#purposefully made it look like the paint she later on wears on her face

[zetsubobu]

I wanted to draw a scene from the legacyverse that I really liked

@weekend-whip

I thought it was quite an impactful moment and wanted to draw it

[corkinavoid]

A list of things I've done that pissed my mother off, but as Batfam + Team Phantom edition

Bruce: got into a verbal fight and held a year-long grudge at my teacher for not giving me a fair grade at an annual competition, and proceeded to go out of my way to win said competition next year

Alfred: refused to eat her food, got told to cook for myself and did so, ending up with both my dad and sister saying my banana bread was the best thing they've eaten

Dick: swung on the bungee rope over the dry riverbed turned into junk yard, fell, miraculously did not die, went to that same bungee rope the next day

Babs: organized a stake out, found out which neighbor had been messing with trash bins when everyone blamed raccoons, called said neighbor a raccoon for the next three weeks

Jason: kept reading books at night with a flashlight, when said flashlight was taken away, lit a candle and accidentally almost set the house on fire

Tim: fled to a different country across the globe without telling anyone except my sister, who's been 7 at the time, and did not respond to any calls or messages for three months

Steph: picked a dress with glitter for a dinner with her relatives after specifically being told not to, was forced to change, but took my revenge by exploding a glitter bomb in the car when we have already arrived at the relatives' house

Cass: responded with 'sorry I didn't quite catch that could you repeat' to her very long rant, over text

Damian: successfully clawed and gnawed at a classmate's face after they destroyed my painting

Duke: was the leader of school rebellion over the 'no wigs allowed in school' rule in sixth grade, managed to convince two teachers to join, ended up with the rule taken down

Danny: accidentally shocked myself with a tazer I stole from her handbag, cried, when she came to ask what happened, showed her by repeating the accidental electrocution

Dan: pushed my maternal aunt into the pool and watched her flounder, knowing very well she is a bad swimmer, when confronted about it later argued it was the kiddie part of the pool and she could not have drowned

Jazz: told her I was in love with a girl she disliked, when she voiced her opinion on it, made a whole argument about how I'm supposed to learn from my own mistakes and not from her experiences

Dani: zoned out while she was yelling at me, came back to her saying 'you're no better than a pig', impulsively told her 'it's because of genetics' and started oinking

Sam: painted my nails and toes on my left hand and left foot black, dyed my hair purple, but only on the left side, as well as got a piercing on the left eyebrow, while the whole right side was left 'natural'

Tucker: learned to change the wi-fi password and held power over the internet every time she took my electronics away by asking a friend that lived nearby to come by my house and using their phone to change the password

Bonus:

Selina: repeatedly stolen antique jewelry from grandma because she, in turn, stole it from my other grandma

Valerie: turned rogue, teamed up with the opponent team in lasertag and helped them win over my own teammates

Talia: threatened a person I will carve their eyeballs out with a spoon if they ever as much as look at my sister funny again, a month later gave them a decorated silver teaspoon as a birthday gift

Jack Fenton: failed my driving license test seven times, three of which were on purpose

Maddie: ruined her plans of my picture-perfect marriage by friendzoning a son of her friend, claiming I'm saving my love only for the important things like mozzarella

Vlad: scared my sister shitless by telling her a scary story about ghosts under her bed and then hiding under her bed and making 'boo' noizes

Clockwork: purposefully made her experience deja vu by wearing the exact same clothes and greeting her the exact same way in the exact same place for three days in a row

[beansprean]

Accidentally made the extraordinarily terrible Empress Theresa required reading for this comic lmao (don't read it tho). Definitely a big meal for our boy.

My Familiar’s Ghost part 27

Masterpost

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1a. Wide shot of the music room, Colin Robinson sitting in the foreground with Nadja standing in front of him. He is wearing a beige party hat and clapping gleefully as Nadja, also wearing a beige party hat and scowling in confusion, reads aloud from a book titled “Empress Teresa”. The cover is a clumsy painting of a woman with long black hair in a military uniform. Nadja reads, “I was the princess of the Surr-llivan clan of F-Framing-ham, Mass… Massen-choots-test? Because besides being cute I was a whiz in school and had a good disposition. All the relatives expected great things of me. Nobody could have dreamed of what I would do a few years later, and nobody would have believed it if they’d been told.” In the background, Laszlo, also wearing a beige party hat, is playing the Hamsterdance on his harpsichord and looking back at Colin with a smile. 1b. Close up of Laszlo at the harpsichord as Nadja shrieks from offscreen, “Laszlo what the shit is this?!” Laszlo calls back, smiling, “Try to make it through the first chapter, my darling! We did promise the boy a re-do party.” Ghost Guillermo phases into the room from an adjacent wall, tugging on his fingers nervously as he smiles at the scene. He is not wearing a beige party hat because he can’t, but the ribbons of wraith energy behind him are smooth and subdued. 1c. Reverse shot over Guillermo’s shoulder as Laszlo turns to him and offers a nod of acknowledgement, as close to a thank you as Laszlo can give. Guillermo nods back with a smile. In the background, Nadja pulls the book close to her face and continues reading, “Churchill, Hitler, and Lincoln will be footnotes in dusty history books a thousand years from now, and nobody remembers Charles Martel who saved Chri-“ She pauses and gags on the name, trying again with a different inflection. “Chhheeerrryyy…” Colin, sitting in an armchair across from her, says “Pace yourself, Nadja.” There is a jumbo tub of Legos in his lap and he is dropping prices purposefully on the floor. Nadja doll is slumped comfortably in the adjacent loveseat, wearing an identical dress to Nadja’s along with a beige party hat and grinning slyly up at her counterpart.

2a. Bust of Guillermo as he watches the scene, hands tucked behind his back and smiling with affection and satisfaction. Offscreen, Nadja snaps, “Colin Robinson, this is the most terrible book I have ever read!” Colin replies happily, “Yes, it is.” 2b. Repeat. Guillermo’s eyes flick over to the side in surprise as he notices something across the room. Offscreen, Colin continues, “Start that paragraph over, I missed it.” Nadja shrieks in frustration. 2c. Waist up shot of Nandor as he enters the room through the open curtain, fingers fiddling together and beige party hat strapped to his head. He looks up in surprise, meeting Guillermo’s gaze. Offscreen, Nadja exclaims “I am skipping the Jebus-man parts!” Colin replies facetiously, “Don’t worry. Theresa never talks about religion.” 2d. Reverse shot of Guillermo again, smiling hesitantly as he lifts his hand in a cautious wave. Offscreen, Nadja asks, “My broad bear, how is this pronounced?” Laszlo responds “‘Prime Minister’, my love. It is synonymous with ‘load of horseshit’.” Nadja crows, “Ooh, that I like!” 2e. Reverse shot of Nandor, perking up with a small smile and curling his fingers up and down in a shy little wave. 2f. Repeat. Nandor frowns at himself and looks away, hand lowering awkwardly. 2g. Reverse shot from behind Nandor’s hip as he walks further into the room. Colin calls from offscreen, “Nandor! Take your shoes off before you come through!” Nandor snaps back, “I will do no such thing, Colin Robinson, I see the evil bricks you have scattered about!” Colin whines, “C’mon, I’m just a little birthday boy! It’s my birthday!” In the background, Guillermo watches Nandor pass with a nervous, longing gaze, hands twisting together anxiously. The scraps of black energy behind him multiply and swirl around, looking more like a cloak than ever before. /end ID

[waitimcomingtoo]

Pattinson

Pairing: Tom Holland x Actress!reader

Synopsis: Tom gets jealous when you reveal your celebrity crush on Robert Pattinson

Masterlist

“Okay I saw these on Tik Tok and I had to get them for you.” Zendaya grinned as she slid a small black box towards you.

“What is it?” You eyed her skeptically as you accepted the box.

“Just open it and look.” She smiled and rubbed her hands together.

“No.” You gasped as you opened the box. “Team Edward underwear?”

You picked up a pair of lacy black paintings and held them out in front of you. The phrase “Team Edward” was stitched in bold white letters right over the crotch.

“Oh my God.” You burst into laughter. “What are these?”

“They’re just panties.” She said innocently. “I thought you’d like them.”

“I do but I cannot wear this around Tom.” You laughed and set them down. “He’ll think I’m insane.”

“Them wear them when he’s away.” She shrugged.

“I cannot believe you bought these.” You shook your head at her. “Or that someone made them. Or that I want to wear them more than anything.”

“See?” She smiled proudly. “I knew you’d like them.”

“I do.” You admitted. “But Tom can never know they exist.”

You put the panties away in your drawer that night and forgot about them. It wasn’t until a few weeks later when you were a guest on the Graham Norton show that your love of Twilight was brought up once again.

“Now, Y/n, I hear you’re a big Twilight fan.” Graham began.

“Yup. Last time I checked.” You nodded, purposefully quoting Jacob Black.

“Are you really?” Graham giggled.

“I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen those movies.” You shook your head. “Especially the first one. Everyone few months I just sit down and shot gun the series.”

“Were you Team Edward or Team Jacob?”

“Team Edward all the way.” You said immediately. “This is so embarrassing, but I used to leave my window open when I was in middle school so Edward could come in.”

“That’s some dedication.” Graham laughed. “Did he ever come?”

“No. He never did.” You pouted. “13 year old me was really disappointed.”

“I hear you even got a tattoo.” Graham raised his eyebrows, making you hide your face in shame.

“I do.” You laughed behind your hand. “I got too drunk halfway through Eclipse and got a tattoo.”

“You have to show us.” Graham insisted.

“Okay but don’t laugh.” You laughed in defeat and rolled up your sleeve. You held your arm out to the camera, showing off your tattoo that read “Robert Pattinson” in tiny letters on your arm. The audience and Graham laughed at the randomness at the tattoo as your face heated in embarrassment.

“Look at this, it’s not even Twilight related”. Graham laughed. “It’s just Roberts name.”

“I wanted to get to the point.” You shrugged, earning some laughs.

“Why this font?” He wondered as he stared at the tattoo.

“It’s helvetica.” You deadpanned, making Graham cover his face with his cards as he laughed.

“It looks like you’ve just typed this out on the computer.” He pointed out.

“I was drunk.” You rolled your eyes playfully. “And it felt right in the moment.”

“You’ve never met Robert, right?” Graham asked. “You haven’t showed this to him?”

“No, I’ve never met him”. You sighed dramatically. “And he will never see this tattoo.”

“Well then you better cover it up.” Graham said as he looked behind him. “Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Pattinson.”

You furrowed your eyebrows and looked behind Graham as Robert Pattinson came out from back stage. He was in a navy suit, looking as beautiful as ever as he walked towards the couch.

“Oh My God.” You covered your face with your hands as the audience became deafening. You could hear Robert and Graham greeting each other over the sound of your heart pounding in your ears. Slowly, you took your face away from your hands and sheepishly looked up.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Rob.” Robert smiled as he looked down at you.

“Hi.” You smiled weakly as you stood up. Robert shook your hand and kissed your cheek to say hello, making you die on the spot. You let go of him and sat down on the couch, never taking your eyes off Robert.

“This is…” Graham gestured to you a few times, reminding you to say your name.

“Y/n. Sorry.” You blinked a few times. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m a big fan.”

“Are you?” Robert asked as he sat down. “You a Twilight fan?”

“No, I haven’t seen it.” You lied as you collected yourself.

“You just said-“

“I love all your other movies though.” You cut Graham off. “I really admire your work. Your acting is phenomenal.”

“Thank you.” Robert smiled at you. “I’ve seen some of your work as well. I’m always very impressed.”

“Are you?” You squeaked.

“I am.” Robert chuckled. “You’re very talented. I hope we get to work together someday.”

“I’m surprised you two haven’t met before.” Graham cut in. “Y/n, Rob was in a movie with your boyfriend, wasn’t he?”

“With my what?” You asked as you stared starstuck at Robert.

“Your boyfriend.” Graham repeated as the audience laughed. “Tom Holland?”

“Right.” You laughed awkwardly as you continued to stare at Robert. “Him.”

“Yeah, we were in a movie together a few years ago.” Robert answered. “And we’re going to start filming another one soon. It’s called the Devil All The Time.”

“Right.” You remembered. “He told me about it. I was so jealous that he’s getting to work with you for a second time.”

“I’m sure you and I will share the screen one day. Playing lovers, perhaps.” Robert joked as he nudged you.

“Perhaps.” You squeaked.

“We’re gonna cut to commercial.” Graham announced. “More with Robert Pattinson and Y/n L/n after the break.”

After the interview, you ran back to your dressing room with a huge smile. You had not stopped smiling since Robert had walked out on stage. You walked into your dressing room and saw Tom sitting on your couch, making you let out a squeal.

“Ahh! Did you see me?” You gushed. “Did you see me with Edward?”

“Edward?” He chuckled as he hugged you. “You mean Robert Pattinson?”

“Yeah. Him.” You clapped your hands. “He shook my hand and kissed my cheek. I almost passed out. I’m in love with him.”

“I didn’t realize you were such a big fan.” Tom laughed awkwardly as you danced around the room.

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been in love with that man for over ten years now. I’m never washing my hand again.” You held out the hand he shook. “Or my face. God, he’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen him.” Toms smile slowly faded. “We worked together, you know.”

“I know. You’re so lucky.” You sighed. “Did you hear him saw he wanted us to play lovers in a movie? Can you imagine if that actually happens?”

“No.” Tom said flatly. Before you could notice his indifference, someone knocked at your soon.

“Op. Someones at the door.” You said as you twisted the handle. You opened the door to reveal Robert leaning against your doorframe, knocking the air out of your chest.

“Hello again.” Robert smiled at you.

“Rob!” You stammered in surprise. “Hi.”

“Nice to see you again, Tom.” Robert said as he looked behind you. “How you been, mate?”

“I’ve been good. You?” Tom asked as he stood beside you. He wrapped a protective arm around your shoulders, not liking how fond you were of his former costar.

“Can’t complain.” Robert shrugged. “I’m excited to start filming though. I’ve been working on the accent but I’m not sure I’ve gotten it yet.”

“I’m sure you’ll do great.” You told him. “You’ve done great accents before.”

“Thank you.” He winked at you. “You should come to visit us once we start filming. I’d love to see you again.”

“Of course.” You nodded repeatedly. “I’ll be there.”

“Great.” Robert grinned. “I’ll let you guys get back to it. Bye.”

“Bye.” You enthusiastically waved to him.

“Oh, and Y/n?” Robert said before walking away.

“Yes?” You asked hopefully.

“Close your windows.” He joked, calling back to your story from before. You felt your face heat up and gave him an embarrassed smile before nodding.

“I will.” You told him. Robert firmly squeezed your shoulder before walking away. As soon as you shut the door, you let out a scream and jumped up and down.

“Did you hear that?” You asked Tom. “We have an inside joke. Edward Cullen and I have an inside joke.”

“You do know his name is Rob, right?” Tom said, less than amused. “Not Edward.”

“He’s Edward to me.” You rolled your eyes playfully. “I’ve never been this close to getting a vampire boyfriend. Ah, I’m so happy.”

“You already have a boyfriend.” Tom reminded you as he slumped on your couch. First he had to watch you and Robert fawn over each other on Graham’s couch, and now you wouldn’t stop talking about him. Tom was more than jealous at this point and it was starting to get to him.

“I know.” You chuckled as you sat beside Tom and laid your head on his shoulder. “And I love you. Even if you’re not a vampire.”

“Wow. Even if?” He chuckled sarcastically as he wrapped an arm around you. You leaned up to kiss him, making him feel better. You may be a fan of Robert, but Tom was the one you were kissing.

~

As promised, Tom brought you with him to the set of The Devil All The Time. He left you in his trailer early in the morning when he left to film, but you were nowhere to be found by the time he returned at the end of the day. Tom pouted when he found his trailer empty and went for a walk around the set to try and find you. When you didn’t turn up in any of the places he checked, he returned to his trailer in defeat.

“Darling?” Tom asked as he walked into his trailer. “Are you in here?”

“Where the hell you been, loca?” You asked as you threw your arms around Tom.

“What?” Tom laughed as he hugged you back, just happy to have found you.

“It was a Twilight reference.” You explained before kissing him hello. “I’ve been trying so hard not to make them around Edward all day.”

“You’ve been with Rob all day?” Tom pulled away, his mood dropping quickly.

“Uh huh.” You nodded in excitement. “I was helping him run lines in his trailer. Can you believe he asked me to help him?”

“Good for you.” Tom grumbled as he flopped down on his couch.

“What’s wrong?” You asked when you noticed Toms tone.

“Do you have feelings for this guy or something?” Tom asked. “Cause it’s starting to seem like you’d rather be with Rob.”

“What?” You laughed. “Tommy, don’t be silly. Of course I don’t have feelings for Rob.”

“Really?” Tom raised an eyebrow. “Because you’ve spent all days running lines with him instead of me, your boyfriend. When he’s around, he’s all you talk about Y/n. And I remember you saying you were in love with him multiple times.”

“I’m not in love with him, silly.” You insisted as you took a seat on his lap. “I’m in love with Edward Cullen. He was my comfort character growing up. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school, so I read books. Sometimes, it was nice to pretend a gorgeous vampire was willing to risk the Volturi to be with you.”

“The what?” Tom asked.

“It’s like the Vampire Supreme Court.” You replied.

“The what?” Tom repeated.

“Oh, right. British.” You remembered. “They’re just the most powerful vampire coven, okay? They make all the rules. You’d know them if you saw them. It’s Charlie Seen and that bitch from Cat in the Hat.”

“What does this have to do you liking Rob?” Tom whined.

“Right, sorry.” You waved your hand in dismissal. “I don’t have feelings for Rob. I don’t even know him. I’m just projecting the character I loved growing up onto the actor who played him. You’re telling me you didn’t geek out the first time you met RDJ?”

“I did.” Tom admitted.

“Exactly. He was your childhood hero and Edward was mine. That’s all this is.” You smiled and patted his cheek. “Nothing to worry about, Tommy.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.” Tom pouted and rubbed your back. “I shouldn’t have accused you of anything.”

“It’s okay. I can see why you got a little jealous. I have been talking about him a lot.” You admitted. “But I promise you, when I look at him, all I see is Edward. Just straight up baseball uniforms and spider monkies.”

“What the hell goes on in those movies?” Tom mumbled under his breath.

“Well, the last two are pretty much an abortion debate.” You began. “But they’re also about Bella being willing to die for that vampire dick.”

“In a vampire movie?” Tom wondered.

“Yeah. But the first one is a baseball movie.” You told him.

“What the fuck?” He whispered.

“You’d understand it if you saw them.” You shrugged.

“I don’t think I would.” He said skeptically.

“I also don’t think you would.” You realized. “But you’d finally understand why I call you my “monkey man” sometimes.”

“That’s a Twilight reference?” He gasped.

“Yeah. A lot of things I say are Twilight references.” You chuckled.

“Well if my darling loves them that much, I might have to give them a chance.” Tom smiled as he leaned in to kiss him.

“Mmm.” You hummed against his lips. “You wanna watch 10 hours of Twilight with me?”

“Absolutely not.” Tom laughed against your mouth. He slowly laid you down on the couch as he hovered on top of you, never break the kiss. The kiss got more heated as you gripped his shirt while his hands slid down to your pants. As his hangs found your zipper, you realized something terrifying.

“Oh no.” You gulped.

“Whats wrong?” Tom wondered as he pulled away.

“Um...” you gulped and looked down at your lap. “You’re not gonna want to do that.”

“Why?” Tom raised an eyebrow, eyes darting down to your zipper skeptically.

“Daya sent me underwear a while ago.” You began. “Um, special underwear.”

“Did she?” Tom smirked as he tugged the zipper down.

“Not that kind of special.” You quickly moved his hand. “It um, it has a slogan on it.”

“Okay?” Tom said slowly.

“You’re not gonna like it.” You told him, only making his curiosity grow. Tom looked at you curiously before tugging your pants down. You covered your face with your hands as he gasped in horror.

“Team Edward?” He yelled. “Your underwear says Team Edward?”

“It was all I had!” You protested as you tugged your pants back up.

“You’re telling me you happened to be wearing these the day you come to visit Rob on set?” Tom pointed an accusing finger at you.

“What are you implying?” You asked as you swatted his hand away. Tom ran his hands through his hair and gave it a stressful tug. He didn’t want to take his insecurity out on you, but the underwear had crossed a line.

“Did you think something was gonna happen between you guys?” He mumbled without looking at you.

“What?” You laughed in shock. “Do you seriously think I woke up this morning and thought “hm, might fuck Robert Pattinson today. Let me make sure I put on my underwear that references a character of his from ten years ago!””

“I don’t know!” He whined. “I can’t believe you’re wearing those.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.” You laughed as he stormed out of the room. “Tommy, come back.”

“Why are you laughing?” He pouted, face still red from jealousy.

“Because you’re upset over my underwear.” You tried to hold back your laughter. “You know, you could solve this problem by taking them off.”

“No.” He stamped his foot. “You don’t want me. You want you Edgar Curtain and his killer vampire penis.”

“It’s Edward Cullen.” You corrected. “And yes, I do want that.”

“Oh my God.” Tom rubbed his face, making you laugh again.

“Edward would never treat me this way.” You teased. “He would have sex with me and then get scared that he hurt me so he just plays chess with me the rest of our honeymoon.”

“Would he now?” Tom seethed.

“Tommy, please calm down.” You chuckled as you cupped his face. “It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that I was wearing these. I promise, you don’t have anything to worry about. You’re the only one I want.”

“Really?” He asked skeptically as you stroked his cheek with your thumb.

“What can I say?” You smirked. “I’m Team Tom.”

Tag List 🏷

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[nightowlfandom]

Ayato Sakamaki- My Only Human

HEY HEY!!

ANON ASKS

Can I make a request from your x -rated prompts. 36, 40, 57 , With Ayato Sakamaki. >.< if you can.

Idea: Maybe the reader, catches a student at the night school flirting and touching him, but when she thought he would shove her off, he doesn't. She gets super mad at him and doesnt talk to him the rest of the day until he comes in her room after school demanding to the what the readers problem is, and it leads to some rough sexy time??

If you cant thats fine >.<

If YoU CaN’t ThAt’s FiNe, PSSSSHH I GOT THIS 

36- That’s it, grab my hair. Yank it, pull me back into your pussy.

40- How do you ride me so good? God damn, you’re gonna break me!

57- Fuck! You’re mine. You’re fucking mine and I’m fucking yours.

CHECKOUT MY MASTERLIST HERE!!!

Leggo!!

...

“Yui, question.” you walked through the halls with your favorite adoptive-cousin. 

“Y/N, Answer!” she giggled in reply. “What’s up?”

“I needed help! Me and this math thing is not a thing.” you glared down at your folder.

“18, 42, 6.9 and X=17.” she instantly filled in the blanks to the questions you hadn’t answered.

“Have I ever told you I loved you?” you faked crying.

“Only always.” she shrugged. “I see the boys beat us here.” she mused, noticing the Sakamaki AND the Mukami brothers in the respective groups by the lockers, right across from each-other.

“Always beating us here, but never offering to drop us off...assholes.”

“Aren’t you the one insisting on Ayato and you arriving at different times?” she raised a brow as you two slowed down in pace.

“I told it it would be better if I arrived a little bit after him after his gaggling fans dispersed.” you half-shrugged. “The last thing I need are his fangirls trying me.” you rolled your eyes.

“Like that girl flirting with Ayato?”

“Exactly...Wait WHAT?” 

Yui pointed in the direction of the Sakamaki brothers. A girl was standing in front of him. Holding her books to her chest with one hand while twirling strands of her hair in another. 

“Julia.” you growled. “She always does this!” you motioned to how ridiculous it was that she always flirted with one of the Sakamaki brothers. Especially the one that was TAKEN!

“Ayato won’t let her even touch him!” Yui tried to console you. 

“You know what, you’re right.” you smiled a little. Everyone knew you two were an item. She wouldn’t dare.

“He loves you and he wouldn’t let her-”

You two watched as Ayato put on a flirtatious smile, crossing his arms in amusement as he leaned against the lockers.

“Maybe he won’t even entertain-”

Julia trailed a finger up his arm, laughing like a hyena.

“Maybe he’ll embarrass her?”

You watched as he took her hand, raised it to his mouth and gave her knuckles a short peck.

“Maybe-”

“Yui I love you, but I’ma need you to stop talking.” your voice kinda cracked. 

You had transferred from day school to night school for him. You had transferred SCHOOLS for him. You dealt with the burden of having to take care of a human girl who was allergic to her own skin (you loved Yui to bits, but damnit if she didn’t get you into trouble all the time) on some days along with dealing with a bunch of perverted, self-important, assholes for him...so why..WHY was he responding to Julia....like he was single.

“I’m going class.” you grumbled. “See you later.”

“Y/N WAIT!” 

...(Meanwhile)

Ayato needed to pass his English Lit. Class project, so of course when that Julia girl offered to type his report for him, he couldn’t say no. He had to pretend he wasn’t disgusted by her if he was going to remain in the top 5% of people with an actual brain. Fuck being like the other students.

“Y/N WAIT!” 

“That sounded like Yui.” Reiji commented. They were surprised to see you bolted down the hallway at full speed with Yui on your tail. She skid to a stop to glare at Ayato.

“You’ve really done it this time.” was all she said before she ran off. “Y/N!! COME BACK!”

“Smooth move, moron.” Yuma called from the other side. “Looks like I get to play knight in shining armor.” he winked.

“Ayato~” Julia got his attention, “make sure to meet me in the library so I can give you your essay.”

“Yeah, sure whatever.” Ayato watched at Yui chased you down the hall.

... (Lunchtime/Free Period)

You sat in the courtyard, sadly staring at a sketchbook page You liked to paint or draw school life in the quad. You had started with a sketch of the Sakamaki brothers, but it didn’t feel right.

You’d probably get in trouble, but you just had to draw Yuma Mukami who was sitting by the fountain. You looked up every so often, hoping he didn’t see you. 

“Y/N!” You heard. You turned your head to the side to see Ayato sitting with his brothers. “COME OVER HERE.”

Wordlessly, you grabbed your sketchbook...only to walk to the other side of the quad. You sat at another table, focusing back on your artwork.

“Hey...”A shadow was cast over your work.

“Do you mind?” you grumbled. “You’re blocking my light source.”

“Hm, I was just thinking you’d wanna see the reference up close.”

Your head darted up to see Yuma, standing in front of you. “May I sit.”

“Do whatever you want.” you grumbled. “I don’t care.”

Ayato watched from the other side of the court yard as that smug playful bastard took your sketchbook from in front of you and began flipping through it. Why hadn’t you sat with him today?? That Mukami dickwad had better not touch you.

He watched as Yuma flirted with you, and thankfully you didn’t seem to fall for his charms. Though that half smile you gave when he gave you a flower that had been growing nearby was enough to make him angry. 

“AYATOOOO~” Julia practically threw herself into the spot where you usually sat when you sat with him. “I finished your report!”

“Great. Sure, whatever.” he glared potholes at Yuma.

“So...do you wanna eat lunch together?”

“That’s nice, Maria.”

“It’s Julia...”

“Sure whatever.”

(Meanwhile)

“There’s that smile.” he winked as you looked at the flower. 

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Also, next time you draw me...let’s have it be a nude painting huh?” He winked, getting up.

“Gross.” you scoffed, standing up yourself. “See you in Biology.” you cringed.

“Y/N!” you heard Ayato’s voice call again. Just ignore him...(Read more below the break)

... (Smut warning)

When you got home, you locked yourself in your room. You had told Yui to not bother trying to make you feel better, because it wouldn’t work. You had just finished your homework when-

“Y/N! LET ME IN!” Ayato angrily knocked at the door. When he didn’t hear anything back, he decided that the window would have to suffice. “FINE! YOU LEAVE ME NO CHOICE.”

“Oh shit!” you began to run towards the window, hoping to shut it when Ayato practically appeared out of nowhere with a frown on his face.

“Why have you been ignoring me?” he glowered. When you didn’t answer, he grew more agitated. “Y/N, Don’t make me ask again.” Still nothing. “Y/N, You have three seconds to tell me-”

“Why don’t you ask Julia!” you finally snapped. “You sure seem to like flirting with HER.”

“What? I’d never flirt with that disgusting-”

“SO KISSING HER HAND THIS MORNING WASN’T FLIRTING! Yui and I saw you! She touched your arm and you didn’t even move!” you accused. 

“Y/N, let me explain!”

“YOU DON’T NEED TO! You don’t love me anymore!” you pointed. “So go be with her! Go flirt with her! Go and spend time with her because that all you seemed to be interested in doing today!”

Ayato gasped, he finally realized what Yui had been talking about when she said ‘You really done it this time.’ He hadn’t even realized it, but he had been busy with Julia all day that by the time he got free time. He thought-

“You gonna let me talk now, Human?” he used the pet-name he coined for you. “I don’t love Julia. And I wasn’t flirting with her because I don’t love you.”

“Huh?”

“She was doing my English Lit. paper and I had to make her think she was worth my time.” he explained. “She had to think I was actually interested in her or else she’d make a scene. She knew what this exchange was. A litle bit of attention and that A+ was as good as mine. I passed by the way.” he winked.

“S-so, you don’t love her?” you wiped your eyes.

“Of course not! How many times have I told you that my heart only belongs to you?” He asked. “Idiot.” he shook his head with an amused smile. “As if that plain, lowly human could ever compare to my own personal descendant of the goddeses that made this wicked world.” he bit his lip. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was running out of time. I would have told you, had you sat with me at lunch today.” he rolled his eyes. “...Y/N, please accept my deepest apology. I wouldn’t hurt you...unless you asked.” he wiggled his eyebrows at the last part. “Now come here.”

He grabbed your waist and pulled you towards him, taking you in a long drawn out kiss. He purposefully moaned in your mouth, laughing maniacally through each peck.

“Me, and that disgusting excuse- how laughable.” he began kissing down your neck. “I guess I’ll have to show you that you’re mine and will only ever be mine.” 

“Ayato~” you whimpered. 

“Shush.” he kissed you again. “ Fuck! “ he kept kissing your lips “You’re mine. You’re fucking mine and I’m fucking yours. .” He backed you up towards the bed. “Usually I’d ask you to suck my dick first, but I want everything to be about you.” he made you sit down. “Aww, you didn’t take off your uniform, so I can take your panties off right now.” he smirked.

Had he lost his mind?!?

“Have you lost your mind?!?” your legs shook as your panties were discarded who knew where. 

“I’ve always wanted to defile you while you were wearing it, so you can think of me every single time you put it on. Mmmmff-” he buried his head between your legs, exploring your depths with his tongue.

You took in a sharp breath, instantly arching your back in his favor. Good, that was his invitation to go forward. “Y/N, you taste so fucking good-” he laughed gleefully. “I wanna bite your clit and taste the blood right from your naughty place.” he moaned, lashing his tongue against your heat. 

“Ayato, It feels so-” you mewled. “M-more, please?”

Hearing this, he went feral. He dug his nails into your thighs, sucking harshly at your slit. You had to hold the back of his head to stay vertical, your hands tangled through his lush hair.

“ That’s it, grab my hair. Yank it, pull me back into your pussy-mmm. “ he couldn’t even finish his sentence. He was so hungry that not even a snide comment could leave his lips while he tasted you. He’d never do this with anyone else, love anyone else. He was having too much fun worshipping his beautiful human. 

“Ayato- I’m gonna c-cu-”

“Cum. Let me taste you. Let me feel it against me, let me drive my fangs into your thighs while you cum so you can feel what true ecstasy feels like.” 

You felt yourself unravel, only to feel those fangs dig into your left thigh. “Ungh! Ayato!!” you cried. 

“Fuck, Y/N.” he lapped up your blood. “It tastes even better when you’re cumming.” he bit his lip. “I wanna feel you wrap around me.” he crawled over you, capturing your mouth in a long, messy kiss.

You were surprised when he moved you two so you were straddling him. “Undo my jeans, take what’s yours, Y/N.” he bit his lips. 

You shyly unbuttoned his jeans and pulled then down along with his boxers. You were welcomed by a very obvious hardon. 

His cock slapped against his stomach as it was set free. 

“C-can I, touch?”

“It’s yours.” he winked. “Do whatever you want to me.”

You began stroking him, coaxing a low satisfied moan from your lover. You wanted to be mean and leave him but who were you kidding, you both needed it.

“Is it too forward to ask you to ride my cock?” he asked, biting his lip. “Please?”

He caressed your thighs, coaxing you to slip his dick along the perimeter of your slit. You met his eyes, but could only shyly look away.

“Oh Goooodd-” he sucked in air as his dick slipped inside. You shy rocked your hips, coaxing another moan out of him. His hands rested on your thighs. “Shit, Y/N, Why are you so fucking- Ungh...Shit I can’t take much more.” he thrusted his hips upwards. 

A small gasp hitched in your throat, followed by many as he thrust himself in and out of you. You wanted some sort of control too, so you rolled your hips even more against him. “Shit. Ayato~” you moaned. “Fuuuh-”

“Why would I want anyone else when you’re here with me.” he spoke. “Why would I NEED anyone else!” he growled. “You’re mine! I’m Yours, that’s how to fuck it should be!” he seethed. “Fuck your pussy feels so good.”

He was absolutely right, you didn’t think even washing this uniform would get his essence out of it.

“Shit!!” Ayato threw his head back, moaning like you had never seen him moan before. You didn’t even think he could even make such a face. “Y/N!!! “ he cried. “I fucking love you so much, Fuck, S-shit!! Fuck say it back, please.”

“Ayato,” you felt his cock twitch inside. “I love you-haah-aah!”

“ How do you ride me so good? God damn, you’re gonna break me! “ he cried, digging his nails into your thighs. “Fuck Y/N this is what you to do me!!”

You both were loud, sensitive, and on the brinK of breaking.

“I’m gonna CU---AAAHH FUUCCK!” you felt his warmth spill inside you. You were taken aback by him wrapped a hand around your neck and pulling you down to kiss you abruptly. He moaned loudly into your mouth, crying in euphoria as he bottomed out inside your wetness.

“Y/N!” he cried once more. “Fuck I love you.” his face twisted in pleasure, those usually stern eyebrows going soft. “I fucking love you. My human, My only human~.” he hugged you close.

“Ayato~” you replied just as wantonly. “I love you.” you whimpered.

“Don’t think you’re off the hook for ignoring me today, now it’s my turn to get revenge.” you heard his breathless laugh. “Shall we continue?”

(I.....AM SO SORRY FOR THIS)

[nationalharryleague]

Work of Art

Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

Genre: AU, Artist!Harry, fluff, angst if you squint

Word count: 4K

A/N: Hi everyone! This is my entry for @hsogolden​ ’s AU writing challenge! Check out their blog they are incredibly talented!!! ALSO, a MASSIVE thank you and shoutout to the lovely Miss Lu, @harrysgucciloafers​!!! I could have never done it without her!! Thank you so much for reading and remember, feedback is so so so appreciated!!! You can also send requests to my ask anytime!! I hope you enjoy :) More of my writing can be found in my masterlist :) 

***

Sleep was fleeting and you remained staring at your popcorn ceiling in your shitty apartment for longer than you would have liked. It was later than you would have liked when your phone buzzed and lit up the ceiling of your bedroom. Knowing sleep was still far off, you rolled over and examined the text from an unknown number, the bright screen blinding you in the process.

Hi, I was thinking of you today. I thought I would show you this piece that I made of you. Hope you’re doing well. Hx, attached was a slightly blurry photo of a beautiful painting of a woman.

The woman in the painting was made up of beautiful bright colors, her skin a mix of green, blue, and purple tones. Her eyes were a bright and captivating cerulean, standing out behind wide framed glasses, and she wore an intriguing and knowing smirk on her lips. Her hair fell down in blunt bangs over her forehead and framed her heart shaped face. She was young, looking to be only a little bit older than you.

The painting was captivating. It was crafted with such bright tones, using color blocking that blended the abstract with some elements of realism. It felt like someone poured all of their emotion and adoration or hurt (you couldn’t decide which) into it. You couldn’t decide if the artist loved or hated this figure staring back at you. One thing you knew was that whoever texted you was incredibly talented and had obviously dedicated so much time to this piece. You felt awful that it hadn’t reached its intended destination.

Um… Wrong number, you typed out, feeling a pang of sympathy for whoever ‘H’ was.

Oh… okay. Sorry to bother you., your phone screen lit up again.

Your art is beautiful, you quickly sent back, attempting to offer some sort of consolation to the mystery artist. Sorry I’m not who you wanted to talk to.

Don’t worry about it. Just looking for someone from a lifetime ago.

That last part kept you up for most of the night. You couldn’t stop thinking about what that could mean. Old friend? Estranged relative? Another artist? You let your mind dream up Oscar-worthy scenarios until you finally fell asleep.

***

“Please come to Scott’s art show with me,” Grace whined from across the table at your favorite coffee shop. Grace was your best friend from college and hadn’t figured out to get rid of you yet.

“You know how I feel about your shitty boyfriend and his shitty art,” you fired back. Scott was a pretentious “artist” who made “ironic” misogynistic sculptures and frequently “forgot” to pay Grace back for his share of rent. You hated his guts.

“I promise I’m going to break up with him soon. I just need to get to the end of the month so I get my money’s worth for rent,” she assured you. “By the way, I’m going to need some help moving out at the end of the month,” she mentioned nonchalantly. You let out a chuckle at her and playfully rolled your eyes.

“I will go to the show with you on one condition.”

“Anything.”

“You’ll hold my hand.”

A few hours later you walked into the modern and cold art show space, holding onto Grace’s hand for dear life, feeling unwelcome in this environment. Grace blended in easily, her bright blue hair and arms of tattoos suiting her well.  The edgiest thing you had ever done was getting your nose pierced… until your grandma threw a fit and your mom made you take it out. You were not an artist and you did not feel welcome in the art community, or at least the type of artists that hang out with Scott. You worked in an office, you dressed plainly and simply, and you didn’t think there was anything special about yourself. You were strikingly ordinary, a sharp contrast from most other people in the gallery. You felt like an outsider because you were one.

Walking around the gallery, you hung onto Grace while examining and appreciating the artwork. You took careful steps, as if to not take attention away from the paintings on the walls and spent time examining each piece as you moved through the room. As you moved from wall to wall, your eyes fell on a strikingly familiar painting. The same girl with the bright blue eyes and the bangs stared back at you, the devilish smirk still playing upon her lips like she knew you had met before.

Releasing Grace’s hand, you all but ran up to the painting in question, trying to take in all the details that didn’t translate over the slightly grainy photo on your phone. The painting took on a life of its own up close. The paint itself was layered thick and thin across the canvas creating a rough texture that made the girl come alive. You were half waiting for her to make eye contact with her captivating baby blues and start staring back at you. You felt like you could reach inside the canvas and hold the beautiful woman’s face in your hands.

“Do you like it?” a deep British voice asked after clearing their throat behind you.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” you murmured, still staring at the green and purple woman. It took you a moment to rip yourself away from her piercing eyes and look towards the voice, only to turn around and find an even more captivating set.

They were bright green and belonged to a tall, dark haired man that was breathtaking. He had chocolate brown curls that seemed to be sticking in every direction, like a purposefully perfect bedhead, and stubble that moved up his jaw and down his neck. He had plushy pink lips framing his bright smile and his two front teeth came down the tiniest bit too far. He was wearing a white tshirt that was painted to his fit body as it was a size too small for him, showing off his arms of tattoos, and a pair of orange corduroy flares. His ensemble was topped off with a pearl necklace. He arched a brow when your mouth hung open slightly, trying to take all of him in.

“The painting is gorgeous,” you eventually were able to spit out. “I feel like I know her.”

“I’m glad that I was able to create something so captivating,” he smiled at you. So he was the one that painted it, meaning he was the one who had texted it to you. After getting over the initial shock, you gave yourself an internal high five for having this guy’s number. “Harry,” he introduced himself, reaching out a perfectly manicured hand to shake yours. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Y/N,” you smiled back, debating if you should tell him that you had kind of met before. It felt creepy to tell him, like you were some sort of voyer on an intimate part of his life. “I love her. Can you tell me a little bit more about it?” you asked. You had to figure out if it was worth being creepy about.

“So did I,” he said with a light chuckle. “She’s someone that I used to know,” he elaborated looking over your shoulder, surely making eye contact with the woman. Maybe you were reading into it too closely, but you thought a flash of hurt passed across his features.

“Do you always paint mysterious people from your past?” you teased, wanting to break the slightly awkward silence and also willing to do anything to talk to him further.

“Actually, I’m mainly a landscape painter,” he smiled at the ground, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Looking back at Harry’s wall of paintings you realized that the girl was the only person on the wall, flanked by beautiful landscape paintings depicting all different areas of the world. You quickly picked your favorite, a monochromatic green scene of the Eiffel tower.

After you asked if he traveled a lot to paint, the conversation began to flow. You strolled around the mainly empty studio space, footsteps falling in sync, him teaching you about his paintings and you asking questions, desperate to learn anything you could from him and just wanting to hear that beautiful accent. You learned he grew up in Cheshire and moved to New York for school and never left, but he travelled to Europe often to see his family and to paint. He told you about how his ultimate goals in life were to have one of his pieces in the Museum of Modern Art and to find his soulmate. He was a hopeless yet hopeful romantic. He also had two cats, Evie and Stevie (the latter was obviously named after Stevie Nicks).

He was so beautiful. He had this magical twinkle in his eye that you just couldn’t get over. He looked like he was one of the sculptors’ in the room’s life work. He was just as much of a piece of art as anything on display in the studio.

When the crowd started to thin, Grace came and found you, still rolling her eyes from something stupid Scott had said, him trailing not far behind. “Hi my love,” she greeted you, kissing your cheek casually as always. “We were getting ready to head out but I can see you’ve made a friend.”

“Harry is the artist behind all these amazing paintings,” gesturing to the long wall displaying his artwork. “This is my best friend Grace,” you said, turning back to him. “And that’s her soon to be ex-boyfriend, Scott,” you laughed and pointed to him staring at a blank white canvas in the corner that was obviously not part of the exhibition.

“Wait,” he began, shaking his head and laughing, pointing accusingly between the two of you. “You two aren’t together?”

“What? No!”

“It’s just that you were holding hands for a while when you came in and then she called you ‘love,’ and then kissed your cheek,” he continued laughing, his cheeks a bright red. It was adorable. You felt your cheeks heat up just as bright red as his.

“Oh my god, no.” You broke out into a fit of giggles of your own.

“Well, in that case, would you like to grab a drink or something sometime?”

***

You decided to order a martini when you got to the bar the next night. You thought it would make you look fancy and you hoped it would impress your worldly date. You had put on your favorite red dress (the one that hugged you in all the right spots and hid the wrong ones), praying he would dress up like you did, and slid carefully onto the barstool. Bouncing your knee nervously, you sipped your drink slowly until you saw his well dressed figure enter the bar, making your heart skip a beat.

He was dressed in high-waisted wide-legged tan pants and a bright red cardigan printed with small white hearts that was held together in the front by a single button, leaving his chest and signature pearl necklace on display. His chest tattoos were now slightly visible, the faces of two swallows looking back at you, as well as what you thought might be some sort of antennae peeking up from his stomach. He also wore an award winning smile and shot you a wink when he spotted you from the entrance of the bar. Once again, he took your breath away.

“Hello darling,” he greeted you as he made his way over. You began to panic when he started leaning into you, relieved when his lips found their way to your cheek and quickly moved to the other. When he kissed your cheeks, it sent sparks through your body. Oh my god, he is so British, you squealed inside your head, unable to suppress your American excitement. “I like your color choice,” he smirked looking between your outfits of almost the exact same red. You could only hope your cheeks didn’t match as well.

“Great minds dress alike,” you remarked, earning a laugh from the gorgeous man in front of you. Turns out, your joke was enough to break the ice. Soon the conversation began to flow freely, without anxiety or trepidation, like you were a pair of souls reunited after lifetimes apart. You were two martinis in when you decided to break the news that the art gallery was not the first time you had spoken.

“I think I have to break something to you,” you giggled, everything seeming a little funny after a few drinks, “the art show was not the first time we met.” His eyebrows knit together in slight confusion so you decided to elaborate. “The night before the show you sent a picture of that painting to a wrong number, and that wrong number was me. I promise it was all a coincidence and I am not stalking you.” You held your breath while you waited a moment with bated breath for a reaction from him, but released the stress that had found its way into your shoulders when his smile returned to his lips.

“I knew you had more interest in Amelia than most people,” he chuckled. Amelia, you repeated to yourself, now having a name for the face of your mystery woman.

“When Grace dragged me to that studio and I saw her again, I just had to know more. But then I met you and got a little distracted,” you flirted, “accidentally” nudging his leg with the point of your stiletto.

“I’m glad I’m just a distraction to you,” he feigned offense, clutching his pearl necklace with the hand that wasn’t hanging onto his neat tequila.

“Meeting you tonight was actually just an elaborate ruse to learn more about your Amelia,” you sarcastically confessed, sending him back one of the winks he had been shooting you all night. Your wink wasn’t met with his typical laugh, but a slightly pained smile that didn’t reach his eyes. You worried you had hit a nerve.

“She’s not my Amelia anymore. Actually, I don’t think she ever was,” he spoke gently, taking a sip of his drink and breaking eye contact for what felt like the first time tonight. Oh no oh no oh no, you began to panic in your head. What did this woman do to him?  

“I once had an ex tell me they had cancer so I wouldn’t break up with them,” you offered, forcing a laugh and praying you could brighten up his mood again. Thankfully, it worked, bringing back the crinkles by his eyes that appeared whenever he smiled or laughed.

You breathed a sigh of relief when the rest of the night went smoothly. It was better than smooth actually, it felt easy and exciting. Harry made your heart sing and your stomach flutter. He was a perfect gentleman, walking you all the way home (even when he lived on the other side of the city) and even up to your apartment, insisting he needed to make sure you made it inside safe.

The pair of you were standing in front of your front door when he leaned in and pressed his blushed lips to yours. He tasted like the lime that sat on the rim of his drunk and smelled like shampoo and vanilla. Every hair on your body stood up on point and everywhere he touched you felt like your skin lit on fire; you never wanted this moment to end. He gently held your face and you could feel his lips turn into a smile as he pulled away, his beautiful green eyes meeting yours once again.

“I had a really good time tonight,” he breathed, unable to wipe the smile off his face.

“I think we should do this again,” you said, still catching the breath that he took away.

“I promise you’ll be hearing from me soon. I already have your number,” he chuckled, still beaming. You watched as he walked down the hallway away from you, winking and blowing you a kiss before turning the corner. As soon as you entered the apartment, you slid down your front door, dizzy from the haze he had created in your head. You couldn’t wait to see him again.

***

After that night, you couldn’t believe someone like him kept coming back to someone like you. You insisted you were too boring for someone who had such an incredible personality and background. Yet three months later, he was yours and you were his.

You spent almost all your nights together, crammed into one of your small New York City apartments, wrapped in each other’s arms and hypothetically solving the world’s problems. You had learned in this time that Harry was incredibly intelligent and well spoken, no matter how long it took him to get his words out due to his slow cadence. In your conversations, you had come to the agreement that most of the world’s problems could be solved with a little empathy and that green was definitely the best color.

Tonight you laid naked in his bed, your head resting just above your favorite butterfly, and played with his fingers as you listened to him speak about postmodernism and how it rocked the art world. You didn’t understand a thing he was going on about but you loved to hear him speak, his voice vibrating through his chest and how he pulled on his bottom lip when he was thinking. You scanned the studio apartment from his bed, trying to pay attention but losing that battle. The floor was littered with finished and unfinished paintings leaning up against the walls and you noticed one familiar face you had grown fond of was missing.

“Where did your painting of Amelia go?” you asked when he took a second to breathe during his diatribe.

“I sold it,” he said curtly.  You hadn’t talked much more about Amelia after that first night, the woman obviously being a sore spot, but you couldn’t help but wonder what happened.

“Oh, okay. I liked that painting a lot,” you spoke cautiously, trying not to hit whatever nerve you had previously.

“It was nice, but I think she should haunt someone else now,” he said with a sigh. Haunt?, you thought to yourself.

“H,” you began, rolling yourself off him to look him in the eye, “can I ask what happened with her?” You held your breath, afraid you might lose him to the heartbreak again.

“Don’t worry about her, she’s long gone.”

“Harry,” you lightly scolded him by using his full name which you rarely did, thinking back to when you agreed not to keep anything for each other. With a sigh, he began to speak.

“I was with her for a couple months last year and when I look back at it, it was really messy. We fought all the time and kept a lot from each other. But I had my rose colored glasses on and I would go as far as saying I was probably in love with her. I was even looking for engagement rings.” You felt a pang of jealousy within you at the idea of Harry loving anyone else. “That was until I found out that she already had a husband.”

Your heart broke for him after your initial shock, resting your hand on his warm cheek in an attempt to soothe him. He didn’t seem sad recounting the story or at the mention of her like he was before; he was now dealing with the remaining hurt of rejection.

“I painted her while I was still really mad,” he continued. “My original plan was to send it to her husband and tell him what had happened. But I decided that three lives didn’t need to be ruined instead of one. And then I was just kinda stuck with the painting. I thought selling it was a good way to get her out of my life and it’s more productive than lighting it on fire,” he finally said with a light chuckle.

A lot made sense all of a sudden. You now understood why Harry always got a little jealous when he saw other guys looking at you. He would loop an arm around your waist and press a kiss to your cheek while he stared them down. He thought you didn’t notice but you always did. You also understood why he was so open with you about how much he cared about you. It was a good thing you were equally as obsessed with him.

“I’m sorry, H. You didn’t deserve to go through all of that,” you said softly after a moment, unsure of what else you could offer.

“It’s okay. We grow from our past,” he shrugged. “And if I hadn’t painted her, I wouldn’t have found you,” he smiled sweetly, pulling you back into him and pressing his lips onto yours.

***

“Oh my goodness, what are you doing?” you giggled when Harry asked you to close your eyes.

“I have something to show you. Please close your eyes,” he asked again.

“What if I don’t want to close my eyes?” you teased, poking the dimple in his cheek caused by his cheeky grin. He rolled his eyes and began his plea again.

“Close your eyes, please. Do it.”

You gave in this time, closing your eyes and letting your heart flutter in anticipation. Harry knew you loved surprises and often took advantage of that fact. You felt him gently rest his cupped hands over your eyes, obviously not trusting you to not peak (he probably shouldn’t). He pressed himself to your back, urging you to make your way further into his apartment.

“Styles, if you let me walk into something, I swear to god,” you continued your giggling, overcome with excitement. Harry mumbled an ‘Oh, hush,’ in your ear before he stopped you both and lifted his hands away.

Your breath caught in your throat as you took it in. The painting was in Harry’s signature style, layered bright colors and varied textures across the canvas. Staring back was your own face, painted in a bright red monochrome with the exception of the color of your eyes that remained the same. You were posed with a bright smile that crinkled the skin by your eyes and you were wearing the red dress that you had worn that first night at the bar.

“Harry, oh my god. It’s so beautiful,” you managed to get out, still in shock.

“I know you don’t think you are, but are the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t want anyone else in the world to be my muse.” You felt as if you could explode or melt with the amount of love you had for this man. You held him up on such a pedestal, and now you knew he did the same for you. “From the moment I saw you, I thought you were a work of art. So, I thought I’d actually make you into one.”

Your cheeks burned from the smile you couldn’t shake if you wanted to and you felt yourself get a little teary eyed. You felt as if you had spent the majority of your life thinking you were nothing special and just another person walking down the street. Harry made you feel like you were the center of the universe. You wanted to love yourself like Harry loved you; like you loved him.

“I love you,” you blurted, small tears rolling down your face, wiped away by Harry’s talented hands.

“I love you too,” he murmured softly, pulling your body to his. “I’ll always have your face hung up high in my gallery.”

There she is!! I hope you enjoyed it!! You can let me know what you think here!! :) 

[eutxrpe]

painting a picture

—there is no color combination that could ever paint a picture like you. izuku (with the help of his students) still tries to capture your essence on a canvas though.—

pairing: elementary schoolteacher!izuku x gender neutral!reader word count: 2.1k words warnings: fluff, izuku being a simp for you, a bit of second-hand embarrassment the art in the banner belongs to @/hanabiy_chan on twitter!

song inspiration: picture perfect (freestyle) - jhene aiko

a/n: this is both dedicated to and caused by @whipped-cream-writings​. you know what happened for this to be a thing. thank you for being you and inspiring this.

if there was ever a time to be embarrassed about something that deku’s students have said to him, it would be now.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“mr. deku? are you dating someone?” izuku’s head snaps up to see hina, one of his most extroverted students. many other students come over to his desk, intrigued by the question that hina had asked. their little heads surround the table, and eyes peer at him over the height of his desk. 

“yea, are you?”

“tell us! tell us!” tiny voices chant in unison before izuku shushes them all gently. he internally reminds himself that they are innocent six-year olds that were not trying to purposefully embarrass him before answering.

“y-yes, i am dating someone,” the class erupts into cheers before quieting down again. they don’t disperse and head back to their tables like izuku had hoped, because hina looks at him with bright, brown eyes and continues the conversation.

“what are they like? do you love them? do youuuu?” her hair bounces as she drawls out the last syllable of her statement.

“hina, isn’t it time to go back to your seat?” deku asked, cheeks flushing a deep pink at the questioning. shaking her head, she only giggles.

“it’s free time, isn’t it?” she pouts. “also you didn’t answer my question. i...i could always make you, though!” and izuku watches as the brown of her eyes turns a deep black to the point the iris matches her pupils. one of the oldest in her class, hina had already manifested her quirk: the ability to make anyone do what they she wants when they make eye contact with her but only when her eyes were fully black.

“hina.” he makes his tone more strict, catching her attention and making her gaze drift down to the floor. “no quirk usage in the classroom, okay? it’s not fair to your other classmates who don’t have theirs yet.”

“yea, i know it’s a power imbalance or somethin’… but please? tell me?” and when izuku sees her eyes again, they’re back to the umber they usually are and hold only truth in them. he sighs. 

“after this, you’ll go back to your seat?” with an enthusiastic nod, deku catches his lip in between his thumb and pointer finger, trying to figure out how to describe you: the love of his life.

“they’re… amazing. i don’t know any words that could describe the way that i love them. but they’re that feeling when you have your favorite drink for the first time in forever! or-”

“you’re gonna ramble, mr. deku.” hina’s straight-forwardness could be taken as rudeness eventually... he’d have to take her over to bakugo’s or todoroki’s class one day to see what she does in other people. “i know that if i were in love, i’d show them what i couldn’t tell them!”

hina’s reply sparks an idea for a long-term project for his students… and for the both of you. izuku stands up, clapping his hands to get their attention. brushing his hair away from his face, the students see the glee in his emerald eyes and know that it’ll be an interesting project.

“what do you guys think of doing some painting over the next few weeks?”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“izu, you’re home!” at the sound of his footsteps, izuku sees you turn around and smile at him and his heart flutters. you’re wearing one of his oversized sweaters and mismatched socks that soften the noise of your feet padding down the hallway to kiss him.

“hi, angel.”

your hands cup his freckled cheeks, and he hopes that you don’t feel the amount of heat that crosses them. from your laugh, he knows that the opposite is true. your expression suddenly changes from content to focused, and midoriya feels your thumb rub away some pink paint.

“paint?” you step back and arch your eyebrow at him, walking away to the kitchen to wash your hands. taking off his blazer and folding it over his arms, izuku follows you, the baritone of his voice floating over to you across the island that separates the two of you. 

“i started a new art project with them,” izuku explains while he plays with his fingers, a habit he’s never really gotten over since his high school days. “their assignment is to supposed to paint something, someone —anything really— that brings them happiness. and then they asked me to do it with them.”

“and you just couldn’t say no?” after drying your hands, you turn around to face him, eyebrow arched and mouth curved into an amused smile. he feels heat race across his cheeks as he nods bashfully. “then i assume you’re painting all might.”

“well… you’ll see.”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“you’re so forgetful when it comes to your health, you know that?” your unforgettable voice can be heard from across the room to deku, holding the lunch that you reminded him to take three times in total. the students, including one excitable hina, turn their heads up at the noise and gasp.

“mr. deku, is this (y/n)?” after shy confirmation from him, the class cheers and deku raises both of his hands to turn the shouts to hushed whispers.

“p-please go back to what you were doing! you guys wouldn’t want to wake up kacchan, would you?” the bunny that sat on the counter was taking a short nap, his expression relaxed which was the opposite of his hostile behavior. at the mention of the angry bunny, the students went back to work, dipping their fingers in the paint as they continued to talk about you. you shyly smiled and rolled your eyes at the excitement that your arrival caused.

“do you want me to go over to you? or…” your sentence causes deku to blush and stand up quickly, striding over to where you were at the door.

“no, it’s fine… i know that it was hard to take this time out of your schedule. thank you, sweetheart.” he murmurs, trying not to take the children’s attention off of their project. izuku takes the lunch from your hands, giving you a smile and squeezing your hand softly.

“of course! i’ll see you at home later?” he enthusiastically nods, and you kiss as a farewell, lips slotting against each other lovingly. it seemed like you were about to deepen it, but hina’s voice causes you two to part.

“ewwwww!” 

and deku has never felt so embarrassed about showing his love for you. heat streams across his cheeks and down his neck while you laugh innocently. slinging your arms around his neck to pull him into a hug, you whisper your goodbyes into his ear, knowing that he would be mumbling about this into your lap at home tonight. in a sort of apology, izuku presses kisses into your neck. (knowing that his back was to hina, of course.) and like the angel you are, you giggle lightly at the sensation, and midoriya knows he’s been forgiven, even if there was nothing to forgive.

afterwards, you turn away, and midoriya sighs at the sound of your shoes against the hallway flooring. clutching the bento you brought him in his hands, he walks back to his desk and back to what he was trying to encapture in his painting. that was until he heard what hina mumbles —or tried to mumble— in the relatively quiet room.

“so that’s what love looks like…”

for once, deku lets out a sigh of relief at work. it was peaceful, and seeing all of the proud smiles on his (they were his at this point; he cared for them that deeply) children’s faces made him proud as well.

all was calm, and so before kacchan woke up from his nap, deku clapped his hands together and stood up, attracting the students’ attention.

“guys… i’m going to need your help with this plan i have, okay?”

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

you had been surprised when izuku called you while he was at work one day. he was almost religious with the amount of dedication and attention into his students and put his phone on silent everyday. so when he asked you to come to his classroom, you were shocked but quickly rushed over.

your heart skipped a beat with every step you took forward to the door, mind conjuring the worst scenarios every time you thought of izuku’s nervous, high-pitched tone.

“just c-come over as soon as possible please, angel!” you loved this man, but sometimes you just didn’t know what was in his mind. 

and with bated breath, you opened the door to his classroom and gasped.

the room formerly had circular tables on top of an area rug with all might memorabilia on the walls and children running havoc around it. 

but this room had fairy lights around it, giving it this safe haven aura, and there was a pathway to the other side of the room by separating the tables. someone squeezed your hand, so you tore yourself away from the look of the new room and made your eyes look downward. by the excited look in her eyes and proud smirk on her face, you assumed that this was hina, the same girl who had squealed in disgust during your kiss with izuku. 

“follow me, (y/n)!” and although it was a very small distance, you took her smaller hand within yours and let her lead you to the other side of the room where you saw izuku, who was beside an easel. before walking away to another room, hina narrowed her eyes at your boyfriend, telling him to “man up and do it or i’ll do it for you!”

“what’s happening, izuku? is something wrong?” you let him take your hands and he immediately told you everything was okay.

“i just… n-needed to tell you something before i lost the courage to do so. you know that project i told you about earlier?” you nod, trying not to say anything as you saw him fight for the right words. “well… for someone who brings me happiness, i chose you.”

izuku walks behind you to envelop you within his arms from behind, hiding his face in your neck. you tear the paper hiding his work from you away and gasp at what you see.

“i’m not a very good painter! the sketch was much better…” and you know that he wasn’t being modest.

your features were there, but blobs of paint were astray in different places. your eyes were too far apart and your hair was just a touch different than it usually is. but you let yourself fall into the colors that he chose.

the background was pink and you remember that one morning, izuku had told you that you reminded him of the color of a carefree love: baby pink.

you were wearing the same outfit that you were on your first date, and you can’t help but tear up slightly at the amount of detail that he put into this painting.

“izuku… it’s bad but good at the same time, you dork. i love it. i love y-” you turn around to find him on one knee and his own eyes watering. “-ou.”

“i- um, bare with me, here.” you run your hands through his soft locks of hair and sniffle, and he just knows that you’re always going to listen to him. 

“i could never put into words just how much you mean to me. which is probably why i put off this for so long. hah, i- you’re perfect, angel. perfect for me. i’ve always been in love with you even before we started to date… and just seeing you take care of me because i’m so forgetful when it comes to my health and always being there for me in the mornings has made me fall for you again and again everyday. i call these kids my world, but you’re my universe, my love. a picture so perfect that i tried and failed to encompass you.”

you sniffle again, and he presses soft kisses to the top of your hand, trying to compose himself to ask the damn question once and for all. he looks up and into your eyes, and finally… he’s determined to make you his.

“it would make me the happiest man in the world if you could marry me, (y/n).” he lets go of your hand to crack open the velvet ring box to reveal the prettiest ring you’ve ever seen. although you sometimes don’t know what goes through izuku’s head, it’s like he was in yours picking out this beautiful moonstone. 

you get down on the ground too, resting your forehead against his as you whisper out a yes.

“yes… yes, i’ll marry you, ‘zuku. any day, any time, because it’s you. i love you.” you kiss his lips over and over again, making him giggle and pull you even closer on this kindergarten class floor.

and you’re not sure if the moment is ruined or made better by bakugo opening the door to his class and letting hina & the other students loudly rush into the room.

fin.

[not-sewell]

The Pride Week at @wayhavensummer has begun and i guess i'm throwing in my hat too. 😬

belonging.

prompt: first pride (+ belonging)

pairing: Agent Morgan x f!detective (Arzoo Shafri) ft. Farah Hauville, Nate Sewell

word count: ~1200 words, phew.

rating: G

summary: Arzoo's choice to stay back with Morgan instead of going for Fun Timez at the Pride parade slips into a discussion about what pride means to Arzoo and why forgoing the parade it isn't as big a sacrifice as Morgan's made it out to be.

Farah is certainly...keen on attending the Pride celebration in the big city today. Morgan's not sure Farah's slept a wink since Tina mentioned it over a week ago. It's not like she needs the sleep but Morgan cannot help but give her a look of concern every so often.

"Will there be music too?"

"Ye—"

"What kind?"

"Oh, well—"

"You're coming too, right?"

"I—"

"Should I wear this? How do I look? Is this enough? Should I add more rainbows to my outfit?"

"You look grea—"

"You're coming, aren't you? Wait, will there be dancing? Are there going to be any carnival floa— can I get on one?"

"I don't remember seeing anything about that—"

"Oh no, wait, really? But you're coming along, aren't you?" Farah finished finally, looking between Arzoo and Morgan.

Morgan winces almost imperceptibly at the number of times Farah has asked that question. Almost . Morgan looks up to look at Arzoo and finds her gaze pass over her briefly. Huh.

"Actually," Arzoo begins to reply, "I don't think so." She speaks almost hesitantly. Like she's tasting the words before they leave her mouth.

"Not this time. I'm fresh out of my social battery," Arzoo explains at the sight of Farah's frown, punctuating it with a little, soft laugh.

Morgan catches her glance again. Okay, no way is this the whole truth now.

[find this on AO3 too!]

Farah lets out a groan in reply. "But Arzoo! We—"

"Will miss you thoroughly! But we understand if you don't want to join us. Right, Farah?" Nate slips in seamlessly, evidently having overheard the conversation. As always. The strained smile on his face attempting to communicate what he has to say about where this discussion is headed.

"We- we do! Yes!" Farah catches on quickly. "I'm so excited about this, though! So many years here, and you'd think I must've gone for one of these already. But there's always been something. The first year, I was obviously only just getting a hang of things here. I thought I should've been able to go, but people at the Agency didn't think it would've been such a good idea. And then the second year..." she continued, in an attempt to change the course of the discussion.

It is amazing how they think Morgan cannot see what they're all doing. And if she were being honest, endearing , even. She really wouldn't have minded being left alone for a while. She'd have taken a smoke on the roof for most of the time anyway. Arzoo shouldn't have to stay back for her...it's bullshit.

"We'll get you all the goodies though!" Farah's exclamation manages to catch Morgan's attention.

"You too, grumpy ," she utters the nickname purposefully, throwing in a nearly infuriating smirk for good measure. Morgan's discontent must've shown because Farah barks out a laugh before waving goodbye. Nate waits back a moment to cast a glance at Morgan, his smile slightly strained still. She only barely contains the spark of irritation it makes her feel.

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

"Seriously? You thought of packing your little painting set over a few more sets of clothes?" Morgan asks incredulously. They're making their way to the Warehouse roof, Arzoo carrying a box of art supplies as Morgan carries a heavier box; it contains pebbles, apparently.

"Not that I mind, though," she adds almost too quickly, a slightly forced smirk pasted on her face. Not even that seems to be able to defuse this odd...tension that Morgan senses between them. She knows what has caused it. It's quite unlike her but she cannot bring herself to address it. Not yet anyway.

Surprisingly, Arzoo doesn't seem to notice the strain in Morgan's words. A chuckle escapes her instead, and she swats at Morgan's arm.

"I only came over for the weekend, remember?" She looks over her shoulder before looking ahead. "And there's something about the view on the roof that I like."

Morgan lays her box down as they settle. "And you want to paint that on these pebbles?"

It's...not unheard of, but it's not really something that she thought Arzoo would enjoy doing. It's nice learning new things about her, though. She wants to do more of it each day she spends with her.

Arzoo only shrugs at the question. "The world is my canvas," she says with a smile.

Morgan watches as Arzoo begins to paint wordlessly. She watches the colours connect with a smooth pebble. She watches as they blend, unbothered. She watches as the colours meet the water in the old mug, finding their place there too. She watches as the colours transform every inch of the surface they touch, as though they belong there.

She watches Arzoo give in to painting. She's probably never sounded this relaxed. There is an ease about her movements that Morgan has never truly witnessed before. It's almost infectious, the calm. And something in Morgan itches to disturb it.

"You should've gone, you know," Morgan finally murmurs weakly. "It's something you've done for a while now and I think it's fucking stupid to sit back here because I find everything so prickly."

She huffs out a breath, and with it, leaves the weight she had felt all this while.

Arzoo looks up, a little taken aback – perhaps by the way Morgan chose to word the way she felt. And she frowns.

"What makes you say that?"

"It's clearly important to you. You may not always show it, but I know what it means for you to find a community," she explains, quoting Tina. "Isn't that what they always keep talking about anyway?"

"And what makes you think I don't find it here? With you?" Arzoo raises an eyebrow. She doesn't seem too bothered with the silence that follows either, choosing to search Morgan's face instead.

"Pride has been a lot more than simply finding a community to me," Arzoo begins with a sigh a few moments later. "That really simplifies what it means to me. It has been about belongingness – standing at the edge of the crowd and still feeling very much a part of it, about finding a place for yourself. It's the shared understanding and acceptance of each other. It is the way you feel connected with someone from this understanding. It is...like blending with and finding yourself in something so much bigger than yourself - without truly losing sight of yourself and the role you play."

She reaches out to hold Morgan's hand, a soft smile creeping on her beautiful face.

"More importantly, it is about finding comfort – comfort to accept yourself, comfort to just...be, to be unapologetically yourself." Arzoo's eyes twinkle, as though in anticipation of what she's about to say. "And I find all of this with you, Morgan. I am not giving up something when I'm with you. Not today. Not in this matter."

"And," she continues, with a smile that's now quickly becoming a smirk, "while it is true that I stayed back to keep you company, it is also true that I've run out of my quota for social interaction. But it's cute that you are so considerate of my feelings."

Morgan groans at that. "It's not cute ," she says, rolling her eyes, prepared to argue over it (and blissfully unaware of Arzoo's action of dipping her fingers in paint). "I'm not cute."

Arzoo gently runs her three fingers – dipped in pink, yellow and blue – snorting at the look on Morgan's face, whatever it is.

"Sure, you're not. Happy Pride, sunshine," she whispers, leaning forward to press their foreheads together.

A genuine smile makes its way onto Morgan's face too, who leans in further to press a quick but soft kiss on her lover's cheek. "To you too, sweetheart."

[textsfromthefifthbasement]

I finally finished MAZM: Phantom of the Opera! I’m leaving the review under the cut because it’s long and also spoilers for some elements of the game that aren’t in other Phantom adaptations.

General

First off, I loved the art style of the game. The character designs were quite adorable, and it definitely seemed like they made an effort to follow the original Leroux character designs. They had a blonde Christine and an olive-skinned, dark-haired Meg. I also thought they did a great job with Erik’s character design (though there was too much hair). The sets were beautiful. The majority of the main plot of the game does follow the Leroux book, which I really appreciated. There were some favorite moments in the book that I wish had been incorporated, such as Raoul waking up to find Erik watching him sleep (don’t judge I just find it freaking hilarious), but they incorporated so many other small scenes from the book, such as the managers trying to prevent Erik from taking his salary by using the safety pin. As a history nerd, I also really appreciated the collectible notes giving historical context to some of the discussions, including about three notes on the Paris Commune/Bloody Week. I wished the characters would have had different outfits rather than wear the same outfit the entire story. At the very least, I wished they had made a Red Death outfit for Erik during the masquerade.

I also want to point out and give a warning to anyone who has suicide ideation before they try this game. Pretty early on in the story, you play an episode in which you control Joseph Buquet after he’s dropped into Erik’s torture chamber, and eventually, you have to walk to the noose and pick it. The scene cuts right before he hangs himself. About partway through the story, when you control Christine, there’s a scene in which she has to talk Erik out of killing himself with a shard from a broken vase. At the end, when Christine and Raoul go down to Erik’s house to bury him, they found that he had committed suicide.

In all, I spent about 23 hours on the game from start to finish. I still need to go back and replay a few episodes to complete the achievements. I missed quite a few of the historical notes, and there are parts where you can make different decisions to influence what happens.

In this game, the studio added a lot of subplots that didn’t exist in the book and expanded on some canonical subplots as well. I did enjoy quite a few of these.

The Dancers

Meg, Jammes, and Sorelli are all major characters in the game, and I loved seeing them have more characterization and actual character arcs. Jammes, as a character, doesn’t change as much as the others, but she is only a child. As in the book, she is pretty frightened of ghost stories, strangers, and the Phantom, but in the game, she also loves and takes care of the stray cats living around the opera house and does turn into a bit of a spitfire when her friends are threatened by the various happenings at the opera. Sorelli has a knife and is not afraid to use it, and she comes to realize that her fear of being alone led her to stay with Philippe de Chagny in spite of the fact that he would never officially acknowledge her. Meg, in the beginning, seems afraid of her own shadow, but throughout the game, definitely comes into her own and also develops a much healthier relationship with her mother.

Union

This had to be hands-down my favorite subplot of the game. In the beginning, when Moncharmin and Richard first become the managers of the Palais Garnier, they mistreat Christine and mass fire anyone who mentions the Phantom of the Opera. When Christine goes missing for several weeks, Meg, Sorelli, and Jammes finally decide they have had enough and basically unionize the ballet dancers. There’s an entire protest, a performance in which the ballerinas refuse to perform, and they end up getting a promise from the managers to stop indiscriminately firing and mistreating people.

Christine’s Ending

GUYS. When I joked about Christine just traveling the world and performing instead I had no idea that was an actual choice you can make for her. It’s such a bittersweet ending, but I personally hope that one day she would have emotionally healed enough from her ordeal to come back to Paris and reunite with her old friends.

That being said, there were also a lot of additions/changes that I…really wasn’t a fan of.

Melek

So, for context. During Christine’s first stay at Erik’s house, she decides to do some exploring while he’s gone. While in his room, she hears a woman’s voice behind a wall and goes to investigate. She discovers a hidden door, and behind that hidden door is Melek. We find that Melek is a blind Turkish woman who had been one of Erik’s servants during his time in Constantinople. She had refused to marry him, and so he had kidnapped her and had kept her locked in that room for ten years.

Yes, I have a lot of problems with this.

I think the first thing is that when Melek was introduced is when I really realized that the game was never going to go in the direction of presenting Erik as a character who was sympathetic at times and not so much at others. The game had already painted him as a very unsympathetic character up until then through showing how he had gaslit Christine as the Angel of Music. Introducing Melek really drove that point home, which was kind of disappointing seeing as how the literal point of Leroux’s Le Fantome de l’Opera was that we should pity Erik for how he was treated because of his face.

Additionally, Melek’s character just…didn’t do anything. The more she was around, the more I wondered what the point of her character was. She does offer Christine support half of the time, and then the other half of the time is her being upset because Christine wants to change Erik rather than murder him. Ultimately, it’s my point of view that her character was not a great addition to the game and would have preferred a closer adherence to the book in that regard.

Hatim and PTSD

*sigh* This part seriously pissed me off. While Raoul and Hatim (the Daroga) are in the torture chamber, Hatim tells Raoul the story between him and Erik. We end up playing through a flashback of when Hatim discovers Erik living at the opera house ten years ago. As they discuss their past, we and Hatim quickly realize that Erik has PTSD, and mentioning the Shah of Persia is a serious trigger for him. Which, alright. That does make some sense story-wise.

And then through other flashbacks, Hatim proceeds to use this against Erik. Like he literally would trigger him purposefully as a punishment. And say that he was doing it for his own good.

Like, excuse me, but. What the fuck. What. The actual. Fuck. No. Don’t ever do that, that’s shitty.

Anyways by the end I was legitimately rooting for Erik to punt him.

Erik’s Ending

In the original Leroux novel, Erik presents Christine with a choice: turn the scorpion, and she will marry him, or turn the grasshopper, and the entire opera house will blow up. Christine chooses the scorpion, kisses him on the forehead, and he is so overwhelmed by the action that he saves Raoul’s life and lets them go together. The only promise he extracts from Christine is that she will come back and bury him when he dies, which he believes will be soon. Two weeks later, an ad runs in the newspaper that reads simply, “Erik is dead.”

Yeah. The game really went off the rails here in respect to following the Leroux book. After Christine turns the scorpion, Erik pulls Raoul into the lake and leaves him there, thinking he’ll drown or freeze to death, and then returns to force the marriage. He does eventually let Christine and Melek go, as Christine tells him that she will never love him and that she believes he is a monster, all while he is on his knees begging her just to love him a little. There is no forehead kiss. To the end, Erik writes and tells Hatim that Christine is the devil, and that she abandoned him in hell and wants her to suffer for the rest of her life knowing what she did to him. Yeah, I wish I was making that up.

There is one point where Christine tells Erik it’s not her job to save him. Which I agree with. I feel like whoever wrote the story had a misunderstanding of the ending of the book, or else thought the idea wasn’t explicitly stated enough. The forehead kiss does, in some respect, save Erik. It makes him realize how badly he’s treated everyone and yet Christine is still willing to extend kindness towards him. But it’s not Christine saving him, it’s him coming to that realization on his own. Ultimately, the game traded that idea for a way more heavy-handed “I am not here to save you, I am going to make my own decisions from here on.”

And then, in the face of all that, we’re also missing Erik changing and redeeming himself despite the fact that he’s close to death. Instead, he dies while leaving basically a suicide note to Hatim saying that Christine is the devil and he made her promise to return to bury him to hurt her. Which is so out of character if we look at the book characterization.

Like I knew I was signing up to get my heart ripped out, I just figured it was going to maybe be the brand of Christine having to choose whether or not to stay while Erik dies. And damnit, I just wanted a single forehead kiss.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the game up until the ending. I just seriously disliked the ending for the most part. If you’re more of a fan of the idea of Christine being on her own and finding her own path, that is an enjoyable option to go with. I still need to play through that episode with the marry Raoul choice and see what happens with that option though.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Jairsolas

Fantasy Masks AU: Chapter Six

A JSE Fanfic

*gasp* A POV change?! For the first time in this story?! How exciting! Yeah short description because I’ve had a long day as of queueing this, but basically we follow Marvin as he tries to track down the King. But instead, along the way, he meets someone new. And that’s all I have to say. Hope you enjoy :)

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The noble family Portmota lived on the edge of the Southern Moors, their castle built on the last bit of solid land before the rivers came in and flooded the south of the kingdom. Officially, their claim covered all of the Moors, but everybody knew that the Moors ran on their own, much like the mountain villages to the west and north. But the meagerness of their claim didn’t stop the family from building themselves a solid, grand castle. It sat on top of a small hill, surrounded by a thick stone wall. The castle’s multiple towers reached the sky, and were numerous to require a large staff to keep the place running for the noble family and any visitors they might have.

With such a large body of servants, it was easy to slip in unnoticed. They always accepted help, and as long as you didn’t appear troublesome, they’d immediately snatch you up and put you to work the moment you asked for a position, no interview needed. 

This was something Marvin found out first hand when he decided to infiltrate the castle in preparation for the King’s visit.

Maybe they needed help to clean up for said visit, maybe they were always like this, the result was the same either way. All Marvin had to do was show up on the grounds, dressed in ragged clothes, and he was immediately hired by the head servant. She didn’t even mind when he said he had to keep his cat nearby at all times.

Once he was inside, it only took him a few days to get a scope of things. Normally his sense of direction was terrible, but the servants were always being sent on numerous chores, so the castle’s layout quickly solidified in his mind. The cleaning and cooking was...hard, he had to admit. Unlike Jackie and Schneep, he hadn’t grown up doing chores, and taking care of things was a relatively new skill. He went to bed in the servants’ quarters exhausted. But this was a small price to pay for the opportunity that had presented itself.

He began to notice odd things about the castle. First of all, effort was put into cleaning and clearing every room in every wing, even the ones that had been sealed off so the heat wouldn’t escape into the winter air. Every candlestick was being polished, every tapestry dusted out. Why all the work? Unless...there was something big happening.

There were also a lot more people wandering around the castle. Visitors. Nobility, to be specific. An oddly high amount. Not that the nobility didn’t like to go see each other, especially for parties, but the Portmota claim was currently home to just one person: the Marquess Portmota, the eldest member of the family. Marvin knew all the other Portmotas were either traveling, or had married into other noble families and now lived with them. There were far too many visitors in the castle for one woman to entertain, even for something as important as a Longest Night celebration.

Not to mention the rumors circling through the servants’ ranks. News spread fast through this network, and soon, maids, cooks, and gardeners were muttering to each other about the King himself visiting.

Marvin tried not to get too close to any of these servants. It would just...get in the way. Sure, many of them were friendly to him, offering to share lunches or spend their breaks with him. But...no, it wouldn’t work out. It couldn’t. Besides, he didn’t need them. All he needed was his familiar, Draco.

He’d been in Portmota Castle for a week when the rumors started to buzz. The cleaning suddenly intensified, and the visitors to the keep began strutting about in their finest clothes. One night, to confirm his suspicions, he asked a laundress named Mina what was going on.

“Huh? You mean you haven’t heard? You haven’t seen?” Mina glanced about the laundry room where she was busy working. Seeing nobody else nearby, she leaned close to Marvin and whispered, “They’ve seen the King! Here!”

Marvin’s eyes widened in exaggerated surprise. “Really? Why would he be here?”

“Why would he be here? For the Longest Night celebration!” Mina chuckled. “Elders, Westley, you can be oblivious,” she said, calling him by the fake name he was going by.

“Oh. That makes sense.” Marvin glanced down at the floor. Draco was batting at a loose sleeve dangling from a laundry bin, so he quickly bent over and scooped him up before the cat could knock the whole thing over. “Who saw him? How’d they know it was the King?”

“A couple people. Teresa, Connor, Kelley. They saw a man fitting his description walking around, with the brown hair and slender build, and Teresa pointed out he was walking very purposefully. Dressed finer than all other lords who’ve come to visit.” Mina dumped some of the laundry into a washbasin as she talked. “Kelley got really close to him, too, when they were serving food in the hall. They said he had the royal green eyes.”

“Royal green. Wow.” Marvin pretended to be in awe, and made sure not to show off any of the burning anger smoldering inside him. “If he’s the King, where’s he staying? I don’t think any room here would be noble enough for him.”

Mina shrugged. “Nobody’s said yet. There are a whole bunch of new rooms made up for the visitors, hard to tell. It’s not like he’ll be hanging the royal crest on the door.” She glanced about the room again, then nudged Marvin’s shoulder with some urgency. “Oh no, Ursula is coming. Better get out of sight before she demands you stop standing around and start working.”

“Right.”

That conversation was abruptly cut short, but Marvin got a lot of information from it. Namely, that the King really was here. The detail about the royal green eyes sealed it. Yes, the royal family were once known for their distinctive shade of green eyes, but none of them had actually been born with the color in recent generations. Until the current king. Something like that wouldn’t be forgotten easily. Now the question was how to get close to him.

He spent two days trying to figure out which room the King was staying in, but in the end, the answer fell right into his lap.

It was early morning, and he was in the kitchen, kneading bread for the day. It was a task he often volunteered for; something about the kneading motion was very calming to him. Even if Draco wandered around and tried to get under the feet of every grumbling chef and baker.

With no warning, the door suddenly flew open, and a voice called, “Any of you lot free for a quick delivery?!”

Everyone looked over in unison. It was Ursula, the head servant. “Depending what the delivery is!” answered Everett, the head cook.

“We need a breakfast tray prepared quick!” Ursula demanded. “It’s urgent!”

The chefs and bakers muttered amongst themselves. “How urgent is it?” Everett asked.

Ursula huffed. “Very. One of the lady’s important guests ordered it. And we don’t wanna upset him.”

Marvin’s head shot up. Could it be...?

“Alright, don’t get your skirt twisted, Helendaugh,” Everett muttered, rolling his eyes. “We’ll make one up. But you’ll need someone else to bring it up. We’re all busy here, if you couldn’t tell.”

“No one else can bring it up! They’re all busy too! Sure, I could scout around for someone, but that’ll take too long! Do I need to repeat that he ordered it urgently? Or that we can’t upset him?”

Marvin slowly raised his hand. “Um...sir? If you give me a minute, I’ll be finished. I can do it.”

Everett gave his kneading station a once-over, then nodded, satisfied. “Alright, that’ll be just enough time to make up the tray. See, Ursula? Westley can do it, no problem.”

Judging by the tightness of her face and the way she was wringing her hands, Ursula still thought there was a problem. But she stepped back. “Okay. Westley, you’ll want to head up the central tower, all the way to the top room. Knock on the door, but don’t wait for a reply. Open it and slide the tray right in, then close it and leave.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

“Make sure you do. This is very important, for a very important guest.” Ursula took a few more steps back, right out the door. Then she shut it behind her.

Some time later, Marvin was practically running through the halls of Portmota Castle, Draco at his heels. The central tower was quite far away from the kitchens. Though...a tower room was odd. Most nobility preferred to stay in the keep itself, since towers got drafty, and walking up and down the stairs was rarely worth the view. Maybe the King was different? Eh. It didn’t really matter. The King wouldn’t be around long enough to enjoy that tower room.

Marvin stopped at the base of the central tower, breathing heavily. He quickly glanced around, but luckily, the area was clear of any servants or noble visitors. Good. He needed to be quick. He slid over to the wall and knelt down, putting the tray of food on the floor. There was a floor-length tapestry nearby, and he pulled it over his shoulders, partially hiding him from view.

Then he reached under his shirt and pulled out a pendant on a chain. A beautiful pendant, with its smooth, palm-sized emerald and silver frame looking too expensive for the rusted chain it hung from. Even though wearing it might give him away, he couldn’t bear to part from his magical focus. A wizard without a focus was like a painter without their paint. They couldn’t do anything without it.

Quickly, Marvin pressed two fingers to the surface of the emerald, which immediately started glowing. When he pulled his hand away, the glowing light stuck to his fingertips. He drew a rectangle on the ground with his fingers, leaving light behind like chalk on a board. Once the rectangle was fully formed, the middle of it faded away. Now, Marvin was looking at the inside of a small box. And inside the box were a few things. A small dagger, a bottle of brown glass, a coil of thread, a white handkerchief, and a candle. Marvin plucked the bottle out from the box. He reached for the breakfast tray—swatting Draco away in the process with a “No, not for you”—and pulled it closer. Then he unstopped the bottle, poured a few drops of the liquid inside onto all the food items, and stopped it again, putting it back inside the small box. Once the bottle was back in place, the glowing rectangle disappeared. The floor reappeared as solid stone once more, with no sign of the magical box that had just been there.

“Good,” Marvin said, grinning to himself. He pulled away the tapestry, picked up the food tray, and stood up. “Now for the most difficult part...the stairs.”

That statement was a joke—a joke for no one, really, since Draco was the only one around and he didn’t really understand human humor—but Marvin was definitely winded by the time he reached the room at the tower top. No matter how often he walked up stairs, no matter how frequently he’d done so in the past week, he still hated them. Maybe that said more about how fit he was than the design of the stairs themselves. Which made no sense, he’d spent the past few years running around the kingdom, surely he’d be more fit by now?

He was getting distracted. The room door was in front of him. Wooden. A fine door, but no more fine than literally any other door in the castle. Yet...the King was inside.

Following the instructions, Marvin knocked on the door, but didn’t wait for a reply before easing it open and setting the tray down on the floor inside. Draco almost poked his head through the gap, but Marvin pushed him back, then closed the door.

He waited for a few minutes. Expecting to hear movement inside. But there was nothing. Well...the room must have thick walls, then. With his task accomplished, Marvin turned back and headed back down the stairs, which proved much friendlier on the way down.

That poison worked quickly. By that night, they’d hear news of the King’s assassination.

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But that was not the case.

Marvin waited with anticipation, but nothing happened. There was no outcry of poison, no panic as the King’s lackeys were left unsure what to do. Things proceeded as normal. Leaving him confused. He was sure he got the dose right, and he’d made sure to poison all of the food on the tray. Hadn’t he?

The next morning, the exact same thing happened. Ursula barged into the kitchen, demanding a breakfast tray for an important guest. Everett said everyone was busy, and Ursula repeated the urgency. So, Marvin volunteered to deliver it again. Once he was alone, he took the poison from the hidden box and again dosed the food, making sure to add a bit more this time before putting the poison back and delivering the food to the top of the tower. He even had to push Draco back from the door again.

But still, nothing happened.

And when the same thing happened the next morning, Marvin was about ready to shout out “Am I going mad?!” But he didn’t, and instead played it cool. This time, Everett asked him to take the tray up ahead of time, expecting him to be able to. And of course, Marvin agreed, and secretly added even more of the poison. And of course, Draco once again tried to squeeze into the room at the top of the tower. Honestly, Marvin felt he should have more control of his familiar, but given how cats were impossible to order around under normal circumstances, he took Draco even listening to him as a plus.

When nothing happened the fourth day, Marvin began to suspect something unusual was going on. Perhaps someone tampered with the poison? No, that should be impossible. That box was buried in the ground, far away from Portmota Castle. He could only access it because of his magic. But...maybe? If he tried again today and the King still did not die, he’d try a different method.

So once more, he took the breakfast tray when offered, headed to a private area to get the poison out of the box, added yet more of it to the food, and trekked up the stairs to the room at the top of the central tower. He knocked on the door, then without waiting for a response, opened it to slide the tray inside.

And the instant the opening was big enough, Draco leaped through the gap and into the room beyond.

“Draco!” Marvin cried out, dropping the breakfast tray. Without thinking about what to do next, he threw the door open and rushed inside to scoop up his cat.

But of course, there was someone in there. Someone who’d been startled by the sudden appearance of an off-white cat, but was even more surprised to see someone run into the room after it.

Marvin skidded to a halt, looked around, and before he could even think about it, blurted out, “You’re not the King.”

The person inside slowly shook their head.

“Oh.” Marvin took a step back. Now that he wasn’t worried about his familiar jumping into the hands of the King, he gave the stranger inside a once-over.

The person—Marvin now recognized him as a man—looked a bit like the King, at a first glance. He had brown hair, as most people in the kingdom did, and was fairly thin. But he was shorter than the King was said to be, had a distinct, dark mustache, and most importantly, blue eyes. Not green. His clothes were fine, indicating nobility, but the style was a bit old fashioned. Like the black bow he wore around his neck, something that had gone out of style at least ten years ago.

Draco was sitting on a stool next to the man, looking very self-satisfied. Evidently, the strange man had started petting him right before Marvin barged in.

“Well...sorry, then,” Marvin said awkwardly.

The man smiled and shrugged. He gestured to Draco.

“Huh? Yes, sorry about him. And about barging in, I wasn’t thinking.” Marvin glanced around the room. “So...is the King going to be back soon?”

The man tilted his head, puzzled. And shook his head.

“Why do you look so confused?” Marvin took a minute to think. Then a possibility occurred to him. “Wait...is the King...not staying in these rooms?”

And the man shook his head again.

“Damn it,” Marvin whispered, barely audible. 

Honestly, looking around the room, he didn’t think this place was fit for a king, anyway. Certainly, it was noble. There were plush sofas and chairs sitting about, and a desk with a mirror and stool in the corner. The windows had thick blue curtains that one could pull over to cover the glass. And he could see two more doors, both slightly ajar and showing a bedroom and a bathroom. But...it was rather small, in all honesty. The furniture was pushed together, and the blue wallpaper looked a bit old. Not to mention it was cold, as well, with no fireplace. Marvin wished he’d thought to bring a cloak, but the one he owned was too fine, and he had to leave it behind while masquerading as a servant.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed,” Marvin said politely. “They said someone very important was ordering the breakfast trays so—wait, have you been eating that food?”

The man looked embarrassed, and shook his head again.

“No? Well it couldn’t just disappear.”

Now even more embarrassed, the man pointed towards the bathroom.

“You’ve been...dumping it in the lavatory?” Marvin realized, shocked. “Every day? Well no wonder you look so thin, then, if you’ve been skipping breakfast the whole time.” He then remembered the tray of poisoned food he’d brought, and dropped in the hallway. “Oh. But ah, might have actually been a good idea this time. I mean, the—if I’m being honest, it was all undercooked, anyway,” he lied. “And the one for today is all splattered now. Sorry.”

The stranger smiled good-naturedly. He nodded.

“Um...I’ll just leave now.” Marvin took a few steps backwards towards the door.

Hurriedly, the man shook his head, gesturing for him to stay. Meanwhile, Draco pressed his head against the man’s arm, demanding pets.

“Oh. Right. Draco, come on.”

Ears drooping, disappointed, Draco hopped off the stool and walked out the door. “Sorry about all this,” Marvin muttered, backing fully out of the room and pushing the door closed.

As it shut, he could have sworn the man inside had a very strange expression on his face. Something like disappointment and desperation mixed in one.

How...odd. Marvin hesitated, wondering if he should go back inside. But...maybe he’d misread the man’s face. That was far more likely than...whatever he just saw. Yes. He should turn his mind to more practical matters. Like where the King was actually staying, if not here. And getting someone to come up and clean the tray he’d dropped.

But as he retreated back down the stairs, he felt somehow regretful.

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The next day, the order for a breakfast tray came in, as usual. Marvin wasn’t sure about delivering it, but by this point, he’d volunteered enough that Everett and Ursula expected him to. After all, it was much easier to have one person do something than to constantly find someone new every day. So Marvin quietly took the tray and headed to the central tower once more. This time, he did not stop to poison the food along the way. Now that he knew the King wasn’t there, it wasn’t much use.

When he knocked on the door, it swung open before he could pull it open himself. The strange man from the day before was standing there, smiling and practically bouncing with excitement. He immediately grabbed Marvin and dragged him into the room.

“Whoa! Watch out, you’ll spill the milk!” Marvin quickly set the breakfast tray down on the nearby desk, making sure nothing had fallen off. He didn’t want to make another mess.

The strange man didn’t respond to that comment. He was kneeling on the floor, petting Draco. Much to the cat’s delight, of course. There was a lot of purring.

“Why’d you do that?” Marvin asked. “Pull me in, I mean. If you want to know if the breakfast’s good to eat this time, it is. I...um, checked. Did you just want to pet my cat?”

The man made a so-so gesture.

Marvin suddenly felt frustrated. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want?!” he snapped.

At that, the man stopped. He looked over at Marvin, then stood up. He was wearing another neck bow today, blue this time, and he silently pulled it down so that his neck was more visible. There, right in the middle of his throat, were two scars, arranged in a + shape. Clearly the result of some sort of surgery.

“Oh.” Marvin’s stomach immediately sank. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”

The man waved away his stammered apology with a small smile. It was clearly a sensitive subject, but since it was an accident, all was forgiven.

“Still, I...I’m very sorry. Ah...do you have something to write with, maybe?” Marvin suggested tentatively.

The man shook his head. He did that a lot, didn’t he?

“...nothing at all? What about in this desk?” Marvin wandered over to said desk, opening the drawers. But the man was right. There weren’t any quills or chalk to be seen. There wasn’t even any stationary, and Marvin knew that nobles were fond of keeping their own personalized paper nearby in case writing was needed. Instead, the desk’s drawers were mostly empty, only containing a few game boards and card decks.

As Marvin looked through the drawers, the man walked over to stand next to him, watching. When Marvin opened the drawer with the cards inside, he reached forward and quickly snatched up one of the decks. He turned to Marvin, grinning, and pointed at him, then at the cards.

“You...want to play cards?” Marvin asked, trying not to sound excited.

The man nodded.

“Well...I’m supposed to have chores, but why not?” Marvin grinned as well. “I have to warn you, I’m very good at Luck of the Deal.”

That only made the man smile wider. He guided Marvin over to the sofas and gestured for him to sit.

A couple hours passed before Marvin remembered he had more to do. Not just chores, but he also had to locate the King before the Longest Night celebration, after which he’d leave and return to Suilthair, the capital, and be untouchable. So Marvin hurriedly excused himself, but found himself leaving with a certain spring in his step. It had been a while since he’d sat down and played a few card games with someone. He...really missed it.

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Over the next few days, he and the man in the tower developed a routine. Marvin would take a breakfast tray up to the room, and the man would drag him inside for a few games. Cards, mostly, though they pulled out some of the board games, too. The breakfast tray would be mostly ignored, though Marvin tried to insist that the man actually eat it. The stranger was on the thin side, after all, he probably needed a meal. A bit odd to see a skinny noble, actually. They could definitely afford enough to eat. But Marvin wasn’t going to ask, in case it was sensitive, like the voice issue.

There were, however, other questions that he wasn’t afraid to ask. The first one came up on the second day of this routine. They’d finished their first game of cards—Enchanter’s Gambit, a shorter one—and Marvin had asked, slowly, “Can you tell me your name? I understand you can’t speak it, but there has to be something I can call you.”

The man paused in shuffling the cards, thinking. Then he set down the deck, stood up, and walked over into the bedroom. A few moments later, he returned, holding something. He handed it to Marvin.

“A handkerchief?” Marvin asked, turning it over in his hands.

The man pointed to one of the cloth’s corners. Marvin examined it, and saw a small design embroidered in gray thread. A rabbit, curled up and sleeping, surrounded by a circle of thorny plants. It was the sign of a noble family. But not just any family. One Marvin instantly recognized.

“That’s the Jairsolas crest,” he gasped. “But—that’s—a-are you a friend of theirs, or...?” He trailed off, not needing to finish his question. The man’s grim expression confirmed everything. “That’s...impossible,” Marvin whispered. “They’re all dead.”

More specifically, they’d been massacred. By the King and his forces.

The death of the Jairsolas family had been one of the earliest signs of how dangerous the King was. The Count and Countess Jairsolas had ruled over the small family peacefully, loved by the people of their land. When the King began demanding more warriors, when he began taking away royal funds from medicine and farming, they were one of the nobles who protested. Eventually, they refused to enact his royal decrees in their northern territory, saying they would not compromise the welfare of their people. They accused the King of swiftly becoming a tyrant. The King immediately proved them right by forcibly invading their land and killing the entire family.

And yet, even after this clearly unwarranted act, there were still nobles out there who stood by the King. There were still warriors who pledged loyalty to him and believed in his cause. There were even common people who repeated that the King was just and good, though that was usually because they were simply unaware of what was going on. The nobles and warriors, however, had no excuse. They continued to fawn over the King and happily harm innocents. It made Marvin sick just thinking about them.

“I’m...so sorry,” Marvin said quietly.

The man nodded slowly, sadness flashing in his eyes. He must’ve been a more distant relative, to survive the King’s attack. Marvin, unsure what to do, placed a hand on his arm, hoping the gesture would convey the sympathy he felt. The man patted it, and smiled a bit, indicating it was alright.

“Jairsolas is a bit cumbersome,” Marvin said slowly. “Can I call you...Jair? For short?”

The man nodded, eagerly accepting the nickname. He pointed at Marvin, raising an eyebrow.

“Me? I’m M—I’m Westley.” Marvin remembered his pseudonym just in time, and quickly changed the subject. “Want to play another round?”

For someone who couldn’t speak, Jair was very expressive, gesturing widely and exaggerating his facial movements. Marvin assumed that was necessary, to compensate for not being able to say anything. Though it was odd that there were no writing utensils or parchment in his room. That seemed like it would be helpful, and easy to acquire, too. But Marvin didn’t want to push the issue. Maybe it was just a preference. Or maybe Jair assumed Marvin, appearing to be a servant, couldn’t read much.

Despite the issues of communication, Marvin proceeded with his questions. About eight days after the first breakfast tray delivery, he got tired of Jair continually ignoring the breakfast. That was perfectly good food going to waste. “Why do you even order the trays if you don’t want to eat them?”

Jair looked up, a bit surprised to be asked this while the two of them were in the middle of a game of Fidchell. He indicated himself, then shook his head.

“You...you mean you’re not the one ordering them?” Marvin asked, confused.

Jair nodded, confirming this, and looked back down at the board, moving a piece.

“Wh—how’d you do that?!” Marvin spluttered, momentarily distracted. “I was going to move one of the warriors there—you just cut off my path!” He scanned the board. “How did you surround my king again?!”

Jair laughed silently, a breathy sound, clapping his hands in delight at winning another game.

Marvin scowled. Draco promptly jumped onto the sofa and knocked over the board, scattering the pieces. “Yea, take down that game. I’m shit at it, apparently.” He sighed, and grabbed the cat, moving him to the side. “Who’s ordering the breakfast trays, then? Can you tell them to stop? It’s enough work as it is.”

Shaking his head, Jair pointed at Marvin.

“I could find some other way to get up here.” Marvin paused, noticing Jair’s slightly uncomfortable look on his face as he went about collecting the knocked-over game pieces. “Can you...not tell them to stop?” He thought about it for a moment. “It must be someone higher ranking than you, then. That would make sense, and it would explain why they always said someone important ordered the trays. Heh. Is it the King?”

Marvin asked the question jokingly, but for a moment, Jair’s shoulders stiffened. Then he brushed off the question, laughing without sound again.

That...couldn’t be right, could it? Why would the King go out of his way to order breakfast for some random noble? And one related to the Jairsolas family, which he destroyed? It didn’t make sense. There must be some sort of lie or trickery involved. Maybe it wasn’t actually the King. Or the King didn’t know Jair’s true identity. Or Jair didn’t know what happened to the rest of the family. Something like that.

Either way, Jair was quickly putting away the Fidchell pieces and board, clearly wanting to move on. So Marvin dropped the subject for the day.

But he still needed information. The King was somewhere in the castle. Other servants had caught glimpses of him, but Marvin still hadn’t figured out where he was staying, or run into him at all. Longest Night was approaching. He was running out of time. So, he decided to ask Jair a few more questions.

“Have you seen the King around?” he asked one day over a game of Saelan checkers. “Apparently he’s in the castle for the celebration, but I haven’t seen the tail of him. Others have, though. What bad luck, huh?”

Just like the last time he brought the King up, Jair stiffened, and immediately denied anything with a shake of his head. He pointed to the board.

“Right.” Marvin moved one of the small stone balls that served as pieces, getting closer to the end goal at the other side of the board. He wasn’t too good at board games, preferring cards, but he was better at this than he was at Fidchell. “I suppose I shouldn’t assume you’d know, anyway. I was just curious. I’ve never seen him. Does he really have green eyes?”

Jair nodded, distracted by planning out his next move.

“It’s strange that none of us know what room he’s staying in. That’s why I assumed he was staying here, ha.” Marvin watched Jair’s face as he continued to talk. “Is he even staying on the castle grounds? I know it’s traditional and all, but I don’t know if anyone would stop him.”

Jair shrugged. This time, his response didn’t seem like avoiding the question, but genuinely not knowing.

“Do you...I’ve never seen you out in the castle,” Marvin realized. “Do you stay in these rooms the whole time?”

Squirming, Jair didn’t answer, instead focusing on jumping one of his pieces over two of Marvin’s, capturing the last one.

“That’s not good for you. Staying in all the time, I mean. Especially when you don’t have a fireplace here. And it looks like an old room, you’re probably breathing in dust all the time. You don’t have to go out and make conversation with others, or even go outside, but just walk around. Do you even go to the main hall for dinner?”

Jair leaned back and looked away, folding his arms.

“Oh. Sorry, I...didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Marvin said. “I was just...worried, I suppose. You don’t eat breakfast, you don’t go out, you don’t have a fireplace...it’s just...worrying. I’m...worried about...your health.”

Despite the clumsiness of Marvin’s statements, Jair looked touched. He patted Marvin’s hand and gave him a reassuring smile.

“If you’re sure you’re alright,” Marvin said reluctantly. “Try to take care of yourself, though.”

Jair placed his hand over his heart, suddenly emotional. He nodded, smiling. 

Had...no one ever said anything like that to him before? Had no one looked after him? Marvin felt something stirring deep inside his chest. A familiar ache. He’d...he’d never someone he could...well...relate to.

Marvin was supposed to ask more about the King, but he found he couldn’t go through with it today. He would try again tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The next day, Marvin arrived at the tower room a bit later than usual. It took them a bit longer to cook it today, since there was more food than the previous times. He hoped that meant Jair was planning to actually eat it, and not just feed pieces of sausage to Draco the whole time.

He knocked on the door, waited for a few moments for Jair to open, but when he didn’t appear, Marvin pulled open the door himself and walked inside. Huh. Jair wasn’t actually in the room. The bedroom and bathroom doors were closed, so maybe he was doing something in there. “Hello? I’m here,” Marvin called as he set the tray down on the desk. Something brushed against his legs, and he looked down to see Draco curling around his legs. “Hmm? What’s wrong?” Draco didn’t usually stick close to legs, not after too many occasions of people suddenly moving and tripping over him. And his tail was standing straight up, the fur all puffed out.

At that moment, the bedroom door opened, and Jair walked out. He waved at Marvin the moment he saw him.

“Tthere you are. I was wondering why you didn’t open the door.” Marvin glanced back down at Draco, still on edge, then back up. “Is everything alright?”

Jair nodded, waving away the question. He then walked straight over to the desk and started rummaging around the drawers, pausing for a moment to gesture at Marvin.

“Oh, I don’t want to do anything specific today. Maybe more cards?”

Nodding again, Jair pulled out one of the decks. While he walked over to the sofa and began shuffling, Marvin glanced around the room once more. Nothing looked out of place...what had Draco so spooked? He walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains, looking out the glass at the scenery. Clear skies ahead. On the ground below, there were...a lot of people in the surrounding open-air keep. More than he saw on the way over to the tower. That wasn’t too unusual, though. So Marvin closed the curtains again. “What were you doing?” he asked Jair.

Jair looked up at him, confused.

“I mean, you’re usually waiting for me. What was different this time?”

There was a slight pause. Then Jair shrugged. He pulled on the ends of his neck bow, tightening it, and followed it up with a so-so gesture.

“I don’t understand, what do you mean? Something about getting dressed?” Marvin asked. This whole thing felt...odd. Why did it feel odd? Was it just because Draco was still clinging to his legs?

Actually, Draco wasn’t just staying close to his legs. He was also staring at something, ears flat, a warning growl low in his throat. Marvin followed his line of sight...to the door they’d just come through. And...now that he wasn’t speaking, he could hear something underneath the sounds of shuffling cards. Faint, but growing louder.

Footsteps coming up the stairs.

Now why would someone be coming up the stairs? The only thing in the central tower were guest rooms. But most rooms were farther below, and the steps were definitely close enough to be heard. Meaning...someone was coming to this room. Why? Jair wasn’t exactly sociable. It could’ve been Ursula coming to get Marvin for chores, but...Marvin grabbed his amulet through his shirt, and his eyes lit up the smallest amount. No, he could sense more than one living person approaching. Quite a lot more, actually.

“Can I use your lavatory?” Marvin asked. He didn’t wait for Jair to nod before heading over and disappearing inside, closing the door behind him.

Just in time for the room’s entrance door to open, and for all those living people to fill the room. Accompanying the footsteps he’d heard before was the faint sound of metallic clanking, like...like chainmail. Or weapons.

Panic flooded Marvin’s mind. They’d discovered him, hadn’t they?! He had to get out of here! There was a small window in the bathroom, maybe just barely big enough to squeeze through. It was quite a drop to the keep below, but better than nothing. Marvin tried to break the glass with his fist, but only managed to crack it, so he pulled his amulet out and began to focus.

“Open up! We know you’re in there, traitor!” Bang bang bang bang bang!

“Damn!” Marvin cursed. They were knocking on the bathroom door. He didn’t have time to break the window, he needed to go through them! He whirled around—

The bathroom door slammed open, revealing three warriors wearing tunics with the royal crest. Marvin grabbed his now-glowing amulet and made a throwing motion. Light flung from his hands, hardening to stone as it hurled through the air, and three good-sized rocks hit each warrior in the chest, knocking them down. Marvin immediately bolted.

The small room was packed with other warriors, as well. Many were blocking his way to the door, armed with broad-bladed swords. Marvin threw more light to either side of him, and the warriors yelled as they tried to get out of the way of the suddenly-appearing rocks. For the ones in front, he pulled more glow from the amulet, forming it into a long, thin whip made entirely of green flame. He swung it around and many of the warriors scattered. Two stood their ground, acting quickly to pull circular shields from their backs and block the magic fire. But then Marvin was in front of them, his hands ablaze with more flame.

And then pain wrapped around his torso.

He looked down just long enough to register the black thorny vines wrapped across his chest before suddenly being yanked backwards. Pulled off his feet, he landed on his back and was dragged across the floor for some distance before suddenly stopping. He looked up and saw a face looking down at him. Unnaturally blue eyes. Pale blonde hair, stylishly curled around her face. And a few smattering of freckles, almost disappearing beneath a light layer of cosmetics. She looked as surprised to see him as he felt seeing her. “Marvin,” she said.

“Thalia,” Marvin scowled.

“I didn’t think it would be you. They said the servant’s name was Westley. Unless—you lied, didn’t you? Like you always do.”

“You’ve always been the liar.”

“No I haven’t. I’m always honest with everyone.”

“Nope. I know you haven’t told anyone about those secret visits to the mountains, have you?” Marvin laughed at Thalia’s surprised expression. “That was hard to find out, but I immediately recognized your handiwork. Burning the stone? Really? Talk about excessive.”

“Shut up,” Thalia snapped. She reached up and touched a silver-and-ruby broach pinned on her tunic. Her focus. Her eyes lit up. “I’m the one in charge now.”

“No you’re not.” Marvin grabbed his own focus, flicking the light from it up into her face. Thalia yelped as the glow turned into liquid and went into her eyes, and she lost concentration on the vine spell. Marvin shot up and looked around the room again. Now counting, there were ten warriors. One of them was holding his cat-shaped mask. Damn it! They went through his belongings and found it. He could have left it behind, but he brought it in case something happened and he needed it. Clearly that hadn’t been worth the risk.

All of the warriors were strategically blocking his ways out. The window, the door out, the doors to the bathroom and Jair’s bedroom—

Wait, Jair?! Where was he?!

Marvin didn’t have to look far. Jair was sitting in the exact spot he’d last seen him. On the sofa, having not moved a finger since the warriors and Thalia entered. His eyes were fixed downward, his hands clutching the deck of cards tightly in his lap. Marvin blinked. “Jair, what are you—”

Fog suddenly filled the room, unnaturally quickly, blinding him in seconds. Marvin whirled around, lighting up his amulet to try and see through the mist. 

Dark figures lunged out of the fog and grabbed at him. Shouting, Marvin threw the light in a circle, turning it to green flame again. Several people cried out, and the fog lifted as the fire burned through it. Marvin saw the surrounding figures of the warriors, and then someone lunged at him from behind, wrapping legs around his and pulling his hair.

He yelped. “Thalia! Get off me!”

“No, give me that focus!” Thalia demanded, clawing at the chain around his neck.

“Die in freezing!” Marvin tried to grab his amulet, but that was a bit difficult while the chain was strangling him. He had to divert effort to giving himself room to breathe. “Who jumps on someone’s back?! You’re thirty years old!”

“You’re the one acting like a child! You stole that, I recognize it!”

“It was mine, too!”

After a few moments, the combination of struggling and the weight on his back caused Marvin to fall over, bringing Thalia down with him. The moment he was down, five of the ten warriors lunged forward, pinning him. He struggled, but there were just too many. Then Thalia pulled once more on the chain holding his amulet, and it broke. She backed away, holding the amulet upward in triumph.

Out of nowhere, there was a yowling sound. Thalia screamed as a streak of off-white fur ran at her and began clawing at her leg, tearing through her trousers while spitting and hissing. Instinctively, she kicked, and the ball of fur went flying across the room.

“Draco!” Marvin cried, managing to push free of the warriors for long enough to see his cat stand up again. “No! Get out of here!”

Draco wailed, then hissed, ready to attack despite being outnumbered by eleven tall humans.

“No! Out! Run!” Marvin’s magic was quickly fading without his amulet within reach, but he had to get Draco to safety. He looked Draco in the eyes from across the room. His flickered blue for a moment, and Draco’s eyes glowed for a second in the matching shade. Marvin sent the image of a safe place to go through the connection he had with his familiar, and followed it up with instructions on how to get there.

Reluctantly, Draco turned...then bolted, weaving in between the legs of the warriors in a sudden burst of speed. Once he reached the door, an unnatural wave of strength overcame him, and he pushed it open and disappeared. The warriors cried out, but Thalia called, “Let it go! It can’t do much!” She looked down at Marvin. “Really? A cat? Why not bond with something more useful, like a dog?”

“Fuck you!” Marvin shouted, and lunged at her.

Then a warrior brought the hilt of their sword down on the back of his head, and everything went black.

[toomanyrobins]

a little birdie told me pt. 7

Summary: Y/N “Birdie” Parker left New York and her family three years ago in the middle of the night. Now, a call for help to her best friend brings her back into the fold of the Three Families and their “business”

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Parker!Reader

Content warning: physical abuse, miscarriage, cursing, mentions of forced marriage

Word Count: 2.3k

Notes: thank you to @firefly-graphics for the team cap divider! Makes my life much easier! 💛 

Series masterlist // next part

The next morning, Steve heard someone clearing their throat. He opened his eyes to see a familiar face standing at the foot of his bed with his arms crossed. “Peter, what the hell are you doing?”

“What the hell am I doing! What the hell are you doing? Why is my sister in your bed?”

Steve looked down and saw Y/N burrowed under the sheets. He knew she hadn’t been sleeping well and hated to wake her up. “Let’s go talk in the kitchen.” he put on the coffee maker before turning back to his fuming friend, “Birdie stayed over last night after I had to rush home because Jaime was sick. She stayed to help with him and we fell asleep.”

The tension started to leave Peter, “Oh, is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. Look, I get that you’re especially overprotective since Y/N came home but if she had woken up first and saw you, she would’ve been pissed. We are both adults and don’t deserve to be treated like criminals for what we decide to do.”

“You’re talking like something might happen.”

“Do you want to hear it?” Peter nodded, “Yes, I like your sister. She’s amazing and I enjoy every second I spend with her. I don’t care about her past and I hope she doesn’t care about mine. We both have made choices and we live with the consequences.”

“You like my sister...how long?”

“I don’t know. She used to just be your sister, the other half to the problematic duo that was her and Becca. Since she’s been back, something has changed.”

“Is this your savior complex?” Peter scoffed at the scandalized look on Steve’s face, “Don’t look like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Before I grew up, I was as strong as a limp noodle, and you and Bucky were always there to pull someone off of me. I just want to be sure you actually want Y/N because she’s Y/N and not because you think she needs saving."

“This isn't like you picking fights with guys double your size. I’m not doing this to hurt you, Parker. But whatever relationship I choose to have will be between us and I hope you can understand that. Because I won’t be the one to make her choose.”

“I hate you a little bit for this,” he ran a hand through his already unruly hair, “I kind of want to punch you.”

“Well Bucky punched Sam when he proposed to Becca. If I get that far, you can punch me.”

“Fine,” Peter took the cup of coffee Steve gave him. “So, when are you going to tell her?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I’m scared she’ll say she’s not interested.”

“Well, I’d do it fast, before someone else notices how great she is.”

The duo decided to switch over to discussing some business, until they heard some noise coming from the baby monitor. Peter knew he should leave Y/N woke and made a quick escape. Steve walked back into his room, opened the curtains, and put a cup of coffee on the bedside table closest to Y/N. He peeled the blankets back and shook her softly. The only response he got was a grumble and her burying her face in the pillow. He decided to grab Jamie and let her slowly start to wake up. The baby at least was happy to see him that morning and kept saying dada over and over again. Steve brought Jamie into his room like he did every morning and put him on the bed next to Y/N. He immediately started to climb on top of her, wanting attention. “Sweetheart, you have to wake up. We have a visitor.”

“What?” The throaty morning voice that she spoke with sent shivers down Steve’s spine. She slowly sat up and kissed Jamie.

He handed her the mug. “A guy could get used to mornings like this: coffee, baby, and a pretty girl.”

Her face grew warm, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to crash so hard.”

“No need to apologize. We were all tired. Drink your coffee and I’ll drop you off on my way to the Ivory.” The trio moved slowly, enjoying the lazy morning. It hit Steve how comfortable and easy this morning was and that he wanted this to happen again. Their eyes connected in the mirror and she smiled at him. He spun around, “Would you be my date to the holiday party?”

“You want me to be your date?” Steve nodded and she bit her lip, “Yeah, I’d really like that, Stevie.”

He groaned, “What have I said about calling me that?”

“Follow through and I’ll stop.” He chuckled at her cheeky response and finished getting ready. They managed to get out the door on time and while she was bent over buckling Jamie in, she felt a sting on her ass. She whirled around, shock painted her face, “Did you just spank me?”

“You told me to follow through. I’m just doing what I’m told.” Steve walked to the driver’s side, leaving Y/N standing beside the car, a smile on her face.

A week later, Y/N walked into Steve’s apartment, garment bag draped over her arm, make up and hair already done. They had agreed that she would come over to help with Jamie and they would finish getting ready together. All of them would be spending the night in rooms at the Ivory since this party was known to get rowdy. She was glad to see that their overnight bags were packed for the night and she put hers down as she called out for him. “I’m in the bedroom!” She found him standing in the center of the room in just his trousers and unbuttoned dress shirt. He had a look of deep concentration, his tongue peaking out between his lips as he struggled with his shirt. Y/N laid her dress on the bed before Steve threw his hands up, “Can you help me with these damned cufflinks?”

She laughed at his struggle, laying her things on his bed and taking his sleeve in her hands. “I can’t believe you still are wearing these things.” They had been a gag gift from her their first Christmas after he became her guard. She had bought him Tweety Bird cufflinks and told him that he would always have a little birdie with him even if she ran away from him. She switched arms, “How did you get anything done before me, Rogers?”

Steve looked down at her, “I’m not quite sure, Birdie.” She stepped closer to him and started doing up the buttons of his shirt like it was a common practice between them. He held his breath, worried that the intimate moment would end if he made any quick movements. When she reached the top, she smoothed his collar down, her fingertips grazing his neck. She put her hands on his chest and smiled up at him, “There. Now I’m sure you’re capable of tucking your own shirt in. Yes?”

He simply nodded, worried at what pitch his voice would come out. Y/N grabbed her dress and walked into the en-suite bathroom to change. Steve took a deep breath, his skin burning where her fingers had brushed. He walked into his closet, trying to decide on which tie to wear. His decision making was interrupted by his name being called again, “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Could you zip me up? I can’t get it.” Steve cursed up his breath, this girl was going to be the death of him. He walked into the bathroom and got the first look at the dress Y/N had been hiding from him. She spun around, letting the skirt swirl, “Worth the wait?”

“You look gorgeous.” Y/N blushed at his compliment and turned around so that he could zip her up. He purposefully took his time, dragging his finger along her back even after he reached the top of the zipper. When he reached the base of her neck, he left a lingering kiss where his hand stopped and walked out without another word.  She let forehead come to rest against the cool countertop as she tried to get her hormones under control. The two of them had been playing this cat-and-mouse game for too long and it was leaving the both of them incredibly sexually frustrated.

Y/N had picked Steve’s tie to match her dress, ignoring his smirk when she chose it. He put everything in the car and the trio drove over to the Ivory. Steve’s hand found its way to rest on her thigh as she sang along loudly to the Christmas music on the radio. They handed the keys to the valet and made their way up to their adjoining rooms. Steve and Y/N quickly dressed Jamie up in his little suit that was too almost too cute to handle. She pulled on her heels and straightened his tie before they made their way down to the ballroom and marveled at the expert work that had been done. Tony and Pepper had decided on a White Christmas theme and the decorations were done to recreate the final scene of the movie. Giant trees were in every corner of the room and garland was strung across the room. An orchestra in the corner was playing music and everyone was in their finest outfits. They greeted their families and everyone was passing around well-wishes. They were complimented on what a striking pair they made and She tried to hide how flustered she was by Steve’s hand coming around to her waist and pull her closer.

Suddenly, Y/N heard her name being called. She spun around and groaned when she realized it was Alice Jones calling for her. That bitch had made her life hell in high school and the last thing she wanted to do was make small talk with her gang of women. She threw her shoulders back, plastered a fake smile and made her way over. Alice greeted her with a kiss of both cheeks, making Y/N roll her eyes internally. All of the women greeted her like they were old friends.

It did not take long for each woman to be trying to up the other of how great their lives were. Thousands of dollars worth of jewelry was flashed as they bragged about their husbands and fiances. Suddenly all of the women were looking past Y/N and fixing their appearances. She looked over her shoulder, confused, and realized that Steve was coming their way. He nodded quickly at the women before turning to Y/N, “Could you take Jamie for me? I need to discuss some things and his cuteness is a distraction.”

“Of course. Give me my little man,” she made grabby hands and Steve handed the baby over, who was all too happy to be with her. He babbled away as he played with her necklace.

The blonde gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, “Thank you for this. I shouldn’t be too long.”

When Y/N turned back to the group, they were all looking at her like she had grown another head. She laughed awkwardly as they bombarded her with questions. She tried to answer them gracefully and without giving away any actual information. No one but she and Steve were entitled to know what they were to each other and if she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t even sure where they stood. They had become incredibly close since she had been back, even more than before and it seemed that they were both waiting for something to push them over the edge and it never seemed to come.

She let her eyes roam over the ballroom. Indy and Peter were off to one side looking like they were discussing something serious as she tried to get him to put down his drink. George and Tony were off to the side speaking with the latter’s old friend, Colonel Rhodes. She watched Steve shake a man’s hand and then walk over to the bar and start talking to Bucky. Alice placed a hand on Y/N’s bare arm, drawing her attention back, “Well we are so glad to see that you’ve finally settled down,” The group of women tittered away, “I mean I remember in high school how all over the place you were. A nightmare! You’ll have to tell us how little old you managed to snag Steve Rogers.”

Y/N smiled at Alice, “Well I suppose I was a bit all over the place. Not all of us can spend so much of our time in one place on our knees. If you ladies will excuse me.” She quickly made her escape and headed towards the bar. Y/N’s attention was drawn away by Steve and Bucky, who quickly traded her a drink for Jamie when he saw the stormy expression on her face. “What a loathsome bitch.” Steve snickered at the disdain in her voice and looked over to see that the group of women was watching them. He leaned over to whisper in her ear, partially shielding her from their gaze. He was sure it looked like he was whispering dirty secrets to her and it wouldn’t take much for him to start. They had been swirling through his head all night. “You’re an amazing woman. Don’t let them get to you.” Her grip slowly relaxed on the champagne flute and Steve nodded as he ran his fingers along her spine, “Good girl.” Y/N tried to hide the fact that the praise from him had any affect on her, but he knew her and noticed the slight shiver that ran down her back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@founding-fuck-bois

@animegirlgeeky

@inlovewiththefictionalcharacters

@directorsnarrative

@marvelofwitch

[flufflepuffle296]

Heathers au: Beautiful Songfic

This is more centred around Veronica/Marinette so not really any mentions of Heather/Heather/Heather. Sorry if someone’s done this before I apologise I just got into Heathers like two days ago. Also I changed some lyrics and took others out to make it more “realistic”. Sorry I suck at endings, it’s 5:30am rn and this is my first fic so be nice please! (I’m on mobile so I can’t add the keep reading tag so sorry if you don’t like this) xxx

I brushed down my dress: I couldn’t give them anything to criticise me over. Everything had to be perfect. I had to be perfect. Chloé sat next to me, my beautiful fiancée, slipping on her kitten heels. She may be 3 months pregnant but no Bourgeois woman would be seen wearing flats. I was in a red floor length a line dress — I grew out of my childish pink years ago, before it even went out of fashion! My hair was twisted into two plaits that were knotted together into a stylish bun at the back. Chloé meanwhile had stuck to her white and gold aesthetic, currently in a slim fitting white dress, showing off her small baby bump, decorated with gold jewellery. I rummaged through my drawers, trying to find a lipstick, when a thin book toppled out. I picked it up, and laughed fondly when I saw what it was.

My old Collège and Lycée diary.

I flipped through it, landing on the page that stuck most clearly in my mind. It was the day my class reminded me of my current reality at that time, shocking me out of a bubble that had surrounded me during the summer holidays that year.

September 1st, 1989.

Dear Diary: I believe I'm a good person. You know, I think that there's good in everyone, but—here we are! First day of senior year!

And uh... I look around at these kids that I've known all my life and I ask myself—what happened?

I bit my lip. What happened? I knew darn well what happened. Lila Rossi. She came in, flaunting her friendships and connections, a new disability every other week to cry about, another rumour about me coming out every 3 days.

Alya ended our friendship, Adrien continued to cry about Lila’s feelings. Lila just kept doing what she did best. The class gave up on changing my mind and instead decided that calling me names would be better. Because logic?!

“Freak!” “Slut!” “Burnout!” “Bug-eyes!” “Poser!” “Lard-ass!” Were the insults they liked to yell daily. Yeah, they weren’t the most creative...

We were so tiny, happy and shiny. Playing tag and getting chased. Singing and clapping, laughing and napping. Baking cookies, eating paste.

Nino and Kim used to come over to the bakery when we were kids, where we’d gorge ourselves on sweets, before celebrating our sugar rushes by chasing each other in the park and then crashing on my sofa, cuddled in blankets and laying on top of each other.

Then we got bigger, that was the trigger. Like the Huns invading Rome. Welcome to my school, this ain't no high school: This is the Thunderdome. Hold your breath and count the days, we're graduating soon. College will be paradise, if I'm not dead by June!

But I know, I know, life can be beautiful. I pray, I pray for a better way. If we changed back then, we could change again. We can be beautiful...Just not today.

I scoffed at my optimism back then. Them changing? They never did, I don’t know why I bothered trying at that point. I should’ve moved on but hey! We all make mistakes. It’s just that sometimes you make 11 friendships worth of mistakes.

“Freak!” “Slut!” “Cripple!” “Homo!” “Homo!” “Homo!”

I cringed as I read their old “insults”. They would write homophobic messages across my locker, getting Alix to spray paint a few slurs across my work after I came out as bisexual.

Things will get better soon as my letter comes from Harvard, Duke, or Brown. Wake from this coma, take my diploma. Then I can blow this town. Dream of ivy-covered walls, no smoky French cafés. Fight the urge to strike a match and set this dump ablaze!

I had purposefully sent out applications to universities far away from these people, from Paris. All three schools accepted me, something I can’t say about my classmates, most of whom were rejected for essays on false information (sourced by Lila) and a quick scan over the Ladyblog meant not a single newspaper would even consider my ex-best friend. Gabriel Agreste, as I later found out through my internship in America, had to bribe several schools with double tuition to get even one to accept Adrien, after he got exposed as sexual harasser and disgraced hero “Chat Noir”. I turned back to my diary, having to peel off rock hard gum from the page that someone had smeared in “revenge”.

Le Chiên Kim. Third year as linebacker and eighth year of smacking lunch trays and being a huge dick.

“What did you say to me, skank?” He would yell, his fist raised in the hallway.

“Aah, nothing!” I then cowered. I may be Ladybug, but he was 150lbs of pure rage. No one can compete with that!

But I know, I know... Life can be beautiful. I pray, I pray, For a better way. We can be beautiful...

“Marinette! Wide load! Honnnnnk!”

He was the smartest guy on the football team. Which is kind of like being the tallest dwarf.

“Hey! Pick that up! Right now!”

“I’m sorry, are you actually talking to me?” He used to snarl, his hands covered in sauce from knocking my tray.

I stood my ground, I had been practising for this moment. “Yes, I am. I wanna know what gives you the right to pick on me. You're a high school has-been waiting to happen. A future gas station attendant.”

Kim then smirked, crouching down to eye level and pressing a finger to my forehead. “You have a zit right there...” he pointed out, causing the cafeteria to laugh at my expense.

I used to ask myself “Why... Why do they hate me?”

And hear Adrien whisper “Why don't I fight back?”

Watch as Max Googled “Why do I act like such a creep?”

Listen in on Lila stamping her feet in the bathroom asking “Why won't he date me?” Clearly frustrated.

Kim panicking as he wondered “Why did I hit him?”

And Chloé sob down the phone “Why do I cry myself to sleep?”

I would stay up late, screaming, begging. At my lowest points I would cry out “Somebody hug me! Somebody fix me! Somebody save me! Send me a sign, God! Give me some hope, here! Something to live for!”

I remember when I first met my real friends. The famed trio had gone into the bathroom and I followed after them, clearly my throat.

“Who are you?”

“Uh... Marinette Dupain Cheng. I crave a boon”

“What boon?” Chloé asked, filing her nails.

“Um. Let me sit at your table, at lunch. If our class think that you guys tolerate me, then they'll leave me alone...”

Chloé threw her nail file out and began circling around me, running her hands through my hair, commenting that “For a greasy little nobody, you do have good bone structure!” Before coming to a conclusion.

“And ya know, ya know, ya know? This could be beautiful. Mascara, maybe some lip gloss, and we're on our way. Get this girl some blush; and Kagami, I need your brush. Let's make her beautiful.” Sabrina and Kagami, chimed in, echoing her words.

“Let's make her beautiful...”

“Let’s make her beautiful...”

“Make her beautiful...Okay?” Chloé ordered, dragging me out with Kagami and Sabrina, driving me to her hotel. They sat me down, taking my hair out of its bunches and brushing it out. Kagami painted my nails a deep navy with surprising precision, manning my cuticles. Sabrina twirled my hair into a high bun, leaving a few pieces at the front to frame my face. Chloé came back from her wardrobe, throwing a blue blazer and grey skirt at me. I changed into my outfit for them, to which they clapped their hands in glee. They dragged me back to school, taking in everyone’s reactions to the new and improved me. This became my new daily outfit for the rest of the year — the class couldn’t find anything bad about it, and even if they did Chloé would threaten them with her father’s power.

I was happy with my squad. Kagami taught us Japanese and Chloé taught us American English that she’d picked up from her mother. I taught them self defence, under the guise of learning it from my mum, unknowingly training them for the day I would rip Chat Noir’s miraculous from him, before slamming it into Kagami’s palm. I needed help that day, so thrust them bee and the fox miraculous at Chloé and Sabrina respectively. They became permanent heroes, Kagami under the name “Noirette”, Chloé under the new guise of “Buttercup” and Sabrina “Renard Rouge”. Akuma attacks have never lasted more than 15 minutes since we got rid of that alley cat, and we’ve been closing in on Hawkmoth recently.

I shook my head, snapping the crude book shut, throwing the diary in the bin. Today was going to be the day I made peace with all that happened, our 10 year school reunion. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna make up with anyone, just that I will finally leave everything behind. I found my lipstick and smeared on the crimson lip, smacking my lips together. I grabbed my clutch and helped Chloé stand up, though she wobbled a little in her heels. I slid her miraculous into her updo, blowing a kiss at her as to not ruin her makeup.

We met up with Kagami and Sabrina in the hallway, Kagami in a wine red suit with gold jewellery, and Sabrina was in emerald green to compliment her red hair. We stepped into the limo awaiting us outside and set off, arriving at the school 10 minutes later. We walked up the steps, hitching up our dresses and arrived in the courtyard. It had been lit up with fairy lights, with stands of food and drinks scattered around the court. Our old classmates were huddled in small groups, whilst Mlle. Mendeleiev’s was in a large group, enjoying each other’s company after 10 years apart.

No one noticed us, until Rose pointed at me and whispered “Who’s that with Chloé?” The group turned to stare at us, trying to place my face. Adrien looked up from talking to Lila, who seemed to be flaunting a rather tacky Gabriel engagement ring, and whispered,

“Marinette?!”

The class began gossiping amongst themselves, “Marinette? Marinette? Marinette?!”

I ignored them, their childish ways were behind me, and walked up to Aurore and Mireille, fawning over their relationship. They turned Kagami, asking her about her life and squealing over her Olympic medal for fencing. I grinned as I watched my old class, happy that they had moved on from each other — well apart from Alya and Adrien, who were still hooked on Lila. I was finally, content! I thought back on my diary, one particular paragraph standing out to me at this time.

And you know, you know, you know, life can be beautiful. You hope, you dream, you pray, and you get your way! Ask me how it feels, lookin' like hell on wheels...My God, it's beautiful! I feel so beautiful... And when you're beautiful...It's a beautiful frickin' day!

Chloé boasted my achievements, my business, my awards, and the entire of Mendeleiev’s class started chanting “Marinette! Marinette! Marinette!”, much to my embarrassment. I boasted her’s in return, Sabrina revealed how far she’d come as a lawyer, Kagami swung her prized sword from side to side as she listened to us all catching up, laughing at the memories.

It really was a beautiful day.

[primatechnosynthpop]

Wow! Against all odds, I finally got around to actually writing the follow-up to I'm Gonna Be The Anti-Hero that's existed exclusively in my head for months! Well uh here it is :3

---

The secret underground room beneath Plymouth rock was dark and silent as always, save for the faint dripping of water through a crack in the ceiling. It figured that, after living there for countless centuries, the structural integrity would finally begin to erode. That dripping sound, although highly irritating when it first started a month or so ago, had now settled into background noise which John Smith paid no attention to. He was a pilgrim, not a witch; it wasn't like the water could hurt him.

Then again, he realized a few moments too late one rainy spring day, perhaps he should have reevaluated that statement. He was minding his own business sitting in his chair and reminiscing about the very old days (that was the only thing he could really do anymore, slowly decaying as his body was) when the soft and steady dripping suddenly escalated at an exponential rate into what sounded like a small waterfall. He turned his head to see a semi-transparent humanoid figure taking shape out of the water pooling in the corner--strangely tinted red, as though the water were mixed with blood. As the old pilgrim watched, jaw agape, the figure strode purposefully toward him, taking on a more solid form as it did so.

"What are you doing here, intruder?" John Smith demanded, one hand tightening around the hilt of his sword while his other hand reached behind his back to fumble for his musket.

"This secret underground room isn't government sanctioned," the stranger hissed. (Although... was he a stranger? John Smith somehow felt that he'd seen this youngster once before, but he couldn't quite place where or when.) "And you have no official identification registering you as a legal citizen. Not to mention, you haven't been paying taxes... disgraceful."

Before John Smith had the chance to concoct a retort or draw either of his weapons, the masked man's hands were around his throat and crushing his windpipe with a force that could only be driven by an inhuman amount of bloodlust. And within seconds, the life of a pilgrim that had been extended for centuries past its expiration date was finally put to an end.

*

"I can't believe they want us to make a clown movie at a time like this."

"I can believe it," Neil replied without looking up from the shopping list in his hand. "The studio wants a lot from us, remember? They're not going to care how sad we are. Anyway, it's been four months--" The emotions bubbling up within him refused to let his voice stay level, so he gritted his teeth and hissed out the rest of his sentence rather than let himself start crying in the middle of the dollar store. "We should be over it by now."

"Neil..." Kevin began in the way he'd often addressed Neil over the past few months--brow furrowed, voice edged with an obvious and vaguely patronizing concern--only to trail off and shake his head with a sigh. Apparently he'd finally given up on trying to make Neil feel better, which was just fine by him, because things are never gonna go back to the way they were before and it's my fault and I don't deserve to feel good about it.

"Anyway, we've got what we came for," Neil muttered, waving his hand in the general direction of Kevin's shopping basket without looking him in the eyes. "Let's go."

At the checkout counter, the cashier frowned and shook her head when Neil offered her a five-dollar bill. "Sorry," she told them, "But all this is going to cost $29.99."

"What? But we don't have that kind of money!" Neil lamented. "And we got this stuff from the clearance section... plus this is the dollar store, so shouldn't everything just cost a dollar?"

For a visual aid as he spoke, he grabbed one of the items they were ringing up--a bargain pack of multicoloured clown wigs--and shook it in the cashier's face. Apparently unmoved by his bargaining, she pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

"Maybe you should have checked the price tags first, sir."

"Huh? But, but..." Neil trailed off when he looked down at the price tag on the item in his hands. The bright orange tag had the original price, $7.50, crossed out and replaced with $2.35... but then below that, scribbled in tiny and barely legible font, it read "just kidding, it's actually eleven dollars now." "Aw, man," he groaned, tossing the pack down on the conveyor belt and sticking his hands in his pockets. "Just our luck."

Kevin had a thoughtful look in his eyes while he drove them home empty-handed. When he pulled up outside the clubhouse a few minutes later and they climbed out of the truck, he suddenly laid a hand on Neil's shoulder.

"Say, Neil, let's not get discouraged," he said. "I've got another idea for how we could get our hands on some props."

"Really?" Neil asked, perking up despite himself. "How?"

"Well, I think--" Kevin broke off as unexpectedly as he'd started, encouraging smile briefly dipping into a grimace. "...You know what, I'll take care of it myself. You can hold down the fort here, okay? I won't be long."

Neil's brow furrowed. "Okay, but what are you...?"

Without explaining himself any further, Kevin clapped him firmly on the back, hopped back into his truck, and drove off. Neil watched him recede down the road with bewilderment. Being all secretive like that wasn't like Kevin... Unless he's trying to protect me from something, he realized with a twinge of bitterness. That would be just like him, the way things had been recently. Ever since the past winter, and what had happened with Ryan, Kevin's latent big-brother-ish tendencies had escalated; now he watched over Neil like a hawk and freaked out every time he so much as stubbed his toe. Under different circumstances Neil would have relished being fussed over, but now it was more annoying than anything else. The thing was, he didn't deserve it. If anything... his fingers strayed up to absentmindedly fidget with the four-leaf clover pinned to his shirt. I deserve to have bad luck. I deserve to suffer, after what I did to Ryan.

Still, there wasn't much he could do about it now, and he wasn't going to say no to having the clubhouse to himself for a while. With a sigh, he disentangled his fingers from the clover's leaves, ran a hand through his overgrown bangs, and turned to head inside. Maybe he could play cards or something to pass the time.

*

A thick layer of dust had settled over everything in Ryan's house. That made sense, of course. It had been four months--no, five, since Ryan hadn't come home once while he was being a vigilante--since anyone had set foot there. Even so, Kevin was unprepared for the full-scale assault on his lungs when he opened the door, and promptly broke into a coughing fit.

"Man, good thing Neil stayed home," he thought aloud as he batted thick, swirling clouds of dust and spiderwebs out of his face. "The way things have been going for him lately..."

He'd probably choke to death on all this dust, he thought but didn't say aloud, and then felt bad for thinking it in the first place. Kevin didn't understand what had happened to Neil in the course of the past few days, but ever since picking up that clover, he seemed to be having a run of uncharacteristically bad luck. Whether it was random chance or something more suspicious was afoot, it sure wasn't doing much for his already thoroughly frayed nerves.

"Alright, calm down, James," he muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear his thoughts and ideally dispel the rest of the dust. "Focus. Concentrate. What are you here for? Props for your webisode. Right."

Keeping that objective in mind, he made his way past the front entrance and into the living room. There, a few objects were strewn around that caught his eye: a mannequin bust wearing a colourful wig; an eccentrically patterned jacket draped over a chair; a brush dipped into a rusted metal container filled with what he hoped was red paint. After looking around a little more he found a large cardboard box filled with mutilated stuffed animals, which he mostly emptied out and started filling with the useful items he came across.

All the while, a persistent feeling of unease stirred in his gut, becoming increasingly hard to ignore with each belonging of Ryan's he packed away. This is wrong. I shouldn't steal from him. Kevin paused and looked down at the box in his arms with a frown. One of the items sticking out the top, a blank-faced doll head, seemed to stare accusingly back at him. For a moment he saw it not as a plastic figure, but as a human form encased in ice and then broken apart. He blinked and the illusion quickly vanished, but an unsettling feeling remained in its wake. Neil was right; it had been months already. So why did going through Ryan's things make him feel so dirty? Ryan didn't need any of this stuff anymore. He was gone. Wasn't he?

With a weary sigh that, had anyone been around to ask, he would have accredited to the physical exertion of carrying heavy stuff around, Kevin set the box down and stepped back to survey the room he was in now. If he remembered right, this kind of room was called a study--there was an armchair with a few suspicious stains lurking beneath the dust, a desk strewn with papers all scrawled full of nonsense like the ravings of a mad scientist, and an ornate bookshelf. He wandered over to the latter furniture piece and ran his hands along the spines of the books, letting their leathery texture ground him in the present. He noticed several unusual bibles and other ancient texts, and a stash of calendars, some of which he was pretty sure had originally belonged to him or Neil; the up-to-date calendars and one of the more normal-looking bibles went into the box, while he decided everything else was better left where it was.

There was one other set of books he recognized: a teen fantasy series that Neil had often gushed about. Thinking back to the previous fall and all the events he normally tried not to think about, he experimentally lifted one of the fantasy books off the shelf. At once, just as he remembered from when Neil showed him, the bookshelf rumbled to the side and revealed a narrow staircase descending into the basement.

If anyone asked him, Kevin couldn't really say what compelled him to go down those stairs. The secret chamber was as empty as he remembered, with nothing down there that could possibly be of use for the webisode. And without a lantern, he could barely even see the only things that were there to speak of: the paintings of Ryan's ancestors.

"Ryan..." The name manifested on Kevin's lips unexpectedly as he stared, squinting through the dust and darkness, at the row of portraits grinning lopsidedly back at him. He knew the paintings couldn't hear him--hell, they weren't even paintings of Ryan himself, just his relatives. But their faces were practically identical to him, that face he hadn't seen in person for nearly half a year, and that alone was enough to clog up his throat with unbearable emotions.

The thought of It's a good thing Neil isn't here for this surfaced again, and this time Kevin had to agree with himself. Losing a close friend was... well, there was no way not to take it hard. But Neil seemed to have taken it particularly hard, even blaming himself, to the point where any mention of Ryan would immediately send him straight back into a depressive spiral no matter how happy he'd been a moment earlier. That was why Kevin had kept this idea a secret from his friend in the first place--that, and he wasn't sure if it was going to pan out and didn't want to get Neil's hopes up. He figured that if Neil asked where he got all the stuff he'd found, he'd just say it was from a garage sale.

Now, looking into the achingly familiar manic blue eyes of those portraits mounted on the wall, Kevin thought of those news reports about the mysterious killings that had been going on around town. If that really was Ryan, and he was somehow still alive...

"Why?" he whispered. Without really thinking, he reached out and pressed his hand against the painting as if to cup its cheek. "Why haven't you come home, Ryan? Where are you?"

*

The target was at home, alone in her bedroom playing video games. Casual, unbothered by any harm her actions may have caused. Shameful. In an icy swirl of perhaps not-so-righteous fury, the vigilante took form in the corner of her room and crept up behind her. With an average build and no weapons at the ready, she would be no trouble to dispose of.

"Playing dead in order to toy with an innocent man's feelings," he growled. "Some people would call it ghosting. I call it a crime punishable by death."

"Jesus christ, what the fuck?!" Wendy yelped as she spun to face the vigilante. "How'd you get in here?"

"You shouldn't worry about that," he told her, gloved hands already flexing in anticipation of tightening around her neck. Or perhaps this time he'd thrust his hand straight through her chest and rip out her heart--an appropriate punishment for her crimes. "You'll have plenty of time to figure it out once I send you to hell."

"Okay, seriously? What is happening here?" Eyes narrowed, Wendy put her game on pause and got to her feet to stare the vigilante down. "You said something about me playing dead..." Her eyes suddenly widened with recognition, and the vigilante waited for the fear to set in along with it, but instead she shook her head and laughed. A pitying laugh. "Wait, you're not friends with that, uh, that filmmaker guy, are you? Geez, I seriously must have dodged a bullet there."

"Filmmaker..." the vigilante murmured as the word echoed in his mind. Yes, that's right. The man she stood up was a filmmaker... of a sort. (How did he know that? How did he even know who this woman was? Those questions weren't worth dwelling on, he decided.) "You may have thought you dodged a bullet back then, but I'm here to see that the bullet circles back around and destroys you like you deserve."

Wendy crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow, any trace of fear on her face outmatched by her sad, pitying smile. "Sure, keep the edgy sayings coming, Mr. Hot Topic. And what's with the getup, anyway?" she added with a nod to the vigilante's predominantly dark outfit. "Must be kinda warm."

Warm? The vigilante snorted derisively. No, of course he wasn't too warm. His blood, as it always had for as far back as he could clearly remember, ran cold like that of a snake. He couldn't remember a time when he'd been warm. And he certainly couldn't remember a time when he'd worn anything other than his current ensemble. Rather than waste time telling this insufferable woman as much, though, he simply took a few purposeful strides to close the distance between them, hands extended and more than ready to kill.

"Ugh, get away from me, creep!"

In a startlingly swift motion, Wendy's leg shot out and connected with the vigilante's ankles, sending him toppling to the floor. He hissed in irration, though not in pain--when his sensations were already perpetually numb, it would take a lot more than that to hurt him--and got to his feet, dusting himself off with a scowl. In the few seconds this took, Wendy grabbed a baseball bat from the corner of the room. Now she stood brandishing it in perfect athletic form with a battle-ready glint in her eye.

"Not another step, you hear me?" When the vigilante didn't dignify her with a response, she gritted her teeth and gave the bat a twirl--attempting to show off, it seemed, but her hands shook slightly and she nearly dropped the bat, only barely managing to regain her grip on it. "My mom is in the other room right now, and... well, she hasn't done anything wrong, so you don't want to punish her, right? And if anything happens to me..."

He stiffened at Wendy's mention of her mother. An innocent citizen? That was the type of person a vigilante was meant to protect at all costs; otherwise vigilante justice was no better than the police. But no one is innocent in this city. Even so, he understood the implicit threat--not that Wendy's mother would bring him down herself, but that either woman could very well call the police. And the last thing he wanted was to get law enforcement involved.

"...Fine," he snarled at last, turning on his heel with a twirl of his vigilante cape. "You can live a while longer. But I'll be back, and then you'll regret your sins."

He heard her gasp but didn't bother sparing her another glance as he let his form dissolve into a splash of red-tinted ice, sinking through her floorboards and off to thwart another criminal.

*

Slowly and carefully as a technician deactivating a bomb, Neil set the three of spades down across the top of the three other cards he'd lined up on the table. The humble beginnings of a tower stood for a moment, and he held his breath eagerly as he reached for another card to place on top, only for it to suddenly shudder and collapse like an anime girl who'd stood in the rain for too long.

"Dang it!" Neil threw his hands in the air in exasperation. When he did, a droplet of his own blood landed on his glasses, and he realized with a start that his hand was bleeding--just a paper cut, but still, he'd better wash up.

As he ran his hand under cold water, transfixed by the sight of the blood swirling down the drain, a sudden cracking noise rang out just above him. His head snapped up to stare at the spontaneously cracked bathroom mirror. His reflection stared back, stricken and gaunt, as shards of shattered glass rained down into the sink, where they mixed with the water and the blood. Neil shivered, his breath quickening.

Icy water... ice, blood, broken mirrors. All mixed together. Shattered. Blood, guts, ice, mixed together, down the drain. My fault my fault my fault my fault--

"No," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into his scalp as hard as he could. "No! I didn't do it, I didn't... I didn't mean to..."

Deep breaths, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. It sounded like Kevin's voice, worried to the point of being slightly patronizing. Neil grimaced, annoyed at his own brain for manifesting its self-preservation in such a way, but he complied nonetheless. Keeping his eyes wrenched shut, he took several deep breaths in and out until his heartbeat slowed to normal--he hadn't even noticed it speeding up--and his hands didn't shake when he lowered them away from his head.

"Hey, you know what'd really make me feel better?" he said aloud to nobody in particular, putting on a broad smile and wiping his hands off on a towel. "A nice hot bath! Yep, that'll counteract my blood running cold, alright..."

He ran his hands up and down his arms as he spoke, although he didn't know who he was trying to fool; the chill that had settled into his bones had nothing to do with the temperature. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure who this whole performance of forced cheerfulness was meant for... the studio, maybe. He wouldn't put it past them to hide cameras everywhere. Either way, even if it wouldn't fix his psychological issues, a bath really would be pretty nice. He put the plug in and started running the tub, with the water temperature set just hot enough that it would scald him a little at first.

He wasn't sure exactly what happened when he sat down on the edge of the tub to take his socks off, whether he slipped on something or leaned too far back or what, but suddenly he lost balance. And by the time he realized he was falling backward, he only had a split-second to curse his rotten luck before his head connected with the wall and he blacked out.

*

In the end, Kevin managed to get a pretty good haul from Ryan's house. In addition to the stuff he and Neil could use for their webisode, he'd retrieved the calendars and a couple other things it looked like Ryan had stolen from them, as well as their old communicator wristwatches. (He wasn't sure if the watches fell into the camp of things Ryan had stolen, or if they'd just brought them over to his place for a sleepover once and forgotten them there. Either way, Kevin figured it could come in handy to start using them again.)

"Hey, Neil," he called as he stepped into the clubhouse with the box in his arms and kicked the door shut behind him. "I'm back."

There was no reply. Frowning, Kevin set the box down with a slight grunt of effort and wandered through the living room and down the hall. There were a few playing cards scattered on the table, suggesting that Neil had been trying to make a house of cards but given up halfway. Kevin couldn't really blame him for that; assembling cards in such a way that they'd actually stay upright was yet another thing that had been more in Ryan's ballpark than in either of theirs. Still, that didn't explain where Neil was now...

"Neil? You there, bud?" Still being met with no answer, Kevin came to a stop outside the bathroom door, which was ajar with water pooling out from inside. "Oh, man, that's not a good sign..."

He gave a tentative knock, and when there was still no response, grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. The sight that met his eyes when he did so immediately made his breath hitch and his blood run cold. The broken mirror over the vanity reflected his slack-jawed expression as he stared at the overflowing bathtub, the pair of still-clothed legs dangling over the rim, and the smudge of blood on the wall leading down to the head of the man those legs belonged to, slumped inside the tub with his head submerged in the water.

"Neil!!"

Kevin sprinted across the room to lift Neil out of the tub. It then took him a few seconds longer to turn off the faucet and pull the plug, as by that point the shock had turned to dread and his hands were shaking. Once the water was slowly starting to drain, he fell to his knees and pulled Neil tight to his chest, one hand clutching at the back of his soaked-through t-shirt while the other fumbled across the back of his head searching for the source of the blood. It didn't take long for him to find the slightly matted patch of damp hair indicating where Neil had banged his head against the wall. Kevin swallowed hard as dread leapt up to claw at his throat. The only question is... how long was he submerged?

"Neil," he whispered, and was almost embarrassed to hear how hoarsely his own voice came out. "Wake up. Please."

No response. Kevin reluctantly pulled back to hold Neil at an arm's length, and shuddered at how limply his friend's body flopped forward. He noticed, with a white-hot jolt of irrational anger, that the four-leaf clover was still in place. Fat lot of good that thing's done for him. He grabbed the clover and crumpled it in his fist, all the while tears pressed against the back of his eyes; he struggled not to let them fall. Damn it... first Ryan, now Neil... What kind of protector was he? What kind of friend?

He slammed his fist, the useless clover still clenched within, against the drenched floor tiles. At that moment, the lightbulb above his head exploded and sent sparking wires raining down around him. As soon as electricity met water, it sent a nasty shock through Kevin's veins; he screamed out of equal parts surprise and pain and scrambled up onto the countertop, which was barely wide enough to support him.

On the floor below, Neil's body convulsed. Then his eyes snapped open and he drew in a gasp that turned into a scream halfway through. Although touching his friend's hand sent the current through his own body for a moment, Kevin was quick to grab him anyway, and he managed to pull Neil safely out of the electrified water and into a fierce embrace. Neil kept shrieking, and he squirmed frantically around, not seeming to recognize his surroundings at first.

"It's alright, Neil," Kevin assured him despite how hard his own heart was pounding. "I've got you."

"Oh..." Neil's body slackened, and he pulled back to blink slowly at Kevin, realization dawning in his eyes. His cheeks coloured with embarrassment and he ducked his head. "Uh, thanks."

Neither of them said anything else, for lack of ability or perhaps willingness to put it into words. After a moment, Kevin realized he was still holding the clover, and he handed it back to Neil, who took it with a dip of his head and a murmur of acknowledgement, and pinned it to his soaking wet t-shirt.

Somehow out of everything in the room, themselves included, that little scrap of plant matter was still intact. And although he wasn't superstitious, that simple fact was what would stick in Kevin's mind for the rest of the day, turning it over until he could only conclude: Yep, there's definitely something weird going on with that thing.

*

Despite the many months he'd prowled the city, this was the vigilante's first time in the hideout of a proper gang. It looked about the way he expected: dimly lit, no windows, weapons hung up on the wall and cigarette butts littering the floor. The gang members, dressed primarily in leather jackets with a few in denim, lounged in chairs leaning too far back, or on top of tables, or on their motorcycles parked right in the middle of the room. Most of them didn't even notice the vigilante as he approached. They were too caught up chattering and cackling amongst themselves like a nest of overgrown crows. The one gang member who did seem to notice the vigilante from the get-go simply looked up at him with raised eyebrows and addressed him once he got close enough to strike.

"Hey, haven't seen you around before. Looking to join the club?"

"Hardly," he snarled. "This whole place is crawling with criminals."

The whole room broke into laughter at that. The vigilante gritted his teeth, fists clenching at his sides. These people were different from the criminals he'd taken down before; between their numbers and all the weapons they had easy access to, they might just pose a serious threat if he wasn't careful.

"You're the ones, aren't you?" he went on once the laughter had died down and the gang members were all watching him with a mix of bemusement and curiosity. No trace of fear amongst them yet, but that would change... "Throwing bricks at innocent people, even seeking to damage their property. Absolutely detestable."

"Woah, hang on," another of the gang members cut in sharply, reaching for a weapon as they stood. "First off, the whole brick throwing thing was months ago. Second of all, we never did that to innocent people, you know!"

"Yeah!" yet another gang member cut in, pumping her fist in the air. "Only to those losers who blew up our boss!"

...Boss?

The vigilante slowly turned, a deeper chill than normal running down his spine, as a strangely familiar smug cackle echoed from behind him. He came face-to-face with a man in a tank top and baseball cap, sneering at him with his arms crossed. Max. Gulping, the vigilante took a step backward. He's their boss?

(How did he know that name? How had he known Wendy's name either, for that matter? Why, out of all the criminals in the city, did a select few ignite disproportionate resentment within him? He'd dealt with some of these people before, he knew, but when he tried to remember when and how it all just turned to slush in his brain.)

"Yep, those losers got what was coming to 'em," Max said. "Except not really, 'cause they didn't suffer enough. But it's okay, we'll get 'em extra hard next time."

"No..." For reasons he couldn't quite explain, the vigilante's voice shook with equal parts fury and sudden fear. "Don't you dare hurt them."

"Huh?" Max tilted his head, already slightly squinted eyes narrowing further. "Heyyy, wait a minute, aren't you one of--?"

Before he could finish that thought, the vigilante was upon him with a karate chop to the windpipe. It was a more reckless attack than he'd planned, and even as Max stumbled backward coughing, he could hear the rest of the gang grabbing their weapons and running up behind him. But it was fine; the vigilante could take them all on and then some. He could kill any number of people if it was for the sake of defending his friends.

(Friends? Did he have friends? Somehow it felt that he must have, once. But that was strange, because the only thing he could clearly remember himself ever being was a cold-blooded vigilante.)

*

"Don't you see? Society's the one to blame! It's society's fault that he had no choice but to become this way!"

As Kevin delivered this speech, waving his arms dramatically toward the focus of the scene, Neil spun the video camera around to point it toward himself. Hopefully the studio would think of the disorienting cinematography for this webisode as a bold artistic choice rather than thinking of it as amateurish and embarrassing. He then leapt back, breaking into maniacal laughter with his prop gun raised in the air. Under ideal circumstances, this role might have been better suited to Ryan, but... well, they couldn't stay hung up on him forever; they had a job to do.

"Eh-heh-heh! Thanks to society, I have the urge to kill!" Neil twirled around to show off his clown costume, while just out of frame, Kevin hastily put on a wig and fake mustache. "And now... I'll kill this innocent man, who's different than the guy who was talking a minute ago!"

(It was fascinating--fascinating and dumb--how a broken mirror and a bit of blood could set him off, but something as heavy as a gun in his hand only brought him the faintest twinge of discomfort, easily ignored for the sake of making a webisode. After all, as Kevin had assured him many times over the past few months, it was the gun and its villainous weilder who were to blame for what had happened to Ryan. On an intellectual level Neil knew that was true--and besides, if he hadn't deflected that bullet, all three of them would have died. But knowing that did nothing to redirect when and why the darkness in his brain manifested.)

Now, much to Neil's surprise as he took aim with his prop gun, Kevin shouted "Cut!" and walked across the abandoned lot they were filming in to turn the camera off.

Neil lowered the gun, confused, as his costar removed his costume with that now all-too-familiar look of concern etched across his face. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know... somehow I've just got a bad feeling about this," Kevin muttered. "Maybe try firing into the air a couple times first."

Neil complied, and was met with the expected result from the prop: a couple of clicks indicating an empty chamber. "You worry too much these days, Kev," he said as he fired one more blank into the sky and then lowered the prop again. "It's not a real gun; it can't--"

As he spoke, his finger accidentally pressed the trigger again, and he broke off with a yelp at the sudden burst of pain in his right foot. He dropped the apparently very real gun with a clatter and clutched at his injured appendage, losing his balance in the process. Kevin swore under his breath and rushed forward to catch him. Before his friend could reach him, Neil's other foot came down on a wide crack in the pavement. A chill ran through him, momentarily distracting him from the throbbing pain, but it passed as quickly as it arose without seeming to trigger any effects.

"By god, what's happening to you?" Kevin exclaimed as he grabbed Neil by the shoulders and held him upright. "You've been so unlucky lately, it... it almost seems like a curse."

"A curse?" Neil stiffened, but quickly forced himself to shrug and morphed his grimace into a dismissive eye-roll. "Pfft, what are you talking about? There's no curse! I've just been, y'know, having an off-day..."

"Neil." There was that concerned look again, that almost parental tone of voice, as Kevin stared him down and tightened his grip on Neil's shoulders. "A couple hours ago you almost died, and now... you can tell something weird is going on, right? And, look--" He sighed, gaze darkening. "I don't exactly know how to fix it, but whatever's happening, I can't just sit back and watch you succumb to it. I can't lose you, too, Neil... not after..."

He trailed off with a faint warble in his voice, lowering his head. Neil gulped, a heavy weight surfacing in his chest. It was true; though he hated to admit it, at this point it was hard to deny that he was cursed. And yet, even as his foot throbbed around the spot where the bullet was lodged and his shoe was slowly stained from within by his own blood, it was hard to convince himself that he should accept help. On some level, didn't he deserve this? Wasn't this a fitting comeuppance for getting one of his friends killed?

Yet here was his other friend, clutching at him ever tighter to the point where his grip on Neil's shoulders was nearly as painful as hitting his head or getting mildly electrocuted or shooting himself in the foot. I'm not the only one who lost Ryan, he reminded himself--another thing he knew perfectly well on an intellectual level, but easy to forget in practice. Kevin is hurting too. I shouldn't make him hurt any more.

"Fine, I admit it," he sighed, letting his tensed-up shoulders slump. "I'm unlucky, okay? And if you think it's possible--" He tore the clover off his shirt and glared down at it-- "then we're going to beat this thing."

*

For as tough as the gang presented themselves, it must have been most of these people's first time in an actual fight. The vigilante swerved to avoid weak punches, clumsy kicks, poor attempts at stabbing. It all blended together after a while, and he stopped thinking of the gang members as individuals; they were just an indistinguishable swarm of insects whose attacks were easily dodged. Unimportant, save for their leader.

The vigilante had Max pinned to the floor now, holding his thrashing form in place with one arm while he brought his other fist down on the ruffian's face, over and over, as hard as he could. Not every blow connected cleanly, and Max had managed to bite him several times already, but that was irrelevant. Criminals must be brought to justice. That was why the vigilante hated these people, wasn't it? Because they were criminals. Yes, what other reason could he have, when this was all he'd ever been?

And then, just as he managed to land a blow to Max's jaw that left him defiantly spitting out blood and a couple of teeth, the vigilante's spine snapped.

It took a moment for him to register what had happened. He just heard a loud crack, and a sharp pain shot through him, and suddenly he couldn't hold his legs in place and collapsed. Max wasted no time taking advantage; he delivered a kick to the vigilante's gut that sent him flying back across the room, where he hit a wall and slumped to the ground, gasping in breathless agony. At once the other gang members closed in on him. Grimacing, the vigilante drew himself up onto his hands and knees, then braced himself against the wall and, with a far greater strain of effort than expected, dragged himself upright. By the time he'd managed to get to his feet, dozens of knives were inches away from him.

Then, to his surprise, Max pushed through to the front of the crowd and held his arms out to hold back his underlings. "Nuh-uh, this one's mine," he told them, sneering as though oblivious to the blood dribbling from between his lips. "I said I'd get him twice tomorrow, and I meant it."

The vigilante flinched as Max took a swipe at him. But rather than a fist connecting with his face, he was met only with the shock of exposure as the bully grabbed his mask and triumphantly yanked it off his face. He was left dumbfounded, blinking, as his vision readjusted to the light.

Wait a minute, I remember--

And then came the punch, square in the nose. Ryan yelped, pressing his gloved hand over his nose to stop the bleeding. When he dodged another punch, his body failed to cooperate and he crashed to the ground again, back aching furiously and heart pounding against his ribcage.

How and why his back had broken, he couldn't say, but one thing was clear: he was horrendously outmatched. Max was saying something now, gloating as he advanced on Ryan with a dagger in his hands, but Ryan couldn't make out the words over the blood rushing in his head. Why on earth had he gotten into a fight like this in the first place? What was he doing? He had to get out of there!

With that thought, yet another thing happened that Ryan didn't entirely understand. (Ryan didn't understand, but the vigilante did. It was one of the few things the vigilante knew: dissolve, reform, enact ruthless vengeance, dissolve again.) His body shuddered, and suddenly he found his solid flesh and bone giving way to a slurry of blood and ice that slipped through the cracks in the floor and disappeared. Then he was formless, freefalling through the dark, or at least that was what it felt like. When he took shape again it felt like dragging himself out of quicksand. Yet when he raised his slowly resolidifying head and looked around, he found himself in the basement of his own home, staring up at the portraits of his ancestors that had started it all.

No. Not started it all. "I had a life before this," he whispered, voice raw with the shock of memory and too many months spent speaking in an inhuman growl. "My name is Ryan, I have a life and a job and friends, I..."

Yes, that's right. Friends. Where were they? He closed his eyes and tried to remember. Each recent memory that took form in his mind was accompanied by a crashing wave of guilt and regret, and soon his body shook and tears pricked at his wrenched-shut eyes. That's right... I became a vigilante, and I teamed up with such a horrible person, let him manipulate me, all because I was too afraid to go back and apologize. And then...

The last thing he remembered, just after the flash of light and shock of paralyzing cold, was the sound of a gunshot, something shattering, and Neil screaming.

"Oh, dear god," Ryan whispered. He raised his head, opening his eyes and lowering his hands from his newly tear-stained face, and sat back on his heels as though worshipping the paintings before him. "What have I become?"

*

The ropes were just slightly too tight around Neil's limbs to be comfortable; he couldn't resist squirming a little as Kevin laid out the open bible on the end table next to his proton pack and began reading from it.

"Okay, um, let's see... ex-or-ciz-amus te, omnis immunde spiritus..." He squinted at the yellowed, faded pages, biting his lip. "Omni satanica pot-es-tas, omnis incurs--incursio infernalis adversarii... uh..."

"You're doing great," Neil called from his position tied to the bed frame; Kevin gave him a weary smile and thumbs up.

As Kevin continued reciting the verse, occasionally stumbling over a particularly tricky Latin word, the room's temperature eventually dropped a few degrees. Neil shivered, but his heartbeat picked up in excitement. He could feel something stirring in his blood like ripples on a lake, and when the furniture in the room began to quiver, so too did his body in eager anticipation.

"...Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux..." A chill wind swept through the room; Kevin gritted his teeth, one hand pressing down on the bible to hold its pages in place while he grabbed his proton pack with the other. "Vade retro Satana! Nun-quam-suade mihi vana!"

The furniture rumbled louder. Neil's eyes widened as an entire bookcase lifted off the ground. "Kevin, watch out!"

"Hang on, Neil, I'm almost done. Uh, where was I... sunt mala quae libas..."

"No, Kevin, the--"

"Just one more line, okay? Ipse ven--"

"KEVIN!"

That last terrified yell was what it took for Kevin to finally turn, just in time to see the six-foot block of polished oak fly directly into him. Neil shrieked and thrashed against his bindings with all his might, but even if he weren't tied up, there was nothing he could have done. The bookcase came crashing down, its contents spilling out onto the floor around it in a flurry of paper. And when the dust settled, Kevin was pinned beneath it, unmoving.

"N... no..." Neil whimpered. Dread tightened like a noose around his throat as the horrible thought seeped into his mind: This is because of me. Now I've gotten them both killed.

"Oh, yes, what a tragedy... just your luck, isn't it?"

Neil's blood ran cold. He raised his head to see the translucent, smoke-shrouded figure of a giant clover looming over him. Its four leaves, dark green tipped with crimson and speckled with barnacles, opened down the middle to reveal a row of needle-sharp fangs. For a second, "Where did you come from?" was on the tip of Neil's tongue. But it was just as well that he was too terrified to speak, because no sooner than the question appeared in his mind, he realized the obvious answer. Oh, right. This is the demon that cursed me.

"Don't worry, your friend is alive... for now," the demon jeered. "But that could change. It's so easy for accidents to happen, you know?"

As if to demonstrate, the demon's leaves fluttered and suddenly a fire sprang up dangerously close to the scattered pile of books on the floor. When Neil screamed in protest, the demon laughed, and part of the ceiling gave in, sending down a controlled shower of debris to put out the fire before anything flammable could catch.

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Neil exclaimed with a shake of his head; he'd be almost exasperated if he weren't so terrified. "You're really powerful and want to hurt people, geez, not exactly a challenging concept. So, what do I have to do?"

That question seemed to give the demon pause. "...Do?"

"You know, to appease you or whatever. If you're threatening me with Kevin's life, then there must be something you want from me, right?" An idea occurred to Neil just then, and his already hammering heart beat even harder, to the point where he hoped the demon couldn't hear it and tell how freaked out he was. "Hey, it must suck having to be a clover. What if a lawnmower or forest fire had gotten to you before I did? And if you like hurting people so much..." He paused, smirking as the demon leaned toward him with obvious interest. "Wouldn't it be easier just to possess my whole body instead of wasting time messing with my luck?"

"That's..." The demon hesitated, its leaves curling up in what looked like excitement. "Ah. Ah-ha-ha! You're a clever little mortal, aren't you?"

"But don't get it twisted," he put in, glaring defiantly up at the demon despite hardly being in a position to threaten anyone. "You have to promise not to hurt anyone else. Especially not Kevin."

"It's a deal!"

Before Neil could stop and reconsider whether this was really a good idea, the demon dove toward him, row of fangs wide open as though it were going to bite his head off. He flinched a split-second before something cold and stinging like nettles clamped around him.

When he opened his eyes again, the world was tinted dark green as if viewed through a dingy screen, his head felt hazy... and he couldn't move, at least not of his own volition. Even opening his eyes just then wasn't his decision. He heard himself cackle, felt his arms and legs flex far harder than he'd known he was physically capable of flexing, breaking the ropes that bound him to the bed frame and setting his body free to do whatever the demon wanted.

"Hah..." the demon muttered in his voice as it made him walk over to where Kevin lay, still trapped and unconscious. The demon knelt down and poked experimentally at Kevin's shoulder and forearm. "This one has more muscle. It might have been a better choice for possession, if it wasn't so damaged already..."

For one petrifying moment, the demon grabbed Kevin's head and stared intently at him, stretching Neil's face into a grin so wide it made his whole face ache, and Neil's mind raced with horrible thoughts of things the demon might make his own hands inflict upon his poor helpless friend. But the demon simply laughed and dropped Kevin, who let out a low groan as his head lolled to the side--an indication that at least he really was still alive. But all of a sudden Neil had trouble believing that small mercy was really worth it.

"Ah, well, this body will do," the demon decided. "Let's take it out on the town and see how long it lasts!"

*

This time when the vigilante materialized in Wendy's room, she did little more than roll her eyes and move to grab her baseball bat. However, rather than try to attack her or even growl out any threats, the vigilante took two shaky steps and then collapsed, catching himself against her dresser. Wendy's eyes widened as she took a closer look at his face. His mask was off now, revealing a pair of striking blue eyes glistening with obvious distress, cheeks flushed with exertion, and a streak of half-dried blood running from his bruised nose. And when he spoke, it wasn't in the gravelly tone she'd heard from him before, but in a quiet higher-pitched voice--almost a whimper.

"Please... tell me..."

Wendy hung back, caught between a sharp tug of sympathy in her heart and a very rational wariness based on their previous encounter. The vigilante tried to walk again, and again nearly fell; his face wrenched up and he let out a pained hiss. At that, sympathy won out over rationality. Wendy edged toward him with her baseball bat in hand, and when she was close enough, held it out to him.

"Hey, uh... here. It's not exactly medically sanctioned, but maybe you could use this like a cane?"

"Oh... good idea, thank you!" He broke into a grin, and Wendy shivered; somehow he was far scarier when his eyes were bright and cheerful. "Terribly sorry for how I treated you last time, by the way. I really wasn't myself."

"Uh-huh?" While the vigilante tested out the makeshift cane, Wendy sat down on her bed, arms crossed. "And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Ryan... or at least I think I still am." His smile faltered, and he looked away, anxiously running a hand through his hair. It was starting to come unpinned, and his hat was askew; evidently he'd been through a lot in the few hours it had been since their first encounter. "It's been... strange, lately. I don't think I'm entirely human anymore, if I ever was. But I came back here because there's something I want to understand."

"You want to know why I ghosted your friend?" It was just a guess, but Ryan nodded; Wendy smiled privately to herself for having figured it out. "Alright, I can tell you..."

She uncrossed her arms and leaned back on her bed, thinking back to the disastrous date she'd gone on several months prior. It was a story she'd recited many times to friends, relatives, other first dates as sort of a half-joking warning ("So, as long as you don't blow it as much as that guy did, we should be good...") and the more she told it, the more warped and exaggerated it became within her memory. But when she really thought back on it now, it hadn't been so disastrous at all--pretty damn awkward, sure, but not even close to the worst date she'd been on.

"Kevin actually seemed really sweet," she recalled, smiling despite herself at the memory of his big dorky grin. "I would have gone on a second date with him. But then, first thing the next morning, I read in the news that some guy got arrested right outside the restaurant while we were on our date. And the criminal's name? Neil. Same name as the 'friend' Kevin had said was helping him out." She shrugged, lips twisting into a frown. "I just got kinda freaked out, you know? Like, 'oh geez, did I go on a date with a drug dealer or serial killer or something?' Of course it probably wasn't anything that serious, and pretending to be dead was probably an overreaction, but... well, what's done is done."

Wendy was so caught up in her own memories as she explained all this that she wasn't really observing Ryan's reactions. Once she concluded her story, she glanced over to find him sitting on the floor with his legs tucked up awkwardly beneath him, the baseball bat in his lap; he was staring at the floor, expression unreadable. He stayed like that for a long moment, not seeming to notice that Wendy had stopped talking, until she cleared her throat. Then he jumped to attention, eyes flashing like those of a woodland cryptid in headlights.

"Ah! Yes, of course... well, I still don't entirely understand, but I think I resent you less now." Ryan tilted his head and shot her another shiver-inducing grin. (Whether it was supposed to be threatening or not, she had no idea.) "And you're right; I almost forgot--we're all criminals too, Neil and probably even Kevin and especially myself! So how can I be a vigilante?" He answered his own rhetorical question with a shake of his head, manic grin softening into a melancholy smile. "It's ridiculous. I've been so foolish."

With that, his body began to ripple, losing a little of its solidity. But before he could break apart and dissolve through the floorboards like last time, a chirpy little beep-beep-beedle-beep noise rang out. Ryan's eyebrows shot up, and he glanced down at an accessory around his wrist... Wait, is that one of those communicator watches like the one Kevin had?

If it was, Ryan wasn't quick to answer it. He simply stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the beeping device in silence. Although she knew even less about Ryan than she knew about his apparently only slightly more normal friends, and she didn't normally care to get too involved in the personal affairs of strangers, he was still in the middle of Wendy's bedroom. And the longer that little jingle repeated, the more annoying it got. So she cleared her throat again and asked, in as polite a tone as she could manage given the circumstances,

"So, are you gonna answer that, or what?"

*

It was a stupid, pointless idea. Not an idea at all, really. Just the last scraps of... not even hope, that was pretty much deplenished at the moment, but effort. The effort not to let everything fall apart even further than it already had.

Kevin had woken with a throbbing pain throughout pretty much his whole body. Judging by the crushing weight pressing down on his torso, he was lucky to have woken up at all. The only parts of him not pinned down were his head and right arm, and even those hurt to move, though at least the spinning in his head put some degree of separation between himself and his broken body. Forget about trying to wriggle free when it hurt just to breathe.

So there he was, stuck, the shelf slowly crushing the air out of him, and Neil was gone. Where to, he didn't know. When he craned his neck he could see the empty bed frame, and the ropes broken and discarded at the foot of it. The bible he'd gotten from Ryan's house was facedown beside the tipped-over end table, next to a crushed and twisted lump of metal and plastic that he was horrified to recognize as his beloved proton pack. So wherever Neil was now, he must have still been cursed... or worse. And there was nothing Kevin could do about it.

Unless. Grimacing at the way his joints twinged, he raised his unpinned arm above his head. There on his wrist, perfectly intact despite everything he'd been through, was his communicator wristwatch. In all the hubbub of that day, he'd never gotten around to mentioning them to Neil, so his friend wouldn't be wearing his. But what if...?

It was stupid. It was pointless. There was no way in hell. But it was the only thing he could do. In a display so lacking in dignity that he was grateful nobody was around to see it, Kevin used his teeth and tongue for lack of a free hand to dial in the frequency and send off a signal. The watch's screen flashed in affirmation; he let his head flop against the floor with a weary sigh. Now all he could do was wait.

When he was at Ryan's house going through his things, and he found those communicator wristwatches, he'd only found two of them. And although that could have meant a dozen different things, there was just one wild, far-fetched possibility that any last semblance of hope now rested upon: that the third watch was missing because Ryan was alive, and he was still wearing his.

He didn't expect to get a response. By the time he did, he was struggling to stay awake--funny thing, trying to breathe with fifty pounds of wood pressed directly on your chest really takes it out of you. But he snapped to attention, or the closest he could get when his head was swimming and his body was beginning to go numb from lack of circulation, the moment he heard that voice crackling through the speaker.

"H-hello? Kevin?"

The relief that coursed through his veins was so overwhelming, especially on top of everything else, that he could only laugh--only for it to quickly turn into hacking as his ribs offered a sharp jab of protest. He raised his sleeve to wipe away a streak of blood that dribbled from his lips before speaking into the watch.

"Ryan. Where are you?" He regretted wasting time with that question the moment he asked it; he could tell from the way his organs felt like they were curling in on themselves as he spoke that he didn't have the energy for a full conversation. So before Ryan could stammer out a proper response, Kevin continued: "Neil is in trouble. You've gotta help him."

"What?" The shrill uptick of anxiety in Ryan's voice was palpable, and even just hearing that voice in and of itself stirred up a whole miasma of feelings that there was no time to properly react to. "What's going on? Are you okay? You sound--"

"I'm fine," Kevin lied through gritted teeth. "And... I don't know exactly where Neil is, but I know he's in trouble." A choking mix of emotions and his own blood swelled in his throat as his slowly blurring gaze wandered to the facedown bible. "I've tried to do some stuff today that I couldn't do without you. I-- we need you, Ryan. So, please... help."

With that final plea, something broke within him like a dam that he hadn't even realized was cracking. His arm flopped to the ground, wrist landing near his ear, where the communicator watch kept emitting Ryan's voice as it slowly rose in pitch until he was almost shouting. But even as his friend called frantically out to him, Kevin found it harder to make out the words. He groaned, letting his head loll to the side and his eyes fall shut. The last sensation he was aware of as darkness closed around him was that there was something wet on his face.

*

"Kevin, are you still there? Hello? Kevin!"

He wasn't responding. Why wouldn't he be responding, if the situation was so urgent? Maybe because he couldn't respond. Because he was--

"What are you going to do?" Wendy's voice cut into the swirl of panic Ryan was rapidly descending into. She hovered over his shoulder, peering down at the watch with wide, anxious eyes. The watch's screen had gone dark. No signal. Yes, indeed, what to do?

"What else? I have to save Neil."

If Kevin didn't know where Neil was, then there was no way that Ryan should have been able to instantly find him. But when he closed his eyes and let his vigilante instincts take over, he found that he didn't have to know where someone was. Whatever dark magic was infused in him now, letting him exist in this not-quite-human state even after what should by all accounts have been his death, it was hardwired for vengeance. And saving Neil meant exacting vigilante justice on whoever or whatever was harming him. With that in mind, the vigilante dissolved in a flurry of blood-tinted ice and reformed seconds later in the place it somehow knew it needed to be.

The first thing Ryan noticed when he appeared on the rooftop was the storm brewing overhead. He raised his eyebrows at that; earlier that day there hadn't been a cloud in the sky--and for that matter, when he looked around, it appeared that most of the sky was still perfectly clear, with the storm clouds being localized around this building. The second thing he noticed, upon peering over the edge of the roof, was that he wasn't on just any rooftop, but a skyscraper that towered above every other building in the vicinity. Lastly, he noticed a flagpole at the far corner of the rooftop, several feet away from him. And that was when his gaze fell upon Neil.

Neil was laughing as he swayed back and forth, clad in a brightly patterned jacket that wasn't his usual style at all, his arms and legs wrapped tight around the tall metal pole. Above him, the dark clouds lit up in a flash, followed almost instantly by a rumble of thunder. Although these particular stormclouds didn't come with rain, Ryan shivered. An incredulous exclamation was on the tip of his tongue (What on earth are you doing, stop it, you'll be killed!) when Neil locked eyes with Ryan, and he realized with a jolt of horror that this wasn't Neil at all--his body, yes, but someone or something else was controlling it. His mouth was stretched into a grin far wider than what a human face could normally achieve, and rather than their usual brown, his eyes glowed a sickly shade of green.

"Why, if it isn't my dear friend Ryan!" Neil--or whatever was piloting him--called, raising one arm off the pole in an exaggerated wave. "Oh boy, the guy I got this body from is sure surprised to see you alive! And as much as I'd love to send you plummeting off the edge of this building, I did promise not to hurt anyone else, so..." He waved his hand in a circle, unnaturally glowing eyes crinkling with amusement. "How about instead I pull you in a little closer so you can get a nice good look when your friend's body fries?"

With that, a sudden gust of wind blew into Ryan from behind, sending him stumbling forward. When he attempted to regain his footing, his broken spine betrayed him once again and he flopped to the ground with an undignified oof just a few feet away from the base of the flagpole. Grimacing, he pushed himself up and crawled the remaining short distance to grab Neil's ankle. As he did so, he noticed there was a bloodstained hole in his friend's shoe, and that his pant leg was slightly damp and already bore a few singe marks. Between that and whatever had happened to Kevin... he shuddered at the thought of what his friends had gone through in his absence.

"Nice try, vigilante," the thing in Neil's body jeered. "But I've gotta say, you don't pose much of a threat since I broke your spine."

He stomped his other foot down on Ryan's hand; Ryan yelped and instinctively released his grip. And at the very instant he let go, in such perfectly unlucky timing that only a supernatural entity could orchestrate, the stormclouds above them opened up with a searing, crackling, blindingly bright lighting strike.

Neil tilted his head back and laughed at the top of his lungs as countless volts of electricity tore through him. That horrendous laughter drowned out Ryan's screams of protest, not that there was anything he could do anyway in his current state, when he couldn't so much as get to his feet. All he could do was lay there and gape in horror as Neil's body shuddered and his flesh began to sizzle and burn.

Though it felt like an eternity of torture, the lightning strike couldn't have lasted for more than a few seconds. When it ended, Neil dropped like a ragdoll into Ryan's arms. Ryan, too stricken to even check for a pulse, simply stared blankly into his friend's glazed-over eyes. Then Neil blinked, and his eyes were glowing green again, and he laughed, the sound rougher now that it was being produced by a charred set of lungs.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha! I wasn't expecting this body to survive that! Can you believe Neil is still kicking in here?" He tapped a finger against his head, then sat up with a playful kick of his legs. "...Or is he? It would be just like a demon to lie, wouldn't it?" He grabbed Ryan's chin with his burnt and blackened fingernails and forcefully tilted his head up so their gazes met. "You can't tell, can you, vigilante? So, how hard are you willing to throw your broken body around to try and save someone who might already be toast? Maybe you should just give up and go on with your day, hmm?"

While the demon taunted him, Ryan's mind raced to concoct a plan. Some miraculous last-minute solution that would fix everything... Neil would be able to think of one. Perhaps he already had. But that wouldn't do them any good when Neil was trapped and helpless within his own mind. If this really was a demon, and a powerful one at that, the only thing that might work was an impromptu exorcism.

"Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux! Vade retro Satana!" Reciting the passage from memory as rapidly as he could without tripping over his tongue, Ryan grabbed Neil by the wrists and held him tight while he hissed and tried to jerk away. "Nunquamsuade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!"

An ungodly noise somewhere between a shriek and a roar erupted from Neil as he tossed his head back and convulsed. It was far too visually similar for comfort to his electrocution less than a minute prior, and Ryan wondered if the demon was doing it that way on purpose in an attempt to scare him into stopping. If so, it wouldn't work. Even if this process was as painful for Neil as it was for the demon possessing him, it had to be done.

Sure enough, as the final line of the chant echoed across the rooftop, Neil shuddered and slumped to the ground next to Ryan. When their gazes met this time, the demonic glow was gone, but Neil was breathing fast and shallow and his eyes were wide with lingering terror.

"Ryan," he whispered. "You're... alive."

"I think so," he replied with a tentative smile. "It's all a little confusing. But we're going to be okay now, Neil."

However, no sooner had those words left his mouth than Neil stiffened up again, eyes momentarily flashing green. "No," he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head as if to dispel the demon's grasp. "Not yet. Still gotta... get rid of it..." He grabbed Ryan's hands and held them desperately tight, like a scared child clinging to their parent or older sibling. His eyes flashed once more, and this time when the glow faded, his face bore a strained smile. "I've got an idea. Ryan, don't freak out."

And with that, before Ryan could process what was happening and reach out to stop him, Neil sprung to his feet and took a running leap off the edge of the building.

*

For a while now, Neil had been having unusually vivid dreams. They weren't always nightmares, but they often were. Dreams about different worlds, different realities, different lives. Ones where him and Kevin and Ryan weren't all friends. Or worse, ones where they still were, but that wasn't enough to save them. One of those recent dreams, which began as an exciting fantasy only to devolve into a nightmare, was about some kind of flying vehicle. Ever since having that dream, Neil had made two vows to himself. Firstly, that as soon as he gathered the funds to afford it, he'd go back to school and complete his aeronautical engineering degree. Secondly, to always carry a parachute, just in case.

But the demon possessing him had no way of knowing that, now did it? And it wouldn't want to still be trapped inside a host body that was splattered all over the pavement. That was what Neil was banking on, at least. Otherwise he might really be in trouble.

As he fell, a stinging sensation rippled through his body. He shuddered, yet there was a smile on his face--no longer a grin stretched unnaturally wide, but an expression of his own volition--and his heart pounded not with terror but with exhilaration and boundless relief. Sure enough, the demon leapt forth from him and departed in a swirl of green smoke. And with it gone, he wasted no time in engaging the parachute--just in time to slow his acceleration enough that the fall wouldn't kill him.

Admittedly, he didn't exactly come down gracefully. He landed in a tangle of limbs and fabric that he had to shrug off the borrowed jacket, parachute and all, in order to escape, and the landing was just rough enough to deliver a painful reminder of the electrical burns covering the better part of his body. Still, Neil couldn't stop grinning as he gingerly picked himself up and dusted himself off. He was alive and no longer possessed; that was a win in his book.

When he craned his neck to look up at the roof, he thought he saw Ryan still sitting there. Neil grimaced as he recalled what the demon had said about breaking Ryan's back; hopefully that injury was undone with the demon being vanquished, but since Neil's injuries were still there, maybe that wasn't so. Either way, he couldn't just leave his friend up there alone.

As quickly as he could run with a bullet wound in his foot, he entered the building and took the closest elevator to the rooftop. But by the time the elevator chimed and its doors slid open, the rooftop was abandoned, with no sign of Ryan save for an abandoned hat, cape, and gloves, and a slowly fading dark red stain.

*

If Kevin hadn't already been surprised to wake up alive the first time, he sure as hell was now. The only reason he knew he was alive at all was the deep, persistent ache that wracked practically his entire body. That, and the warmth of the hand laid atop his own.

Forcing his eyes open with a pained groan, he turned his head to see the man sitting at his bedside. Ryan squeezed his hand and flashed him a sad smile when their eyes met. His vigilante costume was gone, traded for a simple dress shirt and tie, and his hair fell unpinned around his visibly tired face; the chair he sat in, upon closer inspection, was an old-fashioned wheelchair.

With some effort, Kevin pushed himself into a sitting position. Looking around, he found that he was laying on the couch in the living room with his chest bandaged. How Ryan had managed to pull him out from beneath the bookcase, he had no idea, but he sure wasn't going to complain about it.

"Ryan, you... you're hurt?" It was a stupid question--why else would he be in a wheelchair? "Did the demon...?"

"It's gone now," Ryan responded. "But..." His gaze lowered, and he dropped his hands into his lap to fidget with the blanket draped over his legs. "It was a costly victory, I'm afraid. In order to defeat the demon, Neil--"

His tearful speech was interrupted by the distant bang of the front door being thrown open.

"Geez, you could've told me you were going straight home!" Neil's indignant voice rang out down the hall. "I wandered all over town looking for you."

Ryan's head snapped up, and he and Kevin turned in unison to see their friend running toward them with a slightly crooked gait. With a cry of joyous disbelief, Ryan opened his arms, and Neil tackled him in an embrace that nearly sent him toppling over; Kevin had to lean forward to grab the back of Ryan's chair to keep him upright as he and Neil clung to each other.

"Neil, you're alive! I-I thought..."

"It's okay, Ryan," said Neil. Then, pulling back and glancing at Kevin with a melancholy smile: "I think we're all going to be okay."

*

"So, what do you think?"

As the ending credits rolled on their latest webisode, Neil and Kevin turned to face Ryan with matching expectant grins.

"Well..." Ryan drummed his fingers against the keys of the laptop and tried to think of something positive to say. "The costumes you used were a lot more fashionable than usual--wait, hold on. Weren't those my clothes?"

They were in Kevin's truck parked outside the studio's headquarters, with Neil in the passenger seat and Ryan in the back. It had taken a little over a week for them to recover to the point where they could comfortably climb inside a vehicle, let alone Kevin being able to actually drive, and the studio had already sent them several notes warning them that their pay would be docked for submitting their webisode behind schedule.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that," Kevin muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

"To be fair, if he hadn't broken into your house and stolen a bunch of stuff from you, he couldn't have called you on your communicator watch," Neil interjected cheerfully. "Or tried to do an exorcism... but I guess that didn't really work out for him anyway."

"Hey, c'mon, it wasn't stealing!" Kevin gave Neil a gentle shove, prompting him to briefly wince but laugh anyway. "If we'd known you were still alive, we wouldn't have taken your stuff, Ryan, honest."

"Ah, I'll have to remember that for next time," Ryan quipped. He closed the laptop and handed it back to Neil, who tucked it away inside an oversized shoulder bag. "Well, that may not have been the best webisode we've made, but I can tell you two did your best."

"Yeah, it'll be way better once we get back to making them as a trio," Neil said.

It was still amazing to Ryan that his friends were so quick to accept him back after all he'd done. If anything, it made him feel worse about his prolonged absence, because he knew now that he could have come back at any point and they would have been glad to have him. It was easy to fall into regret when thinking of all that had gone wrong, and all that could easily have gone even worse. But the fact was, they were together again now--altered by what they'd gone through, and not entirely for the better, but still themselves.

And despite it all, the preceding events and the possibility that another horrible thing could happen to them in the future, he found himself agreeing with Neil's hopeful statement.

"Indeed..." Ryan reached out and took Neil and Kevin's hands in his own. They smiled back at him with the same residual traces of relief in their eyes that Ryan had felt every so often over the past week--relief that they were still there to smile at each other. "Gentlemen, I look forward to working with you again."

¤--END--¤

[flowerflamestars]

i would LOVE an author commentary for atlas 🖤

OOOO ask and you will receive!

She didn’t disappoint.

The whip crack of Narcissa’s apparition that he’d oh so careful taught the wards when he was all of sixteen, the heady scent of her perfume. Sillage or shadow? SIRIUS RAN AWAY/GOT THROWN OUT AND IMMEDIATELY MADE SURE HIS SAFE PLACE COULD ALSO BE HER SAFE PLACE

Both, he thought, the sheer brightness of her in firelight casting the whole room darker.

Silver, gold, Cissa- the blue of enchantment. She is still wearing the necklace! Taken off after childhood, found again and worn every day of the hateful war. The surprise was not in the end that she’d come- he hated her, he loved her, he’d never believed for a second she’d stay away but he’d been wrong before- but the sleeping bundle in her arms, downy blond curls visible.

She didn’t even look at him.

Three spells, in perfect silence. Couch cushions to a palatial crib, Draco tucked safe inside, a shimmering net encasing what she had created: protection, silence, home-brew magic not unlike what Sirius had done to the study to keep all comers but another Black away.

Narcissa is VERY VERY good at magic. She did well in school- but also, like Sirius, doesn't care very much for boundaries or rules and it shows. It's all a little more...mystic. Raw. She's not a textbook caster.

The picture of damnable grace, Narcissa Malfoy sank to the floor beside Sirius, scrupulously outside the range of blood splatter his magic-strong body was still seeking to spurt.

She looked at him, purposefully chosen beautiful robes pulled rakish and now ruined. The hair Sirius would pretend he wasn’t vain as all hell about, falling over his face and painting even more improper his bared collar, shifting tattoos running across Sirius’s ribs. SIRIUS GOT DRESSED FOR HIS WEIRD DATE, OKAY? he is TOTALLY not subconsciously tapping the fact that this middle of the night, secrets and magic thing was like...their entire relationship. Fawn, stag, wolf, owl- Lilly, James, Remus, Narcissa-

She looked at the blade, sunk deep to bone, and raised one perfect brow. “Is that one of Cedrella’s?”

At one point I answered an ask about Sirius's style? This. Yes. Here is his open collar and really pretty hair and antique magic murder hand-me-down, tattoos racing beneath midnight blue silk- A grimace, a smile. The incoming blackness had absolutely nothing on meeting her silvery gaze.

Cissa tapped the bloodslick hilt, perfect manicure ringing faintly on spell forged steel. “One of her poisoned daggers.” It wasn’t a question. She held Sirius’s fluttering eyes with hers for one more endless second, and scoffed. “Idiot. Reckless, dangerous, foolish, idiot.” Cissa is enjoying this. On the second repetition, she ripped out the knife. She healed the wound, nails biting into his thigh, punishing grip sealing shut his rended skin. GOOD AT MAGIC...and hmm... hello plot confusion, touching him. It's almost like Narcissa did something about that contract with all her clever power. And then, without giving Sirius a second to blink as his body threw off the shock, as pain melted away, Narcissa slapped him across the face. BABE Hard, but with the open hand that she wore not a single ring upon. the fact that Sirius notes this! the clear fact this is a choice because she is PRECISE just like he is in these not immediately knowable ways. Ears ringing, Sirius grinned. “Hello, Narcissa.” y'all this is the best Sirius has felt since he was seventeen. Temper- he saw it, he knew it, he felt it- flashed like lightening across her face, and gone. “Don’t call me that.” What do we think Lucius calls her? hmm? It's sure as fuck not Cissa. “Lady Malfoy.” She stood up, dawn-colored silk fluttering to reveal long bare legs, peignoir a perfect match. They are both SO into aesthetics. Risen from her bed, Sirius could understand, robe thrown on hasty- to check on her son? To grab her son, to take with her, because she didn’t trust to leave him behind? Not quite...but not wrong. Draco's nursery is magically probably one the safest places in Britain. When Narcissa isn't present. Draco in her arms, haste enough to not even tie it shut, for worry? Yes, actually, Sirius. She wasn't sleeping and then you rang up mortal peril time He was eye level with her knee and Sirius- Sirius had to shut his eyes. That was an ancient tumblr post I am now realizing: I love even your knees? Correct. Which she evidently watched him do, by the acidic hiss that emerged from what he knew to be a perfect mouth, “Sirius.” WHAT HE KNEW TO BE- jesus. One breath. Not enough. He wanted a cigarette. A drink. Another fucking stab wound for her to grab. “Cissa.”

Like I said, Sirius is ENJOYING himself. But also, god Sirius, you think you need a drink??

He's just kneeling there. Bloody. Grinning. In the firelight. Her animagus form is tattooed over his heart alongside his chosen family- he got her here via warning enchantment of death! He just tossed back his stupid, stupid, pretty dark hair and, visibly effected, shut his eyes at the sight of her bare legs. Narcissa is like, drinking cognac and watching him swallow.

It is not a coincidence that three sentences later Narcissa is taking a drag off a shitty muggle cigarette, the same brand they used to steal from her sister.

It is ALSO not a coincidence that the moment Sirius actually, finally, calls her Cissa, they move onto actual business.

[notmanagingmymischief]

ℂ𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕒 𝔾𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕖 | 𝔻𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕃𝕖𝕥 𝕄𝕖 𝔾𝕠 | ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝟚

word count: 4.3K

warnings: swearing, clueless lesbians, sexual remarks and implications, blood, violence, mentions of shootings

--

PART 1

--

enjoy xx

It had been a nice sunny, summer day, and you and Queenie were outside, laughing and making random things float or burst into flames (luckily Cordelia wasn't around as she most likely would have scolded you for that). But soon you had to go inside, still talking animatedly with Queenie, as well as Zoe who had come out about ten minutes prior. When you arrived inside, you were laughing at some stupid joke Zoe had made when Cordelia seemed to appear out of nowhere, which wouldn't surprise you if she did honestly. But she got your attention rather fast, and she asked you "Y/n, darling, may I ask a favor of you?" You waved for Zoe and Queenie to go off without you, saying that you'd see them later.

When they had left, you turned back to Cordelia with a smile on your face, and said "Hello Miss Cordelia. Of course, what is it?" Cordelia returned your smile and said “I was wondering if you could go out and fetch a few things from the store for us. Normally, I would go, but I am quite busy and have some things to finish, so I trust you'd be responsible enough to make up for me? Just this once?" At the request, you brightened up further, happy to be able to do something helpful for the woman. "Oh that sounds lovely! What is it you need me to pick up?" Cordelia told you, and when she finished she gave you a quick hug with a "Thank you, dear. I appreciate you doing this for me."

You smiled shyly and looked down, a gentle blush creeping up your neck. "Of course, anything for you." You mumbled and look up slightly. "When would you like me to go?" "Oh, are you busy now? If so I can wait--" "Oh no, I'm not. I can go now!" Cordelia beamed at you again, and you felt butterflies flare up in your chest at the expression, but you managed to not show just how much it affected you as she said "Alright! You remember what I asked, then I'll see you soon." You nodded and smiled at her one last time before heading upstairs, telling her you just had to change into something more appropriate for going out.

It took you a few minutes, but you finally decided on something fit for the trip that wouldn't be too hot, since it was getting warmer outside. You chose a lace black crop top with spaghetti straps, and a black leather skirt with spiked converse.

Fixing your hair a bit and grabbing your car keys and wallet, you headed downstairs. Before you headed out, you went to find Cordelia to let her know that you were leaving. She wasn’t out, so you went to her office, knocking a few times and entering once she called out "come in!" You opened the door gently and peeked inside, clutching your keys in one hand. "Hi again. Just wanted to say that I'm heading out, I'll be back soon." You said, and Cordelia looked up from her paper work. Her face immediately went pink and her eyes widened slightly as she looked you up and down. "U-Uh, yeah, sounds good. Um, are you s-sure you want to wear that?" She said, stuttering a bit and you frowned. "Is this okay, do you want me to change?" Cordelia shook her head quickly, swallowing hard and collecting herself, tearing her eyes away from your exposed stomach and thighs up to your face, lingering shortly on your lips, painted a matte purple.

You smirked, noticing her embarrassment. Just to tease her, you bit your lip and said "Goodbye~." slightly flirtatiously and winked at the woman, and when you turned to leave you purposefully put an extra sway in your hips as you strutted out of her office, closing the door behind you with a flick of your finger, leaving Cordelia speechless and blushing. "That girl will be the death of me, I swear."

----

Five minutes later you'd arrived at the store, short list of items in hand as you hopped out of your car and slammed the door behind you. Glancing down at the sheet, you walked inside the store, grabbing a handheld basket and going to retrieve the items Cordelia had requested for you to buy.

But then it happened.

It happened so fast, too fast for you to stop it.

The screams started first, from someone in the store. Then came the gunshots.

Three in a row, each followed by a loud thump of bodies hitting the floor.

You panicked, your mind not clear enough to have time to use your powers to get out of there in time, and it cost you.

In seconds, they were there, in the front of the store.

Three men, donning black clothes, guns in hand and before you knew it, one was hurdling towards you, the pain hitting a moment after the guy pulled the trigger.

The first bullet hit you in the shoulder.

The second in the thigh.

And the third in your stomach.

And that's when you finally kicked your ass into gear, dropping the basket and abandoning the groceries, blood flowing out of your body rapidly, and bolted. Part of you was saying to stay and help the innocent people, but you knew you had to get back to the Coven, because otherwise Cordelia would get worried and they wouldn't find you in time. You ran as hard and as fast as you could, arms pumping even though every step and swing made you want to scream. It took you almost 7 minutes, and you barely had enough strength to continue, but you knew you were almost there, so you put in one last burst of energy, screaming in pain as your thigh burned, vision getting progressively spottier as you bled out.

Finally, you reached the gates, and you tugged them open with your uninjured arm, sobbing loudly. You attempted to get to the door but you hit a rock and tripped, falling onto your hurt arm and screaming again. Someone must have heard you because seconds later the front door burst open and Myrtle, followed closely by Cordelia and Zoe, came outside. Zoe must have seen you first because she screamed and started running towards your body, which had gone limp as you almost lost consciousness. Cordelia followed suit, screaming your name and passing Zoe, falling to her knees next to you. She pushed your body over carefully so you were looking up and saw the blood coating your body. She hissed sharply, tears already pricking in her eyes, and the last thing you heard was her begging you to stay awake, tears streaming down her cheeks.  

--

Cordelia's POV (don't ask why)

--

Cordelia was panicking. This was her fault, if she hadn't sent you out this wouldn't have happened, you wouldn't have gotten hurt. She let this happen, how could she just let you go out on your own? They had managed to get the three bullets out of you, and they weren't anything special, but they were seriously stuck in your body, which you must have known since you didn't try to seal up the wounds at all. They were all partly glad you hadn't, because it would've been just that much harder to get the things out of you. But if Cordelia was with you, or if someone else had gone with you, if no one had gone at all, they wouldn't have had to worry about this, and you wouldn't be passed out and bleeding at their entrance gate.

After Cordelia and Zoe had screamed, half the coven came speeding out of the building, rushing to see what had caused the Supreme to have such a reaction. But when they saw your body, bloodied and barely breathing, everyone froze. Mallory was the first to snap out of it, and rushed over to help the three women. They managed to get you inside, Cordelia picking you up carefully in her arms, praying to any deity she could think of that it wasn't too late. They rushed inside, putting you down in the nearest room and Myrtle fetched some instruments. Twenty minutes later they had managed to get the bullets out of you, but you still hadn't woken up. Breathing still dangerously shallow and blood still seeping out of your body, Mallory had quickly moved on to wrap the wounds.

Your natural ability to heal faster than normal people as a witch was already kicking in, but it wasn't doing much to stop the bleeding, so after Mallory had finished extracting the bullets she carefully disinfected and treated the angry skin before wrapping your shoulder and thigh tightly with gauze. But then there was your stomach. Cordelia honestly was sad to see your beautiful outfit ruined, but she wasn't really worrying about that as much as the fact that you were seriously injured and probably dying. Anyway, the bullet that hit you in the stomach went further in than the other two, since the thigh has more muscle and the shoulder more bone and cartilage. Mallory said you were lucky to have made it to the coven, because if you hadn't there was literally no way you'd be alive right then.

The girl took special care of the stomach wound, rolling your shirt up part way and repeating the treatment process, asking Cordelia to fetch some healing salve and potion and placing the lotion like substance on your skin, then wrapping once again with gauze. After they were done, your breathing was slightly better, but your heartbeat was still so very slow, your skin even paler than normal. Madison had refused to enter the room saying that she didn't care, but everyone knew she just didn't want to see you hurt, as she did have a secret soft spot for you. It had been over an hour since you collapsed outside, and gradually the remaining people filtered out. Everyone except Cordelia, that is.

No, she sat by your body the entire time, clutching onto your uninjured hand tightly, still crying silently as she begged you to stay with her. She had become attached to you more than she'd admit, and this incident had only increased her worry and protectiveness over you. She still blames herself for it happening in the first place to this day, no matter how much you try to convince her otherwise. She couldn't have known it would happen, after all.

At one point, a few hours later, Cordelia was still there, of course, but as she held your hand and watched you carefully, rubbing circles over your knuckles, she watched as your breathing got slower again. It had begun to even out after a while, but suddenly it was slowing, getting shallow again. Worried, Cordelia turned your hand over and felt your wrist for a pulse and found that your heart was also beating extremely slowly, and the color that had begun to return to your face and skin was fading again. Returning to panic mode, the woman yelled for help, shooting up from her spot on the floor, dropping your hand back to the bed and darting to the door, pulling it open harshly and yelling out again. She heard as a few sets of footsteps pounded up the stairs and watched Mallory, Myrtle, and Queenie appear and approach the door. She walked back to you quickly, looking to the other girls pleadingly, begging them to help you.

Mallory, being the healer of the group, was the one to check you out again. After a while she looked over to Cordelia warily. She said quietly "Cordelia, you're the Supreme. I think...I think that your magic can help. Do you know healing magic?" Cordelia nodded frantically, hopeful that she could help you. Carefully, Mallory instructed her on which spells and incantations to use, ones that she herself was not strong enough to perform, and about ten minutes later, you once again started to even out, chest rising and falling deeper and pulse stronger. Cordelia collapsed to the floor again in relief and slight exhaustion, head falling onto the mattress as she grasped your hand again. After another check up, Mallory left with the others once again, and Cordelia settled in more for a nice long wait.

--

Your POV

--

It was the next day when you finally woke up, and the first thing you registered was pain. Shooting, burning, stabbing pain in your entire body. The next thing you felt was the hand holding onto yours and soft hair cascading over your arm. You attempted to sit up, to no luck for all it did was make the pain worse, and you let out a strained groan, your hand subconsciously holding tighter to the one that belonged to whoever was next to you. Speaking of, said person started to stir, and you felt hot breath on your skin as the person, decidedly feminine, sighed, waking up slowly. The honey-blonde hair that was previously tickling your arm was pulled away as the person sat up. They must’ve felt that your hand was actually squeezing theirs because all at once they'd sat up and looked at you.

This was how you found out that it was in fact none other than the Supreme herself. Before you could say a word she let out a sob of relief and half threw herself at you, wrapping her arm around you, mindful of your still healing injuries. You returned the embrace as best as you could, letting out a small laugh, cringing when it aggravated the bullet wound on your stomach. Cordelia swiftly pulled away and dropped your hand, scared she'd hurt you somehow, but you brushed her worry off. "I'm fine. But my clothes are ruined..." you said when you realized you must have gotten blood all over yourself. The Supreme laughed with no humor, looking at you with a small smile of disbelief. She responded with "Darling, you've been out for over a day. You got shot three times and almost died. And you're worried about your outfit?"

You scoffed playfully, smiling. "Well yeah, I liked this shirt, Miss Supreme, and do you know how bloody hard it is to get blood out of clothes? I'll answer that, it's ridiculously difficult. Might as well just throw it out anyway." Again, Cordelia laughed, this time slightly more amused and said "You remember you're a witch, correct? I'm sure there's something you could do to help you with that situation." "I mean you've got a point--" "Of course I do, I'm the Supreme for a reason." "Shut up!" The playful banter between you two cheered both of you up, and before long you were both smiling through the fading pain. Cordelia however was smart enough to remember to actually check on your well being, so she leaned closer to you again after having jumped backwards earlier.

Her eyes darted up to meet yours, and she said "This will probably hurt. A lot. Just...try not to scream. Actually," with a snap of her fingers, one of your belts zoomed into her hand and she tossed it up in the air once like an apple (you know that Draco scene don't go there) and held it out for you to see. "Here. You don't mind if this gets teeth marks do you?" You frowned, seeing what belt she had grabbed. It was one of your less dangerous ones, a thick black leather belt with a bronze clasp. You huffed but nodded anyways, and Cordelia efficiently folded the thing before bringing it to your lips, saying "Bite". Before she could get it in your mouth however, you smirked and decided that there's no reason you couldn’t tease her anyways, and said “You know there are others things you could put in my mouth to shut me up."

It took her a moment to realize what you meant, but when she did her face heated up quickly and she yanked her hand back, sending a glare your way as she looked away. "Oh, don't be like that. You know I'm right," you said, stretching out the last word just to poke fun at her. She huffed, feigning annoyance as she turned to face you again, pouting slightly. "I am not going to kiss you, young lady, if that's what you're thinking, and that better be what you're thinking because I swear if you say anything worse I will rip these bandages off without giving you the belt and let you bite your lips off." You only chuckled, winking at her and saying "I'll bite your lips instead if you want," only making it worse for yourself as she raised her eyebrows, holding the belt further away from you and said "I'm not joking with you, missy. And stop that."

You pouted and stuck your tongue out at her, and said "Ah, only joking, Delia. Now come on, get this over with." Cordelia rolled her eyes and mumbled "I will gag you one of these days, I swear to god." That gets her a "Oh no, I'd like that too much," and you a pinch on the cheek and another empty threat. Before you could say anything else that would cause the Supreme to melt and/or spontaneously combust, she grabbed your jaw and pulled it open, shoving the belt between your teeth and pushing your mouth shut again. Without leaning back, she whispered "And I never gave you permission to call me that, darling." and with one last mischievous smile she was out of your line of sight and her hand on your leg.

She looked up at you one more time and said "Okay, again, this will hurt, so just bite down as hard as you can. Okay?" You nodded and she took a deep breath, hand moving further up your leg to hover just above the gauze, dangerously high on your thigh, enough to make her flush slightly at the thoughts that flitted through her head for a moment, before pushing your knee up gently, bending it up enough that she could easily unwrap it. Without another word, the woman grabbed the end of the bandaging and pulled, unwinding it as fast as she could while still attempting to be gentle, wanting to get it over as much as you do. She heard you whimper quietly and her heart clenched as she sped up a bit.

You bit down on the belt as hard as you could, doing your best not to scream as your skin was pulled by the material, but a few seconds later Cordelia was done, and she pulled back, dropping the bloody gauze on the floor and grimacing at the sight of the hole. Though it was much more healed than the day before, it was still a disgusting sight. Trying her best not to gag, Cordelia went and grabbed the extra roll of gauze that Mallory had left on the desk and brought it over to you, along with the healing potion and salve. She reapplied the salve and made sure there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, before re-wrapping, forcing you to clamp down on the belt again.

Cordelia repeated the actions next on your shoulder, granting you at least a quick kiss on the cheek, which you decided you wouldn't mention. Her last stop was your stomach, and she didn't seem to want to have anything to do with it, so as you watched, she got up, smiled at you one last time and left the room. You assumed she had gone to get someone else to help you, so when Mallory entered you weren't all that surprised. The healer checked on Cordelia's work, nodding approvingly, and checked out your stomach, doing much of the same that the Supreme had with your two other wounds, but said Supreme refused to look at the one on your stomach, which you granted her an exception for since it was remarkably worse. Even Mallory grimaced when she saw it, mumbling something about "That is so disgusting, dude" as she treated, cleaned, and dressed it.

Finally, you were allowed a rest again. Mallory left the room, giving you a few words of encouragement, telling you to get some rest and to try not to upset those injuries at all. You nodded and Cordelia returned to your side, eyes raking over your body and smiling sadly before she reached to your mouth and removed the now half torn apart belt from your mouth. She held it up to your face to see, and said "See? That could have been your lips, or tongue for all you know. And we can't have you ruining that pretty little mouth of yours, now can we?" The last part was clearly sarcastic but you pretended to not register that and responded "Aw, you think my mouth is pretty? How sweet." The woman took a deep breath in and sighed, shaking her head and smiling to herself at your bUlLsHiT.

After tossing the belt somewhere that you couldn't see she sat back down next to your bed, reaching for your hand before seemingly deciding against it and pulling her hand back again with a small frown. You were having none of it, and swiftly snatched her hand back with a smug smile, lacing your fingers together. Her face flushed gently and your smile widened more as you closed your eyes. Before you could fall asleep, you heard Cordelia say "This is all my fault. I'm so sorry, y/n. I shouldn't have asked you to go out yesterday." You cut her off before she could continue, though, and said "Stop that. This is not your fault. I could have said no, I could have waited. You didn't have any idea this would happen, it isn't--" "No, y/n, what kind of Supreme am I if I can't even keep my girls safe?" You sighed, letting go of her hand and turned your head to face her, sitting up just enough to lean on your elbow, fighting through the pain, and grasped her chin, making her look at you.

"Cordelia Goode, you listen to me right now. This is not your fault. You are a wonderful Supreme, better than any of us could ever ask for, and I will not have you thinking any less of yourself, you understand? You are a perfectly wonderful person and no matter how much you think that you caused this, you could not have known this would happen." Cordelia opened her mouth to protest but you place your fingers under her chin, pushing it closed again. "No, I'm not done. I understand that you think that if you wouldn't have asked me to go out then I wouldn't have gotten hurt, but you needed the stuff, so if you would have asked anyone else then they would have gotten hurt instead. It doesn't matter who it was, you just need to know that I do not blame you, alright? I will never hold this against you, and I will not let you berate yourself like that. Okay?"

You finally finished your monologue and removed your hand from her skin, allowing her to speak again as you looked directly at her. She broke eye contact, looking away, feeling rightly scolded. It took her a moment, but she finally responded, almost too quiet for you to hear her; "Fine. Alright. I just...I'm sorry. I'm sorry you got hurt, it shouldn't have happened, you shouldn't be here right now. And you're probably going to have scars, even with the help of magic." You huffed a laugh at that, and mumbled "That's fine. Scars just mean more stories to tell." You paused, smiling wistfully as a memory resurfaced. "You know, when I was....huh, maybe eight or nine? I got in an accident. I was with one of my friends, the one that I had told you about who I stayed with when my parents...eh hem. Yeah." Cordelia chuckled under her breath at the reference. "Anyways, I was with him and we were paying that one game with like jacks and a ball. I don't even remember how to play that anymore, come to think of it....but we were playing, and those jacks were sharp as hell. Seriously, I don't know why they let kids play with those things, you could stab someone with them!"

This got another laugh from the woman next to you, which made you smile again, laughing with her gently before continuing. "But we were in the middle of a new round, when suddenly Nicholas’, my friend, his brother comes outside and jumps out from a corner and screams at us, trying to startle us. It worked, obviously, but I stood up to yell at him, and I ended up tripping and falling onto those jacks. Not only did I get one hell of a scraped elbow, I also now have five little marks on my shoulder blades from the sharp ends that punctured my back." You sat up again, leaning over a bit so Cordelia could see your back, and sure enough, she saw the five small scars you spoke about. She ran her fingers gently over the marks, sending a small shock down your spine before pulling away and allowing you to sit back again. Looking back at the woman, you smiled knowingly. "Now I'll be able to say that I got shot three times and have proof that I can in fact topple god herself with my bare hands, because I'm a bad bitch you can't kill me!"

Cordelia laughed, a full open laugh that sends those damn butterflies into a seizure again and you sighed happily, relaxing back into the bed again. After a moment, Cordelia's laughter tapered off and she matched your sigh, placing her head on the mattress next to your body, grabbing for your hand again and holding it tight, you squeezing it back as you drifted asleep.

[cryptiql]

it's izutheo hours once again! ♡ @katsdni

video calls you almost every night (that is, when you can't sneak into each other's respective dorm room). gets really giggly when he's tired, so he'll start abruptly chuckling to himself as you're talking, only to shake himself awake and apologize profusely whilst stuttering reassurances that he wasn't laughing at you. but then you purposefully start making cracks throughout the call just to hear his sleepy giggles.

"you've been friends with katsuki since you were kids, right? so like. . .spill it—did he look like that comin' out the womb? obviously it's not hereditary cause his parents are fine—oh, wait, is it the spicy food? he looks to be in a constant state of constipation, so maybe his body isn't as tough as he makes it out to be, and that bitchy, hellish contortion of an expression is just the aftermath of—"

*snort* "t-THEO!"

"it's a reasonable question 😐 i wanna know why he looks like that all the damn time."

"you don't have to be so mean about it. . ."

"you're laughing, aren't you?"

"that's besides the point! and don't tell kacchan :("

sends lengthy voice messages that were supposed to detail his affection for you, but he ends up rambling instead and interrupting half of his own thoughts with "god, i love you"s and "i wish you were here"s. once tried to record one in class while you were sick in your dorm and didn't notice that the whole class suddenly went silent trying to listen to what he was saying. pressed sent with a satisfied smile that dissolved into a flustered pout when everyone cooed and teased him.

has a separate notebook that's filled with little snippets of poems, as well as rough sketches of you from the beginning of the year that gradually turn into more elaborate drawings as you flip through the slightly worn pages. there's a sketch of you from second year where you're looking out the window as the light frames your hair like a halo. he doodled little hearts around it; obviously lovestruck, even if he didn't know it at the time.

he took you to his favorite park on your first date and insisted that he try to paint you in front of the lake, but he got distracted halfway through because a flock of ducklings and their mother swam up to feed from the bread crumbs you'd graciously torn from the loaf in your picnic basket. one of them waddled right up to him and headbutted his foot, and he was lucky enough to get to hold it for a few minutes.

"what do you think?"

*small chirp*

"yeah, she is really pretty :) do you think i captured her likeness?"

*another small chirp, accompanied by headbutt to the chest*

"aw, well thank you! wh—hey, don't nibble on my shirt! you're so cute, though. . ."

likes taking polaroid photos for the aesthetic. will write a sweet note on the back about what he liked from the day he took the picture, or how beautiful you looked in the lighting. if katsuki happens to be in any of the photos, you'll jokingly draw devil horns and an evil smiley faces on him before sticking them back in the scrapbook or deliberately putting them in places where he can see them. you once borrowed izuku's camera to take pictures (albeit blurred ones, due to shaking from stifled laughter) of bakugou flexing and boasting in the gym, and two days later, when he was in the midst of a nap, you snuck in while izuku was in the kitchen making you food, and you made unbroken eye contact for thirty seconds before you slapped the polaroid on bakugou's forehead. izuku dropped a plate trying to stop you, and katsuki burned the photo, but you have extras.

sometimes helps you pick out which lipstick to wear. and by "help" i mean "chooses the one that will leave the brightest reminders on his face when you kiss him". absolutely LOVES to stumble into the bathroom, breathless and tittering softly after a makeout session to trace the lipstick marks you left behind.

wears your merch, and vice versa. snuck into your room one night with the intention of surprising you, only to find you clinging to a pillow and wearing his hoodie. failed to keep quiet and woke you up with his sobs and sniffles as he went on about how cute you were, all while cupping your cheeks and kissing you between words.

remember when i said that he owns a squishmallow named after you? yeah. whenever you deny him any attention, he'll clutch onto it like a vice and pout at the wall before rolling onto his back and burying his face into the soft plush. he finds it hard to stay mad at you for long periods of time though, so his pouting is often interrupted by the stray thought of you caked in flour from your last baking attempt, which causes him to squeal quietly and kick his feet. he has to stop to remind himself that he's mad at you and then goes back to sulking. one time, after finishing whatever it is you were doing, you came back to apologize and make it up to him, and you saw him cuddling the squishmallow. the boy's never looked so terrified in his life. he chucked it out the window and tried to play casual by draping himself across his bed in sexy manner. keyword: tried. he hit his ankle on the frame board and started wailing, but you were still hung up on the fact that he had a fucking squishmallow that you started laughing, but izuku thought you were making fun of him, so he started tearing up and you had to get him ice cream and cuddle him for the rest of the day as another apology.