#polite responsible and always tries their best to improve themselves

[thrill-addict]

do you guys see what i mean

[goblinpuppy35]

Paw Prints in Fresh Soil

(Previous Chapter) - Part 2 - (Next Chapter)

Professor Remus x Male Reader

Summary: While teaching at Hogwarts Professor Lupin tries his best to conceal his strong crush for the green fingered grounds keeper Y/N but soon a strong friendship blooms into something more.

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A week of teaching flashed past Remus at an expectational speed and he loved every moment of it. Everyday was slightly different with what he taught and he was beginning to see a genuine improvement in the students Defense Against the Dark Art skills. He felt a place of pride for them all in his heart. The connection he had built with his students did help to combat the consistently delicate relationship he held with most other teachers.

They would exchange polite nods with Remus down the hallway yet this was always accompanied with a swift step to the furthest wall to increase their distance between themselves and the Proffesor. It was an agonising staff meeting when it had been made aware to the rest of the teachers about Remus being a werewolf, several protested intensely, with Professor Snape being the biggest. During this discussion Remus had kept closest to the door with his head hung staring at his scuffed shoes. He felt a constant sense of anxiety that this whole opportunity would be whipped away from him any second.

Each day Remus considered it a blessing he was still at Hogwarts. At this point he had become accustomed to doing his scheduled night patrols alone. His eyes adjusted well to the dark night surroundings, personally Remus would have been happy to wonder without a light but to not startle any potential wandering members of the castle, he illuminated his path by the tip of his wand as he strolled down the hallway, passing sleeping paintings. 

The night had a cold but peaceful atmosphere to it which Remus took solis in, enjoying a few squares of his nighttime supply of chocolate. As Remus used his sharp back teeth to press down on a particular hard piece he froze in the middle of the hallway and observed a dull warm light grow in intensity around the corner. It was the glow of a lantern and Remus prepared himself to give a wandering student a stern yet measured reminder of Hogwarts after dark curfew rules, but the figure's size threw his focus. Taller than a student yet not as tall as the Professor himself. With Remus remaining stagnant and figure not fully looking where they were going the two almost collided.

With only a few steps to spare the lamp and the head of its carrier whipped forward in Remus' direction, their two light sources highlighting the other. "Y/N!" Remus said in surprise, "Oh Christ! " was the groundskeeper's response followed by him stepping back, clinching his chest and letting out a small nervous laugh "You really need to stop sneaking up on me Professor Lupin". Despite the shock Remus found himself pleased to see the young man again "forgive me, I didn't expect to see you of all people on my patrol, what are you doing up and about?". By now Y/N had caught his breath back, "Same as you actually" he explained "Hagrid wasn't feeling so well so asked me to do his night patrol for him. I don't spend much time in this castle, I'm honestly amazed you all don't get lost in this maze more often!". There already seemed to be an element of comfortable familiarity between the two men which Remus enjoyed, "Well we all get lost in our first year but soon you start to know Hogwarts as a second home along with all its strange passageways" he beamed towards Y/N, however this shared experience seemed to be lost on the groundskeeper who looked back at Remus with a polite but confused smile.

Remus wasn't able to speak again before the conversation was deliberately interrupted by a slow cough echoing down the hall, it's perpetrator made themselves viable from their own wands light. "Interrupting something am I?" each word was more drawn more then the last and Remus brow dropped as Proffesor Snape approached them. "The fact your granted the responsibility of night patrols is truly beyond me, especially since it seems you'd rather spend your time gossiping" Snape's dark eyes lookee between Y/N and Remus who then looked towards each other. "With all due respect Proffesor Snape" Y/N carefully began "Professor Lupin is an incredibly capable member of staff and takes his role with absolute seriousness" Remus' mouth dropped open slightly, it was rare he was ever stood up for. "In fact I was just about to ask Professor Lupin if he would accompany me on my petrol for the rest of the night since I don't know these halls as well as him." Y/N finished with an air of confidence though alas this began to diminished as Proffesor Snape came closer.

"This is NOT the kind of individual anyone in this school should be conspiring with" hissed Snape towards Y/N, "If it was put to me he would be on the first train out of here" as the ghoulish positions teacher paused he leaned in closer to Y/N making him visible nervous. "And you would be a close second Mr Y/L/N. You have no business being here, the only small positive in your gross act of misjudgement is the only person your endangering is yourself of course". Y/N's face showed he was certainly upset by these comments yet he stood his ground, gripping onto the handle of his lantern tightly.

Once Snape was satisfied with his torment he adjusted his robes and started to walk down the eery corridor "Of course, it's in my best interest for you to not get yourself harmed. I will need your help collecting the herbs I need for a certain Someone's medicine" with the word someone being emphasised as Snape briefly turned back to glare directly as Remus. It wasn't until Remus was satisfied that Snape was out of ear stop he could relax and turn back to Y/N "he's as insufferable as when he was child. I'm sorry about him Y/N please don't take his words to heart. You have a right to be here as much as anyone" in a moment of rare forwardness Remus places his hand gently on Y/N's shoulder.

This gesture was met with tender eyes and a small warm smile from Y/N which was enough to make Remus draw him in closer but by force he controlled his impulses. "Thank you Lupin" Y/N said genuinely "But Professor Snape is right, I don't exactly belong here" as Y/N contemplated he began to walk down the hallway and Remus swiftly followed. "You know originally I withdrew my application to come and work here at the school but it was Dumbeldore who found me and encouraged me to reconsider." as they walked Y/N seemed to be talking to the sleeping paintings as much as he was to Remus, nevertheless he was happy to just listen. "I knew the risks coming here and I knew it wasn't going to be easy yet at the same time I was hopeful, if that makes any sense". "Completely" Remus said earnestly suddenly finding himself connecting even more with the gentleman next to him. Was it possible they were more alike then he had originally thought?

"Well" Y/N said with a sudden chuckle "that's what I get for being a Muggle living under Hogwarts roof". Remus instantly scrapped his previous thoughts. "I'm sorry what? .. your a Muggle?" Y/N seemed shocked by Remus' own level of disbelief, "had you not noticed" he asked lifting up his hand  to Remus "no wand". This was true, Remus had never noticed a wand on Y/N's person and it would explain why he was walking at night by latten light and yet Remus was still struggling to grasp this new information. Y/N had stopped walking forward, folding his arms he leans against the stone wall, allowing Remus to remain dumbfounded "if it helps you reacting as well as most people do" there was a hint of sarcasm in Y/N's voice. This was not the first time he'd had this conversation. In this moment Remus recognised the familiar emotions of uneasiness and panic he had often bared witness from others now being expressed outwardly from himself. He took a moment to recenter himself and rejoin the conversation with Y/N, the last thing Remus wanted to do was make him feel more isolated.

Without being prompted Y/N began to talk, "I'm sure you've got questions so I'll give you the basic run down . My parents went to Hogwarts, they met each other, fell in love and had a child. A healthy baby boy who grew up to be a very capable wizard in the ministry. Then they had a second child .. a child who showed no signs of magical spell casting abilities. And before you ask they did numerous tests on me. Some just said I was a late bloomer and needed more time but nothing happened. No wand chose me and that was that". They had reached the end of the hallway which had an enormous decorative arched window looking out towards the still lake and Y/N watched the clouds reflection dance in the water ripples as he continued. "So my parents decided to send me to a Muggle school, not that I really fit in there either. But I still had such an interest in the magic world, I read all my parents books on wizard history and creatures. I got particularly fascinated by magical herbology hence why I help out in the greenhouses so much. So yes, I may be a Muggle technically but I know a lot about this world and I feel more connected to be in it then the one out there." Despair was hidden behind Y/N's eyes though he did a good job holding it from rising to the surface.

Remus said nothing at first, he simply looked at Y/N in awe, processing every word he'd said. Finally as the full murky colours of dawn began to creep into the sky and morning birds tweeted in the dark trees, Remus reached out and took Y/N's hand. It was Y/N's turn to now stand silently, in shock of Remus' sudden action. "You may not be a magic caster Y/N .. but you have me spellbound" even within the dark Y/N cheeks clearly turned a warm pink and he almost tried to wiggle out of Remus' grasp. "You are proving everyone who ever doubted you wrong by being here and that is immensely courageous, I implore you to believe in your own capabilities, or at least let me believe in them until you can" when Remus had said 'let me' he could feel Y/N's own grip in his palm get tighter for a moment. "That's .. that's quite a romantic statement Proffesor Lupin" Y/N couldn't meet Remus' eye contact until he said his name and in a heart beat both men were the same shape of pink and exchange nervous chuckles.

"Please, call me Remus" he noticed the warm colour coming back to Y/N's face which caused Remus to gaze out of the window and see that the morning sun was swiftly approaching. "And I'm just speaking honestly...Looks like our patrol together is almost done. Would you like to watch the sun rise with me?". Y/N nodded and their hands parted as they sat down of the stone window ledge and enjoyed the steady glow of the horizon. "What did Professor Snape mean when he said that you shouldn't be here either" Y/N ask and looked at Remus with curious eyes. Remus kept his eyes forward at the lake and his jaw tightened. "Oh nothing really. Just old school boy grudges really." Y/N continued to stare at Remus and then eventually turned back to face the sunshine "oh. okay then."

'Honestly my arse' thought Remus with a sigh.

[lady-of-lyon]

So, I made one post a while back about how awesomely feminist the show Wild Kratts was, with how its two main female characters were women of color in engineering and deserving roles of power, female villains who weren’t motivated by spite or quest for youth, etc, but today I wanted to talk about something slightly different, that I’ve wanted to cover for a while now, because I also think it’s very good - and that’s how the show portrays masculinity, in a way that’s really positive!

First, we have our two main characters, Chris and Martin Kratt. Keep in mind these two are basically self-inserts - and there are plenty of creators, especially males, who have used self-insert characters in really scummy ways - all I have to say is Powerpuff Girls reboot and you know exactly what I’m talking about. Even if they weren’t literal self-inserts, male characters, superheroes especially, oftentimes serve the male power fantasy, being just the strong, stoic, all-powerful person so many boys are told they’re supposed to be. I could get into a whole discussion about how the male power fantasy is present even when males are not (ever look through a fashion magazine and wonder why there are so few men? Sure, part of it is that the industry thrives off exploiting women’s insecurities, and men aren’t as concerned for their appearance, but another part of it is so that the guy, looking through it, can feel like he has no competition for these women - there’s a reason so many comedians have jokes about fashion magazines being their sexual awakening as kids. It’s really scummy) but that’s not what this is about. So, the bros had every opportunity to do just that - make themselves these traditional heroes who aren’t actually really good role models, like batman or what have you. It’s certainly not uncommon for celebrity cartoons to do stuff like that. But Martin and Chris chose a different approach. They’re pretty strong standouts for positive masculinity. They’re openly affectionate - both with eachother as brothers, and with their friends. They cry, sometimes over little things - most of the time when big superheroes cry, it’s ‘cause they lost the girl they loved or their mentor or something like that, only in the big, most agonizing moments do they shed a tear. But here, Chris or Martin will cry just because they’ve had a bad day, or because they’re overwhelmed and overjoyed that someone named a mantis after them! In a lot of shows or movies when a guy cries over something little, it’s usually played for laughs, or to emasculate him, but here it’s casual without being unreasonable or overdone. The brothers cry just ad much, maybe even more (haven’t gone back and counted or anything) as the girls do. Not to mention, it’s a very nice depiction of a loving, healthy sibling relationship. As the youngest sibling myself, it’s refreshing to see a pair who don’t abuse eachother with noogies or cruel and snarky remarks. When they do fight, it’s never a screaming match, and also because they had a conflict of interest or disagreed over a fact, not because, say, one of them stole the other’s shirt or is neglecting the other’s feelings. Kids, being very impressionable, get exposed to a lot of abusive sibling relationships played as normal in media, and start thinking this is how siblings are and should act. For instance, my sister (who is now my best friend and has gotten over all these bad habits over time) when she was younger watched a lot of Kim Possible, a show that is great, but has a bad family dynamic with Kim and her little siblings. The “tweebs” as she calls them are always irresponsible, destructive, and making Kim annoyed to no end. My older brother was one of the most polite, reserved, kind little kids, but she still treated him like he was a brat and a nuisance, because that’s what shows like Kim Possible taught her little brothers were. Additionally, I was always treated like a spoiled crybaby who just wanted attention and got away with everything - I was not any of those things, ever, but that’s what shows teach you little sisters are. Sure, Wild Kratts has a smidge of that, with Chris seemingly being the stereotype of the know-it-all little sibling, but instead of being constantly looked town upon for being too “perfect” like with Hailey Long in American Dragon, Martin often praises his brother for his abilities. Sure, Martin gets annoyed when Chris tries to correct him on things, like in the episode Wolf Hawks, but everyone else does too, so it feels more like a take-down of mansplaining than a sibling spat.

I talked too in the feminist post about how refreshing it is that Chris and Martin more or less willingly put themselves under the authority of Koki and Aviva, two women of color. I don’t think it’s possible to say any one character is the “leader,” they all work as a evenly balanced team, but it’s safe to say that Koki and Aviva make the more responsible decisions. The bros try to get out of their calls a few times, but the show plays it more like they’re being irresponsible, and less like they’re renegade cool dudes who don’t take nothing from nobody, especially not two girls. They are pretty much always punished via karma for their reckless choices, most especially in To Touch a Hummingbird, where their arrogant attitudes blow up in their faces rather spectacularly. We also never see the narrative most present in sitcoms, where the male leads mess up and go out of their way to cover it up and ultimately gets away with it - after all, you have to root for them, right, because sure they messed up and had no consequences, but aren’t they just so lovable? No, here Martin and Chris always have to fix their wrongdoing, and it’s always deserved when they get comeuppance. Another aspect of the show I like is that, many times, when the bros get captured or are in peril, they are saved by the women - and most refreshing of all, there’s never a moment of “wink wink nudge nudge wow I can’t believe I had to be rescued by a GIRL” or even “wow you saved me you’re pretty good honey guess I shouldn’t have underestimated you, you go girl!” No, when the girls save them, it’s just - you know, relief? Because they were saved? It’s never a scenario played as an exception, or any more dire than when the bros need to rescue eachother. The bros are genuinely happy to have them as teammates. The show even did the standard “boys vs girls” episode in the form of When Fish Fly - but instead of being actually girls vs. boys, it’s engineers vs. adventurers. There’s nothing really gendered about it - the girls happen to be engineers, and the boys happen to be adventurers. And the episode doesn’t end with the boys being “wow gosh darn I shouldn’t have doubted you girls are better at everything,” it’s a mutual agreement that both parties have hard jobs. Basically, the bros are very naturally respectful of women. That plays more into their feminist narrative too, but either way, it’s refreshing.

Then, we have Jimmy! Jimmy, the lovable gamerboy pizza man. At first glance Jimmy seems like the stereotypical cowardly, pathetic, emasculated loser. He’s frightened of most things, as of yet has no power suit, and he BAKES for crying out loud! But none of these things are framed as terribly bad traits. Sure, we laugh when he screams and runs from an animal, but though it happens over and over, the crew doesn’t get sick of it. They don’t berate him or belittle him because he’s so gosh darn cowardly. There’s a great scene in Rattlesnake Crystal where Jimmy has to deliver something to the bros alone, in the middle of a spooky desert. He is terrified the whole time, sprinting off after he delivers the goods. When Martin and Chris run into him, they don’t laugh at him for being spooked, they just greet and then bid fair well to their friend. To them, this is just Jimmy, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Jimmy isn’t coddled, but he is reassured many times that he’s a valuable member of the team. I love that little message, that you’re just as important of a person even if you can’t do as much or have greater limits. When his friends do try to get him over his fears, it’s not because they have to, that the day will somehow be ruined by Jimmy’s incompetence p, but because they’re his friends, and want him to experience fun and wonderful things that he would otherwise miss out on. But what Jimmy CAN do is just as important! Jimmy is a gamer, which in a lot of shows, is portrayed as a lazy, useless, mindless hobby. But here, because he plays video games, it makes him essential for piloting the ship and teleporting important items. There’s always the joke that video games improves your hand/eye coordination, but recent studies have shown it has much better effects. It can make you much better at keeping track of multiple moving objects and processing technical but variable information- two traits which, fittingly enough, are really really important for air traffic controllers and airplane pilots! He also demonstrates a lot more courage behind the wheel of the Tortuga, which makes sense - in an impersonal setting, he would have more sense of calm and control and courage, because it’s so similar to a video game world. It’s not all too different with how I feel more emboldened to pick fights with people on the internet, but get crazy anxious if a real person so much as looks at me. So Jimmy’s love of video games isn’t because he’s irresponsible, it has real benefits. A quick last point - Jimmy also eats a lot, but they thankfully don’t make him fat or greedy or anything like that. He never takes food from people, he actually bakes, and shares it with others! Having the baker be a boy is a lovely touch.

I might do another post about the toxic masculinity of the two villains, (or four villains, I guess, if I wanna discuss the minions) but I’ve got other work to do, and this post is long enough already, so I’ll get around to it later. I’ll sum it up with this - Wild Kratts is a show that teaches boys it’s not only ok to be kind, but essential. The brothers protect defenseless animals, advocate for things “icky” and “weird,” like bugs or snakes or worms - not because they’re boys, and boys like icky things, but because they genuinely see the beauty in all life, and are encouraging us to slow down and do the same. The Wild Kratts are heroes who save the world not by being the strongest or smartest or coolest, but by looking after those who are exploited and vulnerable, who are essential to the world, even if they can’t always do everything. In Wild Kratts the only weaknesses a man can have isn’t what he can’t do, but what he does do that he shouldn’t have. Sure, it’s a cute show about two funny guys who have cool powers, but it’s also a show about accountability, compassion, respect and trust. The show says “boys will be boys” in all the right ways - Martin is a lovable goof with a heart of gold, but he still has to get his act together when he messes up, and he’s still creative and smart and openly sensitive. Chris is a bit of a know-it-all show-off, but he can also mess up as much as his brother, and is still bold, brave, adventurous, and can put his money where his mouth is. Jimmy is a cowardly, napping, eating machine video-gamer, but he’s still a valued member of the team, has incredible skills and talents, and will always help his friends, even if he is really, really scared. It is so important to have role models like these, in a world dominated by unhealthy machismo. The Wild Kratts are heroes who save the world - both animated, and real.

All they need now is a canon queer character, and I’ll stan them forever! My money’s on Aviva!!

[linkspooky]

idk if ur taking asks abt jjk but i was curious on ur thoughts abt gojo i haven’t rlly heard this around but i’ve been thinking abt the fact that gojo desire to basically indoctrinate children to fit his ideal sorcerer society is a bit strange and i saw this on your meta on how the schools only see these kids as tools but doesn’t gojo do the same idk my thoughts are everywhere and i get that gojo was raised in this system so it’s normalised in his eyes but idk gojo’s ideology is lowkey fucked imo and i was curious what u thought

I think Gojo is a product of the same society that raises up kids to be used as tools, and he unintentionally passes that lesson onto his students.Gojo knows that the system is wrong for using kids that way, but he’s such a fundamental part of the system, he doesn’t really know how to overcome it works inside of it instead.  I think what he said to Megumi is pretty telling of how he treats these kids in general, he tells him you better get strong or else you’ll get left behind.” He thinks he’s teaching them what’s best, because that’s how Gojo understands the world works, but at the same time he’s telling a five year old kid if he fails to protect his sister it’s all his fault. 

Gojo teaches his students to “get stronger, get stronger” as a response for all of their problems. He takes responsibility for their development as sorcerers, but nothing else really, and especially not their well-being as individuals. Gojo basically treats his students like mini-adults, friends he can pal around with, and that makes sense if you think about it, he’s raising them all to be political allies.  He’s not really trying to raise a bunch of healthy adults. I think Gojo genuinely does care for these kids and stick out his neck to protect them, and his goal is entirely an altruistic one to prevent the childhoods of other children from getting destroyed like his did. However, Gojo is fatally a selfish person just like Geto is fatally selfless, he doesn’t offer help out of the goodness of his heart, he barters. He always expects something in return from these children.

So, on one level I believe Gojo yes is intentionally using these children. He only extends help when he gets something in return from them, his helps is always conditional on the fact that he’ll gain another ally. However, at the same time I think the problem more lies in the fact that Gojo doesn’t see individual people as individuals, and therefore doesn’t want to pay attention to the indivdual emotions of his students that he ends up using his students this way. He thinks it’s fine. This is how he was used  growing up, but this time, Gojo is using them for good ends instead of a bad one. 

I think Gojo’s inability to take care of their needs as individuals, especially attending to their emotional needs is why Tokyo Students are so strong indivudally, but weak as a group. Gojo’s only interesting in fostering their strength as sorcerers, not their emotional health, or their interpersonal relationships, because he doesn’t view those things as necessary. I mean he’s only had one best friend his whole life, and look at him, he’s fine. 

To give evidence to my argument though, here’s a comparison between the Tokyo Kids and the Kyoto Kids. 

1. Tokyo vs Kyoto

Gojo can be a fantastic teacher when he wants to be, but it requires him paying attention to a student’s individual needs, which he almost never does. When he designs a lesson plan raound Yuji, he does two things that make him better than most Jujutsu Sorcerers already. First, most traditional teachers teach that cursed technique is everything, and would have rejected Yuji outright. Whereas Gojo sees Yuji’s strength as a brawler. He’s willing to go outside the box, and buck tradition to focus on a student’s individual strength and emphasize those rather than telling Yuji he’ll never be a strong sorcerer without strong techniques. The second is he comes up with a method extremely suited to Yuji’s learning style. 

However, I think it’s important to note that Yuji and Gojo are actually really similiar. He’s a really receptive student who hangs off of Gojo’s every word. For Gojo it’s like him teaching a younger version of himself, someone who believes that strength is everything, and wants to become the strongeste to be a pillar of support to others. You don’t really get good teacher points for spending the most time with someone who’s easy to teach.

And even  with Yuji whose really really receptive to Gojo’s highly individual focused learning style, there are several things that Gojo just neglects to teach or even mention. Basic, fundamental things, that every sorcerer should know. 

Nanami has to go out of his way to give Yuji the 101, because Gojo neglected to tell him all the basics. Children are smart of course, especially adolescents who are capable of thinking for themselves, but they also generally know what they’ve been taught up to this point. Yuji is a complete newcomer to the sorcerery world, it makes sense he’d basically be a blank slate having to learn all of this from scratch, but Gojo himself either doesn’t know this, or doesn’t bother with it because it’s too troublesome. He thinks of the kids as miniature adults so, it would make sense that he just assumes they know everything he knows already.

That’s the entire point of introducing Nanami into the story. Gojo teaches Yuji to be a better sorcerer, but not to be an adult, and it’s because he doesn’t really see him as a child to begin with. Gojo thinks becoming a strong sorcerer is the way to teach these kids to be good adults, but he neglects the emotional half of having to teach because Gojo doesn’t deal with emotions well. I mean, even in his training of Yuji, he designs a training method where Gojo doesn’t actually have to be there, and present with him most of the time. He can lock him in a room, and go run off to do Gojo things while Yuji teaches himself. As opposed to a mentor like Nanami who constantly watches and monitors his development. 

This is where we start to get to the comparison with the Kyoto students. Because even in the creaive way Gojo taught Yuji, there were some things that Yuji just learned wrong, and internalized wrong from Gojo’s lesson.

Gojo explained the theory behind Yuji’s divergent fist, but Yuji learned it wrong, because he didn’t understand the way cursed energy flowed through the body. If Gojo was paying attention, he would have caught it and corrected it, but Gojo’s teaching style is sink or swim, let students learn or fall entirely on their own. Whereas, when Todo actually sees Yuji’s flawed divertgent fist, he’s able to point out the problem.

Todo actually acknowledges that there’s a difference between beginners and elite sorcerers, that their’s a learning curve to these things, and rather than leaving Yuji to learn it on his own he guides him through these things. While at the same time, expecting Yuji to figure out some things naturally. Todo never once goes easy on Yuji, I’d say his standards for people are as harsh as Gojo’s. You either learn it or you don’t. You’re either strong or you’re not. However, there’s a distinct difference between Todo and Gojo’s teaching styles, and it’s that Todo is emotionally intelligent, and Gojo is not.

Todo pays attention to people, he notices when they’re off, when they’re going through something, and rather than just ignore it, he almost immediately addresses it and tries to talk them thorugh it. It’s not perfect of course, but having his emotions paid attention to, helps Yuji develop as a person moreso than a sorcerer. 

The Kyoto students have a teacher who pays attention to their individual needs. A teacher who actually teaches. While we may not know much about Utahime as a character yet, you can see the direct impact she has on her students compared to Gojo.

Gojo’s students are individually strong, but weak as a team,. Utahime’s students are much weaker individually, but can come together.

It shows both in the Kyoto Battle Event, but also the Shibuya arc. The Kyoto kids are all unstable it’s true, they’re all prone to lashing out, but because they’ve dealt with such dark emotions rather than repressing them they’re also way more capable of talking about their feelings to others.

Yes, the Kyoto kids don’t deserve to lash out at whoever they want. Yes, lashing out is a bad way to attempt communication. However, it’s also true that the Tokyo kids respond with what basically amounts to self-righteousness. The Kyoto kids are lashing out because they are going through something, because they’re suffering, yet the Tokyo kids don’t really try to understand those feelings. 

Kamo was seperated from his mother at a young age. Maki left Mai behind in an abusive household. Nobara has never experienced the same abuse that Mai has so she’s not really in a position to judge which twin she thinks is the good twin, and which is the bad one. Mechamaru is chronically ill and in constant agony, and then instead of getting him medical help he’s just being used as a toy soldier. 

So.  The problem is. Gojo’s style of teaching. He wants these kids to be political allies. He wants them to try to make a better world than the one he experienced growing up. However, Gojo doesn’t really teach them to think for themselves. He doesn’t teach them to look at the situation, and the way the Jujutsu World is designed to manipulate and use these children.

Individual responsibiltiy is a good lesson to teach. Individual responssibility can help someone get over themselves and their issues and work towards self improvement, but it’s also, not the only solution. It’s also, impossible to overcome these circumstances all on their own. 

Mai can’t be strong like Maki. She’s not weak for folding under the pressure of being in an abusive household. You could even argue that Maki isn’t stronger than her abuse, because emotionally she’s weak, she can’t even maintain a relationship with her own sister she has to cut herself off from everyone. 

Kamo has to follow the clan’s orders, he’s terrified they’ll hurt his mother and he’ll never see her again. She’s actively being used as a tool to manipulate them. 

Mechamaru is already strong as a sorcerer, that’s not going to stop the fact that he’s chronically ill. 

Basically, in this regard Gojo’s students repeat what Gojo himself always says. “Have you tried getting stronger?” We can see why this approach doesn’t work with Kokichi, because he did do what Gojo would always reccomend. He didn’t want to burden others with his emotions so he tried to be strong and solve everything on his own, and that resulted in his death.

Think if Mechamaru had been supported. If he thought it was okay to confide his problems with others, if it was okay for him to be weak, and ask for help when he didn’t know what to do on his own.

However, when he tried to do that with panda he just got slapped with a “Your behavior is wrong.” It’s why even when telling people, especially children their behavior is wrong you also need to be sure to take care of their emotional needs as well. Especially teenagers, because teenagers are literally all emotions, they’re not minitature, fully-developed adults. Kokichi was wrong to lash out, but his emotions were right. He has every right to be in pain. When he’s told off, he also takes that as a message that he’s weak for trying to confide anything in others, that him complaining about his victimhood made him weak in the first place, so what does Kokichi do. He retreates into himself, he quiets down about his problems, he tries to solve everything on his own and he fails at doing that because you can’t. You cannot solve all your problems by simply being stronger than them. 

Gojo’s students aren’t raised as emotionally healthy individuals, and because of that they also can’t really relate to the emotions of other people, especially the negative one. They are, strong willed individuals yes, strong sorcerers, yes, but they’re not really a team. 

I think that’s illustrated in how they all fall apart in Shibuya. All of Gojo’s students basically make the same mistake, they don’t listen to the adults, they charge into battle because “I’m strong enough.” 

Nobara, the adults literally all told you not to fight. Nobara: Nah it’s fine I’m strong.

Look at how Nobara loses. The second she starts fighting with Yuji as a team, she makes a sloppy mistake because she 1) underestimated her opponent and 2) was never taught how to fight in a team. 

It’s not just Nobara though it’s every single one of them.

Yuji runs off on his own, fights on his own, and loses to Choso.  Megumi suicide attacks to take down one (1) opponent whose just a regular curse user when he reaches his limit. 

This is what they are all taught. They all have to fight on their own, be strong on their own, and if they’re strong enough they’ll win, if they’re not strong enough oh well. The Tokyo Kids genuinely like each other as a team but they’re always running away from each other. They all overestimate themselves and what they’re capable of handling and get in over their heads. 

And it does go back to the Kyoto Battle arc, because the Tokyo kids are just as emotionally disturbed as the Kyoto kids, they just are repressed about it. Take Megumi for example, Megumi has been abandoned and neglected all of his life, and Gojo never really offered him any support or healing for that abandonment.

There’s no canon indication that Gojo ever raised Megumi or did anything with him other than provide for housing, and protect him from the Zenin clan on the condition that Megumi STILL BECOME A SORCERER, JUST ONE POLITICALLY ALLIGNED FOR HIM AND NOT THE ZENIN. 

He didn’t offer Megumi a chance at a normal life, or even help him grow up as an individual because Gojo’s not interested in these things. Gojo’s help is conditional on the fact that Megumi work hard to pay him back, and reach his full potential as a sorcerer. As a result, Megumi is walking around with completely unaddressed abandonment issues as a result of never having a stable adult in his life, and this goes, completely unnoticed, which leads to him constantly risking his own life, endangering and harming himself. Megumi’s just as unstable  as the Kyoto kids, he’s going to do something dangerous someday soon. It’s just Megumi’s been taught from a young age, he has to be the responsible one in his household, and he has to take responsibility for everything on his own by working to become stronger, and look like where that has led him.

Hmm, I wonder why Megumi always feels like it’s his responsibility to sacrifice, what could have possibly led him ot that conclusion? Why does he feel so responsible for the actions of other people around him? It’s a geuine mystery.

However, the Kyoto kids are capable of doing something the Tokyo kids can’t do. They can cry and be weak in front of other people. They can support each other as a group. Not only did they help Miwa at her lowest point, but Yuji would have given up, had Todo not shown up when he did. 

Yuji actually wasn’t capable of handling it all on his own. He couldn’t defeat Mahito just by being stronger than him, or having a strong will. 

Individualism like Gojo teaches is important, but it’s also incomplete. It’s only half the solution. The Tokyo kids need the camraderie of the Kyoto kids, the same way the Kyoto kids need to learn to take responsibility for themselves.

That’s why the Shibuya arc ends the way it does. The Tokyo kids failing as individuals, and the Kyoto kids coming together as team. However, since both sides only have half the answer, neither side is able to defeat Kamo Sr. totally.

However, Gojo’s mistakes are shown even more clearly after the arc resolves. Gojo doesn’t actually teach people to think for themselves, because he’s raising them up to follow his politics. Now, look at what his students are doing in his absence. Gojo wants to fix the broken world, but Yuji’s conclusion he comes too after suffering is that he doesn’t want to think about fixing the world. He just wants to become another cog in the machine.

What was the greatest mistake the previous generation made?

Geto. Not only in exposing him to the trauma of Riko dying in front of him. But also, offering him no support a year afterwards.  Yaga completely neglecting him and failing to see what was going wrong. Then, when Geto finally did break, sending another student to kill him.

Yaga really can’t understand why this eighteen year old would hestiate to kill this other eighteen year old, that’s been his best and only friend for three years.  Why is this child not comfortable with an execution mission? It baffles the mind.

Gojo, by failing to raise his students as emotionally healthy individuals repeats the same mistake.

Yuta and Yuji both don’t really care about the world around them, or politics. They don’t pay attention to those things, they weren’t raised to do that. However, now because of that, because both are willing to become cogs in the machine they’re both letting themselves beused right now. 

They refused to think for themselves, so now the elders are manipulating them into a conflict against each other. Yuta because he doesn’t see the situation at large, he only wants to protect his friends. Yuji, because the only way he thinks he has value is by killing curses, he’s just going to keep blindly executing them until Yuta comes to kill him. Gojo’s students are divided specially because of that reason. They’re not together as a group, they’re just a group of particularly strong individuals, and Gojo never even thought that these strong individuals with no particular connection to each other might turn against each other. They might lie to each other. They might keep secrets from each other. They might fail to communicate. Because, Gojo doesn’t really pay attention to complex relaitonships like that. He’s only had his one friend his whole life. 

Even though that’s also exactly what happened to his one and only friend, his emotional needs were neglected by the system around him until he completely fell apart. Geto and Gojo’s problem wasn’t that they weren’t “the strongest” when they were together. It’s that they were never “together” again after a certain point. 

[quillsanddaydreams]

mad first love

remus lupin x reader

—author’s note: I was thinking about how train rides are kind of nostalgic and time stops when we travel and well, this one-shot is the result. What happens when you spend your journey with an ex? Particularly the one you still seem to stuck on? Enjoy!

—warning(s): mentions of food, gender neutral!reader (pronouns aren't used).

—wordcount: 2,476

The train brought back memories. Happy moments. Times that were filled with laughter and glee and lighthearted chats. Smiling wistfully, you moved through the bustling compartments to the one at very end. It was the only one which was empty. Peaceful and quiet. In other words, perfect. Placing your bag at the top rack, you sat down next to the window looking at the crowd outside. A mother fussed over her kid’s hair who tried their very best to move away. The hunched vendor shouted their wares attracting the attention of small children.

“Is this seat taken?” a voice came and you snapped attention towards the sliding door. Your eyes broadened taking in the light brown hair and tired eyes looking around the compartment awkwardly. A flash of recognition crossed the pale face.

Remus.

You didn’t realize you had whispered his name. He gave you a small smile and for a small minute, the two of you just stared at each other. Remus spoke first.

“May I sit here? I’m afraid rest of the compartments are either full or too loud,” he said slowly and you shook yourself.

“Yeah, of course,” you said as he settled himself opposite to you.

How long had been since you last saw him? Six years or maybe more? Your heart clenched suddenly remembering the time you spent with him. You turned to look outside the window again. It always struck true, didn’t it? There was nothing quite like your first love. And you always supposed Remus to be the one.

The train started with a small jolt, moving past the station. People waved their good-byes, some of them running along with the sleeper shouting promises to meet again. Remus however, found himself sneaking glances at you. You had changed. Of course you had, it had been years since he last saw you. Your eyes were the same though. Sparkling with curiosity and threatening to see right through him. It was strange, sitting across you but feeling miles apart. But then again, it was how he made it to be.

The floor hummed as the train picked up pace. You stood up, taking out the book you had been reading before. Town dissolved into outskirts and it seemed too soon that the roads were replaced by unending fields. Placing your bag at one end of the berth, you laid down. It was going to be a long ride and you might as well make yourself comfortable. Remus huddled in a corner scribbling something in his diary. Time passed and you looked over at him, moving your book slightly. He looked exhausted. More exhausted than you had ever seen him at school. His eyes had dark circles as he furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. Interest took over.

“So how have you been?” you asked as nonchalantly as possible. Remus’s eyes widened, not expecting you to speak to him.

“I’ve been okay,” he started, struggling to find the right words. “Been hunting down jobs. It’s not easy considering, well, my condition.”

You nodded. As much as you knew, he was one of the best as a student— anyone should be happy to recruit him. The wizarding society drowned in irrational fear. It made you sick. Remus had always been insecure about his condition. You remembered trying to help him through it even though he never heeded. Now you wondered how was it possible not to doubt oneself when you were treated like him.

“What about you?” Remus asked, breaking you out of his reverie. “I remember you being passionate about charms. Charming random stuff to fly around by themselves?”

You let out a laugh.

“Yeah, I’m doing exactly that,” you said getting up and sitting to face him. You scratched behind your ear. “I’m working for the ministry to improve the transfer of letters and objects. It isn’t that bad, but somehow someone ends screwing up and the room ends in an utter mess. Lucky, I don’t have to clean after.”

Remus grinned seeing you shudder. He followed your hand movements as you re-enacted the explosion. You giggled. Noticing Remus staring at you, you sat up, a bit more properly.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you asked. You felt your ears heat up under his gaze.

“You haven’t changed, have you?” he said, a twinkle in his eye. You raised an eyebrow.

“I could say the same about you.”

Remus’s lips upturned, eyes childlike.

“I don’t know, can you?”

You smirked.

“I mean— messy hair, a grey sweater,” you moved your eyes over his form. Remus shifted in his seat. “dock martins and talking with that always-polite-voice? I would say you haven’t changed at all.”

Remus grinned, ready to quip back but stopped himself. He cleared his throat, looking away.

“Guess I haven’t.”

You fell silent too. The past seemed to cling on to both your backs, heavy and demanding. There was no escaping it.

“How are James, Sirius and Peter?” you asked taking a deep breath, sitting back. Anything would be better than the tense silence right now. Remus looked thankful too.

“James been working with the Bigonville Bombers, Sirius is mostly travelling around and is starting a T.V. show,” he sighed, face falling a little. “and Peter is busy with restoration of his parents’ home”

You rubbed your palm.

“I’m sure you’ll find something soon,” you whispered as Remus shook his head, a bitter smile on his lips.

“It’s not that easy.”

The train rattled a little. You held onto the edge of your seat and looked out. Dark clouds filled the sky. It seemed that the world was reacting to the atmosphere in your compartment.

“What if you become a teacher?” you said out of the blue. Remus raised his eyebrows.

“A teacher?”

“Yeah. The DADA position is open and Dumbledore was kind enough to let you in the school as a child,” you started. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you there as an adult.”

Remus seemed to ponder upon the idea before shaking his head.

“I don’t know about it. Am I even capable enough to teach children?”

“Well, you definitely were better than any other teacher when we were at Hogwarts,” you stated seriously. “You helped me score a perfect 100 back then.”

Remus let his head fall back, humming in response. A knock shook the two of you. The trolley lady offered the two of you a warm smile.

“What can I get the two of you?” she asked, gesturing towards her cart.

“I’ll love some of those sandwiches and lemonade,” you said, taking out some money from your purse. She handed you the things and you paid her in turn.

“And for you dear?” she asked Remus.

“Nothing, thank you.”

You frowned lightly. There was no way he made something and the journey was going to be long.

“Actually, can I have another one of these?” you asked the woman pointing to the one you remembered Remus liked; as he tried to interrupt. “Thank you”

The trolley lady left shutting the door behind her. You could feel Remus’s gaze on you. Handing the sandwich and the bottle of lemonade to Remus, you sat down slowly. He sighed.

“Did you have to?” he asked as you shrugged. You could see a small smile near the corner of his mouth.

The two of you sat in silence eating and drinking. You recalled sitting with Remus like this. He was never the one to say much and you enjoyed the calm that came with it. How many times you sat huddled with him in his dorm and his friends never even noticed? How many times he had kissed you so gently that you felt you would melt right there? You shook your head. A path down the memory lane didn’t seem like a good idea. Remus didn’t look bothered though. Afterall, wasn’t he the one who wanted to break up? You took a sip of the juice watching the scene outside.

He was supposed to be over you. He was supposed to be over you. Only he found that idea crumbling right then. It had been seven years. Seven long years. Remus had heard about all the people you dated. Successful people. People who were worthy of you. Hadn’t that been the idea all along? Feeling his chest wound up, he took another bite of the sandwich. Damn these feelings.

Time passed as you lay down and read the book you had bought. Remus was focused on his journal. You couldn’t concentrate though. Not for long anyway. Your mind kept wandering off to Remus. Unknows’ to you, he found himself in the same predicament. Both of you wanted to cross the invisible barrier but neither of you wanted to open old wounds. It was strange. You never felt more away. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. Maybe you two were supposed to be just strangers. Light rain fell against the window and you found yourself a kind of tranquility fall over you.

“Do you still sing?” Remus asked after a while, his voice soft. Your heart thumped and you inhaled deeply.

“Not anymore, no,” you said, feeling something stick in your throat. You stopped singing after the two of you broke up.

“What— why?”

Remus looked at you curiously. He spent countless nights with his arms around you as you sang softly to him. Listening on fondly as your soft voice lured him to sleep. Those moments were scarce. So precious and gentle that he treasured each one.

“I just don’t,” you said not meeting his eye, giving an intended shrug.

“But—” Remus started and you felt your temper rise.

“Remus I hate my voice,” you snapped. “I hate to sing, always had.”

There was a beat of silence. You pointedly looked at your wrist watch.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “It’s just you sang to me so many times.”

“Well, I saw you in pain and I’d never felt more helpless and hurt,” you said with a dry laugh. Tears pricked your eyes remembering those times. Perhaps you weren’t as over him as you thought you were.

“So when you asked me to sing, I forgot about it for a while,” you continued. “And you seemed to love it. It made you happy. I decided to do it for you from then.”

You let your head fall back, feeling overwhelmed all of a sudden. Remus looked down. He didn’t know what to say.

“You did, you made me happy,” he whispered after a while. You snorted.

“Come on, I did not make you happy.”

“You did, you were everything I could ask for—”

“Stop that,” you hissed. “If I were, you wouldn’t have broken up with me.”

You uttered before you could stop yourself. It hurt. As much as it killed you to admit, that part always stung. Your stomach turned. The rain was pouring down heavily, it’s pitter patter filling up the compartment.

“You know it’s funny Remus,” you started, staring at the ceiling. “I begged you for a reason. I begged you to tell me why you wanted to break up with me. Just a reason. All you gave me was that it’s not you, it’s me bullshit. And I spent years just nitpicking at my faults. Because I loved you. I loved you so much and I did not know what I lacked in giving you. So, tell me. Please tell me the real reason why you broke up with me.”

Staring at him, you sat up straighter. Remus squeezed his eyes shut. His adam apple bobbed as he spoke.

“It was the career aptitude class. I talked about my condition and what options I had,” he said. “There were close to none. I saw everyone coming back, talking about their futures whereas I sat there knowing I had nothing. And I was right wasn’t it?”

Remus gestured at himself.

“Who— who in the right mind would want to be with me? I felt like I was losing everything and that eventually I would lose you too. And I decided that it was better then, than later. You deserved better. You deserved people who you could match you. Me? I would be a nobody. It seemed proper that I broke up with you.”

Remus fell silent. You opened and closed your mouth several times. He turned towards the window.

“Would it have killed you to tell me just that?” you said, your voice kinder.

“Remus, I had never ever needed you to be successful to love you. Not once. I was, am not someone who needs money or the so-called respect from the world to be happy. Remus, you are worth it. Whether you believe it or not, there are people would love to have you.”

Something flicked over Remus’s eyes. He nodded.

Neither of you spoke for the rest of the ride. The grey clouds changed into a sunny sky and you could hear birds flying outside. The compartment was so quiet, one could say it was empty. Sometime in between s kid came in confused, shouting something and running back. Remus and you exchanged a glance and turned back to what you were doing.

Time seemed to fly. You could see your destination all too soon. Taking a deep breath as your station arrived, you got up to take your bags. Remus helped you. He stood behind you as you walked outside. The line was long, people chattered excitedly. You felt something building up in your chest. You didn’t want to say goodbye to Remus again. It didn’t feel right. Stepping down from the carrier, you stopped before Remus. Words failed you two.

“I guess it’s time to go,” Remus said, his voice barely above a whisper. He searched your face.

“Guess it is.”

You moved your arms around awkwardly, praying silently for him to stop you. It was his decision now. He gave you a small nod, and turned to leave. Your head throbbed watching him disappear into the crowd. Clutching your bag tightly, you started to move your own way. Pahul waited for you at their apartment. You would have to take a muggle taxi. All you wanted right now was to curl up and watch some movies to forget all that had happened that day.

“Wait!!!”

You heard shouts behind you and you turned to see Remus running towards you. He puffed out a few breaths, standing in front of you his hands over his bent knees.

“Would you— would you— like to catch up some more sometime? Over dinner maybe?” he asked, a heavy breath punctuating each word.

“Like a date?”

“Exactly like a date.”

You stared at him, his face all read from running, biting his lip waiting for an answer. The scene made you smile.

“I would love that.”

—as for the taglist: I don’t make taglists, I have a blog @from-my-quill ​ which is updated whenever I post fanfiction. You could have the notifications on for it and it will work just like me tagging you.

⟨⟨REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE APPRECIATED⟩⟩

[leviskokoro]

Dorm Leaders as Dads

📝 :: special thanks to @rrasado for giving me the idea to write this!

🌹┆𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐋𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒

I’m guessing he might’ve only become alright with having kids around his late 20’s to early 30’s as he worries about being a good father.

Being strict is a given considering he was raised but as Riddle is much older, he’s learned to heal from the wounds his mother dealt to him and become more lenient. Among the dorm leaders, he’s the one who is constantly trying to improve so that he doesn’t become like his mother.

Always tries to be there for his child, wanting to be the best parent for them as he knows that being a parent is a huge responsibility.

Takes parenting very seriously and does whatever he can to be a good father. Probably the most serious about this.

His child would end up being a very polite person who always tries to do what is right.

🦁┆ 𝐋𝐄𝐎��𝐀 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐑

Yeahhh uh good luck asking this one for kids because it’s gonna take a while. I’m guessing he’ll only be fine with it around mid to late 30’s. He’d have to really love his spouse to actually consider it first.

He’s pretty lax with rules when it comes to his child, but still shows them he cares by actually making the effort to spend time with them. When his child has achieved something, he’ll make sure their efforts are rewarded.

He’s definitely a bit protective because he doesn’t actually want his child to face the same prejudice he got as achild. Talk shit about his child and you will regret it.

Probably not a very good father at first to be honest but he’ll try. He’s a quick learner and genius so he’ll be able to develop into a good father later down the line.

The child will end up a bit spoiled but confident and intelligent.

🐙┆ 𝐀𝐙𝐔𝐋 𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐎

Hmm I feel that Azul may be a bit focused on his business but he’ll comply with his spouse’s wishes if they ask. Possibly around mid 20’s

Immediately tried to plan out his child’s life so that they’d have a direction but his spouse likely said that it might not be too good of an idea. He kept it as a backup plan for them, in case they need it. Then, he made sure to research absolutely thoroughly about parenting. His parents didn’t play a big role in his life so he wished to be better than that.

Tweels are the child’s uncles, you can’t convince me otherwise.

Azul is not too strict but not too lax either. Sometimes he’ll be a bit busy with Mostro Lounge but still always makes sure to save some time for his child everyday. He will likely also teach the kid how to protect themselves as he doesn’t want them to be bullied like he was.

The child would grow up to be intelligent and cunning, possibly more so than their father. If they wished it, they could inherit Mostro Lounge too.

🦦┆ 𝐊𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐌 𝐀𝐋-𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐌

Would probably want kids as fast as possible, might bug his spouse for one a lot. I’m thinking early 20’s would be when they get a child.

Spoils them to the fucking max that his spouse might have to stop him at one point. No, children usually don’t own entire zoos at the age of 2. No, children usually don’t wear clothes made of the most expensive fabrics money can find—

If Jamil is still somehow around, he might become the godfather of the child.

He’s still a great father despite being a bit over the top with his affections and will always be there to support his child with whatever they wish to do in life.

Their child ends up being more spoiled than Leona’s but is pure and good-natured, very much like their father.

👑┆ 𝐕𝐈𝐋 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐓

I take it that like Azul, Vil will be a bit focused in his line of work but it will be easier to convince him to have kids as someone who seems to be quite good with them. I’d say early to mid 20’s will be when the child is conceived.

Vil is already quite the strict mother figure to those around him and he’s not too different to his own child. He fusses and worries over them and their wellbeing a lot. But— he still makes sure they can be independent and confident.

So, as a child actor, Vil has plenty of experience on what it’s like to be one. However, he doesn’t wish to push that onto his child as there’s a lot of bad things he’s experienced in the industry. To protect them, he makes sure to keep their identity a secret to the public.

He makes sure that he supports his child despite his busy schedule and makes for a wonderful and supportive father. Their efforts will never be unnoticed by him because he knows how it feels to have your efforts wasted.

The child grows up to be confident and strict but also bright and charming.

🔧┆ 𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐀 𝐒𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐃

Probably around his 30’s. I don’t know if his heart would be ready for the responsibility of taking care of a child until that age. It just takes so much energy.

Awkward as hell about it and even tried making android nanies for the child to take care of the child instead of him because he’s worried he would mess up. His spouse would probably reassure him that he’ll be alright and that they’d help him along the way.

If he can’t make android nannies for the child, he’ll make sure to make robot pets so that the child is never lonely even when he’s busy with something.

Even if he’s awkward, Idia tries his best for the child and hopes they see that.

The child grows up to be a bit socially awkward but loveable and a gamer.

🐉┆ 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐔𝐒 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐀

Considering we don’t seem to have an exact age for Malleus, I’ll just say he’s probably chill with kids whenever you’re comfortable.

He’s a great father considering he’s already had experience raising Silver and has Lilia to guide him along the way.

The only downside to him is that as the King of the Valley of Thorns, it’s likely that he’ll be the busiest father among the seven dorm leaders. But worry not, his duties can’t hold him from being a wonderful father to his child all the time.

The child will have many guardians as they grow up like Lilia (the most prominent one), Silver, and Sebek.

Since the child is royalty, they’ll likely grow up to be regal and elegant with grace that rivals the Witch of Thorns herself.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Just A Dream Away

Chapter 1/13 read here on ao3!

my piece for @harringrovebigbang!

Art and moodboard from my amazing team, @monochromegee and @shewritesdirty respectively, to come soon!

~~~~

Six months. Six months and twelve days.

That’s how long Billy has been in the hospital. In a coma. His health rapidly deteriorating.

After one month it was required he be put on a ventilator. Two and his wounds started getting infected. By month three, the hospital asked that a representative be chosen for him, just in case he didn’t pull through.

Neil Hargrove refused. Barked into the receiver something along the lines of, “What do I care if the boy wanted to go and get himself killed?” It was entirely defensive, his voice cracking as he finished his sentence, but the hospital still never contacted him again, not for updates or bills or anything. His wife was far too busy taking care of one grieving child and a lazy husband already to worry about an additional burden.

All of Billy’s extended family was still in California, had written him off years before they’d even left home for Indiana anyways. The moment his mother walked out the door, nobody else wanted him either, so they were off the table too.

The town of Hawkins had been turned inside out by the deaths of more than thirty community members, some of which were still being reported as missing so many months later. Nobody had the time, or in many cases the heart, to take care of the lone survivor.

That left only one person. The one who’d been taking care of him even before he’d fallen into a coma. The one who’d understood him better than anyone else, who’d given him a chance, who’d loved him more than anything.

Steve gets a call from the hospital, the way he is usually woken up these days. Every other morning, as soon as visitation opens, a nurse calls him for a quick update. The duties of a representative for someone unconscious, for his Billy in a coma.

He’s beyond exhausted, dragging himself to and from Hawkins General day in and day out, sometimes bringing Max or a few of the other kids along with him. Mostly because every day is the same thing, walking through the halls, facing the polite smiles from nurses who deal with this on the daily, don’t understand the way it feels to see the one you love on that bed.

If he does hear anything new, it’s usually not good news. He knows Billy is getting worse, but still he sits in that room for countless hours, watching and waiting for the moment he’s struck with a miracle, and he comes back to him.

The hospital is not quite as patient though, and since about month four of Billy’s hospital stay, they’d been encouraging Steve to consider his wards right to die. After so much time had passed by without signs of improvement, the nurses had started hesitating in the doorway when he was around, and offering kind little suggestions that were supposed to push him towards the decision to let Billy go.

Things like, “It’s not really him anymore, honey.” and, “He’s getting worse by the minute, poor thing.”, and Steve’s favorite, the one that made him leave the hospital in tears, “If he wanted to wake up, he would have done it by now.”

But no matter how true what they were saying may have been, Steve really did not want to hear it. The only reason the thought of letting Billy go had ever crossed the minds of doctors and nurses was because of what was on the news, all these up and coming stories about hospital ethics committees that were popping up all over the country recently.

They were being selfish, willing to let Billy die just because they were scared they wouldn’t be able to stand the heat that would come from keeping an eighteen year old boy on life support for as long as they had. Whether or not they actually thought they could save him was a question for another day.

So they would mail Steve countless papers and claims and pamphlets to try to reason with him, to persuade him that the best thing to do was to kill Billy because they didn’t want to deal with him anymore. It made him sick to his stomach, to think that people who were supposedly trained to help people were so hellbent on giving up on a patient.

He wonders sometimes, if they wouldn’t be so hasty to pull the plug had he been an easier case. If his father was more supportive and his biological mother present, or if the government hadn’t worked so hard to cover up the origin of his injuries. Maybe even if his representative was a nice young woman instead.

But there’s nothing he can do about it, so he just crumples the papers and ignores their premature condolences, and goes to visit Billy at every moment he can.

The drive to the hospital that particular morning feels like it takes a whole day instead of the 20 minutes the route actually is, Steve feeling like he’s suspended in time. It doesn’t seem real, taking the stairs up to the second floor, elevators were a no go after the free fall he took at Starcourt, and taking a visitor sticker and a bunch of papers from the woman at the reception desk.

He’s walked this route more times than he can count, but this time he can feel that something is wrong, different. On the top of the very first sheet the desk lady hands him, in bold black letters, are the printed words “Right-to-Die” and Steve already knows what is coming.

The woman gives him a half sympathetic look and reads off her scripted spiel. “The Hargrove boy has been unresponsive for six months now, with no signs of improvement in his condition. The recently instituted hospital ethics board wants you to seriously consider the contents of these forms.”

The words are so hollow, the look on her face mostly bored. Steve guesses this same speech was probably given to a thousand other people who’d come through this hospital, and it makes him feel nauseated just listening to it, her less than genuine pity as she reads off her clipboard, making it seem like she doesn’t even care what she is asking of him.

“It’s of course among your rights as representative to say no, but we want to remind you that he has no quality of life being artificially kept alive, and it might be best to let him go.”

“No, they told me he couldn’t feel anything. He’s not suffering.” Steve insists, and as much as he believes that he is right, the confidence in his voice is false. This was something he’d been thinking about every day for the last half a year. “You’ve kept him alive this long, right? That’s got to mean something.”

“Still, this is about him. We just want you to think about if keeping him alive is the right thing to do anymore when we can’t be sure what he’s going through. When he isn’t himself.”

Of course this was something he’d considered in his own mind, six months is a long time, and it was inevitable that a few times on his worst days, he’d have to think about pulling the plug. It was just so different hearing this nurse who didn’t know Billy insisting on it, it was just so impersonal, and it made him think about the hospital's greed, and how they probably just wanted to save money on ventilators and open up another bed.

Without saying another word to her, Steve walks away without the clipboard of papers, and off to room B-216. Of course he'd known this was coming. They’d been trying to drop hints since the moment Billy stopped being able to breathe on his own, but he’d been in denial. As long as Billy's heart was still beating, Steve had hope that he would recover if the doctors would just try.

Still, as he sits down in the chair next to Billy’s bed, he decides he doesn’t want to call Max today. He takes the desk woman's advice, as angry as it made him, and takes the time to truly reflect on the boy in that bed, with the feeding tube down his throat, the respirator breathing for him beside his bed, the IV in his neck, there because the veins in his arms had been so overused.

His hair is much longer now, just past his collarbones, but without maintenance, his blonde curls are knotted and dull. His skin is unnaturally pale, his freckles faded to nothing, and his whole body is littered with angry, dark red scars. The hole in the center of his chest still isn’t all the way healed, and the nurses are constantly fighting to keep it free of infection.

When he wakes up, they say he will be in immense pain and that he will have forgotten how to walk and talk and probably even breathe on his own. There was a chance too that his memory will have gaps in it, which could mean anything from forgetting what happened to him in July, to not even knowing his own name.

Basically if, no- when he wakes up, he won’t really be Billy.

Steve had always heard about and seen in the movies coma patients who twitch their fingers or moved their eyes, or who really give any signs of life, miraculously waking up and being themselves again, but Billy, he had only done the opposite.

At some point, he has to accept that Billy won’t be like one of those other patients, and, in the condition he is in, all pale skin and open wounds and zero signs of responsiveness, they were only prolonging his death. They had tried just about everything they could thanks to Steve’s willingness to cover the expenses, and, although he didn’t want to believe it, maybe just couldn’t accept it quite yet, it was, as the nurse had said, time to think about letting Billy go.

Not today though. He’d spend today with him at the very least, trying to push those thoughts to the back of his mind while he still could. The nurses used to say, when Billy had first been admitted and they still thought there was a chance of recovery, that Steve and Max, whenever she could come, should try talking to him, and Steve always did.

He never really has a whole lot to say, not since everything has been calming down recently. There were no more funerals to attend, no more grieving families to take a hot dish and his condolences to. The kids didn’t need him to watch them anymore, and Family Video had decided to lay him off until he didn’t have to make daily hospital commutes and he could work again. Basically, Steve’s entire world was Billy.

So it was only fair that Billy was what he usually talked about, reminiscing about everything they’d gotten to do together before the accident, telling him about what was happening with his sister now that she was getting older, and giving him updates on how many days it had been and how much he missed and loved him. One of the nurses had heard him say that once, seen him lean forwards and press a kiss to Billys forehead, but she had only turned away, pretending she hadn’t noticed.

Today though, it was much harder than usual to think of something to say to him. He always tried to leave all of the bad stuff at the door, didn’t think it would do Billy any good if he could even hear, to be listening to him always complaining or moping about their situation, but with death weighing heavy on his mind, what else was there to think about?

The anger and the remorse and the depression would be for when he went home tonight and downed a whole bottle of Fireball, Billy’s favorite whiskey, and called Robin drunk off his ass at two in the morning to tell her about how terrible he felt.

It was because he loved Billy with all of his heart that he wouldn’t put him through that. Even if it hurt more than anything else to see his love broken down and dying, which was, in Steve’s opinion, the worst thing that had ever happened to him, he always wore a smile on his face every day he walked into that hospital room.

As hard as that was, and as guilty as it made him feel to admit, Billy's sickness wasn’t the only thing making Steve miserable. He had also been through some unimaginable things himself while trapped in the Starcourt mall, and he didn't come out the other side the same.

Nightmares plagued him constantly, so that when he would eventually come back home from the hospital, he didn’t sleep more than fifteen minutes through the night. Being alone for too long warped his perception of reality, made him think everyone he knew and loved was gone, that he’d been abandoned or all his friends killed. He would constantly call to check on them, most of the time drunk and panicking, but they’d stopped picking up after the first few times. There were so many triggers too that could send him back to that night in an instant, where he’d just get stuck again.

And perhaps that is exactly why he can’t let Billy go so easily, because even if it is heartbreaking and makes him feel so empty inside being there with a version of his Billy who couldn’t speak to him or who he couldn’t hold, he was still alive. If he died now, Steve would have nothing. It would be no different from the losses everyone had suffered, the death of the chief of police and at least thirty other community members robbing them of their soundness of mind.

Letting go of Billy would just be another blow, to him and to the tight-knit community who had come so close together after the accident that rocked their little town. You wouldn't be able to tell from the fact that his room was always empty except for Steve or his sister, but the papers had revered him as a hero. Who he’d become after being hospitalized meant his death wouldn't just affect loved ones.

But more than any of that, he just didn’t want to give up on him. Pulling the plug meant sacrificing so many more moments they could have together, losing the chance to move on from what had happened. How could Steve ever know when it was the right time to do that?

When was it safe to say that Billy wouldn’t ever recover, and that they were just stretching out the inevitable? When could he feel right in letting his very best friend and the love of his life die? Deep down, past his initial reaction of shock and heartbreak, he knows he’ll never truly be ready to say goodbye, but that now was that time regardless.

Just like the nurses said, he wasn’t really Billy anymore. Who he’d been was a teenage boy with too much energy to burn, always getting into trouble and always in motion, bouncing his knee, twisting the ring on his middle finger or the locket around his neck, chain smoking cigarette after cigarette. It used to drive Steve insane how he wouldn’t sit still for anything, but now he would give anything just to have that back.

There was no personality left in him, no stupid jokes to cheer Steve up, no pestering his sister and her friends like a big brother does, nothing left in him at all that made him distinctly Billy. Steve wondered if maybe he had already given up.

If maybe, Billy wasn’t even in there at all anymore, and they were holding on to nothing just to feed their own selfishness. Steve wasn’t the most emotional of people, usually panicking before he got upset, but he could feel tears pricking at his eyes now, as he watched the slow rise and fall of Billy’s, or not Billy’s, chest, and listened to the beeps and hums of the machines that kept him going.

He knew what needed to be done. Just not today.

For now, he holds Billy's hand, unmoving and just warm enough that he could tell he was alive, and whispered to him anything that came to his mind.

If Billy could hear him, he knew he was probably tired of hearing the same stories over and over, thinking of Billy waking up and complaining about Steve being too boring made him chuckle to himself. An instant pang of regret tightens his chest, feeling guilty for being happy.

There was a really sweet nurse about the age of his mother who always checked in on him at the same time everyday, like he was the one with tubes and machines sticking out of his body. Her name was Dale, and she always peeked her head into the room around meal times to ask if he had been down to the cafeteria yet. Usually he hadn’t, and sometimes he still forgot to eat anyways, but it meant a lot to him.

Today though, she came all the way in the room, a sad look on her face, and he had to avoid her gaze entirely to keep himself from breaking down, choosing instead to focus on Billy’s slender fingers where he’d laced them through his own.

“Steve, honey, I know this is really hard for you, it’s hard for all of us when something like this happens, but you need to take care of yourself.” She was just being kind, but he wouldn’t hear it.

If this was going to be the last full day he’d ever spend with Billy, he was going to make it count. A soggy sandwich in the dingy old cafeteria wasn’t worth spending a single moment away from the other boy's bedside. He feels vaguely guilty about it, but he ignores the well meaning nurse, even as she says her generic condolences that all of them were trained to say.

He smooths out Billy's hair, brushing the part that always hung in his eyes to the side carefully, something Billy himself had always seemed to do when he was nervous. It reminds him of the time they tried to do each other's hair and Billy taught him how to make a braid, so he tells Billy about it.

When he hears the distant roar of a car's engine from the open window, it reminds him of the first time Billy drove him home in the now totaled beyond recognition Camaro, so he talks about that. A bird landing on the windowsill reminds him of sitting on Billy’s bed and talking about the seagulls and the beaches back in California where Billy had grown up, so he tells Billy that story too. The phone ringing at the receptionist's desk down the hallway reminds him of the time Billy had called him in the middle of the night to invite him out to the quarry, where they’d kissed for the first time and Steve clumsily asked him to make things official, so again, he told Billy all about it.

It's mostly a comfort to himself, keeping his mind off of the reality of the situation, but then the desk lady announces over the overhead system that visiting hours are over, and it’s time for him to go.

They had been giving him a lot of leeway here at Hawkins General, allowing him to visit every single day and sometimes with a 14 year old, which was strictly against the rules of the ICU. The end of visiting hours was a rule they always stood by though, and despite how much it crushed him to leave Billy by himself overnight, he always did it.

On his way out, he grabbed the stack of papers the receptionist tried to give him off of her desk. He would call Susan in the morning and ask her what she thought. He would try to involve her in the choice, since she’d technically claimed Billy as her dependent after her marriage to his father, who had given enough verbal and written agreements that he wanted nothing at all to do with his son while he was hospitalized that his wife could, and had, stepped in.

He went home that night with the thought in his head that this was the last time he’d do this, and by this time tomorrow, Billy would be dead.

[rosethornewrites]

Thursday-Sunday T & G reading

The usual

Finished

Teen:

paint the picture that you want, by PrismaticAvocado

Lan Wangji huffs in amusement on the other side of the bed, and Wei Wuxian peeks over A-Yu to smile at his husband. They certainly make quite the cute little family all cuddled up in bed like this—Wei Wuxian stroking their son’s hair that has mostly fallen from where Lan Wangji had put it up for sleeping earlier and legs intertwined with Lan Wangji who is straightening out A-Yu’s already straight sleeping robe. The only thing missing is their eldest, but Lan Sizhui is probably a little old to be cuddling his parents in bed.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji accidentally acquire another son.

(Written for Wei Wuxian November Mayhem | Prompts used: parent!wwx, artist, painting)

General:

Thank you for another year, by Aki_no_hikari

It is Lan Wangji's birthday. He goes through his day feeling thankful for all he has.

Unfinished

Teen:

The Consequences of Accidental Time Travel, by BurningBlueDiamond (5th in a series)

Future Sizhui, Jingyi, Wei Ying and Lan Zhan went back to their time.

How will the Past and Future character react to the new information provided?

OR

The aftermath of "A Room Full of Dead People".

Yeah, this really doesn't make any sense without reading "A Room Full of Dead People" first.

Lessons relearned, by Iamnotawriter

He thought of all the pain and death that was to come. There was so much that went wrong in the cultivation world in the next few years. The weight of responsibility felt insurmountable.

Lan Qiren had never wanted to be a politician or leader. That role was meant for his brother. He had done his best in the years he had led the sect but he was aware that he was not the best person for the job. His interests had always been the academic pursuits and teaching the next generation. How could he hope to make an impact on the mess of political manoeuvring and aggression that was imminent? He decided he could only focus on the events which impacted his family the most. He could save Cloud Recesses from being burned. He could protect both his nephews from there disastrous relationships. He could protect the books they lost in the war.

Or

Lan Qiren travels back in time and tries to fix the future.

Alternate Headcanons, by nirejseki

Random assortment of MDZS ficlets in response to a request for prompts for alternate headcanons for characters

Shards of Hope, by Dreaming_Days

He had built his life with the coldest calculation. Clawed his way to power with unhesitating ruthlessness. Destroyed anyone who would impede him. Betrayed even the few who had truly cared for him. And, in the end, utterly forsaken, Jin Guangyao died.

Then, 25 years earlier, Meng Yao woke up.

Abyss, by WanderingMongoose

Lotus Pier was an explosion of color, the vendors’ bright banners contrasting with the soft pink and green of the lotus ponds. The purple standard of the Jiang Clan flew from the tops of pavilions, fluttering against the azure sky. Every part of the landscape was saturated with color. The white robes of the Lan Sect were the only negative space, their perfect jade white looking unnatural and leached of life in the midst of Lotus Pier’s bustling docks. Sounds and smells assaulted them from every side, as if the docks themselves were affronted by their colorless silence.

Worried about his little brother's solitary nature and lack of friends, Lan Xichen convinces his uncle to send fifteen year old Lan Wangji and a group of GusuLan disciples to study at Lotus Pier under the pretense of improving intersect relations.

You Double-faced Entendre, by pink-lotus-pods (Waterlogged_fireflies)

"Wei Wuxian! You will be charged-"

“First of all, my name is Yuandao, and second of all, you aren't a judge, but you’re the one who’s got me tied up like a chicken! Let me go, damn it, I need to get back to my chickens and my farm!” Yuandao struggled violently, but the thin, golden ropes were a lot stronger than they looked.

The man in gold on the frankly, tastelessly ostentatious throne spluttered, turning the same colour as the cauliflower that he liked to put in his stews.

“Wow. You were right, he really doesn’t remember.” A man built like a mountain whistled, his face twisted into something that looked like amusement. “Either that, or he’s a world class actor.”

“For the last time, I’m just a farmer!”

-

Or, an amnesiac Wei Wuxian wakes up, gets himself a new family and is immediately roped into a political schism, EXACTLY in that order. He is very unhappy about having his cottagecore life uprooted.

Updates will be once every two weeks. Some tags have been hidden until the chapter will be posted, but there will be additional warnings in the chapter notes should you want to skip a particular scene

General:

Disliking Seperation, by SallySPT

Nearly a year after the events at Guanyin Temple, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian return to the cultivation world to participate in the Cultivation Conference. Many things have changed in the year that they were gone.

Or Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian adopt a child while traveling and the cultivation world doesn’t know how to react.

[archetypal-archivist]

Xisuma and Evil X- A Hero By Any Other Name

So. This happened. You ever get the urge to write 9000 words of Evil X and Xisuma as brothers that in a Super Hero AU where the government is corrupt and runs all the heroes into the ground in the name of “protecting the most people possible”? With lots of Evil X making poor choices to help out his exhausted hero of a brother? And then have that story end up taking over your life for about a week until you can get it all out? Yeah. Yeah, glad I finally finished this but gosh darn am I double glad that I can move on to other projects.

Also on AO3.

__________

A story in which there are two little boys, a pair of twins by the names of Evil X and Xisuma. Xisuma is good and kind and responsible, everything that his mother ever wanted and more. Evil X was the mistake, the additional child their parents didn't want nor could afford to have. Their parents had run the math, knew the risks, knew that if they penny-pinched enough, they could afford to have the child they always dreamed of. Evil X threw their maths into chaos, and if they wanted one son, they had to take both.

Evil X and Xisuma knew that Evil X was a mistake, that his presence was why their family could never afford to go to the movies, why they couldn't buy school lunches like all the other kids, why their parents were so stressed and tired and cruel. Still, Xisuma was glad that his brother existed, even if it made his parents' lives harder. He wondered if that made him a bad son.

In time, Evil X and Xisuma were left alone by everyone in their lives and until all they had are each other and the void that their parents left them with when they had to look them in the eye and tell them that they couldn't take care of them anymore. Even now Xisuma thinks that the void raised them better than their parents ever did, teaching him and his brother to lie through their teeth, be sneaky, be cruel.

In the orphanage and the many foster homes that followed, Evil X did his best to take care of his twin as a sort of penance for screwing up the life Xisuma could have led. In return, Xisuma lied and lied and lied to the matrons and the well-meaning children about anything and everything he needed to. They don't need anyone but each other. (Truth.) They are happy. He is everything that Evil X needs, Evil X doesn't want a family. Xisuma is enough. (Lie.)

(Gods, don't take his brother away.)

Xisuma grew up with lies on his tongue and smiles in his eyes, warping himself into the golden child, larger than life. Evil X grew up in the shadows with bruised knuckles, a bruised heart, and eventually, scars across his face from a fight gone bloody and wrong. He was protecting Xisuma, the scars were worth it- his brother accepts them with an odd little smile on his face and a shattering in his eyes. It is a moment that stays with them long after.

---

Eventually, foster homes turn into streets and dumpsters, and long nights spent under the covers together are turned into nights spent up in the branches of trees in the park. Xisuma makes friends with the pigeons while Evil X pretends not to like their feathered neighbors. They curl up the same though, bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces high in their bower. Made for each other, quietly shaping themselves around their twin so as to better protect them and shield them from the cold.

Evil X comes home to their tree with stolen sweaters and wilted flowers and popcorn kernels from behind the movie theater so that the birds don't starve. Xisuma meets him with tears of wonder in his eyes and fire dancing on his fingertips.

Xisuma has magic. Evil X tries not to be jealous. As it turns out, he has very little to be jealous of when it's revealed that there are many other people who have magic throughout the city- or rather, "superpowers." It's like something straight out of a comic book, if that comic book resembled something like Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" or the Transformers IDW continuity.

People start dying. A lot of people. Those with powers that make them look monstrous are feared, hated, and eventually outcast. Those with powers that are useful are drafted to fight wars and heal people for hours and hours with no rest in the hospitals. Xisuma sells himself to the city officials behind Evil X's back and in return, he and his brother get a cold glass and steel apartment and food enough that they will never starve again.

Evil X begins to build up muscle, fleshing out and growing tall and strong. He hates it, hates his body, because Xisuma never becomes more than whipcord strength and whispered words- down-turned eyes, up-turned lips. Reassurances that he's happy, really, truly. So obedient, his brother, the ideal filial son to the system that Evil X could never bring himself to be. They train the civilian out of his twin and mold him into a leader, a real proper superhero.

They don't give his brother lunch breaks. They need his power too badly, they say. There are people dying and they need his strength.

Gods, it makes him sick.

Xisuma's slight figure hides in his brother's shadow when they are at home, and Evil X does his best to wrap around him until the "monsters" of the world can't get him. Evil X lets Xisuma's flames dance across his fingertips and tickle his face, their gentle warmth driving out some of the chill in their big empty apartment. On truly special days, they go to the park to feed the birds. The higher ups don't like that, of course, insisting that Xisuma under Evil X's care is like using his spark for a kerosene lamp, contained, stifled, unable to help anyone in any way that matters.

The city wants a bonfire. Evil X growls and tells them no, but Xisuma just smiles and his eyes shatter a little more as he goes with them willingly, offering himself up as kindling. His superhero name is Matchstick of all things, and Evil X knows his brother well enough to know that he picked it out himself.

A nod to the fact that he is destroying himself? An inside joke and an apology in one, maybe. It breaks his heart too much to think on it.

---

With time, the rules and roles become a little clearer and the war begins to solidify. Basic rights for those with powers is still in the works, but Xisuma is able to start eating a little more. Evil X makes him protein shakes to take with him to work anyway.

The heroes are this: Matchstick, Reaper, Ivy-Over, Xenon, Spatter, Shank, Krypton, and Trigometric. Xisuma, Cleo, Gemini, Tango, Vintage Beef, Iskall, Impulse, Cubfan.

The villains are this: Armistice, Zyon, Ooze, Clockwork, Poultryman, Valkerie, and Lumesce. (Welsknight, Etho, Jevin, Mumbo, Grian, Stress, Pearl- but our hero doesn't know this yet.)

Evil X sits on their shared bed and holds his twin in his arms, listening to him talk about work with troubled eyes.

Reaper. Cruel, with a tongue like a knife and teeth even sharper. She eats her enemies whole and seems to enjoy the taste of blood. Somewhere in the dark of the building is a man named Joe who whispers comebacks and threats to her for her to use in her next fight. She has not seen him free or unshackled in three years. Around his neck is a metal collar, an irony too bitter for her to speak of often. Xisuma hopes they treat him well.

Ivy-Over, blinded by the glitter and shine of heroism, still firmly thinking the best of her political overlords. Naive. Carefully herded off the battlefields as soon as her fights are over so that she never sees the casualties her massive vines leave in their wake. Xisuma worries that one day the illusion will be broken and with it her mind. She seems like the kind of person who could regress to using entrails as a skipping rope if pushed far enough. Evil X does his best to reassure him, but the lies turn to mulch in his mouth.

Xenon and Krypton, a duo that never let the higher ups split them up or force them to fight alone. Together they share a record for the fewest recorded injuries, as well as a certain fierceness in their eyes as they volley explosive balls of shadow and light between them, bouncing them back and forth to build up velocity before letting them loose on their enemies. Still, the people whisper about how much more help they could do if they were simply separated, able to cover more places at once. At night, Xisuma hears them crying, bundled tight in each other's arms and mourning their missing third.

Shank, their sniper. Supreme accuracy, a consequence of his self-built bionic eye and his special laser rifle. The higher ups are murmuring about what he could do if more of him was bionic. What improvements could be made to his body? How many more lives could be saved? (How many more "monsters" could be put behind bars?)

Splatter, their brawler. A sip of blood and he hulks out, his strength becoming all the greater the more he drinks, so the higher ups give him all the blood he could stomach and more. They never tell him where it comes from, and he's too afraid to ask. (He was a butcher before this whole hero thing, he had explained to Xisuma once. He knows what animal blood tastes like. What they give him is definitely not animal blood- and sometimes, it makes him feel sick. He always was allergic to steroids.)

Trigometric, who bent reality into fractals, who seemed just a bit more broken than the rest. He actually liked his job, and that perhaps made him less of a hero and more of a monster. (Mr. Goodtimes was a head of government of some renown, famous for his power plays and his campaign that favored brutal action against those that the city condemned. Trigometric called him "Scar" with affection on his lips and that was perhaps scariest of all.)

It's terrifying hearing about his twin's coworkers and their varying flavors of unfortunate and unstable, even worse when he has to stay at home and watch the news to see if his brother has survived to see another day against the violent protests and the drug rings and mobs and super villains.

Because there are super villains. He even meets one.

---

The pigeons need feeding. Life or death, whether Xisuma is around to remind him or no, the pigeons need feeding so every Tuesday and Saturday Evil X goes to the park with a bag of bird seed. It just so happens that one sunshine-filled summer day there is someone there before him. Crouched close to a few pigeons, at first he thinks the figure is just dressed in a purple cloak, but when the figure stands up and stretches, the cloak separates to reveal a pair of brilliant purple wings. Poultryman.

Evil X has seen his brother come back from fights and he knows that while Poultryman is a figure of some renown, his battles rarely cause collateral damage- that's more the hallmark of his partner Clockwork. So when Poultryman turns to face him, trademark white mask over his eyes and an odd expression on his face, Evil X just glares and walks up to him to dump the bag of bird seed on the super villain's feet.

"For the birds," he says tersely before spinning on his heel, preparing to walk away. The sound of bright, cheerful laughter has him pausing and the sound of wings meeting the dirt has him turning around. Poultryman is on the ground, rolling around in the bird seed and laughing his head off, clutching his stomach and flapping his wings wildly, which only makes even more of a mess.

"Pffftt- hahaHAhAHaH! Oh gods, your face! If I couldn't tell you were so pissed off to see me I wouldv'e thought this was the greatest prank ever!" Oookay? Evil X crosses his arms, unimpressed and left with a sneaking suspicion he is being made fun of.

"And?" Poultryman lets out a last few wheezing gasps before smoothly rolling to his feet, mask askew and utterly covered in dirt, grass, and bird seed. The local pigeons have, surprisingly enough, not scattered just yet.

"And that was brilliant! Tell me, are you the one who's been feeding the birds around here? The pigeons have been dying to introduce me to their 'friend' and I've been eager to meet them ever since. Well, the word translates more to family but there's some non-pigeon implications mixed in there, so friend works a little better. I don't think my feathered friends have quite yet figured out how to buy their own bird seed. You don't look like a pigeon anyway."

"No. I am not a pigeon," Evil X sighs, shifting his feet but keeping his posture defensive. If he remembers right, Poultryman never did any real damage but he apparently came off to Xisuma as a little unhinged and he'd rather not test the super villain's good mood. "And yes, I feed the birds around here. Can I go?"

Poultryman tilts his head to the side, going abruptly silent and still, all emotion wiped from his body language, expression, and voice. "That depends. Would you like to make Matchstick's life a little easier? I have a deal for you."

---

It goes a little something like this.

Clockwork and Poultryman schedule a raid on a local food processing plant, hoping to take their newest shipment of tin. Matchstick and Splatter are in the area and are called in to help. It's a poor match up to begin with, with Splatter's strength not doing much against Clockwork's robotika and Matchstick- while able to keep up with Poultryman in the air, barely- can't seem to land a solid hit on the villain. It doesn't help that he seems to be limited in how hard he hits, too conscious of what his flames might do to Poultryman's vulnerable feathers and of just how high they are in the air. Clockwork, meanwhile, is free to pilfer what he and his partner please from the plant.

However, despite the lack of damage the super heroes are able to do, the villains do even less. To Evil X, that is all that matters.

In another part of the city, a group of civilians meet in an abandoned railway car, dry docked in a train yard with its rusted frame resting on several heavy blocks of wood. The door is chained shut, but that means little when the underneath has a hole cut into it and if one is determined enough, crawling inside is easy. There, they exchange moth-eaten blankets, half-broken appliances, tattered clothes, and the tools to fix them. Money. Documents.

Evil X brings food. The government promised food unending to him and his brother, he may as well take advantage of it.

A deceptively normal-looking man with glasses and a deactivated metal collar around his neck brings a stack of books in, most of them picture books for the children. Another man, this one with green skin and robotik prosthetics, brings a stack of battered but newly repaired mobile phones, gaze shifting around nervously, as if scared to be caught there. Evil X makes a quiet note of the men but moves on. Theirs is not a story he feels like tampering with today.

When Xisuma comes home to find Evil X laying face-down in bed, fast asleep, he just smiles and tucks himself in beside his twin. Today is the first day in a long time he had come out from a fight unscathed, and tomorrow he will share the good news with his brother. For now, he sleeps.

---

In time, Evil X becomes a staple of the Homeless Enforcing Principles, which quickly gets abbreviated to the rather unimaginative "HEP." He wonders in the back of his mind if a certain man in glasses had something to do with the name, but decides not to bother with that quickly enough. He has enough on his plate as is with his newly adopted duties.

You see, when you get a diverse enough body of people together from all echelons in the city, and then put them into a rather small space, they begin to do what every group of friendly strangers like to do on the train- start complaining. Sometimes it's about the new "neighborhood watch" starting trouble on the corner of 6th and Fruit, sometimes it's about the new increase in taxes their boss wants to implement, sometimes it's about the stock that slips through the gaps when the trucks come to restock the supermarket.

Between him and his twin, Evil X never really was the one for idle chit-chat, but he knew lies just as well as his brother did and public speaking was just lying with a pretty bow on top. Stock begins to get left off of inventory sheets and put into the hands of the needy. The "neighborhood watch" get pointed towards the parts of the city that actually need their help (conveniently drawing the attention of the local law enforcement, who can actually do something about the problem).

He begins to donate more and more food to the cause, waistline thinning in the process. He thinks he likes his figure better that way.

As Evil X puts more time into his new project, crime rates don't exactly go down, but the number of people arrested for stupid reasons certainly does. The other members of HEP begin to bring in their friends and family and the pool of resources and talents grows, expanding outside the walls of their train car and out into people's basements, gas station parking lots, metal trash bin bonfires in the park. Little pools of community, and for Evil X, wellsprings of information.

Clockwork and Poultryman are some of the first actual super villains to come to the meetings, this time under the names of Mumbo Jumbo and Grian, but they are not the last.

---

Armistice arrives hanging off of Lumesce's shoulder one night, his metal body forcing her to drag him along on the ground, shredded legs unable to hold his own weight. She cries steady tears of light, seemingly near-physically pained at being unable to further help him. Evil X watches quietly from the background as Grian looks up and over the bonfire from where he is tending the jagged gash in the unconscious Mumbo's leg.

"Wels. Pearl. Got you too, huh?" The carefully kept-up cheer is gone from the man's face as the duo settle down by the fire, sprawling out in a rough heap.

The woman, Pearl, nods wearily, pulling off her hood and wiping at her face, glowing tears staining her black jacket. "Yeah. Trigometric decided he wanted to come and 'play' for a bit, seems he finally caught on to the illegal clinic I was running down in Mr. TFC's basement. I was lucky enough to get an anonymous tip that he was coming, but Wels got caught in the crossfire for defending me." Grian nods back, eyes distant.

"Give Mumbo a hand with his leg, I'll go grab the last of our tin for Wels to eat so he can patch himself up. E-X?" Evil X straightens up at the winged man's attention. "Call up Keralis and see if you can't get some hew housing sorted for Mr. TFC. I doubt his house survived in the crossfire and you might as well fix it for him with my permission and funds rather than just sort it out behind my back and try to sell it to me as an 'investment' later."  With that parting remark Grian stands up stiffly and flies away, leaving Pearl to make her way over to his partner, healing tears already streaming down her face so that she can start to fix the wound.

On the other side of the fire, Wels reaches down and rubs at the sharp and twisted metal of the remnants of his left leg, expression lost and weary. "Things can't keep going like this, so many of us are running on fumes by this point. Something has to change." Expressionless, Evil X just turns away, pulls out his cellphone, and begins to make a few calls.

He carefully ignores the twisting of his heart in his chest.

The next day, Mr. TFC has a room in a decent hotel and Evil X sits on his perfectly white couch staring at his overly large TV, watching the news. Armistice and Poultryman are fighting against Matchstick and Ivy-Over, dashing in and landing a few hits before retreating to the shadows, then running up to repeat the process again. The fight ends with both sides retreating, the heroes to the hospital, the villains to skies with Poultryman straining to bear both Armistice's weight and the load of cash stolen cash in his arms.

Grian's going to pull a wing muscle again, Evil X just knows it.

Xisuma leaves the fight unscathed. Gemini isn't nearly so lucky.

---

The next super villain he meets is mostly on accident, a random encounter more than anything. Tired of lounging about all day, if you call making connections and surfing the internet doing fuck all, Evil X decides he hates himself a bit more than he usually does and decides to go job hunting. A quick internet search later and he finds himself standing outside an abandoned warehouse on the North docks. He and his brother never had much more than their birth certificates and social security numbers to their name, so shady suited him perfectly fine.

A man steps out from behind a corner dressed in a hospital mask, black pea-coat, and a sailor's breton cap as white as his hair. Evil X freezes, eyes going wide as the familiar-looking stranger goes bug-eyed to see him right back. Then the man shifts his weight to his back foot, crossing his arms and wincing playfully, very real trepidation lurking in his posture.

"Uh, you wouldn't happen to by Matchstick's brother, would you?" Evil X takes a careful step away from the man, who he now recognizes as Zyon from watching the news, one of Xisuma's more common foes. His own research proved that the fellow had ice powers to put an iceberg to shame, which was ironic considering that he was secretly the business mogul Etho, who ran a shipping company helpfully named "Titanic Inc." It was doubly ironic since "Zyon" was notorious for causing problems for "Etho," who then claimed the insurance payouts when the boats eventually sank.

That the boats that sank frequently carried weapons, junk food made with GMO ingredients, and weirdly enough, socks, was of little consequence to him, but he kept that amusing tidbit in his back pocket for later. (The sailors on board were... collateral. And a nonissue. Anyone who signed up on a ship run by "Titanic Inc." deserved what they got.)

(Their deaths were not his concern.)

"Yeah, that's me. And you're Zyon- or rather, Etho." Zyon chuckles nervously.

"Yep yep, that's me. And you're very firmly on the 'no touchie' list around here, so I'm just gonna gooo...." Zyon flinches as Evil X suddenly attaches himself to his wrist, expression steely.

"List?" It's more statement than question, but it has Zyon gulping back a frantic giggle anyway.

"Oh no, I'm not messing with that one. Let's just say you should take that up with your brother and leave it at that. Get too deep into that mess and someone's gonna end up regretting it- and I'm not that dumb, that's for sure!" With that parting remark, Evil X finds his feet frozen to the ground and Zyon running off, dropping the black pea-coat of Etho to reveal the icy blue Kevlar ninja suit of the super villain underneath.

Bemusedly Evil X watches Zyon vault up a stack of pipes onto a nearby roof, then off towards the city where he could better better disappear.

Hmm. Seems like he needs to step up his game.

---

He runs into Ooze at the supermarket. Apparently they both prefer the green grapes to the purple ones. The more you know.

---

It's his encounter with Valkerie that really sets things off.

Xisuma comes home one day, tears streaming down his face and his gloves covered in blood and dust. He crumples in a heap at Evil X's feet where he sits on the couch and drops his face into his twin's lap, trembling. His arms dangle at his sides, blood dripping from his fingers onto the sterile white carpeting.

"Four dead found in a park near here. All teenagers, just having fun. Just. Just fucking kids! She ruptured their ear drums and they bled out because they couldn't move to get to safety. Gods E-X, their eyes... They looked so scared..." Evil X stays quiet and runs his fingers through his brother's hair, heedless of the muck clinging to the ends. Xisuma shakes himself to bits in his hands. "They were just kids. We couldn't do even do anything but clean up the mess afterwards."

Xisuma pauses, hesitant, before choking out- "That could have been us. Had we still been on our own, that could have been us." Ah. So that's it.

"We're safe, you know. Whoever Valkerie is, she won't get us here."

"But we don't know that! What if you're out shopping and she's at the market, or if she gets on the news and her scream works through the TV? What then?! I can't-" The words die in his twin's throat and Evil X gulps back his own.

I can't lose you. It's a phrase that's crossed his own mind more than once.

"Okay. Okay. I'll stay home until she's caught, okay? Get delivery or something, I don't know. And I'll keep the TV off, the radio too. Shhh. Shhhhh. I'll be okay." Xisuma struggles closer, shoving his face into his brother's stomach and getting snot and tears all over the both of them. Evil X doesn't complain. It's a lie and they both know it, but they've lived lies before, are used to it. What's one more, in the face of that?

To be fair, Evil X gives it a few weeks before he makes his move, and he knows he'll be fine so really it's only half a lie anyway.

---

Feet crunch against gravel as Evil X approaches the woman kneeling in the center of the abandoned construction site, hands over her mouth, eyes scrunched, biting the flesh of her thumb to keep her sobs held in.

"Hello Ms. Valkerie. Grian's told me about you."

The woman whips around, eyes wide and bloodshot at his sudden appearance, before she shakily lowers her hands from her mouth to clutch at the fabric of her pink cardigan. "I'm- I'm not some monster, got it? I'm just Stress, j-just- I'm just me! I don't want to hurt anyone!" Her voice goes shrill and thin towards the end and Evil X hides his wince, although apparently not well enough because she immediately slaps a hand over her mouth again, eyes watering anew.

"Okay. It's okay, Stress. I'm here to help," he placates, lowering himself down to sit next to her in the dirt. Around them, rusted I-beams and concrete pillars rise, giving them some semblance of privacy. The full moon lurks overhead, casting them both in a silver glow. "You're life must be very hard, hm?"

Stress nods, expression wary.

"And retail is very- ha- stressful too, I imagine?" Here a little grin leaks out from behind her hand. "All those customers whining on and on about discounts. 'Oh, I have a gift receipt why can't I return this?' Like, lady, you opened this box. 'I'm gonna talk to your manager!' Lady, he's just gonna say the exact same thing."

A stifled giggle and a whispered "Worse! I work in the women's clothing department." Evil X gives a mock gasp, face going wide and shocked.

"So you don't just have to deal with fussy customers- you deal with fussy suburban soccer moms!" Stress tips forward with the force of her muffled laughter, tucking her damp face into the curve of his neck and putting her full weight on him. Hesitantly she clutches the tail of his shirt with her freehand, then a little tighter when he makes no move to shove her off. Evil X just wraps a gentle arm around her shoulders.

"Some of those customers must make you want to go home and just scream, huh." Her laughter tapers off, but she nods, quiet. "So you go somewhere empty and abandoned and scream your heart out so you don't kill someone." Another nod, a little hitch in Stress' breathing. "And you scream and scream, so glad to release some of your pent-up feelings, but oops. It turns out there are people there anyway. And your screaming just killed them. You've become a murderer and the police brands you accordingly."

The hand in his shirt tightens, tugging. "I- I didn't want to hurt them! I didn't want to hurt anyone! But- but it just happened and then I was running, and no one saw me so I had to just go to work the next day, a-and. And-"

"And now you're the wanted super villain Valkerie." His hand smoothes up and down her back as her breath hitches again, once, twice, and then wetness against his neck.

"Valkerie is such a stupid name, anyway. I'm not escorting anyone anywhere, let alone to Valhalla. I just scream and. And they're dead."

Evil X hums quietly. "You must be very tired."

"...Yes. Yes." The moon slips through the sky for a while and they drift with it, lost in thought. Evil X stares up at it, squinting against its light to try and figure out what time it is, if Xisuma is likely to be home yet. The gravel is harsh against his knees.

Then. "Things can't keep going like this. I'm so tired, all the time these days. It's just work, day in and day out, and all this stress." She pulls away then and Evil X watches as Stress scrubs at her face, expression going cold and determined. She stares him straight in the eyes, but something about her still seems lost, like she's gazing through him. "Something has to change or else someone is going to get themselves killed."

He tilts his eyes head, considering, thoughtful, with a well-hidden edge to his voice.

"I think I could help with that."

---

The morning news. Four calls placed, a frantic brother reassured, Stress is sitting a cafe on the corner of Elm and 5th. Her gut flutters with nerves but Evil X can see her expression is calm from her position in the background of the shot. The news anchor is a pretty blond-haired, blue-eyed young woman blathering on about how the cafe apparently is the oldest one in the city and some other historical nonsense. Out of shot of the camera, a desperate, dog-eared petty thief is running for his life down 6th street, the hulking figure of Spatter hot on his heels.

They round a corner, onto 5th. Past the cafe, the startled reporter, the public shrieking as their morning is disrupted. Stress nearly throws up as her heart launches itself into her throat but she's... There's a plan and she's going to stick to it.

So she stands up, small and in the background of the shot, but her bright pink jacket makes her stand out. She opens her mouth, expression going scared like a civilian's, and screams just as she had been told to. It's not for long, barely a second or two all told, but it's enough to have the people near her cringing away, blood trickling from their eyes and from where their fingernails dig into their skin in trying to cover their ears.

Spatter freezes in his tracks, pupils mere pinpricks as the sudden outpouring of blood triggers something deep and wild in him. The camera shakes, the frightened camera man ducking down to avoid notice but carefully recording what's about to happen, as if sensing that whatever happens next is about to be important.

The hero turns towards Stress, eyes wild, and although she's scared out of her mind, she stands her ground. Her voice barely even shakes as she speaks.

"S-stop. Stop running, can't you see you're scaring people? You nearly ran me over!" In the eyes of the camera Stress looks like a frightened civilian gone civil defender in pink, the morning light casting her in gold and the cafe's shadow creeping over Spatter's massive, muscled-out form to cast him in darkness and grey. The lack of harsh lighting makes it even more obvious when he starts sniffing the air, darting eyes pausing on all the bloodied hands and finally resting on the woman who caused the damage.

The world has insisted, long and loud, that he is a hero and with that comes certain ingrained responsibilities. Stress is Valkerie. Splatter fixes his gaze on her and with a snarl, he moves.

The camera catches it in perfect, awful clarity when his arm goes through her stomach and her blood starts pooling on the floor. Her expression is so betrayed.

From his place on his clean, white couch at home, Evil X turns the TV off.

---

Stress is buried with honors and all media depictions of Valkerie as a monster cease as the streets are made "safe" from the super villain. Instead, news programs and talk shows take up a new crusade, this one against the "heroes" that protected the city and the governing bodies that controlled their movements. Mr. Goodtimes has his name dragged through the mud, and each day his brother comes home with stories about how frazzled Trigometric is, Evil X has to hide his smile.

Seeming to pick up on the way things are turning, Clockwork disappears from the public eye while Poultryman steps up the showmanship, making more appearances in public spaces to egg government buildings and steal petty amounts of scrap metal from junk yards and factory scrap heaps. The heroes that give chase, usually Xenon and Krypton, end up causing more damage than they actually prevent.

Ivy-Over- shocked at the public outrage about the apartments left in shambles after her particularly brutal battle against Zyon- rather predictably ends up snapping, although not in any way Evil X expected.

She ends up going to the news and telling them everything. Public outrage rises anew.

There's a riot in town square and Matchstick and Reaper are sent in to stop it. Thirteen people die, kindly Mr. TFC one of them. Xisuma comes home, collapses into Evil X's arms, and cries.

Things have to change. And so they do.

---

Midnight and two figures meet on a roof top somewhere overlooking the domed silhouette of city hall. The first wears a set of armor shaded in green and grey, a purple visor over his eyes and an oxygen-filter over the lower half of his face. The second figure has wings, stretched wide to block out the light of the crescent moon above.

Matchstick. Poultryman.

Xisuma. Grian.

Matchstick tilts his head to the side, drawing himself up to his full height to loom over the far shorter villain. "The status quo is falling apart, Poultryman. Does the deal still hold?"

Poultryman rolls his head to make it clear he had just rolled his eyes, the purple insignia on his mask flashing to display his annoyance. "Yeah yeah, I've spread the word to the others and they're not as crazy as the news likes to make 'em out to be. No one has hurt your precious 'E-X,' nor do they have any plans to. Too much trouble to mess with beyond trying to keep him out of whatever crime scene we'll be making, and that's hard enough as is. Your brother has a habit of making himself hard to track and it's getting... troubling."

The hero's posture suddenly goes as stiff as his namesake, smoke starting to hiss from the vents carefully built into his suit. "Troubling?"

Violet wings flap once, twice, before pulling tight against Poultryman's back and not for the first time, Matchstick curses himself for never bothering to learn what his various wing positions mean. The villain in question just rolls his shoulders back and settles into a careful parade rest that gives nothing away, expression pensive.

"Xisuma..." Matchstick flinches back, the careful line between them wavering at the name. "What exactly do you about your brother?"

A hesitant head tilt and he taps his fingers along his leg, thinking back to when he had last spent more than a few fleeting hours with his twin at a time.

"He likes sweet foods, even if he pretends he doesn't. Has more money invested in Derp Coin than he probably should. Likes red and black but gets fussy if anyone calls him a goth. Never seems to sleep, or eat regular meals, but he never seems to forget anything either. Best brother I could ever ask for- he loves me, I know that for sure. All the important stuff. Why?"

A wisp of cloud drifts overhead, casting a brief shadow over the pair, and in the sudden darkness Matchstick could swear that Poultryman had pulled a frown. Then the moment passes and the villain is back to his usual inscrutable self, the only emotion in his body language being what he had put there intentionally. His wings remain tight to his back.

"Then I think you might be in for a bit of a surprise one day, Matchstick. Here's to hoping you can roll with the coming storm."

---

Evil X is beloved by the HEP network. Regardless of Grian's intention in putting him in contact with them- or even why the villain knew of the group to start with- his repeated contributions to their food stocks made him an opening among them and his ability to make and exploit connections made him their hero. If you were desperate, hungry, in need? Evil X could get you whatever you needed at the cost of a simple favor.

When it came to the price of a life, a favor is a small thing to ask indeed. Is it any wonder that they became so loyal to him? So when Evil X began asking questions about some of the city's more sensitive secrets and its shadier underbelly, it was only natural that they told him.

From the tall man with green skin, he learned the best places to dump things so that they disappeared. From a sleepy-looking fellow with a bandana, he learned the locations of the best drug dealers, and from those dealers he learned of their suppliers, their manufacturers, the places where heroes never walked. From the man with glasses, he learned about the back doors and hidden routes through the biggest, most important buildings, the places where they held people until they could make them disappear.

And with this information, Evil X's services expanded even further. Drugs for the addicts, as contaminant-free and trust-worthy as he could find them. Ways to make people appear and disappear in the eyes of the law (and the occasional abusive spouse). Alcohol, cigarettes- and most importantly, information.

Or rather, black mail. If you wanted to know something on someone, Evil X became the person to go to. Months of careful manipulation had spread his name and his reach through all levels of the city and people from all walks of life took advantage of her services, although usually all meetings were held over the phone and through a voice changer fashioned to look just like his twin's mask. The secrecy only increased his popularity, as people just love a good mystery and a grey-shaded crime boss made a lovely story indeed.

And soon, this caught the intention of another of the city's fabled figures- the mad scientist who lived deep in the underbelly of the city, a place where no light shone. The man, the myth, the legend... Void.

But then, myths never were all that accurate, especially with things like names.

---

Curly blond hair, brown cardigan, a ripped white lab coat. Calculating purple eyes and a wide, wide eerily white grin. Short and stocky with a complexion like a ripe peach, the blue light coming off the lights overhead casting hazy shadows over his form, everything about the good doctor is simultaneously creepy and a soft sort of handsome- he has to say, he's impressed. The mythical Zedaph lives up to the city's dark rumors of him and he says as much, which prompts that grin to grow all the wider.

"Ah, hello Weaver! Y'know, I kind of thought you'd be shorter. And down here a lot sooner, I almost could say I missed you~!" Evil X balks as the scientist steps forward and grips his chin to tilt his head down, purple eyes wandering over his scarred features.

"It's not like you make yourself easy to find- and that's not my name." Zedaph shakes his head, leaning his face up with just scant inches between them.

"Little spider, you might be pretty good at hearing things but you're awful at listening. If you have large enough ears, you'd find you're just about the most talked about thing in the underground these days-"

"Do spiders have ears...?"

"-so like it or not, your web is big enough that people have been spotting it in odd places, which means your twin will probably catch on soon. Which means..." Here Zedpah spins away to walk to the opposite wall, pressing a few buttons on his tablet which make the underground laboratory brighten considerably. Evil X tries not to feel bereft at the sudden loss of contact. "Your plans are gonna have to hit double time. And I love me a good speed potion!"

Speechless, Evil X just nods as the scientist opens a previously hidden door and pulls out a laptop case from inside, turning to present it to him with a fiercely proud expression on his face.

"Knock 'em dead darling. I can't wait to see you rock their world~!"

---

What does the end of an era look like? It's not a sudden collapse of civilization, people screaming and running through the streets. It's not the violent murder of the governmental leaders or riots against the past order. It's not as clear cut as all that. Nor is it so subtle that people look around one day and go huh, as the world around them had shifted beneath their feet without their notice. Indeed, there are many who saw the tide rising and were all too happy to watch the waters sweep in and away.

It goes like this.

The super villains go missing. First one week goes by with no wild scheme or dangerous incident, then two, then three. The higher ups are frantic with worry, running constant meetings and keeping the super heroes out on the streets for as long as they could without the heroes themselves rioting. It keeps Matchstick out of the way of Weaver, and at the moment, that's all the thought he can afford to spare his twin. It's for the best, really. The next step is important.

Across every government-issued computer in the city, an email is issued out. Personalized, first middle last name, parents' names, chidlrens' names. An alphabetical list of every law the person in question had broken in the last ten years, the number of witnesses who saw them do it, sometimes video footage or photo-copied documents if the crime was serious enough to warrant more concrete proof. What the punishments for those crimes would be. What could be done, if those punishments were waived for money or fame.

Nearly a thousand people get an email in the span of 24 hours. (Evil X never wants to write another email ever-fucking-again. None. Ever.) The heroes also receive an email detailing what laws were broken by denying them rights, food, decent living conditions and overtime pay, as well as the names of several lawyers who would work for them for free if the email was shown to them within three days time.

Every email is emblazoned with a web-like logo with a bright red "X" sitting in the middle like a bloody spider. Though some plucky tech people attempt to track the emails back to the sender, their every attempt is rebuffed by the impossible firewalls built into the computer the messages were sent from. As imagined, chaos in its most understated form ensues.

The city officials scramble to keep their sinking ship from falling apart and the little people kept cooped up in square offices and cell blocks come crawling out of the woodwork to jump ship. Some of the heroes, such as Xenon, Matchstick, and Shank try desperately to hold things together, but others like Reaper head for the nearest legal office and hole up with a team of vicious prosecutor attorneys. Meanwhile, the civilians go about their business, unaware of what is going on in the ivory towers far above their notice.

Xisuma comes home to fin their apartment empty, and although betrayal sits like a rock in his gut, his guts still squirm with desperate, aching fear. (No... please, no.)

The super villains make their reappearance with flair, setting the stage for the next act. Each one takes to a corner of the city, working in pairs to capture civilians and hold them hostage en mass, their efforts to wide spread for the remaining heroes to deal with in one go. From here, walking along a quiet street and watched by hundreds of frightened eyes- a captive audience- Weaver makes his debut as he makes his way to the city capital.

Tall, whip-thin enough to make his proportions lean more towards slenderman than super model, and dressed in red and black armor with a matching helmet and visor, Weaver cuts an imposing figure as he makes his way up the white marble steps of the capital building to where a nervous-looking reporter stands. She straightens up at his approach though and with a nod to her camera crew, she starts asking questions just in time for Poultryman to swoop in and land beside the newest super villain, expression stern but a clear presence of support.

In his hands a laptop is clutched.

---

The demands are simple in theory, but Xisuma feels his heart thunder in his throat at every point on the list.

The week would be split into three types of days. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays would proceed as normal and the heroes and villains could go at each other as they pleased. Fridays would be reserved for the villains to do as necessary without hero interference under the caveat that no blood would be spilled, and Sundays heroes could have the same. Tuesdays and Saturdays, no one would fight, a proper break for everyone.

The villains would keep to their side of the bargain, Weaver says darkly as he stares directly into camera, just so long as the heroes kept to theirs. And measures would be taken for anyone who chose not to comply. Xisuma's brain goes fuzzy with static as the super villain makes a few other demands, something about fair wages and from when to when each group could operate, but his gaze remains locked to where he can just barely make out his twin's face through his visor. The words filter through him, dismissed into a soft numbing blur.

The air suddenly feels chilled on his skin, fingers twitching in his lap, a rough, twisting feeling in his gut like the bottom of his stomach just dropped away. He feels trapped, unable to move from the couch, from the wrong side of the screen. Oh, he thinks hazily to himself, he's about to be sick. Hmm, ought to do- something. About all of- of this.

Gods... What did his brother do?

---

An era ends like this- Poultryman sweeps Weaver away in his arms and in his place, Evil X comes home. Xisuma watches his brother come through the door, eyes glued to his brother's face even as Evil X places his keys on the table by the door and takes off his shoes. There's a gentle realization bubbling up that this is the first time he's seen his brother's bare face with his own eyes, without the tint of a visor between them, in far too long. His twin's got paler as of late, making the eye bags and scars stand out all the more.

"You're home." The words hang in the air and Evil X sags at their weight, leaning against the door as if to prop himself up for the conversation to come. His arms hang behind his back, a laptop case dangling in his grip.

"You know this isn't home any more than the tree was."

"We- we were supposed to be safe here. This was where we were going to stay!" Xisuma is going red now, rising up from the couch in his anger, and Evil X watches him with the dredged-up calm of a man resigned to drowning. Good, anger he could handle.

"You thought this was where we would stay, got us a nice, normal apartment that looks like it's out of a fashion plate without asking me. You think I like staying in this pretty white bird cage that you bought by selling yourself to the most corrupt people around? This place isn't any safer for us than the tree was, and at least in the park we had company!"

"Says the one who fell into bed with the literal bad guy! At least here you weren't getting into fights every other week."

"No, now you're the one doing that!" They're shouting at each other. They never do that. An acrid taste fills Evil X's mouth and he gulps it back, along with a few words he just knows he would regret if he said them. A deep breath, a slow in and out. "Look, just. Don't be a hypocrite, okay?"

Xisuma pauses in his wind up for a proper tirade, eyes wary and wet. "What?"

"You aren't the only self sacrificing moron here."

"...Oh." Yeah. Oh.

Here Evil X takes another breath, resisting the urge to hold it, then extends his arm to show his twin the laptop case. "Hey."

Xisuma folds his arms behind his back, looking at his feet and then up again, shuffling back a step. "Yeah?"

"Got you a present. You always were the best of us, so. Here. It was the last part of the deal I kinda set up, a kind of fail-safe slash card to add to your deck. This laptop has evidence of my entire operation, every backroom deal, every piece of black mail, every person I've had killed or vanished or what have you. Everything I've been up to for the last however long. And... it's for you to read. It's not gonna be fun, but like, I trust you so it's okay. If you read this and really, honestly think I've crossed a line you can't forgive me for, you can turn this into the police and... I'll deal with whatever you choose to do with me. No loop holes, no take-backs."

Here Evil X leans his full weight against the door and lets his arm swing back down to his side, gaze sliding off to the side and a melancholy smile curling at his lips and pulling at his scars. "I trust you. I trust you. It... It'll be okay, yeah? Just make whatever choice you need to. Don't hesitate." He doesn't promise anything, keeps the words 'I'll be okay' from spilling into the air between them, but instead allows a careful submission to enter his posture, head bowed and figure loose and hanging.

It... might not be alright, but it will be right and that will have to be good enough. (It has to be.)

Xisuma chokes, a sob rising in his throat as his brave, strong brother gives up before his eyes. The air in his lungs freezes solid at the thought of having to choose whether or not his twin lives or dies, because that's what this is, he can't pretend that the city wouldn't execute him at the slightest chance, agreements be damned. His gaze tracks wildly from the laptop case to the top of his brother's head to the window, as if trying to see if anyone could be watching, could make the choice for him.

It's not fair. It's not fair, why him, why? He was so good, tried so hard- his heart is loud in his ears, breath rattling in and out in wheezing gasps- sobbing now, utterly sobbing. Evil X doesn't look up, doesn't try to comfort him. Won't even move, gods.

Fuck it.

Evil X startles, back banging against the door as Xisuma rushes forward and rips the case from his hands, only to chuck it into the far corner before throwing himself into his arms. On instinct Evil X catches him and holds him close just in time for Xisuma to bury his face in the crook of his neck and burst into messy, tearful sobs. They shake together and Evil X lets his head thump back gently against the door, eyes hazily gazing up at the ceiling.

"It's not- *hic*- it's not fair! I didn't want this!"

"I know. I know." He runs his hand over his twin's back, his taller form bowing forward to shelter his brother's smaller one. Somehow, even now it feels like Xisuma is the larger one between them, solid and warm in his arms.

"Why do I have to choose? I never wanted this! Why?! Why would you do this for me?"

"You're my brother. I love you." A gasping, wet sob against his neck and his twin lets out a moan like a dying cow, low and agonized. Evil X focuses on a soot mark on the white ceiling, tears stinging his eyes and running down his face to plop softly into his brother's hair.

"But why?!" Screaming. Gods, he can't-

"I love you. I love you." Rocking now, back and forth, gentle, just as he had when he had come home from beating up the men who had tried to lay stomp out his brother's heart, scarred and beaten and bloody. I love you, he had said then, and he repeats it now.

Later, much later, Xisuma will have to boot up the laptop and read through its contents. He will try to burn it, first, but Zedaph's work is more durable than most and Evil X will watch as his twin will dump his emotions into his flames, desperately trying to stoke them hotter and brighter. Later, a choice will have to be made.

But for now, Evil X will hold his brother, warm and safe, and let him cry.

[sugarmaplewings-fics]

Midnight Ball

Pairing: Todoroki x reader

Warnings: None

Author’s Note:

Day two of Sugar’s Spooky Days/Fall Special

Hehehe I have managed to finish something! Can’t say as much for the Kirishima one, so that might have to be late :(. I should have that one done sometime over the weekend though, so fingers crossed!

I also may or may not have been thinking about Heartless by Marissa Meyer while I wrote that first bit 👀👀 (read it, it’s good, especially if you want to sob your eyeballs out like I did)

I hope you like this one! It was fun for me to write!

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.

You had insisted on not coming to this party.

You, of course, had said this as if you had a choice. Really, as someone with your status, you should have the power to make decisions for yourself. But nooo, as the only daughter of the Marquess and Marchioness, it was your duty to attend the king’s bi-annual masquerade ball. Bother.

So, here you were, all dressed up with little intention to dance or even have fun. You clung to the sides of the spacious dancefloor, hoping to keep to yourself enough that no one would try to talk to you. It was truly dreadful what some of your fellow nobility could come up with for small talk. Exchanging formalities and remarking on politics, only then to run off into a tangent on whatever subject may have recently captured their trivial attention.

You longed to be elsewhere—in a library perhaps, or in your garden, working on sketches in your notebook. Gracious, come to think of it, maybe sleeping would even be the better option. It was dreadfully late.

The king always insisted on throwing such parties as these so late at night, stretching all the way to early hours of the morning. You’d gotten plenty of rest prior in preparation for this autumn Midnight Ball, but between the lack of meaningful interaction and your desire to be elsewhere, you found yourself capturing yawns in your gloved hand.

Your childhood best friend didn’t seem to have this problem. You could see her now, indigo skirts swishing around her ankles as she danced with some green haired man. You couldn’t quite tell if you had ever seen him before, but he was probably from some foreign kingdom. You’d certainly hear all about him tomorrow.

You began to grow antsy at your position on the west wall. Your heels were beginning to make your ankles ache, and your mask was growing progressively warmer with each breath. A glance towards the banquet table told you that the coast was clear for you to browse the selection of food laid out, but your corset made you think twice. Your handmaiden had done it so dreadfully tight.

Curses. Not to her, she had done nothing wrong. Maybe at your mother, who insisted on lacing it up in this way.

You chewed at your tongue. Maybe a walk in the courtyard would clear your head. It would definitely be cooler and not so bright. If you were lucky, you may even be alone.

Gathering your (F/C) skirts in your fists, you strode to the door to the outside, ducking through small gatherings of people and curtseying to the guards positioned at the exit. You knew you had made the right decision as soon as the night air hit your face, a cool October breeze seeping behind your mask and ruffling the feathers that adorned it. A full moon lit your path as you walked further into the manicured gardens. You’d been around here before, yet you still allowed yourself time to admire the hedges and trees closing off spaces of land. Flowerbeds were artfully placed wherever they could fit, although you could tell that most of their plentiful blooming yield had already gone back within themselves for the frosty winter. What you were truly interested in was a small pond located in the back, hidden behind a few bushes at its side.

The clear pool laid stagnant before you as you knelt down to look into it. The light of the moon bounced off your bejeweled costume mask, causing the water to sparkle even brighter beneath you. A large koi fish took notice of your signal, lazily sliding its stout, tri-colored body towards the surface in hopes that you may have brought it some food.

“I’m sorry, little friend,” you whispered to its expectant gaping mouth, “I don’t have anything for you.”

You watched him for another moment, little splashes made by the fish’s fins breaking the stillness of both the silent night air and the pool’s surface.

“You’ve upset him.”

The sound of an unfamiliar voice made you start. You straightened, brushing off the front of your skirt. Turning, you saw the figure of a man standing a few paces away from you. His build was lean and strong, and a mask of his own glittered in the all-encompassing moonlight. It was difficult to make out any identifying features, but a part of you just knew that he was intangibly handsome.

“Sorry?” you said, trying to compose yourself.

Perfect. This was just what you had been trying to avoid: interaction. Maybe he’d go easy on you and let you leave soon, or maybe he could have something genuinely worthwhile to say.

“That fish,” he clarified. “He’s hungry.”

You pursed your lips together in thought as you stole a glance back at the pond. Your koi friend had retreated back to the depths of his home as soon as you had turned your back. The air hummed with silence once more.

“Is he, though?” you asked. “He probably gets fed just as well as any other creature living on the grounds.”

The mysterious man shrugged. “True, but perhaps that’s the most joy he gets out of life.”

“Oh.” You stood there awkwardly for a second in silence, trying to think of a response. “That’s a little . . . grim.”

“Sorry.” He shifted. “I’ve always felt bad for fish.”

“How so?”

He took a step closer to the pond, bending a bit at the waist in order for him to see into it better. “They have less freedom. Little to do, nowhere to go . . . sometimes they remind me of myself a bit.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not terribly fond of my father.”

You blinked, wondering if he was going anywhere with this.

His eyes finally snapped up to yours. The moon caught their shades perfectly, drawing out hints of color that would normally be lost to their own depths. It struck you suddenly that you had seen these eyes before; one a steely silver while the other was a lovely cerulean that nearly seemed to glow. Where had you previously seen these eyes?

“Sorry,” he apologized again. “I didn’t mean to overstep.” He straightened up to properly face you, his posture rigid and practiced, just as you had seen all the other noblemen do your whole life. “My name is Shouto Todoroki, son of Duke Enji Todoroki,” he said, piercing eyes growing a little glassy at the voicing of his own name. He bowed to you, and around the top of his mask, you took notice of his perfectly split bi-colored hair. “My lady,” he said.

“Shouto?” Yes, that was right. You’d met him a few times as children, playing together while your families held council meetings. It had to have been nearly ten years since you’d seen him last, and to be honest, he’d grown into quite the man.

“Yes?” he answered, uncertain.

“It’s me,” you said, lifting your mask a bit to better show off your eyes and features in the dim light. “(F/N) (L/N).”

You watched as he did a double take; eyes scanning you from top to bottom as he put a name to your person. “(Y/N) . . . wow, it’s been a long time.”

You chuckled, fiddling with the material of your skirt between your fingers. “You’re not saying I’m old, now, are you?”

He snorted, his posture relaxing. “Of course not, my lady.”

You began to chat, settling in beside him as you wandered around the gardens together. It was only now that you realized how much you had missed your old friend, finding it shockingly easy to talk with him. He spoke of his father and how he intended for Shouto to take his place in power when his time came. You noted the bitterness he carried in his voice, vaguely remembering the emergence of the issue from the last time you’d conversed. He listened to your own life updates, interested in your hobbies and what you had to say about life and time. In fact, it nearly felt as if no time had passed at all, and you’d remained close throughout the years.

The light of the castle began to creep upon the path ahead of you, and you noticed that you’d circled the entire perimeter of the gardens. Music from the ballroom floated to your ears, and you recognized the tune. Influenced by your improved mood, you began to hum along to a few of the notes, nodding your head to the light, peppy rhythm.

Shouto took notice of this, eyeing you with a small smile gracing his usually stoic face. He sped up just enough to come up in front of you, causing you to halt in your tracks. He bowed before you again, one hand behind his back with the other outstretched for your own. “If I may, could I have this dance? This is your king’s ball, and I believe that my lady deserves at least one before the night’s end.”

An unexpected heat climbed to your cheeks. Why were you suddenly feeling this way? Your childhood friend had certainly grown into quite the handsome young man, but you couldn’t ever remember thinking of him in this manner. He’d only ever shown kindness and respect towards you, and it was only now beginning to weigh on you how much you liked him. But this weight wasn’t in any way unpleasant, in fact, it made you feel giddier, almost light and intrepid. What could one dance together hurt?

You rested your hand in his, the fabrics of your gloves sliding together as your fingers met. His head turned up so he could once again make eye contact, drawing your offered appendage to his lips. They brushed over your knuckles, feather light, and you found yourself wishing that the silken material could have been removed. How soft were his lips truly?

Shouto walked you a few paces away onto an open area in the grass, the fragrance of greenery and crisp evening air wafting through the space. Every surface was bathed in a fine layer of moonlight, giving the world a dark, silvery glow. Shouto’s skin gleamed pale and resembled porcelain, eyes shining behind the contrasting shadows of his mask.

With your palm in his, he guided you closer to him, his other hand alighting on the small of your back.

“The moon highlights your beauty remarkably so. I’ve never felt this . . . enamored by someone.”

You shivered at his words, the gentle intensity of his gaze boring into you. You began to fall into step with the music wavering in the background. The cheerful rhythm made your heart soar as you glided over the grass with your partner. He led you through some practiced steps, others entirely new. Your skirts swirled around your ankles, adding an extra flare to each of your movements. The sound of the hidden orchestra was distant and thin, and yet there was such a feeling that instilled through you, almost as if the music had seeped all the way to your marrow.

You watched as Shouto’s face began to relax into a little smile, twirling you this way, dipping you over his strong arm, pulling you back into his chest. The whole ordeal took your breath away, and even in the cool night air, your cheeks began to ignite in a palpable warmth of their own. Time slowed, and it was as though you’d been his dance partner for centuries, finding a rhythm and flowing together as one.

That is, until a shooting pain fired through your ankle, causing you to gasp and stumble. Shouto caught and steadied you in his arms before you could fall very far, worry clouding over his face.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

You grimaced, shifting your weight on your feet. “It’s my heels,” you explained. “Sorry. They’re not the most . . . practical.”

“Here,” Shouto said, offering you his arm. “Take them off. You don’t need them out here.”

Your face heated once again as you leaned on his outstretched appendage, fishing around in your skirts until you found your foot. Within moments, you were free, feet bare in their thin tights, discarded shoes unbuckled and placed neatly aside on the grass. The both of you found a stone bench nearby, and you sat side by side to help ease the strain on your feet. While you took this bit of a breather, you remarked to yourself how much taller Shouto was compared to you. The sight of how much he’d grown over the years, mixed with this newfound urge to rest your head against his broad chest . . . .

“Are you feeling better now, my lady?”

(Y/N). Your name was (Y/N). He could have just as easily called you as such, and yet, the formality set your heart aflutter.

“Yes, I believe I am. Actually, I’m feeling much better. This party was so dull until you happened upon me.”

Shouto’s smile returned, the slightest shine appearing on his upturned lips. “I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in a long time either. Thank you for accepting my offer to dance.”

You hummed and flashed him a genuine grin of your own.

He averted his eyes suddenly, a new tension gripping his shoulders. “I know we haven’t talked in years,” he began, “but if you didn’t mind, I would like to get to know you again, (Y/N). Our kingdoms aren’t too distant, and I would like to write to you sometime when I return home.”

Your smile widened. “That sounds lovely. I’d love to keep in touch with you.” You let your hand wander over to his, taking it up in your fingers.

Shouto smiled again at your touch, raising your joined palms to press another kiss to your knuckles. “I look forward to your response,” he said, lips brushing against your gloved fingers as he spoke, eyes locked on yours.

You could still hear the band playing in the ballroom. To the king, the night was still young, and the party would continue for some time longer. Within moments, you were on your feet again with him, twirling your body to the tempo of the strings and winds. With stars serving as your only audience, you danced with your newfound partner until the early hours of the morning under the light of a full hanging moon.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.

Taglist: @aahilovetheatre​ @heartpaw12​ @todoroki-waifu​ @basicaegyo​ @iiminibattlehero​ @katsugay​ @nabo39​ @pyrofanatic​ @sendhelpimstupid​ @sokkasangel​ @xoxopam4​

[magemelondew]

I know I don't normally post stuff like this, but I just hate it so much when people call Wheatley derogatory names like "idiot" and "moron" as if it's affectionate and funny because like.. it's straight up bullying. How do I know that? Oh, well, it's probably because people did it to me as a child.

Sure, he's a fictional character, but my point still stands; calling him those things is bullying. He wasn't made to be stupid. GLaDOS tells you that. You can't exactly take everything she says at face value, as she can often mislead. It's like a rumor going around at school, you hear something about someone and it spreads and nobody stops to think if it's true. By just blindly believing things about people, you're causing harm to the person in question, and especially so when you're promoting it.

If you dig around in the game's files, an unused line has Wheatley telling a story in the turret factory where he explains that rumor got around about an accident he had caused.

"Over there is where they used to keep the old neurotoxin release button… BIG responsibility, the guy in charge of the neurotoxin release button… And guess who he WAS? …Wasn’t me. But I was his assistant, and I did a lot of his admin. You know, in the end, yes… they let me go… It’s all politics, to be honest. It’s a big popularity contest. It’s all about who you know and whose back you’re willing to scratch and who doesn’t touch – y’know, or in my case who did accidentally touch – the neurotoxin button… But y’know, not entirely my fault! You shoulda seen the SIZE of it! It was huge! I mean I should have got a raise for all the times that I DIDN’T… accidentally bump into it…"

The foreman was going to hire him, until he heard about what Wheatley had done. So they sent him to the lowest job available– the relaxation center. He doesn't have a job, really, he's not in charge of anything. The entire facility there is automatic, He was just there as a safeguard for whenever it failed. They didn't trust them because of those rumors.

"Here's an interesting story. You might like this. I almost got a job down here in Manufacturing. But, uh, guess who the foreman went with? Only an exact duplicate of himself. Nepotism. Ended up giving me the WORST possible job, tending to all the smelly humans."

It's possible that these things were intentionally made up to give him social anxiety and self-esteem issues, thinking that would slow GLaDOS down. He's all emotion, literally, so affecting him in that fashion would absolutely stunt her ability to think clearly. I don't think there's much proof to back this up, that's simply my own thoughts on it.

To the scientists and GLaDOS, emotions only get in the way of rational thinking. Wheatley listens more to his heart than his head, well, in a figurative sense. The scientists see that as irrational and moronic, hence him being called the intelligence dampening core. He's the perfect way to interrupt rational thinking in GLaDOS, as he fills her head with fear or anxiety. People who feel emotions a lot deeply tend to place their own feelings over logic. And later in the story, Wheatley valued the euphoric response that the chassis gave him.

Many people have hurt Wheatley in the past. His anxiety, self doubt, and his inability to trust others much all are effects of people talking about him being his back and having nobody to cling to. He liked Chell because she knew nothing about him. She didn't say anything mean to him, and it was like a fresh pallette. Not to mention that she was the only person he had probably seen for long time.

For someone who had been hurt by people all his life, wouldn't he absolutely hate humans altogether? They smell bad, talk bad things about him behind his back, and call him names. They made him dislike himself since the start of his life, but he still holds out hope to be cared for by someone. Someone who doesn't know him at all, or knows about the things people have said about him.

And when he's placed into the chassis, GLaDOS just blurts out the one thing he's extremely insecure about.

"YES YOU ARE! YOU'RE THE MORON THEY BUILT TO MAKE ME AN IDIOT!"

When wheatley gets the chassis, it's a form of drug use, as said by GLaDOS.

"The body he's squatting in - MY body - has a built-in euphoric response to testing. Eventually you build up a resistance to it, and it can get a little... unbearable. Unless you have the mental capacity to push past it."

His bottled up emotions just released and he exploded the moment he got reminded of his own past. The way he was mentally lead him to substance abuse, as shown by his immediate addiction to the chassis. He was highly focused on the pleasure response from testing rather of the facility. Well, not like he even knew how to take care of the facility in the first place.

He's a core who's been told off because of how clumsy and impulsive he is, and those are things he can't really control. They didn't know what to do with him, so they were probably always scolding him for his mistakes and never praising him for doing something right, therefore, he's always doubting himself. How is he supposed to know when he's doing something right? That's probably why he makes those mistakes, he's never been able to properly learn how.

GLaDOS tries to defeat Wheatley out of sheer anger, and when she insults him, he becomes furious. He doesn't want to be reminded of how he's been treated his entire life. And for once in his life, he has the power to retaliate. So he does. He gets legitimately angry and tries to kill them both.

He thinks that now that Chell believes it too, that she thinks he's an idiot as well, since he's never had anyone stand up for him or have his back. He spends a lot of his time in the chassis trying to prove otherwise. He just hates being thought of that way so much when he knows he's not.

"You're in this together, aren't you? You've been playing me the whole time! Both of you! First you make me think you're brain damaged! Then you convince me you're sworn enemies with your best friend over here!"

A lot of people might bring up the paradox that she tried to use against him as proof as he's unintelligent, but really, he's simply choosing not to listen to GLaDOS.

"Hey, Moron!"

"Oh. Hello."

"Alright. Paradox time. This. Sentence. Is. FALSE don't think about it don't think about it..."

"Um, true. I'll go with true."

"I'll be honest, I might have heard that one before, though. Sort of cheating."

He's not thinking about it because he didn't care what she had to say. He saw her as just another asshole in his life and acted ignorant towards her comments.

He's also the only character in the game who apologizes. Nobody else does except him.

Yes, he's just a fictional character and whatever, I know, he's not real. But.. let me tell you why this is so important to me.

When I was a child, I had a lot of issues with other people. They would call me a crybaby, they would spread rumors about me doing disgusting things and other horrible things. Even my teacher didn't like me. I was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age, and that made me very emotional and sensitive, making me stand out from everyone else.

Nobody wanted to spend time with me, nobody wanted to sit with me, and I spent most of my time alone in the library playing computer games since the kids outside wouldn't even let me play with them. Kids were scared of even touching me because of Diary of A Wimpy kid books spreading the idea of the cheese touch, and everything there called it the Sarah touch. It was horrible. Bullying made me introverted and now, I spend all my time alone because I didn't have friends. I'm sensitive and insecure, and I have issues communicating with people, as well as taking things people say a bit too personally sometimes. By the end of elementary school, I only really had 2 friends.

Although my experience isn't the same, I know that a lot of these things are similar; being singled out because of things you don't understand or have control of, and people constantly spreading rumors and lies about you to make people hate you and avoid you. You learn to not trust people around you and that you're the only person you can really rely on.

Sure, you can keep thinking Wheatley is a moron, I can't help that. All I want is people to stop spreading it everywhere and look into it for themselves. To develop their own opinions based on his actions rather than what GLaDOS says about him. I just want people to know that they're doing the same exact thing the kids at school did to them as a child to Wheatley, and it's not right.

Thank you for reading. Sorry if this was a bit all over the place, I just want people entering the fandom or have been in it for a while to see this and take some kind of action to improve upon themselves and their views of others around them. I used to think the same thing. I thought he was a power hungry idiot, but.. he's not. And I think that should be more widespread knowledge.

[averagesmw]

Penny Haywood x MC- Come with me (1/4)

Game: Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery

____________________

The time for the holidays was approaching Hogwarts. The colorful lights and gentle snowfall made paved the way for the most peaceful time of the year

A time when there was no such thing as an enemy and tensions were indeed at an all-time low

This would be an ideal time to celebrate and surround yourself with loved ones, but after a brutal sixth year, festive wouldn't be a way to describe how Y/N was feeling

It was so hard to believe that it was over, that after... everything, they were free. However, it didn't feel like a victory

In fact, it didn't feel like anything. Even Beatrice wasn't as gloom

This behavior did not go unnoticed, however. Across the Great Hall, while the Curse-Breaker was staring at their giant sandwich, their friends were plotting

Well, at least the ones who hadn't left for Christmas yet

Tulip, Liz, Tonks, and Penny were waiting on Chiara, who was holding a plate with barely eaten food

"They didn't even eat. They just took a bite to not make me feel bad..."

The silver-haired girl sighed, earning sympathy from the girls, except for Penny, who was looking back at them

Not many students were left, but Y/N was so lost in thought that they didn't notice the girls

"This isn't good. Y/N has been as lonely as Talbot"

"...Who?" Tonks asked

"The point is, there has to be something we can do to help them"

"I tried cheering them up with Puffskeins, but Y/N just ended up falling asleep..." Liz sighed in defeat

"Have you tried taking them to Hogsmeade?" Tulip suggested to Penny

"Yes, but they didn't want to go. Said there were too many memories"

There was silence after that, at least until more ideas brewed

Y/N went through unimaginable lengths to protect their friends and even ensure their happiness. After everything that happened with Rakepick and the Vaults, it was only fair that they got some of that as well

The girls were devastated to know that wasn't the case, and they made it their mission to correct it immediately

Unfortunately, every attempt at improving their friend's mood had failed, and with Christmas approaching, time was running out

Unless...

"Wait, you said Hogsmeade brought Y/N bad memories?"

Penny nodded at the question, curious to see what Tonks had come up with

"Why not take Y/N somewhere else? Maybe a change of scenery would help them"

"Brilliant idea, Tonks! It could do wonders for their health if the environment is right"

Chiara's comment earned a proud smile from the methamorphmagus, at least until Liz came in with another question

"But where would it be ideal for that?"

With her hand on her chin, looking around for an answer. Her blue eyes eventually landed on the Christmas tree that was decorating the place

That's when she got a fragment of what could be an idea. She just needed a bit more intimation

"Where are you going on Christmas?"

The girls seemed to pick up on this idea, but their reactions didn't help much

"Y/N L/N is one of my best friends, I wouldn't let them anywhere near my parents"

With Tulip's parents working for the Ministry and Y/N being...well, Y/N, it only made sense

" I'm staying to help Hagrid look after the creatures"

Liz's statement made Chiara look at her with surprise

"And I will learn from Madam Pomfrey. Maybe we can get together for lunch!"

The silver-haired girl smiled at the idea as soon as she heard it

"I'd love that!"

The girls' excitement only made Penny worry, seeing as her options were running out. But that's when she thought about what she'd be doing in the holidays

Visiting the countryside, away from conflict and just near family and friends from a nearby village

"Then I'll ask Y/N to come with me for the holidays!" She thought out loud, gaining the attention of her friends

"You sure your parents would let you?"

"I'll send them an owl to ask them. Hopefully, they'll say yes"

Shortly after that, her gaze shifted to the student at the table

"But first, the guest of honor"

Without further due she approached Y/N and sat in front of them, her presence making then snap out of it

"Oh. Hey, Penny"

She returned the greeting with a smile

"Hi, Y/N. How are you today?"

"I'm holding up. I thought you'd be going with your family for Christmas"

This provided Penny the opportunity she was looking for, and she wouldn't waste it

"Actually, that's what I came here to talk about"

The suspense that accompanied that statement made Y/N look at her with concerned eyes

"Is everything alright?"

The Hufflepuff picked up on this and gently smiled at them

"Oh yes, don't worry about it. See, I was thinking..."

A sigh left her soft lips before she finally allowed herself to be as honest as she could with Y/N, or at least enough to proceed

"You've done far too much for us, especially this year, and while it has been difficult, it's been even worse for you"

"That's...a way to describe it, yes"

"But you deserve to enjoy this breath of fresh air, Y/N, and I was wondering if you..."

If she had their attention, now she also counted with their curiosity

"Yes?"

Her blue eyes met their e/c eyes as she finally asked what she came there to know

"If you'd like to come to the countryside with me for the holidays"

Penny waited for Y/N to politely decline the invitation as they would probably do given their mood

However, something that the young lady didn't account for was that talking to her would always help to cheer them up, even now

So rather than declining such an offer, Y/N showed surprise

"Really? You want me to go with you?"

Their reaction was as if they had forgotten just how much they meant to Penny, but seeing this change in behavior gave her the boost she needed to continue

"Of course! There's nobody else I'd rather spend them with"

She could tell that the curse-breaker was moved by her words, but also that they were seriously considering her offer. It was only a minute, but it felt like an eternity to the blonde witch

"Well, I could use the scenery change"

There she was, the confirmation she needed to get started. Penny got up and flashed one of the brightest smiles Y/N had ever seen

Not literally of course, but he had to be dead for it not to be heartwarming

"Brilliant! I'll send an owl to my parents to tell them about it. I'll tell you when we're leaving and...Y/N?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for giving me this opportunity"

Without further due, she left the Great Hall and headed straight to her Common Room so she could write a letter asking her parents if Y/N could indeed tag along

Penny would explain that they were responsible for saving Hogwarts on multiple occasions, including the Haywood sisters themselves and also the fact that they didn't quite deserve to spend such a gloomy Christmas by themselves

The owl left as soon as she delivered the letter. Fortunately, the weather was calm enough for it to fly normally and there weren't as many letters going around

It took a day for Penny to receive an answer, and what she saw made her squeal with overwhelming joy. Y/N would spend the holidays with them

For Y/N it might be just a change of scenery, but for her? It was all she wanted

To spend the best time of her year surrounded by the people she loved the most, no exceptions

And so, she went to find Y/N and tell them that the time to leave was near...after eating breakfast, of course

They all ate together and wished Y/N a pleasant trip. One could tell that more than saddened by their departure, they were glad they were taking their time

Except for Alanza, she wouldn't let go, literally. Even if she wouldn't admit it, that made Penny a bit jealous

Regardless, the Haywood sisters and Y/N found themselves walking into the Hogsmeade train station, with their baggage included

The plan was to take the train, get to a specific location where they'd meet Penny's parents, and from there continue with the holidays

Nothing Penny hadn't done many times before, so it wasn't all that complicated to follow

"I'm so glad you agreed to come with us, Y/N!"

"I think you'll find the countryside rather charming. Even I still enjoy it" Beatrice added

"Then I guess I really have to see it for myself"

"You'll love nature in there, it's so relaxing. There, let's find a seat!"

Penny grabbed Y/N's hand out of instinct as she guided them through the station, with Beatrice not far behind, chuckling at the sight of it

Plenty of things had taken place during their sixth year at Hogwarts, most of them dreadful, but one exception was Beatrice's relationship with both Penny and Y/N themselves

While still adjusting to her new self, she found comfort in the curse-breaker's company and help. Now she was ready to move on

And it showed, while they were all waiting for the train, the chatter was not gloomy or resentful, but rather charming instead

It even brought some semblance of normality

Something that seemed like such a rare commodity nowadays

Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long for the train to arrive. They had timed their arrival perfectly, which was a relief considering that the station's clock cannot be relied on

It didn't take long for them to find a place to sit while the journey began, Penny and Beatrice sat on one side and Y/N on the other. Regardless, the window provided a breathtaking view of the landscape

As if the mountains and fields weren't beautiful enough, the snow gave them a refreshing new look. That was perhaps the best thing about winter, it made everything look brand new, even if it was older than you

An hour and a half went by with nothing to report. A hint of orange had taken over the scene, reminiscing the colors of the past season in a gentle way

Beatrice fell asleep in no time, practically leaning on her sister, who was reviewing potion materials when she noticed this

"Hey Y/N? Do you mind if I sit with you?"

The curse-breaker, on the other hand, was reading a book that Madam Villanelle recommended for the long trip. They lowered the book to look at the blonde and immediately understood what she meant

And so, Y/N moved so that there was enough space for Penny. She wanted to give her sister more space to get some rest...and it was also the perfect excuse to scoot a bit closer

"Thanks!"

In a swift motion, the blonde gently laid her sister to rest and got up, switching seats so that she was now beside her other companion

Said companion found themselves unable to return to their book, as the light that made it through the window highlighted Penny's delicate features

From the way her braids were done, to the softness and color of her lips, and more importantly, her joyful attitude

Y/N found themselves lucky just to be witness to this, but it also came to them that so far, they hadn't said anything to the girl, they had just tagged along

Perhaps now would be the right time to correct that

"Penny?"

The delicate way her name left Y/N's lips got her attention in seconds, and when she saw them put away their book, Penny was genuinely intrigued

"Yes?"

They scratched the back of their neck as words failed to come out at first, but after a sigh, that was no longer a problem

"Thank you for taking me with you. I mean it"

She gave them a sympathetic smile, she knew why she was doing this and didn't feel like she was owed anything

"There's no need to thank me, I didn't want you to stay alone in the castle"

"I'm not precisely alone, but I get what you mean"

"You didn't have to do it"

This time, both of them shook off the nervousness

"But I wanted to. You saved Hogwarts, Y/N, but you also saved my word. I want to share it with you"

The curse-breaker didn't know how to answer that. Although their surprised expression and later smile said everything

Penny spared them of the silence and chose to continue, with a softer approach this time, and one closer to the truth as well

Her truth, of course

"Besides, I like spending time with you outside the school. Like that time we went to the dragon reserve"

Y/N chuckled at the memory of that "field trip", choosing to focus on the less lethal parts of it, but also going with the flow of the conversation

"That time when we roasted marshmallows together and slept in an oversized tent?"

"Exactly! But...less dangerous"

They laughed at this comment, taking the opportunity to go over the events of the last year together

Not only the dragon reserve but also getting to welcome Alanza to the school, the times they had snuck out together to investigate or just talk in the Courtyard

It wasn't a Celestial Ball or a tournament, but there was no denying those small moments

Of course, it had been a dark year, but it wasn't one without its lighter moments, and even if Y/N couldn't find enough of them, Penny would provide light, for both of them

This chatter lasted for at least another hour, soon, both of them returned to their respective books, smiling tiredly after making the journey much sweeter

But then, after a few minutes of reading, the Hufflepuff felt a gentle weight on her shoulder. Glancing over, she discovered the familiar h/c hair so close to her

Did...did Y/N just fall asleep on her shoulder?

Yes, yes they did

And they looked so peaceful as well

Penny found herself smiling fondly at this

" I could use a little rest..." She thought

Penny didn't think it twice before she closed her book, putting it to the side

Then, she got comfortable and snuggled closer to Y/N, allowing herself to cuddle up and just...close her eyes too

[normal-horoscopes]

The Signs as Boyfriends II:

A taAries: Extremely protective but thinks he isnt. Always trying to find new things to do for you. No bones. Transparent, nearly invisible skin. Holds your hand.

Taurus: Quiet, but absolutely head over heels for you. Tries not to be a burden on you and shows affection by making things for you. Cannot physically stop themselves from making things for you. Their hands move on their own.

Gemini: To onlookers, there is no question that you are in a relationship. Cuddly, outgoing, loves showing you off to everyone who will listen. Lets you keep chunks of their shed skin. Makes sure not to flick their venomous hairs at you.

Cancer: A romantic to the core. Polite and cordial, meets your parents and does well. A good boy to bring home, even behind closed doors. Neck joints can move in 360 degrees. Eyes glow when they’re scared.

Leo: Sarcastic, dry sense of humor. Playfully makes fun of you but would die a bit if they actually made you upset. Loves you by spending time doing fun stuff with you. Soul is actually contained in the cursed tiara they wear at all times.

Virgo: An intellectual who helps you through things in a quick, efficient, manor without sacrificing the empathy. Actually a very large species of bee.

Libra: Manages to do a lot of things that would normally be cheesy with 100% sincerity. Classic dates. Good morning calls. The works. Originally produced as a waste recycler. 

Scorpio: An erratic, adventurous sort. Crown prince to a massive empire. Shirked responsibility in favor of nights of intrigue and adventure. Routinely cross-dresses and commits petty thievery. 

Sagittarius: Quiet and introspective. Loves nothing more than to sit and hear about your day. A tad insecure about themselves but you bring out the best in them. Replaceable artificial organs. Constantly improving themselves for you.

Capricorn: Very together in public but when theyre alone with you they feel comfortable enough to be the weirdo they really are. Always introducing you to new things. Four legs and two arms. Sanguivore. Odd fashion sense.

Aquarius: Sassy, spontaneous, but at the same time a planner. Constantly bathing in ice. Plans picnics and days out that always seem to go well. Encourages you to take a trip with them to the south pole. 

Pisces: Incredibly smart but also a grade A dumbass. Always amazed by the things you know, and listens intently about your interests. Extremely long prehensile, barbed, tongue. Dislocates their jaw to eat. Might be some sort of barnacle.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

democracy was on the ballot and it won

I am a slow-boring-of-hard-boards realist about politics. I am delightedly surprised when I get what I want AT ALL. Months and months ago, I said that my number one issue in this election was the desperate need to put the brakes on democratic backsliding in the United States. I’m not sure how to process the fact that I’ve started to get what I wanted even before the transition.

There is a real path forward for democracy reform in this country. EVEN WITH an aspiring autocrat doing everything he could to rig this election, EVEN WITH a pandemic raging, EVEN WITH malicious foreign actors still trying cause problems, EVEN THOUGH we still have not restored the Voting Rights Act, EVEN WITH all the structural imbalances built into our creaky eighteenth-century constitutional system:

Voter participation went way up! People voted over the course of several weeks from the comfort of their own homes, or on weekends, or on Election Day. And because people took responsibility and spread out their votes like that, it was safer to go to polling places. That was a huge collective choice to prevent a lot of suffering and even some deaths.

A big part of why they could do that is the enormous number of citizens who rallied to work at the polls so that the retirees who usually do the job could sit this year out.

Cities and states around the country took the time they need to count carefully.

Media gatekeepers, for the most part, had the discipline and the patience to be helpful to users about what we knew and what we didn’t. If anything, they’re erring on the side of being too cautious. This is after weeks of most media gatekeepers having the discipline to debunk a disinformation campaign by Trump’s allies and Russian backers, instead of aggressively participating in it.

Social media companies took the most aggressive countermeasures yet against election misinformation.

The person who got the most votes is also the person who won the election, which is pretty cool!

That is a huge improvement from EVERY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. Just in terms of how well the election itself was administered, my only major criticism is that we still did not do something called risk-limiting audits. In the case of an election, audits are basically a carefully calibrated statistical smell test. They’re not a recount. They are a reliable and cost-effective way of figuring out if a recount or some other type of scrutiny should be done for the sake of public confidence in the results – and that makes them a cost-effective deterrence against any bad actors who are considering sabotage. Audits are important whether an election goes your way or not, just like smoke detectors are important whether your building catches fire or not.

But that absolutely should not take away from the fact that we overcame all the new problems that were introduced this year and took some big steps toward solving a lot of old ones – despite the best efforts of Trump and all his enablers. Imagine what we could do under an administration that is helping democracy revitalization instead of aggressively hindering it.

The easiest way for us to make the most comprehensive change would be to win the Senate, which would allow a Biden administration to pass a revitalized Voting Rights Act and restore legitimacy to the federal courts. If you have any time or money to spare in the next few weeks, consider sharing it with the two excellent Democratic candidates in the Georgia Senate runoffs.

We should be realistic about the situation: we’re probably not going to get to do it the easy way, at least, not until after the midterms. But we’re not going to be doing it the hard way any more. The hard way is what we’re doing now. We’re about to get a Department of Justice that opposes civil rights violations and enforces what’s left of the current Voting Rights Act. The intelligence and military cybersecurity units are going to be able to work with the administration instead of around it. And we aren’t going to have to deal with a 24/7 fusillade of lies and voter intimidation coming from the Oval Office. To spin out the “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” metaphor: we’ve been running a marathon uphill carrying forty-pound backpacks. We’ve reached the top where the path levels out, and someone just took our bags and gave us protein bars.

And while we have our protein bars, let’s look around, because the view is as clear and as beautiful as it’s going to get. Donald Trump had every intention of wrecking American democracy, and the entire Republican party had every intention of supporting his aspiring dictatorship. And, while Trump himself is and always has been a clown, the person occupying the Oval Office is the most powerful person on the planet. Actually, that’s an understatement. Since Truman gave the order to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our technology has grown stronger and our government has concentrated more and more power in the executive branch, which means that every holder of that office has arguably been the most powerful person in the history of the world. Every other holder of that office has at least wanted to think of himself as using that power for the advancement of democracy and humanity. Donald Trump affirmatively tried to use all that power to entrench himself there permanently.

We stopped him. We stopped him peacefully. We stopped him without further harming the many vulnerable people he holds hostage in a hundred different ways. We stopped him not by elevating an equal-but-opposite charismatic demagogue for a two-men-enter-one-man-leaves smackdown, but by building a vibrant, heterogenous coalition and finding competent, experienced, principled leaders who respect that coalition in all its raucous power. We stopped him, in short, by choosing to do democracy.

That feels good today and it’s enormously consequential. It is also proof of concept. It is something that can happen, because it has happened.

Something that political scientists and democracy advocates have been saying for the past few years is that Trump has been a propaganda gold mine for dictators. They use him as a cautionary tale against liberal democracy or even against hoping that things can ever get better: see, even the Americans are no better than we are! Dictators can artificially insulate themselves from accountability in the short term, which makes them ill-equipped to think about backfire. Train your people’s eyes on the aspiring American autocrat, and they can all see his humiliating fall.

To our sisters and brothers around the world, from Idlib to Hong Kong, from São Paolo to Moscow, and along every wide country road in between: this is the only true thing your oppressors have ever told you. We are no better than you are. We are no more suited for or entitled to liberation. Look what we have done. Imagine what you can do.

There’s kind of a false dichotomy going on where people swung from “Trump is going to successfully rig the election for himself” pessimism to “oh, Biden only ousted an incumbent by a freakishly large margin, it wasn’t an immediate electoral college landslide, why did Trump get so close.” This take has set in before deep blue California and New York have come close to completing their mail-in ballot counts, which tells you that it isn’t serious, but it’s also beside the point. Trump succeeded in making the election unfair. If he hadn’t illegitimately put a whole lot of thumbs on the scale in his favor, if we’d actually had the free and fair election we deserved, I think he probably would have lost in a landslide. We did the work and showed up in numbers that were ultimately too big to rig. That led to victory, although not a victory you can quantifiably measure against the dozen or so American elections that were more or less free and fair. That doesn’t mean the rigging didn’t happen or have any impact. It means we beat the spread. As the world’s most prominent train enthusiast once said, that is a big fucking deal.

A government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the earth. One day soon, it may even exist. That is our charge. That is our choice.

So take a moment to recharge. Enjoy the view. Breathe. We got work to do.

[mayquita]

Damn You For Making Me Love You (11/15) - I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing

Thank you so so much, for your likes, reblogs, kudos and comments. It means the world to me.

Beta-Reader: Thank you so much, @ultraluckycatnd​​​ I couldn’t have asked for a better beta. Thank you for all your effort, your suggestions, your advice and for always being there when I needed you.

Special mention to @saraswans​​ and @onceuponaprincessworld​​​, thank you so much for your perpetual support and for believing in me and in the story. Thank you again to the moderators of the event, @captainswanbigbang​​​ for giving us this opportunity and making this possible. You all are the best :)

Summary: Emma Swan and Killian Jones are close friends and co-workers. And both are in love with each other. The problem? They keep their feelings secret not only to the other but also to the rest of their friends. When Elsa, Emma’s best friend and Liam, Killian’s brother and Emma’s boss find out, they decide to form an alliance and work as a team with a clear goal, to get Emma and Killian to take the next step in their relationship and confess their love for each other.

Rating: M

Word count: ~ 7100 (98k total in 15 chapters)

Ao3 / FFnet

About this chapter: Welcome to Storybrooke... Last flashback of this story. In fact, almost the entire chapter is a huge flashback, which makes me a little nervous about your reaction. Still, I had a great time writing it and it felt like it was kind of a tribute to the show as I tried to include several significant elements from Storybrooke. I hope you like it :)

//

Chapter 10: I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing

Killian - December 2019

Killian couldn't believe what just happened. It was as if by the time Emma finally pressed her lips to his, his brain had stopped working properly, his mind plagued with pictures coming in flashes while he felt like his body might combust.

Although it had been a few minutes since Emma ran away, he hadn't yet been able to recover, not when he still had difficulty catching his breath. Not when his lips still tingled, craving for more; not when he could still feel a soft humming under his skin. But above all, he felt slightly dizzy, the memories that clustered in his head too powerful to be stopped, making him unable not only to process what had just happened but to react to Emma's sudden departure.

He would have gone after her if his legs had responded to him, or at least would have tried to stop her or talk to her, but he hadn't even been able to utter any sound. Instead, he remained paralyzed and in a state of astonishment that he had not yet recovered from.

After letting out a deep breath, he leaned on the door, letting his head rest against the smooth surface as he put a hand to his mouth and brushed his lower lip with his fingertips. He then closed his eyes, his tongue licking his lips in a desperate attempt to retain the vestiges of her taste while an unstoppable wave of memories took up residence in his mind. Unable to fight them, he simply gave up and allowed that incredible moment that he had treasured as the most precious of dreams to finally come true.

Storybrooke - Fifteen months ago

When Liam announced that they would take an unexpected trip over the weekend, Killian could barely contain his enthusiasm, especially when he learned that Emma would also accompany them.

Killian didn't even care that the absence of the three of them during the weekend would imply that they would be depositing the reins of The Kraken in the hands of Robin and Ruby. But if his brother, who was the business expert, considered it feasible, he wouldn't be the one to complain. Especially since, after all, as Liam had assured, it was a business trip.

Emma didn't think it was, apparently. Something that Killian found amusing in a way, since she seemed to care more about the success of the business than the owners themselves, or at least one of them.

"I don't quite get it. Wouldn't it be more appropriate for us to travel in the middle of the week?" Emma asked, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Killian watched her reaction carefully, praying silently that she wouldn't want to stay behind and not travel.

"I'm afraid it's not possible, lass. I already have an appointment scheduled for Friday afternoon," Liam explained without giving further details. Killian internally thanked Liam that he hadn't suggested that Emma stay behind. "In addition, there's this place that we are going to visit that is only open on weekends. So, there is that," his brother added, giving his voice an enigmatic tone while raising an eyebrow.

That's how they ended up in Liam's car on Friday morning with Storybrooke, a small town in Maine, as a destination. The trip did not start well for Killian, since last night he hadn't been able to chain together more than two hours of sleep in a row. Probably because of the nerves generated by the prospect of spending three whole days with Emma in a different environment, for once.

Emma had spent the night in their apartment so they could leave earlier the next morning. So when he had risen sporting the obvious signs of lack of sleep, far from showing a little commiseration for him, Liam and Emma had found in him a target for their jokes. To make matters worse, his brother had decided to betray him, offering Emma the passenger seat, so he had to resign himself to occupy the back seat, all alone.

"It's too early to be in a grumpy mood, little brother," Liam addressed him through the rearview mirror. "Don't take it personally, but Emma is a better co-driver than you."

On that, he agreed with Liam. Emma was better than him, not only as a co-driver but practically in everything, except perhaps in singing, but he wasn't going to admit that out loud. "It's younger. Besides, you're using the bloody GPS, why do you need a co-driver?"

Killian heard giggles coming from Emma, but at least she kept silent. The last thing he needed was the two of them allying against him once more, taking advantage of his moment of weakness.

"You're right, I'll put it another way. Since Emma has already ingested her morning dose of caffeine, her company is much nicer than yours. Better?”

In response, he let out a huff of annoyance as he grabbed his phone and connected the earphones, ready to ignore the other two throughout the trip. Emma decided to join the party before he even had time to put the earbuds in his ears, though.

Even from his position, Killian could see her playful expression through the mirror in the sun visor. "Come on, Killian, you're such a drama queen. We did it thinking of you, so you can sleep all the way."

He was tempted to do just that, but the lack of sleep was wreaking havoc on him, pushing him to act like the immature person he was sometimes. So instead of sleeping, he dedicated himself for the rest of the trip to keep Emma busy in her co-driver job.  

  "I'm hot, turn on the air conditioner." 

"It’s cold now, can you turn up the temperature?"

"The radio's volume is too low." 

“I hate that station, can you switch to a different one?"

 Killian wasn't sure what was driving him to act in such an impertinent way, but he seemed unable to stop, to the point that he soon managed to spread his bad mood to the other two occupants of the vehicle.

Only when the Welcome to Storybrooke sign came into view did he manage to relax and remain silent, focusing instead on observing the landscape through the window. His brother and Emma probably appreciated the break as they also remained silent, the music of his favorite station the only sound that resonated inside the car.

Even without getting out of the car, Killian detected a particular aura in the streets. It was as if the thick forest that bordered the town had functioned as a kind of time portal sending them back to the 80s. It was a quaint place, no doubt, so he was immediately attracted, his tiredness and his previous irritability gradually fading as they moved along the main street.

That improvement in their moods was fleeting, though. It lasted exactly five minutes, the time it took to park the car in front of the bed and breakfast where they would be staying and discover that there was a misunderstanding with the rooms booked by Liam.

"See? Here, Mr. Jones, a double room." The person behind the counter, an old woman with gray hair looking at them over her glasses, insisted, an exasperated expression on her face as she pointed to the hand-written reservation on a notebook, which seemed to be at least the same age as the woman. No sign of any technological device on the counter, unless we consider a phone that looked as old as everything else around.

"Excuse me, ma'am, I don't know if I explained myself correctly. I contacted by phone a week ago to reserve two rooms, one single and one double." Liam raised a hand with two fingers up, to emphasize his words and then waved the other hand to encompass the three of them. "Besides, as you can see, we are three people." Although Liam maintained a polite tone, Killian did not miss the hint of irritation in his voice.

"That won't be a problem, Mr. Jones." The woman waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "There is enough space to place an additional bed."

"And what about if you get us an additional room instead?" It was almost fun to watch Liam struggling to stay polite but gradually losing his patience.

"I'm afraid it won't be possible, sir." The old woman affirmed, her tone not apologetic at all.

Killian exchanged a furtive glance with Emma, who kept her lips pressed together as if trying to hide an incipient grin. Liam instead seemed increasingly annoyed. He pinched the bridge of his nose before addressing the woman again. "And may I ask why?"

"We're celebrating a festival in the village during the weekend. It is quite popular in the surroundings, so we already have all the rooms reserved, I'm afraid." Just when Killian was about to intervene, suggesting Liam to let it pass, that they would find another accommodation, the woman continued as if she had read his mind. "I must also add that this is the only establishment of this kind in the town."

"Of course it is," Liam grumbled under his breath, though not low enough that Killian wouldn't hear it. Emma, on the other hand, let out a snort before speaking.

"Come on guys, it's not like it will be the first time we sleep under the same roof. It's not a big deal," Emma assured as she shrugged one of her shoulders.

"So a double room then?" the woman behind the counter asked as she held what looked like a heavy metal key in her hand. Liam simply nodded in silence. "Good. And now if you are so kind as to wait here for a few minutes, I will inform my assistant to install the additional bed."

"Uhm, thank you," Liam muttered as he grabbed the old key.

"I guess there will be at least two beds," Killian commented a few minutes later as they climbed the stairs after they were told that the room was available for them.

There was one king-size bed.

And a tiny cot.

After leaving their belongings in a corner, Killian and his brother began to inspect the room while discussing possible sleeping arrangements and tried to locate an alternative that could function as an improvised bed.

"At least the bathtub is an adequate size."

"Guys..."

"And that armchair seems quite comfortable."

"Guys..."

"Look, there are several blankets inside the closet."

"GUYS!" The two men snapped their heads in the direction of Emma, who remained in the middle of the room with her arms crossed over her chest, a scowling expression on her face. "Are you guys seriously discussing sleeping options when we already have full space for all three? What is this, a kind of old fashioned chivalry act or something?” She didn't even give them time to reply, since she immediately added, "I'm the one who will sleep in the damn cot."

They had managed to piss her off, if the tone of her voice and her sulky expression were an indication, but Killian felt a special predilection for the fire in her gaze that appeared on these occasions. He was tempted to continue teasing her, but he thought better and instead tried to offer an explanation.

"Swan..."

"Don’t Swan me," Emma cut him off abruptly. "You two can share the large bed. That's final." Killian and Liam exchanged one last look and then Killian looked back at her with an apologetic expression, scratching behind his ear, while his brother remained quietly beside him. They knew it was better not to argue with Emma in these situations. "And now, can we continue with our plans?"

"Just for the record, Swan. This wasn't about you. Rather, I wanted to avoid sharing a bed with him. Believe me, sleeping with Liam is probably more torture than sleeping in that awkward contraption."

His comment got a smile from Emma. Liam, on the contrary, let out a snort while rolling his eyes, although that wasn't enough to stop Killian. "Can you imagine hearing a constant snoring in your ear while he keeps stirring in bed while he sleeps? That's my brother." Killian kept teasing Liam, nudging him with his shoulder as he stifled a laugh, earning a glare from his brother.

"Of course I'm the one to blame here. Why doesn't that surprise me?" Liam shook his head, a heavy sigh escaping his mouth. "Now that the sleeping arrangements are made, can we get out of this room now? We have an appointment." Liam's voice revealed that he was upset, not only because of Killian's comment but because of the previous awkward situation with the old woman. "And I don't snore."

This time Killian couldn't suppress a chuckle bubbling in his throat while Emma also burst out laughing, approaching Liam and tapping him on the shoulder. "Sure, Liam."

This weekend was going to be definitely interesting, to say the least.

//

They went to have lunch at the diner adjacent to the B&B. The place had a retro air that seemed consistent with the rest of the town, but at least the food was delicious, so tasty and greasy. It turned out that the diner was also run by the same old woman who had attended them in the other establishment. Liam's face of disbelief when he saw the same woman behind the restaurant counter was hilarious. This time, she —Mrs. Lucas, they learned — was much kinder to them. 

Still, she subjected them to visual scrutiny from behind the counter while they placed their orders. Whatever it was that she observed, she must have been satisfied because she didn't hesitate to serve the dishes herself while offering first a speech about the town and its inhabitants, and then go on to question them in a not so subtle way about the reason that had led them there, as well as to inquire about more personal issues.

Although it might seem odd, Killian didn't feel uncomfortable with the interrogation and, if the expressions on their faces were an indication, neither of his two companions seemed to be either. It might be the atmosphere around them, or the spirit of these small towns, where everyone knew each other and looked after the others. In addition, the interrogation allowed them to finally know the real reasons for their trip to Maine. Or at least one of them.

Liam planned to carry out some remodeling at the bar, including installing a new bar counter with an even more naval look. That's why they were meeting Marco and his son, August. Following the footsteps of Mrs. Lucas, these inhabitants of Storybrooke seemed equally welcoming, immediately engaging them in an animated conversation where the trio were told part of their story. Marco was a master carpenter who worked in a small workshop located on the ground floor of his house. Despite his age, he was still active, receiving sporadic help from his son August, who was also a writer.

Killian was not sure how Liam had known about their existence, but he only needed a simple look inside the workshop to know that his brother had made the right choice. Not only because of Marco's evident skill working the wood, but also because he seemed like a really kind and considerate person.

Once they finalized the details of their request, they found that they would have the rest of the day free, so they decided to integrate with the rest of the population and discover more aspects of the quaint town and its inhabitants. And what better way than to go to that popular festival that was being held there?

The festive environment was evident with a simple glance at the streets. Killian was surprised because he hadn't noticed those details when they first entered the town a few hours earlier, but now he could see how the facades of the shops were decorated with pennants and colored garlands. Following the crowd, they arrived at a square where they had installed numerous stalls offering handicrafts and food. 

Everyone seemed friendly and, except for some suspicious looks, they were treated kindly and even were encouraged to participate in the numerous activities developed at the festival's heart. It was a pleasure to see both his brother and Emma enjoy themselves in such a carefree way, without worries, without pressures, just being carried away by the rest of the people around. Liam couldn't have been more correct in getting them out of their usual routine for once.

They were even introduced to the local sheriff, Graham Humbert, a guy who, like the rest of the people around, seemed kind and welcoming. There was something about him that Killian didn't like at all, though. He didn't particularly enjoy seeing how his eyes lingered on Emma more than necessary or how the smile on his face seemed to widen every time he addressed her. An unpleasant sensation settled in his stomach as his lips drew a tight smile. Killian had to resist the urge to place one of his arms on Emma's shoulders and draw her towards him in a possessive manner. 

To his relief, the encounter with the bloody sheriff was quite short since he was on duty, working to ensure the safety of the event.

"If I didn't know you so well, I'd say you were jealous." Emma's words in his ear caught him off guard. He had remained so distracted watching the sheriff walking away that he hadn't even realized that she had approached him until she almost touched him.

"Good thing you know me so well then, don't you?" he managed to reply in a careless tone as he waggled his eyebrows and his lips curled into a grin.

In response, Emma gave him a skeptical glance before turning away again in search of his brother, who had stopped at one of the stalls. After letting out a sigh and shaking his head, Killian had no choice but to follow her.

//

Killian woke up early the next day when the sun had just begun to appear. He was not surprised to see Liam lying beside him sleeping soundly, soft snores escaping between his partially parted lips. At some point, he might have kicked the covers away, since he laid on the mattress with nothing wrapped around him.

His eyes then turned to his other side, seeing Emma lying asleep on the cot. Unlike his brother, she was wrapped up, only her head remained exposed. Although the contraption didn't look particularly comfortable, that didn't seem to have affected her, since her relaxed features denoted that she was having a restful sleep. Killian allowed himself these moments to delight in the serenity that radiated from her as a well-known song began to play in his head.

I could stay awake just to hear you breathing Watch you smile while you are sleeping While you're far away dreaming I could spend my life in this sweet surrender I could stay lost in this moment forever Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

It was as if the lyrics had been written to describe that precise moment. Of course, they weren't sharing the same bed, and they weren't even lovers, but the feeling was the same, nonetheless, at least on his part. He was grateful that he still had the music and the possibility of expressing his feelings through the lyrics. He made a mental note of including that song in his repertoire. Maybe there would come a time when he could dedicate it or another equally romantic one to her.

The need to reach out his hand to touch her, even if it was to remove a strand of hair that partially covered her face, was almost irresistible to the point that he needed all his willpower to look away and curb his creepy stalker behavior.

After one last look at her, he finally got up from the bed and walked stealthily toward the bathroom. Emma might not seem uncomfortable while she slept, but it was more than likely that she would wake up with her usual moodiness. So, taking advantage of having woken up so early, he thought that a visit to the diner was in order, at least to provide his sleeping beauty with her daily dose of caffeine.

Several hours later, the three of them were already walking through the streets of Storybrooke, this time with a new destination, the docks. The stroll was quite pleasant, not only for the good company, but for the warm temperatures and the sea breeze that caressed their faces. He definitely liked this little town, where time seemed to have stopped or at least seemed to pass more slowly, allowing them to enjoy the small pleasures of life.

Killian suspected that it wasn't a walk through a random place, but one that had a specific purpose. But Liam, showing off his usual stubbornness, had refused to reveal the mystery. "Be patient, little brother, all in due time."

Well, it seemed that the time had finally arrived. The first thing Killian's eyes fell on when they reached the docks was the magnificent vessel moored there, occupying a privileged place that made it stand out from the rest of the boats.

"Is that...?"

"Aye. An actual restored pirate ship." From his expression of ill-concealed pride, it seemed as if he owned the ship instead of being a simple tourist who had been fortunate to find out about its existence.

That didn't imply that he downplayed his merit. After all, they were here because of him. There was also no need to feed Liam's ego, though. Emma thought differently, of course.

"For real?" She looked surprised, her eyes traveling intermittently from Liam to the ship while her mouth hung open. "This is awesome."

"For real." Liam nodded his head vigorously to emphasize his words. "And what's better, they organize guided tours every weekend. That's the reason we couldn't travel here any other day."

"I wonder if they will allow us to take pictures of the interior, to get inspiration, you know." Killian couldn't help a smile of affection from spreading on his lips. Emma was so involved not only in their lives but in the business that she had ended up adopting their passion for the sea.

"There's only one way to find out. Shall we?" Liam asked as he offered Emma his arm in a gentlemanly manner.

The Jolly Roger. That was the name of the ship. It seemed obvious that this wasn't its original name but rather it was the one that its owners — or the people in charge in the town — had adopted to be in accordance with the place. Still, the name couldn't be more appropriate.

When they arrived at the pier there was already a group of five people waiting there. They didn't take long to be called and shuffled by way of the access ramp onto the main deck of the ship where they met with three other people. The smile Killian was sporting faltered a little when she saw that one of those people was none other than the bloody sheriff.

Killian clenched his jaw and resisted the temptation to take a look at Emma to check her reaction. Instead, he focused on the three guys in front of him.

"Hello everyone and welcome aboard the Jolly Roger!" Graham was the first to speak, addressing the group with an affable expression and a broad smile. "As a town representative, I would like to make a short introduction before the tour begins." Graham's eyes traveled through all attendees, probably to make sure he had their attention before continuing. Killian didn't miss that his gaze lingered a little longer on Emma than on the rest — Or maybe he was imagining things — Bloody hell! He needed to pull himself together and stop those thoughts.

"As you may have already learned thanks to my uniform, I'm not the captain of this ship, but a mere sheriff. Unfortunately our captain was indisposed." Killian heard a murmur of disappointment from the other members of the group, but Graham hastened to continue. "But that won't prevent you from enjoying this magnificent visit to a true pirate ship that is completely restored."

"Too bad. I was waiting for someone dressed as a pirate," Emma whispered at his side, ignoring Graham's explanations, a mischievous smile on her face, so Killian had no choice but to play along.

"At least the guy with the red beanie looks like a sailor. Doesn't he remind you of Mr. Smee, by the way? You know, the one from Peter Pan?" Killian muttered back, getting a quiet chuckle from Emma in response.

Then, she moved closer to him, resting a hand on his shoulder and standing on tiptoe to reach his ear. "The other guy, the charming one, looks even less like a pirate."

"The charming one?"

"Yeah, the guy with blond hair. He seems more like a prince, or something."

"So he would be Prince Charming?" This time Emma's laugh was loud, causing some faces to turn in her direction.

"Shhhhh," Liam hissed, addressing them with a scowl. "Are you going to behave like two adults for once?"

"Aye, aye Captain," Killian replied mockingly and then turned his head and winked at Emma, who had her lips pressed together as if she was making an effort not to burst out laughing again.

Killian's lips drew a triumphant smile when he turned his attention back to Graham. At that moment, he couldn't care less about acting like the immature person he was if he managed to get Emma's attention and make her laugh.

"I would like to introduce you to William, who is the one with more knowledge about this ship, and my deputy, David Nolan, who has quite the experience in these type of tours since he has attended several of them. They both will be in charge of guiding you on this tour. I trust it will be to your liking. And now without further delay, I leave you with them. Duty calls." After a small bow of his head, the sheriff went to the exit ramp but not before giving Emma a final smile — this time he wasn’t imagining things. To his delight, after offering a brief smile back, she turned back to Killian, the spark of mischief still present in her gaze.

"So no Prince Charming, then. A pity."

"Not to worry, Swan. With this town, you'd never know. Maybe there is some prince out there. Or a pirate." Killian winked at her, causing a new laugh to escape between her lips; a delicious sound that he would never tire of hearing, although this time it was also accompanied by a glare from Liam.

The guided tour to the pirate ship proved to be a pretty interesting experience. The two guys knew what they were talking about, although, according to Graham, they were nothing more than substitutes for the usual guide. William, the one who looked like a sailor, was in charge of introducing them to the history of piracy, narrating numerous anecdotes and curiosities. The other guy, David — the not prince — detailed instead the aspects related to the ship itself.

There was even a small stall on the deck that served as a kind of souvenir shop, where they were able to acquire some naval-style decoration items that would allow them to redecorate The Kraken.

The trio got along well with David to the point that, once the tour was over, they extended the visit a little more, chatting animatedly on the deck with the two improvised guides while all the other tourists left the ship.

"Are you sure you've never come here? I feel like I've seen you before." David turned to Killian, his eyes narrowed as if trying to figure out why he seemed familiar.

William came forward before Killian could respond. "He looks like our Captain, don't you think?"

David's eyes widened in recognition. "That! You do look like our captain, but a much softer version."

"So you're telling me there's a guy dressed as a pirate around here who looks like Killian?" Emma asked with a funny tone and a hint of interest in her eyes. "A pity he's sick, I would have liked to see it. And compare."

Killian tilted her head in Emma's direction as he raised an eyebrow. In response, her lips curved into a smirk. He was about to drop an innuendo, but he thought better of it and instead turned to David. "And what would be his name, Captain Hook?"

"Sure, who else could be the captain of this fine vessel?" David replied with a serious expression on his face although his voice revealed a playful tone. Both Emma and Liam snorted while Killian smirked at them. No doubt this town and its inhabitants were a continuous source of entertainment.

"Can you imagine Killian and an even more cocky twin together? If it's hard to tolerate one, imagine two of them," Liam joked as he tapped him on the shoulder. For once, Killian didn't mind Liam messing with him, not when his stupid jokes made Emma laugh so carefree. That sound was like music to his ears.

After chatting a little more with the guides, they said goodbye, taking with them the promise that they would visit the town again so that Killian could meet his twin and with the recommendation that they visit The Rabbit Hole, the most popular bar in town.

At this point, none of them were surprised by the name of the bar, although Killian was curious to know what they would find. One thing was clear, both he and Emma were willing to fully enjoy the experience. It was not usual for them to visit bars other than their workplace, so the prospect of being served for once and not worrying about drinking too much alcohol was too appealing to miss. Liam did not seem so convinced to go out that night, though, claiming that they would have to get up early the next day to make the journey back home. On this occasion, Emma decided to ally with Killian so Liam had no choice but to follow them.

The first thing Killian noticed when they entered the bar was that it was quite crowded even though the festival in the streets still had plenty of people gathered outside. The décor inside the establishment kept the common retro theme seen throughout the rest of the town.

"Look, there’s a dartboard," Liam pointed out, his previous reluctance giving way to an obvious interest.

"And there is also a pool table," Emma added, gesturing to a corner of the bar, a spark of challenge in her gaze. "What do you say, Jones, are you up for me to kick your ass?"

"I'm always up, Swan."

He was about to add another suggestive comment when his gaze caught something — or rather someone — that made him harden his features. Graham, the bloody sheriff, was also at the bar. Luckily, the guy was turning his back on them, so he probably hadn't realized their presence yet.

Taking advantage of the fact that the two of them had been left alone since Liam had approached the counter to order drinks, Killian's first impulse was to grab Emma and get her away from Graham with the excuse of playing pool. He was so tempted to do it, but he immediately changed his mind. He had no right to keep off Emma from speaking to whomever she wanted, among other things because he himself was a damn coward who didn't dare to express his feelings towards her. The guy seemed interested in her. Who was he to prevent any chance of happiness for her? After taking a deep breath, he nodded almost imperceptibly and approached Emma, whispering in her ear.

"I just spotted the sheriff, Graham, in case you want to go say hello."

Emma's reaction was not as expected; it was much better, to his utter relief. She looked at him first, frowning slightly in a confused expression, then her gaze drifted to the place where Graham was and finally her eyes fixed on him again. "Nah, I'd rather beat you." Without further ado, she began to walk in the direction of the pool table, swaying her hips in a very distracting way. "Are you coming or not?" she asked, turning her head and casting him a glance too tempting to be rejected.

From there the three of them dedicated themselves to enjoying the night to the fullest.

They played pool and Killian lost all the games to the delight of both his brother and Emma. Not that he was bad, but rather that there was something hypnotic in the way Emma handled the stick. Not to mention the portion of cleavage that was exposed every time she leaned on the table.

They also played darts, with more luck on his part, although he did not enjoy his victory as he would have liked, since that was the moment when Graham decided to approach them.

"I see you are making the most of your stay in our town. I'm glad about that." Although Graham addressed the three of them, both his posture and his gaze denoted that his words were intended only for Emma.

"Yeah. We're doing some kind of research since we run a bar. Well, rather they are the owners, I just work there." Emma replied, a soft smile on her face, her gaze pausing for a moment on Graham and then traveling back to Killian and Liam.

Emma's comment was all Graham needed to turn his torso further in her direction, focusing all his attention on her. "Ah! So you work in a bar. May I ask what's your task there?"

"She is our saving angel," Liam replied before Emma even had time to open her mouth, placing an arm around her shoulders in a gesture of affection. It seemed that his brother remained oblivious to Graham's attempts to flirt.

Graham seemed to take his brother's gesture in the wrong way because his expression changed subtly, his features marked with a hint of disappointment. After continuing to chat a little more, he politely excused himself, expressing his hope to see them before they traveled back home. And suddenly, they were three again.

They continued playing and drinking maybe too much, except for Liam, who once again proved to be the most mature of them, not only in age but in behavior. But Killian liked a challenge and given Emma's competitive side, she also found it difficult to refuse a competition, even if that meant there was alcohol involved.

He wasn't aware that perhaps there was too much alcohol in his system until Liam practically had to drag them out of the bar. Emma wasn't in a better state, although she didn't seem to care, her eyes sparkled, there was a permanent smile on her face, and her cheeks had a soft blush, making her irresistible to his eyes. Both ignored the expression of reproach on Liam's face as they walked towards the B&B singing and giggling while his brother followed them a few steps behind.

It had been a while since he felt that way, with a kind of liberating energy, very different from the effect that alcohol had had on him in his darkest moments. On this occasion, a kind of fog had settled in his brain preventing him from thinking clearly. But in return he felt that his inhibitions had disappeared, pushing him to act like a teenager.

Once in their room, they continued laughing and messing with Liam who acted once more as if he were a responsible father standing before his two mischievous children, forcing them to change clothes, put on pajamas and cool off before getting into bed, despite their protests.

"You'll thank me when you wake up tomorrow with a hangover."

"You're not funny, Liam," Emma complained, her arms crossed over her chest and an adorable pout on her lips. Still, she did what she had been told and locked herself in the bathroom after grabbing her pajamas and toiletries.

Once Liam made sure that Killian also changed clothes, he turned to him again. "We should have eaten something instead of drinking so much. I've seen a vending machine in the hallway near the reception. I guess I will only find junk food, but that's better than nothing. You two are going to behave in my absence, aren't you?" he asked in a not convincing tone.

"Yes, Dad," Killian responded, trying, and failing, to maintain a serious expression.

In response, Liam shook his head, giving him one last intimidating look before grabbing the key and leaving the room. That was also the moment that Emma chose to leave the bathroom, her hair in a loose bun, no traces of makeup, an adorable expression on her face. Her eyes then turned to the large bed while a naughty spark crossed her gaze.

Killian watched in amazement as she crossed the room and practically threw herself on the large bed. She then patted the empty space beside her. "Hurry up, before Liam arrives."

He hastened to obey, although his clouded mind prevented him from processing Emma's true intentions. Even so, the prospect of sharing a bed with Emma instead of Liam was too appealing to be rejected, consequences be damned.

"Do you think if we pretend to fall asleep like that Liam would wake us up?" Emma asked while snuggling under the covers.

"Nah. I don't think so." He also got under the covers, lying on his side facing her. "He's not gonna wake you up, at least. I'm not so sure about myself, though. Maybe he kicks my ass and sends me to sleep on the floor while he takes the cot."

Emma giggled beside him, but then her features twisted as she let out a groan. "Gods! This room won't stop moving. It's like we're on the deck of a fucking ship."

"We're a little drunk, love."

"Only a little?" She snorted while poking a finger into his chest. "You're a bad influence, Jones, and—" Whatever she was going to say, it was interrupted by a loud yawn, causing him to burst out laughing hysterically as she tried unsuccessfully to kick him out of bed. In the end, she gave up and instead began to laugh too.

Once the laughter subsided, she approached him, their bodies separated by only a few inches. "I think I'm gonna try to sleep." She mused in a slurred voice and then she brought her face close to his and pressed her lips to his. It was the briefest of kisses, her touch almost imperceptible, like a feather, but with the ability to shake him whole. "Good night, Killian," she whispered against his lips before turning her back to him.

Killian remained motionless for a few seconds, feeling a pleasant tingling in his lips, while his heart pounded frantically in his chest. There was a single thought in his cloudy mind. What had just happened? Had it been real, or just a product of his imagination driven by alcohol running in his veins?

He shook his head in a futile attempt to clear his mind. Giving up finally, he snuggled under the covers and closed his eyes. His last thoughts before succumbing to sleep were occupied by Emma and his attempt to commit to memory all the events that had happened on that wonderful day. None so glorious, though, as the kiss they had shared.

//

When Killian woke up a few hours later, he felt completely disoriented for a moment, having no idea where he was. The latent headache he started feeling did not help in the least to clear his mind, so he was tempted to close his eyes and try to sleep again.

It was then that he noticed a warm body beside him. When his eyes adjusted to the poor lighting in the room and observed a few strands of blond hair on the pillow, he gave such a start that he almost fell off the bed.

After releasing a quiet sigh, he dropped his head on the pillow again, trying to pull himself together. His mind gradually cleared up, the reminder of what happened last night coming in flashes, although he had the impression that there were still several gaps in his memory. He vaguely remembered the reason why the two of them had ended up sharing the bed, but everything else was so blurry that he felt unable to reach it.

The last image his brain registered before falling asleep again was the notion of a kiss. Killian supposed it was the memory of one of his usual dreams about Emma. The mere possibility that he might not remember the first kiss shared with Emma was so frustrating that he didn't even dare to consider it.

//

Present day

The muffled noises coming from the bar brought Killian back to reality. It was then that he realized that he had been locked in the office for longer than necessary. Still, he remained reluctant to get out of there and see Emma's reaction.

He felt a growing frustration taking hold of him. The recent kiss had somehow served as the trigger that had allowed him to recover the memory of a kiss that had been hidden in the form of a dream. Even so, he seemed unable to catch the details, the memory remaining more like a notion rather than a true experience, which only increased his frustration.

To make matters worse, he didn't even know what was going through Emma's mind. He wasn't sure if she had had the same feeling, if she had also completely forgotten that first kiss. By her reaction, he sensed that she had experienced something similar, which, joined with her reluctance to open her heart, had prompted her to run away.

A heavy sigh escaped between his lips as he ran his hand down his face and rubbed his chin in an attempt to control his fears and regain enough determination to face whatever it was that was about to come.

When Killian finally dared to get out of the office, his gaze inevitably traveled to Emma. She was chatting with Elsa so she didn't notice him at first. When their eyes met, he wasn't able to decipher her expression. Still, just before she looked back at Elsa, Killian detected the hint of a smile on her face. It was an almost imperceptible movement of her lips, but enough so that the flame of hope in Killian's heart began to burn strongly once more.

//

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think :)

What to expect in the next chapter? Christmas is coming which means a perfect setting to see how they face the consequences of their first (second) kiss.

[ballerinaroy]

the end of hogwarts

Albus Dumbledore knew better than to let the Ministry interfere at Hogwarts.

If only Remus Lupin hadn’t missed the train.

 On Ao3

Hagrid witnessed it first. The train was almost silent when it rolled up into the station. Usually, it was full of light, life, shouts, and gasps of amazement. Instead, they walked in neat lines off the train, no jostling into one another, no misbuttoned robes. They worked like no students should, like an orderly faction of soldiers.

The first years came to him like they knew where they should be and formed two straight lines. Blank looks on their faces, no awe at his size, no nervous twittering.

“Harry!” Hagrid shouted, giving him a wave. Hoping that the young boy would provide an explanation, comfort.

Harry merely turned his head gave a poor imitation of a grin and turned back to face the back of Hermione’s head.

“They weren’t talking,” Hagrid would say later when the students were in bed and a mass of concerned parents and ministry officials had descended on the school. “There was no laughter.”

 “We will remain open,” Dumbledore said in a final voice. “This is unprecedented but we have the duty to teach all those who still wish to learn.”

“Won’t they be drawn to the dark arts?” Sinistra asked.

Remus had never been fond of the woman. He’d known her only briefly in his sixth year and she hadn’t been indulged in the knowledge of his condition. When she’d found out, her response made it clear as to why she’d not been in the know.

“It is now known what the effects of this will be,” Albus admitted. “But as their professors, it is our role to guide them away, show them a better path.”

“But is it safe?” she pressed and Remus was alarmed to hear mumblings from other Professors who didn’t dare be as outright as she.

“For you or for them?” McGonagall shot back.

Sinistra merely glared over at McGonagall but the others stopped.

McGonagall looked not at them but at Dumbledore and hesitation made her voice, usually filled with conviction waiver. “How do we keep them safe?”

Dumbledore did not answer, turning away and facing the window which stared out at the grounds, an expression of deep thought on his face. “By doing the best we can.”

    No one asked about Quidditch and it was forgotten until the eve before the first match. McGonagall had always loved quidditch. She knew she went beyond her role at times to encourage the sport but found as much joy in it as her students.

“Mr. Wood,” McGonagall called during class, unsure of how to approach him, unsure of what to do.

In the past six years of knowing him, she could count on one hand she escaped a conversation with him without going into some nuisance of the sport.

“How’s the team coming along?” she asked of him.

He blinked at her, once, twice, and then said blankly. “What team?”

Shock stole the words from her mouth, her chest absent of air. “Gryffindor.”

“Sorry professor,” he told her and turned away without so much of a glint of…of anything in his eye.

“No ones practiced.” Hooch admitted.

She’d taken it as terribly as anyone.

“The brooms just don’t respond to them,” she continued, a far-off look that McGonagall had become intimately familiar with in her students over the past weeks. “Parents keep writing to me, telling me how natural they were on brooms but the brooms scarily go up.”

And so there were no matches, no cheering students in the stands. And Hooch was the first one to leave, to give up on the mess that the ministry had left them.

  Whoever had done it hadn’t even the decency to hide their crime. The Hufflepuff prefects found her sitting in the middle of the corridor, clothes ripped, lying in the puddle where she’d been abandoned. The girl, a first-year, with curly hair and perfect teeth, didn’t even cry.

“What happened?” Pomfrey said soothingly.

It wasn’t her first, but thankfully there weren’t many she’d encountered over the years. The protective enchantments, they detected distress, why hadn't they caught her?

“I was walking down the corridor, I felt someone behind me. They took my wand, covered my mouth, and pinned me down. They held my arms to my side and ripped off my underwear. It stung and I asked them to stop. He didn’t.”

She struggled to keep kindness in her expression, comfort.

“Do you know who did this to you? Do you remember anything about them?”

“No,” she said blankly and looked up at the Matron. “Should I have asked his name?”

“She wasn’t in distress.” Madame Pomfrey concluded, again and again, that night and the weeks after.

They tried improving the enchantments. But it was hard to when no one was in distress. The emotions they relied on to tell them when a student was in danger.

A dozen more students were pulled from the school that night. And Madame Pomfrey had a hard time not following.

   They were animals to their urges, violent in their need to fulfill their whims. In the account he gave later about the last year Hogwarts was a school open to all, Snape would tell stories of how they put themselves in danger for the sake of danger, how students would depart in the middle of class with indifference to their punishments.

It was impossible to punish them. The house points meant nothing. Detention was merely an event attended. Howlers from parents wouldn’t even cause a blush on a student’s face.

And the sex, all over the school all of the time. Snape knew it happened, he’d been a student once and the mere nature of packing hundreds of teenagers into tight quarters with little supervision and all those hormones meant that it happened and happened often. But in the past when he’d pull back tapestries or “wander” into empty classrooms the students would pull apart, blushing furiously. The girls, more often than not, would cry out of shame. Now, they continued on as if they’d never been interrupted.

“Have you no decency?” he’d hissed the first time he’d happened upon two Ravenclaw sixth years going at it in a secluded corner of the lake.

They hadn’t stopped and he’d resorted to blasting them apart with his wand. They’d merely blinked at him and the boy, who’d always been so frightened of Snape he’d never so much as raised a hand in class, answered, “And why should we?”

   There was always one or two every year that no one wanted to work with. Usually, the child merely needed some hygiene assistance, or to learn to speak gentler.

But he’d slipped almost completely under the sneakoscope.

There’d been rumors of course, Sprout had always been careful to keep an eye out for him and Hagrid had tried taking the young boy under his wing after he’d been suspected. But, he’d always been so meek. It seemed impossible that he’d really been involved when a whole nest of pixies had been found with their limbs torn apart. He always made good grades, kept to himself. Was perfectly polite. Most of the time, Sprout merely felt bad for him.

Then there was that business when his younger brother was found dead. Horrible, mangled. It took him nearly a term to return for his grief. No magical involvement of course. It rather looked like a predator had taken him, lured the child into the woods, and….

Dumbledore had asked them all to keep an eye out when he’d returned. Sprout had merely thought that it was for his grief, to ensure that he was able to continue with his education after such a terrible loss.

After their students had been delivered sans souls, Sprout had been too distressed to notice that he hadn’t changed at all. No longer did students avoid him, he fit in as perfectly as the rest.

It was a missing batch of growing potion that prompted it. The simple question she knew would lead nowhere. “Have you seen them?”

And to her alarm, he composed his face into a smile. She had to admit that her heart soared when it did, seeing that smile, “No professor.”

And he’d gone on his merry way, blending back effortlessly into his classmates.

There was hope. She thought. There was potential for their students, it was something strange, sure but after teaching to empty faces for so long…

Dumbledore had not shared in her joy. He’d taken in her story, asking pointed, clarifying questions without a hint of hope on his face and then rushed from his office.

The boy broke down under questioning. He showed no remorse for what he’d done but confessed to many things, so many more than Sprout had even imagined him doing. The pixies, yes, but also fires

“His soul was split in two,” Lupin explained to her as she broke down sobbing in his office after. He’d been kind enough to steer her away from the conversations that were to come about punishment. “When the dementors attacked, they took his soul, but not all of it.”

She didn’t finish the term. Whereat first she’d been committed to ensuring their students got the education they deserved, knowing what was possible made it impossible for her to even look at them. In shame, she scribbled her note of resignation and fled the school in the night.

  “Will we even be able to stay open another year?” Flitwick braved as they met the week before the winter holiday. He felt ashamed asking, he’d committed himself to stay again and again but felt he was reaching the end of his tether. Yet he felt no accusing eyes as he voiced the question he suspected they’d all been asking themselves.

The room was already half-full just as their classrooms were. Dwindled down one by one as parents heard the horrors they were unable to prevent.

“We will stay open for as long as we can,” Dumbledore replied, his voice firm.

“What of next year?” Flitwick went on,  “Will we subject a new class of students to this horror? And what of those who graduate? They won’t be able to get their NEWTS, they won’t be able to lead stable lives. How can we release them into the wild?

“What do you propose then? Azkaban? They’re people.” Came McGonagall’s reprimanding voice.

Silence fell upon them. They weren’t used to infighting like this. Flitwick had always prided himself on their ability to come together. Questions tumbled around his mind, horrible questions yet he wasn’t alone for it was Madame Pomfrey who voiced them.

“And what makes a person? The ability to think, to feel? They can’t do any of that.”

“They can think.” McGonagall shot back.

“And from what we’ve seen they think terrible things.”

 And so came the end of their time at Hogwarts. Not by fire or magic, just a terrible mistake, letting prison guards patrol students.  A measure to protect turned rancid. It would be a dozen years before laughter again filled the halls. Parents too frightened to think it safe to send their hearts and souls off unprotected. A horror.

Dumbledore had known better.

If only Remus Lupin hadn’t missed the train.