#unforgiveable Clamp crimes

[completeoveranalysis]

[3]

Ah yes. The most solid plan of all. 

No reason to find this a giant warning sign, nope. None at all.

IT HAS BEEN TWO WEEKS?!

TWO COMPLETE WEEKS WITH WATANUKI LIVING ALONE IN YUUKO’S BIG EMPTY STORE WITH NOT A SINGLE SIGN OF HER OR MOKONA WHATSOEVER??

No wonder all he’s doing is making the same dish and delivering it over and over again. He must be going out of his mind trying not to think about it too much. 

[bedoballoons]

A/n: The livestream has got me on my knees for Wriothesley, like oh my gosh this man is so fine!! So uh...hehe heres a little something I thought of while watching...

─⊰⁠⊹ฺ✿𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤⊰⁠⊹ฺ✿─

{༻~Grrr~༺}

Nsfw! MDNI! Top Wriothesley! Bottom Afab reader, but GN pronouns! Handcuffs, fingering, punishment, rough sex, no protection, a bit of degradation and threats! Reader is a prisoner! This is written before his release so may be a little ooc!

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𑁍༄Wriothesley:

You moaned loudly as Wriothesley slid his large digits inbetween your pretty little light pink folds, pumping them in and out of you at a speed that left you unable to think straight, your wrists stinging as you struggled against the metal confines of the cuffs that kept you trapped against the bedframe. Your wet heat dripping off his fingers and onto the dingy bedsheets you'd been forced to use, the sounds of him spreading you so forcefully like a melody in his lust crazy mind. He just wanted you so bad, the large tent in his pants throbbing with need to the point he could barely keep himself from shoving his full length into you right then, he wanted to make sure you never broke the law again...

"Mnnn~ Wriothesley!" You gasped, watching as he released his member from its fabric confines, his impatience getting the better of him, "Shush, did I tell you you could talk inmate? Cause I sure as hell don't remember telling you." His voice was authoritative, threatening in a way that had you shaking your head in fear and left your pussy throbbing for attention. He could help but smirk in delight at the sight of you, his dick sinking so deep into your heat that you could see stars and he didn't give you even a moment to adjust, his pace absolutely unforgiving.

"Mmhgghn!" You screamed, his thrusts slamming your body against the mattress as he fucked you silly, your brain turned to nothing but mush, tears welling up in your glazed over eyes and your hands holding onto the cuffs for dear life. Wriothesley was enjoying himself immensely, your tight gummy walls clamping around his length in a way that had him growling with greed, "Filthy criminal...so wet for me when all I'm doing is punishing you for your crimes, honestly what a dirty whore."

You couldn't even say a word back, only loud moans and breathless gasps able to escape your lips, your mouth hung open with ecstasy that burned in your core, 'Nghhh-mnnn! Ahahhh!" His rough hands grabbed your hips harshly, leaving bruises as his cock slammed into you with such force that you came on site, your body shaking and quivering around him. He chuckled as he ruined you further, going until his hot white cum filled you to the brim...

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ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚He so grrrrrr*⁠.⁠✧

(Should I make a version where he's a bottom? 0w0 )

[suguru-getos]

Kinktober day 17:

CNC w/ Alhaitham: f!reader

Warnings: Consentual non-consent themes, not everyone is comfortable with them. Read at your own discretion. Creampie, dom!Alhaitham, dirty-talk, sweet fluffy aftercare.

Summary: You were caught trifling with the knowledge capsules by the Grand Scribe, would he spare you for it? Probably not. Mentions of Kaveh because I am all about him these days AHA 😤 also, not proof read

“So you don’t want to be reported by the Akademiya, huh?�� Alhaitham raised a brow, gritting his teeth at your antics. You looked down, ashamed; biting your lip and and evading eyecontact.

“Please, Grand Scribe, I would never repeat it again,” you looked up at Alhaitham’s fierce gaze, green eyes hungrily sizing you up along with hints of mockery.

“You would never repeat again? Stealing information and selling canned knowledge is forbidden. It’s like killing a person,” Haitham smirked and leaned forward, while you instinctively leaned away though the distance between you and him was already unmatched. Given you were sitting in front of him while he desked further away.

“Please, Grand Scribe, I would assure this sin won’t be repeated,” you looked down, tearing up with regret pooling in your eyes and lip quivering. You fisted your hands together, sighing and embracing your career as an Akademiya scholar finished right before your eyes.

You knew Alhaitham was one of the logical ones, he wouldn’t let you go like that. “Maybe then, you should be punished for it until you atone for your sins,” his voice echoed crudely. Your eyes shot up, watching his expressions change as he got up from his seat, knuckles clamping down the handle of your chair and tilting it backwards, keenly observing how your chest heaved and you gasped, helplessness surging through you along with entangled anticipation.

“Let’s see whether the audacity with which you committed this crime, will equivalent the desire to be free from it after I’m done with you,” Alhaitham scoffed, and you could sense there was no humor in his eyes, only tangible hint of seriousness that only made the pit of your stomach anxiety ridden.

His hands scourged through your clothed skin, that is when your unknown became known. You knew what was going to happen to you. Pupils vibrating and tears prickled in your eyes. “Grand Scribe—” your voice broke, when Alhaitham’s palm squeezed the supple skin of your clothed breast, leaning in and nipping at the clothed nipple.

He eventually got up, leaning back and you thought maybe… just maybe that is all. Only to see him stancing towards the door and closing it shut, turning back with his back leaned towards it. “Can’t let others know how I decided your punishment can I?” He walked predatorily towards you, the hinges of reflex in your veins breaking free as you jumped out of the chair, feet wobbling and mind focussed only on one thing & one thing alone. Flee.

“If you run I will make it fucking worse,” Haitham tilted his head to the side, manic smirk that emerged from the thought of you challenging him. “Remove the pesky clothing sweetheart, and Get. On. Your. Knees,”

You whimpered, flinching at the unforgiving, daunting tone that he carried. You really had no choice. “Maybe you could’ve done so yourself— instead of making— making me—” your sniffles began echoing the otherwise silent room.

“Maybe, I could.” Alhaitham cooed softly, eyes unwavering and feet tapping impatiently on the marble floor. That was your cue, you needed to get this done, Alhaitham was a man of promise after all. Maybe he would let you go…

Hesitant hands and ashamed, dusted cheeks welcomed Alhaitham’s tent in his pants, watching how you turned bare, watching how precious you looked when the cool air of the room hit your nipple, pebbling it.

“Please— I don’t want to do this anymore,” you sobbed, while Haitham kneeled in front of you. Knuckles wiping the fresh pool of tears that slipped down your cheek. “I don’t care what you want, little one,” he leaned in, kissing your neck gently, licking a strip of your skin and suckling it earnestly, marking it purple with a prominent hickey.

“Hnng— Ah!” You couldn’t help but whimper, your body betraying you as your cunt clenched around nothing, wetness pooling down there.

“Oh no— I think you like this? Is that too much of a punishment?” Haitham’s questionable glare was daggering in your bare skin.

Upon hearing mere silence from you as a reply, he gripped your hair, tugging it back and hearing your whimpering. “I asked you a question.” He seethed, gritting his teeth and leaving his harsh grip.

“I don’t like this— no I don’t, please don’t,” you shook your head adamant.

“Well then, let me inform you of a few things here little one. You see this,” he tapped your puffy, needy clit. “This doesn’t get swollen up unless you’re not turned on,” he daunted, bluntly stating the points and watching you quiver in embarassment.

“You see this?” He inserted his thick middle finger inside your hole, watching you bite your lip and hold in a moan. Finger slowly protuding out as he licked your essence. “This cunt of yours, doesn’t get wet out of the blue, unless you’re enjoying it,”

His sudden movements caught you off guard, wrapping your legs around his waist and pinning you against the wall, he entered his throbbing cock, leaking with pre and plunging it inside your pussy.

You held your mouth with both hands, trying to muffle your cries, trying to wait out for the pain to subside, even so; your screaming was evident, even muffled and toned down.

Alhaitham waited, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “Stop screaming and crying, it’ll feel good later,” he assured you, staying still until finally you hung your head on his shoulder. “Hai-Haitham—” you whispered his name, hugging him for a scant of affection.

Haitham’s groan weirdly soothed you, finally moving and rutting his hips against your hole. “Agh- fuck you feel so good,” hearing cut-throat sarcasm from him was something everyone was used to, but cursed because he felt so good; that was new.

“You feel so good clenching around me, needy needy little—” he gasped, leaning his head back and fucking you with harsh, unforgiving deep thrusts.

Your moans and whimpers were carefully muffled by you, cupping your mouth over and over while Haitham carelessly fucked you dumb. The familiar coil in your stomach about to snap as you twitched around his cock shamelessly.

“Oh you’re close? Seems like you are from the way your pretty cunt is massaging me,” Alhaitham’s lewd words accompanied by a harsh suckle on your tit was the last straw you needed. Gasping and writhing beneath him, you tipped off the edge, letting the crashing waves of your orgasm ruin you.

“Agh fuck— please stop, no no no—” you whined, crying and negating the pleasure provided with whatever leftover courtsey you had.

“I’m going to fuck my seed deep inside you.” Alhaitham’s words were an order, plunging deep inside your cunt as white ropes of thick white cum stained your velvety walls.

Leaving you both in a panting, sweating mess, he leaned in, kissing your earlobe and whispering. “You felt so good I feel like punishing you for your deeds everyday, how quaint, how fun— you will come here looking like a doll and go back looking fucked up, my seed dripping down from your panties,” he smirked.

You sniffled, leaning further away, hands pushing his chest away with broken pieces of your strength. “Let me go, I don’t want to—”

“I won’t, I will never let you go you understand that?” Alhaitham’s tone was much softer, careful and eyes fixed on you observingly.

“Do you still want to continue— or?” He finally broke character, looking at you tenderly, kissing your collar bone, kissing your jaw, the apples of your cheek, littering your body with soft tender kisses.

“Can’t believe you were so serious and menacing,” you scoffed mid crying, rolling your eyes and smiling.

“Well you asked for my worst, you begged for it,” Haitham softly smiled at you, leaning in and kissing your forehead.

“That I did, yeah,” you grinned, wiping your cheeks and giggling, causing your walls to flutter around Alhaitham’s cock as he hissed. “Hey now sweetheart, stop that,” he chided you softly.

“I want to go home now, Mister Grand Scribe,” you cooed, leaning your head against his chest while he carefully rubbed your back soothingly.

“Alright, that’s if you can walk. Or would you rather be carried by me and be the talk of Akademiya?” Haitham smirked cockily.

“Eh, Kaveh will help—” you nodded earnestly.

“Tch— Kaveh- he can barely help himself,”

“Come on, you like him…”

“I don’t,”

“You do though,”

“I said I don’t,”

Here you were, bickering with the man with his cock still inside you.

[xkaekox]

“Will you hold still? I can’t do anything if you keep squirming.”

@quiet-kunoichi xXx - Wounded Sentence Starters

“Will you hold still?” It comes out snappishly, although Kimiko’s movements don’t pause. “I can’t do anything if you keep squirming.”

The tears welling up in Kaeko's eyes finally dripped free as Kimiko pierced the skin of her temple with the needle and thread for what felt like the millionth time. The gash was deep enough that Kimiko could see the bone, and it bled with an angry force at first. It felt to Kaeko like a massive canyon had been carved into her head, and it felt as if Kimiko was digging deep into her skull to find the skin necessary to place a stitch.

A tiny sob forced its way up her throat, but Kaeko kept it clamped behind stubbornly shut lips. That didn’t fool Kimiko. Her head shakes subtly, and then she sighs as she cuts the threading of the stitch she’s just completed. “Let's just take a break,” she suggests, placing a piece of gauze over the half-stitched wound to make sure it stays clean while they pause. She carefully places the thread and needle down on a stack of clean gauze, covering that with a fresh piece too. She’ll douse it with alcohol to cleanse it before they start up again just to be safe.

Kaeko's eyes close in relief, but she doesn't breathe like she's relieved. She holds her breath as if she couldn't catch it if she tried. It juts out in choppy, clipped huffs as her chest spasms along with it. She's determined to be strong, and her pride is bruised by how badly she's doing. The worst part is Kimiko seeing her in this state. Kimiko, the woman phased by nothing, the woman she so admired, was seeing her crumble from a few head stitches. Suddenly, the skin around Kaeko's eyes crinkle as she clenches her eyes shut tighter. The flourish of anger at herself makes her nostrils flare and teeth clench.

Kimiko's eyes roll. She can see right through it all. She can see that Kaeko is flustered and shaken, all the while angry at herself for having a completely human reaction to having to get stitches on her temple with no numbing agent at all while fully conscious. Shit, even Kimiko would have a hard time with that! Kaeko was being entirely too unforgiving with herself, and worst of all it was compromising Kimiko’s work.

Kimiko’s palm finds the top of Kaeko's sternum where she applies a gentle but firm pressure to ground Kaeko. Her fingers are warm on the skin when they frame Kaeko's neck. “Breathe,” she instructs sternly. Kaeko takes to panting as a result. “No, I said—” Kimiko inhales deeply through the nose, says, “—breathe,” as she exhales. Kaeko’s chest finally deflates, but then she has the opposite problem: she can't find the breath to fill her lungs back up. She hears Kimiko inhale again as she lightens the pressure on Kaeko’s chest, and Kaeko shakily follows along. Together, they exhale—one subtly and the other with a desperate huff—and Kimiko reapplies the pressure as if to help force the air out.

“O-Okay,” Kaeko says, her voice surprisingly calm for only having taken a couple of actual breaths. She was emulating what she thought Kimiko would do. “We can continue.”

Kimiko snorts—balks almost—and shakes her head. “You can take more than two breaths before we start again.” She thumps Kaeko's chest twice with her fingers. “Who're you trying to impress?” Kaeko's cheeks get warm at the implication that she was trying—and failing—to impress anyone. Was it such a crime to want to be strong and unbreakable like Kimiko was? Because she felt like she needed to, Kimiko removed her hand, leaned away from Kaeko, and tried a joke: “It's harder to work on a frazzled little princess like you, so calm down already.” She noticed Kaeko's eyes had opened, but only enough to narrow into a glare. Kimiko's lips almost tugged into a smile, but she didn't want to be too familiar. Instead, she clicked her tongue and looked away as if Kaeko had become bothersome to her.

It was dangerous to get too close to anyone, especially someone as innocent as Kaeko. If she didn't end up staining Kaeko's soul, she might end up getting her killed. She was so pure but so driven to prove she was tough... and it bothered Kimiko that she liked her so much. It bothered Kimiko that they were becoming friends when she didn't need friends, didn't want friends. She wanted an occasional teammate at most, but she found someone who was determined to be a real comrade, as if Kimiko had asked for her company in the first place...

“I can handle it,” Kaeko says quietly, eyes staring up at the blue sky from her reclined position in the grass. “Let’s just finish.”

Kimiko regards Kaeko’s profile for a long moment, thinking deeply, before she starts preparations to begin again. When the needle and thread are cleaned and dry again, when the wound is revealed and she’s about to pierce the skin once more, Kimiko says with a softer voice than she’s used thus far, “Don’t forget to breathe.”

Kaeko’s eyes flicker to meet golden hues that are also softer than they’d been thus far. She nods sharply, takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and exhales when the skin is pierced. She makes a habit of that: letting her breath go every time she’s pierced, and it does help. It also helps to periodically glance at Kimiko’s focused face as she works on Kaeko. Something about Kimiko’s calm helps calm Kaeko too, although she powerless to deny the occasional whimper and rogue tear. When they’re fully done and the wound is bandaged up, Kaeko steals some time alone to cry, unaware that Kimiko can hear her clearly.

Kimiko doesn’t mention it when Kaeko comes back, just thumps her friend on the back and says, “Good job.” Then, so as not to treat her too softly, “Now let’s move. You wasted a lot of our daylight.”

[alindakb]

Too Late - by Alinda

There are chains around his ankles and wrists. They keep him locked in the chair he was forced to sit in. He knows this chair. He sat in it once before. Years ago. When Dumbledore was still alive and there to save him. Back when the world still made some kind of sense. Before it had turned against him and took everything he ever cared about.

Ron had been there when they arrested him. He had looked at Harry as if he was a stranger. And maybe he is that now. A stranger. A killer and murderer. He’s no longer the boy Ron became friends with. He hasn’t been that boy for years. Just like he hasn’t been Ron’s friend since he made his choice and ran with the only one that mattered.

Hermione is somewhere in this room. He’s seen the paper when she was elected into the Wizengamot. Harry was proud of her. Still is. But that doesn’t matter now. She will not give him any favours. She will hear his testimony and know she won’t be able to claim he’s innocent. Because he isn’t.

Not that it matters anymore. None of it does. Not since the moment they took him. Not when Harry found out he was too late.

Harry doesn’t look up when Shacklebolt stands up and starts to talk. Another person Harry let down by running. By becoming an accomplish to a wanted criminal. Always on the run. Always looking over his shoulder. Until they made a choice and found a way to live their lives in peace.

At least they didn’t take his ring. His only reminder of the life he had before. Of the time he was truly happy.

“Harry James Potter, you are brought before the Wizengamot to be trailed for the crimes you committed. I understand that you have waived the right to have an attorney present. Is that correct?” Shacklebolt says.

Harry nods his head.

Shacklebolt scrapes his throat. “Please speak up for the court,” he says.

Harry closes his eyes. He can see the smile he woke up to for the last fifteen years. The smile that was stolen from him not that long ago. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Then he opens his eyes and looks at Shacklebolt. “I don’t need an attorney,” he says.

“Harry, don’t be stupid,” a familiar voice says. Harry looks to Shacklebolt’s left and sees Hermione sitting there. She looks older. More mature. Life has done her good. Harry wonders if she and Ron have stayed together. He can’t remember if the article about her appointment into the Wizengamot that he’d read years ago said anything about her private life.

“It’s okay, Hermione,” Harry says. He’s ready to take whatever punishment they want to give him. It’s not like he has anything left to live for.

Shacklebolt continues as if Hermione hadn’t interrupted them. He looks at the parchment in front of him. The man is hard to read. Is he disappointed in Harry? The man he once thought would take over the Auror department. Maybe even become the next Minister of Magic. Now a criminal, on trial for the murder of some former Death Eater children.

“We’ve received your request to plea separately for the crimes you are on trial for, is that correct?” Shacklebolt asks.

“Yes,” Harry says.

“Mrs Granger, would you please list the crimes one by one,” Shacklebolt continues.

Hermione stands up. Her hands shake a little. “Harry James Potter, you are charged for abating Draco Lucius Malfoy’s escape from prison. How do you plea?”

“Guilty,” Harry says. It’s no secret that he was the one that escorted Draco out of the Ministry and fled the country with him. Not that Draco was guilty of the crimes they convicted him for. But nobody believed Harry back then. Said he was just upset and confused. Nobody cared that Voldemort would have won if it hadn’t been for Draco.

Hermione swallows before she continues. Harry wants to tell her that it’s okay, that it doesn’t matter. She can continue without feeling guilty for not believing him. It’s his fault for never being honest with them about all this in the first place.

“Harry James Potter, you are charged for murdering Pansy Parkinson. How do you plea?” Hermione says.

Again the word guilty rolls of Harry’s tongue. She deserved it. Draco trusted her. Was happy when she reached out to him. But she betrayed him.

The next two charges also follow a guilty plea from Harry. He found Theodore Nott and Gregory Goyle in the room with him. Their wands pointed at the love of Harry’s life. His husband. Who lay broken on the floor. The rage Harry had felt in that moment had burst out of him. He didn’t have a wand anymore. Hadn’t used one in years. But he didn’t need it. The spells just left his fingers. They screamed and begged until Harry had heard enough and green lights had filled the room.

But this will be all he will plead guilty for.

“Harry James Potter, you are charged for torturing and murdering Draco Lucius Malfoy,” Hermione says. Harry closes his eyes. He fights the tears that threaten to escape him. His voice seems lost as he opens his mouth to respond. He scrapes his throat and tries again.

“Not guilty,” he whispers.

“Please speak up,” Shacklebolt says.

Harry looks at them. His eyes lock with Hermione. They are moist as if she knows. And she probably does. She always knew what it was that Harry wasn’t saying. But it’s too late now.

“Not guilty,” he says again.

There is some commotion around them. Had they all hoped that Harry would just plead guilty to everything and be done with it? Now they have to prove that Harry killed his husband. The man he gave up everything for. And it will stretch this out. But even though Harry wants it all to be over, he couldn’t. He would not betray his love. He will not plea guilty and betray Draco. He will have justice for him before Harry can give up.

Pictures are shown of the murdered victims. Parkinson bled to death after the Sectumsempra hit her. Harry didn’t stay and watch. He had rushed down to the basement where he had found him. Draco his eyes had been open, but they didn’t see anything anymore. His clothes were torn and his bones broken. Harry had been too late. Compared to him, Goyle and Nott got off easy. They didn’t have to suffer to days of torture until their bodies gave out. They only had to endure a short time under the Cruciatus curse before Harry couldn’t stand the sound of their screams any longer.

Ron is questioned at some point. Harry is scared to look at him. He was the first Auror on the scene. The one that arrested Harry.

“Mr Potter was found holding Mr Malfoy’s body. He cradled him, as you cradle someone you love,” Ron says. “He was crying when I arrested him. The only hesitation he had was when he had to let go of Mr Malfoy’s body. Other than that, he came willingly.”

Later they examine the wands of Parkinson, Nott and Goyle. The last spells they fired are all dark and unforgivable. The pain they put Draco through was even worse than Harry had imagined. If only he had found them sooner. Not that they would have survived it. But at least Draco wouldn’t have had to suffer as he did. Tears fall now. Harry can’t stop them. He closes his eyes and tries to think of the good times. Of the day they bought fake Muggle IDs so they could get married. The moment they apparated back to their home after the I do’s. The perfect eggs Draco used to make for breakfast. The walks through the forest around their home. The days spend in the garden, growing herbs and vegetables. The nights spent in front of the fire, Draco reading a book out loud so Harry could listen to his voice. A voice he will never hear again.

A healer goes over the wounds on all the victims. Harry tries not to listen to the words spoken. He can’t stand to hear in even more detail how Draco had suffered in his final days.

“I would like to add that Mr Malfoy wore one piece of jewellery when we examen him. A golden ring with a date engraved on the inside, together with the Harry,” the healer says.

Harry looks at the ring on his own finger. The same golden ring they found on Draco. Only here the name Draco is engraved next to their wedding date.

“Would you say that this was a wedding ring?” Shacklebolt asks.

“It appeared so,” the healer answers. “Only the Aurors couldn’t find any registered marriage for Mr Malfoy.”

The lead investigator is brought in. They only searched the magical records. Shacklebolt orders them to look to the Muggle records. And when they come back they hold a piece of paper stating that Harry James Potter married Draco Lucius Malfoy twelve years, four months and six days ago. Three years after they ran from the magical world when they didn’t believe that Draco wasn’t a Death Eater. On the day they had been together for exactly six years. Eighteen years ago, when Harry hadn’t though and just reached out and kissed Draco. And all it had taken was Draco saying he didn’t believe that the Dark Lord was the great saviour everyone thought he was.

They had been together for eighteen years, two months and four days when Draco disappeared.

It had been eighteen years, two months and twenty-seven days when Harry found him.

Harry had only been minutes too late.

Minutes he can never get back. He can never catch up to them and save Draco.

“Mr Potter, is this true? Was Mr Malfoy your husband?” Shacklebolt asks.

“He was,” Harry answers.

More commotion follows. The Wizengamot gets adjourned. Harry is transported back to his cell. Time passes while he stares at the walls around him. Draco always said the cells were a horrible place. Cold and clamp. Harry never thought about it after he’d helped Draco escape. Now the words of those conversations flood his mind.

“You shouldn’t have rescued me,” Draco shouted on that first day. “You’re throwing away your life. And what for? A school crush?”

Harry had grabbed him and pulled him close. “For the injustice done to the man I love,” he’d said before they had kissed.

Draco would complain from time to time. And then Harry would remind him of all the things Draco had risked when he agreed to become a double agent. How he’d betrayed his own family for the person he loves. How he’d helped Harry find the Horcruxes and saved his life over and over again, until the final battle. How Harry had come back for him. How he’d fought to let others know that Draco was one of the good guys.

But everyone who had known was dead. Sirius had passed soon after the agreement was made. Dumbledore fell. So did Snape and Tonks. There was nobody but Harry who knew of Draco’s mission for the order. The only one still alive that had seen Draco struggle with the fact that he had to take the Dark Mark. The mark that stood for everything he was against. The mark that clouded the Wizengamot’s judgement and just claimed his guilty without a proper trial.

The next day, the Wizengamot questions Harry. Why didn’t he contact the Auror department when his husband went missing? Why did he even marry a Death Eater? Harry tells them he wasn’t. He shows them his memories when they ask for proof. It’s the only proof he has. The meetings in Dumbledore’s office with Sirius and Tonks. The talks about what it would mean for their relationship. The sneaking around, the meetups after Harry had to go on the run, the information Draco provided, the way he got Harry out of the Manor when they got captured.

“I was too late,” Harry says in the end. “I found him too late.”

He looks at Hermione. Tears are on her cheeks, a hand on her mouth. She finally understands how Harry had always known where to go next that final year. Why he never minded having the graveyard shift on watch. It was the moments he would meet up with Draco.

Nobody will ever know why they took Draco after all these years. Did they blame him for the destruction of Voldemort? Was this their way of revenging their parents? Harry doesn’t care. He only knows that they took the love of his life from him and that they broke his heart beyond repair.

The verdict, in the end, is expected. Shacklebolt says he understands, but they can’t condone murder, not even when it’s to revenge a loved one. Life in prison is the best he can do. Harry is taken to Azkaban. He stares at the ceiling of his cell until his broken hearts gives out and he can fly to the place where he will be reunited with his Draco.

[josy57]

Dream 10/06/20

A school mate from long ago visited me last night In a dream she asked whether I still cared about you There are no good answers to that question Only white lies and muddy half-truths So I nodded She wondered whether I knew how despicable you were And I said I did I didn't go into details about the nightmares I had all through high school I didn't tell her what I had heard, or what I suspected But I could sense she was angry, she wanted me to feel shame And shame, on that subject, I always did feel She said I didn't know the half of it What twisted star I had hitched myself to She showed me pictures, gritty tortured images Snapshots of terror and dying creatures What I could only describe as flashes of hell A horror that dwarfed all the minor offenses I had known of before Something clamped in me like a fist closing Not because I couldn't believe it But because somehow I did Because it changed everything, and yet changed nothing at all I would love you regardless Not by choice, but by thrall, by chains Following the tug of this rotten thing in my chest I was guilty by the closest kind of association Those were my crimes too The girl must have seen that I was a lost cause She left, with a last glance of disgust She had believed I was naïve or blind She now knew me to be tainted

Back home, in my patio, I found a bloody, gory present The head of a deer, looking at me with glassy-eyed reproach Cats bring mangled birds and mice as tokens of affection I guess monsters bring bigger prey For it laid at my feet, my reward, my morbid offering And again the fist tightened Hitting home Nausea rising in an unforgiving tide My father always said you are responsible for what you tame I never did tame you, of course But how many times have I failed to renounce you? No matter what I saw, no matter what proof I was brought I clenched my jaws and refused to turn away So perhaps we deserve each other For if that was the ultimate test A corpse dragged to my door I proved myself a reluctant yet faithful accomplice I discarded the head and went back inside My mind reeling, planning excuses and alibis Until suddenly I saw that blood had followed me through the house In a frenzy, I tried to wipe the floor  Desperate to hide it, hide it, hide it Like I've always hidden you But I knew nothing would ever be clean again Each drop left a dark cloudy shadow Like ink seeping deep into the fiber of the wood The bluish purple of red cabbage stains Of Blue beard's wife trespassing The accusatory color of unwashable guilt All I saw then, were those familiar walls Fencing me in Walls not only with ears and eyes But with fingers to point and confound me And this blood, everywhere Sticky and stubborn, loud as a scream As the chemical liquid that betrays shoplifters

I woke up in a house free of wailing sirens Still, it is in life as it was in that dream I've spent years and years scrubbing my skin raw But layer after layer, the bruise only gets blacker And yet I keep scratching A sniffer dog spellbound by the sweet festering smell of death Of all those dark unspeakable deeds That could not make me desert you.

[ohayohimawari]

Forget

A drabble that was written for @kakaobiweek (Day 1, Amnesia prompt)

Rated: T; no archive warnings apply

Pairings: KakaObi

WC: 755

Summary: “An unexpected opportunity presents itself just when Obito questioned his view of Kakashi.”

Read: AO3 or below the cut.

Forget

Obito had expected Kakashi to dodge when he charged at him, not take the full brunt of the kick that sent him flying over the cliff. Obito pried his mask from his face, removing Tobi’s disguise and looked upon the crumpled figure of his childhood friend and current enemy lying on the ground far below, willing him to get up.

But he didn’t.

Obito took several deep breaths and mustered the courage to leap down to Kakashi. Then, he mustered a little more to check if Hatake was still warm and breathing. It turned out that he was, and then the most surprising thing of all happened.

Obito was relieved.

He shook it off and returned his mask to his face. He stood to leave so he could rejoin Deidara and continue to play the fool. However, his feet did not obey him and instead kept him rooted to the spot. Obito sighed in resignation and turned to assess Kakashi again, more thoroughly this time.

Bruises blossomed in several places where his skin was exposed, indicative of several impacts during his fall. At least one gash required stitches, and Hatake still hadn’t regained consciousness. There wasn’t much that Obito could do for him when Deidara could appear at any moment, so he lifted Kakashi in his arms and activated Kamui before he could think twice about it.

Obito removed his mask once they arrived in the privacy of his Sharingan’s dimension. He reached into his hip pouch for his first aid kit and addressed the deep cut first. He cleaned it, and carefully stitched it closed all the while wondering why he was treating his enemy with such care.

Kakashi stirred, his eyelids fluttered, and Obito’s breath caught in his throat. As far as Hatake knew, Uchiha had died a hero many years and crimes ago. Kakashi’s eyes opened, and he cast his confused, unfocused gaze at Obito.

“Who…who are you?” Kakashi rasped.

Obito clamped his mouth shut tight. The name of his childhood self begged to be given, and his heart yearned to be recognized by it. He couldn’t claim to be Madara, and without his mask, he wasn’t Tobi. His mouth went dry as his mind turned through his dwindling options. However, he was spared having to give any answer at all.

Kakashi sat up suddenly, too suddenly, and gasped and winced in pain. His eyes frantically searched Obito’s. “Who am I?” He whispered.

Obito heard more fear in those three words than he had during an entire childhood with Kakashi. He couldn’t help himself from reaching his artificial arm behind Kakashi’s back to support him, then raised his real hand to place it on Hatake’s chest and felt the thump of his heart. “Take it slow. You, um, I mean w-we,” ‘were fighting, because we’re enemies,’ his mind supplied the truth, but his mouth refused to speak it.

And they weren’t enemies at that moment, anyway.

“You…you fell,” Obito swallowed the other half of the truth. “You must’ve hit your head. You look like you’ve had a concussion.”

“I feel like I’ve had a concussion,” Kakashi brought one hand up to his head and winced again at the touch. “At least you seem to know me.”

“Just… take it easy for now. Lie back and rest, Bakashi,” the nickname slipped out on its own with more tenderness than Obito thought he was capable of anymore.

Kakashi mumbled something incoherently as he drifted back off again, leaving Obito alone with his racing thoughts.

This was an unexpected turn of events.

It would only take a few words to make Kakashi an ally instead of an enemy when he woke again. Obito could offer him an entirely different role in their cursed shinobi world. If this turned out to be a temporary lapse, perhaps the sharingan could lengthen their time together.

Obito swallowed as a thin veil of shame fell over him. He closed his eyes and attempted to argue it away silently. He’d done so many unforgivable things, what was one more? Didn’t he deserve any chance at happiness? Of course, he would want to take it when it so willingly presented itself to him.

Obito opened his eyes again and gazed at Kakashi’s sleeping face. He reached his artificial hand out to touch him, then hesitated and returned it to his side. He then extended his real hand and ran his thumb along the scar that bisected Kakashi’s left eye.

Rin would want them to be together again.

 The End

[thereluctantinquisitor]

Oh man I've gotta ask about what would happen if Reynolt's squad was saved by the Dawn Squad. And if you up for it, could I request it as a prompt?

Let me just say this is an awesome prompt! Now let me apologise because I got carried away and now we have 5k+ words of whatever this is. 

Content warning for violence. The Venatori are not nice.

                                        _____________

It was unusual for Hanin to be called in for a briefing so soon after returning from the field. The Western Approach, unforgivable at the best of times, wasn’t a place where you wanted to send soldiers out without sufficient rest. To say he was perplexed would be an understatement, and as Hanin walked into the old inn that had been re-purposed as a command station, what he saw only added to his confusion.

“You sent for me?” Hanin glanced at Captain Hurst, who was in the process of weathering an agitated line in the floorboards. He paced back and forth, his heavy boots thudding loudly in the mostly empty room. No words needed to be spoken to clarify the gravity of the situation, and Hanin frowned, closing the door behind him. “What happened?”

“Ask him,” Hurst snapped, gesturing sharply to the other figure who had escaped Hanin’s notice until that point. Sitting by the desk at the back of the room, the man was hunched forward, his hands knotted in his thick brown hair. His uniform was torn and caked with dust and sand, and from what Hanin could see of his hands, they were crusted with what could only be dried blood. Despite being unable to see his face, Hanin recognised him almost immediately.

“Reynolt?” After exchanging a glance with Hurst, who just grunted and threw up his hands in frustration, Hanin decided to take control. He moved over to Reynolt, who had started shaking his bowed head, the movement so subtle Hanin almost missed it. “Tell me what happened.” 

Some part of him knew he should be softer; take pity on the man. But another part of him resented Reynolt so deeply for what he and his recruits put the Dawn Squad through that he just couldn’t bring himself to show any such mercy. He just didn’t deserve it.

“Those damn Venatori…” Reynolt’s voice was low and gravelly, like there was a hand squeezed around his throat. “They ambushed us. We were tired - unprepared. Got separated from each other. They…”

All while Reynolt spoke, a quiet, heavy sensation began to stir deep in the hollow of Hanin’s stomach. It rose and rose with each word until what Reynolt was saying - all of his curses and excuses - lost their shape, replaced by a deep, pounding thrum. The man was mid-sentence when Hanin finally spoke. The words fell like stone from his lips, cold and numb with the weight of realisation.

“You left them.”

Reynolt stammered to a halt, dark eyes darting up, almost seeming shocked by the statement of truth as though it was something else - a lie, an exaggeration. 

But it wasn’t. 

It couldn’t be anything else. 

“I… I had no choice.” Reynolt looked imploringly back and forth between Hanin and Captain Hurst, shame and indignation at war upon his face. “I-It was flee or be captured! And then what? There was nothing to be gained by—”

—“You left them!” Before Hanin even knew what he was doing, he had Reynolt by the shirtfront, the chair thrown aside as he grabbed the man and flung into the center of the room. Reynolt hit the floor hard, the sound of his armour striking the ground resonating with a sharp crack as one of the boards broke beneath him. 

“Lavellan!” Hurst’s alarmed voice barely registered. Hanin was already rounding on Reynolt, stalking forward as the man scrabbled towards the wall, eyes wide, boots sliding impotently, his left arm cradled to his chest. 

“Coward,” Hanin hissed. “Bastard. How could you leave them!?”

“Y-You think I wanted this? Fine! Call me what you want - I’m a coward and a bastard!” Reynolt’s voice had risen to a shout, something wild and hysterical shaking at its edges. “But if I wasn’t here, who the fuck would get them help? Answer me that, Lavellan!” When Hanin said nothing, Reynolt took a shallow, shaking breath. “No one. You know it and so do I. So save your fucking preaching and help me, damn it!”

“Help you?” Hanin snorted derisively and shook his head. “No. There is no helping you, Reynolt. You have proven that time and time again.” He turned sharply, attention snapping to Hurst. “My squad and I will mount the rescue. Have word sent to the stables. We will need gear and enough supplies for any potential wounded.”

“I’m coming with you.” Reynolt, who had managed to drag himself to his feet, now stood leaning heavily against the wall. ‘They are my—”

—“They are not yours,” Hanin interrupted, not even bothering to look at the man. “Not anymore. You have lost that privilege. I will see to it myself.” Moving towards the door, Hanin shoved it open roughly, the anger in the motion unmistakable. “You were their captain, Reynolt. If anything has happened to them… know that it should have been you.”  

                                                            ~

Venatori Camp - The Old Well

“I already told you I don’t know!” Laurent’s voice was high with fear, his blond hair matted with dust and blood from where he had been struck on the side of the head. “We’re just recruits - w-we don’t know the Inquisitor’s plans!”

One of the Venatori, called Terinius, stood over the kneeling man. Brenner could only watch as Laurent trembled in his shackles, his hands twisting behind his back, fingers knotting in nervous panic. His Orlesian accent, usually quite subtle, became much more pronounced when he was afraid. On a better day, Brenner might have held onto that as something to taunt him for later. But, as it stood, an accent was far from the most important thing to take away from this whole encounter. 

If they took anything away at all. 

“I am growing tired of your lies.” Terinius nodded to one of his steel-clad brutes, who stepped forward menacingly. “You are soldiers, are you not? What is your purpose in the Western Approach?”

“W-We’re just scouting.” Laurent twisted sharply, eyes wild at the edges. His gaze swept past Brenner to rest on Caldin and Varcette. “It’s the same as what they told you! It’s the truth, I swear it. Please…”

Sighing, Terinius exchanged a glance with the brute. “Very well. Unbind him.”

Brenner’s mouth dropped open at the same time as Laurent’s. What? That was it? Just like that? But as soon as the optimistic thoughts crossed his mind he knew they were foolish. Even as Laurent sobbed thank you’s to the man unlocking his shackles, Brenner felt his stomach sink to his knees. Panic quickly replacing dread, he turned to his other squadmates, praying to the Maker for a miracle and that even one of them would be conscious. But Caldin and Varcette had been the first interrogated. They had been dragged further into the camp for it. Apparently, after failing to break the two of them alone, they decided to change tactics. Put pressure on the interrogated and the witness.

Well the joke was on them. Brenner couldn’t care less about his squadmates. What mattered was that he got out alive. Whatever it took. 

A second robed Venatori arrived carrying a candle. Odd, given the sun was still up. Setting, yes, but it wouldn’t grow dark for another hour or two. Terinius nodded to the newcomer and smiled a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes as he turned back to Laurent. “Laurent, was it? I would like you to meet my associate, Darvaron.” The candle-holding man bowed his head to Laurent, who was about as confused as Brenner by this point. “Darvaron is one of our best, you know,” Terinius continued. “It is a shame that we have not been able to put him to use yet. No - a crime, really.”

Laurent’s hands were free from the shackles, but not for long. The brute, standing a good foot and a half taller, grabbed Laurent by the wrists. He twisted one arm behind the blond’s back, ignoring his strained cry as he forced the other out towards Darvaron. Laurent fought hard, but Terinius just chuckled as the brute stood like a stone golem, immovable. “Now now, don’t waste your strength. He is far stronger than a regular man; even one of his own size. Let’s just say I know his blood… quite intimately.”

“Gross,” Brenner muttered, then clamped his mouth shut quickly as Darvaron’s grey eyes flicked over to him. For a heart-pounding moment, he found himself locked in a silent, chilling stare with the Venatori, and it was like something was being… pulled from him. Right from the center of his being. Brenner felt his chest begin to tighten as breathing became difficult - near impossible. Spots formed at the edges of his vision, dark yet somehow bright all at once. But those eyes. Those grey eyes, like an empty mirror…

Suddenly, Darvaron broke the contact, his gaze returning to Laurent. The pressure in Brenner’s chest released like the snapping of a bowstring. Gasping, he sagged forward, focusing all of his attention on pulling in long, deep breaths, simply because he could. What the fuck have we got ourselves into? he thought as voices warbled nonsensically ahead of him. Maker, what he would give to go back a day. To be complaining in camp about sand in his shoes and the smell of Caldin’s sweat. Fuck, he’d eat the sand and drink the sweat at this point. Anything to get out of this place.

“Let’s try this one more time, yes?” Terinius’ voice drifted through the haze in Brenner’s mind, dragging his attention back to the spectacle before him. Laurent was still held by the helmeted brute, his outstretched hand trembling as Terinius gently - oh so gently - pulled off his glove. With another mirthless smile, the Venatori stepped back and gave a sweeping gesture to his companion, as though inviting Darvaron to step forward at a soiree. Taking his cue, the grey-eyed man moved to stand before Laurent. Brenner couldn’t see his squadmate’s face, but from hearing the hitching of his breath, he knew he was crying. 

Oh, for Andraste’s sake…

“Tell me,” Darvaron said slowly. His words dripped like sap, slow and sickly as he moved the candle beneath Laurent’s outstretched hand. He held it close enough that Laurent hissed, his fingers flinching upward. “What is the Inquisition’s business in the Western Approach?”

“I-I already told you. We all told you. We don’t know, I swear, we don’t know anything!” As Laurent spoke, his voice began to rise in panic. At first, Brenner figured he was just at his wit’s end - Laurent never really had much backbone. But then he realised that the candle’s flame was shifting colour. Ever so slowly, the golden glow began to change, blue tendrils mingling with gold, licking up towards Laurent’s straining hand. Darvaron kept the flame positioned where Laurent’s fingers met his palm, the brute’s grip unyielding as Laurent began to whimper. Then gasp. Then scream. 

The screaming...

Shuddering, Brenner had to look away. Had to. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to block out the sound as it rose higher and higher until the smell - Maker, the smell - hit his nostrils and it was burning skin and flesh. Retching, Brenner was forced to open his eyes again - to see Laurent’s hand dripping over the flame, flexing, curling, trying to escape the heat, burning both the top and bottom of his fingers as he panicked, wrist held in that immovable grasp. His voice broke - he screamed that he didn’t know. That he’d do anything! Begged for it to stop but it wouldn’t and there was something clear and thick dripping from his hand now—

—“STOP! I’ll talk - I’ll tell you everything you want! Just stop it!”

The flame snapped out of existence as though drawn back into the candle’s wick. Laurent’s screams continued for a few more seconds before the man went mercifully limp, his hand shaking, unable to bend or flex, blackened fingers twitching. The brute, seeing no further purpose in his task, dragged Laurent back towards the others and dumped him beside Varcette like a sack of spoiled flour. Brenner winced as that hand, the skin curled and cooked, landed in the hot sand. For a moment, all he could do was stare. All three of his squadmates were just lying there. So… still. 

Were they even alive? Surely they were alive.

They had to be. 

Didn’t they? 

Without realising, Brenner stared until that sickly voice, slow as treacle, drifted through the heavy air.

“Your friend did well, but I do not expect he could have lasted much longer.” Brenner swallowed and glanced back at Darvaron, whose fingers absently twisted the wick of the candle. The absence of any expression on the man’s face sending a chill down Brenner’s spine. “You said you would talk.” Those grey eyes flicked up - found him once more. “So… talk.”

                                                     ~

The Western Approach - Nearing The Old Well

“This has to be a fucking joke.” Cyrus glowered at Hanin’s back, their captain insisting on riding ahead of the group. As always. “Why did we have to be the ones to go bail those assholes out of trouble?”

“Probably aren’t many folks lining up for the job.” Lyrene shrugged, one hand on the reins, the other playing absently with her mare’s mane. “Besides, might be cathartic, seeing those snobby brats all trussed up waiting for a rescue.”

“These are the Venatori we’re talking about,” Ralon interjected pointedly. “For all we know, they’re already dead.” His nose wrinkled. “Maybe harvested for bodyparts or… skull staffs… or whatever it is that gets Venatori off, I dunno.”

Darren, who was riding a bit further back with the wagon, let out a shrill whimper. “Stop! That’s… I don’t wanna think about that.” He shook his head, as if to clear it of the image. Cyrus knew what the kid was about to say before he even said it. “I hope they’re okay. The briefing made the Venatori sound really bad…”

Cyrus grunted. “They can drop dead for all I care.” As usual, Darren had a way of killing the fun. He sighed tightly, nudging his horse into a canter, kicking up sand as he caught up with Hanin. They were supposed to be nearing the Old Well soon. It would be nice to know the plan. If he even had one.

“Got an idea of how we’re going to take down a bunch of Venatori?”

Hanin’s jaw was set in a tense, hard line. Cyrus could practically hear the creaking of the man’s teeth as they rode. “I go in first. You follow with Ralon. Lyrene stays back and covers us. If we are not outnumbered, Connors works with Darren to find the recruits and get them to the wagon. If we are, they join the fight and we keep each other from being flanked.” 

“Fine.” Cyrus paused for a moment, then huffed a sigh, “Look… I’m just going to say it. Why the hell did you volunteer us for this?”

They were quiet for a time, Cyrus’ attention lingering on Hanin’s profile. He had expected a reaction from Hanin. A reprimand. A sigh. But there was just… nothing. Just that same, quiet anger that seemed to be directed and nothing and everything all at once. 

“We have a duty to each other. It is as simple as that.”

“Bullshit. They wouldn’t come for us.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, I do.”

Slowly, Hanin turned his head to regard Cyrus. There was something in the older man’s eyes. Something… tired. “I’m not asking you to enjoy it, Cyrus. I’m telling you to do it because it needs to be done. I know there is… friction between you all.” He ignored Cyrus’ derisive snort at the understatement. “And I know this is a lot to ask. But we march under the same banner. All of us. If we forget our duty to each other, everything will fall apart.” Shifting slightly in his saddle, Hanin returned his gaze forwards, gazing quietly at the horizon. “We do what is right, even when it is hard. Now go. Tell the others the plan. We’re almost there.”

Falling back with a frustrated sigh, Cyrus did as he was told and relayed the plan to the others. As predicted, there were no arguments. They all knew what they were good at, and now wasn’t the time to go changing things up. As much as Cyrus wished it wasn’t them rescuing Reynolt’s chuckle-fuck squad, he knew Hanin had a point. If they knew there was trouble and did nothing, what did that make them? Not a whole lot better than the people they hate.

As they climbed another sandy slope, the sun dipped low along the horizon. Given their proximity to the location Reynolt had given, they dismounted, tethering the horses to one of the sparse trees on the leeward side of the slope. Grabbing their gear from the wagon, they did a quick check of their armour and weaponry. Ever since Connors’ shield strap had broken mid-fight, Hanin had made it part of their routine. As Lyrene was testing her bowstring a shout, distant and desperate, broke through the air. 

Hanin did not need to give the order. All at once, the Dawn Squad was on their feet, and they were running.

                                                         ~

Venatori Camp - The Old Well

Brenner coughed painfully, wheezing, the sand and grit stinging his eyes, filling his nose and mouth as he tried to haul himself off the ground. He’d managed to last time. And the time before. But this time, when the brute’s boot connected, the bastard had misjudged. Aimed a little high. He’d felt something in his chest crack and now all Brenner could do was lie there, arms shackled behind his back, unable to do a damn thing to defend himself as a boot ground his face into the sand.

This was it. He was going to die.

The family name could go fuck itself. None of this had been worth it. 

“I would advise against lying.” Terinius’ voice was quiet, laced with a kind of scholarly indifference. Brenner sputtered and coughed, gasping shallow, painful breaths as the boot left the back of his neck. He turned his head and rolled onto his side, gritting his teeth, spitting blood on the sand before the Venatori’s feet. “Typical of a southern dog,” Terinius continued, shifting his boot casually away from the mess, “your kind have always been arrogant to a fault.”

Slowly, almost hauntingly, Brenner heard himself… laugh. It seemed distant at first - detached and breathless, catching on the back of his throat. Perhaps he was finally losing his mind. But so what if he was? Begging hadn’t worked; Laurent’s mutilated hand was testament to that. Silence wouldn’t save him, and lying just got him here, with a shattered rib and a mouthful of blood.

He might as well do what he does best.

“Y… You kiss your mother with that mouth?” He bared his teeth in a bloody smirk. “C-Careful. Your sister might get jealous.”

Terinius arched a brow. “Unwise, boy.”

Brenner chose not to heed the warning. “Must get you off, all this torturing and beati–” He broke off with a cough, cringing at the sharp pain as he pulled in a breath. But he pushed on. “B-Beating. Thought you were Venatori? Big, scary Vint mages. G-Gotta be an easier way to get what you want.”

Terinius seemed genuinely surprised by his change in tone. His brows almost disappeared beneath his crimson hood, although as he spoke Brenner seethed at the condescending amusement in his voice. “Well… it seems you have quite a bit more spirit than the others. I will grant you that, but it changes little.” He glanced to Darvaron. “Do as you please with this one. I recommend taking his tongue first, given his inability to use it wisely.”

It was, apparently, a good recommendation. As Terinius’ robed back swept towards the tents, Darvaron sighed and drew a small knife from his sleeve, the sheath concealed beneath the heavy fabric. It was narrow as a blade of grass, curved slightly along its length. Even from a distance, Brenner could tell it was the kind of knife that held a wicked edge. 

Shit shit shit shit.

“Y-You know… this would be more effective if one of the others was awake to see it.” Brenner knew the odds were slim, but Maker, he had to try something. “Scare them. They’ll talk, I swear it. Maybe they know something I don’t. It’s not like we tell each other anything. Don’t—”

Kneeling, ignoring his words, Darvaron grabbed Brenner by the arm, forcing him onto his back with a grunt. Cursing, Brenner glared up at those hollow grey eyes. They hovered inches above him, looking right through him, cold and empty. There was no anger. No frustration. Not even pleasure, which Brenner assumed might be what kept the bastards going. There was just… nothing. 

Somehow, that was even worse.

Sensing that any attempt at bargaining wasn’t going to work, Brenner forced a grin and spat a mouthful of blood in Darvaron’s sallow face.

“T-Take me to dinner first, prick,” he hissed, and did his best not to look at the knife as Darvaron swept a gloved hand over his face, smearing red across his pale skin. “Or at least clean your teeth before you go getting in my—”

Darvaron’s hand shot down to clamp around Brenner’s jaw, fingertips digging into the soft skin on either side of his mouth. He squeezed hard, forcing Brenner to open his mouth despite his struggles and cursing. The time for mockery was over - Brenner twisted, kicking out, ignoring the blinding pain in his chest as he felt his knee connect with the Venatori’s hip. The robed man grunted but somehow maintained his hold, the pointed edge of the knife now cold against Brenner’s lower lip. Refusing to hold still, Brenner felt a sharp sting and winced as the point cut into the side of his mouth. The next thing he knew, those gloved fingers were digging in, searching, prising open— he coughed and gagged, eyes watering, the scream at the back of his throat choked by panic as the knife started to slide under—

Something slammed into Darvaron, throwing the man sideways, ripping the blade away, leaving Brenner alone and shaking on the ground. Coughing, blinking through tears, he blindly pushed himself away, boots slipping hopelessly in the sand, chest screaming, arms held painfully behind his back. Someone… someone was on top of Darvaron; had him grappled in the sand a few yards away. The pair struggled and grunted, rolling, swinging at each other; Darvaron’s knife glinted as it slashed wide, just missing his attacker. A sharp blow to his wrist sent it spinning away, stabbing into the sand to Brenner’s right. 

The hulking brute, slow to react to the sudden change, drew his battleaxe and started to charge towards the pair. Brenner cried a wordless warning as the brute swung down like a headsman. A scream cut the motion short as an arrow pierced his wrist, followed quickly by a second that speared his hand before he even had a chance to react to the first. The brute reeled and roared in pain, axe thudding to the sand, missing his target by only a foot or two. For a second, Brenner thought the newcomers, whoever they were, might actually have the upper hand. However, thought immediately vanished as, in wordless horror, he watched the brute snap the first arrow, then the second, ripping the shafts from his flesh like large, inconvenient splinters. He reached again for his axe, but a second figure suddenly joined the fray, shoulder-charging the bleeding man, knocking them both off-balance. Planting himself between the brute and his weapon, this second soldier twirled his sword once, then fell into a defensive stance. The insignia on his helmet gleamed in the fading light. It was the insignia of the Inquisition.

How…?

A shout pulled Brenner’s attention back to the more immediate fray. The man on top of Darvaron had managed to free one hand and was grasping for one of the blades at his side. He found the hilt but the Venatori kicked and twisted, throwing him off-balance, his grip slipping down the sheath. Seizing the opportunity, the Venatori growled something in a language Brenner didn’t understand, then struck his opponent in the chest with the flat of his palm. There was a crack like thunder and the man, as though kicked by a horse, was hurled backwards by an unseen force. He slammed into the ground beside Brenner, grunting, the sand mercifully dulling the impact but knocking off his helmet. With a pang of horror, Brenner finally realised who it was.

“C… Cyrus?”

That bastard Orlesian? What was he doing here? 

Did that mean the others…?

“Shut up and stay back.” Without even looking at him, Cyrus struggled to one knee, drew his blades, and charged right back towards Darvaron. Brenner stared after him, numb. Speechless.

They… came. How was he ever going to live this down?

                      … live. 

Maker, he might actually live.

Cyrus’ blades flashed - glanced off a blue barrier that shimmered around the Venatori. He ignored the setback and swung around, striking again and again, forcing Darvaron back one step at a time. 

Why would they even come for them?

“Hey, company - head’s up!” 

Brenner knew that voice, sounding from somewhere up the slope behind him. It was that elf - Lyrene. The other two Venatori had emerged from the tents - Terinius and the gladiator. Brenner had fought the gladiator earlier, before everything went to shit. His head still throbbed from where he’d been struck by the back of his mace. Ralon, who Brenner now assumed was the one fighting the brute, yelped something in Antivan - a curse, perhaps - and circled quickly to get the newcomers in his line of sight. There was no way he could handle all three of them. Brenner grit his teeth and pulled at his shackles, hair falling into his eyes, the metal biting into his wrists. 

Shit! Come on… come on…!

Suddenly a figure, clad in full plate, crashed down the slope and into the camp, his heavy footsteps leaving deep gouges in the sand. A golden blade arced through the air, slamming into the gladiator’s side, knocking him off his feet, the momentum of the return sweep carrying him around to face the shocked Terinius. 

That blade. 

He knew that blade.

Captain Lavellan faced off against the Venatori mage, and for the first time there was something akin to fear on Terinius’ face. A dose of his own poison. In that moment, Brenner didn’t even care that it was the knife-ear Captain delivering it. 

At Hanin’s back, the gladiator staggered and began to rise, mace clutched tightly in hand. Before he even took a step towards the Captain three arrows, seeming to appear all at once, made short work of his exposed chest. The gladiator stumbled - looked down at himself - weapon slipping from his grasp. He heaved once and seemed surprised as he coughed a mouthful of red down his chest. Then, with no sound and no warning, he crumpled to the ground.

Something about the way the man fell, silently with those three arrows jutting from him, hit Brenner harder than any boot to the face. It was sharp and visceral, like coming out of a trance. He suddenly gasped in an agonising lungful of air - breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding - eyes darting between the fights, the bloodied sand, his fallen squad, the dying body of the gladiator, blood bubbling from his lips. Brenner felt his own breath stutter in his chest and, mindlessly, he struggled to move, to free his hands.

Do something, damn it! 

Cyrus cried out, reeling away as Darvaron threw a handful of red-hot sand in his face. 

What was he supposed to do?

Ralon dove under the brute’s battleaxe, only to be grabbed and hauled off his feet, boots frantically kicking up sand as they left the ground. An arrow immediately ripped past, missing only by a hair as the Antivan tried to twist free of his opponent’s grip.

No way - not like this. He wasn’t going to sit here and wait for them to fail!

Captain Lavellan advanced on Terinius like some kind of creature from the rifts, unstoppable and seething with an anger fiercer than Brenner could even begin to understand. The Venatori chanted, unseen magic ripping stone from the nearby cliff and sending them hurling towards Hanin. He ducked the first - slapped the second aside with his blade. But they kept on coming, and his advance slowed as he was forced on the defensive.

Maker, this wasn’t… h-how was he supposed to…?

“Hold on - I’ve got you!”

Brenner suddenly felt a pair of strong hands slip under his arms, hauling his upper body out of the sand. He screamed hoarsely at the movement, his chest exploding with pain so intense that he retched and almost threw up what little he still had left inside his stomach. The person holding him froze - Brenner vaguely made out, through the high ringing in his ears, something that sounded like a flurry of frantic apologies. But there were more important things.

“S-Stop,” he managed to rasp. “The others… Laurent… he’s bad. He’s…”

Whoever was holding him nodded, turning slightly. “Can you get them, Connors?”

The woman, who Brenner had not even realised was there, peeled away towards his fallen squadmates, but the arms holding Brenner upright didn’t leave with her. Maker, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved. It was pathetic, but he didn’t want to be alone. Not again. Not even with people fighting just a few meters away. Just being held, it was… he needed it. After everything he’d seen… everything they’d been through…

Laurent is going to lose that hand. 

There’s no way he won’t.

I can’t breathe. 

Caldin and Varcette haven’t moved. 

Not once. 

What if they’re…?

Brenner felt a giddy, panicked laugh break past his defenses. It shook him from somewhere deep inside - rang though his bones.

“Are you okay?” Whoever was holding him stopped, sinking lower in the sand. They had made it to the base of the slope.

Brenner could barely bring himself to dignify that with an answer.

“Am I –? Do I look okay to you?” Shifting, gritting his teeth through the pain, he tried to wrap his arms around his chest but, of course, remembered too late that he was still shackled. “Damn it - get these things off me!”

“I can’t yet.” The apology was clear in the young man’s voice, but that didn’t make it any better. “I’m sure there’s a key here somewhere, but it’s not safe yet. We’ll find it soon - don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen.”

About to snap like an over-pulled thread, Brenner was ready to launch into a scathing tirade at being told not to worry. But that voice…

Oh for Andraste’s sake, it was that blond kid.

The fucking farmboy.

“S-So what? You’re going to protect me?” Brenner wanted to laugh again. Maybe cry. Maker, a part of him was desperate to insult the boy - revert to anything that felt even somewhat normal. But for whatever reason, be it blood-loss, pain, or plain exhaustion, he just… couldn’t. Instead, his voice failed as a shiver wracked his body. Somehow, as it passed, it seemed to take the last of his strength with it. With a kind of muted humiliation, he felt himself slump back against Darren’s chest, unable to support himself. To the boy’s credit, he caught him without even hesitating - seemed ready for it, even - and mercifully said nothing about it. Just for that moment, Brenner let himself feel how surprisingly solid Darren was against his back; how the arms that held him up were strong but somehow careful. Gentle, even. 

… Why? 

He’d never gone easy on any of them. He’d never even wanted to.

For a second - just a fleeting second - Brenner almost understood what the others saw in Darren. Maybe even what they all saw in each other. 

But that feeling, however strange, was quickly overtaken. The pain, returning sharp and vengeful, seemed to bleed out from his chest to the rest of his body, filling him with fire. The fighting, the fear, the humiliation, the anger, all rapidly slipped though his clenched fingers. The last thing he remembered was Darren’s voice, thick with concern, and the sensation of being held as the world gave way to darkness.

[hxseok-honee]

i found | part 15

a/n: aye get ready for maximum flUFF IN THIS BOI - let me know what you think!

previous | next

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“Are you kidding me right now?” Yoongi glances up from his dinner, brought to him by his favorite house elf, to look into Y/n’s eyes. She’s standing with one hand on her hip, observing his slightly beaten state with what he detects as disappointment swimming in her eyes. He rolls his own, turning fully in his spot to greet her.

“It’s not even that bad, stop looking at me like that time I accidentally transfigured your hair into yarn.” She can’t help the breathy laugh that escapes her, mad that he managed to bring this reaction out of her even in this situation. She takes a seat next to him and, ignoring all his protests, starts poking at his injuries to make sure none of them are serious. Annoyed by his attempts to evade her, she reaches out and smacks his arm, resulting in a groan of pain from a mouth full of food.

“What the fuck was that for?” Locating the potential bruise where her hand had made contact, Y/n tugs at his sweater until he aggressively agrees to remove it.

“It’s for being annoying and not letting me see where you’re hurt- can you help me out a little here? I’m trying to make sure I don’t need to drag you to the hospital wing.” He sighs, abandoning his dinner entirely to turn in his seat so she could pull at his shirt. He watches with a smirk as she focuses on unbuttoning it, not even realizing what she’s doing.

“Having fun?” It’s only now that she pauses in her attempts to be his doctor, finally understanding the situation she’s placed herself in. He holds in a laugh as he watches her turn incredibly red but regrets it immediately because as soon as she sees the look on his face, she’s reaching out to clamp down on his ear and tug it as hard as she can. He lets out a strangled yell, prompting the same house elf who brought him his dinner to appear in front of them. When she sees the situation before her, the tiny elf yelps once and disappears again, clearly as flustered as they are by the sight. Y/n releases Yoongi’s ear and leans away from him, leaving him to button his shirt again with a slight smile on his face.

“You’re so much more frustrating now that you actually talk to me.” Yoongi lets out a genuine laugh at her comment, causing her to turn her head and stare at him in the same wonder she always feels when he so much as smiles at her. Amusement still lingering on his features as he finishes buttoning his shirt, he glances up at her and catches her gaze. They hold it for just a second, the tiniest of moments, but Yoongi finds himself struggling to breathe even after she’s looked down at her lap. Pushing his relatively full plate toward her, he points at it with his chin.

“Have some. I’m not really that hungry, and you like those mashed potatoes more than I do, anyway.” She smirks down at it, choosing not to say anything about the fact that he’s taken note of what she eats. Lifting her head to peer at the side of his face and finding herself frowning at the cuts she sees on his skin, she pushes the plate away and meets his eyes steadily.

“Only if you promise to stop fighting.” He frowns back at her before averting his gaze, leaning his elbows on the table as he studies the designs on the wood.

“I don’t think I can agree to that. I don’t even start half of them, and I’m not just gonna let some arrogant kid beat my ass. Anyway-” He lifts his eyes again to meet hers. “-why do you care so much? I’m obviously fine, Y/n. A couple scratches and some bruises aren’t enough to do real damage.” She tilts her head to examine him closely, not even looking away when he starts to fidget under her gaze.

“I don’t like seeing my friends get hurt.” He sighs at her, shaking his head slightly as he keeps his eyes on anything that isn’t her.

“It’s not me you have to worry about. You should save all those concerns for your other friends. They’re not gonna be happy when they find out about me.” Swallowing hard when he hears her noise of surprise, he waits for her to respond as he keeps his eyes on the table.

“What do you mean? Where did that come from?” He shrugs awkwardly, like a disgruntled child, as he grabs his fork and starts pushing food around on his plate.

“It’s just something I’ve been thinking about for a few days… that they’re not going to treat you well after they find out about this.” He doesn’t even have to look to know she’s frowning.

“This?”

“Us.” He says it quickly, so quickly that she almost doesn’t catch it and even starts to ask him to repeat himself when it registers in her mind. Blinking a few times as she turns slowly to look at him, she’s not surprised that he’s not meeting her eyes again, but she’s a little shocked to see his knee bouncing anxiously and his ears turning a bit red. She tries to keep the smile off her face, but it seems to be happening without her permission. Clearing her throat once and taking note of the way his knee pauses at the sound before continuing its anxious bouncing, she addresses him as if things weren’t just a little uncertain between them.

“Well, they’ll probably be mad, that’s for sure, but… I mean, it’s not a crime to be friends with someone! Even the big bad Slytherin Prince.” She says the last part with a chuckle, hoping he’ll join in, but all he does is turn to examine her closely. Y/n coughs awkwardly, even going as far as taking the fork out of his hand and shoveling some of the mashed potatoes into her mouth as she wonders why it’s suddenly gotten so weird. Finding that he hasn’t looked away, she frowns at him slightly. “What is it this time? Was the Slytherin Prince joke in bad taste or something?”

“Don’t you realize that’s actually who I am, Y/n?” Taking her widened eyes and confused expression as permission for him to clarify, he continues speaking after a long sigh.

“All those rumors and ideas that everyone has about me? A lot of them are obviously bullshit, but the image is fairly accurate, Y/n. I’m the person that everyone avoids in the corridor. I’m the guy that every other guy in this place has tried to fight at some point to deal with their fragile masculinity- I put people in the hospital wing every week for fuck’s sake! And, what? You want to take care of me when I show up with a little cut on my face? You want to stick up for me to your friends when they find out about me? Why? Why would you put that kind of pressure on a group of friends that’s been together since first year- what could I possibly offer you that makes you willing to deal with all the trouble I’m going to bring you? I just-” Yoongi cuts himself off with a noise of frustration, running a hand through his hair as he finishes quietly. “-I just don’t get it. I don’t get you.”

Y/n watches him as he rambles, finally seeing everything he thinks of his position in her life. She sees the frustration in his eyes, the way he starts to breathe heavily and gesture to himself almost manically the longer he talks about himself, the longer he tries to convince her that he’s a bad person. She sees it all, and she hates it.

“That’s bullshit.” She meets his eyes fiercely when his head whips around at her words. She stares into his eyes, unyielding, as he processes what she’s just said to him. She can see that he’s shocked by the fact that she just negated everything he’s said to her, but he doesn’t bother questioning her because his questions are all there, in his eyes.

“That’s bullshit, Yoongi. I can’t tell if that’s what you actually believe about yourself or if it’s just what you’re trying to convince me of, but I’m not fooled. That’s not who you are, it’s just who you want people to think you are. I don’t know why you do it, I really don’t, but it’s not you. That guy who walks around ruling the castle with cold eyes and an unforgiving fist is not Min Yoongi. That’s just who you have to be to survive. But you don’t have to be that guy with me, so stop fucking pushing me away like you’re worried that one day I’m going to decide you’re no good for me. I’m not going anywhere.” With an annoyed sigh, she picks up his fork and keeps eating the food he’s clearly forgotten about, letting him know she’s done talking. She’s prepared to give him another speech just in case he argues with her again, but when she looks up at him, he’s staring into her eyes like he’s seeing her for the first time.

It takes all of Yoongi’s strength not to show all the emotions he’s beginning to feel. He stares at her for a few minutes after she’s finished her rant, taking her in as she steals his food and then meets his eyes almost in challenge. When he realizes he’s looked for too long, he clears his throat and looks down at his lap. He’s not entirely sure how he feels. Is he upset that she’s called him out so honestly, or is he just shocked that she’s been this aware of him the whole time? Either way, he has nothing else to say besides-

“Okay.” He hears her little hum of confusion, and she comes into his line of sight as she’s leaning in to hear him better.

“What’s that?” He lifts his head slightly to meet her eyes, blinking several times when he sees how close she’s actually gotten. The whisper that leaves him is not exactly what he intended to say, but he can’t help that he’s a bit distracted in the moment by her proximity.

“I said okay. I won’t push you away anymore. I promise.” They stay that way for a few moments, not even realizing that they’re both just sitting there staring at each other until there’s a loud popping sound right next to them, followed by the sweet house elf’s kind voice.

“Would Mister Min and Miss Y/l/n like anything else to eat or drink?” She says all this while scooping up the empty plate on the table, not noticing that she might have interrupted a personal moment. Y/n leans back, giving herself some room to breathe and try to cool her face while Yoongi tugs at his collar awkwardly.

“U-uh no, Cimny, thank you, we’re all good.” After bowing deeply to Yoongi, she disappears with another loud popping sound, leaving him alone again with Y/n, who looks mildly confused.

“Cimny?” Yoongi takes a glance at Y/n before smiling shyly.

“She’s my family’s house elf.” Y/n lets out a noise of surprise, something Yoongi’s learned over the past few weeks is very standard of her as she tends to be shocked by a lot of the things he tells her.

“Really? Why’s she here then?” He smiles even more shyly than before, realizing he’ll have to tell her quite a bit more than he anticipated tonight.

“Uhm, my father asked the headmaster to, for lack of a better word, hire her for the duration of my time here so she could kind of look out for me. First year was a rough time for me…” Y/n stares at the side of his head for a minute, trying to grasp what he’s telling her, and it clicks in that moment that the entire Slytherin Prince reputation only came about in their third year. Yoongi takes another look at her and sees the recognition in her eyes. He nods slowly, confirming her thought process.

“A lot of people picked on me first year- all Slytherins actually. I guess they didn’t like that I wasn’t big on fitting in and liked to keep to myself. A few of them made a habit of pushing me around and taking my glasses- you remember those big ass glasses I used to have? Those thick ones that made me all bug-eyed? I don’t know if you even knew who I was back then…” Y/n smiles fondly, vaguely remembering the one class she’d had with the Slytherins first year. There, in the corner of her memories, sits a quiet kid with large, round frames practically half the size of his head.

“I remember. I liked those glasses.” Yoongi scoffs loudly, reaching over to push her gently as he shudders at his own memory.

“Whatever, asshole. Anyway, those same kids used to take my glasses during meals so that I couldn’t see for shit, and then they would slip stuff into my food to make me sick. Cruel bastards, I tell you.” He sees the frown the etches itself onto her features, and he can’t help the way he reaches over to pinch her cheek. “Don’t give me that look, it’s not like it’s happening now.” Y/n pulls away, rubbing her face as she responds.

“I know, but it’s still frustrating that you were going through that alone. I had no idea…” Yoongi chuckles softly, staring into the distance almost darkly.

“That’s the thing about snakes. They protect their own. There was no way anyone would find out about any inside torture because everyone covers for each other. But I guess after the third round of food poisoning and one too many nights in the hospital wing, my father picked up on the fact that something was weird, so he sent Cimny to look after me. I guess she watches my plates for me from here in the kitchens every time I eat.” The entire time Yoongi’s speaking, he’s looking down at his hands or scratching at some of the chipped wood in the table, so when he finally looks up at Y/n, he’s pleasantly surprised to find her listening attentively, watching him curiously as he speaks. He expects her to just accept his story and move on to something else, but it seems she’s much more invested in storytime than he was aware.

“So then what happened?”

“What?” She smiles softly, repeating herself.

“What happened after Cimny got here?” Yoongi stumbles for a response, not really sure why this is so interesting for her.

“Uh… nothing? I was fine after that? I think she just always took out all the stuff they would put into my food before I could eat it. I also think she still watches my plates to this day, which I feel kinda bad about since it’s not really necessary anymore. So I come visit her pretty regularly. Ask her how she’s doing and whatnot…” Yoongi sees her smile widen, and it causes him to furrow his eyebrows. “What?”

“You come visit Cimny? That’s so cute.” He rolls his eyes at her, tempted to push her over again, but he lets her have her fun.

“Sue me for being worried that she gets lonely down here- oh, shut up!” She’s laughing softly now, the image of the evil, scary Yoongi coming to make sure his house elf has a friend striking a bit odd to her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just love it so much, it’s adorable. Who knew you were hiding all these soft tendencies under that hard shell?” He shakes his head at her, secretly happy that she’s having so much fun but refusing to ever show it. He just listens to her laughter, enjoying the sweet sound more than he cares to admit. He’s so busy listening to her laugh that he almost misses her question.

“So how did you become all this then? How’d you go from the bullied, bug-eyed kid with the guardian elf to king of the castle even as a second year?” Yoongi smirks at her, unable to restrain himself.

“It’s ‘prince’, thank you very much- Hey!” He’s rubbing the spot on his leg that she’d decided to unceremoniously pinch in response to his snarky comment, wondering where she’d been hiding all this aggression the past few weeks. “For your information, I didn’t become Prince overnight. I had a lot of help, and I got my ass beat second year more times than I can count. It wasn’t until third year that I started to fill out and could hold my own against the older kids.”

He knows Y/n’s going to let out her little hum of surprise again so he mimics it in time with her, giving her a smug look when she hears him. She grabs at him again but doesn’t get the chance to do anything before he’s catching her hands in his own, bringing her wrists together and holding them with one hand. He pulls her closer so he can sit comfortably, and they end up rather close, their shoulders pressed together as Yoongi holds her leg with his other hand to stop her from attacking him again with her other limbs. He continues his story like this as if they don’t look ridiculous, and Y/n sits through it as quietly as she can, trying to force herself to focus on his words instead of the warmth of his hand on her leg.

“So yeah, anyway, it was about halfway through first year when some seventh year Slytherins took mercy on me and decided to take me under their wings. They’re the closest I’ve ever come to friends- I mean, except you I guess-” Y/n bites her lip to hide the smile threatening to peek out as he stumbles for the right words, nodding along like nothing’s happening. “-and then they taught me how to duel, some pretty advanced hexes and stuff like that. They basically took care of me for the rest of the year, and then they just wished me luck and left. To be honest, I owe them a lot.” Y/n listens diligently, caught between being upset that an eleven-year-old kid had to learn all of those things just to survive at school and being amazed that he had managed to take those impromptu lessons and fight his way to the top.

“So that’s your origin story, huh?” Yoongi glances down at her, laughing quietly.

“If you wanna call it that, I guess.”

“Thank you for telling me all of that… You didn’t have to, you know. But I’m glad you did.” He stares down at her, feeling awkward at her sudden gratitude, but he knows she’s like this a lot so he figures he’ll get used to it eventually. And anyway, he doesn’t really remember a time he had ever talked this much to another person- except for the first night in the astronomy tower, but even then she was pulling answers out of him like it was the most painful thing either of them had ever been through. He realizes now that he actually spoke a lot tonight by his own choice. He’s not really sure what to make of it.

Whatever, she said she wanted me to stop pushing her away. It makes sense.

Glancing at her again and realizing she’s been waiting for an answer, he clears his throat and lets go of her wrists, giving her a chance to scoot away from him if she wanted. He notes that she doesn’t move as far as she had been before, keeping her right leg in contact with his left and letting their shoulders brush every so often. He tries not to smile when he notices, covering his mouth with his hand and leaning his elbow on the table.

“It’s fine. It’s not like it’s some super big secret or anything… but you’ll have to tell me your ‘origin story’ one day soon, too. I don’t like all these unequal sharing sessions we got going on.” She laughs loudly, throwing her head back slightly at how entertaining it is to hear him complain.

“I don’t think I have an origin story, but okay. One day I’ll tell you all about my relatively boring life here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry-” She pulls her phone out of her pocket, gasping when she sees how late it is. “-But not tonight because it’s almost 1 am! Let’s go, I have a quiz in Care of Magical Creatures tomorrow.” She wraps a hand around his wrist and pulls him off the bench, dragging him across the room toward the door and laughing at his protests and complaints that she should have told him earlier that she had a quiz so he could watch the time for her.

When they’re standing outside the kitchens, she turns to face him, keeping her hold on his wrist as she jerks her head in the direction of her common room.

“Well, obviously I have to go this way, so I’ll say bye here…” Yoongi nods lamely at her, wondering why he doesn’t have it in him to just say goodbye and leave. They stand there for a few moments, looking around as they wait for the other to speak first. Finally, Yoongi starts to move the wrist that’s still caught in her grasp, twisting it until he can comfortably grip her arm and pull her toward him. It takes forever, and it’s so painfully awkward that Yoongi regrets his decision before he can even do anything, but eventually he manages to bring her close enough that he can let go of her and wrap both of his arms around her shoulders. He tries not to stiffen when he feels her own arms encase his waist, relaxing fully only once they’ve been standing there for a few moments and he knows she’s fine with his weird hug.

Another moment passes and he’s patting her back in an awkward attempt to end the hug, but she gets the cue and lets him go with a soft chuckle.

“We’ll work on that… Good night, Yoongi.” He nods and smiles almost warmly at her, waving as he backs away in the opposite direction.

“Good night...” Yoongi waits until she’s through the entrance to her common room before turning away and heading in the direction of the dungeons. He’s so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t see the 6th year Gryffindor standing around the corner, out of the way and trying to process what the hell he had just seen. Pulling out his phone and re-reading the messages from Namjoon asking him to see if he could find their badger friend who had disappeared without telling them where, Jungkook sighs and recalls the scene he had witnessed not even 5 minutes prior- the way Y/n had pulled Yoongi out of the kitchens with a bright smile on her face, the weird moment they’d had as Yoongi brought her into his arms like they were friends-

Is that it? Is that who she’s been spending her time with? Min Yoongi??

[shhbean]

draft. will probably come back to this one later.  tryna for like a moody little family vignette here

Granny always smoked from a long pipe when she stared at the wildflowers growing outside her window. Smoke curled around her face like an old friend, kissing at her cheek bones and coiling itself around her neck. Her nephew Fred, who always smelled like a campfire and burned half as bright, came back home from chopping wood– barefoot. 

“Saw Ted out by the lighthouse today,” Granny took a longer drag from her pipe, savouring a reunion of old friends. 

Fred’s mouth quirked upwards as he stacked logs. “What were you doin’ all the way up there at your age, Granny?”

“Mind your manners now, Freddie,” Granny was born and raised in Massachusetts and every part of the way her hair started to gray to how her words hit against your skin with a cold, wet unforgiving slap gave it away. “Teddy said there’d be a storm tonight.” 

Fred turned and removed his cap, his red hair stretched out. “I know, that's why I chopped the wood. Figured we would wanna make a fire.” 

“Mmmm. Good on you,” Granny took another drag. “Best put some shoes on next time. You’ll get splinters that way you know.” 

Fred laughed. “I’ll put shoes on when I finally get that splinter, Granny.” 

Granny nodded, knowing this would not be the last time Fred’s war on shoes would come up. She breathed in– low, long, tired. The living room stared back at her, defiant. Empty couch. Empty loveseat. An unlit fireplace with a family portrait, mocking her at this point. Fred stacked logs idly, not a single lively or excited soul was in the room. And every lamp was mockingly turned on. 

“Where’d that sister of mine get off to?” She asked, her pipe was whining now, she’d either have to give it a rest or refill it. 

Fred rolled his eyes. “In the attic, with a certain sister of mine. Grinding pigments for their watercolors I bet.” 

Granny hummed. “Shelley always liked her pastels to be fresh.” 

“So does Tia,” Fred placed the last log on the pile and clapped his hands together. He stepped back and admired his work. It was truly the little things in this sea shanty town.

“They have that in common I suppose.” 

Fred turned to her. “What do we have in common, Granny?”

Oh hell. Looks like she’d have to refill her pipe tonight after all if this was where he wanted to take the conversation. She placed the pipe between her teeth and clamped down to hold it steady and snapped her fingers for her grinder. On instinct, Fred reached into his pocket and fished out, handing it over wordlessly. She sat in front of the snuffbox on the coffee table, and methodically began processing her herb. 

“You and I have a pair of working hands in common, Frederick. What more would you need?” Her pipe protested. She smothered it with her teeth, and just as her working hands ground her cannabis ground her hands with precision, she precisely changed the subject. “Where’d your mother get off to?”

“Out by the garage.” Fred said, feeling like a little grimey eight year old being chastised by his great aunt for picking up snails, but not enough to get his digs in where he could. “She still has the decency to pretend she has no taste for cannabis in front of me and Tia.” 

Granny huffed and ground harder, the pipe crying out in dismay. Fine. “We could murder Ted together. Chop him into bits, bind ‘em with concrete and toss him to the sharks. If you're aching for us to have some common ground. Crime could be the thing that brings us together.”

[georgina-layla]

Achilles

Genesis

There is no sun here.

No sky, no noise to sweeten the stench of screams so guttural as i call to the darkness. Perhaps it is my end to means; my genesis; gifted in tight wrapping blessed with the waters of eden, drinking from the cup of christ, a fate forced upon me that no island can hear me cry, no mortal man can kill me. Born and reborn unto flesh not my own; the flesh of virgin beauty bathed and beheld for my teeth to clamp on, the sweet juices of blonde hair and blue eyes and a field of imagination, a future that i will live through, and live again. I am a plump lamb at a dinner party of butchers to which i hand the knife to, the sacrificial babe laid with flowers and leaves and fleeting letters to lovers imprinted in the forefront of my mind. There is no god to hear me, no deity to hand me mercy, not for what i have created, the unforgivable crime i have committed. There is a plea held stagnant in the sky; dust settles over bombed shackles, broken bottles, and bodies of rotting lovers sharing their last living moment morphed into the eternal sunset on empty streets. He calls for me as he once did, this life with a screech of fear, the next life with revenge and anger, an insatiable hunger religion has abandoned. There is heat coming from between us, I hold his body in my arms with a grip so cavernous i bruise; the soft sitting strings of human hunger dance between the flakes of bleeding skin held captive under my nails, like the lovers of a lost world i am so cold, so cold without him. I breathe him in the way any lover would, spirits of his mother still in the shadowed breaths between our bare bodies, he and i are one in death; the hot blood sticky on his limbs, painting each burn with patterns of past ancestors designing our fate, beckoning to the teeth of the Gods, voracious in hunger as gluttonous in power. Apollo’s son and Hera’s daughter, an orchestra or beating begins, i cannot hear myself, i cannot hear him, yet i hear them - the gods who abandoned us, the prayers recited to empty walls, forgiveness. But i am hungry, so uncontrollably hungry, that i am stronger now, stronger than the world i had left behind, stronger than the man i made into my masterpiece. There is no sun here. I am atoning for the sins of men made monsters at my hand, my blood. this is my genesis. He opens his eyes finally, yet there is no sun here.

Copper and iron in a fight for domination; desire and destruction carpet the cave walls with white stone and dark blood; we lie in a hot pool in the red of the moonlight. Christless, Godless; a book sealed with the fate of magic made from a man-serving staff, i watch him bleed out in front of me, his second death much sweeter than the first. There is no religion here, no martyr to die, no prophet to follow. He is Alone, he is Anarchy. worldless scents singed into the crevices of my nostrils as he screams sprawled out below me, i breathe in what i have created, what we have lived through, what we have shared. There is no sun here. We are one now, one together, one shared in a city of bone and barbaric behaviour, cracking at the seams on skulls of the others, the others that never made it this far. I have made him again; began genesis again. I watch him scraping at the black rims, rings of terror and rage clouding each centimetre of his sight, rings he cannot fight, cannot hide from; The language that has been lost and lived again, the love that brought us to the end, brought me to my knees i do not see him anymore. My genesis, a creation of calculation and callous air, the new first, the new genesis. I am screaming now, names of ignored gods and unknown heavens to name him, my son, my creation. Let the gods i anger come forth, i will see them, i will see them, i will see them.

[donewithjeon]

Downfall [21]

Characters: Jungkook x Reader

Word Count: 4,373

Genre: Assassin AU

Note: This is a re-upload due to the original chapter being taken down by Tumblr. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26

They found you.

Somehow, the enemy was able to find the location of the Yongsan division office. They must have followed your van here after the incident at City Hall or used some other undetectable means to trace you. Perhaps that was their plan all along, to discreetly tail your vehicle during the hectic escape to safety. Whatever the answer is, it no longer matters how they managed to discover your haven.

They’re here—and you’re under attack.

The fire alarm is shrill and seemingly perpetual in its shrieking pattern as it drills into your head with each blaring reiteration. The halls and rooms are echoing with the sound to alert the inhabitants of what they already know—the structure is starting to go up in flames with the source of the disaster well below the level you are currently on but advancing its spread with persisting speed.

You’re running down the stairwell of the building, moving as quick as you can to see if there is still a chance to escape. Even if there isn’t, there’s no way you’re going to stay in your room and accept the charred fate that awaits you. Ignoring the restriction of movement in your arm and the searing pain that overwhelms your back from the brash stress you’re putting on it, you keep a steady and brisk pace down the seemingly unending steps.

Until, you can’t go any further.

You freeze at the top of another flight of stairs as you were just about to get ready to conquer it. At the bottom, the fire is now clearly visible, and the heat emanating from it is so blisteringly strong, it feels as if your skin will start boiling if you go any closer. The embers lick dangerously under your feet, and the smoke not only proliferates from the lower floors to obscure the rest of the path you were planning to take, but the suffocating fog ascends in billows to scorch your lungs, eyes, and everything in between.

If the conditions are this bad when you’ve barely made it to the fourth floor, then it’s a guarantee that your exit route must be overtaken with flames, seeing how the building is burning from the bottom up. The threat is drawing nearer with each passing second, which effectively wipes any idea you had in your mind that this could be a viable path to take.

Turning back around, you begin a sprint up the same stairs you rushed down on, hoping that your legs won’t give out on you in this more difficult trek to your new destination. Since you can’t even dream of going to the ground floor, the only place you can go now is up. There’s no need to stop and take a peek over your shoulder to check the status below, because you’re fairly sure that the fire and smoke are rapidly advancing.

You can feel it.

Once you reach the top of the very last set of stairs, you’re met with an exit that is labeled “roof access” in bold, red letters. You throw yourself onto the metal bar and shove the door open, not stopping your winding feet until you reach another roadblock: the edge.

Above your head, the sky is nothing but a murky shroud, but below, you are able to see the hellish illumination of the fire that has already devoured half of the structure. You strain your eyes to look beyond the smog and sparks, and when you focus on the ground near the sidewalk, you detect numerous dim figures you can only assume are onlookers of the spectacle. It definitely looks to be a long way down with nothing to break the fall but the unforgiving pavement.

Remarkably, that doesn’t stop the people trapped inside the building.

Movement coming from the upper levels catches your attention, and when you try to discern what it is, your vision follows the descending shadows as they fall out of the windows and make their way towards the cement. Judging by the rate at which they are dropping, you can easily distinguish that those forms aren’t just papers or objects from the offices floating through the wind. Bodies are flying out of even the tenth floor windows, plummeting down with increasing velocity until they crash onto the unrelenting surface with sickening splits and splatters. Everyone is desperate to escape this burgeoning inferno, and you can’t say that you’re too far behind the tipping point yourself.

Actually, you’re about a step away from it.

Staring down at the scene below, you can determine that while the threat is coming ever closer, there are no other escape routes available for you to choose from. There are only two options: you can either stay here until the building burns up or collapses beneath you, which could be any minute now, or you can jump off and join the rest of the agents who took the leap of faith. Maybe you’ll be able to get away with your life in exchange for broken legs if you position your landing correctly, as slim of a chance it may be.

You take a deep breath, immediately regretting it as you inhale a lungful of the all-too-familiar fumes of ash and carbon. Your time is running out, and you know that there’s only one thing left to do.

Wake up.

You jolt awake with a start, your eyes shooting open to meet the same insipid ceiling from your previous awakening, except this time, it’s eclipsed by a looming shadow above you. Your first reaction is to lunge up from your bed, reach out for a nearby item to protect yourself with, do something so you can ensure your safety and stability, but you can’t move.

That’s when you realize that someone is hovering over you, clamping your wrists and shoulders down in an attempt to hold you down. Since flight is not an option, you start to kick into fight mode, but when your frantic eyes land on the face of your supposed assailant, the tension relaxes from your body in a wave of relief.

“Sorry,” Namjoon says, slowly releasing his grip and straightening himself up from the leaning position. “I thought it would be best to wake you.”

Your heart is still racing from the residual adrenaline pumping through your veins from the unpleasant awakening and even more unpleasant dream, but you start to steady your breathing after grasping an understanding of the circumstances. At least he took caution to restrain you before attempting to wake you. It seems as though he has learned from the mistake he made last time—of course, the nasty bruise and near concussion probably served as a lesson he wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

“Why are you here?” you question, subtly trying to move past the embarrassment of having to be woken up like a child who was acting out because of a nightmare.

“To tell you that you’ve been discharged,” he states as he watches you prop yourself upright on the bed. “You can leave whenever you’d like as long as you stay on the other side of the Han. I was just about to head back to HQ, so I wanted to stop by and see if you were up yet.”

“I’m up now,” you begrudgingly declare. You rub your eyes of whatever remnants of sleep are still leftover and push the sheets off of you. “I’ll be out in 10.”

“Take your time.”

Namjoon leaves with a click of the door, leaving you to your own devices. You take this time to release a well-needed sigh in appreciation for your body and mind finally calming down. It’s much too early to be in inner turmoil right now, but apparently your brain thought otherwise and felt the need to grace you with the highly unnecessary and unwelcomed dream.

You couldn’t fall asleep for the longest time last night, and it was only when you could almost perceive the first rays of the morning sun brightening the dark blue sky that you managed to slip into a slumber.

Evidently, that didn’t last long.

Even though the couple winks you were able to squeeze in leaves you feeling wearier than ever, you still can’t relinquish the chance to get up and leave this stuffy room, even if it’s just to return to the comfort of your own bed. You keep that thought in mind as you go to change out of your hospital garments, but you having a strong feeling that it’s going to be a long while until you have the pleasure of getting some real rest.

As you pull out of the parking garage, you brace yourself to face something similar to a warzone, but much to your surprise, things are completely and utterly normal. With the flow of the traffic and the stream of pedestrians filling the streets, everything is business as usual, almost as if a violent crime didn’t just take place in the heart of Seoul yesterday. It could be because you’re heading back to Gangnam, which is on the opposite side of the Yongsan office from the crime scene, but nevertheless, is seems as though the city is an unstoppable, well-oiled machine.

That is, until you step foot into Kim Daily.

On most days, it’s the upper levels of the 54-story structure, the quarters where the assassins spend the majority of their time, that are bustling with activity, but today, the lower precincts where the news company works its journalism magic are just as busy, if not more so, as the rest of the building’s denizens.

You have grown to admire their hard work and their ability to stay on top of things, because among the many powerful resources Mr. Shin possesses, this news company is one that proves to be most reliable time and time again.

It has not even been a full 24 hours since the incident occurred, yet it seems like the situation is well on its way towards being resolved. The whole of yesterday was dedicated to revising the print for this morning’s paper and filling the online news platform with all the necessary information that needed to be distributed to the general public.

The big headline doesn’t include the gritty details of the violent turn of events that you would usually find on cover stories such as these. There’s nothing specific about the one dead and nine injured, numbers that are blown up with prominence on other news outlets, nor are there profiles of the shooter and his associates, a decision no doubt to keep your identities safe.

Instead, the main emphasis is on reform—how we will recover from this tragic event and the steps we need to take in order to prevent it from happening again in the future. It’s an extremely well-written, convincing, and thrilling exposé on the nation’s gun control regulations that most definitely will leave readers nodding their heads in agreement or at least scratching their chins in contemplation.

On top of that, quite literally, is Mayor Moon’s face plastered on every front page. The photo is not taken from the press conference that transpired yesterday, despite it being fitting for the article, but instead, it’s one of his more professional shots that you would spot on posters for his campaign tour. The Mayor of Seoul looks like a jolly man with thin-rimmed oval glasses, neatly-combed black hair, and a smile that ironically brings out the prominent frown lines on his forehead.

Within the exposé, quotes from the press conference concerning the attack at Seoul Plaza have been included. Mayor Moon responded to the early criticisms and vowed to do everything in his power to make the city safe again. To win over the public even more, he also discussed his proposition of restricting firearms to a greater extent by requiring GPS tracking of all guns that are in circulation from now on.

Between this incident and what happened in Sejong earlier this year, you have a good hunch that the new regulations will be put into full effect soon enough.

It’s all good in theory, but you know that there’s no way that a law like that will reign legitimately, at least not for you guys. If anything, it’ll just become that much easier to monitor the authorities and any other low-class criminals who are unlucky and ignorant enough to carry around bugged weapons.

Come what may, Mr. Shin is managing to make the best out of a situation that could have gone terribly wrong and should have had no upsides whatsoever. You thought it would certainly take more of a strenuous effort to bury things and cut all loose ends; shootings in Seoul are exceptionally rare, and even for a man of his capabilities, you were sure it was going to be difficult to sweep under the rug and cover up. Not only is he doing exactly that though, but he is also helping to paint Mayor Moon in a better light, fruitfully furthering the solidity of both of their positions.

A true win-win scenario.

By the end of the scramble, you stand corrected, having taken your boss’s professional prowess too lightly. Mr. Shin has been running the game for decades now, so you doubt that this is the worst thing that he has witnessed during his lifetime. It was foolish of you to think that any other undesirable outcome would have spawned from this situation.

In the following days, it seems as though the shooting and the subsequent proceedings that occurred afterwards are all that is being broadcasted and covered by news companies and major media sites alike. It’s all that comes up on the TV at the apartment when you have time to turn it on, which you do have plenty of recently as the assassins have been told to put down their guns and knives and lay low until things get concluded with ink strokes and keyboard clicks.

It’s times like these where the pen is, in fact, mightier than the sword.

“I am here to confirm that we have successfully captured the offender and have taken him into custody.”

An astute voice leaks through the speakers as you watch the announcement on screen. Cameras are flashing and shuttering at amazing rates, but that doesn’t seem to faze the Police Chief, Cho Ryeowoon. This uniformed man of experience has a rigid stance and hardened facial expression that makes him appear almost immune to the commotion around him. He’s standing behind the podium to carry out a simple task, one that will hopefully be the bow that wraps up this entire case.

“Everyone can rest assured that the streets are safe. With the recent mandates that have been passed, there is no need to worry about something like this happening again.” Sure enough, it only took a span of a few days for the gun control regulations to be imposed. Chief Cho’s guarantees sound so matter-of-factly, and you’re impressed by his ability to turn such a dubious subject into a highly persuasive speech. “As for the culprit, I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that it is only right that he be brought to justice—and you have my word that he will.”

After a few seconds, a picture of the alleged criminal is pulled up onto the screen by the broadcasting station. The man in the photo is not Jungkook in any way shape or form, but since the CCTV footage of the actual wrongdoer was never released to the public, the viewing citizens will be none the wiser. Even those who were physically present won’t be able to say a word otherwise, because with a beanie and a mask, any male with the same build and basic traits can probably pass as Jungkook.

You can’t help but wonder who the poor sap going under the guillotine is, but you guess it doesn’t hold significance. If it did matter, he wouldn’t be where he is right now, taking the blame for your teammate’s actions for the sake of your organization and its allies. Besides, if you know anything about the organization, it’s almost guaranteed that the man did something foul for him to be placed on the hot seat like that—this is just a slightly less practical way of getting him where he needs to be.

Truthfully, you’re pleased that this is being covered up so competently. None of you need the stress of the aftermath weighing down on you, especially not on top of all the other baggage you have to carry. It’s a bit selfish to say the least, but being in the position that you guys are in, it can’t be helped.

It’s merely self-preservation.

Since the effort to recover from the close call went better than you could have hoped for, especially after the “culprit” was captured, the status of the organization returned back to normal in record time. Following suit, your stitches were taken out after about a week of having received them, and by now, the wound is no longer hindering your movement and performance.

The situation seems to have blown over in the blink of an eye, but on the contrary, those few days of unemployment were arduous for the business. While you were all preoccupied with the large-scale affair, it was not quite as impacting to the rest of the city’s population who weren’t directly affected by it. Even in the madness of everything that happened regarding the wanted man, clients were not holding off on placing orders and requests, so to act in accordance, the organization accepted them like they always did.

This is a business, after all, and these are your jobs—your livings. Everything else was continuing on with its fixed pace after acknowledging what has passed, and you guys couldn’t afford to be bumming around for any longer when there were contracts to be signed and orders to be fulfilled. Especially after the news broke that the organization had quite possibly been infiltrated by a mole, not another minute can go to waste.

Just like that, life goes on.

Jungkook was transported back to headquarters shortly after you returned, and yet, even as the days go on, you don’t catch so much as a glimpse of him.

It’s rather strange if you think about it. There are many times when both you and Jungkook are busy with your own assignments, and during those periods, days or even weeks can go by until you two see each other again. Currently, it has only been a little over a week, but these are not the same circumstances. It’s a completely different story because you know that he is in the same building as you, conversing with the same people as you, probably even eating the same food as you, but he himself is choosing to keep you distant and away.

You hate this feeling that is planted within you, growing each day that it’s left neglected like intrusive vines that spread through every fiber of your being. You wish that you could at least apologize in person or even see with your own two eyes that he’s really okay, but so far, you haven’t been given a chance to clear up the mess.

Some of the others are doing their best to keep you in the know, so when they relay to you that his condition is progressing well, you have no choice but to take their word for it. He’s apparently healing up quite speedily—to your liberation, there are no persisting damages from the bullet wound—but you didn’t expect any less from Jungkook. Sometimes, you seriously believe he’s just built in a different way from most people in this world.

From what Jin has graciously taken the time to tell you, Jungkook has been put under special care until he is completely healed. You’re grateful for your supervisor, because even scraps of information such as this is not necessarily mandatory to divulge to the rest of the team. Perhaps he’s so attentive at informing you because he feels guilty about the whole exchange at the Yongsan corridor. Even if that’s not the case, Jin does tend to have a bit of soft spot for you—Lord knows you’ve been softening him up by poking and prodding him for details since the dawn of time. It’s not that you take advantage of this fact at all, but more often than not, you are able to coax something useful out of him.

This is one of those times.

It became clear to you that this “special care” wasn’t just to track the superficial injuries Jungkook sustained once Jin uttered that single word, one that you realized was the true reason for the elongated recovery time and temporary removal from the team.

Therapy.

Yes, assassin therapy is not only a thing, but a quintessential aspect of the system. Just as important as physical health, if not more, mental health is dealt with the utmost care, precision, and promptitude.

The organization holds monthly evaluations for all members working within it, and among the several tests is a mental state check, one of the practices in which everyone’s psyche is measured and monitored. These examinations are tedious at times, but they are essential not only for curing anomalies but for preventing those imbalances from happening in the first place, and the consequences of deciding to omit this facet of the assessment are far too high. The officials and even other members need to know that the inner workings of an operative are not abnormal or unstable in any way before setting them out into the field with the potential to inflict adverse harm and wreak havoc.

Furthermore, this arrangement proves to be amply effective.

There have been a few instances where you have heard of assassins being pulled from their roles on the team, almost always at the end of the month and with minimal repercussions. There was only one deviant from this otherwise efficacious procedure you remember hearing whispers about that concerned a particular agent whose primary job was interrogation—just like Jimin. His personal methods, however, became too eccentric, even for the organization’s tastes.

To put it bluntly, he was discovered to have been cutting off and eating the hostage’s fingers in order to force them to comply.

Admittedly, it was an effective torture technique—there’s really nothing like watching someone eat your own body parts in front of you—but unsurprisingly, it didn’t go over well with the higher-ups, or anyone else for that matter. Shortly after he was caught—it didn’t take long after the initial episode—the agent was removed from his post before he could go off the deep end, as if that line hadn’t already been crossed.

This entire screening process is in no way a perfect one, but without its implementation, the organization could very well have seen greater calamity or even collapse by now.

Jungkook’s behavior certainly raised some red flags with the company officers, and while you can argue that it’s not nearly as bad as Mr. Finger Fetish, you have to agree with the call for rehabilitation that they made. It still gives you shudders when your mind travels back to ponder what kind of mentality Jungkook held in that moment that drove him to go through with his erratic actions. It makes you wonder if you should have paid more attention to the signs that led up to that point.

No, you were well aware of them—you just didn’t act upon them.

You figure that it’s no use in making yourself feel worse than you already have been feeling all week. Now that the problem has been uncovered, the focus now is to make sure that it’s extinguished and won’t be rekindled again. You’re relieved that he’s undergoing the proper treatment he needs, and thankfully, everyone’s extremities are still intact.

Plus, you know Jungkook will make it through to the other side better than ever.

All of you are a little broken in your own way, whether you’ve been bent and twisted or torn and frayed. There is not one person among you who doesn’t struggle with your own self, because regardless of if you like it or not, residing inside every single one of you is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not only do you learn to live with this reality early on, but you are taught to overcome it and manipulate it to your advantage.

Human emotions are such frail constructs to begin with, but even with what could easily be considered weaknesses, you’re trained to hone them—control, not erase. You are to amplify them when the situation calls for it and to suppress them when they run the risk of getting in the way, but you are never to dispose of them.

In spite of everything, you are human, and they are what make you so.

You can only attempt to hold something in for so long until you explode; it might not always be the cannibalism route, but an eruption is imminent. There have been plenty of instances of this happening—examples, if you will—with the orphans and assassins before you, displayed in the various ways they fought with themselves, whether they couldn’t pull the trigger or they pointed the gun at themselves.

The organization allocated the time and effort to refine their training and selection program so that the possibility of those outcomes has been reduced to the lowest prospect, but even so, they did not resort to producing mindless drones. You are all still your own individual person with innate strengths and weaknesses, the former being polished and the latter being purged.

In Jungkook’s case, he is currently in the process of having his faults expelled, and in harmony with that, you need to make sure that your strengths have been toughened after the experiences you overcame. You can look at it like he is working on his own mission at the moment, so the only thing left for the rest of you to do is continue on your own missions as always.

Without him.

[thenightling]

Salvation (A G rated Castlevania one shot)

Disclaimer:  Castlevania fanfiction.    Though Dracula is a public domain character he was first used as a vampire by Bram Stoker for his novel, Dracula, in 1897.  This particular depiction of Dracula and the original entity known as Doctor Lisa Țepeș are owned by Nintendo and were first used for the video game series Castlevania and are currently depicted in the animated series Castlevania on Netflix.

Scene inspired by Faust’s reunion with Gretchen in Faust Part 2.  Also the album Black Halo by the band Kamalet in the songs Nothing Ever Dies and Memento Mori.  (The Kamleot albums Epica and The Black Halo tell the story of Goethe’s Faust Parts 1 and 2.) 

Warning:  This IS very maudlin.  

Mild content.   Nothing graphic.  

Consider this a Yule present for Castlevania fans.

@doctorleopard for giving me the right push to write this and  wehavescones for making me realize how many fans have such a cynical and warped idea of damnation / salvation that can’t even fathom there wa sa time when literature even forgave its monsters.   

Story below: 

     Damnation for a vampire isn’t the prospect of going to Hell.  It’s not some fearful Sunday morning sermon about wailing souls trapped in unending flame.  It’s not the idea that their existence ends when the body is destroyed.   No.   Many vampire hunters will tell you that destroying a vampire’s body releases the soul, it frees the vampire and allows them to move on to whatever afterlife awaits them.  That is the nobility of the hunter, that not only is he saving other human lives from a monstrous predator but that he knows he is setting free a soul, a soul that is likely in torment by their eternal existence.          The real damnation for a vampire is their very existence.  It is the struggle between the human soul and personality against predatory inclinations and instincts- the desire to hunt, the quest for prey.  It is the intoxicating thrill and delight that comes from breathing in the fear, which quickens the undead heart.  Dracula was always a feral creature, who embraced this predatory inclinations and did not see them as a curse. Perhaps he had been that way when he was human but it had been so long ago that he was not sure he could accurately remember what his human nature had been like. He only knew that there were those who would probably say he had always been the monster that he would be remembered as.       Even though it may have been repressed even when he was human he did have a humane nature deep inside of himself. It had been buried but it was there, just the same.      It was love which woke his long repressed human nature to rise above the predatory but it was that same broken heart which sent it plunging into the abyss of his own range, despair, and madness...        The blinding physical pain was gone. The despair, however, lingered.      

    The madness was over now. The last clear memory was stumbling forward, reaching, grasping for his son, his child, that one final embrace he so ached for.  He knew Adrian (Alucard as he called himself now) would kill him but it was worth it for that one last touch, one last moment of grace...

      It had to happen.  Adrian had always had his mother’s wisdom. He had known all along, hadn’t he?  That this was the world’s longest suicide note...         Deep inside, part of him never really wanted to end the world.  He had only wanted release. He had only wanted peace.  But he did not believe it was what he deserved...

     He expected the heat of orange flame, the stink of rotten sulfur (How many mortals don’t realize brimstone smells like rotten eggs?)   He expected so many classical and mystical descriptions and depictions...      Lisa had never believed in Hell. Ah, Lisa.  Sweet, Lisa.  She believed in goodness and goodness triumphant.  She believed life’s purpose was to make the world a little better for your presence in it.  She knew the supernatural was real.  She knew evil was real but she had never thought of it as necessary.      She did not believe in The Adversary- The Devil, as a literal being.   She believed in a benign, and forgiving God.  So radically different from the God that Bishop of Gresit had believed in.  Her God was something she held like a secret promise - precious and private.  A hope for a being of pure love and light.  She could not abide the idea of eternal damnation in the bowels of Hell.  The idea was repugnant to her sense of justice and mercy.  She understood that demons existed and that they came from a terrible place beyond her world but the idea that a soul, human or otherwise, might be condemned to such a place, after death, for the mistakes of life- this was something her conscience could not accept.  And like all doctors she wanted to save everyone...  Even him...

     Even him...

    Lost in his memories he had not noticed it at first or perhaps it had come on suddenly, that invasive and bright radiance swallowing the darkness.  The light was intense.  It was like the full impact of dawn yet it did not bring aching pain to his sensitive, nocturnal, eyes.   He raised an arm to shield himself, or he thought he did.  But there was no pain.  And there was a shadow in the light, a shadowed silhouette, a feminine figure moving from the heart of the brightness.       Familiar.       He did not dare hope.      There was a faint, almost subconscious scent.  Night Jasmine and...  Aloe vera, Valerian root, and peppermint.  Medicinal.  She often had carried some of these in her pockets.  Aloe vera to treat sores, rashes, and burns.  Valerian root was a mild sedative to ease nervous conditions and insomnia and the peppermint was to treat petty stomach ailments such as indigestion.  He did not dare hope and yet he knew who and what he associated with those scents... It was her. It could only be her...  How dare he think this way!  Foolish.  Foolish to hope.  Foolish to dream...     

     And then he saw her as the image cleared from the haze of the light.  He felt a tremble through his entire being. He thought he was going to fall.   Her golden hair blended with the intense light behind her.  Her eyes were clear and proud.  She had that same look of certainty and determination that had been on her face when he first laid eyes upon her in his castle so long ago.

     He felt strangely at peace- at ease.  He wanted to move toward her. 

      It seemed that all things were good.  All things were right.  All things might actually be forgiven...

     And that was when they came. Of course they had to come, didn’t they?  He had expected this.  Even if you acknowledge there are shades of grey in human (or sapient) nature, sometimes it’s just easier to separate things into black and white, the good and the damned.  The forgivable and the unforgiven.  What you sew is what you reap.  Our sins can’t be undone.          There they were.  He could not close his eyes to it.  All the nightmare-beasts that wanted to lay claim to his very soul for all the things he had done and then some.  Some were once human, some had never been human.  And they were all there, vicious, and hungry and waiting- waiting for him.  Waiting to rip his very soul to shreds. Twisted and dark, and devoid of compassion or mercy- human and inhuman alike.  Shadow-monsters with gnarled hands that groped like tree-limbs in an ominous, night-scape forest.  They reached for him, clamping down on his limbs (or were they limbs?  He knew he wasn’t really a corporeal being anymore.)  With grasping claws as powerful as iron they caught hold of him, pulling him away from her and toward an uncertain darkness behind them.           This was it, he thought.  Now he would truly pay for his crimes, his life of sins.  The sins she had tried to steer him away from with her humanity.  Now he would never be with her again.                     But where is the justice in that?  Was the question from his own thoughts or was someone else asking it?         What do you mean?  Of course it was justice!: He reasoned to himself.  He had done so many things, so many unforgivable things.          Ah! said that intruding thought that seemed to be his own mind and yet curiously seemed to be from elsewhere. Why would it be a justice to take a woman, whose life was dedicated to kindness and compassion and deny her that which she loves so dearly? Surely to punish her in this way- that is an injustice.  And if she loves you- truly loves you- then maybe there is something of you worth saving, is there not?    

     Was there an argument happening that he could not hear but somehow feel?  A confrontation on some level of consciousness he could not comprehend.             “Ours!” The shadow-demons and twisted souls hissed. “Ours!”       They are devoid of love.  Perhaps they never had it.  Love is the only truth.  Do you believe in love’s power, Dracula?          What a stupid question that was!  Of course he believed in love.  He had loved Lisa.  He had loved their precious boy, the gift she had given him.  He had loved her enough to find that which he never knew he had- his humanity.  And when that love was lost and it had broken his heart in two it was love that turned to despair and madness and finally despair again.   Cruel and powerful and... he would not trade that love for anything.         Yes, of course he believed in it.  It was all that was left of him in the end...                         There was some darkness opening behind him.  He could not see it, but he could feel it.  A great, gaping maw ready to swallow him and they were trying to drag him toward this darkness.  “Ours!  At last!  Ours!” they howled in triumph.  These were not the musical howls of a family of wolves beckoning a fellow hunter to join the pack for a good hunt.  No.  Those sort of howls were a delight to him as much as his on baby’s laughter.  These were howls of madness and chaos.                              Believe.  If you ever believed in anything, believe now, Vampire King.  You must believe.  Take that love and remember.  It is your only chance.  

             He struggled, lunging, trying to pull free from the demonic horde that meant to claim him.  It seemed futile.  For all the power he had in life he felt utterly helpless here in this place between worlds.  But a pale human-looking hand was raised.  Lisa was emanating a power all her own.  It had enough force to overwhelm his spirit and envelope the world around them, such was the strength of its power. Had she always had this power?  This power to consume and extinguish the darkness?

     “Mine.” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.  The first audible voice in this whole ordeal.  Not like the voice that seemed to be his own maddened thoughts externalized. Her voice that he thought he would never hear again... 

    The creatures shrieked in shrill rage and perhaps fear.   They dispersed behind him in a whirlwind frenzy of panic and outrage.           The light swelling and spreading around her.  From behind and all around the light swallowed the two, woman and vampire-husband.  The terrible shadow-creatures were gone.  And finally he understood.  The one thing that can save any soul, the thing that can grant mercy to even the most wretched and terrible of creatures, that thing which he hadn’t even known he was capable of until she walked into his castle and his life.   Love.

     And he remembered a vaguely remembered passage from his mortal life.  How did it go?  

(“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love always forgives, trusts, supports, and endures. Love never fails. When every star in the Heavens grows cold, and when silence lies once more on the face of the deep, three things will endure: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love...”)

     He thought he could feel the heat of heavy blood-tears in his eyes but he understood that he was not a corporeal being.  This was all illusion.   The demons were gone and it was just him and Lisa now.  And she clasped his hands into her own.  And there were tears.  But they were clear and light.  Human.      “We have each other now... for the moment.” She sounded wistful, almost sad but relieved.      “For the moment?” He asked, dreading what the response might be.      She nodded.  “Yes.  It will be a very long time before you and I are reunited forever but I am patient, my love.” Her soft lips brushed his.  “I will wait.”      He could feel her warm fingers as if they were both flesh and blood.  Her warmth against his cold.       “I don’t deserve...” he couldn’t quite choke out that he did not believe he deserved her forgiveness.      “Would you punish a madman for his deeds?” she asked in a mild scolding.        He did not answer.  There was a time, not too long ago, that yes, he would have...      “You are my Heaven. And I will wait for you for however long that takes.  But so long as you are capable of love, you are never truly lost.  Remember that.  Remember that even if you don’t remember this short reprieve. You must remember my love.”      “Short reprieve?”  He felt confused, lost- like a child in the woods.      “Yes.” She said.  “There are forces that- with dark magicks and machinations will take you from me, pull you back to the world of the living, the world of loss, and of grief and... your loneliness.”  she said sadly. “And you may forget these intervals until the times in which they com.  And they will come.  Your brief releases from the living world, but your heart will remember.  And someday... Someday the reunion will last. I promise you that.  You aren’t as evil as you think and all men can be forgiven so long as he is capable of love.”         He did not remember letting go of her.  How could he even bring himself to let her go?  But he must have released her because he felt her hand now against his chest, right over his heart.       “Be patient, my love.  Know that I will forgive you.  Our son still loves us both.  That is why this hurt him so bitterly.  And one day we will be reunited.  Until then... Let us have this moment...  You have suffered enough.”

       He felt so weak and so vulnerable.  He was so very tired and now he was finally in this soft and comforting dream.  But it was not a dream. It was reality and he wished he could carry that with him forever, this precious knowledge, but in his heart he knew he could not.  He shut his eyes, savoring the moment.  

       He opened his eyes again and he slumped against her and that intense light became a warmth, mild and comforting.  It was soothing and healing.  And there was only love.  A love where all things were forgiven and all things were good.  A place without fear.  A place without doubt.  A place without pain.  And he was not the king of monsters.  He was a part of this love, this profound and soft thing more powerful than any demon and yet as gentle as a sigh...  

             They were together for the moment and that was all that mattered.  And she had promised- as she was always right with such things- one day they would truly be together forever.  Even if he was summoned back again and again and again, she would wait and they would reunite and one day this sense of peace and love would truly be eternal.  And maybe, just maybe by then he’d actually feel as if he deserved it and her and this love.                          High in an old room in the castle a blond haired young man, not quite of the nosferatu world, not quite of the human world either- a being who was of both worlds but felt he belonged no where- also an orphan, sat alone.  His sobs echoing through the empty halls.  He would not realize for a very long time, his parents were there with him and their love would never leave him...         

____________________________      

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - 1 Corinthians  13:4-7 (The King James Bible.)

[citruspeel]

to gold be the gory

How Golden Kamuy Outshines Competition

A Review

-

“GORUDEEEEEEN KAMUUUUUUY!”

That’s how I first heard of Golden Kamuy – a male voice screaming its title in around 2-minute intervals. I was busy slurping ramen in the communal eating tent in Odori Park when it blared in my ear. All through the day, they played its trailer on the tent TVs over and over again. It seemed interesting, and it was quite apt to see it being promoted there - after all, we were surrounded by snow, in Hokkaido, where the story was set. I kept seeing it in bookstores and its artwas eye-catching. But as soon as I was back on home soil, my interest was gone.

Life caught right back up with me, so I forgot about Golden Kamuy completely. Not until I saw some artists I follow post amazing fan art of it on Twitter. They were all singing it praises and the official art was beautiful, so I thought, ‘aw heck, why not?’

Let me tell you: there are no reasons not to.  

SUGIMOTO, THIS ISN’T SHOUNEN ANYMORE

I’m what you call a…sporadic manga reader. I’m not up to speed with manga trends and it can take me a while to catch up. I read stuff that get my attention and when they’re recommended by my friends (I still haven’t touched Boku no Hero Academia or Shokugeki no Soma, though). I also don’t limit myself to just one genre. There are months that I devour shoujo/josei manga, like Hana Nochi Hare and Dame na Watashi ni Koi wo Kudasai. Then I’d switch over to read through volumes upon volumes of shounen manga (hi, Gintama, Haikyuu). Then there are periods wherein I just don’t read at all, devoting my time to other activities instead.  

Golden Kamuy, brainchild of artist Noda Satoru, is probably my first real foray into the seinen manga territory. The art, the storyline, the comedy, the stakes �� every page told me that I wasn’t reading shounen anymore. Dick jokes weren’t dealt with caution. Gore was done with no shame. Raw Japanese scans didn’t have the hiragana reading aids. Strangely enough, it brought me back to all the titles I used to read when I was young. It made me realize all the stuff I was reading back then were very edgelord-esque and middle-school-syndrome-ish - the stuff of nightmares. Body horror, violence, gore, debauchery – CLAMP and Kaori Yuuki had primed my teenage self for all of them.

But at least, now, the edginess was dealt with a more mature hand.  

Hence it was no surprise that Kamuy ignited a sense of familiarity. I had mellowed down when I grew up (it saddens me that I really am quite a grown-up now) and, in turn, settled for fun, cheerful, romantic manga (to keep the dreariness of everyday life away, I guess haha). I got used to leisurely pacing and lighthearted comedy. Reading Golden Kamuy felt like I skydived into the unforgiving arena I had left – an arena that had been made fresher, better.  

SO FRESH, YOU’RE EATING IT RAW

What makes Kamuy an instant hit is its interesting combination of rarely-used elements. Post-War, Meiji-Era historical, early 1900s, hunting, Hokkaido, Ainu culture: can you really find another title that uses said mix? It’s no wonder people are attracted to the series.  

It also helps that the art is just spectacular. Noda’s artistic skill shines through every page, chapter, and volume cover. His poses are dynamic, his coloring brave. Sometimes the color combinations he uses just scream modern, serving as nice contrasts to the story’s historical, traditional setting. His character designs are unique and fresh – more so their personalities. Sugimoto’s facial scars are refreshing to the eye; Tsurumi’s half-corrupted face paired with a metal plate is a design I’ve never seen before. His art style brings out his designs to life in a way only he can – we’ve all seen cross-dressing men and shaved-bald convicts before, but still he was able to make Ienaga and Shiraishi look striking.

The research that he has done to make the story believable is commendable. He even has his own Ainu and Russian language consultants. Each detail he adds in shows that every page is a product of hard work. He even features real buildings in Hokkaido and Otaru (I’ve also been to Otaru and it was nice to see it in the manga!). The information we learn from Noda’s usage of the Ainu culture, hunting practices, and military details – all of this, weaved in with an intricate, explosive plot, give us a series that feels…whole. Complete.

Kamuy also spreads word about the Ainu culture in a fun and entertaining way. I haven’t heard a lot about them in the series I’ve encountered – I’ve only heard of them through Rurouni Kenshin. Nothing since then. To see them in the spotlight is a breath of fresh air. Even the Ainu themselves feel the same way – apparently they told Noda that they didn’t want to be portrayed as discriminated anymore. They wanted strong Ainu characters, and boy, did Noda deliver.

NO-PARDON PLOTTING

Because of its seinen status, you can tell that Noda has no qualms about plotting and story structure. We’re given heavy-hitting story elements right off the bat: war vet undertakes a legendary treasure hunt to help the (stolen-by-his-friend) love of his life, requiring him to track down 24 of the most dangerous insane criminals to have ever walked Japan. It’s throwing punches right from the get-go. Kamuy doesn’t baby anyone (except for bear cubs). With its pacing, convoluted plot and bevy of interesting characters, it challenges the reader to not just enjoy, but to keep up. It’s unapologetic in everything that it does – character, story, and art.  

CHARACTERS

Immortal War Vet, Morality Pet Minority Action Girl, Escape Sweet-tooth King, and so forth. They somehow fulfill stereotypes but at the same time, Noda manages to twist things to a whole new light. His milieu, too, aids in solidifying the characters he writes – the setting itself makes them unforgettable.  

It is also in his cast that we see how unapologetic Noda is. Considering that Sugimoto is to track 24 of the most dangerous criminals in the country, Noda doesn’t shy away from showcasing every kind of evil that can exist within humans. We tackle lust, greed, wrath, and avarice with a dash more reality compared to the caricatures we often see in shounen manga. Those faint of heart and innocent countenance will have a hard time stomaching Noda’s cast as it unfolds. The more I read, the more I believe Noda probably has a subscription to the Crime Investigation channel (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). Truth be told, humans are very much capable of evil, and I’m not surprised that some of his villains are actually modeled after real-life criminals.

Notable characters:

IENAGA  - a cross between Erszebet Bathory (a countess who was known to kill virgins and bathed in their blood to remain beautiful) and of H.H. Holmes, a real-life owner of an actual murder hotel in the US during the 19th century. Ienaga’s first dungeon appearance made me flashback to some of mangaka Kaori Yuki’s ornate gorefests such as Count Cain, Angel Sanctuary, and Ludwig Revolution. Noda felt no shame when he drew each and every one of Ienaga’s murderscapes. 

HENMI KAZUO – this one really made me blink when I was reading it. Serial killer Henmi Kazuo is an exploration of the depths of human depravity. Imagine, being stimulated by gore and the act of clinging to life the same way his brother did when a bear ate him. Damn, writing that sentence made me realize Noda just straight up doesn’t baby his audience. This is the stuff Netflix series Mindhunter would kill to have. This also would really need some real guts (pardon the pun) to execute.

SHITON – he also made me stop in my tracks. Shiton, a full-on bestiality-practicing scientist, was something I’ve never read about in any other manga at all. I’ve read about murderers and criminals and incestuous personalities (Kaori Yuki and George RR Martin weren’t shy about it at all), but this character was just sick. He’s a special type of crazy (although to be perfectly honest I am sure that somewhere in the world some sick human is partaking in stuff like this), and for Noda to actually use him in his manga just takes courage. He just has the balls to make you think twice, but hey, when you’re in seinen territory, everything seems to be a free-for-all. And let’s be real frank here – there’s just another level of human debauchery in real life that most people won’t even be able to stomach hearing about.  

TSURUMI – Tsurumi is the stuff of legend. He reminds me the most of Col. Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, but with his insanity turned up into eleven. He also has shades of Leonardo’s character in Django Unchained, as well as other manic-type ‘villains’ that we’ve seen in other series. But his impulsiveness and flamboyant nature places him a cut above the rest. Noda also draws him so dynamically (seriously!) that whenever he appears, your eyes are just drawn to him.  

Plus, I have to say that I’m really impressed with the level of real-world research that Noda uses in developing his characters. Tsurumi says that he has lost a part of his frontal lobe, which in turn affects his temper and his violent tendencies. This is actually true in real life, and has been seen in a high-profile murder case involving a famous football player in the United States. Because of the repetitive head injuries that the player received playing the sport, his own personality/temper had changed, and resulted him in killing his girlfriend in cold blood.

Of course we have the holy trinity of Sugimoto (classic lovable romantic badass war vet protagonist), Asirpa (butt-kicking girl-child) and Shiraishi (adorable slinky/comic relief), all gems in their own right. Noda has endeared them to us with the heartwarming dynamic between Sugimoto + Asirpa, plus Shiraishi’s antics. Character-wise, they seem to follow a specific trio formula that works in almost anything. Harry-Hermione-Ron, Gintoki-Kagura-Shinpachi, Naruto-Sakura-Sasuke. While his main character trio wins people over, his supporting cast can also shine bright on their own. Some great examples that come to mind are Ogata, Tanigaki, and Monkey-Scream Guy Otonoshin (even Tsukishima is memorable! He even has the Voldemort nose, doesn't he?).

Noda’s principle of mixing reality with caricature is also evident in his character designs. With every cast member we meet, it’s clear that Noda is far from being a sufferer of the six-faces-only syndrome. His designs do sometimes border on the impossible (Monkey-Scream guy’s eyebrows, really?), but it’s not a bad thing. If anything, it makes the visual experience of reading the comic even more worthwhile.  

THE ART

Noda is a great manga artist. Let’s start with that.  

Just look at these covers!

This coloring + color schemes!

This character design!!

I’ve been raving about his character designs for a few paragraphs now but it’s just really that good. I love his eye for composition and his impeccable framing for action and comedy. I’ve always thought that framing comics need special planning – especially action + comedy ones. You have to ensure that the first thing the reader sees in the next panel will make the action/joke understandable and clear. It takes great skill to decide what the reader sees and doesn’t see. Through Golden Kamuy’s 158 chapters, he makes use of this skill to make us laugh whenever Asirpa’s badgering them to make citatap, or when there’s a new animal part to eat, or when Tanigaki’s out showing nudes of himself to people. If the pages weren’t framed well, the jokes would’ve fallen flat. Let’s also not forget his adeptness in drawing facial expressions. This manga just does faces so well.  

(Just look at Asirpa! collage c/o the Golden Kamuy reddit)

His fight scenes are also top-notch. You just know that Noda, as a mangaka, isn’t knocking about. The flow of action in every page is just downright superb. It also shows his mastery of human anatomy – and his courage when it comes to gore. His use of crisp blacks and whites, solid lineart, thick, expressive color give us pages that are fresh and clean...I’d be a fool to dismiss his technique, because his (and his studio’s, I guess?) skill just shines through every page.

He’s also not shy when it comes to details – which is admirable. After all, it takes some great dedication for someone to give his main character distinct facial scars that will require repeated drawings in almost every single page (and give his heroine a detailed headband). It makes me wonder just how he does it with a weekly schedule. His color pages look like they were done digitally, but I still have doubts whether or not he does his chapters by hand.  

THE HEART

It took me just a few days to wolf down Kamuy. It was a romp right from the start – nail-biting, stomach-clutching, hair-raising. A truly entertaining piece, if you will. But if there’s one thing I’ve noticed with Kamuy, it’s that it somehow lacks heart.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s great! I love it. It’s superbly crafted, beautifully drawn, amazingly detailed. It’s one of the rare titles that I’m actually thinking of collecting. But it’s also a title that seems to drip technique. Like the author made it for the sake of drawing an intense, gripping title, but somehow solely for that purpose. It’s a career-conscious showcase of ability, a manufactured adventure in the truest sense. I couldn’t see the earnestness I found in Sorachi Hideaki’s Gintama, or the relatability of Nakahara Aya’s  Dame na Watashi wo Koishite Kudasai. Full Metal Alchemist showed Arakawa Hiromu’s passion for muscled men, her interest in alchemy, and views on family, while Haruichi Furudate’s love for volleyball, sportsmanship and camaraderie is undeniable in Haikyuu!!. While I do like the backstory that Sugimoto is somehow based on his real-life war-vet grandfather, I find it a bit sad that it seems to lack that personal touch I’ve always liked seeing in other manga.

But it doesn’t mean that it’s not great. I will still recommend it to everyone I know. Awesome story, great art, refreshing comedy. By all means, read it! (Not sure about the anime, but I keep hearing reviews that we’re better off with the manga). Golden Kamuy is a title of both style and substance – whether it’s about the gore or the gold, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.  

Then let me know if you agree with my upcoming post, an analysis of Sugimoto and Asirpa.

Photos c/o reddit + our lovely scanlators + Satoru Noda

[rhetoricandlogic]

Ally

by NALO HOPKINSON

PUBLISHED IN MAY 2018 (ISSUE 68) | 3100 WORDS 

© 2018 by Nalo Hopkinson.

It’d been a warm, sunny spring afternoon. The grass in the cemetery was green, the roses and lavender in the wreaths fragrant. Iqbal’s funeral had been a quiet affair, all things considered.

Our circle was getting too old for the type of soap opera drama that had marked our younger years. We’d lived for enough decades that my friends and I had settled into some kind of rhythm, had dared to allow some of our sharp edges to be burnished smooth.

So by the time of Iqbal’s funeral, Joachim had long since given up staging drunken screaming matches in parking lots with Jésus for stealing Joachim’s boyfriend Steve, lo these many years ago. After all, soon after Steve had left him, Joachim had met and bottomed to Randall at a play party, and they’d been together ever since. Randall had ceased lamenting the flawless beauty of his youth to anyone who would (or wouldn’t) listen. He’d started dating a couple of eager smooth-skinned houseboys, vetted by Joachim. The young men kept Joachim’s and Randall’s boots spit-polished. Randall had let his hair grow in grey, waxed his mustachios, and relaxed into his daddy role.

Munroe had become an actual daddy as a result of a drunken evening with his dyke friend Alice. He ended up sharing custody of the little girl with her—mostly amicably, with some glaring exceptions. “Baby” Tina was twenty-two years old now. She’d attended the service with hugs for all her uncles and me, her aunty. Almost everyone had remembered to call me Sally. After all, it’d been seven years. Pete did slip up and call me “Jack . . . er, Sal,” but I didn’t bite his head off; he was, after all, burying his husband. But it’s been seven fucking years, dude, and you’re still making that mistake?

When I transitioned, Pete’s awkwardness about it had cooled our friendship down quite a bit. So as I stood beside the grave site with the others, watching the coffin being lowered mechanically into the hole and longing to get out of the black pumps that were crushing my toes in two very stylish vises, I was surprised when my phone buzzed with a text from Pete: The bar in an hour? Just you and me?

Well. It’d been years since he and I had hung out like that, but I knew exactly which bar he meant. I texted back, Make it an hour and a half. To underline that I wasn’t going to let him “Jack” me again, I added, Momma needs to slip into something more comfortable.

I only stopped at home long enough to switch my heels for flats and give the hubby a squeeze, but Pete was already waiting when I got to the bar. He was nursing a virgin Manhattan, extra maraschino cherries. Nowadays, sugar was his drug of choice. He looked glumly up at me and kicked out the chair opposite his. The haunted look in his eyes made my heart ache. I sat. He said, “Rye and soda?” I didn’t even need to nod. He knew what I liked, and was already signalling the waitress.

Two women sitting together at the bar gave me the side-eye. They leaned their heads together to talk, scowling at me the whole time. Easy to figure what they had their panties in a twist about. “You okay?” I asked Pete. “Never mind. Stupid question.”

His eyes met mine. “Something happened the other day.”

“With Iqbal?”

He frowned. “Yes. No. I’m not sure.”

I sighed. “Tell me.”

He tried on an ill-fitting smile. “I dunno. It’s dumb. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“‘But you must be mad,’” I quoted. “‘We’re all mad here.’”

Unlike the Cheshire Cat’s, his smile became a little more real as he quoted back: “‘There’s no use trying. One can’t believe impossible things.’” His smiled cracked. “Maybe it was just the stress. Of everything. Of Iqbal . . .”

My drink had arrived. I took a sip, let the bite and chill of it roll around on my tongue, swallowed. “Pete, I’m listening. You know I always will, no matter how crazy the thing you have to tell me.” No matter how hurt I was that we weren’t really friends any more.

His eyes were wet. “You remember Mrs. Richardson.”

It wasn’t a question. Pete and I had known each other since we were teenagers in high school. He was the first person I told outright that I wasn’t a boy. He’d laughed it off, quite gently. But I’d never mentioned it to him again.

And of course I remembered that cunt. She shouldn’t have been allowed near kids, much less allowed to foster young Pete. Meeting a foster kid had been quite the eye-opener for me. Meeting the spinning ball of hatred that was Mrs. Richardson made the skin on my arms crawl, made me almost grateful for my passive-aggressive mother and my transphobic dad.

I said, “One minute she’d be sweet as pie, the next she’d be raging.”

“She wasn’t always like that, though. At some point, she changed.”

I hadn’t known that. “Really? What turned her evil, then?”

“The other way round, Sal.”

Good. I was back to being Sally, or as close as Pete would get to it. “Wait—you mean she used to be worse?”

He nodded. “When I was first placed with her, she’d come at me night and day. She said I was a lost cause, but she would whip me into shape. Once I laid the table with the knives and forks on the wrong side of the plates. She sent me to bed without dinner.”

“Seriously?”

“She made me do all kinds of evening and weekend chores till I was so tired, I fell asleep on top of my homework. Then she punished me for getting bad grades. Took my socks away that fall and winter. Couple of my toes never recovered from the frostbite.”

It felt like the bottom had dropped out of my belly. “We were friends! Why didn’t you tell me?” The Mrs. Richardson I’d met mostly yelled a lot. Vile things, usually variants of “dumbass.” And she’d refused to give permission for Pete to go on any school trips.

“I’d only just met you. It started happening in summer, when you were away at camp. And anyway, it didn’t last long.”

“Lasted long enough for you to get frostbite that winter.”

He shrugged. “What good would telling you have done?”

“We could have told my folks, or the school! Someone would have gotten you out of there!” I was nearly shouting. People near us glanced at us then looked away.

“You’ve never been a foster kid. More likely, no one would have believed us and the investigation would just have made her hate me even more.”

All that time, he’d been suffering. And all this time, he’d kept his secret from me.

“She was careful to only hit me in places the bruises wouldn’t be seen.”

“Jesus.” I sucked back more of my drink and waited for him to continue. But he stayed silent. I prompted him: “What made her get nicer? Or at least, made her stop physically hurting you?”

“I’ve told you about my dad, right?”

Clearly he needed to change the subject. “Yeah, a bit.” Pete’s dad had raised him alone. Got hit by a car and killed when Pete was thirteen. That’s how Pete had ended up in foster care.

“Dad used to let me read Alice in Wonderland to him. He took me fishing, worked on my science fair projects with me. He never raised a hand to me.

“I saw the accident, rode with Dad in the ambulance. He was bleeding, semi-conscious, but he held my hand till he couldn’t any more. He kept saying, ‘I’ll come back to you, Petey. I have to look after you.’ And then of course he didn’t come back. He died. And I was sent to Mrs. Richardson.” Pete clamped his hands around his drink. They were trembling a little. I wondered whether he’d even told Iqbal about Mrs. Richardson.

My drink had gone right through me, and I desperately needed to pee. I knew from past experience this place had segregated washrooms. That’s why—or one of the reasons why—I’d stopped coming to this bar. I crossed my legs and leaned forward in my chair, as Pete clearly had more to say about that bloody bitch.

“One day, she was hitting me—on my legs—and I was trying to act like it wasn’t hurting. She was pissed because of some damned thing she thought I’d done, I don’t even remember what. I do remember I was trying to tell her that I hadn’t done it, and she was shouting, ‘Children should be seen and not heard!’”

I stared at Pete, my mouth open in shock.

“Suddenly she stopped mid-swing, with her hand pulled up, like someone had grabbed her by the wrist. She opened her eyes wide and said, ‘Petey.’ And . . . she stopped hitting me. She dropped to her knees to look at the bruises that were coming up on my thighs. And then she said the strangest thing.”

“What?” I was trying hard to forget my twinging bladder. One of the two TERFy dykes had just gone to the washroom. The other was watching me, her lip curled in disgust.

“She said, ‘What did she do to you?’ You know, talking about herself in the third person? Then she went to hug me! That freaked me the fuck out. I pushed her away. She stood up, looked confused. She asked me where the kitchen was.”

“In her own house? Was she having a stroke, or something?”

“Yeah, maybe. Iqbal was confused too, when he had his first stroke . . .”

“Hey,” I said, “Do you want to get out of here, just go home? Or come back to our place? We have a guest room, you could spend the night.”

But Pete was looking off into the memory distance. He continued, “I pointed to where the kitchen was. She came back with cold water and paper towel. She dabbed my bruises and said she was sorry, that it was such a long way back and she’d brought the water as quickly as she could.”

“Bitch was seriously crazy.”

Pete had the waiter bring us refills. I hoped I could hold my water. In a pinch, I could dash back home, use the toilet there, be back in twenty, thirty minutes tops, and not risk being attacked for the unforgiveable crime of peeing in a public toilet.

“After that,” said Pete, “I never knew whether I was going to get evil Mrs. Richardson or good Mrs. Richardson. It messed with my head. Sometimes she’d just sit in her armchair in front of the TV and mutter, like she was arguing with herself. And sometimes she’d just look scared out of her wits. I was so glad when I was legal to leave.”

I smiled. “I was bigtime envious of you, getting to be on your own when you were sixteen.”

“You were an idiot, then.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“That was no picnic, either.” He sipped his drink, then looked up. “I just remembered something. The day I left, I was just heading out the door when she put her hand on my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She said, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t look after you the whole time. It’s such a long way round.’ Then her hand fell away, and her face just changed. She stepped back. She watched me leave, and the look on her face was the most hatred I’ve ever had directed at me. And that’s saying something. I scrambled down the driveway like the Devil was at my heels.”

I shuddered. “Did you ever see her again?”

“Not her, no. Heard she’d jumped in front of a car, or something. Didn’t care.”

“Pete,” I said gently, “You were telling me about Iqbal?”

He stared into his glass, spoke with his head still down. “We used to fight. Like, knockdown fistfights.”

“Oh, no.”

“’Fraid so. Blood was shed, there were trips to Emergency, the police were called.”

“Police? To a fight between two brown men?”

“Yeah. It’s a miracle we survived.”

When one lives in a world in which large portions of it want one dead, every minute is a triumph, every breath a defiance, and, if one’s jib is cut that way, every statement a manifesto. The everyday vagaries of life and love are just writ that much larger, because they mean that much more. The game of “he said/he said” is raised to a level of artistry rivalled only by the sport of kings. Every breakup is forever, because love may never find one ever again. Every new lover becomes one’s whole life, because one is stealing love from the jaws of hatred. What t-shirt to wear with the perfect jeans to go clubbing is almost as brutally important as what words to write on one’s placard to attend that demonstration against legalizing faith-based homophobia. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It stopped, all the violence between us. One day, Iqbal took his hands from around my throat—”

“Pete!”

“—and he looked at his hands as though he’d never seen them before. He said, ‘No more. I’m not going to fight you anymore.’ I mean, it didn’t end right away. For one thing, I wasn’t ready to stop. Didn’t know how, really. But Iqbal really meant it. He’d changed. Eventually he got me to go to counselling with him. And bit by bit, we figured shit out. Figured out how to be good to each other.” Pete sobbed, once, so loudly that people three tables over stopped to look our way. “God, Sally, I miss him so much.”

“I know, honey.” I took his hand in mine. He jumped at my touch. I tried not to feel hurt.

“You know the last thing he said to me?”

I shook my head.

“He said, “I found my way home to you, Petey. I looked after you. I got better at it, so that I could be with you all the time.” He went unconscious after that, and was gone by the next morning.”

“He loved you very much. That wasn’t strange at all.”

He nodded absently, then pulled his hand away to pick his glass up. He had a sip. “Okay,” he said. “I suppose. But here’s the thing; only my dad ever called me Petey.”

I tried to concentrate through the yammering of my bladder. “No, that’s not right. Didn’t you say that Mrs. Richardson did?”

“Once. The day she stopped hitting me.”

“And Iqbal?”

“Once. The last time he was conscious.” Pete’s hands started shaking so badly that he had to set the glass down. He put his hands in his lap. “So what I’m really asking myself is: who was I married to all those years?”

Something squirmed in the pit of my belly. How could he even think—? “Pete . . .” I whispered.

He jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry, Sal. It’s just been so hard the last couple of days. Losing Iqbal, the funeral, all those people to be polite to while . . .” He stopped, his face pulled into the lineaments of grief. “My head’s just been full of all these weird thoughts.”

“I understand,” I murmured. But I didn’t. “You need to be gentle with yourself this next little while.”

“Let me get the check.” He put some bills on the table.

“Okay, thanks, but first I just need to . . .” I stood, clamping down hard on my aching bladder. Another reason to be thankful I’d diligently done all those post-surgery kegels.

Pete sighed, as one does when one is about to say something difficult for others to hear. “It’s just that . . . well, Mrs. Richardson, Iqbal; people around me keep turning into someone else. You used to be Jack; now you’re Sally.”

The cold burn of betrayal and erasure was just about to tsunami over me, scouring me from skin to bone, when he got a strange look in his eye. In a clear voice, he said, “But Jack is just what people called you. I finally figured it out. You were always Sally. You have always been exactly who you are right now.”

I can be an emo bitch sometimes. When I started weeping, he pulled me into his arms. “Sally, I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick.” For the first time in years, my friend and I held each other like the close companions we used to be.

And then I really, really had to go. I waited, hot-footing, till I was as sure as I could be that there was no one in the Women’s. Pete stood outside the door painted with the stick figure lady in a triangle skirt until I exited safely. He walked me home, hugged me again on the street outside my apartment building. I told him I’d check in on him tomorrow, waved goodbye as he headed off in the direction of the subway station.

Age and a track record of survival can bring poise to a life lived cheek by jowl with the possibility of danger. You might say that one’s trigger becomes less hairy. Nevertheless, one is always watchful for that slight shift, the moment when a situation turns.

That new look in Pete’s eye, the complete change of demeanour. And wasn’t that the first time, he’d called me Sally? Not Jack-er-Sal. Not Sal. Sally.

In the long elevator ride up to my twenty-first floor apartment, I tried not to ask myself whether Pete’s sudden change of heart had been all him. As I kissed my sleeping husband and got ready for bed, I tried not to feel guilty that I didn’t care who had been behind Pete’s eyes. Whoever it was, they were my friend.

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Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson lives in a home filled with books, art supplies, tools, art projects at various stages of unfinished, more books, and brown-skinned mermaids. She has aches, pains, chronic fatigue, and a quirky brain. She has far too much to do, and nowhere near enough time to marathon watch annoying but addictive science fiction TV. She loves dance. She’s working on a novel about a monster carried by a girl who turns into a woman. The girl does, not the monster. She cooks great food (mostly) and mismanages her schedule. She doesn’t answer her phone or check her voice mail messages.

[marigoldtears]

For the prompts thing “fuck off. i mean it.” w Cib/Steven?

“Steven. Steven. Steve Steve Steve Steve.”

Steven felt his eye twitch, but he stared resolutely at his computer screen, not wanting to give Cib the satisfaction of having drawn his full attention. “What,” he said, jaw tight as he continued clicking through floor plans of various banks nearby.

“Steve,” Cib groaned, drawing out the vowels from where he lay on the floor, back flat on the ground, starfished out like he was making a snow angel. “Dude, I’m so bored.”

“Well,” Steven said, hand clenching around the computer mouse, “there’re easily about eighteen things you could be doing right now that would be helpful and productive. But, twenty minutes ago you told me they were ‘fuckin’ stupid’ and that you ‘just wanted to shoot things,’ and now here we are.”

Steven heard Cib shuffle around on the floor, and a sigh sounded from the floor. “Well, in my humble defensive, they are stupid,” Cib said, in his nasally impersonation of a smart person that made Steven want to bang his head against broken glass.

Spinning his office chair in a one-eighty, Steven finally turned to face Cib. The man in question had sat up from the floor, now in a criss-cross position, hands flat against the hardwood floor of their office. His hair was mussed, his headband off-kilter, and his eyes wide.

“Steven,” Cib repeated, “all of this planning is a waste of our precious time. I wanna run willy-nilly-pilly into a random bank and shoot the shit out of the teller. Bathe in the blood of our newfound enemies. Y’know,” Cib placed a warm hand on Steven’s knee, a cagey grin on his face, “like old times.” Cib’s hand gently squeezed and something in Steven’s stomach jumped up before he could clamp it down.

“Yuck,” Steven said, voice flat, “never touch me.” He reached down and encircled Cib’s wrist with his hand, moving it off of his knee and pretending like the warmth of Cib’s skin didn’t leave a comforting heat on Steven’s cold fingers. Because it didn’t. And even if it did, Steven definitely wouldn’t have noticed.

Cib gave an aggressive pout, lips tilted so far down that it verged on a grimace- which Steven ignored, of course. It didn’t affect him in the slightest. Of course.

Fuckin’ Cib.

“And also,” Steven said, remembering the reason he was having a conversation with Cib in the first place, “we can’t run into a bank blind because you know we don’t work like that anymore.”

“Don’t work like what, with violence?” Cib frowned, sitting up taller, a hint of actual irritation showing in his furrowed brows. “Are we even a gang? Or are we just… crime planners? Crotch planners. Cream platters.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steven said, turning back to his computer in an attempt to end the conversation. “Of course we’re still criminals, idiot, we’re just trying to be… careful ones.”

“Steven,” Cib said, voice wounded in a way that would have run a chill up Steven’s spine, you know, if he gave a shit. “I wanna rob a bank now. I wanna do reckless shit and-”

“Fuck off. I mean it,” Steven said, turning once more to Cib, and he knew his voice sounded harsh, harsher than he meant it to. He took a deep breath, and his hands clenched around the arms of his office chair. “We’re being safe, right now. All of us. No more reckless shit.”

Cib had stopped shifting around on the ground, the room was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioning, and Steven knew that he had given too much away.

Exhaling softly, Steven slid his fingers under his glasses and pressed them over his closed eyes as if trying to rub something away. When he opened them up again he jumped back. Cib was still on the floor, but close, much closer than Steven remembered- right in front of him, actually.

“Oh, shit,” Steven said, hands reaching to the sides of his chair once more. He ignored the shake in them. It wasn’t important.

Cib’s face wasn’t blank so much as carefully neutral, eyebrows raised slightly as he stared at Steven. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” He said, slowly, and Steven’s heart pounded loudly in his chest.

“What wasn’t my fault?” Steven asked, but it didn’t sound like a question, and Steven knew it was because he knew the answer. Knew the answer was the drinking and the car ride and the lack of a gun and the crack of a skull on unforgiving concrete-

“Y’know. Parker,” Cib said, his voice solid, and Steven pretended not to feel the anxious jump of his pulse and his heartbeat in his lungs because he didn’t feel it in the first place.

Steven cleared his throat, a wetness in it that wasn’t there before. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I know,” he lied. He knew, inherently, that it was his fault- Parker, and everything that happened afterward. Of course it was, he was the leader, anything that went wrong was on him. Hearing Cib, though, and knowing that at least someone believed he wasn’t a complete fuck-up, well… it didn’t hurt.

Cib stared for a moment into Steven’s eyes, blue on brown, and even if Steven wanted to he couldn’t look away. He gulped, loud in his ears, and Cib’s eyes followed the motion of Steven’s adam’s apple.

He didn’t know if Cib found what he was looking for on Steven’s face but his own softened as he stood up from the ground, the tension that had built in the air dissipating like fog. Steven let out a sigh that he was sure Cib heard, but blessedly ignored.

Emotions were so annoying.

“I’m gonna run to get a pizza, for when the rest of the salt pines get back,” Cib said, sounding light, as if nothing had happened at all. He turned back to Steven. “Any topping requests? An-ko-vee, perhaps? Sugar-pine-apple?”

Steven took in the sight of Cib, his grin wide, eyes bright but knowing, shoulders relaxed, and felt himself breathe again. This was what Steven did best- pretend. He shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “Pineapple on pizza is a hate crime,” he said, “get literally anything else.”

Steven felt more than saw Cib laugh, and he was absolutely not comforted by the sound. Absolutely not.

“No pineapple,” Cib said, nodding, the corners of his eyes crinkling, “got it.”

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