#say goodbye to bloating | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

descendant-of-truth · 1 month ago

Text

Okay I waited to get this out there because I didn't want to be a bummer the second it released, but. The story in Shadow Generations was... kind of nothing. Which sucks, because it had literally everything going for it.

Shadow gets plunged into a white space where people and places from different points in time are unceremoniously dropped in due to the power of the Time Eater, and that means Black Doom is here to try to manipulate Shadow again. Shadow starts developing alien mutations that mess with his sense of identity and only make Black Doom stronger, but he's determined to use them to take him out for good.

At the same time, Maria and Gerald Robotnik are here, and of course the first thought on Shadow's mind when he discovers them is how he can find a way to save them from their original fates. So he's got two goals: defeat Black Doom, and save his family.

This setup is really good. It's immediately engaging for all sorts of reasons, from the surface-level "whoa cool alien powers!!" to the heartbreaking implications of Shadow being forced to say goodbye to Maria and Gerald again. (Because naturally, we've seen where the games go from here and we know the timeline isn't changed that drastically.)

And it's clear to see that the people involved in working on this game were passionate about it, too. The animation and cinematography is quite good, and while I have my critiques (I still don't think the character models are that great), so much effort was put into making Shadow the coolest guy ever, and I think it paid off. He's both very cool and shows a wider range of emotions than we've seen from him in a while, which is always a plus for me.

I mean, goodness knows that Shadow needed his character to be revisited and given respect after, what, over ten years? The step up that this is can't be overstated.

And yet.

The story itself is so empty.

Let's go in order:

The game opens with a narrated recap of Shadow's basic history in order to catch people up. I can't say it doesn't technically serve its purpose, but given the fact that the premise of the game is exploring Shadow's past, it's a little weird to spell it out at the start like this. If you're a newcomer to the series and don't know much about Shadow, wouldn't it be cooler to find this stuff out by progressing in the game?

It also leaves out crucial details that, while they could arguably bloat the scene, provide a lot of relevant context that a first-time viewer isn't privy to.

"At the last moment, Shadow remembered Maria's final wish... to protect her beloved planet and all who lived there."

The last moment of... what, exactly? What made him remember, what made him forget in the first place?

In order, these are the answers the scene doesn't give you:

The last moments before the ARK crashed into the Earth, which would've caused catastrophic damage.

Amy was the one who pleaded with Shadow to give everyone a chance, which echoed what Maria told him, triggering the full memory.

It's actually unclear if Shadow forgot what Maria said as a natural trauma response or because Gerald messed with his memories on purpose, but this would have been a great opportunity to clarify.

It also leaves out the fact that Shadow teamed up with Sonic to save the world after he tried to destroy it, so that's two connections with other characters he has that are completely left out in the recap. I know we're finally getting back to showcasing Rouge and Omega as his best friends, but he does hold respect for Sonic and Amy, too. Plus, his interactions with them in SA2 were so iconic, why leave them out?

Then again, I suppose Rouge and Omega aren't in this recap either... which is really weird, the more I think about it.

But even as it's describing the moment he chooses to be a hero, they don't show him in his super form alongside Sonic, he's just... what, on fire?? I don't know what that's supposed to be depicting, it just looks cool.

"Shadow didn't understand why Black Doom expected him to be the vanguard for his invasion of Earth."

A fine start, but shouldn't we have gotten a passing mention of Shadow's amnesia somewhere in here? He spent two whole games trying to remember who he was, and Black Doom's whole tactic was to exploit his desire for answers. That's important characterization for both Shadow and Black Doom that we're missing out on, here.

"Shadow the Hedgehog. The lone, dark warrior who judges the world by his own code."

This is maybe best addressed in a separate post, but. does anyone else find this description of Shadow kinda odd? "Lone warrior" I get, even with his friends he's not big on groups, but it's everything else.

Yeah, he judges the world by his own code, I guess, but his actions are all in service of following Maria's code. It's Sonic that lives solely by what he wants without much influence from others, not Shadow.

And what exactly makes Shadow a "dark" warrior? He's been explicitly characterized as someone who doesn't kill as recently as the prologue animation to this very game, where he goes out of his way to save a pilot when he doesn't need to. His entire life's purpose is protecting the world, and this doesn't involve killing or torturing people, so... what exactly is the dark part of his morality. Nothing about this recap has given me reason to believe he's anything but a heroic person with a traumatic past, and the subsequent game will only reinforce that.

I guess he did kill all the Black Arms, but that's not something the game ever treated as an immoral action. Shadow blows up Black Doom and the comet his people live on and all of our heroes cheer as he does it. It happens in the True Ending and everything, where Shadow's supposed to be proving himself as a hero for real, so that can't be the example of him being a Dark Warrior.

Is it because of how he treated Infinite, a character that this game doesn't acknowledge despite featuring a level from Forces? We'll never know. They just want you to accept the idea that he's Darker and Edgier than Sonic based on his surface-level demeanor alone, which... given that the objective of this game is to showcase Shadow's nuance, this is really out of place. Overall, not a great scene.

That said, the first real cutscene is pretty good, and it immediately showcases how unnecessary that recap was by showing how excited Maria was to meet Shadow for the first time. From that scene, we learn that Shadow was artificially made, that he's "the Ultimate Lifeform," that Maria was likely close to him, that this happened on some place called "the ARK" which is in space, etc. Why did we have a narrator tell us all of this a minute ago when we were just about to see it for ourselves?

I do have one nitpick, though - Shadow claims that he arrived at the ARK "an hour ago," and Rouge on the other end of the comm is already at Sonic's birthday party. Rouge only agreed to help Shadow get to the ARK if he would go to Sonic's birthday party afterwards, but how was Shadow supposed to have time to do anything up there if Sonic's party was that soon? I was under the impression from watching the prologue that Sonic's birthday was at least a week away, because how else would Rouge expect him to conduct a full investigation and potentially fight some huge battle before then?

Oh and the Time Eater shows up in two places at once (at Sonic's party and on the ARK), I feel like it would've made more sense to have it grab Shadow after it was done with everyone else. Now I'm gonna be forced to ask "why doesn't the Time Eater multiply" for the rest of the game. Whatever

Moving on, our first real sign of things to come is the fact that Omega does not have a proper speaking role despite showing up in the first cutscene. He's right there, conveniently next to Shadow, but as soon as you think they're going to talk to each other... you're dropped into the hub world. Speaking to Omega results in text bubble dialogue, wherein Shadow is mysteriously hit with Silent Protagonist Disease and we don't get to hear anything he says. Effectively, Omega just. talks at Shadow three times, saying nothing of interest. and it's completely optional.

I repeat: all of the dialogue from one of Shadow's best friends is OPTIONAL, and Shadow himself says nothing to him. Yeah, we're off to a great start.

(Omega even says that he's going to assist Shadow, and I just. I have to laugh. I'm so sorry Omega but in terms of physical actions, you're genuinely going to do less here than in Forces)

Shadow: "No. She's gone. I'm seeing things."

Pardon?? Seeing things??? I'm sorry but there is no way that Shadow can see and recognize Maria from that distance but not from ten feet away with her back turned. He's also never been implied to have super-vision, so the whole scene just doesn't make sense, and frankly adds nothing to the story.

Even if he doesn't mean literal sight, then 1) why did he phrase it like that, and 2) I kinda don't care. He doesn't need to be able to sense Maria's presence or whatever's going on here, because he's just as shocked when he actually sees Maria properly later. It builds suspense I suppose, but I feel like it would've been more impactful to discover that Maria was really here the same way Shadow does; in the cutscene where he saves her.

But before they can reunite, we've got the first proper cutscene with Black Doom:

Black Doom: "You defeated us, but the Black Arms live on. And this temporal anomaly has accelerated my plans to revive my forces and consume the world."

I'm gonna be real with you guys. I have no idea what he's talking about here.

The game makes zero attempt to really explain how the Black Arms "live on" despite Shadow blowing up their entire comet along with Black Doom himself, and going into the game, I kinda thought it was just... time displacement. Maria and Gerald are brought in from a time they were alive, so I thought it would be the same with Black Doom, but no - he revived himself before the Time Eater even got involved.

Which I'd be willing to accept if they gave me an explanation for it, but they didn't, and the whole foundation of the plot suffers for it.

Plus, what the heck does he mean that the temporal anomaly has "accelerated his plans to revive his forces"?? The Time Eater's powers don't... accelerate anything. At all. They pluck things out of time and freeze them in a void. How does that help Black Doom's plans whatsoever?

If the idea is that he's going to pluck his own forces out of time and bring them back that way, why not just say that? Why are they withholding such basic information from us? It doesn't create intrigue, and the story doesn't even treat it like there's a gap in our knowledge to begin with. I think it's genuinely supposed to be the whole explanation, and that's a problem because it explains very little.

Then you've got the Black Moon, and this thing annoys me to no end because guess what?? Despite gradually opening more eyes and cracking open every time you complete a level, it's never once explained what it is or what it's for. All it does is turn the white void into a red void and open a portal to Even More Radical Highway. Maybe I'm forgetting something from an optional piece of dialogue, but that only creates a different problem, which is that you should never lock basic understanding of the story behind optional dialogue.

Why does it have eyes? Is it a living creature or some weird bioweapon? It's oddly mechanical for a creation of the Black Arms; even their weaponry is organic, as this very game tells us through Omega, so what's its deal??

You'd think it would have something to do with time, considering the framing of this scene:

Shadow says "perhaps I can change their fate" and then looks to the Black Moon as though it may hold some relevance to this new plot thread, but. nope. it just takes you back to Radical Highway.

And hey, look at that, I was so busy complaining about the moon that I seamlessly transitioned into one of my biggest issues with the game: Shadow says this. and never follows up on it. EVER.

I'm not kidding, there's literally NO point in the game where we're shown Shadow trying to do ANYTHING to change Maria and Gerald's fates. There's no scene where he attempts to understand the void better, he never investigates anything, he makes exactly zero attempts to accomplish one of his main goals. of BRINGING HIS FAMILY BACK TO LIFE.

What is the point of them being here, then.

No, I'm serious, literally why are they here if we don't get to see Shadow try to save them?? By the time the final cutscene rolls around, they start fading away back to their own time, and suddenly Shadow's like

(WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED, YOU DID NOTHING TO PREVENT THIS OUTCOME)

But I'll talk more about Maria and Gerald later - for now, since we're on the topic of Shadow having odd reactions to things, how about those stages and bosses, huh?

Well guys, I'm pleased to announce that despite there being dialogue in some of the stages, absolutely none of it provides context to the locations Shadow visits or his thoughts on them! If you didn't play Heroes and have no idea that Bullet Station is where Shadow found a destroyed Shadow Android, kickstarting a new layer to his identity crisis, then congratulations, this choice of level will mean nothing to you.

And before anyone tries to be like "the Sonic Generations levels don't get commentary from Sonic on their significance to him, either," it's a problem there, too. But it's an even bigger problem here, because they went out of their way to choose levels that have real emotional significance to Shadow and then proceeded to do nothing with it.

Isn't this the game where we revisit Shadow's story up until this point? Would it have been so hard to drop a line of dialogue indicating that Shadow's not thrilled about returning to Bullet Station? Maybe add a brief cutscene where he finds the same broken android from before, and says something like "hmph, I can't believe I let that thing make me doubt myself for so long," thus demonstrating his growth?

Here's a fun fact: Shadow has zero cutscenes that happen inside of levels. This is something Sonic beats him at, by having one cutscene that takes place in a level (Chemical Plant). This should not have been a high bar to clear, but they fell short somehow, anyway.

(Space Colony ARK doesn't even use the Final Chase music. The Shadow game starts out with a song exclusive to Sonic rather than him. He actually has more ARK-related music than Sonic does and they still didn't use any of them. How did they mess that up)

This problem only gets worse when they start pulling in levels from Forces and Frontiers - games that this Shadow hasn't experienced yet and wasn't there for, respectively. Once again, on principle, this is a cool idea! Shadow getting a peek into what his and Sonic's futures have in store? The confusion over when these events take place, if they're even connected to him like the others have been? Great stuff

And hey, if he's going to Chaos Island, and we saw from the trailers that the volcano is exploding in Act 1, then maybe we could even see Super Sonic fighting Knight in the background in Act 2! The debris from their fight could even act as platforming challenges, can you imagine how cool that would be? What will Shadow think of the advanced tech on the island, or of seeing Sonic fight something so massive? Surely this is a great opportunity to elevate Frontiers even further--yeah of course they don't do that.

No Knight fight in the background, which is... fair enough, I guess, but then why bother with the volcano exploding? It only does that moments away from when Sonic is about to fight Knight. Yeah, it looks cool, but we didn't need it. The more egregious problem is still the fact that Shadow has no observable thoughts or opinions on being sent to unfamiliar terrain in the future, though.

The bosses all have dialogue, though, which is a step up on a technicality and little else. Most of the dialogue from Shadow is just him being a self-aggrandizing badass who doesn't see any of the bosses as threats - even Neo Metal Sonic, who he should really not be so confident in beating all by himself, considering that he. didn't do that before. It actually took eleven other people to defeat Neo Metal, including Super Sonic, but I guess he just doesn't care at this point.

If they wanted to, it would've been easy to make him overconfident on purpose due to his new Doom powers, make an arc out of it, but no. Shadow's just Like This now, apparently.

There's a similar power scaling issue in Sonic Generations too, where Sonic can somehow defeat Perfect Chaos without his super form, but the game had dropped location-specific cutscenes so long ago that it was hard to feel like it was even canon at a certain point. The game never cared about making sense or really being anything, but Shadow Generations doesn't get that excuse. The bosses having the most mid-gameplay dialogue tells us that they're Definitely Happening, and so I care more about them as a result.

Which takes us to the moment that I truly realized that this game had no interest in doing anything with its material: the Mephiles boss fight.

Shadow: "What's this? A seal of some sort?"

Okay real quick before I get into my big issues with this fight: I know it's a magic glowing artifact, but what about it actually looks like a seal, specifically? Does Shadow just have a sense for this kind of thing? I don't recall him ever demonstrating that ability before.

I feel like this line is just here to clarify what it is for people who don't know, but since Shadow also doesn't know, it's just kind of weird. I'm not even sure why he's in the Scepter to begin with, considering that Shadow's sealing attempt in this room was a failure, but whatever.

Of the three bosses in Shadow Generations that precede the final boss, Mephiles is the only one that can both speak and had a relevant dynamic with Shadow that would be interesting to revisit. The Biolizard is cool but doesn't have a personality, and Neo Metal had no real opinion on Shadow. (In Rivals 2, Shadow and Metal Sonic have a developing friendship, but this has unfortunately never been brought up again. If they did so here, it would only have been on Shadow's end, since Metal hadn't gotten to that point yet.)

But Mephiles? So much of his character revolves around Shadow. It was Shadow who sealed him away originally, and it was Shadow's form that he took when he broke free. He's the main antagonist of Shadow's story in 06, and even though his primary goal is rejoining with Iblis, he takes a vested interest in trying to manipulate Shadow over to his side by showing him the worst of what humans will do to him - not unlike Black Doom, honestly, though he was focused on Shadow's past instead.

Plus, it's been so long! We thought we would never get to see Mephiles again! What have you got for us, game?

Mephiles: "I will defeat you, then restore myself to the timeline." Shadow: "I don't know what you're talking about, but I will crush you all the same." Mephiles: "What? Did you forget about me AGAIN?"

*deep sigh*

Contradictory dialogue back-to-back. I see. Cool.

Mephiles should not be surprised that Shadow doesn't remember who he is, because he literally JUST SAID that his goal is to restore himself to the timeline. He KNOWS that he never existed, and therefore SHOULD KNOW that nobody he encounters will remember him. I'm convinced that he only reacted this way because the writers thought it would be funny, and that's it.

Even if it made sense, though, Mephiles isn't supposed to be funny. He's supposed to be ominous and threatening. For as much care that went into recreating this environment and his powers/body language from 06 (and I gotta say, this whole section looks extremely nice), none of that same care really seemed to go into his personality. He's just as drab as Neo Metal, occasionally repeating lines from 06 so that you know they played it and not much else.

The end of the fight features some absolutely unhinged dialogue from Shadow for no reason, though.

Mephiles: "No... I want... to exist...! Shadow: "There is no future for you. Ever."

Look, I get it, they've done nothing but fight this whole time . But Shadow has no personal beef with this guy. Even if they're going with the idea that Shadow wouldn't care to learn what Mephiles is rambling on about (kind of boring, and why wouldn't he be curious about why someone like this has it out for him), there's no reason to go so far as to say he'll never have a future. Is this the "dark" part of that "dark warrior" thing they were talking about in the beginning?? Kind of a random place for it to jump out of him, if so.

The kind of intensity coming from Shadow here would be justified if he remembered who Mephiles was, but he doesn't. As it stands, it gives off the impression that he didn't actually process a single thing Mephiles said about wanting to exist and restore himself to the timeline, and just said the first cool, edgy retort that came to mind. Which makes the sentence both less cool and even more out of character.

After this boss finished playing out, all I could feel was disappointment and a creeping sense of emptiness. If this was how the game was handling Mephiles, of all characters, if this was the extent of what they were willing to do with an idea... the rest of the game suddenly seemed much less exciting. I got to this point, realized how comparatively little of the game was left, and thought oh no.

Now, uh... where was I in the story, again?

Oh right, Shadow was about to go save Maria. I actually have no notes on that scene, it's pretty good and I liked that Maria was immediately thrown off by his aggressive fighting style and whatnot. It implies a lot about what Shadow used to be like without really showing or telling us, and that's pretty neat.

The following cutscene where Gerald explains how Shadow's growing powers only make Black Doom stronger in the process is also fine, there's nothing super specific for me to gripe about it in isolation.

And this good streak it has going is immediately interrupted by the worst, most nonsensical scene in the entire game.

Sonic: "I found you, Shadow!" Shadow: "The blue hedgehog... of all places..." Sonic: "You have something I need." Shadow: "You can wait until my business is finished." Sonic: "Yea sorry, but that Chaos Emerald and I have a date with a monster!" Shadow: "Well then, it'll be a date to die for."

This is. a really stilted conversation, no matter what way you look at it. On one hand, it's repurposed dialogue from two different scenes haphazardly mashed together, neither of which should represent their current dynamic anymore since they were both antagonistic at the time. And on the other, it just... completely lacks character from both of them. They're so unbelievably dry despite their attempts to sound quirky, it's actually impressive.

I have to ask - have the script writers not heard the incessant complaints from fans about there being too many references in modern Sonic dialogue?? Because this scene plays out like an actual parody of that trend, the kind I would expect to see on twitter or something. I initially saw the animation for this cutscene without audio due to leaks, and I thought it looked pretty cool because the animation was nicely done.

Boy, when I tell you I was stunned to discover that THIS was the actual, official dialogue. What happened here?? Why is this what Sonic cutscenes are turning into?? In a game that costs $50-$60??And people are saying it's the best Sonic game???

Somehow, the god-awful dialogue isn't even the only thing that's wrong with this scene, but I'll compile the rest in bullet points to speed it up a little.

Shadow suddenly shows up in Sonic's section of White Space, despite it not being visible from a distance and therefore giving no reason for Shadow to venture out that far

Sonic says he "found" Shadow as if he was looking for him, even though the only people Sonic has seen here other than his and Tails' past selves are people who were at his birthday party

Classic Sonic is neither seen nor mentioned despite the extremely fun potential of having him interact with Shadow

A purple portal conveniently shows up in front of Sonic and Shadow while they're talking for no reason

The boss fight with Sonic is just a cutscene (lame), and Shadow gets taken out completely by one solid bonk from Sonic (even lamer)

The fake Chaos Emerald switcheroo, while clever, is presented as if it was done deliberately when it was clearly a coincidence that it got knocked out of Shadow instead of the real one

(I guess this technically happens before the Mephiles fight so my faith in this game was already plummeting, but I was willing to tolerate this scene being bad because I could understand them not wanting to add too much to Sonic's side of things. They had completely free reign with Mephiles and still delivered nothing, which is why it really cemented itself in my head)

The one thing I really liked here was seeing Shadow almost use his Doom powers to defeat Sonic, deciding against it, and his hesitation being what lost him the match. Shadow refusing to fight Sonic on unequal terms is some really good characterization that I was happy to see.

Black Doom: "The promised time is nigh upon us, Shadow. Soon, you will be mine."

So did we ever learn what the "promised time" was, exactly? I've played every route of Shadow the Hedgehog (some more than once) and still can't remember. If he's referring to the time when Shadow awakens his full power then I guess it makes sense, but otherwise it's kind of an oxymoron considering that time doesn't exist in White Space.

Gerald: "He has grown a new body, and used the nebulous nature of time in White Space to accelerate his plans for revenge."

Shadow, buddy, your animation is positively kickin' right now but Gerald, I'm gonna need you to do literally anything other than just repeat the same lackluster explanation we got earlier as if that's going to make it any less confusing. What ABOUT the nebulous nature of time? Is time not largely just frozen here?? We're somehow around 3/4s into this story and I still have NO idea how anything works

Maria calms Shadow down from his frankly justified anger by holding his hand and talking about how she doesn't want him to be driven by darkness. They find a way to throw in the fact that apparently Maria named him "Shadow" because the presence of a shadow can show you where to find the light, and it's... nice? Very wholesome, but it feels awkwardly placed and I'm not sure anyone was seriously asking why he was named that. Like, of all the questions to spend this game's limited screentime answering, "why is he named Shadow" was probably not at the top of most people's lists.

And before you have a chance to think about it, we're already at the endgame.

Shadow: "I'm letting go of that destructive anger."

Wow, and in the very next scene after it was brought to your attention, too! You sure do grow fast, Shadow!

Okay, all jokes aside, there's not much I can say about the pacing in this game other than It's Rushed and Bad, but I think it's finally time to talk about Gerald and Maria.

Gerald first: He's mostly just here to give out exposition. His relationship with Shadow is much less focused on than Maria's, which I find to be really frustrating because I always had a lot of questions about how those two interacted. In SA2, we only know him as a grieving, hate-filled man who was heavily implied to have scientifically messed with Shadow's mind - not long after they had both just lost Maria - in order to make him inclined towards Gerald's revenge plan.

In Shadow's first game, we see a side to him from before then, when he really seemed to care for Shadow and we got some clarity on the purpose of the Eclipse Cannon and whatnot. But what were their average interactions like? Who was in charge of Shadow's training? If it was Gerald, did that ever create a sense of distance between them? Shadow never has warm, nostalgic flashbacks of him, so I assumed their relationship either wasn't as close or he has too many conflicting feelings now for those memories to be very comforting.

This game decides to lean into Gerald being a kind, supportive man, but regardless, Shadow's feelings should be a lot more complicated, no?

I'd imagine that, in a way, it's a relief to have this Gerald around again. It would make it easier to pretend that the man who used him in an attempt to destroy the world and go against everything Maria stood for was just... a fluke, or something.

But still, Shadow knows that he would do bad things to him if Maria died. It's already happened.

Dark Beginnings also suggested that either Shadow was there when he shot down by the firing squad (unlikely given the context), or he watched the recording that played at the end of SA2 enough to be able to see it in his dreams. Neither of those are good for his psyche, and would only add to the number of emotions he has to suppress whenever they interact. There is, of course, none of this nuance within the game itself, despite it being right there and ready to be worked with.

Then you've got Maria, and. hoo boy.

I take no real issue with any of Maria's traits that are on display. Her being a nice girl with boundless energy and goodwill does not make her boring, and I've always been fascinated by her character. So, I need you guys to understand that it's with a heavy heart that I must say that Maria is... barely a character in this game.

And like, she doesn't exactly have a history of being deep or complex. But we've also only ever seen her in Shadow's memories up until this point, and that means this game was a unique opportunity to flesh her out more.

When a character is as idealized by another as Maria is by Shadow, and we only see them through that lens, it's natural to assume that the depiction isn't completely accurate. I was never in doubt that Maria was kind and gentle, or that she was always there to help Shadow when she knew he was struggling, but I always wanted to know what she was like outside of that. What makes her angry? What was she like on a bad day, when she inevitably got frustrated at her lot in life? How did Shadow comfort her? What was her sense of humor like?

While we technically learn more things about Maria in this game, there's never a point where she acts differently from Shadow's vision of her. She's not really shown to have flaws, and she's only really there to be saved and offer emotional support. It's like... a textbook example of what you shouldn't be doing when writing a female character, having her be defined entirely by her relationship with the male lead and never speaking up or complaining about her own problems or feelings. They don't even make a point out of it, that Maria tempers herself to be "perfect" for other people or anything like that.

Why don't we get to see how she and Shadow would handle an argument or something like that? Especially this Shadow, who's all shaken up by everything? Wouldn't it be beneficial for both of their characters for Maria to be seen as herself, the way she was in life, rather than just the nicest moments she and Shadow had together?

I'm gonna make a comparison here that people aren't gonna like, but... I think Elise is honestly shown to be a more nuanced character than Maria is. And this is coming from someone who thinks that she was also mishandled in her game.

Similar to Maria, Elise is genuinely a deeply caring person, and lives mostly isolated with a condition of sorts that makes her life difficult. Her most important relationship is also with the male lead of her respective game, but she doesn't exist solely for his benefit. (Amusingly, Sonic actually seems to be there primarily to further her arc, so it's a bit of a role swap there.)

But we see more from Elise than just Being Nice all the time. We see her being resolute and bold in the face of danger, or disappointed when she has to go back to the castle. We watch her try her hardest not to cry and retain her strong, regal exterior when faced with overwhelming emotion.

We get to see her open up and laugh and become more confident, we watch as someone who's been forced to put her feelings aside for the convenience (and safety) of others her whole life finally break down and shout something selfish for once. And then we watch her ultimately choose to do the right thing, anyway. Her strength of character is shown to us by putting her in situations that challenge her, and the narrative never once shames her for being imperfect; it's actually encouraging her to be her real, flawed self.

Why does Maria not get this same treatment? Why don't we get cutscenes of her being excited about the new environment she's in, or frustrated that her symptoms are making it difficult to do anything here? When does she get to be selfish? Why can't she get upset at people treating her like she's frail, even if it technically "makes sense" for them to do so?

We're told, in Gerald's journal, that some of the people aboard the ARK doubted that Maria was really sick due to her symptoms not being clearly visible. Because it's his journal, we only get to hear his feelings on the matter, but in the full game, we never once get to know how it makes Maria feel, the person this is all about to begin with. They absolutely could have incorporated this into a cutscene somewhere, but they didn't.

Once again, I have to ask: what is the point of Maria and Gerald being in this game if this was how they were going to be written? Not only does Shadow fail to even attempt to save their lives, he doesn't even walk away from the experience with renewed understanding of who they were as people.

So what even happens in this story, then?? Every single aspect of it is dragged down constantly by the game's refusal to do anything with what it has:

Shadow revisits places from his past, but has nothing to say about them

Shadow visits places from the future, but has nothing to say about them

He has nothing relevant or interesting to say about any of the bosses

Mephiles trying to restore himself to the timeline is a plot point that exists solely within his boss fight and nowhere else

He doesn't struggle with any of the bosses, emotionally or physically, turning them into a boring power trip

He barely struggles with his Doom powers, the things that are supposed to be giving him an identity crisis

Sonic is not a playable boss fight and he also says nothing relevant or interesting

Classic Sonic doesn't even get a passing mention

The Team Dark friendship is supposed to be a highlight but Shadow never speaks to Omega, who also never shows up in cutscenes, and Rouge is just kinda there

Maria and Gerald never meet Rouge and Omega, or anybody else on-screen, despite it being extremely easy for them to run into each other

Shadow's relationships with Maria and Gerald are barely explored past their surface

Most importantly, Shadow is never shown making any sort of effort to save Maria and Gerald from their fates, despite it being one of his primary goals

...Oh yeah, I forgot to complain about how Shadow barely struggles with his Doom powers. I was gonna go on a whole spiel about how it would've been super easy to make into an arc and how it was wildly underutilized despite being a major selling point of the game, and the only real consistent conflict whenever Black Doom isn't on screen.

Well. Anyway. Once the White Space becomes Red Space (something that once again makes me question how far away Sonic's area is, to not be able to see this happening), Shadow magically gets over his "destructive anger" and goes to Radical Highway one last time for the epic final boss.

And it certainly is epic, I can't deny that. A massive technical improvement over the first fight against Devil Doom, and I'm not about to sit here and act like the wings aren't cool. But I can't say it feels very rewarding, since I never really understood what was going on and Shadow didn't really struggle that much to get to this point. Not to mention, he's still acting all high and mighty during boss fights, which makes it feel stale really quickly. Black Doom isn't really that interesting by himself, so Shadow kinda needed to carry that fight, but no, it's just more of the same.

One last point before I wrap this up:

Where was Emerl???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a promo animation for a game should, in theory, provide you some idea as to what kind of things to expect in the game itself. While a lot of them take their share of creative liberties, I don't think they're in the habit of putting spotlight on entire characters who never appear in the game at all.

This is THE GAME where we bring back the people from Shadow's past that he's lost, and Emerl most certainly qualifies. He's from the more recent past, yes, but Shadow still cared about him and absolutely would have been affected by his death. There's no way that, had he been in the story, Shadow wouldn't have been determined to save him as well. But no, he's just there to be a cool lore detail in Gerald's journal.

Which means this is yet another depiction of Emerl where we refuse to acknowledge his personality. Do they seriously think Emerl is more interesting as an emotionless killing machine that Gerald researched in his spare time? Where's the fun-loving kid who mimicked everyone around him, splicing things he heard them say together to communicate and creating funny tonal whiplash? Where's the robot with the soul that Gerald gave him, that was nurtured by Sonic and his friends?

Not in this game, apparently! They went out of their way to canonize Battle and still managed to treat it with zero respect. Kind of impressive, really, and just another footnote in the trend of this game not actually caring to do anything with Shadow's past.

There are definitely moments in this game that I like, but that's kind of all they are: moments. The game's total cutscene runtime is around 30 minutes, and that means there's not enough time in any of them to get anything done. A scene that's good in isolation is tainted by the fact that it's all there is.

And it's just... so baffling to me. There are so, so many points in this game where you could have fit additional cutscenes in. We could have had one after each act, or at least after each level. Give us more cutscenes after activating things in the hub world or something. I mean, a game that claims to be this story-driven doesn't usually need an excuse to throw cutscenes at you, and they certainly didn't need to force each scene to be so unbelievably short.

If they really needed to downsize on cutscene length for some reason, then maybe they should have just made a less ambitious story. The game wants to do so many things at once, but it doesn't have the time to do any of those things justice. We could have gotten a short, sweet, well-done little story, but instead we get a story that easily needed at least two hours to tell crunched into a measly 30 minutes.

I mean, Dark Beginnings in its entirety is half the length of the full game. Think about that for a second.

This game's story was supposed to be something, man. It's getting so much praise for what feels to me like the bare bones structure of a story, and it's frustrating because I know this series can do better. The writer of this game can do better, and I know that because I've read his other Sonic material and it feels much more complete than this does.

I was genuinely looking forward to this game, is the thing. I really didn't think it would be this lackluster, because like I said at the beginning of this post, it had everything in the world going for it. But no matter how nice it feels to have a Shadow who isn't wildly out of character for once, that alone can't carry an entire story.

Shadow Generations is a mess of good ideas executed in the least interesting, most nothing way possible. Its only real saving grace is its animation, and the fact that Shadow generally feels like himself.

Except for when he's talking to Sonic. What the heck happened when he was talking to Sonic

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #sonic x shadow generations #sonic x shadow generations spoilers #sxsh generations #sxsh spoilers #sxsh generations spoilers #analysis #meta #This uh. might be my longest post ever??#I didn't go into this planning for it to be 7000 words but I just kept finding new things to ramble about #And of course I just wanna say that this post is NOT here to tell people that they can't like the game's story #I just needed to air out all of my issues with it because I felt like I was going insane

24 notes · View notes

abellmunsonmovie · 10 months ago

Text

Eating Me Away

Word count: 1,168 words

Warning: No mention of readers race/gender, mentions of eating, reader feels guilty for eating, use of Y/N, pet names (baby, sweets)

Tonight you were going to Eddie’s for dinner and to watch a horror flick Eddie had rented from Family Video. But you're kinda anxious because Eddie is ordering pizza…pizza, with carbs, fats, grease. Recently you’ve been focusing a lot on your weight and figure, you’ve always been insecure but right now your insecurities are eating you away.

You start getting ready and you decide to wear some jeans and your favorite band tee. As you’re getting dressed you see yourself in the mirror, you squeeze your stomach, pull it back, suck it in, anything to make you look…smaller. You get almost hypnotized, trying to make yourself look smaller, you tear up from disappointment, and your heart feels like it has dropped to your stomach. You get interrupted as you hear a knock on your bedroom door, “Y/N, Eddie’s here!”, “Shit” you whisper, throwing on your shirt and hurriedly tying your shoes.

You walk out saying goodbye to your parents, you see Eddie’s van parked outside and you run to the passenger side and get in.

“Hey, pretty baby” Eddie says smiling, you give him a weak smile back “Hey”. Eddie immediately notices somethings off, he rubs your back as you buckle in, “You okay?” he asks with a concerned look on his face, you look up at him and give him your best fake smile, “Yeah baby, don’t worry about, just um…i’m just kinda tired…long day”, he gives you a soft look and nods, “Okay…” he says unconvinced.

On the way to Eddie’s trailer you guys talk about how your days are going thus far, music, the movie he rented. You guys pick up the pizza, and then you finally arrive at Eddie’s trailer. You guys walk inside you get you and Eddie drinks from the fridge, and make you plates while Eddie starts the movie.

You sit down on the couch and Eddie walks over as you hand him his plate and he sits down, kissing you on your cheek “Thanks, sweets”, you smile and blush at the sweet gesture, “No problem”. The movie starts, “I really hope you like this movie, Steve said that it’s usually out of the store, so hopefully that means it’s good” he realizes you were zoned out and he rubs your shoulder, “You sure your okay, baby?” he asks with his eyebrows raised, you nod “I’m sorry, Eddie, it’s just…today was so fucking exhausting-”, Eddie shakes his head and interrupts you and kisses your head, “Hey, hey…it’s okay…as long as your actually okay, everything is good, alright? Now eat some pizza before I gain ten pounds” he laughs softly making you smile.

After you both eat your food you feel so bloated and guilty. You feel so guilty that you can feel tears on the brim of your eyes, you make sure Eddie doesn’t see your eyes so you stand up and walk to the bathroom, “I’ll be right back” you say kinda shaky, Eddie notices this but decides to give you a second, in case you really are just fine.

You walk inside the bathroom and lock the door behind you, you sit down on the edge of the tub sobbing quietly, you cover your mouth with your hand to muffle your breathing. Your heart is beating so fast, your thoughts are burning through you like a hot sharp knife, after so long your breathing regulates and you get up to look in the mirror and wipe your tears but as your getting up you hear a knock on the bathroom door, “Baby…you alright?”, your voice is still quivering “y-yeah, just a minute!”, Eddie can tell something is wrong and tries to open the door but sees its locked, “can I come in, baby…please” he says sweetly, you sigh and you work up the courage to open the door, you tilt your head down and only see half of Eddie’s torso, standing in the doorway, he grabs your face gently, “sweets, look at me” he says in a soothing voice. You look at him with eyes red and tears glazing over them, he pulls you into a warm embrace “oh baby…” he says quietly, as he pulls you in you feel your heart break even more, you sob into his shoulder, he rubs your back and shh’s you to calm you down, “Shhh…shh, it’s okay baby, I got you…I got you”. As Eddie is rubbing your back you start to calm down a little bit and he kisses your tears away, “What’s got my baby all upset?…hm?” he asks looking in your eyes. You sigh and Eddie holds your face gently in his hand while the others rubbing your back still, “c’mon baby…you can tell me anything”, he was right, you really could tell him anything, you always have been able to, “Sometimes…I feel bad…gulity…about eating” you say, voice still quivering, his facial expression saddens and he pulls you in for another hug. “Baby…you have nothing to be guilty for…especially eating, you have to eat to survive, food gives you the energy that you need, you could get seriously hurt if you don’t eat, okay baby?” you sigh and nod still crying softly, he grabs your face to face him and he looks in your eyes, “You are absolutely beautiful, pretty baby…there’s nothing that could ever make you anything less than that…promise me next time you feel like this, you’ll tell me alright, sweets?” he says seriously but still sweet, you nod and he kisses the tears on your face, “I love you so much, y’know that?”, you smile softly, “I love you too, Eddie”, Eddie smiles, “You wanna finish this movie in my room?” he asks, you nod and he picks you up bridal style making you giggle and he carries you to his bed and sets you down softly.

After Eddie starts the movie and you guys get into your pajamas, Eddie sets you on his lap holding you close, while resting his chin on your shoulder and he whispers, “Your so gorgeous baby…” you smile and blush, as you turn your head and kiss Eddie softly on the lips. As you pull away Eddie says “I love you”, making you smile you say “I love you too, baby”.

After the movie is over you and Eddie decide to go to sleep and as you’re about to fall asleep Eddie whispers, “Y/N?…”, “hm?” you hum, “You…you are the most beautiful, funniest, smartest person i’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, and I love you so much, with every fiber of my being, okay?…Please never forget that baby” you smile softly feeling tears prick the corners of your eyes, you wrap your arms around his waist and snuggle in his chest, “I love you too, Eddie…so much”, Eddie smiles pulling you closer, “Night, pretty baby” Eddie says kissing your head, “Night, Eddie”.

You fall asleep feeling loved and at peace, all because of Eddie. He really is the best person you could ask for, and he’s your person, forever.

Hey guys I decided to make a blurb where Eddie comforts Reader about feeling guilty for eating, as a person who has issues with my body and eating, I know how it feels, if you're feeling like this right now I want you to know, you are so beautiful and I love you so much. Stay safe and healthy, beautiful<3 -Bella

#stranger things #eddie munson comfort #eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson headcanons #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson headcanon #eddie blurb #eddie x reader #eddie thoughts #eddie stranger things #hes so sweet

78 notes · View notes

guqin-and-flute · 8 months ago

Text

Holding Me Holding You–Ch. 7 [3zun Raise Jingyi Prequel]

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Chapter 6]

[Ao3 Link]

[Holy shit, how has it been 2 years since I last updated this fic?? ANYWAY HELLO HI I MISSED YOU. We're keeping the baby, guys. CW: Disjointed, slightly nonlinear narration; negative self talk; more talk of battle aftermath, bodies (gross but no more graphic than prev chapters), and death; focus on lots of trauma to do with death and grief; general Twin Jade parental trauma; vaguest mention of child death, in that he repeatedly tells himself there isn't one and remembers part of his nightmare about Wangji/A-Fu dying]

Who are you?

‘Wen Baiqi.’

What must be done for you to rest?

‘Say goodbye. Tell her goodbye.’

It’s raining in Qishan. It’s nothing like the rain in Gusu.

Who are you?

‘Hei Xuecen.’

What must be done for you to rest?

‘All my fault all my fault ALL MY FAULT--’

This rain isn’t crisp, but disconcertingly warm. It doesn't bring life. It soaks into the ground, milling the dirt back into the blood and gore bloated mud of that night, sucking at their feet. Reeking of putrefaction. It coats Xichen’s tongue and throat.

Who are you?

Each time, there is a chance he will receive a reply from the Yiling Patriarch himself.

‘Ye Qian.’

He never does.

What must be done for you to rest?

‘Never apologized--’

What would he do if he did?

Who are you?

What would Zewu-jun do? Clan Leader Lan?

What must be done?

Would he soothe his spirit?

Who are you?

Ghostly fingers pluck at his sleeves constantly.

Who are you?

‘Nie Zixing. Never knew him, tell them--’

When he had first arrived, the bodies of Wei Wuxian’s Wen contingent still hung from the gate to the battleground. Or what remained of them. After scavengers, time, and the elements had had their turn. Swaying in the warm, wet breeze along with carrion birds’ cries and the distant tunes of the guqin language. Grisly pendulums. Dripping.

There is no small boy among them. He had hoped against hope, but now he knew for sure. This secret is tucked deep, deep down beneath his heart.

Who are you?

The corpses on the ground are Wen. They are Lan. They are strangers. They are Da-ge, lying bloody on the floor of the Scorching Sun Palace. They are A-Zhan.

"We should burn them like they did to our people. Scatter their ashes, so they will never rest." A venomous whisper from his own disciples, a young man, face twisted in rage.

(“They’re killing everyone,” he had choked his sobs into A-Yao’s arms. “My people--my family are all dead and I did nothing.”)

A-Yuan had been so, so pale against the sheets. So tiny compared to the infirmary bed.

“These people?" Xichen’s voice is quiet. "These cultivators that studied healing? Miles and miles from Qishan?”

Silence.

“Did they destroy our home? Did we fight them in Sunshot?”

Too little, far too late.

There is no small boy among them. There isn’t.

A-Zhan, gray and slack, eyes glassy, head lolling--

He pushes the dream-memory away.

Who are you?

‘Jin Mingni.

My father--’

"We will bury them and hold the proper rites, as we have the rest of the fallen. And I will ask you to swear yourselves to secrecy regarding their exact resting place. In case anyone later shares your thinking.”

‘Zhou Sanniang. Never wanted to come. Save me.’

“Help me bring them down.”

There may be no small boy among the Wen, but he sees corpses all day, every day. They're in his dreams. He cannot stop seeing them. And he cannot stop seeing a boy (Afuyuanzhan) among them, from the corner of his eye.

He can never quite catch the face before he realizes there is no one actually there.

A skeletal hand is unearthed when they lift a body--a remnant of the Sunshot Campaign, years before. There were plenty of partial skeletons from that time that the Yiling Patriarch had raised to fight them. It seems some didn't have the strength to fight their way out from the mud. The death here has layers. A slow growing mountain of violence and dead and blood instead of stone. The building of the Burial Mounds’ successor.

Do the Burial Mounds have as many crows? Is it a feasting ground, as this has become?

They carry the quiescent dead, cover them with cloth, lay them in rows. Those whose spirits have passed on easily. They lie with their Sect members--when they are able to discern who they are. Still, fields of undyed cloth mounds, waiting to be retrieved by their loved ones, if they still live. Somewhere out there, there must be people still alive, families whole and happy, living in the sunshine. Somewhere.

Who are you?

His fingertips bleed from days playing Linhai and Liebing.

What must be done for you to rest?

Even those here that are living shamble like the dead--the rogue cultivators, his Lan disciples, the handful cultivators from other Sects, all here for the same goal, all hollow eyed and pale. He is supposed to be here for morale.

They work deep into the night, far from familiar, ingrained rules about schedule and tidiness, here. Adrift.

What must be done--?

The fierce corpse is not a powerful one, merely tenacious. Shuoyue snakes out. It crumples immediately with a muted splurch into the muck, halved.

‘Tell her I loved--’

The top half of the corpse writhes, still scrabbling for him. The sound it makes from its ruined face is horrid. It's a wonder it can sense his yang qi at all; no eyes, no nose. Its robes are a splotchy black and rusty brown-red, but the Lan ribbon around its forehead manages to show a ragged white through it, here and there.

The talisman sears, blinding. It is enough. The body slumps for the last time. He can settle into that mud, summon Linhai from his qiankun bag for the Songs of Rest.

Who are you?

‘Lan Ruicai.

Show them all--’

The blood of the walking dead is no longer life-hot, but the same, unnerving lukewarm as the rain. He cannot feel it. He can’t tell where it’s stained him until he reaches his tent each night.

He is efficient. He is in control.

The rain here doesn't cleanse anything. It hasn’t stopped for days.

Everything is the same color; the sludge, the thick haze of lingering resentful energy, palms, boots, the hems and knees of robes. That old clotted wound color. Dirt repelling talismans can only do so much before they are overpowered by the sheer weight of yin energy permeating everything. Stained.

There's no use cleaning. He tries anyway.

‘I was so scared, so scared--’

Who are you?

Sometimes, the spirits do not answer. Sometimes, they speak first, before he can even start the questions, raking the strings repeatedly in their anguish. Sometimes, they try to tear the guqin from him, try to rend his clothes, squeeze his throat. Sometimes, banishment is the only way.

The sudden shrieks and roars at night startle everyone from sleep. If Wangji was well, he would be here. He is known for going where the chaos is.

Is that what had led him to this? To Wei Wuxian? An affinity for soothing chaos? For chaos itself?

Who are you?

‘Don’t know. Want to go home--’

"I can't anymore, zongzhu, I-I--"

"It's alright. Return to the Cloud Recesses. You’ve done enough."

Sometimes, he wakes in the night to find that he is in the middle of dressing, having no memory of doing so, a clump of cleansing talismans clutched in his numb hands. He has cut down so many fierce corpses, he’s lost count.

Who are you?

Food is tasteless glue in his mouth.

Who are you?

Every night, he is sure to take the medicine that gives him no dreams.

‘Oh gods oh gods ohgodsohgods--’

Every night, he prays that he has not left Uncle overwhelmed, that his people are being cleansed and healed back home, that Wangji has stopped bleeding, that A-Yuan is healing, that A-Fu is….

Who are you?

(What right do you have?)

What must be done?

He has been here for days that run into one, long, dark, meaningless drain.

‘Son. Baby. Where is he?'

Who are you?

‘Pan Liu.’

His raw fingers pause on Linhai’s strings, still humming. Rain patters quietly on the hat that shields his face from it.

He knows that name. How does he know that name.

There have been plenty of others he had recognized among the dead, from different Sects and his own, from childhood, from Cultivation Conferences, from class. But each time, he must pull himself back to that life to remember, away from the rain and the red and the dead.

He can’t place it.

What must be done for you to rest?

‘My baby. Safe.’

The spirit is a thin wisp of light, playing about the strings, shining on the dark wood. Focused. Waiting.

Who is your son?

‘Lan Fu.’

His mouth is dry.

("A-niang?" A hopeful little voice. The memory of a crumpled form in the blood-churned muck, a shoe print between shoulder blades….)

It is cruel, endlessly cruel that he is the one alive. That he is the one sitting in the mud across from this poor young mother’s spirit. That he is the one with blood enough in his hands to leave rain blotted stains on the strings as he tells A-Fu’s mother; He is safe.

(Shrieks of raw sound as they carry him away. Echoing off the trees. Reaching back for him.)

A hesitation. Then, ‘Who are you?’

Lan Xichen. Zewu-jun.

‘Zongzhu.’

He will be safe. I swear.

‘...Safe.’

Rest, now.

‘...Rest….’ The notes are quiet, exhausted. Longing.

Then, silence. That pale light is gone.

She is gone.

He sits, still and silent as the soft caverns in the clotted mud continue to patter around him. His face is wet--mist and rain and blood. He almost wishes it was tears.

He aches in a new, terrible way, now.

Oh, little one. You were so loved.

He has been witness to both sides, now, of this small, destroyed family reaching for each other through the dark. And how useless he has been in the task of bringing either of them lasting peace.

To bring anyone lasting peace.

(Useless.)

And do you serve anything so fiercely that it would be your last thought, taken across into death?

It is irrelevant. The soul quieting ceremony had been performed on them as children, with all the other inner disciples. He will not linger as a ghost, even if he were to be struck down by a fierce corpse this instant.

He finds himself trying to remember if his mother had ever mentioned having had such a ritual performed on her….

Selfish. You would have your own mother suffer and linger as an unquiet ghost for some sort of twisted confirmation that you were loved?

Xichen remembers childhood before the death of his parents. The infinity of all of it. It probably never crossed A-Fu’s mind to beg her to stay with him. (“No, no go! P’ease!”) She had always returned before.

The memory of A-Fu clinging to his hands so tightly he had drawn blood with his nails is inescapable.

During that final farewell at the Jingshi, A-Huan too had had no idea it would be the last time he would ever see his mother’s face. He didn’t know what creeping death looked like, then. She was simply her, smiling, twinkling at them. He had kissed her cheek and taken Wangji’s hand and waved to her through her ornately carved window screen as Uncle led them away. Wangji had always been the one to pull back, to fuss over leaving. Uncle had always made sure that Xichen set a good example for him.

The snowy day she had left this world, cold and dry, so far from the warm wet muck he was in now, something in him hadn’t believed it. Hadn’t believed that someone could just…no longer exist, just as suddenly as a storm might blow over the mountain summit with no warning.

He saw her so sparingly, it seemed impossible that she wasn't just simply waiting in her front room for them to visit with a smile and open arms.

How? he had asked. When? Why?

Uncle had said that it was not for children to know. This pulled it even farther into the unreal, stretching his comprehension. It felt like a dream, a lie. A story. But if he could just see her…if he could just prove that this was some sort of…misunderstanding--

(Xichen had never asked again after that first refusal sat in his gut like a chilly stone. He suspected that Wangji had not either. Even now, decades later, he still did not know how his mother had actually died.

He suspected enough, however.

He knew it was sudden. He knew it was unexpected. He knew no one spoke of it. He knew it had broken his father beyond any hope of repair. Uncle had not volunteered the information, even now, when they were both grown. And Xichen will not allow useless rumination. Rule 60.)

He remembered he hadn’t been able to stop crying. A-Huan had always hated crying--he always tried to hide away and not bother anyone with it, but this had been constant.

Uncle had squeezed his shoulder and spoken softly, and reminded him after hours of stopping and starting that he must not grieve in excess, that he would make himself sick, that he was agitating Wangji, that he needed to calm himself, death was a natural passing, like the moon or a river, one must not let their emotions control them.

But still, that something in him that just knew it wasn't true waited until it was dark, until curfew set in and the snow lit the night full-moon-bright, reflecting the stars and lanterns. He had pulled on his boots and slipped from his window, cautiously darting across the paths of the Cloud Recesses in just his pajamas and his blanket wrapped tight around his shoulders, shivering from more than the cold.

This had to be a trick that he didn’t understand; a joke or a punishment for something he had done wrong. When he figured out what to apologize for, he would be able to see her again.

The fear of being caught breaking the rules was washed away when he crossed beneath the familiar bower wound with skeletal winter vines. His mother’s house stood dark. All around it, snow was churned and broken, as if many people had been there. In all his memory, no one else had ever visited the Jingshi. The door was unlocked.

It opened onto emptiness and moonlight.

Everything was gone. Her plants. The blue cushioned couch. Her desk and papers. Her dragon incense burner. Her tall candlesticks. Her big, thick, round rug they laid on and played games. The pictures he had painted for her.

He had drifted, stunned, through the shell of his mother’s home. The only proof that she had ever even been there were the scratches on the floor from where furniture had been dragged. That, and the scent of her that still lingered underneath the smell of whatever they had scrubbed the floor and walls with. They had erased her completely. Like she was never there in the first place.

Then it had settled on him like a cloak of lead, dropping him to his knees; the understanding, the true deepness of what this meant.

She was really gone. Forever.

The ‘always’ was gone. The ‘next time’ and promises. That warm, constant presence on the rim of the Cloud Recesses, the visit that marked his days as cyclically and surely as the sun had simply...vanished. In just one moment, the world was made completely lightless. Incomprehensible. It had a hole ripped in its center, cold and inescapable.

She would never brush back his hair and kiss his forehead. She would never pout when she lost a game. She would never squinch up her nose and do an accidental snort-laugh.

If he had only known that it could happen so fast…if he had only known that people could leave so quickly and completely, he would have taken something. A set of her dark, weighty chopsticks, one of her bracelets, a letter; anything. But there was nothing.

Somehow, he had found himself in front of the Hanshi, his feet numb, his face and hands frozen. Thinking back on it, he couldn’t remember what his 6 year old self had planned. He wasn’t sure that there had been a plan. Maybe he had just wanted a parent. Maybe he had been seeking out the one adult that might have cared as much as he did that his mother was gone. Uncle didn’t understand--A-Huan and A-Zhan had always known that he didn’t like her. He was always polite, because that was important, it was in the rules--but he was always stiff and short. He frowned the whole time--every time--picking them up. He hated talking about her.

But the father he had hardly met, that distant, hidden figure--he had married her. He had loved her.

He would care.

The Hanshi, too, had been dark--and he panicked. Had his father left--or died like his mother and no one had told him? He had yanked the door handle--and to his shock, it slid open. He had been expecting a lock like the one that he saw being done up behind them when he and A-Zhan left the Jingshi. (A choice, not a prison, he had realized as he got older. Not in the same way, at least. Other things kept Qingheng-jun bound.)

It was dark inside, curtains drawn, vague shapes of things illuminated by the light creeping in behind him. He stood in that doorway, frozen in body and mind, unable to trespass that much farther. It smelled unfamiliar and sharp. He had never been in his father’s home before.

It was so dark.

He had called into that darkness, choked and quiet; “Fuqin?“

Silence.

“...Diedie?”

(“They made choices. These are consequences,” is all Uncle had told him when, younger, he had asked why both of his parents were locked away from him and refused to say more.

Afterward, A-Huan had always been afraid that he might accidentally make those same choices, that he would be kept from his brother and his Uncle and nannies for it. Because no one would tell him what those choices were, he studied the rules obsessively so he could be sure to follow every single one. So he would never be locked up.)

There was a rustle, a clink. A shape had formed in the shadows, someone sitting up from being slumped on a table. A pale hand swayed into the pool of silver moonlight, pointing. The voice that followed had been rough, slurred like a mouthful of rocks. “You are not supposed to be here. Go.”

A-Huan had fled as fast as his numbed legs could go. Stumbling, breaking through the crust of snow, falling and rising and falling, back up through his window to collapse on the floor. His breath had burned in his lungs as he coughed and sobbed as quietly as he could, hot tears stinging his frozen cheeks.

Not quietly enough, though. A-Zhan had eventually crept into his room and curled up next to him on the floor without a word, arm wrapped around his middle. When A-Huan had rolled over and held him more tightly than he had ever held anything before, he realized that A-Zhan was the only part of his mother he had left in the entire world.

And now, what did A-Fu have left of his parents, of a life he knew?

A story, at the very least. A reason. A goodbye. The truth. It was all he could offer. It was all he had left for the boy. These other spirits and their wishes can only be passed along to others, if they were attainable at all. But this, this he can do; this, he can set right. To make absolutely sure that her will is found and executed, that the family who cares for her son is told the story of her last farewell, so he will know, too, in time.

So a son will never have to wonder.

This much peace, he can provide. With those who can bear this place no more and an endless caravan of cloth draped bodies, he returns to Gusu, leaving behind Qishan’s bleeding sky.

The quiet of home stuns him. There are no screams, no groans echoing down the mountain. The trees don’t muffle sounds of sword or talisman sizzle, merely birdsong and wind. There is beauty here, something he hadn't known his soul craved like water in a drought until he saw it in rich blues, blooming whites, lush greens. The coolness, the clarity of the water and the touch of leaves. Nothing here is red-brown. All that bleeds is hidden away behind pale bandages and pale walls.

It's almost too much.

(His hands feel filthy, no matter how many times he scrubs them. Discontent among such blessings is an insult to those that can no longer come home to them. He will kowtow in the shrine for this disrespect later.)

Time has meaning once more. In theory. There are places to eat, to rest.

(It hardly makes sense to him anymore, despite the schedule being as familiar as the stone beneath his feet.)

Home, in the Hanshi, surrounded by familiarity and comfort, sitting at his desk as the incense burner next to him delicately permeates the air with sandalwood and the trees outside rustle and no one screams at all, he holds Pan Liu’s will in his hands. It is a brief, frail little thing in the face of such sorrow. It must have been hastily written after her husband’s death, as she willed A-Fu and her remaining possessions to the care of her younger sister. Who upon brief investigation of his ever growing list of the dead was found to have been killed in the battle against Wei Wuxian as well. The sister, yet unmarried, had no will of her own--probably too young to have begun to even consider death as a real possibility before life and Wen and war swept their way in. Their house had been one destroyed in the Wen’s sacking of the Cloud Recesses, their personal possessions few. No one else remained of their immediate family.

Pan Liu clearly had not expected to die before she could update it.

In his heart, somewhere, he had known that something like this was the case; that A-Fu was truly alone. Xichen had carried him for days and no one had come looking? No one had wondered where he was, wanted him home safe, with them?

He had not wanted to look directly at this, at the time, knowing he would have to give A-Fu back to that loneliness, that uncertainty. Even though A-Fu is not the only child in the Cultivation World or even the Cloud Recesses with the same fate, it had been…different. He couldn’t have said why--still can’t--but it had felt like a betrayal to the boy. A loss, savage and personal. Even when he knew any other choice came nowhere close to making sense.

Still. Even he and Wangji had had their uncle and the small, rotating cadre of minders that were familiar to them. He saw his mother once a month and knew his father was there, somewhere, out of sight. There had been a thread connecting them to their parents and the life they could have had with them.

A-Fu has none of this.

And yet he still cries, still calls out, because he trusts that someone he knows will come. Of everything in these last few days, this is what is almost too much to bear, a knife stuck in his ribs that gouges with every breath. He does not feel sadness or regret; only pain. Everything else has been out of reach for a while now.

The rattle of his door opening onto seeping sunshine and fresh, bloodless air has him looking up. His Uncle steps over the threshold. “You’re back,” he says warmly by way of greeting as Xichen rises.

“Shufu.” He bows, then offers him his customary seat, more out of habit than necessity; this teatime visit was a familiar ritual in a life not too long ago.

They take their places at opposite ends of the low, square table at the center of his sitting room as Xichen opens his tea cupboard. “It’s been a while since we have been able to simply sit and have tea together,” Uncle observes, easily.

Yes; nothing has been right or normal for a long time. “Mn.”

When he continues to set out the cool porcelain cups and the dark pot with no further elaboration, Uncle watches him work, expression a thoughtful blur in his periphery. “...The library is not where I expected your first stop to be.”

He sounds only mildly curious, but Xichen knows that it is unspoken approval that he had not gone straight to Wangji.

He hesitates, then continues his methodical ritual of movement. “There was a time-sensitive matter that I wanted to attend to.”

In truth, after the bath he had taken upon his return--where he had had to call for 3 rounds of water (Do not be wasteful, Rule 23; broken) before it was no longer clouded dark with dried blood and mud and rot--Xichen had stood on the Hanshi’s front porch, staring down at the blindingly white path before him, forking off through the trees.

His heart had tugged him one way and his cowardice in the face of pain another. The thought of seeing more bodies just lying there, of seeing those dear to him--Wangji, A-Yuan, those in the infirmary--suffering while he could do nothing to prevent it was….

It was not something he was capable of, at present. Just for now. Just for these first few hours. It was selfish, but true. And so, he had gone to their records room in the library to request Pan Liu’s will. Pain had won. His heart was weak, choosing the easier duty.

Unable to stop himself, though he knows it will cloud his uncle’s relaxed and pleasant demeanor, he asks; “Is Wangji…?” He trails off.

Awake? Improving? Well? …Alive? A sharp internal rebuke at this last. Do not exaggerate. Rule 671. Uncle would not be so calm if things were dire. He is angry, not cruel. He would have been told.

(A heavy hand on his shoulder. An empty house. Churned snow.)

He would have been told.

Uncle’s face does, indeed, darken. “Hmph.” A mirthless, scornful snort. “He wakes on occasion. He refuses to speak, refuses to acknowledge anyone. He is simply lengthening his own punishment.” Uncle eyes him, adding, “You should be able to talk some sense into him. He always has listened to you best.”

‘And so how could you have let this happen? How could you have let him do this?’

(When will you stop being angry and start being afraid for him?)

Xichen lowers his gaze to the dark wood of the table and scoops the tiny, furled up leaves of the tea into the pot, the smokey green scent tickling his nose

It’s true. Of everyone--their caregivers, teachers, and relatives, Wangji has always responded to him best. He would not always necessarily disobey outright, but he might frown or hesitate before complying or pretend not to hear--especially if he were called to come away from Xichen’s side. “Your class is this way, xiao-gongzi,” the minder would call and A-Zhan would continue his resolute little stride beside him, hand squeezing tighter around Xichen’s fingers the only indication he had heard anything at all.

It was when Xichen squeezed back and knelt down to straighten his robes, smiling up into his serious face, saying, “It’s alright, ZhanZhan; I’ll ask if I can come out early to pick you up, mn? Go on, be good,” that he would allow himself to be led away with no further fuss.

He had been the only one who could finally convince him that kneeling in the rocky ground every month when they should have been visiting their mother would not force anyone to bring her out to them. The first time, he had asked him to come in, come home. But knew his brother. He was not surprised when he silently refused to even show he had heard him.

And so he hadn’t asked again, never having the stomach to fully destroy the hope that he would be let back into the Jingshi if he just waited long enough.

But Uncle had become frustrated, their teachers and nannies muttering. They were impatient with his refusal, seeing it as disobedience. They didn’t see his mourning, only his stubbornness. So A-Huan had had to protect his brother's soft heart from those that didn’t understand. “We can kneel together, back at home,” he had whispered, his fingers screwed tight around A-Zhan’s cold hand. “I’ll wait with you as long as you want. But niang would--” his throat had caught and he had wrestled his tears from his voice. “Niang would hate if you got sick, sitting out here in the cold all day.”

A-Zhan’s dark eyes had bored into him, thinking. Reason and punishment and demands from adults had not moved his stubborn frame one inch, month after month after winter-to-spring month.

Then, finally, this second and last time, A-Zhan had listened to him. Whatever it was about him was what finally got his little brother slowly, stiffly to his feet to hobble back home with him. Xichen remembered that he hadn’t felt relieved at all. He just felt like he had taken their mother from him all over again.

“I will speak with him, shufu.”

Uncle nods, then heaves a sigh. “What news is there from Qishan?”

Mechanically, as if operating his own mouth from across the room, Xichen relays numbers, movements, and times. He almost reflexively scolds himself for lying; the mundane description of dry duty and the lived horror so far from one another that they were entirely irreconcilable. Just words passed across a shining table over fragrant tea, cool wind brushing the sun-pale windows serenely with tree shadows

When he reaches the final fate of Wei Wuxian’s executed Wen contingent, Uncle approves. “It was wise to swear the disciples to secrecy. This has all gotten so inhumane. Denying them burial was an unnecessary cruelty,” he says heavily as he shakes his head, eyes closed in weariness. “I pray that we are done with this madness at last, with that Wei Ying finally taken care of. What a mess.”

There is silence. Xichen cannot fathom what his response to that could possibly be. Should possibly be--as Wangji’s brother, as the Lan Clan Leader, as his uncle's nephew. As Wei Wuxian’s…what. Friend?

…As one who cannot delight in his death, in any case.

Despite the period of kneeling before the Jingshi, Wangji had never been a troublemaker growing up. He was always the Jade who grasped the Lan way of life more easily, molded himself to the rigidity of the rules with that same stubborn tenacity.

It was Xichen who failed in that, who smudged the black and white lines to gray, bent them so they were slightly more comfortable around him; bearable--once he discovered that they could be.

He was the one who accidentally got drunk trying to see if he could filter out alcohol with his core, he was the one to kiss Mingjue first in the Jin Gardens during a Cultivation Conference. The one to urge his brother to befriend a talented teenager who was gleefully and repeatedly stomping all over their Clan’s ancestral rules.

He was the one who had told Wangji to step outside his rigid view of the world, to see people for their hearts. And then Wangji's own heart had been torn out. As his uncle said; Wangji had always listened to him best. This much would never have happened without Xichen's deliberate meddling.

All those years ago, when Wei Wuxian had first cannonballed into their lives, Xichen had just wanted Wangji to be happy. To have friends. Alone didn’t always mean lonely, but he knew he saw it in his brother. Saw Wangji with peers who were merely in awe of his talent, who respected but did not like him, love him, know him, want to spend time with him. He knew the difference, no matter what Wangji showed the rest of the world. The older he got, the less he smiled--the soft, secret ones that so many others failed to see. Xichen had missed them, dearly. And so he had pushed.

Everything that has happened sense feels as if it’s unshakably all his fault.

As the tea is poured, they speak; it passes over him like clouds. Which elder is still in which stage of recovery. The smith they called to repair swords and assess the spirits of those now without a handler.

Something touches him.

“Xichen!”

His hand burns. He is on his feet. Shuoyue’s naked blade buzzes, ready in his hand. He does not remember moving. Every fiber of cloth on his skin feels alive and writhing. Blood courses. Scalding tea is cooling, dripping from his knuckles.

The touch had been spiritual, not physical. From the corner of his awareness and the Cloud Recesses boundary wards at once; a warning, tasting of wild metal (close to blood, so close).

The Western Wards, crossed.

“Do not unsheathe your blade in a residence!” Uncle’s face crinkles from shock to a wince. “And contain yourself, this is not a battlefield.”

It takes a moment. His killing intent is up, streaming from his core like a river of blades, of blood.

Sucking in a breath, he takes the torrent in internal hand and yanks it back, firmly, like the reins of a horse, winding the silk rope of it over again and again in the palm of his concentration, until the thrum of it eases. The pressure that had filled the room with the promise of death ebbs. Shuoyue hums warm, expectant. When he does finally sheathe her, the connection between them flickers, confused.

Above his hammering heart, he hears Uncle continue, frowning, “I felt it, too. Was it someone passing outward or inward?”

His tongue, his mind is mud-stuck slow.

Focus. There is no battle here. You are home. Get a hold of yourself.

“...Outward. Less resistance. Nothing powerful.”

Oddly, at this Uncle’s frown deepens, shadows of concern replacing mere puzzlement. “Hmm. Those were in the West…far….” After a moment of thought, he rises.

As he steps out the door and calls for a servant from the Hanshi’s porch, Xichen continues to try to pull in slow, deep breaths.

Have you regressed to being such a novice that you cannot control your own qi? Your own battle intent? Are you a child? Though his uncle's voice is low and his attention is divided, the words ‘searchers’ makes it through the pounding blood in his ears. Strange.

When Uncle slides the door back open, Xichen asks, “Searchers?”

His silhouetted form hesitates, framed by the sunlight that pours in behind him and dazzles Xichen’s eyes, leaving his expression briefly in shadow. “...Yesterday evening, a child managed to wander into the woods alone.” A spike of cold worry threatens to heighten the wild surge of energy within him once more as his uncle continues, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “We have had several teams scouring the backhill and the whole of our land since then. They are young enough that their spiritual signature isn’t strong enough to register on normal tracking talismans.”

“Why was I not told?!”

It burst from him, harsher from shock than he had meant and Uncle blinks, pausing in settling himself back onto his seat, brow furrowed.

But he cannot bring himself to care about disrespect, just now. Any child alone and lost is terrifying, awful. There is something, though…something about his tone, his expression that has breath caught in Xichen’s throat as slow, glacial horror creeps up from the depth of his gut. He is avoiding specifics.

Why.

“It is being handled already; why would I distract you from your duties? You’ve only just returned and you must--”

“Who. Which child.”

He huffs in irritation, brow furrowing further. And he shuts his mouth, lips compressing.

Xichen no longer needs an answer.

Behind him, he can hear Uncle’s voice raised in startled alarm, but he is already out the door, already leaping from the porch onto Shuoyue. The wind howls in his ears as shoots upward, speeding west to where he had felt the wards ring within him. To where A-Fu has just crossed beyond their safety.

He knows. He doesn’t know how, but he knows.

Xichen can barely breathe around the air battering his face and his own terror. The shrieking sky threatens to rip him from Shuoyue’s blade. Everything at once feels heightened, his awareness expanding to notice how chilly it is despite the sun, how the damp of the wind tearing at his hair and clothes tells of rain in the past day, how dark the woods look beneath the thick canopy blurring by below his feet. He had been alone and cold and terrified, out all night. Had the boy been trying to find his mother? Xichen? The thought made his gut writhe within him.

(They peel his little fingers from Xichen’s sleeve as he clutches and screams…)

Please please please please please

How could this happen? How could he have ever allowed this to happen? There were rivers, cliffs, steep slopes of scree, ponds, caves, animals--gods, animals alone would--

He is well enough to move, to cross the wards.

If it was him. If it were not a strong enough spiritual animal to trigger the alarm.

There is no boy hanging among them THERE IS NO--

The invisible boundary rears up in his senses, mere seconds full tilt sword ride from the Hanshi but so, so far for a tiny child, wandering in the night. Beneath the canopy, before Shuoyue even manages to drop to a reasonable height and speed, he has already leapt off, landing at a sprint. Internally, the memory of the disruption in the web of the spell warps around his spiritual awareness like a broken arch as he crosses in that exact place. The ground is not suddenly more treacherous, the trees no more menacing, but beyond the relative safety of the Cloud Recesses, his hammering heart sees the whole world is a death trap for this little child.

(He cannot bear to see a tiny body, he can’t, he can’t--)

Skidding to a stop, he wheels in place, eyes scouring everything at knee level and below. “A-Fu!” his throat is pinched, his mouth bone dry. “A-Fu?!”

The ground cover is thick with bushes, shrubs, trees both young and fallen. The sun shines spots into his eyes through the swaying leaf cover above, dappling the floor with shadow and light, dancing, blurring. Silence. Even the birdsong had stopped when this strange being had suddenly crashed into their peaceful little clearing. He sucks in a breath to call again--and then he hears it.

There is a small child crying somewhere nearby.

Quiet and hoarse but unmistakable.

He isn't slow, gentle, or cautious or anything that a terrified child might need right now; something else has a hold of him, now. He blindly crashes through the brush towards the sound, half skidding down a slope until--until! There!

A blur of white amongst tree roots halfway down, a curled shape and-- “A-Fu!”--a little face, smudged and red cheeked and tear stained raises and his little eyes light with recognition and he scrabbles, fumbling and crawling out as Xichen tears back up the slope--slips, rights himself--and reaches and the boy throws himself off the lip of the hollow and into his arms, colliding hard with his chest like his heart coming home.

He staggers, momentum and sudden weakness buckling his knees. A gnarled tree catches his side and he slides them down into the huddle of its roots, curled around him. Against his chest, wrapped in his arms, A-Fu is damp and chilly. He is covered in muck and sticks and burrs but he’s alive--alive--safe and hiccuping and piteously hoarse, tangling his hands through Xichen’s hair as he clutches him back, gasping.

He can breathe. He can finally breathe again.

Some unnameable agony, like some wild beast, is thrashing, welling up, bursting from his chest. It shakes him, tearing at his throat, his heart, his lungs, burning. It’s not relief. It's not fear. It’s…

Heedless of stitches cracking and bursting, he yanks his thicker outer robes open and over the child, tucking him deep into the pocket of warmth. He can feel him shivering, his tiny heart speeding.

He had forgotten that his head is so warm, that his hands are so tiny, just how real his weight is in his arms. When he buries his nose in the baby fluff of his hair, under the dirt and musty forest chill is that wild-sweet child smell he remembers from carrying him for days beneath his chin--and long ago from when Wangji was young.

He tries to pull back to check him for injuries, for bruising, but he latches onto his neck and sobs. Mere minutes before, Xichen had never wanted to hear another scream again--but now he wishes A-Fu’s cries were as loud as the first day he held him, deafening and demanding, sure and strong in their conviction. These sobs are private, weak, exhausted little things. Not calling for attention. No longer certain of a trusted adult’s return.

“P’ease,” he croaks and that pain, that pressure bears down on Xichen and it feels like drowning; it feels like dying.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m here,” he whispers back, thick and choked (that thing inside him that aches, that wails, that loves is strangling him), and he draws up his knees, he wraps his robes tighter and rocks and rocks them both as it breaks--all of it, calving and crashing and surging and molten and ugly and broken--and he wants to beg ‘scream, little love, scream your heart out; someone is coming, someone will always come,’ but he doesn't have enough breath as it tears from his locked throat in silent sobs, because with unworthy hands and heart, he holds this blameless little life that has wandered through the halls of his heart leaving muddy fingerprints, and does the cruelest, most selfish thing he can ever recall doing.

He realizes that he cannot let him go again.

#'Xichen has emotions and wishes he didn't' is the name of THIS chapter!#3zun raise jingyi au #3zun raise jingyi au content #my fic #my stuff #untamed fanfic #mdzs fanfic #SORRY FOR THE LONG ASS WAIT AND THE INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF ANGST HE HAD TO WORK THRU SOME STUFF #I'll try to post happier fluffier things next #Maybe some 3zun fluff in Snowed In. Or the next chapter of And A-Fu Makes 4 which has fluff #Or the next chapter of In Your Hands because I PROMISE we're working things out #ANYWAY LOVE YOU G'NIGHT

55 notes · View notes

reality-detective · 1 year ago

Text

Feeling bloated and uncomfortable?

Say goodbye to bloating and hello to comfort!

Ingredients:

2 tsp of lemon juice

A tbsp of fresh ginger juice

A tsp of raw honey

A tsp of chia seeds (optional)

Water

*You can drink this every morning before eating.

- Alternative Medicine 🤔

119 notes · View notes

oceanlipgloss · 5 months ago

Text

ICING ON THE CAKE

LEVIATHAN.

+ warnings: implicit suggestive themes, light angst, strong language.

+ female mc, feminine pronouns.

Is cold sugar a thing?

Some souls are like iced sugar. No objective, sane person would ever say—or so much as think, for that matter—that this man is sweet.

‘How the fuck could he be?’

That’s what they would wonder.

And they were right in that.

There are times, however, when a cold shoulder summons a sugar rush. Playing hard-to-get can be a cool game. Except, this man wasn’t doing that. That coldness, that scorn, it was crafted from something bitter.

A dark past.

Did they know? That he, too, had once upon a time been an innocent child—a pretty, clueless creature holding its bloated heart with small hands, showing everyone its tears.

Very early. He had gotten corrupted by life much too early. That’s why he had become so icy.

Actually...he could be sweet as well, in a sense.

She remembered the jewel in her wet palm. Its sparkle was once dimmed with his blood. He had risked his soul to keep a promise, to protect a gem.

Warmth is something he did possess.

But to believe he would not die, to have faith that he could not be killed...

How so very arrogant of him.

Then again, is childhood's darkness not to blame? Had it not told him that he would always survive? Had it not whispered temptations of immortality in his ears and promised him that he would never die?

Beauty makes some people feel like their head is underwater. It cuts out everything else in the brain for a minute. Snide beauty, on the other hand, it has even greater charms still.

The coldness is just icing on the cake.

Being beautiful is marvellous, but being unapproachable makes it even better, that much greater.

Lovely faces bring about good deals. Ethereal existences often tend to get away with many things. Molten hearts. Broken brains. Filthy souls. Violent murder.

It would be too boring if beautiful kings were easy to have. Enchanting someone like him and bringing him to his knees, why should it even be a piece of cake?

Forget the pleasure of a challenge.

He was a rare, most alluring specimen. He should be very difficult—near impossible—to reach. Taking hold of his fingertips alone should be treacherous.

One has to try hard to get even the most simple of things, so why should luring him in be easy?

Excited for the wait, burning for the process, desperate for the result.

So ironic, so fun.

Winning him over would not merely be a magical experience, but an ultimate, legendary accomplishment; she would try until his tongue on her lips marked them forever, until his sweat on her body shimmered like stardust.

Oh, but he already wanted her. Lust and attraction just turned into problem killers. Apparently, she wouldn’t have to wait that long, or even try that much.

+notes: the time for the last of my surviving ‘What in “Hell” is Bad?’ WIPs to take the stage has come. I don't quite know what I had in mind for this one, to be honest; it's been there for so long and has been really bothering me with its static presence for a while. And seeing that I had no clue about the direction it's meant to take, I finally decided to polish it a little, toss some word-vomit in, and simply put it up as is. It was either that or it's dead. I chose to salvage it, I guess. I thought it had potential and didn't want it to bid the world goodbye, yet I didn't know how I felt about it at first, though, and I'm too lazy and tired to find out—so it's whatever, I suppose lol but I think I like it. I'm just glad to have it off my hands and out of my notes because it was genuinely pricking my nerves :S

There are still a few more ‘What in “Hell” is Bad?’ WIPs each is only 1 line/2 lines long lol that I long ago scratched out of the equation, and those are annoying me very much too. I may either kill them off with regret (for some) and cold blood (for others), or post them someday soon/with time, but that's very unlikely. For now, however, I do not plan on writing anything new about the game's devils/angels—meaning unless I explicitly state in the notes within a ‘What in “Hell” is Bad?’ piece that an idea is new/recent, it's one of my old, buried WIPs revived and made into a finished fic.

[spoiler] also, this fic holds light inspiration from Leviathan's 'Bloodshed' story, particularly from the part in which Leviathan gives MC the magical jewel and it's implied that he got wounded so as to protect the jewel and keep his promise of gifting it to MC.

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

#what in “hell” is bad #what in hell is bad #whb #whb leviathan #leviathan whb #what in hell is bad leviathan #leviathan what in hell is bad #the story factory

33 notes · View notes

turcott3 · 10 months ago

Text

motive

mason mctavish x fem! reader

warnings?: cursing, allusions to smut, lowkey hate this, and fluff

positions fics masterlist

~tell me what’s your motive?~

“fuck.” mason yelled at the tv, losing yet another match on fortnite. you laid with your legs in his lap, his arms lightly resting on them.

“do you think maybe you should take a break?” you ask, giggling at his frustration.

“well, yeah i probably should.” he says tossing the controller on the couch next to him, running a hand lightly up your thigh.

“we have group dinner at 7. go get ready we have to leave in like 30 minutes.” you remind him and he sighs.

“do we have to go?” he asks, removing your legs from his lap and picking his legs up, laying his head on your chest.

“yes mason, we have to go. we said we’d be there.” you giggle, toying with the tight curls on his head.

“help me find an outfit.” he says standing up, lending you a hand. he sits on the bed as you dig through his closet tossing clothes to him to put on.

“okay i like this one.” he says looking in the mirror.

“yeah, looks good to me.” you say walking up next to him. he wraps a light arm around your waist and pulls you to his side.

“look at us.” he says and you giggle. you couldn’t lie and say you weren’t practically head over heels for this man. the worst part was that you couldn’t exactly tell his feelings for you. you knew he liked you but you couldn’t tell what his actual motive was, and god was it horrible for you.

“okay let’s go.” you say, removing his hand from your waist and kissing him on the cheek. you arrive at dinner perfectly on time meeting a few of his teammates in the parking lot and catching up with some girl friends. once you’ve all arrived you find your way inside, mason pulling your chair out for you.

“okay gentleman.” you say.

“gotta make a good impression.” he giggles, placing a hand on your thigh. you had full intentions in drinking tonight, sex was already on your mind. you couldn’t wait to get back to his apartment and you weren’t even drunk yet.

“so y/n, how have you been? i feel like i don’t see you much.” leo asks across the table.

“i’ve been good! busy working sadly, but good. how are you?” you reply, placing your hand on top of mason’s and squeezing it.

“i’ve been good, im glad daniella could make it to be here tonight.” he smiles, hugging onto his girlfriend who you’d grown quite fond of since you met. the service was quick, you got your food very quickly. you were grateful because that meant you didn’t have to sit at this awkward dinner for hours on end. except, it wasn’t actually awkward. you were just buzzing, bordering drunk, and feeling self conscious about it.

“mason.” you mumble.

“what?” he replies, running a light thumb over the skin of your leg.

“can you finish your food?”

“what’s the rush?” he asks with concern.

“i don’t feel good.” you half-lie.

“okay.” he says waving the server over for the bill. mason hands him his card without looking at the cost and takes his final bites. when the server returns with his card, you bid leo and daniella goodbye and quickly find your way out of the restaurant.

“i’m sorry for making you leave. i’m a little buzzed and bloated. i feel ugly i just wanted to leave.” you state apologetically.

“you’re not ugly, you look beautiful. it’s okay, we can go back to my apartment, get you into some pajamas yeah?” he says, returning his hand to his place on your thigh.

“i’d like that.” you blush, appreciating how he was caring for you.

you laid in bed breathlessly, your buzz still lingering even after the unbelievable hour of sex you just had. mason hated seeing you feel insecure or bad about yourself and always found a way to fight it.

“do you need anything? a shower? a drink?” he asks, stroking your hair lightly. his aftercare was always what you looked forward to most after fucking. he never disappointed.

“no i’m okay thank you though.” you sigh, just simply enjoying this moment, not knowing how long it would last.

“mason?” you ask after moments of silence.

“yeah?”

“can i ask you something?”

“sure can.”

“how do you feel about me?” you ask indirectly.

“well first of all, i love being around you. you’re smart, funny, sweet, beautiful. what else is there to say?”

“no no like, ugh. i don’t know.”

“are you trying to ask if i have feelings for you?”

“pfft what? no i wasn’t, but i mean if you wanna answer that question id appreciate it.” you giggle, relaxing into your lingering buzz.

“is it not obvious that i like you?”

“no, why do you think i wanted you to answer the question?” you reply, smacking him on the chest.

“i’m always touching you, i call you beautiful, i buy you things. what could be clearer?” he asks with a deadpan face.

“hey relax, i’m half messing with you. i like you too but i think you knew that.” you smirk and he finally cracks a smile.

“yeah i knew.” he giggles.

“why didn’t you act on it?” you scoff, sitting up abruptly and moving your straddle his hips.

“i was t sure the extent of your likeness for me.” he says before you bend over and connect your lips sweetly.

“i think that should say enough.” you say sitting back up again.

“fuck y/n.” he sighs, placing his hands lightly on the outside of your thighs.

“what mason?”

“i don’t think i like you actually,” he pauses and your heart stops. you climb off of him and sit next to him.

“did i do something wrong i-“

“no no, y/n you’re drunk stop.”

“tell me mase.”

“i don’t think i like you, i know i do. in fact i don’t just like you, i love you. i love you y/n and i wanna be with you. i wanna wake up next to you every morning, i wanna see your posts with the wags, i wanna hear about your day and your work. i want to love you all the time.” he confesses to you, joining you sitting up.

“mason i don’t even know what to say.” you reply, wrapping the brunette in your embrace.

“you don’t have to say anything. i couldn’t keep that from you anymore and im sorry if you don’t feel the same way.”

“no no mason i do. i love you too. i’ve been head over heels in love with you for a while i can’t sit here and lie to your face.” you giggle and he smiles, relief washing over his face.

“so you’d be my girlfriend?”

“absolutely i would.” you reply, jumping into his arms.

“what a fucking relief.” he says lowly.

“y/n mctavish, change my contact name babe.”

“on it.” he giggles in response, picking up his phone from the nightstand, seeing his lockscreen for the first time. i picture of you and him in your mirror the day of dux in tux.

“awe.” you say and he turns to you.

“oh, my lockscreen?”

“yes”

“i made it my lockscreen because i couldn’t stop looking at it. you look so fucking perfect.” he says directing your attention to the phone.

“i don’t even know how to accept your flattery but at least now i know all your compliments weren’t out of pity.”

“oh never baby, never.” he giggles, kissing your cheek delicately.

#mason mctavish #mason mctavish x reader #mason mctavish x y/n #anaheim ducks #hockey imagine #nhl #nhl imagine #turcs’ talk

107 notes · View notes

sweptawayghost · 3 months ago

Text

Light My Fire Pt.2

JOEL MILLER X READER

DUEL POV

Word count 6.9K

Chapter warning: male masturbation, mentions of alcohol, age gap, mention of guns, slow burn, pov,flirting, friends to lovers, mentions of choking, angst, fluff, no use of Y/N, The R word gets used but nothing like that happens.

Chapter summary: Let the delicate dance begin. As winter fast approaches Jackson we try to head out on one more supply run before the weather gets too bad.

We wake up with our toxic ex in our bed… again.

This will be a slow burn

Anything written in italic indicates someone talking to themselves.

///

YOU

I always loved fall. I loved the colours of the leaves and the sounds they made when crushed. I loved lighting fires and being curled up underneath blankets. Books seemed to be more interesting in the fall. The summer sun would feel like a slap to the face compared to how it would softly kiss your skin in the fall, even on the hotter days. Sometimes it felt like saying goodbye to someone you didn't want to leave. Soon the snow would start up and the real challengers would begin.

I open my eyes to the non-stop thumping in my temples. I look over at my window, the curtain softly bloating with the breeze coming in from the open window. Glancing over at my clock reading ‘4:56 am’

I throw my feet off the edge of the mattress and gaze out of the window, the moon looks so beautiful, it casts my room in a ghostly grey, making outside look so ominous and gloomy.

Leaving the warmth of my bed in favour of a hot shower. Along with the insistent thumping of my front door is the soft rhythmic snore of the man that lay in my bed. Fuck, I almost forgot he was here.

Dean Hickman.

I cast a look back at him, he looked so peaceful laying there, the glow of the moon on his face, half of his naked body hanging out of the blanket on my bed, his hair sticking out every which way. I'll admit, I had been spellbound by his charm on more than one occasion. Last Night may have been one of those times. All it takes is one look into his hazel eyes and one sly knowing smile, a few suggestive words and before you know it you're falling into bed with him. Not to mention he was tall and tanned and could crush you with the muscles in his arms and god knows he had plenty to work with in bed… He just wasn't that good.

The passion was there, the moves were there and he was great looking but he was just always way more concerned about getting himself over the line. Call it for what it is. He's a selfish lover who doesn't give head, doesn't know how to find a G spot, doesn't understand how to work your clit even after you've shown him on more than one occasion and really doesn't care if you come or not.

Jackson didn't have the largest pool of men to play with so when a good-looking man like Dean comes into your life it's kind of hard to say no. There was a time when I called him mine. He was sweet and thoughtful and he knew all the right things to say, but then he started stumbling in late, whisky leavy on his breath and the smell of another woman hung from him.

I remember the night he hit me. He was drunk out of his mind and the next morning he didn't even remember it. That was the final straw for me. If it hadn't been for that I would have put up with his cheating, his drinking, his screaming and shouting.

When I told him it was over he threw himself at my feet, telling me he's sorry, that he loves me, that he wants me to have his babies, and it'll never happen again. It didn't take him long to fall into bed with one of his neighbours though.

I told myself I wouldn't fall back into his clutches… but some nights are long, some nights are cold, some nights you just need to fuck. At least he could be of some use.

I slip out of the room leaving his sleeping form sprawled out on the bed. I can still feel the mess he made between my legs and my body feels heavy with a layer of dried sweat.

I let the warm water from the shower run over my body as if the water would wash away the feeling of shame lingering on my skin. I should start kicking him out during the night. If people see him leaving here in the morning I may as well just scream “I GOT LAID LAST NIGHT” in the middle of town.

I didn't want to think about it today. I needed a clear head, a clean canvas, today I was important to the community.

Today I had patrol.

Today I had patrol with a new partner.

Joel Miller

Of course, I knew who he was, everyone did. Entering Jackson was like entering a small town where everyone knows everyone, everyone knows new faces, everyone likes to gossip, everyone knows who's sick, who's working where, everyone knows when you burp, fart or cough.

He only lives a few doors down from me and I've walked past his house almost every morning since he's been here. Maybe don't tell him you know where he lives, might seem creepy.

I know I can be hard to get along with, I'm not the easiest to talk to right away, I know I can be dismissive and blunt. It might be easy for people to forget about what's outside of these walls, but I won't. I can't. I don't like the folk who like to think everything is sunshine and flowers just because they don't have to leave the comfort and safety of jackson. The comfort and safety that I helped build and I continue to provide.

///

“Hey” I slap Dean's shoulder where it pokes out from the blanket “You gotta go I'm heading out”

He snapped his head up quickly in my direction, irritation flashed on his face for a moment. He inhales deeply through his nose and rubs his eye with the tips of his fingers “What time is it?” he asks, his voice coming out deep and crackling as he rolls over.

“Time for you to get the fuck out” I whirl around my room picking up his clothes from the foot of the bed before throwing them at him and finding my own. I pull my favourite knitted sweater over my head. The one that I've patched up more times than I can remember because I refuse to let it die.

“You don't have to be such a bitch you know” Dean spits out at me as he pulls his Jeans up his legs.

Fuck here we go

“Dean, as much as I enjoy your ‘morning after dramatics’ I really don't have the time for it this morning” He does this every time. The thing with Dean is he can be so sweet and charismatic, he’ll charm your pants off and take you right to the edge. But as soon as the sun starts to rise the next morning he's the worst person you've met and the biggest asshole you’ll meet. It's like the magic spell wears off. Just when you think he's a prince he turns back into a frog.

I leave him in the bedroom, muttering about how much of a bitch I am or how I'm not worth the hassle or something, I don't really listen, in a few days' time, he’ll come crawling back. He always does. And I always let him. I'm not sure why I let myself fall into his clutches time and time again. Maybe I'm just looking for a warm body to lay next to. Maybe I just want someone to kiss me and make me feel wanted. Maybe I'm just lonely.

I watch him emerge from my room, leaning against the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in my hands. He reaches for his coat that's been abandoned on the back of the couch before reaching for his boots near the front door. He only casts me one sideways look with an ugly scowl on his usually handsome face. What does he want me to do? Cry? Say I'm sorry? He does this every fucking time.

He reaches for my front door, ripping it open before trying the fly wire door that constantly sticks to the door jam. He pushes on it once, twice, three times, really putting his weight into it before he gives up and just kicks it almost clean off its hinges.

“Fix this fucking door!” he shouts at me from across the room pointing a finger in my direction before he starts down my porch steps and into the street.

I cross the distance from the kitchen to the front door “Asshole!” I shout at him before he turns around and flips me off. I return the gesture.

I look down, assessing the damage to the door. The bottom hinges blown apart with the metal all twisted. The handle that once sat on the inside now lays just inside the doorway being ripped off completely. Now I have one more thing to fix around here.

I pull on my boots and my pack, throwing in the sandwiches I made yesterday as well as some jerked meat and an old beaten-up metal drink bottle.

I stepped out the door, closing it behind me and leaving the wire door where it now sits.

I start towards the stables. Knowing that patrol will take my mind off this morning's dramatics. It's a chance for me to escape, out there I have one job. I don't have to think about all the things that need to be done around here. All the things I should be doing right now and all the things that I should have started weeks ago.

I really need to split and store some more wood before I run out of time.

I should go back to that woodshed before it snows.

I should pick up one of my knitting projects.

I should really start thinking about cleaning my gutters as well. I really don't wanna do that shit, can I just trade with someone to do it?

Now I can add ‘fix wire door’ to the never-ending list.

The walk to the armoury isn't far and I really didn't mind it especially when the days started getting colder. As I approached the warm smiley face of Clay was waiting for me on the other side of the desk.

“I heard you were taking out the new Miller brother today,” Clay said as she leaned over the desk in my direction, her lips turned up in a big bright smile.

She was part of the small handful of people I actually liked to talk to. Her hair sat just below her ear, a few dark strands hovering around her face, it was just that bit too short to tie up, during the summer months she would ask me to french braid it to keep it out of her face while she worked. Here's an idea Clay, don't cut it so short next time. Her dark eyes looked so glossy and bright in the morning light. God, you're a sucker for anyone with brown eyes, aren't you.

For a moment I considered telling her about what happened with Dean this morning but thought better of it. Clay runs hot. When she cares she cares a lot. I consider her a friend, maybe even my best friend, Even after we slept together.

We both blamed the alcohol for that one. I don't regret it even for a second. I think if we had met at a different time, in a different place, maybe not at the end of the world we might have worked out. I think we were meant to love each other but not be IN love with each other. There's a difference.

“Yeah, Tommy thinks it’ll be good for him to get out, apparently he’s chomping at the bit” I signed out one rifle in my name and the other I marked ‘J.M’

Ha! It’d be funny if his middle name was Aaron or Arnold then his initials would spell JAM.

“Well, good luck with him. I heard he's an asshole” she said while walking somewhere towards the back of the armoury, before reemerging with two rifles.

“But god is he handsome, even for an old guy” She slides the rifles across the desk in my direction. She has this far-off look in her eye, like she's remembering his face.

“As long as he doesn't get me killed I couldn't give a fuck how much of an asshole he is” I chose to ignore the handsome part.

“Speaking of assholes…” Clay trails off. I offer her a scowled expression as I let my imagination predict the direction this conversation is headed.

“I saw Dean leaving your place this morning”

Shit

At least I don't have to feel bad about lying to her.

///

I headed for the stables after receiving an in-depth lecture from Clay about the dangers of falling into bed with Dean. She should give that talk to every eighteen-year-old in Jackson.

My mind didn't stay on The topic of Dean for long. I had so many other things to think about. Bigger things. Things that actually mattered. As I saddled up the horses my mind was swimming with the never-ending to-do list in my head. In a lot of ways, patrol felt like an escape from my responsibilities.

I wondered how many more chances I would be able to get out before the weather got too bad. I wondered when the snow would start. I wondered how the food supply was looking for the winter. I wondered what day it was. Like what the date was and not just a guess we made that everyone agreed on. I should speak to Tommy about doing more supply runs before it gets too dangerous.

Yep, I'd rather be outside the gates, risking my ass than stay here and chop wood or check my roof for leaks.

I made my way to Jackson gates, the leather from the reins felt like butter in my hand, like they had been oiled recently. The weight of the rifles on my back felt more like a hug than deadweight and the soft morning light felt like a kiss.

That's the first time I really looked at Joel Miller.

I had seen him, and I could recognise his face and pick him out of a crowd but today felt like the first time I really looked at him.

His eyes looked tired.

I saw the lines in his face especially the ones between his brows

The way his jaw ticked when he clenched his teeth

The scar across his nose.

The scratches and dents in the skin of his hands from years of fighting. And winning.

He looked like a man who was forced to become what he is.

a man who was made for so much more than what he is

A man who needed to be hugged, to be held, to be loved. To be seen as more than just the monster the world has turned him into.

///

I spent all night thinking about him. He had this haunted look. Every time I looked into his eyes I felt like I could drown in them. Like I was going to be taken under.

I noticed the way he would constantly twitch his right hand, like he was gripping something that wasn't there and I noticed small sparse patches in his facial hair, I noticed the broken shoelace that had been tied back together on his left shoe and I noticed the broken watch he wore on his left wrist.

I didn't know it at the time but tomorrow would change the way I saw him. Tomorrow I would see a spark in his eyes. Tomorrow I would notice the bulge of his arms against his shirt. Tomorrow I would notice how adorable he looked when he smiled. Tomorrow I would offer him that bottle of Seth's home-brewed bourbon that I was saving for a special occasion. Tomorrow I would study the angels of his face and commit them to memory. Tomorrow I would give him his pistol back, the one that Tommy stole from him when he arrived here.

I didn't know it at the time but in a week he would be splitting wood for me in the backyard and fixing shit around my house. He would ask about the front door and I'll lie to him. In a week I'd be offering to mend his favourite pair of socks and offering to show Ellie because everyone should know how to sow.

In two weeks I would be inviting him on more of my unofficial patrols. I would be going over for dinners and meeting him before sun up for coffee before we were expected on patrol. In two weeks He would be rolling off my couch in the morning after one night of heavy drinking. He could have walked home but I liked that he stayed. Ellie would be coming over after school. I think she liked having someone to talk to, someone who wouldn't judge her, someone who treated her as an adult and not just another fifteen-year-old.

I just didn't know it yet.

______________________

Joel

///

I woke to find myself in a pool of sweat… again.

Where I used to wake up from nightmares, I now wake up from dreams of you.

I don't think you realised what you did to me. Every little touch, the brush of your fingertips against my arm, the way you grabbed a fistful of my hair that was beginning to grow out of control and would start falling into my face “You need a haircut miller” you had told me. I believe your touch was innocent but it lit a fire in my gut.

I liked the way you pulled me, you pushed me, you ran your fingers through my hair, you traced bruises and scars that you saw. I liked it when you touched me. I liked when you smiled at me and I liked when you scowled at me. You would yell at me, you would cry to me, you would laugh at my stupid jokes and you would leave my home with an article of clothing that needed a hole patched up or to take the hem up on something for Ellie. Some of my things never came back to me but I didn't mind.

Some nights I wouldn't go back to sleep and instead lay staring at the ceiling watching the light shift as morning broke through the night. Some nights I would think about you, what were you doing?

Were you thinking about me?

Do you know I think about you?

What do you sound like when you touch yourself?

That was most nights lately.

Now, I know I said it would only be one time but I couldn't help myself. I tried not to think about you, really I tried. I just couldn't help it. The way you smile at me, the way you smell, your laugh. Some nights I found myself rutting against the bed for relief, eyes sealed shut and whimpering for you, wishing you were here underneath me. Talking me through it. Telling me how good I'm making you feel. I wanted to see your eyes roll back as I worked you through your orgasm, mouth agape, moaning into my ear. I know you would sound so pretty for me.

God get a grip of yourself, Miller.

If I had to be honest with myself, It was scary how badly I wanted you. My body felt like it was engulfed in flames when I came thinking about you.

My body stuttered as I held a death grip on the bathroom sink or the sheets beneath me. I imagined you smiling at me. Looking so fucking proud of yourself for how crazy you made me. How desperate and needy you made me. How you would let me finish inside of you because I was so good to you and I deserved it.

The lonely, empty feeling would catch up to me pretty quickly after. Some nights it was easy to lull myself back to sleep, other nights I wasn't as lucky.

I would replay conversations we had. Like the time we were stumbling home from the Bison one night, you grabbed hold of my arm as we walked through the streets. I didn't know if it was just because you were drunk or maybe your hands were cold but I liked it regardless.

You had told me how the silence of the streets was sometimes deafening. How sometimes it felt worse than being outside the walls. I couldn't have agreed more.

I told you about how I found it hard to sleep and about how guilty I felt to be here and to be alive.

I trusted you but I'm sure the abundance of bourbon in my system had a lot to do with the confession.

If I hadn't just met you I would tell you everything. I would tell you about Sarah, I'd tell you the truth about Ellie. I would tell you about the ache in my chest when I wake up and I'd tell you how much it’s eased since I’ve met you. I'd tell you about how much I like you being around. You'd probably think I’m insane if you knew how much I think about you.

She trusts you, Joel. Don't fuck this up by letting your dick do your thinking for you.

She's your friend, she trusts you and you're laying in bed thinking about how good it would be to creampie her. You’re fucked up.

///

There had been many nights since the two of us first drank together. I think we both needed it as badly as the other. Each time we got a little more comfortable with each other. Maybe we got a little too close, maybe eyes lingered a little too long and maybe the interlocking of fingers felt like more than just a friendly exchange.

Sometimes I felt bad for it, sometimes I felt like I was dumping all my shit onto your plate that had just as much shit as mine. Sometimes I thought I should be demanding Ellie to stay home so we could spend time together, but teenagers are teenagers. At least I didn't have to worry about her going too far and no matter where she was there would be a gun nearby.

But tonight I didn't feel guilty. After the week I had endured I think I earned a night of drinking and while I sat looking at you next to me on the couch I felt myself relax, my head was swimming with the alcohol in my system and the heat from the fireplace making me feel like I was going to melt into the couch. I loved nights like this.

The last time I sat here with you I told you about the pit in my stomach and the hole in my heart. I told you about the nightmares I have almost every night when I close my eyes and the suffocating feelings that follow me when I wake up. I may have been drunk when I told you but I remember it clear as day. I could feel you searching for my eyes, but I couldn't look at you. I felt so weak. I closed my eyes trying to hide the evident emotion. I heard the shuffled movements as you closed the gap between us.

I felt your hand on the back of my neck, the tips of your fingers cold despite the heat from the fire. You pulled me into the crook of your neck, resting my head on your shoulder and wrapping your arm around my middle.

And for the first time in a long time, I let someone see the soft parts of me. The broken parts. I let my body relax in your embrace, I let my shoulder drop and I unclenched my teeth before wrapping my arms around your middle, letting my fingers interlock behind your back.

You smelt divine. I felt the warmth coming off your body and the feeling of your hand in my hair was intoxicating and when you said “You’re okay, baby” You whispered into my hair I wanted to rip your clothes off and ruin you.

Baby

Did you mean to say it?

Baby

Or Did you call everyone that?

Baby

When I woke up the next morning you were still holding me, my head resting against your stomach, my chest pressed between your legs with both hands pressed into your back and one of your hands resting on my shoulder with the other one tangled in my hair.

The fire was no more than dying embers in the hearth, I would have noticed the chill in the air more if it weren't for the blanket that was draped over my body and the heat coming off your body.

I ignored the ache in my back and the cramping in my hip that I was slumped over on as I looked over your sleeping form. You looked almost angelic in the soft morning glow that was flooding through your windows, the soft swell of your breasts pushing on the fabric of your shirt. My shirt. One that you stole from me. Your hair falls so lazily over one of the couch cushions, the slow rise and fall of your chest. If I were a worse man, the things I would do to you right now.

“Joel, are you listening?”

The sound of your voice breaks me from the memory, my attention snaps back to where you sit across from me on the couch. At this point, I consider this couch more of a home than the house I live in. I find myself here more often than not and on multiple occasions Ellie has also felt it was home. It felt like an old friend welcoming you home after you've been gone for a while.

“I just missed the last part” I leaned over to pour myself another drink from the bottle that sat on the small nightstand on “my side of the couch”. Your words, not mine. I hear a huff escape your lips as you extend your own glass out to me, signalling for a refill.

It was so cute when you faked irritation.

“If you weren't so handsome I would slap the shit out of you” You pulled the glass back and threw back a swig before continuing, “I said…” I tried to concentrate on the next part but I let my eyes wash over your form. You were wearing that massive sweater again, the one that swallowed you up. A thick pair of woollen socks hugged your feet but your legs were out on full display in a pair of sleep shorts. My sleep shorts. Another thing you stole from me with the promise of “repairing it” never to be seen again. Oh wait shit she's talking to me. Stop staring at her legs.

“We’d be out for three nights. We aren't expecting snow for another week but if it starts early and we’re still out there we turn back immediately, yeah?” You're Not asking, you're telling. “There's a string of supply sheds that haven't been checked on in a while. Tommy wants us to check them out before the weather turns on us”

You could ask me to crawl across broken glass with hot coals on my back just to lick mud off your feet and I'd do it.

“Yeah it's not a problem” that's probably the better answer.

///

One thing I really liked about you was the fact that you didn't get small talk. You would ask me questions about my life before the outbreak, which made me feel really old, given you were only a child at the time.

You would ask me what colour my first bike was or how old I was when I shaved for the first time. Tonight You asked me about my first serious girlfriend.

It was the first night of our non-official patrol and possibly the last one until springtime.

And while we had anticipated snow we didn't expect it to be raining sideways. Normally a fire is a surefire way to get into trouble but tonight we needed it, we were both soaked to the bone after spending the last hour looking for a somewhat secure structure to sleep for the night.

The rain coming down so hard it muffled any noise the pair of you made and the wind picked up the smoke from the fire and carried it away into the night.

"Hmm, I think her name was Stacy?" I said it more like a question than an answer

“Or was it Lacie?”

I clicked my fingers before shooting my answer at you “No! It was Macie”

I looked at your face from across the dancing flames. You looked tired. Your hair was drenched and the whipping of the wind left your cheeks red and blotchy.

“Do you think you loved her? At the time” you asked from across the fire. You were laid down on your side with your head propped up on your arm.

I can count on one hand how many girls I actually loved in my life and Lacie. no, wait… Macie. Definitely wasn't one of them.

“No” I dropped my gaze and looked into the fire. The colour of late autumn leaves. “I was young and love wasn't really the first thing on my mind” I didn't mind that it sounded cruel, I didn't need to lie to you.

I told you about the movies we would go see and the music we would listen to “Most of the stuff she liked was crap but I told her I liked it” I was a horny teenager what do you expect. I Would describe the creek we would go swimming in that summer and how we would ride our bikes around town before I saved enough money for a car.

"What kind of car did you drive?" I found it cute that you asked. As if it held any importance.

"It was a red pickup truck, a hunk of shit really but it was mine" I felt like a doddering old man telling you stories about my past glory days. You would look at me and your eyes would sparkle like I was telling you the most interesting story in the world, mouth slightly open, hanging off my every word. I would tell you anything you wanted to hear as long as you would keep looking at me like that.

“ I wish I was lucky enough to have a car” you said, turning over onto your stomach bringing your elbows up to support the weight of your head.

You meant it sincerely but I remember that car very well. It has ripped-up fabric seats, no plastic covering on the dashboard, wires hung from under the steering wheel, no air conditioning and only the driver's side window went down and the fuel gauge didn't always tick so there was more than one occasion that I would be stranded on the side of the road with an empty tank. “It wasn't a prize by any means but it was special to me” You looked at me from across the fire, studying my expression. The smile that was lacing your lips now falls as the look of mischief overtakes your eyes. “Did you fuck her in the back?” and suddenly the space we share is too small, you're too close and the fire is too hot.

You asked me so blankly as if you were just asking me how my day was.

I felt the flush creep up my neck and cheeks, the grin that spread over your face said ‘I'm trying to make you uncomfortable’. This was a look I've become all too familiar with. It was one you would flash me after one too many drinks, when the conversation would sway into dangerous places or when hands would linger a little too long.

I didn't get to see it much when we were sober.

I fucking hated when you looked at me like that.

I let my own lazy grin form on my lips while I looked at you, a shrug was the only reply I could offer.

“Wow, you're such a romantic Miller” Your face pulled up in a big grin that stretched across your face. The one I loved to see you wear.

I blamed the heat of the fire when you pointed out the blush that still resided on my cheeks and neck. I blamed the day's hike for the numbness in my knees but I blamed you for the swelling of my cock. It's the way she looks at me, I can't help that.

We agreed that I would watch at night and we would switch in the morning. I loved watching at night, I loved the sounds of the night and I loved that every other feeling in my body felt heightened and alert. I loved how night’s felt as if it would go on forever. But most of all, I loved looking down at your sleeping body that was now curled at my side, I loved the way the firelight bounced off your skin and I loved the sweet little moans and groans you would let out in your sleep. Like you were having the best dream of your life.

“Goodnight, Joel” you whispered out to me before you drifted off. I knew once sleep had taken you under you would reach out for me, looking for some kind of contact whether it was me holding your hand or stroking your hair behind your ear. Some nights it was your arms wrapped around my upper thigh telling me to you.

I could tell you hated sleeping alone.

///

“Wake up”

The smell of coffee was the first thing to hit me the next morning. The second thing I noticed was the absence of your warm body curled up on the ground next to me. The third thing I noticed was the ache of my swollen cock as it pressed into the zip on my jeans.

I Dreamt about you last night.

I sat up, my lower body in the sleeping bag we packed and decided to share to save on space, seeing how only one of us would be sleeping at a time anyway.

I stretched my neck feeling it pop as I moved it from left to right. I'm way too old to be sleeping on the ground.

I looked over at you sitting at the foot of the sleeping bag, a knee propped up with your notebook leaning against it as you scribbled in it. A sight I have seen a million times now. You didn't go anywhere without that thing and I could give up my left testicle to read all your deepest darkest secrets.

The worn dark leather held the pages together, there were newspaper clippings, stamps and postcards, elastic bands, paper clips, worn and ripped paper with rushed messy writing on them all jammed into the papers. I'd even seen you pick flowers and leaves that you thought were beautiful and press them into the pages. You also kept a hand pull of photographs that you had found. None of them were of your family or even of people you knew. You told me as long as you had the photographs these peoples memories would live on.

I'd love to see all the notes you kept, all the things you never told me. I'd love to see what made you tick, to rip open your head and dig around in it. That journal would have to do though. You had confided in me about the mistakes you had made and some of the things you did to get here. You had told me about your love life, not that you had to say a lot. I could always tell when you had spent the night with Dean… mainly because I could see your front door from my front door.

it never seemed like it was enough. I needed more.

You'd spoken briefly about your family, your early years in Jackson and your old patrol partner. Oh yeah, your old patrol partner.

You had only brought him up once before which was what intrigued me the most. I should just ask Tommy, that bastard can't lie for shit.

The soft slap of pages closing broke my string of thought.

“Good morning”

______

YOU

I loved doing Morning watches. I loved the sound of the birds as they woke, i loved watching the sun come up and i loved the crisp air that invaded my lungs. I loved watching Joel sleep, it's almost comical the way his broad shoulders and long legs dont fit into the sleeping bag. I loved brewing fresh coffee and stoking the fire as he lay there, he looked so peaceful.

I took a sip of coffee from a beat up metal cup before looking down the admire my latest journal entry;

Dear diary, today was the best day ever!

Just kidding its still the end of the fucking world and and i could have been beaten an raped in my sleep lastnight if it wasnt for the man laying two feet away from me. Funny to think about how adorable he looks right now compared to the animal that everyone claims he is. Not that i want to test him or anything.

This is morning two of what’s supposed to be a four day journey. The wind feels like it's grating my skin and the rain hasn't let up. I think we left at the worst possible time.

There's a fire tower about two miles away from where we are now, we are meant to be checking out as well as a few other stations before the snow but shit happens i guess. I think i'll let Joel sleep for a bit longer, i can tell he needs it. When he wakes up I'm gonna tell him we are heading home. If I told him why we were really out here I bet he would think I was an idiot for making him come out here. And if he found out tommy knew the reason he would be double pissed. Maybe I'll tell him when we get home.

I had a dream about him last night. And it's not the first one I've had but it was the most vivid one. Feels weird to write it down but whatever, if anyone reads this I'll just kill them.

In my dream we were having sex in the back of his truck, the one he told me about lastnight. But it wasn't just like normal boring sex that I'd have with Dean, it was raw and rough and animalistic, he was biting me and slapping my face and sucking on my tongue before spitting in my mouth. I woke up so fucking horny i almost ripped my clothes off and begged him to fuck me.

Anyway. Tommy had asked me to try and set him up on a date with a few of the women in Jackson, which I'm not overly thrilled about. I would let him do unspeakable things to me.

Joel moans alot in his sleep. I wonder if he's dreaming about me the way I've been dreaming about him… or if he's having a horrific nightmare that I need to wake him up from.

I sit for a moment studying Joel's face as I sketch it out next to the latest entry. I wish i had a camera.

///

It had been a few days since we returned. We made it to the fire tower regardless of the rain and the wind that threatened to sweep me off my feet.

I remember how fucking cold i was. How my toes felt like they were going to fall off, my socks soaked to the bone, my nose was red where I had continuously crushed it with the back of my glove to collect the snot that was leaking from it. Very sexy. I stepped into the spray of the shower letting the hot water thaw my flesh giving me full body pins and needles.

I Let Tommy know that the other supply shakes will just have to wait now. At least we know they’re there if we are in an absolute crisis.

I should tell Joel what's in the shed’s. I'm not sure if he’ll laugh or be angry at me. I don't want him to be angry.

Right now I just felt bad enough about dragging him out there with me. I'll leave it for the moment, let him rest and recover and get something warm in his stomach.

I felt a flush of heat rise in my gut as I thought about Joel and that dream I had. I let my hand slide between my legs as I massaged the aching bundle of nerves that had been calling my name. “Good girl” I could imagine the words sliding off his tongue with that silky southern drawl. This won't take long.

After my shower I got into my cosiest clothes. One of Joel's flannels that had gone missing when I stole it so I could fix it and a pair of sweatpants as well as my thickest pair of socks.

As I made my way into the kitchen, contemplating what to eat to soothe the growl in my stomach, there was a knock at my door.

Throwing all my weight into pulling the door open, I stumbled back a little before looking up at the figure that filled my doorway. None other than Dean Hickman with a shit eating grin on his face and a knowing look in his eye.

“Hey Beautiful”

He's not Joel but I can use my imagination.

///

If you'd like to be tagged just let me know :)

@oscarissac2099

@alien-consummation

#idiots in love #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel the last of us #pedro pascal fanfiction #smut #soft joel miller #joel miller

34 notes · View notes