#the people you love have suffered so deeply because of the very beings you were born to kill

[limeinaltime]

You were born for this

[soft-pine]

1.14 nightmare // cn discussion of domestic violence and suicide

what an aptly named episode. this is one of the most upsetting episodes of the whole show for me. while it touches on themes that i love - what if the monster was family - the way it handles ms miller is deeply uncomfortable. and max's story is just downright awful.

i do find it interesting that this is the second time this season where dean is arguing that they have to stop someone even if they happen to be human. while sam is vehemently insisting that them being "human" means they have to take another approach.

the first is in faith:

DEAN: Sam the guys playing God, he's deciding who lives and who dies. That's a monster in my book. SAM: No. We're not going to kill a human being Dean. We do that we're no better than he is.

and then again here:

SAM: Dean. He's a person. We can talk to him. 

i've said and i'll say again that dean understands that monstrosity is the result of actions and choices not something intrinsic. i think sam sees monstrosity and humanity as more of an intrinsic dichotomy and that's one reason he struggles so much in season 2. anyway.

but really what i want to talk about is ms miller. and how clear it is that she is also a victim of domestic violence. i understand, deeply, why max is so angry with her and why he sees her as an extension and enabler of his abusers. but i simply cannot fathom a world where max is experiencing the torrential abuse he's suffering where those people are not also harming ms miller deeply.

max accuses her, "You didn't do anything. You didn't stop them, not once!" their old neighbor says, "the worst part was the stepmother. She'd just stand there, checked out, not lifting a finger to protect him." the neighbor's claim always strikes me as a remarkably cruel reading of someone who is clearly also suffering and likely dissociating. like idk man of course i think adults have responsibility in situations like this (and i do appreciate the nod to the cops being useless) but like... "the worst part" THE WORST PART was the stepmother. i kinda feel like the worst part was the abuse, no?

but the upshot of it all is that ms miller's implied abuse seems like it has no witnesses. and that's of interest to me because of some interactions we've already dealt with in season 1.

in 1.03, we get this exchange:

DEAN: ... all that anger, you can't keep it burning over the long haul. It's gonna kill you. You gotta have patience, man. SAM: How do you do it? How does Dad do it?

then this in 1.08:

SAM: Remind you of somebody? Dad? DEAN: Dad never treated us like that. SAM: Well, Dad never treated you like that. You were perfect. He was all over my case. You don't remember?

and at the end of 1.14, sam says:

SAM: Well I'll tell you one thing. We're lucky we had Dad. DEAN: Well I never thought I'd hear you say that. SAM: Well, it coulda gone a whole other way after Mom. I little more tequila and a little less demon hunting and we woulda had Max's childhood. All things considered, we turned out ok. Thanks to him.

listen, i would never argue that john winchester didn't abuse sam. but i think it's interesting that though sam is critical of john's parenting and though he has complaints about how john treated him, he doesn't seem to think john treated dean poorly.

which, we just simply know he did. we know it because john does it in 1.09, 1.12, 1.20, 1.21. and because we're told he did in 1.18, 1.22, 2.01, 4.19, 9.07, 14.11, 14.12, 15.20, i mean i could go on.

and not that i have to filter everything through season 14 episode 12 prophet and loss. but i will. because it very clearly lays out how 1. dean was forced into the role of keeping the peace and 2. john would treat dean badly in ways dean wasn't sure sam was witnessing.

DEAN: I know things got dicey… you know, with dad… the way he was. And I just… I didn’t always look out for you the way that I should’ve. I mean, I had my own stuff, you know. In order to keep the peace, it probably looked like I took his side quite a bit. Sometimes when I was… when I was away, you know it wasn’t ‘cause I just ran out, right? Dad would… he would send me away when I really pissed him off. I think you knew that.

the uncertainty behind, "i think you knew that." ough.

but bad boys goes even farther here:

SAM: Hey, Dean ... I mean, why didn't you just tell me you went to a boys' home? DEAN: I don't know. Uh, it was Dad's idea. And then it just – you know, the story became the story. I was 16.

john told dean to lie to sam about what was happening to him.

so what does this all mean in an episode where dean is somewhat mirrored to and protective of the allegedly bystanding stepmother?

that abuse is shitty, cruel, secretive, and protects itself by pitting its victims against each other.

i don't know i wish i had something a bit clearer to say than all this. but it's just sad.

[bonebabbles]

im curious, do you think there is any good way to portray a redemption by death? like, can a character truly be made a better person by dying? or is it just an all-around bad trope? i vaguely saw what the authors were trying to do with tom and sandgorse's situations, but they just sucked too bad and gave it the absolute wrong effect imo

I think there's a way to make anything work! So I won't say "NO NEVER." But personally, I have a big bone to pick with it so I avoid it

A redemption death doesn't give the character time to meaningfully change, imo, or truly make up for their actions. That all has to come before the death itself. And even the very idea of giving your life up to "redeem yourself" just... sits uncomfortably with me.

Dying never makes a person better. It just kills them. A person who's dead is not changing nor growing.

So Tom and Sandgorse... what their deaths are supposed to do is re-frame everything they did before that point. With no apology on Sandgorse's end for how badly he hurt his son or wasn't there for his mate, he was a good enough person to die for someone else and thus must be forgiven. Tom thrashes two women and they both die because of him, but he was still willing to heroically throw his life down for his child, and so he is 'worthy' of being avenged and honored.

No growth. No change. No acknowledgement. The death is supposed to add sympathy to them, while there's no actual reckoning of how they hurt their victims. Not even a real consequence. "Their intentions were good, and this is proven through the ultimate sacrifice." As if that changes anything. It doesn't.

I think if there's an decent example of a redemption death in warriors, it's Bluestar's. I still have problems with how it believes Stone and Misty have to "forgive her" for some reason, REALLY don't like the fact that this series has always equated redemption and forgiveness... but that aside? Just focusing on Firestar, ThunderClan, and Bluestar?

I think what makes the moment so strong is that it is a moment of clarity through her cruelty arc. We saw the heroic person she was at the start of TPB. We know that her actions are coming from anger, spite, and paranoia. That is never shown as a thing to be excused. But while she's wrapped up in her own misery, Fireheart is being the leader she isn't.

And her last life is a return to form, spending it the way she is supposed to, as a leader, and as his mentor.

Her arc could never be about 'growth' because... she WAS a great leader. She WAS selfless, long ago. Her redemption death is a return to that, and a plot necessity. Bluestar and Firestar cannot both exist.

But, anyway, it's generally a trope I'm not fond of. I think that nearly anything can work in the right context, but I think it's so situational that I personally avoid it when possible.

[fictionalmenmistress]

I haven't seen anyone else talk about it, so I wanted to share that Logan's rant monologue insulting Wade in the Honda Odyssey, before Wade decides to beat him up and they ~fight~ all night... that so clearly to me, was Logan projecting. It started as a tempered rant to cope with how annoyed and pent up he was, with the heat of everything and with Wade's muchness that makes him, him, but the longer he went on, the more he started ranting and exposing himself in the process.

"THE XMEN REJECTED YOU, AND THEY'LL TAKE FUCKING ANYONE!!!" That was my first hit, that he was referring to himself. He sees himself so lowly, so failed, that's canonical to the film. And canonically, he didn't even quite originally feel worthy or want to be with the XMEN. Didn't feel like there was a place for him there, a place for him anywhere. One of his biggest healings was Professor X not giving up on helping him believe that he deserved to be there, was wanted, was worthy, was a good guy. That's canon to his character. So we know he was speaking about himself. He was chewing Wade out, but he was also talking and focusing moreso on what upset him about himself. (He sees himself as just any jo shmo, when he IS literally THE X MAN ㅠㅠ)

He was seeing himself in Wade, how he "can't even save a relationship with a gd stripper", (he sees himself as not able to save anything either, and he's angry for that more than anything else he's angry or annoyed at) projecting SO HARD as he pieced together saying it out loud, that Wade was exactly like him. Logan hated himself for not saving anything. For being a "loser", a "failure", for all of the same reasons he was lashing out at Wade for. He was so angry and annoyed by Wade reminding him of himself, because he related to him. Wade was his reflection, in his eyes, calling him out so loudly with his own behaviors. And he hated himself. He deeply was suffering with that hatred for himself, and as a result, he lashed out on Wade when really he was chewing out himself, inside, admitting it.

"God's CRUELEST JOKE, IS THAT YOU *WONT* DIE ALONE. BECAUSE YOU! CANT! DIE! SO THE REST OF US HAVE TO SUFFER YOU THE REST OF OUR EXISTENCE!" (something along that.)

He didn't know for sure that Wade can't die. He picked up on that Wade can't be killed. Logan is the one who can't die. They are two flipped sides of the same immortal power coin. When he finished his screaming at him, and everyone was silent at how cruel and shocking the confrontation and his words were, I was sinking with a very empathetically whispered "oh, Logan..." Because I felt his misery. I immediately picked up on him really talking about himself, and I think that was genius and layered. I was upset for how awful that was to say to Wade, heartbroken for Wade taking that to heart, and I was heartbroken that Logan was saying that because he believes that about himself. Because they are, oddly, a lot alike. Very compatible.

This scene here:

I read that Hugh said that Ryan wrote that. He's brilliant with these films. It was so genius. I really needed to share this and bring this thought, meta, analysis to light. For all of us to have.

Is Logan mad at God's "cruel joke" of his immortality, yet ability to feel so much pain through it still? Yes. He punched the roof in rage, because it's not fair. Venting his own pain. He sees his powers, his own and Wade's too, empathetically, as their curse. The curse of being the one who lives, and the guilt with that. The one who can't die. The one who lives, who is forced to live, while everyone who "deserves to live" dies. And WILL die, around them.

"And You can't die. That's on all of US!" Logan says, clearly referring to himself living forever... And "us" being the people HE loved. He saw himself as a burden for existing with them, for them. He deflected that onto Wade, as if the people in Wade's life must feel that way too, but didn't really mean that. He meant it about himself. Logan believes he was a burden on the people he loves, the people he lost. That's probably why he left too, and didn't come back when they called out for him to. He distanced himself to protect them, and protect himself from that fear of rejection that he feels is so imminent, and them not having him, is the one element that led to none of them surviving without him. He was always the key. He was always wanted, and he was always important and needed. He just couldn't ever believe that.

Man, that's why it became so personal for Logan too, when he was shown Wade's photograph of his family. Because HE had a family, and he would do anything now to save them. Just like Wade. He held that photograph all night, he went and got it when it fell out of the car, he kept looking at it. It became personal for him, when he identified with it. That Honda scene really was their turning point of everything. That's when Logan cared with everything. He got it. Wade is the him he couldn't be. But now he can.

I dropped some heat with this one.

Extra little personal context/thought notes: Maybe I just spotted it because I have a natural knack for psychology, I'm hyperobservant, highly empathetic and deeply feeling, and I'm also years experienced of my parents and whole family treating me the same exact toxic lashout way almost every other day. That's a workweek for me to see through toxic lashout anger BS. These are not my gifs!!! They were created by another amazing account. I will refind their @ and tag them!! >>> It's @landoslastnerve ! Thank you friend! 🤍

Also wanted to include someone's tags from those gifs:

.

[kazoo-world]

okay. i debated not posting this because I was worried I’d get death threats (that says a lot doesn’t it) but it needs to be said, because its upsetting me.

a woman who publicly says she feels very sane and has “never been to therapy” and who breaks up with her boyfriend in part because he can’t just “”get over”” his depression to love her the way she wants/needs does not.

I repeat, does not.

get to use the imagery she did in her fortnight video.

I’ve been seeing gifsets and screenshots all day of her chained to a bed but ~aesthetic~ and being fed a pill after a cheeky side eye and strapped to a glamourfied ECT machine and no one has said anything about it so I will. those images are genuinely triggering for me.

people have been restrained, forcefed pills, and given electroconvulsive therapy or subjected to the electric chair for severe mental illness against their will. these are not fun props anyone gets to throw around to express that they feel depressed or in a “manic phase” or like they were “raised in an asylum.”

she doesn’t know how a real asylum fried my grandmother’s brain or real cops restrained me because I was psychotic and manic. she doesn’t know what it feels like to be dehumanised that way.

do better. demand she do better, too.

edit: I say that this content is triggering to say that it causes real harm. I do still have a responsibility to myself to curate an internet experience for myself. this does not negate her responsibility to avoid replicating harmful tropes in art which is deeply influential. she does not get to co-opt institutionalization or psychiatric violence as a romanticized aesthetic or as a metaphor because real people like myself have suffered greatly under the things she is representing as glamorous or cool. institutionalization silences and violates mentally ill people in a way that marginalizes them, and that experience should be treated with sensitivity and care rather than being commodified to reduce stigma. if she had experienced these things, I might feel differently, but other ableist content on the record and her statements on her life and art indicate otherwise. she is a woman with immense privilege and power and should not be using that privilege and power to punch down on mental illness.

edit 2: I want you all to know I have seen your criticism. I will not edit the post but I do respect that she has had mental health struggles since that outdated quote. That is my mistake, I own that. My apologies.

However, mental health struggles =/ experience with psychiatric violence. Experiences of mental illness are heterogenous. Aestheticizing, romanticizing, and glamourizing mental hospitals is straight up gross regardless of your experience with mental illness. It’s tasteless and offensive.

I do understand metaphors. I think that her calling her life an asylum as a metaphor is in poor taste. I think her representing her relationship struggles with the imagery of a mental institution is insensitive given the impacts that real asylums and mental hospitals have had on my life and the lives of many others like me, so I had to say something about it.

It’s ableist to assume that critics of your fav “can’t read”, “don’t understand a metaphor” or “don’t have brains” when they clearly demonstrate that they are thinking critically. Do better.

[the-one-and-only-elita]

One thing that I absolutely love about TFOne's writing is that it manages to avoid a lot of the heavier criticism I've seen regarding MegOp's hero/villain dynamic over the years (trust me, the mid-2010s TF discourse was crazy)

*Spoilers Below*

First of all, the narrative benefits so much from the main 4 cast members all being a part of the same exploited mining class. So many takes on MegOp have Orion being of a higher status (an archivist, a cop, etc) while Megatron is much lower down on the social latter (a miner, a gladiator, often in the context of being a slave).

I've seen many people be put off by this, because it feels as if Megs is being villianized for being rightfully angry at the system that deeply harmed and exploited him, while Orion/Optimus is praised for taking a more pacifistic stance despite him not suffering as much from or in some ways even benefiting from the system he claims to oppose. I don't find their dynamic to be as simple as that, and I do find these takes to be a bit reductive, but I do very much see where they are coming from.

I am definitely one of those people who's very frustrated with the way pacifism is hailed as the one true path of morality, and the inherent implication that taking any sort of revenge on the people who abused/exploited you makes you just as bad as them. Also, Marvel's particular brand of demonizing any form of radical political action, despite the system clearly being broken and corrupt, but being completely unwilling to offer any other alternatives to meaningfully change things for the better.

When looking at what I described above its pretty easy to see how a lot of versions of MegOp's hero/villain dynamic unfortunately fits into that trope. Bringing it back to TFOne, you can see how Op and Meg coming from the same political/social status subverts this. The existence of Elita and Bee only further illustrates that out of the 4 people of the mining class who were all deceived, exploited, and literally mutilated in the same way it is only D-16 that completely loses himself to his rage, even to the point where he loses compassion for his own companions and disregarding the safety of the other miners (when he decides to "tears everything down" and Elita exclaims he's going to "kill everyone").

What I think I love most about the characterization in TFOne is that Orion is the radical one. Not only that, but he is praised by Elita and by extension the narrative for it. He is constantly challenging authority, and is the first to have the suspicion that their society is structured in an unjust way.

Meanwhile D-16, to be frank, is kind of a bootlicker. He fully believed in the system and that Sentinal Prime, as someone with power, had the right to decided "what was best" for those who are weaker/lesser (I wish I had the specific quote from D-16 to support this, but the movie's still in theaters). It illustrate that D-16 already held certain fascistic ideals, and that he and Orion already have fundamentally opposing moral/political values, it simply hasn't been of any consequence yet. It shows that their eventual falling out was inevitable, even if they had decided to rebuild Cybertron together.

It should also be noted that D-16's feelings of anger and betrayal do not necessarily have anything to do with the unjust system itself, but that said unjust system was predicated on a lie. Hence his fixation on deception in the post-credits scene and him naming his faction the Decepticons. Meanwhile, when Orion learns the truth he's just sort of like "yeah, I always kinda knew something was up" because again, he understood on some level that their system was predicated on injustice.

Even D-16's obsession with Megatronus Prime, while initially an endearing aspect of his character, is also an indicator of the questionably large amount of value he puts on one's strength. It foreshadows the "might makes right" ideology that the decepticons follow, and is a key part of their ideological characterization across continuities.

Instead of the narrative we often see in Transformers media were Optimus is idolized by the narrative for being more moderate and Megatron is villiainized for being radical (or so people often claim), it is instead Optimus who is rewarded and praised by the narrative for being radical, and Megatron who is villainized and punished by the narrative for holding potentially fascistic values.

I do agree with some criticism I've seen that the whole thing with killing Sentinel and D-16's final turn into villainy felt a bit rushed and more than a little cliche, but I also understand it both had a limited runtime and that it is ultimately a family film meant to be accessible to children. More importantly though, I think the movie set the groundwork early on that, no matter how this final act played out, D-16 was always going to turn to darkness, and Orion would not have been able to stop him.

Its perfectly tragic, the way all MegOp should be, while also feeling really well thought out from a thematic standpoint. I love it.

[satxnsupreme666]

I love you, it’s ruining my life: Agatha Harkness x fem!reder x Rio Vidal

Masterlist

Requested by: @notlhecxzsa

Summary: Agatha cares for you deeply, she loves you, but her fears stop her from revealing the real feelings she has for you, the only way she knows how to cope with her own feelings is by using sarcasm and from time to time say something mean.

Rio developed feelings for you while watching over Agatha and you during the three years you had stayed with her to take care of the the blue-eyed witch who was under Wanda’s spell, Rio doesn’t like the way Agatha treats you just because she doesn’t know how to deal with her feelings.

Can Rio and the coven help Agatha realize that her actions and comments are not only hurting her but she’s also hurting you in the process? Can Rio help Agatha realize that love doesn’t have to make anyone suffer?

Warnings: Agatha is mean to reader because she doesn´t know how to deal with her feelings, reader gets hurt, reader almost dies, angst, I think that´s it.

Word count: 19k+ 

Author´s notes: In this story Sharon doesn´t die, in fact no one dies, I will always be in denial.

Hello, sorry for being a little bit inactive, and for the requests I have already been sent, have in mind I will be writing them and posting them, just give me please a little bit of time.

@notlhecxzsa thank you so much for requesting this! I really loved your idea! You are really creative and it was really nice to write this, sorry for taking too many days to write this, I´ll be honest I had some really bad days and it was so hard for me to even do anything, but I was finally able to get inspiration and finish this story, again, thank you so much for trusting in me to write your request, it was such a delight to write this, so I hope you like this and that you enjoy it! 💕

I hope all of you enjoy this!🥺💕💕

Taglist: @italianaidiota @midnight-lestrange @eliscannotdance

“Hey, sorry, I didn´t mean to scare you” The tall teen said to you with a soft smile on his face, you had not noticed he had been talking to you for the past minutes, too deep into your own thoughts about how some hours ago Agatha had been released from Wanda’s spell, some hours ago in which Agatha had been thinking that you were her wife, it looked like the older witch did not remember any of the past three years, and Agatha not remembering anything made you feel a pang of sadness to your heart, you had wished at least that during the moments she had been nice and caring towards you she would be able to remember something.

You were going to miss so much the times in which she actually seemed to care about you, and you felt guilty for that, you knew very well Agatha did not like you like that, she just tolerated you because you have proven to her your loyalty, but it had never been enough and would never be.

“It’s alright, I am sorry, I am not so used to people touching me out of nowhere” You replied back at him while you made sure the cups and the table were in order, the teen in front of you tilted his head to the side a little and looked at you with curious eyes.

“What did you ask me again? Sorry” You asked him again, clearing your throat a little, it was a little bit uncomfortable to be under someone else’s gaze, you were also letting him know that he could ask again whatever he had inquired.

“Oh yes! I was just asking how come you were living here with Agatha while she was under the spell and you were…not” He asked you carefully, he could see that whatever had happened was a touchy subject for you.

He still remembered the way Agatha had told you how she thought you had disappeared out of her life for real half an hour ago and then she just left the hall and went upstairs to do god knows what, you had been kind enough to help him untie him out of the rope and helped him to get out of the closet.

“Thank you by the way, for untying me” He said chucking, he could see you were kind and nice, and was really curious about what you were doing with Agatha.

You stopped to think about the past three years and about 7 months, the way Wanda had trapped you under her mind control, giving you the role of Agnes’ wife, you remembered everything perfectly because even from the first 4 months of just watching everything from the inside as if you were on a tv show and being controlled by Wanda’s mind, you were also conscious, living everything without actually having a chance to do something, it had been a weird experience,  but what was also one of the weirdest things, was that you had not felt pain nor anything unlike the other residents of “Westview” that had claimed they were terrorized, you had not felt any type of pain during the months you were controlled, that had been what you assumed to be the first months, because one day you just woke up and what shocked you was that you actually were able to move as you wanted.

The teen cleared his throat softly and you came back to the present again, ready to answer his question.

“Well, I am not sure, I mean, one day I woke up not being able to control myself, following Wanda’s schedule, playing the role she had given to me which had been being Agnes’ wife” You felt your face getting warmer at the mention of your role.

“And then suddenly I was able to move on my own, I was able to actually went where I wanted, I don’t know. Then Agnes, or well, Agatha came to me to tell me she had released me from Wanda’s mind control and that I was in debt with her, so she “hired” me to pay my debt to her with some things, so I just stayed, I felt like I really had a debt with her, you know?” You were such a liar, you knew very well you had stayed because you liked so much the older witch that you wanted to get her approval and get her to like you, so you stayed with her to help her and do whatever she had wanted.

“Then you know, Wanda’s hex was destroyed, I am not sure how and I still don’t know, but the next day Agatha seemed to be a completely different person and claimed to be named Agnes, and well, I couldn’t let her alone, you know? She needed help, I helped her the way I could”

You brushed your shoulders trying to act nonchalant, you just hoped he believed you, because you had stayed with her because of the feelings you had developed for Agatha, and when she actually thought you were her wife and the way she actually treated you or her character “Agnes” had treated you had made you fell harder for the older woman, even though you always tried and made sure not to cross any boundaries because you were aware that was not what Agatha had wanted and you wanted to actually respect her, you never initiated any type of physical contact, she would only hug you and give you soft kisses from time to time, or more like, Agnes had given them to you, but you never actually took advantage of that, you always made sure she was fine, listening to her, to the different ideas and plots her mind had created, always making sure she was fine.

The dark-haired boy nodded slowly and seemed to be analyzing you, so in order for him to stop looking at you so weird you decided to change the subject.

“I also wanted to make sure Señor Scratchy would be fine” You told him and went towards one of the couches in the living room to take the fluffy bunny in your arms, bringing him close to the teen so he could see the bunny closer.

“He is so sweet; can I pet him?” He asked you and you sighed, relieved that he seemed to have forgotten the subject of how you knew Agatha, you nodded and passed the bunny over to him after caressing his little ears.

“He is really sweet, never bites, and he loves to snuggle against people” You proudly said remembering all the times you had spent at night on the couch hugging the bunny closer to you or the times when you had been sad and cried alone laying on the biggest couch and feeling the bunny climbing up and snuggling against your arms, you would always hug him and pet him lovingly.

“He would be an amazing service bunny” You jokingly said and the teen laughed, he was petting his ears and saying how cute the bunny was.

You heard footsteps coming from the stairs and quickly straightened yourself, brushing your hair with your hands to make sure you looked decent for Agatha, you did not notice the teen saw the way you were making sure you looked fine, and he internally laughed, he was sure you liked the older woman but would not comment about it.

Agatha came down wearing sunglasses and a hat, her style always so elegant and so beautiful, she really knew how to dress, you quickly looked back at your clothes, hoping they were enough.

“I see you made yourself useful and helped our guest here” She said to you while eying the teen, her eyes peeking from the top of her sunglasses.

You tried to ignore the comment and just nodded; the teen looked back at you with his eyebrows furrowed together.

“So, are we going to gather our coven?” The teen asked out loud and you went to take Mr.Scratchy from his arms, taking the bunny carefully and making sure the little fluffy ball knew how good he was, Agatha had put her glasses back and thought no one was watching her, so she decided to eye you while you were entertained petting the little bunny, she felt her heart skipping  a beat at the sight, she had always loved the way you were so gentle not only with Mr.Scratchy but with animals in general, you were always so kind that it actually started to make her feel things, which was absurd, because how could someone like you actually make her feel something, it was obviously the fake memories Wanda had implanted on her head, there was no other explanation, she huffed and quickly went to look back at the teen.

“Yeah, whatever, let’s meet our coven” Agatha said with feigned excitement, she turned around and you quickly went to place Mr.Scratchy on the carpet, the teen turned himself around and looked at you with a smile.

“You can help me choose the music we’ll play in the car, I have a variety of songs in my playlist and I also have cd’s if you prefer them” The dark-haired boy said with excitement, and you felt happy to be included in what seemed to be really serious, you came to stand next to the teen when Agatha quickly turned herself with a frown on her face and walked back towards the two of you.

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, who told you she could come?” The older witch had felt suddenly a wave of worry taking over her, you were not supposed to be part of that, how would you even be safe? You were not even a witch! She pushed really hard the feeling away and again said to herself it was only the fake memories and fake feelings Wanda had planted in her.

“But I can help” You said eagerly, trying to let her know you would be useful, trying to get her approval one more time.

Agatha felt conflicted, she should not even care about you wanting to come, the more the better, if someone died on the road, no one would care! Everyone had to carry on, and continue to keep on walking down the road, but still, deep down, if something really happened to you, she was not sure what could happen, Agatha did not even want to actually think of something happening to you, but why did she care so much? You were no one to her.

“You are only going to slow us down” Agatha replied looking at you with her arms crossed on her chest, trying to see if maybe you would just agree on not going.

“No wait, I can be useful, you know? I can help you, all of you, just like I have been helping” You said hopeful, trying so hard to convince Agatha to let you join them, you saw the way she pursed her lips and suddenly you felt the same way you used to feel all those months you had passed with her again during Wanda’s hex, your mind going for a moment back to the past, the way she would say a comment that would make you feel bad or how she looked at you when you were too pushy on something, so you quickly lowered your gaze to look at the floor.

Agatha was thinking, too much, many different thoughts coming and going, if she let you go, she would be risking your life, if not many witches survived the road, what could happen to you? You could die and then, she would never get to see you again, her heart was beating so loud she was afraid the teen or you could actually hear her beating heart.

But now that the Salem seven were also behind her, she was powerless, and had no ways to actually do something if you were magically attacked, what would she be able to do?

“You are not even a witch” The way Agatha said that to you, with so much disdain, and making you feel less and not enough made you feel a pang of pain in your heart, you were not used to her mean comments anymore, sure when Wanda was still around and you were helping Agatha the comments and mean actions were common,  but during those three years she had been “Agnes” you had not received any of those, so even now that you were aware and you knew she would make comments like that again, still it shocked you to hear them actually coming from her mouth, hearing them from the woman you loved so much made you want to cry.

Agatha noticed the way your shoulders tensed, and saw the way for a moment an expression full of pain and disappointment was visible on your face, you quickly went to hide and tried to compose yourself, you thought no one would notice it, but she did, you had been so many years with  her that it was something she had picked up from you from the start, your small antics that made you so special, but she was not going to say anything about that.

The teen could not actually believe how even after those years that you had been there taking care of her, Agatha still could treat you like that! It was visible for him that you were head over heels for that woman and yet you tolerated the way she spoke to you, he felt bad for you but also, he did not want to intrude.

The blue-eyed witch felt like she did not know what to do, the only logical way for her to make you not go was the way she knew, the way she was used to, and that was how she was acting, but the sad look on your face and how you were not even looking at her made her for a second think twice what she was doing.

“Fine! Whatever but if you die I am not making a funeral” Agatha quickly said and rolled her eyes turning herself around to start walking to the door, she hated feeling nervous and actually worried for someone else, she had been alone for centuries, never having to look after some else, only looking after her, and then you came, with your sweet smile, kind words and actions, making sure she had what she needed and always tending for her needs, her sweet y/n, but there was no way, you had to know any of that.

Slowly you lifted your head to look at the teen and finally the two of you smiled, you tried to ignore Agatha’s comment, she always said something like that, so you tried not to take it personally, but still it hurt you to hear that.

You realized Agatha had already stepped out of the house.

“We better hurry, Agatha doesn’t like waiting for too long” You said to him and he nodded instantly, the two of you went out and you quickly locked the door, starting to walk behind the teen, following him, you saw Agatha standing next to the car looking at her reflection on the window.

The teen went quickly to open the doors and he went to enter the car to start the engine.

After making sure the three of you were already inside the car the teen smiled at you through the mirror.

“Do you want to play some music?” He inquired while turning the engine on and you were about to say yes but noticed the way Agatha was looking at you through the mirror as well, she had her eyes frowned and decided not to annoy her.

“No, uhm, it’s alright, I mean, whatever you want, don’t worry” You replied back and went to look through the window, trying to avoid their gazes, the teen did not say anything else and started to drive slowly waiting for Agatha to give instructions, but Agatha was too immersed looking at you through the mirror, she was analyzing your expression, the way you seem not to want to cause her any trouble, even going against your own wishes, how could you put her first? Your beautiful face looking at the window, looking at the street and the houses you were passing through, how could you make her feel things she had not felt in centuries?

“Where to Agatha?” The boy asked her directly and she quickly turned her head to look at him.

“Keep driving I’ll tell you when to turn and where to stop” She announced and looked at the path ahead, during the ride Agatha could not keep her eyes off you, looking at you through the mirror, and feeling her heart beat faster at the way your expression tended to change, she was still worried, how would she be able to make sure nothing happened to you?

When you were about to turn your head to look at the other side Agatha quickly turned to look at the other direction so that you would not notice she had been looking at you.

“Wait, stop! You already passed the shop!” Agatha quickly said and the teen had to abruptly stop.

“Oh my god” He said grabbing with a strong grip the steering wheel.

“Are you alright?” The teen asked while looking at you through the mirror and when Agatha saw the way he looked worried she turned her head hastily to look at you, you were grabbing your seatbelt with both of your hands and you just nodded, she sighed in relief seeing you had not hurt yourself.

“Who taught you how to drive?” Agatha said with an annoyed look on her face after the teen made sure to park where the shop was located a few meters behind and finally went to unlock the door to get out of the car. 

The boy and you looked at each other still inside the car, Agatha was already outside walking towards the entrance of the building.

“Is she serious?” The dark-haired boy asked you directly and you only laughed a little bit while slowly nodding.

“Don’t mind her, she doesn’t mean it” You said to him and you proceeded to also get out of the car, the teen did the same and the two of you started to walk alongside towards the waiting older witch.

“Took you long enough” Agatha commented while accommodating her hat.

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Getting to know Lilia had been interesting to say the least, the interaction with her made you aware of how Agatha was perceived amongst the other witches, and got you thinking about her and her actions, for you it was not possible that Agatha could be really that selfish right? Could it be true every single thing that was said about her? Maybe other people did not like it, but for you she was just maybe, misunderstood, she was smart, amazing, a beautiful woman, or maybe, just maybe was your heart dictating your brain what to think.

Agatha had been carefully watching you whenever Lilia said something about her,  whenever Lilia reminded her of what other witches thought about her, her past hunting her again, and the way you seemed to be so deep in thought about everything you have heard, made her heart ache with pain, she did not want you to believe all of those things, she did not want you to become afraid of her, but just as she had never actually care for someone in so much time, she didn´t know what to do.

“So, we’re at the mall, where to?” The teen asked with a smile on his face, you stopped walking and waited for Agatha to give instructions.

“Just follow me, it is not too far away” The blue-eyed witch said while starting to walk again, Billy looked at you and you only shrugged your shoulders, the two of you started to follow Agatha from behind.

After entering a shop on the second floor you frowned, where were they supposed to find a witch in there? You were about to ask the teen when you felt someone pushing you hard and losing your balance you fell to the floor, your hand colliding first on the cold floor making you wince in pain, Agatha quickly noticed that and quickly walked closer to you, she got worried thinking you had hurt yourself but when you started to get up the floor so quickly she did not get time to act as if she was not looking carefully at you, you stood up and were surprised to see Agatha standing there in front of you, frowning you sent her a questioning look and Agatha blinked several times before realizing what she was doing and without saying anything she turned herself around to look for the teen and the witch that had tackled him, her heart beating so fast against her chest, the blue-eyed witch cleared her throat and waited for the other witch to just get fired.

You did not understand what had just happened, and Agatha’s action or whatever she had done made you confused, what had just happened?

Agatha was shaken, she could not believe she had acted on impulse, but the thought of you getting hurt made her heart feel a deep feeling of pain and fear, why did she care so much? You were nothing! Not even a witch who she could drain the powers from, you were a mortal, and that was what also made her feel even more afraid, ignoring always could help, at least that’s what she thought would work.

You were not sure what the teen and Agatha were saying to the shorter woman, you were not interested if you were honest, too deep in your own thoughts, why had Agatha gotten closer to you? Did she want to make sure you were not hurt? For a second you heard jumped a bit, feeling warm at the mere thought of Agatha caring about you, but then you remembered how three years ago you had gotten hurt because she had got mad and she did not even turn herself around to take a look at you. You remembered that day very clearly and it made you shiver, she had been mad that day, mad because her plan was not working, mad because she couldn’t understand how Wanda had created everything from scratch, how she had brought her dead husband back or how she even created her two children! She was not even close to what she wanted and your only error had been to ask if she needed help.

You winced at the memory of her words, the way she had turned herself around so fast you were afraid she would hurt herself.

“How are you going to help me? You don’t even have powers, you are not even useful, you can’t get the information I have already told you to get, if you want to help, you will leave” Agatha had said to you and you had felt the way the tears started to fall down your face.

“You can’t be serious, I am the one who is stressed, you are fine here! I released you from the spell, you are not suffering, I gave you a chance to help me, and you are crying?” You could see Agatha getting angrier and the way her eyes started to grow purple made you afraid.

“Why won´t you leave? I said leave!” Agatha had yelled and the next thing you knew, you had been thrown out of the room, colliding against the wall and falling onto the hard wooden floor with a hard thud, it had hurt, but it was not a unbearable pain, you had slowly stood up groaning a little and Agatha just looked at you with her eyes widened, but quickly turned herself around and walked out of the house, leaving you alone in there, you had felt awful, you wanted to think she had not made it on purpose, you had wanted to convince yourself that she had done it without thinking twice, always listening to your heart instead of your brain, always making excuses for her, and that was what ruined you, always excusing everything she said and did, loving her was sometimes hard, but you couldn’t stop the feeling.

“Are you hungry?” A hand on your shoulder made you jump slightly taking you back to the present, you blinked several times only to realize you were on the food court of the mall, when had you gotten there? 

“Not really” You answered the teen and smiled at him, he nodded and when you saw Agatha you noticed she was looking at you again with that unreadable expression on her face, she quickly lifted her hand to scratch her eyebrow slightly and turned herself around to walk towards a free table to seat there. The way you always jumped slightly whenever someone touch you out of nowhere made her also feel worried, what had happened to you? She really wanted to know but she did not have the courage to ask you out loud.

Agatha’s gaze made you feel a little bit weirded out because, she had never looked at you that way, was she analyzing you? thinking you were just a bother? You had many ideas running through your head, so many bad things that she could be thinking about you so you decided to just take your phone out to start scrolling whatever you could find.

You were trying so hard to focus on something else trying not to mind Agatha and when the teen asked what she wanted to eat and the two of them went to order their food you decided to take that little time to go to the nearest bathroom to wash your face. You still couldn’t understand why Agatha was looking at you in such a weird way, you never knew what she could be thinking or what her next move could be, so you only hoped for the best, feeling the cold water on your face relaxed you a little, you tried to lessen the tension on your shoulders and finally when you dried your face you decided it was time to go back to the two people you had come with, what you had not expecting was Agatha and the teen standing there in front of the table you had chosen and looking everywhere around the place, Agatha seemed to be tense, the way her shoulders seemed to tense just as she was speaking to the teen as if she was scolding him but you were not sure why.

Slowly you made your way to them, trying not to interrupt the conversation they were having in order not to bother Agatha, you did not want to make her angry at you.

After making sure you were centimeters away from them, you were able to hear what was the older witch and the teen talking about.

“You could have made sure she stayed here! Why couldn’t you watch where she went to?” Agatha sounded pissed but you were not understanding what was going on.

“I went with you to pay for the food! How was I supposed to know she would be leaving?” The teen had lifted his hands up in the air, not knowing what to do.

You cleared your throat to announce yourself and the two of them quickly turned themselves to look at you, when Agatha saw you, she felt relieved, she had felt her heart would stop at any minute trying to figure out where had you gone or if you had finally decided you wanted to leave her and be free, she had thought the worst, had you finally realized she was not a good person? That she was actually a wicthkiller and she was not capable of loving? She almost cried feeling desperate not knowing where you had gone, and seeing you there back again in front of her, made her feel at peace, she had wanted to hug you but again, she suppressed that feeling and only sighed.

“You know you could have said where you were going?” Agatha quickly commented while turning around to finally take a seat, she started to eat her corndog nonchalantly as if she had not just blamed the teen for losing you out if their sight and almost crying at the thought of you leaving, the teen was trying so hard not to laugh so he took the seat next to Agatha and brought the cup he had on the table to his lips, covering his grin.

You did not understand what had just happened or why she seemed so annoyed that you had left for some minutes, so deciding not to comment nor say anything you sat down on the seat in front of Agatha and the teen.

The older witch started to eat nonchalantly as if nothing had happened and the teen proceeded to do the same, you did not find anything to do so you just decided to keep doing what you had been doing on your phone, there was not much to do, you still had to wait for them to finish eating and then you had to still look for the other witches to complete the coven.

Your mind wandered back to a few hours ago, when you had heard Lilia saying random names of tarot cards, you had studied a little bit of tarot a while ago, and from what you knew, the first card Lilia had said out of nowhere had been Ace of cups, what did you remember about ace of cups? It had to do with new beginnings, right? Something about new relationships, what else? A card alone could have many different meanings, cards also have to be paired to have a more specific meaning, right? What other cards had Lilia said? Six of cups and two of cups, the meaning could also depend on the deck and also the context of course, what did you remember about the six of cups card? 

It had to do with nostalgia? You tried to think harder, and yes you remembered! It also had to do with the past, in certain cases that could mean the past could come back somehow, revisiting some past memories? You were not sure, the meaning of that was the one you remembered the most, it had to do with partnership, creating a union, union of forces, could it be the coven reuniting and forming a union? You were not sure and tried not to think about it too much, you just wanted to remember what the cards could mean.

The last card Lilia had mentioned had been the lovers and that card could have just as every other tarot card a different meaning depending on the context, so it would be too risky to jump into any conclusions even though you wished deeply for that card to have a good meaning for you and a certain blue-eyed witch,  Agatha noticed the way you seemed to be thinking a lot, the way you unconsciously tended to bite your lower lip while you were too focused on whatever you were thinking, it was an habit she had noticed since you started living with her when Wanda was still around, even if she never allowed herself to say it out loud, she had picked up almost all of your gestures, expressions and even antics, and could only wondered why you looked to be so worried.

The next stop all of you made was on the shop of the famous social media influencer Jennifer Kale, you felt nervous getting to be near someone as famous as her who had so many followers, the teen seemed to be excited due to his bouncy state.

 “Aren´t you excited?” The boy asked you with a huge smile on his face, you nodded slightly letting him know that you were feeling the same, Agatha eyed you a little, she was walking behind you and noticed you shifting a little, showing that you were feeling nervous, it was something you used to do all the time when feeling stressed or nervous, moving your legs a little or passing your hands various times through your hair to soothe yourself, during those three years she would caress your hair a little to help you feel at ease, but right now, she could not get herself to do it .

You still did not understand why Agatha kept staring at you with such a weird look that you did not understand, so you only decided not to engage too much into their conversation with Jennifer, and only stood next to the teen.

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The way Agatha had ripped the teen´s decoration to welcome the witches made you feel a little bit bad for him, but you knew Agatha was feeling stressed, you even felt stressed because you did not know what would be waiting for you on the road, and it also made you feel scared.

“Hey” You said softly to Agatha with a frown on your face, she quickly looked back at you and felt surprised for your reaction.

“It looked nice, he did it with his own hands, I gave him the sheets of paper and the markers, it was pretty” Agatha blinked several times and when she saw the way you had stretched out for her to give her back the decoration Agatha did not think twice and handed it to you.

The teen was smirking and when Agatha saw him, she only rolled her eyes at him and walked into the other room, leaving you and him to keep on doing what you had planned.

“How did you do that?” The dark-haired boy had a big smirk on his face, and you only shrugged your shoulders not understanding what he meant, so you only gave to him back what he had made and helped him to put it back on the wall.

 “That looks nice” A voice behind you commented and you turned yourself around to look at the woman who had arrived.

“He made it” You replied smiling softly at the potion´s witch and she returned the smile, even if you had not spoked with her that much, she could see you were nice.

“Thank you for coming” The boy looked at her with a big smile. Lilia arrived secondly and you greeted her happily, waving your hand at her, she did the same to you and the boy offered them a snack, you were not sure where he had gotten them, but decided not to ask, Agatha could not have given them to him, right?

 “Hi” The woman with the red strands of hair arrived, she had her hands on her pockets and you smiled at her as well.

 “Sorry for tackling you” Alice said to the teen and then looked at you.

“Sorry for making you fall as well” Smiling you laughed out loud.

 “It´s alright, it was not that bad, don´t worry” Alice nodded and shily looked at the floor.

“What type of witch are you?” Jennifer suddenly asked you and you quickly shook your head.

“Oh, no, I am not a witch I am just here helping Agatha” You replied with a smile on your face, the three witches looked at each other with a confused look, they did not understand how could someone be happy helping Agatha, you seemed too nice to be working with her.

Before anyone could make more questions, Agatha appeared again, entering the living room dressed completely different, she really looked amazing with that coat on her.

“Alright, let´s walk the road” The new coven started to walk towards Agatha´s basement and you decided to go grab Mr. Scratchy to put him in a safe place, the teen followed you to get him back onto his large cage to get him safe, you two were too concentrated on making sure the bunny was fine that you did not get to hear the conversation about them needing a green witch, you did not even notice when Agatha left the house and came back with Mrs. Davis behind her.

“Alright, we are all set” The teen nodded and walked back to one of the couches to seat in there, you decided you would go the basement to see how else you could help Agatha with.

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“You can’t be here” Agatha quickly said to you making sure the other witches were not listening, she had guided you towards the stairs of her basement to let you know you were not allowed to be in her basement, at least not right now, she did not even know what could happen and deep down the fear was taking over her again, she feared something could really happen to you, and if you got hurt, she would never forgive herself, but how could she let you know that without making a fuss of her own emotions? Without actually saying out loud what she felt?

Your confused look made you look so pretty, why were you so kind to her even after everything she had done? You were too pure and yet you wanted to help her.

“But then how am I going to help?” You asked her, completely confused on why Agatha was telling you not be there with them, the older woman didn´t want you to get hurt, she did not even know what was going to happen and she could not risk you getting hurt.

“Listen, I know you want to help, but remember, the only ones who can open the door are witches, so, you would be more helpful if you go back and stay with the boy and wait for me to give you more instructions, alright?” She was trying so hard to convince you to go back and was hoping that you would accept quickly, she was sure you still had not even noticed about the weird entities wanting to get her, and you were also completely oblivious to the fact that her former lover had also paid her a visit, so she really needed for her and her new “coven” to get through this as fast as possible.

“Alright” You said to her and Agatha felt relieved you understood quickly.

She made sure you closed the door behind you and went back to the circle.

“What a beautiful wife and helping wife you have Agatha” Mrs. Davis commented, she remembered you and her being on Wanda´s hex and from time to time she also saw you going to the grocery store or just walking down the street during those past three years, of course the woman did not know what had happened.

All of the other witches hastily turned their heads to look at Agatha with a shocked expression on their faces, how was it possible that Agatha had a wife?

Agatha laughed nervously and tried to act as if that comment had not meant anything to her.

“How did you get her to be your wife? Do you have it under some kind of spell?” Jennifer asked with a smirk on her face, how could it be possible? Agatha pursed her lips not wanting to give explanations.

“Well Jennifer, unlike you I can actually get someone who wants to be with me, not magic involved, are you jealous?” The smirk on Agatha´s face made Jennifer feel her blood boiling and Lilia sensed the tension.

“We are not here to discuss anyone´s love life, we have a goal in common ladies” The Sicilian witch tried to reason with them, not wanting for a fight to start.

“Yeah, maybe you can give us some tips later” Alice commented while raising her eyebrows and nodding slowly, Lilia turned her head to look at her with her left eyebrow raised.

“What?” Alice did not understand the look on the curly haired witch.

Upstairs, you went back to sit next to the boy, and looked at you with a concerned expression on his face.

“Agatha told me to come wait here with you” He tilted his head and looked at you carefully.

“We can play a card game in the meantime if you want, I have the Uno game card, I mean it is only the two of us, but,-“

“Sure, I love board and card games, so let´s play” He interrupted you, he loved card games and always was eager to play one with people he liked, he was sure you and him could be great friends. 

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You looked at Agatha standing herself from the water slide, the way she had not let you get cut your skin with the knife, she had taken the teen’s hand to get the blood they needed, the way she had seen so reluctant to actually cut you with the knife when you had offered yourself, the way she quickly snapped back and said no to you, or how she had taken the glass of wine out of your hands, she had not allowed you to drink from the poisoned wine, claiming only true witches were allowed to drink,  but those little actions made your heart flutter with happiness, maybe she really cared about you? Maybe she actually felt something nice towards you? You were beyond happy, finally Agatha was showing something else towards you than just annoyance and that made you feel a lot better.

Agatha felt on edge, she was making sure you would not hurt yourself, but you were making it hard for her, really hard, when she saw you with the glass on your hands, her heart beat so faster that she thought it was going to get out of her ribcage, you almost drank the wine because you had been joking around the teen, she was not sure what you two were laughing about, and her heart felt warm at the sight, but when she saw you were about to take a sip, she had lost her composure for a minute, she had not cared if the others saw her, you were more important to her than anything else or what other people could think, she ran towards you and snatched the glass from your hands, everyone looked at her with wide eyes including you and she only said something mean to cover her real feelings and her beating heart.

 You and Billy had only looked at each other with a confused look and just brushed what had happened off, Agatha always did something like that.

Agatha felt he heart skip a beat not long after the wine incident, you had offered your own hand to get the blood they needed, wanting to help, always willing to help whoever was in need, and again she did not understand how you were not afraid, she was not going to cut your skin, there was no way she would hurt you like that, so she quickly took the teen’s hand and cut his skin, she gave you a quick look with a weird expression you had not seen before, Agatha was stressed, how would she be able to help you and take care of you when you were putting yourself in such dangerous situations!?

Agatha felt relieved for a moment, you had gotten out of the trial without a scratch, you were safe, you were still there in front of her, until the teen and you started to explore the path a little too far away, Alice was saying something about a way to get Mrs. Davis out of the road, to keep her safe, but Agatha was not listening anymore, her eyes squinting to look at the two of you trying to take some orange leaves from the path, but when she saw the way your foot had tripped over she felt her heart skipping a beat again, her worried face showed what she was actually feeling, not daring to hide her emotions, the blue-eyed witch ran off to where you had fallen on the mud as quick as she could.

You had been trying to reach for a weird shaped leave on the path outside the actual road to show it to the teen but the next thing you knew you were fighting to walk out of the pool of mud that seemed to engulf you more and more as the seconds passed, you felt the teen grabbing you by your hands,  trying to push you back over to the road, but it was not working, he was doing everything he could until he felt a body pushing him to the side, a strong pair of arms circled your waist and in less than a second, you were released from the mud, you lifted your head to see the blue-eyed woman looking worriedly at you, she took your face in her hands, checking for any type of wounds and when you were about to throw yourself at her to hug her, she quickly turned herself around to walk back towards the other witches.

You felt confused? What had just happened, so you decided to follow Agatha from behind until you reached her when she was closer to her coven, even if you were scared of her reaction, you stretched your hand out to touch her shoulder.

“Agatha?” You asked in a small voice, and Agatha turned herself around to look at you, the way her blue eyes for a minute turned purple and the way her eyebrows were furrowed aggressively, made you feel small.

“You should not even be here! You are not a witch! You are nothing!” Agatha quickly pressed her hand over her mouth, she had not wanted for that to happen, she had not meant what had come out of her mouth, she did not mean any of what she had said, but the way you had  put yourself in danger already three times and being careless to get outside the path, that you had almost drowned in the mud made her feel even more powerless, she did not have her magic, she was useless! How would she be able to actually save you from a magical threat or even from the Salem seven! She had snapped out of fear and stress, but she did not actually mean what she had said.

Too late, she thought when she noticed your beautiful eyes getting glossy, and the way you looked down at the floor, her heart ached so much looking at you this way, she would have loved to pull you closer to her and hug you but she couldn’t get herself to actually do it.

You felt guilty for missing “Agnes” the way she treated you with respect, the way she made you feel seen and showered you with gifts and compliments, the way she hugged you when she noticed you were feeling under the weather.

Of course, you felt guilty because, “Agnes” was not even real, it was an illusion, something Wanda had created, only playing a role she was assigned to play along, “Agnes” had been just an illusion, a dream! A beautiful dream that you could not help but miss, it had been three years of you sharing your life with “Agnes” and even if she was under a spell, you actually saw the cracks of her actual self, her real personality, some times it was more noticeable but the only thing that actually differed from “Agnes” and Agatha was their way they treated you. Even if you knew the way “Agnes” had treated you had been just something she had to play under the spell, you could not help but wish that Agatha would treat you some day like that, hoping to get her to like you at least, you wanted her to love you the same way you loved her, why had you been doomed to love the person who did not even like you at all?

Even if you had lived three years with her, it only had felt like a short period of time, you had spent so many time loving her, waiting for her to reciprocate your feelings for real, but at this point, you knew it would never happen, and you would only love her forever even if you did not want to, because, how on earth could you actually stop loving her? 

Agatha could not stand the state you were in, she had caused this, she had hurt you, again, she did not deserve you, she would never deserve you, you would only get more and more hurt with her by your side, how could you still be there with her?

You knew Agatha very well, or at least that was what you thought, but did you really?

The three years you had passed with her, you had thought you had got to know her entirely,  you had let yourself think that maybe if you were patient enough with her, gave her enough space, the space she needed, the time she needed to open up, she would realize slowly that she could trust you, and then she would magically realize you loved her completely and that you would do anything for her, hoping she would return one day your feelings, but just as you still could hear her screaming at you, you felt so stupid, still holding onto a stupid daydream and feeling that would never happen,

You loved her so much it was ruining your life and even though you knew that very well, you were sure you would not stop doing it.

Lilia noticed the tension between you and her, well, everyone noticed the tension, but no one dared to move or say something, too afraid to make everything worse, the teen was mad, he could not understand why Agatha treated you the way she did, when the only thing you wanted was to help her and make sure she was fine, you had stayed with her for three years! Taking care of her making sure she would be fine! How could Agatha be so selfish? How could she not be grateful for once in her life? He couldn’t take it anymore, you were one of the kindest people he had gotten to know, and  the way she treated you and said mean things to you had to change, he started to walk towards the two of you to face Agatha and help her to get some sense into that thick skull of hers, Lilia noticed the boy walking with an angry expression on his face, the way his hands had formed into fists and knew that would end up even worse, the divination witch turned her face to quickly look at Jenn and Alice and as if they had understood the two witches nodded at her and Lilia took this chance to quickly stand up and walk as fast as she could towards the fuming teen to stop him.

Lilia put her hand on his shoulder and placed herself in front of him, to stop him from going farther and looked at him straight into his eyes.

The dark-haired boy frowned, confusion all over his face, but Lilia only shook her head, as if telling him not to do what he had in mind.

“Let’s give them time, I can sense your intentions are good, but we cannot interfere, I hate the way that poor girl is treated but we cannot interfere right now” The boy nodded slowly, trying to clear his head, maybe Lilia was right, but he still hated seeing you so sad.

“I will take the girl to have a chat with her, you stay here and make sure Agatha takes back that poor woman back to her home, alright?” Lilia patted his shoulder and turned back herself to get closer to you and Agatha, you were still looking down to the floor, crying silently, Agatha was looking at you not moving, just stuck there in front of you with some tears falling from her face, Lilia came next to you and placed her left hand on your shoulder, in a slow way and making sure she made sound in order to alert you that someone was behind you and getting closer to you, she had noticed the way you tended to tense when someone got too closer too you without alerting first and when someone touched you without letting you know before, so she did not want to cause you more distress, it made her feel content, that she did not startle you.

“Let’s take a walk alright sweetheart?” You nodded and slowly turned yourself around to start walking never taking your eyes off the floor, Lilia saw the way you started to walk slowly and went back to look at Agatha.

“I’m going to make sure she’s fine, please take Sharon back to her home, we don’t need more innocent people getting hurt” Agatha nodded quickly and hastily wiped the tears off her face, Lilia gave her a soft smile before turning her body around and walked towards you, she then placed her hand again on your shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze, that action comforted you, and you made a mental note to thank her for that later. Lilia and you walked next to each other, the older and gentle woman never letting go of your shoulder, you walked in silence for some minutes, until you reached a tall tree with some tree-trunks on the floor, Lilia guided you to them and made you take a seat on one of them, she sat to your right and took your hands in hers, feeling her warm hands made you feel your eyes getting glossy again, she was comforting you and it made your heart warm.

“Oh, sweet girl, why do you keep suffering in silence?” The Sicilian witch asked you with a worried expression on her face, you didn’t dare to lift your face, keeping your eyes on the floor, too ashamed to look at her.

You felt a hand on your chin and Lilia lifted your face to look into your eyes.

“You don´t have to suffer alone, I know you don´t have magic, but that doesn´t mean you are not part of this coven, yes, it is a little messy coven, gathered on the last hour, but still a coven, and you are part of this coven, you trust in me, Alice and Jenn, I know all of us are wary of Agatha, but that doesn´t mean we feel the same towards you, you are nice, kind, and have such a pretty smile that can be contagious, I now you and Agatha are not together, and I know there is much more between you and her, I see you have a deep love for her, a love that is hurting you, so tell me, what´s going on?” Lilia spoke with such a soft tone that made you feel safe, the way she had referred to you as being part of the coven made you feel happy, you felt like you could trust in her, so you decided to do it and tell her how you had met Agatha and how you had slowly fell in love with her, Lilia never let go of your hands, caressing the back of your hands with so much delicacy that it made you feel warm on the inside.

“I still don´t know why she hates me so much, I don´t get it, I thought I would be able to make her like me at least, but she doesn´t even tolerate me, I know she doesn´t care, she always makes sure to say it out loud, but why does she have to be so mean? I know maybe I should not love her the way I do, not after everything she has done, but I cannot make myself stop the feeling, I love her and I hate the way loving her makes me feel” Lilia listened to you carefully, making sure not to interrupt you, she did not think Agatha did not care about you, she saw the way the blue-eyed witch had ran off towards you, she saw the desperate state Agatha had been when she saw you almost drowning in the mud, she saw the way she had hesitated to cut your skin, but hadn´t had any problem using the knife on the teen, Lilia was a very observant woman and was aware of how Agatha always looked at you and watched you carefully since all of you had arrived at the road.

She knew Agatha cared for you, deeply, but the way she treated you made you see the contrary and also made Lilia wondered the reason of her cold treatment towards you but the immense care she felt for you when you were not looking, Lilia was not dumb, and neither any of the other witches, even the teen noticed the way Agatha looked at you from time to time when she thought no one was looking, but her actions demonstrated the contrary, and the only one who could show you and let you know the truth to stop the pain you had in you was the same person who inflicted the pain on you, Agatha had to be the one to talk properly with you, but Lilia was not even sure if Agatha would do it, the purple witch was stubborn and sarcastic, and listened to no one but herself, so trying to talk to her would not even work.

“Listen dear, I´ve seen some things, I have lived for centuries, and I can assure you, Agatha just does not know how to express herself correctly, I am not making excuses for her, no, the way she treats you is not correct, and it makes me feel angry at her for causing pain to you, but I can also see she is in pain as well, I am not the one who needs to speak about what she feels, just give her some time, and take some time for you as well, I know it is really hard right now, because we have to help each other and we are constantly together, but take some time for you and for her, you can always come to me if you feel safe, even Alice, Jenn and the boy would be more than happy to help you and make sure you are fine, alright?” You nodded, not understanding completely everything she had said, but still having her listening to you and advising you made you feel content and kept your heart warm, she gave one last squeeze to your hands and you smiled softly at her.

“See? You have such a pretty smile, it hurts me to see you so sad sweetheart” You laughed softly and Lilia laughed as well, your smile and laugh was really contagious.

“Can I hug you?” You liked that Lilia had asked before and you quickly nodded, you really needed a hug right now, you felt her arms surrounding you and you did the same, her hug made you feel happy and kept your heart warm, Lilia was such a kind woman, with such a beautiful soul.

You heard some footsteps getting closer in a slow way, and Lilia and you separated slowly, you wiped your face again with the sleeve of your jacket and gave her another smile.

“Hey” You heard someone greeting in front of you, and turning your head to look at the owner of that voice you saw Alice walking slowly towards you, her hands stuck inside the pockets of her jacket, she was walking slowly while shuffling her feet against the leaves and dirt, she looked to the floor and then looked at you, trying not to intrude or make you feel uncomfortable, she came to stand in front of you and Lilia, noticing how Alice was moving her feet around the ground shily, and it made you chuckle slight.

“You can come sit here next to me” You patted the spot to your right and Lilia couldn´t help but smile at the interaction, Alice smiled widely and felt excited you had let her sit next to you, she took the spot right next to you making sure she did not cross any boundaries and making sure you were not uncomfortable, you noticed the way the protection witch was trying so hard not to make you feel distressed and it also warmed your heart, she even had made sure she was not touching you that much so you would not feel awkward and you smiled, you moved a little to get closer to her, your shoulders touching and Alice smiled widely at you.

“How are you?” The protection witch asked you softly and you pressed your head against her shoulder, Alice felt happy you were comfortable with her to do that, and it made her feel joyful, she really didn't like the way you seem so sad since she saw you at the mall, waiting slowly behind Agatha and the teen.

“I am feeling better, Lilia really knows how to cheer someone up” Lilia chuckled and Alice did the same, resting her head against yours, her hands still on her pockets.

Lilia pressed again her hand on your shoulder and brushed your arm slowly, comforting you, making you feel better. After some minutes had passed, you saw the teenager and Jenn walking slowly next to each other, when they saw you sitting between Alice and Lilia the smiled and started to walk a little bit faster.

The teen quickly came closer to you and took a seat on the ground in front of you, Jenn smiled at you as well and took the spot next to Lilia.

“Smiling fits you” The teen commented feeling happy you didn’t seem to be crying anymore.

“You have a really pretty smile, it makes me want to smile” Jenn said peaking her head to look at you, you seemed content and it made her feel really happy, it was a nice change, seeing you smile that way after only seeing you grimacing, confused or crying made her heart feel warm.

Agatha then appeared again, she was walking as elegant and confident as ever and when she saw you she felt happy, she felt happy seeing you smiling again, and being with the others who seemed to be supporting you made her feel happy for you, she still felt guilty but was not about to comment that, but what Agatha did not like was that you avoided looking at her while she explained they needed to summon another green witch.

 All of you gathered around the spot where the area in which the ground changed colors, everyone had a flower in their hands and started to ask for the traits you wished for the new green witch you have.

You were almost at the end of the queue, Lilia to your right and Alice to your left, when your turn came, Lilia placed her hand in your back letting you know it was your turn to place the flower and wish for the trait.

“Please let the new green witch be kind” 

Alice brushed her arm against you and nodded agreeing with you, Lilia gave another squeeze to your shoulder, while the teen and Jennifer smiled again at your wish.

Agatha was looking at you with a sad smile on her face, and a pang of guilty reached her heart, she had not been kind to you, what made her feel a little bit better, was the fact that the other witches have seemed to take a liking to you, she really hoped nothing happened to any of them because she wouldn´t know how you would react if you lost one of the witches who were kind enough to make sure you were alright, she feared for them and for you, a really strange feeling she was not used to.

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“Why are you so mean if you feel the same way she feels?” Rio who was asking Agatha from behind caressing her hair. Agatha quickly turned herself around to face Rio, how had she noticed? How had she figured it out? She tried to say something, something to prove that Rio was wrong, but she couldn’t, she knew she could not lie to Rio, the brown-eyed woman would notice right away, and she hated that.

Rio chuckled and proceeded to take Agatha’s hands in hers, she knew that Agatha was trying hard to ignore the feelings she had been having for you, the strong and deep love she actually had for you, the immense necessity to take care of you and make sure you were alright, Rio knew that in an attempt to try and bury her own feelings, Agatha had tried to have as much contact with her while all of you kept on walking down the road, Rio knew it very well and it was not fair for you nor her.

“I know why you suddenly want to be near me so much, and it’s not fair for her and neither for me and not even fair for you, you know it” Rio said while caressing the hands of the blue-eyed witch. Agatha started to feel guilty again and couldn’t deny that what Rio was saying was true, the brown-eyed woman knew her so well, but she wanted to make sure that Rio knew her feelings for her were not an act and she genuinely still felt love for her.

“I am not lying about the way I still feel about you” Agatha desperately said, squeezing the other woman’s hands.

Rio chuckled a little looking back at their hands intertwined and sighed deeply.

“I know, I know you still have those same feelings, we share the same feeling, but you know you are not being fair to her, I know you are saying the truth about us, but…”

Rio stopped to take a deep breath again and looked back to Agatha’s face.

“You keep denying what you feel about her and doing that and it is hurting not only her, it is also hurting you” Rio tried to get Agatha to realize how much pain she was inflicting not only to you.

“I also have to say that I don’t like the way you talk to her or treat her, she does not deserve to be treated like that Agatha, she doesn’t deserve to keep being on pain because you are too afraid of your own feelings” Rio commented again, sounding a little harsh, of course she hated seeing you in so much pain, not getting to see that beautiful smile of yours.

“I watched the two of you while you were under Wanda’s spell, you know? You treated her so beautiful, the way she deserved to be treated, I loved seeing when you came late to your house and y/n would wait for you, she always felt sleepy but she would always make sure to stay awake until you arrived, you would hug her and kiss her making her blush so much that she had to hide her face on your chest, you don’t know how happy she was…” Agatha remembered everything, she remembered doing all of that, but because of her fears and insecurities she tried to bury those memories, she was a little but surprised that Rio had watched the two of you, but she always had done something like that without her knowing.

“I really loved the way she has always listened so attentively to you, always listening to everything that you had to tell, I even feel jealous of her just giving all of her love and attention to you, I would love if she looked at me the way she does it when it comes to you” Rio said a little ashamed, feeling too exposed saying how she felt.

Agatha felt surprised listening to Rio’s confession and couldn’t help but feel a little bit jealous for the fact that she wanted you for her as well.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to steal her from you” Rio winked at her playfully.

“I just, would like to keep talking with her and with you, after all this finishes, if you’d like” 

Agatha liked the idea of getting to be with her and you, but now you were not even looking at her, not even meeting her gaze! You have been avoiding her since she had yelled at you.

“But she is not even looking at me anymore! She has finally realized the monster I am” Agatha couldn’t hide anymore how distressed she was feeling, the mere thought of you leaving her was making her heart break into pieces, Agatha threw herself at Rio hugging her and clinging to her clothes, sobbing hard against her chest.

“Since I entered that house in Westview, the one I took over to follow my plan, and she was there waiting for me inside what she thought was our home, she opened the door, and smiled at me with one of the most beautiful smiles I have seen ever, she was smiling at me, she called me love and said that she had made dinner for me, I knew right away she was under Wanda´s mind control, I just never thought Wanda would give me a fake wife you know, not that I minded at all” Agatha said with a soft smile even if the tears were still streaming down her face.

 “I never minded her you know? Yes having her there was nice, I just thought that the way she treated me was because of Wanda´s mind control, because of the role she had been given to play, it was bad, I had started to fall slowly, it started with her usual greetings in the morning, always asking if I had a good sleep, or if I wanted something specific to eat in the morning, always waiting for me whenever I arrived late, so I decided to stop the feeling and release her from the spell, so she would leave the town, and leave me…” The blue-eyed witch was being sincere, something that was so hard to get her to do, so Rio only listened slowly to her while caressing her hair.

“I decided to just wake her up from the mind control so that she would not act like that anymore, my heart and mind could not stand the fact that I was falling for an act, I was falling for the pretty girl in my house, for the amazing and beautiful woman in my home, always attending to what I needed, always making sure I was alright, always trying to cheer me up and say how smart I was, I wanted for all of that to end because I couldn´t stand the idea of that not being real, I was going to let her go, my heart was shattering I was going to lose her, but I was not going to just stay there and fall for that, enjoying and feeling happy because of her while she was in pain as well, so I decided to wake her up one day when she was showing me what Wanda had gifted to her, she was happy, showing me the small glass piece shaped like a bunny, it was shaped like Mr.Scratchy, she was so happy she was saying that she was going to put it on our  nightstand, and I couldn’t take it anymore, I quickly just placed my hand on her temple and then I just waited for the worst”  Agatha recalled the way how she had waited for you to start asking where were you, who was she, and what had you been doing there, but what happened shocked her and she did not know if she had to feel relieved or even more scared.

“But the worst never came, she blinked several times, looked at her surroundings and then at the small piece of glass, then she looked at me with her beautiful eyes, there was no trace of fear nor confusion, she seemed relaxed, and you know what she said to me after that? She said thank you, I wanted to be able to move Agnes, would you let me keep Mr. Scratchy´s twin made out of glass?” Agatha chuckled bitterly, in that moment she realized you still were conscious, you remembered everything but did not seem to be angry nor agitated, you were relaxed, but she was not sure about the way you truly felt so she decided to once again, hide her true feelings.

“I just told her she owed me and she had a debt to pay to me, and you know what? She agreed happily, she said she would help me with whatever I needed that she was really happy there, with me! I thought she was only saying that because maybe she was scared and I thought that she would reveal her true self, her true feelings, that she would start acting different, but none of that happened, she still was there for me, waiting for me at night, making breakfast for the two of us, making sure I was fine, asking about anything, always praising every single thing I did, and even after every mean comment I said to her, she still stayed, I even hurt her once by accident! I threw her against the wall, I never got to say sorry, I did not even stay to check on her, I thought that day she would finally pack her things and leave, but she stayed, she has been staying all this time and I have only treated her like she is not worth anything to me, when she means the world to me, why can´t she just leave, yell or say something to me? I am a monster, even after every bad things I have done to her, she is still here” Agatha started to sob more, recalling every bad thing she had done to you made her think more and more you were not safe with her, Rio took her by her shoulders and made her look into her brown eyes.

“It is never late to say sorry, it is never late to finally let her know how you truly feel, if you want that girl to stay with you, and if you do not want to lose her nor let her go, with only an explanation, a sorry and telling her about your real feelings, she is going to understand everything, you have to stop inflicting pain in her and in you, can´t you see how much she loves you? The way she looks at you with such admiration, and I know, you showed her how you really felt during those three years you were under Wanda´s spell, or am I wrong?” The blue-eyed witch sighed and nodded slowly, there were times in which Agatha would be conscious from time to time,  she would come to her senses and realized that everything was just Wanda´s magic making her believe and act in weird ways, but even during those short times, she still acted the same way towards you, taking advantage that you thought she was under the spell, it was a way in which she felt somehow safe, and she had every memory about those three years, the way you smiled when she hugged you, the way you blushed when she complimented you, for her it had been real, and she loved all the time she got to spend with you, but her pride, insecurities and fears made her act the same awful way towards you when she was released completely, and she hated herself for that.

“I know you think you don´t deserve her, that you don´t deserve her love, but you do, but if you do not let her know the real you and your real feelings, you are risking everything you can have with her, Agatha if you do not talk to her, she is going to leave, and I don´t want to lose her neither, I know you love her the same, but if you do not let her know that, how is she going to know your true feelings? If you keep acting that way towards her you would only keep ruining your life and hers, do you understand that? I know you are scared of something happening to her, but you have to show her you care, you have to show her how much you truly love her, she needs you to reaffirm and confirm all of that” Rio was speaking in a soft way, her soft voice explaining everything to Agatha who always was a mess when it came to feelings, Rio wanted to stop the suffering you and Agatha were passing through.

“Love doesn´t have to make you suffer” Rio said with a smile on her face.

“I saw the two of you during all these three years, and I saw the love you two share, I know it´s easy for you to hide your feelings, but it is hurting you more and her, you may have been under Wanda´s spell, but I know that way was easier for you to show how you truly felt, you should really talk to her and say everything to her just as you did with me, or would you like me to talk to her?” The way Rio was asking the last question made Agatha realized that this other woman also cared for you and she cared for her as well, if she could mend everything with her and you at the same time, she would be more than happy, Agatha was aware she had to be the one to talk to you and explain everything to you, she needed to do that for you, so she shook her head slowly.

“I want to talk to her, and explain everything, but, what if she doesn´t believe me and decides to leave?” Her biggest fear was you abandoning her and she was sure she would not be able to stand it, Rio chuckled slightly, how could Agatha really not see the immense love you had for her?

“She is not going to leave, she only needs to hear what you just told me, and be honest, completely honest, no more lies, no more acts, alright?” Agatha understood and felt a wave of excitement, she wanted to mend things with you, and was grateful for Rio being there to help her, the blue-eyed witch hugged the other woman and sighed deeply.

“No more lies” Agatha repeated against Rio´s chest.

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Agatha tried to get near you to have a proper talk with you, but it seemed like you were ignoring her, it was as if you did not want to talk to her, you were not even looking at her when she spoke or was asked something, the blue-eyed witch felt desperate and every time she tried to get closer to you, you always seemed to get to the other side or get to talk with the teen or with any of the other witches but her, any time that would happen she would turn to look at Rio to lift her hands and point at you to make her see you did not want to talk to her, Rio would always place her hands in the air and slowly move them downwards as a way of reminding Agatha to calm herself down and not push things too much.

Agatha was in a rush to get to talk to you properly, she felt the need to explain everything to you and tell you her true feelings but you were pushing her away, she couldn´t help but feel desperate.

You wanted to give Agatha time to calm herself, because you still thought she was annoyed, so whenever you noticed she was near you, you decided to give her some space, not knowing what she actually wanted to do, Rio  wanted to interfere and get the two of you together so you would have the chance to properly speak, but right where she was about to step up and get the two of you to talk, another house appeared in front of them, and given Alice´s reactions, it was clear the next trial was hers, so all of you entered to the house, getting ready for whatever would come.

Agatha went to talk to you when she noticed the teen and you were around the piano with Alice, the three of you were laughing while Alice told you the different keys of the huge instrument.

“I would have loved to learn how to play piano or any type of instrument when I was a kid, but my parents actually didn’t care about what I liked, I remember I liked to draw with crayons and pencil colors but when I asked them to buy me some coloring books or some pencils they would always tell me it was a waste of money and time, then I just grew up and kind of lost interest in certain things” You said while touching softly the keys just softly enough to feel the cold keys without pressing hard into them to make them sound, you had not seen the way Alice and the teen shared a sad look.

“I can teach you to play when we get out of this” Alice commented while looking at you with a big smile on her face, her heart ache for you.

“That would be awesome isn’t it awesome? You can also come to my place and I can show you everything I have, I’m pretty sure you are going to like my movie collection, remember you told me you loved watching movies” The teen said after he listened to Alice’s offer, he wanted to make sure you knew that after all this finished, and all of you completed everything you still would have friends with you.

Your heart couldn’t be filled with so much more love, it felt nice to be wanted to share things with people you liked, it was nice to be felt included, it was amazing to feel wanted and cared enough for people to invite you to do things with them.

Agatha slowly got closer to you and cleared her throat not to scare you.

“Hey can you-“ She had not even finished her sentence when you quickly turned around and started to walk away.

“Yeah, I will make sure not to get in your way” You said out loud and walked towards the corner of the room leaving Agatha shocked and with her mouth open.

“That’s not what I meant” Agatha said softly looking at Alice and the teen, they didn’t say anything and then Rio appeared behind Agatha brushing her shoulders softly.

“Can you tell y/n that she doesn’t have to actually do anything? I don’t want her to get hurt” Agatha told her not minding if Alice and the teen heard what she was saying, the pair only looked at each other confused.

“Will do, don’t worry, go prepare yourself to show off, she likes your clothes by the way, she was looking at you through the mirror” Rio winked at her and walked off to meet you, her last comment made Agatha smile and took a look at her clothes.

“You know she only wants to make sure you’re safe, right?” You heard Rio talking behind you and you decided to turn yourself around to face her, taking a look at the witches in the middle of the room, Agatha was making sure the microphone was to her level, making you smile slightly.

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like that” You replied to her looking at the floor, she shook her head and slowly put her hand on your chin, lifting your face to look thoroughly your expression.

“Agatha is a complicated woman, I used to be with her, and she has always been like this, it’s her own way to cope with things, I know it’s not the best way, but if you let her explain herself, everything will make sense, alright?” The woman in front of you sounded sincere, and the way she caressed the skin on your face comforted you in the same way Agatha had made you feel when she was under Wanda’s spell.

You leant into her touch, enjoying the feeling she was providing you; you closed your eyes enjoying the moment.

“You are so beautiful” Rio said in a whisper, you opened your eyes to look at her, feeling your face getting warmer.

“Thank you, you are really beautiful as well” Rio smiled at you making your heart leap.

You could have sworn you have seen her before, but you were not sure where or if it was possible.

“I know you love flowers; it is amazing how you care for the garden you have on Agatha’s garden, making sure they are always watered”

You were surprised, how did she even know that?

“I know it’s weird, but I hope this doesn’t scare you off, but I’ve been looking after you and Agatha, well, maybe a little bit more after you, Agatha has been having you looking after her during these past three years, I wanted to make sure you were also fine, we both know Agatha can take care of herself but is never that bad to make sure she’s fine like you have been doing, right?” Rio took your hand in hers and brought your hand to her lips to press a soft kiss to your knuckles, making you nervous.

“Careful Agatha, she’s stealing your wife” Jenn commented loud enough for her to be the only one to hear, Agatha pursed her lips together and sent you a look.

Rio was talking to you in the corner of the room, she was playing with your hair and you were playfully pushing her hand away, the two of you were laughing and even if the brown-eyed woman and her had already talked about what they wanted, which was the same thing, or the same person in this case, she couldn’t help but feel jealous, you had just met Rio hours ago and there you were touching her playfully?

What made her feel more jealous was when she saw the way Rio gave you one of the flowers hanging around her hair and gave it you, you didn’t think twice to take it in your hands.

“Rio, care to join us? We have to hurry” Agatha called out loud with her hands pointing at the instruments.

Rio winked at you and brushed slowly her hand on your hand.

“We can keep talking later love” The pet-name had made you blush and you only nodded trying to hide your smile while caressing slowly the petals of the flower Rio had given to you.

Rio came towards all of the other witches who already had an instrument in their hands and Agatha quickly took Rio’s shoulder, stopping her from walking past her.

“I told you to only let her know to stay away, not to go and flirt shamelessly with her in front of us” Agatha hissed to her, trying not to yell and Rio couldn’t help but laugh.

“Calm down, we already talked, we have to make her feel safe, that’s what I’m doing” Rio tried to reason with the blue-eyed witch.

“She’s is not only yours” Agatha said again warning the brown-eyed woman.

“Then we better hurry so you can let her know you want her to be yours as well, right?” Rio replied back with her eyes wide opened and a big smile on her face, Agatha only sighed and let her walk towards her instrument.

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It happened so fast that you didn’t even get the chance to cover your face or turned around, but it was too late, the next thing you knew you were being carried and you felt the hot and thick liquid coming out from several parts of your body, and the different cuts all over your face made you feel more pain.

All they had heard was the sound of something about to crack, and after they had the chance to do something the glass in front of you shattered into millions of pieces, everyone out of instinct covered themselves but when Agatha realized you had been the one too close to the glass her heart started to beat faster, turning around quickly she saw you were about to fall to the floor completely unconscious, so she ran as fast as she could catching you in the process.

“Please we need to help her, she’s bleeding so much” Agatha screamed completely terrified, she had tried to protect you and she hadn’t even been able to do that.

Yes, they had passed the trial, but that didn’t make them feel happy nor excited, everyone was completely worried about you but the way Agatha seemed to be so desperate trying to stop the bleeding and the tears falling from her face showed how scared she was.

Agatha was passing her hand through her hair nervously not knowing what to do, she felt useless, completely useless.

“Please we have to do something, she’s not responding!” Agatha yelled completely desperate looking at the other witches.

They placed you on the floor carefully, Agatha quickly started to look for any more wounds and when she saw a big spot of blood that had formed on you abdomen it made her cry harder, she carefully lifted the shirt to see the wound and what she saw made her gasp as well as the other witches who were looking horrified the scene in front of them.

“Let me try something” Jenn quickly made something with the water on the little pools on the floor, and started to say something in Latin, Agatha was trembling with fear, without her powers she was not even able to heal you.

Rio came to stand next to her to take her hand in hers to give her some kind of comfort, the brown-eyed woman was trying really hard not to shed any tears, trying to be strong for Agatha.

The teen had his hands in his head, not wanting to look at the amount of blood coming from you, he was so scared for you and started to walk in circles due to his nervousness.

Jenn came back to your body and kneeled to try and pour the water onto your wound, she carefully removed the big piece of glass stuck in your skin and Agatha couldn’t stand the sight, her eyes were completely red, her hands shaking out of fear.

“There is so much blood! Are you sure that’s going to help?!” Alice suddenly asked not sure if she should get closer or give you space, Lilia had kneeled next to you, caressing your hair and with tears in her eyes.

Agatha hoped that whatever Jen was pouring into your wound would stop the bleeding but even after the water was poured completely on you, the blood didn’t stop from coming out of the wound in your stomach.

“It’s not working! Jen why is not working!?” Agatha yelled scared and confused, she kneeled down as well trying to see if maybe her powers were back, but they had not come back to her.

“Damn it!” The blue-eyed woman didn’t know what to do, she had wanted to apply pressure into your wound but was afraid of making everything worse, she didn’t know what to do for once in her life.

“We have to do something, she’s still bleeding!” The teen came running towards you.

“Agatha, we have to do something if we don’t stop the bleeding she will die!” Everyone felt a pang of fear and pain when they heard the teen saying that.

“No, no she won’t die!”  Agatha took your face into her hands, softly caressing the spots that were free off any wounds.

All of the witches were crying at this point, how could it be possible that out of all of them you had been the one to get hurt?

“Please doll, you can’t die, you can’t leave me, I don’t want you to leave, I love you, we still haven’t talked! I still have to let you know everything, I love you please you can’t leave me” The way Agatha was talking to you and pleading for you not to leave her was a shattering their hearts.

Rio couldn’t stand the sight, you were in fact dying, she removed slowly from Agatha and the blue-eyed witch panicked.

“No, no, no please, don’t take her, it’s not fair! Please I beg you not to take her, please my love you can’t take her” Rio’s heart was breaking into millions of pieces, the way Agatha was suffering, the way she would suffer even more if you died, the way Rio would also suffer from your loss, everyone here would suffer horribly if you died, Rio knew it was not fair, it was not fair that you had to die like that, an innocent, Rio knew she had a job, her job was sacred, but would she be able to break the rules for you and Agatha? She hadn’t got the time to speak properly with you, to show you how she truly cared about you, all these years looking after Agatha and you had made her fall for you as well, the way your smile was so sweet and contagious, the way you would always try to hide your face when you were feeling nervous, she couldn’t bring herself to take you with her and never see you again.

The other witches were completely confused, why was Agatha pleading to her not to take you? They were not understanding until Rio’s face showed for a second her true image making everyone gasp in fear.

“I can’t interfere Agatha, I am the natural order, I should never stop the natural order of things” Rio’s voice was deep, and Agatha’s sobs were becoming louder.

“Why is it always an innocent the one which has to pay for the bad things?” Lilia asked out loud caressing softly your hair making sure not to hurt you more.

Rio slowly pressed her hand on the deep wound on your stomach and when she took her hand off, the blood had stopped coming, the gash on your skin was not there anymore, and your breathing became normal.

“You saved her” Agatha’s eyes were full of tears,  the hot streams of tears still falling down her face, but at the sight of your abdomen with no more blood coming and with no trace of the wound, she finally felt she could breathe, Rio only nodded and quickly wiped the single tear that had fallen down her face.

“I couldn’t bring myself to hurt the two women I love” She whispered. 

“I will make sure nothing ever happens to her, right now we have to make sure she rests for a while, I can take care of the other small wounds that she has all over her face and hands, we have to move her to a place where she can rest” Everyone nodded when Rio finished talking, and Agatha and her made sure to take carefully your body to carry you on their arms.

The teen who has the first to compose himself to make himself useful started to gather as many leaves as he could, he started to take many with him from the ground, Alice who quickly understood what he was doing started to do the same.

“Where are you going to put her?” The teen asked when he came next to Agatha and Rio who had you in their arms.

“Over there, thank you” Rio said calmly, she knew you were safe.

Alice and the teen gathered as many leaves as they could and put them where Rio had pointed at, in a spot where the path had some different flowers and a tall tree in the middle, Alice and the teen made sure the leaves they had collected were enough and made sure if was comfortable enough, Agatha and Rio placed you on there carefully, making sure they would not hurt you more.

After they placed you on the leaves Agatha stood up and quickly took her coat off, placing it over your body and making sure you were covered, Lilia came walking to stand next to the two witches and did the same as Agatha, she carefully took her sweater off and kneeled next to you to place it over your body, making sure the two pieces of clothes that belonged to her and Agatha were covering you fully, Agatha felt very touched seeing how everyone also cared about you, and she reminded herself to thank them for that.

Alice noticed the way your head was placed in a weird way so she took her jacket off and moved closer to you, folding her jacket carefully to shape it like a pillow, but noticed the way the zipper had not been carefully hidden so it would not hurt you, Jenn came next to her.

“Let me try” Jenn stretched her hands out and Alice handed the jacket to her, Jennifer carefully folded in a way the zipper would not hurt your head, and handed it back to Alice, the protection witch carefully kneeled and Rio did the same, the green witch lifted your head slowly and Alice placed her folded jacket under your head, finally your head was not in a strange position and you seemed to be comfortable enough.

“Thank you” Agatha said looking at the witches that stood in front of you.

“Thank you for taking care of her, for making sure she´s alright, I will always be in debt with you” Agatha said again with tears forming in her eyes again.

All of the witches were surprised because this had been the first time, they were seeing Agatha being vulnerable.

“We didn´t do anything” Jenn said while looking at you, she still felt bad for not being able to actually do something to heal you.

“Your potion didn´t work, because she was not supposed to be healed, it was not you, your potion worked perfectly fine, you saved Sharon, but this was something different” Agatha said looking at Jenn straight into her eyes and then the blue eyed-witch turned her head to look at Rio, giving her a smile, Rio smiled back at her, knowing exactly that what Agatha had said was true, the potion´s witch was not able to heal you because you were not supposed to be saved.

“I mean, thank you for being with her, I know you may not have known her that much, but seeing you making sure she was fine and letting her walk next to you when she did not want to be near me, make me feel relieved that at least she had someone looking after her” Agatha said sincerely.

“That girl is a gift, a wonderful young woman who deserves every single good thing, and we are going to be with her until we can and until life allows us to” Lilia said with a soft tone all while looking at Rio, Rio nodded at her softly, as a way of thanking her.

“We will leave you to take care of her, we are sure you have too many things to talk about and talk to her when she wakes up, we will be waiting for you to come back with her, alright?” Lilia commented again and Alice, Jenn and the teen nodded, the Sicilian witch was right, they needed to leave the three of you alone and give you time to talk, Alice and the teen were the first ones to start walking back to the spot where the door had been, the two of them smiled at Rio and Agatha, Jenn was the second to leave, sighing deeply and Lilia stopped next to Agatha to grab her hand in hers.

“Make sure she recovers well, and Agatha please stop making her suffer, I know you are suffering as well, so I hope when she wakes up, you will talk to he properly and I hope you say sorry to her” Lilia was looking straight at the blue-eyed witch and Agatha nodded.

“I will do it, thank you for talking to her, she seemed more relaxed after your talk, so I am really grateful for that” Lillia´s face softened and she patted Agatha´s shoulder, she knew Agatha would do the right thing, so she left to join the rest of the coven where they had left, leaving Agatha and Rio standing next to each other.

Rio took Agatha´s hand in hers and the two of them sat net to you on the ground, the blue-eyed witch took your hand in hers caressing the back of your hand and Rio caressed your forehead softly, healing the wounds you had and making sure they all disappeared.

They were not sure how much time had passed but they felt you started to move slowly and Rio and Agatha quickly went to help you to sit down on the spot you had been placed.

“How are you feeling doll?” Agatha asked you while she quickly went to grab your face with her hands, there was no trace of blood nor any wounds on your beautiful place, and she felt relieved that you seemed to be relaxed and not in pain, seeing you with your eyes opened was the most beautiful thing, she had been so scared to lose you, she would never forget how much she had feared for your life, she would go absolutely mad if she lost you for real.

Your first reaction was to blink several times, were you dreaming? Why did Agatha look so worried? And most important why was she touching your face with so much softness? Rio noticed your confused expression and giggled gently, she came to sit next to you, her shoulder touching yours and one of her hands went to hugged you by your waist, making you feel your face getting warmer.

Agatha couldn´t help herself and quickly leant to pressed a soft and quick kiss to your lips, it had been so out of nowhere and of course you had not expected her to do that, but it made your heart beat so fast, that it made you afraid it was going to get out of your ribcage with the force it was beating.

“You almost died, I almost lost you, we almost lost you darling!” Agatha´s eyes started to fill with tears again, the memory making her body tremble again and of course you worried, you took her hands from your face and brought them to your chest.

“But I am here” You said softly trying to give her some comfort.

Agatha and Rio couldn´t believe how sweet you were, you were trying to comfort the blue-eyed witch even though you had just passed through something as traumatic as almost dying.

Agatha chuckled softly and brought your hands to her lips, giving a kiss to the back of your hands, and placing them close to her face to feel the warmth emanating from your soft hands, she was so happy to know you were fine, to know you were there alive and that she was able to feel you.

“I am so happy that you´re here, and it is because of Rio, she saved you, she was the only one who was able to heal you and made you stay here with us, oh love, there was so much blood, seeing you with your eyes completely closed and not responding almost made my heart stop, I was not able to do anything, I don´t have powers, I was not able to protect you, I was so scared since the moment I heard you were coming with us, I didn´t want that anything happened to you, I tried to protect you and none of it worked, you ended up getting hurt” Agatha was crying, the tears were falling from her face and you quickly wiped the tears of her face, you hugged her and she returned the hug, her arms embraced your waist softly and Rio´s hand started to caress your back up and down.

After some minutes that you were sure Agatha had calmed down a little you separated yourself from her and looked straight into her eyes.

“It´s alright Agatha, I really appreciate that you are being finally honest with me, that you let me see this part of you, that you are letting me see the real you, I love you, and I have loved you since I started to share my life with you playing your “wife”” Agatha felt her face getting warmer and you laughed at her blushing face, Agatha really liked when it was mentioned you were her “wife” she had in mind to actually get you to be her real wife but first she wanted to mend things and pass more time with you before finally popping the question, she also was aware of the fact that Rio would start passing more and more time with you and her, so she wanted to talk properly about that with the brown-eyed witch.

“I love you so much as well, everything I have done, every lie I have told you, every mean action and comment I have done to you has been awful, I will never forgive myself for al the time I have treated you like that, I am so sorry for yelling at you, you didn´t deserve any of that, you deserve to have everything, to be treated like a queen, because that is what you are to me, please I hope you can forgive for what I have done, I don´t want to lose you, I want you to stay with me, because I love you, I know there is no excuse for everything I made you pass through, but I was scared, I was scared of my own feelings, every time I looked at you and the way you always smile, it made me fear and doubt my own feelings, you made me feel what I had not felt in centuries, and I was scared to actually face my true feelings towards you, but please, if you give me a chance I will make it up to you, I will never hurt you again” You were so touched by her words, she was being honest, and the best part was that she returned your feelings, this day could not be better, the woman you had fallen for was saying to you that she also loved you!

You had started to cry and felt another hand caressing you back as well, you gave another soft kiss to Agatha and smiled at her after separating a little from her.

“Thank you, Agatha, you really make me happy, I forgive you for everything I really love you so deeply, and I don´t hold any type of grudges against you, it makes me happy to know you feel the same way I do, so of course I will stay with you, I am not going anywhere” Agatha had a huge smile on her face, her heart was full of love for you, and she would make sure this time she show you how she truly felt about you.

You slowly turned your face to look at Rio and saw the loving expression she had on your face, Agatha patted you softly and pushed you gently to turn yourself around to face Rio.

The brown-eyed witch took your hands in hers and started to caress the palm of your hands, tickling you a little.

“Thank you, Rio, for saving my life, I will always have a debt with you, how can I show you how grateful I am?” You said to her with a soft tone, giving her a big smile and feeling your heart leaping, Rio looked at you without saying anything for a couple of minutes, her right hand with her long black fingernails came to your face to caress your cheek and then she placed her hand on your neck, caressing your skin slowly.

“If you give me as many kisses for as long as I live, you will never own me anything” Rio responded with a flirty tone, her eyes watching your lips for a second.

“Don´t worry about Agatha, we already talked, she is not the only one who will have you all to herself” Rio winked at you and Agatha rolled her eyes playfully, of course she would say something like that.

“You can start paying me now” Rio whispered, her face getting closer to you, you leant into her and pressed your lips on hers, it started as nice gentle kiss and Rio took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, Agatha noticed that and pursed her lips a little, did she really have to do it now that you were having a deep talk with them? Deep down she felt a little bit jealous, she had also wanted to kiss you like that.

“Hey, hey, that´s too much, c´mon ladies” Agatha said out loud and you separated yourself slowly from Rio´s lips, your face completely red, Rio had a satisfied look on her face, the brown-eyed witch looked at Agatha and on purpose licked her lips, making Agatha shook her head.

The blue-eyed witch got closer to you, sitting right behind you, she passed her arms around your waist pulling you closer to her and pressing her chin on your shoulder after giving a soft kiss to your temple, feeling content for having you there with her, Rio took your hands again in hers and gave them a squeeze, she also couldn’t hide how happy she was feeling, after all, she was finally able to touch you and look at you closer, it had been what she had wanted to do during those three years of only watching you from afar.

You were happy, you not only had the woman whom you had fallen in love first hugging you with her strong grip around you, listening to her breathing, you also had an amazing woman in front of you who also took your breath away, her flirty nature made her so confident, apart from the fact that she was as beautiful as Agatha and had a deadly stare, you felt happy, even if you almost died, everything had been worth it, you didn’t feel as if loving her was ruining your life anymore, it was making you feel finally complete, you felt loved and that was what mattered, not only you had two women who cared for you romantically, but you also finally had found your coven even if you were not a witch, they had treated you like if you had been really important to them, and couldn´t wait to see them again to thank them for that.

Agatha knew Rio had been right, love didn’t have to make any one of you suffer, not even her, and was grateful that Rio had made her re-think what she was doing, thanks to her, she was right there, hugging you, feeling you close, and Agatha couldn´t be happier, she knew she would have time to spend it with you and also with Rio of course, nothing would take her happiness away, and she would make sure to protect you for real and always have you close to her.

Rio was happy, more than happy, she wouldn´t let anything happen to you, and of course would make sure Agatha would be fine, she would make sure to have an eye on you, and would make sure that Agatha didn´t repeat the same mistakes, Rio wouldn´t let that anything happen to you, she would still have to explain to you why sometimes she had to disappear from time to time, and would explain to you who she really was, she would make sure not to scare you, she know it was something really important to talk about, but right now, she felt content, caressing your hair and putting flowers to decorate your beautiful hair, many different back flowers were adorning your soft hair, Rio was making sure that they would not fall, she was going to enjoy you as much as she could right now, she would have more time to speak properly to you later, right now, she knew she had to make sure nothing happen to any of you to get you safe and out of this place.

[gay-dorito-dust]

Fiquei completamente apaixonada pelo imagine que você fez do Logan/Wade/Reader, queria muito outro assim, nada em especial, só mais sobre o relacionamento dos três (I'm really bad with requests, sorry)

(Rough translation by google: I was completely in love with the imagine you made of Logan/Wade/Reader, I really wanted another one like that, nothing in particular, just more about the relationship of the three) if it’s translated something within the request wrong, let me know.

Emotional support isn’t either Wade nor Logan’s strong suit. one made a massive joke out of everything, even his own feelings, while the other suppressed them unhealthily.

So needless to say if emotional comfort is what you were after, you were unfortunately out of luck but that didn’t mean that the pair were about to leave you to suffer alone during such a rough time in your life. Wade and Logan will find a way to help you anyway they could.

Wade would insist that you both have a spontaneous day where you’d do anything that came to your mind without judgment. You may or may not end up making dick cookies together in the kitchen whilst wearing your matching unicorn onesie pyjamas, covered in flour and other stuff.

Ass slaps -consensual of course- are a common occurrence between you, Wade and Logan…well mainly you and Wade…but Logan will gently tap your ass before kissing your forehead, meanwhile giving Wade the hardest slap that would leave a hand shape bruise that would last a week.

Cuddles are something that’s also frequent in your relationship with Wade and Logan but most -if not all- of the time you were in the middle of the both of them, leeching off of their warmth like the parasite you were but you were living the life.

Wade doesn’t care whether he’s the big or small spoon as either way he gets to be close to you in some capacity, where as Logan likes to be the big spoon so he could keep you safe and protected, always sleeping with his back to the door so that if anything were to happen they’d have to get through him.

Wade’s petnames for you are:

Cutie patootie with the booty

Peanut (something he also calls Logan)

Pookie/pookie bear

Sexiest person alive

Logan’s petnames for you are:

Darling

Sweetheart

That’s pretty much it as he’s not too overly worried about petnames, where as Wade has a thousand more up his sleeve that he pulls out of nowhere.

You and Wade would sometimes blatantly check out Logan whenever he’s shirtless and doing his one thing while you and Wade laid on the floor, feet kicking in the air as you both admired your hot partner. (Logan is very aware of what you two were doing but didn’t have it in him to say shit)

Dog pool is basically your, Logan and wades child and she is spoilt the fuck by the three of you for being the cutest dog you’ve ever seen. You dressed her up as Mary Poppins once for Halloween and now you have albums upon albums filled with pictures of dog pool in cute doggy costumes. This is her cannon event.

Logan has nightmares and would often act all cold and distant afterwards but you would gently grab his arm and pull him in for a comforting hug. ‘Don’t walk away,’ you said, ‘please we can figure this out together okay? You’ve been alone long enough, don’t for yourself to fall back into old habits when you’ve got two people who care deeply about you and want to see you okay.’ You add as you rub your hand up and down his back reassuringly until you manage to ease him back into bed and fall asleep on top of his chest so he doesn’t move.

You press kisses to Wade’s face and call him handsome, gorgeous, cutie, all sorts of names that have him feeling soft and fuzzy within his chest because he’s aware of how he looks, but you loved him unconditionally and would even help him with toupees and whatnot, though not before telling him that you find him attractive how he is and wouldn’t want him to change for anyone.

You got a lot of kisses and cuddles from him later because you had no right being that fucking cute!

[dragonmuse]

Keep It In The Box : An Essay on OFMD Season 2 and the Failure to Heal

(here in is my season two reaction. It contains many many spoilers. It's also about 3k words long so you know what you're getting into.)

“See, I have a system for dealing with all the terrible things I've seen. There's a box in my mind, and I put the things in the box..” -Frenchie, Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death

…..and then he never opens it. Chekov’s locked box has no key in season two.

On first watch, it seemed clear to me that Frenchie’s declaration was a narrative plant. Clearly the whole season would be about that box of pain and trauma being opened, sorted through and at least the beginning of healing. The show had developed a reputation after season one of being kind and focused on queer narratives of healing from childhood. Ed and Stede’s parallels in their childhood traumas were frequently on display through season one and were repeated in flashback throughout season two. Jim’s season one arc about becoming someone who doesn’t think just of revenge and can now forge meaningful connections was profound, beautiful and often funny. Izzy is an antagonist because he doesn’t want Ed to move on or stop acting like the trauma-response version of himself. The antagonist wants to stop healing. The point is to grow, to change, to learn how to love. It’s one of the things that made season one work for me at the time, despite reservations about pacing and tone.

So naturally season two should follow suit. It’s a kind show! About healing and falling in love!

For the first several episodes, the remaining crew on the Revenge go through a gauntlet of trauma, forced to do and receive violence at Ed’s whims as he careens from self-destructive behavior to self-destructive behavior. This is the wounding setup. It was dark, but it seemed like it would have a payoff and at first it did.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of the season comes in one of the small respites in those early episodes as Jim recounts Pinnochio to Fang to soothe him through his grief. That was the show that I expected. The kindness of that moment struck me very deeply. It gave me some understanding of Archie too, who seems to fall for Jim right at that moment.

That scene is the show season one promised. Season two led with packing Frenchie’s box full to bursting. Here is the fight to the death between lovers, there is a first mate who is mutilated and rotting in the very walls (the rot of the Revenge itself), and there is the storm of Ed’s rage and pain that threatens to consume all of them.

So surely these remaining episodes would concentrate on finding the humor in healing from those moments. That is the setup. Frenchie has a box. The box must eventually open.

Except time and again, all the characters who suffered are told that the only way to deal with what they’ve been through is to stick it in the box and never open it again.

Pete tells Lucius that he’s unable to move on and needs to let it go. Izzy has a story about a shark. Ed’s apology to the crew which doesn’t even contain the words ‘I’m sorry’ is just…accepted. I kept waiting and waiting for a meaningful apology to the people Ed had hurt the worst with his actions, but it seems all we get is Fang saying ‘eh, no problem, I got to hit you back so I feel better’.

The playful theme of ‘pirates are just violent sometimes’ from season one becomes a grinding horror machine in season two when every atrocity visited on someone is forgiven because the narrative needs it to be. Ed and Stede spend more time making amends with each other over the bloodless night on the beach than either of them spend trying to repent for their actions towards anyone else.

And let’s talk about Ed. Arguably this season pivots on his narrative, on his path to healing and growth. A path that starts at a very low point. His moment in the gravy basket, deciding he wants to live because there are still things to live for is so great! So one might assume that what would follow would be him pursuing those things, making amends, making connections. He and Stede have a wonderful moment, talking about being whim prone and how they’ll work to avoid that, build a relationship by going slower.

Yet, at no point do either of them stop following whims. They never heal or learn from what’s happened to them. They both keep running from thing to thing, particularly Ed. It’s a whim to sleep with Stede, it’s a whim to run off to fish, and the finale gives us just more of their whims. Ed drops fishing as fast as he picked it up. He finds those leathers in the ocean, murdering the symbolism of leaving them behind. Even the inn is a whim, one of those things Ed decided he’d be good at without evidence. And Stede joins him in that without a single on screen conversation about it ahead of the moment.

Ed needs to heal himself and to do that he needs to confront what he’s done and do the work to heal the wound. Instead, he doesn’t meaningfully apologize to anyone, besides Stede and Fang. Despite Izzy’s dying words (we’ll get to that), not only do we never see the crew caring about Ed, working to make him family in the same way they do with Fang and even Izzy, he also doesn’t choose to stay with them. So what is the point? Where is the healing? Or does even Ed, beloved main character, have to live with it all stuffed in a box?

He ends the season in the leathers he threw away, in a relationship that’s barely stabilized, going to live in a house which we are told by the narrative (in that they are very very clearly paralleling Anne and Mary with Ed and Stede or why do we even get that whole Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? episode) will only end in them setting fire to each other to stay warm.

But Vee, I hear you cry, it’s a ROM-COM. This is all meant to be ha-ha funny and you are taking it so seriously!

Cool beans. Then why the hell isn’t it funny? Healing is often filled with comedy because people deal with pain with humor. You can heal and laugh at the same time. The finale especially is almost entirely devoid of laughs, almost entirely devoid of joy until the last minute for that matter. The episode that should show off with a flourish how far everyone’s come, mostly serves to show that no one has grown.

Okay that’s Ed. I want to talk about Lucius next. Our former audience surrogate (that’s taken away in season two when he doesn’t get enough screen time to perform that role and no one takes his place) really goes through the wringer. He experiences many many terrible things, including sexual assault (which is made into a grimace-laugh line that doesn’t take away from it’s seriousness because oh hey, that can be done as it turns out). He’s nervous, he’s smoking, it’s clear he’s suffering.

There’s a beautiful moment where Pete tells him ‘hey, I was also in pain. I grieved’ and that’s great. It’s good that Pete sets a boundary about Lucius not obsessing over the past to the point of occluding their future.

We even get our comedic moment where Lucius pushes Ed off the boat (still not apology, but I’d lost hope for that by then) and that doesn’t help enough. So Izzy comes in with a shark and the advice that you just have to move on.

Just…you know. Play pretend. Forget.

Shove it in a box. Ed didn’t take my leg, a shark did. Ed didn’t kill you, a shark did. Live with the person that tried to murder you because it’s your fault you dangled your leg over the side of a boat. That is the show’s message. I thought on first watch, that surely this would also come back up and be explained that you can’t live that way, that that is no way to heal. That it would become clear that this was no way through. You cannot make everything into sharks.

Lucius can move forward and still carry pain. He can still want a meaningful apology and still want to talk to his lover about what he’s dealing with while moving forward toward a brighter future.

And what of the flirtatious promise of relationships and connections being the way to heal? Look to Oluwande and Jim, whose heartfelt romance from season one was relegated to the bins of history in favor of a narrative that made him a brother Jim once had sex with. They could have had Archie AND Oluwande, who in turn could also have Zheng, but that never seems to be an option. With a single short conversation, they are broken up with, despite a brief tease at the birthday that they still ‘dance’ together, it never actually manifests. Jim and Archie never talk about what they went through. It’s swept under the rug as fast as knives are lowered.

Lucius also no longer flirts with other people, the solution to his pain is to propose and get married (but not too married, lest we forget that they’re two men, they don’t even get to be husbands or even the more respectful mates, no. They’re mateys.) This season proposes that the only happy endings are monogamous ones, where no one talks about anything painful that went before.

To ensure that message, beyond assuring the success of Oluwande and Zheng’s relationship, Jim and Archie almost entirely disappear from the narrative. Sorry you guys were given layers of trauma and no growth and not even much to do this season, we need to make sure that everyone remembers Oluwande is the break in Zheng’s day so when he says that to her five minutes later we know exactly what he’s referencing. No time for Archie to learn what an apology is or for Jim to get one line in with Oluwande that isn’t affirming their newfound broship. Must do more flashbacks to things we just did two episodes ago!

The show even dangles the conversation of the Revenge being a safe space. Why would any of them ever feel safe when the man who tortured them is allowed to walk among them and they are expected to forgive and forget? What’s safe about that? The ship is never made safe for any of them, but that’s never addressed.

And Zheng! Amazing, hysterically funny Zheng! She loses her ships, her entire way of life, the kingdom she built for herself and then…she doesn’t even get to captain the Revenge. We don’t know what becomes of her fleet, of her plans, her ambitions. Don’t worry about it, she has a romantic partner and isn’t that what every lady wants in the end?

(But Vee, I hear you cry again, there will be a season three! Maybe it will be All About Zheng! To which I say: then why did they present us with the most series finale feeling episode ever? If there’s more, I have no idea where it’s going. BUT VEE: BUTTONS AS SEAGULL ON THE GR- Fine. It’s time.)

Let’s talk about Izzy Hands.

Izzy manages more healing than anyone else this season. He reaches his lowest point, suicidal in the bowels of a ship that’s become a prison (very much in contrast to Ed’s suicidal low). The person he loves most in the world has shredded him physically and emotionally (and if you’re in the camp that thinks Izzy deserves the abuse that Ed gave to him, I would really like you to sit quietly with yourself and ask why you think there is ever anything anyone can do to deserve that treatment). He’s low, he shoots Ed to protect everyone, and then seems to plan to drink himself to death, mourning his losses.

And then another beautiful moment! The crew move past their own pain to help him. They work together for the first time and it’s to give Izzy mobility back. He treasures it. He cries over it. He uses that kindness extended to him to reach a new understanding of Stede and help him succeed, doing the work to make real amends. He sings in drag, he’s vulnerable and beautiful, celebrating the side of himself that he must’ve loathed in the first season. He’s an elder queer man, coming into himself.

He never gets an apology though. (‘Sorry about your leg’ without eye contact is not an apology. There is no responsibility taking, no acknowledgement of the weeks of torture that came with it.) Izzy also never really has an honest conversation with anyone about what it means that the man he loves punished him so severely for the crime of trying to protect the crew (yes, lest we forget, Izzy lost his leg because he was trying to keep Ed from re-traumatizing the crew and himself).

Izzy does all this work, but even he’s not allowed to take it out of the box. It’s a shark, not Ed. Ed is just ‘complicated’ (the language of abuse here is so upsetting and I think not even intentional).

And then he dies. His last act? To apologize to the man who tortured him and shot at him. To have done all this work, to take on all the blame. And then die.

In a rom com.

This show ends in a profoundly unfunny moment of telling the audience: this is the one character that did the work, that made amends, that tried his hardest to accept the parts of himself that he had a hard time embracing and formerly embittered him. He’s fully accepted his queerness and turned it into beautiful music. He’s disabled, and he worked hard to accept that. The man he loves will never love him back, so he worked hard to make Stede able to meet Ed on an even playing field. The Giving Tree gave up its limbs and its trunk, and it’s not even allowed to be a stump to sit on.

Kill the queer elder, who has managed to figure out how to live and in his own way how to heal. Kill him before he manages to teach anyone else how to meaningfully move forward (he almost gets it with Lucius, almost, but it’s meant to be rule of three, you know. Cigarette..shark…and then…and then fuck it, Lucius doesn’t even get to say a word at his funeral).

The message of this season again and again is that there is no healing, just moving forward. Like a shark. Like a bird that never lands.

That is not a kind show.

Season two is not a kind season.

It splinters people up and jams them back together without purpose or reason. It tells everyone who experiences pain that they should shove it in a box and not deal with it. No one who really needs one gets an apology of any sincerity. No one puts in the work to gain forgiveness. (Ed wearing a onesie is not The Work. Ed fixing a door is not The Work. Ed broke people that the show wants us to care about. Ed never does the work of making those amends. He fires off a Notes app apology at best. After all, it’s what he told himself via Hornigold in the gravy basket: you move on or you blow your brains out! Good thing he took his own advice and therefore had to change nothing to get his just rewards.

I would’ve taken just fifteen minutes of Ed trying to actually make amends. It could’ve been hilarious! Imagine awkward Ed trying to dance around what he’s doing with Jim and the two of them having a knife throwing competition about it. Or him and Frenchie attempting to make music together, writing a song about the raids they went on! It’s not just the crew robbed of their healing because of this, it’s Ed himself. He never meaningfully changes or makes amends. How is he any different at the end of the finale then he is standing on the edge of that cliff with Hornigold? He hasn’t moved on, he hasn’t healed. He tried one thing (fishing) that doesn’t fucking work and then he runs right back.

No one leaves this season better than they went into it. They’ve lost an elder queer, they’ve lost their joyous and queer polyamory, they’ve lost a chance for meaningful reconciliation with Ed and Ed lost any chance of looking like he gave shit if they did. Stede grows enough to accept the crew’s beliefs as important and then leaves them behind without a care.

Izzy gets a beautiful speech about piracy being larger than yourself. Ed and Stede, within twenty minutes of that speech, leave piracy. They are incapable of giving themselves to something bigger, apparently. They haven’t learned to be a part of a community. They haven’t healed from their childhood trauma or their fresher wounds. They are still just following their own whims.

Zheng’s life work is in tatters, but it’s fine, she has love. Oluwande and Jim aren’t together, but it's fine because they both have dedicated monogamous partners. Lucius was deeply scarred by what happened, never recovers much of his first season personality, but hey he got-well it’s not married exactly- but you know good enough!

Frenchie, who has a box forever locked in his head, is captain. Because the key to success is to lock it all in a box and never open it. What a message. What a show. Conceal, don’t feel. Smile because it’s a happy ending. Don’t mourn the dead, don’t try to tell people what happened to you (they will literally run away or cry too hard to listen and really you’re just bumming them out), and any meaningful change you make is only rewarded with death.

Frenchie is now a pirate captain with a box in his head full of trauma that’s never been opened, leading a crew with more wounds than scars. Wonder how that could turn out? Wonder how many years before he might want to retire and then happen to run across a gentleman pirate. As if no one learned anything at all.

[holylulusworld]

Dinner for two

Summary: You don’t eat alone this year.  

Pairing: AU!Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader

Warnings: angst, grumpy Bucky, fluff, mentions of cheating ex-boyfriend, unnamed ex (you can imagine whoever you want)

Catch up here: Dinner for one

Dinner for … masterlist

“That was not nice of you, doll,” Bucky holds the door open for you to enter your favorite restaurant. It’s another Friday night and you meet up with Bucky for dinner. “You said it’s a Clint Eastwood film but there were no guns, and he didn’t kill the bad guys.”

“I said it’s a movie with Clint Eastwood. I never said that there would be violence and guns,” you point out. “The Bridges of Madison County is a wonderful movie.“

"They didn’t even end up together.” He huffs but gently grabs your hand. Bucky squeezes it tightly. “A bad ending.”

“No. I mean, yes. They didn’t end up together, but you know that in the end, they loved each other for the rest of their lives. It’s so romantic.” You sigh deeply. 

“Y/N, that’s not romantic,” Bucky grumbles. “It’s not a good ending if they suffer for the rest of their lives because they can’t be together. I don’t like it.”

“Hmm…maybe you are right. I think the movie is about making decisions too, you know. This man, who traveled the world, crashes into her life and sweeps her off of her feet. Her husband is not very attentive, and her kids don’t even let her listen to her music. No wonder she falls for the tall and interesting man.”

“Tall and interesting,” Bucky feels his heart flutter as he guides you toward the table reserved for you and him. “Do you like tall men too?” He pulls the chair for you, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “The appearance doesn’t matter to me. I like people because they are…nice.”

“You’re too cute,” he sits on his chair, just like every Friday night to smile at you. “Come on, be honest. What did you like about your last boyfriend?”

You frown and drop your gaze. Talking about your ex-boyfriend is still a sensitive topic for you. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Sorry, doll. I shouldn’t have asked. So…uh…what do you like about me?” He reaches out for your hand to stroke your skin with his thumb. “You can be honest with me. We are friends. Right?”

“Best friends,” you hastily say. “I love our Friday night dinners and that you watch stupid movies about unrealistic love stories with me. And I like your eyes. They give away if you are angry, grumpy, or sweet.”

“Sweet?” He smirks. “You think I’m sweet, doll?” Bucky takes your hand to bring it to his lips. “I think you are even sweeter and cute.”

You pout. “I can be bad too. Last week I yelled at my neighbor because he wouldn’t quiet down the music. I was badass.”

“I bet you scared him,” he pecks your hand again. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. It’s our first anniversary. One year ago, we had dinner together for the first time.”

“I remember and,” you open your handbag to get a beautifully wrapped gift out, “I got something for you, Bucky. Thank you for being such a good friend, and more. You always make me smile, and cheer me up. If not for you, I’d be eating alone, my teddy bear my only companion. I hope you know that the time we spent together was precious to me.”

“Doll,” Bucky clears his throat. He takes the gift you offer to him. “I got something for you too. I-I don’t know if you will like it, though. It’s just, I can’t keep it a secret for longer.”

“Please open the gift. I hope you’ll like it,” you softly say, and pat his hand. “It’s okay, Bucky. I think I already know.” Your features sadden, and you swallow thickly. 

Whatever Bucky wants to tell you, seems to be important and you want him to remember the time you spent together before he tells you about the woman you saw him with last week.

Bucky unwraps the gift, he gasps and swallows thickly as there is a heart-shaped key in the box. He lifts his eyes from the box to look at you.

“I wanted to give you the key to my heart but…” You wipe your eyes. “I saw you with that beautiful woman and know now, that you don’t feel the same.” You hold up your hand when Bucky wants to say something. “It’s alright, Buck. This is not your fault, but mine.”

“Baby doll,” Bucky almost knocks the chair over when he gets up to hurriedly crouch down in front of you and grasp your hands to pepper kisses on your skin, “that’s not what I wanted to tell you. You’re precious and important to me. That woman was my best friend’s wife, Sharon. I asked her for advice on how to tell you that I want to be more than your friend.”

“More than my friend—” you sniffle while searching his face. “Do you mean it?”

“Yeah,” he rasps. “I know you are still hurting because of that douchebag but I’m willing to wait all my life if only you give me the chance to love you. Because I love you, Y/N.”

You whimper. “I love you too,” you throw yourself at Bucky and press a kiss on his cheek. “So much. I abandoned my bear and told him that you are my best friend and protector now.”

He wraps his arms around you and buries his face in your neck. Bucky held you many times in his arms – but this is the first time after he confessed his feelings. It feels different but wonderful. “Do you still want to eat with me?”

“Of course, Mr. Barnes. I’m starving,” you choke out. You’re a little overwhelmed by your emotions and don’t know what else to say.

“That’s my girl,” he whispers and means it as you hold tight to each other for a little longer. 

“So, this is our sixth official date,” Bucky states as he looks at the menu. He smirks as you nervously shift in your seat. “Doll, relax. We both know that you can’t do anything wrong. I even let you change my interior.”

“It was awful, and you love your new bedroom,” you tease, and chuckle when his features darken.

“I love what we do in my bedroom,” he flashes you a smirk, making you feel hot and bothered. Bucky has this talent to make you go weak in the knees with only a smile or the look he gives you.

“You mean cuddling.”

“I mean cuddling,” Bucky grins and looks back at the menu. “Hmm…if I want dessert I should start with something lighter tonight. I wanna have a second dessert at home.”

“Bucky,” you say, and look around the restaurant. You don’t want the whole restaurant to know that Bucky is an enthusiastic pussy eater. “Not in public.”

“What?” He feigns innocence and puts his hand on his heart. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he leans closer to whisper, “or naughty.”

“You’re a naughty man, and you know it.” You both chuckle and reach out for each other’s hand to hold it. “I love you, naughty man.”

“Love you too, doll,” his features soften again, and you see the Bucky only you get to see. The soft and caring man behind his stoic demeanor and grumpy attitude. “Now, what do you want to eat.”

“Y/N? Y/N Y/L/N?” 

Bucky is alerted the moment you stiffen and your smile fades. “Baby doll, is everything okay? Is something wrong?”

“I knew it was you,” the man breaking your heart almost two years ago dares to step toward your table. “You look, wow…great.” He flashes you the brightest smile that used to make your heart race. Now there is no reaction. All you do is huff and shake your head. 

“Hello,” you coolly reply. “How have you been? I thought you were still in Tokyo and trying to conquer the world.”

“Aw, baby,” the woman he left you for joins your unwelcome reunion, “you didn’t tell me you met some friends.” She stiffens as her eyes land on you. “Oh, it’s you…”

“Bucky, may I introduce my ex-boyfriend and the woman he cheated on me with to you,” you put on a fake smile. “They were about to leave us alone so we could enjoy our date night.”

“Date night?” Your ex splutters. He looks at you as if you lost your mind. In his fantasy, you never get over him and live a lonely life.

“Yes, date night,” Bucky slowly gets up from his chair. He’s an impressive sight when angry. He squares his jaw and offers his hand to your ex. “I’m James Buchanan Barnes,” Bucky smirks darkly as your ex furrows his brows. “If you would excuse us now, me and my lovely fiancé want to dine and enjoy our night. I believe you have plans too.”

“Yes…we are…you know…busy,” your former best friend stammers. She grabs your ex’s hand and leads him away from your table.

“You little shit lied straight to his face,” you snicker. “I didn’t get the memo. Since when are we engaged?”

Bucky shrugs. “I’m planning a spring wedding, doll. So, if you have time let’s plan a wedding,” he casually says and looks back at the menu. “What do you say?”

“I’m all for chicken parmesan, but you can eat whatever you want,” you smile to yourself as your boyfriend nervously shifts in his seat.

“That’s not what I meant, Y/N.”

“Hmm…” You nod thoughtfully. “I think May is the perfect season for a wedding. It’s warm, but not too hot.”

Bucky takes your hand to press a chaste kiss on your skin. “I promise to never hurt you like he did. You are the one for me and I’ll prove it every day of my life.”

Final Part: Dinner for three

Tags in reblog.

[namisweatheria]

One Piece means a lot to me as a disabled person, which I think would be pretty surprising to anyone who only has a surface understanding of it. The supposed central theme of "follow your dreams" would be pretty alienating to someone like me, right? It really, really would be, if that's what it was actually about.

However, that ignores that Luffy's dream is to be the most free person in the world. And to attain that goal, the first thing he does is find friends to live life with. Over and over again, from the very beginning, he takes on their burdens, all in the name of being the most free.

Do you see what that would mean to me, as someone who needs more help to get by than is considered culturally normal, to the point that it puts me in a whole socially manufactured category of "other"? Not to mention, because of the infantilization of me due to that category, because of being forced so squarely into the "cared for" role, taking care of other people is deeply meaningful and empowering for me. However, the myths of independence and universal natural ability often make it emotionally difficult for my loved ones to accept that care.

The fear of asking for help, the guilt of being cared for, the weight of someone you loved who could not be as free as you, the insecurity of not contributing enough, the fear that you were born wrong, the self-hatred that says you are not worth the effort, Nami Sanji Zoro Usopp Robin Chopper Ace they all explore the painful obstacles to free connection. Through deeply impactful stories that weave beautifully into the larger one.

All centered around this one person who views loving them and living with them and carrying them as essential to his freedom. Who cannot, for countless reasons, live a normalized life of Structured Relations. Who views exploring and bickering and suffering and laughing with them as the ideal way to live. Who repeatedly puts his life and limbs on the line to do so.

To me, it is an ultimate privilege and freedom to carry other people's burdens. To care for them and live with them. This is central to my whole perspective, and is completely informed by my life experience as a disabled person. I rarely see it reflected back to me. Let alone as powerfully and beautifully as Luffy does.

Nor the other half of it, of wanting to create this life with people in ways that aren't socially normal or approved. Of creating many varied lifelong intimate relations among equals, rather than conforming to the expectation of choosing One Person to live life with and then Creating More.

The utter lack of roles and norms is just as integral and powerful to the exploration of freedom and connection! It is meaningful to me as a queer person, yes, but even this is deeply influenced by my disability. I could never be that One Person, despite everything I have to offer, there is logistically far too much that I cannot do to be someone's equal partner in this society that demands so much from all of us. However, even if I could, I wouldn't want to! It doesn't make any sense to me to only have two people navigate life together on such intimate terms. Can't the demands of society be more comfortably met in a group? Isn't life more fun that way?

We are taught that we can and must do everything ourselves, I just happen to be one of the people that never had a chance to buy into that lie. To learn very early not just the necessity of interdependence, but the joy in it. To learn that it is most comfortably lived with more people involved. To me, close relationships are, love is, a natural extension of that understanding. One Piece celebrates interdependence constantly from the start, while never pretending that it is always easy.

The obstacles to free connection that I mentioned before, they are interspersed throughout the story, and they are always met with "I do the things you can't do, and you do the things I can't do." With, "Of course I can't use swords you dumbass! And I can't cook either! I don't know a damn thing about navigation! And I can't lie!"

These are intentionally impactful moments, and they define the series. I found it very fitting that the Fan Letter focused on a character who was empowered by Nami to feel free and live adventurously despite not being the most physically capable. The character is able by our definition, but the story is very affirming in a disability way, and it was extremely One Piece. I loved how it acknowledged this deep connection between One Piece and the lived reality of disability and celebrated it as integral as it is.

I also believe that absolutely none of this is intentional. It is simply an earnest exploration of human relationships, emotions, and behavior, and it naturally arrives at a radical and disability-affirming viewpoint. Because we are the monkey wrench in the deeply unhealthy (lol) and dominant line of thinking that independence is all. So naturally anything that also disputes that thinking has a disabled-perspective feel to it. The best part is how much it doesn't give a fuck! One Piece is aggressively against conformity in human relationships, in a way that is hard to find in our new world of self-conscious authors.

It's also, you know, the worst part, in terms of all the outrageous bigotry and offensive character design, but god damn it if it doesn't elevate the good parts to unbearable heights. Even the bad character designs can sometimes be more impactful for their intentional "ugliness", when those characters are inevitably taken seriously despite their appearance and the stereotypes they play on, it hits hard every time. I do have a simple hatred for many choices, there is no pay-off for much of the awful problems in numerous character designs and dialogue. But no matter how upset I can be by those things, in the end they can't succeed in pulling me away from One Piece. It's just so crazy and unique and great and terrible and beautiful and I LOVE IT.

[kaybreezy3000]

(F-Reader, smut w/story, soft Five + our usual cocky Five, S4 fix-it)

Broken but breathing. Longing for something that always felt just out of his reach, Five was not okay.

With fates forever intertwined, a train, and a smile he would never forget, once again, the impossible became his reality, but like always, not without tragedy.

In the end, all that mattered are the people Five loved. For them, he would do anything.

Note ~I originally started this pre-s4 release as anon request for another headcanon like my last one, but after watching the show I decided this needed to more than that because Five deserved it. This is a full story, with each letter representing a chapter with something that relates back to Five, only with a new twist, you (female reader insert). For those concerned about the Five and Lila narrative, fear not, this story is not going that route.

~mature content so if not your thing, please stay away. TY.

Warnings and Tags: Rated R for sexually explicit content, Hurt Number Five, Alternate S4, Whump, Mental Break Down, Self-Doubt, Angst-humor-love, Uncle Five, The Deli Fives, Starts with Five in a very dark place, Not the end the show gave us.

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

Amor Fati is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "love of fate" or "love of one's fate." It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary.

It's an idea that everything recurs infinitely over an infinite period of time.

A-Aim

Whether Five was setting his sights on saving his family, or when he was focusing all his attention on the crosshairs of his scope, his focus was always impressive. 

From a very young age he took on every challenge with a ruthless level of determination, but that unfortunately made him come off disturbingly detached, and now, even though Five no longer needed to be that feral creature, his behaviors from the past were alienating him from his family, and the rest of the world.

It's not that Five didn’t have a very good reason for letting himself become so removed, but now, gone were the days when he had glorious purpose.

Sitting alone in a powerless world that Reginald had dumped them in while biding his time at the end of a bar with his face curtained by the dark fringe of his shaggy hair, Five was feeling exceptionally defeated.

He hypnotically swirled the amber liquid in his fingerprint smudged glass.

Over and over, he repeated your name in his head.

He liked the sound of it, but he liked the way you smiled at him even more.

Five saw you nearly every day on his way to work, but as much as he may have wanted to, he never said a word to you. When you’d look his way, and catch him staring, your eyes would come alive as your lips perked up just a little, as if daring him to crack.

He didn’t.

He couldn’t. 

That was the way Five thought it had to be.

But then, something happened.

He could still feel that...

That...

He didn't know what it was.

Shutting his eyes, Five raked a hand through his snarls while disappointedly shaking his head. He knew he shouldn’t let himself do this but he couldn’t help it.

It was just another day, mundane as all the rest. All the seats had been taken by the time you entered the train. You were stuck in the middle, standing in front of him with nothing to hold on to. Less than thirty seconds into the ride, the air between you filled with static.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

The train unexpectedly shifted.

You started to fall, and the next thing Five knew, he had you in his arms so fast it was as if he had his powers to blink again.

With the warmth of your butt pressed against him and your hair catching in the light stubble shadowing his chin, Five inhaled deeply, trying to ignore how oddly alive he felt as he discreetly as possible savored how good you smelled.

Before he could put together why he felt so amazing, or before you could tell him off for being too handsy, the train shifted again, only sharper this time, forcing him to hold onto you even tighter or you would have tumbled into the man in front of you.

“Oh, my god! I am sorry,” you’d gasped as you clung to him, your fingernails digging into the thick wool suit coat covering his forearms.

Realizing you weren’t mad, Five let his hands slide a little further around your midsection, firming his grip.

“Thank you,” you embarrassingly gasped as the train continued to aggressively rock your body against his.

“It’s my pleasure,” Five breathily chuckled into the fluff of your hair.

A second later, the train switched tracks, and everyone was flung forward again and your computer bag swung backwards, violently jabbing him in the dick.

Still at the mercy of the wild train, with Five doing his best to widen his stance to gain more balance so you both didn’t fall, you sheepishly cocked your head back at him.

“Are you ahh -"

“I-I am good,” he coughed, cutting you off.

Then, to your surprise and his, though still visibly in pain, he started laughing.

By the time everyone stopped getting thrown around, you were laughing too. As you turned to face him, Five reluctantly let his hands slip from the narrowest point of your waist, his fingers gliding along the fabric of your shirt a little slower than necessary.

Face flushed, you quickly introduced yourself, but he said nothing as he smiled at you with a dreamy look in his eyes.

“I am pretty sure we just took a detour to the moon back there, but I still can’t believe I just did that,” you joked.

At a loss for words, other than things he knew he shouldn’t say, Five’s amused smile began to fade.

“Thank you for saving me from a nosedive. Let me at least buy you a coffee or something… It’s the least I can do after stomping on your foot and nailing you in the-” 

You looked down.

“Shit… That big scuff wasn’t there before, was it?” you asked, anxiously referring to the mark on Five’s shoe, not something notable going on in the dick region of his expensive looking dress pants.

When the handsome stranger staring at you still said nothing, you began to worry your bottom lip, sucking it in on one side.

Feeling so many things he’d never let himself feel, Five wanted nothing more than run his thumb over the alluring pink flesh and tell you that getting his dick assaulted and having his shoes ruined was well worth it because of the way you were looking at him with your face more beautifully flustered than he’d ever seen anyone’s.

He wanted to say that, but he didn’t.

The train slowed to a stop.

The doors opened, and without another word, Five took off. Stepping into the crowd of commuters that were rushing out the doors as they elbowed their way through the busy subway station, he'd never felt more spineless.

That morning, when it came to his unbreakable determination and legendary aim, he didn’t even shoot for it with you, so he could hardly call it a missed target. Still, he felt awful. Almost as soon as he’d hit the street above and he was inundated with the less than savory smells of the city, he knew he’d missed something huge.

Racing back down the stairs, heart racing, the rush of air blew past him as the train with you on it pulled away.

B-Boners (AKA Mistakes)

At this point in his life, as much as Five hated it, he still had boner issues. Your overactive dick in your pants kind of boner issues, and the other kind, such as when committing social blunders, like rudely blowing you off when you were simply trying to be polite.

Being young again, with hormones what they were, the first boner problem was an unavoidable way of life, and speaking of which, his thoughts about you once again drifted back to how good it felt when your body melted into his, your ass perfectly molding against the crotch of his pants as he held you steady.

Feeling things he shouldn’t be while perched on a barstool at a bar filled with other people, Five subtly shifted his legs apart. Willing his over eager cock to calm down, he looked up at the mirrored wall behind the bottles of liquor displayed along the back wall.

The young man looking back at him frowned, but his body remained aroused despite his sorrowful reflection.

Unable to hold his own hateful glare, Five looked back down at his almost empty glass.

Hopelessly horny, and far past slightly buzzed, he muttered a slurred sounding, “ Grrrrrr- ate . ”

With an irritated huff of air blowing his hair out of his face, Five yanked his tie even looser and tipped back his head, swallowing the rest of his drink. Feeling like he could breathe a little easier, he threw down an overly generous tip, assuring that even though he technically wasn't 21 yet, his ID said he was, and combined, he’d be served again.

Ready to go, his hot palms gliding down his tensed thighs, Five’s eyes fluttered closed for just a second.

His head spun, but not with the sickness of too much drink.

In his whirl of thoughts, he was back on the train with you.

He could practically feel your ass in his hands, his fingers groping greedily as he shamelessly ground his shaft between your legs from behind.

Sadly, at this point, Five still had never been with anyone real. Yet, the disconnect of not knowing what this would really feel like, or how he should be going about doing it, was doing nothing to ruin his bizarrely timed fantasy of animalistically fucking his rock-hard erection into the warmth of your curvy body in any way he could.

God, he wanted to touch his dick!

Opening his eyes, the room spun even more and not in a good way, but still Five refrained from doing that and instead clung to the pleasant visions in his head.

Over the years, with little to give him the feeling of satisfaction he so desperately longed for, Five had unwittingly become addicted to self-stimulation, and it was not just the thrill of that chase that tormented him. Five craved anything that gave him that all-consuming high, though when it came to bloodshed, he refused to admit how great it felt being so good at his job back when he was the Commission’s most celebrated assassin.

Feet hitting the sticky floor, Five’s thoughts blurred with an endless reel of bad ideas, only one of them being the idea of hunting you down so he could re-start your conversation from the train, this time pushing past his reservations for why getting to know you wasn’t an option. 

Screw that!

This time Five was going to charm you, wine and dine you, and take you home so he could do all sorts of naughty things to you- if you’d let him, of course . He was a monster, but not that kind of monster .

A few seconds later, hand pushing the bar’s grungy advertisement-covered door open, the cool night air hit Five’s overheated face, but it did nothing to get his head on straight or make him realize he had no idea how to treat a real woman who could talk back or think on her own.

Yes, in this body and one that was much younger, Number Five Hargreeves hit on strippers and waitresses to get a rise out of them, but having an actual two-way conversation with them, followed by any form of true intimacy, no.

No, he’d never done that, but today, with you, he wanted to, so damn badly.

No matter how drunk he was, Five knew that letting himself think like this about you wasn’t right or helping the tent in his pants get any less prominent and he hated himself for it. With his bloodshot eyes struggling to focus, he dizzily turned towards the staggering reflection in the store window next to him, taking in the sad face looking back.

“Pathetic,” he grumbled, before trudging away with his chin lowered to his chest.

C-Cycle of Loneliness

Stumbling along the sidewalks while on his way home, Five felt trapped. He was finally free of all the death and endless killing, but that didn’t mean he felt like he could live, or that he even knew how to.

With his past what it was, he was unable to let anyone other than his family know who he really was and like before ending up powerless in Reginald’s new world, they were failing to see that he wasn’t as okay as he was pretending to be.

Like always, despite what Five felt about this, in most situations, he managed to keep his composure. He acted like he was fine. Putting on a stoic face of impassivity, he attended most family functions when asked. He’d gotten his PHD in record time and handled his work within the CIA professionally, but at the end of the day, he was merely existing and the reasons for it were becoming harder and harder for him to justify.

D- Distance and Diffidence-the opposite of confidence

When it came to shyness and a lack of confidence, most of the time Five Hargreeves would be the last person you would think of, but self-doubt had always plagued him. Growing up with a father that never thought he was good enough was the trigger that inflamed his insecurities, but even worse, after the trials of his youth and his lifetime alone in the apocalypse, he believed that if he’d never left and messed up the way he did, his family never would have died.

Never a day passed that Five didn’t tell himself, If I hadn’t lost it and jumped to the future and got myself stuck, none of this would have happened.

Knowing that none of his siblings were exactly thrilled with how things had gone for them over the last five years, nearly every time Five was around them, he couldn’t help but feel like that was all his fault too.  

Ironically and tragically, long ago, Five was the one that initially distanced himself from his family, but in typical Five Hargreeves fashion, now he’d been overcompensating for his feelings of inferiority by lashing out on those he loved, only further complicating his problems.

Only twenty minutes from the suburbs where Allison and his niece Claire lived with Klaus, who was dealing with the aftermath of his sobriety in their bubble wrapped basement, since they’d been there, Five had only been to their house once.

Looking up at the four-story brownstone looming over him, no less drunk after walking the twelve blocks it took to get home, Five realized that not one of his family members even knew where he lived, and he was surer than ever that they didn’t care to.

They didn’t need him anymore.

E-Egotistical

Five knew he could become preoccupied with his own affairs, often showing others contempt by rolling his eyes at them in annoyance and boredom, or both, but his smug behavior wasn’t as simple as him having an exaggerated perception of his own worth.

Five never meant to become so estranged from his family. They were everything to him, and in addition to that, he never meant to treat you as coldly as he did by running off when you were merely trying to treat him like any other normal person would treat someone else.

No one would have believed it, but the truth was, Five was scared of rejection more than anything. All along he had been trying to protect himself with a mask of indifference as his mighty shield.

F-Fumbling, Fuck It

Fumbling with his keys, Five was confused by his own behavior, and even more bothered by his inappropriate thoughts about you when he didn’t even know you. He was hardly what anyone would call a brainless idiot, but the title seemed to fit as he tripped over his own feet while talking to himself like a total nutcase.

“Hi. Sure… No problem, it’s all good. My shoe and my dick are fine, really. Oh, and what a lovely name. My name is Five. Yeah, that’s right. It’s a fucking number,” he sardonically laughed, then dropped his keys when after several tries, he couldn’t get them to align with the keyhole.

Swooping down to get them, he tipped over, his head banging into the door, swinging the flimsy panel of wood wide with the force of his skull until it slammed into the wall inside his apartment.

“It wasn’t even locked, you dipshit!” he cursed himself as glass skittered across his shoes from the picture frame that just smashed to the floor, the one with a picture of him holding his newborn niece, Grace.

“Fucking, FUCK!” he cried, picking up the picture. 

He started brushing off the tiny shards of glass sticking to it.

When a white line tore right over the bundle in his arms, ruining her little face that was staring up at him as if he were worthy of her look of wonderment, instead of angrily throwing a fist into his already crumbling plaster, Dolores’s familiar voice started to filter into Five’s mind, proving he was doing particularly awful that evening.

As his once beloved mannequin, the one who wasn’t even there, encouraged him to move towards this kitchen and set down the photograph before his bloodied fingers damaged it even more, the suggestiveness he’d created in her calming words had Five’s lips turning up in a drunken smirk of craziness.

You need to sober up, Five… You can’t keep doing this to yourself. Come to bed with me…’

Dripping blood in his cast-iron sink basin, thoughts of a totally different kind of self-absorption filled Five’s head, and with them, a renewed rush of blood went places that had hardly let him forget they were dying for his attention.

Acting in an alcohol induced form of autopilot, obeying Dolores, Five poured himself a glass of water from the tap, drank it, then clumsily navigated the darkness of his one room flat, heading towards his bed, where he fell like a ton of bricks into the rumpled bedding, still fully clothed.

With his knees digging into the bed, lifting him, hands racing to unfasten the buttons on his waist coat and shirt, this was one of Five’s many, many fuck it moments, not that he had much of a choice in how he landed with his head smashed into his pillows.

But…

As he rolled onto his back, his dick twitching from the mere pressure of being pressed into the bed, his hand slipped over his pants, and that was another matter at hand that was all him.

The dips and valley of Five’s abs flexed as he lay there, his youthful body bleached and pale in the slivers of light streaming in from between his blinds. As he let his hands wander and he began to stroke his cock through the layers covering him, the languid motion of his hand was weak in contrast to the sharp angles of pleasure contorting his face.

With the cool air in his room hitting his exposed chest, Five shivered. His eyes narrowed, locking in on the long shadow of his erection that was making a mockery of his pants.

It felt so fucking good to touch himself. He whimpered, as he dug his hand into himself harder, then let up again.

He didn’t mean to, but he lived for this.

In the apocalypse this was all he had. 

Now, going at it at his desk, having spent a long day at work, the papers in front of him hardly stimulating enough to hold his interest, jerking off was just another part of his daily routine.

Lying in bed, in the shower, or even sometimes in the bathroom at work if he found himself unable to reign in his body’s needs, Five would stroke his dick, hard and fast, and before he knew it, he would be biting back guttural moans, head leaned up against a bathroom stall, coming all over a wad of toilet paper, or at his desk, dispensing his load in an already used shirt or anything else that he could reach that was expendable.

It was juvenile, and perverted as all hell, and he knew it, but just thinking about it, the wrongness, and about you, Five was getting harder, his balls filling with that delicious ache that made him feel alive.

“You can touch it, sweetheart” he whispered as he began to unzip his pants, trying to concentrate on the illusion that Dolores was there with him.

He teased himself, brushing his fingers lightly over the cotton still covering his cock.

As if watching it from outside himself, the resin covered peachiness of his beloved’s hand merged with the fleshiness of your real hand.

Palming himself with growing need, the face Five had been seeing looking down at him suddenly smiled the way you smiled at him as the visions in his head became a muddling array of unquenchable desire.

“Fuck, I want you,” Five groaned as his fingers snuck inside the fly of his underwear for just a second before pulling out again.

Acting out your part, he tightened his grip on his girth, making pre-cum begin to leak through his underwear, forming a darkened spot where the head of his cock was begging to be let free.

“Yeah, just like that. Go slow,” he moaned, his fingers wrapping around his length, moving over the stretched fabric as he began to pump, still gently as he possibly could.

Pictures flashed through his mind. His lips on your jaw, your eyelids heavy and expressive as his lips slightly parted, his hair flowing away from his face, tickling your silky skin as he held you from behind like a trusted lover.

At the phantom like sounds of your little laughs filling his ears, Five’s dick pulsed in his hand, blood flowing full and fast.

Unable to take it, he reached inside his underwear, giving in to touching himself more directly.

Five twirled his finger around the end of his cock.

Lowering your head, the heat of your mouth began to slip over the thickness of his leaking tip, tonguing the pool of stickiness gathered there. 

“I knew the second you looked at me, you wanted me,” he arrogantly huffed as you went down on him.

Though Dolores had heard it all before, glaring at him on the sidelines of his mind, she suddenly looked appalled.

You can’t say things like that! she chastised him.

Determined to shake her, Five put all his attention on the feel of his cock entering your throat.

Snuffing out any remaining thoughts of Dolores out of his head, Five quickened his pace, drowning out the sound of her panicky warnings that were trying to make him see that this kind of fantasy was even worse than his others with her.

Five! You are only hurting yourself with this!

“I don’t care!” he growled.

He bit down on his lip and closed his eyes, only to be greeted by the memory of your hair falling over your shoulders as it brushed against his face when you were both back on the train.

He breathed in and he could smell you.

Then his brain trying to piece together what really happened, he saw your look of shock as he rushed away from you like you were the plague or worse. 

“What’s wrong with you?” he heard you angrily yell, even though you had said nothing when he did that.

“Please don’t stop. I’m sorry,” he panted, mad at himself for hurting you, and even more panicked by his own madness.

Fighting back, he kept his pace, and just like that, you just as quickly forgave him, taking him to the hilt, your nose hitting his pubic bone.

Dark hair in his eyes as he watched his entire cock repeatedly drive down your throat, Five hissed, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes-"

Dolores’s voice cried out. Five! You’re losing it again!

‘Go away!’ Five’s mind screamed at itself, proving she wasn’t wrong-he was losing it .

For the next few minutes, the sounds of Five sadistically berating himself as he violently masturbated were absorbed in the quiet of his dark, empty room.

Shame filling him, his stomach twisted.

He was so fucking close. 

His shoulder blades flushed as small beads of sweat formed on the back of his neck. The muscles in his back and arms tensed harder and harder as he quickly moved his hand.

Angling his face to the ceiling, his eyes scrunched shut and his right arm dropped lazily to the side.

His butt cheeks clenched over and over as his bed springs creaked, his thrusts enough to make his headboard bang into the wall as he frantically pumped his body upwards into his hand.

“You-ff-fu-ah-cking lov-vvve my cock-fuck-you’re amazing,” he grunted and writhed, his sweat covered legs burning under the wool of his rumpled pants that were trapped around his ankles as he bent his knees up and his heels dug into the bed.

Already putting on an impressive one-man show of insanity, wanting more of your mouth’s wet heaven, Five let go of his dick, spitting in his hand. Returning to the length of flesh waiting for him, he thrusted up into his fist with louder and louder noises of slicked ecstasy.

Panting and moaning your name, sweat dripped down the curves of Five’s back. Through sharp propulsions of his hips, he cursed. Throwing his other hand back, he clutched and pulled at his own hair.

He held his breath as his mind screamed and his come poured over his fingers.

Lost in what he was pretending was the feel of your mouth accepting him, yet still wanting to spare his sheets, Five aimed his dick inwards, letting his seed pour out over the fine trail of hair leading up his abdomen, the white beads flinging across his otherwise unmarked skin.

Pulses of pleasure took him as he watched the eroticism of defiling himself.

His broken gasps got quieter and quieter. “FFFUUCC-ffff fff-mmmff."

His balls tightening as hips jerked more and more erratically, Five felt the betraying warmth of his tears pooling in the corners of his eyes as he rode out wave upon wave of the orgasm he’d longed more than anything for you to be part of, the defeated voice of his own creation ruminating in his head so loud he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

She doesn’t even know you.

“I know,” he whimpered back with the hand not on his cock, coming up, covering his red face.

G-Grief

Most of Five’s life was filled with intense mourning. He’d witnessed the death of everyone he’d ever loved, more than once. His anguish over having to bury his family left him in a state of ruin, not unlike the burning world he’d found himself in at the ripe age of thirteen.

Hours after he’d drunkenly cleaned up the mess that he’d made of himself, sucking in, mind adrift, Five suddenly couldn’t breathe.

There was too much ash.

So thirsty he could barely swallow, he ran his tongue over his cracked lips, only getting more of the bitter taste of powered cinders and the tang of his own blood.

The smell of burning flesh made him gag into the suffocating white of his pillowcase.

His stomach turned even as it growled with hunger.

Five was asleep, but the horrors he couldn’t outrun were creeping in like the maggots on the thousands of corpses he could see laying all around him, the sickness of it all wiggling into his periphery as he kicked out his legs and tangled himself in his blankets.

I'm going to die here!

It’s too hot!

I can’t get out.

He was being crushed.

Fingers clenching, hands shaking as his chest became tighter and tighter, it was as if he was the one that was dying even though it was the lifeless faces of his siblings flashing in front of his terror filled eyes that were darting around his dark bedroom, seeing nothing but the endless nightmare of his past.

H-Happiness

In another timeline, while not having a nightmare of the panic attack inducing kind, along a sunny roadside, Five had a very revealing conversation with the woman that had plucked him out of hell, only to throw him into a new one.

Ice cream truck stuck motionless, a bullet seconds away from rearranging Luther’s brain, Five stood there in his schoolboy shorts, his pistol pointed at The Handler as he said, “I'm not looking for happy.”

Like so many times, he watched her perfectly painted lips curl with a certain brand of mischievous cruelty that was all her own. “We're all looking for happy, Five,” she coolly corrected.

Looking away, Five tried in vain to hide his panic.

He did want happiness! That was the problem, only he’d given up on it for himself long ago and the Handler knew that pointing out his lie was the perfect way to break him all over again.

Not about to let her win, Five ground his teeth together and defiantly looked back up at her, not bothering to show is venomous disdain as she towered over him in her shiny red heels.

The world never cared what he wanted, but he’d be damned if he’d give up fighting to save it, but now, as he rushed from his bed to his bathroom sink, helplessly sobbing as he filled his hands with scoop after scoop of cold water, trying in vain to bring himself back to reality, who was going to save him?

I-Ignored

It was the day of his niece’s birthday.

Leaving work, after another day of reporting back to his superiors about The Keepers’s activity and them not giving a shit how far he’d gotten infiltrating their cult like secret society, Five looked down at the colorful invitation in his hand, then the package he’d wrapped the best he could in the other.

The shiny paper was lopsided, revealing an electronic toy puppy’s face peeking out from inside.

The last time Five ran into Diego and his family while out at the same store, his goddaughter had told him how much she wanted a very specific chunk of robotic plastic that was over in the nearby toy section.

“I know its the next Tickle Me Elmo or some shit, but we don’t have the money for that. You know that, Grace! Why do you always have to push and push this stuff,” Diego said, scowling at her.

Lila rolled her eyes at that, then unfazed by her look of disapproval, Diego kept moving, throwing more important items in their cart.

The twins, covered in groceries, fussed and cried in their car seats as their parents moved on, not saying anything else to Five other than a flippant, ‘see you later.’  

Like always, they weren’t happy to see him and the little girl looking up at him shared his same look of disappointment.

Hating how let down she looked, Five smiled. “What do you think his name is?” Five asked, pointing to the barking box just down the aisle that said, ‘Makes chocolate poopies you can eat!’ in bold letters.

“I don’t know, Uncle Five,” Grace said, shyly looking down at her shoes. “What do you think he wants to be called?”

Turning back, looking even more irritated as she put back a box of sugar filled kids cereal that Diego was trying to sneak into the cart, Lila yelled, “Grace! Come on!”

The little girl ran off, but Five answered her question after purchasing the toy puppy, programming it to wag its tail as his voice came out through its recorder, saying, “I’m Mr. Pennycrumb and you are my best friend. You should listen to me even though I am a toy dog. Your parents are idiots, but I am still smarter than them.”

A few hours later, after his daughter excitedly tore open her favorite gift of the day, and he heard Five’s special message and Grace’s squeals of delight over it, as he envisioned karate kicking Mr. Pennycrumb into the rafters, Diego’s eyes damn near bugged out of his head as he yelled,  “Really, Five!”

“What,” he said, shrugging.

Clearly Diego and Lila weren't happy with him, but it wasn't like it mattered. They were never happy with him.

Even while in the presence of his family, as Five leaned back against the rainbow ball pit’s netting, it felt like he might as well still be rotting away in the apocalypses still. While at the birthday party with Luther bashing the shit out of the pinata, their bickering and problems with each other never seemed to end. He tried his best, talking to Ben and the others, but once the small talk was done, it was as if he wasn’t even there unless he said something shitty.

Five was just a figure on the sideline, someone who his own family didn’t want to know.

All he wanted his entire life was to get back to them, but when he did, they had moved on. They didn’t understand him, and he couldn’t blame them for that, he didn’t even like who he was, but at least he was owning that. Jerks act like jerks.

If not for the sound of Gracie calling out to him as he was about to leave, Five would have ended up at a bar again, alone and miserable.

“Thank you so much for coming. I love you, Uncle Five,” she said after she ran over to him.

“I love you too,” he quietly replied, trying not to let her hear the crack in his voice as she put her arms up, silently asking him to come down to her level so she could hug him.

That little hug was all it took, and not much after that, Five found himself out in the parking lot with the rest of them, meeting a very strange man named Sy Grossman.

J-Judgement

Most of Five’s life was defined by punishment. He often mused that all the bad things had been inflicted on him as retribution for his many wrongdoings. As for which of his crimes he was paying for now, after finding Viktor, then having a night out at dinner with his family that went all sorts of wrong, the world was set to end again in twenty-four hours, so it didn’t really matter.

No matter how remorseful Five was, or how much he’d already suffered, or how he tried to make things right and move on without hurting anyone else but himself, it seemed that the sentence of this endless destruction would always be his penance.

K-Keepers

Five should have seen it. Both that Ben had tricked them with his sake toast, and long before that obvious con.

Sitting there dressed like an idiot, his fake mustache thicker than it had ever been when he’d been 19 years old the first time around, he had chatted it up in the therapeutic round circle of crazy people, going on and on about how he was walking around in a body not his own.

He was a 65-year-old man for Christ’s sake! This shouldn’t be where he was!

He told those weirdos that he’d lived through things people couldn’t even begin to imagine!

He lived off all kinds of nasty creepy crawlies, his teeth breaking through the crusts of their exoskeletons, the ooze of their insides almost impossible to swallow, but he did it anyway.

He’d brought on so much suffering to others as he traveled through time, briefcase in hand, murdering anyone he was ordered to eliminate.

Some days Five would look in the mirror and get so confused that he’d forget where or who he was. He didn’t know what was real or not anymore.

He didn’t have to pretend that he was nuts, that was why The Keepers let him get closer. That was why he had run into Lila out skipping book club, trying to feel the danger and excitement she’d once lived for before becoming a tired mother who felt like she was drowning in the monotony of her marriage.

Looking away as Diego fumed about catching his wife with her creepy little Greek boyfriend, Five angled his face towards the window.

His mind reeled. Diego was asking for his help! Him of all people!

Everything was falling apart.

After a van ride covered in puke, listening to Baby Shark on repeat, they were all being shot at.

Heart racing, he blinked, just as a shotgun shell was going to split his skull in two.

Only just then realizing he had his powers back, Five landed in a subway station that had not been under the street he was standing on when they got there.

L-Love

Narrowly fleeing from the set-up in psycho Christmas Town, The Hargreeves had escaped unscathed once more, only they didn’t. The marigold in their bodies proved they weren’t who they were before, and the mangled bodies lying all around at the farm they’d come to while looking for Ben verified that once again, they were way in over their heads.

Reginald couldn’t or wouldn’t help them anymore than he already did, and they couldn’t help themselves. Ben was going to die all over again and his love for Jennifer was a curse not meant to be broken.

Watching his brother doing his best cop impersonation, all Five could think about was they were never going to win; they weren’t meant to, even if that was what they were brought up to believe.

The Keepers and their purpose proved Five’s life new life was a shame. He failed to see that his direct report was one of them. He failed to listen to the things inside him that were telling him none of this was real.

No matter how much Five loved his family, it was never going to be enough to fix this.

Later, as Diego tore open filing cabinets in the abandoned office of Dr. Jean and Gene Thibedeau, Lila pursed her lips at Five for about the hundredth time that day, signaling again that she wasn’t happy with him. Hitting his arm, she quietly said, “I say we go off on our own and try to figure out what is going on with this new power of yours. Pull your big girl panties up and stop being a baby.”

Ignoring her, Five watched as Diego entered the next room, then feeling as if he was having an outer body experience he looked down at his hands. They tingled with energy.

He slowly walked to the window, looking down at the street below.

It felt like his heart stopped and he’d been sucked into a vacuum. 

Everything went quiet.

There you were, walking down the street, the sun lighting up your face like a spotlight just for him. Stopping to tie your shoe, you stepped aside, excusing yourself to the person behind you.

You smiled apologetically. 

Something inside Five broke.

It was the same smile you’d given him.

It meant nothing.

The feeling of something special happening when he’d touched you was as fake as the rest of this!

Of all the people he would see in a time like this, it was you! The one person he’d been dying to see since he’d first laid eyes on you.

It was like some cruel fate, same as the one always chasing him, nipping at his heels with imminent death. Everything was just another reminder that no matter how much he wanted things to be different, he had nothing, and he never would.

He wanted to know what it was like to be loved by anyone even a little, but good things weren’t meant for him.

“Five!” Lila loudly whispered, getting even more upset. “We need to try something other than digging around in garbage cans, like that idiot in there! Give me your damn hand and let’s do this already!”

She began to come his way, hand outstretched.

Lila’s voice cracked with emotion when he looked down at it. “Five, I need you…your family needs you.”

Knowing full well that they had no idea what they were going to do about the impending Cleanse, Five’s brows pulled together, and he shook his head, no.

In a daze, still looking at Lila’s hand, the sight of it filled him with memories from the night before, all of them laced with the same sickness and regret he couldn’t escape. 

After a chance run in at the secret Keepers meeting, when a woman wearing a name tag saying Nancy, ran those same reaching fingers across a man named Jerome’s upper lip, tenderly wiping off the powdered sugar from his pastry, Five had thought of you and the one small chance he’d let go to have even a few hours of happiness by your side, just getting to know you.

Eyes moving to his brother, pain in his chest, in a flash of violet hued light, Five was gone, seconds before Lila could reach him.

M-Martyr

Five’s entire life was an example of sacrifice. So many times, he could have given up, or put himself first, but he didn’t.

Thinking of his family and their kids, stuck feeling like he had no other option, he stumbled out of his portal, his eyes scanning the musty subway platform and the train waiting for him.

N-Naïve

Five missed out on so many things that anyone should have the chance to experience during a life as long as his, and because of that, he struggled when navigating the nuances of anything normal.

There was no doubt that Five was full of wisdom, and he didn’t hesitate to pass that on or place judgment on others he saw as beneath him, but there was also an unmistakable childlike innocence behind his eyes, and an explosive immaturity in his outbursts and in his thinking that he could do this alone.

"How long do I have to suffer!" he screamed, his voice echoing down the subway tunnel, then out into the sky above as the light from the day and another apocalyptic world shone down on the filth covered subway steps in front of him.

Rubbing his grimy hands down the front of his tattered waist coat, he pulled out his journal.

It had been seven years, and he had been traveling the labyrinth of tracks, shooting from one timeline to another, each time trying to jump back to before Ben had been killed the first time.

He’d thought if he could just prevent that, it would finally fix everything.

Five knew his power didn’t work the same as before, but he thought it wouldn’t matter.

It did. It mattered big time, and he’d fucked up big time.

Most of the time, he couldn’t even jump backwards. Most of the time he’d climb the stairs, pull his hands together, trying to draw in the strength to do it, and he’d end up right back at the bottom of the steps, staring up at a world that was no more.

Some days, he’d prove he wasn’t a completely impotent imbecile. He’d reach out at the hands of time, yanking them backwards and he’d be thrown into the unimaginable ether that had always been his domain.

He’d find himself standing in a world with living breathing people again!

Racing to the academy, grabbing anything he could steal and stuff in his pockets or his mouth along the way, he’d feel a flicker of hope.

That never lasted long.

Never finding their real timeline, Five had been attacked, over and over once inside what had been his home, but clearly wasn’t anymore. Sometimes he wouldn’t even get that far, having found himself in a place that was at first glance not where he had meant to be based on floating cars or other bizarre things dotting the skyline.

Out of his mind with hunger and more mentally ruined than he’d ever been, he noted the marks on the floor, a long skid mark from something dragging and that there were three light bulbs out overhead. Fairly certain he hadn’t been there before, looking like a scraggly haired bum that was wearing some guy’s trashed business suit, Five jammed the notebook back in his pocket. Reaching in the other, he pulled out his pistol. Started talking to himself again, his feet stomped up the tiled stairs to the street.

“If I see that little fucker again, and he shoots at me, I swear this time I am going to go over there and choke the shit out of him,” he growled, referring to the fun of being shot at by another version of himself so many times before this that he couldn’t even remember how many times it had happened to him anymore.

His voice was cracked and hoarse, only adding to the pained sound in it as he cursed himself out. He was beginning to feel lightheaded again from lack of food and from how much his lungs were struggling to match up to the blood that rushed around his body from the mere effort of carrying himself out of the darkness.

When the first piercing sound of the other him’s rifle reverberated across the barren landscape, Five flinched, the full metal jacket projectile missing him by only a fraction of an inch as it blasted apart an already crumbling piece of concrete next to him instead.

Stepping forward, arm shaking as he held up his gun, Five screamed, "Just kill me, for fuck's sake, you asshole! I don't want to live like this anymore!"

Eye narrowed on his scope, the other Five, trying to survive, just like he had done when it was him, with no one but Dolores by his side to keep him sane, pulled the trigger like all the other Fives he'd come across did, for some reason, not even thinking twice about killing the first living person he’d seen in twelve years.

O-Oh, Shit!

“OH, Shit!” Five’s voice shrilly rang out as the solid copper tipped point of the projectile ripped through his left arm, tearing the muscle in his bicep clean through as it flew out behind him, zipping down the stairwell.

Refreshed clarity of the life and death kind hitting him hard and fast as the warmth of his blood drenched the inside of his sleeve, Five got down as far as he could, spinning towards the safety of the subway entrance. 

“At least I fucking hesitated when I saw the Handler!” he breathed, just as another bullet ripped through him, this time nicking bone in his right thigh.

He dropped to his knees.

“Fuck you, you crazy fucker!” he screamed.

He’d asked for it.

It was dumb, but he did.

He knew that he was also a crazy fucker in this situation but that did nothing to make him want to kill the other him any less.

Bleeding out in two different places, Five’s fingers clawed at the ground, and he growled in anger, forcing his body to get back up.

Half falling, half running down the steps, the soft tissue in his upper left shoulder suddenly felt like he’d been stabbed with a zillion fiery needles as the spinning force of the next bullet went straight through his back and out his chest.

Lunging for the doors of the train, Five fell into the closest seat, his eyes wide as he looked down at the crimson bloom spreading across his dress shirt.

P-Pain

As a murky curtain of darkness moved into Five’s narrowing field of vision, he clung to the metal support rail attached to his seat. He knew that feeling the rocking motion of the train as it raced to the next station was a good thing because it meant his powers hadn’t failed him yet, but it wasn’t much to hold onto. Each tiny shift in the track felt like it might kill him.

It hurt to breathe.

Even if he made it to the next stop, there was no way he’d be able to jump back to a time when there may have been a hospital and someone living and breathing to get him there. 

This was it, the end.

 ~~~

As you were disappointingly tossing another aluminum can with a broken seal, this one that had at one time held the syrupy sweetness of what you determined might have been peaches, the pile of rubble you were sorting through started to shift, the smaller chunks of debris skittering down the slope of junk.

“What the-”

Even more odd, you started to feel the ground vibrating under your feet, followed by the sound of a train screeching down the subway tunnel located in the subterranean level of your search area.

Your bag slipped off your arm, scattering your finds on the ground as you turned toward the subway entrance a few yards away.

This made no sense, so naturally you tried to rationalize what you were feeling and hearing.

There was no train.

There was no electricity.

There was no anyone, or anything anymore.

All around you, there was nothing but the remains of long ago destroyed buildings and the sun-bleached bones of the dead.

You lived in a world with no voices but your own, no horns honking, no smells of food carts wafting past.

“Impossible…” you breathed.

By the time you made it down the subway station’s cobweb infested stairs, the doors on the train that shouldn’t be there were opening. Hesitantly coming closer to what you were sure was evidence that you’d lost your mind, the humming of the train’s powerful engine slowed.

There was a feeling of static that shouldn’t be there in the dank air.

The hair on your arms prickled in warning.

Still, you came forward, your boots kicking up thick layers of dust. The fluorescent lights hanging above illuminated the tiny particles slowly swirling in front of you, making everything seem even more surreal than it already was.

The lights inside the train flickered as you came towards it.

You could see a pool of red liquid on the long fiberglass bench just inside the threshold. Even more ominous, there was an array of bloody handprints leading to the motionless blood covered body on the floor.

Creeping around to get a better look at the young man lying there, you kept your guard up, but other than him, the train looked empty. 

Looking down at him again, your breath hitched. 

He whispered your name just as his eyes fluttered closed.

You gasped his name back, then the lights went out.

Q-Quiet

“Oh, my God! Five!” you repeated, not believing your eyes as you dropped to the floor next to him.

He was conscious, but you could hardly see his eyes under his slitted lids, and his words came out so weak you almost didn’t hear them as he said, “You’re not supposed to know me.”

“What are you talking about!” you frantically cried.

His reply to that came as the quietest whimper.

“Five?”

He said nothing.

You lowered your ear to his slightly parted lips.

Thankfully, you heard the softest breaths coming out of him even though he was breathing so shallowly his chest didn’t appear to be moving at all.

Terrified, you did what you could to tighten the necktie that was already pinching the blood flow to his arm, and then you checked the belt he’d already tried to secure to his leg to stem the worst of that bleeding. Rolling him so you could lift the back side of his jacket, you saw the blood-soaked exit wound in his upper left shoulder blade. Having nothing but the scarf you had on to use as a bandage, you pressed it over the hole, wrapping it around him tight, then tucking the ends under his shirt and vest to add pressure. 

Five remained unconscious as you readied him, and he stayed that way as you began hauling him up the stairs, then outside where you loaded him on your cart.

With his legs dangling and his feet nearly touching the ground, it wasn’t the ideal form of transport, but he wasn’t going to make it if you stayed there, or if you left him and then came back with something bigger.

“Stay with me,” you begged, checking one more time to see if he was still with you, then you shoved forward, pulling him along as you thought about what he just said.

Of course, you knew Five. It all started after the war that ended it all.

Dressed in his Umbrella Academy uniform, Five had been wandering for the third day straight, looking for anything he could use to help him survive the apocalyptic hell he’d found himself in. Exhausted, he was about to give up and go back to his blanketed shelter, but then he spotted what he thought was another person sitting over in the toppled mess that was left of one of the city’s shopping centers.

The person was waving at him with the only arm they had left, but as Five came closer, disappointment filling him as he looked down at the lifeless face of a female mannequin, he heard something.

Tap! Tap! Tap! Tapppppp-Tappppp-Tappppp. Tap! Tap! Tap!

The air around him swirled, ruffling his hair as it covered his young face in cinders. 

He stopped and listened, but as everything became still again the eerie quiet of mass death was all he heard.

He started to walk away.

Tap, tap, tap. Tapppppp-Tappppp-Tappppp. Tap, tap, tap.

“Shit,” he breathed, stopping short as his mind processed the pattern. That wasn’t the sound of some random piece of metal flapping in the smoky wind.

Racing towards where he’d thought he heard the repetition of morse code, trapped in the darkness, under layers and layers of broken concrete, you started your distress call again, rhythmically moving a chuck of rock against one of the building's mangled trusses.

You were sure that you were going to die down there, just like everyone else that survived the initial blast only to find themselves buried, but then you hear something break through the quiet.

Someone was calling down to you through the cracks left in the massive pile of building material. You cried back, but it felt way too muffled for it to matter, but it did.

He kept calling out, telling you to look for anywhere you might see light, asking you all sorts of questions that at the time made no sense, like if there was room behind you or in front of you and how much, if you were pinned down, or if you could determine which way was up.

Then, one second you were alone in the darkness, dehydrated to the point of dangerously low blood pressure, your legs hardly having more than a few feet to move, and the next, you were blinded by a burst of light, something solid and warm was behind you and then you were weightless.

When your feet hit the ground back on level ground, your legs felt like jelly and your stomach flipped. 

Dizzily trying to adjust as you looked at the boy holding onto you upright, your eyes slowly moved from his, to the famous Umbrella Academy crest embroidered on his blazer. 

It couldn’t be…

The superpowered boy the world had known as Number Five Hargreeves had been missing your entire life, but there he was, looking about the same age as you even though that was way younger than he should have been.

R-Rain

Looking back at this older Five, his limp body rocking with each rotation of your cart’s wheels, your eyes blurred as tears streaked down your cold cheeks.

As if you didn’t know you had to hurry, the clouds in the west were moving in fast, meaning another storm was coming.

With the strap at your waist digging in hard enough that you could feel your skin rubbing raw, you forced your body to move faster. “Come on!” you roared, gritting your teeth with the effort of moving the weighted down cart over another deep washout in the road.

Years ago, Five had taken you down that same road. 

You could still see it that morning, Five running back to your campsite, his straight white teeth flashing in the sun as he smiled with boyish excitement that made your cheeks feel warm.

Talking about a mile a minute, he told you that he’d found a structure that wasn’t completely ruined, and by some miracle, attached to it, there was even a greenhouse that still had most of the glass hanging in its windows. Even better, inside it there were all kinds of bags filled with unspoiled seed.

After years of fighting the elements and starvation together, you had found your first break from the burdens of the apocalyptic world you were stranded in. 

If you could just get him back there now, it would be okay. 

It had to be.

Your breaths were becoming more and more labored as you went, only becoming worse as you thought about the last day you were with Five. 

That was over five years ago.

It was midsummer. You had been with him at the home with the greenhouse attached to it for several years at that point.

That night, like he always did, Five was sitting at the kitchen table, running over his numbers. He was getting close; he was sure of it. You were both going back very soon, and he was going to stop this all from ever happening. 

Scratching his face as he concentrated, Five unknowingly smeared a smudge of black ink from his fingers down the narrow bridge of his nose.

“Fucking, fuck, mother fucker,” he mumbled as he angrily scratched out nearly half a page of his equations.

Even though you knew he was mad, you couldn’t help it, your breath started coming out of you in little puffs of amusement.

With the heel of his palm dug into his forehead, Five looked up at you through the fringe of dark hair hanging in his eyes.

���A genius with your captivating use of the word fuck, along with you being the savior of the world is sure to drop some panties when we get back,” you’d teased. “I hope you don’t forget me when you have all those other people to glare at.” 

Not waiting for him to verbally retaliate, you turned and raised up on your tippy toes to put your dinner dishes up where the mice wouldn't walk all over them.

Within seconds, you felt the comforting currents of energy building in the air around you as Five blinked. The warmth of his mouth pressed against the back of your neck. 

Brushing your hair aside with his face, his arms wrapped around your midsection, possessively locking you in his high voltage embrace.

“Forget you? Not a chance,” he said, letting his lips tickle the shell of your ear. 

You wriggled and laughed as his fingers started crawling under your shirt. Hot palms claiming your breasts, he began a soothing circular motion, threading his fingers over your nipples until they were hard, and of course it all felt so good being taken over by him that soon he had you moaning his name.

“That’s right. I am all yours,” Five smugly hummed as he continued to pluck and pinch.

Your head dropped back against this shoulder as he kissed along your neck. Moving his awakening manhood against your butt, his fingers slid around your hip, going right between your legs.

“When it comes to panty dropping, your delicious cunt is the only one I’ll ever be interested in devouring, sweetheart,” he promised as his fingers moved faster. “I just need to get us back and then I am going to really destroy you with this thing.” 

To punctuate which thing he was referring to, Five he rammed his cock into your ass.

Mind going bananas over the dirty things Five was saying and doing, your body clenched around his fingers and your legs starting to tremble. 

So much had changed over the years.

You were no longer just two people walking the Earth, fighting to survive.

In that place together, you became each other’s everything.

The sun’s setting rays coming in from the window above the sink reflected Five’s beautiful face next to yours as he burrowed his face into your neck.

“As long as you’ll have me, I’ll never let you go,” he lovingly whispered.

And he didn’t let you go, not until hours later, when a rush of cool air coming in from the window replaced where he’d had his body warmly snuggled up behind you.

Rolling over, in the dim light of the bedroom, you could see Five bouncing around as he tugged on his discarded underwear. 

Hard droplets of rain started pelting the floor next to the bed, but before you could move to do something about it, Five blinked over, shutting the window. Just then, something outside loudly crashed into the side of the house.

When he quickly started to head out the room, your eyes widened with worry. “Where are you going?” you asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right back,” he chuckled. “I need to crank the windows closed in the greenhouse before it gets too windy. I just fixed the levers on the upper awnings, and I don’t want to have to go back to watering everything by hand out there when normally the lighter rains do such a nice job of it for me.”

You could hardly argue with that, or with what Five said next.

“Since you finally decided to let me hump the sweet fuck out of you, I have way better things to do with my free time then lugging around tiny watering cans,” he added, while shamelessly taking in the sight of you laying there naked, except for the thin blanket you’d started to modestly to tug in front of you. 

Already getting to you by being ridiculously sexy, standing there with his hair sticking up everywhere, Five gave you a cocky grin that would make the devil blush. 

“Don’t go anywhere,” he taunted. 

Still wiping the sleep from your eyes, you dreamily replied, “I won’t.”

Looking as wild and handsome as ever, hardly dressed, Five disappeared through the bedroom door, heading out through the townhouse’s back kitchen.

Suddenly, lightning flashed, and the entire room shook so hard you were sure the roof over the less habitable parts of the house might collapse.

You sprung out of bed to the sound of glass smashing.

Running after him, at first, all you could see were darkened plants carpeting the raised garden beds. 

Coming around the small table in the center of the greenhouse, fragments from the broken window above embedded in the soles of your feet, but you didn’t even feel it because Five was lying there on the cement floor, the rain drops dancing in the puddles of red all around him. 

The long shard of glass that had sliced his neck clean open was still laying in the palm of his hand as his empty eyes looked up, staring off at nothing.

Nearly falling down as your foot got stuck in a rut in the road, you knew you needed to keep your mind in the present, but you couldn’t. 

There was blood everywhere! 

That was just like this Five! With him dying as he lay there on the floor of that train!

A cry that was part anger, part anguish crawled out of your throat as you turned, looking back at him on your cart.

“Please say something,” you begged, not sure if he was dead or not because he hadn’t moved or made a noise. “Five!” you screamed, when he didn’t respond. 

The first icy drops of rain began to hit your face.

Then, just as you were going to run back there, Five quietly moaned your name as he slowly lifted his arm, pointing a finger at the sky. “You and the moon in the same timeline, makes sense…both always just out of reach for guys like me,” he said, choking on what sounded like a laugh.

On the verge of full hysterics, trying not to think about the horrors of what happened before, or what that moon and timeline stuff was all about, you dug the toes of your boots in, pushing off the broken blacktop as the deep purples of twilight disappeared in the blanket of angry clouds.

It was raining hard by the time you got back. By then you were both soaked, and Five’s complexion was cast in a deathly gray that made your stomach sink with bottomless dread.

S-Stitches

Other than that odd comment, Five remained mostly out of it as the cart bumped and bounced along on the debris-filled road, but as you lugged him inside almost an hour later, he woke up, full alert.

“FFFFUUCK!” he growled as you pulled him upright with his right shoulder under yours, lifting him.

Dragging his bad leg, you both staggered the few feet it took to get to the front door.

“I am sorry,” you breathed as you lugged him inside, kicking the door behind you to a continuous chorus of his breathy ‘fucks.’

A few seconds later, moving across what at one time had been the home's parlor but now served as the bedroom as well, collapsing on the bed, Five’s wet hair fanned out on the pillows.

Rushing over to place a fresh pile of wood on top of the dying embers in the hearth, Five’s face rolled to the side, watching you as he listlessly took in his shadowy surroundings.

Turning towards the adjacent kitchen area to get the medical supplies you needed, his eyes followed you again.

“Dolores?” he croaked. 

Not done washing your hands yet, you turned. As you figured, he was looking at the mannequin sitting at the kitchen table, but for some reason Five looked oddly confused by the sight of her.

“I am sorry, Dolores,” he said, his voice quivering. “I tried. I really did, but it had been so long, and before that, it was- You know I was try- I was so fucked up. And I- I just couldn’t move on and I- They needed me and I-"

“It’s okay, everything is going to be okay,” you said, trying to calm him as you rushed back, setting your supplies on the bedside table. 

Not stopping, your hands quickly moved over him, undoing the necktie on his left bicep so you could work his jacket off and remove his soiled dress shirt and vest. 

Replacing his makeshift tourniquet, you lifted his right hand, placing a wad of gauze in it before pushing it down over the bullet hole just below his left clavicle. “Try to keep pressure on that if you can. You lucked out. That one missed your lung, but I need to pull these down to see what’s going on with your leg,” you said, having already unzipped his fly, your hands on his hips waiting for his consent.

Five nodded, so you undid the belt cinched around his upper thigh.

Carefully pulling down his blood-soaked pants, not far down you gasped, and not because he wasn’t wearing any underwear.

“Who did this to you?!” you asked, slipping the leather strap back around his leg to pinch off the blood flow again.

“An even more fucked up version of me did it back in the wrong timeline I landed in before this one.” 

Something in your already tense expression must have changed to something much worse because Five’s dazed looking eyes moved away, looking at Dolores again.

“I’m my own worst enemy,” he said, deliriously trying to laugh about it before he continued to ramble things that made no sense. “That day you fell into me on the train, you were being so nice. I felt… I was- I don’t know… I wish I had at least had the courage to accept your offer to buy me a coffee. I wanted to, but I didn’t think I should. All I ever wanted was to have something like that in my life. Someone to talk to, someone to be even just my friend.”

His eyes misted over.

“I blew it, but it didn’t matter anyway. Everything went to shit. My powers don’t work right! I have been trying to get back for seven fucking years and I can’t, and that timeline is ending in a few hours anyway. Everyone was counting on me, and I failed them again.”

Before he said all that, you knew in any normal circumstance it would have been impossible for the Five laying on your bed to be the same one that was buried out in the yard, but your heart wanted to believe differently so badly. 

He looked exactly like him.

He’d known your name. 

He knew the mannequin neither of you were willing to leave behind, because if not for her, he’d have spent a life alone and you would have died.

But he wasn’t your Five. 

Looking even more upset than you were getting about all this, he kept on trying to explain things, telling you about this other world he had been in, and something called ‘The Cleanse.’ 

Wiping the mess of blood off his cold skin, you smeared antiseptic around the jagged edge of the hole in his thigh. Not knowing what else to do to prepare him, you soothingly shushed him. “It’s okay, everything is going to be okay, Five. We will figure it out.”

You wanted to believe that, but you didn’t even know if he’d make it through the night.

Popping some long-ago expired pain pills in his mouth, then lifting a glass to his lips, Five swallowed your offering with no question, half the water going in, and the other half running down his chin.

As you pulled on a pair of sterile gloves, his fingers brushed against the side of your leg. "How do you know me?” he quietly asked. “I never told you my name and you aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Bite down,” you ordered, ignoring that question as you placed a rolled towel in front of his mouth. 

Again, he listened, biting down. 

“You are lucky the bullets that hit your arm and chest went right through you and didn’t hit anything important, but the one in your leg is still in there. I need to get it out before I stitch this one closed, and if you think it hurt when that other you filled you with lead, get ready, because something tells me this is going to be much, much worse.”

Lifting your sanitized surgical tweezer, you lowered the long-pointed ends to the seeping wound in his leg.

Not even close to the casing you needed to reach, Five was forcing air through his nose at a panicked pace and his legs were starting to shake.

Pressing down on his knees, you held him as still as possible as you dug deeper.

As the tweezers sunk into his flayed skin, kicking out, Five howled through the cloth in his mouth, “Ffff-rrrrrrrr-ffffuuuuCCCCCKKK!” 

“Almost there,” you breathed as you felt the end of your tweezers tapping against something hard. 

A few painful seconds later, after pulling the lump of metal back through Five’s torn muscle tissue, you dropped the bloody chunk of metal in the bowl on the table, then went for the needle and thread you’d already prepped. 

“This is the worst one. The others won’t be as bad,” you assured, moving along gently as possible, with the point of your needle pulling through the mangled edge of his broken skin.

After the third stitch, as you began to pull Five’s skin together, his entire body started to quake so hard you had to move over, sitting yourself on top of his knees to keep his legs down.

“Just a few more,” you said, determinedly biting down on your lower lip as he brought both arms up, grasping the rungs on the headboard with a white knuckled grip. 

Two more stitches, and one more pull, and Five’s sweat covered chest was heaving. The faintest sound, like the squeak of a small animal crept out from between his clenched teeth. One more pull and his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went completely limp.

T-Touch

Fevered nights turned into long worry filled days and you never left Five’s side unless you had to. Cleaning his wounds, and then his entire body, no modesty allowed in the state he was in.

Five was entirely at your mercy just like once, long ago, you were at his. 

As he lay there with no shirt, and no pants on, covered in a mound of heavy blankets that smelled cleaner than anything he’d slept on in seven years, unable to avoid it any longer, you explained why you knew him. 

You didn’t even come close to telling him all of it, but still, you could see that what you did say didn’t settle well.

Brining another spoon of thin soup to his lips, stopping you short, Five shook his head. “I don’t deserve this,” he quietly whispered as the shutters rattled against the windowpanes in the cold wind that blew outside.

Moving closer, you set the bowl down. Gently as possible, you pressed a cool cloth to Five’s sweat covered brow. He leaned his face into your hand, whimpering.

Five may not have been starving from hunger like he was the last time he’d found himself stuck in the apocalypse, but the things he’d told you happened to him proved that for his entire life, he’d been starved of almost any kind of touch from someone other than people who wanted to hurt him.

After he’d laid it all out there, you realized helping him wasn’t going to be as easy as closing his wounds. His life started the same as the Five’s you had known, only his took many different turns, all of them bad, leaving him a broken man in the body of a boy again. Then, him saying that he'd lived nearly a lifetime alone with no one there for him but Dolores wasn’t even the worst of it.

That wasn’t what killed his spirit.

In his own words, even before that, he had all but given up, and he regretted that part of his life more than anything. He’d mistakenly pushed his family away. He said that there wasn’t a day as he rode his time travel train to nowhere that he didn’t think of them, and you, all the while wishing so badly he was able to go back and do everything differently. 

Laying down next to him, curling your body around his as much as you could without hurting him more, Five’s body trembled, trying to heat itself as the infection gnawing at him raged.

“None of this was your fault, Five,” you whispered as you watched his face twist with pain.

The fire crackled, the only sound filling the room as you felt for his hand, your fingers slowly running across his torso until you found it at his side. 

You threaded your fingers around his. “Just keep fighting, okay?”  

Shivering, he squeezed your hand back.

U-Unexpected

It was the start of summer, and the sun was shining in from above as Five sat at one of the chairs pulled up to the table in the greenhouse. Breathing in, his lungs filled with the sweet smell of hundreds of ripening strawberries.

It had been months since those first pain-filled nights, and as the days passed it was becoming harder and harder for him not to lose himself to the growing contentment he was feeling.

It was entirely unexpected, but then again, so were you.

Like the twist of fate that made you stumble into him that day on the train, like something out of a dream, there he was listening to you obnoxiously singing along to the CD boombox sitting in the next room. 

‘Y o, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want-’

The selection laying around was slim when it came to CDs that weren’t too warped to play, but watching you shake your booty as you danced around the kitchen made Five totally forget that he didn’t like pop songs.

‘If only I could keep finding batteries that fit the radio… ’ he silently mused while fighting the urge to start belting out the girl empowered lyrics with you. 

Five had an endless supply of scenarios running around in his head of how this morning could go, only one of them was him coming in there, sweeping you off your feet while he sang the blaring lines about making it last forever as he also slammed his body down and wound it all around on yours.

‘You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta!’ you sang, waving at him as you reached for another handful of green beans to snap.

Thinking about how just a smile from you made him feel hot, and how much he wanted to be your lover, and how he sounded nothing like you or the Spice Girls when he sang, Five stretched his bad leg under the drape of the tablecloth. His muscles still complained but the dull ache was nowhere near what it had been, and even better, he could walk without needing you to help him, or without needing a cane.

Looking over at Dolores who was sitting across from him, Five’s smile soured. “I hated that cane,” he quietly grumbled. “All I needed was a monocle to go with it and I’d have looked like some younger alternate universe jackass version of that monster.”

‘Reginald was many things, an alien included, but in the end, he did try to help you, and you in no way looked anything like him with your cane,’ Dolores reminded him.

Averting his eyes from hers, Five decided it was not worth arguing with her. If he kept it up, you were for sure going to hear it and he didn’t need that happening again. You’d been very understanding when he’d feverishly admitted way too many things about his relationship with Dolores, but…

Yeah. 

Sipping the herbal concoction you’d so sweetly brewed him that morning, Five looked down at the old notebook sitting there. It was filled with equations that were very close to getting the math right for getting back, only he was not the one that had done them.

No. He was not that Five, and at the age of 20, like that Five had been when he almost figured it out, he himself at that same age was nowhere near it. At that age, he almost died of dysentery. 

Five looked down at his own journal filled with scribbled notes about stains on floors, broken vending machines and burnt-out light bulbs. 

Spreading his fingers, palms warming in the sun, just the thought of blinking filled him with that familiar buzz of energy he used to live for. But no matter how many times he tried to blink himself even a short distance across the room, he’d still find that it didn’t work that way anymore, and then he’d be flung out of his purple-colored portal into the subway tunnel where you’d found him.

Five pulled his hands back in his lap and slipped the strap back around the leather journal, closing it as he tucked it away.

He couldn’t get back on that train. 

“The only thing I can promise you if we get on there, is that we will be lost,” he’d told you when trying to explain it. He could do that to himself again, but he couldn’t do that to you.

He felt horrible about it, but you never pushed him on it. You never blamed him. You always said it was okay.

He didn’t get it.

Then, after coming back to the house a week ago from another failed jump, something happened. Hearing him kicking stones along the road as he cursed like a maniac, you dropped your garden trowel, ran over, and hugged him.

Smiling up at him, you said, “Five, you need to stop this. You are breaking my heart all over again by looking so pouty all the time.”

Five knew you cared about him. He knew you cared about the other him, but past your caring about either of them in a way that was more than survival based and simply supportive and platonic in nature, that he couldn't figure out. 

You’d told him so many things about the years you were with the other him, but when it came to the details, he could tell you were holding back.

Not sure what to do about it, but knowing exactly how he felt about you, that afternoon in the yard, not more than a few feet away from his own grave, Five had hesitantly let his hand move up your back, hugging you back. He’d never done that before.

He figured, even if you didn’t feel the same way, it wasn’t like you weren’t already intimately familiar.

You’d held him before…

You’d seen him at his worst, fully exposed, laying there in a bloody mess of tears.

He’d told himself that desperately clinging to the person that meant everything to him, even if he’d fallen hopelessly in love with them was normal. Right?

Fuck, he knew it wasn’t… and neither was having to roll himself out of bed almost every night, taking off like a creeper in the night under the pretense that he needed to take a piss, when really he needed to take care of other personal business involving him grasping his dick.

Worried about him, you’d come outside to check on him more than once, and you’d come very close to busting him beating his meat, but Five wasn’t about to stop sleeping by you if you were willing to keep letting him, even if that meant he was constantly waking up hard with his hands on parts of your body that they shouldn’t be touching.

Trying not to think about that, and if you noticed him accidentally doing that or not, instead, as the sunny sky shown down on you holding him like he was a big man baby, Five tried to focus on the feel of your head resting on his chest and how you were soothingly playing with the hair dangling at the nape of his neck. 

Of course that wasn’t really helping, and because of that, he totally missed that you were up to something more than indulging him like you usually did.

Seemingly totally unaware of what you were doing to him, other than that you were turning him into a worthless puddle of goo, sneakily reaching up, you aggressively started ruffling his hair into a chocolatey nest of fuzzy tangles and unruly waves.

Shocked by the unprovoked attack, as you pivoted away from him, looking about as tickled as you could be over how easy it was to get him, Five’s mouth opened, but nothing came out, and that got you really laughing.  

“Oh my God, Five, I love you!” you breathlessly teased.

“Whhh-ahh…?” 

Taken by either his inarticulate reply, or at how ridiculous he looked, Five wasn’t sure, you came back to him, looking up at him sympathetically. “Five, beating yourself up over this isn’t going to change anything.” You gently brushed a piece of hair out of his eyes. “Maybe let it go for a while and just try to live a little. You deserve that.”

With that, you leaned in, your lips feather soft as they pressed against his cheek, then you walked away, leaving him dying to kiss you back.

V-Voracious, a wanting, devouring, feeling emotions to an intense degree

After that day, and the many others that came after your spicy Spice Girls kitchen bean snapping show of cuteness, Five did let himself live a little more, and you teased him even more, oftentimes tickling him into submission, and to him, it seemed like you might be doing it for nothing other than the joy of watching him squirm. But maybe not.

As you smiled at him from the other room, Five felt what had become his normal feeling of butterflies in his stomach and that pitiful aching in his chest. Doing the daily domestic things, like watching you change the bedding as he busied himself in the greenhouse, he could almost forget about all the bad things that had happened.

His family were out there, yet not. They were frozen in time as far as the space time continuum and his fucked subway time travel loop were concerned. It had been almost eight years since he’d left them, only hours from facing their demise, but to them, if he could get back, they wouldn't even know that he wasn't there to begin with.

In many ways, they were gone, not him, and it had been that way for so long.

If Five could have gotten back, it would start all over. He’d have hours to figure all this out, but he had nothing figured out in the way of helping them. That should have tormented him incessantly like it had before, but now, feeling like he had no other choice but to accept this fate, the last thing on his mind when he looked at you was the Cleanse, or other timelines that were about to be destroyed.

Even more crazy, he didn’t hate himself the way he used to and that was because you didn’t hate him for any of it.

Also, crazy, if he didn’t think you might knee him in the nards, he had half a mind to come over there and toss you on that mattress and show you that you weren’t the only one who knew how to play dirty.

He may not have been able to do anything to help his family or the rest of the world, but fuck did he want to show you he still had some fight left in him by putting those old bed springs to the test, rocking his hips into you to the beat pumping out of the tiny speakers sitting on the table behind him.

Watching you bend over to pick up your growing pile of linens, Five’s smile grew. When you disappeared from view, he called out your name. “Hey, why don’t we leave this work for later? Come out here and join me. I’ll let you beat me at a game of chess, and you can even use the unicorn charm as your queen this time.”

Coming around the corner, you dropped the laundry on the floor and shook your head at him. “I’m the one that lets you win, and we both know you are the magical unicorn around here,” you said, pelting him in the chest with a large berry you just picked from one of the bushier plants near the door.

“Sure,” he mockingly drawled, as he began to water the plants again. “You know I love magically fooling around with this cute little watering can all day because I aim to please the lady of the house.” 

Five grinned. 

“You know…with me being pretty much worthless otherwise," he added, not even looking as he pegged you in the boob with a berry.

The song playing ended and another 80’s song about rains in Africa started. Using the music to cover your footsteps, from the corner of his eye, Five still saw you coming. Just as you were about to come up behind him to rumble up his hair until he looked like an asshole, he turned, tipping the watering can over your head.

The dribbles he let escape ran down the length of your hair, a few of them raining down on your perfectly stunned face.

“Oops,” he said, grinning even wider. 

“Was that necessarily?” you asked, trying to scowl at him, but clearly having trouble doing it.

“Yes,” he smugly replied as he casually set the watering can down.

“Why?” you challenged, your eyes following his every move.

“Because,” He reached out, slowly running a finger across your wet cheek as he leaned in, whispering in your ear. “Maybe I just wanted to see if I could get you wet.”

You no longer looked like you were about to burst out laughing.

Five knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to know.

He glanced up at the boarded-up window above, then his eyes met yours again as he quietly said, “I’ll never stop being sorry that I am not him, but-”

“Five-” you started to argue, no doubt planning to tell him it wasn’t his fault that he died and that now he couldn’t get you out of there.

“Shhhh,” he uninterrupted, pressing a finger to your lips to silence you. “I’m not done.” His smirk softened. “I know he loved you, and that’s because I love you. The question is, do you love me too? Like this?” he clarified, lowering his chin, the tip of his nose brushing against yours.

“Five,” your voice cracked with emotion. 

Your lips pressed against his. 

The softest sound crawled out of his throat, moving up through his nose as Five kissed you back, innocent, and beautiful in his not knowing exactly how to do it but doing it anyway. His hand moved behind your head as he parted his lips, letting his mouth move against yours, his tongue just starting to play along your teeth, pushing for more.

From there, with your hands reactively moving up into his hair, pulling him to you even more, his kiss grew deeper and more desperate.

Coming up for air several minutes later, you breathlessly whimpered, “I love you so much, Five. I always will. I just didn’t know if you wanted this with me. You kept saying things that made me think maybe, but then you-”

Hearing that, he frantically started pressing kisses down your neck, then down to your shoulder. “Fuck yeah, I wanted this,” he said as he took your breath away. His trembling hands played at the hem of your shirt before he suddenly stopped and broke away, peering at you.

“Is this okay?” he asked, his hands tentatively sliding up over the cotton covering your back as his excited smile exposed more of his charmingly boyish dimple.

Your reply came with you suddenly lifting the material in his way all the way up over your head. 

Speechless, Five’s intense gaze fell over your naked upper body.

“Holy shit, I was not expecting that,” he breathed. Recapturing your lips a few seconds later, he kissed you two more times, then, still trying to kiss you, he mumbled, "I have imagined doing this for so long, just ask the flowers by the front door that have been watching me jerking off every night. They know just how badly I wanted to see these perky tits.”

You started to giggle over that new piece of information, but that quickly turned into you moaning into Five’s mouth from the feeling of him sliding his fingers over your nipples. Encouraged by that, he continued with his ministrations, slowly and softly caressing you until you moaned even more.

When he released your lips, you let out a small whine at the loss, but you were quickly placated as Five moved his kisses along your jawline, stopping for just a moment to nibble on your ear.

“Gah- ahhh,” you gasped, it felt so good, and to that, Five bit down on your lobe, his teeth stinging your flesh as he pinched your nipples at the same time.

You squeaked, your legs clenching together even tighter.

Five let out a breathy laugh as his lips moved over your ear, seductively whispering, "Was that good?"

“You really are still the same cocky little shit you always were, aren’t you?” you shot back.

Nodding his head yes, Five leveled his lopsided grin at you. “Probably worse,” he admitted

“Take your shirt off, “ you demanded, hardly able to believe how silly and hot he was being.

Happily obeying, Five tore off his emerald green sweater that matched his eyes, tossing it over with your shirt on the floor.

“Better?” he questioned.

“Much,” you replied as your fingers began to graze his skin, exploring the hard expanse of his toned chest, down his stomach, delighting in the lean ‘V’ of muscle leading towards his hips.

As your fingers played along the dark, almost jet black trail of hair leading into his pants, dipping below his waistband, then coming back up so you could rub your hand over his crotch, Five shuddered under your touch, so you increased the pressure. 

“So sensitive,” you teased.

Ignoring that taunt, his left hand quickly found your breast again and his other clamped onto your ass, giving it a hard smack before he suddenly yanked your skirt up.

“You have really been enjoying fucking with me,” he laughed, then said, “and what the fuck is this song talking about!”

With his hand under your skirt, his fingers moved slowly, massaging his burning handprint, and he didn’t stop punishing you there. Five’s fingers stopped just shy of the heat between your legs. There, he rubbed the elastic panty line lying along your groin as he smiled like a fucking jerk.

“This song is talking about a man and his love for a girl, but he’s torn between her and the continent he loves, and please, Five! Please don’t stop!” you begged.

“There we go!” he laughed. “Just what I needed to hear. Keep it coming, honey.”

With that, memories of another Five being ridiculously obsessed with you getting you to cry out his name, blended with this one and his equally interesting quirks and many miss understandings about things that to you seemed obvious. 

Before you could come up with an appropriate comeback, your brain gave out on you because Five’s fingers slid under the thin panty barrier he’d been toying with, moving between your folds, determinedly pressing into your clit.

“Fuck, you are wet. I guess watering you worked,” Five mockingly groaned as he gently kissed the side of your neck, letting the smallest scrap of his light facial hair tickle you. 

Giggling and squirming even more, he gave your neck a little nip. 

“Hold still, damn it, I am trying to finger fuck you to this stupid song,” he laughed.

Hand still jammed in your underwear, Five drew you back with him, the backs of his legs bumping one of the chairs next to the small garden table.

Taking your hand off the hard bulge in his pants, you moved it with your other, shoving him down in the chair with enough momentum to make the legs cry out in complaint as they slid across the concrete. Not stopping, you crawled over him, wrapping your legs around his waist.

“I missed you acting all adorable like this,” you said as cheekily as possible, while laughing at his lustful expression of bewilderment.

Not about to be out done, guiding you up against him even tighter, Five wrapped your lips in a warm kiss that quickly escalated into a heady, deep kiss. It didn’t take long just doing that, and you were both breathing much harder than normal again.

Seductively pulling at your lower lip with his upper teeth, Five looked up at you with his mossy eyes softer than you’d ever seen them. 

“From that first day I was with you on the train, you were all I wanted. I didn’t even know what I’d missed until then. I thought I did, but not really,” he said. “I don’t know why or how this is happening to us over and over, but I know one thing for sure and that’s I am never letting you go again.” 

That was almost exactly what Five said to you the night he died. 

Jolting you from the moment, a near paralyzing fear hit you like another slap in the ass, but then, just like so many times when Five touched you, the next time he brought his lips to yours, your entire body tingled with a whole different kind of all-encompassing feeling.

The air felt alive. 

As you eased your body back into his hand that was tracing lines up and down your spine, Five’s lips closed around one of your taut nipples and his hand lowered between your legs, moving again.

“Yesssss,” you moaned, rocking your hips against his, driving your bottom down against his erection.

Pinned under your weight, Five whimpered and his cock throbbed with so much need he felt like he might come in his pants. Not wanting that, his fingers moved faster, slipping up and down in the cramped space of your panties, and that got you to let up on him, which was both a good and bad thing.

You arched your back as he flicked one of your tits with his tongue. Scraping his teeth along your peeked flesh, he sucked it back inside the heat of his mouth and you ground down on him harder than before. 

Unable to take it, Five’s mouth popped off. “Fuck. Keep. Doing. That!” he groaned as he started with your neck and earlobes again, trailing sloppy kisses down to your collarbone.

Flipping your skirt completely out of the way with a whip of his wrists, Five slid your panties to the side with a quick tug, then the tip of his index finger gently started pushing into your hole.

“Mmmm fff, Five,” you whined, as he moved deeper inside you.

“So…fah-king tight,” he breathed, equally taken by the feel of your body fighting him. He looked up at you with adoring eyes, his worry coming out in his soft words. “You okay?”

“Yes,” you said, your body opening for him more and more each second a part of him was becoming a part of you.

Once he was past knuckle deep, you started to work your body over the hard length of his trapped cock again, totally destroying his pants as his finger started to fuck into you, in and out, hooking and pulling, doing anything and everything he could to get you moving faster.

“Oh, ffff,” you cried as Five, with no warning, added a second finger and then started to dip in and out at the same punishing rate as his thumb circling around your clit.

You pushed yourself against his hand, biting your lip as your body quickly coiled and tightened around him. “Fff-vvvv!” you cried. 

When your orgasm hit a moment or two later, your wet gasps filling the greenhouse, he couldn’t believe it.

Your forehead fell against his. You slowly unclenched your fingers, your fingernails leaving half-moon marks all over his shoulders.

“Did I do it?” Five excitedly asked.

Still hardly able to open your eyes, you nodded, panting, “Fuck yes you did. Fuck, Five…”

With his cock about to rip through his pants, Five pulled his fingers from your quivering cunt, bringing them to his mouth. Smiling as he tasted you, slowly licking a few more times for effect, he said, “I can confidently say that I have never done anything as amazing as that, and you taste so delicious I might never eat anything else ever again.”

Laughing at the absurdity of that considering you knew just how much Five liked to eat actual food, and he could in fact do the unimaginable by traveling through time, even if he couldn't do it the way he wanted to anymore, on doe like legs, you climbed off of him, letting your panties slip to the floor.

“Your turn,” you said, straddling your magical unicorn, your hands already starting to unzip his pants to the sight of his approving gaze of god-like sexiness staring back at you.

Carefully pulling him from the confines of his pants, you’d only given Five’s cock a few gentle tugs and his smug expression was gone. 

“Thank you for this, fuck, thank you,” he quietly repeated, his eyes about rolling back in his head as you lazily pumped him, making him leak even more glistening fluid from the tip of his cock.

Lost in what you were doing to him, Five fingers dug into the seat on the wooden chair.

“That feels so fucking good,” he groaned as you twirled your finger over him, spreading his precum to make your hand move faster as it dropped down over the long veins feeding his impressive length.

When you moved forward, guiding the thick head of his cock through the swollen valley between your legs, Five couldn’t take it anymore. Frantically pushing his heels into the floor, he reactively tried to thrust upwards, but it did him little good because he wasn’t inside of you like his mind was telling him he was.

“Ah-ah-ah,” you warned. “Slow down, old man. I’ll get you there, I promise. I want your first time to be special,” you lovingly cooed.

“This is pretty fucking special. I have waited over 70 years for this,” he growled, trying to hump up into you again but clearly only doing it that time to watch your tits bounce.

Shaking your head at the craziness of it all because Five looked nothing like his real age despite him being that old, with one hand on the back of his neck, your feet fell flat on the floor, allowing you the leverage you needed to ride him. With his drizzling tip pushing all the way up to the height of your belly button, you lined him up, then started frotting, pressing the hot length of his cock against your swollen clit in a sinful game of slip and slide.

“That’s right, baby. Let me fuck you,” you praised, already feeling that lustfully addicting pleasure rising in you again. Yanking his hair to further the fun, Five moaned, but he didn’t fight it, and that only turned you on even more, because you knew how badly he wanted to.

Five Looked like a broken angel fallen from heaven. His beautiful eyes were cutely drowsy as he watched you fucking him, the sweet feel of your sex, your body rocking in his lap, all of it felt like nothing he had ever felt before.

The fall sun was shining down.

The heat building.

The strangest choice for a fuck song was playing on the CD player, the band Todo singing their topical ballad as your bodies worked together to the inspiring rhythm of the drums.

♫  I bless the rains down in Affff-ri-cAAA! 

Five shut his eyes.

The pure love and acceptance he was feeling made the shadow of doubt hanging over him from his own death and from his horrible past feel like it couldn’t touch him.

“Five, look at me,” you ordered.

He did.

One look at you as you rode, unable to fight it, he let out a guttural groan of unrestrained pleasure. Unclasping his fingers from the chair, he ran his hands down, under your ass, lifting and pulling with you, making you move your hips and hand pinning his cock down even faster as you fucked him against you.

He was trapped and so were you, but Five felt anything but trapped as your thighs quivered and the tension built more and more with each pass of his cock thrusting up through your pussy lips.

“Kiss me. Please. I need you to kiss me,” you begged, your words breathless as you worked hard to give him the ride of his life while he sat there like the king of the world, watching you buck and pant.

The second Five’s lips touched yours, you locked your fingers on him tighter, pulling him as close as possible. 

Your nails scratched along his scalp making him fuck up into you harder. 

The chair groaned in protest.

You brokenly whimpered into his kiss, and again, Five felt that strangely familiar burst of energy in the air. 

Your head flung back. You’d reached the edge and tumbled over it again; this time he knew it and he’d never felt closer to you.

He cursed a breathy gasp, his lips parted against your chest as he pushed his pelvis up and down at the same faltering pace as yours. Pulses of his release, a creamy white heat of pent-up pain and love started to spread against the silky expanse of your body as Five moved his cheek next to yours. 

Mouth against your moistened skin, he groaned and hissed. “Ahhhffuuuuucccccckkkkk-ffffff-”

A sticky mess between you as his balls twitched under him, still out of breath, Five peered up at, grinning like a fool.

Just when he thought he couldn’t possibly deserve more, you brought your hands to his face, running your fingers over his flushed cheeks as you tilted his chin up. “I love you, Five. It will always be you.”

You placed the softest kiss along his jaw, then down his sweaty neck. Five’s entire body trembled, as much from the gentle sensation of you showing how much you loved him with the touch of your lips, as in what it meant to him hearing you say that.

You said it again. “I love you, Five.”

Tiny shivers danced up his spine as a low moan resonated deep in his throat. Your mouth continued to move over him. 

“I love you too.” He exhaled your name slowly as you moved your way back up to his lips, your fingers soothingly playing with his hair. 

Right then, no matter how many times you let him have this with you, Five knew he’d never get enough of it. 

As he told you, you were all he wanted.

Now, nothing else mattered. 

W-Why

Autumn days of sunlit leaves floating down from above passed by, and with them, Five’s mind and heart were at peace for the first time in his life. 

Nights with you in bed, hot breaths against each other’s skin as you explored new ways to love each other were everything to him. 

Laying on a blanket, under the stars as the white plumes of your breath made clouds of heat above you, Five was in heaven even if he was in a world of crumbling foundations.

He even had the moon this time.

It was perfect.

You had the greenhouse and a roof over your heads, but you still needed to scout for other food options. Just like the last time he was in the apocalypse, Five spent hours on end each day, searching for anything he could use to help get through the harder times. But now, as he wandered down the stairway into the old subway station he hadn’t been to in months, the pressure of getting back felt almost non-existent. 

Maybe he could trap something alive down there, he’d thought. Rats were awful but you weren’t picky, and neither was he, and rabbits had been hard to come by lately with the colder turn in the weather.

Just thinking about bringing a rodent in the house and acting like he slayed a dragon for you made him smile. 

You loved when he acted stupid, and he loved doing it for you.

Feet quietly moving across the debris filled landing, just then, when it felt like nothing was more important than finding new ways to make you smile, of course that was when fate decided to prove he was wrong.

Noticing a strange mark on the floor at the edge of the subway platform, one he’d never noticed before because the light down there was so bad, Five pointed his flashlight down. 

There was something scratched into the tile, and it was done so poorly he could hardly see it, but it was there, and it was no accident.

Bending down, he slowly traced the intricate circles and paralleling lines done in an interlocking pattern that suggested a mathematical projection of infinite sums, or better put, infinite outcomes. 

His heart sank as his finger cleared the grim from the interdimensional map, or that was what he’d suspected it was the first time he’d seen it tattooed on the chest of the ancient version of him that was dying in the paradox proof chamber back in the Sparrow’s timeline.

Looking around, he saw nothing else. Jumping down to the tracks, Five ducked his head below the small lip where the electrical lines were hung. There was a box that some of the larger lines fed into, and it was directly underneath where the sigil was placed. 

Reaching his hand up, blinding feeling around in the cobwebs and dead bugs, he felt something. 

“No,” he breathed, looking down at the leather-bound journal, his eyes rapidly moving over the pages. 

All of them were filled in, unlike the one he had back at the house. And even more shocking, this one showed the way to get back.

“Five?” you called out, coming down the stairs. 

“Yeah, down here,” he replied, quickly shoving the book inside his shoulder bag.

~~~

Stretching his toes under the sheets as his body came down from the feel of having his dick pushing down your throat, Five dreamily looked down at you nestled between his legs

“I love your hair, honey, but I like it best when it’s like that,” he teased as you looked back at him, stretching your jaw, your hair a total ball of fuzz ball from you romping around under the blankets.

You smiled. “Fuck you, Five.” 

“Fuck me, you say… Sure.  I am game to do that again, only it has to be roles reversed until I can get it up again.”

You rolled out of bed, escaping before he could pounce on you and throw his face between your legs. 

“Aww, come on. It won’t take long,” he whined, watching you trot away.

“I know,” you called back, blanket dragging as you tiptoed the cold floor out to the kitchen to get a glass of water from the cooled boiling pot on the wood stove. 

Coming back, you passed by the fireplace, tossing a few logs Five had brought in the night before. Moving on, you stopped at the bookshelf, eyeing up the selection that had grown substantially since Five had gotten there. 

Still lazily lying in bed, he smiled, knowing you were going to pick something and ask him to read it to you while you snuggled on him in bed until mid-day. He loved the bitter temperatures that had settled in because it meant time outside was limited and there was more time for this.

While crossing his arms over his head, looking around the little home that he shared with you, Five started to smile again. The shelves in the kitchen were covered with canning jars filled with the evidence of how hard you had both worked to prepare for the winter. While he was thinking about how the massive amount of work involved in living this way did nothing to diminish how happy he was, something over by you hit the floor with a thump.

Five hadn’t noticed you stepping up on a chair to reach the highest shelf, but you had. Now you were getting down, looking at what had fallen.

His heart was suddenly beating so hard it felt like it might rip out of his chest. Too late, he threw himself out of bed, snatching his pajama pants off the floor as he rushed over, one leg in, and one out of the cold flannel.

“What is this?” you questioned, rapidly turning the pages in your hands. “Five?” you said again, waving the notes you’d just found wedged behind the other books.

“It’s my journal,” Five said, still pulling up his pants as the worried line between his brows grew deeper.

“I know it is, but it’s not that one,” you said, pointing to the other on the table beside the bed. “This one is…It looks like you figured it out…. The key to the subway map is all filled in.” 

You quickly turned to the pages that Five already knew were there, the colorful triangles and circles and squares and numbers that had made no sense were all noted with his handwriting, explaining what they meant and how to navigate them. Trying to make help sense of it, you’d looked at it so many times, but like him, you’d gotten nowhere.

Five reached for the book, and as if you’d lost all your strength, the journal fell into his hands. Your voice tremored. “Where did this come from?”

“I found it under the edge of the subway platform, next to the tracks.”

“When?”

“Months ago,” Five flatly replied, his voice coming out steady, even if he wasn’t.

Your eyes glossed over. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

As he looked into your hurt filled eyes, he felt like he was dying as he said, “You know why.”

“Five,” we can’t stay here pretending there isn’t something we can do,” you said, saying exactly what he knew you’d say.

“What can I do!” Five all but screamed, making you jump back, and that only made him look even more upset.

Ashamed that he’d just done that, his entire body shaking, Five’s hands came up, covering his face, the journal falling to the floor as he started to ramble, “I can’t lose you! I can't help them! I-” 

He breathed your name, much quieter before starting again. 

“If we go, there’s no telling what we’ll find back there. My family and I didn’t know what to do before I left, and I don’t know what to do now. Having you with me is the last thing I want if I go back to that place. Don’t you get it!” he cried, losing it again. “That timeline is just another like this one that will be destroyed, only this time, nobody is going to survive!”

“So this is it?” you quietly asked.

Five looked up and only then did he see the tears rolling down your cheeks. 

“Isn’t this enough?” he asked, his voice cracking.

You came closer. “Five, you will always be enough for me, but-”

When you didn’t finish the ‘but’ and instead chose to wrap your arms around him, Five sucked in a panicked breath, his entire body shuttering. 

Feeling worse, but slowly getting a handle on himself and what this meant, eventually Five forced himself away from the safety of your embrace. His voice lacked any signs of weakness from his melt down when he looked at you and said, “We are going back.”

X- X-factor, as in an exceptional quality or talent that sets someone or something apart. Not so much what the gang is displaying here.

Escorting you along the snow-covered sidewalk leading up to Diego and Lila’s house, trying to be optimistic, Five said, “Maybe they figured it out after all. Everything looks normal.”

Opening the door, Diego’s eyes widened as they moved from you to his brother. “What do you know? Five finally decided to join us and he’s not alone!” he called out just as Klaus came to join him in the entryway, shoving a handful of trail mix in his mouth.

“And who’s this,” he questioned, wiggling an eyebrow at you.

Five was still trying to introduce you when Lila came over interrupting. “Awwww,” she said, scowling at Five. “It looks like hell really did freeze over because you brought a real live, non-plastic date. You’ve clearly been busy, though not surprisingly busy doing nothing to help us figure this stuff out with Ben.”

“We don’t know where Viktor is, or Benny and his Jenny,” Klaus chimed in, “but that doesn’t mean this Cleanse stuff is happening. Dad lies all the time.” Looking puzzled, he looked down at the floor. “Actually, I don’t know what’s going on. Allison and Claire Bear just dug me up from a pet cemetery. I’m still feeling a little shaky about all that and for other reasons too, so I haven’t really been much help either.” 

He glanced at Claire, and she smiled. “It’s okay Uncle Klaus. One step at a time We’ve got your back.”

Coming your way, dressed in a track suit that way too small for him, Luther said, “Hi, I am Luther. Not sure if Five told you about me.”

“Five, told me all about you. It’s so nice to finally meet all of you,” you said, smiling at Luther, then Five, who was already looking like his head might explode.

Luther turned his goofy grin at Five, giving him a not at all discrete thumbs up as he whispered, but not quite enough that everyone else didn’t hear it. “Nice job!” Suddenly looking confused, he added, “Are you together, like together-together? Not that it matters, it’s just Lila is right. You don’t date, and we’ve never seen you with anyone other than Dolor-”

“Woopsie,” Allison said, walking past, smacking Luther on the back of the head.

Letting out the breath he’d been holding, Five angrily spat, “She already knows about me and Dolores! And not that any of you give a shit about my life, but yes, we are together! I am madly in love with her and for some reason, she loves me back!”

“Ohhhh. I love this… When did all this happen?” Klaus excitedly asked, totally engrossed in the drama unfolding as he sat down on the couch with his bowl of trail mix on his lap.

“Recently.” Five heatedly replied. “And that wasn’t all I was doing, Lila!”

Five raised his voice as he glared at his sister-in-law but that only made her challenging smile even brighter.

“I have been gone for almost eight years,” Five raged at her. “I tried to use my powers to go back in time to save Ben but instead got myself trapped in the apocalypse again where I topped off that series of epic mistakes by getting shot by another me. I would have died if not for her being trapped in one of the apocalypses I ended up in, and believe it or not, that one was on me too! So go ahead, start lying into me about how this is all my fault! Sloane! Your discontent in marriages and your fucked up lives! The Cleanse! Everything! Let me have it. I have heard it all before!”

“I told you that you needed my help,” Lila irritatedly huffed, as she pulled a sticky chunk of red licorice off the front of her shirt.

As Five moved his bitter gaze to Luther, the big guy frowned. “I never meant to blame Sloane on you,” he said very sheepishly. He looked at the others for help but wasn’t getting any. “I am sorry… I was so… And I didn’t mean to-”

“Wait. Hold up…” Claire interjected from the sidelines where she’d been quietly watching the showdown. “You tried to save us, all by yourself?” She looked from her angry Uncle to her mom, clearly confused. 

Allison smiled at her daughter. “Believe it or not, you Uncle Five is the most selfless jerk you’ll ever meet, and he’s right. We have been pretty awful about things since he’s been back, and that’s because like him, we are jerks whose lives are a mess, but that is not his fault.” Turning to Five, she said, “We love you, Five, and I couldn’t be happier that you finally found someone, even if it was in a place you never should have been to begin with. Funny how that shit works. I can tell you all about it and Ray would too if he were still around, but…he’s NOT.” 

She raised her drink, pounding all of it as she flopped down on the couch next to Luther.

“I am sorry, buddy. I didn’t even know you were gone. We love you; you know that right?” Klaus said, coming in for a hug. 

Just then, totally taken off guard because he was looking at you grinning at him with that, I told you so look he knew was because you’d told him time and time again that his family love him, Five was ambushed by his ghost whispering brother’s smothering affections, double cheek kisses and all.

“I am so glad your apocalyptic badass woman saved you, little guy,” Klaus gushed as you started to giggle over what Klaus had just called you, and at Five trying to get away from Klaus’s impressively strong clutches.

Ducking out of his grip, just then, Grace came running in. “Uncle Five! You have to see what Mr. Pennycrumb can do! He can blink just like you.”

“Hey, kid,” Five breathed, coming down to her level to watch as she excitedly flew her electronic dog around extra fast, hiding him behind the Christmas tree before popping him back out again.

As soon as his daughter was done showing off, looking serious, Diego pulled Five to the side. Just as fast, you were surrounded by the rest of his siblings, having gotten pulled down between Luther and Allsion on the couch, with Klaus on the floor at your feet, all of them firing questions at you about your time with their brother.

Scrunching his lips in a way that made his dad mustache look extra dorky, Diego said, “That sounded bad, minus the badass chick saving you part. You okay?”

“Perfect,” Five shot back, trying to smooth the rumbles out of his suit. Giving up, he muttered a few curses, then hearing something about if you were married or not, he looked over at you, tensely flattening his lips as the muscles in his jaw tensed. 

He was about to angrily spout off on all of them again, but looking flushed by amused, you shook your head, warning him not to do it. 

About to lose his mind and not sure what to say about the marriage thing anyway, Five’s mouth snapped shut.

“Oh, my God!” Lila cackled. “I think I love her already,” she laughed, nudging Five in the shoulder before coming over to you, asking, “Do you have superpowers too, because the way you shut down that little ankle biter without saying a word was bloody brilliant. You have to teach me that trick!”

“Ahhh. No powers here,” you laughed. “I think Five and I just have a good understanding of each other.” You looked at Five, widening your eyes comically at him because you could totally see why he maintained that his family were a hard pill to swallow.

“So... I did the CIA thing,” Diego said, moving right along.

“And how did that go?” Five breathed, overwhelmed, but trying to dial it back for the kid’s sake and yours.

“It didn’t. Turns out, it’s not for me. Lila and I had a talk, and we are doing better. My life with them means everything, I just needed a reminder. Thanks for giving it to me,” he said, looking down at his oldest, who was sitting on the floor in front of the TV. Slapping Five on the back a second later, he asked, “So, are you still the oldest virgin alive, or did you guys S-K-R-E-W?” 

“That is not how you spell screw, dad,” Grace corrected as Diego pulled a condom package out of his wallet, then pulled open Five’s back pant pocket, stuffing it in.

“Just in case you need it, man,” he clarified as if Five didn’t get it. “Kids are great, but not sure you're ready for all that complicated stuff yet with you being a scrawny teenager still.”

“I am not a teenager!” Five raged, “I’m 26 for the 2nd fucking time, so that makes me 71! I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, or you not getting that, but I am! And that means for a room full of people given powers not typically seen in any other humans, all any of us can claim is that we’ve excelled at being extraordinarily stupid! There is nothing exceptional about any of us! The world could still be ending in a few hours and Luther is over there shoving whole popcorn balls in his mouth!”

“Thaaairr-rrealleeegoo,” he mumbly defended

Unfazed by her dad being stupid or her favorite Uncle flipping out on everyone, Grace pointed at the TV screen, asking, “Is that Uncle Viktor hanging out with all those weirdos surrounding the mall?”

~~~

Hours later, blinking out of the way of the gigantic blob monster Ben-Jen thing, portal violently crackling, Five reappeared in the subway station, his back slamming back down on the cement as you landed on top of him, knocking the air out of him.

Heart racing as he choked on the air fighting to get back inside his lungs, with his useless gun still in his free hand, Five rolled over, pulling you up.

“I’m sorry,” you needlessly apologized, hardly able to walk as you clung to him. 

Your head was spinning from the jump, and from getting thrown out over the second-floor mezzanine by Luther just before an arm like appendage of the Ben-Jen Cleanse blob latched on to Five, who had just wrapped his arm around you to blink you out of there.

Not stopping, Five helped you inside the waiting train, the doors closing as he sat you down, and then he joined you, staring at the ground as he gently ran his hand up and down your back.

“I am not abandoning them,” he said, almost a whole minute later, finally looking up. 

“I know.” Feeling less green, you moved closer, lowering your head to his shoulder. 

“I can’t save them in any other way but by leaving. I need to buy us some time,” he explained even though he didn’t need to, you were there. You saw it all.

Viktor tried to pull the marigold from Ben, but it was too late. They all had fought back, but they were losing badly. Like Five had told you in the first days he was with you, they were never meant to win.

His head dropped back against the side of the train as it swayed, aimlessly moving through the tunnels.

Five couldn’t even begin to pay attention to the stops as they came and went, another gloomy station of nothingness, and then another, and then another. 

With no clue what to do, he sat in silence with your hand in his.

At some point, your mental exhaustion got the best of you. Slumping against him, you drifted off to the feel of his shallow breaths against your temple.

Y-You

“Five, what is this place?” you asked as your sleep filled eyes followed his towards the glowing sign that said, “Max’s Delicatessen.”

“I have no idea,” he breathed, cautiously stepping out of the train. 

At the unexpected sound of someone saying your name, Five pivoted, protectively throwing you behind him.

The dark-haired young man you hadn’t noticed was sitting on one of the benches near the tracks laughed, then he said, “Don’t worry. I mean neither of you harm, and to answer your question since he can’t. This is the place all of us end up at some point when our time is up. That’s if we make it this far. Most don’t.” 

Getting up, the suit-wearing stranger who was a mirror image of Five, folded his newspaper under his arm and strode your way, extending his hand. 

“Hello again.” He gave you a charming grin, his eyes mischievously sparkling. “It’s been a long time, but I see that your pretty smile hasn’t changed.”

You hadn’t been smiling, but now you were, and that only made the Five at your side look even more hostile.

Unbothered by that, the other Five turned on the heel of his shiny dress shoe, casually waving you along as he said, “Come inside. We need to have a chat.”

A second later the steel bell hanging above the door rang and at least a dozen more Fives inside the deli looked your way, all of them eyeing you with open interest.

The Five you were following sat down in one of the open booths in the middle, gesturing for you to join him. Still shocked into a silence that was making you all the more nervous, Five moved into the opposite seat, pulling you in next to him on the inside of the booth.

The Five that had greeted you flagged over a waiter version of himself as he rushed by, and he swiftly leaned in, filling the cups in front of everyone.

No sooner was it poured, than next to you, Five picked up his white porcelain cup, tipping the entire contents back in one long slug. 

“It’s been a long time since you’ve had coffee this marvelously shitty, I take it?” The Five across from you chuckled as the still hovering waiter came back around. As he refilled your Five’s cup, his fingers brushed past yours on the handle of your mug.

“Need some sugar or some cream in that, sweetheart?” he asked, as the dimple in his cheek deepened.

Your Five turned his glare at the Waiter Five. “She can get her own cream, so fuck off, and yes…” he hissed at the Greeter, “It’s been a while since I had coffee.” 

Five was looking at the Waiter like he might kill him, so you squeezed his leg from under the table. After that, he took a much more civilized sip of his drink, but the warning in his eyes remained as they darted around the diner, meeting the curious eyes of all the other Fives.

“I am betting the lack of caffeine wasn’t nearly as awful this time around when you had such a lovely companion there with you in the apocalypse. She was with you, I presume…? That’s if your story parallels that of some of these other lost boys in here.”

To that, your exceedingly twitchy Five glanced at a very young looking Five wearing his Umbrella Academy uniform. He was sitting next to the door with Dolores. Staring back at the kid version of him’s baby face, Five’s own features pinched with confusion.

Seeing that they weren’t going to get any juicy details on his relationship with you, the Greeter said, “Okay, cutting to the chase then…?”

“Please,” Five cooly replied.

Obliging, the Greeter said, “Every one of us here tried to fix this mess and couldn’t. Now we are here doing anything we can to help the other Fives who still have skin in the game. Which are the lucky bastards like you. So, how can we help?”

Flipping his hair out of his eyes, Five asked, “Will going back to our first timeline and then jumping back to prevent Ben’s death change any of this?”

“No,” the Greeter Five replied.

“Would stopping the original Reginald from releasing the marigold in the first place be enough to fix this?”

“It would be, but we can’t do that. He didn't release the marigold on Earth. He did it on his home planet and then it got here many years later. We don’t have the ability to jump from one plant to another, and Reginald’s ticket here was one way. Doing that also means we will never be born. So again. No.”

With his foot agitatedly tapping under the table, Five shook his head. “What else is there that we can work with?”

The Greeter laughed. “Us. We are the problem.”

“Explain,” Five shot back.

Tiling his head to the side, the Greeter grinned at you then looked back at your Five and sighed. “The marigold that caused our births was the catalyst, and we were the by-product that never should have been. We set it all in motion by existing. Our births are what caused a ripple effect that split the timelines. They never should have happened, and because of that, we get an endless cycle of nature trying to correct itself.”

Five’s hand tightened around yours. “The apocalypse and the Cleanse.”

The Greeter nodded. “Exactly. Every one of them, and on and on it goes. We are at one million five hundred thousand, eighty-two tries to stop it at this point and we haven’t, but we are still going strong.” 

He laughed at that, his eyes moving to the Five in the corner booth who was tipping back a bottle of whiskey with about half of it running down his chin. 

“Well, most of us are still trying. Drunk Five, not so much,” the Greeter cynically added.

Not happy about that, the Drunk Five, sloshing his bottle all over his table started in. “You are missing shit as usual! There are things bigger in this world than new elements that can spontaneously create superpowered assholes and then later devour them for no good fucking reason other than an arrogant alien asshole named Reginald had zero foresight!” he shouted.

“It was Abigail who created it,” one of the Fives playing cards flatly corrected, while dealing another hand to the Five across from him. 

“Whatever! Still an asshole!” Drunk Five insisted, getting even more worked up. “Real power has nothing to do with what they gave us! It’s in here, only all you self absorbed morons have no idea what it means to feel it!” he declared while trying to point a finger at his heart, but when he almost dropped his bottle, he ended up dumping booze on his crotch instead.

Looking like he was about to cry, the very drunk Five looked over at you. “I- I’m,” 

He said your name, proving the Greeter Five wasn’t the only one who knew your name.

“I tried to save you. I tried to save all of them, but I didn’t see the right way to do it until it was too late,” he sobbed. He set his bottle down, ringing his hand through his hair as he looked down at the table. “I would have done it. I would have sacri-”

A Five wearing an apron stepped out of the kitchen, slapping a hand over his drunk doppelganger’s mouth as he said, “Zip it before you fuck this up royal, nob shine.” 

Looking at you with a gleam in his eye, the kitchen Five bent down, whispering something in his captive’s ear, then having quieted the Drunk Five, that Five came over, placing his elbows on the back of your seat, joining the party, and again you were greeted with a smile and excited green eyes.

Reaching over to playfully twirl a piece of your hair around one of his fingers, the Five from kitchen looked to the Greeter Five then to your Five, saying, “Perhaps while you boys continue this conversation, it would be best if I take the lady in back to show her how I tenderize my meat?”

“Not a fucking chance,” your Five snapped back as you let out a small but very hysterical sounding laugh.

“Actually, that might not be a bad idea,” the Greeter agreed.

“She isn’t going anywhere with any of you!” Five fumed, standing up to get in the face of the kitchen Five that was invading the booth.

Someone in the kitchen who sounded like Five laughed, yelling something about soup and sore his meatballs, and just then, the bell above the door chimed.

A much older, white-haired gentleman with a mustache came in, throwing his hat on the coat rack as he took in the scene. “Jesus fucking Christ, why does it always have to be a freak show in here,” he grumbled.

The very young Five at the booth with Dolores tipped his margarita at him in agreement as your Five opened his mouth, starting to flip out again, but right then, the Waiter Five appeared from the kitchen, plate in hand, swinging by your table to drop a thick sandwich stacked with pastrami in front of the Greeter. “Here you go, extra sauerkraut, as you requested.” 

The Waiter looked over at you, his wicked grin grew. 

“Why do you always have to fuck shit up, Briket Five?” the Greeter snapped at the Five still playing with your hair. “Nobody wants to eat this shit covered in fermented slop but you!” 

“Shut up and just eat it,” he replied while giving you a naughty looking wink.

“Brisket Five?” you asked.

The Five in question nodded. “Yes, but you can call me whatever you want, love.” 

He got up and walked towards the kitchen, after your Five swatted his hand away, but getting him off of you made Five look no less pissed by the exchange. “We need to get you out of here,” he said as he started to slip out of the booth, but coming past your table, the old mustached Five nearly plowed down the Waiter, who then rammed into your Five blocking his path.

As he looked at the commotion going on at your table and all the Five’s sizing each other up, the older Five gruffly said, “Not sure what these morons have been telling you, but I am so sick of their shit that I am about ready to shove that mop up someone’s ass. Nobody is going to enjoy that other than Janitor Five, so I’ll give you some straightforward advice that might help us all out of this mess instead. Don’t try to save the world this time.”

The Five with the mop laughed. “True on both accounts! I’m down with an anal mop fucking as long as you go gentle on me, and when it comes to fucked up shit I haven’t tried, not saving our asses is the only thing I haven’t done, so I say yes to that too,” he shouted, then went back to moping the mess under Drunk Five’s table.

Mentally on overload, next to you, in his head, ignoring what the weird mop fucking stuff was all about with the Janitor Five, your Five repeated the words that had been haunting him since the first time he’d heard them coming from another much older permutation of himself who was dying in a paradox proof bunker.

Don’t try to save the world…

As if that wasn’t enough to shake him, still reeling with deja vu, the Drunk Five called over, “We need to destroy the marigold!”

“Please shut him up before he really scares her even more than h already has!” Greeter Five shouted.

With all the other Five’s too busy glaring at each other, the Drunk Five went on even louder, this time declaring his love for you, and because of it, you looked even more rattled by the chaos of all the versions of Five scattered around you, mostly all of them losing their shit or making lovey dovey eyes at you.

Coming out of the kitchen with a frying pan in hand, Brisket Five said, “Holy shit, someone should have thrown him outside hours ago.” A second later, he pulled back to swing, and a second after that, DONG! Drunk Five was lying face down, drooling on his placemat.

“To that, we agree,” the Greeter said, looking at you worriedly.

As if Brisket Five hadn’t just potentially concussed or killed the inebriated version of himself, the Waiter Five shimmied back into the mob around your table, refilling all the coffee cups, acting like all this was all totally normal.

Next to you, Five looked like he was about to blow a gasket. Unable to get out of the booth, he was about to vault the back of your seat and start stabbing out the eyeballs of the other Fives with his sugar spoon.

Coming over, Brisket Five said, “As you’ve noticed some of these lesser evolved douche bags in here aren’t that well-mannered, and Old Five is not much of a socialite, but he’s not wrong, and neither is Drunk Five over there. They are onto something, but our gracious Greeter here, and some of the others like to think there still has to be another way that doesn’t involve our way of thinking.”

“It makes sense that statistically, there is!” the Greeter Five growled, to the dickish brush off wave of the frying pan that Brisket Five just gave him.

After threatening the Greeter, Brisket Five, looking at you in a way that made you feel all sorts of warm, he said, “Did you know that there is a quantum entanglement thing going on between us?”  

“There is nothing going on between you two,” your Five snarled.

“Sure, there is,” he reaffirmed, giving the Greeter a pointed look that made your Five and the Greeter suddenly look much less sure of themselves. 

Coming too, looking even more upset now that he just got his head bashed in, looking at you, Drunk Five started rambling. “We have something that binds people through time in ways that no one will ever understand. It’s why we ran into each other in the first place, and it was why you were there to save me, and I was there to save you! It’s an inevitability… It’s as simple as that! We just need to believe in that this time and maybe-”

“It’s wishful thinking and we need more than that,” the Greeter interrupted.

Looking very annoyed, Brisket Five said, “There are some of us that like to pretend it’s horse shit based on fairy tales and lovesick delusional nonsense, but the concept of a love-based entanglement is very real.” He looked at you again. “No matter how far or how we get pulled apart in the mess of time, we will always remain connected. It’s like that with a love as strong as ours.”

“You don’t know her and you don’t love her! I do!!” your Five snapped

Brisket Five looked at the Greeter, both of them smiling knowingly, no longer looking like they might kill each other.

“Five, what is he talking about?” you asked.

“I don’t know,” he shot back, clearly so upset that he didn’t know what to say anymore.

“Sure, you do,” Brisket Five confidently replied. "Let me ask you this…have you ever felt things you can’t explain?”

Five nodded, yes.

Brisket Five reached across the table, placing his hand over yours as he smugly smiled at your Five while asking, “Have you felt it with her?” 

Heat flooded your face.

Your Five said nothing, but he didn’t need to, the other him’s smile turned into a full-on smirk. “Has she told you that she feels it too?”

Five glanced at you, and the other Five’s all trying their best to charm you with their bullshit smiles that made him want to punch himself.

“Ahhhh-haaa,” Brisket Five laughed. “I suppose she might not have told you she has felt that invisible tether that pulls at her heart when you're there and even when you’re not, but Drunk Five’s stories can’t all be bullshit, and I can attest to it because I feel it right now. Something tells me that she’s the special one here, not us, and it has nothing to do with marigold.”

Pulling his lips to the side, looking upset, Greeter Five said your name, pulling your attention his way again. “Hey, why don’t we let them talk about all this crap alone? I am sick of the fighting, and I bet you are hungry for something that is actually edible.” 

Getting up, he offered you a hand. When you got nothing from your Five other than silence, the warmth of the Greeter’s fingers curled around yours, sliding you out of the booth to join him. 

Directing you towards the display case filled with pies, Greeter Five said, “It really is a lucky day. There’s one more piece of strawberry fluff with your name on it.”

Behind you, Brisket Five leaned into your Five’s ear, talking extra quietly. “Look, you’re the first to ever come in together, and I think that means it’s time to end this the only way we can. Our family doesn’t have to make it to the end to get what you want, just the people we love do. We are linked to them, and them to us by something none of us can explain but it is real. Maybe that matters, and maybe it won’t, but at least they will live, and this will stop,” he said, eyeing you as the other Five’s intentionally dominated your attention so you didn’t hear that part. 

Your Five’s eyes widened as he realized what the other him meant.

“All your numbers and asshole logic aren’t getting you anywhere but here again, buddy. You need to let go,” Brisket Five added, trying to smile again but the sadness in his eyes and the pain he felt about it was impossible to hide.

Getting up, he left your Five alone at the booth.

“Just do as that old dipshit said to do this time,” the Five with Dolores yelled out, loudly slurping his margarita to the bottom of the glass.

“Why don’t you give me Dolores and you got stick your dick the pickle jar again and fuck it,” a particularly grumbly looking Five interjected before going back to scowling at his crossword puzzle.

“Five, what do they mean, don’t try to save the world this time?” you said, breaking away from Greeter Five as you came rushing back.

Just then, Drunk Five started in again, this time getting up from his booth, heading your way, cutting you off. “Don’t worry. We can help. We will come with you this time. Then-” 

He almost fell, his hand swinging out to catch him on the divider between booths.

Dizzily looking at all the others, then you again, he said, “We will keep the Cleanse busy, distracting it, and we will get Ben and Jennifer out of it.” He looked at your Five, a silent understanding happening between him as he lied. “You get everyone back to the academy. Viktor will have time to pull this shit out of you, dump it, and then you get the hell out of there. If you win, we all do.”

Reaching down, instead of vomiting, which he looked like he might do, Drunk Five pulled up two heavy double barrel shotguns that you had no idea were sitting next to the mostly quiet CrossWord Five who was now also suddenly getting up, pulling two guns from his shoulder straps.

“I’m in,” the Waiter Five said, dropping his coffee carafe in favor of the potato peeler he just pulled out of the bin full of dirty dishes sitting on the next table.

Greeter Five walked over to the fire box, smashing open the case, pulling out the ax. “Fine, Let’s fuck that blob up,” he said while giving you an extra cute grin that left you even more speechless over how quickly they’d all came together.

Almost all the Fives were suddenly packing, Brisket Five included, grinning at you from over by the check-in desk as he twirled a large butcher knife around, pointing it at his head, trying to get you to laugh over how crazy they all were.

Drunk Five swooped in, wobblily kneeling at your feet, his puppy dog eyes imploring you to believe him. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.” Feeling drawn to him, as you shakily wiped a tear from his cheek, he said, “I won’t let you down this time.” Letting your fingers gently run across his temple, Drunk Five’s eyes fluttered closed, his long lashes fanning his cheeks. “I still feel it,” he whispered as that spark of something lit up inside you, his eyes opening to meet yours, his focus entirely on you, unwavering as he was in his heart. “We’ve got this, sweetheart, we always did. Just hold on to me, okay? In here. Don’t forget how much I love you and we will always be together.”

He reached up, placing his hand over yours so he could pull it over his heart.

As your Five slowly, almost hypnotically moved in, looking down at the other him with a heartsick look in his eyes, Drunk Five handed the much older, very resolute looking Five who’d also came over his other shotgun. 

“Enough fucking around! Time to end this, boys!” the white-haired patriarch said. 

~~~

“See you on the other side,” Brisket Five said, while giving you both a look that was nothing like his haughty expressions he’d been maintaining for most of the conversation inside the deli. To you, his small smile seemed to be saying something by saying nothing at all, then he ducked into the other train car that the other Five’s had chosen to ride in.

Stepping in the doors you had come out of when you got there, you watched them a car over from yours, all the different versions of the man you loved as they found their places to either sit or stand, none of them saying a word. 

They looked like they meant business, like the violent ax swinging, hell bent on retribution kind of business, and it was a stark contrast to how out of control they’d been acting inside the deli.

“I promise, we can do this,” Five said, his eyes not leaving yours even though he was aware he had an audience in the next train over.

His heart was beating so hard. He felt like he could jump out of his skin but there was no way he was going to tell you that.

He knew all of the Fives felt it. It was in the air all around them, permeating every fiber of their being. It was the accumulation of all of it. The weight of their endless devotion to the people they loved, the pain of enduring so much for so long, and it was the bitter taste of so much loss and the loss that had yet to come.

You let your fingers trail down the gully between Five’s ab muscles until they touched his waist. “Five, I am so scared.”

He wasn’t anymore.

He looked over at the other car, then back at you, shaking his head. “We have about five minutes, give or take. What should we do with it?”

You said nothing, and tears started to run down your cheeks.

Five kissed you.

His eyes met yours right as you grabbed at his leather belt, pulling his hips against you.

“I need you,” he said, his voice breaking.

The smallest noise escaped his mouth as you snaked your body against his. The warmth of your body flooded his senses, tingling from his toes all the way back to his groin.

The rapid rise and fall of your chest matched his as you kissed him with equal desperation, shaking him to the core.

With a suppressed moan, Five took you by the shoulders, pushing you down on the seat. Coming down to his knees in front of you, making is where some of the others couldn’t see you, he settled his body between your legs. 

He pushed your knees apart even more, then locked his mouth on yours again, his tongue thrusting inside urgently.

Clutching his shirt, you slid closer to him, until your hips met his.

Reaching for his pocket, Five closed his eyes and swallowed.

He pulled out the condom Diego gave him. Realizing what he was about to do, you snatched it and chucked it over his head, then immediately started unlatching his belt, sliding his zipper down to gather him in your palm.

“There is nothing that can ever come between us,” you said, nearly repeating what all the other Five’s had been saying but saying it meaning so much more than that. 

Five’s body involuntarily fell forward as you stroked him.

“I love you,” he breathed. It came out unsteady, a streak of hot liquid slipping from his eye no matter how much he willed it not to.

You fisted the back of his pants, drawing him closer, the deed earning you a low mewl emanating from deep within his throat.

You kissed him and brought your legs up around his waist.

His pants, already undone, slipped down his thighs, catching in a bunch of material above his knees as his cock bobbed between your bodies, fully erect.

Five moved his forehead against yours. He lifted the bottom of your dress up as you swept a finger over his leaking slit, spreading the liquid gathering down his shaft.

He hissed with pleasure.

Unable to stop himself even though he saw Brisket Five peeking over his shoulder for a second, Five took his cock in hand, and getting ready, your hands moved down behind you on the seat to keep you from slipping backwards. You arched your back, letting out a broken whimper the first time Five’s cock slid up against you.

“Holy shit,” Five breathed in on shaky air as he rubbed his tip across your clit a few times, then he positioned his cock lower, his slicked thickness gently pushing and prodding as he worked it over your hole like he’d never allowed himself to do before.

“Fuck,” he cursed, because that was exactly what it felt like as he tried to sink into your warmth but the tightness starting to surround him instantly fought back.

Gripping his length with more determination, his hand trembling, Five pushed harder. Sweat breaking out all over his body, he felt the pressure surrounding the sensitive bulb of his swollen flesh as your body started to let him inside. He felt your body clenching repeatedly around him as it adjusted and even that was almost enough to do him in.

“Tell me if I’m hurting you,” he anxiously breathed.

Biting your lip as you tried to relax, looking up at him staring back through the dark strands of hair dangling over his eyes, you nodded, encouraging him along with one of your hands winding around his neck and your other sliding around his hip, gently but firmly pushing him to take more.

Five’s lower lip quivered as he did, his hand gripping his base moved out of the way as he opened you, moving so cautiously, as he forced your body to take him.

You sucked in a breath as his hips jerked forward just a little, then back again.

“Oh, fuck, that felt- Fuck,” he groaned.

He drove in, kissing you for just a moment before breathlessly breaking away again.

“We stay together until the end,” you frantically said, “You and me. If you go, I go.”

Five knew why you were saying this. He knew your heart was breaking, just like his. They were all trying to hide the truth, but you saw right through him. 

You always did.

There was only a fraction of space between your faces. With your breathy words on his lips, Five whispered back, “You and me, always, love.”

He slipped out and then back in, bottoming out in one swift motion.

You gasped and he pulled back, then completely stilled until you quickly moved your hands down his back, pulling at his waistcoat so he was forced to dig himself inside you again.

“Don’t stop,” you begged.

One more small thrust in and out and again he buried himself full deep, jolting your body as his fingers dug into your ass, locking you to him as much as he could.

Like he needed air to breathe, Five needed to be a part of you in every way he could in the minutes he had left. Audience of horny Fives be damned. Your heart and your soul was his.

He had to bury his face in your neck to stem the flow of his breathy curses over what his body was feeling as it took yours, claiming it completely.

“You feel amazing,” he puffed against your skin. It took him a few seconds to regain himself, but when he did, you brought your hand up to his hair, slowly carding it through your fingers as you drew his lip to yours. Your kiss was soft and soothing. After a moment, his body reactively started moving again, and your kiss deepened, letting him know he should keep going.

Five pulled his hips back, withdrawing halfway before pushing back into your perfect warmth as slowly as he could manage. But as you started to lift your hips to meet his, his pace got faster, and more confident, and again it felt so fucking good that he had to pull back from your lips to breathe. He went for the skin at your neck instead, tasting it, licking you as he nipped and sucked and wildly drove himself into you with his hips rocking and his thighs thrusting forward, the tips of his dress shoes digging into the floor as he wildly plowed you.

Fighting the urge to let himself come, Five growled, “Fuck this world, and fuck all of them, you are mine!”

The cheers of the other Five’s hearing that, all of them unable not to notice the show he was putting on, only made your Five get louder, increasing the madness of it all.

“You are mine!” he said again, getting angrier, but also not, because his diabolically cute grin said something else entirely.

“Five!” you cried out as he fucked into you harder and harder, shaking your brains loose.

Out of his mind, but somehow still in control enough to bite back the pressure building, Five suddenly started to move in slow, deep thrusts that were sweet and intense, and at first, very calculated. That abrupt change got you moaning like he was slowly killing you, your fingers clawing at his ass as he undulated his cock in and out, deliberately dragging his tip back and forth where it made you cry out his name the loudest.

Despite Five’s valiant efforts to control himself and prolong the thing you’d both been denied for so long, he could no longer hold back when your heels dug into his back.

When he dipped forward, laying over you as much as he could while fucking you on edge of the bench, you kissed the hollow of his throat, your hot tongue slick against his skin.

Just like he finally knew what he needed to do, Five knew that no matter what, he would always have this, even if you didn’t remember it. 

A weight lifting that he’d been crushed by for so long, wrapping his arms around your waist, Five lifted you forward with animal-like passion, bucking into you.

Like free falling, the heat of your release caressed his length as he continued to swiftly move in and out. You were lost, eyes closed, your mouth wide against his shoulder, silently crying out as your walls trembled around him, the feeling of ecstasy not letting up because he wasn’t.

Not until his rhythm began to break and Five could no longer hold back the rising tide did he tell you to look at him.

He locked eyes with you, his hips shunting forward in a stutter of broken motion he could no longer control. “You are the best part of me,” he panted as he started spilling deep inside you.

The whisper of his name on your lips served to move his hips once more, then as you cried his name, another spasm came to close his eyes as his body weakened and his face dropped to the side of your neck.

For almost a minute, Five stayed in that spot, waiting for his heart to slow. But all too quickly he had to withdraw.

As you were both righting your clothes, one of the Fives banged on the glass between the cars. “Button it up! Time to go!”

The train was slowing.

Placing your hand on his cheek as you fought back the start of more tears, you gave Five that beautiful smile that would forever touch his soul. 

~~~

Before setting out of the train, Brisket Five put a hand on Drunk Five’s back as he said, “It’s been an honor watching you slowly trying to drown yourself.”

Pulling his eyes from the floor, Drunk Five looked at the other him who was holding the butcher knife and smiled. “It’s been awful eating that shit you call food.”

Swinging his ax to his shoulder, Greeter Five kicked the Five with Dolores on his lap in the ankle. “You watched the whole thing, didn’t you? Just look at your pants,” he said pointing to his crotch and the boner that he was trying to use their beloved mannequin to hide.

“What,” he questioned innocently while turning Dolores towards him, looking for support. “Can’t blame a guy for being curious… If you fuckers wouldn’t have gotten jealous and started beating off like a bunch of pervs over it, Dolores was game to join in the fun. Weren’t you, honey?”

Smirking as he pushed his back off the side of the train, one of the Card playing Fives let out a little laugh. “He’s got a point.”

“I am not going to miss you fuckers,” Old Five said, smirking at he rolled his eyes.

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

Big Damnit here guys...

Okay so readers, I am so sorry, but Tumblr cut me off here and won't let me post more, and all we have left is Z!!!! It's so frustrating because it almost all fit on here. The end is worth it I promise, so please read it, it's not that long. I am not doing a separate post on here to end it because those get lost in the ether. So, please forgive me and head over to A03 to this link (Chapter 26, Z-Zion) to go directly to the final part of this story.

Long live the Umbrella Academy and its awesome fans. ❤️

Share your thoughts if you like but just know one way or another, thank you for reading this. It means so much to me.

Link to my MasterList

Link to all my Tumblr story and art Posts

Link to visit me on A03

[nostalgicmiscellaneous]

This is long, but i need to get this out of my chest:

I have made so many post defending Penelope when people talked about her issues, her traumas but right now i feel like defending Colin.

As a woman, sometimes i naturally tend to feel defensive and shield the girl but i need to be fair here. Colin's feelings and trust were deeply hurt, Colin is insecure, soft, thoughtful, introspective, sensitive and suffers with a inferiority complex, and he struggles to know his place in society and among the people he loves, on what he should do and the expectations of society from a 22 years old man.

What many don't seem to realize is that Colin, even before knowing Penelope is LW, was very insecure about what she loves in him ( and even if she did in fact love him, because she was about to marry someone else), about being worth of her, he says he wants to do something, to publish his diaries because he wants her to be proud of him…he already didn't think he was good enough for and to her. Colin is insecure about not being good enough in every aspect of his life, tbh. His lack of purpose, faith in himself and on others loving him from whom he is runs deep. His moment of vulnerability telling how much Penelope not answering to his letters affected him, his family too was very revealing. Him screaming at Pen with tears in his eyes that he felt foolish that she read his diaries and praised him as something special. This is something i've noticed even in other seasons too. The family not caring much about his need to connect and his somewhat strained relationship with Anthony, who wasn't really a good male figure to him. It's about male ego? A bit, but it's deeper than that in the series.

Another issue is, he put Pen in a pedestal too ( much like Pen did until 2x8), to be honest, and that is never a good thing, because people are not perfect. And he needed to learn all that. There is disappointment there. But, again, it goes further. It’s him not knowing her as he thinks he should. It’s him perceiving her humanity but reflecting on his own. We have to remember he's so happy because Pen chose him, because he thinks now he's someone's priority and he's someone's focus. He has the immature idea that you should be everything in every way to the person you love, and if you can't be their protector and the hero in their eyes, why should anyone love you?

Then he finds out…and his worldview crumbles. Not only Penelope broke his trust and hurt him deeply - and she never told him and never would have - and it wasn't just himself but his family too, but she shattered his belief he knew and connected with her better than almost anyone else, she shattered his barely there newly found confidence and sense of purpose, what he thought was his sense of self now. All modern sensibilities tend to be ruffled about this, but i think it's a fitting conflict that he would have issues with her being so self-sufficient, so successful while he believes himself to be less, way less than her, so to Colin she doesn't need him, and if she doesn't need him, why would she love him? Why should she love him?

Again, there is the side of him conflicted about knowing her. The pedestal was broken, because she lied to him. She is this powerful, talented, successful woman on her own, not just the pretty shy girl with sweetness and great witty personality that he loves, the one that thinks the world of him. She talked about him, she criticized him and while it rings true deep down, it rings devastation, because she could see beyond his farce and it makes him look and feel pathetic.

So he's struggling with two things: on how to love her, all of her, and how to feel good enough for her, love himself. He's trying to accept her new wonderful aspects and her hurtful flaws because he never stopped loving her, in no moment we see anything but love when that man looks at her, when that man is crying because of her and his deep sadness and longing, his anger is laced with so much love for her. He's angry at her but mostly at himself and he needs to figure it out a way to feel like he deserves to be loved by her. It fuels his issues and he also over compensates.

His hang ups with LW becomes his tangible target. Not only he sees as a dangerous thing to her, it puts her at risk, and with that in mind he can put himself in a role of her protector again, but he fixates on the idea that without Whistledown she's the Pen that he can believe is able to love him even if he's not good enough. Without Whistledown she's not so much above him and not so far from him, because Whistledown is her critical eye, it's Penelope appraising people very analytically and if she looks closely, he doesn't think she will see much in him, as she proved before with he S3 ep1 comment. He wants to get rid of it.

Sure, he's jealous too, he envies her success but exactly because he resents how much that makes him less worthy. It's also another thing that he thinks she's putting above him. He couldn't see clearly that it wasn't something outside herself (and he gets it after), but part of who she is, and all of those parts loves him. It's foolish and it's nonsensical because he doesn't understand that she has seen his flaws but she loves him anyway. He needed reassurance just as much as Pen needed. He needed her to keep on telling she loved him and why, because it heals him.

Some people were upset he didn't make love to her that day he went to get a blanket, but i get it. He wants it, he wants her so badly, you can see it. Colin has problems communicating and doing what he wants because he feels pathetic, jealous and that makes him feel worse, makes him feel shame. It’s him, not her that was the issue at that point. His connection with her runs deeper, it's respecting her and himself, with all the conflicted feelings why he didn’t.

It’s a slow process and i’m bloody glad it took its time to be resolved. But he starts understanding that his way wont help them, it wont bring them closer. He wont solve things by controlling and being the hero. He can’t change the past, he can’t change who they are. He wont solve anything by repressing his love.

Pen words help him figuring out a lot, her spoken words directed to him and her written words that he reads again. She needs him. She tells him she needs him and his love, not grand actions. He can show love and be worthy by supporting her. He starts to understand and ACCEPT that Whistledown is Pen, and loving Pen will include that part of her personality. He grasps that it was always there and it never made a difference in how much she loved being around him and him her, how much attention she dedicated to him, how much her words, in her letters, were full of admiration for him, to her love to him, how much she is his special person. She needs him just as much he needs her, she needs his love, his charm, his intelligence, his humor, his integrity, she needs him because without him she doesn’t feel complete, she doesn’t feel happy. He’s a good man, a fine man that makes her happy, always have. And he realizes she inspires him, she always had, and that isn't a problem, that having her helping him is not a problem, because he helps her too in many ways. It’s only when he can accept himself as equal and entitled to her love as she is to his that they could truly be together and happy.

Colin had the right to feel hurt, had the right to have his insecurities, had the right to need time and had the right to need space, had the right to lash out, had the right to come to term with the changes and surprises life threw at him, specially as a sensitive person that he very much is, and i'm glad the show didn't rush that.

[spxllcxstxr]

Being a Maia Witch and in the Fellowship • Headcanon

(Gif not mine)

Request: Hi, if you're taking requests, can I get headcanons for the Fellowship? The reader is a Maia witch and is sort of a colleague of Gandalf's but he's also a bit of a mentor. Just interested to see how you think everyone would interact with the reader :) thank you so much and I hope you stay safe, happy, and healthy — anon

Warnings: reader is one of the blue wizards, mostly gender neutral though you are called a witch, mix of book and movie canon

A.N: Thank you so much for your kind words! I hope you enjoy these hcs, I really enjoy writing about the fellowship!

•

Since stepping foot on Middle Earth you had always been a wanderer

Of course you had spent time with the other Maiar; though you had your own specialized magic, Gandalf mentored you a lot

You always felt closer to Radagast the Brown; he cared deeply about nature and the living world that you lived in

You had been known to almost vanish for years at a time, exploring some deep cavern or somewhere high in mountains, it was always on a whim

You were elusive--all the races of Middle Earth had their own names and tall tales about you

But as the Age of the Elves starts to dwindle you start to ease down on the amount of adventures you have

Until your dear old friend Gandalf the Grey shows up on your doorstep out of breath with and almost crazed look in his eyes

A hobbit has the One Ring

So much for not traveling

You join the Fellowship at the Council of Elrond--no one opposes having another magical being in their midst

You try to get to know the other members better, it has been some time since you have interacted with people so your communication skills are a little rusty

Gandalf trusts you, of course, he is thrilled you have agreed to join them

He confides in you about the quest and the situation; things he would not tell the others

You two understand each other in a way no one else in the Fellowship can

The two of you, to fill the time, talk about your own travels and the history of Middle Earth

"You have been gone for too long, (Y/n), Middle Earth has suffered in your absence."

"Oh Gandalf, I needed to see everything before it was too late."

Boromir is a little wary of you, in Gondor they believe your presence is a bad omen since you do not show yourself too frequently near Minas Tirith

He warms up to you while travelling to the Mines of Moria because you and Gandalf exerted so much power trying to save them

"You are not the ill portent my father has talked about, witch. Why did you avoid Minas Tirith for so long?"

Aragorn has probably seen glimpses of you throughout his life and because of his travels he has heard many stories about you

Honestly he's very intrigued and asks many questions about what you have seen

He really trusts you almost immediately, you were welcomed in Rivendell, showing that Elrond trusted you

In Lothlorien Galadriel also holds you in high esteem, she's surprised you're in the Fellowship; not because you do not care about the fate of Middle Earth, but because you never tend to stay in one place long

"You must guide me, (Y/n). With Gandalf lost...I cannot proceed without council..."

Legolas is all over you--endless questions about the world and the time that has passed, but in like a subdued manner

He trusts you, though in recent years your reputation has been tarnished by his father, who is of the thought that you and the other wizards should have helped them fight against the spiders. He believes the Greenwood fell to darkness due to the negligence of the wizards

"Do you believe the Greenwood will be cured after we destroy the Ring, (Y/n)? I have missed my home..."

Gimli goes through the motions of meeting a witch only a handful of people have encountered in your lifetime

He's the one that discovered your sense of humor and loves joking with you

You ask him about recent dwarven culture, dwarves are wary of outsiders so it has been a while since you have seen their tools and creations

"Just you wait, lass, what we have created is unlike anything you have ever seen!"

Merry is genuinely delighted that you joined them

He feels a lot safer with two wizards, even if you’re not that experienced with fighting

Merry trusts your judgement and certainly looks for your approval just like he does with Gandalf

(Also please show him magic he loves Gandalf’s fireworks and he wants to see what else magic can do since Gandalf doesn’t really show anyone that stuff)

“Can you make Boromir’s shield disappear, (Y/n)? Or perhaps make Legolas’ hair a different color?”

Pippin is like Merry on crack

He wants to know every little detail about everything but at the same time he is chewing your ear off

Honestly he’s probably telling you his life story too

He enjoys your company, like Merry he feels a lot more secure in this quest and he also comes to see you as a friend

Wants to see your magic, even if you just create sparks at your fingertips

Probably your number one fan

“Can I see your staff (Y/n)? I promise not to use it to singe Gandalf’s beard!”

Sam is very shy around you and is very protective of Frodo

Sure Gandalf trusts you, but you’ve only ever been a fable in the Shire

He knows nothing about you, what have you been doing this entire time?

He does warm up to you, though, once you prove to him that you are truly there to help them succeed

Learns a lot about herbs from you, whether they be for cooking or medicine

“Tell me about the Elves, (Y/n). You must know so much about them. Rivendell was so beautiful…”

Frodo is highly suspicious of you for quite a while

It is mostly because he is afraid of the Ring and its influence

He doesn’t know you like he knows Gandalf so it takes him a bit to trust you

Bilbo has only told him rumors of you

It isn’t until Gandalf dies that he really starts looking to you for guidance

He takes to you mostly at night when everyone is asleep because he is away from prying eyes

“This quest leads me to my death, doesn’t it witch? I do not know how to even begin to understand that…”

Overall you guys learn to bond and grow together throughout the quest

You have never been so happy to be around people despite the circumstances, and you start to understand why Gandalf has always been so involved with the people of Middle Earth

•

[bioethicists]

beer killed my father . he had a disease which destroyed his body and strained his relationships with his wife, his friends, and his children. Alcohol destroys everything it touches, theres a reason you see so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods. don’t be fucking obtuse. Prohibition obviously doesn’t work, but I wish alcohol was taxed higher. And i want the CEO of Heineken on the guillotine right after Jeff Bezos.

before anything, i want to let you know that i am incredibly sorry about your father. alcohol has decimated entire generations of my family, played a crucial role in the neglectful family structure i spent the first 19 years of my life suffering under, + played a minor but not insignificant role in my brother's death. i would never undermine or dismiss that in anyone.

i used to feel very similarly to you, in large part because my mother is a recovering alcoholic who raised me to believe that alcohol is a magic poison which turns people into monsters + i, being her child, probably inherited a disease which would also turn me into a monster if i chose to drink. it's a deeply painful + understandable response to the pain that alcohol can cause.

my first question is, does alcohol really "destroy everything it touches"? are there not millions of people who engage with alcohol, in varying degrees of recreational use, who experience minimal or no negative impacts? or do you believe that everyone who drinks alcohol in any capacity is experiencing severe destruction in their lives as a result? does the existence of people for whom alcohol enriches their lives (or is a neutral presence) at all invalidate your experience, or your father's?

my second question is, you've identified that there are 'so many liquor stores in poor neighborhoods' (i would add there is a lot of alcohol in rich neighborhoods, just distributed in less stigmatized ways, like boutique wineries + fancy bars), do you think that companies are strategically attempting to create alcohol dependencies among poor people, or do you think that poverty creates the pain, hopelessness, + desperation which can fuel an alcohol habit (which is then exacerbated by intergenerational trauma + community alcohol culture).

i feel no allegiance to liquor companies- they absolutely do make the bulk of their profits off of people who are drinking in a way that is destroying their lives (unsure if i trust the exact scope of the research in that link but i trust the gist). however, liquor companies love the disease model, because it exempts them from responsibility. if alcoholism is truly a genetic disease, then liquor companies, bars, package stores hold no fault in the development of destructive drinking habits + community norms (natasha Schüll discusses this in her book about gambling addiction)- the people were already sick + would be getting it somewhere else, anyway, right? but as you have correctly identified, liquor companies help create the structures which turn alcohol use into an accessible + normalized mode of self-destruction.

my third question is, will taxing liquor help the real problem? yes, it reduces alcohol consumption, but does it reduce addiction? or does it make cheapskates like me say "i'm not fucking paying for that" while individuals who consume alcohol compulsively either eat the cost or turn to more illicit ways of obtaining alcohol. or, rephrased, is the problem that alcohol is too accessible? is alcohol a magical poison which turns 'normal' people into 'alcoholics'? alternatively, is alcoholism a genetic condition, unrelated to any outside circumstances, which is triggered by drinking?

or: is alcoholism one of many ways in which people who are experiencing hopelessness, pain, grief, poverty, trauma, etc use to numb themselves, harm themselves, + make life feel more bearable? at this point, i do believe there is at least a temperament factor which makes people more likely to use substances over other forms of escape (hence why my brother used substances while i turned to anorexia + do not struggle with substance use). are we actually addressing the problem if we make it more expensive (thus, mind you, further impoverishing people with alcohol addictions!)? or are we shifting the pain these people are experiencing to either other avenues (opioids, other drugs, totally different ways of coping which are often just as destructive) or an unregulated, underground alcohol market.

the way you are viewing alcohol, alcohol is a unique substance which is manufacturing or feeding illness in people in order to make them behave in ways which destroy their lives + the lives of others. the way i am viewing it, alcohol is a presence which can fill a void that is being created in people's lives as a response to structural, communal, or social suffering. when alcohol is painted as the cause of this pain, we are able to look the other way from a which world is structured to cause an immense amount of people to suffer needlessly. at the same time, the common sense observation that many of us engage with alcohol in ways which do not destroy our lives, as well as the knowledge that prohibition does not work, prevents the erasure of alcohol from public or private life.

who benefits from the belief that alcohol is a uniquely corrupting substance? what lessons did we actually learn from prohibition- is trying to do it to a lesser degree (make alcohol less accessible) actually going to do anything? when the price of opioids went up due to dea crackdowns, did people stop buying opioids or did the market flood with cheap + deadly fentanyl? is the problem that people are drinking or that they are suffering?

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

The Witness and Why It (and its demise) Means Everything to Me (A POC Perspective)

Hey everyone!! The Final Shape has ruined me and has brought me to levels of not only grief, but hope, that I did not think possible, so I decided to give my thoughts on the different aspects of it that moved me to a place where I can be at peace with many things in my life and look forward to paving a better future!!! I think I’ll be making many posts pertaining to the Final Shape as a way to help me express my thoughts on how important this DLC was to me, but we will see!

Please note that these are just my loose, not fully structured thoughts and I’m yapping. My opinions are subject to change and I’d love to hear the input of others! We will be talking about subjects such as slavery, religion, black experiences, and personal experiences of mine!!! It’s very long too, so I’m sorry about that and any writing errors!!

Though I do not believe what I speak of was fully Bungie’s intentions when making the character, the implications and views you can take on the Witness do relate to what I will discuss.

I wanted to start off my return to tumblr with one of the many, many reasons why I have such a deep attachment to the Witness (Precursors and Dissenters will get a different post bc they mean the world to me too!!) , because truly, this entity owns my whole life. I think of it all the time, it lingers in my thoughts, my art, my writing, all of it. It has been so deeply intertwined with my enjoyment of Destiny since it appeared and has offered so much to my perception of the world. I do not think I will truly get over it and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t draw it every chance I get. It appears in every single thought of mine, it’s bad you guys.

I love the Witness so deeply because I have never harbored such a personal level of DISGUST for a character before. As much as I joke about it being silly and the love of my life, the very existence of the Witness revolts me to the core and the tragedies it has directly or indirectly caused squeeze my heart empty. This festering rot of an egregore SICKENS me as it is the beliefs that has robbed me and many others of family, culture, and livelihoods given form. My love for the Witness comes from how it instills in me such HATRED, and truly, we were far too kind to it in game.

For context, I am Caribbean American and have a tumultuous relationship with my heritage for many reasons, but it wasn’t until the Witness and its many victims that I felt like the religious imperialism that has affected my heritage was represented in a way that crept into my spirit.

My Caribbean mother always said to me that we are of this world, not in it. That the hearts of men are wicked and sin (cruelty) was embedded in existence itself. It is only when we give ourselves to a higher purpose that we will be free in the end from all suffering. To her, this life and everything in it did not truly matter for it was a temporary challenge to overcome in order to earn an eternity of salvation. A perfect paradise was awaiting us all if we just gave into the way and left everything else behind.

These were all convictions she held to her very core as she tried to shed away all other aspects of herself to give into this “truth”, especially her Caribbean culture.

She did not always believe this way, but to her, the island she came from did not truly matter at all. Those “wayward people” she grew up with were not worth anything and would die as nobodies on that nowhere island for their lives were not saved, even if they knew of the “truth”. In her adopted views, those people believed in false gods and practices (such as Vodou and beliefs that belonged to those taken from Africa and indigenous populations), they invited in frivolous wants of the flesh such as lust (with „improper“ attire and certain dances), and committed crimes that proved to her that they could never be anything more than what they already were (though she would be blinded to the fact that these behaviors are a result of hostile environments created by the systems established for slavery and racial subjugation). If she wanted to be fit for “walking the right path”, those people had to be left behind for they were lost causes who could not be saved unless they were delivered by the “respectable” ways of life. She had to discard her black mannerisms, hair, speech, and more to have a place amongst the truly chosen.

Religious imperialism has a long history of being heavily tied to discussions of race and colonialism as those who participated in subjugation believed themselves to be more enlightened than the people they brought devastation to, giving them an entitlement that drove them to force their way of viewing religion onto populations. After all, in their minds, they were doing the greatest good for they were setting the people they subjugated on a path for eternal paradise. There was no cost too high in this finite life for infinite salvation to colonizers and all efforts to convert populations who did not see this truth would be “necessary”. People would die or be forced into servitude in mass to support the ambitions of the “enlightened” ones, whole cultures and populations being scrubbed from the face of this Earth in an attempt to “heal what is sick”, to “break broken bones again to heal them right”. I think of all the generations lost to war, slavery, colonialism, and every other act done to deliver “purpose” onto others, all the people whose names will never be known because others used the breath needed to utter it on preaching of their own virtue, and I am left in ruin.

I think of how my mother speaks of those lost to destitute lives because of the social pillaging of the island as an unfortunate side effect of guiding them to the truth and I look at how her world view has been ruined.

My mother thought she was saving me by keeping me from my culture, my people, my family. I did not get to know the language, the customs, the land, but I did get to know how much my mother thought those were distractions. She spent my whole life trying to cement the truths given to her by the same people who left her island in such as state that she felt like she had to run from it, to ensure I would not grow into a person, but a vessel of the righteous message. After all, to be a person is to be complex, nuanced, and flawed and there was no room for that in the visions given to her. The complexities and human flaws that came with our culture would only distract us from giving our whole lives to freeing ourselves from the curse of existence.

The cruelty the Witness delivers with such gentleness as it razes civilizations, its unwavering belief that it is the objective truth and other perspectives are blind to this truth, the means it will use to get that “justified” end, its gut wrenching to me and all that has been lost throughout human history to ideologies that bear the same qualities. Its zealous, static nature that relies on circular reasoning keeps me up at night and makes me mourn what could have been if the unfamiliar and hard to understand parts of human expression were allowed to flourish instead of being eradicated for diverging from someone’s vision of what makes a life worth living. I see this big eyed vessel, incapable of growth and convinced of its own righteousness and my chest feels like it is going to cave in. I see its disciples and pawns in the faces of too many people I know and recall their stories in moments that remind me how poisonous what the Witness represents is.

The Witness is an evil that has hollowed out lives, homes, land, and futures, especially for those who come from heritages that have persevered against attempts to “rectify” them. I still grieve the empty life my mother lives and the people left to suffer the consequences of daring to create their own meaning. I look at the face of the Witness and think of the “burdens lifted off my mother’s shoulders” by those who thought themselves as witnesses of a truth that could not be contested with interpretations that could not be questioned. She prides herself on being a weapon wielded to correct the sinful hearts of men, but I just wish she prided herself on being a person because those who “delivered” her robbed people of color of personhood entirely.

The Witness is not a person, but the embodiment of these deeply rooted ideologies and concepts that affect so many. It’s horror, both in game and the parallels it has in reality, is far too grand and unfathomable for me to bear its weight on my soul and not agonize. Its very existence is monstrous, despite the understandable intentions that went into its making, and my stomach churns at the mere thought of it.

How many species in the Destiny universe will we never know about because their whole galaxy was used to get closer to the Final Shape? How many star systems were left barren because of the Witness’ ambitions? How many children, spouses, artists, philosophers, siblings, neighbors, and more, people who were something, became nothing because of eons of the Witness‘ justifications? Bile boils just thinking of it.

What the Witness represents has hung over my head my whole life and its perverse touch lingers on the whole Destiny universe, tracing many of the depraved atrocities in the game back to itself. It’s death in the Final Shape, at the hands of those it had turned into victims and left to deal with the repercussions of its influence united together, moved me in ways I do not think I could ever properly articulate. To see beloved characters I had given a decade of my life to come together from different backgrounds with different reasons to defeat such a heinous entity, I felt like I could do my part to bring others together, despite our struggles and differences, to rebuild what had been taken from us.

As a person of color from a group of people many still think are undeserving of life, seeing so many characters I have related to over the years say “I matter because I decided to and you can’t take that away from me” to an entity who thought itself so refined that it got to determine everyone’s worth strengthened my entire being. Existing as a person of color is bold in and of itself, but the defeat of the Witness at the hands of people who wanted to exist so bad they risked everything for it ignited in me a flame to be audacious. My existence and culture as a poc is unsightly and heretical, but TFS encouraged me to take on the prejudices of others by saying “Here, despite generations being molded into a “perfect” image and so many lives lost in the struggle to live personal truths, ergo sum. Ergo sum and there is nothing wrong with that”.

To me, the Witness’ death showed me that the stains left behind by social structures such as religious imperialism and colonialism can be overcome by people banding together to make the future different from the past. When we embrace the subjectivity of existence, we can create spaces for different views on life to flourish and reconnect with the nuances of this world. We can better the lives of our people, no matter who they are, not by abandoning all cultural practices and ways of life that were deemed meaningless, but by rebuilding our societies to allow for fulfilling lives and self efficacy for all.

My people no longer have to let imperial powers decide our fate for us or decide that we can be nothing other than the „nature of our race“ that they believe is inferior. Instead of looking up at others who asserted themselves as more enlightened for salvation, we can look at each other and realize there is no one truth to life, especially one worth all the devastation and cruelty placed against those who lived differently. The intricacies of life often lead people to belief systems that allow for comfort and understanding, alleviating the anxiety of possibly living an improper life that will forfeit a desirable afterlife. It is up to individuals to decide what makes their life fulfilling and what beliefs will guide their actions, for no one can make your fate but you.

My mother still likes to wear the patterns of the island and keeps paintings of island scenery in her room. She talks on the phone in patois when she doesn’t feel the pressure to be “proper”. She misses her mother because she used to make dishes from home. To relate it to Destiny, she still has the coordinates to her Lubrae in her pyramid despite convincing herself abandoning it all was for the best and there was nothing there worth keeping. I once thought reconnecting with our heritage alongside her would be a frivolous endeavor, but I hope that with time and understanding, the Witness may not have power over her anymore and she won’t look back on her disassociation with relief. Time and understanding will make our island grow and flourish, free to decide what it wants to be, not held back by preconceived notions of the worth of its existence.

Despite all the Witnesses in the world, I will persist on and try to acquaint myself with my culture without shame. The Witness is everything to me because I hope one day it desecrates nothing ever again. I hope the Witness becomes nothing at all and the cultures it has corrupted make themselves something audacious.

Thank you guys so much for reading!! I hope you guys don’t mind the vague language, I chose to spare some details for my own sake and to make the message more applicable!! I’d love to hear the takes of other people about this bc I love hearing people’s perspectives!! And always remember, no one makes your fate but you!!! Go be audacious!!!!