#there’s just such a deep heartache about having to grieve someone

[crybaby-bkg]

cw: Bakugou dies but comes back to life, “comes back wrong” trope, implied fighting, angst

When Bakugou died, you’re not sure how you went on living. Grief had taken over your life, sat you in the passenger side while it cruised off the highway into icy waters. And even then, you couldn’t find the energy to drown.

It’s why there’s a sudden uptick of energy when you’re promised to have him back. Some top scientists contact you months after his death, tell you to hurry down to the headquarters labs, come and rejoice for what you’re about to witness. And you’re horrified, to say the least.

“This isn’t my husband.” Are your first words when you walk in, watch the figure on the other side of the glass examine its own hands. It looks like your husband but—but his hair isn’t the right shade of blond all over. His nose bridge had a slight bump after a scuffle with a villain. He had a scar on his hand but—but it never looked like it was to sew a pinky beside the other fingers.

“Is that really my husband?” You ask next in disbelief, slowly entering the room. Bakugou’s head snaps up, his eyes a little brighter than you remember but—they hold so much emotion. So much memory, so much panic, so much guilt.

“I left you.” He mutters, his voice raspy and ragged, and you wonder if it’ll always be like this now. It makes you cry a little harder than it should, but you only embrace each other. He’s cold and his shoulders don’t hold the same mass and his back doesn’t carry the same scars. There’s one, jagged and rough, running down his back, and you think, you think that’s where they slipped a new spine in.

“Welcome back home.” You tell him, weeks after meeting him again, new and not totally—Katsuki. He’s stiff and he doesn’t immediately take off his boots when he enters, and it worries you. Makes you think if you’ve just let a stranger into your home, one that has stolen your dead husbands face. Makes you wonder if he’ll be as loving as Katsuki once was, or if he’ll become your monster looming over you with the guilt of not being able to rest anymore.

“I’ve missed you so much.” You whisper against his mouth one night, a little while after he’s moved back. You don’t know why you lay under him, why you let him nestle himself inside of you, why you let him hold you against his chest. Katsuki always ran his hands over your cheeks and neck whenever he held you like this, but this…man, only holds himself up with his hands resting beside your head. It’s alien, how he looks at you, how his hips are methodically measured with every thrust, how he kisses you every 8 seconds. You wonder if he’s more robot than Frankenstein monster.

“Why did you come back to me like this?” You ask him one night, barricaded in the bathroom away from him. You can hear his sobs on the other side, his pleading to be let in. He tells you he never wanted to come back if he had to be like this, that he’s sorry, please let him in, he misses the warmth of your skin, he’s never been so cold before, he’s never liked the cold.

“Is this considered cheating?” You ask yourself aloud one night, when Bakugou is forced back to the lab when he becomes too…un-Bakugou. To sleep with a man that is your husband in every way but? Your husband has been dead for a year now, and yet you stroke the chin of the man that tries so hard to be him everyday, but fails so miserably at it every time.

“I’ll come back to you right this time.” Bakugou promises to you when he’s strapped down to leave for the lab and before he’s sedated. But you don’t believe him—you never did. Your husband is dead, and this animated corpse has been nothing but a cheap mockery of everything you’ve lost and something you will never truly get back.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Howdy! May I request Caine and Jax with a reader that comes back from abstraction but doesn’t remember anything about them or themselves? I think it would make for some good angst material. Have a good day/night!

Back from the 'Dead' (Caine and Jax x Mended!reader)

i dont know if the fandom has made a term for unabstracted people for fic stuff but i like the way mended sounds anyways YES MORE ANGST!! yipee! gonna probably be flip flopping between answering requests and finishing my art wips tonight so!! listened to this song while writing this, feelings were made jack stauber // just take my wallet

You wake up on the floor, not knowing where you are. Everything before you opened your eyes is a quickly fading blur of darkness, far too fleeting for you to grasp and make sense of. Your body hurts, a dull ache seeping down into your core. As your sight clears, you can't make out where you are... you appear to be on a stage of sorts. You can't bring yourself to move, even after the pain becomes bearable. You feel so tired. Eventually, someone approaches you

CAINE:

youre torn back to reality as a loud chattering voice fill your ears, talking almost a mile a minute. looking up you see a short man with a set of teeth for a head. he keeps repeating something that, after a few seconds of processing, sounds like its meant to be your name

hes also throwing in names of endearment, namely "My Dear"

you cut him off mid sentence after he fails to pause between his words, asking who he was and where you were

in an instant he stopped speaking, jaw hanging open and hand paused mid gesture

he doesnt ask if youre joking, i dont think caine would be in that kind of denial

on one hand, i can see him trying to jog your memory, but on the other hand i cant help but feel that he would accept it. maybe its because he doesnt want to stress you out more when youre already in a murky space, fearing that he would accidentally undo your sudden mending

its so weird for him, you were his first love and first partner; and now hes grieving your loss. except youre still here. you still have your mannerisms, but none of your memories. he truly doesnt know how to go forward

gone, blanked, erased, deleted even

he has to stop himself from calling you the nicknames he once called you

he still tries to foster a new relationship with you, but whether or not you would fall in love with him again is up to you

bonus angst, imagine you do fall in love. just not with him. like can you imagine how much that would hurt

the longing looks, the way he would attempt to reach out to you only to stop with his arm half-outstretched, the stumbling of words as he tries to stop himself from spilling how much he loved you

even if you ever abstract again, or you somehow leave the digital world, he would still go on to love you just the same. in fact, i dont think he would ever move on from the heartache

theres a visible change in demeanor in him, too, he seems a little more. fake?

JAX:

he sprints towards you, he doesnt care at all if someone hears his footsteps pounding the ground, just as long as hes there to make sure its really you. and sure enough, it is

similar to caine hes asking you how you managed to come back, not even noticing youre confused and uncomfortable face as he placed his gloved hands on your shoulder firmly and pulled you up

similar to caine as well, you have to cut him off in order to get him to stop talking, having to assert your voice firmly in order to get him to back off

you ask him who he is, where you are, and what he meant by 'coming back'

denial

this man would be in denial i think

like deep down he knows theres something going on with you, but he doesnt want to acknowledge it

hes not really outright romantic with you, since he doesnt want to actually. screw his chance to reconnect with you up, you know. i mean he can kind of see it from your perspective, you just wake up and some guy is already trying to make out with you? yeah no, he would be put off too

i think jax would have more luck trying to rekindle something with you simply because unlike caine, he doesnt carry the same fear of you abstracting again

i think, as an added thing to think about it jax's feelings of hurt and grief coming to a head and he kind of. unintentionally snaps at you, telling you to stop messing around and drop the act

overall sad stuff

constantly trying to get your attention through being a nuisance, kind of like when you guys first met and he started catching feelings

[pebblysand]

Hey there. Just wanted to say thank you for sharing Castles with us. I was 16 when I stumbled upon this masterpiece. I turned 18 a couple of months ago. I came of age with this fic. Whenever things got too much, Castles was what I'd find an escape in. It has taught me so much, taught me how the world's never just black & white and how life can be messy yet worth living. Castles has been a safe place, really. I cried, laughed, mourned and loved along with the characters. Your writing has made me feel so much so deeply, and I'd feel those heartaches all over again in a heartbeat. The female characters especially are so strong, so nuanced, their beauty lies in their imperfections which you've portrayed with so much care . As we reach the end of this road, I hope you are proud of yourself. I hope you know that this fic of yours has left a lasting impact on me.

Oh and I've been meaning to ask, how are you feeling now that it's all out?

thank you so much. that means more to me than you can imagine. ❤️

as to your question... how am i? pfew. i don't know. as i write this, i am now in france, enjoying the riviera's setting sun on my mum's terrace, with my thirteen-year-old four-legged baby sleeping underneath the table. there are palm trees and bougainvilleas. she's just woken up to bark at the airbnb neighbours next door.

how am i? exhausted. like, bone-deep. i don't know how to explain. the exhaustion of having published 82,000 words in two months. of having written 403,000 words in four years. of having made a thing. i made a thing. i could sleep for ten years, i feel, but i'm also wired. from the excitement and the adrenaline. i woke up every hour last night. i woke up at four o'clock this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. i now have two weeks of holidays and beach days to hopefully let my brain recuperate.

i am... terribly unfit lol. i'm the heaviest i've ever been, but it's not really about that, it's about the fact that i've been eating absolute shite for the past four/five months (with the above-mentioned exhaustion, i couldn't be bothered to cook), and honestly don't feel i could walk 10,000 steps without being out of breath. let me tell you that spending your days working in front of a laptop for your big girl job and all your evenings and weekends writing makes your life very sedentary. but that is easily fixable. my mum's building has a pool, so we'll be going every day and doing laps and going for walks and exploring the world again and recharging, and hopefully we'll feel better in a few weeks.

i am also... in absolute disbelief. i think it will take a while to truly sink in. i am incredibly proud of myself, proud of this story. proud of having told it. proud of not giving up on it. i came so close, this time last year. but i hung on. i owed it to myself. and, frankly, i owed it to lily, to tell her story. how lovely that i can finally say that without spoiling. she deserved someone else to hear.

i am... immensely honoured. beyond belief. i think for a long time, i blocked out and minimised the kind comments and the things people would say about how much this story meant to them, not out of rudeness but more to preserve myself from the pressure. it can be difficult - petrifying - to write a story that means a lot to people. but now, i have seventy-two comments (and counting) in my inbox and i am slowly realising that maybe, people weren't just being nice when they said these things. maybe it was true. and that means more to me than words could ever express.

i am... grieving. a little bit. i think, reading all of your messages and comments, a lot of you seem to feel that too. a bittersweetness of a four-year adventure ending. i think this emotion is already a bit on its way out for me, because i've been grieving castles for a while now, and have slowly come to terms with it ending. but, still. i would be remiss if i did not mention that the immense sense of pride and satisfaction and fulfilment that i feel ending this project, also didn't come with a bit of grief.

and, finally, i am very much looking forward to the future. i am excited for a lot of travel plans i have set up in the autumn. i am excited for my birthday in six days. i am excited for what the future will bring in terms of the stories i will inevitably tell again. fanfic or original.

and, i am immensely grateful to all of you. so thank you ❤️

[kingofpopmj]

I need to get something off my chest

For the longest time I avoided looking at Paris, I didn't like to see her. I feared that what I felt might be some sort of hatered which made me super uncomfortable because I didnt have any reason to. She is Michael's kid. he loved his kids to death & they loved him as much.so why would I feel this way?

I remember trying to understand the reason behind this; I started considering everything [Is this what makes me not like her? Is that why I dont like to see her?]. All of this came to an unexpected end when I saw a clip of her in Michael's funeral yesterday which I avoid watching since the day little me saw it on TV

I didn't hate Paris, It's not even that I don't like her, it's the fact that i had felt sharp pain as a child watching her cry for her beloved father on live years ago. The grief I went through when we lost Michael & the heartache I had felt for the little girl I watched trying hard to hold it together on stage is imprinted deep in my heart & mind & it resurfaces whenever I see Paris. What I felt for Paris wasn't hatered but the sadness I have been carrying since that day.

I felt the need to put that out there just incase someone is struggle with anything similar

Okay… who is cutting onions??!

I’m falling apart over here. I honestly didn’t know where this was going, but wow…

Thank you so much for sharing this.

I always feel a sharp pain in my heart when I hear her little voice during the memorial. I don’t like seeing it. I remember as a kid being upset they had put her in such a public spot when she was so vulnerable, but it took me a while to understand that she was just a girl who wanted to speak about her daddy. Gosh, it absolutely breaks my heart. Maybe it’s because I was close to their age, I’m not sure, but I felt such pain over Michael’s death. And, for me, that turned into guilt because I’d look at Paris and think that’s her father, the man who raised her. I had no reason to be so hurt over his loss idk.

I try to understand it. I think it’s because I didn’t have my biological parents in my life, I didn’t have that relationship, so when they eventually did pass on I didn’t grieve— it felt unnatural to me. I didn’t do it on purpose it was just difficult for me to mourn or miss a stranger. I mourned Michael, I still do. I sometimes feel weird about that, but that’s just how things fell into place for me.

You are definitely not alone. I’m sure there’s people who can relate to how you feel. I know I do. I never felt hate or anger towards her in particular, mostly just sadness— a little jealousy because she had a dad and he was an incredible one. I always wondered what that was like, to have a parent or parents. It’s hard to see all his kids honestly. Idk it’s painful. It sucks. I can’t exactly explain it.

[cieranshippyfmp2]

HOW DOES AI WRITE DIARIES HOW DO 30 YEAR OLDS WRITE DIARIES

Example one

Dear Diary,

Today, I find myself grappling with an indescribable pain that has enveloped my entire being. It's with a heavy heart that I recount the events of the past week, events that have shattered my world and left me feeling utterly lost.

On March 1st, we received the devastating news that my beloved grandmother, Anne, had passed away peacefully in her sleep. She was the matriarch of our family, the glue that held us all together with her unwavering love and wisdom. Her absence now feels like a chasm in our lives, a void that cannot be filled.

Grandma Anne was not just a grandmother to me; she was a friend, a confidante, and a source of endless comfort. Her gentle presence and warm smile could brighten even the darkest of days. I find myself reminiscing about the countless moments we shared together – her stories of times gone by, her laughter echoing through the halls of her home, and her delicious home-cooked meals that always brought the family together.

Her passing has left me reeling, struggling to come to terms with the reality that she is no longer with us. The thought of never being able to hear her voice or feel her comforting embrace again is almost too much to bear.

But the pain doesn't end there. Just two days after Grandma Anne's passing, we received another blow – my uncle, John, lost his battle with cancer. John was the epitome of strength and resilience, a fighter till the very end. His absence leaves a gaping hole in our family, a void that cannot be filled.

I find myself grappling with a myriad of emotions – grief, sorrow, disbelief, anger. How could two pillars of our family be taken from us in such a short span of time? It feels like the universe is playing a cruel joke on us, testing the limits of our strength and resilience.

As I navigate through this sea of emotions, I find solace in the memories we shared, the laughter we enjoyed, and the love that will forever bind us together as a family. Though they may no longer be with us in body, their spirits will live on in our hearts, guiding us through the darkest of times.

But for now, I must allow myself to grieve, to mourn the loss of two incredible souls who meant the world to me. Rest in peace, Grandma Anne and Uncle John. You may be gone, but you will never be forgotten.

With a heavy heart.

Example two

Today has been one of the most tumultuous days of my life, filled with anger, frustration, and heartache. The rift that has been slowly widening between my sibling, Sarah, and me finally reached a breaking point, culminating in a heated argument that left both of us shaken to the core.

It all started innocently enough, with a seemingly trivial disagreement over something insignificant. But as is often the case with siblings, emotions quickly escalated, and before I knew it, we were hurling hurtful words at each other like daggers.

The argument touched on old wounds, dredging up past grievances and unresolved conflicts that had been simmering beneath the surface for years. Every accusation felt like a dagger to the heart, each word leaving a scar that may never fully heal.

It's difficult to put into words the depth of pain and betrayal I felt in that moment – to see someone who was once my closest confidante, my partner in crime, now reduced to a stranger filled with anger and resentment.

But amidst the chaos and turmoil, I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt gnawing at my conscience. Was I too quick to lash out in anger, to let my pride get in the way of resolving our differences? Could I have done more to prevent this rift from widening beyond repair?

As the echoes of our argument faded into silence, a heavy sense of emptiness settled over me. The bond that once held us together as siblings now feels fragile and tenuous, hanging by a thread that threatens to snap at any moment.

But despite the pain and heartache, I refuse to give up hope. Deep down, I know that beneath the layers of anger and resentment lies a love that is stronger than any argument, a bond that can withstand even the harshest of storms.

For now, all I can do is give us both the space and time we need to heal, to reflect on our actions and find a way to bridge the divide that separates us. I pray that one day, we will find our way back to each other, stronger and more united than ever before.

But until then, the wounds of our argument will serve as a painful reminder of the fragility of family ties, and the importance of cherishing the ones we love before it's too late.

What I am essentially getting from this is just how Ai writes diaries and how I can re structure the paragraphs when rewriting it on actual paper.

[gorgeousattorneyjournalist]

Dreamer’s Desire

Le désir du rêveur

By: Kimberly Palenzuela

Frolicking in the wild grassy field of the pasture land,I can smell the pungent manure around. The heat of the sun is just right in my skin it’s actually warm not burning,the light cascading beneath the branches of the giant tree,with it’s roots protruding above the loam soil.I once thought faeries lived there,at night together with the thousand of fireflies they gathered to celebrate a ball or feast.

I once looked everything in a rose-colored glasses,fairytale and dreams come true,just like in the books I always read in my childhood, that are too many to recall,but I was hopeful and desperate you may say.This is a story about a fool who once told the townsfolk “I’m going faraway to find a good fortune,were daring adventures await and a maiden to meet.” no one could ever stop a fool to dream,for only in dreams he was kept alive.Then one faithful night during his travel,demise are only lurking in the dark just waiting to pounce on him .Quite unprepared and naive he has no idea of the danger outside the castle walls,he was attacked without managing to fight and that’s the end of it all.

One might wonder what’s the point of recalling such misfortune? Perhaps it’s all necessary to end the foolishness,to realize things are not what it seemed they are.That there’s more to life,perhaps it’s necessary to ask ourselves what really matter the most.

But how will you know what really matters?Perhaps you just don’t figure it now,or someone or something is hindering you to embrace the desire deep within your heart. Deep inside our hearts there’s a small voice that knows what it really wants,she is calling out trying to reach your mind drowned by the voices and doubts of this noisy world.

Perhaps just perhaps if you look closely,you will see.If you will just keep in touch with your inner being,then you might find the answers.Dare to question yourself, for questions are the answers. Whether we admit or not,we are all tired in one point of our lives,it seems this will never end,the normal world that we lived in before will never go back.

Like the fool who was set to fulfill his dreams of adventure and meeting the maiden of his life,everyone might not resonate with him.For it comes in many different manner,for the one who dreamt of having more than enough out of the lack,for the one who just wants to be loved,for the one who just wants to be free,for the one who just wants to be happy,for the one who loved so much,for the one who just wants to give back.No matter what the motivation is,one thing is for certain,it all starts with desire.

We of our generation are no stranger to the vulnerable and darkest facet of humanity.Now more than ever, the air of hopelessness seems to blanket the earth,this may be hidden from the naked eye,but it was felt to the bones.Coping with all of these we tried to make humour out of it,irony of depths seems to be our escape.There’s nothing wrong with that,in fact because of this vulnerable yet hilarious dark jokes we all relate to each other in a deep manner.

But I’m not going to be nihilistic here, why? Because of the fact that we are all still here trying to grow and thrive,accepting and giving our best shot to this new normal.We learned a lot even outside of the premise of academe,inspite of daily struggles inside the lives of our family.God knows how difficult everyone of us are facing right now,one might be quite heavier than the other,that’s why it helps a lot to be much kinder to one another,understanding,emphatizing and such.

I remembered this song lines of Cinderella

A dream is a wish your heart makes

when your fast asleep

in dreams you will lose your heartaches

whatever you wish for you keep

Have faith in your dreams and someday

Your rainbow will come smiling through

No matter how your heart is grieving

if you keep on believing

The dream that you wish will come true

This always reminds me to keep my dreams inside my heart and do my best to make it happen,no matter what the outcomes is,atleast you’ve tried.I believe we are all brave warriors out here,with different battles that we need to fight,I hope you will remain believing in your dreams as well.One of the famous qoute told “Do not tell me sky is the limit,when we have footsteps in the moon”.

The only person who is stoping you is you,do not let that happen, go and reach it!

[how-to-get-over-a-relationship]

How To Get Over A Break-Up

When you call it quits with someone who you thought was your forever it can be challenging to move on especially if you were in the relationship for a long time. You know longer have that sense of security, you might feel lost, abandoned or heartbroken. This is where I come in. As someone who has gone through various breakups I want to give my best advice from what I have learned. Here are 5 ways to survive a breakup. 

Cry Now! 

If you're not crying after a breakup then you were either not in love or are pretending to be fine. Personally, I am the most dramatic person I've ever met so I take this as an opportunity to let everything out. Take a day off to let yourself release the sadness. One of the best things you can do for yourself is let yourself feel. Let yourself grieve the loss and be thankful for the good times. If something is worth crying over, that means it was good. It's okay to be sad.  remember the good times you had. If you are sad, be sad, it's okay to feel emotions. If you bottle it up you will never fully heal and it will break you more. Being honest and in touch with your emotions will help you grow. 

Keep routine. 

 Don't let this minor inconvenience in your life ruin your future. You have goals, remember that. Stay healthy and on track. Falling off the deep end after a breakup will just make you feel worse. Focus on your happiness and future, growing by yourself and staying consistent will make you instantly forget that you were even more than friends. 

Once you put yourself first you will find that others respect you more because you respect yourself and know your worth.You are better off finding happiness with yourself then trying to wrap your head around the fact that the relationship is over. They obviously couldn't see the greatness in you, so you may as well keep your head up after the heartbreak. Although, it is hard but if you let it destroy you, you 'll never see yourself as more. 

Go out. 

Never. Isolate yourself after a breakup. Ever. It's probably the worst thing you can do for yourself, your friends are your life savers during this time and going out with them will get your mind off of things and reassure you that you have other bonds with people who care about you. This also gives you an opportunity to meet new people. Who knows, maybe you'll find someone new when you're ready. 

One of my friends just got broken up with and she doesn't go out enough with the girls so we are taking her into Boston for a girls night out! I know that being around people that understand what I am going through makes me feel better especially when it's the people I love to be around the most. Having fun with your friends when you're sad can make you completely forget why you were sad in the first place. 

Cut off contact.

 You shouldn't be texting, calling, emailing, snapchatting, dming, or seeing the person you have broken up with. Don't be fooled and let them tell you twice they don't want you. DO NOT BE FRIENDS WITH THEM! I've learned the hard way that even with time and space, you can never go back to them. It will never be the same and it will just happen all over again. Don't even put your heart in that position.

 I tried being friends with someone I mutually had feelings for, in fact we almost dated. After we ended things we agreed to remain friends, unfortunately this wasn't the first time we had done this. We weren't friends, we would never be friends again. We fought all the time, got jealous of each other and found annoyance with every little thing that we did. Even cutting off contact for a bit didn't help. We had to be completely removed from each other's lives in order to move on. 

It's really hard considering we were in the same friend group but if even I can do it, so can you!

Don't jump into a new relationship

Yes, you should go out but don't fall too fast after a nasty break up. If you rush into things with unresolved heartache it makes you more vulnerable and easier to manipulate. You also aren't entirely yourself yet since you feel like a piece of you is gone. So wait until you are fully yourself and happy before even thinking about getting into a new relationship. 

Just remember Cry now, keep routine, go out, cut off contact, and don't jump into a new relationship. you've got this!

by: ava watson

[badassbuchanan]

No Goodbye

Part 2 Part 3

Plot: Bucky’s left to pick up the pieces of a broken heart

Warnings: you will cry, angst, this is very very sad, sweet Bucky

Word Count: 4295

A/N: decided to branch out and do a non-smut angsty fic - it’s my first one please be nice 💕

“Bucky?” Y/N’s voice whispered worriedly as she watched the small team walk back through the compound with their heads hung low. The long haired super soldier looked over at her with saddened eyes, his heart sinking when he saw the hopefully look on her face. 

Y/N’s hearted thudded against her chest, her bottom lip quivering as she watched the team look at her sympathetically. “Bucky, where’s Steve?” Worst case scenarios fled through her mind as she noticed the heartbreak in Bucky’s eyes, she’d never seen her boyfriend’s best friend look so sad.

Bucky’s eyes closed for a moment too long, the raw emotion in her voice breaking his heart. He felt tears begin welling up in his eyes, knowing he had to be the one to break the news. He let out a deep sigh, trying to steady his breathing and keep his sadness at bay as he braved a glance over at Y/N. 

“Steve’s gone, Y/N.” Bucky mumbled, hearing a whimper of pain leave the girl’s lips as she broke down in front of him. Her hands flew up to cover her mouth, loud sobs filling the room as Bucky flinched in weakness, he couldn’t stand to see her like this. “He’s not coming back, Doll.” He was still trying to process the fact himself, saying it out loud only made it that much more real.

“No,” She shook her head in denial, tears streaming down her face as Bucky let his head fall back to conceal his tears. He started walking towards her, only knowing too well how hard it was to lose Steve. “No, Bucky, he promised.” 

“I know,” Bucky blew out shakily as he tugged her almost lifeless body towards him, wrapping his arms around her tightly as she sobbed against his chest. He sighed solemnly when he felt her hands clinging to the material of his t-shirt, her tears soaking through the thin material and onto his chest. “I know, Doll.”

Bucky knew more than anyone how it felt to have a promise broken by Steve. Bucky had just had to say goodbye to his childhood best friend, but Y/N had just lost the love of her life. 

She’d fallen for Steve the first day she met him. He was like a prince in a world full of frogs. She didn’t know if it was a forties thing, or a Steve thing, but he was everything she’d ever dreamed of. Steve loved Y/N just as much, she was his little piece of light in a cruel world. She reminded him of what was important and made him feel like part of him was still normal.

Shhh.” Bucky soothed her quietly, squeezing his eyes shut tightly as he rested his chin against the top of her head. Her head began to spin, trying to process what was happening as she cried helplessly against Bucky’s chest. “It’s gunna be okay.” Bucky breathed out shakily, repeating the words that Steve had said to him before he left, hoping it would somehow calm her down. Although right now, he didn’t even believe those words himself.

———

It had been a few weeks, but the days seemed to all blur into one for Y/N. She didn’t leave her room unless it was to run errands, but even then, she avoided everyone. She felt so out of place, like everywhere she was, it was wrong. It didn’t matter if she was making a cup of tea in the kitchen, reading a book in the living room, taking a shower in the bathroom or trying to have a nap on her bed. It all seemed so wrong, like she shouldn’t be doing anything without Steve.

“I don't know who I am anymore, Buck.” She sighed numbly, her mind spaced out in mourning, her eyes damp with tears just as they had been every day before. Bucky was the only person she’d spoken to, and that was only because she knew he needed someone to talk to. Maybe he liked talking to her because she reminded him of Steve.

Bucky’s heart ached as he watched her face, so straight and emotionless. She was so broken, he heard her crying when no one else was around, especially at night. It was as if she was so tired of being in pain that her face was no longer able to show expression. 

“I think if anyone can relate to not knowing who they are, Y/N. It’s me.” He pursed his lips together in a sympathetic smile, leaning his hands against the edge of the mattress from where he sat on her bed. He watched her carelessly fold the clean washing, trying to harden the pain inside her heart. 

“Yeah and who helped you through that, Buck?” She hissed out sadly, angry at herself for still being so helpless and lost after weeks. She hadn’t said Steve’s name since the day she’d found out he’d gone. Bucky had noticed it, but he wasn’t sure if anyone else had. 

Bucky sighed as he tilted his head absentmindedly, he hated Steve for leaving him, but he hated him more for leaving her. A frown crinkled on her forehead as she concentrated on stopping her tears from escaping her eyes, letting out a quiet sniffle as she kept her eyes focused on the washing in front of her.

“God, I just feel so alone.” She sighed in frustration, throwing the pair of shorts she was folding down on the bed. Her eyes closed as she wrapped her arms around herself, a tear trickling down her cheek as she sniffed again. 

“You’re not alone, Doll.” Bucky whispered sadly, trying to be supportive as his eyes softened and he carefully reached his flesh arm out to hold her hand. 

“But I am, Buck.” She pulled away from his hand as soon as she felt it, the action so sudden it made Bucky jump as she took a step away from him. “You’ve got Sam and Sharon.” She gritted her teeth at the mention of the girl that Steve had once kissed, her hands balling up into fists out of frustration. “Pepper’s got Morgan, Clint has his family, Peter’s got May, Fury’s got Maria, T’Challa’s got Shuri. But who do I got?” Her lips trembled as she pressed them together in a hard pout, looking down at the space in front of her. “He was everything I had and now he’s gone.”

Bucky listened silently to her rant, hanging his head as his heart broke at the shakiness of her angry voice. He fiddled with his hands, he knew nothing he could say would make her feel better. All she wanted was Steve. 

“I don't even know why I’m still here.” She mumbled weakly, looking around the room that had once been filled with happy memories. It hurt, everything hurt. Living at the compound was a constant reminder of the life she had once shared with Steve. Her anger faded back to sadness as she closed her eyes tightly, breaking down in silent sobs as she thought about how they’d planned to spend their future together. They’d talked about it a lot. “When all this is over, we’ll move to Brooklyn. We’ll get married, pop out a couple of babies. Oh, and we have to get a dog.” The memory of Steve’s words caused an aching cry to leave her lips, his voice ringing through her mind as she felt her whole body go weak. “I can’t do this anymore.” 

Bucky’s watery eyes widened in panic at her words, his head immediately turning to her as he instinctively reached his arm out towards her again. She was too helpless to pull away this time, letting his strong hand pull her body into his lap as she collapsed against him. 

He was worried about how she was handing the process of grieving, knowing how much it had the power to manipulate thoughts. He didn’t want her doing anything stupid, anything irrational, anything harmful. He’d become so protective over her, knowing that she was the only other person who really understood what it was like losing Steve. Anytime she cried, Bucky was right there holding her.

“I’m sorry.” Bucky sobbed out, unable to control his emotions as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her as tight as he could. Y/N’s arms wrapped around his neck as she cried against him, a position she’d come to know so well. “I’m so sorry.” Bucky felt guilty, like he was the one responsible for Steve not coming back. He was there, he should’ve tried harder, said something to make Steve change his mind.

She whimpered against him, erratically breathing against his chest as she felt her throat closing up. The all too familiar feeling of heartache took over as her hand dropped to his metal arm, clinging to him tightly as she relaxed against his chest. 

Bucky rocked them back and forth lightly, trying to soothe her as he broke down. He rubbed her back with his flesh hand, his head dropping close to hers as he held her close. 

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” She sniffed sadly, her eyes puffy and cheeks red from the crying. Her face was lightly stained with red lines from where her tears had fallen, the salty liquid stinging her skin.

Bucky let out the breath he’d been holding in shakily, his heart aching at her words. Their burning cheeks touched as Bucky’s hand came up to massage the back of her head. He felt so responsible for Steve not coming back. “I’m sorry.” 

She stayed there in his arms, his chest rising and falling against her side as she closed her stinging eyes. She inhaled the scent of his cologne, feeling safe in his lap as her heartbeat began to steady itself. 

Bucky noticed the way her head pressed limply further against his bearded cheek, turning his head to face her as his hand cradled the back of her neck. “It’s gunna be okay.” He whispered as a soft smile washed over his reddened face, noticing her falling asleep in his arms.

”Will you stay with me tonight?” She whispered tiredly, her eyes blinking rapidly as she fought the inevitable exhaustion. “Please Buck, I don't want to be alone.”

A selfish wave of relief washed over Bucky as he held her, still processing Steve’s absence himself, he thanked his lucky stars that at least for one night, he wouldn’t have to be alone.

———

Weeks of Steve being gone had turned into months, his absence left a void, an emptiness that was inevitably never going away, both for Bucky and Y/N.

“Y/N?” Bucky’s voice deepened with concern as he threw the car keys in the fruit bowl, being warned of her bad state by F.R.I.D.A.Y as soon as he’d walked in through the front door. “Y/N.” He called out again, picking up his pace as he rushed through the compound to find her. 

“She’s in Mr Roger’s room, Sergeant Barnes.” the AI spoke as Bucky began to panic, his heart sinking as he burst through the door of Cap’s old bedroom. No one had gone in there since he’d left, not even Y/N. 

But that’s where she was, lying on the floor, looking up at the blank ceiling. Bucky sighed with his eyes closed before he walked over to her slowly, aware of her almost unconscious state. 

His heart sped up immediately as he was hit with wave upon wave of memories of his best friend. The smell of the room, the shelves covered with small trinkets that were important to him, his record collection, the framed photo of Y/N and Steve next to his neatly made bed. It was all too overwhelming.

“What did you do, Doll?” He breathed out sadly as he crouched down next to her, his flesh fingers tracing over the empty bottle of asgardian liquor that lay in her limp hand. He carefully took the bottle from her, his eyes looking up at hers, glazed over with dilated pupils.

Y/N kept her head facing the ceiling, only moving her eyes to glance over at him. “I got lost.” She mumbled almost inaudibly, catching a hiccup in her throat as her eyes closed. 

How could she tell Bucky the truth when it was so silly. She’d gone in there to talk to him. No, she wasn’t crazy, she knew he wasn’t going to be there. She thought she would find comfort in being around his belongings, that it would make her feel connected to him. But it didn’t work.

Bucky sighed, letting his fingers intertwine with hers as he held her hand. His thumb rubbed over her skin soothingly as he bit the inside of his lip, the helpless feeling inside of him was starting to become permanent. He desperately wanted to help her, to make everything okay. But there was nothing he could do except be there for her.

“I wasn't good enough for him.” Her words made Bucky’s heart ache with sadness, his eyes closing as he squeezed her hand a little tighter. “Maybe if I was better, he would've stay-” 

“Don’t say that.” Bucky shook his head, his voice cracking a little. Y/N was the most beautiful, funny, talented girl he’d ever met. The more time he spent with her, the more he realised that. It hurt him to hear her say that she wasn’t good enough, that she had convinced herself that was the reason Steve had left. Bucky cursed Steve in his head, frustrated with what his decision to leave had done to her.

Y/N blamed herself for Steve not coming back. She hated herself for not being a good enough reason for him to stay. She sat up most nights trying to figure out exactly what it was that made him decide to go, but she couldn’t understand it.

"I thought he loved me.” Bucky felt the tears streaming down his face as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly. It physically pained him to hear how much she was hurting, the constant torment going on inside of her mind. How lost she felt, how deep Steve’s leaving had cut her up inside.

“He did, Y/N. He still does.” Bucky’s words spluttered out between sniffs. The alcohol was helping to numb Y/N’s pain, her tears silently rolling down her cheeks instead of her usual aching whimpers and heavy breathing. 

“He didn’t even say goodbye.” She mumbled painfully, her wording changing from the perspective she’d had a few weeks ago. Her sleepless nights had given her more than enough time to think, and she’d come to the conclusion that Steve knew what his plan was, so he had the chance to say goodbye, to be upfront and tell her, but he didn’t. Why? The most obvious answer in Y/N’s mind was because he didn’t care, not about her anyway. “Don’t sit there and tell me you do that to someone you love.”

Bucky stayed silent for a moment, pondering in his own thoughts as Y/N went back to staring at the ceiling. At some point since he’d left, Bucky had questioned continuing to defend his best friend. Bucky had watched what Steve’s decisions had done to Y/N, what his actions were still doing to her and in Bucky’s eyes, nothing on earth was worth causing her this much sadness. 

“C’mon, Doll. You’re tired, I know. Let me take you to bed.” He whispered through his heavy breathing as he scooped her up, lifting her body effortlessly as he cradled her in his arms. Y/N didn’t object, nuzzling her face into his chest as her arms wrapped around Bucky’s neck.

Bucky going go bed with Y/N had become routine most nights since the first time she’d asked him to stay with her, they both enjoyed the company and knew neither of them expected anything more than a warm body to hold.

He carried her down the hall until they reached her room, laying her carefully on the bed once they were inside. He pushed the loose hair away from her face, rubbing his thumb lovingly over her cheek as he admired her. 

“I’m just getting you some comfy clothes, I’ll be right back.” Bucky whispered as he leaned over her, pressing a gentle kiss on her forehead. She nodded softly, not taking her eyes off of him as he she watched him move around the room. 

Y/N was beyond grateful for Bucky, he’d been by her side the whole time. Whenever she needed him, he was right there. She felt guilty for lashing out at him sometimes, when all he’d ever done was shower her with love and patience. She wondered if he’d had time himself to process Steve leaving, or if he was suppressing his emotions in order to support her. Either way, Bucky had always made sure that she never felt completely alone, he took pride in looking after her, sometimes it was the only distraction from his destructive thoughts.

“Here you go.” He hummed sweetly, sliding his hand under her back to lift her torso up from the mattress. She sat up obediently as Bucky’s hand let go of her, turning around so that she could get changed privately. 

She smiled shyly at his gentlemanly ways, somewhat reminded of the way Steve was. She looked down at her body as she pulled her shirt over her head, maybe if she looked like a supermodel, Steve would’ve stayed. 

She blinked rapidly to contain her tears, her lips dropping into a pout as she quickly changed into the clothes Bucky had set out for her. A sudden wave of self consciousness hit her as she turned her body to face away from Bucky, laying back down on the bed to hide her body under the covers.

“It’s okay if you want to leave, Buck. I understand.” Her voice came out as a whimper, her eyes dropping to look down at the mattress as she heard Bucky turn back around to face her. 

He sighed sadly as he looked down at her curled up alone on the bed, wishing she knew that he needed her as much as she needed him. He knew after tonight that she was blaming herself for Steve leaving, forcing herself to feel unworthy and unloved. 

“Hey,” Bucky called out to her softly, pulling back his side of the blanket as he slid in beside her. He gently rotated her body to face him, her eyes avoiding his as he pulled her against his chest. “I’m not going anywhere. I pro-” 

“Don’t.” She cut him off, shaking her head as she slid her arms up around his neck. “Don’t make any promises.” Her heartbeat quickened as the sadness engulfed her. “Please.”

Y/N woke up the next morning in a dream like daze, feeling strong arms wrapped tightly around her, her cheek pressed against a warm chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

“Steve?” She whispered out sweetly, it was the first moment of peace she’d had in months. Then reality came crashing down on her, remembering Steve was gone. Bucky heard her say it, it was the first time she’d said Steve’s name since he left, his whole body froze as his heart ached sympathetically for her. 

Y/N sighed sadly, pressing her face further into Bucky’s chest as she began uncontrollably sobbing. Wave upon wave of misery flooded her body as Bucky rubbed her back under the thin material of her t-shirt, trying his best to soothe her. 

“Shhhh,” Bucky whispered gently, his metal hand playing with the back of her hair as he held her close. “It’s gunna be okay.”

Bucky had repeated Steve’s words to her almost every day, not that she knew they were Steve’s words, but he didn’t know if he was saying them to comfort her or himself. Either way, as time went on, it was getting harder to believe that it was going to be okay.

———

Y/N had taken a nap for the first time in almost six months. She’d woken up to an empty bed, an unusual occurrence, especially since Bucky had been wrapped up in her arms when she’d fallen asleep.

They’d grown so close since Steve had left, their friendship had blossomed into an unbreakable bond, a deep connection that no one could explain. They understood each other on a level of complexity that formed so rarely it was unheard of. They relied on each other.

She padded softly down the hallway, heading towards the sound of Bucky’s voice coming from the common area. She slowed her steps, gliding her palm along the cold wall as she caught part of his conversation.

“No, I can’t do this anymore.” Bucky hissed to whoever was on the other end of the phone, his voice agitated yet quiet, as if he didn’t want to be heard. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m leaving.”

Y/N’s heart sunk deep into her chest, her head spinning in disbelief as she moved into view of the doorway just in time to see Bucky hang up the phone.

“Bucky?” She whimpered sadly, her chest heaving as it tightened around her heart, her eyes widened innocently as her bottom lip quivered. “You’re leaving?”

Bucky looked up at where she was standing, his eyebrows arching in panic as he realised what she’d walked into. “Y/N.” He started deeply, a lump forming in his throat as he watched her react. “I can explain.”

She shook her head rapidly as she squeezed her eyes shut, a bubbling sense of betrayal and anger erupted in her body. “You’re just the same as he is!” She yelled as she felt tears welling up in her eyes, turning to run back to her room as she thought about going through the process of losing someone again. She couldn’t take it.

She slammed the door behind her, bursting into tears as she paced around her room, slightly hyperventilating as the fear overwhelmed her.

“Y/N,” Bucky burst through her bedroom door, shutting it loudly behind him without a care as he walked over to her. “Calm down.”

She shook her head as Bucky grabbed her by her upper arms, forcing her to stop pacing as she hung her head to avoid his eye contact. “Were you even going to tell me?”

“Stop.” Bucky’s voice hardened as he tried to get her to listen, his eyes softening with worry as his heart raced.

“Or were you just going to leave without saying goodbye?” She disobeyed his command, her anger turning into sadness as she looked up into his gorgeous blue eyes.

“Listen to me,” He spoke softly, gripping onto her arms tightly as his thumbs rubbed over of skin. She looked away from his eyes, her eyebrows arching in sadness as she anticipated what he was going to say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I can’t lose you too, Bucky. I can’t.” She panicked as she thought about losing Bucky the same way she’d lost Steve. She wanted to believe him, but how could she possibly know if he was telling the truth? Her lips stayed in a pout, her eyes glued to the right of his body.

Bucky sighed in frustration, his heart broke knowing she didn’t believe him. “Look at me!” He spoke loudly, shaking her arms a little as her glossy eyes finally met his. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Y/N lifted her hands to hold onto the material of his shirt over his stomach, holding him close as if it would keep him there forever. “I heard you on the phone, Buck.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky smiled softly, slightly relieved that she was listening to him now as he admired her face. His flesh hand moved up to cup her cheek, rubbing her temple with his thumb. “You heard me telling Fury that I’m leaving, as in leaving the team, not leaving you.” He shook his head, his eyebrows arching as a sympathetic look covered his face.

Her eyes looked up at him with a soft sparkle that he hadn’t seen in a long time, he let out a shaky breath, his eyes softening as he smiled down at her. “You’re really not leaving?”

He shook his head as he watched her sigh in relief, his arms wrapping around her to hold her close. “I’m not going anywhere, doll.”

“Trust me, Y/N.” Bucky whispered as he admired her face, his thumb rubbing across her cheek soothingly. “It’s gunna be okay.” Something about the way Steve said those words made it sounds true, but when Bucky heard himself say it, it was hard for him to believe.

———

“What the hell am I supposed to tell Y/N?” Bucky looked over at his oldest friend, his eyes saddened with stress and responsibility. “She’s gunna ask questions, Steve.”

“Tell her I’ve left. That I’m not coming back.” Steve instructed the long haired super-soldier, sadly running his hand through his blonde hair.

“And you think she’s just gunna accept that?” Bucky shook his head as he kicked a pebble next to his foot absentmindedly. He looked back up at Cap, trying to make him understand. “She loves you, Steve.”

“Bucky, you know I have to do this.” Steve pressed his lips together as he looked sympathetically over at Bucky. His decision wasn’t an easy one, and his best friend trying to change his mind was only making it harder. “I’m leaving her with my best pal.”

Steve grabbed Bucky’s shoulder reassuringly, witnessing the distress on his face, what Steve was asking him to do was huge. “It’s gunna be okay, Buck.”

Bucky sighed, trusting that Steve knew what was best as he wrapped his arms around his friend to say goodbye. “No matter what happens, she can never find out the truth, Buck.”

tag list:

@harrysthiccthighss

@annestine

@bestofbucky

@be-patient-be-good

@nothing0is4here

@velvetcardiganbucky

@sexwithhiddlesbatch

@codyl-angdon​

[chryzure-archive]

fragmented

ALT TITLE: i am also holding onto my stuffed bunny while grieving over azure :;;;;;;;

AUTHOR’S NOTE: i’m already missing writing in azure’s pov :(((

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———

xvi.

“We’ll be fine,” Jacks told Filly and Pleck, though he could read in their eyes that they didn’t believe him. They weren’t wrong not to, but he wasn’t going to be the one to break it to them that their friend and coworker had been dead for the past couple months. He was already being nice by sticking around and comforting Chrysi—he didn’t have any further goodwill left in him. “I’m here for her if she needs anything.”

Filly’s brow furrowed. Her eyes searched the railing of the next floor up, as if she expected to see two pairs of eyes staring down at them. “What about the children?”

Jacks fought to keep his upper lip from curling. He didn’t want to deal with them. Like he’d said—he was already using up what little goodwill he had as a Fate. 

But still he said, “I’m here to watch them too.”

Pleck picked at his sleeve, a pensive look on his face. His mouth tensed in a frown. “I just don’t get it. Azure’s never like this.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” 

Like being dead, he thought, too cruelly.

He shoved down the unpleasant lurch his heart gave. He blamed it on Chrysi—he’d been trying to soothe her heartache, to little success, even with her permission. 

Both of them shot him doubtful looks. 

“I don’t really know if I feel comfortable with leaving Chrysi here,” Filly said. Her face darkened, underneath her concern. “Especially not alone with you.”

Normally, Jacks would’ve bristled at the veiled accusation. He truly didn’t believe he was that bad—but he couldn’t bring himself to care this time. 

Instead, he drawled, “We’ll have you on speed dial. Satisfied?”

The glare she replied with was anything but. 

Pleck glanced between the two of them uneasily. 

Throughout this debriefing, Jacks had slowly but steadily pushing them into the foyer, away from where Chrysi curled up, crumpled in the library. But now Filly had screeched to a halt, and none of Jacks’s increasingly animated herding could move her. 

“Clearly not,” she snapped, inscensed. Flinging an arm outward (and nearly catching Pleck in the jaw with it), she stressed, “Chrysi is not okay. And this is worse than she’s been! Obviously something happened between her and Azure, which means—”

“Which means it’s none of your business,” Jacks cut her off. His own anger flared up, hot and furious. “Not until Chrysi comes to you.”

Pleck’s unease visibly intensified. He chewed on his bottom lip, face pale and looking paler in the deepening shadows. One wrong move, and Jacks knew he’d bolt between the two of them to stop the argument. 

“Oh, and I suppose that means she came to you?” Filly scoffed. Her words were caustic. Her eyes hardened like stone. 

Jacks sneered. “I suppose it does.”

Though her eyes brightened furiously, a shadow of uncertainty flickered across her face, grey amongst the bright ire. Jacks imagined he could hear what she was thinking—a hollow wondering, if what Jacks said was true, if Chrysi had trusted him with her problems before she’d entrusted Filly. A flush of inadequacy colored her worries and gave them shape.

Jacks knew he had no right to feel triumphant. The only reason he discovered Chrysi’s mystery was because he’d been in the wrong place at the right time. If it had been anybody else in that library when Azure blinked out of existence, they would’ve been the first Chrysi confided in. Jacks was lucky, in the worst, unluckiest kind of way. 

He wished it had been someone else to know the truth. They’d be able to handle it better than he.

But this conversation was growing old, and quickly, and Chrysi’s heart pressed against his, so cold and agonized that it made it more and more difficult for him to draw in a satisfactory breath. 

He took a deep breath, ready to tell them to get out, go home, forget about everything that happened this evening (all things he wished he could do as well, to take an eraser to the slate and erase the horror of the day), when Pleck jumped in. 

“Listen,” he mollified, hands outstretched in a defensive gesture, “we’ll trust you with this, Jacks.”

He glanced at Pleck cursorily, and sniffed. Good. 

Though I don’t think I am the one to be trusted. I am never the one to be trusted. Filly was right in her skepticism, and Jacks hated it. 

“But,” Pleck continued, and this made Filly turn to him expectantly, her face unreadable and her brow arched, “please. Contact us if you need any help. I know I’d be willing to make the trip up, even in the middle of the night.” He turned to Filly, a question twisting his face. 

She lifted her chin, then, after a moment’s pause, gave a tiny nod. From the corner of her eye, she glared at Jacks. 

That was enough for Pleck, Jacks presumed, because he relaxed. His hand rubbed at his opposite arm, burning off the remnants of his nervousness. With a subdued smile, Pleck added, “Tell Chrysi we’re here for her, if she ever needs it.” He paused, then emphasized, “We’re really, really here for her.”

Jacks had an idea that they would need to be there for her sooner rather than later. He couldn’t damage-control this for very long. A horrible, horrible thought came to him, one where Azure never reformed in a faux-human shape now that he knew he was dead, one where Chrysi wasted away in her grief. 

He recoiled. 

Yes, Jacks would certainly tell Chrysi of Pleck and Filly’s support. He didn’t trust himself with something so precarious. He wasn’t that emotional of a person. 

He couldn’t comfort somebody after the death of their lover. 

A jolt of agony cleaved through his heart. 

Thump. 

He stiffened, but it didn’t make a return beat. Cold sweat cropped up underneath the collar of his shirt. Air came in too thin. 

“I will,” he croaked. 

Filly turned her gaze upon him wholly, a furrow wrinkling her brow. 

He cleared his throat. Retried, staring down at his shoes. “I will.” 

There. Less of a waver to his words. 

The heart thing was troubling, though. 

He looked up to Filly and Pleck frowning twin frowns at him. Filly’s eyes glinted. Not knowingly, but there was the start of something—a glimmer that saw too much for Jacks’s comfort. 

Setting his jaw, Jacks gestured to the front door with more agitation than necessary. “Happy now?” he asked brusquely. 

Filly didn’t reply. 

Pleck eyed her worriedly, even as he said, “Not really, but… for tonight, everything should be fine.”

Jacks couldn’t smile, so he just shrugged. “Suppose so.”

Filly’s frown was palpable. 

Both of them moved reluctantly to the door—Pleck took a particularly long time shrugging into his coat, and Filly sluggishly picked through her purse for her keys—and Jacks flung it open to hurry them along. He tapped his toe against the floor, though he wasn’t quite sure if it came from impatience or apprehension. 

Finally, when there were no more tasks for them to drag their heels in the process of doing, Filly and Pleck walked out into the night. They shared a glance between them, something that Jacks imagined they thought he wouldn’t see from his vantage point. It was a tense-mouthed, dim-eyed, furrowed-forehead look, one of uncertainty and misgiving. 

Jacks shared that misgiving with them, so vivid it made his muscles ache. 

Then he slammed the door shut behind them before they could change their minds about going home. 

*

He couldn’t find Chrysi in the library.

Jacks couldn’t blame her. Too much occurred in there in the past day alone. It hurt too badly, even for him and his half-beating heart. 

Trudging upstairs, Jacks suppressed the urge to scream. He didn’t know who the scream was for. Just a scream, something to stave off the building tension in his chest, knotting tighter and tighter with each passing second. He’d almost screamed when Azure reappeared. He’d almost screamed when he disappeared a second time. He’d almost screamed while talking to Filly and Pleck. 

But all those were the wrong moments. And Jacks was the wrong person to scream. 

He didn’t deserve it—not in the way Chrysi did. And after she had shattered apart in the library earlier, Jacks knew that even if he had the right to scream, he couldn’t. Not until Chrysi was alright. Or better, at the very least. 

He couldn’t think of Chrysi ever being alright again. 

When he found her, it was in the bedroom she’d shared with Azure. She curled atop the comforter, a stuffed rabbit clutched to her chest. Her eyes were screwed shut, and tears trickled down her face. 

Jacks bit down on his tongue before he commented the wrong thing. Even he knew that it was wrong to tell her that he thought this was the wrong way to grieve. Who was he to dictate her grief? He barely knew the emotion himself.

Instead, he murmured, “Is there anything to be done?”

Chrysi cracked her eyes open and her expression wiped itself away into nonexistence. She pulled the rabbit closer to her. 

“In what way do you mean?” she asked, monotone.

“Like…” He shrugged helplessly. “Any way. For Azure. For you.”

“Ha.” She curled in on herself tighter than ever before. “No. Of course not.”

Jacks hesitated. 

Suddenly, he wished he had let Filly and Pleck stay. He should’ve marched them up to Chrysi’s room and unleashed them upon her. If there were any two people to make Chrysi feel better, they were it. 

But he’d sent them packing, so he walked up to her and laid his hand atop her head in an approximation of comforting. 

She stared up at him with exhausted eyes. 

“I can’t,” she began—then she stopped, shuddering. 

Jacks slid his hand down, and rubbed small circles along her back. He thought he’d seen Azure do that once, when Chrysi was distressed, and it was the only thing he could think of. 

Underneath his touch, her bones stood out, angular and sharp, like a fragile glass sculpture. Maybe she’d already broken apart, scattered across the floor, and that was why she lay immobile atop the bed. 

“It’s…” He paused. No, it wasn’t alright. He wouldn’t lie so vulgarly to her. “This is hell.”

That made her laugh. Another tear trickled down her face. 

“Isn’t it just?” She burrowed deeper into the bed, curling against him. 

His skin burned too hot where their bodies met. Jacks preemptively swallowed down that half-skipped heartbeat. 

Silence curled over them, about to crest like a wave, and they would drown in it. 

Jacks traced shapes over her back in the place of words. None of them were comforting. None of them were helpful. Bloody, godforsaken saints. 

Her voice crackled. “He knows he’s dead now.” Her breath shivered. Underneath his palm, Jacks could’ve sworn she grew colder. “He knows he’s dead, Jacks.”

He shut his eyes. “I know.”

“I told you what would happen if he knew.” It wasn’t a sob, not yet. But soon, Jacks imagined it could be. 

“I know.” 

She trembled. “And I told him anyway,” she whispered. “I told him the truth.”

Jacks didn’t say anything. 

It wasn’t his call to say whether that was the right decision or if it was the wrong one or what. He didn’t know if he should’ve demanded Chrysi tell Azure the truth or if he should’ve stayed silent. The moment had unfolded like something through crystal—painfully clear, agonizingly sharp, and divorced from Jacks’s immediate sense of reality. Seeing Azure in that false sense of living startled him into a part of himself he didn’t think he’d still possessed—an animal-like state, one where he was driven by fight-or-flight, instinctive fear. 

Azure had picked up on it immediately. 

Jacks would’ve rather Chrysi told Azure the truth rather than watch him disintegrate under his own realization. He didn’t know how he knew, but it was better this way. Better for Chrysi to have been the one to inform him. 

Even though it had broken her, cleaved her right through the center. 

Chrysi gasped, then let out a broken sigh—a tearless sob. She pressed against him harder, tightening her hold on the rabbit so much that Jacks knew it would’ve been struggling for its life, had it not been an inanimate object. 

“I told him.”

“I know. I was there.”

“He’s gone, Jacks.”

He stopped. An imperceptible tremor rattled through him, and with it came a bone-deep cold.

“You don’t know that,” he said, voice tight. “You think Azure would disappear forever, just because he found out he was dead? You’re foolish if you think he would leave you just like that.”

“It’s not up to him.” Chrysi twisted around in the bed, her face a painting of anguish. “Azure doesn’t get a say, and nor do I.”

It was too hard, maintaining eye contact with her. His eyes dropped to the rabbit in her arms instead, a guilty flush heating the back of his neck. 

The rabbit stared back at him, its glass eyes scratched and milky, like sea glass. Something had chipped part of the eye away, leaving a crushed white line across its right eye. Its nose and the velvet lining in its ears had gone grey with age, with nary a hint to its once-cheerful pink. The black fur had become matted from use. The shape of it was floppy, limp. 

It was a sad, old thing, all the life squeezed out of it. It stared up at him, as accusing as a corpse. 

He frowned. 

“Princess,” he said quietly, dragging his eyes back to hers, “you can’t let yourself take the blame for what happened.”

“Why not?” she shot back, vitriolic. Color finally came to her cheeks, but it burned too hot, a bright red in her otherwise-pale face. 

Jacks stared down at her, at a loss. “Because.”

Because… what?

Because Jacks couldn’t imagine Chrysi being able to do anything else. He knew it tore her apart, this truth, but it was just that—the truth. Azure LaFaye had died. He came back as a ghost. His spirit struggled to maintain physical form. And Chrysi Solstice could not do anything to stop that. 

Jacks had been alive for a very, very long time. He knew a lot about spells and curses and death and murder. Maybe not everything, but he knew much, much more than Chrysi—and he knew that there was no instance in which someone, dead as long as Azure had been, had ever been brought back to life. That was a miracle saved for minutes after death—a day, at the most magical. 

The only thing Chrysi could do was let Azure go. And, based on the answer Azure had given Jacks, that was precisely what Azure wished of her. 

Chrysi glared up at Jacks, but the accusation in her eyes pointed inward with a knife’s blade. 

He didn’t like seeing that look on her face. 

“You didn’t kill him, Chrysi,” Jacks snapped, but that was to cover the empty spot in his chest. “There’s nothing you could possibly blame yourself for. So stop it.”

She glared at him still, but the heat quickly faded from her eyes. Tears welled up in her anger’s stead. Her arms loosened around the stuffed rabbit, finally giving it the room to breathe that it needed. 

“Then what can I possibly do now?” she whispered, heartbroken. 

Jacks didn’t have an answer to that.

He didn’t need one, though, for Chrysi’s door opened in lieu of what useless words he could drudge up. 

Jacks glanced up to see Alice standing in the doorway. Her eyes widened, wide enough for him to mark the rim of white around her dark eyes, when she saw him. An uncharacteristic shadow of doubt paled her face. 

A frown furrowed his brow. 

“Hey, ankle-biter,” he said sharply. Then he stopped, strangely uncertain.

Chrysi shifted under his palm, until she faced Alice too. Her red eyes peered out from her tangled mess of hair. 

“Alice,” she whispered, voice ragged.

The girl’s mouth wobbled. Her eyes squinted and her nose wrinkled in the most unbecoming way, and it took Jacks a moment to realize Alice was holding back tears.

There were many reasons for her to cry. Maybe she’d stubbed her toe. Maybe Oz had said something a little too mean to her. Maybe seeing Chrysi like this unsettled her. Maybe—just maybe—she understood that Azure was never coming back.

But none of those answers seemed right to Jacks. The way Alice’s face crumpled had the flavor of guilt to it, and that didn’t align with any of those reasons. 

Alice said, “Something’s happened to Oz.” Her voice quavered. “You need to come with me.”

Jacks opened his mouth to kindly tell Alice that whatever it was Oz was dealing with could fucking wait, but Chrysi pushed herself up with trembling limbs. All remaining color washed from her face. 

“Alright,” she said, in a imitation of her normal, caring tone, but it sounded like a broken wind chime instead. “Lead the way.”

Jacks shot Chrysi a disbelieving look. “Chrysi. Seriously?”

Her eyes looked glassy, empty, as she shot him a look in return. 

“I still have to take care of the kids,” she said in a voice so quiet he had to strain to hear it. “This is what I’ve been doing this whole time. I can’t… I can’t put myself higher on the list than them.”

With that, she pushed off the bed. 

She wobbled and Jacks lunged forward to steady her. 

Chrysi’s breathing shuddered, her hair swinging forward to cloak her expression. Her hands clenched by her sides, bleaching her knuckles to white. Her limbs trembled visibly. 

Then she lifted her head and repeated, “Lead the way, Alice.”

Alice didn’t need to be told a third time. 

She cast one last glance over Chrysi’s room. “Jacks should come too,” she said, rushed. 

Without awaiting an answer, Alice whirled about on her heel and scurried down the hallway.

Chrysi glanced at Jacks, a curious look on her face. He mirrored the strange confusion, mouth twisting into a scowl. 

Her frown deepened.

Jacks and Chrysi trailed after Alice much slower. Jacks made sure to keep a hand on Chrysi’s hip—he wouldn’t be surprised if there were another loss of balance, one where Chrysi would go sprawling over the floor. She’d lost her counterweight, the one to lean on, in physical and emotional. 

Alice shot up another flight of stairs, pausing only long enough to shoot a look at them with a deep frown, as if she were surprised they were following her in the first place. Or perhaps she thought they were foolish, trusting her. 

“The attic?” Chrysi murmured beside him, her frown coloring her tone. 

Jacks didn’t know much about Baskerville Manor, but he did know about attics. 

They never meant anything good. 

But Chrysi didn’t stop following after Alice, and he didn’t want to leave her alone with the children for the moment. 

He followed her with much more reluctance. He stretched his hand outward, steadying Chrysi as she walked the stairs in front of him. It was a bit useless, what he was doing, but he didn’t like that Alice said that he also needed to come with Chrysi. It didn’t make sense—not once had he been in a supervisional role for the children. Not in any of the times he’d visited. 

The attic pressed in close on the three of them once they got in. Jacks found himself particularly overcome by claustrophobia, in a way he knew the others couldn’t experience. He had to stoop forward to keep his head from hitting the exposed beams arcing along the ceiling. 

Alice stood in a cleared center of the floor, twisting her fingers anxiously. Her eyes darted over the room, uncertain. 

Jacks glanced over the room, trying to determine what it was she was searching for. 

All that met his eyes were old pieces of furniture clothed in ghostly-white sheets and moldering boxes full of a wide array of items. The only decluttered part of the room was the thin walkway Chrysi and Jacks stood in now, and the center of the room Alice stood in. That looked newly cleaned, with scrapes across the old wood floor and the lack of dust, as opposed to the walkway, still choked by dust. Where Jacks stood, he could make out countless footprints disturbing the thick dust, as if someone had walked to and from there often. 

“Where’s Oz?” Chrysi finally asked softly. 

Alice’s head dropped. “I don’t know.” It didn’t sound like she was lying. “He was up here a moment ago. I don’t know where he went.”

Chrysi frowned pensively. “You know you guys aren’t supposed to play in the attic.”

Her head dipped further. “We weren’t playing.”

That definitely didn’t sound like a lie.

This felt strange.

Jacks took one step forward, then stopped. Misgiving soured the taste on his tongue. 

“What’s up here, then?” he demanded. He turned to Alice, a scowl marring his face. “Why are we here?”

Chrysi didn’t say anything behind him. When he glanced at her once more, she was studying the shadows. Her face twisted in pale concentration.

Alice stared up at him, eyes wide and frightened. Pulling her hands to her chest, she curled in on herself, trying to make herself much, much smaller. 

It was wrong. Jacks still had his bite wound, inflicted by this same girl, with passion and fury making her into a beast to be reckoned with. This made no sense, coming from Alice. 

“I’m sorry,” she finally whimpered. “I’m sorry, Chrysi. I know I shouldn’t have. But I don’t want to lose Oz too.”

Alarm thrilled through Jacks, though its origin was not from him. It had the distinct color of Chrysi, golden-edged and heart-tumbling. 

“Alice—!” she cried.

Crack!

Silence. 

His heart screamed, empty, his sense of Chrysi ripped away from the room. 

He wheeled about. “Princess—”

White cracked across his vision. Fireworks spiraled in his brain, all off-kilter and twisting and painful. Coppery blood trickled into his mouth, salty and overpowering. 

Then Jacks collapsed to the floor and blackness rushed in. 

—

xvii.

Helpless.

Chrysi was fucking helpless. 

All this time, she’d been the one to study the ghosts—marking it down in that morbid, awful journal of hers, with notes on how to weed out the denseness of the haunting, like one of Pleck’s flowerbeds. 

But she didn’t get to it in time. Not enough time in the slightest. She had seen the steel glare in Oz’s eyes after she found Azure’s ghost staring down that well, and she had seen the airy look of not-there-ness in Alice’s own dark gaze, and she should’ve known. She should’ve known sooner, and not soon enough, and no matter what, she was useless. 

All because she wanted to save a fragment of Azure, all because she had to injure her soul deeper than she should’ve.

She woke up in the attic, but she didn’t know how much time had passed. Too much, in her estimation. Long enough for her to have been tied up and slung against the wall. A gag jammed into her mouth.  

Should’ve known sooner. 

So caught up in her own problems that she didn’t consider that it might be bigger than just Azure. 

No—she did consider it, but she hadn’t cared.

Pain pulsed though her. 

Fuck. 

She’d lied to Jacks. The children did not take precedence on her list. Azure did. 

Chrysi failed them. 

She narrowed her eyes, trying to discern the meaning of the shadows around her. 

The attic had been spruced up since she and Jacks had been knocked unconscious. She knew that much from the floor alone. Dust still cloaked it thickly, but a throw rug—equally dusty—gave the room a much more lived-in air. 

That had to have been a recent addition. 

She swept her gaze minimally over the room. Each movement hurt her head—but a quick overview revealed that they were boxed in by towering piles of forgotten suitcases and lamps, save for the narrow path they’d entered from. 

This was the only room Oswald claimed was completely and entirely off-limits in the entire manor. Off-limits even for the remaining staff.

Foreboding filled her. 

She heard a noise beside her—a labored breath, but not quite the death-rattle gasp of one of the manor ghosts.

Even though it sent a spike of agony piercing through her head, Chrysi twisted her head to the side to find Jacks, just as tied up and wounded as she, listing weakly against the wall. His eyes were closed. Blood stained the side of his face, and his skin had a distinct grey pallor to it.

He was breathing, at least—but the thought didn’t bring much comfort with it.

Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment as she tried to quell the nausea welling up inside of her. 

Her recollection of herself was rudely interrupted by approaching footsteps. 

They stopped right in front of her, right as Chrysi struggled to open her eyes. She found a pair of muddied boots right in front of her, disturbing the dust and ruining the throw rug. 

“There you are,” a familiar voice said, far too bright a tone for the ache pulsing in her skull. “I was scared you wouldn’t wake up for a moment there.”

Chrysi bit down on her gag, hard enough to taste blood through the fabric. She turned her hateful gaze to the speaker in question.

Oz leaned over her, grinning.

And underneath his skin, she could see the horrible, twisted form of Jack Vessalius, puppeteering the poor boy’s body.

—

xviii.

Meredith stood in front of Azure, and though Azure could remember her funeral just as clearly as this moment, he didn’t find it strange. 

She looked exactly the same she did those three years ago—long auburn hair, electric green eyes, and displeasure twisting her pretty face into a gorgeous painting of a woman biting into a lemon. 

“What do you mean, you want to call off the wedding?” she demanded. “You belong to me, Azure LaFaye. We’ve belonged to each other since we were children. You can’t just back out of that on a whim!”

On a whim? Hardly. Azure had been looking for a way out since he was sixteen, right after Meredith had punished him for cancelling a date to sneak out to a chess competition. He was just ashamed it took him this long to plan for his escape.

“Get out of my way, Meredith,” he said quietly. 

Disgust warped her face into something ugly. “What makes you think you can tell me what to do?”

He knew he should’ve listened to Jacks’s advice. He blamed lingering feelings for Meredith for the way he’d chosen to leave. 

Azure just hoped that he would be able to stay so far under the radar that not even Meredith telling his father would get him caught. 

“I’m asking nicely.”

She smirked and it was just as ugly as the lingering disgust sharpening the edge of her expression. Her eyes turned that lurid green—too much glitter to be safe, like a poisonous plant to avoid.

“It’s not a very nice request in the first place. It doesn’t matter how sweetly you ask, mon chaton.”

He couldn’t help it. He flinched. 

Satisfaction flashed bright in Meredith’s eyes. It writhed beneath his rib cage, wriggling for his heart with hooked claws. 

“Oh, mon chaton,” she murmured again. She breezed closer to him, suddenly full of grace and a lovely smile. All her fury melted away at his wince, like she could smell his weakness. She reached for his face. “I know you’re just overwhelmed. I’m sure to forgive you if you just apologize. But you don’t need to apologize right now, since I’m sure you’re very—”

Heart spiking into his throat, Azure shoved Meredith back with great force. Pressure pulsed behind his left eye and his vision half-blurred from the water welling in the leftmost half of his vision. 

He hadn’t raised a hand. 

Meredith slammed into the wall. An airless gasp jolted from her—a choking cough followed soon after. 

Azure trembled. He tried to swallow it down. 

It was the first time he’d used his magic on her. Hopefully it would also be the last. 

She struggled to straighten herself—her elbows bumped the picture frames akimbo, her nails gouged at the wallpaper Azure’s sister had lovingly chosen, her limbs shook from effort—but he reinforced the weight of his magic. Her face reddened in reinvigorated ire. Suddenly, her auburn hair did not suit her face quite as well. 

“Bastard!” she snarled. “Fils de pute!”

He stumbled back a step, then another. 

It couldn’t be this easy.

It couldn’t be.

But Meredith couldn’t move. Her face twisted up in rage, and Azure wondered how he could’ve ever thought her beautiful in the first place. 

She swore fiercer, livid. Each curse spilling from her mouth was more violent than the last. 

She still could not move. 

A laugh tore from him, incredulous. 

“All this time,” he said, “and I’ve been more powerful than you from the start.”

He didn’t know why he hadn’t realized it sooner. Meredith’s eyes had never been red, and what hexes she’d managed were never more than mildly upsetting. She was never a full-fledged witch, just as she was never a half-fledged spellcaster. Azure had been top of his class, highest-ranked in Europe that entire time.

What a blind idiot he’d been. 

Just as quickly as her face reddened, it blanched to white. 

“Azure,” she pleaded, “Azure, please. I forgive you. We can push back the wedding until you’re more comfortable. Come on, kitten.” 

“God!” Azure laughed again, but it hurt this time. “I’ve wasted so much fucking time on you.”

With that, he turned on his heel and stormed away.

Her pleas chased after him, right up to the door, where Meredith realized that he wasn’t going to return. 

Last-ditch white-hot rage turned her voice into a drilling screech.

“Don’t forget!” Meredith screamed after him. “You’re mine, Azure LaFaye! You fucking bastard!”

He wished. Azure so desperately wished he would forget everything about Meredith, forget everything about France. He’d move onwards and forwards, damn everyone else here.

*

Oswald Baskerville looked exhausted. Azure knew that he looked even worse. 

It wasn’t often that Azure went to a brasserie after a failed job interview, if ever. It was even rarer that he saw his interviewer at the same haunt as he. 

The only reason he’d even bothered to come was because of Jacks—bored to the point of threatening Azure, which really only meant that Jacks had become incredibly lonely. Azure didn’t ask what happened to the last girl Jacks had chosen. He knew better than that. 

From where Azure sat, however, Jacks didn’t look very lonely or heartbroken. His friend merely grinned at a girl, his finger twisting a blonde curl around his finger, as he whispered in low tones. The girl stared back at him with a significantly less enamoured expression than the rest of Jacks’s conquests. 

Normally, this would’ve annoyed Azure. What was the point of all this dragging around, if he weren’t to be Jacks’s entertainment? 

But, as his eyes slid back to Oswald Baskerville, he couldn’t help but thank his friend’s flightiness. It granted him this. Perhaps not a second chance, but at least a sense of closure. 

Oswald sat on the bar stool tensely, his back straight and his shoulders tight. He nursed a gin and tonic, only taking small sips. Whatever it was he was looking at, Azure suspected that it wasn’t within the room. 

Most people came to a pub to relax, but as Azure studied Oswald Baskerville, he decided that Oswald saw this more as a punishment than anything. The lighting did not help with the dark circles under his eyes. 

Azure arched a brow. 

Oh, et puis merde. 

Azure finished off the drink in his hands, disregarding the way it stung at his throat on the way down. He didn’t make it a habit to drink, and even less of a habit to drink such a low quality of alcohol. 

Yet, he still approached the bar. 

The bartender glanced up at him with a disinterested look. 

Azure smiled a smile without much feeling, ordered two glasses of wine, and made for Oswald. 

He stopped beside him, but he didn’t take a seat. 

The bartender slung two glasses onto the bar. He poured the wine with an exhausted familiarity. 

“That was the worst interview of my life,” Azure announced. 

“Mr. LaFaye,” was all Oswald replied with. He eyed him tiredly. 

Azure guessed that Oswald had noticed him just as quickly as Azure noticed Oswald. Perhaps Oswald had hoped Azure would not approach him. 

Too bad Azure had a streak of stubbornness in him. 

He pulled out the stool beside Oswald and sat, right as their drinks arrived. 

A hint of disgruntlement soured Oswald’s expression, but he swept it clear just as quickly. 

“What is it you want?” he asked in a monotone. 

“Nothing.” He picked up the glass by its stem, but did not bother to take a drink. Azure stared at the shelves behind the bar blindly. “I’m pretty sure it was a horrible interview for the both of us. I figured drinking would be the best way to ease the pain.” 

It was a half-joke and Oswald’s glance was suitably doubtful. “I don’t drink to the point of senselessness, Mr. LaFaye.” 

Azure shrugged. “I don’t either.” 

They sat in silence. A growing breathlessness tightened his chest, but Azure fought to keep himself under control. He knew what he was doing was a mistake

But then Oswald took his own glass of wine and took a minute sip from it—smaller even than the ones he’d been taking from his previous drink. 

With the way Azure’s day was going, he’d take whatever success he could get. 

“You asked me what my catch was,” he said abruptly. It exploded from him, expelled like a toxin he needed to purge, for fear of dying.

But if it startled Oswald, he didn’t show it. 

He tilted his head. His silence invited Azure to continue, but suddenly Azure’s mouth felt like he hadn’t wet it with any sort of drink for a week. 

He quickly took a drink from his glass, but his nose wrinkled. He was too accustomed to a richer taste of wine for him to enjoy this much.

The memory of his lessons in France and his ex-fiancée acted as glue, forcing his molars to grind flat against each other. It took work to tear them apart. 

When he did, he spoke only in half-truths. 

“Do you know,” he asked, “what it’s like to be expected to shoulder an honor that is only a burden?”

Oswald did not answer him. There was a steel in his dark eyes, a blade of recognition, and that was as good as confirmation for Azure. 

The laugh that burst from him hurt, lined with glass on the way up. “That was all I knew, my entire life. So I left. My past is erased. I’m a blank slate.” He raked a hand through his hair. Unruly black curls fell into his face in its wake—Azure couldn’t be bothered to care. All his product lost its hold on his hair. “It took me longer than I’d like, but I did it. And when I saw your ad… Well, it was convenient.”

This time, Oswald hummed curiously. 

Azure recognized the question without the words. He straightened in his seat. “I was used a lot, back in France. I’m sure you’re familiar with it even here. But with children, at least when they use you, it’s not out of maliciousness. It’s out of need.” He worried at his thumbnail with the pad of his forefinger. Silently cursing, Azure found himself wishing he had something proper to fidget with. A coin. A ring—but no, he threw away the ring Meredith had forced him to wear. “And I can tell the children need someone.” He eyed Oswald, prying out what secrets he could from the face of stone he wore. “What about you? What’s your catch?”

Oswald didn’t bother to fake innocence. 

“Imagination,” he said simply. “The children have a lot of it. Their current au pair doesn’t help matters much—but she’s a very lively girl and I wouldn’t dare fire her. The children love her too much. I’m sure she feels the same way for them. But…”

Azure canted his head to the side. 

Whatever train of thought Oswald found himself going down, he abandoned it. 

“It’s easy to lose yourself there,” Oswald settled on saying with a tiny frown. Then he fell silent, grim.

“I wouldn’t.” It was a promise. Azure was very, very good at many things, and above all else, his self-control was what he was best at. 

Oswald’s expression, normally so inscrutable, lightened with thoughtfulness. He studied Azure silently, then stood. He collected his coat. 

The two drinks he’d been sipping at barely had a dent in either of them. 

“I don’t make it a habit to tell people on the day of,” Oswald said, “but since you’re here, I suppose you should know. You got the job.” 

Azure stared up at him. Everything in the room ground to a halt, suspending in midair. 

He got the distinct feeling that he almost blew up the only thing going for him. He’d been barreling for the empty chasm and only just stopped on the precipice. 

“Oh.” It was the only word he could manage. 

“Goodbye, Mr. LaFaye. You’ll be getting a call with the details within the next few days.”

Numbness poured into his limbs.

“Oh,” he repeated, but this time it was to nobody in particular. 

Oh. 

He got the job. 

*

“You’re the new guy, huh?” a voice asked from behind him. 

Azure turned to find that white-haired girl from before leaning against a bookshelf, her eyes intelligent and gleaming in the grey light from the windows. 

Now that they were in closer proximity, Azure realized that her eyes were also red. 

Surprise flashed through him. 

Another witch, working here? A strange coincidence, though a part of Azure wondered if it could even be considered as such.

He yearned to ask this girl about her story, how she ended up here, what family she was from—but he withheld. Too many years of propriety instilled in him. Azure was well-accustomed to holding back from all his instincts, used to denying himself everything. 

Instead, he replied, “Yes. I’m the new tutor.”

The girl grinned. With it, Azure noted that she had sharp canines—almost like fangs. 

“Figures,” she said brightly. “I’m no good at math and I tell the little ones too much about certain sciences that Oswald would rather they be older to understand.” She lifted her chin. “So what are your strengths?”

Azure blinked. 

He hadn’t expected to receive a second interview, and he certainly hadn’t expected his co-tutor to be such a slight girl. She couldn’t be much older than him—if anything, she looked a fraction younger. And he could hardly imagine how an American witch found herself in an esteemed English manor, teaching two children. 

“Well,” he said slowly, “I’d consider myself well-rounded in all areas. But my strengths would be French” —It had better be one of his strengths, after growing up in Paris— “and literature analysis.”

The girl waved that away. “Nah, I don’t mean that. Here, let me give you an example: my strengths are gravestone rubbings and the horror genre—preferably books, but God, let me tell you how hard it is to find a good male horror author.”

“What?” 

“How you’re going to connect to the kids,” she explained. “Oz and Alice aren’t necessarily hard to entertain, but you have to have an in with them to manage to teach them anything. If they don’t think you’re interesting, then forget it. You’ll be out the door by next Thursday.”

He stared at her, at a loss for words.

The girl sighed. “Okay, how about this: what are your hobbies?”

Hobbies. 

Azure’s eyes scoured the room. A strange sense of unease lurked at the edge of his awareness. 

Surely she wasn’t actually interested in what his hobbies were. 

So he shrugged. “I like reading.”

She made a buzzing noise, as if he were a contestant on a game show and he’d just answered wrong. “Not quite. Try again.”

A flush of irritation swept over him. The vividness of the emotion surprised him. “I do like reading.” 

“I do too, but that’s so tame,” she said, disgust dripping off her words. “It’s what you say at the family reunion because Auntie Mary thinks that playing through the first three Resident Evil games in a single day is a surefire way to corrupt your soul. I want to know what you like.” She paused and, for the first time, a flicker of a blush colored her freckled cheeks. “And the kids. The kids will want to know, for sure.”

Azure continued to stare at her. Rigidness stuck him to the floor, even though he wanted to fidget with something. He settled for digging his hands into his coat’s pockets. 

“I like to read,” he repeated slowly. When the girl sighed heavily, he quickly added, “Anything. I like to read anything—besides stuff with an annoying magic system, I suppose.” 

Now a light brightened her eyes. She shifted forward, like a wolf cornering its prey. The smile hitching across her face did not help the illusion. “There we go. Something more like that. Opinions, that’s what we like to see!”

He bristled. “I have opinions.”

He didn’t know why it bothered him that this girl would’ve thought otherwise. So long,  he’d spent stifling himself. Surely he’d grown accustomed to coming off as impersonal. 

He blamed it on her American nature. 

“Strong opinions and strong hobbies,” the girl said cheerfully, in agreement. “That’s all that matters. Anything else you’ve got for me?”

And at that moment, Azure wanted to prove himself as an interesting person. He wanted her to know just how much he hid underneath his stern expression. He didn’t know why—it wasn’t to impress her. 

He thought of Meredith. 

Perhaps because he knew that his ex-fiancée would hate Azure talking to this girl and relating to her. Perhaps because this was a way to break from Meredith’s suffocating nature—from his father’s. He could be himself here.

“I also like photography,” he said. 

The girl’s brows arched. This time, her smile came off as warm, and Azure realized that it was in response to his own warming voice. A quiet thrill of excitement burned through him. 

“Film photography, specifically,” he continued. A tiny smile of his own surprised him. “There’s something more melancholy about it. It feels like nostalgia in image.” 

She gestured for him to go on. She leaned closer, bracing herself on a table. 

He knew he should’ve been embarrassed, but her engagement chased away all sense of self-consciousness. The girl’s unabashed interest kindled a silent flame Azure hadn’t realized he had. 

“Chess, too. I’m nationally ranked in France.” He should’ve said it with the familiar humility required of someone of his stature, but he said it with quiet assurance. He was good. No need to shy away from it. “I also enjoy horror books,” he added, eyeing her and her interest. She looked lovely, with the way her eyes glittered with gold and her smile showed her unnaturally-pointed canines again. “In case you wanted to know.”

This made her grin wider. 

“Save some for the rest of us, LaFaye.” The girl whistled. “Fucking hell, I’ve actually got some competition.”

He cocked his head to the side. “You know my name?”

“Hm?” She raised her brows, but the line of her mouth and the light in her eyes hinted at a mischief he couldn’t read. “Yeah, of course I do. Oswald told me.”

And here Azure didn’t know a thing about this girl, besides the fact that Jacks knew her as well. 

Unfair. He was at a disadvantage. 

“So?” He gestured for her to go on.

The look she shot him was amused. 

“You can call me Chrysi,” she said. “That’s all I’m giving you, Mr. Nationally-Ranked-Chess-Master.” She punctuated this by tapping just under her eye and grinning. “Nice to work with another witch, by the way.”

With that, she breezed past Azure. 

A tiny electric thrill sparked through him when she brushed by. 

Azure turned to watch her leave, feeling distinctly unmoored and brilliantly light. 

Yes, he agreed. 

It would be nice to work with another witch. Especially one as friendly as this Chrysi. 

He wondered what her name was short for. 

*

Chrysi’s fingers tangled in his. Her eyelashes tickled his skin whenever she blinked. Her breaths were warm against his skin and the weight of her head against his shoulder felt like a final piece of the puzzle he’d been missing. 

Azure could die right here and now, and he could be happy with it. 

They laid like that for quite some time. Azure didn’t think he could drift off to sleep now—he was too excited about living in the Manor now, with closeness to Chrysi and the children. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel solid. 

He wondered if Chrysi felt the same way. 

He traced her hair with his free hand.

“What is your full name?” he asked softly, eager to make the most of his first night he lived here. 

Chrysi shifted. “Hm?”

“Your full name. You’ve never told me.” Even though they were curled up together under the blankets, even though they had moved into the same room, even though Azure was pretty sure he would spend the rest of his life with her, if given the chance.

“Have I not?” Chrysi moved away and pushed up to her elbows. Her long hair cascaded around him. Moonlight glittered in her eyes, a smile hooking across her face. “I guess now would be the time to tell you, wouldn’t it?”

He couldn’t help but grin back at her. “Never a wrong time.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can think of a couple.” She tucked a curl behind her ear, and for a second, she looked strangely shy. “It’s Chryseis Diana. My full first name. Well.” She shrugged. “First names. You know how it is.”

His breath caught in his throat. 

“Chryseis Diana…” 

It tasted right in his mouth. The way his mouth shaped around her name fit perfectly.

Chrysi flushed, visible in the moonlight streaming from the open window. 

“Well, no need to say it like that,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. 

Azure lifted his chin curiously. “Like what?”

Her eyes caught on his. Whatever she saw there made her flush a pretty red. She averted her gaze. “I dunno. Like a prayer, I guess. It’s just a couple sounds strung together—nothing special.”

He raised his brows. “That’s a lie.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is special,” he challenged. 

Chrysi looked embarrassed. “Knock it off, Blue. It is not.”

“It is,” he insisted. “It’s your name and it’s a pretty name. So that makes it very special to me.”

She faux-gagged. “Keep it up, LaFaye, and I’m kicking you out of my room.”

“Our room.” 

She shot him a narrow-eyed glare. 

He smiled innocently. He raised his hand to her, inviting her back to the position she’d been in, curled up against him. “Come on, Chrys. Don’t be like that.”

“You think you’re so cute,” she complained, even as she obliged. 

Azure hummed in agreement. Happiness sparked in him as she nestled her head against his chest, ear pressed to his heart. He planted a kiss on the top of her head. 

It didn’t take long for the tension in Chrysi’s limbs to relax. Her breathing came out steadily as her hand clumsily traced shapes on Azure’s hip. 

Still, he could not sleep. 

Chryseis Diana.

He kept repeating her name to himself. 

Such a lovely name—how could she think otherwise?

The room buzzed, as if with static. 

Azure flinched. 

The buzzing stopped. 

He frowned. 

What the hell was that?

He tried to settle back, to let himself ease into the same half-sleepy haze as Chrysi—yet his heart hammered against his rib cage. He struggled to keep his breath even. 

But the buzzing did not make a repeat appearance. 

Azure reluctantly laid his head back down, burying it into his pillow. 

The buzzing started up again. 

He bolted up.

The buzzing turned to an aggravating hum, far too loud for comfort. His teeth ached with it, as if it were on some strange frequency that affected him and him alone. 

He glanced down at Chrysi in his arms. 

She merely adjusted her head with his movement. She made a sleepy noise and tightened her grip on his hand. 

How could she not hear this? Azure’s head pulsed with pain, originating deep in the back of his neck. 

The hum twisted into a throaty growl. 

Azure’s head jerked back up. 

The room looked… wrong. Almost there, but not quite. When Azure narrowed his eyes, the posters looked painted on the walls. The bookshelves were full of book-shaped boxes. The closet doors were wood-rectangles, but he couldn’t see hinges on them anymore.

The room suddenly looked like it had been taped together, like a box made of cardboard. A little like Alice’s most recent project—a homemade dollhouse, made to look like the manor. 

Don’t forget…! a distant voice echoed in his head, just loud enough to be heard over the growling in the room.

A cold sweat broke out along the back of his neck and his heart raced in its well-learned way. 

He knew precisely what that voice meant. 

Then he tightened his arms around Chrysi and remembered where he was. 

Merde.

He squeezed his eyes shut. 

Why was he remembering that now? Meredith’s voice rang in his head painfully.

“Az?” Chrysi mumbled sleepily.

He laid a hand on her head. “Go back to sleep, Chrys.” 

He didn’t know how convincing he sounded. He could barely hear himself over the noise in the room. His heart thrummed hard and fast.

Maybe he should’ve let her wake up. Maybe he should’ve been dragging her out of this room, in its wrongness and dollhouse-edge.

Don’t forget…

Azure flinched again. 

This time, however, the voice didn’t sound as vitriolic as it had when it tore from Meredith all those years ago. Desperation filed off the edge, leaving something blunt and cold in its wake. 

…easy to lose yourself… 

Azure stared at the corner of the room, ice filling his veins. 

That was Oswald’s voice. 

What the hell—?

Save— 

Another voice.

—Chryseis Diana.

The same voice, an echo of earlier that very night.

He slammed against the backboard. 

No. No, no, no, no, no.

He glanced down, but despite the fact that those words had been in Chrysi’s voice, she hadn’t so much as stirred. 

“Merde,” Azure said, laughing shakily at something that terrified the hell out of him. “Merde, merde, merde.”

This wasn’t happening. He was imagining this. Perhaps he’d accidentally fallen asleep, and he was just having a nightmare—

Don’t forget, Meredith’s voice screamed, but it was more of a whisper now, and Oswald’s voice relayed, It’s easy to lose yourself there, and Chrysi whistled long and low and, with a laugh, said, Save—

This is a dream, he realized with a shock electrifying from his spine to his skull.

Azure’s eyes snapped open. 

“—Chryseis Diana,” he gasped. 

He was laying on his back, but when he shifted, he realized he wasn’t in the bed with Chrysi at all. 

He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t in the night light-lit bedroom, familiar even when a dollhouse rendition. 

Twisting about, he stared at a familiar uneven stone wall. Dead grass waved in the wind, brittle enough to break. When he passed his hand over the stalks, however, they didn’t so much as move. 

Azure stood shakily. 

His head should’ve been spinning. He should’ve been cold. He should’ve been a lot of things, but all of them required him to be alive. So he ignored all the should haves and looked around him. 

He stood next to the well, grey skies closing him in like the lid to a casket.

Wrongness weighed over him heavily. It took him a moment to realize his chest had gone completely silent—not in the way of death, but in the way of Chrysi’s. In the way that he could no longer sense her, at the edge of his consciousness. In the way that vibrated with terror and horror and in the way that Azure could not withstand, even when dead. 

Save, her voice said again, a memory fading now that his eyes were open.

“Chryseis,” he repeated again, quieter. “Chrysi.”

Something had happened to her.

[a-lil-perspective]

How would the Batch react to Hunter's s/o having a miscarriage? (Coming from your recent post.)

OMG ANON.

This made me so sad and like I’ve admittedly thought about this before but having someone ask really got me deep in my feels and this is very sad, I cried writing this, I hope this is compelling to you. This is kind of more from Cyare’s point of view but it does briefly mention the Batchers.

Tw for talk of pregnancy and miscarriage and heavy emotional angst, please take care of yourselves.🤍

———

Surprisingly or not, she finds solace in Echo.

Maybe it’s because he knows loss, a bitter taste on his tongue but sweet and saccharine in a way that makes him soft, sympathetic to her plight.

He finds her after the dust settles, lying in a broken field of heartache, curled around herself in the co-pilot’s seat seeking respite from all those providing sympathy. She’s welcomed a thick shadow of mourn around her, a penitence to go with it.

It reminds him too much of grieving vode.

“I lost the baby,” she croaks finally, when Echo’s silence has tactfully paved the way for catharsis.

His face contorts in pain. “Damn Cyare, I am… so sorry.” He rubs the back of his neck, wishing to offer more than wormy sympathy she’s heard a hundred times up until this point. This is uncharted territory for the former ARC Trooper, who suddenly feels entirely out of his element even though Death is no stranger to him.

Cyare’s breathing is slow, dormant, her eyes somewhere far from the present.

“Me too,” she says finally, with a bitter tang.

“It’s not your fault.” The words are immediate, an echo in her ears meant to soothe but merely raucous all around her.

She quivers in it. “Please.” She doesn’t deserve the pardon. “I need time.”

Echo affords her that and more.

He gets up and exits then, leaving her presumably to her sorrow until he returns some minutes later with piping hot tea and a stiff smile. It’s not much to alleviate these stressors, but Echo thinks the potent steep of lavender is a start.

“Do you have anything stronger.” It’s almost wry, if Echo really examines it; whittled humor fit through the mug between her lips. It’s all she has in this trying time, a coping mechanism Echo knows all too well.

“Later; drinks on me,” he promises with only a distant regret. It isn’t his place to endorse unhealthy habits but if it eases some of the woman’s acute suffering then it’s his galactic-given duty.

Her shoulders slump then as a full, labored breath finds her, and she looks forward to the buzz that helps her forget.

She doesn’t want to forget.

Just the pain of not having him.

Her son.

It’s an all-consuming pain; strained and carried through every member of their family, weaving through the broken pieces that she’s at a loss for how to pick up.

Crosshair is too quiet, too unsure, gauging her with a trajectory he’s not sure how to plot this time.

And so he says nothing.

(He basks in his own grief elsewhere; on the shooting range.)

Tech speaks too fondly, with scientific prowess, and an unintentional flippancy that has her thin-lipped and silencing him with a clipped plea, “I need time.” She doesn’t want to hear about the percentages of nat-born miscarriages, vexing biological components that make her fold in on herself further.

Wrecker’s padded embrace is not her savior, it’s not what she seeks, when all she can imagine is the small being robbed of hers. Because of her.

It’s not your fault, she reminds herself, and the reassurance mixes like oil and water.

It doesn’t.

She doesn’t know about Hunter these days, how he fares in the wake of a devastating loss, or if his grief has turned into something accusatory, calloused.

Towards her, she’s convinced.

And it’s a juxtaposition to his comfort laid bare in the emergence of news - he was there with her, sunken to the bathroom floor after the words “I’m sorry for your loss,” reached them in tandem.

She hasn’t seen him since.

Or she has, his soothing presence whispering at her from afar, never too far in the condensed square inches of their home that seem ever-suffocating.

She refuses to look his way.

Even at night, whilst tucking in their other precious gems - of whom a newfound thankfulness for blooms - she is careful to keep her eyes trained on these beautiful home-spun versions of him. Their children are their only vessel of conversation, of which even then is scarce. The bed dips as he moves closer, their band of girls both a bridge and a chasm between. They inveigle him for a story, and he obliges without fail.

And Cyare’s only half-listening, admiring her husband’s dedication while she wishes to be anywhere but here. It’s times like this, as she aims to slip away undetected, she’s reminded that he is strong, and she is not.

“Mommy. Stay.”

The warm, dainty hand grasping her own orchestrates a thick lump in her throat she pointedly forces down. Her eyes sting, and it takes her a moment to finally look her youngest daughter’s way.

“Stay for Papa’s story, Mommy.”

She can feel his eyes on her, but she does not seek an audience. His plea for her attention, recognition, perspires zealous in the air. She refuses to look. To acknowledge the loss.

“Okay,” she whispers, and it’s so frail. “I’ll stay.”

So frail.

So she listens to Hunter’s story, and she doesn’t even have to look at him to detect the weight of his burden slowly creeping through, giving way to a pained lilt even through the “…and they lived happily ever after.”

Something she wonders if they’ll ever have.

His sturdy sonance of words usher the girls into a blissful remiss, unassuming and untroubled by their parent’s turmoil; their minds mellow with a peace she covets.

A chaste kiss to their heads, and Cyare’s fled the room with the hopes he doesn’t follow.

He does.

Because he can’t stay away, because their pain is a shared endeavor, and isn’t that what he promised in their marriage vows?

“I want to be left alone,” she says, at the sound of his lumbering steps into the bedroom.

“No you don’t,” he absolves, moving in a furtive manner. Cyare remains steadfast with her back to him, hoping if she ignores his very presence, like some fever dream the hurt will cancel itself out.

It doesn’t - it won’t.

Hunter’s presence is a conduit of the pain made apparent in finer details; in her threadbare, vulnerable state, she wonders how much their son would’ve resembled him.

She wonders, and she bursts into tears.

It’s alarming, to Hunter; not that he has never bear witness to his wife’s tears, but that they threaten to ricochet off his own. He moves to her swiftly.

“I had a name for him,” Cyare cries.

“…‘Him’?”

It’s the final thread of grief, lilted disbelief shattering the last remnants of composure; his and hers.

As he gathers her close, Hunter also wonders if his deceased namesake would’ve taken after him in appearance.

Hunter closes his eyes and an image slides into place: a boy, with luscious curls not unlike his sisters’. Hunter shuts his eyes tighter and his son has his smile, but Cyare’s kind eyes.

He misses those eyes.

He misses everything all at once.

“Cyare…” his voice is broken and displaced, but so is she, and it’s his job as her husband, her partner, to put her back together again. “We’ll get through this.”

Even if he doesn’t believe he can.

———

Edit: This ask was sent to me an embarrassing long time ago, I’ve had it written and queued for months but could never bring myself to post it (as with most things I write lol) but in light of the recent ask revolving around miscarriages I thought it might be appropriate to just share this little thingy. Enjoy.

[theravennest]

Let’s Talk About Shang Chi...

I just got back from seeing Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I had a great time with it. Just a lovely experience.

The fights were dope. The music was rocking. The actors’ performances really sold me on everything. I loved all the Xianxia elements. Y’all know fantasy worlds are my JAM!

But it was the characters that really drew me in. Every one of them were pitch perfect for me. The final act got a little jumbled, imo, but the characters and their dynamics were so good that it was enough for me to completely forgive and overlook the somewhat messy final battle. 

The story had a lot of heart. It was so personal and so anchored in real emotions. I highkey fell in love with all the main characters. I love their journeys and their complex  and grounded relationships with each other. I really liked the movie’s examination of grief, loss, and pain and the lengths people will go to in the wake of being overwhelmed by those feelings.

Let’s dig into it! This is gonna be a whole discombobulated mess, I just know it. lmao

***Spoilers below the cut!***

I really felt for Shang Chi, Xialing, and Wenwu struggling to figure out how to be a family again after they were all broken in different ways by the loss of Mama Ying Li. And each one of them trying in their own way to heal from it, some to extremely destructive degrees. 

How Wenwu treated his kids after being consumed by grief and violence was so utterly messed up but in two completely different ways. 

He treated Xialing like she was anathema, like she was literally nothing. Even when they were older and she had grown into an adult, he barely spoke to her in the entirety of the movie, could hardly even look at her. Partially because she looked like her mom and he retreated utterly from the pain of that, and partially because he constantly underestimated her in favor of her brother. This, of course, seeded the resentful tension between Xialing and Shang Chi from the start.

I’m a real sucker for sibling dynamics, as you all know. They’re my favorite types of family-oriented stories. (Side note, I really love the way the MCU has dedicated several stories to sibling relationships. It’s like my favorite thing in the MCU as a whole.)

I completely ate up the harsh and tricky relationship between Xialing and Shang Chi. Shang Chi completely let her down when they were kids, for her POV. (Not really his fault, he was a scared and traumatized 15 year old. Totally understandable.) But there is something to be said about the fact that she was also a child. A child dealing with her mom’s death too AND her dad’s aloofness. Then she was utterly abandoned by her brother. It’s no wonder she never quite forgives him, even though they mostly team up in the movie. They still have a lot to work out between them.

I really loved that she took on leadership of the Ten Rings at the end. The moment Shang Chi said she was “dismantling” their dad’s empire, I knew what was up. Though, the softy in me does hope that eventually they can find true reconciliation between them. I’m excited to see what we’ll see from her in future movies as a potential enemy of Shang Chi. It’ll be really interesting to see how Shang Chi tackles having to go up against his little sister.

And Shang Chi!!! OMG! Let’s talk Shang Chi and Wenwu now. When Wenwu drop kicked him into the ground and started the blame game for Mama Ying Li’s death like bro!!! I was so heated. He was 7 years old. A whole baby! She died because your thousand years of violence and conquering shit finally came home to roost. 

But that one line when Wenwu said Shang Chi’s 7 year old self “just stood there and watched” while his mom was killed actually revealed so much about Wenwu’s character. (The cutting way Tony Leung, a literal legend, delivered that was masterful, btw.) 

I actually think that it was the first time Wenwu has ever verbalized that he blamed Shang Chi for Ying Li’s death. Like maybe he’s always felt that way and all this time he was partially punishing Shang Chi for what he thinks of as a failure to protect or help the woman who meant so much to them.

Like, yes, he was training Shang Chi to take his place with him in the Ten Rings as an assassin but maybe he also wanted Shang Chi to kill his mom’s murderer as penance for letting her die in the first place.

Of course, it’s clear to see that Wenwu was absolutely shifting his own feelings of conflicting guilt onto his kids. Guilt that his past as a warlord is what got her killed. But also guilt that he put down the Ten Rings in the first place when if he had stayed a warlord, this never would have happened. But also the bone deep knowledge that if he hadn’t put down the Rings, Ying Li might never have stayed with him and loved him in the first place.

When Shang Chi threw it back at him that Ying Li probably wouldn’t love the person Wenwu had returned to, Wenwu looked so shook up. Phew! Perfect emoting from Tony Leung in that moment.

Honestly, Wenwu was having a very tragic and confusing time of it in this movie. Which is probably how that creature from beyond was able to find a crack in his psychic defenses and lure him to the gate. I had a lot of empathy for him even though I disagree so much with what he did to his kids, emotionally.

I really respect the fact that the movie never lost that sense of compassion for all of their feelings including Wenwu. I also respect that the movie really gave them space to grieve not just the loss of Ying Li but also the resulting dissolution of their happy family.

It’s just too bad that Wenwu’s grief made him push his kids away instead of pulling them closer. He completely emotionally abandoned them. A thousand years of power and supremacy yet he was broken because he never in that time fully learned how to process his emotions in a healthier way and his kids paid the price. They could’ve leaned on each other and on the love they found with Ying Li to help them get through but alas that’s the tragedy of the movie. 

I really wanted somehow for Shang Chi to make it through to his dad before he went too far to come back again. I genuinely did not want to see Wenwu die at the end. I wanted him to live and see Shang Chi’s changing dynamic with his father continue. I wanted to see him finally acknowledge his daughter as his true heir and see her accomplishments (dark though they will likely become considering the “softer” version of her is the one that ran an illegal fight club in Macao lmao).

Though I am happy Shang Chi got through to him enough at the end for Wenwu to save Shang Chi’s life, willingly pass the rings onto his son, and somewhat accept his own death after a thousand years of life. That was such a poignant moment between them. And I wonder if in that instant, Wenwu had the thought that in dying he’d at least see Ying Li again.

(Side note: I really hope his soul and the souls of everyone that got eaten were freed when Shang Chi killed the monster. I really want them to be able to move on to the next phase of existence. I really hope they weren’t destroyed after being eaten. I want Wenwu to reunite with Ying Li even in the afterlife, gotdamnit! Sue me, I’m a romantic.)

Let’s talk Simu Liu’s performance here for one second. He was incredible throughout. I completely bought into this strange but so real feeling that while he has a lot of anger towards his father, so much hurt, he also felt a lot of heartache and love for who Shang Chi wanted him to be. And the strange desire to want to help a man who emotionally scarred him so badly.

Simu really brought both sides of Shang Chi’s journey to life. Like, he was tying to find his own path, reconcile with the mistakes he’s made in the past (his sister, killing his mom’s murderer), and facing up against his father’s ideals and expectations. But there was also a side of Shang Chi’s journey that was about finally understand both his sister and his father’s point of views, and of learning/embracing his mother’s history. 

That moment by the lake when he revealed to Katy that he had actually killed the man who killed his mother. Whew boy! The emotions were so poignant. Simu Liu played it like *chef’s kiss* beautiful.

Speaking of character choices, I really rate this decision to have him actually go through with the assassination. It puts Shang Chi in an interesting position emotionally and somewhat morally. Instead of having his breaking point be him unable to kill as his father wishes, it’s instead the feeling of guilt and shame that he actually did kill the man.

I wonder if he felt a sense of satisfaction before the disgust and shame settled in. Because Shang Chi literally watched his mom die, he probably initially wanted to help his father hunt down the man because of that bit of dark need for vengeance. Until he got it, and felt ashamed to fully face his mother’s memory afterwards.

I’m interested to see how future Shang Chi movies and Simu will dig into and unpack that little bit of darkness these events instilled in the character.

Let’s talk Ying Li for a second here. This woman was incredible. An incredible martial artist, for sure, a mystical guardian and warrior...but she was also just an incredible person in general. Mama Ying Li was so self-assured, so steadfast in her convictions. She struck me as someone who knows exactly what she wants and is never afraid to reach for it.

Fala Chen portrayed her with such grace, warmth, and strength of character. It was extremely easy to see why Wenwu fell in love with her. She met Wenwu, a literal thousand year old warlord, and through shear strength of character led him to put down his weapons and his empire to make a home with her.

This man threw away his entire shadow army of assassins, threw away his whole plan to literally demolish her village in the pursuit of power...in order to play Dance Dance Revolution with her and their kids. (The highlight of their romance and the family flashbacks, for me, tbh.) 

And I know it’s not necessarily...positive BUT there is something...hmmmm, crunchy in the fact that Ying Li so completely altered Wenwu’s life by simply loving him that when she died he was willing to raze the whole world to get her back, damn the consequences.

Trying to properly explore toxic and negative turns in previously loving family dynamics is such a difficult task to take on. I really liked the complexity of the Xu family. All the actors really sold the family side of things. It was an almost tangible thing how much you could see how the love they felt had turned bitter and painful over the years.

The final battle was epic and mind blowing (There was a fucking DRAGON flying around for gods’ sake!) but I do wish it had stayed a little more grounded for longer in the beginning of it when the Ten Rings were fighting the Ta Lo warriors. I wanted to see more of that fight before they had the turn to becoming temporary allies against the soul suckers. It became a little too much of a CGI mash, for me, in some parts of it.

Still, the emotional beats held and the core of the story of this grieving family trying to hold on to the tatters of their world stayed consistent even through the final battle. I can forgive a lot because of the strong sense of character and connection there.

Plus, it’s a comic book movie. Spectacle is the name of the game and at least this one had cool fantasy beasts and dope fight choreo. 

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Let’s wrap it up here. Suffice it to say, I had a wonderful time with this movie. I’m ready for the next one!

[iisuya-simps]

Hi! Could I request TDD boys teaching y/n how to love again after a breakup or rough relationship?

A/N: Aw this is actually really sweet. With these boys by your side I know you'll be treated like gold 🥰 I hope you enjoy~

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Samatoki Aohitsugi

Samatoki has had a few hard relationships as well

He even gave up on dating for a while because of his last one

when you come to talk to him he will be there for you

and if you get emotional or cry he'll hold you in his arms and soothe you

Samatoki will encourage you to take time to grieve

he will cook anything and everything for you if it helps

which it will cause this man is a culinary genius

"I don't care if you don't want to, you need to eat. Please."

as your friend, he will be there for you

he acts as your personal protector physically and emotionally

he will do his best to make sure you stay safe

because you are the most important thing in his life next to Nemu

he will also encourage you to work on yourself and focus on who you are as a person

when you develop feelings for each other over time

He will move slow

because you're special and he wants this to work out

"I don't want to be alone..."

"You won't be, not with me by your side. I'm here for you, y/n"

Samatoki will ask to kiss you when the time is right

he's very observant

and will always ask if it's ok

but once enough time passes he hopes to take you in his arms and gently cover you with kisses

but he'll wait as long as it takes

Samatoki will reassure you that he will be faithful to you and only you

he's not perfect

but he will try his hardest to be the best he can for you

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

Ichiro Yamada

Ichiro knows that you've been hurt in your past

And that's led you to be distanced from people you love and push them away

But he wouldn't let that happen

He would be there for you every step of the way

He's always been very attentive and sensitive to you and your feelings

he will be your shoulder to cry on

he tells you that you can always lean on him for strength

and he wants you to know that you should never hold things in or blame yourself

you are worthy of love

He doesn't push you into anything that could potentially harm or trigger you

Ichiro can be an emotional guy himself

he knows you're special and falls for you head over heels

he'll never hesitate to tell you how he cherishes you and your time together

he might even try to kiss you after you share a heartfelt moment

if you want to

"Ichiro, you could never love a broken person like me..."

"Why not? You're not the only one who is broken y/n"

"If you think I'm going to leave you now you're sadly mistaken"

This relationship is give and take

Ichiro hopes to give you more love than you can imagine

But at the same time not be overbearing

He just wants to show you that he loves you and will love you for as long as you'll have him

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

Jakurai Jinguji

The love doctor is ready to heal a broken heart

If you need to talk to someone he's there

he will listen to every word you have to say

he will encourage you to work on communicating your feelings and to let go of your past if that's what you have to do

he will try and comfort you with some of your favorite tea

"Did you get enough sleep y/n? Try some chamomile tea."

"Drink some water too so you don't get dehydrated"

"I know it's hard but please remember to eat"

he will tell you how dear you are to him and remind you that you are wonderful

He is very understanding of your feelings

He will move very slow with you

but you feel that familiar pull of attraction but that voice in the back of your head tells you you're not good enough

he wants you to know that your self worth isn't defined by---

Why would he ever want to be with you?

You called Jakurai crying and he came to get you right away

You told him about the intrusive thoughts

He picked you up off the ground

Wiping away all your tears

You let him hold you until you called down enough

Y/n you know I'm here for you

Come what may, I would never leave you because

That's all you really needed to hear

I wish I could take away all of your pain

Look at me, I'm a mess

What do you even see in me?

will kiss the top of your head and won't go any further unless you ask for more

I see a strong, amazing woman who needs to be loved

you put deep trust in jakurai

which is hard for you to do at first

but he has proven to be true to you

jakurai is patient and will wait for you as long as it takes

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

Ramuda Amemura

Ramuda will do everything he can to be there and cheer you up

he could understand how you feel hesitant to trust people

love isn't easy, it takes a lifetime to learn and master

he feels like he has to hide part of who he is with his bubbly persona

Ramuda is usually pretty physical when trying to comfort you

but will give you space if you need it

no matter how hard it is for him to keep his distance

he will listen to you without judgement

he will take you out on adventures in town doing various activities to keep you busy and get your mind off things

take you out to eat for dinner

(mostly dessert)

If you're not up to that there is still plenty to do indoors

you enjoy watching tv together

"You can sit on my lap and talk to me if you want"

Ramuda will buy you, sweets, in hopes of easing the heartache

Even if it just helps a little

Ramuda just wants you to be happy

"If you wanted to leave me I'd understand..."

"How could I ever leave you y/n?"

"You're one of the best things that have ever happened to me!" he takes your hands

"How about this, I'll be there for you if you'll be there for me, deal?"

He'll give you a big hug

(Ramuda gives the best hugs)

"You deserve all the love in the world!"

Though he wants to kiss you he'll refrain from doing so until you ask or make the first move

then he'll be all over you

Ramuda has nothing but love to give you

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Thanks for reading!

[saphirered]

I thought this would be an interesting twist: After the failed ritual, what if Lucien's s/o ran into Molly? Thank you!

Okay so this one came out quicker than I expected 😅. Little 'twist' at the end because I could not help myself. I hope you enjoy it! 😘

You warned him. You warned him so many times but he wouldn’t bloody listen. Too caught up in his own game for power, never satisfied. But what were you supposed to do? Stop him? No, you’d never. You loved him more than that but you were not prepared to follow him to his own death. Lucien, you idiot how could you? You tried everything but he didn’t come back. The ritual failed. You didn’t want to uphold your part of the bargain. You knew this mage had ulterior motives and after being granted a peak of those pages she wouldn’t back down.

The woman wanted it all for herself and Lucien stood between her and that power the Eyes of Nine had to offer. Knowing the Tombtakers would follow Lucien to the extremes they would also accept the risks of this ritual and would be content but disappointed should it fail. With what you had seen you knew it shouldn’t fail. You had warned Lucien of your suspicions but his own arrogance made him blind to the consequences of this all. He wouldn’t listen and you were becoming an obstacle so when the ritual was to go down you weren’t there.

Lucien has slipped away from your warm embrace in the dead of night to perform the ritual and of course Vess messed with it, assuring he wouldn’t be able to return to his body therefor as per the agreement, she’d take the book as payment. It was too late when you found him, already dead. No amount of healing or revivification could bring him back to you. You had to accept that but you could enact revenge on the bitch that took him away from you. You’ll have her wishing she was the one in a shallow grave instead.

The Tombtakers diverged, finding their own paths. Cree tried to take you with her but you wouldn’t. You had your own task to complete. After that you could rest. Making the arrangements, finding allies where you could, earning and cashing in favours from anyone of power or resources you could left you with quite the arsenal at your disposal but you couldn’t just walk into the capital of the Dwendalian Empire and murder one of the archmages of the Cerberus Assembly. You had to be patient, lay low and let everyone think you moved on.

Still you visited the grave whenever you could. There was a comfort in the hope that maybe, wherever he was he could hear you. Lucien would probably scold you for going on a revenge path against one of the most powerful magic users on the continent all by your lonesome. He’s one to talk. Nevermind, you told him about your adventures, and hoping to acquire the resources to attempt to bring him back. You won’t give up hope.

Then you returned, returned to find the grave empty. You followed the tracks but they lead you nowhere. You had to find him. You had to find Lucien before anyone else did because what might they do? What state would he be in? Does this mean he’s already ascended? Would this mean he’d truly fully become the Nonagon for once and for all? But most of all, you just want him back in your arms knowing he’d be safe. You’d scour Exandria to find him.

There you are standing in a dark alleyway, hood blocking direct view of your face as you’re quite literally in the middle of a back alley deal. You’re no stranger to the shady business and shady people can most often be found in these places. You pay your contact in exchange for the information your requested, satisfied with the results. You hear commotion on the main street. Guards. Parting from your contact you wait for the guards to pass. That’s when you notice a lavender tiefling bolt past you. A very familiar lavender tiefling.

Confusion, relief, heartache, panic, happiness, disappointment, a wave of emotion hits you in a way you’re not even sure how you’re supposed to feel at this point. Many questions accompany those feelings. What are you supposed to do? Well, go after him of course! If Lucien’s back and he’s being chased by guards, that’s not a good thing for the current situation. Sticking to the shadows you trail along. Lucien may just have lost his touch but perhaps the city is an unfamiliar one to him and alone, he doesn’t know the way. The tattoos are new, so are the rather colourful clothes but you know he never does anything without reason.

You figure out where he’s going, the direction at least and from your own past encounters here you know the side alleys. You take a path that should have you end up ahead of him. You’ll have to take a few rooftops and private yards but it’s the quickest and you’ve done it plenty of times. Once you get in place you take off your cloak, get ready. You hear the guards shouting for reinforcements. The closer he gets from around the corner you can see the smug grin filled with mischief as he runs. You’ve missed that one.

The moment comes and you grab onto him as he passes pulling him into the alley with you, wrapping your cloak around him and pulling the hood up. Hands on both sides of his face you look at him closely. There’s confusion in his eyes as they focus on you. He’s already out of breath but you pull him into a deep kiss. Lucien hits the wall behind him and readjusts the hood of the cloak to keep his face covered. The response to the kiss only comes with the sound of the guards drawing near and is very confused. The guards pass by. They glance into the alley but awkwardly turn back to following the street upon seeing the two of you together.

As soon as they’re gone Mollymauk breaks away from you. He’s breathing heavily more from the run than the kiss you shared. He’s very confused. Indifferent to being kissed by a stranger, this… unexpected to say the least. He’s got no idea who you are but you saved his ass so you’re alright in his books at the moment. That doesn’t mean he’s not wary of you. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you know him, or well whoever he used to be and with the conflicting emotions running through you he’ll have to think fast to spin his bullshit correctly.

“You have no idea how happy I am you’re alive. Does this mean it worked after all? Did you succeed?” You run your thumbs over Lucien’s cheekbones as he holds onto your wrists lightly. The pressure in your chest grows heavier as you await his answer.

“It did. I did. It didn’t go as planned but I’m here now.” Molly works his charm like his life depends on it because he entertains the thought it might. Your touch, there’s something eerily familiar about it, akin to being reminded of a distant long forgotten dream. Hazy but it feels real. He still has no idea who you are and there’s no bells ringing either. While he much rather run far away avoiding any and all connections to a past not his, he cannot help but commend whoever came before him. The one that got buried definitely had a good taste in lovers? Friends? Molly’s not going to assume even though you kissed him quite passionately.

Your chest clenches and it feels as if your breath won’t leave your body, your blood stopping in your veins, like you got hit by an extra dimensional force attempting to pull everything away from you. You listen to Lucien’s words. It looks like him but why do you feel like you hear someone else? It’s not an illusion or some trick you’re sure. If it were your enemies would have known to pick a better imposter and you’d have been dead already. Your own mind fights against this train of thought, justifying it. Lucien had been dead for weeks until you found the empty grave. Of course there were bound to be side effects or even consequences to the ritual. But then again, it had been two years since then. Two years to recover from whatever happened…

“You don’t know me, do you?” Speaking the words out loud breaks your heart. You don’t fight the pain they cause. There’s no tears. You’ve already grieved Lucien once. You’re not doing it again. This will be nothing more than a painful reminder, a cruel joke from the gods behind the divine gate. Why must the fates torture you so for nothing more than loving an ambitious man reaching for the stars and beyond?

“No. I’m sorry.” Molly can’t help but feel your pain. It’s clear you cared a great amount about his predecessor, the way you speak reveals intense heartbreak at the passing of that one. It also shows acceptance that whoever he used to be is gone and you’ve come to terms with that a while ago. That’s enough for him to recognise you won’t hurt him. Molly had never felt sorry for the death of who he used to be and he won’t start now but he does feel sorry for you. This whole situation is messed up.

You close your eyes and nod, dropping your hands and take a step back. No matter how much your heart may tell you to be close to this tiefling, your mind knows it’s not Lucien. You cannot in good conscious hang onto whatever remains. It’s not fair you him, to Lucien but most of all not fair to yourself. Do you wish it was Lucien standing here in front of you? Of course you do. You’d do anything to get him back but what would directing all your pain achieve directed at this new person in the same body? It would accomplish nothing but more pain. You can’t imagine this tiefling in front of you doesn’t have any friends, loved ones, people who care about him. You weren’t going to put you don’t know how many others through the same pain you’ve been put through.

“I am as much of a ghost of the past to you as you are to me.” You’ve come to the conclusion that based of his responses there may not be any recognition, there is an unknown familiarity to you on his end. Perhaps the final slivers of Lucien remaining but nothing more than a fleeting memory. A hand reaches out for yours. You allow him to take your hand and he rubs circles in the back of it with his thumb in an attempt to bring you some comfort. It’s a gesture out of kindness. Not out of selfish intent or with the expectancy to get something out of it, like Lucien would when faced with a stranger he clearly had the upper hand over.

“You seem to have cared for my predecessor, Lucien, quite a lot. I truly am sorry.” You offer him a saddened smile as a silent thank you. He knows Lucien’s name so he must have learned something of the past. You gather it hasn’t been much and most definitely is second hand knowledge by his lack of information on the ritual, who he used to be, everything really.

“You know his name?” The sentence is voiced somewhere in between a question and a statement.

“A blood cleric named Cree. She ran into us-me and mistook me for him. I played along but I don’t think she really bought it. She didn’t reveal much.” The name of the tabaxi alone is enough to make your blood boil. If Cree had known for however long, why hadn’t she gotten in contact with you? You know exactly why and are debating wether or not you could do with a new fur rug. You also acknowledge that Cree is a risk and this new-not Lucien will have to watch his back.

“Since you’re not Lucien nor do you seem to be using that name, what do I call you?”

“Mollymauk Tealeaf or simply Molly to my friends.” The tiefling-Mollymauk smiles at you, a genuine smile. You have to appreciate the small gestures of comfort and kindness.

“I would give you my own name but for both of our sakes I won’t. You may refer to me as an old friend. I know I have no right to but may I ask you a favour?”

Mollymauk nods. As always he leaves a place better than he found it, tries to bring joy and happiness wherever he can even if that means making a fool of himself. Very few times has he been faced with someone who needs his help as much as you do. While there’s definitely limits to what he can provide, you deserve some compassion. Especially after the shitty cards life had dealt to you. He’ll try to ease that if he can.

“May I- May I ask you to tell me about your life, Mollymauk?” Not the request he expected. Then again, to be fair he didn’t really know what to expect. A kiss maybe? Stick along for a while? Perhaps even a final goodbye so you could close this chapter once and for all? But of all the things you asked about him. Not Lucien. Him.

“It’s a long story…” Molly drifts off reminiscing the wild ride of the past two years, especially the events of the last few months upon joining the Mighty Nein and the adventures they had already gone on; were currently on but if you really wanted to hear all about that, he’d tell you.

“I have plenty of time. How about we walk and talk? Get you back to your traveling companions? Your friends? And if there’s still plenty more to tell, if you want to you can tell me over a few drinks. My treat.” You feel within yourself you’d better be able to let go knowing this Mollymauk is happy and lives content. Lucien might be gone but Mollymauk deserves a good life free of Lucien’s burdens. You’ll do what you can to assure that.

“Never tell a story for free. That sounds like a good deal.” Molly offers you his arm and when you hesitate, expects you not to take it but to his surprise you do. There’s something strangely comforting about the whole ordeal. You’re both strangers to each other but it still feels like you have known each other for years.

On your way to where Mollymauk is staying he feels no need to hold back or deceive and instead tells you what happened to him; how he woke up, dug himself out of a grave and was found by a kind man, joined the circus, became a fortune teller, made friends along the way, found a family, many tales of the mischief he was up to, leaving every place better than he found it. You had some good laughs and were able to ask some questions throughout. All in all you came to the conclusion Mollymauk’s life hasn’t been an easy one but it was a good one and he was happy.

Then he found this group of strangers in a tavern somewhere in Trostenwald. His old family was torn away in the wreckage of a devil toad but he found a new one in these strangers. The Mighty Nein. Their time together has been but a few months but they already feel like family and he’d do anything for them. They might be assholes but they’re good people.

You got to meet them. Molly- as he keeps insisting because you are his friend now, introduced you to this Mighty Nein as he thought it best you heard some of these stories from their mouths too for the sake of perspective. He introduced you to them as such; an old friend from the past. The details were left blurry but Molly’s confidence was enough to leave them at the very least accepting and not mistrusting you. They shared their stories with you. They needed him. They may have come far from the assholes they were, but they still had a ways to go. You knew you could not tear that away from him nor did you feel right to join them, even if temporarily.

It’s time for you to say goodbye. You bid your farewell to the Mighty Nein and while they would ask you to stay just a little longer, you know you cannot. You will not insert yourself into their lives based on the merits of your own lies and life. They are free so let them be free. Molly walks you out so you may have one final conversation before you leave his world behind you.

“You don’t have to go yet. They enjoy your company and honestly, they could learn a thing or two from you.” Molly offers as you stand outside of the tavern, the sky since having grown dark and the stars out. The air is cool, winter is drawing near, before you know it the frost will stick to the ground and you’ll be back in Shadycreek plotting the demise of a certain Cerberus Assembly member. You’ll have to leave this all behind.

“You know I can’t. For all of our sakes.” You offer Molly a smile. You’re happy with what you got to see, the stories you were told but this is where it ends and that’s okay. Molly knows it too. Sometimes it’s better to let go than to hang on. You have your own life just as he has his.

“So I guess this is goodbye then.” Molly takes hold of both of your hands and squeezes lightly before he pulls you in for a hug. You return the embrace. Pulling apart enough to look him in the eyes you stroke his cheek, tracing the tattoos fanning up his neck and jaw.

“I am still but a ghost of the past. A ghost I will remain. I wish you a good life, Mollymauk Tealeaf. May we one day meet again.” You kiss his cheek and despite the appearance of Lucien, it doesn’t feel the same. Despite how it may sound, you’re happy it doesn’t. You step out of Molly’s arms.

“May we meet again.” The words Molly speaks are like a breath upon the wind as you walk backwards, one final look at the lavender tiefling as you blend into the darkness, fading like a ghost.

There may be many more things Molly would like to ask you. He’d like to get to know you and the thought that maybe one day he might, sounds like a good day in his mind. You have your own business to take care of first but maybe one day you will meet again. For now a ghost of the past he doesn’t recall you will remain…

——————

But a few months later you find your way back on the road to Shadycreek Run. There you found a grave marker along the Glory Run Road… The marker held a colourful ostentatious red coat embellished to the nines. It appears to have been left to the weather for some time but you recognise it. Hit with a sense of dread you approach the grave already knowing who it belongs to. The least you can do is pay your final respects to the friend you never got to know more.

You dismount your horse guiding it the reins closer to the marker. That’s definitely Molly’s coat. There’s no denying that now. You walk further up the hill offering a silent prayer to the Moonweaver who Molly admitted to being a follower of.

Approaching the grave you see it dug up. You expect grave robbers, thieves of some kind as you brush your fingers over the fabric of the coat. You get a glance of the grave and see it empty instead. Not robbed; empty. No body, nothing but the marker and the coat. Down the other side of the hill you see a figure, a lavender tiefling, tapestry draped around him watching the skies. The back is turned to you so the tiefling doesn’t see you. A wave of both relieve and dread washes over you as you are met with your own ghost of the past.

[payphoneangel]

🫀

Hello Anessa!! You picked: THE TEAM FREE WILL SPREAD

Are you facing a difficult decision in your life? Are unsure of which way to go? Never fear, dear, let’s see what advice the cards will give :)

1) OPTION A (The Moon)

Hmm. There’s more to this situation than what meets the eye. This choice may feel like you’re getting trapped in an inescapable situation, but take a deep breath and always always trust your intuition. Even time loops can’t last forever. Stay keen, stay aware, and maybe shake up your choice of breakfast. You never know what little changes can help spark bigger revelations.

2) OPTION B (The Emperor)

This choice requires diligence and discipline. While option A may have hidden opportunities and consequences, this option is exactly what you think it’s going to be: work. I’d recommend, if you don’t already, to keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings. Having a written reference of what you're feeling in the moment to look back on may help you ultimately decide which decision will be right for you. And, if you go on a hunting trip and haven’t been home in a few days, your journal may be a useful monster-hunting field guide for your loved ones.

3) EFFECTS OF OPTION A (Three of Blades)

Responsibility demands sacrifice. The three of Blades and— uh…. *checks spn wiki* Madison the Werewolf evoke loss, sorrow, and sometimes, even betrayal. If you go with option A, you may find yourself grieving something unexpected, or suffering a hidden loss. That may not sound ideal, but let the tears flow to water the place that you will grow. Grief and loss are as important and integral to life as Euphoria and gain. There cannot be one without the other. Maybe, for your happiness and others, if you see someone alluring with just too sharp of teeth, save yourself some heartache and walk the other way.

4) EFFECTS OF OPTION B (The Chariot reversed)

The Chariot is about momentum and drive (pun intended). When reversed, as is, it tells me the impact of this choice may leave you feeling lost or directionless. You may feel regret and uncertainty that you made the wrong choice. If this becomes the case, try not to spin out of control with negative self talk. That damn car got driven through buildings, crashed into by other cars, used to kill monsters, and damn near went to hell and back. Despite everything, she drives onward. Even if this choice leaves you feeling like you’ve lost your way, fret not, my dear. You will find your path forward.

5) ADVICE (The Star reversed)

Regardless of the decision that you make, you may end up feeling disappointed. It can be easy to feel hopeless in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation. But there is still hope in a reversed star, just like how Jack held onto his hope even in the deepest pits of The Empty. It’s important to let yourself process the stress of working through a rough point and feel the grief life throws your way. Even in the darkest parts of space, the light of the star, the light of hope, still shines!

Thank you so much @transdisabledbearbenny for the ask! As a little bonus, since I was hoping he’d appear in your spread, Benny and I wish you Strength on your journey 💜

Send me a 🥧 😈 or 🫀 and I will give you an spn themed tarot reading

[gryffindors-weasley]

Finding A Light

Ron Weasley x Fem!Reader

Summary: Ron was left broken in the aftermath of the wizarding war. In an attempt to build a better life, he feels he may have unknowingly met someone who could put those pieces back together.

Warnings: angst, mentions of death, grieving, fluff

A/N: Remus is very much alive in this series! This will be more than one part, I hope you enjoy!

Ron Weasley was a man of few words when presented the daunting task of expressing his emotions, preferring to stuff them down and deal with the consequences later. He never outright says what he’s feeling unless it’s pried from him, and in those times it’s usually expressed through anger. He isn’t great with his words either, so it didn’t come as a surprise to Harry and Hermione to see him so closed off after the war had concluded its disastrous rampage.

It was a battle that anyone and everyone involved was more than likely to never forget, the losses and hardships engraved in their minds as a permanent reminder should their memory allow it as they age. Some had come out on the other side more fortunate than others. Some had handled it far better than others. Ron was not one of those people.

His long awaited ambitions on becoming an Auror were rapidly diminished and pushed to the very back of his mind for a good while. He had wanted absolutely nothing to do with magic beyond that very day, thought that maybe if he hadn’t used it, it wouldn’t remind him of his tragedies. That maybe that part of his life would be forgotten in time if he tried hard enough. So, his wand, his robes, his Hogwarts letters and what was left of his sentimental wizarding memorabilia were hastily shoved into a cardboard box, taped shut and stuffed away to collect dust. Out of sight out of mind was his reasoning, though it didn’t quite work out that way.

The loss of his childhood home paired with the devastating loss of one of his older brothers had been a weight too heavy to bear, pressing down on his chest with each day that passed. He nearly lost two of his closest friends amidst the chaos the Dark Lord left in his wake. Such a lifetime of pain and loss was something he never anticipated to experience all by the young age of eighteen, and it left him feeling like a mere shell of the person he once used to be. As if the years of extraordinary magical endeavors prior to that day were completely erased and replaced with utter heartache.

It took him four years to bring himself out of the pit he found himself stuck in and find some semblance of strength, if only for his mother, and he wanted to build a better life for himself. One without so much sorrow written into his story. He wasn’t entirely sure how to go about doing so, knowing a return to a normal life simply wouldn’t be feasible. Not that his life had ever been considered normal per say.

The emotional scars were something that would never go away, he understood that, but he didn’t think he could go another day having the same mundane routine night and day. He felt ready for more.

Now, at the age of twenty-two coming up on twenty-three, he found himself returning to Hogwarts with hopes to become a professor. His heart nearly beat out of his chest when he arrived, sick to his stomach with nerves as he stopped and stood in the middle of the newly constructed stone bridge. His letter crinkled under the pressure of his tightly clenched hand, luggage in the other, eager students curving their stride to avoid running into him. The castle was more grand than he’d remembered it to be, perhaps they’d made it bigger to house more young witches and wizards, perhaps it wasn’t. Either way, against his instincts, he forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat and continue forward before he convinced himself to turn around and apparate home.

He quickly found that things had been kept fairly the same as he roamed the grand halls in curiosity, as similar to the school he’d grown up in as it could be. The wondrous ceiling of enchanted candles in the Great Hall was a detail that briefly gave him watery eyes; the varying hues of reds, oranges and yellows coloring the Gryffindor common room, down to the house flags pridefully ornamenting the new quidditch pitch. He found himself turning to express his awe to Harry or Hermione on more than one occasion, but was only met with the unfamiliar faces of new students. His shoulders would slump as he exhaled a deep sigh.

It had taken him nearly two months to fully adjust to his newfound routine, to come to terms with the memories that flashed in his mind of their own volition. Whether they be good or bad, they had a habit of making themselves known at the worst of times. Over the course of that time period crumpled pieces of parchment had accumulated around the desk in his room, unsent letters to his mother of his wishes to return home. All of which were written hastily in either frustration or tears, or a mixture of the two. And of the ones he had sent, they were promptly returned with enchanted letters vocally telling him with the utmost of love and sternness that he will be staying, he needs this. Those letters kept him going on those days.

Amongst those days and nights it was strange not having his two best friends there, loneliness still having its hold on him.

Remus Lupin had made his return all the more welcome though, himself and McGonagall being two of the only familiar faces that he’d truly connected with. He felt it was an honor to be taken under his wing and trained, he always had been Ron’s favorite instructor of Defense Against The Dark Arts. He’d even go so far as to say he’s the best if he was being honest.

Regardless, despite his own personal conflicts, he was beginning to feel more comfortable residing there than he had ever thought he would. It was as if the nagging rain cloud dumping over his head was starting to dissipate for the time being.

“You did very good today, Ron,” Lupin says once his final class of the day has left, “the teaching of boggarts is never easy I’ll say, and if I recall correctly it wasn’t your favorite lesson.”

Ron chuckles at the thought, pushing his chair in when he stood. “Not particularly. I still have a nightmare or two about that bloody spider.”

Lupin laughs, nodding at the pleasant memory. Things fall quiet for a few moments as Ron moves to sling his bag over his shoulder. “Off you go, Mr. Weasley, enjoy your weekend,” he urges, grabbing Ron’s attention again before he gets too far. “Here’s your weekly report. You’re becoming a fine up and coming professor I’d say. I have no doubt that I will be leaving my classroom in the best possible care.”

Ron nods with a soft laugh, cheeks flushing a pale crimson at the reassurance as he takes the parchment from him, tucking it into his bag to be read later. “Thank you, Professor Lupin, really. It means a lot to hear.”

He smiles appreciatively before making his way across the long classroom, stopping in his tracks. He takes a breath to gather his thoughts before spinning on his heel to face him again, returning to the desk he sat at. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I suppose.”

He offers Ron a smile upon seeing the clear hesitancy written all over his face. Ron gulps, fumbling with the strap of his bag that rested on his shoulder. He could practically see the gears turning in the ginger boy’s head if such a thing existed. “Was it…was it hard coming back here? After the war, I mean.”

Lupin huffs out a soft laugh at the sudden ask of such a deep question, though he can’t say he was surprised. “I was waiting for this question to arise,” he says, lifting a hand to stop Ron from apologizing. “To give a short answer, yes. It took great thought. To give a long answer, one you may not like but I’m sure you already know, there will always be bad days after experiencing such trauma. It is not easy being born into a life where magic is real and not just a trick of the eye. While it can be wonderful it also brings with it a great deal of damage.”

Ron nods as he listens to his words, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“Despite all of it, Hogwarts is a place that can be good just as much as it can be bad. You just have to take it in your stride. You’re stronger than you think, Ron. If you really want to be here, I believe it is worth it to try.”

Ron exhales deeply, taking a moment to process his insightful words, a certain wisdom he appreciated. It left him feeling considerably lighter than he had before, like he was a bit more hopeful of a better experience here. “Thank you.”

That’s all he can manage to say.

The blue eyed man in front of him nods. “Go on now, you’ve had a long day, Weasley.”

—

Ron found himself to be rather excited for this weekend. It would be his first time making a trip to Hogsmeade in nearly five years, though he’d been putting it off because the experience wasn’t quite the same when doing it alone. Third years buzzed around him with the excitement of their newfound privileges and independence, bouncing from shop to shop to fully take in all that it had to offer.

He, however, walked at a leisurely pace amongst the students bustling around him, taking a moment to fully appreciate everything he hadn’t seen for so long. Catching details that otherwise went unnoticed like the chipping pink paint on the curved windowsills of Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop, and the happy young couples residing inside. The vibrant green moss that formed inbetween the crumbling cracks of the old cobblestone walkways. However, the sight of Zonko’s Joke Shop made his heart lurch in his chest the moment he saw it.

He averted his gaze immediately, swallowing thickly as he tugged at his shirt collar that suddenly felt a little too constricting. It had been Fred and George’s favorite shop to frequent, always buying new things to add to their inventory of pranks. But now that one half of the pair was missing it wasn’t such a fond memory anymore, moreso a taunting one.

The sound of a couple students joyously greeting with a chorus of ‘Hi Mr. Weasley!’ pulled him from his thoughts and he was quick to smile, giving them a half wave as they had already begun to walk away. He let his hand fall back to his side, huffing out a sigh as he continued to walk along the path towards the one place he looked forward to the most, Honeydukes.

The little bell overhead alerted his entrance as he opened the door, the air noticeably sweeter than outside. He found himself smiling as his gaze bounced around the near unchanged shop, any candy you could possibly think of lining almost every brightly painted wall. Though not every single one is a desireable find, he learned that one the hard way. He almost didn’t know where to begin, much like how he felt the first time he ever entered the place, and every time after that for that matter. So he perused the shop, something he’s never done by himself.

His eyes landed on familiar chocolates, and he was quick to grab a box for Hermione because he knows they’re her favorite. Despite such knowledge she still adamantly denies having a sweet tooth to this day. To go along with that, he snags one of the last chocolate frogs for Harry.

It was a fond memory when he thought of it, a tradition they’d had as young students. He’s still got the cards he’d collected from each frog, they were tucked away in that box filled with other things. Maybe when he returned home he’d have the courage to reopen it.

He continues to look around for a bit more, finding himself wishing he had the same sense of enjoyment and innocence as some of the younger students held. For they were fortunate enough to narrowly miss being involved with such negative events. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t looming over his head anymore, to let himself enjoy this very moment. So, he tried his best to clear his mind and bring himself back to his current situation in the middle of an aisle filled with hard candies.

When he had turned the corner of said aisle he collided with something, someone to be more specific, the box clutched in his hands opening on impact and sending the assortment of sweets clattering to the ground with the addition of others. The chocolate frog had fell from its decorative box and hopped out of sight before he could process it.

“I’m so sorry!” A soft voice sounds in front of him, a warm hand enveloping his wrist.

“It’s okay…” Ron trails off when he matches the voice to its owner, blinking slowly as his mouth hangs slightly agape. He found himself staring at the girl, he was quite sure he’d never seen someone so alluring, so captivating. He didn’t know if he could manage to stop gawking. “I-it’s okay.”

His cheeks redden when he realized he’s repeated himself, the fiery heat of embarrassment burning from the very tips of his ears down to his neck, leaving his pale skin flushed. You too came to the realization that you were still gripping his arm, quickly dropping it as you laughed softly to stave off any awkward silence. He averts his eyes momentarily, needing a moment to regain his composure and not make a complete fool of himself in front of the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Though he’s quite sure he already has.

“I told Mr. Flume it shouldn’t be quite so cramped in here, but he never seems to listen,” you laugh, looking at the smattering of sweets scattered around the two of them. Ron was focused less on the mishap and more on the way you smiled brightly at him, knowing his cheeks were undoubtedly the same shade as his hair. “Give me just one moment, please!”

He nods just a little too late as you rush off around another corner and out of sight, leaving him to stand there awkwardly as students in the vicinity stared at the mess sprawled at his feet. Shortly, you indeed did come back, a new box of chocolates and what was now the last chocolate frog in your hands. You thrusted them in his direction with a warm smile, one that made his heart flip in his chest. “Take these, it’s on the house.”

“Oh I couldn’t do that,” Ron rushes.

“Please, it was my mistake. I insist.”

He laughs softly, nodding after a moment. “At least let me help you clean up?”

You nod up at him with a laugh of your own, “deal.”

He tries not to think about the way your fingers brush over his as they pick up chocolates from the checkered floor, tossing them into the nearby trash bin. And he tried not to think about the way you’d had his stomach twisting in knots as if he was a thirteen year old again experiencing his first crush.

“I’m Y/n, by the way.”

He scrambled to think of a response, seemingly forgetting his own name momentarily. It hadn’t gotten any better when you looked up at him politely as if waiting for a response. “I’m Ron…Ron Weasley.”

He could’ve kicked himself for being so awkward, knowing him stumbling over his words couldn’t possibly give off any sort of appeal. He brushed his hands off with a sigh as he stood to his feet. Though you didn’t seem to mind his nerves as you brushed your hands off on your jeans.

“Nice to meet you, Ron. I only wished it were on better circumstances.” The pale blush on your face deepened a shade.

“That’s quite alright,” he says with an airy laugh, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “It was nice meeting you too.”

That same silence took up the absence in conversation again as Ron tried desperately to think of something to say, not quite ready for the interaction to be over. You beat him to it.

“I hope to see you around here again, maybe without the mess,” you say with a soft smile, “and don’t forget your chocolates.”

He was confused for a moment, too caught up in the way your eyes sparkled as they looked at him, or the way your hair fell around your face before following where you’d been pointing. “Oh! Y-yeah…thank you,” He grabbed his sweets in his shaky hands, feeling rather bold suddenly, “I’ll see you around then, Y/n.”

He was sure your words were only friendly, something you probably said often as a kind gesture. Probably not because you actually wanted to see him again. But he let himself think otherwise if only for a moment.

You simply nod, your grin widening a fraction, “bye Ron.”

—

Ron’s lifted spirits did not go unnoticed, not by Mrs. McGonagall who made it a point to bring it up at dinner later that evening. He could tell she picked up on it, could tell by the very way she’d glanced at him frequently. Though he wasn’t sure he was hiding it very well. He pretended not to notice, focusing his gaze on the rows of tables occupied by dozens upon dozens of students seated at them, the hardwood adorned with some of the best food he’s ever eaten. Second only to his mother.

“Is there a particular reason you’re so cheery, Mr. Weasley?” She finally asks, and he sighs at the question.

“Not particularly,” he responds using her wording, glancing at her as a smile pulls at the left corner of his mouth. He watches as she raises a skeptical brow; he knows what’s coming.

“I haven’t seen you smile like that in a number of years, Ronald. I know when you’re lying,” she says with a soft laugh, though she doesn’t pry.

Ron chuckles down at his plate as he shakes his head, pushing his food around as he thought about her. The way she smiled at him, so brightly the corners of her eyes crinkled. It still felt as though those butterflies were still fluttering around in his stomach. He quickly found himself wanting to hear your voice again, or hear your laughter—

“I’ve met a wonderful person today, that’s all,” he blurts, looking to his side.

She gave him a fond yet knowing smile, nodding her head. “I know the look of young love when I see it.”

“I’m not in love, Mrs. McGonagall,” he urges almost immediately, cheeks reddening once more at her preposterous conclusion, “I’ve only just met her today.”

“If you insist, my dear.”

“I do insist.” He tries to be sure of himself despite his inability to get you off his mind, but he hides his smile behind his goblet as he takes a sip.

Later that night he went to bed with something other than sorrow clouding his thoughts, instead feeling rather optimistic about the week ahead. Or maybe it was the plans he’d had at the end of it that had him so eager, time feeling agonizingly slow. It was definitely that. He couldn’t wait to see you next Saturday.

—

[tracybirds]

So this is just a nice day for a picnic. Definitely no room for any angst here.

(in other words, this did not turn out like I planned and I’m rolling with it)

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

“Well, obviously, that is completely illegal,” said Gordon casually as he lay back against the picnic blanket. Her impeccable posture hardly deviated from perfect form as she sat on the ground, her legs neatly tucked to the side. She held a saucer neatly in her hand and raised an eyebrow as she lowered the teacup to rest upon it.

The deep red might have taken for a strongly steeped hibiscus tea, except Gordon knew exactly how Penelope felt about herbal teas. She’d hidden a lifetime supply in the linen cupboard in the fifth-floor bathroom before he’d finally discovered the stash.

A shame, he’d thought they were quite a nice gift.

“There’s no law against alcohol consumption here,” she said in a dignified manner, laying her hand across her wrist.

“Naw, you can’t drink wine in a teacup, that’s all.” Gordon tucked his arms under his head and grinned up at her. “Kansas law, babe.”

“It is not.”

“It is! Well, at least in Topeka.”

“Does it look like we’re in Topeka?”

His answering laugh was free as the birds above. There was no need for chemical enhancements when his very presence sunk into her skin with an intoxicating rush.

“Plenty more where that came from. Ask John some time, he’ll rattle them off for you.”

Gordon tugged her closer, smiling lazily and allowing the sound of her laugh to wash over him.

They lazed in the bright sunshine together, comfortably silent and content to simply be together.

“Do you miss it here?”

“What, Kansas?” Gordon’s eyes slid from her face up to the clouds above. “Naw. The island’s home now anyway.”

“How old were you when you left?”

Gordon shrugged and flipped himself over. His hands reached out, fingers plucking carelessly at the grass as he avoided her gaze.

“Technically we moved when I was eight. But I stuck around here for a few more years.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m surprised your father let you.”

“It was complicated, Pen. Mom had just died, and Dad…”

Gordon trailed off, not willing to criticise his father too harshly.

Penelope merely nodded and Gordon pulled himself together.

“He wanted to move us west to be closer to Grandma and so he could focus on business stuff. He packed us all up and we’d only just arrived when Scott and him had a massive fight.”

“Scott and your father did?”

“Yeah.” He grimaced. “You’ve never heard Scott mad like that before. He wanted to finish high school with his friends. I don’t know how, but he got his way. And I was sent back with him, and I still couldn’t tell you why.”

“And Scott was…”

“Seventeen. We stayed with Captain Taylor, he put us up for a bit. Then Scott finished school and I got moved to a boarding school.”

“That must have been hard to be away from your brothers.”

Gordon grinned. “Oh, it wasn’t all that bad. I made the qualifying times for my first national meet that year. Best thing Dad ever did for me, sending me to that school. I’d have never gotten my chance otherwise.”

Penelope shook her head.

“I’ve not once met someone who outright enjoyed their time at boarding school,” she said, drawing herself up primly.

Her school had been an academy with a rich history and a richer cohort. The lessons focused more on cutthroat politics and social status than literature and geometry, perfect for old money with a penchant for strife. The old girls crafted rules within rules for the new, a careful balance of control and power wielded with absolute cruelty. No harm of course, they were all ladies after all, but there Penelope had had to die before she could thrive.

“You haven’t?”

“No.”

Gordon sat up, a serious look on his face.

“Come on Pen, I know it’s not all sunshine and roses, but you can’t think of a single moment where you didn’t enjoy yourself? Surrounded 24/7 by your friends?”

Penelope swallowed carefully, pulling back from his touch.

“It wasn’t the kind of place for friends, Gordon.”

She closed her eyes, counting her breathing slowly and surely.

She tried not to think of all the times he’d introduced her to yet another group of his “greatest friends”, all the times she’d had another group of names to learn and backgrounds to check. She wondered he’d ever noticed that she never did the same in return. She doubted it had ever crossed his mind that she couldn’t.

A rough, calloused hand against her cheek stole her away from her thoughts and she opened her eyes with a start.

“I’m sorry then,” said Gordon softly.

Penelope looked down at him in surprise.

“Sorry?” she asked, eyebrows drawing together.

“Yeah.”

He reached out his other hand, rubbing her knee gently.

Penelope sat perfectly still, posture straight and expression blank, as she’d always been taught. Gordon didn’t push her but he didn’t leave her either, and suddenly Penelope knew that he never would. He wouldn’t use her feelings against her, not when he’d already entrusted her with all his joy, his rage, his heartache. She’d always been adamant that she’d left that hopelessly fearful schoolgirl behind in a cramped cupboard during a rainstorm, listening to cruel laughter and echoing footsteps fade away, but here she was, huddling inside her heart all along.

She had wanted to be found so desperately, and now here came someone who had flung open the door and perched on an upside-down bucket beside her.

She crumpled and Gordon caught her, as she’d known he would, and then she paid him no mind at all as she grieved that little girl still trapped in her school.

“I’ve got you, Pen.” He whispered it over and over, over and over. “I got you.”