#whats more to add another sin to a pile of forgotten ones :)

[blabberoo]

That fiddauthor animation will haunt me for the next few months...

[koulakoukoula2003]

How about Erwin x reader who happens to be the newly appointed deputy commander over the MPs. This time reader is the workaholic. After being introduced by Nile some years back she’s been more or less secretly dating Erwin for a bit. As much as he admires her hard work and desire to reform her branch for the better, daddy Erwin misses indulging in his favorite addiction…licking, tongue ducking or eating out reader while she rides his face.

I’m a fan of detailed/descriptive oral on the female receiving end or just female worship in general 😝 defs also love the idea of daddy Erwin still being dominant but I also feel like he’s the type that would like to dote on reader who isn’t helpless or dependent unless faced with her one weakness, daddy Erwin’s tongue.

That seemed oddly intimidating/embarrassing to write 🤣😅 but yeah there’s the idea. Daddy Erwin worships reader….and perhaps has a habit of giving into addiction often behind closed doors or right under everyone’s noses. I hope you like the idea! If not it’s all good 😌

OMG I LOVE this idea cuz imma agree with you, daddy Erwin would most definitely fall for someone who's like him -> hardworking and dominant and willing to put everything on the line for the betterment of the world.

I'm so sorry this took so long 😭 I'm on Easter break rn, so imma sin and write all the sinful things AHAHHA I have one more ask of yours and no worries I have not forgotten!

TW: SMUT BELOW, overstimulation, MDNI imma try to make the oral (f receiving) detailed as per requested, vaginal sex Pairing: Erwin x DeputyMPCommander!Reader Tagging: @hopeless-daydream3r @syrma-sensei @antoxsmith @macyomoiji @peachysunrize-deactivated202204 WHY DOES IT SAY DEACTIVATED HERE ARE WE LOSING ONE OF THE BEST SMUT WRITERS OR WHAT @killerbananas @slavanimesimp and whoever else wants to enter the taglist, lemme know in the comments!

You sighed heavily as you watched the younger cadets delivering you yet another pile of paperwork. They placed it on your desk and they saluted you before they exited your office.

So much bureaucracy, and for what? The Military Police was shitty anyway. All those kids that joined were from the rich families of Wall Sina. None of them was skilled and the ones who were, they were going to drop their skills in the trash because Wall Sina promised them a good life.

Your Regiment was shit and you knew it. You have always known and that's why you joined. You joined to make it better than it was, and you were so close. You had just been appointed deputy commander.

But just one person couldn't do much.

You sighed tiredly and stood off your chair. You had been sitting on your ass all day. You grabbed your green Military Police coat and put it on.

You hadn't seen Erwin in months. You just always tried to make sure he was alive after every expedition you went off to.

The Commander of the Scout Regiment - you admired him. The man had nerves of steel. Nile had introduced you two at an evening in the Royal Palace for the Annual Celebration of the King's Reign.

You had caught his eye right away. Someone actually trying to fix the MPs? You were one of a kind. He had offered you to join the Scouts instead. You really didn't belong with the MPs. He had seen you fight. You had potential.

You kindly, and regretfully declined. You had a goal - no matter how impossible it was, you wouldn't stop trying. But his offer was still on the table.

And as for you two? There was this relationship between you two that you had no idea what it was, you just knew it was addicting. You were each other's comfort. You would listen to him for hours and hours (the rare days you had time) talk about how disrupted everything was and you'd add to the discussion.

It helped nothing talking about it, you were both trying hard, and it felt good to have an understanding. It felt good to have someone who could understand and agree.

So you put on your coat and you made your way to the stables. You rode out to the Trost District, to the headquartered of the Survey Corps.

Upon entering the building, it was a mess. People talking and walking around and doing their chores and delivering papers to the officials.

Erwin was in the chaos, talking with Hange and Miche and another couple of his Section Commanders. His eyes fell on your figure as you stood in the midst of it all and he stopped talking.

"Deputy Commander (F/n) (L/n)," He said and you tucked your hands in the pockets of your coat.

"Don't mind me. Just passing by," You shrugged. "Thought I should wish you good luck for your upcoming Expedition,"

He knew exactly why you were there. "My office," He nodded at you. "Hange, I do not wish to be disturbed,"

"Y- Yeah- Y- Yes, sir!" Hange tried their best not to start snickering. They definitely knew about you two, didn't they?

Erwin escorted you to his office and once you were inside, he wasted no second. He pushed you against the closed door, and he kissed you.

He kissed you hard, and you wrapped your arms around his shoulders bringing him closer. He wrapped his arms around your waist and you could taste tea on his tongue and himself. You buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him down to you.

He pulled back, panting against your wet lips as he gripped your coat and tugged it off your shoulders.

"Missed you," You mumbled as he buried his face in your neck and tugged on your shirt. He wanted you to take everything off. "Whoah, hang on a sec-" You clenched a hand in his hair but he cut you.

"I want you to ride my face," He pulled back to look at you with hunger in his eyes and your eyes widened at his sudden request.

"Uh... well w- we'll get to that, if you first promise not to die in the next Expedition,"

He almost frowned. "You know I can't promise anything like that,"

You groaned. "I know but please, I can't be surrounded by idiots for the rest of my life,"

He chuckled. He cupped your cheek. "That will be an unavoidable problem," He grinned. "Enough talking," He picked you up as if you weighed nothing and he settled you on his shoulder, face dangling from his back. You laughed.

He placed you down on his bed and climbed on top of you. He kissed your lips while your hands worked on his shirt and his hands worked on your own.

You were naked and beneath him before you knew it. He was still wearing his pants and you whined as he didn't let you unclothe him further. He brought you to straddle his chest. Your wet heat just inches from his face and your cheeks grew a bright red. It wasn't the first time you were doing this, but he always tended to make things quite messy when you did that.

"Just let me know if you can't breathe, okay?"

"You're breathtaking, darling, I can never breathe when I'm around you,"

You laughed lightly at his cheesy little comment. He was such a dork. Always making the dorkiest compliments that a few decades back would have definitely worked in making a woman fall, but now they were just funny and traditional, but they never failed to make you blush.

"Aw, so sweet," You commented before shifting on top of him. He grabbed your buttcheeks in his large palms and he brought you on top of him. His tongue lashed out, flicking against your clit and you gasped.

Your toes curled and your pretty lips parted as he sucked your clit between his plump lips and his tongue began to explore your sweet hole. You were so wet already and your hips were twitching against his face. His nose grazed gently against your clit and his tongue thrust inside your sweet hole, lapping up your juices and rubbing against all the right spots.

You saw stars. You threw your head back and your body shook in his grasp. You almost shifted away from the excess pleasure he was putting on your body but his fingers tightened in the plush of your hips, your buttcheeks, your skin, locking you in place. Your pretty sounds were getting louder and louder. You riding his tongue, his nose rubbed against your clit and it made you see stars.

Your fingers clenched in his hair forcing his face deeper in your throbbing heat and the coil in your stomach threatened to snap.

"Fuck! E- D- Daddy, I'm... I'm gonna cum... I'm gonna cum, fuck..." You breathed out shakily and he landed a smack on your buttcheek that stung oh-so-deliciously, pushing you over the edge. "Fuck!"

You mewled and whimpered and his tongue lapped up your juices, before sucking your clit in his mouth, overstimulating you through your tense orgasm till you were shaking and you were shying away from him. His arms tightened around you and he kept you in place. His tongue thrust back in and you almost screamed.

"N- No! Fuck! Too much, daddy! Too much... please, please... I'm gonna... Ah-!"

He flipped you on your back and he was on top of you before you knew it. You watched him unbuckling his belt and finally releasing his hard cock from the confines of his pants. He grunted when he pressed the leaky tip to your wet warm hole and he slipped in.

You tensed at the sheer size that always split your body in two. This man was perfect in any way. Huge and sexy and always towering over you. He held so much power over everyone and everything.

He caught your lips in his own and he kissed you hard and sweet. You could taste yourself on his tongue as his cock all the way in, kissing your cervix with such ease. You gasped in his mouth and pulled from the kiss to let both of you pant.

"My good girl," He caught your hips, hooking them around his waist as he started to thrust slowly in and out. "Taking me so well," He groaned against your lips as he thrust back in.

"S' big daddy," You whined as he pulled out and pushed all the way back in. His balls pressing against your ass.

He chuckled. "Only the best for my spoiled girl," He brought his fingers past your lips and you started sucking on them obediently. "Now be a good girl and keep those sounds down for me. You don't want the entire HQ knowing how much of a pretty slut you are, do you?"

You shook your head dumbly. His fingers still in your mouth and his cock deep inside you. He pulled his fingers from your mouth and petted your hair.

"Good girl,"

He pulled back to sit on his knees, grabbing a hold of your hips and starting to thrust in and out hard and fast. You wailed and you threw your head back. Your body arched and your fingers fisted on the sheets. You were so pretty right there, getting wrecked, screaming over his fat cock that split you over and over. Beautiful breasts bouncing with every thrust and his hand settled between your legs, rubbing your aching clit.

You came almost instantly and he groaned at your walls fluttering around him, squeezing him tight. His cock coated in your clear wetness and he didn't stop. He fucked you through your orgasm and he kept on rubbing on your abused clit till you were shaking and trying to close your legs around him.

Your hand reached for his own, trying to stop him from rubbing on your raw nub "Please, daddy! S' too much... too much..."

He yanked your hand away. His hips, relentless. "Take it... take it,"

He grunted when he felt you cum around him again and he finally let up. He pulled out of you cumming all over your stomach. White-hot cum looked so beautiful on your heaving belly. He looked down at you. Always so pretty when absolutely wrecked.

"Good girl,"

[babayagakeanu]

How Will I Know? -part one

Pairing: Jethro Gibbs/reader 

Summary: in which the reader is hopelessly in love with her boss, who is completely oblivious.

Warnings: none for now

Word count: 1397

A/N: This is my first chapter fic/Gibbs fic ever so pls be nice 🥺

Your boss was known for his elusiveness to technology. He still didn’t know how to properly search the internet on his phone, nor send a comprehendible text. The team and you had teased him for months about his typo on “Caesar salad” in which he actually typed “sexual salad”. You all were confused as to how he managed to type that bad of a typo, but nevertheless, teasing ensued. Tony was doing the most of it while you and Kate were giggling into your paperwork. Gibbs had managed to crack a smile while also getting up to smack  Tony in the head. You were just finishing up the case that the team just solved, and you were looking forward to having a few drinks with your co-workers. You were going to Kate’s after you finished up at your desk to get ready with her before carpooling to the pub that McGee and Abby picked out. 

“Gibbs, are you coming to the pub with us?” Abby asked Gibbs, sitting down in McGee’s lap as he typed some things into the computer. Gibbs grunted, looking up from his papers, stopping to sip his coffee before answering. “Uh, yeah. Sure, why not?” Your stomach sank, knowing that Gibbs was going to be there tonight worried you. Now, you really had to figure out what to wear and how to style your hair. “I might even bring the red-head I met while on the job last week.” You couldn’t stand to hear another word of this so you moved from your desk, setting the file down on Gibbs’ desk, and walking out of the office without a word. Gibbs noticed this, and watched as you left, a pang leaving his gut feeling empty. 

Kate’s apartment was cute, decorated well and felt homey. You had entered with a large duffle bag stuffed with different outfit options and all the makeup you had. 

“Jeez, Y/n, are you going away for a week?” Kate snorts, leading you into the large bedroom in which you two would get ready in. “How are you feeling after today?” You sighed, knowing full well that she would bring what happened between you and Gibbs up when you were to get ready together. “I don’t really know, Kate. I’m disappointed because for once, I thought we were finally getting closer to each other. I mean, he told me about his first wife!”

“Wait! He did?” Kate’s eyes almost bulge out of her head and your response to her is nodding while finishing the final touch of your makeup. Gibbs had opened up to you about his first wife while out on lunch with you. Part of you hoped he was taking you on a date, but then he didn’t ride back home with you after, instead he hopped into a Mercedes with some red-headed chick and sped off. 

“Yep. Then he got up after we finished and left with some other girl.”

“Ouch, wrong move, Gibbs.” You nod, sighing as you looked down at her bed, her sheets forgotten under the mile-high pile of clothing. You opted for some bell bottoms that hugged your curves, and a tube top that tied at your waist and shined under the moonlight. You looked as good as you felt, and were ready to show up Gibbs female toy. You paired the looks with chunky earrings and heels and you and Kate called a cab to make your way to the pub, letting Dinozzo know in the process. 

——

“Gibbs!” Tony called out, watching as his boss lugged beers back to the table in preparation for the others to come. “Y/N and Kate are on their way here!” Gibbs nods and Tony doesn’t know if it’s nerves or Gibbs just hates going out, but he looked worried, like he was hoping for someone to be there. It wasn’t any longer than 10 minutes of awkward silence between Dinozzo and Gibbs before you guys showed up, ironically saving the day. You two looked around the room before you spotted Tony and Gibbs.

“Wow, Y/N looks sex-”

“Wanna finish that sentence, Dinozzo?” Gibbs shoots him a hard glare, a mechanism he can’t control all that well. Tony was right tho, you did look sexy. Your skin glowed even under the dim lighting of the bar and Gibbs eyes gave you an inspection as you walked to the table. He looked on as your hips swayed, your navel looking absolutely sinful. You reached the table and Gibbs cleared his throat, greeting the two of you with a small smirk and a nod. You were relieved to find that Gibbs’ lady friend was there, so you could get tipsy without being so uptight about her being in your general vicinity. You look at your beer, before shaking your head and returning it to the bartender, asking for something else.

“A glass of Bernheim. Neat.” You tell the bartender, and you feel a presence slide in next to you. Hoping it’s not some random, you look to your left to be meet with Gibbs. 

“Didn’t take you for a bourbon girl.” He notes, ordering himself a glass. 

“Correction, bourbon woman.” You point a finger at him, laughing as he rolls his eyes. “My mistake, y/n.” He adds, and there’s a subtle warmth to his tone, like your name was meant to roll off his tongue. There’s a moment of silence before you speak. “Where’s your little lady friend?” His head turns to you and you shrug. “I thought she was coming.” You sip your glass, eyes not moving to glance at him as you finish your sentence. There’s an edge to your voice, and you’re pretty sure Gibbs notices this, but he doesn’t seem to say anything. 

“I’m not seeing her anymore.” he says, signaling the bartender for another round, which you gladly accept, gulping down the amber liquid, not even realizing the agonizing burn in your throat. 

“Oh,” was all you said, and you were glad because while you knew she was Gibbs type, she was uptight and needy, as if she wasn’t her own person without Gibbs. You knew Gibbs’ type. Laidback, easy on the eyes, independent and strong. All things you knew you were yet he still never made a move, insert rule number twelve. 

———————————————————————————————————-

You were on your fourth bourbon and you were edging drunk, but still managed to have your coordination and your voice never slurred. Your arms brushed against Gibbs’ a little, and he got a hint of your perfume; smoky, with a singe of vanilla at the end. You smelled like a warm campfire, and God help him if he didn’t get a little stiff in his pants. 

You stared at him, looking deep into his steely blue eyes and you think back to all the missed lunch dates with him, the flirtatious glances and remarks, his hand brushing against your lower back as he passes you in the office, everything single thing he does, it bothers you because you can’t tell him how you feel because of that fucking rule #12. 

“You know, Gibbs...” You start, “I have to get something off my chest.”

His head turns to you, “Okay.” 

You took a deep breath, letting it out as you spoke. “For a while, I was quiet and apprehensive towards you. It wasn’t because I feared you, but because I respected your work ethic and your boundaries. It wasn’t until we started to go out to lunch together, talking about our daily lives and getting to know each other as more than boss and employee.” You look at him, and find him gazing intently at you. You clear your throat again. “I’m in love with you. All of you, Jethro. You make me feel things that I haven’t felt since my junior year in college. I know about rule number twelve, and if that’s something you can’t break, then consider me gone from this team and you won’t see me again.” A tear slips from your eye, and you quickly wipe it away. 

“How long have you felt this way?” he asks, and you knew you were screwed once you tell him. You were silent, but begrudgingly answer. “Ever since I joined.”

It’s painfully silent, you could hear a pin drop. Your heart breaks when Gibbs gets up from the table, and leaves you to sulk in your bourbon.

[the-fae-folk]

How to Build a World?

Some time ago, I answered a writing question as Quoth the Raven that dealt with how to go about Worldbuilding for your story (Found Here). I’ve now rewritten the piece because I was struck with inspiration for a much more poetic form. I rather like it this way... ______________________________________________________________ Every story has to start somewhere. Some start with an endless void, a dark abyss where spirits drift over the waters, an egg which has not yet hatched to reveal the universe contained within. But in my opinion the best beginnings are found on a blank page.

Sing an ode to the whiteness of a screen, to the sterile form of an unfilled notebook amidst a pile of notebooks you keep buying but never write in. I call upon thee, oh Muses, let the divine speak into the shadows and let there be light. Fountains may spring up from the deeps and the oceans pay homage to the moon above. I am but a humble supplicant to the gods of paper and ink, where multiverses of verse and prose are crafted from words alone.

A world must be made through the number seven. Seven days, seven dwarfs, seven epochs, seven sins, seven virtues, seven founding principles of building a world.

The First is of Magic. All worlds begin with magic in a way. You can call it by any name you desire; Nature, physics, deity. First a word is spoken, a rule, a way of being. Whether the universe is filled with blinding empty light and shaded to sight by suns of shadow and fires that burn black enough to repel the light of night, or if the endless skies are oceans where planets drift in bubbles of air and stars keep the endless ice of the galactic abyss at bay with their warmth.

It is a question of how your world works, a list of rules that cannot be broken by even you as the rest of the pieces fall into place. A willing suspension of disbelief is a fragile thing. If it breaks, you are dashed to pieces beneath the weight of fallen expectations. A reader betrayed is rarely forgiving to those who have broken their own laws.

So write, write of the shifting of stars and the fundamental forces of love and duty. In your canon proclaim the laws of wind and gravity, atoms of justice, and the blessed radiation of whimsy and wonder.

But once you have finished, and the last law carved upon the last stone atop your own Sinai, you must heed them always. From gods to grains of sand on a distant shore, none can break these commandments.

When you speak a second time, it is of Place. Of mountains and mayhem, of vast oceans where secrets lie forgotten far beneath the waves.

Reach out your hand to carve canyons from the paragraphs on the page, riverbeds that flow swift and pure into great lakes and down into silent aquifers below the very earth itself. Whether one sun, or seven, or none at all, this world must be made known through careful descriptions and prose.

And as long as it does not contradict your rules, you can have islands that fly through the skies, glass rain, giant geodic structures that have never seen the light of a single day. What of glaciers that chill the whole land into an ice age? Or a supervolcano that belches molten glass from its summit?

Then, as your world is forming, think on the third principle of building a world. Life.

Deep down in the depths of the darkest seas you might form creatures so alien they defy the very mind, drifting on currents and living without sun or sky, only in eternal shadow and crushing pressure. Or you may begin on land instead, with green skinned goblin-like folk who live among the trees and speak in song and melody as they hunt the fire breathing dragonflies. Perhaps even the sky might be your dominion. Pods of whales that swim among the clouds, blowing geysers of wind high into the abyss of blue and white that turns to stars at the highest heights.

Each living thing lies in connection with one another. Eating, growing, changing, moving. Flowers make bioluminescence in forever darkened woods and caverns. Gas filled balloon-like pods could carry creatures high into the sky with them, letting them escape from predators.

Here and now your pen is the fountain that begets creation, your mind is the tree from which all life springs. This world is your garden to cultivate, your Eden cradled between life giving rivers.

Wherever you touch there will be life. In the most scorching of deserts, in the deepest caves and wells, in the furthest canyons, upon the coldest glaciers. And as long as you remain true to your rules of reality, your world can take even the most whimsical of forms. Trees whose roots tangle among the clouds and whose boughs hang down towards the distant earth below, people who can see colors that neither you nor I have ever heard of. Each new thing makes your world more complex, more real, more connected.

Perhaps you know what comes next? In truth it has already begun, for your fourth is of Cognition.

It may be that somewhere in your world there is a creature or plant, perhaps many, or even all, who have tasted that forbidden fruit and became more than they were, became aware that their eyes had been closed and for the first time knew that they could open them and look.

What might it be like? To look out at the world and for the first time see it anew? Before there was survival and safety, food and mating. There was no time for beauty, no time for dreaming, no time for such things when every moment was needed. Yet at some point, there was time, and someone stopped to look. And everything changed.

Most creators prefer the humanoid form when building cognizant peoples, though not all, some few might choose different shapes. Plant, reptile, insect, or even stranger forms the likes of which might not be found here in our world, but only in that world of their making.

But the shape isn’t the important thing. No, what is vitally important is the manner of cognizance. How is it that your people understand the world? What are they aware of? What things can they hear? Or touch? Taste? See? Smell? Or perhaps they have senses that can only be described in roundabout ways to readers who will never entirely understand what it is to perceive in such ways, like blind men who try to know what it is like to see.

Now it is time at last for your fifth. This is the culmination of all things thus far, the laws of reality, the geography, the life, the cognizant peoples… Your fifth is Culture.

Peoples gather together. They make laws to protect or to divide, to ensure and ensnare. They farm or hunt for food, creating new ways with new generations. And best of all they tell stories. Oh those stories. These are the things of which culture is made. Stories that are woven into tapestries or painted into murals, songs are composed to evoke the emotions of such stories, even food is cooked to be eaten as the stories are told.

But there are other things which can affect your peoples and persons. Where do they get their clothing? Animal hides or plant fibers? Perhaps wool or cotton? And how is it obtained? Technology? Magic? Labor? Do the people even wear clothing at all? For some might not find it necessary if they are perfect for the place they dwell in their world.

What foods can they eat? Would you or I even recognize it? Let alone be able to digest it without agonizing pains in our stomachs? A fruit that glows might transfer its glow to those who eat it, giving them light to see in the dark and energy to live another day. Certain beasts are only slaughtered on certain days of the star calendars, for festivals and holy feast days, for ceremonial reasons and never secular ones.

Here is the most dangerous part in your journey, for the building of culture can become a mire or a maze, a labyrinthine pit from whence you can never escape no matter how much you build. Every detail begets another, and cultures are more than any one person can make. World Builder though you are, you still have limitations of your own.

So you look to the sixth, which is history. From whence did they come? And where do their journeys go? And of course, what happened at every step in between? Kings and emperors to the feuds of petty farmers. Did the dragons lay claim to the seven clawed mountains in the forty ninth century or did the Arch Astronomer falsely claim they did so that he might turn his people’s thoughts to southern trade?

Culture takes time to move and once it begins it will not stop. From the grand world point of view to the shortsightedness of individuals, each and every step will be important. Religions and wars, cataclysmic events, heroes, and even plagues. Everything that arises when you add time to the world you have created is history. The world is a living breathing thing that will move on its own if you let it.

The seventh day arrives. Some deities might rest, seeing that all is good. But not you, for your world is made in slavish worship to the Story. A world built so that it might contain, for good or ill, a tale of your telling.

So write, prideful one. Your hubris has driven you to follow in the footsteps of the gods themselves, building a world where before was nothing. It is time to look closer, to follow a single strand of thread in this tapestry you have woven from dreams and shadows.

Now that you have crafted for us an entire world, tell us your tale. We are listening.

[pollylynn]

Title: False Witness WC: 1600 Episode: A Deadly Game (2 x 24)

She doesn’t know why she lies to him. There’s no reason for her to lie to him. So she tells herself it’s not actually a lie, because he’s not actually serious when he asks her right there in the cafe if she’ll come away with him for the long weekend. He’s not serious then any more than he’d been serious with his attempt to lure her into skinny dipping, or when he dropped a side of not-so-humble brag about his ocean view right there with her coffee. Friendly? No funny stuff? That’s Richard Castle at his least serious. It’s Richard Castle weaving a tale, so she weaves one right back—she has to work, she’s used up her vacation days, because—hello?—her apartment blew up, remember?

It’s not convincing—neither the clumsy lie itself nor the supposed motive behind it is at all convincing. She wasn’t weaving a tale. She didn’t need to weave a tale. Her telling him to mind his own business ranks number two, just behind her threatening his life, in the list of their top ten most frequent interactions over the last fourteen months. So why does she lie?

It might be that she thinks he’s serious. It might be that the actual lie—or the first one, anyway—is that she doesn’t believe he is. In the park, she’d been quick to roll her eyes. She’d been quick with the counter-attack about his desperate attempts to see her in a swimsuit, and when they had aimed their secret smiles off in opposite directions, she’d found it imperative that she believe he wasn’t serious. Because she wants to believe that the sudden invitation and its attendant back-and-forth are just part of . . . a return to what’s normal for them.

Things have been strange lately. They’ve been strange since Tom—strange since Madison, and Ellie Monroe before that. Her mind hastens to add those two names. It’s quick to spin the the strangeness as a two-way street, but it’s possible that’s another lie. It’s possible that without taking all of the blame for some pretty damned mutual sins of stupidity between them, she can admit that the lingering strangeness—the here-to-stay strangeness—is about Tom. It’s about the fact that he—Castle—has been serious about a great many things since Detective Demming appeared on the scene. It’s possible that the Hamptons invitation is just the latest in a series of things he’s serious about.

And it’s possible that she’s chosen to ignore all of that, but why? Here, she finds herself wading deep into lies of omission—the lies she hasn’t bothered to tell because she has been so been so pointedly not noticing the things they prop up, the things she needs to believe and disbelieve simply to stay sane.

She doesn’t believe he’s serious about much of anything, for example. She could say that’s always been true, and it has, and it hasn’t, and always doesn’t matter here. What matters is how invested she has been lately in the idea that he’s not serious about much of anything.

It’s an idea that lets her dismiss him. It’s an idea that assures her that he’ll get over whatever kind of jealousy it is that he’s feeling over Demming. It lets her believe that the strangeness will pass, and they’ll get back to normal-for-them. They’ll argue. They’ll push each other to excel, to think in new ways, to come at obstacles from creative angles that get the job done. They’ll flirt and drive each other mad. They’ll get shockingly earnest with one another, shockingly confessional. They will lean on one another for all sorts of things.

The idea that he’s not serious about much of anything lets her ignore what all of that—what normal-for-them—means in light of the fact that she is with Tom. It gives her permission to never actually come out and say that she is with Tom, because if he’s not serious, it’s none of his business. If he’s not serious, it doesn’t matter if she lies. It doesn’t matter if she weaves a lame and clumsy tale, rather than submit to his endless, insincere badgering.

He is serious, though. That becomes painfully, abundantly clear to her in the exact moment that she’s caught. Tom is there, as he has every reason to be. Castle is there, as he reliably is, as she devoutly wishes he weren’t right now. They are there, all three of them, and she is caught in the lie she didn’t have to tell—the lie she still doesn’t understand why she told.

It’s in that precise moment that she knows that he was seriously asking. She knows that she knew he was seriously asking, and she knows that she had wanted him to be seriously asking. And she knows that her tip-of-the-tongue answer was Yeah . . .

She had forgotten about Tom in that heart-fluttering, skin-tingling moment where he had asked—seriously asked—and she had answered—seriously answered. This is another thing she suddenly, unequivocally knows for a fact: She had not just forgotten that her holiday weekend calendar was already full, that she was booked for her first out-of-town getaway with the great guy she’s been seeing. She had forgotten about Tom entirely.

And she’d panicked.

And she’d lied.

********************

She’s not done lying. Even though she’s caught, she’s not nearly finished.

She tells herself she’s relieved that he’s going—that he’ll take with him all the strange tension of late and that’s for the best. It’s painful. She lets herself feel that. She lets herself admit that there’s pain in the prospect of a summer without him all on it its own, and there’s an unwelcome resonance with the summer before, a still-sore place that makes itself known at the thought of him leaving again.

But she weighs that against the constant push-and-pull with him, the hurt, heavy looks, every time he spies Tom at the cappuccino machine or sees him helping her on with her coat as the two of them knock off for the night, the way people who are together do. She decides that a break is just the thing—that she’ll recalibrate while he’s gone. She’ll remember where all the necessary boundaries were and they’ll get back to a normal-for-them that’s not quite so bizarre sitting alongside the fact that she’s with Tom.

She tells herself it’s all for the best, but it’s a lie built upon a lie built upon a lie.

He’s not coming back. He has no intention of coming back, because he was serious about her. He was serious about them, and that’s certainly not an all along thing. When Esposito takes an Agony Aunt turn and shines a light on the fact that he is not coming back, she does a rapid-fire evaluation of the last fourteen months, and when she arrives at the conclusion that he has not been serious all along, he’s been serious lately, it feels like a tiny flicker of truth.

She’s not happy with it, that wavering little light. She wants to lash out at Esposito and ask what the hell he thinks he’s doing. She wants to snap that it’s none of his business, that she’s not responsible for whatever the hell might or might motivate Richard Castle to stick around, and by the way, isn’t he supposed to be Some Other Guy’s friend? She wants to snuff out that tiny flicker of truth.

It won’t be extinguished, though. It throws everything into shadow and she doesn’t know what’s true and what isn’t. She passes an uneasy night alone. She shares a cab with Tom and begs off what’s become their usual evening oof doing nothing much. She passes an uneasy night knowing she’d thrown another lie on the pile when Tom had asked if anything was wrong.

Morning comes and that tiny flicker of truth sheds no light at all on anything when he arrives with one lonely coffee in hand. That tiny flicker won’t reveal whether he’s being a petty little shit and punishing her or if he’s respecting the boundaries he only knows about because she got caught in her lie. It won’t tell her if their whole conversation about the game and losing sight of what really matters is as riddled with subtext as she thinks it is—as she thinks she wants it to be.

But it gets help. It gets a sudden breath of oxygen when the Captain, in passing, shakes his head at the tragedy of a lie born of fear. The tiny flicker burns bright long enough for her to see by its light what it is she is looking for, what it is she is not.

It burns bright long enough for her to tell one painful truth—that it is nothing Tom said or did, that there is nothing he could have said or done to change the course of this.

But it doesn’t last. It doesn’t carry her through the terrifying, exhilarating second truth—that she doesn’t know half the time what either of them is serious about, but she wants to know. She wants to find out.

The tiny light flickers and sputters. It goes out. He leaves, ex-wife on his arm, and she tells herself she knew he would. She fucking knew it.

It’s a lie built on a lie built on a lie. And she doesn’t know how long she can go on telling it.

A/N: Lies are totally without morphousness; lies that we tell without knowing why? That's like . . . .negative morphousness

images via homeofthenutty

[elai-okonma]

Chapter 8. What’s Done Is Done

To the few people who still give a shit about my story, I just wanted to say thank you so much! 

Word count: 1,933

Devildom

  Lucifer combs his fingers through his hair and sighs. He hadn’t been able to find out where Satan had gone to. It’d been days but he hadn't stopped his search for his brother, even though he kept coming up empty handed. Today he had a plan that would hopefully get him the whereabouts of the Avatar of Wrath. 

  As he stands up from his chair the doorbell rings. Ah, they’re finally here. 

  Luci opens the door and Lord Diavolo steps in, with Barbatos right behind him. 

  “My Lord, Barbatos, thank you so much for coming.’

  “Of course”, the Demon Lord responds, and Barbatos gives a small smile.

  “My apologies for bothering you and Barb, I know how busy you both are.”   

  “Nonsense! This is important to you, and after what you told me about what Beelzebub had been doing for his brothers, I couldn’t deny you this request.” Diavolo puts a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder and gives him a genuine smile. 

  “Still, thank you. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you, and you as well, Barbatos.”

  The butler nods and also smiles at Luci. He was more than willing to help out, anything to get the brothers and his Lord back to some type of normalcy. With Beel doing what he did for Mammon, he could easily notice the change of energy in the house. It was still a house filled with mourning Demons, but now at least the air was much lighter. The brothers were really trying and Barb couldn’t ask for more.

  The three men were headed for Lucifer’s study to start their search when they see Leviathan running up to them. 

  “I JUST GOT BEELZ NOTE, IS IT TRUE ABOUT MAMMON?!” the otaku looked mortified.

  Lucifer speaks up and confirms the answer to his brother's question. “It is. He already talked with Amso about it, and we’re trying to find Satan so that we can also let him know.”

  Levi balls his fists, and nods. He couldn’t believe what he had read, and to hear Luci confirm it broke his heart. He felt like garbage, how could he have let this happen?? Of course all the brothers weren’t all that close, but they could always talk about what really mattered. 

  “I’m going to see Mammon, but I’ll come back and help you in any way I can!” He says as he runs off toward Mammon’s room.

_______________________________________________________

  Mammon is sitting on his bed listening to Asmo talk to him about nothing in particular when Levi bursts in.

  “Mammon!” 

  “Levi--?!” He’s cut off when his brother hugs him tight. 

  “O-oi?! What’s wrong??”

  “What’s wrong?? WHAT’S WRONG?! I SHOULD FUCKING SLAP YOU!”

  Asmodeus’ hand flies up to his mouth at his brother’s vulgar language. Levi wasn’t the type to swear. Levi speaks softly as he drops his head:

  “Why would you do that...why would you want to leave us...MC being gone is already too much...we...I can’t lose you, too…”

  Mammon looks to Asmo, who looks away teary eyed. Talking about this again is making him emotional. It was still so fresh in everyone’s minds. He takes a deep breath and gets up from the bed, pacing around the room, he hears the door creak open. They all look over to see Beel.

  “I saw Levi run in here, and I had to see for myself, to make sure I wasn’t seeing things!”

  Beelzebub runs to them, pulling both of the smaller brothers into a hug. He looks over at Asmodeus and reaches out to him. 

  Asmo sucks in a breath, wiping the tear that fell from his eye, and runs to his brothers. When was the last time we were like this?? Before the Fall?? When things were simple and life wasn’t cruel… They’re all crying now, a pile of weeping Demons all thinking the same thing: how much they truly love each other. 

________________________________________________

  Back in Lucifer’s study, they were thinking of places that Satan would have gone. It wouldn’t be in an obvious place like a library, Satan was devastated by your passing and was following his wrath blindly. The three had every map of the Devildom opened as they were looking for any places that might be a suitable hiding place for a Demon in mourning. Woodlands, forests, deserts, anyplace they could think of. A secluded place from this world was easy to find, considering the Devildom was endless. Hell, they didn’t even know if Satan was even still in the Devildom. With his endless knowledge and power, he could’ve opened portals. He could possibly be in an entirely different world or dimension, for all they knew!  

  “We have to be missing something… where could he have gone??” says Lucifer.

  “Satan is smart, he wouldn’t be someplace he could easily be found.” replies Diavolo.

  Barbatos speaks up now, “We have to remember the state of mind he’s in. Heartbreak, fury, hatred, disgust, and every other negative feeling that’s consumed him, driving him.” 

  Leviathan walks in, disrupting their thoughts. Luci looks up and sees Levi along with his other brothers. 

  “I brought back up!” the otaku beams. 

  “The more help we have, the better chance we have of finding Satan!” Asmo chimes in. “With that being said, I’ve called Simeon, and Solomon.”

  Lucifer was about to scold his brother for getting those two involved, but he knows that finding Satan is more important than letting his pride get in the way. With his brothers and close friends helping to look for Satan, he feels happy for the first time since MC’s death. His thoughts quickly flash to Belphegor, none of them had seen the youngest brother since that day, Lord Diavolo had made sure of that. The eldest brother decides to speak up:

  “My Lord, what...what has become of Belphegor??”

  The room becomes eerily still at the name. Some of them look to Beelzeub, the others look to Lucifer, wide eyes darting back and forth like they were watching a tennis match. No one dare say anything, as they all hold their breaths. 

  “I would also like to know…” It was Beel who broke the silence. 

  With a heavy sigh, Diavolo puts one of the maps down and turns to the brothers. 

  “Are you sure you really want to know??” He’s addressing all the brothers, but looking right at Beelzebub.

  “Yes…”

  Another sigh, followed by a deep breath as their Lord says:

  “I’ve exiled him from the Devildom.”

___________________________________________________________

  Satan had made himself at home in his newfound place. He knew his brothers were going to eventually get worried when he failed to return, but he didn’t want them in the way as his wrath consumed him. He had wandered around for a few days after your funeral, traversing between dimensions and other places. He tore through anything and everything in his path, taking his emotions out on anyone who was in his path. 

  FUCK YOU BELPHEGOR, FUCK YOU FOR TAKING MC AWAY FROM ME!!

  Just thinking about his name ignites the fire within him all over again. Honestly, what did you do to deserve what happened to you?? Did you care too much?? All you ever did was love them, was that a reason to die?? Even though you hadn’t been in our lives long, we all felt the same way about you...we loved you MC… 

  Maybe they should have shown it more, or at least told you more, about how they felt. About how he felt. You never judged him, or thought any less of him for any reason. You accepted him for who he was. A Demon, sin incarnate, a being who was never an Angel like his brothers. A creature born out of anger and hatred, and despite all of that, you looked at him like he was perfect. Like he wasn't a Demon at all. You respected, loved, and cared for him, and all of his brothers. 

  Whatever Belphie gets is too good for him. I want him to suffer, just as he made MC suffer. If I ever see him again, I’ll make sure of it. I’ll make him suffer a fate 1,000 times worse than what he made her suffer…

  Satan looks around the room he’s in. Don’t you worry MC, I’ll make sure you’re never forgotten. He walked over to the wall where he had stacked his books, and picked out the one he knew you loved. Walking back over to where he was seated, he begins to read it. It wasn't his type of book, but he knew it was one of your favorites. He almost never read books that weren’t informational, none of his books really have a storyline. This wasn’t a tome or a gremory, or some ancient text. It was just a simple novel. 

  After a few chapters, he sets the book down. I have a headache… I wonder if there’s any tea here. He gets up and heads to the kitchen. There wasn't much of anything in the kitchen when he arrived here, and considering Demons don’t particularly need to eat, he hadn’t bought any food. All of us except Beel… It must be horrible to have the only sin that can’t be helped... I can control my wrath. Lucifer his pride, and even Mammon with his greed, but Gluttony?? A hunger that was so much more than just hunger. An endless void, to which there was no satisfying. An appetite that could never be sated... I wonder if MC could stifle my brother's gluttony, just as she had stifled my wrath…

  He cut his thoughts off when he found the tea in the cupboard. Thinking about all of this was just going to make him upset again, and seeing as how he loved the place he was in, he didn’t want to get too emotional and accidentally destroy it. MC would be upset if I did that…

___________________________________________

  Back at the House of Lamentation, there were questions that needed answers.

  “What do you mean you exiled Belphie??”

  “I mean exactly that. After Barbatos finished preparing MC’s body for the funeral, I had him open a door to a past reality, in which to exile Belphegor.” Lord Diavolo explains.

  Barbatos adds on, “It was Lord Diavolo’s wish to have me send Belphegor to a specific timeline, where he would be forced to live in purgatory.”

  Everyone is looking at the butler and his master before Beelzebub asks:

  “...which timeline…”

  The others were also curious, because now, the look on Diavolos face is one you never want to see from the Demon Lord. It was beyond evil, a look that couldn’t be described with just words. 

  “Lord Diavolo! WHICH TIMELINE.” Beel repeats, eyes never leaving the man.

  Barb looks over to his Lord, who slowly but firmly answers the question.

  “The Great Celestial War...”

  Beel’s eyes widen with fear, “N-no...No you DIDN’T SEND HIM THERE!”

  Diavolo continues, “Belphegor will spend the rest of his eternity re-living the moment Lilith was-”

  “NO YOU DIDN’T SEND HIM THERE!!” Beel roared, shaking the house. His brothers had to grab a hold of him, to keep him from snapping. 

  “It is a punishment that suits him. I understand why you’re upset, and I’m sorry that I brought up Lilith’s death, but I’m not sorry for giving him what he deserves.” 

  It was then that Simeon and Solomon arrived, seeing the scene unfold in front of them. They weren’t sure what had happened or what was said, but what they did know, was that whatever was said, had stirred up something in Beelzebub that they’d never seen in any other Demon before. 

  Simeon’s ears perked up at something, as he looked up to the ceiling. This sound… 

  “Please excuse me.” the Angel says before bolting out of the house. 

[vannahfanfics]

May I please request a RokuNami fanfic where Roxas comforts Naminé after the events of KH3? I really love your writings, and I’ve been craving for some good RokuNami content for a while, so I’d take a chance and make this request. I know you’re busy with other stuff, so please don’t worry about how long it’ll take for you to finish it. 🥰

Thank you very much for your patience! ^u^ I hope this is to your liking. I’m not sure if you other other requests in queue right now, but if so, I’m going through them as fast as I can so stay tuned~

Existence

The emerald leaves quivered in the rolling breeze, filling the earthy air of the woods with the sound of their rattling rush. The gentle cacophony complimented the resonant birdsong echoing overhead. It was punctuated with the drumming of a woodpecker boring his nest into one of the sturdy oaks of the little forest. A pair of squirrels rummaged among the fallen acorns, stuffing them into their cheeks pouches until they bulged profusely. The rest they buried in a little pocket of soil, likely to be forgotten and give birth to an oak sapling in the coming summer. Naminé's blue eyes watched the small rodents closely, while her hand skated across the paper, penciling a rendition of the brown squirrels to life. 

The rustling of her pencil case startled them into the trees. They clawed up the trunk to vanish among the green leaves and peer down at Naminé with beady black eyes. Naminé chuckled at their skittishness and retrieved her green colored pencil to add more details to the grass, ferns, and trees in her drawing. Once she finished, she brushed away the eraser bits and pencil chunks and admired her handiwork. She had captured the little wood in everlasting purity, down to the pair of squirrels prancing about for their meal. 

The squirrels' tails twitched as a twig snapped, piercing the tranquil atmosphere like an arrow. Naminé peered around the girthy trunk of the tree amongst whose roots she lounged to sweep her gaze around the small wood. At first, she could see only mulberry bushes and thickets surrounding the dirt path, until a sprout of blonde hair appeared around the edge of a skinny birch. 

"Naminé?" Roxas called, cupping his hand to his mouth. His voice carried through the empty air to breach the corners of the forest. 

"Here!" she answered with a little wave. Roxas’ ocean-blue eyes landed upon her, and his lips curled upward into a small smile. Naminé immediately dropped hers to the ground as the clawed hand of guilt twisted her heart. He really shouldn't be smiling at me… she thought sadly. I'm mainly the reason he suffered so much and even… had to disappear. She reclined back against the sturdy oak, anxiety bubbling in her belly as his crunching footsteps grew ever closer. 

"Naminé?" His voice was soft and troubled. Naminé did not deserve his concern. Flushing with shame, she played with the corner of her notebook, thumbing the stack of pages. Her mouth twitched as Roxas squatted down beside her to inspect her latest creation. "You've gotten better," he remarked. She dared to peer through her peripheral vision at him and found him warmly admiring the artistry. "It almost seems like I'm looking at a photograph." This time, the exaggerated compliment made her blush. 

"It's not that good." 

"I certainly couldn't make something like this," he insisted with a loose gesture over the page. Despite herself, Naminé smiled. It was always nice to receive compliments on one's work. Yet… she thought uncomfortably as the doubt crept back into her mind. He shouldn't be so nice to me. He can't have forgotten what I did. "What's that funny look on your face for?" he asked and plopped down in the grass beside her. Naminé's cheeks brightened, and she resumed fiddling with her drawing notebook. 

"I-I thought you were with Hayner and the others playing Struggle?" she said, hoping the conversation would shift without much resistance. Roxas sneered and drew his knee up so he could lay his arm over it. 

"I was, but Hayner's a sore loser. I demolished him three sets in a row, so he decided to give up." Roxas' brazen confidence made her giggle a little. She could very much imagine competitive Hayner flinging the foam Struggle wand after suffering such a humiliating defeat. Roxas smiled brightly at her little chuckles. "Anyway, Olette suggested I come check on you. You've been out here a while."

"I suppose I just got side-tracked. There are a lot of good things to draw out here." Roxas raised an eyebrow and gestured at her drawing pad. She flushed fiercely, feeling somewhat self-conscious, but would not deny the boy his perusing pleasure. He slid the book from her lap and began to flip through her most recent drawings. A curious bluebird peeked up at them, seemingly disgruntled that its meal of an earthworm had been interrupted by watchful eyes. A cluster of slimy brown mushrooms crowned by three white-winged moths bunched among the roots of a tree. A mottled thrush struck a snail’s shell against a rugged round rock, hoping to crack it so it could feast on the gooey creature inside. A patch of dandelions swayed in the gentle breeze; a few of its delicate seeds floated on the wind to a new home.

“Wow,” he breathed in admiration. Roxas’ eyes absorbed every minute detail of the colored pages like he was attempting to glean some hidden meaning within the pencil wax. Naminé flushed and fidgeted beside him. She had never really let anyone pore over her drawings like this before; she wasn’t used to such a high level of praise. And on top of that, coming from Roxas… I am undeserving. “Naminé, these are really gre- Hey, why are crying?” he gasped, dropping the drawing pad.

Naminé had even realized that tears had sprung to the corners of her eyes. Looking away in embarrassment, she wiped them away with the knuckles of her index fingers. “Naminé? What’s wrong?” His tone of voice was just so kind, so pleading. Would he forgive her if she apologized? The weight of her sins was suffocating on her chest, making it feel like her lungs were gripped in a steel vise. Whimpering pitifully, she just inched away from him, hugging her knees to her body. Subconsciously, Naminé thought that if she squeezed herself tight enough, she would blot right out of existence- just like she had doomed him to be all that time ago. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Roxas raise a hand, hesitant to touch her.

“… I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.” Roxas’ fingertips brushed lightly over her elbow, sending electric sparks jumping through her nerves. Naminé twiddled her thumbs nervously and worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “… Is it me?” he asked suddenly. Naminé’s cheeks burned apple-red, ashamed that her actions would lead him to question himself. Hastily, she shook her head, making her platinum-blonde hair bounce around her shoulders.

“No! It’s me!” she corrected loudly. When she realized she had all but admitted the source of her anxiety, she flushed darker and fisted the soft fabric of her white dress. There was nothing for it now; she had to confess. “It’s me,” she repeated in a small voice. “I just can’t understand why you’re being nice to me.”

He blinked slowly.

“Um… Well, I don’t understand why you think I shouldn’t be nice to you.”

“Because it’s my fault!” she shouted, finally forcing herself to look him in the eyes. Roxas’ oceanic irises were swimming with confusion, which only served to frustrate her more. “It’s my fault you had to disappear.”

“Oh. That.” His tone was flat and unfeeling. He shifted, pressing his back against the trunk of the tree and parting his legs slightly to begin plucking up the grass blades between his thighs. He wound the thin green shoots between his fingers until he tore them asunder, making the tiny fibers snap one after another. He fiddled with the grass a long time, and soon a pile of destroyed grass blades piled up between them. She watched him anxiously, barely breathing, but had not the courage to probe his mind. “It certainly wasn’t how I wanted to end my summer vacation, even if it was entirely fictional,” he said with a wry, pained smile. Naminé’s fragile heart cracked, and a wave of sickening nausea rolled over her, making her press her arms around her belly. I knew it… He hates me… she thought with tears rolling down her cheeks.

“But I don’t blame you.” She gasped and looked at him incredulously to see him genuinely smiling. “You were a Nobody too, once. The fact that we shouldn’t really have existed in the first place was something we both had to come to terms with.” Naminé squirmed beside him. He wasn’t wrong.

Roxas frowned and tossed one of the shredded grass blades into the air, watching as the breeze caught it to carry it over to the squirrels, which had resumed their hunting among the acorns. His mouth twitched into a smirk. “Sure, you rewrote Sora’s memories, and they ended up bleeding into me, but it’s not like you knew that would happen. Regardless of anything you or I could have done, the result would’ve been the same,” he shrugged and rolled his head to look at her reassuringly. She leaned forward with a broken look.  

“I did everything I could. Riku and DiZ thought we were just Nobodies, but…” she clasped her hands over her heart and grimaced miserably. “I wished more than anything that you and I wouldn’t have to return to Sora and Kairi.”

“And I knew that,” Roxas smiled and turned his head upwards to peer at the patches of sunlight filtering in through the leaves. He picked up a small leaf that had been ripped from the branches by an animal or a fierce gust of wind and tossed it up. It spun slowly as it floated back down to land on his lap. He repeated the action, smiling wanly. “Deep down, I knew that, so I never blamed you.” He tossed the leaves aside and rested his hands behind his head, in a very Sora-like gesture, but it carried the air of confidence that was so inherently Roxas. “Besides, thanks to Sora being hopelessly stubborn, we’re all here now, right?” he smirked and gave her an amused side-eye. “So, don’t cry anymore. He wouldn’t like it if you did, and for the record, neither do I.” A pink haze drifted up to her cheeks, and she resumed fiddling with the hem of her dress. She wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.

So, she settled for something simple.

“Thank you, Roxas.”

He smiled kindly at her and crossed his legs, leaving one hand behind his head while the other held out her drawing book to her. Naminé took it with a grateful smile and flipped it open to a blank page.

“What’re you going to draw now?”

“The two of us.” His smile widened, and he settled more comfortably against the robust trunk of the tree before drifting his eyes shut. Naminé didn’t necessarily need him to serve as a model, but she was grateful for his company, nonetheless. Using a light gray pencil, she sketched out the frame before she plucked a honey-gold one from within the confines of her pouch. She held it up to the light, admiring the way the sun made its golden hue shine all the brighter. It seemed like the pencil contained the sun’s rays itself in solid form.

“I don’t suppose you have a name for your drawing yet?” he asked her with a smirk, cracking an eye open to peer at her through blond lashes. Naminé smiled and set the golden pencil to the paper, sketching out his fluffy hair.

“I think I’ll call it Sunshine.” He blinked, then looked up at his curling bangs. He snorted in laughter and pinched a few of the thick strands between his thumb and forefinger, twisting them around.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” He scooched closer to her, slipping an arm around her shoulders rather than crushing it up against her side. Naminé didn’t mind, but his closeness and rapt attention brought a flush to her cheeks anyway. He was like sunshine, bathing her in his warmth as she slowly brought the pair of them to life on the page- seated under a sprawling oak tree, tucked within its roots, smiling and laughing together. It was the future she had imagined for them all those many moons ago, when their lives were forfeit, and they simply begged for existence. Smiling happily, she leaned her head against his shoulder, and in turn, he pressed his cheek into the top of her head with a little nuzzle that tickled her scalp.

“Roxas?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad things turned out this way.”

“Me too, Naminé.”

Grinning, she continued to breathe life into the page, capturing the absolute reality of the two of them side-by-side in the quaint little wood. She took extra care to paint the smiles on their faces, capturing forever the joy the two of them were so plainly feeling.

Thank you for always being there for me. 

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

Tag List: @deliathedork

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @sdewan6!

Tags: Self-Harm, Angst, Trigger Warning, Guilt, Blood, Gore, Derek needs therapy

*****

Penance to be Made 

  It was two in the morning, Stiles was asleep. Derek was awake, and Stiles did not know what Derek was doing. Stiles couldn't know, couldn't know that Derek wasn't enough for him, wasn't strong enough to tell him about this. Which was the important part of it all, of course. If Stiles knew, if Stiles knew about any of this, he’d be horrified. Shocked. Maybe even angry. He’d stress and worry and freak out about it and never let Derek out of his sight for weeks. He’d tell Scott about it, and Scott couldn’t not tell others about it, so everyone would know. And it would only magnify from there, every time one of them would look at him, it would be all they would see. Broken Derek Hale, breaking himself further. Pity. Which was why Derek would never let him know.He had to protect Stiles from this. Stiles was so anxious, so stressed all the time, he couldn’t add to that. So he slips out of bed, pulling the comforter up so Stiles wouldn’t catch chill while he was gone and wake up. Looking at him there, beautiful and peaceful as he slept, the curves of the muscles he’d grown into shifting just a touch with his slow breaths. Stiles was alive, soft and real and in his bed with him, and he still had to do this. Derek didn’t deserve this, Stiles deserved better than the man he was. Deserved better than someone who would sneak out of bed to do something like this.

It was more than a habit, he knew that. The high it gave him wasn’t something he could give up, the way it cleared his mind was more than could be given with a week of sleep. It was too good, and he couldn’t give it up.

Gauze was a formality, just to make the cleanup easier. Everything else was only what humans would need for it. He stood on the balcony of the loft, cool autumnal air hitting his skin as he looked out at the city. Beacon Hills. At night, when nothing was tearing it apart, it could almost fool him into thinking it wasn’t hell. As if it wasn’t filled with the ghosts of better people he could have been, nor haunted by those he did not save. That the trap hadn’t snapped on him and he was too cowardly to gnaw his way out. He threw a glance back within the loft. The trap, he had to admit, was the greatest good he would ever have in his life. Stiles. He’d gone away and come back a man that he couldn’t resist. And through some miracle, Stiles’ affections as a teenager had not only withstood the test of time, but grew from the mere desire for attention and satisfaction to more. And this more was....it filled him to the spilling point. Derek didn’t deserve anything that Stiles gave him. And Stiles would stay in Beacon Hills. His father was there, the Nemeton was there, his friends and his pack were there. Why would he leave any of them? Derek could never ask that of him. And so the teeth of the trap he was in sunk tighter. He was in it. It was an old ritual now. Started back when he murdered Paige, got worse after he let his family be murdered, became a daily act after Laura. And then there was the deaths of Victoria, Erica, Boyd. How he’d hurt Isaac to the core in a misguided attempt to protect him. That he let Jennifer get so close to everyone, he fell for the same ploy again. Every single disaster he’d done again and again, piling on his shoulders. There was penance to be made, and he would never truly find the forgiveness he needed, but this would be...it would be something. Left arm extended, elbow on the railing, gauze underneath. The tendons of his wrist stark against the thin skin. A single claw unzipped the flesh, the sting of the slice quieting the rush in his mind. The voices of the fallen, of the forgotten, of the wounded in his wake hushed with the rise of pain. Blood trickled down from the cuts as he opened it up down the line, tendons and ligaments and muscle now exposed in an amateur surgery. He could slip a finger under a tendon and pull it to watch a finger close without his voluntary movement. Derek would sometimes do that in his younger days of the exercise, when there was still some mystery to the pain, something novel about the act. By now, there was no longer anything to interest him, merely an exercise to find rest. The gauze beneath his arm on the railing caught the blood before it hit the metal, hit the balcony, or fell to the lot below. Scott would never find the smell, and Stiles of course couldn’t detect it. Derek’s own secret, one of the few things he could keep to himself after every shred of his life was broken and exposed to everyone. This was the one thing he had left that was his own. Something that could be kept from everyone else, kept safe from everyone else. It was funny, he was cut open and exposed, but having this was the one shred of control he felt like had. He couldn’t keep the last pieces of family from flying apart, either his sister down in South America barely texting once a week, or his uncle who was still a complete mess and on his bullshit somewhere. He couldn’t keep his alpha spark, the only piece of his mother that he had. He couldn’t keep his pack, all dead or with Scott now. He couldn’t do anything right. And now, he couldn’t even leave Beacon Hills, the place where it all went wrong, because Stiles’ life was here. Just flaying himself open wasn’t enough now, as the healing process started knitting skin back together, and he slashed deeper in, keeping the wound open. New gauze pad down as the blood burbled from the julienned veins. The cut was better now, it was enough now. He exhaled a breath held too long, getting what he needed at last. Such a mess, this would take a while to heal. Such was the price he would pay. There was a soft sound from back in the apartment, some mumble or a shift in breathing, and he turned quickly to look within. No, Stiles couldn’t wake up, he couldn’t see him like this, couldn’t know, could never know. Stiles would blame himself. He always did, managed to make things his own fault, as if he could fix things. Stiles could do almost anything, but there was nothing that could fix Derek. All he could do was work with what he had. If Stiles knew, it could even break them. And Derek would lose the only good he had. It couldn’t happen. No. Please. But there was no sound of shuffling feet, no voice asking where he was, not even the rustle of sheets of movement. It was quiet again. A raised heart rate, but Stiles dreamed so vividly, that wasn’t too strange. Derek looked back to the wound. The blood barely looked still red in the pinpricks of starlight and the slim Cheshire smile of the moon, it looked almost black, like wolfsbane poisoning. He watched the muscle fibers rework their way together, the veins seal and resettle beneath their covers, to be undisturbed for another day. The skin growing back together, undoing the damage, wiping it away, as if it never happened. No scars, no lasting hurt, nothing to show, no proof. The perfect crime, where the only victim was himself, the only criminal, himself. So, in the end, what was the harm of it all? He threw the gauze away, well packed up so it wouldn’t be found in the dumpster below the balcony. He washed the streaks of red from his arm and under his fingernails so he wouldn’t bring the remains of this sin back into bed with the only angel he had. He picked his way back in, sliding his hands over the body of the man he loved more than anything, and fell asleep, dreams no longer plagued by his failings. It was four fifty-five in the morning, Derek was asleep. Stiles was awake, and he knew what Derek had just done. Derek couldn't know that Stiles knew, but Stiles didn't know why he wasn't enough for Derek, wasn't trusted enough to be told about it.

[ericsonclan]

A Feeling More Precious Than A Gemstone

Summary: After a quest goes sour and Aasim returns to camp Ruby starts to realize that she has feelings for the high elf.

Read on A03: 

Notes: Written for @stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale ‘s monthly writing challenge. Rusim may be canon, but a romance between a high elf and a dwarf  seems pretty unlikely! We got all 14 points too :D

“I believe if we keep heading east we should be able to reach the spot specified in the quest in an hour or so,” Aasim rolled up the quest scroll with his hands, tucking it away within his high elven robes before glancing back at the others. He had only been able to get the most enthusiastic members to join which meant his team for the upcoming quest consisted of Willy and Mitch. Rosie was along as well but seemed mainly to come to spend some time with them and to help give the goblin a free ride which WIlly was happy about. He bounced excitedly on the warg’s back.

“Willy is excited to see where the giant rats live,” His long legs dangled and flailed about as the warg jogged to catch up with the high elf.

“Yeah, can’t wait to kick some ass!” Mitch’s signature smirk appeared on his face.

Aasim shook his head, he should’ve known that no one serious would bother to join in exterminating some giant rats, but still the band of adventurers needed the coin. He was about to comment when he felt an unnerving presence in the air. A cold shiver ran up his spine and with cautious hands he drew his silver detailed elfbow, notching an arrow in place for any unexpected attacks that may ambush them.

“Aasim, what-” Mitch was cut off when Aasim held up his hand.

“Follow me,” The high elf didn’t bother to wait for any confirmation on his companions' part and turned sharply left into the western part of Ogeman Forest. Rosie immediately followed with slow, deliberate steps, carrying Willy on her back while Mitch ran to catch up.

“We’re being followed,” Aasim stated simply, knowing the question that was going to leave the mercenary’s lips. “I don’t know why I hadn’t sensed it before, but something or someone is nearby.”

“Well they better be fucking ready, cause all they’re gonna recieve is an ass whooping.” Mitch placed his hand on the hilt of his steel broadsword that at this moment remained sheathed on his back. The small group moved through the woods in silence, their eyes scanning the area when all of the sudden out of the corner of his eye Willy spotted a blurry silhouette racing by.

“There!” The goblin exclaimed, pointing his long, bony finger “Willy saw one over there,”

Aasim and Mitch shifted their weight and got into defensive positions. It was best to be patient when what type of opponent they were facing was still unknown to them. Aasim slowly drew his bow, pulling the string back sharply and aiming it in the direction his friend had pointed towards.

“Whoever you are, I'd advise you to come out slowly. We do not wish for any trouble.” The high elf’s voice was calm yet commanding. A tense air filled the trees around them as the silence grew longer and longer. The time that it was taking for a response made Aasim question whether there really was anyone following them when suddenly a bush rustled and three creatures emerged from it.

It took only a moment for Aasim to identify what monsters they were: Kobolds. They were small reptilian creatures with muddy green skin whose primary purpose seemed to be that of the worship of dragons.Those they deemed to be gods. They were a rather zealous race. The one on the left stared at the adventurer with an angry glare, his grey cloak slightly moving in the air. He clutched his sword in his right hand while his left hovered over the whip attached to his hip. The one to the far right looked to be the oldest of the three kobolds, at least Aasim figured they were due to the faded color of their skin and eyes. They wore a simple red robe and protectively held onto a wand with a blue crystal on it. In the middle was one with a leathery brown jacket made from what Aasim figured was one of their victims. His hand held out a small cage akin to what you may keep a bird in. A swarm of spiders scurried around within the confines, some of them slowly spilling out from the cage and falling onto the kobold’s leg. Based on the body language, Aasim assumed the middle on to be their leader.

“Why are you following us?” Aasim looked toward the one in the center. He knew how these creatures worked: they were cunning beings yet cowardly in nature. As long as Aasim held the power in the conversation, he was sure he could get his opponents to leave within minutes. Although it was odd that they showed themselves, usually they remained in the shadows.

“We are here because you have dishonored the Great One!” The middle one hissed, waving around his cage widely. The other two nodded in agreement. The high elf slowly released the pressure of the shot he was aiming, letting the bow fall to his side.

“The Great One?’ Aasim quirked a brow. I don’t recall going on any quest that had any being called by that name. His confusion only seemed to add fuel to the kobolds’ anger. The left one hopped up and down and pointed angrily. “You don’t even remember your sin! How you entered the resting place of the Great One!”

“How you dared to steal from his treasures,” The one on the right spoke sharply; there was a heavy level of venom in his words. Aasim wracked his brain, placing a hand on his chin before glancing back at the others.

Mitch shrugged his shoulders and scoffed. “I don’t fucking remember that. I would remember if we kicked the ass of ‘The Great One'.” Mitch did air quotes with his fingers.

“You dare to further your wrongdoings!” The middle kobold snapped.

Aasim stared back at the three small creatures and was about to respond that he had no idea what they spoke of when it suddenly hit him, causing his stomach to turn. They must be talking about that blue scaled dragon whose cave they entered in hopes of completing a high leveled quest. That was until a certain mercenary had gotten the bright idea to use one of the many shields scattered around the dragon’s cave to slide down the large pile of coins and other treasure. He couldn’t believe that that event was coming back to bite them in the ass. What seemed to be worse, however, was that because he had forgotten about it his indifference seemed to make the situation they were currently in much worse.

“I assure you we did no harm to your god,” Aasim tried to bring the conversation back into good terms.

Mitch looked completely lost until the high elf turned his head and mouthed the word ‘dragon’. Mitch’s eyes lit up with realization before looking back at his opponents. He could feel his annoyance bubbling within him. They hadn’t even harmed that stupid dragon. In fact, it had almost killed him and his companions.

“Yet you still dared to defile his sacred resting place!” The kobold shouted.

Mitch let out a snort. “Come on, you expect us to see a giant pile of coins and not slide down it?”

“Willy wishes he had gotten a chance to slide down a mountain of gold.”

“Next time, buddy,” Mitch smiled over at the goblin then gave a smug look over to the Kobolds. “That’s right, we slid down the coins and we’d do it again! So why don’t you just scurry off from whatever cave you came from, you overgrown lizards!”

The mercenary’s words seemed to cut the creatures deeply, their rage seeping from their bodies and into the very air around them.

Aasim looked back with a shocked expression towards his friends before his eyes hardened. He didn’t know what he expected from Mitch. He should’ve just kept him in the dark about the whole thing while he worked it out.

“You will pay with your blood!” The middle one screeched, causing the other to to give a war cry before charging the pack of adventurers. The one with the whip ran forward to Aasim who drew his bow in a second, shooting an arrow right into the shoulder of the kobold. The creature cried out in pain but soon snapped his whip, wrapping it around the bow and yanking it from the high elf’s grip.

“Damn it,” Aasim mumbled under his breath; that bow was priceless to him. WIthout giving it a second thought he sprinted forward to retrieve it only for his leg to run over a tripwire. A short wooden spear flew through the sky and impaled itself into Aasim’s leg. He hissed in pain and fell, kicking himself internally for falling for such a simple trick. Especially when it was what their kind was known to do.

“You asshole,” Mitch unsheathed his blade and caught the whip. With a quick flick on his wrist he turned his sword and tore through the whip. The kobold made a desperate cry and began to scurry away but not before Mitch got in another slice across its back. He looked at his handiwork proudly as the kobold scampered away, holding up its pants while it disappeared into the woods.

Suddenly the mercenary felt a strange warmth on his backside and glancing down saw that the wand-wielding kobold had sent a small blue flame towards his ass. Mitch swore fervently as he rolled on the ground to get the flames out. The kobold was about to attack again when an arrow found its mark and embedded in the creature’s right arm, causing him to drop the wand. Mitch turned to see the high elf on the ground with his bow held out. Mitch gave a small nod of thanks and turned to kick out the kobold’s legs. The creature fell with a yelp and with a swift elbow to the side of the face the mercenary had knocked it out.

Only one left now. Mitch turned only to be pleasantly surprised by the sight before him. Willy was giving a mighty war cry, commanding Rosie to charge. The warg listened without hesitation, biting harshly down on the cage and crushing all the spiders within. Rosie licked her lips happily, glad to have a tasty snack.

“No!” The kobold exclaimed, shaking as it backstepped, all of its courage gone now that it was weaponless. Willy screamed out and jumped on top of the kobold. Wrapping his legs around the kobold’s shoulders, he sent punch after punch to the reptilian’s skull.

“Never hurt Willy’s friends! Willy won’t forgive you!” The goblin cried, landing hit and hit again until he had successfully knocked out the kobold that had quite the collection of bumps on its head. They all let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Are you okay?” Mitch asked, offered out his hand to the high elf.

“I had it handled,” Aasim huffed, begrudgingly accepting the hand. He wobbled to his feet, a small hiss escaping his lips when he put too much pressure on the leg.

“Willy will help!” The goblin scurried over on all fours and was about to pull out the spear impaled in the high elf’s leg when he received a sharp flick to the forehead by the mercenary.

“No, dumbass, that will just cause him to bleed a hell of a lot faster than he is now.”

Willy’s large eyes widened in horror at what he had almost done. “Willy is sorry,” the goblin held his right arm behind his back with his left hand and gave an apologetic look towards Aasim.

“It’s quite alright,” He waved a hand dismissively. “You were only trying to help.” He looked over to see that the goblin was still unsure about it.

“Oh, how about you ride Rosie!” Willy hopped around to help support Aasim.

The high elf nodded and his two companions helped him up onto the warg who let out a concerned growl as she looked back at the high elf, giving his hand a quick lick before looking back at the others.

“We should probably let Ruby look at that,” Mitch motioned his head towards the wounded leg. “We’ll kick some rat ass another day.”

Aasim gave a sad sigh. “Agreed. This wasn’t as auspicious an outcome as I would have liked it to be, but I guess we can’t win them all.”

With that the four of them made their way back to camp. Willy scampered off in front to be on the lookout for any other creatures while Mitch walked alongside Rosie who carried the high elf on her back. It didn’t take them long to get back to the camp. Willy was the first to show up, giving what was surely a half-assed, hole-ridden tale about what happened. It seemed to be worse than his usual message-giving since as soon as Aasim had made it back into camp Ruby was already waiting for them with her medicine pouch. Surrounding her were a few other members of the band of adventurers.

“What in the world happened out there?” Ruby bustled over with a concerned expression to the warg the high elf sat upon. Louis and Violet followed her close behind while Brody brought up the rear.

“Willy said you lost a leg to a spear!” Brody sounded worried as she looked towards Mitch.

“No, that didn’t fucking happen,” Mitch gave a tired sigh, “Y’know Willy always exaggereates with his stories,”

Mitch’s words seemed to calm down Ruby who examined Aasim’s leg. “It’s still a bad injury. Louis, Violet, can you prepare a spot in camp for Aasim?”

The two halflings nodded and sprinted off to prepare, giving short explanations to the rest of the band of adventurers as Ruby helped guide Rosie into the camp. When they had gotten into camp, Mitch helped the dwarf as she got the high elf off the warg. Brody ran forward to take Mitch’s spot as Ruby ran forward. She usually was the one to help Ruby with medical situations if Aasim wasn’t present. Ruby shooed off the others and turned to the human. “Wait, Mitch, I need your belt.” Ruby’s voice was calm and commanding.

The mercenary looked confused by the demand. “Why the fuck-” he stopped when he noticed the worry in the dwaf’s eyes. So he reluctantly gave the belt before walking off, his pants slightly drooping as Louis and Marlon began to tease him. Ruby then proceeded to wrap the belt around Aasim’s leg, tightening it to make a tourniquet of sorts in hopes it would lessen the blood flow. Aasim let out a small hiss.

“I’m sorry. It’ll be over before you know it,” Ruby gave a warm smile to the high elf who glanced away.

“No, I’m sorry. I should’ve been more careful,”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” The dwarf waved a hand dismissively. “Quests always seem to go sideways with our band.” Her words calmed down the high elf who leaned back on his arms and started to slow down his breathing in preparation for the next part.

Ruby then turned to Brody. “I’m gonna need you to put pressure on the wound once I remove the spear.”

Brody looked terrified but soon gathered all of her courage and nodded. With confirmation of her friend’s support, Ruby went forward with the plan. Gently wrapping her hands around the spear, she studied the angle that it had entered. Shifting her position, Ruby yanked out the spear. Blood dripped from it, staining the ground below them as Aasim stifled a cry. His hands curled into fists to try and deal with the pain. Brody immediately grabbed some clothes and put pressure on the wound while Ruby prepared the medicine to help numb the area before stitching it up.

After a few minutes the dwarf seemed satisfied with her setup. “Alright, lift your hands and take a step back,” Ruby instructed. Brody listened immediately. Ruby sat down next to the wound and taking out a medicinal paste she had made from some of the plants nearby spread it onto Aasim’s wound. After that was applied Ruby glanced back at her friend with a kind smile. “Thanks for the help, Brody. You can go if you want.”

“Okay, I’ll be right over there if you need me,” Brody motioned to the fire pit. Ruby gave a short nod then returned to the task at hand. Aasim remained quiet at first as Ruby started on the first stitch.

“I was a fool,” The high elf’s words had broken the silence, causing Ruby to glance up.

“Pardon?”

“I should’ve figured when we ran into them that they were talking about the dragon,” Aasim looked down at the dwarf. “We ran into some kobolds, dragon worshipers,” he added when he saw the lost look on Ruby’s face. “One thing led to another and Mitch was no help, but...” The high elf let out a sigh, “If I hadn’t picked up that high level quest back then, this wouldn’t have happened.” He gestured to his bloody leg, now partly sewn up.

“Awww, I’m sure you’re just being hard on yourself like you always are.” Ruby smiled up at the high elf who didn’t seem sure of her words. “What I’m trying to say is sometimes things are out of our control,” She focused back on the task at hand, whisking through the stitches with nimble handiwork. “So you shouldn’t kick yourself for it. I’m just glad you’re safe,” The dwarf placed a hand on Aasim’s, locking eyes with him. She seemed to get lost in them for a second before becoming overly self-conscious and pulling away. Her usually rosy cheeks grow slightly redder. Ruby internally scolded herself for a moment that she had been letting these newly-found feelings take control. Clearing her throat, she moved to bandage the leg then rose to her feet. “There, that should do it. Need a hand up?” she gave a smile and extended her hand towards the high elf.

“No, that’s quite alright. I just think I need a minute here.”

“Okay, well holler if you need anything,” Ruby looked at Aasim for a few seconds before turning sharply on her heel and making her way back into the woods to collect firewood.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears while her head swirled with countless questions. She had always thought Aasim was a nice, kind fella, but when he had arrived back to camp injured she had felt feelings that she hadn’t noticed before. It was as if for the first time she really felt the feelings that she was sure had been dormant for quite some time. She had always had pleasant interactions with the high elf. Whether it be simple conversations around the fire or long drawn out talks about their different cultures. Aasim always seemed so invested in those particular conversations, giving the dwarf his undivided attention. It had always meant alot to Ruby. But looking back on those talks now it seemed like so much more. Shaking her head, Ruby focused back on the task that she was assigned. They needed more firewood if they were going to have supper tonight.

Everyone in the group did their part for the evening’s meal. Prisha hunted in the forest alongside Tenn who acted as her overhead eyes, gliding over the forest to spot the different prey and confirm their location. The wood elf’s shots never missed, always hitting a target thanks to her heightened eyesight and companion’s help.

Over a small trek away was a pond where Sophie and Minnie helped guide the halflings and AJ who worked hard trying their hand at spearfishing. Some were more efficient at it than others. Violet seemed to be a natural as well as Clem and AJ. All three brought in a good amount. Omar and Louis were novices though, each of them only getting a few fishes here and there. Whatever ones they missed the twin harpies would catch with their sharp talons.

Mitch and Marlon helped gather firewood alongside Ruby while Brody started to build the fire, keeping an eye on Aasim who was busy receiving tale after tale from Willy. The goblin’s arms waved wildly as he told the tales. Garbage the bat dangled upside down from his arm, lazily enjoying the swaying movements of the goblin. Rosie lay protectively by the high elf’s side who gave an abundant amount of pats to the warg.

Once everyone had returned from their respective duties, Omar immediately started on dinner prep and received help from the other halflings as it was their night to assist. Soon the wonderful aroma of stew filled the air as the sky turned into a beautiful orange hue. The band of adventurers gathered around and heard the dramatic retelling of today’s adventure by Mitch who seemed to favor his heroic deeds in the tale. Willy and Aasim chimed in here and there giving their input on the story. The different members of the band asked questions and told jokes as their meal quickly was devoured.

Soon everyone went their separate ways. The wood elf and Clem went to talk on the outskirts of the camp while Marlon and Sophie spoke nearby. It didn’t take long for the different members to do their own thing. Ruby glanced around and decided that she would check on the high elf one more time before going to bed. When the dwarf was about to get up from her spot by the firepit and check again on Aasim, she heard a familiar, cheery voice.

“Hey there, Rubes!” Louis sat down on her left. “Got a minute?”

“Sure,” Ruby looked confused when Violet sat down on her right. “What about?”

“About how you’re totally crushing on Aasim,” Louis gave a playfully mischievous smile towards the dwarf whose ears turned beet red.

“I… what?... how.. Why do you say that?” Ruby looked towards the dreadlocked halfling.

“Because it’s true,” Violet added, giving a shrug when Ruby looked at her. “It was pretty obvious when he returned today.”

“Well, I give you my blessing,” Louis put a hand on Ruby’s shoulder, patting it lightly.

The dwarf’s mind was trying to catch up with the conversation that was going at an alarmingly fast rate. “Now hold on, I don’t think you should be giving out blessings left and right like that,” Ruby huffed.

“Why not?” Louis tilted his head to the side. “Don'tcha like him?”

“Well sure, but,” Ruby played with one of the wisps of her hair that laid on the side of her face. “It’s not that simple.” She looked over to Louis then to Violet. Both seemed unconvinced by her reasoning. “Ain’t it weird for a high elf and a dwarf to be together?”

“Oh, is that what you’re worried about?” Louis let out a sigh of relief; clearly he had been worried it was something more complex. “Well if you really like him and care for him, that stuff doesn’t matter, right?”

“Yeah,” Violet glanced over at Ruby. “Look at Sophie and Marlon. They're together even though they’re a harpy and a half-orc. But they really care about each other.” Violet motioned with her head over to the couple who were chatting lively by the tree. Sophie was perched on Marlon’s shoulder, a warm, happy smile playing on her lips as she looked down at him. A similar smile was on his face as he continued the conversation. Suddenly Sophie’s attention was drawn upwards to Minnie and Tenn who had set up a nest for the night. With an apologetic expression, Sophie nuzzled against Marlon’s head before flying up to join her family for the night.

Ruby smiled at the sight, only noticing a moment later that both of the halflings’ eyes were upon her.

“The point is it doesn’t really matter. So you shouldn’t give a shit about it,” Violet’s eyes wandered over towards the outskirts, stopping on the wood elf. Her heartbeat quickened when she saw the smile on Prisha’s face. Violet felt like a hypocrite telling Ruby to follow her heart when she was too much of a coward to do it for similar reasons to the dwarf’s. But nevertheless, she still believed her advice to be good.

“Vi’s right,” Louis agreed. “Clem and I are both halflings, but we have really different personalities so there are still differences between us. I know it can be scary. If Clem didn’t confess first, I don’t know if I would’ve ever gotten up the courage. But I know you’ve got it in ya, Ruby,” He playfully nudged her side.

“Louis is right,” Violet leaned back on her arms. “Every relationship is different.”

“Yeah, even friendships. Like take me and Vi. From an outsider’s perspective it would seem like we shouldn’t be friends, but we care about each other. Right, Vi?”

Violet gave a short nod. “Yeah, even if first meetings aren’t always the smoothest it doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t work out.” She leaned forward and looked at Louis with a smirk. “You know, there was a time where I couldn’t stand you.”

Louis’ mouth fell agape at those words. “Really?”

“Yeah, I thought you were really fucking annoying when I first worked at your house,” Violet’s smirk only seemed to widen when Louis still looked shocked.

With a dramatic flair, Louis’ face took on a look of mock sadness as he placed a hand on his heart. “You wound me, Violet,”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.” She looked over to Ruby. “Just give it some thought.”

“Yeah, I think you and Aasim would be cute toge-” Louis’ sentence cut off when a sharp yawn left his mouth. He shook his head wildly when he was finished with his yawn, his dreadlocks swaying with the motion. “Seems like it’s my bedtime. I’m gonna head off to bed. What about you?” He glanced over at Violet who stood up, brushing off the dust on her clothes.

“Nah, I’m gonna stay up for a bit,” Her eyes wandered over to a tree, wondering if she could climb it and get better visibility of the night sky. With that the two halflings were off, saying goodnight to the dwarf while they went their separate ways.

Ruby stared at the fire, her friends’ words repeating in her head. Maybe they weren’t wrong. Ruby rose up and stared over at the high elf. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but as for now she’d give Louis and Violet’s words some serious thought. Ruby walked off to her tent with a smile, ready to face whatever came next.

Ruby kept catching herself staring at Aasim while the merry band of adventurers walked down the dusty dirt road. Her feelings for the high elf only seemed to grow with each passing day. It had been nearly a week since her conversation with Louis and Violet yet those words still swirled within her mind and heart. She kept to her own thoughts on the road, trying to decide the best course of action. Her heart knew what it wanted to do even if her mind was scared.

It took another two hours to make it to the town of Rimemoor. By the time they had set foot into the town, the dwarf had decided. She was going to go for it. Damn the consequences. So what if her mind was freaking out at the possibility of rejection or that she couldn’t stop sweating. She had set her mind on it and she was going to go through with it. With that in mind the next question arose. How was she going to do it? Should she just pull Aasim aside and tell him straight and simple or should she do more of a romantic gesture? Ruby’s mind spun with the two options that collided within her. Then all of a sudden a bolt of inspiration struck. A bracelet. She could make him a bracelet! It wasn’t uncommon in dwarven culture to forge your own bracelet or trinket and give it to someone as a sign of romantic interest. That was it. That was how she would do it.

“Ruby?” Prisha’s voice snapped the dwarf out of her thoughts as she looked up at the group.

“Sorry, did I miss something?” Ruby asked when she noticed the expressions of the band members’ faces.

“We were thinking of checking out the adventurer’s guild for some quests.” Minnie motioned over to the western section of the town. Ruby’s eyes followed it and noticed that nearby on the corner of the next street was a blacksmith.

“Actually, I was thinking of checking out the local blacksmith,” Ruby responded, gesturing over to the building with a small pillar of smoke emitting from the chimney.

“Oh, any particular reason?” Clementine looked up at the dwarf whose rosy red cheeks seemed to get rosier due to the halfling’s question. Ruby suddenly felt flustered.

“Umm, I just figured it would be good to see if there are any new techniques I haven’t picked up on before.”

“A wise endeavor,” Aasim nodded in agreement. The smile on his face caused Ruby’s heart to flutter.

“So yeah, I’ll meet up with y’all at the tavern for lunch?” Ruby looked towards the group.

“Sounds good to us,” Marlon stated with a carefree smile.

With that Ruby ran off, giving one final wave to her group when she noticed Louis giving two thumbs up, a playful smile on his lips. Violet’s knowing smirk was more of a subdued expression than her halfling friend, but they were both pretty obvious. They seemed to have picked up on her true reasons behind diverging from the group. Ruby turned her attention back to the blacksmith. A determined smile appeared on her face as she strode forward towards the building. It was time to get to work.

When she entered the smithy she was greeted by a tall, blonde giant with a thick beard. “Hey there, name’s Tripp.” He wiped off his hands with a large cloth before extending one.

The dwarf immediately took the hand, giving it a firm, friendly shake. “Ruby.”

“Well, Ruby, what can I help you with?” The giant smiled down at the dwarf when his eyes suddenly widened as he noticed the warhammer axe on her back that was nearly the size of her. “Is that a dwarven warhammer?” Tripp sounded excited while he stared in awe of the axe.

“It sure is! Crafted in the furnace of Mur Garohm.” Ruby held out her axe proudly.

“May I?”

“Sure,” Ruby offered the warhammer up to the giant. He seemed to be practically bubbling with excitement while his eyes studied each detail carefully. The gold detailing in the middle, the many dwarven runes that covered its edges and the bright blue stone that shone in the center of the weapon.

“Holy shit, this is quite the weapon,” His fingers brushed over the edge, noticing the wear of it. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to sharpen it for you.”

“That’d be great. I was actually wondering if I could use your forge today. I’d pay for both the use of the forge and the fee for sharpening my axe.” Ruby held up her hands, producing a respectable amount of coin.

“Alright, as long as you’ve got your own materials to work with I don’t mind you using the forge.” Tripp took the small pouch of coins and walked towards his sharpening wheel where he began his work. A small, constant thrum emitted from the wheel while he spun the axe, making sure to get every corner while maintaining the beauty of the dwarven craftsmanship.

Ruby decided she should also get to work right away and made her way to the forge where she rummaged through her bag to try and find the necessary materials. She knew she still had some fine leather from the last general store she had gone to in the town a few miles west of here, but she was still struggling to think of the perfect centerpiece for the bracelet. Something that would make it unique to her and her alone. That’s when her hand brushed against the edge of some ore. Pulling it out of the bag, the dwarf was mesmerized by its beautiful golden shimmer. She had nearly forgotten that she had brought along some ore from her homelands. In fact if she recalled correctly, this was some of the earliest and most precious ore she had ever found. It seemed like a fitting material for this trinket.

The dwarf worked tirelessly on the bracelet. Using her carving knife she sculpted a simple design on the edges of the leather. When she seemed satisfied with her work, she moved on to the next part which was far more challenging with a giant’s workshop. It took some time and more upper body strength than usual but after a few minutes the dwarf got used to the overly large pieces of equipment. Melting down the gold-like ore, she poured it into a sculpt before imprinting the dwarven design and dunking it into the cool water.

A sharp whistle drew her attention. The giant hovered in the doorway with an impressed expression on his face. “I’ve always heard tales of dwarves’ handiwork in blacksmithing, but to see it firsthand...” A huge smile appeared on his face. “It’s really something else. Are you in town for a while?” The giant paused for a moment and decided to elaborate on his question. “Just curious since I think we could benefit from sharing trade tips. Y’know, learn the differences between a giant and dwarf’s way of crafting.”

Ruby beamed at the suggestion and gave an enthusiastic nod. “I’d love that. It sounds like a grand time. I can drop by tomorrow if you’d like?”

“That’d be great. Oh!” The giant’s eyes widened before he held out the warhammer. “Here ya go. Should be as good as new.”

“Thanks a heap,” Ruby glanced back at her still incomplete bracelet. “I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

The giant waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, take all the time you need.”

With that Ruby returned to her work, fastening the ore onto the center of the bracelet. Proceeding to test it out, the dwarf wrapped it around her wrist to make sure it looked nice. When she turned the bracelet now displayed on her wrist it shone brightly. It seemed like wherever the light was the ore would pick up on it and capture the light to further its own beauty. With a satisfied and excited chuckle, the dwarf hopped down and bustled out of the blacksmith’s shop, wishing Tripp a good rest of his day before strolling forward towards the tavern, proud of herself for a finely crafted bracelet.

The others seemed to brighten up immediately when Ruby returned to the fold. Each of them talked and laughed as Aasim placed forth the next potential quest that they could work on. Mitch seemed ecstatic as always for another quest and with a loud burp declared he’d go on it. Aasim waved away the stench of the mead before looking back at Mitch, wondering whether he’d be up for the task or not. After some heated debate the group settled down the fighting and decided that Mitch could go as long as other, more responsible and level-headed people went as well. After that the band searched around for an inn in hopes of finding a place that would allow a warg. Luckily they did and by the time everyone had settled down and grabbed yet another meal the sky had turned into a deep blue.

Throughout the day Ruby had been double checking her pack in case for some unfortunate reason the bracelet had fallen out. But it never had. Now that everyone had scattered off to do various activities, she had finally been given the chance. Aasim stood by the entrance of the tavern, his eyes looking off into the distance at the nearby lake. Ruby felt her heartbeat pounding in her ears but she wasn’t going to back down. A chance like this - just the two of them away from the prying eyes of the band of adventurers - was rare, so she was going to take it.

“Hey there, Aasim,” Ruby’s voice drew the high elf’s attention. He looked back with a warm smile that caused the dwarf’s heart to do a small flip.

“Hello Ruby, here to look at the lake as well?” His eyes wandered back onto the shimmering light that danced off the lake from the moonlight. “I was thinking of taking a stroll down there.” He paused, suddenly becoming more awkward as he scratched the back of his head. “Care to join me?”

Ruby nodded with a bright smile. I’d love to.” The high elf beamed at her words.

And so the two wandered off towards the lake. It was a fairly short walk, only around ten minutes to get there. During that time the pair had talked about simple topics, nothing heavy or serious. It was only when they arrived at the lake that both stopped to enjoy the beauty of the night. Ruby looked onto the shiny water, trying to give herself the courage she needed for the next part.

“So,” she glanced over, locking eyes with Aasim. “There’s been something on my mind for the last week.”

“Oh?” Aasim looked curious. “What might that be?”

“You.” Ruby froze, horrified by her own bluntness. She couldn’t believe how stupid she was being. She felt her face heat up from her own words, noticing that Aasim’s face took on a level of awkwardness as well. It was hard to tell in the lighting, but she could've sworn that his pointed ears were slightly pink. “Let me start over. What I meant to say is…” This was a lot harder than she’d thought it would be. Maybe it would be simpler if she started with the bracelet. Digging through her pocket, she found the gift before holding it out towards the high elf. “I made you this.”

Aasim took the bracelet graciously and examined it closely. His eyes danced with curiosity and joy from the trinket. “This is quite stunning,” He stopped and glanced up at the dwarf. “You made this yourself? That’s amazing!”

Ruby felt her rosy cheeks turn a deep shade of red at the high elf’s compliment. “Thanks, it’s a gift that dwarfs make to symbolize something.”

“What does it symbolize?”

“Well, you give it to show you have a romantic interest in.”

Aasim’s eyes widened at Ruby’s words.

“What I’m trying to say, Aasim, what I’m failing at saying is... that I like you. I truly do.”

Aasim seemed absolutely overwhelmed by this information. His face heated up and his mouth was slightly open. It took him a minute before he could move. Silently he placed the bracelet on his wrist and looked down at it with a happy smile. He was truly touched by the gift, the symbol of Ruby’s feelings. “I feel the same way, Ruby. I really care for you. I have for quite some time,” Aasim declared with a warm smile. “I even considered confessing but I never seemed to summon up the courage but I’m really glad you did.” He couldn’t believe this was really happening. Ruby felt the same way he did. He felt like he could soar with how much happiness was swelling within his heart. He looked down at Ruby who seemed just as happy with his answer as he had been about hers.

She looked so beautiful in the moonlight. The fiery red curls around her face seemed to further heighten her beauty. The strikingness of her blue grey eyes sent Aasim's heart aflutter. Slowly he leaned over and cupped the sides of Ruby’s face, capturing her lips in a gentle and warm kiss. When he pulled back he saw the look of surprise on her face but she quickly moved forward, leaning into another kiss with him. The kiss made Aasim’s heart feel aflame in a tender warmth. A happy, content smile appeared on both of the couple’s faces when they pulled apart and Aasim rose once more to his normal height.

Gently Aasim took Ruby’s hand as she returned the gesture, taking his other. The two stood there, lost in each other's smiles as their hearts swelled with joy. This moment would forever be etched in their hearts under the moonlit sky.

[artificialqueens]

(treat me nice) never let me go [branjie] 2/15 - pinkgrapefruit

chapter 2. first things first imma say all the words inside my head

previous chapter 1.

A/N - Hi! Welcome back to Pretty Woman branjie style - in chapter one we saw our leading ladies meet each other - who knows what they’ll get up to this time. Special thanks to Frey and Linda (Qtip) for always being my heros/betas/favourite people and Meggie for being my grammar hero Let me know what you think and Enjoy!

*

Vanessa is lying on the floor, eyes transfixed on the show on the screen, when Brooke’s phone goes off. She shoots the Canadian a glare, far too comfortable in the penthouse now to take anyone interrupting ‘The Office’, and to be honest, Brooke almost understands - almost. She’d put on the series to try and smooth over any tension from the bathroom incident and for the most part, it seems to be working, the Latina sprawled over the expensive rug, head propped up on her hands, and mini-bar snacks left forgotten as she laughs and awws at every movement on-screen. It’s Brookes favourite show and it makes her a little fluffy inside to know that Vanessa likes it too (not that anyone needs to know that, she is an ice queen, she cannot let that façade drop).

She has to pull her eyes away from the girl, as the man on the other end of the phone demand for her to read a case file that’s about sixty cases away from being important right now. She sighs, pulls herself into a more upright position and tries to mediate the call with snippets of information she’s sure any idiot could find if they read the file instead of asking her to do the work for them. 

“You okay?” Vanessa mouths, a difficult feat as she tries to chew a chocolate strawberry. Brooke finds it endearing and she nods tiredly, rolling her eyes as the man on the other end of the line yells about business numbers in Japan - she knows exactly what he’s talking about, but finds more joy in being a little bit difficult.

“You?” she mouths back, an eyebrow raised at how at home Vanessa has made herself. 

The girl smirks, “Carpet picnic,” she replies as if that answered the question. It didn’t.

The sigh of relief Brooke lets out when the call ends is audible, and it makes Vanessa giggle a little bit. She visibly relaxes into the armchair, lets the cushions absorb the leftover stress. 

“You want a drink?” the brunette chuckles as she watches the other woman rake a hand through her hair, flipping the parting until the blonde strands cascade over her left shoulder.

“I’m high on life, can’t you tell?”

*

Vanessa’s laughing and, god, if it isn’t the sweetest damn noise Brooke has heard in a while. She moves chairs to be a little closer, a soft smile on her face, as she watches the girl. Vanessa must feel her eyes and mutes the audio, looking at her with a tilted head. Brooke makes the mistake of poking her tongue out, letting it wet her lips, because suddenly they’re dry as a bone. 

The shorter girl pushes herself up from the carpet and crawls slowly towards the chair, holding onto the arms when the reaches it. She gently runs a hand up one of Brooke’s legs, the woman tensing at the feeling of cold hands on her warm flesh. She allows Vanessa to manoeuvre her, wonders where this is going, although she has a vague idea by the girl’s heavy-lidded eyes and quiet smile. The girl removes her skirt and bodysuit slowly, teasingly - allows Brooke to focus on every inch of skin for a second or two before another is unveiled. She’s good at her job, there’s no question about it. She’s wearing a matching red lace bra and panty set, and the way it hides a little too much, but still absolutely nothing starts to drive Brooke wild. 

Vanessa leans forward, breath warm and heavy on Brooke’s neck as she unbuttons the silk work shirt that the Canadian is oh so fond of. She feels the lace of the bra grazing her lower abdomen as the girl pauses.

“What do you want?”

“What do you do?”

“Everything.” She smiles seductively, places a small kiss on Brooke’s left breast before moving, so her face is an inch away from Brooke’s. “But I don’t kiss on the mouth.”

Brooke smiles - confident, not cocky. “Neither do I.”

As Vanessa leaves a trail of hot, lip-gloss kisses down her torso, Brooke leans back on the chair, relaxing into the feeling. She is good at her job.

*

Brooke showers to wash off the feeling of dread that encompassed her the second she realised that she’d paid for sex. She’s not ashamed, she doesn’t have anything against sex workers, not at all, she just hates that she paid for something with someone she actually likes. Maybe. She’s trying not to think too hard about the girl asleep in her bed - knows that this is a hole she really can’t afford to dig herself into right now.

After being pummeled with scalding water for twenty minutes, she decides she’s clean of her various sins and wraps herself in a fluffy hotel towel, letting her long, wet hair fall down her back. She’s just checking her phones when she notices a mop of blonde hair on a lamp. Brooke smiles to herself, clocking what’s happened with a quiet laugh. She paces around the corner to the bed, and her heart grows in size when she sees the short girl, curled up topless, surrounded by a halo of dark chocolate hair. The blonde suited her, the angled bob giving her face a more chiselled look, but this - it looks right. She looks younger and more innocent - gone is any power she may have held in the thigh highs and the wig - this is the real Vanessa.

Brooke clambers into bed as smoothly as she can, trying not to disturb the sleeping woman beside her. She flips, so she’s not facing her, and tries to fall asleep (definitely ignoring the way the smell of girl’s coconut shampoo fills her with a heavenly feeling).

*

Brooke’s taking a call when Vanessa wakes up. The blonde is sat at the table, body covered in a black silk robe, and hair cascading down her back. She’s got a coffee in one hand, a phone in the other, and her half of the table is covered in books, files, and the remnants of salmon, avocado and egg on toast left unfinished on a plate in front of her. 

“I’ll meet Shuga for dinner tonight, it’s fine,” she says, low and full of conviction.

“Brooke, I really don’t think it’s a good idea for you to meet her alone. It could go really wrong,” comes the voice down the line, he sounds vaguely worried, although anyone could tell that he’s not worried for Brooke. 

The Canadian makes a humming noise, sips her coffee and pauses for a second, a mock consideration.

“Well, you know, there’s always a possibility things are gonna go wrong. That’s why I enjoy this so much.” She purses her lips and waits for a response, which doesn’t seem to be coming.

“Oh, by the way, Ru, about your car.”

“Oh, god. What?” She chuckles at the reaction she gets, can imagine Ru’s fear over his precious car.

“It corners like it’s on rails.”

Ru promises to make the dinner plans as soon as Brooke promises not to go alone - it’s a deal that will benefit them both and they both know it.

Brooke’s call finishes just as the shorter girl walks around the corner, and she watches as the Canadian visibly changes from ’work Brooke’ to ‘relaxed Brooke.’ She watches the way her shoulders loosen up and she clings to her coffee with a little less aggression.

The blonde looks up, smiles a warm, comforting smile and gestures for her to sit down. 

“Brown?” she asks in reference to her hair, eyebrow raised comically.

Vanessa nods uncomfortably but is quickly put at ease by how soft the taller woman is acting. There’s something quietly powerful about this Brooke, and she feels privileged to be able to witness it.

Brooke once again gestures to the spread of food taking up the not-case-covered side of the table.

“Are you hungry? You must be. Why don’t you sit and have something to eat? I, uh, took the liberty of ordering everything on the menu. I didn’t know what you’d like.”

Brooke rambles uncontrollably and Vanessa finds it endearing as she sits down, grabbing a danish pastry. She takes a bite before emptying six sugar packets and a tub of creamer into the black coffee waiting for her. When she sips it, she looks up to see the taller woman with a slightly disgusted look and almost snorts into the drink. 

“Oh, she’s a black coffee girl?” teases Vanessa and Brooke just laughs, feels the bitter taste on her tongue melt into something sweeter.

“So, did you sleep well last night then, Brooke Lynn?” the girl questions, mouth half-full of dough and eyes full of mirth.

She smiles, wipes a drop of coffee from the edge of her cup, before making a face indicative of a little sleep - not enough to feel rested.

“You don’t sleep, you don’t do drugs, you don’t drink, you hardly eat.” Vanessa reels off - still with a joking tone. “What do you do, Brooke? ‘Cause I still ain’t sure.”

Brooke swivels in her seat to face the girl, eyes a little harder than they were a second ago and coffee left on the table. “I’m a corporate lawyer,” she answers, an air of finality in her words. Vanessa tilts her head quizzically.

“Which means…”

“I help companies buy other companies, mergers, finances, stocks - that shit.”

Whatever cloud took over the Canadian, it appears to leave when a cocky grin spreads across the Latina’s face. “I was right!” she exclaims, bouncing a little in her seat, and Brooke is inclined to attribute it to the ridiculous amount of sugar she’s piled into the coffee. 

“What kind of companies?” she asks after a short pause - choosing to pile more pastry into her mouth as Brooke sips on a protein shake the waiter brought in.

“Uh, I buy companies that are in financial difficulties.”

“If they have problems, you must get ‘em for a bargain, huh?”

Brooke didn’t expect her to be so interested - even her mother won’t listen to her talk about work at family dinners - speaking of, she should really call her. She adds it to her list of things to do, below ‘find this protein shake recipe’, but above ‘learn how to use twitter’. She almost feels bad, but she doesn’t.

“Well, the company I’m helping someone buy this week, I’m trying to get it for the bargain price of about one billion.”

Vanessa looks a little starstruck., “A billion dollars?” she asks, mouth opened in a mix of excitement and shock. She doesn’t quite understand how anything can be worth so much, never mind how the woman in front of her - looking awfully disarming at this point in time - could do that.

“Wow. You must be really smart, huh?”

Brooke chuckles in response, it’s warm and melodic, and reminds Vanessa of a Tampa beach. They both stand up, moving away from the table and Brooke walks into the bedroom. She half closes the door, and so Vanessa just waits outside - she doesn’t want to intrude.

“I only got through the eleventh grade,” she says, wistfully. “How far did you go in school?”

“All the way through, law school and everything.” It’s muffled, and then Brooke walks back out - wearing burgundy slacks, a crisp white button-down and a matching blazer. She has a tie dangling around her neck and curses lightly as she tries to fasten all the buttons.

“Your folks must be really proud, huh?” She watches as Brooke clamps up again, feels like she hit a nerve - knows she did. Brooke sighs and Vanessa moves on.

“So what do you do with the companies once you buy them?”

“I sell them.” She struggles with the tie and after redoing it twice, Vanessa beckons to her.

“Let me do it,” she requests, although they both know she’s not asking. “So you sell them,” she leads on, tries to distract herself from how close they are, how she can feel Brooke’s hot breath on the top of her head.

“Well, I - I don’t help sell the whole company; I break it up into pieces, and then sell that off - it’s worth more that way.”

“So it’s sort of like, um, stealing cars and selling ‘em for the parts, right?” She sticks her tongue out in concentration - remembers tying ties on her brothers back in Florida.

Brooke exhales a laugh, but it comes out a little more breathy than she would have liked. “Uhuh, but more legal,” she replies.

She pats the tie when it’s done, a strange look of adoration in her eyes. Brooke smiles - she wants to ask where Vanessa learned to do that - it’s fascinating to her how multifaceted this girl is. 

“Mind if I take a swim in your tub before I go?” she asks, hopeful - and who’s Brooke to deny that?

“Stay in the shallow end,” she banters back before slipping on her heels and running to her now ringing phone. Ru’s on the other end and she curses herself for getting so caught up in, in - she catches herself before she can think of an end to that thought. She answers the phone.

“Hello? Look, Ru, I’m just running out the door.”

“I just wanted to let you know, Shuga is all set for tonight.” Brooke lets out a sigh of relief she didn’t know she was holding, but immediately regrets it.

“She’s bringing her protegee, the one she’s grooming to take over.”

“Ah, yes,” She knows who Ru is talking about - can’t tell if she’s happy or scared by the information. “Very intense young woman named Yvie. She plays polo.”

“Look, I gotta say this again. I don’t like you goin’ alone,” reminds Ru, the tone is a warning, but the sentiment is more concern. Brooke would be grateful if she really cared what he thought, if his words didn’t feel a little like paper cuts rather than constructive notes.

Brooke ponders this for a second, unsure of the path to take. She wants to tell him she’ll be fine on her own - because she would be, her mama didn’t raise someone who was scared of a woman who plays polo - but she understands that strategy dictates she take backup. You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and Yvie is a gun ready to go off. 

In the midst of this, she hears a woman’s voice, softly (but very enthusiastically) singing. It’s coming from the bathroom, and whilst conceding to Ru over the phone, she moves to stand in the doorway. Vanessa is having the time of her life in the bath - eyes closed like she’s in a spa or on a beach somewhere - Brooke assumes she probably thinks she is. The song becomes more obvious as she reaches the chorus and begins to sing (if you can call that singing) Janelle Monae at the top of her lungs. 

It’s like I’m powerful with a little bit of tender

An emotional, sexual bender

Brooke has to stop herself from bursting into laughter down the phone, as her boss witters on about procedures and other things that she’s memorised way before now. She’s too focused on the brunette in her bath to really give a damn.

“Who is that?” asks Ru down the line, and it takes Brooke a heck of a lot of restraint not to say anything incriminating. 

“My waiter is singing,” she replies, hopes he can’t tell how she’s smiling.

That’s just the way you make me feel

“Look, Ru - I know a lot of nice girls,” she says, looking straight at Vanessa, who still hasn’t noticed she’s not alone.

“No, you don’t.”

She sighs, runs a hand through her hair that she’d left out of a restrictive bun today.

“You just concentrate on finding out what Cain is up to. I’m on my way.” She hangs up.

Moving back over towards the shorter girl, she taps on her shoulder (the one not submerged in enough bubbles to entertain an entire kindergarten).

“That’s just the way - “ Vanessa stops with a start, slowly removes the headphones from her ears and tries to regain any of the dignity she’s just lost. “Don’t you just love Monae,” she quips.

“More than life itself,” Brooke deadpans back, pulling over a chair, so she doesn’t have to kneel in the trousers she’s wearing.

“Don’t you knock?”

“Vanessa,” Brooke starts - calm and coolly confident. “I have a business proposition for you.”

The girl sits up in her bath, bubbles barely conserving her modesty, and Brooke feels like she’s invading some sort of privacy, even though the girl made her forget her own name with just her mouth last night.

“I’m going to be in town until Sunday, and I’d like you to spend the week with me.” 

There is no wobble in her voice that suggests uncertainty, she is collected and knows what she’s doing - this is Lawyer Brooke, there is no doubt.

“Really?” The other girl squeals in excitement and the blonde laughs with her.

“Yes, I’d like to hire you as an employee, would you - would you consider spending the week with me?” She laughs again to try and hide some of the awkwardness she is feeling. “I will pay you to be at my beck and call.”

“Look, I’d love to be your ‘beck and call girl’.” Vanessa smirks as she teases. “But you’re a rich, good-lookin’ gal, I’m sure you could get a million girls free.”

“I want a professional,” she replies simply. “I don’t need any romantic hassles this week.”

“If you’re talkin’ 24 hours a day, it’s gonna cost you,” the brunette bites back (there’s no sharpness behind it).

“Oh, yes, of course!”

“All right, here we go.”

“Give me a ballpark figure. How much?” Brooke would pay anything - money isn’t an issue here, but she likes the dynamic they have going. 

 “Six full nights, days too. - Four thousand.”

The Canadian raises an eyebrow at her boldness, she’s impressed, but she’d rather not show it. “Three hundred times six is eighteen hundred.”

“Well, you want days too.”

“Two thousand,” she raises.

“Three thousand.” Brooke gives in there, they could continue all day, but there’s no real point.

“Done.”

“Holy shit!” Vanessa exclaims, smiling at her like she hung the stars in the sky - she lets out a loud whoop before sinking under the bubbles. The other woman just laughs.

[erinelizabethh]

What about Dio x Reader in the role of "I came into contact with someone corrupted"? :9

In a moment lost in time, you became enthralled with turquoise eyes following the faint scratch marks on your bedroom walls, lines he argued were caused by you during prior escapades. He pushed his fingers into the strands of his dirty blonde hair, locks piling atop of his head as if to add more weight to what already was heavily on his mind. Dio was his name, whose mind was plagued by thoughts so insufferable, except when those two syllables escaped you there was no response from him. The man remained rigid under your gaze, blankets concealing his lower, more desirable half of his, yet you noticed that his chest began to lose its rhythm of complete and utter tranquility. The elbow resting on his knee grew tense the second you attempted to grab his attention, yet he knew to answer when you try for what you counted was the third time.

“Fuck, you…”

You shuffled closer to him, eager to hear his words, perhaps a prelude to something sinful to come.

“Your bedhead. It makes you look like an—”

Rearing your arm back, your fist wrapped around your pillow to chuck it towards his direction, a giggle from you a contrast to his cackle. “Nice try,” you said, yet you praised him for his efforts by slapping him one last time on his arm, then wrapping your own around his lean figure. Your breasts rose from your thin sheets, pressed against Dio’s chest as if that was the only source of warmth that could be found. The sun began to reveal its grand and striking beauty behind branches painted with white, through clouds light like feathers, and you concluded soon enough that nothing would lead you to such sublimity: the sight of teardrops fading into the platform of your fire escape as they—as well as an Earth beginning to rebuild itself after the years hadn’t been so kind to them—became yet another victim to time. His smirk was immune to the hands of this universal clock, unable to be forgotten and thrown aside just because of how charming it was… he was.

“What if I was gone?” His choice of words caused you to blink in confusion. “What if I just, I dunno, just up and fuckin’ left?”

“You got a reason for it?”

“Uh, some religious bullshit. Y’know, like Free the Soul or something.”

Although a comment of how nonsensical his words are is what followed from you, you couldn’t help but dwell on his question. You recalled faintly of your past life without his existence as your anchor, a nobody just barely landing on their feet following college. You, someone who never was one of the best but refused to be the one of the worst, trapped in a world where everyone surrounding you grew to have aspirations and walked that yellow brick road to happiness with no hurry… and you were just you. Following the moment you bumped into Dio at some bar near your apartment, hoping to cope with society moving too fast for you, there was only one difference in your life: a man who claimed to be the ringleader of a circus with no credentials, no proof, just evidence that he was that temporary euphoria you needed to move on with your life. You still drove that same route to your retail workplace every weekday, stopping by the same corner store for the world’s shittiest cup of coffee, just like you did before. Your vision was still as gray as it was before that fateful day, you were just no longer lost.

Surely, you would regress to that state if he decided you were no longer worth the trouble. How humiliating would it be for someone like him to find someone far from your league, a woman with a name and an identity rather than someone like you, simply an increase in population? What were you to do regarding this scenario, since life meant nothing to you in the first place? Those left behind after the year 2029 no longer believed in love, not after ideas associated with it was what destroyed humanity and allowed the Earth to drift without a shred of what it used to be: magnificent, complex. Tears threatened to fall past your eyelids at the very thought of it; you couldn’t love Dio, the world and their haste to preserve the hatred, complexities, cruelty, and vigor of man would never allow for that type of happiness.

“Just forget it,” he told you, and he swooped down to capture your lips in an act of desperation. With a tilt of his head, he became enamored with your tongue, his palm grasping at the back of your neck as his arm wrapped itself around your body to pull you against his chest. A whimper is what escaped you when the distance between yours and his lips grew, only for them to latch onto the column of your neck to press kisses that linger with each interaction. Your morning concluded with his feverish touches, a shiver in your bones despite the heat emitting off of his fingertips. A doubt became an unwanted layer of your skin, crawling along your veins so you wouldn’t forget how worrisome it was that Dio’s actions mirrored a man who knows the end is soon to come.

You wish he could have warned you of the inevitable, except the last you saw of him is that same smirk that never left no matter how many times you attempted to vaporize that picture of him from your thoughts. You fell so many times into the memories of him sinking into your mattress, curling up for comfort and warmth in such a cold reality; in your hands was his coat, red like his energetic and intense personality, and one day you could no longer cry, no longer feel anything. You were left to savor his familiar scent upon your pillows, bitter that someone who pulled you from damnation and despair could push you back in so quickly. No longer were you floating in rapture, willingly drifting into the unknown of what is to come. 

You wish he was the one to halt your temptations, to stop you from abandoning life altogether to search for that missing piece in your puzzle. No longer did it matter to you the concerns from your family members, or the offhand comments from your coworkers. Your focus was simply to find out why, and you were more than content in spending the rest of your life figuring that question out. Perhaps Dio was hiding a fact from you that could ruin the both of you, leaving behind nothing but his jacket so it would hurt you less. Perhaps he no longer loved you and was too much of a coward to say so. The what ifs were uncontrollable, enticing, yet there seemed to be no reaching them…

Until you met Akane Kurashiki, whose first words to you were something along the lines of this: “You came into contact with someone corrupted.”

By Free the Soul.

[sockablock]

Nott & Yeza, pre-canon, 4,032 words, read on AO3

— — — — — — — — — — — 

To Watch the Moon Disappear 

Eventually they call her Nott, and they give her to the torturer.

It isn’t actually as terrible as she initially fears—at least she isn’t the one nailed to the wooden boards and she isn’t the one shivering in the cold and she isn’t the one begging, pleading, sobbing for death before the real work’s even begun—but she is the one gingerly plucking jagged glass, rusted daggers, shards of stone from the evil clay bowl in the corner and handing them over to be scraped or sliced or plunged into skin and eyes and bones.

For a goblin whose original sin is mercy, this does not sit well.

She spends the first night wide-eyed, blank-minded, staring at a stone wall and rocking slowly. She can’t remember if she slept at all. She really can’t remember much of that first night.

Later on, against all expectations, she grows used to her work. Or, at least, she grows numb to it. And over the course of the next year, as she attends to her duties, every once in a while she’ll manage to slip a bit of extra water to the prisoners, or sneak a scrap of fabric in for warmth, or even make the end come quicker, for those already too far gone to save. She hopes that it helps.

And then one day there’s a new captive. A halfling man from the nearby Felderwin village. Nott does not sit in on his…introduction to goblin society, as the torturer says that he is too important, and there can be no distractions. Nott is grateful, and spends the day wandering aimlessly through the caves, avoiding the others and keeping to herself.

But that night, as she makes her usual evening rounds scraping away messes and checking the locked doors, she peers past a particular set of rusted iron bars and sees, huddled in the corner of his makeshift prison, the new halfling man, shivering and staring back at her with a silent, vacant expression. And maybe it’s the tentative way she creeps forwards, or maybe her hunched and disarming posture, or maybe the concern glowing brightly in her wide, golden eyes, but he only stares blankly as she approaches and only flinches slightly when she stops.

Then she carefully offers him a bit of water, and he is so shocked that he speaks.

She has no idea what the sounds mean. Her grasp on Common is rudimentary at best. Most goblins only need a handful of words and phrases—yes, no, surrender, die, give, weak, where is your food, let me go, don’t kill me, you will die, I will kill you, I will really kill you—with a few swear words thrown in for color. 

This phrase is not one of them.

He says, “Thank you.”

His tone is the strangest thing she has ever heard. He speaks without malice, without hate, and with only a faint hint of fear.

Unaware of the irony, she whispers back, in Goblin, with a shrug. “You’re welcome?”

And then she leaves, taking the cup with her, so that none of the others suspect a thing.

— — — — — — — — — — — 

A week goes by. Every day, she comes back with water, or extra food, or a kind face, for the halfling man in their prison. Every day, he says the same sounds back to her. Every day, she slips away as quietly and as inconspicuously as possible.

Years of creeping around their caves, trying not to be noticed, has made Nott sneaky. Very, very sneaky.

But, apparently, not sneaky enough, because she is seen by a younger goblin, who immediately passes this on to his friends, and his friends tell their friends, and their friends tell others, until the story warps and twists and whispers that Nott—Nott the Useless, Nott the Weak, Nott the Clumsy, Nott the Worthless—has gotten their new prisoner to speak when even the torturer herself could not.

Nott is summoned by the clan elders. She is given a task.

— — — — — — — — — — — 

She pushes her way into the small prison, like she always does. Except this time, guilt weighs deeply in her stomach and she can barely meet his eyes.

She places a cup of water onto the floor for him to take, like she always does. Except this time, she lingers, and watches him reach for it.

He says, again, “Thank you,” like he always does. Except this time, this time—

“Thank you?” Nott tries. The unfamiliar syllables stick to the roof of her mouth.

His eyes immediately light up. “You speak Common?” he asks.

Nott catches “you,” and catches “Common.”

“Yes?” she hazards.

He seems to breathe a long sigh of relief, and launches into a rapid stream of sounds and words that only get faster and faster as he continues to speak. She takes a step back, the words all blur together and she can only catch snatches—village, attack, others, why here—until the bewildered expression plastered across her face finally breaks through his hope.

He sighs again, and this time it isn’t quite as nice to hear. Panicking slightly, unsure of what else to do, she points a finger to her chest and says, “Nott.”

He blinks. And then nods, and points to himself. “Yeza,” he says.

That is her first lesson.

— — — — — — — — — — — 

Another week passes.

“Those are clouds,” says Yeza, in Common, as he points to the drawing in the dirt. “They live in the sky.”

“In the sky?” Nott echoes. “Like birds?”

After finally managing to teach each other enough of their language to properly communicate, they are experimenting today with new concepts. Nott has rapidly begun to realize that though she has been aboveground before, mostly during her first failed attempts with midnight scouting and raiding parties, there are many things she has never seen before. Apparently clouds are one of them.

“No, no, not birds. They aren’t really alive. They’re…they’re just sort of things that float in the sky. When you look at the moon, sometimes it goes away, right? That’s because of clouds.”

She processes this information, and understands. “Oh, you mean, er, gra’cahz,” she says. “No, no, not alive. They’re grey, and make it easier to sneak, yes? They hide the light at night?”

Yeza considers this for a moment. “Sure,” he agrees. “Gra’chaz.”

Nott chuckles. This is a new thing as well, this chuckling sound. She has never had any need for it before, but Yeza is very amusing when he tries to pronounce Goblin words.

“What are those things you said yesterday, those things for being in the water?” she asks.

“Boats?”

“Yes, boats. How do they work, again? Why doesn’t the water go into them?”

Yeza picks up the twig, and puts it against the ground again. “They’re empty in the middle,” he says. “So that air goes inside and makes them light, and…”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

Yeza stops whistling, and gives Nott a faint smile. “I expect you’ve never heard something like that before, eh?”

Nott looks confused. “No, no, of course I have,” she says, and this seems to surprise him.

“What, really?” he asks. “In Felderwin, or from travelers, or where?”

She frowns. “Here,” she says. “I heard it here.”

“Here?” he blinks. “Goblins have music?”

“Music, is that what you call it? Not-words from your mouth that sound pretty?”

“Er, yes. Sure. You have that?”

“Of course we have music,” she says, trying the new phrase. “Why wouldn’t we? There are, hmm…talook, that you hit with your hand and they make a sound, and we have these long sticks with holes in them, they make sound too, and I can do what you just did,” she adds, and whistles a few sharp notes.

Yeza is astounded. He is quiet for a moment, and then the faint smile returns.

“You keep surprising me, Nott.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Is that a good thing?”

He nods emphatically. “Absolutely.”

 — — — — — — — — — — — 

Their days pass with relative ease, Nott always slipping into his cell every morning to learn as much as she can about him, and about his language. She peppers the man with endless questions, and he always answers them, until one day there’s a pause in the conversation and he frowns.

“Nott?” he asks.

“Yes?”

“Why…why am I not being tortured?”

Nott does not need to ask what this word means. It is one she already knows.

She is quiet for a moment. She looks up at Yeza’s furrowed brow, takes in the dirt smudged across his face and the now-tattered state of his clothes. The scars and welts across his skin from before Nott had befriended him.

She can’t tell him the truth.

She looks down at the ground, and sighs.

“They’ve given up on you,” she says. “We capture a lot of people, and they know you won’t talk, so they’re focusing now on other things. I…I’m not technically supposed to be here all the time, but I’m small. And easy to miss. So they ignore me.”

Yeza takes a moment to digest this. Then he nods slowly, and looks up at her with eyes full of genuine, warm gratitude.

“Thank you,” he says. “For not letting me be forgotten.”

She feels wretched.

— — — — — — — — — — —

“You have learned nothing?” one of the elders snaps. She is wizened, a wrinkled old husk of a goblin. Her eyes narrow down at Nott. “Nothing valuable at all?”

“We have seen them interact,” says another, voice dripping with accusation. “They are friends now. She will not give us anything worthwhile.”

“We knew she was useless,” sneers another. “Let’s just kill them both and be done with it.”

“No,” says a voice, and Nott realizes it is her own. Her eyes go wide with panic, and she clears her throat and her words break but she forges ahead.

“No, no, I will,” she tries. “I just needed to earn his…earn his trust, and learn his language. I will provide information. I swear it. Give me three more days.”

They all exchange looks.

“Three days,” says the first elder. “Information, or you both die.”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

Nott spends the night thinking of what she can do. Eventually, lying in her pile of rags, she finds the solution and nods to herself.

She is doing this to protect him, she reminds herself. She is doing this to save him.

— — — — — — — — — — — 

“Are halfling clans the same as goblin clans? Do you all live together in the same place?”

Yeza, sitting on the stone floor with Nott in front of him, considers this question for some time. “Sort of?” he settles on eventually. This is a phrase he uses a lot. Nott knows it to mean: you are right but also very wrong, all at the same time.

“Halflings don’t really live in clans,” he continues. “We live in villages, a big group of halflings made up of little groups of halflings. Our families.”

“Families?” Nott echoes, and Yeza looks stricken.

“Do you not have families, here? No mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters?”

Nott shrugs. “We are all brothers and sisters,” she says. “We don’t really have mothers and fathers, not the way you do.”

“I…I see,” says Yeza. “That makes me rather sad for you, I admit.”

She gives him a small smile of reassurance. “It’s okay,” she says. “I don’t need them. I have you now, don’t I?”

He chuckles, and grins at that. “Of course, Nott. Of course.”

“Say,” she says, leaning forwards, “can you tell me about your…your village? What is it like? Are there lots of people there? Where is it? Does everybody know each other?”

Her bright curiosity reminds him of a young child’s. His grin turns fond, and he reaches over to ruffle her hair.

“We’re a pretty close community, I’d say, especially since there’s a lot of folk—”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

“���who live in family units, mostly in the southeast portion of the city,” Nott reports, arms clasped behind her back and face pointed up at the raised rock formation where the elders sat. “The north is where their farms are, and where all their food is stored and where the livestock lives, and the west is where they have these…these sort of trading areas where they have a lot of other goods like clothes and the like. The big gates that surround the city have a few entrances, but they’re all heavily guarded, so getting in is hard. They have sentries of their own too, called ‘Crownsguard,’ that patrol the area.”

There is silence for a moment.

And then one of the elders leans forward.

“Good work, Nott.”

— — — — — — — — — — 

He answers her questions excitedly, without reservation, without suspicion, and in the moment Nott finds herself forgetting her true purpose and losing herself in the colorful descriptions of halfling culture, in the vibrant life of the busy village streets, in the strange and fascinating celebrations they hold and the intricate workings of their society.

She is entranced.

And halflings, she learns, are more similar to goblins than she thought. Not only do they also have music, but they also have their own language—called Halfling—and their own aging rites, and their own gods, and, as she learns one day, like goblins, each individuals have their own jobs.

“What do you do, Yeza?” she asks.

He puffs his chest up slightly, and his posture is a sharp contrast to the filthy, grimy, tattered state of his appearance.

“I’m a chemist,” he says.

“A chemist? What does that mean?”

He stops to consider this for a moment. “I mix things up, liquids and powders and the like, and they do different things.”

“So…you’re like a healer or a priest or something?” Nott tries.

“…sort of,” he says with a chuckle. “But I do can do much more with chemistry—”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

“I just need access to those ingredients, the healer may have them, and then I can use his knowledge to help the clan! I can create remedies, or poisons, or even acids for our weapons. We can use this.”

“Fine, yes, alright. You may learn this from him.”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

“You really are a natural at this, Nott,” beams Yeza as they watch the green liquid in the small stone pot bubble and pop. “You sure you’ve never had any training before?”

She glows under his praise. “I just have a great teacher.”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

Two months have passed. Today, they are sitting together in the cell, backs against the wall, looking at the other wall.

“You said before that goblins don’t have families?”

Nott nods. “The clan is our family,” she says.”

“So, then…do goblins fall in love? I know that’s a silly question to ask,” he adds hastily, “and you’re still young, but I was just curious.”

Nott seems to consider this for a moment. “You said before that love is when you care about something a lot, right?”

He nods.

“I…I don’t know. Maybe? I think…I think they can.”

He leans his head against the stone behind him.

“I had someone I loved, very much, back home,” he says.

Nott feels her heart sink.

“Oh,” she says. “What…what were they like?”

Yeza closes his eyes. “He was wonderful. His hair looked like autumn leaves and eyes were like sunlight.”

The cadence of his words gives Nott the impression that this was something Yeza said often, and softly, and with a smile on his lips. Her heart sinks further.

“I’m…I’m sorry I can’t get you out,” Nott says. “They…the clan would kill us before we could get to the entrance. Believe me, I’ve thought about it a lot.”

He ruffles her hair.

“That’s alright, Nott,” he says. “I’m just glad you’re here, and that you bothered to think of that.”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

And then, the next day, Nott shows off a poisoned crossbow bolt to the elders, and demonstrates a flaming, handheld projectile. She speaks to them in Halfling, and she tells them that Felderwin is emptier in the winter.

They are impressed.

So impressed, in fact, that they decide they no longer need Yeza.

— — — — — — — — — — —

Nott scrambles into his cell, eyes wide, heart racing, fists clenched and shaking with distress. He looks up at her and gives her that faint smile, the one she had grown so used to, but then he notices her fear, her terror, and he pauses.

“Nott?” he asks. “What…what’s wrong?”

She stops short a foot in front of him, and shakes her head.

“We have to get you out of here,” she says. “We have to free you. You have to get out.”

He frowns. “Why? What’s happened?”

“They…they…”

She takes a deep breath. And then another. And then the tears start falling, and she falls to her knees.

“I’m sorry, Yeza,” she sobs, “I’m so, so sorry.”

He moves closer, puts a hand on her shoulder, and the care in his gesture and the tenderness he shows makes Nott only cry harder. She is terrible. She is disgusting. She does not deserve his kindness.

“I…I’m sorry, Yeza. I betrayed you. I’ve betrayed you. You were so important to me, you were so nice to me, and I broke your trust and I’m sorry.”

He frowns, but does not move. “What do you mean, Nott?” he asks softly. “What did you do? What is going on?”

She takes a few moments to steady herself. Her breathing is ragged and between gulps of air she tells him the truth.

“They never gave up on you, that was a lie,” she moans. “They saw that you spoke to me, at the very beginning, and they wanted me to get information from you. So I started talking to you, and I was just going to try to do what they wanted, but then you were so kind to me, you treated me like a real person, and I didn’t want to hurt you, so I liked. But, Yeza, these last two months have been the best of my entire life. And they, the elders, they didn’t like that we were so friendly to each other, and they wanted to kill us both and, and I was okay with dying but not if you would too, and as long as you kept giving me information they didn’t care, and they let us keep spending time with one another that way, so I played along but now…now…”

Yeza’s tone is unreadable. “…now?”

“Now they say they have everything they need. They want…they want…” her voice is barely a breath, “…they want me to kill you.”

There is a moment of silence. And then Yeza speaks.

“Are…are you going to kill me?”

Nott shakes her head. Fat, heavy tears hit the floor. “No,” she says, “no. I…I can’t do that. You’re a good person, I…I…I’m so sorry for lying to you.”

Yeza moves away, and Nott’s heart plummets until she realizes his hand is still on her shoulder. She looks up, and meets his eyes.

They are warm.

“You know,” he says gently, “I’ve seen quite a bit in my time. But not once, not ever, have I seen a goblin cry.”

He puts a hand on her head and ruffles her hair. “It’s okay. It’s alright. You did what you needed to, and…and I am still glad to have met you.”

Nott buries her face into his chest, and he wraps her into a hug.

“I’m so, so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” he says gently. “It’s alright. But…er…I still would rather not die, if it’s all the same to you.”

Nott, despite her tears, laughs. She pulls back, and looks at his face.

“I don’t want you to die either,” she says. “You’re my friend. And…and…you still have someone waiting for you. Someone who has hair like the autumn and eyes like sunlight,” she recites. “And I know I said once that it would be almost impossible to get you out, but…but…”

“But now we have no choice.”

“Yeah.”

He nods. “Alright then. Do you have a plan?”

She wipes her eyes, sniffles a bit, reaches into her pockets, and pulls out a ring of keys.

“In one hour, get ready to run.”

He nods again. “Will you come with me?”

“I…if you’ll let me?”

“Of course.”

“Okay then,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Then I’ll try. But if I can’t, then I just want you to get out. I just need to know that you will be safe.”

“But what about y—”

Nott hands him the keys. “I’m a goblin,” she says. “We’re tough little buggers. I’ll be fine.”

He takes her hand in his.

“You are my friend, Nott. You are brave, and I will never forget you.”

She smiles. “Thanks, Yeza. I’ll never forget you too.”

— — — — — — — — — — — 

Nott has been drunk before.

She has never, in her entire life, been this ridiculously belligerently drunk.

The alcohol didn’t even taste good, sliding down her throat, it was something awful brewed in the deep tunnels out of fungal growths and night-time plants, but goblins know their drink and the sharp, hard burn does its job well. She is so thoroughly intoxicated, even, that right now, her idea sounds like the greatest plan ever created, and she feels more alive than she ever has before. Alive and invincible. Alive and courageous. Alive, and brave.

She grabs a crossbow from the wall, strides out into one of the larger caverns, climbs up into a small alcove in the wall, sights down the shaft, and fires.

Later on, she tells the story a little differently.

But right now, as the strong fermented spirits course through her veins, the hard liquor tells her that one isn’t going to work. It isn’t going to cause enough chaos. It isn’t going to give them the distraction they need. It isn’t going to ensure his escape.

She fires again.

And again.

And again.

And now the chamber below erupts into complete chaos, goblins shriek and scream and scramble around, they shout in their terrible guttural language and accuse each other of shooting and point fingers and then point claws and then spears and short-swords and now the entire clan whips into a maelstrom of writing green flesh and angry swears and flashing talons, and Nott feels good, she feels so good, until someone below points up at her and with a gleeful, vengeful accusatory finger shouts:

“Idiots, the lot of you! It was her! Look, up there, it was her!”

Nott throws the crossbow.

She runs.

— — — — — — — — — — — 

She doesn’t even have time to see if Yeza escapes.

— — — — — — — — — — — 

She finally slows down at the edge of the forest, the infuriated screams of her clanmates long past and the winding tunnels of their underground caverns now just a distant echo in the landscape.

She leans against a boulder, breathing heavily.

She looks up at the night sky, through a break in the trees, and watches the moon disappear.

“Gra’chaz,” she says softly. “Clouds.”

She glances at the rolling valleys beyond, and sees a tiny glow on the horizon. She can just make out the vague silhouette of rooftops and chimney stacks.

She will sleep here tonight. And then tomorrow, she will be gone.

— — — — — — — — — — — 

And later on, much later, much, much later on, after a botched attempt to steal a bottle of cherry wine, Nott is thrown into a prison like a sack of old bones and the rusted iron gate slams shut behind her. She kicks at the damp, gravelly ground, grumbles to herself, and turns around and there, to her surprise, in the corner of the prison she sees a man, huddled into himself and silent. He is staring at her, piercing blue eyes open wide, shoulders trembling.

She considers him for a long, long minute. There is an old, old ache in her chest. She remembers the sound of someone whistling, and the feeling of a warm hand ruffling her hair. There is a tray on the ground, the untouched evening meal left by the guards for her and this man.

She reaches down.

She picks up a chipped mug, carefully steps closer, and offers him a bit of water.

[danvssomethingorother]

My Top Picks for VB fics

I didn’t want to put the fics in any order, they are all good and just as a warning, I mainly read Brusty fics but these are my personal favorites from the VB fandom. most VB fics are good though and I still have some not Brusty ones on my to read list later, so I will likely update again lol. Please feel free to reblog this and add more fics!

Hubris Makes the Heart Grow Strong -  

Ship: Brusty eventually

Status: Ongoing. 

Author: @the-monarch-is-a-venture here

Summary: An AU in which Rusty takes Brock's DNA while they're in college and ends up mixing it with his own later to create Hank and Dean.This will be Brock x Rusty further in to the story, but it's definitely gonna be a slow build, multi-chapter type thing.

My notes: I think this was one of the first VB fics I read way back in July after I finally got around to finishing up the series after years of never being able to keep up with it properly even though I have always liked the show and man this really helped me stick around and keep an eye on the fandom even when it was dead.

I just really like the premise of this fic, its a really creative and interesting origin story of where the twins came from and its just really soft. Its like a perfect fic to read when like you have had a long day and just need to relax with a cute fic. 

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What’s Past Is A Prologue

Ships: Brusty

Status: Complete

Author: mirawonderfulstar

Summary: “How is the doc, anyway? Have you heard from him recently?”“Alas, no.” Orpheus said solemnly. “The last I saw of him was shortly after you and the boys left the compound. I went by to see if perhaps he needed some cheering up, poor fellow, all alone in that huge empty place, and he threw me out.” Orpheus’s tone grew colder. “I daresay that Killinger fellow brainwashed him, yes? Turned him away from the things and people he loved. I cannot think of any other reason he’d allow you and the children to be parted from him, he always seemed so devoted to you all.”Brock felt something cold slide down into his stomach, and he took a quick spoonful of his soup which did nothing to counter the effect. “You think?” He grunted after a moment.An AU following the divergence that Rusty took Killinger's offer at the end of The Doctor Is Sin.

My Notes: Rusty becomes a villain AUs are my jam. The Doctor Is Sin is definitely one of my favorite episodes!

I love how it keeps it a mystery what Rusty is up by keeping everything in Brock’s perspective and showing his slow transformation into a real villain and I don’t want to give it away but Rusty’s plan is freaking genius. Like that is super in character and its a really heart breaking ending. Just go read it, you won’t regret it.

---

How you Feeling?

Ships: Brusty

Status: Complete

Author: NewAgeVintage 

Summary: Taking place in a vague place in season 6/7.Rusty loses his secret stash of ‘emergency’ pills when he loses the compound. Thankfully money can buy dubiously prescribed medication. After a frustrating night in the lab he breaks into his stash and Brock needs to step in. 

My Notes: I have been trying to just like keep it to like one story per author I like and since most of the fandom is like the same few people making tons of really good work, it sometimes got tricky. 

Like I have really loved every single story this author has made but I settled on this one eventually because I just really love the idea that Brock is just used to Rusty’s bad habits and just knows how to handle the situation easily. Like he just knows him too well and I am just rambling without giving away the entire story but I just like the dynamic between Rusty and Brock and how its presented. Also read their other VB fics cause I love them lots too.  

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Red and Blue

Ship: None, gen.

Status: Complete

Author: @paigek9

Summary: From a young age, Rusty knew that Malcom was treated differently.When they were four, their dad started color-coding all of their toys, mostly to keep Uncle Rodney from losing his mind because of the daily screaming matches and fights between the brothers. All of Rusty’s toys were red; his favorite color. Malcom’s were blue, even though he liked yellow. Red was a dominant color, according to his father. The mark of a strong leader (Definitely not because fans had the habit of sending Rusty red gifts to match his hair). Blue marked the color of his company, or at least that’s what he would say around Malcom. To Rusty, it meant Player 2, Option B, a backup plan. Malcom was born to play second fiddle to Rusty, and that’s how it was supposed to be…According to Jonas.

My Notes: Yes, I know she just wrote this for me for my silly AU but I just really love this fic ok? My friend is so talented and I love her. Look what she made.

---

Private Growth in the Face of... Stuff

Ship: Brusty

Status: Complete

Author: @deliriumbubbles

Summary: After the party at Hatred’s and debriefing the boys, Brock and Rusty fight over what went down at the party. Or at least, what Rusty knows about. They send the boys to bed, and Brock sets to work relieving some tension. 

My Notes: When I make lists like this I usually try to not give like smut recs but like this is just a really freaking good smut fic. Its not just smut, its a complex feels piece that just happens to have smut. Its just a really good fic guys, just read it.

--- 

Into Safety? (Wear Some Kneepads)

Ship: Brusty

Status: Complete

Author: newyorktopaloalto

Summary:  Brock coming back— free of pay and of his own volition— meant nothing more than he still loved the boys he had helped Rusty raise for almost twenty years. This was not a romcom (no matter the clichéd archetypes that set the stage for his life) and if it were, it would not be one starring him— it would be starring Meg Ryan because he had already thought about it for way longer than he would admit out loud. So he was living here, taking care of the boys, giving Rusty a long-suffering and amusingly indulgent look, existing (drinking coffee, making dinner, cracking terrible jokes and skulls) as though he had never left...And so, yeah, whatever, Brock coming back might have something (infinitesimal, really, but bordering on nigh) to do with him. It still didn't make his life a romcom.

My Notes: Did you really expect me not to rec the one and only successful Rusty fic on A03? Cause I have so many feels for this fic. It just takes the basic concept of a successful Rusty and it builds its own little world off it all the while very much keeping it in the Venture Bros universe. Its so good, it makes me cry. Please read it. 

---

Where are My Pills, Where is My Former Lover?

Ship: Brusty

Status: Ongoing

Author: hell0lust

Summary: He’d promised Brock, all those years ago, that he was through with the pills, for good. Who cares what Brock thinks? He’s not your... whatever he was, anymore. Brock doesn’t get to decide what you do or don’t do.Rusty Venture has never known a life outside of failure. With the sudden weight of keeping his late brother's company afloat on his shoulders, Rusty finds himself falling into old habits of prescription drug abuse, as a means to cope.

My Notes: Out of the genre of ‘Rusty picks up his old addictions again in New York’ fics (that are really all good) this one is my favorite. It sadly hasn’t been updated in awhile but I hold hope the author will come back eventually. I just love how everything is played off in this fic, the slow build to Rusty and Brock getting back together and Rusty’s addictions and his jealousy of Warriana, its all just good. Go read it, you won’t regret it.

---

let me in the wall you've built around

Ship: Brusty

Status: Complete 

Author: @ladyofdecember

Summary: Rusty has a hard time coming to grips with events after "The Unicorn In Captivity". His family is worried. Brock and Rusty struggle with communication. 

My Notes: This was another case of damn, which fic of the authors should I choose for this? There are a ton of amazing stories she has written! I think I finally settled on this one because it gave a really beautiful conclusion to one of the darker episodes from this season and it brings me joy. The angst building up to a warm fluffy ending is really beautiful.

---

Surrogate Fatherhood

Ship: None, Gen.

Status: Complete

Author: @tsv

Summary: "He tries to ignore the shortcomings in Doc's parenting, at first. In the beginning, he'd taken it as the understandable failings of a first-time father — an emotionally callous comment here, a forgotten promise there. But soon enough, they begin to pile up, piecing together like a quilt of subtle emotional neglect.And it's not his job. At all. It's not even remotely his job. Still, when Dean comes out of his room crying about a nightmare and Doc tells him he's busy without even looking up, it itches at him. Despite the distance he'd tried to maintain, Brock genuinely feels bad."A piece reflecting on Brock and his relationship with the boys over the years.

My Notes: It was really hard for me to choose one from this author. I think I am in love with all of their work. Every piece is a freaking masterpiece and well done and everything I wanted from this fandom. But I chose this one cause fluffy Brock and the boys stuff is pretty rare and this one always, always manages to hit me in the feels.

----

That’s it for now, my favorite fics. If you want to add more, please do! Like everyone in this fandom is super talented!

[the-original-starfruit-blog]

Lapidot Anniversary Week D3

“Love Thy Neighbor”

The perks of living in a refurbished barn in the middle of nowhere? Lots of serene quiet, an ideal atmosphere for making art, and homophobic neighbors to one-up with your completely, utterly, 100% platonic roommate.

Words: 3,481

Tags: romance/ mutual crushing/ homophobia/ human au/ gay pride/ artist!au/ music!au/ they each have a crush on the other and it's a grand gay old time

(my contribution for day three’s human au prompt !! and yes, this was preexisting cause i was lazy today and didn’t do a painting) @jenhedgehog @lapidot-anniversary-week

Lapis moved the curtain aside to peek out the window. She did a double take, quickly pushing the light fabric all the way aside to get a better view.

    “Oh my god,” she muttered, then louder: “Peridot, come look at this shit.”

There was a note from the other room, the sullen twang of a B flat, a hollow, vaguely discordant thump that sounded like a guitar being put down not as gently as it should have. Another sound, one of their chairs being scraped back, and Peridot came over.

    “Sorry – was I interrupting?” Lapis asked, and she shook her head grumpily.

Lapis suppressed a shiver as Peridot slipped under her arm to look out the window.

    “It’s fine. I wasn’t getting anything done anyway.”

She could feel the younger girl’s body heat radiating through her light summer clothes, the top of her hijab barely brushing Lapis’s shoulder.

    “So what’s outside besides the usual trees, grass and –“ Peridot stopped, her mouth dropping open. “Jesus Christ.”

    “Yeah, pretty much,” Lapis agreed, dropping her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Although it may not befit you to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

    Peridot snorted, elbowing Lapis in the side. She shook her head slowly as she continued to look outside at the house next door, which had been decorated apparently overnight with no less than seven oversized American flags, a large cross, and a wooden sign that proclaimed God Bless America!

    “I always knew our neighbors were wacked,” Lapis said, stepping away from the window. The butterflies in her stomach subsided, though she told herself it was the absence of Christian patriotism being shoved in her face rather than close proximity to Peridot and her warmth.

    “I mean, we’re two reclusive art students living in a barely remodeled barn, Laz,” Peridot said with a grin. “They probably think the same thing about us.”

    She let the curtain fall back into place and went back into the two mismatched couches they called the sitting area, picking up her guitar and letting a couple notes vibrate through the air. She extended one short leg onto the crate-turned-coffee-table and leaned her head back, emitting a sigh of frustration so heavy it was nearly palpable.

    “You need a break,” Lapis said. “Wanna come to the farmer’s market so we actually have something for dinner tonight?”

    “Why not,” Peridot said after a moment of hesitation, leaning all the way over the back of the couch and smiling upside down. Her glasses nearly fell off as she straightened with nervous energy and hopped off the couch.

    Lapis grabbed her backpack from the table and rummaged around inside, fishing out a few crumpled bills and a handful of change. Peridot came down from the loft a few minutes later with a similar yield.

    “Twelve seventy-eight,” she said. Lapis grinned and held out her hand.

“Twenty-six fifty,” she said triumphantly, and Peridot whooped.

    “Gourmet tonight,” she said, opening the front door and letting Peridot out first, “I’m thinking fresh pesto and –“

    They collided as Peridot stopped abruptly, and Lapis swore as she nearly bowled her over.

    “What –“ she began, and then Peridot bent to pick up a sheet of paper from their front step. Her eyes scanned it quickly and she handed it to Lapis, incredulous.

    “Add to the burn pile, I guess,” she said, eyebrows raised as she headed for the car.

    HAVE YOU BEEN SAVED? the paper bellowed, and Lapis allowed for a hearty eye roll before she continued to read. Most are unaware they are living in sin. However, it is not too late! The New Testament proclaims that everyone can be saved if they confess, repent, and believe – despite falling prey to sins such as thievery, copulation out of wedlock, homosexuality

    Lapis crumpled the paper in her fist, scowling, and threw it vehemently in the direction of the house next door.

    She got into the driver’s seat, slamming the door a bit harder than necessary, her cheeks flushed. Peridot, seatbelt already buckled conscientiously, looked over.

    “Do you mind if we make a stop at the paint store on the way home?” Lapis asked. An idea was starting, familiar inspiration blooming in the forefront of her mind. “I have some stuff I need to get.”

                                                                    *   *   *   *   *

The next morning, Lapis was up at dawn. She dressed quickly and headed outside, her bag of brushes and paint heavy on her arm. She had gotten seven sample-sized colors of housepaint for free, and she knew exactly how she was going to use them.

    She hummed as she pried open the metal lids with a paint-splattered screwdriver. She and Peridot had talked about repainting the barn since they moved in, and Lapis had always hated the drab gray that was peeling off the outside wall like long strips of elephant skin. She had been out with a ladder, an old toilet brush and a hose last night, scrubbing away the dirt and loose old paint to prepare the wall for new.

    By the time Peridot had woken up, gotten ready, realized Lapis was gone, and come outside to look for her, her work was done. With her hands on her hips and her back to their neighbor’s house, she stood and admired the seven stripes of color that radiated off the side of their barn. Peridot joined her, mouth agape.

    “You painted a twelve foot pride flag on the side of our house because our neighbors left a stupid flyer on our stoop?”

    Lapis nodded, unable to contain her grin. She wiped a smear of blue paint from her hand to her leg.

    Peridot’s serious facade broke, and she cackled, holding her sides and wiping at the corner of her eye.

    “They’re going to be so pissed,” she gasped eventually, patting Lapis lightly on the back several times, warm and sweet and congratulatory in the sun.

    “That’s the idea,” Lapis said, something in her chest glowing. “Let’s go have breakfast, I’m starved.”

                                                                    *   *   *   *   *

For two days they waited for a response, peeking out the windows every few hours. Bored, Lapis used the rest of the robin-egg blue housepaint to repaint a wall on her side of the loft, and Peridot whined about the fumes until Lapis mixed a pale purple and drove her outside by deciding to do a wall downstairs as well. She opened all the windows and laughed as she listened to Peridot strum her guitar, alternating between mournful minor chords and an angry blues riff that always ended with the accompanying lyrics fuck you, oh-ohhh Lazuli, fuck yoo-ouu.

    That evening, she went outside with purple paint under her nails and two sandwiches on a tray. She sat next to Peridot on their scratchy little back lawn, admiring how the last of the sunset looked coming through the tall weeping beech that watched over the black-eyed Susans in the corner. Cicadas sang in monotone at the few dozen fireflies beginning to stitch through the dark abovegrass.

    “Oh! Wow, thanks,” Peridot said, picking up her sandwich and humming appreciatively as she bit into it.

    “You should eat more,” Lapis said without thinking, knowing how easy it was to forget food when immersed in painting or sculpting. She hoped it was the same for Peridot’s music and that the younger girl wasn’t neglecting to eat on purpose.

    Peridot shrugged it off, her mouth full. Then she swallowed like she had forgotten something, her eyes wide.

    “I forgot to tell you! Look what they put up over there, it’s fucking terrifying.”

Lapis stood up and shaded her eyes, looking at the neighbor’s house. Her mouth fell open.

    There was a life-sized scarecrow decorated in painstaking detail to look like Uncle Sam, painted face accurate down to the bushy white eyebrows. It pointed menacingly in their direction, a red-white-and-blue top hat perched on its head. Yet another flag hung from an outstretched arm.

    Peridot was laughing silently when Lapis sat back down, wide-eyed and shaking her head slowly. She opened her mouth, but then just took a bite of sandwich, at a loss for words.

    “You know what this calls for, right?” Peridot asked, her eyes glittering. Lapis looked over and couldn’t help smiling at the four feet eleven inches of energy practically vibrating by her side.

    “Retaliation.”

                                                                  *   *   *   *   *

The next day Lapis woke up to something horrible poking repetitively at her ribs. She shoved the offending sensation away. It persisted, and she groaned, rolling over and cocooning herself in blankets.

    “Lazuli,” a soft whisper, then louder, “Lazuli!”

She sat bolt upright so suddenly that Peridot squeaked in alarm, jerking backwards and blinking innocently behind her round glasses.

    “Iss still dark ou’,” Lapis slurred irritably, glaring through squinted eyes in the lavender-tinted predawn light that crept shyly through the window. Peridot nodded.

    “I know, I have to get outside before the neighbors go to work so that they’re guaranteed to hear me, and I thought I could use a little extra time to ensure the plan goes off flawlessly –“

    Lapis laid a finger imprecisely over her lips in a shushing motion. The blanket slipped down a bit, and Lapis hiked it back up, feeling the cool air prickle her bare skin. Peridot stopped talking abruptly. Lapis couldn’t tell in the barely-there light, but she thought she saw a dark flush of color, flaming cheeks.

    “Get to the point?” Lapis asked, less cuttingly than she wanted, and her heart was racing so damn hard at the feeling of Peridot’s soft and slightly chapped lips on her finger that she was certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep again.

    Peridot grinned and pulled away from Lapis’s hand.

“What are the gayest songs you know?” she asked. Lapis blinked for a moment.

    “Power of Two by Indigo Girls, She by Dodie Clark, Jenny by the Studio Killers,” Lapis rattled off, then smiled a little as Peridot blinked in bemusement. “Why’d you ask me if you thought you wouldn’t get results?”

    Peridot shook her head silently and left. Her head stopped level with the floor as she descended the ladder, and she added a small, “Wow, thanks!” before disappearing below the edge of the loft.

    Lapis sagged back into the nest of her bed. She touched her finger with her other hand, gently rubbing the spot where Peridot’s lips had been – the spot that, for some elusive reason, seemed to burn.

    She knew it would be useless to try and get back to sleep, but she lay in bed for a while longer anyway before Peridot’s soft music drifted through the walls of the barn. She got up, pulled on a shirt, and went outside.

    Peridot was leaning against the wall of the barn underneath the enormous pride flag, strumming her guitar and looking at tablature on her phone. The sun was coming up, painting everything with a strangely delicate new light, rose-toned and downy gold.

    Peridot saw her and stopped humming under her breath.

“Lapis! Here, this is in perfect conjunction with my plan – quick, sit down, he’ll be coming out here any minute –“

    Lapis sat next to Peridot in the dew-sweet grass, shivering as the seat of her boxers soaked up the dampness with brutal efficiency. Peridot glanced up.

    “Cozy up, we have to put on a good show,” she said, and Lapis felt warmth blossom down her whole side as Peridot pressed against her. She sighed in sleepy contentment, her mouth opening in a jaw-cracking yawn.

    “So wha – aaah – what’s this… retaliation of yours?” Lapis asked. Her head drooped, and it seemed too much effort to raise it again. Peridot repositioned her shoulder so she could still play with Lapis’s head cradled by her neck.

    “I sit out here and demonstrate proof of my blatant protest of their homophobia by playing gay songs under our enormous pride flag. The message would have been sufficiently clear with me on my own, hence the plan, but your presence adds yet another layer of sapphic imagery.”

    Lapis smiled a little at the proud explanation. She was always a sucker for sapphic imagery.

    “Well-planned and meaningful composition,” she said through another yawn, “thought that was my job.”

    “You already did your job with the flag, painter,” Peridot said smugly, strumming a few chords, the notes harmonious as dewdrops in the fresh air. “Now sit there and look gay.”

    Lapis snorted. Her eyes slipped closed.

“Can do,” she thought she muttered, but she couldn’t be sure – everything was a bit dreamlike, a faded impressionist landscape of greens and sunrise hues, blurred through the squint of her eyelashes. Almost chalky with pastel strokes and colors. Peridot’s bare shoulder blushed warm under her sleep-soft cheek.

    It could have been hours later when Lapis first started to wake, surfacing from some emerald-weeded and waterlilied pond jeweled by music she couldn’t differentiate from a dream. She was slowly aware of being curled against something warm and small, and of the song filtering down through the sunlit water of her consciousness – a voice that Lapis rarely heard, less nasal than spoken word and much huskier than expected from such a tiny girl.

    She opened her eyes and was confronted by Peridot’s shoulder, the golden-brown expanse of her skin under the slim smile of her tank top strap. The song was barely audible over the sigh of the wind, but some lyrics got through.

    though she came from the sea

    her smile’s not for me

  a moonshell girl, translucent pearl

    my Lapis Lazuli.

Lapis tried to isolate the lurch in her chest but shifted by accident, her face slipping abruptly and her heart beating hummingbird fast.

    The guitar and Peridot’s voice cut off with equal suddenness, and Lapis felt her move. A poorly disguised note of panic, though she kept her voice quiet.

    “I – Lapis! Are you awake?”

Lapis pretended to stretch with a sonorous movement, as if she were escaping the syrup of sleep, and she must have done a moderately convincing job. Peridot relaxed as she hummed a noncommittally drowsy answer, straightening slowly against the wall. She faked a yawn and wiggled her toes in the grass in front of her, finally looking over at Peridot with a simulated tiredness.

    “Aaah shit – how long did I sleep? Did I miss him?” she murmured, pointing her chin at the neighbor’s house.

    Peridot looked relieved.

“Only by about an hour,” she said scornfully. “You’ll be pleased to know he reacted quite well to my ballads – other than his face bearing a striking resemblance to a pitted prune once he figured out my lyrics, there appeared to be no negative changes in his attitude.”

    Lapis snorted.

“No pitchforks, no torches, no village mob screaming to burn us?” she asked, and Peridot shook her head.

    “You can afford to joke, but we’re lucky,” she said darkly.

“Oh, lighten up, Miss Gloom-and-Doom,” Lapis said, resisting the impulse to kiss Peridot’s cheek - where in the blazing hell had that come from? - before she stood up, trying to hide her furious blush. “I can’t wait to see how they’ll top this one.”

                                                               *   *   *   *   *

The revenge was quick to come in the form of an obnoxious sign, proudly pegged into the center of the neighbor’s lawn – God Hates Gays & Liars.

    “Whatever that means,” Peridot had said contemptuously when she saw it. Lapis loathed that sign, and now a hot little worm of anger burned whenever she looked out the window.

    It took her four days to sculpt three detailed statues, each about eight inches high, and each depicting a different pair of women embracing in various positions, their nudity artfully displayed and accentuated with long, flowing lines of languorous motion. Peridot blushed heavily when she saw them.

    “Wow – I mean, those are gorgeous, but, uh, pretty explicit, Laz,” she said when Lapis emerged, smelling baked by the kiln and her fingernails crusted with brown-red clay.

    “I know. This should, ah, grant them a new perspective on what they’re protesting with all their righteous god-squad fuckery,” Lapis said, carefully gathering her sculptures.

    “Wait – what do you mean? These aren’t for around the house, or gallery pieces? You’re not selling them?” Peridot questioned anxiously, following Lapis as she made a beeline for the front door.

    “Oh, no,” Lapis assured her with a manic brightness in her eyes, “these are going straight on our garden wall. Those assholes will get a very personalized gallery viewing.”

    She marched out the door, Peridot spluttering in her wake, and set the statues facing their neighbors on the low stone wall that divided their two properties.

    The next day, the other house planted two beds of bright, unnatural-looking red-white-and-blue flowers around their sign and around their scarecrow. Peridot, her mouth twisted in unspoken distaste, set large pots of tall foxglove and marigold on the wall between the statues, partially blocking the view.

    Nearly a week passed without retaliation, and Lapis had begun to relax until she went out to water Peridot’s flowers one morning. The watering can toppled from her hand.

    One of her statues had been smashed, a thousand shards of clay scattered along the top of the wall. Some larger fragments had fallen to the ground, and Lapis recognized smooth brown limbs she had spent hours creating, a leg here, an arm there. Shaking with anger, she picked up the sign that had replaced the statue.

    Love is Love, But God’s Law is God’s Law. Keep Marriage Sacred.

She clenched her teeth, a sound of furious despair leaking out of her mouth. She threw the sign violently and fell to her knees, head bowed, slowly picking up the pieces.

    Peridot came out of the house, running across the lawn in fright. Lapis didn’t look up.

    “Laz! Lapis! What’s wrong, are you – “ Out of breath, she spotted the ruined statue and the sign. She slowed to a stop, and then hesitantly put her hand on Lapis’s shoulder.

    After a minute, she spoke again, her voice unusually gentle.

“We can file a complaint, maybe call someone? Destruction of private property on private property has got to be – “

    “It’s not about the statue!” Lapis cut her off, feeling hot tears welling behind her eyes. “I guess – it was never about the neighbors. It’s the principle of the matter. That there are still people like this, backwards-thinking stupid damn people who think it’s not okay for us to love each other – or – or that we’re broken or dirty or – wrong,” she finished, feeling Peridot’s hand drop from her shoulder. She felt a brief flare of panic – and then a small hand was in hers, pulling her upright, and then gentle fingers were under her eyes, doing their best to blot the sadness away.

    “Hey, hey. Hey,” Peridot insisted, touching Lapis under the chin to make her look down. “I know. Some people are shitty sometimes, and lots of people are shitty all the time. But,” and Peridot was leaning closer, leaning upwards, and Lapis’s heart was thundering in her ears, her eyes half-closed, lashes wet and still and sooty, “you have to remember that there will always be people like us, too.”

    She closed the distance between them, and Lapis had room for nothing except the music that seemed to soar from around them, rising like a sunburst in the middle of the hot summer morning. There was a chaotic, tumbling happiness too, the world feeling overwhelmingly warm and bright and wonderful. The smell of cut grass and flowers in Peridot’s hair. Lapis thought they could have stayed like that forever if she hadn’t heard the small cough from over the garden wall.

    She pulled back gently and turned her head.

Their neighbor, who Lapis had never seen before now, stood in the middle of his flower bed, a harmless-looking old man in baggy jeans and a red polo shirt. His mouth was open slightly, and an obviously forgotten hose hung from one hand, pouring a stream of clear water into a patch of already saturated grass.

    Lapis found herself smiling sunnily.

She pulled Peridot tight against her, lifting her up and kissing her deeply. She felt a shimmer of pride as the startled sound Peridot made initially turned into a quiet, satisfied hum. Her arms wrapped around Lapis’s shoulders. Lapis closed her eyes, gently stroking Peridot’s back, and let herself be absorbed in bliss until she heard a series of progressively less subtle coughs, then an offended “Hmmph!” and a door slamming in the next house over.

    They broke apart leisurely, Peridot grinning with the self-satisfaction of a cat as she slid back to the ground.

    “We should have done that a long time ago,” she said breathlessly, her arms still around Lapis’s waist.

    Lapis nodded and kissed Peridot’s cheek. Finally. It was warm and smooth.

“Can you help me take these statues in?” Lapis asked with a smile, touching the warm blush of freckles on Peridot’s face as she nodded. “I don’t think we need to worry about the neighbors anymore.”

[aethelar]

I'm listening to sad music, so have this : Graves dies protecting Newt. He throws himself in front of a spell. Because he, as broken as he is, never deserved someone like Scamander. But the world /needs/ Newt. Graves dies without regrets.

You’re listening to sad music, I’m in a weird sort of mood and have just downed two cups of strong coffee at midnight. Let’s do this thing. Let’s…

Let’s play out what would happen if Graves didn’t die. If, when Newt held out his hand and offered freedom in the quirk of his smile, Graves hadn’t said yes. If, when Newt took his suitcase and his heart and saved the world in a thousand tiny ways, Graves wasn’t following behind him with a shield charm permanently raised and an overused first aid kit in his pocket. If, when Newt’s blood-slick wand was torn from his broken fingers and he used his last breath to activate the emergency protections on his suitcase, when his ribs cave in and his lungs burn as they drown, when his heart thunders too fast and his head swims in dizzy nausea, when the ground falls away beneath him and the sky rockets down to tear him apart -

If, when Newt dies, Graves is in his kitchen, shirt sleeve rolled up and hair flecked with paint as he balances on the worktop to reach the corners of the ceiling.

It’s yellow, the kitchen, yellow walls and a white ceiling, and he’s painting it by hand because it’s important. He’s dripped paint on the counter tops but that’s fine. He’s going to replace those as well, swap out the stately black granite for… wood. He hasn’t decided what kind yet, but he thinks wood. Wooden counters and white cupboard doors.

The kitchen is yellow, and he has a bag of daffodil bulbs waiting to be planted in the window pots. He’s going to paint the entire house eventually, paint over the grand window arches and the imposing bannisters and lay new carpets over the cold and unyielding tiled floors. He’s going to reclaim his life from the shell Grindelwald made of it and he’s going to make himself into a different man. A rougher man, scratched and torn at the edges but still whole enough, a man that lives in a house with a yellow kitchen and daffodils on the windowsill and all his bottles of alcohol poured down the sink and not replaced.

The daffodils are from his mother. She gave them to him when he first came back, when he limped out of hospital and refused the offer of a cane. She planted them for him in a pot he could see from his kitchen window, and she pressed a kiss to his cheek and taught him a charm to hold the onions in place so he could still chop them with only one hand. Graves diligently thanked her and forgot that the daffodils ever existed. He tried the charm once or twice, managed to make himself a decent risotto and a vat of tomato sauce, but he didn’t see the point. He wasn’t hungry.

He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t tired. He limped through life and squinted at the daylight and tried to think when the sun had come up and if he’d really stayed up all night, and he drank because at least it was something to do. He didn’t think about what had happened. He thought too much about what had happened. He watched dumbly as another owl left another letter and ignored another tentative knock at his door (at Grindelwald’s door while he sat in Grindelwald’s house decorated in Grindelwald’s striking monotones) and told himself that he wasn’t ready to see anyone yet. He’d see them when he was better.

When he was better. Graves was never blind; he knew he wasn’t well. He knew he wasn’t coping, wasn’t dealing, and he knew he wasn’t moving on. It was another point on the list of failures, just like he knew he hadn’t stopped Grindelwald and he hadn’t escaped and he hadn’t fought hard enough to get away. He knew, also, that he was being unreasonable, that expecting himself to just get over it was harsh and unrealistic, that the sympathy people offered him didn’t make him weak and the support people tried to give him didn’t make him selfish. He knew that. He just didn’t deserve it. He was a drunken, self-pitying wreck, an embarrassing caricature of a broken man, and he needed to fix himself. He’d see them when he was better. When he was someone who was worth their sympathy and their support instead of this shameful charade. He just needed time to fix it, that’s all.

He needed time. He had time, in theory, but it slipped away and autumn faded to winter in hazy dawns filtering through closed curtains and stacks of letters that he never read. He didn’t get better. He added it to his list of failures and sometimes he felt like turning to his guilt and snarling at it, asking it what the fuck it expected him to do, what he could ever do to balance it out and make it go away and how he could ever be enough to earn forgiveness for the sins that haunted his faltering steps -

Magic slipped from his grasp. He couldn’t cook without it, couldn’t hold both the chopping board and the knife when he only had one hand to use. It didn’t matter. Maybe it was even for the good, maybe the arm was his punishment, down payment on his debts. The headaches and the hangovers, the choking bile and the wasting stiffness, maybe he deserved it.

In another timeline, he stood at the workshop bench and stared blankly at a pile of diricawl feathers. He held the shaft in his hand and the barbs in his magic, but his magic slipped and he couldn’t get a strong enough hold to strip them. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, in this other timeline, with the feathers gripped too tightly in his hand and his bad knee starting to ache from half-forgotten wounds, but when Newt slides his arms around Graves’ waist from behind and rests his forehead against Graves’ shoulder Graves surfaces like a drowning man.

Newt presses a kiss to the back of his neck and stays there, warm and familiar and home while Graves remembers how to breathe. He leans back, shifting his weight off his shaking knee, and when he tries the spell again his magic is steady and sure.

In another timeline, Graves had Newt. In this timeline, Graves said no when Newt offered him an escape. Winter drips into spring and Graves wears his guilt like a cowl that will devour his soul.

Perhaps it would go on. Perhaps Graves would waste away, worn down a little more each day until there was nothing left to him but piss and vomit, and perhaps he would die in this shell of a house that Grindelwald lived in. Perhaps.

In spring, the daffodils bloom, and Graves sees them from his kitchen window. He is struck by the sudden, devastating thought:

My mother gave me flowers because she loves me.

It burns in his chest, sticking in his throat and shooting agony through his veins.

I don’t deserve my mother’s love, but she gave me flowers and the flowers grew because she loves me

The bottle slips from his hand and shatters at his feet. His vision blurs until all he can see is the yellow of the daffodils and the thought echoes in his head like a single voice against a hurricane:

My mother loves me.

What can his guilt say to that? It adds to his debt, tells him that if only she knew him like he knows himself, disdains him for being unworthy of his mother’s love, for taking advantage of her selflessness, for being a burden on her kindness - but the flowers are in bloom. There are good things in the world and Graves’ doesn’t deserve them but the flowers will grow whether he deserves them or not and his mother gave him flowers because she loves him.

It’s not the same path to healing that he would have taken in another world. It’s not a fast path, it’s not a path that moves only forwards and never backwards, and it’s not an easy path - but it’s a path that he doesn’t have to walk alone. When Graves stands on his kitchen counters and paints his walls yellow, he does it with one hand to prove that he can, and he does it with his mother waving a mug at him and telling him to drink his coffee before it goes cold. When he chooses the wood for the counters his father measures twice and cuts once, when he hangs the wallpaper in his living room they loudly disagree about whether it’s straight or not and offer conflicting advice about shifting it to the left or the right.

In one world, Newt was Graves’ anchor and his rock and step by aching step his salvation against the dark. Broken as he is, he never deserved someone like Newt, but the world needs Newt because he is something good. Graves dies to protect that and he dies with his guilt weighing his heart on the scales and debating whether saving Newt was good enough to offset the thousand ways Graves had failed before.

In this world, Graves clings to the daffodils and pours his alcohol down the sink and paints over Grindelwald’s house until it is his again and he never deserves anything he has, but in this world, he learns that that’s ok. The flowers will still bloom and his mother will still love him and he’s a broken man that can’t fix himself but that’s ok.

He accidentally drips paint in his coffee and his father heaves a long suffering sigh and winks at him while he puts the pot on for more and his mother scolds him for waving the brush around in the first place and in this world, Graves will be ok.

He’ll be ok.

[kyuu-rereads-umineko]

Ep5, Chapter 14 (Part 2) & 15

It’s been four months, let’s get back to this. I think I can get through the rest of this okay.

...WHO AM I KIDDING NO I CAN’T AAAAAAAAA

“A plea bargain. If you acknowledge that Krauss is the culprit, Erika will suspend her pursuit with regards to Natsuhi.” bernkastel really is true neutral right

Beato hesitates, and Natsuhi rejects the offer entirely. Bern points out that if Beato loses here - if Natsuhi’s found guilty - then she’s as good as dead.

Ronove and Gaap argue that, since Bern and Lambda are really just bored and want to be entertained, it’d be in Beato’s best interests to concede and put the blame on Krauss, while Beato refuses to abandon this kakera’s Natsuhi. 

“I won’t abandon her! Even if everyone believes that Natsuhi is the culprit, I will still claim that I, the witch, am the culprit...!! If I can’t even make that claim, my existence isn’t worth anything...!!” Maybe I’m reading into this too much, seeing as this is coming from Natsuhi’s piece-Beato instead of Yasu-Beato, but... This is really sad and painful to read.

Beato boldly proclaims that Krauss isn’t the culprit, and Bern responds in red: “Ushiromiya Krauss is not the culprit. And he was killed long ago, shortly after you heard his voice over the phone, get it?” jeez lion is absolutely ruthless in ep5. I’m really curious as to what Land of the Golden Witch’s version of Lion/Yasu as the man from 19 years ago would’ve been like...

“[Natsuhi] had now lost her daughter and husband... and everything she had gained since marrying into the Ushiromiya family.”

While the circumstances are obviously different - Yasu didn’t marry into the family, and she didn’t have children - it occurs to me that in a lot of ways, Natsuhi is a “parallel” of Yasu herself. 

I mean, just off the top of my head... They both get “shabby form” or some such used against them at some point or another, they both have some sort of physical problem preventing them from having children (though it’s temporary and of a far lesser magnitude for Natsuhi), they’ve both “lost everything,” they’re both reliant on magic and mental gymnastics to keep themselves going day by day, they’ve both got issues (again, of differing severities) regarding Kinzo...

“Even wrapped up in so much sadness... Natsuhi would do all she could to protect [the family’s] honour... With this final bit of strength...” ...and while their goals are very different, I feel like there’s a parallel to draw between Natsuhi here and Yasu putting such a dedicated effort into her murder setups, despite how overwhelmed with grief they are.

And with that, everyone except Natsuhi has an alibi for the first twilight, leaving her as the only possible suspect...

Lambda proclaims that Natsuhi is responsible for the murders of the first twilight, and Bern says, “Let me add something. Due to circumstantial evidence, include the murder of Krauss.” TRUE NEUokay i’ll stop now

“From this point onward, the defendant will be treated as the true culprit.”

Lambda also denies Beato’s existence... oh noooo

“Even if her alibi is not proven... I will believe in Natsuhi’s innocence!! No matter how much you try to pin your fake truth on her!!” Thinking about it, this is indicative of how Beato and Battler are playing into each other’s character development, isn’t it? We just had Battler declare that he’d believe in Natsuhi no matter what, and now Beato’s saying the same thing. The two of them have more in common than either of them realize.

“The truth is known only by the master of the night on this island, Beatrice the Golden. I am Ushiromiya Natsuhi! Now that my husband has passed away, I am the head of the Ushiromiya family!!” natsuhi...

Natsuhi repeats her claim that Kinzo said she has the One-Winged Eagle engraved into her heart, and Bern says she’ll leave one last red truth as a parting gift. Beato immediately catches on and begs her not to...

“Natsuhi. When did Kinzo ever say it was okay for you to engrave the One-Winged Eagle into your heart? [...] You know, the real Kinzo... Not once in his entire life did he ever trust you from the bottom of his heart, and not once did he ever consider letting you bear the family crest!” Kinzo stands up and shouts at Natsuhi not to listen...

“The real Kinzo wouldn’t say that. Disappear. You, the illusion of Kinzo inside Natsuhi’s mind, beautified by her to suit her own purposes.” MAGIC 101

In hindsight, though, this is really painfully obvious. The scenes with Natsuhi & co. on the board in Ep5 are framed similarly (imo at least) to Ange & the Stakes in Ep4, which is also paralleled in piece!Beato ruthlessly erasing Gaap after returning to the study (when Battler fails his test). Bernkastel’s flat-out explained what magic is. She’s done it in a completely loveless manner, of course, but it’s still right there.

“Some last, faint element that had cheered her up until today, that had allowed her to endure as an Ushiromiya, as the wife to the head’s representative... and as the final family head... had been torn to bits.” Again, I’m reminded of what happens to Ange and Yasu when they’re cornered and their magic isn’t enough to get them by anymore. They break under the weight of everything, and it’s... really tragic and painful to watch.

The audience applauds, “and so... the ‘truth’ of this tale... was decided.”

And we see the introduction as it takes place, only chronologically this time. Eva starts attacking Natsuhi, and everyone just... stands back and lets it happen.

Everyone except Battler, who tries to intervene only to get brushed aside. I might have ragged on the guy a lot in the past, but Battler is really a good guy. 

Erika intervenes, asking Natsuhi to provide her motive. She screams that she’s innocent, but “because Lambdadelta had acknowledged that the culprit of the tale was Natsuhi and woven it that way, none of the pieces would pay and heed to Natsuhi’s... to ‘the culprit’s’ words...”

Beato faintly appears and screams that she’s the culprit, and Erika denies her existence, because of course she does.

“Goodbye, Beatrice. I made you a witch expecting that you would either become my friend or help distract me from my boredom. And you’ve answered to my expectations... The second one, that is.”

Oooh, I’d completely forgotten this exchange. Beato proclaims that she’s still a witch, “even if Lady Lambdadelta doesn’t acknowledge it,” and Lambda replies that Beato “wouldn’t even be capable of believing that” if it weren’t for her assistance in the first place. That’s right, Lambda acknowledged Yasu’s catbox and allowed her to ascend to the Meta-World as Beatrice, didn’t she?

Beato’s thrown to the crowd of goats so they can devour her, but Dlanor intervenes. 

“My apologies, but I have something to SAY. There is someone who has an objection to this RULING. His name is... Ushiromiya Battler.”

Battler’s at a loss, and Dlanor says, “There is nothing that is not healed with TIME. And there is no truth that cannot be reached if you spend enough time SEARCHING.” GO BATTLER

...Oh yeah, she immediately points out that the time limit for the trial is almost out. NO BATTLER

“...I have no plan. I don’t know the truth. However... If I don’t jump in now, I won’t get another chance to fight...”

“Begin, Battler!! Ready to let those goats turn you into a pile of meat along with your beloved Beatrice?!” something someth-

“Oh, and I’ll mix the leftovers from your precious sister into that pile.” BERN BEAT ME TO IT

Battler tries frantically to penetrate Erika’s seals somehow (lol duct tape), but since he doesn’t have an actual explanation, it doesn’t amount to anything.

“...Do you have any chance of winning...?” “...I left it at home. Mind if I go back and get it?” even in circumstances like this

“I promised that I’d kill you. So I won’t let anyone else do it. I’ll definitely keep that promise...!!” battler

Beato, of course, immediately calls BS, and Battler’s confused as to what she could be talking about. It’s easy to lose in the atmosphere and tension of the proceedings, but that’s definitely a big clue as to the nature of Battler’s sin, huh?

“Heh... After hearing you say that, hell might not be so bad. [...] Kill us! Bernkastel, Lambdadelta...!!” And Beato sobs and laughs hysterically. I really wonder - How much does this piece Beato actually know? Is the “truth” she doesn’t know just who the culprit of Ep5′s gameboard is? Is it the truth - the heart - of Umineko’s gameboard as a whole (i.e. Yasu)? I certainly thought it was the latter, but with lines like this... I’m not sure.

Battler frantically starts throwing out completely invalid blue truths, which Dlanor & co. effortlessly cut down since they violate either previous red truths or Knox’s Decalogue. Battler... 

“Erika didn’t personally examine the corpses, right?! It should be possible for people who aren’t the detective to make a mistake when examining the corpses!!” Cornelia replies, “Know that no examination of the corpses could have been mistaken!” 

This wordplay is one of the meanest parts of Ep5, in my opinion. While the red is carefully worded to avoid saying that the victims of the first twilight are already “corpses” when they’re found, it’s certainly implicit, especially this line here, from Beato earlier in the Ep: “At a glance, anyone could confirm that these corpses are dead, so it is absolutely impossible that they are just people playing dead.” It’s hard to see a way around that, unless you already know what the trick is!

Beato asks Battler to stop, and let the two of them die together. “I don’t... want to see Beato like this...”

“Her majesty as the ruler of the Golden Land... her enthusiasm as my rival... are completely gone. She’s just a pitiful woman who’s been trampled over and who has last all hope, with tears streaming down her face and a tragic smile that I can’t bear to look at...” Beato...

Battler resigns himself to oblivion by using his trump card, hoping that someone will eventually show up who’s able to break through Erika’s truth. “Well... it looks like I’ll have to break my promise to kill you after all.”

Beato begs Battler not to do it, and to let the two of them die together. I’d forgotten this...

The music kicks back into high gear, and... “Ushiromiya Natsuhi is not the culprit!!!”

Only to stop immediately. “Knox’s 2nd. It is forbidden for supernatural agencies to be employed as a detective technique.”

“See...? Real truth... is a very fragile thing. ...Does real truth exist...? And is it necessary...?”

Dlanor asks Battler to either prove his statement, or it’s over. “Then... goodbye. ...Sorry, Beato.”

“...Don’t say that. Thanks for sticking around with me. ...It was such a blood-stained tale... but it was fun...”

And so Battler gets skewered by the giant longsword, and Beato vanishes.

Back on the board, Erika’s about to lay out Natsuhi’s motive. i... am not ready for this.........

She explains that Natsuhi was basically forced to marry into the Ushiromiya family, and uses Natsuhi’s old diaries to support it. Natsuhi concedes that while she did resent the family as a result before, Krauss’s support eventually changed her mind. Erika argues that she didn’t accept Krauss’s feelings, since there’s a passage to that effect in one of the diaries.

“D... Does anyone need evidence to say they’re in love...?!”

Erika says. “Statements that aren’t red don’t count as evidence at all, and they can’t be trusted at all! All non-red letters are falsehoods that exist to deceive me!!” That’s pretty telling, isn’t it?

Similar to Eva’s diary in Ep8, it’s mentioned that Natsuhi’s diaries don’t exist for the purpose of describing her true feelings, but for catharsis - she wrote down what happened and how she felt at the time so she could let go of those emotions and move on. I dunno if that’s an intentional parallel, but it’s an interesting one.

Everyone accepts Erika’s reasoning, though Battler still hesitantly asks if Natsuhi’s really the culprit. Erika says there’s one other person it could be - Kinzo.

Erika says she’s got more than enough evidence to provide a motive for Kinzo. I’m curious as to what that motive would be, tbh... Assuming it’s not “ceremony to revive Beatrice.”

Natsuhi, of course, rejects Erika’s proposition entirely. “If they were going to call her the culprit... she would let them.”

“I think... Truth is a fleeting thing. Even if I am a good person until my death... If some heartless person after my death overwrites the records and says that I wasn’t a good person, and if that is shared with everyone else... Then even all the goodness in which I lived my life will be overwritten easily.”

Back in the cathedral, the witches and Natsuhi are the only ones left. Even though everyone there knows Kinzo’s dead already via red truth, Bern still wants to force Natsuhi to admit it herself. oh no...........

“Lambda. I’m going to make Kinzo’s location from 24:00 until the morning absolutely clear. From 24:00 until morning, Kinzo stayed in the same room.”

She also adds that Kinzo doesn’t exist outside the mansion, because lol detective’s authority (aka Erika couldn’t find any trace of him outside).

On the board, Erika lays out that they’ve searched everywhere in-depth except the second floor. Bern elevates that to red, saying “The only place Kinzo could possibly exist is the second floor.” 

Erika takes everyone to search the second floor in-depth, starting from one end and checking every single room, until only Natsuhi’s is left. oh no.........

”Kinzo does not exist anywhere outside Natsuhi’s room!” “In other words, from 24:00 until morning, Kinzo was always holed up in the same room. And that was Natsuhi’s room!”

Bern offers her one last chance to pin the blame on someone else. “Call the Ushiromiya family head a criminal and crush the head’s honour to protect yourself. If you show that you have the guts to do that, I’ll change the plot into one of a tragic heroine taking the blame to protect the family head.”

“During the night, between 24:00 and morning, there exists no place for a living Kinzo to exist except inside your bed. [...] And last night, Natsuhi also slept in that same bed.”

“Blue truth. Therefore, it is suspected that Ushiromiya Natsuhi and Ushiromiya Kinzo had sexual relations with each other. Why else would a man and a woman share the same bed all night long?”

Natsuhi, of course, vehemently denies it. This is really hard to read... Natsuhi...

“By my name as the Game Master, Lambdadelta! I acknowledge that Lady Bernkastel is the victor of this game. ...If anyone has any objections, state your name now!!”

Of course, there are none. Battler’s dead, and Beato & co. have been erased. Bern proceeds to weave a kakera containing the “truth” of the story.

I don’t have a lot to say about the crime outline here. The important additions are 1) that Natsuhi disguised herself as Beatrice to get close to Kinzo, and 2) that Kinzo hid the corpses of the first twilight.

In this kakera, of course, Bernkastel has Natsuhi confess to the crime. Natsuhi...

In the parlour, Natsuhi screams and cries. At this point, even Battler seems to be accepting Erika’s “truth.”

“This is... your revenge, isn’t it...? You, the man from 19 years ago...!!”

“Are you happy now? Has a bit of that pain and suffering you’ve endured for 19 years gone away...?! I finally understand... The reason you’ve cornered me so far... is because you wanted to make me acknowledge that, right...?”

"...I will confess to a murder that occurred 19 years ago.”

And so Natsuhi begins explaining what happened in 1967. Unlike her earlier recollection with Beato & co., the servant carrying baby Lion followed her around.

The two of them arrive at the cliff, and Natsuhi reflects, “If by taking that baby... and throwing it down onto the rocky beach far below me... I could undo it all...”

The servant stumbles, falling against the fence, and Natsuhi commits her sin - when the servant fell against the fence, she reached forward and pushed her away, off the edge of the cliff.

“I didn’t even hear the sound of them crashing to the rocky beach. No, I’m sure I heard it. But because I wanted to think that they’d disappeared... I must have erased that sound from my memory...”

“I must have been wishing that the child would fall from here so much that I just had a daydream...”

Even though Natsuhi reflects on having stolen two lives, she realizes that the baby must still be alive. Well, she’s not wrong - the moment the servant went over the cliff, “Lion” as a possibility was killed.

“Right here, right now, I’ll confess to my crime! I, Ushiromiya Natsuhi... did 19 years ago... push you off a cliff... and try to kill you... But... you didn’t die, did you...”

“For these 19 years... You knew that the one you should have called your mother pushed you off a cliff... and you must have lived a very hate-filled life...”

“How’s that...? Is this enough... for your revenge...? My husband and daughter have been killed!! I’ve been made to look like a murderer... like an adulteress, even... After seeing me living in disgrace like this... Are you satisfied...?!”

Natsuhi breaks down in tears, and Erika callously brushes it off, because of course she does.

“Can you hear me?! You, the cursed child from 19 years ago...!! Are you satisfied now?! You’ve stolen everything from me!! What else could you want?! ...Please, just... forgive me...”

The screen fades to black, and then...

“...It’s useless, isn’t it... It’s all useless. ...Yeah. ...It’s useless, isn’t it... It’s all useless...”

Natsuhi lets out a short scream, and the credits roll.