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youraverageaemondsimp · 3 months ago

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Metanoia ;

Aemond Targaryen x Transmigrated!Strong!Reader

>> Chapter IV : The Fervour.

Summary: You decide to apologize to Aemond.

WARNINGS: nothing nsfw, I left it for the next chapter 🤭, canon typical incest, anxiety etc. + not proofread

A/N: divider credits @cafekitsune, this is a short chapter but the next one is gonna be long and intense 🤭🤭

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Your heart drummed loudly against your rib cage, each beat accompanied by a gasp of air as you stared into the emptiness of your chamber.

A dream— no, a memory.

Was this the original body's memory?

Is this body not yours?

It doesn't seem likely because this body has exactly all your features, each and every detail pasted right into itself, from your head to your feet; nothing was amiss.

A blanket of dullness washes over your body and you plop back down onto the mattress, hugging your cotton blanket and you laid sideways, pondering with curiosity as you thought about everything.

You have to apologise to Aemond.

Suddenly his hostility, hatred, sly remarks all made sense.

You mentally face palmed yourself.

How were you gonna save the plot or prevent war when knowing that you were the cause of major events?

Had it not been Viserys’ command, you would've been stuck deeper in the mess, his decision of marrying you and Aemond gave you a heads up.

Can you perhaps talk the greens out of it once you're Aemond's wife? Then again, if talking truly worked then there wouldn't be a show at all. You sigh heavily, closing your eyes before reopening them.

You lay on your back, staring at the ceiling before your eyes averted towards the window, noticing how it's still the heartbeat of the night. Going to Aemond's room would seem very scandalous at this hour; regardless of whether you're soon to be married.

And to make matters even more complicated; Alicent and Rhaenyra had caught you guys kissing. You wondered why Aemond kissed you in the first place so suddenly, was he containing his urge to kill through it? Most likely.

The sound of footsteps awoke you from your sleep, looking around to see none but the maids who were bringing in a bath and water for you to freshen up and get ready for the day.

You decide that you'd think of everything on the morrow, choosing sleep over restlessness, closing your eyes and waiting for the slumber to grab you down to its depths.

You zone out the process; having been used to it. Instead your mind now travelled to the matter at hand, which was also your main objective. You planned to go directly to Aemond and apologise, as stupid as it may sound you really had no other option before the situation got worse. At least by apologising you'll make him realise how sorry you are, which might console his inner conflict.

The maids finish touching you up. You waste no moment and immediately get off the stool, heading straight to the door and leaving your chambers.

You check the library where you first encountered him; to your surprise, he wasn't there. You then move onto the training grounds only for him to not be there either. You start wandering around the red keep in the search for him yet he seems nowhere to be found. The guards outside his room have also said that he had left his room in the morning.

You go to the garden, to the weirwood tree, hoping to find him there, yet he is nowhere.

Frustrated, you sit underneath the tree, huffing in annoyance and catching your breath. You grunt irritated; patience growing thin as time only passed with no signs of Aemond. You had searched practically everywhere. The sympathy you were feeling is slowly being replaced by exasperation.

You lean back against the tree, staring at the leaves.

It's moments like this that make you truly question your sanity and reconsider your situation. As much as you were a big fan of the show; being trapped in it isn't really ideal without any known way out. You sometimes miss your life before this.

How plain and simple it was, with no worries of a blooming war, you would work and just rest at home, cook your favourite meals by yourself, watch your favourite shows and then sleep. It's the simplicity you miss.

“I want to go back…” You say out loud, praying that the world would hear you and miraculously send you back home, however it doesn't happen; because if it did, why would you be here in the first place?

Your words were heard just not by the universe.

“You want to go back?” The voice breaks you out of your thoughts and you sit up straight, looking up at the figure who was now standing in front of you.

Aemond stood tall, with his hands behind his back, foot jutting out. Oh yes, his typical standing pose.

“Uhm, I- no? I don't—” You stutter not knowing what to say, you get up off the ground and stand straight, his gaze follows you, taking in your dress. His lips quirk up into a smirk.

You were wearing green.

“Your gown; it is quite beautiful.” He comments and you look down, not finding anything special about the plain material, “—especially, the colour.” He points it out, and that is when you realised that you were wearing green.

“The maids dressed me.” You imply slightly, indicating that you had no intention of wearing the colour of his family. He smiles mockingly, raising his eyebrows.

“You were looking for me?” He questions and you nod and take a deep breath, hoping the oxygen would calm your brain by magic but your nerves were still rampant.

You step closer to him, which he is taken aback by but doesn't move an inch. You look into his eye, your body now fueled up with the newfound determination of completing your goal.

“I apologise.” You choke out and Aemond frowns in confusion, “For the eye- the night, driftmark.” You stumble over your words unable to form coherent sentences as the previously felt anxiety blooms in your gut again.

Seriously, what is wrong with this body?

The atmosphere falls silent only being interrupted by the whispers of the wind blowing past both of you. Aemond opens his mouth to speak but he closes it immediately after; trying to find words that do not sound harsh as a response.

“Aemond.” His name left your mouth involuntarily and he snapped his gaze to you, he watched your form waiting for you to say something but you just stood there unable to speak, your tongue all tied up in your mouth, having no idea how to continue this conversation anymore.

“Aemond, I am sorry, I really am, I regret it; I didn't mean to hurt you, I was protecting jace- my brother; I never meant for any of this to happen— please.” Your voice croaks, breaking as your mouth begins to move on its own, the noise coming out of your throat— yet it wasn't you speaking, it wasn't you forming these words, they came from somewhere innate.

You grab his arm, eyes tearing up as you stare at him, searching for an ounce of forgiveness on his face, an expression of reassurance that can calm the brewing storm inside you. Your gut wrenched and turned as the silence only prolonged with every passing second the pit inside you became deep and deeper.

You didn't know what was going on, it was as if your body had a mind of its own; but it didn't feel that way. Although you felt like you were in the backseat watching it all happen; it also felt like you were the one that was operating as well.

“It was a cruel mistake, a mistake that ruined everything. Perhaps it is why the Gods have punished me, they put me in a state of death for years but never truly killed me. It was my punishment for that crime I have committed against an innocent boy. But was I not innocent too?” You stammered, your body shuddering out of control.

Aemond grabs your shoulders; a poor attempt at consoling you while you shivered, tears dripped down your face like streams of river, Aemond wiped them off, pulling you into him, engulfing in his embrace, holding your head as you sobbed into him.

He did not know how to react.

He did not expect any of this.

Yet he knew one thing, which he hated himself for, which he came to terms with just last night.

The fact that he had already forgiven you.

You both stand there like that for a moment, your cries dissipated from sobs to sniffs and that's when you pull away from the hug, staring at him back again.

Aemond tucked a stray hair strand behind your ear before resting his hand on your cheek, he didn't want to admit this to you but he had to; for his own sake— watching you cry felt like a thousand swords being pierced into his heart, he didn't want to see you like this anymore.

“You're forgiven.” Those two words left his mouth as he held you close and you did not know how much of an impact they'd have on you until you felt the pit in your stomach vanish completely as if it ceased to exist.

You felt calm.

Euphoric.

You felt lightheaded, the world spinning as you stared at him. You gave him a small smile in return, caressing his scar as your vision grew weary.

The last thing you remember seeing was Aemond's panicked expression before you completely blacked out.

@gabriella-aesthetic @delaynew @idonotknowenglish @dixie-elocin @intheheartoftheking @dracaryxzs @ladyoffandoms @zoleea-exultant @saturnssrings @uniquecutie-puffs @aleemendoza2425-blog @marvelita85 @feelingfaye @sylvievil @cypherpt5fttaehyung @ttysmfwna @void21 @technicallystrangereview @feyresqueen @evergreen9083 @mirandasidefics @org12 @blorbo-brainrot @thisishwrworld @shadowqueen09 @watermel0nsugarhigh @cottoncandyclouds-stuff @madislayyy @the-hufflebird-girl @hiatuswhore

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myosotisa · 1 year ago

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Chasm - e.m.

Eddie Munson x fem!Reader

‖ summary: You're a researcher working at one of the fault lines throughout Hawkins, studying the closed and dormant gates to an alternate dimension. While you're alone on site, one of the gates wakes up again.

‖ tags: horror. i cannot stress this enough. this is unsettling and creepy and angsty with slight sexual tension. in line with the content in the show. post season 4, canon compliant. emetophobia warning. dubcon kissing. forced consumption (writing it made me gag just warning you. but im also kind of a baby so). no y/n, she/her pronouns used. flayed!eddie infects you. open ended ending. also steve is there sometimes. there's a ton of background lore that is only vaguely explained lol

‖ word count: 8.3k ‖ read on AO3 ‖ the song ‖

None of the rifts have shown any activity in over a year. Months and months of dead readings and no signals. Just waiting.

So what's a girl supposed to do when your EMF meter spikes alone on site? Sit around and wait for a crew to suit up and march their way over to the fault you were at? No fucking way. No chance.

You report in about the sudden spike in gamma radiation and tell them you're going to find the source. The project lead tells you to stay put and wait for assistance, as expected.

Your radiation gear was already halfway on. Oops, sorry boss, didn't hear you.

Handheld voltage meter in one hand, audio recorder in the other, and a pocket full of glow sticks, you push out past the plastic tarps and into the humid night air of Indiana summer.

The readings bring you west, toward the condemned trailer park and the "start" of your fault line. You crack a glow stick and drop it every few feet, marking your path. When the reading jumps up, you make a '+' sign with two at the spot before continuing forward. It was hard to say without exact measurements, but it seemed to be increasing at equal intervals. Like frozen waves on the surface of water.

"I'm approaching the Forest Hills sign," you say into the receiver, your own voice the only sound in the night air. "Current readings are…" You bring the meter up, using the light hanging from your neck to read the display. "Approaching 70 mv/m of high frequency radiation, roughly 31016 Hz. The next… 'Layer', for lack of a better term, will most likely breach Safe EMF levels, not considering the potential protection of the suit."

Lowering the meter again when it gives a beep of warning, you tuck it under your arm and crack another glow stick, leaving a '+' at the boundary to the trailer park. "I'll probably need treatment when I get back to base – as long as I grab a reading from the source and get out quickly, there won't be lasting damage. You hear that, Dr. Pierce?" You say through an over-confident huff, readjusting your arms to keep moving forward. "I'm well aware of the risks and take responsibility for my own actions."

The park itself looks like a bad dream at night – trailers abandoned hastily with doors still hung open and belongings scattered along the ground. Between the sudden fault opening and the bureau rushing in, the existing residents had been given very little time and grace to move into temporary housing across town. And it looked every bit like an entire community of people had just up and disappeared.

The suit you were in didn’t exactly help coordination, so you moved slowly and carefully over and around discarded objects along the dirt. Clothing, kitchen utensils, a quilt, a stack of newspapers, a child's toy. All left untouched for over a year.

Clearing the corner of one of the empty trailers, you catch sight of something strange.

“The fault itself has looked normal up to this point, no activity. But I can see the source now. It’s… It appears to be glowing red, fading in and out in a constant cycle.” Approaching even slower than before, you watch intently as the glow grows and then retreats again. Like waves on the shore.

The meter gives another shrill alarm – making you jump nearly out of your skin as you swat at it with the recorder. “Jesus Christ!” It quiets with a sinking pitch in your hand.

Before checking the reading, you quickly make another ‘+’ with glow sticks, digging them into the dirt a bit in an attempt to keep them from moving. Still down on one knee, you bring the meter up to your flashlight again.

“The meter is now reading 110 mv/m, same frequency. I’m roughly… 12 feet out from the source now. There’s a, uh, humming sound. Not sure if the recording is picking it up. And feeling pressure on my eardrums,” you explain into the device, eyes locked on the glow ahead. “I’ll continue to approach – see if I can get a closer reading. If it jumps above 150, I’ll fall back.”

Pushing to your feet again with a huff, you readjust your full load and press forward slowly. The closer you get to the source, you can see that the fault rapidly grows in size. The space between the edges looks large enough to fit a car as it rounds out at the end – a red pond in the ground.

“I can see the source clearer now. The glow is coming from within – there’s a…" You take a few steps closer, squinting to get a better look. "It appears to be an opaque membrane covering the space between. The glow is coming from behind it. Still cycling at an even rate, no change.”

The meter in your hand gives its shrillest warning yet, scaring you badly enough that it goes flying out of your hand; it hits the ground and flips closer to the edge. “Shit, fuck!”

You shuffle forward and drop down onto your shaky knees, grabbing for the meter as it continues to let out that grating alarm into the night air. Smacking it once more, the sound cuts off abruptly, giving you a chance to breathe.

Bringing it up to your flashlight, your eyes go wide as you lift the recorder again with your other trembling hand. “I’m nearly at the edge now, only a foot or so away – EMF reading 187 mv/m. Rapid increase from the last point.”

Movement in your peripheral vision catches your attention, your head snapping toward it.

“There’s… What the fuck?" You pause, tempted to rub your eyes to make sure you're really seeing what you're seeing.

"There’s movement below the membrane. It… It’s just a shadow, I can’t tell what it is, but the movement is rapid and the… The humming is getting louder.” Your heart is pounding now, a cold sweat breaking out across your skin beneath the suit.

“Going to retreat back to base,” you say, mostly attempting to reassure yourself as you slowly back away from the edge. “Final reading was 189 mv/m at 31016 Hz.”

There’s a crackle of static right before a thumb presses the pause button roughly, silencing the recorder in the center of the table.

“Is that all?” General Richard Highland asks, sounding impatient as he leans back in his conference chair. “That doesn’t tell us anything about what happened to her.”

“No, sir, there’s more.” Private Steve Harrington insists, inclining his head toward the dirty recorder he had delivered. He’s standing by the edge of the table at attention, hands clasped in front of him. “The recording keeps going.”

Dr. Pierce leans forward from his seat, giving the General a stiff look as he presses the play button again.

There’s a few more moments of static before the woman’s voice fades back in, layered beneath the hum of attempted interference.

“I’m definitely gonna need that rad treatment, Dr. Pierce. My badge is that warning color, even beneath the suit,” she continues with a shaky laugh, the sound of plastic shuffling behind it. “Hopefully I don’t lose my hair or something, but that’s… What?”

The table of scientists and military personnel sits in tense silence as her voice cuts out again. Half of them are on the edge of their seats, the others showing off a measured calm or disinterest. The general looks particularly annoyed and impatient, while Dr. Pierce looks almost like he wants to throw up.

“There’s… Something’s happening – I don’t–”

An abrasive crackle echoes out into the room, loud enough to send nearly everyone into a wince, before the recording cuts back in with the sound of screaming.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?! SHIT – I’ve gotta get–" A burst of interference sounds, followed by a metallic grating, like a ship groaning beneath the weight of the ocean.

Her panicked voice comes through, sounding further away than before. "FUCK! It – It’s got my ankle. Let go, you fucking piece of –! SHI–”

The recording cuts out to a buzzing hum.

No one moves for a few moments. Not until Private Harrington steps up to silence the recorder. “We found this recording, a lab issue EMF meter, and a broken flashlight at the edge of the fault." He explains, producing the other two items from the pack resting at his feet. "It was dormant when we got there – solid again.”

“So it just…” One of the other scientists starts, looking at Dr. Pierce uneasily.

“Dragged her through and went back to sleep.” Dr. Pierce confirms solemnly, his gaze locked on the dirty recorder.

“It’s never done this before?” A 2nd scientist, new to the project, asks. The others shake their heads. “So what do we do?”

All eyes turn to Dr. Pierce, who looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“We wait for it to wake up again.”

Wake up.

Come on, little lamb.

Wake up now.

Looks so peaceful.

But you’ve got to wake up.

…

WAKE UP.

There’s something wet on your face.

Feeling is slowly returning to your body, your eyes closed and too heavy to open. But there’s something dripping on your cheek – droplets running down toward your mouth. Sticking to your dry lips for a moment or two before falling off. You’re on the ground on your stomach, your cheek squished against something that feels like mud.

Your brain has yet to kick on fully as it tries to regain consciousness through a pounding ache, resonating with the throb of your left leg. It feels like you’re still wearing the rad suit, but the head piece is gone and it might be ripped in places – mud seeping in to touch your skin.

It’s almost like you’re sinking.

Eyelids fluttering open and you’re faced with a desaturated swamp. Like someone came through and sucked half the color out of it.

Lifting one arm is difficult, suctioned into the mud you’re laying in. Once you’ve freed it enough, you’re able to push off the sticky, wet sludge beneath you enough to roll over onto your back.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

You sit up with a start, your abdomen screaming in protest as your brain swims. Blinking through the blur in your eyes, you struggle to see anything at all in the dark – only momentarily granted sight by the flashes of red lightning overhead.

“Who’s there?” You call out into the dark, an attempt to sound brave, but your voice trembles as your eyes rapidly flit back and forth.

“Over here.”

The lightning flashes once more as you whip your head toward the voice – showing the silhouette of a man standing a few feet away. From what little you see, he’s tall and slender, head tilted to the side like he’s curious. There’s no chance you can see his face or anything else about him.

Until he’s in your face, crouched down right beside you – crossing the space and appearing in the span of a blink. It gives you a start, attempting to back up but getting caught up in the mud still suctioned to your lower half.

Your fear seems to bring a small smile to his face, plump lips tilting up at the corner. He looks so familiar… Long curly hair draped wetly over his shoulders, the sparse bangs across his forehead, and the soft turn of his nose. Curiosity gets the better of you as you lean in again slightly, squinting your eyes a bit more in the dark to see him better.

“I know you…” You insist softly, causing his eyebrows to raise slightly in surprise. “How do I know you?”

“No clue, because I’ve never met you in my life.” He replies, lips parting in a grin. “And I’m good with faces – ‘specially pretty ones.”

His response catches you off guard as your brain continues reeling and struggling to intake information, which is normally your forte. There’s a million questions on the tip of your tongue and you have no idea where to start.

“You’ll probably need to lose the suit if you want to get out of that shit,” he continues when you don’t respond, motioning to your stationary legs with a wave of his hand. And he’s probably right, with the way the mud beneath you is stuck tight to the shiny plastic. Your best hope is to try to use the suit as a stepping off point to get to stable ground.

“Where should I step once I pull out?” You ask, hoping he’ll understand your goal.

A blink and he’s gone again – another flash of red light placing his silhouette off to your left. “Think you can make it to here?” He responds, voice raised slightly and sounding like he’s teasing you or challenging you. It makes your competitive side flare up on instinct – a frustrated huff leaving your nose as you plan your escape.

Opening the front of the suit, you slip both arms out and let the upper half fall flat behind you. Pulling out both of your legs next, your butt sinks deeper into the ground, nearly sending you off balance as you quickly shift your weight forward onto your knees, using the suit as a stepping stone. It starts to sink, mud coming up over the edge and inching toward your knees, so you have to move fast.

Pushing to your feet makes it sink faster, wet sludge touching the side of your ankle just as you push off in a jump toward where the man was standing.

You land on the ankle that had been grasped by the tentacle, not realizing the throbbing meant it’d been twisted. It makes you cry out in pain and fall forward, directly into the man’s chest.

“Woah there!” He says in surprise, grasping onto your elbows to keep you sort of upright. Between the aching pain and the tears pressing at your eyes, you just barely manage to notice how cold and clammy he is – especially where his hands grip your bare biceps.

Rocketing back, you press your weight onto your good leg and put some distance between the two of you again, your dirty arms crossing over your tank top and smearing it with mud. “Sorry, my, uh, ankle…” You offer awkwardly, still not even sure who you’re talking to.

“Don’t worry about it, angel. You good?”

He actually sounds like he cares. Like he’s concerned for you. Who is he?

“I’ll be fine,” you insist stubbornly, swallowing down the lump of tears in your throat. Free from your precarious situation, at least partially, you struggle to figure out what to address first. “How are you doing that? Like… Teleporting? Or are you just moving really fast?”

He chuckles softly, shaking his head. “What–,” he disappears in a blink and then you feel a burst of air on the back of your neck, making your hair stand on end, “this?”

You lurch forward before turning around to level him a glare. “Yes, that – don’t do that.”

His hands tuck into the front pockets of the leather jacket he’s wearing as he shrugs, looking quite pleased with himself. “Sorry, angel, didn’t mean to spook you.”

Then silence falls, both of you eyeing each other – you suspiciously and him curiously. The extended pause makes you think you aren’t going to be told how anytime soon.

A breeze kicks up, rustling the branches of the trees in the surrounding swampland and sending a shiver down your spine. Suit lost, you’re down to a tank top, jeans, and a pair of no slip shoes (which were required for people working in the field for some reason). You were dressed for the humid interior of the field site tent in summer and it appears that you have landed yourself in a place where that is not enough.

Taking advantage of the silence, you try to remember everything you can about your studies into the ‘gates’ from when they were open. Very little was known beside second hand accounts and old data – some of which may not even be accurate anymore given the nature of the fault lines. If there was anywhere to start, it would be trying to find the gate you’d been dragged through.

With any luck, you could go right back to your dimension.

But that didn’t account for him. The pale, wet, unsettling-yet-somehow-charming guy that was still staring right at you.

“How long have you been here? Do you know?” You question cautiously, not wanting to upset him in any way.

“That depends, what year is it?”

Your heart drops into your stomach, completely at odds with the continued grin on his face. It looks almost manic now – like every time he sets you off balance brings him great joy. Deciding you’d actually rather not know how long he’s been in here, you move on.

“Have you been alone this whole time? Or are there other people here?”

His grin spreads, like he’s in on a joke you’re not aware of. “I haven’t been alone, no.”

This piques your curiosity again, adjusting your weight on your good leg. “Do you have a community here? How many of you are there?”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” He suggests, taking a step or two away from you, his hands still tucked into his pockets.

The idea is tempting, if only to learn more about what is going on here, but there’s something nagging at the back of your mind. Something you should be remembering. Something you’re missing. Plus, for all you know, this man does not have your best interests at heart.

“I should probably try to find the gate that brought me here,” you say, slightly regretfully. “See if I can cross back over.”

“Oh, right,” he responds, tapping his forehead with his palm like it should’ve been obvious. “Yeah, I can show you the way.”

This surprises you again, slight concern causing you to stand up straighter. “You can?”

“Sure thing, the closest one isn’t far,” he motions behind him with a tilt of his chin, taking another step back. “Come on.”

So you follow the strange man into the dark, limping after him on your twisted ankle. The mud starts to dry on your skin, hair, and clothing – crusting over and hardening in places. You pick at pieces as you walk, letting the chunks and flakes fall to the ground behind you. From what little you can see, there are vines everywhere along the ground, weaving between tree trunks and layering over each other in place. The man seems to step over them – and you can’t tell if it’s on purpose or a coincidence – but you make a habit of not touching the vines just in case.

It’s unsettlingly quiet here. Every once in a while you’ll hear what sounds like an animal – a howl, a chittering, the thump of feet on the earth. But they are few and far between, leaving mostly just the rush of wind through the trees and a sort of muffled silence, pressure on your ears.

Your paranoia kicks up as the quiet continues, suspiciously eyeing the back of your escort as he leads you forward. For all you knew, he wasn’t leading you anywhere near the gate. You have no reason to trust him beyond the fact that he helped you get out of the sludge you woke up in. He was in this dimension after all, clearly familiar with it. That had to be a red flag if anything, given what little you actually knew about it.

So much was classified beyond your reach – the bureau was very specific with what you were allowed to read and know and what you weren’t. Given the dormant nature of the fault lines, it hadn’t been necessary for you to learn too much about the dimension on the other side. Most of what you studied and knew was about the gates themselves.

Even with the bureau being as paranoid and obsessive as it was – a lowly field researcher getting dragged to the other side and needing to survive hadn’t seemed to be on their radar.

The pessimistic part of you not-so-helpfully supplies that was probably just because they weren't very interested in your survival at all. They’d probably prefer it if you died here. If anything, your exposure to the other side made you more of a liability.

Maybe one they could experiment on, if you got lucky and survived.

This train of thinking isn’t helping anything. You could worry about what your life would become if you made it out.

Walking up to the lifeless and solid gate turns that into a very tentative if.

“Looks like the door’s shut tight,” Eddie offers vaguely, rocking back and forth on his heels as you circle the hole in the ground, like seeing a new angle will change something about it.

The opening looks largely the same as the other side, in the center of the abandoned trailer park with the forest surrounding. Your arms are covered in goosebumps as the breeze hits harder in the open field, no longer buffered by trees on all sides. On the bright side, it is slightly better lit here and you can see your companion a bit clearer now.

“Do you know how these things work? Like how and why it opens and shuts?” You ask desperately, looking at him from the other side of the crevice.

The corner of his mouth tilts up minutely, his shoulders shrugging. “Yes and no.”

The scowl returns to your face, frustration mounting as another shiver of cold racks your body. “Are you intentionally being unhelpful? Or are you just an idiot?”

His lips part in a surprised ‘o’, his eyebrows raising like he’s impressed. “That hurts, angel. I’m no idiot, and I think I’ve been plenty helpful. After all… I could’ve just left you to drown out there. Or maybe led you into a trap. Or left you for the dogs.” He taunts, returning to a toothy grin. The question of if he has your well being in mind gets more and more clear with a resounding no.

A fearful jolt runs down your spine as you stare him down, trying not to let your fear show. Grappling tightly to your anger, you taunt back, “Oh yeah? Then why didn’t you?”

A blink and he’s gone.

Your entire body goes on alert, tensing for attack as your heart starts to pound against your ribs. Eyes searching the immediate area in front of you come up empty. He’s either behind you or far enough you can’t see him in the low light. You never got an answer as to whether he’s moving quickly or teleporting or exactly how far he can get in the time you blinked.

He’s either long gone or… Trying to surprise you.

As soon as you have the thought, the hair on the back of your neck stands up – like some kind of unconscious sense of danger.

You turn in a quick 180 and he’s right there. Only a foot away from you with a sadistic sort of smile on his face. Your breath catches in your chest as it feels like a fist grabs tightly to your heart, suddenly much more terrified of the man in front of you.

That appears to be the way he prefers it.

“I think we can help each other.”

You blink at him, muscles pulled taut and ready to bolt as you try to figure out what the fuck he’s doing and what the fuck he wants. “What?” You question, your voice coming out a bit breathy and scared.

“I said, I think we can help each other,” he repeats calmly. “You help me, and I can help you get back home.”

“Why– What– H–how could I possibly help you?” You sputter, trying not to sound as terrified and confused as you feel.

His grin turns cheeky again, slightly less unsettling than it was a moment ago. “It won’t take much, angel, scout’s honor.” He says as he lays a hand over his chest. “You help me, then you’re free to crawl right back over to the other side and continue your life.”

Disbelief and uncertainty nags at you as you fidget in your spot, wanting desperately to put some more distance between the two of you but nervous to offend him. “So you can open the gate? You just want something in return?”

He shakes his head emphatically, appearing to be genuine in his denial. “I can’t but I know who can. They opened it before you were brought over.”

“And they would open it again? Just because you asked?” You question suspiciously, studying his facial expression for a sign that he’s pulling your leg again.

“Let’s just say that me and them have similar goals and leave it at that.”

There are 100 more questions on the tip of your tongue, but with the potential of getting back to your own dimension on the table, you’re reluctant to press too hard. He seems to recognize the battle you’re fighting with yourself as he laughs to himself. “You know what they say about curiosity, angel.”

An annoyed exhale punches out of your nose. “And I assume in this case that I’m the cat.”

“Bingo!” He says happily, tapping the end of his nose with his index finger. “So what do you say?”

There is so much you want to say. So many questions you want to ask. So much more info you need. But beggars can’t be choosers, you suppose.

“What would I need to do?”

His smile goes sharp again. “So glad you asked. I’d just need a kiss.”

A beat of silence. Then your expression drops in disbelief and disappointment. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Dead serious,” he insists, laying his hand on his chest again as he regards you intently. “And it’s gotta be real – gotta kiss me like you mean it. None of those little pecks you give on the cheek.”

A strange swirl of intrigue and revulsion mixes together in your gut as you continue waiting for the punchline. The ‘just kidding, your face was priceless’. But it doesn’t come.

“Is this some kind of sick joke? Been so lonely out here that you have to twist the arm of a desperate girl just to get some–”

“Hey.” He interrupts, his tone intense and cold. It shuts you up immediately, though you can’t say why. “Don’t be mean, angel. This isn’t just me trying to take advantage of you. It has a real purpose.”

The dubious look you give him makes him crack another small smile. “Cross my heart and hope to die, I’m telling you the truth.”

“And am I allowed to know what this purpose is?”

He shakes his head again, displacing the curls draped over his shoulders that still appear to have not dried at all. “I’ll tell you when it’s done, how about that?” He offers, using your curiosity against you to try to sweeten the deal.

Really, it’s a no brainer. Sure, he’s a strange person that lives in an alternate dimension that has some strange abilities. Sure, you know next to nothing about him despite that itch in the back of your head telling you that you know him somehow. And sure, this could be a huge mistake. But having to kiss this admittedly-attractive dude just to get out of this nightmare dimension and get back home? The choice is simple.

Which only makes you more certain there’s a catch you aren’t seeing.

“Fine. If you swear I’ll be able to go home, then I’ll do it.”

His expression brightens excitedly, a sort of childlike joy appearing on his face. It’s different from any of the expressions you’ve seen on him so far – like genuine surprise. “You will?”

“Yeah, sure.” You reply, trying to brush it off as nothing. “Not like I have a lot of other options here.”

His excitement fades slightly, though he still looks pleased with the outcome. “Glad you made the right decision.”

An unsettling silence falls as the two of you study each other once more, now much closer than the last time. Fear and anticipation builds steadily as you find yourself glancing down at his lips – realizing you’re about to know what they feel like on your own.

“Do we, uh,” you pause to clear your throat as you awkwardly break the silence. “Do we do it now? Or… What?”

He takes a step closer, entering your personal space. His voice is lower, stickier, and richer when he responds. “Do you wanna do it now, angel?”

You suddenly feel like a fly stuck in a honey trap – eyes widening as you struggle between wanting to further close the distance and to run away from him. “Now’s as good a time as any, I suppose?” Though you meant it to be nonchalant, it comes out as a nervous question.

The uncertainty in your voice only seems to make the man crack another amused smile. “I suppose so,” he replies softly, gently teasing you as he gets even just a little bit closer. You can feel your heart pounding in your neck, constantly flipping back and forth between fear, interest, nerves, and embarrassment. Looking at you through slightly lowered eyelids, he leans in toward you. Close enough you can feel the exhale of his breath on your face.

“Kiss me like you mean it, angel.” He reminds you quietly, the tip of his nose nudging against yours as your eyelids flutter closed instinctively. “Don’t forget.”

Then his lips are pressing to yours. You make a small noise of surprise, both in that you weren’t sure if he was actually going to do it and because he’s so cold. But his lips are plush and soft as he places your lower lip between his own. As promised, you kiss him back, trying not to think about how strange it feels that he’s cold and the situation you’re in – focusing on the gentle pressure of him as he steps even closer and brings his hand up to cradle your jaw.

It’s gentle and sweet as you find yourself starting to forget the reality of it all. Your hands find the edges of his leather jacket, tugging him closer as he hums happily. His other hand finds your waist – cold through the thin fabric of your tank top.

Teeth nip lightly at your lower lip and you make another small noise of surprise, a flash of heat through your chest at the pleasant feeling. It distracts you further – not even questioning the adventurous flick of his tongue against your mouth. You part your lips on instinct; his hand flexing happily against your jaw as he tests the waters to run his tongue along yours.

You return the gesture, encouraging the touch as you breathe heavily through your nose. You’re running low on air and will need to part to breathe soon. You’re surprised to find that you aren’t really sure that you want to stop to do so.

He seems to recognize the impending need too; his lips pressing against yours more insistently, like he’s getting what he can before it ends. His tongue ventures past your lips one more time, pressing further than he had before. Is… Is his tongue longer than normal?

In the same moment that he pulls away from you, the hand on your jaw claps over your mouth to keep it shut. And there’s something in your mouth.

There’s something moving in your mouth.

You make a high pitched noise of panic as your eyes double in size, looking at him in terror while he holds you tightly to his front and keeps his hand firmly over your mouth. “Ah, ah, angel. You gotta swallow it.” He coos, his palm clammy and cold against your slick lips.

You shake your head as well as you can with his grip, making noises of protest as you struggle to keep the smooth, wiggling object from sliding down your throat. Your hands grab at his wrist and forearm, trying to pull him off, but his grip is too strong. Begging him with your eyes, sharp and stuttered breaths coming out of your nose as you hyperventilate, he just gives you a sad smile. “It’s not that bad, I promise. Just gotta swallow and it’ll be over – don’t make me plug your nose.”

Painful tears poke out of your eyes and start to descend down your cheeks, nails digging into his skin to try and get him off. It seems not to affect him at all, his other hand giving your waist a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay, baby. It’s gonna be okay. This is it – you won’t have to do anything else. Come on, angel. You can do it. Just swallow for me.”

His words of encouragement make your head spin in confusion, panic mounting as the outcome seems inevitable. More tears pour down your cheeks as you choke on a sob, inadvertently allowing the object to slide down your throat.

“There we go,” he sighs in relief, grip on your face loosening, “Good girl.”

Somehow he knew that you’d swallowed it because he releases you right as you start to cough roughly, stumbling away from him and bending forward. You can still feel the strange coating from the creature on your tongue and down your esophagus – thick and wrong as you cough and gag.

Get it out, get it out, get it out, GET IT OUT, GET IT OUT!!

“What was– How do I– I’ve gotta–” You stammer, stumbling over your words as you tremble wildly and gag, your body responding to your panic by wanting to reject the new contents of your stomach.

He appears right beside you again, gripping both of your wrists with his hands as he forces you upright. “Don’t throw it up.” His voice is a command, his expression intense. “If you throw it up, I’ll have to force feed you another one. And trust me, it’s way less fun the 2nd time.”

Tears continue to pour from your eyes as you rapidly shake your head. “What was– What is– Why are you doing this? What was that thing?”

“Calm down, angel, please calm down,” he begs, starting to look distressed himself. “It’s gonna be okay, I swear, it’s gonna be fine. You’re a part of something bigger now. It’s all going to be okay.”

You try to pull out of his grip on your wrists, alternating between yanking back and rushing forward to push him away. “What the fuck does that mean?! What have you done to me?!” You shout through your tears, white hot panic spreading through your body. “It’s not too late – I can still, I can still throw it up, I can…”

He drags you in, wrapping you up in a tight bear hug with your arms trapped between the two of you. He shushes you, standing steady against your weakening struggling against him. “Shhh, shh, it’s alright, angel. It’s okay. You’re gonna get to go home, okay? We’re gonna get to go home.”

“Sir, we’ve got activity.”

Dr. Pierce pushes out of his desk chair fast enough to make his head spin – lack of sleep and too much coffee weakening him beyond measure. He’s barely left the main building since you went missing.

Since you were dragged through.

There have been constant patrols of the fault line you disappeared into, hoping for any sign of it waking up again. It was on his order and against the wishes of General Highland. She’s a level 1 researcher. She knew the risks. It’s not worth the cost.

But you didn’t know the risks, not really. Pierce knows he didn’t do enough to prepare you, to warn you. He didn’t do enough to protect you.

This is his fault.

He’s not the only one buzzing with anticipation as he exits his darkened office; several other scientists and field agents are reacting to the news of activity with a rush. Not everyone will be allowed to go to the site, as it would be a madhouse, but several live cameras and other surveillance equipment have been set up in the area. At least a quarter of the bureau across the country will be intently watching whatever happens next.

Pierce says nothing as he makes his way for the garage and the people he passes know better than to approach him now. He can still feel their eyes – judgemental, curious, concerned. He’s felt their eyes for days.

There are several SUVs already prepared by the time he arrives, most already full of people who were approved to be on site in the case of reactivation. He recognizes the soldier standing by waiting for him as Private Steve Harrington, the same man who brought in the recorder originally. He’s one of the few people at the bureau with prior knowledge of the other dimension despite his low rank.

“Sir,” he greets with a respectful head dip, opening the backdoor of the SUV for Pierce as he approaches. Pierce returns the gesture before climbing into the backseat, sliding across the bench to the opposite side. Steve gets in after him, his bulky gear forcing him to sit far forward on the bucket seat as he slams the door closed behind him.

It only takes another minute or so before the caravan lurches and begins to move, following after the identical black SUV in front of it.

The walkie-talkie on Steve’s shoulder kicks to life quietly, a short and concise signal coming through that Pierce doesn’t understand. The exhausted scientist looks over curiously as Steve murmurs an, “Affirmative,” into the device before clicking it off.

“Any news from the fault?”

Steve glances over, surprised to be addressed, before he turns back to look out the front windshield. “Nothing yet, sir.”

Pierce keeps an eye on the soldier as they travel – watching with intrigue as the man continuously searches the vehicle’s surroundings, like he’s expecting an attack.

“You seem on edge, Steve.” He straightens in response, looking even more uncomfortable at being referred to by his first name. “Is it because the gate is active?”

A muscle in his jaw rolling with tension, Steve keeps his gaze firmly forward as he responds. “It doesn’t supply a good feeling, that’s for sure.”

“And yet you still volunteered for the theoretical strike team to go through?” Pierce wonders aloud, phrasing it like a question.

There’s a tense moment of silence before the private answers. “At least I already know what to expect on the other side.”

The two don’t interact again for the reminder of the drive.

The SUVs all pull into the vacant field beside the field tent in a line, the leader of the patrol team coming out to meet the first vehicle. Pierce watches General Highland step out of it and start to converse with the uniformed woman. By the time he makes it way over, he seems to be catching the tail end of the conversation.

“We have each unit spread out in even intervals along the fault; so far there has been no change since it first activated.”

“And they all have their protective equipment on, I presume?” Dr. Pierce cuts in, surprising the patrol leader and earning an annoyed look from General Highland.

“Yes sir,” she responds with a head nod. “I was just telling the general that they’re all outfitted with gear to protect them from the worst of the radiation, but it would still do good to regularly swap out the unit in the center, where the worst of it is.”

Pierce agrees with a stiff nod, not waiting to hear the general disagree before he turns to look back. As he expected, Private Harrington trailed him over, waiting a respectful distance away as to not eavesdrop. “Harrington.”

Steve turns at the call, jogging over to Pierce. “Sir.”

“Suit up. You’re coming with me to the source.”

“Yes sir.”

The pair of them push into the field tent, currently staffed with 15 more people than usual. There are researchers and scientists bent over displays and documenting readings, soldiers standing by with weapons, field agents watching over the researchers shoulders. Pierce walks past all of them, parting the way as he does, and starts to strip off his lab coat while pulling a radiation suit off the rack. Steve follows suit, removing a majority of his gear to reequip on top of the plastic suit.

The buzz of excited chatter is nearly grating on Pierce’s ears as he goes through the annoying process of putting on the PPE. But he misses it when it suddenly cuts off, directly after one of the researchers announces, “We’ve got a spike in activity!”

Pierce looks over at Steve, who is still clipping things to his belt again. “We’ve gotta move.”

“Yes sir,” Steve repeats once more, gathering the bare necessities in his arms to try to equip as they move. The pair of them push out the other side of the tent and set into a jog towards what used to be Forest Hills Trailer Park.

They pass a few pairs of outfitted people as they move – soldiers patrolling and scientists maintaining the monitoring equipment placed along the fault. None of them interact as the pair jogs past, heading for the end of the fault line. They can see a small group ahead – presumably gathered closer to where the spike in activity happened.

“Make some room!” Steve barks out as they approach, the gathered group moving further away from the fault line in response. Some look back to see who is coming while others keep their eyes locked on the glowing source beyond.

“Keep at least 10 feet back from the fault at all times,” Pierce orders the group as they pass. “Stay in pairs, don’t go off on your own. We have very little idea what we’re dealing with here, but we have reason to believe there are things that will try to drag you through the gate. If something comes out, fall back and call out. Don’t let your partner get grabbed.”

There is some murmuring in response, but no one openly disregards the order, starting to pair off as a few people move further back along the fault line. Pierce approaches a pair hunched over a meter near the source, keeping his eyes on the glowing red below. “What are we looking at?”

“It’s fluctuating slightly; was 116 mv/m at 31016 Hz at peak.” The researcher responds, keeping a close eye on the EMF before them. “Nothing close to the reported 189 mv/m. We might not be looking at full activation. Or maybe it’s building up, it’s hard to say.”

“Wait,” Steve cuts in, holding a hand out for the researcher to pause. “Do you hear that?”

They all fall silent, listening closely.

Then Pierce hears it – the hum from the recording. The one you were talking about hearing.

The scientist gives him a nod of agreement before looking back to the researcher. “Any sign of movement from the other side?”

“Not that we can tell from here,” the field agent answers for them. “We’ve been following the guidelines to stay back so it’s hard to catch anything from here.”

“Radio? Portable EMF?” Dr. Pierce asks, and the field agent presents both. He takes them and then looks back at Steve. “We’re moving up.”

Even behind the protection of the face shield, Pierce can see the tension in his expression. Regardless, the private still answers with a confident, “Yes sir.”

Keeping the meter within eyesight, the two push ahead, closer to the large opening at the source. Pierce watches it tick up with each step closer, crossing the 150 mark as they get within 5 feet of the edge. Looking out across the opening, the glowing membrane pulses and hums with energy, louder and louder as they approach.

There’s very little movement on the other side, but every once in a while Pierce catches a glimpse of a dark shadow moving beyond.

“Never gets any less unsettling to look at,” Steve murmurs beside him, shifting his weight between his feet as he keeps his eyes locked on the unbroken membrane.

“Dr. Pierce, we’ve got another spike!” The researcher calls from behind, voice sounding a bit concerned. “We’re edging 170 now.”

The humming increases steadily along with a slight vibration in the ground beneath their feet. Steve steps up beside Pierce, a hand out like he’s ready to drag him back from the edge, as Pierce stares into the membrane intensely.

Come on. Come on. Come back through. Just be alive. Come on. Please be alive.

A more defined shadow moves along the edge closest to the trailer and doesn’t pull back. “We’ve got movement!” Steve calls back, alerting the nearby units as Pierce’s hand flies out to hush him. They both watch with a certain level of horrified fascination as the shadow grows defined enough to make that section of the membrane appear black before it begins to tear.

A bare hand extends out of the membrane, blindly grasping for the nearby edge. Steve twitches forward, like he wants to go and help them, but Pierce holds him back wordlessly, leaving them both standing perfectly still as another hand appears and grabs onto the edge.

The person uses the grip on the edge to pull themselves through – a woman in a filthy tank top and jeans struggling to pull herself onto the flat ground. As soon as she is through, she quickly turns around on her knees and reaches back through the membrane.

You’re… You’re actually alive.

Several soldiers approach slowly with their rifles out, aiming at you as you take hold of someone else’s hand and start to pull them through. A pale man with long, messy hair appears from the other side, holding on tightly to you as you help him reorient to the change in perspective. “No way…” Steve whispers, standing frozen as he watches them start to sit up and look around.

“Dr. Pierce!” You call happily once you spot him, waving at him like you’re excited to see him. There’s a huge smile on your face, a stark contrast to your utterly disheveled appearance. “I made it! I’m back!”

The soldiers continue to keep their weapons trained on the newcomers, watching for some sign of aggression. You slowly get to your feet, offering your hand to your companion and helping him up too. Steve takes a few mindless steps towards them, Dr. Pierce no longer stopping him. “Eddie?” He calls uncertainly, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. “Eddie, is that you?”

The man’s head perks up, looking in Steve’s direction. “Harrington?” He replies, sounding just as uncertain and confused. “Is that you in there?”

“Eddie, as in Eddie Munson?” Dr. Pierce asks Steve, still unmoving as he stares at you, seemingly unharmed.

“Yeah…” Steve breathes out, still looking stunned. “And he doesn’t look like he’s aged a day.”

You and Eddie start to walk over when a soldier barks at you to stay back, both of you nervously putting your hands up as you look between the armed soldiers, Steve, and Pierce.

“It’s me, Dr. Pierce. It’s really me.” You insist, looking at him pleadingly. “And this is Eddie, he helped me find my way back. He saved me.” You add, motioning to the man beside you. The two of you are close together; you stand slightly in front of Eddie, like you’re protecting him. Eddie just offers a sheepish smile and a shrug, like it was no big deal.

“Sir? What do we do?” One of the soldiers asks, glancing in Dr. Pierce’s direction.

The two of you look exhausted, dirty, hungry, but… Harmless. No worse for wear despite the time spent on the other side.

“Bring them in.” Pierce orders. “No excessive force. They’ve been through a lot.”

The soldiers nod, lowering their weapons and urging you both to come forward. You look particularly relieved, while Eddie appears mostly unphased by all of it.

“Thank god, I need a shower so badly.” You announce with a happy laugh, walking toward them as you shake your head and make a disgusted face. “No one smell me, I’m begging you.”

If anyone finds your behavior unsettling or strange, they don’t say so. Everyone mostly looks relieved it didn’t turn into some kind of fight. While there is something off about how you’re acting, Dr. Pierce can’t find it in himself to feel anything besides relief at your return.

Steve stands motionless and tense as Eddie approaches, looking every bit like he’s seen a ghost. There is no excitement, no relief, no… Trust. Like this is all a bad dream and he just wants to wake up.

Just before you and Eddie pass the two of them, you flash another excited smile. “And not a moment too soon – I’m so thirsty.” You look over at Eddie, who nods in agreement, before you continue walking toward the field tent in the distance, flanked on either side by armed soldiers.

Eddie stops by Steve, giving him a tilted smile. “Hey Harrington, didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I could say the same to you,” Steve replies, his tone apprehensive and flat. If Eddie catches on, he doesn’t show it, just continuing to show that same smile – like he knows something you don’t.

“What can I say?” He offers with a shrug and a wink before he continues to trail after you and toward the growing crowd beyond. “It’s good to be back.”

thanks for reading, please let me know if you liked it!!

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x afab!reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson angst #eddie munson oneshot #flayed!eddie munson #kas!eddie #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #posting a oneshot that barely explains an entire fic universe you've never told anyone about :)#myos ideas #myo4munson

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melrosing · 25 days ago

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got bored made some Lannister ocs

besides Stafford we don’t have names or deaths or anything for Joanna’s other two brothers and her two sisters so since everyone else has ocs I decided I wanted some and it was free real estate ✨ names/ages/personalities under the cut

joanna lannister (247AC - 273AC) guess what i didn't actually make her up but not like we have much detail on her anyway so w/e. eldest child of Jason Lannister & Marla Prester, and just a frustratingly perfect girl (at least as far as Cerella is concerned) who always seems to get her way. has always enjoyed gossip and that becomes an interest in court and politics once she moves to KL at 10 to become one of Queen Rhaella's companions. as a child at the Rock she was best friends with Genna, but it was a complex relationship where Joanna was slightly resentful of Genna's power over her (as Tytos' daughter) and Genna was resentful of Joanna's apparent perfection, and the way she seems to wring an affection out of Tywin where he has none for his siblings. Joanna isn't exactly a mean girl but is well aware of the effect her charisma has on others, and can make you feel like shit by looking straight through you (albeit w a smile on her face) if she doesn't feel you're much worth her time.

stafford lannister (248AC - 299AC) i didn't make him up either but canon says he's a blundering idiot so we'll go w that. Stafford just had the luck to be the firstborn son of a Lannister knight, so he gets wealth and riches with little responsibility to show for it. he's thought of as a bit of a Tytos 2.0 but without his humour or heart of gold. thinks he has a fascinating life but is just rich. tells dreadfully boring stories but never seems to notice the snores. constantly landing himself in shit and waiting to be rescued. that's all there is to say about Stafford.

gerold lannister (249AC - 280AC) yay my first oc. well he's just a bit of a creep really. twin to Cerella, born first of the two. Gerold thinks he's the perfect Lannister specimen (he's more like.... weedy handsome squidward) and figures he ought to have been born in Tywin's place. but somehow he ended up the second son of a fourth son and nothing much is expected of him. he's not much good at anything and noone likes spending any time around him because he's perpetually consumed by bitterness. he's not close to his sister Cerella either, bc he seems to treat her worse than anyone, constantly talking down to her etc and mocking her crush on their cousin Tywin. in his final years, as his other siblings are growing up and moving on w their lives, Gerold remains bitter & stagnant, and no-one cares to see what's up except youngest sibling Loren, who has never been close to his brother but takes pity on him, believes maybe Gerold just likes men (specifically he suspects he likes TYWIN) and Loren is a theatre kid all his friends are gay it's fine. he decides to reach out. except Gerold isn't gay and in a confrontation between the two, Loren discovers that the true object of Gerold's affections is: their sister Cerella!!! who has already been married off to Sumner Crakehall. his secret out, Gerold kills himself shortly after, and Loren never tells anyone what he learnt but is consumed by guilt and disgust for the rest of his days.

cerella crakehall née lannister (249AC - 295AC) younger twin to gerold. Cerella has a cold demeanour but the heart of a romantic. when she was a small child she was in awe of Joanna and followed her everywhere, and Joanna likewise enjoyed Cerella's hero worship and treated her as a mini-me. however, as Joanna blossomed, Cerella felt ugly and awkward by comparison. Joanna only seemed to verify this by gradually ignoring Cerella in favour of Genna, and later in favour of her friends at court it KL. Joanna seems to get everything she wants before she can think to ask for it, whereas people seem to forget Cerella is in the room. and the one thing Cerella has always wanted is Tywin: she thinks they're entirely alike, and she's even modelled herself on him in hope that one day they would make a perfect match. except Joanna gets Tywin too: she has his attention without even seeming to ask for it, and takes him because she can. Cerella thinks she might have got her comeuppance when Jo is sent home from court, after Aerys affections for her become a little too heated. Tywin won't want her now. except he does, and they're betrothed not long after. Cerella, despondent, doesn't argue when she's married off to Lannister bannerman Sumner Crakehall (his second wife), and never returns to the Rock thereafter. she notices Joanna's son training in the yard at Crakehall but wants nothing to do with him; Jaime Lannister will wonder why in all those years his mother's sister never deigns to speak to him.

rowena cary née lannister (255AC - present) her father's favourite (though he dies before she turns six), Rowena looks the spit of her grandmother Rohanne Webber. Jason never knew his mother, and so has highly idealised notions of her (whilst the rest of the Lannisters loathe her for leaving without a trace). he likes the idea that Rowena is Rohanne born again, but wouldn't get away with naming her Rohanne - so names her an approximation. and she's just a fuckin disney princess lol. extremely amiable, not a girl of any great talents but does her best to please everyone. she never sees much of her eldest siblings, who are at court or squiring by the time she's old enough to engage with them, and the twins pay her no particular attention, but the adults around her love indulging her, and she's close to her younger brother Loren. there are no great expectations of Rowena, so despite many great westermen begging her hand, she marries for love to a wealthy merchant of Lannisport. sadly, they're unable to have the children they long for, but enjoy entertaining at their Lannisport manse, and enjoy welcoming nieces and nephews into their home (Tyrion is a regular visitor uwu). w her red hair, people tend to forget she's a Lannister at all, and so does she tbh.

loren lannister (257AC - 297AC) born in what many thought were finally past Marla's childbearing years, Loren is the youngest of Jason's brood. there are no great expectations of Loren, and Loren has none of himself - but in some ways he ends up being the most successful of the bunch, besides Joanna. he likes writing plays, acting in his own plays, and generally getting merry with the folk of Lannisport. the Lannisters of the Rock tend to forget Loren exists because he's seldom there, always in the city instead - till he moves out of the Rock entirely with little fanfare, and uses his inheritance to build a theatre in the middle of town. his plays do well and he's popular with the people, but very much a rich kid cosplaying poor lol. he never marries but has affairs w men and women, and when he hears of a bastard that might be his he throws a load of money their way without checking to see if it's true. Loren enjoys attention and pays close attention to others in turn, but is largely estranged from the Lannisters besides Rowena. after trying and failing to help his estranged brother Gerold, Loren falls into something of a depression for a time, doubting himself and all his instincts - his estrangement from the rest of his family becomes much more definitive as a result. anyway after a fairly prolific career Loren falls from some theatre scaffolding to his death at 40 years old, to the misery of Lannisport and the faint bemusement of the Rock

#joanna lannister #Stafford Lannister #asoiaf oc #asoiaf #melrosing art #happy Halloween enjoy the horror of More Lannisters

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coraniaid · 21 days ago

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reverse unpopular opinion meme: xander?

[Reverse unpopular opinion meme]

I like to consider my opinion of Xander Harris as being particularly complicated and nuanced, but – engaging in some critical self-reflection for just a moment – I think the objective truth is probably more that I’m just instinctively and aggressively contrarian about it. I find that I tend to strongly disagree with most of the online takes about Xander I see, almost regardless of whether they’re pro or anti.

I mean, on the one hand I do think it’s more than a bit silly to pretend, as many people seem to do, that Xander Harris is [somehow?] uniquely and only a Joss Whedon self insert [despite being written by multiple people] in a way that none of the other characters [that Whedon also created and that appear in the show Whedon created] apparently are. Or to ignore the fact that very often the audience is clearly meant to think that Xander is in the wrong and disapprove of his actions. (You obviously aren’t supposed to be cheering for him when he lies to Buffy about Willow’s message about Angel in Becoming, for an easy example; or to be clapping and applauding him when he cheats on Cordelia or leaves Anya at the altar either.) And I think it would be wrong to dismiss the fact that Xander starts the show as a dumb but (mostly) harmless teenager and that, not only does he gradually mature and improve as a person as he grows up, he also [perhaps uniquely for this show?] manages to do so without killing even one person.

But equally I would be lying if I didn’t admit that many of my least favorite episodes of the show are either Xander-centric episodes (Teacher’s Pet, The Pack, Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered for example) or episodes in which Xander plays a non-trivial role in exactly the parts of the episodes I most dislike (his treatment of Buffy in Dead Man’s Party, say, or his speech in support of Riley in Into The Woods). The haters are right to say that Xander does often treat his female friends and partners abysmally, often in ways that the show doesn’t seem to acknowledge or which it briefly acknowledges only to brush them off with no consequences. There certainly are times when the writers expect the audience to cheer for Xander a lot more than I personally want to, or when he says something gross and sexist which is just meant to be funny and that the writers simply didn’t think critically about at all. And the flipside of Xander being written by a range of different writers is that his character growth is often slow, halting or inconsistent (which, while arguably realistic, is not particularly fun to experience). And unlike some of the fandom I don’t really believe anything Xander does can be handwaved away by him being deeply affected by what happened to his “best friend” Jesse in Season 1’s The Harvest: in fact I would put money on a majority of the show’s writers having no idea who Jesse was.

Anyway, none of that preamble is really in the spirit of the ask game, is it?

Um. Five things I like about Xander, then. No hedging or clarification except for what I heavily imply above (oh, and also the comics aren’t canon and don’t mean anything and actually don’t even exist … I mean, uh, what comics are we even talking about?).

I think the show resolves the initial Season 1 “love triangle” (in which Xander is really into Buffy and she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings or even seem to notice them, while similarly Willow is really into Xander and he doesn’t reciprocate her feelings or even seem to notice them) in about the best way it possibly could have done. Buffy and Xander don’t ever get together and there’s never really any suggestion that they might – one or two odd moments in Season 2 aside, I guess? – and Willow musters the self-respect required to firmly reject Xander when he tries to ask her to the dance that Buffy had just turned him down for in Prophecy Girl. Not only that, but Willow goes on to have a serious relationship with a guy who isn’t Xander and then comes out as a lesbian and continues to have serious relationships with woman who aren’t Xander, right up to the end of the final season. And this happens all while the three of them stay very close friends; in fact Buffy and Xander at least are clearly better friends in the second half of the season than they were at the beginning of the show [when, after all, Xander had only just met her]. Whether or not that was planned from the beginning – and to be honest, I think the Buffy fandom as a whole wildly overestimates how much of the show was planned from the beginning – I think that’s a pretty unambiguously great way for that particular subplot to have be handled. (Although the funniest and most geometrically pleasing resolution of the Season 1 love triangle would, of course, have been for Buffy and Willow to end up together.)

Speaking of Buffy and Willow, for all his faults Xander is consistently written as somebody who cares about his friends and wants them to be safe and happy. As well as the obvious big moments – helping to save Buffy’s life in Prophecy Girl; his speech assuring Buffy that she’s his hero in The Freshman; repeatedly assuring Willow in Grave that he’ll always love her, even if she ends up killing him or destroying the world; that moment in Season 7 where Buffy sends him away to look after Dawn because she “needs somebody [she] can count on” – I think it’s fun when we get to see the three of them just hang out, in those quiet little moments they get to just all be kids together. I am very firmly in the camp that thinks Buffy should have friends and be allowed to not be treated for an idiot for liking said friends or wanting to spend time with them. Whatever else you can say about it, I think it’s obvious that this is how the show’s writers expect you to engage with the show. That’s part of why I’m more forgiving than some people of episodes like I Robot, You Jane or Bad Eggs or Amends: these are all episodes in which I can believe that Xander is fundamentally a good kid who Buffy would want to be friends with, and that he’d grow up to be somebody she’d still want to be friends with as an adult.

Some people online – mostly not on Tumblr – talk a lot of rot about Xander getting self-defense training or somehow reconnecting with the military persona he had in Halloween or otherwise Learning How To Fight, and I can’t overstate how glad I am that the show didn’t go in this direction. Xander makes sense as a character precisely because he isn’t a fighter. Because he doesn’t occupy that more stereotypically masculine role: because he is the one who gets rescued and brings in baked goods and that the other, more powerful but emotionally repressed characters can go to to talk about their feelings. Because he is the person who, by the end of the show, can best reassure Dawn that she doesn’t need to be a Potential Slayer or have superpowers to be special. This idea that Xander complains too much during the show about not having special powers and that the “solution” to “fix” this is to have him go out and get some (as opposed to this being a deliberate character arc in which Xander learns to accept that he’s never going to be that sort of person) is not one I have a lot of sympathy for. The show already has a human male character who is trained as a fighter so he can go on patrol with Buffy: he’s called Riley Finn and he’s insufferable.

Although the fandom as a whole loves to massively oversell how “abusive” the Scoobies respective parents are, I do think that Xander’s home life is a key part of understanding who Xander specifically is as a person. And – again, however deliberately planned from the beginning or not it was – there’s something nicely disturbing about how we never get a big dramatic reveal about how awful Xander’s parents are: it’s just something that the writers just slowly build up to – from the idea in Season 1 that Xander doesn’t regularly eat cooked meals at home (“do your parents even own a stove?”), to Xander joking about his dad trying to “send [him] to some Armenians once” early in Season 2, or calling home to say he’s going to be out all night and having his mother clearly not recognize his voice, through to Cordelia revealing in Season 3 that he admitted to her that sleeps outside during Christmas to avoid his parents drunken fights – until by Restless we can see Xander having nightmares about being trapped in his parents basement and having his father come down the stairs and we don’t need to have anything more than that explained to us. I think that’s all really effectively done, and while I don’t think it excuses te way Xander behaves I do think it does a lot to make sense of it.

Again, while I think it’s possible to drastically overstate the Mind/Spirit/Heart metaphorical reading – I don’t think this is something the writers were consciously thinking about most of the time and I don’t think the reading of the show in which everyone is reduced to a part of Buffy’s own psyche is even particularly interesting except perhaps as an intellectual exercise – I do think it’s a reading that works pretty well for Xander. (Actually of the three elements, that’s surely the one that’s easiest to see: I’ve never been completely sure why Willow is the Spirit rather than the Mind.) Yeah, Xander can often be petty and jealous and selfish and hypocritical and refuse to analyze his own feelings: that doesn’t rule him out from being Buffy’s metaphorical heart, it’s evidence that he is. Buffy can be all of those things too! (I think I am rather more fond of Buffy herself than you are – she is my favorite character on the show, after all – but I don’t like Buffy because she’s flawless and perfect; I like her because she’s interesting and realistically flawed, and very often flawed in the same ways as her friends.)

#btvs #asks #thanks!#(sorry that I cheated a bit)

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dreamofbecoming · 1 year ago

Text

here we are at last! there have been a bunch of posts lately about how neither eddie nor robin have any gaydar to speak of, but steve canonically does, and also vickie definitely left fast times paused on purpose as a flag, and frankly all of you are just so objectively True and Correct that i had no choice but to write about it. parts 1 and 2 not strictly necessary for context but definitely set in the same universe

part 1 part 2 ao3

platonic stobin, rockie, steddie

rating: t

wc: 8.4k (holy fuck it got away from me)

---

Robbie isn't drunk yet, but she's getting there.

Honestly, Steve should probably slow her down, but what the hell. They're celebrating, after all. He'll cut her off in a bit, but she deserves to have some fun. They all do.

It's been three weeks since Eddie got out of the hospital, one since he was finally let off bedrest. Or, not exactly bedrest, but enough restrictions that he was basically confined to the trailer (brand new, courtesy of Owens and his goons), and from the way he complained the whole time you'd think they had him chained to the bedposts.

Hm. Maybe thinking of Eddie chained to bedposts isn't the best use of Steve's time. Not here, anyway. That's a Later activity.

It's the first house party any of them have been invited to since Spring Break, thrown by one of Robin's band friends. None of them planned on going, except that two days ago a frantic call came over the All Hands channel on the walkie that El had finally broken through, Max was awake, and the doctors thought her arms and legs would eventually, almost, make a full recovery, granted with lots of physical therapy.

Apparently the only useful thing Vecna ever did was break her bones at right angles so they could set them cleanly. Her vision will probably never fully return, but she's alive. She's alive, and she's awake, and she's apparently being a complete menace to the nurses, which is more comforting to Steve than any of the rest of it, so how could they ask for anything else?

Steve still feels like he's taking his first real breath after drowning every time he inhales. He's not sure he'll ever stop feeling this relief. It's so sharp it's almost painful.

So they're at this party, and they're celebrating. There's a real celebration planned, of course, with the whole Party and assorted extras, Murray (ugh) and Jonathan's California friend (who seems nice), Joyce and Hopper (and isn't that a trip) and Eddie and Wayne (Eddie read him in immediately, to no one's surprise) and everyone else. They've got plans to descend on Steve's house as soon as Max is allowed out of the hospital, where they'll presumably trash his mother's nice white carpets and eat through his snacks like locusts and enrage his neighbors with their shrieking in the pool. Hopper and Wayne will fight over who gets to work the grill until Joyce gets fed up and takes over and Eddie will commandeer the sound system and Robin will laugh at Steve for frantically switching between Host Mode and Lifeguard Mode until she finds someone big enough to sit on him and make him eat something. He can't wait.

But for now, they're at this party, and they're celebrating. With someone else's alcohol, which is a nice treat for Steve.

He's leaning against the wall by the kitchen doorway, sipping something Robin made him that tastes like paint thinner and looks like undiluted red food dye. He's surprised it hasn't eaten through the bottom of the cup like that green gunk from the elevator. He doesn't quite feel like joining the crush of people in the living room. He's felt a little off since Spring Break, a little lost inside his head. He knows Robin can tell, but she hasn't pushed him, other than dragging him here tonight. He's so grateful for her he thinks he could cry.

He doesn't, though, he just watches her from the kitchen doorway, squished on a couch between Vickie and who he thinks might be one of Eddie's bandmates. He recognizes him from those nights he would pick the kids up from Hellfire at the school, and also from Eddie's hospital room. He's got fluffy hair and a flannel shirt around his waist. Gary, maybe? Garth? Steve's not sure. He'd introduce himself and find out for sure, but apparently, carrying Eddie's bleeding not-quite-corpse on his back into the hospital and throwing around his father's name until someone agreed to treat him before collapsing in the lobby from his own injuries wasn't quite enough to erase the contempt for King Steve, so Steve's been mostly avoiding those guys. Eddie swears he's working on it. Steve...should maybe care more than it feels like he does. He thinks maybe a lot of things should feel more...more, than they do. But that's a problem for Later Steve. It's fine. He's fine. He's handling it.

He watches Robin, and she's laughing, and she's not quite drunk yet, and he's glad for her. This is what he wanted. This is what he wished for, on that flipped over bucket, in that field. That they'd all get through it. That they'd all get to keep smiling and doing stupid teenager shit. He maybe wishes he felt a little more like someone who wanted to do stupid teenager shit and a little less like someone watching his friends have fun from behind a plate-glass window, but he'll take it. Whatever he can get, he'll take it.

He looks back at Robin, and, huh. She's still laughing, but now she's between Eddie and Maybe-Gary-Maybe-Garth. He follows Robin's less-than-subtle (crimeny, this girl, he's gotta teach her a goddamn poker face) longing gaze and sees a flash of red heading for the back door.

This feels like a chance to do something useful. Robin will be ok, Eddie will keep an eye on her.

He follows Vickie out the back door. He finds her leaned against the back of the house, her eyes closed, her head tilted back. She's smiling. She really is pretty, Steve can see why Robin likes her. God, he hopes he's right about her. Either way, he's determined to find out. It's what Robin deserves.

"Hey, Vickie. Come out for some fresh air?"

Her smile gets bigger when she turns to him. He really hopes he's right about her, she's a fucking sweetheart. He hopes he isn't about to do something hugely stupid. Knowing him, he probably is, but also knowing him, he's gonna do it anyway.

"Hey Steve! Yeah, I was just getting a little warm in there. How about you? Smoke break?"

"Nah, I'm trying to quit. Robin hates them, she keeps stealing them out of my mouth, so it's somehow more expensive and I don't even get to smoke them. Easier to just stop. Which is probably her goal," he laughs.

"You and Robin are pretty close, huh?"

"Oh yeah, platonic soulmates. With a capital P!" He makes an incredibly dorky gesture with his hands, and has to stop himself from facepalming. Great going, dingus.

Still, Vickie's smile gets a little wider, which he thinks is probably a win.

"That's why I came out here, actually. I wanted a chance to talk to you." Her eyebrows go up. Always with the goddamn eyebrows around here. "Not, like, in a creepy way! Or, well, I guess that's what a creep would say, but I swear I'm not! I just meant, because Robin really likes you," shit, too much, "I mean, she likes hanging out with you, and she's my best friend and all, so I wanted to. Um. Get to know you better. You know. For Robin."

"...For Robin."

He groans. "I swear I didn't used to be like this. I used to be able to talk like a normal person. I didn't know that was a skill you could lose! I would have worked harder at it!" She's laughing at him now, but at least she's polite enough to hide her giggles behind her hand. That's something.

He sighs, and throws his head back to take a deep breath and try and come back to his body, like Robin showed him. Having therapist parents sounds like a nightmare to Steve, but it has its uses, he guesses.

He looks back at Vickie, who is watching him with what seems like more amusement than concern, so he's taking that as a win. If she's laughing, she's not running away. He sticks his hand out.

"Hi, I'm Steve. You're really important to the most important person in my life, so I'd really like to be your friend." He tries to give her his most winning smile, but honestly he's a little worried his teeth are still red from that godawful drink.

She grins at him, still definitely laughing at him a little but more genuine than before, and shakes his hand. "I'm Vickie, and you're really important to someone I hope will become really important to me, so I'd love to be your friend."

He doesn't breathe a sigh of relief, but it's a close thing. King Steve decided to stay in tonight, apparently, so he's on his own, and boy oh boy is he worse than he remembered.

"So, new friend, what do you want to get to know about me?"

Thank fuck Vickie's carrying so much of the weight here, honestly.

"We could, uh, talk about movies?" Jesus Christ, where did all the goddamn Harrington Charm go, anyway? Did Vecna eat it?!

There go the eyebrows again. He's cursed, he really is. "Movies?"

"Yeah, you know, I work at a movie store. Or I did, anyway. With Robbie. Pretty sure it went under in the quake though. That or Keith just fired us and didn't bother calling to let us know." He laughs awkwardly. He's doing fucking everything awkwardly, honestly. He hasn't even asked the question yet and he's already sweating bullets. No wonder Bobbie was so scared to confront this head-on. "Anyway, it can tell you a lot about a person, you know. Their favorite movie."

Come on, take the bait. Take it.

She nods seriously at him. "Oh I get that for sure, you can learn a lot about someone by their favorite book. I used to volunteer at the library and there was always gossip about who checked out what romance novel and whether that meant their marriage was on the rocks, you know?" She giggles, hiding behind her hand for a second. "I guess it was kind of mean, but we never said anything to anyone outside the library, and never to their face, you know? It was just something to keep us entertained on slow days."

Fantastic, he can work with this.

"Oh totally, I completely get it. Robs and I did the same thing at Family Video, making up stories about what we imagined people's lives were like that they were renting Casablanca and Gremlins on the same night, you know? Like, what does that evening look like? Which one do they watch first?"

She laughs. Perfect. She took the bait, now he's just gotta reel her in. Or something. He's never been fishing.

"You know, I usually rent my movies from Family Video. Did you guys ever look up my rental history?"

Aaaand, got her!

"You know, I think we did, actually, not that I'm helping the creep allegations," he winks at her. She slaps him on the shoulder. There we go, there's the Harrington Charm. Jesus fuck, where has it been all night? Sleeping?

Moment of truth, here we go.

"Fast Times At Ridgemont High, right?" He keeps his eyes on her face while he says it. He needs to see how she reacts.

She's been watching a raccoon rummaging through the neighbor's trash, but as soon as he mentions the movie, she whips her head around and looks at him sharply.

She studies his face intently in the glow from the floodlights above the garage. Whatever she finds, the fear in her eyes fades just slightly to caution. All good signs.

Fuck, this is harder than he remembers. Talking in code and reading all the subtle little shifts in body language involved in this conversation is stretching muscles in his brain he's forgotten he had. His friends these days all just sort of...say whatever they mean, straight out. He thought it was weird and off-putting at first, but now that he's doing this dance again, he's realizing he hasn't missed it.

The things he does for Robin, honestly.

He can see the moment she decides to trust him, even though she's still tense. She takes a deep breath, like she's gearing up for something. "That's a good one, for sure. You know, I think I maybe forgot to rewind it the last time I returned it? I paused it at my favorite part, but I think I got distracted and never finished it. I hope that doesn't cause too much trouble for you guys at your job. I'd hate to be one of those customers."

Jesus, this chick is brave. She's basically just coming right out and saying it! Holy shit, he's about to get Robbie a girlfriend! Ok, ok be cool. Bring it home, nice and easy.

"Nah, not a problem at all. Besides, I think I remember that tape, and we have the same favorite part, I think. All three of us." Fuck he hopes this isn't a mistake. If he just fucked up and outed Robin for no reason he'll- fuck, he doesn't know what he'll do. Ask El to open the gate back up so he can throw himself into it, probably.

Vickie's eyes go wide. "Robin too?" There's something like hope in her voice. He thinks. He hopes, anyway. Maybe he's just projecting, but he really thinks he's been right on the money from the start. He just needs to prove it to Rob and give them both a push.

"Yeah, Robin too. Now me, I like Fast Times a lot, but I also really like The Outsiders, you know?" A truth for a truth. Nothing is free, he remembers this dance. Trust is always earned.

He didn't realize her eyes could get any bigger, but somehow they do. Slowly, a grin spreads across her face. "Really? Uh, me too! Those are...both...really good movies, you know?"

"Totally!" He's grinning now too, he can't help it. He's so excited for Robbie he might explode. This is the most alive he's felt in weeks!

"Not Rob, though, she loves Fast Times, but not so much The Outsiders. She can be, uh. Pretty nervous, you know? To talk about her taste in movies. I think she might be worried you don't like Fast Times as much as she does, but I know she really wants to, uh, watch it with you. So you might have to be the one to, you know, tell her how much you like it, and maybe ask her to watch it together?"

He's getting lost in the metaphor here. That's clear enough, right? Robbie isn't going to believe him about Vickie liking boobies unless she walks up to her and tells her "I like women, go out with me," in very small words, so he really hopes he got the message across. He needs Vickie to take the wheel on this.

Luckily Vickie is nodding enthusiastically. "For sure! I can do that!" She's halfway back to the house, almost tripping over her feet, before she looks back at him sheepishly.

"Oh no, I'm sorry, that was so rude of me, I just got so excited and I wanted to-"

"Hey, no worries, that was the goal, right? This is what I was hoping for when I came out here to talk to you. She, uh..." He shouldn't. He should stick to the code, just in case, he should be careful, it's Robbie's life on the line here.

But it's also her happiness.

"She didn't believe me. About the Fast Times thing. And then we ran into you at The War Zone, and she was totally convinced I was wrong, but I knew I had to ask. Just in case. I just really want her to be happy, you know?" There. He hasn't actually said the words. If it goes sideways, they still have plausible deniability.

And then, well. There's always Plan B. He doesn't exactly want to burn Vickie's house down, but he will. For Robin, he'll do anything.

Vickie is smiling softly at him. She really is sweet, she and Bobbie are gonna be so cute together. He can't wait to tease them into oblivion.

"I'm glad she has a friend like you, Steve."

He scrubs a hand across the back of his neck, feeling weirdly self-conscious. "Yeah, well, you know. You've got a friend like me, now, too, right?"

There's that bright smile again. "Right!"

"Alright, go on. Go get your girl."

Good lord, redheads sure can blush, huh?

He waits a couple of minutes before heading back in himself, enjoying the night air. It's not quite the height of summer yet, so the evenings aren't as muggy as they'll be in a month or so. For the first time since he crawled out of that gate with Eddie lashed to his back with the remains of the rope ladder he cut to protect Dustin, he's feeling the breeze on his skin without feeling like he's wrapped in plastic, like there's a wall around him, keeping from being part of the world. He wants to savor it, in case it goes away again.

When he does make his way back in, he almost trips over Robin, who's grabbing what should probably be her last drink. At least it's just a beer this time, if it was more of that awful concoction from earlier he'd probably take it away from her, pouting be damned. They could have flambéed Vecna with that shit, nobody should be putting it in their bodies.

Her face lights up when she notices him, and she flings herself into his arms.

"Oof, shit, Buckley, doing ok there? You having fun?"

"Sooooo much fun, Stevie!" She nuzzles her face into the crook of his shoulder. Yeah, if she's this cuddly in public, this should definitely be her last drink, especially if Vickie wants to make any kind of move tonight. She's not usually this touchy outside of the really bad nightmare nights. "Missed you though. Where'd you go? My bubba disappeared."

"Aw, Bobs, I was just outside getting some air, I promise. I didn't go anywhere."

She shakes her head stubbornly, her nose dragging along his collarbone. "Noooo, you left. Not now, before. After. In the hospital. We all came back but you left. You went inside your big stupid fluffy head and you don't come out anymore. I miss you."

It's a good thing Robin's face is still hidden in his shoulder, because he can't quite keep his expression from crumpling. He hasn't meant to hurt her, he hasn't meant to hurt anyone, he swears. He's trying, he wants to come back, wants to be normal again, he just...he feels like part of him is still stuck at the bottom of Lover's Lake, watching everyone above him on the surface moving on and living life, but not able to reach them.

He holds her tighter to his chest, petting her hair. It's a mess, like when she first wakes up in the morning. Maybe she fell off the couch or something while he was outside.

"I'm sorry, Bobbin-bird. I didn't mean to go away. I'm working on it, ok? I promise," he murmurs reassurances into her hair, trying to erase the sadness he can hear in her slurred words. He's shit at talking about feelings, especially his own, but not with Robin. Never with Robin. Saying true things to Robin isn't any harder than thinking them to himself, and honestly that's basically the same thing. They pretty much only have the one brain between them.

She pulls back, studying his face closely with bleary eyes, squeezing his cheeks between her hands. "Promise?"

"I promise, Bobbie." He tries to project as much sincerity as he can muster. She's edging past tipsy, but not actually drunk yet, so she should remember this moment just fine tomorrow, and he won't have to do it again.

Who he is kidding? They're definitely having this conversation again tomorrow. Maybe he can distract her with teasing about Vickie. Where did she go, anyway?

Robin grins, apparently satisfied for now. "Good!" She smacks a kiss to his forehead and finally lets go of his face. Thank god. He loves her, more than anything in the world, but she's a goddamned sweaty drunk.

Before she can say anything else, a redheaded streak comes stumbling into the kitchen.

"There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you!" Vickie leans on the kitchen counter, trying to catch her breath.

Steve looks to Robin to see how she'll respond, and, oh. Well, shit. Robin is...frozen, apparently. She's very obviously focused on Vickie, which is good, because otherwise Steve would be having trouble with flashing back to Nancy's thousand-yard stare in the Upside Down, or the whites of Max's eyes, but the part of her brain that lets her, you know, say and do things, appears to have shut down.

Looks like it's Steve's turn with the communal brain, lucky him. Time to step in and save this, if he can.

"Vickie! Hi, you know, I was just wondering where you ran off to? I was about to tell Robin to track you down, to talk about that movie we talked about earlier, but it looks like you found us instead!" He jams an elbow into Robin's side as subtly as he can, but she still doesn't move.

Vickie is looking between them, still breathing a little heavy. "Yeah, I went looking for you as soon as I came back in, but Gareth said-" Gareth! That was it! "-you went to the bathroom, and did you know there are six bathrooms in this house? Who needs that many bathrooms? I think Angela only has one sibling, why would anyone need six bathrooms for four people? That's so crazy! Anyway, I'm glad I found you, Robin. I'm, uh, getting a little overwhelmed with all the people out here, so I was hoping you might want to find a room that's maybe a little quieter, so we can talk a bit? Just the two of us?" Damn, this girl's got guts. Steve likes her.

Robin continues to stand in front of the fridge like the world's prettiest scarecrow. Come on, babygirl, you can do this! He elbows her again.

"Vickie! Hi! Steve, Vickie's here! Hi!" Steve and Vickie both startle a little because, wow, ok, volume, Buckley, damn. Still. Progress.

"Sure is, babe. Tell you what, why don't I take this-" he plucks the unopened beer out of her slack hand, "-and you and Vickie can go sit down somewhere quiet and talk about movies, huh?"

Robin blinks at him owlishly. "Movies?"

He's about to make another veiled reference to the boobies conversation when Vickie blows all of her air out of her nose and stomps one foot like that one girl in the Chocolate Factory movie who reminds him of his cousin Shauna.

"I'm sorry, I can't take it! I just spent ten minutes outside talking to Steve in ridiculous codes and another ten minutes running up and down the stairs in this insane house and I'm exhausted. I can't take the metaphors anymore. Sorry, Steve, no offense."

"Hey, none taken. It's pretty exhausting, you're not wrong. I just had to be safe."

She shakes her head. "No, totally, I completely understand. I appreciate it. I'm just secret coded-out tonight, you know? Robin, do you want to go upstairs with me and talk? I have something to ask you and I'd really rather do it in private, I don't really want any of these people listening, you know?" She waves her hand at the open doorway to the living room, which is still packed with people.

Robbie's head has been bouncing back and forth between them like she's watching a tennis match, eyes wide.

"Huh? Me? What?"

Oh geez. She's shorting out.

"Bobbie, look at me." She meets his eye, and he can see the nerves threatening to overwhelm her. "Trust me?"

She nods. "Uh huh. 'Course, bubba."

Well that warms him right up, but it's not about him right now. "Good. Go with Vickie, babe. It'll be good, I promise." He hopes he can promise that, at least. He's pretty sure he can. And if it goes bad, they always have Plan B.

Vickie holds out a hand, and Robin stares at her like it might bite her, before taking it gingerly. Both girls immediately burst into bright red blushes, and under any other circumstance he would laugh at them, but this is a delicate moment. They need him to be cool. He can be cool. He can be so goddamn cool.

Vickie leads Robin out of the room and towards the stairs, both of them still blushing like crazy and refusing to meet each other's eyes, and Steve can finally let out the breath he's been holding in a whoosh and slump back against the counter. He snags a bottle opener off the fridge- neat, it's got a magnet on it!- and pops the top on the beer he stole off Robbie.

“Well I hate to break this to you, King Steve, but she’s definitely about to steal your girl.”

Steve freezes with the bottle at his lips.

He sets the beer down on the counter and very carefully turns around. Munson is alone, thank fuck. This is fixable. He can deal with a single person. If it had been a crowd, or fuck, god forbid, someone like Gareth, who hates him, and might try and use this? Hurt Robbie to hurt him? Well, he's got his nailbat in the trunk, and he isn't afraid to use it, but he doesn't think Hopper would be thrilled to have to bail him out of jail.

"Whatever you think you heard, Munson, if Robbie gets hurt, it won't matter that you're one of us now. I'll finish what those bats started. I won't be happy about it, because you're a pretty cool dude and I like hanging out with you, but I'll do it for her if you make me." He makes sure his voice is low and even, and he meets Eddie's eyes head on. He wants to be very clear, this is not a joke. He will defend her if he has to.

He doesn't think he'll have to, not from Munson, but he isn't 100% sure, and he's taken enough risks with Robbie's safety tonight. He doesn't trust his luck enough to count on it working out a second time in less than an hour.

Munson's eyes go wide with shock- he clearly wasn't expecting Steve to meet him with quite that much aggression. He puts his hands up in surrender and leans back away from Steve.

Steve fights not to be distracted by the way his torso curves, graceful in a way he has no right to be with his wounds still scabbing over. Not the moment, Steve. Get it together, for fuck's sake.

"Hey, whoa, easy big guy. We're cool, man. Stand down."

There's a tense moment where they just...stand there, sizing each other up, unsure where to go from here.

Eddie tugs a lock of hair in front of his face, nibbling on it nervously. It's cuter than it has any right to be, honestly.

"I didn't- uh. Fuck, man. Please tell me I didn't just tip you off to flirting you didn't notice. It would suck so, so bad if I exposed Birdie without her knowing."

Steve takes a moment to consider this, frankly absurd, situation. He holds up a finger for Eddie to wait a minute, and checks both ways down the hallway outside before closing the kitchen door and leaning back against it to keep it shut. At least now it'll definitely just be the two of them, which is one more than should be having this conversation, but he doesn't see a way out of it, so this will have to do.

When he turns back to Eddie, he looks even more nervous than before.

"I'm perfectly aware of the flirting, considering I'm the one who went out of my way to set them up tonight. You didn't out anyone, and I should have been the one to make sure the door was closed before I got them in a room together, so it's not your fault for finding out. You understand you can't say anything to anyone, ever, though, right?"

Because he's apparently doomed to be accosted with eyebrow raises from everyone around him anytime he says anything at all until he dies, Eddie's are lost somewhere under his bangs. He looks...impressed. Huh, that's kind of nice. Steve resists the urge to preen.

"'Course, man, I'm well-versed in the code of silence." Something in his face softens, and Steve can feel the sincerity in his next words. "Birdie's a friend, and Finnegan seems like a real sweetie, I wouldn't ever want to hurt them like that. Cross my heart." He does, in fact, draw a cross on his chest with one long, ringed finger. What a dork, holy shit. Steve wants to put that finger in his mouth.

"I have to admit, I didn't expect you to be so cool with something like that. In general, but also especially since you and Buckley are, y'know." He waves his hand expansively around his head, the kitchen lights glinting off his rings, and Steve has to fight the urge to bat at it like a cat with a laser pointer. Jesus Christ, Harrington, focus. The man just called you a homophobe, get your shit together.

He decides, very magnanimously, he thinks, to ignore the homophobe bit, honing in on the rest. "Me and her are...what, exactly?"

"I mean, aren't you guys like, a thing?" Oh Jesus fuck. Not again.

"Ugh, no, where the hell do people keep getting that? Robin and I are just friends, ok? Platonic soulmates. Capital P!" He throws his hands in the air in frustration.

"-capital P," Eddie choruses with him, "I know, I know, I just, shit, man, I dunno, I figured you were..."

"Were what?"

"...Lying? Shit, that sounds worse out loud, sorry! I just mean, because, you know, Henderson keeps saying-"

"Oh, well if Henderson says it, it must be true," Steve rolls his eyes.

"Well fuck me for trusting the kid who calls you his best friend, I guess!"

They glare at each other across the room for a minute, before the ridiculousness of this moment catches up to Steve and he drops his chin to his chest, huffing a laugh.

Eddie looks confused, and still nervous, and a little incredulous. Also a lot adorable, but that doesn't feel relevant. "Ok, I'm so lost, man. I just came in here for a beer, and this has been an emotional rollercoaster I was unprepared for."

Yeah, that about sums it up.

He hasn't spent much time with Eddie since he woke up, spending those weeks juggling babysitting duties and his own injuries and helping with the relief effort and sitting vigil at Max's side. He popped in on Eddie when he was in the building for Max, but the Munson room always had someone in it- Wayne, or Dustin, or Mike, or one of the Corroded Coffin guys- and Steve always felt a bit like an intruder. So he hasn't had a chance to feel out the suspicions he formed during that surreal week when everything was still in the process of exploding, and honestly he's been feeling a little too distant to work up the energy to bother. Robin's bugged him about it once or twice since March, but he shrugged her off each time and she hasn't brought it up in a while.

Ah, what the hell. It's already been such a weird night, and Steve is honestly feeling better than he has in weeks, and he wants to ride this high wherever it'll take him.

Emotional rollercoaster, huh? Well, Steve can make that worse.

At least Eddie hasn't seemed homophobic, kind of the opposite, actually. That's a good sign if Steve's ever seen one.

He pushes off the door, stalking toward Eddie with intent and digging deep inside himself for whatever remains of the person he used to be, who could drop panties with a single look. Eddie's eyes go very round, and he stumbles back a little into the counter.

"You know, Munson, I've had a question I've been meaning to ask you for a while now. Haven't found a good moment."

"Oh yeah?" Eddie's voice comes out in what can only be called a squeak, and Steve feels powerful. That rush of confidence he hasn't felt since BN (Before Nancy) fills his chest, and he can feel his grin turn sharp. "Ho- uh." Eddie clears his throat. "How long's a while?"

Steve purses his lips, relishing the way Eddie's eyes drop down like he can't help it and his cheeks flush, and pretends to consider the question. "Oh, since Skull Rock, probably."

"O-oh? That's. Um. That is a long time." He's still staring at Steve's lips. Good. "Well, shoot, Stevie-boy. Ask away."

Steve lets his smile spread across his face slowly, keeping Eddie's eyes where he wants them. Yeah, he's still got it. Like riding a bike.

"Do you wear this bandana on purpose, or is it just a fashion statement?"

Eddie's eyes snap up to meet his own, shocked.

"Wh-what? Bandana? I. Um. What?"

"Are you flagging, Eddie?" Steve doesn't back up, toe to toe with Eddie as he reaches out and tugs lightly on the hanky trailing out of his back pocket, as always.

He may not have had the energy to talk to Eddie about it yet, but his curiosity did get the better of him after the "earthquakes," and he did dig out that zine where he originally learned about the code. He knows what a black hanky in the back left pocket means now. It's...a little daunting, but not a turn-off. Not at all. Kind of the other thing.

God he hopes Eddie knows what it means.

Eddie seems floored by this line of questioning. He's bright red and sputtering, his mouth opening and closing without saying anything. Steve lets himself stare. This'll go however it goes, but he's not ashamed. He's no more embarrassed to want Eddie than he would be to want a girl, which is to say, not at all.

"I- you- what? What? You- you know what flagging is?" He hisses the end of the sentence in a harsh whisper, so much like Robin did when he first told her about his crush that he can't stop himself from giggling.

Wrong move, since Eddie clearly takes this personally, and his expression shutters closed. Whoops.

"Hey, hey, no no no, none of that, hey. I'm sorry, I wasn't laughing at you, I swear."

"Right, sure, I believe that, considering there's nothing goddamn else to laugh at in this kitchen, Harrington." Eddie is glaring at the floor, arms crossed defensively across his chest.

Alright, maybe he gets what Vickie was saying earlier. Fuck the codes, fuck the metaphors. He can take Eddie in a fight if he has to. He's a simple guy, ok? He just wants to use his goddamn words.

Robin would be so proud.

He goes slowly, telegraphing every move so Eddie can stop him if he wants. He reaches for his hands where they're tucked into his elbows, gently easing them out until they're clasped between them.

He takes the opportunity to finally feel those rings he's fantasized about, seeing if they're as cool as they look. They aren't, they're warm from Eddie's skin. He spins one of them around Eddie's finger with his thumb, transfixed.

Eddie still looks tense, but now instead of hurt and distrust on his face, he looks like Steve hit in him in the head with something heavy. His pretty eyes are so big, blown completely black as he stares at their joined hands.

"I'm sorry I laughed. I was remembering the first time I told Robin I had a crush on you," Eddie's head snaps up again, "and she sounded exactly like you did just now, with that angry whisper voice. It made me laugh, that you guys are so alike. It makes sense, I guess. She's my favorite person, so of course I'd like you, when you're like. Not the same, I guess, but kinda a similar flavor of weird. She says I have a thing for nerds, y'know?"

Eddie blinks at him for a minute, apparently speechless. Some nerves start to creep back in, since the brief miscommunication scare burned out most of that white hot King Steve confidence in his chest. They must show on his face, because Eddie visibly shakes himself and finally opens his mouth.

"You have a crush on me?"

"Yeah, man, since the Upside Down, pretty much. The first time."

"Don't call me man when you're telling me you have a crush on me!"

Steve has to laugh at the comically offended look on Eddie's face. "Sorry. Do you prefer Eds? Baby? Big Boy?"

Eddie is so red Steve is surprised his face isn't steaming. He yanks one hand out of Steve's grip to smack him in the chest. Steve laughs and lets him, dropping their still-joined hands down between them and tangling their fingers.

"You're a fucking dick, Stevie. Can't believe I like you."

Steve grins at him, big and hopeful. "Yeah? You like me, Munson?"

Eddie shoves at him with a groan, but doesn't let go of his hand. "Pretty sure everyone in this town likes you, King Steve. It's like a rite of passage, or something."

Steve feels like he could walk on air, he isn't even going to get fussy about the King Steve thing. They can talk about that later. Eddie likes him! Eddie has a crush on him! He could fight a demogorgon with his bare hands right now, that's how powerful he feels.

Eddie gets quiet after a second, tugging a curl in front of his mouth again. Seems like a nervous tick, maybe. Steve notes that for later. He may not be much of a reader, but he's going to learn to read Eddie Munson like a book if it's the last thing he does.

"I thought, um. I kinda...hn. Ugh."

"Gonna need more than that, baby, I'm not fluent in Munson yet." That glow in his chest picks up a little again at the way Eddie flushes so pink and pretty at the petname.

"I thought you were straight." It comes out all in a rush, the words mumbled and slurred together through his hair.

Finally, it's Steve's turn to raise an eyebrow. Take that, universe! "You meet a lot of straight guys who know what the Hanky Code is?"

Eddie shakes his head in wonderment. "Still can't believe The Steve Harrington knows what flagging is."

He's about to reply when the kitchen door flies open with a bang that sends the boys leaping backwards away from each other. Steve finds himself braced between Eddie and the door, brandishing the bottle opener from the fridge in front of him like a knife. He doesn't even remember grabbing it.

Robin is standing in the doorway, eyes wild and hair frizzing out around her head in a way she would despise if she was sober and not obviously preoccupied with something else.

"Jesus, Robs, you about gave me a heart attack, what the hell?"

"Sorry bubba, not important right now!"

He rolls his eyes. Of course not. Just his trauma that could have made him stab her if he hadn't caught himself, nothing major. This girl, he swears.

"Dingus! Focus!"

"Focus on what, Bobs?"

"She wants to kiss me, Steve!"

His eyes go wide. Thank fuck the door bounced off the wall and swung back shut behind her. That's not something to shout to a party full of gossipy strangers.

Still. This is a big moment! "Bobbie! What'd I tell you, huh?" He picks her up around the middle, swinging her around while she cackles wildly and bats at his shoulders.

"Put me down, you lunatic! Steven Elizabeth, you put me down right now, or I swear I'll never speak to you again!" She's laughing too hard for him to take her seriously, though.

He does take pity on her and set her back on her feet, stealing one more tight hug. He's so happy for her he could scream. This night has turned out better than he could have imagined.

"Tell me everything! What happened! What did she say? What did you say? How was the kiss?"

"Well we didn't actually kiss yet, exactly."

"Wait, then how do you know she wants to kiss you?"

"She told me! She said she thinks I'm really pretty and funny and smart and she's like you! She likes both, and she says her and Dan are done, like for real for real all the way done, and she held my hand, Steve! And she wants to go on a date! And she said she wanted to kiss me!"

"That's awesome! I'm so happy for you, Bobs. What did you say when she said she wanted to kiss you?"

"I came down to tell you about it, obviously."

Oh, Bobbie, what the fuck. "Robin James Buckley. Do not tell me that a pretty girl tried to kiss you and you ran away and left her upstairs!"

The situation finally seems to register, and Robbie's hands go flailing around her face the way they do when she's overwhelmed.

"Oh no! Steve! Oh no!"

"Go, you insane person! Go back upstairs right now and kiss her this minute! Go!"

He physically herds her to the door, at which point she finally notices Eddie, who has been standing in the corner where Steve shoved him behind him when the door crashed open, watching them like he's wishing he had popcorn.

Fuck. Steve was so excited for Robbie he totally forgot he was here.

Robin's body goes rigid and all the color drains out of her face all at once.

Steve grabs her by the shoulders. "Hey, Bobbin, eyes on me, ok? Eyes on me." She finally drags her eyes away from where she's been staring at Eddie in horror, and Steve's heart breaks at the fear on her face. "It's ok, Bobbie, I swear to god it's ok. I was right, alright? I was right about him, we were talking before you came in. He's safe, I swear. We're safe, Bobbie, I promise I'll keep you safe."

"I promise I won't say a word, Birdie. Friends of Dorothy gotta stick together, right?" Eddie pipes up from the corner, stepping forward slowly and carefully, hands out front like he's approaching a skittish animal.

"You're- you're like u- me?" Oh, he loves her so much. Still protecting him, just in case.

"It's ok Bobs, I told him about me. I was about to get a kiss of my own before you came in, I think, actually."

Eddie jumps on the opportunity to cut the tension, ever the showman. Steve likes him so goddamn much. He grins impishly at Steve, that wide pretty mouth stretching out until those dimples Steve can't wait to kiss appear on his cheeks.

"Oh, you were, were you? Pretty presumptuous, Stevie-boy. Who says I kiss on the first date? Maybe I'm not that kind of boy."

"Oh, wow, ok, this is gonna be a lot to deal with, huh? Alright, I'm glad I'm not getting hate-crimed, and I'm glad you're finally doing something about your big gay crush, Dingus, but if you'll excuse me, I have a girl to kiss, and also I want to be far away from," she waves a hand between them, "whatever this is. Good luck boys, don't kiss in unlocked rooms! Vickie says she can give me a ride home, so I'll call you in the morning, bubba. Love you bye!"

She's out of the room like a shot, hopefully back up to Vickie, who he hopes is prepared to get used to this kind of thing. There are so many things to love about Robin Buckley, and honestly, this is one of them, but he can see why she might be an acquired taste. He thinks anyone who doesn't acquire that taste is a moron and not worth knowing, but he can see how those people might exist.

"Love you too, Robs!" he calls down the hallway, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it. It's not a lock, but as long as he doesn't move, it'll do. And given that Eddie appears to have found his confidence and is leaning over him, bracing his arms on either side of Steve's head, he doesn't think he'll have to move any time soon.

Unless someone needs the kitchen, but they've been doing just fine so far, so they can burn that bridge when they come to it, or whatever people say.

He reaches down to toy with Eddie's belt loops, tugging him close and grinning up at him through his eyelashes, privately thrilled at the novelty of being shorter than his partner for once. Granted, he's slumped down the door a little, but still. It's nice. He can see why girls like it.

Eddie comes closer easily, resting their foreheads together. He reaches down to fiddle with a lock of Steve's hair and Steve feels like leaning into it like a cat getting its ears rubbed.

Lot of cat feelings tonight. He's not sure what to do with that.

"So.”

“So.”

“Steven Elizabeth, huh?"

Steve can't help but laugh, the tension broken once more. "Yeah, Rob's idea. We switched. Steven Elizabeth and Robin James. So we always have a piece of each other."

"Jesus H Christ, you guys are fucking adorable. This shit is why everyone thinks you're dating, though, you know that, right?"

"Ugh, yeah, I know. I don't actually mind, I mean, I should be so lucky, you know? And she's like. My person. My most important person. And we're probably gonna get married someday just so we can be each other's next of kin, and because it's not like she could marry whoever she ends up with anyway, or me if I end up with a guy, so it's like, why not, you know? I'd be building my life around her anyway, might as well make it legal.

"It's mostly just annoying when our friends don't believe us, because like, we're honest with you guys. Maybe not all of it, like Robbie isn't ready to be out and that's fine and she shouldn't have to be, but it kinda sucks that, like, Dustin thinks I would lie to him, you know? Because I wouldn't. Not about something real. Not when it matters. But he doesn't believe me, and that just. I dunno, man."

"It hurts."

"Yeah."

"I get that. You've been through a lot for these kids, you've put yourself on the line for them, you've given up a lot for them, and when they don't believe you about something like this, it feels like they're saying they don't trust you. Of course that hurts."

Steve swallows down the tears that want to fall. Now isn't the time for vulnerability like that, not in a stranger's crowded house. Still.

"How'd you do that?"

"Do what, sweetheart?" Oh, sweetheart does something to him. If this is how Eddie felt when he called him baby earlier, the blush makes more sense.

"Figure out exactly what I'm trying to say, and make it make sense. Usually only Robbie can do that."

"I dunno, maybe Birdie and me share a brain. Or maybe you and I just make sense to each other."

Steve flattens a palm against Eddie's chest, feeling the soothing thump beneath his hand. He did that. He put his hands on Eddie's chest and his mouth on Eddie's mouth and broke Eddie's ribs and didn't stop until that rhythm started up again. And now Eddie's here, and Eddie's heart is still beating, and Eddie hears him when he talks, and Eddie is looking at his lips again, and Steve suddenly can't go another second without kissing him.

He trails his hand up Eddie's chest, over his neck, savoring the way his breath hitches and the pulse under his palm speeds up. He keeps going, pushing his fingers into that thick riot of curls, already making mental notes of the products he's going to buy for Eddie because Jesus Christ, they're dry.

He tugs, and again, Eddie comes easy. It's not an earth-shattering kiss. There's no tongue, and their noses are a little smushed, and the angle is a little off, and he's kissed enough people that he can tell Eddie probably hasn't, but none of that matters.

He told Robin, back in that field, that he was holding off feelings he knew he would have for Eddie when all was said and done. He knows now he was right, and he's done holding them off. Has been done for a while, maybe.

He doesn't know where this is going, or what Eddie wants, or how they'll manage being two guys in a town like Hawkins, or what their friends will think. If they'll even tell their friends. What he does know is that he wants to find out the answers to all of those, and he wants to find them out with Eddie, and he wants to keep kissing Eddie, and also that he can't keep kissing Eddie here.

He pulls back, pecking that dimple finally, partly to reassure Eddie that he isn't running away and partly because he's wanted to for weeks, and pulls the kitchen door open, checking that the coast is clear before grabbing Eddie's hand and dragging him towards the front door.

"Where we going, Stevie?"

"You drove here, right?"

"Sure did. You want a ride somewhere? I thought you drove Birdie."

"I did, but you've got your van, don't you? Your van with doors that lock and a big open back seat?"

Eddie's eyes go wide, and he flails a little, just like Robin. It makes Steve smile.

"Yep! Yes, yeah, hell yeah, I do have my van, my van with those things, let's go! Chop chop, time's a-wasting! Your chariot awaits!" And he's off, doing that dorky little run for the driveway.

Steve grins, and puts his hands in his pockets, and follows his boy out into the night.

#stranger things #platonic stobin #steve harrington & robin buckley #rockie #rovickie #robin x vickie #robin buckley x vickie #idk what their ship tag is sorry lol #steddie #steve harrington #robin buckley #vickie stranger things #eddie munson #bisexual steve harrington #(eddie is bi too fyi but it doesn’t come up)#my writing #i believe with all my heart that steve’s strategy for nicknaming robin is just a handful of b’s and whatever vowels he finds in his heart #gareth absolutely interrupts them in the van when he wants to go home #and he’s so goddamn annoyed that now he’s going to HAVE to learn to like king steve #because it was one thing when he saved eddie’s life and they were friends now #that could be a one off #but if he likes eddie enough to make out with him in the driveway of a crowded party #he’s in this for the long haul #and that means gareth has to get used to him and learn to get a long #godDAMMIT eddie!#did i make steve go through a depressive episode because i took a break between this part and the last one and lost his voice?#how dare you insinuate such a thing (yeah lol)

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dg-outlaw · 10 months ago

Text

Batfam Retail and Character Agency

So I've been thinking about how some people take issue with certain ships in the Batfam, especially in fanfic or general fanon. For example, JaySteph and how people will cry "ince$t" when these two or other characters are paired up in a ship.

One, I don't think these people know how biology/ancestry works because the only blood related members of the Batfam are Bruce, Damian, and Kate Kane despite them being called the BatFAM. Two, most of Bruce's adopted children were older or barely interacted in a sibling way as far as growing up together. Sure, they might have a sibling-coded relationship and are legally related, but the best example I can think of in how the Batfam works is not the Brady Bunch or Cheaper by the Dozen, but that they all are or have been co-workers at the same minimum wage retail store. Friendships, drama, dating, rivalries, and other such nonsense is sure to happen. It's called forced proximity and shared experience.

I'm thinking of writing up a humorous parallel of who's who in the retail realm when it comes to the Batfam, but including it here would make this post WAY too long

The other annoyance, that I sort of get IF looked at from the POV of DC editorial or writers (if that's their ill-conceived intention), is the idea that a character, more specifically a female character, is just getting "passed around". Instead, my only guess is that whoever is complaining about this is saying that the male character should be given a new, shiny, fresh off the showroom floor love interest and not some high-mileage used model. I use a car reference here because that's exactly how that female is seen when a person says this, whether they acknowledge it or not.

The female character, for example: Stephanie Brown, is no longer a person with her own autonomy and ability to choose or have agency. She's an object to be owned, possessed, or used for the sake of forwarding the male character's arc or to add drama (e.g. fridging or damsel in distress). To imply that Stephanie Brown (or any other character) is being "passed around" from Tim Drake to Jason Todd is to imply that Steph doesn't have nor did she ever have choice in the matter (again, JaySteph isn't even canon, but if it were to become canon, some people would still have a fit). And yes, these are fictional characters, but in writing them (whether officially by DC or in fanfics) they should be treated as real people with real choices and not some object or virginal "bride" for the male protagonist where you'd retcon past relationships.

Has Stephanie Brown always been treated fairly in comics? No. Has Jason? Also, no. Would pairing these two be some sort of "passing around" or "sloppy seconds" for Jason? If I have to answer that for you or you think 'Yes', then you probably don't see women as people. Canonically, I think Jason has had more love interests so if anything Steph would be the one getting someone else's "sloppy seconds", thirds, fourths, etc.

Again, see the above about retail co-workers. Steph once dated Tim. It was their first job and their first real, young love. It was good, it was bad, they made out in the break room, they broke up in the middle of Customer Service, etc. Former employee, Jason, comes by and picks up random shifts when Bruce is really desperate. Steph and Jason meet and hang-out over a few shifts, even though Bruce doesn't trust either of them and would rather they work somewhere else. Maybe they got stuck working Black Friday and the holidays together and boom, sparks happened. It's maybe weird or awkward for Tim, but Tim fell in love with the snack and soda machine vendor, Bernard, so it's really no big deal.

So if someone can date their co-worker, break-up, and then date another co-worker, it should be none of your damn business (assuming everything is legal, consenting, and above board) if none of those people are you.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

#jason todd #red hood #stephanie brown #batgirl #stephanie brown spoiler #dc comics #jaysteph #batfam #women are people #why am I having to say that?#but also people are people and not possessions #still don't think I should have to say that #but here we are #ship and let ship #it's all make believe #but if this is how you see fictional characters...#how do you see real people?#long post

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heliianth · 3 months ago

Note

Raises my hand I wanna hear about the au!! Here's some prompts to talk about for it if you want

1. Any thoughts about how killugon's familiar pact works?

2. What's killugon's magic like respectively?

3. What is Alluka and Nanika up too?

(No pressure to answer all of these but ur au just seems so cool!)

YAY ok hello hi ok

stuff is below the cut because i YAPPED sorry lol this is a biiig wall of text.

forewarning some of the Lore™ is kind of fucked but its pretty in line with some of the shit that already happens in hxh anyway so just. expect that ;;^-^

1—

Killua and Gon's familiar pact is weird and its a bit hard to explain so hang on with me here bc first i gotta explain what a normal familiar pact is like

witches can make deals with sentient magical entities—often minor spirits that take the form of animals—in exchange for power. it acts as a symbiotic relationship, though with some downsides. their life forces are linked together along with some other more case-specific caveats. it's for this reason that familiar pacts are pretty rare because generally magic entities don't want to suddenly become mortal like that, it's usually not worth it. but anyway. after both agree, they will collaborate to summon a magic object as proof and confirmation of the pact. usually it's something small like earrings or whatever, but magic users can always tell if something is a familiar object or not. they have capital-v Vibes. you can have a pact without a familiar object, but its a bad idea because the power boost can fuck you up; they act as, like, a filtration system where you only get what the deal says you get with none of the really really ugly side effects of a mortal using a spirit's power. trying to non-consensually break the pact by destroying the object voids the deal but also completely severs both parties' connections with magic (similar to how breaking a nen vow in canon has the potential to nukes your ability to use nen). a witch and their familiar can safely break the pact, but it has to be a mutual decision, and even then some drain in magic is likely

so... why is killugon's weird? bc the Zoldycks are weird.

Kukuroo Mountain sits on top of a magic wellspring (like a hotspot for natural magic) which allows the Zoldycks to do all sorts of fuckshit that wouldn't otherwise be possible, and that includes their dummy unethical family necromancy ritual that merges a benign spirit with a human in the seconds before your soul disappears after death, artificially creating a demon (demons basically being what humans call fucked up scary spirits. its not exactly what this ritual turns someone into, but there's no vocabulary for it because its so rare outside of the Zoldycks). it's sort of like a nasty perversion of the familiar pact ritual because it involves magic power between an entity and a mortal, but it kills the spirit involved instead of creating a bond. the resulting "familiar object" is called a Demon Pearl. Demon Pearls resemble gemstones and magic users generally think they're a manifestation of the human and spirit merging, like how lightning striking sand creates glass. unlike a regular familiar object, if a Demon Pearl breaks, the owner will just outright die. for future reference, this whole thing is colloquially referred to as an assimilation ritual.

as an aside: Killua's design is inspired by nekomata—cat yōkai that are sometimes described as being abused domestic cats that return from the dead(?) in order to enact revenge. so :3c

to get back on track: if a familiar pact is a symbiotic relationship between a witch and a spirit, Zoldycks are like little magic parasites that literally want to eat you. they actually have to eat you in order to keep existing, because they don't have their own magic to sustain themselves like "real" naturally formed spirits or demons do. and they extract that magic via . cannibalism. i guess its not cannibalism if they're not human anymore? u know what im talking about.

(as clarification: this ritual isn't like, monopolized by the Zoldycks, but it's also not common knowledge. it's highly illegal and difficult. not to mention immoral lol. they're just the only ones who have the resources, amassed skill, and gall to do it so frequently and openly as a family right of passage thing)

all that is to say the Zoldycks are technically magic entities that can make familiar pacts, but theyre bad at it and it would be a bad idea even if they werent. Killua by all means should not have one. but killugon do not give a shit about what they should and shouldn't do. that's like their whole MO

so Gon and Killua's familiar pact works because:

a) like in canon, Gon is kind of a bottomless pit of potential. his connection with magic runs really deep and his specific practice means he's less likely to "burn" through his magic than other witches—talk about it more when i answer ur 2nd question :3

b) their familiar object is Killua's Demon Pearl (a huge "fuck you" by having the object representing him and Gon's bond be something that actually can't be destroyed unless they want to kill him lol), meaning that it doesn't act as a filtration device so much as a straight up transfer. so Killua doesn't have to eat Gon to mooch off him at 100% effectiveness, but that does mean they're at risk of unbalancing each other. that's where the next part comes in

c) Killua actually has magic binds etched on him by his family. similar to Illumi's needle, it's supposed to be a safeguard against Killua getting into a deadly situation where he uses too much magic without a food source and starves to death, but it also makes him less likely to negatively effect Gon through their pact

as for the actual deal that lead to their familiar pact... "Let's stay together [forever]!" Gon likes calling it a promise instead of a deal because it feels less transactional. & yes that little blue necklace he wears is Killua's Demon Pearl. usually it's tucked under his shirt so people don't notice tho lol

2—

Gon does a branch of magical art called green alchemy!!! I don't have hard and fast rules for it yet as I kind of want magic itself to be wishy-washy and dependent on the user's own creativity in the same way Nen is and also because i feel like a type of magic that lets Gon go off the rails is where he'd best fit. so i don't have a strict definition of what "green alchemy" is yet beyond what the name implies, but the most basic application is physically turning parts of nature into other parts of nature. i want to make it a very material-based way to use magic so it forces Gon into being resourceful, and his aptitude with it is informed by his childhood spent in the woods learning the rules of nature before he uses magic to bend them. like grabbing a fist full of dirt and squeezing it hard enough to turn it into a really dense stone, or doing the reverse and causing a giant boulder to crumble into soil. it gets wackier when you add your own magic into the mix, and you can do thinks like speeding up natural processes; causing vegetation to combust, rapidly growing plants, etc. things like that

Killua is like. his main thing is that hes a little creature with sharp teefs and sharp claws. the assimilation ritual the Zoldycks did with him involved a lightning spirit, so he does have his lightning too, but using it is problematic because of those aforementioned binds he has on him and the whole. cannibalism thing. if he went sparky too often he'd have to eat something or someone in order to maintain equilibrium with Gon. so using his electricity kind of necessitates escalating a fight into a lethal situation in order for immediate food and he has to treat it like that

3—

ok so this question kind of calls me out bc i dont have a "plot" for this au yet. its really just a bunch of worldbuilding and AMVs i imagine while listening to songs lol. so what Alluka and Nanika are doing is probably similar to what they do at the beginning of canon. which is sitting in their vault </3 i dunno. maybe i will brainstorm something different!

but!!! i can tell you what their schtick is

Alluka is a case of the traditional Zoldyck assimilation ritual going real bad. so bad, actually, that it scares them into adjusting the process for Kalluto

i want to give another warning for like. everything that has to do with a necromancy spell involving small children. i felt sort of evil explaining all this

so. the ritual has the subject dying in a fairly instantaneous fashion so that the amount of time the human soul lingers is greater than if you... like... slowly bled to death. out of necessity to avoid complications, the kids kind of have to do it themselves :( obviously that requires they be trained beforehand for it. the age at which Zoldycks go through the ritual varies based on when they pass that hurdle, but it's usually 4-5. they like doing it ASAP because younger children generally deal with the whole merging with a spirit thing easier than adults. but Alluka just. never gets there. to no fault of her own... she just doesn't. and the Zoldycks smack face-first into the very real possibility that they're going to run out of time waiting for her to pass this training, and resort to going "you know what, training schmaining. you're doing it anyway. up you go"

this was NOT a good idea. turns out that the high success rate of their ritual not only has to do with age, but also the kids, you know, being prepared and willing. Alluka is decidedly not. she is scared out of her mind, and doesn't... do it properly. so when it's time to merge, she's still alive.

instead of the ritual doing what it's supposed to (hijacking a spirit's magic to shove someone's soul back into their corpse and merging the two in the process), they lose control over the spirit causes it to come into direct competition with the mortal soul. and when the contest is between a human child and Nanika—a pretty powerful spirit associated with nighttime and stars (hence "wishing")—the outcome is not going to be in the kid's favor. they end up having to do a completely different spell just to keep Nanika from killing Alluka, and due in no small part to sheer luck, the two get to tentatively coexist in the same body

Alluka has a worse time sharing with Nanika than she does in canon. Nanika is more volatile because it's kind of hard to forget what the Zoldycks did to her. she does not like them. even Killua is on thin ice until he makes up for it by being a sweetheart. but Nanika's attitude means Alluka has a lot of those magic bindings on her restricting what she and Nanika can do. this causes her to have a more difficult time adjusting to the way her body looks as a demon vs. as a human, she's less equipped to handle even just being around a lot of active magic (she doesn't have a strong connection to it), she's tired a lot of the time too. however, unlike the rest of her family, Nanika still being alive instead of merged with her makes it so she doesn't have to eat people. she behaves more like a "real" spirit/demon. so thats a W i guess

AND thats all. WAUGH it was really fun finally getting to share all these ideaasss with someone thank u for asking :D !!!! and sorry for the essay again lol

#heliianswers #hxh #heliichats #maybe i will make a tag for this au if theres more posts <- probably not but i can dream #hxh witch au #hey look a tag

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wangxianficrecs · 1 year ago

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💙 flowers from ash by hauntedotamatone

💙 flowers from ash

by hauntedotamatone (@hauntotamatone)

E, WIP, 27k, Wangxian

Part of WLW Wangxian Week 2022

Summary: “There is the matter of a certain individual.” “That Wei Ying from YunmengJiang.” A protracted Sunshot campaign spanning six years ends in a victory hardly worth the cost. With the former Five Great Sects whittled down to three, two of which have been devastated, the Jin Sect seeks to hang itself up in the place of the sun. The first step in their climb to power is to get the woman who killed Wen Ruohan from within his own palace well out of the way. Lan Zhan is not someone who schemes, but she cannot allow Wei Ying to meet such a fate. That she has loved her since they were fifteen is secondary. Kay's comments: This story is so incredibly soft in its grief. Like. The hurt/comfort of it. It never fails to hit. I am so weak for it. And WLW Wangxian too? Lar never misses. In which, everything in regards to the Sunshot Campaign went worse and in some ways better? Hard to say, but Wei Wuxian ended up a prisoner of the Jin Sect and Lan Wangji, who is the effective sect leader of the Lans, manages to scheme her to be handed over to the Lans instead. What follows is dealing with grief, healing and so much tender hurt/comfort. Excerpt: “Well she can’t simply be allowed to run amok!” The mask slips. The primary lust of his, that clawing greed for any power he does not possess, rears its ugly head. It’s a pity that he had not been so concerned with Wen Ruohan and his sons, their nearly infinite wealth and unrestrained power. It is not fear, as so many others will surrender to, she doesn’t believe that Jin Guangshan has ever been properly scared, and one person can do very little to move against him now. GusuLan teaches its disciples not to deceive. Thus, her words must be chosen carefully. She does not lie, not exactly. “I do not mean to leave her on her own.” This is true, she will not abandon her. “GusuLan is experienced in the liberation of resentful spirits and well equipped to contain them.” This is also true, though its relevance to the conversation actually taking place here is debatable. It is a necessary misdirection, but Wen Qing’s glare grows harsher and the timid looking young man behind her wavers between the verge of tears and the verge of violence. “Our healers would take responsibility for her care and supervision.” His brow twitches. There is no sound argument to make against GusuLan handling this, none that will not drag his true motives into the light However, she knows that he is only irritated, not cornered. Even if his motives were exposed, Lan Zhan does not think that there would be anything more than a token protest, if any objection at all. Never mind that Wei Ying had been well liked amongst their peers and that many of the young masters of their generation had admired her. How cheap their admiration had turned out to be in the end, for those that remain to sit here and say absolutely nothing.

pov lan wangji, rule 63, female lan wangji/female wei wuxian, canon divergence, post-sunshot campaign, captivity, hurt/comfort, grief/mourning, recovery, bathing/washing, past character death, sect leader lan wangji, sharing a bed, lan wangji/ wei wuxian get a happy ending, getting together, touch-starved wei wuxian, misogyny, genius wei wuxian

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

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mockedandmonitored · 10 months ago

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New ST AU idea (+blog)

Someone suggested I should do this and here I am. This new AU is called Mocked & Monitored, a bad end sorta with the original idea in mind of "What if the Alliance lost the war.". Kinda just continued to run from there. Sorry if this is hard to read-

To start off on the different au, it splits from our favorite canon timeline, around the time where TTVman had his screen stabbed through and it's where shit hits the fan. In this universe, Sugilite Not retreating due to his own ego ends up leaving him immobile and unable to move nor teleport. This leaves the TVs to panic and try to brainstorm what to do, their largest hitter has been captured and now the Alliance is down two titans. (Undecided what happens from here, will probably expand in the future)

The Alliance pushes and tries their hardest to stay standing, however eventually the third of the titans fall and that merely ensures the victory for the Skibidi Armada. With this triumph the Armada capture the remaining living units and their resources. With the war over, the Armda rebuild society to how they see fit and that's where the AU is focused in.

The story takes place after society is rebuilt, buildings repaired and laws put in place by G-toilet and his second command Scientist Toilet. Our beloved hardwares in this new society are the lowest of the low, mere servants and labor works doing the jobs none of the normal skibidis want to do. Being less than dirt and tossed around for the resistance they gave during the war.

To avoid an uprising the hardwares were also handicapped after being captured, depending on their faction and model, they would face their own hardships. The TVmen being forced to wear essential ankle bracelets which interfere their ability to teleport and having their screens forced to show Skibidi propaganda. The Speakermen being forced to only play the anthem of the skibidis or being stuck to No music at all, many of the veteran units taking a vow of silence. Now for the faction which started it all, The Cameramen. They were forbidden from broadcasting their point of views, however there is an exception.

The Camera faction was given the choice of joining the Armada, their eyes watching their fellow hardware to ensure they abide by the rules, In return The Cameramen would live like normal civilians. These watchers are known as Whistleblowers, adorned with new uniforms and upgrades to separate them from their stubborn brethren, always keeping eyes and tabs on everything which happens.

What happens exactly when a unit breaks the rules? Shares their footage? Blast their own anthem without fear? Getting caught by the whistleblowers leads to three strikes.

First strike, more harder and grueling yet dull labor, it being from Mining to factory working in the worse conditions. Hardly are these units ever repaired or take care of, often collapsing due to the long strenuous hours without break. Second strike, depending on your faction, they clip your wings so to say, Speakermen have their components replaced to mute them from making Any sound, TVmen have their screens cracked and left in disrepair, and the Cameramen usually have their sight tampered via different means the most common result leaving them only seeing only white outlines of objects against a black background. Third strike and your sent down to the "Reeducation Center", a place which No units returns from as their old self, only rumors speculate what go on in there.

Moving back to the titans, They're still alive in this universe, if you can count their state as living. All three of them at different ends of the city kept in buildings resembling museums. Trapped within a stasis and remaining in a state of disrepair, Large statues warning those who would dare oppose the faction. Rumors however speak of the Camera titan stirring ever so slightly, giving even the slimmest hope that their titan is still watching over them and that hope is not lost. Residing in the same museum as their respective titan would be the Matriarchs, sharing their fate. The message rings out to any unit which visits their fallen leaders, "We did this to the most powerful and skilled of your units, do not underestimate what we will do to You." (Putting the ladies in Stasis as to avoid rather. . Internet ideas.)

What about Resistances? Surely there must be some units trying to band together to rise against their hated enemies. A brown coated cameraman lead the most successful uprising from the shadows in the last 20 years however, it was only a matter of time until a Whistle blower joined the rebellion and brought it to its knees. Since then there's been a special task force of Whistleblowers dedicated to look like normal cameramen to stop any rebellions from arising and making too much of a problem.

There are more little facts but this thing has become long enough. I welcome anyone and everyone to join in on this little AU by asking questions or adding their own details and spins on it! Different details and facts wouldn't be here if it weren't for other cool fellas. This askblog is made to answer inquiries and expand this little AU. Feel free to join any role play prompts and or make your own to share! That is all for tonight now, Farewell and good night.

#mocked&monitored #skibidi toilet #Skibidi AU #alternate universe #Dystopia #Hahahahahanxiety is eating at me #Interactive

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good-beanswrites · 11 months ago

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Any headcanons about Yuno, Muu, and Shidou being guilty in T1, for a total of 7 guilty prisoners? If it means anything, none of them have a higher guilty percent than Amane. (Yuno is 50.85%, Muu is 51.26%, Shidou is 50.96%, based on Pai's graph)

(I see what you're currently working on)

Haha, well I hoped you enjoyed a bit of comedy before I post some dramatic headcanons :3 Thank you for the request, this is a really interesting switch-up for the prison 👀👀👀 A majority guilty cast would carry a much darker tone, but allow for a few people to really shine.

Major guilty reactions:

Yuno: She’s just as bitter about her guilty verdict as she was in canon, becoming cold and isolated. She’s tired of people making judgements about things that are none of their business, and separates herself from everyone. There’s the subtle difference from canon because she actually agrees with this verdict, but still doesn’t think Es should be the one to give it out. Her video has more focus on Es/the audience, we see more people who may judge her (friends, family, etc). More stuffed animals, more crowds, all growing hostile. The video had more substantial hints towards her sadness at the way society looks down on people like her.

Muu: She becomes panicked and defensive with her judgment. She's flighty, startles easy, and lashes out in fear all the time. Now, she’s the one to consider ending everything – to her, the verdict essentially means “if it was really down to you or her, it shouldn’t have been her.” Her video really highlights that duality, turning both she and Rei into monsters battling for/with the hourglass. Her panicky attitude is reflected in it, feeling like everyone in the world must be out to get her now.

Shidou: He’s at peace with the verdict, and allows himself to fall into misery. He's thankful to be punished for all the guilt he’s been feeling. Kotoko’s attacks only plunge him deeper into despair. He feels helpless and once again can’t save people the way he wanted to. He’s disillusioned with his career and becomes pessimistic and bitter. He takes it out on Es, telling them there’s no way they can save anyone either. His video is full of unavoidable death in nature, like rotting food, changing seasons, and wilting flowers.

The attacks:

Since the guilty percentage order didn’t change, I’m going to say the attacks themselves happen exactly the same – it’s the aftermath that’s different. Whether it’s due to restraints or locked cells, Shidou isn’t able to offer aid. He has to sit back and talk the others through instruction: Haruka, Kazui, and Mikoto if he can get him to focus. They do their best, but they’ve never done anything like this before. Despite his calm attitude, Shidou isn’t good at explaining things he knows innately under pressure. Fuuta and Mahiru end up in a much worse state, since proper care was denied for so long. (I don’t think they’d kill anyone t2, but if they were willing to, she would have died here). Fuuta’s eye is gone for sure, and he has trouble getting around with his other injuries. Mahiru is barely scraping by, not allowed to leave her bed. Her video is glitchy and confusing due to the unhealed head injury and overall weakness.

Other character details:

Haruka grows even more confident than canon, seeing himself as Muu’s protector as well as the object of her affection. He helps her through her self-harming thoughts, feeling like a hero and a model son again. He threatens Es to vote her innocent, but with his newfound feeling of importance he threatens anothers’ safety, not his own (maybe Amane or Mahiru because they're smaller than him.)

Amane’s hatred for Shidou is actually dulled because he got a guilty verdict too. She believes he’s getting the punishment he deserves, and doesn't need to interfere. She's a little annoyed he's taking the punishment with open arms, though.

Fuuta’s line in Backdraft is just about Kotoko – “why is she innocent?” He feels less singled out among so many guilty prisoners, but he recognizes his parallels with her and it drives him crazy that they got different verdicts.

I won’t spoil anything for Kotoko’s stuff, but she’s a bit less harsh since she believes Es really is just like her, giving unattached, severe judgements.

Since he was able to help a lot in the attacks, both protecting Fuuta and offering care afterwards, Kazui really leans in the hero role. Whether he enjoyed being a cop before or not, he's consumed by that responsibility now. It gives him purpose and he really takes charge of everyone. He and Kotoko butt heads a lot now that he's speaking up more.

There are conflicted emotions between the innocent prisoners and patients – they know they’re not medically trained, but there’s still a bit of hostility that they didn’t do a good job. There’s a mix of feeling grateful for their aid and bitter it’s not perfect. The innocent ones get a confidence boost that they were able to be useful and protect others instead of hurt them, as well as get crushed by the guilty that they failed at offering great care.

I'll need more time to ruminate on it, but I wonder if given enough time, would the guilty prisoners band together and attack Kotoko back? It was hard for the canon four, but now they have the numbers...

#milgram #haruka sakurai #yuno kashiki #fuuta kajiyama #muu kusunoki #shidou kirisaki #mahiru shiina #kazui mukuhara #amane momose #kotoko yuzuhira #not tagging mikoto because i dont say much about him #sorry these hcs feel a bit scattered but i just wanted to put down the major things that caught my attention #it was fun picturing slightly altered t2 mvs!#i think that since so few innocent verdicts were given out it would make them feel even better about receiving one #so haruka and kazui would get even more of a confidence/ego boost #i dont think kazui would let the power get to his head but he does become a strong leader #and kotoko would be even more set in her ways while simultaneously being more patient and kind to es #i dont know if the seven Would join forces #its all kinda designed to keep them isolated - and yuno doesnt seem the type to get involved #muu is too much of a mess - so is mahiru - and shidous given up on everything #amane would be the one trying to get everyone to work together and i dont know if anyone would listen to a kid #much to think about....#anyway thank you for the request!! this was really fun to think about !#i call this the 'pretty much everyone gets worse' au asdfdsf #headcanon time milgram

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paragonrobits · 3 months ago

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its kind of hard to put it into words exactly, since its a fandom thing I dislike as a general attitude and its hard to pinpoint the specifics about it, but one of my bigger fandom pet peeves when it comes to BNHA/My Hero Academia's fandom reactions in general is the knee-jerk dislike of hero society in general as if its the fault of superheroes that systemic injustice exists, the overwhelming bias in favor of the villains to the point attributing benign intentions or heroic feelings for them that canonically have no real basis at all, and above all, the weird way people blame heroes for bad stuff happening at all

its weird to kind of single it out. It's more a reason why I don't engage much with the MHA fandom in general because I got sick of takes like 'heteromorph phobia exists, its the heroes fault that this happens despite this being a systemic problem' and similar attitudes like that.

And a lot of it centers around the villains and a long-time fixation on them, attributing heroic ideals to them while at the same time ignoring their actual on screens actions. Some prominent examples of this include Dabi and Toga, who I think are pretty likely still fandom darlings, with many criticisms of hero society going onto their treatment, and how it informed their origins. To be plain about it: yes, it sucks to be horrifically injured trying to please your abusive parent or have a mental breakdown because your family tried to ignore your powers until you did something Very Bad because of it. But becoming serial killers (which both Dabi and Toga are explicitly stated to be when they're introduced) isn't exactly a rational or appropriate response to that, and it honestly still feels weird the way that it felt like a massive part of the fandom was completely indifferent to their body count, or honestly thought that 'Deku and Bakugou join the villain side and get involved in wholesale mass murder' was, at ANY point, a realistic possibility for the plot.

And it feels that, in a lot of ways, the fandom tendency to sympathize with the villains and demonize the heroes was taken to some extremes here, in a way I might suggest could straight up be an object study.

Its kind of notable because its a series particularly hard to reconcile with that kind of thinking. This show very clearly shows its intentions early on; this is a superhero series. Superheroes are cool, it says, and the whole idea of being a hero is to save people from peril and reassure them. But that peril doesn't exist because of the heroes, and its a very strange conclusion to reach that (as some villain-centric attitudes suggested) superheroes saving people is a sign of moral decay and its bad to want to risk yourself to save strangers from danger.

Like i remember a whole lot of stuff like this, years back; people concluding that Dabi cared a lot for his fellow villains and depicting them as a found family (despite Dabi making it clear pretty often that he's motivated entirely by spite, constantly does micro-aggressions, and can't even remember his teammate's names consistently), and this lines up to a recurring idea I see in fandom takes that misunderstand a thing and warp them beyond all recognition.

Specifically a tendency to take characters that the fans identity with and presume a found family situation where none canonically exists, and base their thoughts on the characters entirely around that assumption, and depict their foes as being the real villains, despite them... well, not being the serial killers whose explicit goal is 'kill lots and lots of people'. This was where you got a lot of people insisting that Shigaraki was a revolutionary against hero society despite him being extremely clear that his only intention was to kill as many people as possible; there was no talk of revolution except, at best, in the sense of when he was done, the society as we knew it wouldn't exist because most of it would be dead.

Its sort of the logical conclusion of villain fixation, presuming found family associations when the characters involved vaguely tolerate each other, and demonizing the heroes, as well as also demonizing non-personal bonds and relationships. Its hard to say exactly why, but a lot of these fans really seem to hate any kind of character motivation not purely rooted in strictly personal connections. Saving a friend or loved one is good but somehow I've legitimately seen people trying to argue that putting yourself in danger to protect a stranger is... somehow, evil.

That strange demonization of impersonal heroics comes up a lot in criticisms of hero society, and the biggest example is how Shigaraki's speech about how much he hates the regular people who rely on heroes and the heroes who save them, and how for some reason a lot of people assume that he's making an actual point. And he's not. The whole idea there is that if you take him seriously, he's arguing that its bad for people to want to be saved or for people to want to rescue others.

There's probalby some merit it putting down some kind of finger on the issue, right there; there's a lot of negative reaction to impersonal heroics, or saving someone in need even though you don't know them. The flipside of this, saving someone must happen because you care about them, is the cause of a lot of fandom stuff like 'x character must be in love with y character because they almost died saving them', even if the whole point of Character X's arc is about acting selflessly.

If you save someone because you love them, or care about them, but WOULDN'T save a stranger, that doesn't speak better of you, and its not a character progression at all. It's just selfishness with a glossy paint job. And characters and roles that are adjacent to the concept of 'selfless duty requires you risk yourself for strangers and are obligated to put loved ones as low priority, if you even acknowledge them at all' tend to get a LOT of fandom flack.

The increasing among of bending over backwards and breaking yourself in half trying to come up with benign motives for a group whose entire motivation 'our lives suck, so lets kill as many people as possible and burn the whole world down because FUCK YOU', while constantly accusing the impersonal but dutiful characters who want to save people in danger and stop others from bringing harm, is honestly a very weird thing.

Given how many villains bring up the implication that saving others makes them not want to rescue themselves is bad, the implication also becomes 'you should leave people to die horrible deaths because they might become reliant on you', and I think that bizarre amount of callousness is honestly kind of a hallmark of this type of fan. Peace and love and kindness but only to your friends and family, everyone else can go to hell, and if you want to save people that aren't in your in-group, you're bad person.

It's just a very weird take, and its all the more annoying because you kind of have to go into this series knowing what its about to get that far. It's about superheroes. It is about characters learning to be better superheroes to save more people. If you at any point thought the end goal was 'the trainee heroes join the villains to kill the world because systemic problems exist and the only way to bring about change is by murdering everyone because Friendship' and assumed that was a reasonable conclusion of this story's arc, I... uh, yeah I honestly don't know how to end this beyond how the FUCK did that ever seem like a reasonable conclusion to you?

Was it just because something something Feelings and being motivated entirely by character emotions rather than analysis of where the story is going? Because that's the only way I can see that becoming a conclusion. Seriously the whole idea of hating superheroes because they save people is so goddamned weird. It's like the logical conclusion of people deciding the Jedi are bad and the Sith are good is because the former are taught to emphasize duty over personal stuff and the latter don't, despite the latter also being sadistic tyrannical assholes whose signature technique is a torture beam.

#queued

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spartanguard · 1 year ago

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sons of love and death, 11/13 {CSSNS 23}

Summary: After the Final Battle, Killian Jones had finally settled into his happily ever after with his wife and family. Until a new foe arrived in Storybrooke: the infamous Dorian Gray, who looks rather familiar—one might say identical—to the pirate, and he’s on a mission: to claim the powers of the Dark One for himself. There’s only one problem: the Dark One no longer exists. What follows is a journey of vengeance, revelations, magic, and finally facing down the darkness within himself that Killian thought he’d finally put to rest. [roughly canon divergent from 5B, though set post-canon] A/N: Back to the main story in this chapter! Fair warning: you may need a tissue… Only one more big one after this, and then an epilogue! Can't believe this @cssns adventure is almost over! (As always, thanks to the best beta, @optomisticgirl!) rated M | 4.5k words | AO3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Dorian hummed to himself in thought. He’d been sneaking around the former wicked witch’s property, stealing some of the leftover golden straw made by Rumpelstiltskin (he wasn’t sure how he’d missed it the first time), when he noticed his brother at the front door of the house. So, obviously, he decided to eavesdrop, lingering just below the kitchen window.

He had to admit—the heroes’ idea of using the Crimson Heart to render him powerless was a valid one, if the connection between his and his brother’s magic was accurate. And he had every reason to believe it; there was a period of a few weeks a couple years ago when his own magic wouldn’t work. He’d been in New York City at the time and just attributed the dysfunction to the lack of magic in the rest of this realm finally catching up to him. But based on what little he’d deduced about the timing of Hook’s dabble with the underworld, it was likely then, and it returned whenever his twin had been resurrected. (He’d spent the bulk of that time with a lovely redhead anyways.)

(He’d also finally read the novel supposedly inspired by his life, after delaying it for over a century. Damn, Oscar had taken quite a number of liberties with that story, but given what he knew about the man, none were surprising. He loathed that he gave it a moral, though, and a tragic ending to boot, when Dorian himself had few and had no plans of failing.)

He translocated away before his brother could leave the farmhouse, heading for the queen’s vault. He’d heard of the Crimson Heart, but never thought he’d have a reason to seek it out—he was all about acquiring power, not losing it. He still wasn’t sure how exactly he could use it, but better to have it in his arsenal before it could be used against him.

As he approached the vault, he could sense the protection spell the queen had placed around it—far stronger than the one at the town line. Well, that was no problem; he reached into an inner pocket and pulled out an odd-looking dagger; the blade looked vaguely like bone. It was precisely what he’d been looking for during his ill-fated adventure in London all those years ago: the knife was made from a sliver of Maui’s legendary fish hook, having the ability to cut through any spell (though he didn’t come across it for a few more decades).

He flipped it in his hand, then stabbed at the air, connecting with the barrier. Then he cut down; a bright red line followed, glowing as it created a break in the spell. When he reached the ground, he was able to slip his other hand into the split and part it like a curtain, then stepped through.

Foolishly, the queen hadn’t put any further security measures on her hideaway. To be fair, that was a strong spell guarding it—few would be able to get through with their lives. But he was usually the exception to any rules.

He’d been focused on the books the first time he’d been down here, but could easily tell it was a treasure trove of other useful items. Based on what he’d overheard, the object he was looking for had some inherent magic of its own; that would make it easier to locate among all the other clutter.

It took a few tries—and only after uncovering a number of other, actual hearts—before he found it, set casually on a shelf in a box. It was a clear-ish stone, vaguely tinted green or red, depending on the angle, but he could feel the void-like enchantment it held. It was just waiting to absorb whatever magic it could get.

For a brief moment, he wondered if there was a way to use it as a siphon—perhaps he could merely take his brother’s magic for his own, including that bit of Darkness? But no; everything he’d heard about this was that it was a one-way vacuum, and he was too close to achieving his goals to risk it by getting greedy.

He closed up the box and tucked it under his arm, then transported away, to another part of town. If a town as quaint as Storybrooke could have a seedy side, this was it: a short strip of warehouses and industrial spaces near the docks. A plain, almost charred-looking cinderblock building sat at the end of the lane, with a sign by the door reading Wayland Smith (if one could read it, that is; the metal sign was almost tarnished beyond recognition).

A rush of heat welcomed Dorian as he pulled the door open; inside, a number of forges were going, giving the entire space an orange glow.

In the back of the shop, a man wore a welding helmet and was shaping red-hot metal with a hammer; the resounding clang echoed in the large space as sparks erupted from his project. He stopped when he saw Dorian approach, though, and lifted the mask.

There was nothing special or unique about his appearance. He was just…a man, albeit a large one. It was near impossible to tell he was the centuries-old Wayland the Smith of legend. Perhaps that was how he’d survived so long, though. But that wasn’t Dorian’s style.

“Y’ready, then?” Wayland asked gruffly.

“As ever,” Dorian replied.

Wayland beckoned him to follow to one of the massive furnaces, which was currently cold. But at the table in front of it, a crucible was waiting next to a fresh-looking mold. “Wha’ever you’ve got, put it in there,” he brusquely explained, nodding at the cup.

Dorian first pulled out his brother’s namesake prosthesis and attempted to put it in the melting pot, but it was too big. Wayland took it from him, whacked it on the edge of…some sort of structure within the foundry to snap it in half, and then put the broken pieces back in.

Then, Dorian pulled out the strands of gold he’d taken from the former dungeon at the farmhouse, as well as the last ingredient he’d taken from the Evil Queen’s vault the week prior: ambrosia dust. Neither of those objects was very potent on their own, but in combination—oh, they were going to be everything.

He set the gold down on the worksurface and dumped the vial of dust into his left hand. He then picked the gold back up and closed his eyes, focusing on the remnants of dark magic that lingered in the metal strands. Even if the Darkness no longer truly existed, it still left its fingerprints—like it had on his brother and the others, and like it did in this bit of gold, fabricated with its use.

The strands began to glow and warm in his hold; he smirked at the feel of it, then opened his eyes and dragged the wires through the dust in his other palm. The ambrosia—known for its ability to resurrect the dead when in its pure form—would help bring back those powers, and the metal gleamed even brighter as it picked up and held onto the specks of dust.

He bent the bits in half and added them to the crucible. Obviously, that wasn’t all it was going to take to bring back the Darkness—he still needed to get at those bits stuck to their souls, and that would require a blood tether first—but this was the start of finally getting what was his.

“Care to light it, sir?” Wayland asked, pointing toward the furnace. They could have used any of the other ones, but Dorian figured it would be all the more meaningful if his own magic fueled the fire.

He stood in front of the cavernous hole, then put his hands together at chest height. Between them, he created a dense fireball, small, then growing larger as he moved his hands apart, calling on his magic to increase its size and intensity.

When he had a fireball nearly the size of his abdomen, he pushed the whole thing into the furnace; it immediately began to lick at the brick walls and set it alight from the inside, to the point that he had to shield his eyes.

Wayland was watching the temperature gauge on the outside; when it was heated enough, he gestured for Dorian to step back. Then the smith pulled his visor back down and pushed the crucible into the blazing hot oven.

Dorian had no idea how long it took for metal to melt down, but it was somehow both longer and less time than he expected; perhaps he was just anxious. Still, the next time Wayland moved, it was to bring the crucible back out, now filled with bright orange liquid.

(There was something exceedingly satisfying about the fact that he’d not only taken Captain Hook’s hook, but that he’d also essentially destroyed it.)

Expertly, Wayland turned around, not losing a drop of the molten alloy, and poured it into the mold Dorian had commissioned earlier in the week. From the angle he stood at, he could see the light from it illuminate the inside of the form until it just reached the top.

The men shared a beer as they waited for it to cool, and once it got close to being ready, Wayland fitted it with the handle that Dorian provided—made from a chunk of wood he’d kept in his pocket from a tree on the grounds of the Dark Castle. (It had been his favorite tree to climb as a child, and he’d always kept a piece of it on him in case he ever needed help finding his way home. But this seemed to be a far more fitting spot for it now.)

Wayland assessed the form, then nodded; he assumed that meant it was ready. Dorian tossed the cigarette he’d been dragging on into the furnace, then watched as the smithy tapped and pulled with his tools to undo the mold.

It took a few hard hits, but then—there it was; a bit rough still, but gorgeous: a new dagger for a new Dark One.

It was similar in shape to the one of lore—it had mostly the same tapered shape with its undulating edges, but had a few more curls added on the sides, ending in dangerously sharp points. A pattern similar to the old one was pressed into the blade in relief, but was the same color as the rest of the metal at the moment.

Wayland took the blade to yet another part of his workspace and flipped the switch on another machine, first sanding it a bit and then buffing it until it gleamed.

He gave it one final inspection then, seemingly satisfied, took it carefully by the blade and extended the handle to Dorian. “All yours, m’lord.”

Dorian couldn’t hold back his grin as he took it and looked it over. “Oh, it’s perfect,” he remarked, turning it over in his grip and enjoying the weight of it in his grasp. He pressed a fingertip into one of the points; it came back bleeding. “Yes—perfect.”

“Good,” Wayland answered. “Anythin’ else ya need?”

Dorian hummed, giving it another once over. “There is one thing.”

“Wha’s that?”

Swiftly, Dorian took the dagger and shoved it into Wayland’s shoulder. The man cried out in pain and fell to his knees, which seemed dramatic; it’s not like it was a fatal stab.

But then Dorian pulled it out to an even harsher scream, and realized that the extra points on the edges probably made it worse.

Still, the blade was covered in blood. It looked wonderful, but it wasn’t the blood he ultimately needed.

He summoned a small fireball and ran it along the sides of the dagger; the blood turned dark and filled in the designs pressed into its surface. There—now it looked like the Dark One’s dagger.

Time to make it real.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・🗡・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

Since becoming mortal again, Rumpelstiltskin had learned to appreciate the blessings of a full night’s sleep. Although he had forgotten how light a sleeper he’d been prior to taking on the curse; it didn’t take much to wake him—especially once his son arrived and didn’t seem to understand the concept of a normal sleep schedule. (Not for the first time, his heart went out to Milah having to do that on her own centuries prior.)

Gideon had at least grown out of that now (mostly), but Rumple retained the ability to wake at the slightest disturbance. Given that he still had a number of enemies, it was a useful skill, even if he largely towed the correct side of morality nowadays.

So he wasn’t surprised to wake in the middle of the night. However, he wasn’t sure why. A glance at the monitor sitting on his nightstand indicated Gideon was still asleep, and Belle was lightly snoring next to him. No other sounds could be heard; not even the hooting of an owl outside (the only thing that typically woke him lately, and—if he was being honest—his main rival at the moment).

The moments he missed having magic were few and far between, but this was one of them. As he sat up, so did the hair on the back of his neck—someone was there.

And he could only think of one foe who would be able to enter undetected.

“What do you want, Mr. Gray?”

The shadows shifted on the far side of the room as the man in question came forward. “Color me impressed, Dark One; you still have your wits about you.”

“I had them before I had that title; why wouldn’t I when that title no longer exists?”

“For now,” Dorian countered. He could only just make out the shape of him in the bit of light that came through the drapes.

“Please; you’re not still on about that, are you?”

“Indeed I am,” Dorian countered, then suddenly appeared at Rumple’s bedside—and was pressing a cold bit of metal against his neck.

Rumpelstiltskin jumped away and looked down; that fool had the dagger. Or, a version of it—this one seemed a bit more dangerous (and far more impractical). “Where the hell did you get that?” he asked, hoping he sounded unimpressed—though, in reality, it did worry him a bit. The dagger was only ever a conduit, but the fact that Dorian had one wasn’t a good sign.

“Why, I made it,” Dorian boasted. “And I came here to thank you for your help. It’s mostly my brother’s hook, but you left some gold behind in that storm cellar; gives it just that little extra boost of magic, I think.” He pressed it close to Rumple’s neck again. “What do you think? Pretty great, eh?”

Of course, that’s when Belle stirred next to him. “Rumple?” she asked sleepily. “What’s going—”

Her (obvious) question was cut off as she was quickly frozen in place. “I thought your magic was fire, not ice,” Rumple bit out.

“Bit of everything,” Dorian shrugged.

Rumple took a deep breath but tried to be steady about it, and not let on the nerves that were stirring. (He may have been a coward long ago, but he was no such thing now—not when it came to his family’s safety, at least, and he was at a severe disadvantage here.) “I’m surprised you didn’t already put your name on it,” he instead taunted. “Since you seem to think you’re entitled to be the Dark One.”

“Oh, no no no,” Dorian replied. “I need to earn it—just how you did. I want to know the joyous feeling of watching my name engrave itself after I’ve won it outright.”

Rumple remembered his own emotions upon suddenly seeing his name etched in that cursed steel. “Joy? I just remember feeling sick.” The memory had dulled over his years in the Darkness, but it was another of those things that came back to him with mortality. “I was willing to do anything for my son, but I didn’t know that would be the cost.”

“You were fine with murder, but not with the Darkness?” Dorian scoffed. “That’s an odd line to draw.”

“Desperation does that to people,” he countered. “Your father was apparently determined enough to make sure you didn’t get those powers that he duped me into it.”

Even in the dark, he could see the fire of anger light the other man’s eyes.

“Which actually brings me to a question,” Rumple went on. “Why are you so desperate to be the Dark One? And don’t just tell me it’s because you were promised; you already have magic and found a way to immortality, so what could you want with them?”

“Because I have nothing else,” Dorian spat. “No family, no friends—no loved ones. I’ve devoted and sacrificed so much of my life in pursuit of this. I deserve it.” Rumple rolled his eyes, but Dorian didn’t notice. “My birth parents gave me up—in favor of another, I’ve recently learned—and I killed my only other love. This is it—this is all that remains of the only person who showed me any care. And I will have it.”

Rumple narrowed his eyes—and was suddenly sympathetic. “You want to prove to your father that you were worthy of the magic.”

Dorian said nothing.

“Trust me, I know all about complicated paternal relationships. But you can move past that; you can find something else worth living for.” He looked over at Belle, still frozen, to emphasize his point. “I did, and so did your brother.”

“No, I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Dorian answered, almost sadly.

And with a flick of his wrist, both men disappeared in a cloud of fiery smoke.

Rumple just hoped he wasn’t about to lament the fact he couldn’t say goodbye to Belle.

He knew he was resourceful and could find a way out; but he knew the target wasn’t just on his head, and hoped his inevitable allies were thinking just as far ahead.

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・🗡・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

Dorian was beginning to regret not drawing up a dramatically oversized checklist of the things he needed to complete his plan. First on the list was the dagger—check; Rumpelstiltskin was a little further down, but he could cross him off, too.

Next up: his portrait. Much like the Crimson Heart, he mainly wanted to keep it close to prevent it being used against him, but he also wanted the inherent magic in it handy if the situation called for it. He transported himself and the former Dark One to the storage room above the library, making sure to tie up Rumple’s hands in the process, lest he make a grab for any potential weapons.

The room was musty and dim, with only a bit of light coming through the spaces between the boarded-up windows from the streetlamps outside. But he didn’t need to be able to see to find the portrait—he could hear it, the steady beating of Sybil’s heart still echoing his.

At least—he thought he was fine, until he ran into several somethings dangling from the ceiling.

He cried out in surprise; meanwhile, Rumpelstiltskin laughed. “Careful, lad; I’m sure there’s a metaphor there about needing light in the darkness.”

“Lad? You’re hardly older than me.”

“Still am,” he shrugged.

Dorian turned away and tried to brush…whatever it was out of his path, but there were more of them. “The bloody hell are these? Some primitive security system?”

“Dreamcatchers,” Rumple explained. “I forgot we put them up here.”

“What value do those have?” He’d never heard of spells requiring stolen dreams—but the longest Dark One to ever hold the title probably had.

“It’s a bit of magic that originated from the indigenous folk of this land,” he said. “Not just to hold dreams, but memories.”

“There are stones for that,” Dorian retorted.

“Aye, but only in a few places. These can be made anywhere. See for yourself how they work.”

Dorian looked over at his foe; he felt like he was being baited, but he didn’t know into what. He could play along, though; Rumpelstiltskin’s hours were numbered, so he might as well take in any bits of knowledge from the man he could.

He reached up to grab the nearest dreamcatcher. “No, not that one,” Rumple interrupted. “That one, over there—with the black feathers. You’ll like that one.”

Dorian arched an eyebrow skeptically, but obliged, and took down the one made with a reddish ring of wood (at least, as far as he could tell in the dark) with feathers hanging off of it as described.

It didn’t do anything at first, but he could feel the magic simmering inside the web of strings across its middle.

“Now what?” he asked, impatient.

“Just give it a second.”

He looked back at it, and then, slowly, an image appeared in the empty middle of the dreamcatcher. He leaned in closer to study it, and then—it was like he was inside the memory.

A couple dozen hooded figures stood in a half circle at one end of the clearing; at the center stood Hook and Emma. But they looked very different from the couple he’d met here in town: Emma had bleached-white hair and a severe, all black outfit; while Hook…looked a bit more like him—hair parted on the right, dressed far more casually than he’d seen him yet (though still in all black), with an emptiness in his eyes that seemed out of character.

What was most astonishing, though, was the fact that his twin was holding a united Excalibur in his hand, and it wasn’t hard to make out the names Killian Jones and Emma Swan both engraved in it.

“Impossible,” Dorian gasped.

“Just keep watching,” Rumple told him from…somewhere beyond his awareness; this must be his own memory.

Next to Hook, a cloaked woman stood—with noticeably scaly skin. Was that… “Nimue?” he wondered aloud.

“In the flesh, so to speak,” Rumple confirmed.

He scanned the rest of the figures, and realized the posture of one was exceedingly familiar. “Zoso,” he whispered. They were all the past Dark Ones. Gods, he was about to get starstruck.

Nimue announced, “It’s time,” though for what, he couldn’t tell. But it triggered Emma, who angrily proclaimed, “No—you are not taking the people I love.” Her voice was harsher than he recalled.

Nimue lifted her hand to magically choke Emma; it obviously wouldn’t kill her, but it definitely stopped her in her tracks. The original Dark One taunted Emma, but Dorian was more focused on his brother’s reaction. At first, it was nothing; then, he seemed to be avoiding Emma’s eyes. But the moment he met them, the change in his countenance was visible, from realization to horror to anger.

“That’s enough,” he spat as he turned to face Nimue.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, not giving up her hold on Emma’s neck.

“Being the man I want to be,” Killian answered.

“You can’t stop us,” she boasted.

“Yes, I can.” Hook held Excalibur aloft, then closed his eyes and concentrated—on pulling all the other Dark Ones into the blade. Emma was let go and caught her breath, but Dorian was focused on the disappearing image of Zoso from the ring of sorcerers.

When it was done, the blade had changed its color, to black with a red glow from its engravings. His brother was visibly shaking at the effort to hold it—them—in.

“Killian, you can’t do this,” Emma told him tearfully; it reminded him somehow of his last moments with Sybil.

“We both know there’s no other way, love,” Hook told her, equally emotional. “We have to hurry; the Darkness won’t stay trapped in Excalibur much longer—take it.” (Were Dorian actually there, he would have done so in a heartbeat—but not to do what he had a feeling was about to happen.)

Emma tried to refuse him, but after a brief debate, Killian was able to convince her. “Let me die a hero; that’s the man I want you to remember—please.” Dorian rolled his eyes a bit, but they were also glued to the scene.

Reluctantly, Emma took the sword; it wasn’t obvious if its own weight or that of her next task was making her struggle to hold it.

Hook was beginning to brace himself, but Emma wasn’t ready. She whispered that she loved him, and pulled him into a kiss that clearly had goodbye written all over it. He returned the sentiment, then nodded at her as she stepped back.

She hesitated again, until Killian told her it was okay. She lifted the blade slowly, and it seemed like she wasn’t going to move—until she abruptly surged forward, piercing him through the chest with the sword.

Dorian sucked in his own breath at it; despite being told the abridged version, he almost thought she wouldn’t go through with it. Almost immediately, Hook collapsed on Emma’s shoulder, but managed to push himself away in time to see the Darkness drop its hold on Emma; she glowed briefly, but then was left looking much the same as the sheriff that Dorian now knew.

She pulled the blade out—likely only hastening death—and it disintegrated, but she was too distracted by the dying man in front of her to care.

She grabbed him as he fell to the ground, and went down with him. Her sobs filled the clearing, echoing around him.

But then, all of a sudden, he was back in the storeroom above the library. He gasped, and could feel the wetness on his cheeks from the tears that scene apparently elicited.

“Impressive magic, eh?” Rumple said; Dorian had almost forgotten that he was there—why either of them were there. And he wasn’t sure if the man was referring to that which allowed him to watch that scene unfold—or what happened in it.

“Rubbish,” he tried to counter, but the emotion in his voice betrayed him.

“Like I said, you don’t have to do this,” Rumple told him again, softer. “Your brother—”

“Is a completely different person than me,” Dorian spat back. “You really thought this would get me to change my resolve? Some little mind game?” He tossed the dreamcatcher aside. “Nothing will stop me from getting what I want.”

He turned on a dime and followed Sybil’s heartbeat to his portrait; he was glad there wasn’t enough light to see what it looked like.

When he returned, Rumple was still looking smug. “Come on,” he snapped, then shoved the man with magic, compelling him to follow him.

“What now?” he asked.

“If my brother is half the hero he says he is, he and his bride won’t hesitate to come to your rescue. And then I’ll finally take what should have been mine—what he threw away.”

They made their way down the stairs and into the night, but he could still feel a sense of self-satisfaction coming off Rumple, as if he was convinced that showing him that scene had impacted Dorian at all. It hadn’t.

(At least, that’s what he was trying to convince himself.)

★・・・・・・★・・・・・・🗡・・・・・・★・・・・・・★

thanks for reading! tagging some peeps (let me know if you do/don’t want a tag!) @kat2609 @xpumpkindumplingx @shipsxahoy @mryddinwilt @cocohook38 @annytecture @shireness-says @ohmightydevviepuu @wistfulcynic @pirateherokillian @colinoeyebrows @wingedlioness @word-bug @thisonesatellite @killianmesmalls @thejollyroger-writer @ineffablecolors @ive-always-been-a-pirate @nfbagelperson @stubblesandwich @phiralovesloki @athenascarlet @kmomof4 @ilovemesomekillianjones @whimsicallyenchantedrose @snowbellewells @idristardis @scientificapricot @searchingwardrobes @donteattheappleshook @jrob64 @the-darkdragonfly @stahlop @klynn-stormz @resident-of-storybrooke @bluewildcatfanatic

#cs ff #cssns 2023 #captain swan supernatural summer #sons of love and death #my ff

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