#those sibling were deeply fucked up i would have preferred if the focus was on them

[arcann]

I still think crimson peak is the weakest gdt movie

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: after what if, but before under cover. LOCATION: xó's apartment PARTIES: @vanishingreyes & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: after falling out with rhett, emilio goes to xó to seek comfort. CONTENT: alcoholism, some wrspice, mentions of past parental death, sibling death, & child death

All of the sorrow won't fit in his chest It just burns like a fire in the pit of his chest And his heart is a bird on a spit in his chest How long? How long? How long?

— Hadestown, How Long?

He was restless. He was usually restless, but it was a lot worse now. Ever since he’d come home to find his not-so-dead uncle in his apartment, ever since Lucio forced him to hear what he had to say. Emilio’s mind had already been in a bad place after the factory with Rhett, but now? He felt like he was in shambles. Like the world was falling apart and he had nothing to use to pick up the damn pieces. 

His usual coping mechanisms were being put to frequent use now. He’d been drinking so much that he wasn’t sure he’d been anything resembling sober since the day he found Lucio on the couch, and he’d been making so many visits to his various hookups that he hadn’t been home in some time, either. It was only a matter of time before he found himself at Xóchitl’s door, though it took longer than one might expect. When he was like this, Emilio much preferred sleeping with people who didn’t know him, who wouldn’t ask him if he was okay or wonder what was bothering him. Xó was his friend. He needed one of those right now… but he wasn’t sure he wanted one. 

It was clear he was in a state when she answered the door. Disheveled, half drunk, eyes darting all around as his leg bounced nervously. He held up a bottle of cheap whiskey in way of greeting, moving by her into the apartment. “Figured we can drink and then fuck,” he said, already unzipping his jacket. “Got a glass?” 

—

She hadn’t seen him in what felt like forever. Thankfully, Xóchitl knew that Emilio was alive, though whether or not he was well was a different story entirely. But that was one that she still didn’t want to focus on, because it made her head spin and made her feel weird and worried, and while Emilio was absolutely someone worth worrying about, it wasn’t something she sought out to do.

But he was alive, and so she hadn’t lost another friend. He was alive and they’d messaged and she’d had too much to drink out of sheer worry – though managed to go to work and function remarkably well. Then again, Xóchitl knew far too well how to look perfect and functional even while deeply hungover. She’d done that more than a dozen times in college and again in grad school.

Right now Xóchitl wasn’t especially drunk (or really at all – she’d just put a frozen pizza in the oven, hadn’t even poured herself a glass of anything), and then there was a knocking at her door and it was a knocking that was familiar, and not someone strange, or someone she probably wouldn’t want to see. Except that when she opened the door, she couldn’t keep her mouth from falling agape. Before even responding to what he’d said, Xóchitl watched Emilio make his way by her. “Drinking and fucking sounds good to me.” She slipped past him, “I have a glass, and I also have pizza that’s almost done and lots of other alcohol.” She grabbed his hand, pulling herself up to where he was walking, pressing a chaste kiss on his lips. “Missed you, you know that?”

—

He didn’t relax when he crossed the threshold into the apartment. Usually, he would have, if only the smallest amount. His shoulders would have dropped, his muscles would have become just a little less tense. Today, there was no such reprieve. He walked in and his eyes darted around the room quickly, settling only momentarily on the various places in which he’d hidden weapons around the familiar space. If someone came in, he’d be ready for them. Logically, Emilio knew that this paranoia was unfounded. Lucio made it clear that his intentions weren’t to hurt Emilio. If anything, he wanted the opposite. He was here because he wanted Emilio to be okay, and it was worse, somehow. Violence was the first language he’d ever learned to speak. He understood it fluently. Everything else was a struggle he didn’t know what to do with.

When he was as satisfied as he could be with the state of the place and the protective measures he’d taken in order to keep both himself and Xóchitl safe, he turned back to face her. He knew he looked like shit. There was no way around it, no way to avoid it. He’d been from one emotional extreme to another and back again over the course of the last week, and that kind of thing took one hell of a toll on a guy. But… he wanted to pretend otherwise. He wanted to feel fine again, or whatever the closest thing was to it that he could achieve. He thought maybe he could get there with Xó.

She grabbed his hand, pulled him in for a quick peck on the lips, and already Emilio was trying to deepen the kiss, attempting to shrug out of his jacket. “We can start now,” he said as he pulled away, hoarser than he’d like to be. He got the jacket off, uncapping the bottle with trembling hands. It took him a try or two to get it off, and he hated that. His hands used to be steady, used to be reliable. Today, it seemed like just another thing that was failing him.

—

He was kissing her even more, and Xóchitl reacted easily and naturally to it. As always, there wasn’t a romance behind it, but more so something of intense appreciation and trust. Whatever he needed, she wanted to be there for, and the making out parts of their friendship were never bad. If anything, they were the complete opposite.

“We can start whatever you want, yeah,” she responded, planting another kiss on his lips. “Drinks sounds good, though.” She grabbed the bottle from him, taking a sip before handing it back. Not commenting on his unsteady hands or the way he looked like he might just fall apart. Xóchitl figured that wasn’t what he’d want, and admitting he was hurting might be halfway admitting she’d failed a friend again, and she wasn’t sure how she was expected to cope with that. So she chose to just not – and besides, there was Emilio to focus on, and she was happy to focus on her friend, to see what he needed. 

“We can have some tequila too, if you want. Or vodka, or whatever…” Xóchitl felt her voice waver, felt her voice trail off far more than she’d have ever liked, but right now wasn’t about her. Right now was about Emilio. “I – hey, let’s go sit down? It’s more fun to get started on drinking and other stuff if we’re sitting down. Not that I doubt either of our abilities to drink or get started on other stuff from anywhere, but sitting down is nice, and I have a damn nice couch.” She elected to make the decision for the two of them, pulling him over to the couch and down onto it.

“Okay, what’s the matter? You can’t bullshit me, ‘Milio, and you can say you don’t want to talk, but I am like, morally obligated to ask, or something.” Xóchitl grabbed a loose bottle from the living room table. Took a sip. Offered him a shrug. “Or we can just drink and fuck and not talk, but I do happen to like you and like talking to you.”

—

She was kissing him back, and usually Emilio would feel some excitement at that. The arrangement that he and Xó had carved out wasn’t one built on romance, but it was easy to find comfort in it all the same. Maybe easier than it would have been had the feelings he had for her been less platonic in nature. After all, with Xó, there was none of the throat-gripping fear he felt with Teddy, no reminders of Juliana and the things that happened when he made a play at something deeper than just the physical. Things like this — like Xó, like Jade, like Javier, like the one-time hookup with Bridie or the way things used to be with Owen — they were simple. They were easier. She was kissing him, and he should have felt a thrill go through him with the sensation. 

But all he felt was empty. 

She took the bottle, uncapped it, and he missed the weight of it in his hands every goddamn second until she put it back. He practically poured a ‘healthy’ amount of the whiskey down his throat the second his fingers were wrapped around the neck of the bottle again, still trembling unsteadily all the while. There was a flash of corpses in the corner of the room next to an end table. The first thought that leapt into his mind at the sight was that their bloodied clothes and mangled faces didn’t match Xó’s decor. He choked on a laugh.

“Tequila,” he repeated, his eyes darting back to her face. His voice was ragged, hoarse like he’d been gargling glass instead of whiskey. “Yeah, tequila is — Good. That sounds good.” He let her pull him towards the couch; he didn’t think he’d have been able to resist, even if he’d wanted to. Every inch of him felt heavy, felt foreign, felt like it belonged to somewhere else. He’d been feeling that way a lot lately — like his body wasn’t his body, like he was a spectator instead of a participant. It made things muddled, made it feel like there was no real difference between the memories his mind kept dragging him back to and the real time experiences he was coping with in the present. 

He choked on another laugh. It sounded strangled, unnatural, like a sound an animal might make instead of something that came from a person. There was something funny about that thought, too. He was a blade, or a dog, or a beast, or anything but a man. Something sharp, something with deadly teeth. He didn’t know how to be anything else, didn’t know how to be anything better. “My brother hates me, I think,” he admitted, a ragged thing. When he continued, he shifted to Spanish without really meaning to. “My uncle asked to speak with him. I took him there, they talked. And Rhett — I don’t think he’s coming back. He left, and I don’t think he’s coming back. He’s angry with me, and he should be.” There was a lot he didn’t know how to tell Xó, not because he didn’t feel he could but because there were things about the world she didn’t know. And his story — his story was already one people struggled to understand. To someone who knew nothing of hunters, of the way hunters were supposed to be, it would sound horrible. His mother would sound like a monster, and she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. “I think I’m a bad person,” he said instead, because that, at least, was both true and understandable. 

—

He wasn’t responding to her in the same way that she was used to, and around some people Xóchitl might’ve been offended, but with Emilio any would-be offense taken instead morphed into some version of worry. One she did her best to keep from showing too much, because she wasn’t about to cause Emilio more trouble than what he was already working through, but still something she held tight in her stomach, and something that wasn’t so easily pushed away.

She just had to keep reminding herself that he was alive and that was what mattered. His being okay might come later, but she could work with that. He was alive and that was more she could say of her very best friend in the world. Xóchitl shook herself out of those thoughts, because that wasn’t something she could focus on right now – she neither had the time nor the mental capacity to manage that, not to mention how selfish it would be of her to focus on that when her friend was very real and here and alive and she could do something for him, even if it was just making out and sex and avoiding feelings through alcohol. 

“I thought so,” Xóchitl shrugged, “it’s smooth and I’ve got the shit kind and also the good kind, so we’ve got plenty to choose from.”

Even though she supposed that she’d made the choice by picking up the bottle on the table, but he wasn’t complaining, and that was that. She hated the way his voice sounded – not for any sort of reason of judgment, but mostly because it didn’t seem like him, and not in the way that it was fun to explore new sides of someone, but more in the way that left her feeling uneasy and concerned.

Which, of course, brought her back into a circle of how she’d felt, because Xóchitl couldn’t keep herself from going back to the most basic of anxiety-laden thoughts. It was ugly and distinctly unsexy, but Emilio had seen her at one of her worst moments in recent years, and he was suffering, and so she doubted that he was paying too much attention to the direction her thoughts were going in.

“Siblings fight, I think. I mean, I have none, but everything everywhere points to that as fact.” She handed him the bottle, swinging her legs over his. “I don’t think you’re bad.” She shrugged. “Maybe you’ve done bad stuff, but I really don’t think of you as bad, and I don’t tend to lie. At least not to you. Your uncle’s a weirdo who likes saying bad things about you, but he doesn’t know you like Rhett does – I – I can’t promise anything, but I bet he’ll come around. You’ve been there for him, he’ll be there for you.”

—

He nodded, though the conversation felt like a distant thing. It was like there was a veil between Emilio and this room, like he existed just outside of it. There was someone here speaking to Xóchitl, listening to what she said, but he wasn’t sure it was him. It was a stranger, he thought; a person who lived in a world that couldn’t exist for him, a world where his uncle was alive and his daughter was dead and his brother hated him because of it. How could anyone function in a world like that? How could this body, sitting across from Xó on the couch with their legs twisted together, continue to breathe? How could its heart beat? 

There were a lot of metaphors for grief. Emilio sometimes thought that he was one of them. As if everything he was existed only to explain the unexplainable, as if he was his grief and nothing beyond it. After all, how could there be room within him for anything else when his grief was so large? It took up so much space, it consumed him. How could his heart fit inside his chest when it was full of this grief? How did his lungs have room to expand and fill themselves with air and not be smothered by it? 

And, perhaps most bafflingly, how was their room to add to it? How could he keep adding more and more grief to this jumbled mess of a thing? How much more could he be expected to contain? He’d lost his daughter. His wife, his brothers and sister, his mother, his home. And now, here he was two years out, losing it all again in another way. Here he was being told it had been done for him, out of love for him. Did that make him a victim, or a perpetrator? Or was he both, somehow? 

Xó offered the bottle again and he took it, poured more of the alcohol inside down his throat. There was always room for that, too, somehow. It filled the crevices, the empty spaces. It let him pretend he was whole for as long as the buzz lasted, which was never long enough. “We will need both bottles,” he said, and it wasn’t funny but he let out another one of those strangled, animalistic laughs, anyway. What more could he do?

She was trying to comfort him, trying to offer reassurance, and Emilio loved her for it even if he knew it was undeserved. She wanted him to be okay; she always had. But he didn’t know how to be, couldn’t fathom a world in which he was. And wasn’t there something awful about it? Here was his friend, and he loved her. Here was his friend, and she was only asking him for one thing. Here was his friend, and he couldn’t give it to her. And he was sorry, because that was all he ever was. She was his friend, and he loved her, and he was sorry. 

“No,” he shook his head. “No. Not — We’ve fought before, but not like this. Not about this. It’s — He loved her. Flora. Rhett loved her. Used to carry her on his shoulders, spin her around. He loved her more than he loved me, I think, and it was okay, because I did, too. But she’s — She’s gone now, and she shouldn’t be. She’s gone now, and it’s my fault, and he hates me for it. And he should. He should hate me, because he loved her. I’m not —” He cut himself off suddenly, ducking his head down, contorting himself into an impossibly uncomfortable position. His leg ached, and so did the rest of him. “I’m not good. I’m not good, Xó. Please don’t — Please don’t tell me I am. Please. I just… I want to drink. I want to fuck. I want to — I want to be someone else, please.”

—

She watched him, though did her very best to keep worry out of her expression. She’d gotten good at that – gotten good at faking hiding however she whatever she actually felt and hiding that away. It made her moms worry less, and that was an important part of making them think she was better. Xóchitl didn’t love the idea of lying to her moms, and she liked the idea of lying to Emilio even less, but she also knew enough about him to know that he wouldn’t like it if she looked at him with pity, and so on went the mask.

Besides, maybe if her breath was even his would become so too, in time. Their legs, wound tightly together, in a rather incredible act of intimacy. Both of them, letting someone else so close. Xóchitl had to commend Emilio for being as vulnerable as he was being, though again, no actual compliment or praise left her lips. Not now at least. She could compliment him plenty later, disguised as gratefulness for his skill in bed. A multi-layered way to ensure he knew how much she valued him. She knew her way around things, and she also knew that there were a number of ways in which she and Emilio were similar, which made working around it all simultaneously all the more easy and all the more difficult all coupled together.

“We will.” Her laugh was cut off by the bottle that came to her lips.

Luckily (or perhaps exceedingly unluckily), she had a damn high tolerance and she intended to fully put that to the test. Mostly because of Emilio, though his pain was also a selfish excuse for her to drink more than she had recently (which, unfortunately, was saying a lot). Xóchitl could manage it, though. She could manage and, more importantly, she would manage. She’d manage for Emilio, and for those who she hadn’t been able to manage for. She’d manage for some of what Emilio needed her to manage for – for Flora. For Flora and for Mackenzie, who shouldn’t have needed managing, because they both should’ve still been there, but right now there wasn't time to focus on that, and there wasn’t time to focus on the knot in her stomach or the way that she just wanted to take all of Emilio’s hurt and shut it away, out of reach, to make sure that he never hurt again.

Xóchitl wasn’t so naive as to think a world without any pain existed – how was such a thought possible when you’d watched your best friend be crushed by rocks in bright sunlight on a fucking playground? But that didn’t make her hope any less. Hope that maybe she could make it easier for some people, and maybe that was why she’d ended up deciding on therapy, despite not even really believing in it and not always wanting to talk about deep and complicated emotions with others.

“Okay.” She began, simply sitting with his words at first. 

She watched him contort his body into a nearly impossible position, and had they been having fun, Xóchitl might’ve made some sort of comment on how damn good he would’ve been at hide-and-go-seek, and then he probably would’ve looked at her with floppy hair and confusion, and the two of them would’ve laughed about all of it.

She wasn’t laughing right now, and neither was he, and it wouldn’t have been right to laugh. Not unless one or the other of them were sadistic, and Xóchitl might’ve considered herself a great many things, but sadistic had never been on the list. Bitchy, self-centered, and flippant, surely, but not sadistic. 

– and with people like Emilio, she only wanted to show the best parts of herself. The kindest parts.

He had, after all, already seen her fall apart in the non-existent joint hallucinatory living room. 

 So Xóchitl ran her fingers along his back, in hopes of offering some form of impossible comfort.

“We can drink and fuck and you can be whoever you want to be, but you’re still my Emilio. You’re still mine, and we can be whoever we want to pretend to be, we can be two people who never left México or maybe we did and we’re somewhere else, but we’re here and fuck your brother if he’s going to leave you for all that.” She softened her expression. “She was deserving of love, but —” she cut herself off, another swig of the bottle, another messy kiss against Emilio’s lips. “We can be two strangers if you want, but I – we’re both still here and I love you and maybe you’re terrible, maybe you’re the worst person ever, but I still love you – and you can’t talk me out of that, no matter how persuasive I know you can be.”

—

There was always some inclination to think that the world was a place where people got what they deserved. It was a natural thing, something that everyone wanted to be true so badly that they tried to make it so. They invented religions where bad people burned in pits of fire and brimstone and good people existed peacefully among clouds and pearly gates, they spoke of karma and the way it came for those who had earned it. They told pretty lies to themselves and everyone around them to comfort one another when they were wronged, said they’ll get what’s coming to them and let themselves believe it. But Emilio knew better. The world was not a place where anyone got what was coming to them unless someone gave it to them. He knew that.

After all, if everyone got what they deserved, Flora would be alive. His daughter, who’d never hurt a goddamn soul, would have been alive and happy and thriving in a life without pain or misery. Mackenzie would have been grown, would have aged along with Xóchitl and been in this apartment now as a roommate or a friend or something with a beating heart and air in the lungs. And Emilio…

In a world where everyone got what they deserved, Emilio wouldn’t have been here. He wouldn’t have gotten this. Not Xóchitl and her quiet, comforting tones, not Teddy and their insistence that he was good, not Wynne and their unwavering faith in him. In a world where everyone got what they deserved, Emilio would have had less than he had now. He would have died for his sins years ago, would have bled out on some forest floor in his brother’s place or under his mother’s knife with an expression of pained understanding stretching his features or in Rhett’s van after the massacre with a cemetery in his chest. Emilio ached and throbbed and still got better things than what he deserved to have, and he knew that. It was a hard thing to know.

His body trembled under the weight of it all, and it was a selfish fucking thing to take the comfort Xó was offering him, but he was a selfish fucking person so he let her give it. He let her touch him, let himself lean into it, let himself pretend that it wasn’t his fault his daughter was dead and his brother was wrong to hate him for it. He couldn’t tell Xó the whole story — there was too much supernatural involvement, and he couldn’t open that can of worms until she was ready to see it — but would he have if he could? Would he have told her the full truth knowing that the full truth might make her walk away the same as Rhett had? If not for him, his daughter would be alive now. His wife, his brother, his sister, his mother… His uncle had traded all their lives for Emilio’s, and it wasn’t an even trade. It wasn’t a fair one. There was no pretending otherwise.

But, without knowing any of that, Xó offered comfort. She ran her fingers over his back, she told him things he wanted to hear even if he thought they probably both knew none of it was true. He could take Xó’s lack of knowledge about the supernatural world, and he could use it as an excuse to lie to her. He could use it as an excuse to pretend like he was a good man, to pretend like he was a man at all instead of a knife or a dog or a monster. He could put on a mask and he could pretend it was his face and she wouldn’t call him out on it because she didn’t know she was supposed to. 

“He was right,” he mumbled, because it seemed too cruel not to at least tell her that. “I think he was right.” But he didn’t pull away when she kissed him, didn’t stop himself from tasting the alcohol on her lips. She was here and she was his friend and she loved him whether he deserved it or not. (He didn’t. He didn’t. He didn’t.) So was Teddy, and Wynne, and Arden, and so many other people who he’d somehow fooled into thinking he was something more than he was. Was that a forgivable thing, he wondered? To accept love you knew you didn’t deserve, to let the people you cared for think that you were anything better than a rusted blade?

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it, with any of it.” His uncle was here, and he’d never know any peace as long as that remained true. But he didn’t think peace would come through putting a knife in his throat, either. He didn’t think he could live with himself if he painted more blood onto his hands. He still felt Flora’s caked beneath his fingernails, still saw Juliana’s in the crevices of his palms. But he couldn’t live like this, either, with Lucio lurking in the shadows knowing him the way that he did. Rhett wouldn’t be the only one to walk out of his life if his uncle remained in it, and what more could Emilio be expected to lose? What more could he be asked to give up? 

He pulled back, away from the aching, desperate way he was kissing her, and he let his forehead drop onto her shoulder instead. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he wasn’t sure if he was apologizing to her or to Rhett or to Flora or to everyone and everything all at the same time. He was sorry for all of it. He didn’t know how to be anything else. “I’m sorry.” 

—

She’d asked her moms why Mackenzie had died. For years. In truth, Xóchitl still wasn’t entirely sure why, and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be sure. She’d had a time, as a child, imagining that some big Dude (or Lady) in the sky helped to control things, but if that was the case, why would anybody have taken Mackenzie away from her? Wasn’t she good? Hadn’t she done enough? So doubt turned quickly to frustration and even into anger, sometimes – more often than she wanted it to, but Emilio wasn’t someone to judge her for anger.

It was one of the many (many) things she adored about him and, in turn, about their friendship. They both had anger but it didn’t make either of them bad. Despite everything that Emilio had to say about himself in a negative light (and it was far, far more than she wanted him to say), Xóchitl couldn’t think of one moment since they’d met that she’d ever really thought about him in any sort of light other than a positive one.

If anything, she should’ve died on the playground. A part of her had, anyhow. Maybe it was a selfish wish, but Xóchitl had wished for it more than a dozen times in the past two decades. Her mothers would’ve been in indescribable pain, but she wouldn’t have had to deal with all the fallout from watching your very best friend get murdered right in front of you. They could’ve had matching dresses at the funeral. (She could still remember how weird Mackenzie had looked. Like some sort of freakish china doll.) 

‘She would’ve wanted lipgloss!’ Xóchtil could remember screaming. There had been a lot of ‘why why why’ there, too.

The whys had stuck with her, all these years. Whys that had never had proper ‘becauses’ attached to them.

You were supposed to be able to get answers, if you tried hard enough.

Which was why she’d been trying for as long as she had been. It was probably almost certainly futile at this point, but the actual act of giving up wasn’t something that Xóchitl could entirely fathom. She didn’t have answers, and because Mackenzie was dead, a part of her was missing. She wasn’t someone to lean into clichéd patterns of thought very often (if at all), but she couldn’t help it, now. Something something about her childhood still affecting her perception of things at the present moment.

Xóchitl could remember when she’d learned about how traumatic childhood events could cause trauma well into adulthood. How she’d feigned being sick and had skipped out on classes the rest of that week. She’d done the reading, of course, but she hadn’t been able to be in class. She might’ve been purportedly traumatized, or whatever, but she wasn’t going to get the reputation of being a slacker on top of all of that.

“I don’t think he was,” she responded, but didn’t press any more than that. Any more than she had to. She’d just affirm her position, and then things fall where they would. She knew that she didn’t know a whole lot about Emilio, but Xóchitl also knew that she loved him regardless, and felt connected to him in a way that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Then we’ll figure it out. Together, or apart. Just know I am here.” She wrapped her fingers in his hair, tenderly. “I’m here for you and for this no matter what.” And she knew that with her whole heart, she was only speaking the truth. She’d never felt any need to lie around Emilio, mainly because even from the random meeting at a bar, she’d felt something – not romance, but perhaps an even deeper kind of love – and she knew that whatever he did, she would follow. She would embrace in whatever way she could.

“You don’t have to say sorry.” She whispered back, leaning back into the couch, letting his head rest against her shoulder, humming something that resembled some sort of lullaby Mama had sung to her when she was tiny (or, even, After Everything, when she had a particularly rough night). “Not to me, anyhow. But if you want to speak a sorry into the world, I will not stop you. It can sit with us. It can sit with us and we can do whatever you need or want to do.”

—

When he was twelve and Victor had died, Emilio assumed he understood grief. It ached, it ate away at every part of you, it spun catastrophes out of the smallest of inconveniences. According to his mother, it made you weak. Grief was the kind of thing a hunter couldn’t afford to carry, the sort of concept that had no place resting on the handle of a carefully sharpened blade. Victor died because he was supposed to die, because all hunters were, and someday, Emilio would end up just the same. He buried that grief as best he could, and he assumed that this was as bad as things got. He assumed that his brother’s death was the worst case scenario and that it only hurt the way it did because it was the first one. His mother and his older siblings had lost a father he’d never known well enough to grieve for, and that was why it was easier for them. Grief, he’d thought, was a muscle like any other. If you exercised it enough, it would hurt a little less each time you had to use it.

And then came the massacre. Then came the blood on the streets and the bodies on the floor and it wasn’t easier — it was apocalyptic. Emilio kept waiting for it to get better, kept waiting for the air to return to his lungs, but it never did. It had been two years now, and he was still suffocating. Every morning, the world ended all over again. Every day, another asteroid tore the planet in two, and Emilio was the only one who ever noticed. Hadn’t he practiced enough by now? Hadn’t he exercised this muscle so thoroughly that it ought to be strong enough to handle anything?

It wasn’t. Lucio came, and he said what he said, and the world ended ten times in a heartbeat, tore itself into pieces so small that they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Then Rhett said what he said, and it happened again. It happened every goddamn time he drew a fucking breath now, this echo of an ongoing apocalypse. The world ended and ended and ended, and everyone acted like it was fine, like it was nothing. There was blood in the streets, on the floor, on his hands, and everyone walked right on by. How many times could he do this? How many apocalypses could he survive?

Xó’s hands were in his hair, and she was speaking. She was saying that everyone was wrong, and there was something almost funny about it even if Emilio couldn’t muster the energy to laugh. It was unlikely, wasn’t it? This idea that everyone was wrong about him, that he was somehow worth the sacrifices that had been made on his behalf even if he’d never wanted any of them. He knew what he was. He saw himself in the mirror every morning. The bags under his eyes, the clammy skin, the way his vision could never seem to focus on anything for more than a few moments… The idea that some broken shell of a thing pretending to be a man was worth any of the affection people like Xó tried to put into him was almost insulting. He’d never live up to what had been lost. 

(He remembered Rosa in his living room, a week before she’d died. I wish you had died, she’d said, instead of Victor. And she’d been right, hadn’t she? How much better might the world have been with Victor to guide the Cortezes instead of Emilio to drag them down? How much happier would they be now?)

He fell against Xó, too terrible a man not to take the comfort she was offering even when he knew he didn’t deserve it. He felt small, felt like a child, felt like a thousand things he’d never been. There were flashes of blood on the floor, of corpses in the corner, and he tried to close his eyes but the same images seemed etched into the backs of his eyelids. Flora’s broken body on the ground, Juliana’s pale corpse drained of blood, Rhett in the factory with his leg missing, Teddy in the mines oozing and bleeding, Wynne in the basement of that barn with teethmarks in their throat. How many more people would he fail? How many more worlds could he bring to ruin with his inadequacy? 

“I’m sorry,” he said again, because she said he could. Because the room was anything but empty, corpses and all, but if he could fill it with these words, maybe it would drive the rest away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He repeated them until they no longer sounded like words at all, until they were three meaningless syllables, until his voice was hoarse, until long after he should have stopped. Each beat of his heart seemed to echo it, like a drumbeat. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. 

Did it count for anything? Did sorry matter when your mistakes were this big? He didn’t know. But he didn’t know what else to be, either. 

[thetriggeredhappy]

Could i request an ace sniper fic? I really like that headcannon, and i dont think i've seen much fic about it

absolutely and hell yeah, anon. aspec sniper is best sniper. went with ace/aro specifically for this one but every iteration of aspec is fair and valid. also the demo-sniper-scout friendship because i love the idea of them hanging out

(no warnings)

-

Lunch break, Hightower. Scout and Demo were the only two who ever consistently visited Sniper in Hightower on account of being the only ones who would ever bother going all the way to wherever he’d posted up for the day, and they were aware of that fact, and so had started a habit of eating lunch up there with him whenever they could. It was a good system. Especially because going to that trouble had the added bonus of privacy, being able to talk about things they didn’t feel like talking about in front of the other mercs. Not that Sniper was particularly talkative—he preferred to listen.

Things they were embarrassed about were a topic, sometimes.

“—and so I’m beatin’ myself up over it, right? Like, yeah I’m barely scrapin’ by on my second senior year and workin’ one job for real and another one under the table and I’ve got sports the rest of the time so of course I can’t pay much attention to her, so figured she’d get annoyed, but I still felt bad right? But then, turns out, buddy from my track team sees her like four days after we break up holdin’ hands with some other guy!” Scout rambled from his place vaguely lounged back against Demo’s arm as both Sniper and Demo ate their respective lunches from their respectively marked tupperwares. None of them remembered who started it, but they tended to sit almost shoulder-to-shoulder, and it had escalated into leaning against each other and a wall and looking out over the field as they talked. “So, like, man, wantin’ to focus on her college stuff and too busy for dating, yeah right.”

“What you get, dating a lass who’s younger than you, lad,” Demo hummed around his mouthful.

“Yeah, yeah. Only a year difference, but man, felt it all at once, huh? Anyways. She got told off by a buddy of mine about it, and we had an argument at some point, but... yeah. That’s the messiest breakup I ever had, probably, just because everyone knew everyone,” Scout trailed off. Silence for a second. “What about you guys?”

“Told you mine,” Demo said, had to pause to finish his mouthful to get the rest out. “Chemistry class, dated three times, she cheated twice.”

“Oh yeah. Jesus, yeah, fuck,” Scout sighed, remembering. “Why’d you put up with that a second time?”

“She was cute,” Demo shrugged, almost dislodging Scout and jostling Sniper a little on accident. “Ah, sorry Mickey.”

“Y’alright,” Sniper assured under his breath.

“Any messy breakup stories for us?” Demo prompted.

Scout tilted his head a little back towards Sniper. “Hey, yeah. I feel like I ramble about relationship stuff like, constantly—“

“You ramble about everything constantly,” Demo teased.

“Eh, fuck you,” Scout said offhandedly, rolling his eyes. “But I talk about that stuff constantly, and Demo brings up stuff sometimes, but you’ve, like, never told us any stories.”

“Not much to tell,” Sniper shrugged simply. “Not my thing. End of story, really.”

“Not your thing?” Scout repeated, audibly confused, sitting up a little bit to look back at Sniper. “What’s that mean?”

“Never much liked dating, relationships, any of that,” Sniper replied without needing to think too deeply about it. “Didn’t care much, that’s all.”

“Thought that was me as well for a while,” Demo said carefully. “Realized I just didn’t have time for it, mostly, between the job and friends and that, so I’d rather wait until I do. Same with you?”

“Nah. Had the time, had the energy, just didn’t like it. Not my speed. Made me uncomfortable, mostly,” Sniper murmured, itching idly under his hat. “Went out with a few sheilas from around, they’d either properly like me or not, and... I just never liked them much. Mostly went because I didn’t know what else to do. Thought I was turning down too many chances, something like that. But then I figured out, nah. Just skip the whole thing.”

“Wait, for like, dating? Or for one-night stands?” Scout asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“Both. Or, er, neither. Wanted nothing to do with either.” Sniper pulled his hat back on straight. “Figured for a minute in my, er... must’ve been mid-twenties? Figured maybe my problem was just that I was into blokes instead, but nah. Just as bad. Just as... nothing, really. So I stopped bothering with forcing it.”

“Good on you,” Demo said appraisingly, jostling him cheerfully, and the corner of Sniper’s mouth quirked up a little.

“Nothing, huh?” Scout repeated, musing aloud. “What, so... like, how people will go on a first date and just never try and call each other again? Just, no sparks? But for everyone?”

“Presumably. Don’t have a frame of reference for what those sparks are like,” he said, then sat up a little a moment later. “No, wait, I know I’ve felt, er... felt something similar. Not sparks, the, er, the nervousness. Then I realized that wasn’t a romance sort of thing, it was me being, er... jealous, and intimidated, and just thinking they were good-looking objectively. Happened with a few blokes, s’why I thought I’d try men for a while. Didn’t last, not past properly meeting them. That’s all, really.”

A nod of understanding from Demo, a general sort of ‘huh’ noise from Scout. A pause. “Would you ever do the, er... marriage of convenience, then? No risk of it getting messy,” Demo joked.

“Nah,” Sniper said, laughing a little. “Nah. Thought about maybe trying it for citizenship at some point, but only on paper. I don’t tend to stay places too long. S’why I like this job.”

“Man, I’m kinda jealous,” Scout huffed. “It’d kick ass to not have to deal with crushes and shit.”

“Eh. Sometimes I’m curious, what it must feel like,” Sniper admitted. “Wouldn’t change it, it’s just... interesting to imagine. I like romance novels.”

“Really?” both Demo and Scout asked, sitting up and looking at him, and he huffed a laugh.

“Can’t be that hard to believe. Liked Jane Austen later on in school, kept reading more. They’re... I liked fantasy when I was young, it feels like that. Adjacent. And I know what love is, I’ve got parents I love, had pets, had relatives who were essentially siblings, it’s just something different from the sort I know about. S’pose it’s, er... just strange sometimes, nice to laugh at the characters for being so ridiculous about things.”

“Don’t tell me you pick up novels from the dimestore, Mickey,” Demo said disapprovingly. “Or those dry historical ones. Tell me it’s all good, not just the same few stories recycled.”

“Only if I’m particularly bored,” Sniper admitted, and Demo made a sound of vague disgust. “And I don’t read much, besides. Have other hobbies.”

“Is it the same thing with why you don’t talk to the rest of us guys much?” Scout cut in, speaking for the first time in a bit. “Just don’t feel it? Not a thing on your radar?”

“Nah. That’s because I’m just not the talkative type. I like you lot plenty, it’s why I go sulk in the base with you all quietly, if I didn’t like you then you’d never see me,” Sniper replied. “If anything, I think it means I appreciate you all more. Less worrying about balancing things, all that.”

“That’s fair,” Scout said, settling back down, nodding vaguely. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

A pause between the three of them. “So I don’t have any particularly interesting breakup stories,” he added. “But I’ve got farm stories, if you’d like.”

“Obviously!” Demo laughed at the same time that Scout chimed an emphatic “Fuck yeah!”, and Sniper rolled into a story about how particularly dumb sheep are as farm animals, and that was the end of that discussion.

[haec-est-fides]

“What have you done?” : Why Riordan’s Handling of Triumvirate Holdings Sucks

I put my thoughts under a cut to make it easier to avoid spoilers and to save you all from a long post,,,like a really long post.

Basically, I think it was inevitable that Riordan fumble Triumvirate Holdings. He simply designed a villain network too powerful and too extensive to ever be handled properly by the heroes. He did try to address,,,some of it, but in the end I think he just made it worse.

I. Let’s talk about Triumvirate Holdings.

The way that Riordan established the origins of the Triumvirate and the extent of their power made it too big to handle from the beginning. The emperors have been around for centuries. It’s mentioned countless times how much property they own, how much money they have, and how many businesses are actually under their control. Rachel says it well in Hidden Oracle: “They make my dad’s company look like a kid’s lemonade stand.” Nero brings it up again in Tower of Nero: “What you don’t seem to realize, Apollo, is that you can’t destroy bank accounts with a bow and arrows. All my assets, all the power I’ve built up for centuries -- it’s all safe.” Think of what Caligula did to Piper and her dad, how deep that ran and how many people were involved. Think of how the Triumvirate funded both Luke and Octavian. All of this goes to show how deeply rooted Triumvirate Holdings is, especially -- unlike other villains -- in the mortal world.

This never really gets taken into account. For instance, Apollo does wonder if Meg will inherit Nero’s tower, but it seems as if she doesn’t, nor do any of the other imperials who go with her to Palm Springs. They live off of the Sibyl’s tarot card business, which strongly implies that they took nothing from the tower -- or the company -- at all.

Apollo also mentions Camp Half-Blood getting the weapons and Greek fire from Nero’s tower, but that is so poorly thought out that I want to scream. Nero had designed special holding tanks for the Greek fire, tanks that Rachel pointed out could be mistaken for a water-treatment facility. And we’re transferring it to a summer camp? Yikes.

Beyond the question of the material, there’s the question of personnel. Mortals, demigods / legacies, monsters, Germani, etc. were all involved with Triumvirate Holdings. I’ll address the Germani in a moment, but the sheer numbers involved make the fall of the company either impossible or devastating. It is conceivable that the mortals, business people and mercenaries alike, could move on and the Mist would do its work. Still, that’s thousands of people jobless. The unemployment rate just skyrocketed. Further, the monsters once under Triumvirate control are now presumably free to cause havoc as well.

Before moving on entirely, multiply all of that by three. Commodus and Caligula employed mortals and monsters as well, and who knows what happened to their material possessions. (Besides the fifty yachts in San Francisco Bay, ofc. Millions of dollars, minimum, at the bottom of the ocean.)

What I’m most concerned about, however, are the demigods / legacies, especially those raised by or who spent considerable time with the Triumvirate. An experience like that shapes people, and not for the better.

II. Let’s talk about the Imperial Households.

Starting with Nero’s household, I think it’s clear that Riordan brushed over the imperials to have his wholesome ending, which is entirely understandable. Even so, he creates such a conflicting view of them that his “they all moved to Aeithales and Healed” bit is so shallow. Apollo’s views in particular cause this problem.

Initially, the fact that the imperials are enemies puts them in this strange category where they’re minors and people (like Meg) but them being harmed or even killed,,,isn’t a bad thing? Chiron, directing new campers during the Greek attack on the tower, yells, “Try not to kill enemy demigods or mortals! Okay, well, from now on, then!” It’s given the weight of a throw-away line. Apollo later goes so far as to think, “I wondered where the other three missing adoptees had gone -- if they’d been captured or had fallen in battle to Camp Half-Blood. I tried not to feel any satisfaction at the thought, but it was difficult.” (Emphasis mine. Oh, and if anyone is interested, this is almost an exact parallel to what Apollo says in Tyrant’s Tomb about Octavian’s death.) I’m not saying that Apollo hasn’t really changed or that heroes have to value the lives of their enemies, but this isn’t the best foot to start on.

In Nero’s throne room, when Meg gets her imperial siblings under control, Apollo comments on how close they are to siding with Nero: “[Meg] reminded me of one of Hades’s dog trainers working with a pack of new hellhounds. ...any sign of weakness from her, any change in the temperature of the battle, and they might break ranks and slaughter everyone in sight.” Even after Nero’s death, the imperials break down. Raging, sobbing, catatonic -- whatever the case, not exactly the best candidates for a smooth adjustment to ordinary life.

Apollo and Meg briefly chat about how the household will need support to heal, but Apollo still notes, with some real hesitancy, “There were no guarantees. The imperial demigods had dealt with so much for so long, some of them might never be able to come back from the darkness.” A short while later, at Aeithales, Apollo observes that the imperials “seemed determined to garden, as if their sanity depended on it, which perhaps it did.” While Cassius, at the very least, seems to be adjusting well, who’s to say that the others are? They can’t garden forever. I just can’t picture this ending as well as Riordan leaves it.

All of that is bad enough, but we know that Nero’s “household” is larger than just the twelve demigods he adopted, and it’s likely that Commodus and Caligula had similar households. Remember Marcus, Meg’s escort in Dark Prophecy? Whether he was one of Nero’s twelve (and got replaced) or not, his existence is evidence that there are far more demigods / legacies involved than the series’ focus would make us think at first glance. We do see members of Commodus’ household in Dark Prophecy, in the stands of the stadium and in the battle against the Waystation -- “a few dozen” even. Interestingly, Caligula is the only triumvir who doesn’t seem to have a household at all, as they’re never mentioned aboard his yachts. That may be exactly as it seems, with him preferring not to have a household out of paranoia. However, I still think it’d be more reasonable to assume that he had some kind of household than to assume otherwise.

Nero’s household appears to have been the most imperial and the most like a family, but that doesn’t mean we can brush off the other households as a non-issue. Considering the lack on information on the subject, it’s entirely possible that the other two emperors did adopt kids. In any case, we can’t judge the loyalty of these unknown demigods / legacies, and they certainly seem to have fallen through the cracks. It’s doubtful that Nero’s children will be able to “heal” even with Meg’s help and a place totally removed from their old life. If the others don’t have any kind of support system? If they’re left to their own devices? That’s a recipe for disaster. They’re likely to cling to the system they know in whatever ways they can.

As a bit of a thought experiment to drive this home, consider: what would Octavian do if he were part of Triumvirate Holdings when the news arrived that the emperors were all dead? I think it’s clear than the answer is not “go live a normal life and pretend the Triumvirate never existed.” It would be naive to think that not a single person in the Triumvirate’s sphere is willing to step up and take over.

III. Let’s talk about the Germani.

Riordan actually explained this well, but then proceeded to fuck up.

I had questioned why the Germani -- ordinary legacies / humans -- could be turned to “monster” dust once resurrected and put in an emperor’s service. What kind of afterlife did that mean they had? Thankfully, Riordan touched on this! As @triumvirateds pointed out on my older post, the Germani -- like most ordinary monsters -- did come back in a day or two after being killed. This apparent immortality, we find, is tied to the Triumvirate’s power, symbolized by each emperor’s fasces. When the Germani were revived, however the Triumvirate accomplished that, they became removed from any usual afterlife until released from the Triumvirate’s service and made “regular people” again.

(This does raise some technical questions. Were each group of Germani tied to a specific emperor? Meaning that the troops on the West coast were “released” when Commodus’ and Caligula’s fasces were destroyed? I’m fairly certain that they still turned to dust during the final confrontation with New Rome. That would imply that their loyalty was tied to the Triumvirate as a whole, and their bond transferred to Nero’s fasces with the power of the other two emperors.)

However, I can’t believe Riordan decided that the Germani would simply be regular people after Nero’s death. Throughout the series, Apollo often remarks that the Germani are a threat because of their loyalty. Remember when the Germani were described as “sensitive about insults to the Imperial person” and nearly killed Apollo for looking at Nero wrong? Well, now Apollo says, “I supposed none of them loved the idea of staying loyal to the cause of a dead emperor.” I’m reminded of when, after Commodus and Caligula were defeated in New Rome, the army ran away and was never mentioned again. In both cases, the Germani are brushed off as disloyal / uncaring and no thought is given as to how they’re supposed to integrate into modern society.

“But wait,” you might argue, “They’re mercenaries. Many of them, like Luguselwa, probably don’t care about the emperors.” Sure. There’s definitely a long history of mercenary troops not being the most loyal, especially when there isn’t a clear leader. However, I have to bring up the fact that when Nero died (in actual history) the German guard was disbanded by one of the following emperors due to their perceived loyalty to Nero, even in death. (Also, because the guard was disbanded for their loyalty, which was a major insult, the entire tribe revolted.) That’s a bit of an oversimplification of ancient history, but with the constant reminders we have in the series about the Germani’s loyalty, this ending just seems like a cheap move by Riordan. He might as well have had them all turn to dust one last time with the dissolution of the Triumvirate’s power. Also, if you even entertain the possibility that someone could step forward to take control of Triumvirate Holdings, I feel that the Germani would serve whoever that was.

On the purely practical side of things, please try to imagine thousands of (possibly illiterate) barbarians adjusting to modern life with zero help. I’m not saying it’s impossible, considering the amount of time they’ve been around (and how they seem to legally exist, as evidenced by Luguselwa being Meg’s legal guardian), but it’s still a stretch of the imagination with how Riordan characterized them throughout the series.

TL;DR

To wrap it up, you just can’t make villainy this pervasive, throw out some guesses as to how things will work out fine, and pretend the world can just move on. Triumvirate Holdings isn’t a snake that dies when you cut its head off; it’s a hydra. The life that almost everyone involved in Triumvirate Holdings lived makes them who they are. Not everyone will end up like Meg, especially considering the sheer number of people impacted. I know that all of this isn’t really Riordan’s concern, that he couldn’t have covered even half of this if he wanted to, but gods does it bother me.

[thethousandyearwitch]

The Show Must Go On! Chapter 4

- A Youtuber AU you didn’t want and didn’t need -

Hisoka Morrow, italian Makeup Youtuber, enjoys his life in the comfort and occasional drama of his profession. But nothing brings more drama into his life than the eldest son of the Zoldyck fashion magazine empire.

Meanwhile, aspiring australian Twitch Streamer Gon Freecs forms a special bond to a Speedrunner commonly going by "Kil".

Chapter 4 “Shifting Sand Land” out now!

AO3 Link

Illumi had always feared that one day he might inherit any of his mother's illnesses. It wasn't out of the question, and he considered himself lucky that no ailment had reared its head so far into his life.

"Do I look as good as how I feel, darling?"

Until now.

Suddenly it felt like years of sickness had caught up with him, spun his head around and made his stomach curl.

It was a coincidence that this sickness would appear the second he laid eyes on Hisoka, wearing the suit that was fitted just for him.

It was a coincidence that he looked like all those marble statues in museums, sculpted in the image of gods and lovers.

It was a coincidence that this sickness could be swallowed and repressed like any measly feeling he had ever encountered.

"I told you to wear a shirt, maggot."

And the symptoms disappeared.

But the disease didn't.

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

Gon: Killua?

It had been quite a while since Killua had responded to any of Gons messages. Well, it had been about 2 hours. But compared to their normal pace of slinging messages at each other any passing minute, this felt like an eternity to the young boy.  He wondered if he had done anything to upset his friend, though their last conversation was just usual banter about breakfast, snacks, and the new battle pass.

He fidgeted in his seat a bit more, the classwork Aunt Mito had supplied him with almost entirely forgotten. The now broken routine made his bones itch, but the attempt of any distraction just made him fear he'd miss when Killua would finally come back.

So, he waited.

He even started half-heartedly filling out the math quiz that had been taunting him from the corner of the desk, though he always glanced back at the computer screen.

Question number 27: (X-3)²-25= 0

Ping

Gon wasn't sure what to do first; Be thankful that finally Killua replied or be thankful that he found an escape from this hell called math.

Kil: Yo.

GON: Hey!!! Are you okay? :O

Kil: Yeah, whats up?

He was obviously not okay. But Gon knew that pressing the issue wouldn’t make things better, though if he pretended like everything was alright would just be an issue bottled up.

GON: Do you wanna play some Fortnite Duos maybe? We can try grinding for the new tiger costume you like :D

Kil: cant

Kil: my mom took my fucking PC away in attempt to become mother of the year

GON: :( im sorry!! But im sure she’ll give it back soon, right?

Kil: fat chance, I probably have to wait till my brother comes back from his stupid trip

Gon tilted his head in thought. This has probably been the longest Killua had ever talked about his family with him. Up to this point it had only been passing remarks about siblings whose actions and personalities melted into each other due to lack of discernible unique traits, and that his family was rich.

GON: How long is that going to be?

GON: Maybe your mom will calm down and change her mind <:(

Kil: lmao, maybe if id actually study now shed be satisfied enough

Kil: but theres no way in hell im going to give her what she wants

Kil: ESPECIALLY NOW

GON: So whatre you going to do??

Kil: idk

Kil: talk to you and think about how to set fire to this place?

 The young boy smiled, though for some reason he could feel a knot tighten in his chest.

 GON: How about only talking to me for now?

 And they talked. For a couple of hours, they talked about Gons new streaming schedule, about how he wanted to have one dedicated day in the week solely for collaborations. They talked about a new exploit for Super Mario Sunshine that could potentially scrap 10 seconds off of the current World record if executed correctly. They talked about how Leorios medical-student VLOG channel had been trending again after he made a hypocritical video about the damages of energy drinks.

Kil: he could have at least cleaned the infamous pyramid out of frame…

GON: Haha he said that in hindsight too

GON: But I think it was his boyfriend who finally made him clean it up -v-“

Kil: must be nice to have someone living with you who gives a shit

Kil: I think at this point the housekeeper hasn’t even touched the minefield that’s my brothers room in months

GON: It can’t be that bad :”D

Kil: you bet?

Kil: what do you think, how much chip dust is needed for an anime figure to come to life?

The mental image of Killuas home slowly shifted in Gons mind again. A large mansion, bedrooms as big as some apartments, with individual housekeepers for everyone. And one room dedicated to imitating a postapocalyptic anime merch shop.

And somewhere in that large mansion, is a room probably equipped with a messy bed, a (now empty) desk and gaming chair, maybe some shelves with books and games. In the middle of it a slightly blurry figure, maybe a bit shorter than Gon, pale skin and messy hair and piercing bright eyes.

He had seen pictures of Killua, a handful of selfies taken at his desk, one picture his sister (who he’d mention the least from his mysterious family) had taken of him in front of a rose bush. And no matter how dimly lit the picture would be, or out of focus, or taken from a distance; His eyes were always the first thing Gon would focus on. At first, he was convinced that he was using a filter, there’s no way someone in real life would have eyes like that.

But Killua did. Killua hid electricity behind those eyes, dangerous and yet enticing, beaming with a life energy that can barely be contained. Gon had heard poems and songs about blue eyes, though none of them ever came close to describing eyes like these. Or the feeling Gon would get from looking at them, tingling in his fingertips, making him smile and giggle and stomp his feet. Kind of like getting a victory royale.

Gon has other friends besides Killua. But none ever made him feel the same way when they talked. He craved no one’s presence as much as he craved Killuas. And something inside him felt the constant urge to tell Killua that, to tell him how much he meant to him, what’s so amazing about him, how he didn’t want this friendship to end.

But that’s just not something friends would tell each other unprompted, and it’s not something that could easily told to Killua, who danced around the word “friends” as if it were a dangerous animal. So, he didn’t say anything.

 Kil: gon?

Kil: did you fall asleep?

GON: No haha, I was just thinking about how huge your house must be!!

Kil: yeah its huge and ugly, sometimes way too loud, sometimes really fucking quiet

Kil: im sure it must be nicer in your home

GON: I mean, it is pretty nice, but its also a little lonely I think

GON: All my friends live closer to the city, so usually no one is around to just come outside and hang out :^T

Kil: if I could id fly over right now and you could show me all the gross spiders that rule your continent with 8 iron fists

GON: They aren’t gross!! Spiders are really fun once you get to know them :^D

GON: And you know, you’d always be welcome here, Aunt Mito would be thrilled to meet you ^^

And Gon meant it. Though Killua never let too much slip of his family life and surroundings, Gon could tell it was trouble, and he deeply wished he could give Killua even just a one-day break from whatever went down in that mansion.

Kil: since we are both home schooled, we wouldnt even need to wait for summer break or anything

GON: Right :^D And its not like either of us are big on studying either ^^”

Gon glanced briefly at the disregarded Math work and shuddered.

Kil: you mean it, right?

Kil: if I were to text you some time that im at an airport and im coming over, you wouldnt let me be stranded somewhere on your prison continent, right?

GON: Of course not!!!

GON: … but I’d prefer it if you give a heads up so I can clean my room :^D

Kil: thanks gon, I appreciate it

Kil: i appreciate you

Gon felt his heartrate skyrocket. Of course he’d let Killua stay, even if he rang at his door without any prior notice. Because even if it goes unsaid, Killua was his friend. Maybe even his best friend. And he’d do anything to keep him safe, or to just give him one minute that he doesn’t have to think about his family. He wanted to see those blue eyes reflect the Australian sun, free of worry and tension.

GON: I appreciate you, too

[sarcastically-defensive17]

Times Like These - LRH Chapter 3 - Emo bitch who threw coffee in your face.

Audrey was used to receiving strange looks when she was out in public. Even if she wasn't pushing a stroller or carrying her daughter on her hip, the near 20 year old often received many stares from people older than her, younger than her and even those her age.

Currently, she was running on 3 and a half hours of sleep, she had oatmeal on the sleeve of her jacket and she had enough anger composed on her small body to lead a one-woman charge on the armies of Octavian at the battle of Actium.

She had barely made it through her 9 AM Roman history lecture only to rush need to pick Lexi up from her daycare and meet Michael for lunch before heading into work for the afternoon.

Thankfully, she had tomorrow off to spend with Lexi and her textbooks. Although she would much rather the former, she had aspirations. And she refused to let those aspirations derail.

She was told by her father, when she announced her pregnancy to her parents, that she would never be able to make it anywhere in life.

She was determined to prove him wrong. Her 10 year plan to raise her daughter and complete a degree of psychology with a focus on adolescents.

She was going to help kids in the way she wasn't helped.

She had not long ago picked Lexi up, stopping to plan a movie night with Jeremy and Marianne before she left. Just as she had stepped into the cafe near the tattoo parlor, her phone chimed. A single message from Michael.

Is it alright if the guys come to lunch? They're dying to see you and Lex.

She couldn't deny that she enjoyed spending time with Ashton and Calum. And she knew Lexi loved to see her Uncle Michael and self-declared Uncle Calum, so her reply was a quick "Sure, see you soon X" before she slid her phone into the pocket of her khaki canvas jacket.

Unfortunately, just as she had turned, small brunette girl on her hip and a coffee and cupcake juggling in her full hands, she met eyes with the same ones she had thrown coffee in a week prior.

"You?"

"Me?" She replied, confused at the purpose of his question.

His blue eyes moved from her own green ones to the brown eyes of her little girls, then back to her own green ones.

If the tall man wasn't standing in her way, she would have walked out of his view, but unfortunately there was only so much she could do while juggling everything in her hands.

She's only thankful that Alexis had naturally started to grip into whatever article of clothing her mother was wearing, as a small assurance that her daughter wouldn't hit the ground straight away if she by chance lost her grip.

"Excuse me?" Her words were sharp, and she gestured around him with her eyes.

The blonde man simply grunted. Stepping aside and gesturing for her to walk with a bored expression on his face.

Audrey couldn't help but notice the way his blonde hair fell flat against his forehead. His black lip ring stood out against his light pink lips and the dirty blonde stubble that shadowed his jawline.

Lexi babbled at the man, reaching out for him as they stepped past. Shockingly to Audrey, the man laughed softly and raised his hand for a high-five from her daughter, to which the small girl obliged, clapping afterwards.

She found a table towards the back of the establishment, and dropped her bag on the back of one of the seats before trying to place everything down as gracefully as she could.

A blur of pink hair appeared beside her, wrapping his arms around the girl on her hip as an excited squeal fell from her lips.

Michael pulled the babe into a bear hug, and Lexi giggled at the sight of her uncle.

"There's my little munchkin!" He grumbled, peppering kisses to his nieces cheeks.

"Mike!" Alexis chanted, kicking her feet in excitement.

This gave Audrey the chance to retrieve one of the many high chairs the cafe had tucked to the side, and when she came back Ashton was holding her daughter in his arms while Michael helped Calum bring over multiple cups of coffee.

"Hello, assholes," she quipped, watching as Ashton settled the girl into the chair and passed over the cupcake, which he remembered to break into smaller pieces.

Calum gasps, feigning offense, "watch it Bilbo."

"Bilbo? That's a new one. What, you manage to sit through a movie that doesn't have boobs?"

"No, I just told him we were watching Game of Thrones and he was patiently waiting to see the blonde lady's boobs," Ashton answered, lowering his voice at the last few words.

Lexi has a tendency to repeat words that her uncles say, specifically. The young girl is quickly getting the hang of her words, and while it is a milestone, Audrey isn't fond of her daughter blurting out words like 'Dick' or 'Fuck' in the middle of daycare or a crowded supermarket.

Michael handed out the cups of coffee, and Audrey's eyes focused on the remaining fifth cup.

The top read 'Flat White, two sugars' which was the furthest from her order of a double shot Long black.

She loved a strong coffee.

"What's with the fifth cup? You know Lexi can't drink coffee, right?" She smirked at the men.

It wouldn't be the first time they had received to feed her daughter something she couldn't have because of her age.

"It's for Luke, he's in the bathroom," Michael answered, watching as Lexi lobbed a piece of frosting at Calum.

The kiwi boy whined childishly, only to be mimicked by Lexi who shook her head around with a smile on her face.

"Ash, can you pull her hair back please? She'll get frosting in it," Audrey pulled a band from her tattooed wrist, handing it off to the man before turning back to Mike. "The same Luke that you've been friends with for like five years but he is never around?"

"You are correct, young Clifford," Ashton quips, his hands fumbling with the hair at the top of Lexi's head. Her hair wasn't long by any means, but it was long enough to get caught up her food of she made enough of a mess. "I can't do this. Babies are difficult." Ashton raised his hands in defeat, passing the band back to Audrey who sighed at the man.

She busied herself with the task, barely hearing when Michael exclaimed, "Here comes Lucifer now."

"Quit calling me that, pinkie pie," a voice sounded, but her blue hair shielded her view while she finally secured Lexi's hair.

The girl kicked her legs again, squealing with excitement.

When Audrey pushed her hair from her face, her expression dropped into one of shock, and annoyance.

"You," she gaped, practically groaning at the sight of  the tall man that had managed to make a bad impression a week prior.

He sighed deeply when he noticed the blue hair and tattooed collarbones. His gaze lingered particularly on the thin cursive 'Alexis' that curled along the bone.

"Me."

"Luke, I'm guessing you already know the hobbit-"

She smacked Calum in the ear, rolling her eyes as a snort left his nose.

"Unfortunately, I do," he mumbled, shifting his eyes to the glare that Michael fixed him with.

"What do you mean 'unfortunately'?" It was no secret that the man was protective of his sister, despite her being younger than him by only two years.  That was clear when he left her ex with a black eye and various other facial wounds when the incident happened. "You two better not have boned!"

Audrey was not in the mood to deal with the drama today. She rolled her eyes at her brother, taking her seat next to her Ashton, who along with Calum had flanked the high chair.

They were preferring to pay more attention to the small child rather than the awkward impending conversation.

"I think I have better taste than that, Michael," she groaned.

"What? Luke is a way better catch than-" he stopped at the glare she fixed him with.

He knew not to mention that name. It was a worse omen than mumbling Lord Voldemort at Hogwarts.

"What I meant, Michael," Luke stole the conversation back from the siblings, "Is that your sister is the one who ruined my favourite shirt."

He was all but glaring a hole through the blue haired woman's head, and she smirked at the memory of their interaction a week prior.

"You're saying that Audrey is the 'emo bitch who threw coffee in your face'?" Michael used his fingers to gesture quotation marks, and a Audreys smirk widened at the thought of striking a chord so deep in Luke that he whined to her brother.

Luke made a noise of agreement, watching as the three men erupted into laughs and cheers, high-fiving the woman.

"That's my girl!" Ashton giggled, leaning back do Lexi could raise her hand for a high-five as well.

"Why did I even come today?" Luke groaned, already regretting his decision.

He could be at home, sleeping. Or better yet, he could have Mandy over. He needed to release his pent up stress.

"Because you live with us but barely acknowledge our existence so you need to show us love every single often," Calum answered, leaving no room for argument in his statement. "And Ashton gathered us all here, and what Daddy says, goes."

Audrey sputtered around the liquid in her mouth, coughing as she tried to force air to enter her lungs again.

"Daddy?" She cringed.

"Yes, dear?" The man giggled, brushing his sandy blonde hair from his eyes, earning an eye roll from Audrey.

Luke fixed his mind elsewhere, focusing instead on a message Mandy had sent him.

It was a suggestive photo, and while he couldn't stand the forwardness of the woman, he promised to see her soon. He couldn't wait to get away from the group. The only one who hadn't gotten on his nerves was the small child who had spent most of the time pulling faces at him, to which he returned with a smile.

"Can we get on with it, please? I've got somewhere to be," Luke groaned, watching as his three friends exchanged a look before ushering Ashton to speak.

"Okay, seeing as Luke needs to leave to fulfill his dick appointment, let's get down to business. I'm moving out."

Audreys brows rose. She figured the first to move out of their shared house would be Michael.

"KayKay and I are going to live together in her apartment, so in a month I'll move in with her," he was beaming. Michael had mentioned Ashton's girlfriend, and Audrey thought she sounded really cool. They had very similar style, and Audrey could appreciate somebody who enjoyed an edgy dress sense. "So Mike, Cal and I were thinking, how would you like to take my room, Audrey? You won't need to contribute the to rent for the first two months, coz I've paid in advance already, but we know you're dying to get out of your dad's house."

She was at a loss of words. It didn't happen often, for the girl often had something on her mind that she wanted to say, but she didn't know how to respond to the offer.

She didn't notice how Luke's face dropped at Ashton's words. He didn't want to live with a girl, let alone a girl and her kid. Even if the kid was adorable and calm.

His mood dropped completely at her next words.

"Uh, yeah? Sure, that would be amazing!"

[angstybadboytrash]

||Voice of Treason|| Chapter 8

[DABI X OC]

Summary: Hanako Yamada is tired of living in her brother’s shadow, so when an old friend comes back into her life, she can’t help but take a chance and make a new name for herself alongside the League of Villains.

Chapter: | Masterlist |

A/N: Hello friends! Here is another chapter. I’m gonna be honest l didnt even know where this was going to go when I started this chapter but this seemed like the only possible ending. Don’t hate me please! I promise that things will get bette just bear with me! I honestly don’t know if anyone is reading this but I have dreams lol

Please please please like and comment because I would really enjoy some feedback on this.

Reblog to be put on the tag list

Tags: @fridgesbestfriend @princedabi @nightkidd-hd @gaylemonsmutfluff @dark-eyed-dream @sweetycue @aarinisreading

It was silent on what was supposed to be a battlefield. The only thing heard was the crunch of rubble under the boots of failed heroes. Concerned glances were shared between comrades as they struggled to figure out what had just happened. All Might was the first to break the silence.

“Woods, Mt. Lady. Search the building. Bring me anything you think would assist in finding their new location.” The young Pros nodded and headed off to gather intel.

“Endeavor. Do you have any idea who that boy was who stood with Hana? He seemed to know you and Hana mimicked you. Is there anything you want to share?” All Might crossed his arms infront of his chest. Endeavor was still in shock and was completely zoned out into the distance as every memory from that cursed day hit him at once.

“Hey dad, I need to talk to you about something. I need your advice.” A baby faced, fresh out of UA Touya Todoroki stood infront of his fathers desk. He was busy filling out papers from that days incident and he was already irritated. He glanced up at his son and gave him a look that said ‘go on’.

“Okay well you see, um, I have been dating Hana for a while now and I think, um, I think I want to-“

“Break up with her? Good idea son. I fully support it.” Enji cut his son off without even looking up. He had never really supported Touya and Hana because he would have preferred his son to marry a girl with a powerful quirk. Make the Todoroki name proud with strong grandchildren that could surpass him one day.

“Oh my god again with this bullshit?! No I am not breaking up with her dad. You know what never mind. I was gonna get your blessing but never fucking mind.” Touya pinched the bridge of his nose before throwing his hand away and shoving it in his pocket to match his other hand.

Enji looked up from his papers to see a very frustrated Touya. “That harlot doesn’t deserve you son. You could do so much better! Her quirk is weak and your children would be useless. You need to focus on the important task at hand. Becoming the number one hero.” He stood from his desk and slowly made his way around the edge of it. When he reached the center of it he leaned back to sit on it and crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to intimidate his son.

Touya’s face became so flushed with anger that his face was almost the same shade of red as his hair. Endeavor was right infront of him now and he was pissed. How dare he talk about his beloved that way? He didn’t give a shit about becoming number one, he just wanted to be with the woman he loved.

“Fuck you. I’m not ending anything with Hana. I love her and you’re just gonna have to deal with it.” Touya pulled his hands out of his pockets to prevent his pants from catching fire. He was extremely close to setting off his quirk and he was gonna lose it if another asshole remark came out of his father’s mouth.

“Have you really not learned a single thing from me? You’re an idiot Touya. You don’t love her she’s just a distraction and you need to end it.” Enji stood his ground and he wasn’t going to let this relationship slide any longer. He had already found a suitable bride for his son he just need to get him to end it with Hana.

“No she isn’t! You wouldn’t know shit about love. I don’t think you love mom, or literally any of your children! You’re just a fucking sperm donor to this family. I’m gonna ask Hana to marry me and nothing’s gonna stop me.” Touyas hand lit aflame he pointed an accusatory finger at his father. He was practically boiling with anger and he was sick of this bullshit.

“No son of mine will ever marry trash like Hanako Yamada! You’re forbidden.” Enji scoffed at his sons ignorance and that just made Touya angrier. This conversation was over and he was leaving.

“You can’t stop me from doing shit. I’m marrying her. I knew getting your blessing was bullshit. Goodbye.” Touya turned and went to leave but he didn’t even make it two steps before a ball of hellflame blasted him into the large oak door. He feel to his knees and rushed to his feet and raised his arms in an X to attempt to block the blow he knew was coming.

Endeavor didn’t throw a punch like he usually did, instead he grabbed both of Touya’s forearms. Hellfire licked its way up Touya’s jacket sleeves, burning the clothing and the flesh underneath. Touya screamed out in pain as his flesh surely scarred, he threw his head to the side so he wouldn’t have to look at his father while silent tears slipped down his cheeks.

“Don’t you DARE walk away from me ever again. I won’t tolerate behavior like this and you’ll be punsished for it. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be trash just like her and then she won’t even want you. Look at me! Do you hear me?!” Endeavor let go of one of Touya’s arms to grab his chin and forced him to look at him. The flesh of his cheeks burned under the heat of his dim hellflame. More tears poured down Touya’s cheeks as he tried to swallow his sobs.

“Hero’s don’t cry. You’re pathetic. Just like her.” Enji removed his hand from Touya’s chin so that he could place his pointer and pinky fingers directly under Touya’s eyes, burning away the tears and flesh. Touya was brutally scarred both mentally and physically. Touya blasted Endeavor back with the arm he let go of and he ran from the office, and he ran from the house and then he ran a little further from the town he used to call home. He ran from Hana, and he ran from his past self because now he was scarred, and ugly, and he was a monster.

Enji was the reason his son looked like that and he was the reason why they had a funeral because he didn’t think Touya would survive those injuries. He was the reason why his son dissappeared for two years. He was the reason why his son became a villain because he didn’t want him to marry the girl he loved. This was all his fault.

“Endeavor? Endeavor? Enji!” All Might’s voice shook him from his memory. He was dazed and confused and now extremely upset with himself. He shook his head in an an attempt to shake away the thoughts.

“I’m sorry what?” Endeavor turned to look at a very concerned All Might.

“I asked you a question. Do you know the boy who was with Hana? We need to confirm his identity but no one is sure.” All Might still stood with his arms crossed against his chest. Before Enji could respond, Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady approached them with two peices of paper in hand.

“They didn’t leave anything behind. But we did find these on one of the beds up stairs.” My. Lady handed over the papers to All Might.

“All Might! Did you find anything in the building?” Eraserhead seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and behind him trailed a very numb Present Mic. His face was flushed from crying and he honestly looked like shit but who can blame him, his sister was gone. He was extremely zoned out and wasn’t paying attention at all.

“Woods and Mt. Lady found these letters. I was about to read them.” Eraserhead nodded to the man and he began to read the first letter.

“Sorry not sorry,

If you’re reading this you now know that I am no longer Hanako Yamada, but I am the Sound Villain Decible. Which is really cool and you can’t say it’s not because it is. Anyway, sorry for the scare but honestly I have been so much happier in the last year than I ever was. Surprise but it turns out that Touya isn’t dead! I’m literally so fucking happy with him and I just wanted you guys to know that I am safe and sound. And Bakugou is too. He’s not as bad as everyone thinks he is but he will be a very valuable asset to the League.

Bye forever, talk to you never 🖤

Decible”

“Well at least there’s something for family, and if we know anything about Hana, she’s gonna keep Bakugou safe.” Mt. Lady sighed deeply knowing that Mic was struggling to keep his composure.

“You’re right. And now we know that this ‘Dabi’ character’s name might be Touya. Here’s the next note.”

“Fuck you Endeavor,

Long time no talk. I heard you declared me dead but hey guess what, I’m still alive. I’m coming for you old man and guess what, I’m gonna fucking do it. I’m gonna do the thing you hated most. I’m finally gonna ask her and it’s gonna be amazing. I love her with all my heart. I hope you have a shitty life and that you vividly remember the pain you caused me. You’re the reason I look like this and I can’t wait to see the news report on “Pro-Hero Endeavor is abusive according to family and he brutally scarred his son so badly he became a villain.” I can’t wait to see you dig yourself out of this hole. Say hi to mom for me and tell my siblings I’m living my best life.

Once again fuck you,

Dabi”

Endeavor sighed and ran both of his hands down his face before putting them on his hips. He turned on his heel to face away from the other pros. He had hoped that he had covered up his mistake by declaring him dead but that would have been too easy. Now this was just the beginning of shit show that Enji was going to have to go through because of his mistake. Everything was at stake and he was going to have to pay the consequences.

“Endeavor, I wasn’t going to say anything but this letter confirms it. Dabi is Touya Todoroki isn’t he?” Kamui Woods spoke up from behind him. Kamui had his suspicions from the first letter but now he knew the truth. He had know Touya from school and now that he knew his father was the reason for his disappearance, he wanted justice for Touya. He was the reason why Touya became the Villain Dabi.

Endeavor turned halfway to look at the young pro before let out a deep breath. “Sadly, yes...” Endeavor pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. He still couldn’t believe what had just unfolded infront of him. His son Touya was still alive, he was a villain, and he was still going to marry Hana. Honestly, it was the worst news he had ever received.

“In this letter he claims you were the one to brutally scar him, is that true? He also said he was finally gonna do it, the thing you hated most? What is that?” All Might folded the letter up for safe keeping in case Endeavor tried to get it.

“The scars were... an accident. He wouldn’t listen to me! He- he was just soooo persistent on asking that disgrace to marry him and I was completely against it. He didn’t care and claimed it was love. I thought it was foolish and a distraction.” Endeavor was slowing getting frustrated as he thought of the past memory. His flame got hotter and brighter in response.

“You can’t brutally scar someone on accident. How do we know you didn’t do it on purpose.” Shoto Aizawa spoke up. Something wasn’t sitting right with him and he wanted to know the real truth.

“I was doing what was best for him! If he married her he would never become number one!” Endeavor glared at the pro who had started crossing a line.

“How would you know? He never even got the chance. You can’t punish a child for loving something, that’s just cruel.” Aizawa was glaring at Enji with a burning hatred. He knew that if he pushed his buttons hard enough, he would confess.

“He didn’t love her! It was lust. It was a distraction that lasted too long. I should have ended it from the beginning but he was persistent and refused. It was infuriating.” The heat of Endeavor’s flame continued to rise. Anger was boiling in his stomach.

“Why did you want him to end it so badly? Were you going to force him into a loveless quirk marriage like you did? When you told him and he refused, he disobeyed your orders so you punished him for standing up for his own happiness, didn’t you?” Aizawa struck a cord and he knew it. His quirk was activated in a flash and dodged to the side catching Enji’s fist in his scarf.

“Did I get it right?” Aizawa had gotten his proof. It was a confession but it was enough. He had witnesses and letters as evidence.

Endeavor was about to explode he was so angry. “I did what was best for him! I am his father and I know what’s best for him and marrying that bitch was not what was best! This is all her fucking fault! She corrupted my son and she’s gonna pay!!!”

“Enji Todoroki, you’re under arrest for domestic abuse, child abuse, and attempted murder. Anything you say can and will be held against you.”

[saintaugustinerp]

Congratulations C! You have been accepted for the role of The Fallen Angel with the faceclaim Zoë Barnard.  Please be sure to check out the accepted applicants checklist! Also be sure send us a link to your blog within the next twenty-four hours. Welcome to St. Augustine!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name/alias: C

Age (18+): over 21

Gender/Preferred pronouns: Cisfemale, she/hers pronouns please

Timezone: GMT/GMT+1

IN CHARACTER

Desired Skeleton: The Fallen Angel

Character Name:  Lady Alexandria Georgiana Fox

Age (18+): 7 June, 1997

Gender/Pronouns: Cisfemale, she/her

Hometown: Chelsea, London, England (via Somerset, England and Panjim, Goa, India)

Major: Art History (with a heavy emphasis on the Baroque period in Europe)

Desired Faceclaim: Zoë Barnard

Character blurb: She always used to wear the most pristine little miniskirts, even in the snow, with only diaphanous stockings to keep her warm, her jumpers tied at her waist. ‘Hot blooded,’ her boyfriend would call her, leaning in close and kissing her and then you could only stare longingly at those lips of hers. That thin, almost imperceptible white line that divides her top lip into a quarter and three of them was there before all the others, impossible to miss in a snarl and even more so in a smile, a wound that had stitched itself back together and left a mark. She cut it on a broken wineglass someone was running around with in first year, and everyone laughed at it bubbling over and bloody, bleeding profusely until it didn’t stop and she went to bed drowning in the stuff. Of course, that scar is of little consequence now, not with that fat, pink one encroaching on her left eye. I heard some people calling her Princess Die, but she was the one who crashed her convertible in Corsica. Not a driver outrunning rabid paparazzi. She has only herself to blame. Don’t look at her, misery would kill for some company at this school.

Developed Head Canons:

Note: The subtitles are stolen from Rosalía’s El Mal Querer (it translates to like, The Bad Love), a Spanish-language concept album released last month with this very cyclical, ancient narrative. You can listen to it here as you read if you so choose.

ALEXANDRIA Cap. 1: Augurio (Omen)

Her parents met when they were both on holiday in Egypt in the 90s, a spitfire and the not-quite reserved son of a Duke. She was the firstborn, but her brother, James, born two hours (and a few minutes no one ever bothered to calculate) after her, will inherit almost all — their father’s title, the estates, the townhouse. It’s not common knowledge at Augustine she has any siblings, let alone a twin who could be a mirror image of herself: he’s studying economics at the École normale supérieure in Paris, and Gia is far more likely to visit him than he her; in Switzerland they tend to meet to ski in Gstaad or Verbier. James, Jamie, is half her heart, and when they both chose to go to different universities she was some kind of agony. It was the first time she was ever alone, truly alone, since the moment she was conceived, but gradually, she blossomed in Switzerland, alone, magnetic in her own right and beloved even without her complement.

FRANKFURT Cap. 2: Boda (Wedding)

She was going to marry him, Gia swears, had they survived to his graduation, had they survived the weight of courtship outside of Augustine, had he not fucked her over. Her parents had met in Egypt when they were nineteen and twenty, and she was supposed to meet her husband then too. And Théo, he was their dream, he was hers, when she held her head close to his heart and listened to it beating she could have sworn it was hers, lovesick (sickening) and naïve. She held her head high, arms slung around Théo and Julien, her boys. The revelation that called herself Sylvianne (the slut) was magnificent in her cruelty, they shared classes and once, sat next to each other in a mixed-year lecture, but Théo was on fire. He reduced her to tears, shaking, dropping to her knees unable to breathe in his bedroom. She hadn’t loved him enough. That was the worst thing. She loved the way he made her feel, she loved his name and the way he spoke hers and she loved that he was hers but she didn’t love him enough. It would have been easy to liken their breakup to an imperial divorce between loveless royals if not for the humiliation, brutal and public and unbearable. Théo and Sylvianne made her something ferocious and wounded and yowling, begging after it was over in the silence not to die alone in the mountains.

ZÜRICH Cap. 3: Celos (Jealousy)

She was beautiful, and she knew it. Thick, long, glossy hair, wide doe eyes with thick lashes, full lips and freckles. Gia cared deeply about her appearance, how she presented herself to the world, and her mother brought her to spas across the continent in search of youth, to halt time in its tracks, placing an emphasis on beauty above all else. Her mother is more than Botox injections and collagen boosters, she knows, Astrid was top of her class at her boarding school, she speaks four languages and was an au pair for an aristocratic family in Spain, but all anyone ever refers to Gia’s mother as is beautiful. She epitomises aristocracy and post Chelsea mummies, married by twenty-three and pregnant by twenty-four, a celebrated hostess and the curator of the Somerset house’s beloved collection. Losing Théo was more than a betrayal, it was more than him cheating, it made Gia a failure, someone with a first love and not an only love like her mother has, it brought her beauty and charm into question: if she wasn’t enough for him, would she be enough for anyone?

BRUXELLES Cap. 4: Disputa (Argument)

The aftermath of the betrayal was as ancient as the idea bearing a cross on one’s back as punishment. A last supper. A resolution. Body and blood and disciples. When the semester came to a vicious end, well before her last class (and for that matter, before she sat any exams) James chartered a plane from Paris-Le Bourget to Zürich, and she boarded an empty train car and uncrossed her legs and pointed her toes at the seats opposite hers, the wetness that lingered on the soles of her calfskin boots in the Alpine spring making them damp and dark. She bought a triptych from her iPhone, texting the Sotheby’s dealer her parents kept on retainer her bids. It was easy to proclaim that the Reveller was a naughty, stupid little thing, stood across from them, but the Oxbridge students she had gone to primary school with in England beckoned her closer the second she stepped off the Gulfstream and wandered back into their territory. Before, it had always been so easy to justify her abuse as use, as necessity, never addiction, it was a line when she needed to focus, a drink or four so she looked like anyone else, she was never high, she was never drunk, never foolish enough to even so much as make herself look like she was either. An old friend called her, in June, in the middle of a fête at the Tory Whip’s daughter’s penthouse flat in Canary Wharf, and she answered, eyes shining and glassy and rimmed with red, a slur dogging the ends of her sentences. She wasn’t addicted. Not so fast. She was being reckless. He wouldn’t hear it. When Diana divorced Charles, she became a queen in her own right, despite severing herself from eligibility. When she died, she became a goddess. When Gia divorced Théo, she drowned herself in wine and white powder and didn’t die. She spent her sympathy long before she ever needed it, never kind enough to be anything but elite and untouchable and once she could be touched, she was unwanted.

CORSICA Cap. 5: Lamento (Lament)

The 5th Duke of Westminster had a villa in Corsica, Gia and James’ childhood palace that lay abandoned as they grew older and realised London was, as they had suspected all along, the centre of the universe, and also that they had a country estate in Somerset and sand was stupid. But their family decided, as Gia’s three-month-long implosion (that didn’t birth a new star, otherwise it would have been acceptable) continued, that she needed some sun, a wholly English cure. She was meant to be forced through some kind of rehabilitation, both for her heart and the whisky, her brother was meant to watch her around the liquor cabinet. The Duchess had not laboured so long to give birth to a daughter who had her heart broken once and became nothing. In the dark the morning of 8 July, sober and awake and alive, Gia left the villa with the keys to the convertible she’d learned to drive on the winding Corsican roads in her palm. The car roared to life and shot out of the garage before anyone could wake up and realise what had happened, its top down in the balmy island heat.

CHELSEA Cap. 6: Clausura (Cloister) Trigger warning: severe injury, car accidents.

Recovery was a bitter process. She was evacuated from the dingy (but needlessly expensive) hospital in mid-August, forced into hiding in Chelsea — it would have been Somerset if not for the necessity of her doctor’s appointments. She broke ribs, if the car had crashed into anything more solid than a grove of olive trees she would have broken vertebrae. But it was the glass that did the most exquisite damage, shattering into a thousand pieces and destroying the side of her face she turned to face it, the left side. She underwent reconstructive surgery and skin grafts, her leg fractured even as they took skin from her thigh, the evidence of what she had done visible. A plastic surgeon did his best to repair the scars, but some were too delicate to even begin to touch in the week before she was meant to return to school. The scars remain visible, almost a dividing line between the old and the new, her freckles shifted by pink and silver lines, her left eyebrow in two. She’s meant to have another appointment, over the summer, to finally repair the repairs and erase the worse of the scars, and ease the severity her headaches, an aftereffect from the concussion she received when her forehead slammed into the steering wheel, but a surgeon in Zürich warned her that her demand, to return to the way she looked before, was impossible to meet. She returned to Saint Augustine like something out of a Bond novel, a villain, and they shied away from her, all of them, hanging their heads as if they knew they had done it themselves (they had).

SOMERSET Cap. 7: Liturgia (Liturgy) Trigger warning: extremely brief and not graphic mention of suicide.

No one was ever blunt enough to tell her what she had done wrong, but she figured it out herself. She was hysterical. Hysterical women were unattractive, unwanted, they always had been, soothsayers or not, beautiful or not. She should have handled the end of her relationship with Théo Rothschild with grace, with her head held high, then they would have adored her, called her back to them, cried for her when she crashed whether she had done it to herself of not. There were whispers she had been in a relationship with the dead boy, something like that, maybe, that she had tried to kill herself when he had died. And the opposite, that she had hungered for attention so much so that she stole what should have been his, or tried to, anyway, vicious and starving. Gia walks with a limp and keeps her eyes on the ground, retreating, retreating, retreating. No rumour could be as cruel as someone telling her the truth, even just once.

TOKYO Cap. 8: Éxtasis (Ecstasy)

Before, she was defined by how dazzling she was. She learned how to fly planes in the summer before university, with James in the cockpit beside her so she wouldn’t dare crash. She loved ski weekends in Gstaad and summering at Lake Como, and she was a half-decent figure skater with a penchant for old noir films and gore and westerns. Gia loved art, it wasn’t just the acceptable degree chosen for her by the sort of people who expected her to be a wife and mother and party guest, she spent hours dissecting the evolution of Caravaggio’s technique as he gained students and imitators in first year and presenting a paper so exemplary the professor urged her to submit it to peer-reviewed journals (she didn’t). She drank, but not to excess, holding bottles of Château Cheval Blanc, her favourite, aloft and making promises of vacations in the Loire Valley. She fit perfectly into the hollow under her best friend’s arm, or her boyfriend’s, and she never made trouble. She was adored, however shallowly, and after, with her face wet and stinging, in the dark she prays that she is exalted, that she is adored again, for someone, anyone to love her the way she was once loved. She wants that even more than she wants suffering.

SAINT PETERSBURG Cap. 9: Concepción (Conception)

She was forged in her mother’s image the way James was moulded steady-on by their father, a rosy-cheeked maiden bred for slaughter-by-marriage and utterly excited for it. She attended a boarding school in Surrey for primary school, chased by a Swiss education for secondary, following in her parents’ footsteps. They were both Oxbridge students, dry and unencumbered by society’s ills. Her mother, despite being born to a nouveau riche half-Indian banker and his wife, an immigrant from Goa, caught her father’s eye and never left his gaze, settling in in his mind. They were lullabies, her parents, fairytales, their marriage impeccable and undeniable, a perfect union of two understated powers. And, her mother’s daughter, her accompaniment to the opera in Vienna and spas in Lucerne, she begged for the same, to be something, to marry someone who was something, because she was told, again, and again, but never so explicitly, that was all she could ever want and the only thing she had to live up to: James had the difficult task.

BERN Cap. 10: Cordura (Sanity) Trigger warning: car crashes, suicide (not graphic).

It weighs heavy over her, the second before the crash, when she made the decision to turn the steering wheel and pitch over the side of the road into the sea of trees below. She hadn’t set out to die, or be crushed by the vintage convertible she had coveted for five months before it became her birthday present, she had meant to inhale the salt and drive in the dark until she was exhausted enough, without a dram of whisky necessary, to collapse into her bed and finally sleep for the first time in months. It was assumed she had something in her system when she crashed. No one ever checked her blood alcohol, neither of her parents spoke enough French and James had sworn to protect her, telling the Corsican nurses instead that she was allergic to penicillin. They whisper that she wanted attention, and she did, if anyone would ever think to ask that she wouldn’t deny it. She just wanted attention, for someone to ask what was wrong, to ask why something not quite unexpected had nearly killed her, and her shame makes her eyes burn and one cheek striped white and the other pink and no one meets her eyes anymore but she never even tries to meet theirs. He’s a boy, for fuck’s sake. A boy. Not a man. Not a God. Not worth anything she did to herself in want of someone, in want of him, to ask, ‘what have I done to you?’

PARADIS Cap. 11: Poder (Power)

She has a plan, face half-scarred, teeth too white, skin stained with iodine under her school jumper, newly cruel in disposition herself when once she was, at the very least, civil. She should punish Théo, yes, and she will, but the slut knew who she was fucking — neither of them should go without blame. Georgiana watches Bas Décsey, her old boyfriend’s old friend, not reverently, but hungrily, flashes of something sharp in her smile, that wild, untamed thing once so easily caged. He’s better suited for her, anyway, no platinum-plated spoon between his lips (only a gold one, it’ll match hers), his interests align with hers. A simple, easily soft spoken question — ‘I need your help.’ The overlap of Theology and Art is undeniable and endless, their knowledge overlaps. Vengeance shines when sworn, she thinks constantly of the slut’s realisation that the poor creature she wrote off has taken everything from her: her own boyfriend, her dignity, her degree. An eye for an eye. Bas would know better than anyone, that’s what God would want. She relies on rumours of his grace and magnificence, and her own wretchedness — this is the time to prove he is a true prophet. (He won’t. He’ll never see her coming.)

(There’s another route, too, she could take: Théo slept with Sylvianne. Sylvianne sleeps with Bas now. Bas and Théo could so easily be torn apart by that fact, couldn’t they? Couldn’t she make Théo lose as much as she has? Could anyone even hate her if she did? It’s revenge. And they can claim piety all they like, but everyone hungers for it. Everyone.)

Writing Sample: Must be IC, should be at least two paragraphs

LATE JUNE 2018

She’s in a nasty mood, hovering on the edge of a violent strop, a wet, heavy feeling in the back of her throat, choking her.

These are wild lands, the mountains (are they mountains? they look nothing like the ones she knows so well) like rows of jagged teeth rising out of the sea, the cliffs cut black and white. An old Aznavour song in a language she doesn’t understand croaks through the radio, staticky from the distance. She leans forward, flicking it off, pressing back into the leather and tracing the steering wheel’s stitches. She’s alone. The girl and her car. James thinks it’s haunted, the car, the way the villa is, the way the island is. When they were little lights would flick on in the middle of the night, and something that sounded like dogs would bark and howl even though they had none. A Nouvelle Vague starlet had owned the villa next to their great-grandfather’s and drowned herself in the pool and she had German Shepard, according to Jamie, when he was older.

The car speaks for itself, top down, never playing the right songs, the leather always frigid even in the Mediterranean heat.

Gia inhales through her nose, the edge of her fingernail sliding under a loose look of stitching and pulling. Her nail breaks. She swears, bringing the split, ragged edge to her teeth to even it out. She’s ruined her manicure — that was her mum’s doing, a hundred pounds for an emergency appointment at DryBy, the soft pink shade easily mistaken for her own nails from a distance. Something whistles. The wind.

She turns the radio back on, taking her foot off the car’s acceleration but leaving the key turned just so. To her left, a brief walk and her door opens out onto the salt, a vivid, vibrant, aching blue in daylight; a churning black sea, the stuff of monsters, of Grecian legends and Napoléon, when the sun goes down. To her right, the dirt. This road ends here. It gets steeper and steeper until it’s too treacherous for a car, even a small one barely suited for two people, like hers, to drive without pitching backwards and succumbing to flames.

It’s dark. She needs a light. She’s never gone this far before.

Gia takes her phone with her, on silent, its brightness turned down, and raises it to take a picture.

An endless grove of olive trees stares back, illuminated by the sudden flash of light. She turns. Above, the road that leads back to the villa, haunted. This is why she came down here. That distance, the gap between the road above and the road below, if she was going 100 kilometres it would cease to exist and all there would be to catch her would be the yearning arms of the olive trees.

It’s a good thing she knew to drive slowly through uncharted territory.

Other: Anything else you want to show us or say you can put here, including any desired changes or questions you have for us.

One last note  — in terms of timelines, determining what the ‘fall’ was is difficult, but I tend to place it as a gradual process rather than all at once. It began, of course, with the revelation she had been cheated on, but she failed to act (as she desired) on the information for a good week. It was a slow descent (here’s where this blog’s title comes from, “An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards”, Terry Pratchett, though sauntering is a nice word for it) from recklessness to Corsica and the crash. So while any of these things could be the fall, I tend to find that starting at the beginning is what I prefer, in terms of before and after. But the scars are a great visual marker of change, so I can hardly protest any other interpretation!

[apurpleaddledbaker]

Character Solidifying

Answers to this ask meme because mun doesn’t know how to love herself and got up far too early to function so have some results

1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have?

Gamzee thinks poorly of his lusus, the creature may have looked after him after his emerging but he was hardly around enough to have much of a positive impact upon him. He may have taught Gamzee about Alternia and ensured he knew of home and his purpose upon it, but that was hardly useful when the creature absconded and left him to his own struggles.

2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?

The Mother Grub is the Mother Grub, not much else to say on that.

3. Brothers, sisters? Who do they like? Why? What do they despise about their siblings?

He’s got all his brothers and sisters in the crew Jade sister is definitely a fav, they chatter about their less than innocent jobs. Gamzee thinks it’s really fucking cool how Jade works He doesn’t hate any of his bros or sisters

4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient?

It was most lenient, due to his lusus being mostly absent, he was able to do a lot of things he most definitely shouldn’t have been allowed to, including get himself hooked on sopor slime. After his lusus absconded, he had a very strict set of rules to follow when he worked for the original owner of what is now his bakery. Before the man was tragically lost during a break in… yes.

5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered?

Not at all. Not at all.

6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child?

He definitely felt more rejection than anything else, there was a complete lack of affection in his childhood.

7. What was the economic status of their family?

They were actually quite well off before the absconding, then his funds were flat locked (and may or may not have been stolen from him at some point by shady bank) and he had to do his best to deal with shit from there.

8. How does your character feel about religion?

Gamzee is all about the Mirthful Church, is here and he stands it. All of the here for his Grand High Brother and the rest of the Church, it’s all good.

9. What about political beliefs?

He’s just a big shrug, doesn’t have the time or the care. Just wants to do what he do, shit’ll happen and he’ll just keep going.

10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?

Gamzee… is a special. He’s consumed all of the mind rotting drugs and he’s the most slow, very late for all of the things it’s not uncommon for him to respond to something that happened a while ago as if it just happened. He’ll also forget so much of what he’s just been told.

11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?

Gamzee knows he’s a bit of a dumb son, he’s fine with that, he’s all cool.

12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?

He doesn’t use a lot of bit words, uses a lot of profanity though and tends to speak slowly and a bit slurred, trailing off and tripping over his words at times.

13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates?

He didn’t really go to school, all of his teachings were very homeschooled kinda thing, first everything he learned from his lusus then what he learned from his employer.

14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they unconnected?

N/A

15. Did they graduate? High-School? College? Do they have a PHD? A GED?

Nope, not at all. There was nothing to graduate so he done didn’t.

16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?

He’s a Baker first and foremost! He loves making miracles for people and sharing his baked goods! Loves seeing the happy faces and hearing how much people like his stuff Also works as a Hitman for the Crew, which he is also enjoying, it’s the closest he’ll get to what he was born to do according to his lusus and there’s something really satisfying in beating a motherfucker with his clubs

17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When?

He’s never travelled anywhere, just stayed in Midnight City that he knows off. He’s unsure if he was born on Derse or Alternia and he doesn’t have anyone to ask anymore.

18. What did they find abroad, and what did they remember?

N/A

19. What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now?

Literally all of the drugs he takes, those are some big disillusions right there. Also probably all of his miracles, would much rather believe in them then the truth of science and things that can be explained away. Let the boy continue to believe in his greater powers.

20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national or international, events that they experienced?

That would definitely have to do with meeting his Grand High Brother and being accepted into the Church proper, that was a very big impressive day for him and stays cherished in his memories.

21. What are your character’s manners like? What is their type of hero? Whom do they hate?

Gamzee’s not got the best manners, he doesn’t quite get personal space or a lot of social ques but he does his best to remember things he’s told if he thinks it’ll make somebody happy, doesn’t like setting people off or making them uncomfortable so he does his best to ensure it only ever happens once if that. He doesn’t really have a hero type? Is just kinda shrug, doesn’t mind hearing about ‘em though if somebody wants to chatter at him about ‘em. He currently has no potential pitch leanings or any hate towards anybody at this current time. At least nobody alive and it’s kinda useless to hate a dead person, would much rather spend his emotions on other things.

22. Who are their friends? Lovers? ‘Type’ or ‘ideal’ partner?

All of his brothers and sisters are his friends! All of them. His Jade sister is his favourite, murder buddies for life Currently doesn’t have any flushed partners/leanings nor does he really have a type or ideal partner, he’s happy to roll with things and let emotions pop up and fester where they do.

23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex?

From a Flushed Partner, someone that’ll stay afterwards and cuddle with him even if he is bony and uncomfortable and won’t be deterred by waking up in a clown octopus hold, rub his horns a little cause he likes that and he’ll purr for you From a Pitch Partner, please just hold him down and give it to him rough, pull on his hair the most good, also biting, yes for biting. And a good fight to decide who gets to be on top is always good for a very violent race >;3c Sex is good, he enjoys it, is messy but is fun. Enjoys both topping and bottoming with a bit of a lean towards the latter.

24. What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually?

He’s part of the Midnight Crew, works as a Hitman for them and sometimes brings and leaves baked goods for them, usually just what he hadn’t been able to sell that day but sometimes he’ll make shit just for them. Definitely prefers to just be told what to do about things, give him orders to follow and he’ll follow them.

25. What are their hobbies and interests?

All of the baking! Also enjoys all kinds of clown things such as juggling (I’m not saying he’s good at juggling blood-stained clubs but I really am)

26. What does your character’s home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance?

His room is a very chaotic place, messy but he knows where everything is so it’s fine, the only part of it that isn’t messy is where Deploy (his new cat) sleeps, it’s pristine and well maintained over there. But the rest of the room is mess and piles, the best one being his blankets and pillows pile, really just a nest but he likes piles more so that’s what he calls it. He doesn’t really have much of a care for what he wears, is really shrug about it and he often wears his clothes wrong anyways, because buttons are hard ok. His hair’s really soft and thick, wild curls that he does remember to brush sometimes so there’s an equal chance of knots and not. He looks lanky and a bit not-quite there, wandering hazy gaze and listing in place.

27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their clothing? Style? Quality?

Not really big on things like style and quality since how he wears his clothing goes really well with his general disposition of confused, not all put together and things could probably be better.

28. Who is your character’s mate? How do they relate to him or her? How did they make their choice?

Currently no Matesprit

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

An inability to focus for too long and an over-zealousness for his job. Also the fact that he’s really friendly and that’s not the best quality for this life Gamzee.

30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive?

Not really, Gamzee runs better with it’s better to let shit go and just keep going with his life, no point hanging onto grudges too long. There’s also the fact that a lot of his grudges tend to end in murals painted on stone but that’s not important.

31. Does your character have children? How do they feel about their parental role? About the children? How do the children relate?

Nope!

32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively?

Typically he’s just go with the flow, unaffected. Others he gets a bit fidgety and would like to either leave it or if that’s not available to him, aggression is always a good road to take.

33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health? 

He takes ALL OF THE DRUGS. ALL OF THEM. His health is pretty not the best, is not terrible but is bad, is why he’s mostly bones, boi takes too many drugs and shit’s just fecked up now.

34. Does your character feel self-righteous? Revengeful? Contemptuous?

All of the no, not at all for any of those.

35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures?

Errors happen all of the time, you just gotta learn from them and continue on, and if they continue, well you only need to beat the motherfucker harder.

36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?

Gamzee’s alright with a bit of physical pain, it adds a nice ping to the haze he’s usually in very enjoyable. He’s very meh about other people suffering though, doesn’t really care one way or the other.

37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?

He is always daydreaming, mind’s always getting away from him and wandering off somewhere he doesn’t want it to.

38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious? Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic?

He’s pretty open and excited about new things! Unless someone he trusts and respects tells him to act otherwise, then there’s suspicion and wariness because they know what they’re talking about and they wouldn’t warn him without good reason.

39. What do they like to ridicule? What do they find stupid?

He doesn’t really care to ridicule anything or anyone, everybody’s off making their own miracles and that’s cool. Except disloyalty, that’s unforgiveable and a big no-no to him.

40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one?

Everything is hilarious. Everything. All jokes are miracles and deserve to be laughed at.

41. Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses? Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony?

I think Gamzee is very aware of himself, knows how strong he is, knows he shouldn’t be around all of the people while he’s sober/raging and that he’s definitely not the brightest/best blub in the box. He’s fine with that. He is definitely capable of self-irony.

42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

I don’t know if Gamzee has anything he really really wants, probably just to make his Grand High Brother proud to associate with him and stay with him for some time to come. He needs his miracle pies as being sober is a terrible time for him and he hates it, absolutely hates how weighted and real everything feels, it hurts his head and makes him so easy to rage and he doesn’t want that please, would do anything to prevent it.

43. Does your character have any secrets? If so, are they holding them back?

Yeah, definitely. But more in the sense that they’re not really important and don’t need to be brought to attention at the current time. There’s no point bringing up anything about the roles they would have taken on Alternia as that’s neither here nor there and he doesn’t want his brothers and sisters worried that he’ll just murder them just because Alternian culture would have called for it.

44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them?

He doesn’t really have a life objective currently, he’s currently at a good place and is good with staying here.

45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A visionary? Passionate? Quixotic?

He doesn’t think first, if he did he’d never get anywhere because the thought would abandon him so quickly it would be hilarious and sad and nothing would ever be done ever. Even when he plans things it’s very quick spur of the moment, follow the thought before it escapes.

46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture? How do they feel about their physical body?

He’s a toll boi! 6’1” and all gangly limbs and bones! No fat on him whatsoever, there is some muscle but not too much. He’s very shrug about his physical body, his blood caste live a long time so he’s pretty sure he’s got another growth spurt or two in him, until then just ‘this is it’

47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?

He doesn’t really want to project much of anything, what people see is what they see, he does try to be non-threatening, though that’s a bit difficult with the face paint. Doesn’t really try to be either visible or invisible, he’s just there.

48. How are your character’s gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish?

His gestures aren’t controlled at all, they’re a bit slow and dragging, sluggish is a good word for them.

49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?

Very slow, slurred kinda scratchy. A low bass or a baritone

50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?

A cheerful, if absent-minded and dopey grin, it tends to show off sharp teeth.

[crimsonrevolt]

Congratulations Haley you’ve been accepted to Crimson Revolt as Cassius Mulciber.

↳ please refer to our character checklist

Welcome back Haley! It’s always so nice to be able to welcome back previous members and we’re absolutely thrilled to have you back in our little family! It’s so clear that you have such a strong connection to the character and interpret him so well. We can’t wait to see what you do with him now that you’re back with us!  *your fc change to Chris Wood has been accepted. Please note that it is not our usual policy to switch poc faceclaims to a white faceclaim but an exception was made as it was an old member returning to us.

application beneath the cut

OUT OF CHARACTER

INTRODUCTION

Haley, 21, She/her, EST, America

ACTIVITY

Like most people in the group, I work and go to school but I have lots of free time around those things. 7/10

HOW DID YOU FIND US?

Alexis told me about the roleplay forever ago and then I was in it for a while and had to leave, now I’m back again.

WHAT HARRY POTTER CHARACTER DO YOU IDENTIFY WITH MOST?

Remus and Sirius, I truly identify with them both equally. I’ve always been the weird, quiet kid who seemed too secretive and was bullied. But I also am a rebel who eventually learned how to stand up for myself and others. I’m like the stereotypical parts of both their characters combined.

ANYTHING ELSE?

I can’t think of anything else. :)

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER

Cassius Mulciber

Cassius: derived from Latin cassus “empty, vain”.

Asmodeus: From Hebrew Ashmedai, which itself is derived from Avestan aēšma-daēva meaning “demon of wrath” (this is my headcanon for his middle name)

Mulciber: the architect of pandemonium, taken from Paradise Lost

FACE CLAIM

Okay, so I know you all have Cassius’s FC listed as Christian Navarro. I’m aware he’s a POC FC, but I wanted to ask if there was anyway I could go back to Chris Wood since he was my original Cassius and to me, he fits the character the best. I feel it would vastly help my muse to have Chris Wood as the FC because I’ve always written him better with that face. I understand if you don’t want me to make that change and if I need to keep Christian Navarro, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.

REASON FOR CHOSEN CHARACTER

Cassius and I have a history. He became my muse in September of 2016. I picked him up as a character originally to challenge myself because I didn’t usually write dark characters. I used to love writing the anti-hero or heroic characters who did horrible things for good reasons. I found a new love in writing darker characters. There’s a certain power in a character who has no morals. He would slit a man’s throat and then fuck someone next to his corpse without a second thought. He has no boundaries. There are no lines he won’t cross. The things he does, he does for himself. He’s a Death Eater but I believe he made the decision to join the group because of what they do, not who they follow. I will play him more in that light than as if he was another completely blind follower of Voldemort.

Cassius is a complex and deeply conflicted character. I made the comment before that I believe he has bipolar disorder, though of course it is undiagnosed due to the nature of the era and the wizarding world’s lack of science. (I have bipolar disorder and it has leaked it’s way into my writing.) His lack of a conscience and ability to charm his way out of all situations, started when he was young. His father raised him to be that way, frequently using pain as a teaching mechanism. As stated in his bio, he fits into the war like he was born for it. In another life, maybe he wouldn’t have been so perfectly formed for war but with the way his childhood went he was destined to fight this battle.

PREFERRED SHIPS // CHARACTER SEXUALITY // GENDER & PRONOUNS

I have no specific anti-ships and the only ship I have is Cassius and Augustus, but chemistry is the biggest thing for me. Because he’s a purist he wouldn’t be with anyone who wasn’t pure blooded. He also wouldn’t be quick to jump into a relationship. He’s generally more of a one night stand type person, however, he develops attachments to people and will continue having a friendly/sexual relation with them. Whenever things get too serious though, he backs off.

As far as sexuality, he is pansexual. He doesn’t care what genitals a person has or how they identify themselves, what he cares about is if the person is attractive and if they interest him. His pronouns are he/him, if you can’t tell by my extensive use of them already in this application haha. He is a cis male.

CREATE ONE (OR MORE!) OF THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR CHARACTER:

I have a lot of things on my blog (this will be the same one I use for the rp if accepted).

IN CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE

♔ If you were able to invent one spell, potion, or charm, what would it do, what would you use it for or how would you use it? Feel free to name it: 

“I want a spell that causes people to drop their guard. I’m sure there are a multitude of potions that do the same thing, but I’ve always been bad with potions. A spell would be so much more convenient. The spell itself would be “fiduciam” which is Latin for trust.”

♔ You have to venture deep into the Forbidden Forest one night. Pick one other character and one object (muggle or magical), besides your wand, that you’d want with you:

 “Augustus Rookwood, he’s the only person I would trust to be alone in the forest with me. As for the object, I know it may sound odd but I would take a gun. They’re surprisingly useful considering they’re muggle made.”

♔ What kinds of decisions are the most difficult for you to make? 

“Decisions that revolve around my emotions. Some choices are easy, they’re clear and precise and the logical answer seems almost the only answer. As soon as the heart is involved, however, it becomes difficult to decide because no matter what the logical answer is, it’s hard to hurt yourself to do what needs to be done.“

♔ What is one thing you would never want said about you?

 “That I was weak. I am many things but weak is not and will never be one of them.”

REACTION TO LAST EVENT DROP

Cassius is thriving. Firstly, it’s the first time in a while that his friends (or himself) aren’t being held captive or tortured. He has never hidden his disdain for non-purebloods, so the plan to cleanse them from the planet pleases him. What doesn’t please him however is the sinking feeling he has in his stomach. Things are going too well for them and he’s waiting on that to change because nothing ever stays positive for long. For the time being I feel that he’s just going to enjoy himself in the Death Eater ruled world and take some time to be happy that his friends are alive and healthy and NOT captured. Though he’s constantly gonna be looking for things to go wrong.

WRITING SAMPLE

July 3rd, 1974

Cassius stood in the frigid night air, waiting for his father to join him just outside the Mulciber Estate property line. He knew this was death eater business, but beyond that he didn’t know anything about what they were doing that night. His father had made promise after promise that they would soon take the required steps for Cassius to receive his dark mark, but so far they had done nothing. Eyes focused on the stars in the sky above him, he didn’t hear Gerard Mulciber walk up behind him and the hand placed on his shoulder caused him to jump slightly. Thankfully his father’s grip on his shoulder was tight as he apparated the both of them away from their estate.

The dark alleyway formed around them, coming into focus as they reached their destination. Gerard turned, walking through a doorway hidden by magic, he absorbed into the brick the way students did as they raced to board the Hogwarts Express. Cassius followed behind him, pulling his wand from his pocket just in case he had occasion to use it. As he emerged into the room he was taken aback by the sight before him. The girl magically bound and gagged in a chair at the center of the room caught his attention first, but it didn’t take long for him to notice the masked figures that stood against the walls. Their dark cloaks pulled heavily towards the ground, eerily quiet as they remained still and unmoving, no rustling to be heard. Cassius suddenly felt tiny, insignificant, he felt surrounded and closed in, despite the fact that there were only four death eaters in the room, including his father.

“What is this?” He said with an angry glance towards Gerard.

A stinging pain ran through his head as Gerard smacked him on the back of his skull. “The fact that you’re too idiotic to figure it out on your own should be the first sign that you’re unworthy of the mark. Unfortunately, they don’t agree,” Gerard spat angrily, gesturing towards the death eaters who stood around them. Cassius’ eyes traced around each figure trying to identify any of them, but he couldn’t. A hand gently rested against his back, the feeling was almost as shocking as the smack had been. “The girl,” his father said as he gestured towards the poor girl in the middle of the room, “she’s a muggleborn, so are her siblings.” As if on cue a large cloaked and masked death eater walked through the door, a young girl on his left and a boy on his right, neither could be older than eight. “You’re going to kill her in front of them.”

Cassius’ blood ran cold and he couldn’t stop the chills that ran across his skin. He’d done many terrible things while at Hogwarts but murder was not anywhere on that list. “I know this is supposed to be a challenge for me but shouldn’t I be allowed to decide what I do? Since the whole point is for me to prove myself?” His voice was shakier than he anticipated, but he just hoped his father wouldn’t take notice.

“Fine, do what you want, but the end result must be the same. The girl will die and you will be the cause.” Gerard shoved his son forward viciously, forcing him towards the girl.

Cassius tightened his grip on his wand, acting as if all of this was perfectly normal. He couldn’t show weakness, couldn’t show how terrified he was. There had to be a way for him to do this and flaunt his strength while trying to keep calm. He took a calming breath before allowing the incantation to slip from his lips. “Imperio,” the familiar spell came out easily, the motions flowing through his wrist naturally. It was a spell he had used often at Hogwarts during his free time. The unforgivable curse canceled out the weaker spells that bound her to the chair and Cassius watch with satisfaction as the girl rose from her seat and walked over to stand in front of him. He pulled a small folding knife from his pocket and gave it to her before forcing her to turn and move to her siblings’ side. She moved the knife to rest against the other girl’s throat.

For a moment, Cassius felt guilty. How could he do this? How could he force someone to kill their sister? But he knew he had no choice. Trying not to linger on bad thoughts he flicked his wand and the girl dragged the knife across her sister’s throat. She crumpled to the ground hands around her throat but he didn’t dwell on her despite the fact that she would live for the next several minutes. Moving his puppet over to stand in front of the boy, he had her drop the knife and pull out her wand. With the tip pressed against her brother’s chest, it didn’t take a genius to know what he would do next. As the killing curse slid from the girl’s mouth, a flash of green lit the room and the boy collapsed onto the ground. Cassius felt disgusted with himself. He was dizzy and ill and didn’t know if he was going to make it through this without being sick.

He pushed his illness aside, knowing he still had to kill the girl. He had to get creative, no simple killing curse was going to satisfy these men. They wouldn’t accept the same method of killing twice. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he forced her to turn her wand on herself a small incantation falling from her lips. “Incendio.” As the flames quickly engulfed her body, Cassius realized this had been a mistake. Her screams filled the small room drowning out all other sound and thought. Quietly, praying his father wouldn’t hear him, he hissed out the killing curse, the flash of green hidden within the flames. Her body dropped to the floor and he flicked his wrist, putting out the flames.

“It’s done.” It had lasted no longer than two minutes, but he felt like it had been a lifetime.

Without comment or even gesture, all the death eaters apparated from the room, apparating the bodies away with them. Cassius was left standing alone in the empty room with his father. Pride and excitement filled his chest. Was that it? Had he passed their tests? Did he get to be a death eater now? As he turned to face Gerard, his stomach dropped, dread and panic replacing his earlier emotions. Gerard glared down at him, anger and disappointment painting his features. “You didn’t kill anyone. She did and when you finally had the balls to kill her it was only to put her out of her misery. You are pathetic and weak. If it were up to me I would never make you a death eater.” Cassius kept his mouth shut allowing his father to finish. “You had better promise me that from now on you’ll kill without mercy and without fear. Otherwise, you will have something new to fear.”

Swallowing his pride, Cassius bowed his head slightly, “I promise, Father.” Little did he know that promise was going to haunt him for years to come.

[aion-rsa]

Loki Episode 4 Review: The Nexus Event

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This review contains spoilers for Loki episode 4.

Loki Episode 4

First of all, holy shit!

Ok, now that’s out of the way I have to calm down enough to review Marvel’s Loki, episode 4, “The Nexus Event,” which had me on the edge of my seat until the post-credits scene. During said post-credits scene I was very much out of my seat. I don’t remember when I stood up, but I guess it must have happened at some point in the 0.2 seconds between being overjoyed that Loki wasn’t dead (again!) and seeing Richard E. Grant. But let’s backtrack, because there is so much to talk about before we get there.

The first three episodes of Loki were often divisive. As much as I personally loved them, a quick scroll through the comments section under my reviews revealed that not everyone was as enjoying the series as much as I was. However, many of the complaints I read were about elements of the story that paid off extremely well in Loki episode 4.

Patience is very much a virtue, so if you felt there was value in spending last week’s episode just hanging out with Loki and Sylvie on a doomed moon and getting to know the pair better, you likely got a lot out of their forced separation and the moment they reunited to face off against the “Time-Keepers.” If you enjoyed the weird friendship building between Loki and Mobius in the first two episodes, you probably felt that gut punch when Loki had to watch him die. And if you’ve been deeply suspicious of Renslayer and scoping her office for clues during those TVA admin scenes, you finally had the chance to yell “HA! I KNEW IT!” when she turned out to be a wrong’un.

We started the episode with a little backstory. We got to witness Sylvie being snatched by the TVA as a child and eluding her Variant pruning by a dispassionate Renslayer, but this scene immediately became a bit of a Loki timeline headache: this wasn’t a quick pruning before a Nexus Event hit the redline – Sylvie was born a Loki and lived for quite a few years on Asgard before Renslayer and the TVA stepped in. Questions arising from those events are left unanswered in episode 4, so we’ll have to put them on the backburner for now.

We then snapped back to the “present” when the TVA stepped in to haul Loki and Sylvie out of the Lamentis apocalypse, which ultimately led to Mobius and B-15 facilitating their escape from captivity. We suspected this might happen. What we didn’t know was how it was going to go down, and the answer came in agonizing drips as Mobius and B-15 started to question everything they thought they knew about the TVA and its mission. It was tense af – from B-15 taking Sylvie back to Roxxcart and experiencing some heart-breaking memories of her true past, to Mobius finally realizing that Renslayer was a lying liar from Lietown, it really did feel like these breakthroughs could go either way because – as we are all now very much well aware – Renslayer is anything but stupid.

In episode 4, Renslayer did her best to get rid of Loki and Sylvie, but the duo appeared to have formed quite the bond in their brief time together; a bond that Mobius picked up on fairly quickly after love first saved the day. At this point, it’s time to address the elephant in the room: Loki and Sylvie’s budding relationship. Many of us would have preferred this to stay as more of a sibling thing, and episode 4 appears to be laying the groundwork for a romantic connection, at least on Loki’s part. Whether this show will continue to advance the romance between them remains to be seen, but perhaps we should attempt to strap in for the inevitable here?

Elsewhere, Owen Wilson just continued killing it as Mobius. He and Loki’s friendship has been such a key emotional anchor in this series, and the thrill of watching Mobius connect the dots and finally try to break out of the box the TVA put him in was cut so awfully short by his sudden death at the end of a pruning stick. Just a devastating moment, and one that the show allows Loki to feel deeply, albeit briefly. I really hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Wilson in the show, though I’m not sure how he could be worked into further MCU installments if he somehow reappears and makes it to the end. Loki season 2? Fingers crossed, as there’s obviously even more dark shit going on behind the scenes of the TVA yet to come.

So the omnipotent and lizard-like Time-Keepers are nothing but androids, huh? Nothing but a pantomime. Again, this is something that many Marvel fans have anticipated, but who is really behind the TVA, the mythology of the Time-Keepers’ creation, and the dubious nature of the “sacred timeline”? Is it really going to turn out to be Kang the Conqueror? It’s hard to forget that Renslayer is Kang’s girlfriend in Marvel Comics, and Kang is definitely set to make an appearance in the now-filming Ant-Man 3, but I suspect this show has a few big surprises in store for us in its final two episodes.

They’ll have to be big surprises, because episode 4 gave us some huge ones in its final minutes. We had to watch Renslayer kill Loki in the middle of confessing his feelings before Sylvie captured her. Not for nothing, the way Renslayer’s eyes changed when she faced the end may have been easy to miss upon first watch, but it seemed like her death may well have been a mercy. I wonder how much of Renslayer’s villainy is beyond her control.

Then there was that post-credits scene. Marvel, ugh. You got me again. Of course Loki isn’t dead. At the heat death of the universe, the only things left alive will be cockroaches and Tom Hiddleston in full Loki costume running lines. No, Loki got his own “come with me if you want to live” moment instead, and we were introduced to a whole bunch of new Loki Variants who seem to have already figured out how to cheat TVA crackdowns. “Boastful Loki,” “Kid Loki,” “Alligator Loki” – his gold horns I can’t – and “Classic Loki,” none other than Richard E. fucking Grant.

There’s some stuff I haven’t covered here, including Loki’s Time Cell encounter with Lady Sif, and the way in which it forced Loki to address his past behavior and put a stop to yet another cycle of his being a total asshole – this sequence reminded me of Lucifer’s hell loops honestly. There was also the moment we got a first confirmation of vampires in the MCU – Blade is coming! – but it’s hard to focus on everything when my brain is screaming “I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER WEEK TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.”

Hope you all enjoyed this one. I’m excited to find out.

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[shamelessly4shameless-blog]

Nickovich pt. 10

Ian is laying on his back, an ashtray on his belly, the love of his life sprawled inelegantly across his chest and the bed is littered with condom wrappers, a now tangled string of beads, and various other items denoting a good time had by all.

He feels completely at peace with the world and exquisitely spent. He hasn’t felt like this in so long … Ian impulsively kisses the top of Mickey’s head, burying his nose in the dark mass of his hair and breathing deeply.

“Mick?”

“Mmm?”

Mickey inhales deeply and stretches, his thigh rolling over Ian’s with a boneless grace that momentarily erases all thoughts from Ian’s mind. Smiling, he runs his knuckles lightly down Mickey’s side and gathers his thoughts together again

“Who was that woman with you?”

“What?”

Mickey opens his eyes, a half-smile on his lips as he comes fully awake and the events of the last few hours trickle back into his consciousness.

“The woman you were with earlier. The one with all the hair and …”

“Fuck!”

Mickey shoots upright and rolls off the bed, grabbing for his pants, tranquillity short lived. Ian reacts too, tugging on his shirt hurriedly, though he’s not sure what they’re reacting about.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I forgot her blanket and soap and … shit. Pillows? I don’t even remember. We got a spare blanket in here? What time is it?”

“Kinda late, you were asleep for a couple hours.”

“Aww fuck! Okay change of plan. Take my keys and go get her.”

“She’s here?”

Ian is trying to follow the new course their evening has taken and lands on the assumptions that he is now expected to go and collect a random woman from somewhere and also that Mickey is about to rob the hotel room. This suspicion is confirmed when a small pile of things forms on the chair by the door and Mickey begins bundling it up.

“Yeah, she’s in the van. Come on, man. I can’t walk in and out with cameras and nosey fucks all over the place.”

“You just planning to walk out the front door with all this or …?”

“Maybe, no, I dunno … She’s been waiting hours out there. Can you get her already?”

Mickey runs a hand impatiently through his hair and Ian feels a small stab of jealousy realising that the only person he has really seen Mickey have this sort of concern for in the past is himself.

“Okay,”

Ian catches Mickey’s wrist, pulling him close and framing his face between steady hands.

“First things first. Who is she?”

“Her names Nicky, she’s a jailbird on the run and she’s been stayin’ in my van.”

“You let her stay with you?”

Ian raises his eyebrows in surprise and the knot of jealousy tightens despite his best efforts to smooth it away.

“Yeah I did. Don’t fuckin’ ask me why, bitch is crazy ...”

Ian’s face softens and his lip quirks upwards

“You made a friend!”

“Fuck off. She’s just … I dunno, man … a person I don’t hate.”

Mickey twitches his nose and looks away as Ian smiles broadens outwards, reaching all the way to his eyes. He never really thought about it but to the best of his knowledge, Mickey has never actually had a friend before. He had his siblings, and he had Ian, but that’s about it.

“Alright. Give me the keys. You said her names Nicky, right?”

“Yeah.”

Mickey hands over the keys to his van a little shyly

“Thank you.”

“Not a problem. We’ll be right up.”

He kisses Mickey on the mouth in parting, it feels a little strange but in a good way and Ian guesses that if Mickey is going to be back in his life, this is something he needs to get used to again, things being strange in a good way.

*

Ian steps lightly out of the hotel, the lady behind reception didn’t even look up from her phone as he went by, a roll of blanket and pillows under one arm. The air outside is really cold and he jogs across to the rust coloured van, puffs of his breath briefly visible before spreading out into the atmosphere and disappearing.

He fumbles with the keys but before he can get to the right one, the van door swings open and he is confronted with a clearly pissed off ball of hair and eyeliner.

“Where the f … Oh. Hey Ian.”

She looks him up and down and Ian gets the impression she is not overly thrilled by what she sees.

“Er … Hi. Nicky right?”

“That’s right. You boys been playing nice?”

“Nice enough.”

Ian grins at her and Nicky nods, an answering smile beginning but not quite forming.  

“So where’s Abe?”

“You mean Mickey?”

“I prefer Abe. Liberator of mouth whores and junkie cons, right?”

“Ah … Yeah okay.”

It’s weird but every word she speaks seems to have a core of humour about it, like the world is one big messed up joke that she is well and truly in on. It sort of feels like she is making fun of him but Ian can’t put his finger on why and the way she does it is not offensive. Ian can see why Mickey likes her.

“He’s inside, told me to bring you these, but also invite you up so you can shower or whatever.”

Nicky cocks her head to the side and sweeps her tongue lightly along her lower lip appraising Ian.

“That’s sweet. Did you guys order pizza yet?”

Nicky gives him a small smile and takes the stolen goods, chucks them in the van and hops down to stand beside Ian.

“No. Do you want pizza?”

“God, Yes! And you should suck up to me, I’m like … ah … you know if you go out with someone and they got a kid, and you suck up to the kid so your date will think you’re a good person and maybe invite you to stay the night? I’m Abe’s kid.”

Nicky skips a little to keep up with Ian’s long legs and he smirks at her

“Does Mickey know that?”

“Of course not!”

Nicky scoffs but beams up at him mischievously

“But how many of his friends would he kick you out of bed to go give blankets to, huh?”

Ian hadn’t thought of it like that, but it’s a very good point. Pizza it is.

“Did you tell him his hair looks nice? I cut it for him.”

“He let you cut his hair?”

“Yeah, once I pumped him full of unicorn coffee”

“What?”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, private joke.”

Ian fucking hates private jokes.

*

Nicky enters the hotel room with her arms flung wide and makes a beeline straight for Mickey who is sat on the bed smoking.

“Jesus! Look at that sexed up smile! You put out on the first date didn’t you? Such a slut.”

Ian blinks in surprise at the easy way Nicky ruffles Mickey’s dark hair and pats his cheek. Mickey waves her away with an irritable scowl but that’s all he does and he doesn’t seem to mind her touching him. Ian scrolls through his phone for pizza places, deliberately averting his eyes. He is definitely jealous but really doesn’t want to be.

“What kind of pizza do you like, Nicky?”

“Anything with a ton of cheese, please Lover Boy.”

Ian gives her a side-long look at the form of address and Nicky meets it without hesitation.  

“Mick? Any preference?”

“Meat. Peppers. No fuckin’ mushrooms.”

“So is the shower everything I dreamed of?”

Nicky asks Mickey as Ian dials the restaurant

“How the fuck should I know? Go in there and look.”

Mickey nods toward the bathroom and Nicky rolls her eyes as she meanders over. She pokes her head around the bathroom door and sighs contentedly.

“Oh my God. There’s an actual fuckin’ tub. Abe, baby, I know you want me to have all the good things in life...”

“Knock yourself out.”

Mickey nods and lays back on the bed, cracking open a beer.

“Bring me one of those in?”

Nicky asks, already tugging her boots off.

“What? Fuck you, I’m not your damn maid.”

Mickey grunts but puts a can to one side for her and Ian, watching the exchange, is pretty damn sure Mickey is about to comply. What the actual fuck.

Ian manages to order two pizzas and some sides but his focus is on that damn can of beer. Mickey is flicking through TV channels and sipping his own drink but when the water shuts off in the bathroom he glances at the closed door, sets his drink aside and … Ian can’t fucking believe it … Mickey gets off the bed and pads barefoot to the bathroom door and takes Nicky the can of beer she requested.

Ian mumbles a thanks and hangs up. He hears a muttered exchange of good natured insults and then Mickey is closing the bathroom door, smiling. Actually smiling a proper damn smile for someone who is not Ian.

Ian crosses the room in three steps and grabs the front of Mickey’s shirt, fitting his lips over his lovers with a possessive urgency. Mickey freezes for a second and then responds just as hungrily and the building panic in Ian’s chest starts to subside.

“I want you.”

His voice is low and deep and Mickey arches one eyebrows

“We kinda have company at the moment.”

“Then you better keep quiet.”

Mickey’s vague social graces are no match for that intense green eyed stare and he finds himself unbuttoning his jeans and pushing them over his hips before his brain has caught up and made a decision.

Ian’s hands are rough, urgent and hard. It is exactly how Mickey likes it but also a bit of a surprise and he glances over is shoulder at Ian

“What’s got you riled up?”

“Nothing.”

Ian eases himself into Mickey with a grunt and Mickey takes a fistful of bedding, breathing strongly through his nose as his body acclimatises. He knows the rhythms of Ian’s dominance well, probably better than Ian himself in some ways and this is definitely a little out of character given how rough things got already. Mickey bites his lip as Ian finds a place inside him that sends stars skittering across his vision. A whimper escapes his lips and Mickey glances back at Ian again.

The redhead is all jutting chin and burning eyes and he’s absolutely fucking beautiful but there is something … Nicky’s singing reaches them from the bathroom and Ian’s face contorts in a scowl as he rams Mickey harder.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Ian!”

“What?”

“You’re jealousy banging me!”

“No I’m ...”

“Yes you are. Get the fuck off!”

“Mick ...”

“Now, asshole. Off!”

Mickey thrusts his hips forward, dislodging Ian who obligingly pulls back and looks sheepishly up at his lover beneath lowered lashes.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Mickey buttons his pants and folds his arms across his chest irritably. He was probably about thirty seconds away from a pretty decent orgasm but that’s besides the point.

“Sorry. I just wanted to … claim you I guess.”

“Oh yeah, I fuckin’ got that. Why?”

“Because … you took Nicky a beer.”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, Ian realises how ridiculous he sounds and colour floods his face. He averts his eyes wishing that the ground would just open up and swallow him. Mickey thumbs his lip and tries to suppress a smile.

“You worried you’re not the only fucker who’s got me whipped anymore?”

Ian snaps his gaze up immediately and opens his mouth to protest but Mickey is openly grinning at him now and Ian grimaces, laughing at himself.

“No. Yes. I don’t even know.”

Ian sighs and draws Mickey close, resting his chin lightly on Mickey’s head.

“I’m pissed off that someone else has been there for you. Not pissed at you or her, just at myself. I should have been the one neatening your hair and bringing you coffee.”

Mickey squeezes him tightly and tries to think of something comforting to say

“I wish it had been you. The coffee was from some stupid unicorn place, man.”

“Cool!”

“No, not fuckin’ cool.”

“Bet you secretly loved it. All glittery and ...”

“How’d you know it was glittery?”

Mickey looks up at Ian and quirks his eyebrows accusingly. Ian’s blush intensifies and Mickey shakes his head in disbelief

“You fuckin’ go there don’t you? I’m away for less than two years and you start takin’ your coffee with a shot of fuckin’ glitter. God damn fairy.”

“Fuck off.”

Ian laughs, shoving Mickey’s shoulder, playfully. Mickey feigns a punch and Ian tackles him backwards onto the bed, kissing his neck before pulling back to gaze down at him wonderingly.

“What the fuck you lookin’ at now?”

“Just wondering how I survived without you.”

Mickey’s eyes soften and his fingers come up to trace the strong bridge of Ian’s nose and round to cup his cheek.

“Me too, man. Me too.”

*

Nicky towels off and sighs contentedly. Life is, she thinks, a giant jumble of fucked up surprises. How the Hell has she managed to end up here? Acting as a sort of umpire in a love triangle where the least likely candidate is the one she’s rooting for.

She grabs one of the two hotel issue toothbrushes still in it’s little plastic wrapper and goes to town on her teeth. It’s almost orgasmic after days of using her finger to try and clean them, the bristles are cheap and shitty but Nicky closes her eyes and rounds her shoulders in pleasure.

As she gets dressed again hears a series of sounds that are definitely the early beginnings of two men fucking and with an amused sigh, sits herself down on the lidded toilet to wait it out.

Six feet of red hair and premium European bone structure is enough to get anyone mixed up but you add some hardcore devotion to that cocktail … Nicky folds her arms and tries not to listen to the happy grunts and gasps coming from the bedroom. It’s going to get really fucking messy if Ian decides to bail.

Nicky knows his type. Excitable and full of ideals but when it comes to the big moment  …  He’ll get so far and then he’ll bail. And realistically that is fair enough! We all have our own demons, our own agendas and dreams to try and balance out with what others need from us. But “realistically” isn’t going to stop it hurting Mickey any less and though she hasn’t known him long, the thought of him being hurt really fucking pisses Nicky off.

The other room falls silent and then Nicky can hear the sounds of the men dressing. She gives it another minute and then makes a show of getting ready to exit the bathroom. By the time she opens the door Ian is fully dressed and picking up his car keys

“I’m just going to pick up the pizza”

“Cool, I’ll come with ya. Let Abe recover from his ass pounding in peace.”

Nicky grins

“Go fuck yourself.”

Mickey calls cheerfully, not looking up from the TV.

“Hey man, what happens in the ass, stays in the ass!”

Nicky calls back and glimpses a ‘C’ and ‘-’ raised toward her as she and Ian leave the room.

*

As they drive, Ian wonders whether he should thank Nicky for looking out for Mick. He’s just trying to form a good way of saying it when Nicky rolls her head across the headrest and says

“Tell me, while it’s just us guys, you gonna go with him? To Mexico?”

Ian keeps his eyes on the road and Nicky wonders if he is just going to ignore her but after a minute he shakes his head.

“I don’t know yet.”

His eyes flicking away from the road and then back again.

“I can appreciate it’s a big choice. Difficulty is, Ian, he’s on a very limited time span and every day he hangs around here waiting for you to make up your mind, the more likely it is that he gets caught and dragged back to prison.”

Ian hedges his bets and says

“I don’t know what you’re ...”

“Yeah. Okay, I know but Mikhailo Alexandre Milkovich is all over the TV around here. I’ve seen him on three news channels in two days and I’ve only gone in a handful of places.”

Nicky holds up her fingers in illustration and then leans forward and clasping a hand on his forarm, looking up at Ian intently.

“He’s taking risks because he loves you. If you don’t wanna go, that’s fine, but you gotta hurry up and tell him so he can get out. You owe him that much.”

Ian swallows heavily and exhales a sharp breath through his nose.

“You don’t like me, huh?”

“Honestly, I don’t know you and I’m not judging you though I appreciate it sounds like I am. I just don’t want to see a sweet kid serving life because he waited too long for a guy who couldn’t decide.”

It’s been a few years since someone put Ian so firmly in his place. Since he started arguing back with Fiona and stopped taking shit from Lip really. Mickey would lose his temper but he never really scolded, just huffed and puffed and let Ian blow his house down to make up for whatever had caused the offence.

For a little while he’s genuinely pissed off about it but the more he thinks about it he realises that he can’t actually talk to any one else about this choice and whether she wants to help him or not, Nicky is here and she seems willing to listen. Once they have the pizza in the car and are driving back, Ian decides to ask the question that he feels suddenly desperate to ask.

“What would you do if you were me?”

Nicky sucks her teeth thoughtfully and drums her fingers on the box lid.

“Well if you love him...”

“I do.”

Ian answers immediately

“Well then you have one seriously good reason to go with him. But you got a life here too, right?”

Ian nods and Nicky shrugs her shoulders

“Is it a good life? Does it make you happy? Do you feel fulfilled?”

“Mostly. I guess.”

“Is it worth breaking your heart to keep it?”

She asks softly, almost gently and Ian has no idea how to answer.

“If the answer isn’t yes, I say go to Mexico. You’re young, you got a fuck load of bad choices to make, but honestly, I don’t think that would be one of them. Whatever you choose is fine, but you need to make a choice and stick with it.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Good. Cause, you know, I was inside for drug abuse and theft, nothing violent at least not to others but if you mess him around; I’m probably going to cut you. Not like a full on kidney stabbing, but it will probably leave a scar.”

As she says this, Nicky tongues at her rear molar and raises her eyebrows challengingly at the redhead.

Ian pooches out his lower lip, nodding without complaint. It’s been a while since he has been around people outside of his family who talk like this, and actually it is like a breath of fresh air to him. He thought he’d moved on and maybe even become a little more sophisticated than this but perhaps not. Perhaps he never really even wanted to.

“Fair enough.”

“Meeting new people is always so fun, huh?”

“Oh yeah, it’s a delight.”

Nicky laughs and smiles at him.

“Fuck it. I’ll cut you if I have to, but you’re alright, Red.”

*

[bubblegumpenguin]

Oh baby...

This is going to be an unusually personal post. One that I’ll probably take down once the emotional fog has lifted and I realize I’ve overshared on social media again. But it’s just one of those things where I need to talk to someone about it, and my usual someones aren’t aware of my situation, nor do I necessarily want them to be made aware of my situation, because my situation is, well, deeply personal. So hello there, Tumblr. Today, you will be my someone.

I made the decision, a long time ago, that I was going to have children some day. It was important to me, to have a family of my own. Even when I was 16 years old, and I took a parenting class with a baby simulator that was supposed to discourage having children before you were ready, I knew that this was what I wanted.

And when I was 21 years old, I almost got that wish. I was equal parts thrilled and petrified, when the two little lines showed up. I had made a drunken mistake, and gotten pregnant. And I couldn’t bring myself to be rational about the situation.

Sure, I was only 21 years old, working a job that couldn’t support myself, living at home with my mother and two siblings, didn’t have a car, didn’t have basic knowledge of public transportation, couldn’t even end the month with more than $50 in my bank account, and now pregnant from a guy who had sex with me despite the fact that I was obviously too drunk to actually give any kind of consent (at one point he said he loved me, and I, having just gotten out of a relationship and still having it ingrained in me to automatically respond, said ‘I love you too’ quickly followed by ‘no wait. thats not true. youre not him. sorry.’)

None of it mattered, because I ended up miscarrying. And I went on to be an idiot, and entered into a quasi-relationship with guy who got me pregnant, and we were both determined to make it happen.

And it didn’t. And didn’t. And didn’t. And didn’t some more.

For three years.

And then, bing. Two little lines showed up.

This time felt like all the stars had aligned. I was out on my own, with a job that can actually support myself, plus some kittens, a fairly reliable car, an idea of how to get from A to B should my car break down, a nice little nest in my savings. I was living comfortably. And with our incomes put together, guy-who-got-me-pregnant and I could definitely raise this kid. Sure, they won’t be attending a private school, but public school isn’t that bad, and yeah, maybe they’ll learn how to be versatile with pasta noodles because pasta is cheap, but we could actually make it work...

And then bam... miscarriage.

Am I broken? This is the one thing I am biologically supposed to be good at. Making a baby, and keeping it safe for 40 weeks (give or take) but apparently I can’t even do that.

And of course he tells me we can keep trying but fuck. I can’t do it anymore. I have all these reasons why I should stop trying. And sure, maybe a lot of them are actually society’s reasons why I should stop, but damn it, they’re pretty valid.

1. I’m not even 25. Sure, by this time, my mother was pregnant with my brother, and my grandmother was on her second child, but I don’t really need to have a kid right now...

2. Something very well may be wrong with me (in terms of proper functions and what not) and maybe I should get that checked out before I get pregnant again and end up with some kind of medical emergency.

3. Just because I can live comfortably now does not mean I’m actually financially prepared for a child. I have debt i could work off first.

4. I could really use a better car. One that won’t break down in a year or so.

5. Do I really want to co-parent with someone who thinks its okay to have sex with someone who needed help getting down the hall to the bedroom in order to have said sex? No. That shit’s not okay

6. Do I really want to co-parent with someone who I’m not in a committed relationship with? Not really. Sure, it’s possible. People do it all the time. But I’d prefer the committed relationship.

7. Is this really where I want my life to hit pause? Sure, it’s not necessarily the end of my life, but it would be the end of my life as we know it. It’s 18 years of putting someone else’s wants and needs before your own. Am I content to hit pause here? Or do I want to keep going before I hit pause. Are there thing I want to do that I couldn’t do with a child? The ultimate answer is yes. There are. And maybe I should focus on that instead...

[ladyyatexel]

Chapters: 28/28 Fandom: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Johnny "Nny" C./Edgar Vargas, Devi D./Tenna Characters: Edgar Vargas, Devi D., Jimmy "Mmy", Johnny "Nny" C., Tenna Additional Tags: Songfic, AU, Rewrite, Asexual Character, Asexuality Summary:

"Reincarnation is complicated and apparently not a refined system. When the lines between lives are blurry at best, and memories seep in from the person you were, do you stay the person you are? Who do you want to be, and do you want to be seen?"

Sharing a bit of a personal experiment in rewriting 'Song Without A Name', a fanfic I began writing in 2004. You absolutely don't need to the read the original to read this, and I'd actually prefer if you didn't! If you do decide to track it down, please just keep in mind things have changed in over ten years, even if I'm still using the same summary!

Even more excessive notes inside~! Updates on the 10th of the month. Complete.

The End.

I’m done, and I feel kind of sick about it.   I’m putting it up a day early because I’ll be at work tomorrow an unable to orchestrate everything I need to do.  Thank you for reading this thing that was my world for so long.  Please, please enjoy it.  It is my thing.  More long winded talk under here: 

I'm still feeling a bit lost and confused after having finished this thing.  As of this writing, it's not as bad as the first time for several reasons, but it is certainly having an impact.

The first time, I didn't know ISH existed because I hadn't thought it up yet, so ending SWAN felt like I was saying goodbye forever to these people I loved very much and who had been a constant part of my life for many years.  They'd been with me through some critical points in my life and with the story ended I felt like people had died and was appropriately mourning for a few weeks.  This time, thanks not only to knowing there is more, but to knowing that I told the story more completely this time around, I don't feel so much like I'm cutting off a critical connection.  Giving a better picture of their world this time for some reason makes it easier for them not to be a constant part of mine.  I felt both times writing this story like these kids were real people, like strange friends I knew deeply, and as long as I had more story to tell, they were actively laced into my life.  Still, even though I know there is more, I feel like I will miss them being there with me as part of my daily routine until I'm ready to commit to another one of these.  It's weird in that it feels like I have to give up these kids in order to share them with you.  They can't be with me daily if they're finished, and they can't be shared with others and finished if they're being worked on daily.  I feel a bit like I'm surrendering something.

This effect was enhanced this time around because the last 12 chapters of reSWAN were published monthly. I'm honestly incredibly proud of myself for doing so on a 'I can commit to a schedule' level, and that schedule is what really made these kids feel like part of my daily life.  I used working on this story to drag myself through the winter, the worst part of the year for me mentally.  I managed to update every month even with busy holidays and other obligations.  I wrote on every break I had from work, amounting to an hour and a half during the work day alone if I was dedicated and not distracted during those times.  Even after that, I'd work on it at home, and I'd use most of the weekend writing too.  

Almost every day and certainly every week.  For an entire year.  I saw more of the Homicides than I did most real people.  

So yeah.  A break is probably a good idea.  There are a lot of things about ISH I haven't decided yet, but I want to give myself time to do other things for a bit before I throw myself into another project that requires this level of dedication to get through.  I loved doing this, and I fully intend to do this even more soon, but a break from it being constantly in the back of my mind that I need to meet a deadline will be refreshing.  I also didn't paint as much while I was writing reSWAN because I had to be so feverishly dedicated to the writing.  My default state is drawing, so the writing required extra time and focus to accomplish. Hilariously, all the art projects I'm thinking of doing in between this and ISH are related to it.   So maybe it won't look like a break, haha.

  Anyway, now that I've said a lot of words about how much time I spent with this thing, I want to thank you guys for sticking around through it, where ever you came in.  

Gu in particular, who has been here since the literal start of reSWAN, and so sat through two years of my nonsense consistently interested and engaged with it (to the point of art and cosplay and song), which just thrills the fuck out of me.  

Those of you who decided to start reading (and keep reading!) without knowing the canon material just because I talked about it so much on Tumblr, like Indigo and Melissa! I still am just blown away that you guys became so dedicated to this thing I made from some source material you have never consumed and probably never will.  Your enthusiasm gave me incredible confidence in what I was doing and was often the strongest motivator to get things done by the tenth!

Those of you I met and just text all the time because of this!  Visi and Crystal!

Everyone who made fanart or cosplayed or wrote fan-fanfic!  I'm so touched to have made something good enough to not spend your time reading, but also to spend time and effort creating for.  It doesn't matter how many times it happened, I love it anew every time.  

Everyone who left a comment on AO3, thank you, you are my fuel and confirmation that I wasn't screaming into the void.  

I said in the end comments of the story itself that I know it's kinda dumb to be so 'and here's the grand thank you page/epilogue' on something that is such a non-event in the rest of the world, but this is deeply important to me, and even if it's just me and like 20 people, then cool, I hope it was important to me and 20 people.

I'm glad you were all here with me. For those times when writing just for me wasn't motivating enough, knowing that some of you were out there waiting for it pushed me onward.  And now it's done!  This thing I thought I was going to do one chapter of!  28 chapters and a whole story double the length of the first one!  I'm delighted.   Thanks for reading this, thanks for letting me show you my precious garbage and glitter children~  

You are all my weird SWAN siblings now.   Come scream at me about this if you so desire, for I would be Delighted by it.  Nothing makes me happier than excuses to stay in this world rather than the real one.

I'll see you when it's time for these guys to go out on the road again!

– <3 Lady

[ladyinthebluebox]

Ryder Ask Meme

Sweet Maker, I love these things! I got tagged by @notebookalpha and @vorchagirl for which I thank you ‘cause answering these questions brought me great pleasure. You can see it by how long my answers are... Sorry, I’m the babbling one.

I’m tagging @dragonswithjetpacks  ‘cause I want to know more about Fiona; and maybe @valleniel would also like to join? (idk, if you haven’t already done this) I’ve seen that you like to write about your freckly kids... And whoever sees it and wants to do this is welcome to the fun and feel free to tag me in their post so, I can take a moment to appreciate their space-child :)

1. So, the basics! Name? Preferred nickname, if any? 

Her full name is Sybil Tahlia Ryder. She doesn’t have preferred nickname but because of the way she fights as well as because, due to her mild hyperactivity, she is unable to sit her ass still for more than five minutes, Tempest crew calls her Whirlwind.

Reyes calls her Estrella which means a 'star' in Spanish.

2. What was their first impression of Nexus leadership?

‘Assholes’ – especially when it comes to Addison and Tann. She feels sick whenever she needs to talk with one of them. Kandros made her nervous with his speech about how basically everything got fucked up on the Nexus. Kesh was the one, who made the best first impression. She was friendly and welcoming and Sybil appreciated that. Later they even became friends and eventually, Sybil started calling Kesh her Auntie.

3. Who are they closest to on the Tempest? 

This one is tough because she likes all of her crew mates. Sybil's closest friend is Vetra. Not only they understand each other on the matter of being older sibling, but Sybil likes to be around her because Vetra's cool, collected attitude often calms her nerves.

However, she also likes to chat and joke with Liam; has a great understanding of Peebee's issues with excesses of energy and troubles with commitments and regularly cooks with Grandpa Drack so, she is quite close with those three as well.

4. How did they react to becoming Pathfinder?

‘WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, FATHER?!’ – was probably her first thought when they dropped the news on her. Sybil couldn’t understand why the hell Alec made her the Pathfinder, while he never had been eager to even give her keys to his sky car. Calling her confused would probably be an understatement.

Not to mention that she would’ve never wanted to be one in the first place. She felt it’s too much responsibility for her to carry and also thought that not only Scorpius would make much better Pathfinder, but, after his quite miserable post in the Alliance, he deserved it much more than her. 5. How is their relationship with their family? Did they get along with them, or were they more of a lone wolf?

Maybe Sybil wasn't a lone wolf, but she had always felt like family's black sheep. She'd never been a picture kid of two geniuses – always had problems with focusing her attention on things, her grades were far from ideal and she was one hell of a troublemaker as well.

She and Scorpius used to be like two little devils running around the Citadel, constantly being fished out from the lake on the Presidium or poking the Keepers. Later they were also a pain in the asses for the teachers in the Grissom Academy and when they were separated during their service in the Alliance used to keep in contact via emails and tried to talk on vid-com at least once a week. Twins have issues of course but they don’t diminish the fact, that they would go through fire and water for one another.

Sybil was quite close with Ellen because her mother always had an understanding for her hyperactiveness. She was kind to her when it was at its peak and when it got even worse after her biotics manifested. They used to cook together and read Shakespeare's plays out loud sharing roles between each other (sometimes managed to drag Scorpius into it; Alec rarely had time for such things). Ellen also really wanted to find a way to reconcile her daughter with Alec. Sybil was devastated first by her mother's illness and later by her passing, and came to Andromeda still mourning her loss. 

Her relationship with Alec was a difficult one. When they were getting together they used to butt heads over even small things and more than once Sybil had done something stupid just out of spite for her father, unconsciously seeking a way to get his attention. It was mostly due to the fact Sybil had always felt Alec liked Scorpius more because her twin had great grades, behaved better and understood all those tech things that never interested her much. This also made her extremely competitive towards her brother but at the same time, she never blamed Scorpius for their father’s behavior. Sybil’s relationship with father got a little better just before they went to Andromeda because Alec ‘softened' after Ellen's passing. They even bonded during their preparations for the trip, however, it was still far from perfect.   Sybil held a grudge for the way he used to treat her, for all his absences and for the ultimatum that he threw at her while trying to convince her to join the Initiative.

6. Did they have any other personal reason for coming to Andromeda?

If not for her brother Sybil would've probably stayed on Earth and, ispired by the people from the Prothean research, studied history or anthropology on one of the universities there. She was always crazy about discoveries and adventures but, after her service in the Traverse, she was convinced that Milky Way still held many secrets and there was no need to seek them million light years away.

7. Do they have any scars? What’s the story of how they got them? 

She has a scar cutting through her left eyebrow. She got it in a very stupid way when with her first girlfriend, in kind of ‘heat of the moment’, she was taking off her shirt and managed to tear her piercing out from her brow in the process. 8. What do they usually do to relax?

Sybil likes to read while pacing through her room both to utilize excesses of energy and to better focus on the text. When she is stressed and has enough time she usually knots her limbs in some fancy yoga positions and when she needs to calm down out in the field she tries to focus on her breathing inhaling and exhaling deeply until she feels her heart rate drops.

9. Do they have a favorite planet? 

Kadara is her favorite and there are few reasons for her fondness of this planet. She likes the colours (smells not so much), all the dangers of the Badlands are thrilling for her and Kadara Port itself reminds her very much of all the crazy stories she heard about the Omega - which was one place in the Milky Way she always wanted to visit - as well as of the castle on the hill for which she always had a strange weakness. 

10. Do they have an LI? What is their ideal date with them?

She fell for Reyes (yet another reason for liking Kadara).

Sybil doesn’t really have any elaborate fantasies about perfect date nights. She is a simple girl in that matter, not crazy about any romantic bullshits like rooms full of candles, picnics beneath the stars, rose petals on bed sheets or singing serenades…

Having a drink paired with a nice chat or maybe dancing the night away in the club somewhere would be enough to make her perfectly happy.

11. What is their preferred fighting style?

Because Sybil is a biotic vanguard with a slight hyperactivity on top of it - close quarters combat is most satisfying for her. She is known for being reckless, like charging a krogan or a behemoth reckless but when the battle adrenalin hits her, she stops thinking too much and just acts on it. It doesn’t help that she loves when the fight is messy and chaotic and when she can let herself go with the flow - bioticaly charging her opponents and finishing poor sods with a well-placed shot or, even better, using her asari sword. 

Drack often laughs that she would make a great krogan because she even gets into blood rage like a proper krogan should.

12. Finally, did they bring anything important with them from the Milky Way?

Yes, a few things like her fancy, leather boots made by one of the well-acclaimed asari designers, set of vintage, printed Shakespeare’s plays that she got from her mother, a digital library of hers and Scorpius’ favorite music and, probably most precious of all, a thick notebook filled with Ellen’s recipes.

I want to congratulate anyone, who read through this whole post. You’re my hero  ❤️

[strainingfororiginality]

Chapter 5.3 - Descent

There's no one left in the world

I'm gunslingin'

Don't give a fuck if I go

Down, down, down

I got a voice in my head that keeps singing

Oh, my heart is a ghost town

When she ventured downstairs, it was almost completely dark but she could still make out the silhouette of EL, quietly standing in front of the far wall.

"The switch is to your right." He said without turning around and when she flicked what she assumed to be a light switch. She was shocked to hear a mechanical vibration hum throughout the entire area. As light started to leak into the room from the bottom of all of the walls, she realized that what she had first thought to be a windowless room was, in fact, the opposite. There wasn’t a single wall that wasn’t entirely glass and she watched as the metal shutters outside retracted into their housing above each massive window.

She stepped slowly from one wall to the next, staring down into the city below. The area itself was an open space, reaching from one side of the building all the way to the other and she envied it at once. This was where he trained. She noticed various weaponry hung from the load bearing pillars throughout the space. It was not entirely unlike the one Gus had built for them in their shared house, but this one was far more expansive.

As she walked around the perimeter, she peered out onto the unknowing Romans below. The windows, just likes the ones above, were obviously only one way visible and heavily tinted but the bright sunlight outside shown through them clearly. It wasn’t until she got to the final wall that her excitement entirely faded.

As she approached the windows from which EL peered from, she began to see the market place below and her stomach filled with confusion and when she saw the cafe and her mouth dropped agape as the tiny coffee shop below came sharply and painfully into agonizing focus.

EL didn’t have to look at her to feel the overwhelming shock of it and he tapped the glass, pointing at the place below. "You really had no clue?" He asked with near disappointment laced in his tone. “I was sure you would have figured it out by now.”

"Was he here the entire time I was?" She asked with a forced whisper. She came to this very place, every single day for weeks when she was here. For weeks. She loved being here and she thought she had come for the amazing coffee … Her mind stuttered to form any logical thought.

"Are you really shocked?" He prodded again. “You’ve always wanted to come to Rome.” He turned to face her as he carefully looked over her sad and worn face. “You’ve never wondered why?”

"I thought …" There had been some draw to it. Always. “I used to dream about Rome.” She admitted, unable to take her eyes from the table that she always sat in. The table in the very edge of the cafe. The edge closest to where she stood now. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

"Those weren’t dreams. Those were memories. Those were his memories." His disclosure confused her. His? “And no … I can’t see into your dreams, Aurora.” He shook his head, confessing something that shocked her further. “My kind can’t dream.”

"So … “ She chirped hopefully. “I do have privacy somewhere then?"

"Oh please." He waved off her statement. “You can have privacy anytime you want it. All you have to do is ask.” EL offered as he shrugged innocently. “And don’t try and play the victim card with me … I know you better than that.”

"So …" She shifted uncomfortably, unable to tear her eyes from the place across the square. “When I was with Quintus … in that storm, were you there as well?” She asked attempting to prepare herself for the disclosure. She had been wondering, but until this point, she was terrified to ask. She felt that it would have cheapened the intimacy they had shared if she knew that EL had been there … watching. Like a creeper.

"No. I didn’t stay for that. Geez, what the hell do you think of me?" He snorted. “I’m not a pervert.” Breaching the subject seemed to cause him as much discomfort as it did her. “Nope. And don’t worry, I don’t watch you pee either.”

There was something angry in his voice even though he was trying to hide it with forced humor. Annoyance, clearly. But something else. Perhaps jealousy? It was hard to read exactly what emotions were bubbling just beneath his child-like attitude.

"OK. So …" She turned her attention from the outside world and focused solely on him. It was time to ask. “Then what exactly do you want from me, Lucifer?” The question was calm and she used his full name to help express the importance of her question. She’d been dancing around the subject for weeks and now that she was here, surrounded by everything that had been Quintus, she wanted to know. She needed to know. “What do you get out of helping me?”

"Actually, that’s a simple but complex question." He breathed deeply. “I get what I’ve always wanted. What I was born without … I experience your company. I earn your trust.” He said matter of factly as he stepped towards her, gently tapping her on the shoulder with his index finger playfully as he pointed to her. “I get ... you.”

"Listen, I’m flattered. I really am …" She hesitated at even saying that. Had she ever had the privy to turn anyone down before? She was growing fond of EL actually, but just not in that way. She was also worried to refuse him for selfish reasons. She still needed him to get what she wanted so desperately, didn’t she? To get who she wanted. “I love Quintus. I didn’t mean to give you impres--”

"Oh please." He balked. “I’m not interested in replacing him. You misunderstand ... “ He stepped away and stared out the window again, tapping on the glass as he spoke. “I’m not looking for a lover, Dawn.” He rarely used that version of her name and she could feel the desperate emotion behind his words. “He can keep that side of you. I’m looking for something so much more than that.”

"More than what exactly?" She asked for qualification while squinting at him, her mind racing with several thoughts at once.

"We First …" He said carefully as he stepped back towards her and fixed a wrinkle in the sleeve of her shirt as he smiled, tugging it until it was straight and brushing a piece of hair from her face. “We were made to function in pairs. I know you’ve felt that. It’s why you were drawn here ...” He turned and waved his hand at the city beyond the windows.

"I was drawn to him." She offered but EL dismissed the sentiment.

"No. You were drawn to Ozryel’s divinity within him. The power lingering and brewing within his all too human shell. You weren’t seeking him, per se … but you were seeking a connection."

"Then I can’t offer anything to you … I’ve already found that connection." She stated firmly and EL scoffed, breathing in deeply as he shook his head in dismissal.

"No. He was not Hayyoth." EL shook his head, dismissing again. “He was not like us. He was just a man.”

Detesting his use of the past tense, she glared at him as he continued his long winded monologue. He loved to hear himself speak, but she didn’t mind, as she usually preferred not to. "No. I’m not seeking to replace him. I’m not looking for sex or pleasure or even intimacy." Turning back to the windows, he folded his arms across his chest. “Nothing that juvenile or … that human.”

"Then what the fuck do you want from me?" Whatever point he was trying to make, she seemed to be missing it completely. A simple but complex question indeed.

"We were both born alone. We were both denied our natures." He sighed in growing petulant frustration. “I want to fulfill that fundamental part of us that we are both missing.”

"But I’m not alone." She said quickly and even as the words escaped her mouth, she understood his meaning and he nodded with amusement. She wasn’t alone because he’d always been there.

Shit.

"Exactly! Do you get it now?" He smiled. “You never have been. I’ve always been here.” As he reached out and clasp a hand atop her shoulder, he shrugged innocently as he gripped it tightly. “I don’t want or need a lover. Any human can provide that. What I want … what I need … is an other.”

Dawn scrunched her brows up as she chuckled lowly. "An .. Other?" The thought was a bizarre one and maybe she hadn’t exactly followed his intentions at all.

"A sibling, if you will." EL seemed to be incredibly entertained by the disclosure and he spun around in a complete circle while he recited something. This recitation sent chills through her as it reminded her of how she would speak her own memorized poems. “If one should falter, the other will bolster. If one should stumble, the other will reinforce. If one should doubt, the other will ensure.”

"A sibling?" She repeated as she watched him dance around again.

"A sister. My sister." He qualified further as he stared back at her with suddenly serious rainbow eyes which faded into concern. “Has he even been back to visit you since … ?”

Dawn looked down to the ground as she muttered a quiet response. "I don’t think so." She admitted it sadly as she looked up with hopefully eyes. He hadn’t been back to visit her since the wedding. “Have you seen him come back?”

"I’m not always watching." He lied as he smiled fakely to her. “But no. I haven’t seen him. Just that one time.”

Turning to look back out at the cafe as EL watched the sun meandering in the distance, heading closer to the horizon, she frowned. "Why hasn’t he come back?"

"I don’t know." He said. “Maybe he can’t.” There was a shrug as EL touched her shoulder. “Or maybe …” His words trailed off.

"Or maybe what?" She pressed.

"Maybe he doesn’t want to."

The last statement hit her hard and her stomach lurched with vicious nausea as she looked up into the sky, doubt beginning to form in the very back of her mind as she took a deep breath of her dhampir’s smell into her lungs. "What is it like?" She flicked a small nod upwards. “Up there …”

"It’s paradise." EL said simply. “It’s anything and everything that you could ever want.”

That’s exactly what she was worried about and she planned on asking more, but she felt his hand on her other shoulder, gripping it tightly as he spoke down into her ear. She wanted to ask many things, but the most important questions floated to the front of her conscious mind. Was he happy there? Is that why he hadn’t come back to see her? And if so, was she being selfish? And if so … was she being foolish?

"I’ll tell you all about it ... if you really want to know, but right now … “ He pointed out at the impending the sunset. “We’ll only have a few minutes and then we’ll have to wait until Dawn again."

Nodding in compliance, she turned to head back to the stairs. They needed to read the remaining pages of the Lumen.

The Twilight Pages. The Pages of the Nexus.

Go ahead you've, taken me down now

Give me, give me, give me, give me what you don't know

Go ahead, take me all out now

Get this, get this into your game

"Do you hear that?" Thomas asked as she came back up from the stairs to approach the luggage, and she nodded. “Is it supposed to do that?” He asked as he downed his glass of red liquid before he began to fill it up with another one. He’d already worked his way through five bags and it didn’t seem like he was about to stop anytime soon. “I assure you it was not doing that before, my dear.”

The vibration was emanating from within her bag and it was only becoming louder with each step she took. Each time she’d been around the damn thing, it had hummed peacefully, as if it was a generator of some kind, but it was getting stronger now.

"It didn’t used to do that." She agreed with Thomas and said out loud to EL.

"Each day you become more." EL explained. “It reacts.”

She pushed the bag over onto the ground and unzipped the main compartment, pausing for a moment as she stared down at the giant silver book within before she laid her hands on it. She hated touching it now as she felt a surge of unexplainable energy throbbing from it. It had started to feel alive. She started to equate the vibrations as a heartbeat of some kind. Ebbing and flowing. Pumping and pushing.

As she lifted it, her hands shook and she was certain she might drop it as her body trembled with the beating, but she placed it carefully onto the counter, running her hand over the cover gently. "What is it?"

"Why, it is the Lumen, my dear." Thomas explained with a chuckle and she shot him an exasperated look as he realized she wasn’t asking him and she did not find him humorous.

"It’s been many things over the millennia. It’s had many names." EL walked over and smiled, as he looked down at it affectionately. “However, this is the first time it’s been a book.”

"What makes the sound?" She opened it and ran her fingers over the pages. “Is it the ink? Is it more Blood Magic?”

EL laughed off her statement. "The pages aren’t what you’re feeling. It’s the metal. Did you think the Lumen was just important for the knowledge that it can impart?"

"The silver?" She asked as she closed it again and ran her fingers over the cover again, tracing the delicate features of the engraving.

"Oh my silly, Aurora. It’s not silver." EL explained. “Well … Not all of it, at least. It’s what came before silver. It’s what silver was born from.”

"What was it before it was a book then?" She flipped it over and looked at the engraving on the back as memories of the Professor rushed over her. Remembering him, spending countless hours with it open in from of him and she smiled sadly. She missed that time. She missed that old man and his overly grumpy nature. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

"It’s had many forms. Forged and reforged since it fell to Earth with the First." EL reached down, reaching for it as if he might touch it, but pulling his hand back as he smirked.

"The welsh called it Dyrnwyn, the Sword of Rhydderch Hael."

"Beowulf called it Nægling. The Hindus, Asi. The Irish, Caladbolg. When Muhammad wielded it, it was Zulfiqar."

"Perhaps you would know it best when it was called Caliburn, or … “ EL paused as a clever grin spread across his pale face and he snickered. “Excalibur." Dawn pulled her fingers back from the metal momentarily as her mouth opened with awe.

"But, it wasn’t always a blade though. The staff of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, Jingu Bang. The Norse knew it as Mjölnir. The Holy Lance, the Spear of Destiny. There are so many more names and forms, but …"

EL leaned forward. "In 1667, Al-Abyad, The White King, or Avigdo Levy, as he was going by back then, reformed it into what you see now."

"Reformed it?" She asked as Thomas watched her tracing her fingers over its surface with caution.

"It’s indestructible, nearly impossible to melt, you see. Because of what it is, or rather … because of what is hidden in it. Only one of the original Seven Kings of the Marid can make a fire hot enough to shape the piece contained within. Its shard you feel now. It’s reacting to your Hayyoth divinity. It’s calling to you."

"Why didn’t it call to Quintus like this?" She asked.

"You’re exalted, Aurora. He’s accursed. It’s the punishment of the fall… to be removed from the Nexus and all the things it connects." EL sneered. “Besides, he’s just a man.”

"OK." She breathed deeply as she looked back towards the window, gauging that they still had a few minutes before the sun would begin to set. “Shard of what exactly?”

"A shard?" Thomas asked as he finally put his glass down and walked over to look down at the book with her. “What shard, my dear?”

EL purred the words with delight as he smiled playfully at the disclosure. "The Retribution of Heaven. My Eldest Brother’s Most Precious Gift. The Sword of the Right Hand." EL’s overly happy mood sent chills down her spine. “The Celestial Blade itself.”

"What did he say?" Thomas stared wide eyed as he saw her eyes widen with the reveal. The German was enthralled by even just half of the ensuing conversation. “What is it a shard of?”

"The Celestial Blade." She stated and Thomas’ eyes grew even wider than hers.

"Oh Mein Gotte." He retreated back to his glass and bags of blood, downing another glass without saying anything else and she smiled at his increasingly nervous nature. He was normally so very calm and collected. Finally, he whispered. “Das wird der Tod von uns sein.”

"What?" She was actually surprised. Had this not be disclosed to him? Did the Master not trust him with this knowledge? “Your Master didn’t tell you that?” She scoffed at his confusion, enjoying every second of it.

"So, Fräulein. What will we do with it then?" He asked a good question and she turned her attention back to EL, who was smiling wide enough to show her his canines.

"We … “ The fallen angel purred with delight. “We will turn it back into a weapon, as it was always meant to be."

"Why was it made into a book?" She pressed again.

"It’s a very dangerous thing, Aurora. Even just a shard of it can rend souls from existence. The first and second death with a single blow." He beamed. “And man has proved … untrustworthy in the presence of such a power. Thus, the Marid formed it into something more innocuous. Rightfully terrified of divine retribution, they took it back and turned it into something they hoped man wouldn’t get the entire world smited.”

"Why though?" She was disgusted and her anger shown through. “Why does man do that? Why does anyone--”

"Man fears anything and anyone that he can’t control." He shrugged. “He craves power and wealth. Your existence … ” He smiled as he tapped her on the shoulder. “And I’m not talking about the archangel, I’m talking about the prophet within, proves that there is no greater control or power in the universe  than time itself.”

"Time?" She questioned.

"Time is the force that even The Creator is a slave to. The force that speaks only to your kind."

"So they killed him with this because of time?" She placed her palm on the book and felt the beating within.

"For power. For control. Yes. And time is both." EL purred. “Imagine the things that you could do if you always knew the consequences of your actions. Imagine always knowing the future and how to shape it.”

"I can’t do that." She looked at him. “You think--”

"With this." He pointed down to the book. “We can do whatever we want.”

"With a book." She laughed. “You want me to smack people upside the head with … a book?”

EL sighed. "It’s more dangerous than you realize."

"I don’t get it. If it's that dangerous, then why not just get rid of it?" She scrunched her face. “Bury it somewhere … sink it into the ocean. Fuck. Shoot it into space?”

"It’s power. They kept it because they fear Heaven." He explained. “Or more specifically, because they fear my brothers in Heaven. This …” He pointed to the silver cover. “Is the only thing on Earth that had can even hurt one of us.”

Dawn ran her fingers gently over the four circles in each corner of the cover as she felting the heartbeat within it. As she touched each circle, starting in the top left and working left to right as he spoke its hidden meaning. "The four living creatures. Ozryel, the eagle … Michael, the lion … Gabriel, the ox and … Raphael, the man." The last one was a sneer and she could feel that there was anger brewing behind that brother.

"Four brothers." She said as her fingertips traced to the middle of the bottom, delicately brushing on the winged man holding two shields and she smiled as she corrected herself. “Five brothers.”

"Why would your brother’s have left it here then?" She asked. “If it was dangerous to them, why didn’t they--”

"They didn’t know." He laughed out loud, quite amused as he chuckled madly. “Those fools didn’t realized what they had done! Ozyrel would have known. It’s his gift and it's his heart you feel beating through the metal.”

The realization of this made Dawn pull her hand back from the metal sharply as disgust washed over her. Ozryel .. the Master … that mother fucking son of a bitch …

EL stated with quiet rage. "I think honestly Raphael might have known but … he was a bit … distracted at the time."

"What the fuck was strong enough to break a shard from something like that?" She asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. “You said there is nothing on Earth--”

"There is only one thing in existence more powerful than A Gift, and that is the Hayyoth themselves." EL explained. “What chipped the blade was Ozryel. When the Ox cut the Eagle to bits. The final blow was struck with such incredible force that it not only tore his spirit into fragments, but also it left a remnant lodged inside of his bone.”

"Jesus." She gasped and she could read the anger growing in his face as he recounted the memory of it. She remembered the words that she had forcefully scraped from his memories and the voices that had played out painfully across his mind. She understood now that those voices had been Ozyrel and Gabriel that she had heard arguing. Screaming at each other. The Eagle and the Ox.

"I won’t do it! Do not make me do this! BROTHER!" He had refused.

"There is no choice!" She had begged.

"What happened that day?" She asked and EL finally locked eyes with her, tearing his stare from the book.

"You want to see how The First of the First fell, Aurora?" He sighed. “You want to see your other uncles?”

"Yes." She was forceful in her tone, unrelenting in her focus. “What happened that day? Why do you hate Raphael?”

"You want to make me relive the worst moment of my entire existence?" He glared down to her and she shrugged with apathy.

"You witnessed mine, didn’t you?" That moment the light had flashed across the New York sky and she felt Quintus snap out of her life.

"Fair enough. Alright." EL conceded. “But first thing’s first.” Pointing back towards the window, he reminded her of the current task at hand. “It’s time.”

Taking a step to the right, she allowed the darkened sunlight to spread across the silver and as she opened the book to the Twilight page, they became illuminated with metallic colored letters.