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athenasbloodyspear · 4 years ago

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The Viper: Chapter One

What happens when an agent of the Red Room falls into the hands of Hydra? What happens when Hydra puts out a hit on their favorite assassin? Who is the mysterious woman with a twisted history and an even more twisted mind?

The team wants to know. They want to know what you know. Nat and Bucky want to know if there’s any light left in you.

They want to know you.

Bucky x Female Reader

The Viper Master List | My Writing Master List

The sounds of car horns are loud around you. The blaring, beeping and bustle of pedestrians creating layers and layers of sound. You’re trained well enough to sift through the sounds, listening to pieces of conversation and various sounds of your environment to orient yourself.

You can feel the smallest shift of every person who’s moving in the space around you. Your senses are so focused you can practically hear the blood rushing through the people closest to you. Your prey is about a block up, completely oblivious to where you followed.

The streets around you were loud and the sounds were strong, but nothing could keep your focus off your mission.

Underneath your hood and the rim of your baseball hat, your face was hidden in shadow. If anyone would have seen or marked it, they would have seen the wicked gleam of a grin.

“What’s got you all in a tizzy, Tony?” Nat asks from Bucky’s right. The whole team was gathered around a conference table in Avengers tower looking kinda bored. Tony had called everyone here this morning, much to everyone’s chagrin because he had promised a week off and then apparently changed his mind a mere three days later.

Bucky sighed and rolled his shoulders, leaning back in the office chair he currently sat in, lifting the two front feet off the floor. All he really wanted was to go back downstairs and into the city with Nat and finish looking for a birthday gift for Steve. That’s what they were doing this morning before they were quickly called back to the tower. He’d procrastinated too long and really had zero idea of what to get the man.

“I’m confused about something and I don’t like being confused.” Tony retorted.

“Oooo” Sam piped up from across the table. “The great Tony Stark admits to not knowing something. I’m surprised there isn’t steam coming out of those ears.”

Bucky smirks at his friend. God he loved Sam and his remarks. He would say something similar, but his relationship with Tony still wasn’t perfect and he didn’t want to push his luck at the moment.

“What is so confusing, Iron Man? Don’t know what to get Pepper for your anniversary? Or did you say something stupid again and your giant brain can’t figure out exactly which asshole statement pushed her over the edge this time?” Nat chimed in with a mocking smirk.

Tony pointed a single finger at Nat. “I have had our anniversary present for two months already and I’m actually getting better at figuring out which one of my snarky comments goes too far, just so you know.” He sighs and presses a few buttons on the large screen under the glass conference table, whipping up a bundle of information to appear on the screen behind him. “What I’m confused about is why Hydra put out a public hit on one of their top agents.”

At that, Bucky’s chair drops back to all four legs abruptly. The confusing piece of information startled him into finally giving his full attention to the conversation. His heart rate picked up a bit.

“They did what ?” Steve asks from the end of the conference table opposite Tony, voicing the question on all their minds.

“This morning Hydra posted a bounty on a known dark web forum. It’s not unheard of for them to post some of their lower enemies on this anonymously for unaffiliated assassins and bounty hunters to take down. What’s different this time is they made it very clear that Hydra was posting.” He whipped up what looked eerily similar to a reddit post up on the screen. “And what makes even less sense is I know for a fact that the person they called a hit on has been their little secret weapon for over ten years.”

Bucky scanned the post up on the screen. Sure enough, it said that Hydra had a hit out on a well known assassin and was offering 50 million along with diplomatic immunity in a country of their choosing for the head of the operative.

“Who’s the target?” Nat murmured.

“So, this is the fun part. Especially for you two.” Tony continued, pointing at Nat and Bucky.

“What?” Bucky grumbled. Fun for him? What the hell? What could possibly be in Tony’s twisted brain to think anything to do with Hydra would be fun for him?

“Here’s the mark.” Tony pulled up a blurry photo of a figure wrapped in muted colors clearly captured on some sort of security camera somewhere on a bustling street. If Bucky was tracking the cobblestones and architecture of the buildings correctly he’d guess it was taken somewhere in Cairo.

“Is that the best fucking picture you can get us, Stark? You can barely see their face.” Sam quipped, leaning forward in his seat to squint at the screen.

“This is the clearest photo of her face, yes.”

“Her?” Nat snapped, popping her eyes to Tony.

“Yes. Her. The Viper .” He smirked back at Nat. Bucky heard a quick intake of breath from his right. Nat.

“No…” She whispered, and trailed off.

“Oh yes, Natasha. Oh yes.” Tony flicked his fingers across the table again and all the known stats on the Viper pulled up on the screen. “This is where the fun begins for us. This is what we know about the Viper. She was “found” at a young age somewhere in middle America. It’s a little unclear where, but from where I tracked it must have been somewhere in the Midwest.”

“They stole a kid from Wisconsin? Why would Hydra bother when they had their fingers in so many other countries?” This was from Steve.

“It wasn’t Hydra…” Nat murmured.

“ What? ” Bucky piped up again. He felt like his brain was spinning. A top Hydra assassin? Did he know her? He would have to spiral into his memory to find out if he ever met this Viper…

“It was the Red Room.” Nat whispered then. Her eyes staring directly at the table.

“Yes indeed!” Tony quipped. “Remind me Nat, were you still there when they dragged in the little girl kicking and screaming or not?”

“Tony!” Steve seethed from his end of the table.

“I wasn’t living there anymore, no. I had just graduated. She was a couple years younger than me. They said she caused quite a nuisance during the assassination of a target. Instead of killing her they decided to bring her back. I saw her maybe twice. They had always referred to her as the snake. She was less refined than the other girls, she started her training a little too old, but she was… desperate to make up the difference.” Nat shuddered a bit then and Bucky felt compelled to reach out and place a hand on her shoulder. “She reminded me of… me.”

There was a small moment of pause before Tony started again. “So our little snake graduated from The Red Room and spent a few years as an agent for them before falling in with our buddies at Hydra.” Tony looked at Bucky then, “Where she was trained and conditioned to fill a missing position in their ranks after they unfortunately lost control of a very important asset. ”

“You’re a prick Tony.” Steve muttered, his eyes falling on Bucky. Bucky waved him off. He was fine, really. He’d started making peace with his history when he was on Wakanda and though he still had a long way to go, he wasn’t going to fall to pieces at the mere mention of the Winter Soldier.

“You’re telling me that they…” He trailed off, his mind spinning in circles. This poor woman he didn’t even know subjected to what he went through, simply because he had left. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but he still felt responsible that someone else had to fill a hole he had created.

“Yes they trained this little spitfire to be their top assassin and she has been in their top ranks since about 2010, only stepping into the role of top assassin after the events in 2016 finally severed you completely from the organization. She’s been racking up kills ever since. Much like you my dear metal armed friend, she’s nearly impossible to catch on camera, let alone see with your own eyes.”

From the corner of the room, where he sat in a chair separate from the table, Bruce finally spoke. “I always thought The Viper was a myth.”

“Yeah and you thought the Winter Soldier was a myth. Hell I always thought Thor and Loki were just some folklore.” Sam remarked. “I believe almost everything nowadays.”

“Wait so, this woman was a trained Red Room assassin, then a top Hydra operative and now they’re asking the internet to kill her? Why didn’t they just take care of her themselves? Surely they had her locked up or brainwashed somehow.” Bruce said.

“You guys are seriously just assholes sometimes.” Steve murmurs.

“I’m fine, Steve.” Bucky says. “It’s a valid question. Even when they wanted me eliminated, they only worked with people inside.”

“Exactly.” Tony said. “My theory is, they want us to know that they want her dead. In fact, my more specific theory is that this is bait in order to get us to hunt and eliminate her. I want to know why.”

“She must have slipped away from them.” Nat said then. “Even if no average internet bounty hunter could ever touch her, surely they’d at least keep her a little busy. Busy enough that we might be able to get a jump on her. She must know something.”

“Exactly. What does she know? And why don’t they want her to utilize whatever information she knows?”

“So we’re going to find her then.” Steve said. “What if this is a trap? Specifically set up to intrigue us into bringing their very own top operative into our facilities.”

“It could be.” Nat responded. “But it seems a little weird to send a bunch of people they don’t control after her unless they genuinely didn’t care about what happened to her. It seems unlikely she’s still an asset to them if they’re willing to risk her actually being caught off guard, no matter how unlikely that is.”

“See, this is what I meant by being confused.” Tony quips then, heading for the door. “I’ve sent everything I know about the woman to each of you. Study it. See what conclusions you come to on your own. We’ll reconvene here tonight to discuss an action plan.”

You sat in a corner booth at a tiny cafe, facing the door. There was a swinging door into the kitchen to your left, which led to three back exits. Directly in front of you was the only door facing a main street. The whole front of the coffee shop was glass, giving you a clear view of the two targets you’d been tracking all morning, who had stopped to grab breakfast at a restaurant across the street.

You were twirling a long since lukewarm cup of coffee in your hands, your eyes flicking back and forth between your marks and the swinging kitchen door at your shoulder.

You watched as your marks both stretched and stood up. The woman hailed a cab. They seemed disgruntled.

Interesting.

While the woman tried to snag the attention of a cabbie, you threw a few crumpled bills on the counter of your table and slipped through the swinging kitchen door. There were a few shouts of alarm as a stranger wandered into the bustling diner kitchen, but you quickly weaved through the crowded kitchen and out a back door. You jumped on the sleek black Kawasaki bike you’d stashed behind a dumpster in an alley.

You pushed the bike out and around the corner before turning it on, waiting to confirm that they had both piled into a cab. You revved the engine and punched the accelerator, weaving quickly between the piled up traffic, causing lots of horn honking and a few near rear-end accidents.

Your heart was hammering in your chest, the adrenaline coursing through your veins as you tore after that cab.

The grin still plastered on your face.

Bucky’s head was reeling as he read through the intel, albeit a small amount, that Tony had managed to dig up.

There were a total of 3 videos captured on a security camera of the Viper on a job. He watched them all multiple times.

The Viper was ruthless and unnervingly calm. It reminded him of himself, what he saw in the footage of the Winter Soldier. It made the bile in his stomach churn. He knew that feeling of uncontrollable calm very well and it made him break out in a cold sweat.

The first video showed her walking calmly up to a high security warehouse, putting bullets between the brows of every operative in sight, barely even looking in their direction before pulling the trigger. She walked directly with purpose toward the door that was clearly her mission. Once every operative in view of the camera had fallen she reached for the door handle. Before she slipped inside, she lifted her pistol without looking and fired one round into the camera, cutting the feed. With the hood on her jacket, there was no clear footage of her face. Bucky wondered how they were even sure it was her. Her murderous calm must have been enough evidence.

The second was a terribly grainy video taken in some basement somewhere. There was someone strapped to a chair and he watched as the Vipers fists slammed into the man repeatedly. A choppy, distorted, and heavily accented voice spoke about 40 seconds in. “Good, Viper. You may play now. Make sure there’s something left of him to interview tomorrow.” Bucky flinched as he saw the woman stride toward a table, likely filled with instruments of torture. The man strapped to the chair began to scream, pleading in Russian that he’d say anything they wanted him to. He heard a low woman’s voice come through the video, murmuring “Too late.”

The third was a more recent video according to the time stamp. It was less than six months ago off a security cam in Maracaibo. It was about a 9 second video, just watching the woman cross a bustling street in Venezuela. Bucky remembered that some hot shot Hydra agent had been found dead in Venezuela this year. Could it have been the Viper taking down one of their own? Is that why they were mad?

There were about 5 other attachments of images. The only photographs that Friday could find of this enigma apparently. 4 were blurry security camera footage from various places. The one Tony had shown this morning was truly the only one that even sort of showed the woman’s face. Well, except the 5th.

The 5th made Bucky even more sick than the footage of brutal violence. It was a Polaroid image of what appeared to be a 16 or 17 year old girl in ballet clothes, standing in the middle of what he assumed was a dance studio. It would have been normal, a young woman after a dance class, if it wasn’t for the red blood splattered up her pink tights, dripping off her knuckles and smeared on her jaw. The subject wasn’t looking at the camera, but rather seemed to be standing at attention with her focus to the right of the photographer. Written in sloppy Russian at the bottom corner of the Polaroid was “Option 4.”

What does that mean? Bucky thought to himself. Option for what?

It made him sick staring at that photo. If the blood wasn’t there, it would just look like a young woman preparing for a ballet class, or perhaps being photographed so a costume designer could see her figure while they created dazzling outfits for a production. It was so wrong for someone so young, whose face was filled with innocence, to be covered in blood. He felt so protective over her, this young woman he didn’t even know. This young woman who he knew grew up to be a murderer with a kill list almost as long as his.

He knew, looking at that photo, that this woman had never wanted this. He didn’t know how he got such a gut reaction to the image, but he saw himself in it. A young person who was given the worst hand of cards to ever be dealt, and was simply trying to stay alive. He stared at her thin frame, the hollow look in her eyes and nearly wept.

He needed to find her. He needed it more than he’d needed anything in a long time. He needed to find out how far she had fallen from this image, and if he could pull her back.

He needed to do it, because he’d always be grateful that someone did it for him.

Your marks had gone into the tall skyscraper a few hours ago. You were too antsy to sit around and wait to see if they’d venture back out into the city.

You prowled the sidewalk like a caged animal. Tracing patterns through the busiest blocks. Keeping track of nearby cameras.

Everything smelled like garbage and piss. You hated it. You loved it. It was such an easy city to get lost in.

An even easier city to be found in.

When Bucky finally dragged himself back to the conference room that evening, he felt like a wreck. He had worked himself up considerably throughout the afternoon. He was antsy and apprehensive.

He really didn’t know what was wrong with him. It was just some random assassin, why was he so worked up?

Steve noticed his touchy mood as soon as he walked in and raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m fine.” Bucky grumbled. “Just want to figure this out. It’s bothering me for some reason.”

“Maybe because it’s a little too personal, Buck.” Steve said quietly.

“Yeah maybe.” Bucky coughed out. His chest felt tight with someone who knew him so well staring at him like this.

Before Steve could rib Bucky more, Tony sauntered into the room with Nat behind him. “So what’s everyone’s thoughts on our little snake in the grass?”

“I think the woman is damn fucking scary.” Sam piped up from the same chair he’d been in this morning. “And really good at her job. Reminds me of robocop over there a little too much if you know what I mean.”

“That’s what I find so interesting.” Steve says. “Because obviously we know that Bucky wanted out, and was not the person that the camera showed. I wanna know what’s really going on in her brain.”

“Banner, question for you, if we managed to set a little trap for our snake and actually got her in here, would you be able to scan her brain and see how much of it was under her actual control?” Tony said as he dropped into a chair at the head of the table.

Banner responded from where he sat in his normal chair in the corner. “I could compare a brain scan to early scans of Barnes’s brain. See how similar they look. Then compare to his post-Wakanda scans. In a sense, yes. But the brain is complicated as you know.”

“Can’t we just talk to her?” Bucky pipes up. “I mean, if it makes you feel more comfortable to hook her up to a lie detector whatever, but I just… I know what they do to people there and let me tell you there’s no way she’s in control.”

“What makes you so sure?” Tony questions. “I mean, I was wrong about you. I’ll admit that. I’m a bigger man now. But not everyone is Cap's former BFF brought back from the dead with a heart of gold trapped in a twisted hydra web. She could have gone willingly. In fact, I have a hard time believing that a Red Room agent was accidentally captured by Hydra. What if she went to them willingly?”

“But then why did she leave?” Natasha counters. “Who’s to say that she ended up in all this willingly. I don’t know the whole story of how the Red Room got her, but it’s rare that people join without coercion. There’s more to this story, I can feel it.”

“Me too.” Bucky whispered. There had to be so much more to that 17 year old girl than a brutal murderer.

“Nat, can you explain this image to me?” Tony says, pulling up the very polaroid that was going to haunt Bucky for weeks. “This looks like a pretty willing agent to me.”

Bucky cringed at Tony’s short sighted assessment. Sure, the subject looked relaxed but that didn’t mean willing. Nat sneered.

“Well Tony, when every week your instructors challenge two students to spar and the loser is killed however the classmate prefers, you too would willingly fight back, to the death if necessary.”

Steve flinched, and looked at Nat with eyes full of grief. “They made you kill each other?”

“Kept us from attaching to each other.” Nat said simply.

Steve just shook his head, placing his face in his palms. This was one of the reasons Bucky and Nat had gotten along pretty quickly. They’d come to terms with their trauma, and the others sometimes had a hard time brushing past the torture that the two of them had simply moved on from.

“Touche.” Tony shrugged. “So why does this image say option 4?”

“That I don’t know.” Nat sighs. “No photos were ever allowed to be taken of us, but the fact that this was clearly taken by an instructor confuses me.”

“So we have no answers.” Sam quips. “Do I need to go stand on the street with a sign that says “Viper take a crack at me” so we can maybe get a glimpse of her? I’m only doing it if I can wear the suit Tony.”

“That’s the thing, there have been no sightings of the woman for years, and the one tiny glimpse in that surveillance shot from Venezuela 6 months ago was a blip. There was no record of anyone matching that description entering or leaving that country or any near it. We have no idea where she is.” Tony muttered. “I have Friday combing every single camera we can get access to, and hacking into those we don’t. The tip line on that forum is blank. No one seems to have seen her.”

There was silence for a moment, as everyone sunk into their own minds. Letting the gears turn.

“Mr. Stark.” Friday’s voice came lilting out of the ceiling. “I have a hit.”

Everyone jumped a bit, leaning forward in their seats.

“Put it on the screen.” Tony snapped. Suddenly the whole blank wall of the room was filled with various camera angles showing crowds of people wandering on the sidewalk. In the middle of a cluster of pedestrians was a figure draped in black, a baseball hat on their head and a hood pulled up over it. As the person moves, the different security camera’s flip past on the screen, keeping up with their movement.

Instantly, Bucky’s blood ran cold.

“Where is this?” Sam whispers.

“Queens.” Bucky, Steve and Tony answer in unison.

“Very close to Parker’s apartment…” Tony whispers.

“It’s empty.” Steve mentions. “Happy and May are on vacation and Peter is staying with his friend. That Ned kid.”

“I know.” Tony says. “Doesn’t mean I like her being around the corner from his place regardless.”

The room goes quiet for a few moments as they all watch the Vipers progress through the streets of Queens. She never picks up her head, seeming to be watching the sidewalk in front of her. She slips easily between groups of people, never bumping into anyone even though she doesn’t seem to be looking at anyone.

“What are we doing?” Sam says then. “We know exactly where she is. She’s so close. Let’s go suit up.”

“There’s no way she’s here by accident.” Nat says quietly. “It’s like she wants us to find her…”

“Another layer of intrigue.” Tony snarks.

“She wouldn’t be stupid enough to show up in this city unless she actually wants us to find her.” Nat continues. “Either they sent her here as a trap and finally had her look into a security camera long enough for us to track her, or she’s doing this on her own. Either way, I don’t understand the motive.”

There’s another moment of silence as they all watch the cameras track the target.

Abruptly, the Viper stops in the middle of the sidewalk. The pedestrians continue to flow around her, many seem to be grumbling and some throw rude gestures in her direction.

There’s now only a single security camera in the area able to capture her image, she stands right in the center of the frame.

“What is she doing?” Steve whispers.

Through the grainy camera footage, the whole team watches as it looks almost like her shoulders shake slightly. She seems to be looking at her feet.

No one breathes as the woman in the center of the video lifts her head slowly. Her eyes land directly on the lens, as if she’s peering straight through the shitty security camera and into Avengers tower.

There’s a huge grin on her face.

Then, from the pocket of her hoodie, she pulls a pistol and calmly points the barrel at the camera.

The last thing the camera sees in her head dropping back as she begins to cackle. Then she pulls the trigger, ending the feed.

“Holy shit.” Sam whispers.

Bucky is speechless. His heart is pounding in his chest. He felt like her eyes seared through the camera and right into his chest. He can barely breathe.

“Friday, show us the other cameras in the area.” Tony barks.

Friday pulls up tons of camera angles of the street the Viper was just standing on. The crowds are screaming, attempting to run away from the spot that the Viper had clearly just been standing. However, there are no further gun shots and no one looks injured.

“What the hell? ” Bucky says under his breath. She just shot out a camera in the middle of a busy street in Queens? For what?

“Are there any figures matching her description on any of these feeds?” Tony snaps again.

“No sir.” Friday replies. “I’ve scanned every camera in the borough and I can’t see her on any of them.”

Everyone sits in shocked silence as the security footage continues to roll. The NYPD show up, helping to calm the pedestrians. They watch quietly as they start to tape off the area. Everyone knows however that if no one was hurt, it’s unlikely that the cops will pursue the incident further. They have much bigger fish to fry in this town.

“Well goddamn.” Sam finally breaks the silence. “That was quite a little performance.”

“She really wants us to find her then.” Nat mutters.

Around the room everyone mutters their agreement.

Bucky finds his voice finally.

“So let’s find her.”

There’s unending adrenaline in you now. It was reckless you knew that. It was also so obvious what game you were playing with them at this point, but you didn’t care.

They clearly weren’t going to make a move, so you had to play your hand first.

For better or worse, it was their move now.

#Bucky Barnes #bucky fic #bucky x reader #bucky #bucky barnes x you #Bucky Barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x female oc #Female reader

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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House of Mouse: Mickey and the Culture Clash (Commission by WeirdKev27) or “What the Hell, Clarabelle?”

Hello, hello, hello... I wish I could say I was in good spirits but i’m tired, have covid induced chills running down my spine.. and oh yeah there was an armed insurrection i the captial last night that showed just how broken this country was. And while Monster Bash would still be relevant... I couldn’t do it. I admit to being unable to do an episode where the millitant racist nutjob who harms people runs off into the night, and does much worse in later episodes, while the people she harassed are arrested the night after a bunch of millitant, racist, sociopathic, selfish nightmares sieged the captial, killed a woman, raised the fucking maga flag over the buildling and took pictures like they were goddamn heroes. We got a stark reminder, not a wake up call, not an opening a REMINDER of just how badly broken our country is last night, and it wasn’t till this morning I found out just how BAD it was. The deaths, the flag, the fact josh fucking hawley, MY STAT’ES SENATOR and registered piece of shit, raised A FUCKING FIST IN SOLIDARITY, which gives me the crippling fear his stupidity and unabashed racisim and support of a cou could mean riots at best and attempted uprisings at worst and who knows what kind of hate crimes against those of color and those in my own queer community. I am afraid, tired, and I am pissed and I feel we could ALL use something wholesome, warm and far removed from the shit going on. And in my hour of need to figure out something like that to put on the schedule.. Kev brought up a wonderfufl idea. Every month this month till the end of it Kev is going to comission one episode of a show near and dear to both our hearts that has it’s 20th birthday this month. House of Mouse. He was intitally going to request Pete’s One Man Show, which is one of my faviorites, but was ironcially one I already planned to cover next month to celebrate both the show’s anniversary and Pete’s Birthday. But since he was happy to wait till then to comission it, he instead asked for another classic and one with easily my faviorite character on the show: Moritmer Mouse.

One of the best things House of Mouse did was bring back Mortimer Mouse. Introduced in Mickey’s Rival, Mortimer was an ex of minnies who showed up for one short to be a dick to mickey before running off and leaving Minnie at the mercy of a bull he pissed off. He also weirdly kept electrodes and a car battery in his pants. The short itself is.. not great mostly because Minnie dimissies Mickey rightfully being pissed someone is hitting on his girlfriend in front of him, making jokes at his expense, and generally being a pillock as being jealous... which yeah, yeah he is. Most of the time jealousy and supscison of your partner is ugly, gross and damaging to a relationship. You should trust them unless you’ve been given good reason not to, and if your paranoidly jealous about every friend she has she could be attracted to.. get some fucking help. Seriously, I need to, not for this for various other problems, but get some therapy to help with your trust issues or if your just being the kind of dick who naturally assumes men and women or men and men or women and women or men and nonibinary persons, or women and nonbinary peeps and so on and so on cannot be friends if they could possibly be togehter romantically... grow up. I say all of that because those are serious underlying issues and I didn’t want it to seem like for a moment I was supporting them... and because sometimes i’ts OKAY to be jealous, to either just feel a little jealous of someone, or to you know be irate because your girlfriend’s ex is hitting on her in front of you and she’s being entirely receptive to it.

So yeah i’ts really hard to feel bad for minnie’s bull attack or find the ending sweet after Minnie was you know, what ramona said for an entire short. However my point for this rant, besides giving out about the short again because I clearly didn’t enough in my Mickey Birthday Special, is that Mortimer is still pretty great. He’s a frat bro in the 40′s sense sure, but the idea of a local douche hoping to swoop in and woo minnie away, who has an oddly specific sense of humor and a bizzare, memorable and wonderful walk, seriously the short is worth watching for mortimier’s “I got two car batteris in my pants’ walk, is a good one. While he’d naturally show up in comics and what have you Mortimer just sort of vanished. But clearly someone on the House of Mouse staff, and Mousewerks before it, agreed because Morty was made easily one of the best and most recurring characters in the HOM, and often more prominent than Horace or Gus. While he still tried his old “I’m gonna do your common law wife act” a few times he was mostly there to be an annoying douche when the ep needed one and to be taken down a peg by everyone in the house. And that VERY MUCH includes Mickey. That’s also part of why I love this show bringing him back: It gives Mickey someone besides pete to give out too on a regular basis. He’s still his charming self about it but it’s lovelyt os ee Mickey sarcastically roast someone. And I honestly attribute the main factor of his sucess on the show to VA Maurice LaMarche. While his original VA, Sonny Dawson, was fantastic.. it’s Maurice who very clearly made the character his. While others like Jeff Bennet have taken over since i’ts Maurice who gave him his signature “ha-cha-cha” catchphrase, swagger and signiture voice. And no i’ts not lost on me that one of Maurice’s OTHER best roles is another cartoon mouse.. and I now very badly want him to meet Pinky and the Brain. But yeah, Maurice just oozes the smarm that defines mortimer for me, oozes condescinon and assholery and he, is., glorious. He was a faviorite as a kid, he’s a faviorite now, and Disney needs to use him more.. and also have Maurice voice him for wonderufl world of mickey mouse, though Jeff Bennett is not bad at all I just prefer the master at the role.

So obviously, after the nightmare of an evening america had yesterday, an episode not only about how wholesome mickey and minnie are but about Mickey teaming up with Mortimer was EXACTLY what i needed. So pitter patter, this is Mickey and the Culture clash. As always for house of mouse i’ll be chonking it up and since this one starts right with the wraparound, and sicnce you know I spent a godo few pagraphs going over mortimer and he’s only IN the wraparound this episode... let’s start there

Mickey and the Culture Clash: Don’t Go Changin, To Try and Please Me So we open the episode and the review proper with Mickey performing a banjo sernade for Minnie, their song in fact. It’s a really sweet scene.. that’s quickly ruined by Clarabelle being an asshole, who says i’ts a bit crude. Minnie counters that while “It’s not mozart”, it’s nice and she clearly likes it and the gesture. Instead of you know leaving it there like a good friend, like she’s SUPPOSED to be to Minnie in most continuities, Clarabelle.. takes the things she said and her having to run out to wrangle pluto out of context, painting it as her thinking he’s not sophisticated and then running out because of it. Oh and she tops it by pointing to a classified add from a MM looking for sophisticated companionship.

It just paints Clarabelle not as Minnie’s friend or a chatty gossip, but as a heartless bitch who has no trouble implying one of her best friends would cheat on her boyfriend TO HIS FACE, and is fine wrecking a perfectly lovely relationship just to have more to talk about. Seriously she starts gossiping to everybody on top of it just in case you thought Clarabelle was a decent person in any shape this episode. She’s the one thing about this episode that dosen’t work despite being integral to it.. well two but hte other thing is a small, end of episode gag we’ll get to. This.. this is an integral part of the plot. It also relies on Daisy and Donald being absent for the episode for what I can only assume is their annual sex decathalon because otherwise the second she heard about her friend doing this, before reassuring Minnie, Donald would be holdiing her while Daisy beat the absolute shit out of her for hurting thier closest friend and not bothering to take a look into anything when leveling such a rough accusation at Minnie. In a really stellar, really well paced episode, Clarabelle being so heartless stands out. It’s also, might as well get this out of the way, teh final episode not inlcuding the two holiday specials.. and it’s a good note to go out on otherwise, I just can’t ignore the obnoxious cow in the room.. in both senses of the word.

So yeah Mickey’s trying to be fancy, and Mortimer gets a good dig in about him reading “You having trouble sounding out the words”, but once he hears what’s going on, or rather once he realizes mickey things Mortimer’s personal add is in fact his girlfriend cheating on him, he decides to help Mickey. And to his credit for this con.. Mortimer actually thought things out on how to trick his rival, and his plan here is douchey as hell but incredibly genius: he offers to help mickey and while that’d normally be suspcious he offers a genuine, and very mortimer explination for helping him become a bit more sophisticated to win minnie back: if Minnie finds a handsome, sophisticated guy to date, what chance does MORTIMER have against that? At least with Mickey, in his deluded egocentric view of things anyway, he has a shot at beating him.

So Mickey classes it up a bit, taking some sopshitcated stances when announcing and trying to woo minnie by talking in ye olde english. When that fails, she just finds it silly but charming, Mickey finds Jose.. hitting on her.

Just.. I expect better from you man. Woo ladies all you like as long as your respectful but I expect better than to hit on someone else’s girlfriend.. which granted he has but given the last time we saw him do that, he nearly got stabbed a bunch and the last time he agressively hit on a woman he got punched in the beak as he should, you’d THINK he’d of learned something. Seriously once again Donald is only missing because this time Daisy would be holding Jose down while Donald hit him. Or possibly they’d take turns. Point is Jose REALLY shoudln’t be doing this and knows better.. marginally. But.. it is in character enough so ti’s not as bad as Clarabelle the homewrecker.

So Mickey tries being fancy and goes on to do poetry instead of letting O’Malley and the Alley Cats play.. which is a nice running gag the series does as they NEVER get to play.. which while funny is a shame since I love the Aristocats. So then we finally get what Mortimer’s been playing at, he swoops in, claims MICKEY dosen’t need HER, and uses the same personal add to trick her. See, while what Mortimer’s doing is vile.. unlike clarabelle I can repsect it at least. I don’t condone it and i’m glad he gets foiled.. but as a bad guy plan it’s pretty clever and for someone like Mortimer whose usually pretty incompitent.. it’s pretty suprising he could pull this off. It’s still pretty damn low and scummy, no question, but props to being able to outwit and nearly outplay two people who deal with your crap on a regular basis and still convincingly conning both. Thankfully while he tries to take Minnie out Mickey, in a great visual gag, puts two and two together, and busts out their song, with Mickey and Minnie heartwearmingly reuniting on stage as seen above. Then we get that gag I mentioned not liking: Mickey gets Morty back by planting a false marriage proposal from Moritmer to Clarabelle, again under MM and he gets carried off.. HAHA HE’S BEING FORCED INTO A MARRIAGE HE DOSEN’T. LAUGH. LAUGH AT IT. The gag just really hasn’t aged well, as otherwise it’s clever Mickey used Mortimer’s own trick against both him and the person who caused all of this but really.. Clarabelle gets no real compuance. At worse sshe finds out she was tricked.. but she again you know tried to break up her close friends relationship for shits and giggles. But .. it’s at the very end of the episode and very easy to ignore, so it dosen’t really bother me too bad, and compared to some gags of the type i’ve seen, it could be MUCH worse. Overall this wraparound is one of the series best and a good one to go out on. it has a simple premise, a brilliant antagonist plot, some great bits from all involved, and even a great Belle and Beast cameo. All in all a really good wraparound only hampered by a sexist and dated ending and Clarabelle being portrayed as ...

She’s the worst, in the world. Okay onto the shorts.

Mickey’s Piano Lesson: That was a Fun One

It really was. It’s a simple premise: Minnie wants MIckey to do a piano recital and he decides “I don’t need practice i’m mickey mouse. “ And it’s REALLY nice to have a short that has, rather than aw shucks mickey, shenanigans mickey. While thanks to the new shorts we’ve had tons, it’s still nice to get one in the House of Mouse era, and it’s just fun to see Mickey take the usual donald roll of letting his overconfidence punch him in the face> It fits both though: Both are everyman and while I lean towards the duck, to no one’s shock, Mickey is just as capable, and his lack of practice comes off less like the angry and hostile way donald would dismiss it and mroe just loveable procastination. And as someone who REALLY struggles with procastination I related to this short, as Mickey does everything else he’d rather do from bathing the dog to skydiving till Minnie, in a great bit informs him everyone from the president, to several dignitaries from other countries, to a televised audience will see. We then get two really great and really beatuifully animated bits as MIckey wrestles with the notes on thep age then fights with his piano as he performs, still pulling it off but destroying the thing and rightfully earning a glare form his girlfriend. Just a fun, slapstick short with a great premise.

Dance of the Goofys: Scary Children Set to classical music, this one has a bunch of goofys as Fairy’s, who are making the flowers go and the one who sleeps in ends up saving the king from a horrifing looking little brat. He reminds me of Montanna Max a bit.. speaking of which Creer Summer recnetly announced Elmyra won’t be in the reboot. And while this does make me fear actually good characters like Fifi, Montana Max, and more will be cut like the animanics reboot and I do feel for Cree not getting to be involved and hope they find another roll for her as, given her status in the industry she deserves better.. THANK FUCKING GOD. I’ll go into this in another review I have planned for the future but unlike the cuts made to animaniacs this was a REALLY good decision i’m really greatful for. Thank you crew thank you.

Back on topic, it’s just a fun, really beautifully animated short about the goofies and hteir shenanigans with a really great high concept.

Maestro Minnie: Brahm’s Lullabye: Simply Irresitable Another simple but clever and lovely to watch one, and one I like quite a bit more. Minnie is conducting some living violins to Brahm’s Lullabye to get a baby Violin to sleep, and we get some really beautiful shots of her as she does so.. only to get comically interuppted by other insteruments turning up the noise. Not much to say on this one as it’s short and simple.. but sometimes short and simple is just what you need and the fun premise nad really beautiful especially for tv animation at the time visuals really sell this one. ONce again, good stuff.

Overall: This was a REALLY good note to go out on. While as I said the Clarabelle stuff can eat my entire ass, everything else is really damn good and I highly recommend checking this one out. Next time, in about a month, we’ll be looking at Pete’s spotlight episode for his birfday. While you wait tommorow we have my first look at legend of the three cabs. But for now, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

#house of mouse #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #mortimer mouse #clarabelle cow #donald duck #daisy duck #goofy goof #mouseworks #maurice lamarche #mickey's culture clash

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tippitv · 5 years ago

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TippiTV recap: SPN 15.01 “Back and to the Future”

First a quick note on the format of this recap: I'm dealing with some neck/back/shoulder pain so I'm not going to make a bunch of captioned screen shots and diagrams and other visual aids like I usually do. That stuff, while hugely fun to do, is time-consuming even under ideal conditions. I will instead attempt to provide you with mental images of graphics I would have made.

Now, let's get on with things.

Welcome to the 15th and final season of Supernatural, everyone! If the show were a person we could give it a Quinceañera.

[Graphic: The Impala in a beautiful taffeta gown and tiara and like... satin mudflaps instead of gloves.]

It's been 5140 days since the show premiered. That's 123,360 hours. Our solar system travels around the center of the galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour. This means we have moved through 6.04464e10 miles of space since this show premiered. I don't even know what that means. Once numbers start getting letters in them, I'm lost. But it's got to be nearly as many miles as are on the Impala's odometer.

[graphic of our solar system and the Chevy Impala zooming through space together, perhaps in friendly competition]

The road so far: Man, I do not remember a lot of this. Relevant to this episode is God throwing a hissy fit, killing Jack, and releasing all the souls and/or demons from Hell.

Currently: Jack's eyeless corpse is lying around as corpses are wont to do. The surviving members of Team Free Will are fighting a lot of freshly risen dead bodies that were possessed by the released souls. If it were me just out of Hell, I wouldn't waste time in a rotted corpse. I'd just fuck off as quickly as possible and possess someone who's eating a deep-dish cheese pizza.

The risen dead are polite enough to mostly attack the Winchesters one or two at a time, so they get to grab Jack's corpse and run into a mausoleum for shelter. Okay I understand why the souls can't get through the iron doors but what's stopping the disembodied ones from just going through a window? Or through a stone wall, for that matter?

Sam asks Castiel if he can bring Jack back but he sounds like he already knows the answer. A mid-level angel without all his original powers isn't gonna be able to undo what God's done unless the plot requires it.

[Graphic of Sam's incredibly sad face as he says or thinks "maybe the plot will require it later?"]

Everyone tries to figure out what they're going to do next. Dean snarkily wonders if they're going to starve to death. I mean, no, because the ambulatory corpses will break in before long. Failing that, they'd die of thirst unless Castiel has like a TARDIS bladder that holds Dasani, and then they could eat Jack. Mmm nephilim jerky....

Proving my point for me, a resident of the mausoleum or perhaps a neighbor tries to bust through some of the loose stones just as Sam starts chipping away at them in search of an escape route. Castiel smashes its head with a big rock, causing the ghost to flee? I guess? Whatever it is looks like a glowy skeleton and ghosts usually look like their living selves for the most part.

"What the hell are we gonna do now?" Sam asks.

Ol' Eyeless Jack pops up and says in a friendly tone of voice, "Hello!" Nobody's super shocked by this turn of events.

[Graphic of Jo and Ellen saying "nobody stays dead on this show except us"]

It's just Jack's bod with a demon in it, though. Was he the one that looked like a glowy skeleton? Whatever. He happens upon some budget sunglasses on the floor nearby. No seriously they're sunglasses to save the budget because it wouldn't be cheap or timely to have to CGI empty eyes for the whole episode.

He introduces himself. "My name is Belvegar." The fuck? That sounds like a horrible portmanteau for shipping Mr. Belvedere with Garfield the cat.

[Graphic of Buckleming: "We'd write that!"]

I suppose I should check IMDB to see how that's spelled...

BELPHEGOR???

Oh okay apparently Belph is a prince of hell and "Lord of the Gap," which is like half a step up from being Lord of Old Navy. I'm looking this up on regular Wikipedia not Supernatural Wiki so the show didn't just make him up. It says here he seduces people by suggesting inventions that will make them wealthy. One time I came up with an idea for pills that would turn people's urine into toilet cleaner. I was going to call it Vita-Wiz. And that's why I've never been able to seduce anyone with my inventions.

Anyway Castiel shoves Belph up against a wall, as is customary on this show, and demands he leave Jack's bod. But Belph says he has some mojo that will get rid of all the hellish souls and demons currently trying to get into the mausoleum. Much like how Vita-Wiz gets rid of hard water stains and leaves your toilet with a minty fresh scent!

[Graphic: a colorfully jaunty ad for Vita-Wiz with Sam's endorsement a la the "Changing Channels" Herpexia ad. "I've got powerfully clean urine."]

Belph knows all about the Winchesters but is slightly surprised this latest fuckery is God's fault. He makes himself out to be a low-level demon so either he's lying or the show's not going with the prince of hell backstory. Judging by his delivery and mannerisms he thinks he's auditioning to be in Goodfellas: The High School Years.

[Graphic: High School Musical promo poster but make it mobster]

He goes on to say that, like the Winchesters, he wants all the souls back in Hell where they belong and he can get back to torturing them. "I like my job!" Unrelatable. He can't fix the main shitsplosion that's going on but says he can get them all out of the cemetery safely.

Using some "graveyard dirt" from the floor and angel blood from Convenienstiel, he works a little spell that turns all the risen dead back into just... dead. Unoccupied corpses litter the ground by the dozens. Man, what a mess. You know who isn't gonna like their job in the morning? The groundskeeper.

Also, that sure is a useful spell. I wonder if it will ever come up again...

"Where are all the ghosts?" Dean wonders.

Cut to two teenage girls somewhere else acting like teenage girls Dabb has seen in Troom Troom videos. One of the girls sees herself as a ghost in the mirror and claws her face clean off. Man, that ghost's wig is terrible. Is she Bloody Mary? I don't remember her wig being this bad. I can't believe they couldn't afford a better one even with the Budget Sunglasses.

Back to Three Men and a Belphy. Riding home in the Impala, Sam checks the news. So far, no mention of any kind of worldwide Ghostpocalypse. It seems like you're mostly safe in this universe as long as you don't live in middle America. Belph suggests they may be able to contain the ghosts before things get too out of hand and he just happens to know the right magic.

"Imagine a salt circle a mile wide," he says. Castiel points out that Harlan, Kansas is less than a mile from the cemetery so Dean hatches a plan to get everyone out so as to not trap them inside with the ghosts and demons. Is it gonna be a lame plan that would never work in reality?

But first they stop for a wrecked car on the side of the road. There's blood on the inside of the windshield but no body. "This look familiar to you?" Dean asks Sam. It looks like a lot of wrecks where someone got wanged on the head and wandered off in a daze, but they figure it's the Woman in White. "If she's back then they're all back," Dean goes on. "Every last one that we ever killed."

Okay shout out to everyone who answered my post where I asked if ghosts used to be obliterated rather than going to Hell. The consensus seems to be that the Winchesters didn't really know one way or the other early on and were guessing.

Cut to a woman running through a house with her young daughter in her arms. The aftermath of a destroyed birthday party can be seen. How late in the day were they throwing this kid's party?? To make a long story short, the ghost of John Wayne Gacy is chasing them. I'll just reiterate my hatred of this character, not because Gacy is a serial killer obv, but because it lacks internal logic! Why is he dressed like a clown?? He wasn't executed in his old clown outfit!

Suddenly it's daytime. It's like Bugs all over again. Sam, in a jacket with an FBI decal on it approaches what must be the dumbassiest dumbass sheriff in three states. He convinces the sheriff to evacuate the whole town because of a benzene leak and the sheriff just... takes his word for it. Like, he's never heard of a benzene pipeline in his hometown but doop de doop this handsome giraffe in a cheap jacket said to evacuate so it must be true!

Also why isn't the sheriff down at the cemetery?? Someone would've called that in by now! You know what I don't really care.

Meanwhile, Dean is in the car and tells Castiel to take Belph to go get supplies for the spell. Cas says he can't do it, he can't even bear to look at him. And Dean! Rolls! His! Eyes! Like, Jack's the closest thing Cas will probably ever have to a child. He was with Kelly through her pregnancy. It's only been like eight hours since the kid died horrifically. Don't roll your dang eyes!

Cas leaves and Dean puts the Equalizer gun in the glove compartment along with a copy of The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov.

Belph notices that everyone walking down the street is good-looking. Yeah, that's casting agencies for ya. He says back in his ancient penis-worshiping days, people were uglier. Belph appears to be an equal-opportunity ogler. He turns to Dean. "I mean look at you. You're gorgeous!"

[Graphic: Belphegor replacing his penis-shaped rock altar with that Skittles poster of Jensen Ackles.]

"So who was he anyway?" Belph asks, referring to his meatsuit. "He was our kid, kinda," Dean says. The show manages to resist making a Gay Dads joke that I feel like it would've given into in an earlier season. So, yay progress I guess?

Sam and Castiel split up to check every house for ghosts. That seems super time-consuming. How many Reapers are left besides Billie? I feel like they should get one on the horn unless they're all dead. Anyway, Cas's house is where the Troom Troom girls were killed. The ghost's wig looks even worse in daylight. Do they get their wigs from the Hobby Lobby doll crafting aisle or something?

Sam's house, meanwhile, is where John Wayne Ghosty went on a sartorially illogical rampage. Somehow the mother and daughter are still alive. Dumbass ghosts can't see behind a shelving unit, I guess. The instant Sam gets them safely down, Ass-Clown immediately slices him across the belly. Castiel shows up to blast the ghost with rock salt.

Meanwhile, Belph is fanboying over Dean's torturing skills. Gasp! The show remembered Dean was in Hell. It'd be nice if they were consistent about it but whatever. Belph casually mentions that all the doors in Hell opened and Dean realizes this means the cage, too.

[Graphic: That dancing gif of the actor who played Adam that says "Still in Hell" but now it says "Maybe not in Hell."]

Castiel heals Sam's wound and the fabric of his jacket! The mother and daughter are still standing there seeing all this. Cas is like, "Whatevs, I'm an angel of the Lord & Taylor." The mom is pretty flabbergasted, and even more so when Sam mentions the wound he sustained after shooting God. Castiel can't heal that one, though, because it's probably gonna be a recurring plot point judging by the flash of Evil Sam we see.

The sheriff is making a final sweep through town when he happens upon the Woman in White. The sun looks to be setting, which means it's probably been 16 hours since all the souls and demons escaped, but they're still basically within a mile of the cemetery? Even I, burdened with an easily exhausted flesh body with shitty joints could have gotten farther than that.

Anyway, Belph needs a fresh human heart for his spell so it's pretty handy of the sheriff to die! That way none of the mains need to do the morally objectionable thing of murdering someone.

Dean senses a sudden drop in temperature. "Winnie the Pooh, right now!"

WHAT THE FUUUUCK??

Hold on. I'm watching this at 1.2x speed. Let me rewatch it at 1x.

Okay he says "we need to move, right now." My apologies to Mr. Pooh for thinking you could ever be a part of this.

[Graphic: Winnie the Pooh chipper as anything. "I CRAVE THE BLEAK ABIDING COMFORT OF DEATH AND HUNNY."]

At the same time, Sam and Castiel are walking the two survivors through town. The little girl pauses at a badly placed fish pond because she sees a woman in it. Is it Bloody Mary? What's she doing in a pond? Seriously though putting a pond right on the street corner is just asking for trouble even without spectral shenannigans. How many people have driven over the curb and right into that thing?

Okay I gotta stop getting hung up on landscaping issues. Even if they are HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND NONSENSICAL.

Dean is attacked by the Woman in White. Ass Clown goes after Sam and the others, and is soon joined by... a tall ghost and... Lizzie Borden? Sam accidentally shoots Cas full of rock salt when Lizzie vanishes, which is pretty funny although move ya pretty self out of the way, Cas. When she pops up behind him, she tries to choke him with the ax handle. It reminds me of that lesser known poem about Miss Borden.

Lizzie Borden had an ax Gave her mother 40 whacks Tried to choke the angel Cas 'Cause axing would've been too fast

In the ensuing fisticuffs, everyone has time to throw punches while Belph performs the spell. All he does is put the heart on a little pile of salt and chant some Latin. Is like the thing Ruby 1.0 did with that poor virgin girl's heart a million years ago?

Oh sweet Jeebus the sight of these ghosts chasing everyone on foot is... bad and funny. Y'all are ghosts! You can just blip in and out of wherever you want to go! One of the only upsides to being dead has got to be not having to do cardio anymore and here you are running the hundred yard dash like it's 6th grade PE class. They come screeching to a halt where the spell has created an invisible boundary. This might be worse than Hell.

[Graphic: Parisian street mimes trying to escape an invisible box]

But wait... Why wasn't Belphegor affected by this spell? Did he write in an exception clause? Or is it only for ghosts and not demons?

The Good Guys plus Belph bring the mom and daughter to the high school down the road where all the evacuees are sheltering. With no sheriff to coordinate things, isn't it all just gonna... fall to pieces now? How are they gonna convince everyone to stay away from their homes? What if someone needs their prescriptions? ("Oh no my Herpexia!") They can't get rid of the ghosts as long as Hell isn't in business anymore, right? This is a mess. Dean seems to know it.

Dang why are Castiel and Dean on such icy terms? Why do I not remember last season?

Now that they have a five second breather before the shit hits the fan, Dean wants to see Sam's godly bullet wound. It looks a little crusty but not too bad except... "There's no exit wound," Dean notes. He gives it a swipe with some alcohol which will surely kill whatever supernatural E. coli is in there.

"So when Chuck said this was the end I guess this is what he meant," Sam says. Yes being trapped in a high school with my neighbors seems like end times to me, too. Tonally, things seemed a lot more dire in All Hell Breaks Loose 2.

Dean's feeling a bit embittered about discovering they didn't have as much free will as they'd thought, that everything was part of Chuck's personal lab experiment. "What did it all mean?" he wonders. "It meant a lot," Sam says. "We still saved people."

But what even are people, man? I'm going to have an existential crisis and I can't drink as much as Dean because I have that "Asian flush" gene thing. One drink and I turn super red and hot and queasy and then I pass out.

Sam thinks God has fucked off to who knows where because he hasn't seen the promos for episode 2 yet. "He gets bored and starts another story." Ah yes like me and my WiPs. Relatable. Overall, Sam is feeling much more optimistic. "Once we win this, God is gone... and it's just us. We're free."

Dean catches his optimism cooties. "I like those odds," he says of fighting billions of evil souls. You know what that means? We got work to do. Quick intercut of Baby Winchesters with Middle-Aged Winchesters saying the same thing and closing the trunk of the Impala.

[Graphic: Impala with the solar system again. This time the Impala is pulling ahead. "ONE MORE TIME AROUND, SONS O' BITCHES"]

So there we are at the first episode of the final season. Reblog or reply with what you thought of the episode and thanks for reading!

One final note:

You can read more about my writing and general life situation and GoFundMe here: https://tippitv.tumblr.com/post/188224749207/supernatural-final-season-recaps-and-assorted

If you enjoyed the recap and are able, please visit my virtual tip jar: paypal.me/TippiBlevins or https://ko-fi.com/A4017DA

Henry Hound and I could use the financial help!

See you next week.

#spn recap #supernatural #spn #tippitv #my recaps

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jawnjendes · 5 years ago

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shawn meets... | kat

SUMMARY: in the life of a rockstar, shawn mendes comes across some unique people. sometimes, things stray from the norm. (AU, shawn x every one of my oc’s)(continuation/spin off of goth gf)

AN: sry for the lack of writing lets blame a little green dude. no one cares abt this story anymore lmao anyways this kinda goes with @fourtristattoos spooky fest. i used one quote from the list lol and the oc for this chapter is uh,,, fitting for this fest :) ALSO i know it says k1, but this is the third chapter of the series so go ahead n clicky ze masterlist if u wanna catch up

***let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist

previous chapter

kat’s blog | kat’s playlist | masterlist

Five years later.

Despite what the media, the fans, and all of Shawn’s team said five years ago, Shawn has actually been single for six years. Any relationship that was “outed” to the public was merely for promotional purposes. Shawn has kissed whatever person he was supposed to be seen with, and took the backlash from his fans with a smile. He was supposed to be in a happy relationship with the girl he went to university with, no one needed to know the stress and anxiety that weighed down on him, even after that stunt was over.

Thinking back, it really hurt Shawn internally. The stunt with Camila happened only a few short months after the actual relationship with the goth girl from university had ended. Shawn was just reminded of what used to be, and how badly he missed his ex. Wondering what she must think, seeing her ex-boyfriend go after one of her friends. After practically breaking down in front of Andrew, it was discovered that Shawn and Camila were in this for good, for as long as their careers were standing. There would be “break ups” every so often, but there would always be a “getting back together” chapter of this narrative. Shawn really regretted not reading his contract back when he was 21. Camila probably did too, though they didn’t really speak much during that time unless they were staging a date in public.

In the last five years, Shawn and Camila have broken up and gotten back together three times. Singles, albums, or other projects were always announced following these stories, and anyone who was not on Twitter were able to call out their shit. Shawn knew this shit was obvious, painfully obvious, but there were good reasons for keeping this stunt going.

Shawn hasn’t been in a real, serious relationship since university. He’s been on dates and one night stands, but a relationship in this life was nearly impossible. A typical twenty six year old might wonder about settling down, but nothing about this life was typical. Marriage, romance, anything that was remotely stable… Sure, Shawn thought about it every so often, but there was just no time. Not to mention, his PR team was very anal about who he chooses to publicly spend time with if it wasn’t Camila. In the six years he's been going at the music thing, there weren't any signs of slowing down, and Shawn preferred it this way. He wouldn’t know what else to do with his time.

That being said, Shawn made time for pretty ladies, men, and nonbinary friends when he wasn't bombarded with photoshoots, interviews, and a hectic tour schdeule. He went on dates and the public (and sometimes his team) were none the wiser. His sex life was fulfilled, and he had little desire to make relationships with these people. Other times, pretty ladies reached out to him. Like today, for instance.

Shawn was currently off tour and off writing songs for the month, which was perfect timing for a socialite by the name of Sapphire Venus Lilith. She wanted Shawn to be the entertainment at her 27th birthday party in London. The only reason why Andrew approved of it was the amount of zeros on the baby pink check that was sent in advance. Shawn had been in Los Angeles for one day, with plans to hang out with Aria and her fiance, but by the afternoon, he was put on a plane to England.

He had intended to Google this socialite on the flight, just to see what about her was going to make this random show worth it, but he knocked out as soon as he was in the air. There was no time to stop at the hotel either; Apparently, Sapphire demanded they land on her estate. Meaning, this girl was so rich that she could afford a private jet to land on her massive flower garden.

The property was surrounded by lush green trees and a large field that would have been better for the jet to land on. There was a walkway between the two crushed flowerbeds, and it led to a massive, old school mansion. Shawn was looking at the structure through the tiny jet window before following Andrew and Brian out to the walkway.

"You know how I know you've changed?" Andrew said. "We just killed a bunch of daisies, and you didn't even argue."

Shawn looked down at the crushed little plants, trying to identify the petals. "They're jasmines…" He mentally blew a kiss and apologized to the poor plants, as if they had the capacity to appreciate it.

Then, Brian came up on his side. "You think they'll let us stick around for the party after your set?"

"We're here on business," Andrew reminded him.

"All work and no play makes Shawn a dull boy!"

It was a joke, but there was a certain type of energy to that. Shawn woke up this morning with plans to hang out with an old friend and have some normal fun. Instead, it was morning again and he had a job to do. He went up the walkway, staring at the massive structure ahead.

His condo in Toronto felt like a rickety shack compared to this place. The red bricks probably cost more than a single paycheck he gets. The large fountain in the roundabout had scented water spouting out of it and pink rose petals floating around. There was a staircase leading up to the front doors and ramps on either side. Some roadies were walking up and down the ramps, carrying various types of equipment. An elderly butler was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, smiling politely.

"Welcome to the Lilith estate," he greeted to the three men.

Andrew introduced himself first, shaking the man's hand. Then Shawn, then Brian.

"What's your name?" Brian asked.

"Charles, sir," the butler replied, his wise blue eyes lighting up. Probably wasn't asked that too often.

"Good to meet you, Charles!"

"Likewise, Mr. Craigen. Now, if you will all follow me…"

Charles led the three of them up the staircase. He pushed open the massive doors, revealing the inside of the luxurious home. Note: the outside of the mansion was all red brick and dark cobblestones, but the inside was pink. Soft, baby pink. The walls of the entrance hall were white, but the decor, the knickknacks on the long tables, the artwork on the wall, and the chandelier were tinted with pastel pink. It was the first thing anyone would notice stepping in here.

"Would you care for some refreshments, gentlemen?" asked a maid who had walked in, carrying a tray of - you guessed it - pink lemonades, garnished with tiny little yellow flowers. The maid was in a white uniform, a pink flower tucked behind her ear.

They graciously accepted the drinks, thanking the maid who nodded with a smile before disappearing down the hall.

"I thought just her checks were pink," Andrew commented before taking a sip through the straw.

Shawn and Brian agreed, looking around at the frilly room. The rug they were standing on was the loudest of all, being a bright Barbie pink. Wonder what her favorite color is…

Then, Shawn noticed the pink flower in Charles's blazer pocket. It was the same as the maid's one. He tilted his head, studying the ruffly pink petals.

"Is, is that a carnation?" he asked.

Charles glanced down at his blazer. "A peony, actually. Ms. Lilith recently added it to her staff's uniforms. She believes it will 'boost morale,' as she put it."

"Oh." Shawn shouldn't have kicked himself mentally for the mistake. The flower shop kid in him has been dead and gone for a while, anyway.

The further Charles led them into the mansion, the more pink there was. There were also workers moving equipment, tables, and chairs in and out of the vicinity. The party wasn't for another couple of days.

Finally, they stopped in one of the many pastel pink sitting rooms, and even that wasn't empty. Again, white walls, pink furniture. Giant, sparkling chandelier. There was a grand piano (you already know what color) and a girl sitting at the stool with her back to the others, playing a classical song.

Shawn's heart went fast and slow at the same time. This girl was decked out in a black pantsuit and had long dark hair cascading down her back. Even though she was sitting down, Shawn could determine that she was just the right height. There's no fucking way…

"Ms. Adair," Charles politely called from the entrance.

Oh. There really is no fucking way.

The girl turned her head as she kept playing, revealing a pale face, high cheeks, and a strong jawline. Shawn's insides relaxed completely, but also went slightly heavy with disappointment.

"Is Ms. Lilith ready?" Charles asked, voice going softer upon making eye contact.

Ms. Adair's dark eyes flickered over to Shawn. She stopped the classical piece she was playing and instead played the last few notes of Memories. Shawn didn't know how to feel about this.

"Sapphire had a last minute visitor," she finally said as she stood up, her voice even, professional, and very British. She stepped towards the group, her stilettos clacking on the floor. She was honestly really beautiful. She looked nothing like the woman Shawn was thinking of, but Katherine’s neutral expression was uncanny.

"A visitor?" Charles repeated. "Has Mr. Doyle returned once again?"

"I'm not authorized to give specifics but-" Ms. Adair pointed to the ceiling just as a loud bang came from there. Some debris sprinkled down in the space separating her from the group.

Shawn, Brian, and Andrew were equally put off by this, while the two staff members were unfazed. There were several other bangs following, causing more debris to sprinkle down onto the floor.

"I was asked to fill in for her. My name is Katherine Adair, personal assistant to Sapphire Venus Lilith."

"Ah, you're the one I spoke to on the phone," Andrew said, holding out his hand to shake hers.

However, she turned and walked through the other entrance. "If you'll follow me, we will go over to the garden, where the entertainment will take place."

Andrew mostly spoke to her, asking all the questions that Shawn seemed to forget the moment he laid eyes on Ms. Adair. He usually spoke and brainstormed ideas for how the set would look, but his stomach was flipping. He doesn’t have a type, does he? He wouldn’t be putty in the hands of a girl with dark hair, dark eyes, and dark clothes, would he?

He wouldn’t, because Ms. Adair was very uptight and professional. She remained stone faced when Andrew cracked a joke. They just flew over her head, or maybe she understood them and just chose not to emote. She just let an awkward silence take over until Andrew stuck to the topic at hand.

“So, Ms. Adair, where will the stage be?” he asked.

“This way,” she said, leading them through some French doors and out to the yard. “And please, call me Katherine.”

“Kat?” Shawn tried.

Her dark eyes went over to his. She quirked her eyebrows and said nothing, reminding him too much of-

Brian nudged his friend’s arm as they walked outside. He gave Shawn that look. This girl is hot as fuck. At least that’s probably what Brian thought. Shawn was busy watching Katherine’s general body language.

She stood up straight at all times, her chin up with confidence. She had the same neutral, almost cold look on her face. Speaking of her face, it was white. Very white. The pink blush on her cheeks only emphasized it. But she was still practically flawless. She pursed her lips when she thought about a question Andrew asked her, nearly smoldering. Her eyes were alert when she was spoken to, but something about them seemed different. Did she even blink? She was serious, but not too serious if she gave some type of reaction to Shawn’s nickname for her.

Katherine gestured to the big grassy yard, where the stage was yet to be built. There were workers running around like busy bees, moving around speakers and pink party decorations.

“The set needs to be at most, an hour,” she said, “because after that, we have acrobats coming in, as well as some firebreathers.”

“Wow,” Shawn said, “she’s really going all out, eh?”

“Sapphire does as Sapphire pleases,” Katherine confirmed.

“Are we gonna get to meet the birthday girl anytime soon?” Brian asked, sounding eager.

Katherine checked the time on her black iPhone. “Not until the party, I’m afraid. Oh, and she did want me to inform you all that you are more than welcome to stay and enjoy the party after the set.”

Brian and Shawn shared excited glances. Anytime there was a chance to party, they ran with it. Keeps them young.

“Excellent, I just have to make a phone call,” Andrew said, typing on his phone. He walked in a random direction and pressed the device to his ear.

Katherine turned to the other two boys. “Is there anything I can get for you two? Anymore refreshments, perhaps?”

Shawn looked at the pink lemonade in his hand. He hadn’t even drank it yet. “No thank you. This is fine.”

“Everything is fine,” Brian added.

“How long have you been working here?” Shawn asked her.

“Nine years,” she replied shortly.

“Live nearby?”

“Closer than you can imagine.”

“Is your place pink too?” Brian asked with a chuckle.

Katherine said nothing, only blinking before changing the subject. “Sapphire is very excited for you to be here, Mr. Mendes. You’re one of her favorite singers.”

“Oh, thank you,” Shawn said. “And call me Shawn.”

“Shawnie?” she tried, quirking her eyebrows once again.

He grinned. “You can call me whatever you want.”

Shawn wasn’t always the one being pinned against the wall, but Kat was apparently very strong. She was able to reach his height in her stilettos as she hungrily pressed her lips against his. Shawn was already too hot and bothered to notice how cold she was, and he was too busy trying to wrangle his hands free so he could pin her to the hotel room wall.

It was a blur of heat and panting and kissing before Shawn was down to his boxers underneath her, while she was in just a pair of black panties. His hands felt up her thighs, her stomach, and her breasts with fervor.

“You’re fucking freezing,” he said, running his hands over whatever skin he could reach.

Kat hummed as she took his hand from her collarbone. She looked him in the eye as she wrapped her plump, wine colored lips around the tips of his fingers. Her mouth was nowhere near as cold as her body. Warm, soft, inviting… Shawn let out a slow breath, feeling it all the way down in his groin.

She used her mouth on him, practically begging for him to move his hips as well, only intensifying the feel. Kat was relentless, kept going until Shawn was whimpering and coming hard in her mouth. She even insisted that Shawn didn’t have to return the favor. He probably wouldn’t have been able to muster up the energy if he tried. His whole being was just sucked out through his-

“Let me hold you, I’ll keep you warm,” he mumbled as Kat lied down next to him.

“Or maybe I’ll make you cold,” she replied as she moved closer to him. She nuzzled into his side like it was second nature. “I had fun, did you?”

“Yeah,” Shawn sleepily hummed. Not even the chills of Kat’s skin kept him from dozing off.

She was in the exact same position when he woke up. Not a hair on Kat’s head was out of place, her hand was still open on his chest, and her legs were still tangled around his. Shawn didn’t even feel her toss or turn while they slept. In his experience, the one night stand would eventually turn away from him completely, already unconsciously showing their disinterest.

Oh, and Kat was wide awake by the time he started stirring. She picked her head up, dark eyes alert.

“You need anything from me, honey?” he asked as he stretched his legs from the position he was in. Despite what Kat had told him, he wanted another taste of her.

She shook her head. “I only wish to please you.”

He grinned. “It’ll please me if you let me, I don’t know, go down on you?” He left it as an offer, giving her the chance to accept or deny.

Kat returned the smile, revealing a tiny dimple in her cheek. It was a very cute dimple. “What if… you guide me?”

It got Shawn all hot and bothered again, so he accepted. Kat lied on her back and obeyed every touch and caress that was commanded until she was moaning and writhing on top of the sheets. Shawn had his hand in his underwear as he watched, and he tired himself out yet again, and knocked out.

He didn’t know the amount of stamina Kat had. Shawn wouldn’t remember the hickeys he left on her skin because they would be gone the very next day. The only thing he would remember was just how goddamn cold her skin was.

next chapter

______

taglist: @normalcyisoverrated-beyou @justordinaryjen @chillingbythesea @iloveshawnieboi @shawnsunflower @someoneunimportantxx

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes smut #spookytattoosfestival #shawn x oc #shawn meets fic #i have kats origin story in me noggin #thats why i dont have a link for it other than her blog lmao #'her' blog lol i run it

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toomuchtimenerd · 5 years ago

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Review for ‘A Curse So Dark and Lonely’ by Brigid Kemmerer

Aaaand here’s yet another popular retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. So something to know about me - I LOVE fairy tale retellings. I grew up on a lot of fairy tales, lots of Disney princess movies (most of which are based off fairy tales or in the case of Mulan, a ballad/folk legend). I’m pretty sure growing up I had this giant anthology of a bunch of old European fairy tales that had been adapted for children’s reading. I’m pretty sure my love for magic, fantasy, and all kinds of other-worldly things stems from how much I read and re-read everything in that kid’s anthology as an eight year old or something. Nowadays, I am on the lookout for anthologies with adaptations of folk lore from other cultures. Hopefully I will soon find some that seem promising.

So A Curse So Dark and Lonely is, interestingly, not a stand-alone and its sequel came out earlier this month. I opted to stop after the first book and not pick up the sequel, for reasons that I will divulge in later. A Curse, like The Cruel Prince, has incredibly favorable reviews on Goodreads, and for good reason really. It’s just unfortunate that neither of these two books quite hit the spot for me. Perhaps in the future I will pick up the sequel for A Curse, but with the third book planned for a late 2021 release I probably will not be reading A Curse So Fierce and Broken anytime soon. Something already tells me that I may have to put recreational reading on the back burner for an extended period of time once again when I go back to school. Sadface

A Curse So Dark and Lonely loosely follows the widely known story line for ‘Beauty and the Beast’, with notable changes in that the main character (Harper) has cerebral palsy and is transported from our non-magical contemporary world to the magical kingdom of Emberfall. Our Prince Rhen does not adopt the appearance of a beast 24/7, but rather transforms into one at the end of the repeating autumn season. In his transformed state, he has a penchant for violence and generally does not retain any sense of mind or humanity. When he yet again fails to win a woman’s love, the season will restart to the day of his 18th birthday and he will have to try again with a new woman. Rhen is accompanied only by the sole survivor of his first transformation, a royal guard named Grey. Grey was given the power to go to Harper’s world and take a woman to bring back to Emberfall for Rhen to court. This entire curse was brought down by an enchantress named Lilith, who apparently exists only to torture everyone’s existence. Harper wasn’t originally chosen by Grey, but Harper witnessed Grey “abducting” an unconscious woman and chose to interfere, which leads to her transportation into Emberfall.

So let’s talk about the obvious; the representation of disabled peoples in this book via our protagonist Harper. She has cerebral palsy, and this is made very clear within the first chapter of the book. Props to the author for not OVER-emphasizing Harper’s disability, though. I love representation, and I believe in the power of representation, but I’m not a fan of when representation goes too far and it becomes the sole definition of a character’s existence. It comes off as lazy writing when a character brings no substance or value aside from the fact that they represent some kind of minority group. However, this isn’t the case here and I think Kemmerer did a wonderful job of blending Harper’s cerebral palsy into the background, yet not enough for the reader to completely forget that she is living with a disability. There are times when Harper is in a lot of pain and isn’t able to do certain things as easily as other people can, but her perseverance/grit/determination shows us that she is still just like any other human being trying to get by. She doesn’t view herself as a victim of her disability either, it’s just something she was born with and has learned to live with. It is a part of her, and even if she doesn’t like it she has learned to accept it as a part of her. I think Kemmerer sends a beautiful message in portraying Harper’s attitude with her cerebral palsy: there is no need to feel victimized by one’s disability, and there is no need to hate oneself for it either.

Outside of Harper’s disability, she is a very standard YA fantasy heroine - hardworking, passionate, cautious, determined, guarded. Is it bad that I’m getting a little bit tired of this character trope? I kind of want to see a heroine who isn’t so perfect, and I kind of want to see someone who is a little whiny or bratty at first but then grows from their hardships and experiences. Harper, like many YA fantasy heroines, just seems to start out incredibly likable (or maybe too likable) with the perfect package of personality traits. Now I’m not necessarily complaining about this, but I definitely would’ve liked to see a little more substance from Harper outside of just “I need to find a way to get home and I’m going to keep rebelling until I do”. Obviously this wasn’t her as a character the ENTIRE book, but it definitely was more or less the only thing passing through her mind for maybe the first 40% of the book. Another issue I took with her (or maybe not even her as a character, maybe it’s an issue I have with the book itself) is her wishywashy-ness in regards to her feelings. For pretty much the entire book up until Grey takes her home, Harper at best only deeply cares about and respects Rhen. But in the last 20% of the book when Grey takes her back to Emberfall to face the transformed Rhen, Harper suddenly proclaims her love for him and is willing to pretty much give herself up to Lilith to spare Rhen and Grey. That’s a huge change in emotions, and according to the book timeline this change of feelings happens over the course of like... 36 hours or something. And then the book ends on a MASSIVE ambiguity over whether the curse was broken because Harper truly loved Rhen, or if it was because Grey had succeeded in killing Lilith. So, we went from “I deeply care for you and I find comfort in your company” to “I would DIE for you” to “did the curse break because I love you? Idk” over the course of like... 3-4 chapters? Uhhhhh. Yeah I’ve got questions.

Now I know this review is coming off as pretty negative, and not gonna lie I don’t think I was a big fan of this retelling but I certainly don’t think it was bad either. Rhen’s character development was so captivating and surprising because most YA authors generally don’t pay much attention into developing the male lead as much as the heroine. In all honesty, Harper began pretty perfect with very little room for growth so she her character progression just seemed to stagnate to me. But Rhen starts off as a meh character who didn’t seem to learn all that much from his countless failures of wooing women during his cursed time and progresses into a very selfless leader (re: true KING). He goes from isolating himself in his castle while trying to break the curse to nearly ignoring the curse so he could focus on protecting and caring for his people. I guess it’s pretty obvious that I really liked Rhen as a character, and I personally think he deserves a lot better than that ending we got. It wasn’t a bad ending, and I think Kemmerer wanted to be original in creating a somewhat ambiguous ending. But as a hardcore romance junkie I think I may have a narrow scope of what my heart can tolerate for any retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.

And finally, let’s talk about Grey. He’s not a POV character in this first book, but he’s in almost every single chapter and he plays a pretty big role. At the beginning I thought I was going to get a load of a love triangle, but thank GOD that wasn’t the case. I’m all for originality, but my mind will never be okay with a love triangle in ‘Beauty and the Beast’. It’s beauty and the fucking beast!! Not beauty and the beast featuring Ludacris!! Is it obvious that I don’t like love triangles to begin with? Yeah. Anyway, Grey is an interesting character. I kind of saw the epilogue coming, because for a side character Grey was too fleshed out and well developed (considering side characters rarely are, except for my one true love Despina from Wrath and the Dawn). But nevertheless, I quite enjoyed Grey! In the beginning of the story I felt like he served almost as a foil to Rhen. They were quite the opposites in terms of personality, but they ultimately are working towards the same goal. Watching Grey’s relationship with Harper unfold on paper was also quite nice. Unlike Rhen, Grey starts off kinda antagonizing Harper (with good reason, considering their first encounter consisted of her attacking him). Rhen is kind and very elaborate in his words and manners with Harper, but Grey very much the opposite. He speaks simply, he’s a man of actions, and is mostly very detached from his emotions. I actually felt his character complimented Harper’s character quite well (considering her own emotional detachment), and I think this is what Kemmerer was going for anyway since Harper does actually warm up to Grey much quicker than she warms up to Rhen.

Some last thoughts to wrap it up - while I understand that Kemmerer wanted to bridge the gap between this book and its sequel, I felt that she pulled WAY too much of the spotlight from Rhen/Harper and onto Grey. The ending between Rhen/Harper felt incredibly rushed, and again I just don’t think I like the ambiguity over what actually broke the curse. I was thinking about giving A Curse So Dark and Lonely a 4-star rating for most of the book up until the end, and now I’m thinking it’s more like a 3.5 star from me. The last couple of chapters were heavily action-packed, and Kemmerer’s way of tying up the lose strings (pushing the foreign army out of Emberfall) was very creative. But the ending following all of that action was just so... bland and unexciting. It was like dumping a large tub of water on a small campfire that was just starting to grow warm. I like Grey as character, but not enough to want to read the sequel where he stars as a POV just yet.

#a curse so dark and lonely #cursebreakers #ya fiction #ya fantasy #brigid kemmerer #book review #beauty and the beast #retelling

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phagechildon · 5 years ago

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Turdday - Chapter 3

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Summary: When Leo doesn’t show up to work (aka his surprise birthday party at Libra headquarters), Zapp goes to check on him only to find he’s been caught up in yet another shitstorm. With creatures that only he can see pursuing him, the Libra members find it hard to protect him when Leo can’t even remember who they are or how to use the All Seeing Eyes of the Gods.

----

His consciousness slowly started returning to him, only making him wish it hadn’t. His throat and the inside of his nose felt absolutely raw to the point where merely breathing made him want to sob in pure agony. It felt like he had been mummified and left in the Egyptian desert where it proceeded to dry out his entire body despite the fact that the rain beat a little heavier than earlier against him.

What the hell happened to him? The last thing he remembered he was talking to K.K. and Klaus, and then one of those things came out of nowhere and grabbed him. His memory was a little hazy after that. He had this vague sensation of nearly drowning, but how was that even possible?

Shifting a bit, he choked on a pained cry as pain shot through his right arm - the arm he was laying on.

Crap, was it broken? He really didn’t need a broken arm on top of the other shit he was dealing with.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, he slowly pushed himself up, the pain still flaring. Nausea quickly overwhelmed his entire being as he threw up, tears gushing down his cheeks as it felt like his throat was bleeding from the acid tearing the dry skin apart.

He wanted nothing more than to have unconsciousness claim him again. Of course he wasn’t that lucky.

He didn’t move until he was absolutely sure his stomach was settled enough, not wanting to experience that horrific pain again.

Someone brought him here, and considering he had a rough landing, the other person could be hurt too. He had to see if they needed help.

Licking his lips that were surprisingly dry despite being in the rain, he tried talking. “Klaus?” His voice wheezed, making him violently cough a few times.

No response.

“Klaus?” He tried again, almost desperately.

Still nothing.

Well shit, did he break his only life line already? Bringing his other shaky hand up, he felt around his ear and nearly sobbed. The ear piece was broken in two. Once again he was all alone in this hellscape. His only hope was to find the lady that saved him.

Unlike the last time he stirred, getting up almost proved to be impossible. Every organ in his body literally screamed at him as he tried getting to his feet, making him fall face first back into what he was sure was grass. He groaned, clenching the blades with his good trembling hand.

It would be so easy to just give up right now, but… it didn’t feel like an option. There were people who were counting on him even if he didn’t remember them. He had no clue if Zed or K.K. were even still alive, but he owed it to them to keep moving forward.

Somehow he managed to get back on his feet, his body swaying dangerously from side to side. But he was up, that’s all that mattered.

Surveying the area, he realized he was in some sort of park by a few sets of large bushes. The playground was quite a ways away, meaning no one probably even saw him land there. Honestly he was okay with that, the less people he had to deal with the better.

That being said, he looked around a little more, not even seeing a trace of another person near him. Maybe she landed a little further away?

Taking a deep breath, he started forward, his balance completely off but he merely shrugged that fact away. He could do this. He had to do this.

He searched around the park, staying as far away from other people as he possibly could. That being said, he also didn’t see the young woman who saved him either.

Did those things get her?

“Leo?” He heard a man call, making him instinctively turn. Across the street was a man with fluffy brown hair wearing a long tan trench coat. He sort of reminded him of a detective from one of those old film noir movies, just without the top hat. He looked drastically different compared to the other Libra members he’s met so far. This person almost seemed normal.

Seeing him confirm his identity, the man ran across the street, making Leo take a few cautious steps backward.

This man looked a little too normal.

“You look like shit, are you okay?” He asked, seeing the way Leo was clenching his right arm as if it were injured. He really hoped that wasn’t his blood on him.

“U-uhm.... code word?” He asked, taking another step back. Unlike the others, he wasn’t getting that same safety vibe from this man either.

The man raised an eyebrow, seeming confused as to what he asked. “Oh right, your memory, I’m Daniel Law, a Lieutenant of Hellsalem’s Lot Police force-” he stopped, seeing Leo take a few more steps back looking like a terrified puppy.

He didn't know the code word - he was avoiding the question-!

“I’m not part of Libra but I begrudgingly work with them sometimes-”

Sometimes- Leo’s eyes widened in fear as he ran, ignoring the way his body literally screamed in protest.

“Wait, Leonardo-!” Daniel hollered as he took off after him, cursing under his breath. Klaus said the kid lost his memory not his nerve, but in this city he had no clue what’s he’s run into or what he’s experienced. He could be running away with a good reason.

Leo glanced back, seeing the man nearly catching up, making him whimper. Why couldn’t he catch a break, was that too much to ask?! If this man was a police officer, or posed as one, he was probably in great shape. Despite not remembering a lot, Leo was pretty sure he still ate a bunch of junk food, meaning he definitely was not in shape.

He had to lose him, and fast.

Looking left and right, he realized his best bet was to lose him in the crowd right outside a bustling theater. Even then though, the only chance he had was to use his eyes.

“Leo stop - I can take you to Klaus-” the kid kept running, his words only seeming to frighten him more. “Leonardo-!”

He watched the young Libra member enter the crowd, bumping into a few people which evidently slowed him down. There, this was his chance!

Daniel sped up and reached out for him-

But his hand went right through him.

He skid to a stop, looking around desperately. Where’d he go? He literally just had him - how’d he literally slip through his fingers?

Unless-

Shit. The kid used his eyes on him.

Taking out his phone he dialed Klaus, still searching through the crowd just in case. “I saw him right outside the HL theater on Green Street and 9th Avenue, but he didn’t recognize me and ran.”

Of course he wouldn’t trust him, he didn’t know the code word! Zed’s been right about everything else so far, so why wouldn’t he listen to him now? Granted he didn’t get a change of clothes like he instructed, but that would’ve required him to steal due to the time constraints and he wasn’t about that life.

For now, as annoying as it was, he just had to keep walking until another Libra member found him, even if the guilt was literally eating him alive.

‘Nothing’s changed since then,’ he mumbled to himself, clenching his fists tightly despite the pain. No matter what anyone else said, he was still a coward. While all the others were literally putting their lives on the line to protect him, he was simply running away, not even sticking around to see if they were okay.

His pace slowed, his head lowering in anger.

He was angry, he was furious with himself. How could he just keep running while the others were in danger like that? Even if he was normal, he could’ve thought of someway to help.

“I won’t run, not anymore,” he said, clenching his fists. He couldn’t let anyone else get involved. He’d face those creatures head on so no one else would get hurt.

‘You’re acting like a reckless fool right now-’ Leo quickly turned, expecting to see Zed but saw no one. ‘I don’t wanna see you get yourself killed.’

Wait… was this a memory? He sort of remembered standing in the middle of a street, his back turned to two people, Zed and… that woman who disappeared while saving him? Why was the name Chain coming to mind?

’You’ve always seen yourself as just a normal kid, and you’re right, that’s exactly what you are.’

His eyes widened as emotions from that moment came flooding through him, making him stagger backwards a bit. Fear, guilt, loss, determination and warmth-

‘You’re normally caring, normally cheerful, and you’re normally nosy. You have a strong moral compass, concern for you friends, and honor. I know you don’t see this, but what’s normal to you, well it’s far from it. Everyone else would call it courageous and noble, it’s because of the person you are that you don’t think twice about your own safety when it comes to your friends, ‘cause that’s just normal to you.’

He couldn’t move, his feet were planted in place as his head hung low.

Huh… he really did mean a lot to the people at Libra, they weren’t just saving him because he was their coworker - he was their friend. Despite how much he didn’t want to get more people involved, they were all counting on him to stay alive and out of those creature’s clutches.

And he was determined not to fail them.

Considering he didn’t know where another Libra member was, he needed to find a place to hide. Those things kept appearing everywhere, if he laid low for a while maybe they’d search somewhere else, giving him enough time to track someone else down. With some rest he hoped the persistent fever would go down too.

He couldn’t be reckless, he had to play it safe.

Starting forward again, his eyes caught sight of a very familiar scene, one that made him stop walking again and lightly hold his hazy head.

Faint laughter and chatter echoed through multiple memories as he stared at a place called Dianne’s Diner. His heart felt so warm, feeling nothing but happiness radiating from it.

This place was very important to him, which meant he needed to get as far away as possible from it. He didn’t dare put innocent people at risk even if there was a chance someone from Libra would search there.

Spinning on his heels, he headed in the other direction, feeling as if his body was on autopilot.

He needed to find a safe place, a place out of sight and out of mind… even without his memories, he seemed to know where that said place was.

After a few blocks he blinked, seeing a colorful butterfly fluttering past him, and he didn't even think twice as he followed.

Somewhere safe, somewhere away from innocent people...

----

Two hours had passed since the last time anyone saw Leo, putting everyone on edge. Not knowing if those things got to him or not was absolutely maddening as they weren't sure if searching the streets was a waste of time or not.

“The kid’s sick and scared, he’s not going to stay in one place for too long,” the young blonde heard Zapp point out on the secure phone line as he nervously tapped a finger against the desk he was leaning against.

“He’ll probably try hiding out in a place that feels familiar,” Zed added, his exhaustion evident. They found him unconscious inside a dumpster, thankfully still alive, just injured. “He tried clinging to me instead of waiting in the store since I was the only thing that comforted him.”

No one said anything for a moment, the anger far too overwhelming as they imagined their best friend clinging to anything that sparked even the faintest memory, no matter how little it was.

It made the blonde grit his teeth and clench his fists angrily, feeling useless. He should be out there helping the others search for him, but he was ordered to stay put.

“I already checked Dianne’s Diner; Vivian said she hasn't seen him all day but would call if he showed up.”

He’d never get a call though, the blonde was certain of that as locks of hair fell in his face, smudging his glasses and hiding his bright blue eyes. Leo would never put others in danger like that even if it saved his life. Black was more than sure he was hiding somewhere secluded and away from others. He was too kind hearted for his own good.

“He hasn’t shown up here either,” he mumbled bitterly, clenching his fists as he glanced back up at the live feed cameras that were facing each of Libra’s secret entrances, not seeing anything. Part of him wondered why he was even listening to their orders in the first place; they needed all the help they could get to track him down before those things found him after all. He wasn’t the same weak kid the King of Despair possessed. Yet the other part of him knew why he had to stay. He wasn’t the only one invited to the surprise birthday party, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to the other guests.

“William,” Klaus called, pulling the blonde back into their conversation. “Do you have any ideas as to where he might’ve gone?”

He was honestly surprised Klaus was asking him, after all Zapp spent more time with Leo than him considering he no longer lived in Hellsalem’s Lot. Then again, it was probably because Zapp spent the most time with him that he was asking. The idiot might care about Leo, but he was still a jackass. The brunette needed a sanctuary not even Zapp knew about to unwind.

“Not really,” Black hated to admit as he crossed his arms, feeling useless. “Aside from the hospital and theater in the park, we just went to Vivian’s. I doubt he’d be at any of those places though.”

“At this rate we’ll try anything,” Klaus said with a heavy sigh. “Thanks to Chain’s rescue attempt, we know he’s at least in familiar territory now.”

That wasn’t good enough though. “Let me help-” Black quickly blurted out, slamming his hands against the table. “We’re running out of time and we have no idea what state Leo’s in right now-”

“No,” Steven interrupted, making Black grit his teeth angrily. “You need to stay with Michella in case anyone’s found out she’s here. We may have our security system, but it’s useless when the enemy’s invisible.” Black clenched his shaking fists as he glanced over at Michella, who sat next to him looking just as pissed off as her starry night eyes shimmered with determination.

They awkwardly met for the first time this morning as they all prepared for Leo’s surprise birthday party - the mission Leo never showed up for. Klaus mentioned she was coming, but nothing could prepare him for meeting her. She reminded him so much of his own sister it was hard to believe they hadn’t been friends. It should’ve been painful for him, especially since this was only the second time he’s come back to visit Hellsalem’s Lot after the second Great Collapse where he lost his twin sister.

But it wasn’t. Just like Leo, she had this way of making him feel oddly safe and comfortable, not to mention laugh. Her dark sense of humor even reminded him of his sister’s, giving him a sense of peace he didn’t know he was missing until now.

“I’ll let you know if I think of anything else,” Black bitterly replied, realizing Steven was waiting for his response before putting their microphone on mute. After what happened a year ago, he didn’t dare do anything that even remotely put Michella in danger. It pissed him off that Steven kept pressing those sensitive buttons just to prevent him from leaving. He knew those creatures wouldn't even think twice before using Michella as a hostage against Leo if they found out she was in Hellsalem’s Lot, but that’s what the defensive system was for! Besides, while there was a very small possibility of that happening, there was a dangerously high probability that Leo was being dragged into the depths of the Alterworld never to be seen again. He had to help find him before it was too late!

A gentle hand cuffed his own, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Don’t worry, my brother doesn’t give up easily,” she reassured, making the psi user look down at her. She was smiling as a flicker of hope remained ignited in those starry night sky eyes. She was blind and paralyzed from the waist down, yet she still had that hopeful glint in her eyes.

He didn’t know how she did it.

“I know,” Will sighed as he looked back at the microphone, gently squeezing her hand back for comfort. She reminded him so much of Mary. “That’s exactly why I’m worried.”

“Me too,” she admitted as her smile fell a little, gripping Will’s hand back just as tightly. “I still have nightmares from the last time I was here, but no matter how bad it gets, my brother won’t give up, and neither will his friends.”

Black frowned as he looked away, his grip loosening. He knew the others could save Leo, but something wasn’t sitting right with him. What everyone was describing made him think this mess was caused by someone powerful, someone who couldn't be found in Hellsalem’s Lot.

“They always do,” he agreed, unable to deny that. “But something just doesn't… feel right.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, tilting her head to the side worriedly.

Black bit his bottom lip, not really sure how to answer that without getting too deep into his past. “It’s… complicated.”

“Black,” her tone made him stiffen as she literally did a one eighty. Before her voice was soft and warming, now it was insistent and stern. Just like Mary, she was stubborn. It was useless trying to hide anything from her.

“This whole scenario feels familiar,” he said, trying desperately to form his jumbled thoughts into words. “Like it’s happened before, but back when I was possessed by the King of Despair so I don’t really know any details. I just know it happened.”

It was honestly very frustrating. The time spent being possessed by the King of Despair was complicated, and overall hazy. There were times where he had been somewhat lucid, seeing, hearing and feeling what was happening around him, and sometimes he’d just be asleep. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for it, it just happened. Of course, even when he was aware of what was going on, the King of Despair was one of the Thirteen Kings, being far too powerful to overwhelm and force aside; not without him being severely weakened.

“The only thing I know for certain is that the Alterworld is directly involved somehow.”

Michella’s eyes widened in fear yet again, making him regret saying anything at all. But instead of freaking out, she merely took a deep breath and remained calm. “He’ll be okay,” she said, her voice full of hope. “Do you know why I call him my tortoise knight?”

Black blinked a few times before shaking his head. “Leo’s mentioned it, but says he doesn't even know why you call him that.”

Michella couldn’t help but chuckle quietly at that. “Did you know tortoises can’t move backwards?”

“No, can’t say I did,” Black admitted, trying to piece it together before she could finish.

“My brother is just like them. Even if his knees lock up and he can’t move, even if he’s frozen in place with doubt, he never runs away. He just hunkers down and endures it until he can take a step forward.” She said, recalling what she told Klaus not too long ago.

His bright blue eyes slowly widen, the teasing term now holding meaning. She was right, he was exactly like a tortoise, sometimes in more ways than the ones she described.

It gave him an idea.

“I think I know where he went,” Black beamed excitedly as he looked around, making sure they were the only ones in the room.

“You do?!” Michella gasped in relief, looking at him with growing hope as he went to the table that held the equipment Gilbert was handing out earlier.

“Yeah, I think he was led there.” Picking up a bluetooth earpiece, he quickly synced his phone to it before placing it in his ear. Seeing her worried gaze, he walked back over to her and gently ruffled her hair. “He’s fine, don’t worry. It’s sort of a sacred place for us. If he’s there, there’s a slight chance he’ll even vaguely remember me.”

“And maybe it’ll slowly make him remember everything else,” Michella’s hope glistened as she looked up at him almost desperately. “I won’t tell the others, just be safe, and bring him back okay? I’ll have Toby watch the cameras and open the elevator for you.”

Determination flashed in Black’s eyes as he nodded. “Thank you, I will.”

----

Leo’s body trembled and shook even worse than before as he threw up for fifth time in a row, making him huddle against the corner of the half demolished church. Despite not having anything left in his stomach to let loose, there was a mass that would start to move as he heaved, only to settle back down towards his stomach. It made him choke and sputter, which in turn made him try to heave again with no success.

The hospital was right there, he could get help, but there were so many people there, so many helpless people that he didn’t dare so much as glance in its direction fearing those things would come tearing through it.

He wondered how the others were doing… he hoped they were still alive. He knew what the others saw in him, but it was getting harder to see why they’d still go through all this trouble just to save him when he was already giving up on himself.

‘Getting your ass handed to you, and giving up, they’re completely different things,’ he vaguely heard himself say in a memory, making him close his eyes. Since when did he get so wise? Giving up seemed like a pretty good option right now even if it was cowardly. Dying from dehydration and starvation seemed like the better alternative to being drowned by those creatures.

Yet… giving up didn’t feel right. It made him wrinkle his nose in distaste. Despite not remembering everything, he knew there were so many people that counted on him besides his sister. For example, he was literally the only one that could see those creatures that were hunting him down. If he died, how would the others from Libra deal with them? They couldn’t even keep him safe and it wasn’t due to the lack of trying. He wasn’t even sure if they were even still alive. The mere thought made him clench his teeth and fists in anger.

He didn’t even remember them, but they still threw their lives away trying to help him. If he gave up now, all their efforts would be in vain.

And that was unacceptable. Even if he couldn’t do much against those things and would probably end up dying anyway, he still had to try. Trying was better than just giving up and letting death take him without a fight even if it was reckless.

‘Stay here until you die, or you go free until you die. Either way you’re gonna die sooner or later.’ Despite the way that voice sent waves of uneasiness into him, he couldn’t help but agree. Whoever said that was right. If he was going to die, he would go out fighting the bastards that did this to him. It was better than giving up.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, he moved to stand only to stop midway. Breathing literally became impossible as he felt something wrap around his lungs, making him let out a strangled cry that morphed into desperate coughs and sputters as he tried dislodging whatever had a tight grip around his lungs. Tears of pure fear fell down his cheeks as he watched his sight slowly go in and out.

What the hell was happening to him? Was something really inside him?!

The grip around his organ slowly started to loosen just as he nearly lost consciousness. He couldn’t help the whimper that left him as he curled up on the ground, unaware that he fell over during the attack. Ever since the creature tried drowning him with it’s goo, his symptoms felt like they got ten times worse to the point where he swore there was a living thing crawling inside him. The mere thought terrified him, but he tried not to focus on it. He had enough to worry about on the outside world as it was, like the colorful butterfly that landed on a rock next to him, seeming to try to comfort him.

Butterfly… was it strange that he felt like he knew it somehow?

“Leo?” A soft voice whispered, making his eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. Did that voice… come from the butterfly? “Leo-” No, that wasn’t the butterfly. Reality came rushing back at him as he glanced up, seeing a boy around his age with short blonde hair that slightly covered his face and bright blue eyes that were hidden behind perfectly round silver frames. His choice of clothing made him blink in shock realizing he literally picked out the same outfit at the store just in different colors.

Now that he thought about it, did he subconsciously pick those clothes out to match this guys? The flannel he picked out was also white as the base color, but while the blond’s stripes were black and gray, the one he picked out had been orange and brown. He even picked out jeans despite never really owning a pair, and the hoodie looked the same except while his was black the one he picked out was white.

White… Black…

A sharp pain shot through his head, making him gasp and clench it. Yes, he knew this person, it was someone who meant a lot to him. If he understood his emotions correctly, they literally went through hell and back, losing someone dear to both of them.

Slowly opening his eyes, he saw the male kneeled down in front of him now, calling his name softly. “Leo, Leo can you hear me?”

“Y-yeah,” he hoarsely managed out, coughing a few times to clear the acid from his throat. “You… I know you?” He asked, his voice so rough it sounded like he was a long time smoker.

The other looked shocked before nodding despite the frown that made its way to his face. “Yeah, we’re really close friends, you even saved my life,” he smiled warmly. “I guess my soul is more accurate.”

Soul… why did this sound so familiar?

“I… what’s the code word?” He tried, watching as the other’s face contorted in confusion for a moment. Asking was instinctive at this point, like carrying around a security blanket. Somehow he knew he didn’t have to ask, but not asking made his anxiety worse.

“Oh, I’m not part of Libra, though I know the code because I’ve been working with them to find you.” Leo tensed slightly. He wasn’t part of Libra? They’ve been the only people he’s been able to trust so far, then again they’ve been the only people he’s trusted so far. Zed told him not to talk to anyone else, but.. what about this guy? He even felt the need to protect him, though he had no clue why. Surely he could trust him… right?

The colorful butterfly fluttered up, gracefully landing on the newcomer’s shoulder. He waited for the other to notice, but it seemed like he was the only one that could see it.

If it trusted this person enough to land on him despite being frail, surely he wasn’t bad, right?

“Considering you’re not surprised, they told you about my memory,” Leo said, watching the frown return to the other’s face.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, a glare hiding his eyes behind his glasses. “I’ve been really worried about you. This City, no, this entire state is too dangerous to be in without knowing how to live in it. It doesn’t help that your eyes make you an even bigger target. You can say I’ve been terrified for you. The both of us have been.”

Leo tilted his head as much as he could on the ground, confused. “Both?” Was he referring to the butterfly?

“Yeah,” he said, the glare leaving his glasses, the warmth in his eyes coming back. “Do you know what today is?”

Leo couldn’t help but glare at him. “Didn’t we just go over this-”

“No, because you have a tendency to forget this day even with your memory intact,” the other said, his voice rather harsh. “At any rate, we should get going, I’d rather not give those things anymore more time to find us. Do you need help getting up?”

Leo groaned, realizing he had to move and really didn’t want to. This was his best shot of getting out of here alive and to safety, he had to take it.

Taking a deep breath, he moved, trembling as he pushed himself to sit up. His hoodie was completely caked with throw up, making the other cringe.

“Wait-” he said, making Leo watch in confusion as the other clumsily took his black sweater off. “They might smell you if we don’t ditch yours.”

The brunette would’ve been insulted if he wasn’t right. Besides the other probably didn’t want to smell him all the way back to the hideout.

“So,” he said as he struggled taking his own off, trying his best in his sickly daze not to rub the throwup in his face and hair. “What’s your name?”

“William Macbeth,” the other responded as Leo tossed his sweater aside, watching as the other’s face heated up in a blush before turning away. That’s when Leo felt his own face flush, feeling the nice cool breeze against his hot skin. He wasn’t wearing a shirt under his hoodie like he normally did. Then again, he didn’t remember he wasn’t the one that dressed himself this morning.

“B-but I uh, I go by Black.”

“Black huh? That’s definitely different than William,” he commented as he took the black hoodie and slid it on. It was surprisingly a nice fit. Unlike his own that literally hung off his body, this sweater clung to him and showed off how skinny he really was.

Black looked away, and if Leo didn’t know any better, it was to look at the butterfly that still rest against his shoulder despite the clothes change. “Yeah, there’s a story behind it, but hopefully I won’t have to remind you.”

“I hope so too,” Leo admitted as he slowly went to stand, only to gasp as his lungs were squeezed again.

Black instantly came forward and caught Leo just as his knees gave out, fear coursing through him as he wasn’t sure how to help as his friend wheezed, choked and sputtered. “What’s wrong!?” Black desperately asked, knowing the other couldn’t provide an answer. If he knew what was going on he might be able to help-! It sounded like he was choking, but there was nothing Leo could have choked on! With his chest pressed against Leo’s, he noticed the other wasn’t taking deep breaths, or maybe he couldn’t. In fact he basically wasn’t breathing at all.

Desperate Black started patting Leo’s back as they both slid back to the floor, Leo’s body completely slumped against his own as he beat even harder against him. He wasn’t even sure if it was helping but he had to try something! “I’m sorry-” his whispered into Leo’s soft hair, feeling tears of fear slip past his cheeks. He couldn't lose Leo too, he refused to lose him- he’d do whatever it took to keep him alive!

The brunette suddenly took a desperate gulp of air, Will finally feeling him take a decent deep breath. “Y-yes that’s it - that’s it-” He choked on his tears, holding Leo tightly against himself, afraid he’d disappear if he loosened his grip.

He let Leo take all the time he needed to catch his breath, listening and feeling his chest slowly find its natural rhythm again as his forehead burned through his shirt as his head nestled into the crook of Black’s neck. The heat only made him worry even more.

“B… Bla...ck,” he heard Leo almost whimper after a few moments, making the blonde clench the hoodie he let him borrow.

“I’m here,” he said, trying to sound composed.

“Happened… again…” he whimpered, trying so hard to stay conscious.

Black bite his bottom lip, trying his best to remain the strong one right now. “What happened again?”

The terrifying silence made Will want to cry, assuming Leo passed out on him. He thought he could handle this, he thought he could save him, but he was wrong. He couldn't save anyone.

“In...side-” Leo’s frail voice pulled him back to reality, making his eyebrows knit in confusion. “Something inside… every time I try to get up-” he coughed a bit weakly, almost wheezing. “Squeezes, my lungs.”

Black’s eyes went wide, looking down at Leo’s hair urgently. His lungs - something was wrong with his lungs? Did he sustain an internal injury while on the run or was this damage the drugs caused? Or was there something else going on?

The reason didn’t matter right now, he needed to get Leo back to Libra’s headquarters and to Dr Estevez.

Taking out his phone, he quickly dialed Klaus’s number, the call connecting to the bluetooth earpiece. They exchanged information before he left the state just in case the King of Despair tried rearing his evil head.

No answer, which was out of character for the Leader of Libra. He was probably fighting those things or that Blood Breed from earlier.

“We have a doctor back at headquarters waiting for you,” Black reassured as he tried to think of the best way to do this. Leo could easily pick him up, but he wasn’t as strong as him. At least physically.

Taking a deep breath, he focused. Leo started floating in midair, allowing Black to reposition himself, letting his powers gently rest his friend against his back. His hands quickly looped around his legs as Leo’s head nuzzled into the crook of his neck again, that abnormally hot forehead sending shivers down his spine.

“Before you freak out, I have psychic powers, and yes, you knew this before you lost your memory,” he said, not wanting the other to waste his energy asking questions. “Sit tight, and if you can, help me keep an eye out for those creatures okay?” His light blue eyes lit up a little with power as he willed the hood to cover Leo’s head. It wouldn’t do much, but at least it made it harder for those things to recognize him.

He took to the streets, but avoided the major ones. The one good thing about being possessed by the King of Despair was learning how to get around without being seen, something Leo was horrible at doing.

A few shady people glanced over at them, but knew better than to get in his way. They tried having their way with the King of Despair and quickly learned to appreciate the fact they could still breath. Most turned away as soon as they recognized him while others fled in the other direction. Their fear used to make Black feel guilty and disgusting. For once he was grateful for it.

Leo’s breathing started getting worse a few blocks away from the hideout, making Black push himself to walk even faster. He realized he didn’t even know how to get into the hideout. When they were coming in Gilbert somehow made a handprint scanner appear which then opened the door to the elevator. The only problem was Black didn’t know how to even get the scanner out in the first place.

‘I hope you’re watching out for us Michella,’ he tightened his hold around Leo’s legs, making the other groan softly into his neck. Black blushed deeply before a loud metal crashing sound made him freeze. He didn’t have to look, he threw up a barrier to his right, instantly hearing something splatter against it.

They finally found them.

Okay, he couldn't mess this up. He got tired really easily while using his powers, so he had to make each time count. “Leo, are you awake?” He asked as he ran, though it wasn’t much faster than his speed walk.

The other groaned against him, but nodded. “If you can, please be my eyes. We’re literally just three blocks away from safety and unlike your friends I’m not well versed in self defense.”

Three blocks away…? Were they really that close? He tried moving his head, finding his eyes could open slightly. All he could really see was Black’s shirt though. Maybe… he could try something else.

Black nearly skid to a stop as he felt something wrap around his eyes, his sight becoming blue and purple hues. He quickly recovered and kept running, looking left and right, seeing one of those creatures hopping from roof to roof, getting ready to dive down. He saw a flicker of movement further up, seeing another one of those creature’s skeletal faces as it crawled out of a large trash can, blocking their path out of the alley.

That face -

their bodies-

The one above them didn’t even get close to the edge of the next building before it literally splattered in midair, Black’s eyes flickering with powerful light in his pupils as his features resemble a face the King of Despair would make when he was thoroughly pissed off. The other one burst as well before it could even attempt to pounce, painting the walls black.

These creatures - they looked sickeningly familiar to something he saw during one of the many trips the King of Despair’s took to the Alterworld. The only reason he remembered them was because even Despair thought they were disgusting tools and threatened to blow them all up. The pain and choking sensation Leo was describing made sense now even if he wished it didn’t.

This whole situation was far worse than they could've ever anticipated. He honestly wasn’t sure how they were going to help Leo, which only made him more determined not to give up.

First things first, he needed to get him back to the hideout, even if it used up all his energy.

Closing his eyes he stopped walking, concentrating on the hidden door in the alley way that took them to Libra’s headquarters. Normally it took awhile for him to concentrate, but with Leo’s borrowed vision, he saw it almost instantly. ‘Please be watching,’ he begged as he let his energy flow, stumbling and bumping into the new hidden cramped alley wall as they teleported. His arms felt like jello as the hold he had around Leo’s legs started to falter, much to his annoyance. Glancing around, he let out a sigh of relief seeing the red door.

“Michella-” Black called out, unable to help it as he dropped to one knee. Only pure determination stopped him from letting Leo go and falling on his face. “Please-”

She was way ahead of him. The door opened to the elevator, Dr Estevez and Anila running out to greet them. Black smiled up at them the best he could as Dr Estevez threw one of Leo’s arms over her shoulder and dragged him to the elevator.

“Can you stand?” Anila asked, her dark brown curly hair bouncing against her dark cheeks.

“I might need your help,” he admitted, feeling her drape one of his arms around her in a similar fashion as they limped to the elevator. Black watched with bated breath and Leo’s eyes until the elevator closed, letting out a sigh of relief.

He did it; he finally got Leo to safety.

“Press it now Toby,” Anila ordered, the alarm blaring right after.

“Security alert, Defcon Level 1 now activated. Please do not leave the building and stay away from the windows.” The security system confirmed as Anila pulled out her cellphone.

“This is Anila, Leonardo Watch has been recovered and Defcon Level 1 is now activated.”

“What?!” Black heard Steven on the other line. “Did he wander over there himself?!”

“Let me talk to him, it’s important,” Black said, the women looking down at him, unsure.

“William found him, he wants to speak to you.” She handed the phone over as the elevator reached their floor. Dr Estevez immediately ran out and headed to the room she was given to work on him - the conference room - much to Black’s protests.

“She needs to hear this too,” he grumbled as Anila helped him down the hall.

“I’m listening!” The doctor called back, much to his surprise. He didn’t expect her to hear him. “Those creatures, I’ve seen them before when the King of Despair was possessing me,” he started, everyone becoming silent and grave. They already knew this wasn’t good news. “They’re creations from a Collector in the Alterworld who sells his pieces on the black market. If I’m remembering correctly, he’s the one in charge of the auction he sells his ‘pieces’ at.”

“Do you know his name?” Klaus asked, not wasting a moment. Everyone knew how dangerous collectors from the Alterworld could be, especially if they worked with the black market. “Unfortunately no, but he’s very popular with powerful people like the 13 Kings, hence why the King of Despair was involved with him,” Black informed, staring at Leo’s panting body as Dr Estevez started her work. “Those creatures are his hunters. They stalk the Collector’s prey until they find a chance to essentially mummify the victim by filling them up with that black goo, literally preserving their life and force them into becoming comatose dolls.” Anila and Dr Estevez’s faces went pale as they recalled the story from Chain and K.K. about the creature trying to ‘drown’ Leo. “The Collector then either keeps them or sells them, allowing the new owner decide if they want them to stay comatose or turn them back to normal.”

“That would explain the fevers-” Dr Estevez said as she felt Leo’s forehead again, clicking her tongue when he was still dangerously warm. “His body is trying to fight off the intruder, but it doesn’t know how to so it’s been trying to get him to eject it.” She stopped as she saw Leo open one of his eyes, the godly glow dim.

“Something’s in.. my chest,” Leo breathed out, trying his best to wrap his mind around the disturbing and disgusting revelation. “My lungs…”

“I think it was trying to stop you from running away by essentially petrifying your lungs,” Black said as he came up to his side, knowing the other wouldn’t remember Dr Estevez and didn’t want him to freak out. “But it can’t affect just one of your organs or you’ll die, so it did it just long enough to keep you incapacitated. Their deadline must be coming up if they’re getting this desperate.”

“But how does that explain his amnesia?” Dr Estevez asked, mostly to herself. “Unless we assume it first targeted the brain. Maybe it tried attacking Leo last night, but he was able to fight off.” She turned to Black, seeing if he could approve the theory or not with what he knew.

“That would make sense,” Black admitted. “Those creatures can’t even be seen by other Beyondians due to a massive cloaking spell the Collector created. So when they found out Leo could see them and fight back by controlling their vision-”

“They found a way to make it harder for him to fight back.”

“Anila,” Black heard Steven call, making him quickly put the phone on speaker so she could hear. “Call the forensics team, see if they can find any trace of that thing in the bile samples. If they can prove there’s traces in his system before Zapp got there, that’ll help us piece some of this together and maybe find a way to treat Leo.”

“On it,” she said as she took the phone back and made to leave. “Is there anything else you want to add?”

“Not right now,” Black said as he collapsed in one of the conference room chairs, no longer having anyone to support him. “I have Klaus’s number, I’ll call if I remember anything else.”

“Thank you,” Klaus’s voice came from the phone this time. “Sorry I missed your call, I was taking care of the Blood Breed.”

“It’s fine,” Black reassured as the Libra agent left, his eyes going back to Leo who went quiet and stiff. He was obviously uncomfortable. “Leo this is Dr Estevez. She can clone herself in order to be in more places than one, so don’t freak out if you see double of her.”

“Thanks,” Leo weakly responded, making Black frown. He sounded so frail and fragile like that.

“Go ahead and rest, you’ve earned it,” Dr Estevez reassured the brunette, both watching him fall asleep almost instantly. “You too William,” she said, side glancing over at him. “We’ll need you in case those things somehow find a way in here.”

He wanted to protest, but he couldn't disagree with that logic. “Yeah, sounds like a good idea.”

----

To the Alterworld they went. There were no records of someone like the man William described, but that meant this guy must’ve avoided Libra’s radar until now. There was only one person Klaus trusted to get reliable information about someone dangerous like this: Don Arlelelle Eruca Fulgrouche.

Zapp tapped a finger against the cast his arm was in impatiently, his eyebrows twitching in irritation. The chief had been in the room for only thirty minutes and he was already losing his goddamn mind. “Why can’t we just beat the information out of the shitbag?” He grumbled under his breath, not really caring if the guards heard him or not. K.K. elbowed him hard in the side, making the other whimper.

“Because he’s one of the most powerful and influential mob bosses in the Alterworld. You don’t want to get on his bad side.”

“Tch, he’s about to get on mine. Why didn’t I volunteer to go with Steven?! It would’ve been less boring than waiting for the stupid door to open!”

----

Steven and Chain walked around the Underworld markets, the fog so thick they had to stay really close to each other so they wouldn't get lost or separated. They got a small lead that a few punks were selling something that could lead anyone to the All Seeing Eyes of the Gods. Typically they ignored these kinds of rumors considering they were always scams, but they couldn’t take a chance right now.

“What do you think? This seems like the general area the flier described right?” Steven asked the Invisible Werewolf who nodded, her eyes staying peeled despite the small blush that stained her cheeks. She didn’t realize how close she’d have to be by Steven during this mission.

“Yes,” she confirmed, her eyes narrowing on an alleyway where no stalls seemed to linger.

Why was it always alleys with them? “Look over there, it’s the blue star from the flier,” she pointed at the graffiti on the wall, slowly advancing forward. The second in command nodded, hardly able to see it himself, but trusted her with his life.

“I honestly don’t know how these people can live down here,” the ice user admitted, seeing the fog not bothering them at all.

“They’ve learned to cope with it as their reality,” Chain said, signalling him to stop. “Let me go first.” Slowly her body phased into the building before the alley like a ghost. No one screamed, so it must’ve been vacant.

“There’s only two and they’re unarmed, but they have a sonic speed monkey. It could be Sonic,” her eyes sterned in anger, watching as Steven’s followed suit.

These guys were obviously involved somehow.

“Cover the back exit, I’ll do the talking.”

Both the suspects seemed to be part of the same species, though Steven honestly wasn’t sure what they were. They resembled medium sized goblins, though while one of them was red, the other was blue. Just like all the other creatures from the Beyond, they were wearing clothes which were really baggy on them. They didn’t look like much, but he knew better than to assume anything.

“Hey you two, heard you had something interesting for sale,” Steven said as he walked up to their janky makeshift table that looked like it’d fall apart at any moment, his hands casually stuffed in his pockets. Immediately the sonic speed monkey they had in a cage jumped up against the bars and dramatically cried, a hand stretched out towards him as if begging Steven to get him the hell out of there.

Yep, that was definitely Sonic.

The two immediately straightened up. “Our first customer-” one of them whispered happily as the other elbowed him.

“Yes we do Sir. We have something that’ll help you obtain the powers of the gods themselves!” The other one pointed to the monkey in the cage, to which Sonic glowered back at them. They obviously haven’t been treating him well; he looked ready to bite of their noses.

“A monkey?” Steven asked with a raised eyebrow, making sure his voice was filled with doubt, watching the two punks eat it up.

“But this isn’t just any ordinary sonic speed monkey, it belongs to the owner of the All Seeing Eyes of the Gods! Not only can it lead you to him, but you can also use him as a hostage!”

So that was their game. They obviously couldn’t kidnap Leo so instead they were selling a way for others to get a hold of him. He wondered if this is how the Collector learned about him in the first place.

“That is a very tempting offer,” he admitted, his face turning sour as he dropped the charade. “But how do you think the sons of bitches that purchase the monkey should handle the other Libra members when they come knocking?” Both of the men froze, their eyes widening in terror. They weren’t stupid, they managed to kidnap Sonic after all.

“Th-they should beg Libra to show mercy a-and offer to do anything to let them live!” The blue one cried, doing nothing as Steven reached forward and pulled the rusty cage open with minimal effort. Sonic wailed as he crawled up Steven’s shoulder and hissed at his two kidnappers, probably cursing at them in his own language.

“So tell me, how did you two idiots manage to kidnap him anyway?” He asked, his voice softer again, but still held that icy malice that made them shiver. “And know if you try to scream or escape, you’ll feel my icy needles crawling through every inch of your body.”

Both of them gulped, the blue one peeing his pants. “W-we saw him w-walking home-”

“The monkey?”

“The kid!” The red one shouted out of nervousness.

“Y-yeah, the kid, we saw him walking home a-and followed him. We really need the money, so we… came up with a plan.”

“What money?” Steven interrupted, making them jump at his sternness.

“The bounty money!” They stammered. “Th-that’s why you’re here too, right?”

A bounty was pretty typical for all the members of Libra. Most of them were literally worth millions of dollars dead or alive. So what was so special about Leo’s bounty that got him into this mess? He’d grill into that later. “Go on, what did you idiots do next?”

“His white haired friend kept getting in our way and scared us, so we came up with a plan-”

“A really elaborate one,” the red one continued, seemingly proud.

“We noticed the air conditioning broke, so we kept turning the heater on-”

“Which forced the tenants to leave their doors and windows open to get any relief.”

“It was seriously hot in there, they were better off outside-”

“But the brat wouldn’t leave his fucking door open!” The two kept alternating, almost making it hard to follow along.

“So we followed him to the store, and bought Pepsi labels to put on our sodas.”

“And tricked him into thinking there was a package for him downstairs so he’d leave the door unlocked-”

“And switched his soda with ours.”

Steven’s eyes narrowed. “You switched his soda out with ones that were drugged.” Both of them looked up at him, the red one wetting himself this time as he could almost feel that icy glare piercing his nerves.

“Y-yes… b-but we didn’t want to hurt the brat, we just needed him unconscious long enough to transport him,” the blue one stammered.

“But he wouldn’t drink the fucking soda!” The red one angrily said despite the fear. “He kept opening them and putting them off to the side until he opened half the pack, then he finally drank half of one. But that’s not nearly enough in his system to do the job!”

“So we had to improvise. Luckily we still had some left over Hellfire from our last job.”

Hellfire- it was a drug for Beyondians that was nearly too strong even for their own kind. Not only did it make them higher than a kite after one inhalation, it also had a horrible side effect that paralyzed most of the drug abusers who used more than the recommended amount, the paralysis sometimes becoming permanent. Those who didn’t suffer permanent paralysis often became violently ill and died of severe dehydration because they couldn’t become coherent enough to take care of themselves.

“The tenant right above his room moved out because of the heat, allowing us to slip in and use a rope to drop down to the brat’s open window when he fell asleep-”

“Where we released the drug into the room. But that’s when this stupid shit head got in the way!” The red one angrily pointed to the monkey who hissed at him again.

“It saw us and alerted the brat, but the drug made it hard for him to even sit up without falling over, so that thing jumped us and attacked-!” Both their faces caved to fear after that, shaking.

Steven rose an eyebrow, not understanding their sudden fear. “Sonic scared you that bad?”

“N-no-” the blue one whimpered as the red struggled to speak.

“That’s when… that’s when it showed up.”

“It?” Steven pressed, though had a sinking feeling he knew what it was.

“We couldn't see it… but the kid screamed and fought against something, even using those eyes of his. Then this weird black stuff came out of nowhere and dripped into his mouth. That’s when our rope broke.” The blue one shivered. “We don’t know how we survived the fall, but we did.”

“But we were empty handed.”

“We were tempted to go back in there and collect him, but we didn’t know if that thing was still in there, and if it was, we wanted nothing to do with it. So we settled with taking the drugged monkey instead.”

The pieces were coming together, proving their latest theories correct. Leo must’ve been able to fight the thing off and tried to text Klaus for help. The poor kid couldn’t even finish the text before the drugs and that black stuff took control. Part of him was glad Leo didn’t remember, that sounded like a nightmare.

“That bounty,” the ice user inquired, the floor beneath him now a slate of ice from his anger. “Do you have a copy of that poster?”

“Y-yes-!” The red one quickly fidgeted with his clothes, pulling out the half ripped and dirty rolled up piece of paper. Steven took it and unrolled it, clenching the paper angrily.

In big letters read ‘Leonardo Watch, Member of Libra, Holder of the All Seeing Eyes of the Gods. Reward: Crimson Elixir and $10,000,000.’ The fact someone was literally offering both money and Elixir meant they were trying to get as many people as possible to go after Leo so they didn’t have to. If the Creator was commissioned to retrieve him, it had to be by someone very powerful, dangerous, and influential. Someone who didn’t feel the need to leave the safety of their base of operations.

‘Crimson Elixir,’ he mumbled to himself, his eyes narrowing. Rumors say it can heal any wounds and illnesses, even allow you to regenerate lost body parts and grant someone eternal life. At least, those were the rumors that were going around Hellsalem’s Lot after the First Collapse. With that offer he was surprised Leo wasn’t attacked earlier and by more people. Then again, most people probably that it was a hoax.

“Thank you for cooperating. For that, you get to live.” The two creatures eyes widened before their eyes rolled up into the back of their heads, Chain easily knocking them both out. “Tell Gilbert to personally pick these bastards up. They’ll get what’s coming to them,” he growled. “I’ll fill everyone else in.”

#phage writes #kekkai sensen #leonardo watch #blood blockade battlefront

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nerdwaifuu · 5 years ago

Text

Antique

Here’s a little something I wrote for a contest on Amino.

« Papa, papa! Can you tell us the story again? Puh-lease?~» A young girl begged before being sent from the couch to her bedroom for the night.

« Yeah dad, tell us about the music box, » The girl’s older, twin brothers said in unison.

« Alright alright. Hold your horses kiddos. Let me get the darn thing. » The father got the old music box. It was an old, small, dark wooden box; a faded yin-yang symbol with dragons in each side was painted on the lid with gold and black paint. When the lid was lifted, an old lullaby began to play and some items could be seen inside; a folded up piece of paper, an engagement ring, a wedding ring, a silver dog tag with the name ‘Luna Hord’ on it. The kids have seen the items many times in old photos and have read the awkward love letters tightly folded with a picture of a young woman chatting with a younger version of their father by a railing of a ship; both wore green soldier uniforms and armor.

“Alright, let’s begin...”

After a long night of dancing and food, the newly wed couple immediately crashed into the back of their pickup truck to stare at the not-so-clear night sky in their pajamas. It looked like it was going to rain, but the couple didn’t care. As long as it wasn’t stormy, everything was fine.

“Sooo...” the man turned his head toward his wife, having his long, brown, nearly ginger hair get in his face. “How does it feel to be Mrs. Bounty now?”

With a happy sigh, his wife answered, “Great, as long as you don’t call me ‘Mrs. Bounty’ all the time. Just sounds weird coming from you, Ronin.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare, Lulu.” Luna groaned at the nickname. Ronin couldn’t help but smirk. “You know you love it.”

“You know I don’t... Roonon.”

He rolled his eyes and turned his head back towards the sky. “Oh no, a nickname. I’m quaking,” Ronin teased without chuckling, but he lost it when he felt a hard jab hit his arm. Immediately, he heard Luna start giggling uncontrollably. Between her giggles, he could hear her try to apologize. They continued their laughing fits until they heard a car pull up next to them. Ronin immediately stopped, but it took a bit for Luna to come to the end of her fit. Once done, Ronin’s two eyes traded looks of confusion with Luna. Why would anybody be out so late?

Sitting up, Ronin saw it was his mother’s car that sat with them in their driveway. When she came out of the car, Ronin asked, «Hey Mom, whatcha doin’ here? »

Before she could answer, rain drops landed on each of their heads, slowly dropping from the cloud more rapidly. Ronin’s mother cursed under her breath while motioning toward the house. Nodding, he turned to look at Luna, who was now sitting up as well. She was looking at the sky with a childish grin and wonder in her eyes, allowing the rain to land on her olive skin. She has seen rain before from the inside of her family’s humongous home, but her parents said it was immature and not « lady-like » to go out to play in the rain, so she never had the sensation of rain dripping down her cheeks and the joy of jumping into puddles or singing in the rain. She only got to experience being outside in the rain once she was a soldier, but she had a mission to focus on. This would be the first time she could stand in the rain happily. Maybe later they could come back out for a bit if the weather doesn’t get worse.

Before exiting the back of the truck, Ronin tossed the house keys to his mother so she no longer had to suffer in the rain and nudged Luna to indicate it was time to go inside. With slight disappointment, Luna nodded and waited for Ronin to get out first to help her carefully drop to the ground; however, when he went to help her, Luna soon found herself being carried bridal style.

« When I said I needed help, I didn’t mean like this. » Luna retorted.

« Figured you wanted to give your feet a break. »

« I am still able to walk. » Luna slightly shifted in Ronin’s arms, sighing. « Besides, I want to get some more steps in before I not able to move around as much... » She glanced down at her stomach. The small baby bump was not noticeable under her baggy hoodie that she definitely did not steal from Ronin.

« You still have a couple months. You can still do a bunch of walking between now and then, but again, your feet need a break after all that dancing. »

Luna shook her head. « Right. All that slow waltzing and ballroom... »

« In high heels... and for a couple hours straight, » Ronin reminded her as he carried her into the house.

« Uhuh. After years of walking in those pieces of shit and going to those god damn parties since I was a literal child, I basically grew a tolerance to those little devils. »

« Language! » The two heard Ronin’s mother call out from the kitchen. Both let out a small laugh before Ronin said, « Yeah, says the lovely angel who was complaining on the way home about her feet hurting. »

He smirked as Luna sighed in defeat. She knew he was right about that, but her feet were fine now; however, there was no need to continue quarreling about such a silly thing.

Once Luna was set carefully on the couch, Ronin’s mother struggled to slowly and carefully carry three wine glasses, two with a red wine and the third with water.

“Let me help.” Ronin went over to grab the water and one of the wine filled glasses, and he handed Luna the water glass as she mouthed the words ‘thank you’ before taking a sip.

“You really took your time to get in here. I have no clue how you enjoy standing out there in the rain,” Ronin’s mother sighed. “You get drenched and end up feeling cold and clamy and you could get sick, which isn’t a good thing for you dear. If Ronin wasn’t my son, I wouldn’t be persistent on keeping him from looking like a wet dog, but you dear can’t be getting sick,” she rambled on, clearly speaking only to Luna as if Ronin wasn’t there.

He threw in a quick ‘excuse me?’ before Luna reassured, “Don’t worry Mary. I’m not reckless like a certain someone.” She shot a quick smirk at Ronin, who rolled his eyes as the two women giggled.

“I feel attacked,” He mumbled.

“True. At least he’s not as reckless as someone else...” Mary trailed off and looked at the decreasing red liquid in her glass. Ronin knew exactly who she was thinking about.

“Anyway, speaking of this someone... I have a little something-something for y’all,” Mary exclaimed happily as she scrambled for her purse. From the purse, she grabbed out a small wrapped gift and handed it to Luna. She let out another ‘thank you’ as she ripped the paper off like a child on her birthday. Under the shiny red paper was a wooden box, with a yin-yang with dragons inside the symbols hand painted in fading gold and black on the lid. Ronin and Mary remained silent as Luna examined the box. She mouthed the word ‘wow’ as she felt the polished wood and looked at the design. Her eyes lit up as music danced into her ears when she opened the lid. She felt like a child on Christmas. The box was beautiful. The calming lullaby reminded her of the lullabies her nanny sang to her when she was younger.

Although Luna grew up in a world where everything was given to her on a golden platter and she has always been given gifts that were way out of anyone’s normal price range, she adored this box. This was the type of gifts she always wanted; something full of love instead of riches.

“I love it! Thank you so much Mary!” Luna exclaimed as she got up to hug Mary.

“Anytime my dear,” She said as Luna went back to sit down. “I would’ve given this to you at the ceremony, but I couldn’t find it since I had packed it away, hoping to never to see it again... but I had to keep the tradition up.”

“Tradition?” Luna asked curiously.

“My family has been passing this thing down for who knows how long. It’s the go-to wedding gift. My grandparents on my dad’s side gave it to Mom and him when they got married,” Ronin swiftly answered before Mary could get a word in.

“Well it’s beautiful, I don’t understand why you would pack this up...” Ronin and Mary traded looks of what could only be described as pain.

“Well... uh...” Mary bit her lip, looking for the words to say.

“When I mean dad, I don’t mean Tom...” Ronin uttered. Tom was his step father. He was sweetest man that could’ve walked the planet. The man they were speaking of was the complete opposite of Tom. Ronin’s biological father was lying, cheating, abusive piece of shit. He was a man that Ronin did not want to become in the slightest, but any chance of him following his father’s footsteps worried him for what was to come. Any mention of him sent a chill down Ronin’s spine despite him always thinking of his actions when he found out that he was going to be a father; however, his life would have to be a absolute mess to do what his father did; be a part of gangs, constantly stealing, crime, getting himself into deep debt, drinking, violence, and probably much more that Mary wouldn’t dare bring up to Tom or Ronin.

Ronin could remember when his father was killed when Ronin was only 11. Fortunately he was out of his life 3 years earlier. When that happened, Ronin remembered that the music box disappeared from the shelf, but he never asked what happened to it. Now, it sat in Luna’s hands.

She stared down at the box with regret in her eyes. “I-I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ronin reassured her, wrapping his arm around her. “It’s a thing of the past. That man shouldn’t be associated with this anymore.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead, making her smile. Mary couldn’t help but smile too.

“Yeah, that a- butthole is a thing of the past. He’s gone and should be forgotten. We bigger things ahead of us, like a honeymoon and my future grandchildren.”

The three chatted through the night. With the music from the music box and the rain outside, Luna dozed into a deep sleep in Ronin’s arms, which was a que for Mary to decide it was time to go.

With a congratulations and a goodnight, Mary dissappeared into the rainy night. Smiling, Ronin closed his eyes and fell asleep to the rain and the music.

“Alright, time for bed.”

The story was finished for tonight, only to be retold the next night. Ronin of course left out details related to his father since there was no need for his story to be passed down any further.

His children protested, but was soon convinced to go to their rooms and go to bed. After tucking them into bed, Ronin set went into the small living room and set the music box on the shelf where it belonged. It was one of the only antiques he had in his house since all the others were in his shop; he wouldn’t dare sell this to anyone, even if they did offer a billion dollars for it.

A sad look was in his uncovered eye as he looked longingly at the box. He wished that he still contact with his mother and not have her angry at him. He wished that he could undo everything he did. He wished that she was still here beside him to watch her children grow up.

“I miss you Lulu.”

#ninjago #ninjago fanfic #ninjago fanfiction #ninjago ronin

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fallen029 · 6 years ago

Note

Miraxus Vampire AU? Pretty please?

The house sat high atop a hill, as Gothic as it was decrepit, a wrought iron gate wrapping around the sprawling property. It served it’s purpose, separating the tiny town in the valley from it’s contents, but truly, it was a bit pointless. No one step foot on the property.

Not willingly, at least.

That’s the villagers informed them of, when they answered the request. For fifty years, they’d suffered in relative silence, so they claimed, but no more. The house had been rather quiet, for half a century, if not more, and honestly, they claimed, the storied history of the Strauss Manor began to feel just like that; a story. A fable. Something their parents had terrified them with because their own had done the same to them.

The fear that surrounding it had begun to die down until, the youngblood of the tiny village didn’t fear it at all. Not when they reached their teens. It became a bit of a game, really. To see who could sneak away from their homes in the middle of the night, make the short trek up the hill and to the property. First, who could touch the gate. Then who could open it. Would someone step a foot in? Next thing you now, a few of the local teens were breaking into the mansion.

“It was horrific. The scream.” That’s what one of the women in the village insisted to Laxus Dreyar as he stood there, as full of disbelief as he was excitement over this new interesting case. Thieves, bandits, highwaymen; boring shit. This? This was something new. Something he’d never heard of before. He tried not to show his interest too heavily, given the villagers seemed so freaked, but as that woman sobbed over her tale, it was hard not to just rush right out to begin the investigation. “The boys, they came running back, fast as they could. Three of them went. My son, the boy next door, and another, but he…he did not return.”

“Why,” Freed, one of Laxus’ three understudies began, “did no one go and look? Up at the mansion? Surely you do not believe-”

“Stagnancy,” another in the crowd, a man, insisted, “breeds complacency. We forgot the stories. We stopped believing. But… They are there. In their mansion. They were asleep, but now, their slumber is over.”

“Uh-huh,” Evergreen, the only female of the ground, hardly glanced up from filing her nails. She wasn’t nearly as excited about traveling all the way out there for what she was sure was just a tragic accident. Teens playing around in a rundown building. Nothing good ever comes from that sort of thing. They’d find his body in the basement or something, having fallen through a hole in the floor, and that would be that. “Stagnancy. Sure.”

“But,” Freed continued to insist because he always seemed so serious about everything, “if you had just gone to look-”

“Even to look,” the woman insisted to them, “is to be cursed. They will come down from their mansion, when it is time to feast, and they will…will… Please, you must help us. You must do something. These…monsters will-”

“They’re not monsters.” That came from Bickslow, the last of the bunch, who’s tongue wobbled out of his mouth in his excitement. It wasn’t able to be contained, not in him. No way. He’d only dreamed of something like this his entire life. From the time that they got the request, it was all he could do not to die right then and there because he would never be happier. Not an ounce. “They’re vampires.”

Freed didn’t believe in vampires. None of the other believed in them. They were just a silly little ragtag team of young adults who’d met a few years back, all through Laxus. He was running a little business in a small town, taking on odd jobs and requests from the villagers. Anything from repairing a sprinkler system to solving petty crime, Laxus was down with it.

He had to be. Any source of money was all he needed. He’d been kicked out, in his late teens, of the group home his grandfather ran for unwanted children. There was no hard feelings there. Not anymore. At one time, his grandfather thought that Laxus could assist him in running the joint, but… Laxus just had other plans.

Or at least he was forced to when he found himself out on the street with only the skills he’d picked up from the group home to keep him company. He knew all the ins and outs of fixing plumbing issues, laying drywall, all sorts of things about electricity and getting the shit shocked out of him. He could figure out who stole from Gray, one of the typical troublemakers at the home. It was usually just Natsu, the other troublemaker. He could resolve rifts between the whiny little shits like Lucy and Cana, stop bullies like Erza from forcing the other kids to do terrible things, like actually learn how to read.

He could have run the fuck out of that place. Got all those kids homes.

But…he and his grandfather just couldn’t get along.

And maybe he didn’t want to get them homes. Give them a home, even. Not when he was still all fucked up about his own parents. His grandfather, Makarov, he was good at making amends with his demons, fucking up his own son how he had. He raised up other children, even his own grandson, in retribution and he found it.

Laxus just…had to do something different. Find his own path.

So he moved away and started his own business. With the only skills he knew. He settled spats around town, fixed anything that broke, and grew his brand. He picked the others up along the way.

Freed was the first one. A smart little shit that worked at the library Laxus frequented, when he was checking local records (land disputes were common), and he was treated like crap by the head librarian. Laxus saw talent though. And someone that he could get to do all the readin’ and stuff that he didn’t want to.

Evergreen was a bit different. She, uh, well, she and Laxus, well, uh, well… Well. They were gonna hook up one night, after Laxus met her at a bar, but she was just so fucking depressing. Atop the alcohol that was already dampening the mood, they ended up just sitting around on his couch after sloppily making out and she mentioned that she was looking for work and, well, he wanted someone to stick around the little building he’d begun to rent out, to be a receptionist or whatever. He needed one he wouldn't’ be tempted to, uh, ‘harass’ or whatever and, well, Ever was no longer someone he was interested in.

At all.

Then Bickslow, that freak, that fucking freak, Laxus had no idea what the fuck happened there. One minutes, the weirdo is standing in the little office, preforming some sort of circus act, it seemed like, juggling these little wooden babies, as he tried hard to convince them that he should be allowed to join up, because who didn’t need an acrobat in their act?

“We’re not an act, you dingus,” Evergreen had complained over from her desk as she fanned herself. “We’re- Hey!”

“You’re,” Laxus told him with a handshake after the Mohawked man threw one of the wooden dolls right at Evergreen, hitting her squarely in the face, “hired!”

They were a strange group, to say the least. But over the past few years, they’d become his group. His business was booming and they were getting requests from all about, high and low. If you wanted it, they could do it for you. Help build a house? You’re in luck. They could slap some wood together. Need a party clown for your gross kids birthday? Not only was Laxus great with kids, but it was literally the only talent Bickslow brought to the table. And now, apparently, after receiving a desperate letter in the mail, they were vampire hunters.

“This is so great,” Bickslow hyped them up as they hiked up the hill and Evergreen had only come along because how could you pass up a vacation from a rinky dink town to go tour a mansion? But even as the building only loomed in the sunlight, she could tell it was not somewhere she’d like a glimpse inside. “Actual vampires. You know, we had some of them, in the circus, that my parents worked in.”

“Bull shit,” Ever told him and Freed only sighed because he didn’t want to hear about the stupid circus again.

It was all Bickslow talked about. His tragic, tragic backstory. Tent fire, bunch of deaths. You could only hear it so many times before it just got to be too much.

“We did,” the man insisted with a tongue wag. “You believe me, eh, boss? Vampires?”

Laxus just walked along, heavy boots crunching everything in his path. With his headphones in, he could hardly hear those morons and their banter. They were his group, his team, his people, his friends, but damn were they annoying.

The sun was high in the sky as they arrived at the wrought iron gates and there was no fear in any of their bellies. Just a mix of interest and wonder as the three who didn’t believe couldn’t understand how those down in that rundown little village could let such a massive mansion fall into decay. Shameful, really.

“Vampires,” Bickslow whistled low, “definitely live here.”

Reaching for the gate, Laxus easily opened it as Evergreen muttered something about tetanus.

“They’ll be in their coffins,” Bickslow was going on. “Sleepin’ away the daylight hours. We just open it up, ya know? The lid? And then we jab ‘em! Right through the heart. Crinkly old bastards, vampires are. The ones at my circus-”

“I do not,” Freed complained, finally, aloud, “want to hear any more about your circus.”

“Talkin’ is my copin’ mechanism.”

“Then find,” Ever retorted, “a new one.”

“I used to talk to myself a lot,” he whispered softly. “Before you guys.”

Laxus was only focused on the fact that the yard was so overgrown and, as he walked through the high weeds, he could feel little burrs sticking to his jeans as he went about. His eyes were only across the property though, focused on the heavy wooden doors rather than the broken out windows and the sun chipped paint.

“They said, down in the town,” Bickslow went on then, “that they see lights now. Now that those kids woke up the vampires. Ah, man, we shouldda came at night. Just one night. To see. Before we kill ‘em. I’d like to meet one, one day, you know, a vamp-”

“I thought,” Evergreen complained, “you just spent forever and a fucking day telling us about how you had met one?”

‘W-Well, I just meant-”

“You’re so full of shit, Bickslow, that-”

“Let me explain! Sheesh, boss, can you believe this? Won’t even let a man explain himself. Some people-”

“There is a person!” Freed was rarely one to exclaim, but he had to then, in shock. The others were all focused on the house, but his eyes had drifted, across the yard, over to the big oak tree that grew with little abandon, with no one to trim it. There, at it’s base, sat a young teen, staring right over at them. “I bet that’s the boy. The one who they have been missing.”

“Hey!” Laxus finally spoke as he turned to yell out to the boy. “Kid! We’re lookin’ for ya. Your family’s real worr- He’s a runner!”

“On it, boss!” Bickslow took off then, through the high grass, chasing after the kid who only ran around the house, obscuring the others vision. Freed was the next to give chase and Laxus cautioned them as Evergreen only rolled her eyes.

“I told you,” she said to Laxus as they stood there and waited for the pair to either come back empty handed or with the teen in tow, “that there were no vampires. Don’t you feel silly now? For coming all the way out here?”

Snorting, Laxus only crossed his arms over his chest and waited. Waited some more. Even more. Eventually, he and Ever were glancing at one another.

“Hey, guys?” Laxus called out as he began to walk then, the direction in which they’d run, Evergreen groaning, but not following. “If you can’t get him, that’s fine! Just come back and we’ll go explain down in the village, yeah? Freed? Bickslow? Look, morons, you’re not gonna freak us out, so just come on. The sooner we get out of here, the better. This places gives me the damn creeps. Those fuckin’ villagers are spooked about something, that’s for sure, and I’d really like to not stick around for them to turn on us or something. Who the hell lives like the middle ages? Huh? Didn’t even see any damn electricity in the whole damn village. Oil lamps like the stone ages. Something’s not right here. Something…”

He was just talking to himself then, he knew, as he rounded to the back of the overgrown property only to find no one there. Not a soul. His blood ran cold and something wasn’t right, because they wouldn’t have chased the kid into the woods, would they have? Maybe…inside? Turning to look at the back porch, Laxus considered walking up it, to the door there, and trying it, but something else caught his eye.

Cellar doors. They laid raised from the ground, no doubt housing a set of stairs that led to a little basement like room beneath the property. An old mansion like that, having a cellar wasn’t too spectacular or anything. But one of the doors was open and maybe the teen had gone down there? And Freed and Bickslow followed? And…

He stood over it then, Laxus did, a sick feeling forming in the pit of his stomach as he did so. He felt transfixed, no longer on finding his cohorts, but rather on climbing those rickety stairs down, deep into the earth, and looking for himself. What was beneath there. It felt like something was calling to him, drawing him deeper and deeper into the darkness and he had a flashlight, pinned to his belt, which he turned on once he got down to the bottom of the stairs. Shining his light all about, he found the landing beneath the stairs just to be empty. The wall before him, however, housed a door, and trying it, he felt his breath jumping out of his breath as the knob turned with the difficulty of age and lack of lubricant.

It was so cold down there. Damp. It was dusty and gross and no doubt at least one venomous spider was hanging on a web somewhere, just waiting for a schmuck like him to come around to infect, but he moved forwards into the new room regardless. It felt mostly empty as well, but there stood, on raised little platforms, three long, wooden boxes. No. Not boxes. He couldn’t say what they were because it would freak him out too much, he might panic, but he knew.

He fucking knew.

“Stakes,” Bickslow had insisted before they left town for the jobs. “We all need stakes.”

He’d whittled them, out of wood himself, the acrobat insisted, and made them both promise to drive them through the hearts of anything they thought didn’t have one.

“What,” Evergreen had complained, “does that even mean?”

Who knew?

But Laxus did, in that moment, as he approached the three coffins. Shining his light on the center one, he knew what he had to do. Reaching out, his hand fell on the splintering wood and lifted slowly. A body was in there. Slender. Feminine. But just as he was about to shine his light over the face, to get a better look, he felt something behind him.

“Ever?” he asked as he start to twirl around, but no, it wasn’t. IN a split second, he could tell it was the teen from before. “Hey, what-”

He struck Laxus, hard, in the back of the head with a blunt object. And then the man saw nothing.

His eyelids were heavy and he was groggy and the world felt like it was spinning at the man opened his eyes. Laxus could smell something sweet in the air, scented candles burning, soft and delicious and Ever was into that shit. Aromatherapy. She burned all sorts of things in office.

Did he fall asleep at work again?

“Are you awake?” There was a soft sigh of an unknown woman then, from somewhere else in the room, and Laxus felt like his head was pounding. “Good. I’ve been waiting for some time. And I don’t like waiting.”

His head lulled to one side then and, as he blinked away the blurriness, he could make out a woman sitting there, on the edge of a bed, a wine glass clutched in one hand as she stared over at him with bright blue eyes.

Her shocking white hair only highlighted just how pale her skin was and had he slept with this woman? Fucking hell, what a pick up. He’d been in a bit of a slump, since his last break up, and even surrounding towns hadn’t really produced much for him. His drunk ass had followed home a lot of less desirable, but this…man, this was something even Evergreen would have to admit was pretty damn amazing.

As he moved to raise his hand though, to his forehead, to stroke back his hair and maybe even stand, he found this impossible. Panic filling him then as he tried to move, tried to get up, Laxus found he was chained to a chair and fuck, it all came back to him as the woman only rose, glass still cupped in her hand, and giggled, softly, sweetly, and…and…

“Where the fuck,” he growled at her as in the glint of the moon shining in through an opened window, she flashed in a toothy smile, long, pointy fangs and all, “are my friends?”

“Take a breath, my dear. My, don’t you just look ferocious when you’re angry though?”

He was seething, still trying desperately to break his chains and what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck. How was he here? Why was he here? Was this a dream? It had to be, right? He’d hit his head on a beam or something, down in the cellar, yeah, and then…then…

“You have no idea how…happy and pleased you’ve made me,” the white haired woman was telling him then as she only came closer. “Showing up on my doorsteps like this. I would assume it a gift from a god, but then, I’m not exactly friendly with most gods.”

“What,” he growled as she was before him then, grinning happily down at him, “are you?”

“I’m timeless. Ancient, yet newborn with each passing day. A true beauty. A-”

“Abomination.” He turned his head when she ran her cold fingers down the coarse stubble that laid along his jawline. “You are an-”

“Hush, my love.” She looked away from him then, down at her cup. “There will be plenty of time for such things later. Such spats. Hateful, hurtful comments. It always comes, eventually. Before the end. And I will end you. Look-zus, was it? That’s what the green-haired man told me. A gift as well, he will be. A much better servant for the coming decades than that horrible teenager. Ugh. Boys. I need men. Real men. And look, two have just fallen perfectly into my lap.”

He spit, Laxus did, hitting her square in the cheek. For a moment, he saw it. A flash of something darker within the white haired woman. But then it was gone and she only reached up to touch her cheek, ghosting her finger tips over the sticky saliva there.

“Oh, my golden dragon.” That time, her hand came to run her fingers through his hair and he froze, as she leaned down, the gleam of the single fang she was showing him then, as she turned her head, blinding the man. “Hair like…lightning. I saw you and I just knew. I knew. Deep within myself. I knew that I had to keep you. Laxus. Hmmm. It feels heavy on my tongue. Yoru name. Nice. And heavy.”

“If you’re going to…eat me,” he whispered tersely as he shivered in the cold night air, “then just fucking do it.”

And she laughed that time, more than she giggled, removing her hand from his head and taking a step back.

“What exactly do you think you’re here for, Laxus?” She went to the window then, staring out of it with a long sigh. “I feel you have misunderstood my intentions.”

“You’re a…vampire.” The word felt childish and foolish, even being presented with all he was.

“If that’s the word you choose, sure, I suppose I am.”

“Then drink my blood and be done with it.”

“I do not mean to…feed on you, Laxus.” She huffed some, glancing over at him. “I have not your friends either.”

“Fuck you.”

“It’s the truth.” Shaking her head some, she whispered, “I had no intention of harming that boy that came here. Boy.”

It was her turn to spit, down on the ground, by her feet. He took stock of her then, Laxus did, from head to toe, from her striking dress to the way it was cut, just right, at the top, to extenuate her…well… It felt gross and weird to be so turned on as he could only really consider his death.

Still, the woman only said, “We stopped hunting them long ago. After my brother’s…accident. And I never enjoyed it anyways. Those people. Vile. Inbred. Gross. I hunt far from here and hardly ever come home. Just to check on my siblings. My brother’s…accident made it difficult for him to do much. My sister stays and cares for him and they have little desire to mess with those wretched people either. But then they come into our home and what is supposed to be done, I ask you? My sister, Lisanna, she did all she knew to. She didn’t feast on his gross, sick blood. She turned him. Into a servant. It’s what I’ve done with your green-haired friend. With him now, I have little need for the teen. Let’s just say my last…helper caught a bad break. Your green-haired friend will do just fine.”

“Freed…you fucking monster.”

“He’ll be much happier now, than he would have been, before. As a mortal.” She shrugged some. “Smart man, he is. I can always tell. That other one though…that boy…the jester-”

“Bickslow.”

“I did not turn him. I had no need.”

“What do you mean?”

But she offered no explanation.

“That woman,” she went on instead, “she was a tricky one, but my brother will be quite pleased.”

“You’re sick.”

“And you, my love, must learn quickly how to talk properly to your mistress. Least you make me angry.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, Laxus.” But her eyes were locked on the moon. “How many days will it take to break you? Not too many, I hope. Else I might get angry.”

“Why haven’t you turned me?” he asked then and he started shaking again, in his bolted down chair in the bedroom of the sullen vampire. “Like my friends? What the fuck are you going to do to me? Huh? Answer me! You fucking-”

“My brother doesn’t mind servants. And my sister…she was still…young, when we became… She has no need for me.” She downed the rest of her cup then, the woman did, before turning to look at him fully again. “But even queens of darkness have needs, my love.”

Jerking one last time, hard, against his chains, Laxus was spent and, bowing his head, he tried hard not to weep. She made a noise then, int eh back of her throat, before coming closer.

“Oh, poor Laxus.” She ran her fingers through his hair again, but he refused to lift his head. He couldn’t. “You never should have come here. Yet I am so glad you have.”

He slept uncomfortably through the night and into the next morning. In the light of day, Laxus spent as much energy as he could, pulling at the chains and cursing, but he felt hopeless then and, without any food or water for over twenty-four hours at that point, he felt a bit weak too. Or…had that woman given him something?

When he awoke again, it was to the night, and she was in there once more, the woman. But she wasn’t alone.

“-change the linens and there is a river, on the back of the property, for you to wash things in,” she was listing to Freed as he stood by, nodding in all the correct places. “And your friend…Bickslow was it? He must be fed. He is not…turned. I do not know if he can be trusted to make a trek out to get himself supplies, so if you would do so for him, this would perhaps be the most helpful. He seems…off. Yet, Lisanna seems quite taken with him. He will make a nice little playmate for her, I think. And…will need you to procure me a specific brand of wine. It is only sold in- Your friend is awake.”

They both turned, Freed and the woman did, from where they stood by her dresser. Laxus could only blink though as he felt tears well in his eyes. Freed’s however, was void. Dark. Different.

“Freed, man,” he whispered softly, “what the fuck did she do to you?”

He glanced to the woman, Freed did, and when she nodded, he only moved forwards.

“Mistress has been kind of enough to grant myself and Evergreen life eternally, so long as we serve her and her siblings faithfully.” Bowing to the man, Freed assured him, “There will be no greater joy in my life than-”

“We’re fucked, man. Fuck. Fuck. Where’s Bickslow? Bickslow!” Laxus throat burned and he turned his head back, yelling at the top of his lungs. “Where are you? Bicks-”

“Oi, boss, what’s with all the noise, eh?”

The bedroom door opened then, but it was just out of vision for the man. Still, he heard his voice then, his clear voice, not like Freed’s, Bickslow.

“Bickslow.” That was a new voice. And in to the room came another woman, the younger sister, no doubt, that the woman had spoken of. “You have to knock. Sis, I’m sorry. He’s not very trained yet-”

She just huffed some, the woman did, as she lifted a wine glass from where it sat on the dresser and pressed it to her lips.

“Ah, sorry ‘bout that, Ms. Boss.” Bickslow came further into the room, his back to Laxus as he saluted the vampire. She merely nodded at him. “See, the main boss here, he’s known to get in his head a little bit, yeah? Just give me a sec, and I’ll-”

“Bickslow, what the fuck is going on?” Laxus tugged at his chains as he saw another one of them, a white haired vampire, come to peek at him. She was younger than the main one he’d been speaking to. Early twenties at most. She grinned, bemused at him. “Are you insane?”

“Well…yeah, boss, but not about this.” He gestured about then, between the two sisters. “There’s never been nothin’ I wanted more than to meet some real life vampires. Or werewolves. Are those real?”

“They’re not,” the younger woman answered for him. Then she looked to her sister. “Right?”

But the older merely shrugged, her blue eyes still on Laxus. The golden haired man felt like he was going to faint.

“Well, Lisanna here, she was gonna turn me into her little slave and let me tell you, I bow unwillingly to no man!” But then Bickslow winked. “Willingly though, I found the perfect siblings to bow to. My Ms. Boss over here, my mistress. Queen of the night! Darkness! A what a beauty-”

“Uh, Bickslow.” The younger one didn’t seem to pleased. “I was the one that was going to turn you.”

“Of course, Lissy.” And he was quick to nod at her. “The kid here, well, she appreciate it. My jugglin’ and jokes. My flips and turns. It’s gig, yeah? She says I can be her own personal jester. I’ll always be an acrobat at heart, of course, but if only Ma and Pa could see me now. What would they say? Huh? What-”

“You fucking psycho,” Laxus growled at him and he would have hit him, if he could, but alas, his chains only felt heavier by the minute. “Bickslow. Fucking sick.”

“You do what you gotta do,” the man told him then, solemnly, with a shake of his head, “to survive.”

“I’m not going to be that way.” Laxus dark eyes found the main woman’s then. “Like him. Submit to you? Fucking sick. Never. You better just kill me. Or let me go. Whatever. Freed, Ever…they’re gone. And Bickslow want sto be here, fine. But just let me go and I’ll never come back. I’ll never-”

“Boss, you’re the lucky one.” And Bickslow beamed at him. “Can’t ya tell what she wants you for?”

“Lucky?” The youngest, Lisanna, was not feeling the vibe her jester was putting down. “You know, suddenly, I’m a bit hungry-”

“Ah, nah, Lissy, you ain’t ever even seen me do a back flip off the upstairs banister out there. Don’t ya wanna at least see that first?”

And they were chasing one another out of the room then, Lisanna and Bickslow, while Freed stood by emotionless and the woman, the mistress, only continued to take sips of her drink.

“I won’t do that. I swear it. Submit to you. Like a little bitch. You’re a little bitch, Bickslow,” Laxus growled after the man, but he was long gone. “Pathetic. I’m not pathetic. So just kill me. Do it! Kill me!”

She finished her glass, the woman did, before looking to Freed.

“Leave us, if you will, please,” she said simply as he bowed deeply to the woman before doing so. “And draw me a bath, if you would. There’s a well on the property. Then heat up the water over the- You understand, don’t you? Smart man. I appreciate you so much already.”

When he left, Freed drew the bedroom door closed and they were alone once more. Advancing on Laxus, the woman’s eyes stayed locked with his and he was going to spit at her again. He wanted to. When she leaned down so that her face was even with his though, he felt something different bubbling up instead of him.

“You,” she whispered as, with one hand, she reached to paw at the front of his jeans and, with the other, she moved to stroke at his jawline again, “will do as I say.”

He’d heard about it before. The hold that vampires had on the opposite sex. They could control them. Charm them. That’s what must have happened to him. Yes. She charmed him. Fucking vampire. Demon. Abomination.

But as he found himself falling into bed with her, his mind didn’t feel fogged. It felt clear.

Fucking gross.

The whole thing.

Awaking alone in bed, Laxus felt wrong and different and his mind was all cloudy, but when his blinked the blurriness away, he only sat Freed, standing there, by his bed.

“The Mistress has left a short list of things for you to do today.”

Not his bed. Right. Shit.

“Fuck your mistress.”

“Our,” Freed corrected and his voice was cool as he stood, hands clasped behind his back, “Mistress.”

“What the fuck did she do to you, man?”

He had no answer for him. Instead, the green-haired man merely said, “She wishes for you to go down into the village and inform then that you found their boy. The teenager.”

“I can’t return him to them as one of her servants.”

“He is not any longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“He had an accident. In the house. The other teens go spooked and ran away, leaving him there. “

“Freed-”

“You will find him with his neck crushed, downstairs.” Turning to walk away, the other man added, “Carry him to the village and tell them there is no vampire. But you will return, to this mansion, afterwards. Tell the villagers you have decided to live here, along with your friends, as a returning the body to them. If anyone causes you trouble, leave. The Mistress will deal with them harshly, should this be the case.”

“Fuck that. And fuck you, Freed. Do you hear me?”

No.

Freed would never hear again.

Eventually, Laxus shoved out of bed and stumbled back into his clothes. Then, storming out of the room, he set out to end things, once and for all. But at the bottom of the staircase, he found him there. Bickslow. Just sitting on the bottom step, playing absently with a little pearly white kitten.

“The kid, Lisanna,” he explained without being asked, “as a cat that just had a litter. Was never a cat person, but she let me name them. This one is Pappa! Then there’s one named Poppo and Puppu and-”

“Bickslow what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“A lot of things, I guess, boss.” He sighed some and looked tired as he didn’t even glance after the man. “A lot.”

“You understand what’s happening here, right?” As he got to the bottom step, Laxus only walked around Bickslow before turning to face him. “Freed…poor Freed, but Evergreen is being controlled and…raped. I guess. By these monsters. Do you understand that?”

“He ain’t rapin’ her, boss. I’ve seen the brother.” Bickslow snorted. “He just cries and sobs about his injury and how great his sister is and all this and that. Lisanna finds him borin’ and so do I. Ever just sits beside him all day and listens. I think you’re the one that got raped, actually, boss, if we’re being technical. The rest of us are just prisoners.”

“I didn’t… Shut up! And you’re not a prisoner.”

“Nope,” he agreed with a nod, Bickslow did. “’cause I’m the smart one.”

“Is that what you think?”

“That’s what me and my babies now,” he insisted as he nodded over to a box nearby where, when Laxus glanced in it, he found the rest of the kittens snoozing peacefully.

Fucking hell.

He found the body of the teen in the entryway and Laxus felt bad for the teen and what they’d done to him, but he couldn’t help him. He hadn’t been able to the whole time. But as he stepped over him and walked out the front door of the mansion, he hoped to help the entire world. Rid it. Of the evil.

This time he took the steps down two at a time into the cellar and it was pitch black down there, but he found his flashlight, down on the ground, in the coffin room. Flicking it on, he went to hers first. The Mistress. Threw it open and he was going to drive a stake right through her heart. End this. He had to end this. He had to…he…

Falling forwards, he rested his head, instead, into her chest, burying it there, like he had the night before and he was a goner, he knew. Charmed. Fuck. Fuck. He couldn’t do it.

“She will not be pleased,” he heard softly from behind him, the voice of what was once his most trusted friend, “if you do not do as asked.”

What choice did he have? Being charmed and all.

They were going on a trip. Him and her. A few days later. The Mistress insisted upon him accompanying her and Freed was going to stay behind, to be certain of things. Lisanna griped some, as she felt like she was being given a babysitter or something, but her sister only insisted and Laxus had yet to meet the brother, but he felt like that was for the best.

“You will meet me,” was all the Mistress instructed Laxus, “in Livingston. A town three over. Close to the bay.”

“Meet you?” he asked with a frown. “How will you get there?”

But she said nothing and as he set off into the night, he could have sworn her heard the shrieking of a bat overhead.

It was nearly sunrise, when he arrived, and Laxus was at least a bit curious as to how this would all play out, but the Mistress had an apartment there, in town, which she took him to. A coffin awaited her there.

“Freshen yourself up, for the evening,” was the one instruction she left him with. “We will be going out.”

He had so many questions. A lot of them. Ones that had been tugging at his mind for days at that point. But charmed and all, he could merely do as she asked.

When they left that night, they went even further out, to another town, taking the train there. When they arrived, the Mistress took him to a bar, where she mostly ignored him. Until, eventually, she told him to go rent her a specific room at a specific hotel.

“Wait for me there.”

And, well, charmed.

He was sitting at the desk when she came in. With another man. Laxus stared at her in shock and started to protest, as well did the man she was with, but she silenced both before they could even speak.

“He watches.” She eve shrugged. “He likes it.”

“He what?” the newcomer questions, but she just rolled her eyes, the Mistress did, and whispered something the blond man didn’t catch, and in the dim light of only the candles Laxus had lit, per her instructions, he saw the other man’s eyes…change. To something different. And the newcomer just nodded, following the Mistress as she led him over to the bed and shoved him right down.

Laxus didn’t want to though. Watch. It felt…wrong and gross and he was kind of, maybe, just a little…jealous?

Was that it?

He didn’t have long to contemplate it. The Mistress had shimmied out of her dress and the man had only tugged the shirt over his head before she pounced on him and it seemed so passionate, their hungry kisses. As he squared his jaw, Laxus found himself watching with dark eyes.

But something happened, when they broke apart. It looked like she was going back in, for another kiss, but her head missed and when it found his neck, Laxus could only hear the loud wail of pain from the man as, presumably, her teeth sunk deeply into his flesh.

Everything that had happened over the past few days felt sick and made him much the same, but this? This was by far the worst.

It went on for a few minutes. Was this…feed? He was horrified at the thought.

When she finally lifted her head, the bottom half of her pale white face was stained red with dripping, thick, hot blood and Laxus rose, to his feet, frozen afterwards though, as she merely got to her feet herself.

“Once a week,” she told him simply, “we shall do this.”

“Always,” he found his voice, softly, “men?”

“Whatever you’d like, my love.”

And he could only nodded, softly, as she wiped at her face with the back of her hands, smearing the blood across her.

The sickness was gone, as bad as that sounded, when she approached and he reached for her, and it was just so good, as they fell into bed together with the lifeless man beside them and he was fucked, he was so fucked, it was all fucked.

“The body…” Laxus questioned, softly, when they left that night, to rush back to the apartment, so she could hide out the daylight hours from the safety of her pine box.

“I have an…arrangement,” she offered simply. “Here. With the owner. Do not be jealous, Laxus.”

He wasn’t sure of the implication (or okay, fine, maybe he was), but still could only nod dumbly and they went along, in the darkness.

The Mistress instructed him to go back home, in the daylight, and she would meet him there. Laxus still felt dazed and almost as if the whole thing was a dream and he could run off, he could have, the whole time. He could have gotten on a different train, walked another way, gone anywhere else.

But he didn’t.

He went back to the Strauss mansion just as his mistress commanded.

“We old money. True,” the woman explained as she and Laxus sat together, on the couch in her room, sharing wine under the moonlight, “old money. I laugh now when I hear the term. The old houses, families, all who I knew growing up to rule the world? Gone. Disappeared. Yet we remain. My siblings and I. The last of the Strauss. Of the old days. Mama and Papa were good, hard workers, even with all their riches, and they raised us to be the same. When they got sick, I took over. A woman. A young woman. I was spit on by some, but who laughs now? Everyone else, dead. Their children, dead. Their great-great-greats all dead. For centuries. And I endure.”

“How did you…”

“Turn?” She hummed, deeply, softly, before whispering, “It’s not a pleasant part of the story. I feel in love. With an older man. He swept me off my feet. In the matter a matter of three days. He came into town, met me, and I was going to give it all to him, right then and there. I did, I suppose. In less than a weekend, he had me in his bed. I was so smitten. I thought it was a lovebite of some sort, at first. But no. You have options, Laxus, with thissort of things. Drain the blood, turn them into mindless little servants or…you can turn someone. And he turned me. How happy he was, with himself. Grinning. ‘Now,’ he told me, ‘you will be young and beautiful forever.’ And I have been ever since.”

For a long moment, they both sat there. Then, after a sip of her drink, she spoke again.

“Do you have family, Laxus?”

“A grandfather,” was all he could offer her. “And…these kids that I kinda helped him take care of.”

Nodding slightly without probing deeper, she said, “A shame. I could not leave my siblings behind. I turned them, when I explained to them, and I still ran my business the best I could. From the shadows. The night. I became an eccentric. All three of us did. An interest. Intrigue. It worked for a decade. But…then…why does she not age? Good genes. Old family secret. Another decade. How strange, how odd, the youngest still looks so…young. Another decade and another and we had to move. Somewhere new. Start fresh. We did this for awhile, but it only grew harder and harder and when we returned, eventually, to our family home, it sat alone atop the hill and the village beneath was filled with fearful little creatures, stuck int eh past that we’d long moved on from, my siblings and I. But my, did they make the perfect feeding ground. Who would believe them? That vampires lived atop the hill that overlooked their sleepy town?

“We fade in and out of it. Interest in them. Currently, for the past century, has it been? Less, perhaps? I found their blood revolting and their men of little interest. I must travel to find real men. Usually. But you just stumbled upon me. Found me. I’d say it was fate, but what is fate anyways? A human concept. And I have not been human in many, many moons. I’m a monster now, fine, an abomination. But I didn’t choose this. Look at me. Look, Laxus, like I command. Tell me I’m not beautiful? Desirable? What man does not want that? Eternal beauty. But it takes a special man to see passed the power. And the ones who do…they ask me eventually, to do to them what was done to me. To turn them. Do they not understand this curse? This terrible, sick curse? Disgusting. I do away with them quickly. Tell me, you do not wish to be cursed, do you, my love?”

“No,” he whispered softly, truthfully. “No, I don’t.”

“Good.” She even nodded as she tossed back some more wine. “You will age, grow, and die. How lucky, mortality is.”

“What happened to that man’s eyes?”

“Hmmm?”

“In the hotel room.” He grit his teeth from the thought. “You told him that I wanted to…watch and he was creeped out, but then you whispered somethin’ to him and-”

“Oh. That.” She even rolled her eyes. “It’s a gift, yes? That glazed over look men get around me. And women, I suppose, if I so choose. A…tool.”

“You,” Laxus whispered softly as his stomach dropped, “charmed him.”

“That’s it. Yes. I charmed-”

“I don’t have that look.”

“Hmmm?”

He rose then, from his seat, and looked all about for a mirror of some sort, but he could find none. Instead, he went to the window and, softly, was able to see his reflection in the pane. “My eyes are normal.”

“Yes,” she agreed softly, bemused, almost. “Why wouldn’t they be, silly?”

“I… The only reason that I’m doing all this is because… Haven’t you charmed me?”

“I told you, my little golden dragon. I don’t like to keep men around who must be forced to.”

“I don’t…I didn’t… I’m not doing this because I want to. Any of this. You hear me? You’ve forced me. You-”

“You’ve done nothing that you’ve not desired.”

“That’s not true.” Turning to look at her, he saw the disinterest etched on her face. “Look, I…I’m not…evil. I’m-”

“No one is evil. No one is good. We all do what we must. It does not bring me any joy, any pleasure, the things I do. Well, except, of course, for when it does.”

“I have to get out of here. I have to. I-”

“You could have,” the woman reminded. “I’ve let you have freewill. And yet you always come back. Why? Laxus? I have no hold over you. It seems like…maybe…you want to-”

“Shut up,” he growled darkly and he punched it then, the window before him, slicing up his hand and spraying glass all about outside.

“You just make your friend’s work harder,” the woman tsked and he shook with rage. “You’re so strong. You must continue to train, you know? What were you training for before? Or were you a laborer? It doesn’t matter. I like men kind of…brutish. Like you. Eventually, one day, you and I will no longer enjoy one another. And I will be forced to end you. It’s all part of the deal, Laxus. You understand. Don’t you?All loves come to an end.”

“I don’t love you.”

“Of course you don’t. And I don’t you, yet, my love.” She giggled again and he hated it so much. That giggle. It would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. “I need you to work tomorrow, on getting the yard in order. I can give you the money, if you need it, to travel out to get supplies. But you will return to me, Laxus, always. You know this, yes? I don’t need charm. I will make certain this occurs.”

“You’ve ruined my life.”

“I’ve changed your life, is a better word for it.” She hummed that time, getting to her feet to come over to him. “You will learn to like it. The revulsion goes away, with repetition. And tell me, Laxus, will you ever find a woman more desirable?”

He shook his head, slightly, as she moved to grab his wounded hand and bring it up to her lips, pink tongue poking out to run across the slices he had in his fists there. As he opened his mouth, slightly, and seemed at a loss, she only raised her eyes and spoke something to him for the first time.

“Mirajane,” she whispered and he could only nod.

“Mirajane.”

“We’ll be so happy together, I’m sure, Laxus. You have your friends here, to keep you company, and I my siblings. So long as you recall your place, there’s no reason for this to not last for a good, long time. Wouldn’t you like that?”

No, he wanted to say, but “Yes,” fell from his lips and as hers came to be pressed against his, and he should have never come. To that sleepy, old fashioned town. To that Gothic, decrepit mansion on the hill.

But he had.

And now he could never leave.

#Miraxus #Mirajane Strauss #Laxus Dreyar #Lisanna Strauss #Bickslow #Freed Justine #Evergreen #thunder legion #Fairy Tail #AU #Vampire #What the fuck did I just write?

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jvc-yearofservice · 5 years ago

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8/25/19 - 9/2/19

Last Sunday, we were invited to one housemate's boss's enormous and lush country home, which had a great pool. Some of the other Mercy volunteers were there as well and were super friendly. The way to the estate was pretty hilarious. First, our car stalled out, and then the supervisor gave us the most confusing directions ever. She initially sped off super far away on the highway even though she knew we were following her. Then she called us and said she was actually in back of us on the highway and that we should pull off at the nearest exit. Once we exited the highway, she called us and said she was actually in front of us the entire time, so we had to get back on the freeway. We originally really wanted to put the address into the GPS in case we got lost while following her (which we did), but she insisted that the address wouldn't show up on the GPS which was pretty sketchy. After getting off the highway a second time and following her down a dirt path, I joked about how she might be luring us to a killing field. This woman apparently bought her sprawling estate with all her divorce settlement money and paid for the property in cash, which I thought was pretty impressive. One of her employees who was a former member of the addiction treatment program joined us and had an "IAmSober" license plate, which I thought was funny.

I've decided to create an Instagram account (@everyday_mustardseed) with pictures uploaded every day that I work there. Work has been pretty nuts lately. Firstly, we doubled the student population overnight (originally 10, now 21 kids)-largest ever has been either 40-60 kids at once. I finally got to meet the LCSW who works there full-time, and she seems pretty nice and helpful for resolving all the trauma in the children. One day in particular was kind of grueling because a parent was nearly an hour late to pick up their kids. We have a protocol at the school that if a child/children are not picked up within a certain amount of time after school ends, then we have to legally call the police, which I really dreaded doing. Thankfully, the parents showed up after some time, which was a godsend because I could only watch so many old episodes of Wishbone with them while they repeatedly asked me where their mom was. I can't imagine the abandonment issues that these kids experience as compared to how I felt whenever my mom was even a fraction of a minute late when I was a kid (and she gave me no reason to feel that way). I've also assisted in compiling files for the intake forms, and I have been taking pictures of the kids for their files which has been surprisingly cute and wholesome. One little girl, however, tried to throw a gang sign in her picture, but I (very gently) grabbed her hand to hide it before the picture was taken.

I've noticed some very peculiar behaviors in the children at the school. For example, many sibling groups act very close and are almost at odds with the other sibling groups, as if they were engaged in turf wars, but I think this is another coping mechanism. I feel so sorry for the children who have no siblings since they are pretty much alone and unprotected from the other children's bullying. Many of the kids have expressed not wanting to leave at dismissal and feeling sad when the weekend approaches and school isn't in session. One of my co-workers has a theory about the children's behavior. He thinks that the most well-behaved children are the ones who are the most chronically homeless and more used to it due to them being so grateful for everything they are given, whereas the unrulier kids are newly exposed to the homeless lifestyle which is why they are acting out. One of the teachers spoke about how the more chronically homeless kids are "starved for knowledge" and relish any learning in the classroom.

A second car driven by a housemate has bitten the dust (the one that stalled on the way to the supervisor's estate on Sunday). It's unfortunate because this means we are even more restricted in terms of going places and visiting other JVC houses.

A fun community night activity took place this week, where we all shared our love language, Myers-Briggs personalities, enneagram numbers, and zodiac sign. My love language is acts of service/devotion, I am INFJ, Type 1, and a Gemini-Cancer cusp. So far, I have learned that there are the following zodiac signs in the house: Gemini-Cancer cusp, Pisces, Sagittarius, Taurus, Scorpio, Libra, and Aquarius. The personality types are: 1 INFJ (Advocate), 1 ENTJ (Commander), 2 ENFJ (Protagonist), and 3 ENFP (campaigner). The most common love language are: 5 quality time, 5 words of affirmation, 3 acts of service/devotion, 1 physical touch, and 1 gifts.

A little bit of scandalous news-apparently the JVC stipend is and has been too small for some time. It is a well-known secret in JVC history that many volunteers have side-jobs to make more money than just the monthly stipend. I remember hearing that my dad had a $100 stipend each month, which is kind of strange since that means the stipend has not been adjusted for inflation (aka it's much more expensive to exist today compared to back then). Additionally, California is notoriously expensive, so I'm wondering if the JVC should have made financial changes for stipends depending on how expensive the cost of living is in each city (for example, $100 a month would get you much further in Scranton than Sacramento). Furthermore, apparently the Jesuit Volunteer Corps of Northwest gives their volunteers $300 each month and has much better housing accommodations.

This weekend, we drove to Oakland/Berkeley, California, and stayed over at the JV house there. The party on Saturday was 60's/70's theme, and a couple other JV houses from around California came to stay over as well. We got there via car from a former JV and another car that a co-worker rented for us. Then, all together, we traveled to Baker Beach in San Francisco, where we sat on the beach, and I even saw a dead sea lion on the beach, which was understandably gross. P.S. part of the beach was nude which was super unexpected. When we were getting the alcohol for the party at the JV house, we were walking out of CVS, and a bunch of the worst-disguised undercover cops were waiting to card us again on the side walk. Gladly, we handed over our IDs, and one cop even asked one of us who the governor of Wisconsin is (none of us knew). When they were looking at my ID, the cop turned to me and asked suddenly "What year did you graduate high school?" and I immediately answered "2014". He gave it back to me reluctantly, and much to the horror of my housemates, I asked him, "Are you sure you don't want to check it again? I could be lying." That Saturday night, a couple of us went to Taco Bell after the party, and one of my housemates cracked a beer open in line there, and the poor cashier had to ask him to finish it, so he very unapologetically chugged it in front of everyone inside the Taco Bell, which was hilarious. On Friday, we attended a baseball game between the Sacramento Wild Cats and whatever the team name is of San Diego. We won, and there were fireworks, but more importantly, I got to drive an electric car for the first time ever (a fiat)!

Lastly, a funny story that I was told this week during community dinner involved a man who told everyone that he was married to a key chain. Since the person who told the story works at a mental health facility, they were not too disturbed by this fact, but they were surprised when eventually the man who was apparently married to a key chain brought in an actual wife one day (who or what is the key chain???)! Another funny occurrence happened to my housemate who works in a kindergarten classroom. They were in the middle of a lesson, and one child raised their hand. The teacher called on them, and they said simply, "My birthday was on Friday." The teacher replied, "I know. We celebrated." She waited a moment and then said, "Anything else?" and the student said "No." I laugh every time I think of this story.

Peace and blessings,

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mariposalass · 6 years ago

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That One Important Question

Summary: Ron and Hermione have finally tied the knot, but their best man and childhood friend Harry has another surprise for everyone in store.

Notes: It’s the Gingers and Books wedding and the Love Beyond Magic proposal story in one. While not mentioned in this story, Harry and Issa are actually going to have a small intimate wedding back at San Francisco by either late June or early July, sorry folks: it’s their choice not to have a big fat wedding. The ring involved looks like this. A special cameo and shout out to @self-shipping-angel and my good friend from deviantART JENNY-87 with Sayeko, Levi, Erwin, Mike, & Hanji’s and Jenny & Snooper’s guest appearance here.

Setting: A Hotel and a Garden event venue in London, England; March 29, 2019

Tags: A wedding and an engagement in one event, Ginny has an angst-riddled epiphany here, Mari, Jenny, & Sayeko’s worlds will collide, self shipping crossovers, screw some of the senseless Battle of Hogwarts deaths: Fred, Remus, and Tonks are still alive in my SI’s world (and the same can be said for Sayeko’s too)!

“Forever can never be enough for me, To feel like I’ve had long enough with you, Forget the world, we won’t let them see, But there’s one thing to left do, Now that the weight is lifted, Love had surely shifted my way...” - Train, Marry Me

Mari was pacing up and down the hallway of the hotel the wedding party and select guests were staying in London as the preparations of her adopted big brother Harry’s friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger’s wedding were ongoing. She was being nervous about this for months on end due in part of Harry’s unpleasant experience dating Ron’s little and only sister Ginny after the Battle of Hogwarts. Mari has always been wary of Ginny for years as she was the main reason why Harry was scared of dating another woman until her friend and his girlfriend Issa started dating him, changing it in a different direction. Some good friends of their, Jenny and her cat detective husband Snooper, decided to join in the fun more than a week or two ago and the 8 of them traveled on an afternoon United Airlines flight from San Francisco to London a few days ago so Harry get ready for the wedding and spend some time in the city & the Wizarding World there despite some opposition from unsavory wizards and witches in the area.

She, Jenny, Issa, and Kairi had their makeup done earlier and they were already dressed up in simple cocktail dress, just killing time wondering what’s going to happen during the wedding. The previous time Harry went to a Weasley wedding, it ended in a total disaster near the end with Death Eaters haunting him down like it was open season hunting and wrecking havoc in the reception. Today however, it is different: Ron and Hermione won’t have Death Eaters to worry about ruining their big day, and Mari couldn’t be any happier for them and, of course, her big brother being there for them as they will say their vows soon.

As she went by walking frantically, she could overheard a soft gentle voice catching up on her as if it was drawing close to her, “Hello there. Harry had just informed me, Levi, and the rest of the Corps about you and your friends long before today’s event. Are you Mari Tan?”

Mari turned to see that a well-toned woman (approximately Harry’s age) already made for the wedding, dressed in mint, and with lilac hair which reminds her similarly of another of Harry’s friends, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, who was also invited to the party with her husband (and Harry’s friend/mentor) Remus and their son Teddy, waving back at her. Speechless that someone would know her name despite just meeting for the first time, she had an internal panic attack with little words to speak of before regaining her composure to talk to the lilac haired stranger, “Yes, I am. I’m his adopted little sister to be exact: the Shobe if you want the Hokkien definition. I’ve heard that Ron and Hermione have known you for a long time and Harry shared the same birthday as you. What’s your name please? I can’t call you Miss Jane Doe for long.”

The woman giggled a bit before continuing their talk, “You sure have quite the mouthful of things to say. Actually, I’m married, although I can see why: Levi’s meeting with the guys right now delivering Hermione’s gift to Ron along with the rest of our group.”

“Okay… Apologies for that,” Mari blushed from embarrassment at her mistake of getting the woman’s civil status wrong.

“Don’t feel bad for yourself though, I never knew that Harry have sisters before until he broke the news to a majority of us after the Battle of Hogwarts,” she calmly reassured her, “I can relate to his adoption story too as I was taken in by Hermione’s family as well. Anyway, I’m Sayeko Ackerman, Lieutenant in the Survey Corps. Levi’s both my commander in the Corps and my husband, and we’re also good friends with your brother. I’m also the bridesmaid in the wedding as well.”

“Why, gee thanks!” Mari felt like blushing again before she chatted up a storm again, “We even had another sister in Kairi. She was orphaned like Harry (albeit through different circumstances) as well during the attack of her home realm before coming over to the States and being taken in by our family.”

“Did you just mentioned me, Mari? I heard talking from you and, oh… Hello stranger,” Kairi asked as she dropped in the chat between the two women with Issa, Kirby, and Philip walking up to them when she (and the others) saw her older sister talking to someone they didn’t saw before.

“Hey, Mari. Who’s that lilac haired woman chatting with you?” Issa inquired on her talk buddy.

“Why… This here is Sayeko Ackerman: she’s an old friend of Harry and Hermione’s adopted sister,” she introduced Sayeko to the group.

“Hiii!” Kirby waved back at her with his tiny arms.

“So I see we got some company right now, isn’t it, Mari?” Philip cheekily noticed Mari’s new chat mate in a friendly manner.

“Either way, I’m Kairi, Harry’s other adopted sister,” the youngest of the siblings introduced herself to Sayeko.

Issa went next and continued the intros, “I’m Isabelle Miravelez, but please call me Issa. I’m dating your friend Harry for nearly 10 years soon by September.”

“Oh wow, that’s nice to know. I do remember that he wasn’t in good terms with Ginny these days, though amendments are on their way for sure,” Sayeko nodded back.

“Kaa-bii! Kabi, Kabi, Kabi!” Kirby squeaked in joy as he jumped up and down on the floor.

“And I’m Philip Hamilton,” Philip greeted back politely, “Your friend had accidentally brought back me back from the dead with another friend’s tablet two months ago.”

Sayeko’s eyes grew wide in shock upon hearing those words coming from Philip’s mouth, her hair and eyes changed color accordingly to that emotion before regaining her sense and replied back, “Erm… I don’t really know how to react to this properly without freaking out; I honestly don’t recall Harry bringing someone back from the dead, let alone by accident, until what happened to you months ago. I do apologize if I acted inappropriately to your situation right now.”

“Oh no, it’s fine, Sayeko, we’ve moved on from it nowadays,” he reassured her as her normal blue eyes and lilac hair returned back to normal, “Even Ron and Hermione were surprised as well since they weren’t with us when it happened. They only knew when we met them up via video chat on my birthday last January.”

“And they too recovered from the shock as well?” Sayeko asked about the soon-to-be-married couple’s reactions to which Mari nodded back as a reply when two more joined their little talk.

“Hey guys, we just heard you guys talking to… Oh hello!” Snooper came in as he and Jenny walked towards them to the lobby when the couple saw Sayeko was with them.

“So you guys must be Mari’s friends as well?” the lilac-haired Survey Corps lieutenant asked them out of curiosity.

“We sure are, Jenny and Issa have been best friends since the latter to moved to the States years ago,” Snooper replied back.

“That’s nice to hear about,” Sayeko replied, “It’s like we’re in a small world right now: knowing each other through some mutual connections.”

“No kidding,” Mari gasped with joy when Issa was checking on her phone, noting the time it was displaying.

“Well, we should better be going to the venue soon, don’t want to be late, do we?” she reminded the group, putting her eyes away from the phone for a short while.

“You’re on that point, Issa, we need to get going, though we better get Levi, Erwin, Mike, and Hanji quickly before they get left out here,” Sayeko agreed as the group headed out to find Sayeko’s husband and their friends.

“Poyo!” Kirby squeaked.

The venue where Ron and Hermione’s wedding, a garden with a gazebo as the centerpiece, is being held at was decorated rather simply but quaint enough to hold the amount of guests their families invited, though it would’ve been too cramped for their own good than expected hadn’t Mrs. Weasley had some self control on who to invite. Lanterns lined the aisle, bunches of yellow and white flowers were tied up to the first chair at the both sides: the mood has been set to get people ready for the day two individuals will tie the knot. Mari sat down with Kairi, Issa, Kirby, Jenny, Snooper, and Philip by her side, waiting for the event to start; right behind were the Survey Corps folks in Levi, Mike, Erwin, and Hanji who waved back at them, and even the mostly stoic Levi gave them a shy noticeable smile to boot: Sayeko had to leave earlier in a separate vehicle with the rest of the bridal party.

She can also spy with her own chocolate brown eyes some of the Golden Trio’s friends like Neville Longbottom who waved back at her and has brought along a date with him, Remus and Tonks whose their boy Teddy the ring bearer who ran around the venue out of boredom (only for Remus to pick him up to get ready with the rest of the wedding party), Hagrid and Olympe Maxime were also present when they spotted Mari and mouthed out a hello which she accepted, Xenophilius Lovegood was also present while his daughter (and the Golden Trio’s friend) Luna was with the bridal party, and Kingsley Shacklebolt was sitting in front of her and her group.

Some of Ron’s siblings were there too such as Charlie coming back from Romania and Percy with his pregnant wife Audrey, though Bill and Fleur were not in the area just yet as they were busy trying to prevent their girls Victoire and Dominique from having flower girl meltdowns, Ginny was a bridesmaid, and the twins Fred & George were the groomsmen. There is even Viktor Krum who still remains Hermione’s pen pal and greeted her earlier when the guests were starting to enter the place, as well as a partially scarred Lavender Brown who has finally made amends with the couple previously a few years ago.

As the last few guests sat down, the music began to play out in the background and the procession began: Ron’s parents and Hermione’s mom sat down in the first row of seats, Ron walked down next, then came the groomsmen (Fred, George, and Harry) and bridesmaids (Sayeko, Luna, and Ginny) as they walked down the altar as pairs, dressed rather casually in white dress shirts, mint ties, gray slacks, & leather dress shoes and mint dresses respectively. Teddy toddled behind with the rings on his guard with Victoire and Dominque tossing flower all over the place as their parents assisted them in any way possible. There is a brief moment of silence before it gave way to the bride Hermione, dressed in a simple ivory dress with subtle bead work on the bodice, and her father by her side walking down from the steps of the main event building to share this tearful moment.

Issa swore that she can see tears running down from the eyes of all parties, but none so much outside the parents and Harry as the bride and her father walked toward the gazebo where Ron and the minister officiating awaited with the bridal party stand by each side of the gazebo. Soon Hermione broke away from her father as she continued her journey down the aisle until she finally reached the gazebo with Ron reaching out his left hand for her to grasp onto and her father sat down with the mom.

With that part ended, the minister then began his part, speaking up, “Dearly beloved, we’re all gathered here today to witness a union of two persons, Ronald and Hermione, as one. The two would like to thank you all for coming here today. Many have came near and far to be their witnesses to this special moment, as well as they are remembering those who can’t be with them today, they too played a special part of their lives...”

While the minister went about his talk to the couple, Mari was more concerned with any possible moment of Ginny possibly hurting her brother in any way, her eyes aiming at her like a sharp-eyed hawk: if she had her own way, she would undeniably punch that red-haired brat in a heart’s beat should Ginny decided to stop playing nice for the couple’s sake and Harry’s sanity. So far, she’s behaving rather well and Mari hoped that it will stayed that way for the rest of the day: all the worries went on a halt though when the minister took a moment to pause before informing the guests the next part of the event, “I may ask the couple to have some words to say to each other as they begin the next chapter of their lives.”

Hermione went first, bringing out a long piece of paper from what seems to be out of nowhere, and despite said paper’s long length, her vows were short, sweet, and straight to the point as she read out her vows to Ron, which left the red-haired groom bursting tears of joy upon hearing the words from her mouth. When Ron’s turn came, he couldn’t help fighting back the tears as he mustered up the courage to speak up, with being nervous choking him a bit. Nevertheless, he still managed to pull it through that part, and his words further warmed Hermione’s heart more.

“Now, can we have the Matron of Honour and the Best Man bring forth the ribbons for the handfasting?” the minster called out, alerting Sayeko and Harry to bring out a small box and open the lid, revealing two satin ribbons: one being mint and the other yellow.

“With these ribbons as the symbol of your souls being intertwined together, you have made the promise to be there for each other even at your darkest moments, to support each other’s endeavours, and to help each other for better or for worse,” the minister spoke to the couple as Harry and Sayeko wrapped the ribbons onto their hands: Harry tying the mint ribbon on Hermione’s and Sayeko wrapping Ron’s hand with the yellow ribbons, once they were done, he concluded this part, saying, “Let this bond between the two of you never break, nor should conflicts get the best of you. Now, onto the rings.”

Teddy walked up to his godfather Harry with his dad assisting him in carrying the wedding rings, both in gold and previously Ron’s parents’ bands, as Sayeko assisted in taking out the ribbons from her soon-to-be brother in law and her adopted sister: Harry then picked up the rings and passed it on with the minister who then gave the couple each a ring. Hermione has Ron’s ring on her hands and slipped it into his ring finger; Ron has her wedding band on his hand and he too slipped it into her ring finger, on top of her ruby engagement ring.

“Is anyone here not wanting to acknowledge this marriage now?” the minister questioned the crowd, only to get no rebuttals, he then turned to the couple and say, “Very well: I may now pronounce you Husband and Wife. Ronald, you can finally...”

He didn’t get to finish his words when he noticed Ron and Hermione already locking lips and kissing each other, knowing that the ceremony is finally concluded and they were aware that people were getting to become bored and hangry at any moment. The crowd cheered on as the couple made their way out to have some down time to sink in the feelings and the reality that they are now a married couple.

At the reception hall at the garden not far from the ceremony area, it was now lunch time and people were settling in for the party: both Ron and Hermione had settled onto their seats, choosing not to dance for they knew that Ron couldn’t survive the dance floor on two left feet; everyone began to dig in the food served in family style: chatting while taking a few bites at a time. Mari and her group were seated along with the Survey Corps. right besides the dance floor, whereas Sayeko and Harry were seated at the bridal party table. They shared stories about their lives and how Harry essentially brought them all together, albeit it took so long to finally to meet each other. Levi even told Issa that her name had reminded him of an old friend he and Sayeko used to know from Wall Maria who perished a long time ago, which she was blushed at the coincidences.

The guests were finishing lunch and Jenny, Snooper, & Philip was entertaining Kirby when Erwin did brought up one question to Mari over something he and the Survey Corps remembered seeing that morning, “Mari, I was wondering: why is your brother keeping a box in the pocket of his pants?”

“Well, Erwin: He dragged me, Kairi, Ron, Hermione, and Kirby into a shopping spree in New York last December; he didn’t want to explain himself over this thing,” she answered to the concerned Survey Corps. commander.

“Same here: when we met up with him earlier at the hotel, he didn’t want to spill the beans to us either,” Hanji agreed as she adjusted her eyeglasses a bit.

“Yeah, that’s true, Hanji. Harry has his lips sealed when we asked him over the box in his pocket situation earlier this morning,” Mike added in before taking another sip of water.

“Even if he’s a my godbrother, Harry doesn’t want to tell me anything about that box since you guys arrived in London. He isn’t that secretive all the time,” Levi sighed, “What is he hiding right now?”

“He has been hiding something inside of the box for months,” Issa explained.

“Geez, I wish I know what is in his head...” Mari sighed.

“Me too, sis,” Kairi nodded in agreement before she mumbled about a weird scenario, “Can you imagine him stepping on the center of the dance floor and asking Issa for a dance, with the box in his pocket?”

“Kairi, please don’t bring up too much...” Mari was cut off from her talk when Harry took to the stage and began to speak up nervously through the microphone, “Uh, excuse me. I just had something to announce today. I know this is weird to put a hold to a wedding, but this is really urgent.”

“Oh God, did I predicted something?” Kairi whispered to the group.

“So what’s next then?” Philip asked as he, the Snoopers, and Kirby finally took notice of the move.

“I would like to ask Isabelle Miravelez to come over to the dance floor, because I have something to ask her right now,” Harry then clarified the nature of the impending announcement and asked for Issa’s presence.

“Me, me?” Issa was even more confused as she proceed to walk up to the floor while Snooper brought out his video camera to capture the moment unfolding.

“Ohhh… Do I think this moment is coming?” Jenny’s eye began to well up in tears of anticipation, which further confused Mari further.

All eyes were glued to Harry and Issa as he then pulled out the velvet box from his pants pocket and finally spoke to his long-time Filipino girlfriend for nearly a decade in, “Well, Issa. It finally comes to this: being stared at by confused people in a wedding of all places. When my sister Mari first introduced me to you, I wasn’t in a good place at the time with all the troubles I went through in troubleshooting a failing relationship and I came out of it even worse after that June day over hot water of the figurative and literal kind.”

The last words alarmed Ginny in the heart: she knew deep in her heart that she had pursued the Boy Who Lived, or rather, an idealized version of him much longer than Issa did with the real guy, only for the two to crash and burn, and sank down to her seat further in shame. Tears were escaping her eyes, threatening to damage her eye makeup, as Harry continued his speech, “I didn’t think then that she will bring us together and I was too scared to fall in love again, yet here we are almost 10 years later. The time we have together isn’t all sunshine and rainbows with jealous exes, people thinking that we’re off our heads in this inter-fandom relationship, having petty ‘fights’ here and there, and even having doubts ourselves if we made the right decision to push through with it. And yet, we managed to grow with time and learning to accept each other, and loving each other unconditionally.”

She didn’t know why, but Mari could feel tears running down her cheeks. Now the librarian wasn’t too sure if she is happy or sad then, but she was too engrossed with the speech to care, and the same applied with Kairi who was now shedding tears as well and Philip, despite not having a clue of what’s going on to his defense, who quietly shed tears. The Snoopers were bracing for that one moment to come, feeling it is about to happen any time now, while Kirby, being a little puffball, was at awe at the moment, jumping up and down in excitement. The Survey Corps, including Levi who couldn’t help but to smile in advance, were also drawn to the speech that continued in as Harry went down on his right knee, taking a deep breath and giving himself a little pep talk, “Alright, Harry. This is it: you’re really going to do this...”

The plot then thickened when he finally opened the box that he had been hiding from most people for nearly 4 months, inside there was a dainty thin gold ring holding a small central midnight blue sapphire, which is flanked by 4 smaller diamonds and 2 small pearls on each side (2 diamonds to 1 pearl). Ohs and ahs filled the room as eyes took notice of the mystery ring Harry has on his hands. Issa couldn’t keep her composure stable as she gasped at the sight of the ring, cupping her mouth with her hands in shock, people were bracing themselves. Relieved that she reacted to it positively, he got the chance to pop that one important question, “Isabelle Miravelez: will you marry me?”

It took her such a long time to pull herself together and compose her thoughts, but sensing the full sincere thoughts her wizard boyfriend has and how serious he was with the proposal (as the big surprise as it was), but Issa couldn’t wait any more to give a quick, “Ay naku, Harry! I’m in a loss of words now. I have no idea why you hid that ring from me for this long, but you know what? I’m really going to accept it! So it’s a yes!”

The star news writer wrapped her arms around Harry tightly as many guests gushed and enjoyed the moment. The Tans, Philip, the Snoopers, Kirby, the Survey Corps, & Ron and Hermione finally understood the surprise Harry was able to hide: after all those nearly 10 years, he has come to accept that he was really heads over heels for Issa no matter what his younger self thought of then. Yes, he can be a hot mess at times (more so in his teen years), but he’s way better than he was when he came out of a toxic relationship with Ginny. Issa knew she didn’t have magic powers compared to her half-blood beau and the 2 pureblood exes he dated, but it didn’t matter at all: she was the shining light that he was looking for aside from his adopted sisters and there is nothing that can break them apart.

As Harry placed the ring on Issa’s left ring finger, Mari could hear cheers from the guests present. Sayeko and Levi cheered in joy, happy to know that their friend has finally gotten his happy ending; Mike gave Erwin and Hanji a big hug while screaming his heart off in happiness, while Philip did his best to keep his composure intact as he wiped his tears away. Meanwhile, Jenny and Snooper sent out in a sigh of relief with Ron and Hermione tearing up in joy, finally getting to see their friends getting engaged, Kirby squeaked in joy as he happily danced about in his famous Kirby Dance, and Kairi gave Mari a loving hug, knowing that their brother is going to settle down soon. She even saw the looks of happiness and pride in the Lupins, the Lovegoods, Neville, Hagrid, and Mr. & Mrs. Weasley’s faces too. The same can be said for Fred & George, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, and Percy (although the latter 2 didn’t want to let that be obvious).

And yet, Mari can hear something else too: it was sobbing from the bridal party table and she turned around to see Ginny slumped onto the table and crying her eyes off, murmuring in gibberish she couldn’t decipher. She guessed that the Weasley girl was regretting turning Harry off and pushed him away from her for so long that their relationship has become irreparable. Not even magic could save her from the years of despising him, she wept. For once, the librarian felt some sympathy for the girl who broke her brother’s heart, but it was sadly too late for both women to make some form of reconciliation on the red-haired woman’s part: almost 10 years too late… Ginevra Molly Weasley was a hot mess of regret, anger, and yearning in the inside.

The End

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buckyscrystalqueen · 6 years ago

Text

Small World: Part 1

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Warnings: Swearing, and fluff.

Word Count: 3,716

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

“Killian, please hurry for mommy.” You said as you walked quickly down the busy New York streets with your four year old son’s hand held tightly in your hand so he wouldn’t get lost. “We are so late.”

“Mommy, my shoe!” He said as he pulled at your hand. You sighed, and stopped so you could tie your son’s shoe since he was still learning how to do it himself. You moved him off to the side of the sidewalk so that you were out of the way and crouched down in front of him with a smile.

“Bunny ear, bunny ear.” You said with a glance up at him through your lashes, loving watching your son mumble the words along with you. “Playing by a tree. Criss-crossed the tree, trying to catch me. Bunny ears, Bunny ears, jumped into the hole, popped out the other side beautiful and bold.” You smile up at him, gave your pride and joy a kiss on the cheek before standing up and picking him up as well. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go to school.” He nodded and held onto your neck as you walked quickly up the last couple blocks to Killian’s preschool while he talked your ear off about the colors, sights, and sounds of the big, crazy world around him. You were walking so fast and were so distracted by Killian and traffic, you missed the other mother running toward you as well, and the two of you nearly crashed into each other right outside the door.

“Shit!” The redhead said as she took a step back with her daughter in her arms. “I am so, so sorry.”

“No, you’re fine.” You said as you pulled open the preschool door and gestured her inside first. The pair of you walked through the door, put your children down so they could go and play before school actually started, and moved to different parts of the desk to sign your kids in. Backpacks were passed off, and shouted good byes were exchanged before you and the woman both hurried out the door.

“I really am sorry.” She repeated as you walked beside her toward the subway.

“Trust me.” You giggled as you glanced over at her, doing a slight double take at the gorgeous woman beside you. “I was just as distracted as you. My son is not a morning person so I’m usually running to get us both where we needed to be in the mornings.”

“I know the feeling.” She said as the two of you jogged down the steps in heels. “Irina… my daughter… she drives me crazy in the mornings.” You giggled and nodded as you scanned your subway pass and nearly took off at a run to catch the subway at the station before it left. The woman ran in behind you with only seconds to spare and actually ran into you this time in the small amount of space you both had in the car. You instinctively reached out to grab her arm so she wouldn’t fall at the same moment she did as well, but at the angle you were standing, she accidentally grabbed the side of your breast instead.

“Well.” You laughed as the woman flushed red, nearly matching her hair in her embarrassment. “At least take a girl out for coffee first.”

“I just… I can’t today.” She said as she ran her fingers through your hair. “And I feel like I’ve already apologized so many times, and I don’t even know your name…”

“(Y/N).” You interrupted with a smile as you offered her your hand in the little space you had. She smiled and met your eyes as she took your hand.

“Natasha.” You nodded your head as you both took a step to the side to let passengers in, and out at the next stop. A slightly awkward silence fell between you until the train started moving again. “So can I take you out for coffee? If, um, if that’s what you’re interested in. Or not. Since you probably have a husband because why wouldn’t a beautiful woman like you have a husband. Or a wife. You could definitely have a wife…”

“Can I ask you something?” You asked with a smile as you held on to the metal bar beside you so you wouldn’t tip over. “Do you always ramble when you’re nervous?”

“Apparently.” She sighed before covering her face with her hand. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

“How about this?” You suggested with a smirk as you reached up to pull on her wrist to uncover her face. “I’m usually off at four thirty on Fridays and since I have Killian this weekend, we go to Chuck ‘e’ Cheese in Brooklyn. He loves to ride the Subway over the bridge and I just… I’m a sap for my little man… So, if you have your daughter, how about you join us? Play date for them… not that great pizza date for us?”

“I think we can do that.” She agreed with a nod as the Subway finally pulled up to Grand Central station. You both stepped out of the subway as you simultaneously handed each other your business card. “How about we meet at the preschool around 5? I keep a change of casual clothes in my office.” You barely glanced at the card before putting it in your pocket with a smile.

“You sound like me.” You replied as you both turned to head toward the doors. “I’ll meet you there.” With simple good byes, you turned to the right and headed toward Stark tower, where you had been a lawyer since you passed the bar. A smile pulled at your lips when Natasha turned in the same direction.

“Are you following me?” She laughed as you stopped at the street corner to cross the road.

“I mean, you’d follow you, too.” You giggled as you pulled your ID badge from your briefcase and showed it to her. “I work for Stark Industries.” Natasha stopped walking, and turned to look at you, stunned.

“I’m his personal assistant.” She said as she pulled her Stark issued ID from her jacket pocket.

“What a small world.” She nodded in agreement as she pulled open the front door and gestured you in first this time.

“So how about we just meet down here in the lobby at four thirty? Kind of just makes things easier.”

“Sounds perfect.” You said as you stopped in front of the bank of elevators dedicated for floors one through fifty-five. “Have a good day, Natasha.”

“You as well, (Y/N).”

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

— (Y/N). I have to go out of town last minute next week for work. I leave Wednesday at 6:30 am and won’t be back until late Sunday. Think I could trade you weekends if you don’t already have plans? Or just meet you at CeC for tonight?

You groaned to yourself as you sat in the lobby of Stark towers, waiting for Natasha, so you could pick up your children for dinner. You shook your head as you hit reply.

— CeC is not good, I have a friend from work and her daughter going with us for a play date. If you’d like, you can meet us at my house after, stay the night, and take him until Tuesday night as long as you can take him to Matthew’s birthday party on Sunday. I have a gift already so you wouldn’t have to worry about it. But he must go to school, Jase.

“Hey.” Nat said with a smile in her voice as she walked up to you in white t-shirt with a black suit jacket over it, a pair of dark blue jeans, and the same heels she had on that morning. You smiled, and stood up as you slid your phone in the back pocket of your light blue jeans, and fidgeted with your plain, navy, loose fitting tank top.

“How was your day?” You asked as you both headed toward the door to go to the subway.

“Thankfully uneventful.” She breathed as the pair of you jogged across the road before the cross walk signal changed. “Mr. Stark left this morning for a vacation with Ms. Potts so I had my office practically to myself.”

“Must be nice.” You said as you held the door open for her at Grand Central. “I’m stuck with a bunch of smelly, middle age men that can’t comprehend that, despite the fact that I’m a girl, I’m a better lawyer than half of them combined and that I don’t, in fact, exist to pour them coffee or stroke their egos.”

“Ouch.” She hissed as she shot you a look. “That sucks, I’m sorry.”

“You know what.” You laughed as you ducked into subway car, and quickly grabbed seats for both of you. “If you apologize to me one more time…”

“OK!” She laughed as she crossed her legs and twisted on the plastic seat. “So I’m not sorry you have a shitty work environment. I laugh at your pain.”

“There we go! Perfect.” You giggled as Killian’s father texted you back.

— Sounds like a plan. I’ll drop him off at your house 6pm Tuesday. We can all do dinner together. And yes, I will bring him to school this time and not the zoo. The wrath of the baby mama isn’t worth it. Just text me when you get on the train home.

With a quick thumbs up, you turned off your screen and sighed.

“Sorry. Baby daddy has to go out of town next week so we’re switching weeks.”

“Oh!” Nat said as she sat up a little straighter. “So should we reschedule?”

“No, not at all.” You said with a shake of your head as you touched her arm softly. “He’s just gunna meet me at my house after. He usually meets us at Chuck ‘e’ Cheese and takes him home straight from there. The only issue we run into when he doesn’t pick Killian up from school is, I let him take Killian to school on Monday morning so he has that extra night if we’re just switching weekends not weeks. Sometimes my son ends up at school, but sometimes he ends up at the zoo. My son can be very persuasive, and Jason just gives in to those puppy dog, green eyes in a heart beat.”

“Oh, God the puppy eyes.” She groaned. “Irina just kills me with those. She has these big, gorgeous brown eyes that she got from her father, and they just break me down every time no matter how hard I fight.”

“Right?” You agreed as the two of you stood up at your stop, and headed toward the door. “I swear they teach that look at the school just to make parents miserable.” It got a little hard to talk as you battled the steady stream of passengers in Midtown Manhattan that were trying to get around the constantly busy city. “Are you close?” You asked as the two of you climbed the stairs and turned right toward the preschool/ daycare center. “To Irina’s father I mean.”

“I… well…” She said as you stopped at the corner to wait for traffic. “She actually doesn’t have a father. I just… I got to a point in my life that I wanted a child, but when you date women, children are either something you show up to the relationship with or you don’t get for one reason or another. On top of that, working directly for Stark can be a little crazy hours wise so when I get off work, I used to just go home and crash, which takes its toll on a relationship. So I did in vitro with a donor.”

“I used to wonder if that would have been a better path for me.” You said as you looked over at her. “Jason and I have been best friends since we were in middle school. We made a pact years ago that if we both reached thirty and we didn’t have children and we weren’t seeing anyone, we’d get married and have a kid. Well, we hit thirty, realized we wanted the kid but not the marriage, so we tried a couple times and got Killian. When he was an infant, it was super hard to do joint custody but around the time he turned one, one and a half, we worked out the kinks. Holidays we used to spend together anyways so that was still convenient, we split weeks and weekends evenly… I mean, until he kept Killian out of school for a week a couple weeks ago. He had been out of town for work for two weeks and thought it was justifiable since Killian was so young.” You looked over at her with a flat bitch face, and shook your head as you paused outside of the school.

“Not justifiable. He’s on a mild probation right now. I was having to pick Killian up from Jason’s every morning and take him to school before work which is why I nearly ran into you. But I added him to the weekly email list for what the kids learn at school, and he realized that pre-k was important. So we’re getting there. He’s a great dad, and we work well together but sometimes, I wonder if your idea was a better one. Even if we are cool, not having my son for a week is no fun.”

“I can imagine.” She said as she pulled the door open and gestured you inside. You smiled broadly and bent down in your heels to catch your little man as he screeched ‘mommy!’

“Hi, baby boy!” You said through a grit teeth smile as you kissed his cheeks a couple times. “I missed you!”

“Missed you too.” He agreed as he kissed your nose. “Are we goin’ to Chuck ‘e’ Cheese now?”

“We are.” You said as you put him down and turned him toward your new friend and date. “We’re going to go with mommy’s friend from work, Miss Natasha and Irina. That OK with you?” He nodded as he passed you his backpack while you signed him out.

“I can show her the boats.” He said as he looked up at you and held his hand up for you to take when you were ready.

“That you can.” You agreed as you slung his bag over your shoulder with your purse. “Alright, shoes tied?” With a glance down, he nodded and took your hand.

“Come on, Irina.” He said as he held out his hand for the little girl’s. “You can help me count the boats today.” Your heart melted as you shared a glance with Natasha while your children held hands between the two of you.

“Alright, follow the leader.” Natasha said as she took her daughter’s hand and headed out the door. You smiled at her back as she easily melted the rest of your heart completely.

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

“Hey. On your butt, please.” You said as you turned your son to sit forward in the booth while eating his pizza.

“Mom, the games…”

“They’ll still be there when you finish eating.” You reminded him like you did every Friday. “Besides, you’re being very rude to our guests.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Nat laughed as she caught Irina before she could turn around to look around as well. “What did you two learn in school today?” She looked between the two children as Killian moved to sit cross-legged on the seat beside you.

“We, um…” He started with a small bite of food in his mouth but before you could scold him, he swallowed. “I practiced counting, and I can count to 100 by five’s now!” You smiled proudly at your little man and ran your fingers through his brown, curly hair as he showed you and Nat his new skills. You both cheered for him as Irina sat up a little straighter for her turn at the praise.

“We did Very Hungry Ca’piller.” She said before taking a small drink. “And one of the ‘coons wiggled!”

“Cocoons.” Nat clarified for you, just in case, because your son and her daughter were in two different age groups since they were 11 months apart in age.

“We did the butterflies, too!” Killian said as he looked over at his new little friend. “It’s so cool to watch them fly away.”

“Did you work on your little letters, moya lyubov’?” Nat asked as she looked down at the little girl that could honestly be her twin. She nodded as she took a bite of her pizza.

“What about you?” You asked as you took the crust of Killian’s pizza from him before he could put it on the table to get it out of the way.

“Not today.” He said as he picked up the second half of his small slice of the pie. “We did senses again today.”

“What are senses?” Irina asked as she scooted closer to the table to look at her new friend.

“They’re like… how you can see the world.” Killian explained as he put down his pizza so he can count out the senses he had learned that week on his fingers. “So you see, and hear, and touch, and taste, and smell.”

“Can you use those senses right now to tell us more?” Natasha asked as she smiled at your son while gently pushing her daughter’s hand so she would take another bite of her pizza.

“Umm.” Killian said as he thought for a moment. “Well, I see Irina, and Miss Natasha, and Mommy. I taste pizza. I smell mommy’s apples.” You mouthed ‘perfume’ to Nat and she nodded subtly as Killian continued. “I hear the music, and I touch the table.” He said with a large smile.

“Good job, K!” You said as you rubbed his back. “Finish the pizza.”

“What did you paint that was green?” Natasha asked as she licked her thumb to get a small spot of green paint of Irina’s ear.

“Numbers.” She said as she finished her pizza and grabbed her drink cup.

“Yea, I see how that constitutes getting paint on your ear.”

“Mom, I’m done.” Killian said as he set his crust down on the table before you could grab it. You sighed and nodded as you pushed his apple juice toward him.

“Finish your juice then you can have your play card.” There was a slight scramble as both kids finished their juices so they could go play. You handed your son his card and helped him over your body so you could finish eating. “Stay close, Killian.” He nodded at you before running straight forward to the skee ball; his favorite game. Nat barely took a step after her daughter, before she took off at a run to play with Killian.

“We have about 15 minutes before he wants to go on the airplane ride.” You laughed as you picked up your glass of Guinness and took a sip.

“Cool.” She sighed as she sat back in her chair and grabbed her Budweiser. “They never tell you how tiring raising children is.”

“It just gets worse.” You told her as you picked up your pizza. “But trust me when I tell you, you’d hate it if you had to give it up.”

“Agreed.” Nat said as she crossed her legs and looked over at your children. “So, I have to ask since… well I mean I just kinda have to. You called this a date. But you have Jason…”

“I’m bi.” You said with a smirk. “Though I haven’t really dated in a long, long time. Law school is a bit of a time suck and you know how working for Stark is. That’s why Jason and I had Killian.”

“Did you two ever… you know, date?” She asked as she gestured vaguely.

“We tried in middle school.” You responded with a shrug. “For like a minute. But in high school, I was the book worm and Jase became the captain of the football team. Puberty did wonders for him, not so much for me. I had to age into the woman you see. And I was trying to figure out my sexuality in a small town with extremely Irish Catholic parents who essentially black listed me when they caught me kissing my female tutor in 10th grade. They let me finish high school, as long as I stayed in the basement, and told me to never come back.

At that point, Jason was the closest thing to family I had left. We had both planned on moving to New York, he went to NYU for engineering, I got in to NYU Law. We got a place together until he did a study abroad program in Abu Dhabi. Then I kinda inherited a thankfully low cost, rent controlled apartment that I refuse to leave in the East Village, and when he came back, he got a place a couple streets away. Then our agreement kinda came to date, and well, you know the rest.”

“Alright, please, for the sake of everything holy tell me you wore glasses.”

“Yes.” You laughed as you set your beer down, and ran your fingers through your hair. “I still have them, too. They were nerdy in middle school but new ones gave off the stereotypical ‘hot librarian’ vibe in college.”

“Oh, be still my beating heart.” She teased as she put her hand over her heart. “Please let me witness your gorgeous ass in those glasses at least once.”

“Find me on the weekends.” You said with a nod as you looked over to watch Killian helping Irina play skee ball to get her more tickets. You smiled, and grabbed your cell phone as you continued. “From Friday night when I get home to Sunday night when I go to bed, I couldn’t be bothered with my contacts.”

“Damn, girl. You are just feeding into my fantasies, aren’t you?” You glanced over at her from the corner of your eye with a smirk as you took a few photos of the kids.

“Good, thing I have a weakness for redheads, too.”

Part 2

#Natasha x Reader #Natasha Romanoff x Reader #Small World

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arvadthecursed · 6 years ago

Text

One And The Same

Miroslav Alkaev and Olympia Bellamy discuss one of their similarities. This takes place about a year after they initially meet on Kylem.

Characters: Miroslav Alkaev, Olympia Bellamy

Pairing: None

Word Count: 1396

Content Warnings: mentions of suicide and abuse

story below the cut!

Miroslav and Olympia limped across a sturdy wooden bridge before collapsing onto the wood and taking a much-needed break. Despite Olympia’s talents at healing wounds, the soreness from their previous fight was still there, and the two planeswalkers were worn out. Miroslav sat and let his legs dangle over the edge of the bridge while Olympia flopped down on the wood.

“Comfy?” the vampire asked with a raised brow.

“Feels like sleeping on feathers,” Olympia muttered, and Miroslav couldn’t help but laugh. “Truly, the epitome of comfort.”

“Aron Capashen is jealous, I bet.”

“Yeah. No kidding.” Olympia took her backpack off and slipped it under her head. “The Seven Houses. Bastards, every one of them.”

“Sassing Benalia? Ollie! How could you?” Miroslav faked shock as his friend rolled her eyes and giggled. “Serra is going to kick your ass, you know.”

“She can try.”

“Now there’s the confident Ollie I’m hoping to see!”

“Confident or stupid? Seems like the latter if I’m gonna try and fight a beloved deity.”

“Well, she’s dead. It probably wouldn’t be too tough of a fight.”

“Hmm.” Olympia rolled onto her back and stared at the sky. “A dumbass necromancer and her bastard vampire friend against a dead goddess. Fair fight.”

Miroslav smiled softly to himself. He was thankful he had decided to let Olympia help him back on Kylem; she was a wonderful person even if she didn’t always see it. She never gave herself enough credit for being a compassionate, witty young woman. Olympia was hilarious as well as kind, and Miroslav didn’t quite understand why she put herself down so often. No matter the reason, he was going to put a stop to it. As he always said to her, she deserved to be happy. The vampire mulled over his thoughts as he took his backpack off and pulled a folded letter out of a small pocket.

Olympia sat up at the sound of paper rustling. “What’s that? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Oh. It’s just a letter from my mama.” Miroslav gingerly opened the letter. It was well over ten years old, and the ink was starting to fade. The elegant Kevyan letters had begun to run together a while ago, making the letter nearly impossible to read. But Miroslav knew its contents by heart; at least once a week for nearly five years he pulled it out and read it.

“Is she still alive?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” Olympia murmured, scooting over to sit by Miroslav. “I understand how you feel. My mother is dead, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She died of bloodlung when I was thirteen, right after I had left for cleric training.” She laughed ruefully before adding, “You know, Xenia partially blames me for her death.”

“Why? That’s really kinda fucked up, blaming your sister for your mother dying of an incurable disease.”

“If you ever met Xenia, you’d quickly realize that to her, everything is black-and-white. Everything has a correlation. A reason. And to her, the reason my mother died is because Serra was angry with me for going to a rural clerical school instead of the one in Benalia City. It’s sort of funny, you know. Xenia was the one who suggested Calchester School to me, because it’s the best clerical school in Benalia.” Olympia looked down and swallowed thickly. “Did I ever tell you that I became a cleric because I belong to my sister?”

“What?”

“I belong to Xenia. She’s two years younger than me and entered the Benalish Knight Academy when she was ten. Because she was a knight, my parents -- and everyone else, really -- expected me to become a cleric and then, once Xenia graduated, I would serve as her cleric and that would be my job for the rest of my life until I died. Don’t get me wrong, I had always wanted to be a healer, but…” Olympia paused for a moment to collect herself before continuing, “I didn’t want to be a battlefield healer. I wanted to do research, Slava. I wanted to do autopsies and study diseases and save lives. Not tend wounds for ungrateful jackass knights who’d slap my ass when I got up and make a bunch of gross comments about my body.” She quickly added, “I mean, sorry. I know you’re a knight--”

“Don’t be sorry. Knights are jackasses. That’s just the way it is. I was a jackass. My friends were jackasses. And your sister sounds like a real jackass.”

Olympia smiled. “You know… she really is one.” She gazed down at the gently flowing river below the bridge. “You have any siblings, Slava?”

“A little brother, Alexey. His Kevyan nickname is Alyosha. He’s ten years younger than me.”

“A full-blood brother?”

“Oh, no, no. He’s my half-brother. My papa, Boris, married Darya when I was nine and after my tenth birthday Alyosha was born. He’s got such a big heart -- you remind me of him. Empathetic, intelligent, a genuinely good person.”

“I’m happy you have such a close relationship. I wish Xenia and I were closer, but we’re just too different. I can’t even talk to her.” Olympia fiddled with a rock on the bridge before picking it up and tossing it into the water below. “I wish I could talk to her like I can talk to you.” As the rock made a gentle splash, she asked, “How about your father? Are you close to him?”

“Not really. He’s a good man, but after my mother died when I was seven, we had an awkward rift between us. You know the Kevyans. They’re a stubborn, conservative people, and he wanted to forget my mother because in our culture’s eyes she had shamed us. But I was just a little boy and I didn’t understand why he threw out all her things and told me not to speak of Mama. And I fought back a lot.”

“She shamed you…?”

Miroslav nodded slowly before explaining, “My mama killed herself.”

“Oh, gods, Slava. I’m so sorry…”

“This letter was what she wrote to me right before her death,” he continued. “My father gave it to me on my seventeenth birthday. I was surprised he had kept it, considering that to the Kevyans, suicide is evil. They believe that Serra made you and your life perfect, and sending yourself to the grave early is spitting in her face. My mama loved me, she really did. But she was deeply unsatisfied with her life. She had studied at Tolaria West, but when her parents became sick, she returned home to Stagiyev to care for them. Her parents’ dying wish was for her to marry, so her uncle arranged a marriage with a man in Aprelevka, and Boris and Yekaterina were wed without having ever spoken.” He sighed heavily. “My papa loved my mama, but she couldn’t love him. She wanted to go back to Tolaria West. And you know what? I really can’t blame her. Mama was a free spirit, a talented wizard, and she was forced to give it all up.” He stared into the paper and sighed. “In this letter, she told me that I should seek my own happiness above all. She said, ‘My beloved little Slava, don’t allow anyone to take you from your chosen path. Follow your happiness. Fight against anyone who tries to take that happiness from you.’ And I live by those words.”

Olympia touched his arm and murmured, “So that’s why…”

“That’s why I want you to be happy, Ollie,” Miroslav croaked, his voice hoarse with sadness. “Live for yourself, for your happiness. Don’t live for your father or your sister or even for me. Live for your happiness and yourself.” He wiped the tears from his eyes as he said, “I don’t want you to end up like my mama. I want you to be happy and fulfilled.”

Olympia’s lip twitched into a melancholy smile. She glanced down at her hands. “No one’s ever told me they wanted me to be happy,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

Miroslav pulled his dearest friend into his arms as she began to cry. At that moment, he swore to himself that he would save Olympia from her destructive, people-pleasing path and set her towards being her own person. I won’t let you down, Ollie, he thought. I’ll teach you to be confident in who you are. I promise.

#magic the gathering #magic: the gathering #fanwalker #mtg fanwalker #planeswalker #em writes #miroslav alkaev #olympia bellamy #marduo #thats their brotp name ive decided

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wellhellotragic · 6 years ago

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No Handlebars 1/2

Summary: Before moving to the city he’d thought his days back at school in London had been wild, but American’s put the British to shame in their attempts at debauchery.

Or that fic where Killian and the guys rent a barcycle for the night and everything goes wrong…but there's this blonde he keeps seeing, and she's an angel

Rating: Probably Teen but let’s just go with M to be safe

A/N: So one of my favorite fandom people was feeling down and I wanted to do something to cheer her up. @pirateherokillian, a little birdie (cough @xemmaloveskillianx cough) told me that you like your fics with a certain pirate acting a little drunk and a whole lot goofy. I hope this brightens your day a some!

“A barcycle. What the hell is a bloody barcycle?”

Killian Jones had heard of all sorts of strange things since he’d moved to Boston three years before for college. He’d been completely taken aback when Victor Whale had scored them all an invitation to the Alpha Tau’s annual ‘pimps and hoes back to school’ party their freshman year. Then there had been spring break. He’d thought his days back at school in London had been wild, but American’s put the British to shame with their attempts at debauchery.

So he really shouldn’t have been surprised at the idea of a mobile method of imbibing, yet he was.

“What part is tripping you up mate? The bar part or the cycle part?”

Will Scarlet, Wanker of Willington, had moved to the states at roughly the same time as Killian, but as the less studious of the two, armed with much lower standards that Killian, Will had found himself with more free time to explore the city.

“I got that much, mate.” Killian made sure to pop the t just has his hand made contact with the back of Will’s head. “I just can’t fathom people actually drinking while on bicycles. I thought this place had laws against that sort of thing.”

“Well for starters,” David cut in, “you won’t be on a bicycle. It’s more like sitting at a table that has pedals.”

Robin, who’d been oddly quiet during the discussion had scrunched up his face.

“And secondly, it’s not illegal. They have a liquor license. As long as your butt is in the seat, you can drink. Once you get off, you have to wait until you’re in the bar to have more.”

“Wait. If I’m already sitting at the bar, why on earth are we stopping at other bars?”

Killian was glad to see someone else just as perplexed by the entire thing as he was.

“Look, I have to run. You’ll see it when you get there. Just be at The Frog’s Pond at nine sharp.”

With that David grabbed his book-bag and headed out for his final exam of their junior year. Killian had taken his last one that morning, on very little sleep thanks to the base thumping from the apartment next door. If it kept up much longer, he was going to find a way to convince Dave and Rob that they’d all need to find a new place after their lease was up the next month.

Killian grumbled as his head hit the back of the couch, earning him a chuckle from Robin.

“Come on. It’s not as bad as all of that is it?”

Killian grumbled once more and the grin his friend had been sporting fell.

“It’s one night, and to be honest, I think it’s time you started getting out again. It’s been three months since Milah broke up with you.”

“Oi, I didn’t know we were allowed to start using her name again!”

Killian rolled his eyes at Will’s flippant remark. The guys had actually all been pretty good about not mentioning her in recent months. Not since she dumped him for a much older medieval history professor. His only solace had been the rumors that he’d dumped her a few weeks earlier so he could pursue one of the literary grad students instead.

“You know what? You’re absolutely right, and I’m going to start with getting out of here right now.”

Killian grabbed his coat and left for the coffee house around the corner, ignoring his friend’s groans as he did so. The coffee shop had always been his little haven. His roommates tended to shy away from any establishment that didn’t serve alcohol or greasy food, and the shop afforded him a quiet atmosphere to study in. Now, it was just as escape from his well meaning but overbearing friends.

The whole night had started off as just one of those vague ideas that he never expected to actually come to fruition. Graham’s birthday had been two weeks earlier and they’d been knee deep in the books studying for finals (or at least most of them had) so Victor had suggested just waiting until the end of term and doing something special to celebrate both occasions.

His mates had been a little tipsy at the time and he’d expected them to have forgotten about it, but low and behold, they hadn’t. Whale had even gone so far as to book the barcycle for the entire evening.

Killian made his way to the counter, ready to order his usual, when he stopped short. There, ordering the last vanilla cupcake and a hot cocoa with cinnamon was a blonde goddess. He’d been so taken with her that he’d missed the barista calling for him to place his order, and when the woman turned back to see what all of the fuss was about, he’d realized that he’d been staring and started to blush furiously.

To spare himself any further embarrassment he stepped up to the counter to order his latte, but when he turned back she was gone. He stayed there for a few hours just watching people and thinking about the woman he’d missed.

Back at his apartment he’d been pleasantly surprised to find it empty and quiet. The neighbor next door must have finally left for his own exams. Well that or he’d stroked out from the constant noise. Either way, Killian was glad for it as he toppled over into his bed to nap.

The pounding was back, a photo frame on his wall nearly falling off as the beat bombarded him once more. He looked at his watch. Seven. Not quite early enough to head to the bar, but not late enough to hope he could tough it out either. He shot a text off to Graham, whose apartment was only a few blocks away to let him know he was heading over.

They watched the tail end of Back to the Future, cheering as Marty McFly and his girlfriend crammed into the delorean with the Doc and took off. By the time the final credits played, it was almost nine and time to head down to the bar. When he and Graham arrived though, it was to find and aggravated Victor yelling at a random guy while David, Robin, and a few other guys they knew sat and watched.

“What’s wrong with Victor?”

“Apparently they accidentally gave our barcycle out to another group?” Will didn’t sound entirely sure.

“No,” interrupted Victor, who was apparently finished dressing down one of the employees. “They actually just double booked us. From what I understand though there is another one coming in about twenty minutes though.”

Killian watched as the guy disappeared into the bar and reappeared carrying a small cardboard box.

“Look, man. I’m really sorry about the mix up, but to make it up to you we have some free beer koozies for all of you.”

Victor scoffed, taking the proffered koozie.

Tonight I was a hero. I found a beer that was trapped inside a bottle and I rescued it.

Cleaver.

With twenty minutes to kill, the guys all headed inside bar, coined The Frog Pond for their drink staple. A blue concoction made with eight different rums and god knew what else. The bartender had warned them that they were large drinks meant for sharing, but being the manly men that they were, sharing was out of the question. Instead each guy ordered their own, all cheersing and taking a gulp at the same time.

It was disgusting. Possibly the worst drink Killian had ever had in his life, and judging by the grimaces on his compatriots faces, they all agreed as well. At sixteen bucks a pop though, Killian had refused to not finish it. The rest of the guys had managed to chug theirs down as well, all except Robin who was struggling with each gulp he took. Finally, he conceded defeat and set the still half full bowl back on the table. Remised to waste alcohol, Killian downed the rest of Robin’s drink in one go.

Killian was starting to feel the buzz as their barcycle pulled up looking worse for the wear. Three of the seats were missing pedals and the music coming through the speaker system was more static than anything.

“You’re kidding me right? This is the joke bike you bring out to get the crowd laughing before the real one shows up, right?”

Victor had a point. Graham had looked up the rental agency and Whale was splashing out a few hundred dollars.

“Again, I’m sorry. One of the owners is in New York and he approved a booking over the phone for a bunch of girls without looking at the schedule first. It’s this guy or nothing.”

Whale grumbled and David tried to tell him it would be okay. As the three men attempted to bargain for a new price, Will and some other blokes loaded a large cooler full of beer into the center of the death mobile and climbed on board, ready to continue their drinking endeavors.

Eventually the three men came to an understanding and joined them on the barcycle. The driver explained to the them the premise. They had three hours to hit as many bars as possible, but that would all depend on them. On how hard they rode and how long they wanted to stay at each place.

“Wait a sec. I thought these things had motors on them.”

“Ya, about that. This is actually one of our older carts. It’s a little old school as in they didn’t start putting engines on them until about two years ago.”

Killian could see Victor’s patience slipping with each passing minute, and while he hadn’t been all that intrigued by the entire idea in the beginning, he reminded himself that it was, in part, to celebrate Graham’s birthday, and he didn’t want the occasion to be ruined before it even started.

He bent over the bar and reached into the cooler grabbing our a beer for each man.

“Well lads, to long nights and the drinks that get us through!”

All of the men cheered, including Whale and began drinking.

Since three of the seats where basically useless, they’d agreed to change seats each time they stopped at a new bar. The driver called out for them to pedal harder and each man took it as his own personal challenge to get them up the hill. A test for sure, but Killian Jones was never one to turn down a challenge.

His legs were burning the entire way around the block to the next bar and when he stepped down from his seat, they almost gave out underneath him. The others seemed a little less wobbly. It was only made worse when he looked over and saw that they had parked right next to another cart, a much newer and nicer cart.

“Okay, gentleman. Henry’s is our first stop. Make sure the show them your wrist bands if you want the discounts on the special drinks.”

“Wait.” Will had stopped dead in his tracts halfway down the sidewalk. “What wristbands?”

“Oh, shit. Sorry guys. I totally forgot.”

“Bloody wanker. The man’s already toasted.”

Will had a point. The driver had been out of sorts back at their starting point, but Killian had just assumed he was overwhelmed from the change in plans, but now it was clear as day. The man had obviously been drinking on his last tour.

The driver ran back up to the cart and thumbed around in an overhead compartment for a while before returning with a sheet of red wristbands. He tore them apart one by one and attached them to each man’s right wrist.

“Ok, so like I was saying, show your wrist band and you’ll get three dollar shots or five dollar shots with a beer chaser.”

The only upside so far had been that the driver seemed to know the bouncer and the men were all allowed to skip the incredibly long line that had formed out front. Killian was just about to step through the door after showing the man his ID when he stopped short, catching a flash of flaxen hair. His breath caught as she passed by him, but she was gone just as quickly as she’d appeared and he’d never actually caught a glimpse of her face.

“Oi, earth to Killian. You coming?”

Killian shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts of the woman from the coffee shop. There was no way it had been her. Boston was a huge city filled with blondes. The probability of see her was next to nothing, but still, he couldn’t ignore the way his heart has started beating just a little bit harder.

“Uh, ya, coming.”

The men stayed there for about thirty minutes. The driver knew the bartenders well enough and had secured a drink for himself easily enough, but the rest of the group had been left to fend for themselves. The two bartenders on hand were both male and clearly more pressed with serving the gaggle of girls waiting. It wasn’t until a female bartender reemerged from the back that they received any service.

They threw back their shots and chugged their beers. He wasn’t quite drunk yet, but he was beginning to feel the effects of his libations on the walk back to the cart. The three broken seats filled up quickly and Killian was once again forced to pedal for his life as Robin took his turn in handing out drinks to all of the men.

The next bar was luckily just at the opposite end of the block and only took about two minutes to arrive at. The White Rabbit. Killian had been there once before in his sophomore year, but that had been the night he’d met Milah. He’d taken so many shots to build up the courage to talk to her that he’d actually blacked out later on, waking up the next day back in his bathroom huddled naked in the bathtub. It had taken three more meetings before Milah had even given him the time of day after that. He should have known then how fickle her love could be.

Bad memories of all of their fights flooded through his head and he wasted no time in ordered a double rum, throwing it back and then ordering another.

“I heard she got kicked out.”

Killian’s head snapped up to meet Arthur King’s eyes.

“You were with Milah, right?”

“Aye.”

Arthur had always seemed like a good enough guy based on the little Killian knew about him, if not a little pompous. But David had vouched for him.

“I know what happened with you two. Dave told me.”

“And what of it?”

“I just thought it might help you to know she got kicked out of school last week.”

Killian’s brow rose as he took in Arthur’s words.

“Ya, she uh, wasn’t doing too well in Dr. Hopper’s class and she tried to offer him the same deal she gave Gold.”

He couldn’t help the way the laugh barked out of him at the image of Milah attempted to seduce an ethics professor. It shouldn’t have given him the pleasure it did, knowing that Milah had been kicked out of school so close to graduation, but a part of him felt pleased. Arthur walked away to rejoin David as Killian sat at the bar smiling.

The third bar was called Pub Parliament, in what most would think as a call back to British culture, but in actuality the place was anything but. It was filled with girls grinding to dirty music that left your eardrums crying for days. Killian had been ready to leave the moment they stepped inside, not even bothering to grab a drink. He was already pleasantly tippsy from the previous bars and from Arthur’s revelation. He just wanted to move on before his mood could be spoiled.

But then he caught a glimpse of golden tresses again, swaying in the crowd on the dance floor and his legs compelled him to move closer. As she jumped up and down to the music, her hair rose and fell like like the sun rising and setting each day. And then she turned around, catching his gaze with her stunning green eyes and Killian melted. It was her, his coffee house goddess.

He smiled, giving her the goofiest grin his could manage thanks to all ot the alcohol in his system. And then his bliss was over thanks to Victor and Victor’s raging hormones.

“Oh gentlemen, what do we have here? Has the universe seen fit to smile upon us?”

The group of guys all rushed towards the woman as Killian stood back, his view of her blocked. Aggravated once more, Killian made his way to the bar to order a shot of tequila. Not his favorite by any means but he needed something with a kick if he was going to have to hear about how some girl’s ass felt pressed against Victor’s crotch while they danced. Especially if that girl was the one he’d been fawning over all day.

He felt a warm body crash into his at the bar and was just about to tell them off but then it spoke up with an angelic voice.

“Make that two.”

She gave him a wry grin, one that rivaled the most stunning of sights.

“Emma.”

“Killian.”

He couldn’t stop smiling.

“Killian, huh? That’s not one you hear every day.”

“No, I, uh, guess not.”

God, he was a fool.

The bartender returned with their shots.

“So what’s up with the big guys night out?”

Kilian tilted his head questioningly at her.

“Well normally when guys go out, it’s just two or three of them. I guess it’s easier to score that way or something.” She’d leaned considerably closer as she spoke above the music on the dance floor. “But there's got to be at least ten of you out here, so what is it? Bachelor party?”

Killian nearly choked at the idea of any of the guys he was with getting married. Aside from David’s brief relationship with Kathryn freshman year, not of them had ever been in a serious relationship has far as he’d known.

“No. It’s one of the guys birthday. Or it was two weeks ago but with finals we’re just not getting around to celebrating.”

“Good to know.”

Killian was vexed by the entire conversation. She wasn’t flirty with him, that much he’d determined, but she seemed content to linger with him by the bar.

“Would you like another drink?”

She looked back to the wall of alcohol and shook her head instead.

“No, I should probably get back to my friends.”

“Ah,” disappointment seeping into every bit of his being. “And what are you fine ladies celebrating?”

“Bachelorette party.”

Killian’s eyes widened as he looked down to both of her hands, praying not to find a ring there. He wasn’t sure if he could handle the idea of her already being taken.

“My friend Anna just got engaged.”

He followed her line of sight, seeing a young girl with two braids dancing around with another girl.

“She’s so young though.”

He hadn’t even meant to say it out loud, but Emma just giggled.

“Don’t worry. It won’t last. This is her second engagement this year.”

When Killian looked back he noticed that the group of girls was much closer that time, walking towards him.

“Emma!” one of them screamed. “It’s time to blow this popsicle stand!”

Emma shook her head at her friend.

“Guess I’ll see you around, Jones.”

Killian turned and watched her leave, too awestruck the realize he he hadn’t even asked for her phone number or last name even. Too dumbstruck to realize she’d used his last name. She turned at the door and gave him a wink before slipping outside.

He was fucked.

Turning around he ordered one more shot and downed it immediately before finding the rest of the guys still on the dance floor.

#wellhellotragic #pirateherokillian #no handlebars #cs ff au #captain swan

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philcphobic · 6 years ago

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[ ONE / THREE ] hello ! it’s KRIS with my first of three muses, and she is known as ANGEL, an assassin for the most iconic gang, DRAGON EYES ! she is a FORMER MEMBER OF RED LIONS and lasted almost two years, before taking her leave about a two months ago because a dragon eyes member ( shout out to @bladehoney ) convinced her to ... so ... there’s that. if you’d like to plot, smash that heart & i’ll come to you as soon as i can either through tumblr im’s or through discord !

[ TRIGGER WARNING ; DEATH, PARENTAL LOSS, BULLYING, VIOLENCE, RUNNING AWAY, UNDERAGE DRINKING, DRUGS, MANIPULATION, MURDER ! ]

LIFE BEFORE GANG ACTIVITY !

born as kim jangmi on november 05, 1997 and she was born to two loving parents and the youngest of five children in total !

( DEATH, PARENTAL LOSS ) paradise doesn’t last forever, and she and her siblings lost their parents when she was 7 years old. she doesn’t know much about her parents, as she lost them to what police would call ‘ an unfortunate accident that should’ve never happened ’, but she knows that her father was a big time attorney & businessman.

he’s known to never have lost a case up until his death. let’s just say some people higher up on the ladder were NOT fond of him and wanted him GONE.

after their death, all five kids were sent to an orphanage. one by one, she would watch as her siblings were either all adopted or headed to live with a foster parent, and wondered if they were all ever going to see each other again. reassurance can only go a long way.

eventually it was just her and her oldest sister, and they were considered a package deal, which is why no one wanted to adopt them; everyone that came around always wanted one & one only.

they soon entered the foster care system but it turned out to be a lot more hellish than they’d presume. the first family was extremely promising, and could’ve been their best bet to a normal life again if jangmi just wasn’t so disobedient.

jangmi was confused and scared, and wanted to go home to what she was used to. she wanted her parents and these people were not them.

it was an endless cycle of going back and forth between new homes for a couple of years, and by the time jangmi was twelve, she and her older sister were finally separated, everyone believing they would be better apart like their brothers were.

all she had of her family now were unspoken goodbyes and one last family photo, taken on christmas day, a month before everything shattered.

luckily, a family chose to adopt her. they had other foster kids, troublemakers like her, and they wanted to test if adopting one would change them for the better before adopting the rest.

this … did not sit well with these other kids.

( BULLYING, VIOLENCE ) these older kids did not like her. they had a lot of reasons, but usually pinning it on her beauty at a young age. jangmi was used to rough housing with her own siblings before separation, but the way they ‘ played ’ with her was nothing like that.

she always had cuts and bruises, and told her ‘ parents ’, she was just really clumsy when they asked. her foster ‘ siblings ’ frequently told her that she wasn’t pretty, forcing her to look in the mirror with all of her injuries and tell her this is what she truly looks like.

( RUNNING AWAY ) there is only so much a young girl can actually take. she thinks it’s easier to run far away, where no one else could hurt her or make her cry. she takes whatever can fit into her backpack, and runs as far as she can physically handle.

an old couple end up finding her passed out on a bench in the park late in the night and take her home. they end up becoming her new parental figures, and they take care of her ( and hide her as she pleaded them to, ) as she is still considered a missing child.

the woman is an ex-professor and the man is war veteran, so she believed she had all she needs in order to live what’s considered a ‘ normal ’ life. she plays with the other kids in her neighbourhood leisurely, but is homeschooled for the fear of being found out, despite already having another identity as ANGEL. she’s taught everything she needs to know from them; everything from english & japanese to self-defence & how to use a gun.

life is perfect with them, and they’re the kindest, most understanding people she’s ever met. they give her a lot of freedom to be her own person, and they usually don’t discipline her, partially because they feel bad about her messy childhood and also because they thought she’d rebel if she was contained in a certain box …

despite their efforts, she turned out to become a rebel anyway.

( UNDERAGE DRINKING, DRUGS ) with so much freedom and little to no discipline, it was easy to push her boundaries away from her. they didn’t know about her getting involved with alcohol and drugs underage, her equally troublesome friends, nor did they know about her first boyfriend three years her senior, at the age of sixteen. they just believed she liked the freedom, and since she was obedient when around them, they didn’t feel the need to be suspicious.

( MANIPULATION, RUNNING AWAY ) it’s good up until she turns eighteen, when she’s about to attend university and meets … [redacted], and they hit it off quickly ! they convince her that she doesn’t need her parents anymore, and manipulating her into thinking she’s a burden for being so troublesome, and should leave them alone. this marks the second time she runs away from home, but this time hurts more than the first.

she left nothing but a letter and a necklace they gave her for her fourteenth birthday, and hasn’t seen them since. in her letter she apologizes for taking a gun from her father, and hopes they don’t try to find her.

[redacted is somehow connected to the gang red lions. she doesn’t understand why someone with so much money would be involved with a gang, but she doesn’t question them ... mostly for safety, in case this person was dangerous, but she’s always been curious.

( VIOLENCE, MURDER ) it takes a year for her to stop being naive with this person, who has isolated her for her ‘ safety ’ while being her biggest threat as they stay under the same roof. she realizes this one night when she looks in the mirror and sees a reflection of the same girl she was when she was thirteen, living with a bunch of foster kids who hated her. a fight ensues, and it’s clear who wins.

meticulous as ever, she erases her presence in their life to avoid trouble with the law, but realizes she’s alone again for the fourth time in her life.

LIFE WITH GANG ACTIVITY !

she slides her way into RED LIONS just days before her nineteenth birthday, already having connections on the inside. it’s the second ‘ unfortunate accident ’ in her life, but this time she’s involved and it’s anything but an accident.

she doesn’t know whether they genuinely thought she’d be a good addition to their growing empire or if they pitied her circumstance ( since she didn’t tell them the blood is on her hands ), but she finally found a stable family.

she is the story of [drake vc] started from the bottom now we here, as she went from having nothing for to her name to rising in the ranks as she proved her worth time and time again. she somehow rose high enough to be one of the trusted assassins in red lions, and was also taking money from outside sources ( coughs aka sugar daddies / mommies ) when she was really in need.

targets are mostly the wealthy, as it’s easier to maintain secrecy when they have reputations to live up to. she usually takes her sweet time with targets, ( no longer than a month ) just to know their schedules and … them as a person. sometimes there are hit & run opportunities but she doesn’t like doing spontaneous jobs like that too often … they get messy.

so she’s there for nearly two years, but during then she befriended sienna and she somehow managed to convince angel to leave red lions and join DRAGON EYES …

or is there more to the story? yes, but it’s not important tbh since it’s minor.

she left red lions at the beginning of september 2018, and joined dragon eyes at the beginning of october 2018. no one outside of dragon eyes knew this until recently … for obvious reasons. hopefully there’s no hard feelings because she still loves the members of red lions !! ( most of them, maybe? hopefully? )

still an assassin, that hasn’t changed ! — not sure what happened to their old assassin, but that’s not her problem — she’s still the same girl, who has tattoos for both gangs despite being only in one. she has been mostly independent in red lions ( except for those times she needed a warm body if ya’ get what i mean, ) and that hasn’t and won’t change. her allegiance is with one gang, but she usually works by herself unless specifically requested to do something other than kill.

red lipstick, pistols & pretty chrome daggers are part of her aesthetic.

ANGEL AS A PERSON !

she wasn’t always a strong person, but she’s stronger than she’d ever thought she’d be. there were nights when she didn’t think she’d see the sun the next day, so she’s proud of her growth. she’s not too in-touch with her negative emotions, so pride is what she feels.

this girl is always looking for improvement, and is constantly challenging her skills, her strength, her mind, & her perseverance when she has the chance. if you look at her desk, there are files of herself with records of her improvements. she’s extremely organized and careful, which helps for her job too.

she is a university student during the day, just to keep as a front if she’s to be acquainted with targets. she majors in criminology, ironically enough. she minors in chemistry, which is also useful if ya’ get what i mean.

she has a lot of money now, mostly because she has a bunch of unknown sugar daddies / mommies funding her every need. if you need anything just hit her up and she’ll get it … with a small price. it’s two way street, but she is more lenient.

she’s a social person, but she’s not extroverted … does that make sense? she doesn’t go out of her way to go out ( unless it’s a target ) and likes staying home a lot. she likes staying with her persian cat, sumi, and her cute lil rosy boa, nagini.

skills include self-defense, knowledge of & experience with most weaponry, lying, forgery, stealing, disguises … uh … driving? maybe one or two more but … whatever. she’ll do whatever the gang needs her to do, no doubt !

( DRINKING, DRUGS ) she drinks every week, but usually tones it down when she’s got a job. luckily, she doesn’t really do as many drugs anymore, but she smokes marijuana occasionally ( when someone offers it to her ) and smokes cigarettes when she’s really stressed, but also once biweekly if anything.

this girl is pretty much a clean slate. ever since she met [redacted], any life with the elderly couple is erased, and her life in and out of foster homes is so far gone that no one knows about it. her name was kim jangmi back then; NO ONE knows she’s kim jangmi unless she’s told them, or made the connection by themselves on their own time. as far as anyone is concerned, kim jangmi died as a missing child back in early 2010. she’s secretive about her past; don’t try digging into it unless you plan on digging your grave too !

she has a lot of repressed emotions, sadness being the biggest one, and isn’t the type to get angry very often, if at all. annoyed is the most she’d get, but she wouldn’t raise her voice. to be honest, she’s decent as long as people are as well? again, it’s a two way street. give respect & you get respect !

uh … these repressed emotions will eventually spill over : ) one day !

ummmm that’s it for now folks !!!!! pls plOT with Me !!!!!

#pabintro #oof this one is LONG AF ladies !!!!!!#⟨ 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂. ╱ out of character ⟩ * 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒.

11 notes · View notes