I can remove their toenails and glue them to their forehead for you.”

Patton bit back a wince. That was more like the Remus that he was becoming used to.

“No one.” Patton answered, truthfully. Remus looked skeptical, so he continued. “No one said anything to me, really. I just… Get down sometimes.”

Remus looked confused. “You mean like depression?”

Patton curled back at the word, as though it were a physical blow.

“Well, fuck, Patty!” Remus sounded much brighter now, and when Patton looked back up, he could see that the other side was smiling. “You could have just said so!”

“It’s not just… that.” Even now, Patton was unable to say it. Unable to admit to it. “I’ve been… thinking.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

The joke startled a chuckle from Patton. It was choked and sad sounding, but it made Remus wiggle proudly nevertheless. Patton sniffed again. “No, not like that, sorry. I just mean that I’ve been… thinking about Thomas. About everything that’s been changing lately.” Patton stared across the room at a painting by 12 year old Thomas that was hanging on his wall. “About… how I’ve been holding him back. I can’t stop thinking about it, no matter what I do to try and fix things.”

“Then don’t!”

Patton blinked in confusion, tilting his head in confusion as he sniffed one more. “Huh?” he couldn’t help but mumble out. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t try to fix things.” The Duke grinned widely, showing off teeth. He seemed so proud of himself, but Patton was still confused. How could he not try to fix things? He kept messing things up, so he had to find a way to do it right this time. He needed to. “But-” A hand clamped onto his back, making him startle and tense. It left just as quickly as it came, Remus pulling it away as if he had been burned.

“Oops, sorry. Forgot to ask if that was okay.”

Patton frowned. He hadn’t meant to make the other side feel like touching him had been a bad thing. He typically loved physical affection! He just hadn't expected it, that’s all! But now he went and made Remus feel bad, because apparently that was all he could do lately-

“Anyways,” the Duke continued, his tone unbothered, “you don’t have to fix everything, Pattycakes. Especially by yourself. Sometimes things aren’t as broken as you think they are, and don’t really need fixing at all. Sometimes things fix better when you leave them alone and let time work itself out. And sometimes, you take it to a specialist who knows better than you on how to fix it.” That sounded… rather wise. It was more than a bit unexpected, coming from a side that was currently picking his nose as he gave his advice. But Patton was quickly learning that the others had more to offer than their appearance suggested.

Still... “How do I know which kind of thing this is?”

“You don’t.” Well, that was disappointing. “At least, I never do. Not right away. After a while you start to figure it out, but even then you can still mess up sometimes. But that’s okay.” Grinning a little more softly, Remus looked right into Patton’s eyes. “No matter what, you got others around who can help you. Even when you don’t think you need it, or aren’t allowed to ask for it, they’re there. Like plumbers or doctors! Better to use them than to play handyman or diagnose yourself with WebMD. Get your kids fucking vaccinated Karen!”

A startled laugh escaped Patton at that. He was a little in disbelief over the suddenness of it, but he sounded a little less like he was going to burst into more tears.

Remus seemed to take that as a victory as he cackled quietly himself. “I’m not sure if anything I’m saying makes any sense, but things are gonna be okay. Your world’s been shaken to its core, but it’s still in one piece. Mostly. Just gotta adapt now.” Patton rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve, they felt puffy and a little itchy, as he hummed in thought. “But what about Thomas and everyone else? The pain I’ve caused them…” “Did you say sorry?”

“Well, yes-” “Then the only thing you can do now is learn and work to do better next time.” Remus sounded so sure, so certain. But it couldn’t be that easy could it? “You don’t gotta keep apologizing for the same stuff. We’ve all done bad things before, me especially! Thomas is still standing, and not too worse for wear.” He couldn’t deny the truth of that. Thomas was still more or less in one piece. “He’ll be okay, and so will we. So will you.”

A small smile formed on Patton’s lips. It wobbled and didn’t go very far, but it was genuine. It was hard to shake away his worries, his fears, of the damage he caused and the future, how he’d fit in it. But Remus’s words helped. Made the knot in his chest loosen just a bit. “Thank you Remus.” The Duke stared wide eyed at him, suddenly seeming shocked and dazed. “Remus?”

The other jumped, snapping out of whatever spell he was under. “H-huh? Oh!” Dusting of pink coated Remus’ cheeks, stretched up as he smiled brightly. “Sorry. Not used to people thanking me. Also your smile is fucking adorable.” Now it was Patton’s turn for pinkened cheeks. “Oooooh that little blush is cute too! And it goes to your ears!”

Oh, that was embarrassing.

“Stoooooop!” He whined out, burying his now red face into his pillow pet again.

“Oh. Not okay to say, gotcha.” Patton’s head shot up at that, in time to see Remus frown down at his shoes. “You know I just sorta blurt out everything that comes to mind.”

“No, it’s okay.” Patton said, uncurling a little bit more. “I just felt embarrassed that’s all. It’s silly.” Remus’s frown deepened and he shook his head.

“Silly isn’t bad, but your feelings aren’t silly. So if you don’t like it, just say so. It’s not gonna hurt me any.” It was an easy out Remus was giving him, allowing him a chance to put barriers between them. But Patton was trying to move past those, wanted to move past them.

“No, it’s okay. I promise.” Slowly, Patton reached out and stuck out his pinky. “Pinky promise.” Remus snorted at that, but there was a playful gleam in his eyes. He wrapped his own pinky, that thankfully wasn’t from the nose picking hand, around Patton’s and cackled.

“In Japan, when someone makes a pinky promise they have a saying that threatens the person promising to not lie, or else they’ll cut off their finger and punch them ten thousand times and make them swallow a thousand needles.” That was a very gruesome image that Patton wished he hadn’t pictured. “Don’t worry though, I won’t do that to you. I like your hands too much.”

“O-oh?” Remus liked his hands? That was nice.. Maybe? “Why my hands?” “Well I like everything about you Pattycakes. So naturally, hands fall under that category.” Heat returned to Patton’s cheeks, blooming them in pink once more. “Awww the blush is back!” Remus shrieked with glee, kicking his feet wildly. “Wanna watch a movie?” The non sequitur nature of the question had the moral aspect blinking before he could fully process it.

“Um..” He didn’t really want to leave his room just yet, he didn’t feel quite ready. But a movie sounded nice, and he found himself wanting to spend more time in the Duke’s company. “Can we watch it in here?”

“You got it Pattycakes!”

Relief and a surprising… warmth filled him at that, his smile growing a little bit more. “Thanks.”

[uhgoodmoni]

Oil Paints | MYG

Summary: t’s Yoongi’s bday!!! His girlfriend has noticed how he’s been blowing off the idea of anything happening for his birthday. Everyone will be busy. You don’t have to get him anything. He just wants to relax. Blah blah blah. Despite all that, she still wants to do something a little special. Nothing crazy because she knows he wouldn’t like that, but just a nicely set dinner, some wine, and a couple of gifts to surprise him when he gets home from work. It’s perfect, mood lighting at all! Surprise, surprise! He’s not answering his calls, worrying her to death.

(This is so late for his bday but thats okay because life happens! Thanks for reading!)

Warnings: - angst, pure angst - fluff -

Ao3 - Wattpad

How’s it going?

This was the tenth message that I had sent to Yoongi. It was also the tenth message he didn’t respond to. He was just busy. I already knew that. He told me. But I was just worried. He had a horrible week. Each day was more draining than the last, and I was sure that he wasn’t giving himself a break either. I can always tell when he’s about to hit his limit. I wish he wouldn’t hold it in so much. Especially since it was his birthday. Big Hit wouldn’t overwork him on his birthday? Would they? 

Well, they probably would, except I knew that Yoongi himself was overworking himself too. He works so hard. Too hard sometimes, and the boys or I would have to remind him to take some free time. But he wanted the projects to be perfect. I was proud of him for working so hard but I just wished he would take a break when given the chance. 

Today was one of those chances. Of course, he went to work early, so did I. But he said he would be working a bit late, he wouldn’t get home until around eight. It was a little disappointing to not be able to spend his birthday with him. Not that he wanted me to plan anything, but just being able to shower him with affections would be enough. Watching movies, listening to him rant about his next mixtape. That’s all I wanted for today. Instead, I had to watch his birthday live from my work desk. He seemed happier than he had been the whole week. Namjoon and Jin came in to visit him. It was refreshing to see him smile so freely. He really was happy doing this job, it just always seemed to nag at him, till he overflowed. Even the things you love can be stressful. Usually, he never got this bad, holding onto the stress and then letting it out on a song for something, but recently he hadn’t found time to work on his solos. Busy with schedules. 

That’s probably the same reason Yoongi’s bday live didn’t last very long. Yoongi didn’t seem too happy to be leaving. But he had said that they had more filmings coming up, and to look forward to new works. How much work did he really have? I just couldn’t wait for him to get home. He could kick up his feet, enjoy some good alcohol and be the little spoon if he wanted. 

Despite his wishes for me to do absolutely nothing for him. I had catered his favorite dinner to the house. A surprise for when he got home, I didn’t mind a late dinner. With his busy schedule he hadn’t found time to do more art. He enjoyed painting so I got him some art supplies for home. Tonight I knew he would just want to stay home and relax so I figured dinner from home and maybe a movie didn’t sound too bad. The boys had already greeted him separately from their busy schedules and now it was my turn. Waiting, waiting. 

The day went by slowly. My worries were rapidly taking over my mind, however, I tried to assure myself that he was just busy. He’ll come home and the rest of the night will be okay. 

Except he didn’t. It was nine and he wasn’t home. No answer to any of my calls or texts. I tried to not spam him too much, but knowing that he normally always answers, I was beginning to stress. 

“I’m sorry for calling, I just am really worried about him.” I bite into the skin of my finger, tapping my foot on the floor. In front of me, the dinner sits. Cold now. 

“No it’s okay, maybe he just fell asleep in the studio.” Namjoon hums through the other side of the phone. I let out a strained chuckle. That would be such a relief. Worked himself so hard he just took a nap. Namjoon is always the right person to call in these situations. He doesn’t sound as worried. He knows Yoongi a bit better than I. Maybe I should be less worried too. “Mhm, he’s not here. I’ll give him a call, but maybe he just left and is on his way home. Maybe his phone died.” Namjoon’s explanations were perfectly rational. But that didn’t change the fact that I was worried. 

“Okay…” I tried to hide my tone, “I’ll let you know when he gets home.”

“Yup, and I’ll let you know if I hear from him before that.”

I sighed, “Thank you.” We said our goodbyes and hung up. Now all that was left to do was wait. But each moment was an itch in the back of my head. Something must have happened. Why else would he not respond? Why would he just disappear like that? What if there had been an accident? What if he got into an accident on the way home. There were so many possibilities. What if he got mugged. Oh god, I was starting to sound ridiculous. But maybe there had been a car accident… no. 

Not allowing myself to continue thinking like that I packed up the food into containers. He can take it tomorrow for lunch. I’m not hungry anymore anyway. After I packed up the food I tidied up around the house, distracting myself with anything. The house was already clean but double-cleaning isn’t bad. He still wasn’t home after everything was cleaned up. I took to the couch, watching the door with a frown. No texts from him, and no texts from Joon. 

Constant fidgeting. What was I supposed to do? Glancing at the phone, I see that it’s now ten pm. Something was not right. With nothing else to do. I called his number again. 

It rang, no answer. It went to voicemail. “Yoongi where are you?” It was only the same exact thing I had been leaving in his messages before. It’s just that I knew he was having a rough time and I didn’t want to guilt-trip him. At this point though… “You’re worrying me and the others. Please just let us know you’re okay.” 

I hung up, wondering if he was even receiving them. Damnit. I threw my phone over on the side, it was only making it worse. Maybe I could just go to sleep? But then if something was really wrong… What if I wasn’t there when he needed me? What if...

With the click of the door opening and closing slowly I flipped my head down the hall. I swallowed, stunned at the sight of Yoongi. Who else would it be?

He was hunched over, hood over his head. A shadowed form in the single yellow light of the hall. My body found itself immediately at his side, scanning over him for any sign of injuries. What had happened? Why was he gone so long? Except I didn’t really know how to start the conversation with him. He just stood there, dropping his bag off by the door, sliding off his shoes. Silent. 

“Yoongi…” There was something. Something keeping him from talking to me. Something keeping me from really talking to him. It just felt wrong to ask. Because I already knew. Knew that he was struggling. I often tried to get him to open up to me. But he always did it in his own time. Over the course of our relationship, I had learned to let him come to me when he was ready. 

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, and I barely heard him, his face hidden away under a cap. 

I shook my head trying to lift his chin to me, but he didn’t budge. “Yoongi why didn’t you answer my calls?” I bit my lip, obviously, he didn’t want to talk that’s why.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice trembling. “I…” his hands clenched at the zipper of his coat. My mind was spinning. I didn’t know what to say to him. I wanted to be careful. I didn’t know where to start. 

“It’s okay…” I hummed, thinking. “What happened?” 

He swallowed, still not looking up at me, head hanging low. His thumb traced over the corner of the zipper sow. No response. Okay. That’s okay. My hand reached, outstretched, and offered for him to take it. 

His hand trembling, tentatively took hold of it. It was cold. It was cold outside after all. “Are you hurt?” Internally I rolled my eyes. Of course, he was hurt. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t a physical injury. He shook his head. “Okay.” I smiled a little, squeezing his hand softly. 

“Kei…” He sighed, unable to say anything more than my name. 

Although he wasn’t giving me much to respond to I wanted to assure him that it would all be okay. That he would be okay. “It’s okay…” I repeated, pulling him by his hand into an embrace. He didn’t put up any fight, his weight falling over my shoulders as I pulled him close. “You can…” My sentence was immediately cut short by the muffled sound of his sobs into the fabric at my collarbone. My heart instantly broke. His soft sobs heightening to weeping, his arms squeezing me closer and closer. His fingers clung to my back, my shirt soon soaked. 

I too held him closer, rubbing softly at his nape. He didn’t let up, it was likely that he needed it. It had been coming a long time. But I wish he knew that it was okay to have come to me before. I was always here for him, and so were the others. 

Something had released in him, and even after the sobs turned into lone tears he hadn’t moved from my shoulder. And although my feet were beginning to ache from standing there for so long, I didn’t mind staying there for him. 

“Kei I’m so sorry.” He eventually whispered, his breaths still evening out. 

“Yoongi it’s okay.” I pressed against his cheek to lift his face up to where I could see. “What happened?” My eyes stayed softened, hoping that he knew I wasn’t mad. Why would I be? I was just worried. So I told him just that. “I was just worried about you, but you’re safe here.”

He sniffled, rubbing his fingers against his dampened eyes, lashes clinging together. “I just…” His face contorted once more and he shook his head. I remained, holding his hand and soothing the words out. “I had an awful day.” He shrugged, almost giving a halfhearted laugh. “I thought maybe because it was my birthday I could ignore the pent-up shit.” He shook his head clearing his throat. 

I nodded to show I was listening. He continued, “I thought that vlive would help.” He frowned, “and it did, but I was so busy I couldn’t stay on long, and…” he was starting to ramble. “And then after work, I just wanted to think for a little bit I had my phone shut off and it only made it worse. And then I realized that you were waiting for me and I felt like such a dick.” For the first time that night, he made eye contact, tears dripping down his cheeks. “And I really was a dick.” He cried, pulling me back into his arms. 

“Yoongi…” “I love you.” He squeezed tighter. “I’m sorry.” 

“Yoongi babe, seriously I know.” I kissed his neck where I was able to reach. “You don’t have to apologize. I just want you to tell me these things before you disappear. Yeah?” He nodded. “I want you to be safe…” it sounded silly, after all, he wasn’t a child. But bad things can happen to anyone. 

He hummed in response keeping me in his clutches, “Can we stay like this?” He asked quietly, and I nodded, taking a deep breath. 

“You must be tired though Yoons,” I pushed him off softly, “Why don’t we go to bed?” He took a shaky breath and nodded in agreement. He slid his jacket off and set it aside. I wanted to ask him more questions but I didn't want to pry. But had he cried while he was driving? I hoped not, hoped he hadn’t been alone either. 

We walked back together, me picking up my phone on the way back. I texted Joon, knowing that by now he’d probably be worried too. Yoongi looks around, “You didn’t do anything for me right?” He seemed to be more worried that he had missed it rather than him not wanting anything. 

I shrugged, “Dinner, but you can have it tomorrow.” He frowned as we left the living room and into the bedroom. “Do you want to open your gift now?” I whisper, looking at the box wrapped up. There were oil paints and special brushes. I remembered he wanted to experiment with them. 

“Mhm, yeah.” He sits on the edge of the bed, taking off his cap, hair falling over his forehead. His eyes were swollen, maybe I could get him a cold spoon. 

He took the box gently, sliding the silver ribbon away, and picking up the lid. I couldn’t help but smile, as he looked down on the tubes. 

His lip twitched, and he set the box to the side, holding out his hand to mine. He kept his eyes on the ground as he pulled me in by my hand, hugging me close all over again. “Thank you.” 

I pet the top of his head, with a soft smile, “Do you like them?” 

He shook his head into my neck. “Of course I do.” His breath was hot on my skin, and his body shook into another bout of tears. Pursing my lips, I leaned into him. 

Lightly teasing, “Well who would have thought paint could move you to tears.” I kissed the top of his head, and he continued crying. I knew he didn’t let it all out by the door. I was stuck standing again, caressing his back, soothing him until he calmed once more. 

“I love you.” He sighed, burying his face into his hands. 

My fingers brushed his hair back. “I love you too.” I finally sat down next to him, both of us lying back onto the bed. My eyes found his and my thumb brushed his cheek. “You can tell me all about it.” I wipe away a stray tear, “Or not, whatever you feel comfortable.” 

He let out a hum, pulling me into his chest, much warmer now after all the previous embraces. “Okay.”

Like this? This is a drabble from my A Year of Fics with Han series found here

[oxbridge-quality-fanfiction-co]

The Lovelorn Monster

Welcome to my first Modern AU, which I wrote for @lovelyrita1967  It’s a Geraskier Romcom with extra suffering and gore! Also, it’s a Christmas fic as @booichiboo requested. 16k, M.

You can read it on AO3.

Summary: It's been many months since the mountain incident. Jaskier is alone on Christmas day. His lovely, old house has somehow become a monster-infested hellhole. Now it seems there might be a way to kill two birds with one stone. Only deciding what actually needs killing is much more complicated than that.

cw: blood, so much blood, also a lot of angst (although there’s a happy ending), suicide references, some Geraskier disagreements and heartbreak. No sex, but there’s a fair bit of angsty cuddling and some much less angsty kissing.

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

When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create

No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;

Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

Dido’s Lament, Henry Purcell, adapted from The Aeneid

Jaskier stared at his beautiful, tall, richly dressed Christmas tree with pride and a wistful smile. Each ornament was a souvenir or a gift. This tradition gave his decorations deep meaning, but also made him reluctant to come anywhere near the tree this year.

Memories. He had a cardboard box full of them. There was a delicately carved wooden heart covered in rich, red paint he received from Countess de Stael. Then his favourite - a perfect, tiny copy of his lute he had ordered to celebrate his first successful performance for the royals. He even had a little doll that a sibele, a demon who steals children, was using to lure a baby when Geralt cut off her head.

Geralt never approved of Jaskier keeping the toy, let alone using it as an ornament. ‘I don’t need keepsakes to remind me of the last time I killed something,’ his gruff voice would say.

Well, this year it’s going up. Jaskier picked a spot for the doll with a rebellious toss of his hair. It was quite a nasty, clumsily knitted thing. Seeing it on the tree succeeded mostly in creating an uncomfortable lump in his throat as he imagined Geralt sitting on his living room sofa, relaxed, with a snide smile, some acerbic remark already forming in his head.

Perhaps Geralt would ignore the doll. ‘You just love making yourself sentimental,’ he’d say instead, seemingly no connection, just a short, judgmental glance at the tree.

And Jaskier did, actually. No shame in that. It had its benefits. In his mind, Geralt could easily become just the memory of a perfect, lost friend, regardless of how he would feel about the prospect. He was the hero Jaskier once traveled with, no more, no less. They parted ways for perfectly rational reasons.

‘Just give me a couple of years,’ he said to the imaginary Geralt in his mind and smiled with pride. Being the storyteller meant being in control.

Then he noticed a little ornament shaped like a golden dragon lying at the bottom of the box. The sight made him freeze for a moment. He shook off the memory and ignored the draw towards his phone which has been intensifying over the last couple of days.

Everything was going fine. The phone was just playing music, lying perfectly innocently on the windowsill as it should. It was set on shuffle, and Annie Lennox’s “Dido's Lament” was on, a little bit ominous, but also somehow appropriate.

He hummed with the music while hanging up a few golden baubles. As he started to sing, another voice joined in, a distant echo of his hum, a gentle, female timbre following along quietly. It made him smile, eyes suddenly attracted to the window. It was already getting dark, and the Christmas lights he put up outside were reflecting in the glass. A weird glow by the evergreen shrubs made the snow underneath them shine delicately.

The decorations were nearly complete. There was a comforting smell of cinnamon and apples coming from the kitchen. Also, he still had some surprisingly successful homemade ginger biscuits left.

The golden dragon was the last thing he hung on the tree. He flinched a little as he did, but it was where it belonged. Then he moved away to admire his finished work. ‘Better late than never,’ he whispered to himself.

At that exact moment, the next song started to play. Jaskier instantly recognised it and stared at his phone as if it personally insulted him.

‘It's been a blue holiday since you've been gone,’ Aretha Franklin started to sing.

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ Jaskier whispered while walking calmly towards his phone.

‘Oh darling, won't you hurry, hurry home,’ she continued undisturbed.

He actually liked the song and was starting to wonder if he was overreacting.

‘It's been a blue… a blue holiday. And I'm all alone.’

No, he wasn’t.

‘My dear I need your love to keep… to keep me warm.’

Yeah, sure, like that was ever an option, he thought to himself.

‘I cry when I hear the chapel bells ring… And sometimes I cry all through the night.’

Fuck. Jaskier’s fingerprint lock was a little wonky.

‘Won't you please come home and make my… make my holiday bright.’

Finally, he managed to skip a couple of songs, and quickly discovered he actually preferred some silence this time. He took a deep breath and decided it was time to focus on cooking. That should be comforting enough.

As soon as he turned towards the kitchen he heard a weird, buzzing sound, and then a high, disembodied laugh. Lights flickered. There was a loud crash, a cavalcade of many little objects falling all at once, baubles suddenly bouncing off his furniture. A glass ball he bought at a little Christmas market in Vizima rolled in between his feet.

He swore under his breath and turned back. All the ornaments were lying on his wooden floor, and only the Christmas lights remained. A small dark shape with sharp horns moved along the wall and then disappeared behind the sofa, still giggling to itself.

Jaskier stared at the naked tree, feeling a bit hopeless. Then he climbed up the sofa pillows and looked into the tight space between the wall and the backrest.

Two small, red eyes stared back.

‘Proud of yourself?’ he asked with irritation and heard only a quiet hiss in response. ‘You know what? Fuck you. Sincerely, fuck you.’ He pointed at the thing, his eyes narrowing. ‘No more biscuits for you. You’re going down,’ he threatened, a surprising and, by all accounts, disproportionate amount of uncurbed fury in his voice, hand shaking slightly.

For a moment Jaskier seemed overwhelmed. He took a couple of very deep breaths, then coughed a little and his eyes watered. ‘Right,’ he said to himself, his attempts to calm down obviously failing. He stretched his neck, then rolled his shoulders, releasing the tension with a sigh. ‘Right,’ he repeated as his expression switched to resolve.

He squeezed his phone with newly found determination, and then fiddled with it nervously for much longer than he originally planned.

Finally, he clicked on his least favourite icon of all - the phone app.

The signal was ringing loud in his ears. Time slowed down. He was just about to hang up when he heard a deep voice on the other side. ‘Yes?’

‘Vesemir,’ Jaskier announced, jovially. ‘Merry Christmas!’ He listened to Vesemir return the greeting and massaged his temples nervously. ‘Yes, thank you. Erm… I was just wondering… No, no, I am not going to hang up. Whatever gives you that idea?’ He laughed nervously. ‘I do need help. It’s a dreadful emergency. No… Of course, I would have called otherwise. Yes, it’s quiet because I’m at home. No, I have not been drinking. I am most definitely sober. Yes, yes, yes… No, I do realise… I actually do have a monster that needs to be… witchered? No, it’s not just one, actually… It’s- it’s a couple of things, really. I know it’s Christmas. Yes, I see your point. But… isn’t Geralt working anyway?’

He waited as the line went quiet for a while. ‘Yes, I did just ask for Geralt,’ he confirmed.

No response. Vesemir must have moved away from the phone, and there was a sound of distant chatter. When he returned his voice was hesitant. ‘You’re sure about this?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I definitely want Geralt here. As soon as possible would be grand,’ Jaskier confirmed again, surprised at how confident he sounded.

‘Fine,’ Vesemir said finally, before hanging up right away, voice a bit more irritated than the situation justified.

Jaskier put the phone away and tried to force himself to breathe again.

You can read the rest on AO3.

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

Extra thanks to @ohmybgosh @variousnoises

@thelastsock​ @jaskierswolf​ @rawrkinjd​ @katesierra​ @gilbert-von-kneecap​ @stinastar​ @carmillacarmine​ @ro-the-bard-writer​ @ikeptupwiththejoneses​ @purpleonionofsex​ @marvagon​ @fontegagrilledcheese​ @sarah-midnight​ @geraskierficrecs​ @renfribrooks​ @darknessyuu​ @comfortabletextiles​ @gosh-diddley-darnit​ @ohjules​ @short-potato​ @anie6142​ 

@valdomarx​ I know you don’t read Modern AUs but this one has a wyvern, a rusalka and Geralt is still a witcher. Also, I love you. That’s my argument.

[escape-from-reality-fics]

The Accidental Revelation ❋ E-Chan

↳ Pairing: Lee Changmin (E-Chan)/Reader

↳ Word Count: 3,739

⁙ Summary: You and Changmin go to a party to celebrate your friends recent successes. It doesn’t exactly go as planned when a secret gets revealed during a fight

⚠️ Warnings: Contains cursing, fighting, mentions of body image and a brief mention of some adult themes. Please do not read if you are triggered by any of these!

“I’m so excited!~” You can’t help but squeal, wiggling happily in the passenger seat of your boyfriend’s car. Changmin glanced over at you from his spot behind the steering wheel and chuckled, enjoying your sparkly eyed expression. 

“You haven’t seen Kenzie in a while huh? Even though her and Junseo are a thing now,” Changmin mused to himself, smoothly turning the car onto another street, getting closer and closer to your destination.

“It’s because she’s always busy! She told me the last time we spoke that she had like 20 bookings for this month alone and another 15 people wait-listed. Her business is taking off,” you praise her, feeling proud of your best friend for pursuing her dream of being a photographer. 

Changmin reaches for your hand, bringing it to his face to leave a sweet peck against your palm. You giggle to yourself, lacing your fingers with his. You turn back to stare out the window, always keen to watch the surroundings fly by in a rush of colors. Your mind was also turning, having found out some very important news just a week ago. You’d found out you’re pregnant and you had no clue how to bring it up to Changmin. This trip would be the perfect distraction from the conflict you were feeling.

Ten minutes later Changmin is pulling to a stop outside of a rustic house, something not very common in South Korea but very much beautiful. The both of you exit the car, stretching your legs from the not-so long, but traffic filled drive. Changmin comes around to your side of the car, putting an arm around your shoulders as you tilt your head back to admire his handsome face. 

“How did I manage to get the most handsome man in the world to be my boyfriend huh? I must have done some good deeds in my previous life,” you joke, watching as his mouth splits into a wide grin, leaning down to peck his lips to yours briefly. You sigh wistfully, your eyes slipping closed and feeling like your life was really complete in that moment. 

“C’mon my love, we have a party to crash,” Changmin reminds you, as your eyes peeled open, his hand pulling you along. Reaching the front door you leaned forward and knocked, also ringing the doorbell for good measure. A minute or so passed before the door swung open, revealing the figure of your best friend Kenzie. 

“AHHHHH! I’m so happy you guys could make it!” She screeched, rushing forward to tackle you into a tight hug. You loudly cackled and hugged her back, tilting her from side to side. Changmin watched the outburst with the air of someone who has seen it countless times, slipping by and heading into the house where you hear shouts of his name. 

“Come on in. Everyone else is in the living room playing Uno, but I’m pretty sure Harry-June and Sungmin are in the kitchen raiding the snacks by now. I told them they could only have some once you two arrived,” Kenzie explained, leading the way into her big house. You were well acquainted with the layout having been there times and times before but the size still always took you by surprise. 

“Well hello boys!~ Who’s winning? It better be Seongsik because I have a bet with Changmin I am NOT losing,” you laugh, watching as they all whip their heads to where you’re standing. 

“Well sad to say (Y/N) but you might be losing that bet. I’ve got the most cards,” Seongsik laughs as you crumple beside Dongil on the couch, pretend groaning in despair. Yuku laughs from where he sits a few feet away and you smile back at the ray of sunshine himself. Turning back, you watch as they continue their game, Heechan being crowned the winner. Changmin returns from the kitchen with Harry-June and Sungmin, the three of them carrying armfuls of chips and chocolates. 

“I think some people have already started eating without us. How rude,” you tease, pointing out the chocolate smears on the lips of Sungmin who blushes profusely at being caught. Him and Harry-June settle down on the floor around the coffee table, the huge L shaped couch being filled by everyone else. Changmin shoves Gwanghyun over, taking the spot on your left as the younger boy complains, squeezing closer to Seongsik. 

“So now that everyone is here, we have snacks and drinks and the games are set up, are we ready to get this party started?!” Kenzie announces, as everyone cheers, excited for what’s sure to be a fun night. 

Kenzie grabs her PS4 controllers, handing them out to whoever wins rock-paper-scissors. The winners end up being Sungmin, Junseo, Changmin and Heechan. They decide to boot up some type of shooting game, becoming immersed fairly quickly. 

“Hey (Y/N) did you want to come play Cards Against Humanity with us? Or do you wanna watch the boys play their game?” Seongsik asks, pulling out the big black box and getting it set up on the coffee table. 

“Sure but just to warn y’all I’m gonna win,” you say cockily, sliding down from your spot beside Changmin, moving to sit at the coffee table. You swipe up your cards, taking a peek at your options before smirking. 

You pass the time by playing the game, occasionally having other boys switch out to play some games on the PS4. Changmin let’s one of the younger boys take his controller, needing a break from shooting computer generated aliens. You’re in the middle of placing a card down when you feel his hands run through your hair, leaning back to further his ministrations. 

“Minnie?” You pout, staring up at him with the best puppy dog eyes you could muster, obviously wanting something. He stares back down at you, replicating your pout horribly before whining back. 

“Yes (N/N)? What can I do for you?” 

“Can you get me cake or chocolate or something? I really want something sweet all of a sudden,” you ask, barely finishing your sentence before he’s standing up and strolling to the kitchen. 

“Wow you have him whipped huh?” Gwanghyun teases from beside you, placing his card down and waiting for Harry-June to read them out. Yuku leans over to ask Sungmin what whipped means, nodding his head seriously as the older boy answers. 

“He’s not whipped! He’s just being a caring boyfriend is all,” you shove him playfully before letting out a loud whoop at winning the game. Kenzie, Gwanghyun and Heechan all sigh at their respective losses. 

“Hey I’m gonna run and grab some drinks from the garage really quick, don’t start the next game without me!” Kenzie warns, grabbing a hold of Junseo as she passes him, basically being voluntold into helping her. The boy himself looks quite smitten however, a blush painted across his cheeks as his girlfriend tugs him away. You stand up from your spot and shake out the numbness in your legs from sitting cross-legged. 

“I’m gonna go pee really fast. Be right back,” you inform Harry-June who scrunches his nose up while at your too much information moment. Yuku nods from beside him, giving you a small thumbs up as he shuffles the cards. 

Ruffling his hair you stroll to the bathroom and do what you need to do, taking a bit of time in there to freshen up and fix any stray hairs. You barely take 5 minutes in the bathroom, returning quickly to the living room but stopping in your tracks. 

On the coffee table is an empty plate, chocolate icing smears present. Kenzie is sitting barely a foot away, licking the exact same icing off a fork. For some unknown reason this fills you with annoyance. 

“What’re you eating?” You huff, coming closer to the coffee table but not sitting down quite yet. She looks up at you, eyeing the way your hands are held on your hips and your mouth set in a small frown. 

“Oh there was a piece of cake sitting here so I just took the liberty of eating it. I think it was the last piece too but I’m not too sure,” she says, reaching forward on the table to deal herself some cards, before looking back up at you. 

“Aren’t you gonna sit down and play another game?”

“I was until someone had to go and eat the cake that was mine,” you respond snootily, arms now crossed over your chest as you shifted your weight to your left hip, something that was a clear tell for you being mad. 

“Yours? (Y/N) it was literally just sitting here on the table. No one’s name was on it,” Kenzie rolled her eyes, believing it was silly to be arguing about a slice of cake. That was the final straw for you.

“Are you kidding me, Kenzie? Usually if there is food sitting somewhere and no one is near it you’d at least ask who it belongs to!” You growl angrily, jabbing a finger in her direction. The boys are starting to notice the fight building up, wearily looking between the two of you. It’s Junseo who bites the bullet and tries to calm the both of you down.

“Let’s just take a breath here. Can’t we just get (Y/N) another piece of cake? Problem solved!” Junseo says soothingly, putting himself between you both as Kenzie stands up to meet your fiery gaze. Yuku and Harry-June are nervously glancing between the two of you, not expecting their older sister figures to fight. 

“Uh that would be a problem solved if that wasn’t the last piece of chocolate cake,” Changmin whispers into the air, the tension becoming so thick it could be cut with a knife. Kenzie gently pushes Junseo to the side, stepping in front of you and giving you a fake sympathetic smile. 

“Maybe if (Y/N) didn’t feel the need to be a fatass all the time we wouldn’t be having this problem. You don’t need to eat shit all the time you know?” Kenzie hisses, pointing at the small amount of chub around your belly, something you were always insecure about. 

“Are you being fucking for real right now? I don’t eat like shit all the time. You just have to be a fucking bitch and mess with me!” You seethe, waving an arm at her. 

By this point Changmin had also stepped forward, trying and failing to pull you away from the situation. Junseo is doing the same to Kenzie but the both of you refuse to budge. You can see from the corner of your eye the worried expressions and stances of the other boys, preparing for a fight to go down.

“I will actually fucking drag you right now if you don’t shut the fuck up!” Kenzie yells, shoving your shoulder as you stumble back a bit. You steel yourself and give her a good push back, seething in anger. 

“Fucking try me, I dare you! You’re too fucking pussy!” 

“Oh really?! I’ll fucking drag you across the floor and outta this house! I don’t care that you’re pregnant!” She screams in your face, raising her hand and slapping you harshly as you reel back in shock never expecting her to use that against you as she was the only one you confided in. Everyone around you had gone quiet, expressions varying from shock to surprise. Changmin’s hand loosely wraps around your wrist and you vaguely hear a shocked whisper of the word ‘pregnant’ but you’re too far gone to care. 

“Oh it’s fucking on you hoe! I’ll drag you any day whether I’m pregnant or not!” You yell, giving her a harsh punch to the side of her jaw, grabbing her hair for good measure. She retaliates and starts clawing at you as the two of you break into a full on fist fight. 

It lasts barely more than 15 seconds before everyone is breaking the two of you up. Junseo and Seongsik drag Kenzie away, taking her in the direction of the kitchen as you notice with triumph that she is sporting a few good scratches and bruises. 

Changmin takes this chance to gently lead you away, finding the guest bedroom and sitting you on the fluffy duvet, crossing his arms as he stares down at you with a mix of disappointment and concern. 

“She had it coming to her so don’t you go giving me a huge speech about me being in the wrong,” you grumble, crossing your arms but wincing, noticing the scratch marks going down your arm. Changmin notices and sighs, going into the on suite bathroom and wetting a face cloth to clean you up. 

“I’m not gonna lecture you sweetheart. I just wanna know what went through your head to start a full on fist fight with your best friend of 17 years… Over a piece of cake?” Changmin asks, pushing away hair from your face that Kenzie had pulled. 

“I-I don’t even know honestly. I was just looking forward to that cake and she took it from me. All that I felt was immense anger and she didn’t make it any better by not apologizing,” you murmur, putting your face in your hands as what you’d done settles in. Silence settles heavily into the air, Changmin shifting his weight as he stands crouches in front of you, dabbing at the scratches on your arm. 

“What she said…. Is it true? About you, uhm, being pregnant?” Changmin’s hesitant and fragile voice filters through your ears, making your head shoot up to look at him with surprise. You feel your heart thrumming in your chest out of pure nervousness, not knowing whether he would be happy or upset that you were expecting. 

“Changmin I-I was going to tell you I swear! I just didn’t know how and I didn’t know if you’d be angry or upset with me. We’re still so young and we aren’t married. Heck, you’re only in the beginning of your career and I haven’t even started mine. I’m just so scared,” you finish in tears, sobs escaping as you hastily try and wipe your eyes. 

Changmin doesn’t say anything, instead just gathering you into his arms. You bury your tear soaked face into his chest as he murmurs soothing words, running his hands up and down your back to comfort you. 

“I’m definitely not angry. Shocked for sure, but never angry. I sorta wish I was told in a different way as well, but I’m happy! I’m gonna be a dad!” Changmin says, a smile prominent on his lips and happy tears welling in his eyes. You smile back, wrapping your arms around his neck and giving him a long peck on the lips.

“I’m so thankful to have you be my soulmate,” you murmur against his lips, feeling him pull you closer onto his lap intending to further what you were starting. You were almost on board but stopped and pulled away, feeling the stinging pain on your cheek as a reminder of what just went down. 

“As much as I’d love to continue what we were starting, I should probably go see if Kenzie is okay and apologize,” you hum, standing up from Changmin’s lap as he groans, trying to fix his pants to hide the tent that had started forming. 

“Fine, but you owe me later,” he grumbles, following you out into the hall as you lace your fingers with his. You giggle at his obvious irritation.

“Don’t worry baby when we get home I’ll make it up to you,” you whisper seductively, cackling at the expression of pure want that flutters across his face. Shaking your head you continue on your way, stepping into the living room moments later.

Most of the boys were all sitting around the TV, playing their video game again and looking up in surprise when you entered the room. You glance around and notice that Kenzie, Junseo and Seongsik aren’t anywhere to be seen. 

“Hey (Y/N), are you feeling a bit better now?” Dongil asks gently, wearily eyeing the scratch marks on your arm and reddened hand print on your cheek. Yuku also is staring at you worriedly and you feel bad for setting such a horrible example for the younger boy. Nodding, you give Dongil and Yuku a small, sheepish smile. 

“Yeah I’m all good. I sorta need to talk to Kenzie though?” You trail off, feeling everyone's sympathetic stares on you. Heechan nods in the direction of the kitchen, focusing on winning the game. You huff at him but shuffle towards the kitchen anyways, Changmin letting go of your hand to go join the others. 

You end up peeking your head around the doorframe of the kitchen, watching Kenzie’s back as she flies around while ordering Seongsik and Junseo to do things for her. Your brows furrowed in confusion as you come out from around the corner, catching Junseo’s eyes as he gives you a small smile. 

“Ah I think Seongsik-hyung and I should go see if the others need anything!” Junseo squawks, yanking Seongsik out of the room as the older boy complains. Kenzie goes to protest their retreat before taking notice of you, the words dying on her lips. 

“Uh hi,” you say awkwardly, giving a small wave as she eyes you up. Kenzie purses her lips and turns back around to whatever she is doing, making you deflate a little. 

“I’m sorry,” you hear come from where she is standing by the counter, furiously mixing something in a large stainless steel bowl. You almost didn’t catch what she said, having to strain your ears to hear her whispered apology. 

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I started a fight all because of a stupid slice of cake. And with my friend of 17 years at that,” you chuckle, moving to stand beside her as she looks up at you with tears shining in her eyes. 

“I didn’t mean any of what I said. Words just spilled out and I said horrible things. I’m so sorry!” She says remorsefully, wiping a tear that slides down her cheek. Pulling her into a hug you shush her. 

“We both said some pretty bad things and even got physical but sometimes shit happens. All we can do is acknowledge it, apologize and move on,” you pull away and hand her a paper towel from the roll on the counter. Kenzie chuckles and dabs at her eyes.

“You’re right of course. Which is why I’m making a whole cake for you and Changmin to take home. I also shouldn’t have outed your pregnancy like that. I knew you were scared to tell him and I still used it against you,” she looks down at her sock covered feet shamefully as you hum. 

“Well I would have never found a better way to tell him so at least I have a story we can tell our kid and laugh about,” you tease, pulling a loud laugh from Kenzie who shakes her head in amusement. 

“Friends?” You say, reaching a finger into the cake batter on the counter, smearing it across her cheek as she squeals. Kenzie ends up returning the favour, the two of you now matching. 

“Friends.” 

“Well I guess we should go reassure the boys that we aren’t ripping each other's hair out anymore!” You say cheerfully, watching as Kenzie pops the cake batter into a baking pan and puts it in the oven, setting a timer. 

The two of you exit the kitchen, giggling at each other and wiping the cake batter of your faces. The living room had gone strangely silent and you looked up to see everyone wearily watching. Changmin and Junseo are on the edges of their seats, wary about another fight breaking out. 

“Don’t worry gentlemen. Kenzie and I have duked it out and we’re all good now!” You say, pulling her into a side hug and giving her a noogie to which she whines at. 

“Good cause if I had to break up another fight I would start charging fees,” Gwanghyun mumbles, watching the two of you fondly with a slightly disgruntled expression. Plopping yourself on the couch, you snuggle into Changmin’s side. 

“So you’re both good now? No more fights over cake?” He asks, raising an eyebrow mockingly. You hum, putting a finger to your chin as you pretend to think.

“Well there’s no guarantee I won’t punch her if she steals my cake again. We’ll see!” Laughing at their expressions, shaking your head. 

“So uh, pretty sure you all heard what Kenzie said earlier and I’m pretty sure you are all eagerly waiting for me to confirm or deny. Yes I am pregnant and yes you will all be uncles. And an aunt,” you announce, watching as all the boys plus Kenzie stand up and start cheering and exclaiming loudly. 

“So our kid is gonna have 8 crazy uncles and 1 crazy aunt. I hope they’re prepared,” Changmin cackles, watching his band mates and friends still celebrating. 

“And to think, this all happened because of a piece of chocolate cake!” 

~17 Years Later~

“So Dad only found out you were pregnant with me because you and Auntie Kenzie had a fist fight over cake?” Your son asks you, watching his Aunts and Uncles chatter and laugh with each other around your spacious backyard. 

“Yep! And on the way home I tried suggesting to your Dad to let me name you chocolate cake but he said no, sadly. He said no for your younger brothers as well,” you sigh wistfully, remembering each time you had asked Changmin to let you name at least one of your three children after what you both liked to call “The Accidental Revelation”. 

“Mom, I mean this with all respect, but sometimes I don’t know what Dad sees in you,” your youngest son laughs at your offended expression. 

“Hey I love your Mom a lot! Even if her choice of baby names is a bit…. Unconventional,” Changmin comments, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind and pressing a kiss against your cheek. 

“EW NO PDA!” Your middle son yells as he tries to cover his younger brother’s eyes, getting shoved away.

“Maybe we should try for a fourth and finally name them chocolate cake!” You say cheerfully, clasping your hands together as Changmin and your sons stare at you in disbelief. 

“NO!”

“Aw man!”

[papa-rhys]

Shared Empires (Rhys X Reader)

Note: Wow it’s literally been like over a year and a half since I wrote/posted fanfic, how do I even format this shit? I legit can’t remember so here goes

Warnings: none

Word count: 2131

Category: fluff

It’s been seven years since the fiasco with Handsome Jack and Hyperion, but you still can’t shake that blasted gaudy yellow colour from your mind’s eye whenever you see Rhys. 

             It’s hardly fair to keep associating him with the limp-dicked prick that awakened the Warrior - Rhys is the opposite of Jack in every way, except for the zeros in his bank account and the need to have an office with ceilings that are far too high (how are you supposed to kill spiders when they’re that high up?) Rhys is bumbly and friendly and harmless enough. And he’s better-looking, too. But that yellow colour is seared into your retinas for an eternity and there’s a tiny part of your unreasonable lizard brain that feels the need to point out Rhys’ involvement in what Hyperion did every time you come a little too close to enjoying yourself in his presence.

             Still, he’s paying your wages as of right now and a deal is a deal; help him win this war against Maliwan and he’ll make sure you never struggle for a meal again. And if there’s anything at all that you’re good at, it’s killing corporations dead in the water.

             “How you diddling, Mr Hyperion?” you ask, striding into Rhys office and feeling mighty proud of the frown you pull from him. This kind of tingle could only come from irking Rhys, you think. Or from finding the juicy photos Moxxi keeps stashed on her echo device.

             “I thought I told you not to call me that,” Rhys says, handing you a gun as you cross the floor of his office and reach him where he stands. 

             “You did,” you chirp, cheerfully, “I just didn’t listen. What’s this for?”

             Rhys straightens his back, puffs his chest out a little; all the hallmarks of a man who’s ever-so-proud of himself. He stands with his hands on his hips and his chin held high and you’re itching to throw out another teasing insult, just to bring him down a peg. It’s not fair to tease him so often and you know it, but lord is it fun to see him blush. And you’re, like, ninety percent certain he enjoys it, too.

             “That is the finest Atlas weapon on the market,” he informs you. “It’s a reward… for killing that nutjob with the miniguns... You’re welcome.” 

             You look the gun over and shrug with one shoulder, then you stash it in your backpack and shrug the bag off, lobbing it onto one of the too-big sofas in the lavish seating area of the office. There’s no way in any reality that Rhys reads enough books to justify the size of those bookshelves, but you suppose rich people have to spend their money on something.

             “What’s next on the to-do list, then, boss?” you ask, hopping up and sitting on the back of the sofa, swinging your legs back and forth.

             “Okay, I could really get used to you calling me boss,” Rhys says. “It’s... actually kind of a turn on, so let’s not talk about that anymore. Nothing is the answer to your question.” You pull your head back against the barrage of words that just flitted your way, but there’s no time to process them. Rhys is talking again. It seems he does that often. “There’s nothing on the to-do list,” he continues. “For once, we have a break in the chaos. Can’t tell you the last time that happened, I’m actually kinda miffed about it. I’m very accustomed to fearing for my life. But we’re off the clock for a while, so relish in the quiet for a while. You earned it!”

             You let yourself slip backwards onto the sofa, laying upside down and stretching your arms out each side of you. He’s not the only one who’s used to living a fast-paced life. Quiet is the exact opposite of your job description. Shooting, murdering, setting things on fire - all things that you’re far more suited to.

             “Whatever will I do with all of this free time?” you ask, gazing up at the ceiling and watching a spider making the trek from one side to the other. Maybe Rhys has a step ladder he uses to kill them?

             Rhys meddles with something out of view and music begins playing on a record player at the edge of the room - the soft, sweet kind that couples dance to; not the tedious wub-wubs that claptrap tortures you all with. Rhys comes back into view again when he leans over the back of the sofa, resting on his elbows. “We could try some dancing?” He says the words like he’s asking a question, wincing slightly as he tests the waters. 

             This is one of those moments that lizard brain ruins; reminding you of Rhys’ past and what it meant to you seven years ago. The fighting and the taunting and the constant cat and mouse. The people you lost, the ones you couldn’t save. Jack’s barrage of insults and moonshots; spat at you in equal measure. Rhys could have pushed the button on any one of those moonshots, your lizard brain suggests. He was complicit.

             But that was then, wasn’t it? And this is now. He learned lessons from Jack. He’s different. And there’s no point in fighting for the future if you still spend all of your time in the past. It’s okay to enjoy a little taste of what you’re fighting for.

             A smile spreads slowly across your lips and you cock an eyebrow. “You? Dancing? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

             “You’ve never seen my dancing,” he says accusingly, though there’s an upwards slant to one side of his mouth. “I have moves like no one else.” 

             “No doubt about that,” you tease, letting him help you up off the sofa.

             The music tinkles and hums in the background as the two of you head for the centre of the office, surrounded by nothing but empty space. You shake out your hands and feet, warming up like you’re gearing for battle, and Rhys shakes his head with a smile.

             “You really don’t know how to be graceful, do you?” he asks.

             “Don’t get paid to be graceful, Rhysie boy,” you reply, rolling your neck until it cracks softly. “I get paid to kill stuff.”

             “Well, let’s hang fire on that for now, shall we?” Rhys holds out his hands and you take them, letting him guide you. He’s better at dancing than you thought he’d be, but only slightly. Better - [quotation marks] - meaning he hasn’t yet tripped over his feet. But the night is still young, so you’ll not rule that out just yet.

             He spins you and dips you and you both mutter a wealth of light-hearted insults between the pair of you. His bright smile could almost trick you into thinking he’s good at this. That he’s not a bumbling idiot with a too-big office and two left feet. A part of him is actually quite suave... in his own way.

             “Am I impressing you?” he asks.

             “Give me a minute and I’ll decide,” you smile as he spins you around on the spot.

             “Oh, come on, I’m impressing you. Admit it, I’m great at this.”

             He pulls a laugh from you, and against your better judgement, you allow it. There’s no way he’ll ever let you forget it if you compliment him on his dancing skills, so you opt for something with a little more self-preservation. A safe middle ground.

             “You’re making a good effort,” you offer.

             “Pfft,” comes the reply. He twirls you outwards and pulls you back in again.

             “Okay then, hotshot,” you say, landing against his chest with a soft oof, the breath catching in your chest. “You’re a lot better than I expected you’d be. How’s that?”

             He grins widely, the smile reaching his eyes. One of them is blue, the other a hazel colour that looks almost as electronically enhanced as the other. Do eyes naturally come in colours that bright? There’s a moment that seems to stretch for an extraordinarily long length of time, where you find yourself questioning the bizarre and totally irrational urge to do something weird, like kissing him or something. What madness that would be, right? Crazy. 

             You’ve both slowed down, now, the dancing mostly forgotten. All that’s left is a gentle sway as he speaks. “I wanna ask you something,” he says. “But I’m a little bit terrified of you.”

             “A little bit terrified?” you echo. “No need to be scared of me unless you’re thinking about cutting my wages.”

             He gives a nervous laugh that fades off as quickly as it’d had appeared. “Your wages are safe with me,” he says. “But that’s kind of along the lines of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

             “Go on…”

             Rhys spins you around to face the window behind his desk, the entire city visible beyond it in all its glowing glory. The neon lights paint a million different colours on the floor of the office and the sky is speckled with explosions that almost look pretty if you imagine that they’re not a product of war. The whole office is flooded by the view, buildings visible through every window.

             “I wanna share this with you,” Rhys says. “All of it.”

             “What do you mean?” you ask him, the light flooding your eyes, overloading you with input.

             “I don’t want all this to myself,” he explains. “It’s too much. Kingdoms are meant to be shared, right? Well, I wanna share this one with you. If you’d want that, obviously.”

             “You mean, like, business partners?”

             He laughs, nervous again. “If business partners are in love with each other, then yeah, I guess.” 

             You turn to face him and look up at him with your eyebrows raised. Now it’s your turn to blush; not an easy task for someone to accomplish. Touche, Mr Hyperion.

             “I shouldn’t have said that, should I?” he asks, watching you as you look up at him, slightly dumbfounded. Then he seems to cave in on himself a little, shoulders slumping. “I know you’re only here because I’m paying you to be here and I know you’re waaaaay too cool to ever feel that way about an idiot like me, but I figured I’d give it a try anyway, you know? And see if maybe you’d - “

             You push up onto your toes and press a kiss to his lips, cursing him for being lanky enough to make you put effort into kissing him. If he were any taller, you’d need a harness and those stabby things that rock climbers jab into cliff faces. 

             He holds onto your waist as you kiss and for all his bumbling and lack of self-assurance, he soon takes to it, cupping your jaw with one hand and leaning down to meet you halfway.

             Your own hands take hold of the collar of his vest, gripping fabric on either side and using it to pull him towards you. With shuffling steps, the two of you are edging towards the desk as one, all stumbling and heavy breathing, carefully making your way up the shallow steps, until you hit the edge of the desk. 

             “I don’t think this is an appropriate way to act with your employees,” you breathe.

             “Then you’re fired,” Rhys says. “There; now you’re not an employee.”

             Your heart hammers in your chest, pulse thrumming in your ears to match the beat. Wobbly legs and and a woozy light-headedness tell you that your body is pumping adrenaline through you at record pace. It’s different than the feeling you get on the battlefield; you feel so much more out of your depth here. Out there, you have a rhythm - motions to go through. Routine. But here, you’re just going with the flow, not quite knowing what you’re doing. A new partner means a new rhythm. A new pattern to be learned. What makes Rhys tick? What does he like and dislike? What does he - 

             “Oh!” 

             The two of you break apart at the sound of the voice coming from the doorway. Surprise in both of your faces matches the surprise in Lorelei’s voice. She watches you with her arms folded across her chest and her hip jutted out to one side as you and Rhys gather yourselves up.

             “If I had a dollar for every time I’d walked in on you in a compromising position, I’d be able to buy you out,” she tells Rhys. He smiles uncomfortably and fixes his tie. “But this takes the bloody cake,” she adds.

             “We were celebrating,” you offer.

            ��Lorelei hums. “I’ll bet,” she says, looking amused. “But you were celebrating prematurely. Maliwan just showed up at the front door and they’re not bothering to ring the doorbell. Need you outside, Vault Hunter.”

             Rhys sighs heavy and turns to you, the last traces of his pant visible in the way his chest moves with each breath. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

             “Yeah,” you agree, sighing. You smooth out your hair and make your way over to the seating area to collect your backpack, crossing the room on shaky legs. Hauling your bag onto your shoulders, you pick out your favourite gun and check that it’s loaded. “Alright,” you muse, nodding to Rhys and then to Lorelei, “back to work, then.”

[gigi-sinclair]

Cendrillon (crossover with “Versailles”, Guillaume/Thomas Jopson, rated G)

Blame it on @rubysharkruby, and specifically this gifset. Also, I believe it was @oochilka who said “a Thomas Jopson for every Matthew McNulty character”, and I can thoroughly get behind that. 

If you haven’t seen “Versailles”, I would say Guillaume is more or less a 17th century French Edward Little. The poor guy just wants to do his job. 

For the @theterrorbingo Free Space, and my third Bingo!!!

“I hear you are cobbler to the King.”

Guillaume looks up from the tannery workbench. In front of him stands the most beautiful man he's ever seen, tall and dark-haired. He's dressed simply, as a servant, but he is as lovely as any aristocratic flower Guillaume has glimpsed at Versailles.  

“We work for all sorts of people,” Jeanne calls across the workshop. The man glances at her. “None of our clients have ever been dissatisfied.”

“But you are correct,” Guillaume says, bringing the man's startling blue gaze back to him. “We are fortunate enough to have a position at court.” At least until the King catches wind of Jeanne's disloyal sentiments.

“My master is in sore need of new shoes.” He has an accent, Guillaume remarks. English, although his French is very good. “But I am afraid he dislikes leaving home. I would be most grateful if somebody could go to him.”

Guillaume is far too busy with the King and the orders from court these days to take on such errands himself, but he finds himself strangely loath to assign the task to someone else.

“Where do you live?”

“My master's home is outside Menuls-lès-Saint-Cloud.” A fair ride from the workshop. A trip out there would certainly take more time than Guillaume has to spend.

“I can come tomorrow afternoon.” He can sense Jeanne's eyebrows go up, but ignores her. It's easy enough to do when the man bestows upon him a smile dazzling enough to put butterflies in Guillaume's stomach and palpitations in his heart. He even has dimples, Guillaume notes, with simultaneous despair and elation. He has always been inordinately fond of dimples.

“Thank you, monsieur. He is a very particular gentleman, he only wants the best.” The man gives Guillaume a look that can only be described as meaningful. Even after his experiences at court, where volumes are spoken with looks and gestures, Guillaume does not possess the skills to discern that meaning. He takes the address, and bids the man a farewell which is ridiculously forlorn, given they are complete strangers.

As soon as he is gone, Guillaume hears Jeanne scoff.

“You have something to say, dear sister?”

“Merely that I am pleased to see you taking work for someone other than His Majesty. And that your familiarity with the Duc d'Orléans seems to have affected you in more ways than one.” This meaning could not be clearer, and she could not be more wrong.

Guillaume knows of Philippe's proclivities, naturally. Those same proclivities lived in Guillaume long before he met Philippe. He wonders, at times, if that was what encouraged friendship to blossom between them, even more than their shared experiences in the war.

“If you are short of work, Jeanne, I'm certain I can find you something to do.” His tone is less imperious than he would like, but she says no more.

***

The mysterious gentleman's home is a moderately sized villa, tidy with a well-kept garden. It is not the home of an aristocrat, but nor is it a place for a pauper. The handsome servant himself greets Guillaume at the door.

Overnight, Guillaume almost managed to convince himself he had exaggerated the man's appearance. He, who had seemed an angel on Earth in the tannery, would no doubt appear ordinary or even plain in the light of day.

Guillaume was wrong. The man is as lovely now as he was yesterday. As he greets Guillaume with another of those astonishing smiles, Guillaume hears himself ask, “What is your name?”

 “Jopson, monsieur. Thomas.” He says it the English way. Tom-mass. It is utterly delightful.

“I am Guillaume,” Guillaume tells him, as Thomas leads him into the house.

“Yes,” Thomas replies. Amusement colours his voice. “I know.”

A man awaits them in the drawing room. Although the weather is mild, he sits before the fire. Like the house itself, this room is well-kept without being extravagant, with tall bookshelves against several of the walls, and paintings of seascapes on the others. The gentleman is not elderly, but Guillaume recognizes the ravages of drink on his face.

“Captain Crozier,” Thomas says, in English. Guillaume can understand a little, although he would never attempt to speak it. “We are honoured with a visit from the King's shoemaker.”

Crozier casts his eyes across Guillaume's person, then snorts. “All right, then. Let's get on with it.”

Captain Crozier—given the seascapes, Guillaume assumes he is a naval captain, or was one, rather than an army captain—suffers from severe bunions. He winces as Guillaume measures his feet, although Guillaume is as gentle as possible. After marching for years with his own troops, this is a condition with which Guillaume has great sympathy.

“Tell him,” Guillaume says to Thomas, as he wraps up his measuring tape, “I will make him the most comfortable shoes he has ever owned.”

His words make Thomas' eyes light up. At once, Guillaume wishes to do that again, and again. “Oh, that would be very much appreciated.” Thomas repeats the sentence in English to the captain, who laughs derisively.

“He wouldn’t be the first to say that. But I welcome his attempt.” The captain's gaze goes to Thomas. “Why don't you have a pair made yourself, as well, Thomas?”

“Me, sir?”

“If his shoes are as good as he claims, then you surely deserve some of your own. You're on your feet far more than I.”

A fetching blush comes to Thomas' cheeks. “That's very kind, sir.” He turns to Guillaume. “My master has kindly offered me a pair of my own. If you don't mind...”

“Not at all.”

Thomas sits on the nearest chair, and removes his current shoes. They are of very poor quality, badly made to begin with and crudely patched on top of that. Guillaume wishes he had brought a pair of completed shoes for Thomas to wear while his are being made.

Guillaume has seen a lot of feet in his time. In and of themselves, they have never interested him, but Thomas' feet are strangely fascinating.

Guillaume bites his lip, striving to maintain the highest level of professionalism. The level that has kept him at court, even if Philippe's influence was obviously what first opened the door. He takes Thomas' measurements as briskly and efficiently as he did his master's, until he arrives at Thomas' left instep.

It is high. Before he can consider what he's doing, Guillaume traces it with his index finger. Even through Thomas' stocking, Guillaume can feel the heat of his body. He twitches, but does not pull his foot away. Rather, he pushes back, just a little, then raises his gaze to meet Guillaume's.

Guillaume feels his own face heat to match the blush darkening Thomas'. He pulls his hand away.

“I shall deliver the shoes myself, once completed.” The vow is rash. He might be called to Versailles at any time.

“I look forward to it, monsieur,” Thomas replies, in a low voice that does not quite suit a conversation about shoes.

***

As promised, the shoes Guillaume makes for Thomas and his master are among the finest he's created. The leather is richly tanned, supple beneath his fingers, and the stitching is exquisite, if he does say so himself. For all his sins, Guillaume is not usually a prideful man. He is proud of these shoes, and excited to present them to their new owners.

To one of their new owners in particular. He smiles to himself on the ride up to Menuls-lès-Saint-Cloud. He would say he feels as giddy as a schoolboy, but Guillaume was always a serious child.

“Good afternoon, monsieur!” Guillaume did not write ahead to announce his arrival, but Thomas greets him as if he was expected. “I'm afraid Captain Crozier has taken ill.”

“I hope it is nothing serious.”

A delicate frowns settles upon Thomas' forehead. “No,” he says, sounding tired. “It is quite usual.”

There is nothing to be said to that. “I have your shoes.” Guillaume holds up the bag in his hand. It seems an idiotic statement—why else would he have come?—but Thomas brightens, the frown disappearing.

“Please, do come in. I'm so eager to see them.”  

He takes Guillaume to the same room they were in before. Guillaume sets aside the shoes made for the captain, and unveils Thomas' pair. “They're wonderful!” Thomas exclaims. “Might I try them?”

“Of course.” The prudent course of action would be to hand the shoes to Thomas, to let him put them on himself. Instead, Guillaume says, “Please, sit.”

Guillaume has spent a great deal of his life as a supplicant. Before God, before the King. It feels just as natural to go to his knees before Thomas, to take one of his stocking-clad feet in hand and slide it into the shoe. The fit, of course, is exact.  

“My goodness.” Guillaume looks up. Thomas' cheeks are rosy, his lips parted in a way that makes Guillaume feel quite warm. “That's lovely.” He clears his throat, as Guillaume sets down that foot and takes up his other one. “In Italy, the captain and I heard a story about a lady who flees from a royal ball, and is found again by the perfect fit of a slipper she left behind. Do you know the tale?”

��I have heard a similar one at court.” Guillaume remembers Philippe recounting it to him, thinking, no doubt, that the subject matter would appeal.  

Thomas holds his gaze. “Then you will know that the one who returns her slipper is a charming prince. Like you, Guillaume.”

Guillaume swallows. “I am far from a prince.”

“Perhaps.” He reaches out to rest his hand on Guillaume's shoulder. His touch is light. Still, it makes Guillaume's heart beat faster. “But I find you very charming indeed.”

He moves slowly. Guillaume has ample opportunity to shift away, to get up and leave, to reject what Thomas is clearly offering. He does none of that. Instead, he allows Thomas to sit on the floor beside him, to take Guillaume in his arms, and, finally, to press a kiss, soft and tentative, against Guillaume's lips.

Despite the circles he now moves in, despite his close friendship with the King's only brother, Guillaume is a simple man. He is not ashamed of that. There is a natural hierarchy to the world, and Guillaume is well aware of his place within it.

And my place at the moment, he thinks, wrapping his arms about Thomas and returning kiss with ardour, is exactly where I am now.  

[originaldanganronpascenarios]

Sure go for it lol

Ah yes I actually lied. I ship Rantaro with everyone (With Tenko and Kirumi is my favorite tho). Alsoooo @yawnmeno I promised to tag you each time I post Amacha! (it's me justrandomgrill!)

Rantaro celebrating his birthday with each of his classmates (Ships- in most cases- okay maybe all cases)

Ryoma Hoshi

Ryoma wanted to plan everything before he does anything.

He thought that going somewhere might be nice but now where should they go? There are many good places to go to so it was a tough choice indeed.

He also thought about some nice gift. And he ended up with a journal. He thought it was a good idea and it was.

Now where should they go... There was a lot of places they could go really. But final decision was escape room.

Both of them had a lot of fun and managed to solve everything together. Rantaro thanked him for everything but Ryoma was actually the thankful one for having someone like Rantaro.

Kirumi Tojo

Kirumi was preparing perfect birthday for her boyfriend Rantaro. Day before she cleaned entire apartment (like she normally does but this time she put extra-extra effort into it).

She asked few of her classmates to come and now it was time for even more preparations.

Luckily Rantaro whouldn't be home anytime soon so she could get to work without ruining the surprise. She baked delicious cakes and prepared lost of food. Wich took few hours of her sleep.

Next day the last thing she needed to do was set up decorations and wait for guests. Wich she did quickly. In all this mess she forgot about most important thing! A worthy gift!

It was too late now since she whouldn't find perfect gift last minute! Becouse of that she was really stressed. Kaede tried to calm her down but Kirumi's perfectionist side couldn't belive she forgot about it.

But she had to deal with it. Rantaro whould be any second now.

Once he came home everyone at the party greeted him and party just went amazing.

Even though she had a lot of fun Kirumi was 1: Exhausted 2: Still very mad at herself for forgetting about gift for Rantaro.

Speaking about gifts it was time to give them and Kirumi had to apologize for not getting anything to him. He then looked at her and his expression clearly said 'are you serious???' but in a manner of 'why do you think you gave me nothing when you literally did everything for all of this to take place?' he told her that too.

He then hugged her and kissed her on the cheek adding "You have nothing to apologize for Kirumi" she smiled and felt better.

After party was over and everyone headed outside it was time to clean all mess that was made. Kirumi was visably exhausted so Rantaro was like "Don't you dare clean this now. Go get some sleep" he then picked her up bridal style and made sure she goes to sleep.

Before he went to bed however he quickly hid some leftovers in the fridge.

Gonta Gokuhara

At first he didn't knew what to do. But in the end he got everyone together and they prepared party for Rantaro.

Gonta tried to think of a good gift for him to show how much he appreciated him.

But nothing was good enough and Gonta was desperately trying to find something. And he came across a hat. A beret to be exact.

He suddenly felt like it was the gift he was looking for so he got it.

Then he came back and helped with rest of party preparations. Mostly with the decorations!

He was really excited and couldn't wait to see Rantaro's happy face once he enters the room.

Of course Gonta was the one leading him there so he tried not to tell anything. He was just happy as usual and managed to not say anything until they got there.

The party turned out great and Rantaro really loved gift from Gonta.

Miu Iruma

For his birthday she started thinking about a large amount of inventions. She thought that the best gift was practical one.

And she literally stole his camera to modify it. She knew she whould be scolded if he notices his camera gone and find out that she stole it but she just thought about scenario where she shows him his new camera and thought he'd be happy about it.

She gave it a lot of cool options and was proud of herself. Lucky for her Rantaro didn't notice that the camera was gone.

When it was his birthday she had it finished. So she approached him and gave it to him.

Rantaro was confused that she gave him exact same camera he had but then she started talking about the fact that she modified it and that she in order to do that she stole it.

He couldn't belive her at the moment but he understood why she did it so he just let it go.

K1B0

He thought a lot about his birthday really. But he had trouble thinking of what to get for him.

I mean Rantaro had pretty much everything he needed.

So Keebo tried to plan something small but fun! So they went to a cat Cafe! Believe it or not but it was their first time there.

Keebo was actually fascinated by it. He couldn't eat anything or drink but he really loved the cats.

They had very long conversation and Rantaro really enjoyed that moment.

After nice time they spent in Cafe they went on a walk and it got quite chilly. That's when Keebo remembered that he bought a scarf for him.

They shared it together on their way back.

Kaede Akamatsu

She didn't knew what to give to someone who practically has everything. So she started looking for inspiration and she got an idea wich was something she could play on the piano.

She looked for perfect song that fit Rantaro and he whould like. After thinking for a long time she finally found something perfect fitting.

Of course she thought about making something herself but she knew she whouldn't make it in time. So she trained playing what she came up with.

It was really good song but she felt like it wasn't enough so she bought her a cute gift with was a matching bracelet! It was an avocado-

When she started playing the song on his birthday he really loved the song and he could just sit back and relax. It was really calm and pleasant moment.

And then when she was finished she gave that cute accessory and he loved it. They both had it on.

Kaito Momota

Of course he planned star gazing. But it wasn't just that!

They did actually a lot of things before that. Some quick food some bowling. They were out pretty much entire day!

So when it was time for the best part things actually didn't go as he planned. It started raining so they got home as fast as possible.

Kaito didn't seemed too bothered by it. I mean when one plan fails it means it wasn't best idea right?

They ended up cuddling together while they watched some movies.

Angie Yonaga

She was making her gift obviously. And it was a painting of him and her together. It was a realistic one.

And she was great at keeping it all a secret for how long he wouldn't enter her workshop everything whould be just fine.

It wasn't a problem either since she could just shut it wich she did.

Angie really couldn't wait for his birthday! But she had to be patient.

I mean she pretty much didn't say only about the gift since she pretty much asked him if he wanted to do something together.

So they sorta just had a good time out and by the end of the day she led him towards her workshop and showed him the painting.

He was amazed by it and of course said so!

Shuichi Saihara

Ah yes. He was extremely nervous. He didn't try to prepare any surprise since he knew he whouldn't be able to hide it for long.

So they just spent time together whole day went to the cinema. Pretty basic stuff and both of them were happy to share this moments together.

Shuichi felt a little bit bad that he couldn't make this day God knows how special but Rantaro appreciated it.

After all their date was a success so why should he care if it was God knows how big or oryginal.

Tenko Chabashira

She knew his birthday was now closer with each day and she was really nervous on what should she do.

They were dating sure but they were in early stages of relationship and she tried to come up with something.

In the end she tried to find a good gift for him. No... Good isn't best way to say it. She tried to find perfect gift.

She thought about for very long time and she decided to buy him new camera! Since he travels a lot and he takes a lot of photos she thought that she can buy him one. Then she realized he had a great one already and she couldn't afford better one at the time.

Why is having a perfect rich boyfriend so hard? She literally had tons of ideas but none of them whould work.

She felt pretty much mad about it at this point. While she was walking she got small idea. Maybe she can make something? Ah who am I kidding she wouldn't be able to do anything. But trying won't hurt her so it's better this than nothing

He was slowly getting worried when he saw Tenko acting a little bit bothered so he asked her what's wrong.

She didn't wanted to ruin a surprise (she doesn't have) so she lied about some random dude being rude to her.

Rantaro put his hand on her shoulder and told her not to worry about that guy. And tried to comfort her in general.

This made her feel even worse that she can't do anything for his birthday.

She didn't give up but in the end she finally made something. She asked Angie for help and she made a bracelet all by herself. It was mostly green and blue.

She felt a bit embarrassed since it wasn't perfect but she did it in the end. She gave it to him.

Rantaro found it a cute gift and thanked her. He actually didn't expect to get anything from her but he kept wearing bracelet Tenko made for him.

Himiko Yumeno

Magic show. But not the plain one. She tried to think of least known tricks and practiced it for a shit-ton of time.

She really put a lot of effort into it but she also tried to have some rest since if she whould keep practicing she whouldn't be able to preform.

She also wanted his sisters to come and some were even assisting her.

The show was amazing and Rantaro couldn't help but smile. His sisters had a great time too!

He couldn't thank her enough.

Maki Harukawa

She didn't knew what to do since she herself didn't celebrate any birthdays.

So she came up with something basic. She cooked dinner and prepared small gift for him wich was a photo album.

The album was empty though but the photo on the first page wich was them on their first adventure together.

She smiled while she thought of that time it was very fun trip indeed.

After they ate together and Rantaro received her gift they spend rest of the afternoon looking at photos that whould fit the album.

Together they thought about how many things they went through and how fun it was.

Kokichi Ouma

He was lowkey panicking. He had no ideas on what to give his boyfriend for his birthday.

Trying to think of something Kokichi walked around the town and he thought about something.

He thought about getting him matching scarf to his. It was quite simple but he hoped Rantaro whould like it.

After getting one and when it was his birthday he tied scarf around his neck and hugged him from behind "Happy birthday Rantaro!" he added.

They spent entire day together and Rantaro didn't take off his scarf. He was actually thankful for it.

But back to them spending time they mainly walked around the town doing whatever came to mind. It was actually a lot of fun.

Korekiyo Shinguji

After dating for so long Korekiyo found it frustrating that he couldn't think of anything special for his birthday.

Expecially since he whould be cool with anything really since he just doesn't expect to do anything.

They had currently a small break from traveling so he tried to think of something small but fun.

So they went rock wall climbing. Both of them were pretty experienced with it and they loved it.

After they were finished Korekiyo noticed that he forgot to take something with him- a bag.

You see this bag was the gift he went with and Korekiyo couldn't belive that he forgot it.

However he acted cool with it and tried to mask it with invitation to his place.

Rantaro was alright with it so they went inside and Korekiyo managed to give him that bag. It was actually really cool and from that time he allways used it whenever they traveled together!

Tsumigi Shirogane

She was really excited for his birthday and she thought about a good gift.

Tsumigi actually planned this ahead and she sew for him something. It was a shit of his favorite fictional character.

She actually managed to get his size right and it fit him perfectly. She was really glad he liked his gift.

The two went to the restaurant after that and got some quite fancy dinner. They had amazing time together.

Rest of the day they spent together aswell just cuddling and watching something random on the TV.

~Mod Chiaki

[ilovemygaydad]

title: thievery and trickery

the unneeded sequel to yeah, no

summary: (again, a totally cursed crack fic) as deceit’s things start to go missing, he must venture into the light side to retrieve them. unfortunately, a former acquaintance is finding it the perfect opportunity to make him uncomfortable

pairing: one-sided roceit

warnings: spoilers for dwit, deceit, remus (once), ambiguously sympathetic deceit (it could go either way tbh), lots of sexual innuendos, suggestive language, swearing, frustration, yelling, anger, teasing, intentionally making someone uncomfortable, virgil is a major asshole, caps, implied sexual attraction, embarrassment, and possibly something else

@royallyanxious, since you asked to be tagged

special thanks to @fandomsandanythingelse for being my consultant on this

consider buying me a coffee (god knows i need it after this)

---

Deceit didn’t entirely remember why he had needed to venture into the lighter side of the Mindscape in the first place. It had been something to do with Virgil, that much was sure. Probably retrieving something that had been taken to the Light Side without permission that Deceit had tasked himself to retrieve. He couldn’t remember.

He did remember that he had entered the Light Side and immediately went to the nearest door to find good old Anxiety, only to find the room devoid of the side. Naturally, Deceit had gone further in, hoping to catch Virgil to complete his task. As he walked down the long hallway to the stairs, he checked the game room and the memory vault in case Virgil, for some unknown reason, had decided to skulk around like the emo disaster that he was.

Still nothing.

Deceit had sighed. He loathed having to go into the Light Sides’ common room. They were all, quite frankly, very rude to his person, and Roman was always there being his usual, pretty annoying self. However, he had a goal that needed to be fulfilled, so he trudged down the stairs with only a bit of a pout.

And the second that Deceit stepped into the commons, he knew that he was absolutely, royally fucked.

Because of course Roman chose this day of all days to drape himself on the couch like a god damned living painting. Sure, Creativity was in his normal outfit, but that didn’t make Deceit’s mind go any less haywire. For the briefest moment, Deceit’s mind flashed with all of the other, much better places that he’d like to see Roman in that position, but he put a harsh clamp over them faster than he could say his own name. He’d been assaulted by Remus enough for merely flirting with Roman in the courtroom doing his job; there was exactly zero way in hell that his ass wouldn’t get kicked if any of his stray thoughts ended up in Remus’ hands.

Not to mention that in the corner of the room, staring right at him was Virgil freaking Sanders with the same shit-eating grin that Deceit used to love seeing. The sickeningly sweet smile that foretold mischief.

Yeah.

Deceit was fucked, and he wouldn’t even have finished whatever the hell it was that he’d come to the Light Side to do!

“I don’t need something from you, Virgil,” he said regardless of his forgetting. There needed to be a reason for him to come here, or the others would get suspicious. Lying was what he did best, after all.

“No, of course not,” Virgil said. “You need it from someone else.” His eyes flicked subtly to Roman, who wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation, and back.

Deceit flushed. “That is what I meant.”

“No? I suppose it wouldn’t have been a need so much as a want, right?” He smirked; darkness glinted in his eyes with every word. “My mistake.”

“Oooh!” Roman said suddenly, looking up at the two. “Virgil messed up?”

“Wha—Do you only ever listen to make fun of me, Princey?” Virgil’s smirk turned into a scowl.

“I was merely surprised that you admitted to a wrongdoing. That’s a rare feat.”

“Dude, whatever.” Virgil stood up and walked to the stairs. “I’m gonna do some activities to work out my newfound frustration.” Then, just as he passed by Deceit, he winked and whispered innocently, “Maybe you should, too.”

“I will never understand him,” Roman sighed as he watched Virgil climb the stairs. “I do hope that he paints today, though. His pieces are always more interesting when he’s worked up.”

“Yeah,” Deceit laughed weakly. Without another word, he turned and left.

---

Life had a really fucking funny way of messing with Deceit. Hilarious, one might say.

To him, it was genuinely devastating.

Not three days after his little incident with Virgil, he was forced to go back to the Light Side because another one of his things went missing, and the first still hadn’t been returned. Undoubtedly, Virgil was making some attempt at payback for the courtroom by stealing his precious belongings (you didn’t just steal a guy’s heated blanket--that was cruel). Deceit just wished that he’d get his fill of revenge in a more tasteful way like salt in the sugar bag or bugs in his pasta.

Once again, Virgil wasn’t in his new room, and Deceit was forced to go to the commons. Where, once again and just to his luck, he was greeted by Virgil and Roman. Creativity was sitting on the floor, flipping through a book of jungle animals, and Virgil was next to him, pointing at the ones that looked cool. 

Deceit was unsure if either had noticed his presence until Virgil placed his hand on a page with a yellow and black snake. “What do you think about snakes, Ro?”

“Oh! I think they’re rather magnificent creatures! A truly misunderstood and beautiful animal indeed.”

“Uh huh. Y’ever touched one?”

Roman squinted his eyes, obviously trying to scan his memory for a time that he might have. His eyes seemed to have finally noticed Deceit, and he sent a small wave over before replying, “No, I don’t believe that I have.”

Deceit moved to the kitchen. He didn’t want Roman to think that he was staring or being weird.

Virgil looked over his shoulder at Deceit with a smug expression. “Do you want to touch one?”

Deceit had never been so close to dropping dead on the spot.

“I mean, why not?” Roman said, starting to flip pages again. “Their scales look so smooth, and I’m sure that they’re lovely to hold. Oh, and they do that little blep thing, which is just terribly adorable.”

“I’m sure that snakes would think that you were adorable, too.” The smile on Virgil’s face held a saccharine sweetness as he mouthed ‘Don’t you?’ at Deceit.

Roman cooed, and the anxious side turned his head at the exact second that Roman glanced back over at him. “Aw, Virgil! That’s so sweet of you to say.”

“It’s no big deal,” he muttered, feigning embarrassment.

“No, it’s really nice of you to say. Even Deceit would agree, right?” Creativity turned an eager smile to Deceit, who nearly flinched at the sudden attention.

“No. It isn’t nice,” he managed to choke out.

“See! You’re a nice guy, Virge.” Roman turned back to his book once more.

“Yeah.” Virgil innocently grinned at Deceit. “I guess that I am.”

---

The other things, Deceit could cut his losses and live without. He had extra blankets, and he had extra socks, but this? This was just plain criminal. 

What the fuck kind of a guy stole someone else’s snake?!

And it wasn’t just the snake herself! Virgil had taken the entire terrarium, all of Deceit’s supplies, and the entire freezer’s worth of food. If he weren’t so fucking pissed, Deceit would have been proud of the scheme.

“Virgil,” he growled as he pounded on the anxious side’s door. “Don’t give her back.”

The door opened, and Deceit almost lost it when he saw Virgil with Daisy on his shoulders, smiling softly. “What’s that?”

Angry venom dripped from Deceit’s words. “Don’t. Give. Her. Back.”

“Oh,” Virgil said. “Yeah, of course.” He snapped his fingers, and all of the snake stuff that had been littered behind him disappeared. 

Deceit was infinitely jealous that the laws of reality didn’t hit as hard in the Light Side as they did in the Dark Side. The only one who could summon things while in the Dark Side was Remus, and no one wanted to ask him for things. It had taken Deceit three weeks of fighting tooth and nail to get Roman to give him Daisy. It had been the worst three weeks of his entire life.

“And the snake?”

Virgil shook his head, softly. “Yeah, sorry. I thought you’d want to take her home with you, so I didn’t snap her with.” He gently lifted Daisy from his shoulders and placed her in a small heap in Deceit’s hands.

Deceit knew that he should be happy. His baby had been returned with little resistance, and he could go back to some normalcy, but at the same time, something was up. Virgil hadn’t been this cordial in... well, ever. 

“Right...” He looked at his wrist as Daisy slowly curled her way into a sentient serpentine bracelet. “Well, I’m gonna--”

“Oh my goodness! Is that the snake I summoned for your room?”

Virgil gasped, but Deceit could see the mischief in his eyes. “You summoned this cutie? I was just about to ask Deceit where he got her.”

No, you weren’t, you lying bastard.

“I almost forgot about her. How is she? Does she have a name?” Roman’s voice was gleeful, and it just made Deceit want to run away.

“Her name isn’t Daisy,” he said as he turned to speak to Creativity. “And she’s doing terribly.”

“Wow.” Roman looked completely starstruck. “Wow. I’ve never held a snake before; can I hold yours?”

It was subtle—it could barely be construed as something even minutely sexual—yet Deceit saw Virgil’s surprised smile at the unknowing bait. With full intentions to rush away, he stuttered, “Oh, um, I don’t know...”

“Hush,” Virgil drawled, pushing just a bit too hard on Deceit’s shoulder to be considered friendly. “Let him hold your snake.”

“She’s just too cute, Deceit! Please?”

Slowly, the side in question nodded and slipped Daisy off of his wrist. With the utmost care, he placed the coil in Roman’s hands. It honestly couldn’t get any worse.

Daisy lazily slithered her way up and around Roman’s arm, raising her tiny head right in front of Roman’s. Her little tongue darted out and touched his nose. Roman let out a tiny giggle.

The moment was swiftly ruined for Deceit by Virgil saying, “You know, I’ve never seen her like that except in Deceit’s hand. She just isn’t that perky on her own.”

“Ha ha,” Deceit said with fake enthusiasm. “Virgil, you are so funny! May I please have Daisy back so that I can go back to my room?”

“Of course,” Roman murmured as the snake was taken back. “She’s beautiful. May I visit her some time?”

Virgil latched his arm around Roman’s shoulders. “I’m sure she would be very happy if you did! Right, Deceit?”

“No.”

“Perfect!” Virgil began to lead the prince away. “Goodbye!”

“Bye...”

—-

“Roman, I need to be honest with you,” Virgil said a few minutes later. They were on the couch watching reruns of Parks and Rec, and Roman was still being very happy about his new snake friend.

“What about?”

“Well...” Virgil didn’t exactly know how to break the news. “The last few times that we’ve hung out, I was using you—“

“What—“

“Just to get back at Deceit! It was just so I could make him uncomfortable, okay?”

Roman’s eyebrows furrowed. “Make him uncomfortable how?”

“He has this massive crush on you, and I found out about it right after the courtroom thing, so I’ve been using you and your pretty, unaware face to form, uh... innuendos? I was stealing some of his stuff so he’d come to our side of the Mindscape, and I made sure to be with you.” Virgil laughed awkwardly, hoping Roman wouldn’t hate him forever for his evil scheme.

“You... you’re kidding, right? Deceit is thirsty for me? I mean, I know that I’m a snack and a half, but him?”

“Yeah.”

Roman looked at Virgil with a disbelieving expression. “And you used me to get into his head?”

“Mhmm. A couple of well timed questions here, your idiocy sprinkled in every so often... Poor guy was outie in less than five minutes.” Virgil smirked, resting his head on the back of the couch. “Thanks, by the way.”

“Man,” Roman laughed. “I can’t believe we vanquished Deceit so quickly, and all it took was him having a simple crush on me!”

“SO HE DOES WANT TO FUCK YOU?!” Remus screeched from his new perch on top of the kitchen table.

The two sides on the couch screamed. Well, nothing was truly a perfect solution...

[alexanderlightweight]

a lover lost to time is the worst kind of crime

@whumptober2019​  Prompt 2: Explosion

Fandom: Shadowhunters - Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood

Warnings: Injury, Blood, Alcohol. 

ao3 link

The world exploded in a burst of blue and Alec welcomed it.  

That color would always be comforting to him and even now, in what he assumed was to be his death, he welcomed the familiarity of it. 

Death did not come, though pain did.  He could feel blood seeping through his sweater.  A frown formed on his lips at the thought. It was a new sweater, a cream turtleneck that he'd gotten on one of his and Magnus' shopping trips.  It was warm and luxurious and Alec had loved wearing it almost as much as Magnus had loved seeing him wear it.  

A voice spoke, trying to reach him but he couldn’t make out the words and his frown deepened.  He was losing blood, far too much too fast and at this rate, he might miss more than just a dinner date with his husband and that, that was intolerable. 

It took effort, took him gritting his teeth and trying desperately not to drift as he rolled onto a side.  A hand reached out, touching his shoulder and he couldn’t even muster the strength to try and flinch away.

“A mundane-“ he heard and silently scoffed.  If they were calling him a mundane then they were apart of the Shadowworld and it was very obvious with the amount of runes on his body that he was not a mundane.

Oh, he sighed at himself again, he was wearing a turtleneck.  Fashion truly was the deadliest weapon of life and it had betrayed him.  He was going to burn the sweater, after he stopped losing blood.

Wound healed.  Then sweater death. Wait no.  Wound healed. Finding Magnus.  Then burn sweater. A much more coherent and prioritized plan.  

Well done Alec.

“Blood. Too fast.  Risk it-“

Alec wanted to ask the people to make sense, but his words wouldn’t work and then a palm filled with familiar blue fire entered his vision.  Alec didn’t even think, just used the rest of his energy to push himself forward, falling face-first into his husband’s hand and sighing in relief as familiar magic washed over him.

“Recognize him-“

“-possible?”

He recognized the one voice now, it sounded like Magnus did when he used an accent.  The other was unfamiliar but if Magnus didn’t find them a threat, then Alec would also reserve judgment.  Well, he wouldn’t assume they were an enemy, he couldn’t promise not to judge them though. Magnus knew a lot of irritating people after all.

-

Magnus blinked dazedly at the poor mundane he’d literally stumbled over and who had just tried to smother himself with Magnus’ palm and magic.

“I don’t think he’s quite alright after all,” Ragnor informed him from where he was rather unhelpfully watching several feet away.  “Most mundanes would be jumping away from you, not diving at you like you were the Thames and they dying of thirst.”

“Not even a man dying of thirst would dive into the Thames, Ragnor.”  Magnus said unthinkingly, “we both know that.”

“Which is why he must be truly desperate and unwell to do so.”

Magnus caught on a second later and sent his chortling friend a truly chilling glare, even going so far as to drop his glamor.

Ragnor gave a mocking gasp and held up his hands, “oh dear!  I’m so very intimidated Magnus! A kitten is mad at me!”

“I am going to curse every cottage you own to play the harp endlessly,” Magnus promised quietly, knowing how much Ragnor detested the stringed instrument.  

“What was that my dear?”

“Nothing Ragnor, open a portal will you?”

“We’re bringing him with us then?”

“Only for now.  I’ll heal him and if he has any memory of this, I’ll simply erase it and send him on his way.”

Honestly, it was more hassle to heal the mundane than to let him die but Magnus wasn’t completely heartless.

Magnus collapsed onto his sofa, sending Ragnor a glare as his dear friend had stolen his preferred armchair while Magnus had healed the mundane.  In an attempt to be professional, Magnus had used mostly potions for the healing, the only magic he’d used had been to mend the stranger’s attire.  Mundanes weren’t his particular cup of tea when it came to healing and actual magic tended to leave more of a signature than potions did. He wasn’t trying to paint a target on his back and if it was needed, the mind magic was already too much of an identifier for his liking.

“Poor us a drink, will you cabbage?”  He asked and Ragnor gave a long-suffering sigh but did as requested, even going so far as to send the drink to his hand.  Magnus took a long, satisfying sip and sighed, feeling as though he could finally relax.

A few drinks later and they were both content with the recovering mundane the very last thing on their minds.  After all, between the potions and the blood he’d lost, as a mundane he’d be kept unconscious for at least a day.

As if to punish him, neither he nor Ragnor heard the door as it was opened or the footsteps, he tread more silently than death and was nearly a harbinger of it as he almost gave them both a heart attack.  

The first thing Magnus noticed upon gathering his wits was the very attractive chest.  Self-preservation was one of his most well-honed skills and he scolded himself for being distracted even he recognized angelic runes and stiffened in alarm.

“That,” Ragnor said with wide eyes, “is not a mundane.  How on earth did you manage to bring a Nephilim home?  They’re well endowed angelic warriors, not bloody strays!”

“Coming through your portal must have meant he didn’t set any wards off,” Magnus said and bit his lip.  The Shadowhunter had turned towards him, focusing on him with the intensity of a famished predator and Magnus narrowed his own unglamoured eyes.  He was no prey to be intimidated by someone just because of something so infantile as the gaze of an self-righteous angel-blessed.

“Magnus!”  Was said in far too loud and far too... he stared.  Had that been delight and relief in the Shadowhunter’s voice?  He miscalculated, risking a shared look of bewilderment with Ragnor and then the Nephilim was on him.

Literally.

The magic that had leapt up to defend him dispersed into sparks that felt as confused as he did.  

There was a shirtless Nephilim curled up on his sofa, half in his lap with his face pressed against Magnus’ stomach and his neck bared, the enticing curve of a rune drawing Magnus’ attention.

“I think,” Ragnor said somewhat shakily, “that we might need another drink my friend.  For fortifications sake.”  

-

An hour later the only thing more alarming than the fact that Magnus had brought home, healed and was now playing cushion for a Nephilim was that said Nephilim had grumbled and pouted - very prettily Magnus had admitted sheepishly - every time they’d tried to move him.

At least, that had been the most alarming thing until the wards began to thrum, powerful vibrations causing tectonic shifts in the magic around them.

“You have him!”

Ragnor stared in shock at the figure that suddenly excited the portal.  A portal that should not have even been able to form due to copious and powerful amounts of warding but a portal that had formed nonetheless  

Across from him, a bewildered Magnus stared into the face of someone who was differently adorned but still very much his near exact likeness.

“My word,” Ragnor muttered to himself, “what a day this is turning out to be.”  

“Magn’s?”  The Shadowhunter that Magnus had been instinctively cradling looked up and then unsteadily bolted forward.  He crashed into Magnus’ doppelganger with all the delicacy of a charging rhino and… Ragnor covered his eyes.

“Why is that Shadowhunter kissing me?  Ragnor, why is there another me?”

There was no answer, the other Magnus too busy eagerly returning a fairly desperate and sloppy kiss and Ragnor was simply too shocked.  Perhaps, he thought to himself rather hopefully, perhaps he and Magnus had simply indulged in too many drinks and this was nothing more than a truly repugnant dream.  The kind that would keep him from imbibing alcohol for at least a decade in fear of a repetition. 

Ragnor would have happily accepted that as the truth, the loss of alcohol for a decade or more was a much smaller price to pay than the idea that in some far off universe Magnus was consorting with a Nephilim.  Indelicate, unemotional brutes the lot of them, Magnus was far too good to be messing around with one of those angel-blessed, sword-happy and rune covered ingrates. As if to personally spite him, this other version of Magnus flooded both the room and the Nephilim with magic, healing whatever leftover damage there was, shaking the room to it’s core and all without the still-open portal having the decency to waiver.  

“Thank you for looking after my wayward love,” said this new strange, terrifying version of Magnus.  

Ragnor desperately summoned another drink for both him and Magnus.  His Magnus. The sane Magnus who would never do anything so truly and depressingly self-destructive as committing  and admitting to relationship with a Nephilim. Ragnor took a fortifying sip and resolved to refer to the idiot as Bane, for undoubtedly he must be the bane of whatever Ragnor lived in his world’s existence.  

“Love?”  Magnus asked in practically a squeak, his face pale and hand practically shaking around his glass of whiskey.  

“ My love,” Bane said, as though he were proud of such a travesty, “Alexander Gideon Lightwood-”

Magnus choked on his drink, interrupting the introduction and he wheezed. 

“Is he okay?”  The half-naked lover of someone who was truly one of Asmodeus brood asked, “he doesn’t seem like he’s okay.”

“I think they’re in shock,” Bane said and he chuckled, obviously amused by their torment.  Quite frankly, Ragnor despaired of their continued survival at this rate.  

“Hmm, missed you,” and the Nephilim, a male heir of a prestigious, coveted and much exalted bloodline snuggled up against Bane and pressed soft, tender kisses against his face.  Ragnor felt as though encountering the apocalypse would have been more forgiving to his nerves than this encounter.     

“Really?  You looked pretty cozy over there.”  

“He didn’t smell like you,” the Shadowhunter protested, “wasn’t the same.”  

“Well I’d certainly hope not, otherwise I might think he’s trying to steal you away.”

“Nope,” Ragnor interjected, “not at all.  He’s all yours, take him away. Please, leave.  Happy to be of service and all but you really should be going.  Portal strain and whatnot, you don’t want to risk being late for supper!”  

“Well, thank you for taking such good care of my beloved,” Bane said and Ragnor didn’t trust the devious twinkle in his eyes.  They were almost at the portal when he turned, smiled at them both and said, “now gentleman if you’ll excuse me, I have a husband to take home.”

Sometimes, Ragnor though as Magnus’ glass exploded and the portal disappeared, the most devastating of attacks were the ones you least expected.  

[anniebibananie]

oh hello it's me here for no reason but while i've got u what about a braime wedding date au

a/n: for those of you who have NOT seen the wedding date 1. i am sorry 2. here’s the trailer 3. essentially debra messing hires an escort to go to her ex’s wedding with her as a pretend boyfriend. it’s excellence (there’s also like a hot boat sex scene that isn’t featured in this fic but i think about on the daily)

“You’re telling me…” Margaery began, pausing to take a sip of champagne from her flute, “he’s your date.”

Brienne shuffled from foot to foot before adjusting the neckline of her dress which kept slipping down. It wasn’t as if she had much to worry about spilling out, but she still wasn’t used to showing so much skin.

“You have to wear it, darling,” Jaime had said as they checked into the hotel room. He had a fancy suitcase, the sort with compartments and built in organization, and he kept pulling different fine outfits out of it like some sort of Mary Poppins’ suitcase.

“I don’t wear stuff like this,” she grumbled, turning in the mirror. She felt large and clumsy. “Don’t call me darling.”

Jaime came behind her, his head peeking over her shoulder. They were about the same height, maybe her a few inches taller in her small heels. He was the sort of attractive that felt more fitting for a print ad than real life.

“I’m your hired boyfriend,” Jaime said. He rested his head fully on her shoulder now. “What pet name would you prefer I use?”

It had taken a near half hour of argument for them to decide on sweetheart, babe if it was used in a “non-lewd” setting, and, begrudgingly, darling. Brienne had assured him she was not the sort to use pet names, though, and he had conceded easily enough. Though, Brienne had learned quickly that Jaime Lannister didn’t really make anything easy.

“You stepped it up,” Margaery continued. “I’m proud of you, really. I wouldn’t have judged if you didn’t show up to your lousy ex-boyfriend’s wedding, but you showed up with the hottest date of us all.”

“He’s your brother’s fiance,” Brienne reminded her.

Margaery shrugged and grabbed another champagne as the tray passed, passing one to Brienne as well. “Yes, but he was sort of an asshole, wasn’t he? I mean, coming out on your two year anniversary? Nan and I were one hundred percent on your side for that, obviously.”

“Thanks,” Brienne said, throat suddenly tight as she watched Loras and Renly smiling and holding onto one another as they talked to some distant relative.

It wasn’t that Brienne was mad, even. Maybe not even embarrassed, exactly. The saddest thing was she was more lonely than anything else. Renly had been her best friend, and he still was in a way, but she had let him see all of her. She had thought he loved the all of her.

Then he had turned away and loved Loras. They were perfect for one another, and Brienne couldn’t be mad at Renly for not loving her even if she wanted to be. She had just wanted everyone to stop giving her those goddamn pitying looks. There was nothing Brienne hated more than pity.

As if sensing her discomfort, a hand came to graze at her lower back. When she turned, Jaime was giving her a soft smile. “There you are, baby.”

Brienne’s eyes narrowed. They had not allowed baby because you did not birth me, Jaime. It’s just creepy. He seemed to know the exact words running through her head because he smirked a little, satisfied with himself. He pulled her a little tighter into his side.

“We were talking about what a catch you are,” Margaery said with a tilt of her head and a mischievous smile. If Brienne didn’t know her better, she might have thought Margaery was flirting with him.

She was, actually, but Brienne knew her well enough now to know she did that with most of everyone.

“Oh, but I’m really the lucky one, aren’t I?” Jaime looked to her again and caught her eye. Brienne wasn’t very good at this whole prolonged eye contact thing. What was she supposed to do? Look at him lovingly? Smile? She felt like rolling her eyes, so she did that. He laughed lightly. “You can see she’s overjoyed by that.”

“You lay it on too thick,” she replied, barely thinking. “We all know I’ve tricked you into this, anyways.” It was close to the truth, but she played it off with a shrug.

“Do I look like I’m anywhere I don’t want to be?” he asked in a soft sort of way, something that tugged at the taut strings of Brienne’s chest a little. Gods he was good

“I’m… going to die alone,” Margaery said. Brienne had nearly forgotten she was there, and she blinked as she looked back to her friend. “I mean, this is fucking adorable. And I… am going to die alone.”

“I mean the Stark boy over there…” Jaime began, but Margaery was already pushing her shoulders back and reaching for another champagne glass as if a soldier readying for a fight.

“You’re right.” She tilted toward the two, and she reached out to pat Jaime’s cheek. “I’m going to go fall in love. Take care of my Brienne, she is the very best of us.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Jaime asked, but Margaery was already walking away. Brienne wasn’t sure who he was even saying it for.

__

“It was just a little kiss,” Jaime said with a roll of his eyes. “I was improvising.”

Brienne brought a finger up to push into the crease between her eyes. Coming to this wedding single could not possibly have been more painful than this, right? “I wish you wouldn’t improvise.”

“Oh please, it couldn’t have been that bad. I’ve been told I’m an excellent kisser. Not to mention, when was the last time you got any?”

Brienne did not feel bad about stomping onto his foot with her heel. Not a single bit.

___

“Brienne,” he cooed into her ear only an hour or so later. She was at the bar trying to decide if she wanted a mixer or it was late enough she could have the alcohol straight and no one would care. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t gentlemanlike, and I apologize.”

She sighed. She turned to look at him, and he looked genuinely sorry. His eyes were wide, his lips turned up the barest amount in an apologetic smile. Part of Brienne thought she might be a little mad still—he was probably used to smiling like that and getting his way, girls falling over themselves to accept him for his looks and charm. She’d never gotten anything without fighting tooth and nail.

“Accepted. Maybe,” she said. The bartender came over, and she was more than happy to smile at him. “Whisky. Straight.”

There was no way she was going to make it through this weekend with mixers slowing her down.

__

Jaime was in the shower, and she was sitting on the closed toilet seat lid as she used the small mirror in front of her to do the barest of makeup. She felt like a clown painting herself, but she at least liked the way the mascara made her eyes pop.

“Have you ever wanted it all?” she asked, the thought coming to her out of the blue. There hadn’t been much of a time where she had ever contemplated domesticity—marriage, family, life. The only time she’d gotten close had been with Renly, and now she knew how foolish it had been. “Love. A wedding. The whole to-do.”

His humming behind the curtain halted, and the two of them were left with nothing but the sounds of water. “Once, maybe,” he said. It was hard to hear through the shower, even harder with the way his voice softened. “I thought I was in love once.”

She grunted in agreement, feeling too embarrassed to say yeah, me too. It was nagging her, the idea that Jaime, though arrogant and sort of annoying, couldn’t find a partner despite all his advantages. “All the dates you go on, though, you haven’t found anyone who you thought might be worth sticking around for?”

“It’s a job.” The shower turned off. “Most of my clients aren’t like you, Brienne. They’re insipid or have more money than they know what to do with. They’re desperate and everything about us together is fake.”

Her throat went dry. She wasn’t sure why her name, why the distinction, seemed to matter. “And what am I?” She tried to keep it light, and when the curtain pulled back she bent closer to the mirror so she didn’t have to look at him.

“Everything about you is real,” he said as if it was as simple as reciting a grocery list or telling her a piece of sports trivia. It was just true.

She looked over then, because she couldn’t seem to not, and his chest was glistening with water, a towel held around his waist, and with all his physical beauty on display all she could seem to see was his face. It was earnest. There was no joke hiding anywhere.

You paid for this, she reminded herself. “Oh, you’re good,” she threw back, because men like Jaime Lannister did not say things like that to her. Even if it seemed like he was being genuine, even if she dangerously hoped it was true, she had to remember that this was his job. He was probably good at acting this way for anyone, even an unorthodox client like her.

He shrugged and turned away. The easy energy of the air seemed to evaporate. “You should try the pink lipstick, it matches the blush of your cheeks beautifully.”

She threw up her middle finger, and he laughed. She did not watch the muscles of his back as he exited the bathroom.

__

“I do,” Renly said.

There was too much emotion swimming in the room. Brienne felt a little like she was suffocating, and when Renly and Loras bent forward and kissed—the perfect sort of wedding kiss that was sweet and light and joyful–she felt herself clench. Jaime’s hand found her own, intertwining their fingers.

She looked over at him, and he was decidedly looking forward and away from her. When she didn’t turn away, he raised a brow and met her eyes. “What? Is holding hands not allowed now, too?”

“No, it’s…” she trailed off, turning her head back around to watch the happy couple walk down the aisle. “It’s fine.”

Her hand tightened against his. He clasped tightly back.

__

Brienne was surprised how long it was before her and Renly spoke, actually. The reception was going off without a hitch, and they had just about done the first dance to get the dancing going. Jaime had been politely speaking with Margaery again, though it was clear they got on as thick as thieves, and Brienne wanted more alcohol.

Renly appeared next to her, shooting her a goofy sort of filled with bliss smile. He was happy, and that made her happy. It was all the other stuff that was awkward—the fights they had never really addressed and the way Brienne still heard people whispering when she passed sometimes, hurtful words like she’s the one that turned him gay.

“I’m so happy you made it,” he said. The bartender brought him over a beer without asking and went to top up her own whisky. “I was worried you wouldn’t want to, but you’re my best friend. I hope you know that.”

“Of course I’d come,” Brienne said because that much was true. “You know I love you.”

His smile widened. “I do. And I love you, though clearly I will have to start competing for yours and Margaery’s affections with the way your boyfriend has won you both over.”

“He’s a real headache,” Brienne as as they both turned, backs to the bar, and watched the two of them laughing about something or other. They were the sort of people that made sense together—beautiful people who the world seemed to bend toward and for. 

“Oh, you’ve got it bad Brienne Tarth,” he said with a laugh. “I’m glad you’re happy. And for however much it matters, I hope you know how sorry I am about how everything happened.”

“I know.” She nodded, reaching out and giving him a big hug. When she pulled back she grabbed her drink and took a step away. “Go find your husband, Renly. I’m certain he’ll be missing you.”

“Husband.” He straightened his shoulders. “I do love the sound of that.”

__

“You alright?” Jaime asked.

Brienne smiled. She took his hand and leaned into his side, feeling light and daring. Feeling not all that much like herself. “Excellent.”

__

She was perhaps a little drunk. Maybe tipsy was better, but she was certainly struggling a little as the two of them giggled their way back to the hotel room. At some point she had kicked off her heels, and he was holding them from his fingers along with her purse. She pulled the hotel room key from her bra, ignoring the way his eyebrows went high on his forehead, and pushed the door open.

They stumbled their way through, and he tossed her things onto the small side table. Then he was holding her elbow to help keep her balance, but he was right there and she could smell his cologne as if it was everywhere. His eyes dipped to her lips, and though she was pretty bad at picking up signals she was fairly sure she wasn’t imagining this one.

One of his hands came up to her cheek. Her breathing halted.

“What– what are you doing?” she asked.

“Kissing you,” he answered, and he swallowed whatever words were going to come next from her mouth with his lips.

Brienne shouldn’t give into this. It was all fake, she reminded herself. She had paid for this, but he really was a good kisser and she was tired of giving up things she wanted. She was tired of having to fight all the time because the world was so very angry. She reached her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss.

It was a little sloppy—wet and hurried—but then his hands came to her waist and he slowed it down. She felt as if she was in the hazy in between of moments. As if somehow they were in the blackness between freeze frames, and the world hadn’t kept moving forward yet.

The back of her knees hit the mattress, and she fell back with him shouldering his weight on his hands. He sucked on the lobe of her ear before moving to drop kisses down her neck. Brienne had never felt like this—like her body could no longer hold her, like she was pure want and wanted in return.

It didn’t feel real, but she wasn’t ready for that to end that. She flipped him around so she was straddling his waist, and when she caught a look of his face he looked like a man in prayer. 

“You are…” he began, hands reaching up to her face, her shoulder, anywhere he could touch, really.

She kissed him quiet, unsure if the words would ruin it. He didn’t need him to say it, anyways. His actions seemed to be showing her just fine.

__

In the morning, she woke up to find an empty bed beside her. She sat up, startled. His suitcase was still on the chair, though. He wouldn’t have left. They were quite literally on the same flight home. He didn’t wake up, look over at her, and regret everything, did he?

The door opened, and Jaime looked at her with a wide smile as he held a coffee cup in each hand. Brienne tugged the blanket up a bit higher, though he had obviously already seen it all.

“I brought coffee,” he said as if it wasn’t obvious. “Yours is black because you hate things that taste good, apparently, but I respect all your wrong choices as equally as my right ones.”

She laughed, the sound sudden and brisk. “I thought you might have left.”

He scoffed as he handed her the coffee. “Oh, Brienne, after a night of sweet love making like that? Who do you think I am?”

Jaime kicked off his shoes and sat back down into the bed. He looked at her then—softer, more free. He pushed some of her blonde hair away from her face and dipped to kiss the bare skin of her shoulder.

“Last night wasn’t about the job,” he said. “I’m here for whatever you want. I’d like to try.”

Brienne still had a hard time believing any of this could be real, that she could even deserve it, but he was looking at her like she was beautiful and she felt it. She felt like she had begun to open that door again, and he was peaking in and he liked what he saw. She felt as if she was doing the same in return. 

She leaned back against the headboard and drank a gulp of the coffee. “We’re going to have to negotiate the terms of endearment again, because frankly I truly can not stand baby, but—”

His lips cut her off. At some point, she was going to get really annoyed with him halting her words with his lips, but for now she was just happy to let him kiss her. 

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Stitched Up Heart – Out of the Darkness

Dead Rhetoric: Do you feel that releasing all of the songs on a monthly basis has given the album the support you were hoping for?

Mixi: To be honest, I have no idea what the sales look like now.  It’s hard to compare because I have no idea what it would be if it was released all at once.  The one thing I do like about it, is that it keeps momentum going.  Instead of giving everyone the whole thing at once, you get a taste every month or so.  You aren’t just throwing everything out that you have, and people’s attention spans are so short these days.  I just feel that this is the way the rock industry is going to start moving – I think singles in general.  I think the whole musical world is going to turn into a singles world instead of albums, just because of the way that the streaming situation is.  But that’s just what I believe.  Who knows what will happen?  We were just trying to be innovative and try something new.

Dead Rhetoric: I can completely agree with that.  There’s a lot of bands that are going towards more EP-type approaches, where they can put out 4 songs and maybe even just do that twice a year in some cases.  It keeps you more in the loop.

Mixi: It took us three years to release new music.   We are probably going to continue to do it somewhat like this.  We’ll see how exactly it goes down, but I have a feeling that it is doing well.  Obviously, our first week sales are going to be a lot different as well.  But first week sales on any album in the industry today is a lot more difficult too.  We’ll see what happens [laughs].

Dead Rhetoric: You had over 70 songs written for Darkness.  What became the guideline as to what made a song one that you could work with versus one that was cut?

Mixi: We really wanted to evolve and grow.  In the beginning, we really threw paint in opposite directions.  From super, super heavy to super, super poppy.  It was probably more than half way through the writing process when we realized that this was working.  Lyrically, I changed what I felt that I wanted to say.   Originally, I wanted this album to be all about strength, power, and hope, like “You can do it,” you know?  The lyrics weren’t coming out completely authentically because deep down inside, I am a little girl [laughs].  I had stuff that I had to go through to make me feel strong. I found that writing the dark and the light together again was where I felt I could be the most authentic and real.  

When it came to the music and sound, in the end, we finally dialed in where we wanted to go and the producer that we wanted to do it with.   For us, the producer that we end up going with ends up kind of being the icing on the cake when it comes to the music.  Never Alone was Mitchell Marlow, who I am actually going to be writing with next week. You can hear a different quality in producing versus Matt Good, who produced Darkness.  They are two totally awesome producers, but also totally different and unique in their own way.  They kind of turn into an extra band member.  Out of the 70 songs we wrote, in the end, we used the last 11 or 12 that we wrote.  We didn’t use more than two of the songs that we wrote previously.  It was the last bunch that we ended up using for the record.  

Dead Rhetoric: Was there anything you took away or learned from Never Alone that you wanted to do differently this time around?

Mixi: I think that we did pretty good in finding a good guideline [with Never Alone], but I don’t want any album to sound the same.  We built a radio world with Never Alone, and we wanted to explore more on the artsy side of things with Darkness and see what happens.  With Never Alone, we learned what a radio chart was – it was our first album with a label and a booking agent.  We were really like a ‘baby band.’  We had been doing everything on our own before then.  So I wouldn’t say there was anything we would do differently because I’m very proud of that album.   But we just wanted to change it up and not write the same exact record. We are already working on thoughts and ideas for the next album, because we don’t want there to be such a gap.

Dead Rhetoric: Is there a song that you feel sticks out, or you personally identify with on Darkness?

Mixi: Every single one of them, but I think “Warrior” is one of my favorites.  “Problems,” “Darkness,” “Lost” are all some of my favorites.  I’m really very proud of this record.  As far as lyrically, for me, I really tried to dig as possible and “Darkness” is probably the deepest I got, in terms of the content of the song.  I really can’t pick a favorite, but for now I’ll say “Warrior.”

Dead Rhetoric: How important is the band’s relationship with fans – do you feel that the interactions has led you to a more devoted fanbase and larger following?

Mixi: I think it’s changed a little bit over time.   When we first started touring, we would be out watching the shows and the other bands, hanging out in the audience front-and-center, hanging out with people the whole time, and then going to people’s houses and hanging out there until whenever.  We were a lot more social, but as time goes on and touring happens – you get tired and things can get a little more dangerous.  You kind of have to be a bit more careful as the fanbase grows.  We’ve realized that we can’t always be out at the shows.  There’s been a few scary situations.  We try to be as connected as possible without putting ourselves into a situation that would be unsafe.  But I definitely think that when bands are connected to their fans, and are available for them to reach out to at any point, to where there’s a level that fans feel more connected, they want to stick around longer.  They aren’t so different.

Dead Rhetoric: With safety, I don’t think anyone is going to argue that point.  As you get bigger as a band, there’s more exposure and for lack of a better term, there’s a lot of creepy people out there.

Mixi: [Laughs] Yeah, the bigger the band gets, it gets harder.  It’s tougher to give all of the attention to everybody too.  I would still come out to the merch tables and try to meet everyone but one person would cut like, and I had no control, and then someone wants to talk for an hour while the next one is waiting, and I wouldn’t know what to do.  We have found that doing the VIP thing is better to filter people out – people that really want to meet the band and want a guarantee to meet us and hang out.  It also helps the band afford to be able to keep touring.

Dead Rhetoric: What have been some of your favorite touring experiences?  Do you feel you learn something new each time you go out on the road with different bands?

Mixi: Oh yeah, absolutely.  I think the Godsmack tour and the Halestorm tour were probably the biggest learning experiences for us.  We had never been on an arena tour before.   Halestorm took us out on our first arena tour and it was just like, what we got a taste of it, “Wow!”  There’s so much that goes into it, and so much to learn.  You try to soak up everything that you can.  But everything is a learning experience though.  We learn a lot of what not to do [laughs], and I think that’s why bands progress and grow.  We tried to learn from what we did right and wrong in the last run, and try to fix it in the next tour so we can get better and grow.  We’ve learned a lot from those bigger tours.

Dead Rhetoric: You’ve toured with a number of various musical bands on tour, do you feel that Stitched Up Heart has an advantage in that regard?  It seems like you are pretty malleable as a group, where you can do a tour with Godsmack or Lacuna Coil, or you can do Steel Panther or Sebastian Bach.

Mixi: It’s really interesting, because I don’t think the active rock radio genre has really hit the market or ‘80s hair metal, or the mix in-between very much.  The response we got from the Steel Panther fans was a surprise.  We didn’t think anybody would latch onto us, because our music isn’t really like theirs.  But with the show, they were really so excited and it went over so well, that when the Sebastian Bach tour [offer] happened, we’ll see how his fans go – but so far, I think we can try different genres and see what happens.  I mean, how many times can you go out with the same band?  We are trying to do something different, as you can tell, we like to do that a lot.

Dead Rhetoric: You’ve also made a lot of connections with other bands out on the road – does that networking aspect help among bands?

Mixi: It is huge.  To build relationships, in general, with everyone.  There’s so many bands that I look up to, and we are doing a bunch of festivals soon.  I just can’t wait!  I want to meet everyone.  But building relationships is such a big deal – be it with bands, radio stations, our fans and followers.  It’s important.   It’s probably the most important thing – to build big, genuine relationships.

Dead Rhetoric: Patreon is a platform that more bands are doing, but there was some pushback when it first started.  How do you feel that you’ve benefitted from it?

Mixi: Well, I met you [laughs]!  I definitely wouldn’t know you so well [without Patreon].  Behind the scenes, you can go out of your way to ensure that they [supporters] are happy and you can go out of your way to give them a little extra little things that you can’t do with the usual person who watches your social media or Spotify.  There’s t-shirts, paintings, handwritten lyrics, Skype hangouts – it’s definitely helped to grow this family that supports and helps each other.  Again, it helps the people that really, truly care – I feel like I can go to them with any concerns or what I’m feeling any day and just tell them and it will be totally fine.  They aren’t going to judge me like the rest of the social media world would.  They really, really care.  

Also, when it comes to the money – musicians don’t make a lot of money, I feel that Patreon is such a huge movement for independent artists, or even artists like us who are on a label.  The music money goes to the label for paying for the albums.  When we go on tour, we make money.  When we get home, we are just sitting there, on our hands, like what do we do?  No musician wants to get a job delivering pizzas, which is what I have been doing for years and years before Patreon happened.  I’d go on the road and be a rock star, then come home and deliver pizzas.  It was just the worst!  You can’t keep a normal job when you are constantly touring.  I realized that Patreon has made me able to focus solely on music and art, and it has been amazing.  It also gives me time to do more volunteer work as wel.

Dead Rhetoric: I think there is a difference too – if you look at your Patreon compared to some others out there.  There’s a lot of focus on your end.  Not all of them have that same level of effort.   It’s a testament to what you do that you are able to grow with it as well.

Mixi: I don’t really know what other people do, but I like to be able to touch base with the secret groups every single day. I try to make sure that everyone hears from me at least once a month with the signed autograph things, but I really can’t compare since I don’t know what other people do.  But I’m glad that you think I do a good job, because I feel like I never really do enough.  You have no idea how grateful I am for it.  I think about it every day.  If I didn’t have this, I would be so bummed.  I want to make sure that everyone is happy, all the time.  Maybe that’s why there’s not too many people that every really leave my Patreon, they usually just drop down.  I hope that we’ve built a pretty decent community.

Dead Rhetoric: You just mentioned the volunteering piece.   You do a lot of work with animals – rescue kittens, horses and have the Filthy Animal clothing company, among other things. Is it important to give back?

Mixi: Absolutely – I feel like this world, if you are constantly taking, the world will take too.  It’s a balance.  When I do things to help the kittens, I feel like it helps me more than I am helping them.  Right now, it’s not really kitten season, and I’m bummed that I can’t bottle-feed.  It’s starting up soon, but I’ll be on tour most of the year.  But when I can between tours, it doesn’t even feel like volunteer work when you love it.  The horses – when the fires happened in Malibu I got kind of drawn into it.  They haven’t really needed my help much lately, so I feel I need to find more stuff to volunteer for until kittens are back in season.  I feel like doing stuff for others feeds your soul so much.  You get back way more than what you give.

Dead Rhetoric: At this point in your life, what does Stitched Up Heart mean to you?

Mixi: It is probably one of the most important things to me.  The band is on my mind constantly, 24/7.  I think about it all the time, and I don’t know what I would do without it.  It’s a top priority.

Dead Rhetoric: In looking at the cover for both albums, is there any connection with having birds on the covers of Never Alone and Darkness?

Mixi: Obviously, I love animals so I wanted to make sure that the artwork for Never Alone had animals on it.  It needed to be something that represented what the lyrical content was – hopefulness and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  All of that positive energy that was a part of that album. The doves being a very light representation of being able to break free through the window, with the darkness inside.  You are in the darkness and going into the light.  

With Darkness, I kept seeing crows everywhere.  I looked at it as a sign, and it would coincide with the doves.  I wanted it to be the opposite, where you are going back into the darkness again, but you aren’t as afraid.  It’s like the dark dove diving back into the clouds with the white background.  It’s like life, there’s ups and downs, tunnels and light.  The more you go through it the more you grow and learn.

Dead Rhetoric: You have some dates for the coming months already announced.  Is the plan for 2020 basically just to tour as much as possible?

Mixi: Yeah, lots of festivals, and lots of tours.   We are going to try to start writing more music, so that when this album comes out, we can keep a more consistent release time in the future.   We’re trying to keep things moving!

[mysticsparklewings]

I will be with You

When you go, just know that I will remember you If living was the hardest part, we'll then one day be together And in the end we'll fall apart, just as the leaves change in color And then I will be with you, I will be there one last time now --My Chemical Romance, "It's Not a Fashion Statement, it's a Deathwish" ____ It's rare that I'm this proud of an artwork I've created. ^_^ Usually, there's some glaring issue or just an assortment of small things I'd still change if I had the patience and/or artistic ability to do it. Or even just some things that I feel like could've been done better, even if I know it did the best I could. This time? No. Not right now, shortly after it's been completed, anyway. I'm sure years down the line from now I'll look back and feel at least slightly different. But as it stands now, while I'm sure it has its faults, I am truly happy and truly proud of what I've created here and whatever faults are there aren't bothering me at all. So what then is this, exactly? This my dear Sparklers is a visual love letter to the band I discovered just a little too late but was still there for me when no one else was all the same. Earlier this month, I uploaded a different piece of art to celebrate the announcement of My Chemical Romance's Return, but even when I uploaded that one I was already thinking of doing another one, this time something that was more obviously fan art. But not just fan art as I've done for them in the past (Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C), but something extra-special and fun. I really did go into creating this wanting it to be as I described it above; a visual love letter to this band that I love so much and could not be happier that they're back. As such, I've squeezed in as many references as I could: 1. The female figure is molded after Helena from the album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge 2. The male/skeleton figure is supposed to be Pepe (that's what Google said his name was, anyway), the icon and seemingly marching band conductor from The Black Parade album 3. On Pepe's hat, I replaced the usual symbol with the Candle symbol that's been featured in the band's Return artwork 4. They fade into leaves based on the line from It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish (a song from Three Cheers) that I quoted at the top of the description 5. behind them is Party Poison's mask, as featured in the Danger Days music videos 6. on the mask, I replaced one of the black triangle shapes with the hanging man silhouette from I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love 7. The rest of the background is inspired by the covers for the Conventional Weapons releases (which in my mind I count as essentially an unofficial fifth album) (Debatable) 8. Their touching hands could be an indirect reference to the line "And as we're touching hands, and as we're falling down" from Demolition Lovers, a song from Bullets. That's at least one reference each (Three Cheers technically got two) for each of the main releases, plus one directly related to this new era we don't know much about yet. It's not an exhaustive "spot the reference" game, but I'm glad I was able to incorporate as many as I did. Now that I've explained them, maybe I can talk about my process without having to stop to re-explain each reference as they come up.   After some brainstorming, I got this image in my head of Helena and Pepe in this pose (inspired at least partially by this pre-existing fanart I've seen many times before) , which to me is a "renaissance dancing" pose but I'm sure there's some other better way to describe it I haven't thought of. I tried for a very long time to find a reference image of this exact pose to help me get the proportions and general anatomy right within my own stylization, but for the life of me, I couldn't find anything close enough to suit me and I really didn't want to have to settle for something else. As such, I'm sure the proportions and anatomy are off, but even so, I think I did pretty good considering. The main issues I ran into during sketching were mainly balancing the energy between the two characters--which I do think I managed in the end--Helena's skirt, as she's supposed to be holding onto it with that hand you can't see, and Pepe's torso. Originally, I was planning on doing this piece traditionally, but once the sketch was finished it almost immediately clicked into place that I'd be better served to do it digitally, considering what I wanted to do with the mask in the background already, as well as the leaf-fade. (The Conventional Weapons reference hadn't been planned yet, and it was technically only made possible later on by this piece being digital.) Luckily, doing things digitally meant that Pepe's torso was fixed pretty easily. It was too thin in the sketch, but all I had to do was select the right lines and move them out a bit in Photoshop. He's still a bit thin and not super buff, but personally I'm letting that go because...I mean, he's at least part if not all skeleton. If anyone's going to be too thin, wouldn't it make sense that it's him? Helena's skirt I did end up happy within the sketch but...we'll come back to the skirt in a moment. Pepe's...face? looked a bit odd in the sketch, but other than that, once I was happy with that foundation, I scanned it in and got to work on digitizing everything. I went over my lines for Helena and Pepe the way I normally would for something like this if a little intentionally messy instead of trying to get them super clean--as I thought that might be appropriate here--and then I paused with them to work on the mask behind them. The mask admittedly came out very poorly in the sketch, just because I bothered to look up no references for it whatsoever once I decided I was going to make this digital and I knew I could just draw half of it and flip it over. And I'm glad I didn't start trying to follow my sketch lines for it at all because looking up actual references showed me that would've been way off. While I had my reference up, I ended up going in and basically full-coloring and detailing the mask right then. That's the beauty of digital work; a lot of steps can be done basically out of order from how you'd have to do them traditionally and it doesn't matter because you can just move layers around and adjust effects later. I went with this pseudo-soft shading based on the colors and shadows I was seeing in my references, even though I wasn't sure yet exactly how I was going to shade Helena and Pepe. I figured that even if I used a different method for them that I could either go back and adjust the mask as necessary or that it wouldn't matter since the mask was part of the background anyway. Once that was done, I went back to ponder my two figures and the leaf effect that I wanted to do with them. And again, I went a little out of order here, as I ended up filling in the silhouette of Helena and Pepe with a blanket layer of gray so I could see how them blocking the mask was going to look (and I figured based on past experiences I might need the blanket layer in white later). From there, I went into working on the fading-to-leaves effect. My logic was that I'd need mostly the silhouettes of the leaves and then I'd get what I wanted after playing with layer effects or something. This assumption ended up being correct, but we're not there yet. As I worked, I kept looking at my "finished" messy lines. Something just didn't feel right. Honestly, I couldn't tell you where the idea to do this lineless look came from, but it got in my head as I was working and I kept looking at the lines I had and not being happy to just color those in as I normally would, shade it, and call it a day. I tried. I tried really hard to ignore the urge to at least try it and carry on as I was. I'd already come this far, and I'd be done so much faster if I stuck to the plan...But!! Clearly I lost that argument with myself. You know what though? I'm glad I did! I don't think I've ever done lineless art like this before, not counting my watercolor work where that's just part of the process to me. But digital? Certainly not. Human figures? Also no. I've come close in the sense that I've shaded my art before, turned off the line layers before, and thought, "oh hey that almost works without the lines because of the shading,"  but not much farther than that. Naturally, I wasn't even sure how or where to begin, so I went with what came naturally to me. I started by just filling in the lines as I normally would have, and then I went back layer by layer and went back and forth between having the line layer (with the opacity brought down somewhat already so I could sort of see what I was doing) on and off to try and balance the shapes between what they looked like with and without the lines. It's weird because if you ever try this, it's a little like having to figure out a bunch of individual silhouettes that make one whole one, except you need them to be a little more defined if you want them to make visual sense. That step and the next one, the shading, are tied in my mind for which one took me the longest. For the shading, I really just went in blind, using hard-edge cell shading, though originally I planning to come back with some soft shading in certain areas later. The soft shading ended up not happening partly because I liked it much better than I thought I would without it, and I thought the hard-edge shading made the figures pop a little more compared to the background. The thing about this was the same issue I run into with my lines nowadays; to get smooth shapes I spend a while going back and forth between putting color down and erasing it, and sometimes undoing and redoing the same line a dozen times to get it right in one stroke. But that's really my own fault for being stubborn and trying to work solely within Photoshop and not use other programs, as I know good and well I'd have less of that issue if I'd hop into Paint Tool Sai and use the linework layers in there. What can I say? I live up to my Capricorn sign by being as stubborn as a goat. Anyway. The biggest challenge to figure out the shading for was Helena's skirt. I think I would've still had issues with that though even if I colored and shaded my normal way, with the lines and everything. It's just the position it's in that complicates things. I actually did a good amount of shading in reverse here, where I'd make the base layer the shadow color and then the layer on top would be the regular color, as in some cases it just seemed easier to do that than the other way around. The part of Helena's dress around the top, for example. Or Pepe's pants (what little you can see of them). Additionally, I ended up leaving the feather attached to Pepe's hat alone and not really smoothing it out, as I thought the roughness and inconsistencies worked really well to make it seem more feathery. With enough patience and persistence and much back and forth among the various layers, I made it through all of that. I was a little concerned at first about some of my color choices and if the shading was too harsh in some places or not, but I mellowed out as I worked and ended up not making make adjustments after the fact. For instance, originally I thought I'd go back and make Pepe's...skin? closer to a true white and this fleshy off-white color was more of a placeholder, but the longer I worked with it, the more I didn't want to change it. It actually makes sense, given that his hands are normal (as they are presented in official artwork and other fan art not made by me) and that bones usually are naturally more of an off-white color. And I also think it just looks really good next to Helena's pale skin. The hands were a special challenge in regards to both shading and coloring, as hands like to be the more complicated part of a drawing more often than not, but even that I managed to get through with a lot more ease than I would've bet on. The other thing about that is that I was surprised once I got through the steps at how much better Pepe's face looked in comparison to the rest of the drawing. As I mentioned before, it looked odd in the sketch. But one I had most of the colors for him and Helena filled in digitally, the contrast or something just made it look infinitely better. (Combined with a hefty dose of earlier back-and-forth making adjustments to his jawbone area.) Originally, I thought I might use the same cell shading for Helena's eyeshadow. However, while I was still thinking of adding some selective soft shading, I added it using one of the brushes I'd used on the mask earlier. It looked so good to me that even after I tried added the soft shading with it like I planned and decided I didn't want/need it anywhere else, I kept it. And for the record, Helena's hair is kind of the wrong texture (it's officially more straight than this) and she's missing this little netted veil thing she's supposed to have, but I had a very specific vision in mind, so those were the two creative liberties I took with her design. I say it's fair game since I took a liberty with Pepe's hat to get the Return reference in. And besides, those two details being off doesn't make her totally unrecognizable if you know who Helena is in the first place. Once they were done, I spent longer than I bothered to document playing with the leaf layer I'd made earlier to try and figure out how to get the effect I wanted. Sparing you the boring details of my trial error, as I'm sure this description will be long enough without them, I eventually determined the best thing to do was to have one layer of the leaves on top set as an "overlay" layer, and another behind/beneath Helena and Pepe. Then I went back and extended my color and shading layers to extend down over the leaves, and I arranged and clipped the layers accordingly. Technically, the overlay layer wasn't necessary, but it added a little extra dimension that I really liked. By that point, it was my second day of working digitally and getting late, but I had to do one more thing before I could go to bed with my mind at ease that night. With Helena and Pepe done, I turned the mask back on (I'd turned it off so I could focus on them without it distracting me or otherwise getting in the way) and I felt like they weren't standing out enough against it. The bright yellow color was competing too much for my eyes' attention. So, after trying the "stroke" blending option in white and that looking God-awful, I added a new layer between them and the mask and manually gave them a white outline. It wasn't a perfect solution, and I knew that even then, but it was enough that I could sleep soundly knowing how far I'd gotten with the artwork. The next day I had to take a break from working on this to bust out a painting for the challenge I decided to take on this month, but I went back to this as soon as I could after that was taken care of. When I came back to it, I acknowledged that I technically could've left it as it was and call it finished. But I still didn't like how obnoxious the mask seemed for a background piece and it felt...I don't know. Almost hollow, in a way. It was a cool graphic, sure, but I wanting something more than that. Again, I'll spare you most of the nitty-gritty details. But long story short, I played around with layer effects and filters for a while until I had blurred the mask out just enough that it wasn't so obnoxious but also so looking at it directly didn't make me nauseous, and the edges were softened so it felt more like a true background piece and not just an accessory that had been plastered carelessly back there. It was only after I started saving off versions with different backgrounds--one with no background, one with white, one with black--that I realized I was missing a golden (semi pun intended) opportunity to incorporate a Conventional Weapons reference/allusion. Which was exciting because I'd previously been disappointed that I couldn't think of a good way to do that. I went back and forth on layer styles and adding texture with brushes and things for a while on that too, but you can see what I ultimately settled on. It's not a 1:1 to the CW covers, but I'm really pleased with it anyway. I did end up adding a bit more to the white outline in a few places and adding a drop shadow to Helena and Pepe so they'd pop a bit more (it almost makes them look like paper cutouts to me!), but really the only other thing I had to do after that was add my watermark. It took roughly 3 days of work from start to finish, but I was honestly surprised by how fairly smooth the process went. Especially considering the new things I'd tried along the way. I can only assume it's because of just how much my heart was really into making this piece. As I said before, I am truly proud of how this piece turned out. I love it. I love it, and I love the band that inspired its creation. Even the title says a lot here, I think. I picked this line that's repeated at the end of It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish, as it was a leading inspiration with the leaves and everything, and after looking at the lyrics I realized how fitting that line is for this. I discovered My Chemical Romance two years too late, two years after they broke up in 2013, but I've stuck by them ever since, and I will continue to do so, with whatever the unwritten future holds. They've changed, as anyone would over the course of six years, but they came back anyway. Even if it's just for a few shows and they're gone again. Or if it's going to be so much more than that. They. Came. Back. And that's not an easy thing to do a lot of the time. And so, I show my solidarity. I will be with you, MCR, no matter what comes next. You were there for me, and now it's my turn to be there for you, even if it as just another fan among the crowd. And that's really all I have to say on the matter. ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[chrysanthemums-au]

Season of Chrysanthemums

SUMMARY: Within the outer limits of Corona, Cassandra meets Varian, who seems to be as insubstantial and ethereal as the black rocks. The two lost…forgotten…overlooked (?) souls decide to wander the streets at nightfall in search of ghosts.

Though, as Varian has long since had a connection to the spirits of the departed, how can Cassandra be sure if the alchemist is who he says himself to be?

CHAPTER 1-Miles to Go Before I Sleep

AO3 LINK

Cassandra kept her gaze lowered as she trekked along the normally bustling corridor. The otherwise bright and colorful interior of the castle only served as a grotesque facsimile to the unease that had washed over the kingdom.

 Once lively, the other handmaidens had resorted to speak through hushed whispers and behind closed doors.

 Usually Cassandra loves the quiet. She should be happy of the peace that had enveloped the kingdom…right?

 And yet, she cannot help but worry.

 The tranquility that had set over the kingdom was but a mere respite. It was a warning of something more to come. She could just tell from the hushed whispers, Rapunzel’s unease…she’d do anything for the princess, but—

 ‘Anything’ would not be ‘good’ enough.

 Cassandra had not been the one to save Rapunzel during that blizzard. Rapunzel, no, she had saved herself.

 What good could she be as Rapunzel’s best friend if she couldn’t protect her?

 Sighing, Cassandra turns a corner. The clack of shoes on marble breaks the litany of anxious voices.

 Ever since that accursed blizzard had hit Corona and nearly cost them their king and queen, there were…rumors.

 Cassandra hears her before she sees the familiar figure donning the exact same sky blue handmaiden’s dress.

 The brunette is not one for frivolous rumors and small talk. She knows this, but she cannot help but take note of the words that spill forth from Friedborg. The queen’s handmaiden was always quite the chatterbox, and loathe as Cassandra is to admit it, Friedborg can be an invaluable source of information.

 As she very well knows, word travels fast in such a well-knit community such as the castle’s workers. Between tasks there is not much to do in the way of entertainment, so it is with great reluctance that Cassandra quickly darts away before Friedborg or anyone else can see her. Swiftly, Cassandra hides behind a pillar adorned with the princess’s creative [infuriating] paintings.

 These paintings…they cannot stay on the pillar for long, but Cassandra knows this is a problem for another day.

 Laying a hand upon the pillar, Cassandra slightly leans towards the direction of Friedborg’s voice.

 Due to sheer distance, she cannot discern exactly what Friedborg is saying, but she does make out the words of various passersby as they walk past her hiding place from behind the pillar.

 “Have you heard about what happened to Old Corona?”, a diminutive voice conspiratorially asks.

 Cassandra’s eyes widen. She has never visited Old Corona, but she does know of how much of the castle’s staff have family that reside there.

 “Oh yes, what a terrible tragedy it was,” another voice states, seemingly not terribly concerned or frightened at all.

 “Right, they said that town was completely wiped out overnight.”

 Overnight…could they be talking about the blizzard? Old Corona had not even crossed her mind during that harrowing experience, but yes—they would have been affected.

 “If the princess hadn’t saved us, who knows what could have happened…”

 “Nothing good, I’d imagine,” another voice interjects.

 “It’s always the princess, isn’t it?” Cassandra mutters to herself.

 “But, there’s more to the story.”

 “No one remains in the wreckage of that desecrated town, except for—”

 “The last ghost of Old Corona.”

 “According to rumor, in life, he was a terrifying wizard.”

 “They say his name was Varian.”

 “Varian…why does that name sound familiar?” Cassandra wonders.

 “Even though he had died in Old Corona, it has been said that he can be seen wandering the streets of Corona’s Capital at night.”

 “No one knows the reason for this, but…”

 “To find him, you must follow the trail of chrysanthemums.”

 ---

 “Why did you leave him?” Tired, unseeing blue eyes stare up towards the shadowy visage of what could be considered a humanoid figure.

 Within the dim light of Corona’s empty streets, they almost appeared to be glowing.

 “No, why did you leave us?” the figure(s) mockingly question. Their voices are warped and faint, as if they were speaking through water.

 “We were destroyed because of you, and now…Old Corona is no more.”

 “Silly alchemist…did you think you could save us?”

 Varian’s breath hitches, but he remains utterly silent. His gaze is directed somewhere far away, past the wispy, silhouette.

 A bright crimson petal gently falls to the cold cobblestone ground.

 “He couldn’t even save his dad,” they say. Cheerfully.

 “If you did, then he wouldn’t be encased in amber while you get to roam about freely.”

 Varian’s gaze sharply turns towards the spectre.

 “If it wasn’t for you, your dad would still be alive.”

 “No, you’re wrong,” Varian says as his vision grows darker. “Dad is…he’ll be fine.”

 “He has to be……”

 Varian falters as he hears a sigh and the crunch of leaves. He turns his head slightly to see a person slowly descend from the shadows. There is a slight blue halo surrounding her, but the sight is far from soothing.

 He can almost hear high-pitched, childish laughter, but no, he must be imagining things. Varian blinks and the halo is gone.

 The newcomer narrows her eyes upon taking in the sight of vivid blood-red flowers.

 The stranger, Varian realizes with a start, has one hand hovering over a sword holster.

 “Kid, hey, you okay?” the dark-haired woman asks, her tone laced with concern and suspicion. She has directed her sharp gaze towards Varian, her hand still un-wavering from its position atop the holster.

 Varian knows this woman does not trust him. It’s never really bothered him, what with his village never giving him the time of day. He found a friend in Ruddiger—while his beloved raccoon was a great listener, he obviously could not hold a long conversation.

 Afterall, raccoons could not talk…yet.

 And…he did have his dad—

 No…Varian reminds himself. His dad did not leave; he can’t leave. He’s still in Old Corona, right where he left him.

 Though, as the swordswoman continues to glare at him wearingly, he cannot help but feel a sharp pang jolt through his chest. Perhaps it is loneliness that he feels. Varian was used to conspiratorial whispers every time an invention went wrong, disapproving glances from his father, but—

 It had been so long since a living, breathing person had noticed him.

 Despite her apparent distrust of him, he would be happy. Even if she somehow wound up hating him, Varian would be content.

 He’d rather be acknowledged.

 Hatred was better than merely being fading away into the background, as forgotten and weathered as the letters his father had kept from him. At one point in time, Varian had not cared for acknowledgement, but to be seen is to validate his very existence.

 If she could see him, that would mean—he wasn’t dead.

 As long as he had a living, beating heart, he could save his dad. Even if it felt like he was dying every second, he could not afford to falter from the path he had set for himself.

 He would make his dad proud, even if it was the last thing he’d ever do.

 “Hey, I said, are you okay?” the woman repeats, disdain and irritation painted across her face. She merely throws him a quick glance before lowering her gloved hand from the holster.

 Though, Varian knows that she could quickly have that sword pointed at his throat in a heart beat.

 He attempts to answer the swordswoman, but his voice hitches in his throat. It’s been so long since he had last needed to speak that his voice had grown weak from disuse.

 Varian tries to speak again, but his voice is as faint as the gust of wind that billows throughout the plethora of crimson red flowers that adorn the street.

 “I, what—” Varian stutters. He averts his gaze from her dark green eyes.

 The swordswoman brings her hand back to her face and bites back a dry remark. “You know what, never mind. This is clearly not going anywhere.”

 She pauses, waiting for Varian to speak.

 Another pause.

 Silence.

 This is going to be a long night, Cassandra thinks to herself with a grimace. “Are you going to say anything before day break? Or are we just going to stand here all night?”

 “Varian.” His voice is muffled and cracked from disuse, but it is the most he has spoken since the blizzard.

 “What? I didn’t catch that,” the swordswoman says. “You need to speak up, kid.”

 “You do have a name, right?”, she flippantly remarks.

  It takes a moment for Varian to gather himself before finding his voice. “My name’s Varian.”

 Eyes widening in surprise, Cassandra’s hand reaches for her sword as she points it directly at the alchemist. Varian is un-phased as the sword lightly grazes at his throat.

 He knows he should feel scared. He wishes he could, but he feels…nothing.

 “Varian…so you’re the wizard of Old Corona. I find it hard to believe someone like you could be a threat to the kingdom, but I’ve heard the rumors…” Cassandra says carefully, stern gaze never wavering.

 Varian merely shoots her a disapproving look as he blandly mutters, “That’s why they’re called rumors.”

 Cassandra shifts the sword slightly forward as her glare darkens at the dry remark.

 His gaze falters. “I do not work with magic,” Varian says. “I am an alchemist, not a wizard.”

“But you are right about one thing,” he relents. “I’m from Old Corona.”

 Just as quickly as he had found his voice, Varian falters. He adjusts his antique goggles as he attempts to look somewhere. Anywhere, except for the disapproving glare of the swordswoman.

 He knows what she wants to ask. It is a question he had asked himself all too often, and one that he is reluctant to answer.

 ---

 Cassandra wants to leave. All she wants is to head back to the castle and forget she has ever met this self-proclaimed wizard, but…she cannot.

 It’s troubling. She hates it, but she can see the haunted, vacant look in his eyes…which is a look no one, much less a mere child, should have. And as discrete as he thinks himself to be, she notices how his gaze directs itself everywhere and nowhere—as if he were used to solitude. Though, Cassandra very much knows this to be the case.

 Try as he might to hide it, she can see how uneasy the alchemist is as he fiddles with the old, bronze goggles on his head.  But what’s more worrying is how his worn shirt is hanging off of his frame or how he winces every time he moves his hands ever so slightly.

 He’s so weak and pitiful that even a gust of wind could knock him down.

 Cassandra really, truly, wants to leave…but���she cannot leave him to fend for himself.

 She had left the castle on the coattails of a rumor. While she hadn’t truly believed in a ghost haunting the populated capital of Corona, she had found him.

 This boy was not a ghost, but with how he carried himself—

 He might as well have been dead.

 She knows she’ll regret this, but Cassandra knows her conscience will hate her for leaving.

 For what may be the hundredth time that very evening, Cassandra places her sword back in its sheathe. She softens her voice in what she hopes to be a placating tone as she relays her next question.

 “Why are you here? In Corona?”

 The silence is as endless as the fields of bright red flowers that adorn the kingdom.

“Alright then….” Cassandra slowly speaks as she attempts to dissuade the awkward silence that had descended upon them. “Shouldn’t you go home? Your parents are probably going to kill you for staying out this late.”

 A deep inhale of breath. The alchemist’s shoulders are stiff as he raises his head towards Cassandra. “They won’t be.”

 He quickly diverts his gaze, and it is this that Cassandra becomes conscious of exactly what had caught the boy’s attention. She realizes that he was not avoiding her gaze—rather, he was staring past her…at what, Cassandra did not know.

 Chills ran down her spine as she recounted the hushed, conspiratorial voices she had heard throughout the day. But, she resisted the urge to turn around. It may have been silly and childish and juvenile—all of which are words that would describe Fitzherbert perfectly, but she knew that if she let the ‘alchemist’ stray from her sight for but a mere moment, he would disappear into the night.

 The alchemist may not be Corona’s number one criminal, but if the rumors were to be believed, he is more than capable. She is loathe to admit this, even to herself, but this problem…it is more than she can handle on her own.

 Cassandra is not one for ‘talking about feelings’, but she’s not completely heartless. Rapunzel, on the other hand, could help him with whatever it is that he needs.

 Maybe then, he’ll look a little less broken and more…human.

 Her train of thoughts are broken as the alchemist steps closer. His eyes…are still dead, hollow, glassy, but there is an indescribable emotion in his voice.

 “How are you not tired?”

 Cassandra is startled to see that yes, he looks more ‘present’. Still broken, but ‘alive’. She is not used to this…to going out of her way to speak with someone else. Usually, it is the other way around.

 Though, with a lovely, kind, smart, surprisingly self-centered but well meaning friend such as Rapunzel, she was never wont for loneliness.

 And so, Cassandra will do what she does best when confronted with those beyond her control or understanding. She cannot fathom what the alchemist could possibly mean, so she…ignores him.

 “I’m not even going to answer that,” Cassandra curtly says. Turning sharply on her heels, she beckons for the [not] ghost to follow her. “Whatever it is you’re doing here, don’t. Follow me or not, I don’t care, but I’m heading back to the castle.”

 Her steps falter slightly as she waits for the alchemist’s answer. Anything could work—a confirmation, words…

 A moment passes.

 Another second, and then—

 Timid, light footsteps.

 Cassandra had left on a whim…in search of what? Ghosts? Wizards? Adventure?

 She does not know. There is much she is uncertain of.

 ---

 Varian is lost. For the first time in forever, he…does not know what it is that he sees. The swordswoman, who introduced herself as Cassandra, is…strange, to phrase it mildly.

 She is perfectly alright, albeit a bit cold, if Varian were to be honest. But no, she seemed normal, which is what brought him to his current state of confusion. There is nothing outright ‘otherworldly’ about Cassandra—

 But, this is why he is so uncertain about the dark-haired woman.

 He is uneasy, but she seems to chalk up his discomfort towards something else. Ever since he had seen her surrounded by an eerie blue glow, Varian just knew there was something off about her.

 The reason was beyond him.

 He is an alchemist. He does not like magic, but he cannot ignore its signs.

 Still, he tried his best to think of an alternative reason for the glow. It was not until Cassandra offered to take him to the princess that he heard a high-pitched childish laugh.

 With a jolt, Varian sees that Cassandra was not alone.

A tiny, hazy blue girl was hovering by the swordswoman. If not for her state of transparency, she would have simply looked like a nobleman’s daughter. Though, with the wide, toothy grin she was shooting at him, Varian knew that whatever it was that had attached itself to Cassandra…was far from good.

 Satisfied at catching his attention, the regally dressed specter floated gracefully towards Varian.

 “What are you?” Varian asks, paying no heed to how off-kilter he may sound to Cassandra.

 “Don’t you mean ‘who’ am I?” the blue girl lightly chides.

  Her face-splitting grin grows wider at the alchemist’s inquiries. “Oh, don’t look so glum, Varian.”

 “How…do you know my name?” Varian asks in a hushed voice.

 “Let’s just say I’m a friend, or at least, I’d like to be.”

 Taking Varian’s silence as a confirmation to go on, the enchanted girl lightly chuckles. “Don’t worry; I won’t lie to you.”

 “You’d better catch up with Cassandra,” she airily advises. “Until we meet again, little moondrop.”

 Varian watches as the apparition slowly fades from view. He cannot see her, but he knows she is somewhere nearby. He wishes he could bring himself to care, but why should the ghost of another matter to him?

 Perhaps in a different time or place, he would have cared. But now, even more than alchemy or answers, he wants his father back.

 And so, with a heavy heart, Varian follows Cassandra. He does not know where this path will lead him, but he promises to make his father proud.

 No matter what becomes of him, he knows that this is a promise he cannot afford to break.

[keltonwrites]

thanks for the binder

My father wrote me a book, and I haven’t read it. My father and I are as alike as any father and daughter have any right to be, in spirit, temperament, and assuredness of our capability. I tell you this because the book is about him, and thus, essentially about me, and that’s not the only reason I can’t read it. If I read the book, he will obviously die. If I don’t read the book, he will definitely, without question, also die, but a different death. Neither more sad nor terrible than the other, but different in their command over bad guilt or dumb grief. I will either feel like dying myself because I did not read it when he was alive, or I will be so adept at imagining him dead I will be weeping at his non-grave, sitting across from him at the table as he lowers the newspaper to look curiously at his weeping daughter. It is also with certainty that reading the book will kill me, either with love so deep it drowns me in profound agony, or in that I will see how light and fire and good personalities burn out into dusty pieces of ash, particles we breathe in and sneeze out on a bus while strangers glare passively in our general direction. We are all just piles of molecules, dead on arrival. What and why, etc. Reading the book will kill us both, and not reading it is killing us both, and being dead either way does not make approaching it any less dreadful. So instead I just hold the plastic three-ring binder from somewhere like Staples because he doesn’t know you can just find that kind of thing at Walgreens. And when all I have is that binder, he would be paper cuts and glue coming undone from photos with no jpegs or even negatives, just the one photo of the one thing that he stuck to a page for his daughter so she could be proud of him so one day she could cry so hard hoping so profoundly that he had been proud of her. So, I can’t read the book because I have to. I don’t have a choice. I bring this up because we’re both in good health and I am deeply superstitious, and sometimes I like to wave things in the face of my superstition to see what comes of them. Also, because one of the characters in the novel I am writing is based on my dad, and that character dies, so I’ve been crying a lot. This novel has been a long-time coming, in that the characters first came to me in 2014. Thus far they have been very patient with me, but I could feel them rumbling, packing their things or dying somewhere in my computer, and I knew I needed to act quickly. I booked a room up the California coast where no one could ask me, well, anything, and I started to write again. Kill your darlings doesn’t always mean slogging them off with machetes, but sometimes cutting their character information and pasting it into a document of Dead Darlings, ctrl+F’ing their name, and deleting—watching the word count fall with them. Sorry, Hannah. Sorry, Red. Once upon a time, I wrote frequently for free, and now I write infrequently for money. And that, as far as I can tell for myself, has not resulted in the kind of life I want. But this is a hard thing for me to parse. Some coworkers read this (hi! Please don’t tell me if you read this) and I would very much like to keep my well-paying job so I can continue to fantasize about buying a home so that one day I can do things like paint a wall yellow and then wonder if it was a bad idea. I also would like (for no reason I can discern other than growing up middle class in Ohio) to own a big truck with big wheels with a big engine so I can joyfully drive to the back of every parking lot because that’s the only place it will fit. And these things cost more money than I was making writing for free, as you can surmise by the word “free.” A year or so ago, I was taking the Yale course on Happiness through Coursera (of course not knowing when I was rejected from Yale as an insulted 17-year-old that I eventually could take all the interesting classes for free without ever doing the homework.)  It prompted me to take a happiness survey. I love quizzes about my personality (which any personality quiz will tell you about me right away — Type 7, ENFP.) When I went to create an account, it told me I could not. An account under that email already existed. I cocked my head like a dog at the computer to emphasize to myself my own confusion, and I turned immediately to the search bar of my email to get to the bottom of this. It turns out, I had taken the exact same quiz some 4 years prior. And the results were still in my account. The internet giveth. But, of course, the internet also taketh away: upon taking the quiz again, I was happier, but not by much. This didn’t make sense. In 2014, I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend, lived in a 150 sq ft room where I was not allowed to make noise (!), and often couldn’t leave work for spans of 30 hours at a time. But in the 2018 quiz, I was making significantly more money working fewer hours, I was in a happy and supportive relationship, I lived in a cool ass house with cool ass pets — where was my goddamned happiness? I took that quiz in November and assuming you’re currently experiencing time the same way that I am, it is now March, wait, no, it’s April, and I spent the last five months carefully examining what made me happy and what didn’t. And like any person who’s had to have the phrase “forest for the trees” explained to them multiple times, I couldn’t see what was painfully obvious to 97% of people who knew me: when I’m not writing, I’m not happy. And I’m not talking about tagline writing, or UX writing, or writing scripts for product features, or writing about bike rentals in Ventura, or any of the writing I was actually doing. I could still slip into flow on those things. I could still get excited and get lost in the rhythm, but upon completion, it felt like planning a trip with friends only for them all to have something come up, and the plan get pushed another indefinite year. At some point, you just have to take the trip yourself, and I thought that trip would be this newsletter, but I’ve struggled to write more newsletters because of two things: why buy the cow, etc., but also because it feels like there needs to be a point. And while I suspect those are beliefs I should investigate and dismantle, today I happen to have a point, so here it is: If doing something doesn’t feel right and you don’t need to do it to survive, you should probably do less of it. And if there is something you feel called to do, but feel you don’t have time to do it, you should probably take a long hard look at your calendar and (oh boy) your choices. It’s been five years since I sat down with these characters, and in the meantime, my dad sat down and transcribed his entire life pre-my-mom with photos. It’s page after page of wild parties, broke down cars, school dropouts, ski towns, jumping out of airplanes, fighting fire, and living in the wilderness all so his daughter could be like, “sorry Dad, I can’t book a ski trip 3 months in advance because there’s no way this tech company with 250 other employees could find a way to replace my somewhat vague skill-set for a Friday. Also I gave up on my dreams. Thanks for the book." Holding the three-ringed binder, looking at the printed title page he’d slipped under the plastic cover, feeling such pride and love it could distort the proportions of the room, I knew when I would be ready to read it: when I could send my dad my finished manuscript so he could read what he’d made of me while I read what he’d made of himself. So I'm in a cottage up the coast from where I live, away from the cat in my lap and the dog at my side, away from morning coffees and goodbye kisses, far far away from bosses and emails, and the farthest away from what doesn't feel right in order to get closer to what does. 

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[larksinging]

hey it’s @transrobro ‘s birthday today! happy birthday jay!!!

i thought it was only appropriate to take two of their favorite things and mash them together: rvb and rwby! actually this is based on an au jay came up with, i just expanded a few details for this fic. even so i hope you enjoy! 

now for the sappy part: jay not a day goes by that im not happy i started talking to you more. youve been such a wonderful presence in my life and someone i am just always made better by knowing. and this year youve done a lot to stand up for yourself and take care of yourself and i am SO proud of you for that! i hope you have a great birthday today because you have absolutely earned it 

The metals doors slide open and Alaska steps into the briefing room, the white of her armor tinged in glittery blue from the holographic projections. She steps up to her appropriate spot at the edge of the table, not quite interrupting the Director and everyone he’s gathered. Her stance is stiff and formal. 

“Agent Alaska reporting for duty, sir.” She holds her posture as a few other Freelancers on the other side of the table glance up at her.

She thought she’d be the first one here, but obviously she’d been beaten. If she wasn’t at attention, she’d go stand with Michigan and her red-and-gold armor. Already gathered as well are Arkansas and Oklahoma, but you always see their green and pink together. There’s also BM and Vermont, and she thinks she even sees Hawaii in the corner. 

“Ah, Alaska,” The Director drawls, “Good timing. We were just about to begin. You wouldn’t want to be late for your own mission briefing.” 

“Of course not,” Alaska agrees. She can almost feel Hawaii rolling her eyes. 

“Very good. In that case, let’s begin.” He pulls up the holographic image of some kind of alien ruin. “You’ll be recovering some artifacts from this crash site. Since they require simultaneous extraction, I’m sending two teams.” 

He spins the image and highlights something in one of the lower sections. “Agent Alabama and Agent Hawaii--” He nods and the two of them step forward, “You’ll be recovering the first artifact.” 

“No problem,” BM drawls. Hawaii nods in agreement. 

“Meanwhile, Alaska.” He moves the hologram to highlight a spot at the top of a spire. Of course she’s always sent on the missions with heights. “You’ll be working with...” 

Michigan, she internally begs. Michigan’s never dropped below second place, when she even drops below first. Either Okhlahoma or Arkansas would be fine two, they’re both skilled. Vermont’s pretty sweet and shy, but good in the field, so she’d take her. Or even Tenessse, despite her dramatic flair, is hell with a gatling.  As long as it’s not Rhode Island and his stupid crush. Or worse yet...

“Sorry I’m late! There was, um, kind of a problem with the lockers, and--” Oh no. 

“Agent Oregon,” The Director nearly sneers. “Do try to arrive on time from now on. I’d nearly changed my mind about assigning you to this mission.” Oh no. “You’re working with Agent Alaska. She’ll catch you up on the details.” 

Alaska looks over at her partner. Oregon -- or RG, rather, just like her sister -- has her helmet off and slung lazily in the crook of her arm. It’s as obnoxiously red as the rest of her armor, which honestly makes her look like one of the sim soldiers. And, the worst thing is, RG is beaming at her. 

“Oooh, I’ve always wanted to work with you,” RG says. Alaska braces herself. It’s not the first time people have fawned over her. She joined Project Freelancer to get away from her name, but it turns out a Schnee is still a Schnee, no matter what she goes. 

“Your armor’s ability is so cool and versatile and I have so many combination ideas,” RG is practically bouncing, “And you give great reports.” 

Wait, what?

“Depends on your definition of great,” BM mumbles as she passes, patting RG on the back and nearly knocking her over. Which nearly knocks her into Alaska. She hurriedly shoves RG off of her and dusts herself off. 

“Let’s get going,” Alaska simply says and turns on her heels. 

-

While technically the mission was a success, Alaska’s not satisfied with it. Her own performance didn’t so much as nudge her score. No doubt because she was spending most of the mission bickering with her partner. If it hadn’t been for her suit’s enhancements, RG would’ve never made it up the side of the building. 

Green flickers in the corner of her vision. “I believe you’re overthinking this, Agent Alaska,” Omicron says. 

“I’m not overthinking this,” She snaps, “I’m thinking about this a perfectly reasonable amount. I--” 

“Ooh, is that your AI?” 

Alaska’s head snaps up as RG approaches her. Alaska closes her locker and glares. Omicron clears his throat in amusement and then flickers away before she can glare. It doesn’t matter, because her eyes catch on RG pulling off her helmet. In the light of the briefing room she didn’t see how RG’S short black hair is tipped with red that can’t be natural, or how she has striking silver eyes that almost look through her. Alaska swallows thickly. 

“Yes,” She replies stiffly.

“That’s cool. I’ve got Psi here.” An AI flickers into place next to RG, faintly hazel in color. He waves to Alaska, who frowns. 

“Wait, you already have an AI?” 

“Yeah, I guess?” RG rubs the back of her neck. “The Director thought I was ready.” 

“I thought you just joined the program,” Alaska says through grit teeth, “And you already have an AI? There’s no way you’ve earned that.” 

“Whoa, hey,” RG narrows her eyes, “What’s with you? I just wanted to talk to you because I wanted to find someone else who understood. I mean, Michigan’s got... Epsilon, right?” 

“Kappa.” 

“--Right, and Hawaii and my sister are up soon, but...” 

“You think I want to talk to you?” Alaska can see Psi getting nervous, and Omicron activating to try and calm her, but she ignores them. “After your stunt on the mission?” 

“Hey, that worked out! We were fine!” 

“No thanks to you!” A part of her knows that isn’t entirely true, but she doesn’t want to admit it. “You’ve been trying to aggravate me all day! Ever since you mocked my reports--” 

“I wasn’t mocking you,” RG interrupts her, now deadly sincere. “I actually meant what I said? I like your reports.” 

Alaska stares. “What?” 

“You put more detail into them than anyone else.” RG rocks back on her heels and shrugs. “Yeah, they’re really long, but some of the stuff you include is really useful. Like the other week I read your report on the Chorus mission, and you were the only one who included the exact model of vehicle that Hawaii caught. Sooo I could look it up and calculate the tensile strength on that ribbon-gun she likes, so I could give suggestions for that combo move she uses with BM!” 

“The one they use all the time?” Alaska blinks at her. “You came up with that?”

“Yeah.” 

“And you figured it out because of my notes?” 

“Yeah!” 

Nobody’s ever complimented her on that before. Not genuinely. Everyone thinks she’s pretentious and too focused on her rank, but she just wants to be thorough. And here’s this newbie prodigy telling her how good they are. Something bubbles in her chest, but Alaska can’t put a name to it. 

“Maybe I’ve misjudged you,” She admits slowly. “Would you... like to spar sometime? I could give you feedback on your form, or something like that.” 

The smile slowly spreads across RG’s face. “I’d really like that.” 

-

Anyway, the rest of that is a story for another time. Too bad, I know.

Instead, let me paint you a picture: it’s late afternoon and yet the moon rises high over the walls of the gulch. Alaska goes off on patrol, but so little happens in this box canyon that she’s really just using the excuse to get away from BM and Hawaii being obnoxious and obvious back at Red base. 

She goes up along one of the cliff trails that run along the sides of the gulch. This one leads to a nice vantage point of Blue Base, which is a great strategic advantage for no purpose. They’re only play fighting with Rhode and the rest of Blue Team. Really, it’s just a nice spot for some peace and quiet. 

Except that RG’s already beaten Alaska there. RG sits at the edge of the overlook with her feet swinging off the edge, her sniper rifle laid neatly beside her. 

Alaska hesitates for a moment. RG glances back and notices her, then simply scoots to the side a little bit. Alaska takes the invitation and sits carefully beside RG, her own knees tucked closer to her chest. 

“Do you ever wonder why we’re here?” RG asks. 

“I was going to ask you why you were out here,” Alaska counters. 

“That’s not what I meant!” “What did you mean?”

“I mean, why are we here in this random canyon?” 

Alaska frowns behind her helmet. “I thought... random was the point?” 

“Mmmm. I guess so.” RG leans back and tilts her head up to the sky. “This place is kind of nice at night.” 

“Do you... come out here a lot at night?” 

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s nice to stargaze. Even though I don’t recognize any of the constellations here.” 

“I could teach you sometime.” 

RG looks over at her. “What?” 

“My sister taught me the constellations. Even ones in the far reaches of the galaxy, like here.” Alaska looks up at the sky, purposefully not looking directly at RG. “I could show you, sometime.” 

“I’d really like that, Alaska.” 

“You can thank me for it later.” 

They say later, but they stay until the sun sets. In the darkness, nobody will see if their hands overlap.