#she thinks their past grief and anger can make it happen

[arthur-lesters-balls]

i had a conversation with my gf yesterday about satosugu and their fights, and its so funny how the kfc divorce is the exact opposite of that. like. if they had a fight there maybe things wouldve worked out

but instead, it was just gojo desperately trying to get a reaction out of geto, trying to make him explain himself or at least open himself to discussing the idea seriously, and geto calmly refusing to do so

gojo didn't go after geto to kill him, he did to get an answer and geto just said yeah, killing me is an option, we talking this out isnt 👍👍 what the fuck

[dawnwriterimagines]

The Verdict Due

SIMON 'GHOST' RILEY x FEM!READER TASK FORCE 141 x FEM!READER

Traitors Among Us (Part 1)

Innocents Among You (Part 2)

The Guilty Plea (Part 3)

Clear Skies (Part 5)

Summary: You head to Laswell to talk on the rest of your now ruined military career. Of course, you're forced to confront your team as it happens, the last people on earth you'd like to see.

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Simon's steps are slow, lacking energy or purpose. Releasing the buckles strapping his vest down to him, he finally arrives to his door, lifting the camo from himself.

His forehead pressing into the wooden door, he finds it harder and harder to open everyday, seeing reminders of you every moment of everyday, when he closes his eyes, when he lays down in bed. Hell when he opens the door. He hated this room now.

Outside of the place that you both had made your home away from war, from battle, from the base, this was where the two of you had once spent most of your time.

He raised his head off the door, before bringing it back down on it, then doing it again, this time hard enough to hurt. "Fuck," he cursed, cursing himself, his stupid decisions, the times he'd never get back, the mistakes he'll never be able to erase. Huffing out bitterly, squeezing his eyes shut, he's still for a moment, before banging his fist against the wall. "Fuck!" There's a crackle along the wall, a clatter of dust and dried paint hitting his feet.

A shuddered breath leaves him, swallowing down his grief, his anger at himself. But, he can't help it. He's ruined everything.

Simon's head stays there against the doorway, he doesn't want to go in.

His head turns a bit, seeing a figure down the hallway, straightening up, dark eyes squinting. "Johnny?"

Quiet and Still. The Scotsman's mouth is set in a hard line, he runs a hand down his face, smearing the mess he'd made of himself. "I..." he breathes deeply. "I saw her today."

"You what?" Simon perks up, eyes wide. He looks past his comrade, seeing the open doorway of your room, "She's here," he speaks, voice alight and hopeful. Making his way past Johnny, "She's here?" he asks this time, bracing himself at her doorway.

But, the room is a mess and void of you. He'd nearly forgotten how the soldiers had left it, the day it happened he could watch it, it would've been too finalizing of what he thought was your betrayal. Today was meant to be the day they'd clean it all up, due to plaguing themselves with missions and ops that required long weeks, long hours. No one wanted to think about what they'd done.

But, now they'd only made another mistake in waiting too long. And now you had to be greeted by this mess.

"I didn't know it was--" Johnny couldn't turn back to the room, back to Simon, as he spoke. "I didn't know we did so much to her. I thought--how long--how could I--" he shakily began. "--how could you?" Simon's eyes flicker to his friend, dark circles and sunken cheeks seem to worsen. "She was so...she couldn't even look at me, Si. Like I'd make her sick, like I'd--hurt her again...I've never--" his fingers claw at his chest, hoping to rip away the ache in his heart, eyes haunted to tears and staring into the dark of his memory as he thought back. "I'd never--" he can't finish.

"She was here?" Simon asked again.

Johnny's clouded eyes look to Simon, opening his mouth before opting for nodding. Clearing his throat, finally seeming to get a handle on himself, "Just left."

"She what?" Simon bolts out towards the stairs, pushing through the doorway and jumping down the first flight to rush through the rest.

As he gets to the lobby floor, he shoves through the door, revealing the hallway to him, running down the long stretch before ramming into the side wall to catch himself at the corner. He continues down the way, running as fast as he's able, before bursting through the side doors of the front lobby.

He sees you immediately, beyond the glass doorways.

"(Y/n)..."

He's running before he can think to get his legs moving.

---

Leaving the dormitories, finally leaving behind the spare hospital wear that you had swapped for your own clothes, you waved down the first vehicle you'd seen.

The driver letting you into the truck, the two of you unaware as he begins to drive off, Simon shoving his way through the residential doors and coming to a stop in the middle of the street as you drive away.

You, having hopped a ride with one of the soldiers making his rounds, the Jeep shakes with the changing terrain, providing more conversation than the trooper that was much too quiet. Shifting his shoulders, adjusting his fingers around the leather, glancing one too many times through the mirror.

It was getting weird. But, you were a familiar face on the base, unfortunately now, it used to be because you were good at your job, the best sniper they had on the force. But now, it was because you were the first proclaimed traitor of the force in decades and the first to be wrong about.

So, the new attention is nothing to be pleased about.

"Find something interesting to look at, soldier?"

Back straightening, body stiffening and eyes facing the road, the trooper swallows thickly at having been caught eyeing you. "No, ma'am!"

"Then I suggest you keep your eyes on the road."

"Yes, ma'am!" clearing his throat. "Sorry, ma'am, I don't mean to stare."

Arms crossed, head turned to watch the smaller buildings go by, your jaw clenched. "It's fine..." you breathe, before relaxing a bit more as the drive goes farther and farther away from the residential areas. Eyes flickering over to the still tense trooper, you mutter. "Ease."

His shoulders drop, head turning, flustered. "Sorry, ma'am."

It was always strange to be called 'Ma'am' by fellow soldiers, usually you were only a year or so apart, others you had been younger by ten years or older by five. But, this trooper was new to the force, young, clearly still jumpy, you had been the same after your first missions on the Task Force.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the trooper then speaks, shakily.

"You don't have to keep--"

"About what happened to you," he continued. "I'm not sure if you heard that yet, but it's--that sounds--I can't imagine. I'm sorry that happened to you."

For a moment too long you're quiet, holding your breath, staring at the scenery as it whistled on past, the wind whipping through your hair. Your nails tearing into your skin as you rake them over your scars, smearing the line of blood left after ripping out your IV line, abandoning it as you found a ride.

"Get any cool scars out of it, at least?" he jokes, lightheartedly.

Your eyes snap his way, his eyes widening before he looks back to the road, back to stiff.

You open your mouth to speak, but you can't. You're just angry, too angry to find the words. But, you don't want to take it out on him, he was just attempting to alleviate whatever burden he imagined to be on your shoulders. But, all it was was a reminder, this was all anyone could think of anymore, when it came to you, this ordeal.

The apologies, the reminders, the quiet looks, the whispers, the fucking gnawing pain still splintered through your spine, you were tired of it.

The car pulls up to the largest administrative building on the base camp, hopefully you were right and this was where Laswell was posted up.

Quickly pulling the car handle as the trooper steps out of the vehicle to assist you, you hurriedly speak as he reaches to touch you. "I've got it," you hiss out, harsher then you meant. Stepping down and off the platform, onto the sidewalk, you forget you don't have your IV pole to at least stabilize you. So, when you stumble, he grabs your arm, his other resting on your shoulder.

"Woah!" his grip lacks gentleness, though not bruising, it's enough to set you off.

Your arm goes back and over his arm, shrugging him off, roughly. "I said I got it!" Your palm pushing into his shoulder and sending him back and off of you, he shifts back and nearly off his feet, catching himself.

"Alright, jeez!"

You're stumbling back into the light pole luckily a few steps behind you, leaning yourself against the cemented metal, you balance yourself. Shaking off the buzz in your ears and rubbing away the tension built along your skin, taking a few shuttered breaths, turned away from the soldier.

The trooper takes a few steps away from you, expression lifted to frustration and annoyance, rolling his eyes, brows furrowed and back pedaling to the Jeep. "Fucking crazy," he mutters to himself, adjusting his gear and stepping up back to the vehicle.

But, he doesn't make it very far until you're on him.

"What the fu--!"

Taking the opening of his kevlar and yanking him out of the vehicle, unable to catch himself fast enough to get to his feet. You hold a steel grip on the collar of his uniform, literally holding him up by his straps, pulling his entire bodyweight off the ground, leaning down so you're face to face with him. "Say it again," you snapped, eyes dark and boring into his skull. "I wanna have a good excuse for what I'm about to do to you."

He was taller, probably stronger, but looking up at you, he could see the years of mayhem and chaos that's burned itself into your irises, made you the lieutenant he'd tripped up on properly respecting. "I didn't--I didn't say anything! I'm sorry, ma'am, it won't--it won't happen again!"

Nostrils flared, eyes flickering between his wide, fearful ones, your hands loosen around his gear. He falls forwards, landing on his forearms with a groan, releasing a relieved breath.

He looks up, watching as you turn and make your trek into the building. You had seemed so fragile before, with a limp in your walk, scars head to toe and those braces along your legs, he assumed you had no fight in you. He couldn't have imagined, five minutes, he'd be wrong.

---

"Laswell."

The Station Chief turns, manila folder files in hand, brows raised at the intrusion before her eyes widen at the sight of your tired figure.

"Gray..."

You don't wait to be invited inside, instead pulling up a chair as you let the door close behind you. Not fully out of a lack of respect but your legs were killing you and surely if you wait a second longer you'll literally tear a muscle. "You free?"

"Never. But, I can make time," she answers. "Is something wrong?"

You bite down on your tongue. What isn't wrong.

"I put in a request for council in resignation, ma'am. I'm just here to know if it went through."

"I did...receive your request," The woman is still quite surprised to see you, a bit off put at your presence, hearing about your scars was one thing, seeing them was another. "Of course. Though, I expected you to wait for my call before deciding to come to me."

"I'm sure," you feigned a slight chuckle that faded as soon as it started. You say nothing else but stare.

Laswell sighs, tossing down the folder she'd been holding. "Look, Lieutenant Gray--"

"Just (L/N)," you gritted out. "Please." You couldn't stand your codename at the moment, you didn't want to carry a single thing this team had given you.

"Lieutenant..." Laswell pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the long table, facing you, "You've accomplished much on the force, saved lives, eliminated threats that had the potential to level the united nations, your honors and distinctions. At the very least, here, your guidance is a treasure..."

"I'd like my resignation to be approved, Chief--"

Laswell continues. "I need you to careful think about what you're doing here, Gray--(L/n). I don't want you to be motivated by what's happened to you, you still have a place on the force, it doesn't have to be beside your team. Don't waste your talents in the field because of this experience."

"Experience," You scoffed at the word, nose cringing up in disgust at the downplay. "I didn't go on a rollercoaster at Disney World, god--I was tortured by my team for weeks while my fiancé threatened to kill me afterwards..." you were about to lose your mind. "What makes any of you think I'd want to stay here? Why can't any of you just respect my decision to leave? I'm resigning."

Laswell settles back into her chair, lips pressing together, she makes a hum of a sound. "I can arrange a transfer," she compromised. "But, my authorization goes through only after informing Price, he also needs to sign off on this."

Your jaw clenches, your fingers tightening around your clasped hands. "Then how about that favor you owe me?"

Station Chief straightens, brow lifting and arms crossed. "Excuse me, soldier?"

Sighing, reaching a hand into your bag, you bring out a folder of your own, some documents signed off. "I had to wonder who the evidence was sent to, given it was right after our mission and Price doesn't even look at his reports to sign off on something in under 24 hours, it wasn't him," watching as Laswell opened the folder, revealing her own name signing off on the interrogation, just a few of the photos that'd declared you guilty. "Thanks for ruining my career, Laswell."

She spreads out the evidence, her own signature on the papers, she breathes out. "And what are you trying to do here, Gray?"

"Stop calling me that."

"Trying to threaten me with what exactly--?"

"Nothing," you answered. "I'm asking for a favor, from someone I thought was my friend," you find it harder to say, Laswell's jaw clicks and she shifts in her chair. "You owe me that much."

"It's the job, (L/n). I was protecting our own, our resources were very promising."

"Until they weren't, huh?" you sarcastically gritted out.

"Yes..." Laswell sighs. "I do apologize, (L/n), but--"

"Just do this for me," you interrupted, pleading this time. "Please. I can't go to him, I can't even look at Simon, let alone Price. Forget about being in the same room with them. I just--I can't be here, this isn't where I belong anymore," looking down at your hands, the scars that circled your wrists. This was a final decision. "I'm resigning with or without you."

Rising from your seat, Laswell stands as you do, "You resign without clearance, they'll take everything from you. Your pension, your insurance, retirement, everything, you'll be dishonorably discharged, you understand that?"

"'Course, I do," you admit. "Honestly, I thought I'd be dead on a mission somewhere before I saw any of that, I don't expect anything out of this. Nothing's...worth any of this."

As you turn the handle to leave, Laswell speaks once more. "I just wanted to enlighten you on what I'm risking for you, signing off on this."

At that, you glance back to her, watching as the older woman sighs heavily, picking up a pen, opening up the manila folder she'd been holding onto previously. Opening it up to reveal your resignation papers.

"If I do this, when I call on you, Gray," Laswell says. "I expect you to be there."

As she wrote her signature down on the dotted line, you swallowed down the ache that's plagued you for weeks, "I swear."

As the station chief continues down the packet, turning to the next page and signing once again, you slowly slide back into your chair, sitting silently as you watch her sign off on your leave from military service.

You bring your hand up fast as a tear runs down your face, wiping it away before Laswell can see, sniffing quietly.

---

Walking slowly down the side hallway of the admin building, you stare out into space, your eyes glistening as you hold the signed resignation packet to your chest, pressing it to yourself tightly.

Passing the front desk, the security posted up at the elevators, you enter the main hall and come to a stop. Your grip on your documents tightening as you watch rain pour out onto the outer glass of the windows.

Watching the downpour outside, you can't seem to get your feet moving to just leave this place. That's all you need to do, just...walk right through it, into a car, past the gates, onto the highway. Just...go home.

As you flinch at the pitter patter of the rain hitting the building, a short burst of thunder, you try to inch your way closer to the doors but the closer you get, the more you can remember. The more you can feel.

The rain gets louder, and louder. It's cold, although you recall it being 90 degrees and in the middle of the desert. It must just be you.

Putting your folder away and into your bag, the automatic doors open for you, but it's too hard to step through. Staring out into the open landscape, the dividing border of the desert land and the gates surrounding the base. The dry ground now turning muddy, trucks driving by and the mud swelling up at the change in pressure, soldiers rushing through the rain, kicking up mud, flicking up umbrellas.

Breathing deeply, you scuff your shoes forwards, feeling the first drop hit your skin, it's warm, but it's no comfort. Gasping at the feeling, you stumble back into the building, the automatic doors closing.

Short gasps of breath quietly leave you, your nails burrow into the skin of your forearm, you stare at the rain as it pelts at the ground, flooding pot holes and falling into storm drains.

The automatic door opens again, you back up, shifting to the side, as an officer gives you a strange look as he walks past and into the rain.

Your hesitance to proceed into the rain was noticed by a few in the main lobby. Like Kyle, who still stood in his mission uniform, dropping off his reports to the main desk, getting off the elevator to see you staring up at the cloudy sky.

His eyes widening in shock, he's lost in his own world when he begins to take steps towards you, lips parting in disbelief, voice cracking as he breathes out to say, to beg or plead for forgiveness.

The automatic door opens again as you shuffle forwards to try to step outside, he doesn't fully notice your fear of the weather when he speaks.

"(Y/n)..."

You turn at the sound of your name and his eyes flicker to the large scar along your cheek, the red of your eye still, that had changed the color of your iris, maybe permanently. The way you hold your bag tight in your hands as if to shield it from the rain before yourself.

You don't say anything, he hadn't expected you to. You stare at him, surprised to see him, then the expression changes to terror, brows pulling inward and hands sinking into your bag to bring it closer. His heart aching at your reaction to him, his lips pressing together, he doesn't know if she should say another thing. Just let you go.

"(Y/n), I..." he can't help himself as he continues, breathlessly.

You back away from him, out of the building and into the rain. The moment it hits your back, soaking through your shirt, rain hitting the top of your head, down your back, you tense up and spin around.

Kyle's brows furrow, before worriedly witnessing as you curl into yourself instantly, crying out in terror, your hands coming up and over your head. "(Y/n)!"

Realizing what you'd done, your back hits the glass doorway, too late for the doorway to register you wanting to come back inside. You stumble to the corner of the building, just next to the doorway and under the too small gutter to find any shelter from the pelting water at your skin.

A loud sob leaves you, squeezing your eyes shut, you can feel the torture starting again, the unbearable freeze of your limbs, the force of crashing pounds of water along your spine. The screams they would pull from you...

Your torment lasts only a few seconds, suddenly the rain stops, but the sound continues around you. A coat settling around your shoulders and over your head, Kyle's hands on your shoulders, he's yelling over the thunder. "Come on, let's get you out of this. Come on, (Y/n)," he takes your arms. "Let me help you, please!"

"You did this," you cried. "I told you. I told you it wasn't me. But, you kept turning it back on! And then you'd leave it like that and it drove me fucking insane. I'll never be ok again, I can't--" hyperventilating. "Don't touch me, Kyle."

Kyle swallows thickly, head hanging low, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before leaning down to you. "I can't leave you here like this, please, love," he hauls you up to your feet. You shove him back, pressing yourself further into the corner, shaking, "(Y/n)--"

"Don't put your fucking hands on me. What don't you get, huh?" you spat. Pulling off the jacket he'd placed over you, tensing at ever drop of rain that fell over you after, but you toss it back at him. "I don't want anything from you. Never again."

"I'm sorry," Kyle clutches the jacket. "I'm so bloody sorry. I'm sorry for every damn thing I'd ever done to you. I'm sorry we didn't listen. I should've never done that to you. I didn't want to, I just--I thought I was doing the right thing for all of us," his voice breaks and he cries under the rain as his little sister, his family, hatefully stares him down. "I thought you'd give in, that it'd be over as quick as it started! I'm sorry I couldn't trust that you were telling the truth all that time."

"I don't want your apology!" you yell. "Cause you'll never know the same feeling. You'll never understand what you've taken from me. What you've done to me--" hiccupping painfully.

Kyle looks away from you, inhaling with a shudder, reddening eyes are covered as he raises his hands to run over his face.

"Your apologies. Your wishes for forgiveness," you seethe. " You should keep them. They mean nothing to me."

With that, you shove on past him, re-entering the building and rushing down the hallway, you turn the corner away from Kyle. Leaving the distraught man out in the rain, the automatic door sliding closed as he looks on after you.

Part 5 OUT NOW!

[beforetimes]

my headcanon about the alternate timeline we see in s2ep7 is that instead of ekko and powder being close friends throughout their childhoods who became lovers with no friction, it actually took a while for them to bridge the gap that vi's death caused.

when we see ekko and powder go to vi's memorial for the first time and ekko asks if she was the one who caused their death, powder very quickly retorts that it was ekko's tip that ended up sending them on the job that killed her. i think that this is important not just because the writers wanted to explicitly say that the chain of events that led to the original timeline hinged on ekko's tip but also because in how quickly she said it, we can assume that this is something that's come up between them before.

ekko already is seen as a character who carries a lot of responsibilities on his shoulders, mostly self-ascribed, which i tend to characterize as being born partially of guilt. i think guilt is a large part of his character and it would be somewhat irresponsible to shrug that off when speaking about his character in the alternate timeline that the original ekko drops in on.

powder is characterized as brighter and happier than jinx when she grows up in this universe with a support system, obviously, but she still has a tendency to anger. this is shown through how she tells ekko to get out before she does something she'll regret rather than rolling over in the face of his interrogation and insensitive statements. she also holds a grudge, as we see it takes ekko physically taking her to see vi's painted memorial in the firelight lair before she stops scowling at him in the bar and warms up to him again.

looking at all of these things, i think it's a fair assumption to make that following vi's death, there was a period of time where powder directly blamed ekko for what happened, and that ekko blamed himself as well. this, in my opinion, doesn't cheapen their relationship when they grow up into the people we see in s2ep7, but deepens it.

i think the act of forgiving is something that takes a long time, whether you're forgiving yourself or someone else, and ekko and powder's relationship being as comfortable and easy as it is in s2ep7 speaks to the fact that they had a long stretch of time to get to that space where they could move past the circumstances that led to vi's death. at least, they both do until original timeline ekko drops in and reopens that wound, which in turn leads powder to throw blame back in his face, similarly to how i assume she must have done directly following vi's passing.

the idea that powder and ekko in this alternate timeline had to move past anger, grief, guilt, and blame makes their relationship feel more heartfelt than if they were locked in since day one and there was no more work to be done. love as something that has to be earned and worked for even in a world where things seem mostly ideal shows that it wasn't just a fluke that they got together but a deliberate continuous choice to work through trauma to allow themselves to be together.

it also legitimizes the idea that original timeline ekko and jinx could hypothetically be together as well. not just because we see "oh, one version of powder and ekko can get together so this one can, too" but because both versions have baggage to work past before getting together, but the universe we see displays how this pair managed that with the luxury of a support system and a kinder environment that original timeline ekko and jinx unfortunately weren't afforded.

i think this also makes their team-up in s2ep9 more heartfelt because we can see ekko move past blame when he comes back for jinx to help in the fight, similarly to how i assume ekko in the alternate timeline had to work through his own to eventually get together with powder. both relationships hinge on the fact that they have to put effort in to get comfortable with each other following the consequences of the job that ekko sent them on rather than letting the alternate universe relationship ultimately act as a fluke that can't be replicated because of how drastically different that world is.

[senseandaccountability]

the healer has the bloodiest hands

I wrote some thoughts after the finale of Veilguard. Solavellan heavy.

This is just me, parsing through some feelings. "My people had a saying long ago -'The healer has the bloodiest hands'. You cannot treat a wound without knowing how deep it goes. You cannot heal pain by hiding it. You must accept. Accept the blood to make things better."  Solas to Thom Rainer in DAI.  ***

One can wonder, of course, what Mythal has to do with a Solavellan reunion and Solas’s choice to become the Veil’s protector, but hear me out. 

It is significant that it’s Mythal because she is the embodiment of his terrible past, the epitome of their brilliance and boldness and good intentions turned to terrible truths. The horrors they did, they did together. It is significant that it’s Mythal that sets him on this new course by removing the chains of his guilt and regret. Lavellan can’t do that, she didn’t forge them. Solas’s journey as the Dread Wolf begins and ends with Mythal. 

Mythal literally pulls Solas out of the Fade to use his wisdom, first to not lose herself to the other gods' vanity and brutality, then to gain advantage against them in an endless power struggle that breaks them both, I’d argue, though most significantly it breaks Solas. Retribution and revenge has no room for understanding, there is no wisdom in conquering. And Solas, for all his faults, isn’t brutal or cruel, doesn’t want power for his own gain. Instead he’s wise and creative, doomed to see the faults of his actions even as he carries them out, arguing in vain that the Evanuris too must see it - don’t cross these lines, don’t do it like this, don’t warp and twist your powers to forces of destruction. You must know this is madness! He objects to the creation of the bodies for the ancient elves, objects his own People’s physical creation. Did the earth not shake? It did, it was horrific and it was wrong and he knows this and it doesn’t matter. What he wants has never been part of the equation. 

Even when he breaks free from Mythal, when he burns her mark off his face, he never stops fighting for the world she once wanted. Because otherwise? Should he stop? Then all that he has done, all that he has given up, all that has been demanded of him both as Mythal’s lapdog and the Dread Wolf, leader of the rebel armies for centuries, cloaked in a persona of strategy and battle orders - all of that has been for nothing. He has made a ruin of himself, of the world, for nothing.  So he begins again, he picks up the pieces, he swears to make it right, to fix what he broke. That’s how he perceives healing, that’s what he thinks he is doing. But you cannot heal pain by hiding it. That’s why the Crossroads are falling apart with the manifestations of Solas’s greatest regrets, that’s why he needs Rook to escape his own prison, that’s why a Regret demon burns through Skyhold.

Solas traps the Evanuris as a final act of the ancient times, the creation of the Veil an embodiment of everything he and Mythal ever were - protection, benevolence, retribution, wisdom, pride. He ties it to the blood of the Firstborn out of spite and anger and it wrecks the world in ways he could not foresee. In ways he cannot fix because you cannot fix what has already happened.

You must accept. Accept the blood to make things better. He holds himself like a broken thing in front of Mythal and you can see it as submissive or as a man finally letting his grief out. There, at long last, he stands beaten and bloodied and blighted and he cries for all that was lost, all that he did and all that was done to him, all the things he cannot, cannot undo. And then: a new way forward.

In willingly binding himself to the Veil he embodies the best of those old myths, the All-Mother and the Breaker of Chains, as he breaks the cycle of punishment and grief and protects the sun and the moon. This oath, as opposed to the oaths of the empire that made him, is not to someone but to everyone, to all the innocents of the world. Instead of being the one who makes the terrible sacrifices of other people - the things I have done - he becomes the protector of the world that his people broke once upon a time. Instead of being the Creator of a new world without the Veil - the god he vehemently does not want to be, that he arguably thinks nobody should be - he becomes a caretaker, a guardian. A healer with bloody hands. And yes, it takes Mythal to break Mythal’s hold over him. You cannot treat a wound without knowing how deep it goes. And this one goes deep.  But it’s Lavellan who brings him the light in this story. It’s Lavellan who breaks through the dark, transforms it into something hopeful. 

His prison construct in the Fade was terrible, an abyss of regret made to hold a god. An ancient punishment for ancient crimes but times change, people change, the People change for better and for worse and here Lavellan stands in all her mortal imperfection, offering him not a way to change the past - where all these ancient beings are stuck - but a way to mend the future. It will be a terrible place, he tells her, saying I am terrible because the Fade shifts around our beings. It won’t be terrible, Lavellan argues. Because I’m there with you, walking the dinan’shiral with you, all the way. He doesn't have to fix anything first, he doesn't have to change for her, he just needs to stop hurting the world, hurting himself. Because she loves him, despite all the terrible mistakes he has made. Because she knows all his names, from Dread Wolf to Vhenan, she knows the power of his mind and the fires of his love and she saw more than most of the man he is. The man he wants to be. For a little slice of time there in Skyhold he was that man, he was seen and he saw. He saw the world filtered through her and could forgive it, he saw her through his own ancient, tired eyes and he fell in love no matter how much he thought he did not deserve it. You don't have to deserve love, or mercy, it doesn't demand anything in return, holds you to no oath. It is a gift, freely given. That's what Lavellan offers him by holding out her hand there, at the edge of everything. That's where the light slips in.

She’s real, which means everyone is real and she changes everything, because she can.  Ar lasa mala revas. 

[gremlin-bot]

There is No Closure, Just Adapting To Life

Ao3 link: Here Master list: Here

Summary:

Danny should have asked more questions before accepting the request to fix a different dimension's time stream from Clockwork. He didn’t think he would be de-aged and live a different life where he would latch on to a new family and friends. It was nice being a part of a community of heroes.

It really wouldn’t have been that bad if he stayed there. Too bad that he was pulled from that world and back into his old one, both fulfilling his wish to see his original family and killing all the relationships with his new ones.

Now he has to figure out how to live in his original dimension again. And maybe, just maybe find a way to visit the one he forcefully left behind.

Chapter 1: Your trial period is over; your account has been put on hold.

Danny shouldn't be thinking about the past life he lived, shouldn't think about the parents who adopted him only to disappear for months at a time, nor the vigilante family he’d inserted himself into during their time of need. That life wasn't his to begin with! Just a dimension with a timeline that needed fixing in an unconventional way. 

So, why is he crying? 

He just got back to his home, time hadn’t passed here. He can see Sam, Tucker, and Jazz again! (He'll never see Cass, Jason, Dick, Damien, Steph, Kon –) He's more experienced and better at fighting now. He can protect Amity better! (He misses Gotham. The city seemed to make heroes feel like magic) Danny has his original life back… but damn it, he wants to go back! He doesn't want to protect a city alone again! 

Danny curls into himself on his bed. Silent sobs racking his body. He's so different than he was before. His hair was longer and parted in the middle, nothing like his usual, (old), fringe style. His missing scars and the new ones he can't explain. Gods-  (No, wait, it's Ancients) he is missing his spleen! How was he going to explain that, or any of this? Even as his sobs grew more violent, their volume didn't increase. 

A trick he learned in the Wayne manor. 

He didn't want to disturb anyone with his half remembered dreams of a different life.

Danny took a shuddering breath, the feelings he’d been trying to bury since his return hitting him full force. He’d been sucked back to his original dimension without warning a day ago. Clockwork, that bastard, didn't even give him time to say goodbye to the rest of the Bats and Birds. He was in his apartment as Tim Drake one second and plopped in Danny Fenton's bedroom the next. 

His talk with the older ghost didn't make the situation any better. 

He didn't explain anything! Just that his work in that dimension's timeline was done. If Clockwork hadn't time locked the portal Danny would've been in the ancient’s lair instead of dissociating in a room that doesn't feel like his anymore. He hates not being given a choice or having a plan. 

Jason was right; anger was so much easier than actually dealing with your feelings.

His spiraling was stopped when he heard a soft knock on his door. Oh, he’d forgotten that Jazz was home. Living through a lifetime made him forget a lot about his first one. He didn't get time to follow the new spiral of thoughts before his sister opened the door. 

"Danny?" Her voice was soft, laced with worry.

"Yeah," He hates how hoarse his voice sounds.

 He should be better than this; he’s infiltrated the league of assassins for Ancients’ sake. He watched as she approached his bed, buried beneath blankets. He can hear when she actually sees him by her gasp. 

"What happened?" Jazz asked as she sat on the bed facing him.

"I… I fixed a timeline in a different dimension for Clockwork." Danny can't bring himself to look at her. Everything is still fresh. The feeling he can just barely comprehend as grief has yet to settle inside him. He takes a deep breath. He can compartmentalize this and deal with it after Jazz leaves.

"How long were you gone this time, a month or two?" Jazz looks at him with unending patience and care. 

"17 years," He whispers hesitantly.

"Oh… oh, Danny." He couldn’t have prepared himself for the shock and pained confusion on her face. She leaned her over him, pulling him into a tight hug.

Oh, he can't compartmentalize this after all. Danny’s breath hitched as fat tears began rolling down his face, dampening his pillow even more. His life as Tim made him forget what it was like to have unending support from a sibling. He loved the hodge podge of the Waynes, but he was a vigilante first. He wasn’t really family.

Just a coworker.

“You don’t have to talk about it if it’s too much. Just know that I’ll always be here for you little brother,” Jazz’s voice was gentle. Oh, did he miss her during those years. Cass and Barbara helped him cope with missing Jazz whether they knew it or not.  He turned into her, relishing in the fact she was here. He may be missing a whole new family, but he got his old one back.

“I missed you, Jazz. Can you stay here with me for a little while?” He pleaded between silent sobs.

“Of course. I’ll be here as long as you need.”

---------—x—---------

Tim woke up to the sound of typing and the sight of red hair. He must have crashed at Barbara’s last night. He sits up, not fully awake just yet.

“Morning, Babs,” he yawns, eyes blurry. 

The gentle but persistent clicking of keys stops with a hitch of her breath. "Danny, it's me Jazz. Is Babs someone you were close to… before?" 

The voice he hears back isn't Barbara's.

It's one he barely recognizes now, made even harder to place with the barely covered pain. Jazz deserves a better brother than him. 

What kind of brother is he, that he doesn't even remember his own sister at first glance. 

Danny takes a deep shaky breath. No, he can't think like that. He hasn't seen her in 17 years, Of course he isn't going to recognize her. Still she hasn't changed one bit. 

He can't tell if that makes it better or worse.

"Yeah" he croaks, voice rough from sleep and the lump that's formed in his throat. “She has hair like yours.”

“Oh… do you want to talk about it?” she offers awkwardly. She was completely out of her depth but still wanting to help in her own way. (Alfred would have loved to meet her.)

Danny shakes his head, pushing past the aching in his chest as he drags himself out of bed. He doesn't look back at Jazz, he doesn't want to see the pitying look in her eyes. Something ugly, angry, and raw always tends to creep into him when that particular emotion is directed at him, and she doesn't deserve that.

What a cruel joke that the one thing that he gets in spades in both lives is pity.

He needs a strategy if he plans to survive the next couple of days, (the rest of his life), and that starts small. Get ready and investigate what the hell was happening in his life before… his time mission. He lost so much time with his breakdown, how annoying. 

Tim (no, he's Danny now) huffs, opening his closet. Well before he starts anything he needs a damn shower. 

---------—x—---------

By the time Danny was clean and dressed, Jazz had left him with a journal with his name on it and her scrapbook. Ancients, she really is the best big sister. (Cass would contest that). 

He knows that he should dive into them right away, but… he can put it off a little longer. Remembering and relearning will take time, and he has all the time in the world now, whether he likes it or not. Diving deep will be too much. He’s too emotionally raw, and just needs something to latch on to, like: 

Next day survival plan 101, start small. 

He can look at Danny’s phone; he’ll figure out what to do with Tim’s later. Remember, one step at a time; one thing at a time. Finding the device was easy, it was on the nightstand where he always leaves it. Seems like this is one of the habits he kept in both lifes. Opening it up was easier than he originally expected; he really didn't have a sense of cybersecurity beyond Tucker back then.

(…Now?)

The device was familiar in so many different ways; he always did gravitate towards technology (with Tucker pushing him forward right next to him). The screen lit up, showing the basic layout of all phones; he dismissed notifications from dumb games, leaving the social media ones. What he was really looking for was his messages.

He had a couple new messages from Sam and Tucker in their group chat. He should look at the chat, but, in doing so, he'd be facing the people he had been grieving their missing presence for the last 17 years. A missing presence that had him picked up so many new hobbies, just because they reminded him of his two best friends. Danny would have never touched a camera if it wasn't for the ache in his chest everytime he passed a looming gargoyle. The hundreds of pictures will finally be seen by their intended audience, if he could only get himself to open the gods damned chat!

Shaky breath slips from his lips as he steadies his thoughts. Baby steps. Look at the messages and go from there.

— New Messages —

PettyWitch

Tucker I swear if your ass isn't up rn, I'm coming over and replacing all of the meat in your fridge with lettuce.

TFine

give me a sec 2 get down there you can stop calling me 

i'm not going to answer

what about Danny

how come you aren't calling HIM!!!!!

PettyWitch

Bc Danny can actually get up before noon during the weekends unlike other people in this chat! So he can be trusted to get to Nasty Burger on time. 

TFine

HEY!

Their banter goes on. Danny scrolls through it with a painful kind of fondness draping over him. A hole that once gouged his heart was being filled, only to have a different part get ripped out for the same reason. The people he missed will always have some type of mouth on them, especially one that gets them in trouble. Moving past the too fresh grief and focusing on the conversation at hand does bring about a pressing issue, he's supposed to meet up with Sam and Tucker soon.

Shit.

Looks like he's facing more ghosts of his past-turned-present sooner than he thought. It's Tucker and Sam. They stuck with him through his death and his first hero career. If anyone besides Jazz could sympathize with him, it was them. Resolve hardened like the Bat he is (was —there is no way back to them now), he spends the little remaining time flipping through pictures and looping handwriting as he pieces the memory of his old life back together.

[luniise-kel]

thinking about how cool and awesome moon stone cassandra couldve been if she wasnt given the world’s worst villain motivation

dropping my whole au / rewrote of season 3 below

uh preface is im sleepy and its almost midnight, so like sorry if some parts dont make sense or whatever

uhh basically, instead of cass trying to like reach her destiny or whatever as like her Main motivation and the only reason to why she Evil and Malicious ive changed it so its more mixed in with her desire to protect rapunzel. i think moonstone cass is cool and i like the idea of her but i really just think her execution was poor mostly because it wasn’t built up as much as it shouldve been.

rewrote cass’s character slightly just so there more empathize on her idolization of her mother, and so when she learns the truth of why mother gothel left her, the knee jerk reaction to blame raps makes a little more sense.

Anyways, Season 3 cass deals with a lot of her issues, i think on the journey to get the moonstone something something happens and cassandra is told that if rapunzel comes in contact with the moonstone she will Implode. Like die. Return to being the sundrop. and cass is like oh fuck, shit, balls, I need to Protect her from Dying. So out of her intense Need to protect Rapunzel she yoinks the moonstone, and (still slightly pissed at raps for stealing her mom but not really she’s just trying to figure out her emotions + rapunzel needs to get away away from this rock) she goes into Evil mode.

Her villain arc is partly fueled by her anger at her own situation, always in second place. her desire to feel love and cherished and important rather than being the 2nd option. However, it is also fueled by her need to provide safety to her friends ,, even if it’s not the smartest choice. Moonstone Cass devotes her entire identify to being the cliche villain, so no one feels bad if like the solution to destroying the moonstone is killing her. she knows that logically the Zhan Tiri is manipulating her but 1. she idgaf and 2. she needs to learn how to control the moonstone’s power so she doesnt hurt her friends.

Tbh boiled now, it’s just cass isnt obsessive with mother gothel and mother gothel leaving her to kidnap a baby because it made like no sense for her character. like instead, moonstone cass grabbles with her identify and place in the world, who she is outside of rapunzel. Also she wants to learn more about her past, yknow, who mother gothel was and is she Worth getting upset over. spoiler she figures out that no, her bio mom sucks booty

Anyways, throughout my version of season 3, cass is trying to figure out a way to destroy the moonstone. She visits Rapunzel often too and pretends to be evil just so she can check in. She angry at her mom but not so much on rapunzel, maybe a little bit but probably more to with simply trying to crave out her identify outside of rapunzel. Same general plot beats happen in s3, but shes more grief driven than anger driven i suppose.

Theres probably a lot i forgot to like, reformulate in this especially w s3 bc i havent had the time to rewatch it and collect my thoughts that well. But, uh, hope u enjoyed. might yap more about my personal gripes with the show and how i think it shouldve been written.

also to add on i suppose, at the end of the series she gets exiled from corona officially, but lowkey comes back to hang out and after like a year every1 is like yeah okay i guess.

[akiizayoi4869]

The Southern Raiders

Been meaning to make my own post about this episode for a while now, so here it is. The main thing I hear about this episode is that Aang didn't understand Katara's pain at all but Zuko did. The notion that a genocide survivor doesn't understand another genocide survivor is certainly one hell of a take, and it's very stupid. Are we really going to forget the air nomad genocide?

Aang lost EVERYTHING because of the war. And to make it worse? He feels guilty because he wasn't there to stop it from happening (even though he wouldn't be able to do much since he hadn't mastered the four elements yet) because he ran away from his duties as the avatar. When Aang finds Monk Gyatso's body in the Southern Air Temple episode, he's overcome with so much grief and anger that he triggers the avatar state:

Katara herself even compares what she's been through to what Aang was feeling in this moment by saying "I know how hard it is to lose the people you love! I went through the same thing when I lost my mom." Certainly sounds like two people who understand each other perfectly if you ask me. Also, in the Lost Adventures comics, we're shown that the Fire Nation used a dirty tactic to smoke out any other airbenders that might have escaped from the genocide.

We see how happy Aang was to learn that some airbenders may have survived, only to find out that it was all a lie to capture any remaining survivors. At the end of the comic he looks disappointed and crushed knowing that the possibility that air nomads fell for this trick and were killed as a result.

A lot of people take Katara saying "I knew you wouldn't understand" to Aang as her saying that he doesn't understand her pain, but if you actually look at the context? That's not what she's saying at all. What she means is that she knew that Aang wouldn't understand her need for VENGEANCE. For her desire to kill her mother's killer. Because Aang was taught that revenge isn't the answer. Even though Aang absolutely understands how she felt, something that he says himself:

In both of those moments he felt extreme anger and hatred, both strong negative feelings that would have caused him to lash out and do something that he would regret later on. Who stops him in both cases? Katara. She calms him down (and can I just say that I think it's really poetic that in this specific episode, Aang's words are what calms Katara down in the end, and is why she decided to spare Yohn Rha?) in his moments of rage, something that he's grateful for.

Another argument that I've seen is that Zuko understands her pain more than Aang because he also lost his mother. While I can see why people make this comparison, those are two entirely different situations. Ursa was banished because she protected Zuko from being killed when he was a child. Which means that she's still alive (as we later find out from those horrible comics). Kya, on the other hand, was KILLED because she protected Katara by saying that she was the waterbender that they were looking for. This happened in a genocidal raid by the Fire Nation. Safe to say that Zuko can never understand what that feels like.

Also, it's pretty crazy to me how people can say that Aang was wrong in this episode, when Zuko HIMSELF says that Aang was actually right, and that what Katara needed in the end wasn't revenge. Aang knows Katara a lot better than Zuko does, and he knows that killing the man who killed her mom would have absolutely destroyed Katara because of the kind of person she is. Just like Aang remembering how he killed all of those Fire Nation soldiers in the North Pole while he was in the avatar state and being controlled by his past lives and the ocean spirit caused him to have nightmares and be terrified of what the avatar state can do. Both of them are alike in that regard. The closest thing I can say that Zuko understands about Katara is her anger. Boy spent 3 seasons being angry so he definitely understands that. But other than that? He doesn't understand her, which is to be expected since he just joined them a few episodes ago, and spent a whole year chasing them and trying to capture Aang. So he's just started getting to really know everyone on a personal level. In conclusion, Aang did indeed understand Katara, and his words were exactly what she needed to hear.

[leafpoo1]

Constellations: The Thematic Movie Sonadow song in my humblest opinion

Stars as a theme are ever present in Sonic 3 and as a lover of astrological symbolism you KNOW I gobbled it up like a last meal. Shadow literally coming from a falling star then having Maria's "the star shines even if it's gone" i'm so happy they committed to this as a motif. The gold of Sonic and Shadow's powered up forms as they fly through the sky like comets, and the fact that just like stars, Shadow and Sonic are quite possibly from galaxies away. Symbolism blah blah blah.

I will now elaborate on why for me, Constellations by the Oh Hellos is on theme with movie Sonadow's story and themes. I hope it's not as boring as it sounds lol I'm just very used to writing these things in a formal essay technique.

To start, the first sound of the song is this gentle guitar, it's very reminiscent of the guitar Maria plays in Shadow's introduction scene in the movie. It's simple, gentle, just like Shadow's life before the G.U.N. Raid. The main singer is our beloved Tyler Heath, with backings from his sister Maggie Heath. I like to think in this context, it's Shadow singing with Maria joining him in the back as a little voice of encouragement. Later, more voices are added to the harmony, and maybe I'm a sentimental bastard but to me it's the new people in Shadow's life (AHEM SONIC) that join in, all of it being a warm reminder that Shadow has a place in the world with those who love him, from the past and future ahead.

Okay lyric brainrot time, I'll try to format this in tandem with the song so that the pauses happen with each separate group of lyrics (Oh Hellos instrumentals are divine by the way). As of writing this post, I'm still pondering some of the lyrics connections but I will make updates if I discover new interpretations!

In general, Constellations is interpreted as a song about breaking past beliefs and the inner turmoil that can result from the cognitive dissonance. Sound familiar?

"I can feel it on my tongue; brick and mortar Thick as scripture, drawing lines in the sand and laying borders As tall as towers I babble on until my voice is gone"

The sensory feeling of something being on the tongue; Shadow is trying to speak but he's held back by his memories. Everything he remember is in the ashes of his once home, and in a bid of self preservation he builds the walls around himself. He knows how the world sees him from all the grief it's put him through in the past, so at least in his eyes, this is necessary to protect himself from future hurt.

"This hill I'll die on is about 90 meters of bricks Coloured indigo, and inscribed with my name, and lined with cedar But the words fall flat like Cymbals crashing, like molars gnashing"

From his despair Shadow plans to die underneath the weight of his own revenge and self isolation. But he still hesitates, as seen in his final conversation with Gerald Robotnik ( "is this what Maria would have wanted?"). His love for Maria, and knowing that she believed the best in him, prevent his anger from full reaching full intensity. In the end, the weights of Shadow's past become his newfound determination. To make right, and hopefully live the life Maria always wanted for him.

"'Cause like constellations a million years away Every good intention, every good intention Is interpolation, a line we drew in the array Looking for the faces, looking for the shapes in the silence"

For a good part of the movie, Shadow is confused of Maria's intentions for him after her death. Would she be angry with her perpetrators? Would she want Shadow to die in an attempt to make right? The only thing he is sure of is his love for his sister, and the love she gave back. It's the anchor point, where all his actions lead back to.

"All that's left for me to climb to the heavens is The chasm of the night and a matter of time But I hear the rumble as the tectonic plates start to shake And I feel my blood pounding like the beat of a drum"

Going a little bit backwards but I interpret this as the perspective of Shadow while still believing vengeance is the right option. He accepts he will die and maybe even see Maria beyond life, even if he has to resort to an unspeakable act (chasm of night). But Sonic is there as his equal not just in skill but past experiences. Sonic's understanding combined with Maria's compassion are what ultimately touch Shadow and shake him from the path of destruction.

"'Cause like constellations a million years away Every good intention, every good intention Is interpolation, a line we drew in the array Clinging to the faces, clinging to the shapes in the silence"

In your classic musical fashion, the chorus returns stronger than the last, and I think of it as Sonic adding his more vivacious energy with Shadow's new confidence in what is right to do. With new perspective, Sonic and Shadow have found their constellation, the key to it being embracing their shared past as a way forward.

"Like constellations imploding in the night Everything is turning, everything is turning And the shapes that you drew may change beneath a different light Everything you thought you knew will fall apart, but you'll be all right"

I LOVE THE MOON SCENE I LOVE IT SO MUCH. As Shadow and Sonic share their past with each other in a moment of vulnerability, the stars glimmer above watchfully. And like the ever changing constellations and systems, Shadow is able to change his perspective on his past. Shadow lost his home, his sister, and his old life. But, I like to imagine it's Sonic that says the last line to him with a hand outstretched. The stars are Sonic and Shadow, aliens from far away who found their light despite the seemingly endless darkness. The stars are reminders of Sonic and Shadow's old lives, which can now be cherished in their hearts as a warm glow, despite not being physically present anymore. And as the world turns to reveal the sun, Shadow's realization of his own heart is recognized as they are both bathed in a heavenly ray. ABSOLUTE CINEMA.

Whew I did that mostly in one sitting I hope it made sense. Maybe I'll do it again with my other playlist's songs it was fun! Please do share thoughts, feedbacks, addons, anything if you have it really! Anyway back to crying to my Sonadow Playlist.

Aformentioned Playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1aWnEadpn1rXQoX9d9JxUG?si=PWOt_v6DS7-E43HT9LgCxg

[bonebabbles]

Ivypool's Heart: Finished

Just completed reading the new super edition! I'm pleasantly surprised by this one. Overall, this was a very good book, MUCH better than the past 3 which were some of the most boring and unnecessary entries to the entire franchise.

If you were on the fence about this one, I'd recommend it. Just take this warning; it does the Warrior Cats thing where it harps pretty strong on parenthood and nuclear families being a borderline essential part of life, including a ton of bashing on how uniquely horrible this makes the Sisters.

If you can get past that, it's a pretty solid story about grief that makes some really fun additions to the WC lore, including the wildcats, StormClan, and a broad expansion to the afterlife system.

Meandering thoughts below the cut;

One of IPH's biggest flaws is pacing, but it's not nearly as bad as the past 3 SEs.

Not to mention, this is a pretty small SE. If you're ever bored, it won't last long.

Before the book introduces the Wildcats, it REALLY meanders. It'll pick up, but you will have to wade through relatively uninteresting scenes of the cats traveling and talking about their feelings unprompted.

A lot of "quicktime events" happen out of nowhere to fill pages with cats running away from random bullshit.

There's a horse carriage, an apple picker, dogs, weasels, foxes, a storm, traffic, humans, boats, sandwhiches. It's endless. My eyes glazed over during most of these scenes.

I know a lot of people were dreading Ivypool being nasty and unreasonable during this book, but honestly? I was hoping for it and didn't really receive it.

I find her most compelling when she's holding a grudge, acting on her anger, and generally working through messy issues. But aside from her just thinking about being annoyed or angry, she's really not snappy at all.

I feel like there could have been a lot more interesting and organic conflict between Icewing, Dovewing, and Ivypool's personalities instead of boring Quicktime Events. In fact, I felt like Icewing and Dovewing were kind of underutilized.

The conversations often feel quite stiff, especially in the first half. Everyone is very understanding of each other, respect boundaries and knows not to push too far, resolve their personal issues very easily, etc. It's kinda... unnatural.

Personally, I found that disappointing because I WANTED to see the cats actually process their grief over the course of the book. Watch them act out, maybe get in an fight or two and resolve it for the sake of the mission, have them come to a greater understanding of each other, etc.

Because Icewing and Dovewing are both so motherly and gentle and we're in Ivypool's POV, we don't really get to see them process their grief because of that.

They're not TOTALLY neglected though! I just... wanted more from this group.

However. I wanted LESS Rootspring.

I understand he's there to process the loss of Bristlefrost with Ivypool but god, every time he was on screen I wanted to push him aside and talk to Icewing lmao.

Stop trying to sell me "cool, mellowed from grief" Rootspring. He's a silly little hyperactive man and you will never be able to convince me otherwise.

As a silly little hyperactive semi-manthing myself, it would have been a lot more cathartic to see a clown like me going through grief. Not to mention just generally make for better chemistry with the group.

Between Ice and Dove who are already quite chill as characters, Whistle could have used someone more goofy to bounce off of.

I REALLY didn't like the whole implication that Rootspring is going to move on from Bristlefrost and "find a mother" for the kittens he wants so badly, though.

Erins PLEASE remember that adoption exists. He does not need a wife to be a dad. I'm beaming myself directly into your brains and telepathy-ing directions to the nearest cat adoption agency

aaaaaand on that note.... yeah. I did not like the way that this book leaned so hard on the whole "nuclear family" dynamic. Ivypool has had like two major interactions with her husband and one JUST happened in this book.

It especially bugged me that they leaned into Ivypool having been a very active mother, when we saw very little of that in the ACTUAL book. It wasn't even mentioned that Fernsong was allegedly the primary parent of the kittens when they were young.

But... I was able to look past it and just accept the book in a vacuum. There's a lot of good here.

Like the wildcats.

While I'm still wary of these being Scottish Wildcats and reserve my misgivings about the misuse of species that are very unlike domestic cats... I LOOOOVEEE the culture they've set up for them

I LOVEE the way that individual spirits reach out to the kits, guiding them through life

I LOVE the connection to StormClan

I LOVE their idea of the elements and general spirituality

And I LOVED the fact that a big part of Ivypool coming to terms with her grief was the expansion of her worldview. The way that she realized the religion she was raised with is quite small, and that there is an immense beauty in coming to understand other cultures, accept their advice, and see the world as they do.

I just wish the book had been able to tie that to a flaw that Ivypool has expressed since her very introduction back in OotS-- that she's smallminded.

It would have been a FANTASTIC way to really tackle and address that flaw, and pay off literal decades of set up. I really wish she had been messier in this book because of that!

But, digressing.

I'm over the moon that the team's actually playing with the series' spirituality! After such a long time of them outright avoiding some of the weirder elements in the series, like Rock and Midnight, it's exciting that they're finding some freedom in making new magic lore for themselves.

Hopefully, in the next few super editions, we'll be able to get some more insight to StormClan and the Wildcats.

The book really hits its stride in the second half because of this, and the ending chapters are actually fantastic. Some of the best stuff that's come out of the series (on purpose) in a loooong time.

[red-doll-face]

Snow Angel 9

Chapter 9: marauding Series Masterlist

low - medium honor Arthur Morgan x fem. Reader

Arthur has been living by himself, laying low (for real this time) somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. After the whole Pinkerton and Micah debacle, he has been hiding away, waiting for it all to blow over, occasionally getting letters from the people who still know that he’s alive. He’s been alone awhile and at first, he thought he could handle a little loneliness. He has been wrong before. Lucky for him, you look like the perfect thing to break up the monotony.

Warnings: dubious consent, arthur's mental health is kind of not so good...VERY low honor Arthur, darkish fic, a bit of naive reader. Guns and violence. Reader has dated and period typical ideals, not very good ideas about men and marriage… if you want reader to be strong and a fighter… this is not for you sorry. suggestive themes. WC: 5212 CHAPTER 9 !!! Thank you guys so much for all of your comments and replies and feedback, I've been loving it!!! 💖💖💖💖💖💖 Thank you for all of the lovely asks as well, @frillydolle @emerald-ranch @teenalien-xx and anyone else who has sent an ask about this series… you guys are the best, I LOVE YOU watch out for meanie arthur AGAIN LMAO😈 Tags: no TB, weird but not that toxic relationship, Arthur being a menace. some scary shit, so watch out 👀Arthur being rude as always just... low honor arthur as a warning lol

You wait for Arthur to decide what happens to your family.

It’s entirely too still in your family home. The air is as stiff and immovable, just like the man, your man as he likes to say, standing behind you. Arthur’s presence is unwavering. As always, he has a natural inclination to hold dominance, to control. He doesn’t seem bothered by this situation, not like you do, not like your parents who watch on, powerless to stop him. In fact, it’s like he’s in his element. He holds himself with that signature cockiness, not misplaced for a second.

You pant in panic, feet shuffling underneath you. You grip onto the rough hide of his coat, scratching your nails into it, as if you can hold onto him for support but you know that whatever happens is ultimately Arthur’s choice.

Both of your parents have withering glances and worried stares. Their mouths are agape in shock, they try to move closer instinctively but Arthur cocks the hammer back on his gun. You can’t move, Arthur holds you much too tight, you almost can’t breathe. Fat tears drip down the roundness of your cheeks and down your jaw.

“You let her go, she didn’t hurt nobody, she never meant anybody any harm-” Your mother is trying to speak past her worry and anger. She devolves into a strangled cry, covering her face. Arthur has a rough chuckle, it grates on you. He thinks this is amusing, an exciting development.

“Yeah, gentle as a lamb, this one. You raised a real sweet girl, really knows how to make a man feel special, don’t she?” he has a light casual tone, as if he isn’t holding a gun up to your mother. His insinuation makes your face warm in shame, casting your gaze to the ground.

“Arthur…” Pleading with him results in nothing, you only want this to be over, you wish you could sink into the floor. At least then, you wouldn’t cause your parents so much grief. You thought he cared for you but that care does not extend past you to your family. This is simply how he gets what he wants and it doesn't matter to him that it’s your parents. That you beg him not to do this. Anyone who stands in his way risks their life.

“Honey, much as I like to hear you beg for me, now ain’t the time,”

Your father’s glare is full of disdain, disgust. Arthur revels in it, you can feel his chest puff up, he stands a little taller. His aim doesn’t dip at all, keeping his gun steady. He’s calculating what to do, where to go from here. All of you wait to see what he decides. It’s terrifying how it feels like he’s done this before, pointed his gun at innocent people to get what he wants. Arthur controls every single aspect of the situation with an untroubled air.

“We haven’t very much but you could have it all if it means you leave ‘er alone,” Your father’s hands are raised in defeat and surrender. Arthur scoffs.

“You ain’t got much, that’s true. Just one thing I want,” You whine, his grip isn’t rough, only firm, reminding you of how he thinks of you. You belong to him and you always will.

“Don’t want a goddamn thing, ‘cept her. What do you think, sweetheart? I take care of you?” You blink, you flush a little, unable to contain the joy his words bring to the sick part of you that likes Arthur. You can’t stand to look up and look at your parents. Their mortified faces, their utter horror. He becomes more vulgar as you fail to answer. Pushing you to say what he wants you to say.

“She might have a big mouth when it comes to this but her mouth weren’t so goddamn big last time I checked. Couldn’t fit all of me in there, now could you, pretty girl…could only stand to take ‘bout half of me,” your father’s disdain turns into disgust, malice. He looks as if he’s about to do something, angry tears well in his eyes. You can’t stand to see your family’s faces as they hear of the depraved things you did for Arthur.

“Yes! Yes, you… you took care of me,” you practically sob, mortified and humiliated, overcome by fear and a violent pang of regret. You focus on the wood grain of the floor, vision blurring with your own tears. Your voice is a shame filled whisper.

“Just stop this Arthur; I’ll go with you, please, let’s just go,” You beg again, hoping he’ll listen, that he’ll take you with him. That you can salvage whatever is left for whatever brief moments of peace you had with Arthur.

Your father says your name between clenched teeth. “You are not going anywhere,” his face twists, he doesn’t want to see you leave with Arthur but you don’t see another choice. Another way out of this situation without Arthur hurting your parents. All you can imagine is a hole in your father’s head, like the hole in the head of the man who tried robbing your campsite. The glazed over look in his eyes. Arthur hasn’t shown you anything that makes you think he would actually pull the trigger on your parents but right now, he’s a cornered rattlesnake. Poised and ready to strike if the moment calls for it.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that just yet,” Arthur huffs. You can almost hear the way one side of his mouth lifting up to show off that prideful smirk.

“What’s that you said? Didn’t matter, as long as I took good care of her. Never even said I loved her and you was ready to send her off. Don’t sound like anybody cares for her ‘round here. You sent her out there; for what? Don't you think ol' granny's lived long enough?” you look away, a subtle pain erupts in your chest. He never did say that he loved you.

There’s a cruel edge to his voice. He talks as if he's telling a joke. He motions vaguely in the direction of your grandmother. His casually callous words do seem to strike a cord with your mother; she closes her eyes, feeling the guilt he wants to inflict.

More tears spill over your lash line. If you had just been modest, if you had fought him, maybe you wouldn’t be so ashamed, you wouldn’t have disgraced yourself like this. But what hope did you have? He overpowered you then like he overpowers you now, his heavy arms slung over your neck, any shift from you and he presses his arm tighter.

“Should’ve known your Pa was spineless. Your woman's more man than you. Had more backbone than you; were you really gonna sign your only kid away like that?”

“You’re no man; no man at all,” Your father’s outcry at Arthur hits him more than he knows. “You’re nothing, just the scum of the earth here to take what isn’t yours,” your fathers tone is panicked still but you can tell he means every word, his face screwed up in anger. He may not know it but you know his comment impacts Arthur; more than Arthur would ever let on so obviously. But his hand squeezes harder at his gun, his posture stiffens behind you as you’re pressed against his body. Arthur doesn't have any room to hear your father’s complaints, does not let them go without consequences.

A bullet shatters something on the mantle and both you and your mother scream. You sob against Arthur, shock forces you still under his arm. The gun firing in the enclosed room has your ears ringing. You think your father is dead, you feel your stomach drop and more tears drip down your face. Everything fades away for a moment. You don’t know what you'd do if your father died today.

Your father clutches his shoulder, his hand comes away with blood. Your mother checks frantically over your father while his legs tremble, groaning in pain. Then he collapses into his knee. The smell of blood and his gunfire consume the space. You sniff, acknowledging that your father isn’t gravely injured but still, you thrash until he has something to say about it.

“Calm down, it ain’t exactly fatal,” he says, as if his bullet simply grazed your father’s arm. “Should teach you to keep your mouth shut. I’m usually less polite,”

“You’re a coward, is what you are,” your father struggles to speak past his pain. Your mother presses some fabric to his injury.

“You are really startin’ to annoy me. I ain’t got a single problem with leaving your neck a bloody stump but I don’t want her to see that. Do you?” His voice drops as low as it can go, a hostility that isn’t just for show. You whine, shaking your head, pressing backwards into Arthur. It doesn’t matter what happens to you, all you want is for him to take you away, to spare your family.

“No! No, Arthur, stop, I wanna go back to your house,” you attempt to pull his attention back to you. “Pa, I-I need to be with Arthur, It’s like you always said, right?” You look at him with as genuine a smile you can pull but the ache of your circumstances pulls you down. Your father shakes his head but you nod.

“Arthur, please…” you turn over your shoulder as much as you can. You plead with him with your eyes too. Imparting your desperation in your gaze. You know that Arthur, although steadfast and stubborn, can be moved by you. Something in you, whatever has captured his attention has him wanting to please you too. You can see how he huffs, looks this way and that. But he’s giving in, letting you have your way. His anger doesn’t dissipate entirely but he drops his shoulders.

“Alright, enough of this. Think we’re done with this little family reunion, ain’t we, sweetheart?” You nod vigorously, sniffing past your tears, trying to blink them away. You’re glad that endearing yourself to Arthur is still a trick you have up your sleeve. He seems to be done with whatever fight your parents put up, there isn’t a lot of it they have to offer. They cower at the end of his revolver. Your father puts himself in front of your mother, despite his injury bleeding onto the cloth your mother gave him. But he has no weapon to defend anyone with.

“No, you don’t have to go, sweetie,” Arthur’s finger twitches at the trigger, making your mother’s desperately hopeful voice fall silent. The teary eyed smile she gives you falls like her voice does.

“I’m not sure you heard what I said. But I’ll make it easier for you to understand. She ain’t your little girl anymore; she’s her own woman,” he mocks your mothers words. “N’ she wants to come with me,” you whimper as his arm gets tighter, unconsciously expressing his possessive attitude towards you. He looks down at you, lightening up a little.

“I’m real sorry it had to be like this, wanted somethin’ different for you. But I ain’t the one who went n’ messed it all up,” the blame he puts on you has your heart sinking. If you were just a better liar, maybe he wouldn’t be here, aiming a gun at your father who is already on the ground, staunching the blood which drips out over the fabric anyway.

“Shouldn’t hafta say this but I feel that maybe I have to. You make this difficult and I leave a bigger mess for your wife to clean up, you understand?” He’s speaking only to your father. His arm eases off of you, slowly. You can feel the underlying threat in his tone.

“Now, go and grab your things, honey.” His finality and the dead silence make you hesitate, like if you move it’s official. If you move, then you can’t go back to this moment again. To this place again. But he nudges you towards your room, motioning his gun, still pointing with that deadly aim you know he has. You go to your bedroom in a trance almost, walking past your parents, you can’t bear to see them. Their terrified faces, the mournful stare they watch you with. As if you walk to your execution.

In your room, the chest is much too heavy for you to take with you. So you leave your clothes and take only things you can’t get back. The most precious things to you. A book of stories from your youth, some toys and your favorite toy, figurines your father gave to you and a shawl knitted by your grandmother. Silent tears drip as you pack them into a much smaller valise, bead of water gathering over the wool of your shawl. Your supplies for knitting and embroidering are stowed away too but you don’t take any of the unnecessary bits you have.

You snap it shut. It feels like this chapter of your life is snapping shut too, you know it, so deep inside of yourself. That you’ll never see your family again. By some miracle perhaps, but never the same way at the very least. You wipe violently at your face, picking up your suitcase, changing quickly into a fresher set of clothes before you step out.

The smile he has for you is tinged with the violence of the gleam of the silver metal in his hand. That wolfish grin, a bear's snarl more than something that reflects any true joy. You walk to him, stand at his side, the way you know he wants you too.

Your father still has that gleam in his eye, like he wants to fight against Arthur. You frown. You don’t want him getting hurt trying in vain to save you. That’s the last thing you want. You know that sacrificing yourself for the safety of your parents isn’t what your father wants but you don’t want anyone hurt here because of you.

“Please, Pa. Just leave us alone. I… I want to be with Arthur,” you murmur. It’s harder to say as you look at your father’s hand clenching over his wound. You’re not even sure if you mean it yourself. But Arthur is your reality now. Whether you like it or not.

Your mother starts to cry louder now. You blink, holding back the loud noise of your emotions. You drop your bag, hugging your family tight in one strong motion, letting them hold you tightly. Your fathers blood stains your cheek but you don’t care. Your mother brushes it off your cheek.

You want to hold them for as long as you can. Your mother shakes against you and your father kisses your hair. You separate yourself slowly. You want to keep this moment forever. Maybe you’d see them again, you’d beg and beg Arthur to take you here again. But you doubt he’d say yes. Or even worse, your family would refuse to see you, the disgrace you’d be after leaving with Arthur.

“You don’t have to go with him…” Your mother pets your hair. You shake your head.

“Yes, I do. Pa’s already hurt, I can’t-” You can’t see anymore of this. You know he’ll survive this, he has survived worse. But you don’t want anyone else getting hurt on your account. Your mother and father tell you they love you. At least someone in this room has the sentiment in them to say it to your face. You tuck strands of your hair behind your ear, sniffing quietly.

“I’ll be ok, I promise,” you bid, trying to soothe their worries but it’s like they don’t hear you at all, as if you said nothing. You back up, one step at a time before you’re taking your things in both hands again, clutching at the wooden handle of your case like it's the only thing keeping you from floating away. Arthur has his revolver in his holster now. You give them a parting look, trying to absorb as many memories of your childhood as you can, before Arthur guides you out of the door.

The cold greets you again, you pull his coat around you tighter, letting him help you up into the wagon after he places your things in the back of the cart. You hardly look at him, instead watching your parents delicately step outside to watch helplessly as you ride away with Arthur. You can hardly stand to watch as your mother falls in a heap on the cold snow. Your father looks on, a devastation is made clear in his defeated posture, his somber gaze. You bring yourself to do it anyway, looking until you can’t see them anymore.

You don’t talk with Arthur. There’s a stiff air between the both of you. Any minute amount of companionship or whatever fake love he made you feel is gone. He has told your parents what happened, and threatened to kill them if they didn’t let you go. You don’t know what you had imagined when you first arrived at your parents house but it wasn’t this. You had prayed things wouldn’t end in blood but perhaps you were too hopeful to expect Arthur to keep his nature in check.

The clouds from earlier seem to have blown away for now. The winter sun is starting to dip lower, an orange hue lights the horizon beyond the dark trunks of the bare trees.

Arthur lets you have your space and some time to stew but he’s had enough. He heaves a sigh, like he knows you’ll be upset with him. But acting as if it’s unfair that you’re not in the best mood has you just about ready to slap him; consequences be damned.

“Listen, I didn’t want things to go that way,” his voice is hardly apologetic, some stuck on emotion that isn’t sorry one bit.

“So you didn’t mean to shoot my father? Arthur, don’t…I think you’ve said and done enough today,” you warn. You don’t want to listen to him talk. It's like he just likes the sound of his own voice right now more than anything.

“What did you say to your mama anyway? You tell her I held you down? That I violated you? Or you tell her how much you like my tongue inside your-“

“Arthur! Stop it. I- I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to,” you pull your collar to the side but only slightly. You show him the mark he left on you. “She certainly understood the message,” you want to cry, to show him the angry tears dripping down your face.

“I’m just lucky you didn’t leave my father’s neck a bloody stump, aren’t I?” You spit at him. You let your tears dry, only anger left inside you. A rage you didn’t know you had. An anger you’ve shown him before in brief glimpses when you give him lip but not like this, not quite pushed to the edge as now.

You ignore how his hands tighten on the reins. How his breathing becomes heavier. His eyes track over the mark. A symbol of his supposed ownership. The iris of his eye is such a pretty blue, hidden by the narrowing of his eyes and then the dip of his head, the brim of his hat lowering over them. His body postures, like he wants to act but he holds it all back. His shoulders tense under the brown fur of his coat.

“Maybe my Pa was right, huh? You; Arthur Morgan, can act all high and mighty, but I’m not sure you’re a man at all either,” you let yourself continue, not minding Arthur’s reaction which is about to boil over on you. “I’m not sure men are supposed to act anything like-”

Your defiant tone is clipped short by his hand on your face, the fingers are tight on your cheeks. It doesn’t hurt you but he holds you in place, pinned down like a lamb to be sheared. His eyes are cold now, his face is frighteningly neutral. He makes you look him in his eyes, meeting his frosted gaze. The anger in your face dissolves like sugar in water. Replaced by the surprise of his sudden action.

“Yeah, you are lucky I didn’t blow his head off, leave his brain on the wall for your Mama to scrape off with a goddamn spoon,” his voice is rough and low, touching something in your head that drains all the anger, some old instinct in you. But not a new one, one you’ve had before. Melting into him, the way you did the first time he grabbed you, he held you against the counter. “As for my manhood; I ain’t got nothin’ to prove. But you’re all too familiar with mine, ain’t you, girl?” You burn red hot at his derisive question.

His eyes are focused in a quiet rage, but he shakes his head, as if thinking of something, of a better way to handle it. Hopefully for your sake; something not too rash. Then he moves his sharp gaze to the lonely woods behind you.

“If you want to try and run now, by all means. Be my guest,” it’s maybe the last thing you would think he’d say. It’s against everything he’s done to you, you give him a look, bewildered. No way Arthur would let you go so fast. You’re almost confused but you wait for his catch. Things with Arthur are never so easy.

“But if I catch you, you’re mine,” A strange smirk and a cruel glare are what he offers. That easy cockiness returns to him, his sure attitude, the certainty in his brow. The leather of his gloves is cold on your face still. It’s a game he wants to play with you, a challenge. As if delighted by his own idea, he grins a bit wider.

“I’ll make it fair and easy, how ‘bout it? I give you a chance to get away. And if you do, I’ll go home empty handed, hell I’ll even leave all your stuff here and send your horse back to ya.”

“But I catch you; you come home with me. And you won’t be leavin’ me,” you stare at him, unsure and afraid. He’s giving you one shot at freedom. To leave him behind and go back to your mother and father.

“Arthur, can’t you see you’ve already gotten what you wanted?” you protest lightly. The imagery of besting him, the strong and capable Arthur Morgan does call to you but something isn’t right.

“You want things to be fair; I’m makin’ them fair. You keep actin’ like you don’t want this, like you don’t want me. Now’s your chance to prove it,” Each word he says is dipped in his frustration. He isn’t quite satisfied with how things went in your family’s cabin as much as you thought he would be.

“C’mon, angel,” he sighs, he looks excited. His breath comes heavier, faster. His eyes are blown wide, eclipsing his summer blue and prairie green eyes with darkness like the coldest winter. He’s grinning, pressing into you, his hand pinches at the softness of your cheeks. Not enough to hurt you. Only to remind you of his strength, his tenacity.

His hand floats down to your neck, yours comes up to hold his wrist. He looks too excited, happy to chase you, work for you. Show you the lengths he’s willing to go to. At first you’re not too sure why. You prickle; you know something isn’t right but you’re too attracted to the thought of winning his little game.

“Cute little things like you are good at runnin’. I’ll give you a head start,” his hand leaves you and he begins counting. You’re stuck, like your back is glued to the seat of the wagon.

“Two…Three…” you turn like a brush animal, jumping from the wagon and stumbling a bit before you’re running into the woods.

The rest of the numbers ring out eerily in the quiet of the woods before they fade into the background. Your heart jumps into your throat. He’s serious about this. You pant, lungs burning with cold air, fear pushes at your heels. His coat is heavy on your shoulders but you don’t want to die of hypothermia should you toss it in your haste. You gather it up, before sprinting as fast as you can. The sun's orange light is fading fast but you pay it no mind, kicking up your legs to carry you as far away as you can.

The light snow crunches under your feet and you run into the depths of the woods, where animals sense your coming and rush off, knowing a predator is stalking. You look behind you, face screwed up in fear, adrenaline almost makes you stand still. You can’t see him and you didn’t bother to ask how much time he would give you. Arthur isn’t always the giving type but you hope he has a shred of mercy for you. You think perhaps this is the exception.

Like a deer looking up at the smallest sound. You rush off, trying to pace your running. Eventually, your legs tire, your side hurts and your nose and lungs start to ache from the cold dry air flowing through them. You lean against a tree a moment, panting, feeling warm, uncomfortable in the fur of the coat. Your thoughts run dry like a dusty river bed, all you can think of is escaping. Getting away from Arthur.

You keep going for as long as you can but fatigue pulls at the muscles of your legs and thighs. You continue, looking for somewhere to hide at least. It’s quiet, no birds, no animals, no wind to even sway the branches of the trees. All you can hear is your own blood, your own breath. The puff of your gasping into the winter air clouds up before your eyes.

You look out at the trees, black slender trunks that reach far too high for you to climb. All of the brush has decayed for the winter. You see a part of the forest that tilts downwards, perhaps a bit too steep but you don’t have another choice.

You slip down the hill, trying to stay upright. You land in somewhat of a heap, on your behind at the bottom of the hill. There’s a cropping of some rocks and you can find something to hide behind, large enough for you to stay hidden. You cover your mouth, your heart beating under your chest. like you’ve trapped a song bird in your rib cage.

You don’t know what you did to be here. Except perhaps needing help in a vulnerable moment. You kick yourself, you should have just ran down the road back home but in all of your fluster, you ran into the woods, like a scared rabbit. Just to get away. You don’t know what Arthur will do should he find you but you know it won’t be a happy reunion, not a playful meeting like two children playing hide and seek. It will be something else, much more like when a wolf corners a lost animal. A domesticated creature meeting a wild beast of prey.

You wait there for what feels like the longest hours of your life. The sunlight almost disappears, it gets much darker than before, the dusk starts to close in. Especially in the valley of this little hill you hide in. It gets colder as the light fades. Through the quiet, you can hear him, his boots crunch heavily through the snow.

“Y’know, you ain’t any good at covering your tracks,” he steps up to the top of the hill you had gone down. His voice makes your blood run cold, you tense up, as if sensing he’s looking in your direction.

“But I played fair, gave you a little while,” he grunts as he makes his way down the hill. Much less sloppier than you. Your eyes squeeze shut, you clench your hands. You had forgotten all of his hunting trophies, all of the guns he had on display. He set out already knowing he would win. You deliberate bursting from your hiding place or waiting to see if he’ll find you.

In a split second, you’re up on your feet, running in another direction. He’s after you, you’re sure of it, you know you can’t stop. You can feel the desperate noises in your throat. You try to make it as far as you can, but Arthur has his arms, corded in muscle, around your waist. You let out a strangled squeak, as he lifts you off the ground briefly with a scary amount of ease.

“There you are, princess,” he has pride, a self assured happiness. But he isn’t surprised at all. He has you on the ground, even as you struggle against him. “Been lookin for you,” you’re held down in no time at all really, even as you struggle against his grip on you. Arthur is entirely too heavy.

“Settle down, girl, it’s alright,” he’s shushing you. You exhaust yourself, feeling yourself heave and sob in his arms. Why couldn’t he be a bit scrawnier? You wish he were the kind of man who could be easily kicked off but he’s anything but. The adrenaline courses through you, making you jitter but all you can feel is the defeat. Quiet resignation calms you down, letting yourself go in his arms. He’s much too strong for you to put up any real challenge. You should have known he had this in mind, an easy win.

“I got what’s mine. My wife…” He mutters, gloved hands petting your hair. The satisfaction in his voice sends shivers down your spine, the dredges of what feeling you had for him stir, even after his treatment of you and your parents. You wiggle, whining, trying to shake his hand off if you. Your heart beats faster at his words. His wife. You don’t want it to have an effect on you but you can’t help it, wincing in embarrassment. You watch helplessly as he bites his gloves off his hands, clearly intent on feeling every bit of you with nothing between your skin and the heat of his fingertips.

“Deals a deal, sweetheart, ain’t much else to it,” he sighs, a sarcastic disappointment in his voice. His face is so close to yours, he puts some of his weight on you to keep your half hearted thrashing to a minimum. You try to give him all you can in the way of defiance. But you know Arthur. He won’t let you go. This is his commitment to you.

His hips jolt, nudge your thigh provocatively. And you just now realize how his breathing hasn’t slowed down like yours. His eyes are wild, still swallowed in the black of his pupils, a crooked smirk pushes at his lips. You should have known better than to think Arthur would lose this hunt. He was destined to win. And you were always going to be the prey he would catch.

I would like to thank Twistidkiwi over on ao3 for the arthur hunting you idea, it was just... too good 🥹🥹🥹🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ thank you queen!! i hope you guys liked it!! i would just let arthur get my ass after like 3 miinutes of chasing me LOL ohhh nooo you caught me 😳thank you so much for reading and lmk what you think !! until ch 10 😏Series Masterlist

[flurry-of-beaus-pop-pop]

"What if Agatha and Rio aren't endgame?"

They already are.

The love these two have for each other has spanned centuries, has overcome distance and grief and anger and who knows what else, yet still rages on, strong as ever.

You can see it in all of their interactions... the way they both know exactly how to get through to the other, the way they are both the only one that can make the other truly laugh, the way Agatha can't help but be drawn to Rio at every step along the road or the way Rio is the only one who knows instantly that Agatha is scared when confronted with her past... the way they can both only be vulnerable with each other...

Their love for each other is never going to change.... it's not a temporary love, it's a forever and always, no matter what happens, kind of love.

Now this isn't to say that I think Agatha All Along is going to give up everything that makes her her or that Rio is going to give up being death, because that's who neither of them are... it wouldn't be them to end this show with them running off into the sunset, hand in hand, leaving everything behind and I don't think any of us would truly be happy with that.

Even in death, whether that comes at the end of this series or down the line at some point, Agatha and Rio are still endgame, because death for Agatha just means stepping into the embrace of the woman she loves.

Agatha and Rio's love story is truly beautifully written and should be studied for all future relationships, because they have truly written something so beautiful and interwoven that no matter what happens, these two are always going to find their way back to each other.

Because after all, as Rio says, "All roads lead to me"

[bamboozledbird]

IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU (Reader's Version) // Prev. / Chapter 5 / Next

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, ofc, omc Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 10.2k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes), depictions of a panic attack, animal death Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. Four years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because most days you feel like a shadow, some horrifically sad creature caught halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter. 

You can’t scrub the bitter smell of hospital from your memories, not even with denial. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Beacon Hills’ bloody underbelly is making it pretty damn hard for him to keep his promise.

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real, and old family secrets rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive?

Maybe, the real question is: How long will they want to?

Chapter Summary: You start to unravel some of the secrets hidden in Beacon Hill's other world, and Stiles manages to worm his way into discovering some of your own. 

A/N: this took a minute, so i hope the length makes up for it! comments and reblogs are love, and i am tinkerbell. also check me out on ao3 (dork_knight) for the full lore version!

Tag list: @eaterof-concrete

Your anger fizzled with every mile you drove. By the time you finished your third loop around the Preserve, it was just a light simmer of irritation. The void was quickly filled with a different emotion: curiosity. There was a little dread in there too, perhaps also a touch of nausea, but the concoction was still potent enough to distract you from your...whatever that was with Lydia. Now that you were alone, trees blurring together in a ribbon of yellowing-green through your dash, all you could think about was the fire Derek’s family died in. Well, that, and another fire that was always lurking somewhere in your mind, hiding in the shadows, just waiting for the chance to jump out and strangle your heart. 

Beacon Hills was a small town. A town where, until very recently, bad things hardly ever happened. What were the chances of two houses going up in flames four years apart? Of two houses burning down to the foundation in the blink of an eye? Of two homes becoming charred rubble and chilling memorials to the lives lost inside? As far as you knew, they were the only unnatural fires that’d occurred in Beacon Hills in the last century. 

It could all be a coincidence, of course. Nothing. Just a delusional, grief-driven conspiracy. It would be best if you accepted that now before you fell too far down this rabbit hole. It’d taken you two years to finally realize that the police were never going to figure out what really happened to your mom, and those two years had been filled with a series of devastating misdirections, hundreds of dashed hopes and unanswered prayers to a god you no longer believed in. You knew better than this. You did. You knew better than to hope. 

But…maybe. Maybe there was something there. If there was an elaborate plot afoot, you knew just the right conspiracy nut to turn to.

The last time you believed in magic, you were six. You had run the entire mile-and-a-half to Maggie’s dad’s store, hands bloody and cupped into a small nest. You’d almost choked on your quiet, congested whimpers, but after a few minutes of blubbering, you’d finally managed to spit out a few words, “You know how to fix him, right? You know everything.” There had to be a spell, you’d thought, with all the wisdom of a first-grade education. There had to be some magic flower or special potion that could make everything better. 

You hadn’t noticed the look on Maggie’s face when you finally opened your fingers, but Maggie had to have been panicking once she saw exactly what needed to be fixed—cradled in your palms, was a tiny, twitching field mouse you’d found on your way home from school. His little chest had heaved so slowly as he laid limply in your hands, as if he’d already accepted his fate. You’d been so young then, too young to realize that Maggie was only nineteen and faked her confidence more often than she felt it. Nineteen had seemed so old at six, and now it was only three years away. 

Maggie had known, of course, that the poor little guy probably wouldn’t live long enough to see nightfall, but she’d made the fatal mistake of looking into your big wet eyes: still so full of hope and belief in the impossible. Instead of telling you the truth, she’d just said, “I got this," and took the mouse to the backroom—where all the magic happened. You never ended up seeing the mouse again. You realized now that probably meant he died, but you appreciated Maggie letting you live in the land of make-believe for just a little while longer. 

But that was ten years ago. Today, you knew that Mags was only mortal and Willowbark couldn’t actually heal fatal rodent wounds—but you were still hoping, against all hopes, that Maggie actually had the answers this time. 

“Mags?” your brow crinkled as you searched for Maggie and her wild curls. Mags often got lost in the midst of all the chaos, just a small blip in a crowded collection of odd, Victorian-esque relics. You could usually spot at least a glimpse of whatever loud color Maggie was sporting that day. The yellows and pinks were always stark against the dingy backdrop, but today the only colors you could see from the front door were varying shades of sage, oxblood, and charcoal. “Maggie?”

A muffled cry sounded from the storeroom, “Back here.”

The door to the backroom was slightly ajar, and the purple lighting from the mini-greenhouse inside spilled through the crack. It cast a mesmerizing strip of dayglow lavender over the dangly earrings and mood rings for sale next to the register. “Bring me the shears, will you? The pink ones by Giz.”

You dropped your backpack behind the glass counter and drifted towards the sounds of Gizmo’s trumpeting snores. The stretch for the pruning scissors was a bit precarious; the little prince was batting his paws at something in the depths of dreamland and had no presence of mind for your fragile skin. You snagged the shears with minimal carnage and ran your finger along the cool edge, staring at the gleaming surface, “You’re into all local history, right? Not just the made-up stuff?”

Maggie took the shears from your lax hands and squatted next to the potted yew tree on the floor. It was just starting to blossom, red berries dotted sparsely around the spiky leaves—ripe for whatever ridiculous offering Maggie had planned. Maggie blew a ringlet out of her face and fixed you with a stern frown, “My ancestors were witches, and Dragons absolutely did exist. Just look at ‘dinosaur’ fossils from the—”

“Do you know anything about the fire the Hale family died in?” you looked down at your hands so that you didn’t have to see Maggie’s reaction. 

You traced circles around a rosy stain on Maggie’s workbench, likely from ground flower petals or dripping pomegranate seeds, shoulders hunching towards your ears as you continued, “I mean, you’re around the same age as the older sister, right?” Laura. You couldn’t bring yourself to say her name, and the hypocrisy was stifling. You hated when people tiptoed around death, when they used pretty euphemisms like that could make what actually happened any less brutal. Less evil. Less unfair. But there was no softening grief. Death. Murder. There was no candy coat sweet enough to cloak the taste of rotting—and yet, you still couldn’t say her name.

Maggie went still briefly and then continued clipping branches, ignoring or not noticing the couple of leaves stuck to her fuzzy sweater. “Why?”

You gritted your teeth and stared a burl in the wood underneath your fingers, “Why do you think?”

Sighing, Maggie spread her clippings across the maple worktop and picked at a few yellowing leaves, “Where is this coming from, babe? I mean, that was a long time ago. I’m almost thirty, you know—ancient by most standards.”

You didn’t smile. Couldn’t. “Do you know anything or not?”

“No,” Maggie sounded genuine, but she kept her eyes on the red stains underneath her fingernails, “nothing more than what was on the news.”

The fact that Maggie didn’t make a quip or a stupid pun was even more telling than her refusal to look in your direction. You folded your arms over your chest and leaned your hip against the doorframe, “Sure.”

“Are you okay, babe?” Maggie wiped the berry residue off on her skirt, and the long hem swished around her ankles as she crept towards you. Her hand was cautious when she placed it on your rigid shoulder, “You aren’t skipping your meds again, are—”

Your eyes flashed as you shook off Maggie’s light touch with a jerk of your shoulder, “Is it possible for me to have a single feeling without everyone jumping down my throat about my meds.”

“I just worry,” Maggie said softly, and she reached for you again, waiting for you to pull away. She tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear when you didn’t. Your limbs were still stiff, and your face was still stony, but you let Maggie grab your hand. It was slightly sweaty, probably from all the indoor-gardening, but there was some comfort in the circles she smoothed over your knuckles. “You know I’m a worrier. Comes with the conspiracy theorist in me.”

You looked down at your feet and dug your toes into the concrete floor, “And my mom’s dying wish—I know.”

A bit of hurt quivered in the corners of Maggie’s reassuring smile, even though she tried her best to hide it, “That’s not the reason I do it.”

Your entire frame slumped with guilt, “I know.” And you did; you did know. You made Maggie drive you to the library every weekend before you got your license, and in return Maggie stole about a dozen of your sweaters once she realized you were finally the same size—Mags wasn’t just your mom’s weird friend from the neighborhood; she was family. She taught you how to make pie crust and scones, and she always read ‘happily ever after’ in the lines of your palms when you needed something to smile about. Maggie did a million little things for you without any appreciation, and you tried to remember every single one as you sat on the floor in front of the ‘Local Culture’ shelf.

Your nose scrunched as you looked over the titles on the spines, searching for anything that sounded even remotely real. Maggie knelt next to you, patch-work skirt billowing around her knees, and watched your fingers drum against the floor. 

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Maggie bumped your shoulder with her own, and you grunted a little response.

“Nothing you can help me with.” Evidently, you thought with only a bit of bitterness. 

Maggie didn’t say anything for a long time. You almost forgot she was there, and then her bracelets clacked together as she shifted. “Here,” Maggie pulled a thick journal out of the depths of her baggy cardigan and held it out with a complicated expression on her face—something halfway between a frown and a smile, “I think you’ll find this one particularly interesting.”

You looked down at the title and rubbed your thumb over the engraved font, “‘A History and Detailed Account of Beacon Hills Bloodlines’?” 

Maggie nodded and shoved her hands into her skirt pockets, “Goes back all the way to the beginning—not literally, obviously. I don’t think they wanted to get into the whole ‘God vs. Big Bang’ debate, but it dates back to when the town was founded.”

“That’s…interesting, I guess,” you flipped through the pages and bit down on your tongue to squash the sneer curling across your lips. It was a nice gesture. You knew that—but what else were you supposed to do when the ‘History’ and ‘Detailed Account’ fell open to an artistic diagram of 'local werewolf packs’ genealogy lines. You were a little interested to see if the names were entirely fictional, or if the journal was an accurate record of Beacon Hill’s very own Werewolf Trials. Probably the first, you’d remember learning about extra hairy men and women being burned at the stake in social studies. 

Maggie huffed out a little laugh and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “I know you won’t believe everything in there, but who knows,” she shrugged and held out a hand for you to grab onto, “maybe you’ll finally be enlightened.”

You took her hand and hummed, “While you’re feeling so generous and bad for me ‘cause I’m functionally an orphan, could I get some more of that wolfsbane gunk?” You batted your lashes over the edge of the leather cover and grinned your most adorable smile—the one that dusted off a rare view of your dimples, “It can be my birthday present.”

It was an obvious ploy, but Maggie just laughed and poked one of your dimples, “Your birthday is months away.”

You picked up the speed of your blinking, approaching butterfly-wing territory, and rocked onto your tiptoes, “An early birthday present is still a birthday present.” 

Mags watched you through narrowed eyes for a moment, “You don’t even believe in werewolves.”

You shrugged and smirked, “It works on humans too.” 

“Please, please don’t make me an accessory to murder.” Maggie gripped your shoulders and shook you a little, fighting a smile, “I would not fare well in prison. They limit your internet privileges there—no Wi-Fi, babe. No Wi-Fi. I would be completely alone with my thoughts.”

“The horror,” your eyes glittered with your grin, and for a sweet moment you forgot about the journal in your hands and all the questions it wouldn’t answer. “It’s not for me,” you admitted, grimacing as Maggie’s lips puckered. The pursing of her lips, the hollowing of her cheeks—that always came before a very long and arduous inquisition. Maggie could be relentless when she wanted to be. 

“And whom would you be giving such a precious gift to?” The thickness of her brows only magnified the suspicion in Maggie’s tapered expression, “A gift you called—what was it? ‘Useless’ and ‘stupid’ less than 24-hours ago?”  

“Just because I think it’s stupid, doesn’t mean it’s a bad gift for someone else. I thought the Sonic Chia Pet I gave you was stupid, and you loved it.” You knew you won when Maggie started walking away from you towards the storeroom. You still had no idea how Curio Killed the Cat stayed in business when Maggie handed out inventory like candy, but presently its troubling business model was a blessing in disguise.

“Don’t disparage him,” Maggie crooned over her shoulder, “it’s bad luck.”

“If everything is sacred, nothing is,” you sniped, doing your best Vulcan impression.

Maggie smiled brightly as she hopped over the counter, sticking out her tongue, “I don’t think everything is sacred—just all the things I like.”

Speaking of things Maggie liked—you tucked your first gift under your armpit and held out your hands, palms cupped together. Your mouth curved into a cheesy grin as you said, “Trick-or-Treat.”

Maggie rolled her eyes, but her puckish spark dwindled when she looked at the vile of wolfsbane. It was balanced between her thumb and forefinger, glass reflecting the light, and you felt a bit like you were accepting the One Ring and a quest you weren't prepared for. “Be careful, okay?” Maggie hesitated before dropping the vile into your waiting hands, “I know you love Buffy, but resurrection isn’t so easy off-screen.”

You were a little startled by the concern wrinkling the corners of Maggie’s eyes. She looked almost more worried now than she did when you asked her about the Hale fire. “Like I said,” you carefully eased the wolfsbane into your corduroy skirt, “it’s not for me.”

Maggie's eyes combed over your face, searching for something, and then she sighed, “Just…don’t let anyone drag you into something stupid. I don��t care how cute he is; no boy is worth the risk of ruining your gorgeous face. It’s your money-maker, babe.” 

There was a lot to unpack in those three sentences; you didn’t even know where to begin. There was, of course, the implication that you were going to join some kind of Scooby-Doo gang that dealt wolfsbane on the side. While the thought of going ghost hunting with a pair of boys who couldn’t make it to class without tripping over their feet was, in fact, asinine…that wasn’t the part twisting stubborn knots around your ear canal. 

Your face was dragged down by a broody pout, “For your information, I’m not giving it to Stiles; it’s actually for a guy who isn’t the leading cause of pulmonary embolisms in Beacon County—and I don’t think either of them are cute.” 

That wasn’t strictly true. You did think that Scott was cute, just like you thought Gizmo was cute when he pleaded for treats. You could see the appeal of Scott McCall, why Allison liked him, but you hadn’t thought someone was cute like that in a very long time. A person generally had to actually look at people to think they were cute, and you hadn’t looked beyond forcing one foot in front of the other and your nubby nails in years. 

And as far as Stiles went…honestly, you hadn’t really considered the concept of Stiles as an actual person until Maggie had to go and imply it. You supposed, now that you were thinking about it, he had an objectively nice face: big eyes, button nose, nice jaw—but when you saw him in person, it was almost always covered with an infuriating smirk or making obnoxious sounds. You usually just wanted to shove it away from you. Sometimes, when Stiles was being particularly difficult, you even thought about flicking him right in his long-lashed, honeycomb eyes. You wondered if the Sheriff would arrest you if you— 

That’s right, your eyes rounded with the thought, Stiles is the Sheriff's son.

The recollection rang through every single one of your thoughts and echoed along the caverns of your skull, sparing you from ruminating on something far, far scarier. You were much more comfortable with deduction. 

Your brow furrowed as you pushed yourself over the counter to grab your backpack—sure that Maggie would misinterpret your impromptu exit, but too lost in through to really care—Stiles is the Sheriff's son. You forgot that sometimes. They were so different, after all, and you were certain that Stiles had broken the law at least a few times in his life, but he was. Stiles was the Sheriff's son, and he probably knew things that he shouldn’t. Things that were only kept in confidential files. Fortunately, you didn’t need to think that someone was cute to use them for information. 

“Methinks the Lady doth protest too much,” Maggie chirped. She was fiddling with her branches in the back again, picking the berries and dropping them into a little stone bowl. 

You scowled at the berries like it was their fault you were in this predicament, “Gertrude sucks.

“And yet she was correct,” Maggie tossed a berry at your forehead, and it landed dead-center on the tip of your nose, dripping a small trail of crimson juice onto your cupid’s bow. Maggie laughed until a burst of snorts consumed her giggles, and you scowled deeper as you wiped your nose clean with your sleeve.

“And yet, she’s the prime example of doing something stupid for a boy.” You made a point of flipping Maggie off before trudging towards the door.

You pushed the exit open with your shoulder—rushing to get home to your notebook and pens. Ideas had a way of slipping away from you; you liked to make them real. Tangible. Inked lines and loops that couldn’t be erased. 

Maggie cupped your cheeks before you could slither away to your car, startling you out of your head. “Don’t be Gertrude. Don’t be stupid,” Maggie said, incredibly solemn, but the twinkle of mischief in her eye ruined the 'Yoda effect'. 

You pursed your lips as your eyes flitted towards the side, “I’ll do my best to not marry my dead husband’s brother-killer.” The door swung shut behind you, cutting off the trill of Maggie’s laughter. 

You spent the rest of the night on your bed, sitting cross-legged with your notebook spread open across your lap. You tapped your pen against your knee and watched the blades on your ceiling fan spin into a fuzzy Saturn ring until your eyes watered. You were trying, and failing, to think of a way to ask Stiles for help without him making a big deal about it—contemplating if it was truly worth all the aggravation.

Sighing, you sketched random swirling lines in purple ink. They interconnected in a pretty pattern that eventually took the shape of the maze on your pendant. There was no way out of the labyrinth without breaking down a wall; it was hopeless, a path that never ended. People who entered the maze would be doomed to walk in circles until they littered the ground with their decomposing skeletons—and oh how you envied them. 

Stiles would never let it go; you were pretty damn sure of that. He would poke, and prod, and stick his upturned nose into your business until he'd thoroughly invaded your privacy and got all the answers to his meddlesome questions. He could never ju—

The sound of paper tearing dragged you out of your pitiful brooding, and you sighed. Your pen had ripped through the center of the maze. You held the page up to the light, and it shone through the hole, blinding you momentarily. 

There was no escaping the labyrinth—there was only pushing straight though. 

You spent a lot of your time observing people lately. It wasn’t as creepy as it sounded, at least you hoped it wasn’t as creepy as it sounded. It was just…ever since Stiles dragged you back into the present—kicking, screaming, and bitching the entire way—you had been…overwhelmed by how alive everything was. It felt like so much had happened in the last four years. Everyone had gone on living while you’d hidden away in your mind and rotted in your room. 

You couldn’t put a name to the strange feeling twisting in your chest. You were angry, of course, so angry that people had the audacity to just… live, like there wasn’t a gigantic, bleeding void in the world that had yet to scar over—that might never truly close—but there was something else mixed in with the bitterness, something sweeter.

There was a certain kind of beauty, you mused, in the way they enjoyed such silly things. There was just something about the way they found joy in sparkly nail polish, and their favorite song, and a boy looking in their general direction that had you choking on a foreign warmth. Everyone had something, and it was beautiful to see people grow their worlds around the ugliness while you weren't so consumed with shrinking yours. 

Leaning back against your locker, you watched two freshmen girls walk side-by-side until a flock of tropical-scented, lip-gloss-coated sophomore girls passed them. The taller of the two trailed after them, linking arms with a blonde in the back of the pack. The shorter one watched their hair swish over their shoulders until they walked around the corner, absently tugging at a beaded bracelet on her wrist the entire time. 

In three weeks, she’d start eating lunch alone in the library, hiding in the dark book closet with outdated textbooks as her only companions. In five, they wouldn’t speak unless they had to. You gave the girl a weak smile when she accidentally made eye-contact. Sorry, babe, I read your future. You didn’t even need to see the girl’s palm. 

You pushed yourself off of your locker and shook your head a little, regrouping your thoughts as you slid into your seat next to Stiles. He looked tired. He was slumped over his desk, chin propped on his folded arms, and his eyelids hung heavily over the exhaustion coating his directionless gaze. He barely acknowledged your presence, grunting a little and nudging your foot with his. 

You hid your smile behind your English binder and turned in your seat to face him. “Hey,” you paused, bundling the meager bits and pieces of courage in your chest, and then said, “your perpetual nosiness—that extends to your dad too, right?”

Stiles’s head lulled to the side, cheek pressed against his folded arms, evidently too drained to sit-up. He trailed his squinted gaze over your face, eyes hooded and unblinking, “Why?”

“No reason.” You drummed your pencil against your desk and watched the long red arrow tick forward on the clock above the whiteboard. Stiles watched you fidget with a little sleepy smirk eased into the corners of his mouth, patient and still for the first time since you’d met. It was a shame you couldn’t revel in it. 

You lost the stalemate after your desperation became too thick to swallow, “I need to see a case file. There’s like…nothing on the internet or in Maggie’s local history sagas.” 

That got his attention. Stiles leaned forward, glimmering with intrigue and ill-intent, and said, “Which case?”

“None of your business,” you retorted reflexively. Stiles gave you an amused look and cupped his cheek in his palm, waiting for the inevitable apology. You withered against your chair and muttered, “Does it matter?”

He snorted and lifted a shoulder, “I have a right to know what I’m potentially putting my life on the line for; breaking and entering is a very serious crime, y’know.”

You huffed and glared a little at your clasped hands, “Somehow I know you’ve done worse.”

Stiles didn’t deny it. He just grinned proudly and scooted closer to you, “Seriously, what’s so important you’re willing to steal something from the police?”

“Not steal,” you corrected, a bit too petulantly for your liking, “just…borrow indefinitely.” 

“Uh huh,” Stiles pursed his lips and almost went cross-eyed scrutinizing your face, “so what’s so important you’re willing to ‘borrow’ classified information from the police ‘indefinitely’?”

You paused, not entirely sure how to answer his question without spilling over the edges and ruining everything. “I don’t know,” you admitted quietly, bowing your head a little. You picked at a hangnail until it was tender and inflamed, “Just a hunch, really. It’s probably nothing.”

Stiles tapped his fingers against his desk, fast and furious, and let out a dramatic puff of air, “I could help you if you’d, y’know, tell me literally one single thing about it.”

“I don’t need your help,” you scoffed, feet sliding out in front of you as you sunk into your chair. 

He cocked his head and hummed, looking far too smug for 7:45 in the morning, “Besides the whole ‘stealing my dad’s keycard and making it actually possible for you to read it’ thing, right?”

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” you mumbled, stalling the inevitable. It felt a little too much like losing to admit that you needed him—even though…you definitely needed him. It was a rather unfortunate fact you were fruitlessly still trying to deny.

Stiles rolled his eyes, neck too, and grabbed his backpack from the floor, “Forgive me for having a hobby.”

He opened his backpack, and you imagined, just for a moment, the zipper latching onto his mouth like a singularly-tentacled alien. It would solve all your problems; you could zip and unzip him whenever you wanted. If only. Sighing, you dropped your head against your knuckles, “Which is…irritating me?”

“Putting the pieces together,” Stiles dropped his coffee-warped, dogeared copy of Metamorphosis onto his desk and flipped to the assigned chapter. His eyes flicked from right to left, pace ridiculously fast, as he scanned through the pages. If it were anyone else, you would’ve assumed it was all for show. “I was a jigsaw kid,” he murmured, nose still stuck in his book.

Your lip stung as you gnawed on the cracking center, “If I tell you what I’m looking for, you’ll help me?”

“That,” Stiles punctuated his statement with a dramatic page flip, “and I might need a tiny favor from you.” He held his pointer finger and thumb together, almost touching, and flashed a toothy smile over the bent cover of his book, “Just an itty-bitty, very small, totally not a big deal favor.”

Your face turned thoroughly sour, “Oh god.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, like he didn’t just intentionally plant the seeds of dead bodies and false alibis in your mind two seconds ago, and huffed, “I just want to check on Lydia, okay? I think I’ll have a better chance of getting in through the front door with you.”

Your smirk flattened, “Why?”

His mouth hung open for a second, and then he shook his head firmly, peering at you through pinched lids, “You first.”

You fixed your gaze on your shoes, shifting your foot from left to the right, watching the fluorescent lights bounce off of the burgundy leather. The extra shine only made the scuffs on the toes more pronounced. “I want to look into the Hale fire, okay?” Your voice got trapped in your throat, so your tone wasn’t as biting as you wanted it to be, “Happy?”

You would’ve been content to keep staring at your boots until class ended, but your attention snapped back to Stiles when he inhaled sharply. He looked baffled, and maybe even a little green in the face, and you were starting to feel a little queasy yourself—nerves tended to turn your stomach upside-down and inside-out all in the same excruciatingly slow flip. His mouth was already ajar, but it took him several red-hand ticks to finally speak, “Why?” 

“Nuh uh,” you crossed your arms and sat upright, rolling your shoulders back, “you go now.”

Stiles was still looking at you with an odd expression on his face, a little too distracted to be difficult. He answered you without any inflection in his voice, “She didn’t show up for homeroom.”

Your intestines unspun with your faint inhale and then immediately dropped to the floor along with your heart as you let out a weak, trembling exhale, “...and?”

Stiles recovered from his momentary lapse in vexation and leaned onto his forearms, "And it’s your turn again.”

You wished you had a simple answer for him, and, even more so, you wished you were a better liar. “There’s kinda no way to answer that without trauma dumping all over you,” you mumbled, intensively examining the fine ridges in your nails. 

“I can handle a little trauma.” Stiles rapped his knuckles against the top of his head and smiled a little, “I’ve got nothin’ but space up here.” 

People always said that—that they’d be there for you no matter what, that they could handle anything—and then they got a real good look at the ugly of it all, at the dirty hair and rotting kitchen, at the prolonged silences and self-absorbed isolation. People usually took off running pretty quickly after that. At least, Lydia had.

“There haven’t been that many residential fire fatalities here. Just two cases, actually.” You chewed on your thumbnail and shrugged, “I know they said the Hale fire was an accident, but…maybe there’s a connection.” You swallowed, and your boot squeaked against the floor when you kicked at the ground, “Or maybe I’m just a dumbass with too much spare time.”

Stiles stared at you, and you could see the exact moment he connected the pieces. You were expecting the usual nauseating sympathy, the well-intentioned kindness that always flirted with the edge of pity, oftentimes landing smack-dab in the middle of it—but there wasn’t a drip of pity in his eyes. They were filled with grief; for you or for someone else, you didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t matter. More importantly, perhaps, his eyes were shining with…relief, pure and simple relief that nothing else needed to be said. 

“I’ll get you into the file room,” Stiles said, low and soft in his throat, and he didn’t look away from you until Scott slid in-between your desks. They did a complicated series of high-fives and hand-shakes with a few ‘knucks’ thrown in here and there for good measure. 

Before Scott sat down behind Stiles, he smiled in your direction. You looked past him, assuming Allison was behind you, and watched a red-breasted robin flit around a tree through the window. You saw Scott’s hand move in your peripheral vision, and when you tore your eyes away from the streak of scarlet feathers and blue sky, your lips tipped into a timid smile. Scott was waving at you; he was smiling at you. You didn’t know when your world went from no friends to two, but it felt oddly…normal. Smiling back at Scott, dodging Stiles’s kicks at your feet, trying not to laugh at their goofy faces. It felt like it was part of your routine, exactly the same as organizing your pens and pencils on top of your desk at the start of class, and just like that: normal twisted into terrifying. 

You chewed on the end of your pen when you felt Stiles’s gaze on the side of your face, “So…why do you want to see Lydia—besides your typical stalker behavior, obviously.” 

“You’re gonna feel like such an asshole,” Stiles grinned a little and nudged your toes, but there was something strange tucked in the corners of his mouth, something a bit grim, a bit afraid. Whatever it was, his cheeks didn’t dimple with his smile, and you gnawed on your lip once you realized that you not only noticed their absence but you missed them. 

You peeked at him from under your lashes and frowned when you saw that the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were gone too. Stiles’s grin eroded away to little more than a flat line once he started speaking again, “Jackson was attacked by…something last night—they’re saying mountain lion, but you and I both know that’s bullshit—anyway, she was pretty freaked out when my dad got there.”

You stiffened, spinal column drawing into a taut line from the crown of your skull to your tailbone, and your blood went cold. You already knew Lydia hadn't shown up for school today. You always knew—you felt Lydia’s absence just as fiercely as her presence. The air was just different somehow. You didn’t even have to look for her anymore; an innate rabbit-sense always reared its head when Lydia was too far away…when she was too close. Your instincts couldn’t agree on anything. They couldn’t decide if Lydia was a rabbit or a fox, and it was exhausting—but at the moment all you wanted, all you needed, was to make sure that Lydia hadn’t been torn apart by a monster with sharp claws and serrated teeth. 

“And she isn’t here,” you finally said, barely above a whisper.

“And she isn’t here,” Stiles echoed, just as quiet. 

“Okay,” your head bobbed with a decisive nod, knees moving before your mind had the chance to scold them, “let’s go.”

Stiles’s jaw unhinged alarmingly fast and comically wide, “Wha—now?”

You pushed everything on your desk into your backpack with a broad sweep of your arm and jerked your head towards the door, “Come on, before class starts.”

Stiles blinked at you for a few moments and then floundered for his things when you started walking out of the room without him. He stumbled into a desk in his rapid, ever-so clumsy efforts to catch up with you and twisted around to salute Scott’s empty chair. Apparently, neither of you had noticed his exit. It seemed it was a perfect morning for ditching class, but you didn’t dwell on the consequences for long. Your focus was single-minded and unwavering, and Stiles had to jog to keep up with your stalwart stride. 

“Since when are you so helpful,” he muttered, slightly out of breath. 

“I told you,” you gave him a wry smile and shoved the exit door open with your back, holding it for Stiles until he was halfway through the frame—and then you promptly stepped out of the way and watched the door swing shut on his backpack. Your lips twitched with a grin, “I’m a nice girl.”

Stiles yelped a little and looked over his shoulder, ensuring all his limbs were intact before yanking on his straps. His backpack smacked into his shoulders, and the heavy textbooks inside slammed together with a satisfying thump. You snickered and dodged his attempts to kick the back of your knees.

Glowering, Stiles switched tactics and tried to step on your nimble feet. Tragically for him, all the fire in his indignation was lost to his plush pout, “Since when?”

You rolled your eyes and waited next to his jeep, anxiously tracing little swirls in the dirt caked onto the passenger door, “Since I met you.” 

You missed the look on Stiles’s face, but that was for the best. His honeyed smile would’ve changed your mind, and you had an ex-best friend to attend to.

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

The jeep was quiet for the first few minutes of the drive—at least, it was as quiet as a decrepit clunker could be. There were various clangs and squeals in-between the engine’s low rumble, and a soft indie song filled the silences in-between, but the air felt still. Stiles was intently focused on the road ahead, thumbs drumming against the steering wheel to a beat of his own making, while you picked at your cuticles, cycling between anxiety and denial. It was a subliminal game of chicken that Stiles eventually lost. 

After a few false starts, Stiles blurted out, “You ever gonna tell me what happened?”

You stared straight ahead, through the bug-splattered windshield and down the winding street, “Nope.”

“Fine. That’s fine.” Stiles flexed his fingers against the steering wheel, straightening them to their impressive full-length, and then wrapped them around the wheel again. His grip was as tight as the grit of his teeth, “I don’t even want to know anyway.” You lulled your head to the side to smirk at him, but you kept your mouth thoroughly closed. Stiles’s gaze flicked in your direction briefly, and then he directed his eye roll towards the road, “I don’t. Keep your boring secret.”

You settled further into the passenger seat and propped your feet on the dash, grin warm with satisfaction, “I will.”

The beat of Stiles’s thumbs sped up, thundering against ‘9’ and ‘3’ while you hummed along to the trickle of piano and acoustic guitar strumming through the cracked speakers. The time on the dash display flickered from 8:15 to 8:16, and Stiles let out a long, drawn-out groan, “Will you just tell me! It’s killing me. Seriously, I’m going to credit you in my epitaph. ‘Here lies Stiles Stilinski: Another Victim of Gaslighting, Gatekeeping, and Girlbossing.’”

“They say you always remember your first,” you sighed dreamily, battering your butterfly lashes. The mole on the hinge of his jaw jumped with a harsh swallow, and you grinned. 

Stiles snorted and then immediately grimaced like he was irritated with his mouth for having the audacity to laugh in the midst of his despair. “Good to know I’m just part of a pattern.”

“I don’t know about that,” you hummed, resting your temple against the window. The morning sun warmed your skin and washed your face with a glimmer of gold that glittered with the devilry in your eyes. You smirked at Stiles and poked the mole just below his earlobe, “I have yet to meet anyone as homicidally inspiring as you.”

He pulled a face to hide his smile as the jeep puttered to a stop against the curb, and you looked over his shoulder, blinking slowly. You hadn’t realized you were so close to Lydia’s house until you were parked in front of it. 

The colonial estate loomed largely through the window. The long white pillars stood oppressively alongside the double entrance, and the meticulously manicured lawn screamed ‘keep off’ louder than any sign or barbed-wire fence. Lydia’s house had always been more like a monument than a home: an art installation, an antique, something to be admired not loved.

Tilting your head, you squinted at the familiar windows and counted along the second floor until you found Lydia’s room. The heavy purple curtains were drawn closed, and you were a little surprised that Lydia hadn’t redecorated in the last couple years. It was probably different on the inside; sixteen was a little old for dollhouses and princess crowns.

Growing up, Lydia’s room was stocked with every Barbie accessory on the market, and yet you always played Barbies at your house. Every single time. When her dad was home, Lydia’s house had teetered between too quiet and too loud. A constant vague unease hung heavily in the air, even with the volume on her CD player turned all the way up. No boy band could drown out all the screaming and icy silences, but you'd tried. Oh how you'd tried. It happened so often, you’d eventually gotten used to the noise, but you could tell it’d bothered Lydia, no matter how unbothered she’d tried to seem. 

In comparison, your house was the Dreamhouse. It was so warm before it became empty. Your mom always had something baking in the oven, and Lydia had never looked more at home than when she was tucked on your window seat, plate of brownies by her side, with your mom’s gentle hands braiding her hair out of her face. You hadn’t ever minded sharing; Lydia needed the attention more than you did. She was so much softer than people gave her credit for, far more fragile than they’d ever know. 

In spite of her current taste in boys, Lydia used to be a steadfast romantic. She'd always wanted to reenact the romance novels stacked on her nightstand, a little heartbreak before the inevitable happily ever after. She used to read so voraciously there was a new plot to perform every day. You were also a bookworm, but your tastes had inspired morbid hits such as Black Widow Barbie and Dreamhouse Zombie Outbreak. You'd usually take turns, or Barbie ended up falling in love with zombie Ken until he chomped on her arm. 

“Not her brains,” Lydia had always insisted, “Barbie is the brains of the relationship.” 

Lydia, you'd argue, Lydia was the brain. The only one that mattered.

Warm skin on your knuckles gently drew you back into the present. Stiles’s brow was pinched with concern, and his hand lingered on yours until you brushed him off with a shake of your head—but, as you’d come to learn the last couple weeks, Stiles Stilinski was nothing if not relentless. He leaned into your side as you walked along the lengthy driveway, sending you stumbling a few paces to the right. You glared at him, but it was watered down with stubborn affection. His mouth curled into a lopsided grin, and you forgot about the nerves wriggling up your esophagus until Stiles rang the doorbell. They came back full force when you heard a pair of high heels clicking towards them. 

Lydia’s mom peered out the door. She looked confused as she took in Stiles’s smile, stretched far too wide to look even remotely casual. Then, her gaze landed on you and her face broke out into a bright grin, “Y/N?”

You’d almost forgotten how beautiful she was; beauty ran just as deeply as old money in the Martin family. Lydia was born with her mom’s golden-red hair and hazel eyes, and they had the same dimpled smile. It was always difficult to see anything beyond the brilliance of their perfect teeth and incandescent skin. 

“Come here,” Mrs. Martin pulled you into a tight hug and cupped the back of your head with a steady hand. Your arms remained stiff by your sides, voice sticky in your throat. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been hugged like this; the realization hurt more than you thought it would.

After a moment, your shoulders slumped, and you turned your face into Mrs. Martin’s shoulder. She still smelled the same, like patchouli and luxury, “Hi.”

She held you out at arm's-length, hands on your shoulders, and shook her head, “There’s no way that this beautiful young woman is the same little girl who tried to keep a frog colony in my guest bathroom. I can’t be that old.”

“You literally look exactly the same,” you smiled a little and rubbed your bicep.

“It has been far, far too long.” She smoothed out the wrinkles in your sleeves and then stepped back into the doorframe, “What can I do for you?”

“I…” your mouth went dry, and you looked everywhere except Mrs. Martin’s face. Your eyes flashed between the silver door knockers, the winding ivy, the sculpted shrubs. Everything was exactly the same. Nothing, not even the house, had noticed your absence. 

“We came to check on Lydia,” Stiles nudged your shoulder, and you blinked a few times. Mrs. Martin was watching you with big emphatic eyes—and you hated it. 

You swallowed and nodded, “Yeah…we brought her homework.”

“Come in.” She paused and pinched the bridge of her nose with freshly manicured nails, “She took a little something to relax herself, so please excuse…well, just be prepared.” Mrs. Martin sighed, and for the first time it looked like the last four years had actually aged her. She attempted a smile, but it was shriveled at the corners, “You remember the way, don’t you?”

A nod rolled up your neck to your head. You couldn’t find the words to tell Mrs. Martin that you weren’t the same girl anymore. You almost felt like her in this house: small, wild, still full of dreams. You crept up the curved staircase slowly, delaying the inevitable, and ran your fingers along the iron railing. You broke your arm falling off of it nine years ago. It was a nasty fracture that put you in a cast all summer, but it’d seemed worth it at the time. At least, you’d thought so. Your mom and Mrs. Martin hadn’t agreed with your assessment at the hospital.

You felt a twinging urge to run to the top of the stairs and slide down the railing until you became dizzy—and just like that, you were seven years old again, and you weren't scared of death or ending up alone. 

“You coming?” Stiles called from the top of the stairs. 

You nodded stiffly and pushed past him to the last door on the left. You held your hand on the doorknob and pressed your tongue against the roof of your mouth, scowling at the anxiety crawling under your skin. You were being ridiculous. It wasn’t like you were the one who ended up in an ambulance last night.

You rapped your knuckles against the door a few times, even though it was already cracked open wide enough to catch a glimpse of the raspberry walls and flower chandelier. “Lyds–ia. Lydia,” you cleared your throat and peeked into Lydia’s room, “it’s me. I mean, it’s Y/N.” Stiles nudged you in the ribs, and you sighed, “And Stiles.”

Lydia was face-down on her four-poster bed, slowly combing her fingers through her unbrushed hair. She smacked her lips together a few times, and then her head popped up from her mountain of throw pillows, “You still haven’t explained what the hell a Stiles is.”

You snorted and shot Stiles a pointed look. He pursed his lips and glanced around the room until he spotted a little bottle of pills on top of her vanity. He read the lengthy label and let out a low whistle, “Bet you can’t say, ‘I saw Sally sell seashells by the seashore.’”

Lydia swung her legs over the foot of her bed and leaned forward, eyes sparking with bullheaded determination. “I saw….I saw…” The light in her eyes faded as she drifted off to a place no one else could see.

You sat down next to her and grabbed her hand. You didn’t have to tell your body to move; it knew before you did. Finding Lydia when she was lost, it was like…swimming to the surface, shivering in a storm, bracing for a fall. It was an instinct so deeply rooted in your soul you couldn’t rip it out without rupturing an artery. You watched Lydia’s eyes focus on your face, felt her fingers lace with yours, and all you knew was the slow thump of Lydia’s pulse against your thumb.

Lydia squeezed your hand and swiveled to face you. Her eyes were still cloudy, but something warm dawned behind the fog. You felt the pit in your stomach roll. Lydia sighed happily, “There you are. I was looking for you.”

“Well,” you almost choked on the lump in your throat and struggled to support Lydia’s weight as she went boneless against your side, “here I am.” You searched for some assistance with Lydia’s rapidly sinking frame, but Stiles was busy poking around every nook and cranny in the room. “Stiles,” you snapped. 

He wrenched his hand away from Lydia’s bottle of Dior perfume, purple just like the rest of the room, and clasped it behind his back. “What?” 

You gestured violently towards Lydia's wilting spine and rolled your eyes when he tripped over a discarded boot in his, frankly pathetic, haste to get to Lydia’s other side. You gently maneuvered her until she was propped up against her pillows. 

“Don’t go away again, okay?” Lydia licked her lips and looked like she was about to cry—so much like a scared little girl, your heart clenched. “I keep losing you.”

“I,” you stared at her with wide eyes, and the bottle of pills enveloped your peripheral vision, “I just wanted to see if you were alright…after last night.”

“Last night,” Lydia slurred, nuzzling back against her pillows.

“Yeah, last night,” Stiles folded his arms over his chest and arched his brow, “remember anything about it?”

“I remember…” Lydia looked like she was going to cry again, eyes glassy and round, but the chemical high quickly swept over the tide, “I remember a mountain lion.”

Stiles’s head tipped back between his shoulder blades, and his cheeks slowly puffed into pink little domes as he held his breath. Apparently, there was one thing more powerful than Stiles Stilinski’s obsession with Lydia Martin: his impatience. Stiles’s lips puckered as a loud sigh whooshed through his teeth. He crouched down to Lydia’s eye-level, “You remember seeing a mountain lion, or you remember them telling you it was a mountain lion?”

Lydia hummed and nodded until her hair fell in front of her face, “Mountain lion.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles reached for a stuffed giraffe next to her shoulder and shook it in her face, “what’s this?”

“Mountain lion,” Lydia’s head bobbed sharply. 

You snatched the stuffed animal out of Stiles’s hand, scowling as you bludgeoned his arm with the giraffe’s head. “Leave her alone. She’s doped out of her mind.” 

“Clearly,” Stiles snorted, watching Lydia curl a strand of her hair around her finger, completely entranced by the frizzy strands. 

“What did you want her to say?” You smoothed a few stray hairs sticking up from the crown of Lydia’s head back into place and met Stiles’s gaze, face impassive, “Werewolf?”

He opened his mouth and gaped like a particularly brainless fish. Before he could come up with a coherent answer—or any kind of answer, actually—Lydia’s text-tone chimed. Stiles dove across the bed for her phone, but you smacked his hand with the giraffe before he could touch it. “You are so not reading her texts, lonely boy.”

“I was just trying to help.” Stiles flopped onto her vanity chair and crossed his arms, squirming sullenly, “She can barely string two words together, let alone an actual thought.”

“I’m sure whatever it is can wait until she’s good and hungover tomorrow.” You glanced down at Lydia’s phone and paused. It was a video file. From an unknown number. 

“Hey,” Lydia poked her head up and pointed at Stiles until the weight of her arm became too much to bear. It fell on top of her stomach like a limp noodle, “You.”

“Me,” Stiles squeaked. 

You muted the video and made sure Stiles was sufficiently distracted by the curl of Lydia’s finger before you pressed play. Nothing happened at first. The video was shot in a strange, almost voyeuristic style, and the lighting was terrible, so dim you could barely tell that the camera was facing a large window. You squinted and made out the video store’s sign flickering above the door. So, this was from last night. Weird—but at least it wasn’t revenge porn; that had been your first guess. 

You’d almost given up on finishing the video, and then the camera angle moved. Two red eyes flashed in the darkness, a large…something smashed through the glass, and you bit down on your thumbnail so hard blood welled through the sidewalls. 

It was a goof, obviously. Some kind of poorly edited creepypasta. A cruel prank someone sent Lydia after they heard what happened last night. Had to be. Your hands shook as you sent yourself the video, and then you deleted it from Lydia’s phone. Your number, you realized once you stopped seeing red, was still saved as ☀️✨Babe!!!!✨☀️ in Lydia’s contacts. It took you longer than it should have to delete the sent message.

“If you’re done fighting your erection, we should get going.” Your voice sounded remarkably even, considering how scattered your mind was. It was certainly more composed than the babble spewing from Stiles’s mouth.

“I do not have—it’s not like—I wasn’t—she thought I was someone else.”

“Ah,” your phone felt heavy in your pocket, “real boner killer.”

Stiles sighed through his nose, “New rule, you can't make fun of anything I do or say when Lydia's in my fuckin' lap. Starting now."

He must’ve known something was wrong when you didn’t argue. That, and the way you practically sprinted out of the house to avoid seeing anyone else. Your hands were still shaking when you crawled into the jeep, and Stiles shot about a dozen little furious, concerned glances in your direction, but you couldn’t seem to move your tongue. 

Your bottom lip quivered. Your chest tightened until your ribs corseted your lungs. The screech of your ground teeth sent an unpleasant chill down your spine, but you’d rather choke on a chipped tooth than let the beast howling in your throat escape—the last thing you needed was to cry in the passenger seat next to Stiles Stilinski.

You were clearly losing your mind; everyone said it was only a matter of time—watching a loved one burn to death tended to have that effect on a person. Not that you remembered much, but you were clearly off your rocker if you were having vivid, day-time hallucinations of red-eyed monsters roaming the streets of Beacon Hills. 

You wiped your sweat-damp palms on your dress and bounced your leg up and down, driving your heel into the floor over and over again—and then you felt a solid warmth over your knee. Your eyes were a little wild when you followed the trail of Stiles’s arm to his face, and the divot between his brows deepened when he met your gaze, “Hey, she’s going to be okay. You know that, right?”

Your head jerked with a quick nod, and you sucked in a few shallow breaths, “I know.” The air got stuck in your chest, and your heart flapped erratically as the back of your eyelids played reruns of a familiar film starring your narrowing trachea. You dug your toes into the dusty floor mat, scrambling for any kind of grasp on reality, and choked on your words, “Her mom always…had…the good shit.”

Stiles kept his hand on your knee and then shook his head, pulling over against the curb and putting the jeep in park. “You don’t have to talk, but you gotta breathe.”

It took you a moment to realize that he was squeezing your kneecap in even intervals. You inhaled and exhaled with the flex of his joints until the panic receded enough for embarrassment to heat your cheeks. You slammed your head back against the seat and stared at the steel roof. You hoped that if you ignored the tears bubbling along your lash line, they’d instantaneously evaporate before they could spill onto your cheeks, “Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t usually…this hasn’t happened in a long time.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Stiles chewed on his cheek and pulled his hand back into his lap. He drummed his fingers against his kneecap and then spoke softly, “I used to get ‘em too. Sucked.” Stiles stared out the dashboard, watching but not really seeing dead leaves swirl in little circles over the asphalt, “Happened a lot after my mom died.”

You froze for a moment, and you couldn’t stop yourself from staring. You realized, belatedly, that you hadn’t ever heard the Sheriff talk about his wife, not even once in the last four years, even though he wore a gold band on his left ring finger. It hadn’t even occurred to you to ask. 

You never had the right words to explain it. For a long time, you spoke in ripples at therapy, incomprehensible circles that skirted the point in an endless loop—but you realized, as you got stuck on the honey in Stiles’s eyes, you didn’t need the right words here. With him. In fact, you didn’t really need any words at all. “Me too.”

Stiles watched your eyes steadily, and his fingers stilled against his legs, “Yeah?”

You nodded and swallowed a little, “Yeah.”

A smile tugged on his mouth, tangled with too many paradoxes to parse in the soft, short moment humming between you. You smiled back at him, far more timidly, but that wasn’t a surprise. He was brave, you decided, much braver than you. It was contagious. 

Your tongue darted out, licking your chapped lips, and you clung to the fragile current of courage lapping against the back of your teeth. “We just stopped talking.” 

Stiles glanced at you, clearly confused. 

“Lydia and I.” You knotted your fingers in the hem of your dress and tugged on it every time you felt the stopper in your throat start to swell, “We just stopped being friends after my mom died. That’s why I didn’t…I mean, there’s not really a story to tell. We were close, and then I woke up one day, and we weren’t anymore.”

Stiles turned until he was facing you, leaning against the door and struggling to find a comfortable angle for his long legs. “Most people…they’re okay with the funeral part ‘cause it’s pretty simple—y’know: hold hands, bring food, pretend no one’s crying. And then after comes, and they can’t figure out what to do because it’s over, but it’s not.”

“Limbo,” you mirrored his position and pulled your knees to your chest. You rocked the soles of your boots from heel to toe, like small patent leather boats adrift on a sea of faded nylon, “It’s limbo, and everyone else is so incredibly, hideously alive.” 

The relief was back in Stiles’s eyes, and you were swimming in it. He nodded and bent his knees, scooching his feet until the toes of his sneakers were pressed against yours. “Yeah," he exhaled, and the moment felt important, like something you were supposed to remember on your deathbed. You tried to memorize the look on Stiles's face, but you didn't know where to start. How could you etch infinity?  

“It wasn’t just her,” you admitted out loud for the first time. 

“Yeah,” Stiles shrugged a little and gave you a grin that brought the dimples back to his cheeks, and you couldn’t help but smile at their reappearance, “but we can pretend it was, just for today.” 

You let out a breath that felt like a laugh and lifted your toes, dropping them on top of his and pressing down until they were pinned beneath the tread of your boots. Stiles narrowed his eyes and wriggled his feet free, fighting your scurrying ankles with his tongue trapped between his teeth. His triumphant cry when he finally caught the tip of your laces was just enthusiastic enough to coerce another laugh through your clamped lips. 

The soft smile Stiles gave you while you laughed made his body go lax and the back of your neck warm. You quickly bent over to retie your laces, and he turned to restart the engine. 

“I should probably get us back to school,” Stiles ran his hand over his head. “My dad'll kill me if I get marked truant again.”

“It’s parent teacher conferences tonight,” you recalled as the words left your mouth. You slunk down in your seat, chin catching on the seatbelt, “I’ve never skipped school before. I have no idea what my dad’s gonna say.”

Stiles’s attention shifted from the road to your profile, “Really?”

“What?” you crossed your arms over your chest and blew your hair out of your eyes.

“Nothing,” Stiles tried to hide his smirk, but it was too sharp to cover with a cough, “it’s just…hasn’t everyone skipped at least once?”

“What would I even do?” The corner of your mouth tugged into a dry smile, “Visit my catatonic ex-best friend?”

Stiles nodded agreeably, and then his head danced from side to side, rolling over other options, “Or bowling. Bowling is fun.”

You grumbled a little in your throat and sunk further into the cradle of your hips, “I hate bowling.”

Stiles grinned, “Yeah, me too.”

Pausing, your bottom lip wormed its way between your teeth, “I’d play D&D with you, though.” 

“Really?”

“Mhm,” you watched the sun disappear behind the tree line over the hill and ignored the feeling of being examined like a bacterial petri dish.

“See, we are friends. The best of friends, actually. Two peas in the proverbial pod.”

And, well, you couldn’t really disagree.

[thequietkid-moonie]

Darling reminds them the past

[ PLATONIC YANDERE HEADCANONS ] [ Leon, Haruka, Boothill ]

[ Kaleido Star ] [ Sailor Moon ] [ Honkai Star Rail ]

⚠️ Yandere, I don't support nor try to romanticize this toxic behaivor, is just for entretaiment

⚠️ This contain heavy spoilers from the character's backstory

I had this idea because Boothill backstory broke me, like broooo 😭😭😭 and when i was thinking on who else wrote I just remember how what happen messed with Leon's whole life or how the other senshi had to see the kingdom of their beloved princess being destoyed in a war while they could do absolutely nothing but watch in the distance

So, yeah, this is like in an attempt to comfort their broken hearts, but in a platonic way, please enjoy 🩷

Leon Oswald

Leon's life have changed completely ever since he lost Sophie, she was practically her only family and what made him keep going, trying more and more in hopes to create the scenario she wanted at her side, but after losing her his whole world just bresk

Even when he have become a internationally renowned acrobat the grief and sorrow have company him each step of the way, not being able to even smile again, just focusing on perfect his performance and he even being really rude towards any partner he had in the shows due the anger he still feels

Getting to meet you is quite dificult, despite traveling a lot he normally doesn't look at others, so you have to leave an impact to him by the moment you two met for the first time for him to actually stop and look at you, however that impact it was the start of his feelings and obsession

Leon is not exactly easily to impress and the impact you leave on him definetly caught him off guard, it was the reason why he started to pay more and more attention to you, his eyes constantly watching your every step in an attempt to find out why he can't stop thinking of you. At the end he will find out that, somehow, you remind him of her, maybe is just your positivity and gentle smile, or maybe the same wish of everyone enjoy and connect their hearts in the scenario, or maybe at the end it was just that weird feeling of comfort and familiarity, but no matter what it is it will make him snap and completely change

After finding out how similar you are to his deceased sister he will imediatly approach you, despite being in a desperate state he is not an idiot, so he will trying his best to at least befriend you, and he is surprisingly gentle and caring when it comes to you, he lets his cold and indiferent attitude aside and treats you as if you were his own family, it can be quite endearing and even make it easier for him to make you stay at his side and don't leave again

Even when the main reason why he got close to you was because you remind her of Sophie he put a lot of efforts on getting to know you, mainly by observing you since he got used to watch you carefuly all the time (even developing a stalker habits that can easily be cover up by his care for you), but as you got closer it becomes easier for Leon to open up to you and just start asking about you, or just talk about things that could make him notice more things about you, wich at the end he will end up using against you to force you to dont leave his side again

It happens slowly but Leon takes control ove your life by blinding you with trust, he is incredibly possesive and protective due his fear of losing you too, he reproches himself not being able to protect his sister so he will do everything in his power to protect you, wich lead him to be overprotective without even noticing since he just take it as something normal, and its not like he thinks is something bad

Leon keeps being cold and indiferent for the rest of the world, but to you is the most gentle and caring person ever, even willing to do everything to reduce the chances of you getting hurt, he doesn't want to take away your freedom but limits it, always making sure to stay at your side and shield you with his body at the minimum threaten, too anxious to letting you alone, feeling like if he looks away just for a second something bad could happen to you

Haruka Tenoh

Sailor Uranus, just like the other senshi used to be all alone at her castle, protecting the peace and doing all what she could from the distance in the name of her queen and princess, despite being quite lonely she was happy to fulfill her role, or that it was until the fateful day when the Moon Kingdom was destroyed

Once she was reborn at the earth it was to fulfill her role again, fight against a threaten and protect her princess. Since she, along with Michiru, were going to a school to find clues it wouldn't be too difficult to get to meet you, specially with how popular she and Michiru are around the school

At first Haruka was so focused on her duty and the inminent threat that she didn't pay much attention to you, even if you were friends she didn't spend much time with you, politely excusing herself to have time to make what she has to do, still, she can't deny that there is something about you that have catched her attention from the start

It would take her a long time before letting herself get her guard down and actually look at you, finally finding out what have being so attracting of you, it could be that she can see her own past loneliness she once suffered or maybe your smile is like the one that used to iluminate her days from the distance but she couldn't protect, either way whatever she have seen on you make her look at you more and more, suddenly she is constantly worried about you, suddenly she wants to make sure you are alright, that you aren't feeling lonely and are taking good care of yourself

Since Haruka is so busy her feelings will grow too slow, she is too worried about the inminent threat that she almost forget about you (despite having you constantly in her mind) that it won't be until you either leave her and go out with other people instead (since she normally says that has not time or is too busy) or that you were directly a target of the enemy, no matter what was what made her almost lose you is what will make her snap, suddently her feelings grow to be of utmost importance instead of a vague worry in the back of her mind

Haruka wants to make it up for it and will do it, even if you dont see anything bad on it or don't even understand why she blame herself, she will slowly involve you in her life, introduce you to her friends and keeping you as close as posible (and, somehow, still away from danger) and she will make sure you never have to face danger again or think on leaving her

Honeslty, Haruka take you in her life to have you all for herself, so slowly and naturaly that it was almost imperceptible, she and her friends were so welcoming that you couldn't even notice the moment they have become your whole life, no friends outside of them or how every plan you have is related to Haruka's schedule, everyone have welcome you as part of their group but now you can't leave, and Haruka is making sure of that

It isn't that she had malicious intent, she just doesn't want her nor you to be all lonely again, she wants to be able to protect you, she wants to make you happy and make sure you dont lack of anything, her princess is destinsted to become the princess of Neo Tokyo of Crystal so why dont you become part of the big family all of them are? why dont stay where she can protect you and make you happy?

Haruka can be incredibly manipulating and charming, making you trust her blindly because she knows what is the best for you, even if you eventually realice how possesive she can be it would be too late to leave

Boothill

As a Galaxy Ranger Boothill have just become used to travel all alone across the universe, helping people who he come across and making pay those who just seak to harm other, just like he used to do when he was a human cowboy

Boothill has grow to enjoy his life while doing his duty, but that doesn't mean he doesn't mean he miss the old times, the more peaceful old times when he had a home to return and someone waiting for him, after all this years he still hold a great sorrow and grief for what have happened and he is even determinated to take revenge at all costs

Boothill have meet a lot of people while traveling across the universe, but this meetings is always just a brief moment in both's life, just as he does his duty before going away to keep with his journey, so you two end up meeting each other was just another casuality, it was suppoused to be just a brief moment that will be lost on his memory, but something about you make him stop, maybe it was your innocent eyes or the way you smiled at him, the way you were kind towards him even without knowing him, or maybe you were so young that he could help but feel somewhat protective over you

At the end he didn't understand what make you so interesting and special but Boothill couldn't bring himself to just leave yet, even if he already finished his job there he just can't leave, it wouldn't feel right!

Boothill spend quite a long time at your side, being kind and helping you in all what you need, even if you dont accept at first he would insist until you just give up, and the more time it pass at your side the more he doesn't want to leave you, somehow being with you quickly grow to feel like home, its like if you were that warm home to return he have missed so much for a long time

Boothill's feeling for you grow slowly but they grow really stronge, he is just so focused on you that he just doesn't pay attention to anyone or anything else anymore, suddenly you become everything for him, clinging as if his life depends on the comfortable feeling you give him, without noticing you become his family, that family for what he would do anything, the family that he will manage to save at all costs

Boothill doesn't notices his feelings until is too late, until he reached the point where he gets in a desperate and even paniced state whenever you are away from him for too long, even having nightmares seeing you in that day where he lost everything, even sometimes he dreams about losing you along with his child. After reaching this point there is no way he will leave without you, if he has to go away to keep his journey he will somehow take you with him, he can't risk not seeing you ever again

Boothill becomes so clingy and overprotective of you that he just doesn't leave your side and has to know where you are always, he doesn't want to take away your freedom but he will slowly isolate you because he wants to protect you, he is so caring and carismatic but is also desperate, he will manipulate you on following him if he needs, after all he treats you as his own child and he will make sure you are never in danger or lack anything

[verysium]

『02』 出発: departure

ft. rin itoshi, sae itoshi

summary: a star's life is its counteraction against death, an endless deadlock against the brute force of gravity. in the constant struggle between space and time, rin cannot tell if he is being held up or held down. perhaps he has already dictated the terms of his own demise. cw: epistolary montage, mentions of blood in film, rin violently crying and throwing up, highly implied hallucinations, swearing, suicidal ideation, disillusionment and lots of hard angst. word count: 4.9k

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Two weeks after Sae took off from Haneda Airport, his words still lingered inside Rin's mind. His brother had left with a fiery flick of a grin—a gaping, white-hot maw right where his mouth should have been. It blazed then sputtered cold in his gums by the time he turned back around, but Rin still knew what he saw. The smoke never lied.

A triple tap of tongue against hard palate, the message moving fast as light. Something had flickered between Sae’s teeth. Something about split knuckles and brotherly love. Something about calling him back.

But Rin couldn’t hear over the boarding announcements, the roar of engines propelling out of the runway, the heat waves of people out in front. At half past noon, his brother had already departed from Tokyo, ten thousand miles westbound in a floating aluminum dream, reeling contrails through the sky. 

And Rin still stood on Earth, waiting. Like some dumb thing left behind.

It wasn’t until his mother laid a gentle hand on his shoulder that he finally tumbled back to reality, an empty gate at his feet, no arrival or departure calling. The afternoon sunlight had grown dim, splintering against the glass windows and whirring the blood through his ears. His chest felt strangely suspended.

It was in the backseat where it all began. Three floors down in the parking garage. Fumbling through his pockets, his coat had snagged between the door and car frame, ten digits on a crumpled paper sent fluttering to the ground. Looking back on it now, he should’ve thrown that damn thing away. But he was stupid then, drunk on a heat stroke and the beginnings of terminal grief. Right on the exit of the Shuto Expressway, he made his parents turn the car back around and drive ten miles down to the nearest World Mobile, a wretched inhale of hope stuck squirming in his chest. 

It took him several weeks before he finally decided to punch in those numbers, and then another several weeks to call after that. His body shuddered, sweat-faced and suffocating, as he trailed sticky fingers down the waiting screen. The phone rang once then twice. Then rang on forever.

Nobody ever bothered to pick up.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

2013 年 6月 17日 Nii-chan, 

It still feels like you never left. And I say this with a miserable lack of sincerity because you did in fact leave just two weeks ago. Kaa-san still makes your bed. Square corners and all. Your duvet goes in the pile with the rest of my laundry. 

Just the other day, I think I saw your shadow. I was sunbathing on the roof when I felt something brush against my back. Does Spain have big shadows too? I hope so. A country with so much sun must leave those poor shades short and stunted. Maybe they’re just a little shy. Be nice to them, will you Nii-chan? Not everyone can shine as bright as you do.

I hope you’ll make friends soon. Write to me often. I want to know everything.

2013 年 7月 7日 Nii-chan,

How are you? I didn’t receive anything in my inbox, and I checked with Kaa-san twice. She said you didn’t text me, but there is no way such a thing could have happened. Perhaps old age has finally gotten to her, or maybe something’s just wrong with this phone. Either way, I should’ve asked her to buy me a newer model.

On second thought, if you don’t text me, I will be very upset. But it will be a childish sort of anger. You wouldn’t be very proud. You will be pleased to know, however, that I have grown a total of ten centimeters this summer, and my bones are looking very strong and wide. My shots have improved too, and I scored three goals today.

Otou-san took us out to dinner for Tanabata this weekend. He told me it is about time I became a man. I smiled and said I didn’t want to disappoint. But then he said ten and three quarters is no longer a youthful sort of age, and I suddenly felt a little mad about it. I don’t want to grow up without you. 

The festival was crowded as usual. I ate every selection of wagashi then chased it down with some of the sake Otou-san lent me from his cup. Pretty sure that was illegal, so I threw it all up on the way home. But then we all went and saw the tanzaku, so I guess something went right. I wrote down a wish, but I won’t tell you. Otherwise it won’t come true. I hung it up on the highest branch though, so that someday it might reach you. 

Tell me what you think. Text back soon.

2013 年 8月 31日 Nii-chan, 

I did not receive your reply from last time. I think this phone must still be broken. Perhaps you should check on your end. Even if it’s just a greeting, I will be content. Anything from you is fine, really.

I visited the beach again. It was peaceful until the wind blew hair in my face, and I went blind for almost fifteen minutes. I tried cutting it, but Kaa-san got mad at me. After your disaster five years ago, she said she’d never let her sons hold a pair of scissors ever again. Don’t tell her, but I laughed. Inside, you know?

Sometimes I still see the waves in my sleep. The ones at Koshigoe Beach. They cradle me, and suddenly it feels like my head is floating even though my body isn’t. You’d probably think I’m crazy. But lately dreams are the only way I can reach you. 

I do watch the news though. And I train hard. Very hard. I can pass like you now, though not nearly as good as your highlights on TV. Coach says I still need to learn. You always said the same thing. But I am nearly as tall as Otou-san now and twice as strong. That must count for something, right? I hope the guys overseas will like this new me. When I finally come over there, that is.

Make sure you aren’t training too hard. I don’t want you to overstrain yourself. And if you don’t like it there, promise me you won’t force yourself to stay. You’ll pack your bags and come home early. 

Promise me. Please. 

That you’ll come home to me.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

For the second time in his life, Rin finds himself on his knees, heaving up everything that has ever made him whole. The bathroom mourns with every dry retch of his throat, and suddenly he’s laughing into the porcelain, clutching at the sides in a mad form of desperation. His ribs shudder—tough in their hurt—yet nothing of substance ever lies between them. He’d smiled out his guts a long time ago. 

Is empty space still a space or just the photonegative of presence? 

Sometimes Rin feels like his body can never truly filled, but it can never be completely emptied either. No matter how much he regurgitates, there will always be more to come. The space inside him widens until it hangs on a threadlike line of limbo: so much to give yet so much to keep. It tugs at him—a crude form of baptism—pulling him up for air and then crashing his head beneath the waves again. 

Another harsh hurl reverberates across the bathroom tiles, this time accompanied by the loud smack of spit. He’s emptied out so much his bowels might just prolapse at any second, the boy inside him turned into some sort of liquid slop, sloshing back and forth in his ribcage. It’s all over the front of his shirt now, the stomach contents soaked for hours in bodily brine, the grief his body tries to hold. No amount of bleach is going to erase the stench.

Some days Rin just wants someone to cradle him like a child does a bird, gentle and afraid to hurt. He had a dream about this once, many moons ago. After wringing himself out to dry, he had gone to work, looping the washing line around his feet until it resembled some sort of upside down noose. Once the wind picked up, he let go of the string like a pendulum, watching his body sway in third person: up and down and up and down. In this reality, he was a creature of feathers and clothespins, his body molting in the breeze. So long as he swung back and forth in this state of suspension, he would remain in the middle, not tethered down enough to live but not free enough to die either. 

He’d simply exist. 

Some nights Rin still can’t sleep. His eyes lay limp in their sockets, two dead weights sinking into bone. He tried to pry them out with his fingers, but they only pressed deeper into his face, rigid and wax-cool to the touch. No matter what he does, Rin knows he will be too late. He can never reverse this decay—the post-mortem withering of his own heart. 

Just this afternoon, he died once again, his body slumped with the hollow weight of disappointment, his spirit sinking like a fault line into earth. He had been drying his hair in the locker room after practice, the friction of the towel’s loops causing small pinpricks of static to echo along his nape. The static had carried over hushed whispers, trailing along his scalp down to his ears. God, he hadn’t meant to overhear.

“Damn it, we’re really done for this season, huh? I’m telling you it’s the striker. We could’ve won this match if it weren’t for him.”

“I mean, if Itoshi were here, he would’ve destroyed their whole team by himself.”

“You mean the older one?”

“Of course I do. Who else did you think I was referring to? The younger one’s just been blessed up until now.”

“Without his brother, he’s just an ordinary guy.”

“Oi, Haruto, shut up! What if he hears?”

“Hear what? It’s not like it isn’t the truth!”

Rin still remembers how his surname burned on their lips, the tip of the tongue caught raw between teeth, the vowels seared into flesh. Itoshi was a burden coming apart at the seams, a title for something he could never possess. They were right and it left him smarting, reeling. He hadn’t laughed a day since Sae’s departure, but in that moment he wanted to shove his whole fist up his mouth and choke for the first time in five resentful months. The laugh had been a silent one, with tears on his waterline and a smile bruised onto his face. 

Ha.....ha.....hah.....

There comes a point in every boy’s life when he simply exists. Still young but no longer impressionable. Salt in the eyes. Salt in the mouth. Take it like a man. When he hawks back the knife, it must come out breathing and clean. Living but not dead. 

His teammates had every right to blame him. 

He can’t score goals like he used to. Can’t run and bleed. Can’t love like before. There’s nothing but shame waiting for him when the realization finally breaches the bathroom air and his teammates scramble off the benches, cleats stained with guilt. They saw his reflection in the mirror, weeping right above the communal sinks.

“R-rin! W-we didn’t know you were here.”

“Y-yeah! You didn’t hear much, did you?”

Rin had never hated his name more in that moment. They uttered it like a euphemism, hand over his stupid bullet-riddled heart, the blood too runny to salvage. It only hurt him more. So he did what he knew best. He clenched his fist, the nails fisted into the meat of his palm, eyes caught on a hardened edge. It didn’t matter if Haruto was his senior. He’d beat him within an inch of his life.

“So you call me Rin now? Wasn’t I just younger Itoshi to you earlier?”

“I didn’t....We didn’t mean...”

“Then what did you mean?”

Only the scurry of shoes answered—two scuff marks against the dirty floor, Haruto’s yelp in the distance. Rin was left all alone again, his thin shadow blown wide across the whitewashed walls of the locker room. 

“Damn coward,” he wanted to yell after him. “Run! Run and tell them how it’s not your fault!” 

But he was just talking to himself.

Is empty space still a space or just a pseudonym for absence?

He hadn't been thinking at the time. Within the liminal space of the abandoned shower stalls, he lent himself a moment of weakness. He let himself cry. The shower head was cold and dirtied, and he stood there for forty-five minutes, waiting to be filled with a warmth that never came. In the end, he let his tears mix with the brackish water, staring at the evidence of his failure before it swirled down the drain. 

He realized he must have been a mistake. There was no other explanation. The real Rin Itoshi was swapped at birth and replaced with someone else. Inside the four-walled confines of the shower stall, his imposter reared its head through the mist, long baby hair drowned down to the ears. He didn’t belong. Not in this body bathed in condensation. Not in this namesake crowned in tempered glass. But by the time the water trickled down to his nose, Rin was already knee-deep in self-doubt, wading his way into misery. What more did they want from him? No one could ever replace Sae Itoshi. Not even his younger brother. 

Not even him.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Six hours post-death in the locker rooms, Rin went home and passed out with his head on the toilet seat, two slick fingers shoved up his throat and his luminous guts buried somewhere down the pipe drain. Six hours later, his lids peel back scarlet, gelatinous with haze—a ringing in his ears. Some fucker is calling him again. 

He doesn’t answer. Twice. But the telemarketer is either underpaid or rudely insistent, so Rin finally picks up just to curse him out on the line. He doesn’t need any scripted intimacy. Doesn’t need other people counting his own losses. He just needs to be left alone.

At midnight, he staggers out of the bathroom, fingers absentmindedly flicking off the lightswitch before collapsing into bed. The sheets aren’t even his own. He doesn’t notice until he sniffs the pillow and stiffens. It smells god-awful. Like tiger balm and soothing menthol. Like somebody he used to know. And much to his chagrin, the images come stumbling back: knee-deep in the salted sea, shirasu swimming around his toes. What color were his eyes again? Blue ice between teeth. Sour like a bad star. Oh, what can he remember? Disappointment peeled into spirals. Happiness running down the back of his hand. The blood of an orange, sweet and dripping. He’s forever staring at someone’s back. Always a few steps behind.

Fuck you, Sae.

There’s haunting laughter coming out from the window panes, and he can hear the waves crash on shore in the distance. Two children run across sand. Muted footsteps. One soft thump then another. The vision is so close he can practically taste it. Salt in the wind, in the eyes, in his mouth. The seagulls pluck at his eyes, but he takes it like a man, breathing and clean. Living but not dead.

One of the children stands with his arms behind his back, face hidden by the shadows of the horizon. The ocean spray nips at his burgundy fringe, the hunger of a whole world engulfed in his gaze. In the distance, a younger boy shouts his name, dark hair framed by a cowlick, turquoise eyes smoothed over by water. He runs as fast as his little legs can carry him, his arms filled with bone-white shells.

“Nii-chan, wait for me!”

Sae’s face blurs before he can turn around, and Rin is left staring at the wooden slats above his childhood bed, resenting something he can no longer remember. Why did people have to go and change? Three years later and his brother had gone straight from stealing seashells to swindling stars clean out of the sky. Three years and he still had nothing to show for himself.

He imagines the look on Sae’s face when he tells him this. Conversations over Sunday dinner. The family gathered round the kotatsu, piss-yellow light slicing every dish into halves. He spoons pickled radish and chokes Sae’s teacup till it breaks. Would it be disappointment he sees on his face? His brother’s features crumpled mid-smile, blue-green eyes wounded into a porcelain state. Why? Why haven’t you done anything with your life while I was gone? 

Or perhaps it was anger. Smoke on the lips, bruised fists, and the heat of his mother’s blazing scream. Her son bares teeth and scrapes every syllable of their surname clean. Wrestles her other son’s shoulders down to the ground and shakes until the boy—the real Rin—gurgles and sloshes up inside. Do something, Rin. Do something! Or else you’ll never make it this lifetime.

Both, he could live with. But not this. The silence that burrows into his mind while he sleeps. The constant calling and the phone that just rings and rings and rings. It’s a circle, some sick sort of cycle. Every night he dreams of war—of sights and slights and stars. Things that end then don’t end then never end. He dreams until he wakes up screaming, on his hands and knees begging. Say something, will you? Anything. Fuck, why won’t you just say something?

Three years later and his brother still can't love him in a way he understands. 

But what did he expect? Sae was like that: pale and blistering, beautiful even when burning. Last dream cycle, his brother fell down three stories and erupted into flames, limbs compacted into fine dust. Should’ve screamed but didn’t. By the time Rin got down to him, Sae was already on his feet, sputtering soot from his lungs then flaring back up like nothing had ever happened. As if his hurt was merely bursts of light gathering and bunching, violence in free fall. 

And he was beautiful, Rin thinks. A boy of the blaze, man in the making, hair aorta-red, staring right back at him. By the time Sae opened his mouth, Rin’s arms were already open, ready to embrace the glittering shards. He crumpled before him as a building does a god, set alight on his brother’s palm. Strike me. He begged, blood around his mouth. Strike me anywhere and set me free. 

But that’s not what happens when you die. Not when his brother said it best.

I think I’d die and become a star. 

So he holds onto this life. Bunches it between fingers and twines it around his fist until he knows the person he’s dying for. Until he’s blacked out and dreaming in that damnable backseat again. Experiencing everything in the third person—the news, the screen, the slow-motion reels of an astral body wound up in constant replay. He can only watch as his brother slowly becomes a stranger in his own life again, and it guts him every time.

Sae Itoshi Dominates at Junior Championships, Secures Victory with Hat-Trick. Future Star? Sae Itoshi’s Sensational Performance Stuns Fans and Scouts Alike.

Who the hell is Sae Itoshi? Man, celebrity, celestial body? Not even his brother knows. But what Rin has learned over these past few years is that all stars are really just dead people, housed in a mausoleum of glittery beginnings and explosive endings. It’s binary—circling, really. A blinking eye in the sky, ticking time bomb, crying corpse, then everything wailing before its implosion. Sae could never comprehend this. The smoke-sputtering reality beyond tangible substance. This form of dying. 

But dying isn’t even the worst part of it all. It’s people like him who suffer. Unlucky stars are cursed with another, forced to revolve around each other. If one collapses, the companion gets ejected out the deep end of space and time—stumbling, groping, searching. 

Three years later and he’s still searching. 

Hey Google: Can stars still be seen from Madrid? 

The results for light pollution pop up. In a city of light, even light cannot be seen. How ironic, he thinks, that Sae is now a shining thing, flaring tendrils a million light years away. Post-nebula and he still loses himself in people who look exactly like him.

But that past has already come and gone, leaving nothing but the future behind. In the next dream cycle, Rin too will die, sputtering and choking, like a firework lit from within—violence in free fall. And when the time comes, he will leap off the fire escape, the city blocks spinning and spinning, every second a little death. The faster he falls, the more alive he’ll feel. He’ll drop all the way down until the only way he can go is up. And then he’ll ascend, floating past the skyscrapers, the streets, the sprawling metropolis. His toes curled, caught on the hook of night, the burnt flesh peeling back on bone. Floating until he disappears, his body nothing but white light.

Someday his brother will drown himself in his own artificial brightness. And Rin will follow, screaming, rearing, and set ablaze.

If you die Nii-chan, I think I’ll die along with you.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

There are rare moments when seasons die a sunless death, quiet and wilting into the earth. Rin’s final birthday without Sae falls on one such month—a red September during which nature bleeds, the autumn leaves rusting around Engakuji Temple. He’s taken up long walks during that time, pacing for hours around the park nearby. Something about taking his mind off things. Something about counting his own losses.

By late afternoon, his hands are shoved fist-deep into his coat pockets, on track to finish his ninth lap around the perimeter. The daylight has long pooled down his back, tiny dollops of brightness slow-dripping and honeyed, settling into the hollow divots of his spine. The mise-en-scène frames him in a languorous ochre—the kind of lighting reserved solely for an aged romance. And the wind plays his lover, its post-meridian breath tender as it brushes against his cheek. It’s all a range of motions from there. He takes another step, adjusts a stray earbud, then tugs his scarf all the way up to his nose. Ten laps now, and he still walks. The only time he ever stops is when he stalls mid-way to check his phone. 

Zero messages received. Message not delivered.

His thumb hovers briefly over the send button. The cursor at the end blinks with an almost human hesitancy before it opens its mouth, swallowing everything back up. The screen clears itself again, reduced to nothing but absence: a small square of light where silence reigns. Rin sighs before trudging home, a thousand words lodged into the back of his throat.

Nii-chan, I miss you. 

The kitchen is empty by the time he slides open the shoji, removing his shoes with practiced ease before padding across the soft tatami. His mother’s gone on an errand for groceries, her hastily scrawled note tucked under his door with a bowl of persimmons. The house is empty, the joss sticks still smoking in the living room, tips warm and powder-soft. He grows heady on their incense, locking himself away in his bedroom and drawing the curtains. His old Fujitsu laptop whirrs to life, propped up against two pillows and an oversized owl plush. This time he puts on a splatter film, splayed on his stomach as he reels through the opening credits.

He can watch without the subtitles now, even converse with tourists at the station in Enoden. He recalls his teammates’ faces last Saturday—breaths held tender, jaws slackened with faux horror—when he gave out directions in perfect English. Sae would’ve been proud, if only he knew how much it meant. But lately, there hasn’t been a single interruption to Rin’s nights alone, despite how desperately he longs for one. The most his English is good for nowadays is translating the kooky foreign films he puts on rotation, ninety minutes of runtime for thirty-one evenings.

He must have gone through a dozen franchises by now: Halloween specials, 90’s vintage, slashers, the paranormal. The American flicks still remain his favorite, mostly because of the chainsaws. Something about the suspense of disembodiment scratches an itch inside his brain. Like the adrenaline before a final goal, moments before he implodes—naked body slathered in pools of primary color.

In the darkness, the films weave together: a tidal wave of light that washes down his bedroom walls. The victim shrieks before she is bathed in an eerie swathe of red, pierced at the helm of a bloodshot lens. Something about her death is both alien and terrifying, and Rin feels himself come alive again. 

At climax, the light from his laptop is nothing short of searing, carving-knife intensity digging slowly into thin, rousing bodies. He can only watch as the killer sharpens his blade, each stroke a day-bright epiphany, cutting little wounds into the night. His figure is lit up from behind, illuminated in such a way that Rin can see his organs and count every one of his ribs. The scene peels back like water, reflecting montage after montage on the glass display case next to his closet. The trophies electrify themselves in the shadows, each silhouette splayed neatly on the shelf and serrated round the rim. The metal handles distort the characters’ faces in two-frame slashes, decapitating nose from ear, eye from mouth. Another scream rips through the background as Rin digs graves into his palm. This time the murderer chases a mother down the stairs, gleeful when her child fails to keep up. 

He’s seen this scene play out before—three years and eleven months ago, when he first got himself killed. It’s the final match against Tokyo Metropolitan Youth, and he’s running on fumes, ten minutes into additional time. There’s only a few more meters to the goal area, the footsteps fast approaching from his left. He has to make an escape. The opponent closes in behind him, knife in hand, and all he can do is run, body barreling straight toward the camera. 

The impact hits him right before the shot, his leg flaring out in some desperate attempt at a goal. The ball soars as he stumbles forward—violence in free fall, the boy inside him lit from within. In the final moments before he combusts, time stretches itself thin over his bones, smoking and exorcized from the fire. The shadow of his killer looms behind him, arm raised with the promise of metal and memory, the blade gleaming in sparse light. 

Got you.

The child on screen turns around, facial features contorted in dramatic horror. Rin can hear her scream before the lips even part. He can already predict this ending. He can predict the next one after this too. Plight of the final girl: last to die but forever immortalized in her own grief and helplessness.

In six months, he will be named the most valuable player for Kamakura United Youth. In another six, he will be hollowed from the inside out, cursed to feel only the loss inside every win. This motion picture has rewound itself one too many times, the credits rolling and taking him along with them. End scene and he’s standing there in a pool of his own triumph—the grass strewn with painted carcasses—a thousand boys dead at his feet. His knees make hard contact with the earth, nothing but penitence in his eyes. This is all he knows: love and its smoking aftermath, the weight of it iron-hot on his tongue. Victory has never tasted so bitter. 

But it always ends the same. For the final girl, the film star, everyone crucified by the crowd. All good auteurs come from a long line of men who have already run out of time, color pooling past their waists, crashing in over their heads. They don’t want to die, so they preserve their souls into billboards, spool strands of silence into substance. They only shoot what is in their blood: the sensational guts, glory, and gore. Because what better way to keep your memory alive than burn it onto the emulsion side of thirty-five millimeter filmstrip?

The red lights have begun to feel suffocating—the last of his breath now a belt around his neck—as the cameras pan down to a mutilated body. Rin secretly envies the child’s soaked shirtsleeves, the ground beneath her perfused in violent color. If only he could be filled with something that beautiful. But instead he was given the body of a pale child filled with longing, constantly waiting for a change and constantly wishing for something to flow out of him. 

Eventually the clock strikes twelve and Rin closes his laptop, the backs of his eyelids whited out, brain overstimulated from the psychedelic screams. His brother’s portrait blurs in his peripheral vision, overexposed from the red glow, staring up at him from the cluttered nightstand. And in the moment, he briefly wonders if Sae left Japan in search of a new image. Perhaps Spain was just ninety minutes of solid technicolor screen where people could scream without horror, where the protagonist could freely bleed. And in the end, there was no death. The audience remains seated in theaters, their memories replaying over and over, bodies forever housed in cinema.

At the director’s cut, Rin’s consciousness falls under, hand still clutching the frame. End scene and Sae’s blown-out face smiles just a little into the darkness.

© verysium 2024 / please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize any of my works

[alittlebitofloveliness]

The Outsiders Prompt Fic #12- I didn't know where else to go

This is for @ramennoodlezzzao3 who requested prompt eight with Ponyboy. Sorry for the wait, I hope you like this. I wrote it sleep deprived after work and it's unedited so I apologiz wfor any typos.

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

Tap. Tap. Tap.

When Curly first hears the tapping on the window he thinks it’s his beloved Princess Chunko, aka the raccoon he’s been feeding and attempting to train for the past six months ever since Tim told him off for feeding her- the poor thing was a single mom who worked two jobs and Curly wasn’t heartless. He wasn’t about to let his girl down, ok?- and Angela said you couldn’t teach a raccoon tricks because ‘they aren’t like dogs, dumbass’. Shows what she knows. Curly’s managed to almost get Princess Chunko to shake his hand on command (she’ll do just about anything for leftover fries from McDonald’s), and she’s only bit him like, three times. 

However, when he pulls back the curtain (thank god Angel’s sleeping at her new boyfriend’s place tonight because she would be beyond pissed to get woken at one in the morning) it’s not his beloved furry princess he sees, instead it’s his beautiful, very human and also male princess. 

Right. He’s gotta be cool about this. Smart. Suave. Pony’s never come here so late at night before. Curly isn’t exactly at his best right now- he’d been planning to shower in the morning so he still smells like the desperation of high school and whatever boozy concoction Ma had thrown at him earlier- but he isn’t gonna like, turn Ponyboy down if he’s come here for a hookup. He’s not that stupid.

Except when he throws open the window he catches sight of the pure misery on Ponyboy’s face and all impure thoughts fly out of his head. (Ok, maybe not all of them- he’s a simple man and Ponyboy is Ponyboy and he’s also right there-  but  Curly is again not heartless so like 98% of the impure thoughts are banished. Maybe 97%.)

“Hey Ponyboy!”

Pony runs a hand through his hair. He sighs, and the sound is so tired it could give Tim a run for his money.

“Hey Curly, can I-” his eyes get shiny but he blinks hard and they’re normal again, “can I come in?”

Curly doesn’t bother answering, just grabs his best-friend-maybe-boyfriend-but we-haven’t-had-that-talk-yet-but-also-kiss-and-stuff under the arms and half drags, half lifts him through the window. Curly thanks his unlucky stars that Angel’s mattress is under the window because this was not an elegant maneuver, and Pony landed right on top of him. Like, right on top of him. Curly isn’t exactly complaining because this close he can see the freckle near Pony’s hairline and smell his toothpaste and whatever shampoo he uses, but Pony also completely knocked the wind out of him, and Curly’s is also a fifteen year old boy and attracted to Ponyboy so if Pony doesn’t move soon a different problem is going to make itself known and Curly cannot let that happen or he’ll have to jump off a bridge.

He shoves Pony off of him as gently as he can without being soft, and leads him over to his own side of the room. Angel will already be pissed enough that he was on her side of the room, nevermind the fact it was just to open the window, and Curly doesn’t want to add fuel to the fire. Sure, he loves making Angela angry but she also took a razorblade to his favourite hoodie last week and Curly isn’t willing to risk her ire right now. Things with the boyfriend she’s currently staying with are slowly but surely falling apart and Angela going through a breakup is a dangerous creature. Even Tim steers clear of her as best he can during her anger phase, and then they both decide to be a little nicer when Angel moves on to grief. 

Pony sits next to him and Curly wonders if he should’ve put a bottom sheet on his mattress, then banishes the thought because it’s stupid and because he doubts there’s a bottom sheet anywhere in the house- angel bought her own and guards it viciously. Still, he can’t help the anxiety bubbling in his chest. Pony is in his room, sitting on his bed. In all the time they’ve been hanging out he doesn’t think Pony has ever been in his room. And they’ve certainly never been alone in his room- or in Ponyboy’s for that matter since Sodapop Curtis is the world's most annoying cockblock and one of these days Curly is really gonna slug him.

Fortunately- or unfortunately, he really isn’t sure- Pony seems oblivious to Curly’s internal turmoil. In fact, he seems kind of oblivious to everything, staring blankly at the wall and biting his lip hard enough it might start to bleed soon. 

Rude, Curly thinks, if someone’s gonna be biting ponyboy’s lips tonight it should be him.

It’s kind of worrisome though. It;s not like Ponyboy’s the more, well, present even on a good day, prone to daydreaming and getting all focused in a way Curly doesn’t understand, but this seems different, worse somehow. The misery is still written across Ponyboy’s face, but there's an undercurrent of anger there too, and beneath that, fear.

“You good, man?” Curly’s never been great with emotions, never understood his own or wanted to help with others. He wants to help Pony now though, he just doesn’t know what to say. “You uh, you need anything?”

“No- yes- I dunno.” Ponyboy shakes his head, curling in on himself, and no, nope, if he bunches up it’s like he gets even more stuck in his own head and Curly refuses to let that happen so he yanks him until Pony’s head is resting against his shoulder, his arm around the guy’s admittedly very nice shoulders. “I didn’t know where else to go, I just- I couldn’t stay there. Not tonight. Can I stay with you?”

“Of course,” Curly agrees immediately. There’s a whole host of reasons why and he’s sure some of them are good but the only important one is the thought of Ponyboy Curtis sleeping in his room with him, “why though? Didya finally get tired of Sodacan cockblockin’ us?”

He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, expecting Ponyboy to roll his eyes but snicker like he usually does when Curly makes a suggestive joke, but instead he just sighs, his eyes getting all sad again.

“In your dreams Shepard,” he says, “but nah, it’s nothing like that, just…Darry and Soda are fighting.”

Curly blinks. That’s what Ponyboy is upset about? His family fighting? If Curly got sad anytime people were fighting in his house he’d have died of heartbreak years ago. Shit, Ma hadn’t gone a day without swearing at them in years, and Tim had told him just this morning he was a waste of space. Last month, he and Angel hadn’t spoken for over a week after she tattled on him to Tim about his plan to get into Buck’s race fixing scheme. 

Then again, the Curtis family- even their gang- wasn’t much like his own. They weren’t soft exactly, but they weren’t cold neither, which was something Curly had got used to at a very young age. Ponyboy on the other hand…well, he doesn’t have much ice in him at all.

“They’ve been mad at each other for days, and tonight it’s like they just blew up,” Pony continues, “like a match in a powder keg. They’ve been yelling off and on for hours, and everytime they start to shout it gets worse. They hardly even noticed when I left.”

“Darry won’t be pleased you ran off,” curly points out. He’s not good at emotions but he is good at being practical, at least when he’s trying to think like Angela, and he knows Darry Curtis will be mad if Ponyboy comes home late or not at all. Curly thinks the guy needs to lighten up a bit. One murder wrap when Pony didn;t even kill the guy shouldn’t mean he needs to be supervised 24/7. Darry needs to lighten up.

Ponyboy rolls his eyes.

“Shit man, you sound like Two-bit. I left a note alright? And if they’re really that worried they can get over themselves and come and find me.”

“What are they arguin’ about anyway?”

That was apparently the wrong question to ask because Pony’s face shutters again.

“That’s the whole problem! I dunno! I can’t figure it out and I listened to them argue awhile. It got real personal real quick, whatever they started arguin’ about probably isn’t why they’re mad now.”

“I’m sorry man,” Curly says, and he is. Rarely is it that he feels any sort of sympathy for other people’s issues, but Ponyboy curtis is not just anyone. In fact, he’s maybe the best person Curly knows, and he doesn’t deserve his house to feel like Curly’s does. The Curtis’ are supposed to be better than that. Ponyboy is supposed to have better than that.

Curly knows there isn’t much he can do. There never is, and with his penchant for fucking shit up he’s rarely trusted with even meaningless things let alone important ones, so he’s not usually armed with the skills to help anyone. However, in this situation, Curly knows what to do because it’s something he wished for every day or his childhood, and something that was never really provided to him no matter how hard Tim sometimes tried. 

Tonight, he can keep Pony safe.

“You can stay here,” he promises, scrubbing a hand through Ponyboy’s hair as an excuse to feel how soft it is without grease in it, “whenever you want. Just show up.”

“Really?”

“‘Course.”

That earns him a smile, a real one, the kind that makes Ponyboy sort of glow and Curly kind of want to kiss him and combust and jump out a window all at the same time.

“Thanks.” Pony murmurs, and Curly feels himself grin when Pony settles his head back on his shoulder, exhaustion returning.

Curly lets himself grin as he maneuvers them so that they’re squished together on his lumpy single mattress. It’s not the most comfortable position- Ponyboy is half on top of him and not in a fun way, his bony elbow jammed into Curly’s ribs, and his hair tickling his nose, but Curly wouldn't change it for the world.

Ponyboy is already gone when he wakes up the next morning, but that’s alright, Curly expected it, just like he expected the call that came when he was making breakfast and the light that has returned to Pony’s eyes when he sees him at school.

The Curtis house isn’t supposed to be like his own, and it isn’t. Ponyboy wouldn’t ever look this relaxed if it was. 

Even still, Curly reasons, it can’t hurt to keep his window unlatched. Just in case. 

[thoughtfulchaos773]

You don't think I can do it?

The nonnegotiables- the challenge- the tension between Sydney and Carmy. I mentioned this scene in my Season 3 Surrealist theme meta. But I still wanted to talk about it.

What stands out from the Sydcarmy arguments vs. Carmy arguing with family is the subtext. You can tell obviously what Richie and Carmy are arguing about. For Sydney and Carmy- their arguments it because there's more tension and things between the lines? I don't have to state the obvious of sexual tension. I want to point out how Carmy is starting to lose his mind here where Sydney is exasperated and rightfully so- but there's also some patience and conflicted contempt for Carmy's antics.

Richie and Carmy's argument moves quickly in this episode as they throw shots at each other. But this moment takes a noticeable pause as a thought hits Carmy—that Syd is challenging him.

When this happened, I thought- woah, what the fuck was that? The Carmy who cooks from a competitive, egotistical place? The same Carmy who went to the best restaurants as a big fuck you to Mikey? And when someone new to the kitchen came, he would smoke them? Now it's directed at Sydney? But I need to figure this out. Carmy's motivations make him want to get a star because Sydney wants one, but that motivation changes when he thinks he sees Chef David. He's not asking Richie if he doesn't think he could get this star and operate on the highest level- he's directly asking Sydney about her view, perhaps her validation beneath it? After all, she told him he was an excellent chef- so why the sudden challenge?

Sidebar: Oh, Richie! Look- if Sydney leaves, I'm sorry, but I will miss these Carmy and Sydney tension scenes with Richie looking on. He's come a long way from instigating. He's quiet and looks at Sydney, holding on to what she might say to this question. I think he's also noticing that Carmy isn't just argumentative towards him- carmy is also paranoid and unhinged with Sydney.

Ending sidebar but- a throwback to Richie looking on at Syd and Carmy:

Back to this scene:

Not sarcasm.

Snark, contempt even. Definitely, contempt from the moment he asked her you don't think I can do it? She's trying to be fair and stop the fight between Richie and Carmy, but now she has to address Carmy directly. He's exhausting at times!

As a fellow unhinged (but medicated and a lover of therapy) human being, Carmy looks so crazy here, like a wild bear. While Sydney mentions he's been yelling at Richie, he makes a pointed look toward him. Throughout this scene, as Sydney breaks up the fight (what a mental load on her part), Carmy often looks at her like he wants to stop arguing with Richie, but he can't help it- anger is more comfortable for Carmy- fear and grief are not.

I think even with Carmy defensive and angry—he knows Sydney is hitting some truth bombs—Carmy made getting the star about himself. Beat Chef David and ruminate on Claire—his purpose is to focus on the past to fix the future. It's hurting his team along the way.

Anyway, I don't have much of an ending. But I do want to know what you think about this moment. Is there something I missed? Feel free to reblog and reply!